The Right of Way, Complete - Gilbert Parker
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All the night before, all this morning, he had fought a fierce battle
with his past--with a raging thirst. The old appetite had swept over him
fiercely. All day he had moved in a fevered conflict, which had lifted
him away from the small movements of everyday life into a region where
only were himself and one strong foe, who tirelessly strove with him. In
his old life he had never had a struggle of any sort. His emotions had
been cloaked, his soul masked, there had been a film before his eyes, he
had worn an armour of selfishness on a life which had no deep problems,
because it had no deep feelings--a life never rising to the intellectual
prowess for which it was fitted, save when under the stimulus of liquor.
From the moment he had waked from a long seven months' sleep in the hut
on Vadrome Mountain, new deep feelings had come to him as he faced
problems of life. Fighting had begun from that hour--a fighting which was
putting his nature through bitter mortal exercises, yet, too, giving him
a sense of being he had never known. He had now the sweetness of earning
daily bread by the work of his hands; of giving to the poor, the needy,
and the afflicted; of knowing for the first time in his life that he was
not alone in the world. Out of the grey dawn of life a woman's voice had
called to him; the look of her face had said to him: "Viens ici! Viens
ici!"--"Come to me! Come to me!"
But with that call there was the answer of his soul, the desolating cry
of the dispossessed Lear-- "--never--never--never--never!"
He had not questioned himself concerning Rosalie--had dared not to do so.
But now, as he stood under the great tree, within hand-touch of the old
life, in imminent danger of being thrust back into it, the question of
Rosalie came upon him with all the force of months of feeling behind it.
Thus did he argue with himself:
"Do I love her? And if I love her, what is to be done? Marry her, with a
wife living? Marry her while charged with a wretched crime? Would that be
love? But suppose I never were discovered, and we might live here for
ever, I as 'Monsieur Mallard,' in peace and quiet all the days of our
life? Would that be love? . . . Could there be love with a vital secret,
like, a cloud between, out of which, at any hour, might spring discovery?
Could I build our life upon a silence which must be a lie? Would I not
have to face the question, Does any one know cause or just impediment why
this woman should not be married to this man? Tell Rosalie all, and let
the law separate myself and Kathleen? That would mean Billy's ruin and
imprisonment, and Kathleen's shame, and it might not bring Rosalir. She
is a Catholic, and her Church would not listen to it. Would I have the
right to bring trouble into her life? To wrong one woman should seem
enough for one lifetime!"
At that instant Rosalie, who had been on the outskirts of the crowd,
moved into his line of vision. The glare from the lights fell on her face
as she stood by her father's chair, looking curiously at the quack-doctor
who, having sold many bottles of his medicines, noy picked up a guitar
and began singing an old dialect chanson of Saintonge:
"Voici, the day has come
When Rosette leaves her home!
With fear she walks in the sun,
For Raoul is ninety year,
And she not twenty-one.
La petit' Rosette,
She is not twenty-one.
"He takes her by the hand,
And to the church they go;
By parents 'twas well meant,
But is Rosette content?
'Tis gold and ninety year
She walks in the sun with fear,
La petit' Rosette,
Not twenty-one as yet!"
Charley's eyes, which had watched her these months past, noted the
deepening colour of the face, the glow in the eyes, the glances of keen
but agitated interest towards the singer. He could not translate her
looks; and she, on her part, had she been compelled to do so, could only
have set down a confusion of sensations.
In Rosette she saw herself, Rosalie Evanturel; in the man "de
quatre-vingt-dix ans," who was to marry this Rosette of Saintonge, she
saw M. Rossignol. Disconcerting pictures of a possible life with the
Seigneur flitted before her mind. She beheld herself, young,
fresh-cheeked, with life beating high and all the impulses of youth
panting to use, sitting at the head of the seigneury table. She saw
herself in the great pew at Mass, stiff with dignity, old in the way of
manorial pride--all laughter dead in her, all spring-time joy
overshadowed by the grave decorum of the Manor, all the imagination of
her dreaming spirit chilled by the presence of age, however kindly and
quaint and cheerful.
She shuddered, and dropped her eyes upon the ground, as, to the laughter
and giggling of old and young gathered round the wagon, the medicine-man
sang:
"He takes her by the hand,
And to her chamber fair--"
Then, suddenly turning, she vanished into the night, followed by the
feeble inquiry of her father's eyes, the anxious look in Charley's.
