A Little Girl in Old Detroit - Amanda Minnie Douglas (children's ebooks online txt) 📗

robin and the thrush and the wild pigeons have come back, and the trees bud with the baths of sunshine. All the air is throbbing with fragrance."

Pani looked disturbed.

"Oh, thou wilt not go to the woods?" she cried.

"I will take Wenonah and one of the boys. They are sturdy now and can howl enough to scare even a panther. No, Pani, there is no one to carry me away. They would know that I should slip through their fingers;" and she laughed with the old time joyousness.


CHAPTER XVIII.

A HEARTACHE FOR SOME ONE.

"Jeanne," exclaimed Father Rameau, "thou art wanted at the Chapter house."

He stood in the doorway of the little cottage and glanced curiously at the two inmates. Pani often amused herself cutting fringe for Wenonah, under the impression that it was needed in haste, and she was very happy over it. A bowl of violets and wild honeysuckle stood on the table, and some green branches hung about giving the room the odor of the new season and an air of rejoicing.

"What now?" She took his wrinkled old hand in hers so plump and dimpled. "Have I committed some new sin? I have been so glad for days and days that I could only rejoice."

"No, not sin. It is to hear a strange story and to be happier, perhaps."

He looked curiously at her. "Oh, something has happened!" she cried. Was it possible M. St. Armand had returned? For days her mind had been full of him. And he would be the guest of the Fleurys.

"Yes, I should spoil it in the telling, and I had strict injunctions." There was an air of mystery about him.

Surely there was no trouble. But what could they want with her? A strange story! Could some one have learned about her mother or her father?

"I will change my attire in a moment. Pani, Margot will gladly come and keep you company."

"Nay, little one, I am not a baby to be watched," Pani protested.

Jeanne laughed. She looked very sweet and charming in her blue and white frock made in a plain fashion, for it did not seem becoming in her to simulate the style of the great ladies. A soft, white kerchief was drawn in a knot about her shoulders, showing the shapely throat that was nearer ivory than pearl. In the knot she drew a few violets. Head gear she usually disdained, but now she put over her curls a dainty white cap that made a delicious contrast with the dark rings nestling below the edge. A pretty, lissome girl, with a step so light it would not have crushed the grass under her feet, had there been any.

"There seems a great stir in the town," she said.

They had turned into St. Anne's street and were going toward the church.

"The new Governor General Hull is to come in a few weeks, and the officers have word to look him up a home, for governors have not lived in Detroit before. No doubt there will be fine times among the Americans."

"And there flies a white flag down at the river's edge--has that something to do with it?"

"Oh, the boat came in last evening. It is one of the great men up at the North, I think in the fur company. But he has much influence over the Indian tribes, and somehow there is a whisper that there may be disaffection and another union such as there was in Pontiac's time, which heaven forbid! He is called the White Chief."

"The White Chief!" Jeanne stopped short in a maze of astonishment.

"That has nothing to do with thee," said the priest. He preferred her interest to run in another channel.

"But--I was on his island. I saw his wife and children, you remember. Oh, I must see him--"

"Not now;"--and her guide put out his hand.

"Oh, no," and she gave a short laugh. "As if I would go running after a strange man; a great chief! But he is not an Indian. He is French."

"I do remember, yes. There seems a great commotion, as if all the ships had come in. The winter was so long and cold that business is all the more brisk. Here, child, pay a little attention to where you are going. There is a lack of reverence in you young people that pains me."

"Pardon me, father." Jeanne knelt on the church steps and crossed herself. She had run up here in the dark the first night she had been back in Detroit, just to kneel and give thanks, but she had told no one.

Then she walked decorously beside him. There was the Chapel of Retreat, a room where the nuns came and spent hours on their knees. They passed that, going down a wide hall. On one side some young girls sat doing fine embroidery for religious purposes. At the end a kind of reception room, and there were several people in this now, two priests and three woman in the garb of Ursuline nuns.

Jeanne glanced around. A sort of chill crept over her. The room was bare and plain except a statue of the Virgin, and some candles and crucifixes. Nearly in the center stood a table with a book of devotions on it.

"This is Jeanne Angelot," exclaimed Father Rameau. She, in her youth and health and beauty, coming out of the warm and glowing sunshine of May, brought with her an atmosphere and radiance that seemed like a sudden sunrise in the dingy apartment. The three women in the coif and gown of the Ursulines fingered their beads and, after sharp glances at the maid, dropped their eyes, and their faces fell into stolid lines.

