FATHER RIELLE
"--his moods
Of pain were keen as those of better men,
Nay, keener, as his fortitude was less."
The writer has elsewhere stated that the Roman Catholic clergy in this
part of the world are easily divided into two classes, the rotund, rosy
and jolly, and the thin, ascetic and reserved; the _curé_ of St. Ignace
belonged to the latter, and possessed a strongly marked characteristic
face, the droop of his bitter mouth and the curve of his chiselled nose
being almost Dantesque in effect. He had conserved a type of feature
which, common enough up to the present, seems to be in danger of
extinction; the passing of the aquiline, the slow disappearance of the
Roman nose, are facts patent to thoughtful observers of national
traits. Any contemporaneous collection of portraits of representative
men in the higher walks of life reveals the fact that this fine racial
curve is rapidly becoming extinct. From the Duke of Wellington down,
this nose has been associated with men prominent in military and naval
affairs, in literature (notably poetry and criticism) and in finance
and diplomacy, until the possession of such a significant organ has
become almost the _sine qua non_ of an individual destined to be famous
or successful. Varieties of course existed, such as when combined with
beetling brows and sunken eyes one recognized the professor or
arch-critic of his generation. Or, when taken with the square
forehead, thin mouth and visionary eyes of the military genius, one saw
some great general. Or simply existing in some silly scion of good
family, and meaning nothing whatever, in this case usually over-high at
the thin bridge, and in profile far too strong for the weak rest of the
face. In women of gentle extraction this nose was found beautifully
proportioned. In belles of the mid-Victorian era were the lineaments
of Caesar clearly revealed, associated with the delicacy of colouring
and rounded chin and cheek which redeemed them from hard masculinity,
so that fifty years ago in any representative gathering of England's
fairest and noblest the observer would note a similarity of feature,
especially in profile, between peers and peeresses, poets and
poetesses, statesmen and the _grandes dames_ of society. Caricatured,
it lived in the drawings of Leech and Du Maurier. Taken seriously, it
inspired creative artists both of pen and brush when dealing with the
heroic. Superficial writers confused it with the Hebraic nose, and in
prints of criminal and depraved characters one frequently found it
distorted and wrenched to conditions of ugliness. Tennyson and the
latest murderer apparently owned the same facial angle, if one
corrected the droop of the eyebrow, the curve of the nostril, the set
of the ear. Thus the Roman or aquiline nose made itself and its
possessor known to the world. Other noses might, if they liked, take a
back seat! this nose never. Sala, Lamb, Kingsley--all had varieties of
the nose. The American variant is seen in hundreds of nineteeenth
century writers, preachers, New England farmers, old Cape Cod
characters, Gloucester fishermen, actors, especially of tragic mould;
showmen, lecturers, bankers--the nose has prospered in the new world.
The significance of the feature is matched by its endurance, by the
persistency with which it appears in every decade up to the present.
For with the opening of a new century the nose, aquiline in its purest
state, equine with its accompaniment of cruel gums and sharp teeth in
its worst, seems on the point of disappearing. The contemporary
portraits of great men and beautiful women no longer display it. There
is a new nose. It is to be hoped that it retains the powers with which
the organ was originally endowed; for example, we suppose that it still
can detect and appreciate, repulse and define odours. But as a
sign-post showing the path to glory, as an index of force of character
or intellect, it is practically useless. The new nose is modest,
retiring, seeketh not its own, is never puffed up. You would know it
for a nose, certainly, but its ample and aristocratic proportions are
wanting; it lacks a bridge, is spineless, immature, unfinished. Yet it
is set in the faces of many eminent thinkers and workers among the
younger men; it is already allied to keenness of vision and talent, and
may or may not be associated with birth and good breeding. The query
is--is it a new nose, or only one that has always been with us, but is
now gradually supplanting the old one? Did the nose aquiline largely
represent class, and does the phenomenon of the new semi-straight,
semi-nothing nose represent the intrusion of mass? Against this timid
and, it may be, spurious generalization, one may pit the working-man
with the nose of a duke, and the young colonial ruler with the
unformed, delicate feature of a school-girl. So we accept the fact
that in our own day types are passing.
The English face is going. It has served its turn, perhaps. Infusion
of American and colonial blood will help to change it. The high-nosed
country gentleman or landed noble, with Berserk or Viking blood in his
veins, finds that, like Alice in Wonderland, it takes all he can do to
keep where he is, and the work entailed takes something, a good deal,
out of him. One thing goes, then another; finally, he casts away his
birthright, the arch or bridge of his nose, and his son and the younger
members of his family appear shorn of that important feature. The
plebeian nose, so long as it is neither pug nor pig, is safer, better.
