Chapter XX Gavot Gets His Call
And Tom Gavot was in Quebec. The alarm had stilled, for an instant, his very heart, and the first terrible sense of fear that always came to him in danger rose fiercely within him. His vivid imagination began to burn and light the way on ahead. Horrors that he had read of and shuddered at clutched at his brain and made it ache and throb.
No one knew of his sad marriage. He was going about his work bearing his heavy secret as best he could, but now he began to view it in a new light. He was married; he could remain behind with honour. But could he?
“Going to enlist, Tom?” the head of his firm asked one day. “We’d hate to lose you, we want to send you to Vancouver. There’s something special to do there. After all, the matter will soon be settled and we need some boys here.”
“I’m thinking it over,” Tom replied, and so he was, over and over while his quivering flesh challenged his bright spirit.
He walked daily in front of the Chateau Frontenac and watched and watched the gallant boys, oh! so pitifully young, marching, drilling with that look in their eyes that he could not comprehend. He went to the Plains of Abraham and stood spellbound while the past and present flayed his fevered imagination. He stood in front of the pictured appeals that the Government posted on fences and buildings, and still his flesh held his spirit captive. Then one day, quite unconsciously, the Government reached him—him, Tom Gavot! There was a new picture among the many, an old mother with a transfigured face, her hand on the shoulder of her boy.
“My son, your country needs you.”
Tom looked, and turned away. It did not seem fair to—to bully fellows like that. He was angry, but he went back. The boy’s face seemed to grow like his own! Poor Tom, he could not realize that it was the face of young Canada. The woman why, she was like the long-dead mother! Tom felt sure, had his mother lived, that she would have been old and saintly. Yes, saintly in spite of everything, for would not he have seen to that? He, and his roads?
Tom thought of his roads, his peaceful, beautiful roads. Would he be fit to plan them, travel on them if he let other men make them safe for him?
Then one September day he said quietly—and the man to whom he spoke never forgot his eyes—“I’m going to enlist. I’m going back to my home place. I’d like to start with the boys from there.” So Tom went back to Point of Pines. He almost forgot that he was the husband of Donelle Langley. He had taken farewell of many, many things without realizing it: his own fear, his wife, his roads, his hope of Donelle.
He went back very simply, very quietly, and with that new look in his sad young eyes he seemed like a stranger. Not for him was the glory and the excitement. He was going because he dared not stay. His soul was reaching out to an ideal that was screened in mystery, he had only just courage enough to press on. Pierre looked at his boy pleadingly.
“Tom,” he whimpered, “I’m not much of a father. I can’t send you off feeling proud of me, I’ve held you back all your life. But I can make you feel easier about me by telling you that I’ve got work. You won’t have to fash yourself about that.”
Tom regarded his father with a vague sense of gladness; then he reached out falteringly and took his hand!
Marcel drew Tom to her heart. All her motherhood was up in arms.
“Tom,” she whispered, “all through the years I’ve broken my heart over those little graves on the hill, but to-day I thank God they’re there!”
Tom held the weeping woman close.
“Aunt Marcel,” he asked quietly, “if they, the children, were here, instead of on the hill, would you bid them stay?”
“That’s it, Tom, I couldn’t, and that’s why I thank God He’s taken the choice from me.”
Tom kissed her reverently with a mighty tenderness.
“Aunt Marcel,” he went on, “when I’m over there I shall think of you and of the children on the hill. I’ll try and do my best for you and them. I may fail, but I’ll try.”
And at last Tom went up the road to Mam’selle and Donelle. They saw him coming and met him on the way. Jo’s head was bent; her breast heaving. A terrible fear and bitterness made her face hard and almost cruel.
All night she had been recalling Tom’s pitiful youth. And now this renunciation! But on Donelle’s face shone the glory of the day.
Quietly, firmly she took Tom’s hands and lifted her eyes.
“Oh! but you are splendid,” she whispered. “I thought perhaps you might feel you ought to stay back for me! But, Tom, everything is all right and safe! Always you are going to grow bigger, nearer, until you make me forget everything else. Why, Tom now, now I would go with you on your road, if I could! You must believe that, dear.”
Tom looked at her. He saw the thrill of life, adventure, and youth shake her. He saw with an old, old understanding that because he was going away, alone, upon the road, he meant to her what he never could have meant had he remained. He saw that his renunciation had awakened her sympathy and admiration, but he saw that love lay dead in her eyes.