Charley could not read her tale. He had, however, a hot impulse to follow
and ask her if she would vanish from the scene if the medicine-man should
sing of Rosette and a man of thirty, not ninety, years. The fight he had
had all day with his craving for drink had made him feverish, and all his
emotions--unregulated, under the command of his will only--were in high
temperature. A reckless feeling seized him. He would go to Rosalie, look
into her eyes, and tell her that he loved her, no matter what the penalty
of fate. He had never loved a human being, and the sudden impulse to cry
out in the new language was driving him to follow the girl whose spirit
for ever called to him.
He made a step forward to follow her, but stopped short, recalled to
caution and his danger by the voice of the medicine-man:
"I had a friend once--good fellow, bad fellow, cleverest chap I ever
knew. Tremendous fop--ladies loved him--cheeks like roses--tongue like
sulphuric acid. Beautiful to look at. Clothes like a fashion-plate--got
any fashion-plates in Chaudiere? 'who's your tailor?'" he added, in the
slang of the hour, with a loud laugh, then stopped suddenly and took off
his hat. "I forgot," he added, with upturned eyes and a dramatic
seriousness, "your tailor saved my life to-day-henceforth I am the friend
of all tailors. Well, to continue. My friend that was--I call him my
friend, though he ruined me and ruined others,--didn't mean to, but he
did just the same,--he came to a bad end. But he was a great man while he
lived. And what I'm coming to is this, the song he used to sing when, in
youthful exuberance, we went on the war-path like our young friend over
there"--he pointed to a young habitant farmer, who was trying hard to
preserve equilibrium--"Brown's Golden Pectoral will cure that cough, my
friend!" he added, as the young man, gloomily ashamed of the laughter of
the crowd, hiccoughed and turned away to the tree under which Charley
Steele stood. "Well," he went on, "I was going to say that my friend's
name was Charley, and the song he used to sing when the roosters waked
the morn was called 'Champagne Charlie.' He was called 'Champagne
Charlie'--till he came to a bad end."
He twanged his guitar, cleared his throat, winked at Maximilian Cour the
baker, and began:
"The way I gained my title's by a hobby which I've got
Of never letting others pay, however long the shot;
Whoever drinks at my expense is treated all the same;
Whoever calls himself my friend, I make him drink champagne.
Some epicures like Burgundy, Hock, Claret, and Moselle,
But Moet's vintage only satisfies this champagne swell.
What matter if I go to bed and head is muddled thick,
A bottle in the morning sets me right then very quick.
Champagne Charlie is my name;
Champagne Charlie is my name.
Who's the man with the heart so young,
Who's the man with the ginger tongue?
Champagne Charlie is his name!"
Under the tree, Charley Steele listened to this jaunty epitaph on his old
self. At the first words of the coarse song there rushed on him the
dreaded thirst. He felt his veins beating with desire, with anger,
disgust, and shame; for there was John Brown, to the applause of the
crowd, imitating his old manner, his voice, his very look. He started
forward, but the drunken young habitant lurched sideways under the tree
and collapsed upon the ground, a bottle of whiskey falling out of his
pocket and rolling almost to his own feet.
"Champagne Charlie is my name,"
sang the medicine-man. All Charley's old life surged up in him as dyked
water suddenly bursts bounds and spreads destruction. He had an
uncontrollable impulse. As a starving animal snatches at the first food
offered it, he stooped, with a rattle in his throat, seized the bottle,
uncorked it, put it to his lips, and drank--drank--drank.
Then he turned and plunged away into the trees. The sound of the song
followed him. It came to him, the last refrain, sung loudly to the
laughter of the crowd, in imitation of his own voice as it used to be--it
had been a different voice during this past year. He turned with headlong
intention, and, as the last notes of the song and the applause that
followed it, died away, threw back his head and sang out of the darkness:
"Champagne Charlie is my name--"
With a shrill laugh, like the half-mad cry of an outcast soul, he flung
away farther into the trees.
There was a sudden silence. The crowd turned with half-apprehensive
laughter to the trees. Upon John Brown the effect was startling. His face
blanched, his eyes grew large with terror, his mouth opened in helpless
agitation. Charley Steele was lying under the waters of the great river,
his bones rotting there for a year, yet here was his voice coming out of
the night, in response to his own grotesque imitation of the dead man.
Seeing his agitation, women turned pale, men felt their flesh creep,
imagination gave a thrilling coldness to the air. For a moment the
silence was unbroken. Then John Brown stretched out his hand and said, in
a hoarse whisper:
"It was his voice--Charley's voice, and he's been dead a year!"
