THE TROUSSEAU AGAIN
"--the bitter language of the heart."
The shop over which Ringfield was lodging for the time was an emporium
of Catholic books, pictures and images, one of those peculiarly Lower
Canadian stores in the vicinity of the Rue Notre Dame, existing side by
side with Indian curio shops, and rendering it possible for the
emigrant and tourist to purchase maple sugar, moccasins, and birch bark
canoes at the same time that he invested in purple ribbon bookmarks,
gaily painted cards of the Virgin, and tiny religious valentines with
rosy bleeding hearts, silver arrows and chubby kneeling infants.
Amulets and crucifixes, Keys of Heaven and lives of the Blessed Saints,
cheap vases of ruby and emerald glass, candles and rosaries, would at
another time have afforded Ringfield much matter for speculation, but
the fact was that almost as soon as he had deposited his bag on the
table of the narrow bedroom assigned to him, the cold he had so long
neglected caught him seriously, and for an entire day and a half he
insisted on sitting at his window when he should have been in bed. On
the next day his feverish symptoms increased to such an extent that the
man who owned the room and who was a widower, managing for himself,
sent for a nurse. Tossing on the bed, and frequently rising to look
out of the window, Ringfield fretfully objected, but his landlord was
firm, and sent a message at once to the Hospital of the Incarnation,
the nearest charitable institution and the parent of several
flourishing branches, among which was that at Lalurette where Ringfield
had thought of placing Angeel. It was early on Thursday evening when
the message was sent, and at ten o'clock Archibald Groom, the
shopkeeper, came to say that a person recently arrived from the country
was below, but that she spoke very little English. He was not
answered, and bending over the bed he saw that his lodger was
delirious, eyes glassy and staring and head rolling from side to side,
with high colour and stertorous breathing.
To call the nurse, who was waiting in the shop, was the work of an
instant; she came quickly and noiselessly up the dark stair and saw at
once a case of brain fever, partly brought on by exposure and neglected
cold, also recognizing in the sick man the well-known minister at St.
Ignace and her husband's _protégé_.
Mme. Poussette, for it was she, possessed more discretion than sense,
and more sense than wit; she looked calmly upon her patient as upon a
stranger and set about her work in silence.
Meanwhile Edmund Crabbe, on partially recovering from his first fit of
intemperance, sat up, and perceiving the well-filled flask he had
brought with him, seized it, and began afresh upon its contents. He
had left St. Ignace on Monday morning, and it was now Thursday; Henry
Clairville was dead and buried; the funeral obsequies being of a
complex nature, shabby and ornate, dignified and paltry, leisurely and
hurried, while the ceremony was at least well attended, since, as Dr.
Renaud had said, a Seigneur did not die every day. Profuse in the
matter of lappets, crucifixes, and in the number of voluble
country-folk and stout serious-lipped priests, Father Rielle, who had
charge of the proceedings, was compelled to accommodate himself to
circumstances, or fate, or "the Will of God," in the shape of the
Archambaults--who, as Pauline foresaw, had all returned, this time to
claim their own.
The disappearance of Mme. Poussette occasioned no comment; for two days
after the death of Henry Clairville no one spoke to her or thanked her
for all she had done, and while the funeral was in progress she put her
few things in a box, and counting a small store of money Poussette had
given her from time to time, went with Antoine Archambault to the
station at Bois Clair, and was no more seen at St. Ignace. Of all the
characters in this simple history, none perhaps was so sincerely
deserving as this unfortunate Mme. Poussette, and as she passes from
the stormy little village in behind the gate of the serene but busy
hospital, it is pleasant to contemplate the change there in store for
her. To many women who are plain and unattractive in the ever-varying
hat and gown of fashion, and who, if they try to hold their own, must
sooner or later resort to artificial aids to attain even moderate good
looks, there is yet a refuge, that of some severe and never-changing
style of dress or uniform, which bestows upon them another kind of
beauty. The kitchen dish or utensil has its charm as well as the
sprigged china of the closet; the jug going to the well is as grateful
to the eye as the prismatic beaker upon the table, and, in like manner,
the banded or braided hair, the perfect cleanliness of fresh print or
linen and the straight serviceable lines of skirt and waist often
contribute to make a plain woman fully as attractive as her prettier
sisters. Thus Mme. Poussette, about whom there was never anything
repulsive or vulgar, presented new features to the world in her
exquisitely neat hospital garb; more than this, she liked her work, and
gradually her expression grew less vacant; she left off humming and
whispering to herself, and we leave her thus, contented, respected and
of use, and, therefore, almost happy.
