A Cry in the Wilderness

"My mother's husband?" I echoed, but weakly. I failed for a few seconds to comprehend.

"Yes, your mother's husband. Gordon Ewart is George Jackson—George Gordon Ewart Jackson, thet is what he was christened, an' I 've known it sence the furst minute I set eyes on him in full lamplight, here in this very house on the fifteenth day of last November. Do you want any more proof?"

There is a limit to human suffering; a time when a surcharge of misery leaves mind and heart and soul numb. It was so with me upon hearing Cale's statement.

"Did he know you?" I asked almost apathetically.

"Yes, but it took him twenty-four hours. I 've changed more 'n he has."

"Why did n't he use his own name?"

"It is his own. He sloughed off thet part of it thet hindered him from cuttin' loose from all thet old life, he said, an' made the new one legal."

"Did he know me?"

"I don't know for sure. He ain't the kind to rake over a heap of dead ashes for the sake of findin' one little spark. But, Marcia, I believe he knew you from the minute he first see you there in the passageway."

"What makes you think so?"

"Because you are the livin' image of your mother, as I told you once before. But you act different. An' he loved her so, he could n't help but seein' her in you—"

"Oh, my God!"

I think it was a groan rather than an exclamation. My head dropped on Cale's hand, as it lay over mine. The flashlight of intuition showed me the truth: this man, my mother's husband, the man who was dearer to me than life itself, was again loving her, whom he had loved only to lose, in me—her daughter! He was loving me because of her, not because of myself.

Oh, I saw it in every detail! I saw every ugly feature in every act of the whole tragedy; and I saw myself the dupe of that Past from which I had tried so hard to escape.

I raised my head. My decision was made. I looked at Cale defiantly. I think every fibre of me, moral, physical, mental, spiritual, revolted then and there against being made longer a mere shuttlecock for the battledores of Fate.

"Cale, when does the next afternoon train leave the junction—the one that connects with the Southern Quebec for New England?"

"Don't, Marcia, in the name of all that's holy, don't do nothing rash. I meant it for the best—"

"I know you did; but that won't prevent my going."

"But, hear to reason, Marcia; wait till Ewart comes–hear what he has to say—I 'm placed where I can't speak. Wait a few days."

His hand felt clammy cold under mine. I pulled mine away. I hurt him, but I did not care.

"There is nothing to be said. I am going. When does that train leave?"

"Seven-five. What will Ewart say? You are doing him a bitterer wrong than your mother before you."

I laughed in his face. His voice grew husky as he spoke again:

"Stay for my sake then, Marcia; just five days—I 'm as nigh ter you as any in this world."

"Not so very, Cale."

Out of the numbness of my body, out of my bitterness of heart, out of the depths of my misery, I spoke: "Cale, listen. For twenty-six years I was in this world, and four men—the one people call my father, you, my uncle-in-law who loved your wife, my mother's sister, Doctor Rugvie who brought me into this world and made but two attempts to find me, Mr. Ewart who as George Jackson brought me home in his arms, a baby three days old, and left me for good and all, worse than orphaned—all four of you, how much have you cared for me in reality? Answer me that."

There was silence in the room. I heard Cale draw a heavy breath.

"You don't answer," I went on unmercifully, "and I am going away. I, too, am going to 'cut loose'. I want you to go down to Mère Guillardeau's and tell her André is dead, and the seignior will be here in five days."

"What—now?" He moistened his lips.

"Yes, now."

"But you had n't ought ter be alone."

"I am not alone; the dogs are here and little Pete."

He rose and crossed the room. At the door he turned; his voice trembled excessively, and I saw he was in fear.

"Promise me you won't do nothing rash, Marcia."

I laughed aloud. "I promise—now go."

When I heard him drive away from the house, I went upstairs and began to pack my trunk. The sooner I could get out of Lamoral, the better for all concerned, Mr. Ewart included. Did he think for one moment that I would consent to being loved for my mother's sake? Did he think to make good, through me, the loss of the woman he loved? How had he dared, knowing, yes, knowing all, to love me for that other who never loved him! Why did he try to force his love upon her and, by changing the very channels of nature, bring all this devastation of misery upon my life? Why, why?

