THE TROUSSEAU OF PAULINE
"--the whole domain
To some, too lightly minded, might appear
A meadow carpet for the dancing hours."
"Tra-la!" sang Miss Clairville, as she pressed heavily on the folds of
a purple cloth skirt which had once done service in the "Grand
Duchess," but was now being transformed by hot irons, rows of black
braid and gilt buttons into a highly respectable travelling dress.
"I thought at first of giving this old thing away, but see how well
it's going to look, after all!"
The Cordova, busy heating an iron on the "drum" which stood in a corner
of the room, looked at the skirt and at first said nothing.
"It's too dark for a bride's travelling-dress," she said after a while.
"Do you think so? But not for a dark bride," said the other with an
uneasy frown. "Well, I'm not a girl, you see; besides, without a
sewing machine you and I could never manufacture an entire costume. I
meant to give it to you; in fact, I had it tied up in that bundle once,
then I changed my mind--woman's prerogative--and here it is."
"Thank you, but I shouldn't care for it anyhow, purple's not my colour;
it looks awful with my kind of hair."
Pauline glanced up coldly at the bleached head bending over the irons.
"Perhaps it does. Well--it's too late now even if you did care for it.
I'll wear plenty of white around my neck and down the front; a cascade,
_jabot_ effect always suits me."
She wound a white scarf around her as she spoke, and bent an old black
hat into a three-cornered shape on top of her head.
"There, my dear, there is the true French face, only you don't know it!
If I could take you to my home, you would see--well, you would not see
much beyond Henry and his eternal books, though they tell me he reads
no more. I'm thinking of an old portrait I resemble."
Miss Clairville now sat on the bed, having relinquished the work of
doing over the cloth skirt to her friend.
"Why are you keeping that red and black dress there, the theatre dress?
You will never need that, travelling!"
"No, I suppose not, only----"
Pauline eyed the dress. The family trait of acquisitiveness combined
with a love of hoarding was asserting itself, and she could scarcely
make up her mind to part with things when the time came. Besides, this
dress carried her back to meetings with Ringfield, and again she saw
the passionate admiration in his eyes as they talked in whispers on her
balcony.
"Oh--a fancy of mine! I look well in it. I wore it when Henry was
taken ill with the 'pic'."
With a loud shriek Miss Cordova dropped an iron on the floor.
"What is it now? _Quelle bétise_! Stupid--I wasn't with him! I
meant--about that time. But if you want the dress, take it, take it!
_Mon Dieu_! what a state your nerves must be in!"
"I'm much better than when I came here," said Miss Cordova quickly.
"Say, Pauline,--did you know I thought of sending for the children?"
"Your children? To come here?"
"Yes. Now, Pauline, it sounds queer, I know, and worse than anything
I've ever done, yet--it isn't as bad as it sounds. But, but--well, I
may just as well out with it. Mr. Poussette has proposed!"
"To you?"
Miss Cordova stopped in her work. "Yes. He seems to be serious and I
like it here, like him too, so I guess we'll fix it up somehow. Of
course his wife's living, but she's not right in her head, so she don't
count."
"And your two husbands are alive, but as one drinks and the other was
married when he met you, _they_ don't count." Miss Clairville was
staring in front of her. "My dear girl--have you never heard of such a
thing as bigamy? You're talking nonsense, and you must not allow Mr.
Poussette to get you into trouble. You can't marry him, Sara!"
"Of course. I know that. But we are both willing to wait. Schenk
can't last long; he's drinking harder than ever from last accounts, and
Stanbury--well, perhaps I'd better stop short of saying anything about
English swells, but Charlie Stanbury had no right to me in the first
instance, and now I'm not going to let the faintest thought of him stop
me in my last chance of a home and quiet, peaceful living.
Oh--Pauline--I was never the same after I discovered how Stanbury
wronged me! Nothing seemed to matter and I went from bad to worse.
But since I've been here, I've seen things in a different light, and
I'd like to stay here and bring the children away from New York and let
them grow up where they'll never hear a word about their father or
about me and Schenk."
