A Lover in Homespun Part 9

It had been a severe Canadian winter, but the bright spring suns.h.i.+ne was now honeycombing the great snow-heap, which all winter had beset farmer Frechette's farm-house, and which, on this early March morning, was still banked almost as high as the kitchen window.

Glinting through the old-fas.h.i.+oned narrow panes, the generous rays fell upon the white bowed head of farmer Frechette, who sat warming himself at the square box wood-stove, gazing the while with furrowed brow at the roystering wood sparks, as at short intervals they shot aggressively from the partly open door.

Suddenly there floated through the raised window the joyous chimes of church bells. With an angry exclamation the old man sprang to his feet, hurried to the window, and violently drew it down. His extreme weakness made the anger that convulsed his thin, wrinkled face painful to see. Straightening up his bent frame, he shook his hand at the church, which he could see in the distance, and uttered anathemas against it. As he did so, the door leading from the little bedroom at the back of the kitchen was burst open, and his wife, a woman many years younger than he, ran over to his side, dragged down his still uplifted arm, and led him over to his seat. She then sat down beside him, and burying her face in her hands, began to cry.

Her distress moved him and he told her somewhat doggedly, but not unkindly, to cease. "Do you know what the bells are ringing for?" he asked cynically, after a short pause.

"Why worry about it? We must submit," she answered, trying to keep out of her voice the discontent that a.s.sailed her.

"They are ringing," he went on in a hard voice, "for farmer Cadieux's daughter, who is to take her life vows to-day. Already he has one daughter a nun, and his honor among French-Canadians will increase. I have lived in St. Jerome all my life, and have neither daughter nor son in the Church; they pity me. It was only yesterday we received the letter from Quebec telling us of the honor that had come to my brother through his daughter taking the veil. None of our neighbors were more pa.s.sionately attached to their children than we; yet death pa.s.sed by their doors, came to ours, and took them all. Continued disappointment has made me weary of life. The sound of the church bells, which I have heard so often sing honor for others, drives me to outbursts of shameful anger. At times I think I shall go mad. As for the Church, I have nearly lost all faith in it."

As he ceased, his wife rose, kissed his cheek and said, with a little break in her voice, "We have suffered much, Hormisdas; would to the Virgin we had not been so sorely afflicted."

"Such affliction is nothing but cruelty," he went on, scornfully. "It was cruel when death took all our little ones in childhood. But it was still more cruel, when we had grown old and were striving to be content and kiss the rod, for the Virgin to give us another daughter; to let us keep her till she had grown into womanhood; till we had given her an education which would have fitted her to be the superioress of a convent, and then strike her with a fatal illness just as she was about to take the veil, and once more ruthlessly crush out all our hopes."

"So long as Adele lives there is hope," said his wife, trying to be brave.

"Doctor Prenoveau says she will die," he answered fiercely.

"She was resting easier when I came down to you. I cannot get the idea out of my mind, that if we got Doctor Chalmers from Montreal, he would cure her. They say, although he is young, he is very clever. As for Doctor Prenoveau, you know people say he is too old to practise now."

"When Doctor Prenoveau said the others would die, they died," he replied, looking at her as though he feared she would no longer argue with him.

With a hopeful ring in her voice the brave mother said, "That is true, but this time he may be mistaken; Doctor Chalmers would know."

"If we only dared hope," he said under his breath.

"Doctor Chalmers would know," she repeated eagerly.

"Send for him," he replied, turning his face away.

The sun had hardly sunk behind the Laurentian range of mountains, which for hundreds of miles towers above the great St. Lawrence River, and dictates its course to the Gulf, when the wind from the north, bringing with it flurries of fine snow, began to blow cold and strong.

Doctor Chalmers drew the buffalo robes tighter about him, and settled back in a corner of the sleigh; he had three miles yet to drive before he reached farmer Frechette's house. "Had I known it was going to be this cold I would have arranged for some other doctor to take up the case," he muttered. Had he only done so, how different his life would have been!

