Читать книгу A Lover in Homespun - F. Clifford Smith - Страница 4

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Just as the bells in the great towers of old Notre Dame Church, in Montreal, were striking the hour of ten, a gust of October wind, more fierce than its fellows, bore down upon the trees in the French Square fronting the church, tore from them multitudes of leaves, brown and crisp and dry, drove them past the ancient church, along Notre Dame Street, across the Champ de Mars to St. Dominique Street, and heaped them sportively in the doorway of a quaint French-Canadian cottage.

There huddling apprehensively together, the door opened, just as the wind with renewed vigor beat down upon them once more. For a few moments a weird, bent figure, crutch in hand, stood in the doorway gasping for breath, her claw-like hands brushing away the leaves, which clung to her as if affrighted. The weight of years bore upon her so heavily that she scarcely had strength to close the door in the face of the riotous storm. As she stood panting and wheezing in the little parlor, into which the street door opened, she made a remarkable picture. She was clad in a dark, ill-fitting dress, fastened around the waist by a broad strip of faded yellow ribbon; about her neck the parchment-like skin hung in heavy folds, while her entire face was seamed over and over with deep wrinkles, giving it a marvellously aged appearance.

At length her strength returned, and she muttered as she hobbled across the room: "The storm is worse; I fear she cannot go out to-night." Reaching an ancient door, from which the paint had faded years before, she turned the handle, when a strange sight was revealed. Kneeling before a plaster cast of the Virgin, with a string of bone prayer-beads in her hands, was another aged woman. Ranged on either side of the statue were two colored wax candles, lighting up the face of the devout worshipper, whose hair the years had bleached white as snow. She was twenty years younger than her crippled sister, who had defied death for nearly a hundred years.

On seeing the image and the worshipper, the sister in the doorway painfully fell upon her knees, clasped her hands, and also began to pray. Finally they both rose. Putting aside her beads, the younger sister—whom the neighbors called "Little Mother Soulard"—took up an ancient-looking bonnet, which she proceeded to fasten by two immense strings under her chin. She was short in stature and inclined to be stout; her face, though heavily lined, was still pleasing to look at. "Is it storming as badly as ever, Delmia?" she asked, turning to her sister, who stood watching her putting on her things with a dissatisfied countenance.

"The storm is worse than ever," Delmia answered peevishly. "Do not go out to-night. You, too, are old, and it is a long way to the Bonsecours Church. I fear the storm will be too much for you."

"But think, dear," replied her sister, commiseratingly, "how our poor nephew will be thinking of us in that dreadful place, and think, too, of her who was this day to have been his wife. They both sorely need my prayers this night. I must—I must go, Delmia."

"But," contended Delmia, persistently, bringing her crutch sharply down on the floor, "why not pray here" (turning and looking at the statue) "to the Virgin, instead of going out this fearful night to pray to her in the church?"

The Little Mother let the shawl she was drawing around her shoulders fall to the floor, as she heard the question, and walking over to her venerable sister, said excitedly, as she grasped her by the arm: "Have you not heard, Delmia, of the wonderful answers to prayer that the Virgin has given in the Bonsecours Church? Only yesterday two more miracles were reported. Madame Dubuc told me about them this morning. Two women who had been afflicted with lameness for years were fully restored to health, and they left their crutches in the church, where they can be seen by anyone."

Her excitement was infectious; the aged Delmia's eyes also began to gleam with religious enthusiasm, while her trembling hand caused the crutch to keep up a soft tattoo on the floor.

"And guess why the Virgin answered their prayers, Delmia?" she went on in a hushed voice; "because they prayed in the church from midnight until daybreak. Nearly all the miracles that the Blessed Virgin has performed there have been for those who have denied themselves for her in this manner. The night is rough and she knows how old I am. Who can tell what she may do for me if I go out on a night like this to the church and pray to her?"

"It is wonderful! wonderful! Blessed be the Virgin! It was wrong of me to tell you not to go. I spoke in ignorance. It may be that she will hear you, and cause a miracle to be worked, so that our nephew will be restored to us again. I cannot bear to think of him having to stay there for four long, long years."

"That would be too much to ask of the Virgin," answered the Little Mother, in a voice as though she feared to pursue the thought, "but I will pray to her that he be comforted, and that little Marie be restored to health again." As she spoke Mother Soulard glanced in the direction of the little bedroom where hours ago she, who that day was to have been a bride, had retired to rest.

