Alice of Old Vincennes Part 3

"Come on, you brutes," cried the receding man, jerking the thongs of skin by which he led the goats.

Father Beret rose and turned into his damp little hut, where the light was dim on the crucifix hanging opposite the door against the clay-daubed wall. It was a bare, unsightly, clammy room; a rude bed on one side, a shelf for table and two or three wooden stools const.i.tuting the furniture, while the uneven puncheons of the floor wabbled and clattered under the priest's feet.

An unopened letter is always a mysterious thing. We who receive three or four mails every day, scan each little paper square with a speculative eye. Most of us know what sweet uncertainty hangs on the opening of envelopes whose contents may be almost anything except something important, and what a vague yet delicious thrill comes with the snip of the paper knife; but if we be in a foreign land and long years absent from home, then is a letter subtly powerful to move us, even more before it is opened than after it is read.

It had been many years since a letter from home had come to Father Beret. The last, before the one now in his hand, had made him ill of nostalgia, fairly shaking his iron determination never to quit for a moment his life work as a missionary. Ever since that day he had found it harder to meet the many and stern demands of a most difficult and exacting duty. Now the mere touch of the paper in his hand gave him a sense of returning weakness, dissatisfaction, and longing. The home of his boyhood, the rushing of the Rhone, a seat in a shady nook of the garden, Madeline, his sister, prattling beside him, and his mother singing somewhere about the house--it all came back and went over him and through him, making his heart sink strangely, while another voice, the sweetest ever heard--but she was ineffable and her memory a forbidden fragrance.

Father Beret tottered across the forlorn little room and knelt before the crucifix holding his clasped hands high, the letter pressed between them. His lips moved in prayer, but made no sound; his whole frame shook violently.

It would be unpardonable desecration to enter the chamber of Father Beret's soul and look upon his sacred and secret trouble; nor must we even speculate as to its particulars. The good old man writhed and wrestled before the cross for a long time, until at last he seemed to receive the calmness and strength he prayed for so fervently; then he rose, tore the letter into pieces so small that not a word remained whole, and squeezed them so firmly together that they were compressed into a tiny, solid ball, which he let fall through a crack between the floor puncheons. After waiting twenty years for that letter, hungry as his heart was, he did not even open it when at last it arrived. He would never know what message it bore. The link between him and the old sweet days was broken forever. Now with G.o.d's help he could do his work to the end.

He went and stood in his doorway, leaning against the side. Was it a mere coincidence that the meadowlark flew up just then from its gra.s.s-tuft, and came to the roof's comb overhead, where it lit with a light yet audible stroke of its feet and began fluting its tender, lonesome-sounding strain? If Father Beret heard it he gave no sign of recognition; very likely he was thinking about the cargo of liquor and how he could best counteract its baleful influence. He looked toward the "river house," as the inhabitants had named a large shanty, which stood on a bluff of the Wabash not far from where the road-bridge at present crosses, and saw men gathering there.

Meantime Rene de Ronville had delivered Madame Roussillon's letter with due promptness. Of course such a service demanded pie and claret. What still better pleased him, Alice chose to be more amiable than was usually her custom when he called. They sat together in the main room of the house where M. Roussillon kept his books, his curiosities of Indian manufacture collected here and there, and his surplus firearms, swords, pistols, and knives, ranged not unpleasingly around the walls.

Of course, along with the letter, Rene bore the news, so interesting to himself, of the boat's tempting cargo just discharged at the river house. Alice understood her friend's danger--felt it in the intense enthusiasm of his voice and manner. She had once seen the men carousing on a similar occasion when she was but a child, and the impression then made still remained in her memory. Instinctively she resolved to hold Rene by one means or another away from the river house if possible. So she managed to keep him occupied eating pie, sipping watered claret and chatting until night came on and Madame Roussillon brought in a lamp.

Then he hurriedly s.n.a.t.c.hed his cap from the floor beside him and got up to go.

"Come and look at my handiwork," Alice quickly said; "my shelf of pies, I mean." She led him to the pantry, where a dozen or more of the cherry pates were ranged in order. "I made every one of them this morning and baked them; had them all out of the oven before the rain came up. Don't you think me a wonder of cleverness and industry? Father Beret was polite enough to flatter me; but you--you just eat what you want and say nothing! You are not polite, Monsieur Rene de Ronville."

"I've been showing you what I thought of your goodies," said Rene; "eating's better than talking, you know; so I'll just take one more,"

and he helped himself. "Isn't that compliment enough?"

"A few such would make me another hot day's work," she replied, laughing. "Pretty talk would be cheaper and more satisfactory in the long run. Even the flour in these pates I ground with my own hand in an Indian mortar. That was hard work too."

By this time Rene had forgotten the river house and the liquor. With softening eyes he gazed at Alice's rounded cheeks and sheeny hair over which the light from the curious earthen lamp she bore in her hand flickered most effectively. He loved her madly; but his fear of her was more powerful than his love. She gave him no opportunity to speak what he felt, having ever ready a quick, bright change of mood and manner when she saw him plucking up courage to address her in a sentimental way. Their relations had long been somewhat familiar, which was but natural, considering their youth and the circ.u.mstances of their daily life; but Alice somehow had kept a certain distance open between them, so that very warm friendship could not suddenly resolve itself into a troublesome pa.s.sion on Rene's part.

