Chapter IV But Mam’selle Makes a Vow
After Mam’selle was certain that Gavot was beyond seeing her next move, she flung the door wide open, letting the fresh, pure night air sweep through the hot room.
Nick sprang to his feet but, deciding that the change in temperature had nothing to do with the late guest, he sidled over to Jo who stood on the threshold and pushed his questioning nose into her hand.
“Come, old fellow,” she said gently, “we do not want sleep; let us go out and have a look at the sky. It will do us both good.”
Quietly they went forth into the night and stood under a clump of pine trees back of the house and near the foot of the hill.
The clouds were splendid and the wind, like a mighty sculptor, changed their form and design moment by moment. They were silver-edged clouds, for a moon was hidden somewhere among them; here and there in the rifts stars shone and the murmuring of the pines, so like Cecile’s cry, touched Mam’selle strangely. It seemed to her, standing there with Nick beside her, that something of the old, happy past was being given back to her. She smiled, wanly, to be sure, and tears, softer than had blurred her eyes for many a year, wet her lashes. In a numb sort of way she tried to understand the language of the night and the hour; it was bringing her peace—after all her storms. It was like having passed from a foul spot in a dark valley, to find oneself in a clear open space with a safe path leading——? With this thought Jo drew in her breath sharply. As surely as she had ever felt it in her life, she now felt that something new and compelling was about to occur. The meaning and purpose of her life seemed about to be revealed. Jo was a mystic; a fatalist, though she was never to realize this. Standing under the wind-swept sky she opened her arms wide, ready to accept! And then it came to her in definite form, the thought that had arisen during her talk with Gavot. She had said that she could have done without man if only the rest had been vouchsafed.
Well, then, what remained? She had house and lands and money. She might be denied the travail and mystery of having a child, but there were children; forgotten, disinherited children. They were possible, and if she accepted what was hers to take, her life need not be aimless and cheerless. She might yet know, vicariously, what her poor soul had craved.
A wave of religious exaltation swept over Jo Morey. Such moments have been epoch-making since the world began. The shepherds on Judea’s plains, caught in the power of this emotion, lifted their eyes and saw the guiding star that led them to the Manger and the world’s salvation! Down the ages it has turned the eyes of lesser men and women to their rightful course, and it now pointed Jo Morey to her new hope!
“I will adopt a child!” she said aloud and reverently as if dedicating herself. “A man child.”
And then, in imagination, she followed the star.
Over at St. Michael’s-on-the-Rocks there was a Catholic institution where baby driftwood was taken in without question. St. Michael’s was a harbour town boasting a summer colony. Women there, as elsewhere, paid for too much faith or unsanctified greed, and the institution was often the solution of the pitiful outcome.
Jo had repeatedly contributed to the Home. She had no affiliation with the church that supported it, but the priest of Point of Pines had gained her respect and liking, and for his sake she had secretly aided causes that he approved. Tom Gavot, for instance, and the St. Michael’s institution.
“Come, Nick,” she said presently, “we’ll sleep on it.”
All night Mam’selle tossed about on her bed trying to argue herself into common sense. When she came down from the heights her decision appeared wild and unreasonable.
What would people say?
Rarely did Jo consider this, but it caught and held her now. Her hard, detached life had set her apart from the common conditions of the women near her. She was in many ways as innocent and guileless as a child although the deepest meanings of suffering and sorrow had not been hidden from her. That any one suspected her of being what she was not, had never occurred to her. She had shrunk from everyone at the time of Langley’s desertion, because she neither wanted, nor looked for, sympathy and understanding. She was grateful for the indifference that followed that period of her life, but never for a moment had she known of that which lay hidden in the silence of her people.
Poor Jo! What Point of Pines was destined to think was impossible for her to conceive, because her planning was so wide of the reality that was to ensue. Tossing and restless, Jo tried to laugh her sudden resolve to scorn, but it would not be scorned either by reason or mirth.
“Very well!” she concluded for the second time, “I’ll adopt a child, a man child! No girl things for me. I could not watch them straining out for their lives with the chance of losing them. A man can get what he wants and I’ll do my best, under God, to make him merciful.”
Toward morning Jo slept.
The next day she cooked and planned as calmly as if she were arranging for an invited guest. All her excitement and fire were smothered, but she did not falter in her determination. She explained to Nick as she tossed scraps to him. Nick was obligingly broad in his appetite and tastes, bones and bits of dough were equally acceptable, and he patted the floor thankfully with his sturdy little tail whenever Jo remembered him.
“We’ll take it as a sign, Nick,” she said, “that what I’m trying to do is right if there is at St. Michael’s a man-thing, handsome and under a year old. We must have him handsome, that’s half of the battle, and he must be so young that he can’t remember. I want to begin on him.
“Now I’ll bet you, Nick, that the Home is bristling with girl children and we’ll have none of them.”
Nick thumpingly agreed to all this but kept his eye on a plate of cookies that Mam’selle was lavishly sugaring. Nick did not spurn scraps but, like others, he yearned for tidbits.
