A Little Girl in Old Detroit
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Amanda Minnie Douglas >> A Little Girl in Old Detroit
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"It is Jeanne," she cried again, "your own Jeanne, who loves you with
all her heart and soul, Jeanne, whom the good God has sent back to you,"
and then the tears and kisses mingled in a rain on the poor old wrinkled
face.
"Jeanne," Pani said in a quavering voice, in which there was no
realizing joy. Her lifeless fingers touched the warm, young face, wet
with tears. "_Petite_ Jeanne!"
"Your own Jeanne come back to you. Oh, Pani, you are cold and there is
no fire. And all this dreary time--but the good God has sent me back,
and I shall stay always, always--"
She ran and opened the shutter. The traces of Pani's careful
housekeeping were gone. Dust was everywhere, and even food was standing
about as Wenonah had brought it in last night, while piles of furs and
blankets were lying in a corner, waiting to be put up.
"Now we must have a fire," she began, cheerily; and, shivering with the
chill herself, she stirred the embers and ashes about. There was no lack
of fuel. In a moment the flames began a heartsome sound, and the scarlet
rays went climbing and racing over the twigs. There was a fragrant
warmth, a brightness, but it showed the wan, brown face, almost ashen
color from paleness, and the lack-luster eyes.
"Pani!" Jeanne knelt before her and shook back the curls, smiled when
she would fain have cried over the pitiful wreck, and at that moment she
hated Louis Marsac more bitterly than ever. "Pani, dear, wake up. You
have been asleep and dreamed bad dreams. Wake up, dear, my only love."
Some consciousness stirred vaguely. It was as if she made a great
effort, and the pale lips moved, but no sound came from them. Still the
eyes lost some of their vacancy, the brow showed lines of thought.
"Jeanne," she murmured again. "_Petite_ Jeanne. Did some one take you
away? Or was it a dream?"
"I am here, your own Jeanne. Look at the fire blaze. Now you will be
warm, and remember, and we will both give thanks. Nothing shall ever
part us again."
Pani made an attempt to rise but fell back limply. Some one opened the
door--it was Margot, who uttered a cry of affright and stood as if she
was looking at a ghost, her eyes full of terror.
"I have come back," began Jeanne in a cheerful tone. "Some Indians
carried me away. I have been almost up to the Straits, and a good
captain brought me home. Has she been ill?" motioning to Pani.
"Only grief, Mam'selle. All the time she said you would return until a
week or so ago, then she seemed to give up everything. I was very busy
this morning, there are so many mouths to feed. I was finishing some
work promised, there are good people willing to employ me. And then I
came in to see--"
"Jeanne has come home," Pani exclaimed suddenly. "Margot has been so
good. I am old and of no use any more. I have been only a trouble."
"Yes, yes, I want you. Oh, Pani, if I had come home and found you dead
there would have been no one--and now you will get well again."
Pani shook her head, but Jeanne could discern the awakening
intelligence.
"Mam'selle!" Margot seemed but half convinced. Then she glanced about
the room. "M. Garis was in such haste for his boy's clothes that I have
done nothing but sew and sew. Marie has gone out to service and there
are only the little ones. My own house has been neglected."
"Yes. Heaven will reward you for your goodness to her all this dreadful
time, when you have had to work hard for your own."
Margot began to pick up articles and straighten the room, to gather the
few unwashed dishes.
"Oh, Mam'selle, it made a great stir. The neighbors and the guards went
out and searched. Some wild beast might have devoured you, but they
found no trace. And they thought of Indians. Poor Pani! But all will be
well now. Nay, Mam'selle," as Jeanne would have stopped her, "there will
be people in, for strange news travels fast."
That was very likely. In a brief while they had the room tidy. Then
Jeanne fixed a seat at the other side of the fireplace, spread the fur
rug over it, and led the unresisting Pani thither, wrapped her in a
fresh blanket, and took off the cap, smoothing out the neglected hair
that seemed strangely white about the pale, brown face. The high cheek
bones left great hollows underneath, but in spite of the furrows of age
the skin was soft.
The woman gave a low, pleased laugh, and nodded.
"Father Rameau will come," she said.
"Father Rameau! Has he returned?" inquired the girl.
"Oh, yes, Mam'selle, and so glad to get back to Detroit. I cannot tell
you all his delight. And then his sorrow for you. For we were afraid you
were no longer living. What a strange story!"
"It has happened before, being carried away by Indians. Some time you
shall hear all, Margot."