And then Tom bent and kissed her. He could in all honour because something deep in his heart told him that he was indeed bidding her good-bye.
“When I come back,” he was saying, while he felt far, far away, “we’ll just try the road, Donelle. I know you’ll do your part. And always keep this in mind: when I look back home I’ll see you at the other end of the road, girl. Your eyes will have the yellow light in them that will brighten the darkest night I’ll ever tramp through. I had to tell you that.”
“Thank you, Tom.”
“It wasn’t the honest thing to marry you the way I did. I had no right.”
“Yes, you had, Tom. Yes. Yes!”
“No. I think we could have found a better way, if we had taken time, but I was sort of blinded.”
“And so was I, Tom, blinded and crazed.”
“Donelle—”
“Yes, Tom.”
“I’ve got to tell you something—now that I’m going. He—he came back that night. He came to me and he would not believe, until I let him look in the window to see you as you lay there asleep. He wanted to tell me something, and I wouldn’t let him! But, Donelle, before God, I think we need not hate him and if he ever gets a chance let him tell you what he wanted to tell me.”
“Tom, oh! Tom!” Donelle was weeping now in Gavot’s arms. “Thank you, thank you, my own good Tom! And when you come back, I’ll be waiting for you, no matter what I hear.”
But Tom understood. Again he bent and kissed her pretty hair, her little white face, then gently pushed her toward Jo.
“Mam’selle,” he said and smiled his good smile: “I’m going, with heaven’s help, to make up to my mother.”
“You have, Tom, you have!” Jo rushed to him. “You have by your clean, fine life and they have no right to take that young life; they have no right, no right!”
But Tom went away, smiling, with the little company of Point of Pines’ men. The women watched the going with still faces and folded hands. Those boys going on, on to what, they knew not; just going! Some looked self-centred, proud, senselessly uplifted. Others looked grim, not knowing all, but sensing it.
Tom looked at his group, his father, Marcel, Longville, Jo, and Donelle, turned a last glance at the white, set face of Father Mantelle, and so said good-bye to Point of Pines.
Together Jo and Donelle returned to the little white house. It was like going back from a freshly made grave.
“I’ll not help the bad business, no, not I!” vowed Mam’selle, the hard look still upon her face. Donelle looked piteously at her.
“It is a great evil, a damnable sin; no words can make it right. For us to work and forgive is but to help the sin along. I will not stand for the cursed wrong.”
“Mamsey, it is all wrong, but it is not their wrong, Tom’s and all the other boys. They are just doing what they have to: holding to that something that won’t let go of us. Mamsey, we must go along with them. We cannot leave them alone. I don’t quite see yet what we can do, but Mamsey, we, too, must hold on. See, here is the loom. Spin, spin, dear Mamsey.”
“No, the loom stands still!” Jo shut her lips. But Donelle led her forward.
“Mamsey, it will save us,” she said, “save us. We must work all the time; spin, weave, knit. We’ve got to. It is all we can do.”
“Yes. And because we have always spun and woven and knitted, they are going off there, those boys! Donelle, I will not touch the loom!”
But Donelle was placing her fingers on the frame.
Suddenly, groping for the threads, Jo said, while her voice broke:
“Where’s Nick, child?”
“He’s following Tom as far as he can, Mamsey. I did not call him back.”
At that Jo bent her head until it rested on the loom.
“That’s all dogs and women can do!” she moaned; “follow them as far as they can.”
“Yes, Mamsey, and catch up with them—somehow. We will, we will.”
The two women clung together and wept until only grief was left, the bitterness melted.
And afar in Egypt Anderson Law heard the summons and saw the blackening cloud.
“I’m too old to take a gun,” he muttered grimly, “but my place is home! Every man to his hearth, now, unless he can serve his neighbour.”
It was October when Law reached New York. In his long-deserted studio lay much that claimed his immediate attention. Norval had had a key to the apartment and had seen that it was kept ready for its absent master. A mass of mail lay upon the table, among it a note from Norval himself.
Andy, when you can, go to Point of Pines. If any man in God’s world can mend the mischief I made there, it is you! I went innocently enough and at a time when I was down and out. I managed to evolve about as much hell as possible. I don’t expect you will ever be able to excuse or, in any sense, justify my actions. I am only thinking of that little girl of Alice Lindsay’s, the only love of my life.
