The Right of Way, Complete - Gilbert Parker
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As he sat beside Narcisse Dauphin's bedside, one evening, the sick man on
his way to recovery, there came to him the text of a sermon he had once
heard John Brown preach: "Greater love hath no man than this, that a man
lay down his life for his friend." He had been thinking of Rosalie and
that day at Vadrome Mountain. She would not only have died with him, but
she would have died for him, if need had been. What might he give in
return for what she gave?
The Notary interrupted his thoughts. He had lain watching Charley for a
long time, his brow drawn down with thought. At last he said:
"Monsieur, you have been good to me." Charley laid a hand on the sick
man's arm.
"I don't see that. But if you won't talk, I'll believe you think so."
The Notary shook his head. "I've not been talking for an hour, I've no
fever, and I want to say some things. When I've said them, I'll feel
better--voila! I want to make the amende honorable. I once thought you
were this and that--I won't say what I thought you. I said you
interfered--giving advice to people, as you did to Filion Lacasse, and
taking the bread out of my mouth. I said that!"
He paused, raised himself on his elbow, smoothed back his grizzled hair
behind his ears, looked at himself in the mirror opposite with
satisfaction, and added oracularly: "But how prone is the mind of man to
judge amiss! You have put bread into my mouth--no, no, Monsieur, you
shall hear me! As well as doing your own work, you have done my business
since my accident as well as a lawyer could do it; and you've given every
penny to my wife."
"As for the work I've done," answered Charley, "it was nothing--you
notaries have easy times. You may take your turn with my shears and
needle one day."
With a dash of patronage true to his nature, "You are wonderful for a
tailor," the Notary rejoined. Charley laughed--seldom, if ever, had he
laughed since coming to Chaudiere. It was, however, a curious fact that
he took a real pleasure in the work he did with his hands. In making
clothes for habitant farmers, and their sons and their sons' sons, and
jackets for their wives and daughters, he had had the keenest pleasure of
his life.
He had taken his earnings with pride, if not with exultation. He knew the
Notary did not mean that he was wonderful as a tailor, but he answered to
the suggestion.
"You liked that last coat I made for you, then," he said drily; "I
believe you wore it when you were shot. It was the thing for your figure,
man."
The Notary looked in the large mirror opposite with sad content. "Ah, it
was a good figure, the first time I went to that hut at Four Mountains!"
"We can't always be young. You have a waist yet, and your chest-barrel
gives form to a waistcoat. Tut, tut! Think of the twins in the way of
vainglory and hypocrisy."
"'Twins' and 'hypocrisy'; there you have struck the nail on the head,
tailor. There is the thing I'm going to tell you about."
After a cautious glance at the door and the window, Dauphin continued in
quick, broken sentences: "It wasn't an accident at Four Mountains--not
quite. It was Paulette Dubois--you know the woman that lives at the
Seigneur's gate? Twelve years ago she was a handsome girl. I fell in love
with her, but she left here. There were two other men. There was a
timber-merchant,--and there was a lawyer after. The timber-merchant was
married; the lawyer wasn't. She lived at first with the timber-merchant.
He was killed--murdered in the woods."
"What was the timber-merchant's name?" interrupted Charley in an even
voice.
"Turley--but that doesn't matter!" continued the Notary. "He was
murdered, and then the lawyer came on the scene. He lived with her for a
year. She had a child by him. One day he sent the child away to a safe
place and told her he was going to turn over a new leaf--he was going to
stand for Parliament, and she must go. She wouldn't go without the child.
At last he said the child was dead; and showed her the certificate of
death. Then she came back here, and for a while, alas! she disgraced the
parish. But all at once she changed--she got a message that her child was
alive. To her it was like being born again. It was at this time they were
going to drive her from the parish. But the Seigneur and then the Cure
spoke for her, and so did I--at last."
He paused and plaintively admired himself in the mirror. He was grateful
that he had been clean-shaved that morning, and he was content to catch
the citrine odour of the bergamot upon his hair.
New phases of the most interesting case Charley had ever defended spread
out before him--the case which had given him his friend Jo Portugais,
which had turned his own destiny. Yet he could not quite trace in it the
vital association of this vain Notary now in the confessional mood.
"You behaved very well," said Charley tentatively.
"Ah, you say that, knowing so little! What will you say when you know
all--ah! That I should take a stand also was important. Neither the
Seigneur nor the Cure was married; I was. I have been long-suffering for
a cause. My marital felicity has been bruised--bruised--but not broken."
