Pierre And His People, [Tales of the Far North], Complete - Gilbert Parker
Her manner of speech, as this went on, became exquisite in fineness,
slower, and more dream-like, until, with downward protesting motions of
the hand, she said that "nothing--never!" Then a great sigh surged up her
throat, her lips parted slightly, showing the warm moist whiteness of her
teeth, her hands falling lightly, drew together and folded in front of
her. She stood still.
Pierre had watched this scene intently, his chin in his hands, his elbows
on his knees. Presently he drew himself up, ran a finger meditatively
along his lip, and said to himself: "It is perfect. She is carved from
the core of nature. But this thing has danger for her . . . 'bien!' . . .
ah!"
A change in the scene before him caused this last expression of surprise.
Hilton, rousing from the enchanting pantomime, took a step towards her;
but she raised her hand pleadingly, restrainingly, and he paused. With
his eyes he asked her mutely why. She did not answer, but, all at once
transformed into a thing of abundant sprightliness, ran down the
hillside, tossing up her arms gaily. Yet her face was not all brilliance.
Tears hung at her eyes. But Hilton did not see these. He did not run, but
walked quickly, following her; and his face had a determined look.
Immediately, a man rose up from behind a rock on the same side of the
ravine, and shook clenched fists after the departing figures; then stood
gesticulating angrily to himself, until, chancing to look up, he sighted
Pierre, and straightway dived into the underbrush. Pierre rose to his
feet, and said slowly: "Hilton, here may be trouble for you also. It is a
tangled world."
Towards evening Pierre sauntered to the house of Ida's father. Light of
footstep, he came upon the girl suddenly. They had always been friends
since the day when, at uncommon risk, he rescued her dog from a freshet
on the Wild Moose River. She was sitting utterly still, her hands folded
in her lap. He struck his foot smartly on the ground. She felt the
vibration, and looked up. He doffed his hat, and she held out her hand.
He smiled and took it, and, as it lay in his, looked at it for a moment
musingly. She drew it back slowly. He was then thinking that it was the
most intelligent hand he had ever seen. . . . He determined to play a
bold and surprising game. He had learned from her the alphabet of the
fingers--that is, how to spell words. He knew little gesture-language.
He, therefore, spelled slowly: "Hawley is angry, because you love
Hilton." The statement was so matter-of-fact, so sudden, that the girl
had no chance. She flushed and then paled. She shook her head firmly,
however, and her fingers slowly framed the reply: "You guess too much.
Foolish things come to the idle."
"I saw you this afternoon," he silently urged.
Her fingers trembled slightly. "There was nothing to see." She knew he
could not have read her gestures. "I was telling a story."
"You ran from him--why?" His questioning was cruel that he might in the
end be kind.
"The child runs from its shadow, the bird from its nest, the fish jumps
from the water--that is nothing." She had recovered somewhat.
But he: "The shadow follows the child, the bird comes back to its nest,
the fish cannot live beyond the water. But it is sad when the child, in
running, rushes into darkness, and loses its shadow; when the nest falls
from the tree; and the hawk catches the happy fish. . . . Hawley saw you
also."
Hawley, like Ida, was deaf and dumb. He lived over the mountains, but
came often. It had been understood that, one day, she should marry him.
It seemed fitting. She had said neither yes nor no. And now?
A quick tremor of trouble trailed over her face, then it became very
still. Her eyes were bent upon the ground steadily. Presently a bird
hopped near, its head coquetting at her. She ran her hand gently along
the grass towards it. The bird tripped on it. She lifted it to her chin,
at which it pecked tenderly. Pierre watched her keenly-admiring, pitying.
He wished to serve her. At last, with a kiss upon its head, she gave it a
light toss into the air, and it soared, lark-like, straight up, and
hanging over her head, sang the day into the evening. Her eyes followed
it. She could feel that it was singing. She smiled and lifted a finger
lightly towards it. Then she spelled to Pierre this: "It is singing to
me. We imperfect things love each other."
"And what about loving Hawley, then"? Pierre persisted. She did not
reply, but a strange look came upon her, and in the pause Hilton came
from the house and stood beside them. At this, Pierre lighted a
cigarette, and with a good-natured nod to Hilton, walked away.
Hilton stooped over her, pale and eager. "Ida," he gestured, "will you
answer me now? Will you be my wife?"
She drew herself together with a little shiver. "No," was her steady
reply. She ruled her face into stillness, so that it showed nothing of
what she felt. She came to her feet wearily, and drawing down a cool
flowering branch of chestnut, pressed it to her cheek. "You do not love
me"? he asked nervously.