Indeed, many there are beside Mme. Natalie Poussette who find as life
slips by and the feverish quest of happiness dies within them, that
they become happy almost without knowing it in the pursuit of other
things once despised, such as work, friendship, the need of earning, or
the love of an abstract subject. What a contrast then does this
"afflicted," this "peculiar" one afford to the restless, imaginative,
gifted but unstable Pauline, in whom the quest of happiness had so far
only resulted in entanglement and riot of conflicting emotions!
As she remained much indoors at this time, awaiting Crabbe's return,
she dwelt much on the past, words rising to utterance that she thought
would never be heard on earth touching the problems of her lonely
childhood, her meeting with Crabbe, her aversion to her brother; also,
the brighter pictures of the future in which she already lived the life
of a London beauty and belle, or crossed to Paris and continued buying
for her trousseau. Miss Cordova, with the superior wisdom of a mother,
let her friend talk and agreed with all she said; her own opinion of
Pauline's choice in men was not in the guide's favour, but she saw it
was too late to interfere. The story of Angeel was now cleared up and,
had Ringfield remained in the village, he would have learnt as well as
the rest of the unexpected parentage of that poor child, and of the
turn in the affairs of the country-side which brought the Archambaults
on top. However wasted and however dilapidated, the Clairville domain
and Manor House was one of the oldest in the province, and it began to
be rumoured that a considerable fortune existed in Henry's collection
of books and memoirs, offers for which were already reaching the
helpless widow and mother of Angeel.
Occupied with her own dreams, Miss Clairville took little notice of her
home under a new regime, and day by day she watched instead for the
return of her lover, bringing definite arrangements for the marriage.
There seemed at least a diminution other natural active outlook on life
as a whole, and if she feared from Crabbe's rather dilatory methods
that their union was in danger from too long delay, she did not say so,
even to her confidante. The latter was bent upon carrying through her
project with regard to Maisie and Jack, but this could not be effected
until the spring, and thus, without the stimulus of the Englishman's
presence, and with the remembrance of death and agitation so recently
in their midst, both women were quieter than usual.
As for Ringfield, no one missed him very acutely until Saturday
morning, when, upon the receipt of a letter from Mme. Prefontaine,
"Poussette's" was thrown into considerable excitement. Pauline, who
could rarely keep anything to herself, read her letter aloud and
immediately jumped up in terror.
"Why did not some one tell me they were together; together, at the
Hotel Champlain? I tell you--something will happen!"
"To which of them?" asked Miss Cordova satirically. In spite of a good
deal of nonsense in her composition, there was an under-stratum of
shrewd wisdom, inherited, no doubt, from her New England mother, and
her admiration for her more brilliant friend did not blind her to
certain irregularities of disposition and many weak points in Pauline's
character, inseparable from her abnormal bringing up. "I wouldn't
excite myself so much if I were you," continued the other. "I've
learnt not to worry about men harming other men; it's when they come to
harming women I think it's time to worry about them. Look at me--I
don't know for certain whether Ned Stanbury's alive or not; I know
Schenk's alive, although he may not last long, but I never worry about
their meeting. But if Schenk came here to disturb me, or went to my
mother's to get the children from her, then I might take on."
"But, my dear, everything's different in my case!" exclaimed Miss
Clairville, fretfully pacing up and down the common room.
