Carnac\'s Folly, Volume 3.

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CARNAC'S FOLLY

By Gilbert Parker

BOOK III

XVIII. A GREAT DECISION
XIX. CARNAC BECOMES A CANDIDATE
XX. JUNIA AND TARBOE HEAR THE NEWS
XXI. THE SECRET MEETING
XXII. POINT TO POINT
XXIII. THE MAN WHO WOULD NOT
XXIV. THE BLUE PAPER
XXV. DENZIL TAKES A HAND IN THE GAME
XXVI. THE CHALLENGE
XXVII. EXIT
XXVIII. A WOMAN WRITES A LETTER
XXIX. CARNAC AND HIS MOTHER
XXX. TARBOE HAS A DREAM
XXXI. THIS WAY HOME
XXXII. 'HALVES, PARDNER, HALVES'

CHAPTER XVIII

A GREAT DECISION

Months went by. In them Destiny made new drawings. With his mother,
Carnac went to paint at a place called Charlemont. Tarboe pursued his
work at the mills successfully; Junia saw nothing of Carnac, but she had
a letter from him, and it might have been written by a man to his friend,
yet with an undercurrent of sadness that troubled her.

She might, perhaps, have yielded to the attentions of Tarboe, had not an
appealing message come from her aunt, and at an hour's notice went West
again on her mission of sick-service.

Politically the Province of Quebec was in turmoil. The time was drawing
near when the Dominion Government must go to the polls, and in the most
secluded cottage on the St. Lawrence, the virtues and defects of the
administration were vital questions. Voters knew as much of technical
law-making as the average voter everywhere, but no more, and sometimes
less. Yet there was in the mind of the French-Canadian an intuition,
which was as valuable as the deeper knowledge of a trained politician.
The two great parties in the Province were led by Frenchmen. The English
people, however, were chiefly identified with the party opposed to Barode
Barouche, the Secretary of State.

As the agitation began in the late spring, Carnac became suddenly
interested in everything political.

He realized what John Grier had said concerning politics--that, given
other characteristics, the making of laws meant success or failure for
every profession or trade, for every interest in the country. He had
known a few politicians; though he had never yet met the most dominant
figure in the Province--Barode Barouche, who had a singular fascination
for him. He seemed a man dominant and plausible, with a right-minded
impulsiveness. Things John Grier had said about Barouche rang in his
ears.

As the autumn drew near excitement increased. Political meetings were
being held everywhere. There was one feature more common in Canada than
in any other country; opposing candidates met on the same platform and
fought their fight out in the hearing of those whom they were wooing.
One day Carnac read in a newspaper that Barode Barouche was to speak at
St. Annabel. As that was not far from Charlemont he determined to hear
Barouche for the first time. He had for him a sympathy which, to
himself, seemed a matter of temperament.

"Mother," he said, "wouldn't you like to go and hear Barode Barouche at
St. Annabel? You know him--I mean personally?"

"Yes, I knew him long ago," was the scarcely vocal reply.

"He's a great, fine man, isn't he? Wrong-headed, wrong-purposed, but a
big fine fellow."

"If a man is wrong-headed and wrong-purposed, it isn't easy for him to be
fine, is it?"

"That depends. A man might want to save his country by making some good
law, and be mistaken both as to the result of that law and the right
methods in making it. I'd like you to be with me when I hear him for the
first time. I've got a feeling he's one of the biggest men of our day.
Of course he isn't perfect. A man might want to save another's life, but
he might choose the wrong way to do it, and that's wrongheaded; and
perhaps he oughtn't to save the man's life, and that's wrong-purposed.
There's no crime in either. Let's go and hear Monsieur Barouche."

He did not see the flush which suddenly filled her face; and, if he had,
he would not have understood. For her a long twenty-seven years rolled
back to the day when she was a young neglected wife, full of life's
vitalities, out on a junction of the river and the wild woods, with
Barode Barouche's fishing-camp near by. She shivered now as she thought
of it. It was all so strange, and heart-breaking. For long years she
had paid the price of her mistake. She knew how eloquent Barode Barouche
could be; she knew how his voice had all the ravishment of silver bells
to the unsuspecting. How well she knew him; how deeply she realized the
darkness of his nature! Once she had said to him:

"Sometimes I think that for duty's sake you would cling like a leech."

