Читать книгу Rose à Charlitte - Marshall Saunders - Страница 5

Table of Contents

"For this is in the land of Acadie,

The fairest place of all the earth and sea."

J. F. H.

It is always amusing to be among a crowd of people on the Lewis Wharf, in Boston, when a steamer is about to leave for the neighboring province of Nova Scotia. The provincials are so slow, so deliberate, so determined not to be hurried. The Americans are so brisk, so expeditious, so bewildering in the multitude of things they will accomplish in the briefest possible space of time. They surround the provincials, they attempt to hurry them, to infuse a little more life into their exercises of volition, to convince them that a busy wharf is not the place to weigh arguments for or against a proposed course of action, yet the provincials will not be hurried; they stop to plan, consider, deliberate, and decide, and in the end they arrive at satisfactory conclusions without one hundredth part of the worry and vexation of soul which shortens the lives of their more nervous cousins, the Americans.

At noon, on the Thursday following his decision to go to Nova Scotia, Vesper Nimmo stood on the deck of the Royal Edward, a smile on his handsome face,—a shrewd smile, that deepened and broadened whenever he looked towards the place where stood his mother, with a fluffy white shawl wrapped around her throat, and the faithful Henry for a bodyguard.

Express wagons, piled high with towers of Babel in the shape of trunks that shook and quivered and threatened to fall on unsuspecting heads, rattled down and discharged their contents on the already congested wharf, where intending passengers, escorting friends, custom officials, and wharf men were talking, gesticulating, admonishing, and escaping death in varied forms, such as by crushing, falling, squeezing, deaths by exhaustion, by kicks from nervous horse legs, or by fright from being swept into the convenient black pool of the harbor.

However, scorning the danger, the crowd talked and jabbered on, until, finally, the last bit of freight, the last bit of luggage, was on board. A signal was given, the ambulance drew back,—the dark and mournful wagon from which, alas, at nearly every steamer's trip, a long, light box is taken, in which one Canadian is going home quite still and mute.

A swarm of stewards from the steamer descended upon their quarry, the passengers, and a separation was made between the sheep and the foolish goats, in the company's eyes, who would not be persuaded to seek the fair Canadian pastures. Carefully the stewards herded and guarded their giddy sheep to the steamer, often turning back to recover one skipping behind for a last parley with the goats. At last they were all up the gangway, the gorgeous ship swung her princely nose to the stream, and Vesper Nimmo felt himself really off for Nova Scotia.

He waved an adieu to his mother, then drew back to avoid an onset of stolid, red-cheeked Canadian sheep and lambs, who pressed towards the railing, some with damp handkerchiefs at their eyes, others cheerfully exhorting the goats to write soon.

His eye fell on a delicate slip of a girl, with consumption written all over her shaking form; and, swinging on his heel, he went to stroll about the decks, and watch, with proud and passionate concealed emotion, the yellow receding dome of the State House. He had been brought up in the shadow of that ægis. It was almost as sacred to him as the blue sky above, and not until he could no longer see it did he allow his eyes to wander over other points of interest of the historic harbor. How many times his sturdy New England forefathers had dropped their hoes to man the ships that sailed over these blue waters, to hew down the Agag of Acadie! What a bloodthirsty set they were in those days! Indians, English, French,—how they harried, and worried, and bit, and tore at each other!

He thoughtfully smoothed the little silky mustache that adorned his upper lip, and murmured, "Thank heaven, I go on a more peaceful errand."

Once out of the harbor, and feeling the white deck beneath his feet gracefully dipping to meet the swell of the ocean, he found a seat and drew a guide-book from his pocket. Of ancient Acadie he knew something, but of this modern Acadie he had, strange to say, felt no curiosity, although it lay at his very doors, until he had discovered the letter of his great-grandfather.

The day was warm and sunshiny. It was the third of June, and for some time he sat quietly reading and bathed in golden light. Then across his calm, peaceful state of content, stole a feeling scarcely to be described, and so faint that it was barely perceptible. He was not quite happy. The balm had gone from the air; the spirit of the writer, who so eloquently described the lure of the Acadien land, no longer communed with his. He read on, knowing what was coming, yet resolved not to yield until he was absolutely forced to do so.

