Right of Way — 10 - Chapters 29, 30, & 31
CHAPTER XXIX. THE WILD RIDE
There had been a fierce thunder-storm in the valley of the Chaudiere.
It had come suddenly from the east, had shrieked over the village, levelling fences, carrying away small bridges, and ending in a pelting hail, which whitened the ground with pebbles of ice.
It had swept up to Vadrome Mountain, and had marched furiously through the forest, carrying down hundreds of trees, drowning the roars of wild animals and the crying and fluttering of birds.
One hour of ravage and rage, and then, spent and bodiless, the storm crept down the other side of the mountain and into the next parish, whither the affrighted quack-doctor had betaken himself.
After, a perfect calm, a shining sun, and a sweet smell over all the land, which had thirstily drunk the battering showers.
In the house on Vadrome Mountain the tailor of Chaudiere had watched the storm with sympathetic interest.
It was in accord with his own feelings.
He had had a hard fight for months past, and had gone down in the storm of his emotions one night when a song called Champagne Charlie had had a weird and thrilling antiphonal.
There had been a subsequent debacle for himself, and then a revelation concerning Jo Portugais.
Ensued hours and days, wherein he had fought a desperate fight with the present--with himself and the reaction from his dangerous debauch.
The battle for his life had been fought for him by this gloomy woodsman who henceforth represented his past, was bound to him by a measureless gratitude, almost a sacrament--of the damned.
Of himself he had played no conscious part in it till the worst was over.
On the one side was the Cure, patient, gentle, friendly, never pushing forward the Faith which the good man dreamed should give him refuge and peace; on the other side was the murderer, who typified unrest, secretiveness, an awful isolation, and a remorse which had never been put into words or acts of restitution.
For six days the tailor-shop and the life at Chaudiere had been things almost apart from his consciousness.
Ever-recurring memories of Rosalie Evanturel were driven from his mind with a painful persistence.
In the shadows where his nature dwelt now he would not allow her good innocence and truth to enter.
His self-reproach was the more poignant because it was silent.
Watching the tempest-swept valley, the tortured forest, where wild life was in panic, there came upon him the old impulse to put his thoughts into words, “and so be rid of them,” as he was wont to say in other days.
Taking from his pocket some slips of paper, he laid them on the table before him.
Three or four times he leaned over the paper to write, but the noise of the storm again and again drew his look to the window.
The tempest ceased almost as suddenly as it had come, and, as the first sunlight broke through the flying clouds, he mechanically lifted a sheet of the paper and held it up to the light.
It brought to his eyes the large water-mark, Kathleen!
A sombre look passed over his face, he shifted in his chair, then bent over the paper and began to write.
Words flowed from his pen.
The lines of his face relaxed, his eyes lightened; he was lost in a dream.
He thought of the present, and he wrote: “Wave walls to seaward, Storm-clouds to leeward, Beaten and blown by the winds of the West;
Sail we encumbered Past isles unnumbered, But never to greet the green island of Rest.
” He thought of Father Loisel.
He had seen the good man’s lips tremble at some materialistic words he had once used in their many talks, and he wrote: “Lips that now tremble, Do you dissemble When you deny that the human is best?
-- Love, the evangel, Finds the Archangel?
Is that a truth when this may be a jest?
“Star-drifts that glimmer Dimmer and dimmer, What do ye know of my weal or my woe?
Was I born under The sun or the thunder?
What do I come from?
and where do I go?
“Rest, shall it ever Come?
Is endeavour But a vain twining and twisting of cords?
Is faith but treason;
Reason, unreason, But a mechanical weaving of words?
” He thought of Louis Trudel, in his grave, and his own questioning: “Show me a sign from Heaven, tailorman!
” and he wrote: “What is the token, Ever unbroken, Swept down the spaces of querulous years, Weeping or singing That the Beginning Of all things is with us, and sees us, and hears?
” He made an involuntary motion of his hand to his breast, where old Louis Trudel had set a sign.
So long as he lived, it must be there to read: a shining smooth scar of excoriation, a sacred sign of the faith he had never been able to accept; of which he had never, indeed, been able to think, so distant had been his soul, until, against his will, his heart had answered to the revealing call in a woman’s eyes.
