And now ensued a scene which a week earlier would have sorely tried Ringfield's patience, but which now sufficed to amuse him, so secure was he in Pauline's affection and so contented with her recent promises. The evergreens were brought to her, seated on the platform and wearing gloves to protect her hands; she cut off the branches, trimmed them, and sometimes handed them to Poussette, and sometimes to Ringfield, who then nailed them up at the back of the improvised dais to make a becoming background; she also twined the smaller pieces into festoons and ropes for the side of the room, and Poussette, who could not keep his admiration a secret, hovered about her, continually pressing her fingers as he received the greens, patting her back, offering her the scissors and the ball of twine much more frequently than she required them. It was a relief to the couple most concerned when Miss Cordova entered, wearing an elaborately pleated and not too clean violet dressing gown, over which she had put on a dark blue blanket coat and her host's fur cap to keep her warm. Thus from the ill-assorted trio was formed a comfortable partie carrée, for Poussette seemed careless as to which lady he attended and he still bore the cornelian ring upon his finger. Ringfield, forgetting his scruples, had promised to take the chair and introduce the artists; Antoine was door-keeper, and Poussette, clad in tweeds, a white waistcoat and tie of bright blue, would receive the guests in his own effusive way, seating the ladies carefully on the fresh yellow planks with great gallantry and address.
At eight o'clock the room began to fill, the village turning out well, and a few coming all the way from Hawthorne, among these Enderby, the Cockney butcher, and his wife and daughter, and as soon as Ringfield had made a few appropriate remarks, couched this time in safe and secular terms, the first number was given, consisting of an orchestral selection by four players belonging to St. Ignace and to the choir of Father Rielle's big church, St. Jean-Baptiste-on-the-Hill. A cornet, two fiddles and a flute rendered the music with good time and fair intonation, and as it was lighthearted, even gay in character, melodious and tripping, Ringfield thought it must be of operatic origin, but found later on to his intense surprise that it was a transcription of Mozart's Twelfth Mass, interpreted by Alexis Gagnon, the undertaker, as first violin, his eldest son, second violin, François Xavier Tremblay, one of the beneficiaries, on the cornet, and Adolphe Trudel, a little hunchback, on the flute.
This selection, performed with more gusto and enthusiasm than customary, gave so much satisfaction that it had to be repeated after noisy and prolonged applause, and then Miss Cordova appeared at the side of the platform, dressed in Spanish costume and carrying castanets. The opera of "Carmen," at that time quite new, had been performed in some small towns of the United States by a "scratch" company, including Pauline's acquaintance and—to show that Art is a reality, and some people born into it, at their best in it and unfit for anything else—the lady was greatly changed, not only in Ringfield's eyes, but in her own. The greenish-yellow hair looked dull gold by lamplight; her eyes gleamed blackly from their blue crystallized lids (the bath of indigo being a stage device known to all devotees of the art), and her dancing, which immediately commenced to her own castanets and a subdued "pizzicato" from the two violins, was original and graceful, and free from any taint of vulgarity. Her draperies of handsome black and yellow stuffs were high to the throat and reached to her ankles; her expression was dreamy, almost sad; one would have said she was figuring in some serious rite, so dignified her mien, so chaste and refined her gestures. If Bizet has idealized the heroine of Prosper-Merimée's crude but strong little story, Sadie Cordova idealized in her turn the orthodox tempestuous, unhappy Carmen of the modern stage. The beauty of the music with its rhythmic measured beat, and the grace of her swaying changeful poses, riveted all eyes and ears, and Ringfield, to whom such an exhibition was altogether new, was absorbed in watching this woman he had endeavoured not to despise, and whom he certainly would have exhorted in his most earnest fashion to flee St. Ignace directly, had he known that she was a person who had experimented more than once in matrimony, not having waited for the death of her first husband before she married the second, and that she had two children living.
The next on the programme was a baritone solo from a young habitant, another of the Tremblay family, a portion of a Mass in which he was ill at ease, and over-weighted; this apparently not mattering to the populace, he was encored, and returned to sing, in his own simple fashion and without accompaniment, one of the many beautiful melodies known to him from his childhood—A Chanson Populaire.
Quand un Chrétien se determine
A voyager,
Faut bien penser qu'il se destine
A des dangers;
Mille fois a ses yeux la mort
Prend son image,
Mille fois il maudit son sort
Dans le cours du voyage.