The woman nodded. "And if you do not want me, Mam'selle--" for there was
much to do at home.
"I do not need you so much just now, but come in again presently. Oh, I
can never repay you!"
"Wenonah has done more than I."
In the warmth of the fire and the comfortable atmosphere about her, Pani
had fallen asleep. Jeanne glanced into the chamber. The beds were spread
up, and, except dust, things were not bad, but she put them in the olden
order. Then she bathed her face and combed the tangles out of her hair.
Here was her blue woolen gown, with the curious embroidery of beads and
bright thread, that Wenonah had made for her last winter, and she
slipped into it. Now she felt like herself. She would cook a little
dinner for herself and Pani. And, as she was kneeling on the wide
hearthstone stirring some broth, the woman opened her eyes.
"Jeanne," she said, and there was less wandering in her voice, "Jeanne,
it was a dream. I have been asleep many moons, I think. The great evil
spirits have had me, dragged me down into their dens, and I could not
see you. Pani's heart has been sore distressed. It was all a dream,
little one."
"Yes, a dream!" Jeanne's arms were about her neck.
"And you will never go away, not even if M. Bellestre sends for you!"
she entreated.
"I shall never go away from La Belle Detroit. Oh, Pani, there may be
beautiful places in the world," and she thought of the island and
Miladi, "but none so dear. No, we shall stay here always."
But the news had traveled, and suddenly there was an influx; M. De Ber
going home to his midday meal could not believe until he had seen Jeanne
with his own eyes. And the narrow street was filled as with a
procession.
Jeanne kept to the simple story and let her listeners guess at motives
or mysterious purposes. They had not harmed her. And a beautiful Indian
maiden with much power over her red brethren had gained her freedom and
sent her to a place of safety. Captain Mallard and the "Return" had
brought her to the town, and that was all.
It was almost night when Father Rameau came. He had grown strangely old,
it seemed to her, and the peaceful lines of his face were disturbed. He
had come back to the home of years to find himself curiously supplanted
and new methods in use that savored less of love and more of strict
rule. He had known so much of the hardness of the pioneer lives, of the
enjoyment and courage the rare seasons of pleasure gave them, of the
ignorance that could understand little of the higher life, of the strong
prejudices and superstitions that had to be uprooted gently and perhaps
wait for the next generation. Truth, honesty, and temperance were rare
virtues and of slow growth. The new license brought in by the English
was hard to combat, but he had worked in love and patience, and now he
found his methods condemned and new ones instituted. His heart ached.
But he was glad enough to clasp Jeanne to his heart and to hear her
simple faith in the miracle that had been wrought. How great it was, and
what her danger had been, he was never to know. For Owaissa's sake and
her debt to her she kept silence as to that part.
Certainly Jeanne had an ovation. When she went into the street there
were smiles and bows. Some of the ladies came to speak to her, and
invited her to their houses, and found her extremely interesting.
Madame De Ber was very gracious, and both Rose and Marie were friendly
enough. But Madame flung out one little arrow that missed its mark.
"Your old lover soon consoled himself it seems. It is said he married a
handsome Indian girl up at the Strait. I dare say he was pledged to
her."
"Yes. It was Owaissa who freed me from captivity. She came down to Bois
Blanc and heard the story and sent me away in her own canoe with her
favorite servant. Louis Marsac was up at St. Ignace getting a priest
while she waited. I cannot think he was at all honest in proposing
marriage to me when another had the right. But there was a grand time it
was said, and they were very happy."
Madame stared. "It was a good thing for you that you did not care for
him. I had a distrust for him. He was too handsome. And then he believed
nothing and laughed at religion. But the Marsacs are going to be very
rich it is said. You did not see them married?"
"Oh, no." Jeanne laughed with a bitterness she had not meant to put into
her voice. "He was away when Owaissa came to me and heard my plight. And
then there was need of haste. I had to go at once, and it would not have
been pleasant even if I could have waited."
"No, no. Men are much given to make love to young girls who have no one
to look after them. They think nothing of it."
"So it was fortunate that it was distasteful to me."
Jeanne had a girl's pride in wanting this woman to understand that she
was in no wise hurt by Marsac's recreancy. Then she added, "The girl was
beautiful as Indian girls go, and it seems a most excellent marriage.
She will be fond of that wild northern country. I could not be content
in it."
