Calvert of Strathore Part 17

"You may rest a.s.sured, Madame, that I shall never annoy you again." He spoke as haughtily as she, for he was bitterly hurt, and he was young enough to feel a fierce pride in the thought that he, too, would have done with this love which she had so lightly disdained.

He sank down upon the bench and covered his face with his hands. A sudden spasm of coquetry seized the young girl.

"Then, in case I should ever change my mind, as women have been known to do since time immemorial, Monsieur, _I_ shall have to ask you to marry me!" she said, laughing lightly.

Calvert raised his head wearily. His face looked as though a dozen years had left their mark upon it since he entered the little allee of elms; there were fine lines of pain about the mouth and a curious, listless look in his usually serene eyes.

"After this morning I cannot believe that you will ever change your mind," he said, rising as he spoke. "But be a.s.sured that whatever may happen I shall never forget your command and offend again. And now, as I shall not see you again before we leave, I bid you farewell, Madame." He pressed the hand which Adrienne held out to his pale lips, and then holding it for an instant in both of his, turned quickly and left the allee.

Madame de St. Andre looked after the clean-limbed, athletic young figure as it disappeared rapidly through the trees. And suddenly a keen regret for what she had done swept over her. Did she love him, then, that she should wish him back? She sank upon the bench with a beating heart. She would have called out to him, have brought him back to her side, but that her pride held her in check.

"What insolence!" she said, half-starting up. "And yet--and yet--'tis more to my liking than fine phrases! And it was true--what he said--had he been Monsieur le Duc de Montmorency or Monsieur de Villeroi--! At least I shall see him again--he will come back--they always do." But though she smiled, a curious foreboding and a sort of fear seized upon her.

At the chateau Calvert found Mr. Jefferson making his adieux to Madame d'Azay and her guests. The horses had been ordered, and in a few minutes the gentlemen were ready to start. D'Azay walked with Calvert to where Bertrand stood holding them.

"'Tis an infernal shame, Ned," he said, in a low tone, wringing the young man's hand. "I guessed thy mission down here and thy face tells me how it has gone. As for myself, I would have wished for nothing better.

Perhaps she may change her mind--all women do," he added, hopefully. But Calvert only shook his head.

"She is for some greater and luckier man than I," he said, quietly, taking the reins from Bertrand, and waving an adieu to the young lord as he rode down the avenue.

As d'Azay slowly made his way back to the chateau, Bertrand stood for a moment looking after him before mounting to follow Mr. Jefferson and Calvert.

"And so," he said, half-aloud, "that was Monsieur's reason for coming to Azay-le-Roi! And she won't have him! All women are fools, and these great ladies seem to be the biggest fools of all. She will not find his equal among the white-livered aristocrats who swarm around her. I wish I could revenge Monsieur for this," he said, savagely, and jumping on his horse he rode after the two gentlemen.

The journey back to Tours was made more quickly than coming, and Mr.

Jefferson was so full of his visit to Azay-le-Roi as not to notice Calvert's preoccupation and silence. They rode into the town in the late afternoon and made their way to the Boule d'Or, where Calvert, who had a sudden longing to be alone, left Mr. Jefferson writing letters, and strolled back into the old town.

Almost before he was aware of it he found himself in the little square before the great Cathedral. With a sudden impulse he entered and leaned against one of the fretted columns. A chorister was practising softly in the transept overhead. 'Twas the _benedictus_ from one of Mozart's ma.s.ses.

"_Benedictus qui venit in nomine Domini_," he sang over and over again.

Calvert could not see the singer, but the young voice floated downward, reminding him of his own boyish voice. He closed his eyes and bowed his head against the cold stone. When he could stand it no longer, he went softly down the echoing aisle of the church, out through the great doors, into the yellow sunshine of the deserted little street. There were some linden-trees planted in a hollow square before the parvis of the Cathedral, and stone benches set beneath them. Upon one of these he sank down, as if physically weary. Perhaps he was--at any rate, a sudden, sick disgust for everything, for the melancholy afternoon sunshine and the yellowing gra.s.s and blighted flowers, took possession of him. The wind, rising, made a dreary sound among the stiffening leaves. One fluttered downward and lay upon the bench beside him. He noted with surprise the sudden chill, the first touch of coming winter.