All day Jo worked, cooking and setting her house in order.
Late in the afternoon she contemplated cutting a door between the two north chambers, her own and the one her father had used, which had never been occupied since.
“The child will soon need a place of his own,” mused Jo, already looking ahead as a real mother might have done. Suddenly she started, recalling for the first time since before Pierre Gavot’s diverting call her ambition concerning a boarder.
“Well, the boarder will have to wait,” she thought, “they hate babies, and boys are terribly noisy and messy. I’ll take a boarder when the lad goes away to school. I’ll need company then.”
By nightfall the little white house was spotless and in order. The fragrance of cooking mingled with the odour of wood fire was soothing to Jo’s tired nerves; it meant home and achievement.
“I’ll not let on about the child,” she concluded just before she went to sleep. “When the doors of St. Michael’s close on a child going in or out, they close, and that is the end of it. If folks care to pry it will give them something to do and keep them alive, but it’s little they’ll get from the Sisters or me.
“I’m a fool, a big fool, but I can pay for my folly and that’s more than many women can do.”
Early on the following morning Jo set forth in her broad-bellied little cart in which were a hamper of goodies for the waifs of St. Michael’s, and a smaller basket containing Jo’s own midday meal. Jo, herself, sat on the shaft beside the fat Molly and bobbed along in the best of spirits.
“You’re to watch the place, Nick,” she commanded, “and if he returns, you know who, just save a nip of him for me, that’s a good beastie.”
With this possibility of adventure, Nick had to be content.
Madame Longville saw Jo pass and remarked to the Captain who was eating the pancakes his wife was making:
“There goes Mam’selle, and so early, too; somehow she doesn’t look as if she had taken up with Pierre.”
“How does she look?” asked the Captain with his mouth full.
“Sort of easy and cheerful.”
“Fool,” muttered Longville and reached for more cakes. “Is she afoot?”
“No. She’s in the little cart and it’s empty.”
“She’s going to fetch Gavot, bag and baggage.” Longville felt that he had solved the problem. “It takes a woman like Mam’selle to clinch a good bargain.”
Then Longville laughed and sputtered.
“It was a good turn I did for your rascal brother when I turned him on to Mam’selle,” he continued. “I took the matter in my own hands.”
“I’m glad you did,” Marcel returned, “but all the same Jo Morey doesn’t look as if she had taken up with Pierre.”
The repetition irritated Longville and again he muttered “fool!” then added “damn fool” and let the matter rest.
But Jo was out of sight by that time and seemed to have the empty world to herself. And what a world it was. The wind of the past few hours had swept the sky clear of clouds and for that time of year the day was warm.
Presently Jo found herself singing: “A la Claire Fontaine” and was surprised that it caused her no heartache. So grateful was she for this, that she dismounted and stood under one of the tall crosses by the wayside and prayed in her silent, wordless fashion, recalling the years that were gone as another might count the beads of a rosary. Her state of mind was most perplexing and surprising, but it was wonderful. What did it matter, the cause that resulted in this sense of freedom, and, at the same time, of being used and controlled? Jo felt herself a part of a great and powerful plan. Surely there is no truer freedom than that. At noon the roofs of St. Michael’s were in plain sight over the pastures; by the road was a delectable pine grove with an opening broad enough to drive in, so in Jo drove. She unhitched Molly and fed her, then taking her own food to a log lying in the warm sunlight, she laid out her feast and seated herself upon the fragrant pine needles. She was healthfully hungry and thirsty and, for a few minutes, ate and drank without heeding anything but her needs. Then a stirring in the bushes attracted her attention. She raised her eyes and noted that the branches of a crimson sumach near the road were moving restlessly. Thinking some hungry but shy creature of the woods was hiding, Jo kept perfectly still, holding a morsel of food out enticingly.
The branches ceased trembling, there was no sound, but suddenly Jo realized that she was looking straight into eyes that were holding hers by a strange magnetism.
“What do you want?” she asked. “Who are you?”
There was no reply from the flaming bush, only that stare of fright and alertness.
“Come here. I will not hurt you. No one shall hurt you.”
Either the words, or actual necessity, compelled obedience: the branches parted and out crawled a human figure covered by a coarse horse blanket over the dingy uniform of St. Michael’s.
For a moment Jo was not sure whether the stranger were a boy or girl, for a rough boyish cap rested on the head, but when the form rose stiffly, tremblingly she saw it was that of a girl. She was pale and thin, with long braids of hair known as tow-colour, a faintly freckled face, and marvellous eyes. ’Twas the eyes that had caught and held Jo from the start, yellow eyes they were and black fringed. They were like pools in a wintry landscape; pools in which the sunlight was reflected.
“I—I am starving to death,” said the girl advancing cautiously, slowly.
“Sit down and eat, then,” commanded Jo, and her throat contracted as it always did when she witnessed suffering. “After you’ve had enough, tell me about yourself.”
For a few minutes it seemed as if there were not enough food to satisfy the hungry child. She ate, not greedily or disgustingly, but tragically. At last, after a gulp of milk, she leaned back against a tree and gave Jo a grateful, pitiful smile.
