Part 6

Apparently Longville decided to mind his business, but that, he declared did not exclude Mam'selle's. Greed, curiosity, and indecision caused him to refrain from persecution. Indeed the psychology of the situation was peculiar. For the first time in her life Jo Morey became interesting. A woman with a past may, or may not be happy, but she certainly affords speculation and conjecture. Point of Pines, when it had considered Jo before, felt an amused sort of pity for her and, since she asked nothing of it, left her completely alone. But now, at this late day, she sailed into the open in such an unlooked-for manner that she inspired awe rather than the contempt or outraged scorn of Point of Pines. Without stir or fuss she simply annexed the child, and went the even gait that she had heretofore gone alone.

She was a mystery, and the men, generally in the fragrant atmosphere of Dan's Place, discussed her smartness and independence with resentment, and a--smothered--admiration! The women, especially those with whom Jo had shared hours of pain and sorrow, wondered where she had been when her own hour overtook her; whose hands had helped her who never refused help to others. And who had kept Jo's child? That question stirred in Dan's Place and in the houses roundabout.

"Perhaps some hill woman has kept the child," whispered the women over their work; but to hunt among the hills would be futile. Besides, Mam'selle's money had undoubtedly closed any lips which might be able to furnish facts.

It was a thrilling situation. One not to be despised by the lonely hamlet. Some were for, some against, Mam'selle Morey; but no one wanted, or dared, to ignore her utterly. Marcel Longville issued forth from the cloud of indecision, girded on her armour, and struck a blow for Jo Morey.

In order to make known her position, she wrapped herself in a shawl one day, and boldly walked to Jo's house in the middle of the afternoon, when several men, her husband among them, were sitting about the stove in the tavern, their faces turned to the highway.

"A woman like Mam'selle Morey can corrupt a town unless--" It was Gavot who spoke, and he sniffed disagreeably, looking down the road. Longville was watching his wife pass; he grew hot with anger, but made no reply.

"Marcel can cut her up with her tongue. It takes a woman to slash a woman," Pierre continued.

The proprietor, Dan Kelly, came to the fore. He rarely took part in conversation. He was like a big, silent, congenial Atmosphere. He pervaded his Place, but did not often materialize in conversation. Now he spoke.

"Queer, ain't it," he drawled, "how we just naturally hate to get our women mixed up? Lord knows we must have both kinds--we've fixed things that way--but when they edge toward each other we get damned religious and moral, don't we? Why?"

The words rolled around the stifling room like a bomb. Every man dodged, not knowing whether the thing was aimed at him or not, and everyone was afraid it might explode.

"Why?" continued Dan.

Then, getting no verbal answer, he went to the chair behind the bar, his throne, and became once more an Atmosphere.

But by that time Marcel was sitting in a rocker in the middle of Jo Morey's cheerful living room, watching Donelle asleep upon the couch. Jo was at her loom and both women whispered as they talked.

"I had to come, Mam'selle," said Marcel, "not because you need me or because I want to act a part, making myself better or different; it isn't that. I just want to stand a bit closer because I feel you are a good woman. I've always felt that, and my opinion hasn't changed, only I want you to know."

Jo tried not to smile; she felt she was taking of Marcel's best under false pretences. Had she been what they all thought, this neighbourly act would have bowed her with gratitude. As it was she felt a deeper sympathy for Marcel than she had ever felt, and she yearned to confide in her--but she dared not.

"Nights I get to thinking," Marcel droned on while Jo's busy fingers flew at her task, "how it was with you when she came," Marcel nodded toward the couch.

And now Jo's face twitched. How little any one guessed, or could guess, how it had been with her at the time when another woman gave birth to the girl.

"I got through somehow," she replied vaguely.

"We never get to a wall without finding an opening to crawl through, Marcel. It may be a pretty tight squeeze, but we get through."

"God knows those times are hard for a woman, Mam'selle."

"They are, bitter hard."

"And men folks don't take them into account."

"How can they, Marcel? It wouldn't be reasonable to expect it."

"It's queer, Mam'selle, how this--this thing that makes women willing to go through it, goes on and on. It means one thing to a woman; another to a man, but it seems to pay, though the Lord knows why, or how."

