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diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6833f05 --- /dev/null +++ b/.gitattributes @@ -0,0 +1,3 @@ +* text=auto +*.txt text +*.md text diff --git a/6279.txt b/6279.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6e4c272 --- /dev/null +++ b/6279.txt @@ -0,0 +1,1910 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook The Money Master, by Gilbert Parker, V5 +#106 in our series by Gilbert Parker + +Copyright laws are changing all over the world. Be sure to check the +copyright laws for your country before downloading or redistributing +this or any other Project Gutenberg eBook. + +This header should be the first thing seen when viewing this Project +Gutenberg file. Please do not remove it. Do not change or edit the +header without written permission. + +Please read the "legal small print," and other information about the +eBook and Project Gutenberg at the bottom of this file. Included is +important information about your specific rights and restrictions in +how the file may be used. You can also find out about how to make a +donation to Project Gutenberg, and how to get involved. + + +**Welcome To The World of Free Plain Vanilla Electronic Texts** + +**EBooks Readable By Both Humans and By Computers, Since 1971** + +*****These EBooks Were Prepared By Thousands of Volunteers***** + + +Title: The Money Master, Volume 5. + +Author: Gilbert Parker + +Release Date: August, 2004 [EBook #6279] +[Yes, we are more than one year ahead of schedule] +[This file was first posted on November 28, 2002] + +Edition: 10 + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + + + + + +*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE MONEY MASTER, PARKER, V5*** + + + +This eBook was produced by David Widger + + + + + +THE MONEY MASTER + +By Gilbert Parker + + + +EPOCH THE FIFTH + +XXII. BELLS OF MEMORY +XXIII. JEAN JACQUES HAS WORK TO DO +XXIV. JEAN JACQUES ENCAMPED. +XXV. WHAT WOULD YOU HAVE DONE + +EPILOGUE + + + + +CHAPTER XXII + +BELLS OF MEMORY + +However far Jean Jacques went, however long the day since leaving the +Manor Cartier, he could not escape the signals from his past. He heard +more than once the bells of memory ringing at the touch of the invisible +hand of Destiny which accepts no philosophy save its own. At Montreal, +for one hallowed instant, he had regained his lost Carmen, but he had +turned from her grave--the only mourners being himself, Mme. Glozel and +Mme. Popincourt, together with a barber who had coiffed her wonderful +hair once a week--with a strange burning at his heart. That iceberg +which most mourners carry in their breasts was not his, as he walked down +the mountainside from Carmen's grave. Behind him trotted Mme. Glozel and +Mme. Popincourt, like little magpies, attendants on this eagle of sorrow +whose life-love had been laid to rest, her heart-troubles over. Passion +or ennui would no more vex her. + +She had had a soul, had Carmen Dolores, though she had never known it +till her days closed in on her, and from the dusk she looked out of the +casements of life to such a glowing as Jean Jacques had seen when his +burning mill beatified the evening sky. She had known passion and vivid +life in the days when she went hand-in-hand with Carvillho Gonzales +through the gardens of Granada; she had known the smothering home- +sickness which does not alone mean being sick for a distant home, but a +sickness of the home that is; and she had known what George Masson gave +her for one thrilling hour, and then--then the man who left her in her +death-year, taking not only the last thread of hope which held her to +life. This vulture had taken also little things dear to her daily life, +such as the ring Carvillho Gonzales had given her long ago in Cadiz, also +another ring, a gift of Jean Jacques, and things less valuable to her, +such as money, for which she knew surely she would have no long use. + +As she lay waiting for the day when she must go from the garish scene, +she unconsciously took stock of life in her own way. There intruded on +her sight the stages of the theatres where she had played and danced, and +she heard again the music of the paloma and those other Spanish airs +which had made the world dance under her girl's feet long ago. At first +she kept seeing the faces of thousands looking up at her from the stalls, +down at her from the gallery, over at her from the boxes; and the hot +breath of that excitement smote her face with a drunken odour that sent +her mad. Then, alas! somehow, as disease took hold of her, there were +the colder lights, the colder breath from the few who applauded so +little. And always the man who had left her in her day of direst need; +who had had the last warm fires of her life, the last brief outrush of +her soul, eager as it was for a joy which would prove she had not lost +all when she fled from the Manor Cartier--a joy which would make her +forget! + +What she really did feel in this last adventure of passion only made her +remember the more when she was alone now, her life at the Manor Cartier. +She was wont to wake up suddenly in the morning--the very early morning +--with the imagined sound of the gold Cock of Beaugard crowing in her +ears. Memory, memory, memory--yet never a word, and never a hearsay of +what had happened at the Manor Cartier since she had left it! Then there +came a time when she longed intensely to see Jean Jacques before she +died, though she could not bring herself to send word to him. She +dreaded what the answer might be-not Jean Jacques' answer, but the answer +of Life. Jean Jacques and her child, her Zoe--more his than hers in +years gone by--one or both might be dead! She dared not write, but she +cherished a desire long denied. Then one day she saw everything in her +life more clearly than she had ever done. She found an old book of +French verse, once belonging to Mme. Popincourt's husband, who had been a +professor. Some lines therein opened up a chamber of her being never +before unlocked. At first only the feeling of the thing came, then +slowly the spiritual meaning possessed her. She learnt it by heart and +let it sing to her as she lay half-sleeping and half-waking, half-living +and half-dying: + + "There is a World; men compass it through tears, + Dare doom for joy of it; it called me o'er the foam; + I found it down the track of sundering years, + Beyond the long island where the sea steals home. + + "A land that triumphs over shame and pain, + Penitence and passion and the parting breath, + Over the former and the latter rain, + The birth-morn fire and the frost of death. + + "From its safe shores the white boats ride away, + Salving the wreckage of the portless ships + The light desires of the amorous day, + The wayward, wanton wastage of the lips. + + "Star-mist and music and the pensive moon + These when I harboured at that perfumed shore; + And then, how soon! the radiance of noon, + And faces of dear children at the door. + + "Land of the Greater Love--men call it this; + No light-o'-love sets here an ambuscade; + No tender torture of the secret kiss + Makes sick the spirit and the soul afraid. + + "Bright bowers and the anthems of the free, + The lovers absolute--ah, hear the call! + Beyond the long island and the sheltering sea, + That World I found which holds my world in thrall. + + "There is a World; men compass it through tears, + Dare doom for joy of it; it called me o'er the foam; + I found it down the track of sundering years, + Beyond the long island where the sea steals home." + + +At last the inner thought of it got into her heart, and then it was in +reply to Mme. Glozel, who asked her where her home was, she said: "In +Heaven, but I did not know it!" And thus it was, too, that at the very +last, when Jean Jacques followed the singing bird into her death-chamber, +she cried out, "Ah, my beautiful Jean Jacques!" + +And because Jean Jacques knew that, at the last, she had been his, soul +and body, he went down from the mountain-side, the two black magpies +fluttering mournfully and yet hopefully behind him, with more warmth at +his heart than he had known for years. It never occurred to him that the +two elderly magpies would jointly or severally have given the rest of +their lives and their scant fortunes to have him with them either as +husband, or as one who honourably hires a home at so much a day. + +Though Jean Jacques did not know this last fact, when he fared forth +again he left behind his canary with Mme. Glozel; also all Carmen's +clothes, except the dress she died in, he gave to Mme. Popincourt, on +condition that she did not wear them till he had gone. The dress in +which Carmen died he wrapped up carefully, with her few jewels and her +wedding-ring, and gave the parcel to Mme. Glozel to care for till he +should send for it or come again. + +"The bird--take him on my birthday to sing at her grave," he said to Mme. +Glozel just before he went West. "It is in summer, my birthday, and you +shall hear how he will sing there," he added in a low voice at the very +door. Then he took out a ten-dollar bill, and would have given it to her +to do this thing for him; but she would have none of his money. She only +wiped her eyes and deplored his going, and said that if ever he wanted a +home, and she was alive, he would know where to find it. It sounded and +looked sentimental, yet Jean Jacques was never less sentimental in a very +sentimental life. This particular morning he was very quiet and grave, +and not in the least agitated; he spoke like one from a friendly, sun- +bright distance to Mme. Glozel, and also to Mme. Popincourt as he passed +her at the door of her house. + +Jean Jacques had no elation as he took the Western trail; there was not +much hope in his voice; but there was purpose and there was a little +stream of peace flowing through his being--and also, mark, a stream of +anger tumbling over rough places. He had read two letters addressed to +Carmen by the man--Hugo Stolphe--who had left her to her fate; and there +was a grim devouring thing in him which would break loose, if ever the +man crossed his path. He would not go hunting him, but if he passed him +or met him on the