"Let us skate to-night. I have tried the ice," said Schmidt, one afternoon in February. "Pearl learned, as you know, long ago." She was in town for a week, the conspirators feeling assured of René's resolution to wait on this, as on another matter, while he was busy with his double work. Her mother had grown rebellious over her long absence, and determined that she should remain in town, as there seemed to be no longer cause for fear and the girl was in perfect health. Aunt Gainor, also, was eager for town and piquet and well pleased with the excuse to return, having remained at the Hill long after her usual time.
"The moon is a fair, full matron," said Schmidt. "The ice is perfect. Look out for air-holes, René," he added, as he buckled on his skates. "Not ready yet?" René was kneeling and fastening the Pearl's skates. It took long.
"Oh, hurry!" she cried. "I cannot wait." She was joyous, excited, and he somehow awkward.
Then they were away over the shining, moonlighted ice of the broad Delaware with that exhilaration which is caused by swift movement, the easy product of perfect physical capacity. For a time they skated quietly side by side, Schmidt, as usual,enjoying an exercise in which, says Graydon in his memoirs, the gentlemen of Philadelphia were unrivaled. Nearer the city front, on the great ice plain, were many bonfires, about which phantom figures flitted now an instant black in profile, and then lost in the unillumined spaces, while far away, opposite to the town, hundreds of skaters carrying lanterns were seen or lost to view in the quick turns of the moving figures. "Like great fireflies," said Schmidt. A few dim lights in houses and frost-caught ships and faint, moonlit outlines alone revealed the place of the city. The cries and laughter were soon lost to the three skaters, and a vast solitude received them as they passed down the river.
"Ah, the gray moonlight and the gray ice!" said Schmidt, "a Quaker night, Pearl."
"And the moon a great pearl," she cried.
"How one feels the night!" said the German. "It is as on the Sahara. Only in the loneliness of great spaces am I able to feel eternity; for space is time." He had his quick bits of talk to himself. Both young people, more vaguely aware of some sense of awe in the dim unpeopled plain, were under the charm of immense physical joy in the magic of easily won motion.
"Surely there is nothing like it," said René, happy and breathless, having only of late learned to skate, whereas Pearl had long since been well taught by the German friend.
"No," said Schmidt; "there is nothing like it, except the quick sweep of a canoe down a rapid. A false turn of the paddle, and there is death. Oh,but there is joy in the added peril! The blood of the Angels finds the marge of danger sweet."
"Not for me," said Pearl; "but we are safe here."
"I have not found your Delaware a constant friend. How is that, René?"
"What dost thou mean?" said Pearl. "Thou art fond of teasing my curiosity, and I am curious, too. Tell me, please. Oh, but thou must!"
"Ask the vicomte," cried Schmidt. "He will tell you."
"Oh, will he, indeed?" said René, laughing. "Ah, I am quite out of breath."
"Then rest a little." As they halted, a swift skater, seeking the loneliness of the river below the town, approaching, spoke to Margaret, and then said: "Ah, Mr. Schmidt, what luck to find you! You were to give me a lesson. Why not now?"
"Come, then," returned Schmidt. "I brought you hither, René, because it is safer away from clumsy learners, and where we are the ice is safe. I was over it yesterday, but do not go far. I shall be back in a few minutes. If Margaret is tired, move up the river. I shall find you."
"Please not to be long," said Margaret.
"Make him tell you when your wicked Delaware was not my friend, and another was. Make him tell."
As he spoke, he was away behind young Mr. Morris, singing in his lusty bass snatches of German song and thinking of the ripe mischief of the trap he had baited with a nice little Cupid. "I want it to come soon," he said, "before I go. She will becurious and venture in, and it will be as good as the apple with knowledge of good and—no, there is evil in neither."
She was uneasy, she scarce knew why. Still at rest on the ice, she turned to De Courval. "Thou wilt tell me?" she said.
"I had rather not."
"But if I ask thee?"
"Why should I not?" he thought. It was against his habit to speak of himself, but she would perhaps like him the better for the story.
"Then, Miss Margaret, not because he asked and is willing, but because you ask, I shall tell you."
"Oh, I knew thou wouldst. He thought thou wouldst not and I should be left puzzled. Sometimes he is just like a boy for mischief."
"Oh, it was nothing. The first day I was here I saved him from drowning. A boat struck his head while we were swimming, and I had the luck to be near. There, that is all." He was a trifle ashamed to tell of it.
She put out her hand as they stood. "Thank thee. Twice I thank thee, for a dear life saved and because thou didst tell, not liking to tell me. I could see that. Thank thee."
