The Right of Way, Complete - Gilbert Parker
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So it was that the two disliked each other without good cause, save that
they were separated by a chasm as wide as a sea. The one disliked the
other because she must recognise her; the other chafed because she could
be recognised by Rosalie officially only.
The late afternoon of the day in which Rosalie decided to nail the cross
on the church door again, Paulette arrived to ask for letters at the
moment that the office wicket was closed, and Rosalie had answered that
it was after office hours, and had almost closed the door in her face. As
she turned away Jo Portugais came out of the tailor-shop opposite. He saw
Paulette, and stood still an instant. She did the same. A strange look
passed across the face of each, then they turned and went in opposite
directions.
Never in her life had time gone so slowly with Rosalie. She watched the
clock. A dozen times she went to the front door and looked out. She tried
to read--it was no use; she tried to spin-her fingers trembled; she
sorted the letters in the office again, and rearranged every letter and
parcel and paper in its little pigeonhole--then did it all over again.
She took out again the letter Paulette had dropped in the letter-box; it
was addressed in the name of the man at Montreal. She looked at it in a
kind of awe, as she had ever done the letters of this woman who was
without the pale. They had a sense of mystery, an air of forbidden
imagination.
She put the letter back, went to the door again, and looked out. It was
now time to go. Drawing a hood over her head, she stepped out into the
night. There was a little frost, though spring was well forward, and the
smell of the rich earth and the budding trees was sweet to the sense. The
moon had just set, but the stars were shining, and here and there patches
of snow on the hillside and in the fields added to the light. Yet it was
not bright enough to see far, and as Rosalie moved down the street she
did not notice a figure at a little distance behind, walking on the
new-springing grass by the roadside. All was quiet at the tavern; there
was no light in the Notary's house--as a rule, he sat up late, reading;
and even the fiddle of Maximilian Cour, the baker, was silent. The Cure's
windows were dark, and the church with its white tin spire stood up
sentinel-like above the village.
Rosalie had the fateful cross in her hand as she softly opened the gate
of the churchyard and approached the great oak doors. Taking a
screw-driver and some screws from her pocket, she felt with a finger for
the old screw-holes in the door. Then she began her work, looking
fearfully round once or twice at first. Presently, however, because the
screws were larger than the old ones, it became much harder; the task
called forth more strength, and drove all thought of being seen out of
her mind for a space. At last, however, she gave the final turn to the
handle, and every screw was in its place, its top level and smooth with
the iron of the cross. She stopped and looked round again with an uneasy
feeling. She could see no one, hear no one, but she began to tremble,
and, overcome, she fell on her knees before the door, and, with her
fingers on the foot of the little cross, prayed passionately; for
herself, for Monsieur.
Suddenly she heard footsteps inside the church. They were coming towards
the doorway, nearer and nearer. At first she was so struck with terror
that she could not move. Then with a little cry she sprang to her feet,
rushed to the gate, threw it open, ran out into the road, ind wildly on
towards home. She did not stop for at least three hundred yards. Turning
and looking back she saw at the church door a pale round light. With
another cry she sped on, and did not pause till she reached the house.
Then, bursting in and locking the door, she hurried to her room,
undressed quickly, got into bed without saying her prayers, and buried
her face in the pillow, shivering and overwrought.
The footsteps she had heard were those of the Cure and Jo Portugais. The
Cure had sent for Jo to do some last work upon a little altar, to be used
the next day for the first time. The carpenter and the carver in wood who
were responsible for the work had fallen victims to white whiskey on the
very last day of their task, and had been driven from the church by the
Cure, who then sent for Jo. Rosalie had not seen the light at the shrine,
as it was on the side of the church farthest from the village.
Their labour finished, the two came towards the front door, the Cure's
lantern in his hand. Opening the door, Jo heard the sound of footsteps
and saw a figure flying down the road. As the Cure came out abstractedly,
he glanced sorrowfully towards the place where the little cross was used
to be. He gave a wondering cry, and almost dropped the lantern.
"See, see, Portugais," he said, "our little cross again!" Jo nodded. "So
it seems, Monsieur," he said.
At that instant he saw a hood lying on the ground, and as the Cure held
up the lantern, peering at the little cross, he hastily picked it up and
thrust it inside his coat.
"Strange--very strange!" said the Cure. "It must have been done while we
were inside. It was not there when we entered."
"We entered by the vestry door," said Jo.
"Ah, true-true," responded the Cure.
"It comes as it went," said Jo. "You can't account for some things."
