THE WILL OF GOD
"I hope, said she, that Heaven
Will give me patience to endure the things
Which I behold at home...."
The glorious noonday sun was lighting up all the road to Clairville and
making it possible for the peacock to revive his display of a
glistening fan of feathers tipped with frosted filaments that were only
rivalled by the pendant encrustations of the surrounding trees, and in
a window of the manor Pauline was standing looking at the bird after
showing Angeel the various little trifles she had brought with her.
The child's infirmity did not prevent her from enjoying the good things
of life; indeed, as frequently occurs in such cases, her senses were
almost preternaturally acute and her faculties bright and sensitive in
the extreme. In place of any system of general education, impossible
during those sequestered years at Hawthorne in charge of her incapable
mother, she had picked up one or two desultory talents which might yet
stand her instead of mere bookishness; she was never without a pencil
in her long white fingers and busied herself by the hour with little
drawings and pictures of what she had seen in her limited experience,
and some of these she had been exhibiting now to the person she held
both in awe and adoration. Her kinship to this elegant, dark-haired
lady had only recently been explained, and Pauline was trying to
accustom herself to being addressed as "ma tante" and "tante chérie"
with other endearing and embarrassing terms of regard.
But the time was going on and Miss Clairville turned from the window; a
very little of Angeel was all she could stand just now.
"At this rate our beautiful view will soon disappear," she said,
sitting down beside the basket-chair. "See then, _mon enfant_, how
already the ice drips off the trees and all the pretty glass tubes are
melting from the wires overhead! It is so warm too, like a day in
spring. _Eh! bien_, I must go now back to my friends who are waiting
for me. I have nothing more to show little girls. You have now the
beads, the satin pincushion, and the little red coat that is called a
Zouave jacket--see how gay! and you will find it warm and pleasant to
wear when your kind _maman_ makes it to fit you. And here too are the
crayons to paint with and a new slate. _Soyez toujours bonne fille,
p'tite_, and perhaps some day you will see your poor aunt again."
"Not my poor aunt! My rich, _rich_ aunt."
"Ah--_tais toi, ma p'tite_! But you, too, are not poor any longer.
That reminds me, I must have a little talk with your kind _maman_."
With some difficulty overcoming her dislike of the individual and
aversion to the entire family arrangement, Pauline walked out to the
hall which separated the faded _salon_, where she had been sitting,
from the still untidy bedroom and called for Artémise. In a few
moments the widow of Henry Clairville came in sight at the top of the
staircase leading to the upper room, her bright black eyes dulled and
frightened and her hands trembling visibly, for was not Mlle.
Clairville her enemy, being not only a relative now by marriage but her
late mistress, tyrant and superior? But the certainty of leaving the
neighbourhood in a very few days put Pauline so much at her ease that
she could afford to show her brightest and most amiable side to her
sister-in-law, and thus she made a graceful if authoritative advance to
the bottom of the staircase and stretched forth both her white hands,
even going the length of imprinting a slow kiss on the other's sunburnt
cheek. Few could at any time have resisted the mingled charms of so
magnetic a personality, with something of the stage lingering in it, an
audacity, an impulsiveness, rare among great ladies, and it must be
remembered that in the limited society of St. Ignace, Miss Clairville
passed as a great lady, and was one indeed in all minor traits. Then
the touch of her skin was so soft, there always exhaled a delicate,
elusive, but sweet perfume from her clothes and hair, and even in her
mourning she had preserved the artistic touches necessary to please.
No wonder that the poor Artémise should burst into weak tears and cry
for pity and forgiveness as that soft kiss fell upon her cheek and
those proud hands grasped her own.
"_Chut_!" cried Miss Clairville, drawing the other into the _salon_.
"I am not angry with you, child! If Henry made you his wife it was
very right of him and no one shall blame you nor complain. Only had I
known--ah, well, it might not have made so much difference after all.
