"What is it?" I, too, rose, ready to do the favor on the instant if possible, for his wholly businesslike manner, the directness with which he relied upon my training to help him pleased me.
"I 'd like to leave the settling of my den in your hands—wholly," he said emphatically. "You have been so successful with the other rooms that I 'd like to see your hand in my special one. How did you know just what to do, and not overdo,—so many women are guilty of that,—tell me?"
He spoke eagerly, almost boyishly. It was pleasant to be able to tell him the plain truth; no frills were needed with this man, if I read him rightly.
"Because it was my first chance to work out some of my home ideals—my first opportunity to make a home, as I had imagined it; then, too,—"
I hesitated, wondering if I should tell not only the plain truth, but the unvarnished one. I decided to speak out frankly; it could do no harm.
"I enjoyed it all so much because I could spend some money—judiciously, you know,"—I spoke earnestly. He nodded understandingly, but I saw that he suppressed a smile,—"without having to earn it by hard work; I 've had to scrimp so long—"
His face grew grave again.
"How much did you spend? I think I have a slight remembrance of some infinitesimal sum you mentioned the first evening—"
"Infinitesimal! No, indeed; it was almost a hundred—eighty-seven dollars and sixty-three cents, to be exact."
"Now, Miss Farrell!" It was his turn to protest. He went over to the hearth and took his stand on it, his back to the fire, his hands clasped behind him. "Do you mean to tell me that you provided all this comfort and made this homey atmosphere with eighty-seven dollars and sixty-three cents?—I'm particular about those sixty-three cents."
"I did, and had more good fun and enjoyment in spending them to that end, than I ever remember to have had before in my life. You don't think it too much?"
I looked up at him and smiled; and smiled again right merrily at the perplexed look in his eyes, a look that suddenly changed to one of such deep, emotional suffering that my eyes fell before it. I felt intuitively I ought not to see it.
"Too much!" he repeated, and as I looked up again quickly I found the face and expression serene and unmoved. "Well, as you must have learned already, things are relative when it comes to value, and what you have done for this house belongs in the category of things that mere money can neither purchase nor pay for."
"I don't quite see that; I thought it was I who was having all the pleasure."
His next question startled me.
"You are an orphan, I understand, Miss Farrell?"
"Yes." Again I felt the blood mount to my cheeks as I restated this half truth.
"Then you must know what it is to be alone in the world?"
"Yes—all alone."
"Perhaps to have no home of your own?"
"Yes."
"To feel yourself a stranger even in familiar places?"
"Oh, yes—many times."
"Surely, then, you will understand what it means for a lonely man to come back to this old manor, which I have occupied for years only at intervals, and more as a camping than an abiding place, and find it for the first time a home in fact?"
"I think I can understand it."
"Very well, then," he said emphatically and holding out his hand into which I laid mine, wondering as I did so "what next" was to be expected from this man, "I am your debtor for this and must remain so; and in the circumstances," he continued with an emphasis at once so frank and merry, that it left no doubt of his sincerity as well as of his appreciation of the situation, "I think there need be no more talk of work, or wages, or reciprocal service between you and me as long as you remain with us. It's a pact, is n't it?" he said, releasing my hand from the firm cordial pressure.
"But I want my wages," I protested with mock anxiety. "I really can't get on without money—and I was to have twenty-five dollars a month and 'board and room' according to agreement."
He laughed at that. I was glad to hear him.
"Oh, I have no responsibility for the agreement or what the advertisement has brought forth; it was one of the great surprises of my life to find you here. By the way, I hear you prefer to receive your pay from the Doctor?"
"Did he tell you that?" I demanded, not over courteously.
"Professionally," he replied with assumed gravity. "I insisted on taking that pecuniary burden on myself, as I seemed to be the first beneficiary; but I 've changed my mind, and, hereafter, you may apply to the Doctor for your salary. I 'll take your service gratis and tell him so. Does this suit you?"
"So completely, wholly and absolutely that—well, you 'll see! When can I take possession of the office? It needs a good cleaning down the first thing." I was eager to begin to prove my gratitude for the manner in which he had extricated me from the anomalous position in his household.
"From this moment; only—no manual labor like 'cleaning down'; there are enough in the house for that."
