The Lane That Had No Turning, Complete - Gilbert Parker
Thus deftly, and without strain, and with an air of happiness even, did
she set aside the words and the appeal which had created a storm in her
soul. A few moments afterwards, as the old house rang to the laughter of
old and young, with dancing well begun, no one would have thought that
the Manor of Pontiac was not the home of peace and joy. Even Louis
himself, who had had his moments of torture and suspicion when the appeal
was read, was now in a kind of happy reaction. He moved about among the
guests with less abstraction and more cheerfulness than he had shown for
months. He carried in his hand the address which Madelinette had handed
him. Again and again he showed it to eager guests.
Suddenly, as he was about to fold it up for the last time and carry it to
the library, he saw the name of George Fournel among the signatures.
Stunned, dumfounded, he left the room. George Fournel, whom he had tried
to kill, had signed this address of congratulation to his wife! Was it
Fournel's intention thus to show that he had forgiven and forgotten? It
was not like the man to either forgive or forget. What did it mean? He
left the house buried in morbid speculation, and involuntarily made his
way to a little hut of two rooms which he had built in the Seigneury
grounds. Here it was he read and wrote, here he had spent moody hours
alone, day after day, for months past. He was not aware that some one
left the crowd about the house and followed him. Arrived at the hut, he
entered and shut the door; lighted candles, and spread the embossed
parchment out before him upon the table. As he stood looking at it, he
heard the door open behind him. Tardif stood before him.
The face of Tardif had an evil hunted look. Before the astonished and
suspicious Seigneur had chance to challenge him, he said in a low
insolent tone:
"Good evening, M'sieu'! Fine doings at the Manor--eh?
"What are you doing at the Manor, and what are you doing here?" asked the
Seigneur, scanning the face of the man closely; for there was a look in
it he did not understand.
"I have as much right to be here as you, M'sieu'."
"You have no right at all to be here. You were dismissed your place by
the mistress of this Manor."
"There is no mistress of this Manor."
"Madame Racine dismissed you."
"And I dismissed Madame Racine," answered the man with a sneer.
"You are training for the horsewhip. You forget that, as Seigneur, I have
power to give you summary punishment."
"You haven't power to do anything at all, M'sieu'!" The Seigneur started.
He thought the remark had reference to his physical disability. His
fingers itched to take the creature by the throat, and choke the tongue
from his mouth. Before he could speak, the man continued with a
half-drunken grimace:
"You, with your tributes, and your courts, and your body-guards! Bah!
You'd have a gibbet if you could, wouldn't you? You with your rebellion
and your tinpot honours! A puling baby could conspire as well as you. And
all the world laughing at you--v'la!"
"Get out of this room and take your feet from my Manor, Tardif," said the
Seigneur with a deadly quietness, "or it will be the worse for you."
"Your Manor--pish!" The man laughed a hateful laugh. "Your Manor? You
haven't any Manor. You haven't anything but what you carry on your back."
A flush passed swiftly over the Seigneur's face, then left it cold and
white, and the eyes shone fiery in his head. He felt some shameful
meaning in the man's words, beyond this gross reference to his deformity.
"I am Seigneur of this Manor, and you have taken wages from me, and eaten
my bread, slept under my roof, and--"
"I've no more eaten your bread and slept under your roof than you have.
Pish! You were living then on another man's fortune, now you're living on
what your wife earns."
The Seigneur did not understand yet. But there was a strange light of
suspicion in his eyes, a nervous rage knotting his forehead.
"My land and my earnings are my own, and I have never lived on another
man's fortune. If you mean that the late Seigneur made a will--that
canard--"
"It was no canard." Tardif laughed hatefully. "There was a will right
enough."
"Where is it? I've heard that fool's gossip before."
"Where is it? Ask your wife; she knows. Ask your loving Tardif, he
knows."
"Where is the will, Tardif?" asked the Seigneur in a voice that, in his
own ears, seemed to come from an infinite distance; to Tardif's ears it
was merely tuneless and harsh.
"In M'sieu' Fournel's pocket, or Madame's. What's the difference? The
price is the same, and you keep your eyes shut and play the Seigneur, and
eat and drink what they give you just the same."
Now the Seigneur understood. His eyes went blind for a moment, and his
hands twitched convulsively on the embossed address he had been rolling
and unrolling. A terror, a shame, a dreadful cruelty entered into him,
but he was still and numb, and his tongue was thick. He spoke heavily.
"Tell me all," he said. "You shall be well paid."
