CHAPTER XVIIIPAPA LOUIS TELLS A STORY
Everythingwas gay and smiling in and around the home of the Merciers on that day when Alaine arrived. The door was open and there was the sound of some one singing as Alaine used to sing. “How soon one is forgotten!” she whispered to Madam van der Deen.
The goede vrouw shook her head. “That does not count. One sometimes sings to cover up a heartache.”
But in this instance this was not so, for, as Alaine stopped before the door and looked in, she saw a brisk little figure stepping back and forth before the spinning-wheel. Her thread broke short with a snap as she saw who was arrived. “Nomme de Dieu!” she cried, turning pale and staring at Alaine as if she saw a ghost.
“Mathilde!” cried Alaine, holding out her hands. “Mathilde, and do you not know me?”
Then with a scream Mathilde darted toward her, kissed her on each cheek, pinched her, patted her, all the time exclaiming between tears and laughter.
“Michelle, and Papa Louis, and Gerard, where are they?” at last Alaine, recovering from the embraces, found voice to ask.
“I will call them. They do not know? Ciel! but this is a good day. I will not stop to question, though I am dying to know how it is that you come, and all of it.” She but stopped to drop a courtesy to the friends, whom Alaine named, and was off.
Familiar, yet unfamiliar, the place looked to Alaine. The little table still held the small black books; there was the big chair on its rollers; yonder the high-post bedsteads, yet the dim blue hangings had been exchanged for a soft yellow, with a delicate tracery of vine bordering them, and they were further finished by a knitted fringe. A coverlet of the same linen adorned the bed, and this, too, was embroidered. Two painted feather fans ornamented the mantel, and a hand-screen lay on the table near by. Throughout the room there was a dainty feminine touch visible which had not been so observable before. Alaine noticed, too, that one of the doors led to a room lately added. This she must see. There stood another high bed and a dressing-table decked with soft white draperies delicately embroidered.
She had not time to distinguish more, for a clatter of wooden shoes along the porch and a sound of voices scolding, protesting, laughing, proclaimed the coming of the Merciers. Michelle, in advance of the others, stopped short at sight of strangers, of Madam van der Deen and the sturdy Joachim; then she broke forth with a cry, “My child! My child! is it of her you bring me news? My little lost lamb?”
Alaine, half hidden by the curtains of the bed, sprang out. “Not lost, Michelle, dear Mère Michelle, but here, here! Look at me, see me, it is your own Alainette!”
Michelle turned to her husband for support “What shall I do? What shall I do? She has renounced her faith and her friends. She has become French,” and Michelle dropped upon a bench and covered her face with her hands.
Alaine knelt by her. “That she has not, Michelle. It was all a wicked lie meant to deceive you. I am still Alaine Mercier, your daughter and Papa Louis’s, if you will have it so. I have never returned to France. I have never become the wife of any one. I have never renounced my faith. Will you not welcome me again, Papa Louis and Gerard?”
For answer Papa Louis opened his arms, and Alaine went to him, resting her head on his shoulder and holding out her hand to Gerard. “And you, my brother?”
“Alaine, my sister.” He stooped and kissed her upon each cheek.
Then Michelle arose. “You claim her, all of you, when she was mine first, mine. My little baby all those years ago when my own little one died after they brought my young husband home to me, dead. My baby, who comforted me and who crept into my desolate heart. My girl, whom I cherished and cared for after her own sainted mother became an angel. Mine, whom I have cared for and wept over andnursed and loved. Go, all of you. Do not touch her, my little one, my baby, my heart. Come to me, my Alainette. I was dazed. I was blind. I was stupefied. Come to me, my baby, my daughter.”
Alaine’s arms went around Michelle’s neck. “God is good! God is good!” Michelle murmured, the tears running down her cheeks.
Meantime, Papa Louis turned to Mynheer van der Deen and his wife. “You will excuse this, my friends. We are overcome, and we forget to thank you for bringing us our daughter.”
“I want to know how it happened,” said Mathilde.
Alaine disengaged herself from Michelle’s embrace. “It is a long, long story. Can you hear it now? There are many things I, too, would know.” She looked from one to the other, and saw on the faces of Mathilde and Gerard a conscious smile. Then she understood. “You are married, you two! That is why——” She looked around the room. These pretty femininities were Mathilde’s work. She remembered how Mathilde had excelled in the use of her brush and her needle. She ran up to her and shook her playfully. “Tell me, is it true?”
“It is true,” laughed Mathilde. “It happened two weeks ago last Sunday at the church in Manhatte. We were married there. Tell her, Gerard.” She turned with a pretty bashful look at her young husband, who regarded her small self with admiring eyes.
