_ CHAPTER XXIX. BITTER ALOES
Eight months passed over the country of the Assiniboine, bringing their changes. The short full-tide of the summer seemed to run out with the going of the venturers, and the autumn to come from the north-west in a night.
Great splashes of colour dropped on the land, spilled from the palette of some careless giant,--gold and crimson and purple. Glorious fires burned in the cooling skies and the sweet breath of autumn tingled in the air.
There was comment, and the shaking of heads among the old trappers. The wrong time of year to take the long trail with women,--the wrong time, but, bon Dieu! who was to stop that woman with the sombre eyes? Voila! A woman to thrill the blood in any man who was still warm with life!
"Love awakened in her would be a thing of flame and fury, they had thought, that long past day," thought Pierre Garcon to himself; "he and that friend of his heart, Marc Dupre,--it had been a thing of patient servitude, of transcendent daring, and Marc Dupre; ah! He had been a part of it. But there was much of mystery about it all, and no one knew, nor would any know, all that it had meant."
So the changes came and passed, and when Anders McElroy again opened his eyes to reason, the world was white against the pane of the one window of the little room,--the long snows had arrived. Winter was upon the Northland.
It was on a night when the wind without howled like a lost soul shut out from the universe and the sucking of the chimney-throat roared to heaven.
Edmonton Ridgar sat at the hearth gazing into the leaping flames, and Rette de Lancy passed and repassed among the shifting shadows, busy at some kindly task.
Long he lay, this man returned from the Borderland of the Unknown, and stared weakly at the familiar sights that were yet touched with a puzzling strangeness.
It seemed that this was all as it should be, and yet there was something lacking,--a great gap, whose images and happenings were wiped out as a cloth wipes clean a slate,--a space of darkness, of blankness, whose empty void held prescience of some great sadness. He lay on his side facing the fire, and twice he thought to speak to Ridgar with a question of this strangeness, and each time he was conscious of a vast surprise that the man did not answer.
His lips, so long unused to sane direction, had made no sound in the roar of the night.
And then Ridgar, drawn by that intangible sense of eyes upon him, raised his head; and, as their glances met, that great void flashed suddenly into full panoply of life peopled with a ring of painted faces against the background of a night forest, a leaping fire, and the heroic figure of a tall woman who stood in the dancing light and threw a hatchet at a painted post.
Ridgar's eyes, as he had seen them in the dimness of the outskirts of that massed circle, brought back the lost period of time and all that had passed therein.
He stared wildly at him, and then around the firelit room.
"Ah!" said Ridgar softly, getting slowly to his feet with a smile at once tender and exaggeratedly calm. "You have awakened, have you; eh, lad? Would you sleep the whole night away as well as the day?"
He came to the bed and took McElroy's hand tenderly in his, while he gave Rette a warning glance.
McElroy tried to rise, but only his head obeyed, lifting itself a bit from the pillow to fall helplessly back.
He looked up at Ridgar with a look that cut that good man's heart, so full was it of wild entreaty and piteous grief.
"Maren?" whispered the weak lips. "Maren,--where--?" And they, too, failed him.
"Safe," said Ridgar gently; "all is well. We are at De Seviere and there is no need to think. Do you drink a sip of Rette's good broth and sleep again."
With a sigh of ineffable relief the sick man obeyed like a child, falling back into the shadows, though this time they were the blessed shades of the Vale of Healing Rest.
Rette in a corner was wiping her eyes and saying, over and over, a prayer of thanksgiving for deliverance from death.
With infinite tact Ridgar kept him quiet, promising the tale of what had happened, and, when the flow of returning life could no longer be stemmed, he set himself the task of telling what he knew of those swift days.
It was again night, though a week of nights had passed since that on which the factor had awakened to consciousness, and Ridgar had dismissed Rette.
There was only the roar of the wind without, the whistle of the fire, and the two men alone in the room as they had been many a winter's night.
"Now,--where shall I begin?" said the chief trader, gazing into the fire. "At what point?"
"Maren," said McElroy eagerly, from the bed; "begin with her."
Ridgar shook his head.
"Nay, it goes farther back. Let it begin with the leaving of De Seviere and the coldness of my bearing to you.... Did you never think, lad, that it was but a blind, covering the determination to help you at the first opportunity? Thought you the friendship of years so poor a thing as to be turned in a day? Day by day my heart ached for some word with you, or even a glance that would make all straight; but those painted devils watched my every move, my every look, the very intaking of my breath, as the coyote watches the gopher-hole when the badger is below. Only for sake of the dead chief at my feet was I given such seemingly free leave among them,--for myself, I had been shipped as were poor De Courtenay's Nor'westers at Wenusk Creek. And now is the time when I must go farther back and tell you of the good chief who was my father, indeed, at heart."