I packed rapidly. There was not so much to take with me. Then I went through the rooms one after another: the living-room—the office. I looked at the Méryon etchings—the Pont Neuf and Ste. Etienne—on its walls. Upstairs, too, I went; into Jamie's room, into Mrs. Macleod's, then to Mr. Ewart's. I stopped short on the threshold.

"Why am I going in here?" I asked myself. "What am I doing here?" I stepped in; looked about at my own handiwork—then at the bed. I crossed quickly to it and laid my cheek down upon his pillow. It was only for a moment. I heard wheels on the driveway. Cale was returning.

"I am ready, Cale. You can take us over with the trunk in the light wagon; little Pete can go with us."

The look he gave me was pitiful, but it made no appeal to me.

"You will have to wait good forty minutes if you go now."

"I don't mind it. You need not wait. I would rather not say goodby."

"Where are you goin', Marcia?"

"Don't ask me that, Cale; I don't want to lie to you. I shall send my trunk to Spencerville. This is all I will say."

"What must I tell George?"

For a moment I failed to comprehend that he meant Mr. Ewart.

"Tell him what you please."

I set some supper on the kitchen table for him and little Pete, against their return.

Cale reharnessed and brought the wagon to the side door.

We drove those nine miles in silence, except for little Pete who asked several pertinent questions as to the reason of my going. In passing through Richelieu-en-Bas, I looked for the apple-boat. It was still there. Little Pete begged Cale to stop to see it on their way home.

"Not to-night, sonny, it 'll be dark," he said sternly; "we 'll try it another day." I thought the small boy was ready to cry at his friend's abrupt refusal.

Cale left me at the junction, after he had seen me buy a ticket for Spencerville, and the trunk was checked to that place.

He put out his hand. "Marcia, I can't defend myself; all you say is true—but I think you will come to see different, sometime. We 're all human an' liable to make mistakes, big ones, an' I can't see as you 're an exception."

The simple dignity of this speech impressed me even in those circumstances. I put my hand in his.

"'Sometime', Cale? It has always been 'sometime' with me. It is going to be 'never again' now; no more mistakes on my part."

"You will write me a word—sometime, won't you, Marcia?"

"I won't promise, Cale. I want to be alone. After all, I am only going away from here as I came—to find work and a livelihood. Goodby."

I think he understood. He did not bid me goodby, but went away down the platform, walking slowly, stooping a little, his head drooping, as if all courage had failed him. And my heart was hardened.

XXXIII

I watched him and little Pete drive away down the highroad; watched them out of sight. Then I sat down on the bench outside the waiting-room to think, "What next?"

I had no intention of going to Spencerville. My trunk would be safe there with the address of a neighbor of my aunt. What I most wanted was to be alone and time to think, time to regain strength for the struggle before me.

I don't know that for ten minutes I thought at all. I suppose I must have, for I remembered that at this hour Jamie and Mrs. Macleod were to sail; that the Doctor was on his way to San Francisco. That Cale could do nothing by telegraphing them. And what would he telegraph?

The ticket-agent and baggage-master locked the office door and came over to me.

"I 'm going up the road a piece; the train is twenty minutes late. You won't mind sitting here alone?"

"Oh, no. It is a lovely evening."

"No frost to-night." He went off on the highroad in the opposite direction from Richelieu-en-Bas.

The evening promised to be fine; the sun set clear in the sky. Somewhere in the distance, I heard a night hawk's harsh cry.

The dusk fell; still I sat there, not thinking much of anything. I had my hand-bag with me and my warm coat. I opened my bag and took out an apple; I had eaten nothing since breakfast and felt faint. The apple was an Astrachan. I found myself calculating what it cost—this one apple. I must begin to count the cost again of every morsel, although I had all my wages with me. But ten weeks of sickness—and where would they be!

I put my teeth into the apple— A thought: the apple-boat—it was to leave soon—the week was up!

I rose from the bench, not stopping to take a second bite; took my hand-bag; threw my coat over my shoulder, and started down the road to Richelieu-en-Bas.

It was rapidly growing dark. One mile, two miles, three miles—the night was there to cover me. I was thankful. Five miles, six miles—I was entering the long street of the village. The lindens and elms made the road black. I strained my eyes to see the lights. That from the cabaret was the first—then a green one above the water, several feet it looked to be. It must be the apple-boat!