In half an hour he had flung down his book, and was in his stateroom, face downward, his window wide open, his body gently swaying to and fro with the motion of the steamer, the salt air deliciously lapping his ears, the back of his neck, and his hands, but unable to get at his face, obstinately buried in the pillow.

"Sick, sir?" inquired a brisk voice, with a delicate note of suggestion.

Vesper uncovered one eye, and growled, "No,—shut that door."

The steward disappeared, and did not return for some hours, while Vesper's whole sensitive system passed into a painless agony, the only movement he made being to turn himself over on his back, where he lay, apparently calm and happy, and serenely staring at the white ceiling of his dainty cell.

"Can I do anything for you, sir?" asked the steward's voice once more.

Vesper, who would not have spoken if he had been offered the Royal Edward full of gold pieces, did not even roll an eyeball at him, but kept on gravely staring upward.

"Your collar's choking you, sir," said the man, coming forward; and he deftly slipped a stud from its place and laid it on the wash-stand. "Shall I take off your boots?"

Vesper submitted to having his boots withdrawn, and his feet covered, with as much indifference as if they belonged to some other man, and continued to spend the rest of the day and the night in the same state of passivity. Towards morning he had a vague wish to know the time, but it did not occur to him, any more than it would have occurred to a stone image, to put up his hand to the watch in his breast pocket.

Daylight came, then sunlight streaming into his room, and cheery sounds of voices without, but he did not stir. Not until the thrill of contact with the land went through the steamer did he spring to his feet, like a man restored to consciousness by galvanic action. He was the first passenger to reach the wharf, and the steward, who watched him going, remarked sarcastically that he was glad to see "that 'ere dead man come to life."

Vesper was himself again when his feet touched the shore. He looked about him, saw the bright little town of Yarmouth, black rocks, a blue harbor, and a glorious sky. His contemplation of the landscape over, he reflected that he was faint from hunger. He turned his back on the steamer, where his fellow passengers had recently breakfasted at fine tables spread under a ceiling of milky white and gold, and hurried to a modest eating-house near by from which a savory smell of broiled steak and fried potatoes floated out on the morning air.

He entered it, and after a hasty wash and brush-up ate his breakfast with frantic appetite. He now felt that he had received a new lease of life, and buttoning his collar up around his neck, for the temperature was some degrees lower than that of his native city, he hurried back to the wharf, where the passengers and the customs men were quarrelling as if they had been enemies for life.

With ingratiating and politic calmness he pointed out his trunk and bicycle, assured the suspicious official that although he was an American he was honest and had nothing to sell and nothing dutiable in the former, and that he had not the slightest objection to paying the thirty per cent deposit required on the latter; then, a prey to inward laughter at the enlivening spectacle of open trunks and red faces, he proceeded to the railway station, looking about him for other signs that he was in a foreign country.

Nova Scotia was very like Maine so far. Here were the Maine houses, the Maine trees and rocks, even the Maine wild flowers by the side of the road. He thoughtfully boarded the train, scrutinized the comfortable parlor-car, and, after the lapse of half an hour, decided that he was not in Maine, for, if he had been, the train would certainly have started.

As he was making this reflection, a dapper individual, in light trousers, a shiny hat, and with the indescribable air of being a travelling salesman, entered the car where Vesper sat in solitary grandeur.

Vesper slightly inclined his head, and the stranger, dropping a neat leather bag in the seat next him, observed, "We had a good passage."

"Very good," replied Vesper.

"Nobody sick," pursued the dapper individual, taking off his hat, brushing it, and carefully replacing it on his head.

"I should think not," returned Vesper; then he consulted his watch. "We are late in starting."

"We're always late," observed the newcomer, tartly. "This is your first trip down here?"

Vesper, with the reluctance of his countrymen to admit that they have done or are doing something for the first time, did not contradict his statement.

"I've been coming to this province for ten years," said his companion. "I represent Stone and Warrior."