"I don't want your money. I want to see you squirm. I want to see her put
where she deserves. Bah! Do you think Fournel forgave you for putting his
feet in his shoes, and for that case at law, for nothing? Why should he?
He hated you, and you hated him. His name's on that paper in your hand
among all the rest. Do you think he eats humble pie and crawls to Madame
and lets you stay here for nothing?"
The Seigneur was painfully quiet and intent, yet his brain was like some
great lens, refracting and magnifying things to monstrous proportions.
"A will was found?" he asked.
"By Madame in the library. She left it where she found it--behind the
picture over the Louis Seize table. The day you dismissed me, I saw her
at the cupboard. I found the will and started with it to M'sieu' Fournel.
She followed. You remember when she went--eh? On business--and such
business! she and Havel and the old slut Marie. You remember, eh; Louis?"
he added with unnamable insolence. The Seigneur inclined his head. "V'la!
they followed me, overtook me, and Havel shot me in the wrist. See
there!"--he held out his wrist. The Seigneur nodded. "But I got to
Fournel's first. I put the will into his hands.
"I told him Madame Madelinette was following. Then I went to bring the
constables to his house to arrest her when he had finished with her." He
laughed a brutal laugh, which deepened the strange glittering look in
Louis' eyes. "When I came an hour later, she was there. But--now you
shall see what stuff they are both made of! He laughed at me, said I had
lied; that there was no will; that I was a thief; and had me locked up in
gaol. For a month I was in gaol without trial. Then one day I was let out
without trial. His servant met me and brought me to his house. He gave me
money and told me to leave the country. If I didn't, I would be arrested
again for trying to shoot Havel, and for blackmail. They could all swear
me off my feet and into prison--what was I to do! I took the money and
went. But I came back to have my revenge. I could cut their hearts out
and eat them."
"You are drunk," said the Seigneur quietly. "You don't know what you're
saying."
"I'm not drunk. I'm always trying to get drunk now. I couldn't have come
here if I hadn't been drinking. I couldn't have told you the truth, if I
hadn't been drinking. But I'm sober enough to know that I've done for him
and for her! And I'm even with you too--bah! Did you think she cared a
fig for you? She's only waiting till you die. Then she'll go to her
lover. He's a man of life and limb. Youpish! a hunchback, that all the
world laughs at, a worm--" he turned towards the door laughing hideously,
his evil face gloating. "You've not got a stick or stone. She"--jerking a
finger towards the house--"she earns what you eat, she--"
It was the last word he ever spoke, for, with a low terrible cry, the
Seigneur snatched up a knife from the table and sprang upon him, catching
him by the throat. Once, twice, thrice, the knife went home, and the
ruffian collapsed under it with one loud cry. Not letting go his grasp of
the dying man's collar, the Seigneur dragged him across the floor, and,
opening the door of the small inner room, pulled him inside. For a moment
he stood beside the body, panting, then he went to the other room and,
bringing a candle, looked at the dead thing in silence. Presently he
stooped, held the candle to the wide-staring eyes, then felt the heart.
"He is gone," he said in an even voice. Stooping for the knife he had
dropped on the floor, he laid it on the body. He looked at his hands.
There was one spot of blood on his fingers. He wiped it off with his
handkerchief, then blowing out the light, he calmly opened the door of
the hut, locked it, went out, and moved on slowly towards the house.
As he left the hut he was conscious that some one was moving under the
trees by the window, but his mind was not concerned with things outside
himself and the one other thing left for him to do.
He entered the house and went in search of Madelinette. When he reached
the drawing-room, surrounded by eager listeners, she was beginning to
sing. Her bearing was eager and almost tremulous, for, with this crowd
round her and in the flush of this gaiety and excitement, there was
something of that exhilarating air that greets the singer upon the stage.
Her eyes were shining with a look, half-sorrowful, half-triumphant.
Within the past half-hour she had overcome herself; she had fought down
the blind, wild rebellion that, for one moment as it were, had surged up
in her heart. She was proud and glad, and piteous and triumphant and
deeply womanly all at once.
Going to the piano she had looked round for Louis, but he was not
visible. She smiled to herself, however, for she knew that her singing
would bring him--he worshipped it. Her heart was warm towards him,
because of that moment when she rebelled and was hard at soul. She played
her own accompaniment, and he was hidden from her by the piano as she
sang--sang more touchingly and more humanly, if not more artistically,
than she had ever done in her life. The old art was not so perfect,
perhaps, but there was in the voice all that she had learned and loved
and suffered and hoped. When she rose from the piano to a storm of
applause, and saw the shining faces and tearful eyes round her, her own
eyes filled with tears. These people--most of them--had known and loved
her since she was a child, and loved her still without envy or any taint.
