Ringfield Part 28

She paused and Pauline took up the unfinished phrase.

"Sorry you ever thought she was mine? I forgive you, my dear, but about my n.o.bility, make no mistake. What I did I did, but I did it all coldly, pa.s.sively, with nothing but hatred and loathing in my heart, with nothing but pride and selfishness setting me on to do it. I know this was wrong, but I could not get into any other frame of mind; I could never overcome my horror and repulsion of the whole matter. And now--it is just as bad--worse. If I thought I should have to live with her, with them, I could not stand it, Sara, I could not, I could not!

Why must I be tried so, why must I suffer so? Oh, it is because I have a bad heart, a bad nature! Yes, yes, that must be it! I have a bad nature, Sara, a bad, bad nature!"

"No, no, Pauline!" said her friend soothingly, and the matter dropped.

Later they were sitting, towards evening, sewing at some item of the impalpable trousseau, Pauline alternating her spasmodic needle with reading over Mme. Prefontaine's letter and jumping up to listen down the stair.

"What do you expect's happened, anyhow?" cried Miss Cordova at last, in exasperation. "Mr. Ringfield's a clergyman! he's a perfectly moral man, and I guess that means something. What are you afraid of? Now if it was me and Schenk or Stanbury----"

Pauline's att.i.tude and expression were alike tragic. In her cheap black dress her look of apprehensive despair was full of mournful intensity as she stood with one hand lifted and her expressive eyes fixed on shapes imaginary. Her friend's philosophy was equal to the occasion.

"Seems to me if you think so much about things that _might_ happen but you ain't sure they _have_ happened, you kind of _make_ 'em happen.

Sit down and be calm, for goodness sake, Pauline!"

"I can't, I can't! Oh, what's that now?"

With her hands over her heart she bounded to the top of the narrow stair.

"Reminds me of myself the other day when I thought Schenk was after me.

Do you hear anything, Pauline--you look so wild?"

"Yes, yes! Some one has arrived. _Grand Dieu_--which of them?

Sara--go and see!"

Miss Cordova rose and drew her friend back within the room.

"Maybe it's neither; only some one for M. Poussette."

"No, no, it is one of them and for me. I hear my name."

She sank upon a chair as footsteps were heard slowly, heavily, and somewhat unsteadily ascending the stair. The arrival was Edmund Crabbe, with the lurch of recent dissipation in his gait and his blue eyes still inflamed and bleared.

With a half-furtive, half-defiant air he advanced to Pauline, but before he could utter a word, either of justification or apology, she sprang at him with impetuous gestures and deeply frowning brows. To see her thus, in the common little room at Poussette's, clad in the plain garb of cheap mourning, yet with all the instinctive fire and grandeur of the emotional artist, was to recall her as many could, declaiming on the narrow stage of the Theatre of Novelties.

Je suis Romaine, helas! puisque Horace est Romain.

J'ai recevu son t.i.tre en recevant sa main,

or again, in the diaphanous rose-garlanded skirts of Marguerite Gautier, laying bare the secrets of her heart to her adoring lover.

Oblivious of Miss Cordova, Pauline rushed at her own lover but did not embrace him.

"Oh, where is he?" she cried. "What have you done to him?--or with him? I insist upon the truth; I must know, I must know all. He followed you!"

"He did, he did. He followed me, as you say, madam, but what of that?"

Crabbe stood, greatly astonished and rather mortified. In the presence of Miss Cordova, for Pauline to display such concern for the other man was, to say the least, annoying. To be dignified in his resentment was to invite ridicule, for the drink still showed in his walk, but he managed to frown and in other ways show honest astonishment and wrath.

"A nice welcome!" he went on, with difficulty repressing a certain thickness of utterance and steadying himself as well as he was able, the chairs being both occupied. "If you mean the parson, if these airs and sighs, these sulks and tender concerns are for him--you may spare yourself. He is all right. Though I beg pardon--you never sulk, Pauline, whatever you do. I'll swear to that, lady dear. 'Tis good and hot and strong while it lasts, and now I'm back, give it me, for I know I deserve it. I've been at it again, Pauline. Drink, I mean, my girl." Tears stood in his eyes.

"I understand. You need explain no further. But what do you mean about Mr. Ringfield--how is he all right? Where is he? I was afraid, afraid of something happening to one of you. Sara laughs, but she doesn't know how I feel."

"And never will!" said Crabbe, giving Pauline's shoulder a clumsy, caressing pat; "Miss Cordova has her points, but she is not Us, she is not We of the grand emotional parts! Just a bundle of emotions, nerves and impulses--that's all you are, madam!"

His affection, breaking through the still thick speech and weakened movements, was irresistible; Pauline sighed and smiled, shook off her tremors and allowed herself to descend with him to the dining-room, where over supper she listened to the recital of his adventure in Montreal.

"It was the cold then, that made you, that drove you to it again!" she said thoughtfully.

"Cold, and--and--loneliness. I was lonely, Pauline, and by Heaven--if you'll really take me, lady dear, the sooner we're married the better.

If your parson were in the house at this moment I should order him to perform the ceremony."

"Oh--that would not suit me! Mr. Ringfield--of course, that could not be. We must leave as soon as possible, that is all, and as this is the nineteenth, and we have arranged for the twenty-fourth, that is only four days to wait."

"Four days! I'll keep straight, I promise you, Pauline."

"And was he--was Mr. Ringfield with you much at the Hotel Champlain?

What did he do there? Why did he go?"

Crabbe, to tell the truth, was asking that same question of his brain, as he made heroic endeavours to recollect the details of his last debauch. He paused, and, with a trick characteristic of him, pushed away his plate and cup, although he had only begun his meal.

"That's what I'd like to know myself, Pauline. I was sitting at the table, smoking, and reading over some of my stuff--poor stuff it seems to me at times; however let that pa.s.s--when a knock came to the door, and I opened to our clerical friend! That's all I can remember."

"How did he look? How long did he stay? Do try and recollect. Try and answer."

Crabbe did try, but without avail.

"That's all I know, my dear girl. I must have been pretty bad."

"You must, indeed," said Miss Clairville, rising. A little of the hauteur Ringfield a.s.sociated with her showed in her bearing, and as the guide drew his food again towards him, she eyed him almost with disfavour. "Then you do not know where he is, or what he went for, or how long he stayed."

"I do not, lady dear--I do not."

Pauline was deeply mystified, and perhaps her vanity was also touched; the mental spectacle of the two men fighting each other for possession of her had faded and a certain picturesqueness had gone from life.

However, her marriage remained; she had four days, but only four, to make ready in antic.i.p.ation of the great event which was to remove her at once and for ever from St. Ignace and Clairville, and in the light of which even Crabbe's backsliding seemed a trivial matter. She therefore returned to Sadie Cordova with restored equanimity, and Ringfield--his avowal and his present whereabouts and condition yielded to those prenuptial dreams and imaginings which pursued even so practised a coquette and talented woman of the world as the once brilliant Camille and d.u.c.h.ess of Gerolstein. Nevertheless, agitation was in the air. Poussette went to and fro in much and very voluble distress. The night closed in and brought no letter, no telegram from Ringfield; how then--who, who would conduct the service? It was the week of Christmas and a few more were already in the village, members of families from afar and two or three visitors.

The feast of Noel is full of importance to all of the Romish faith, and Poussette knew of great things in preparation for the stone church on the hill of St. Jean Baptiste in the way of candles, extra music and a kind of Pa.s.sion-play in miniature representing the manger, with cows and horses, wagons and lanterns, the Mother and Child, all complete.

Should Ringfield not return----even as he spoke the wooden clock in the kitchen pointed to ten; the last train had pa.s.sed through Bois Clair and Poussette abandoned all hope, while in order to prove his intense and abject depression of mind, he broke his promise to the minister and helped himself to some whisky.

Thus, the absence of his mentor worked this unfortunate relapse, and should Crabbe find out, there looked to be an old-time celebration at Poussette's with Pauline and Pauline's rights entirely forgotten. As it was, Miss Cordova caught the culprit before he was quite lost, and mounting guard over the bar, entered upon those duties which, once shouldered, remained hers for a considerable length of time.

"Division of labour," she said smartly, and Poussette gave a foolish smile. "You take the kitchen and I'll take the bar. Then when Maisie and Jack arrive I can look after 'em. As like as not, Maisie'll be hanging round for a drop of lager--what she could get, that is, out of the gla.s.ses--I've seen her! And don't you fuss about Sunday, Mr.

Poussette! We'll get on just as well as if we had a church to go to and a sermon to listen to. Guess you won't be wanting to see yourself taking around the plate to-morrow, anyway."

Poussette, lying crumpled up in a reclining chair, watched his new friend with dawning reason and admiration.

"Fonny things happens," said he, wagging his head, "I'll go to sleep now and wake up--just in time--you'll see--to go to church, help Mr.

Ringfield take roun' the money--oh--I'll show you, I'll show you, Miss Cordova."

"You'll show me, will you?" said the barkeeper, absently. "What'll you do if he don't come at all? He can't come now, and you know it."

"I tell you--fonny things happens! I'll preach myself, read from the Bible, sure."