way--! Still he would go hunting--to find his +Carmencita, his little Carmen, his Zoe whom he had unwittingly, God knew! +driven forth into the far world of the millions of acres--a wide, wide +hunting-ground in good sooth. + +So he left his beloved province where he no longer had a home, and though +no letters came to him from St. Saviour's, from Vilray or the Manor +Cartier, yet he heard the bells of memory when the Hand Invisible +arrested his footsteps. One day these bells rang so loud that he would +have heard them were he sunk in the world's deepest well of shame; but, +as it was, he now marched on hills far higher than the passes through the +mountains which his patchwork philosophy had ever provided. + +It was in the town of Shilah on the Watloon River that the bells boomed +out--not because he had encountered one he had ever known far down by the +Beau Cheval, or in his glorious province, not because he had found his +Zoe, but because a man, the man--not George Masson, but the other--met +him in the way. + +Shilah was a place to which, almost unconsciously, he had deviated his +course, because once Virginie Poucette had read him a letter from there. +That was in the office of the little Clerk of the Court at Vilray. The +letter was from Virginie's sister at Shilah, and told him that Zoe and +her husband had gone away into farther fields of homelessness. Thus it +was that Shilah ever seemed to him, as he worked West, a goal in his +quest--not the last goal perhaps, but a goal. + +He had been far past it by another route, up, up and out into the more +scattered settlements, and now at last he had come to it again, having +completed a kind of circle. As he entered it, the past crowded on to him +with a hundred pictures. Shilah--it was where Virginie Poucette's sister +lived; and Virginie had been a part of the great revelation of his life +at St. Saviour's. + +As he was walking by the riverside at Shilah, a woman spoke to him, +touching his arm as she did so. He was in a deep dream as she spoke, +but there certainly was a look in her face that reminded him of someone +belonging to the old life. For an instant he could not remember. For a +moment he did not even realize that he was at Shilah. His meditation had +almost been a trance, and it took him time to adjust himself to the +knowledge of the conscious mind. His subconsciousness was very +powerfully alive in these days. There was not the same ceaselessly +active eye, nor the vibration of the impatient body which belonged to the +money-master and miller of the Manor Cartier. Yet the eye had more depth +and force, and the body was more powerful and vigorous than it had ever +been. The long tramping, the everlasting trail on false scents, the +mental battling with troubles past and present, had given a fortitude and +vigour to the body beyond what it had ever known. In spite of his +homelessness and pilgrim equipment he looked as though he had a home-- +far off. The eyes did not smile; but the lips showed the goodness of +his heart--and its hardness too. Hardness had never been there in the +old days. It was, however, the hardness of resentment, and not of +cruelty. It was not his wife's or his daughter's flight that he +resented, nor yet the loss of all he had, nor the injury done him by +Sebastian Dolores. No, his resentment was against one he had never seen, +but was now soon to see. As his mind came back from the far places where +it had been, and his eyes returned to the concrete world, he saw what the +woman recalled to him. It was--yes, it was Virginie Poucette--the kind +and beautiful Virginie--for her goodness had made him remember her as +beautiful, though indeed she was but comely, like this woman who stayed +him as he walked by the river. + +"You are M'sieu' Jean Jacques Barbille?" she said questioningly. + +"How did you know?" he asked. . . . "Is Virginie Poucette here?" + +"Ah, you knew me from her?" she asked. + +"There was something about her--and you have it also--and the look in the +eyes, and then the lips!" he replied. + +Certainly they were quite wonderful, luxurious lips, and so shapely too +--like those of Virginie. + +"But how did you know I was Jean Jacques Barbille?" he repeated. + +"Well, then it is quite easy," she replied with a laugh almost like a +giggle, for she was quite as simple and primitive as her sister. "There +is a photographer at Vilray, and Virginie got one of your pictures there, +and sent, it to me. 'He may come your way,' said Virginie to me, 'and if +he does, do not forget that he is my friend.'" + +"That she is my friend," corrected Jean Jacques. "And what a friend-- +merci, what a friend!" Suddenly he caught the woman's arm. "You once +wrote to your sister about my Zoe, my daughter, that married and ran +away--" + +"That ran away and got married," she interrupted. + +"Is there any more news--tell me, do you know-?" + +But Virginie's sister shook her head. "Only once since I wrote Virginie +have I heard, and then the two poor children--but how helpless they were, +clinging to each other so! Well, then, once I heard from Faragay, but +that was much more than a year ago. Nothing since, and they were going +on--on to Fort Providence to spend the winter--for his health--his +lungs." + +"What to do--on what to live?" moaned Jean Jacques. + +"His grandmother sent him a thousand dollars, so your Madame Zoe wrote +me." + +Jean Jacques raised a hand with a gesture of emotion. "Ah, the blessed +woman! May there be no purgatory for her, but Heaven at once and +always!" + +"Come home with me--where are your things?" she asked. + +"I have only a knapsack," he replied. "It is not far from here. But I +cannot stay with you. I have no claim. No, I will not, for--" + +"As to that, we keep a tavern," she returned. "You can come the same +as the rest of the world. The company is mixed, but there it is. You +needn't eat off the same plate, as they say in Quebec." + +Quebec! He looked at her with the face of one who saw a vision. How +like Virginie Poucette--the brave, generous Virginie--how like she was! + +In silence now he went with her, and seeing his mood she did not talk to +him. People stared as they walked along, for his dress was curious and +his head was bare, and his hair like the coat of a young lion. Besides, +this woman was, in her way, as brave and as generous as Virginie +Poucette. In the very doorway of the tavern by the river a man jostled +them. He did not apologize. He only leered. It made his foreign- +looking, coarsely handsome face detestable. + +"Pig!" exclaimed Virginie Poucette's sister. "That's a man--well, look +out! There's trouble brewing for him. If he only knew! If suspicion +comes out right and it's proved--well, there, he'll jostle the door-jamb +of a jail." + +Jean Jacques stared after the man, and somehow every nerve in his body +became angry. He had all at once a sense of hatred. He shook the +shoulder against which the man had collided. He remembered the leer +on the insolent, handsome face. + +"I'd like to see him thrown into the river," said Virginie Poucette's +sister. "We have a nice girl here--come from Ireland--as good as can be. +Well, last night--but there, she oughtn't to have let him speak to her. +'A kiss is nothing,' he said. Well, if he kissed me I would kill him--if +I didn't vomit myself to death first. He's a mongrel--a South American +mongrel with nigger blood." + +Jean Jacques kept looking after the man. "Why don't you turn him out?" +he asked sharply. + +"He's going away to-morrow anyhow," she replied. "Besides, the girl, +she's so ashamed--and she doesn't want anyone to know. 'Who'd want to +kiss me after him' she said, and so he stays till to-morrow. He's not in +the tavern itself, but in the little annex next door-there, where he's +going now. He's only had his meals here, though the annex belongs to us +as well. He's alone there on his dung-hill." + +She brought Jean Jacques into a room that overlooked the river--which, +indeed, hung on its very brink. From the steps at its river-door, a +little ferry-boat took people to the other side of the Watloon, and very +near--just a few hand-breadths away--was the annex where was the man who +had jostled Jean Jacques. + + + + +CHAPTER XXIII + +JEAN JACQUES HAS WORK TO DO + +A single lighted lamp, turned low, was suspended from the ceiling of the +raftered room, and through the open doorway which gave on to a little +wooden piazza with a slight railing and small, shaky gate came the swish +of the Watloon River. No moon was visible, but the stars were radiant +and alive--trembling with life. There was something soothing, something +endlessly soothing in the sound of the river. It suggested the ceaseless +movement of life to the final fulness thereof. + +So still was the room that it might have seemed to be without life, were +it not for a faint sound of breathing. The bed, however, was empty, and +no chair was occupied; but on a settle in a corner beside an unused +fireplace sat a man, now with hands clasped between his knees, again with +arms folded across his breast; but with his head always in a listening +attitude. The whole figure suggested suspense, vigilance and +preparedness. The man had taken off his boots and stockings, and his +bare feet seemed to grip the floor; also the sleeves of his jacket were +rolled up a little. It was not a figure you would wish to see in your +room at midnight unasked. Once or twice he sighed heavily, as he +listened to the river slishing past and looked out to the sparkle of the +skies. It was as though the infinite had drawn near to the man, or else +that the man had drawn near to the infinite. Now and again he brought +his fists down on his knees with a savage, though noiseless, force. The +peace of the river and the night could not contend successfully against a +dark spirit working in him. When, during his vigil, he shook his shaggy +head and his lips opened on his set teeth, he seemed like one who would +take toll at a gateway of forbidden things. + +He started to his feet at last, hearing footsteps outside upon the +stairs. Then he settled back again, drawing near to the chimney-wall, so +that he should not be easily seen by anyone entering. Presently there +was the click of a latch, then the door opened and shut, and cigar-smoke +invaded the room. An instant later a hand went up to the suspended oil- +lamp and twisted the wick into brighter flame. As it did so, there was a +slight noise, then the click of a lock. Turning sharply, the man under +the lamp saw at the door the man who had been sitting in the corner. The +man had a key in his hand. Exit now could only be had through the door +opening on to the river. + +"Who are you? What the hell do you want here?" asked the fellow under +the lamp, his swarthy face drawn with fear and yet frowning with anger. + +"Me--I am Jean Jacques Barbille," said the other in French, putting the +key of the door in his pocket. The other replied in French, with a +Spanish-English accent. "Barbille--Carmen's husband! Well, who would +have thought--!" + +He ended with a laugh not pleasant to hear, for it was coarse with +sardonic mirth; yet it had also an unreasonable apprehension; for why +should he fear the husband of the woman who had done that husband such an +injury! + +"She treated you pretty bad, didn't she--not much heart, had Carmen!" +he added. + +"Sit down. I want to talk to you," said Jean Jacques, motioning to two +chairs by a table at the side of the room. This table was in the middle +of the room when the man under the lamp-Hugo Stolphe was his name--had +left it last. Why had the table been moved? + +"Why should I sit down, and what are you doing here?