"I am going to marry Luke Hawley," was her slow answer. She spelled the
words. She used no gesture to that. The fact looked terribly hard and
inflexible so. Hilton was not a vain man, and he believed he was not
loved. His heart crowded to his throat.
"Please go away, now," she begged with an anxious gesture. While the hand
was extended, he reached and brought it to his lips, then quickly kissed
her on the forehead, and walked away. She stood trembling, and as the
fingers of one hand hung at her side, they spelled mechanically these
words: "It would spoil his life. I am only a mute--a dummy!"
As she stood so, she felt the approach of someone. She did not turn
instantly, but with the aboriginal instinct, listened, as it were, with
her body; but presently faced about--to Hawley. He was red with anger. He
had seen Hilton kiss her. He caught her smartly by the arm, but, awed by
the great calmness of her face, dropped it, and fell into a fit of
sullenness. She spoke to him: he did not reply. She touched his arm: he
still was gloomy. All at once the full price of her sacrifice rushed upon
her; and overpowered her. She had no help at her critical hour, not even
from this man she had intended to bless. There came a swift revulsion,
all passions stormed in her at once. Despair was the resultant of these
forces. She swerved from him immediately, and ran hard towards the
high-banked river!
Hawley did not follow her at once: he did not guess her purpose. She had
almost reached the leaping-place, when Pierre shot from the trees, and
seized her. The impulse of this was so strong, that they slipped, and
quivered on the precipitous edge: but Pierre righted then, and presently
they were safe.
Pierre held her hard by both wrists for a moment. Then, drawing her away,
he loosed her, and spelled these words slowly: "I understand. But you are
wrong. Hawley is not the man. You must come with me. It is foolish to
die."
The riot of her feelings, her momentary despair, were gone. It was even
pleasant to be mastered by Pierre's firmness. She was passive.
Mechanically she went with him. Hawley approached. She looked at Pierre.
Then she turned on the other. "Yours is not the best love," she signed to
him; "it does not trust; it is selfish." And she moved on.
But, an hour later, Hilton caught her to his bosom, and kissed her full
on the lips. . . . And his right to do so continues to this day.
A TRAGEDY OF NOBODIES
At Fort Latrobe sentiment was not of the most refined kind. Local customs
were pronounced and crude in outline; language was often highly coloured,
and action was occasionally accentuated by a pistol shot. For the first
few months of its life the place was honoured by the presence of neither
wife, nor sister, nor mother. Yet women lived there.
When some men did bring wives and children, it was noticed that the girl
Blanche was seldom seen in the streets. And, however it was, there grew
among the men a faint respect for her. They did not talk of it to each
other, but it existed. It was known that Blanche resented even the most
casual notice from those men who had wives and homes. She gave the
impression that she had a remnant of conscience.
"Go home," she said to Harry Delong, who asked her to drink with him on
New Year's Day. "Go home, and thank God that you've got a home--and a
wife."
After Jacques, the long-time friend of Pretty Pierre, came to Fort
Latrobe, with his sulky eye and scrupulously neat attire, Blanche
appeared to withdraw still more from public gaze, though no one saw any
connection between these events. The girl also became fastidious in her
dress, and lost all her former dash and smart aggression of manner. She
shrank from the women of her class, for which, as might be expected, she
was duly reviled. But the foxes have holes, and the birds of the air have
nests, nor has it been written that a woman may not close her ears, and
bury herself in darkness, and travel alone in the desert with her
people--those ghosts of herself, whose name is legion, and whose slow
white fingers mock more than the world dare at its worst.
Suddenly, she was found behind the bar of Weir's Tavern at Cedar Point,
the resort most frequented by Jacques. Word went about among the men that
Blanche was taking a turn at religion, or, otherwise, reformation.
Soldier Joe was something sceptical on this point from the fact that she
had developed a very uncertain temper. This appeared especially
noticeable in her treatment of Jacques. She made him the target for her
sharpest sarcasm. Though a peculiar glow came to his eyes at times, he
was never roused from his exasperating coolness. When her shafts were
unusually direct and biting, and the temptation to resent was keen, he
merely shrugged his shoulders, almost gently, and said: "Eh, such women!"