Jo was thinking of the subtle something that she, poor Tom Gavot, Marcel, and all the rest clung to. The thing that none of them understood.

"I'm glad you've got her!" Marcel suddenly broke in fiercely, again nodding toward the sleeping girl. "It just proves that you, Mam'selle, had the woman's reason, not the man's. That makes the difference. A woman cannot, a decent woman I mean, forgive a woman for acting like a man; casting off her young and all that, but she can understand--this! And isn't she fine and rare, Mam'selle. It's another queer thing, how many a child that comes in the straight and narrow way isn't half what it should be. Sometimes they just haven't spirit enough to stay, mine didn't, and then such children as--as yours, Mam'selle, seem to have God's blessing shining all over them."

So firmly and simply had Marcel accepted what, in reality, did not exist that poor Jo felt the uselessness of confession drawing closer and closer about her. For some days past she had been considering Marcel as a recipient for the truth, for Jo hated to accept, without some protest, the belief that she felt was spreading among her silent people. It might ease her own conscience to confide in Marcel; it might be a bit of proof in the future, but unless she told all the truth she could hardly hope to impress even the kindly Marcel, for she saw that the shabby, down-trodden woman was accepting her as the most vital and absorbing thing that had ever happened in her life. Jo, in her real self, had never inspired Marcel. Jo, in her present guise, not only claimed interest, but aroused purpose. She brought to life the struggling nobility that was inherent in Marcel but which life had never before utilized.

"I'm going to stand by her," Marcel nodded toward the couch, "by her and you--so help me God!"

Jo went to the quivering woman and laid her hand on the thin, drooping shoulder. She was mutely thanking Marcel in the name of all women who sadly needed such support.

"I'd rather have been a--a bad woman," Marcel quivered, using the term almost reverently, "and have had such as this to comfort me, than be the thing men think I ought to be, and have----" She did not finish, but Jo knew she meant those piteous little graves on the hillside.

"It don't pay to be good, Mam'selle!"

"Yes; it does, Marcel, it does." Jo's voice shook. "It pays to do your best with the things that _are_, as you see them. It's when we try to do what others think is good, others who haven't our problems, that we get lost. We women folks have got to blaze our own way and stick to it. No man, or man's God, is ever going to side-track me. And, Marcel, I thank you for what you came to do for me. There may be a time coming when you can serve me, and I'm sure you will. But if ever I did you a good turn, you've more than paid me back to-day."

Long after Marcel had gone to her cheerless home Jo Morey thought and thought, and as her heart grew soft her head grew hard. While her lips trembled her eyes glowed with fire, and from that moment she was able, in a strange, perplexed way, to project herself into the position that was falsely forced upon her. As she accepted it, Langley's wife was largely eliminated. It was Jo, herself, who had followed Langley to the far places; it was she who had borne and reared his child out of her great love. It was she, Jo Morey, who had stood by him, shielded him to the end, and was now determined to fill his place and her own toward the girl!--and to keep the secret! Langley had loved fine things, books, music. Jo recalled how he could fiddle and whistle, why, he could imitate any bird that sang in the summer woods. Well, somehow Donelle should have those things! Jo went later to the attic, and brought down books, long-hidden books, among them one Langley had given her because he loved some verses in it. Donelle should have learning, too. Jo meant to consult the priest about that. In short, the girl should have her chance. Poor Jo; even then she did not take into consideration the harm she was unconsciously doing the girl. She felt all-powerful. Her starved and yearning affection went out to Donelle and met no obstacle, for the girl, her health regained, was the sunniest, most grateful creature that one could imagine. No need to warn her to silence concerning St. Michael's, that experience was apparently as if it never had been.

The legal steps had been taken, and Jo was in complete control. The gates of St. Michael's were closed forever upon the girl known as Marie. She now faced the world, though she did not know it, as Mam'selle's illegitimate child.

Sometimes this fact frightened Jo, but she knew her people fairly well. The ugly belief about herself had been so silently borne that she trusted that when Donelle went among them her advent would not loose tongues. For the rest; she meant constantly to guard the girl, meant, in time, to send her away to school. Jo dreamed long dreams and, mentally keen and wise, was stupid in her ignorance of the more sordid aspects of life.