"Oh, nonsense!" I replied, laughing at such a restriction. "I 'm used to it—
"I intend you to be unused to it in my house—you understand?"
There was decided command in these words; they irritated me as well as the look he gave me. But I remembered in time that, after all, the old manor of Lamoral was his house, not mine, and it would be best for me to obey orders.
"Very well; I 'll ask Marie and little Pete to help me."
Marie appeared with the porridge, a little earlier than usual on Jamie's account, and Mr. Ewart asked her to bring a lighted candle.
"Come into the office for a moment," he said, leading the way with the light.
He stopped at the threshold to let me pass. The room was warm; the soapstone heater was doing effective work. The snow gleamed white beneath the curtainless windows, and the crowding hemlocks showed black pointed masses against the moonlight. There was some frost on the panes.
"It looks bare enough now," he said, raising the candle at the full stretch of his arm that I might see the oak panels of the ceiling; "I leave it to you to make it cheery. Here 's something that will help out in this room and in the living-room."
He took a large pasteboard box from the floor, and we went back into the other room. Jamie and Mrs. Macleod were there.
"Now, what have you there, Gordon?" said the former, frankly showing the curiosity that is a part of his make-up.
"Something that should delight your inner man's eye," he replied. Going to the table, he opened the box and took from it some of the exquisite first and second proofs of those wonderful etchings by Meryon.
We looked and looked again. Old Paris, the Paris of the second republic, lay spread before us: bridges, quays, chimney-pots, roofs, river and the cathedral of Notre Dame were there in black and white, and the Seine breathing dankness upon all! I possessed myself of one, the Pont Neuf, and betook myself to the sofa to enjoy it.
"You know these, Miss Farrell?"
"Only as I have seen woodcuts of them in New York."
"They are my favorites; I want nothing else on my walls. Will you select some for this room and some for the den? I will passepartout them; they should have no frames."
"You 're just giving me the best treat you could possibly provide," I said, still in possession of the proof, "and how glad I am that I 've had it—"
"What, Marcia?" This from Jamie.
"I mean the chance to extract a little honey from the strong."
Mrs. Macleod and Jamie looked thoroughly mystified, not knowing New York; but Mr. Ewart smiled at my enthusiasm and scripture application. He understood that some things during the years of my "scrimping" had borne fruit.
"I believe you 're more than half French, Ewart," said Jamie, looking up from the proof he was examining; "I mean in feeling and sympathy."
"No, I am all Canadian."
"You mean English, don't you?"
"No, I mean Canadian."
This was said with a fervor and a decision which had such a snap to it, that Jamie looked at him in surprise. Without replying, he continued his examination of the proof, whistling softly to himself.
Mr. Ewart turned to Mrs. Macleod and said, smiling:
"I want all members of my household to know just where I stand; in the future we may have a good many English guests in the house.—Please, give me an extra amount of porridge, Mrs. Macleod."
XV
With the coming of the furniture and the furnishing of the office, my hands were full for the next week. During the time, Mr. Ewart was in Ottawa on business, and I worked like a Trojan to have everything in readiness on his return. I was determined he should be the first to see the transformation of his special room, and forbade Jamie to open the door so much as a crack that might afford him a peep.
"It does n't seem much like the manor with Ewart away and you invisible except at meals," he growled from the arm-chair he had placed just outside the sill of the office door. He begged me to leave the door open just a little way, enough to enable him to have speech with me—a privilege I granted, but reluctantly, for I was putting the books on the shelves and giving the task my whole attention. The last day of the week was with us, and Mr. Ewart was expected in a few hours. I stopped long enough, however, to peep at him through the inch-wide opening. He was drawing away at a cold pipe and looked wholly disconsolate.
"A new version of Omar Khayyàm," I said.
"'A pipe, you know … and Thou
Beside me, chatting in the wilderness.'"
"I suppose you 'll let me in when Ewart comes."
"I 've nothing to say about that; it is n't my den."
"I was under the impression it was wholly yours, judging from your possession of it."
"Now, no sarcasm, Jamie Macleod; work is work, and there 's been a lot to do in here—not but what I 've taken solid comfort in putting this room into shape."
"Oh, yes, we have seen that; even Cale remarked to me the other night that he 'guessed' Mr. Ewart knew a good thing when he saw it, as he had a general furnisher and library assistant all in one, who was working for his interest about as hard as she could."