A village dressmaker, one of the numerous Tremblays, had, in a great
hurry, made her a black dress; her face showed sallow against it now,
and even her hands, always conspicuously well-kept and white, looked
yellow and old as they hung down at the side of her tall, straight
figure, or clasped and unclasped restlessly behind her. A key to much
of her present unhappy mood lay in her last exclamation; family pride,
another kind of pride in her personal knowledge of the world, in her
consciousness of gifts and physical attractions, the feeling that she
was in every way Miss Cordova's superior, all this rendered Pauline's
affairs, in her own eyes, of vastly greater importance and intrinsic
excellence and interest than those of her companion. A
Clairville--there could be no doubt of this--was a lady, a gentlewoman,
to use an incorruptible phrase, whereas, no matter how unsmirched the
simple annals of Sadie Cordova, the small farm, the still smaller shop
were behind the narrow beginnings of the painstaking and pious Yankee
shoemaker who retired in middle life to the country and died there.
Pauline's father and brother, both weakly degenerates, could
nevertheless boast of a lineage not inconsiderable for older lands, of
possessions identified with the same, such as portraits and books and
furniture, of connexions through marriage with the law and the militia,
and, above all, of having lived on their land for very many years
without doing anything, most distinguished trait of all. Hence,
Pauline's remark; how could Miss Cordova fully understand or properly
sympathize with the altered conditions by which the daughter of the
manor was now second in importance to one of a family of menials, the
flighty, giggling, half-witted Artemise-Palmyre, whose marriage to
Henry Clairville was an accepted fact.
"You cannot understand," Pauline had said for the tenth or eleventh
time, and Miss Cordova listened, outwardly smiling and not immediately
replying.
"Do you suppose your brother's marriage was legal and binding?" she
said after a while, and Pauline stopped in her walk. The idea was not
altogether new.
"I fancy it must have been," she managed to say carelessly. "Dr.
Renaud and his Reverence know all about it, and even if it were not,
where is the money to enable me to--how do you say--contest it?"
"Wouldn't Mr. Poussette lend it to you?"
"Oh, what an idea! Do you think I would take it from him, I, a
Clairville?"
She had nearly used the once-despised prefix and called herself a De
Clairville, for since Henry's death her intolerant view of his darling
project had strangely altered; so many things were slipping from her
grasp that she clutched at anything which promised well for the future.
"Well, I'm sure you deserve money, Pauline, from one quarter or
another; you've worked hard enough for it, I know, and now I do hope
your Mr. Hawtree will turn up soon and be all right, and that you'll be
happily married to him and get away for a time from all these troubles.
I want you should know, Pauline, that I think it was noble of you to
work so hard to raise that money to keep little Angeel; yes, I call it
noble, and I'm proud of you and sorry I ever thought----"
She paused and Pauline took up the unfinished phrase.
"Sorry you ever thought she was mine? I forgive you, my dear, but
about my nobility, make no mistake. What I did I did, but I did it all
coldly, passively, with nothing but hatred and loathing in my heart,
with nothing but pride and selfishness setting me on to do it. I know
this was wrong, but I could not get into any other frame of mind; I
could never overcome my horror and repulsion of the whole matter. And
now--it is just as bad--worse. If I thought I should have to live with
her, with them, I could not stand it, Sara, I could not, I could not!
Why must I be tried so, why must I suffer so? Oh, it is because I have
a bad heart, a bad nature! Yes, yes, that must be it! I have a bad
nature, Sara, a bad, bad nature!"
"No, no, Pauline!" said her friend soothingly, and the matter dropped.
Later they were sitting, towards evening, sewing at some item of the
impalpable trousseau, Pauline alternating her spasmodic needle with
reading over Mme. Prefontaine's letter and jumping up to listen down
the stair.
"What do you expect's happened, anyhow?" cried Miss Cordova at last, in
exasperation. "Mr. Ringfield's a clergyman! he's a perfectly moral
man, and I guess that means something. What are you afraid of? Now if
it was me and Schenk or Stanbury----"
Pauline's attitude and expression were alike tragic. In her cheap
black dress her look of apprehensive despair was full of mournful
intensity as she stood with one hand lifted and her expressive eyes
fixed on shapes imaginary. Her friend's philosophy was equal to the
occasion.
