In Sleep a King, but Waking, no such Matter
De Lamourie himself showed me to my room, a low chamber under the eaves,
very plainly furnished. In the houses of the few Acadian gentry there
was little of the luxury to be found in the seigneurial mansions of the
St. Lawrence. In the De Lamourie house, for example, there were but two
serving-maids, with one man to work the little farm.
If De Lamourie had noted any excitement on Yvonne’s part, or any
abstraction on mine, he said nothing of it. With simple kindness he set
down the candle on my dressing-table and wished me good sleep. But at
the door he turned.
“Are you well assured that the abbé will not attempt to carry out his
threat?” he asked, with a tinge of anxiety in his voice.
“I am confident of it,” I answered boldly. “That worthy ecclesiastic
will not try issues with me, when I hold the king’s commission.”
Just why I should have been so overweeningly secure is not clear to me
now that I look back upon it. That I should have expected the terrible
La Garne to bow so pliantly to my command appears to me now the most
fatuous of vain follies. In truth I was thinking only of Yvonne. But De
Lamourie seemed to take my assurance as final, and went away in blither
mood.
My room was lighted by a narrow, high-peaked dormer window, through
which I could look out across the moonlit orchards, the level dyke
lands, the wide and winding mouth of the Gaspereau, and the
far-glimmering breast of Minas. Upon these my eyes rested long—but the
eyes of my soul saw quite another loveliness than that of the
moon-flooded landscape. They brooded upon Yvonne’s face—the troubled,
changing, pleading look in her eyes—her sharp and strange emotion at the
last. Over and over it all I went, reliving each moment, each word, each
look, each breath. Then, being deeply wearied by my long day’s tramp,
but with no hint of sleep coming to my eyes, I threw myself down upon
the bed to deliciously think it all over yet again. I had grown sure
that Yvonne loved me. Yet once more, in a still ecstasy of reverence and
love, I fell at her feet and kissed them. Then I thought about the stone
which Mother Pêche had given me, and its mystic virtues, which I would
explain to Yvonne on the morrow in the apple-orchard. Then I found
myself fancying that it was Yvonne who had given me the talisman,
bidding me guard it well if I would ever hope to win her from my English
rival. And then—the sunlight lay in a white streak across my bed-foot,
the morning sky was blue over the dyke lands, and the robins were joyous
in the apple-blooms under my window. What a marvellous air blew in upon
my face, sweet with all freshness and cleanness and wholesome strength!
I sprang up, deriding myself. I had slept all night in my clothes.
At breakfast I found myself in plain favour; I had made good my boast
and shielded the house from the Black Abbé. Yvonne met my eager looks
with a baffling lightness. She was all gay courtesy to me, but there was
that in her face which well dashed my hopes. Some faint encouragement,
indeed, I drew from the thought that her pallor (which became her
wonderfully) seemed to tell the tale of a sleepless night. Had she,
then, lain awake, wearily reproaching herself, while I slept like a
clod? If so, my punishment was not long delayed. Before the breakfast
was over I was in a fever of despairing solicitude. At last I achieved a
moment’s speech with Yvonne while the others were out of earshot.
“This morning,” said I, “in the apple-orchard, by an old tree which I
shall all my life remember, I am to read you those verses, am I not?
That was your decree.”
She faced me with laughter in her eyes, but the eyes dropped in spite of
her, and the colour came a little back to her cheeks.
“I decree otherwise this morning,” she said, in a voice whose lightness
was not perfect. “I am busy to-day, and shall not hear your poems at
all, unless you read them to _us_ this evening.”
“I will read them to you alone,” I muttered, “who alone are the source
of them, or I will burn them at once!”
“Don’t burn them,” she said, flashing one radiant glance at me.
“Then when may I read them to you?” I begged.
“When you are older, and a little wiser, and a great deal better,” she
laughed, turning away with a finality in her air that convinced me my
day was lost.
Putting my bravest face on my defeat, I said to Madame de Lamourie:
“If you will pardon me, Madame, I shall constrain myself and attend to
certain duties in and about Grand Pré to-day. I must see the curé; and I
have a commission to execute for the Sieur de Briart, which will take me
perhaps as far as Pereau. In such case I shall not be back here before
to-morrow noon.”