He felt her fingers touch his breast as they did that night the iron seared him; and out of this first intimacy of his soul he wrote: “What is the token?
Bruised and broken, Bend I my life to a blossoming rod?
Shall then the worst things Come to the first things, Finding the best of all, last of all, God?
” Like the cry of his “Aphrodite,” written that last afternoon of the old life, this plaint ended with the same restless, unceasing question.
But there was a difference.
There was no longer the material, distant note of a pagan mind; there was the intimate, spiritual note of a mind finding a foothold on the submerged causeway of life and time.
As he folded up the paper to put it into his pocket, Jo Portugais entered the room.
He threw in a corner the wet bag which had protected his shoulders from the rain, hung his hat on a peg of the chimney-piece, nodded to Charley, and put a kettle on the little fire.
“A big storm, M’sieu’,” Jo said presently as he put some tea into a pot.
“I have never seen a great storm in a forest before,” answered Charley, and came nearer to the window through which the bright sun streamed.
“It always does me good,” said Jo.
“Every bird and beast is awake and afraid and trying to hide, and the trees fall, and the roar of it like the roar of the chasse-galerie on the Kimash River.
” “The Kimash River--where is it?
” Jo shrugged his shoulders.
“Who knows!
” “Is it a legend, then?
” “It is a river.
” “And the chasse-galerie?
” “That is true, M’sieu’, no matter what any one thinks.
I know; I have seen--I have seen with my own eyes.
” Jo was excited now.
“I am listening.
” He took a cup of tea from Portugais and drank eagerly.
“The Kimash River, M’sieu’, that is the river in the air.
On it is the chasse-galerie.
You sell your soul to the devil; you ask him to help you; you deny God.
You get into a canoe and call on the devil.
You are lifted up, canoe and all, and you rush on down rapids, over falls, on the Kimash River in the air.
The devil stands behind you and shouts, and you sing, ‘V’la!
l’bon vent!
V’la l’joli vent!
’ On and on you go, faster and faster, and you forget the world, and you forget yourself, and the devil is with you in the air--in the chasse-galerie on the Kimash River.
” “Jo,” said Charley Steele, “do you honestly think there’s a river like that?
” ‘M’sieu’, I know it.
I saw Ignace Latoile, who robbed a priest and got drunk on the communion wine--I saw him with the devil in the Black Canoe at the Saguenay.
I could see Ignace; I could see the devil; I could see the Kimash River.
I shall ride myself some day.
“Ride where?
” “What does it matter where?
” “Why should you ride?
” “Because you ride fast with the devil.
” “What is the good of riding fast?
” “In the rush a man forget.
” “What does he forget, my friend?
” There was a pause, in which a man with a load of crime upon his soul dwelt upon the words my friend, coming from the lips of one who knew the fulness of his iniquity.
Then he answered: “In the noise he forget that a voice is calling in his ear, ‘You did It!
’ He forget what he see in his dreams.
He forget the hand that touch him on the arm when he walk in the woods alone, or lie down to sleep at night, no one near.
He forget that some one wait--wait--wait, till he has suffer long enough, or till, one day, he think he is happy again, and the Thing he did is far off like a dream--to drag him out to the death he did not die.
He forget that he is alone--all alone in the world, for ever and ever and ever.
” He suddenly sank upon the floor beside Charley, and a groan burst from his lips.
“To have no friend--ah, it is so awful!
” he said.
“Never to see a face that look into yours, and know how bad are you, and doesn’t mind.
For five years I have live like that.
I cannot let any one be my friend because I was that!
They seem to know--everything, everybody--what I am.
The little children when I pass them run away to hide.
I have wake in the night and cry out in fear, it is so lonely.
I
have hear voices round me in the woods, and I run and run and run from them, and not leave them behind.
Three times I go to the jails in Quebec to see the prisoners behind the bars, and watch the pains on their faces, to understand what I escape.
Five times have I go to the courts to listen to murderers tried, and watch them when the Jury say Guilty!
and the Judge send them to death--that I might know.
