The Lane That Had No Turning, Complete. Gilbert Parker

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СКАЧАТЬ Avocat made no reply, but the Cure’s face was greatly troubled. The Seigneur’s momentary placidity passed.

      “I answer for their legality, your Excellency,” he said, in a high, assertive voice.

      “Of course, of course, you will answer for it,” said the Governor, smiling enigmatically. He came forward and held out his hand to Madelinette.

      “Madame, I shall remember your kindness, and I appreciate the simple honours done me here. Your arrival at the moment of my visit is a happy circumstance.”

      There was a meaning in his eye—not in his voice—which went straight to Madelinette’s understanding. She murmured something in reply, and a moment afterwards the Governor, his suite, and the crowd were gone; and the men-at-arms-the fantastic body of men in their antique livery-armed with the latest modern weapons, had gone back to civic life again.

      Inside the house once more, Madelinette laid her hand upon Louis’ arm with a smile that wholly deceived him for a moment. He thought now that she must have known of his deformity before she came—the world was so full of tale-bearers—and no doubt had long since reconciled herself to the painful fact. She had shown no surprise, no shrinking. There had been only the one lightning instant in which he had felt a kind of suspension of her breath and being, but when he had looked her in the face, she was composed and smiling. After all his frightened anticipation the great moment had come and gone without tragedy. With satisfaction he looked in the mirror in the hall as they passed inside the house. He saw no reason to quarrel with his face. Was it possible that the deformity did not matter after all?

      He felt Madelinette’s hand on his arm. He turned and clasped her to his breast.

      He did not notice that she kept her hands under her chin as he drew her to him, that she did not, as had been her wont, put them on his shoulders. He did not feel her shrink, and no one, seeing, could have said that she shrank from him in ever so little.

      “How beautiful you are!” he said, as he looked into her face.

      “How glad I am to be here again, and how tired I am, Louis!” she said. “I’ve driven thirty miles since daylight.” She disengaged herself. “I am going to sleep now,” she added. “I am going to turn the key in my door till evening. Please tell Madame Marie so, Louis.”

      Inside her room alone she flung herself on her bed in agony and despair.

      “Louis—Oh, my God!” she cried, and sobbed and sobbed her strength away.

CHAPTER II. WHEN THE RED-COATS CAME

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      A month later there was a sale of the household effects, the horses and general possessions of Medallion the auctioneer, who, though a Protestant and an Englishman, had, by his wits and goodness of heart, endeared himself to the parish. Therefore the notables among the habitants had gathered in his empty house for a last drink of good-fellowship—Muroc the charcoalman, Duclosse the mealman, Benoit the ne’er-do-weel, Gingras the one-eyed shoemaker, and a few others. They had drunk the health of Medallion, they had drunk the health of the Cure, and now Duclosse the mealman raised his glass. “Here’s to—”

      “Wait a minute, porridge-pot,” cried Muroc. “The best man here should raise the glass first and say the votre sante. ’Tis M’sieu’ Medallion should speak and sip now.”

      Medallion was half-sitting on the window-sill, abstractedly listening. He had been thinking that his ships were burned behind him, and that in middle-age he was starting out to make another camp for himself in the world, all because of the new Seigneur of Pontiac. Time was when he had been successful here, but Louis Racine had changed all that. His hand was against the English, and he had brought a French auctioneer to Pontiac. Medallion might have divided the parish as to patronage, but he had other views.

      So he was going. Madelinette had urged him to stay, but he had replied that it was too late. The harm was not to be undone.

      As Muroc spoke, every one turned towards Medallion. He came over and filled a glass at the table, and raised it.

      “I drink to Madelinette, daughter of that fine old puffing forgeron Lajeunesse,” he added, as the big blacksmith now entered the room. Lajeunesse grinned and ducked his head. “I knew Madelinette, as did you all, when I could take her on my knee and tell her English stories, and listen to her sing French chansons—the best in the world. She has gone on; we stay where we were. But she proves her love to us, by taking her husband from Pontiac and coming back to us. May she never find a spot so good to come to and so hard to leave as Pontiac!”

      He drank, and they all did the same. Draining his glass, Medallion let it fall on the stone floor. It broke into a score of pieces.

      He came and shook hands with Lajeunesse. “Give her my love,” he said. “Tell her the highest bidder on earth could not buy one of the kisses she gave me when she was five and I was twenty.”

      Then he shook hands with them all and went into the next room.

      “Why did he drop his glass?” asked Gingras the shoemaker.

      “That’s the way of the aristocrats when it’s the damnedest toast that ever was,” said Duclosse the mealman. “Eh, Lajeunesse, that’s so, isn’t it?”

      “What the devil do I know about aristocrats!” said Lajeunesse.

      “You’re among the best of the land, now that Madelinette’s married to the Seigneur. You ought to wear a collar every day.”

      “Bah!” answered the blacksmith. “I’m only old Lajeunesse the blacksmith, though she’s my girl, dear lads. I was Joe Lajeunesse yesterday, and I’ll be Joe Lajeunesse to-morrow, and I’ll die Joe Lajeunesse the forgeron—bagosh! So you take me as you find me. M’sieu’ Racine doesn’t marry me. And Madelinette doesn’t take me to Paris and lead me round the stage and say, ‘This is M’sieu’ Lajeunesse, my father.’ No. I’m myself, and a damn good blacksmith and nothing else am I!”

      “Tut, tut, old leather-belly,” said Gingras the shoemaker, whose liquor had mounted high, “you’ll not need to work now. Madelinette’s got double fortune. She gets thousands for a song, and she’s lady of the Manor here. What’s too good for you, tell me that, my forgeron?”

      “Not working between meals—that’s too good for me, Gingras. I’m here to earn my bread with the hands I was born with, and to eat what they earn, and live by it. Let a man live according to his gifts—bagosh! Till I’m sent for, that’s what I’ll do; and when time’s up I’ll take my hand off the bellows, and my leather apron can go to you, Gingras, for boots for a bigger fool than me.”

      “There’s only one,” said Benolt, the ne’er-do-weel, who had been to college as a boy.

      “Who’s that?” said Muroc.

      “You wouldn’t know his name. He’s trying to find eggs in last year’s nest,” answered Benolt with a leer.

      “He means the Seigneur,” said Muroc. “Look to your son-in-law, Lajeunesse. He’s kicking up a dust that’ll choke Pontiac yet. It’s as if СКАЧАТЬ