He in his turn said, “Let Papa Louis tell the story; he is the best orator.”
“It was last winter that we first began to think of it; I should say that it was then that Michelle and I did so, for no doubt but that it had been interfering with the peace of these young persons long before that,” Papa Louis began. “Michelle there fell sick of a rheumatic fever and we all were in despair. The neighbors were kind, so very kind, but kindest of all was our little Mathilde, who came and helped to nurse her night and day. She did more than that, for she looked after the house so deftly that our good Michelle herself said that she could have done no better, and that Mathilde’s dainty touch was something that she could never hope to attain. For myself, I did not contradict her; an invalid must not be contradicted, you know.” His cheery laugh warmed Alaine’s heart, it was so pleasantly familiar.
“So, then, when our maman became herself again she was still too feeble to do all that she had heretofore, and while she was striving for strength came the letter from François Dupont, which was like a death-knell to our hope of seeing our daughter Alaine again, for not a day but that we had prayed and longed for her return. So, then, we said, she is lost to us forever. Then came the young Dutchman. Ah, said I, when I told him the news, here is one whose grief is as great as ours, and if it should be that Alaine returns, it is he who loves her too wellfor us to deny her to him. By this time it had become very plain to me where Gerard’s heart was placed, and I am a sentimental old man, I love the poets, I love the songs of romance, I do not like to break hearts, and here, I said, we shall make a mistake if we reserve Gerard for one who will not return, and even, as I half expected, if the news were false, even then, I thought, it will still be better, for it is Mathilde whom Gerard loves. Do not blush so, little bride, it is quite true. I said that, and I saw—— No, no, you are safely married; there is no harm in telling that I perceived that you loved him. It is quite natural, I said, for he is tall and she is so little; it is always that way. Observe my inches and then gaze upon my wife.” Every one laughed. There was never any resisting Papa Louis’s pleasantries.
“Now I come to the finale. By this time we were agreed that a daughter was an indispensable luxury. Since we cannot have Alaine, I say, why not Mathilde? ‘Why not, indeed,’ agreed Michelle, as if she had just thought of it, although I know the idea had kept her awake nights.”
“Ta, ta, Louis,” broke in Michelle, “that is not so. Mathilde’s nightcaps were always of a sort to make one sleep. To be sure, I thought of it—in the daytime.”
Papa Louis laughed. “Very well, then, we proceed. I approach Gerard with caution. I say, ‘My son, it would be well if you should marry. Wesuddenly seem old, my wife and I; we need younger hands, and yours, big as they are, cannot do everything.’ ‘Who, then, would you have me marry?’ asked Gerard, all expectant eyes and ears. I consider a moment. ‘How would Madelaine Theroulde please you?’ I say. He turned pale. You did, Gerard, though you shake your head. ‘She is a good girl,’ he said, ‘certainly, but——’ ‘Ah,’ I remark, ‘you say “but.” Then let us pass on. I think Michelle and I might be satisfied with some one else. What do you say to Adrienne Selaine?’ And then Gerard had no smile nor even a word for a moment or two. At last he blurted out, ‘And why not Mathilde Duval?’ I laughed then. I had a good laugh. ‘I have amused myself,’ I cried. ‘I desired to break it gently to you lest you faint, and I am not strong enough, Gerard, to carry you in, so I approached the subject with care. It was Mathilde whom, all the time, I meant.’ And, will you believe it? the undutiful son then and there fell upon me and pounded me, then he embraced me in so bearlike a manner that I have scarce since been able to breathe as freely as before, and the only way I could recover myself from his embrace of me was to gasp, ‘But Mathilde, Mathilde, we may not be able to receive the consent of her guardian.’ And then he dropped me and stood off staring at me. Do not laugh, Mathilde. I should not perhaps tell all this, for it is not best always to let a woman know her power. I never confess to Michelle how I tremble in her presence.”
Michelle shook her head at him. “We desire facts, Louis, and not fancies.”
He nodded at his audience as he would say, You see how I am ruled. “So, then,” he resumed, “we digress. He looked crestfallen. I assure him that I will at once proceed to the uncle of Mathilde. I go. I return shortly. I do not seem to see that Gerard has done much work in my absence, for he sits stupidly by the door listening to Mathilde’s singing.” Papa Louis put his head back and laughed again.