--I want to know +that," Stolphe demanded. Jean Jacques' hands were opening and shutting. +"Because I want to talk to you. If you don't sit down, I'll give you no +chance at all. . . . Sit down!" Jean Jacques was smaller than +Stolphe, but he was all whipcord and leather; the other was sleek and +soft, but powerful too; and he had one of those savage natures which go +blind with hatred, and which fight like beasts. He glanced swiftly round +the room. + +"There is no weapon here," said Jean Jacques, nodding. "I have put +everything away--so you could not hurt me if you wanted. . . . Sit +down!" + +To gain time Stolphe sat down, for he had a fear that Jean Jacques was +armed, and might be a madman armed--there were his feet bare on the brown +painted boards. They looked so strange, so uncanny. He surely must be a +madman if he wanted to do harm to Hugo Stolphe; for Hugo Stolphe had only +"kept" the woman who had left her husband, not because of himself, but +because of another man altogether--one George Masson. Had not Carmen +herself told him that before she and he lived together? What grudge +could Carmen's husband have against Hugo Stolphe? + +Jean Jacques sat down also, and, leaning on the table said: "Once I was a +fool and let the other man escape-George Masson it was. Because of what +he did, my wife left me." + +His voice became husky, but he shook his throat, as it were, cleared it, +and went on. "I won't let you go. I was going to kill George Masson--I +had him like that!" He opened and shut his hand with a gesture of fierce +possession. "But I did not kill him. I let him go. He was so clever-- +cleverer than you will know how to be. She said to me--my wife said to +me, when she thought I had killed him, 'Why did you not fight him? Any +man would have fought him.' That was her view. She was right--not to +kill without fighting. That is why I did not kill you at once when I +knew." + +"When you knew what?" Stolphe was staring at the madman. + +"When I knew you were you. First I saw that ring--that ring on your +hand. It was my wife's. I gave it to her the first New Year after we +married. I saw it on your hand when you were drinking at the bar next +door. Then I asked them your name. I knew it. I had read your letters +to my wife--" + +"Your wife once on a time!" + +Jean Jacques' eyes swam red. "My wife always and always--and at the last +there in my arms." Stolphe temporized. "I never knew you. She did not +leave you because of me. She came to me because--because I was there for +her to come to, and you weren't there. Why do you want to do me any +harm?" He still must be careful, for undoubtedly the man was mad--his +eyes were too bright. + +"You were the death of her," answered Jean Jacques, leaning forward. +"She was most ill-ah, who would not have been sorry for her! She was +poor. She had been to you--but to live with a woman day by day, but to +be by her side when the days are done, and then one morning to say, 'Au +revoir till supper' and then go and never come back, and to take money +and rings that belonged to her! . . . That was her death--that was +the end of Carmen Barbille; and it was your fault." + +"You would do me harm and not hurt her! Look how she treated you--and +others." + +Jean Jacques half rose from his seat in sudden rage, but he restrained +himself, and sat down again. "She had one husband--only one. It was +Jean Jacques Barbille. She could only treat one as she treated me--me, +her husband. But you, what had you to do with that! You used her--so!" +He made a motion as though to stamp out an insect with his foot. +"Beautiful, a genius, sick and alone--no husband, no child, and you used +her so! That is why I shall kill you to-night. We will fight for it." + +Yes, but surely the man was mad, and the thing to do was to humour him, +to gain time. To humour a madman--that is what one always advised, +therefore Stolphe would make the pourparler, as the French say. + +"Well, that's all right," he rejoined, "but how is it going to be done? +Have you got a pistol?" He thought he was very clever, and that he would +now see whether Jean Jacques Barbille was armed. If he was not armed, +well, then, there would be the chances in his favour; it wasn't easy to +kill with hands alone. + +Jean Jacques ignored the question, however. He waved a hand impatiently, +as though to dismiss it. "She was beautiful and splendid; she had been a +queen down there in Quebec. You lied to her, and she was blind at first +--I can see it all. She believed so easily--but yes, always! There +she was what she was, and you were what you are, not a Frenchman, not +Catholic, and an American--no, not an American--a South American. But +no, not quite a South American, for there was the Portuguese nigger in +you--Sit down!" + +Jean Jacques was on his feet bending over the enraged mongrel. He had +spoken the truth, and Carmen's last lover had been stung as though a +serpent's tooth was in his flesh. Of all things that could be said about +him, that which Jean Jacques said was the worst--that he was not all +white, that he had nigger blood! Yet it was true; and he realized that +Jean Jacques must have got his information in Shilah itself where he had +been charged with it. Yet, raging as he was, and ready to take the +Johnny Crapaud--that is the name by which he had always called Carmen's +husband--by the throat, he was not yet sure that Jean Jacques was +unarmed. He sat still under an anger greater than his own, for there +was in it that fanaticism which only the love or hate of a woman could +breed in a man's mind. + +Suddenly Stolphe laughed outright, a crackling, mirthless, ironical +laugh; for it really was absurdity made sublime that this man, who had +been abandoned by his wife, should now want to kill one who had abandoned +her! This outdid Don Quixote over and over. + +"Well, what do you want?" he asked. + +"I want you to fight," said Jean Jacques. "That is the way. That was +Carmen's view. You shall have your chance to live, but I shall throw you +in the river, and you can then fight the river. The current is swift, +the banks are steep and high as a house down below there. Now, I am +ready. . . . !" + +He had need to be, for Stolphe was quick, kicking the chair from beneath +him, and throwing himself heavily on Jean Jacques. He had had his day at +that in South America, and as Jean Jacques Barbille had said, the water +was swift and deep, and the banks of the Watloon high and steep! + +But Jean Jacques was unconscious of everything save a debt to be +collected for a woman he had loved, a compensation which must be taken in +flesh and blood. Perhaps at the moment, as Stolphe had said to himself, +he was a little mad, for all his past, all his plundered, squandered, +spoiled life was crying out at him like a hundred ghosts, and he was +fighting with beasts at Ephesus. An exaltation possessed him. Not since +the day when his hand was on the lever of the flume with George Masson +below; not since the day he had turned his back for ever on the Manor +Cartier had he been so young and so much his old self-an egotist, with +all the blind confidence of his kind; a dreamer inflamed into action with +all a mad dreamer's wild power. He was not fifty-two years of age, but +thirty-two at this moment, and all the knowledge got of the wrestling +river-drivers of his boyhood, when he had spent hours by the river +struggling with river-champions, came back to him. It was a relief to +his sick soul to wrench and strain, and propel and twist and force +onward, step by step, to the door opening on the river, this creature who +had left his Carmen to die alone. + +"No, you don't--not yet. The jail before the river!" called a cool, +sharp, sour voice; and on the edge of the trembling platform overhanging +the river, Hugo Stolphe was dragged back from the plunge downward he was +about to take, with Jean Jacques' hand at his throat. + +Stolphe had heard the door of the bedroom forced, but Jean Jacques had +not heard it; he was only conscious of hands dragging him back just at +the moment of Stolphe's deadly peril. + +"What is it?" asked Jean Jacques, seeing Stolphe in the hands of two +men, and hearing the snap of steel. "Wanted for firing a house for +insurance--wanted for falsifying the accounts of a Land Company--wanted +for his own good, Mr. Hugo Stolphe, C.O.D.