“If our pleasure concerns you,” said Madame very graciously, “make your
absence as brief as you can.”
“I was born with a nice regard for self,” I replied. “You may be sure I
shall return as quickly as possible.”
“And what if the Black Abbé should come while you are away?” questioned
Yvonne, in mock alarm.
“If that extraordinary priest makes my presence here a long necessity I
shall come to regard him as my best friend,” said I, laughing, as I
bowed myself out to join De Lamourie in a stroll over the farm.
During this walk I learned much of the state of unrest and painful dread
under which Acadie was laboring. De Lamourie told me how the English
governor at Halifax was bringing a mighty pressure to bear upon all the
Acadian householders, urging them to swear allegiance to King George.
This, he said, very many were willing to do, as the English had governed
them with justice and a most patient indulgence. For his own part, while
he regretted to go counter to opinions which I held well-nigh sacred, he
declared that, in his judgment, the cause of France was forever lost in
Acadie, if not in all Canada. He felt it his duty to give in his
allegiance to the English throne, under whose protection he had
prospered these many years. But strong as the English were, he said, the
prospect was not reassuring; for many of those who had taken the oath
had been brought to swift repentance by the Black Abbé’s painted and
yelling pack, the very Christian Micmacs of Shubenacadie; while others
had been pillaged, maltreated, and even in some cases murdered, by the
band of masquerading cut-throats who served the will of the infamous
Vaurin.
At this I grew hot within, realizing as I had not done before the vile
connection into which the Commandant Vergor had cast me. But I said
nothing, being unwilling to interrupt De Lamourie’s impassioned story.
He told of horrid treacheries on the part of the Micmacs, disavowed,
indeed, by La Garne, but unquestionably winked at by him as a means of
keeping the Acadians in hand. He told of whole villages wiped out by the
Black Abbé’s order, the houses burned, the trembling villagers removed
to Ile St. Jean or across the isthmus, that they might be beyond the
reach of English seductions. He told, too, of the hideous massacre at
Dartmouth, the infant English settlement across the harbor from Halifax.
This had come to my ears, but he gave me the reeking particulars.
“And this, too,” I asked in horror, “is it La Garne’s work?”
“He is accused of it by the English,” said he, “but for once he is
accused unjustly, I do believe. It was Vaurin who planned it; Vaurin and
his cut-throats, disguised as Indians and with a few of La Garne’s flock
to help, who carried it out. It was too purposeless for La Garne. He
rules his savages with a rod of iron, and it is said that his
displeasure lay heavy for a time upon the braves who had taken part in
that outrage. They went without pay or booty for many months. But at
length he forgave them—he had work for them to do.”
When the tale was done, and it was a tale that filled me with shame for
my country’s cause, I said:
“It is well my word carried such weight with the good abbé last night.
It is well indeed, and it is wonderful!”
“I cannot even yet quite understand it,” said De Lamourie, “but the
essential part is the highly satisfactory result. I am going to Halifax
next Monday, Paul, with a half score followers who feel as I do; and
though I cannot expect you to sympathize with my course, I dare to hope
you may be able to prolong your visit so as to keep my wife and daughter
under your effective protection.”
I think I must have let the eagerness with which I accepted this trust
betray itself in voice or face, for Monsieur de Lamourie looked at me
curiously. But I really cared little what his suspicions might be. If I
could win Yvonne I thought I might be sure of Yvonne’s father.
Having well admired the orchard, and tried to distinguish the “pippin”
trees from the “belle-fleurs,” the “Jeannetons” from the “Pride of
Normandie;” having praised the rich and even growth of the flax field;
having talked with an excellent assumption of wisdom on the well-bred
and well-fed cattle which were a hobby with this courtier farmer, this
Versailles Acadian, I stepped forth into the main street of Grand Pré
and turned toward the house of Father Fafard. I was curiously troubled
by an uneasiness as to the Black Abbé, and I knew no better antidote to
a bad priest than a good one.