Twice have I go to see murderers hung.
Once I was helper to the hangman, that I might hear and know what the man said, what he felt.
When the arms were bound, I felt the straps on my own; when the cap come down, I gasp for breath;
when the bolt is shot, I feel the wrench and the choke, and shudder go through myself--feel the world jerk out in the dark.
When the body is bundled in the pit, I see myself lie still under the quick-lime with the red mark round my throat.
” Charley touched him on the shoulder.
“Jo--poor Jo, my friend!
” he said.
Jo raised his eyes, red with an unnatural fire, deep with gratitude.
“As I sit at my dinner, with the sun shining and the woods green and glad, and all the world gay, I have see what happened all over again.
I have see his strong hands; his bad face laugh at my words; I have see him raise his riding-whip and cut me across the head.
I have see him stagger and fall from the blows I give him with the knife--the knife which never was found--why, I not know, for I throw it on the ground beside him!
There, as I sit in the open day, a thousand times I have see him shiver and fall, staring, staring at me as if he see a dreadful thing.
Then I stand up again and strike at him--at his ghost!
--as I did that day in the woods.
Again I see him lie in his blood, straight and white--so large, so handsome, so still!
I have shed tears--but what are tears!
Blind with tears I have call out for the devils of hell to take me with them.
I have call on God to give me death.
I have prayed, and I have cursed.
Twice I have travelled to the grave where he lies.
I have knelt there and have beg him to tell the truth to God, and say that he torture me till I kill him.
I have beg him to forgive me and to haunt me no more with his bad face.
But never--never--never--have I one quiet hour until you come, M’sieu’; nor any joy in my heart till I tell you the black truth--M’sieu’!
M’sieu!
” He buried his face between Charley’s feet, and held them with his hands.
Charley laid a hand on the shaggy head as though it were that of a child.
“Be still--be still, Jo,” he said gently.
Since that night of St. Jean Baptiste’s festival, no word of the past, of the time when Charley turned aside the revanche of justice from a man called Joseph Nadeau, had been spoken between them.
Out of the delirium of his drunken trance had come Charley’s recognition of the man he knew now as Jo Portugais.
But the recognition had been sent again into the obscurity whence it came, and had not been mentioned since.
To outward seeming they had gone on as before.
As Charley saw the knotted brows, the staring eyes, the clinched hands, the figure of the woodsman rigid in its agony of remorse, he said to himself: “What right had I to save this man’s life?
To have paid for his crime would have been easier for him.
I knew he was guilty.
Perhaps it was my duty to see that every condition, to the last shade of the law, was satisfied, but was it justice to the poor devil himself?
There he sits with a load on him that weighs him down every hour of his life.
I called him back; I gave him life; but I gave him memory and remorse, and the ghosts that haunt him: the voice in his ear, the touch on his arm, the some one that is ‘waiting--waiting--waiting!
’ That is what I did, and that is what the brother of the Cure did for me.
He drew me back.
He knew I was a drunkard, but he drew me back.
I might have been a murderer like Portugais.
The world says I was a thief, and a thief I am until I prove to the world I am innocent--and wreck three lives!
How much of Jo’s guilt is guilt?
How much remorse should a man suffer to pay the debt of a life?
If the law is an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth, how much hourly remorse and torture, such as Jo’s, should balance the eye or the tooth or the life?
I wonder, now!
” He leaned over, and, helping Jo to his feet, gently forced him down upon a bench near.
“All right, Jo, my friend,” he said.
“I understand.
We’ll drink the gall together.
” They sat and looked at each other in silence.
At length Charley leaned over and touched Jo on the shoulder.
“Why did you want to save yourself?
” he said.
At that instant there was a knock at the door, and a voice said: “Monsieur!
--Monsieur!
” Jo sprang to his feet with a sharp exclamation, then went heavily to the door and threw it open.
CHAPTER XXX. ROSALIE WARNS CHARLEY
Charley’s eyes met Rosalie’s with a look the girl had never seen in them before.
It gave a glow to his haggard face.