Within half-an-hour, in utter collapse and fright, he was being driven to
the next parish by two young habitants whom he paid to accompany him.
CHAPTER XXVII
OUT ON THE OLD TRAIL
There was one person in the crowd surrounding the medicine-man's wagon
who had none of that superstitious thrill which had scattered the
habitants into little awe-stricken groups, and then by twos and threes to
their homes; none of that fear which had reduced the quack-doctor to such
nervous collapse that he would not spend the night in the village. Jo
Portugais had recognised the voice--that of Charley Steele the lawyer who
had saved him from hanging years ago. It was little like the voice of
M'sieu'! There was that in it which frightened him. He waited until he
had seen the quackdoctor start for the next parish, then he went slowly
down the street. There were people still about, so he walked on towards
the river. When he returned, the street was empty. Keeping in the shadow
of the trees, he went to Charley's house. There was a light in a window.
He went to the back door and tried it. It was not locked, and, without
knocking, he stepped inside the kitchen. Here was no light, and he passed
into the hallway and on to a little room opening from the tailorshop. He
knocked; then, not waiting for response, opened the door and entered.
Charley was standing before a mirror, holding a pair of scissors. He
turned abruptly, and said forbiddingly: "I am at my toilet!"
Then, turning again to the mirror, with a shrug of the shoulders, he
raised the shears to his beard. Before he could use them, Jo's hand was
on his arm.
"Stop that, M'sieu'!" he said huskily.
Charley had drunk nearly a whole bottle of cheap whiskey within an hour.
He was intoxicated, but, as had ever been the case with him, his brain
was working clearly, his hand was steady; he was in that wide dream of
clear-seeing and clear-knowing which, in old days, had given him glimpses
of the real life from which, in the egotism of the non-intime, he had
been shut out. Looking at Jo now, he was possessed by a composed
intoxication like that in which he had moved during that last night at
the Cote Dorion.
But now, with the baleful crust of egotism gone, with every nerve of life
exposed, with conscience struggling to its feet from the torpor of
thirty-odd vacant years, he was as two men in one, with different lives
and different souls, yet as inseparable in their misery as those poor
victims of Gallic tyranny, chained back to back and thrown into the
Seine.
Jo's words, insistent and eager, suddenly roused in him some old memory,
which stayed his hand.
"Why should I stop?" he asked quietly, and smiling that smile which had
infuriated the river-drivers at the Cote Dorion.
"Are you going back, M'sieu?"
"Back where?" Charley's eyes were fixed on Jo with a penetrating
intensity, heightened to a strange abstraction, as though he saw not Jo
alone, but something great distances beyond.
Jo did not answer this question directly. "Some one came to-day--he is
gone; some one may come to-morrow--and stay," he said meaningly.
Charley went over to the fire and sat down on a bench, opening and
shutting the scissors mechanically. Jo was in the light, and Charley's
eyes again studied him hard.
His memory was industriously feeling its way into the baffling distance.
"What if some one did come-and stay?" he urged quietly.
"You might be recognised without the beard."
"What difference would it make?" Charley's memory was creeping close to
the hidden door. It was feeling-feeling for the latch.
"You know best, M'sieu'."
"But what do you know?" Charley's face now had a strained look, and he
touched his lips with his tongue. "What John Brown knows, M'sieu'."
There flashed across Charley's mind the fatal newspaper he had read on
the day he awakened to memory again in the but on Vadrome Mountain. He
remembered that he had put it in the fire. But Jo might have read it
before it was spread upon the bench-put it there of purpose for him to
read. Yet what reason could Jo have for being silent, for hiding his
secret?
There was silence for a space, in which Charley's eyes were like unmoving
sparks of steel. He did not see Jo's face--it was in a mist--he was
searching, searching, searching. All at once he felt the latch of the
hidden door under his finger; he saw a court-room, a judge and jury, and
hundreds of excited faces, himself standing in the midst. He saw twelve
men file slowly into the room and take their seats-all save one, who
stood still in his place and said: "Not guilty, your Honour!" He saw the
prisoner leave the box and step down a free man. He saw himself coming
out into the staring summer day. He watched the prisoner come to him and
touch his arm, and say: "Thank you, M'sieu'. You have saved my life." He
saw himself turn to this man:
He roused from his trance, he staggered to his feet, the shears rattled
to the floor. Lurching forward, he caught Jo Portugais by the throat, and
said, as he had said outside the court-room years ago:
"Get out of my sight. You're as guilty as hell!"
