A Little Girl in Old Quebec Part 2

She took out her chest of simples, a quaintly-made birchen-bark receptacle. They had been carefully labelled by the doctor. Yes, here was "fever"--here another. Which to take puzzled her.

"I might try first one and then the other," she ruminated. "I would get the good of both. And they might not mix well."

She boiled some water and poured it over the herbs. It diffused a bitter, but not unpleasant flavor. Then she put it out of doors to cool.

Rose was sleeping heavily, but her eyes were half open and it startled Mere Dubray.

"A child is a great responsibility," she moaned to herself. "If the Sieur were only here, or the doctor!" She woke her presently and administered the potion. But it brought on a desperate sickness.

"Perhaps I had better try the other." She took the hot, limp hand, the cheeks were burning, but great drops of perspiration stood out on the forehead. She twisted the soft hair in a knot and struck one of her highly-prized pins through it, then she thought a night-cap would be better. Only they would be a world too large for the child. But she succeeded in pinning it to the right shape, though she grudged the two pins. They were a great rarity in those days, and if one was lost hours were spent hunting it up.

The second dose fared better. There was nothing to do but let the child sleep. She busied herself about the few household cares, studied the weather and the signs of spring. Oh, was that a bird! Surely he was early with his song. The river went rushing on joyously, leaping, foaming as if glad to be unchained. The air had softened marvellously.

Ah, why should one be ill when spring had come!

The kindly Mere repeated her dose. Towards night the fever seemed to abate, but the child was desperately restless and the worthy woman much troubled. Yet what was the child to her? to any one? And death was sure to come sometime. She would be spared much trouble. She would also lose much happiness. But was there any great share of it in this new world?

Rose was no better the next day. The nausea returned and clearly she was out of her head. But late this afternoon the Sieur and the young guest returned and were so much alarmed they dispatched an Indian servitor with instructions to bring the doctor at once.

"A pretty severe case," he said, with a grave shake of the head. "You have done the best you could, Mere Dubray, and children have wonderful recuperative powers. So we will try."

"Poor, pretty little thing," thought Destournier. "Will she find anything worth living for?" Women had so few opportunities in those times. And when one was poor and unknown, and in a strange country. Yet he could not bear to think of her dying. There was always a hopeful future to living.

CHAPTER II

THE JOY OF FRIENDSHIP

She went down to the very boundaries of the other country, this little Rose. One night and one day they gave her up. She lay white and silent and Mere Dubray brought out a white muslin dress and ironed it up, much troubled to know whether she had a right to Christian burial or not.

And then she opened her eyes with their olden light and began to ask in a weak voice what happened to her yesterday, and found her last remembrance was six weeks agone.

She could hardly raise her thin little hand, but all the air was sweet with growing things. The tall trees had come into rich leaf.a.ge, the sunshine glowed upon the gra.s.s that danced as if each blade was fairy-born, and sparkled on the river that went hurrying by as if to tell a wonderful story. The great craggy upper town glinted in a thousand varying tints, and at evening was wreathed in trailing mists that seemed some strange army marching across. The thickly wooded hills were nodding and smiling to each other, some native fruit trees were in bloom, and the air was delicious with the scent of wild-grape fragrance.

"It was a bad fever. And we had no priest to call upon. As if people here did not need one as well as in that wild place with a long name where they are hunting copper and maybe gold. But thanks to the saints and the good doctor, you have come through. Ah, we ought to have a chapel at least where one could go and pray."

"It is so beautiful and sweet. One would not want to be put in the ground."

She shuddered thinking of it.

"No, no! And M. Pontgrave has come in with two ships. There is plenty of provisions and fruits from La Belle France. See, M'sieu Ralph brought them in for you. Now you have only to get well."

Mere Dubray's face was alight with joy. The child smiled faintly.

"And the Sieur de Champlain?" she asked.

"Oh, he is as busy as any two men with plans for building up the town, and workmen, and some women for wives--two of whom are married already, though one couple did their courting on shipboard. Oh, you must soon get about. We are going to have a rare summer."

The child raised herself up a trifle and then sank back.

"Oh, dear!" with a little cry.

"Do not mind, _ma pet.i.te_. People are always so at first. To-morrow maybe you can sit up, and a few days after walk. And then go out."

"The world is so lovely and sweet," she murmured. And she was glad she had not died.

