The Right of Way, Complete - Gilbert Parker
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"Remember that Evanturel is a cripple," the Cure answered gently. "I am
glad, very glad it was not Rosalie."
"Rosalie has more than usual sense for her sex," gruffly but kindly
answered the Seigneur, a look of friendliness in his eyes. "I shall talk
to her about her father; I can't trust myself to speak to the man."
"Rosalie is down there with Madame Dauphin," said the Notary, pointing.
"Shall I ask her to come?"
The Seigneur nodded. He was magistrate and magnate, and he was the
guarantor of the post-office, and of Rosalie and her father. His eyes
fixed in reverie on Rosalie; he and the Cure passively waited her
approach.
She came over, pale and a little anxious, but with a courageous look. She
had a vague sense of trouble, and she feared it might be the little
cross, that haunting thing of all these months.
When she came near, the Cure greeted her courteously, and then, taking
the Notary by the arm, led him away.
The Seigneur and Rosalie being left alone, the girl said: "You wish to
speak with me, Monsieur?"
The Seigneur scrutinised her sharply. Though her colour came and went,
her look was frank and fearless. She had had many dark hours since that
fateful month of April. At night, trying to sleep, she had heard the
ghostly footsteps in the church, which had sent her flying homeward.
Then, there was the hood. She had waited on and on, fearing word would
come that it had been found in the churchyard, and that she had been seen
putting the cross back upon the church door. As day after day passed she
had come at length to realise that, whatever had happened to the hood,
she was not suspected. Yet the whole train of circumstances had a
supernatural air, for the Cure and Jo Portugais had not made public their
experience on the eventful night; she had been educated in a land of
legend and superstition, and a deep impression had been made upon her
mind, giving to her other new emotions a touch of pathos, of imagination,
and adding character to her face. The old Seigneur stroked his chin as he
looked at her. He realised that a change had come upon her, that she had
developed in some surprising way.
"What has happened--who has happened, Mademoiselle Rosalie?" he asked. He
had suddenly made up his mind about that look in her face--he thought it
the woman in her which answers to the call of man, not perhaps any
particular man, but man the attractive influence, the complement.
Her eyes dropped, then raised frankly to his. "I don't know,"--adding,
with a quick humour, for he had been very friendly with her, and joked
with her in his dry way all her life; "do you, Monsieur?"
He pulled his nose with a quick gesture habitual to him, and answered
slowly and meaningly: "The government's a good husband and pays regular
wages, Mademoiselle. I'd stick to government."
"I am not asking for a divorce, Monsieur."
He pulled his nose again delightedly--so many people were pathetically in
earnest in Chaudiere--even the Cure's humour was too mediaeval and
obvious. He had never before thought Rosalie so separate from them all.
All at once he had a new interest in her. His cheek flushed a little, his
eye kindled, humour relaxed his lips.
"No other husband would intrude so little," he rejoined.
"True, there's little love lost between us, Monsieur." She felt
exhilaration in talking with him, a kind of joy in measuring word against
word; yet a year ago she would have done no more than smile respectfully
and give a demure reply if the Seigneur had spoken to her like this.
The Seigneur noted the mixed emotions in her face and the delicate
alertness of expression. As a man of the world, he was inclined to
believe that only one kind of experience can bring such looks to a
woman's face. He saw in her the awakening of the deeper interests of
life, the tremulous apprehension of nascent emotions and passions which,
at some time or other, give beauty and importance to the nature of every
human being. It did not occur to him that the tailor--the mysterious
figure in the parish--might be responsible. He was observant, but not
imaginative; he was moved by what he saw, in a quiet, unexplainable
manner.
"The government is the best sort of husband. From the other sort you
would get more kisses and less ha'pence," he continued.
"That might be a satisfactory balance-sheet, Monsieur."
"Take care, Mademoiselle Rosalie," he rejoined, half seriously, "that you
don't miss the ha'pence before you get the kisses."
She turned pale in very fear. What was he going to say? Was the
post-office to be taken from them? She came straight to the point.
"What have I done wrong, Monsieur? I've never kept the mail-stage
waiting; I've never left the mailbag unlocked; I've never been late in
opening the wicket; I've never been careless, and no one's ever
complained of a lost letter."
The Seigneur saw her agitation, and was sorry for her. He came to the
point as she had done:
"We will have you made postmistress--you alone, Rosalie Evanturel. I've
made up my mind to that. But you'll promise not to get married--eh?
Anyhow, there's no one in the parish for you to marry. You're too
well-born and you've been too well educated for a habitant's wife--and
the Cure or I can't marry you."