The Cure turned and looked at Jo curiously. "Are you then so
superstitious, Jo? Nonsense; it is the work of human hands--very human
hands," he added sadly.
"There is nothing to show," said the Cure, seeing Jo's glance round.
"As you see, M'sieu' le Cure."
"Well, it is a mystery which time no doubt will clear up. Meanwhile, let
us be thankful to God," said the Cure.
They parted, the Cure going through a side-gate into his own garden, Jo
passing out of the churchyard-gate through which Rosalie had gone. He
looked down the road towards the village.
"Well!" said a voice in his ear. Paulette Dubois stood before him.
"It was you, then," he said, with a glowering look. "What did you want
with it?"
"What do you want with the hood in your coat there?" She threw her head
back with a spiteful laugh. "Whose do you think it is?" he said quietly.
"You and the schoolmaster made verses about her once."
"It was Rosalie Evanturel?" he asked, with aggravating composure.
"You have the hood-look at it! You saw her running down the road; I saw
her come, watched her, and saw her go. She is a thief--pretty
Rosalie--thief and postmistress! No doubt she takes letters too."
"The ones you wait for, and that never come--eh?" Her face darkened with
rage and hatred. "I will tell the world she's a thief," she sneered.
"Who will believe you?"
"You will." She was hard and fierce, and looked him in the eyes squarely.
"You'll give evidence quick enough, if I ask you."
"I wouldn't do anything you asked me to-nothing, if it was to save my
life."
"I'll prove her a thief without you. She can't deny it."
"If you try it, I'll--" He stopped, husky and shaking.
"You'll kill me, eh? You killed him, and you didn't hang. Oh no, you
wouldn't kill me, Jo," she added quickly, in a changed voice. "You've had
enough of that kind of thing. If I'd been you, I'd rather have hung--ah,
sure!" She suddenly came close to him. "Do you hate me so bad, Jo?" she
said anxiously. "It's eight years--do you hate me so bad as then?"
"You keep your tongue off Rosalie Evanturel," he said, and turned on his
heel.
She caught his arm. "We're both bad, Jo. Can't we be friends?" she said
eagerly, her voice shaking.
He did not reply.
"Don't drive a woman too hard," she said between her teeth.
"Threats! Pah!" he rejoined. "What do you think I'm made of?"
"I'll find that out," she said, and, turning on her heel, ran down the
road towards the Manor House. "What had Rosalie to do with the cross?" Jo
said to himself. "This is her hood." He took it out and looked at it.
"It's her hood--but what did she want with the cross?"
He hurried on, and as he neared the post-office he saw the figure of a
woman in the road. At first he thought it might be Rosalie, but as he
came nearer he saw it was not. The woman was muttering and crying. She
wandered to and fro bewilderedly. He came up, caught her by the arm, and
looked into her face.
It was old Margot Patry.
CHAPTER XXIII
THE WOMAN WHO DID NOT TELL
"Oh, M'sieu', I am afraid."
"Afraid of what, Margot?"
"Of the last moment, M'sieu' le Cure."
"There will be no last moment to your mind--you will not know it when it
comes, Margot."
The woman trembled. "I am not sorry to die. But I am afraid; it is so
lonely, M'sieu' le Cure."
"God is with us, Margot."
"When we are born we do not know. It is on the shoulders of others. When
we die we know, and we have to answer."
"Is the answering so hard, Margot?"
The woman shook her head feebly and sadly, but did not speak.
"You have been a good mother, Margot." She made no sign.
"You have been a good neighbour; you have done unto others as you would
be done by."
She scarcely seemed to hear.
"You have been a good servant--doing your duty in season and out of
season; honest and just and faithful."
The woman's fingers twitched on the coverlet, and she moved her head
restlessly.
The Curb almost smiled, for it seemed as if Margot were finding herself
wanting. Yet none in Chaudiere but knew that she had lived a blameless
life--faithful, friendly, a loving and devoted mother, whose health had
been broken by sleepless attendance at sick-beds by night, while doing
her daily work at the house of the late Louis Trudel.
"I will answer for the way you have done your duty, Margot," said the
Cure. "You have been a good daughter of the Church."
He paused a minute, and in the pause some one rose from a chair by the
window and looked out on the sunset sky. It was Charley. The woman heard,
and turned her eyes towards him. "Do you wish him to go?" asked the Cure.
