Part 21

“Couldn’t we, indeed?” I protested. In my eagerness I leaned forward into the glimmer, seeking closer proximity to the fair enshadowed face that seemed to waver off alluringly just beyond my reach. Then, in a panic lest I had revealed myself and displayed to her the error which I was finding so agreeable, I drew myself back hastily into the gloom. To cover my alarm I reproached her plaintively.

“Why do you keep so far away, sweet one? Surely you are glad to see me again!”

She laughed softly, deliciously, under her hood.

“I haven’t seen you yet, really, you know, Jacques. Perhaps you have changed, and I might not like you so well. Men do change, especially Englishmen and soldiers, they say. But tell me, why have you come to Cheticamp; what reason beside to see me?”

This was a poser. I feared the game was up. But experience has taught me that when one has no good lie ready to hand it is safest to throw oneself on the mercy of Truth and trust to her good nature. She has so many sides that one of them can generally be found to serve any occasion. I told the truth, yet with an air that would permit her to doubt, should the game require it.

“The business which gained me the privilege of coming where I might be once more blessed by the light of your sweet eyes, provoking one, was the need conceived in the heart of our good Governor of putting a stop to certain transactions with the French at Louisbourg, which, as you doubtless know very well, have laid all this Cheticamp coast under grave suspicion. Your people, I dare wager, are too wise to be mixed up in such perilous enterprises.”

No sooner had I spoken than I realised that, for once, Truth had tricked me. I had better have trusted to invention.

“Thank you, Jacques. That is just what I wanted to know. You are so kind. Good night.”

There was a mocking note in the sweet voice, a little ring of triumph and hostility. For one instant the face was raised, and I saw it plainly, as if by the radiance of the scornful eyes. Then, before I could in any way gather my wits, it vanished.

I thrust my head forward, heedless of concealment, and gained one glimpse of a shadow disappearing through the shrubbery. I sprang out to follow. But no, I forget myself. The window was somewhat small for one of my inches. I climbed out laboriously. The witch was nowhere to be seen. Then, still more laboriously, I climbed back again, cursing Fortune and my own stupidity which had bungled so sweet a game. I sat down on the edge of my bed to consider.

The errand which had brought me from Halifax to Cheticamp, with six soldiers to support me, was one of some moment, and here was I already in danger of distraction, thinking of a girl’s voice, of half-seen, mocking eyes, rather than of my undertaking. I got up, shook myself angrily, then sat down again to lay my plans for the morrow.

The old Seigneur of Cheticamp, Monsieur Raoul St. Michel le Fevre, had heartily accepted the English rule, and dwelt in high favour with the powers at Halifax. But he had died a year back, leaving his estates to his nephew, young St. Michel. It had come to the ears of the Government that this youth, a headstrong partisan of France, was taking advantage of his position as seigneur to prosecute very successfully the forbidden traffic with Louisbourg. Great and merited was the official indignation. It was resolved that the estates should be confiscated at once, and young Monsieur St. Michel le Fevre captured, if possible. Thereupon the estates were conferred upon myself, to whom the Governor was somewhat deeply indebted. It was passing comfortable to him to pay a debt out of a pocket other than his own. I was dispatched to Cheticamp to gather in Monsieur le Fevre for the Governor and the le Fevre estates for myself. They were fair estates, I had heard, and I vowed that I would presently teach them to serve well the cause of England’s king.

My first thought in the morning, when the level sun streaming through the hop vines brought me on the sudden wide awake—as a soldier should wake, slipping cleanly and completely out of his sleep-heaviness—my first thought, I say, was of a shadowed face vanishing into the night-glimmer, and something enchantingly mysterious to be sought for in this remote Acadian village. Then, remembering my business and hoping that my indiscretion had not muddled it, I resolutely put the folly from me and sprang up.

