The Right of Way, Complete - Gilbert Parker
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"My dear Cure" said the Seigneur, "it is true, I think, what the tailor
suggested to my brother--on my soul, I wonder the Abbe gave in, for a
more obstinate fellow I never knew!--that a man is born with the
disbelieving maggot in his brain, or the butterfly of belief, or whatever
it may be called. It's constitutional--may be criminal, but
constitutional. It seems to me you would stand more chance with the Jew,
Greek, or heretic, than our infidel. He thinks too much--for a tailor, or
for nine tailors, or for one man."
He pulled his nose, as if he had said a very good thing indeed. They were
walking slowly towards the village during this conversation, and the
Cure, stopping short, brought his stick emphatically down in his palm
several times, as he said:
"Ah, you will not see! You will not understand. With God all things are
possible. Were it the devil himself in human form, I should work and pray
and hope, as my duty is, though he should still remain the devil to the
end. What am I? Nothing. But what the Church has done, the Church may do.
Think of Paul and Augustine, and Constantine!"
"They were classic barbarians to whom religion was but an emotion. This
man has a brain which must be satisfied."
"I must count him as a soul to be saved through that very intelligence,
as well as through the goodness of his daily life, which, in its charity,
shames us all. He gives all he earns to the sick and needy. He lives on
fare as poor as the poorest of our people eat; he gives up his hours of
sleep to nurse the sick. Dauphin might not have lived but for him. His
heart is good, else these things were impossible. He could not act them."
"But that's just it, Cure. Doesn't he act them? Isn't it a whim? What
more likely than that, tired of the flesh-pots of Egypt, he comes here to
live in the desert--for a sensation? We don't know."
"We do know. The man has had sorrow and the man has had sin. Yes, believe
me, there is none of us that suffers as this man has suffered. I have had
many, many talks with him. Believe me, Maurice, I speak the truth. My
heart bleeds for him. I think I know the thing that drove him here
amongst us. It is a great temptation, which pursues him here--even here,
where his life is so commendable. I have seen him fighting it. I have
seen his torture, the piteous, ignoble yielding, and the struggle, with
more than mortal energy, to be master of himself."
"It is--" the Seigneur said, then paused.
"No, no; do not ask me. He has not confessed to me, Maurice-naturally,
nothing like that. But I know. I know and pity--ah, Maurice, I almost
love. You argue, and reason, but I know this, my friend, that something
was left out of this man when he was made, and it is that thing that we
must find, or he will die among us a ruined soul, and his gravestone will
be the monument of our shame. If he can once trust the Church, if he can
once say, 'Lord, into Thy hands I commend my spirit,' then his temptation
will vanish, and I shall bring him in--I shall lead him home."
For an instant the Seigneur looked at him in amazement, for this was a
Cure he had never known.
"Dear Cure, you are not your old self," he said gently.
"I am not myself--yes, that is it, Maurice. I am not the old humdrum Cure
you knew. The whole world is my field now. I have sorrowed for sin,
within the bounds of this little Chaudiere. Now I sorrow for unbelief.
Through this man, through much thinking on him, I have come to feel the
woe of all the world. I have come to hear the footsteps of the Master
near. My friend, it is not a legend, not a belief now, it is a presence.
I owe him much, Maurice. In bringing him home, I shall understand what it
all means--the faith that we profess. I shall in truth feel that it is
all real. You see how much I may yet owe to him--to this infidel tailor.
I only hope I have not betrayed him," he added anxiously. "I would keep
faith with him--ah, yes, indeed!"
"I only remember that you have said the man suffers. That is no
betrayal."
They entered the village in silence. Presently, however, the sound of
Maximilian Cour's violin, as they passed the bakery, set the Seigneur's
tongue wagging again, and it wagged on till they came to the tailor's
shop.
"Good-day to you, Monsieur," he said, as they entered.
"Have you a hot goose for me?"
"I have, but I will not press it on you," replied Charley.
"Should you so take my question--eh?"
"Should you so take my 'anser'?"
The pun was new to the Seigneur, and he turned to the Cure chuckling.
"Think of that, Cure! He knows the classics." He laughed till the tears
came into his eyes.