“I say as I enter, ‘Will you go to the garden, Gerard, and see how many chickens the yellow hen has hatched? Michelle wishes to know.’ ‘But M. Theroulde?’ says Gerard. ‘I have no message for you from M. Theroulde,’ I say, looking severe, ‘but I have one for Mathilde.’ He goes forth slowly as if his shoes were of iron instead of wood, and I enter the house. ‘Mathilde,’ I say, ‘Gerard has gone to count the yellow hen’s chickens. Will you go to him and tell him that when he has concluded the sum of them that I am waiting here with Michelle to bestow a blessing?’ Mathilde looked puzzled. ‘On the chickens?’ she asked. Ho! ho! she said that. ‘Not on the chickens, but on two geese,’ I reply. She ran out. I do not know yet if she understood, but one thing I do know: to this day I have not been told the number of the yellow hen chickens.”
“There were eleven,” said Michelle, gravely. And every one else burst into a hearty laugh.
“That is all my part of the story,” Papa Louis concluded. “Of the rest it better befits Michelle and Mathilde to tell. We are very well pleased, are we not, Mathilde?” He pinched her cheek and looked around with a smile for every one.
And then Michelle, arising to her duty as hostess, set out to prepare a feast for the visitors, while Alaine gave a recital of her experiences. That the dinner was not late was not due to the frequent interruptions caused by Michelle’s dropping suddenly in a chair to raise her eyes to heaven and to exclaim at the wickedness of man.
It was after the meal was over and the guests departed that Alaine, looking at Mathilde, said, “And Pierre?”
“He has not sent a word nor a line. We fear he is no more.”
Alaine sighed. Of her lovers, who were left? François, a wreck, a man whose days were numbered. Étienne, who had married another, and who had never been a possibility in Alaine’s opinion. The two who had loved her best, who of all had received affection from her, these were gone. She leaned back in her chair and slow tears rolled down her cheeks.
Mathilde came and stood over her. “So pale and wistful you look, dear Alaine, and I am too happy to be here before you. What can I do not to have it seem so great a contrast for you, my sister Alaine? For you are my sister.”
“And I never had one,” sighed Alaine.
“Think, then, now I have father, mother, sister, and brother, I who lately had no one. Think of that, Alaine. I, too, a year ago was desolate, and now how happy I am! If I needed anything to complete my joy, it was your return, and to-day brings me that. I can almost say I love France, I am so at peace. Do you know, my uncle will not speak French save at home, and he calls his children by the English names John and Margaret and James. He says he is not French, that this is his country and he owes it his allegiance, and so say I. Let us forget France, I tell Gerard. We have had merry times here together, and still shall have. Now that you return there will be occasion for many a frolic. I shall take you to a little festivity to-morrow, the fête-day of Suzanne Gombeau. We shall dance and sing, and you will be at home again among your friends.”
“Dance? I dance?” Alaine shook her head. “My heart is too heavy for me to be light-footed. I will stay at home, Mathilde.”
“We will see what Mère Michelle will say to that. She is so glad to-day she could dance herself, I think.”
Michelle stood gazing at her darling. “I cannot yet believe it,” she told her, “and I would hear more of those strange journeys of yours, of Father Bisset and Madame Herault. Well do I remember her, a handsome young woman so blithe and sobrilliant.” She shook her head. Alaine’s tale of Jeanne had greatly moved her. “And you knew not what became of her? That is strange,” she remarked at the close of Alaine’s tale of Jeanne’s disappearance.
“We do not know whether she was taken away by force or whether she went willingly. I hope the latter.” This had been the one thought which had given Alaine comfort. If Jeanne had accompanied the raiders on their retreat she might be able to lend some protection to Lendert, she and Ricard. The Indians, however, might have become enraged at what they felt to be treachery on Jeanne’s part and she, too, might be prisoner.
To Alaine it seemed years ago that all those strange things had happened. In a year she had travelled far, had suffered the sorrows of a lifetime, yet here she was again in this quiet corner of the world. The twittering birds, the soft tinkling of some musical instrument, treasured by a neighbor and brought over from France with great care, the old familiar sounds came in through the open window. Here was rest for brain and body, for all but her aching heart. And strange, in the midst of her prayers that night arose a thought of François. “Lord have mercy,” she again faltered.
And François? Only his iron will took him safely through the fatigues of the next few days. After a night’s rest he had demanded that Adriaen should see certain officials for him. “I will receivethem here,” he said. “You will explain why I do not present myself in person.”
His message was received courteously, and following Adriaen’s account of him came a visit from two of the dignitaries of the place. The courage with which François faced them, his Spartan-like endurance, and his compelling presence won their attention and they found themselves interested, so that before they left they had promised to make immediate efforts to arrange for an exchange.