It was just the time in the evening when the men flock to the cabaret. As I drew near it, I heard the sound of the graphophone. I listened, not stopping in my walk.

"O Canada, pays de mon amour!"

I stopped then; and it seemed as if my heart stopped at the same time.

Oh, it had been "Canada, land of my love" in the deepest sense—and now!

I went on to the boat; crossed the trestle. At the sound of my footstep on the deck, the woman put her head up the companionway.

"Who 's there?"

"Some one who wishes to speak with you alone; I was here the other day."

"I know your voice, but I don't know your name. You can talk; my husband is, at present, yonder in the cabaret; he will be in by half-past ten. We sail to-night if the wind holds good."

"To-night?"

"Yes; and what is that to you?" she asked suspiciously.

"May I come into the cabin?"

"But, yes. Come."

I sat down on the stool she placed for me. I was tired with the long walk.

"I have been called away from here, where I have been at service—"

"You—at service?" she asked in surprise.

"Yes; and I am going away to find another place. Will you take me with you in the boat? May I go with you to your home, wherever it is?"

She looked at me suspiciously. "I don't know—my husband—"

"I will pay you well, whatever you ask—"

"It is n't that,"—she hesitated,—"but I don't know who you are."

"I am myself," I said wearily; "I am tired of my place, and they don't want me to leave. I want to go—I am too tired to stay—"

"Too hard, was it?"

"Everything was too hard. I come from Spencerville, just over the line; you know it?"

"Oh, yes. My cousin settled there when the new tannery was built last year."

"All my family lived there. I am now alone in the world. I have sent my trunk on—but I want a complete rest before I go out to service again. I thought I could get it with you. I don't want to let the family know I have gone. The family are all away at present."

"Where have you been at work?"

"At the old manor of Lamoral, three miles away."

"I have heard of it; they bought ten barrels of apples last year." She seemed to be thinking over some matter foreign to me, at that moment.

"Won't you take me? I am so tired."

"You say you can work?"

"Try me."

"We are going back for the second harvest. We live near Iberville. We have orchards there, and help is always scarce at this time. Will you help?"

"Oh, yes; anything. I can do the housework for you, if necessary."

"You don't look tough enough for that."

"Try me."

"I 'll speak to my husband when he comes in."

"All I ask of you is, that you will not let him tell anyone here that I am on the boat."

"He has a tight mouth—a good head; he will do as I say."

"That settles it," I thought.

"If you will stay here with my baby, I 'll just step over to the cabaret and call him out. We can talk better in the road."

"Yes."

She climbed the steps, and I heard her heavy tread on the deck—her steps on the trestle-boards. After that, nothing for a quarter of an hour, except the soft lap of the river running past the boat.

They came back together, the man with a lantern which he hung at the stern.

"He says, my Jean, that you can come with us, if you will hire out for a month."

"Tell him I will hire out to you for that time. And how much shall I pay you for the passage?"

"Jean says that's all right,—you can't leave us unless you can swim,—and we 're more than glad to get the help."

"I can sleep on the deck; I have a warm coat."

"Oh, no; my husband often sleeps on deck when we are at anchor; but to-night he will not sleep at all. We go to Sorel; we must be there by three in the morning. You can sleep in his bunk."

She parted some curtains and showed me a two-and-a-half feet wide bunk beneath the sloping deck. I thanked her.

"If the wind should come up heavy, I shall do the steering," she said. "I will be down after we get under way. I help Jean."

She went up the tiny companionway, and I heard her talking in a low voice to "Jean". Soon there was a noise of trailing ropes, of a sail being hoisted; a sound of pushing and hauling—a soft swaying motion to the boat, then the ripple of the water under her bow.

I lay down in the bunk; the sound of the ever-flowing river soothed me. I was worn out.

BOOK THREE

FINDING THE TRAIL

I

A dream would seem more real to me than the experience of that night.

I listened, half sleeping, half waking, to hear only the ripple of water under the bow. Towards morning the wind freshened. I heard great commotion overhead. Evidently Jean and Madame Jean were taking in sail. I knew we must be near Sorel. I went up on deck to ask if I could be of any help.

