The Golden Dog/Chapter III

Chapter III: A Chatelaine of New France
The Governor was surprised and delighted to encounter Lady de Tilly and her fair niece, both of whom were well known to and highly esteemed by him. He and the gentlemen of his suite saluted them with profound respect, not unmingled with chivalrous admiration for noble, high-spirited women.

"My honored Lady de Tilly and Mademoiselle de Repentigny," said the Governor, hat in hand, "welcome to Quebec. It does not surprise, but it does delight me beyond measure to meet you here at the head of your loyal censitaires.  But it is not the first time that the ladies of the House of Tilly have turned out to defend the King's forts against his enemies."

This he said in allusion to the gallant defence of a fort on the wild Iroquois frontier by a former lady of her house.

"My Lord Count," replied the lady, with quiet dignity, "'tis no special merit of the house of Tilly to be true to its ancient fame-- it could not be otherwise. But your thanks are at this time more due to these loyal habitans, who have so promptly obeyed your proclamation.  It is the King's corvee to restore the walls of Quebec, and no Canadian may withhold his hand from it without disgrace."

"The Chevalier La Corne St. Luc will think us two poor women a weak accession to the garrison," added she, turning to the Chevalier and cordially offering her hand to the brave old officer, who had been the comrade in arms of her husband and the dearest friend of her family.

"Good blood never fails, my Lady," returned the Chevalier, warmly grasping her hand. "You out of place here? No! no! you are at home on the ramparts of Quebec, quite as much as in your own drawing-room at Tilly.  The walls of Quebec without a Tilly and a Repentigny would be a bad omen indeed, worse than a year without a spring or a summer without roses.  But where is my dear goddaughter Amelie?"

As he spoke the old soldier embraced Amelie and kissed her cheek with fatherly effusion. She was a prodigious favorite. "Welcome, Amelie!" said he, "the sight of you is like flowers in June. What a glorious time you have had, growing taller and prettier every day all the time I have been sleeping by camp-fires in the forests of Acadia!  But you girls are all alike; why, I hardly knew my own pretty Agathe when I came home.  The saucy minx almost kissed my eyes out--to dry the tears of joy in them, she said!"

Amelie blushed deeply at the praises bestowed upon her, yet felt glad to know that her godfather retained all his old affection. "Where is Le Gardeur?" asked he, as she took his arm and walked a few paces apart from the throng.

Amelie colored deeply, and hesitated a moment. "I do not know, godfather! We have not seen Le Gardeur since our arrival." Then after a nervous silence she added, "I have been told that he is at Beaumanoir, hunting with His Excellency the Intendant."

La Corne, seeing her embarrassment, understood the reluctance of her avowal, and sympathized with it. An angry light flashed beneath his shaggy eyelashes, but he suppressed his thoughts. He could not help remarking, however, "With the Intendant at Beaumanoir! I could have wished Le Gardeur in better company!  No good can come of his intimacy with Bigot; Amelie, you must wean him from it.  He should have been in the city to receive you and the Lady de Tilly."

"So he doubtless would have been, had he known of our coming. We sent word, but he was away when our messenger reached the city."

Amelie felt half ashamed, for she was conscious that she was offering something unreal to extenuate the fault of her brother-- her hopes rather than her convictions.

"Well, well! goddaughter! we shall, at any rate, soon have the pleasure of seeing Le Gardeur. The Intendant himself has been summoned to attend a council of war today.  Colonel Philibert left an hour ago for Beaumanoir."

Amelie gave a slight start at the name; she looked inquiringly, but did not yet ask the question that trembled on her lips.

"Thanks, godfather, for the good news of Le Gardeur's speedy return." Amelie talked on, her thoughts but little accompanying her words as she repeated to herself the name of Philibert. "Have you heard that the Intendant wishes to bestow an important and honorable post in the Palace upon Le Gardeur--my brother wrote to that effect?"

"An important and honorable post in the Palace?" The old soldier emphasized the word HONORABLE. "No, I had not heard of it,--never expect to hear of an honorable post in the company of Bigot, Cadet, Varin, De Pean, and the rest of the scoundrels of the Friponne! Pardon me, dear, I do not class Le Gardeur among them, far from it, dear deluded boy! My best hope is that Colonel Philibert will find him and bring him clean and clear out of their clutches."

The question that had trembled on her lips came out now. For her life she could not have retained it longer.

"Who is Colonel Philibert, godfather?" asked she, surprise, curiosity, and a still deeper interest marking her voice, in spite of all she could do to appear indifferent.