"No, no--oh no, M'sieu'!" she said eagerly. She had asked all day that
either Rosalie or M'sieu' should be in the room with her. It would seem
as though she were afraid she had not courage enough to keep the secret
of the cross without their presence. Charley had yielded to her request,
while he shrank from granting it. Yet, as he said to himself, the woman
was keeping his secret--his and Rosalie's--and she had some right to make
demand.
When the Cure asked the question of old Margot, he turned expectantly,
and with a sense of relief. He thought it strange that the Cure should
wish him to remain. The Cure, on his part, was well pleased to have him
in the influence of a Christian death-bed. A time must come when the last
confidences of the dying woman could be given to no ears but his own, but
meanwhile it was good that M'sieu' should be there.
"M'sieu' le Cure," said the dying woman, "must I tell all?"
"All what, Margot?"
"All that is sin?"
"There is no must, Margot."
"If you should ask me, M'sieu'--"
She paused, and the man at the window turned and looked curiously at her.
He saw the problem in the woman's mind: had she the right to die with the
secret of another's crime upon her mind?
"The priest does not ask, Margot: it is you who confess your sins. That
is between you and God."
The Cure spoke firmly, for he wanted the man at the window to clearly
understand.
"But if there are the sins of others, and you know, and they trouble your
soul, M'sieu'?"
"You have nothing to do with the sins of others; it is enough to repent
of your own sins. The priest has nothing to do with any sins but those
confessed by the sinner to himself. Your own sins are your sole concern
to-night, Margot."
The woman's face seemed to clear a little, and her eyes wandered to the
man at the window with less anxiety. Charley was wondering whether, after
all, she would have the courage to keep her word, whether spiritual
terror would surmount the moral attitude of honour. He was also wondering
how much right he had to put the strain upon the woman in her desperate
hour. "How long did the doctor say I could live?" the woman asked
presently.
"Till morning, perhaps, Margot."
"I should like to live till sunrise," she answered, "till after
breakfast. Rosalie makes good tea," she added musingly.
The Cure almost smiled. "There is the Living Bread, my daughter."
She nodded. "But I should like to see the sunrise and have Rosalie bring
me tea," she persisted.
"Very well, Margot. We will ask God for that."
Her mind flew back again to the old question.
"Is it wrong to keep a secret?" she asked, her face turned away from the
man at the window.
"If it is the secret of a sin, and the sin is your own--yes, Margot."
"And if the sin is not your own?"
"If you share the sin, and if the secret means injury to others, and a
wrong is being done, and the law can right that wrong, then you must go
to the law, not to your priest."
The Cure's look was grave, even anxious, for he saw that the old woman's
mind was greatly disturbed. But her face cleared now, and stayed so. "It
has all been a mix and a muddle," she answered; "and it hurt my poor
head, M'sieu' le Cure, but now I think I under stand. I am not afraid; I
will confess."
The Cure had made it clear to her that she could carry to her grave the
secret of the little cross and the work it had done, and so keep her word
and still not injure her chances of salvation. She was content. She no
longer needed the helpful presence of M'sieu' or Rosalie. Charley
instinctively felt what was in her mind, and came towards the bed.
"I will tell Mademoiselle Rosalie about the tea," he said to her.
She looked up at him, almost smiling. "Thank you, good M'sieu'," she
said.
"I will confess now, M'sieu' le Cure" she continued. Charley left the
room.
Towards morning Margot waked out of a brief sleep, and found the Cure and
his sister and others about her bed.
"Is it near sunrise?" she whispered.
"It is just sunrise. See; God has been good," answered the Cure, drawing
open the blind and letting in the first golden rays.
Rosalie entered the room with a cup of tea, and came towards the bed.
Old Margot looked at the girl, at the tea, and then at the Cure.
"Drink the tea for me, Rosalie," she whispered. Rosalie did as she was
asked.
She looked round feebly; her eyes were growing filmy. "I never gave--so
much--trouble--before," she managed to say. "I never had--so
much--attention.... I can keep--a secret too," she said, setting her lips
feebly with pride. "But I--never--had--so much--attention--before; have
I--Rosalie?"
Rosalie did not need to answer, for the woman was gone. The crowning
interest of her life had come all at the last moment, as it were, and she
had gone away almost gladly and with a kind of pride.
Rosalie also had a hidden pride: the secret was now her very own--hers
and M'sieu's.
CHAPTER XXIV
THE SEIGNEUR TAKES A HAND IN THE GAME
It was St. Jean Baptiste's day, and French Canada was en fete. Every
seigneur, every cure, every doctor, every notary--the chief figures in a
parish--and every habitant was bent for a happy holiday, dressed in his
best clothes, moved in his best spirits, in the sweet summer weather.