But that morning it had seemed like spring to him.

He looked up at the great front of the Cathedral, unchanging through so many changing years, and, as he looked, he thought how small and ephemeral a thing he was and his love and grief. The two great spires towering upward seemed to his sick fancy like two uplifted hands drawing benediction down on the weary, grief-stricken world, and before their awful patience and supplication something of his own impatience and bitterness pa.s.sed from him and, comforted, he left the spot and made his way along the deserted quay and so back to the little inn where Mr.

Jefferson awaited him.

CHAPTER XV

CHRISTMAS EVE

Had it not been for Mr. Morris's sudden return from London, Calvert would have felt alone, indeed, in Paris. Having received certain intelligence concerning the plan for the purchase of the American debt to France, Mr. Morris set off hastily for France and arrived there several days before Mr. Jefferson's departure for Havre. This absence, as all thought, was to be but temporary, but, when Mr. Jefferson left Paris on that morning of the 26th of September, it was never to return.

He left his affairs in the hands of Calvert and Mr. Short, and, as for the former, he was only too happy to plunge into work and so forget, if possible, his own unhappiness. Mr. Morris easily divined it, however, and its cause, and tried, in his cynical, kindly fashion, to divert the young man. He made it a point to see Calvert frequently, and, indeed, it was not only out of kindness of heart that he did so, but because he had the greatest liking for the young gentleman and enjoyed his society above that of most of his acquaintances. It was easy enough for the two to see much of each other, for although the approach of winter brought a slight return of gayety, Paris was dreary and deserted enough. That first wave of fear which had seized upon the n.o.bles had swept many of them out of France to Turin, to Frankfort, to Metz, to Coblentz, and to London. Many of those salons which Mr. Morris and Calvert had frequented were already closed, hostesses and guests alike in exile and poverty.

Alarm succeeded alarm in Paris until, with the ill-starred feast to the Regiment of Flanders and the march on Versailles, alarm rose to panic.

The incredible folly and stupidity which precipitated these events aroused Mr. Morris's contempt and indignation to the utmost pitch.

"What malignant devil is it, Ned," he fairly groaned, as he and Calvert sat over their wine one evening after dinner at the Legation, "that urges their unfortunate Majesties on to their destruction? What could have been more ill-advised, nay, more fatal in these starvation times, than the banquet to the Flanders Regiment? And the presence at it of their Majesties! Oh, Luxembourg must have been stricken mad to have urged them to go thither! And once there, who or what could have prevented that tipsy royalist enthusiasm, the wild burst of sympathy, the trampling of the tri-color c.o.c.kade? They say the Queen moved among the half-crazed soldiers shining and beautiful as a star, boy. I had the whole scene from Maupas, a cousin of Madame de Flahaut, who is in the Body Guard. What wonder that Paris raged to remove the suborned Regiment of Flanders! And, if only the King had remained firm and kept it at Versailles, this other horror of the 5th and 6th of October would never have happened. But what can you expect from such a monarch? As I wrote President Washington this afternoon, 'If the reigning prince were not the small-beer character he is, there can be but little doubt that, watching events and making a tolerable use of them, he would regain his authority; but what will you have from a creature who, situated as he is, eats and drinks, sleeps well and laughs, and is as merry a grig as lives? There is, besides, no possibility of serving him, for, at the slightest show of opposition, he gives up everything and every person.'

And yet I would like to attempt it, if only to thwart those rampant, feather-brained philosophers who are hurrying France to her doom."

"It is Lafayette I would like to serve," said Calvert, moodily. "D'Azay and I were with him at the Hotel de Ville for the greater part of the day of the 5th of October. He was no longer master of himself or of those he commanded, and I could scarce believe that this harried, brow-beaten, menaced leader of the Milice was the alert and intrepid soldier I had served under before Yorktown."

