The Lane That Had No Turning, Complete - Gilbert Parker
Then he trotted out of the house and away to the Little Chemist, who came
passively with him. All that day, and for many days, they fought to save
Pomfrette's life. The Cure came also; but Pomfrette was in fever and
delirium. Yet the good M. Fabre's presence, as it ever did, gave an air
of calm and comfort to the place. Parpon's hands alone cared for the
house; he did all that was to be done; no woman had entered the place
since Pomfrette's cousin, old Mme. Burgoyne, left it on the day of his
shame.
When at last Pomfrette opened his eyes, and saw the Cure standing beside
him, he turned his face to the wall, and to the exhortation addressed to
him he answered nothing. At last the Cure left him, and came no more; and
he bade Parpon do the same as soon as Pomfrette was able to leave his
bed.
But Parpon did as he willed. He had been in Pontiac only a few days since
the painful business in front of the Louis Quinze. Where he had been and
what doing no one asked, for he was mysterious in his movements, and
always uncommunicative, and people did not care to tempt his inhospitable
tongue. When Pomfrette was so far recovered that he might be left alone,
Parpon said to him one evening:
"Pomfrette, you must go to Mass next Sunday."
"I said I wouldn't go till I was carried there, and I mean it--that's
so," was the morose reply.
"What made you curse like that--so damnable?" asked Parpon furtively.
"That's my own business. It doesn't matter to anybody but me."
"And you said the Cure lied--the good M'sieu' Fabre--him like a saint."
"I said he lied, and I'd say it again, and tell the truth."
"But if you went to Mass, and took your penance, and--"
"Yes, I know; they'd forgive me, and I'd get absolution, and they'd all
speak to me again, and it would be, 'Good-day, Luc,' and 'Very good,
Luc,' and 'What a gay heart has Luc, the good fellow!' Ah, I know. They
curse in the heart when the whole world go wrong for them; no one hears.
I curse out loud. I'm not a hypocrite, and no one thinks me fit to live.
Ack, what is the good!"
Parpon did not respond at once. At last, dropping his chin in his hand
and his elbow on his knee, as he squatted on the table, he said:
"But if the girl got sorry--"
For a time there was no sound save the whirring of the fire in the stove
and the hard breathing of the sick man. His eyes were staring hard at
Parpon. At last he said, slowly and fiercely:
"What do you know?"
"What others might know if they had eyes and sense; but they haven't.
What would you do if that Junie come back?"
"I would kill her." His look was murderous.
"Bah, you would kiss her first, just the same!"
"What of that? I would kiss her because--because there is no face like
hers in the world; and I'd kill her for her bad heart."
"What did she do?" Pomfrette's hands clinched.
"What's in my own noddle, and not for any one else," he answered sulkily.
"Tiens, tiens, what a close mouth! What did she do? Who knows? What you
think she do, it's this. You think she pretends to love you, and you
leave all your money with her. She is to buy masses for your father's
soul; she is to pay money to the Cure for the good of the Church; she is
to buy a little here, a little there, for the house you and she are going
to live in, the wedding and the dancing over. Very well. Ah, my
Pomfrette, what is the end you think? She run away with Dicey the
Protestant, and take your money with her. Eh, is that so?"
For answer there came a sob, and then a terrible burst of weeping and
anger and passionate denunciations--against Junie Gauloir, against
Pontiac, against the world.
Parpon held his peace.
The days, weeks, and months went by; and the months stretched to three
years.
In all that time Pomfrette came and went through Pontiac, shunned and
unrepentant. His silent, gloomy endurance was almost an affront to
Pontiac; and if the wiser ones, the Cure, the Avocat, the Little Chemist,
and Medallion, were more sorry than offended, they stood aloof till the
man should in some manner redeem himself, and repent of his horrid
blasphemy. But one person persistently defied Church and people, Cure and
voyageur. Parpon openly and boldly walked with Pomfrette, talked with
him, and occasionally visited his house.
