CHAPTER XIII
A JAR IN ST. ELPHEGE
At noon, on a day late in October, 1786, the Merchant of St. Elphege satat the pine dinner-table in his kitchen, opposite his wife, resting hiswooden soup spoon on its butt on the table. The windows, both front andrear, were wide open, for one of those rare fragrant golden days of lateautumn still permitted it. He was listening, with some of the stolidIndian manner, to his wife reading Germain's letter. He vouchsafed onlyone remark, and that a mercantile one: "Seven weeks, mon Dieu! thequickest mail I ever got from France!" From time to time, while helistened, his eyes glanced out with contentment upon the possessionswith which he was surrounded--upon the rich-coloured stubble of hisclearings stretching as far as eye could see down the Assumption, withtheir flocks, herds, and brush fences; upon the hamlet to which hisenterprise had given birth, and where he could see, in one cottage, his_sabotiers_ bent over their benches adding to their piles of woodenshoes; in others, women at the spinning wheel or loom, making the clothsof which he had improved the pattern, or weaving the fine and beautifularrow-sashes, those _ceintures flechees_ of which the art is now lost,yet still known as snowshoers' rareties by the name of "L'Assomptionsashes"; his makers of carved elm-bottom chairs and beef mocassins; and,within his courtyard, the large and well stocked granaries, fur-atticsand stores for merchandise contained in his four great buildings. Hiswife was dressed in cloth much more after the fashion of the world thanthe prunella waist, the skirt shot in colors and the kerchief on thehead, which formed the Norman costume of the women seen through thecottage doors. Her silk stockings and buckled slippers marked a desireto be the gentlewoman. Her dark eyes struck one as clever. Her firsthusband had been the butler of the Marquis de Beauharnois when thatnobleman was Governor of Canada, and she had never ceased to look backupon the recollections of high life stored away in those days in herexperience.
"There!" she exclaimed, as she flourished the letter at the end ofGermain's account of the reception--"Presented to the Court! Lecour,when you said I was my boy's ruin, when you grumbled at his abandoningthe apothecary's shop to go to the Seminary and learn fine manners, didI not tell you my son was baked of Sevres and not of clay? At the Courtof France! and presented to his Most Christian Majesty! Among Princes,Counts, Duchesses and Cardinals! What do you say to _that_, Lecour?"
Her husband's eyes twinkled: "That for the moment you are GeneralMontcalm, victorious; though I remind you that General Montcalmafterwards had his Quebec."
"Quebec or no, my son is at the Court of France."
"I do not dispute that."
He began assiduously making away with his smoking pea-soup.
"Let us proceed with the letter," said she, for she had indeed shown hergeneralship in stopping where she did.
"Ah," she went on, pretending to scan the next words for the first time,"Germain needs three thousand livres."
"What!"
"Only three thousand."
"But he kept three thousand out of the beaver-skins; the last draft wasfor nine hundred; whither is this leading? Have we not to live and carryon the business? and you grow more fanciful every day, as if we wereseigneurs and not peasants."
"Certainly we are not peasants--_citizens_, if you please: anybody willtell you that a merchant is not a peasant. There are citizens who are_noble_, Lecour. Why should _we_ not make ourselves seigneurs? Who is itbut the merchants who are buying up the seigniories and living in themanor-houses to-day? That is my plan."
"Three or four jackasses. Let them be jackasses. I remain FrancoisXavier Lecour, the peasant."
"Well, Francois Xavier Lecour, the peasant, _my_ son, the noble, musthave these livres."
Her black eyes flashed. "Will you have the poor boy disgraced in the actof doing you credit? Look at me, unnatural father, and reflect that yourchild is to experience from you his earliest wrong."
Lecour quailed. His powers of spoken argument were not great. He saidnothing, but rose, threw off his coat suddenly, and sat down again.
"Yes," she exclaimed, angry tears rolling down her cheeks. "Your wifewill sell her wardrobe and her dowry--little enough it was--for my sonshall not want while he has a mother, and that mother owns a stitch."
It was when it came to meeting clap-trap sentiment that trader'sinferior grain showed, and he faltered.
