CHAPTER XIV

Life cannot stop because tragedy enters it. Meals must be made ready
though a son dies and porches must be repaired even if your only
daughter is going out of her mind. Mrs. Frederick, in her systematic
way, had long ago appointed the second week in June for the repairing
of the front porch, the roof of which was sagging dangerously. Roaring
Abel had been engaged to do it many moons before and Roaring Abel
promptly appeared on the morning of the first day of the second week,
and fell to work. Of course he was drunk. Roaring Abel was never
anything but drunk. But he was only in the first stage, which made him
talkative and genial. The odour of whisky on his breath nearly drove
Mrs. Frederick and Cousin Stickles wild at dinner. Even Valancy, with
all her emancipation, did not like it. But she liked Abel and she liked
his vivid, eloquent talk, and after she washed the dinner dishes she
went out and sat on the steps and talked to him.

Mrs. Frederick and Cousin Stickles thought it a terrible proceeding,
but what could they do? Valancy only smiled mockingly at them when they
called her in, and did not go. It was so easy to defy once you got
started. The first step was the only one that really counted. They were
both afraid to say anything more to her lest she might make a scene
before Roaring Abel, who would spread it all over the country with his
own characteristic comments and exaggerations. It was too cold a day,
in spite of the June sunshine, for Mrs. Frederick to sit at the
dining-room window and listen to what was said. She had to shut the
window and Valancy and Roaring Abel had their talk to themselves. But
if Mrs. Frederick had known what the outcome of that talk was to be she
would have prevented it, if the porch was never repaired.

Valancy sat on the steps, defiant of the chill breeze of this cold June
which had made Aunt Isabel aver the seasons were changing. She did not
care whether she caught a cold or not. It was delightful to sit there
in that cold, beautiful, fragrant world and feel free. She filled her
lungs with the clean, lovely wind and held out her arms to it and let
it tear her hair to pieces while she listened to Roaring Abel, who told
her his troubles between intervals of hammering gaily in time to his
Scotch songs. Valancy liked to hear him. Every stroke of his hammer
fell true to the note.

Old Abel Gay, in spite of his seventy years, was handsome still, in a
stately, patriarchal manner. His tremendous beard, falling down over
his blue flannel shirt, was still a flaming, untouched red, though his
shock of hair was white as snow, and his eyes were a fiery, youthful
blue. His enormous, reddish-white eyebrows were more like moustaches
than eyebrows. Perhaps this was why he always kept his upper lip
scrupulously shaved. His cheeks were red and his nose ought to have
been, but wasn’t. It was a fine, upstanding, aquiline nose, such as the
noblest Roman of them all might have rejoiced in. Abel was six feet two
in his stockings, broad-shouldered, lean-hipped. In his youth he had
been a famous lover, finding all women too charming to bind himself to
one. His years had been a wild, colourful panorama of follies and
adventures, gallantries, fortunes and misfortunes. He had been
forty-five before he married—a pretty slip of a girl whom his goings-on
killed in a few years. Abel was piously drunk at her funeral and
insisted on repeating the fifty-fifth chapter of Isaiah—Abel knew most
of the Bible and all the Psalms by heart—while the minister, whom he
disliked, prayed or tried to pray. Thereafter his house was run by an
untidy old cousin who cooked his meals and kept things going after a
fashion. In this unpromising environment little Cecilia Gay had grown
up.

Valancy had known “Cissy Gay” fairly well in the democracy of the
public school, though Cissy had been three years younger than she.
After they left school their paths diverged and she had seen nothing of
her. Old Abel was a Presbyterian. That is, he got a Presbyterian
preacher to marry him, baptise his child and bury his wife; and he knew
more about Presbyterian theology than most ministers, which made him a
terror to them in arguments. But Roaring Abel never went to church.
Every Presbyterian minister who had been in Deerwood had tried his
hand—once—at reforming Roaring Abel. But he had not been pestered of
late. Rev. Mr. Bently had been in Deerwood for eight years, but he had
not sought out Roaring Abel since the first three months of his
pastorate. He had called on Roaring Abel then and found him in the
theological stage of drunkenness—which always followed the sentimental
maudlin one, and preceded the roaring, blasphemous one. The eloquently
prayerful one, in which he realised himself temporarily and intensely
as a sinner in the hands of an angry God, was the final one. Abel never
went beyond it. He generally fell asleep on his knees and awakened
sober, but he had never been “dead drunk” in his life. He told Mr.
Bently that he was a sound Presbyterian and sure of his election. He
had no sins—that he knew of—to repent of.

“Have you never done anything in your life that you are sorry for?”
asked Mr. Bently.

Roaring Abel scratched his bushy white head and pretended to reflect.

“Well, yes,” he said finally. “There were some women I might have
kissed and didn’t. I’ve always been sorry for _that_.”

Mr. Bently went out and went home.