The next few moments Charley was busy measuring the two potentates for
greatcoats. As it was his first work for them, it was necessary for the
Cure to write down the Seigneur's measurements, as the tailor called them
off, while the Seigneur did the same when the Cure was being measured. So
intent were the three it might have been a conference of war. The
Seigneur ventured a distant but self-conscious smile when the measurement
of his waist was called, for he had by two inches the advantage of the
Cure, though they were the same age, while he was one inch better in the
chest. The Seigneur was proud of his figure, and, unheeding the passing
of fashions, held to the knee-breeches and silk stockings long after they
had disappeared from the province. To the Cure he had often said that the
only time he ever felt heretical was when in the presence of the gaitered
calves of a Protestant dean. He wore his sleeves tight and his stock
high, as in the days when William the Sailor was king in England, and his
long gold-topped Prince Regent cane was the very acme of dignity.
The measurement done, the three studied the fashion plates--mostly five
years old--as Von Moltke and Bismarck might have studied the field of
Gravelotte. The Seigneur's remarks were highly critical, till, with a few
hasty strokes on brown paper, Charley sketched in his figure with a long
overcoat in style much the same as his undercoat, stately and flowing and
confined at the waist.
"Admirable, most admirable!" said the Seigneur. "The likeness is
astonishing"--he admired the carriage of his own head in Charley's swift
lines--"the garment in perfect taste. Form--there is nothing like form
and proportion in life. It is almost a religion."
"My dear friend!" said the Cure, in amazement.
"I know when I am in the presence of an artist and his work. Louis Trudel
had rule and measure, shears and a needle. Our friend here has eye and
head, sense of form and creative gift. Ah, Cure, Cure, if I were
twenty-five, with the assistance of Monsieur, I would show the bucks in
Fabrique Street how to dress. What style is this called, Monsieur?" he
suddenly asked, pointing to the drawing.
"Style a la Rossignol, Seigneur," said the tailor.
The Seigneur was flattered out of all reason. He looked across at the
post-office, where he could see Rosalie dimly moving in the shade of the
shop.
"Ah, if I had but ordered this coat sooner!" he said regretfully. He was
thinking that to-morrow was Michaelmas day, when he was to ask Rosalie
for her answer again, and he fancied himself appearing before her in the
gentle cool of the evening, in this coat, lightly thrown back, disclosing
his embroidered waistcoat, seals, and snowy linen. "Monsieur, I am highly
complimented, believe me," he said. "Observe, Cure, that this coat is
invented for me on the spot."
The Cure nodded appreciatively. "Wonderful! Wonderful! But do you not
think," he added, a little wistfully--for, was he not a Frenchman,
susceptible like all his race to the appearance of things?--"do you not
think it might be too fashionable for me?"
"Not a whit--not a whit," replied the Seigneur generously. "Should not a
Cure look distinguished--be dignified? Consider the length, the line, the
eloquence of design! Ah, Monsieur, once again, you are an artist! The
Cure shall wear it--indeed but he shall! Then I shall look like him, and
perhaps get credit for some of his perfections."
"And the Cure?" said Charley.
"The Cure?--the Cure? Tiens, a little of my worldliness will do him good.
There are no contrasts in him. He must wear the coat." He waved his
walking-stick complacently, for he was thinking that the Cure's less
perfect figure would set off his own well as they walked together. "May I
have the honour to keep this as a souvenir?" he added, picking up the
sketch.
"With pleasure," answered Charley. "You do not need it?"
"Not at all."
The Cure looked a little disappointed, and Charley, seeing, immediately
sketched on brown paper the priestly figure in the new-created coat, a la
Rossignol. On this drawing he was a little longer engaged, with the
result that the Cure was reproduced with a singular fidelity--in face,
figure, and expression a personality gentle yet important.
"On my soul, you shall not have it!" said the Seigneur. "But you shall
have me, and I shall have you, lest we both grow vain by looking at
ourselves." He thrust the sketch of himself into the Cure's hands, and
carefully rolled up that of his friend.
The Cure was amazed at this gift of the tailor, and delighted with the
picture of himself--his vanity was as that of a child, without guile or
worldliness. He was better pleased, however, to have the drawing of his
friend by him, that vanity might not be too companionable. He thanked
Charley with a beaming face, and then the two friends bowed and moved
towards the door. Suddenly the Cure stopped.
"My dear Maurice," said he, "we have forgotten the important thing."
