The Red City Part 36

Schmidt said: "My work is small just now, and the hours of the State Department would release you at three. You would be at the center of affairs, and learn much, and would find the Secretary pleasant. But, remember, the work may bring you into relations with Carteaux."

"I have thought of that; but my mother will like this work for me. The business she disliked."

"Then take it, if it is offered, as I am sure it will be." "He is very quiet about Carteaux," thought Schmidt. "Something will happen soon. I did say from the first that I would not desire to be inside of that Jacobin's skin."

The day after, a brief note called De Courval to the Department of State.

The modest building which then housed the Secretary and his affairs was a small dwelling-house on High Street, No. 379, as the old numbers ran.

No mark distinguished it as the vital center of a nation's foreign business. Rene had to ask a pa.s.ser-by for the direction.

For a brief moment De Courval stood on the outer step before the open door. A black servant was asleep on a chair within the sanded entry.

The simplicity and poverty of a young nation, just of late having set up housekeeping, were plainly to be read in the office of the Department of State. Two or three persons went in or came out.

Beside the step an old black woman was selling peanuts. Rene's thoughts wandered for a moment from his Norman home to a clerk's place in the service of a new country.

"How very strange!"--he had said so to Schmidt, and now recalled his laughing reply: "We think we play the game of life, Rene, but the banker Fate always wins. His dice are loaded, his cards are marked." The German liked to puzzle him. "And yet," reflected De Courval, "I can go in or go home." He said to himself: "Surely I am free,--and, after all, how little it means for me! I am to translate letters." He roused the snoring negro, and asked, "Where can I find Mr. Randolph?" As the drowsy slave was a.s.sembling his wits, a notably pleasant voice behind Rene said: "I am Mr. Randolph, at your service. Have I not the pleasure to see the Vicomte de Courval?"

"Yes, I am he."

"Come into my office." Rene followed him, and they sat down to talk in the simply furnished front room.

The Secretary, then in young middle age, was a largely built man and portly, dark-eyed, with refined features and quick to express a certain conciliatory courtesy in his relations with others. He used gesture more freely than is common with men of our race, and both in voice and manner there was something which Rene felt to be engaging and attractive.

He liked him, and still more after a long talk in which the duties of the place were explained and his own indisposition to speak of his past life recognized with tactful courtesy.

Randolph said at last, "The office is yours if it please you to accept."

"I do so, sir, most gladly."

"Very good. I ought to say that Mr. Freneau had but two hundred and fifty dollars a year. It is all we can afford."

As Rene was still the helper of Schmidt, and well paid, he said it was enough. He added: "I am not of any party, sir. I have already said so, but I wish in regard to this to be definite."

"That is of no moment, or, in fact, a good thing. Your duties here pledge you to no party. I want a man of honor, and one with whom state secrets will be safe. Well, then, you take it? We seem to be agreed."

"Yes; and I am much honored by the offer."

"Then come here at ten to-morrow. There is much to do for a time."

Madame was pleased. This at least was not commerce. But now there was little leisure, and no time for visits to the Hill, at which the two conspiring cupids, out of business and anxious, smiled, doubtful as to what cards Fate would hold in this game: and thus time ran on.

The work was easy and interesting. The Secretary, courteous and well-pleased, in that simpler day, came in person to the little room a.s.signed to De Courval and brought doc.u.ments and letters which opened a wide world to a curious young man, who would stay at need until midnight, and who soon welcomed duties far beyond mere French letter-writing.

By and by there were visits with papers to Mr. Wolcott at the Treasury Department, No. 119 Chestnut Street, and at last to Fauchet at Oeller's Hotel.

He was received with formal civility by Le Blanc, a secretary, and presently Carteaux, entering, bowed. De Courval did not return the salute, and, finishing his business without haste, went out.

He felt the strain of self-control the situation had demanded, but, as he wiped the sweat from his forehead, knew with satisfaction that the stern trials of the years had won for him the priceless power to be or to seem to be what he was not.

"The _ci-devant_ has had his little lesson," said Le Blanc. "It will be long before he insults another good Jacobin."

Carteaux, more intelligent, read otherwise the set jaw and grave face of the Huguenot gentleman. He would be on his guard.

The news of the death of Robespierre, in July, 1794, had unsettled Fauchet, and his subordinate, sharing his uneasiness, meant to return to France if the minister were recalled and the Terror at an end, or to find a home in New York, and perhaps, like Genet, a wife. For the time he dismissed De Courval from his mind, although not altogether self-a.s.sured concerning the future.

XX

"And now about this matter of dress," said Miss Gainor.

"Thou art very good, G.o.dmother, to come and consult me," said Mrs.

Swanwick. "I have given it some thought, and I do not see the wisdom of going half-way. The good preacher White has been talking to Margaret, and I see no reason why, if I changed, she also should not be free to do as seems best to her."

"You are very moderate, Mary, as you always are."

"I try to be; but I wish that it were altogether a matter of conscience with Margaret. It is not. Friends were concerned in regard to that sad duel and considered me unwise to keep in my house one guilty of the wickedness of desiring to shed another's blood, Margaret happened to be with me when Friend Howell opened the subject, and thou knowest how gentle he is."

"Yes. I know. What happened, Mary?"

"He said that Friends were advised that to keep in my house a young man guilty of bloodshed was, as it did appear to them, undesirable. Then, to my surprise, Margaret said: 'But he was not guilty of bloodshed.' Friend Howell was rather amazed, as thou canst imagine; but before he could say a word more, Miss Impudence jumped up, very red in the face, and said: 'Why not talk to him instead of troubling mother? I wish he had shed more blood than his own.'"

"Ah, the dear minx! I should like to have been there," said Gainor.

"He was very near to anger--as near as is possible for Arthur Howell; but out goes my young woman in a fine rage about what was none of her business."

"And what did you say?"

"What could I say except to excuse her, because the young man was our friend, and at last that I was very sorry not to do as they would have had me to do, but would hear no more. He was ill-pleased, I do a.s.sure thee."

"Were you very sorry, Mary Swanwick?"

"I was not, although I could not approve the young man nor my child's impertinence."

"Well, my dear, I should have said worse things. I may have my way in the matter of dress, I suppose?"

"Yes," said the widow, resigned. "An Episcopalian in Friends' dress seems to me to lack propriety; but as to thy desire to buy her fine garments, there are trunks in my garret full of the world's things I gave up long ago."

"Were you sorry?"

"A little, Aunt Gainor. Wilt thou see them?"

"Oh, yes, Margaret," she called, "come in."

She entered with De Courval, at home by good luck. "And may I come, too?" he asked.