"There are the twins," said Charley, with a half-closed eye.
"Could woman ask greater proof?" urged the Notary seriously, for the
other's voice had been so well masked that he did not catch its satire.
"But see my peril, and mark the ground of my interest in this poor
wanton! Yet a woman--a woman-frail creatures, as we know, and to be
pitied, not made more pitiable by the stronger sex. . . . But, see now!
Why should I have perilled mine own conjugal peace, given ground for
suspicion even--for I am unfortunate, unfortunate in the exterior with
which Dame Nature has honoured me!" Again he looked in the mirror with
sad complacency.
On these words his listener offered no comment, and he continued:
"For this reason I lifted my voice for the poor wanton. It was I who
wrote the letter to her that her child was alive. I did it with high
purpose--I foresaw that she would change her ways if she thought her
child was living. Was I mistaken? No. I am an observer of human nature.
Intellect conquered. 'Io triumphe'. The poor fly-away changed, led a new
life. Ever since then she has tried to get the man--the lawyer--to tell
her where her child is. He has not done so. He has said the child is
dead--always. When she seemed to give up belief, then would come another
letter to her, telling her the child was living--but not where. So she
would keep on writing to the man, and sometimes she would go away
searching--searching. To what end? Nothing! She had a letter some months
ago, for she had got restless, and a young kinsman of the Seigneur had
come to visit at the seigneury for a week, and took much notice of her.
There was danger. Voila, another letter."
"From you?"
"Monsieur, of course! Will you keep a secret--on your sacred honour?"
"I can keep a secret without sacred honour."
"Ah, yes, of course! You have a secret of your own--pardon me, I am only
saying what every one says. Well, this is the secret of the woman
Paulette Dubois. My cousin, Robespierre Dauphin, a notary in Quebec, is
the agent of the lawyer, the father of the child. He pities the poor
woman. But he is bound in professional honour to the lawyer fellow, not
to betray. When visiting Robespierre once I found out the truth-by
accident.
"I told him what I intended. He gave permission to tell the woman her
child was alive; and, if need be for her good, to affirm it over and over
again--no more."
"And this?" said Charley, pointing to the injured leg, for he now
associated the accident with the secret just disclosed.
"Ah, you apprehend! You have an avocat's mind--almost. It was at Four
Mountains. Paulette is superstitious; so not long ago she went to live
there alone with an old half-breed woman who has second-sight. Monsieur,
it is a gift unmistakably. For as soon as the hag clapped eyes on me in
the hut, she said: 'There is the man that wrote you the letters.'
Well--what! Paulette Dubois came down on me like an avalanche--Monsieur,
like an avalanche! She believed the old witch; and there was I lying with
an unconvincing manner"--he sighed--"lying requires practice, alas! She
saw I was lying, and in a rage snatched up my gun. It went off by
accident, and brought me down. Did she relent? Not so. She helped to bind
me up, and the last words she said to me were: 'You will suffer; you will
have time to think. I am glad. You have kept me on the rack. I shall only
be sorry if you die, for then I shall not be able to torture you till you
tell me where my child is!' Monsieur, I lied to the last, lest she should
come here and make a noise; but I'm not sure it wouldn't have been better
to break faith with Robespierre, and tell the poor wanton where her child
is. What would you do, Monsieur? I cannot ask the Cure or the Seigneur--I
have reasons. But you have the head of a lawyer--almost--and you have no
local feelings, no personal interest--eh?"
"I should tell the truth."
"Your reasons, Monsieur?"
"Because the lawyer is a scoundrel. Your betrayal of his secret is not a
thousandth part so bad as one lie told to this woman, whose very life is
her child. Is it a boy or a girl?"
"A boy."
"Good! What harm can be done? A left-handed boy is all right in the
world. Your wife has twins--then think of the woman, the one ewe lamb of
'the poor wanton.' If you do not tell her, you will have her here making
a noise, as you say. I wonder she has not been here on your door-step."
"I had a letter from her to-day. She is coming-ah, mon dieu!"
"When?"
There was a tap at the window. The Notary started. "Ah, Heaven, here she
is!" he gasped, and drew over to the wall.
A voice came from outside. "Shall I play for you, Dauphin? It is as good
as medicine."
The Notary recovered himself at once. His volatile nature sprang back to
its pose. He could forget Paulette Dubois for the moment.
