PAGE 7
The Little Bell Of Honour
by
“But if you went to Mass, and took your penance, and–“
“Yes, I know; they’d forgive me, and I’d get absolution, and they’d all speak to me again, and it would be, ‘Good-day, Luc,’ and ‘Very good, Luc,’ and ‘What a gay heart has Luc, the good fellow!’ Ah, I know. They curse in the heart when the whole world go wrong for them; no one hears. I curse out loud. I’m not a hypocrite, and no one thinks me fit to live. Ack, what is the good!”
Parpon did not respond at once. At last, dropping his chin in his hand and his elbow on his knee, as he squatted on the table, he said:
“But if the girl got sorry–“
For a time there was no sound save the whirring of the fire in the stove and the hard breathing of the sick man. His eyes were staring hard at Parpon. At last he said, slowly and fiercely:
“What do you know?”
“What others might know if they had eyes and sense; but they haven’t. What would you do if that Junie come back?”
“I would kill her.” His look was murderous.
“Bah, you would kiss her first, just the same!”
“What of that? I would kiss her because–because there is no face like hers in the world; and I’d kill her for her bad heart.”
“What did she do?” Pomfrette’s hands clinched.
“What’s in my own noddle, and not for any one else,” he answered sulkily.
“Tiens, tiens, what a close mouth! What did she do? Who knows? What you think she do, it’s this. You think she pretends to love you, and you leave all your money with her. She is to buy masses for your father’s soul; she is to pay money to the Cure for the good of the Church; she is to buy a little here, a little there, for the house you and she are going to live in, the wedding and the dancing over. Very well. Ah, my Pomfrette, what is the end you think? She run away with Dicey the Protestant, and take your money with her. Eh, is that so?”
For answer there came a sob, and then a terrible burst of weeping and anger and passionate denunciations–against Junie Gauloir, against Pontiac, against the world.
Parpon held his peace.
The days, weeks, and months went by; and the months stretched to three years.
In all that time Pomfrette came and went through Pontiac, shunned and unrepentant. His silent, gloomy endurance was almost an affront to Pontiac; and if the wiser ones, the Cure, the Avocat, the Little Chemist, and Medallion, were more sorry than offended, they stood aloof till the man should in some manner redeem himself, and repent of his horrid blasphemy. But one person persistently defied Church and people, Cure and voyageur. Parpon openly and boldly walked with Pomfrette, talked with him, and occasionally visited his house.
Luc made hard shifts to live. He grew everything that he ate, vegetables and grains. Parpon showed him how to make his own flour in primitive fashion, for no miller in any parish near would sell him flour, and he had no money to buy it, nor would any one who knew him give him work. And after his return to Pontiac he never asked for it. His mood was defiant, morbid, stern. His wood he chopped from the common known as No-Man’s Land. His clothes he made himself out of the skins of deer that he shot; when his powder and shot gave out, he killed the deer with bow and arrow.
The end came at last. Luc was taken ill. For four days, all alone, he lay burning with fever and inflammation, and when Parpon found him he was almost dead. Then began a fight for life again, in which Parpon was the only physician; for Pomfrette would not allow the Little Chemist or a doctor near him. Parpon at last gave up hope; but one night, when he came back from the village, he saw, to his joy, old Mme. Degardy (“Crazy Joan” she was called) sitting by Pomfrette’s bedside. He did not disturb her, for she had no love for him, and he waited till she had gone. When he came into the room again he found Pomfrette in a sweet sleep, and a jug of tincture, with a little tin cup, placed by the bed. Time and again he had sent for Mme. Degardy, but she would not come. She had answered that the dear Luc could go to the devil for all of her; he’d find better company down below than in Pontiac.