Luc made hard shifts to live. He grew everything that he ate, vegetables
and grains. Parpon showed him how to make his own flour in primitive
fashion, for no miller in any parish near would sell him flour, and he
had no money to buy it, nor would any one who knew him give him work. And
after his return to Pontiac he never asked for it. His mood was defiant,
morbid, stern. His wood he chopped from the common known as No-Man's
Land. His clothes he made himself out of the skins of deer that he shot;
when his powder and shot gave out, he killed the deer with bow and arrow.
III
The end came at last. Luc was taken ill. For four days, all alone, he lay
burning with fever and inflammation, and when Parpon found him he was
almost dead. Then began a fight for life again, in which Parpon was the
only physician; for Pomfrette would not allow the Little Chemist or a
doctor near him. Parpon at last gave up hope; but one night, when he came
back from the village, he saw, to his joy, old Mme. Degardy ("Crazy Joan"
she was called) sitting by Pomfrette's bedside. He did not disturb her,
for she had no love for him, and he waited till she had gone. When he
came into the room again he found Pomfrette in a sweet sleep, and a jug
of tincture, with a little tin cup, placed by the bed. Time and again he
had sent for Mme. Degardy, but she would not come. She had answered that
the dear Luc could go to the devil for all of her; he'd find better
company down below than in Pontiac.
But for a whim, perhaps, she had come at last without asking, and as a
consequence Luc returned to the world, a mere bundle of bones.
It was still while he was only a bundle of bones that one Sunday morning,
Parpon, without a word, lifted him up in his arms and carried him out of
the house. Pomfrette did not speak at first: it seemed scarcely worth
while; he was so weak he did not care.
"Where are you going?" he said at last, as they came well into the
village. The bell in St. Saviour's had stopped ringing for Mass, and the
streets were almost empty.
"I'm taking you to Mass," said Parpon, puffing under his load, for
Pomfrette made an ungainly burden. "Hand of a little devil, no!" cried
Pomfrette, startled. "I said I'd never go to Mass again, and I never
will.
"You said you'd never go to Mass till you were carried; so it's all
right."
Once or twice Pomfrette struggled, but Parpon held him tight, saying:
"It's no use; you must come; we've had enough. Besides--"
"Besides what?" asked Pomfrette faintly. "Never mind," answered Parpon.
At a word from Parpon the shrivelled old sexton cleared a way through the
aisle, making a stir, through which the silver bell at Pomfrette's knee
tinkled, in answer, as it were, to the tinkling of the acolyte's bell in
the sanctuary. People turned at the sound, women stopped telling their
beads, some of the choir forgot their chanting. A strange feeling passed
through the church, and reached and startled the Cure as he recited the
Mass. He turned round and saw Parpon laying Pomfrette down at the chancel
steps. His voice shook a little as he intoned the ritual, and as he
raised the sacred elements tears rolled down his cheeks.
From a distant corner of the gallery a deeply veiled woman also looked
down at Pomfrette, and her hand trembled on the desk before her.
At last the Cure came forward to the chancel steps. "What is it, Parpon?"
he asked gravely.
"It is Luc Pomfrette, M'sieu' le Cure." Pomfrette's eyes were closed.
"He swore that he would never come to Mass again," answered the good
priest.
"Till he was carried, M'sieu' le Cure--and I've carried him."
"Did you come of your own free will, and with a repentant heart, Luc
Pomfrette?" asked the Cure.
"I did not know I was coming--no." Pomfrette's brown eyes met the
priest's unflinchingly.
"You have defied God, and yet He has spared your life."
"I'd rather have died," answered the sick man simply.
"Died, and been cast to perdition!"
"I'm used to that; I've had a bad time here in Pontiac."
His thin hands moved restlessly. His leg moved, and the little bell
tinkled--the bell that had been like the bell of a leper these years
past.
