The Red City Part 6

"Thank you," said De Courval, a little overcome by his kindness. "My mother is in mourning, sir. She will, I fear, be unwilling to visit."

"Then my wife will come again. We may leave two good women to settle that; and now I must let you go." Then, seeing that De Courval lingered, he added, "Is there anything else?"

"Only a word of thanks, and may I ask why you are so good to us? I am--sadly unused to kindness. There was not much of it in England."

Wynne smiled. "I have heard a little about you--some things I liked--from my correspondents in Bristol and London; and, Vicomte, my mother was French. When you visit us at Merion you shall see her picture Stuart made for me from a miniature, and then you will understand why my heart goes out to all French people. But they are not easy to help, these unlucky n.o.bles who will neither beg nor do a man's work. Oh, you will see them, and I, too, more and more, I fear. Good morning."

With this the young man walked thoughtfully away. Hugh Wynne watched him for a moment, and said to himself, "A good deal of a man, that; Schmidt is right." And then, having seen much of men in war and peace, "there must be another side to him, as there was to me. I doubt he is all meekness. I must say a word to Mary Swanwick," and he remembered certain comments his wife had made on Margaret's budding beauty. Then he went in.

The thoughts of the young man were far from women. He went along the road beside Dock Creek, and stood a moment on the bridge, amused at the busy throng of which he was now to become a part. On the west side of Second Street a noisy crowd at a shop door excited his curiosity.

"What is that?" he asked a pa.s.sing mechanic. "I am a stranger here."

"Oh, that's a vandoo of lottery shares. The odd numbers sell high, specially the threes. That's what they're after."

"Thank you," said De Courval, and then, as he drew nearer, exclaimed, "_Mon Dieu!_" The auctioneer was perched on a barrel. Just below him stood a young Frenchman eagerly bidding on the coveted number 33. Not until De Courval was beside him was he disillusioned. It was not Carteaux, nor was the man, on nearer view, very like him. When clear of the small crowd, De Courval moved away slowly, vexed with himself and disturbed by one of those abrupt self-revelations which prove to a man how near he may be to emotional insurrection.

"If it had been he," he murmured, "I should have strangled him, ah, there at once." He had been imprudent, lacking in intelligence. He felt, too, how slightly impressed he had been by his mother's desire that he should dismiss from his life the dark hour of Avignon. More than a little dissatisfied, he put it all resolutely aside and began to reconsider the mercantile career before him. He was about to give up the social creed and ways in which he had been educated. He had never earned a sou, and was now to become a part of the life of trade, a thing which at one time would have seemed to him impossible. Would his mother like it? No; but for that there was no help, and some of it he would keep to himself. Thirty dollars would pay his own board, and he must draw on his small reserve until he made more. But there were clothes to get and he knew not what besides; nor did he altogether like it himself. He had served in the army two years, and had then been called home, where he was sorely needed. It would have been strange if, with his training and traditions, he had felt no repugnance at this prospect of a trader's life. But it was this or nothing, and having made his choice, he meant to abide by it. And thus, having settled the matter, he went on his way, taking in with observant eyes the wonders of this new country.

He made for his mother a neat little tale of how he was to oblige Mr.

Wynne by translating or writing French letters. Yes, the hours were long, but he was sure he should like it, and Mrs. Swanwick would, she had said, give him breakfast in time for him to be at his work by half after eight o'clock; and where was the letter which should be sent, and Mrs. Wynne would call. The vicomtesse wished for no company, and least of all for even the most respectable bourgeois society; but she supposed there was no help for it, and the boarding-house was very well, indeed, restful, and the people quiet. Would she be expected to say thou to them? Her son thought not, and after a rather silent noon dinner went out for a pull on the river with Schmidt, and bobbed for crabs to his satisfaction, while Schmidt at intervals let fall his queer phrases as the crabs let go the bait and slid off sideways.