We need not attempt to a.n.a.lyze a young girl's feeling and motives in such a case; what she does and what she thinks are mysteries even to her own understanding. The influence most potent in shaping the rudimentary character of Alice Tarleton (called Roussillon) had been only such as a lonely frontier post could generate. Her a.s.sociations with men and women had, with few exceptions, been unprofitable in an educational way, while her reading in M. Roussillon's little library could not have given her any practical knowledge of manners and life.

She was fond of Rene de Ronville, and it would have been quite in accordance with the law of ordinary human forces, indeed almost the inevitable thing, for her to love and marry him in the fullness of time; but her imagination was outgrowing her surroundings. Books had given her a world of romance wherein she moved at will, meeting a cla.s.s of people far different from those who actually shared her experiences.

Her day-dreams and her night-dreams partook much more of what she had read and imagined than of what she had seen and heard in the raw little world around her.

Her affection for Rene was interfered with by her large admiration for the heroic, masterful and magnetic knights who charged through the romances of the Roussillon collection. For although Rene was unquestionably brave and more than pa.s.sably handsome, he had no armor, no war-horse, no shining lance and embossed shield--the difference, indeed, was great.

Those who love to contend against the fatal drift of our age toward over-education could find in Alice Tarleton, foster daughter of Gaspard Roussillon, a primitive example, an elementary case in point. What could her book education do but set up stumbling blocks in the path of happiness? She was learning to prefer the ideal to the real. Her soul was developing itself as best it could for the enjoyment of conditions and things absolutely foreign to the possibilities of her lot in life.

Perhaps it was the light and heat of imagination, shining out through Alice's face, which gave her beauty such a fascinating power. Rene saw it and felt its electrical stroke send a sweet shiver through his heart, while he stood before her.

"You are very beautiful to-night Alice," he presently said, with a suddenness which took even her alertness by surprise. A flush rose to his dark face and immediately gave way to a grayish pallor. His heart came near stopping on the instant, he was so shocked by his own daring; but he laid a hand on her hair, stroking it softly.

Just a moment she was at a loss, looking a trifle embarra.s.sed, then with a merry laugh she stepped aside and said:

"That sounds better, Monsieur Rene de Ronville much better; you will be as polite as Father Beret after a little more training."

She slipped past him while speaking and made her way back again to the main room, whence she called to him:

"Come here, I've something to show you."

He obeyed, a sheepish trace on his countenance betraying his self-consciousness.

When he came near Alice she was taking from its buckhorn hook on the wall a rapier, one of a beautiful pair hanging side by side.

"Papa Roussillon gave me these," she said with great animation. "He bought them of an Indian who had kept them a long time; where he came across them he would not tell; but look how beautiful! Did you ever see anything so fine?"

Guard and hilt were of silver; the blade, although somewhat corroded, still showed the fine wavy lines of Damascus steel and traces of delicate engraving, while in the end of the hilt was set a large oval turquoise.

"A very queer present to give a girl," said Rene; "what can you do with them?"

A captivating flash of playfulness came into her face and she sprang backward, giving the sword a semicircular turn with her wrist. The blade sent forth a keen hiss as it cut the air close, very close to Rene's nose. He jerked his head and flung up his hand.

She laughed merrily, standing beautifully poised before him, the rapier's point slightly elevated. Her short skirt left her feet and ankles free to show their graceful proportions and the perfect pose in which they held her supple body.

"You see what I can do with the colechemarde, eh, Monsieur Rene de Ronville!" she exclaimed, giving him a smile which fairly blinded him.

"Notice how very near to your neck I can thrust and yet not touch it.

Now!"

She darted the keen point under his chin and drew it away so quickly that the stroke was like a glint of sunlight.

"What do you think of that as a nice and accurate piece of skill?"

She again resumed her pose, the right foot advanced, the left arm well back, her lissome, finely developed body leaning slightly forward.

Rene's hands were up before his face in a defensive position, palms outward.

Just then a chorus of men's voices sounded in the distance. The river house was beginning its carousal with a song. Alice let fall her sword's point and listened.

Rene looked about for his cap.

"I must be going," he said.

Another and louder swish of the rapier made him pirouette and dodge again with great energy.

"Don't," he cried, "that's dangerous; you'll put out my eyes; I never saw such a girl!"

She laughed at him and kept on whipping the air dangerously near his eyes, until she had driven him backward as far as he could squeeze himself into a comer of the room.

Madame Roussillon came to the door from the kitchen and stood looking in and laughing, with her hands on her hips. By this time the rapier was making a criss-cross pattern of flashing lines close to the young man's head while Alice, in the enjoyment of her exercise, seemed to concentrate all the glowing rays of her beauty in her face, her eyes dancing merrily.

"Quit, now, Alice," he begged, half in fun and half in abject fear; "please quit--I surrender!"

She thrust to the wall on either side of him, then springing lightly backward a pace, stood at guard. Her thick yellow hair had fallen over her neck and shoulders in a loose wavy ma.s.s, out of which her face beamed with a bewitching effect upon her captive.

Rene, glad enough to have a cessation of his peril, stood laughing dryly; but the singing down at the river house was swelling louder and he made another movement to go.

"You surrendered, you remember," cried Alice, renewing the sword-play; "sit down on the chair there and make yourself comfortable. You are not going down yonder to-night; you are going to stay here and talk with me and Mother Roussillon; we are lonesome and you are good company."

A shot rang out keen and clear; there was a sudden tumult that broke up the distant singing; and presently more firing at varying intervals cut the night air from the direction of the river.