"Ah, Ned, there is a man whom this revolution has spoiled and will spoil even more! Another lost reputation, I fear. Truly a dreadful situation to find one's self in. Marched by compulsion, guarded by his own troops, who suspect and threaten him! Obliged to do what he abhors, or suffer an ignominious death, with the certainty that the sacrifice of his own life will not prevent the mischief! And he has but himself to thank--the dreadful events of the 5th and 6th of October were, as far as concerned Lafayette, but the natural consequences of his former policy. Did I not warn him long ago of the madness of tr.i.m.m.i.n.g between the court and popular party, of the danger of a vast, undisciplined body of troops?"

He got up and stumped about the room, irritation and pity expressed in every feature of his countenance, not wholly unmixed, it must be confessed (or so it seemed to Calvert, who could not help being a little amused thereat), with a certain satisfaction at his perspicacity.

Suddenly he burst out laughing.

"After all, there is a humorous side to the Marquis's tardy march to Versailles with his rabble of soldiers. As the old d.u.c.h.esse d'Azay said the other evening to the Bishop of Autun and myself, 'Lafayette et sa Garde Nationale ressemblent a l'arc-en-ciel et n'arrivent qu'apres l'orage!'--I will be willing to bet you a dinner at the Cafe de l'ecole that the Bishop repeats it within a week as his own _bon mot_!"

But Mr. Morris had graver charges against the Bishop than the confiscation of a witty saying. Over Talleyrand's motion for the public sale of church property he lost all patience, and did not hesitate to point out to him one evening, when they supped together at Madame de Flahaut's, the serious objections to be urged against such a step. 'Twas but one, however, of the many signs of the times which both irritated and pained him, for he was genuinely and ardently interested in the fate of France, and looked on with alarm and sadness at the events taking place. His own plan for a supply of flour from America and the negotiations for the purchase to France of the American debt, which he was endeavoring to conclude with Necker, were alternately renewed and broken off in a most exasperating fashion, owing to that minister's short-sighted policy and n.i.g.g.ardliness. Indeed, France's finances were in a hopelessly deplorable state, and Mr. Morris looked on in dismay at the various futile plans suggested as remedies--at the proposal to make the bankrupt Caisse d'Escompte a national bank, at the foolish Caisse Patriotique, and at the issue of a.s.signats.

"If they only had a financier of the calibre of Hamilton," said Mr.

Morris to Calvert; "but they haven't a man to compare with that young genius. Necker is only a sublimated bank-clerk. Indeed, I think you or I could conduct the finances of this unhappy country better than they are at present conducted," he added, laughing. "I have great hopes of you as a financier, Ned, since that affair of the Holland loans, and as for myself, Luxembourg has urged me seriously to enter the ministry. 'Tis a curious proposition, but these visionary philosophers, who are trying to pilot the ship of state into a safe harbor, know nothing of their business, and will fetch up on some hidden reef pretty soon, if I mistake not. The a.s.sembly is already held in utter contempt--their sittings are tumultuous farces--the thing they call a const.i.tution is utterly good for nothing. And there is Lafayette, with an ambition far beyond his talents, aspiring not only to the command of all the forces, but to a leadership in the a.s.sembly--a kind of Generalissimo-Dictatorship.

'Tis almost inconceivable folly, and, to cap all, that scoundrel Mirabeau has the deputies under his thumb. Can a country be more utterly prostrated than France is at this moment?"

"To get Lafayette and Mirabeau together is her only chance of safety, I think," said Calvert, in reply. "The leader of the people and the leader of the a.s.sembly, working together, might do much."

"Impossible," objected Mr. Morris, decidedly, "and I do not blame Lafayette for refusing to ally himself with so profligate a creature as Mirabeau, great and undeniable as are his talents. Why, boy, all Paris knows that while he leads the a.s.sembly, he is in the pay of the King and Queen."