It is curious, when one looks back, to note what petty details stand forth in a clear light, as it were, upon the background of great and essential experience. I am no gourmand, but apt to eat whatever is set before me, with little concern save that it be cleanly and sufficient. Yet never do I hear or think of Cheticamp village without a remembered savour of barley cakes and brown honey, crossed delicately with the smell of bean blossoms blown in through a sunny window. At the time, I am sure, I took little heed of these things. My care was chiefly to see that two of my men set forth promptly to watch the two wharves on each side of the creek, which served the fleet of the fishermen. Then I dispatched two others to spy on the roadway entering and leaving the village, and a fifth to sentinel a hill at the back overlooking all the open country. With the remaining fellow, my orderly, at my heels, I set out for the dwelling of young Monsieur St. Michel le Fevre de Cheticamp, rehearsing his full name with care as I went, in order that there should be no lack of courteous ceremony to disguise the rudeness of my errand.

I needed none to point me out the house of the le Fevres. On the crest of a dark-wooded knoll at the south-east end of the one long village street, it spread its cluster of grey gables, low and of a comfortable air. Fir groves sheltered it to north and east. On the west gathered the cool, green ranks of its apple orchard. Down the slope in front unrolled a careless garden—thyme plots and hollyhock rows, gooseberry bushes and marigold beds, and a wide waste of blossoming roses—all as unlike the formal pleasances of France and England as garden-close could be, yet bewitching, like a fair and wilful woman.

“It shall not be changed by so much as one gooseberry bush,” said I to myself, highly pleased with the prospect. Then, rounding a lilac thicket, I arrived at the open gate. And then, face to face, I met a girl.

The meeting was so sudden, and so closely did I confront her, that I felt my coming a most uncivil intrusion. Moreover, she was most disconcerting to look upon. Stammering apologies and snatching my hat from my head, I flushed and dropped my eyes before her—which was not in accordance with my custom. I dropped my eyes, as I say, but even then I saw her as clearly within my brain as if my eyes were boldly resting upon her face.

The lady of the manor, evidently. I had heard there was a sister to the recalcitrant young seigneur, one Mademoiselle Irene, over whose beauty and caprices had more than one duel been fought among the gallants of Quebec.

The picture which, during those few heart-beats while I stood stuttering, burned itself into my memory was one that not absence, years, or habitude has any power to dull. The face was a face for which some men would die a hundred deaths and dream all beauty in dying, while other men, blind fools, and many women, of the envious sort, would protest it to be not even passable; a face small, thin, clear, and very dark; the chin obstinate; the mouth full, somewhat large, sorrowful, mocking, maddening, unforgettably scarlet; the nose whimsical, dainty; the eyes of a strange green radiance, very large and trustfully wide open, frank as a child’s, yet unfathomable; a face to trust, to adore, yet not to understand. The hair black, thick, half curling, with a dull burnish, falling over each side of the brow almost to cover the little delicate ears. The figure, clad in some soft, whitish stuff descending only to the ankles, was under middle height, slight to thinness, straight, lithe, fine, indescribably alive—in some strange way reminding me of a flame. In narrow little shoes of red leather the light feet stood poised like birds’. From one small nut-brown hand swung a broad-brimmed hat of black beaver, with an ample black feather at the side. Beside this entrancing picture I was vaguely conscious of a wide, yellow pathway sloping upward through roses, roses, roses drenched in sun.

Presently I heard the sound of my stammering cease, and a soft voice, troubling me with a familiar note, said courteously: “You are very welcome to Cheticamp, monsieur. My brother is away from home, unhappily, but in his absence you must allow me the honour of taking his place as your host in my poor way.”

I looked up and met her eyes fairly, my confusion lost in surprise, and on the instant my heart signalled to me: “It is none other than the maid of the window! Take care!”

Yes, I saw it plain. Yet I should never have known it but for a perception somehow more subtle than that of ear and eye—for she had disguised her voice the night before, and her dress had been that of a peasant maid, and the bright riddle of her face had been in shadow. I perceived, too, that she felt herself safe from discovery, and that it was for me to save her blushes by leaving her security unassailed. In all this sudden turmoil of my wits, however, I fear that I was near forgetting my manners.

“But, mademoiselle,” I demanded bluntly, “how do you know who I am?”

“It is the part of the conquered to know their conquerors, monsieur,” she answered, in a manner that eluded the bitterness of the words. “But, indeed, the place of an English officer, on duty that is doubtless official, is here at the Seigneury and not at the village inn. We cannot let you put a slight upon our hospitality.”

I was in sore embarrassment; and the parchment deed conveying to me the Seigneury of Cheticamp began to burn my pocket. I felt a vehement desire to accept the sweetly proffered hospitality of this enchanting witch. The temptation dragged at my heartstrings. There was nothing to do but take it by the throat rudely if I would save any shreds of honour. “Alas! mademoiselle,” I said, avoiding her eyes, “I am here on a rough errand, and your courtesy pierces me. I am here to arrest your brother and carry him a prisoner to Halifax.”

“Monsieur, monsieur, what do you mean?” she cried, with a faintness in her voice. But looking up suddenly, I saw that her surprise was a pretty piece of feigning, though her agitation was real enough.

“I mean that your brother, though succeeding to these estates under protection of English law, and owing allegiance to the English Crown, is giving aid to England’s enemies. He is supplying Louisbourg with grain and flax and cattle from these lands of Acadia, which are now English. The Governor has proofs beyond cavil. He has sent me to arrest your brother, mademoiselle, not to be happy in the hospitality of your brother’s sister.”

And now, to my amaze, the merriest and most persuasive smile spread a dazzle over my lady witch’s face.

“Those proofs of your good Governor’s, monsieur,” she cried, with pretty scorn, “I will show you what folly they are. You have all been deceived. You must come with me now, and give me fullest opportunity to clear my brother’s honour. And in any case it is my right, as well as my pleasure, to entertain the Governor’s representative when he visits the place of my father’s people.”

But I was stubborn. That deed in my pocket weighed tons. Yet my inclination must have shown in my eyes, plainly enough for one less keen than Mademoiselle Irene le Fevre to decipher it. A little air of confidence flitted over her face. Nevertheless, I shook my head.

“Most gracious lady,” I protested, “you honour me too much. It will delight me to learn that your brother has been maligned”—and in this, faith, I spoke true, forgetting the contingent peril to my pocket—“but were he never so innocent it would be my duty to take him to Halifax, for the Governor himself to weigh the evidence. The irony of life has sent me as your foe, not as your guest.”

“Then, monsieur, come as a foe who but observes the courtesies. Come with your hands free to arrest my brother at any moment on his own hearthstone (he is far away from it now, praise Mary!), or to arrest your hostess either, if your duty should demand that unkindness. Come as one who graciously accepts what he could, if he would, take as his right. Let us play that you come here as our friend, monsieur—and give me the hope of winning an advocate for my brother against the evil day that may bring him before the cold English judges at Halifax.”

Her strong, little eloquent hands were clasped in appeal—and who was I to deny her? But I looked into her eyes; and I saw in their childlike deeps, underneath the mocking and the feigning, a clear spirit, which I could not bear to delude. I understood now very plainly her mad game of the night before. She was unmasking a danger for her brother. I justified her in my heart; for my own part in the folly I felt a creeping shame. How lightly she must hold me. This thought, and a sense that I was about to hurt her, brought the hot flush to my face; and I looked away as I spoke.

“But, mademoiselle—forgive me that I bear such tidings—the estates of Monsieur Raoul le Fevre, Seigneur of Cheticamp, are confiscated to the Crown.”

Lifting my eyes at the last words, I saw that the girl had grown very white and was staring at me in a sort of terror. There was plainly no feigning here. This blow was unexpected, unprepared for, something beyond her bright young wit to deal with. I seemed to see in her heart a sudden, hopeless desolation, as if all her world had fallen to ruin about her and left her life naked to the storm of time. Not a word had she ready in such a crisis.

