Ringfield Part 26

The Hotel Champlain is a hostelry not on the list which promises the highest cla.s.s of entertainment for the tourist; one has not to go there unless one is French or in some way connected with or interested in French life and character, yet the _cuisine_ is excellent and the rooms clean and neat. The occasional presence of pompous Senators from the provinces on their way to the legislative halls of the capital ensures a certain average of cooking and attendance; at other times prevail the naturally comfortable instincts of the host and hostess, M. and Mme.

Alphonse Prefontaine, a couple bearing the same initials as the Poussettes, the wife a Natalie too, but extremely different in ideals and character. Thus, monsieur, the host, had voyaged, been to "Paris, France," emphasized in case you should think he meant that village, Paris, Ontario; had written a brochure on his travels and was a great patron of such arts as at that time the French population of Montreal were privileged to offer. Madame, the wife, with well-frizzed black hair, strong features and kindly dark eyes, was handsome enough for a Lady Mayoress, had excellent if a little showy taste in dress and had reared a large and healthy family.

To their comfortable roof Crabbe repaired rather than to any English one, because he was not yet completely reinstated in his own self-respect, and to patronize places suited to him in a prosperous future might now invite too much criticism. The Prefontaines knew Miss Clairville well and had heard from her of the rich Englishman to whom she was about to be married, and Crabbe was therefore received with more than Gallic fervour, a.s.signed one of the best rooms, and after seeing a clergyman and attending to other matters touching the approaching ceremony, shut himself up with certain ma.n.u.scripts that he wished to look over before mailing them to England. He had arrived at noon on the day of Henry Clairville's death and the next morning accordingly brought him the news in print. He grew thoughtful for a while, meant to dispatch a telegram of condolence to Pauline, then forgot it as he became interested in his work. Two poems in particular came in for much revision: "The Lay of an Exiled Englishman," and "Friends on the Astrachan Ranch," pleased him with their lines here and there, yet the general and final effect seemed disappointing to his fine critical side; like many another he saw and felt better than he could perform.

"A Tennysonian ring, I fear. Yet what man alive and writing now can resist it? It slides into the veins, it creeps along the nerves, it informs us as we speak and move and have our being. I'll read aloud--ghastly perhaps, but the only way to judge effect."

He began, and the long lines rose and fell with precision and academic monotony; he was no elocutionist, but read as authors read their own works, as Schubert played his own music, and as he read the snow fell in thick swirling ma.s.ses outside his window and the cold grew more and more penetrating and intense. A knock at the door roused him. It was a servant of the house who spoke English. The host had sent to know whether the guest was warm.

"Well, come to think of it," said Crabbe, "I'm not too warm, by any means. You can tell them to fire up downstairs, certainly. What time is luncheon here?"

"Do you mean dinner, sir?"

"Oh, yes, dinner, of course. One o'clock? Very well."

"No order, sir? For the bar, I mean?"

Crabbe stared at the speaker then straightened himself and looked out of the window. Was it snowing at St. Ignace, and on Henry Clairville's grave? Would Pauline go into mourning?

"No, I think not. A bottle of Ba.s.s at my dinner--that's all."

The interruption over, he went back to his poetry, and this time read on until he had finished. Then he was silent, staring at the table with his legs straight out in front of him, and his hands in his pockets.

"What rot your own poetry can sound!" he finally observed with a frown.

"Verse certainly needs an audience, and there's a turn, a lilt that reminds me of Carleton occasionally--that won't do. Must go at it again. Must go at it again. Better have a smoke."

He found and lit his pipe, read over the stanzas, this time in his head, and the room grew steadily colder, until he could hardly stand it. He rang the bell.

"Look here! Tell Mr. Prefontaine his guests are freezing in this house. Get him to fire up, there's a good fellow--and--look here? How soon will dinner be ready?"

"Not for some time, sir. Perhaps, if you're cold, a hot Scotch----"

But Crabbe was again buried in his work. At one he dined, very much admired by Mme. Prefontaine and her three daughters; he had his innocent tipple and then went back to his room. By three o'clock it was growing dark and he rose to pull down the blind, when a step outside in the hall arrested him. The step seemed familiar, yet incongruous and uncongenial; it was followed by a knock, and, going forward, Crabbe opened the door to Ringfield.

Astonishment showed in the Englishman's face, but he spoke amiably enough and invited the young man inside. Ringfield's countenance wore its perennial grave aspect, but it could also be seen that at that moment he was suffering from the cold. He wore no m.u.f.fler, and his hands were encased in mere woollen gloves; he had also the appearance of being a martyr to influenza, and Crabbe regarded him with his usual contemptuous familiarity.

"What's brought you to town this infernally cold day?" he said.

"You're not going to be married, you know."

The pleasantry did not apparently disconcert the other, but he looked carefully around as if searching for something before he answered.

"To be candid, I followed you here to have a talk with you."

"The deuce you did--white choker and all! You have a cheek, haven't you? Then you must be pretty flush, after all, even if you have not any expectations, like me, Ringfield. You've never congratulated me, but let that pa.s.s. As you are here, what do you want to talk about?"

The two stood facing each other, with the paper-strewn table between them.