You are going to be very comfortable here, Artémise, and I shall write
to you from time to time--oh, have no fear! regularly, my dear! And
Dr. Renaud and his Reverence are to see about selling Henry's books and
papers, and it is possible that they bring you a nice sum of money.
With that, there is one thing I should like you to do. Are you
listening to me, Artémise?"
"_Bien_, mademoiselle," answered Artémise, through her sobs. "I
listen, I will do anything you say. I am sorry, ma'amselle. I should
not be here, I know; it is you who should be here, here at Clairville,
and be its mistress."
Still secure in her ideas of impending ease and happiness, and unaware
of the course of tragic accident which was operating at that same
moment against her visions of release and freedom and depriving her of
the future she relied on, Pauline laughed musically at the notion.
"Oh, that--for me? No, thank you, my dear. In any case I had done
with Clairville. If not marriage, then the stage. If not the
stage--and there were times when it wearied and disgusted me, with the
uneducated people one met and the vagaries of that man, Jean
Rochelle--then a paid situation somewhere. The last--very difficult
for me, a Clairville [and again she very nearly used the prefix, a
tardy endorsing of Henry's pet project], and with my peculiar needs.
To be sure, a religious house had offered me a good place, thanks to
Father Rielle, at a good figure for Canada, but there are other
countries, Artémise, there are other countries, and I am still young,
_n'est-ce-pas_?"
"Mademoiselle will never be old. She has the air of a princess, the
complexion--_d'une vierge_!"
Pauline was much amused and laughed once more with so thrilling a
cadence in her rich voice that the child in the basket-chair clapped
its hands and laughed too.
"So now, Artémise, try and understand what I tell you, for I shall not
see you again before I leave, and these are my last wishes, to be
faithfully carried out. I know the world, my dear, and I have had many
trying, many sad experiences, and as you grow older, and I trust wiser,
you will begin to realize what a charge Angeel will be. Are you
attending, Artémise?"
"_Oui, oui, ma'amselle_."
"Very well. I have told Dr. Renaud to come and see you often and
advise you; he will be a kind of guardian for you both, and will attend
you, as he did Henry, free of charge. The debts in the village and at
Poussette's cannot possibly be paid, but I will speak to Maman
Archambault about the future. The sale of Henry's effects will bring
enough, I hope, to enable you to find, still through Dr. Renaud, some
kind teacher for Angeel, and I wish, I particularly wish that this
talent for drawing and painting shall be encouraged. Do you understand
me?"
"_Oui, Ma'amselle_." Pauline's bright eye had transfixed the wandering
gaze of Artémise, who by almost superhuman efforts was trying to
collect her thoughts and remember all these directions.
"She can never hope for companionship, nor--certainly not--for school
advantages, nor yet marriage; how then? She must amuse herself, fill
in the time, be always occupied. Maman Archambault and you will sew
for her, cook for her, and watch over her, and if at any time the money
comes to an end----Artémise, listen, I tell you! Collect your wits and
keep looking at me." For the girl's attention was clearly wandering
now to something outside the house.
"_Oui, Mademoiselle, oui, oui._"
Pauline stamped her foot in her annoyance.
"The creature is not following what I say!" she exclaimed.
"Angeel--you can remember! You know what I have been saying. You are
to learn to draw, perhaps to paint, to make little pictures,
caricatures--oh, it will be so pleasant for you, and by and by people
will pay you to do this for them. See, _petite_, you must be very wise
for yourself, for the poor kind _maman_ cannot be wise for you."
And Angeel's heavy head nodded sagely in swift discernment of this
evident truth, for Artémise was now tired of the subject and of
Pauline's endless farewells and preferred to look out of the window.
Rare sight on a December day, the peacock was still pacing to and fro,
for the air was as mild and balmy as in June, and although the road ran
water and the trees were rapidly losing their icy trappings the
courtyard had been swept of snow and therefore remained almost dry.
