Calico Captive (22 page)

"Miriam? Is it you?
Parbleu,
girl! What are you thinking of to be out on the street at this hour?"

"I am on my way home," Miriam faltered. "I did not realize it was so late."

"Don't you know that the troops are marching in the morning? Every sober citizen in Montreal will stay inside and lock the door tonight."

"Madame had some work for me to do. It is just finished."

"Drat the woman! What sort of work, that couldn't wait?"

"I have told you I am a dressmaker. Felicité's gown needed to be fitted in a hurry. I am going home directly now."

"
Un moment!
This gown—why must it be fitted in such a hurry?"

"Why—" All at once she saw how she had blundered. Would she never learn to hold her tongue?

"To be worn tonight, by any chance?"

"Pierre, I don't—"

"Answer me!" His fingers bruised her arm.

"Yes, she wore it somewhere tonight."

"The little weasel! Sick in bed with a headache, was she? On my last night!"

The black anger gathered in him like a terrifying wave.

"Please, Pierre! If you will let me by. I must get home." As she tried to pull away from his grasp he noticed her again.

"I will see you home," he said automatically, hardly aware of what he said.

"You don't need to. If you will just let me—"

"Stop your chattering and come along!"

She hurried to keep step with him, thankful to be moving in the right direction. She had merely her own clumsiness to blame for this, she knew. She had been fearful ever since she had met Pierre of provoking the violence that lurked beneath that gay surface. Tonight she was too tired to cope with it. She was impatient when, after a few steps, he halted again.

"Wait. I have thought of something."

With his grip on her arm she waited uneasily while he weighed this something in his mind. Once again, in the darkness, his face reminded her of an Indian's. His eyes, glinting under lowered lids, looked reckless and crafty.

"So you work for Madame Du Quesne," he said at last, in a deceptively casual voice. "I might have put two and two together. My mother has been in a frenzy to know where those new gowns have been coming from."

"I shouldn't have let it slip out. I promised not to tell."

"Well, my good mother is going to find out, right now. We will stop and tell her, and from now on, my little seamstress, I promise you more business than you can handle."

"Not tonight, Pierre. Tomorrow morning, perhaps. No one wants to talk about dressmaking tonight."

"I want to talk about it," Pierre said roughly. "Come along!"

Was there no way to escape him? Was he drunk like the other soldiers whose tipsy shouts filled the streets? Miriam was too inexperienced to tell. And why this talk of dressmaking when he could barely hold in leash his jealous fury? To cross him now would be foolhardy. Better to humor him and, if she could, deliver him safely into his mother's hands and make her escape.

Indeed, she had little choice. He was hurrying her till her breath came in tight gasps, along the moonlit street, down a garden path, into a side doorway.

"Pierre—I am sure this is not your house! I will not—" Too late she understood his trickery. The door opened directly into a long drawing room. There was a dazzle of lights and voices, and the sound of violins. Behind her she heard the door click shut. She stood frozen. The room whirled in a great colored pinwheel, and a roaring in her ears shut out the music. Her forehead felt cold. She must actually have lost her balance, for she was aware of pain in her arm as Pierre held her to her feet. The faintness passed. As her sight cleared, two figures emerged from the mass and came toward them, a woman as haughty as a queen, and an elderly man with heavy snow-white hair and a black velvet coat. The woman's voice was sharp.

"Pierre! What are you doing here in those clothes?"

"My dear Maman, where is our hostess? I have brought a distinguished guest to her party!"

"Pierre! You have been drinking!"

"The idea! Maman, Grandpère, allow me to introduce my guest!"

Madame's horrified gaze swept over the trembling girl. "Who is this girl? Pierre, have you lost your mind? Felicité is here!"

"So I understand!"

Madame Laroche came closer. "Hush, Pierre! I will not tolerate this. You must get away before the others see you."

But the damage was done. In the whole long room there was suddenly not a voice. The roaring began again in Miriam's ears, and from a great distance she heard a man's voice, deep and kind.

"My dear mademoiselle," said the man in the black velvet coat, and incredulously she saw that he was bowing to her, "allow me to bid you welcome. But I did not catch your name?"

"Willard," she forced her lips to shape the word. "Miriam Willard." And with the name the whirling pinwheel slowed to a stop. "Willard," she repeated, half aloud, and it was like a draught of water, cold and strengthening. Her shoulders straightened, her head lifted. She could hear the music again.

Pierre turned to her. "Shall we dance?" he asked mockingly.

Miriam drew a steadying breath. It was like that moment on the shore at St. Francis, when she had known that she must run the gantlet. A pathway cleared in the room, and they waited to see what she would do. She glimpsed Madame Du Quesne, and Felicité, her face shocked to blankness like a painted doll's.

Suddenly a gust of anger shook her, a fury as deadly as Pierre's. Who were these people anyway, these be-ruffled, sophisticated creatures who behaved like savages? Not one of them had ever faced an Indian gantlet. Not one of them had ever done an honest day's work in return for the food that ruined their fashionable figures. She was through with standing in awe of them, of meekly holding silent, and flattening herself invisible against muddy walls. Never again, no matter what it cost her, would she wait humbly for their favor. She despised them, every one of them!

Her head went up. Two brilliant spots of color flared in her cheeks. Deliberately she turned and laid a hand on Pierre's shoulder. "If you wish," she said icily. "By all means, let us dance."