Bells were ringing, flags were flying, every road and lane was filled
with caleches and wagons, and every dog that could draw a cart pulled big
and little people, the old and the blind and the mendicant, the happy and
the sour, to the village, where there were to be sports and speeches,
races upon the river, and a review of the militia, arranged by the member
of the Legislature for the Chaudiere-half of the county. French soldiers
in English red coats and carrying British flags were straggling along the
roads to join the battalion at the volunteers' camp three miles from the
town, and singing:
"Brigadier, respondez Pandore--
Brigadier, vous avez raison."
It was not less incongruous and curious when one group presently broke
out into 'God save the Queen', and another into the 'Marseillaise', and
another still into 'Malbrouck s'en va t'en guerre'. At last songs and
soldiers were absorbed in the battalion at the rendezvous, and the long
dusty march to the village gave a disciplined note to the gaiety of the
militant habitant.
At high noon Chaudiere was filled to overflowing. There were booths and
tents everywhere--all sorts of cheap-jacks vaunted their wares,
merry-go-rounds and swings and shooting-galleries filled the usual spaces
in the perspective. The Cure, M. Rossignol the Seigneur, and the Notary
stood on the church steps viewing the scene and awaiting the approach of
the soldier-citizens. The Seigneur and the Cure had ceased listening to
the babble of M. Dauphin, who seemed not to know that his audience closed
its ears and found refuge in a "Well, well!" or "Think of that!" or an
abstracted "You surprise me!"
The Notary talked on with eager gesture and wreathing smile, shaking back
his oiled ringlets as though they trespassed on his smooth, somewhat
jaundiced cheeks, until it began to dawn upon him that there was no coin
of real applause to be got at this mint. Fortune favoured him at the
critical juncture, for the tailor walked slowly past them, looking
neither to right nor to left, his eyes cast upon the ground, apparently
oblivious to all round him. Almost opposite the church door, however,
Charley was suddenly stopped by Filion Lacasse, who ran out from a group
before the tavern, and, standing in front of him with outstretched hand,
said loudly:
"M'sieu', it's all right. What you said done it, sure! I'm a thousand
dollars richer to-day. You may be an infidel, but you have a head, and
you save me money, and you give away your own, and that's good enough for
me,"--he wrung Charley's hand,--"and I don't care who knows it--sacre!"
Charley did not answer him, but calmly withdrew his hand, smiled, raised
his hat at the lonely cheer the saddler raised, and passed on, scarce
conscious of what had happened. Indeed he was indifferent to it, for he
had a matter on his mind this day which bitterly absorbed him.
But the Notary was not indifferent. "Look there, what do you think of
that?" he asked querulously. "I am glad to see that Lacasse treats
Monsieur well," said the Cure.
"What do you think of that, Monsieur?" repeated the Notary excitedly to
the Seigneur.
The Seigneur put his large gold-handled glass to his eye and looked
interestedly after Charley for a moment, then answered: "Well, Dauphin,
what?"
"He's been giving Filion Lacasse advice about the old legacy business,
and Filion's taken it; and he's got a thousand dollars; and now there's
all that fuss. And four months ago Filion wanted to tar and feather him
for being just what he is to-day--an infidel--an infidel!"
He was going to say something else, but he did not like the look the Cure
turned on him, and he broke off short.
"Do you regret that he gave Lacasse good advice?" asked the Cure.
"It's taking bread out of other men's mouths."
"It put bread into Filion's mouth. Did you ever give Lacasse advice? The
truth now, Dauphin!" said the Seigneur drily.
"Yes, Monsieur, and sound advice too, within the law-precedent and code
and every legal fact behind." The Seigneur was a man of laconic speech.
"Tut, tut, Dauphin; precedent and code and legal fact are only good when
there's brain behind 'em. The tailor yonder has brains."
"Ah, but what does he know about the law?" answered Dauphin, with
acrimonious voice but insinuating manner, for he loved to stand well with
the Seigneur.
"Enough for the saddler evidently," sharply rejoined the Seigneur.
Dauphin was fighting for his life, as it were. His back was to the wall.
If this man was to be allowed to advise the habitants of Chaudiere on
their disputes and "going to law," where would his own prestige be? His
vanity had been deeply wounded.
"It's guesswork with him. Let him stick to his trade as I stick to mine.
That sort of thing only does harm."