He was not taken back to see her flush deeply, and it pleased him to see
this much life rising to his own touch, this much revelation to give his
mind a new interest. He had come to that age when the mind is surprised
to find that the things that once charmed charm less, and the things once
hated are less acutely repulsive. He saw her embarrassment. He did not
know that this was the first time that she had ever thought of marriage
since it ceased to be a dream of girlhood, and, by reason of thinking
much on a man, had become a possibility, which, however, she had never
confessed to herself. Here she was faced by it now in the broad open day:
a plain, hard statement, unrelieved by aught save the humour of the
shrewd eyes bent upon her.
She did not answer him at once. "Do you promise not to marry so useless a
thing as man, and to remain true to the government?" he continued.
"If I wished to marry a man, I should not let the government stand in my
way," she said, in brave confusion.
"But do you wish to marry any man?" he asked abruptly, even petulantly.
"I have not asked myself that question, Monsieur, and--should you ask it,
unless--" she said, and paused with as pretty and whimsical a glance of
merriment as could well be.
He burst out laughing at the swift turn she had given her reply, and at
the double suggestion. Then he suddenly changed. A curious expression
filled his eyes. A smile, almost beautiful, came to his lips.
"'Pon my honour," he said, in a low tone, "you have me caught! And I beg
to say--I beg to say," he added, with a flush mounting in his own face, a
sudden inspiration in his look, "that if you do not think me too old and
crabbed and ugly, and can endure me, I shall be profoundly happy if you
will marry me, Rosalie."
He stood upright, holding himself very hard, for this idea had shot into
his mind all in an instant, though, unknown to himself, it had been
growing for years, cherished by many a kind act to her father and by a
simple gratitude on her part. He had spoken without feeling the absurdity
of the proposal. He had never married, and he was unprepared to make any
statement on such a theme; but now, having made it somehow, he would
stand by it, in spite of any and all criticism. He had known Rosalie
since her birth, her education was as good as a convent could secure, she
was the granddaughter of a notable seigneur, and here she was, as fine a
type of health, beauty and character as man could wish--and he was only
fifty! Life was getting lonelier for him every day, and, after all, why
should he leave distant relations and the Church his worldly goods? All
this flashed through his mind as he waited for her answer. Now it seemed
to him that he had meant to say this thing for many years. He had seen an
awakening in her--he had suddenly been awakened himself.
"Monsieur, Monsieur," she said in a bewildered way, "do not amuse
yourself at my expense."
"Would it be that, then?" he said, with a smile, behind which there was
determination and self-will. "I want you to marry me; I do with all my
heart. You shall have those ha'pence, and the kisses too, if so be you
will take them--or not, as you will, Rosalie."
"Monsieur," she gasped, for something caught her in the throat, and the
tears started to her eyes, "ask me to forget that you have ever said
those words. Oh, Monsieur, it is not possible, it never could be
possible! I am only the postmaster's daughter."
"You are my wife, if you will but say the word," he answered, "and I as
proud a husband as the land holds!"
"You were always kind to me, Monsieur," she rejoined, her lips trembling;
"won't you be so still?"
"I am too old?" he asked.
"Oh no, it is not that," she replied.
"You have as good manners as my mother had. You need not fear comparison
with any lady in the land. Have I not known you all your life? I know the
way you have come, and your birth is as good as mine."
"Ah, it is not that, Monsieur!"
"I give you my word that I do not come to you because no one else would
have me," he said with a curious simplicity. "I never asked a woman to
marry me--never! You are the first. There was talk once--but it was all
false. I never meant to ask any one to marry me. But I have the wish now
which I never had in my youth. I thought best of myself always; now, I
think--I think better of you than--"
"Oh, Monsieur, I beg of you, no more! I cannot; oh, I cannot--"
"You--but no; I will not ask you, Mademoiselle. If you have some one else
in your heart, or want some one else there, that is your affair, not
mine--undoubtedly. I would have tried to make you happy; you would have
had peace and comfort all your life; you could have trusted me--but there
it is. . . ." He felt all at once that he was unfair to her, that he had
thrust upon her too hard a problem in too troubled an hour.
"I could trust you with my life, Monsieur Rossignol," she replied. "And I
love you in a way that a man may be loved to no one's harm or sorrow: it
is true that!" She raised her eyes to his simply, trustingly.
He looked at her steadily for a moment. "If you change your mind--"
She shook her head sadly.