"Seems to me if you think so much about things that _might_ happen but
you ain't sure they _have_ happened, you kind of _make_ 'em happen.
Sit down and be calm, for goodness sake, Pauline!"
"I can't, I can't! Oh, what's that now?"
With her hands over her heart she bounded to the top of the narrow
stair.
"Reminds me of myself the other day when I thought Schenk was after me.
Do you hear anything, Pauline--you look so wild?"
"Yes, yes! Some one has arrived. _Grand Dieu_--which of them?
Sara--go and see!"
Miss Cordova rose and drew her friend back within the room.
"Maybe it's neither; only some one for M. Poussette."
"No, no, it is one of them and for me. I hear my name."
She sank upon a chair as footsteps were heard slowly, heavily, and
somewhat unsteadily ascending the stair. The arrival was Edmund
Crabbe, with the lurch of recent dissipation in his gait and his blue
eyes still inflamed and bleared.
With a half-furtive, half-defiant air he advanced to Pauline, but
before he could utter a word, either of justification or apology, she
sprang at him with impetuous gestures and deeply frowning brows. To
see her thus, in the common little room at Poussette's, clad in the
plain garb of cheap mourning, yet with all the instinctive fire and
grandeur of the emotional artist, was to recall her as many could,
declaiming on the narrow stage of the Theatre of Novelties.
Je suis Romaine, helas! puisque Horace est Romain.
J'ai reçevu son titre en reçevant sa main,
or again, in the diaphanous rose-garlanded skirts of Marguerite
Gautier, laying bare the secrets of her heart to her adoring lover.
Oblivious of Miss Cordova, Pauline rushed at her own lover but did not
embrace him.
"Oh, where is he?" she cried. "What have you done to him?--or with
him? I insist upon the truth; I must know, I must know all. He
followed you!"
"He did, he did. He followed me, as you say, madam, but what of that?"
Crabbe stood, greatly astonished and rather mortified. In the presence
of Miss Cordova, for Pauline to display such concern for the other man
was, to say the least, annoying. To be dignified in his resentment was
to invite ridicule, for the drink still showed in his walk, but he
managed to frown and in other ways show honest astonishment and wrath.
"A nice welcome!" he went on, with difficulty repressing a certain
thickness of utterance and steadying himself as well as he was able,
the chairs being both occupied. "If you mean the parson, if these airs
and sighs, these sulks and tender concerns are for him--you may spare
yourself. He is all right. Though I beg pardon--you never sulk,
Pauline, whatever you do. I'll swear to that, lady dear. 'Tis good
and hot and strong while it lasts, and now I'm back, give it me, for I
know I deserve it. I've been at it again, Pauline. Drink, I mean, my
girl." Tears stood in his eyes.
"I understand. You need explain no further. But what do you mean
about Mr. Ringfield--how is he all right? Where is he? I was afraid,
afraid of something happening to one of you. Sara laughs, but she
doesn't know how I feel."
"And never will!" said Crabbe, giving Pauline's shoulder a clumsy,
caressing pat; "Miss Cordova has her points, but she is not Us, she is
not We of the grand emotional parts! Just a bundle of emotions, nerves
and impulses--that's all you are, madam!"
His affection, breaking through the still thick speech and weakened
movements, was irresistible; Pauline sighed and smiled, shook off her
tremors and allowed herself to descend with him to the dining-room,
where over supper she listened to the recital of his adventure in
Montreal.
"It was the cold then, that made you, that drove you to it again!" she
said thoughtfully.
"Cold, and--and--loneliness. I was lonely, Pauline, and by Heaven--if
you'll really take me, lady dear, the sooner we're married the better.
If your parson were in the house at this moment I should order him to
perform the ceremony."
"Oh--that would not suit me! Mr. Ringfield--of course, that could not
be. We must leave as soon as possible, that is all, and as this is the
nineteenth, and we have arranged for the twenty-fourth, that is only
four days to wait."
