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

in snow.

One morning M. Destournier came in. Rose was sitting by the fire in M. Hebert's study and shop. The great fireplace was full of blazing logs, and she looked the picture, not only of comfort, but delight. She had not seen much of him for the month past. There was no opportunity for sledging even, the roads had been so piled with snow. Then she had taken quite a domestic turn, much to the gratification of Madame Hebert.

M. Destournier looked thin and careworn. Rose sprang up, deeply touched.

"Oh, you are ill," she cried. "I have not seen you in so long. Sit here in the warmth. And miladi?"

She always inquired after her.

"That is what I have come about. Rose, my dear child, can you forget enough of the past, and the long silence, to come back to us? Miladi wants you, needs you, has sent me to see. She is very ill, and lonely."

Rose flushed warmly, with both pain and pleasure, and her eyes softened, almost to tears.

"I shall be glad to come." There was a tremble of emotion in her voice. "I realize how great a disappointment it was to her, but you know I was right, and when I asked the Sieur if I had been too hasty, or unjust, he approved. He thinks no woman ought to marry without giving her whole heart, and somehow I had none to give," blushing deeply and looking lovelier than ever. "I think it is because--because I am a foundling, and could not go to any man with honor. So I must make myself happy in my own way."

Her figure had taken on more womanly lines, though it was still slim and exquisitely graceful. And the girlish beauty had ripened somewhat, losing none of its olden charm.

She colored still more deeply under his glance.

"Is there anything new with miladi?" she inquired, with some hesitation.

"It seems a gradual wasting away and weakness. She thinks she will be better when spring opens, and longs to return to France. I am putting my affairs in shape to make this possible. She is very lonely. She has missed your brightness and vivacity. It has seemed a different place."

Rose's heart swelled with pity. She forgave Madame from the depths of her heart, remembering only the old times and the tenderness.

"When shall I come?"

"At once. She begged for you last week, but I was afraid it was a restless fancy. The road is quite well broken. What a winter we have had! The drought last summer shortened crops, and there have been so many extra mouths to feed among the unfortunate Indians. So if you will inform the Heberts--I have seen Monsieur."

She went through to the kitchen, where mother and daughter were concocting savory messes for the sick. They both returned with her and expressed much sympathy for the invalid. M. Hebert had said to his wife that miladi was slowly nearing her end, while her real disease seemed a mystery, but medical lore in the new world had not made much advance.

"We shall only lend her to you for a while," Madame Hebert said, with a faint smile. "I hardly know how Monsieur will do without her. She is truly a rose-bloom in this dreary winter, that seems as if it would never end."

"And I want her to bloom for a while in the room where my poor sick wife has to stay. She longs for some freshness and sweetness," he said, in a pleading tone.

"She was rightly named," said Madame, with a smile. "Her poor mother must have died, I am quite sure, for she could not have sent away such an adorable child. Even when Mere Dubray had her, she was charming, in her wild, eager ways, like a bird. The good God made her a living Rose, indeed, to show how lovely a human Rose could be."

She came in the room wrapped in her furs, her hood with its border of silver-fox framing in her face, that glowed with youth and health.

"You have all been so good to me," and her beautiful eyes were alight with gratitude. "I shall come in often, and oh, I shall think of you every hour in the day."

"Do not forget the latest pattern of lace-making," added the practical, industrious Therese.

It was glorious without, a white world with a sky of such deep blue it almost sparkled. Leafless trees stretched out long black or gray arms, and here and there a white birch stood up grandly, like some fair goddess astray. Stretches of evergreens suggested life, but beyond them hills of snow rising higher and higher, until they seemed lost in the blue, surmounted by a sparkling frost line.

The paths had been beaten down--occasionally a tract around a doorway shovelled. It was hard and smooth as a floor. Destournier slipped her arm within his, and then gazed at her in surprise.

"You must have grown. How tall you are. I wonder if I shall get accustomed to the new phase? I seem always to see the little girl who sat upon my knee. Oh, do you remember when you were ill at Mere Dubray's?"

"All my life comes to me in pictures. I sometimes think I can remember what was before the long sail in the boat, but it is so vague. Now it is all here, its rough ways, its rocks, its beautiful river are a part of me. I am never longing to go elsewhere. I am sorry Madame de Champlain did not love it as well. And the Sieur was such a good, tender husband."

