THE STORM
"Snow is at the door
Assaulting and defending, and the wind,
A sightless labourer, whistles at his work."
Dr. Renaud now called on the minister and Poussette to make haste; he
had been delayed by the accident to Miss Cordova and already large flat
flakes were falling.
"Just the size of half-dollars, eh? The idea is, Poussette, to bring
madame home; that is to say, the _curé's_ idea, but he's gone off with
another woman. I suppose you are jealous now, of this one I mean, not
the other."
"Not me, much. Father Rielle, he's no harm. He cannot marry
mademoiselle nor any one else; besides, he has no money. Mlle.
Pauline--she is for the money."
"Ah--ha, I believe you. We used to read or sing, I forget which, at
college, about 'Les beaux yeux de sa Cassette'. I do not know the
origin of the quotation, but you understand, Mr. Ringfield, what it
means, and our young lady in front there has learnt in a bitter school
the value of money. _Cassette--cassette_--cash-box; you will see, if
she ever settles down, it will be, as our friend Poussette says, for
the money."
Ringfield's throat was dry, he did not speak; his stern gaze, directed
at the leafless landscape over which the first slow snows were falling,
gave no indication of the tumult within; besides, the aspect of the
road and condition of the elements were calculated to banish personal
emotions, for even Poussette's hilarity was silenced by the increasing
velocity of the wind and the darkness dropping upon them. It was only
five miles to the _métairie_, but at the end of the second mile the sky
was absolutely blank and the snow so thick that heaps of it lay on the
horse's flanks and on their own laps and hands. It kept increasing at
such magical rate that the roadway was obscured and twice Dr. Renaud
found himself out on the rocky plateau at the left, instead of the
middle path. The priest and Miss Clairville had vanished in front, but
the three men could hear the sound of a horse on the slabs of rock
behind them, coming very swiftly too, and in a few minutes a second
buggy dashed madly by. The horse was running away, no doubt badly
frightened by the violence of the storm, and Ringfield recognized Mr.
and Mrs. Abercorn in the agonized couple holding bravely on, while the
excitable little mare dashed through the snow.
"My hands are freezing!" cried Dr. Renaud. "This is a big surprise--a
regular blizzard. We'll have to stop somewhere till it's over. I
never beheld such darkness--at three o'clock in the afternoon--nor such
sudden heaps of snow. Lucky for us if it does not turn to hail." He
had scarcely uttered the words when the snow flagged, ceased to fall,
then the hail began. Colder and colder grew the air with a strange,
unnatural feel in it as if in the proximity of icebergs, or of the hour
closest on dawn, and the hail, at first small and round, pretty and
harmless, came gently chattering about the horse's ears and back, came
faster and larger, came at last too fast and too large, came as stones
come that are flung by enemies and rioting mobs of people anxious for
vengeance. The doctor was afraid for his horse; one ear was cut and
bleeding and the animal could no longer face the blinding streams of
hail; he was covered and the men all got out, burying their heads in
their coats; but Ringfield, the worst off, since he had come without
gloves or muffler, was for ever casting anxious glances ahead, which
Poussette and the doctor understood.
"I _bette_ you!" cried the former; "Mr. Ringfield, sir, the _curé_--he
don't know what to do with Miss Clairville. He'll never get her home,
sure. He's no good with a horse--my horse too--I guess we better go
after him, eh?"
"Stay where you are!" shouted the doctor. "Farther along the forest
begins again, and these hailstones are snapping off the branches as if
they had been slashed with axes. I can hear. You may be killed.
Surely this cannot last long!"
But there seemed no diminution of the hail; it lay a foot deep in
pieces the size of marbles or of small apples, and the autumnal grasses
and bushes of juniper and sumach were beaten flat with the rocky ground
from which they derived scant sustenance.
The three men were by this time suffering greatly from the sudden and
unexpected cold, and as it was impossible to continue the drive to
Calvaire in face of the biting hail, they were about to attempt to
return to St. Ignace when the darkness partly lifted, the air grew
gradually milder, and streams of steady rain came pouring down;
overhead the clouds met, charged, and thunder raged at intervals.
