A Cry in the Wilderness

IV

There was a soft white light on walls and ceiling when I awoke. I recognized it at once: the reflection from snow. I drew aside both curtains and looked out.

"Oh, how beautiful!" I exclaimed, drawing long deep breaths of the fine dry air.

It was the so-called "feather-snow" that had fallen during the night. It powdered the massive drooping hemlock boughs, the spraying underbrush, the stiff-branched spruce and cedars that crowded the tall pines, overstretching the steep gable above my windows.

Just below me, about twenty feet from the house, was the creek, a backwater of the St. Lawrence, lying clear, unruffled, dark, and mirroring the snow-frosted cedars, hemlocks, and spraying underbrush. Across its narrow width the woods came down to the water, glowing crimson, flaunting orange, shimmering yellow beneath the light snow fall. Straight through these woods, and directly opposite my windows, a broad lane had been cut, a long wide clearing that led my eyes northward, over some open country, to the soft blue line of the mountains. I took them to be the Laurentides.

From a distance, in the direction of the village, came the sudden muffled clash of bells; then peal followed peal. The sun was fully an hour high. As I listened, I heard the soft drip, drip, that sounded the vanishing of the "feather-snow".

I stood long at the window, for I knew this glory was transient and before another snowfall every crimson and yellow leaf would have fallen.

While dressing, I took myself to task for the mood of the night before. Such thoughts could not serve me in my service to others. I was a beneficiary—Mrs. Macleod's word—as well as Jamie and his mother, and I determined to make the most of my benefits which, in the morning sunshine, seemed many and great. Had I not health, a sheltering room, abundant food and good wages?

I could not help wondering whose was the money with which I was to be paid. Had it anything to do with Doctor Rugvie's "conscience fund"? Did Mrs. Macleod and Jamie bear the expense? Or was it Mr. Ewart's?

"Ewart—Ewart," I said to myself; "why it's the very same I heard in the train."

Then and there I made my decision: I would write to Delia Beaseley that, as Mrs. Macleod said Doctor Rugvie would be here sometime later on in the winter, I would wait until I should have seen him before asking him for my papers.

"I shall ask her never to mention my name to him in connection with what happened twenty-six years ago; I prefer to tell it myself," was my thought; "it is an affair of my own life, and it belongs to me, and to no other, to act as pioneer into this part of my experience—"

Marie's rap and entrance with hot water, her voluble surprise at finding me up and dressed, and our efforts to understand each other, diverted my thoughts. I made out that the family breakfasted an hour later, and that it was Marie's duty to make a fire for me every morning. I felt almost like apologizing to her for allowing her to do it for me, who am able-bodied and not accustomed to be waited on.

I took rain-coat and rubbers, and followed her down stairs. She unbolted the great front door and let me out into the early morning sunshine. I stood on the upper step to look around me, to take in every detail of my surroundings, only guessed at the night before.

Maples and birch mingled with evergreens, crowding close to the house, filled the foreground on each side. In front, an unkempt driveway curved across a large neglected lawn, set with lindens and pines, and lost itself in woods at the left. Between the tree trunks on the lawn, at a distance of perhaps five hundred feet, I saw the broad gleaming waters of the St. Lawrence broken by two long islands. Behind the farther one I saw the smoke of some large steamer.

I looked up at the house. It was a storey and a half, long, low, white. The three large windows on each side of the entrance were provided with ponderous wooden shutters banded with iron. There were four dormers in the gently sloping roof and two large central chimneys, besides two or three smaller ones in various parts of the roof. Such was the old manor of Lamoral.

A path partly overgrown with bushes led around the house; following it, I found that the main building was the least part of the whole structure. Two additions, varying in length and height, provided as many sharp gables, and gave it the inconsequent charm of the unexpected.

Beyond, in a tangle of cedars and hemlocks, were some low square out-buildings with black hip-roofs. Still following the path, that turned to the left away from the outbuildings, I found myself in the woods that from all sides encroached upon the house. It was a joy to be in them at that early hour. The air was filled with sunshine and crisp with the breath of vanishing snow. The sky was deep blue as seen between the interlocking branches, wet and darkened, of the crowding trees.