"Ah, Pearl," he exclaimed, and what more he would have said I do not know, nor had he a chance, for she cried: "I shall thank thee always, Friend de Courval. We are losing time." The peril that gives a keener joy to sport was for a time far too near, but in other form than in bodily risk. "Come, canst thou catch me?" She was off and away, nownear, now far, circling about him with easy grace, merrily laughing as he sped after her in vain. Then of a sudden she cried out and came to a standstill.
"A strap broke, and I have turned my ankle. Oh, I cannot move a step! What shall I do?"
"Sit down on the ice."
As she sat, he undid her skates and then his own and tied them to his belt. "Can you walk?" he said.
"I will try. Ah!" She was in pain. "Call Mr. Schmidt," she said. "Call him at once."
"I do not see him. We were to meet him opposite the Swedes' church."
"Then go and find him."
"What, leave you? Not I. Let me carry you."
"Oh, no, no; thou must not." But in a moment he had the slight figure in his arms.
"Let me down! I will never, never forgive thee!" But he only said in a voice of resolute command, "Keep still, Pearl, or I shall fall." She was silent. Did she like it, the strong arms about her, the head on his shoulder, the heart throbbing as never before? He spoke no more, but moved carefully on.
They had not gone a hundred yards when he heard Schmidt calling. At once he set her down, saying, "Am I forgiven?"
"No—yes," she said faintly.
"Pearl, dear Pearl, I love you. I meant not to speak, oh, for a time, but it has been too much for me. Say just a word." But she was silent as Schmidt stopped beside them and René in a few words explained.
"Was it here?" asked Schmidt.
"No; a little while ago."
"But how did you come so far, my poor child?"
"Oh, I managed," she said.
"Indeed. I shall carry you."
"If thou wilt, please. I am in much pain."
He took off his skates, and with easy strength walked away over the ice, the girl in his arms, so that before long she was at home and in her mother's care, to be at rest for some days.
"Come in, René," said Schmidt, as later they settled themselves for the usual smoke and chat. The German said presently: "It was not a very bad sprain. Did you carry her, René?"
"I—"
"Yes. Do you think, man, that I cannot see!"
"Yes, I carried her. What else could I do?"
"Humph! What else? Nothing. Was she heavy, Herr de Courval?"
"Please not to tease me, sir. You must know that, God willing, I shall marry her."
"Will you, indeed! And your mother, René, will she like it?"
"No; but soon or late she will have to like it. For her I am still a child, but now I shall go my way."
"And Pearl?"
"I mean to know, to hear. I can wait no longer. Would it please you, sir?"
"Mightily, my son; and when it comes to the mother, I must say a word or two."
"She will not like that. She likes no one to come between us."
"Well, we shall see. I should be more easy if only that Jacobin hound were dead, or past barking. He is in a bad way, I hear. I could have wished that you had been of a mind to have waited a little longer before you spoke to her."
René smiled. "Why did you leave us alone to-night? It is you, sir, who are responsible."
"Potstausend! Donnerwetter!You saucy boy! Go to bed and repent. There are only two languages in which a man can find good, fat, mouth-filling oaths, and the English oaths are too naughty for a good Quaker house."
"You seem to have found one, sir. It sounds like thunder. We can do it pretty well in French."
"Child's talk, prattle. Go to bed. What will the mother say? Oh, not yours. Madame Swanwick has her own share of pride. Can't you wait a while?"
"No. I must know."
"Well, Mr. Obstinate Man, we shall see." The wisdom of waiting he saw, and yet he had deliberately been false to the advice he had more than once given. René left him, and Schmidt turned, as he loved to do, to the counselor Montaigne, just now his busy-minded comrade, and, lighting upon the chapter on reading, saw what pleased him.
"That is good advice, in life and for books. To have a 'skipping wit.' We must skip a little time. I was foolish. How many threads there are in this tangle men call life!" And with this he read over the letters just come that morning from Germany. Then he considered Carteaux again.
"If that fellow is tormented into taking his revenge, and I should be away, as I may be, there will be the deuce to pay.
"Perhaps I might have given René wiser advice; but with no proof concerning the fate of the despatch, there was no course which was entirely satisfactory. Best to let the sleeping dog lie. But why did I leave them on the ice?Sapristi!I am as bad as Mistress Gainor. But she is not caught yet, Master René."
In few days Margaret was able to be afoot, although still lame; but René had no chance to see her. She was not to be caught alone, and would go on a long-promised visit to Merion. Thus February passed, and March, and April came, when personal and political matters abruptly broke up for a time their peaceful household.