--collect on delivery!" said +the officer of the law. "And collected just in time!" + +"We didn't mean to take him till to-morrow," the officer added, "but out +on the river one of us saw this gladiator business here in the red-light +zone, and there wasn't any time to lose. . . . I don't know what your +business with him was," the long-moustached detective said to Jean +Jacques, "but whatever the grudge is, if you don't want to appear in +court in the morning, the walking's good out of town night or day--so +long!" + +He hustled his prisoner out. + +Jean Jacques did not want to appear in court, and as the walking was +officially good at dawn, he said good-bye to Virginie Poucette's sister +through the crack of a door, and was gone before she could restrain him. + +"Well, things happen that way," he said, as he turned back to look at +Shilah before it disappeared from view. + +"Ah, the poor, handsome vaurien!" the woman at the tavern kept saying to +her husband all that day; and she could not rest till she had written to +Virginie how Jean Jacques came to Shilah in the evening, and went with +the dawn. + + + + +CHAPTER XXIV + +JEAN JACQUES ENCAMPED + +The Young Doctor of Askatoon had a good heart, and he was exercising it +honourably one winter's day near three years after Jean Jacques had left +St. Saviour's. + +"There are many French Canadians working on the railway now, and a good +many habitant farmers live hereabouts, and they have plenty of children +--why not stay here and teach school? You are a Catholic, of course, +monsieur?" + +This is what the Young Doctor said to one who had been under his anxious +care for a few, vivid days. The little brown-bearded man with the grey- +brown hair nodded in reply, but his gaze was on the billowing waste of +snow, which stretched as far as eye could see to the pine-hills in the +far distance. He nodded assent, but it was plain to be seen that the +Young Doctor's suggestion was not in tune with his thought. His nod only +acknowledged the reasonableness of the proposal. In his eyes, however, +was the wanderlust which had possessed him for three long years, in which +he had been searching for what to him was more than Eldorado, for it was +hope and home. Hope was all he had left of the assets which had made him +so great a figure--as he once thought--in his native parish of St. +Saviour's. It was his fixed idea--une idee fixe, as he himself said. +Lands, mills, manor, lime-kilns, factories, store, all were gone, and his +wife Carmen also was gone. He had buried her with simple magnificence +in Montreal--Mme. Glozel had said to her neighbours afterwards that the +funeral cost over seventy-five dollars--and had set up a stone to her +memory on which was carved, "Chez nous autrefois, et chez Dieu +maintenant"--which was to say, "Our home once, and God's Home now." + +That done, with a sorrow which still had the peace of finality in his +mind, he had turned his face to the West. His long, long sojourning had +brought him to Shilah where a new chapter of his life was closed, and at +last to Askatoon, where another chapter still closed an epoch in his +life, and gave finality to all. There he had been taken down with +congestion of the lungs, and, fainting at the door of a drug-store, had +been taken possession of by the Young Doctor, who would not send him to +the hospital. He would not send him there because he found inside the +waistcoat of this cleanest tramp--if he was a tramp--that he had ever +seen, a book of philosophy, the daguerreotype photo of a beautiful +foreign-looking woman, and some verses in a child's handwriting. The +book of philosophy was underlined and interlined on every page, and every +margin had comment which showed a mind of the most singular simplicity, +searching wisdom, and hopeless confusion, all in one. + +The Young Doctor was a man of decision, and he had whisked the little +brown-grey sufferer to his own home, and tended him there like a brother +till the danger disappeared; and behold he was rewarded for his humanity +by as quaint an experience as he had ever known. He had not succeeded-- +though he tried hard--in getting at the history of his patient's life; +but he did succeed in reading the fascinating story of a mind; for Jean +Jacques, if not so voluble as of yore, had still moments when he seemed +to hypnotize himself, and his thoughts were alive in an atmosphere of +intellectual passion ill in accord with his condition. + +Presently the little brown man withdrew his eyes from the window of the +Young Doctor's office and the snowy waste beyond. They had a curious red +underglow which had first come to them an evening long ago, when they +caught from the sky the reflection of a burning mill. There was distance +and the far thing in that underglow of his eyes. It had to do with the +horizon, not with the place where his feet were. It said, "Out there, +beyond, is what I go to seek, what I must find, what will be home to me." + +"Well, I must be getting on," he said in a low voice to the Young Doctor, +ignoring the question which had been asked. + +"If you want work, there's work to be had here, as I said," responded the +Young Doctor. "You are a man of education--" + +"How do you know that?" asked Jean Jacques. + +"I hear you speak," answered the other, and then Jean Jacques drew +himself up and threw back his head. He had ever loved appreciation, not +to say flattery, and he had had very little of it lately. + +"I was at Laval," he remarked with a flash of pride. "No degree, but a +year there, and travel abroad--the Grand Tour, and in good style, with +plenty to do it with. Oh, certainly, no thought for sous, hardly for +francs! It was gold louis abroad and silver dollars at home--that was +the standard." + +"The dollars are much scarcer now, eh?" asked the Young Doctor +quizzically. + +"I should think I had just enough to pay you," said the other, bridling +up suddenly; for it seemed to him the Young Doctor had become ironical +and mocking; and though he had been mocked much in his day, there were +times when it was not easy to endure it. + +The truth is the Young Doctor was somewhat of an expert in human nature, +and he deeply wanted to know the history of this wandering habitant, +because he had a great compassionate liking for him. If he could get the +little man excited, he might be able to find out what he wanted. During +the days in which the wanderer had been in his house, he had been far +from silent, for he joked at his own suffering and kept the housekeeper +laughing at his whimsical remarks; while he won her heart by the +extraordinary cleanliness of his threadbare clothes, and the perfect +order of his scantily-furnished knapsack. It had the exactness of one +who was set upon a far course and would carry it out on scientific +calculation. He had been full of mocking quips and sallies at himself, +but from first to last he never talked. The things he said were nothing +more than surface sounds, as it were--the ejaculations of a mind, not its +language or its meanings. + +"He's had some strange history, this queer little man," said the +housekeeper to the Young Doctor; "and I'd like to know what it is. Why, +we don't even know his name." + +"So would I," rejoined the Young Doctor, "and I'll have a good try for +it." + +He had had his try more than once, but it had not succeeded. Perhaps a +little torture would do it, he thought; and so he had made the rather +tactless remark about the scarcity of dollars. Also his look was +incredulous when Jean Jacques protested that he had enough to pay the +fee. + +"When you searched me you forgot to look in the right place," continued +Jean Jacques; and he drew from the lining of the hat he held in his hand +a little bundle of ten-dollar bills. "Here--take your pay from them," he +said, and held out the roll of bills. "I suppose it won't be more than +four dollars a day; and there's enough, I think. I can't pay you for +your kindness to me, and I don't want to. I'd like to owe you that; and +it's a good thing for a man himself to be owed kindness. He remembers it +when he gets older. It helps him to forgive himself more or less for +what he's sorry for in life. I've enough in this bunch to pay for board +and professional attendance, or else the price has gone up since I had a +doctor before." + +He laughed now, and the laugh was half-ironical, half-protesting. It +seemed to come from the well of a hidden past; and no past that is hidden +has ever been a happy past. + +The Young Doctor took the bills, looked at them as though they were +curios, and then returned them with the remark that they were of a kind +and denomination of no use to him. There was a twinkle in his eye as he +said it. Then he added: + +"I agree with you that it's a good thing for a man to lay up a little +credit of kindness here and there for his old age. Well, anything I did +for you was meant for kindness and nothing else. You weren't a bit of +trouble, and it was simply your good constitution and a warm room and a +few fly-blisters that pulled you through. It wasn't any skill of mine. +Go and thank my housekeeper if you like. She did it all." + +"I did my best to thank her," answered Jean Jacques. "I said she +reminded me of Virginie Palass Poucette, and I could say nothing better +than that, except one thing; and I'm not saying that to anybody." + +The Young Doctor had a thrill. Here was a very unusual man, with mystery +and tragedy, and yet something above both, in his eyes. + +"Who was Virginie Palass Poucette?" he asked. Jean Jacques threw out a +hand as though to say, "Attend--here is a great thing," and he began, +"Virginie Poucette--ah, there . . . !" + +Then he paused, for suddenly there spread out before him that past, now +so far away, in which he had lived--and died. Strange that when he had +mentioned Virginie's name to the housekeeper he had no such feeling as +possessed him now. It had been on the surface, and he had used her name +without any deep stir of the waters far down in his soul. But the Young +Doctor was fingering the doors of his inner life--all at once this +conviction came to him--and the past rushed upon him with all its +disarray and ignominy, its sorrow, joy, elation and loss. Not since he +had left the scene of his defeat, not since the farewell to his dead +Carmen, that sweet summer day when he had put the lovely, ruined being +away with her words, "Jean Jacques--ah, my beautiful Jean Jacques," +ringing in his ears, had he ever told anyone his story. He had had a +feeling that, as Carmen had been restored to him without his crying out, +or vexing others