A SICK SEIGNEUR
"He sits alone
On stormy waters in a little boat
That holds but him and can contain no more!"
Meanwhile the house of Clairville was undergoing drastic changes at the
hands of Mme. Poussette. The patient, propped up in his ancient and
tattered bed, was now strong enough to look at books; many hours he
passed in this way while madame roamed over the doleful house, setting
in order and cleaning as well as she could. Her strength, patience and
endurance were remarkable; she could dust, sweep, scrub, hammer, all
day long and never experience fatigue; walls were rubbed down, windows
opened and washed, furniture drawn forth from dusty armoires and
cupboards raked out--and still the work went on, each day bringing to
light some dark, unfamiliar nook, some unexplored room or closet. At
Poussette's she never worked at all; sensitiveness to strangers and
fear of the servants mastered her; at Clairville she worked
incessantly, and when her nursing was done, entered upon her labours in
this Augean house with steady passionless activity.
Clairville was badly pitted and every remnant of good looks had left
him, yet on the first day that he could put his feet to the floor he
would have sent madame into the front room, saying:--
"Bring me the suit of clothes you will see hanging on a nail in the
wall".
She stared at him, knowing his weakness of body better than he knew it
himself.
"What for, m'sieu?"
"What for? What are clothes for, idiot of a woman! To put on, to
wear. I shall habit myself as a gentleman. Faith--it is time, too!"
"But, m'sieu----!"
"Bring me that suit, I say."
Madame hesitated, because she had removed the suit in question a week
before to an old trunk in an empty room--she was not very clear which
one--and it would take her some minutes to find it.
"If m'sieu will get back into his bed----"
"I will do nothing so foolish. I was thinking of getting up. I _am_
up and should be holding a levee-- How do you do, my Lord
Marquis?--pray enter. M. le Chevalier de Repentigny; open there for my
friend, the Intendant! Gentlemen, I greet you. You perceive me at my
toilet--but these lackeys are too slow! Fetch me my clothes, I say!
Ah--misery! I cannot stand! I cannot--cannot even sit! Help me to
bed, you woman there--help me, quick!"
And madame, instead of running for the suit of Court clothes, managed
to lay Henry Clairville down again before he fainted. However, the
next day he was slightly stronger and the next and the next, so that on
the fifth day he was nearly as well as ever, and again demanding the
suit, she went to the room upstairs and hunted for it. Its colour was
a faded claret, and lacings of dingy silver appeared on the front and
round the stiffened skirt that stood out from the waist--a kind of cut
to make even a meagre man look well among his fellows; a three-cornered
hat went with it, and into this relic of strenuous days, madame soon
assisted her charge.
"How does it fit?" he inquired anxiously
"It is without doubt large at present for m'sieu, but m'sieu has been
ill. After a while it will fit better."
"And how do you think I look in it?" he continued, gazing with
fringeless expressionless eyes on her vacant but concerned countenance.
"You see, to meet these gentlemen I must at least try to appear as well
as they do. A Sieur de Clairville must guard the appearance at all
costs! Where is my sister, Pauline-Archange--why does she not come and
assist me in the entertainment of the Court? Of the Court, do I say?"
Here Clairville drew himself up as well as he could, and winking at his
nurse gravely informed her that the most Christian King, Louis of
France, being in North America for the good of his health, might call
at the manor to see its master at any moment.
"If you will be very secret, my good woman, I will tell you this
further, but it must be between us only--His Most Christian Majesty of
France is just recovering from the 'Pic'. But do not alarm yourself; I
have not been with him much. Fear not, madame, neither for yourself
nor me."
Madame clasped her hands and looked upwards; she seemed to be crying,
and yet she shed no tears. She knew there was something wrong. _She_
was wrong. The Sieur de Clairville was wrong. The old habit of
prayer, fervid, poetic, Catholic prayer, asserted itself and
accordingly the mystic rosary of Our Lady returned to her.
"_Priez pour nous, sainte Mère de Dieu. Mère aimable, priez pour nous.
Mère adorable, priez pour nous. Vierge puissante, priez! Vierge
fidèle, priez pour nous. Rose mystérieuse, priez pour nous. Maison
d'or, Etoile du matin, priez pour nous. Santé des infirmes, priez pour
nous._"
Henry Clairville listened. Gradually he sank into the chair, and the
tears, the slow, painful, smarting tears of weak mind and middle
age--coursed down his thin, pitted cheeks. Madame sat down too and
sobbed.
"Oh, have I offended you, m'sieu? Why did I pray? What makes us pray
at all? Is there One who hears a poor woman like me? But she might
hear you, m'sieu, a grand gentleman like you--and so I prayed."
"A grand gentleman! Thank you--madame, thank you," said he, trembling.
"I believe I am that, or I was once. I have been very ill, I see. You
must not take any notice if I go a little out of my head; it is
nothing; Pauline is well accustomed to it, and so may you be if you
remain here long. Only be lively with me, be always lively and pray
aloud no more. I do not like these prayers. But why are you here?
Where are my servants--Maman Archambault, Antoine, and the rest?"
