The Bow of Orange Ribbon Part 20

A tear twinkled in madam's eyes; but she answered, "I shall not distress myself overmuch. Always I have said, 'Joanna has a little soul. Only what is for her own good can she love.'"

"It is Batavius; and a woman must love her husband, mother."

"That is the truth: first and best of all, she must love him, Katherine; but not as the dog loves and fawns on his master, or the squaw bends down to her brave. A good woman gives not up her own principles and thoughts and ways. A good woman will remember the love of her father and mother and brother and sister, her old home, her old friends; and contempt she will not feel and show for the things of the past, which often, for her, were far better than she was worthy of."

"There is one I love, mother, love with all my soul. For him I would die. But for thee also I would die. Love thee, mother? I love thee and my father better because I love him. My mother, fret thee not, nor think that ever Joanna can really forget thee. If a daughter could forget her good father and her good mother, then with the women who sit weeping in the outer darkness, G.o.d would justly give her her portion. Such a daughter could not be."

Lysbet sadly shook her head. "When I was a little girl, Katherine, I read in a book about the old Romans, how a wicked daughter over the bleeding corpse of her father drove her chariot. She wanted his crown for her own husband; and over the warm, quivering body of her father she drove. When I read that story, Katherine, my eyes I covered with my hands. I thought such a wicked woman in the world could not be. Alas, _mijn kind!_ often since then I have seen daughters over the bleeding hearts of their mothers and fathers drive; and frown and scold and be much injured and offended if once, in their pain and sorrow, they cry out."

"But this of me remember, mother: if I am not near thee, I shall be loving thee, thinking of thee; telling my husband, and perhaps my little children about thee,--how good thou art, how pretty, how wise. I will order my house as thou hast taught me, and my own dear ones will love me better because I love thee. If to my own mother I be not true, can my husband be sure I will be true to him, if comes the temptation strong enough? Sorry would I be if my heart only one love could hold, and ever the last love the strong love."

Still, in spite of this home trouble, and in spite of the national anxiety, the winter months went with a delightsome peace and regularity in the Van Heemskirk household. Neil Semple ceased to visit Katherine after Joanna's wedding. There was no quarrel, and no interruption to the kindness that had so long existed between the families; frequently they walked from kirk together,--Madam Semple and Madam Van Heemskirk, Joris and the elder, Katherine and Neil. But Neil never again offered her his hand; and such conversation as they had was constrained and of the most conventional character.

Very frequently, also, Dominic Van Linden spent the evening with them.

Joris delighted in his descriptions of Java and Surinam; and Lysbet and Katherine knit their stockings, and listened to the conversation. It was evident that the young minister was deeply in love, and equally evident that Katharine's parents favoured his suit. But the lover felt, that, whenever he attempted to approach her as a lover, Katherine surrounded herself with an atmosphere that froze the words of admiration or entreaty upon his lips.

Joris, however, spoke for him. "He has told me how truly he loves thee.

Like an honest man he loves thee, and he will make thee a wife honoured of many. No better husband can thou have, Katherine." So spoke her father to her one evening in the early spring, as they stood together over the budding snowdrops and crocus.

[Ill.u.s.tration: They stood together over the budding snowdrops]

"There is no love in my heart for him, father."

"Neil pleases thee not, nor the dominie. Whom is it thou would have, then? Surely not that Englishman now? The whole race I hate,--swaggering, boastful tyrants, all of them. I will not give thee to any Englishman."

"If I marry not him, then will I stay with thee always."

"Nonsense that is. Thou must marry, like other women. But not him; I would never forgive thee; I would never see thy face again."

"Very hard art thou to me. I love Richard; can I love this one and then that one? If I were so light-of-love, contempt I should have from all, even from thee."

"Now, I have something to say. I have heard that some one,--very like to thee,--some one went twice or three times with Mrs. Gordon to see the man when he lay ill at the 'King's Arms.' To such talk, my anger and my scorn soon put an end; and I will not ask of thee whether it be true, or whether it be false. For a young girl I can feel."

"O father, if for me thou could feel!"

"See, now, if I thought this man would be to thee a good husband, I would say, 'G.o.d made him, and G.o.d does not make all his men Dutchmen;'

and I would forgive him his light, loose life, and his wicked wasting of gold and substance, and give thee to him, with thy fortune and with my blessing. But I think he will be to thee a careless husband. He will get tired of thy beauty; thy goodness he will not value; thy money he will soon spend. Three sweethearts had he in New York before thee. Their very names, I dare say, he hath forgotten ere this."

"If Richard could make you sure, father, that he would be a good husband, would you then be content that we should be married?"

