“Ma’m’selle, have you heard the news from Montreal?”
Blinker had just come in for his soup, and Cécile saw that he was greatly excited.
No, she had heard nothing; what did he mean?
“Ma’m’selle, there has been a miracle at Montreal. The recluse has had a visit from the angels, — the night after
Epiphany, when there was the big snow-storm. That day she broke her spinning-wheel, and in the night two angels came to her
cell and mended it for her. She saw them.”
“How did you hear this, Blinker?”
“Some men got in from Montreal this morning, in dog-sledges, and they brought the word. They brought letters, too, for
the Reverend Mother at the Ursulines’. If you go there, you will likely hear all about it.”
“You are sure she saw the angels?”
He nodded. “Yes, when she got up to pray, at midnight. They say her wheel was mended better than a carpenter could do
it.”
“The men didn’t say which angels, Blinker?”
He shook his head. He was just beginning his soup. Cécile dropped into one of the chairs by the table. “Why, one of them
might have been Saint Joseph himself; he was a carpenter. But how was it she saw them? You know she keeps her spinning-wheel
up in her work-room, over the cell where she sleeps.”
“Just so, ma’m’selle, it is just so the men said. She goes into the church to pray every night at midnight, and when she
got up on Epiphany night, she saw a light shining from the room overhead, and she went up her little stair to see what was
the matter, and there she found the angels.”
“Did they speak to her?”
“The men did not say. Maybe the Reverend Mother will know.”
“I will go there tomorrow, and I will tell you everything I hear. It’s a wonderful thing to happen, so near us — and in
that great snow-storm! Don’t you like to know that the angels are just as near to us here as they are in France?”
Blinker turned his head, glancing all about the kitchen as if someone might be hiding there, leaned across the table, and
said to her in such a mournful way:
“Ma’m’selle, I think they are nearer.”
When he had drunk his little glass and gone away for the last time, Cécile went in and told her father the good news from
Montreal. He listened with polite interest, but she had of late begun to feel that his appreciation of miracles was not at
all what it should be. They were reading Plutarch this winter, and tonight they were in the middle of the life of Alexander
the Great, but her thoughts strayed from the text. She made so many mistakes that her father said she must be tired, and,
gently taking the book from her, continued the reading himself.
Later, while she was undressing, her father filled the kitchen stove with birch logs to hold the heat well through the
night. He blew out the candles, and himself got ready for bed. After he had put on his night-cap and disappeared behind his
curtains, Cécile, who had feigned to be asleep, turned over softly to watch the dying fire, and with a sigh abandoned
herself to her thoughts. In her mind she went over the whole story of the recluse of Montreal.
Jeanne Le Ber, the recluse, was the only daughter of Jacques Le Ber, the richest merchant of Montreal. When she was
twelve years old, her parents had brought her to Quebec and placed her in the Ursuline convent to receive her education. She
remained here three years, and that was how she belonged to Quebec as well as to Ville–Marie de Montréal. Sister Anne de
Sainte–Rose saw at once that this pupil had a very unusual nature, though her outward demeanour was merely that of a
charming young girl. The Sister had told Cécile that in those days Jeanne was never melancholy, but warm and ardent, like
her complexion; gracious in her manner, and not at all shy. She was at her ease with strangers, — all distinguished visitors
to Montreal were entertained at her father’s house. But underneath this exterior of pleasing girlhood, Sister Anne felt
something reserved and guarded. While she was at the convent, Jeanne often received gifts and attentions from her father’s
friends in Quebec; and from home, boxes of sweets and dainties. But everything that was sent her she gave away to her
schoolmates, so tactfully that they did not realize she kept nothing for herself.
Jeanne completed her studies at the convent, returned home to Montreal, and was in a manner formally introduced to the
world there. Her father was fond of society and lavish in hospitality; proud of his five sons, but especially devoted to his
only daughter. He loved to see her in rich apparel, and selected the finest stuffs brought over from France for her. Jeanne
wore these clothes to please him, but whenever she put on one of her gay dresses, she wore underneath it a little haircloth
shirt next her tender skin.
Soon after Jeanne’s return from school her father and uncle gave to the newly-completed parish church of Montreal a rich
lamp of silver, made in France, to burn perpetually before the Blessed Sacrament. The Le Bers’ house on Saint Paul street
was very near the church, and from the window of her upstairs bedroom Jeanne could see at night the red spark of the
sanctuary lamp showing in the dark church. When everyone was asleep and the house was still, it was her custom to kneel
beside her casement and pray, the while watching that spot of light. “I will be that lamp” she used to whisper. “I will be
that lamp; that shall be my life.”