"Colonel Philibert?" repeated La Corne. "Why, do not you know? Who but our young Pierre Philibert; you have not forgotten him, surely, Amelie?  At any rate he has not forgotten you: in many a long night by our watch-fires in the forest has Colonel Philibert passed the hours talking of Tilly and the dear friends he left there.  Your brother at any rate will gratefully remember Philibert when he sees him."

Amelie blushed a little as she replied somewhat shyly, "Yes, godfather, I remember Pierre Philibert very well,--with gratitude I remember him,--but I never heard him called Colonel Philibert before."

"Oh, true! He has been so long absent.  He left a simple ensign en second and returns a colonel, and has the stuff in him to make a field-marshal!  He gained his rank where he won his glory--in Acadia.  A noble fellow, Amelie! loving as a woman to his friends, but to his foes stern as the old Bourgeois, his father, who placed that tablet of the golden dog upon the front of his house to spite the Cardinal, they say,--the act of a bold man, let what will be the true interpretation of it."

"I hear every one speak well of the Bourgeois Philibert," remarked Amelie. "Aunt de Tilly is ever enthusiastic in his commendation. She says he is a true gentleman, although a trader."

"Why, he is noble by birth, if that be needed, and has got the King's license to trade in the Colony like some other gentlemen I wot of. He was Count Philibert in Normandy, although he is plain Bourgeois Philibert in Quebec; and a wise man he is too, for with his ships and his comptoirs and his ledgers he has traded himself into being the richest man in New France, while we, with our nobility and our swords, have fought ourselves poor, and receive nothing but contempt from the ungrateful courtiers of Versailles."

Their conversation was interrupted by a sudden rush of people, making room for the passage of the Regiment of Bearn, which composed part of the garrison of Quebec, on their march to their morning drill and guard-mounting,--bold, dashing Gascons in blue and white uniforms, tall caps, and long queues rollicking down their supple backs, seldom seen by an enemy.

Mounted officers, laced and ruffled, gaily rode in front. Subalterns with spontoons and sergeants with halberds dressed the long line of glistening bayonets. The drums and fifes made the streets ring again, while the men in full chorus, a gorge deployee, chanted the gay refrain of La Belle Canadienne in honor of the lasses of Quebec.

The Governor and his suite had already mounted their horses, and cantered off to the Esplanade to witness the review.

"Come and dine with us today," said the Lady de Tilly to La Corne St. Luc, as he too bade the ladies a courteous adieu, and got on horseback to ride after the Governor.

"Many thanks! but I fear it will be impossible, my Lady: the council of war meets at the Castle this afternoon. The hour may be deferred, however, should Colonel Philibert not chance to find the Intendant at Beaumanoir, and then I might come; but best not expect me."

A slight, conscious flush just touched the cheek of Amelie at the mention of Colonel Philibert.

"But come if possible, godfather," added she; "we hope to have Le Gardeur home this afternoon. He loves you so much, and I know you have countless things to say to him."

Amelie's trembling anxiety about her brother made her most desirous to bring the powerful influence of La Corne St. Luc to bear upon him.

Their kind old godfather was regarded with filial reverence by both. Amelie's father, dying on the battle-field, had, with his latest breath, commended the care of his children to the love and friendship of La Corne St. Luc.

"Well, Amelie, blessed are they who do not promise and still perform. I must try and meet my dear boy, so do not quite place me among the impossibles.  Good-by, my Lady.  Good-by, Amelie." The old soldier gaily kissed his hand and rode away.

Amelie was thoroughly surprised and agitated out of all composure by the news of the return of Pierre Philibert. She turned aside from the busy throng that surrounded her, leaving her aunt engaged in eager conversation with the Bishop and Father de Berey. She sat down in a quiet embrasure of the wall, and with one hand resting her drooping cheek, a train of reminiscences flew across her mind like a flight of pure doves suddenly startled out of a thicket.

She remembered vividly Pierre Philibert, the friend and fellow- student of her brother: he spent so many of his holidays at the old Manor-House of Tilly, when she, a still younger girl, shared their sports, wove chaplets of flowers for them, or on her shaggy pony rode with them on many a scamper through the wild woods of the Seigniory. Those summer and winter vacations of the old Seminary of Quebec used to be looked forward to by the young, lively girl as the brightest spots in the whole year, and she grew hardly to distinguish the affection she bore her brother from the regard in which she held Pierre Philibert.

