Part 3 (1/2)
”I like you,” she said, with frank earnestness.
”Then I shall come to see you often. This is such a queer place with no ready-made houses and really nothing but log huts or those made of rough slabs. I wonder now how I had the courage to come. But I could not be separated from my dear husband. And when he makes his fortune we shall go back to our dearly beloved France.”
The child smiled. The story had no embarra.s.sment for her--Catherine had brought her from France and she had never called her mother until on s.h.i.+pboard. Back of it was vague and misty, though Catherine was in it all. But this beautiful woman with her soft voice, different from anything she had ever heard--why, she liked her already almost as much as M'sieu Ralph.
”And you have been ill a long while?”
”It seemed only a day when I first woke up. Then the snow was on the ground. I was so cold. I wanted to go to sleep on the chimney seat and Mere would not let me. And now everything is in bloom and the garden is planted and the sun s.h.i.+nes in very gladness. I shall never like winter again,” and she shuddered.
”Are the winters so dreadful?” she inquired of Destournier.
”I never knew anything like it. I can't understand why the Sieur de Champlain should want to found a city here when the country south is so much more congenial. Although this is the key to the North, as he says.
And there is a north to the continent over there.”
”You think there are fortunes to be made?”
”For those who come to make them. But the mother country will squeeze hard. We have not found the gold and silver yet. But after all, trade is your best pioneer. And this is an era of exploring, of fame, rather than money-getting. We are just coming to know there are other sides to the world. Ah, here is Mere Dubray.”
The child glanced from one woman to the other. She saw the same difference as there was between the workmen and the few of the better cla.s.s. Was it knowledge such as M'sieu Ralph had? And the good-hearted home-making Mere scouted learning for women. Their business was cooking and keeping the house. But she decided she liked the lady the best, just as she liked M'sieu Ralph better than the brawny leathern- and fur-clad workmen. But the Mere had been very good and never scolded her now.
She brought in some little cakes and a gla.s.s of beer brewed from roots and herbs. Madame Giffard thanked her and sipped it delicately. Some vague memory haunted the child, as if she had seen this lady before with the dead Catherine.
”It is a wild, wild country. There is nothing like it in France,” the lady said, in a tone of disparagement. ”And how one is to live----”
”You were not in France two or three centuries ago,” he returned good-naturedly. ”Most countries go through this period. Beginnings are not always agreeable.”
”But I cannot admit this is a city. Yet they talk about it at home. The furs are certainly fine. But the Indians! You are in fear of them all the time. And if they should make an attack here?”
”They will hardly dare now. Indeed one Indian tribe is practically wiped out. And the fortifications are to be strengthened. We manage to keep quite friendly, though we do not trust too far.”
”But it is horrible to live in perpetual fear,” and she shuddered.
”You must not look on that side of it. It is a hard country for women, I shall have to admit.”
”But I have not come to stay, thank the saints. A year maybe at the longest. My husband is to go back when he has--what you call it--established his claim--concession. We like sunny France the best.
Only one wants a fortune to enjoy it.”
”That is true, too. But here one can do without. At least a man can”--laughing a little as he surveyed the dainty figure.
”A year,” repeated the child. ”How long is a year?”
Mere Dubray had been standing in the doorway, waiting to take the cup when my lady had finished. Now she said in an unemotional tone--
”It is a summer and a winter. It was last May when Jean Arlac brought you here.”
The child nodded thoughtfully and there came a far-away expression in her eyes.
”Jean Arlac went up to the fur country,” she said to the guest.
”Does he return when the furs come in?”