Abel had seen that Cissy was properly baptised—jovially drunk at the
same time himself. He made her go to church and Sunday School
regularly. The church people took her up and she was in turn a member
of the Mission Band, the Girls’ Guild and the Young Women’s Missionary
Society. She was a faithful, unobtrusive, sincere, little worker.
Everybody liked Cissy Gay and was sorry for her. She was so modest and
sensitive and pretty in that delicate, elusive fashion of beauty which
fades so quickly if life is not kept in it by love and tenderness. But
then liking and pity did not prevent them from tearing her in pieces
like hungry cats when the catastrophe came. Four years previously Cissy
Gay had gone up to a Muskoka hotel as a summer waitress. And when she
had come back in the fall she was a changed creature. She hid herself
away and went nowhere. The reason soon leaked out and scandal raged.
That winter Cissy’s baby was born. Nobody ever knew who the father was.
Cecily kept her poor pale lips tightly locked on her sorry secret.
Nobody dared ask Roaring Abel any questions about it. Rumour and
surmise laid the guilt at Barney Snaith’s door because diligent inquiry
among the other maids at the hotel revealed the fact that nobody there
had ever seen Cissy Gay “with a fellow.” She had “kept herself to
herself” they said, rather resentfully. “Too good for _our_ dances. And
now look!”

The baby had lived for a year. After its death Cissy faded away. Two
years ago Dr. Marsh had given her only six months to live—her lungs
were hopelessly diseased. But she was still alive. Nobody went to see
her. Women would not go to Roaring Abel’s house. Mr. Bently had gone
once, when he knew Abel was away, but the dreadful old creature who was
scrubbing the kitchen floor told him Cissy wouldn’t see any one. The
old cousin had died and Roaring Abel had had two or three disreputable
housekeepers—the only kind who could be prevailed on to go to a house
where a girl was dying of consumption. But the last one had left and
Roaring Abel had now no one to wait on Cissy and “do” for him. This was
the burden of his plaint to Valancy and he condemned the “hypocrites”
of Deerwood and its surrounding communities with some rich, meaty oaths
that happened to reach Cousin Stickles’ ears as she passed through the
hall and nearly finished the poor lady. Was Valancy listening to
_that_?

Valancy hardly noticed the profanity. Her attention was focussed on the
horrible thought of poor, unhappy, disgraced little Cissy Gay, ill and
helpless in that forlorn old house out on the Mistawis road, without a
soul to help or comfort her. And this in a nominally Christian
community in the year of grace nineteen and some odd!

“Do you mean to say that Cissy is all alone there now, with nobody to
do anything for her—_nobody_?”

“Oh, she can move about a bit and get a bite and sup when she wants it.
But she can’t work. It’s d——d hard for a man to work hard all day and
go home at night tired and hungry and cook his own meals. Sometimes I’m
sorry I kicked old Rachel Edwards out.” Abel described Rachel
picturesquely.

“Her face looked as if it had wore out a hundred bodies. And she moped.
Talk about temper! Temper’s nothing to moping. She was too slow to
catch worms, and dirty—d——d dirty. I ain’t unreasonable—I know a man
has to eat his peck before he dies—but she went over the limit. What
d’ye sp’ose I saw that lady do? She’d made some punkin jam—had it on
the table in glass jars with the tops off. The dawg got up on the table
and stuck his paw into one of them. What did she do? She jest took holt
of the dawg and wrung the syrup off his paw back into the jar! Then
screwed the top on and set it in the pantry. I sets open the door and
says to her, ‘Go!’ The dame went, and I fired the jars of punkin after
her, two at a time. Thought I’d die laughing to see old Rachel run—with
them punkin jars raining after her. She’s told everywhere I’m crazy, so
nobody’ll come for love or money.”

“But Cissy _must_ have some one to look after her,” insisted Valancy,
whose mind was centred on this aspect of the case. She did not care
whether Roaring Abel had any one to cook for him or not. But her heart
was wrung for Cecilia Gay.

“Oh, she gits on. Barney Snaith always drops in when he’s passing and
does anything she wants done. Brings her oranges and flowers and
things. There’s a Christian for you. Yet that sanctimonious, snivelling
parcel of St. Andrew’s people wouldn’t be seen on the same side of the
road with him. Their dogs’ll go to heaven before they do. And their
minister—slick as if the cat had licked him!”

“There are plenty of good people, both in St. Andrew’s and St.
George’s, who would be kind to Cissy if _you_ would behave yourself,”
said Valancy severely. “They’re afraid to go near your place.”

“Because I’m such a sad old dog? But I don’t bite—never bit any one in
my life. A few loose words spilled around don’t hurt any one. And I’m
not asking people to come. Don’t want ’em poking and prying about. What
I want is a housekeeper. If I shaved every Sunday and went to church
I’d get all the housekeepers I’d want. I’d be respectable then. But
what’s the use of going to church when it’s all settled by
predestination? Tell me that, Miss.”

“Is it?” said Valancy.

“Yes. Can’t git around it nohow. Wish I could. I don’t want either
heaven or hell for steady. Wish a man could have ’em mixed in equal
proportions.”

“Isn’t that the way it is in this world?” said Valancy
thoughtfully—but rather as if her thought was concerned with something
else than theology.

“No, no,” boomed Abel, striking a tremendous blow on a stubborn nail.
“There’s too much hell here—entirely too much hell. That’s why I get
drunk so often. It sets you free for a little while—free from
yourself—yes, by God, free from predestination. Ever try it?”

“No, I’ve another way of getting free,” said Valancy absently. “But
about Cissy now. She _must_ have some one to look after her——”

“What are you harping on Sis for? Seems to me you ain’t bothered much
about her up to now. You never even come to see her. And she used to
like you so well.”

“I should have,” said Valancy. “But never mind. You couldn’t
understand. The point is—you must have a housekeeper.”

“Where am I to get one? I can pay decent wages if I could get a decent
woman. D’ye think I like old hags?”

“Will I do?” said Valancy.