with his sad history, so would Zoe also come back to +him. Patience and silence was his motto. + +Yet how was it that here and now there came an overpowering feeling, that +he must tell this healer of sick bodies the story of an invalid soul? +This man with the piercing dark-blue eyes before him, who looked so +resolute, who had the air of one who could say, + +"This is the way to go," because he knew and was sure; he was not to be +denied. + +"Who was Virginie Poucette?" repeated the Young Doctor insistently, yet +ever so gently. "Was she such a prize among women? What did she do?" + +A flood of feeling passed over Jean Jacques' face. He looked at his hat +and his knapsack lying in a chair, with a desire to seize them and fly +from the inquisitor; then a sense of fatalism came upon him. As though +he had received an order from within his soul, he said helplessly: + +"Well, if it must be, it must." + +Then he swept the knapsack and his hat from the chair to the floor, and +sat down. + +"I will begin at the beginning," he said with his eyes fixed on those of +the Young Doctor, yet looking beyond him to far-off things. "I will +start from the time when I used to watch the gold Cock of Beaugard +turning on the mill, when I sat in the doorway of the Manor Cartier in my +pinafore. I don't know why I tell you, but maybe it was meant I should. +I obey conviction. While you are able to keep logic and conviction hand +in hand then everything is all right. I have found that out. Logic, +philosophy are the props of life, but still you must obey the impulse of +the soul--oh, absolutely! You must--" + +He stopped short. "But it will seem strange to you," he added after a +moment, in which the Young Doctor gestured to him to proceed, "to hear me +talk like this--a wayfarer--a vagabond you may think. But in other days +I was in places--" + +The Young Doctor interjected with abrupt friendliness that there was no +need to say he had been in high places. It would still be apparent, if +he were in rags. + +"Then, there, I will speak freely," rejoined Jean Jacques, and he took +the cherry-brandy which the other offered him, and drank it off with +gusto. + +"Ah, that--that," he said, "is like the cordials Mere Langlois used to +sell at Vilray. She and Virginie Poucette had a place together on the +market--none better than Mere Langlois except Virginie Poucette, and she +was like a drink of water in the desert. . . . Well, there, I will +begin. Now my father was--" + +It was lucky there were no calls for the Young Doctor that particular +early morning, else the course of Jean Jacques' life might have been +greatly different from what it became. He was able to tell his story +from the very first to the last. Had it been interrupted or unfinished +one name might not have been mentioned. When Jean Jacques used it, the +Young Doctor sat up and leaned forward eagerly, while a light came into +his face-a light of surprise, of revelation and understanding. + +When Jean Jacques came to that portion of his life when manifest tragedy +began--it began of course on the Antoine, but then it was not manifest-- +when his Carmen left him after the terrible scene with George Masson, he +paused and said: "I don't know why I tell you this, for it is not easy to +tell; but you saved my life, and you have a right to know what it is you +have saved, no matter how hard it is to put it all before you." + +It was at this point that he mentioned Zoe's name--he had hitherto only +spoken of her as "my daughter"; and here it was the Young Doctor showed +startled interest, and repeated the name after Jean Jacques. "Zoe! Zoe! +--ah!" he said, and became silent again. + +Jean Jacques had not noticed the Young Doctor's pregnant interruption, he +was so busy with his own memories of the past; and he brought the tale to +the day when he turned his face to the West to look for Zoe. Then he +paused. + +"And then?" the Young Doctor asked. "There is more--there is the search +for Zoe ever since." + +"What is there to say?" continued Jean Jacques. "I have searched till +now, and have not found." + +"How have you lived?" asked the other. + +"Keeping books in shops and factories, collecting accounts for +storekeepers, when they saw they could trust me, working at threshings +and harvests, teaching school here and there. Once I made fifty dollars +at a railway camp telling French Canadian tales and singing chansons +Canadiennes. I have been insurance agent, sold lightning-rods, and been +foreman of a gang building a mill--but I could not bear that. Every time +I looked up I could see the Cock of Beaugard where the roof should be. +And so on, so on, first one thing and then another till now--till I came +to Askatoon and fell down by the drug-store, and you played the good +Samaritan. So it goes, and I step on from here again, looking--looking." + +"Wait till spring," said the Young Doctor. "What is the good of going on +now! You can only tramp to the next town, and--" + +"And the next," interposed Jean Jacques. "But so it is my orders." He +put his hand on his heart, and gathered up his hat and knapsack. + +"But you haven't searched here at Askatoon." "Ah? . . . Ah-well, +surely that is so," answered Jean Jacques wistfully. "I had forgotten +that. Perhaps you can tell me, you who know all. Have you any news +about my Zoe for me? Do you know--was she ever here? Madame Gerard +Fynes would be her name. My name is Jean Jacques Barbille." + +"Madame Zoe was here, but she has gone," quietly answered the Young +Doctor. + +Jean Jacques dropped the hat and the knapsack. His eyes had a glad, yet +staring and frightened look, for the Young Doctor's face was not the +bearer of good tidings. + +"Zoe--my Zoe! You are sure? . . . When was she here?" he added +huskily. + +"A month ago." + +"When did she go?" Jean Jacques' voice was almost a whisper. + +"A month ago." + +"Where did she go?" asked Jean Jacques, holding himself steady, for he +had a strange dreadful premonition. + +"Out of all care at last," answered the Young Doctor, and took a step +towards the little man, who staggered, then recovered himself. + +"She--my Zoe is dead! How?" questioned Jean Jacques in a ghostly sort +of voice, but there was a steadiness and control unlike what he had shown +in other tragic moments. + +"It was a blizzard. She was bringing her husband's body in a sleigh to +the railway here. He had died of consumption. She and the driver of the +sleigh went down in the blizzard. Her body covered the child and saved +it. The driver was lost also." + +"Her child--Zoe's child?" quavered Jean Jacques. "A little girl--Zoe. +The name was on her clothes. There were letters. One to her father-- +to you. Your name is Jean Jacques Barbille, is it not? I have that +letter to you. We buried her and her husband in the graveyard yonder." +He pointed. "Everybody was there--even when they knew it was to be a +Catholic funeral." + +"Ah! she was buried a Catholic?" Jean Jacques' voice was not quite so +blurred now. + +"Yes. Her husband had become Catholic too. A priest who had met them in +the Peace River Country was here at the time." + +At that, with a moan, Jean Jacques collapsed. He shed no tears, but he +sat with his hands between his knees, whispering his child's name. + +The Young Doctor laid a hand on his shoulder gently, but presently went +out, shutting the door after him. As he left the room, however, he +turned and said, "Courage, Monsieur Jean Jacques! Courage!" + +When the Young Doctor came back a half-hour later he had in his hand the +letters found in Zoe's pocket. "Monsieur Jean Jacques," he said gently +to the bowed figure still sitting as he left him. + +Jean Jacques got up slowly and looked at him as though scarce +understanding where he was. + +"The child--the child--where is my Zoe's child? Where is Zoe's Zoe?" +he asked in agitation. His whole body seemed to palpitate. His eyes +were all red fire. + + + + +CHAPTER XXV + +WHAT WOULD YOU HAVE DONE? + +The Young Doctor did not answer Jean Jacques at once. As he looked at +this wayworn fugitive he knew that another, and perhaps the final crisis +of his life, was come to Jean Jacques Barbille, and the human pity in him +shrank from the possible end to it all. It was an old-world figure this, +with the face of a peasant troubadour and the carriage of an aboriginal-- +or an aristocrat. Indeed, the ruin, the lonely wandering which had been +Jean Jacques' portion, had given him that dignity which often comes to +those who defy destiny and the blows of angry fate. Once there had been +in his carriage something jaunty. This was merely life and energy and a +little vain confidence; now there was the look of courage which awaits +the worst the world can do. The life which, according to the world's +logic, should have made Jean Jacques a miserable figure, an ill-nourished +vagabond, had given him a physical grace never before possessed by him. +The face, however, showed the ravages which loss and sorrow had made. +It was lined and shadowed with dark reflection, yet the forehead had a +strange smoothness and serenity little in accord with the rest of the +countenance. It was like the snow-summit of a mountain below which are +the ragged escarpments of trees and rocks, making a look of storm and +warfare. + +"Where is she--the child of my Zoe?" Jean Jacques repeated with an +almost angry emphasis; as though the Young Doctor were hiding her from +him. + +"She is with the wife of Nolan Doyle, my partner in horse-breeding, not +very far from here. Norah Doyle was married five years, and she had no +child. This was a grief to her, even more than to Nolan, who, like +her, came of a stock that was prolific. It was Nolan who found your +daughter on the prairie--the driver dead, but she just alive when found. +To give her ease of mind, Nolan said he would make the child his own. +When he said that, she smiled and tried to speak, but it was too late, +and she was gone." + +In sudden agony Jean Jacques threw up his hands. "So young and so soon +to be gone!" he exclaimed. "But a child she was and had scarce tasted +the world. The mercy of God--what is it!" + +"You can't take time as the measure of life," rejoined the Young Doctor +with a compassionate