"The servants of m'sieu left when m'sieu was taken sick."
"And you are doing their work?"
"As well as I can, m'sieu, when I can leave you. Just a little work I
do, to amuse me, keep me from thinking."
Clairville trembled again and could not lift his eyes to this afflicted
patient creature.
"I recollect now," he murmured, "you were always a kind woman. It was
you who took the child away?"
"It was I, m'sieu."
"Eight years ago, was it not?"
"Nine, m'sieu."
"Nine, then. It was the year of the great snow. Does she--does my
sister ever go to see it?"
"I cannot tell, m'sieu. She is not in St. Ignace often, and m'sieu
knows that when ma'amselle goes abroad it is to Montreal and to the
theatre."
"But you--you know about it, if it lives, if it is well, and has--has
its mind?"
"It lives--yes, truly, m'sieu--it is never ill and it has its mind!"
"Mon Dieu!" muttered Henry Clairville. "_That_ has its mind and I--I
am sometimes bereft of mine. And you--you----" he pointed to madame,
and though innocent and unoffending she quailed before the seigneurial
finger. "You even--you woman there--you have not always your mind!
Oh--it is dreadful to think of it! I would be ill again and forget.
Tell me--is there, is there any resemblance? Say no, madame, say no!"
"I never go to Hawthorne, m'sieu, I cannot tell you. But I do not
think so. I have never heard. They are nearly all English in that
parish; they would not concern themselves much about that--the poor
_bébé_, the poor Angéle. God made her too, m'sieu. Perhaps some day
she will be taken away by mademoiselle to a place where such children
are cared for. That is why Mademoiselle Pauline works so hard at the
theatre to make much money."
"She would need to!" burst from Henry Clairville. "What she does with
the money she makes I do not know, it never comes this way! I cannot
make money. She ought to remember me sometimes, so that I could
establish this place afresh, find new servants, for example.
Alas--what shall I do without them?"
He raised his voice and the old peevish tone rang out.
"Be tranquil, m'sieu. It is I--I myself, nursing you, who shall do all
that is required."
He sighed heavily, then a sudden fire leapt into his eyes. "Let us see
how far I can walk. Open that door, I wish to see if I can cross the
hall."
"After so long, m'sieu! It is not possible. May St. Anne give you
courage, for it is assuredly six or seven years since m'sieu has left
his apartment."
"Nine--nine!" said he impatiently. "The year the child came into this
world. I vowed then and all St. Ignace knows I have kept the vow--I
would never leave my room again."
"M'sieu, all know, it is true, of the vow, but none know the reason for
it. I have kept my faith, m'sieu."
"But she, my sister, she is so flighty, so excitable--she may have told
a thousand times!"
"I think not, m'sieu."
"Father Rielle is unsuspecting; likewise Dr. Renaud. Well, well, who
gains by considering evil? Not one so weak and battered as I.
Nevertheless, I will walk, madame. I will conquer this fear and this
weakness and will show the strength and temper of a Clairville, of a De
Clairville, I should say. Open then, madame."
Thus with his black skull-cap on his bald head, and the faded claret
and silver habit upon his shrunken limbs, he tottered over the
threshold of his disorderly, uncared for room which he had occupied
without one moment's intermission, night and day, summer and winter,
for eight years, ten months and four days, and madame, preceding him,
watched in an agony of fear but also of hope--yonder was a new field
for her powers of cleansing and purifying. Dust in thick rolls,
cobwebs in floating black triangular and looped clusters, stale odours
and rubbish--the apartment which had served as bedroom, dining-room,
_salon_ and study so long, would naturally be in a disgraceful
condition. Henry Clairville's ghost it was that passed from that room
to the hall, but the ghost walked--more than Henry Clairville had done
for nine years.
The door of the chief _salon_ was open, and he entered, Mme. Poussette
assisting him, still with clasped hands and awestruck eyes, and,
although all the changes which had been wrought by her indefatigable
fingers could not be appreciated by him, as it was so long since he had
seen the room, he missed something. The suit, hanging for years upon
its common nail, till it was encrusted with flyspecks, riddled with
moth-holes, and tarnished, rusty and faded, now covered his meagre
frame, but the other things he looked for he failed to find. He gazed
at the walls, perceiving the one old, cracked and discoloured painting.
"Where are the others?" he demanded piteously. "There were four
others, all valuable, all of great value."
"There was but this one when I came, m'sieu."
"Then Pauline has sold them--to keep that wretched child alive, to pay
for its board and keep and _tendresse--tendresse_, perhaps, on part of
some one while I--I have been neglected and kept short of the things I
might have had--the wine, the comforts, the fruits! Ah--but I am a
most unfortunate man, I who should be seigneur of the parish! Is it
not so, madame? Here have I been starving and yet--there was money,
you see--my sister had money all the time!"