"There is a man comes here to pester Mrs. Swanwick at times. He goes out of the doors sideways, there, like that fellow in the water--Monsieur Crab, I call him. He is meek and has claws which are critical and pinch until madame boils over, and then he gets red like a crab. That was when Pearl had of Miss Gainor a gold locket and a red ribbon, and wore it on a day when with Miss Gainor the girl was by evil luck seen of our Quaker crab.

"But not all are like that. There is one, Israel Morris, who looks like a man out of those pictures by Vand.y.k.e you must have seen, and with the gentleness of a saint. Were I as good as he, I should like to die, for fear I could not keep it up. Ah you got a nip. They can bite. It can not be entirely true--I mean that man's goodness; but it is naturally performed. The wife is a fair test of humility. I wonder how his virtue prospers at home."

De Courval listened, again in wonder where had been learned this English, occasionally rich with odd phrases; for usually Schmidt spoke a fluent English, but always with some flavor of his own tongue.

The supper amused the young man, who was beginning to be curious and observant of these interesting and straightforward people. There were at times long silences. The light give and take of the better chat of the well-bred at home in France was wanting. His mother could not talk, and there were no subjects of common interest. He found it dull at first, being himself just now in a gay humor.

After the meal he ventured to admire the buff-and-gold china in a corner cupboard, and then two great silver tankards on a sideboard. Mrs.

Swanwick was pleased. "Yes," she said, "they are of Queen Anne's day, and the arms they carry are of the Plumsteads and Swanwicks."

He called his mother's attention to them. "But," she said, of course in French, "what have these people to do with arms?"

"Take care," he returned under his breath. "Madame speaks French."

Mrs. Swanwick, who had a fair knowledge of the tongue, quickly caught her meaning, but said with a ready smile: "Ah, they have had adventures.

When my husband would not pay the war tax, as Friends would not, the vendue master took away these tankards and sold them. But when the English came in, Major Andre bought them. That was when he stole Benjamin Franklin's picture, and so at last Gainor Wynne, in London, years after, saw my arms on them in a shop and bought them back, and now they are Margaret's."

De Courval gaily related the tale to his mother and then went away with her to her room, she exclaiming on the stair: "The woman has good manners. She understood me."

The woman and Pearl were meanwhile laughing joyously over the sad lady's criticism. When once in her bed-room, the vicomtesse said that on the morrow she would rest in bed. Something, perhaps the voyage and all this new life, had been too much for her, and she had a little fever. A tisane, yes, if only she had a tisane, but who would know how to make one? No, he must tell no one that she was not well.

He left her feeling that here was a new trouble and went down-stairs to join Schmidt. No doubt she was really tired, but what if it were something worse? One disaster after another had left him with the belief that he was marked out by fate for calamitous fortunes.

Schmidt cheered him with his constant hopefulness, and in the morning he must not fail Mr. Wynne, and at need Schmidt would get a doctor. Then he interested him with able talk about the stormy politics of the day, and for a time they smoked in silence. At last, observing his continued depression, Schmidt said: "Take this to bed with you--At night is despair, at morning hope--a good word to sleep on. Let the morrow take care of itself. Bury thy cares in the graveyard of sleep." Then he added with seriousness rare to him: "You have the lesson of the mid-years of life yet to learn--to be of all thought the despot. Never is man his own master till, like the centurion with his soldiers, he can say to joy come and to grief or anger or anxiety go, and be obeyed of these. You may think it singular that I, a three-days' acquaintance, talk thus to a stranger; but the debt is all one way so far, and my excuse is those five years under water, and, too, that this preacher in his time has suffered."

Unused till of late to sympathy, and surprised out of the reserve both of the habit of caste and of his own natural reticence, De Courval felt again the emotion of a man made, despite himself, to feel how the influence of honest kindness had ended his power to speak.

In the dim candle-light he looked at the speaker--tall, grave, the eagle nose, the large mouth, the heavy chin, a face of command, with now a little watching softness in the eyes.

He felt later the goodness and the wisdom of the German's advice. "I will try," he said; "but it does seem as if there were little but trouble in the world," and with this went away to bed.

