A Romany of the Snows Part 20

Her face had become pale as he spoke, but no muscle stirred; only her eyes filled with a deeper color, and her hand closed tightly on the door-jamb. "Come in, Pierre," she said, and entered. He followed her.

"My mother is at the Fort," she added, "but she will be back soon."

She placed two chairs not far from the open door. They sat, and Pierre slowly rolled a cigarette and lighted it.

"How long have you lived here?" he asked presently.

"It is seven years since we came first," she replied. "After that night they said the place was haunted, and no one would live in it, but when my father died my mother and I came for three years. Then we went east, and again came back, and here we have been."

"The shutter?" Pierre asked.

They needed few explanations--their minds were moving with the same thought.

"I would not have it changed, and of course no one cared to touch it. So it has hung there."

"As I placed it ten years ago," he said.

They both became silent for a time, and at last he said: "Marcey had no one,--Sergeant Laforce a mother."

"It killed his mother," she whispered, looking into the white sunlight.

She was noting how it was flashed from the bark of the birch-trees near the Fort.

"His mother died," she added again, quietly. "It killed her--the gaol for him!"

"An eye for an eye," he responded.

"Do you think that evens John Marcey's death?" she sighed.

"As far as Marcey's concerned," he answered. "Laforce has his own reckoning besides."

"It was not a murder," she urged.

"It was a fair fight," he replied firmly, "and Laforce shot straight."

He was trying to think why she lived here, why the broken shutter still hung there, why the matter had settled so deeply on her. He remembered the song she was singing, the legend of the Scarlet Hunter, the fabled Savior of the North.

"Heavy of heart is the Red Patrol-- (Why should the key-hole rust?) The Scarlet Hunter is sick for home, (Why should the blind be drawn?)"

He repeated the words, lingering on them. He loved to come at the truth of things by allusive, far-off reflections, rather than by the sharp questioning of the witness-box. He had imagination, refinement in such things. A light dawned on him as he spoke the words--all became clear.

She sang of the Scarlet Hunter, but she meant someone else! That was it--

"Hungry and cold is the Red Patrol-- (Why should the door be shut?) The Scarlet Hunter has come to bide, (Why is the window barred?)"

But why did she live here? To get used to a thought, to have it so near her, that if the man--if Laforce himself came, she would have herself schooled to endure the shadow and the misery of it all? Ah, that was it! The little girl, who had seen her big lover killed, who had said she would never forgive the other, who had sent him back the fretted-silver basket, the riding-whip, and other things, had kept the criminal in her mind all these years; had, out of her childish coquetry, grown into--what? As a child she had been wise for her years--almost too wise.

What had happened? She had probably felt sorrow for Laforce at first, and afterwards had shown active sympathy, and at last--no, he felt that she had not quite forgiven him, that, whatever was, she had not hidden the criminal in her heart. But why did she sing that song? Her heart was pleading for him--for the criminal. Had she and her mother gone to Winnipeg to be near Laforce, to comfort him? Was Laforce free now, and was she unwilling? It was so strange that she should thus have carried on her childhood into her womanhood. But he guessed her--she had imagination.

"His mother died in my arms in Winnipeg," she said abruptly at last.

"I'm glad I was some comfort to her. You see, it all came through me--I was so young and spoiled and silly--John Marcey's death, her death, and his long years in prison. Even then I knew better than to set the one against the other. Must a child not be responsible? I was--I am!"

"And so you punish yourself?"

"It was terrible for me--even as a child. I said that I could never forgive, but when his mother died, blessing me, I did. Then there came something else."

"You saw him, there amie?"

"I saw him--so changed, so quiet, so much older--all grey at the temples. At first I lived here that I might get used to the thought of the thing--to learn to bear it; and afterwards that I might learn--" She paused, looking in half-doubt at Pierre.

"It is safe; I am silent," he said.

"That I might learn to bear--him," she continued.

"Is he still--" Pierre paused.

She spoke up quickly. "Oh no, he has been free two years."

"Where is he now?"

"I don't know." She waited for a minute, then said again, "I don't know.

When he was free, he came to me, but I--I could not. He thought, too, that because he had been in gaol, that I wouldn't--be his wife. He didn't think enough of himself, he didn't urge anything. And I wasn't ready--no--no--no--how could I be! I didn't care so much about the gaol, but he had killed John Marcey. The gaol--what was that to me! There was no real shame in it unless he had done a mean thing. He had been wicked--not mean. Killing is awful, but not shameful. Think--the difference--if he had been a thief!"

Pierre nodded. "Then some one should have killed him!" he said. "Well, after?"

"After--after--ah, he went away for a year. Then he came back; but no, I was always thinking of that night I walked behind John Marcey's body to the Fort. So he went away again, and we came here, and here we have lived."

"He has not come here?"

"No; once from the far north he sent me a letter by an Indian, saying that he was going with a half-breed to search for a hunting party, an English gentleman and two men who were lost. The name of one of the men was Brickney."

Pierre stopped short in a long whiffing of smoke. "Holy!" he said, "that thief Brickney again. He would steal the broad road to h.e.l.l if he could carry it. He once stole the quarters from a dead man's eyes. Mon Dieu!

to save Brickney's life, the courage to do that--like sticking your face in the mire and eating!--But, pshaw!--go on, p't.i.te Lucille."

"There is no more. I never heard again."

"How long was that ago?"

"Nine months or more."

"Nothing has been heard of any of them?"

"Nothing at all. The Englishman belonged to the Hudson's Bay Company, but they have heard nothing down here at Fort Ste. Anne."

"If he saves the Company's man, that will make up the man he lost for them, eh--you think that, eh?" Pierre's eyes had a curious ironical light.

"I do not care for the Company," she said. "John Marcey's life was his own."

"Good!" he added quickly, and his eyes admired her. "That is the thing.

Then, do not forget that Marcey took his life in his hands himself, that he would have killed Laforce if Laforce hadn't killed him."

"I know, I know," she said, "but I should have felt the same if John Marcey had killed Stroke Laforce."

"It is a pity to throw your life away," he ventured. He said this for a purpose. He did not think she was throwing it away.