Poor Marie! On this woful night she had persisted in sleeping at their house. Her parents had tried to soothe her, but she had grown so violent that, stormy and all as it was, they could do nothing but bring her to her lover's home. She was now in the little bedroom which had been Ovide's since he was a boy, but which he had not slept in for six months and would never sleep in again.

Delmia turned her dimmed eyes in the direction of the room and said with a sigh of relief: "Marie seems to be sleeping well, sister!"

As they stole, hand in hand, past the bedroom toward the street door, the Little Mother replied: "Sleep is the only thing that can save her now. She has hardly slept at all since Ovide went away, and her reason has nearly all gone with sorrowing for him. Everything depends upon her sleeping to-night. Ah, such trouble! I must go and pray, sister. If Ovide only knew how she suffers, it would kill him." Turning with hand on the door she added earnestly, "If you hear the slightest noise in the room, Delmia, go and soothe her, and tell her I won't be long."

"Had you not better open the door now, and look at her? She has been asleep so long," answered Delmia, uneasily.

"No! no! Delmia; we might disturb her." The next moment the door opened, a gust of cold air swept into the room and she was gone. If she only had glanced into the room to see if Marie was sleeping!

The storm had grown more violent, and great clouds, ominous with rain, were now overcasting the sky. Her sister could hardly have reached the corner of the street, when Delmia thought she heard a slight noise in the bedroom. She bent her head and listened attentively. "It is nothing; my ears often deceive me now," she mumbled as she laboriously seated herself on a maimed rocking-chair, which creaked dismally as she rocked herself to and fro. Its querulous protestations prevented her hearing the sound of a falling window which came from the direction of Marie's bedroom.

"Yes, yes," Delmia rambled on, "my hearing is very bad now." Presently she stopped, leaned her head toward the door and listened again. "Marie sleeps soundly," she said with a tired, contented sigh. Poor Delmia!

The strangely-clad figure, which had sprung through the window, crouched close to the side of the house, and with rapidly-beating heart listened to hear if Delmia had heard the noise the treacherous sash had made as it fell behind her. She knew there was no danger of the Little Mother being aroused, for she was listening at the bedroom door and had heard her go out; she had only the aged Delmia to fear.

There was no need for alarm; Delmia had not heard.

The rays from the gas-lamp cast yellow flickering shadows on the lane and the side of the old brick house, and at intervals upon the crouching figure. Suddenly Marie sprang to her feet and started to run; but before she had gone many steps, something white and cloud-like, which was fastened about her head, and which unperceived by her, had become fastened in the window, caused her to halt abruptly. She caught the tremulous thing in her hands and gave it a quick pull; there was a sound of tearing and then she was free. As she ran across the sidewalk under the lamp, her strange attire was distinctly revealed; it was that of a bride! Strikingly grotesque in the storm appeared her long white dress, flowing veil, and white kid shoes.

On reaching the opposite side of the road, where the shadows were deep, Marie paused and looked back at the little house which she had so suspiciously left. Finding that she was not being pursued, she turned, regardless of the storm, and began to walk toward the east, where lay, some six miles distant, the great penitentiary of St. Vincent de Paul. As she sped along in the shadow of the houses, she began to talk to herself like a pleased child. "This is our wedding-day, and he will be so glad to see me," she chattered.

Suddenly the smile died out of her face, and she said anxiously: "But how shall I know him, now that they have changed his name?" She wrung her hands distressfully. Soon the smile returned to her round, sweet face, and she went on: "But he cannot have forgotten that this is our wedding-day, and when he sees me, he is sure to know me."

If tender-hearted little Mother Soulard had only known as she struggled across the Champ de Mars, muttering prayers for Marie and her nephew Ovide, her strength must surely have failed her. She was so weak and worn that she fairly staggered across the Notre Dame and down Bonsecours Street; but her strength revived and her heart grew light again, as she saw in the near distance the famed Bonsecours Church, bearing on its lofty roof the great statue of the Blessed Virgin, which, with arms outstretched toward the River St. Lawrence, welcomes to port those whose business it is to imperil their lives in deep waters.

Although the hour was late, several French-Canadian women were in the church, crouched at the feet of the marble statue of the Virgin, near the gorgeous altar. As the church door complainingly opened and disclosed the wet, weary figure of little Mother Soulard, the worshippers, with that lack of curiosity so characteristic of French-Canadian women when in church, did not look up, nor even appear to notice her as she crowded past them, and also knelt before the statue that had given such wonderful answers to prayer. Devoutly she kissed the Virgin's feet.

