A Cry in the Wilderness Part 22

"I was sure of it after the first page or two, but I could scarcely trust my ears. What the boy has done is to make of it a true Canadian idyl. I wish Drummond might have heard it."

"I believe Jamie knows 'The Habitant' book of poems by heart. Have you ever read it, Miss Farrell?"

"Yes, in New York; and Jamie has promised to give me a copy for a Christmas remembrance."

"I 'll add one to it," said the Doctor, "'The Voyageur,' then you will probe a little deeper into Ewart's love and mine for Canada."

"Oh, thank you; these two will be the beginning of my private library."

"I 'll give you an autograph copy of 'Johnnie Courteau,' if you like; I knew Drummond," said Mr. Ewart.

To say I was pleased, would not express the pleasure those two men gave me in just thinking of me in this way. I thanked them both, a little stiffly, I fear, for I am not used to gifts; but my face must have shown them how genuine was my feeling for the favors. They both saw my slight confusion and interpreted it, for Mr. Ewart said, smiling:

"If you don't mind I will add to the unborn library Drummond's other volume; I 'm going to try to live up to Cale's expectation of me concerning your connection with books. They will help you to remember this evening."

"As if I needed anything to remember it!" I exclaimed, at ease again.

"It's like---it's like--"

"Like what, Marcia?" Mrs. Macleod put this question.

"Tell us, do," the Doctor added; "don't keep me in suspense; my temperament can't bear it." He looked at me a little puzzled and wholly curious. I was glad to answer both Mrs. Macleod and him truthfully:

"Like a new lease of life for me." My smile answered the Doctor's, and I was interested to see that the same wireless message I was transmitting again across the abyss of time, failed again of interpretation. I turned to Mrs. Macleod.

"I think I may be needed in the kitchen." I rose to leave the room.

"Are you in the secret too?" Mr. Ewart asked.

"No, but I 've been recalling certain commissions Angelique gave me--extra citron, pink coloring for cakes, and powdered sugar for which, as yet, we have had no use in the house. But I want to be in the secret, for Jamie--"

The sentence remained unfinished, for Jamie flung open the door with a flourish, and stout Angelique, flushed with responsibility and the "vin du pays", entered carrying a huge round platter, whereon was a cake of n.o.ble proportions ornamented with white frosting in all sorts of curlycues and central "_Felicitations_" in pink. Behind her came Marie with a tin tray, laid with an immaculate napkin--one of our new ones--filled with pressed wine-gla.s.ses and decanters of antiquated shape. Following her was little Pete, carrying on each arm an enormous wreath of ground pine and bittersweet. Big Pete brought up the rear, his face glowing, his black eyes sparkling, his earrings twinkling. He was tuning his violin.

All rose to greet them; but ignoring us, with intense seriousness, they ranged themselves in a row near the door. They still held their offerings. Pierre, drawing his bow across the strings, nodded his head. Thereupon they began to sing, and sang with all their hearts and vocal powers to the accompaniment of the violin:

"_O Canada, pays de mon amour!_"

With the first words, Mr. Ewart's voice, full, strong, vibrant with patriotism, joined them; his fine baritone seemed to carry the melody for all the others. The room rang to the sound of the united voices.

I saw Cale at the door, listening with bent head. Jamie stood beside him, triumphant and happy at the success of his surprise party.

How Angelique sang! Her stout person fairly quivered with the resonance of her alto. Marie's shrill treble rose and fell with regular staccato emphasis. Pierre, father, roared his ba.s.s in harmony with Pierre, son's falsetto, and beat time heavily with his right foot.

At the finish, the Doctor started the applause in which Jamie and Cale joined. With a sigh of absolute satisfaction, Angelique presented her cake to Mr. Ewart who, taking it from her with thanks, placed it on the library table and paid her the compliment of asking her to cut it.

Marie pa.s.sed around the tray and decanted the "vin du pays". Little Peter, following instructions given him in the kitchen, hung a wreath from each corner of the mantel. Compliments and congratulations on the cake, the wine, the wreaths, the song, the master's home-coming, the refurbished manor house, were exchanged freely, and we all talked together in French and English. My broken French was understood because they were kind enough to guess at my meaning--the most of it.