The beauty of the glissade was over. But Artémise looked only for a
moment at the peacock. Along the road from the direction of the
village were advancing two men, Dr. Renaud and the priest; behind them,
a few steps, walked Martin, the Indian. They came near the stone
fence, they stopped, all three, and seemed to confer, studying from
time to time the front of the house. Absorbed in watching them,
Artémise listened no longer at all to Miss Clairville's pronouncements
and indeed very little was left to say. Pauline put on her gloves,
slung her muff around her neck and submitted to a frantic embrace from
the warm-hearted, lonely little girl, then turned to bid farewell to
the mother.
"Two hours by my watch!" she cried gaily. "Which of us has been the
gossip, the chatterbox, eh, Artémise! _Eh! bien_, I wish you a very
sincere and a very long good-bye." Some emotion crept into her throat,
into her voice. The child was her brother's. This poor girl, the
mother, bore her own name, and she could not harden her heart entirely
against the ill-starred couple, and why should she! She was bidding
them both farewell, probably for ever, and the prospect so soothed her
that she ejaculated, "Poor children!" and wiped away a tear.
"Take great care of yourself, Artémise, for Angeel's sake and mine, and
for the sake of the name you bear and the place it has held in the
country. But what are you looking at so intently? What is the matter
out there, Artémise?"
At that instant the priest detached himself from the others and
entering the domain walked slowly up to the door and knocked.
Pauline, not comprehending the nature of the visit, went herself and
opened to Father Rielle. His long face told her nothing--was it not
always long? The presence of Renaud and the guide, whom she also saw
in the background, told her nothing; their being there was perhaps only
a coincidence and they had not turned their faces as yet in her
direction. Precisely as Crabbe had met his fate without seeing it
arrive, although half an hour earlier he had foreseen death and prayed
against it, she faced the priest with a smiling countenance, her
tremors past, her conviction--that her lover was alive and well and
able to take her away that instant if necessary--quite unaltered.
Father Rielle had a difficult task to perform and he realized it.
Twice he essayed to speak and twice he stammered only unmeaning words.
Pauline translated his incoherent and confused murmurs with
characteristic and vigorous conceit; she believed him so anxious to
make her a private farewell instead of a stereotyped adieu in public
that she thought he had walked out from St. Ignace on purpose.
"It is all settled and therefore hopeless!" she began. "You cannot
interfere or change me now."
The priest repeated the words after her. "Settled? Hopeless?" he
uttered in a furtive manner as if anxious to escape.
"I mean my marriage," she went on gaily. "It has been discovered that
I am no longer, if I was ever, a good Catholic, and there is
consequently no hitch, no difficulty! I am supposed to be nothing at
all, so we shall be just married in the one church, his church, you
understand. And now you may absolve me, your Reverence, if you choose,
for the last time."
"Mademoiselle," began the priest with a scared look at the bright face
above him, "it is of that I must speak. Mademoiselle, this marriage,
your marriage, it--it will not take place. It cannot take place."
The brilliant eyes hardened, the barred gate stood out upon her
forehead.
"You think because I am a Catholic----"
"No, Mademoiselle, it has nothing to do with that. I came here to tell
you, I was sent--there is something you must be told, that you must
know--it is very difficult for me. Oh! Mademoiselle, I find it even
more difficult than I thought, I must have help, I must ask some one
else, I cannot--cannot."
His voice broke, stopped. The other men, turning at last towards the
house, saw the priest's bowed head and Pauline's bright but angry face,
and Dr. Renaud at once came to Father Rielle's rescue.
"Mademoiselle," he began, but Pauline, leaving the door open, rushed
down the walk and met him at the gate. Her hands were pressed upon her
bosom and her wild eyes sought his in alarm, for she knew now that
something had happened, that something was wrong, although the mental
picture of Crabbe lying dead or dying did not occur to her. She
figured instead, some quibble, some legal matter, a money strait, a
delay, but the doctor, quietly taking one of her hands in his, spoke as
tenderly as was possible for a man of his bearing.