"I should almost think you could guess," murmured Ringfield with an effort to be easy. "But before I, at least, can do any talking I must get warm. I'm chilled--chilled to the bone." And indeed he looked it.

His hollow eyes, his bluish lips, his red hands and white fingers indicated his condition, and he had also a short, spasmodic cough, which Crabbe had never noticed at St. Ignace. Suddenly in the guide there awoke the host, the patron, and he drew the blind, placed chairs and grumbled at the stove-pipe.

"Oh for an open fire!" he cried. "Eh, Ringfield? One of your little Canadian open stoves would do, a grate--anything to sit before! Why, man, I'm afraid you have got a touch of the ague, or something worse, perhaps pneumonia."

"Not as bad as that, surely," returned the other with his wry smile.

"I walked from the station to save a cab, and I'm only a little chilled."

"A warm drink!" cried Crabbe, from the depths of his new and hospitable instincts. "Say the word, and I'll order it. By heaven, Ringfield,--you look poorly, and I've wanted one myself all day." His hand was on the bell.

"No, no! Don't make a fuss over me. I shall be all right after a while. Besides I never take anything of the kind you mean, I fancy.

Some camphor--if you had that, or a cup of boiling hot tea. I'll go downstairs and ask for that. Or coffee."

"Tea! Good Lord! Tea, to a man sickening with pneumonia!"

"But I'm not--really I'm not. I'm feeling warmer already."

"I know better. 'A hot Scotch,'" he said. "Oh for some of the Clairville brandy now, eh? By the way, her brother's dead."

Ringfield s.h.i.+vered, but not this time on account of the cold. Some strange sensation always attacked him when Crabbe spoke of Pauline.

"Yes. I did not hear of it until she returned."

"She went to see him, then?"

"Yes."

"That must have been after I left. Poor girl! Well, was she very knocked up? Have you seen her?"

Ringfield shook his head and the guide attributed the action more to cold than to sympathy. His mind was made up; Ringfield must take something, must be warmed up and made fit, and whisky was the only means known to the Englishman, who did not own a "Manual of h.o.m.oeopathy". Whisky it must be. Again his hand went to the bell, and again Ringfield remonstrated, but his _gauche_ utterances were of no avail in face of Crabbe's decision of character and natural lording of it. The boy appeared, the order was dispatched, and as Ringfield noticed the growing exaltation in the guide's manner, a sort of sickness stole upon him. Here, thrust into his hand, was the greatest opportunity yet given to him to preserve a human soul and to save the woman he loved, but he looked on, dazed, uncomfortable, half guilty.

"If this works you harm," he said, "it will be through me, through me.

I'd rather not, Crabbe; I'd rather not."

But the word of the guide prevailed, and in three minutes a couple of hot strong gla.s.ses were on the table. Crabbe for his part was really curious. Could it be that this man, his visitor, had never tasted spirituous liquor? Wine, of course, he must have taken, being a clergyman. This thought immediately attracted him, and with a sense of its literary value he sought to question Ringfield as to the effect of the Communion wine upon a teetotal community. By this time there was no doubt the minister had suffered a severe chill and the temptation became very strong to try the hot gla.s.s that stood in front of him.

Crabbe jeered.

"What do you suppose will happen to you if you taste it, even if you drain it? What can one gla.s.s do? Nonsense. I've taken a whole bottle of Glenlivet in an evening--then you might talk!"

His hand played with the gla.s.ses, and watching him, Ringfield felt all the awful responsibility of his office. Once before he had shattered a hateful bottle, once he had lifted up his voice in self-righteous denunciation of the sin of drink and the black fruit thereof, but now he appeared helpless, paralyzed.

At what moment the evil finally entered into him and conquered him does not signify; horrible visions of Pauline and this man going away together, laughing and chatting, embracing and caressing, swam before his jaundiced eyes. To delay, to prevent the marriage had been his dream for weeks, and now he saw one way to accomplish this wished-for hindrance to their union. Should Crabbe be made drunk, should he yield again after so long abstinence from liquor, who could say what the consequences might prove? A shred only of common compunction animated him as he said: "I tell you frankly I'm afraid of the stuff. And I'm afraid for you."

Yet all this time he was watching the guide's expression.

Already the steaming fumes were working upon him; the familiar, comforting, stimulating odour was there, his hand was clasping the gla.s.s, in another moment he would drain it, then what would happen!

"Afraid! Afraid? Of one gla.s.s! Ringfield--you're a fool, a prig, and a baby. Besides, the spirit is all burnt out by this time, evaporated, flown thence. Come--I'll set you the example. Drink first and preach afterwards."

And with the peculiar gloating eye, the expressively working, watering mouth that the drunkard sometimes shows, the Englishman led off. It was a long, hot drink, but he threw his head back and never paused till he had drained the last drop, and once again tipped the gla.s.s towards his throat. Ringfield, alarmed, fascinated, deeply brooding, watched the proceeding in silence, his nature so changed that there was no impulse to seize the offending gla.s.s, dash it on the ground or pour the contents on the floor, watched ardently, hungrily, for the sequel.

Would Crabbe remain as he had been after the enlivening draught, or would he by rapid and violent stages decline to the low being of former days? While Ringfield thus watched the guide the latter stared back, broadly smiling.