"Good for Cale, he is a discerning person. But he seems to be following suit pretty closely along his lines."
"I hear you 're to catalogue the books that are in the den."
"That is my order."
"Don't you want me to help you? Old French is n't so easy sometimes," he asked, coaxing.
"Oh, no; I 've help enough in Mr. Ewart. He knows it a good deal better than you do."
"'Sass'," was Jamie's sole reply, a word he had borrowed from Cale's vocabulary; he used it to characterize my attitude towards his acquirements.
I worked on in silence till the books were housed; then I drew a long breath of satisfaction.
"What's that sigh for?" was the demand from the other side of the door.
"For a noble deed accomplished, my friend."
"Humph!"
"Now move away your chair, I 'm coming out."
"Come on."
There was no movement of the chair, and, to punish him, I locked the door on the inside and went out through the kitchen up to my room.
I recall that afternoon: the heavy first-of-December skies; the gray-black look on the hemlocks; the faded trunks of the lindens; the dullness of the unreflecting snow; the intermittent soughing of the wind in the pines. All without looked drear, jaded, almost lifeless; the cold was penetrating. I determined that all within should be bright with home cheer on the master's return. Did he not say I had made a home of the old manor?
I recall dressing myself with unusual care and wishing I had some light-colored gown to help brighten the interior for him.
For him! I was looking in the mirror and coiling my hair when I realized my thought; to my amazement my own face seemed to me almost the face of a stranger. I saw that its thin oval had rounded, the cheeks gained a faint color; animation was in every feature, life anticipant in the eyes.
"That's what the change has done so soon; pure air, home life, good food and an abundance of it."
I failed to read the first sign.
There was nothing for it but to put on the well-worn skirt of brown panama serge, a clean shirt waist and a white four-in-hand. I promised myself not only a warm coat out of the first month's wages, but a light-colored inexpensive dress that would harmonize with the general feeling of youthfulness of which my inner woman was now aware. I sat down at the window to wait for the sound of the pung bells. Soon there was a soft tap at my door.
"Come in." Jamie made his appearance with a bunch of partridge berries in his hand.
"With Cale's compliments; he found them under the snow in the woods, and hopes you will do him the honor to wear them in your hair. He left them with me just before he went to meet Ewart; I had them under the arm-chair to present to you formally when you should come out of the den; instead of which, you ignominiously—"
"Please, don't, Jamie—no coals of fire; give me the lovely things."
"But, remember, you are to wear them in your hair, so Cale says."
"It's perfectly absurd—but I must do it to please him. Who would credit him with such an attention?"
"May I stay while you put them in?" he asked meekly.
"Of course you may, you sisterless youth."
I parted the bunch, and pinned a spray on each side, in the coils and plaits of my over heavy hair. Jamie said nothing till this finishing touch had been put to my toilet.
"I say, it's ripping, Marcia. Cale will be your abject slave from henceforth. By the way, I 've never heard him call you 'Happy', as he proposed to do."
"Nor I."
"I wonder what's the reason? Perhaps he thought he had been too fresh, and he does n't dare—There 's Ewart!" He was off on a run.
I thought I would wait for the various greetings to be over before going down. I felt sure I should not see his hand withdrawn this time, as on the occasion of his first home-coming. When I heard his voice below in the hall, I was aware of a warm thrill of delight, a joyous expectancy of good, a feeling as if the home-coming were my own; for never in my life had I been welcomed as he was, with a shout from Jamie, an outburst from the dogs, and joyful ejaculations from Angélique and Marie.
I went down, my cheeks glowing, my heart warm with the home-sense, and—I wondered at myself—my hand outstretched to his. When his closed upon it with the same cordial pressure of the week before, I knew for the first time in my life the joy of being "at home".
And I failed to read the second sign.
XVI
It was a busy winter and a joyous one for me; a short and happy one for Jamie, so he said. He was correcting proof for the first venture and collecting data for the second; trying his hand at a chapter here and there; alternately despairing, rejoicing, appealing to Mr. Ewart or me for criticism—something we were unable to give him, as from disjointed portions of his work we did not know the trend of his ideas; protesting one day that he could write nothing worth reading, then on the next proclaiming to the household, including Cale, his temporary triumph of mind over material. We enjoyed his moods, all of them, whether of despair or enthusiasm, guying him in the one and encouraging him in the other.