Nevertheless, there were men at Fort Latrobe who prophesied trouble, for
they knew there was a deep strain of malice in the French half-breed
which could be the more deadly because of its rare use. He was not easily
moved, he viewed life from the heights of a philosophy which could
separate the petty from the prodigious. His reputation was not wholly
disquieting; he was of the goats, he had sometimes been found with the
sheep, he preferred to be numbered with the transgressors. Like Pierre,
his one passion was gambling. There were legends that once or twice in
his life he had had another passion, but that some Gorgon drew out his
heartstrings painfully, one by one, and left him inhabited by a pale
spirit now called Irony, now Indifference--under either name a fret and
an anger to women.
At last Blanche's attacks on Jacques called out anxious protests from men
like rollicking Soldier Joe, who said to her one night, "Blanche, there's
a devil in Jacques. Some day you'll startle him, and then he'll shoot you
as cool as he empties the pockets of Freddy Tarlton over there."
And Blanche replied: "When he does that, what will you do, Joe?"
"Do? Do?" The man stroked his beard softly. "Why, give him ditto--cold."
"Well, then, there's nothing to row about, is there?" And Soldier Joe was
not on the instant clever enough to answer her sophistry; but when she
left him and he had thought awhile, he said, convincingly:
"But where would you be then, Blanche? . . . That's the point."
One thing was known and certain: Blanche was earning her living by
honest, if not high-class, labour. Weir the tavern-keeper said she was
"worth hundreds" to him. But she grew pale, her eyes became peculiarly
brilliant, her voice took a lower key, and lost a kind of hoarseness it
had in the past. Men came in at times merely to have a joke at her
expense, having heard of her new life; but they failed to enjoy their own
attempts at humour. Women of her class came also, some with
half-uncertain jibes, some with a curious wistfulness, and a few with
scornful oaths; but the jibes and oaths were only for a time. It became
known that she had paid the coach fare of Miss Dido (as she was called)
to the hospital at Wapiti, and had raised a subscription for her
maintenance there, heading it herself with a liberal sum. Then the
atmosphere round her became less trying; yet her temper remained
changeable, and had it not been that she was good-looking and witty, her
position might have been insecure. As it was, she ruled in a neutral
territory where she was the only woman. One night, after an inclement
remark to Jacques, in the card-room, Blanche came back to the bar, and
not noticing that, while she was gone, Soldier Joe had entered and laid
himself down on a bench in a corner, she threw her head passionately
forward on her arms as they rested on the counter, and cried: "O my God!
my God!"
Soldier Joe lay still as if sleeping, and when Blanche was called away
again he rose, stole out, went down to Freddy Tarlton's office, and
offered to bet Freddy two to one that Blanche wouldn't live a year. Joe's
experience of women was limited. He had in his mind the case of a girl
who had accidentally smothered her child; and so he said:
"Blanche has something on her mind that's killing her, Freddy. When
trouble fixes on her sort it kills swift and sure. They've nothing to
live for but life, and it isn't good enough, you see, for--for--" Joe
paused to find out where his philosophy was taking him.
Freddy Tarlton finished the sentence for him: "For an inner sorrow is a
consuming fire."
Fort Latrobe soon had an unexpected opportunity to study Soldier Joe's
theory. One night Jacques did not appear at Weir's Tavern as he had
engaged to do, and Soldier Joe and another went across the frozen river
to his log-hut to seek him. They found him by a handful of fire,
breathing heavily and nearly unconscious. One of the sudden and
frequently fatal colds of the mountains had fastened on him, and he had
begun a war for life. Joe started back at once for liquor and a doctor,
leaving his comrade to watch by the sick man.
He could not understand why Blanche should stagger and grow white when he
told her; nor why she insisted on taking the liquor herself. He did not
yet guess the truth.
The next day all Fort Latrobe knew that Blanche was nursing Jacques, on
what was thought to be his no-return journey. The doctor said it was a
dangerous case, and he held out little hope. Nursing might bring him
through, but the chance was very slight. Blanche only occasionally left
the sick man's bedside to be relieved by Soldier Joe and Freddy Tarlton.
It dawned on Joe at last, it had dawned on Freddy before, what Blanche
meant by the heart-breaking words uttered that night in Weir's Tavern.
Down through the crust of this woman's heart had gone something both
joyful and painful. Whatever it was, it made Blanche a saving nurse, a
good apothecary; for, one night the doctor pronounced Jacques out of
danger, and said that a few days would bring him round if he was careful.
Now, for the first time, Jacques fully comprehended all Blanche had done
for him, though he had ceased to wonder at her changed attitude to him.