Before me I saw what looked to be another out-building, also white, and evidently the goal for this path through the woods. It proved to be a small chapel, half in ruins; the door was time-stained and barred with iron; the window glass was gone; only the delicate wooden traceries of the frame were intact. I mounted a pile of building stone beneath one of the windows, and by dint of standing on tiptoe I could look over the window ledge to the farther end of the chapel. To my amazement I saw that it had been, in part, a mortuary chapel. Several slabs were lying about as if they had been pried off, and the deep stone-lined graves were empty. The place fairly gave me the creeps; it was so unexpected to find this reminder in the hour of the day's resurrection.

What a wilderness was this Seigniory of Lamoral! And yet—I liked it. I liked its wildness, the untrammelled growth of its trees, underbrush and vines; the dignified simplicity of its old manor that matched the simple sincerity of its present inmates. I felt somehow akin to all of it, and I could say with truth, that I should be glad to remain a part of it. But I recalled what Mrs. Macleod said about our removal to the farm, and that remembrance forbade my indulging in any thoughts of permanency.

"Stranger I am in it, and stranger I must remain to it, and at no distant time 'move on,' I suppose." This was my thought.

A noise of soft runnings-to-and-fro in the underbrush startled me. I jumped down from the pile of stones and started for the house, but not before the dogs found me and announced the fact with continued and energetic yelpings. Jamie greeted me from the doorway.

"Good morning! You 've stolen a march on me; I wanted to show you the chapel in the woods. You will find this old place as good as a two volume novel."

"What a wilderness it is!"

"That's what Cale is here for. He is only waiting for Ewart to come to bring order out of this chaos. I hope you noticed that cut through the woods across the creek?"

"Yes, it's lovely; those are the Laurentians I see, are n't they?"

"You 're right. The cut is Cale's doing. He said the first thing necessary was to let in light and air, and provide drainage. But he won't do much more till Ewart comes—he does n't want to."

"When is Mr. Ewart coming?"

"We expect him sometime the last of November. He was in England when we last heard from him—here's Marie; breakfast is ready." He opened the door to the dining-room and Mrs. Macleod greeted me from the head of the table.

I loved the dining-room; the side windows looked into a thicket of spruce and hemlock, and from the front ones I could see under the great-branched lindens to the St. Lawrence.

After breakfast Mrs. Macleod showed me what she called the "offices", also the large winter kitchen at the end of the central passageway, and the method by which both are heated: a range of curious make is set into the wall in such a way that the iron back forms a portion of the wall of the passageway.

"We came out here early in the spring and found this arrangement perfect for heating the passageway. Angélique has moved in this morning from the summer kitchen; she says the first snowfall is her warning. I have yet to experience a Canadian winter."

She showed me all over the house. It was simple in arrangement and lacked many things to make it comfortable. Above, in the main house, there were four large bedrooms with dormer windows and wide shallow fireplaces. The walls were whitewashed and sloping as in my room. The furniture was sparse but old and substantial. There were no bed furnishings or hangings of any kind. All the rooms were laid with rag carpets of beautiful coloring and unique design.

"Jamie and I have rooms in the long corridor where yours is," said Mrs. Macleod; "it's much cosier there; we actually have curtains to our beds, which seems a bit like home."

I was looking out of one of the dormer windows as she spoke, and saw little Pete on the white Percheron, galloping clumsily up the driveway. He saw me and waved a yellow envelope. I knew that little yellow flag to be a telegram. A sudden heart-throb warned me that it might bring some word that would shorten my stay in this old manor, and banish all three to Doctor Rugvie's farm.

A few minutes afterwards, we heard Jamie's voice calling from the lower passageway:

"Mother, where are you?—Oh, you 're there, Marcia!" he said, as I leaned over the stair rail. "Here 's a telegram from Ewart, and news by letter—no end of it. Come on down."

"Come away," said Mrs. Macleod quickly. I saw her cheeks flush with excitement. On entering the living-room we found Jamie in high feather. He flourished the telegram joyously.

