REVELRY BY NIGHT
"Two passions both degenerate, for they both
Began in honour, ..."
The scene in the kitchen of the Manor House presented a forcible
contrast to the wild world without. The near approach of winter and
the news that M. Clairville was convalescent and well enough to receive
visitors had brought the Abercorns from Hawthorne to pay their somewhat
belated respects--they had never called before--and their arrival at
the _métairie_ created much astonishment. The rate at which the mare
had raced through the Turneresque "Hail, Snow and Rain" relaxed as she
neared Lac Calvaire, and they were able to disembark (in the language
of the country) in safety if not in comfort at the door opened by Mme.
Poussette. The parishes being nine miles apart, one entirely French,
the other mostly English, not much gossip penetrated, and the Rev.
Marcus and his wife were startled to hear that Henry Clairville had
left his room, walked all over his house and even reached half-way to
the bridge one afternoon. But as they were both cold and fatigued,
madame led them (and shortly after Dr. Renaud and Poussette as well),
by dark and tortuous paths, to her kitchen, a large room built on the
generous scale of the seventeenth century, with a deep overhanging
fireplace, and thick, arched recesses serving as closets, and furnished
with swinging shelves and numerous bins where the provisions sent in
periodically by Poussette were safely stored, thus being well protected
from the rigours of a Lower Canadian winter.
Mrs. Abercorn was glad to come to the fire, her short squat figure lost
in the depths of a chair which Mme. Poussette had found in one of the
disused rooms, padded and carved, but also torn and moth-eaten;
nevertheless a comfortable refuge on such a day, and soon the reverend
lady sank into a soothing slumber, while her husband read from a book
he carried in his pocket.
It grew dark and madame was lighting a couple of lamps when the priest
and Ringfield entered. Explanations were in order, but as neither of
them mentioned Edmund Crabbe, Miss Clairville's true position was not
made known, and it was arranged that as soon as somebody's clothes were
sufficiently dried and somebody's horse rubbed down and fed, somebody
should pick her up at Leduc's barn and so return with her to St. Ignace.
"Of course _you_ will go, Dr. Renaud," said Mrs. Abercorn, waking up
abruptly and joining in the conversation with her usual judicial air.
"But take some supper first."
"Has not mademoiselle already waited overlong?" exclaimed Poussette.
"It is nearly six o'clock and dark--shall I not return now, and bring
her back with me?"
"I think not," said the doctor, who partly understood the situation.
"She will not expect to reach Clairville at all to-night, and, as Mrs.
Abercorn says, as soon as I have something to eat, and a little to wash
it down with--I myself shall go for her. Here, Poussette--off with
your coat! Stir yourself now, and bring us the best the manor affords.
It's no secret that since Mme. Archambault and her tribe have cleared
out, we are masters of all contained in these generous closets--these
roomy cellars I have heard of so often. Madame--the cloth, if you
please, the dishes, the plates! Poussette--the wine, the old liqueurs,
the glasses!"
"But sir, consider the fate of ma'amselle!" cried Poussette piteously.
"She is alone--oh, poor lady--in Leduc's barn, without light, without
warmth, with nothing to eat or drink! How then--do you wish to desert
her?"
"Not I," said the doctor composedly. "But I know mademoiselle, she is
true Canadienne, not afraid of a little snow, a little storm! And the
secret of my profession is--always to eat and always to drink when good
food and good drink are going. Madame, make haste there!"
"If I could assist you,----" began Mr. Abercorn, but stopped, for his
glance wandered to his wife, who had never approved of Miss Clairville.
"You must not dream of such a thing, Marcus. Leave me here in this
strange house, and go back by yourself along that awful road?
Certainly not. Perhaps Father Rielle is going that way sooner than
you, Dr. Renaud. Are you not, sir, anxious to--what do you call
it--_chercher_ mademoiselle?" Despite her knowledge of French it was
the way of this lady to address the inhabitants of the countryside in
English, it "accustomed them to it" and, she fervently hoped, tended to
bring about the ultimate "Anglifying of the Province," to borrow a term
much used by that distinguished patriot, Louis Honore Papineau,
previous to 1857.
The priest, who had as yet no intention of returning to the barn,
preferring that others should encounter the uncertain temper of one so
recently tried in uncommon and painful ways, professed much interest in
her plight, remarking, however, that he feared he did not drive well
enough to find his way over the plateau of rock which lay between the
road and the shelter.