gesture. "Perhaps she had her share of happiness-- +as much as most of us get, maybe, in a longer course." + +"Share! She was worth a hundred years of happiness!" bitterly retorted +Jean Jacques. + +"Perhaps she knew her child would have it?" gently remarked the Young +Doctor. + +"Ah, that--that ! . . . Do you think that possible, m'sieu'? Tell +me, do you think that was in her mind--to have loved, and been a mother, +and given her life for the child, and then the bosom of God. Answer that +to me, m'sieu'?" + +There was intense, poignant inquiry in Jean Jacques' face, and a light +seemed to play over it. The Young Doctor heeded the look and all that +was in the face. It was his mission to heal, and he knew that to heal +the mind was often more necessary than to heal the body. Here he would +try to heal the mind, if only in a little. + +"That might well have been in her thought," he answered. "I saw her +face. It had a wonderful look of peace, and a smile that would reconcile +anyone she loved to her going. I thought of that when I looked at her. +I recall it now. It was the smile of understanding." + +He had said the only thing which could have comforted Jean Jacques +at that moment. Perhaps it was meant to be that Zoe's child should +represent to him all that he had lost--home, fortune, place, Carmen and +Zoe. Perhaps she would be home again for him and all that home should +mean--be the promise of a day when home would again include that fled +from Carmen, and himself, and Carmen's child. Maybe it was sentiment in +him, maybe it was sentimentality--and maybe it was not. + +"Come, m'sieu'," Jean Jacques said impatiently: "let us go to the house +of that M'sieu' Doyle. But first, mark this: I have in the West here +some land--three hundred and twenty acres. It may yet be to me a home, +where I shall begin once more with my Zoe's child--with my Zoe of Zoe-- +the home-life I lost down by the Beau Cheval. . . . Let us go at +once." + +"Yes, at once," answered the Young Doctor. Yet his feet were laggard, +for he was not so sure that there would be another home for Jean Jacques +with his grandchild as its star. He was thinking of Norah, to whom a +waif of the prairie had made home what home should be for herself and +Nolan Doyle. + +"Read these letters first," he said, and he put the letters found on Zoe +in Jean Jacques' eager hands. + +A half-hour later, at the horse-breeding ranch, the Young Doctor +introduced Jean Jacques to Norah Doyle, and instantly left the house. +He had no wish to hear the interview which must take place between the +two. Nolan Doyle was not at home, but in the room where they were shown +to Norah was a cradle. Norah was rocking it with one foot while, +standing by the table, she busied herself with sewing. + +The introduction was of the briefest. "Monsieur Barbille wishes a word +with you, Mrs. Doyle," said the Young Doctor. "It's a matter that +doesn't need me. Monsieur has been in my care, as you know. . . . +Well, there, I hope Nolan is all right. Tell him I'd like to see him +to-morrow about the bay stallion and the roans. I've had an offer for +them. Good-bye--good-bye, Mrs. Doyle"--he was at the door--"I hope you +and Monsieur Barbille will decide what's best for the child without +difficulty." + +The door opened quickly and shut again, and Jean Jacques was alone with +the woman and the child. "What's best for the child!" + +That was what the Young Doctor had said. Norah stopped rocking the +cradle and stared at the closed door. What had this man before her, this +tramp habitant of whom she had heard, of course, to do with little Zoe in +the cradle--her little Zoe who had come just when she was most needed; +who had brought her man and herself close together again after an +estrangement which neither had seemed able to prevent. + +"What's best for the child!" How did the child in the cradle +concern this man? Then suddenly his name almost shrieked in her brain. +Barbille--that was the name on the letter found on the body of the woman +who died and left Zoe behind--M. Jean Jacques Barbille. + +Yes, that was the name. What was going to happen? Did the man intend to +try and take Zoe from her? + +"What is your name--all of it?" she asked sharply. She had a very fine +set of teeth, as Jean Jacques saw mechanically; and subconsciously he +said to himself that they seemed cruel, they were so white and regular-- +and cruel. The cruelty was evident to him as she bit in two the thread +for the waistcoat she was mending, and then plied her needle again. Also +the needle in her fingers might have been intended to sew up his shroud, +so angry did it appear at the moment. But her teeth had something almost +savage about them. If he had seen them when she was smiling, he would +have thought them merely beautiful and rare, atoning for her plain face +and flat breast--not so flat as it had been; for since the child had come +into her life, her figure, strangely enough, had rounded out, and lines +never before seen in her contour appeared. + +He braced himself for the contest he knew was at hand, and replied to +her. "My name is Jean Jacques Barbille. I was of the Manor Cartier, in +St. Saviour's parish, Quebec. The mother of the child Zoe, there, was +born at the Manor Cartier. I was her father. I am the grandfather of +this Zoe." He motioned towards the cradle. + +Then, with an impulse he could not check and did not seek to check--why +should he? was not the child his own by every right?--he went to the +cradle and looked down at the tiny face on its white pillow. There +could be no mistake about it; here was the face of his lost Zoe, with +something, too, of Carmen, and also the forehead of the Barbilles. As +though the child knew, it opened its eyes wide-big, brown eyes like those +of Carmen Dolores. + +"Ah, the beautiful, beloved thing!" he exclaimed in a low-voice, ere +Norah stepped between and almost pushed him back. An outstretched arm in +front of her prevented him from stooping to kiss the child. "Stand back. +The child must not be waked," she said. "It must sleep another hour. It +has its milk at twelve o'clock. Stand aside. I won't have my child +disturbed." + +"Have my child disturbed"--that was what she had said, and Jean Jacques +realized what he had to overbear. Here was the thing which must be +fought out at once. + +"The child is not yours, but mine," he declared. "Here is proof--the +letter found on my Zoe when she died--addressed to me. The doctor knew. +There is no mistake." + +He held out the letter for her to see. "As you can read here, my +daughter was on her way back to the Manor Cartier, to her old home at +St. Saviour's. She was on her way back when she died. If she had lived +I should have had them both; but one is left, according to the will of +God. And so I will take her--this flower of the prairie--and begin life +again." + +The face Norah turned on him had that look which is in the face of an +animal, when its young is being forced from it--fierce, hungering, +furtive, vicious. + +"The child is mine," she exclaimed--"mine and no other's. The prairie +gave it to me. It came to me out of the storm. 'Tis mine-mine only. +I was barren and wantin', and my man was slippin' from me, because there +was only two of us in our home. I was older than him, and yonder was a +girl with hair like a sheaf of wheat in the sun, and she kept lookin' at +him, and he kept goin' to her. 'Twas a man she wanted, 'twas a child he +wanted, and there they were wantin', and me atin' my heart out with +passion and pride and shame and sorrow. There was he wantin' a child, +and the girl wantin' a man, and I only wantin' what God should grant all +women that give themselves to a man's arms after the priest has blessed +them. And whin all was at the worst, and it looked as if he was away +with her--the girl yonder--then two things happened. A man--he was me +own brother and a millionaire if I do say it--he took her and married +her; and then, too, Heaven's will sent this child's mother to her last +end and the child itself to my Nolan's arms. To my husband's arms first +it came, you understand; and he give the child to me, as it should be, +and said he, 'We'll make believe it is our own.' But I said to him, +'There's no make-believe. 'Tis mine. 'Tis mine. It came to me out of +the storm from the hand of God.' And so it was and is; and all's well +here in the home, praise be to God. And listen to me: you'll not come +here to take the child away from me. It can't be done. I'll not have +it. Yes, you can let that sink down into you--I'll not have it." + +During her passionate and defiant appeal Jean Jacques was restless with +the old unrest of years ago, and his face twitched with emotion; but +before she had finished he had himself in some sort of control. + +"You--madame, you are only thinking of yourself in this. You are only +thinking what you want, what you and your man need. But it's not to be +looked at that way only, and--" + +"Well, then it isn't to be looked at that way only," she interrupted. +"As you say, it isn't Nolan and me alone to be considered. There's--" + +"There's me," he interrupted sharply. "The child is bone of my bone. +It is bone of all the Barbilles back to the time of Louis XI."