The next day M'sieu Ralph came in. He appeared changed some way, but the old smile was there. The eyes seemed to have taken on a deeper blue tint. She stretched out her hands.

"Thank the good G.o.d that you are restored, little one," he exclaimed, with deep fervor. "Only you are a shadow of the Rose who climbed rocks like a joyous kid less than a year agone. When will you pilot me again?"

She drew a long breath like a sigh.

"And there have been so many happenings. There are new people, though no little girls among them, for which I am sorry. And already they are building houses. The Sieur de Champlain has great plans. He will have a fine city if they work. Why, when thou art an old lady and goest dressed in silks and velvets and furs, as the women of the mother country, thou wilt have rare stories to tell to thy grandchildren. And no doubt thou wilt have seen Paris as well."

Then she smiled, but it was a pitiful attempt.

It was true Quebec had received a wonderful hastening in the new-comers and in several grants the King had made concerning the fur trade. The dreary winter was a thing of the past.

Destournier came in the next day and insisted the child should be wrapped up and carried out in the sunshine. She seemed light as a baby when he took her in his arms. He seated himself on a bench and held her closely wound up in Mere's choicest blanket she had brought from St.

Malo, and which had been woven by her grandmother.

Ah, how lovely that savage primeval beauty looked to the child, who felt more than she could understand. Every pulse seemed instinct with new life. The gardens with their beds of vegetables, the tall slim spikes of onions which everybody had been requested to plant plentifully, the feathery leaves of the young carrots, the beans already in white bloom, the sword-like leaves of the corn hardly long enough to wave as yet, and the river with boats and canoes--why, it had never been so brisk and wonderful before.

She drew in long breaths of health-giving fragrance. There had been some trouble with the Indians and the Sieur de Champlain had gone to chastise them. There were fur-traders on the way and soon everything would be stirring with eager business. And when she could they would take a sail around and up the St. Charles, and visit the islands, for besides Pani the Mere had another Indian boy the Sieur had sent her, so there would be no gardening for the small, white Rose. And he had made a new friend for her, who was waiting anxiously to see her.

Presently she went soundly asleep in the fragrant air, and he carried her back and laid her on the bed. Mere Dubray came and looked at her and shook her head. She was indeed a white Rose now. They had cut her hair when she had tangled it with her tossing about, and it was now a bed of golden rings, but the long lashes that were like a fringe on her cheeks were black.

"It will take her a good while to get back all she has lost," said the young man. "It is little short of a miracle that she is here."

She gained a little every day. But she felt very shaky when she walked about, and light in the head. And then Destournier brought her a visitor one afternoon, a lady the like of whom the child had not dreamed of in her wildest imaginings, as she had listened to tales of royalty. A tall, fair woman whose bright hair was a ma.s.s of puffs and short dainty curls held by combs that sparkled with jewels, and the silken gown that was strewn with brocaded roses on a soft gray ground. It had dainty ruffles around the bottom that barely reached her ankles, and showed the clocked and embroidered stockings and elegant slippers laced back and forth with golden cord, and a buckle that sparkled with gems like the combs. Even royalty condescended to wear imitation jewels, so why should not the lower round? Her shapely shoulders were half veiled by a gauze scarf on which were woven exquisite flowers.

The child gazed with fascinated admiration. Did the Greek women Destournier had read about, who won every heart, look like this?

"This is the lady I told you of, little one, who has lately come from France, Madame Giffard. And this is Rose----" He paused suddenly with a half smile. "I believe the child has no other name."

"Was she born here?" How soft and winning the voice was.

Destournier flushed unconsciously.

"She has a story and a mystery that no one has fathomed. The Sieur made some inquiries. A woman of the better cla.s.s who came over with some emigrants brought her, and was supposed to be her mother. But some secret lay heavy on her mind, it seemed, and when she was dying she confessed that the child was not hers, but she had no time for explanations. The husband brought her here and has gone to one of the fur stations. His disappointment was so intense he gave up the child.

And so--her name is neither Arlac nor Dubray. We shall have to rechristen her."

"What a curious romance! If one knew what town she came from. Oh, my little one, will you let me be your friend? I had a little golden-haired girl who died when she was but four, and no children have come since to gladden my heart."

Madame Giffard bent over and took the small hand, noting the taper fingers and slender wrist that seemed to indicate good birth. She pressed it to her lips. Rose looked up trustfully and smiled.