Ringfield Part 19

Did you send for them?"

"My lady is cautious. New for her. Where is our Gallic zeal and impetuosity gone? You're afraid of me! I see it. You think I'm drunk?"

She shook her head, but her smile was somewhat wan.

"Here, I'll convince you. Take my hands, both of them. Both of them, I say. At once, madam."

She did so and he drew her near, nearer, till their knees were touching.

"Now you answer me. Are they steady?"

"Yes."

"Very reluctantly given. Are they quite steady and firm like your own or like those of your parson friend?"

"Oh, don't, don't! Yes--quite firm, quite steady."

"You see! Now look at my eyes, look into them, lady dear. At once, madam. You find that trying, do you, but persevere. Well--what do you find? Are they wild, bloodshot, glazed, glaring? No? Only your image therein. And by G.o.d, Pauline, there never was and never will be any image half so beautiful, half so dear. That you must and will believe.

Well, then--no, don't draw your hands away--about this money, for I'm perfectly sober and desirous of telling you the truth. You have the right to know. One thing led to another, but the first of it was like this. I've always been a scribbler in my lazy moments, as you know, but perhaps you can't be expected to know that I have put care and strong thought, art and heart both, into some verse that I occasionally would take out and look over, and then lock away again. How could I, forlorn and degraded, an outcast from society, hope to effect anything in literature! Yet I never destroyed any of these pet lucrubations of mine, and one day, a few months ago, I picked out a poem, copied it fair when my hand wasn't shaking, and sent it to a magazine in England.

They took it--and I was so surprised that I went on a good long drunk.

But when I got straight again I found a handsome cheque awaiting me and the hope, very warmly expressed by the way, that I would let him, the editor, have many more in the same vein. Many more, mind you, with cheques to match, so long as my industry holds out and I can find enough to say. Now consider for a moment what that signifies to a man like me, fallen so low, I confess it, ostracized and exiled, cut off from all old a.s.sociations and without hope of overcoming my fault sufficiently to enable me to make a fresh start. It meant not only money, but employment, and congenial employment. It meant that after all, these years of leanness have not been wasted, that I have something to say if I can only retain the knack, the trick, of saying it in the way people will like, the public like. This alone would be much, but with it goes, you see, some money, so, as I said, one thing brings another; and money after all, Pauline, is what many a man as lost as I am mostly requires. It isn't as if I'd _had_ money, squandered it and lost it; I never had it--I never had it."

He paused, and for a moment there had sounded that high dangerous ring in his voice she knew so well, and Miss Clairville drew her hands away.

"But that was not all," she said coldly. "You spoke of something else, of two things that had happened. What was the other?"

"The second grew out of the first, out of what I have told you. The poems--they were a couple of ranch episodes,--I'll let you see them presently--were signed by my full name, Edmund Crabbe Hawtree. I never supposed any one I knew would see them, or seeing them trouble their heads about the writer; in fact, I never thought about the matter. But somebody did see them and did remember me, and did take the trouble to find out who I was, and where I was, and I've had within the last fortnight two letters from a well known firm of lawyers in London informing me that I am without doubt the man they have been searching for during the past year, and that quite a respectable little fortune awaits me. There have been a few deaths in the family; I am next of kin and so that's all there is about it. Simple as you like, but true beyond a doubt, and so I thought I'd celebrate the event to-night with you, Pauline, and perhaps confer with you--you woman of the world, with your knowledge of life and of me--of me, alas! Me at my worst, Pauline, but let us hope really my worst."

He rose and walked around the room, unconscious of the dark shadow that also walked austerely outside the window. "This money--it is a great thing that has happened to me. It is difficult to realize. Don't mind my walking up and down; it soothes me and I'm excited too, I think."

Pauline seemed dazed.

"Is there a t.i.tle? Is it much--the money that has been left you, I mean? Very much?"

"A good deal, but no t.i.tle." And Crabbe could not and did not try to suppress the satisfied smile which told how he had gained in self-respect during the last few days.

"I expect you'll think it a good deal. Of course in England it will be different. There must be two houses with it; a town house--no, that was sold a long while ago, I believe; anyway, there would be more to do with it over there than on this side. I wonder how soon I ought to go."

"Go! You are going! But how much is it?"

"Oh! Didn't I say? About ten thousand; pounds you know, Pauline, pounds, not dollars."

"Ten thousand pounds!"

"A nice little sum, lady dear?"

"All that money yours?"

