THE GLISSADE
"The calm oblivious tendencies of nature."
Probably the most beautiful spectacle ever afforded by the natural
world is that of a complete and far-reaching ice-storm, locally known
as a glissade, transcending in delicate aerial fantasy the swiftly
changing faint green panorama of early spring or the amber hazes of
opulent autumn. A true and perfect glissade is comparatively rare;
like a fine display of the auroral arches, another wonder in the
visible universe, or the vast expanding and nobly symbolical rainbow,
it does not often occur, nor when it does, is it always a spectacle of
permanence as well as beauty. The conditions under which it develops
may frequently exist in the upper atmosphere, but to ensure the magical
and lovely effects which so singularly transform the plainest
landscape, these conditions must remain unchanged for a certain length
of time in order that the work of crystallization may be thoroughly
carried out. The movements and fluctuating currents of the air do not
often long maintain this tranquil and stationary poise, and
consequently we may sometimes witness attempts on the part of Nature to
create these distinctive and wondrous results which are quickly doomed
to thaw and oblivion. In the next place it follows that what we see so
seldom must greatly impress us because of its unfamiliarity and from
the fact that its evanescence renders its loveliness more precious; the
element of surprise increases our enjoyment, and all the more since the
materials in use are the oldest and most familiar in the world. Then,
to crown the work, there is not at any other season of the year or
during any variation of a winter climate, anything more soothing,
entrancing, more grateful and refreshing than the texture of the air
itself, the feeling of the air during the period of suspended
atmospheric action. It is not joyous, but it is better than joy.
There is nothing violent, nothing extreme; there is no dust, no flurry,
no glare. It is not cold but only pleasantly, smoothly cool, and the
final impression is one of temporary transportation to some calm
celestial region of infinite peace and purity.
Standing at the left of Poussette's church on the brink of the Fall,
the eye, on the Monday following Crabbe's ignominious return, would
have rested lovingly upon such a scene of enchantment. The great
triple ledges of water which formed the cascade were only partially
frozen, and the spray, still dashing in parts against the rocks and
bare branches standing around them, seemed to congeal in mid-air, while
the tall pines spreading on either hand were bending from their normal
by weight of icy trappings. So much for the general effect--of a soft
yet crystalline whiteness covering and outlining every object--but in
detail, what a marvel of delicate tracery, what a miracle of intricate
interlacing of frosted boughs! Every twig was encased in a transparent
cylinder of flashing ice, every hillock crusted over with freshly
fallen snow; the evergreens, in shape like giant algae, drooped wide
fans to the earth, painted, spangled, and embroidered with glittering
encrustations; the wires across the river from Bois Clair to Montmagny
were harps of shining silver strings, the rough fences turned to
graceful arabesques, the houses changed to domes and turrets and
battlements of marble.
The sun was veiled as yet, but occasionally from behind the
greyish-white of a cloudless spreading sky a pale yellow gleam stole
forth, creating fires of prismatic rose and violet in each glassy twig
and leaf. At these times, too, there woke and stirred a faint, faint
wind, almost a warm wind, and then, here and there, a little cushion or
mat or flag of snow would fall, or an icy stem break off. The silence
was absolute, animal life appeared suspended, the squirrels no longer
ran chattering in quest of food, as on mild days they will near
habitations, no bird was seen or heard. This state of coma or trance
held all created things, and as with most Canadian scenery, small
chance was there for sentiment; the shepherd of the Lake country or the
mountaineer of Switzerland were not represented by any picturesque
figure, although small spirals of smoke floated up from the straggling
settlements, and a habitant wife sometimes looked out from a door or a
window, her face dark and shrivelled for the most part, and with clumsy
woollen wraps thrown around head and shoulders.
The absence of human interest and the silence intensified the serene
splendours of the forest and great Fall on such a day as this, when
growth and change had reached a standstill and when the cool brooding
of the air recalled the moments before dawn or the remote and unnatural
quiescence that marks an eclipse. To walk near the forest would mean
to encounter huge mounds of snow hiding the levelled logs and boulders,
stalactites of ponderous icicles depending from the tree trunks where
the openings faced the light and the sun; farther in, and once safely
past these glacial outposts, scarcely any signs of storm appeared; last
year's leaves, still matted together underfoot, were tangled with the
green vine of the creeping linnaea and a rare root of the lustrous
winter-green. Here, beneath the thick canopy of branches not all
devoid of their foliage since many larches and pines were to be found
there, was another climate; coming from that bland whiteness which was
not cold, these dark arcades of forest struck chills to the feet and
face; damp odours rose from rotting mould and wood not protected by a
snowy covering, and broad sallow fungi, wide enough to sit upon, looked
of an unearthly tint in the drear half-light.