Rosalie turned to Jo and greeted him with a friendlier manner than was her wont towards him.
The nearer she was to Charley, the farther away from him, to her mind, was Portugais, and she became magnanimous.
Jo nodded’ awkwardly and left the room.
Looking after the departing figure, Rosalie said: “I know he has been good to you, but--but do you trust him, Monsieur?
” “Does not everybody in Chaudiere trust him?
” “There is one who does not, though perhaps that’s of no consequence.
” “Why do you not trust him?
” “I don’t know.
I never knew him do a bad thing; I never heard of a bad thing he has done; and--he has been good to you.
” She paused, flushing as she felt the significance of her words, and continued: “Yet there is--I cannot tell what.
I feel something.
It is not reasonable to go upon one’s feelings; but there it is, and so I do not trust him.
” “It is the way he lives, here in these lonely woods--the mystery around him.
” A change passed over her.
With the first glow of meeting the object of her visit had receded, though since her last interview with the Seigneur she had not rested a moment, in her anxiety to warn him of his danger.
“Oh, no,” she said, lifting her eyes frankly to his: “oh, no, Monsieur!
It is not that.
There is mystery about you!
” She felt her heart beating hard.
It almost choked her, but she kept on bravely.
“People say strange and bad things about you.
No one knows”--she trembled under the painful inquiry of his eyes.
Then she gained courage and went on, for she must make it clear she trusted him, that she took him at his word, before she told him of the peril before him--“No one knows where you came from...
and it is nobody’s business.
Some people do not believe in you.
But I believe in you--I should believe in you if every one doubted; for there is no feeling in me that says, ‘He has done some wicked thing that stands-between us.
’ It isn’t the same as with Portugais, you see--naturally, it could not be the same.
” She seemed not to realise that she was telling more of her own heart than she had ever told.
It was a revelation, having its origin in an honesty which impelled a pure outspokenness to himself.
Reserve, of course, there had been elsewhere, for did not she hold a secret with him?
Had she not hidden things, equivocated else where?
Yet it had been at his wish, to protect the name of a dead man, for the repose of whose soul masses were now said, with expensive candles burning.
For this she had no repentance; she was without logic where this man’s good was at stake.
Charley had before him a problem, which he now knew he never could evade in the future.
He could solve it by none of the old intellectual means, but by the use of new faculties, slowly emerging from the unexplored fastnesses of his nature.
“Why should you believe in me?
” he asked, forcing himself to smile, yet acutely alive to the fact that a crisis was impending.
“You, like all down there in Chaudiere, know nothing of my past, are not sure that I haven’t been a hundred times worse than you think poor Jo there.
I may have been anything.
You may be harbouring a man the law is tracking down.
” In all that befell Rosalie Evanturel thereafter, never could come such another great resolute moment.
There was nothing to support her in the crisis but her own faith.
It needed high courage to tell this man who had first given her dreams, then imagination, hope, and the beauty of doing for another’s well-being rather than for her own--to tell this man that he was a suspected criminal.
Would he hate her?
Would his kindness turn to anger?
Would he despise her for even having dared to name the suspicion which was bringing hither an austere Abbe and officers of the law?
“We are harbouring a man the law is tracking down,” she said with an infinite appeal in her eyes.
He did not quite understand.
He thought that perhaps she meant Jo, and he glanced towards the door; but she kept her eyes on him, and they told him that she meant himself.
He chilled, as though ether were being poured through his veins.
Did the world know, then, that Charley Steele was alive?
Was the law sending its officers to seize the embezzler, the ruffian who had robbed widow and orphan?
If it were so....
To go back to the world whence he came, with the injury he must do to others, and the punishment also that he must suffer, if he did not tell the truth about Billy!
And Chaudiere, which, in spite of all, was beginning to have a real belief in him--where was his contempt for the world now!...
And Rosalie, who trusted him--this new element rapidly grew dominant in his thoughts-to be the common criminal in her eyes!
His paleness gave way to a flush as like her own as could be.
“You mean me?
” he asked quietly.
She had thought that his flush meant anger, and she was surprised at the quiet tone.
