The Lane That Had No Turning, Complete - Gilbert Parker
Once when the Little Chemist touched his wrist, his dark eyes rested on
him with inquiry, and he said: "Soon?"
It was useless trying to shirk the persistency of that look. "Eight
hours, perhaps, sir," the Little Chemist answered, with painful shyness.
The Seigneur seemed to draw himself up a little, and his hand grasped his
handkerchief tightly for an instant; then he said: "Soon. Thank you."
After a little, his eyes turned to Medallion and he seemed about to
speak, but still kept silent. His chin dropped on his breast, and for a
time he was motionless and shrunken; but still there was a strange little
curl of pride--or disdain--on his lips. At last he drew up his head, his
shoulders came erect, heavily, to the carved back of the chair, where,
strange to say, the Stations of the Cross were figured, and he said, in a
cold, ironical voice: "The Angel of Patience has lied!"
The evening wore on, and there was no sound, save the ticking of the
clock, the beat of rain upon the windows, and the deep breathing of the
Seigneur. Presently he started, his eyes opened wide, and his whole body
seemed to listen.
"I heard a voice," he said.
"No one spoke, my master," said the housekeeper.
"It was a voice without," he said.
"Monsieur," said the Little Chemist, "it was the wind in the eaves."
His face was almost painfully eager and sensitively alert.
"Hush!" he said; "I hear a voice in the tall porch."
"Sir," said Medallion, laying a hand respectfully on his arm, "it is
nothing."
With a light on his face and a proud, trembling energy, he got to his
feet. "It is the voice of my son," he said. "Go--go, and bring him in."
No one moved. But he was not to be disobeyed.
His ears had been growing keener as he neared the subtle atmosphere of
that Brink where man strips himself to the soul for a lonely voyaging,
and he waved the woman to the door.
"Wait," he said, as her hand fluttered at the handle. "Take him to
another room. Prepare a supper such as we used to have. When it is ready
I will come. But, listen, and obey. Tell him not that I have but four
hours of life. Go, good woman, and bring him in."
It was as he said. They found the son weak and fainting, fallen within
the porch--a worn, bearded man, returned from failure and suffering and
the husks of evil. They clothed him and cared for him, and strengthened
him with wine, while the woman wept over him and at last set him at the
loaded, well-lighted table. Then the Seigneur came in, leaning his arm
very lightly on that of Medallion with a kind of kingly air; and,
greeting his son before them all, as if they had parted yesterday, sat
down. For an hour they sat there, and the Seigneur talked gaily with a
colour to his face, and his great eyes glowing. At last he rose, lifted
his glass, and said: "The Angel of Patience is wise. I drink to my son!"
He was about to say something more, but a sudden whiteness passed over
his face. He drank off the wine, and as he put the glass down, shivered,
and fell back in his chair.
"Two hours short, Chemist!" he said, and smiled, and was Still.
PARPON THE DWARF
Parpon perched in a room at the top of the mill. He could see every house
in the village, and he knew people a long distance off. He was a droll
dwarf, and, in his way, had good times in the world. He turned the misery
of the world into a game, and grinned at it from his high little eyrie
with the dormer window. He had lived with Farette the miller for some
years, serving him with a kind of humble insolence.
It was not a joyful day for Farette when he married Julie. She led him a
pretty travel. He had started as her master; he ended by being her slave
and victim.
She was a wilful wife. She had made the Seigneur de la Riviere, of the
House with the Tall Porch, to quarrel with his son Armand, so that Armand
disappeared from Pontiac for years.
When that happened she had already stopped confessing to the good Cure;
so it may be guessed there were things she did not care to tell, and for
which she had no repentance. But Parpon knew, and Medallion the
auctioneer guessed; and the Little Chemist's wife hoped that it was not
so. When Julie looked at Parpon, as he perched on a chest of drawers,
with his head cocked and his eyes blinking, she knew that he read the
truth. But she did not know all that was in his head; so she said sharp
things to him, as she did to everybody, for she had a very poor opinion
of the world, and thought all as flippant as herself. She took nothing
seriously; she was too vain. Except that she was sorry Armand was gone,
she rather plumed herself on having separated the Seigneur and his
son--it was something to have been the pivot in a tragedy. There came
others to the village, as, for instance, a series of clerks to the
Avocat; but she would not decline from Armand upon them. She merely made
them miserable.
But she did not grow prettier as time went on. Even Annette, the sad wife
of the drunken Benoit, kept her fine looks; but then, Annette's life was
a thing for a book, and she had a beautiful child. You cannot keep this
from the face of a woman. Nor can you keep the other: when the heart
rusts the rust shows.