"But you live, and you have years yet before you, in the providence of
God. Luc Pomfrette, you blasphemed against your baptism, and horribly
against God himself. Luc"--his voice got softer--"I knew your mother, and
she was almost too weak to hold you when you were baptised, for you made
a great to-do about coming into the world. She had a face like a
saint--so sweet, so patient. You were her only child, and your baptism
was more to her than her marriage even, or any other thing in this world.
The day after your baptism she died. What do you think were her last
words?"
There was a hectic flush on Pomfrette's face, and his eyes were intense
and burning as they looked up fixedly at the Cure.
"I can't think any more," answered Pomfrette slowly. "I've no head."
"What she said is for your heart, not for your head, Luc," rejoined the
Cure gently. "She wandered in her mind, and at the last she raised
herself up in her bed, and lifting her finger like this"--he made the
gesture of benediction--"she said, 'Luc Michele, I baptise you in the
name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost. Amen.' Then
she whispered softly: 'God bless my dear Luc Michee! Holy Mother pray for
him!' These were her last words, and I took you from her arms. What have
you to say, Luc Michee?"
The woman in the gallery was weeping silently behind her thick veil, and
her worn hand clutched the desk in front of her convulsively. Presently
she arose and made her way down the stair, almost unnoticed. Two or three
times Luc tried to speak, but could not. "Lift me up," he said brokenly,
at last.
Parpon and the Little Chemist raised him to his feet, and held him, his
shaking hands resting on their shoulders, his lank body tottering above
and between them.
Looking at the congregation, he said slowly: "I'll suffer till I die for
cursing my baptism, and God will twist my neck in purgatory for--"
"Luc," the Cure interrupted, "say that you repent."
"I'm sorry, and I ask you all to forgive me, and I'll confess to the
Cure, and take my penance, and--" he paused, for breathing hurt him.
At that moment the woman in black who had been in the gallery came
quickly forward. Parpon saw her, frowned, and waved her back; but she
came on. At the chancel steps she raised her veil, and a murmur of
recognition and wonder ran through the church. Pomfrette's face was
pitiful to see--drawn, staring.
"Junie!" he said hoarsely.
Her eyes were red with weeping, her face was very pale. "M'sieu' le Cure"
she said, "you must listen to me"--the Cure's face had become
forbidding--"sinner though I am. You want to be just, don't you? Ah,
listen! I was to be married to Luc Pomfrette, but I did not love
him--then. He had loved me for years, and his father and my father wished
it--as you know, M'sieu' le Cure. So after a while I said I would; but I
begged him that he wouldn't say anything about it till he come back from
his next journey on the river. I did not love him enough--then. He left
all his money with me: some to pay for Masses for his father's soul, some
to buy things for--for our home; and the rest to keep till he came back."
"Yes, yes," said Pomfrette, his eyes fixed painfully on her face--"yes,
yes."
"The day after Luc went away John Dicey the Protestant come to me. I'd
always liked him; he could talk as Luc couldn't, and it sounded nice. I
listened and listened. He knew about Luc and about the money and all.
Then he talked to me. I was all wild in the head, and things went round
and round, and oh, how I hated to marry Luc--then! So after he had talked
a long while I said yes, I would go with him and marry him--a
Protestant--for I loved him. I don't know why or how."
Pomfrette trembled so that Parpon and the Little Chemist made him sit
down, and he leaned against their shoulders, while Junie went on:
"I gave him Luc's money to go and give to Parpon here, for I was too
ashamed to go myself. And I wrote a little note to Luc, and sent it with
the money. I believed in John Dicey, of course. He came back, and said
that he had seen Parpon and had done it all right; then we went away to
Montreal and got married. The very first day at Montreal, I found out
that he had Luc's money. It was awful. I went mad, and he got angry and
left me alone, and didn't come back. A week afterwards he was killed, and
I didn't know it for a long time. But I began to work, for I wanted to
pay back Luc's money. It was very slow, and I worked hard. Will it never
be finished, I say. At last Parpon find me, and I tell him all--all
except that John Dicey was dead; and I did not know that. I made him
promise to tell nobody; but he knows all about my life since then. Then I
find out one day that John Dicey is dead, and I get from the gover'ment a
hundred dollars of the money he stole. It was found on him when he was
killed. I work for six months longer, and now I come back--with Luc's
money."
