A Little Girl in Old Quebec by Amanda Minnie Douglas (miss read books txt) 📕

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Madame de Champlain desired to return to France with her husband, who was to sail in August. The rough life was not at all to her taste.

"Oh," said miladi, eagerly, when she heard this, "let us go, too. I am tired of these long, cold winters. I was not made for this kind of life. If M. Giffard had lived a year longer he would have had a competency; and then we should have returned home. Surely you have made money."

"But mine is not where I can take it at a month's notice. I have been building on my plantation, weeding out some incompetent and drunken tenants, and putting in others. Pontgrave is going. Du Pare is much at the new settlement at Beaupre. It would not be possible for me to go, but you might."

"Go alone?" in dismay.

"It would not be alone. Madame de Champlain would be glad of your company."

"A woman who has no other thought but continual prayers, and anxieties for the souls of the whole world."

"Another year----"

"I want to go now"--impatiently.

She was like a fretful child. He looked in vain now for the charms she had once possessed.

"I could not possibly. It would be at a great loss. And I am not enamored of the broils and disputes. How do I know but some charge may be trumped up against me? The fur company seize upon any pretext. And even a brief absence might ruin some of my best plans. Marguerite, I am more of a Canadian than a Frenchman. The Sieur has promised to interest some new emigrants. I see great possibilities ahead of us."

"So you have talked always. I am homesick for La Belle France. I want no more of Canada, of Quebec, that has grown hateful to me."

Her voice was high and tremulous, and there burned a red spot on each cheek.

"Then let me send you. You should stay a year to recuperate, and I may come for you."

"I will take Rose."

"If she wishes. But I will not have her put in a convent."

"She is like a wild deer. Do you mean to marry her to some half-breed? There seems no one else. The men who come on business leave wives behind. There is no one to marry."

"You found some one," he returned good-naturedly, smoothing her fair hair.

"Can you find another?"

"She is but a child. There need to be no hurry."

"She has outgrown childhood. To be sure, there is Pierre Gaudrion, who hangs about awkwardly, now and then."

"She will never marry Pierre Gaudrion. She is of too fine stuff."

"A foundling! Who knows aught about her? Most Frenchmen like a well-born mother for their children."

"She is in no haste for a husband. But do not let us dispute about her. You excite yourself too much. Think seriously of this project. The Sieur will see you safely housed when once you are there."

He turned and went out. She fell into a violent fit of weeping. She could coax anything out of Laurent, poor Laurent, who might have been alive to-day but for the friendship he thought he owed M. Destournier. And they might now be in Paris, where there were all sorts of gay goings-on. This life was too stupid for a woman, too cold, too lonely. And a wife should be a husband's first thought. Ralph was cold and cruel, and had grown stern, almost morose.

He walked over to the plantation. By one of the log huts Rose stood talking to an Indian woman. Yes, she was no longer a child. She was tall and shapely, full of vigor, glowing with health, radiant in coloring, yes, beautiful. There was much of the olden time about her in the smiles and dimples and eagerness, though she was grave in miladi's presence.

Yet neither was she a woman. The virginal lines had not wholly filled out, but there was a promise of affluence that neither my lady nor the Madame possessed. For the lovely Helene had devote written in every line of her face, a rapt expression, that seemed to lift her above the ordinary world. The souls of those she came in contact with were the great thing. And though the Sieur was a good Catholic, he was also of the present world, and its advancement, and had always been inspired with the love of an explorer, and of a full, free life. He could never have been a priest. He had the right view of colonization, too. Homes were to be made. Men and women were to be attached to the soil to make it yield up the bountiful provision hidden in its mighty breast.

And miladi! There had been so few women in his life that he knew nothing of contrast, or analysis. Some of the men took Indian wives for a year or so: that had never appealed to him. He had been charmed by Madame Giffard from the very first meeting with her, but she was another man's wife, and she loved her husband. The pretty coquetries were a part of the civilized world over in France and meant only a graceful desire to please. Then in her sorrow he pitied her profoundly, and felt that he owed her the highest and most sacred duty.

But as he studied Rose now, and thought of a suggested lover in Pierre Gaudrion, his whole soul rose in revolt. And the other thought of sending her away was equally distasteful. Why, she was the light and sweetness of the settlement. In a different fashion, she captured the hearts of the Indian women, and taught them the love of home-making, roused in some of them intelligence. How did she come by it? There was Wanamee.