"Good, then," he went on, for he thought it wise not to press her now,
though he had no intention of taking her no as final. "I'll keep an eye
on you. You'll need me some day soon; I can do things that the Cure
can't, perhaps." His manner changed still more. "Now to business," he
continued. "Your father has been talking about letters received and sent
from the post-office. That is punishable. I am responsible for you both,
and if it is reported, if the woman were to report it--you know the
letter I mean--there would be trouble. You do not talk. Now I am going to
ask the government to make you sole postmistress, with full
responsibility. Then you must govern your father--he hasn't as much sense
as you."
"Monsieur, we owe you so much! I am deeply grateful, and, whatever you do
for us, you may rely on me to do my duty."
They could scarcely hear each other speak now, for the soldiers were
coming nearer, and the fife-and-drum bands were screeching, 'Louis the
King was a Soldier'.
"Then you will keep the government as your husband?" he asked, with
forced humour, as he saw the Cure and the Notary approaching.
"It is less trouble, Seigneur," she answered, with a smile of relief.
M. Rossignol turned to the Cure and the Notary. "I have just offered
Mademoiselle a husband she might rule in place of a government that rules
her, and she has refused," he said in the Cure's ear, with a dry laugh.
"She's a sensible girl, is Rosalie," said the Cure, not apprehending.
The soldiers were now opposite the church, and riding at their head was
the battalion Colonel, also member of the Legislature.
They all moved down, and Rosalie disappeared in the crowd. As the
Seigneur and the Cure greeted the Colonel, the latter said:
"At luncheon I'll tell you one of the bravest things ever seen. Happened
half-hour ago at the Red Ravine. Man who did it wore an eye-glass--said
he was a tailor."
CHAPTER XXV
THE COLONEL TELLS HIS STORY
The Colonel had lunched very well indeed. He had done justice to every
dish set before him; he had made a little speech, congratulating himself
on having such a well-trained body of men to command, and felicitating
Chaudiere from many points of view. He was in great good-humour with
himself, and when the Notary asked him--it was at the Manor, with the
soldiers resting on the grass without--about the tale of bravery he had
promised them, he brought his fist down on the table with great intensity
but little noise, and said:
"Chaudiere may well be proud of it. I shall refer to it in the
Legislature on the question of roads and bridges--there ought to be a
stone fence on that dangerous road by the Red Ravine--Have I your
attention?"
He stood up, for he was an excitable and voluble Colonel, and he loved
oration as a cat does milk. With a knife he drew a picture of the locale
on the table cloth. "Here I was riding on my sorrel, all my noble fellows
behind, the fife and drums going as at Louisburg--that day! Martial
ardour united to manliness and local pride--follow me? Here we were, Red
Ravine left, stump fences and waving fields of grain right. From military
point of view, bad position--ravine, stump fence, brave soldiers in the
middle, food for powder--catch it?--see?"
He emptied his glass, drew a long breath, and again began, the
carving-knife cutting a rhetorical path before him. "I was engaged upon
the military problem--demonstration in force, no scouts ahead, no
rearguard, ravine on the right, stump fence on the left, red coats,
fife-and-drum band, concealed enemy--follow me? Observant mind always
sees problems everywhere--unresting military genius accustoms
intelligence to all possible contingencies--'stand what I mean?"
The Seigneur took a pinch of snuff, and the Cure, whose mind was
benevolent, listened with the gravest interest.
"At the juncture when, in my mind's eye, I saw my gallant fellows
enfiladed with a terrible fire, caught in a trap, and I, despairing,
spurring on to die at their headhave I your attention?--just at that
moment there appeared between the ravine and the road ahead a man. He
wore an eye-glass; he seemed an unconcerned spectator of our
movements--so does the untrained, unthinking eye look out upon destiny!
Not far away was a wagon, in it a man. Wagon bisecting our course from a
cross-road--"
He drew a line on the table-cloth with the carvingknife, and the Notary
said: "Yes, yes, the concession road."
"So, Messieurs. There were we, a battalion and a fife-and-drum band;
there was the man with the eyeglass, the indifferent spectator, yet the
engine of fate; there was the wagon, a mottled horse, and a man
driving--catch it? The mottled horse took fright at our band, which at
that instant strikes up 'The Chevalier Drew his Sabre'. He shies from the
road with a leap, the man falls backwards into the wagon, and the reins
drop. The horse dashes from the road into the open, and rushes on to the
ravine. What good now to stop the fifes and drums-follow me? What can we,
an armed force, bandoleered, knapsacked, sworded, rifled, impetuous,
brave, what can we do before this tragedy? The man in the wagon
senseless, the flying horse, the ravine, death! How futile the power of
man--'stand what I mean?"