Margaret had been long at home again, but still with a woman's wit she avoided her lover. Aunt Gainor, ever busy, came and went, always with a dozen things to do.
Her attentions to Madame de Courval lessened when that lady no longer needed her kindness and, as soon happened, ceased to be interesting. She would not gamble, and the two women had little in common. Miss Gainor's regard for René was more lasting. He was well-built and handsome, and all her life she had had a fancy for good looks in men. He had, too, the virile qualities she liked and a certain steadiness of purpose which took small account of obstacles and reminded her of her nephew Hugh Wynne. Above all, he had been successful, and she despised people who failed and too often regarded success as a proof of the right to succeed, even when the means employed were less creditable than thoseby which René had made his way. Moreover, had he not told her once that her French was wonderful? Miss Gainor changed her favorites often, but René kept in her good graces and was blamed only because he did not give her as much of his time as she desired; for after she heard his history from Schmidt, he won a place in her esteem which few men had ever held. She had set her heart at last on his winning Margaret, and the lifelong game of gambling with other folks' fortunes and an honest idolatry for the heroic, inclined her to forgive a lack of attention due in a measure to his increasing occupations.
To keep her eager hands off this promising bit of match-making had been rather a trial, but Schmidt was one of the few people of whom she had any fear, and she had promised not to meddle. At present she had begun to think that the two human pawns in the game she loved were becoming indifferent, and to let things alone was something to which she had never been inclined. Had she become aware of the German's mild treachery that night on the ice, she would in all likelihood have been angry at first and then pleased or annoyed not to have had a hand in the matter.
Mistress Wynne, even in the great war, rarely allowed her violent politics to interfere with piquet, and now Mr. Dallas had asked leave to bring Fauchet, the new French minister, to call upon her. He was gay, amusing, talked no politics, played piquet nearly as well as she, and was enchanted, as he assured her, to hear French spoken without accent.If to De la Forêt, the consul-general, he made merry concerning his travels in China, as he called her drawing-room, saying it was perilously over-populous with strange gods, she did not hear it, nor would she have cared so long as she won the money of the French republic.
One evening in early April, after a long series of games, he said: "I wish I could have brought here my secretary Carteaux. He did play to perfection, but now, poor devil, the wound he received has palsied his right arm, and he will never hold cards again—or, what he thinks worse, a foil. It was a strange attack."
"Does he suffer? I have heard about him."
"Horribly. He is soon going home to see if our surgeons can find the bullet; but he is plainly failing."
"Oh, he is going home?"
"Yes; very soon."
"How did it all happen? It has been much talked about, but one never knows what to believe."
"I sent him to New York with despatches for our foreign office, but theJean Bartmust have sailed without them; for he was waylaid, shot, and robbed of the papers, but lost no valuables."
"Then it was not highwaymen?"
"No; I can only conjecture who were concerned. It was plainly a robbery in the interest of the Federalists. I do not think Mr. Randolph could have these despatches, or if he has, they will never be heard of." Upon this he smiled.
"Then they are lost?"
"Yes. At least to our foreign office. I think Mr. Wolcott of the Treasury would have liked to see them."
"But why? Why Mr. Wolcott?" She showed her curiosity quite too plainly.
"Ah, that is politics, and Madame forbids them."
"Yes—usually; but this affair of Monsieur Carteaux cannot be political. It seems to me an incredible explanation."
"Certainly a most unfortunate business," said the minister.
He had said too much and was on his guard. He had, however, set the spinster to thinking, and remembering what Schmidt had told her of De Courval, her reflections were fertile. "Shall we have another game?"
A month before the day on which they played, theJean Bart, since November of 1794 at sea, after seizing an English merchantman was overhauled in the channel by the British frigateCerberusand compelled to surrender. The captain threw overboard his lead-weighted signal-book and the packet of Fauchet's despatches. A sailor of the merchant ship, seeing it float, jumped overboard from a boat and rescued it. Upon discovering its value, Captain Drew of theCerberusforwarded the despatches to Lord Grenville in London, who in turn sent them as valuable weapons to Mr. Hammond, the English minister in Philadelphia. There was that in them which might discredit one earnest enemy of the English treaty, but months went by before the papers reached America.
Miss Gainor, suspecting her favorite's share in this much-talked-of affair, made haste to tell Schmidt of the intention of Carteaux to sail, to the relief of the German gentleman, who frankly confided to her the whole story. He spoke also once more of De Courval and urged her for every reason to leave the young people to settle their own affairs. Meanwhile Josiah was in bed with well-earned gout.