Jeanne felt that she was curiously changed, though sometimes she longed
passionately for the wild little girl who had been ready for every kind
of sport and pleasure. But the children with whom she had played were
grown now, boys great strapping fellows with manners both coarse and
shy, going to work at various businesses, and the girls had lovers or
husbands,--they married early then. So she seemed left alone. She did
not care for their chatter nor their babies of which they seemed so
proud.
So she kept her house and nursed Pani back to some semblance of her
former self. But often it was a touch of the childhood of old age, and
she rambled about those she had known, the De Longueils and Bellestres,
and the night Jeanne had been left in her arms.
Jeanne liked the chapel minister and his wife very much. The lady had so
many subjects to converse about that never led to curious questions. The
minister lent her books and they talked them over afterward. This was
the world she liked.
But she had not lost her love for that other world of freedom and
exhilaration. After a brief Indian summer with days of such splendor
that it seemed as if the great Artist was using his most magnificent
colors, winter set in sharp and with a snap that startled every one.
Snow blocked the roads and the sparkling expanse of crust on the top was
the delight of the children, who walked and slid and pulled each other
in long loads like a chain of dogs. And some of the lighter weight young
people skated over it like flying birds. In the early evening all was
gayety. Jeanne was not lacking in admirers. Young Loisel often called
for her, and Martin Lavosse would easily have verged on the sentimental
if Jeanne had not been so gay and unconscious. He was quite sore over
the defection of Rose De Ber, who up in one of the new streets was
hobnobbing with the gentry and quite looking down on the Beesons.
Then the minister and his wife often joined these outdoor parties. Since
he neither played cards, danced, nor drank in after-dinner symposiums,
this spirited amusement stirred his blood. Pani went to bed early, and
Margot would bring in her sewing and see that nothing untoward happened.
Few of the stores were open in the evenings. Short as the day was, all
the business could be done in it. Now and then one saw a feeble light in
a window where a man stayed to figure on some loss or gain.
Fleets were laid up or ventured only on short journeys. From the
northern country came stories of ice and snow that chilled one's marrow.
Yet the great fires, the fur rugs and curtains and soft blankets kept
one comfortable within.
There were some puzzling questions for Jeanne. She liked the freedom of
conscience at the chapel, and then gentle Father Rameau drew her to the
church.
"If I had two souls," she said one day to the minister, "I should be
quite satisfied. And it seems to me sometimes as if I were two different
people," looking up with a bright half smile. "In childhood I used to
lay some of my wildnesses on to the Indian side. I had a curious fancy
for a strain of Indian blood."
"But you have no Indian ancestry?"
"I think not. I am not so anxious for it now," laughing gayly. "But that
side of me protests against the servitude Father Gilbert so insists
upon. And I hate confession. To turn one's self inside out, to give away
the sacred trusts of others--"
"No, that is not necessary," he declared hastily.
"But when the other lives are tangled up with yours, when you can only
tell half truths--"
He smiled then. "Mademoiselle Jeanne, your short life has not had time
to get much entangled with other lives, or with secrets you are aware
of."
"I think it has been curiously entangled," she replied. "M'sieu
Bellestre, whom I have almost forgotten, M. Loisel--and the old
schoolmaster I told you of, who I fancy now was a sad heretic--"
She paused and flushed, while her eyes were slowly downcast. There was
Monsieur St. Armand. How could she explain this to a priest? And was not
Monsieur a heretic, too? That was her own precious, delightful secret,
and she would give it into no one's keeping.
She was very happy with all this mystery about her, he thought, very
simple minded and sweet, doing the whole duty of a daughter to this poor
Indian woman in return for her care. And when Pani was gone? She was
surely fitted for some other walk in life, but she was unconsciously
proud, she would not step over into it, some one must take her by the
hand.
"But why trouble about the Church, as you call it? It is the life one
leads, not the organization. Are these people down by the wharves and
those holes on St. Louis street, where there is drunkenness and gambling
and swearing, any the better for their confession and their masses, and
what not?"
"If I was the priest they should not come unless they reformed," and her
eyes flashed. "But when I turn away something calls me, and when I go
there I do not like it. They want me to go among the sisters, to be a
nun perhaps, and that I should hate."
"At present you are doing a daughter's duty, let that suffice. Pani
would soon die without you. When a new work comes to hand God will make
the way plain for you."
Jeanne gave an assenting nod.
"She is a curious child," the minister said to his wife afterward, "and
yet a very sweet, simple-hearted one. But to confine her to any routine
would make her most unhappy."
There were all the Christmas festivities, and Jeanne did enjoy them.