She spoke with sad conviction, her eyes filling, her hands trembling as
she worked on at Pauline's skirt.
"You'd give up the theatre and all the rest of it, and come and live at
St. Ignace if you could?"
"Indeed I would, Pauline. Indeed, indeed I would."
"This is too droll! For here am I, pining to get away and be free of
this place for ever! But that's because I belong here."
"Yes, and because you have no children to think about. If you
had--you'd understand. While Schenk's alive he may find me any day in
New York, but I don't believe he'd ever think of looking for me here.
My mother'd know how to send the children along, I guess, and they'd
always have enough to eat and drink, and fresh air and a place to play
in, and I'm sure Mr. Poussette would be kind to them. You know he's a
funny-talking man, but he's got a real good heart, and Maisie and Jack
might have a good time here."
"Yes, I know, but----" Miss Clairville's aristocratic and
sophisticated side was dubious.
"But what? It's all very well for you, just making a fresh start,
getting married and going to Europe and wanting to see a little more of
the world than the Champlain House and St. Ignace, but I've had enough
of the world--too much! I want to bring up my children honest, honest
and respectable, and I can't do it, Pauline, in one room on Sixth Ave.
Maisie, now, wants to be out in the streets every evening; she'd
rather--than stay with me at the theatre even."
"How old is Maisie?" asked Miss Clairville suddenly.
"Why, she's most eleven years of age, I reckon. Let's see! I met
Stanbury in--seventy-seven; Maisie--yes, she's just eleven, and Jack's
nine and half. Say--wasn't it a good thing that I didn't have any
family to Schenk?"
"How can you be so very vulgar!" said Miss Clairville with a curling
lip. "But I suppose it was a good thing--the Will of God--according to
Father Rielle. Eleven! And Angeel's nine. Nearly ten."
"Angeel? Who's she? You don't mean to tell me that you----"
"What do you mean?" said Miss Clairville fiercely. "What right have
you to imagine such things? I'll tell you some day about Angeel, but
just now I prefer to discuss something pleasant. We will resume our
packing, my dear. Here is this blanket coat. What am I to do with it?"
"Give it away, of course. You'll never wear it again, Pauline, where
you're going!"
"I know I shan't," replied Miss Clairville, compressing her lips as she
regarded with a critical eye the antiquated wine-red garment adorned
with a white sash, and tuque to correspond. "But I look so well in
this, too!"
"If you don't want it, let me have it for Maisie. Why--it would be
just the thing for her, running around here all winter! Say,
Pauline--ain't it funny to think she's the child of an English swell?
Stanbury's from a real good family, I can tell you. I guess your Mr.
Hawtree would be likely to know all about him. You might ask him.
Then there's this white evening dress. My--it's dirty enough, goodness
knows! It ought to be French cleaned, but who's to do it in this
out-of-the-way place? Here are a lot of roses falling out of it--do
they belong to it?"
"That's my Camille dress. The roses go around the skirt--see?--in
garlands: same around the waist and on the hair. I might turn it into
a _peignoir_, I suppose. But I think I will give it to you, Sara; you
can keep it till Maisie grows up and do it--how do you say?--do it over
for her. Is she fair or dark?"
"Dark--just like Stanbury. Say, won't you tell me about Angeel now?"
"No, no! _O--pour l'amour de Dieu_, don't drag her in at this time!
Haven't I enough to worry me? What shall I do if Edmund breaks out
again? I haven't seen him all day."
Miss Cordova was very thoughtful for an instant.
"Seems to me you ought to've had more under-clothes," she said
solemnly, and Pauline laughed. "And what you have got are far too
plain. My--the ones I saw just before I came away from New York! Say,
Pauline--there was twenty-five yards of lace, honest, to one nightgown!"
"Was there? At Sorel we were not allowed one yard; frilly things, and
too much lace and ribbons are the mark of bad women. Did you ever hear
that?"
"I guess my mother held some notions like those. She used to
say--quality was the thing, and was never satisfied till she got the
best lawn, soft as silk, but she never had much trimming on them. Cut
plain and full, was almost always her directions. Well, now--yes, I
guess you'll have to wait till you go to Paree before you replenish
that side of your wardrobe. Is your Mr. Hawtree free with his money?"