Jacques Le Ber announced that his daughter’s dowry would be fifty thousand gold écus, and there were many pretendants for
her hand. Cécile had often heard it said that the most ardent and most favoured of these was Auclair’s friend Pierre
Charron, who still lived next door to the Le Bers in Montreal. He had been Jeanne’s playfellow in childhood.
Jeanne’s shining in the beau monde of Ville–Marie de Montréal was brief. For her the only real world lay within convent
walls. She begged to be allowed to take the vows, but her father’s despair overcame her wish. Even her spiritual directors,
and that noble soldier-priest Dollier de Casson, Superior of the Sulpician Seminary, advised her against taking a step so
irrevocable. She at last obtained her parents’ consent to imitate the domestic retreat of Sainte Catherine of Siena, and at
seventeen took the vow of chastity for five years and immured herself within her own chamber in her father’s house. In her
vigils she could always look out at the dark church, with the one constant lamp which generous Jacques Le Ber had placed
there, little guessing how it might affect his life and wound his heart.
Upon her retirement Jeanne had explained to her family that during the five years of her vow she must on no account speak
to or hold communication with them. Her desire was for the absolute solitariness of the hermit’s life, the solitude which
Sainte Marie l’Égyptienne had gone into the desert of the Thebais to find. Her parents did not believe that a young girl,
affectionate and gentle from her infancy, could keep so harsh a rule. But as time went on, their hearts grew heavier. From
the day she took her vow, they never had speech with her or saw her face, — never saw her bodily form, except veiled and
stealing down the stairway like a shadow on her way to mass. Jacques Le Ber no longer gave suppers on feast-days. He stayed
more and more in his counting-room, drove about in his sledge in winter, and cruised in his sloop in summer; avoided the
house that had become the tomb of his hopes.
Before her withdrawal Jeanne had chosen an old serving-woman, exceptional for piety, to give her henceforth such service
as was necessary. Every morning at a quarter to five this old dame went to Jeanne’s door and attended her to church to hear
early mass. Many a time Madame Le Ber concealed herself in the dark hallway to see her daughter’s muffled figure go by.
After the return from mass, the same servant brought Jeanne her food for the day. If any dish of a rich or delicate nature
was brought her, she did not eat it, but fasted.
She went always to vespers, and to the high mass on Sundays and feast-days. On such occasions people used to come in from
the neighbouring parishes for a glimpse of that slender figure, the richest heiress in Canada, clad in grey serge, kneeling
on the floor near the altar, while her family, in furs and velvet, sat in chairs in another part of the church.
At the end of five years Jeanne renewed her vow of seclusion for another five years. During this time her mother died. On
her death-bed she sent one of the household to her daughter’s door, begging her to come and give her the kiss of
farewell.
“Tell her I am praying for her, night and day,” was the answer.
When she had been immured within her father’s house for almost ten years, Jeanne was able to accomplish a cherished hope;
she devoted that dot, which no mortal man would ever claim, to build a chapel for the Sisters of the Congregation of the
Blessed Virgin. Behind the high altar of this chapel she had a cell constructed for herself. At a solemn ceremony she took
the final vows and entered that cell from which she would never come forth alive. Since that time she had been known as la
recluse de Ville–Marie.
Jeanne’s entombment and her cell were the talk of the province, and in the country parishes where not much happened,
still, after two years, furnished matter for conversation and wonder. The cell, indeed, was not one room, but three, one
above another, and within them the solitaire carried on an unvarying routine of life. In the basement cubicle was the grille
through which she spoke to her confessor, and by means of which she was actually present at mass and vespers, though unseen.
There, through a little window, her meagre food was handed to her. The room above was her sleeping-chamber, constructed by
the most careful measurements for one purpose; her narrow bed against the wall was directly behind the high altar, and her
pillow, when she slept, was only a few inches from the Blessed Sacrament on the other side of the partition.
The upper cell was her atelier, and there she made and embroidered those beautiful altar-cloths and vestments which went
out from her stone chamber to churches all over the province: to the Cathedral at Quebec, and to the poor country parishes
where the altar and its ministrant were alike needy. She had begun this work years before, in her father’s house, and had
grown very skilful at it. Old Bishop Laval, so sumptuous in adorning his Cathedral, had more than once expressed admiration
for her beautiful handiwork. When her eyes were tired, or when the day was too dark for embroidering, she spun yarn and
knitted stockings for the poor.
