Read Ebook: In the Village of Viger by Scott Duncan Campbell

Font size: 10 px 15 px 20 px 25 px 30 px 35 px

Background color: BlackWhiteGrayLight GrayDark GrayDim Gray

Text color: BlackWhiteGrayLight GrayDark GrayDim Gray

Apply/Save settings

Ebook has 507 lines and 30539 words, and 11 pages

PAGE THE LITTLE MILLINER 13 THE DESJARDINS 30 THE WOOING OF MONSIEUR CUERRIER 39 SEDAN 51 NO. 68 RUE ALFRED DE MUSSET 63 THE BOBOLINK 78 THE TRAGEDY OF THE SEIGNIORY 85 JOSEPHINE LABROSSE 101 THE PEDLER 113 PAUL FARLOTTE 119

IN THE VILLAGE OF VIGER

IN THE VILLAGE OF VIGER

THE LITTLE MILLINER.

IT was too true that the city was growing rapidly. As yet its arms were not long enough to embrace the little village of Viger, but before long they would be, and it was not a time that the inhabitants looked forward to with any pleasure. It was not to be wondered at, for few places were more pleasant to live in. The houses, half-hidden amid the trees, clustered around the slim steeple of St. Joseph's, which flashed like a naked poniard in the sun. They were old, and the village was sleepy, almost dozing, since the mill, behind the rise of land, on the Blanche had shut down. The miller had died; and who would trouble to grind what little grist came to the mill, when flour was so cheap? But while the beech-groves lasted, and the Blanche continued to run, it seemed impossible that any change could come. The change was coming, however, rapidly enough. Even now, on still nights, above the noise of the frogs in the pools, you could hear the rumble of the street-cars and the faint tinkle of their bells, and when the air was moist the whole southern sky was luminous with the reflection of thousands of gas-lamps. But when the time came for Viger to be mentioned in the city papers as one of the outlying wards, what a change there would be! There would be no unfenced fields, full of little inequalities and covered with short grass; there would be no deep pools, where the quarries had been, and where the boys pelted the frogs; there would be no more beech-groves, where the children could gather nuts; and the dread pool, which had filled the shaft where old Daigneau, years ago, mined for gold, would cease to exist. But in the meantime, the boys of Viger roamed over the unclosed fields and pelted the frogs, and the boldest ventured to roll huge stones into Daigneau's pit, and only waited to see the green slime come working up to the surface before scampering away, their flesh creeping with the idea that it was old Daigneau himself who was stirring up the water in a rage.

New houses had already commenced to spring up in all directions, and there was a large influx of the laboring population which overflows from large cities. Even on the main street of Viger, on a lot which had been vacant ever since it was a lot, the workmen had built a foundation. After a while it was finished, when men from the city came and put up the oddest wooden house that one could imagine. It was perfectly square; there was a window and a door in front, a window at the side, and a window upstairs. There were many surmises as to the probable occupant of such a diminutive habitation; and the widow Laroque, who made dresses and trimmed hats, and whose shop was directly opposite, and next door to the Post Office, suffered greatly from unsatisfied curiosity. No one who looked like the proprietor was ever seen near the place. The foreman of the laborers who were working at the house seemed to know nothing; all that he said, in answer to questions, was: "I have my orders."

At last the house was ready; it was painted within and without, and Madame Laroque could scarcely believe her eyes when, one morning, a man came from the city with a small sign under his arm and nailed it above the door. It bore these words: "Mademoiselle Viau, Milliner." "Ah!" said Madame Laroque, "the bread is to be taken out of my mouth." The next day came a load of furniture,--not a very large load, as there was only a small stove, two tables, a bedstead, three chairs, a sort of lounge, and two large boxes. The man who brought the things put them in the house, and locked the door on them when he went away; then nothing happened for two weeks, but Madame Laroque watched. Such a queer little house it was, as it stood there so new in its coat of gum-colored paint. It looked just like a square bandbox which some Titan had made for his wife; and there seemed no doubt that if you took hold of the chimney and lifted the roof off, you would see the gigantic bonnet, with its strings and ribbons, which the Titaness could wear to church on Sundays.

Madame Laroque wondered how Mademoiselle Viau would come, whether in a cab, with her trunks and boxes piled around her, or on foot, and have her belongings on a cart. She watched every approaching vehicle for two weeks in vain; but one morning she saw that a curtain had been put up on the window opposite, that it was partly raised, and that a geranium was standing on the sill. For one hour she never took her eyes off the door, and at last had the satisfaction of seeing it open. A trim little person, not very young, dressed in gray, stepped out on the platform with her apron full of crumbs and cast them down for the birds. Then, without looking around, she went in and closed the door. It was Mademoiselle Viau. "The bird is in its nest," thought the old postmaster, who lived alone with his mother. All that Madame Laroque said was: "Ah!"

Mademoiselle Viau did not stir out that day, but on the next she went to the baker's and the butcher's and came over the road to Monsieur Cuerrier, the postmaster, who also kept a grocery.

That evening, according to her custom, Madame Laroque called on Madame Cuerrier.

"We have a neighbor," she said.

"Yes."

"She was making purchases to-day."

"Yes."

"To-morrow she will expect people to make purchases."

"Without doubt."

"It is very tormenting, this, to have these irresponsible girls, that no one knows anything about, setting up shops under our very noses. Why does she live alone?"

