The Lane That Had No Turning, Complete - Gilbert Parker
"That accounts for your envious dispositions then. You can't buy what you
want--you love such curious things, I assume. So you play the dog in the
manger, and won't let other decent folk buy what they want." He wilfully
distorted the other's meaning, and was delighted to see the Seigneur's
fingers twitch with fury. "But since you can't buy the things you
love--and you seem to think you should--how do you get them? Do you come
by them honestly? or do you work miracles? When a spider makes love to
his lady he dances before her to infatuate her, and then in a moment of
her delighted aberration snatches at her affections. Is it the way of the
spider then?"
With a snarl as of a wild beast, Louis Racine sprang forward and struck
Fournel in the face with his clinched fist. Then, as Fournel, blinded,
staggered back upon the book-shelves, he snatched two antique swords from
the wall. Throwing one on the floor in front of the Englishman, he ran to
the door and locked it, and turned round, the sword grasped firmly in his
hand, and white with rage.
"Spider! Spider! By Heaven, you shall have the spider dance before you!"
he said hoarsely. He had mistaken Fournel's meaning. He had put the most
horrible construction upon it. He thought that Fournel referred to his
deformity, and had ruthlessly dragged in Madelinette as well.
He was like a being distraught. His long brown hair was tossed over his
blanched forehead and piercing black eyes. His head was thrown forward
even more than his deformity compelled, his white teeth showed in a
grimace of hatred; he was half-crouched, like an animal ready to spring.
"Take up the sword, or I'll run you through the heart where you stand,"
he continued, in a hoarse whisper. "I will give you till I can count
three. Then by the God in Heaven--!"
Fournel felt that he had to deal with a man demented. The blow he had
received had laid open the flesh on his cheek-bone, and blood was flowing
from the wound. Never in his life before had he been so humiliated. And
by a Frenchman--it roused every instinct of race-hatred in him. Yet he
wanted not to go at him with a sword, but with his two honest hands, and
beat him into a whining submission. But the man was deformed, he had none
of his own robust strength--he was not to be struck, but to be tossed out
of the way like an offending child.
He staunched the blood from his face and made a step forward without a
word, determined not to fight, but to take the weapon from the other's
hands. "Coward!" said the Seigneur. "You dare not fight with the sword.
With the sword we are even. I am as strong as you there--stronger, and I
will have your blood. Coward! Coward! Coward! I will give you till I
count three. One! . . . Two! . . ."
Fournel did not stir. He could not make up his mind what to do. Cry out?
No one could come in time to prevent the onslaught--and onslaught there
would be, he knew. There was a merciless hatred in the Seigneur's face, a
deadly purpose in his eyes; the wild determination of a man who did not
care whether he lived or died, ready to throw himself upon a hundred in
his hungry rage. It seemed so mad, so monstrous, that the beautiful
summer day through which came the sharp whetting of the scythe, the song
of the birds, and the smell of ripening fruit and grain, should be
invaded by this tragic absurdity, this human fury which must spend itself
in blood.
Fournel's mind was conscious of this feeling, this sense of futile,
foolish waste and disfigurement, even as the Seigneur said "Three!" and,
rushing forward, thrust.
As Fournel saw the blade spring at him, he dropped on one knee, caught it
with his left hand as it came, and wrenched it aside. The blade lacerated
his fingers and his palm, but he did not let go till he had seized the
sword at his feet with his right hand. Then, springing up with it, he
stepped back quickly and grasped his weapon fiercely enough now.
Yet, enraged as he was, he had no wish to fight; to involve himself in a
fracas which might end in tragedy and the courts of the land. It was a
high price to pay for any satisfaction he might have in this affair. If
the Seigneur were killed in the encounter--he must defend himself
now--what a miserable notoriety and possible legal penalty and public
punishment! For who could vouch for the truth of his story? Even if he
wounded Racine only, what a wretched story to go abroad: that he had
fought with a hunchback--a hunchback who knew the use of the sword, which
he did not, but still a hunchback!
"Stop this nonsense," he said, as Louis Racine prepared to attack again.
"Don't be a fool. The game isn't worth the candle."
"One of us does not leave this room alive," said the Seigneur. "You care
for life. You love it, and you can't buy what you love from me. I don't
care for life, and I would gladly die, to see your blood flow. Look, it's
flowing down your face; it's dripping from your hand, and there shall be
more dripping soon. On guard!"