"We were afraid you would not come to-day," said Madame Frechette as she led him into the kitchen, where the stove was throwing out a genial heat.

"Had the message been less urgent, I should not have done so," he replied, stooping and warming his benumbed hands. Farmer Frechette sat facing the doctor at the opposite side of the stove, furtively glancing at the young physician, dissatisfaction imprinted on every line of his face; he was bitterly disappointed. "He is little better than a boy," the old man repeated to himself, over and over again.

"This is the doctor from Montreal, Adele," said the mother, bending over her sick daughter. Doctor Chalmers drew near the bed, and as the light from the coal-oil lamp fell across Adele's face, he could not help but think how beautiful she was even in her illness.

For a long time nothing could be heard in the kitchen but the loud ticking of the yellow-faced clock, hung high above the old deal table, and the occasional murmur of voices in the sick girl's room. Unable any longer to sit and endure the suspense, the farmer rose, and began, fretfully, to walk to and fro. Finally he stopped at the window, and his gaze travelled across the great expanse of white, beautified by the pale light of the early moon, to the tin-clad church tower in the distance, which shone like burnished silver as the moon's rays fell upon it.

"If she dies there is no Virgin and the priests have deceived us," he said, looking steadily at the tower; "but if she lives"--and he straightened out his bent figure--"I shall die happy in the faith. I will leave money to help build the new church which Father Sauvalle so long has wished to have built." Hearing a slight noise behind him, he turned quickly. His wife, followed by the doctor, was entering the room.

"Well?" he queried, in a peculiar tone, looking at the doctor as though he knew he would tell him there was no hope.

"She certainly is very ill, but I cannot agree with Doctor Prenoveau, if he says there is no hope." The words were kindly spoken, for he had noticed how the old man trembled and how poorly a.s.sumed was his air of defiance.

"You really think she may not die, doctor?" he asked, almost incredulously.

"I really think not."

Farmer Frechette sank heavily on his chair. "I am beginning to feel old, very old, doctor," he said weakly.

Never before had Doctor Chalmers taken so keen an interest in a case.

Inch by inch he contested with death for the life of the young girl upon whose recovery was founded so many hopes.

It was a beautiful June day when, for the first time since Adele's illness, she ventured out of the house, supported on the young doctor's arm, and walked as far as the little garden at the back of the house. Very lovely she looked in her light-colored, soft, clinging dress, large brimmed straw hat, the health color struggling back to her cheeks, her sweet lips parted, and her heavily fringed dark eyes lighted up with hope and happiness.

Among his friends, Doctor Chalmers was known as a man not p.r.o.ne to many words. Could they but have heard him this afternoon as he sat by her side on the quaint garden seat, they simply would have been astounded.

It had come so gradually, this love of his, that before he was quite aware, it had taken possession of his heart so that no reasoning could have forced it to withdraw. He saw no reason, indeed, why he should wish to banish it; besides being beautiful and winning, she had received an excellent education, and was in every way fitted to be his wife. Of Adele's dedication to the Church from her birth, he knew nothing, so that no misgivings a.s.sailed him. Little wonder then that his heart should be light, and that the primitive garden should appear to him the most beautiful spot he had ever seen.

After this little walk and chat in the garden, life seemed to come back to her with strides. By the end of August Adele was quite strong again. The change in her health made a new man of her father; from the day Doctor Prenoveau had said she would not recover, until the day Doctor Chalmers had p.r.o.nounced her out of danger, he had not entered the doors of the church. Now all was different; twice a week he went to confession, and almost every day knelt before the altar and asked forgiveness for the dreadful sins of the past. It had never struck him as being strange that Doctor Chalmers should continue to visit his house after she had recovered. He had a hazy idea that the doctor's triumph over his daughter's disease was the cause of the interest he took in her. The preposterous thought that anyone should want to marry Adele no more entered his imagination than would the idea of anyone wanting to marry one of the dark-robed nuns at the convent.