"I did not ask her," answered Cuerrier, to whom the question was addressed.

"You are very cool, Monsieur Cuerrier; but if it was a young man and a postmaster, instead of a young woman and a milliner, you would not relish it."

"There can be only one postmaster," said Cuerrier.

"In Paris, where I practised my art," said Monsieur Villeblanc, who was a retired hairdresser, "there were whole rows of tonsorial parlors, and every one had enough to do." Madame Laroque sniffed, as she always did in his presence.

"Did you see her hat?" she asked.

"I did, and it was very nice."

"Nice! with the flowers all on one side? I wouldn't go to St. Th?r?se with it on." St. Th?r?se was the postmaster's native place.

"The girl has no taste," she continued.

"Well, if she hasn't, you needn't be afraid of her."

"There will be no choice between you," said the retired hairdresser, maliciously.

But there was a choice between them, and all the young girls of Viger chose Mademoiselle Viau. It was said she had such an eye; she would take a hat and pin a bow on here, and loop a ribbon there, and cast a flower on somewhere else, all the time surveying her work with her head on one side and her mouth bristling with pins. "There, how do you like that?--put it on--no, it is not becoming--wait!" and in a trice the desired change was made. She had no lack of work from the first; soon she had too much to do. At all hours of the day she could be seen sitting at her window, working, and "she must be making money fast," argued Madame Laroque, "for she spends nothing." In truth, she spent very little--she lived so plainly. Three times a week she took a fresh twist from the baker, once a day, the milkman left a pint of milk, and once every week mademoiselle herself stepped out to the butcher's and bought a pound of steak. Occasionally she mailed a letter, which she always gave into the hands of the postmaster; if he was not there she asked for a pound of tea or something else that she needed. She was fast friends with Cuerrier, but with no one else, as she never received visitors. Once only did a young man call on her. It was young Jourdain, the clerk in the dry-goods store. He had knocked at the door and was admitted. "Ah!" said Madame Laroque, "it is the young men who can conquer." But the next moment Monsieur Jourdain came out, and, strangely enough, was so bewildered as to forget to put on his hat. It was not this young man who could conquer.

"There is something mysterious about that young person," said Madame Laroque between her teeth.

"Yes," replied Cuerrier, "very mysterious--she minds her own business."

"Bah!" said the widow, "who can tell what her business is, she who comes from no one knows where? But I'll find out what all this secrecy means, trust me!"

So the widow watched the little house and its occupant very closely, and these are some of the things she saw: Every morning an open door and crumbs for the birds, the watering of the geranium, which was just going to flower, a small figure going in and out, dressed in gray, and, oftener than anything else, the same figure sitting at the window, working. This continued for a year with little variation, but still the widow watched. Every one else had accepted the presence of the new resident as a benefaction. They had got accustomed to her. They called her "the little milliner." Old Cuerrier called her "the little one in gray." But she was not yet adjusted in the widow's system of things. She laid a plot with her second cousin, which was that the cousin should get a hat made by Mademoiselle Viau, and that she should ask her some questions.

"Mademoiselle Viau, were you born in the city?"

"I do not think, Mademoiselle, that green will become you."

"No, perhaps not. Where did you live before you came here?"

"Mademoiselle, this gray shape is very pretty." And so on.

That plan would not work.

But before long something very suspicious happened. One evening, just about dusk, as Madame Laroque was walking up and down in front of her door, a man of a youthful appearance came quickly up the street, stepped upon Mademoiselle Viau's platform, opened the door without knocking, and walked in. Mademoiselle was working in the last vestige of daylight, and the widow watched her like a lynx. She worked on unconcernedly, and when it became so dark that she could not see she lit her lamp and pulled down the curtain. That night Madame Laroque did not go into Cuerrier's. It commenced to rain, but she put on a large frieze coat of the deceased Laroque and crouched in the dark. She was very much interested in this case, but her interest brought no additional knowledge. She had seen the man go in; he was rather young and about the medium height, and had a black mustache; she could remember him distinctly, but she did not see him come out.

The next morning Mademoiselle Viau's curtain went up as usual, and as it was her day to go to the butcher's she went out. While she was away Madame Laroque took a long look in at the side window, but there was nothing to see except the lounge and the table.

"Have you lost your voice?" asked Villeblanc, getting nettled.

"No, no; listen to this--'Daring Jewel Robbery. A Thief in the Night.'" These were the headings of the column, and then followed the particulars. In the morning the widow borrowed the paper, as she had been too busy the night before to come and hear it read. She looked over the front page, when her eye caught the heading, "Daring Jewel Robbery," and she read the whole story. As she neared the end her eyebrows commenced to travel up her forehead, as if they were going to hide in her hair, and with an expression of surprise she tossed the paper to her second cousin.

"Look here!" she said, "read this out to me."

The second cousin commenced to read at the top.

"No, no! right here."

"'The man Durocher, who is suspected of the crime, is not tall, wears a heavy mustache, has gray eyes, and wears an ear-ring in his left ear. He has not been seen since Saturday.'"

"I told you so!" exclaimed the widow.

"You told me nothing of the kind," said the second cousin.

"Where are you going?"

"I have business; never mind!" She took the paper with her and went straight to the constable.

"But," said he, "I cannot come."

"There is no time to be lost; you must come now."

Share on: WhatsApp @Hash Facebook Tweet