She nodded assent.
“For what crime?
” he asked.
“For stealing.
” His heart seemed to stand still.
Then, it had come in spite of all it had come.
Here was his resurrection, and the old life to face.
“What did I steal?
” he asked with dull apathy.
“The gold vessels from the Catholic Cathedral of Quebec, after--after trying to blow up Government House with gunpowder.
” His despair passed.
His face suddenly lighted.
He smiled.
It was so absurd.
“Really!
” he said.
“When was the place blown up?
” “Two days before you came here last year--it was not blown up; an attempt was made.
” “Ah, I did not know.
Why was the attempt made to blow it up?
” “Some Frenchman’s hatred of the English, they say.
” “But I am not French.
” “They do not know.
You speak French as perfectly as English--ah, Monsieur, Monsieur, I believe you are whatever you say.
” Pain and appeal rang from her lips.
“I am only an honest tailor,” he answered gently.
He ruled his face to calmness, for he read the agony in the girl’s face, and troubled as he was, he wished to show her that he had no fear.
“It is for what you were they will arrest you,” she said helplessly, and as though he needed to have all made clear to him.
“Oh, Monsieur,” she continued, in a broken voice, “it would shame me so to have you made a prisoner in Chaudiere--before all these silly people, who turn with the wind.
I should not lift my head--but yes, I should lift my head!
” she added hurriedly.
“I should tell them all they lied--every one--the idiots!
The Seigneur--” “Well, what of the Seigneur-Rosalie?
” Her own name on his lips--the sound of it dimmed her eyes.
“Monsieur Rossignol does not know you.
He neither believes nor disbelieves.
He said to me that if you wanted consideration, to command him, for in Chaudiere he had heard nothing but good of you.
If you stayed, he would see that you had justice--not persecution.
I saw him two hours ago.
” She said the last words shyly, for she was thinking why the Seigneur had spoken as he did--that he had taken her opinion of Monsieur as his guide, and she had not scrupled to impress him with her views.
The Seigneur was in danger of becoming prejudiced by his sentiments.
A wave of feeling passed over Charley, a rushing wave of sympathy for this simple girl, who, out of a blind confidence, risked so much for him.
Risk there certainly was, if she--if she cared for him.
It was cruelty not to reassure her.
Touching his breast, he said gravely: “By this sign here, I am not guilty of the crime for which they come to seek me, Rosalie.
Nor of any other crime for which the law might punish me--dear, noble friend.
” He did so little to get such rich return.
Her eyes leaped up to brighter degrees of light, her face shone with a joy it had never reflected before, her blood rushed to her finger-tips.
She abruptly sat down in a chair and buried her face in her hands, trembling.
Then, lifting her head slowly, after a moment she spoke in a tone that told him her faith, her gratitude--not for reassurance, but for confidence, which is as water in a thirsty land to a woman.
“Oh, Monsieur, I thank you, I thank you from the depth of my heart; and my heart is deep indeed, very, very deep--I cannot find what lies lowest in it!
I thank you, because you trust me, because you make it so easy to--to be your friend; to say ‘I know’ when any one might doubt you.
One has no right to speak for another till--till the other has given confidence, has said you may.
Ah, Monsieur, I am so happy!
” In very abandonment of heart she clasped her hands and came a step nearer to him, but abruptly stopped still; for, realising her action, timidity and embarrassment rushed upon her.
Charley understood, and again his impulse was to say what was in his heart and dare all; but resolution possessed him, and he said quickly: “Once, Rosalie, you saved me--from death perhaps.
Once your hands helped my pain--here.
” He touched his breast.
“Your words now, and what you do, they still help me--here...
but in a different way.
The trouble is in my heart, Rosalie.
You are glad of my confidence?
Well, I will give you more....
I cannot go back to my old life.
To do so would injure others--some who have never injured me and some who have.
That is why.
That is why I do not wish to be taken to Quebec now on a false charge.
That is all I can say.
Is it enough?
” She was about to answer, but Jo Portugais entered, exclaiming.
“M’sieu’,” he cried, “men are coming with the Seigneur and Cure.