"If they'll only keep still!" she fervently hoped. And she based her present life on that.

In the meantime Donelle, in a marvellous fashion, had appropriated everything about her, Jo included. Nick was the girl's abject slave. Sometimes he'd turn his eyes on his mistress remorsefully, as he edged toward Donelle; his affections were sorely torn. The animals all learned to watch for Donelle, Molly, the horse, was foolishly sentimental. The house rang with girlish laughter and song. In the once-still rooms a constant chatter went on whenever Jo and the girl were together. Donelle, especially, had much to say and she said it in a strange, original way that set Jo thinking on many new lines.

How was she to keep this girl from knowing the truth, once she mingled with others? And how was she to keep her apart? Donelle had a passion for friendliness. To Jo, who had lived her life alone, the girl's constant desire for conversation and companionship was little less than appalling. Then, too, Donelle was a startling combination of precociousness and childishness. Her mind had been well-trained; early she had been utilized in teaching the younger children of the Home. She had absorbed all the books at her command; her imagination was ungoverned, and some of the Sisters had shared confidences with her that had added fuel to the inquisitive, bright mind.

There were times when Jo Morey felt absurdly young compared with Donelle, young and crude. Then suddenly the light would fade from the girl's face, something, probably her incapacity to go back of her life in the Home, would make her helpless, weak, and appealing.

So far, the little white house, Jo, and the animals, supplied Donelle's every need, but Mam'selle sensed complications for the future. She watched and listened while Donelle read and then enlarged romantically upon what she read; she felt lost already in the face of the problem.

"Mamsey," Donelle suddenly exclaimed one night, "I want you to take off those horrid old man-things. Let us burn them."

Jo was rigged out in her father's ancient garments; she had been to the outhouses working long and hard.

"What's the matter with them?" she asked half-guiltily.

"They're ugly and they're smelly." This was true. "Besides, they hide you and most folks wouldn't find you. They go with your scrouchy frown," here Donelle mimicked Jo's most forbidding manner, "and your tight mouth. Why, Mamsey, it took, even me, a long while to find you behind these things. I had to keep remembering how you looked while I was so sick in the long, dark nights; how you looked when you kept--It--away."

The vague look crept to Donelle's eyes, she rarely beat against the wall that hid her past. For that, Jo was hourly thankful.

"But of course now I can always find you, Mamsey. I just say to the thing you put up in front of you, 'Get out of the way' and then I see you, my kind, my dear, faithful, blessed Mamsey, shining!"

Poor Jo as a shining object was rather absurd; but the colour rose to her dark face, as it might have at the tones of a lover.

"You're a beautiful Mamsey when you don't hide. I suppose my father could find you, and that's why he wanted to bring me to you. Mamsey, did you love my father?"

Poor Jo, standing by the stove, her ugly garments steaming and hot, looked at the girl as a frightened culprit might; then she saw that the question was put from the most primitive viewpoint and so she said:

"Yes, I loved him."

"Of course. Well, now, Mamsey, will you let me burn those ugly old, smelly clothes?"

"No; but I'll put them in the attic, child."

"That's a good Mamsey. And the scowl and the tight mouth, will you put them in the attic, too?"

Jo grinned. The relaxation was something more complete than a smile.

"You're daft," was all she said, but her deep, splendid eyes met the clear, golden ones with pathetic surrender.

And then, later on toward spring, when Jo was revelling in the richness of her life and putting away the thoughts that disturbed her concerning Donelle's future, several things occurred that focussed her upon definite action.

She and the girl were sitting in the living room one evening while a soft, penetrating rain pattered against the windows.

"That rain," Jo remarked, her knitting needles clicking, "will get to the heart of things, and make them think of growing." Donelle looked up from her book. Her eyes were full of warmth and sunlight.

"You say beautiful things sometimes, Mamsey." Then quite irrelevantly, "Why doesn't any one ever come here? I should think everyone would be here all the time, other places are so ugly and other people so--so--well, so snoozy."