It was true. For thirty long years he had been in one sense homeless,
his wife having lost her reason three years after they were married. In
that time he had faithfully visited the place of her confinement every
month of his life, sobered, chastened, at first hopeful, defiant. At the
bottom of his heart Barode Barouche did not want marital freedom. He had
loved the mad woman. He remembered her in the glory of her youth, in the
splendour of her beauty. The insane asylum did not destroy his memory.

Mrs. Grier remembered too, but in a different way. Her relations with
him had been one swift, absorbing fever--a mad dream, a moment of rash
impulse, a yielding to the natural feeling which her own husband had
aroused: the husband who now neglected her while Barode Barouche treated
her so well, until a day when under his beguilement a stormy impulse
gave--Carnac. Then the end came, instant and final; she bolted, barred
and locked the door against Barode and he had made little effort to open
it. So they had parted, and had never clasped hands or kissed again. To
him she was a sin of which he never repented. He had watched the growth
and development of Carnac with a sharp sympathy. He was not a good man;
but in him were seeds of goodness. To her he was the lash searing her
flesh, day in day out, year in year out, which kept her sacred to her
home. For her children's sake she did not tell her husband, and she had
emptied out her heart over Carnac with overwhelming fondness.

"Yes, I'll go, Carnac," she said at last, for it seemed the easier way.
"I haven't been to a political meeting for many years."

"That's right. I like your being with me."

The meeting was held in what had been a skating-rink and drill-hall. On
the platform in the centre was the chairman, with Barode Barouche on his
right. There was some preliminary speech-making from the chairman. A
resolution was moved supporting Barouche, his party and policy, and there
were little explosions of merriment at strokes of unconscious humour made
by the speakers; and especially by one old farmer who made his jokes on
the spot, and who now tried to embalm Barouche with praise. He drew
attention to Barouche's leonine head and beard, to his alert eyes and
quizzical face, and said he was as strong in the field of legislation as
he was in body and mind. Carnac noticed that Barouche listened good-
naturedly, and now and then cocked his head and looked up at the ceiling
as though to find something there.

There was a curious familiarity in the action of the head which struck
Carnac. He and his mother were seated about five rows back from the
front row on the edge of the aisle. As the meeting progressed,
Barouche's eyes wandered slowly over the faces of his audience.
Presently he saw Carnac and his mother. Mrs. Grier was conscious of a
shock upon the mind of Barouche. She saw his eyes go misty with feeling.
For him the world was suddenly shut out, and he only saw the woods of a
late summer's afternoon, a lonely tent--and a woman. A flush crept up
his face. Then he made a spasmodic gesture of the hand, outward, which
again Carnac recognized as familiar. It was the kind of thing he did
himself.

So absorbed was Barode Barouche that he only mechanically heard the
chairman announce himself, but when he got to his feet his full senses
came back. The sight of the woman to whom he had been so much, and who
had been so much to him for one short month, magnetized him; the face of
the boy, so like his own as he remembered it thirty years ago, stirred
his veins. There before him was his own one unacknowledged child--the
only child ever born to him. His heart throbbed. Then he began to
speak. Never in all his life had he spoken as he did this day. It was
only a rural audience; there was not much intelligence in it; but it had
a character all its own. It was alive to its own interests, chiefly of
agriculture and the river. It was composed of both parties, and he could
stimulate his own side, and, perhaps, win the other.

Thus it was that, with the blood pounding through his veins, the inspired
sensualist began his speech. It was his duty to map out a policy for the
future; to give the people an idea of what his party meant to do; to
guide, to inspire, to inflame.

As Carnac listened he kept framing the words not yet issued, but which
did issue from Barouche's mouth; his quick intelligence correctly
imagined the line Barouche would take; again and again Barouche made
a gesture, or tossed his head, or swung upon his feet to right and left
in harmony with Carnac's own mind. Carnac would say to himself: "Why,
that's what I'd have done--that's what I'd have said, if I had his
policy." More than once, in some inspired moment of the speech, he
caught his mother's hand, and he did not notice that her hand trembled.

But as for one of Barouche's chapter of policy Carnac almost sprang to
his feet in protest when Barouche declared it. To Carnac it seemed fatal
to French Canada, though it was expounded with a taking air; yet as he
himself had said it was "wrong-headed and wrong-purposed."