"And yet I heard you yourself declare," returned Calvert, with a smile, "that men do not go into the administration as the direct road to Heaven. I think it were well for this country to avail itself of the great abilities of Mirabeau and make it to his interest to be true to it." And in the long argument which ensued over the advisability of taking Monsieur de Mirabeau into the administration, Calvert had all the best of it, and judged Mirabeau's talents and usefulness more accurately than Mr. Morris, keen and practical as that gentleman usually was.

Toward the middle of November word came to the American Legation at Paris, by the British packet, of the appointment of Mr. Jefferson to the Secretaryship of Foreign Affairs under President Washington, and the commission of Mr. Short as charge d'affaires at Paris until a new minister could be appointed. This news was confirmed six weeks later by a letter from Mr. Jefferson himself to Calvert and Mr. Morris:

It had been my ardent wish to return to France and see the ending of the revolution now convulsing that unhappy country, but the sense of duty which sent me thither when I had no wish to leave America now constrains me to remain here. Hamilton has been made Secretary of the Treasury, and he is anxious to have you return, that he may a.s.sociate you with him in some way. But I have told him that, greatly as I should like to see you and to see you busy in your own country, it was my opinion that you had better stay abroad for a year or two longer and study the governments of the different European powers before returning to the United States. You can learn much in that time, and your usefulness and advancement in your own country will be proportionately greater. At any rate, I will beg of you to stay in Paris until you can arrange some of my private affairs, left at loose ends. I enclose a list of the most important, with instructions. Mr. Short will attend to the official ones for the present. His commission was the first one signed by President Washington. Pray present my kindest regards to Mr. Morris, and, with the hope of hearing from you both soon and frequently,

Your friend and servant,

THOMAS JEFFERSON.

This letter reached Mr. Calvert on the day before Christmas, and added not a little to the gloom of an anniversary already sufficiently depressing, pa.s.sed so far from friends and home and amid such untoward surroundings. He and Mr. Short were in Mr. Jefferson's little octagonal library, still discussing the letter, among others received by the same packet, when Mr. Morris came in, the three gentlemen intending to have a bachelor dinner at the Legation.

"I see you have the news about Mr. Jefferson," he said, looking at Mr.

Calvert and Mr. Short. "I have a letter from him myself and a long one from President Washington, which I have permission to communicate to you two, but which must go no further for the present," and he handed it to Mr. Calvert. "As you see, 'tis my orders to proceed to England as accredited agent to the British Government, with the object of settling the treaty disputes and of establishing, if possible, a commercial alliance with Great Britain. The President has written me at length on the subject, and I shall start for London as soon as possible--within a month, I hope."

"'Tis a great compliment," said Mr. Short, a little enviously.

"And a very delicate mission," added Calvert. And so it was, and an ungrateful one, too. Several of the stipulations of the Peace of Paris, though ratified several years previously, were still unfulfilled. The British had failed to surrender the frontier posts included in the territory of the United States, and the United States, on her side, had failed to pay the debts due to British merchants before the war. Now, although America, at Washington's instigation, was eager to fulfil her part of the treaty, England still held off, and 'twas to learn her ultimate intentions, and persuade her, if possible, to carry out her share of the conditions, that the President had named Mr. Gouverneur Morris as private agent to the British Government. He was furthermore to discover whether England would send a minister to the infant union and also what her dispositions were in regard to making a commercial treaty.

This mission was discussed at length during dinner and until late into the evening, when Mr. Short, pleading a supper engagement with the d.u.c.h.esse d'Orleans, went away, leaving Mr. Morris and Calvert together.

"And now, Ned," said the older man, as they sat comfortably before the fire after Mr. Short's departure, "your duties here will detain you no longer than mine, so why cannot we take that journey to England together? You remember you would not go the last time I asked you."

"There is nothing to keep me now," returned Calvert, quietly, "and--and in truth I shall be glad enough to get away," he said, rising, and moving restlessly about the room. And, indeed, he was anxious to get away and conquer, if possible, in some unfamiliar scene, the disappointment which was consuming him.