The Lane That Had No Turning, Complete. Gilbert Parker
said Muroc nervously.
“We’re all in trouble again-sure,” said Benoit, and drained his glass to the last drop. “Some of us will go to gaol.”
The coming of the militia had been wholly unexpected by the people of Pontiac, but the cause was not far to seek. Ever since the Governor’s visit there had been sinister rumours abroad concerning Louis Racine, which the Cure and the Avocat and others had taken pains to contradict. It was known that the Seigneur had been requested to disband his so-called company of soldiers with their ancient livery and their modern arms, and to give them up. He had disbanded the corps, but he had not given up the arms, and, for reasons unknown, the Government had not pressed the point, so far as the world knew. But it had decided to hold a district drill in this far-off portion of the Province; and this summer morning two thousand men marched ‘upon the town and through it, horse, foot, and commissariat, and Pontiac was roused out of the last-century romance the Seigneur had sought to continue, to face the actual presence of modern force and the machinery of war. Twice before had British soldiers marched into the town, the last time but a few years agone, when blood had been shed on the stones in front of the parish church. But here were large numbers of well-armed men from the Eastern parishes, English and French, with four hundred regulars to leaven the mass. Lajeunesse knew only too well what this demonstration meant.
Before the last soldier had passed through the street, he was on his way to the Seigneury.
He found Madelinette alone in the great dining-room, mending a rent in the British flag, which she was preparing for a flag-staff. When she saw him, she dropped the flag, as if startled, came quickly to him, took both his hands in hers, and kissed his cheek.
“Wonder of wonders!” she said.
“It’s these soldiers,” he replied shortly. “What of them?” she asked brightly.
“Do you mean to say you don’t know what their coming here means?” he asked.
“They must drill somewhere, and they are honouring Pontiac,” she replied gaily, but her face flushed as she bent over the flag again.
He came and stood in front of her. “I don’t know what’s in your mind; I don’t know what you mean to do; but I do know that M’sieu’ Racine is making trouble here, and out of it you’ll come more hurt than anybody.”
“What has Louis done?”
“What has he done! He’s been stirring up feeling against the British. What has he done!—Look at the silly customs he’s got out of old coffins, to make us believe they’re alive. Why did he ever try to marry you? Why did you ever marry him? You are the great singer of the world. He’s a mad hunchback habitant seigneur!”
She stamped her foot indignantly, but presently she ruled herself to composure, and said quietly: “He is my husband. He is a brave man, with foolish dreams.” Then with a sudden burst of tender feeling, she said: “Oh, father, father, can’t you see, I loved him—that is why I married him. You ask me what I am going to do? I am going to give the rest of my life to him. I am going to stay with him, and be to him all that he may never have in this world, never—never. I am going to be to him what my mother was to you, a slave to the end—a slave who loved you, and who gave you a daughter who will do the same for her husband—”
“No matter what he does or is—eh?”
“No matter what he is.”
Lajeunesse gasped. “You will give up singing! Not sing again before kings and courts, and not earn ten thousand dollars a month—more than I’ve earned in twenty years? You don’t mean that, Madelinette.”
He was hoarse with feeling, and he held out his hand pleadingly. To him it seemed that his daughter was mad; that she was throwing her life away.
“I mean that, father,” she answered quietly. “There are things worth more than money.”
“You don’t mean to say that you can love him as he is. It isn’t natural. But no, it isn’t.”
“What would you have said, if any one had asked you if you loved my mother that last year of her life, when she was a cripple, and we wheeled her about in a chair you made for her?”
“Don’t say any more,” he said slowly, and took up his hat, and kept turning it round in his hand. “But you’ll prevent him getting into trouble with the Gover’ment?” he urged at last.
“I have done what I could,” she answered. Then with a little gasp: “They came to arrest him a fortnight ago, but I said they should not enter the house. Havel and I prevented them—refused to let them enter. The men did not know what to do, and so they went back. And now this—!” she pointed to where the soldiers were pitching their tents in the valley below. “Since then Louis has done nothing to give trouble. He only writes and dreams. If he would but dream and no more—!” she added, half under her breath.
“We’ve dreamt too much in Pontiac already,” said Lajeunesse, shaking his head.
Madelinette reached up her hand and laid it on his shaggy black hair. “You are a good little father, big smithy-man,” she said lovingly. “You make me think of the strong men in the Niebelungen legends. It must be a big horse that will take you to Walhalla with the heroes,” she added.
“Such notions—there in your head,” he laughed. “Try to frighten me with your big names-hein?” There was a new look in the face of father and of daughter. No mist or cloud was between them. The things they had long wished to say were uttered at last. A new faith was established between them. Since her return they had laughed and talked as of old when they had met, though her own heart was aching, and he was bitter against the Seigneur. She had kept him and the whole parish in good humour by her unconventional ways, as though people were not beginning to make pilgrimages to Pontiac to see her—people who stared at the name over the blacksmith’s door, and eyed her curiously, or lay in wait about the Seigneury, that they might get a glimpse of Madame and her deformed husband. Out in the world where she was now so important, the newspapers told strange romantic tales of the great singer, wove wild and wonderful legends of her life. To her it did not matter. If she knew, she did not heed. If she heeded it—even in her heart—she showed nothing of it before the world. She knew that soon there would be wilder tales still when it was announced that she was bidding farewell to the great working world, and would live on in retirement. She had made up her mind quite how the announcement should read, and, once it was given out, nothing would induce her to change her mind. Her life was now the life of the Seigneur.
A struggle in her heart went on, but she fought it down. The lure of a great temptation from that far-off outside world was before her, but she had resolved her heart against it. In his rough but tender way her father now understood, and that was a comfort to her. He felt what he could not reason upon or put into adequate words. But the confidence made him happy, and his eyes said so to her now.
“See, big smithy-man,” she said gaily, “soon will be the fete of St. Jean Baptiste, and we shall all be happy then. Louis has promised me to make a speech that will not be against the English, but only words which will tell how dear the old land is to us.”
“Ten to one against it!” said Lajeunesse anxiously. Then he brightened as he saw a shadow cross her face. “But you can make him do anything—as you always made me,” he added, shaking his tousled head and taking with a droll eagerness the glass of wine she offered him.
CHAPTER III. “MAN TO MAN AND STEEL TO STEEL”
One evening a fortnight later Louis Racine and George Fournel, the Englishman, stood face to face in the library of the Manor House. There was antagonism and animosity in the attitude of both. Apart from the fact that Louis had succeeded to the Seigneury promised to Fournel, and sealed to him