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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