The Red City Part 12

Schmidt laughed. "You are too sharp, Pearl. In a minute, but for your saucy tongue, I should have trapped our Tory friend. To George the greater," said Schmidt.

The Quaker turned down his gla.s.s. "Not I, indeed."

"I hope the poor man will never hear of it, Josiah," said Miss Wynne as she rose laughing, and presently Schmidt and the young people went away, followed shortly after by Langstroth.

For a while Margaret walked on in silence, De Courval and the German talking. At last she said: "Thou shouldst know that my uncle is not as bad as he seems. He is really a kind and generous man, but he loves to contradict my aunt, and no one else can so easily make her angry."

"Ah, Pearl, the Madeira was good," said Schmidt--"too good; or, rather, the several Madeiras. In the mult.i.tude of vinous counselers there is little wisdom, and the man's ways would tempt an angel to mischief."

Mrs. Swanwick, being alone, had gone out to take supper with a friend, and as Margaret left them in the hall, Schmidt said to De Courval: "Come in. I have a great package from Gouverneur Morris, from Paris. You may as well hear what news there is. I saw your anxiety, but I was of no mind to have that imitation Quaker discuss the agony of a great nation."

It took two months or more to hear from France, and each week added to the gathering anxiety with which De Courval awaited news. He was grateful for the daily labor, with its steady exactions, which forbade excessive thought of the home land, for no sagacity of his friend or any forecast that man could make three thousand miles away was competent to predict the acts of the sinister historic drama on which the curtain was rising far away in France.

As the German opened the envelop and set aside letter after letter, he talked on in his disconnected way. "I could like some bad men more than Josiah Langstroth. He has what he calls opinions, and will say, 'Welladay,'--no, that is my b.a.s.t.a.r.d English,--he will say 'Well, at all events, that is my opinion.' What means 'all events,' Herr Rene? A kick would change them. 'T is an event--a kick. And Mistress Wynne is sometimes not easy to endure. She steps heavily on tender toes, even when on errands of goodness." The younger man scarce heard these comments as letter after letter was put aside, until at last he put down his pipe, and Schmidt said: "I was sorry to keep you, but now this last letter has it all--all. There is no detail, my friend, but enough--enough. He writes me all France is in a ferment. This is from Mr. Morris, whom our mobocrats loathe for an aristocrat. He writes: 'The King has vetoed two bills, one about the priests and one of less moment. La Fayette is in disgrace, and wants the surgeon's courage to let blood. Worst of all, and I write in haste,' he says, 'a mob on June 20th broke into the Tuileries and there, in the OEil de Boeuf, a butcher mocked the King to his face as Monsieur Veto. The King laughed, it is said, and set their d.a.m.ned bonnet on his head, and drew his sword, and cried "_Vive la nation!_" The war goes ill or well as you please; ill for all, I fear. Dillon was murdered by his own regiment after a retreat.'"

"I knew him in the army," said De Courval. "I was young then. But the king--has he no courage? Are they all mad?"

"No. He has not the courage of action. He has the courage to endure, if that is to be so nominated. The other is needed just now. That is all--all."

"And too much."

"Yes. Come, let us go out and fence a bit in the garden, and sweat out too much Madeira. Come, there is still light enough."

VIII

Through the quiet of a Sunday morning, De Courval rode slowly up Fifth Street, and into a land of farms and woodland, to spend a quiet day alone with his mother, Miss Wynne, not altogether to the young man's regret, having to remain in town over Monday. As he came to the scenes where Schmidt, in their walks of Sundays, had explained to him Washington's well-laid plan of the Germantown battle, he began at last to escape for a time the too sad reflection which haunted his hours of leisure in the renewed interest of a young soldier who had known only the army life, but never actual war. He bent low in the saddle, hat off to a group on the lawn at Cliveden, the once war-battered home of the Chews, and was soon after kissing his mother on the porch of the Hill farm.

There was disquieting news to tell of France, and he soon learned that despite the heat and mosquitos she preferred the tranquillity of the widow's home to the luxury of Miss Wynne's house. She was as usual calmly decided, and he did not urge her to stay longer. She would return to the city on Thursday. They talked of money matters, with reticence on his part in regard to Schmidt's kindness and good counsels, and concerning the satisfaction Mr. Wynne had expressed with regard to his secretary.

"It may be good training for thee, my son," she said and then, after a pause, "I begin to comprehend these people," and, pleased with her progress, made little ventures in English to let him see how well she was learning to speak. An habitual respect made him refrain from critical corrections, but he looked up in open astonishment when she said rather abruptly: "The girl in her gray gowns is on the way to become one of the women about whom men go wild. Neither are you very ugly, my son. Have a care; but a word from me should suffice."

"Oh, mother," he exclaimed, "do not misunderstand me!"

"My son, I know you are not as some of the light-minded cousins we knew in France; but a word of warning does no harm, even if it be not needed."

"I think you may be at ease, _maman_. You amaze me when you call her beautiful. A pleasant little maid she seems to me, and not always the same, and at times gay,--oh, when away from her mother,--and intelligent, too. But beautiful--oh, hardly. _Soyez tranquille, maman._"

"I did not say she was beautiful. I said she was good-looking; or that at least was what I meant. Certainly she is unlike our too ignorant demoiselles; but contrast with the familiar may have its peril. It is quite another type from our young women at home, and attractive enough in its way--in its bourgeois way."

He smiled. "I am quite too busy to concern myself with young women." In fact he had begun to find interest in a little study of this new type.

"Yes, quite too busy."

"That is as well." But she was not at ease. On the whole, she thought it would be proper now for him to go to Mrs. Bingham's and to the President's receptions. Miss Wynne would see that he had the entree. He was too occupied, he said once more, and his clothes were quite unfit.

Neither was he inclined yet awhile. And so he rode away to town with several things to think about, and on Thursday the vicomtesse made clear to the well-pleased Mrs. Swanwick that she was glad of the quiet and the English lessons and the crisp talk of Schmidt, who spoke French, but not fluently, and concerning whom she was mildly jealous and, for her, curious. "Schmidt, my son? No; a name disguised. He is a gentleman to his finger-ends, but surely a strange one."

"It is enough, _maman_, that he is my friend. Often I, too, am curious; but--ah, well, I wonder why he likes me; but he does, and I am glad of it."

"You wonder. I do not," and she smiled.

"Ah, the vain _maman!_" he cried. It was very rare that she praised him, and she was by long habit given to no demonstrations of affection.

Two weeks ran on in the quiet routine of the Quaker home and the increasing work of the great shipping merchant. De Courval was more and more used by Wynne in matters other than copying letters in French.

Sometimes, too, he was trusted with business affairs demanding judgment, and although Wynne spoke no word of praise, neither was there any word of censure, and he watched the clerk with interest and growing regard.

Twice he sent him to New York, and once on an errand to Baltimore, where he successfully collected some long-standing debts. A new clerk had come, and De Courval, to his relief, was no longer expected to sweep out the counting-house.

By degrees Wynne fully realized that he had found a helper of unusual capacity, and more and more, as the great and varied business attracted De Courval, he was taken into Wynne's confidence, and saw the ships come and go, and longed to share the peril and see the wonders of the ocean.

There were great tuns of wine from Madeira on the pier or in the cellars. Gentlemen came to taste it, men with historic names--General Wayne, Colonel Lear for the President, and Mr. Justice Yeates. De Courval was bade to knock out bungs and dip in tasting vials. Also Miss Wynne came to refill her cellar, but took small notice of him. He was out of favor for a season, and her nephew had laughed at her remonstrances.

"A thoroughbred put to the work of a farm-horse!"

"Nonsense, Aunt Gainor! Let him alone. You can not spoil him, as you did me. There is stuff in the fellow worth a dozen of my clerks. At six they are gone. If there is work to do, he stays till nine. What that man wants, he will get. What he sets himself to do, he does. Let him alone."

"A miserably paid clerk," she cried. "He deserves no better. I wash my hands of him."

"There is soap in the closet," he laughed.

She went away angry, and saw the young n.o.ble talking with a ruddy gentleman whose taste in wine has made his name familiar at the dining-tables of the last hundred years. Major Butler was asking the vicomte to dine, and promising a perilous education in the vintages of Madeira.

When the major had gone, Mr. Wynne sent for his clerk. To be opposed was apt to stiffen his Welsh obstinacy. "Your wages are to be now, sir, two hundred and fifty livres,--fifty dollars a month,--and you are doing well, very well; but the clerks are not to know, except Mr. Potts." He owed this unusual advance to Miss Wynne, but probably the master was as little aware of what had caused it as was the irate spinster. De Courval thanked him quietly, knowing perfectly well that he had fairly earned what was so pleasantly given.

It was now the Sat.u.r.day sennight mentioned by Margaret as the day when Mr. Hamilton was to come to settle certain small business matters with Mrs. Swanwick. Some wit, or jealous dame, as Schmidt had said, called Mrs. Swanwick's the Quaker salon; and, in fact, men of all types of opinion came hither. Friends there were, the less strict, and at times some, like Waln, to protest in their frank way against the too frequent company of world's people, and to go away disarmed by gentle firmness.

Mrs. Swanwick's love of books and her keen interest in every new thing, and now the opening mind and good looks of Margaret, together with the thoughtful neutrality of Schmidt, captured men, young and old, who were apt to come especially on a Sat.u.r.day afternoon, when there was leisure even for busy statesmen. Hither came Aaron Burr--the woman-hawk, Aunt Gainor called him, with his dark, fateful face; Pickering, in after days of the War Department; Wolcott, to be the scarce adequate successor of Hamilton; Logan, and gay cousins--not often more than one or two at a time--with, rarely, the Master of the Rolls and Robert Morris, and Mr.

Justice Chew--in fact, what was best in the social life of the city.

Mr. Hamilton was shut up with Mrs. Swanwick in the withdrawing-room, busy. It was now too late to expect visitors--five o'clock of a summer afternoon. The vicomtesse avoided this interesting society, and at last Rene ceased to urge her to share what he himself found so agreeable.

Margaret sat entranced in the "Castle of Otranto," hardly hearing the _click, click_, of the fencing-foils on the gra.s.s plot not far away.

Birds were in the air; a woodp.e.c.k.e.r was busy on a dead tree; bees, head down, were acc.u.mulating honey for the hive at the foot of the garden; and a breeze from the river was blowing through the hall and out at the hospitably open front door--a peaceful scene, with still the ring and clash of the foils and De Courval's merry laughter.

"A hit, a palpable hit!" said a voice behind Margaret as she rose.

"Thou art dead for a ducat--dead, Friend de Courval."

"Ah," said Schmidt, "a critic. Does it look easy, Mr. de Forest?"

[Ill.u.s.tration: "'Well played!' cried Schmidt--'the jest and the rapier'"]

"I am a man of peace, how shouldst I know? but the game looks easy." He threw up his head and stretched out his hand. "Let me look at the thing."

"Then take off your coat and put on a mask. But I shall not hurt you; there is no need for the mask."

He was quietly amused, and if only Nicholas Waln would come; for now the Quaker gentleman had put aside hat and coat, and in plainest gray homespun faced him, a stalwart, soldierly figure.

"How does thee hold it, Friend Schmidt? Ah, so?"