"Oh, I say, mother, it's great! Ewart telegraphs he will be here by the fifteenth of November and that Doctor Rugvie will come with him. And here 's a letter from him, written two weeks ago, and he says that by now all the cases of books should be in Montreal, plus two French coach horses at the Royal Stables. He says Cale is to go up for them. He tells me to open the cases, and gives you free hand to furbish up in any way you see fit, to make things comfortable for the winter."

"My dear boy, what an avalanche of responsibility! I don't know that I feel competent to carry out his wishes." She looked so hopelessly helpless that her son laughed outright.

"And when and where do I come in?" I asked merrily; "am I to continue to be the cipher I 've been since my arrival?"

"You forgot Marcia, now did n't you, mother?"

"I think I did, dear. Do you really think you can attempt all this?" she asked rather anxiously.

"Do it! Of course I can—every bit, if only you will let me."

"Hurrah for the States!" Jamie cried triumphantly; "Marcia, you're a trump," he added emphatically.

Mrs. Macleod turned to me, saying half in apology:

"I really have no initiative, my dear; and when so many demands are made upon me unexpectedly, I simply can do nothing—just turn on a pivot, Jamie says; and the very fact that I am a beneficiary here would be an obstacle in carrying out these plans. It is so different in my own home in Crieff."

I heard the note of homesickness in her voice, and it dawned upon me that there are others in the world who may feel themselves strangers in it. My heart went out to her for her loneliness in this far away land of French Canada.

"Well, so am I a beneficiary; so is Cale and the whole household; and if only you will let me, I 'll make Mr. Ewart himself feel he is a beneficiary in his own house," I retorted gayly. "And as for Doctor Rugvie, we 'll see whether his farm will have such attractions for him after he has been our guest."

Mrs. Macleod laid her hand on my shoulder and smiled, saying with a sigh of relief:

"If you will only take the generalship, Marcia, you will find in me a good aide-de-camp."

Jamie said nothing, but he gave me a look that was with me all that day and many following. It spurred me to do my best.

V

How I enjoyed the next three weeks! Jamie said the household activity had been "switched off" until the arrival of the letter and telegram from Mr. Ewart; these, he declared, made the connection and started a current. Its energy made itself pleasurably felt in every member of the household. Cale was twice in Montreal, on a personally conducted tour, for the coach horses. Big Pete was putting on double windows all over the house, stuffing the cracks with moss, piling cords of winter wood, hauling grain and, during the long evenings, enjoying himself by cutting up the Canadian grown tobacco, mixing it with a little molasses, and storing it for his winter solace. Angélique was making the kitchen to shine, and Marie was helping Mrs. Macleod.

For the first week Jamie and I lived, in part, on the road between Lamoral and Richelieu-en-Bas. With little Pete for driver, an old cart-horse and a long low-bodied wagon carried us, sometimes twice a day, to the village. We spent hours in the one "goods" shop of the place. It was a long, low, dark room stocked to the ceiling on both walls and on shelves down the middle, with all varieties of cotton, woolen and silk goods, some of modern manufacture but more of past decades. In the dim background, a broad flight of stairs, bisecting on a landing, led to the gallery where were piled higgledy-piggledy every Canadian want in the way of furnishings, from old-fashioned bellows and all wool blankets, to Englishware toilet sets that must have found storage there for a generation, and no customer till Jamie and I appeared to claim them. There, too, I unearthed a bolt of English chintz.

In a tiny front room of a tiny house on the marketplace, I found an old dealer in skins. He and his wife made some up for me into small foot-rugs for the bedrooms. Acting on Angélique's suggestion, I visited old Mère Guillardeau's daughter. I found her in her cabin at her rag carpet loom, and bought two rolls which she was just about to leave with the "goods" merchant to sell on commission. I wanted them to make the long passageways more comfortable.

I revelled in each day's work which was as good as play to me. I gloried in being able to spend the money for what was needed to make the house comfortable, without the burden of having to earn it; just as I rejoiced in the abundant wholesome food that now nourished me, without impoverishing my pocket. There were times when I found myself almost grateful for the discipline and denial of those years in the city; for, against that background, my present life seemed one of care-free luxury. I began to feel young; and it was a pleasure to know I was needed and helpful.