"It is Maximilian Cour in the garden," he said happily. Then he raised
his voice. "Play on, baker; but something for convalescence--the return
of spring, the sweet assonance of memory."
"A September air, and a gush of spring," said the baker, trying to crane
his long neck through the window. "Ah, there you are, Dauphin! I shall
give you a sleep to-night like a balmy eve." He nodded to the tailor.
"M'sieu', you shall judge if sentiment be dead.
"I have racked my heart to play this time. I have called it, 'The Baffled
Quest of Love'. I have taken the music of the song of Alsace, 'Le Jardin
d'Amour', and I have made variations on it, keeping the last verse of the
song in my mind. You know the song, M'sieu':
"'Quand je vais au jardin, Jardin d'amour,
Je crois entendu des pas,
Je veux fuir, et n'ose pas.
Voici la fin du jour . . .
Je crains et j'hesite,
Mon coeur bat plus vite
En ce sejour . . .
Quand je vais an jardin, jardin d'amour.'"
The baker sat down on a stool he had brought, and began to tune his
fiddle. From inside came the voice of the Notary.
"Play 'The Woods are Green' first," he said. "Then the other."
The Notary possessed the one high-walled garden in the village, and
though folk gathered outside and said that the baker was playing for the
sick man, there was no one in the garden save the fiddler himself. Once
or twice a lad appeared on the top of the wall, looking over, but
vanished at once when he saw Charley's face at the window. Long ere the
baker had finished, the song was caught up from outside, and before the
last notes of the violin had died away, twenty voices were singing it in
the street, and forty feet marched away with it into the dusk.
Darkness comes quickly in this land of brief twilight. Presently out of
the soft shadowed stillness, broken by the note of a vagrant
whippoorwill, crept out from Maximilian Cour's old violin the music of
'The Baffled Quest of Love'.
The baker was not a great musician, but he had a talent, a rare gift of
pathos, and an imagination untrammelled by rigorous rules of harmony and
construction. Whatever there was in his sentimental bosom he poured into
this one achievement of his life. It brought tears to the eyes of
Narcisse Dauphin. It opened a gate of the garden wall, and drew inside a
girl's face, shining with feeling.
Maximilian Cour spoke for more than himself that night. His philandering
spirit had, at middle age, begotten a desire to house itself in a quiet
place, where the blinds could be drawn close, and the room of life made
ready with all the furniture of love. So he had spoken to his violin, and
it had answered as it had never done before. The soul of the lean baker
touched the heart of a man whose life had been but a baffled quest, and
the spirit of a girl whose love was her sun by day, her moon by night,
and the starlight of her dreams.
From the shade of the window the man the girl loved watched her as she
sank upon the ground and clasped her hands before her in abandonment to
the music. He watched her when the baker, at last, overcome by his own
feelings--and ashamed of them--got up and stole swiftly out of the
garden. He watched her till he saw her drop her face in her hands; then,
opening the door and stealing out, he came and laid a hand upon her
shoulder, and she heard him say:
"Rosalie!"
CHAPTER XXXVI
BARRIERS SWEPT AWAY
Rosalie came to her feet, gasping with pleasure. She had been unhappy
ever since she had returned from Quebec, for though she had sometimes
been brought in contact with Charley in the Notary's house since the day
of the operation, nothing had passed between them save the necessary
commonplaces of a sick-room, given a little extra colour, perhaps, by the
sense of responsibility which fell upon them both, and by that importance
which hidden sentiment gives to every motion. The twins had been
troublesome and ill, and Madame Dauphin had begged Rosalie to come in for
a couple of hours every evening. Thus the tailor and the girl who, by
every rule of wisdom, should have been kept as far apart as the poles,
were played into each other's hands by human kindness and damnable
propinquity. The man, manlike, felt no real danger, because nothing was
said--after everything had been said for all time at the hut on Vadrome
Mountain. He had not realised the true situation, because of late her
voice, like his, had been even and her hand cool and steady. He had not
noticed that her eyes were like hungry fires, eating up her face--eating
away its roundness, and leaving a pathetic beauty behind.
It seemed to him that because there was silence--neither the written word
nor the speaking look--that all was well. He was hugging the chain of
denial to his bosom, as though to say, "This way is safety"; he was
hiding his face from the beacon-lights of her eyes, which said: "This way
is home."