"Why didn't your battalion shoot the horse?" said the Seigneur drily,
taking a pinch of snuff. "Monsieur," said the Colonel, "see the irony,
the implacable irony of fate--we had only blank cartridge! But see you,
here was this one despised man with an eye-glass, a tailor--takes nine
tailors to make a man!--between the ravine and the galloping tragedy. His
spirit arrayed itself like an army with banners, prepared to wrestle with
death as Jacob wrestled with his shadow all the night 'sieur le Cure!"
The Cure bowed; the Notary shook back his oiled locks in excitement.
"Awoke a whole man--nine-ninths, as in Adam--in the obscure soul of the
tailor, and, rushing forward, he seized the mottled horse by the bridle
as he galloped upon the chasm: The horse dragged him on--dragged him
on--on--on. We, an army, so to speak, stood and watched the Tailor and
the Tragedy! All seemed lost, but, by the decree of fate--"
"The will of God," said the Cure softly.
"By the great decree, the man was able to stop the horse, not a
half-dozen feet from the ravine. The horse and the insensible driver were
spared death--death. So, Messieurs, does bravery come from unexpected
places--see?"
The Seigneur, the Cure, and even the Notary clapped their hands, and
murmured praises of the tailor-man. But the Colonel did not yet take his
seat.
"But now, mark the sequel," he said. "As I galloped over, I saw the
tailor look into the wagon, and turn away quickly. He waited by the horse
till I came near, and then walked off without a word. I rode up, and
tapped him with my sword upon the shoulder. 'A noble deed, my good man,'
said I. 'I approve of your conduct, and I will remember it in the
Legislature when I address the committee of the whole house on roads and
bridges.' What do you think was his reply to my affable words? When I
tapped him approvingly on the shoulder a second time, he screwed his
eye-glass in his eye, and, with no emotion, though my own eyes were full
of tears, he said, in a tone of affront, 'Look after the man there,
constable,' and pointed to the wagon. Constable--mon Dieu! Gross manners
even for a tailor!"
"I had not thought his manners bad," said the Cure, as the Colonel sat
down, gulped a glass of brandy-andwater, and mopped his forehead.
"A most remarkable tailor," said the Seigneur, peering into his
snuff-box.
"And the driver of the mottled horse?" asked the Notary.
"Knocked senseless. One of my captains soon restored him. He followed us
into the village. He is a quack-doctor. I suppose he is now selling
tinctures, pulling teeth, and driving away rheumatics. He gave me his
card. I told him he should leave one on the tailor."
With a flourish he threw a professional card upon the table, before the
Cure.
The Cure picked it up and read:
JOHN BROWN, B.A., M.D.,
Healer of Ailments that Defy the Ordinary Skill of Ordinary
Medical Men. Rheumatism, Sciatica, Headache, Toothache,
Asthma, Ague, Pleurisy, Gout, and all Chronic Diseases Yield
Instantly to the Power of his Medicines.
Dr. Brown will publicly treat the most stubborn cases, laying
himself open to the derision of mankind if he does not instantly
give relief and benefit. His whole career has been a blessing to
his fellows, and his journey now through this country, fresh from
his studies in the Orient, is to introduce his remedies to a
suffering world, for the conquest of malady, not for personal
profit.
JOHN BROWN, B.A., M.D.,
Specialist in Chronic Diseases and General Practitioner.
CHAPTER XXVI
A SONG, A BOTTLE, AND A GHOST
All day John Brown, ex-clergyman and quack-doctor, harangued the people
of Chaudiere from his gaily-painted wagon. He had the perfect gift of the
charlatan, and he had discovered his metier. Inclined to the picturesque
by nature, melodramatic and empirical, his earlier career had been the
due fruit of habit and education. As a dabbler in mines he had been out
of his element. He lacked the necessary reticence, and arsenic had not
availed him, though it had tempted Billy Wantage to forgery; and because
Billy hid himself behind the dismal opportunity of silence, had ruined
the name of a dead man called Charley Steele. Since Charley's death John
Brown had never seen Billy: he had left the town one woful day an hour
after Billy had told him of the discovery Charley had made. From a far
corner of the country he had read the story of Charley's death; of the
futile trial of the river-drivers afterwards, ending in acquittal, and
the subsequent discovery of the theft of the widows' and orphans'
trust-moneys.