--he had +said that long ago to Zoe first, and it was now becoming a fact in his +mind. "It is linked up in the chain of the history of the Barbilles. +It is one with the generations of noblesse and honour and virtue. +It is--" + +"It's one with Abel the son of Adam, if it comes to that, and so am I," +Norah bitingly interjected, while her eyes flashed fire, and she rocked +the cradle more swiftly than was good for the child's sleep. + +Jean Jacques flared up. "There were sons and daughters of the family of +Adam that had names, but there were plenty others you whistled to as you +would to a four-footer, and they'd come. The Barbilles had names--always +names of their own back to Adam. The child is a Barbille--Don't rock the +cradle so fast," he suddenly added with an irritable gesture, breaking +off from his argument. "Don't you know better than that when a child's +asleep? Do you want it to wake up and cry?" + +She flushed to the roots of her hair, for he had said something for which +she had no reply. She had undoubtedly disturbed the child. It stirred +in its sleep, then opened its eyes, and at once began to cry. + +"There," said Jean Jacques, "what did I tell you? Any one that had ever +had children would know better than that." + +Norah paid no attention to his mocking words, to the undoubted-truth of +his complaint. Stooping over, she gently lifted the child up. With +hungry tenderness she laid it against her breast and pressed its cheek to +her own, murmuring and crooning to it. + +"Acushla! Acushla! Ah, the pretty bird--mother's sweet--mother's +angel!" she said softly. + +She rocked backwards and forwards. Her eyes, though looking at Jean +Jacques as she crooned and coaxed and made lullaby, apparently did not +see him. She was as concentrated as though it were a matter of life and +death. She was like some ancient nurse of a sovereign-child, plainly +dressed, while the dainty white clothes of the babe in her arms--ah, +hadn't she raided the hoard she had begun when first married, in the hope +of a child of her own, to provide this orphan with clothes good enough +for a royal princess! + +The flow of the long, white dress of the waif on the dark blue of Norah's +gown, which so matched the deep sapphire of her eyes, caught Jean +Jacques' glance, allured his mind. It was the symbol of youth and +innocence and home. Suddenly he had a vision of the day when his own Zoe +had been given to the cradle for the first time, and he had done exactly +what Norah had done--rocked too fast and too hard, and waked his little +one; and Carmen had taken her up in her long white draperies, and had +rocked to and fro, just like this, singing a lullaby. That lullaby he +had himself sung often afterwards; and now, with his grandchild in +Norah's arms there before him--with this other Zoe--the refrain of it +kept lilting in his brain. In the pause ensuing, when Norah stooped to +put the pacified child again in its nest, he also stooped over the cradle +and began to hum the words of the lullaby: + + "Sing, little bird, of the whispering leaves, + Sing a song of the harvest sheaves; + Sing a song to my Fanchonette, + Sing a song to my Fanchonette! + Over her eyes, over her eyes, over her eyes of violet, + See the web that the weaver weaves, + The web of sleep that the weaver weaves-- + Weaves, weaves, weaves! + Over those eyes of violet, + Over those eyes of my Fanchonette, + Weaves, weaves, weaves-- + See the web that the weaver weaves!" + +For quite two minutes Jean Jacques and Norah Doyle stooped over the +cradle, looking at Zoe's rosy, healthy, pretty face, as though +unconscious of each other, and only conscious of the child. When Jean +Jacques had finished the long first verse of the chanson, and would have +begun another, Norah made a protesting gesture. + +"She's asleep, and there's no more need," she said. "Wasn't it a good +lullaby, madame?" Jean Jacques asked. + +"So, so," she replied, on her defence again. + +"It was good enough for her mother," he replied, pointing to the cradle. + +"It's French and fanciful," she retorted--"both music and words." + +"The child's French--what would you have?" asked Jean Jacques +indignantly. + +"The child's father was English, and she's goin' to be English, the +darlin', from now on and on and on. That's settled. There's manny an +English and Irish lullaby that'll be sung to her hence and onward; and +there's manny an English song she'll sing when she's got her voice, and +is big enough. Well, I think she'll sing like a canary." + +"Do the birds sing in English?" exclaimed Jean Jacques, with anger in +his face now. Was there ever any vanity like the vanity of these people +who had made the conquest of Quebec, when sixteen Barbilles lost their +lives, one of them being aide-de-camp to M. Vaudreuil, the governor! + +"All the canaries I ever heard sung in English," she returned stubbornly. + +"How do Frenchmen understand their singing, then?" irritably questioned +Jean Jacques. + +"Well, in translation only," she retorted, and with her sharp white teeth +she again bit the black thread of her needle, tied the end into a little +knot, and began to mend the waistcoat which she had laid down in the +first moments of the interview. + +"I want the child," Jean Jacques insisted abruptly. "I'll wait till she +wakes, and then I'll wrap her up and take her away." + +"Didn't you hear me say she was to be brought up English?" asked Norah, +with a slowness which clothed her fiercest impulses. + +"Name of God, do you think I'll let you have her!" returned Jean Jacques +with asperity and decision. "You say you are alone, you and your M'sieu' +Nolan. Well, I am alone--all alone in the world, and I need her--Mother +of God, I need her more than I ever needed anything in my life! You have +each other, but I have only myself, and it is not good company. Besides, +the child is mine, a Barbille of Barbilles, une legitime--a rightful +child of marriage. But if it was a love-child only it would still be +mine, being my daughter's child. Look you, it is no such thing. It is +of those who can claim inheritance back to Louis XI. She will be to me +the gift of God in return for the robbery of death." + +He leaned over the cradle, and his look was like that of one who had +found a treasure in the earth. + +Now she struck hard. Yet very subtly too did she attack him. "You--you +are thinking of yourself, m'sieu', only of yourself. Aren't you going to +think of the child at all? It isn't yourself that counts so much. +You've had your day, or the part of it that matters most. But her time +is not yet even begun. It's all--all--before her. You say you'll take +her away--well, to what? To what will you take her? What have you got +to give her? What--" + +"I have the three hundred and twenty acres out there"--he pointed +westward--"and I will make a home and begin again with her." + +"Three hundred and twenty acres--'out there'!" she exclaimed in scorn. +"Any one can have a farm here for the askin'. What is that? Is it a +home? What have you got to start a home with? Do you deny you are no +better than a tramp? Have you got a hundred dollars in the world? Have +you got a roof over your head? Have you got a trade? You'll take +her where--to what? Even if you had a home, what then? You would have +to get someone to look after her--some old crone, a wench maybe, who'd be +as fit to bring up a child as I would be to--" she paused and looked +round in helpless quest for a simile, when, in despair, she caught sight +of Jean Jacques' watch-chain--"as I would be to make a watch !" she +added. + +Instinctively Jean Jacques drew out the ancient timepiece he had worn on +the Grand Tour; which had gone down with the Antoine and come up with +himself. It gave him courage to make the fight for his own. + +"The good God would see that--" he began. + +"The good God doesn't interfere in bringing up babies," she retorted. +"That's the work for the fathers and mothers, or godfathers and +godmothers." + +"You are neither," exclaimed Jean Jacques. "You have no rights at all." + +"I have no rights--eh? I have no rights! Look at the child. Look at +the way she's clothed. Look at the cradle in which it lies. It cost +fifteen dollars; and the clothes--what they cost would keep a family half +a year. I have no rights, is it?--I who stepped in and took the child +without question, without bein' asked, and made it my own, and treated it +as if it was me own. No, by the love of God, I treated it far, far +better than if it had been me own. Because a child was denied me, the +hunger of the years made me love the child as a mother would on a desert +island with one child at her knees." + +"You can get another-one not your own, as this isn't," argued Jean +Jacques fiercely. + +She was not to be forced to answer his arguments directly. She chose her +own course to convince. "Nolan loves this child as if it was his," she +declared, her eyes all afire, "but he mightn't love another--men are +queer creatures. Then where would I be? and what would the home be but +what it was before--as cold, as cold and bitter! It was the hand of God +brought the child to the door of two people who had no child and who +prayed for one. Do you deny it was the hand of God that brought your +daughter here away, that put the child in my arms? Not its mother, +am I not? But I love her better than twenty mothers could. It's the +hunger--the hunger--the hunger in me. She's made a woman of me. She has +a home where everything is hers--everything. To see Nolan play with her, +tossin' her up and down in his arms as if he'd done it all his life--as +natural as natural! To take her away from that--all the comfort here +where she can have annything she wants! With my old mother to care for +her, if so be I was away to market or whereabouts--one that brought up +six children, a millionaire among them, praise be to God as my mother +did--to take this delicate little thing away from here, what a sin and +crime 'twould be! She herself 'd never forgive you for it, if ever she +grew up--though that's not likely, things bein' as they are with you, and +you bein' what you are. Ah, there--there she is awake and smilin', and +kickin' up her pretty toes this minute! There she is, the lovely little +Zoe, with eyes like black pearls. . . . See now--see now which she'll +come to--to you or me, m'sieu'. There, put out your arms to her, and +I'll put out mine, and see which she'll take. I'll stand by that--I'll +stand by that. Let the child decide. Hold out your arms, and so will I" + +With an impassioned word Jean Jacques reached down his arms to the child, +which lay laughing up at them and kicking its pink toes into the air, and +Norah Doyle did the same, murmuring an Irish love-name for a child. Jean +Jacques was silent, but in his face was the longing of a soul sick for +home, of one who desires the end of a toilsome road. + +The laughing child crooned and spluttered and shook its head, as though +it was playing some happy game. It looked first at Norah, then at Jean +Jacques, then at Norah again, and then, with a little gurgle of pleasure, +stretched out its arms to her and half-raised itself from the pillow. +With a glad cry Norah