One by one, the seekers after health and happiness stole away, and presently the Little Mother was all alone. Soon the only sounds that broke the intense silence were her loudly whispered supplications and the clicking of her prayer-beads, which waked weird echoes in the great galleries and organ loft.

Now it was Ovide, and anon Marie; over and over, again she poured out her heart for them. If the dear Mother would but put it into the hearts of the men who had sent Ovide, her nephew, from her—whom she loved as a son—to give him his liberty! She was sure he had never forged the note; it was cruel of them to have him kept in such an unhappy, disgraceful place. Even if he had fallen, might they not have shown him mercy? Better than anyone else the Blessed Virgin knew, that everyone needed mercy more than justice! Thus she pleaded, and in the innocence of her own simple mind she condoned the evil the loved one had done.

As she continued to pray, her religious enthusiasm increased, until, at last, raising her bowed head, and looking up into the immobile face, carved in pitying lines, she cried despairfully: "Dear Mother, hear my prayers for them both! This was to have been their wedding-day, and Marie is suffering so. She cannot sleep or eat, and they say her sorrow may drive her mad, and that she will have to be taken to the house of the imbecile. Poor, poor Ovide, that would surely break his heart!"

Unable any longer to control her sorrow, she sprang to her feet, and clasping both her arms around the statue, pleaded in a voice which started a thousand answering echoes: "Mother of us all, hearken to me. I know of the miracles thou hast wrought for those who have denied themselves for thee, and made sacrifices and done penance. And I will make sacrifices and do penance if thou wilt but restore Ovide to me again and give health to Marie. I will go on a pilgrimage to the Twelve Stations of the Cross, and pray at each of them; I will pray every night for the souls in purgatory; I will go every day and collect for the Little Sisters of the Poor. I—I—Mon Dieu, I will do anything, anything, if thou wilt only answer my prayers."

Through utter exhaustion her arms slipped from the statue, at whose feet she sank, sobbing like a child.

Of a sudden her tears ceased, and her face lighted up with hope—the sermon that Father Benoit had preached about faith, the previous Sabbath, had flashed across her mind. He had declared that to those who had faith nothing was impossible; faith could cause even mountains to be removed—Christ himself had declared so. It was only through those who had great faith that the Virgin could perform mighty things.

Vividly she recalled how the priest had pointed to the crutches in the glass case near the altar, and had told them that those who had left them forever behind, had been possessed of faith that nothing could daunt, and so had brought the blessing down.

The "faith that could remove mountains!" How the words rang and rang in her ears! Soon her heart grew so light that she could have shouted for joy. "Of course," she murmured with beaming eyes, "if I do not believe that she can do what I ask, how can she answer my prayers? How simple I have been, and how clear it all is to me now. I do believe and know that what I have asked will be granted, and that this very night Ovide will be restored to me, and Marie's mind be made well again." Again and again, out of the fulness of her heart, she kissed the marble feet, and give thanks for the faith within her—the faith that could remove mountains!

Not for a moment did she stop to think what hard requests she had made.

Fatigue and weariness now no longer beset her, and in glad eagerness to see her dear nephew again, and Marie, Mother Soulard fairly ran out of the dimly-lighted church, brushing against the shadowy pews as she sped along the narrow aisles. So bound up was she in her newly-found faith, that she scarcely noticed, on reaching the street, how heavily the rain was falling and how fierce the storm had grown. So boisterous, indeed, was the wind on the bleak Champ de Mars that again and again she had to halt for breath.

"I can imagine I see them," she thought, as she struggled on, "sitting in the parlor together with Delmia. How surprised Delmia must have been when Ovide walked in! and how Marie must have cried and kissed him! But the miracle will soon be known to all the neighbors, and will be told of in the churches, too. They shall be married in church by Father Benoit, because it was through his sermon the miracle was brought about. Ah, what a blessed day this will always be to me!"

As she turned the corner of St. Dominique Street and saw her house, with the yellow glare of the street-lamp still upon it, she caught her old, dripping black dress in her hands, drew it in above her ankles, and began to run, painfully. "Mon Dieu! At last, at last!" she panted.

Delmia, who had fallen asleep in her chair, sprang hastily to her feet as the street-door was burst open, and uttered a startled cry on seeing her sister standing in the doorway, looking with dazed expression around the parlor, the water pouring in great streams from her dress, which she still unconsciously held.

"Where are they? Where are they, Delmia?" she asked, stretching out her hand for support. The heavy fatigue she had borne seemed to come back to her all at once.