Ringfield, now greatly alarmed and fancying he heard noises from the
wood in front, even cries of distress, could no longer be detained, but
bidding farewell to the others strode forward in the direction of the
forest, slipping as he walked and already drenched to the skin, his
clothes freezing upon him and clogging his difficult steps.
Fortunately, for one who did not know the locality well, the daylight
had partly returned. He judged that by keeping to the road he ran no
risk of losing his way, but when a turn revealed another road, he was
naturally perplexed, as the face of the country had greatly changed
since he had made his last visit to the Manor House. Afraid to stand
long, for trees were thick about him and the lightning still flashing,
he went on again up the new road, and after a few minutes running saw a
deserted barn in a hollow and made for it. In this dell or glade the
trees had been thinned out, either by forest fires or by the owner, but
one tall pine remained beside the forlorn and ruined barn as if for
companionship--a lonely sentinel.
Ringfield, wet and shivering, rushed up to the barn door, and finding
it half-open had nearly flung himself through it when he was arrested
by voices within, or rather a voice--that of a woman. He did not
immediately think of Miss Clairville, for no horse nor conveyance were
outside, but, had he listened more carefully, he would have recognized
her educated accents; as it was, in a moment or two she herself came to
the door, and upon seeing Ringfield started, but asked him to enter.
The barn contained some old boxes and rusty tools, a short ladder led
to a loft above full of dry hay, and there Miss Clairville explained
she had taken refuge when the hail first began.
"But Father Rielle----" said Ringfield looking vaguely around.
"Oh, you shall not meet with him here. He left me and said he would
try to go on to Clairville, get a fresh horse--Poussette's was badly
cut--and come back for me. You have not met him?"
"No, then you are alone?"
"Of course, and neither wet nor frightened, while you appear to be
both!" said she, gaily at first, but catching her breath as she
observed his stern, anxious gaze.
Ringfield, drawing a deep sigh, suddenly lost his self-control.
"Oh, how you torture me!" he cried, extending his arms as if to enfold
her, then dropping them as he recollected his condition.
"Torture you? You--Mr. Ringfield, so calm and self-contained, the
Reverend Mr. Ringfield of St. Ignace! I torture YOU! Why what have I
done to-day, then? Have I made the weather or caused the storm? Is it
MY snow or MY rain, or MY hail, and _ecoutez bien_--MY thunder and MY
lightning raging there?"
"No--no--but to run off like that, and with that poor priest--poor
fellow--I saw how it was with him! You are sure he is not here now?"
Ringfield cast an eye up at the loft.
"Certainly not! Would he let you talk like that about him? But listen
to this fearful storm! How can we think of anything else--and you--you
so wet--wet and tired! It seems a little calmer now; perhaps you had
better try again and walk on to Clairville. There you may fall in with
the _curé_ or Dr. Renaud and then come back for me."
"I will not leave you in this desolate place for a moment! Yet I feel
as if we were surrounded by people--why is it--I cannot understand why!
To whom were you talking while I was outside?"
"Ah, there, _tais-toi, mon ami_!"
Miss Clairville pushed him down on one of the boxes and tried to draw
off his stiff and dripping coat, but he restrained her; their hands
meeting sent him beside himself, and, seizing one, he pressed a warm,
lingering kiss upon it. Adept in these matters, Pauline kept up a gay
chatter, and as she drew her hand away seemed only uneasy--neither
fluttered nor deeply moved.
"I assure you," she exclaimed brightly, "I am quite safe here. I am
not in the least wet, my old coat has done me good service--_voyez_--my
feet are dry, and all I would ask is a light to cheer me while you are
absent, but that I cannot have and I must be content. Although that
unnatural dark is over, the shades of the true night will soon be
falling and it is lonely here. So the sooner you go the better."
"But where can I go? Will it not be better to remain here with you
until Father Rielle returns?"
"I think not--he is slow--that priest! See--if you go now, you will
surely overtake him. Keep to your right after regaining the road and
you will soon find the lake."