"Think of that--we two old babblers!" said the Seigneur. He nodded for
the Cure to begin. "Monsieur," said the Cure to Charley, "you maybe able
to help us in a little difficulty. For a long time we have intended
holding a great mission with a kind of religious drama like that
performed at Ober-Ammergau, and called The Passion Play. You know of it,
Monsieur?"
"Very well through reading, Monsieur."
"Next Easter we propose having a Passion Play in pious imitation of the
famous drama. We will hold it at the Indian reservation of Four
Mountains, thus quickening our own souls and giving a good object-lesson
of the great History to the Indians."
The Cure paused rather anxiously, but Charley did not speak. His eyes
were fixed inquiringly on the Cure, and he had a sudden suspicion that
some devious means were forward to influence him. He dismissed the
thought, however, for this Cure was simple as man ever was made,
straightforward as the most heretical layman might demand.
The Cure, taking heart, again continued: "Now I possess an authentic
description of the Ober-Ammergau drama, giving details of its
presentation at different periods, and also a book of the play. But there
is no one in the parish who reads German, and it occurred to the Seigneur
and myself that, understanding French so well, by chance you may
understand German also, and would, perhaps, translate the work for us."
"I read German easily and speak it fairly," Charley answered, relieved;
"and you are welcome to my services."
The Cure's pale face flushed with pleasure. He took the little German
book from his pocket, and handed it over.
"It is not so very long," he said; "and we shall all be grateful." Then
an inspiration came to him; his eyes lighted.
"Monsieur," he said, "you will notice that there are no illustrations in
the book. It is possible that you might be able to make us a few
drawings--if we do not ask too much? It would aid greatly in the matter
of costume, and you might use my library--I have a fair number of
histories." The Cure was almost breathless, his heart thumped as he made
the request. After a slight pause he added, hastily: "You are always
doing for others. It is hardly kind to ask you; but we have some months
to spare; there need be no haste." Charley hastened to relieve the Cure's
anxiety. "Do not apologise," he said. "I will do what I can when I can.
But as for drawing, Monsieur, it will be but amateurish."
"Monsieur," interposed the Seigneur promptly, "if you're not an artist,
I'm damned!"
"Maurice!" murmured the Cure reproachfully. "Can't help it, Cure. I've
held it in for an hour. It had to come; so there it is exploded. I see no
damage either, save to my own reputation. Monsieur," he added to Charley,
"if I had gifts like yours, nothing would hold me. I should put on more
airs than Beauty Steele."
It was fortunate that, at that instant, Charley's face was turned away,
or the Seigneur would have seen it go white and startled. Charley did not
dare turn his head for the moment. He could not speak. What did the
Seigneur know of Beauty Steele?
To hide his momentary confusion, he went over to the drawer of a cupboard
in the wall, and placed the book inside. It gave him time to recover
himself. When he turned round again his face was calm, his manner
composed.
"And who, may I ask, is Beauty Steele?" he said. "Faith I do not know,"
answered the Seigneur, taking a pinch of snuff. "It's years since I first
read the phrase in a letter a scamp of a relative of mine wrote me from
the West. He had met a man of the name, who had a reputation as a clever
fop, a very handsome fellow. So I thought it a good phrase, and I've used
it ever since on occasions. 'More airs than Beauty Steele.'--It has a
sound; it's effective, I fancy, Monsieur?"
"Decidedly effective," answered Charley quietly. He picked up his shears.
"You will excuse me," he said grimly, "but I must earn my living. I
cannot live on my reputation."
The Seigneur and the Cure lifted their hats--to the tailor.
"Au revoir, Monsieur," they both said, and Charley bowed them out.
The two friends turned to each other a little way up the street.
"Something will come of this, Cure," said the Seigneur. The Cure, whose
face had a look of happiness, pressed his arm in reply.
Inside the tailor-shop, a voice kept saying, "More airs than Beauty
Steele!"
CHAPTER XXXIX
THE SCARLET WOMAN
Since the evening in the garden when she had been drawn into Charley's
arms, and then fled from them in joyful confusion, Rosalie had been in a
dream. She had not closed her eyes all night, or, if she closed them,
they still saw beautiful things flashing by, to be succeeded by other
beautiful things. It was a roseate world. To her simple nature it was not
so important to be loved as to love. Selfishness was as yet the minor
part of her. She had been giving all her life--to her mother, as a child;
to sisters at the convent who had been kind to her; to the poor and the
sick of the parish; to her father, who was helpless without her; to the
tailor across the way. In each case she had given more than she had got.