“Mademoiselle,” I cried, more passionately, perhaps, than was fitting, “do not misunderstand. The confiscation does not apply at once, of course, and you are still absolute mistress here. If your brother be proved innocent, the decree of confiscation may be revoked. So it will now be held in suspension. You will, I am sure, permit me to go through the form of visiting your house, to convince me, as the Governor’s emissary, that Monsieur le Fevre is not there. Then I will return to the village and see to it that my men shall cause you no annoyance or embarrassment. I dare not ask you to pity me for the duty that has been put upon me.”

As I spoke I had been watching her face, without seeming to think of anything but my own words. First the colour returned to cheek and lips; then a wild anger was lighted in the great green eyes—anger with a fear and appeal behind it. Then a resolved look—and I knew that she would force herself to play out the game, setting her brother’s interest before all else. And then, last of all, a most fleeting, elusive look of triumph at the back of her eyes and at the bow of her lips, for the indeterminable fraction of a second. I took note of this with some anxiety. Could it be possible that she felt sure of her power over me? Could it be possible that she had, at all, any hold upon me? No, she was too confident. She interested me amazingly. She seemed to me the most beautiful thing that could have ever existed. But I was not in love, and would not be swerved from my duty even if I were. Yet all this was flashed instantaneously through my brain—she was speaking—and I was yielding.

“You are a generous enemy, a chivalrous enemy, monsieur,” she murmured, in a low, earnest, slightly strained voice. Then she recovered her lightness. “I am almost your prisoner, in a sense, am I not? A suspect, certainly. If I accept your leniency, and profit by your permission to stay here under my confiscated roof, do not make me die under this weight of favour. Be my guest and let me feel that I am not the only one in debt.”

Was this the same woman, this half-mocking, all-irresistible creature, she whom I had seen grey-faced with hopeless trouble not three minutes before? Said I to myself, “If I put my wits or my heart against hers it is all up with me. Blank truth is my only hope.” Aloud I said, “I will be your guest, mademoiselle, though the debt in which I so overwhelm myself is one from which I can never again get free.”

For this acquiescence my reward was just a look of brilliancy that made me catch my breath with pleasure. With a gesture that bade me to her side she turned and moved slowly up the path, between the shining copiousness of roses.

“I will send a servant with your orderly to the inn, monsieur,” she said, “to fetch your things. Our old walls will be glad to shelter again a soldier’s uniform, even if the colour of it be something strange to them.”

“Almost you tempt me to wish that I had been born to the white uniform,” I answered, in a daze with the nearness of her, the witchery of her, the nameless charm of her movement, the subtle intoxication of her voice.

“Almost you tempt me to regret,” she retorted, with gracious raillery, “that the men of your cold and stubborn north cannot be moved to change by a woman’s arguments.”

“It is to unchangeableness we are moved by a woman, mademoiselle.”

I spoke with an exaggerated lightness, to avoid a too significant seriousness.

“Is there ever, I wonder, a risk of such steadfastness growing tiresome?” mused mademoiselle, turning contemplative.

The swift change discomfited me. I turned my words to platitudes on the beauty of the house, the garden, the landscape. And presently I found myself established, an honoured yet confessedly hostile guest, in the Seigneury of Cheticamp.

A little old housekeeper, wizened and taciturn and omnipresent, kept me under an inscrutable surveillance, but treated me civilly enough. My chamber, very spacious, but with a low ceiling of broken slopes under the eaves, its windows looking out over the rose-garden, the village, and the sea, was furnished with a strange commingling of the luxury and daintiness of Versailles with the rudeness of a remote, half-barbarous colony. One of my men, my orderly, was entertained, much to his satisfaction, in the servants’ quarters, and did me service as regularly as if we were at home at Goreham-on-Thames; while the rest, lodging at the inn, came to me with daily reports, which varied not at all in their trivial sameness. I breakfasted alone. Throughout the morning I walked exploring the country for miles about and talking with the inhabitants; or I investigated the roomy, irregular old house, whose half-open doors and rambling corridors extended trustful invitation to my curiosity; or I read and wrote in the small but well-stocked library, to which stained glass from Rouen, a prayer desk, and a corner shrine lent the savour and sanctity of a chapel. At one hour past noon precisely I dined with Mademoiselle le Fevre, and afterwards either walked with her in the garden and in the fir-woods, or, if the weather was unfavourable, conversed with her, most pleasurably, in the book-room, while she wrought with more or less affectation of diligence at a curious piece of tapestry, gold threads and scarlet on a cloth of a soft dull blue. Before sunset we supped, and in the evening, with doors and windows open and the scented breath of sea and rose and meadow flowing through, she played to me on her spinet, or sang ballads of old France, till candle-light and “good night” brought the day to a close.

