Chapter 8

A Canadian winter, with the thermometer frequently standing at forty, and sometimes even fifty or sixty degrees below the freezing point of Fahrenheit, with its rivers completely blocked by ice and its fields covered by several feet of snow, puts a stop to most operations, whether mercantile or military. The winter of 1756 consequently afforded Isidore de Beaujardin, in his comfortable quarters at Montreal, complete leisure to reflect upon the incidents that had occurred during the last few months of his life, amongst which his short visit to Quebec occupied a prominent place in his reveries and meditations.

"A charming woman that Madame de Rocheval," so ran his thoughts at times, "though a little too much of a matchmaker I should say, from what I have heard of her latterly; but as my uncle says, she is not very likely to succeed so far as poor Marguerite Lacroix is concerned. Now-a-days men of any position won't marry a girl without a farthing, especially if she is not good-looking, though I certainly cannot agree with the baron or madame, who both seem to think her absolutely plain. Women, however, are never fair judges of female beauty, we all know that, though I rather wonder at my uncle's want of taste. Beautiful she certainly is not--in the sense in which I might have understood the word a twelvemonth ago; but a little wear and tear in the world makes us look below the surface. I could envy a fellow now who had such a girl for his sister; it makes a man selfish and frivolous if he has only himself to think of. I don't believe I should have been guilty of half the follies and extravagances which I am afraid I must own to if I had always had such a young loving thing at my side to lead me to better and gentler thoughts and ways. Well, I was not so favoured, so much the worse for me. By the way, I suppose that as my uncle has now entirely got over the effects of his wound, he will give up the notion of going back to France till next year. I am glad of it; for I don't think the baroness is likely to care much about having poor Marguerite Lacroix on her hands, though it will be the very thing for Clotilde, who must be moped to death in that dismal old chateau, without any one of her own age to associate with and no amusement of any kind, for they are as poor as church mice, and must find it hard enough to keep up even the small appearance they do make. I wonder when I shall go back to old France again! I thought when I left it that six months would be quite enough of this; but I really do not think it so bad after all, and now that I have got this staff appointment, why, I suppose I must make up my mind to stay, at all events for next year's campaign."

So Isidore resigned himself to his fate; nay, when it came to his turn to have the option of carrying despatches to the king in person, he actually gave up the privilege in favour of a brother officer, who had not got over his old longing to spend New Year's Day in Paris. It is not for us to say how far Colonel de Beaujardin may have been influenced by the private knowledge that General Montcalm's head-quarters were to be transferred for a time to Quebec. Such, however, was the case, and Isidore spent his New Year's Day under the hospitable roof of Madame de Rocheval.

The first two or three days that Isidore passed at Quebec were singularly happy ones. Some months had now elapsed since the death of Captain Lacroix, and Marguerite had regained much of her natural cheerfulness, which seemed all the more bright and winning for the shade of melancholy that occasionally came over her at the thought of her lonely and dependent position in the world. Isidore had few acquaintances there, and did not care to add to their number; at first his visits at the house of Madame de Rocheval were as frequent as he could decorously make them. As it happened, Marguerite was more than an ordinary proficient on the harpsichord, whilst the young marquis, who had a singularly fine voice, and had had the advantage of the best masters that Paris could boast of, sang with a taste and feeling seldom met with; and this afforded a fair excuse for prolonging his visits beyond the ordinary limits. It is like enough that, notwithstanding the vast and absolutely impassable distance which their respective positions would have placed between them in Old France, the most noble and wealthy young Marquis de Beaujardin would have offered his hand to the penniless orphan of a man who could not write the "de" of gentle birth before his name: one untoward circumstance alone, perhaps, prevented this; Madame de Rocheval, who was very fond of Marguerite, could not help feeling what a masterly stroke it would be on her part if she could but catch for her a husband of such rank and fortune, so she at once began to do all she could to bring about the hoped-for result. Unfortunately for all parties, madame's zeal outran her usual discretion, and no sooner did poor Marguerite perceive, or think that she perceived, the covert designs of her friend than her sensitive delicacy recoiled from doing anything that might seem like aiding or abetting such a scheme. She constrained herself to assume a cold and formal manner, so unnatural to her that Isidore, as men are apt enough to do, grew vexed and annoyed at a treatment which he knew was undeserved, and soon began to think there was more affectation about Mademoiselle Lacroix than he had at first imagined. Then he, too, suddenly discovered from some little circumstance or other that he was the object of a studied scheme to make a catch of him, and this naturally irritated him still more. His pride revolted at the thought that he who had been admired and courted by the highest and the noblest even at the Pompadour's own magnificent fetes and receptions should be entrapped by a mere matchmaker at an out-of-the-way little place like this. So he put on a rather grand and haughty air the next time he called, for which Marguerite not only thought him very silly, but even told him so. That afternoon he took his leave, alleging that he had to return to Montreal early the next morning. Yet when he had quitted the house his heart smote him, and when he passed Madame de Rocheval's the next day he stopped his cariole and went in just to ask if Marguerite had any message for her guardian, the Baron de Valricour, at Montreal. She was alone, and the fact that she had been in tears was so unmistakably apparent that Isidore was led to express a hope that no misfortune had occurred to distress her.

