The Red City Part 1

The Red City.

by S. Weir Mitch.e.l.l.

I.

About five in the afternoon on the 23d of May, 1792, the brig _Morning Star_ of Bristol, John Maynard, master, with a topgallant breeze after her, ran into Delaware Bay in mid-channel between Cape May and Cape Henlopen. Here was the only sunshine they had seen in three weeks. The captain, liking the warmth on his broad back, glanced up approvingly at mast and rigging. "She's a good one," he said, and noting the ship powdered white with her salt record of the sea's attentions, he lighted a pipe and said aloud, "She's salted like Christmas pork." As he spoke, he cast an approving eye on a young fellow who sat at ease in the lower rigging, laughing as the brig rolled over and a deluge of water flushed the deck and made the skipper on the after-hatch lift his feet out of the way of the wash.

"Hi, there, Wicount," called the captain, "she's enjoying of herself like a young duck in a pond."

De Courval called out a gay reply, lost, as the ship rolled, in the rattle of storm-loosened stays and the clatter of flapping sails.

Toward sunset the wind lessened, the sea-born billows fell away, and De Courval dropped lightly on the deck, and, pa.s.sing the master, went down to the cabin.

Near to dusk of this pleasant evening of May the captain anch.o.r.ed off Lewes, ordered a boat sent ash.o.r.e, and a nip of rum all round for the crew. Then, with a gla.s.s for himself, he lighted his pipe and sat down on the cover of the companionway and drew the long breath of the victor in a six-weeks' fight with the Atlantic in its most vicious mood. For an hour he sat still, a well-contented man; then, aware of a curly head and bronzed young face rising out of the companionway beside him, he said, "You might find that coil of rope comfortable."

The young man, smiling as he sat down, accepted the offer of the captain's tobacco and said in easy English, with scarce a trace of accent to betray his French origin: "My mother thanks you, sir, for your constant care of her. I have no need to repeat my own thanks. We unhappy _emigres_ who have worn out the hospitality of England, and no wonder, find kindness such as yours as pleasant as it is rare. My mother fully realizes what you have given us amid all your cares for the ship--and--"

"Oh, that's all right, Wicount," broke in the captain. "My time for needing help and a cheery word may come any day on land or sea. Some one will pay what seems to you a debt."

"Ah, well, here or hereafter," said the young man, gravely, and putting out a hand, he wrung the broad, hairy paw of the sailor. "My mother will come on deck to-morrow and speak for herself. Now she must rest. Is that our boat?"

"Yes; I sent it ash.o.r.e a while ago. There will be milk and eggs and fresh vegetables for madam."

"Thank you," said De Courval. A slight, full feeling in the throat, a little difficulty in controlling his features, betrayed the long strain of much recent peril and a sense of practical kindness the more grateful for memories of bitter days in England and of far-away tragic days in France. With some effort to suppress emotion, he touched the captain's knee, saying, "Ah, my mother will enjoy the fresh food." And then, "What land is that?"

"Lewes, sir, and the sand-dunes. With the flood and a fair wind, we shall be off Chester by evening to-morrow. No night sailing for me on this bay, with never a light beyond Henlopen, and that's been there since '65. I know it all in daytime like I know my hand. Most usually we bide for the flood. I shall be right sorry to part with you. I've had time and again--Frenchies; I never took to them greatly,--but you're about half English. Why, you talk 'most as well as me. Where did you learn to be so handy with it?" De Courval smiled at this doubtful compliment.

"When my father was attached to our emba.s.sy in London,--that was when I was a lad,--I went to an English school, and then, too, we were some months in England, my mother and I, so I speak it fairly well. My mother never would learn it."

"Fairly well! Guess you do."

Then the talk fell away, and at last the younger man rose and said, "I shall go to bed early, for I want to be up at dawn to see this great river."

At morning, with a fair wind and the flood, the _Morning Star_ moved up the stream, past the spire and houses of Newcastle. De Courval watched with a gla.s.s the green country, good for fruit, and the hedges in place of fences. He saw the low hills of Delaware, the flat sands of Jersey far to right, and toward sunset of a cloudless May day heard the clatter of the anchor chain as they came to off Chester Creek. The mother was better, and would be glad to take her supper on deck, as the captain desired. During the day young De Courval asked numberless questions of mates and men, happy in his mother's revival, and busy with the hopes and anxieties of a stranger about to accept life in a land altogether new to him, but troubled with unanswerable doubts as to how his mother would bear an existence under conditions of which as yet neither he nor she had any useful knowledge.

When at sunset he brought his mother on deck, she looked about her with pleasure. The ship rode motionless on a faintly rippled plain of orange light. They were alone on this great highway to the sea. To the left near by were the cl.u.s.tered houses on creek and sh.o.r.e where Dutch, Swede, and English had ruled in turn. There were lads in boats fishing, with cries of mock fear and laughter over the catch of crabs. It seemed to her a deliciously abrupt change from the dark cabin and the ship odors to a pretty, smiling coast, with the smoke pennons of hospitable welcome inviting to enter and share what G.o.d had so freely given.

A white-cloth-covered table was set out on deck with tea-things, strawberries, and red roses the mate had gathered. As she turned, to thank the captain who had come aft to meet her, he saw his pa.s.senger for the first time. At Bristol she had come aboard at evening and through a voyage of storms she had remained in her cabin, too ill to do more than think of a hapless past and of a future dark with she knew not what new disasters.

What he saw was a tall, slight woman whose snow-white hair made more noticeable the nearly complete black of her widow's dress, relieved only by a white collar, full white wrist ruffles, and a simple silver chatelaine from which hung a bunch of keys and a small enameled watch.