After a good many years, Armand de la Riviere came back in time to see
his father die. Then Julie picked out her smartest ribbons, capered at
the mirror, and dusted her face with oatmeal, because she thought that he
would ask her to meet him at the Bois Noir, as he had done long ago. The
days passed, and he did not come. When she saw Armand at the funeral--a
tall man with a dark beard and a grave face, not like the Armand she had
known, he seemed a great distance from her, though she could almost have
touched him once as he turned from the grave. She would have liked to
throw herself into his arms, and cry before them all: "Mon Armand!" and
go away with him to the House with the Tall Porch. She did not care about
Farette, the mumbling old man who hungered for money, having ceased to
hunger for anything else--even for Julie, who laughed and shut her door
in his face, and cowed him.
After the funeral Julie had a strange feeling. She had not much brains,
but she had some shrewdness, and she felt her romance askew. She stood
before the mirror, rubbing her face with oatmeal and frowning hard.
Presently a voice behind her said: "Madame Julie, shall I bring another
bag of meal?"
She turned quickly, and saw Parpon on a table in the corner, his legs
drawn up to his chin, his black eyes twinkling.
"Idiot!" she cried, and threw the meal at him. He had a very long, quick
arm. He caught the basin as it came, but the meal covered him. He blew it
from his beard, laughing softly, and twirled the basin on a finger-point.
"Like that, there will need two bags!" he said.
"Imbecile!" she cried, standing angry in the centre of the room.
"Ho, ho, what a big word! See what it is to have the tongue of fashion!"
She looked helplessly round the room. "I will kill you!"
"Let us die together," answered Parpon; "we are both sad."
She snatched the poker from the fire, and ran at him. He caught her
wrists with his great hands, big enough for tall Medallion, and held her.
"I said 'together,"' he chuckled; "not one before the other. We might
jump into the flume at the mill, or go over the dam at the Bois Noir; or,
there is Farette's musket which he is cleaning--gracious, but it will
kick when it fires, it is so old!"
She sank to the floor. "Why does he clean the musket?" she asked; fear,
and something wicked too, in her eye. Her fingers ran forgetfully through
the hair on her forehead, pushing it back, and the marks of small-pox
showed. The contrast with her smooth cheeks gave her a weird look. Parpon
got quickly on the table again and sat like a Turk, with a furtive eye on
her. "Who can tell!" he said at last. "That musket has not been fired for
years. It would not kill a bird; the shot would scatter: but it might
kill a man--a man is bigger."
"Kill a man!" She showed her white teeth with a savage little smile.
"Of course it is all guess. I asked Farette what he would shoot, and he
said, 'Nothing good to eat.' I said I would eat what he killed. Then he
got pretty mad, and said I couldn't eat my own head. Holy! that was funny
for Farette. Then I told him there was no good going to the Bois Noir,
for there would be nothing to shoot. Well, did I speak true, Madame
Julie?"
She was conscious of something new in Parpon. She could not define it.
Presently she got to her feet and said: "I don't believe you--you're a
monkey."
"A monkey can climb a tree quick; a man has to take the shot as it
comes." He stretched up his powerful arms, with a swift motion as of
climbing, laughed, and added: "Madame Julie, Farette has poor eyes; he
could not see a hole in a ladder. But he has a kink in his head about the
Bois Noir. People have talked--"
"Pshaw!" Julie said, crumpling her apron and throwing it out; "he is a
child and a coward. He should not play with a gun; it might go off and
hit him."
Parpon hopped down and trotted to the door. Then he turned and said, with
a sly gurgle: "Farette keeps at that gun. What is the good! There will be
nobody at the Bois Noir any more. I will go and tell him."
She rushed at him with fury, but seeing Annette Benoit in the road, she
stood still and beat her foot angrily on the doorstep. She was ripe for a
quarrel, and she would say something hateful to Annette; for she never
forgot that Farette had asked Annette to be his wife before herself was
considered. She smoothed out her wrinkled apron and waited.
"Good day, Annette," she said loftily.
"Good day, Julie," was the quiet reply.
"Will you come in?"
"I am going to the mill for flax-seed. Benoit has rheumatism."
"Poor Benoit!" said Julie, with a meaning toss of her head.
"Poor Benoit," responded Annette gently. Her voice was always sweet. One
would never have known that Benoit was a drunken idler.
"Come in. I will give you the meal from my own. Then it will cost you
nothing," said Julie, with an air.