In her surprise and haste to reach the door, the bent and palsied Delmia let the crutch slip from her hand, and as she fell heavily after it, and lay struggling to regain her feet again, she looked like some distorted creature of fancy.

The sodden, pitiful figure in the door seemed not to have seen her. "Ovide! Ovide!" she called brokenly, staring blankly around the room.

At last Delmia reached her side. Very gently she drew her into the house and closed the door.

"Has Ovide not come, then?" she asked again, as she sank on the crazy rocking-chair.

"Is Ovide coming?" asked her sister, wonderingly.

The blood rushed back to the Little Mother's face, and she rose hastily. "How very foolish I am to-night," she said, trying to be brave. "I had forgotten that he may not have had time to get here yet; but he is coming, Delmia, surely coming. I have prayed to the Virgin, and the miracle is sure to be performed. I have the faith now, Delmia."

Her poor old face quivered with hope and fear. Across her bosom, she made the sign of the cross. "I did not mean to doubt," she said penitently.

Suddenly catching her sister by the arm, she cried quickly, "He may be here, though, Delmia, at any moment, and we must tell her of his coming before he arrives, or the shock may make her worse. Ah! but I had forgotten. She must be quite well now, for I prayed for her, too! But we must go and see her; she has been asleep so long."

The Little Mother sped across the room in the direction of the bedroom, holding above her head the flaring lamp, Delmia hobbling after her.

As she eagerly entered Marie's room, and the light fell across the bed, she uttered a cry of deep dismay. The bed had not been disturbed. The horror on her face deepened as she saw a piece of wedding veil, which the window still securely held, noiselessly beating against the panes. Slowly she turned her stricken face to the side of the wall, where Marie's wedding clothes had hung, covered with a sheet; the finery had gone, and the sheet lay in a disordered heap on the floor. At length, endurance had come to an end; she had suffered so much, and the shock had been so very great. The hand that held the lamp began to shake as though it were palsied; she swayed weakly from side to side; then there was a crash, and they were in darkness. As she fell heavily across the bed, she uttered a cry of anguish that was pitiful to hear.

In the blackness Delmia feebly groped her way to her sister's side, and throwing her shrunken arms about her, tried to win her back to consciousness by childishly calling her endearing names.

While Delmia called to her sister in the darkness, the storm without continued to rage. It had shown no mercy to the hapless leaves, neither did it lessen any of its malignity now as it tore along the straight road leading to the penitentiary of St. Vincent de Paul, and overtook the sadly bedraggled figure clad in bridal robes. The heavy rain had wet her through and through, and she staggered from weakness and exposure. The road was deep with mud, and the bridal dress was no longer white; she had fallen so often. The flowing veil, although sodden and heavy, still afforded excellent sport for the boisterous wind, which tossed it about her head and face in the most fantastic manner. Long since the covetous mud had snatched from her feet the little kid shoes, of which she had been so proud. Her reason had now entirely gone, and she babbled incessantly.

"I hope the priest who is to marry us will wait till I come," she fretted; "I did not mean to be late. How funny that they should now call Ovide No. 317, instead of his right name." She attempted to laugh, but no sound reached her lips.

"If I could only walk faster," she whispered. Her strength was well-nigh spent and the penitentiary was yet a mile away. Her feet were so heavy that she could hardly drag them along; the mud had clung to them so that they looked strangely huge and out of proportion.

As she neared the end of her journey, the road grew worse, the puddles deeper and wider. At first the poor girl had not fallen very often, but now the frequent dull splashes told a pitiful tale. Yet the rain fell none the less persistently, nor did the wind grow less aggressive.

At length, the grey dawn struggled through the clouds, which still doggedly hugged the earth, and drove away the gloomy shadows which enveloped the high unpicturesque walls of the penitentiary. The rain had ceased falling; even the wind had grown weary, and its faint whispering could now scarcely be heard.

As the clouds rose slowly above the walls of the penitentiary, the ghastly pinched face of Marie was revealed. She was on her hands and knees, climbing up the heap of stones which the convicts had broken and banked against the great walls. Around her face and shoulders streamed the tresses of her dark wet hair, while the fragment of veil which still remained trailed raggedly after her. As she crawled ever higher, the stones' jagged edges cut her hands and knees, but she did not feel the wounds; she was too far exhausted. When near the summit, she stopped abruptly; a shudder ran through her slight frame. For a few moments her hands clutched at the sharp stones, then she sprang to her feet, her body rigid, her eyes wild and staring. The end had come. "Ovide, I am here!" she gasped, and then fell heavily backward, rolling down the pile of stones into the hole near the wall, which the carters had made. The weary eyes were wide open and turned toward the sky, but they no longer comprehended; the disordered brain no longer conjured up fantastic scenes, nor gave birth to diseased thoughts; the rest she had so long needed had come to her at last, and she slept—slept that deep, dreamless sleep from which not even he, for whom she had sacrificed so much, could wake her.