At present she was sallow and pale, but, except for somewhat too notable regularity of rather p.r.o.nounced features, the most observant student of expression could have seen no more in her face at the moment than an indefinable stamp of good breeding and perhaps, on larger opportunity, an unusual incapacity to exhibit emotional states, whether of grief, joy, or the lighter humors of every-day social relation.

The captain listened with a pleasure he could not have explained as her voice expressed in beautiful French the happiness of which her face reported no signal. The son gaily translated or laughed as now and then she tried at a phrase or two of the little English picked up during her stay in England.

When they had finished their supper, young De Courval asked if she were tired and would wish to go below. To his surprise she said: "No, Rene.

We are to-morrow to be in a new country, and it is well that as far as may be we settle our accounts with the past."

"Well, mother, what is it? What do you wish?"

"Let us sit down together. Yes, here. I have something to ask. Since you came back to Normandy in the autumn of 1791 with the news of your father's murder, I have asked for no particulars."

"No, and I was glad that you did not."

"Later, my son, I was no more willing to hear, and even after our ruin and flight to England last January, my grief left me no desire to be doubly pained. But now--now, I have felt that even at much cost I should hear it all, and then forever, with G.o.d's help, put it away with the past, as you must try to do. His death was the more sad to me because all his sympathies were with the party bent on ruining our country. Ah, Rene, could he have guessed that he who had such hopeful belief in what those changes would effect should die by the hand of a Jacobin mob! I wish now to hear the whole story."

"All of it, mother?" He was deeply troubled.

"Yes, all--all without reserve."

She sat back in her chair, gazing up the darkening river, her hands lying supine on her knees. "Go on, my son, and do not make me question you."

"Yes, mother." There were things he had been glad to forget and some he had set himself never to forget. He knew, however, that now, on the whole, it was better to be frank. He sat still, thinking how best he could answer her. Understanding the reluctance his silence expressed, she said, "You will, Rene?"

"Yes, dear mother"; and so on the deck at fall of night, in an alien land, the young man told his story of one of the first of the minor tragedies which, as a Jacobin said, were useless except to give a good appet.i.te for blood.

It was hard to begin. He had in perfection the memory of things seen, the visualizing capacity. He waited, thinking how to spare her that which at her summons was before him in all the distinctness of an hour of unequaled anguish.

She felt for him and knew the pain she was giving, comprehending him with a fullness rare to the mother mind. "This is not a time to spare me," she said, "nor yourself. Go on." She spoke sternly, not turning her head, but staring up the long stretch of solitary water.

"It shall be as you wish," he returned slowly. "In September of last year you were in Paris with our cousin, La Rochefoucauld, about our desperate money straits, when the a.s.sembly decreed the seizure of Avignon from the Pope's vice-legate. This news seemed to make possible the recovery of rents due us in that city. My father thought it well for me to go with him--"

"Yes, yes, I know; but go on."

"We found the town in confusion. The Swiss guard of the vice-legate had gone. A leader of the Jacobin party, Lescuyer, had been murdered that morning before the altar of the Church of the Cordeliers. That was on the day we rode in. Of a sudden we were caught in a mob of peasants near the gate. A Jacobin, Jourdan, led them, and had collected under guard dozens of scared bourgeois and some women. Before we could draw or even understand, we were tumbled off our horses and hustled along. On the way the mob yelled, 'A bas les aristocrates!'

"As they went, others were seized--in fact, every decent-looking man. My father held me by the wrist, saying: 'Keep cool, Rene. We are not Catholics. It is the old trouble.' The crush at the Pope's palace was awful. We were torn apart. I was knocked down. Men went over me, and I was rolled off the great outer stair and fell, happily, neglected. An old woman cried to me to run. I got up and went in after the Jourdan mob with the people who were crowding in to see what would happen. You remember the great stairway. I was in among the first and was pushed forward close to the broad dais. Candles were brought. Jourdan--'_coupe tete_' they called him--sat in the Pope's chair. The rest sat or stood on the steps. A young man brought in a table and sat by it. The rest of the great hall was in darkness, full of a ferocious crowd, men and women.

"Then Jourdan cried out: 'Silence! This is a court of the people. Fetch in the aristocrats!' Some threescore of scared men and a dozen women were huddled together at one side, the women crying. Jourdan waited.

One by one they were seized and set before him. There were wild cries of 'Kill! Kill!' Jourdan nodded, and two men seized them one after another, and at the door struck. The people in the hall were silent one moment as if appalled, and the next were frenzied and screaming horrible things.

Near the end my father was set before Jourdan. He said, 'Who are you?'

"My father said, 'I am Citizen Courval, a stranger. I am of the religion, and here on business.' As he spoke, he looked around him and saw me. He made no sign."

"Ah," said Madame de Courval, "he did not say Vicomte."

"No. He was fighting for his life, for you, for me."

"Go on."

"His was the only case over which they hesitated even for a moment. One whom they called Tournal said: 'He is not of Avignon. Let him go.' The mob in the hall was for a moment quiet. Then the young man at the table, who seemed to be a mock secretary and wrote the names down, got up and cried out: 'He is lying. Who knows him?' He was, alas! too well known. A man far back of me called out, 'He is the Vicomte de Courval.' My father said: 'It is true. I am the Vicomte de Courval. What then?'

"The secretary shrieked: 'I said he lied. Death! Death to the _ci-devant!_'

"Jourdan said: 'Citizen Carteaux is right. Take him. We lose time.'

"On this my father turned again and saw me as I cried out, 'Oh, my G.o.d!

My father!' In the uproar no one heard me. At the door on the left, it was, as they struck, he called out--oh, very loud: 'Yvonne! Yvonne! G.o.d keep thee!' Oh, mother, I saw it--I saw it." For a moment he was unable to go on.