She drew from her pocket a packet of notes, and put it in Luc's hands. He
took it dazedly, then dropped it, and the Little Chemist picked it up; he
had no prescription like that in his pharmacopoeia.
"That's how I've lived," she said, and she handed a letter to the Cure.
It was from a priest in Montreal, setting forth the history of her career
in that city, her repentance for her elopement and the sin of marrying a
Protestant, and her good life. She had wished to do her penance in
Pontiac, and it remained to M'sieu' le Cure; to set it.
The Cure's face relaxed, and a rare gentleness came into it.
He read the letter aloud. Luc once more struggled to his feet, eagerly
listening.
"You did not love Luc?" the Cure asked Junie, meaningly.
"I did not love Luc--then," she answered, a flush going over her face.
"You loved Junie?" the Cure said to Pomfrette. "I could have killed her,
but I've always loved her," answered Luc. Then he raised his voice
excitedly: "I love her, love her, love her--but what's the good! She'd
never 've been happy with me. Look what my love drove her to! What's the
good, at all!"
"She said she did not love you then, Luc Michee," said Parpon,
interrupting. "Luc Michee, you're a fool as well as a sinner. Speak up,
Junie."
"I used to tell him that I didn't love him; I only liked him. I was
honest. Well, I am honest still. I love him now."
A sound of joy broke from Luc's lips, and he stretched out his arms to
her, but the Cure; stopped that. "Not here," he said. "Your sins must
first be considered. For penance--" He paused, looking at the two sad yet
happy beings before him. The deep knowledge of life that was in him
impelled him to continue gently:
"For penance you shall bear the remembrance of each other's sins. And now
to God the Father--" He turned towards the altar, and raised his hands in
the ascription.
As he knelt to pray before he entered the pulpit, he heard the tinkling
of the little bell of honour at the knee of Luc, as Junie and Parpon
helped him from the church.
A SON OF THE WILDERNESS
Rachette told the story to Medallion and the Little Chemist's wife on
Sunday after Mass, and because he was vain of his English he forsook his
own tongue and paid tribute to the Anglo-Saxon.
"Ah, she was so purty, that Norinne, when she drive through the parishes
all twelve days, after the wedding, a dance every night, and her eyes and
cheeks on fire all the time. And Bargon, bagosh! that Bargon, he have a
pair of shoulders like a wall, and five hunder' dollars and a horse and
wagon. Bagosh, I say that time: 'Bargon he have put a belt round the
world and buckle it tight to him--all right, ver' good.' I say to him:
'Bargon, what you do when you get ver' rich out on the Souris River in
the prairie west?' He laugh and throw up his hands, for he have not many
words any kind. And the dam little dwarf Parpon, he say: 'He will have
flowers on the table and ice on the butter, and a wheel in his head.'
"And Bargon laugh and say: 'I will have plenty for my friends to eat and
drink and a ver' fine time.' "'Good,' we all say-'Bagosh!' So they make
the trip through twelve parish, and the fiddles go all the time, and I am
what you say 'best man' with Bargon. I go all the time, and Lucette
Dargois, she go with me and her brother--holy, what an eye had she in her
head, that Lucette! As we go we sing a song all right, and there is no
one sing so better as Norinne:
"'C'est la belle Francoise,
Allons gai!
C'est la belle Francoise,
Qui veut se marier,
Ma luron lurette!
Qui veut se marier,
Ma luron lure!'
"Ver' good, bagosh! Norinne and Bargon they go out to the Souris, and
Bargon have a hunder' acre, and he put up a house and a shed not ver'
big, and he carry his head high and his shoulders like a wall; yes, yes.