"Thank you, Julie, but I would rather pay."
"I do not sell my meal," answered Julie. "What's a few pounds of meal to
the wife of Farette? I will get it for you. Come in, Annette."
She turned towards the door, then stopped all at once. There was the
oatmeal which she had thrown at Parpon, the basin, and the poker. She
wished she had not asked Annette in. But in some things she had a quick
wit, and she hurried to say: "It was that yellow cat of Parpon's. It
spilt the meal, and I went at it with the poker."
Perhaps Annette believed her. She did not think about it one way or the
other; her mind was with the sick Benoit. She nodded and said nothing,
hoping that the flax-seed would be got at once. But when she saw that
Julie expected an answer, she said: "Cecilia, my little girl, has a black
cat-so handsome. It came from the house of the poor Seigneur de la
Riviere a year ago. We took it back, but it would not stay."
Annette spoke simply and frankly, but her words cut like a knife.
Julie responded, with a click of malice: "Look out that the black cat
doesn't kill the dear Cecilia." Annette started, but she did not believe
that cats sucked the life from children's lungs, and she replied calmly:
"I am not afraid; the good God keeps my child." She then got up and came
to Julie, and said: "It is a pity, Julie, that you have not a child. A
child makes all right."
Julie was wild to say a fierce thing, for it seemed that Annette was
setting off Benoit against Farette; but the next moment she grew hot, her
eyes smarted, and there was a hint of trouble at her throat. She had
lived very fast in the last few hours, and it was telling on her. She
could not rule herself--she could not play a part so well as she wished.
She had not before felt the thing that gave a new pulse to her body and a
joyful pain at her breasts. Her eyes got thickly blurred so that she
could not see Annette, and, without a word, she hurried to get the meal.
She was silent when she came back. She put the meal into Annette's hands.
She felt that she would like to talk of Armand. She knew now there was no
evil thought in Annette. She did not like her more for that, but she felt
she must talk, and Annette was safe. So she took her arm. "Sit down,
Annette," she said. "You come so seldom."
"But there is Benoit, and the child--"
"The child has the black cat from the House!" There was again a sly ring
to Julie's voice, and she almost pressed Annette into a chair.
"Well, it must only be a minute."
"Were you at the funeral to-day?" Julie began.
"No; I was nursing Benoit. But the poor Seigneur! They say he died
without confession. No one was there except M'sieu' Medallion, the Little
Chemist, Old Sylvie, and M'sieu' Armand. But, of course, you have heard
everything."
"Is that all you know?" queried Julie.
"Not much more. I go out little, and no one comes to me except the Little
Chemist's wife--she is a good woman."
"What did she say?"
"Only something of the night the Seigneur died. He was sitting in his
chair, not afraid, but very sad, we can guess. By-and-by he raised his
head quickly. 'I hear a voice in the Tall Porch,' he said. They thought
he was dreaming. But he said other things, and cried again that he heard
his son's voice in the Porch. They went and found M'sieu' Armand. Then a
great supper was got ready, and he sat very grand at the head of the
table, but died quickly, when making a grand speech. It was strange he
was so happy, for he did not confess-he hadn't absolution."
This was more than Julie had heard. She showed excitement.
"The Seigneur and M'sieu' Armand were good friends when he died?" she
asked.
"Quite."
All at once Annette remembered the old talk about Armand and Julie. She
was confused. She wished she could get up and run away; but haste would
look strange.
"You were at the funeral?" she added, after a minute.
"Everybody was there."
"I suppose M'sieu' Armand looks very fine and strange after his long
travel," said Annette shyly, rising to go.
"He was always the grandest gentleman in the province," answered Julie,
in her old vain manner. "You should have seen the women look at him
to-day! But they are nothing to him--he is not easy to please."
"Good day," said Annette, shocked and sad, moving from the door. Suddenly
she turned, and laid a hand on Julie's arm. "Come and see my sweet
Cecilia," she said. "She is gay; she will amuse you."
She was thinking again what a pity it was that Julie had no child.
"To see Cecilia and the black cat? Very well--some day."
You could not have told what she meant. But, as Annette turned away
again, she glanced at the mill; and there, high up in the dormer window,
sat Parpon, his yellow cat on his shoulder, grinning down at her. She
wheeled and went into the house.