Men are not afraid of it. Syndicates and boards breathe more freely
when the barriers of nose are broken down, and a good mediocrity of
feature may yet avert a war or preserve a treaty. At all events, a
study of our chief contemporaries will bear out a considerable portion
of this reasoning. The beauties of society and the stage have a
leaning to noses tiptilted like the petals of a flower, or to a nose
which is a kind of modification of the Greek, frequently found among
Americans. For instance, in Canada there is fast growing up a new type
of head, clean-shaven, firm, expressionless young faces, who bring
their thick, straight dark hair and blue-grey eyes from the country to
the town. They are forsaking the plough and the roadside school for
the warehouse and the pestle and mortar. It is not openly reported of
such that they would rather wear a black coat and starve than wear
fustian and do well, to quote Thomas Hardy, but the stress of things
drives them. The rural communities are dull; amusements are lacking;
there seems nothing to live for outside work. Nature poets and
wild-animal delineators are not among these set, earnest,
straight-featured faces. The former are more likely to be denizens of
cities. In this slightly dour Canadian face there are but few aquiline
noses, and yet such is the danger of generalizing that perhaps the
first people readers of this page meet after perusing it might be a
group of students, none with Celtic hair and eyes and all with Roman
contours. Likewise, on opening the current number of a leading musical
journal, the long, high, prominent nasal organ of Sir Edward Elgar
confronts us, whose peculiar cast of thought confirms the impression
that spirituality, fine artistic conception and capacity to achieve are
still the dower of those possessing this fast-disappearing feature.
Ringfield belonged to the tribe of straight-nosed, grey-eyed
thinkers--a finished contrast to Father Rielle, whose worn profile
suggested the wormwood and the gall. Looks, however, not being in all
cases indications of the character within, the priest was an
exceedingly simple and earnest man, constitutionally timid, and
physically frail; thus, he passed for what is known as a "deep" man,
when he was nothing of the sort, and although it may be a mooted point
whether in a Catholic community the local priest has or has not the
entire conscience of that community at his mercy by means of the
confessional, it was certain that there were a few things that Father
Rielle did not know. Had he been social, convivial, fond, like most of
his brother priests, of a game of cards, of good living and long
drinking, he might have worked more reforms in the countryside, and
holding the reins of priestly government stern and tight prevented some
lapses from the moral code. That is to say, a worse man might have
achieved better results, but as it was not in his nature to haunt
Poussette's, make friends with the guides and call at unconventional
hours upon his parishioners, he missed several revelations that fell to
Ringfield's share. Crabbe was not upon his visiting list, nor Pauline
of late years; for Henry Clairville he entertained a certain sad
respect, as for a gentleman and landed proprietor fallen from grace
indeed, but by the Will of God rather than by personal shortcomings.
His tendency to fatalism was Calvinistic in its intensity, and he trod
his accustomed path baptizing, marrying, burying, with the sour curve
of his thin profile growing sourer every day. Thus this silent,
censorious-looking priest presented a strong contrast to the optimistic
young Ontarian, yet one emotion was common to them both--Father Rielle
had for years nursed a hopeless passion for Miss Clairville.
It happened that the knowledge of Mme. Poussette's remaining on at
Clairville as housekeeper to its master came to Father Rielle as
something of a shock. Certain things are right and certain things are
wrong in certain places; some things are right and some things are
wrong in all places. Madame had a husband who, although plainly tired
of her, had not yet openly neglected her; she also had a good home, and
in her condition of mind it was not wise, according to the priest, that
she should leave her husband and home to live with Henry Clairville.
Dr. Renaud was questioned, but as medical men are everywhere less
concerned with the conventions than are lawyers or priests, he only
intimated that madame was probably happier at Clairville than in her
own home, and that he saw no reason for disturbing the arrangement.
"But," said Father Rielle in their common tongue, "is it because the
wife of Poussette is a little afflicted, light of head while sad of
heart, that rules and customs no longer apply to her? I take it--it
will make a scandal in the village and every man who is sick must
expect some other man's wife to come in and care for him, and finally
live in his house and take care of it. Our society may be small, but
in some matters it is best conducted as are large communities. I think
M. de Clairville should be instructed that his conduct is wrong."
"You call him 'de' Clairville, I see," replied the doctor from his
buggy outside Gagnon's carpenter shop. "Well, it does not matter!
Faith--he is both vicious and mad enough to be in truth the seigneur of
all the parish as he styles himself--as nobles and seigneurs used to
go. I have little knowledge of such myself! I am a plain man! my
father was Renaud the harness-maker of Three Rivers. First I was fond
of horses, then I was fond of gathering herbs and flowers, then I was
fond of mixing medicines and quacking my friends when they were ill;
then my mother saved some money and sent me to college and then one
fine day I awoke, and I am Dr. Renaud! And you--you are one of the
three Rielle brothers, likewise from Three Rivers; one is a notary, one
a priest--yourself--and the youngest keeps the Hôtel Jacques Cartier at
Sorel-en-haut. That is funny, that! You should have made him
something else."