Vesper knew Stone and Warrior's huge dry-goods establishment, and had due respect for the opinion of one of their travellers.

"And when we start we don't go," said the dry-goods man. "This train doesn't dare show its nose in Halifax before six o'clock, so she's just got to put in the time somewhere. Later in the season they'll clap on the Flying Bluenose, which makes them think they're flying through the air, because she spurts and gets in two hours earlier. How far are you going?"

"I don't know; possibly to Grand Pré."

"A pretty country there, but no big farms,—kitchen-gardening compared with ours."

"That is where the French used to be."

"Yes, but there ain't one there now. The most of the French in the province are down here."

Vesper let his surprised eyes wander out through the car window.

"Pretty soon we'll begin to run through the woods. There'll be a shanty or two, a few decent houses and a station here and there, and you'd think we were miles from nowhere, but at the same time we're running abreast of a village thirty-five miles long."

"That is a good length."

"The houses are strung along the shores of this Bay," continued the salesman, leaning over and tapping the map spread on Vesper's knee. "The Bay is forty miles long."

"Why didn't they build the railway where the village is?"

"That's Nova Scotia," said the salesman, drily. "Because the people were there, they put the railroad through the woods. They beat the Dutch."

"Can't they make money?"

"Like the mischief, if they want to," and the salesman settled back in his seat and put his hands in his pockets. "It makes me smile to hear people talking about these green Nova Scotians. They'll jump ahead of you in a bargain as quick as a New Yorker when they give their minds to it. But I'll add 'em up in one word,—they don't care."

Vesper did not reply, and, after a minute's pause his companion went on, with waxing indignation. "They ought to have been born in the cannibal isles, every man Jack of 'em, where they could sit outdoors all day and pick up cocoanuts or eat each other. Upon my life, you can stand in the middle of Halifax, which is their capital city, and shy a stone at half a dozen banks and the post-office, and look down and see grass growing between the bricks at your feet."

"Very unprogressive," murmured Vesper.

The salesman relented. "But I've got some good chums there, and I must say they've got a lot of soft soap,—more than we have."

"That is, better manners?"

"Exactly; but"—and he once more hardened his heart against the Nova Scotians,—"they've got more time than we have. There ain't so many of 'em. Look at our Boston women at a bargain-counter,—you've got a lot of curtains at four dollars a pair. You can't sell 'em. You run 'em up to six dollars and advertise, 'Great drop on ten-dollar curtains.' The women rush to get 'em. How much time have they to be polite? About as much as a pack of wolves."

"What is the population of Halifax?" asked Vesper.

"About forty thousand," said the salesman, lolling his head on the back of the seat, and running his sentences as glibly from his lips as if he were reciting a lesson, "and a sly, sleepy old place it is, with lots of money in it, and people pretending they are poor. Suburbs fine, but the city dirty from the soft coal they burn. A board fence around every lot you could spread a handkerchief on,—so afraid neighbors will see into their back yards. If they'd knock down their fences, pick up a little of the trash in the streets, and limit the size of their hotel keys, they'd get on."

"Are there any French people there?"

The salesman was not interested in the French. "No," he said, "not that I ever heard of. They could make lots of money there," he went on, with enthusiasm, "if they'd wake up. You know there's an English garrison, and our girls like the military; but these blamed provincials, though they've got a big pot of jam, won't do anything to draw our rich flies, not even as much as to put up a bathing-house. They don't care a continental.

"There's a hotel beyond Halifax where a big excursion from New York used to go every year. Last year the manager said, 'If you don't clean up your old hotel, and put a decent boat on the lake, you'll never see me again.' The hotel proprietor said, 'I guess this house is clean enough for us, and we haven't been spilt out of the boat yet, and you and your excursion can go to Jericho.' So the excursion goes to Jericho now, and the hotel man gets more time for sleep."

"Have you ever been in this French village?" asked Vesper.

"No," and the salesman stifled a yawn. "I only call at the principal towns, where the big stores are. Good Lord! I wish those stick-in-the-muds would come up from the wharf. If I knew how to run an engine I'd be off without 'em," and he strolled to the car door. "It's as quiet as death down there. The passengers must have chopped up the train-hands and thrown 'em in the water. If my wife made up her mind to move to this province, I'd die in ten days, for I'd have so much time to think over my sins. Glory hallelujah, here they come!" and he returned to his seat. "The whole tribe of 'em, edging along as if they were a funeral procession and we were the corpses on ahead. We're off," he said, jocularly, to Vesper, and he kicked out his little dapper legs, stuck his ticket in the front of his shiny hat, and sank into a seat, where he was soon asleep.

Vesper was rather out of his reckoning. It had not occurred to him, in spite of Longfellow's assurance about naught but tradition remaining of the beautiful village of Grand Pré, that no French were really to be found there. Now, according to the salesman, he should look for the Acadiens in this part of the province. However, if the French village was thirty-five miles long there was no hurry about leaving the train, and he settled back and watched his fellow passengers leisurely climbing the steps. Among those who entered the parlor-car was a stout, gentlemanly man, gesticulating earnestly, although his hands were full of parcels, and turning every instant to look with a quick, bright eye into the face of his companion, who was a priest.

The priest left him shortly after they entered the car, and the stout man sat down and unfolded a newspaper on which the name and place of publication—L'Évangéline, Journal Hebdomadaire, Weymouth—met Vesper's eye with grateful familiarity. The title was, of course, a pathetic reminder of the poem. Weymouth, and he glanced at his map, was in the line of villages along the bay.

The gentleman for a time read the paper intently. Then his nervous hands flung it down, and Vesper, leaning over, politely asked if he would lend it to him.

It was handed to him with a bow, and the young American was soon deep in its contents. It had been founded in the interests of the Acadiens of the Maritime Provinces, he read in fluent modern French, which greatly surprised him, as he had expected to be confronted by some curious patois concocted by this remnant of a foreign race isolated so long among the English. He read every word of the paper,—the cards of professional men, the advertisements of shopkeepers, the remarks on agriculture, the editorials on Canadian politics, the local news, and the story by a Parisian novelist. Finally he returned L'Évangéline to its owner, whose quick eyes were looking him all over in mingled curiosity and gratification, which at last culminated in the remark that it was a fine morning.

Vesper, with slow, quiet emphasis, which always imparted weight and importance to his words, assented to this, with the qualification that it was chilly.

"It is never very warm here until the end of June," said the stout gentleman, with a courteous gesture, "but I find this weather most agreeable for wheeling. I am shortly to leave the train and take to my bicycle for the remainder of my journey."

Vesper asked him whether there was a good road along the shores of the Bay.

"The best in the province, but I regret to say that the roads to it from the stations are cut up by heavy teaming."

"And the hotels,—are they good?"

"According to the guide-books there are none in Frenchtown," said the gentleman, with lively sarcasm. "I know of one or two where one can be comfortable. Here, for instance," and one of his facile hands indicated a modest advertisement in L'Évangéline.

Sleeping Water Inn. This inn, well patronized in the past, is still the rendezvous for tourists, bicyclists, etc. The house is airy, and the table is good. A trustworthy teamster is always at the train to carry trunks and valises to the inn. Rose de Forêt, Proprietress.

Vesper looked up, to find his neighbor smiling involuntarily. "Pardon me," he said, with contrition, "I am thinking that you would find the house satisfactory."

"It is kept by a woman?"

"Yes," said the stranger, with preternatural gravity; "Rose à Charlitte."

Vesper said nothing, and his face was rarely an index of his thoughts, yet the stranger, knowing in some indefinable way that he wished for further information, continued. "On the Bay, the friendly fashion prevails of using only the first name. Rose à Charlitte is rarely called Madame de Forêt."

Vesper saw that some special interest attached to the proprietress of the Acadien inn, yet did not see his way clear to find out what it was. His new acquaintance, however, had a relish for his subject of conversation, and pursued it with satisfaction. "She is very remarkable, and makes money, yet I hope that fate will intervene to preserve her from a life which is, perhaps, too public for a woman of her stamp. A rich uncle, one Auguste Le Noir, whose beautiful home among orange and fig trees on the Bayou Vermillon in Louisiana I visited last year, may perhaps rescue her. Not that she does anything at all out of the way," he added, hastily, "but she is beautiful and young."