His grip tightened--tightened on Jo's throat. Jo did not move, though his
face grew black. Then, suddenly, the hands relaxed, a bluish paleness
swept over the face, and Charley fell sidewise to the floor before Jo
could catch him.
All night, alone, the murderer struggled with death over the body of the
lawyer who had saved his life.
CHAPTER XXVIII
THE SEIGNEUR GIVES A WARNING
Rosalie had watched a shut door for five days--a door from which, for
months past, had come all the light and glow of her life. It framed a
figure which had come to represent to her all that meant hope and soul
and conscience-and love. The morning after St. Jean Baptiste's day she
had awaited the opening door, but it had remained closed. Ensued watchful
hours, and then from Jo Portugais she had learned that M'sieu' had been
ill and near to death. She had been told the weird story of the
medicine-man and the ghostly voice, and, without reason, she took the
incident as a warning, and associated it with the man across the way. She
was come of a superstitious race, and she herself had heard and seen
things of which she never had been able to speak--the footsteps in the
church the night she had screwed the little cross to the door again; the
tiny round white light by the door of the church; the hood which had
vanished into the unknown. One mystery fed another. It seemed to her as
if some dreadful event were forward; and all day she kept her eyes fixed
on the tailor's door.
Dead--if M'sieu' should die! If M'sieu' should die--it needed all her
will to prevent herself from going over and taking things in her own
hands, being his nurse, his handmaid, his slave. Duty--to the government,
to her father? Her heart cried out that her duty lay where all her life
was eddying to one centre. What would the world say? She was not
concerned for that, save for him. What, then, would M'sieu' say? That
gave her pause. The Seigneur's words the day before had driven her back
upon a tide of emotions which carried her far out upon that sea where
reason and life's conventions are derelicts, where Love sails with
reckless courage down the shoreless main.
"If I could only be near him!" she kept saying to herself. "It is my
right. I would give my life, my soul for his. I was with him before when
his life was in danger. It was my hand that saved him. It was my love
that tended him. It was my soul that kept his secret. It was my faith
that spoke for him. It was my heart that ached for him. It is my heart
that aches for him now as none other in all the world can. No one on
earth could care as I care. Who could there be?" Something whispered in
her ear, "Kathleen!" The name haunted her, as the little cross had done.
Misery and anger possessed her, and she fought on with herself through
dark hours.
Thus five days had gone, until at last a wagon was brought to the door of
the tailor-shop, and M'sieu' came out, leaning on the arm of Jo
Portugais. There were several people in the street at the time, and they
kept whispering that M'sieu' had been at death's door. He was pale and
haggard, with dark hollows under the eyes. Just as he got into the wagon
the Cure came up. They shook hands. The Cure looked him earnestly in the
face, his lips moved, but no one could have told what he said. As the
wagon started, Charley looked across to the post-office. Rosalie was
standing a little back from the door, but she stepped forward now. Their
eyes met. Her heart beat faster, for there was a look in his eyes she had
never seen before--a look of human helplessness, of deep anxiety. It was
meant for her--for herself alone. She could not trust herself to go and
speak to him. She felt that she must burst into tears. So, with a look of
pity and pain, she watched the wagon go down the street.
Rat-tat-tat-tat-tat!--the Seigneur's gold-headed cane rattled on the
front door of the tailor-shop. It was plain to be seen his business was
urgent.
Madame Dauphin came hurrying from the postoffice, followed by Maximilian
Cour and Filion Lacasse. "Ah, M'sieu', the tailor will not answer.
There's no use knocking--not a bit, M'sieu' Rossignol," said Madame.
The Seigneur turned querulously upon the Notary's wife, yet with a glint
of hard humour in his eye. He had no love for Madame Dauphin. He thought
she took unfair advantages of M. Dauphin, whom also he did not love, but
whose temperament did him credit.
"How should Madame know whether or no the gentleman will answer? Does
Madame share the gentleman's confidence, perhaps?" he remarked.
Madame did not reply at once. She turned on the saddler and the baker. "I
hope you'll learn a lesson," she cried triumphantly. "I've always said
the tailor was quite the gentleman; and now you see how your betters call
him. No, M'sieu', the gentleman will not answer," she added to the
Seigneur.
"He is in bed yet, Madame?"
"His bed is empty there, M'sieu'," she said, impressively, and pointing.
"I suppose I should trust you in this matter; I suppose you should know.
But, Dauphin--what does Dauphin say?"
