Two Solitudes Read Free

faces as well as their clothes showed it clearly. He dropped his hands to his sides and walked quietly down the path to the road and looked after the carriage. The road ran straight for a mile and he could see the carriage diminish to a small black speck before it turned at a tall maple tree and disappeared. The priest frowned. They had not entered the Tallard property. It was the Dansereau place they were visiting, and it was up for sale because Dansereau was a childless widower who had contributed heavily to the new church and now was in debt.
    The priest stood for several minutes in the road, his hands folded under his cross now. When he heard steps approaching he turned around to see Tallard’s farm manager coming from the store with a parcel under his arm. Blanchard touched his cap and the two men looked at each other, both with brown faces and large brown hands, black hair and black eyes, so thoroughly of the same Norman stock that they could understand each other without speaking.
    â€œGood day, Joseph.”
    Blanchard touched his cap again. “Good day, Father.”
    The priest spoke again and Blanchard came to a halt. “Mr. Tallard well?”
    â€œI would think so, Father. But he’s sure a busy man these days, with the war.”
    There was a pause during which they continued to sense each other. In Saint-Marc people were near to the priest or near to Athanase Tallard. Blanchard was near to Athanase, but this did not mean that he was hostile to the priest, or for that matter that anyone was hostile to anyone else. It was merely a subtle and accepted alignment of interests and personalities. Since the beginning of the war, some who had been near to Athanase haddrawn imperceptibly away because Athanase had taken a strong stand with the English in favour of full mobilization.
    The priest nodded down the road. “Are Mr. Tallard’s friends staying over the week-end?”
    Blanchard thought a moment as he looked at the ground. “I don’t know for sure, Father. Mr. Tallard, he brought them over from the train.”
    â€œAre they old friends of his?”
    â€œI don’t think so, Father. One of them he didn’t know at all.”
    â€œThey’ve come to look at the Dansereau place?”
    â€œI guess.” Each man knew exactly what was in the other’s mind.
    â€œThey look like city men,” the priest said.
    Blanchard twisted his cap in his free hand. “They were English all right, Father.” He added after a moment’s reflection, “One of them got a wooden leg.”
    The two men looked at each other, and then Father Beaubien nodded and returned to his porch. Blanchard walked off down the road with a plodding gait, one arm hanging, the other clutching his parcel.
    The priest stood motionless for a long time. He could hardly believe that even Athanase Tallard would arrange for the sale of French land, land that belonged to his own people and once to his own family, to an English stranger. No English-Canadian had ever owned land in this parish.
    Father Beaubien made a quick calculation. He had thought of taking an option on the Dansereau place in the name of the Church, but it had not seemed necessary. Saint-Marc was not like the parishes in the Eastern Townships with English communities near at hand. In those places the Church always had to be quick with its option onavailable land, whether it happened to be French or English. But there was nothing to interest an Englishman in Saint-Marc. He thought the situation through carefully and was reassured after deciding there was no cause for alarm. It was in his nature to refuse to believe anything until it was proved.
    After a last look down the road he went into his presbytery and closed the door behind him.

 
    THREE
    Two hours later Athanase Tallard showed his guests into the library of his old seigniory house. The men stood for a few minutes warming themselves before a fire of birch logs that