Two Solitudes Read online

  Suddenly Father Beaubien’s big hands flexed, open and shut. Recounting the scene in his mind, he realized now that the two men in the carriage with Athanase were English-Canadians. Their faces as well as their clothes showed it clearly. He dropped his hands to his sides and walked quietly down the path to the road and looked after the carriage. The road ran straight for a mile and he could see the carriage diminish to a small black speck before it turned at a tall maple tree and disappeared. The priest frowned. They had not entered the Tallard property. It was the Dansereau place they were visiting, and it was up for sale because Dansereau was a childless widower who had contributed heavily to the new church and now was in debt.

  The priest stood for several minutes in the road, his hands folded under his cross now. When he heard steps approaching he turned around to see Tallard’s farm manager coming from the store with a parcel under his arm. Blanchard touched his cap and the two men looked at each other, both with brown faces and large brown hands, black hair and black eyes, so thoroughly of the same Norman stock that they could understand each other without speaking.

  “Good day, Joseph.”

  Blanchard touched his cap again. “Good day, Father.”

  The priest spoke again and Blanchard came to a halt. “Mr. Tallard well?”

  “I would think so, Father. But he’s sure a busy man these days, with the war.”

  There was a pause during which they continued to sense each other. In Saint-Marc people were near to the priest or near to Athanase Tallard. Blanchard was near to Athanase, but this did not mean that he was hostile to the priest, or for that matter that anyone was hostile to anyone else. It was merely a subtle and accepted alignment of interests and personalities. Since the beginning of the war, some who had been near to Athanase had drawn imperceptibly away because Athanase had taken a strong stand with the English in favour of full mobilization.

  The priest nodded down the road. “Are Mr. Tallard’s friends staying over the week-end?”

  Blanchard thought a moment as he looked at the ground. “I don’t know for sure, Father. Mr. Tallard, he brought them over from the train.”

  “Are they old friends of his?”

  “I don’t think so, Father. One of them he didn’t know at all.”

  “They’ve come to look at the Dansereau place?”

  “I guess.” Each man knew exactly what was in the other’s mind.

  “They look like city men,” the priest said.

  Blanchard twisted his cap in his free hand. “They were English all right, Father.” He added after a moment’s reflection, “One of them got a wooden leg.”

  The two men looked at each other, and then Father Beaubien nodded and returned to his porch. Blanchard walked off down the road with a plodding gait, one arm hanging, the other clutching his parcel.

  The priest stood motionless for a long time. He could hardly believe that even Athanase Tallard would arrange for the sale of French land, land that belonged to his own people and once to his own family, to an English stranger. No English-Canadian had ever owned land in this parish.

  Father Beaubien made a quick calculation. He had thought of taking an option on the Dansereau place in the name of the Church, but it had not seemed necessary. Saint-Marc was not like the parishes in the Eastern Townships with English communities near at hand. In those places the Church always had to be quick with its option on available land, whether it happened to be French or English. But there was nothing to interest an Englishman in Saint-Marc. He thought the situation through carefully and was reassured after deciding there was no cause for alarm. It was in his nature to refuse to believe anything until it was proved.

  After a last look down the road he went into his presbytery and closed the door behind him.

  THREE

  Two hours later Athanase Tallard showed his guests into the library of his old seigniory house. The men stood for a few minutes warming themselves before a fire of birch logs that burned on a huge, smoke-blackened stone hearth. As they talked they turned now and then to look out the windows to the alley of Lombardy poplars that ran straight as an avenue from the gallery to the river road, and beyond to the late afternoon sun glinting on the Saint Lawrence.

  Although the three men were outwardly unconscious of the differences between them, they were so unlike in appearance as well as in manners that they might have come from three distinct countries and cultures. Athanase Tallard was tall and finely drawn. His aristocratic features were as brown as a walnut shell, the dark pigments of the skin heightened by a large white moustache. His movements were quick with an abundance of nervous vitality, and there was distinction in the way he gestured with his long hands.

