A Sister to Evangeline Read online

  Chapter IX

  In Sleep a King, but Waking, no such Matter

  De Lamourie himself showed me to my room, a low chamber under the eaves,very plainly furnished. In the houses of the few Acadian gentry therewas little of the luxury to be found in the seigneurial mansions of theSt. Lawrence. In the De Lamourie house, for example, there were but twoserving-maids, with one man to work the little farm.

  If De Lamourie had noted any excitement on Yvonne’s part, or anyabstraction on mine, he said nothing of it. With simple kindness he setdown the candle on my dressing-table and wished me good sleep. But atthe door he turned.

  “Are you well assured that the abbé will not attempt to carry out histhreat?” he asked, with a tinge of anxiety in his voice.

  “I am confident of it,” I answered boldly. “That worthy ecclesiasticwill not try issues with me, when I hold the king’s commission.”

  Just why I should have been so overweeningly secure is not clear to menow that I look back upon it. That I should have expected the terribleLa Garne to bow so pliantly to my command appears to me now the mostfatuous of vain follies. In truth I was thinking only of Yvonne. But DeLamourie seemed to take my assurance as final, and went away in blithermood.

  My room was lighted by a narrow, high-peaked dormer window, throughwhich I could look out across the moonlit orchards, the level dykelands, the wide and winding mouth of the Gaspereau, and thefar-glimmering breast of Minas. Upon these my eyes rested long—but theeyes of my soul saw quite another loveliness than that of themoon-flooded landscape. They brooded upon Yvonne’s face—the troubled,changing, pleading look in her eyes—her sharp and strange emotion at thelast. Over and over it all I went, reliving each moment, each word, eachlook, each breath. Then, being deeply wearied by my long day’s tramp,but with no hint of sleep coming to my eyes, I threw myself down uponthe bed to deliciously think it all over yet again. I had grown surethat Yvonne loved me. Yet once more, in a still ecstasy of reverence andlove, I fell at her feet and kissed them. Then I thought about the stonewhich Mother Pêche had given me, and its mystic virtues, which I wouldexplain to Yvonne on the morrow in the apple-orchard. Then I foundmyself fancying that it was Yvonne who had given me the talisman,bidding me guard it well if I would ever hope to win her from my Englishrival. And then—the sunlight lay in a white streak across my bed-foot,the morning sky was blue over the dyke lands, and the robins were joyousin the apple-blooms under my window. What a marvellous air blew in uponmy face, sweet with all freshness and cleanness and wholesome strength!I sprang up, deriding myself. I had slept all night in my clothes.

  At breakfast I found myself in plain favour; I had made good my boastand shielded the house from the Black Abbé. Yvonne met my eager lookswith a baffling lightness. She was all gay courtesy to me, but there wasthat in her face which well dashed my hopes. Some faint encouragement,indeed, I drew from the thought that her pallor (which became herwonderfully) seemed to tell the tale of a sleepless night. Had she,then, lain awake, wearily reproaching herself, while I slept like aclod? If so, my punishment was not long delayed. Before the breakfastwas over I was in a fever of despairing solicitude. At last I achieved amoment’s speech with Yvonne while the others were out of earshot.

  “This morning,” said I, “in the apple-orchard, by an old tree which Ishall all my life remember, I am to read you those verses, am I not?That was your decree.”

  She faced me with laughter in her eyes, but the eyes dropped in spite ofher, and the colour came a little back to her cheeks.

  “I decree otherwise this morning,” she said, in a voice whose lightnesswas not perfect. “I am busy to-day, and shall not hear your poems atall, unless you read them to _us_ this evening.”

  “I will read them to you alone,” I muttered, “who alone are the sourceof them, or I will burn them at once!”

  “Don’t burn them,” she said, flashing one radiant glance at me.

  “Then when may I read them to you?” I begged.

  “When you are older, and a little wiser, and a great deal better,” shelaughed, turning away with a finality in her air that convinced me myday was lost.