On this St. Jean Baptiste's day he was thinking of anything and
everything else but Charley Steele. Nothing could have been a better
advertisement for him than the perilous incident at the Red Ravine.
Falling backwards when the horse suddenly bolted, his head had struck the
medicine-chest, and he had lain insensible till brought back to
consciousness by the good offices of the voluble Colonel. He had not,
therefore, seen Charley. It was like him that his sense of gratitude to
the unknown tailor should be presently lost in exploiting the interest he
created in the parish. His piebald horse, his white "plug" hat, his gaily
painted wagon, his flamboyant manner, and, above all, the marvellous tale
of his escape from death, were more exciting to the people of Chaudiere
than the militia, the dancing-bears, the shooting-galleries, or the
boat-races. He could sing extremely well--had he not trained his own
choir when he was a parson? had not Billy approved his comic songs?--and
these comic songs, now sandwiched between his cures and his sales,
created much laughter. He cured headaches, toothaches, rheumatism, and
all sorts of local ailments "with despatch." He miraculously juggled away
pains by what he called his Pain Paint, and he stopped a cough by a laugh
and a dose of his Golden Pectoral. In the exuberance of trade, which
steadily increased till sundown, he gave no thought to the tailor, to
whom, however, he had sent by a messenger a two-dollar bill and two
bottles of Pain Paint, with the lordly announcement that he would call in
the evening and "present his compliments and his thanks." The messenger
left the Pain Paint on the door-step of the tailor-shop, and the two
dollars he promptly spent at the Trois Couronnes.
Rosalie Evanturel rescued the bottles from the doorstep and awaited
Charley's return to his shop, that she might take them over to him, and
so have an excuse to speak with him; for to-day her heart and mind were
full of him. He had done a brave thing for the medicine-man, and had then
fled from public gaze as a brave man should. There was no one to compare
with him. Not even the Cure was his superior in ability, and certainly he
was a greater man--though seemingly only a tailor--than M. Rossignol. M.
Rossignol--she flushed. Who could have believed that the Seigneur would
say those words to her this morning--to her, Rosalie Evanturel, who
hadn't five hundred dollars to her name? That she should be asked to be
Madame Rossignol! Confusion mingled with her simple pride, and she ran
out into the street, to where her father sat listening to the
medicine-man singing, in doubtful French:
"I am a waterman bold,
Oh, I'm a waterman bold:
But for my lass I have great fear,
Yes, in the isles I have great fear,
For she is young, and I am old,
And she is bien gentille!"
It was night now. The militia had departed, their Colonel roaring
commands at them out of a little red drill-book; the older people had
gone to their homes, but festive youth hovered round the booths and
sideshows, the majority enjoying themselves at some expense in the
medicine-man's encampment.
As Rosalie ran towards the crowd she turned a wistful glance to the
tailor-shop. Not a sign of life there! She imagined M'sieu' to be at
Vadrome Mountain, until, glancing round the crowd at the quack-doctor's
wagon, she saw Jo Portugais gloomily watching the travelling tinker of
human bodies. Evidently M'sieu' was not at Vadrome Mountain.
He was not far from her. At the side of the road, under a huge maple-tree
with wide-spreading branches, Charley stood and watched John Brown
performing behind the flaring oil-lights stuck on poles round his wagon,
his hat now on, now off; now singing a comic song in English---'I found
Y' in de Honeysuckle Paitch;' now a French chanson--'En Revenant de St.
Alban;' now treating a stiff neck or a bent back, or giving momentary
help to the palsy of an old man, or again making a speech.
Charley was in touch again with the old life, but in a kind of fantasy
only--a staring, high-coloured dream. This man--John Brown--had gone down
before his old ironical questioning, had been, indirectly, the means of
disgracing his name. A step forward to that wagon, a word uttered, a
look, and he would have to face again the life he had put by for ever,
would have to meet a hard problem and settle it--to what misery and
tragedy, who might say? Under this tree he was M. Mallard, the infidel
tailor, whose life was slowly entering into the life of this place called
Chaudiere, slowly being acted upon by habit, which, automatically
repeated, at length becomes character. Out in that red light, before that
garish wagon, he would be Charley Steele, barrister, 'flaneur', and fop,
who, according to the world, had misused a wife, misled her brother,
robbed widows and orphans, squandered a fortune, become drunkard and
wastrel, and at last had lost his life in a disorderly tavern at the Cote
Dorion. This man before him had contributed to his disgrace; but once he
had contributed to John Brown's disgrace; and to-day he had saved John
Brown's life. They were even.