Part 19
“Yes, father, I see the women labor, and the labor is hard and the days are long; I see the children many, and the women grow old with each one; and I saw Delize Paquette crying because there was no one to stand in the church as father to her baby; but, _mon père_, I see, too, the men and women coming from the long day’s labor together, and they are happy; I see the children bring smiles to their mothers’ tired eyes, and again they are happy; and I see Delize kiss her baby, even as my mother kissed me, and she is happier with that kiss than Madame Bisson who has no child. Bless me and let me go, _mon père_, for my happiness has gone before and beckons to me, and always I see the man’s love leading it.”
“Enough, my daughter, it shall be as you wish, and may Our Lady have you in her holy keeping.”
* * * * *
And so Diâne was wed, not before the altar, no, not there, for the stranger was not of the faith, but without the church door, just where the gaze of Our Lady, high up in her niche near the roof, seemed to rest with benign love and pity.
Then, hand in hand, as Diâne and her lover had come down the mountain side, so they went down the valley, away from St. Gregoire to where her happiness seemed beckoning her. They paused away down where the valley turns sharp behind the last of the hills; the church could just be seen, a little white speck in the distance.
“Oh, if I might know that day by day the good father will feel that I think of him always. There will be no one now to talk to him by the firelight, no one to tell him the words of the hills.” Diâne’s tone was not one of regretful longing, but rather a great wish that the priest might not feel that she had left him alone.
“If there were something which you might give him, something which would always speak for you,” the stranger had answered, feeling that he had indeed taken the sunshine and the song from the old man’s life. “Can you think of something, Diâne, that will please him much?”
“There is something,” she said, “but I cannot give him that.”
“But tell me; perhaps you may.”
“It is a bell; we have never had one. It takes very much money to buy a bell; the people have flax and grain, but, oh, so little money. Père Dufresne said _le bon Dieu_ might send us one some time if we were not forgetful.”
“A bell it shall be that you shall give him,” the stranger promised, but Diâne only smiled wistfully and turned away.
And so they passed beyond the turn in the valley, and the hills shut them away from St. Gregoire.
Soon the snows of winter fell upon all the hills, and more than ever was St. Gregoire lost to the great world outside. In the long evenings Père Dufresne sat by his fire alone, conjuring up the face of his little maid in the moving shadows, and dreaming, till he almost heard her voice as he used to hear it--“_Mais oui, mon père_, that is what the bird in the cedars said to me as I came by the swamp at sunset.” It was thus that he thought of her, and always with a great foreboding and self-condemnation. Day after day dragged slowly by until at last the winter was gone, but neither the spring nor the summer brought assurance to the old priest or eased his loneliness. One thing there came to arouse the parish, even as the engineers had with their suggestion of a railroad. In the early summer a letter had come from over the sea saying their bell would be ready in the autumn. From whom it was to come they knew not; _le bon Dieu_ had indeed remembered them.
* * * * *
Then, as the days grew chill again, that which the priest expected and dreaded happened--Diâne came back--Diâne and her baby. Her husband had sailed away to England, to his mother who was dying; as for herself, she could not bear the town alone, she must come back to the old familiar river and her hills to wait for him. That was the simple story she had to tell; to her it was sufficient, but she read anger and grief on the priest’s face.
“This is the happiness you sought, the thing I let you wander out into the world to find, and I knew, I knew.”
As he bowed his head in sorrow, Diâne knelt and pleaded as she had once before.
“Ah, _mon père_, it is not that you should grieve, for I found my happiness. I am happy now, a little lonely, perhaps, till he shall come for me, but he will come. I tell you he will come,” she repeated in eager defense as she noted the pained look of doubt. “He is gone as I told you, but I chose to stay. Besides, I am not alone; here is my child, father. The days may be long, but he will come. As I came here I heard the people talking of a bell. It is not yet hung, but when it rings for the first time I shall know he will not be far away.”
The prophecy came to her as an inspiration, and her tone of loneliness changed to one of trust and surety.
A tiny log house on the river bank she took for her home. The curé found that his old housekeeper needed strong, young arms to lift the burden of her work, and so Diâne settled into a quiet nook, more silent than of old, and if her longing and weary waiting found words, they were whispered to baby ears by the fireside in the little cabin by the river.
And the bell? There was something strange about it. Autumn passed and winter came, but no tidings of the bell. In the spring came a letter from England saying that the ship bringing the bell had foundered in the Gulf and her cargo was lost. Another bell would come by the next autumn perhaps. Poor Diâne! It seemed an answer to her unwitting prophecy.
The snow disappeared and the birds and flowers came with a rush, as they always come to the Northland. When her work was done, Diâne would take her boy in her arms and wander away to the forests on the hillsides. She could seek sympathy nowhere else. The old familiar groves and hollows and peaks made her feel a strange calmness and resignation after stormy nights of despair and dying hope. Up here it seemed that her husband must be dead, or he would have come; down there by the river the torturing thought of desertion and lost love nearly drove her mad. Up here under the trees she told over and over again to her baby what his father had said when she walked here with him; what he would say if he ever came back; and if he did not come back they must know he was dead.
Thus the summer passed and autumn came again. How she dreaded the winter with its long evenings and the snow-bound world, when there would be naught but the whistling wind, the driving snow, the faint murmur of the river under the ice, and her thoughts.
* * * * *
Then one sabbath Père Dufresne told them that the bell would be there in a week. How Diâne’s heart leaped with a vague, new hope! No one knew it was her bell, and that it was so near seemed proof that he was alive and had not forgotten her.
At last it came. All the parish crowded around as it was being lifted from the cart. Diâne looked on from the outer edge of the circle, pale and disturbed, holding her baby so close that he whimpered with pain.
Suddenly an exclamation of anger and disappointment burst from the people. A clumsy handler had let his burden slip and the bell had struck with a jarring ring--its last note. An ugly crack from bottom to top had silenced its voice before it could speak for St. Gregoire.
Diâne sank to her knees with a sob. It was all over; her last faint hope was gone. Now she was certain he must be dead. No one noticed her, for all were listening to the curé who was reading aloud an inscription on the broken bell.
“What? Whose gift? Read it again, father.”
Diâne had paid no heed to the curé’s words, but the deep silence roused her to find them all regarding her with surprised awe.
“My daughter,” said the curé as he came to her side, “the Blessed Virgin has sent her gift in your name; she has looked on her handmaiden with love and favor.”
She arose bewildered and he led her to the bell, but she turned away calm and tearless.
“No, no, father. It means he is dead and will not come. Let me go home.”
Silently they stood aside and watched her go down the hill. In her sorrow Diâne had touched their hearts. The curè’s eyes were dim, and his voice faltered as he blessed them and sent them away.
And now Père Dufresne bethought him that the Bishop might help them, and the bell was sent back to Quebec.
* * * * *
By return messenger came the word that it would be recast, that the parish should have its bell. This Diâne did not know, as the curé thought to calm her grief the sooner if she had no false hope.
After a little she went about her task as before. Her winter evenings were spent now in braiding straw hats. At times, when the straw broke in her weary fingers, she would lay it aside, and kneeling by the rude cradle, would pour out the sorrows of her broken heart in wailing murmurs.
“Ah, why must I suffer so when I know he is dead? My heart aches for one day with him, even for one moment. Why do I start when the wind shakes the door? Why do I listen for footsteps in the whistling of the gale? Why cannot I feel that he is dead when I know he must be? Why do I wake in the night feeling his kiss on my lips? Why does the sound of his voice still fall on my ear, and the light of his eyes meet mine in the twilight? Oh, Mother of Christ, give me peace and strength, or the silence of death for my child and me.”
In the last days of the winter word came again concerning the bell, and a few days later came the bell itself. Great care was taken this time. The people were ready to look upon it as a thing bewitched, and even doubted the wisdom of attempting to hang it; but the curé exorcised their superstition. It was blest, and the day came when it would hang in the steeple before all St. Gregoire.
Diâne had felt only pain when she heard that the bell had come. She cared nothing for ceremonies and she had no curiosity, so through it all she kept steadily at her work, not even glancing toward the church on her way home.
* * * * *
Fate was kinder now, and at last the bell was in place, but the first ringing was to be for mass on the sabbath; and so it waited.
The winter had been a terrible one. Snow storm followed snow storm till the drifts piled higher than ever before. People along the river prayed for a gentle spring, with only south wind and sunshine. Heavy rains meant disaster, perhaps destruction to their all.
Before the sabbath dawned, that which they dreaded came; it rained, a steady downpour for many hours, then a deluge. The ice on the river had had no time to melt, and the floods from the slopes above poured over it without breaking it up. Helplessly the people watched the torrent swell and spread. Nearly every one had moved what he could to higher land, each one striving for himself. Night came on, dark and dreadful. There was no sleep even on the hillsides. The sound of the waters had been deep and threatening, but suddenly in the darkness they burst forth in a roaring crash. Something had happened in the lake above. Thank God, every one had had time to escape danger. Now thoughts turned to fellow creatures and their safety. Yes, all seemed to be safe. But where was Diâne and the child? In the curé’s house, of course. No? God in heaven! Was she down there by the river?
“Men to the rescue!” shouted the curé.
In a moment he had hurried to the bell rope, and for the first time the Bell of St. Gregoire rang out clear and strong, even before the roar of the storm and the battle of the waters.
At dusk Diâne had looked at the river almost touching her threshold; but the high land lay back of her; she would not be cut off without warning. She dressed the child warmly before he went to sleep, placed their outer garments in readiness, piled the logs on the hearth and sat down to wait.
Suddenly the house shook and the water poured in at every opening. She sprang to the bed, and in an instant they were ready. But, oh, the awful darkness! The house seemed to be moving from its place. The water was rising quickly. She stood dazed. What should she do? The loft! Quickly she mounted the ladder and broke open the window. She leaned far out--nothing could be seen. She could feel the house moving away on the flood. What was that? The bell! She smiled and laid her face close to the child. Softly she whispered:
“Ah, baby, baby! Mother was right after all. Listen to the bell. I said that when it should ring for the first time he would not be far away, and in a moment we shall be with him. Don’t be afraid, dearie. He will be waiting for us, and, at last, after all this long, long time, we shall be together all the days, as he used to tell me, and we shall have you besides. Perhaps he can see us now coming nearer.”
* * * * *
She laughed a happy little laugh, the first since she had come back to St. Gregoire. The child was quiet, soothed by the gentle crooning as she murmured on.
“Diâne! Diâne! Shout! Call to me! I am here,” came faintly to her ears over the waters out of the darkness.
“Listen, listen, my little one. He is calling to us. Blessed Virgin, I thank thee.” Then loud and clear: “Here! Here am I, your Diâne.”
Again came the cry, louder and nearer.
“Call again, Diâne! Be brave!”
Again she called. “We are nearer, nearer,” she whispered. “Soon it will be light, the great, beautiful Dawn!”
Something else was whirling along the way with them--it loomed near her window. Again the cry, almost within reach.
“Courage a little longer, Diâne. Now! Hold closely to me!”
Our Lady had indeed looked with favor on her handmaiden, for who, think you, had brought the stranger over sea and land, through storm and peril, by snowshoe and sled track, even into the darkness, to answer to the call of the bell in Diâne’s great need? Who had made him listen to the song of his heart, even though the music of home had been loud in his ears, and brought him dreams such as he had dreamed by his campfire that summer, until he could hear Diâne’s voice--and his baby’s?
Israel Gagnon knows, and Victor Brassard knows and Grandmère Touchette knows and the little _habitant girl_ at her flax wheel knows. For as the vesper tones ebb and flow around the hills and along the valley I hear her murmur Diâne’s name and a little prayer to Our Lady, for our little maid, too, has a lover; and as I listen to the bell, now “so beeg it feel all de worl’, beeger den all de mountain’,” and now “so small an’ sof’ I can jus’ feel it inside me,” I, too, know who brought the stranger back to his wife and child.
_Pictorial_
THE EVENING RICE
BY
ACHMED ABDULLAH
THE EVENING RICE[10]
By ACHMED ABDULLAH
Up there in the gray North a great triple tomb thrusts its frowning parapet obliquely into space. On its outer walls, to left and right of the entrance, are bas-reliefs in sea-green majolica, representing five-claw, imperial dragons.
It is the Fu-Ling, the Happy and August Tomb, where lies the T’ai Tzu, the Nurhachi, the Iron-capped Prince, the founder of the Manchu dynasty, who centuries ago swept out of the barren Central Asian wastes at the head of his host of red-skinned, flat-nosed horsemen, and turned placid China into a crimson shambles.
Last year the hereditary keeper of the sacred tomb, a Ch’i-jên, a Manchu bannerman, sold it to a moon faced Chinese farmer for a lean sack of clipped silver taels. Next year it will house the farmer’s squealing, red-bristled pigs.
And still the Manchu has his sword and the strength of his sword-arm; still the moon-faced coolie is a coward who shrinks at the swish and crackle of naked steel.
Yet, next year, the pigs will dirty the tomb’s yellow imperial tiles.
And the pigs, too, are symbolic--and necessary.
For what is the evening rice without a few slivers of fried pork?
The last time Ng Ch’u had seen him had been nearly forty years earlier in the squat little Manchu-Chinese border town of Ninguta, in the hushed shelter of an enameled pagoda-roof that mirrored the sun-rays a thousandfold, like countless intersecting rainbows--endless zigzag flashings of electric blue and deep rose and keen, arrogant, glaucous-green, like the shooting of dragon-flies and purple-winged tropical moths. There had been murder in the other’s, the Manchu’s, eyes; murder in the hairy, brown fist that curled about broad, glistening steel.
But on that day he, the despised Chinese coolie, had had the whip-hand.
“A Manchu you are!” he had said; and his eyes had glistened triumphantly through meager almond slits. “A Manchu indeed! A Pao-i bannerman, an aristocrat--sloughing your will and your passions as snakes cast their skin, brooking no master but yourself and the black desert thunder! And I am only a mud-turtle from the land of Han.” He had sucked in his breath. “But--” he had continued; had slurred and stopped.