Home? Pictures of home, of a home such as Maximilian Cour painted in his
music, had passed before him now and then since that great day on Vadrome
Mountain. A simple fireside, with frugal but comfortable fare; a few
books; the study of the fields and woods; the daily humble task over
which he could meditate as his hands worked mechanically; the happy face
of a happy woman near--he had thought of home; and he had put it from
him. No matter what the temptation, his must be, perhaps for ever, the
bed and board unshared. He had had his chance in the old days, and he had
thrown it away with insolent indifference, and an unpardonable contempt
for the opinion of the world.
Now, with a blind fatuousness which had nothing to do with his old
intellectual power, but was evidence of a primitive life of feeling, had
vaguely imagined that because there were no clinging hands, or stolen
looks, or any vow or promise, that all might go on as at present--upon
the surface. With a curious absence of his old accuracy of observation he
was treating the immediate past--his and Rosalie's past--as if it did not
actually exist; as if only the other and farther past was a tragedy, and
this nearer one a dream.
But the film fell from his eyes as Maximilian Cour played his 'Baffled
Quest', with its quaint, searching pathos; and as he saw the figure of
the girl alone in the shade of the great rose-bushes, past and present
became one, and the whole man was lost in that one word "Rosalie!" which
called her to her feet with outstretched hands.
The tears sprang to her eyes; her face upturned to his was a mute appeal,
a speechless 'Viens ici'.
Past, present, future, duty, apprehension, consequences, suddenly fell
away from Charley's mind like a garment slipping from the shoulders, and
the new man, swept off his feet by the onrush of unused and ungoverned
emotions, caught the girl to his arms with a desperate joy.
"Oh, do you care, then--for me?" wept the girl, and hid her face in his
breast.
A voice came from inside the house: "Monsieur, Monsieur--ah, come, if you
please, tailor!"
The girl drew back quickly, looked up at him for one instant with a
triumphant happy daring, then, suddenly covered with confusion, turned,
ran to the gate, opened it, passed swiftly out, and was swallowed up in
the dusk.
CHAPTER XXXVII
THE CHALLENGE OF PAULETTE DUBOIS
"Monsieur, Monsieur!" came the voice from inside the house, querulously
and anxiously. Charley entered the Notary's bedroom.
"Monsieur," said the Notary excitedly, "she is here--Paulette is here. My
wife is asleep, thank God! but old Sophie has just told me that the woman
asks to see me. Ah, Heaven above, what shall I do?"
"Will you leave it to me?"
"Yes, yes, Monsieur."
"You will do exactly as I say?"
"Ah, most sure."
"Very well. Keep still. I will see her first. Trust to me." He turned and
left the room.
Charley found the woman in the Notary's office, which, while partly
detached from the house, did duty as sitting-room and library. When
Charley entered, the room was only lighted by two candles, and Paulette's
face was hidden by a veil, but Charley observed the tremulousness of the
figure and the nervous decision of manner. He had seen her before several
times, and he had always noticed the air, half bravado, half shrinking,
marking her walk and movements, as though two emotions were fighting in
her. She was now dressed in black, save for one bright red ribbon round
her throat, incongruous and garish.
When she saw Charley she started, for she had expected the servant with a
message from the Notary--her own message had been peremptory.
"I wish to see the Notary," she said defiantly.
"He is not able to come to you."
"What of that?"
"Did you expect to go to his bedroom?"
"Why not?" She was abrupt to discourtesy.
"You are neither physician, nor relative."
"I have important business."
"I transact his business for him, Madame."
"You are a tailor."
"I learned that; I am learning to be a notary."
"My business is private."
"I transact his private business too--that which his wife cannot do.
Would you prefer his wife to me? It must be either the one or the other."
The woman started towards the door in a rage. He stepped between. "You
cannot see the Notary."
"I'll see his wife, then--"
"That would only put the fat in the fire. His wife would not listen to
you. She is quick-tempered, and she fancies she has reasons for not
liking you."
"She's a fool. I haven't been always particular, but as for Narcisse
Dauphin--"
"He has been a good friend to you at some expense, the world says."
The woman struggled with herself. "The world lies!" she said at last.
"But he doesn't. The village was against you once. That was when the
Notary, with the Seigneur, was for you--it has cost him something ever
since, I'm told. You've never thanked him."
"He has tortured me for years, the oily, smirking, lying--"
"He has been your best friend," he interrupted. "Please sit down, and
listen to me for a moment."
She hesitated, then did as he asked.
"He tells me that years ago he was in love with you. Hasn't he behaved
better than some who said they loved you?"