He suddenly attacked with a fierce energy, forcing Fournel back upon the
wall. He was not a first-class swordsman, but he had far more knowledge
of the weapon than his opponent, and he had no scruple about using his
knowledge. Fournel fought with desperate alertness, yet awkwardly, and he
could not attack; it was all that he could do, all that he knew how to
do, to defend himself. Twice again did the Seigneur's weapon draw blood,
once from the shoulder and once from the leg of his opponent, and the
blood was flowing from each wound. After the second injury they stood
panting for a moment. Now the outside world was shut out from Fournel's
senses as it was from Louis Racine's. The only world they knew was this
cool room, whose oak floors were browned by the slow searching stains of
Time, and darkened by the footsteps of six generations that had come and
gone through the old house. The books along the walls seemed to cry out
against the unseemly and unholy strife. But now both men were in that
atmosphere of supreme egoism where only their two selves moved, and where
the only thing that mattered on earth was the issue of this strife.
Fournel could only think of how to save his life, and to do that he must
become the aggressor, for his wounds were bleeding hard, and he must have
more wounds, if the fight went on without harm to the Seigneur.
"You know now what it is to insult a Frenchman--On guard!" again cried
the Seigneur, in a shriller voice, for everything in him was pitched to
the highest note.
He again attacked, and the sound of the large swords meeting clashed on
the soft air. As they struggled, a voice came ringing through the
passages, singing a bar from an opera:
"Oh eager golden day, Oh happy evening hour,
Behold my lover cometh from fields of wrath and hate!
Sheathed is his sword; he cometh to my bower;
In war he findeth honour, and love within the gate."
The voice came nearer and nearer. It pierced the tragic separateness of
the scene of blood. It reached the ears of the Seigneur, and a look of
pain shot across his face. Fournel was only dimly aware of the voice, for
he was hard pressed, and it seemed to come from infinite distances.
Presently the voice stopped, and some one tried the door of the room.
It was Madelinette. Astonished at finding it locked, she stood still a
moment uncertain what to do. Then the sounds of the struggle within came
to her ears. She shook the door, leaned her shoulders against it, and
called, "Louis! Louis!" Suddenly she darted away, found Havel the
faithful servant in the passage, and brought him swiftly to the door. The
man sprang upon it, striking with his shoulder. The lock gave, the door
flew open, and Madelinette stepped swiftly into the room, in time to see
George Fournel sway and fall, his sword rattling on the hard oak floor.
"Oh, what have you done, Louis!" she cried, then added hurriedly to
Havel: "Draw the blind there, shut the door, and tell Madame Marie to
bring some water quickly."
The silent servant vanished, and she dropped on her knees beside the
bleeding and insensible man, and lifted his head.
"He insulted you and me, and I've killed him, Madelinette," said Louis
hoarsely.
A horrified look came to her face, and she hurriedly and tremblingly
opened Fournel's waistcoat and shirt, and felt his heart.
She was freshly startled by a struggle behind her, and, turning quickly,
she saw Madame Marie holding the Seigneur's arm to prevent him from
ending his own life.
She sprang up and laid her hand upon her husband's arm. "He is not
dead--you need not do it, Louis," she said quietly. There was no alarm,
no undue excitement in her face now. She was acting with good presence of
mind. A new sense was working in her. Something had gone from her
suddenly where her husband was concerned, and something else had taken
its place. An infinite pity, a bitter sorrow, and a gentle command were
in her eyes all at once--new vistas of life opened before her, all in an
instant.
"He is not dead, and there is no need to kill yourself, Louis," she
repeated, and her voice had a command in it that was not to be gainsaid.
"Since you have vindicated your honour, you will now help me to set this
business right."
Madame Marie was on her knees beside the insensible man. "No, he is not
dead, thank God!" she murmured, and while Havel stripped the arm and leg,
she poured some water between Fournel's lips. Her long experience as the
Little Chemist's wife served her well now.
Now that the excitement was over, Louis collapsed. He swayed and would
have fallen, but Madelinette caught him, helped him to the sofa, and,
forcing him gently down on his side, adjusted a pillow for him, and
turned to the wounded man again.