"Father Rielle is saddened, crushed. He cannot tell you, for he feels
it too much. I feel it, too, but I must be brave and put away these
feelings, this natural weakness. My dear lady, my dear Mademoiselle,
your friend, your _fiancé_, the man you were about to marry, has met
with a very bad accident."
"A bad accident."
"Yes, a very serious one. You must be prepared."
"He has been killed? Then I know who did it--I know."
"An accident, an accident only, mademoiselle, I assure you. But a very
serious one, as I have said."
"Very serious? He--he--where is he? Take me to him. Oh! I knew
something would happen, I am not surprised, I am not surprised. But it
shall not prevent my seeing him, waiting on him. It shall not prevent
our marriage."
The piteousness of her position softened the doctor's heart still
further; he kept hold of her hand and modulated his voice.
"I am afraid it may. I am afraid you will have to prepare yourself for
a great shock. Martin here--found him."
She did not yet understand.
"Martin, I say, was the one who found it."
The change of pronoun did not fully enlighten her.
"But he is alive! Yes, of course he is alive, only badly hurt. Then
we can be married at once wherever he is. Any one can marry us--Father
Rielle will tell you that. If we both wish, and we both believe in
God, that is sufficient. Other things will not matter. Any one, any
one can marry us. Take me to him."
Dr. Renaud, relinquishing her hand, stepped to the side of the priest
and was followed by Martin. Artémise, always curious and flighty, ran
out and overheard a word or two as the three men again conferred and
fled back to the house, shrieking as she went.
"Dead! Dead! Another death! Within a week! You see I can count!
You see I can count! Dead, drowned, and all in a week!"
The truth was now borne in upon Pauline, and she turned to meet the
united gaze of the three men, reading confirmation of the awful news in
their averted and sobered eyes. The shock told, her limbs shook, her
sight left her, her throat grew sore and dry, but she did not faint.
"I am so cold," she said in English. And again in the same tongue. "I
feel so cold. Why is it?"
Dr. Renaud hastened to her, supporting her with his arm.
"You have guessed?" he said hurriedly.
"I heard. Is it true?"
"Dear mademoiselle, I regret to say, quite true. He was carried over
the Fall! there was no escape, no hope. Come, let me take you back to
the house for a moment where you may sit down." For she continued to
tremble so violently that presently she sank upon the low fence, still
pressing her hands over her heart. "Come, mademoiselle, let me take
you into the house."
"Not that house! Not that house!"
"Faith--I know of no other! You cannot remain here."
"But I can go back, back to Poussette's."
"You must drive or be driven then. You cannot walk."
It was true. Pauline's breath was now very short, her articulation
difficult, her throat contracted and relaxed by turns.
"It is true!" she gasped. "I cannot walk. I cannot even stand up.
Oh, Dr. Renaud, this is more than weakness or fright. I am very sick,
Doctor. Why cannot I stand up?"
Renaud tore off his coat, the priest and Martin did the same. Folding
all three beside the fence where the snow was still thick and dry they
laid Miss Clairville down and watched her. Martin fetched brandy while
the entire Archambault family flocked out to see the sight, and stood
gaping and chattering until rebuked by Father Rielle. The doctor knelt
a long time at her side. Knowing her so well, he was secretly
astonished at the weakness she had shown and he dealt with her most
kindly. Tragedy had at last touched her too deeply; a latent tendency
of the heart to abnormal action had suddenly developed under pressure
of emotion and strain of shock, and he foresaw what she and the others
did not--a long and tedious illness with periods of alarming collapse
and weakness. For herself, so ill was she for the first time in her
active life, she thought more about her own condition than of her loss;
she imagined herself dying and following her lover on the same day to
the grave. The image of Ringfield too was absent from her thoughts,
which were now chiefly concentrated on her symptoms and sufferings.
"Am I not very ill?" she asked presently, after a little of the brandy
had somewhat stilled the dreadful beating of her heart, the dreadful
booming in her ears.
"Yes, mademoiselle. But you will recover."
"I have never been sick before."