Quand tu seras dans les portages,
Pauvre engagé,
Les sueurs te couleront dea visages
Pauvre affligé,
Loin de jurer, si tu me crois,
Dans ta colère,
Pense à Jesus portant sa croix—
Il a monté au Calvaire!
What words were these—to be sung at a mixed concert in a summer hotel in the primitive village of St. Ignace? Ringfield knew enough French to follow them, and as the minor plainsong of the melody floated through the hall, he saw Miss Clairville's eyes filling with tears where she sat in the front at one side awaiting her turn. She had often spoken to him of the beautiful national music of her province—this was the first time he had heard it. But quickly now followed Poussette with a solo on the concertina, in which his fat body laboured to and fro, and his fat hands plunged the instrument to one side, then to the other, while his broad smile and twinkling eyes first pleased, then convulsed the audience. After him came Miss Clairville, and Ringfield, nervously reading out the title of the song, did not observe how she was dressed until she had reached the platform and had greeted her audience. The black and scarlet garb so familiar to him was now accompanied by a smart little jacket of red worn rather queerly, since one arm only was thrust in and the empty sleeve caught up in some way he did not understand, while on her head she wore a kind of arch hussar's cap. It was evident that her selection was familiar to some in the audience, those who had seen her as "La Grande Duchesse de Gerolstein" in Montreal, and a few who had attended similar functions to the present.
"It's only an old turn of mine," she managed to whisper to Ringfield, "but they all like it. Le Sabre de Mon Père—I never tire singing it myself. You look stupid enough this minute to be my Fritz—but there—you do not understand!"
The accompaniment was played on the American organ, moved for that occasion up to the platform, but even that could not detract from the passionate pride and fire with which Miss Clairville rendered that spirited song, so far removed from opera "bouffe" or "comic" opera; indeed the noble character of the first strain was considerably enhanced by the church-like quality of the accompaniment. So far Ringfield was greatly surprised, for he had seen and heard nothing that failed to appeal to the artistic and elevated side of life, and Pauline threw additional vigour and life into her representation of the autocratic Duchess, half-acted, half-sung, as she observed her latest captive; new chains were being forged by the unexpected grandeur and beauty of her thrilling voice and all went breathlessly and well until the door at the end of the room opened and a startling figure appeared. This was Edmund Crabbe—but no longer Crabbe the guide, the dilatory postmaster, the drunken loafer; in his stead appeared Crabbe Hawtree, Esquire, the gentleman and "Oxford man," in his right mind and clothed—mirabile dictu—in full and correct evening dress. Piccadilly and Pall Mall need not have been ashamed of him; the regulation coat, waistcoat and trousers were there, a little worn, but still in fashion; the white tie was there, the stiff collar and cuffs, the patent leather pumps, even a white silk handkerchief tucked inside the waistcoat, and some kind of sprig in the buttonhole. He paused, carefully shutting the door behind him, and stood while Pauline finished her song; at its conclusion he walked up through the rows of village people—shanty and mill hands, habitants and farmers—and presented the artist with a handsome bunch of florist's roses, quite in the accepted style of large cities, and her surprise was evident. She started, stared at him, faltered, and might have spoken but for the impassive and nonchalant air with which he faced her. As for Ringfield, a great anger and distress filled his mind. What spasm of reform had animated this fallen, worthless creature to create an impression which could not, in the nature of things, lead to systematic rehabilitation? To ape the garb of worthy men, to stand thus, tricked out in the dress of a remote civilization from which he had thrust himself forever, before the woman he perhaps had wronged, and with so easy and disdainful a bearing, seemed to Ringfield the summit of senseless folly and contemptible weakness. Subjected during the rest of the evening to the cynical, amused and imperturbable gaze of this man, whom, in spite of his Christianity, he hated, Ringfield made but a sorry chairman. His French stuck in his throat; he cast dark and angry looks at the noisy flirtation going on between Poussette and Miss Cordova, and it was with relief that he heard the patriotic strains of "God Save the Queen" from the strength of the company, in which the hoarse bass of the transplanted cockney, Enderby, the Hawthorne butcher, was paramount.
Crabbe was waiting for Pauline and gave her his arm down from the platform.