"It is true," replied the priest mildly, "I am not in love with his
calling, but people who travel must be lodged. I use his place myself
once or twice a year; it is the Will of God that such places must be;
it is clean, and his wife, at the age of seventeen, already cooks well;
he is lately married at the age of thirty-five. I myself am four years
older. But of M. de Clairville I would say--that he must be brought to
see that he is doing this poor Mme. Poussette a wrong, and I was going
to ask you if you would drive me out to visit him this afternoon. That
is, if, as I hear, it is quite safe to go there now."
"It would afford me pleasure indeed, _mon père_," said Dr. Renaud, "but
unfortunately I am waiting here for the young man who has charge of the
new church by the river,--Poussette's fancy, Mr. Ringfield."
"You are driving him to Clairville?" A quick jealousy animated the
priest's eager question.
"I am, but we can make room for you. Certainly, my friend, we are
neither of us so very stout and you are thin; you shall sit in our
laps--oh yes, I take no denial! You shall come with us, Father Rielle,
and we three shall descend upon this sick seigneur of yours and his
housekeeper and see what they are doing. Drive her back in the
evening, if you like."
While the priest hesitated, Ringfield and Poussette appeared at the
door, and the instant the latter heard of the expedition he also wished
to go.
"I cannot see why!" cried Dr. Renaud angrily. "One _charrette_ will
not hold us all; it is going to snow and I must get back before dark.
I'm calling here to leave an order for Gagnon about a coffin for old
Telesphore Tremblay who died yesterday, and I have promised to see his
poor wife to-night."
"Then I shall take my own buggy and Mr. Ringfield can go with me. The
_curé_ can go with you, sir."
"Well, if the whole village wishes to pay its respects to a crazy man
all at the same time, let them come!" roared the irascible doctor.
"You didn't care to go till you saw us going. But put your horse in,
put him in; we will wait for you."
"_Bien_, M'sieu! I have three hams and a sack of potatoes; they shall
go too."
This dialogue had been overheard by Pauline, sitting at cards with Miss
Cordova in the front room, and with her natural impetuosity she jumped
up, declaring that if Henry were well enough to see "these others," he
was well enough to see her. Her impulsive movements sent the cards and
counters flying up through the air, and one card hit Miss Cordova on
the left eye directly over the pupil. As lightly as if flicked by a
clever finger, but as unerringly as if deliberately and viciously aimed
at her, one of the four sharp points of cardboard selected her dark eye
for its target, and with a scream she too sprang up, overturning the
table and seizing Pauline by the shoulder. The pain and distress were
considerable, and Miss Clairville, opening the window, called for Dr.
Renaud, who came at once to look at the eye and recommended bathing,
bandages and complete rest. The exquisite tenderness of the inflamed
organ gave Miss Cordova so much annoyance that after ten minutes she
retired to her room, and the doctor again proposed himself ready to
start for Lac Calvaire. The weather, fine and mild for so long, was
changing now with every hour, and it was becoming strangely dark
overhead.
"Whoever comes with me must prepare for a storm," said he, glancing at
the blackening sky, "only a few flurries of snow, perhaps, but one
cannot tell--it may prove more."
"You are sure there can be no danger of infection?" asked Ringfield,
with an anxious glance at Pauline, who had raced to her room, stuck
imitation solitaires in her ears, donned a worn-out but well-fitting
seal jacket and muff and a dashing black and scarlet hat, and now stood
in the village street--the embodiment of piquant French
womanhood--quite conscious of her charms and insufferably weary of
having no audience to show them off to! A certain disdain sprang into
her treatment of Ringfield at this time, and it was a question with
her, should he ever ask her to be his wife, whether she would not
inevitably tire of the high aims and lofty ideals he no doubt would
impose upon her.
"You don't suppose I'd be going if there were, do you?" she remarked in
English tartly, curving her arching black brows at him; "how many are
we--five? That's three too many, in my opinion. Father Rielle--I go
with you in Mr. Poussette's buggy; you others there, you three
messieurs--you can go how you please."
The priest flushed, then a sudden glance passed between him and
Ringfield, and in that look each knew what the other wished and hated
him for it! Still, Father Rielle followed Pauline instantly, and there
was no opposition as she lightly leapt into Poussette's buggy, and with
a wave of her muff, adorned by a bright scarlet bow, two of the five
were soon out of sight.