In her work-room there was a small iron stove with a heap of faggots, and in the most severe cold of winter the recluse
lit a little fire, not for bodily comfort, but because her fingers became stiff with the cold and lost their cunning, —
indeed, there were sometimes days on which they would actually have frozen at their task. Every night at midnight, winter
and summer, Jeanne rose from her cot, dressed herself, descended into her basement room, opened the grille, and went into
the church to pray for an hour before the high altar. On bitter nights many a kind soul in Montreal (and on the lonely
farms, too) lay awake for a little, listening to the roar of the storm, and wondered how it was with the recluse, under her
single coverlid.
She bore the summer’s heat as patiently as the winter’s cold. Only last July, when the heat lay so heavy in her chamber
with its one small window, her confessor urged her to quit her cell for an hour each day after sunset and take the air in
the cloister garden, which her window looked out upon.
She replied: Ah, mon père, ma chambre est mon paradis terrestre; c’est mon centre; c’est mon élément. Il n’y a pas de
lieu plus délicieux, ni plus salutaire pour moi; point de Louvre, point de palais, qui me soit plus agréable. Je préfère ma
cellule à tout le reste de l’univers.
For long after the night when Cécile first heard of the angels’ visit to Mademoiselle Le Ber, the story was a joy to her.
She told it over and over to little Jacques on his rare visits. Throughout February the weather was so bad that Jacques
could come only when Blinker (who was always a match for ‘Toinette) went down and brought him up Mountain Hill on his back.
The snows fell one upon another until the houses were muffled, the streets like tunnels. Between the storms the weather was
grey, with armies of dark clouds moving across the wide sky, and the bitter wind always blowing. Quebec seemed shrunk to a
mere group of shivering spires; the whole rock looked like one great white church, above the frozen river.
By many a fireside the story of Jeanne Le Ber’s spinning-wheel was told and retold with loving exaggeration during that
severe winter. The word of her visit from the angels went abroad over snow-burdened Canada to the remote parishes. Wherever
it went, it brought pleasure, as if the recluse herself had sent to all those families whom she did not know some living
beauty, — a blooming rose-tree, or a shapely fruit-tree in fruit. Indeed, she sent them an incomparable gift. In the long
evenings, when the family had told over their tales of Indian massacres and lost hunters and the almost human intelligence
of the beaver, someone would speak the name of Jeanne Le Ber, and it again gave out fragrance.
The people have loved miracles for so many hundred years, not as proof or evidence, but because they are the actual
flowering of desire. In them the vague worship and devotion of the simple-hearted assumes a form. From being a shapeless
longing, it becomes a beautiful image; a dumb rapture becomes a melody that can be remembered and repeated; and the
experience of a moment, which might have been a lost ecstasy, is made an actual possession and can be bequeathed to
another.
One night in March there was a knock at the apothecary’s door, just as he was finishing his dinner. Only sick people, or
strangers who were ignorant of his habits, disturbed him at that hour. Peeping out between the cabinets, Cécile saw that the
visitor was a thick-set man in moccasins, with a bearskin coat and cap. His long hair and his face covered with beard told
that he had come in from the woods.
“Don’t you remember me, Monsieur Auclair?” he asked in a low, sad voice. “I am Antoine Frichette; you used to know
me.”
“It is your beard that changes you, Antoine. Sit down.”
“Ah, it is more than that,” the man sighed.
“Besides, I thought you were in the Montreal country, — out from the Sault Saint–Louis, wasn’t it?”
“Yes, monsieur, I went out there, but I had no luck. My brother-inlaw died in the woods, and I got a strain that made me
no good, so I came back to live with my sister until I am cured.”
“Your brother-inlaw? Not Michel Proulx, surely? I am grieved to hear that, Antoine. He cannot well be spared here. We
have few such good workmen.”
“But you see, monsieur, no building goes on in Kebec in the winter, and there was the chance to make something in the
woods. But he is dead, and I am not much better. I got down from Montreal only today, — we had a hard fight coming in this
snow. I came to you because I am a sick man. I tore something loose inside me. Look, monsieur, can you do anything for
that?” He stood up and unbuttoned his bearskin jacket. A rupture, Auclair saw at once, — and for a woodsman that was almost
like a death-sentence.
Yes, he told Frichette, he could certainly do something for him. But first they would be seated more comfortably, and
have a talk. He took the poor fellow back into the sitting-room and gave him his own arm-chair by the fire.
“This is my daughter, Cécile, Antoine; you remember her. Now I will give you something to make you feel better at once.