"He puts a thousand dollars into the saddler's pocket: that's a positive
good. He may or may not take thereby ten dollars out of your pocket:
that's a negative injury. In this case there was no injury, for you had
already cost Lacasse--how much had you cost him, Dauphin?" continued the
Seigneur, with a half-malicious smile. "I've been out of Chaudiere for
near a year; I don't know the record--how much, eh, Dauphin?"
The Notary was too offended to answer. He shook his ringlets back
angrily, and a scarlet spot showed on each straw-coloured cheek.
"Twenty dollars is what Lacasse paid our dear Dauphin," said the Cure
benignly, "and a very proper charge. Lacasse probably gave Monsieur there
quite as much, and Monsieur will give it to the first poor man he meets,
or send it to the first sick person of whom he hears."
"My own opinion is, he's playing some game here," said the Notary.
"We all play games," said the Seigneur. "His seems to give him hard work
and little luxury. Will you bring him to see me at the Manor, my dear
Cure?" he added. "He will not go. I have asked him."
"Then I shall visit him at his tailor-shop," said the Seigneur. "I need a
new suit."
"But you always had your clothes made in Quebec, Monsieur," said the
Notary, still carping.
"We never had such a tailor," answered the Seigneur.
"We'll hear more of him before we're done with him," obstinately urged
the Notary.
"It would give Dauphin the greatest pleasure if our tailor proved to be a
murderer or a robber. I suppose you believe that he stole our little
cross here," the Cure added, turning to the church door, where his eye
lingered lovingly on the relic, hanging on a pillar just inside, whither
he had had it removed.
"I'm not sure yet he hadn't something to do with it," was the stubborn
response.
"If he did, may it bring him peace at last!" said the Cure piously. "I
have set my heart on nailing him to our blessed faith as that cross is
fixed to the pillar yonder--'I will fasten him like a nail in a sure
place,' says the Book. I take it hard that my friend Dauphin will not
help me on the way. Suppose the man were evil, then the Church should try
to snatch him like a brand from the burning. But suppose that in his past
there was no wrong necessary to be hidden in the present--and this I
believe with all my heart; suppose that he was wronged, not wronging:
then how much more should the Church strive to win him to the light! Why,
man, have you no pride in Holy Church? I am ashamed of you, Dauphin, with
your great intelligence, your wide reading. With our knowledge of the
world we should be broader."
The Seigneur's eyes were turned away, for there was in them at once
humour and a suspicious moisture. Of all men in the world he most admired
the Cure, for his utter truth and nobility; but he could not help smiling
at his enthusiasm--his dear Cure turned evangelist like any
"Methody"!--and at the appeal of the Notary on the ground of knowledge of
the world. He was wise enough to count himself an old fogy, a provincial,
and "a simon-pure habitant," but of the three he only had any knowledge
of life. As men of the world the Cure and the Notary were sad failures,
though they stood for much in Chaudiere. Yet this detracted nothing from
the fine gentlemanliness of the Cure or the melodramatic courtesy of the
Notary.
Amused and touched as the Seigneur had been at the Cure's words, he
turned now and said: "Always on the weaker side, Cure; always hoping the
best from the worst of us."
"I am only following an example at my door--you taught us all charity and
justice," answered M. Loisel, looking meaningly at the Seigneur. There
was silence a little while, for all three were thinking of the woman of
the hut, at the gate of the Seigneur's manor.
On this topic M. Dauphin was not voluble. His original kindness to the
woman had given him many troubled hours at home, for Madame Dauphin had
construed his human sympathy into the dark and carnal desires of the
heart, and his truthful eloquence had made his case the worse. A
miserable sentimentalist, the Notary was likely to be misunderstood for
ever, and one or two indiscretions of his extreme youth had been a weapon
against him through the long years of a blameless married life.
He heaved a sigh of sympathy with the Cure now. "She has not come back
yet?" he said to the Seigneur. "No sign of her. She locked up and stepped
out, so my housekeeper says, about the time--"
"The day of old Margot's funeral," interposed the Notary. "She'd had a
letter that day, a letter she'd been waiting for, and abroad she
went--alas! the flyaway--from bad to worse, I fear--ah me!"
The Seigneur turned sharply on him. "Who told you she had a letter that
day, for which she had been waiting?" he said.
"Monsieur Evanturel."
The Seigneur's face became sterner still. "What business had he to know
that she received a letter that day?"
"He is postmaster," innocently replied the Notary. "He is the devil!"
said the Seigneur tartly. "I beg your pardon, Cure; but it is Evanturel's
business not to know what letters go to and fro in that office. He should
be blind and dumb, so far as we all are concerned."