"Not now," said Madame Jean who was busy with the gaskets; "but when we come in to Sorel there will be some merchants on the wharf to get the rest of our apples. If you will mind the baby then, I shall not have him on my hands if he wakes up."

"To be sure I will. May I stay here on deck for a little air?"

"But, yes; you cannot sleep in this noise."

The morning stars paled. The light crept out of the east along the pathway of the great river. The sun rose, turning its waters to gold.

We were late in getting into Sorel. While there I remained in the cabin with the baby who was still asleep. By seven o'clock we were off again—the merchants had been willing to lend a hand in unloading. We had a fair brisk wind for our sail up the Richelieu, or Sorel River.

Madame Jean made us coffee, gave us doughnuts, cheese, and thickly buttered bread. The fresh milk for the baby was taken on at Sorel, and the little fellow, who could creep but not walk, gave me plenty to do. Madame Jean laughed at my attempts to confine him in one place; he seemed to be all over the deck at once. She called out merrily from the tiller:

"Eh, mademoiselle, you have never had one, I can see! You have much to learn. Here, take the tiller for a moment, I will show you."

She took a small-sized rope that had a hook at one end and a snap-catch at the other. She caught up the baby and, turning him over flat on her lap, showed me a stout steel ring sewed into the band of his blue denim creeper. Into this she fastened the snap and, hooking the other end into the belt of my skirt, set him down on the deck.

"Voilà!" she said triumphantly. I found the arrangement worked perfectly and relieved me from all anxiety. He was tethered; but he could roam at large, so he thought.

All day we voyaged up the Richelieu between the rich Canadian farm-lands, the mountains, faintly blue on the horizon, rising more and more boldly in the south, as we approached the Champlain country. Just before sunset we glided up to an old wharf at Iberville.

There followed a series of shouts and whistles from the head of it. There was a frantic waving of aprons. A rough farm wagon, drawn by an old pepper-and-salt horse and loaded with children, bore down upon us, rattling over the loose planks like a gun carriage. The old horse was spurred on by flaps and jerks of the reins which were handled by a fine-looking bareheaded girl on the board that served for a seat.

There were answering shouts from Jean and Madame Jean; answering wavings of towels and shirts which had been drying on the rail—all equally frantic. Then the whole cartful tumbled out on the wharf, almost before the horse came to a halt, and, literally, stormed the sloop.

Jean and his wife were lost to my sight in the children's embrace; fourteen arms were trying to smother both at the same time. I was holding the baby when the horde descended on him, and only the fact that I was a stranger prevented me from sharing the fate of their mother.

"They are good children, eh?" said Madame Jean proudly, with a blissful smile. She smoothed her tumbled hair and twisted her apron again to the front of her plump person.

I was properly introduced by my own name which I gave to madame and her husband. The whole family fairly pounced upon the few belongings in the boat and carried them to the great wagon. Madame Jean, holding the baby, sat in the middle enthroned on the pile of bunk cushions; the children crowded in around her. I was asked, as a compliment, to sit beside Monsieur Jean on the board seat which he covered with an old moth-eaten buffalo robe. He took the reins, and amid great rejoicings we jolted up the wharf into the main street of Iberville, the whole family exchanging greetings with every passer by, it seemed to me, just as fervently as if they had but recently returned from an ocean voyage. Our wagon—a chariot of triumph—rattled on through the town and out into the open country. They chatted all together and all at once. I failed to understand what it was about, for several of the children were very young and their French still far from perfect. Their voices were pitched on A sharp, and the effect was astonishing as well as ear-splitting.

They paid no attention to me. I was grateful. I felt myself again a stranger in the midst of this alien family life.

Two miles out from the town, we came to the roof-tree of the Duchênes,—this was their name,—and within half an hour we sat, eleven of us, around the kitchen table at supper. From beneath it, an old hound protruded his long nose, and caught with a snap the tidbits that were thrown to him. A huge Maltese cat settled herself across my feet. A canary shrilled over all the noise. In the midst of the merry meal—blackberries and milk, hot fried raised bread with maple syrup—the whole family was apparently thrown into convulsions by the appearance in the room of a pet goat and, behind him, the old pepper-and-salt horse that Monsieur Duchêne had turned out in the yard to graze!