Everyone in St. Jerome knew that she was to take the veil. If his wife at times had fears, she never mentioned them to him.

And Adele? She was very happy. Like most French-Canadian women, she was pa.s.sionately attached to the Church. At times her happiness was dimmed by the thought that she was not looking forward to taking the veil with that eagerness that she had felt before her illness. She comforted herself with the thought that the change, somehow, was the result of her illness, and that by and by the old longings would surely return. Why her heart should beat so when Doctor Chalmers called, and what the meaning was of her looking so eagerly forward to his visiting days, she never stopped to think.

The time of her awakening was at hand!

Had Adele's thoughts been less engrossed one afternoon, as she sat on the porch, she would have noticed approaching the house, in the middle of the narrow, dusty road that ran to the church, Father Sauvalle, with his arm linked in that of her father's, both talking eagerly. The priest's hand was on the latch of the gate before she raised her head; her face lighted up, and she ran to meet them. The aged priest had known her all her life, and patted her head with fatherly affection.

As they walked toward the house, he told her, impressively, that his visit this time was solely on her account.

"Yes, solely on your account, solely on your account, blessed be the Virgin!" broke in her father with strange ecstasy. She could not account for the unhappy feeling which swept over her.

They went into the little parlor, where hung the great carved wooden crucifix, which was said to be the most costly in the town, with the exception of the one in the church.

Scarcely were they seated, when her father began to tell her the great news. With eyes beaming with religious enthusiasm and pride, he told her how Father Sauvalle had received a letter from the bishop, stating that when the daughter of Hormisdas Frechette had taken the veil at the convent at St. Jerome, the honor should be bestowed upon her of being removed to the convent of the Sacred Heart at Montreal. Father Sauvalle was to be thanked for this.

Very proudly and with much solemnity the priest took a letter from the folds of his robe, and as he opened it, impressively told her the letter he held was the very one which had brought the great news. As he read it to her, his face beamed with smiles. Little wonder they were pleased, for it was an honor indeed to the little town of St.

Jerome to be able to say that one of its daughters had been admitted to this convent, noted as it was for its exclusiveness and the severity of its discipline.

"The convent!" she exclaimed falteringly.

They noticed how pale her face had suddenly grown. They were not surprised; it was meet that the sudden news of the honor in store for her should cause some emotion.

"We have talked the matter over," continued the priest, graciously, "and have decided that, as you already have served your novitiate, you may as well return to the convent in a few days. In a month or so later you will be ready to take your final vows. Your father is an old man now and has been sorely tried, and has sinned deeply--yea, even uttered anathemas against the Church. But the Blessed Mother heard the prayers of the Church for your recovery, and so his soul was saved from--"

"He anathematised the Church because of me?" Adele interrupted, fear gleaming in her eyes.

For a few moments no one spoke. The painful silence was broken by her father struggling to his feet. Beseechingly he looked at the great crucifix, made the sign of the cross on his bosom, and then turned his wavering gaze on his daughter, who had shrunk back in her chair and covered her eyes, as though she dared not look at him.

"I had not meant you to know this," he said, tightly clutching the arm of his chair for support. "I think I must have been mad when I did it; I had set my heart so on having a daughter in the Church, and had been disappointed so often. When they said your illness was fatal, I said, in my misery, that there was no Virgin, or she would not let such suffering fall upon me. Even now, wrong as I know it to be, I fear if anything should happen that you did not take the veil, I should drift back again into unbelief."

"Cease, cease! Hormisdas," cried the priest, raising his hand authoritatively.

The old man walked weakly over to his wife. The priest turned his attention to Adele, and said to her soothingly, "There is nothing to fear now; all will be well with him. It is a great honor to you that your life was spared in order that your father's soul might be saved.

The bishop knows of this, and is greatly pleased. Already many of the parish priests have been told of your miraculous recovery, and have repeated it to those whose faith was weak, and they have been blessed. You have been honored above most women. In time, I believe you will rise to be the superioress of a convent."