CHAPTER VIII
HOW I MAKE BOTH FRIENDS AND ENEMIES IN NEW FRANCE
My resolution was immediate, but it was a different matter carryingit into effect. After many applications, and even entreaties, themost favourable opening I could obtain was the offer of an ensign'scommission. It was almost beyond even my self-abnegation to acceptsuch degradation. Only by the thought of Margaret, and the consolingcomfort that I was making the sacrifice entirely for her sake,joined with the absolute promise of the minister that I should notlong remain in such a subordinate position, could I bring myselfto the point of acceptance.
Meantime the Vicomte had not in any degree taken a proper advantageof my disinterestedness; for, instead of winning back the affectionsof his adored one by direct and oft-repeated attack, he withdrewhimself entirely from her company, and plunged into a course ofthe most reckless dissipation, making Paris ring with the tales ofhis extravagance and folly. Then suddenly, to every one'sastonishment, he threw up his commission, and disappeared soeffectually, that not even his intimates knew what had come to him.Those at the rue Dauphine were as ignorant as the rest of the world,and though his withdrawal was unquestionably a relief to Margaret,it was a source of deep mortification and sorrow to Lady Jane.However, neither letters nor inquiries were of any avail, and themost rigorous search only elicited the fact that no one knew whathad become of the Vicomte Gaston de Trincardel, beyond that he hadvoluntarily disappeared without any adequate motive being assigned.
At length the time came for me to embark for my miserable command.
Margaret made but little effort to conceal her grief. "It isdreadful, dreadful, this parting!" she cried. "One after anotherI am losing those to whom I am most attached--first my brother,then Gaston, and now you. I am, indeed, 'a stranger in a strangeland,' and if aught happens to Lady Jane, think what will becomeof me? But I am not thinking of myself alone," she added, quickly."Believe me, my greatest sorrow is that you, who have sacrificedso much for your loyalty, who have met with such reverses, suchpitiful ill return for all your devotion to your King, are nowdoomed to an exile worse than before--to the acceptance of a rankthat is an insult to your condition, to banishment in a savagecountry far from all those you love--and you accept it all withouta murmur. Now I know, for you have taught me, the definition of 'agentleman and a man of honour.'"
With this recognition, so worthy of her generous nature, she lookedat me so proudly that I would have given anything to kneel at herfeet and confess it was only the fact of being "a gentleman and aman of honour" which prevented me answering the love that glowedfrom every feature of her sweet face and throbbed in every pulseof her ardent young body with the burning words that trembled onmy sealed lips.
"Oh, Margaret, sweet Margaret! I cannot say what I would. I darehardly think what I would. Everything is against me!"
"Not everything," she answered, quickly--"not everything, unlessI am nothing! I am with you heart and soul! No, you cannot speak,because you have no position, and perhaps no future. But I can!Oh, Hugh, Hugh! I care nothing about it being unmaidenly; I cannotmind such matters when my heart is breaking. I love you with allmy soul and with all my life. I will think of you every hour youare away from me, and pray for you every hour until God brings youback. Oh, Hugh, tell me-tell me you love me!"
"No, miss! Master Hughie shall do nothing of the sort!" interruptedLady Jane, who had come in unmarked. "Any man who wishes to doany love-making, so far as Margaret Nairn is concerned, must firstdo so through me.
"There, there! Peggy, my pet--my wee girlie. You may kiss him oncefor your poor heart's comfort; and then, my lambie, leave my boyto me; I am the only mother he has. There, dearie, go now," shesaid, tenderly, when I had kissed her as one might kiss a saint;and without a word Margaret left the room with my cousin, and itand my heart were empty.
Lady Jane was generous, as was her wont: all that money could doto make my departure easy was done; and most of all, she comfortedme as a mother might comfort a son--indeed, as she had said toMargaret, she was the only mother I had ever known.
Again she told me plainly that I must not cherish any hopes uponher death beyond such humble provision as she might spare. "Margaretis my daughter, Hughie; and if you are the man I take you for, youwould not deprive her of whatever money may bring."
"Cousin," said I, "I am going away for her sake, for her peace ofmind alone; and if I am content to bury myself alive for this now,think you I'll regret any other good that can come to her? I loveher with my whole heart and soul, and the greatest bitterness Ihave to bear is that I am prevented from declaring my feelingstowards her before I go. She has spoken words to me that call forall the response in a man's soul, and I go away with my mouth closedlike a clown."