  Beside him stood Huntly McQueen, whose name was well known in the financial circles of Montreal. Beyond the fact that he had been born obscurely somewhere in Ontario, that he was a bachelor, that he was a great churchgoer, and that he was rapidly becoming one of the richest men in Canada, little was known of his personal affairs. He was scarcely more than forty, but his manner and his habit of dress made him seem nearly as old as his host. Until today he had known Tallard only casually, though they had met fairly often in Ottawa.

  John Yardley, the third man, was a retired sea captain from Nova Scotia. He was about the same age as Tallard, nearly sixty, and he was equally tall. Behind rimless glasses his eyes were pale blue and they twinkled easily. He was lean and muscular, his face showed the marks of years of sunburn and windburn, his greying hair was cropped close to his skull, and his ears stuck out like fans on either side of his head. An artificial leg made him limp heavily, but otherwise his movements suggested the relaxed awareness of a man who has lived most of his life in the open, and some of it close to danger. It was Yardley who had wanted to inspect the Dansereau farm. Through his daughter, who had married into one of the old families in Montreal and had been living there many years, he had met McQueen, and McQueen had arranged this meeting with Tallard.

  Seeing that his guests were at ease, Athanase excused himself. He explained that his wife was in bed with grippe and he must see how she was. It was a great pity, her illness, for visitors were rare in Saint-Marc and she would have enjoyed meeting them. He promised to return shortly.

  When they were alone, Yardley let his eyes wander over the room. “This must be one of the oldest houses in Canada,” he said. “You know Quebec pretty well. How old would you say it was?”

  “I can tell you precisely,” McQueen said. “It was built by the first member of the family who came to Canada in 1672. When Tallard comes back you might compliment him on the place. The French are proud as Lucifer about houses like this.”

  Yardley let a kind of smile play over his face and changed the subject. “Too bad Mrs. Tallard’s sick. I’d like to meet her, specially if I’m going to be her neighbour.”

  “Surely you haven’t made up your mind already!”

  “Why not? I know what I want, and I think I’ve found it. I guess that’s all there is to it.”

  McQueen studied his friend with an expression of slow calculation. Although his face was as round as a full moon, there was a curious ruggedness about his features. His nose was dominant and his mouth firmly set, his eyes wide and intelligent. This expression of force did not extend to his ponderously soft body. As he crossed to the window he walked with a padding movement, setting his feet down cautiously with each step.

  “I wouldn’t do anything hasty,” he said, looking out and peering from side to side. “There’s no doubt about it, haste never pays.”

  “That’s what everybody’s been saying to me ever since I came to Montreal.” Yardley spoke with a twanging lilt that caught the ear. “But I don’t like waiting around. Never did.”

  McQueen turned from the window. With a glance toward the open door, he spoke in an undertone from the corner of his mouth and his lips barely moved. “You never can be sure where you stand with people like these. I know them. Our host, for instance. He married a girl young enough to be
his daughter. Irish, and she can hardly speak a word of French. Strange business. Tallard has quite a reputation with women. I’d like to see what she’s like myself. One hears things, you know.”

  When Yardley made no reply he turned his attention to the books that lined the walls. “Who’d have expected to find a library like this? Good books, too. Solid reading.” He shook his head. “Nearly as many as I’ve got myself.”

  Yardley limped over to the front window. His interest quickened as he caught sight of a ship, looking very small in the wide spaces of the river. It was a red and white lake boat, high in the bow with a low bridge forward and a single funnel set far aft over a squat stern. He watched it for a time, and then hearing the movement of a third person in the room, he turned. A small boy was watching from the door.

  “Hullo!” Yardley said. “Where did you come from?”

  The boy continued to watch him with an odd mixture of shyness and curiosity. He was slim and dark-haired, and his eyes were shadowed by heavy lashes. He looked somewhat younger than his seven years.

  “I was here,” he said at last. Two buck teeth appeared for a moment below a well-formed upper lip as he smiled back at Yardley. He seemed not to notice McQueen. Yardley limped across the room and put out his hand and the boy touched it diffidently.

  “It’s awfully big,” he said.

  “It ought to be. When I was only a little older than you I had to use my hands like a monkey, and a monkey’s got mighty big hands for the size of the rest of him.”

  McQueen looked at them from his corner by the bookshelves with the expression of a busy man asked to admire his neighbour’s baby. Yardley went on talking as the boy followed him back to the window.

  “Why, when I was fourteen I was sent to sea, and in those days the boys were the ones they sent aloft. Man! We’d be up there on the r’y’l yards going with the swing of the mast, and the sea roaring white and green a hundred and fifty feet below, and we’d look down and get scared, and then we’d see a hard-case mate watching us on the deck and he’d make us scareder.”

  The boy’s mouth was open in wonder and Yardley smiled good-naturedly. He bent and touched his left leg. “Feel that,” he said.

  The boy poked it gingerly. “It’s hard.”

  “Fella thet first went aloft with me, he had a timber leg just like thet,” Yardley said.

  McQueen was still shaking his head when Athanase Tallard returned to the library. “Tea will be here in a moment, gentle men,” he said, his interest caught by McQueen’s inspection of his books.

  Yardley inquired about his wife and Tallard was beginning to say that she was better when he caught sight of the boy half-hidden by the folds of the draperies. “What are you doing downstairs?” he said sharply. “I’ve told you not to come in here when I have guests.”

  “We’ve been getting acquainted,” Yardley said.

  Tallard continued to hold the boy’s eyes with his own. “Remember your manners, Paul,” he said. “This is Captain Yardley, and this is Mr. McQueen.”

  The boy straightened his shoulders, his face drew itself into lines of seriousness, and he shook hands first with Yardley and then with McQueen, bobbing his head each time. He said, “How do you do, sir,” twice and then left the room without a backward glance and disappeared down the hall in the direction of the kitchen.

  “Thet boy speaks better English than I do!” Yardley said. “He your grandson?”

  “Paul speaks both languages,” Athanase said, adding a little stiffly, “He’s my son, Captain.”

  “Well, you’re a lucky man, Mr. Tallard, having a boy like thet.”

  Athanase gave him a sharp look, but his face rested almost immediately. He decided in the instant that he liked this sea captain. He pulled up chairs and the three men sat down before the hearth as the cook brought tea and cakes on a tray. Athanase poured and they made small talk while they ate. Then the cups were laid aside and Athanase and Yardley lit their pipes.

  McQueen watched them. Sitting upright with his thighs round in his trouser-legs and his calves tucked in neatly under the chair, one plump hand fingering the pearl pin in his correct dark tie, he was as unobtrusive as he was observant. Being an Ontario Presbyterian, he had been reared with the notion that French-Canadians were an inferior people, first because they were Roman Catholic, second because they were French. Eighteen years of living in Montreal had modified this view, but only slightly. Now he observed the exquisite courtesy of his host as he talked with Yardley and he was impressed. Methodically, and without malice, he probed for a weak point. Tallard had authority, there was no doubt of that. His habit of gesturing could be discounted because he was French; otherwise it would have given him away as too emotional. McQueen nodded his head imperceptibly as he caught what he was looking for: there was a great deal of impatience in the face of his host, as well as in his manner. Tallard was probably a poor business man.

  Athanase was unconscious of McQueen’s scrutiny because he was leaning forward tensely as he listened to Yardley explain how he had lost his leg. The subject seemed to flow naturally out of his conversation with Paul.

  “She came right up on us, Mr. Tallard, right out of the haze at about two thousand yards, and before the masthead let out his hail I knew for sure she was the Dresden. She was thet ugly she couldn’t be anything else, one of those stiff German craft with a bow like a cow-catcher. We hadn’t sighted a thing all the way out of Australia, and then we ran slap into her. She swung broadside on and I saw her guns swivelling around on us, and man, it was a bad moment.” He stopped and no one spoke. After a second he went on, “Well, thet’s about all there was to it. It all happened too fast.”

  McQueen’s heavy face moved with sudden animation. “But…but Janet didn’t tell me it was a German raider that…that injured you, Captain. I thought you’d had some ordinary kind of accident.”

  “My daughter didn’t tell you for the damn good reason thet she don’t know,” Yardley said. “She’s a nervous girl, just like her mother was before her. With her husband overseas she’s got enough to worry about. No sense telling the women about the war anyhow.”

  A log broke and fell apart, sending sparks onto the hearth. McQueen took a gold watch from his waistcoat pocket and glanced at it. Noticing the movement, Athanase looked at his own. “The train for Montreal doesn’t leave Sainte-Justine before an hour and a half,” he said. “It takes only thirty-five minutes to drive there. You have plenty of time.”

  But McQueen had something else on his mind. He had met Tallard in Ottawa the week before and had set this date for Yardley’s visit. Athanase had said then that any English-Canadian would be taking a long chance buying land in a parish that had been French since the river was settled. However, if Yardley wanted to inspect the farm adjoining his own, he would be glad to make arrangements to show him over it, and he agreed to meet the stranger on the specified train from Montreal. McQueen had omitted to mention that he meant to accompany Yardley to Saint-Marc. He had long ago learned to save explanations whenever they could be avoided. The surprise on Tallard’s face when he stepped off the train had given him a distinct sense of pleasure.

  “I understand,” he said now, pronouncing each word carefully, “that there’s a good waterfall on the river that runs just below your parish.”

  Again Athanase allowed his face to show some surprise. “Yes, there is,” he said. “When I was a young fellow, I used to fish in the pool just below the falls.”

  “You can get a lot more out of a river than fish.”

  “So you can.” Athanase grinned. “Out of that particular river I get more than half my income. I’ve got a toll-bridge across it.”

  McQueen shook his head from side to side. “The feudal system may be profitable, Tallard. But a power dam would be a lot more so.”

  “What do we want with a dam in Saint-Marc?”

  McQueen’s head was still now, and he stared out the window past Tallard’s shoulder. “It would all depend on the body of wate
r in the stream,” he said. “It would have to be checked by engineers. A factory would bring in a nice revenue in a place like this.” His heavy head rotated back and he looked straight at his host. “You have a new church in the village, I see. The parish must be in debt.”

  “But of course!” Athanase said.

  Yardley watched the two men in silence, his eyes travelling from one to the other. McQueen gave the impression of an animal chewing a cud. The way Athanase emphasized his remarks with a flick of the wrist and a turn of his fine long fingers made him look like an actor intent on remembering his lines.

  “You know, Tallard,” McQueen said, “if French-Canada doesn’t develop her own resources, someone else is bound to do it for her. Bound to.”

  “Someone else does so already, Mr. McQueen. Your business friends in Montreal. They’ve grown fat on us.”

  McQueen shook his head and raised a forefinger. “I know that. I know it only too well. Some of our trusts have been irresponsible. What I want is to see French-Canada develop her own resources. I don’t want to come in here and do it for you. I never go into anything without being assured first of good will on the part of all concerned.”

  Athanase studied him with caution. “Are you thinking Saint-Marc should be turned into a factory town? Is that your notion of improvement?”

  “If there’s sufficient power in that stream, it’s my notion of the inevitable.” He got to his feet and again pulled out his watch. “We’ll have time. I’d like to have a look at that waterfall. To be candid, I came down with the captain today for that purpose. Even though I didn’t tell him so.”

  Athanase looked from one of his guests to the other. He thought he detected surprise equal to his own on Yardley’s countenance, but McQueen was already on his way to the door. He rose with a shrug of the shoulders. “Certainly there’s time enough,” he said, “if that’s what you’ve come for. And the view is good. I can promise you that much.” He led the way to the waiting carriage.