On the afternoon of the 14th of April, René came home from the State office and said to Schmidt: "I have had paid me a great compliment, but whether I entirely like it or not, I do not know. As usual, I turn to you for advice."
"Well, what is it!"
"The President wants some one he can trust to go to the western counties of this State and report on the continued disturbance about the excise tax. I thought the thing was at an end. Mr. Hamilton, who seems to have the ear of the President, advised him that as a thoroughly neutral man I could be trusted. Mr. Randolph thinks it a needless errand."
"No. It is by no means needless. I have lands near Pittsburg, as you know, and I hear of much disaffection. The old fox, Jefferson, at Monticello talks about the excise tax as 'infernal,' and what with the new treaty and Congress and other things the Democrats are making trouble enough for a weak cabinet and a strong President. I advise you to accept. You can serve me, too. Take it. You are fretting here for more reasons than one. I hear that Carteaux is out of bed, a crippled wreck, and Fauchet says is soon to go to France. In Augustthe minister himself will leave and one Adet take his place. I think you may go with an easy mind. We are to be rid of the whole pestilent lot."
"Then I shall accept and go as soon as I receive my instructions. But I do dread to leave town. I shall go, but am at ease only since you will be here."
"But I shall not be, René. I have hesitated to tell you. I am called home to Germany, and shall sail from New York for England on to-day a week. I shall return, I think; but I am not sure, nor if then I can remain. It is an imperative call. I am, it seems, pardoned, and my father is urgent, and my elder brother is dead. If you have learned to know me, you will feel for me the pain with which I leave this simpler life for one which has never held for me any charm. Since Carteaux is soon to sail, and I hear it is certain, I feel less troubled. I hope to be here again in August or later. You may, I think, count on my return."
"Have you told Mrs. Swanwick, sir?"
"Yes, and the Pearl. Ah, my son, the one thing in life I have craved is affection; and now—"
"No one will miss you as I shall—no one—" He could say no more.
"You will of course have charge of my affairs, and Mr. Wilson has my power of attorney, and there is Hamilton at need. Ah, but I have had a scene with these most dear people!"
The time passed quickly for De Courval. He himself was to be gone at least two months. There was a week to go, as he must, on horseback, and as much to return. There were wide spaces of country tocover and much business to settle for Schmidt. His stay was uncertain and not without risks.
Over three weeks went by before he could be spared from the thinly officered department. Schmidt had long since gone, and René sat alone in the library at night and missed the large mind and a temperament gayer than his own. His mother had asked no questions concerning Carteaux, and as long as there was doubt in regard to his course, he had been unwilling to mention him; but now he felt that he should speak freely and set his mother's mind at rest before he went away.
Neither, despite what he was sure would be the stern opposition he would have to encounter from his mother, could he go without a word to Margaret—a word that would settle his fate and hers. The Carteaux business was at an end. He felt free to act. Fortune for once favored him. Since he had spoken to his mother of his journey and the lessened household knew of it, Pearl had even more sedulously avoided the pleasant talks in the garden and the rides, now rare, with Aunt Gainor and himself. The mother, more and more uneasy, had spoken to her daughter very decidedly, and Madame grew less familiarly kind to the girl; while she herself, with a mind as yet in doubt, had also her share of pride and believed that the young vicomte had ceased to care for her, else would he not have created an opportunity to say what long ago that night on the ice seemed to make a matter of honor? She was puzzled by his silence, a little vexed and not quite sure of herself.
He put off to the last moment his talk with his mother and watched in vain for a chance to speak to Margaret. His instructions were ready, his last visits made. He had had an unforgettable half-hour with the President and a talk with Hamilton, now on a visit from New York. The ex-secretary asked him why he did not cast in his lot frankly with the new land, as he himself had done. He would have to give notice in court and renounce his allegiance to his sovereign, so ran the new law.
"I have no sovereign," he replied, "and worthless as it now seems, I will not renounce my title, as your law requires."
"Nor would I," said Hamilton. "You will go home some day. The chaos in France will find a master. The people are weary of change and will accept any permanent rule."
"Yes, I hope to return. Such is my intention," and they fell into talk of Schmidt.
De Courval's last day in the city had come. Schmidt had left him the free use of his horses, and he would try one lately bought to see how it would answer for his long journey.