A startling incident happened one day, that filled the inmates of the Manor House with terror, followed by a great joy, and which raised Pierre Philibert to the rank of an unparalleled hero in the imagination of the young girl.

Her brother was gambolling carelessly in a canoe, while she and Pierre sat on the bank watching him. The light craft suddenly upset. Le Gardeur struggled for a few moments, and sank under the blue waves that look so beautiful and are so cruel.

Amelie shrieked in the wildest terror and in helpless agony, while Philibert rushed without hesitation into the water, swam out to the spot, and dived with the agility of a beaver. He presently reappeared, bearing the inanimate body of her brother to the shore. Help was soon obtained, and, after long efforts to restore Le Gardeur to consciousness,--efforts which seemed to last an age to the despairing girl,--they at last succeeded, and Le Gardeur was restored to the arms of his family. Amelie, in a delirium of joy and gratitude, ran to Philibert, threw her arms round him, and kissed him again and again, pledging her eternal gratitude to the preserver of her brother, and vowing that she would pray for him to her life's end.

Soon after that memorable event in her young life, Pierre Philibert was sent to the great military schools in France to study the art of war with a view to entering the King's service, while Amelie was placed in the Convent of the Ursulines to be perfected in all the knowledge and accomplishments of a lady of highest rank in the Colony.

Despite the cold shade of a cloister, where the idea of a lover is forbidden to enter, the image of Pierre Philibert did intrude, and became inseparable from the recollection of her brother in the mind of Amelie. He mingled as the fairy prince in the day-dreams and bright imaginings of the young, poetic girl. She had vowed to pray for him to her life's end, and in pursuance of her vow added a golden bead to her chaplet to remind her of her duty in praying for the safety and happiness of Pierre Philibert.

But in the quiet life of the cloister, Amelie heard little of the storms of war upon the frontier and down in the far valleys of Acadia. She had not followed the career of Pierre from the military school to the camp and the battlefield, nor knew of his rapid promotion, as one of the ablest officers in the King's service, to a high command in his native Colony.

Her surprise, therefore, was extreme when she learned that the boy companion of her brother and herself was no other than the renowned Colonel Philibert, Aide-de-Camp of His Excellency the Governor- General.

There was no cause for shame in it; but her heart was suddenly illuminated by a flash of introspection. She became painfully conscious how much Pierre Philibert had occupied her thoughts for years, and now all at once she knew he was a man, and a great and noble one. She was thoroughly perplexed and half angry. She questioned herself sharply, as if running thorns into her flesh, to inquire whether she had failed in the least point of maidenly modesty and reserve in thinking so much of him; and the more she questioned herself, the more agitated she grew under her self- accusation: her temples throbbed violently; she hardly dared lift her eyes from the ground lest some one, even a stranger, she thought, might see her confusion and read its cause. "Sancta Maria," she murmured, pressing her bosom with both hands, "calm my soul with thy divine peace, for I know not what to do!"

So she sat alone in the embrasure, living a life of emotion in a few minutes; nor did she find any calm for her agitated spirits until the thought flashed upon her that she was distressing herself needlessly. It was most improbable that Colonel Philibert, after years of absence and active life in the world's great affairs, could retain any recollection of the schoolgirl of the Manor House of Tilly. She might meet him, nay, was certain to do so in the society in which both moved; but it would surely be as a stranger on his part, and she must make it so on her own.

With this empty piece of casuistry, Amelie, like others of her sex, placed a hand of steel, encased in a silken glove, upon her heart, and tyrannically suppressed its yearnings. She was a victim, with the outward show of conquest over her feelings. In the consciousness of Philibert's imagined indifference and utter forgetfulness, she could meet him now, she thought, with equanimity--nay, rather wished to do so, to make sure that she had not been guilty of weakness in regard to him. She looked up, but was glad to see her aunt still engaged in conversation with the Bishop on a topic which Amelie knew was dear to them both,--the care of the souls and bodies of the poor, in particular those for whom the Lady de Tilly felt herself responsible to God and the King.

While Amelie sat thinking over the strange chances of the morning, a sudden whirl of wheels drew her attention.