The woman half started up, her eyes flashing, but met a deprecating
motion of his hand and sat down again.
"He thought that if you knew your child lived, you would think better of
life--and of yourself. He has his good points, the Notary."
"Why doesn't he tell me where my child is?"
"The Notary is in bed--you shot him! Don't you think it is doing you a
good turn not to have you arrested?"
"It was an accident."
"Oh no, it wasn't! You couldn't make a jury believe that. And if you were
in prison, how could you find your child? You see, you have treated the
Notary very badly."
She was silent, and he added, slowly: "He had good reasons for not
telling you. It wasn't his own secret, and he hadn't come by it in a
strictly professional way. Your child was being well cared for, and he
told you simply that it was alive--for your own sake. But he has changed
his mind at last, and--"
The woman sprang from her seat. "He will tell me--he will tell me?"
"I will tell you."
"Monsieur-Monsieur--ah, my God, but you are kind! How should you
know--what do you know?"
"I give you my word that by to-morrow evening you shall know where your
child is."
For a moment she was bewildered and overcome, then a look of gratitude,
of luminous hope, covered her face, softening the hardness of its
contour, and she fell on her knees beside the table, dropped her head in
her arms, and sobbed as if her heart would break.
"My little lamb, my little, little lamb-my own dearest!" she sobbed. "I
shall have you again. I shall have you again--all my own!"
He stood and watched her meditatively. He was wondering why it was that
grief like this had never touched him so before. His eyes were moist.
Though he had been many things in his life, he had never been abashed;
but a curious timidity possessed him now.
He leaned over and touched her shoulder with a kindly abruptness, a
friendly awkwardness. "Cheer up," he said. "You shall have your child, if
Dauphin can help you to it."
"If he ever tries to take him from me"--she sprang to her feet, her face
in a fury--"I will--"
For an instant her overpowering passion possessed her, and she stood
violent and wilful; then, under his fixed, exacting gaze, her rage
ceased; she became still and grey and quiet.
"I shall know to-morrow evening, Monsieur? Where?" Her voice was weak and
distant.
He thought for a time. "At my house-at nine o'clock," he answered at
last.
"Monsieur," she said, in a choking voice, "if I get my child again, I
will bless you to my dying day."
"No, no; it will be Dauphin you must bless," he said, and opened the door
for her. As she disappeared into the dusk and silence he adjusted his
eye-glass, and stared musingly after her, though there was nothing to see
save the summer darkness, nothing to hear save the croak of the frogs in
the village pond. He was thinking of the trial of Joseph Nadeau, and of a
woman in the gallery, who laughed.
"Monsieur, Monsieur," called the voice of the Notary from the bedroom.
CHAPTER XXXVIII
THE CURE AND THE SEIGNEUR VISIT THE TAILOR
It had been a perfect September day. The tailor of Chaudiere had been
busier than usual, for winter was within hail, and careful habitants were
renewing their simple wardrobes. The Seigneur and the Cure arrived
together, each to order the making of a greatcoat of the Irish frieze
which the Seigneur kept in quantity at the Manor. The Seigneur was in
rare spirits. And not without reason; for this was Michaelmas eve, and
tomorrow would be Michaelmas day, and there was a promise to be redeemed
on Michaelmas day! He had high hopes of its redemption according to his
own wishes; for he was a vain Seigneur, and he had had his way in all
things all his life, as everybody knew. Importunity with discretion was
his motto, and he often vowed to the Cure that there was no other motto
for the modern world.
The Cure's visit to the tailor's shop on this particular day had unusual
interest, for it concerned his dear ambition, the fondest aspiration of
his life: to bring the infidel tailor (they could not but call a man an
infidel whose soul was negative--the word agnostic had not then become
usual) from the chains of captivity into the freedom of the Church. The
Cure had ever clung to his fond hope; and it was due to his patient
confidence that there were several parishioners who now carried Charley's
name before the shrine of the blessed Virgin, and to the little calvaries
by the road-side. The wife of Filion Lacasse never failed to pray for him
every day. The thousand dollars gained by the saddler on the tailor's
advice had made her life happier ever since, for Filion had become saving
and prudent, and had even got her a "hired girl." There were at least a
half-dozen other women, including Madame Dauphin, who did the same.
That he might listen again to the good priest on his holy hobby, inflamed
with this passion of missionary zeal, the Seigneur, this morning, had
thrown doubt upon the ultimate success of the Cure's efforts.