Destournier sighed a little, also. The Sieur kept busy and full of plans, but occasionally there came a wistfulness in his eyes and a pain in the lines that were settling so rapidly about his face.

They crunched over the icy paths. A time or two she slipped, and he drew her nearer, the touch of her body, though wrapped in its furs, giving him a delicious thrill. He lifted her up the steep ways he had seen her climb with the litheness of a squirrel.

Wanamee came out with a fervent welcome. The old kitchen was the same. Pani was toasting himself in his favorite corner. Mawha was doing Indian bead and feather work, and looked up with a cordial nod.

"Get good and warm. I will tell miladi you have come. You will find her much changed, but she does not like it remarked upon."

She and Wanamee were in an earnest talk when she was summoned. The room had in it some new appointments, brought from France, but even a luxurious court beauty might have envied the rich fur rugs lying about and hanging over the rude and somewhat clumsy chairs of home manufacture.

Pillowed up in a half-sitting posture in the bed was miladi. Rose could hardly forbear a shocked exclamation. When she had seen her every day, the changes had passed unremarked, for they had begun, even then. The lovely skin was yellowed and wrinkled and defined the cheek bones, the beautiful hair had grown dull, and the eyes had lost their lustre. All her youth was gone, she was an old lady, even before the time.

And this vision of youthful, vigorous beauty was like a sudden sunburst, when the day had been dull and cloudy. She seemed to animate the room, to light up the farthest recesses, to bring a breath of revivifying air and hope.

"I have wanted you so," the invalid said piteously. "Oh, how strong and well you are! I never was very strong, and so the illness has taken a deeper hold on me. And now you must help me to get well. Your freshness will be an elixir--that is what I have wanted. Wanamee is good for a servant nurse, but I have needed something finer and better."

She held out her hand and Rose pressed it to her lips. It was bony, showing swollen blue veins, and had a clammy coldness that struck a chill to the rosy lips.

"Did you like them at the Heberts? They are very staid people, and think only of work, I believe."

"They were very kind, and I found them well-informed about everything."

"Why, when they know so much, can they not cure me? You know it is not as though my case was very serious. I am weak, that is all. The doctor came down from Tadoussac, but he just shook his head, and his powders did me no good. M. Hebert sent some extracts of herbs, but nothing gives me any strength. And the snow and cold stays on as if spring would never come. What have you been doing all this while? You couldn't run about in the woods."

"Oh, Madame, I am outgrowing that wild longing, though the trees have a hundred voices, and I seem to understand what they say, and the song of the birds, the ripple and plash of the river. But I have been learning other things. How great the world is, and the stories of kings and queens, and brave travellers, who go about and discover new places. It widens one's subjects of thought. And I have learned some cooking, and how to make home seem cheerful, and the weaving of pretty laces, like those the ships bring over. I am not so idle now."

"And you liked them very much?" She uttered this rather resentfully.

"Ah, Madame, how could one help, when people were so good, and took so much pains with one."

Her voice was sweet and appealing, yet it had a strand of strength and appreciation. But had _she_ not been good to the little girl all these years!

"Has Mam'selle Therese any lover?" she asked, after a pause.

"Not yet, Madame. Some old family friends are to come over in the summer, and one has a son that Therese played with in childhood. It may be that she will like him."

"And she will do as her parents desire!"

"They are very just with her, and love her dearly."

"And the brother?"

"He went to Mont Real before the hard cold. If there were only people to settle there it would be finer than Quebec, it is said."

"I am so tired of Quebec. Next summer we will go home; that is the country for me. M. Destournier is willing to go at last, and I shall see that he never returns to this dreary hole."

"It can hardly be called a hole, when there are so many heights all about," laughed the girl.

"It is a wretched place. And you will soon like France, and wonder how people are content to stay here. You see the Governor's wife had enough of it. She had good sense."

"But, Madame, the priests teach that a wife's place is beside her husband."

"What have I gained by staying beside mine, who is always planning how to civilize those wretched squaws, and make life better for them? The better should have been for me. And now I have lost my health, and my beautiful hair has fallen out and begins to turn white. Am I very much changed?"

Rose was embarrassed. Years ago miladi hated the thoughts of growing old.

"Illness tries one very much," she said evasively. "But you will gain it up when you begin to mend."

"Oh, do you think so? You see I must get something to restore the wasted flesh. How plump you are. And I had