  Putting my bravest face on my defeat, I said to Madame de Lamourie:

  “If you will pardon me, Madame, I shall constrain myself and attend tocertain duties in and about Grand Pré to-day. I must see the curé; and Ihave a commission to execute for the Sieur de Briart, which will take meperhaps as far as Pereau. In such case I shall not be back here beforeto-morrow noon.”

  “If our pleasure concerns you,” said Madame very graciously, “make yourabsence as brief as you can.”

  “I was born with a nice regard for self,” I replied. “You may be sure Ishall return as quickly as possible.”

  “And what if the Black Abbé should come while you are away?” questionedYvonne, in mock alarm.

  “If that extraordinary priest makes my presence here a long necessity Ishall come to regard him as my best friend,” said I, laughing, as Ibowed myself out to join De Lamourie in a stroll over the farm.

  During this walk I learned much of the state of unrest and painful dreadunder which Acadie was laboring. De Lamourie told me how the Englishgovernor at Halifax was bringing a mighty pressure to bear upon all theAcadian householders, urging them to swear allegiance to King George.This, he said, very many were willing to do, as the English had governedthem with justice and a most patient indulgence. For his own part, whilehe regretted to go counter to opinions which I held well-nigh sacred, hedeclared that, in his judgment, the cause of France was forever lost inAcadie, if not in all Canada. He felt it his duty to give in hisallegiance to the English throne, under whose protection he hadprospered these many years. But strong as the English were, he said, theprospect was not reassuring; for many of those who had taken the oathhad been brought to swift repentance by the Black Abbé’s painted andyelling pack, the very Christian Micmacs of Shubenacadie; while othershad been pillaged, maltreated, and even in some cases murdered, by theband of masquerading cut-throats who served the will of the infamousVaurin.

  At this I grew hot within, realizing as I had not done before the vileconnection into which the Commandant Vergor had cast me. But I saidnothing, being unwilling to interrupt De Lamourie’s impassioned story.He told of horrid treacheries on the part of the Micmacs, disavowed,indeed, by La Garne, but unquestionably winked at by him as a means ofkeeping the Acadians in hand. He told of whole villages wiped out by theBlack Abbé’s order, the houses burned, the trembling villagers removedto Ile St. Jean or across the isthmus, that they might be beyond thereach of English seductions. He told, too, of the hideous massacre atDartmouth, the infant English settlement across the harbor from Halifax.This had come to my ears, but he gave me the reeking particulars.

  “And this, too,” I asked in horror, “is it La Garne’s work?”

  “He is accused of it by the English,” said he, “but for once he isaccused unjustly, I do believe. It was Vaurin who planned it; Vaurin andhis cut-throats, disguised as Indians and with a few of La Garne’s flockto help, who carried it out. It was too purposeless for La Garne. Herules his savages with a rod of iron, and it is said that hisdispleasure lay heavy for a time upon the braves who had taken part inthat outrage. They went without pay or booty for many months. But atlength he forgave them—he had work for them to do.”

  When the tale was done, and it was a tale that filled me with shame formy country’s cause, I said:

  “It is well my word carried such weight with the good abbé last night.It is well indeed, and it is wonderful!”

  “I cannot even yet quite understand it,” said De Lamourie, “but theessential part is the highly satisfactory result. I am going to Halifaxnext Monday, Paul, with a half score followers who feel as I do; andthough I cannot expect you to sympathize with my course, I dare to hopeyou may be able to prolong your visit so as to keep my wife and daughterunder your effective protection.”

  I think I must have let th
e eagerness with which I accepted this trustbetray itself in voice or face, for Monsieur de Lamourie looked at mecuriously. But I really cared little what his suspicions might be. If Icould win Yvonne I thought I might be sure of Yvonne’s father.

  Having well admired the orchard, and tried to distinguish the “pippin”trees from the “belle-fleurs,” the “Jeannetons” from the “Pride ofNormandie;” having praised the rich and even growth of the flax field;having talked with an excellent assumption of wisdom on the well-bredand well-fed cattle which were a hobby with this courtier farmer, thisVersailles Acadian, I stepped forth into the main street of Grand Préand turned toward the house of Father Fafard. I was curiously troubledby an uneasiness as to the Black Abbé, and I knew no better antidote toa bad priest than a good one.