Rose A Charlitte Part 62

There will be a big wagon filled with straw, and all the young people from here are going, Raoul says. It will be fun; will you go?"

"Yes, if it will please you."

"It will," and she turned to the boy. "Run home, Raoul, and tell Lucie that we accept her invitation. Thou art not vexed with me for correcting thee?"

"_Nenni_" (no), said the child, displaying a dimple in his cheek.

Bidiane caught him and kissed him. "In the spring we will have great fun, thou and I. We will go back to the woods, and with a sharp knife tear the bark from young spruces, and eat the juicy _bobillon_ inside.

Then we will also find candy. Canst thou dig up the fern roots and peel them until thou findest the tender morsel at the bottom?"

"_Oui_," laughed the child, and Bidiane, after pushing him towards Rose, for an embrace from her, conducted him to the gate.

"Is there any use in asking Rose to go with us this evening?" she said, coming back to Agapit, and speaking in an undertone.

"No, I think not."

"Why is it that she avoids all junketing, and sits only with sick people?"

He murmured an uneasy, unintelligible response, and Bidiane again directed her attention to Rose. "What are you staring at so intently, _ma chere_?"

"That beautiful stranger," said Rose, nodding towards the Bay. "It is a new sail."

"Every woman on the Bay knows the ships but me," said Bidiane, discontentedly. "I have got out of it from being so long away."

"And why do the girls know the ships?" asked Agapit.

Bidiane discreetly refused to answer him.

"Because they have lovers on board. Your lover stays on sh.o.r.e, little one."

"And poor Rose looks over the sea," said Bidiane, dreamily. "I should think that you might trust me now with the story of her trouble, whatever it is, but you are so reserved, so fearful of making wild statements. You don't treat me as well even as you do a business person,--a client is it you call one?"

Agapit smiled happily. "Marry me, then, and in becoming your advocate I will deal plainly with you as a client, and state fully to you all the facts of this case."

"I daresay we shall have frightful quarrels when we are married," said Bidiane, cheerfully.

"I daresay."

"Just see how Rose stares at that ship."

"She is a beauty," said Agapit, critically, "and foreign rigged."

There was "a free wind" blowing, and the beautiful stranger moved like a graceful bird before it. Rose--the favorite occupation in whose quiet life was to watch the white sails that pa.s.sed up and down the Bay--still kept her eyes fixed on it, and presently said, "The stranger is pointing towards Sleeping Water."

"I will get the marine gla.s.s," said Bidiane, running to the house.

"She is putting out a boat," said Rose, when she came back. "She is coming in to the wharf."

"Allow me to see for one minute, Rose," said Agapit, and he extended his hand for the gla.s.s; then silently watched the sailors running about and looking no larger than ants on the distant deck.

"They are not going to the wharf," said Bidiane. "They are making for that rock by the inn bathing-house. Perhaps they will engage in swimming."

A slight color appeared in Rose's cheeks, and she glanced longingly at the gla.s.s that Agapit still held. The mystery of the sea and the magic of ships and of seafaring lives was interwoven with her whole being. She felt an intense gentle interest in the strange sail and the foreign sailors, and nothing would have given her greater pleasure than to have shown them some kindness.

"I wish," she murmured, "that I were now at the inn. They should have a jug of cream, and some fresh fruit."

The horseshoe cottage being situated on rising ground, a little beyond the river, afforded the three people on the lawn an uninterrupted view of the movements of the boat. While Bidiane prattled on, and severely rebuked Agapit for his selfishness in keeping the gla.s.s to himself, Rose watched the boat touching the big rocks, where one man sprang from it, and walked towards the inn.

She could see his figure in the distance, looking at first scarcely larger than a black lead pencil, but soon taking on the dimensions of a rather short, thick-set man. He remained stationary on the inn veranda for a few minutes, then, leaving it, he pa.s.sed down the village street.

"It is some stranger from abroad, asking his way about," said Bidiane; "one of the numerous Comeau tribe, no doubt. Oh, I hope he will go on the drive to-night."

"Why, I believe he is coming here," she exclaimed, after another period of observation of the stranger's movements; "he is pa.s.sing by all the houses. Yes, he is turning in by the cutting through the hill. Who can he be?"

Rose and Agapit, grown strangely silent, did not answer her, and, without thinking of examining their faces, she kept her eyes fixed on the man rapidly approaching them.

"He is neither old nor young," she said, vivaciously. "Yes, he is, too,--he is old. His hair is quite gray. He swaggers a little bit. I think he must be the captain of the beautiful stranger. There is an indefinable something about him that doesn't belong to a common sailor; don't you think so, Agapit?"

Her red head tilted itself sideways, yet she still kept a watchful eye on the newcomer. She could now see that he was quietly dressed in dark brown clothes, that his complexion was also brown, his eyes small and twinkling, his lips thick, and partly covered by a short, grizzled mustache. He wore on his head a white straw hat, that he took off when he neared the group.

His face was now fully visible, and there was a wild cry from Rose. "Ah, Charlitte, Charlitte,--you have come back!"

CHAPTER XIV.

BIDIANE RECEIVES A SHOCK.

"Whate'er thy lot, whoe'er thou be,-- Confess thy folly, kiss the rod, And in thy chastening sorrow, see The hand of G.o.d."

MONTGOMERY.

Bidiane flashed around upon her companions. Rose--pale, trembling, almost unearthly in a beauty from which everything earthly and material seemed to have been purged away--stood extending her hands to the wanderer, her only expression one of profound thanksgiving for his return.

Agapit, on the contrary, sat stock-still, his face convulsed with profound and bitter contempt, almost with hatred; and Bidiane, in speechless astonishment, stared from him to the others.

Charlitte was not dead,--he had returned; and Rose was not surprised,--she was even glad to see him! What did it mean, and where was Mr. Nimmo's share in this reunion? She clenched her hands, her eyes filled with despairing tears, and, in subdued anger, she surveyed the very ordinary-looking man, who had surrendered one of his brown hands to Rose, in pleased satisfaction.

"You are more stunning than ever, Rose," he said, coolly kissing her; "and who is this young lady?" and he pointed a st.u.r.dy forefinger at Bidiane, who stood in the background, trembling in every limb.

"It is Bidiane LeNoir, Charlitte, from up the Bay. Bidiane, come shake hands with my husband."

"I forbid," said Agapit, calmly. He had recovered himself, and, with a face as imperturbable as that of the sphinx, he now sat staring up into the air.

"Agapit," said Rose, pleadingly, "will you not greet my husband after all these years?"

"No," he said, "I will not," and coolly taking up his pipe he lighted it, turned away from them, and began to smoke.