This is a very powerful cordial, there are many healing herbs in it, and it will reach the sorest spot in a sick man. Drink
it slowly, and then you must tell me about your bad winter.”
The woodsman took the little glass between his thick fingers and held it up to the fire-light. “C’est jolie, la couleur,”
he observed childishly. Presently he slid off his fur jacket and sat in his buckskin shirt and breeches. When he had
finished the cordial, his host filled his glass again, and Antoine sighed and looked about him. “C’est tranquille, chez
vous, comme toujours,” he said with a faint smile. “I bring you a message, monsieur, from Father Hector Saint–Cyr.”
“From Father Hector? You have seen him? Come, Cécile, Antoine is going to tell us news of our friend.” Auclair rose and
poured a little cordial for himself.
“He said he will be here very soon, God willing, while the river is still hard. He had a letter from the new Bishop
telling him to come down to Kebec. He asked me to say that he invited himself to dinner with you. He is a man in a thousand,
that priest. We have been through something together. But that is a long story.”
“Begin at the beginning, Frichette, my daughter and I have all evening to listen. So you and Proulx went into the woods,
out from the Sault?”
“Yes, we went early in the fall, when the hunting was good, and we took Joseph Choret from Three Rivers. We put by plenty
of fish, as soon as it was cold enough to freeze them. We meant to go up into the Nipissing country in the spring, and trade
for skins. The Nipissings don’t come to the settlements much, and I know a little of their language. We made a good log
house in the fall, good enough, but you know what a man my brother-inlaw was for hewing; he wasn’t satisfied. When the
weather kept open, before Christmas, he wanted to put in a board floor. I cannot say how it happened. You know yourself,
monsieur, what a man he was with the ax, — he hewed the beams for Notre Dame de la Victoire when he was but a lad, and how
many houses in Kebec didn’t he hew the beams and flooring for? He could cut better boards with his ax than most men can with
a saw. He was not a drinking man, either; never took a glass too much. Very well; one day out there he was hewing boards to
floor our shack, and something happens, — the ax slips and lays his leg open from the ankle to the knee. There is a big vein
spouting blood, and I catch it and tie it with a deer-gut string I had in my pocket. Maybe that gut was poisoned some way,
for the wound went bad very soon. We had no linen, so I dressed it with punk wood, as the Indians do. I boiled pine chips
and made turpentine, but it did no good. He got black to the thigh and began to suffer agony. The only thing that eased him
was fresh snow heaped on his leg. I don’t know if it was right, but he begged for it. After Christmas I saw it was time to
get a priest.
“It was three days’ journey in to the Sault mission, and the going was bad. There wasn’t snow enough for snow-shoes, —
just enough to cover the roots and trip you. I took my snowshoes and grub-sack on my back, and made good time. The second
day I came to a place where the trees were thin because there was no soil, only flint rock, in ledges. And there one big
tree, a white pine, had blown over. It hadn’t room to fall flat, the top had caught in the branches of another tree, so it
lay slanting and made a nice shelter underneath, like a shanty, high enough to stand in. The top was still fresh and green
and made thick walls to keep out the wind. I cleared away some of the inside branches and had a good sleep in there. Next
morning when I left that place, I notched a few trees as I went, so I could find it when I brought the priest back with me.
Ordinarily I don’t notch trees to find my way back. When there is no sun, I can tell directions like the Indians.”
Here Auclair interrupted him. “And how is that, Antoine?”
Frichette smiled and shrugged. “It is hard to explain, — by many things. The limbs of the trees are generally bigger on
the south side, for example. The moss on the trunks is clean and dry on the north side, — on the south side it is softer and
maybe a little rotten. There are many little signs; put them all together and they point you right.
“I got to the mission late the third night and slept in a bed. Early the next morning Father Hector was ready to start
back with me. He had two young priests there but he would go himself. He carried his snowshoes and a blanket and the Blessed
Sacrament on his back, and I carried the provisions — smoked eels and cold grease — enough for three days. We slept the
first night in that shelter under the fallen pine, and made a good start the next day. That was Epiphany, the day of the big
snow all over Canada. When we had been out maybe two hours, the snow began to fall so thick we could hardly see each other,
and I told Father Hector we better make for that shelter again. It took us nearly all day to get back over the ground we had
covered in two hours before the storm began. By God, I was glad to see that thin place in the woods again! I was afraid I’d
lost it. There was our tree, heaped over with snow, with the opening to the south still clear. We crept in and got our
breath and unrolled our blankets. A little snow had sifted in, but not much. It had packed between the needles of that pine
top until it was like a solid wall and roof. It was warm in there; no wind got through. Father Hector said some prayers, and
we rolled up in our blankets and slept most of the day and let the storm come.