He did not dream that he had awakened a desire for knowledge in the girl's breast and brain. But she had gone beyond him in the lore of the sea and the sky, and the romance of the trees, that to him were promising materials for houses and boats. They were her friends. She could translate the soft murmur that ran through their leaves, or the sweet, wild whistle of the wind that blew in from the river or down from the high hills,--from the ice and snow of the fur country. And sometimes he had seen her run races with the foaming river, where it whirled and eddied and fretted against a spur of the mighty rocks. All her life, from the day he found her on the rocks, seemed to pass before him in one great flash. He exulted that she belonged to no one, that he had the best right to her. He could not have told why. Heaven had denied him a child of his very own, and he had learned that miladi considered babies a wearisome burthen, fit only for peasants and Indian women.

Did the saintly and beautiful Helene think so as well? he wondered. He had learned a good deal about womankind since his marriage, but he made a grand mistake, he had learned only about one woman; and she was not the noblest of her kind.

Rose turned suddenly and saw him in that half-waiting attitude. There was little introspection, or analysis, in those days; people simply lived, felt without understanding. She had outgrown her first feeling of aversion. In a vague fashion she realized that miladi needed protection and care that no one but M. Destournier could give her. She was sorry she could not ramble about, that she never brightened up, and sung and danced any more. And this was why she, Rose, did not want to grow old and give up the delights of vivid, enchanting exercise.

Why miladi was captious and changeful, never of the same mind twice, she could not understand. What suited her to-day bored her to-morrow. She gave up trying to please, though she was generally ready and gracious. But she remarked it was the same way with M. Ralph, and he bore the captiousness with so sweet a temper that she felt moved to emulate him. In the depths of her heart there was a great pity, and it was sweet to him, though neither ever adverted to it.


CHAPTER XI

A FEAST OF SUMMER

As if his eyes had summoned her, she turned toward him. Out here in God's wide, beautiful world they could be the same friends, and not fret any one. It might have been dangerous if he had not been so upright a man, with no subtle reasonings, and she less simple-hearted.

"I have been helping Evening Star arrange her house. She is anxious to be like a Frenchwoman, and has put off many Indian ways since she became a convert."

"But you do not give her her Christian name," and he smiled.

"Maria Assunta! It isn't half as pretty. She has such lovely deep eyes, and such velvety skin that her Indian name suits her best. What does it matter?"

"Perhaps it helps them to break away from Indian superstitions. I do see some improvement in the women, but the men----"

She laughed lightly. "The women were better in the beginning. They were used to work. And all the braves care for is hunting and drinking bouts. If I were a priest, I should consider them hardly worth the trouble."

"A fine priest you would make. They consider you half a heretic."

"I go to chapel, M'sieu, when one can get there. I know a great many prayers, but they are much alike. I would like all the world to be upright and good, but I do not want to stay in a stifling little box until my breath is almost gone, and my knees stiff, saying a thing over and over. M'sieu, I can feel the Great Presence out on the beautiful rocks, as I look down on the river and watch the colors come and go, amber and rose, and greens of so many tints; and the music that is always so different. Then I think God does not mean us to shut it all out and be melancholy."

"You were ever a wild little thing."

"I can be grave, M'sieu, and silent, when there is need, for others. But I cannot give up all of my own life. I say to my heart--'Be still, it is only for a little while'--then comes the dance of freedom."

She laughed, with a ripple of music.

"I wonder," he began, after a pause, watching her lithe step and the proud way she carried her head--"I wonder if you would like to cross the ocean, to go to France?"

"With the beautiful Madame? It is said she is to sail as soon as the boats are loaded."

"Miladi might go with her. I could not be spared. And you----"

He saw the sudden, great throb that moved her breast up to her very shoulders.

"I should not want to go," in a quiet tone.

"But if I found at the last hour that I could go?"

She drew a long breath. "M'sieu, I have no desire to see France. I hear you and the Governor talk about it, and the great court where the King spends his time in foolishness, and the Queen Mother plots wicked schemes. And they throw people in prison for religion's sake. Did I hear a story of some people who were burned at the stake? Why, that is as cruel as the untaught Indians. And to cross the big, fearful ocean. Last summer we sailed up to