“And now,” said Jo, “where did you come from?”
“Over there,” a denuded chicken bone pointed toward the Home.
“You live there?”
“I used to. I ran away last night. I’ve run away many times. They always caught me before.”
The words were spoken in good, plain English. For this Jo was thankful. French, or the composite, always hampered her.
“Where were you last night?” she asked.
“Here in the woods.”
Remembering the manner of night it was, Jo shivered and her face hardened.
“Were they cruel to you over there?” she said gruffly.
“Do you mean, did they beat me? No, they didn’t beat my body, but they beat something else, something inside of me, all out of shape. They tried to make me into something I am not, something I do not want to be. They, they flattened me out. They were always teaching me, teaching me.”
There was a comical fierceness in the words. Jo Morey recognized the spirit back of it and set her jaw.
“I never saw you at the Home,” she said; “I’ve often been there.”
“They only show the good ones—the ones they can be sure of. I took care of the babies when I wasn’t being punished, locked up, you know. You see, I learned and could teach.”
“They locked you up?” Mam’selle and the child were being drawn close by ties that neither understood.
“Yes, to keep me from running away. You’re not going to tell them about me, are you?”
The wonderful eyes seemed searching Jo’s very soul.
“No. But where are you going?”
“I’m, I’m looking for someone.” As she spoke the light vanished from the yellow eyes, a blankness spread over the pale, thin face.
“Looking for whom?”
“I do not know.”
“What is your name?” Jo was struck by the change in the girl, she had become listless, dull.
“I do not know. Over there they call me Marie, but that isn’t my name.”
“I can’t let you go off alone by yourself,” Jo was talking more to herself than to the girl.
“Then, what are you going to do with me? Please try to help me. You see I was very sick once and I—I cannot remember what happened before that, but it keeps coming closer and closer and pressing harder and harder—here.” The girl put her hand to her head. “Once in awhile I catch little bits and then I hold them close and keep them. If I could be let alone I think soon I would remember.”
The pleading eyes filled with tears, the lips trembled.
Now the obvious thing to do, Jo knew very well: she ought to bundle the girl into the cart and drive as fast as possible to the Home. But Mam’selle Jo knew that she was not going to do the obvious thing, and before she had time to plan another course she saw two black-robed figures coming across the pasture opposite. The girl saw them, too, and rushed to Jo. She clung to her fiercely and implored:
“God in heaven, save me! If they get me, I will kill myself.”
The appeal turned Jo to stone.
“Get in the cart,” she commanded, “and cover up in the straw.”
The two Sisters from the Home were in the road as Jo bent to gather up the debris of the meal.
“Ah, ’tis the Mam’selle Morey,” said the older Sister. “You were coming to St. Michael’s perhaps, with your goodly gifts?” The words were spoken in pure French.
“I was coming, Sister—to—to adopt a child!”
The blunt statement, in bungling words, made both Sisters stare.
“’Tis like your good heart to think of this thing, Mam’selle Morey. Another day we will consider it.”
“Why not to-day, Sister? My time is never empty. I want a boy, very young and—and good to look at.”
“Oh, but Mam’selle Morey, one does not adopt a child as one does a stray cat. Another day, Mam’selle, and we will consider gladly, but to-day——”
“What of to-day, Sister?”
“Well, one of our little flock has strayed, a child sadly lacking but dearly loved; we must find her.”
“She has been gone long?” Jo was moving to the cart with her basket and bottles.
“She has just been missed. We will soon find her.”
Jo’s hand, searching the straw, was patting the cold one that trembled beneath her touch. “May I give you a lift along the road?” she asked grimly, the humour of the thing striking her while she reassured the hidden girl by a whispered word.
“Thanks, no, Mam’selle. We will not keep to the roads. The lost one loved the woods. She’d seek them.”
Jo waited until the Sisters had departed, her hand never having left the trembling one beneath hers.
“You are going to—to take me with you?” The words came muffled, from the straw.
“Yes.”
“And where?”
“To Point of Pines.”
“What a lovely name. And you, what may I call you?”
“Jo, Mam’selle Jo.”
“Mam’selle Jo. That is pretty, too, like Point of Pines. How kind you are and good. I did not know any one could be so good.”
“Lie down now, child, and sleep.”
Jo was hitching Molly to the cart; her hands fumbled and there was a deep fire in her dark eyes.
“We’re going home,” she said presently, but the girl was already asleep.
Through the autumn sunset and under the clear stars the little cart bobbed along to Point of Pines. The stirring in the straw, the touch, now and then, of a small, groping hand were all that disturbed Jo’s troubled thoughts. When she reached her darkened house, Nick met her at the gate. Very solemnly Jo dismounted and took the dog’s head in her hands.
“Nick,” she explained, “Nick, it’s a girl, and an ugly one at that. She’s old enough to remember, too, but she don’t—she don’t, Nick. God help me! I’m a fool, but I could do nothing else.”