"You are sure of that? Never had any nervous sensations, no tremors,
no palpitations?"
"Ah, those! Yes, frequently, but I never thought much about them.
They were part of my life, my emotional life, and natural to me. Shall
I die?"
"I think not, mademoiselle. I believe not, but you may be ill for a
while."
"Ill! For how long?"
"That I cannot tell you. You must have care and quiet, absolute quiet."
Pauline said no more. The distress of heart and nerves came on again;
she moaned, being exceedingly troubled in spirit and her pallor was
great.
"It is clear you must not remain out in the road any longer,
mademoiselle. You must be put to bed and have warmth and rest and some
kind woman to look after you. Ah! How we would welcome our good Mme.
Poussette now, but she has flown, she has flown. So it will be Mme.
Archambault perhaps, who knows all about sickness; has she not reared
thirteen of her own, or fourteen, I forget which? Come, mademoiselle,
we will lift you carefully. The door is open, the manor is hospitable
and warm, its kitchen and larder well stocked, its cellars overflowing.
Faith--you might do worse, and at Poussette's who would be there to
nurse you?"
Pauline was too spent to utter the defiant objections that in health
she would have hurled at the speaker. Tragedy indeed had touched her
for once too deeply, and she submitted to be helped back into her old
home, the house made hateful by a thousand painful associations of an
unhappy youth, without uttering a single remonstrance. Some of her
native courage knocked timidly at her frightened heart, clamouring to
be reassured of days to come, of duties to be taken up, of life to be
lived, for over and above her sense of cruel frustration and
bereavement she dreaded death, not caring to die. The closing of the
episode in which the guide figured so prominently appalled and
stupefied her, yet her inherent vitality sprang up, already trying to
assert itself.
"What a position is mine!" she thought, when a slight return of
strength enabled her, leaning on the doctor's arm, to reach the room so
long occupied by her brother. But her lips said nothing. There was no
other place to put her; the salon did not contain a sofa, she could not
be lodged with Artémise or Angeel, and meanwhile her weakness increased
till she asked herself to be put to bed. Maman Archambault was sent
for and in a few moments Pauline was lying on the lumpy tattered
mattress which had served Henry Clairville for his last couch.
The course of tragic accident had brought her to this, and could she
have foreseen the long, long weary time, first of illness, then of
convalescence, and finally a physical change so marked as to unfit her
for all but a narrow domestic life, it is likely that with her fierce
and impatient temper she might have been tempted to end her existence.
As one for whom the quest of happiness was ended as far as a prosperous
marriage and removal from St. Ignace were involved, she now depended on
herself again, and bitterly as she might mourn and lament the
disappointment and chagrin which in a moment had permanently saddened
her future, her grief and mortification would have been bitterer still
could she have foreseen the long nights of half-delirious insomnia, the
days of utter apathy and uselessness which stretched blankly before her.
Later that night, when she had tried to compose herself to sleep but
without success, she called Maman Archambault into the room.
"Give me a light--for the love of God, a light!" she wailed, sitting up
with all her dark hair pouring over the bed. "How dare you leave me
without a light and I so ill!"
"But the doctor said----"
"What do I care what he said! In this room, in the dark, are all sorts
of creatures, I hear them! Henry is here, or his ghost, and the
Poussette woman is here, singing her silly songs, and rats are here,
and cats, and worse things, moving and crawling all over me, in the
walls, everywhere!"
The old woman set the lamp on the table. She was very angry.
"It is not so, mademoiselle. The room was cleaned. Maybe a ghost,
_n'sais pas_. Maybe a cat or two. Yes, there's the white one now
under your bed and her kittens! I'll drive them out."
Miss Clairville sank back and watched. So had her brother lain. So
had the cats lain under the bed during his sickness. Maman Archambault
went out to her _paillasse_ in the hall, the night wore on, but without
sleep for Pauline, and towards morning so intense were her sufferings
that a messenger was sent for Dr. Renaud, who came as requested and was
destined to come again and again for many a weary month.