Her father was standing near, and with smiling face she caught from his
hand the handkerchief with which he was mopping his eyes, and kissed him,
saying:
"I learned that from the tunes you played on your anvil, dear
smithy-man."
Then she turned again to look for Louis. Near the door she saw him, and
with so strange a face, so wild a look, that, unheeding eager requests to
sing again, she responded to the gesture he made, made her way through
the crowd to the hall-way, and followed him up the stairs, and to the
little boudoir beside her bedroom. As she entered and shut the door, a
low sound like a moan broke from him. She went quickly to lay a hand upon
his arm, but he waved her back. "What is it, Louis?" she asked, in a
bewildered voice. "Where is the will?" he said.
"Where is the will, Louis," she repeated after him mechanically, staring
at his face, ghostly in the moonlight.
"The will you found behind the picture in the library."
"O Louis!" she cried, and made a gesture of despair. "O Louis!"
"You found it, and Tardif stole it and took it to Quebec."
"Yes, Louis, but Louis--ah, what is the matter, dear! I cannot bear that
look in your face. What is the matter, Louis?"
"Tardif took it to Fournel, and you followed. And I have been living in
another man's house, on another's bread--"
"O Louis, no--no--no! Our money has paid for all."
"Your money, Madelinette!" His voice rose.
"Ah, don't speak like that! See, Louis. It can make no difference. How
you have found out I do not know, but it can make no difference. I did
not want you to know--you loved the Seigneury so. I concealed the will;
Tardif found it, as you say. But, Louis, dear, it is all right. Monsieur
Fournel would not take the place, and--and I have bought it."
She told her falsehood fearlessly. This man's trouble, this man's peace,
if she might but win it, was the purpose of her life.
"Tardif said that--he said that you--that you and Fournel--"
She read his meaning in his tone, and shrank back in terror, then with a
flush, straightened herself, and took a step towards him.
"It was natural that you should not care for a hunchback like me," he
continued, "but--"
"Louis!" she cried, in a voice of anguish and reproach.
"But I did not doubt you. I believed in you when he said it, as I believe
in you now when you stand there like that. I know what you have done for
me--"
"I pleaded with Monsieur Fournel, knowing how you loved the
Seigneury--pleaded and offered to pay three times the price--"
"Yourself would have been a hundred million times the price. Ah, I know
you, Madelinette--I know you now! I have been selfish, but I see all now.
Now when all is over--" he seemed listening to noises with out--"I see
what you have done for me. I know how you have sacrificed all for me--all
but honour--all but honour," he added, a wild fire in his eyes, a
trembling seizing him. "Your honour is yours forever. I say so. I say so,
and I have proved it. Kiss me, Madelinette--kiss me once," he added, in a
quick whisper.
"My poor, poor Louis!" she said, laid a soothing hand upon his arm, and
leaned towards him. He snatched her to his breast, and kissed her twice
in a very agony of joy, then let her go. He listened for an instant to
the growing noise without, then said in a hoarse voice:
"Now, I will tell you, Madelinette. They are coming for me--don't you
hear them? They are coming to take me; but they shall not have me. They
shall not have me--" he glanced to a little door that led into a
bath-room at his right.
"Louis-Louis!" she said in a sudden fright, for though his words seemed
mad, a strange quiet sanity was in all he did. "What have you done? Who
are coming?" she asked in agony, and caught him by the arm.
"I killed Tardif. He is there in the hut in the garden--dead! I was seen,
and they are coming to take me."
With a cry she ran to the door that led into the hall, and locked it. She
listened, then turned her face to Louis.
"You killed him!" she gasped. "Louis! Louis!" Her face was like ashes.
"I stabbed him to death. It was all I could do, and I did it. He
slandered you. I went mad, and did it. Now--"
There was a knocking at the door, and a voice calling--a peremptory
voice.
"There is only one way," he said. "They shall not take me. I will not be
dragged to gaol for crowds to jeer at. I will not be sent to the
scaffold, to your shame."
He ran to the door of the bath-room and flung it open. "If my life is to
pay the price, then--!"
She came blindly towards him, stretching out her hands.
"Louis! Louis!" was all that she could say.
He caught her hands and kissed them, then stepped swiftly back into the
little bath-room, and locked the door, as the door of the room she was in
was burst open, and two constables and a half-dozen men crowded into the
room.