The cataloguing took me well into the first week in January. Mr. Ewart was often in the den with me of an afternoon, and I was glad to take advantage of his knowledge of the language in translation, and the use of obsolete words. His own time seemed over full for those first few months. On Tuesday and Saturday mornings, he was always in the office to see the farmers on the estate and talk with them about his plans for future development. On other week-days, when weather permitted, he and Cale were much in the woods.
I found that Mr. Ewart did not intend it should be all work and no play for me. Twice in December he drove me in the pung—no sleigh had as yet been purchased, although a piano filled a corner of the living-room; once, early in the morning, before the sun had a chance to warm and partly melt the ice-crystals that encased every branch, every twig and twiglet. On that morning, we drove without speech for miles behind the swiftly trotting French coach horses; the beauty about us was indescribable, and silence was the best appreciation. We sped through the woods'-road, a prismatic arcade of interlaced crystals; along the river bank beside the vast frozen expanse of the St. Lawrence, gleaming and glittering with blinding reflected radiance. It was so brilliant, that against it the trees by the roadside, laden as they were with ice, stood out black and gaunt. Then into Richelieu-en-Bas, where every roof, every fence, every post and rivet, looked to be pure rock crystal. Window-frames, eaves, doors, the old pump in the marketplace were behung with icicles. The world about us that morning was another world than the work-a-day one to which I was accustomed. I had seen this special condition of ice in northern New England, but never in such beauty and grandeur.
We drove home before the ice began to soften. Afterwards, I sat for an hour at my open window, listening to the musical tinkle and metallic clink of the falling ice from the trees in the woods across the creek.
With the reason given that Jamie and I needed exercise in the open every day,—our occupations being of the sedentary kind, as he said,—Mr. Ewart bade us fare forth with him to learn the art of snowshoeing. He was past master in it and a good teacher. By the middle of January we were well on our feet and independent of any help from him.
Oh, the joy of the fleet tracks over the unbroken white! Oh, the coursing of the blood, the deep, deep breaths of what Mr. Ewart called the "iced wine" air! Oh, the blessed hunger that was satisfied with wholesome food after the invigorating exercise! Oh, the refreshing sleep, with the temperature at zero and the still air touching my cheeks under the fur robe across my bed! And with it all the sense of security, the sense of peace, of rest!
In this atmosphere, the remembrance of the weary years in the great city grew dim. I rejoiced at it.
I was beginning, also, to make myself easily understood with the French. Their language I loved; their literature I cultivated. It was a delight to be able to visit the tiny homes in the village, whither I was sent on one errand or another by Mr. Ewart, so getting extra rides in the pung and longer hours in the bracing air. It was an education to make the acquaintance of various families, learn the names of every member of the households, their interests and occupations. They were such tiny homes, made so high of stoop to avoid the rising spring flood that the great river is apt to send far and wide and deep into the village streets, covering the noble park and flooding first floors, respecting neither twin-towered church nor manor house; so low in the walls, few-windowed, and those double and packed with moss.
And such expansive souls as I found in the tiny homes: the hostess of the inn, Mrs. Macleod's dressmaker who lived beneath the shadow of the great twin-towered church; the furrier and his wife on the market-square; from them I bought my warm coat; ancient Mère Guillardeau and her old daughter, weaver of rag carpets, and some of her friends who followed the same calling and showed me, during the short winter days, how to weave them on their rough looms.
Of the three or four English families, with the exception of the postmistress, I knew nothing, or knew of them only through Mr. Ewart and Jamie. The "Seignior" and "Seignioress", so-called although English, were in Montreal for the winter. The old General and his wife were housed through infirmities. Now and then I saw a bevy of red-cheeked English girls, driving over from their home-school in Upper Richelieu for a jolly lark on their half-holiday. Of other English I heard nothing; there were none in Richelieu-en-Bas.