A nature overflowing with impulsive affection, it must spend itself upon
others. The maternal instinct was at the very core of her nature, and
care for others was as much a habit as an instinct with her. She had love
to give, and it must be given. It had been poured like the rain from
heaven on the just and the unjust; on animals as on human beings, and in
so far as her nature, in the first spring--the very April--of its powers,
could do.
Till Charley had come to Chaudiere, it had all been the undisciplined
ardour of a girl's nature. A change had begun in the moment when she had
tearfully thrust the oil and flour in upon his excoriated breast. Later
came real awakening, and a riotous outpouring of herself in sympathy, in
observation, in a reckless kindness which must have done her harm but
that her clear intelligence balanced her actions, and because secrecy in
one thing helped to restrain her in all. Yet with all the fresh overflow
of her spirit, which, assisted by her new position as postmistress, made
her a conspicuous and popular figure in the parish, where officialdom had
rare honour and little labour, she had prejudices almost unworthy of her,
due though they were to radical antipathy. These prejudices, one against
Jo Portugais and the other against Paulette Dubois, she had never been
able entirely to overcome, though she had honestly tried. On the way to
the hospital at Quebec, however, Jo had been so careful of her father, so
respectful when speaking of M'sieu', so regardful of her own comfort,
that her antagonism to him was lulled. But the strong prejudice against
Paulette Dubois remained, casting a shadow on her bright spirit.
All this day she had moved about in a mellow dream, very busy, scarcely
thinking. New feelings dominated her, and she was too primitive to
analyse them and too occupied with them to realise acutely the life about
her. Work was an abstraction, resting rather than tiring her.
Many times she had looked across at the tailor-shop, only seeing Charley
once. She did not wish to speak with him now, nor to be near him yet; she
wanted this day for herself only.
So it was that, soon after the Cure and the Seigneur had bade good-bye to
Charley, she left the post-office and went quickly through the village to
a spot by the river, where was a place called the Rest of the
Flaxbeaters. It was an overhanging rock which made a kind of canopy over
a sweet spring, where, in the days when their labours sounded through the
valley, the flaxbeaters from the level below came to eat their meals and
to rest.
This had always been a resort for her in the months when the flax-beaters
did not use it. Since a child she had made the place her own. To this day
it is called Rosalie's Dell; for are not her sorrows and joys still told
by those who knew and loved her? and is not the parish still fragrant
with her name? Has not her history become a living legend a thousand
times told?
Leaving the village behind her, Rosalie passed down the high-road till
she came to a path that led off through a grove of scattered pines. There
would be yet a half-hour's sun and then a short twilight, and the river
and the woods and the Rest of the Flax-beaters would be her own; and she
could think of the wonderful thing come upon her. She had brought with
her a book of English poems, and as she went through the grove she opened
it, and in her pretty English repeated over and over to herself:
"My heart is thine, and soul and body render
Faith to thy faith; I give nor hold in thrall:
Take all, dear love! thou art my life's defender;
Speak to my soul! Take life and love; take all!"
She was lifted up by the abandonment of the verse, by the fulness of her
own feelings, which had only needed a touch of beauty to give it
exaltation. The touch had come.
She went on abstractedly to the place where she had trysted with her
thoughts only, these many years, and, sitting down, watched the sun sink
beyond the trees, the shades of evening fall. All that had happened since
Charley came to the parish she went over in her mind. She remembered the
day he had said this, the day he had said that; she brought back the
night--it was etched upon her mind!--when he had said to her, "You have
saved my life, Mademoiselle!" She recalled the time she put the little
cross back on the church-door, the ghostly footsteps in the church, the
light, the lost hood. A shudder ran through her now, for the mystery of
that hood had never been cleared up. But the words on the page caught her
eye again:
"My heart is thine, and soul and body render
Faith to thy faith . . ."
It swallowed up the moment's agitation. Never till this day, never till
last night, had she dared to say to herself, He loves me. He seemed so
far above her--she never had thought of him as a tailor!--that she had
given and never dared hope to receive, had lived without anticipation
lest there should come despair. Even that day at Vadrome Mountain she had
not thought he meant love, when he had said to her that he would remember
to the last. When he had said that he would die for love's sake, he had
not meant her, but others--some one else whom he would save by his death.