As the light grew more distinct, there stood revealed, on the top of the walls, four sentry-boxes. At short intervals, through the mist, the forms of the sentries could be seen, as they slowly paced to and fro, with rifles resting on their shoulders.

The thick air was suddenly pierced by the penitentiary clock discordantly striking the hour of five. Hardly had its echoes died away when the clanking of chains and the decisive voices of the guards could be heard, issuing from the great stone building in the centre of the yard. Half an hour later the heavily-barred doors of the penitentiary swung open, and the convicts, surrounded by guards, filed slowly out into the courtyard. Before the men were taken to the various places of labor, they were ranged in single file, and their numbers called out.

Nearly all the prisoners responded in sullen, rebellious tones. But the voice that answered to No. 317 was full of contrition and hopelessness. Six months before, the young convict who bore this number was known as Ovide Demers, nephew of Little Mother Soulard. The day that had just expired was to have been his wedding-day, and little Marie Ethier, whom he had played with when a child, was to have been his wife. All night long, as he tossed about in his cell, he had been thinking of her and of his two old aunts who had taken him to their meagre home when his parents died, and had watched over and cared for him with the love of a mother. They had believed in him—although, alas! his guilt was so glaringly apparent—even when the whole world had forsaken him. So, because of all these things, his heart, on this gloomy morning, was almost breaking; little wonder that his voice nearly failed as he answered to the number that now stood for his name.

The file of convicts was broken up into gangs; "317" belonged to the stone-breaking gang, and worked outside the frowning walls. As they slowly passed out of the gate to the road, the sentries unswung their rifles—many successful attempts to escape had been made by convicts in the past.

Slowly the men were marched along the road, till they came to the great mound of stones, heaped against the walls, where they were put to work. Watchfully the guards stood near by, while the sentries, equally alert, paced the high walls.

Scarcely had the hammers begun their monotonous chorus, when the tragedy occurred. Convict 317 was seen to let his hammer suddenly fall, and gaze with terrified eyes into the hole near by. "Marie! Marie!" he shouted, in a voice charged with fear. Just as he reached the edge of the incline, and was about to jump down and clasp in his arms the dear, bedraggled figure, clad in the torn bridal robes, the sentry near the gate brought his rifle to the shoulder, and in a warning voice called out to the fleeing convict; but the latter failed to hear the warning. There was a puff of smoke, a sharp report, and convict 317 was seen to throw up his arms and fall.

When the guards reached the spot where they thought he had fallen, he was nowhere to be seen. They took a few steps forward and looked down the incline: there he was at the bottom, with his head resting on the bosom of a young girl, in strange array.

They sprang down and raised him—he would never occupy his cell again!

As the guards stooped wonderingly over the form of the girl, they failed to see in the distance the rapid approach of a carriage, which had passed the gate and was close upon them. Just as they were about to summon the convicts to carry the bodies into the yard, the carriage stopped, and she who had prayed so fervently for the lifeless ones, and had tried so hard to believe, sprang out and ran to where they were lying. Clasping her arms about them, she wept, and kissed them passionately.

"I am too late, too late!" she moaned in an agony of grief.

The Little Mother had instinctively known the road Marie had taken, and the moment consciousness returned to her in the bedroom, she had called a carriage and set out at once after her. The driver had driven furiously; his horse was covered with foam, but to no avail; Marie was near her sad journey's end when they started.

At first the guards were inclined to push the old creature away, but when they understood, from her grief, what relation the quiet forms bore to her, and heard snatches of their pitiful history fall, incoherently, from her lips, they drew back, and let her pour out her deep grief over them. With sympathizing hearts, at length they made a sign, and the convicts took up the bodies and bore them into the courtyard.

The Little Mother seemed too stunned to notice what they had done, and still sat sobbing and talking to herself.

The driver grew weary of waiting, and going to her side said softly, as he laid his hand on her shoulder: "Let me take you home; it is cold, and you are shivering."

She only crouched closer to the spot where they had lain, and talked on. Thinking she was speaking to him, the man bent his head to listen. "It is all my fault," he heard her say, "because I had not the faith—not the right faith—not the faith that Father Benoit meant—the faith that can remove mountains!"