What Jo had feared rose to the surface. She stopped knitting and gazed helplessly at Donelle.

"At first," the girl went on musingly, "I thought there were no folks; it was so empty outdoors. Then I saw people once in a while crawling along. Why do they crawl, Mamsey? You and I don't. And then I ran around a bit, when no one was looking, and there are some horrid places, one place where only men go. It is nasty, dirty, and bad. It sort of makes all the houses seem smudgy. There was a big man at the door, and he saw me and he said, 'So you're Mam'selle Jo Morey's girl!'" just like that. And with this Donelle impersonated Dan Kelly so that his merest acquaintance would have recognized him. "And I made a very nice bow," to Jo's blank horror, Donelle showed how she had done it, "and I said 'I am, sir; and who are you?' And he put his hand in his pockets, so! and he said, 'I'm Dan, Dan Kelly, and any time you want a little chat, come to the side door. Mrs. Kelly and I will make you welcome.' And--what is the matter, Mamsey?"

For Jo's knitting had fallen to the floor, and her face was haggard.

"You--you must never go near that place again," she gasped.

"I never will, Mamsey, for the smell kept coming back to me for days and days. And the man's eyes--I saw them in my sleep, they were dirty eyes!"

"My God!" moaned Jo, but Donelle was off on another trail.

"But Mamsey, why don't we have folks in our lives. Is it because it is winter, and the roads bad?"

"Yes----" this was said doubtfully; but something had to be said.

"Well, I'm glad of that, for I love people. I even liked some of the Sisters. There was one who made me guess whenever I saw her, it was Sister Mary, she was little and pretty and had a sorry face as if she was lost and couldn't find the way out. Almost I wanted to ask her to run away with me every time I tried to do it myself. And the babies were so jolly, Mamsey. I used to play that I could make nice, happy little lives for them. There was one," Donelle's eyes dimmed, "Patsy I called her, her name was Patricia--such a big, hard name for such a cunning little tot. I fixed up a perfectly dear life for Patsy, but poor Patsy didn't seem to want any kind of a life. She'd rather lie in my arms and rock. I used to sing to her. Then she died!"

The tragedy touched Jo strangely. She had heard little of the details of Donelle's institution life; but those details, few as they were, had been vital and impressive.

"Yes, Patsy died. I missed her terribly. Oh! Mamsey, I couldn't do without folks. Why, I want to tell you something; you like to have me tell you everything, don't you, Mamsey?"

"Yes; yes." Jo took up her knitting, dropped two stitches, made an impatient remark under her breath, and caught them up. "If you didn't tell me everything I'd feel pretty bad," she went on lamely.

"Well, it's this way, Mamsey. I don't cry any more because I can't remember. I begin with you and me. You see what I don't remember is like the preface in a book; I never read it and it doesn't matter, anyway. So we begin--you and I, and everyone is supposed to know about us without telling; and the things that happened before are just helps to get us into the first chapter. Then, after that, folks come along and we don't ask them any questions, they just get mixed up with our story and on we all go until that stupid old word End, brings us up with a jolt. Mamsey, dear, I want to get all tangled with stories and stories and people and people; I want to be part of it. I'm willing to pay, you have to, all the books show that. I'll suffer and struggle along, and fall and get up again, but I must be part of it all."

Jo had drawn a full needle out, leaving all the helpless stitches gaping. "Lord!" she murmured under her breath, and at the moment decided to go to Father Mantelle on the morrow and get what help she could.

Aloud she said, quite calmly, very tenderly for her, poor soul:

"I wish you'd take that old book," it was the one Langley had given her; there was no name or date in it, "and read me some of those verses that sort of make you feel good, good and--sleepy."

"I just love this," Donelle said, quick to fall into Jo's mood:

The scarlet of the maples can shake me like a cry Of bugles going by. And my lonely spirit thrills To the frosty asters like smoke upon the hills.

"Why, you don't like the words? Your eyes are wet, Mamsey!"

"I'm tired, my eyes ache with the knitting and weaving. The winter always gets me." Jo was gathering up her work. "We must go to bed, child. I'm glad spring is coming and we can work in the open."