Her feet, in the leather sandals, had not forgotten the minuet. The slender calico figure moved with grace among the satins. Amid powdered curls, the smooth chestnut-red wings of her hair glowed like candlelight. Any ripple of amusement that might have begun was shriveled by the blazing scorn in her gray eyes. As the dance ended she faced a completely sobered partner.

"Now," she demanded imperiously, "you will kindly see that I get home at once."

At the door the elder Monsieur Laroche intercepted them. "My grandson scarcely deserves the honor of seeing you home," he said. "I have ordered a carriage for you." He bowed very low over her hand. "We have been honored, mademoiselle. You are a very beautiful and gallant young lady. If your English soldiers show half your spirit in battle, we French will have no easy victory."

O
NLY A SHORT TIME
, it seemed, after Miriam had thrown herself into bed, drained of ability even to think further, she was aroused by a spatter of pebbles against her window.

"Miriam!" It was Pierre's voice, cautiously half raised. The hail of pebbles was repeated. He would wake the tailor's wife with this racket. Climbing on a chair to peer out the high window, she could just make out his figure in the dimness of early morning.

"Pierre!" she whispered. "What are you thinking of? Go away!"

"I have got to see you. Let me in, Miriam, will you please?"

"You know I can't do that. And I don't want to see you or hear you."

"I don't deserve it, I know that. But I must talk to you."

"Not at this hour!"

"We assemble at daybreak. I can't wait till a decent time. Come out and talk to me here, then. There is something I must say to you."

"No! Go away!"

"Look here, my girl." Pierre's voice lost its caution. "Either you let me in or come out here and listen, or I'll shout what I have to say so loud that every soul in this street will hear me!"

"Oh, wait a minute!" Miriam agreed in exasperation. Climbing down from the chair she hastily drew on the calico dress, pulled a muslin cap over her tousled hair, and crept soundlessly through the shop into the street.

"
Bon!
I knew you would come. What a girl! Even at this hour you look beautiful!"

She drew back from his outstretched hands. "Whatever you have to say, Pierre, say it quickly."

"You will not make it easy for me,
n'est-ce pas?
Never mind. I'll get down on my knees to you here on the pavestones if you like. Will you forgive me for last night, Miriam?"

When she did not answer, he hurried on. "It was an unspeakable thing to do. I knew it the moment I came to my senses. But I lost my head there on the street. I can't see now why I ever thought she was worth it!"

"You don't need to explain. It doesn't matter in the least."

"It mattered last night, and you know it. You can call me anything you like. You should have heard my grandfather! Though when it comes to losing your temper, you must admit you haven't much to say!"

"No. I admit I was angry."

"Angry!
Parbleu!
You were magnificent! Not a woman in Montreal could have done it!"

"Hush, Pierre! Everyone will hear you!"

"Very well, but am I forgiven? Think, Miriam, you can't let a man go off to battle without being forgiven! Here I am, marching off to die for King and country—"

"Oh stop it, Pierre!" Always he somehow made her laugh, no matter how unwillingly. "All right. You are forgiven. Now, please, will you go away?"

"Not yet. I haven't said what I came to say. Will you marry me, Miriam?"

It was the last thing she had expected. She could only stare at him.

"Don't answer yet. I know what you think. You think I am still mad at Felicité, but that is not so. How I could even have looked at her, with a girl like you right under my nose! When I saw you standing there last night, with your head in the air! Such spirit! Such fire! I could have knelt down and asked you right there, in front of all of them!"

"Pierre—I—"

"I would marry you today if I could. But this cursed campaign will take a month or more. The day I come home we will arrange it. I will build the finest house in Montreal. Why don't you say something? Are you not pleased?"

"You can't mean this, Pierre. You will regret it tomorrow," Miriam answered, striving hard to hold to her own common sense. "You have said over and over how you had to be free, how you would never be tied down as long as you lived."

"Wait a minute! Who is talking of being tied down? I am still a
coureur,
make no mistake about that. But every
coureur
wants to have a wife to come home to."

"Is that what you want of me? To wait here in Montreal while you are off for a year at a time?"

"But what else does a trader's wife expect?"

A queer trembling had taken possession of Miriam. The spark that had been lighted the first time she heard the rollicking song of the
coureur de bois
flamed now to give her courage. Sometimes, in the loneliness of her room, she had allowed herself to dream of marriage to Pierre. Always she had pictured herself beside him, sharing the excitement and the danger of the wild unexplored country and the endless shining riverways.

"A wife could go with you!" she spoke impetuously. "Women have traveled through the wilderness before and lived on the frontiers!"

Pierre threw back his head and roared. "What a girl! Imagine Felicité suggesting such a thing! But you have the wrong idea, my love. I am no settler. I am a trader, and believe me, there is no room for a woman in a
voyageur
's canoe!"

His laughter hurt her. "'Tis not much of a marriage you have to offer then," she said in disappointment.

Pierre was affronted now. "There's plenty of others who've thought I had something to offer. What do you want, anyway? Why, I can give you dresses that will make the womens' eyes pop out! With your beauty I could make you the talk of New France. What a pair we would make! As my wife you'd be second to no one in Montreal—or Quebec either, for that matter!"