"I will go as far as a thousand. It is all it is worth."
By that word he exposed the small side of an otherwise worthy nature.She sprang to the attack.
"_Diable!_ am I linked to a skinflint?"
"A skinflint, forsooth, at a thousand livres!"
"Yes," she cried in a fresh flood of tears. "A wretch, a miser. You areunworthy, sir, to be linked to a family from whom Germain takes hisgentlemanly qualities. Had he nothing but you in him, he would be agrovelling clod-hopper to-day instead of a favourite of kings."
Lecour laid down his wooden spoon in his pea-soup-bowl. Hephlegmatically took his clasp knife from its pouch, hung round his neckby a string, struck his blade into the piece of cold pork upon the tableand cut off a large corner, in defiant silence. But his heart was heavy.It was no pleasure to wrangle with so able a wife. He had no wish toquarrel. Only, he knew the value of a livre. Germain was really becominga shocking expense. He felt that his wife would in the end persuade himagainst his better judgment. In truth he liked to hear of his son'ssuccesses, but it went against his prudence. There was to him somethingout of joint in the son of a man of his condition attempting to figureamong the long-lined contemptuous elegants who had commanded him in thearmy during his youth. The gulf, he felt, was not passable with securitynor credit.
Just as he was hacking off the piece of pork, a high-spirited black ponydashed into the courtyard, attached to a calash driven by a very stout,merry-eyed priest, who pulled up at the doorstep.
Lecour and Madame at once rose and hurried out to welcome him. At thesame time an Indian dwarf in Lecour's service moved up silently and tookthe reins out of the Cure's hands. The latter came joyously in and satdown.
"Oho," he cried, surveying the preparations on the table. "My goodMadame Lecour, I was right when I said an hour ago I knew where to stopat noon in my parish of Repentigny."
"Father, I have something extra for you this time," she repliedlaughing, and crossing to her cupboard, exhibited triumphantly a finecold roast duck.
"You shall have absolution without confession," he cried. "Let meprepare for that with some of the magnificent pea-soup a la Lecour. Oh,day of days!"
She went to the crane at the fireplace, uncovered the hanging pot, andladled out a deep bowl of steaming soup. At the same time she told himexcitedly of Germain's presentation at Court.
"What! what! these are fine proceedings. The Lecours are always goingup, up, up. Our Germain's distinction is a glory for the whole parish.Lecour here ought to be proud of it."
Flattery from his Cure weighed more with Lecour _pere_ than bushels ofargument. The wife saw her accidental advantage and took it.
"He does not like to pay for it," she remarked demurely.
"What! what! my rich friend Lecour. The owner of seventeen good farms,of three great warehouses, of four hundred cattle, of untoldmerchandise, and a credit of 500,000 livres in London, the best payer oftithes in the country, the father of the most brilliant son in theprovince, the husband of the finest wife, a woman fit to adorn thecastle of the governor," cried the ecclesiastic, finishing his soup andattacking the duck.
Lecour thawed fast. But he reserved a doubt for the consideration of hisconfessor.
"Is it honest to pass for a noble when one is not one?"
"I do not see that he has done so. It is not his fault, in the mannerthat he has explained it. Let the young man enjoy himself a little andsee a little of life. We are only young once, and you laics must not betoo severely impeccable, otherwise what would become of us granters ofabsolution. Furthermore, we must not be too old-fashioned. Our peoplehere are getting out of the strictness of the old social distinctions.It may be so
too in France. On my advice, dear Lecour, accept everyhonour to your family your son may bring, and pay for it in the stationfitted to your great means, that I may be proud of all the Lecour familywhen I go to Quebec and boast about my parish at the dinner-table of theBishop. Come," exclaimed he, at length, pushing aside his plate with theruins of the duck, "bring out that game of draughts, and let us see ifthe honours of Germain have not put new skill into the play of a proudfather."
Madame brought out the checkerboard. She brought besides for the Cure alittle glass of imported _eau de vie_, and her husband, taking out hisbladder tobacco pouch, commenced to fill his pipe, and that of hisReverence, and to smoke himself into a condition of bliss.