"That he cannot do. Can the night make me sure it is the day? Once very much I respected Batavius. I said, 'He is a strict man of business; honourable, careful, and always apt to make a good bargain. He does not drink nor swear, and he is a firm member of the true Church. He will make my Joanna a good husband.' That was what I thought. Now I see that he is a very small, envious, greedy man; and like himself he quickly made thy sister. This is what I fear: if thou marry that soldier, either thou must grow like him, or else he will hate thee, and make thee miserable."

"Just eighteen I am. Let us not talk of husbands. Why are you so hurried, father, to give me to this strange dominie? Little is known of him but what he says. It is easy for him to speak well of Lambertus Van Linden."

"The committee from the Great Consistory have examined his testimonials.

They are very good. And I am not in a hurry to give thee away. What I fear is, that thou wilt be a foolish woman, and give thyself away."

Katherine stood with dropped head, looking apparently at the brown earth, and the green box borders, and the shoots of white and purple and gold. But what she really saw, was the pale, handsome face of her sick husband, its pathetic entreaty for her love, its joyful flush, when with bridal kisses he whispered, "_Wife, wife, wife!_"

Joris watched her curiously. The expression on her face he could not understand. "So happy she looks!" he thought, "and for what reason?"

Katherine was the first to speak.

"Who has told you anything about Captain Hyde, father?"

"Many have spoken."

"Does he get back his good health again?"

"I hear that. When the warm days come, to England he is going. So says Jacob Cohen. What has Mrs. Gordon told thee? for to see her I know thou goes."

"Twice only have I been. I heard not of England."

"But that is certain. He will go, and what then? Thee he will quite forget, and never more will thou see or hear tell of him."

"That I believe not. In the cold winter one would have said of these flowers, 'They come no more.' But the winter goes away, and then here they are. Richard has been in the dead valley, _der shaduwe des doods_.

Sometimes I thought, he will come back to me no more. But now I am sure I shall see him again."

Joris turned sadly away. That night he did not speak to her more. But he had the persistence which is usually a.s.sociated with slow natures. He could not despair. He felt that he must go steadily on trying to move Katherine to what he really believed was her highest interest. And he permitted nothing to discourage him for very long. Dominie Van Linden was also a prudent man. He had no intention in his wooing to make haste and lose speed. As to Katherine's love troubles, he had not been left in ignorance of them. A great many people had given him such information as would enable him to keep his own heart from the wiles of the siren. He had also a wide knowledge of books and life, and in the light of this knowledge he thought that he could understand her. But the conclusion that he deliberately came to was, that Katherine had cared neither for Hyde nor Semple, and that the unpleasant termination of their courtship had made her shy of all lover-like attentions. He believed that if he advanced cautiously to her he might have the felicity of surprising and capturing her virgin affection. And just about so far does any amount of wisdom and experience help a man in a love perplexity; because every mortal woman is a different woman, and no two can be wooed and won in precisely the same way.

Amid all these different elements, political, social, and domestic, Nature kept her own even, unvarying course. The gardens grew every day fairer, the air more soft and balmy, the sunshine warmer and more cherishing. Katherine was not unhappy. As Hyde grew stronger, he spent his hours in writing long letters to his wife. He told her every trivial event, he commented on all she told him. And her letters revealed to him a soul so pure, so true, so loving, that he vowed "he fell in love with her afresh every day of his life." Katherine's communications reached her husband readily by the ordinary post; Hyde's had to be sent through Mrs. Gordon. But it was evident from the first that Katherine could not call there for them. Colonel Gordon would soon have objected to being made an obvious partic.i.p.ant in his nephew's clandestine correspondence; and Joris would have decidedly interfered with visits sure to cause unpleasant remarks about his daughter. The medium was found in the mantua-maker, Miss Pitt. Mrs. Gordon was her most profitable customer, and Katherine went there for needles and threads and such small wares as are constantly needed in a household. And whenever she did so, Miss Pitt was sure to remark, in an after-thought kind of way, "Oh, I had nearly forgotten, miss! Here is a small parcel that Mrs. Gordon desired me to present to you."

One exquisite morning in May, Katherine stood at an open window looking over the garden and the river, and the green hills and meadows across the stream. Her heart was full of hope. Richard's recovery was so far advanced that he had taken several rides in the middle of the day.

Always he had pa.s.sed the Van Heemskirks' house, and always Katherine had been waiting to rain down upon his lifted face the influence of her most bewitching beauty and her tenderest smiles. She was thinking of the last of these events,--of Richard's rapid exhibition of a long, folded paper, and the singular and emphatic wave which he gave it towards the river.

His whole air and att.i.tude had expressed delight and hope; could he really mean that she was to meet him again at their old trysting-place?