"Then there is only Mr. Ringfield left!" exclaimed Mrs. Abercorn, much
as if she were marshalling people in to dinner. "Yes, yes--_you_ shall
go for her, poor thing, but probably she deserves it; living on your
charity, I hear, Mr. Poussette, and the other woman too; shocking, I
call it! And belonging to quite an old family, _quite_ old, I believe."
The idea of Pauline not paying anything towards her board while staying
at Poussette's was painfully new to Ringfield; he had never thought of
the matter, but now recalled her chronic condition of impecuniosity,
and he saw directly how humiliating this must be for her and why it was
necessary that she should find something to do. Henry Clairville, her
natural and proper protector, could not apparently help her, the
Englishman was fully as impotent, and Ringfield at once decided, while
listening to the conversation, to seek her again and offer her a part
of his stipend, the first instalment of which had been paid over by
Poussette that morning. Everything favoured his quiet withdrawal, for
the heat of the fire, the stacks of celery, and the splendid cognac,
smuggled from the islands of St. Pierre and Miquelon, and purchased by
Poussette for twenty cents a bottle, were beginning to tell on both Mr.
Abercorn and the doctor.
"Twenty cents, did you say?" hastily inquired the former, "I never
heard anything like that! I think I must, I really must have a taste,
just a drop, just a sip--thank you, Dr., thank you. My dear--a little
for you too? No? Well, well, after all that exposure I do not
believe, I really do _not_ believe a little would hurt you. Ah! that's
it, Dr., a small wineglassful for Mrs. Abercorn. There, my dear, I am
sure you require it."
"Do you no harm," said Dr. Renaud. "'Tis fine stuff, the best French.
Makes one feel like a boy." And he began to sing.
"Quand j'étais sur mon père,
Je n'avais rien à faire
Quand j'étais sui mon père
Qu'une femme a chercher.
A present j'en ai une,
A present j'en ai une
Qui me fait enragé.
"Change that to '_en roulant ma boule_' and I'm with you," said Mr.
Abercorn, and the Doctor took him at his word; Mrs. Abercorn becoming
very sleepy, was provided with rugs and pillows on a sofa in the hall,
while the two gentlemen sipped cognac and munched celery till slumbers
also overtook them.
Ringfield then moved. "Where is M. Clairville?" he asked Mme.
Poussette, tilting his chair back as she passed.
"In his bed, M'sieu. He overwalked this morning and knows nothing of
the storm, and after a _petit verre_ of this good cognac he has gone to
sleep. It is good for the brain--this cognac; will not M'sieu join the
others?"
"No, thank you," he said, smiling, "You know I never touch these
things. But I was thinking of going out to see the night. Surely the
rain is almost over! Do I go this way?"
"The other door, if you please, M'sieu."
Poussette's anxiety as he noted Ringfield's departure was ludicrous.
He overturned bottles, knocked down a chair, while he cast frightened
glances at the priest sitting reading his breviary austerely under the
lamp. How could he escape? Ah--the horses--they had not been properly
attended to! The next moment he was off, out of the kitchen and
hastily rummaging in the large and dreary stables for a lantern. A
whole row of these usually hung from the ceiling of a small outhouse
close at hand, and Ringfield had already taken one, lighted it, and was
a quarter of a mile along the road; Poussette, fearing this, made such
insane haste, "raw haste, half-sister to Delay," that the blanketing of
the horse and the other preliminaries took more time than usual, and he
had hardly driven out of the gate when Father Rielle, who had changed
his mind, also left the kitchen from where his sharp ears had caught
these various sounds, and searching for a third lantern, found one,
lighted it, and set off on foot behind Poussette in the buggy.
Thus--a little procession of three men and three lanterns was
progressing along the slippery, lonely road towards the barn where Miss
Clairville was awaiting rescue, the first of whom to arrive was
Ringfield. Striding to the half-open door he boldly called her name,
and shoving the lantern inside perceived her to be entirely alone.
"Oh--it is you then! I am so glad--it seems hours since you went away.
I have not been exactly frightened, for I know these woods and there is
nothing alive in them, but the position of this barn--so remote, so
down by itself in the little hollow--if anything did attack me, my
voice would never be heard."
"But you were not alone when I left you! You may not be alone now!"
"How did you find that out?" her face changed; she had not calculated
on his having seen Crabbe.
"I think I knew all the time; your restlessness, your anxiety to get me
away, your pushing me down on that box and changing the subject--why,
when I saw him come out, and--and wind his arm around your waist, then
I knew you had been lying to me! How could you do it!" He waved the
lantern towards the loft but could see nothing there.
"He is gone, gone," said she earnestly; "he has gone to the village to
get some rig or other and come back with it for me, but of course I
would rather go with you."
"I cannot believe a word you say!" exclaimed Ringfield in an agony,
setting the lantern down. "Not a word--not a word. Do you think you
can play all your life like this with men? You cannot play with me at
all events. There are forces here (he struck his breast), passions
here, instincts here I never dreamed of, I never knew I possessed. It
is not good, nor wise, nor necessary for me to love you, Pauline, but I
do--I do! And you must fear them, you must respect them, these
instincts, these forces, as much in me as you would do in other men."
"I do, I do! Only I do not like to see you and that other man
together--I always feel something happening, I do not know what! but I
will tell you all about it. Father Rielle drove me to this place; we
got out, came in, and then he talked most foolishly, most wildly--hurt
my wrist--see here! And while I was wondering how I could put him off,
get rid of him, I discovered that the other man was in the loft. I saw
his stick, then I heard him; and then he came down and he and Father
Rielle went away together."
"But he came back--for I saw him, I saw you both. You went outside to
look at the tree."
"Yes--he went away, but he came back, and while we were talking I heard
you coming and so--and--so----"
"You got him out of the way in time! Then after I left he was here
again with you?"
"For a little while, just a little while."
Ringfield suddenly snatched her hands and bent his stern offended gaze
upon her.
"You have been hours with that man, hours--I know it. And to pretend
to me that there was no one there, while you allowed me to open my mind
and heart to you--the indignity of it, the smallness and vileness of
it; oh!--can not you see how I suffer in my pride for myself as well as
in my affection for you? As for the man, he knew no better, and I
suppose he wished for nothing better, than to listen and look, to watch
us, to spy----"
He choked with sorrowful wrath and temper; an access of jealous,
injured fury entirely possessed him for an instant, then with a great
effort, and an inward prayer, he partly regained his ministerial calm.
"You must see that I am right," he resumed; "he calls himself a
gentleman--you call him one; but is that a gentlemanly thing to do?
Gentleman? To stay here in hiding and let us talk on as we did! And
what does it signify that he is or has been 'an Oxford man'--the term
has no relevancy here, no meaning or sense whatever. Tell me this once
more, for I have grave doubts--has he any legal right over you?"
Pauline resolved to answer this question truthfully. How would
Ringfield accept the delicate distinction of a moral right involving
only those ties, those obligations, known to themselves and not to the
world?
"No," she said, firmly. Then a great burst of colour filled her face
as she continued. "But he should have had. Now you know. Now you
know all." And Ringfield, as almost any other man would have done,
mistakenly concluded that she was the unfortunate mother of the
unfortunate child in the distant parish, Angeel! In this, perhaps the
crucial moment of his whole existence, his manhood, his innate simple
strength, his reason and his faith, all wavered, tottered before him;
this experience, this knowledge of evil at first hand in the person of
one so dear, flamed round him like some hideous blast from the hot
furnace of an accepted hell, and he realized the terrors of things he
had read about and seen depicted--lost souls, dark and yet lurid pits
of destruction, misshapen beasts and angry angels--the blood flowed
from his arteries and from his stricken heart up to his frightened
brain, and surged there while he stood, not raising his eyes to this
ill-starred woman. It was child's play to read one's Bible; it was
child's play to read about sin; it was bald and commonplace to receive
converts after service, or to attend death-beds of repentance; here was
that suffering entity, the Sinner, alone with him, weak in her strength
and strong through her weakness, and with her delicate, guilty,
perverted impulses he had to deal, and no longer with pulpit
abstractions. But while they stood thus, another turn in the affairs
which revolved around the lonely barn carried with it a new sound; a
horse's trot was plainly heard, likewise the humorous lilt of a shanty
song.
"It is Mr. Poussette!" whispered Pauline, rushing to the lantern and
extinguishing it. "He is coming for me and I shall have to go with
him. I can manage him--better than the priest--but you--what must I do
with you? He is a gossip--that one--and it will work you harm in your
religion, in your church, if he finds you here with me."
"Oh, why are you so impetuous!" returned Ringfield. "You should not
have blown out the light! He knew doubtless that I was coming for
you--there would be nothing in that. Where is the lantern--I will
light it again."
"You cannot reach it, I have hidden it down behind those boxes. No,
no--I could not have him find you here with me. The loft--the loft!
There is the ladder!"
And in two minutes he found himself, after scrambling up in the dark,
crawling about on his hands and knees in the same heap of straw that
had served to conceal Edmund Crabbe a few hours before, and doomed, in
his turn, to overhear the conversation of any who might be below.
In a few moments the horse came to a standstill, and Poussette
approached, carrying his lantern, Miss Clairville receiving him with
just that successful mixture of hauteur and coquetry, which kept him
admiring but respectful. His delight at being the first, as he
supposed, to reach her, was as absurd as it was genuine, but there was
no delay, and she was soon comfortably wrapped up in Poussette's
_voiture_ and being rapidly driven to the manor-house. When he thought
it was quite safe, Ringfield shook himself free from the hay and straw
that encumbered him, and prepared to descend the ladder, but he had
scarcely enjoyed the luxury of stretching his long limbs (for he could
not stand upright in the loft) when he heard footsteps approaching, and
looking down, he perceived Father Rielle enter the barn, lantern in
hand, and with thin, high-nosed, sour countenance depicting intense
surprise, eagerly explore the place for Pauline. Ringfield held his
breath, but had enough sense to lie down again in the straw, and feign
slumber; happily the priest did not concern himself with the loft, but
the absence of the bird he had expected to find, caged and waiting,
seemed to mystify him. He remained for several minutes lost in
thought, then setting the lantern on one box, moved others around,
strewed them with a thick layer of hay he found on the floor, and lying
down with his cloak pulled well over him, settled to a night's rest.
Ringfield, thus imprisoned, passed for his part a miserable night; he
dared not move and his excited brain kept him from sleeping. Towards
four o'clock the lantern flickered out; at six, while it was yet dark,
the priest arose and went his way, and an hour later Ringfield also
retraced his steps to the village. Like a man in an exceedingly
unpleasant, but most distinct dream, he found himself bound in a net of
intrigue from which there seemed no chance of escape. It was Sunday
morning and at eleven he would have to take charge of the service and
address the usual congregation as Father Rielle had already partly
done, the early mass at St. Jean Baptiste-on-the-Hill being held at
half past seven.
The road between the grim leafless trees was now swept clean of both
snow and hail by the streams of heavy rain which had poured the
previous night, and the air was mild. Much havoc had been wrought in
places by the furious storm; the rocky ground was littered with
branches and twigs of all sizes; rivers of yellow mud ran where the
clay road should be, and against this desolation there glowed
occasional plants of bright green, low along the ground, that had
escaped the winter's rages of a high level. Crows were silhouetted
against the pale blue sky laced with streamers of white, and spring
seemed to be in the air rather than late autumn; the excited birds
called to each other as they flew high over the forest, as if to hail
this pleasant morning, a contrast to the stormy night. Suddenly the
sun shone through those cloudy gossamers and irradiated the bright
green ferns and orange lichens, drawing the eye to the cross of gold
that topped Father Rielle's fine church. Ringfield went out of his way
to look at the fall; it was much swollen from the rain and thundered
over its brown rocks more loudly than he had ever heard it. Above the
bridge were swaying large quantities of floating timber, washed down by
the violence of the storm, and as he looked he saw three of these
derelicts ride to the brink, and tumble over, and among them a little
dog, that had got out there he could not tell how, which for a moment
stood on a rolling tree whining piteously, and then fell with it down
those ledges of furious frothing waters.
He ran close to the edge, and looked over, but there was no trace of
the animal for fully five minutes; then he saw its poor little body
emerge, battered, knocked about by stones and trees at the foot of the
great cascade, and at the sight his good sense and right feeling seemed
to return to him. He had temporarily, as he himself would have put it,
forgotten his Creator in the days of his youth; now all came back to
him; the duties of his position, its dignity and its obligations, and
he strove hard, by prayer and concentration of mind, to be as he had
been, and forget Miss Clairville and her tempestuous existence for a
while, as he took upon himself the work of the sacred day. He preached
later from the verse, "Yet in the Church I had rather speak five words
with my understanding, that by my voice I might teach others also, than
ten thousand words in an unknown tongue," and his voice and magnetic
delivery were not impaired. The little dog, the little dead dog,
figured in the sermon; like the Ancient Mariner when he leaned over the
rotting vessel's side and watched the beautiful living things moving in
the waters, his heart gushed out with sympathy as the image of the dog,
seeing his death, and recognizing no escape from it, remained with him.
The eyes of the poor animal seemed ever before him; large, pathetic
brown eyes, with soft patches of lighter brown fur above them, a
quivering nose and trembling paws--could he not have saved it? No--for
motion once given to those rolling logs, they would carry anything on
with them, and it was already too late when he first perceived it--a
small, shivering, unhappy little object--with fear shining in its large
eyes, those eyes he had seen looking directly at him as if to say:
"Help me, my brother, help me from this Death! Help me, for the love
of God, as you believe in God and in His Omnipotence and Goodness!"