Another woman rose from the far corner and her gown made a swish on the bare floor. She came almost up to Jeanne, who shrank back in an inexplicable terror, a motion that brought a spasm of color to the newcomer's face, and a gasp for breath.

She was, perhaps, a little above the medium height, slim alway and now very thin. Her eyes were sunken, with grayish shadows underneath, her cheeks had a hollow where fullness should have been, her lips were compressed in a nearly straight line. She was not old, but asceticism had robbed her of every indication of youth, had made severity the leading indication in her countenance.

"Jeanne Angelot," she repeated. "You are quite sure, Father, those garments belonged to her?"

The poor woman felt the secret antipathy and she, too, seemed to contract, to realize the mysterious distance between them, the unlikeness of which she had not dreamed. For in her narrow life of devotion she had endeavored to crucify all human feelings and affections. That was her bounden duty for her girlhood's sin. Girls were poor, weak creatures and their wills counseled them wrongly, wickedly. She had come to snatch this child, the result of her own selfish dreams, her waywardness, from a like fate. She should be housed, safe, kept from evil. The nun, too, had dreamed, although Berthe Campeau had said, "She is a wild little thing and it is suspected she has Indian blood in her veins." But it was the rescue of a soul to the service of God, the soul she was answerable for, not the ardor of human love.

The father made a slow inclination of the head.

"They were upon her that night she was dropped in the Pani's lap, and the card pinned to her. Then two letters curiously wrought upon her thigh."

"Jeanne, Jeanne, I am your mother."

It was the woman who was the suppliant, who felt a strange misgiving about this spirited girl with resolute eyes and poise of the head like a bird who would fly the next moment. And yet it was not the entreaty of starved and waiting love, that would have clasped arms about the slim, proud figure that stood almost defiant, suspicious, unbelieving.

The others had heard the story and there was no surprise in their countenances.

Jeanne seemed at first like a marble image. The color went out of her cheeks but her eyes were fixed steadfastly upon the woman, their blue so clear, so penetrating, that she shrank farther into herself, seemed thinner and more wan.

"Your mother," and Father Rameau would fain have taken the girl's hand, but she suddenly clasped them behind her back. There was incredulity in the look, repulsion. What if there were some plot? She glanced at Father Gilbert but his cold eyes expressed only disapprobation.

"My mother," she said slowly. "My mother has been dead years, and I owe love and gratitude to the Indian woman, Pani, who has cared for me with all fondness."

"You do not as yet understand," interposed Father Rameau. "You have not heard the story."

She had in her mind the splendid motherhood of Miladi as she had seen it in that beautiful island home.

"A mother would not desert her child and leave it to the care of strangers, Indian enemies perhaps, and send a message that she was dead," was the proud reply.

Jeanne Angelot's words cut like a knife. There was no sign of belief in her eyes, no dawning tenderness.

The woman bowed her head over her clasped hands and swayed as if she would fall.

"It is right," she answered in a voice that might have come from the grave. "It is part of my punishment. I had no right to bring this child into the world. Holy Mother, I accept, but let me snatch her soul from perdition!"

Jeanne's face flamed scarlet. "I trust the good Father above," she declared with an accent of uplifted faith that irradiated her with serene strength. "Once in great peril he saved me. I will trust my cause to him and he will clear my way."

"Thou ignorant child!" declared Father Gilbert. "Thou hast no human love in thy breast. There must be days and weeks of penance and discipline before thou art worthy even to touch this woman's hand. She is thy mother. None other hath any right to thee. Thou must be trained in obedience, in respect; thy pride and indifference must be cast out, evil spirits that they be. She hath suffered for thy sake; she must have amends when thou art in thy right mind. Thou wert given to the Church in Holy Baptism, and now she will reclaim thee."

Jeanne turned like a stag at bay, proud, daring, defiant. It was some evil plot. Could a true mother lend herself to such a cruel scheme? Why was she not drawn to her, instead of experiencing this fear and repulsion? Would they keep her here, shut her up in a dark room as they had years ago, when she had kicked and screamed until Father Rameau had let her out to liberty and the glorious sunlight? Could she not make one wild dash now--

There was a shuffling of steps in the hall and a glitter of trappings. The Commandant of the Fort stepped forward to the doorway and glanced in. The priests questioned with their eyes, the nuns turned aside.

"We were told we should find Father Rameau here. There is some curious business. Ah, here is the girl herself, Mademoiselle Jeanne Angelot. There is a gentleman here desirous of meeting her, and has a strange story for her ear. Can we have a private room--"

"Mademoiselle Jeanne Angelot is in the care of the Church and her mother, who has