"Tut, tut, Hughie! Now you are letting your vanity get the upperhandof you. You are bemoaning yourself because you have not cut a betterfigure in her eyes. But just one word for your cold comfort. Therenever was a young girl in her position yet--bless all their lovely,trusting hearts--who would not make a hero of the man she loved,had he the garb of a Merry Andrew and the manners of a Calmuck.Don't fash yourself over imaginary woes when you've real ones insight, plain enough, my poor boy. But now leave this profitlessheart-break and let us plan for the future."
Our talk lasted late into the night, and by daybreak I was on myway to La Rochelle.
And now began the most miserable period of my life, the details ofwhich I have no intention of inflicting on my reader. A wretchedsea-voyage was a fitting introduction to my place ofbanishment--Louisbourg, a pretentious and costly fortification,but miserably situate and falling to decay for want of the mostnecessary repair. There it was, shut in on the one hand by themonotonous sea, wild and threatening with its ice, and snow, andstorm in winter, sad and depressing with its mournful fog insummer--and on the other by an unbroken wilderness of rock andfirs--that I ate out my heart in bitterness year after year; myonly alleviation being the rare letters which I received fromMargaret, but which I scarce could answer, though my reticence onlybrought forth a fuller expression of the unwavering affection ofher generous soul.
Dear as this indulgence in a cherished affection was to me, Ibrought myself to renounce it, for I held I was bound to this formore than one reason. Now that I had entirely broken with my past,I recognised that perhaps I should have done so sooner. Was it notfolly to suppose that a girl such as Margaret would not follow hergenerous fancy when propinquity was added to inclination? Alas!that such admirable decisions are only so readily consented to whenthe occasion for delinquency is no longer possible!
Then, too, my position towards Lady Jane was a delicate one. Shehad clearly indicated to me her intentions as to the disposal ofher fortune. A hopeful or even a contented correspondence wasimpossible to one in my situation, and to enter into any truthfuldetail of the misery of my surroundings might well appear, even inher kindly judgment, but an implied appeal to her generosity.
For this it was that I gradually cut down my letters year by year,until I entirely ceased from all intercourse, and lived my lonelylife as best I might.
For fellow-exiles, I had near an hundred discontented gentlemen,ruling over a homesick soldiery, two or three unfortunate gentlewomen,a few greedy and dishonest officials, and a handful of wretchedtownspeople, whose prosperity was never fostered in time of peacenor their safety considered in time of war.
At last, through the friendship of the Comte de Raimond, Governorof the Island, I obtained a tardy promotion to the rank of lieutenantin the Regiment of Artois, under M. de St. Julhien, and theappointment as King's Interpreter, on which I was heartilycongratulated by my comrades, who had long pitied my undeservedill fortune.
Until then I had made but little effort to better my condition,but my advancement, as well as the increase in my pay, aroused me.I took fresh heart in and my appearance, and began to mix somewhatin such society as our forlorn situation afforded.
In Madame de Drucour, wife of our Commandant, I found a grande damede par le mond
e, who commanded the admiration and respect of allour officers and the devotion of the soldiery and townspeople.
In Madame Prevost, the most charming little Canadian, wife of theCommissary--a creature with the carriage of a lackey and the soulof a dry-salter--I discovered a heart full of tender sympathy,dying of ennui. Her husband's unpopularity was such that but fewof the officers would enter his doors, and indeed he was so fiercea Cerberus in regard to his unfortunate wife, that he made anyattempt at alleviation of her unhappy condition wellnigh impossible.However, through my acquaintance with a M. de Sarennes, a Canadianpartisan officer, who stood high in his favour, he saw fit to allowmy visits, and I willingly put up with his want of breeding tooffer such attention as I might to his prisoner, for so in truthshe was.
Sarennes was attractive enough, in so far as his outward appearancewent, but, like most of his countrymen--that is, the Canadians--waswanting in all those externals which are essential to a gentleman.He was courageous, but a braggart; he was well born, but had nobreeding; he was open and friendly, but, I feared, truculent; andhis sense of honour was not above the universal dishonesty whichdisgraced and wrecked his unfortunate country.
I had suspected his intimacy with Prevost had some less honourablefoundation than a pitying admiration for his unfortunate wife, andI was confirmed in this by his proposal in my quarters one eveningthat I should hand over to him some blanks, signed by St. Julhien,on the Commissary, for stores, etc., which I was to requisition asrequired.
"May I ask to what use you intend to put them?" I said, more tosound him than for information, for this was one of the most favouredforms of peculation in the colonies.
"Oh, none that you will ever know of, Chevalier; and I should thinkan addition to your inadequate pay would not come amiss," he added,artfully, without even an effort to veil his knavery.
