A Little Girl in Old Quebec - Amanda Minnie Douglas (classic novels for teens .TXT) 📗

And to be there without friends would be horrible. I have no taste for a convent."

A great many times the vague plan had entered his mind as a sort of duty. Now he would put it into execution.

"Become my wife," he said. He leaned over and took her slim hands in his and glanced earnestly into her eyes, and saw there were fine wrinkles setting about them. What did it matter? She needed protection and care, and there was no woman here that he could love as the romances described. He was too busy a man, too practical.

She let her head drop on his broad breast. She had dreamed of this and used many little arts, but had never been sure of their effect. There were the years between, but she needed his strength and devotion more than a younger woman.

"Oh, ought I be so happy again?" she murmured. "There is so much that is strong and generous to you that a woman could rest content in giving her whole life to you, her best love."

He wished she had not said that. He would have been content that her best love should lie softly in the grave, like an atmosphere around the sleeping body of Laurent Giffard, whom he had admired very much, and who had loved his wife with the fervor of youth. He drew a long breath of pity for the man. It seemed as if he was taking something away from him.

"Is it true?" she asked, in a long silence.

"That I shall care for you, yes. That you will be my wife." Then he kissed her tenderly.

"I am so happy. Oh, you cannot think how sad I have been for months, with no one to care for me," and her voice was exquisitely pathetic.

"I have cared for you all this while," he said. "You were like a sister to whom I owed a duty."

"Duty is not quite love," in her soft murmurous tone, touching his cheek caressingly.

He wondered a little what love was like, if this tranquil half pity was all. Madame de Champlain was like a child to her husband, the women emigrants thus far had not been of a high order, and the marriages had been mostly for the sake of a helpmeet and possible children. The Governor had really encouraged the mixed marriages, where the Indian women were of the better sort. A few of them were taking kindly to religion, and had many really useful arts in the way of making garments out of dressed deerskins. He chose rather some of those who had been taken prisoners and had no real affiliation with the tribes. They felt honored by marrying a white man, and now Pere Jamay performed a legal and religious ceremony, so that no man could put away his wife.

"Oh, what do you think!" and Rose sprang eagerly to Destournier, catching him by the arm with both hands and giving a swing, as he was pacing the gallery, deep in his new plans. "It is so full of amusement for me. And I can't understand how she can do it. Jules Personeau is such a stupid! And that great shock of hair that keeps tumbling into his eyes. It is such a queer color, almost as if much sitting in the sun was turning it red."

"What about Jules? He is very absent-minded nowadays, and does not attend to his work. The summer will soon be gone."

"Oh, it isn't so much about Jules. Marie Gaudrion is going to marry him."

"Why, then I think it is half about Jules," laughing down into the eager face. "A girl can't be married alone."

"Well, I suppose you would have to go and live with some one," in a puzzled tone. "But Jules has such rough, dirty hands. He caught me a few days ago and patted my cheek, and I slapped him. I will not have rough hands touch me! And Marie laughs. She is only thirteen, but she says she is a woman. I don't want to be a woman. I won't have a husband, and be taken off to a hut, and cook, and work in the garden. M'sieu, I should fly to the woods and hide."

"And the poor fellow would get no dinner." He laughed at her vehemence. "I suppose Jules is in love and we must excuse his absent-mindedness. Will it be soon?"

"Why, yes, Jules is getting his house ready. Barbe is to help her mother and care for the babies. I like Marie some," nodding indecisively, "but I wish there was a girl who liked to run and play, and climb trees, and talk to the birds, and oh, do a hundred things, all different from the other."

She gave a little hop and a laugh of exquisite freedom. She was full of restless grace, as the birds themselves; her blooming cheeks and shining eyes, the way she carried her head, the face breaking into dimples with every motion, the mouth tempting in its rosy sweetness. He bent and kissed her. She held him a moment by the shoulders.

"Oh, I like you, I like you," she cried. "You are above them all, you have something,"--her pretty brow knit,--"yet you are better than the Sieur even, the best of them all. If you will wait a long while I might marry you, but no other, no other," shaking her curls.

He laughed, yet it was not from her naive confession. She did not realize what she was saying.

"How old am I?" insistently.

"About ten, I think."

"Ten. And ten more would be twenty. Is that old?"

"Oh, no."

"And Madame de Champlain was twelve when she was married in France. Well, I suppose that is right. And--two years more! No, M'sieu, I shall wait until I am twenty. Maybe I shall not want to climb trees then, nor scramble over rocks, nor chase the squirrels, and pelt them with nuts."

"Thou wilt be a decorous little lady then."

"That is a long way off."

"Yes. And Wanamee is calling thee."

"The priest says we must call her Jolette, that is her Christian name. Must I have another name? Well, I will not. Good-night," and away she ran.

He fell into rumination again. What would she say to his marriage? He had a misgiving she would take it rather hardly. She had not been so rapturously in love with miladi of late, but since the death of her husband, the rather noisy glee of the child had annoyed her. She would be better now. Of course they would keep the child, she had no other friends, nor home.

Marie Gaudrion's marriage was quite a mystery to Rose. That any one could love such an uncouth fellow as Jules, that a girl could leave the comfortable home and pretty garden, for now the fruit trees had grown and were full of fragrant bloom in the early season, and the ripening fruit later on, and go to that dismal little place under the rocks.

"You see it will be much warmer," Jules had said. It was built against the rock. "This will shield us from the north wind and the heavy snows, and another year we will take a place further down in the allotment. I will lay in a store of things, and we will be as happy as the squirrels in their hollow tree."

Marie and her mother cleared it up a bit. The floor was of rough planks filled in with mortar, and skins were laid down for carpet. There was but one window looking toward the south, and the door was on that side also. Then a few steps and a sort of plateau. Inside there was a box bunk, where the household goods were piled away inside. A few shelves with dishes, a table, and several stools completed the furnishing.

So on Sunday they went up to the unfinished chapel on the St. Charles, where a Mass was said, and the young couple were united. It was a lovely day, and they rowed down in the canoes to the Gaudrions, where a feast was given and healths drank to the newly-wedded couple, in which they were wished much happiness and many children. The table was spread luxuriously; the Mere had been two days cooking. Roasts and broils, game and fish, and many of the early fruits in preserve and just ripened. Sunday was a day for gorging in this primitive land, while summer lasted. No one need starve then.

Afterward the young couple were escorted home.

Rose sat out in the moonlight thinking of the strangeness of it all. How could Marie like it? Mere Gaudrion had said, "Jules will make a good husband, if he is clumsy and not handsome. He will never beat Marie, and now he will settle to work again, and make a good living, since courting days are over."

The child wondered what courting days were. Several strange ideas came into her mind. It was as if it grew suddenly and there were things in the world she would like to know about. Perhaps M. Ralph could tell her. Miladi said she was tiresome when she asked questions, and there was always a headache. Would her head ache when she was grown up? And she stood in curious awe of Madame de Champlain, who would only talk of the saints and martyrs, and repeat prayers. She was very attractive to the children, and gathered them about her, letting them gaze in her little mirror she carried at her belt, as was the fashion in France. They liked the touch of her soft hand on their heads, they were sometimes allowed to press their tawny cheeks against it. Then she would try to instruct them in the Catechism. They learned the sentences by rote, in an eager sort of way, but she could see the real understanding was lacking.

"It seems an almost hopeless task," she said one day to Pere Jamay. "And though the little girls in the convent seemed obtuse, they did understand what devotion was. These children would worship me. When I talk of the blessed Virgin they are fain to press their faces to the hem of my gown, taking it to mean that I am our dear Lady of Sorrows. Neither do they comprehend penance, they suppose they have offended me personally."

"'Tis a curious race that God has allowed to sink to the lowest ebb, that His laborers should work the harder in the vineyard. I do not despair. There will come a glorious day when every soul shall bow the knee to our blessed Lord. The men seem incapable of any true discernment of holy things. But we must not weary in well-doing. Think what a glorious thing it would be to convert this nation to the true faith."

The lady sighed. Many a day she went to her _prie-dieu_ not seven times, but twice that, to pray for their conversion.

"We must win the children. They will grow up with some knowledge and cast aside their superstitions. We must be filled with holy zeal and never weary doing our Master's will."

She had tried to win Rose, as well as some of the more intelligent half-breeds. But prayers were wearisome to the child. And why should you ask the same thing over and over again? Even M. Destournier, she had noticed, did not like to be importuned, and why then the great God, who had all the world to care for, and sent to His creatures what He thought best.

The child looked out