Then the healths were drunk, to Mr. Ewart, to the Doctor, to Jamie, Mrs. Macleod and me; and we drank theirs. Finally, Mr. Ewart went to Cale, whom Jamie had persuaded to step over the threshold, and gave his health, touching gla.s.ses with him:

"To my fellow laborer in the forest." He repeated it in French for the benefit of the French contingent.

Cale, touching gla.s.ses, swallowed his wine at one gulp and abruptly left the room. He half stumbled over little Pierre who was sitting in the corner by the door, supremely happy in the remains of his huge piece of cake, which at his special request was cut that he might have the pink letters "Felici", and in the two lumps of white sugar which Mr. Ewart dropped into a gla.s.s of wine highly diluted with water.

Oh, it was good to see them! It was good to hear their merry chat; to be glad in their rejoicing over the return and final settlement of Mr.

Ewart among them, their "lord of the manor", as they persisted in calling him to his evident disgust and amus.e.m.e.nt. But their joy was genuine, a pleasant thing to bear witness to in these our times.

And if Father Pierre in his exuberance of congratulation repeated himself many times; if Angelique asked Mr. Ewart more than once if the cake was exactly to his taste; if Marie grew doubly voluble with her "Dormez-biens", and little Pierre was discovered helping himself uninvited to another piece of cake--an act that roused Angelique to seeming frenzy--Mr. Ewart closed an eye to it all, for, as they trooped, still voluble, out of the room, he knew as well as we that their measure of happiness was full, pressed down and running over.

Oh, their bonhomie! It was a revelation to me.

The embers were still bright in the fireplace but the candles were burning low in the sconces; it was high time at half-past eleven for the whole household to say good night.

"A home-coming to remember, Gordon," I heard Doctor Rugvie say, as I left the room.

"I can't yet realize it; but I 've dreamed--"

I caught no more, for the door closed upon them.

The two men must have talked together into the morning hours, for I heard them come upstairs long after I was in bed. Not until the house was wholly quiet could I get to sleep.

XI

I was up betimes the next morning, but Cale had been before me and taken up the offending rag carpet from the pa.s.sageway. When I went into the kitchen, Angelique told me that the seignior--she persisted in calling him that--and the Doctor had had their coffee and early doughnuts and were off in the pung, the seignior driving; that they said they would be at home for dinner. I found Cale and Pierre, acting under orders in the early morning, taking the trunks up to the bedrooms, placing the guns in the racks, removing the various sporting implements to a room behind the kitchen, and the chests to a storeroom.

At breakfast we three were alone together as usual. The four dogs were absent.

Mrs. Macleod and I spent the entire forenoon bringing order again into the various rooms. In the meantime, Jamie was dreaming and reading in the living-room. I had been there just a month and a day, and could not help wondering who would pay me! I needed the money for some heavier clothing.

The two friends appeared promptly for dinner and brought with them appet.i.tes sharpened by the increasing cold. They had been in Richelieu-en-Bas and arranged for a telephone for the manor, called on some English friends visiting at the new manor house in the village, and stopped at some of the seigniory farmhouses on the way home. I found Mere Guillardeau had been remembered at this early date.

"Are you busy this afternoon, Miss Farrell?" said the Doctor, as we rose from our first meal together and went into the living-room.

"Not unless Mrs. Macleod needs me?" I looked at her inquiringly.

"No, there is nothing more, Marcia; you did a good day's work in a few hours this morning," she replied in answer to my look.

"Can I be helpful to you in any way?" I said, turning again to the Doctor.

"Yes--I think you can." He smiled quizzically, looking down upon me from his substantial height. "You may not know--of course you don't, how could you know, never having heard much of an old fellow like me--"

"Oh, have n't I?"

"Have you? Then the Boy here has been giving me away. Has he ever told you I am something of a whip?"

"No, not that."

"Well, then, I am going to prove it to you. I propose to show the two French coach horses how to draw a pung,--Ewart does n't yet own a sleigh, you know in Canada,--and I wish you would lend me your company for an hour or so."

If the Doctor expected an enthusiastic response he must have been disappointed. Not that I did n't want the ride in the pung, but it occurred to me that here was my opportunity, offered without my seeking it, to ask of him all that I had been planning to ask during many weeks. As this door of opportunity was so suddenly opened to me, I felt the chill of the unknown creeping towards me over its threshold.

I answered almost with hesitation: