The Mistress of Bonaventure Part 35

Ailin Redmond ceased with a little gasp. And glancing at the dilapidated account book she touched, I wondered what power it could have had to change her triumph into an agony.

"I sat all that night beside the stove trying to force myself to burn the book, and yet afraid," she continued. "Perhaps we are superst.i.tious; but I felt that I dare not, and its secret has been a very burden ever since. Sometimes I thought of the revenge it would give me, and yet I could not take it without blackening my father's memory. So I kept silence until my health commenced to fail under the strain, and meeting Mr. Boone at Brandan, where I sang at the time Mr. Ormesby's trial filled the papers, I felt I must tell him part of my discovery. Had the trial not ended as it did he would have consulted with Lawyer Dixon.

Afterwards, though I hated Lane the more, I pledged Mr. Boone to secrecy, and kept silent until, when I could bear the load no longer, I told my trouble to Pere Louis. 'If you only desire vengeance it would be better to burn the book; but if you can save innocent men from persecution and prevent the triumph of the wicked, silence would be a sin,' he said. Then I wrote to Mr. Boone and told him I would show the papers to Mr. Ormesby."

I opened the battered volume handed me with a strong sense of antic.i.p.ation, and, as I did so, the girl shrank back shivering.

Redmond's writing was recognizable, and I thrilled alternately with pity and indignation against another person as I read his testimony. Omitting other details, the dated entries, arranged in debit and credit fashion, told the whole story.

"Deep snow and stock very poor," the first I glanced at ran. "Received from Ormesby three loads of hay. Sure 'tis a decent neighbor, for he wouldn't take no pay. Entered so, if I ever have the luck, to send it back to him.

"Plow-oxen sick; horse-team sore-backed; seven days' plowing done by Ormesby, say--money at harvest, or to be returned in help stock driving.

"Fifty dollars loan from Ormesby; see entry overdue grocery bill."

"Is it necessary for me to read any more of these?" I asked.

"No. If you are satisfied that he at least recognized the debt, pa.s.s on to the other marked pages," answered the writer's daughter.

I set my lips as I did so, for there was only one inference to be drawn from the following entries, which ran dated in a series: "Demand for fifteen hundred dollars from Lane. No credit, ten dollars in the house.

Lane came over, and part renewed the loan in return for services to be rendered. Black curses on the pitiless devil! Took twenty head of prime stock, to be driven to the hollow with Ormesby's. Started out with the stock for Gaspard's Trail."

There were no further entries, and Miss Redmond, who had been watching me, said, with a perceptible effort:

"You will remember all those dates well. Now read what is written on the loose leaf. When I came in one night the book lay on the table with that leaf projecting; but as my father was always fretting over the accounts, I did not glance at it as I replaced the book."

The writing was blurred and scrawling--the work of an unstable man in a moment of agony; and some of the half-coherent sentences ran: "It was Lane and his master the devil who drove me. I did not mean to do what I did; but when the fire came down, remembered he said 'any convenient accident.' I knew it was murder when I saw Ormesby with the blood on his face." Further lines were almost unintelligible, but I made out, "Judas.

No room on earth. Lane says he is dying fast. You will hate the man who drove me for ever and ever."

I folded up the paper, and, not having read the whole of it, handed it to the girl. "I am almost sorry you were brave enough to show me this; but I can only try to forget it," I said.

Miss Redmond's eyes were dry; but she moved as if in physical pain, and clenched one hand as she said: "That secret has worn me down for weary months, and I dare not change my mind again. I shall never rest until it is certain that wicked man shall drive no one else to destruction. You must show Mr. Haldane all you have read."

Haldane laid down the book, and sat silent for at least a minute. "Will you please tell us, Miss Redmond, how far you can allow us to make use of this?" he said.

The girl shuddered before she answered: "It must not be made public; but if in any other way you can strike Lane down, I will leave it you. You can hardly guess what all this has cost me; but, G.o.d forgive me, the hate I feel is stronger than shame--and his last words are burned into my brain."

Ailin Redmond rose as she spoke, and I saw that part of Pere Louis's admonition had fallen upon stony ground. Her face and pose were what they had been when she had bidden us bring the dead man in. She came of a pa.s.sionate race; but there had also been a signal lack of balance in her father's temperament, and perhaps it was this very strain of wildness which had made her singing a success.

Haldane, with expressions of sympathy, led her to the door, and returning, sat staring straight before him with a curious expression. "I don't know that the stolid, emotionless person is not far the happiest,"

he said at last. "She must have suffered a good deal--poor soul; and, even allowing that you had not seen those pitiful papers, I'm doubtful if you acted quite wisely, Boone. However, the question now is: how are we going to use them?"

"n.o.body but ourselves must see them," I managed to answer, savage as I was.

"I would make one exception," said the owner of Bonaventure. "That one is the man responsible. It can be no enlightenment to him, and the fact that he would not suspect us of any reluctance to make the most of our power, strengthens our ability to deal with him."

Our conference ended shortly, and when we joined the others I saw that Lucille Haldane had taken Redmond's daughter under her wing. How she had managed it, of course I do not know; but the latter appeared comforted already, and there was a gentle dimness instead of the former hard glitter in her eyes. Then, and it was not for the first time, I felt that I could have bowed down and worshiped the Mistress of Bonaventure.

It was evident that Boone had also been observant, for he afterwards said, with unusual gravity: "Women resembling Miss Lucille Haldane are the salt of this sorrowful world. There was only one I ever knew to compare with her, and she, being too good for it, was translated to what, if only because she was called there, must be a better."