Through his suffering and his delirium had come the understanding of it.
When, after the crisis, the doctor turned away from the bed, Jacques
looked steadily into Blanche's eyes, and she flushed, and wiped the wet
from his brow with her handkerchief. He took the handkerchief from her
fingers gently before Soldier Joe came over to the bed.
The doctor had insisted that Blanche should go to Weir's Tavern and get
the night's rest, needed so much, and Joe now pressed her to keep her
promise. Jacques added an urging word, and after a time she started. Joe
had forgotten to tell her that a new road had been made on the ice since
she had crossed, and that the old road was dangerous. Wandering with her
thoughts she did not notice the spruce bushes set up for signal, until
she had stepped on a thin piece of ice. It bent beneath her. She slipped:
there was a sudden sinking, a sharp cry, then another, piercing and
hopeless--and it was the one word--"Jacques!" Then the night was silent
as before. But someone had heard the cry. Freddy Tarlton was crossing the
ice also, and that desolating Jacques! had reached his ears. When he
found her he saw that she had been taken and the other left. But that
other, asleep in his bed at the sacred moment when she parted, suddenly
waked, and said to Soldier Joe: "Did you speak, Joe? Did you call me?"
But Joe, who had been playing cards with himself, replied, "I haven't
said a word."
And Jacques then added: "Perhaps I dream--perhaps."
On the advice of the doctor and Freddy Tarlton, the bad news was kept
from Jacques. When she did not come the next day, Joe told him that she
couldn't; that he ought to remember she had had no rest for weeks, and
had earned a long rest. And Jacques said that was so.
Weir began preparations for the funeral, but Freddy Tarlton took them out
of his hands--Freddy Tarlton, who visited at the homes of Fort Latrobe.
But he had the strength of his convictions such as they were. He began by
riding thirty miles and back to ask the young clergyman at Purple Hill to
come and bury Blanche. She'd reformed and been baptised, Freddy said with
a sad sort of humour. And the clergyman, when he knew all, said that he
would come. Freddy was hardly prepared for what occurred when he got
back. Men were waiting for him, anxious to know if the clergyman was
coming. They had raised a subscription to cover the cost of the funeral,
and among them were men such as Harry Delong.
"You fellows had better not mix yourselves up in this," said Freddy.
But Harry Delong replied quickly: "I am going to see the thing through."
And the others endorsed his words. When the clergyman came, and looked at
the face of this Magdalene, he was struck by its comeliness and quiet.
All else seemed to have been washed away. On her breast lay a knot of
white roses--white roses in this winter desert.
One man present, seeing the look of wonder in the clergyman's eyes, said
quietly: "My--my wife sent them. She brought the plant from Quebec. It
has just bloomed. She knows all about her."
That man was Harry Delong. The keeper of his home understood the other
homeless woman. When she knew of Blanche's death she said: "Poor girl,
poor girl!" and then she had gently added, "Poor Jacques!"
And Jacques, as he sat in a chair by the fire four days after the
tragedy, did not know that the clergyman was reading over a grave on the
hillside, words which are for the hearts of the quick as for the
untenanted dead.
To Jacques's inquiries after Blanche, Soldier Joe had made changing and
vague replies. At last he said that she was ill; then, that she was very
ill, and again, that she was better, almighty better--now. The third day
following the funeral, Jacques insisted that he would go and see her. The
doctor at length decided he should be taken to Weir's Tavern, where, they
declared, they would tell him all. And they took him, and placed him by
the fire in the card-room, a wasted figure, but fastidious in manner and
scrupulously neat in person as of old. Then he asked for Blanche; but
even now they had not the courage for it. The doctor nervously went out,
as if to seek her; and Freddy Tarlton said, "Jacques, let us have a
little game, just for quarters, you know. Eh?"
The other replied without eagerness: "Voila, one game, then!"
They drew him to the table, but he played listlessly. His eyes shifted
ever to the door. Luck was against him. Finally he pushed over a silver
piece, and said: "The last. My money is all gone. 'Bien!'" He lost that
too.
Just then the door opened, and a ranchman from Purple Hill entered. He
looked carelessly round, and then said loudly:
"Say, Joe, so you've buried Blanche, have you? Poor old girl!"
There was a heavy silence. No one replied. Jacques started to his feet,
gazed around searchingly, painfully, and presently gave a great gasp. His
hands made a chafing motion in the air, and then blood showed on his lips
and chin. He drew a handkerchief from his breast.