About eleven of a sunny June morning he mounted and rode westward up Chestnut Street. At Fifth and Chestnut streets, Congress having just adjourned, the members were coming out of the brick building which still stands at the corner. He knew many, and bowed to Gallatin and Fisher Ames. Mr. Madison stopped him to say a word about the distasteful English treaty. Then at a walk he rode on toward the Schuylkill, deep in thought.
Beyond Seventh there was as yet open country, with few houses. It was two years since, a stranger, he had fallen among friends in the Red City, made for himself a sufficient income and an honorable name and won the esteem of men. Schmidt, Margaret, the Wynnes; his encounters with Carteaux, the yellow plague, passed through his mind. God had indeed dealt kindly with the exiles. As he came near to the river and rode into the thinned forest known as the Governor's Woods, he saw Nanny seated at the roadside.
"What are you doing here, Nanny?" he asked.
"The missus sent me with Miss Margaret to carry a basket of stuff to help some no-account colored people lives up that road. I has to wait."
"Ah!" he exclaimed, and, dismounting, tied his horse. "At last," he said, and went away up the wood road. Far in the open forest he saw her coming, her Quaker bonnet swinging on her arm.
"Oh, Miss Margaret!" he cried. "I am glad to have found you. You know I am going away to-morrow for two months at least. It is a hard journey, not without some risk, and I cannot go without a word with you. Why have you avoided me as you have done?"
"Have I?" she replied.
"Yes; and you know it."
"I thought—I thought—oh, let me go home!"
"No; not till you hear me. Can you let me leave in this way without a word? I do not mean that it shall be. Sit down here on this log and listen to me." He caught her hand.
"Please, I must go."
"No; not yet. Sit down here. I shall not keep you long—a woman who wants none of me. But I have much to say—explanations, ah, much to say." She sat down.
"I will hear thee, but—"
"Oh, you will hear me? Yes, because you must? Go, if you will. It will be my answer."
"I think the time and the place ill chosen,"—she spoke with simple dignity,—"but I will hear thee."
"I have had no chance but this. You must pardon me." She looked down and listened. "It is a simple matter. I have loved you long. No other love has ever troubled my life. Save my mother, I have no one. What might have been the loves for brothers and sisters are all yours, a love beyond all other loves, the love of a lonely man. Whether or not you permit me to be something more, I shall still owe you a debt the years can never make me forget—the remembrance of what my life beside you in your home has given me."
The intent face, the hands clasped in her lap, might have shown him how deeply she was moved; for now at last that she had heard him she knew surely that she loved him. The long discipline of Friends in controlling at least the outward expression of emotion came to her aid as often before. She felt how easy it would have been to give him the answer he longed for; but there were others to think about, and from her childhood she had been taught the lesson of consideration for her elders. She setherself to reply to him with stern repression of feeling not very readily governed.
"How can I answer thee? What would thy mother say?" He knew then what her answer might have been. She, too, had her pride, and he liked her the more for that.
"Thou art a French noble. I am a plain Quaker girl without means. There would be reason in the opposition thy mother would make."
"A French noble!" he laughed. "A banished exile, landless and poor—a pretty match I am. But, Pearl, the future is mine. I have succeeded here, where my countrymen starve. I have won honor, respect, and trust. I would add love."
"I know, I know; but—"
"It is vain to put me off with talk of others. I think you do care for me. My mother will summon all her prejudices and in the end will yield. It is very simple, Pearl. I ask only a word. If you say yes, whatever may then come, we will meet with courage and respect. Do you love me, Pearl?"
She said faintly, "Yes."
He sat silent a moment, and then said, "I thank God!" and, lifting her hand, kissed it.
"Oh, René," she cried, "what have I done?" and she burst into tears. "I did not mean to."
"Is it so hard, dear Pearl? I have made you cry."
"No, it is not hard; but it is that I am ashamed to think that I loved thee long—long before thou didst care for me. Love thee, René! Thou dost not dream how—how I love thee."
"'I know, I know, but—'""'I know, I know, but—'"
Her reticence, her trained reserve, were lost in this passion of long-restrained love. Ah, here was Schmidt's Quaker Juliet!
He drew her to him and kissed her wet cheek. "You will never, never regret," he said. "All else is of no moment. We love each other. That is all now. I have so far never failed in anything, and I shall not now."
He had waited long, he said, and for good reasons. Some day, but not now in an hour of joy, he would tell her the story of his life, a sad one, and of why he had been what men call brutal to Carteaux and why their friend Schmidt, who knew of his love, had urged him to wait. She must trust him yet a little while longer.
"And have I not trusted thee?"
"Yes, Pearl."
"We knew, mother and I, knowing thee as we did, that there must be more cause for that dreadful duel than we could see."
