Ringfield: A Novel

by S. Frances Harrison

"How dreadful the dominion of the impure!"

The September days gave place to October ones and still Miss Clairville remained away. The tourists had departed and Ringfield could judge more accurately of the mental and moral status of the countryside. The congregation of Sunday scarcely numbered two score, but Amable Poussette and wife were always present and the rule seemed to be that any who had tired of Father Rielle came to Ringfield whether they understood him or not; poor Catholics were thus in danger of becoming even worse Methodists, and he exerted all his faculties and talents in general directions concerning conduct and character. The beautiful skies and water, the rocks and great Fall, were as impressive as before, but they no longer filled so much space in the mind of the young preacher, who now saw all things in the visible universe from the standpoint and through the jaundiced eye of the disappointed and unhappy lover. All Nature mocked him and it would go hard indeed with him should religion, too, fail him in such a juncture, but the spirit of work and priestly endeavour kept him as yet from sheer wretchedness; he prayed daily to think less of the world and more of his calling and it seemed as if the fate which brought him back to St. Ignace to love and suffer in loving would spare him further, since there was no sign of Miss Clairville's return. His preaching could not fail, because he brought to it a fine original gift and an automatic precision and certainty resulting from the excellent training of his Church, but between Sundays the time dragged. His labours among the few scattered and uneducated families of conflicting race and origin seemed unconvincing and empty, and a new shyness possessed him; he disliked hearing any mention of the Clairvilles, for Crabbe's story he had come to accept as true without a word of questioning; indeed, Miss Clairville's own words came back to him as a proof.

"Another patient of the soul," she had said. Also, she had referred to something dark and of sinister import, fatal yet compelling, which always drew her back from livelier and more congenial places, and, as he judged, from a sphere of work which paid, to the house at Lac Calvaire. That the society of her brother was the attraction, Ringfield could not admit, and what other ties or friends had she? So far as he could learn—none, and thus he read her story; growing up unprotected and motherless, without any standard to judge by, she must have accepted the attentions and fallen under the spell of a man who probably appealed to her pity and also to her intellect. Crabbe had been the only man in the neighbourhood capable of understanding her cultivated allusions; the remnants of the mixed education she had drawn from the school at Sorel and the pedantic dreary associations of the manor house. But in the contemplation of such a thing as her marriage to such a man Ringfield's fancy failed. The whole plan of creation was altered and blackened. He did not wish to know on what terms Pauline and this man now met. He tried to shut out all the images such a story conveyed, and thus he asked no questions nor did he hear any gossip, proving that the affair was old, and if once known to the country people, accepted and forgotten. Why could he not treat it in the same fashion? His faith was not shaken in the sense of belief in a Supreme Being, but he no longer lived so much for and by his faith; Nature and God were put back in the past, as he had said to Crabbe, and all his thought was for the duty of the hour and for the guidance and sustenance of others. He imagined he had lowered his own dignity by writing, on the first impulse of desperate first love, the letter which Crabbe had read with Pauline, and he strove to regain that clerical calm and judicial bearing that had suffered so violent a shock. But when six weeks of this repressed existence had sped and autumnal winds were sweeping down from the glacial north of Terrebonne, bringing cold rains and occasional snow flurries with them, he felt that he must at least call at the manor to inquire after Henry Clairville. Little at any time was heard of the latter except when "Ma'amselle" returned to her native heath, at which times the Archambaults were whipped into work and obedience by the forcible tongue and stormy temper of their mistress. Messages and parcels then passed between the domain and the village; Father Rielle made his call and the whole village and paroisse quickened with energy under Pauline's determined sway. Crabbe—this Ringfield heard from Poussette—was also sent about his business; he was no longer encouraged to play cards and drink with Henry, who fared as he might at the hands of the tyrant family swarming all over the estate.

On a chilly October day, Ringfield once again traversed the muddy road leading to Lac Calvaire, his heart sore over the revelation that had reached him, and he could not repress a painful sigh as he came in sight of the métairie. The lake was dull grey, the maples were shedding their leaves without painting them red and yellow, and the pines looked unusually sombre against a pale and cheerless sky. A pair of kingfishers were flying from side to side of the road, and a forked object sailing high up in the air proclaimed itself a bird, otherwise there was no sign of life till, approaching the front of the métairie, he observed the peacock taking its airing in a neglected garden.

Nothing had affected the pose and splendour of this radiant creature as it paraded up and down, gently swaying its lustrous and shimmering tail; the drooping fortunes of the house were not reflected in its mien or expression, and it was not until Ringfield was met by four lean cats prowling about him in evident expectation of food and petting that he descried unusual neglect in the appearance of house and garden. Three ugly blotched and snorting pigs ran out from under some bushes and followed him. He saw no smoke arising, no face at any window, heard no lively bustle in the farm-yard, no amusing and contentious chatter in Canadian French from the barns and out-buildings which sheltered the various members of the Archambault family. A curious feeling rushed over him and with it a conviction—the place was deserted. He went at once to the chain of farm buildings and examined them all; all were empty, with every sign of hurried and agitated flight rather than of orderly and complacent departure. The horses were gone, the two wagons and buggy, the buckboard. Traces of fright and apprehension were met at every step; a dirty hairbrush dropped on the ground; a clock abandoned on a bench outside the door as if too heavy; tins opened and rifled of their contents; a tub half full of soiled clothes in foul water. All these he saw, scarcely taking in their meaning, until returning to the manor he opened the front door and went in. There in the usual place he found Henry Clairville, alive, and no more. Still clad in the greasy dressing-gown and still seated in the tattered arm-chair, the unfortunate man was clearly very ill. Patches appeared on his face, which was both pallid and flushed; his neck showed red and sore and his body hung down limply over the side of the chair. Evidently he had tried to get to his bed which stood in a corner, and failed. His eyes were staring and full, yet glassy; sense and recognition alike were wanting, while the delirious accents which escaped now and then from his parched lips were altogether in French. In short, Ringfield, though unaccustomed to disease, knew that the man before him was very ill, of what did not enter his head, although there came to his mind a description of the plague in a boy's story-book. He did what he could, singlehanded, which was to snatch some warm clothing from the bed, cover up the sufferer so that draughts might not reach him, fetch water and leave it on the table near the chair and see that all animals were excluded. He then quickly sought for a secluded spot near the lake, hung his own clothes about on branches to air, and took a plunge into the clean, cool water, after which he was ready to return to St. Ignace and get assistance.

Dr. Renaud, the village practitioner, drove out at once, taking a woman with him, who, as soon as she learned she had to deal with the "Pic" ran screaming from the house, thus clearing up the mystery of the Archambaults.

"They knew," said Ringfield, "and I didn't. But I guessed something of the kind and took the only precaution open to me. I washed in pure water. And now what are we to do? Has M. Clairville no one belonging to him but his sister?"

"Not to my knowledge," said Dr. Renaud, who spoke good English, "and we do not wish her to return."

"Certainly not."

"Then I can only think of one person in the village."