Small wonder, being so gently occupied, that I was in no haste to force events, to ask myself what I desired or expected should happen. The man I was sent to seek was obviously not here. It was a plain and pleasant duty for me to stay here and await him. Meanwhile, I was serving the King by my presence, which was security that the Seigneury of Cheticamp should render no assistance to the King’s enemies at Louisbourg. To be sure, it was rendering continual assistance to Mademoiselle Irene le Fevre de Cheticamp, but I could not bring myself to consider for a moment that the King could be so unhappy as to count her among his enemies. And so the days slipped by. I was not—as I should have sworn to myself in all honesty had one suggested it to me—in the least in love with mademoiselle. I merely found it unavoidable to think about her or dream about her all the time; impossible to engage my interest in anything whatever that I could not connect with her. For her part, she grew day by day more sweetly serious, more womanly courteous, until our pretty masquerading that night at my window among the hop vines came to be a remote, unbelievable dream.

But the situation, seemingly so quiet and easy that it might aspire to last for ever, was, in fact, a bubble of rainbow tissue blown to its extremes of tension and ready to shatter at a breath. When the breath came it was a light one, truly, yet how the face of the world changed under it. I awoke one morning in the first rosiness of dawn with a kind of foreboding. I went to the window. There in the misty bay, hove-to at a discreet distance from the wharves, was a small schooner, signalling.

The signals were unintelligible to me, which meant it was my duty to be concerned with them. I remembered that there was a flag-pole on the knoll, behind the house. With a sudden leaden sinking at the heart I realised that mademoiselle’s brother was at last in evidence, and I could imagine nothing that would more embarrass me than that I should succeed in capturing him. After watching the signals for some time, and wondering if it were mademoiselle herself manipulating the unseen replies, I decided that there was nothing to be done but parade my guard openly along the coast. Then, if he should persist in stupidly running his neck into the noose, I would have to do my duty and pull it.

“Oh, why has she a brother!” I groaned, cursing him heartily, but straight revoked my curse, remembering that but for his delinquencies I had never come at all to Cheticamp.

Slowly I made my toilet, and before it was finished the little vessel was under way again, beating out of the inlet against a light westerly wind. Both to north and south of Cheticamp Harbour were little sheltered ports with anchorage for such small craft as she; and I concluded that with this wind she would seek the next haven northward. I resolved to send my men to search the southerly coves. Then I stepped out upon the terrace and met mademoiselle herself tripping through the dew, her hair dishevelled, her eyes like stars, her small face one gipsy sparkle with excitement.

At sight of me an apprehension dimmed the sparkle for an instant. Then she came forward to greet me with her usual courtesy. But now there was a challenge deep in her eyes, and presently a return of the old subtle audacity, as if I were a foe to be fenced with, bewildered, eluded. It hurt me keenly, and I took no thought of the utter unreasonableness of my grievance.

“Good morning, monsieur,” she cried gaily. “Have you a bad conscience that you sleep so lightly and arise so early?”

“Mademoiselle,” said I gravely, bending low over her cool brown fingers, and noticing that they trembled, “I have been watching the signals from yonder ship.”

The brown fingers were withdrawn nervously.

“They were quite unintelligible to me,” I continued, “but I readily infer that your brother has returned and is on shipboard.”

A strange look—was it relief?—passed over her face. Then she nodded her dark head as if in frankest acquiescence.

“Allow me to say at once that I must try to capture him, but that I earnestly hope that I shall not be so unfortunate as to succeed.”