"Well, then, I will go," said Ringfield rising. "But if I might speak
to you now, might tell you all I hope and fear and think almost
continually, if I might ask you, too, to think about it, and tell
me--tell me--it is so difficult for me to say what I wish to--you seem
so gay, so satisfied, so----" His voice broke off, for her face
changed ominously, and the strongest argument he could have adduced,
the folding of her to his heart, the silent embrace which should make
her his, was still denied him. To the outsider there might have been a
touch of humour in the situation, but not so to either person
concerned. She echoed his last words.
"Satisfied! Me! You think I am that? My God, yes, I have to say it
in English--it means more! I--satisfied! Happy--you will say next, I
suppose. Me--happy and satisfied. I'm the most miserable woman on
God's earth! I have had ideals, aspirations--but how could I fulfil,
achieve them, living in this place and with my temper, my heredity.
Look at Henry. I tell you he is mad--mad and worse! Think of having
lived with him! Think of Clairville! You do not know half of what I
have gone through!"
A dreadful thought, a dreadful question occurred to Ringfield as he
marked the dark wave of hair on Miss Clairville's brow, and again he
saw the child in the basket chair at Hawthorne, but he frantically
stifled the thought and forbore to question, and the next moment she
was weeping and pushing him towards the door.
"Go now," she sobbed. "Go before it gets darker. You might lose your
way. Go--go."
He went out at once, pulling the door after him as well as he could and
ran through the hollow till he reached the road, where it seemed
brighter. The rain gave signs of falling less steadily, when, as often
occurs after a protracted storm, there came a lull, followed by one
terrific and astounding burst and explosion of thunder, accompanied by
a vivid blue and orange blaze and afterwards complete silence and a
great calm. The storm now rolled onward, having spent itself in that
locality; but knowing from the sound that some place or object had been
struck, Ringfield stopped, stepped behind a mass of boulders and
juniper bushes and looked back down into the little hollow. The barn
was apparently uninjured but the noble pine had suffered. The ripping,
tearing sound he had heard was explained by the sight of a broad
orange-coloured strip or band that ran longitudinally from the top of
the tree to the bottom, indicating where the bark had been peeled off
by the force of the fierce current. As he stood gazing thus at the
seared and stricken pine, the door opened from the side of the barn and
Miss Clairville slowly stepped out, followed by a man in whom, with an
exclamation of extremest repulsion and surprise, Ringfield clearly
recognized Edmund Crabbe.
The shock of this and the full meaning of it set Ringfeld's nerves and
pulses tingling, and he stepped farther back into the shade as he
watched them. They advanced to the great pine, examined it, and he
could see that Crabbe's arm went around her waist. The guide himself
seemed, even at that distance, to be more neatly dressed than usual, he
wore a tweed cap with coat to match and did not look as if he had been
drinking, but as with him that was the sign that he was about at his
worst, Ringfield could only turn away in disgust and pursue his way to
Clairville. It was not a pleasant thought that Crabbe must have been
in the loft, while a somewhat tender scene had been enacted, and he
suddenly felt a contempt and pity for the woman who could play two men
at the same time in such barefaced fashion. Then, as lovers will, he
rebuked himself for this; perhaps Crabbe had taken refuge in the loft
without her knowledge, and the great final crash had brought him down;
perhaps she had known he was there, but was ashamed of producing him in
a semi-drunken condition, perhaps--then Ringfield saw the distant
lights of the Manor House and hastened towards them. A little farther
on he overtook the priest, leading Poussette's horse and buggy, and it
was not long before they were able to take off their wet clothes at
madame's fire and exchange confidences about the storm.
In the large kitchen were also Mr. and Mrs. Abercorn, Dr. Renaud and
Poussette, and the priest, who was naturally held accountable for
Pauline's safety, reported her as resting comfortably in the barn.
Ringfield did not say much; of Crabbe no mention was made by the
others, and it was probable that nobody had seen him, or dreamt of his
being out in the neighbourhood on such a day.