An hour went busily by in the closely-curtained room, and at last George
Fournel, conscious, and with wounds well bandaged, sat in a big
arm-chair, glowering round him. At his first coming-to, Louis Racine, at
his wife's insistence, had come and offered his hand, and made apology
for assaulting him in his own house.
Fournel's reply had been that he wanted to hear no more fool's talk and
to have no more fool's doings, and that one day he hoped to take his pay
for the day's business in a satisfactory way.
Madelinette made no apology, said nothing, save that she hoped he would
remain for a few days till he was recovered enough to be moved. He
replied that he would leave as soon as his horses were ready, and refused
to take food or drink from their hands. His servant was brought from the
Louis Quinze Hotel, and through him he got what was needed for
refreshment, and requested that no one of the household should come near
him. At night, in the darkness, he took his departure, no servant of the
household in attendance. But as he got into the carriage, Madelinette
came quickly to him, and said:
"I would give ten years of my life to undo to-day's work."
"I have no quarrel with you, Madame," he said gloomily, raised his hat,
and was driven away.
CHAPTER IV
MADELINETTE MAKES A DISCOVERY
The national fete of the summer was over. The day had been successful,
more successful indeed than any within the memory of the inhabitants; for
the English and French soldiers joined in the festivities without any
intrusion of racial spirit, but in the very essence and soul of
good-fellowship. The General had called at the Manor, and paid his
respects to the Seigneur, who received him abstractedly if not coolly,
but Madelinette had captured his imagination and his sympathies. He was
fond of music for an Englishman, and with a ravishing charm she sang for
him a bergerette of the eighteenth century and then a ballad of
Shakespeare's set to her own music. She was so anxious that the great
holiday should pass off without one untoward incident, that she would
have resorted to any fair device to attain the desired end. The General
could help her by his influence and instructions, and if the
soldiers--regulars and militia--joined in the celebrations harmoniously,
and with goodwill, a long step would be made towards undoing the harm
that Louis had done, and maybe influencing him towards a saner, wiser
view of things. He had changed much since the fateful day when he had
forced George Fournel to fight him; had grown more silent, and had turned
grey. His eyes had become by turns watchful and suspicious, gloomy and
abstracted; and his speech knew the same variations; now bitter and
cynical, now sad and distant, and all the time his eyes seemed to grow
darker and his face paler. But however moody and variable and irascible
he might be with others, however unappeasable, with Madelinette he
struggled to be gentle, and his petulance gave way under the intangible
persuasiveness of her words and will, which had the effect of command.
Under this influence he had prepared the words which he was to deliver at
the Fete. They were full of veneration for past traditions, but were not
at variance with a proper loyalty to the flag under which they lived, and
if the English soldiery met the speech with genial appreciation the day
might end in a blessing--and surely blessings were overdue in
Madelinette's life in Pontiac.
It had been as she worked for and desired, thanks to herself and the
English General's sympathetic help. Perhaps his love of music made him
better understand what she wanted, made him even forgiving of the
Seigneur's strained manner; but certain it is that the day, begun with
uneasiness on the part of the people of Pontiac, who felt themselves
under surveillance, ended in great good-feeling and harmless revelry; and
it was also certain that the Seigneur's speech gained him an applause
that surprised him and momentarily appeased his vanity. The General gave
him a guard of honour of the French Militia in keeping with his position
as Seigneur; and this, with Madelinette's presence at his elbow,
restrained him in his speech when he would have broken from the limits of
propriety in the intoxication of his eager eloquence. But he spoke with
moderation, standing under the British Flag on the platform, and at the
last he said:
"A flag not our own floats over us now; guarantees us against the malice
of the world and assures us in our laws and religion; but there is
another flag which in our tearful memories is as dear to us now as it was
at Carillon and Levis. It is the flag of memory--of language and of race,
the emblem of our past upon our hearthstones; and the great country that
rules us does not deny us reverence to it. Seeing it, we see the history
of our race from Charlemagne to this day, and we have a pride in that
history which England does not rebuke, a pride which is just and right.
It is fitting that we should have a day of commemoration. Far off in
France burns the light our fathers saw and were glad. And we in Pontiac
have a link that binds us to the old home. We have ever given her proud
remembrance--we now give her art and song."