A gay caleche, drawn by two spirited horses en fleche, dashed through the gateway of St. John, and wheeling swiftly towards Amelie, suddenly halted. A young lady attired in the gayest fashion of the period, throwing the reins to the groom, sprang out of the caleche with the ease and elasticity of an antelope. She ran up the rampart to Amelie with a glad cry of recognition, repeating her name in a clear, musical voice, which Amelie at once knew belonged to no other than the gay, beautiful Angelique des Meloises. The newcomer embraced Amelie and kissed her, with warmest expressions of joy at meeting her thus unexpectedly in the city. She had learned that Lady de Tilly had returned to Quebec, she said, and she had, therefore, taken the earliest opportunity to find out her dear friend and school-fellow to tell her all the doings in the city.

"It is kind of you, Angelique," replied Amelie, returning her caress warmly, but without effusion. "We have simply come with our people to assist in the King's corvee; when that is done, we shall return to Tilly. I felt sure I should meet you, and thought I should know you again easily, which I hardly do.  How you are changed--for the better, I should say, since you left off conventual cap and costume!" Amelie could not but look admiringly on the beauty of the radiant girl. "How handsome you have grown! but you were always that. We both took the crown of honor together, but you would alone take the crown of beauty, Angelique." Amelie stood off a pace or two, and looked at her friend from head to foot with honest admiration, "and would deserve to wear it too," added she.

"I like to hear you say that, Amelie; I should prefer the crown of beauty to all other crowns! You half smile at that, but I must tell the truth, if you do.  But you were always a truth-teller, you know, in the convent, and I was not so!  Let us cease flatteries."

Angelique felt highly flattered by the praise of Amelie, whom she had sometimes condescended to envy for her graceful figure and lovely, expressive features.

"Gentlemen often speak as you do, Amelie," continued she, "but, pshaw! they cannot judge as girls do, you know. But do you really think me beautiful? and how beautiful?  Compare me to some one we know."

"I can only compare you to yourself, Angelique. You are more beautiful than any one I know," Amelie burst out in frank enthusiasm.

"But, really and truly, do you think me beautiful, not only in your eyes, but in the judgment of the world?"

Angelique brushed back her glorious hair and stared fixedly in the face of her friend, as if seeking confirmation of something in her own thoughts.

"What a strange question, Angelique! Why do you ask me in that way?"

"Because," replied she with bitterness, "I begin to doubt it. I have been praised for my good looks until I grow weary of the iteration; but I believed the lying flattery once,--as what woman would not, when it is repeated every day of her life?"

Amelie looked sufficiently puzzled. "What has come over you, Angelique? Why should you doubt your own charms? or really, have you found at last a case in which they fail you?"

Very unlikely, a man would say at first, second, or third sight of Angelique des Meloises. She was indeed a fair girl to look upon,-- tall, and fashioned in nature's most voluptuous mould, perfect in the symmetry of every part, with an ease and beauty of movement not suggestive of spiritual graces, like Amelie's, but of terrestrial witcheries, like those great women of old who drew down the very gods from Olympus, and who in all ages have incited men to the noblest deeds, or tempted them to the greatest crimes.

She was beautiful of that rare type of beauty which is only reproduced once or twice in a century to realize the dreams of a Titian or a Giorgione. Her complexion was clear and radiant, as of a descendant of the Sun God. Her bright hair, if its golden ripples were shaken out, would reach to her knees. Her face was worthy of immortality by the pencil of a Titian. Her dark eyes drew with a magnetism which attracted men, in spite of themselves, whithersoever she would lead them. They were never so dangerous as when, in apparent repose, they sheathed their fascination for a moment, and suddenly shot a backward glance, like a Parthian arrow, from under their long eyelashes, that left a wound to be sighed over for many a day.

The spoiled and petted child of the brave, careless Renaud d'Avesne des Meloises, of an ancient family in the Nivernois, Angelique grew up a motherless girl, clever above most of her companions, conscious of superior charms, always admired and flattered, and, since she left the Convent, worshipped as the idol of the gay gallants of the city, and the despair and envy of her own sex. She was a born sovereign of men, and she felt it. It was her divine right to be preferred. She trod the earth with dainty feet, and a step aspiring as that of the fair Louise de La Valliere when she danced in the royal ballet in the forest of Fontainebleau and stole a king's heart by the flashes of her pretty feet. Angelique had been indulged by her father in every caprice, and in the gay world inhaled the incense of adulation until she regarded it as her right, and resented passionately when it was withheld.

She was not by nature bad, although vain, selfish, and aspiring. Her footstool was the hearts of men, and upon it she set hard her beautiful feet, indifferent to the anguish caused by her capricious tyranny. She was cold and calculating under the warm passions of a voluptuous nature. Although many might believe they had won the favor, none felt sure they had gained the love of this fair, capricious girl.