The Right of Way
CHAPTER XXIV
THE SEIGNEUR TAKES A HAND IN THE GAME
It was St. Jean Baptiste's day, and French Canada was en fete. Every
seigneur, every cure, every doctor, every notary—the chief figures in a
parish—and every habitant was bent for a happy holiday, dressed in his best
clothes, moved in his best spirits, in the sweet summer weather.
Bells were ringing, flags were flying, every road and lane was filled with
caleches and wagons, and every dog that could draw a cart pulled big and little
people, the old and the blind and the mendicant, the happy and the sour, to the
village, where there were to be sports and speeches, races upon the river, and a
review of the militia, arranged by the member of the Legislature for the
Chaudiere-half of the county. French soldiers in English red coats and carrying
British flags were straggling along the roads to join the battalion at the
volunteers' camp three miles from the town, and singing:
"Brigadier, respondez Pandore—
Brigadier, vous avez raison."
It was not less incongruous and curious when one group presently broke out
into 'God save the Queen', and another into the 'Marseillaise', and another
still into 'Malbrouck s'en va t'en guerre'. At last songs and soldiers were
absorbed in the battalion at the rendezvous, and the long dusty march to the
village gave a disciplined note to the gaiety of the militant habitant.
At high noon Chaudiere was filled to overflowing. There were booths and tents
everywhere—all sorts of cheap-jacks vaunted their wares, merry-go-rounds and
swings and shooting-galleries filled the usual spaces in the perspective. The
Cure, M. Rossignol the Seigneur, and the Notary stood on the church steps
viewing the scene and awaiting the approach of the soldier-citizens. The
Seigneur and the Cure had ceased listening to the babble of M. Dauphin, who
seemed not to know that his audience closed its ears and found refuge in a
"Well, well!" or "Think of that!" or an abstracted "You surprise me!"
The Notary talked on with eager gesture and wreathing smile, shaking back his
oiled ringlets as though they trespassed on his smooth, somewhat jaundiced
cheeks, until it began to dawn upon him that there was no coin of real applause
to be got at this mint. Fortune favoured him at the critical juncture, for the
tailor walked slowly past them, looking neither to right nor to left, his eyes
cast upon the ground, apparently oblivious to all round him. Almost opposite the
church door, however, Charley was suddenly stopped by Filion Lacasse, who ran
out from a group before the tavern, and, standing in front of him with
outstretched hand, said loudly:
"M'sieu', it's all right. What you said done it, sure! I'm a thousand dollars
richer to-day. You may be an infidel, but you have a head, and you save me
money, and you give away your own, and that's good enough for me,"—he wrung
Charley's hand,—"and I don't care who knows it—sacre!"
Charley did not answer him, but calmly withdrew his hand, smiled, raised his
hat at the lonely cheer the saddler raised, and passed on, scarce conscious of
what had happened. Indeed he was indifferent to it, for he had a matter on his
mind this day which bitterly absorbed him.
But the Notary was not indifferent. "Look there, what do you think of that?"
he asked querulously. "I am glad to see that Lacasse treats Monsieur well," said
the Cure.
"What do you think of that, Monsieur?" repeated the Notary excitedly to the
Seigneur.
The Seigneur put his large gold-handled glass to his eye and looked
interestedly after Charley for a moment, then answered: "Well, Dauphin, what?"
"He's been giving Filion Lacasse advice about the old legacy business, and
Filion's taken it; and he's got a thousand dollars; and now there's all that
fuss. And four months ago Filion wanted to tar and feather him for being just
what he is to-day—an infidel—an infidel!"
He was going to say something else, but he did not like the look the Cure
turned on him, and he broke off short.
"Do you regret that he gave Lacasse good advice?" asked the Cure.
"It's taking bread out of other men's mouths."
"It put bread into Filion's mouth. Did you ever give Lacasse advice? The
truth now, Dauphin!" said the Seigneur drily.
"Yes, Monsieur, and sound advice too, within the law-precedent and code and
every legal fact behind." The Seigneur was a man of laconic speech. "Tut, tut,
Dauphin; precedent and code and legal fact are only good when there's brain
behind 'em. The tailor yonder has brains."
"Ah, but what does he know about the law?" answered Dauphin, with acrimonious
voice but insinuating manner, for he loved to stand well with the Seigneur.
"Enough for the saddler evidently," sharply rejoined the Seigneur.
Dauphin was fighting for his life, as it were. His back was to the wall. If
this man was to be allowed to advise the habitants of Chaudiere on their
disputes and "going to law," where would his own prestige be? His vanity had
been deeply wounded.
"It's guesswork with him. Let him stick to his trade as I stick to mine. That
sort of thing only does harm."
