Part 12 (1/2)
”Un Canadian errant, Banni de ses foyers.”
When Sir Robert entered later he found her listless and preoccupied.
”You mustn't look like that to-night,” he said. ”Don't forget that this is your first important dinner-party: three French members and their wives, and La Colombiere, the new Minister of Finance, to whom you must be as charming as possible. This North-West business is quickening as fast as it can. The Metis are really up, there's no doubt about it.”
”In rebellion?” asked Cecilia breathlessly. There was an added interest in life directly to the imaginative girl.
”Ay,” said her father, ”there's a rascal at the bottom of it we've been after for a long time; but now, run away and look bright at dinner, like a good girl.”
The small clique of Frenchmen and their wives could not but have been charmed with their reception that evening. The dinner was good, and not too heavy nor long, the wines excellent (for Sir Robert did not as yet favor the ”Scott” Act), and the suavity of his manner combined with the appearance and grace of his daughter, in a delicate dress of primrose and brown, with amber in her beautiful golden plaits and round her whitest neck, left nothing to be desired. And yet on that very first night in her capacity as hostess, Cecilia found she had to learn to play a part, the part of woman, which all women who have just left off being girls find so hard to play at first. For naturally the report of the Metis revolt had spread. Sir Robert did a brave thing. He referred to it directly they were seated, and then everybody felt at ease. Now it could be talked about if anybody chose--and Cecilia did so choose.
”Who is this young Frenchman,” she asked of La Colombiere, ”that is identified with this new rising? I have been away, and am ignorant of it all.”
”His name is Dubois--Pierre Dubois,” returned La Colombiere with a gleaming smile. ”He calls himself the representative of the French-Canadian party. Bah! such men!” But Cecilia's heart had given a mighty leap and then stopped, she almost thought, for ever.
”Pierre--Pierre Dubois?” she reiterated in her surprise. Her fan of yellow feathers dropped from her lap, and her face showed extraordinary interest for a moment.
”You know him M'lle.?” said La Colombiere, returning her the fan. For an instant she was the centre of attention. Then with a flutter of the yellow feathers that subjugated the four impressionable Frenchmen completely, she resumed her usual manner.
”I know the name, certainly. There was somebody of that name living at Port Joli where we go in the Summer you know.”
”Oh!” said Laflamme carelessly, a little man with a bald head and a diplomatist's white moustache, ”Dubois is not a new offender. He has been recognized as an agitator for three or four years. He has the eyes of the ox and the wavy hair of the sculptor. He is to be admired--_vraiment_--and has the gift of speech.”
When the dinner was over Cecilia played for them in the drawing-room.
Somehow or other, she wandered into the tender yet buoyant melody of the _chanson_ she had hummed earlier in the day.
”Un Canadien errant, Banni de ses foyers.”
”Hum-hum,” trolled little Laflamme. ”So you know our songs? _Ca va bien_!”
”That was taught me” said Cecilia, ”once down the river at Port Joli.”
But she did not say who had taught her. Later on when the guests were gone and Sir Robert was preparing to go back to the office, his daughter said very quietly.
”Papa do you remember that young man at Port Joli who was staying with the cure for his health, the one who was so kind and showed me so many things, the woods, you know and the water, and who talked so beautifully?”
”I remember the one you mean, I think, but not his name. Why, dear child?”
”His name was Dubois,” returned Cecilia. ”Pierre Dubois!”
”Dubois? Are you sure? That is very singular” said her father. ”And he talked beautifully you say? It must be _this_ one.”
”That is what I think” said Cecilia, seeing her father to the door.
Then ensued a period of hard work for Cecilia. She read the papers a.s.siduously, going up every day to the Parliamentary reading-rooms for that purpose that she might lose no aspect of the affair. She followed every detail of the rebellion, even possessing herself of many of her father's papers bearing on the matter. Those details are well known; how the whisper ran through our peaceful land, breathing of war and battle and blood-shed; how our gallant men marched to the front in as superb a faith and as perfect a manhood as ever troops have shown in this country or the Old; how some fell by the way, and how others were reserved to be clasped again to the bosoms of wife and mother and how some met with the finest fate of all, or at least the most fitting fate for a true soldier--death on the battle-field. For a month the country was in a delirium. Then joy-bells rang, and bonfires blazed, and hands were struck in other hands for very delight that the cause of all the mischief, the rebel chief, the traitor Dubois was taken. Cecilia alone sat in her room in horror.
”What will they do with the prisoner Dubois?” she said with a vehemence that dismayed Sir Robert.
”The prisoner Dubois? Why, they will hang him of course. He has caused too much blood to be shed not to have to give some of his own.” Cecilia writhed as if in extreme pain. Her beauty, her grace, her youth all seemed to leave her in a moment, and she stood faded and old before her father.
”Oh, they will not do that! Imprison him or send him away--anything, anything save that! See, they do not know him--poor Pierre, so kind, so good--they do not know him as I knew him. Father, he could not hurt a thing--he would step aside from the smallest living thing in the path when we walked together that summer, and he helped everybody that wanted help, there was nothing he could not do. And he loves his country--at least he did so then. There is that song, _'O mon cher Canada_,' he used to sing, and he told me of the future of his country, and how he had prayed to be allowed to aid it and push it forward. And he does not hate the English, only how can he help loving the French more when he is one of them, and has good French blood in his veins--better than many of the so-called Englis.h.!.+ And he was born to be a leader and to bring men away from their home into battle and make war for them, and where in that does he differ from other heroes we are taught to love and admire? If you had ever heard him talk, and had seen the people all gathered round him when he spoke of all these things--as for his church and the Virgin, and the priests, it would be well if you and all of us thought as much about our religion, and loved and revered it as he did his!”
Cecilia broke down into incoherent sobs. Sir Robert sat aghast at this startling confession. No need to tell him that it was prompted by love.