Ridgar paused a moment, and his eyes took on a look of distant things
"Have you not wondered how it was, lad, that a man should live long as I have lived in the wilderness, alone, without ties other than those which bind him to the Great Company, without love of woman, without the joy of children?... I have not always lived so. Time was when I had my own wickiup, when I lay by my own night-fire and played with the braids of a woman's hair,--long black braids, bound with crimson silk and heavy with ornaments, for whose buying I paid my year's catch, when I looked into eyes black as the woods at night and dumb with the great love she could not speak.... She lived it one day ... nay, died it--when I had some words with a young man of the tribe, who drew a spear before I knew what he meant and hurled it at me. She...leaped between. God!"
He ceased again, and McElroy could hear his breathing, see the whitened knuckles of his hands grasping the poker from the hearth where he had absently stirred the leaping fire.
"It went quite through her,--a foot beyond her swelling breast, full for my only child, unborn.... She was Negansahima's daughter.... We mourned together, the old chief and I, and our hearts were bound close as the tree and its bark. In a far high hill of the Pays d'en Haut we put her to sleep with that last look of love on her dark face...and we made a pact to lie beside her when our time should come, he who out-lived the other to see the rites of the Death Feast. He has joined her. I saw his rites. So for this end, reaching far back, I did not return when you came back to De Seviere, going on with that rabble who dared not harm me who am to share the Sleep of Chiefs some day....
"So!
"Now for the rest. I know no more of Maren Le Moyne than that first tragic sight of her, hauled into the light by the brute DesCaut. I only know that she stood before those savages as fearless as a lioness and threw again and again, her black head up and sane, her young body under her own command in every taut cord and muscle, and that again and again and yet again the flying hatchet landed in its own cleft,--a wonderful performance!--putting off with coolness and skill the death they would see her decide, choosing neither man of you."
"But," cried McElroy, "it was De Courtenay she came to see,--to save,--to die with,--she loved him, man!"
"Aye,--maybe. But I know only that that young trapper, Marc Dupre, gave his life as gallantly as might be to cover our retreat while we, the Nor'wester and I, slipping among the sleepers, carried you to the river; that they woke, those devils, before we had cleared the little gorge, and that M'sieu de Courtenay, brave man and gay cavalier, gave your knees to this woman who helped me get you to the canoe, himself taking the only gun and meeting what fate was his in the narrow seam among the rocks. She had with her men of Mr. Mowbray's brigade, that she had got somewhere on Winnipeg, and we put you in their waiting canoe. She was dragged in among the thwarts,--while I--slipped back among the shadows, circled the camp, and was at my death-watch inside the big tepee when peering eyes looked in. I saw no more of the dashing Nor'wester, save a flash of long gold curls at a headman's belt. What fate was meted out to him was swift and therefore merciful. Peace be to him!
"No more I know, my friend, save that, when I returned to De Seviere, I found you ill with some fever of the brain."
"But, Ridgar, for love of Heaven, what of Maren?"
"She had brought you here, and Rette says the women hung off from her and laughed in corners, whispering and talking, and that her face was worn and greatly changed, as if with some deep sorrow."
McElroy turned his head upon the pillow and weak tears smarted under his lids.
"Me! It was I she saved when it was I who slew her lover! God forgive me, for I cannot forgive myself!"
"Nay, boy, hush! It is all as God wills. We are but shuttles in the web of this tangled life."
"But--tell me,--what does she now? How looks her dear face?"
Ridgar was silent a moment, and McElroy repeated his question, with his face still turned away:
"Does she pass among them,--the vipers? Does she seem to care for life at all now?"
"Lad," said Ridgar gently, "I know not, for she is gone."
"Gone!"
The pale man on the pillow sprang upright, staring at the other with open mouth.
"Aye, softly, boy; softly! She has been gone these many weeks; even while summer was here she gathered her people, outfitted by our men, all of whom were so glad for your deliverance that they gave readily to their debt, and took up again her long trail to the Athabasca. Rette, I believe, has a letter which she left for you.... Would you read it now?"
McElroy nodded dumbly, and Ridgar went out in the night to Rette's cabin for this last link between the factor and the woman he loved.
When he returned, and McElroy had taken it in his shaking hands, he sat down and turned his face to the fire.
There was silence while the flames crackled and the chimney roared, and presently the factor said heavily:
"I cannot! Read..."