"He puts a thousand dollars into the saddler's pocket: that's a positive
good. He may or may not take thereby ten dollars out of your pocket: that's a
negative injury. In this case there was no injury, for you had already cost
Lacasse—how much had you cost him, Dauphin?" continued the Seigneur, with a
half-malicious smile. "I've been out of Chaudiere for near a year; I don't know
the record—how much, eh, Dauphin?"
The Notary was too offended to answer. He shook his ringlets back angrily,
and a scarlet spot showed on each straw-coloured cheek.
"Twenty dollars is what Lacasse paid our dear Dauphin," said the Cure
benignly, "and a very proper charge. Lacasse probably gave Monsieur there quite
as much, and Monsieur will give it to the first poor man he meets, or send it to
the first sick person of whom he hears."
"My own opinion is, he's playing some game here," said the Notary.
"We all play games," said the Seigneur. "His seems to give him hard work and
little luxury. Will you bring him to see me at the Manor, my dear Cure?" he
added. "He will not go. I have asked him."
"Then I shall visit him at his tailor-shop," said the Seigneur. "I need a new
suit."
"But you always had your clothes made in Quebec, Monsieur," said the Notary,
still carping.
"We never had such a tailor," answered the Seigneur.
"We'll hear more of him before we're done with him," obstinately urged the
Notary.
"It would give Dauphin the greatest pleasure if our tailor proved to be a
murderer or a robber. I suppose you believe that he stole our little cross
here," the Cure added, turning to the church door, where his eye lingered
lovingly on the relic, hanging on a pillar just inside, whither he had had it
removed.
"I'm not sure yet he hadn't something to do with it," was the stubborn
response.
"If he did, may it bring him peace at last!" said the Cure piously. "I have
set my heart on nailing him to our blessed faith as that cross is fixed to the
pillar yonder—'I will fasten him like a nail in a sure place,' says the Book. I
take it hard that my friend Dauphin will not help me on the way. Suppose the man
were evil, then the Church should try to snatch him like a brand from the
burning. But suppose that in his past there was no wrong necessary to be hidden
in the present—and this I believe with all my heart; suppose that he was
wronged, not wronging: then how much more should the Church strive to win him to
the light! Why, man, have you no pride in Holy Church? I am ashamed of you,
Dauphin, with your great intelligence, your wide reading. With our knowledge of
the world we should be broader."
The Seigneur's eyes were turned away, for there was in them at once humour
and a suspicious moisture. Of all men in the world he most admired the Cure, for
his utter truth and nobility; but he could not help smiling at his
enthusiasm—his dear Cure turned evangelist like any "Methody"!—and at the appeal
of the Notary on the ground of knowledge of the world. He was wise enough to
count himself an old fogy, a provincial, and "a simon-pure habitant," but of the
three he only had any knowledge of life. As men of the world the Cure and the
Notary were sad failures, though they stood for much in Chaudiere. Yet this
detracted nothing from the fine gentlemanliness of the Cure or the melodramatic
courtesy of the Notary.
Amused and touched as the Seigneur had been at the Cure's words, he turned
now and said: "Always on the weaker side, Cure; always hoping the best from the
worst of us."
"I am only following an example at my door—you taught us all charity and
justice," answered M. Loisel, looking meaningly at the Seigneur. There was
silence a little while, for all three were thinking of the woman of the hut, at
the gate of the Seigneur's manor.
On this topic M. Dauphin was not voluble. His original kindness to the woman
had given him many troubled hours at home, for Madame Dauphin had construed his
human sympathy into the dark and carnal desires of the heart, and his truthful
eloquence had made his case the worse. A miserable sentimentalist, the Notary
was likely to be misunderstood for ever, and one or two indiscretions of his
extreme youth had been a weapon against him through the long years of a
blameless married life.
He heaved a sigh of sympathy with the Cure now. "She has not come back yet?"
he said to the Seigneur. "No sign of her. She locked up and stepped out, so my
housekeeper says, about the time—"
"The day of old Margot's funeral," interposed the Notary. "She'd had a letter
that day, a letter she'd been waiting for, and abroad she went—alas! the
flyaway—from bad to worse, I fear—ah me!"
The Seigneur turned sharply on him. "Who told you she had a letter that day,
for which she had been waiting?" he said.
"Monsieur Evanturel."
The Seigneur's face became sterner still. "What business had he to know that
she received a letter that day?"
"He is postmaster," innocently replied the Notary. "He is the devil!" said
the Seigneur tartly. "I beg your pardon, Cure; but it is Evanturel's business
not to know what letters go to and fro in that office. He should be blind and
dumb, so far as we all are concerned."
"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."