Then François dismissed Adriaen. “Go to your sweetheart,” he said. “I will get you to hire me a man, and then I will do.” He took the young man’s hand in his. “You have been a good friend, Adriaen, and I wish you all the happiness that I have missed. Tell your little Trynje that I thank her for lending you to me. I should not have been able to get through without you. And say to her that for what I have made her friend suffer I have no words in which to ask forgiveness. I remember now; the old priest said it: ‘Forgiveness is sweeter than revenge.’ I have come to see it. It was Alaine herself who showed me that. Now get me a good man, and then adieu, Adriaen.”
There were real tears in the young Dutchman’s eyes when he finally took his leave of his friend, and after he had gone François, with a deep sigh, shut his eyes. Then he set his mind upon what was to be done next.
What it was transpired not long after. For inexchange for a wounded Englishman François’s paralyzed body was sent on to Montreal. Here he was not long in setting his friends about his business. “I want to find,” he said, “a coureur de bois called Ricard le Nez. If he cannot be found, then one Edouard le Gros will do.”
And in due time it came to pass that Jeanne Crepin in her lodge in the wilderness saw borne past her door on a rude stretcher the body of a man. “Hold, Ricard!” she cried; “whom have you there?”
The bearers stopped. “A man who is all head and no body,” Ricard replied.
“I will see him.” She came and stood over the man. “Who are you? What do you here?” she asked.
“One question at a time, good sir or madam, I know not which,” replied François. “I am François Dupont, or what is left of that once lively individual.”
“Then you are a child of the Evil One,” returned Jeanne.
“Softly, softly, my good sir or madam. May I ask your name in return and how it is that you are so well acquainted with the family of Monsieur le Diable? since the putting of double questions seems to be the fashion in these parts.”
“I am Jeanne Crepin.”
“Ah, yes, to be sure.” He spoke as if searching his memory for a lost recollection. “I remember, Iremember. Your brother was a friend of mine. Father Bisset has perhaps mentioned me to you. No, I have it, I have it. I recognize you now, madam; it was you whom I saw during our little skirmish over in the English colony of New York, as they call it now. I remember. So, so.”
“What are you doing here?”
“What am I doing here? It is not I who can do at all; you perceive that I am a passive fact. I think, however, that it would be as well if we were to get on. I would doff my hat to you, madam, did I wear one. As it is, take my adieux in such courteous manner as may be best suited to the occasion, and consider that I have made my best obeisance. Advance, Ricard.”
Jeanne took up the line of march with the others. “Where do you carry him?” she asked.
“To the Indian village beyond.”
“Why does he go there?”
Ricard looked at her with a sidelong glance. “You would have to know him to guess why. I never knew stronger will in weaker body. How he has made this journey is past telling. He goes because he has heard that the young Dutchman is there.”
“Ah-h!” Jeanne compressed her lips and walked on in silence. From time to time she looked at François, whose eyes returned her glance with something of their old mischief.
“I see, madam,” he said at last, “twenty questionshave risen to your lips, yet none are uttered. You say, Why does he go to the Indian village? What does he intend to do if he discovers Lendert Verplanck there? How much does he know? How little does he know? What is to be done after all? and all that. Am I right?”
“You are right,” she returned, gravely.
“Then I will answer without further prelude. I go to the Indian village because there I have heard I will find Lendert Verplanck. I wish to see him, and if possible to set him free. And then I have really nothing more to do in this life. Love will do the rest.” He searched Jeanne’s face, over which a sudden softness spread.
“Ay,” she said, “love will do the rest, if love meets life.”
“Explain yourself, if you please.”
“Lendert Verplanck has been kept alive from day to day only on sufferance. At first they would have despatched him by slow torture without hesitation, but some interfered, Ricard and some others, and the Indians agreed to wait till they should reach the village. Arriving there, he was made to run the gauntlet, to believe that each day must be his last, and that the morrow would see the fires of torture kindled for him. But Petit Marc sits there watching. He declares that once they glut themselves with the Dutchman’s death, he, Petit Marc, has knowledge which will bring them terrible disaster.”
“This is interesting. Then why do they not despatchMonsieur Marc first? That would be my plan.”
Jeanne smiled a little ironically. “They know better, for Petit Marc has conveyed away one of them whom he holds as a hostage. They know that at a word from this big man——”
“Whom you call little——”
“That one of their braves will suffer as they would make the man Verplanck suffer. He knows them, this Marc. He knows their ways, their secrets. He has done them too many favors for them to regard him lightly. He sits there a guard over their prisoner, yet they will not give up the Dutchman.”
“They will, then,” said François. “Proceed a little more rapidly, Ricard.”