"Yes, yes!" rejoined Pauline hurriedly. The fact being that after the
initial flourish and purchase of a few pieces of jewellery and other
trinkets Crabbe had tightened his purse-strings, as it were, not from
miserliness, but because it was necessary to use caution until they
reached London, when larger sums would be paid over on due recognition
of his identity. "Free enough for the present. As for me, I have
saved nothing, nothing! How could I, with this need for ready money
hanging over me? So I do not like to ask too much, just now, and, like
a man, he provides me with diamond earrings while I lack proper shoes
and an umbrella."
"Take mine!" said Miss Cordova earnestly. "It's real silk and it won't
matter if there's an 'S' on the handle. It was his--Stanbury's."
"My dear girl," cried Pauline, "I couldn't! You'll need it yourself.
See--it's silver mounted and valuable!"
"I know it, and that's why I want you should have it. We've been good
friends, Pauline, even if there is a difference in our education, and
I'd like to give you some little thing. Do please take the umbrella."
All Miss Clairville's latent womanliness sprang to the surface as she
jumped off the bed and enfolded her friend in a warm embrace.
"God knows, you will never be forgotten by me, Sara! We've struggled
together too long for that. You have a sweet temper and a kind heart,
and _le bon Dieu_ takes note of that. I wish now you _could_ marry Mr.
Poussette, for I see that you'll miss me when I'm gone, and that's not
a bad idea about your children. I hope I'll never have any; I'd be
afraid, I'd be afraid. Well, I'll accept the umbrella then, _in
memoriam_ if you like. And you take the white dress, and these long
yellow gloves, and this sash for Maisie, and here's a _bijou_ imitation
watch and chain for Jack--eh? What's the matter?"
Miss Cordova leant heavily on her friend.
"They are calling us," she said.
"Who are?"
"I don't know. Listen! Some one's wanted. It's me. It's me.
Perhaps Schenk's come! Pauline, what shall I do?"
"Absurd! No one can get here; you forget the roads and the snow.
Schenk? He is miles away!"
"Then it's for you. Yes. They're coming up. Listen--it is you,
'Ma'amselle Clairville,' I hear them say!"
"But why be so alarmed?" cried Pauline, and she threw open the door.
Antoine Archambault and Poussette stood outside.
"Your brother the seigneur is dying, mademoiselle," said Poussette,
"and desires to see you at once. There is no time to lose."
"What is it?" asked Miss Cordova, not comprehending the foreign tongue,
and they told her.
Miss Clairville's face changed. She trembled visibly, made the sign of
the cross--so potent is habit, so strong are traditions--but uttered
nothing.
"She is ill!" said Miss Cordova, and she led her friend to a chair.
"No, no, I am not ill. But I do not want to go. _Je ne le veux pas_.
I do not wish at all to go. I will not go, Sara!"
"It's hard, I guess," said the other woman sympathetically, "but it's
natural he should want to see you before he dies. Of course, she'll
go, Mr. Poussette, and I'll go with her."
"No, no!" said Pauline, starting up, "if I go it must be alone. But
why should I go?"
She looked piteously from one to the other. "What good can I or anyone
do to him if he is dying? Perhaps there is some mistake."
Antoine spoke in voluble French in accompaniment to Poussette's
gestures, and at the words she drooped appallingly.
"Come, Pauline, perhaps it will not be so terrible after all. You were
going to visit him this week anyway."
"I know, I know, but this is different, dreadful, startling. It makes
me so--I cannot describe. Who is with him? Only Mlle. Poussette! Oh,
why--why? It will spoil my marriage, Sara; perhaps it will prevent my
marriage!"
"Nothing of the kind! No, no. You will be married the sooner, I
daresay. Where is Mr. Hawtree? Why don't he come up and talk to you?"
"He is being driven with Alexis Tremblay to the station! A train may
pass through this morning."