Naturally the sight of these glittering plains and frosted forests,
unusual even in that land of snow and ice, called for sightseers, and
at Poussette's every one had been up early to gaze on the outside
world, among whom were Miss Clairville and Crabbe, the latter feeling
his recent backsliding very keenly. Pauline had now finally packed her
little trousseau and other belongings, and arrangements were being made
to enable Poussette to leave his business and Miss Cordova her sewing;
the party of four were to descend on the Hotel Champlain on Wednesday,
the wedding would take place on Thursday, the married couple sailing at
once for Liverpool.
Leaning on her lover's arm, Pauline therefore easily found warmth and
words with which to admire the landscape spread before her, for was she
not soon to leave it, exchanging these frigid and glacial glories for
life in a European capital, and, once for all, abandoning all ideas of
a career and relegating everything at St. Ignace and Clairville to a
place in her memory? Beautiful, then, she found it, and gaily
proposing a walk along the decorated road, suddenly remembered Angeel
and resolved to visit her and say good-bye. Crabbe demurred.
"Why should you?" he said, with the nettled intolerance of a being
angry with himself, and prone to visit his ill-temper on others.
"But I must, Edmund! I meant to before. If Henry had not died, or if
we had never found out about the other matter, I would have gone!"
"I see no reason. The brat has its mother, hasn't it?"
"Oh, don't be so hard! Yes, yes, of course, but she might like to
remember me, wish to see me once again,--it may be for the last time."
"Gad--I think it will. I'm not worth much, 'pon my soul, but I can
take you away and save you from all this annoyance. I hate every hour
of delay, I dislike this loafing about here now. I wish--by Heaven! I
were leaving Poussette's this minute for good and all."
His eye roved discontentedly over the forest and road, and then came
back wistfully to Pauline. It was evident that his affection was of a
sincere and unselfish order, and that with her to shield and serve and
with her lively handsome personality as his constant companion, he
might yet recover lost ground and be the man he might have been.
"I keep telling you that we have not so long to wait," she said
brightly, as she went indoors to get ready for the walk, and Crabbe,
turning his gaze in the direction of the bridge, became interested in
the aspect of the Fall, still thundering down in part over those mighty
ledges, except where the ice held and created slippery glaciers at
whose feet ran the cold brown river for a few hundred yards till it was
again met by fields of shining ice. Two objects caught his eye, one,
the golden cross on the church over at Montmagny, the only one of its
kind in the valley and much admired, the other, a curious spot of
reddish colour at the far end of the bridge. The cross he soon tired
of, but the bit of red aroused his curiosity; it seemed almost square,
like a large book or package, and was apparently propped up against the
stonework that supported the bridge. What it was, he did not trouble
to conjecture, and as Miss Clairville came out with several parcels
which he took from her, he forgot the circumstance as he turned and
walked a few steps with her. Thus, her quicker brain was not directed
to an explanation of the blot of red; had she seen it, and solved it,
which was highly probable, the events of the day might have been vastly
different.
"What are these things?" said Crabbe, fingering the parcels with a
fretful note in his voice.
"Just some little presents, little trifles for her, Angeel. Nothing I
cannot spare, Edmund. She belongs to me, after all. I shall never see
her again, and I must not do less for her than for Maisie and Jack.
You are coming with me? It is not worth while. I prefer to go alone,
_mon ami_."
"Why not? A walk with you may keep me out of mischief, although with
your theatrical friend mounting guard over Poussette I think I can
promise you abstinence for the next few days."
Miss Clairville stopped in her brisk walk and searched his worn face.
"You are not well," she said suddenly, "you are not looking well."
He raised his arms, then dropped them with a kind of whimsical
desperation. "How can I be well, or look well? My pride has suffered
as well as my health. I'm ill, ashamed, and sorry. What'll we do,
Pauline, if I can't keep sober?"
He had often said this to her, but never with such depth of sorrowful
meaning as now.