When the speech had finished to great cheering, Carnac suddenly turned to
his mother:

"He's on the wrong track. I know the policy to down his. He's got no
opponent. I'm going to stand against him at the polls."

She clutched his arm. "Carnac--Carnac! You don't know what you're
doing."

"Well, I will pretty quick," he replied stoutly. "I'm out after him, if
they'll have me."

CHAPTER XIX

CARNAC BECOMES A CANDIDATE

That night Carnac mapped out his course, carefully framed the policy to
offset that of Barode Barouche, and wrote a letter to the Chairman of
the Opposition at Montreal offering to stand, and putting forward an
ingenious policy. He asked also for an interview; and the interview was
granted by telegram--almost to his surprise. He was aware, however, of
the discontent among the English members of the Opposition, and of the
wish of the French members to find a good compromise.

He had a hope that his singular position--the notoriety which his
father's death and his own financial disfranchisement had caused--would
be a fine card in his favour. He was not mistaken. His letter arrived
at Headquarters when there were difficulties concerning three candidates
who were pressing their claims. Carnac Grier, the disinherited son of
the great lumber-king, who had fame as an artist, spoke French as though
it were his native tongue, was an element of sensation which, if adroitly
used, could be of great service. It might even defeat Barode Barouche.
In the first place, Carnac was young, good-looking, personable, and
taking in his manner. Barouche was old, experienced, with hosts of
enemies and many friends, but with injurious egotism. An interview was,
therefore, arranged at Headquarters.

On the morning of the day it took place, Carnac's anguished mother went
with him to the little railway station of Charlemont. She had slept
little the night before; her mind was in an eddy of emotions. It seemed
dreadful that Carnac should fight his own father, repeating what Fabian
had done in another way. Yet at the bottom of her heart there was a
secret joy. Some native revolt in her had joy in the thought that the
son might extort a price for her long sorrow and his unknown disgrace.

As she had listened to Barouche at the meeting, she realized how sincere
yet insincere he was; how gifted and yet how ungracious was his mind.
Her youth was over; long pain and regret had chastened her. She was as
lonely a creature as ever the world knew; violence was no part of her
equipment; and yet terrible memories made her assent to this new phase of
Carnac's life. She wondered what Barouche would think. There was some
ancient touch of war in her which made her rejoice that after long years
the hammer should strike.

Somehow the thing's tremendous possibilities thrilled her. Carnac had
always been a politician--always. She remembered how, when he was a boy,
he had argued with John Grier on national matters, laid down the law with
the assurance of an undergraduate, and invented theories impossible of
public acceptance. Yet in every stand he had taken, there had been
thought, logic and reasoning, wrongly premised, but always based on
principles. On paper he was generally right; in practice, generally
wrong. His buoyant devotion to an idea was an inspiration and a tonic.
The curious thing was that, while still this political matter was hanging
fire, he painted with elation.

His mother knew he did not see the thousand little things which made
public life so wearying; that he only realized the big elements of
national policy. She understood how those big things would inspire the
artist in him. For, after all, there was the spirit of Art in framing a
great policy which would benefit millions in the present and countless
millions in the future. So, at the railway station, as they waited for
the train, with an agitation outwardly controlled, she said:

"The men who have fought before, will want to stand, so don't be
surprised if--"

"If they reject me, mother?" interrupted Carnac. No, I shan't be
surprised, but I feel in my bones that I'm going to fight Barode
Barouche into the last corner of the corral."

"Don't be too sure of that, my son. Won't the thing that prevents your
marrying Junia be a danger in this, if you go on?"

Sullen tragedy came into his face, his lips set. The sudden paleness of
his cheek, however, was lost in a smile.

"Yes, I've thought of that; but if it has to come, better it should come
now than later. If the truth must be told, I'll tell it--yes, I'll tell
it!"

"Be bold, but not reckless, Carnac," his mother urged.

Just then the whistling train approached. She longed to put a hand out
and hold him back, and yet she ached to let him go. Yet as Carnac
mounted the steps of the car, a cry went out from her heart: "My son,
stay with me here--don't go." That was only in her heart, however; with
her lips she said: "Good luck! God bless you, Carnac!" and then the
train rolled away, leaving her alone in the bright, bountiful morning.