But Donelle was singing, to a tune of her own, other lines of the interrupted poem:

And my heart is like a rhyme With the yellow and the purple keeping time.

*CHAPTER VIII*

*THE PRIEST AND THE ROAD MENDER*

The following day was warm. Jo went to the upper pasture early in the day to make plans for the spring sowing. It was a day full of promise; winter seemed almost a memory.

Donelle had been left to finish the work about the house. It should have taken her until Jo returned, but things flew through the girl's hands, she was so eager to get out of doors. She sang and gavotted with Nick who, by the way, had sneaked into hiding rather than make a choice as to whether he should follow Jo or remain with Donelle. When he came forth all responsibility was ended. He remained with Donelle!

"Nick," she said presently, "how would you like to take a walk?"

A frantic thump gave proof of Nick's feelings.

"All right, come on! We've got to find folks if folks won't find us, Nick. I'm pretty nearly starved to death for folks!"

Donelle made a wide sweep back of Dan's Place. Jo's words were in her mind, but more, the memory of Dan's "dirty eyes" warned her. She took to the woods on the river side, and was soon fascinated by the necessity of jumping from rock to rock in order to escape the mushy, mossy earth. Nick was frantic with delight. Jo never would jump or nose around among the trees where such delectable scents lurked.

Finally the two emerged on the highway a mile beyond the little cluster of houses which was Point of Pines, and nothing was in sight but a lonely, boyish figure apparently carrying mud from one place on the road and depositing it in another.

"That's an awfully funny thing to do," Donelle mused. "Maybe he's a moon calf."

Donelle had seen Marcel and Longville, had even talked with Marcel and liked her. She had heard Jo speak of others, the Gavots among them, but they were mere names to which, occasionally, Jo had added an illuminating description.

"That low-down beast, Gavot," Mam'selle had picturesquely said to Marcel once when not noticing Donelle's presence, "ought to have Tom taken from him. That boy will be driven to Dan's, if we don't look out. We ought to raise money and give the boy a start."

"I shouldn't wonder," mused Donelle, now, standing in the road and eyeing the only other figure on the landscape, "I shouldn't wonder if that was Gavot's Tom. I'll just see!" So she walked on sedately and came upon her quarry unexpectedly.

"I believe," she said, showing her teeth in a friendly smile, "I believe you must be Tom Gavot."

The boy turned abruptly, spilling as he did so the shovelful of soft earth he was carrying.

"And--you--are Mam'selle's girl!"

Tom was very handsome with a frank, appealing look that seemed to deprecate the rags and sordidness that hampered his appearance.

"Yes. What are you doing?"

"Mending the roads. And you?"

"Taking a walk on the road you mend."

They both laughed at this, Tom flinging his head back, Donelle folding her arms over her slim body.

"How did you know me?" asked Tom.

"Why--why, I heard Mamsey talk about your father."

Tom's face clouded. His father, like his rags, hampered his very thoughts.

"How did you know me?" Donelle was growing shy.

"I think maybe you won't like it if I tell you."

Tom felt very old compared to this girl in her short skirts and long, light braids. He had never felt young in his life, but he had inherited that ease and grace of manner which his father abused so.

"I should just love to hear," Donelle was fingering Nick's ears nervously.

"Well, then, I spied on you. All winter, I spied. I heard them talking about you, and I had to see for myself. I always have to know things for myself."

"So do I. But after you spied," Donelle laughed, her yellow eyes shining, "what did you think?"

"Oh! I don't know." Tom shifted his position. "I thought you were all right."

They both laughed again at that.

"Are you mostly on the roads?" Donelle asked presently. Nick was growing restless under her hands.

"Yes, when I'm not somewhere else. I fish some, and Father Mantelle teaches me and I read a lot, but I'm on the road a good deal."

"I think," Donelle beamed, "I think your Father Mantelle is going to teach me. I heard Mamsey talking about it. Does he keep school?"

"No. He's the cure. He teaches only a few. He knows everything in the world. He once lived in Quebec. He's old so they sent him here."

"Well!" Donelle suddenly turned. "I'm going now, but I shall often walk on the road." She flung this back mischievously. At a distance her shyness disappeared.