The whole disgraceful, pettifogging scheme disgusted me; but,because he was a much younger man than I, and I believed might bein Prevost's power, I refrained from my natural indignation, andpassing over the personal affront, I spake to him with all theconsideration of a friend. I shewed him the path which he wastreading, and pointed out the inevitable disgrace which must attendsuch a course, and most of all, the wretched meanness of socontemptible a crime. But, to my astonishment, he was inclined toexcuse and cloak his wrong-doing.
"Sir," said I, "nothing is further from my liking than an artificialmorality, but I would avoid even the appearance of being cheaplyvicious. Do not weigh out the largest possible measure of dishonestyto the smallest possible quantum of correction. If you must departfrom that path of virtue towards which we should all direct ourbest endeavours, do so in a manner that will at least command theadmiration of gentlemen and the leniency of a Divine Being, whomay consider the frailty of the natural man, but never the tortuousconclusions of his compromising intellect."
He was apparently sensible of my kindly advice, but I soon discoveredthat he not only disregarded it, but was endeavouring to do me anill turn with the Commissary by directing his warped and jealoussuspicions towards my innocent attentions to his wife.
The word "innocent" I use advisedly, and lest the reader have anydoubt now or hereafter as to my intention touching the fair MadameProvost, let me assure him I can lay my hand on my heart and averI never at any time held any warmer feeling towards her than thesympathy of an exile towards a prisoner.
That her stupidly jealous husband, fired by the insinuations ofSarennes, should distort mere civilities into serious intentions,and bear himself with such a ridiculous assumption of jaundicedsuspicion that a cause for his uneasiness was readily invented bya scandal-loving garrison, was no doing of mine. Madame Prevost,with all her charm, had neither experience nor knowledge in suchaffairs; she was simply a woman profoundly unhappy and profoundlyignorant of the world. Could I have honestly offered her my affectionsas well as my sympathies, I might have done so, and had them ashonestly returned; but no woman had ever awakened a throb in myheart since I bade farewell to one in the rue Dauphine in Paris.She still remained at once my hope and my despair; and, so long asshe lived, other women were as dead to me. I lay claim to no greatfortitude, to no heroic self-denial--it is seldom a man has attainedthe results of virtue with as little conscious effort as I wascalled upon to exercise.
But the mere knowledge of the integrity of my motives was notsufficient to protect them from the idle gossip of the town, andthis inconvenience led to an abrupt termination of our intercoursein the following manner:
One afternoon, when amusing myself and Mme. Prevost by singingsnatches of old songs, I had ended a favourite of hers with atelling accompaniment and the effective words,
"J'ai perdu mon coeur volage, Mon honneur, mon avantage, De moi ne me parle plus,"
when I was surprised by a burst of pretended applause, and turnedto find M. Prevost facing me with a malicious air.
"Believe me, M. le Lieutenant, you have my sincerest sympathy," hecried, with mock emphasis.
"M. le Lieutenant, you have my sincerest sympathy!"]
"Upon what, sir?"
"Upon the loss of that inestimable jewel, your honour."
"Pardon me, monsieur; that is merely the license of the verse--adangerous thing to translate into plain prose."
"I do not seize the distinction, monsieur."
"You are probably not qualified to judge of either one or the other,M. Prevost."
"Possibly not, M. le Lieutenant, but I am qualified to judge ofthe persons I will admit within my doors; and, 'in plain prose,'I would wish you to understand you are no longer one of them."
"M. le Commissaire, your meaning is as plain as is your manner;nothing could be more unqualified, and I regret my inability toanswer it in the same fashion," I returned, not without a certainappreciation of his handling of the situation.
"Madame," I said to his lady, who had preserved an admirablecomposure throughout this passage at arms, "I owe you a thousandthanks for your kindness, and a thousand regrets should I be thecause of any misunderstanding between you and your husband;" whereuponI raised her hand, and kissing it ceremoniously, I effected a notundignified retreat.
So the summer of '57 dragged on, when one warm afternoon inSeptember--it was the 25th of the month--I wandered down to thelanding-place to see the arrival of a ship from France that hadslipped through the feeble blockade attempted by the English. Ilazily watched the captain and others disembark with an uninterestedeye until among them I caught sight of a lad of about fifteen years,whose dress and countenance were certainly English. As he came upwith the others I advanced, and laying my hand on his shoulder,said,
"You are not French, my lad?"
"Oh no, sir," he answered, looking full at me with an open, engagingsmile; "I am English."
"I thought so. What is your name?"
"Christopher Routh."
"Good God! Kit! I am Captain Geraldine!"