So Ridgar, bending in the light, read aloud Maren's letter.
At its end the man on the bed turned his face to the wall and spoke no more.
From that time forth the tide of returning life in him stopped sluggishly, as if the locks were set in some ocean-tapping channel.
The bleakness of the cold north winter was in his heart and life was barren as the eastern meadows.
So passed the days and the weeks, with quip and jest from Ridgar, whose eyes wore a puzzled expression; with such coddling and coaxing from Rette as would have spoiled a well man, and, with not the least to be counted, daily visits to the factory of the little Francette, who defied the populace and came openly.
With returned consciousness to McElroy, there came back to the little maid much of her damask beauty. The pretty cheeks bloomed again and she was like some bright butterfly flitting about the bare room in her red kirtle.
Sometimes McElroy would smile, watching her play with a young bob-cat, which some trapper had brought her from the woods, and whose savage playfulness seemed to be held in leash under her small hands. The creature would mouth and fawn upon her, taking her cuffs and slaps, and follow her about like a dog.
Rette tolerated the two with a bad grace, for, since the day when Maren Le Moyne had stood at the door with her haggard beauty so wistfully sad, her sympathies had been all with the strange girl of Grand Portage.
Light and flitting, sparkling as an elf, full to the brim of laughter and light, little Francette was playing the deepest game of her life.
With the cunning of a woman she was trying to woo this man back to the joy of earth, to wind herself into his heart, and so to fill his hours with her brightness that he would come to need her always.
So she came by day and day, and now it would be some steaming dainty cooked at her father's hearth by her own hands, again a branch of the fir-tree coated with ice and sparkling with a million gems, that she brought into the dull blankness of the room, and with her there always came a fresh sweet breath of the winter world without.
McElroy smiled at her pretty conceits, her babbling talk, her gambols, and her gifts.
"What have you done with Loup, little one?" he asked, one day. "Does he wait on the steps to growl at this usurper purring at your heels?"
The little maid grew pearly white and looked away at Rette fearfully, as if at sudden loss, in danger of some betrayal.
"Nay," she said, "Loup...is an ingrate. He has ceased to care."
And always after she avoided aught that could excite mention of the dog.
But, in spite of all her effort, McElroy lay week after week in the back room, looking for hours together into the red heart of the fire, silent, uncomplaining, in no apparent pain, but shiftless as an Indian in the matter of life.
The business of the factory was brought to him nightly by Ridgar and the young clerk Gifford, and he would look over things and make a few suggestions, dispose of this and that as a matter of course and fall back into his lethargy.
"What think you, M'sieu?" asked Rette anxiously, of Ridgar. "Is there naught to stir him from these hours of dulness?"
"I know not, Rette. Would I did! The surgeon says there is nothing wrong with the man, save lack of desire to live. He has lost the love of life."
And so it seemed. Weeks dragged themselves by and months rolled after them, and still he lay in a great weakness that held his strong limbs as in a vice.
Winter was roaring itself away with tearing winds, with snow that fell and drifted against the stockade wall, and fell again, with vast silences and cold that glazed the surface of the world with ice.
January dragged slowly by, with dances for the young couples in the cabins at nights, and little Francette, for the first time in her life, refused to share in the merry-making of which she had always been the heart and soul.
Instead, she lay awake in the attic of the Moline cabin and cried in her hands, listening to the whirl of the nights without.
Alone in those long vigils instinct was telling her that she had failed. Failed utterly!
The young factor cared no more for her than on that night in spring when he had kissed her and told her to "play in the sunshine and think no more of him."
She had played for a man and failed.
Moreover, she had not played fairly, and for her wickedness he lay now as he had lain so long, drifting slowly but surely toward that land of shadows whence there is no return.
She clinched her small hands in the darkness and wept, and they were woman's tears.
Back to her led all the threads of tragedy, of death and danger and heartbreak, that had so hopelessly tangled themselves in Fort de Seviere.
But for that one hour at the factory steps what time she lay in McElroy's arms and saw Maren Le Moyne pause at the corner, all would be well.
Young Marc, Dupre would be singing his gay French songs with his red cap tilted on his curls, that handsome Nor'wester of the Saskatchewan would be going his merry way, loving here and there,--instead of bleaching their bones in some distant forest, as the whispers said; and, last of all, this man she loved with all the intensity of her soul would be brown and strong with life, not the weary wreck of a man who gazed into the fire and would not get well.
So the long nights took toll of the little Francette and a purpose grew in her chastened heart, a purpose far too big for it.