Then Schmidt found Mrs. Swanwick busy over a book and said: "Madame de Courval is not well, I fear. Would you kindly see to her?"

"At once," she said, rising.

V

The young man's anxiety about his mother kept him long awake, and his sleep was troubled, as at times later, by a dream of Carteaux facing him with a smile, and by that strange sense of physical impotence which sometimes haunts the dreamer who feels the need for action and cannot stir.

When at six in the morning De Courval went down-stairs, he met Mrs.

Swanwick. She turned, and when in the hall said: "I have been with thy mother all night, and now Margaret is with her, but thou wilt do no harm to enter. She does not seem to me very ill, but we must have a doctor, and one who has her language. When after a little sleep she wakens, she wanders, and then is clear again." Seeing his look of anxiety, she added, "Be sure that we shall care for her."

He said no word of the pain he felt and scarce more than a word of his grat.i.tude, but, going up-stairs again, knocked softly at a chamber door.

"Come in," he heard, and entered. A low voice whispered, "She is just awake," and the slight, gray figure of the girl went by him, the door gently closing behind her. In the dim light he sat down by his mother's bed, and taking a hot hand in his, heard her murmur: "_Mon fils_--my son. Angels--angels! I was a stranger, and they took me in; naked and they clothed me, yes, yes, with kindness. What name did you say?

Carteaux. Is he dead--Carteaux?"

The young man had a thrill of horror. "Mother," he said, "it is I, Rene."

"Ah," she exclaimed, starting up, "I was dreaming. These good people were with me all night. You must thank them and see that they are well paid. Do not forget--well paid--and a tisane. If I had but a tisane _de guimauve!_"

"Yes, yes," he said; "we shall see. Perhaps some lemonade."

"Yes, yes; go at once and order it." She was imperative, and her voice had lost its sweetness for a time. "I must not be made to wait."

"Very well, _maman_." As he went out, the gray figure pa.s.sed in, saying, "She is better this morning, and I am so grieved for thee."

"Thank you," he murmured, and went down-stairs, seeing no one, and out to a seat in the garden, to think what he should do. Yes, there must be a doctor. And Carteaux--what a fool he had been to tell her his name!

The name and the cropped hair of the Jacobin, the regular features, by no means vulgar, the blood-red eyes of greed for murder, he saw again as in that fatal hour. Whenever any new calamity had fallen upon him, the shrill murder-counseling voice was with him, heard at times like a note of discord even in later days of relief from anxiety, or in some gay moment of mirth. "He was wise," he murmured, remembering the German's counsel, and resolutely put aside the disturbing thought. At last Nanny, the black maid, called him to breakfast. He was alone with Schmidt and Mrs. Swanwick. They discussed quietly what doctor they should call; not their friend, Dr. Redman, as neither he nor Dr. Rush spoke French.

Schmidt said: "I have sent a note to Mr. Wynne not to expect you. Set your mind at ease."

There was need of the advice. De Courval felt the helplessness of a young man in the presence of a woman's illness. He sat still in his chair at breakfast, hardly hearing the German's efforts to rea.s.sure him.

It was near to eight. Nanny had gone up to relieve Margaret, who presently came in, saying, "Aunt Gainor is without, back from her morning ride."

There was a heavy footfall in the hall and a clear, resonant voice, "Mary Swanwick, where are you?"

In the doorway, kept open for the summer air to sweep through, the large figure of Gainor Wynne appeared in riding skirt and low beaver hat, a heavy whip in her hand. The years had dealt lightly with the woman, now far past middle life. There was a ma.s.s of hair time had powdered, the florid face, the high nose of her race, the tall, erect, ma.s.sive build, giving to the observant a sense of masculine vigor. On rare occasions there was also a perplexing realization of infinite feminine tenderness, and, when she pleased, the ways and manners of an unmistakable gentlewoman.

As the two men rose, Mrs. Swanwick said quietly, "Aunt Gainor, Madame de Courval is ill."

"As much as to say, 'Do not roam through the house and shout.'"