Pauline now recollected that he had gone to Montreal to make final
preparations for the wedding; among other things, the drawing up of an
antiquated contract according to the mixed law of the Province. A
sudden wish woke in her to run away and join him and so evade the
painful scene which must ensue if she obeyed her brother's commands.
"Death's a dreadful thing anyway, I guess," remarked Miss Cordova to
fill in the silence, touching Pauline's thick loops of hair as she
spoke. "I just know how you feel."
"_Mon Dieu_--be quiet, Sara! It isn't his death I mind so much as his
dying. Do you not see--he will make me promise, he will bother me into
something; dying people always do--I can't explain. If he would just
die and have done with it!"
Even the men felt the unusual distress of mind which prompted this
outburst of selfish candour, and Miss Cordova drew away.
"Seems to me your brother's in the hands of the Lord and I guess He's
mightier than you are. My mother's a New England woman and was always
afraid about my going on the stage, and I suppose I've gone wrong
_some_, but I couldn't, like you, go back on a poor, dying creature.
Say, Pauline, hadn't you better see a clergyman? Where's that young
man? Where's Mr. Ringfield?"
"I do not require his services, thank you. But yes--you mean well. If
I'm anything, I'm a Catholic, my dear--and now take all these things
and put them away. I think I shall never _marier_ with anyone in this
world. I must go, I suppose. Antoine will drive, and I shall go
alone."
Miss Cordova silently moved about the small room, not sharing in the
gloomy views of the prospective bride, for she carefully went on
packing the scanty trousseau which included badly mended _lingerie_,
the red dinner dress, and three gay satin waists bought by Crabbe in
the shops of St. Laurent, Main Street, one of canary and black lace,
another of rose colour, and a third of apple-green. There were veils
enough to stock a store, ties, collars, ribbons, small handkerchiefs
and showy stockings in profusion, with a corresponding dearth of strong
sensible clothing. The trousseau of Pauline was essentially French in
its airiness; its cheap splendours attested to one side of her peculiar
character and the sturdier and more sensible attributes of the _belle
Canadienne_ were for the time obliterated. The blanket coat and tuque
and the Camille dress were tied up by Miss Cordova for Maisie, and
within half an hour Pauline had departed with Antoine, and the others
lapsed to the unsettled calm which overtakes a community when it is
known that the inevitable must shortly occur. That unpleasant negative
condition of waiting for a death was now shared by all at Poussette's
as the news spread through St. Ignace. Father Rielle was seen to drive
away, and Dr. Renaud was already at the Manor House, but Ringfield,
shut up in his own room, reading and pondering, heard nothing of the
matter for several hours. However, Poussette and Miss Cordova, to
relieve tedium, went into the kitchen, where, secure from both Stanbury
and Schenk, the ex-actress took a lesson in cooking, by tea-time
producing pancakes so excellent that they rivalled if not excelled
those of her instructor. Indeed, with this happily met couple, time
flew by on feathered wings. Miss Cordova was quick on her feet, bright
in her talk, and her vivacity and grace charmed the susceptible
Frenchman, too long accustomed to the shrinking nervous figure of the
absent Natalie. She stood on chairs and renewed her youth, looking
into tins and boxes and bringing to light jams and biscuits the host
had forgotten. She sang snatches of Offenbach and Verdi, she beat the
eggs while Poussette made up his fire, and when he squeezed her hand or
put his fat arm around her waist she did not prudishly push him away,
but, gently resisting, rebuked him in such affectionate terms that he
politely restrained those damaging caresses. In short, she managed
Poussette instead of being persuaded by him, and this in itself pleased
her and restored her self-respect; her previous relations with Stanbury
and Schenk suffered by comparison, and if she secretly hoped for the
death or removal of Mme. Poussette it was with soft womanly compunction
and pity, and with stern resolves not to overstep the mark of purity.
So--in this poor, obscure, half-educated soul, this Guinevere of lowly
life, burnt the flame of natural goodness. Ignorant of ritual, she had
long ago compiled a prayer for herself which ran; "O God--I wasn't a
good girl, and I haven't been a good woman, but I've tried to be a good
mother. Help me to be a Holy Saint after I die. Amen."