"Four days! I'll keep straight, I promise you, Pauline."
"And was he--was Mr. Ringfield with you much at the Hotel Champlain?
What did he do there? Why did he go?"
Crabbe, to tell the truth, was asking that same question of his brain,
as he made heroic endeavours to recollect the details of his last
debauch. He paused, and, with a trick characteristic of him, pushed
away his plate and cup, although he had only begun his meal.
"That's what I'd like to know myself, Pauline. I was sitting at the
table, smoking, and reading over some of my stuff--poor stuff it seems
to me at times; however let that pass--when a knock came to the door,
and I opened to our clerical friend! That's all I can remember."
"How did he look? How long did he stay? Do try and recollect. Try
and answer."
Crabbe did try, but without avail.
"That's all I know, my dear girl. I must have been pretty bad."
"You must, indeed," said Miss Clairville, rising. A little of the
hauteur Ringfield associated with her showed in her bearing, and as the
guide drew his food again towards him, she eyed him almost with
disfavour. "Then you do not know where he is, or what he went for, or
how long he stayed."
"I do not, lady dear--I do not."
Pauline was deeply mystified, and perhaps her vanity was also touched;
the mental spectacle of the two men fighting each other for possession
of her had faded and a certain picturesqueness had gone from life.
However, her marriage remained; she had four days, but only four, to
make ready in anticipation of the great event which was to remove her
at once and for ever from St. Ignace and Clairville, and in the light
of which even Crabbe's backsliding seemed a trivial matter. She
therefore returned to Sadie Cordova with restored equanimity, and
Ringfield--his avowal and his present whereabouts and condition yielded
to those prenuptial dreams and imaginings which pursued even so
practised a coquette and talented woman of the world as the once
brilliant Camille and Duchess of Gerolstein. Nevertheless, agitation
was in the air. Poussette went to and fro in much and very voluble
distress. The night closed in and brought no letter, no telegram from
Ringfield; how then--who, who would conduct the service? It was the
week of Christmas and a few more were already in the village, members
of families from afar and two or three visitors.
The feast of Noël is full of importance to all of the Romish faith, and
Poussette knew of great things in preparation for the stone church on
the hill of St. Jean Baptiste in the way of candles, extra music and a
kind of Passion-play in miniature representing the manger, with cows
and horses, wagons and lanterns, the Mother and Child, all complete.
Should Ringfield not return----even as he spoke the wooden clock in the
kitchen pointed to ten; the last train had passed through Bois Clair
and Poussette abandoned all hope, while in order to prove his intense
and abject depression of mind, he broke his promise to the minister and
helped himself to some whisky.
Thus, the absence of his mentor worked this unfortunate relapse, and
should Crabbe find out, there looked to be an old-time celebration at
Poussette's with Pauline and Pauline's rights entirely forgotten. As
it was, Miss Cordova caught the culprit before he was quite lost, and
mounting guard over the bar, entered upon those duties which, once
shouldered, remained hers for a considerable length of time.
"Division of labour," she said smartly, and Poussette gave a foolish
smile. "You take the kitchen and I'll take the bar. Then when Maisie
and Jack arrive I can look after 'em. As like as not, Maisie'll be
hanging round for a drop of lager--what she could get, that is, out of
the glasses--I've seen her! And don't you fuss about Sunday, Mr.
Poussette! We'll get on just as well as if we had a church to go to
and a sermon to listen to. Guess you won't be wanting to see yourself
taking around the plate to-morrow, anyway."
Poussette, lying crumpled up in a reclining chair, watched his new
friend with dawning reason and admiration.
"Fonny things happens," said he, wagging his head, "I'll go to sleep
now and wake up--just in time--you'll see--to go to church, help Mr.
Ringfield take roun' the money--oh--I'll show you, I'll show you, Miss
Cordova."
"You'll show me, will you?" said the barkeeper, absently. "What'll you
do if he don't come at all? He can't come now, and you know it."
"I tell you--fonny things happens! I'll preach myself, read from the
Bible, sure."