"Yes, and not a penny too much, not a penny too much. I have to revenge myself on fate, or Providence, or whatever you call it, for these years of misery. I have to think of what I might have done and lose no time in doing it. Pauline, I must think of you."

A softer mood held him now and he dropped upon his knee and laid his head upon her lap, but she could not follow his swift changes of emotion; the mention of the money had obliterated every other thought, and whether it was the woman in her or the potential miserliness of her race--the Clairvilles were traditionally stingy--she seemed unable to get away from the mere image of the ten thousand pounds.

"But, _Mon Dieu_, what a great change there will be! You will be everything and I shall be nothing! A poor actress, a doubtful lady!

Oh! I shall be nothing to you, I can see, I can see! _Mon Dieu_, but this is only to bring more trouble upon me!"

Crabbe, as he will still be called, was at this much astonished. To do him justice he had for some time, ever since Ringfield's advent in the village in fact, found himself wishing that he might sincerely reform and offer Pauline the honour of marriage, and with it some hopes of a respectable competence.

"What nonsense are you saying?" he returned angrily. "Isn't money what we both require, what we have always required? And here it is now, as much as we want, and more, a great deal more, than we deserve or we expected! Why, I'll marry you now, Pauline, and you'll keep me steady; you and the travel and all the strangeness and the glory of it. You don't need any educating, any furbishing up--thank Heaven you were always a lady!--but we'll go abroad, of course, for a while and I'll show you Paris, Pauline, Paris, where you told Father Rielle you wanted to go and act; and you shall buy all you want at the shops, and I'll take you to the Louvre. Oh, yes, and you must go and see Mme.

Bernhardt if she is acting; you might have been her rival if you'd begun earlier, with your moods and fancies and tempers. Then we'll come back to London, and I'll take you for a day to my old lodgings in Jermyn St., just to square up things. Then we'll progress quietly to the Towers, Langmere, Suffolk; that's the estate; not the most interesting of counties, but everything will be new and equally interesting to you, and thus we'll sober down to the regulation old English married couple. Dost like the picture, my lady of St. Ignace, my _chatelaine_ of Clairville?"

"Always Clairville, always St. Ignace." She clasped her hands above her head in weariness. "If something could happen like what you describe, but no--it is impossible. They say that Henry's sight is going now, that very soon he will not be able to walk about by himself at all, that he is better in body but worse in mind, that he is forgetting all caution and speaking openly of the child--what is to be the end of it?"

"If anything could happen! Something _has_ happened. What I am telling you is true. I am rich, able to take care of you, to put an end to this sordid existence; you shall be taken away from Henry and the child, and the old a.s.sociations. Don't you believe me?"

"I should like to; but it's too much, too sudden, too good to be true."

"But it _is_ true; here are the letters; here is money, a little of what is due, and here are the poems. You see, even if there were any mistake, any hitch about the estate, I still have a career open to me.

There's an old ma.n.u.script novel of mine lying about somewhere; I believe I can get that taken; and I feel, I know there's something in it,--life, truth, suffering! But there's no hitch, no mistake, I swear it to you, Pauline; and whenever you're ready, I am; and we will, in melodramatic language, fly together from these dreary wilds.

Fortunately residence at St. Ignace doesn't imply creditors. I've taken a room here at Poussette's, and I shall live in comfort for the short time that may elapse before we start. One thing, I hope, I hope, I shall keep sober. Would you take me if you thought I wouldn't, lady dear?"

He sat, stooping forward, his hair slightly disarranged, his blue eyes no longer choleric but gently smiling. She realized that he was still goodlooking, still a gentleman, a man of culture and even talent, young enough to move the world, and almost as young in appearance as herself; for mental anxiety and care of any kind always showed directly in her mobile features, and she was already beginning to track a few grey hairs and a few unbecoming wrinkles.

"There's another reason," she said evasively. "You have no idea how persistent this young man, the minister, has become. I have warned him, I have told him--not everything, of course, but a great deal--yet still he follows me, and to-day, I cannot remember what I said; but I have certainly led him to expect that I shall marry him."

"What! The parson! I thought you had more sense. Never do, never in the world. And now in the light of my proposals, see what you would be throwing away."

"But he is very earnest, very determined. He may keep me to my word.

He may not get over it if I refuse, if I manage to leave St. Ignace with you."