"I was mourning over the loss of a friend," said she; "I have so few in the world that I can scarce afford to lose one, and least of all such an one as Monsieur de Beaujardin has been to me."

Isidore felt that he had been guilty of a very mean but common fault in visiting on Marguerite the ill-humour he had felt at something, in which not she but some one else was to blame.

"Forgive me," said he, at once; "I am, indeed, ashamed to think that I behaved like a fool, or even worse, in giving just cause of offence to one who has every claim to very different treatment at my hands. I was an idiot--I was not myself, or----"

"Yes, yes, let it be so," exclaimed Marguerite, smiling through her tears and extending her hand to him. "Let it be so; you were indeed not your own self, so I will forget the stranger of yesterday, and only remember the courteous Colonel Beaujardin to whom I owe so much."

The entrance of Madame de Rocheval here brought this brief colloquy to an end, and Isidore once more bade adieu and took his departure. Perhaps he would have altered his arrangements and remained still longer at Quebec; but this he could not well do with any show of self-respect, and he was soon on his road to Montreal. It is, however, most certainly the fact that he gave up the intention, which he had formed on the previous evening, of throwing up his commission and returning to France, and he now once more made up his mind to stay in Canada, and see out the campaign of 1757.

The opening of the new year found the British Government resolved to prosecute the war in Canada with unprecedented vigour. An attack on Louisburg was to be the great feature of the campaign. Upwards of twenty thousand regular troops from England co-operating with immense levies raised in America, and large bodies of allied Indians, constituted the force to be arrayed against France in the New World, whilst a splendid fleet, counting no less than twenty ships of the line, under the command of Admiral Holborne, was to carry on the operations by sea. They made a bad beginning, however, for nearly half the year had slipped away before the fleet put to sea, and the end was a complete and disastrous failure. Owing to the incapacity of the commander-in-chief the time was simply wasted in marchings and counter-marchings, and continually embarking, disembarking, and re-embarking the troops. At sea a terrible hurricane scattered the ships, of which many were wrecked and lost, while the rest, more or less shattered, made their way back to England as they best could.

The one success of the year was gained by the French, and it was unfortunately attended by horrors that will never be forgotten. The capture of Fort William Henry, and the massacre which followed it, is an oft-told tale, to which allusion needs only to be made here so far as it bears on the fortunes of our young French soldier. Abandoned at the most critical juncture by Colonel Webb, the brave but unfortunate Munro was compelled to surrender the place to Montcalm, with the stipulation that the garrison, numbering about two thousand men, should be allowed to march out unmolested. Whilst they were doing so, however, the Indian allies of the French fell upon them with all the relentless fury of their savage race. A panic seized upon the wretched victims, and then ensued a scene of slaughter such as defies description. In vain did Montcalm interpose; the respect and even love with which the Indians had come to regard him availed nothing. At the imminent risk of his own life he rushed in and strove to stay the carnage, but to no purpose; those of the ill-fated garrison of Fort William Henry who escaped from the knives and tomahawks of their vengeful foes, found their way to Fort Edward, or some other place of safety.

In this matter the conduct of Montcalm and his officers is wholly free from blame. Many of the latter, like their chief, exposed their lives in their endeavour to save those whom they were bound to protect as far as in them lay. Amongst the foremost of these was Isidore de Beaujardin, and at one moment his life was in the greatest peril. An English soldier who had been thrown down in the rush was just about to rise, when a gigantic Indian, yelling out the dreaded war-whoop, darted towards him. Isidore sprang between them. With a sweep of his tomahawk the maddened savage sent de Beaujardin's small sword flying into the air. The weapon of the Indian was already uplifted for the deadly stroke when a strange fantastically-dressed figure passed, noiselessly but swiftly, between the two combatants, and then the red skin fell back, the fierce expression of his face changing to one of awe, if not of terror. Then came another rush, in which Isidore received a slight wound, and then by degrees the French regulars succeeded in forcing back the Indians, but, unhappily, not until their purpose had been but too thoroughly effected.