II
Parpon sat in the dormer window for a long time, the cat purring against
his head, and not seeming the least afraid of falling, though its master
was well out on the window-ledge. He kept mumbling to himself:
"Ho, ho, Farette is below there with the gun, rubbing and rubbing at the
rust! Holy mother, how it will kick! But he will only meddle. If she set
her eye at him and come up bold and said: 'Farette, go and have your
whiskey-wine, and then to bed,' he would sneak away. But he has heard
something. Some fool, perhaps that Benoit--no, he is sick--perhaps the
herb-woman has been talking, and he thinks he will make a fuss. But it
will be nothing. And M'sieu' Armand, will he look at her?" He chuckled at
the cat, which set its head back and hissed in reply. Then he sang
something to himself.
Parpon was a poor little dwarf with a big head, but he had one thing
which made up for all, though no one knew it--or, at least, he thought
so. The Cure himself did not know. He had a beautiful voice. Even in
speaking it was pleasant to hear, though he roughened it in a way. It
pleased him that he had something of which the finest man or woman would
be glad. He had said to himself many times that even Armand de la Riviere
would envy him.
Sometimes Parpon went off away into the Bois Noir, and, perched there in
a tree, sang away--a man, shaped something like an animal, with a voice
like a muffled silver bell.
Some of his songs he had made himself: wild things, broken thoughts, not
altogether human; the language of a world between man and the spirits.
But it was all pleasant to hear, even when, at times, there ran a weird,
dark thread through the woof. No one in the valley had ever heard the
thing he sang softly as he sat looking down at Julie:
"The little white smoke blows there, blows here,
The little blue wolf comes down--
C'est la!
And the hill-dwarf laughs in the young wife's ear,
When the devil comes back to town--
C'est la!"
It was crooned quietly, but it was distinct and melodious, and the cat
purred an accompaniment, its head thrust into his thick black hair. From
where Parpon sat he could see the House with the Tall Porch, and, as he
sang, his eyes ran from the miller's doorway to it.
Off in the grounds of the dead Seigneur's manor he could see a man push
the pebbles with his foot, or twist the branch of a shrub thoughtfully as
he walked. At last another man entered the garden. The two greeted
warmly, and passed up and down together.
III
"My good friend," said the Cure, "it is too late to mourn for those lost
years. Nothing can give them back. As Parpon the dwarf said--you remember
him, a wise little man, that Parpon--as he said one day, 'For everything
you lose you get something, if only how to laugh at yourself."'
Armand nodded thoughtfully and answered: "You are right--you and Parpon.
But I cannot forgive myself; he was so fine a man: tall, with a grand
look, and a tongue like a book. Yes, yes, I can laugh at myself--for a
fool."
He thrust his hands into his pockets, and tapped the ground nervously
with his foot, shrugging his shoulders a little. The priest took off his
hat and made the sacred gesture, his lips moving. Armand caught off his
hat also, and said: "You pray--for him?"
"For the peace of a good man's soul."
"He did not confess; he had no rites of the Church; he had refused you
many years."
"My son, he had a confessor."
Armand raised his eyebrows. "They told me of no one."
"It was the Angel of Patience."
They walked on again for a time without a word. At last the Cure said:
"You will remain here?"
"I cannot tell. This 'here' is a small world, and the little life may
fret me. Nor do I know what I have of this,"--he waved his hands towards
the house,--"or of my father's property. I may need to be a wanderer
again."
"God forbid! Have you not seen the will?"
"I have got no farther than his grave," was the sombre reply.
The priest sighed. They paced the walk again in silence. At last the Cure
said: "You will make the place cheerful, as it once was."
"You are persistent," replied the young man, smiling. "Whoever lives here
should make it less gloomy."
"We shall soon know who is to live here. See, there is Monsieur Garon,
and Monsieur Medallion also."
"The Avocat to tell secrets, the auctioneer to sell them--eh?" Armand
went forward to the gate. Like most people, he found Medallion
interesting, and the Avocat and he were old friends.
"You did not send for me, monsieur," said the Avocat timidly, "but I
thought it well to come, that you might know how things are; and Monsieur
Medallion came because he is a witness to the will, and, in a case"--here
the little man coughed nervously--"joint executor with Monsieur le Cure."
They entered the house. In a business-like way Armand motioned them to
chairs, opened the curtains, and rang the bell. The old housekeeper
appeared, a sorrowful joy in her face, and Armand said: "Give us a bottle
of the white-top, Sylvie, if there is any left."
"There is plenty, monsieur," she said; "none has been drunk these twelve
years."
The Avocat coughed, and said hesitatingly to Armand: "I asked Parpon the
dwarf to come, monsieur. There is a reason."