Crabbe laughed and kissed her lightly on the ear. He said nothing, but produced first letters and papers from his pocket and then a small case. Pauline opened it; a pair of beautiful ear-rings flashed in the lamp light. In her ears were the imitation ones; she thought no longer of anything but whisking these out and putting on the others. Together they studied the papers and read the letters; and before they parted for the rest of the night she had promised to be ready in a month to marry him wherever he would prefer to have the ceremony performed, and to go abroad with him. She was to say that he had certainly come into some money but not to say how much; she was to busy herself with making arrangements for her brother's future comfort, as in all probability the pair would never revisit St. Ignace; and she was to make in particular a visit of a few days to Hawthorne on special and private business connected with the child Angeel.

CHAPTER XX

A RURAL AUTOCRAT

"The discipline of slavery is unknown Amongst us--hence the more do we require The discipline of virtue."

The presence of Enderby at the Tremblay concert had not been altogether due to the excellence of the programme or the merit of the beneficiaries; he had in fact driven over with the intention of speaking to Ringfield on a subject of some importance--the future of the child in the basket chair. This excellent but domineering storekeeper was the leader of society at Hawthorne; the settlement was not rich in old families, either English or French, and very early in his career he and his wife had taken the helm and continued to hold it, preserving strict notions of etiquette and maintaining a decorous state which would have become the Lieut.-Governor of a Province. Large, stern and florid, he was always the same in manner whether serving behind his counter or taking up the money on Sundays: shining example of intelligence, thrift, and British insularity, such a man as Clarence Enderby carries the love of British inst.i.tutions all over the globe, and one forgives his syntax for the sake of his sincerity. He had always been a fiery conservative and a staunch member of the Church of England; and two or three months before Ringfield's arrival he had organized what was known to all beholders pa.s.sing his shop by a j.a.panned sign hanging outside as the "Public Library," a collection of forty-seven volumes of mixed fiction in which the charming and highly illuminative works of E. P. Roe were chiefly conspicuous, reposing in a select corner of the establishment, somewhat towards the centre, and equidistant from the dry goods, rubbers, hardware and hammocks, and from the candies, groceries, fancy jewellery and sheet music. The proprietors of these country "general stores" are great men in their way: years ago they rolled up fortunes for themselves in their district; potential Whiteleys and Wanamakers, they were the true pioneers in the departmental store business, and on a lilliputian scale "Enderby's" would have compared very well with the Army and Navy Stores of London. Absence of compet.i.tion creates a monopoly, and Enderby's was the best store in a large district including Hawthorne, St. Ignace, Beauscley, his only rival being the Yankee referred to by Crabbe, who did not, however, bear a very good character, having been detected in smuggling some of those old French brandies and liqueurs, although he was outwardly a teetotaller and his place had no licence. Enderby, on the other hand, always drank a gla.s.s of beer with his Sunday dinner; indeed, the arrival of the malt of which his wife and daughter also partook, was a part of Sunday observance, while on birthdays and other anniversaries wine or toddy made their appearance. But extreme regularity and temperance in all things was a strong feature of his character, and he was therefore exceedingly jealous of the honour and good moral standing of the village, and the harbouring of Angeel had been for a long time a matter involving much worry. At the picnic Ringfield's ill-timed allusion to "sinners" had hurt him most particularly, and the more he thought of it the more he grew convinced that the minister could throw some light on the origin of the child and the manner in which it had come to be living at Hawthorne; for up to the present time almost complete ignorance prevailed. This was in itself extraordinary since the area was so small and the population so settled, but shrewd guessers were nearly hitting the mark when they supposed, from certain memories, inferences, and coincidences, that the child belonged to Miss Clairville, and this was precisely the point which offended the store-keeper; had the affair originated in his own parish, no matter how disreputably, he would have guarded the secret, striven to make the best of it, or, if the case abounded in direct violations of morality by those above him in station, all the more he would have preserved an absolutely rigid silence. His contention was--that the business belonged to some other parish, probably that of St. Ignace, and that when strangers, ignorant of this, visited Hawthorne, they took it for granted that Angeel was part of the village, thus bringing undeserved slur and unmerited obloquy upon an innocent community, and he took advantage of the concert to ask for a few words with Ringfield. The latter had just been compelled to witness the desertion of Pauline as she went off with Crabbe and Miss Cordova when he turned to find Enderby waiting to speak to him.

Poussette had withdrawn.

"I hardly know, sir, just how I ought to introduce the subject," said the butcher, in his loftiest manner, eyeing the minister up and down.

"For I have hardly ever spoke to a clergyman of your denomination before."

Ringfield with a somewhat constrained smile a.s.sured the speaker that he was mortal and fairly rational, although he was a Methodist.