There was a general uprising; charge and counter charge, shrieks, laughter. The baby and I were the only ones left at the table. Then, humiliating exodus of the beasts and triumphant entry of the family. The supper proceeded.

And afterwards—never shall I forget that little scene!—after the dishes were washed, the goat fed, the horse bedded and the baby asleep, the seven children placed themselves in a row, the oldest girl of fifteen at the head, and waited for a signal from their father: a long drawn chord on a mouth harmonicum. Together parents and children sang the Angelus, sang till the room was filled with melody and, it seemed to me, the soft September night without the open door.

This was my introduction to the family Duchêne. I slept in an unfinished chamber. A sheet was tacked to the rafters over the bed. The window beside it looked into a mass of trees.

Oh, those orchard slopes of Iberville! I made intimate acquaintance with them for the next four weeks. I worked hard. I was up at five to help Madame Jean with the breakfast and the housework, what there was of it; then we were all off to the orchards to pick the wholesome, beautiful fruit—Northern Spies, Greenings, Baldwins and Russets. To use Jamie's expression, their "fragrance is in my nostrils" as I write of them.

At noon we had lunch—bread and butter, with jerked beef, cheese, apples, washed down with the sweetest of sweet cider from the mill. There was no stint of the simple fare. Then at work again—all the children joining, except the baby who roamed at will among the orchard grass with two small pigs that scampered wildly to and fro.

It was work, work—picking, sorting, packing, till the shadows were long on the grass and the apple-cart was piled high with windfalls. The barrels were filled with picked fruit of the choicest. And after supper, regularly every evening, we sang the Angelus.

This life was beneficial to me. I made no plans. I was glad to work hard in order to drown thought, to keep my body, as it were, numb. I really dared not think of what was, for then I could not sleep; could not be ready for the next day's work. To forget myself; this was my sole desire. Madame Duchêne watched my work with ever increasing admiration. Monsieur Duchêne wanted to engage me for another season.

"But you must not leave us this winter, mademoiselle. We need you," he said one day, after nearly four weeks had passed. He was preparing to set out on his return voyage down the Sorel to Richelieu-en-Bas.

"Others may need me, Monsieur Duchêne. I have been so content in your home; it has done me good."

"Mademoiselle has some sorrow? Can we help, my wife and I?"

"You have helped me by trusting me, by letting me make one of your family all these weeks."

"But you will keep the house till we return?"

"I should like to do this for you, but I cannot stay so late here in the country. I must find employment for the winter."

"We cannot afford to pay you, mademoiselle, but you shall have your keep, if you will, for your help and your company, while you stay." Madame Duchêne spoke earnestly.

"I cannot, dear Madame Duchêne; it is time for me to go."

"May I ask where, Mademoiselle Farrell?" she asked, with such gentle pity audible in her voice, such kindly thoughts visible in her bright blue eyes, that, for a moment, I wavered. This was, at least, a shelter, a "retreat" for both my soul and my body.

"I do not know as yet."

"What can we do for you?" she urged.

"But one thing: say nothing to any one in Richelieu-en-Bas that you have seen me, that I have been with you—that you know me, even."

"As you will."

I remained with the children who declared they should be desolate if I went on the same day that father and mother left them. Together the children and I watched the apple-boat, loaded to the gunwale, sail away from Iberville wharf.

Two days after that, the children drove me to the station. I took the day express to New York.

I decided to go to Delia Beaseley.

II

Not in its aspect of Juggernaut did the great city receive me that hot September night at half-past eight, but as a veritable refuge where I could lose myself among its millions.

I welcomed the roar of its thoroughfares, the noises of its traffic; they deafened my soul. Jamie's voice saying: "We shall see you in Crieff next summer—you and Ewart," grew faint and far away. Cale's voice pleading, Cale's voice warning me: "You are doing him a bitterer wrong than your mother before you," became less distinct.

The flashing electric signs were welcome and the white glaring lights of Broadway. They dazzled me; they helped to blind my inner sight to that vision of Mr. Ewart, standing on the shore of the little cove, far away in that northern wilderness, and looking into my eyes with a look that promised life in full.