Afterward--some of the days were very long it seemed. She was tired of
the great white blanket of snow and ice, and the blackness of the
evergreens that in the cold turned to groups of strange monsters. Bears
came down out of the woods, the sheep dogs and their masters had fights
with wolves; there were dances and the merry sounds of the violin in
every household where there were men and boys. Then Lent, not very
strictly kept after all, and afterward Easter and the glorious spring.
Jeanne woke into new life. "I must go out for the first wild flowers,"
she said to Pani. "It seems years since I had any. And the robin and the
thrush and the wild pigeons have come back, and the trees bud with the
baths of sunshine. All the air is throbbing with fragrance."
Pani looked disturbed.
"Oh, thou wilt not go to the woods?" she cried.
"I will take Wenonah and one of the boys. They are sturdy now and can
howl enough to scare even a panther. No, Pani, there is no one to carry
me away. They would know that I should slip through their fingers;" and
she laughed with the old time joyousness.
CHAPTER XVIII.
A HEARTACHE FOR SOME ONE.
"Jeanne," exclaimed Father Rameau, "thou art wanted at the Chapter
house."
He stood in the doorway of the little cottage and glanced curiously at
the two inmates. Pani often amused herself cutting fringe for Wenonah,
under the impression that it was needed in haste, and she was very happy
over it. A bowl of violets and wild honeysuckle stood on the table, and
some green branches hung about giving the room the odor of the new
season and an air of rejoicing.
"What now?" She took his wrinkled old hand in hers so plump and dimpled.
"Have I committed some new sin? I have been so glad for days and days
that I could only rejoice."
"No, not sin. It is to hear a strange story and to be happier, perhaps."
He looked curiously at her. "Oh, something has happened!" she cried. Was
it possible M. St. Armand had returned? For days her mind had been full
of him. And he would be the guest of the Fleurys.
"Yes, I should spoil it in the telling, and I had strict injunctions."
There was an air of mystery about him.
Surely there was no trouble. But what could they want with her? A
strange story! Could some one have learned about her mother or her
father?
"I will change my attire in a moment. Pani, Margot will gladly come and
keep you company."
"Nay, little one, I am not a baby to be watched," Pani protested.
Jeanne laughed. She looked very sweet and charming in her blue and white
frock made in a plain fashion, for it did not seem becoming in her to
simulate the style of the great ladies. A soft, white kerchief was drawn
in a knot about her shoulders, showing the shapely throat that was
nearer ivory than pearl. In the knot she drew a few violets. Head gear
she usually disdained, but now she put over her curls a dainty white cap
that made a delicious contrast with the dark rings nestling below the
edge. A pretty, lissome girl, with a step so light it would not have
crushed the grass under her feet, had there been any.
"There seems a great stir in the town," she said.
They had turned into St. Anne's street and were going toward the church.
"The new Governor General Hull is to come in a few weeks, and the
officers have word to look him up a home, for governors have not lived
in Detroit before. No doubt there will be fine times among the
Americans."
"And there flies a white flag down at the river's edge--has that
something to do with it?"
"Oh, the boat came in last evening. It is one of the great men up at the
North, I think in the fur company. But he has much influence over the
Indian tribes, and somehow there is a whisper that there may be
disaffection and another union such as there was in Pontiac's time,
which heaven forbid! He is called the White Chief."
"The White Chief!" Jeanne stopped short in a maze of astonishment.
"That has nothing to do with thee," said the priest. He preferred her
interest to run in another channel.
"But--I was on his island. I saw his wife and children, you remember.
Oh, I must see him--"
"Not now;"--and her guide put out his hand.
"Oh, no," and she gave a short laugh. "As if I would go running after a
strange man; a great chief! But he is not an Indian. He is French."
"I do remember, yes. There seems a great commotion, as if all the ships
had come in. The winter was so long and cold that business is all the
more brisk. Here, child, pay a little attention to where you are going.
There is a lack of reverence in you young people that pains me."
"Pardon me, father." Jeanne knelt on the church steps and crossed
herself. She had run up here in the dark the first night she had been
back in Detroit, just to kneel and give thanks, but she had told no one.
Then she walked decorously beside him. There was the Chapel of Retreat,
a room where the nuns came and spent hours on their knees. They passed
that, going down a wide hall. On one side some young girls sat doing
fine embroidery for religious purposes. At the end a kind of reception
room, and there were several people in this now, two priests and three
woman in the garb of Ursuline nuns.