She stood with her back to the bath-room door, panting, and white, and
anguished, and her ears strained to the terrible thing inside the place
behind her.
The men understood, and came towards her. "Stand back," she said. "You
shall not have him. You shall not have him. Ah, don't you hear? He is
dying--O God, O God!" she cried, with tearless eyes and upturned
face--"Ah, let it be soon! Ah, let him die soon!"
The men stood abashed before her agony. Behind the little door where she
stood there was a muffled groaning. She trembled, but her arms were
spread out before the door as though on a cross, and her lips kept
murmuring: "O God, let him die! Let him die! Oh spare him agony!"
Suddenly she stood still and listened-listened, with staring eyes that
saw nothing. In the room men shrank back, for they knew that death was
behind the little door, and that they were in the presence of a sorrow
greater than death.
Suddenly she turned upon them with a gesture of piteous triumph and said:
"You cannot have him now."
Then she swayed and fell forward to the floor as the Cure and George
Fournel entered the room. The Cure hastened to her side and lifted up her
head.
George Fournel pushed the men back who would have entered the bath-room,
and himself, bursting the door open, entered. Louis lay dead upon the
floor. He turned to the constables.
"As she said, you cannot have him now. You have no right here. Go. I had
a warning from the man he killed. I knew there would be trouble. But I
have come too late," he added bitterly.
An hour later the house was as still as the grave. Madame Marie sat with
the doctor beside the bed of her dear mistress, and in another room,
George Fournel, with the Avocat, kept watch beside the body of the
Seigneur of Pontiac. The face of the dead man was as peaceful as that of
a little child.
.........................
At ninety years of age, the present Seigneur of Pontiac, one Baron
Fournel, lives in the Manor House left him by Madelinette Lajeunesse the
great singer, when she died a quarter of a century ago. For thirty years
he followed her from capital to capital of Europe and America to hear her
sing; and to this day he talks of her in language more French than
English in its ardour. Perhaps that is because his heart beats in
sympathy with the Frenchmen he once disdained.
ETEXT EDITOR'S BOOKMARKS:
Ah, let it be soon! Ah, let him die soon!
All are hurt some time
Did not let him think that she was giving up anything for him
Duplicity, for which she might never have to ask forgiveness
Frenchman, slave of ideas, the victim of sentiment
Frenchman, volatile, moody, chivalrous, unreasonable
Her stronger soul ruled him without his knowledge
I love that love in which I married him
Let others ride to glory, I'll shoe their horses for the gallop
Lighted candles in hollowed pumpkins
Love has nothing to do with ugliness or beauty, or fortune
Nature twists in back, or anywhere, gets a twist in's brain too
Rewarded for its mistakes
Some are hurt in one way and some in another
Struggle of conscience and expediency
THE LANE THAT HAD NO TURNING
By Gilbert Parker
Volume 2.
THE ABSURD ROMANCE OF P'TITE LOUISON
THE LITTLE BELL OF HONOUR
A SON OF THE WILDERNESS
A WORKER IN STONE
THE ABSURD ROMANCE OF P'TITE LOUISON
The five brothers lived with Louison, three miles from Pontiac, and
Medallion came to know them first through having sold them, at an
auction, a slice of an adjoining farm. He had been invited to their home,
intimacy had grown, and afterwards, stricken with a severe illness, he
had been taken into the household and kept there till he was well again.
The night of his arrival, Louison, the sister, stood with a brother on
either hand--Octave and Florian--and received him with a courtesy more
stately than usual, an expression of the reserve and modesty of her
single state. This maidenly dignity was at all times shielded by the five
brothers, who treated her with a constant and reverential courtesy. There
was something signally suggestive in their homage, and Medallion
concluded at last that it was paid not only to the sister, but to
something that gave her great importance in their eyes.
He puzzled long, and finally decided that Louison had a romance. There
was something which suggested it in the way they said "P'tite Louison";
in the manner they avoided all gossip regarding marriages and
marriage-feasting; in the way they deferred to her on questions of
etiquette (as, for instance, Should the eldest child be given the family
name of the wife or a Christian name from her husband's family?). And
P'tite Louison's opinion was accepted instantly as final, with satisfied
nods on the part of all the brothers, and whispers of "How clever! how
adorable!"
P'tite Louison affected never to hear these remarks, but looked
complacently straight before her, stirring the spoon in her cup, or
benignly passing the bread and butter. She was quite aware of the homage
paid to her, and she gracefully accepted the fact that she was an object
of interest.