Law was petrified. This was a letter Norval had written from Point of Pines, it had got no farther than New York, for Norval in his abstraction had addressed it there.
For an instant even the war sank into insignificance as Law read on:
The divorce that Katherine desired was about to be consummated. I reckoned without Katharine’s sense of justice and duty, which got active just when I thought the road was clear. Well, Andy, you know how damnable truth can become when it is handled in the dark? Katherine came to Point of Pines; saw Donelle alone. Need I say more? Only this, Andy: I did not wrong the girl, I only loved her.
I’ve left a picture. I want you to see it before you leave for Canada. You’ll find it by your north window.
I’m going to the Adirondacks with Katherine. She’s developed tuberculosis, this is her only chance, and, short or long, I’ve sworn to go the rest of the way with her.
Law went across the room to his north window. With fumbling hands he uncovered the canvas standing there and placed it on an easel before he dared look at it.
A bit of paper was attached to the picture. Law read:
“Fairer than morning, lovelier than the daylight.”
Then standing in his coldest, most critical attitude, Anderson Law feasted his eyes upon Donelle!
Not only the sweet, appealing beauty of the rare, girlish face held Law, but the masterfulness of the hand that had reproduced it, clutched his senses. Such colour and light! Why, for a moment it seemed almost as if there were movement.
“Good God!” muttered Law. “I stayed in Egypt too long.”
It was like him, however, to make ready at once to go to Point of Pines. He did not write to Norval; how could he? Of course he disapproved heartily of what he knew and suspected. No man, he reflected, has a right to take chances at another’s expense. Norval was a fool, a damned fool, but he was no merely selfish wretch. That he could swear to. But the girl—well, how could a man keep his senses cool with those eyes fixed upon him?
“That white-flame sort,” mused the man in the still room, “is the most far reaching. There’s so much soul along with the rest.”
A week later the River Queen, rather dignifiedly, puffed up to the wharf of Point of Pines. The sturdy boat was doing her bravest bit that summer. She went loaded down the river; she panted back contemplatively, knowing that she must bear yet other loads away. Away, always, away!
“I want Mam’selle Jo Morey’s,” Anderson Law said as he was deposited, with other freight and bags on the dock. “She takes boarders?”
Jean Duval frowned.
“She took one,” he replied, “but he ran away. I’m thinking the Mam’selle Jo is not reaching out for more.”
“Then I will go to her,” said Law in his most ingratiating manner; “she shall not reach out for me.”
Jo was in the barn, but Donelle stood by the gate, her fair, uncovered head shining in the warm October light.
“I am Anderson Law!”
Donelle turned and her wide eyes grew dark.
“I have come late, I’m afraid, child,” Law saw that his name was familiar to the girl, saw her lips quiver, “but I’ll do my best now to mend the trouble. You must accept me for Alice Lindsay’s sake.”
Bluntly, but with grave tenderness, he put out his hand.
There are some people who come into the world for no other reason, apparently, than to lighten the burdens of others. The mere sight of them is the signal for the shifting of heavy loads. Weary, lost ones know their deliverers. Donelle gave a long, long look, her eyes filled with sudden and sadly-suppressed tears. All the weight she had borne since the time she had entered the Walled House cried out for support.
“Oh! I am so glad you’ve come. So glad!”
And Donelle’s hands lay in Law’s.
And so Mam’selle found them, clinging to each other like shipwrecked souls, when she came up with Nick wheezing at her heels. Nick wheezed now, there was no denying it.
“And, sir, you are——?” she said, standing with her feet astride, her hands reaching down to where her father’s old pockets used to be.
“A boarder, Mam’selle, heaven willing.”
“I can take no more boarders, sir. But I can hitch up Molly and drive you to Captain Longville’s.”
“Mam’selle Morey, I am Alice Lindsay’s friend, Anderson Law.”
Then Jo, who had always been a burden-bearer herself, scented another of her kind. She came a step nearer. Her lifted brows disclosed her wonderful eyes, the eyes of a woman who had suffered and made no cry.
Law held her by a long glance; a searching glance.
“Mam’selle,” he said; “I half believe you will reconsider and take me in.”
“I half believe I will!” Jo’s lips twitched.
Her instinct guided her.
“The upper chamber is ready,” she added, “and the noon meal is about to be set on the table.”
“And I’ll show you the way!” Donelle went on before Law, a new look upon her face, a gladder look than had rested there for many a day.