At last the purpose blossomed into full maturity, hastened by the dark shadows that were beginning to spread beneath McElroy's hopeless eyes, as if the spirit, so little in the body, were already leaving it to its earthly end, and one day at dusk, trembling and afraid, she went to the factory for the last time.
"Rette," she said plaintively, "will you leave me alone with M'sieu the factor for an hour? Think what you will," she added fiercely, as she saw the woman's look; "tell all the populace! I care not! Only give me one hour! Mon Dieu! A little space to pay the debt of life! Leave me, Rette, as you hope for Heaven!"
And Rette, wondering and vaguely touched, complied.
McElroy was looking, after his habit, at the leaping flames and his thin hands played absently and constantly with the covering of the bed, when the door opened and closed and the little maid stood shrinking against it.
He did not look up for long, thinking, if his dull mind could form a thought through his melancholy dreams, that Ridgar had come in.
At last a sigh that was like a gasp pierced his lethargy and he raised his eyes.
She stood with one small hand over her beating heart and her cheeks white in the firelight.
"Ah! little one!" he said gently. "Why did you come through such a night? 'Tis wild as--as--Sit in the big chair," he added kindly.
But Francette, in whose face was an unbearable anguish, came swiftly and fell on her knees beside the bed, raising her eyes to his.
"M'sieu!" she cried, with great labouring breaths. "Oh! M'sieu, I have come to confess! If there is in your good heart pity for one who has sinned beyond pardon, give it me, I pray, for love of the good God!" McElroy stared down at her in wonder.
"Confess? Sinned?" he said. "Why, little one, what can a child like you know of sin? 'Tis only some blunderer like myself who should speak its damnable name."
"Nay, nay! Oh, no! No! No! Not on you is there one lightest touch, M'sieu, but on me,--me--me--does rest the weight of all!"
Her eyes were wide and full of tears, and McElroy laid a weak hand on her head.
"Hush, child!" he said, with some of his old sternness, when condemning wrong; "there is a fever at your brain. You have come too long to this dull room--"
"No! No! Take away your hand! Touch me not, M'sieu, for I am as dust beneath your feet! I alone am at bottom of all that has happened in Fort de Seviere this year past! Through me alone have come death and sorrow and misunderstanding! I caused it all, M'sieu, because I--loved you! For love of you and hope to gain your heart I set you apart from that woman of Grand Portage!"
She buried her face on the covering of the bed and her voice came muffled and choking.
"That night at the factory steps,--you recall, M'sieu,--she came to you,--I saw her in the dusk as she turned at the corner, a rod away, saw her and knew with some touch of deviltry the sudden way of keeping you from her, your arms from about her, your lips from hers! Oh, that I could not bear, M'sieu! Not though I died for it! So I threw my own arms about your throat--you remember, M'sieu--and whispered that for one kiss I would go and forget. In the gentleness of your heart you kissed me--and--she saw that kiss. Saw me lying in your arms as if you held me there from love,--saw and turned away. She made no sound in the soft dust, and when I loosed your face from my clasp she was gone! So I broke your faith, M'sieu,--so I dragged forth one by one all the sorry happenings that have followed that evil night."
The muffled voice fell silent, save for the sobs that would no longer be withheld, and there was an awful stillness in the room, broken by a stick falling on the hearth and the added roar in the chimney.
When Francette raised her weeping eyes she saw McElroy's face above her like a mask.
Its lips were open as if breath had suddenly been denied them, its wasted cheeks were blue, and its eyes stared down upon her in horror:
"Oh! O God! Rette!"
She screamed and sprang up, to run back and crouch against the empty chair beside the hearth.
The figure upon the bed, half-risen, worked its lips and then fell back, and the little maid raised her voice and screamed again and again in mortal terror.
It brought Rette running from where she had waited in the trading-room.
She raised him, and her face was red with rage.
"What have you done! You evil cat! What have you done to the man?"
But McElroy's breast had heaved with a great breath, sweet as the wind over a harvest field to a tired man, and he looked up at Rette with eyes that seemed to be suddenly flooded with life.
"Done?" he whispered; "done, Rette? The child has given me salvation!" And then he held out a shaking, thin hand.
"Come here," he said softly; "come here."
Fearful, trembling, tear-stained Francette crept back, and the factor took both her small hands in a tender clasp:
"I thank you, little one," he said, "from my heart I thank you,--there is nothing to forgive. We are all sinners through the only bit of Heaven we possess,--love. Go, little one, and cease this crying. Know that I shall sleep this night in a mighty peace. You have given me--life!" _