Jeanne glanced around. A sort of chill crept over her. The room was bare
and plain except a statue of the Virgin, and some candles and
crucifixes. Nearly in the center stood a table with a book of devotions
on it.
"This is Jeanne Angelot," exclaimed Father Rameau. She, in her youth and
health and beauty, coming out of the warm and glowing sunshine of May,
brought with her an atmosphere and radiance that seemed like a sudden
sunrise in the dingy apartment. The three women in the coif and gown of
the Ursulines fingered their beads and, after sharp glances at the maid,
dropped their eyes, and their faces fell into stolid lines.
Another woman rose from the far corner and her gown made a swish on the
bare floor. She came almost up to Jeanne, who shrank back in an
inexplicable terror, a motion that brought a spasm of color to the
newcomer's face, and a gasp for breath.
She was, perhaps, a little above the medium height, slim alway and now
very thin. Her eyes were sunken, with grayish shadows underneath, her
cheeks had a hollow where fullness should have been, her lips were
compressed in a nearly straight line. She was not old, but asceticism
had robbed her of every indication of youth, had made severity the
leading indication in her countenance.
"Jeanne Angelot," she repeated. "You are quite sure, Father, those
garments belonged to her?"
The poor woman felt the secret antipathy and she, too, seemed to
contract, to realize the mysterious distance between them, the
unlikeness of which she had not dreamed. For in her narrow life of
devotion she had endeavored to crucify all human feelings and
affections. That was her bounden duty for her girlhood's sin. Girls were
poor, weak creatures and their wills counseled them wrongly, wickedly.
She had come to snatch this child, the result of her own selfish dreams,
her waywardness, from a like fate. She should be housed, safe, kept from
evil. The nun, too, had dreamed, although Berthe Campeau had said, "She
is a wild little thing and it is suspected she has Indian blood in her
veins." But it was the rescue of a soul to the service of God, the soul
she was answerable for, not the ardor of human love.
The father made a slow inclination of the head.
"They were upon her that night she was dropped in the Pani's lap, and
the card pinned to her. Then two letters curiously wrought upon her
thigh."
"Jeanne, Jeanne, I am your mother."
It was the woman who was the suppliant, who felt a strange misgiving
about this spirited girl with resolute eyes and poise of the head like a
bird who would fly the next moment. And yet it was not the entreaty of
starved and waiting love, that would have clasped arms about the slim,
proud figure that stood almost defiant, suspicious, unbelieving.
The others had heard the story and there was no surprise in their
countenances.
Jeanne seemed at first like a marble image. The color went out of her
cheeks but her eyes were fixed steadfastly upon the woman, their blue so
clear, so penetrating, that she shrank farther into herself, seemed
thinner and more wan.
"Your mother," and Father Rameau would fain have taken the girl's hand,
but she suddenly clasped them behind her back. There was incredulity in
the look, repulsion. What if there were some plot? She glanced at Father
Gilbert but his cold eyes expressed only disapprobation.
"My mother," she said slowly. "My mother has been dead years, and I owe
love and gratitude to the Indian woman, Pani, who has cared for me with
all fondness."
"You do not as yet understand," interposed Father Rameau. "You have not
heard the story."
She had in her mind the splendid motherhood of Miladi as she had seen it
in that beautiful island home.
"A mother would not desert her child and leave it to the care of
strangers, Indian enemies perhaps, and send a message that she was
dead," was the proud reply.
Jeanne Angelot's words cut like a knife. There was no sign of belief in
her eyes, no dawning tenderness.
The woman bowed her head over her clasped hands and swayed as if she
would fall.
"It is right," she answered in a voice that might have come from the
grave. "It is part of my punishment. I had no right to bring this child
into the world. Holy Mother, I accept, but let me snatch her soul from
perdition!"
Jeanne's face flamed scarlet. "I trust the good Father above," she
declared with an accent of uplifted faith that irradiated her with
serene strength. "Once in great peril he saved me. I will trust my cause
to him and he will clear my way."
"Thou ignorant child!" declared Father Gilbert. "Thou hast no human love
in thy breast. There must be days and weeks of penance and discipline
before thou art worthy even to touch this woman's hand. She is thy
mother. None other hath any right to thee. Thou must be trained in
obedience, in respect; thy pride and indifference must be cast out, evil
spirits that they be. She hath suffered for thy sake; she must have
amends when thou art in thy right mind. Thou wert given to the Church in
Holy Baptism, and now she will reclaim thee."
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