First year it is pretty good time, and Norinne's cheeks--ah, like an
apple they. Bimeby a baby laugh up at Bargon from Norinne's lap. I am on
the Souris at a saw-mill then, and on Sunday sometime I go up to see
Bargon and Norinne. I t'ink that baby is so dam funny; I laugh and pinch
his nose. His name is Marie, and I say I marry him pretty quick some day.
We have plenty hot cake, and beans and pork, and a little how-you-are
from a jar behin' the door.
"Next year it is not so good. There is a bad crop and hard time, and
Bargon he owe two hunder' dollar, and he pay int'rest. Norinne, she do
all the work, and that little Marie, there is dam funny in him, and
Norinne, she keep go, go, all the time, early and late, and she get ver'
thin and quiet. So I go up from the mill more times, and I bring fol-lols
for that Marie, for you know I said I go to marry him some day. And when
I see how Bargon shoulders stoop and his eye get dull, and there is
nothing in the jar behin' the door, I fetch a horn with me, and my
fiddle, and, bagosh! there is happy sit-you-down. I make Bargon sing 'La
Belle Francoise,' and then just before I go I make them laugh, for I
stand by the cradle and I sing to that Marie:
"'Adieu, belle Frangoise;
Allons gai!
Adieu, belle Francoise!
Moi, je to marierai,
Ma luron lurette! Moi,
je to marierai,
Ma luron lure!'
"So; and another year it go along, and Bargon he know that if there come
bad crop it is good-bye-my lover with himselves. He owe two hunder' and
fifty dollar. It is the spring at Easter, and I go up to him and Norinne,
for there is no Mass, and Pontiac is too far away off. We stan' at the
door and look out, and all the prairie is green, and the sun stan' up
high like a light on a pole, and the birds fly by ver' busy looking for
the summer and the prairie-flower.
"'Bargon,' I say--and I give him a horn of old rye--'here's to le bon
Dieu!'
"'Le bon Dieu, and a good harvest!' he say.
"I hear some one give a long breath behin', and I look round; but, no, it
is Norinne with a smile--for she never grumble--bagosh! What purty eyes
she have in her head! She have that Marie in her arms, and I say to
Bargon it is like the Madonne in the Notre Dame at Montreal. He nod his
head. 'C'est le bon Dieu--it is the good God,' he say.
"Before I go I take a piece of palm--it come from the Notre Dame; it is
all bless by the Pope--and I nail it to the door of the house. 'For
luck,' I say. Then I laugh, and I speak out to the prairie: 'Come along,
good summer; come along, good crop; come two hunder' and fifty dollars
for Gal Bargon.' Ver' quiet I give Norinne twenty dollar, but she will
not take him. 'For Marie,' then I say: 'I go to marry him, bimeby.' But
she say: 'Keep it and give it to Marie yourself some day.'
"She smile at me, then she have a little tear in her eye, and she nod to
where Bargon stare' houtside, and she say: 'If this summer go wrong, it
will kill him. He work and work and fret and worry for me and Marie, and
sometimes he just sit and look at me and say not a word.'
"I say to her that there will be good crop, and next year we will be ver'
happy. So, the time go on, and I send up a leetla snack of pork and
molass' and tabac, and sugar and tea, and I get a letter from Bargon
bimeby, and he say that heverything go right, he t'ink, this summer. He
say I must come up. It is not dam easy to go in the summer, when the mill
run night and day; but I say I will go.
"When I get up to Bargon's I laugh, for all the hunder' acre is ver'
fine, and Bargon stan' hin the door, and stretch out his hand, and say:
'Rachette, there is six hunder' dollar for me.' I nod my head, and fetch
out a horn, and he have one, his eyes all bright like a lime-kiln. He is
thin and square, and his beard grow ver' thick and rough and long, and
his hands are like planks. Norinne, she is ver' happy, too, and Marie
bite on my finger, and I give him sugar-stick to suck.