gathered it to her bosom, and triumph shone in her +face. + +"Ah, there, you see!" she said, as she lifted her face from the blossom +at her breast. + +"There it is," said Jean Jacques with shaking voice. + +"You have nothing to give her--I have everything," she urged. "My rights +are that I would die for the child--oh, fifty times! . . . What are +you going to do, m'sieu'?" + +Jean Jacques slowly turned and picked up his hat. He moved with the +dignity of a hero who marches towards a wall to meet the bullets of a +firing-squad. + +"You are going?" Norah whispered, and in her eyes was a great relief and +the light of victory. The golden link binding Nolan and herself was in +her arms, over her heart. + +Jean Jacques did not speak a word in reply, though his lips moved. She +held out the little one to him for a good-bye, but he shook his head. If +he did that--if he once held her in his arms--he would not be able to +give her up. Gravely and solemnly, however, he stooped over and kissed +the lips of the child lying against Norah's breast. As he did so, with a +quick, mothering instinct Norah impulsively kissed his shaggy head, and +her eyes filled with tears. She smiled too, and Jean Jacques saw how +beautiful her teeth were--cruel no longer. + +He moved away slowly. At the door he turned, and looked back at the two +--a long, lingering look he gave. Then he faced away from them again. + +"Moi je suis philosophe," he said gently, and opened the door and stepped +out and away into the frozen world. + + + + +EPILOGUE + +Change might lay its hand on the parish of St. Saviour's, and it did so +on the beautiful sentient living thing, as on the thing material and man- +made; but there was no change in the sheltering friendship of Mont Violet +or the flow of the illustrious Beau Cheval. The autumns also changed not +at all. They cast their pensive canopies over the home-scene which Jean +Jacques loved so well, before he was exhaled from its bosom. + +One autumn when the hillsides were in those colours which none but a +rainbow of the moon ever had, so delicately sad, so tenderly assuring, +a traveller came back to St. Saviour's after a long journey. He came by +boat to the landing at the Manor Cartier, rather than by train to the +railway-station, from which there was a drive of several miles to Vilray. +At the landing he was met by a woman, as much a miniature of the days of +Orleanist France as himself. She wore lace mits which covered the hands +but not the fingers, and her gown showed the outline of a meek crinoline. + +"Ah, Fille--ah, dear Fille!" said the little fragment of an antique day, +as the Clerk of the Court--rather, he that had been for so many years +Clerk of the Court--stepped from the boat. "I can scarce believe that +you are here once more. Have you good news?" + +"It was to come back with good news that I went," her brother answered +smiling, his face lighted by an inner exaltation. + +"Dear, dear Fille!" She always called him that now, and not by his +Christian name, as though he was a peer. She had done so ever since the +Government had made him a magistrate, and Laval University had honoured +him with the degree of doctor of laws. + +She was leading him to the pony-carriage in which she had come to meet +him, when he said: + +"Do you think you could walk the distance, my dear? . . . It would be +like old times," he added gently. + +"I could walk twice as far to-day," she answered, and at once gave +directions for the young coachman to put "His Honour's" bag into the +carriage. In spite of Fille's reproofs she insisted in calling him that +to the servants. They had two servants now, thanks to the legacy left +them by the late Judge Carcasson. Presently M. Fille took her by the +hand. "Before we start--one look yonder," he murmured, pointing towards +the mill which had once belonged to Jean Jacques, now rebuilt and looking +almost as of old. "I promised Jean Jacques that I would come and salute +it in his name, before I did aught else, and so now I do salute it." + +He waved a hand and made a bow to the gold Cock of Beaugard, the pride of +all the vanished Barbilles. "Jean Jacques Barbille says that his head is +up like yours, M. le Coq, and he wishes you many, many winds to come," he +recited quite seriously, and as though it was not out of tune with the +modern world. + +The gold Cock of Beaugard seemed to understand, for it swung to the left, +and now a little to the right, and then stood still, as if looking at the +little pair of exiles from an ancient world--of which the only vestiges +remaining may be found in old Quebec. + +This ceremony over, they walked towards Mont Violet, averting their heads +as they passed the Manor Cartier, in a kind of tribute to its departed +master--as a Stuart Legitimist might pass the big palace at the end of +the Mall in London. In the wood-path, Fille took his sister's hand. + +"I will tell you what you are so trembling to hear," he said. "There +they are at peace, Jean Jacques and Virginie--that best of best women." + +"To think--married to Virginie Poucette--to think of that!" His sister's +voice fluttered as she spoke. "But entirely. There was nothing in the +way--and she meant to have him, the dear soul! I do not blame her, for +at bottom he is as good a man as lives. Our Judge called him 'That dear +fool, Jean Jacques, a man of men in his way, after all,' and our Judge +was always right--but yes, nearly always right." + +After a moment of contented meditation he resumed. "Well, when Virginie +sold her place here and went to live with her sister out at Shilah in the +West, she said, 'If Jean Jacques is alive, he will be on the land which +was Zoe's, which he bought for her. If he is alive--then!' So it was, +and by one of the strange accidents which chance or women like Virginie, +who have plenty of courage in their simpleness, arrange, they met on that +three hundred and sixty acres. It was like the genius of Jean Jacques to +have done that one right thing which would save him in the end--a thing +which came out of his love for his child--the emotion of an hour. +Indeed, that three hundred and sixty acres was his salvation after he +learned of Zoe's death, and the other little Zoe, his grandchild, was +denied to him--to close his heart against what seemed that last hope, was +it not courage? And so, and so he has the reward of his own soul--a home +at last once more." + +"With Virginie Poucette--Fille, Fille, how things come round!" exclaimed +the little lady in the tiny bonnet with the mauve strings. + +"More than Virginie came round," he replied almost oracularly. "Who, +think you, brought him the news that coal was found on his acres--who but +the husband of Virginie's sister! Then came Virginie. On the day Jean +Jacques saw her again, he said to her, 'What you would have given me at +such cost, now let me pay for with the rest of my life. It is the great +thought which was in your heart that I will pay for with the days left to +me.'" + +A flickering smile brightened the sensitive ascetic face, and humour was +in the eyes. "What do you think Virginie said to that? Her sister told +me. Virginie said to that, 'You will have more days left, Jean Jacques, +if you have a better cook. What do you like best for supper?' And Jean +Jacques laughed much at that. Years ago he would have made a speech at +it!" + +"Then he is no more a philosopher?" + +"Oh always, always, but in his heart, and not with his tongue. I cried, +and so did he, when we met and when we parted. I think I am getting old, +for indeed I could not help it: yet there was peace in his eyes--peace." + +"His eyes used to rustle so." + +"Rustle--that is the word. Now, that is what, he has learned in life-- +the way to peace. When I left him, it was with Virginie close beside +him, and when I said to him, 'Will you come back to us one day, Jean +Jacques?' he said, 'But no, Fille, my friend; it is too far. I see it-- +it is a million miles away--too great a journey to go with the feet, but +with the soul I will visit it. The soul is a great traveller. I see it +always--the clouds and the burnings and the pitfalls gone--out of sight-- +in memory as it was when I was a child. Well, there it is, everything +has changed, except the child-memory. I have had, and I have had not; +and there it is. I am not the same man--but yes, in my love just the +same, with all the rest--' He did not go on, so I said, 'If not the +same, then what are you, Jean Jacques?'" + +"Ah, Fille, in the old days he would have said that he was a philosopher" +--said his sister interrupting. "Yes, yes, one knows--he said it often +enough and had need enough to say it. Well, said he to me, 'Me, I am a' +--then he stopped, shook his head, and so I could scarcely hear him, +murmured, 'Me--I am a man who has been a long journey with a pack on his +back, and has got home again.' Then he took Virginie's hand in his." + +The old man's fingers touched the corner of his eye as though to find +something there; then continued. "'Ah, a pedlar!' said I to him, to hear +what he would answer. 'Follies to sell for sous of wisdom,' he answered. +Then he put his arm around Virginie, and she gave him his pipe." + +"I wish M. Carcasson knew," the little grey lady remarked. + +"But of course he knows," said the Clerk of the Court, with his face +turned to the sunset. + + + + +ETEXT EDITOR'S BOOKMARKS: + +Courage which awaits the worst the world can do +Good thing for a man himself to be owed kindness +I can't pay you for your kindness to me, and I don't want to +No past that is hidden has ever been a happy past +She was not to be forced to answer his arguments directly +That iceberg which most mourners carry in their breasts +The soul is a great traveller +You can't take time as the measure of life + + + + + +*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE MONEY MASTER, PARKER, V5 *** + +********* This file should be named 6279.txt or 6279.zip ******** + +This eBook was produced by David Widger + +Project Gutenberg eBooks are often created from several printed +editions, all of which are confirmed as Public Domain in the US +unless a copyright notice is included. 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