With these words, and turning to his wife, he ended, and cries of "Madame
Madelinette! Madame Madelinette!" were heard everywhere. Even the English
soldiers cheered, and Madelinette sang a la Claire Fontaine, three verses
in French and one in English, and the whole valley rang with the refrain
sung at the topmost pitch by five thousand voices:
"I'ya longtemps que je t'aime, Jamais je ne t'oublierai."
The day of pleasure done and dusk settled on Pontiac and on the
encampment of soldiers in the valley, a light still burned in the library
at the Manor House long after midnight. Madelinette had gone to bed, but,
excited by the events of the day, she could not sleep, and she went down
to the library to read. But her mind wandered still, and she sat
mechanically looking before her at a picture of the father of the late
Seigneur, which was let into the moulding of the oak wall. As she looked
abstractedly and yet with the intensity of the preoccupied mind, her eye
became aware of a little piece of wood let into the moulding of the
frame. The light of the hanging lamp was full on it.
This irregularity began to perplex her eye. Presently it intruded on her
reverie. Still busy with her thoughts, she knelt upon the table beneath
the picture and pressed the irregular piece of wood. A spring gave, the
picture came slowly away from the frame, and disclosed a small cupboard
behind. In this cupboard were a few books, an old silver-handled pistol,
and a packet. Madelinette's reverie was broken now. She was face to face
with discovery and mystery. Her heart stood still with fear. After an
instant of suspense, she took out the packet and held it to the light.
She gave a smothered cry.
It was the will of the late Seigneur.
CHAPTER V
WHAT WILL SHE DO WITH IT?
George Fournel was the heir to the Seigneury of Pontiac, not Louis
Racine. There it was in the will of Monsieur de la Riviere, duly signed
and attested.
Madelinette's heart stood still. Louis was no longer--indeed, never had
been--Seigneur of Pontiac, and they had no right there, had never had any
right there. They must leave this place which was to Louis the fetich of
his soul, the small compensation fate had made him for the trouble nature
had cynically laid upon him. He had clung to it as a drowning man clings
to a spar. To him it was the charter from which he could appeal to the
world as the husband of Madelinette Lajeunesse. To him it was the name,
the dignity, and the fortune he brought her. It was the one thing that
saved him from a dire humiliation; it was the vantage-ground from which
he appealed to her respect, the flaming testimony of his own self-esteem.
Every hour since his trouble had come upon him, since Madelinette's great
fame had come to her, he had protested to himself that it was honour for
honour; and every day he had laboured, sometimes how fantastically, how
futilely! to dignify his position, to enhance his importance in her eyes.
She had understood it all, had read him to the last letter in the
alphabet of his mind and heart. She had realised the consternation of the
people, and she knew that, for her sake, and because the Cure had
commanded, all the obsolete claims he had made were responded to by the
people. Certainly he had affected them by his eloquence and his fiery
kindness, but at the same time they had shrewdly smelt the treason
underneath his ardour. There was a definite limit to their loyalty to
him; and, deprived of the Seigneury, he would count for nothing.
A hundred thoughts like these went through her mind as she stood by the
table under the hanging lamp, her face white as the loose robe she wore,
her eyes hot and staring, her figure rigid as stone.
To-morrow--how could she face to-morrow, and Louis! How could she tell
him this! How could she say to him, "Louis, you are no longer Seigneur.
The man you hate, he who is your inveterate enemy, who has every reason
to exact from you the last tribute of humiliation, is Seigneur here!" How
could she face the despair of the man whose life was one inward fever,
one long illusion, which was yet only half an illusion, since he was
forever tortured by suspicion; whose body was wearing itself out, and
spirit was destroying itself in the struggle of a vexed imagination!
She knew that Louis' years were numbered. She knew that this blow would
break him body and soul. He could never survive the humiliation. His
sensitiveness was a disease, his pride was the only thing that kept him
going; his love of her, strong as it was, would be drowned in an imagined
shame!
It was midnight. She was alone with this secret. She held the paper in
her hand, which was at once Louis' sentence or his charter of liberty. A
candle was at her hand, the doors were shut, the blinds drawn, the house
a frozen silence--how cold she was, though it was the deep of summer! She
shivered from head to foot, and yet all day the harvest sun had drenched
the room in its heat.
Yet her blood might run warm again, her cold cheeks might regain their
colour, her heart beat quietly, if this paper were no more! The thought
made her shrink away from herself, as it were, yet she caught up the
candle and lighted it.
For Louis. For Louis, though she would rather have died than do it for
herself. To save to Louis what was, to his imagination, the one claim he
had upon her respect and the world's. After all, how little was it in
value or in dignity! How little she cared for it! One year of her voice
could earn two such Seigneuries as this. And the honour--save that it was
Pontiac-it was naught to her. In all her life she had never done or said
a dishonourable thing. She had never lied, she had never deceived, she
had never done aught that might not have been written down and published
to all the world. Yet here, all at once, she was faced with a vast
temptation, to do a deed, the penalty of which was an indelible shame.
What injury would it do to George Fournel! He was used now to his
disappointment; he was rich; he had no claims upon Pontiac; there was no
one but himself to whom it mattered, this little Seigneury. What he did
not know did not exist, so far as himself was concerned. How easily could
it all be made right some day! She felt as though she were suffocating,
and she opened the window a little very softly. Then she lit the candle
tremblingly, watched the flame gather strength, and opened out the will.
As she did so, however, the smell of a clover field, which is as honey,
came stealing through the room, and all at once a strange association of
ideas flashed into her brain.
She recalled one summer day long ago, when, in the church of St.
Saviour's, the smell of the clover fields came through the open doors and
windows, and her mind had kept repeating mechanically, till she fell
asleep, the text of the Curb's sermon--"As ye sow, so also shall ye
reap."
That placid hour which had no problems, no cares, no fears, no penalties
in view, which was filled with the richness of a blessed harvest and the
plenitude of innocent youth, came back on her now in the moment of her
fierce temptation.
She folded up the paper slowly, a sob came in her throat, she blew out
the candle, and put the will back in the cupboard. The faint click of the
spring as she closed the panel seemed terribly loud to her. She started
and looked timorously round. The blood came back to her face--she flushed
crimson with guilt. Then she turned out the lighted lamp and crept away
up the stairs to her room.
She paused beside Louis' bed. He was moving restlessly in his sleep; he
was murmuring her name. With a breaking sigh she crept into bed slowly
and lay like one who had been beaten, bruised, and shamed.
At last, before the dawn, she fell asleep. She dreamed that she was in
prison and that George Fournel was her jailor.
She waked to find Louis at her bedside.
"I am holding my seigneurial court to-day," he said.
CHAPTER VI
THE ONE WHO SAW
All day and every day Madelinette's mind kept fastening itself upon one
theme, kept turning to one spot. In her dreams she saw the hanging lamp,
the moving panel, the little cupboard, the fatal paper. Waking and
restlessly busy, she sometimes forgot it for a moment, but remembrance
would come back with painful force, and her will must govern her hurt
spirit into quiet resolution. She had such a sense of humiliation as
though some one dear to her had committed a crime against herself. Two
persons were in her--Madelinette Lajeunesse, the daughter of the village
blacksmith, brought up in the peaceful discipline of her religion,
shunning falsehood and dishonour with a simple proud self-respect; and
Madame Racine, the great singer, who had touched at last the heart of
things; and, with the knowledge, had thrown aside past principles and
convictions to save her stricken husband from misery and humiliation--to
save his health, his mind, his life maybe.
The struggle of conscience and expediency, of principle and womanliness
wore upon her, taking away the colour from her cheeks, but spiritualising
her face, giving the large black eyes an expression of rare intensity, so
that the Avocat in his admiration called her Madonna, and the Cure came
oftener to the Manor House with a fear in his heart that all was not
well. Yet he was met by her cheerful smile, by her quiet sense of humour,
by the touching yet not demonstrative devotion of the wife to the
husband, and a varying and impulsive adoration of the wife by the
husband. One day when the Cure was with the Seigneur, Madelinette entered
upon them. Her face was pale though composed, yet her eyes had a look of
abstraction or detachment. The Cure's face brightened at her approach.
She wore a simple white gown with a bunch of roses at the belt, and a
broad hat lined with red that shaded her face and gave it a warmth it did
not possess.
"Dear Madame!" said the Cure, rising to his feet and coming towards her.
"I have told you before that I will have nothing but 'Madelinette,' dear
Cure," she replied, with a smile, and gave him her hand. She turned to
Louis, who had risen also, and putting a hand on his arm pressed him
gently into his chair, then, with a swift, almost casual, caress of his
hair, placed on the table the basket of flowers she was carrying, and
began to arrange them.