“Next day it was still snowing hard, and I was afraid to start out. We ate some lard, and an eel apiece, but I could see
the end of our provisions pretty soon. We were thirsty and ate the snow, which doesn’t satisfy you much. Father Hector said
prayers and read his breviary. When I went to sleep, I heard him praying to himself, very low, — and when I wakened he was
still praying, just the same. I lay still and listened for a long while, but I didn’t once hear an Ave Maria, and not the
name of a saint could I make out. At last I turned over and told Father Hector that was certainly a long prayer he was
saying. He laughed. ‘That’s not a prayer, Antoine,’ he says; ‘that’s a Latin poem, a very long one, that I learned at
school. If I am uncomfortable, it diverts my mind, and I remember my old school and my comrades.’
“‘So much the better for you, Father,’ I told him. ‘But a long prayer would do no harm. I don’t like the look of
things.’
“The next day the snow had stopped, but a terrible bitter wind was blowing. We couldn’t have gone against it, but since
it was behind us, I thought we’d better get ahead. We hadn’t food enough to see us through, as it was. That was a cruel
day’s march on an empty belly. Father Hector is a good man on snowshoes, and brave, too. My pack had grown lighter, and I
wanted to carry his, but he would not have it. When it began to get dark, we made camp and ate some cold grease and the last
of our eels. I built a fire, and we took turns, one of us feeding the fire while the other slept. I was so tired I could
have slept on into eternity. Father Hector had to throw snow in my face to waken me.
“Before daylight the wind died, but the cold was so bitter we had to move or freeze. It was good snowshoeing that day,
but with empty bellies and thirst and eating snow, we both had colic. That night we ate the last of our lard. I wasn’t sure
we were going right, — the snow had changed the look of everything. When Father Hector took off the little box he carried
that held the Blessed Sacrament, I said: ‘Maybe that will do for us two, Father. I don’t see much ahead of us.’
“‘Never fear, Antoine,’ says he, ‘while we carry that, Someone is watching over us. Tomorrow will bring better luck.’
“It did, too, just as he said. We were both so weak we made poor headway. But by the mercy of God we met an Indian. He
had a gun, and he had shot two hares. When he saw what a bad way we were in, he made a fire very quick and cooked the hares,
— and he ate very little of that meat himself. He said Indians could bear hunger better than the French. He was a kind
Indian and was glad to give us what he had. Father Hector could speak his language, and questioned him. Though I had never
seen him before, he knew where our shack was, and said we were pointed right. But I told him I was tired out and wanted a
guide, and I would pay him well in shot and powder if he took us in.
“We got back to our shack six days after we left the mission, and they were the six worst days of the winter. My
brother-inlaw was very bad. He died while Father Hector was there, and had a Christian burial. The Indian took Father Hector
back to the mission. Soon after that I got this strain in my side, and I lost heart. I left our stores for Joseph Choret to
trade with, and I went down to the Sault and then to Montreal. I found a sledge party about to come down the river, and they
brought me to Kebec. Now I am here, what can you do for me, Monsieur Auclair?”
The apothecary’s kindly tone did not reassure Frichette. He looked searchingly into his face and asked:
“Will it grow back, my inside, like it was?”
Auclair felt very sorry for him. “No, it will not grow back, Antoine. But tomorrow I will make you a support, and you
will be more comfortable.”
“But not to carry canoes over portages, I guess? No? Nor to go into the woods at all, maybe?” He sank back in the chair.
“Then I don’t know how I’ll make a living, monsieur. I am not clever with tools, like my brother-inlaw.”
“We’ll find a way out of that, Antoine.”
Frichette did not heed him. “It’s a funny thing,” he went on. “A man sits here by the warm fire, where he can hear the
bell ring for mass every morning and smell bread baked fresh every day, and all that happened out there in the woods seems
like a dream. Yet here I am, no good any more.”
“Courage, mon bourgeois, I am going to give you a good medicine.”
Frichette shook his head and spread his thick fingers apart on his knees. “There is no future for me if I cannot paddle a
canoe up the big rivers any more.”
“Perhaps you can paddle, Antoine, but not carry.”
Antoine rose. “In this world, who paddles must carry, monsieur. Good night, Mademoiselle Cécile. Father Hector will be
surprised to see how you have grown. He thinks a great deal about that good dinner you are going to give him, I expect. You
ask him if it tastes as good as those hares the Indian cooked for him when he was out with Frichette.”