"Pardon! . . . Pardon!" he faintly cried in apology, and put it to his
mouth.
Then he fell backwards in the arms of Soldier Joe, who wiped a moisture
from the lifeless cheek as he laid the body on a bed.
In a corner of the stained handkerchief they found the word,
Blanche.
A SANCTUARY OF THE PLAINS
Father Corraine stood with his chin in his hand and one arm supporting
the other, thinking deeply. His eyes were fixed on the northern horizon,
along which the sun was casting oblique rays; for it was the beginning of
the winter season.
Where the prairie touched the sun it was responsive and radiant; but on
either side of this red and golden tapestry there was a tawny glow and
then a duskiness which, curving round to the north and east, became blue
and cold--an impalpable but perceptible barrier rising from the earth,
and shutting in Father Corraine like a prison wall. And this shadow crept
stealthily on and invaded the whole circle, until, where the radiance had
been, there was one continuous wall of gloom, rising are upon are to
invasion of the zenith, and pierced only by some intrusive wandering
stars.
And still the priest stood there looking, until the darkness closed down
on him with an almost tangible consistency. Then he appeared to remember
himself, and turned away with a gentle remonstrance of his head, and
entered the hut behind him. He lighted a lamp, looked at it doubtfully,
blew it out, set it aside, and lighted a candle. This he set in the one
window of the room which faced the north and west.
He went to a door opening into the only other room in the hut, and with
his hand on the latch looked thoughtfully and sorrowfully at something in
the corner of the room where he stood. He was evidently debating upon
some matter,--probably the removal of what was in the corner to the other
room. If so, he finally decided to abandon the intention. He sat down in
a chair, faced the candle, again dropped his chin upon his hand, and kept
his eyes musingly on the light. He was silent and motionless a long time,
then his lips moved, and he seemed to repeat something to himself in
whispers.
Presently he took a well-worn book from his pocket, and read aloud from
it softly what seemed to be an office of his Church. His voice grew
slightly louder as he continued, until, suddenly, there ran through the
words a deep sigh which did not come from himself. He raised his head
quickly, started to his feet, and turning round, looked at that something
in the corner. It took the form of a human figure, which raised itself on
an elbow and said: "Water--water--for the love of God!"
Father Corraine stood painfully staring at the figure for a moment, and
then the words broke from him "Not dead--not dead--wonderful!" Then he
stepped quickly to a table, took therefrom a pannikin of water, and
kneeling, held it to the lips of the gasping figure of a woman, throwing
his arm round the shoulder, and supporting the head on his breast. Again
he spoke "Alive--alive! Blessed be Heaven!"
The hands of the woman seized the hand of the priest, which held the
pannikin, and kissed it, saying faintly: "You are good to me. . . . But I
must sleep--I must sleep--I am so tired; and I've--very far--to
go--across the world."
This was said very slowly, then the head thick with brown curls dropped
again on the priest's breast, heavy with sleep. Father Corraine, flushing
slightly at first, became now slightly pale, and his brow was a place of
war between thankfulness and perplexity. But he said something
prayerfully, then closed his lips firmly, and gently laid the figure
down, where it was immediately clothed about with slumber. Then he rose,
and standing with his eyes bent upon the sleeper and his fingers clasping
each other tightly before him, said: "Poor girl! So, she is alive. And
now what will come of it?"
He shook his grey head in doubt, and immediately began to prepare some
simple food and refreshment for the sufferer when she should awake. In
the midst of doing so he paused and repeated the words, "And what will
come of it?" Then he added: "There was no sign of pulse nor heart-beat
when I found her. But life hides itself where man cannot reach it."
Having finished his task, he sat down, drew the book of holy offices
again from his bosom, and read it, whisperingly, for a time; then fell to
musing, and, after a considerable time, knelt down as if in prayer. While
he knelt, the girl, as if startled from her sleep by some inner shock,
opened her eyes wide and looked at him, first with bewilderment, then
with anxiety, then with wistful thankfulness. "Oh, I thought--I thought
when I awoke before that it was a woman. But it is the good Father
Corraine--Corraine, yes, that was the name."
The priest's clean-shaven face, long hair, and black cassock had, in her
first moments of consciousness, deceived her. Now a sharp pain brought a
moan to her lips; and this drew the priest's attention. He rose, and
brought her some food and drink. "My daughter," he said, "you must take
these." Something in her face touched his sensitive mind, and he said,
solemnly: "You are alone with me and God, this hour. Be at peace. Eat."