Isidore's wound did not prove serious, and in the course of a fortnight he had nearly recovered from its effects, but he had mentioned it in a letter to his father, and the consequence was an urgent injunction, almost amounting to an order, that he should at once return home. This did not reach him, however, until near the end of October, and it is by no means improbable that he would have made his recovery an excuse for disregarding his father's wishes but for other circumstances. It had become necessary for Madame de Rocheval to visit the old country, and Monsieur de Valricour had resolved to avail himself of that opportunity to send Marguerite to France, in order that she might take up her abode under his roof and find there the home which he had promised to her dying father to provide for her. This may or may not have influenced young Beaujardin; at all events he wrote to his father a letter intimating a dutiful compliance with the order for his return, and after resigning his appointment as aide-de-camp he made his arrangements for his departure. Finding no immediate opportunity of going down from Montreal to Quebec by the St. Lawrence, he resolved to travel on horseback, and, after selecting a steady servant to accompany him, he bade adieu to his old quarters and set out for Quebec.

Of all the glories of nature on this earth there is perhaps not one so gorgeous as that expanse of wooded plain and slope and mountain, clad in the magnificently varied tints of the Canadian fall of the year, which met the eyes of Isidore when, towards the end of his journey, he reined up his horse upon an elevated spot on the banks of the St. Lawrence, a few miles above Quebec. Some three hundred feet below, the broad and noble river glided along between precipitous heights, the red-brown tint of which, interspersed with masses of clustering shrubs, glowed in the yet warm autumn sun, whilst beyond it to the south, and away for miles to the north, were spread out great undulating tracts, bounded by picturesque ranges of lofty mountains, whose waving lines no pen or pencil can adequately describe. The maple, the sumach, and many other forest trees, all changing their hues in the warm dry atmosphere peculiar to the climate, presented everywhere a combination of bright colour beyond the most fantastic flight of imagination, in which every tint, from pale sea-green to dusky olive, from palest primrose through orange and scarlet to deepest crimson, were blended together with a harmony which the hand of nature can alone produce. The utter stillness that reigned around, and the marvellous distinctness with which the most distant objects stood out through the transparent atmosphere, gave a strange and dream-like character to the scene that insensibly led him who looked upon it into that mysterious phase of mind in which we seem to be living over again some moments of a former life. Even the voice of yonder sturdy woodsman, who has just appeared above the brow of the hill, seems to set in vibration the slumbering chord of some memory of things past; yes, and he is vehemently declaiming to the comely matron who trudges beside him about the rascality of that fellow Cadet, the most rapacious of the greedy underlings of Monsieur the Intendant! Truly it is no other than our friend Jean Baptiste Boulanger, who is just hot from a visit to Quebec on some business pertaining to his craft, and whose fond and faithful Bibi has come to meet him by the way.

Isidore and his _quondam_ guide were both glad to meet again. Cadet and his doings were instantly and utterly forgotten, and de Beaujardin could not help being pleased to find that the Canadian had taken so much interest in him that he already knew from the inquiries he had made all about the young soldier's movements, his wound, and other incidents of the past year. His request that Isidore would honour his humble dwelling with a visit was so pressing that the latter consented to do so, and, sending his servant forward to prepare for his arrival somewhat later at Quebec, he accompanied Boulanger and his wife to their cottage, which stood at some little distance from the road. Great was Bibi's anxiety to do honour to their noble guest, and not less great her delight at the commendations he bestowed, not only on the order and tidiness of her little _menage_, but also on her three chubby little children, who, notwithstanding divers and sundry private injunctions to the contrary, would occasionally come to the front and gaze open-mouthed and awestruck at so uncommon a visitor. At length Isidore rose to pursue his journey; Boulanger would fain have accompanied him, but this he would not permit, and, after taking the Canadian's directions for regaining the road by a bridle path through the wood in which the cottage was situated, he bade adieu to the honest couple and galloped away.

The ground was more broken than he had expected, and he was soon obliged to rein up his horse. As he did so he thought he heard a rustling in the underwood at no great distance, but it was not until the same thing had occurred two or three times that the thought crossed his mind that some one might be following him. Yet, after all, it might be nothing more than a stray lynx or some such animal, though it seemed strange that it should move when he moved and stop when he stopped. At length he gained the road, and would probably have forgotten the incident altogether had he not accidentally cast a look behind him, when he saw a dark figure amongst the trees just at the point where he had quitted the wood. It disappeared, however, almost instantly, leaving Isidore in some doubt whether it might not have been Boulanger, who, notwithstanding his expressed wish, might possibly have desired to see him safely on the road. At all events he saw no more of it, and riding on soon found himself once more within the great Canadian fortress.