Armand raised his eyebrows in surprise. "Very good," he said. "When will
he be here?"
"He is waiting at the Louis Quinze hotel."
"I will send for him," said Armand, and gave the message to Sylvie, who
was entering the room.
After they had drunk the wine placed before them, there was silence for a
moment, for all were wondering why Parpon should be remembered in the
Seigneur's Will.
"Well," said Medallion at last, "a strange little dog is Parpon. I could
surprise you about him--and there isn't any reason why I should keep the
thing to myself. One day I was up among the rocks, looking for a strayed
horse. I got tired, and lay down in the shade of the Rock of Red
Pigeons--you know it. I fell asleep. Something waked me. I got up and
heard the finest singing you can guess: not like any I ever heard; a
wild, beautiful, shivery sort of thing. I listened for a long time. At
last it stopped. Then something slid down the rock. I peeped out, and saw
Parpon toddling away."
The Cure stared incredulously, the Avocat took off his glasses and tapped
his lips musingly, Armand whistled softly.
"So," said Armand at last, "we have the jewel in the toad's head. The
clever imp hid it all these years--even from you, Monsieur le Cure."
"Even from me," said the Cure, smiling. Then, gravely: "It is strange,
the angel in the stunted body."
"Are you sure it's an angel?" said Armand.
"Who ever knew Parpon do any harm?" queried the Cure.
"He has always been kind to the poor," put in the Avocat.
"With the miller's flour," laughed Medallion: "a pardonable sin." He sent
a quizzical look at the Cure. "Do you remember the words of Parpon's
song?" asked Armand.
"Only a few lines; and those not easy to understand, unless one had an
inkling."
"Had you the inkling?"
"Perhaps, monsieur," replied Medallion seriously. They eyed each other.
"We will have Parpon in after the will is read," said Armand suddenly,
looking at the Avocat. The Avocat drew the deed from his pocket. He
looked up hesitatingly, and then said to Armand: "You insist on it being
read now?"
Armand nodded coolly, after a quick glance at Medallion. Then the Avocat
began, and read to that point where the Seigneur bequeathed all his
property to his son, should he return--on a condition. When the Avocat
came to the condition Armand stopped him.
"I do not know in the least what it may be," he said, "but there is only
one by which I could feel bound. I will tell you. My father and I
quarrelled"--here he paused for a moment, clinching his hands before him
on the table--"about a woman; and years of misery came. I was to blame in
not obeying him. I ought not to have given any cause for gossip. Whatever
the condition as to that matter may be, I will fulfil it. My father is
more to me than any woman in the world; his love of me was greater than
that of any woman. I know the world--and women."
There was a silence. He waved his hand to the Avocat to go on, and as he
did so the Cure caught his arm with a quick, affectionate gesture. Then
Monsieur Garon read the conditions: "That Farette the miller should have
a deed of the land on which his mill was built, with the dam of the
mill--provided that Armand should never so much as by a word again
address Julie, the miller's wife. If he agreed to the condition, with
solemn oath before the Cure, his blessing would rest upon his dear son,
whom he still hoped to see before he died."
When the reading ceased there was silence for a moment, then Armand stood
up, and took the will from the Avocat; but instantly, without looking at
it, handed it back. "The reading is not finished," he said. "And if I do
not accept the condition, what then?"
Again Monsieur Garon read, his voice trembling a little. The words of the
will ran: "But if this condition be not satisfied, I bequeath to my son
Armand the house known as the House with the Tall Porch, and the land,
according to the deed thereof; and the residue of my property--with the
exception of two thousand dollars, which I leave to the Cure of the
parish, the good Monsieur Fabre--I bequeath to Parpon the dwarf."
Then followed a clause providing that, in any case, Parpon should have in
fee simple the land known as the Bois Noir, and the hut thereon.
Armand sprang to his feet in surprise, blurting out something, then sat
down, quietly took the will, and read it through carefully. When he had
finished he looked inquiringly, first at Monsieur Garon, then at the
Cure. "Why Parpon?" he said searchingly.
The Cure, amazed, spread out his hands in a helpless way. At that moment
Sylvie announced Parpon. Armand asked that he should be sent in. "We'll
talk of the will afterwards," he added.
Parpon trotted in, the door closed, and he stood blinking at them. Armand
put a stool on the table. "Sit here, Parpon," he said. Medallion caught
the dwarf under the arms and lifted him on the table.
Parpon looked at Armand furtively. "The wild hawk comes back to its
nest," he said. "Well, well, what is it you want with the poor Parpon?"