Before the day was done, Headquarters had accepted Carnac, in part, as
the solution of their own difficult problem. The three applicants for
the post each hated the other; but all, before the day was over, agreed
to Carnac as an effective opponent of Barouche.

One thing seemed clear--Carnac's policy had elements of seduction
appealing to the selfishness of all sections, and he had an eloquence
which would make Barouche uneasy. That eloquence was shown in a speech
Carnac made in the late evening to the assembled executive. He spoke for
only a quarter of an hour, but it was long enough to leave upon all who
heard him an impression of power, pertinacity, picturesqueness and
appeal. He might make mistakes, but he had qualities which would ride
over errors with success.

"I'm not French," he said at last in his speech, "but I used to think
and write in French as though I'd been born in Normandy. I'm English
by birth and breeding, but I've always gone to French schools and to
a French University, and I know what New France means. I stand to my
English origin, but I want to see the French develop here as they've
developed in France, alive to all new ideas, dreaming good dreams.
I believe that Frenchmen in Canada can, and should, be an inspiration
to the whole population. Their great qualities should be the fibre in
the body of public opinion. I will not pander to the French; I will not
be the slave of the English; I will be free, and I hope I shall be
successful at the polls."

This was a small part of the speech which caused much enthusiasm, and was
the beginning of a movement, powerful, and as time went on, impetuous.

He went to bed with the blood of battle throbbing in his veins. In the
morning he had a reasonable joy in seeing the headlines of his
candidature in the papers.

At first he was almost appalled, for never since life began had his
personality been so displayed. It seemed absurd that before he had
struck a blow he should be advertised like a general in the field.
Yet common sense told him that in standing against Barouche, he became
important in the eyes of those affected by Barouche's policy. He had had
luck, and it was for him to justify that luck. Could he do it? His
first thought, however, as his eyes fell on the headlines--he flushed
with elation so that he scarcely saw--was for the thing itself. Before
him there flashed a face, however, which at once sobered his exaltation.
It was the face of Junia.

"I wonder what she will think," he said to himself, with a little
perplexity.

He knew in his heart of hearts she would not think it incongruous that
he, an artist, should become a politician. Good laws served to make life
beautiful, good pictures ministered to beauty; good laws helped to tell
the story of human development; good sculpture strengthened the soul;
good laws made life's conveniences greater, enlarged activity, lessened
the friction of things not yet adjusted; good laws taught their framers
how to balance things, how to make new principles apply without
disturbing old rights; good pictures increased the well-balanced harmony
of the mind of the people. Junia would understand these things. As he
sat at his breakfast, with the newspaper spread against the teapot and
the milk-pitcher, he felt satisfied he had done the bold and right, if
incomprehensible, thing.

But in another hotel, at another breakfast, another man read of Carnac's
candidature with sickening surprise. It was Barode Barouche.

So, after twenty-seven long years, this was to be the issue! His own
son, whom he had never known, was to fight him at the polls! Somehow,
the day when he had seen Carnac and his mother at the political meeting
had given him new emotions. His wife, to whom he had been so faithful in
one sense since she had passed into the asylum, had died, and with her
going, a new field of life seemed to open up to him. She had died
almost on the same day as John Grier. She had been buried secludedly,
piteously, and he had gone back to his office with the thought that life
had become a preposterous freedom.

So it was that, on the day when he spoke at the political meeting, his
life's tragedy became a hammer beating every nerve into emotion. He was
like one shipwrecked who strikes out with a swimmer's will to reach his
goal. All at once, on the platform, as he spoke, when his eyes saw the
faces of Carnac and his mother the catastrophe stunned him like a huge
engine of war. There had come to him at last a sense of duty where Alma
Grier was concerned. She was nearly fifty years of age, and he was
fifty-nine; she was a widow with this world's goods; she had been to him
how near and dear! for a brief hour, and then--no more. He knew the boy
was his son, because he saw his own face, as it had been in his youth,
though his mother's look was also there-transforming, illumining.

He had a pang as he saw the two at the close of his meeting filtering out
into the great retort of the world. Then it was that he had the impulse
to go to the woman's home, express his sorrow, and in some small sense
wipe out his wrong by offering her marriage. He had not gone.