In the evening he paid a visit to Madame de Rocheval, when he learned that that lady intended to embark for France in about a fortnight, taking Marguerite with her, and there was some talk of the possibility of his going by the same vessel. He did not remain long, however, but promised to call again the next day. On the following afternoon he paid his friends a more lengthened visit, and, at his request, Marguerite presently sat down to the harpsichord, as she had been used to do of old, to play to him some music she had recently received from France, and amongst these were some canzonets and other vocal pieces which she begged Isidore to sing.

Those who should best understand these matters say that the tenor is the most common voice with men. It may be so, but certainly the rarest of all voices met with in perfection is the tenor of that marvellous enchanting quality that thrills the very soul of the listener with its heavenly vibrations. Such a voice was that of Isidore de Beaujardin, and the instruction he had received from the best masters at Paris enabled him to use it with uncommon taste and skill. He was just concluding an air of Stradella's, in which the melody and instrumentation alike were perfect, and in which a simple yet stately grandeur alternated with the most touching plaintiveness, when he became aware that some one near to him was sobbing violently. It was not Marguerite, that was certain, though a tear did just then drop on the hand that touched the harpsichord so charmingly. He turned in some surprise, and there kneeling beside him, with her face buried in her hands, he beheld a young girl whom, although her features were concealed from him, he recognised at once; it was Amoahmeh. Even as Isidore ceased, the girl's emotion utterly overpowered her, and she burst into an uncontrollable flood of tears. Marguerite rose hastily, while at the same moment Madame de Rocheval entered the room, and with the assistance of a domestic they carried Amoahmeh to an adjoining apartment, where, as Isidore could plainly hear, the strange and distressing paroxysm continued unabated notwithstanding every effort to soothe and calm the troubled spirit.

Presently Marguerite returned. "It is a most singular thing," said she. "This poor Indian girl was found in an exhausted and fainting state on the steps of our house last evening some time after you had left. Madame de Rocheval had her brought in and attended to, but when she revived and had somewhat recovered we found that she had evidently lost her reason. 'Some one,' she said, 'had told her where they were, but that she had forgotten, and had come to pray of him to tell her once again.' We could not understand what she meant. Madame de Rocheval sent for the doctor to consult him as to what could be done for her, but we suddenly missed her, and saw no more of her until she reappeared just now in this strange way."

"Poor child!" exclaimed Isidore, greatly moved. "She is no stranger to me; indeed, once at least, if not twice, I have owed my life to her. But it is a long story, and I must not keep you from a holy duty. To-morrow you shall hear all. In the meantime I know it is not needful for me to commend this unfortunate and afflicted one to your compassionate care."

On reaching his apartments, Isidore found that a courier had just arrived from Montreal with despatches, accompanied by the most urgent orders that he should carry them to Paris without delay. A ship appointed to sail from Quebec on the following morning was even indicated to him as the one in which he was to take his passage without fail. This was particularly annoying under all circumstances, and at first Isidore was inclined to demur, or even to refuse compliance; but on a little reflection he saw that for many reasons this was not to be thought of, and he accordingly decided to carry out his orders. On the following morning he was an early visitor at Madame de Rocheval's, and his first inquiry was after poor Amoahmeh. To his amazement he learnt that the doctor who had been sent for on the preceding day had succeeded, though with much difficulty and after a long time, in allaying the girl's excitement, and that she had then dropped into a deep sleep, apparently from sheer exhaustion. She had awoke that morning calm and quiet, and the doctor, who was with her at the time, had gradually, and to his extreme astonishment, discovered that her reason, which had in fact given way two or three years previously amid the horrors of an Indian raid, had partially if not entirely returned. The strangeness of all around her and her inability to recollect any recent events had, however, plainly begun to distress her, and the doctor, fearing a relapse, had given the strictest injunctions that only one person, namely, Madame de Rocheval, should on any account be permitted to see her. With this and other precautions he was not without hope that her recovery might be ultimately insured, and he attributed it entirely to the strong emotion and subsequent revulsion of feeling caused by the power and pathos with which the young soldier had given the soul-stirring and touching melody of the great master.

It was a source of the liveliest satisfaction to young de Beaujardin to be able to look forward to Amoahmeh's complete restoration to reason, and he could only regret that he could not be allowed to see her and express his good wishes. His last hours at Quebec, however, were devoted to making arrangements with Boulanger to receive her under his roof as soon as she should be well enough to be removed, which the doctor hoped would be the case before Madame de Rocheval's departure. Finally Isidore took leave of his friends, and with the warmly expressed wish that he and Marguerite might soon meet again in Old France--a wish which she echoed with her heart, if not with her lips--he bade adieu once more to Quebec.