The shortening November days, the strengthening cold, that closed the creek and was beginning to bind the river, the gray unlifting skies, I welcomed as a foil to the cosy evenings in the dining-room where Mrs. Macleod and I sewed and stitched, and planned for the various rooms, Jamie smoked and jeered or encouraged, and the four dogs watched every movement on our part, with an ear cocked for little Pete who was cracking butternuts in the kitchen.

The life in the manor was so peaceful, so sheltered, so normal. Every member of the household was busy with work during the day, and the night brought with it well-earned rest, and a sense of comfort and security in the flame-lighted rooms.

Often after going up to my bedroom, which Marie kept acceptably warm for me, I used to sit before the open grate stove for an hour before going to bed, just to enjoy the white-walled peace around me, the night silence without, the restful quiet of the old manor within. At such times I found myself dreading the "foreign invasion", as I termed in jest the coming of the owner of Lamoral and Doctor Rugvie. To the first I gave little thought; the second was rarely absent from my consciousness. "How will it all end?" I asked myself time and time again while counting off the days before his arrival. What should I find out? What would the knowledge lead to?

"Who am I? Who—who?" I said to myself over and over again during those three weeks of preparation. And at night, creeping into my bed—than which there could be none better, for it was in three layers: spring, feather bed and hair mattress—and drawing up the blankets and comforter preparatory for the sharp frost of the early morning, I cried out in revolt:

"I don't care a rap who I may prove to be! If only this peaceful sense of security will last, I want to remain Marcia Farrell to the end."

But I knew it could not last. I hinted as much to Jamie Macleod only three days before the fifteenth of November. We were making our last trip to the village for some extra supplies for Angélique. We were alone, and I was driving.

"Jamie," I said suddenly, after the old and trustworthy cart-horse, newly and sharply shod for the ice, had taken us safely over the frozen creek, "I wish this might last, don't you?"

He looked at me a little doubtfully.

"You mean the kind of life we 're living now? Yes,"—he hesitated,—"for some reasons I do; but there are others, and for those it is better that the change should come."

"What others?" I was at times boldly inquisitive of Jamie; I took liberties with his youth.

"You would n't understand them if I told you. Wait till the others come and you 'll see, in part, why."

"Do you know," I continued, my words following my thought, "that you 've never told me a thing about Doctor Rugvie and Mr. Ewart?"

"Not told you anything? Why, I thought I 'd said enough that first evening for you to know as much of them as you can without seeing them."

"No, you have n't; you 've been like a clam so far as telling me anything about their looks, or age, or—or anything—"

"Oh, own up, now; you mean you want to know if they 're married or single?" He was beginning to tease.

"Of course I do. This old manor has had a good many surprises for me already in these three weeks, you, for one—"

He threw back his head, laughing heartily.

"—And the 'elderly Scotchwoman', and Cale for a third; and if you would give me a hint as to the matrimonial standing of the two from over-seas, I should feel fortified against any future petticoat invasion of their wives, or children, or sweethearts."

Jamie laughed uproariously.

"Oh, Guy Mannering, hear her! I thought you said you saw Doctor Rugvie in the hospital."

"So I did; but it was only a glimpse, and a long way off, as he was passing through another ward."

He turned to me quickly. "It's Doctor Rugvie you want to know about then? Why about him, rather than Ewart?"

"Because,—('Be cautious,' I warned myself),—I happen to have known of him."

"Well, fire away, and I 'll answer to the best of my knowledge. I believe a woman lives, moves and has her being in details," he said a little scornfully.

"Have you just found that out?" I retorted. "Well, you have n't cut all your wisdom teeth yet. And now, as you seem to think it's Doctor Rugvie I 'm most interested in, we 'll begin with your Mr. Ewart." I changed my tactics, for I feared I had shown too much eagerness for information about Doctor Rugvie.

"My Mr. Ewart!" He smiled to himself in a way that exasperated me.

"Yes, your Mr. Ewart. How old is he? For all you 've told me he might be a grandfather."

"Ewart—a grandfather!" Again he laughed, provokingly as I thought. I kept silence.

"Honestly, Marcia, I don't know Ewart's age, and"—he was suddenly serious—"for all I know, he may be a grandfather."