"Bimeby Norinne say to me, ver' soft: 'If a hailstorm or a hot wind come,
that is the end of it all, and of my poor Gal.'
"What I do? I laugh and ketch Marie under the arms, and I sit down, and I
put him on my foot, and I sing that dam funny English song--'Here We Go
to Banbury Cross.' An' I say: 'It will be all as happy as Marie pretty
quick. Bargon he will have six hunder' dollar, and you a new dress and a
hired girl to help you.'
"But all the time that day I think about a hail-storm or a hot wind
whenever I look out on that hunder' acre farm. It is so beautiful, as you
can guess--the wheat, the barley, the corn, the potatoes, the turnip, all
green like sea-water, and pigeons and wild ducks flying up and down, and
the horse and the ox standing in a field ver' comfer'ble.
"We have good time that day, and go to bed all happy that night. I get up
at five o'clock, an' I go hout. Bargon stan' there looking hout on his
field with the horse-bridle in his hand. 'The air not feel right,' he say
to me. I t'ink the same, but I say to him: 'Your head not feel right--him
too sof'.' He shake his head and go down to the field for his horse and
ox, and hitch them up together, and go to work making a road.
"It is about ten o'clock when the dam thing come. Piff! go a hot splash
of air in my face, and then I know that it is all up with Gal Bargon. A
month after it is no matter, for the grain is ripe then, but now, when it
is green, it is sure death to it all. I turn sick in my stomich, and I
turn round and see Norinne stan' hin the door, all white, and she make
her hand go as that, like she push back that hot wind.
"'Where is Gal?' she say. 'I must go to him.' 'No,' I say, 'I will fetch
him. You stay with Marie.' Then I go ver' quick for Gal, and I find him,
his hands all shut like that! and he shake them at the sky, and he say
not a word, but his face, it go wild, and his eyes spin round in his
head. I put my hand on his arm and say: 'Come home, Gal. Come home, and
speak kind to Norinne and Marie.'
"I can see that hot wind lean down and twist the grain about--a dam devil
thing from the Arzone desert down South. I take Gal back home, and we sit
there all day, and all the nex' day, and a leetla more, and when we have
look enough, there is no grain on that hunder' acre farm--only a dry-up
prairie, all grey and limp. My skin is bake and rough, but when I look at
Gal Bargon I know that his heart is dry like a bone, and, as Parpon say
that back time, he have a wheel in his head. Norinne she is quiet, and
she sit with her hand on his shoulder, and give him Marie to hold.
"But it is no good; it is all over. So I say: 'Let us go back to Pontiac.
What is the good for to be rich? Let us be poor and happy once more.'
"And Norinne she look glad, and get up and say: 'Yes, let us go back.'
But all at once she sit down with Marie in her arms, and cry--bagosh, I
never see a woman cry like that!
"So we start back for Pontiac with the horse and the ox and some pork and
bread and molass'. But Gal Bargon never hold up his head, but go silent,
silent, and he not sleep at night. One night he walk away on the prairie,
and when he come back he have a great pain. So he lie down, and we sit by
him, an' he die. But once he whisper to me, and Norinne not hear: 'You
say you will marry him, Rachette?' and I say, 'I will.'
"'C'est le bon Dieu!' he say at the last, but he say it with a little
laugh. I think he have a wheel in his head. But bimeby, yiste'day,
Norinne and Marie and I come to Pontiac."
The Little Chemist's wife dried her eyes, and Medallion said in French:
"Poor Norinne! Poor Norinne! And so, Rachette, you are going to marry
Marie, by-and-bye?" There was a quizzical look in Medallion's eyes.
Rachette threw up his chin a little. "I'm going to marry Norinne on New
Year's Day," he said. "Bagosh, poor Norinne!" said Medallion, in a queer
sort of tone. "It is the way of the world," he added. "I'll wait for
Marie myself."