Vesper repressed a slight start at the mention of the name Le Noir, then asked calmly if it was a common one among the Acadiens.

The Le Noirs and Le Blancs, the gentleman assured him, were as plentiful as blackberries, while as to Melançons, there were eighty families of them on the Bay. "This has given rise to the curious house-that-Jack-built system of naming," he said. "There is Jean à Jacques Melançon, which is Jean, the son of Jacques,—Jean à Basile, Jean à David, and sometimes Jean à Martin à Conrade à Benoit Melançon, but"—and he checked himself quickly—"I am, perhaps, wearying you with all this?" He was as a man anxious, yet hesitating, to impart information, and Vesper hastened to assure him that he was deeply interested in the Acadiens.

The cloud swept from the face of the vivacious gentleman. "You gratify me. The old prejudice against my countrymen still lingers in this province in the shape of indifference. I rarely discuss them unless I know my listener."

"Have I the pleasure of addressing an Acadien?" asked Vesper.

"I have the honor to be one," said the stout gentleman, and his face flushed like that of a girl.

Vesper gave him a quick glance. This was the first Acadien that he had ever seen, and he was about as far removed from the typical Acadien that he had pictured to himself as a man could be. This man was a gentleman. He had expected to find the Acadiens, after all the trials they had gone through in their dispossession of property and wanderings by sea and land, degenerated into a despoiled and poverty-stricken remnant of peasantry. Curiously gratified by the discovery that here was one who had not gone under in the stress of war and persecution, he remarked that his companion was probably well-informed on the subject of the expulsion of his countrymen from this province.

"The expulsion,—ah!" said the gentleman, in a repressed voice. Then, unable to proceed, he made a helpless gesture and turned his face towards the window.

The younger man thought that there were tears in his eyes, and forbore to speak.

"One mentions it so calmly nowadays," said the Acadien, presently, looking at him. "There is no passion, no resentment, yet it is a living flame in the breast of every true Acadien, and this is the reason,—it is a tragedy that is yet championed. It is commonly believed that the deportation of the Acadiens was a necessity brought about by their stubbornness."

"That is the view I have always taken of it," said Vesper, mildly. "I have never looked into the subject exhaustively, but my conclusion from desultory reading has been that the Acadiens were an obstinate set of people who dictated terms to the English, which, as a conquered race, they should not have done, and they got transported for it."

"Then let me beg you, my dear sir, to search into the matter. If you happen to visit the Sleeping Water Inn, ask for Agapit Le Noir. He is an enthusiast on the subject, and will inform you; and if at any time you find yourself in our beautiful city of Halifax, may I not beg the pleasure of a call? I shall be happy to lay before you some historical records of our race," and he offered Vesper a card on which was engraved, Dr. Bernardin Arseneau, Barrington Street, Halifax.

Vesper took the card, thanked him, and said, "Shall I find any of the descendants of the settlers of Grand Pré among the Acadiens on this Bay?"

"Many, many of them. When the French first came to Nova Scotia, they naturally selected the richest portions of the province. At the expulsion these farms were seized. When, through incredible hardships, they came struggling back to this country that they so much loved, they could not believe that their lands would not be restored to them. Many of them trudged on foot to fertile Grand Pré, to Port Royal, and other places. They looked in amazement at the settlers who had taken their homes. You know who they were?"

"No, I do not," said Vesper.

"They were your own countrymen, my dear sir, if, as I rightly judge, you come from the United States. They came to this country, and found waiting for them the fertile fields whose owners had been seized, imprisoned, tortured, and carried to foreign countries, some years before. Such is the justice of the world. For their portion the returned Acadiens received this strip of forest on the Bay Saint-Mary. You will see what they have made of it," and, with a smile at once friendly and sad, the stout gentleman left the train and descended to a little station at which they had just pulled up.