"For all you know! What do you mean by that?"

"I mean I never seriously gave Gordon Ewart's age a thought. When I am with him he seems, somehow, as young as I—younger in one way, for he has such splendid health. But I suppose he really is old enough to be my father—forty-five or six, possibly; I don't know."

"Is he married?"

Jamie brought his hand down upon his knee with such a whack that the old cart-horse gave a queer hop-skip-and-jump. We both laughed at his antic.

"There you have me, Marcia. I 'm floored in your first round of questions. I don't know exactly—"

"Exactly! It seems to me that, marriage being an exact science, if a man is married why he is—and no ifs and buts."

"That's so." Jamie spoke seriously and nodded wisely. "I never heard it put in just those words, 'exact science', but come to think of it, you 're right."

"Well, is he?"

"Is he what?"

"Married. Are we to expect later on a Mrs. Ewart at Lamoral?"

"Great Scott, no!" said Jamie emphatically. "Look here, Marcia, I hate to tell tales that possibly, and probably, have no foundation—"

"Who wants you to tell tales?" I said indignantly. "I won't hear you now whatever you say. You think a woman has no honor in such things."

"Oh, well, you 'll have to hear it sometime, I suppose, in the village—"

"I won't—and I won't hear you either," I said, and closed my ears with my fingers; but in vain, for he fairly shouted at me:

"I say, I don't know whether he 's married or not—"

"And I say I don't care—"

"Well, you heard that anyway," he shouted again diabolically; "here 's another: they say—"

"Keep still; the whole village can hear you—"

"We 're not within a mile of the village; take your fingers out of your ears if you don't want me to shout."

"Not till you stop shouting." He lowered his voice then, and I unstopped my ears.

"I say, Marcia, I believe it's all a rotten lot of damned gossip—"

"Why, Jamie Macleod! I never heard you use so strong an expression."

"I don't care; it's my way of letting off steam. Mother is n't round."

We both laughed and grew good-humored again.

"I never thought a Scotsman, who takes porridge regularly at nine o'clock every evening, could swear—"

"Oh, did n't you! Where are your wisdom teeth? Live and learn, Marcia."

"Quits, Jamie." He chuckled.

"Honestly, Marcia, I could n't answer you in any other way. Ewart has never opened his lips to me about his intimate personal life; he has no need to—for, of course, there is a great difference in our ages even if he is such a companion. And then, you know, I only saw him that one week in Crieff when he was with us, and I was a little chap—it was just after father left us—and he was no end good to me. And the second time was this year in June when he stayed a week here and then took me up to André. He was with us a month in camp; that is where I came to know him so well. He 's an Oxford man, and that's what I was aiming at when—when my health funked. He seems to understand how hard it is to me to give it all up. I don't object to telling you it was Doctor Rugvie who was going to put me through."

"Oh, Jamie!" It was all I could say, for I had known during our few weeks of an intimacy, which circumstances warranted, that some great disappointment had been his—wholly apart from his being handicapped by his inheritance.

"About Ewart," he went on; "you know a village is a village, and a dish of gossip is meat and drink for all alike. It's only a rumor anyway, but it crops out at odd times and in the queerest places that he was married and divorced, and that he has a son living whom he is educating in Europe. I don't believe one bally word of it, and I don't want you to."

"Well, I won't to please you."

"Now, if you want to know about Doctor Rugvie, I can tell you. He lives, you might say, in the open. Ewart strikes me as the kind that takes to covert more. Doctor Rugvie is older too."

"He must be fifty if he 's a day."

"He 's fifty-four—and he is a widower, a straight out and out one."

"I know that."

"Oh, you do! Who told you?"

"Delia Beaseley."

"Is she a widow?" Jamie asked slyly.

"Now, no nonsense, Jamie Macleod." I spoke severely.

"Nonsense! I was only putting two and two together logically; you said the Doctor trusted her—"

"And well he may. No, she is n't a widow," I said shortly.

"That settles it; you need n't be so touchy about it."

"Has he any children?" I asked, ignoring the admonition.

"No; that's his other great sorrow. He lost both his son and daughter. Do you know, I can't help thinking he 's doing all this for them?"