The saddler laughed outright. Maximilian Cour suddenly blushed in
sympathy with Madame Dauphin, who now saw the drift of the Seigneur's
remarks, and was sensibly agitated, as the Seigneur had meant her to be.
Had she not turned Dauphin's human sympathies into a crime? Had not the
Notary supported the Seigneur in his friendly offices to Paulette Dubois;
and had not Madame troubled her husband's life because of it? Madame
bridled up now--with discretion, for it was not her cue to offend the
Seigneur.
"All the village knows his bed's empty there, M'sieu'," she said, with
tightening lips.
"I am subtracted from the total, then?" he asked drily.
"You have been away for the last five days--"
"Come, now, how did you know that?"
"Everybody knows it. You went away with the Colonel and the soldiers on
St. Jean Baptiste's day. Since then M'sieu' the tailor has been ill. I
should think Mrs. Flynn would have told you that, M'sieu'."
"H'm! Would you? Well, Mrs. Flynn has been away too--and you didn't know
that! What is the matter with Monsieur Mallard?"
"Some kind of fever. On St. Jean Baptiste's day he was taken ill, and
that animal Portugais took care of him all night--I wonder how M'sieu'
can have the creature about! That St. Jean Baptiste's night was an awful
night. Have you heard of what happened, M'sieu'? Ghost or no ghost--"
"Come, come, I want to know about the tailor, not of ghosts," impatiently
interrupted the Seigneur. "Tiens! M'sieu', the tailor was ill for three
days here, and he would let no one except the Cure and Jo Portugais near
him. I went myself to clean up and make some broth, but that toad of a
Portugais shut the door in my face. The Cure told us to go home and leave
M'sieu' with Portugais. He must be very sick to have that black sheep
about him--and no doctor either."
The saddler spoke up now. "I took him a bottle of good brandy and some
buttermilk-pop and seed cake--I would give him a saddle if he had a
horse--he got my thousand dollars for me! Well, he took them, but what do
you think? He sent them right off to the shantyman, Gugon, who has a
broken leg. Infidel or no, I'm on his side for sure. And God blesses a
cheerful giver, I'm told."
It was the baker's chance, and he took it. "I played 'The Heart Bowed
Down'-it is English-under his window, two nights ago, and he sent word
for me to come and play it again in the kitchen. Ah, that is a good song,
'The Heart Bowed Down.'"
"You'd be a better baker if you fiddled less," said Madame Dauphin,
annoyed at being dropped out of the conversation.
"The soul must be fed, Madame," rejoined the baker, with asperity.
"Where is the tailor now?" said the Seigneur shortly. "At Portugais's on
Vadrome Mountain. They say he looked like a ghost when he went. Rosalie
Evanturel saw him, but she has no tongue in her head this morning," added
Madame.
The Seigneur moved away. "Good-bye to you--I am obliged to you, Madame.
Good-bye, Lacasse. Come and fiddle to me some night, Cour."
He bowed to the obsequious three, and then bent his steps towards the
post-office. They seemed about to follow him, but he stopped them with a
look. The men raised their bonnets-rouges, the woman bowed low, and the
Seigneur entered the post-office door.
From the shadows of the office Rosalie had watched the little group
before the door of the tailor-shop. She saw the Seigneur coming across
the street. Suddenly she flushed deeply, for there came to her mind the
song the quack-doctor sang:
"Voila, the day has come
When Rosette leaves her home!
With fear she walks in the sun,
For Raoul is ninety year,
And she not twenty-one."
As M. Rossignol's figure darkened the doorway, she pretended to be busy
behind the wicket, and not to see him. He was not sure, but he thought it
quite possible that she had seen him coming, and he put her embarrassment
down to shyness. Naturally the poor child was not given the chance every
day to receive an offer of marriage from a seigneur. He had made up his
mind that she would be sure to accept him if he asked her a second time.
"Ah, Ma'm'selle Rosalie," he said gaily, "what have you to say that you
should not come before a magistrate at once?"
"Nothing, if Monsieur Rossignol is to be the magistrate," she replied,
with forced lightness.
"Good!" He looked at her quizzically through his gold-handled glass. "I
can't frighten you, I see. Well, you must wait a little; you shall be
sworn in postmistress in three days." His voice lowered, became more
serious. "Tell me," he said, "do you know what is the matter with the
gentleman across the way?" Turning, he looked across to the tailor-shop,
as though he expected "the gentleman" to appear, and he did not see her
turn pale. When his look fell on her again, she was self-controlled.