“But?”
“But--there is one thing, perhaps two, which the Huang T’ai Hou, the Empress, the Old Buddha, does not forgive--not even in a Manchu, an iron-capped prince!”--and a few more words, sibilant, staccato, and at once Yang Shen-hsiu had sheathed his dagger with a little dry, metallic click and had walked away, while Ng Ch’u had returned to his home.
There he had kowtowed deeply before an elderly peasant woman with bound feet, gnarled hands, and shriveled, berry-brown features.
“Mother,” he had said, “I am going away to-day. I am going away _now_. I--and the Moon-beam!”--pointing into the inner room at a lissom, blue-clad form that was bending over the cooking-pots.
“Why, son?”
“There is Yang Shen-hsiu, the Manchu!”
“But--I thought--”
“Yes. I know. But a Manchu never forgets. And some day--perhaps to-morrow--his passion and his hatred, since he is a fool, will vanquish his fear. On that day--by Buddha and by Buddha--I shall not be here. Nor shall the Moon-beam!”
Nearly forty years earlier--and now he saw him again.
For just the fraction of a second, the unexpected sight of those glittering, hooded eyes--for he was conscious of Yang Shen-hsiu’s eyes even before he saw the rest of the face: the thin nose beaking away bold and aquiline, the high cheekbones that seemed to give beneath the pressure of the leathery, ruddy-gold skin, the compressed, sardonic lips brushed by a drooping Mandarin mustache, and the flagging, combative chin--for just the fraction of a second, the unexpected sight of those sinister eyes, rising quickly like some evil dream from the human maelstrom that streaked down Forty-second Street, threw Ng Ch’u off his guard. It conquered in him the long habit of outward self-control which he had acquired in a lifetime of tight bargaining, of matching his algebraic Mongol cunning against the equal cunning of his countrymen.
He stopped still. His round, butter-yellow face was marked by a look of almost ludicrous alarm. His tiny, pinkish button of a nose crinkled and sniffled like that of a frightened rabbit. His pudgy, comfortable little hands opened and shut convulsively. His jaw felt swollen, out of joint. His tongue seemed heavy, clogging, like something which did not belong to him and which he must try to spit out. Little blue and crimson wheels gyrated madly in front of his bulging eyes.
* * * * *
Ng Ch’u was a coward. He knew it. Nor was he ashamed of it. To him a prosy, four-square, sublimely practical Chinese, reckless, unthinking courage seemed incomprehensible, and he was too honest a man to find fascination or worth in anything he could not understand.
Still it was one thing to be afraid, by which one lost no face to speak of, and another to appear afraid, by which one often lost a great deal of face _and_ of profit, and so he collected himself with an effort and greeted the Manchu with his usual, faintly ironic ease of manner.
“Ten thousand years, ten thousand years!”
“And yet another year!” came the courtly reply; and, after a short pause, “Ah--friend Ng Ch’u!” Showing that recognition had been mutual.
They looked at each other, smiling, tranquil, touching palm to palm. They were carefully, even meticulously, dressed: the Chinese in neat pin-stripe worsted, bowler hat, glossy cordovan brogues that showed an inch of brown-silk hose, and a sober shepherd’s-plaid necktie in which twinkled a diamond horseshoe pin; the Manchu in pontifical Prince Albert and shining high hat with the correct eight reflections. Both, at least sartorially, were a very epitome of the influence of West over East.
* * * * *
In that motley New York crowd, nobody could have guessed that here, in neat pin-stripe worsted and pontifical Prince Albert, stood tragedy incarnate: tragedy that had started, four decades earlier, in a Manchu-Chinese border town, with a girl’s soft song flung from a painted balcony; that had threatened to congeal into darkening blood, and that had faded out in a whispered, sardonic word about the Huang T’ai Hou, the Empress, the Old Buddha, and a coolie’s stupendous Odyssey from a mud-chinked Ninguta hut to a gleaming Fifth Avenue shop; tragedy that, by the same token, had started four centuries earlier when red-faced, flat-nosed Tatars, led by iron-capped Manchu chiefs, had poured out of Central Asia, to be met by submissiveness--the baffling submissiveness of placid, yellow China--the submissiveness of a rubber ball that jumps back into place the moment you remove the pressure of your hand--the submissiveness of a race that, being old and wise, prefers the evening meal of rice and fried pork to epic, clanking heroics.
For a moment Ng Ch’u wondered--and shivered slightly at the thought--if Yang Shen-hsiu’s perfectly tailored coat might hold the glimmer of steel. Then he reconsidered. This was New York, and the noon hour, and Forty-second Street, youthful, shrill, but filled with tame, warm conveniences, and safe--sublimely safe.