"More? Yes, dear, and more beyond it; but it is all over now. The man I would have killed is going to France."
"Oh, René—killed!"
"Yes, and gladly. The man goes back to France and my skies are clear for love to grow."
He would kill! A strange sense of surprise arose in her mind, and the thought of how little even now she knew of the man she loved and trusted. "I can wait, René," she said, "and oh, I am so glad; but mother—I have never had a secret from her, never."
"Tell her," he said; "but then let it rest between us until I come back."
"That would be best, and now I must go."
"Yes, but a moment, Pearl. Long ago, the day after we landed, a sad and friendless man, I walked out to the river and washed away my cares in the blessed waters. On my return, I sat on this very log, and talked to some woodmen, and asked the name of a modest flower. They said, 'We call it the Quaker lady.' And to think that just here I should find again, my Quaker lady."
"But I am not a Quaker lady. I am a naughty 'Separatist,' as Friends call it. Come, I must go, René. I shall say good-by to thee to-night. Thou wilt be off early, I do suppose. And oh, it will be a weary time while thou art away!"
"I shall be gone by six in the morning."
"And I sound asleep," she returned, smiling. He left her at the roadside with Nanny, and, mounting, rode away.
The widow allowed no one to care for Schmidt's library except her daughter or herself. It contained little of value except books, but even those Indian arrow-heads he found on Tinicum Island and the strange bones from near Valley Forge were dusted with care and regarded with the more curiosity because, even to the German, they spoke no language the world as yet could read.
As she turned from her task and Margaret entered, she saw in her face the signal of something to be told. It needed not the words, "Oh, mother," as she closed the door behind her—"oh, mother, I am afraid I have done a wrong thing; but I met René de Courval,—I mean, he met me,—and—and he asked me to marry him—and I will; no one shall stop me." There was a note of anticipative defiance in the young voice as she spoke.
"Sit down, dear child."
The girl sunk on a cushion at her feet, her head in the mother's lap. "I could not help it," she murmured, sobbing.
"I saw this would come to thee, long ago," said the mother. "I had hoped thou wouldst be so guided as not to let thy heart get the better of thy head."
"It is my head has got me into this—this sweettrouble. Thou knowest that I have had others, and some who had thy favor; but, mother, here for two years I have lived day by day in the house with René, and have seen him so living as to win esteem and honor, a tender son to his mother, and so respectful to thee, who, for her, art only the keeper of a boarding-house. Thou knowest what Friend Schmidt says of him. I heard him tell Friend Hamilton. He said—he said he was a gallant gentleman, and he wished he were his son. You see, mother, it was first respect and then—love. Oh, mother, that duel! I knew as I saw him carried in that I loved him." She spoke rapidly, with little breaks in her voice, and now was silent.
"It is bad, very bad, my child. I see no end of trouble—oh, it is bad, bad, for thee and for him!"
"It is good, good, mother, for me and for him. He has waited long. There has been something, I do not know what, kept him from speaking sooner. It is over now."
"I do not see what there could have been, unless it were his mother. It may well be that. Does she know?"
"When he comes back he will tell her."
"I do not like it, and I dislike needless mysteries. From a worldly point of view,—and I at least, who have drunk deep of poverty, must somewhat think for thee. Here are two people without competent means—"
"But I love him."
"And his mother?"
"But I love him." She had no other logic. "Oh,I wish Mr. Schmidt were here! René says he will like it."
"That, at least, is a good thing." Both were silent a little while. Mrs. Swanwick had been long used to defer to the German's opinions, but looking far past love's limited horizon, the widow thought of the certain anger of the mother, of the trap she in her pride would think set for her son by designing people, her prejudices intensified by the mere fact of the poverty which left her nothing but exaggerated estimates of her son and what he was entitled to demand of the woman he should some day marry. And too, René had often spoken of a return to France. She said at last: "We will leave the matter now, and speak of it to no one; but I should say to thee, my dear, that apart from what for thy sake I should consider, and the one sad thing of his willingness to avenge a hasty word by possibly killing a fellow-man,—how terrible!—apart from these things, there is no one I had been more willing to give thee to than René de Courval."
"Thank thee, mother." The evil hour when the vicomtesse must hear was at least remote, and something akin to anger rose in the widow's mind as she thought of it.
René came in to supper. Mrs. Swanwick was as usual quiet, asking questions in regard to Margaret's errand of charity, but of a mind to win time for reflection, and unwilling as yet to open the subject with René.