"What shall we do, lady dear?" he repeated in a helpless, fretful
murmur. "What shall we do?"
Her figure stiffened, she was again the tragic muse, the woman of the
world with experience and authority behind her, and, woman-like, as he
weakened, she grew stronger.
"You are not likely to," she cried with a fine encouraging gesture.
"It is possible, I admit, but not probable. For you, Edmund, as well
as for me, it is new places, new images, for the snows of this forlorn,
this desolate, cold Canada; the boulevards of Paris, for the hermit's
cell in the black funereal forest.--There goes your friend Martin now,
_voilà_! _B'jour_, Martin."
"_B'jour_, mademoiselle!"
"Those apartments you spoke of in London, in German Street. Tell
me--is that some colony where musicians, perhaps, gather, or the
long-haired art students I have heard so much about?"
Crabbe stared.
"Students! Colony! Jermyn Street? Oh--I see--_German_ Street--I see,
I understand."
He laughed, but not quite freely--spontaneously. Indeed, so much did
he feel some unaccustomed stress, he did not stop to set her right.
What did her ignorance of a certain London locality matter? what did
anything matter just now but the one leading uppermost thought--let
nothing prevent our leaving this place together and leaving it soon, no
failure of mine, no caprice of hers, no interference of another? New
resolution showed in his features; he dropped her hand which he had
been holding and turned back towards Poussette's.
"You are right, as usual," he said soberly. "There's no need for me to
go with you. I'll turn home-along as they used to say in Devonshire,
and try to do a little writing while I can, for after to-morrow I fear
it will not be easy. So good-bye to you, lady dear, good-bye for an
hour or two, good-bye!"
A little chilled by standing, in spite of that soft wind, Pauline ran
lightly along towards Lac Calvaire, conscious always of her fine
appearance and humming operatic snatches as she ran, bent upon an
errand, which if not precisely one of mercy was yet one prompted by
good-will and a belated sisterliness. The glowing prospects ahead
opened her heart, not by nature a hard one, and happy in the character
of _grande dame_ and patron of the afflicted she went forth briskly on
her long walk at first. She reflected that her thirtieth birthday was
past, but that before a year had elapsed she would be firmly planted
abroad enjoying plenty of money, change of scene, and variety of
occupation, and even should Crabbe relapse, she saw herself rejuvenated
and strong in hope, capable of studying fresh parts beneath a new and
stimulating sky. Yet under these comforting reflections there lurked
an uneasy fear; the Clairville streak in her made her suspicious of her
present happiness, and as she perceived the well-known reddish gables
of her home, through the surrounding pines and snow, a qualm of unrest
shot through her. It was only a week since she had driven away with
Dr. Renaud, and here she was, again drawn by irresistible force towards
the detested Manor House of her fathers, now completely in the hands of
the Archambaults, with the giggling, despised Artémise and the
afflicted Angeel seated in possession, and this unrest, this fear, was
intimately concerned with the future and the fate of Ringfield.
She said to herself as if speaking to Miss Cordova:--
"You have not felt the force of that strong character pushing against
your own, nor the terrible grip of that hand-pressure, nor the
insistence of those caresses which hurt as well as delighted, so
different from the lazy, careless little appropriations of my present
lover,--pats and kisses he might give to a child."
Ringfield's arms had drawn her to him till she could have cried out
with fear, his eyes had shudderingly gazed into hers as if determined
to wrest any secret she possessed, his lips had pained her with the
fierce anger and despair of those two long kisses he had pressed upon
her own--how could she forget or belittle such wooing as that, so
different from Crabbe's leisurely, complacent courting! She neither
forgot nor underrated, but she had deliberately and cruelly left one
for the other, and deep in her heart she knew that something sinister,
something shocking and desperate, might yet befall, and what she feared
to hear was of Ringfield's suicide, for she fancied him capable of this
final act of self-pity and despair.
By the time she reached Clairville the sun was again shining and the
beauty of the glissade beginning to wane. Dark-haired Archambaults
flitted about behind dingy windows--and, wondrous sight on a
mid-December day--the white peacock, tempted by the calm air, was
taking a walk in the wintry garden. Pauline summoned up her courage to
enter the house and was rewarded by the hysterical delight of Angeel,
brought up to admire and adore this haughty relation, who was soon
dispensing her small bounties in order to make the visit as short as
possible.