[Ill.u.s.tration: His whole air and att.i.tude had expressed delight]

As thus she happily mused, some one called her mother from the front hall. On fine mornings it was customary to leave the door standing open; and the visitor advanced to the foot of the stairs, and called once more, "Lysbet Van Heemskirk! Is there naebody in to bid me welcome?"

Then Katherine knew it was Madam Semple; and she ran to her mother's room, and begged her to go down and receive the caller. For in these days Katherine dreaded Madam Semple a little. Very naturally, the mother blamed her for Neil's suffering and loss of time and prestige; and she found it hard to forgive also her positive rejection of his suit. For her sake, she herself had been made to suffer mortification and disappointment. She had lost her friends in a way which deprived her of all the fruits of her kindness. The Gordons thought Neil had transgressed all the laws of hospitality. The Semples had a similar charge to make. And it provoked Madam Semple that Mrs. Gordon continued her friendship with Katherine. Every one else blamed Katherine altogether in the matter; Mrs. Gordon had defied the use and wont of society on such occasions, and thrown the whole blame on Neil. Somehow, in her secret heart, she even blamed Lysbet a little. "Ever since I told her there was an earldom in the family, she's been daft to push her daughter into it," was her frequent remark to the elder; and he also reflected that the proposed alliance of Neil and Katharine had been received with coolness by Joris and Lysbet. "It was the soldier or the dominie, either o' them before our Neil;" and, though there was no apparent diminution of friendship, Semple and his wife frequently had a little private grumble at their own fireside.

And toward Neil, Joris had also a secret feeling of resentment. He had taken no pains to woo Katherine until some one else wanted her. It was universally conceded that he had been the first to draw his sword, and thus indulge his own temper at the expense of their child's good name and happiness. Taking these faults as rudimentary ones, Lysbet could enlarge on them indefinitely; and Joris had undoubtedly been influenced by his wife's opinions. So, below the smiles and kind words of a long friendship, there was bitterness. If there had not been, Janet Semple would hardly have paid that morning visit; for before Lysbet was half way down the stairs, Katherine heard her call out,--

"Here's a bonnie come of. But it is what a' folks expected. 'The Dauntless' sailed the morn, and Captain Earle wi' a contingent for the West Indies station. And who wi' him, guess you, but Captain Hyde, and no less? They say he has a furlough in his pocket for a twelvemonth: more like it's a clean, total dismissal. The gude ken it ought to be."

So much Katherine heard, then her mother shut to the door of the sitting-room. A great fear made her turn faint and sick. Were her father's words true? Was this the meaning of the mysterious wave of the folded paper toward the ocean? The suspicion once entertained, she remembered several little things which strengthened it. Her heart failed her; she uttered a low cry of pain, and tottered to a chair, like one wounded.

It was then ten o'clock. She thought the noon hour would never come.

Eagerly she watched for Bram and her father; for any certainty would be better than such cruel fear and suspense. And, if Richard had really gone, the fact would be known to them. Bram came first. For once she felt impatient of his political enthusiasm. How could she care about liberty poles and impressed fishermen, with such a real terror at her heart? But Bram said nothing; only, as he went out, she caught him looking at her with such pitiful eyes. "What did he mean?" She turned coward then, and could not voice the question. Joris was tenderly explicit. He said to her at once, "'The Dauntless' sailed this morning.

Oh, my little one, sorry I am for thee!"

"Is _he_ gone?" Very low and slow were the words; and Joris only answered, "Yes."

Without any further question or remark, she went away. They were amazed at her calmness. And for some minutes after she had locked the door of her room, she stood still in the middle of the floor, more like one that has forgotten something, and is trying to remember, than a woman who has received a blow upon her heart. No tears came to her eyes. She did not think of weeping, or reproaching, or lamenting. The only questions she asked herself were, "How am I to get life over? Will such suffering kill me very soon?"

Joris and Lysbet talked it over together. "Cohen told me," said Joris, "that Captain Hyde called to bid him good-by. He said, 'He is a very honourable young man, a very grateful young man, and I rejoice that I was helpful in saving his life.' Then I asked him in what ship he was to sail, and he said 'The Dauntless.' She left her moorings this morning between nine and ten. She carries troops to Kingston, Captain Earle in command; and I heard that Captain Hyde has a year's furlough."

Lysbet drew her lips tight, and said nothing. The last shadow of her own dream had departed also, but it was of her child she thought. At that hour she hated Hyde; and, after Joris had gone, she said in low, angry tones, over and over, as she folded the freshly ironed linen, "I wish that Neil had killed him!" About two o'clock she went to Katherine. The girl opened her door at once to her. There was nothing to be said, no hope to offer. Joris had seen Hyde embark; he had heard Mrs. Gordon and the colonel bid him farewell. Several of his brother officers, also, and the privates of his own troop, had been on the dock to see him sail. His departure was beyond dispute.