I agreed with his first statement entirely, and took his word for the rest; but made no answer. Boone did not appear to desire one, and again a strange longing filled his eyes while the shadow crept into his face.

I remembered it was written that the heart knows its own bitterness.

CHAPTER XXV

A CHANGE OF TACTICS

The fires of sunset were fading low down on the verge of the prairie when I spoke for the last time with Beatrice Haldane, as it happened, beside the splendid wheat. It was changing from green to ochre, and there was a play of varied light athwart the rigid blades, which in its own way emphasized the symmetry of the tall figure in pale-tinted draperies. Miss Haldane was stately of presence, but it was symbolic of the difference between us that while we of the prairie ever turned our eyes instinctively towards the West, she stood looking back towards civilization and the darkening East, with a cold green brilliancy burning behind her head. It matched the face projected against it, which was that of a statue, perfect in modeling, as I still think, if almost as colorless and serene. Beatrice Haldane was very beautiful, and every curve and fold of the simple dress was immaculate and harmonious because it seemed a part of her.

My threadbare jean clung shapelessly about me, there was thick dust on my old leggings and a rent in my broad hat, which trifles were, by comparison, not without significance. Beatrice Haldane was clearly born to take a leading place, with the eyes of many upon her, where life pulsed fastest in the older world. I was a plain rancher, conscious, in spite of theories concerning its dignity, of the brand of rude labor and the stain of the soil; but at least my eyes were opened so that I had seen the utter impossibility of a once cherished dream.

"The prairie is very beautiful to-night, and surely this grain promises a splendid yield," she said. "I am glad that it is so, for it will leave a pleasant memory. I shall probably never stand beside the wheat again."

This, I knew, was true. Beatrice Haldane would leave for Montreal and Paris in a day or two, and, paying Bonaventure a farewell visit, she had ridden over with her father, who had business with me. Strange to say, I could now contemplate her approaching marriage with equanimity.

"There are many drawbacks, but it is a good country," I answered thoughtfully.

Beatrice Haldane looked at me, and again I felt that she could still draw my soul to the surface for inspection if she desired to. I also fancied she knew her power, and wished to exercise it, but not from pride in its possession.

"And yet you can now hardly hope for more than a laborious life and moderate prosperity. The prairie is often dreary, and the toil almost brutalizing. Are you still content?"

The sympathy in the voice robbed the words of any sting, and I answered cheerfully: "It is all that you say; but there are compensations, and I think no effort is thrown away. I can only repeat the old argument. One can feel that he is playing a useful part in a comprehensive scheme even in the muddiest tramp down a half-thawn furrow, and that every ear of wheat called up or added head of cattle is needed by the world. Perhaps the chief care of three-fourths of humanity concerns their daily bread.

Of course, our princ.i.p.al motive is the desire to attain our own, and you may not understand that there is a satisfaction in the mere discovering of how much one can do without, and, possibly as a result of this, that one's physical nature rises equal to the strain."

"And what do you gain--the right to work still harder?" she asked. "I can grasp the half-formed ideal in your mind, and it is old, for thousands of years before Th.o.r.eau men enlarged on it. Still, it has always seemed to me that the realization is only possible to the very few, and to the rest the result mostly destructive to the intellect."

I laughed a little. "And I am very much of the rank and file; but at least I have no hope of emulating either the medieval devotees or the modern Hindoo visionaries. We practice self-denial from the prosaic lack of money, or to save a little to sink in a longer furrow, and endure fatigue more often to pay our debts than to acquire a bank balance. Yet the result is not affected. The world is better fed."

"Yes," she said thoughtfully. "It seems that whatever your motives may be these things possess virtue in themselves--but the virtues do not necessarily react upon those who practice them."

"That is true," I answered. "Perhaps it is the motives that count."

Beatrice Haldane looked away towards the dying fires. "There was a time when you would not have been content."

The wondrous green transparency had almost gone, the dew touched the wheat, and we stood alone in the emptiness, under the hush that crept up with the dimness from the east, and through which one could almost hear the thirsty gra.s.ses drink. I knew now that I had never loved Beatrice Haldane as a man usually loves a woman, but had offered an empty homage to an unreality. Still, the semblance had once been real enough to me, and I could not wholly hold my peace and let her go. Furthermore, both she and her sister possessed the gift of forcing one's inmost thoughts, and there was a power in the quiet voice stronger than my will.

"No. I once had my ambitions and an ideal," I said. "At first their realization seemed possible, but I had my lesson. Even when I knew the ideal was unattainable, the knowledge did not decrease its influence, and now, while smiling at past presumption, I can at least cherish the memory. I think you must have known part of this."

Beatrice Haldane had by knowledge attained to a perfection of simplicity, and, while my own was either the result of ignorance or born in me, we met upon it as man and woman--the latter too queenly to stoop to any small a.s.sumption of diffidence.

"I guessed it long ago, and there was a time when I was pleased," she said. "However, it was doubtless well for you that, when contact with the world taught me what we both were, I knew it was impossible. When we met again on the prairie, you could not see that I was not the girl you knew in England. She had, in the meantime, bought enlightenment dearly; though whether it or her earlier fancies were nearer the hidden truth she does not know."

"In one respect you can never change to me," I said. "The sunny-faced girl in England will always live in my memory."

Beatrice Haldane smiled, though the fast fading light showed the weariness in her eyes. "Until you find the substance better than the shadow; and she must always have been unreal. Still, we are not proof against such a.s.surances, and I am even now partly pleased to hear you say so. Do you know that you have shamed me, Harry Ormesby?"

"That would be impossible," I said; and my companion smiled.