When, late in the evening, he came out of the study where he had been busy with the instructions left bySchmidt, he was annoyed to learn that Margaret had gone up-stairs. There was still before him the task of speaking to his mother of what he was sure was often in her mind, Carteaux. She had learned from the gossip of guests that a Frenchman had been set upon near Bristol and had been robbed and wounded. Incurious and self-centered, the affairs of the outer world had for her but little real interest. Now she must have her mind set at ease, for René well knew that she had not expected him to rest contented or to be satisfied with the result of his unfortunate duel. Her puritan creed was powerless here as against her social training, and her sense of what so hideous a wrong as her husband's murder should exact from his son.
"I have something to tell you,maman," he said; "and before I go, it is well that I should tell you."
"Well, what is it?" she said coldly, and then, as before, uneasily anxious.
"On the twenty-ninth of November I learned that Carteaux had started for New York an hour before I heard of it, on his way to France. I had waited long—undecided, fearing that again some evil chance might leave you alone in a strange land."
"You did wrong, René. There are duties which ought to permit of no such indecision. You should not have considered me for a moment. Go on."
"How could I help it, thinking of you, mother? I followed, and overtook this man near Bristol. I meant no chance with the sword this time. He was unarmed. I gave him the choice of my pistols, bade him pace the distance, and give the word. Hewalked away some six feet, half the distance, and, turning suddenly, fired, grazing my shoulder. I shot him—ah, a terrible wound in arm and shoulder. Schmidt had found a note I left for him, and, missing his pistols, inquired at the French legation, and came up in time to see it all and to prevent me from killing the man."
"Pre—vent you! How did he dare!"
"Yes, mother; and it was well. Schmidt found, when binding up his wound, that he was carrying despatches from the Republican Minister Fauchet to go by the corvetteJean Bart, waiting in New York Harbor."
"What difference did that make?"
"Why, mother, I am in the State Department. To have killed a member of the French legation, or stopped his journey, would have been ruin to me and a weapon in the hands of these mock Jacobins."
"But you did stop him."
"Yes; but I delivered the despatch myself to the corvette."
"Yes, you were right; but what next? He must have spoken."
"No. The threat from Schmidt that he would tell the whole story of Avignon and his treachery to me has made him lie and say he had been set upon by unknown persons and robbed of his papers. He has wisely held his tongue. He is crippled for life and has suffered horribly. Now he goes to France a broken, miserable man, punished as death's release could not punish."
"I do not know that. I have faith in the vengeanceof God. You should have killed him. You did not. And so I suppose there is an end of it for a time. Is that all, René?"
"Yes, that is all. The loss of the despatch remains a mystery, and the Democrats are foolish enough to believe we have it in the foreign office. No one of them but Carteaux knows and he dare not speak. The despatch will never come back here, or if it does, Carteaux will have gone. People have ceased to talk about it, and now, mother, I am going away with an easy mind. Do not worry over this matter. Good night."
"Worry?" she cried. "Ah, I would have killed the Jacobin dog!"
"I meant to," he said, and left her.
At dawn he was up and had his breakfast and there was Pearl in the hall and her hands on his two shoulders. "Kiss me," she said. "God bless and guard thee, René!"
While Schmidt was far on his homeward way, De Courval rode through the German settlements of Pennsylvania and into the thinly settled Scotch-Irish clearings beyond the Alleghanies, a long and tedious journey, with much need to spare his horse.
His letters to government officers in the village of Pittsburg greatly aided him in his more remote rides. He settled some of Schmidt's land business, and rode with a young soldier's interest over Braddock's fatal field, thinking of the great career of the youthful colonel who was one of the few who kept either his head or his scalp on that day of disaster.
He found time also to prepare for his superiors a reassuring report, and on July 18 set out on his return. He had heard nothing from his mother or from any one else. The mails were irregular and slow,—perhaps one a week,—and very often a flood or an overturned coach accounted for letters never heard of again. There would be much to hear at home.
On July Fourth of 1795, while the bells were ringing in memory of the nation's birthday, Fauchet sat in his office at Oeller's Hotel. He had been recalled and was for various reasons greatly troubled. Thereaction in France against the Jacobins had set in, and they, in turn were suffering from the violence of the returning royalists and the outbreaks of the Catholic peasantry in the south. Marat's bust had been thrown into the gutter and the Jacobin clubs closed. The minister had been able to do nothing of value to stop the Jay treaty. The despatch on which he had relied to give such information as might enable his superiors to direct him and assure them of his efforts to stop the treaty had disappeared eight months ago, as he believed by a bold robbery in the interest of the English party, possibly favored by the cabinet, which, as he had to confess, was less likely. He was angry as he thought of it and uneasy as concerned his future in distracted France. He had questioned Carteaux again and again but had never been quite satisfied. The theft of the despatch had for a time served his purpose, but had been of no practical value. The treaty with England would go to the senate and he return home, a discredited diplomatic failure. Meanwhile, in the trying heat of summer, as during all the long winter months, Carteaux lay for the most part abed, in such misery as might have moved to pity even the man whose bullet had punished him so savagely. At last he was able to sit up for a time every day and to arrange with the captain of a French frigate, then in port, for his return to France.
Late in June he had dismissed Chovet with only a promise to pay what was in fact hard-earned money. Dr. Glentworth, Washington's surgeon, had replaced him, and talked of an amputation, uponwhich, cursing doctors in general, Carteaux swore that he would prefer to die.
Chovet, who dosed his sick folk with gossip when other means failed, left with this ungrateful patient one piece of news which excited Carteaux's interest. Schmidt, he was told, had gone to Europe, and then, inaccurate as usual, Chovet declared that it was like enough he would never return, a fact which acquired interest for the doctor himself as soon as it became improbable that Carteaux would pay his bill. When a few days later Carteaux learned from De la Forêt that his enemy De Courval was to be absent for several weeks, and perhaps beyond the time set for his own departure, he began with vengeful hope to reconsider a situation which had so far seemed without resource.
Resolved at last to make for De Courval all the mischief possible before his own departure, with such thought as his sad state allowed he had slowly matured in his mind a statement which seemed to him satisfactorily malignant. Accordingly on this Fourth of July he sent his black servant to ask the minister to come to his chamber.
Fauchet, somewhat curious, sat down by the bedside and parting the chintz curtains, said, "I trust you are better."
The voice which came from the shadowed space within was weak and hoarse. "I am not better—I never shall be, and I have little hope of reaching home alive."
"I hoped it not as bad as that."
"And still it is as I say. I do not want to diewithout confessing to you the truth about that affair in which I was shot and my despatch stolen."
Men who had lived through the years of the French Revolution were not readily astonished, but at this statement the Minister sat up and exclaimed: "Mon Dieu!What is this?"
"I am in damnable pain; I must be brief. I was waylaid near Bristol by Schmidt and De Courval, and when I would not stop, was shot by De Courval. They stole the despatch, and made me swear on threat of death that I had been attacked by men I did not know."
Fauchet was silent for a while, and then said: "That is a singular story—and that you kept the promise, still more singular."
"I did keep it. I had good reason to keep it." He realized, as he told the tale, how improbable it sounded, how entirely Fauchet disbelieved him. If he had not been dulled by opiates and racked past power of critical thought, he was far too able a man to have put forth so childish a tale. He knew at once that he was not believed.
"You do not believe me, Citizen."
"I do not. Why did you not tell me the truth at first?"
"It was not the threat to kill me which stopped me. I was of the tribunal at Avignon which condemned theci-devantvicomte, the young man's father. To have had it known here would have been a serious thing to our party and for me ruin. I was ill, feeble, in their hands, and I promised Schmidt that I would put it all on some unknown person."
Fauchet listened. He entirely distrusted him. "Is that all? Do you expect any reasonable man to believe such a story?"
"Yes, I do. If I had told you at the time, you would have used my statement at once and I should have suffered. Now that both these cursed villains are gone, I can speak."
"Indeed," said Fauchet, very desirous of a look at the face secure from observation within the curtained bed, "but why do you speak now! It is late. Why speak at all?"
"For revenge, Monsieur. I am in hell."
Fauchet hesitated. "That is a good reason; but there is more in this matter than you are willing to tell."
"That is my business. I have told you enough to satisfy my purpose and yours."
"Rather late for mine. But let us understand each other. This man, then, this De Courval, had a double motive—to avenge his father's death and to serve his masters, the Federalists. That is your opinion?"
"Yes, his desire for revenge made him an easy tool. I cannot talk any more. What shall you do about it?"
"I must think. I do not know. You are either a great fool or a coward or both. I only half trust you."
"Ah, were I well, Monsieur, no man should talk to me as you are doing."
"Luckily for me you are not well; but will you swear to this, to a written statement?"
"I will." Whether it was to be a truthful statement or not concerned the minister but little if he could make use of it. Upon this, the consul-general and a secretary, Le Blanc, being called in, to their amazement Carteaux dictated a plain statement and signed it with his left hand, the two officials acting as witnesses.
The minister read it aloud: