Castle Nowhere

C >> Constance Fenimore Woolson >> Castle Nowhere

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'How long has she been away?' I asked.

'Weeks four,' replied the mother, whose knowledge of English was
confined to the price-list of white-fish and blueberries, the two
articles of her traffic with the boarding-house keepers.

'When will she return?'

'Je n'sais.'

She knitted on, sitting in the sunshine on her little doorstep,
looking out over the western water with tranquil content in her
beautiful, gentle eyes. As I walked up the beach I glanced back
several times to see if she had the curiosity to watch me; but no, she
still looked out over the western water. What was I to her? Less than
nothing. A white-fish was more.

A week or two later I strolled out to the Giant's Stairway and sat
down in the little rock chapel. There was a picnic at the Lovers'
Leap, and I had that side of the island to myself. I was leaning
back, half asleep, in the deep shadow, when the sound of voices roused
me; a birch-bark canoe was passing close in shore, and two were in
it,--Jeannette and our surgeon. I could not hear their words, but I
noticed Rodney's expression as he leaned forward. Jeannette was
paddling slowly; her cheeks were flushed, and her eyes brilliant.
Another moment and a point hid them from my view. I went home
troubled.

'Did you enjoy the picnic, Miss Augusta?' I said with assumed
carelessness, that evening. 'Dr. Prescott was there, as usual, I
suppose?'

'He was not present, but the picnic was highly enjoyable,' replied
Miss Augusta, in her even voice and impartial manner.

'The Doctor has not been with us for some days,' said the major's
wife, archly; 'I suspect he does not like Mr. Piper.'

Mr. Piper was a portly widower, of sanguine complexion, a Chicago
produce-dealer, who was supposed to admire Miss Augusta, and was now
going through a course of 'The Harp that once.'

The last days of summer flew swiftly by; the surgeon held himself
aloof; we scarcely saw him in the garrison circles, and I no longer
met him in my rambles.

'Jealousy!' said the major's wife.

September came. The summer visitors fled away homeward; the remaining
'Indian curiosities' were stored away for another season; the hotels
were closed, and the forests deserted; the bluebells swung unmolested
on their heights and the plump Indian-pipes grew in peace in their
dark corners. The little white fort, too, began to assume its winter
manners; the storm-flag was hoisted; there were evening fires upon the
broad hearth-stones; the chaplain, having finished everything about
Balak, his seven altars and seven rams, was ready for chess-problems;
books and papers were ordered; stores laid in, and anxious inquiries
made as to the 'habits' of the new mail carrier--for the mail carrier
was the hero of the winter, and if his 'habits' led him to whiskey,
there was danger that our precious letters might be dropped all along
the northern curve of Lake Huron.

Upon this quiet matter-of-course preparation, suddenly, like a
thunderbolt from a clear sky, came orders to leave. The whole
garrison, officers and men, were ordered to Florida.

In a moment all was desolation. It was like being ordered into the
Valley of the Shadow of Death. Dense everglades, swamp-fevers, malaria
in the air, poisonous underbrush, and venomous reptiles and insects,
and now and then a wily unseen foe picking off the men, one by one, as
they painfully cut out roads through the thickets,--these were the
features of military life in Florida at that period. Men who would
have marched boldly to the cannon's mouth, officers who would have
headed a forlorn hope, shrank from the deadly swamps.

Families must be broken up, also; no women, no children, could go to
Florida. There were tears and the sound of sobbing in the little white
fort, as the poor wives, all young mothers, hastily packed their few
possessions to go back to their fathers' houses, fortunate if they had
fathers to receive them. The husbands went about in silence, too sad
for words. Archie kept up the best courage; but he was young, and had
no one to leave save me.

The evening of the fatal day--for the orders had come in the early
dawn--I was alone in my little parlor, already bare and desolate with
packing-cases. The wind had been rising since morning, and now blew
furiously from the west. Suddenly the door burst open and the surgeon
entered. I was shocked at his appearance, as, pale, haggard, with
disordered hair and clothing, he sank into a chair, and looked at me
in silence.

'Rodney, what is it?' I said.

He did not answer, but still looked at me with that strange gaze.
Alarmed, I rose, and went toward him, laying my hand on his shoulder
with a motherly touch. I loved the quiet, gray-eyed youth next after
Archie.

'What is it, my poor boy! Can I help you?'

'O Aunt Sarah, perhaps you can, for you know her.'

'Her?' I repeated, with sinking heart.

'Yes. Jeannette.'

I sat down and folded my hands; trouble had come, but it was not what
I apprehended,--the old story of military life, love, and desertion;
the ever-present ballad of the 'gay young knight who loves and rides
away.' This was something different.

'I love her,--I love her madly, in spite of myself,' said Rodney,
pouring forth his words with feverish rapidity. 'I know it is an
infatuation, I know it is utterly unreasonable, and yet--I love her. I
have striven against it, I have fought with myself, I have written out
elaborate arguments wherein I have clearly demonstrated the folly of
such an affection, and I have compelled myself to read them over
slowly, word for word, when alone in my room, and yet--I love her!
Ignorant, I know she would shame me; shallow, I know she could not
satisfy me; as a wife she would inevitably drag me down to misery, and
yet--I love her! I had not been on the island a week before I saw her,
and marked her beauty. Months before you invited her to the fort I had
become infatuated with her angular loveliness; but, in some respects,
a race of the blood-royal could not be prouder than these French
fishermen. They will accept your money, they will cheat you, they will
tell you lies for an extra shilling; but make one step toward a simple
acquaintance, and the door will be shut in your face. They will bow
down before you as a customer, but they will not have you for a
friend. Thus I found it impossible to reach Jeannette. I do not say
that I tried, for all the time I was fighting myself; but I went far
enough to see the barriers. It seemed a fatality that you should take
a fancy to her, have her here, and ask me to admire her,--admire the
face that haunted me by day and by night, driving me mad with its
beauty.

'I realized my danger, and called to my aid all the pride of my race.
I said to my heart, 'You shall not love this ignorant half-breed to
your ruin.' I reasoned with myself, and said, 'It is only because you
are isolated on this far-away island. Could you present this girl to
your mother? Could she be a companion for your sisters? I was
beginning to gain a firmer control over myself, in spite of her
presence, when you unfolded your plan of education. Fatality again.
Instantly a crowd of hopes surged up. The education you began, could I
not finish? She was but young; a few years of careful teaching might
work wonders. Could I not train this forest flower so that it could
take its place in the garden? But, when I actually saw this full-grown
woman unable to add the simplest sum or write her name correctly, I
was again ashamed of my infatuation. It is one thing to talk of
ignorance, it is another to come face to face with it. Thus I wavered,
at one moment ready to give up all for pride, at another to give up
all for love.

'Then came the malicious suggestion of negro blood. Could it be
proved, I was free; that taint I could not pardon. [And here, even as
the surgeon spoke, I noticed this as the peculiarity of the New
England Abolitionist. Theoretically he believed in the equality of the
enslaved race, and stood ready to maintain the belief with his life,
but practically he held himself entirely aloof from them; the Southern
creed and practice were the exact reverse.] I made inquiries of Father
Piret, who knows the mixed genealogy of the little French colony as
far back as the first voyageurs of the fur trade, and found--as I,
shall I say hoped or feared?--that the insinuation was utterly false.
Thus I was thrown back into the old tumult.

'Then came that evening in this parlor when Jeannette made the coffee
and baked little cakes over the coals. Do you remember the pathos with
which she chanted File, file, pauvre Marie; File, file, pour le
prisonnier? Do you remember how she looked when she repeated
'Ivry'? Did that tender pity, that ringing inspiration come from a
dull mind and shallow heart? I was avenged of my enforced disdain, my
love gave itself up to delicious hope. She was capable of education,
and then--! I made a pretext of old Antoine's cough in order to gain
an opportunity of speaking to her alone; but she was like a thing
possessed, she broke from me and sprang over the icy cliff, her laugh
coming back on the wind as I followed her down the dangerous slope. On
she rushed, jumping from rock to rock, waving her hand in wild glee
when the moon shone out, singing and shouting with merry scorn at my
desperate efforts to reach her. It was a mad chase, but only on the
plain below could I come up with her. There, breathless and eager, I
unfolded to her my plan of education. I only went as far as this: I
was willing to send her to school, to give her opportunities of seeing
the world, to provide for her whole future. I left the story of my
love to come afterward. She laughed me to scorn. As well talk of
education to the bird of the wilderness! She rejected my offers,
picked up snow to throw in my face, covered me with her French
sarcasms, danced around me in circles, laughed, and mocked, until I
was at a loss to know whether she was human. Finally, as a shadow
darkened the moon she fled away; and when it passed she was gone, and
I was alone on the snowy plain.

'Angry, fierce, filled with scorn for myself, I determined resolutely
to crush out my senseless infatuation. I threw myself into such
society as we had; I assumed an interest in that inane Miss Augusta; I
read and studied far into the night; I walked until sheer fatigue gave
me tranquillity; but all I gained was lost in that encounter at the
arch: you remember it? When I saw her on that narrow bridge, my love
burst its bonds again, and, senseless as ever, rushed to save her,--to
save her poised on her native rocks, where every inch was familiar
from childhood! To save her,--sure-footed and light as a bird! I
caught her. She struggled in my arms, angrily, as an imprisoned animal
might struggle, but--so beautiful! The impulse came to me to spring
with her into the gulf below, and so end the contest forever. I might
have done it,--I cannot tell,--but, suddenly, she wrenched herself out
of my arms and fled over the Arch, to the farther side. I followed,
trembling, blinded, with the violence of my emotion. At that moment I
was ready to give up my life, my soul, into her hands.

'In the woods beyond she paused, glanced over her shoulder toward me,
then turned eagerly. 'Voila,' she said, pointing. I looked
down and saw several silver pieces that had dropped from my pocket as
I sprang over the rocks, and, with an impatient gesture, I thrust them
aside with my foot.

'Non,' she cried, tuning toward me and stooping eagerly,--'so
much! O, so much! See! four shilling!' Her eyes glistened with longing
as she held the money in her hand and fingered each piece lovingly.

'The sudden revulsion of feeling produced by her words and gesture
filled me with fury. 'Keep it, and buy yourself a soul if you can!' I
cried; and turning away, I left her with her gains.

'Merci, monsieur,' she answered gayly, all unmindful of my
scorn; and off she ran, holding her treasure tightly clasped in both
hands. I could hear her singing far down the path.

'It is a bitter thing to feel a scorn for yourself! Did I love this
girl who stooped to gather a few shillings from under my feet? Was it,
then, impossible for me to conquer this ignoble passion? No; it could
not and it should not be! I plunged again into all the gayety; I left
myself not one free moment; if sleep came not, I forced it to come
with opiates; Jeannette had gone to the fishing grounds, the weeks
passed, I did not see her. I had made the hardest struggle of all, and
was beginning to recover my self-respect when, one day, I met her in
the woods with some children; she had returned to gather blueberries.
I looked at her. She was more gentle than usual, and smiled. Suddenly,
as an embankment which has withstood the storms of many winters gives
away at last in a calm summer night, I yielded. Myself knew the
contest was over and my other self rushed to her feet.

'Since then I have often seen her; I have made plan after plan to meet
her; I have--O degrading thought!--paid her to take me out in her
canoe, under the pretence of fishing. I no longer looked forward; I
lived only in the present, and thought only of when and where I could
see her. Thus it has been until this morning, when the orders came.
Now, I am brought face to face with reality; I must go; can I leave
her behind? For hours I have been wandering in the woods. Aunt
Sarah,--it is of no use,--I cannot live without her; I must marry
her.'

'Marry Jeannette!' I exclaimed.

'Even so.'

'An ignorant half-breed?'

'As you say, an ignorant half-breed.'

'You are mad, Rodney.'

'I know it.'

I will not repeat all I said; but, at last, silenced, if not
convinced, by the power of this great love, I started with him out
into the wild night to seek Jeannette. We went through the village and
round the village and round the point, where the wind met us, and the
waves broke at our feet with a roar. Passing the row of cabins, with
their twinkling lights, we reached the home of Jeannette and knocked
at the low door. The Indian mother opened it. I entered, without a
word, and took a seat near the hearth, where a drift-wood fire was
burning. Jeannette came forward with a surprised look. 'You little
think what good fortune is coming to you, child,' I thought, as I
noted her coarse dress and the poor furniture of the little room.

Rodney burst at once into his subject.

'Jeannette,' he said, going toward her, 'I have come to take you away
with me. You need not go to school; I have given up that idea,--I
accept you as you are. You shall have silk dresses and ribbons, like
the ladies of the Mission-House this summer. You shall see all great
cities, you shall hear beautiful music. You shall have everything you
want,--money, bright shillings, as many as you wish. See! Mrs. Corlyne
has come with me to show you that it is true. This morning we had
orders to leave Mackinac; in a few days we must go. But--listen,
Jeanette; I will marry you. You shall be my wife. Do not look so
startled. I mean it; it is really true.'

'Qu'est-ce-que-c'est?' said the girl, bewildered by the rapid,
eager words.

'Dr. Prescott wishes to marry you, child,' I explained, somewhat
sadly, for never had the disparity between them seemed so great. The
presence of the Indian mother, the common room, were like silent
protests.

'Marry,' ejaculated Jeannette.

'Yes, love' said the surgeon, ardently. 'It is quite true; Father
Piret shall marry us. I will exchange into another regiment, or, if
necessary, I will resign. Do you understand what I am saying,
Jeannette? See! I give you my hand, in token that it is true.'

But, with a quick bound, the girl was across the room. 'What?' she
cried. 'You think I marry you? Have you not heard of Baptiste?
Know, then, that I love one finger of him more than all you, ten
times, hundred times.'

'Baptiste?' repeated Rodney.

'Oui, mon cousin, Baptiste, the fisherman. We marry soon--
tenez--la fete de Saint Andre.'

Rodney looked bewildered a moment, then his face cleared; 'Oh! a child
engagement? That is one of your customs, I know. But never fear;
Father Piret will absolve you from all that. Baptiste shall have a
fine new boat; he will let you off for a handful of silver pieces. Do
not think of that, Jeannette, but come to me--'

'Je vous abhorre; Je vous deteste,' cried the girl with fury as
he approached. 'Baptiste not love me? He love me more than boat and
silver dollar,--more than all the world! And I love him; I die for
him! Allez-vous-en, traitre!'

Rodney had grown white; he stood before her, motionless, with fixed
eyes.

'Jeannette,' I said in French, 'perhaps you do not understand. Dr.
Prescott asks you to marry him; Father Piret shall marry you, and all
your friends shall come. Dr. Prescott will take you away from this
hard life; he will make you rich; he will support your father and
mother in comfort. My child, it is wonderful good fortune. He is an
educated gentleman, and loves you truly.'

'What is that to me?' replied Jeannette, proudly. 'Let him go, I care
not.' She paused a moment. Then, with flashing eyes, she cried, 'Let
him go with his fine new boat and silver dollars! He does not believe
me? See, then, how I despise him!' And rushing forward, she struck him
on the cheek.

Rodney did not stir, but stood gazing at her while the red mark glowed
on his white face.

'You know not what love is,' said Jeannette, with indescribable scorn.
'You! You! Ah, mon Baptiste, ou es-tu? But thou wilt kill
him,--kill him for his boats and silver dollars!'

'Child!' I said, startled by her fury.

'I am not a child. Je suis femme, moi!' replied Jeannette,
folding her arms with haughty grace. 'Allez!' she said, pointing
toward the door. We were dismissed. A queen could not have made a more
royal gesture.

Throughout the scene the Indian mother had not stopped her knitting.

In four days we were afloat, and the little white fort was deserted.
It was a dark afternoon, and we sat clustered on the stern of the
steamer, watching the flag come slowly down from its staff in token of
the departure of the commanding officer. 'Isle of Beauty, fare thee
well,' sang the major's fair young wife with the sound of tears in her
sweet voice.

'We shall return,' said the officers. But not one of them ever saw the
beautiful island again.

Rodney Prescott served a month or two in Florida, 'taciturn and stiff
as ever,' Archie wrote. Then he resigned suddenly, and went abroad. He
has never returned, and I have lost all trace of him, so that I cannot
say, from any knowledge of my own, how long the feeling lived,--the
feeling that swept me along in its train down to the beach-cottage
that wild night.

Each man who reads this can decide for himself.

Each woman has decided already.

Last year I met an islander on the cars going eastward. It was the
first time he had ever been 'below'; but he saw nothing to admire,
that dignified citizen of Mackinac!

'What has become of Jeannette Leblanc?' I asked.

'Jeannette? O, she married that Baptiste, a lazy, good-for-nothing
fellow? They live in the same little cabin around the point, and pick
up a living most anyhow for their tribe of young ones.'

'Are they happy?'

'Happy?' repeated my islander, with a slow stare. 'Well I suppose they
are, after their fashion; I don't know much about them. In my
opinion, they are a shiftless set, those French half-breeds round the
point.'

THE OLD AGENCY.

'The buildings of the United States Indian Agency on the island of
Mackinac were destroyed by fire December 31, at midnight.'--WESTERN
NEWSPAPER ITEM.

The old house is gone then! But it shall not depart into oblivion
unchronicled. One who has sat under its roof-tree, one who remembers
well its rambling rooms and wild garden, will take the pen to write
down a page of its story. It is only an episode, one of many; but the
others are fading away, or already buried in dead memories under the
sod. It was a quaint, picturesque old place, stretching back from the
white limestone road that bordered the little port, its overgrown
garden surrounded by an ancient stockade ten feet in height, with a
massive, slow-swinging gate in front, defended by loopholes. This
stockade bulged out in some places and leaned in at others; but the
veteran posts, each a tree sharpened to a point, did not break their
ranks, in spite of decrepitude; and the Indian warriors, could they
have returned from their happy hunting-grounds, would have found the
brave old fence of the Agency a sturdy barrier still. But the Indian
warriors could not return. The United States agent had long ago moved
to Lake Superior, and the deserted residence, having only a mythical
owner, left without repairs year after year, and under a cloud of
confusion as regarded taxes, titles, and boundaries, became a kind of
flotsam property, used by various persons, but belonging legally to no
one. Some tenant, tired of swinging the great gate back and forth, had
made a little sally port alongside, but otherwise the place remained
unaltered; a broad garden with a central avenue of cherry-trees, on
each side dilapidated arbors, overgrown paths, and heart-shaped beds,
where the first agents had tried to cultivate flowers, and behind the
limestone cliffs crowned with cedars. The house was large on the
ground, with wings and various additions built out as if at random; on
each side and behind were rough outside chimneys clamped to the wall;
in the roof over the central part dormer-windows showed a low second
storey; and here and there at intervals were outside doors, in some
cases opening out into space, since the high steps which once led up
to them had fallen down, and remained as they fell, heaps of stones on
the ground below. Within were suites of rooms, large and small,
showing traces of workmanship elaborate for such a remote locality;
the ceilings, patched with rough mortar, had been originally decorated
with moulding, the doors were ornamented with scroll-work, and the two
large apartments on each side of the entrance-hall possessed
chimney-pieces and central hooks for chandeliers. Beyond and behind
stretched out the wings; coming to what appeared to be the end of the
house on west, there unexpectedly began a new series of rooms turning
to the north, each with its outside door; looking for a corresponding
labyrinth on the eastern side, there was nothing but a blank wall. The
blind stairway went up in a kind of dark well, and once up it was a
difficult matter to get down without a plunge from top to bottom,
since the undefended opening was just where no one would expect to
find it. Sometimes an angle was so arbitrarily walled up that you felt
sure there must be a secret chamber there and furtively rapped on the
wall to catch the hollow echo within. Then again you opened a door,
expecting to step into the wilderness of a garden, and found yourself
in a set of little rooms running off on a tangent, one after the
other, and ending in a windowless closet and an open cistern. But the
Agency gloried in its irregularities, and defied criticism. The
original idea of its architect--if there was any--had vanished; but
his work remained a not unpleasing variety to summer visitors
accustomed to city houses, all built with a definite purpose, and one
front door.

After some years of wandering in foreign lands, I returned to my own
country, and took up the burden of old associations whose sadness time
had mercifully softened. The summer was over; September had begun, but
there came to me a great wish to see Mackinac once more; to look again
upon the little white fort where I had lived with Archie, my soldier
nephew killed at Shiloh. The steamer took me safely across Lake Erie,
up the brimming Detroit River, through the enchanted region of the St.
Clair flats, and out into broad Lake Huron; there, off Thunder Bay, a
gale met us, and for hours we swayed between life and death.

The season for pleasure travelling was over; my fellow-passengers,
with one exception, were of that class of Americans who dressed in
cheap imitations of fine clothes, are forever travelling,
travelling,--taking the steamers not from preference, but because they
are less costly than an all-rail route. The thin, listless men, in
ill-fitting black clothes and shining tall hats, sat on the deck in
tilted chairs hour after hour silent and dreary; the thin listless
women, clad in raiment of many colors, remained on the fixed sofas in
the cabin hour after hour, silent and weary. At meals they ate
indiscriminately everything within range, but continued the same, a
weary, dreary, silent band. The one exception was an old man, tall
and majestic, with silvery hair and bright, dark eyes, dressed in the
garb of a Roman Catholic priest, albeit slightly tinged with frontier
innovations. He came on board at Detroit, and as soon as we were
under way he exchanged his hat for a cloth cap embroidered with Indian
bead-work; and when the cold air, precursor of the gale, struck us on
Huron, he wrapped himself in a large capote made of skins, with the
fur inward.

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