Kathleen, that name which had haunted her--ah, whoever Kathleen was, or
whatever Kathleen had to do with him or his life, she had no reason to
fear Kathleen now. She had no reason to fear any one; for had she not
heard his words of love as he clasped her in his arms last night? Had she
not fled from that enfolding, because her heart was so full in the hour
of her triumph that she could not bear more, could not look longer into
the eyes to which she had told her love before his was spoken?
In the midst of her thoughts she heard footsteps. She started up.
Paulette Dubois suddenly appeared in the path below. She had taken the
river-path down from Vadrome Mountain, where she had gone to see Jo
Portugais, who had not yet returned from Quebec. Paulette's face was
agitated, her manner nervous. For nights she had not slept, and her
approaching meeting with the tailor had made her tremble all day. Excited
as she was, there was a wild sort of beauty in her face, and her figure
was lithe and supple. She dressed always a little garishly, but now there
was only that band of colour round the throat, worn last night in the
talk with Charley.
To both women this meeting was as a personal misfortune, a mutual
affront. Each had a natural antipathy. To Rosalie the invasion of her
beloved retreat was as hateful as though the woman had purposely
intruded.
For a moment they confronted each other without speaking, then Rosalie's
natural courtesy, her instinctive good-heartedness, overcame her
irritation, and she said quietly:
"Good-evening, Madame."
"I am not Madame, and you know it," answered the woman harshly.
"I am sorry. Good-evening, Mademoiselle," rejoined Rosalie evenly.
"You wanted to insult me. You knew I wasn't Madame."
Rosalie shook her head. "How should I know? You have not always lived in
Chaudiere, you have lived in Montreal, and people often call you Madame."
"You know better. You know that letters come to me from Montreal
addressed Mademoiselle."
Rosalie turned as if to go. "I do not recall what letters pass through
the post-office. I have a good memory for forgetting. Good-evening," she
added, with an excess of courtesy. Paulette read the placid scorn in the
girl's face; she did not see and would not understand that Rosalie did
not scorn her for what she had ever done, but for something that she was.
"You think I am the dirt under your feet," she said, now white, now red,
and mad with anger. "I'm not fit to speak with you--I'm a rag for the
dust pile!"
"I have never thought so," answered Rosalie. "I have not liked you, but I
am sorry for you, and I never thought those things."
"You lie!" was the rejoinder; and Rosalie, turning away quickly with
trouble in her face, put her hands to her ears, and, hastening down the
hillside, did not hear the words the woman called after her.
"To-morrow every one shall know you are a thief. Run, run, run! You can
hear what I say, white-face! They shall know about the little cross
to-morrow."
She followed Rosalie at a distance, her eyes blazing. As fate would have
it, she met on the highroad the least scrupulous man in the parish, an
inveterate gossip, the keeper of the general store, whose only opposition
in business was the post-office shop. He was the centre of the village
tittle-tattle, and worse. With malicious speed Paulette told him how she
had seen Rosalie Evanturel nailing the little cross on the church door of
a certain night. If he wanted proof of what she said, let him ask Jo
Portugais.
Having spat out her revenge, she went on to the village, and through it
to her house, where she prepared to visit the shop of the tailor. Her
sense of retaliation satisfied, Rosalie passed from her mind; her child
only occupied it. In another hour she would know where her child was--the
tailor had promised that she should. Then perhaps she would be sorry for
the accident to the Notary; for it was an accident, in spite of
appearances.
It was dark when Paulette entered the door of the tailor's house. When
she came out, a half-hour later, with elation in her carriage, and tears
of joy running down her face, she did not look about her; she did not
care whether or not any one saw her: she was possessed with only one
thought--her child! She passed like a swift wind down the street, making
for home and for her departure to the hiding-place of her child.
She had not seen a figure in the shadow of a tree near by as she came
from the tailor's door. She had not heard a smothered cry behind her. She
was not aware that in unspeakable agony another woman knocked softly at
the door of the tailor's house, and, not waiting for an answer, opened it
and entered. It was Rosalie Evanturel.
CHAPTER XL
AS IT WAS IN THE BEGINNING
The kitchen was empty, but light fell through the door of the shop
opening upon the little hall between. Rosalie crossed the hall and stood
in the doorway of the shop, a figure of concentrated indignation,
despair, and shame. Leaning on his elbow Charley was bending over a book
in the light of a candle on the bench be side him. He was reading aloud,
translating into English the German text of the narrative the Cure had
given him: