The Red City Part 13

In a moment the German knew that he was crossing blades with a master of the small sword. Margaret and De Courval looked on merrily exchanging gay glances.

"Dead," cried De Forest, as he struck fair over the German's heart, "and a d.a.m.n good hit!"

"Well played!" cried Schmidt--"the jest and the rapier. Another bout--no!" To his surprise he saw the Quaker gentleman's face change as he hastily put on his coat.

"Thank thee," he said to De Courval as the young man handed him his hat, and without other words than "I bid thee good day. I shall not bide this afternoon," went into the hall and out of the farther door, pa.s.sing with bowed head and without a word a gentleman who entered.

Schmidt showed little of the astonishment easily read on De Courval's face, who, however, said nothing, having been taught to be chary of comments on his elders; and now taking up his foil again, fell on guard.

"A man haunted by his past," said Schmidt, as was in fact explained at breakfast next day, when Mrs. Swanwick, being questioned, said: "Yes. He was a colonel in the war, and of reckless courage. Later he returned to Friends, and now and then has lapses in his language and his ways, and is filled with remorse."

"The call of the sword was too much for him," said Schmidt. "I can comprehend that. But he had a minute of the joy of battle."

"And then," said the Pearl, "he had a war with himself."

"The maid is beginning to think," said Schmidt to himself. But this was all on the next day.

As the tall man came out on the porch, Margaret said: "My mother is occupied. Friend Schmidt, thou knowest Friend Jefferson; and this is our new lodger," and she said boldly, "the Vicomte de Courval."

"Ah," exclaimed Jefferson, "we have met before. And madame is well, I trust?"

"Yes; but at this hour she rests. We owe you, sir, our thanks for the good chance of finding what has been to us most truly a home."

Margaret looked up pleased, she did not fully know why. And so he did really like them and their quiet home?

Presently Schmidt said to Jefferson: "There is sad news from France, Mr.

Secretary."

"Good news, Citizen; altogether good. What if men die that a people may live? Men die in war. What is the difference? t.i.tles will go, a king be swept on to the dust-heap of history." A hot answer was on the lips of the young n.o.ble. He turned, vexed at the loss of his chance as Alexander Hamilton and Mrs. Swanwick joined them. Jefferson ceased to speak to Schmidt, and the two statesmen met with the formal courtesy of bitter hatred. Jefferson could see no good in the brilliant finance of the man who now talked with courteous ease to one or another. The new-comer was slight of figure, bright-eyed, with the deep line so rarely seen where the nose meets the forehead, and above all graceful, as few men are. The face was less mobile than that of Jefferson, who resembled to a strange degree the great actor of his name, a resemblance only to be explained by some common English ancestry in an untraceable past. He had been to a bad school in France as minister, and perhaps had by this time forgotten the day when he desired his agent in London to find for him a coat of arms.

Presently, after a talk with Mrs. Swanwick, Jefferson, ill-pleased to meet Hamilton, was of a mind to go. Quite aware that he meant to leave a little sting, he said: "I must be gone. Good-by"; and to Hamilton: "You have heard, no doubt, the good news from France--Citizen?"

"I have heard of needless murder and of a weak, ill-served, kindly king insulted by a mob of ruffians."

Jefferson's thin face grew yet more somber; but what reply the secretary might have made was put aside by the cheerful coming of a man in plain, but not Quaker clothes, a republican Jacobin of the maddest, as was seen by his interchange of "Citizen" with Jefferson, and the warm welcome he received. Thus reinforced, Jefferson lingered where Mrs. Swanwick and Margaret were busy with the hot chocolate, which Hamilton, from youthful habit, liked. At a word from their hostess, De Courval took a basket, and presently brought from the garden slope peaches such as any back yard among us grew in my childhood--yellow clingstones and open hearts.

The widow ministered to the other statesman, who liked peaches and was not to be neglected even for her favorite Hamilton, now busily discussing with Schmidt the news sent by Gouverneur Morris.

The new-comer had paid no least attention to his hostess, but sat down at the table and fingered the jumbles, apees, and cake known as "lovers'-knots" of Nanny's make, until he discovered one to his fancy.

Mrs. Swanwick gave no obvious sign of annoyance, but smilingly stirred the chocolate, while Margaret quietly removed the dish of cakes and gave the guest a slice of sweetened bread known as "Dutch loaf."

"There are fewer currants in the cake than there were last week,"

remarked the astronomer, for, as Schmidt said in an aside to De Courval and Hamilton, as they watched the great eat like lesser folk: "This is the famous astronomer, David Rittenhouse. He divides his thoughts between the heavens and his diet; and what else there is of him is Jacobin."

"I wish," said Hamilton, "that heaven equally engaged the rest of his party. May not I have my chocolate, Mrs. Swanwick?"

"Certainly; and might I be noticed a little?" said Mrs. Swanwick to Rittenhouse. The absent-minded philosopher looked up and said:

"I forgot. Pardon me, Citess."

Hamilton laughed merrily. "Is that the last invention?"

"It sounds like the name of some wild little animal," said the Pearl.

"Neat, that, Margaret," said Hamilton; "and might I, too, have a peach?

Mr. Jefferson has emptied the basket."

Margaret rose, and with De Courval went down the garden, a fair presentment of the s.e.xes, seen and approved by Hamilton, while Jefferson said gaily:

"The transit of Venus, Rittenhouse," for it was that observation which had given this star-gazer fame and recognition abroad.

"My compliments, sir," said Schmidt. "I regret not to have said it."

Jefferson bowed. He was at his best, for neither manners nor wit were wanting in his social hour. The astronomer, without comment, went on eating sweet bread. They drank chocolate and chatted idly of the new luxury--ice-cream, which Monsieur de Malerive made for a living, and sold on the mall we now call Independence Square. They talked, too, of the sad influx of people from San Domingo; the widow, attentive, intellectually sympathetic, a pleasant portrait of what the silver-clad Pearl would be in days to come; she, the girl, leaning against a pillar of the porch, a gray figure silently watchful, curious, behind her for background the velvets of the rival statesmen, the long broidered waistcoats, the ribbon-tied queues, and the two strongly contrasted faces. Perhaps only Schmidt recognized the grace and power of the group on the porch.

The warm August evening was near its close, and a dark storm, which hung threateningly over the Jersey sh.o.r.e, broke up the party. Warned by rolling thunder, the three men went away in peaceful talk.

"The hate they have buried in their bellies," said Schmidt; "but, Rene, they are of the peerage, say what they may. Equality! _Der gute Himmel!_ All men equal--and why not all women, too! He left that out. Equal before the law, perhaps--not his slaves; before G.o.d, no--nor man. Does he think Hamilton his equal? He does not love the gentleman entirely.

But these two are, as fate, inevitable withal, rulers of men. I have seen the labeled creatures of other lands--kings, ministers. These men you saw here are the growth of a virgin soil--_Ach!_ 'There were giants in those days,' men will say." Mrs. Swanwick listened quietly, considering what was said, not always as quick as Margaret to understand the German. He spoke further of the never-pleased Virginian, and then the widow, who had kindness for all and respect for what she called experienced opinion, avoiding to be herself the critic and hiding behind a quotation, said, "'There be many that say, Who will shew us any good?'"

"Fine Bible wisdom," said Schmidt.

By and by when she had gone away with Margaret about household matters, Schmidt said to De Courval: "That is one of the beautiful flowers of the formal garden of Fox and Penn. The creed suits the temperament--a garden rose; but my Pearl--_Ach!_ a wild rose, creed and creature not matched; nor ever will be."

"I have had a delightful afternoon," said Rene, unable or indisposed to follow the German's lead. "Supper will be late. You promised me the new book."

"Yes; Smith's 'Wealth of Nations,' not easy reading, but worth while."

Thereafter the busy days ran on into weeks, and in October of this tragic 1792 came the appalling news of the murdered Swiss, self-sacrificed for no country and no large principle beyond the pledge of an oath to a foreign king. More horrible was the ma.s.sacre of the priests in the garden of the Carmelites.

To Rene's relief, these unlooked-for riots of murder seemed to affect his mother less than he had feared might be the case. "My husband's death was, my son, a prophecy of what was to come." To her it was all personal. For him it was far more, and the German alone understood the double anguish of a man in whom contended a puzzled horror at deaths without apparent reason, of murders of women like the Princesse de Lamballe,--an orgy of obscene insult,--and a wild anger at the march of the Duke of Brunswick upon Paris. It was his country, after all, and he left his mother feeling disappointed that she did not share his hostile feeling in regard to the _emigres_ in the German army.

The wonderful autumn colors of October and November came and pa.s.sed, a new wonder to the young man; his mother, to all seeming contented, spending her evenings with him over English lessons, or French books out of Logan's excellent library, or busy with never-finished embroidery. On Sundays they went to Gloria Dei, the modest little church of the Swedes.

There to-day, amid the roar of trade and shipyards, in the churchyard the birds sing over the grave of their historian, Wilson, and worn epitaphs relate the love and griefs of a people whose blood is claimed with pride by the historic families of Pennsylvania.

During these months, Aunt Gainor was long absent in Boston on a visit, a little to the relief of the vicomtesse. Schmidt, too, was away in New York, to the regret of Rene, who had come more and more to feel wholesomely his influence and increasing attachment. The money help had set him at ease, and he could now laugh when, on counting the coin in the drawer, he found it undiminished. He had remonstrated in vain. The German smiled. "A year more, and I shall be out of debt." Had Rene not heard of the widow's cruse? "I must be honest. 'T is my time. The grateful bee in my bonnet does but improve the shining hour of opportunity. What was there to do but laugh?" And Rene at last laughed.

December came with snow and gray skies, and the great business De Courval had grown to feel his own felt the gathering storm caused by the decree of freedom to white and black in the French islands. The great shipmasters, Clark, Willing, Girard, the free-thinking merchant, and Wynne, were all looking as bleak as the weather, and prudently ceased to make their usual sea-ventures before the ice formed, while at the coffee-houses the war between England and France, more and more near, threatened new perils to the commerce of the sea.

On January 27, 1793, being Sat.u.r.day, while De Courval, Wolcott, and Gilbert Stuart, the artist, sat chatting with Hamilton in the dining-room and drinking the widow's chocolate, the painter was begging leave to make a picture of Margaret, and asking them to come and see the portrait of Mrs. Jackson, one of the three charming sisters of Mr.

Bingham.

"No, there must be no portrait. It is against the way of Friends," said the mother. "I should hear of it from Friend Waln and others, too."

What more there was, Rene did not learn. The painter was urgent. Stuart did paint her long afterward, in glorious splendor of brocade, beautiful with powder and nature's rouge. But now came Nanny, the black maid, and waited while Margaret shyly won a little talk with Hamilton, who loved the girl. "I have been thinking," she said, "of Friend Jefferson. Why, sir, do they have any t.i.tles at all, even Citizen? I think a number would be still more simple." She was furnishing an elder with another of the unlooked-for bits of humor which attest the florescence of a mind gathering sense of the comic as the years run on and the fairy G.o.dmother, Nature, has her way.

"Good heaven, child! if Mr. Jefferson had his will with your numeration, I should be zero, and he the angel of arithmetic alone knows what."

"What is it, Nanny!" said the mother.