Madame's lips moved; she said nothing. Far from having suffered
privation during her stay at Clairville, she had been able to provide
both for herself and the invalid, food and drink of the best quality
procurable in that part--the Archambaults having hoarded large
quantities of the supplies sent up by Poussette's "peep". The love of
acquisition for its own sake had spread even among the youngest members
of the family, and had one demanded suddenly of any of them the
simplest meal, one would have been met by violent protestations that
there was nothing in the house! To such an extent had this smuggling
and hoarding spread that in looking through the kitchen and cellars
madame had encountered a great store of provisions, mostly in good
condition; sacks and barrels full of vegetables, apples, winter pears
and nuts; tins full of bread and cakes, some mouldy, some fresh, and
various kegs and bottles full of wine and spirits.
"Then," he continued, "where are my choice books, my _éditions de
luxe_? There were some splendid volumes here, rare, you understand,
worth money. She must have sold them also. I recollect when she
begged me to let her take them out of my room. And a violin--of the
most superb--that is gone! You know nothing of all these?"
"I know nothing--truly--m'sieu."
"And my cats? Who has dared to interfere with my cats, my dear
friends? Le Cid--Chateaubriand--Phédre--Montcalm--eh? What has been
done with them? And the doors, the little doors I had made for
them--nailed up, I see! Ah--ah, madame--this is your work! You have
killed them! Say then, am I not right? Miserable wretch of a woman!"
He was staggering now about the room between weakness and temper and
she assisted him to a chair.
"You have killed them!" he gasped repeatedly.
"No, m'sieu, not one. Indeed, m'sieu, I speak the truth. The cats of
m'sieu were fourteen; how could I kill so many? No, but I fed them and
put them away in the barns--yes--and nailed up the little doors, it is
true, for I could not do my work with the cats of m'sieu always between
the feet. I spoke of them once to you, because there were two who
wished to enter your room, lie on the bed----"
"Yes, yes! Le Cid and Montcalm. Good cats, good friends!"
"Lie on the bed, but I could not allow them. Thus, for three days they
sat outside the door of m'sieu."
"And the peacock? Is it that I shall find him banished also when I
walk forth from my house? Mlle. Pauline has rid herself of him?"
"Not so, m'sieu. I have cared for the bird and indeed for all the
animals."
Clairville, quieter now, was thinking.
"Did some one sing to me about cats as I lay there on my bed?"
Madame reddened.
"Yes, m'sieu--it was I who made a song about the 'Cats of Clairville'.
To amuse myself only, m'sieu, I often do like that."
He looked at her, then down at his speckled, bony hands.
"We are both mad, I think," he said in the most matter-of-fact way,
"but you, of course, more so than I am. Well, to-day I have walked in
here. To-morrow I shall walk all over this house, and next week,
madame, next week I shall walk to the village--well, half-way. Some
day I may even go to church. Oh--you shall see, you shall see!"
And with that, natural fatigue, engendered by the wholly unusual
exercise intervened; his nurse moved a sofa into the hall, and there he
slept for many hours, while she routed out his room as well as she
could; his physical recovery from that day was miraculously rapid, and
in a fortnight he was as quick and light upon his feet and as much
given to the open air and walking as he had been previously doggedly
convinced that he could not use his legs and that the least breath or
whiff of fresh air would destroy him. So much for the after-effects of
the "Pic" and the sweet uses of adversity.
The fine November days that followed were the days that Canada can give
in wonderful perfection--when the thick canopy of leaves has been
caught up, shrivelled, and disappeared, when a great expanse of sky,
forest and river lies before the enraptured vision, with every twig and
branch, every stump and hollow in the ground, every undulation and
hillock of withered grass, showing as clearly cut and sharply defined
as in winter, while the air is frequently warmer than in June and a
singular mellow haze fills all the forest paths. Now can be closely
seen the different forms of the trees, each trunk and each limb no less
interesting than the brilliant foliage which lately enveloped them; the
abandoned nests are bare, some on the ground transfixed between the
bushes, or pendant from the branches of tall trees. The evergreens of
various kinds supply the note of colour which alone gives hope and
promises relief from neutral brown and grey, and underneath what once
was a leafy forest arcade are all the roots of spring--the spotted
erythronium, the hepatica, the delicate uvularia, the starry
trientalis. Through such spacious aisles and along such paths of
promise Henry Clairville walked every day while the fine weather
lasted, wearing the ancient suit and the black skull-cap, and often
attended as far as Lac Calvaire by the white peacock and two cats, and
always watched from window or door by the faithful Mme. Poussette.
Fear of contagion kept the Archambaults away, all save Antoine, who,
constituting himself a bodyguard for Pauline in the village, took
messages to and fro the Manor House.
When M. Clairville had seen the stores and provisions in his cellar,
sufficient, with a few additions, for the entire winter months at
least, he demanded of madame if she would remain with him and manage
his house, and the poor woman assented with delight. Poussette did not
want her; she had no place in the world, no ties; only occasionally was
she required to nurse sick people in the village; here was a
comfortable remote haven where she might be of use, busied in
exercising those faculties remaining to her, which at Poussette's were
rotting and rusting away. She remained therefore, to cook and wait
upon him; a new existence sprang up for both, and it was when this sort
of thing had lasted for a month that the parish priest, Father Rielle,
thought it his duty to call.