Medallion had not the heart to laugh at the adoration of the brothers, or
at the outlandish sister, for, though she was angular, and sallow, and
thin, and her hands were large and red, there was a something deep in her
eyes, a curious quality in her carriage commanding respect. She had ruled
these brothers, had been worshipped by them, for near half a century, and
the romance they had kept alive had produced a grotesque sort of truth
and beauty in the admiring "P'tite Louison"--an affectionate name for her
greatness, like "The Little Corporal" for Napoleon. She was not little,
either, but above the middle height, and her hair was well streaked with
grey.
Her manner towards Medallion was not marked by any affectation. She was
friendly in a kind, impersonal way, much as a nurse cares for a patient,
and she never relaxed a sort of old-fashioned courtesy, which might have
been trying in such close quarters, were it not for the real simplicity
of the life and the spirit and lightness of their race. One night
Florian--there were Florian and Octave and Felix and Isidore and
Emile--the eldest, drew Medallion aside from the others, and they walked
together by the river. Florian's air suggested confidence and mystery,
and soon, with a voice of hushed suggestion, he told Medallion the
romance of P'tite Louison. And each of the brothers at different times
during the next fortnight did the same, differing scarcely at all in
details, or choice of phrase or meaning, and not at all in general facts
and essentials. But each, as he ended, made a different exclamation.
"Voila, so sad, so wonderful! She keeps the ring--dear P'tite Louison!"
said Florian, the eldest.
"Alors, she gives him a legacy in her will! Sweet P'tite Louison," said
Octave.
"Mais, the governor and the archbishop admire her--P'tite Louison:" said
Felix, nodding confidently at Medallion.
"Bien, you should see the linen and the petticoats!" said Isidore, the
humorous one of the family. "He was great--she was an angel, P'tite
Louison!"
"Attends! what love--what history--what passion!--the perfect P'tite
Louison!" cried Emile, the youngest, the most sentimental. "Ah, Moliere!"
he added, as if calling on the master to rise and sing the glories of
this daughter of romance.
Isidore's tale was after this fashion:
"I ver' well remember the first of it; and the last of it--who can tell?
He was an actor--oh, so droll, that! Tall, ver' smart, and he play in
theatre at Montreal. It is in the winter. P'tite Louison visit Montreal.
She walk past the theatre and, as she go by, she slip on the snow and
fall. Out from a door with a jomp come M'sieu' Hadrian, and pick her up.
And when he see the purty face of P'tite Louison, his eyes go all fire,
and he clasp her hand to his breast.
"'Ma'm'selle, Ma'm'selle,' he say, 'we must meet again!'
"She thank him and hurry away queeck. Next day we are on the river, and
P'tite Louison try to do the Dance of the Blue Fox on the ice. While she
do it, some one come up swift, and catch her hand and say: 'Ma'm'selle,
let's do it together'--like that! It take her breath away. It is M'sieu'
Hadrian. He not seem like the other men she know; but he have a sharp
look, he is smooth in the face, and he smile kind like a woman. P'tite
Louison, she give him her hand, and they run away, and every one stop to
look. It is a gran' sight. M'sieu' Hadrian laugh, and his teeth shine,
and the ladies say things of him, and he tell P'tite Louison that she
look ver' fine, and walk like a queen. I am there that day, and I see
all, and I think it dam good. I say: 'That P'tite Louison, she beat them
all'--I am only twelve year old then. When M'sieu' Hadrian leave, he give
her two seats for the theatre, and we go. Bagosh! that is grand thing
that play, and M'sieu' Hadrian, he is a prince; and when he say to his
minister, 'But no, my lord, I will marry out of my star, and where my
heart go, not as the State wills,' he look down at P'tite Louison, and
she go all red, and some of the women look at her, and there is a whisper
all roun'.
"Nex' day he come to the house where we stay, but the Cure come also
pretty soon and tell her she must go home--he say an actor is not good
company. Never mind. And so we come out home. Well, what you think? Nex'
day M'sieu' Hadrian come, too, and we have dam good time--Florian,
Octave, Felix, Emile, they all sit and say bully-good to him all the
time. Holy, what fine stories he tell! And he talk about P'tite Louison,
and his eyes get wet, and Emile he say his prayers to him--bagosh! yes, I
think. Well, at last, what you guess? M'sieu' he come and come, and at
last one day, he say that he leave Montreal and go to New York, where he
get a good place in a big theatre--his time in Montreal is finish. So he
speak to Florian and say he want marry P'tite Louison, and he say, of
course, that he is not marry and he have money. But he is a Protestan',
and the Cure at first ver' mad, bagosh!