He knew of Carnac's success in the world of Art; and how he had alienated
his reputed father by an independence revolting to a slave of convention.
He had even bought, not from Carnac, but from a dealer, two of Carnac's
pictures and a statue of a riverman. Somehow the years had had their way
with him. He had at long last realized that material things were not the
great things of life, and that imagination, however productive, should be
guided by uprightness of soul.

One thing was sure, the boy had never been told who his father was. That
Barouche knew. He had the useful gift of reading the minds of people in
their faces. From Carnac's face, from Carnac's mother's face, had come
to him the real story. He knew that Alma Grier had sinned only once and
with him. In the first days after that ill-starred month, he had gone to
her, only to be repelled as a woman can repel whose soul has been
shocked, whose self-respect has been shamed.

It had been as though she thrust out arms of infinite length to push him
away, such had been the storm of her remorse, such the revulsion against
herself and him. So they had fallen apart, and he had seen his boy grow
up independent, original, wilful, capable--a genius. He read the
newspaper reports of what had happened the day before with senses greatly
alive.

After all, politics was unlike everything else. It was a profession
recruited from all others. The making of laws was done by all kinds of
men. One of the wisest advisers in river-law he had ever known was a
priest; one of the best friends of the legislation of the medical
profession was a woman; one of the bravest Ministers who had ever
quarrelled with and conquered his colleagues had been an insurance agent;
one of the sanest authorities on maritime law had been a man with a
greater pride in his verses than in his practical capacity; and here was
Carnac, who had painted pictures and made statues, plunging into politics
with a policy as ingenious as his own, and as capable of logical
presentation. This boy, who was bone of his bone and flesh of his flesh,
meant to fight him. He threw back his head and laughed. His boy, his
son, meant to fight him, did he? Well, so be it! He got to his feet,
and walked up and down the room.

"God, what an issue this!" he said. "It would be terrific, if he won.
To wipe me out of the life where I have flourished--what a triumph for
him! And he would not know how great the triumph would be. She has not
told him. Yet she will urge him on. Suppose it was she put the idea
into his head!"

Then he threw back his head, shaking the long brown hair, browner than
Carnac's, from his forehead. "Suppose she did this thing--she who was
all mine for one brief moment! Suppose she--"

Every nerve tingled; every drop of blood beat hard against his walls of
flesh; his every vicious element sprang into life.

"But no--but no, she would not do it. She would not teach her son to
destroy his own father. But something must have told him to come and
listen to me, to challenge me in his own mind, and then--then this
thing!"

He stared at the paper, leaning over the table, as though it were a
document of terror.

"I must go on: I must uphold the policy for which I've got the assent of
the Government." Suddenly his hands clenched. "I will beat him. He
shall not bring me to the dust. I gave him life, and he shall not take
my life from me. He's at the beginning; I'm going towards the end.
I wronged his mother--yes, I wronged him too! I wronged them both, but
he does not know he's wronged. He'll live his own life;
he has lived it--"

There came a tap at the door. Presently it opened and a servant came in.
He had in his hand a half-dozen telegrams.

"All about the man that's going to fight you, I expect, m'sieu'," said
the servant as he handed the telegrams.

Barode Barouche did not reply, but nodded a little scornfully.

"A woman has called," continued the servant. "She wants to see you,
m'sieu'. It's very important, she says."

Barouche shook his head in negation. "No, Gaspard."

"It ain't one of the usual kind, I think, m'sieu'," protested Gaspard.
"It's about the election. It's got something to do with that--" he
pointed to the newspaper propped against the teapot.

"It's about that, is it? Well, what about that?" He eyed the servant as
though to see whether the woman had given any information.

"I don't know. She didn't tell me. She's got a mind of her own. She's
even handsome, and she's well-dressed. All she said was: 'Tell m'sieu' I
want to see him. It's about the election-about Mr. Grier.'"

Barode Barouche's heart stopped. Something about Carnac Grier--something
about the election--and a woman! He kept a hand on himself. It must not
be seen that he was in any way moved.

"Is she English?"

"She's French, m'sieu'."

"You think I ought to see her, Gaspard?" said Barouche.

"Sure," was the confident reply. "I guess she's out against whoever's
against you."

"You never saw her before."

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