As the season advanced and I was firm on my winter feet, I made many a snow-shoe call on the farmers' families who lived on the old seigniory lands. It was good to hear them tell their hopes and anticipations; for Mr. Ewart's plan to do away with the old seigniorial rents and leases, and make of each farmer, at present paying rent, a freeholder, was welcomed, with almost passionate enthusiasm, in this community, where, generally, change is looked at askance. It was not long before I discovered that, on entering these homes, I found myself anticipating some word of praise, some expression of loyalty and devotion to the man who was to give them a new outlook on life. I listened with willing ears and led them, many times of my own accord, to speak of him.
In the long winter evenings I read thoroughly into the history of French Canada. It took me far afield, into English as well; into biography and the work of pioneers. It showed me the flaming enthusiasm of the fanatic, the faith of the apostle, the courage of high adventure, the chivalry of noble lives, the loyalty and devotion of the humble. It showed me, also, the cruelty of man to man, the divergence of race, the warring of nations, the battlefields, the conquests, the heavy hand of the conqueror, the red man's friendship, the red man's enmity, fire, sword, torture. But in and through and above all, it opened to me the high heart of the Canadian, the undaunted faith in established principles, and the patriotism that is a veritable passion.
"O Canada, my Canada!" an old French Canadian once exclaimed to me as we sat by the box-stove in his little "cabin". "There is no land like it; no land where they live at peace as we do here; no land where they are so content by their own fireside." And he spoke the truth.
I began to understand, through my intercourse with our neighbors on the estate and the village people, those words of Drummond—Drummond who has shown us the hearts of Canada's children:
"Our fathers came to win us
This land beyond recall—
And the same blood flows within us
Of Briton, Celt and Gaul—
Keep alive each glowing ember
Of our sireland, but remember
Our country is Canadian
Whatever may befall.
"Then line up and try us,
Whoever would deny us
The freedom of our birthright,
And they 'll find us like a wall—
For we are Canadian, Canadian forever,
Canadian forever—Canadian over all!"
One night in February, just before the Doctor's mid-winter visit, a friend of the dead poet passed a night beneath the roof of the old manor house as Mr. Ewart's guest. After the yellow chintz curtains were close drawn, so shutting out the wintry night, and while the backlog was glowing, he read to us from those poems that at the author's will exact tears or smiles from their hearers. After the reading of "The Rossignol", Jamie took his seat at the piano and played softly that exquisite old French Canadian air "Sur la montagne".
Mr. Ewart rose and, taking his stand beside him, sang the words of the poem which have been set to this music.
"Jus' as de sun is tryin'
Climb on de summer sky
Two leetle birds come flyin'
Over de mountain high—
Over de mountain, over de mountain,
Hear dem call,
Hear dem call—poor leetle rossignol!"
They recalled to me that twin song of Björnson's which, despite its joyous note of anticipation, holds the same pathos of unsatisfied longing.
The last note had scarcely been struck when Jamie broke into the jolly accompaniment to
"For he was a grand Seigneur, my dear,
He was a grand Seigneur."
And, listening so to poems and music and the talk of these men of fine mind and high aspirations, to their hopes for Canada as a whole, to their expression of pride in her marvellous growth and their faith in her future, I said to myself:
"Am I the girl, or rather woman now, who a few years ago made her way up from the narrow thoroughfares about Barclay Street to her attic room in 'old Chelsea'—up through the traffic-congested streets of New York, in the dark of the late winter afternoon, the melting snow falling in black drops and streams from the elevated above her; the avenues running brown snow-water; the rails gleaming; the steaming horses plashing through slush; the fog making haloes about the dimmed arc-lights; the hurrying, pressing tide of humanity surging this way and that and nearly taking her off her feet at the crossings; the whole city reeking with a warm-chill mist, and the shrieking, grinding, grating, whistling, roaring polyglot din of the metropolis half deafening her?"
Thinking of this as I stared into the fire, listening to the good talk on many subjects, something—was it the frost of homelessness?—melted in my heart. The feelings and emotions that had been benumbed through the icy chill of circumstance, thawed within me. The tears, usually unready, filled my eyes. I bent my head that the others might not see, but they fell faster and faster. And with every one that plashed on my hands, as they lay folded in my lap, I felt the unbinding from my life of one hard year after another, until the woman who rose to bring in the porridge, in order to cover her emotion, was one who rose free of all thwarting circumstance. I had come into my own—a woman's own.
But I failed to read the third sign.