The Red City Part 37

"Why not?" said Mistress Gainor, and they went up-stairs, where Nanny, delighted, opened the trunks and took out one by one the garments of a gayer world, long laid away unused. The maid in her red bandana head-gear was delighted, having, like her race, great pleasure in bright colors.

The widow, standing apart, looked on, with memories which kept her silent, as the faint smell of lavender, which seems to me always to have an ancient fragrance, hung about the garments of her youth.

Margaret watched her mother with quick sense of this being for her something like the turning back to a record of a girlhood like her own.

De Courval had eyes for the Pearl alone. Gainor Wynne, undisturbed by sentimental reflections, enjoyed the little business.

"Goodness, my dear, what brocade!" cried Miss Wynne. "How fine you were, Mary! And a white satin, with lace and silver gimp."

"It was my mother's wedding-gown," said the widow.

"And for day wear this lutestring will fit you to a hair, Margaret; but the sleeves must be loose. And lace--what is it?" She held up a filmy fabric.

"I think I could tell." And there, a little curious, having heard her son's voice, was the vicomtesse, interested, and for her mildly excited, to Rene's surprise.

Miss Gainor greeted her in French I dare not venture upon, and this common interest in clothes seemed somehow to have the effect of suddenly bringing all these women into an intimacy of the minute, while the one man stood by, with the unending wonder of the ignorant male, now, as it were, behind the scenes. He fell back and the women left him unnoticed.

"What is it, Madame?" asked Margaret.

"Oh, French point, child, and very beautiful."

"And this other must be--"

"It is new to me," cried Miss Wynne.

"Permit me," said the vicomtesse. "Venetian point, I think--quite priceless, Margaret, a wonder." She threw the fairy tissue about Pearl's head, smiling as she considered the effect.

"Is this my mother?" thought her son, with increase of wonder. He had seen her only with restricted means, and knew little of the more luxurious days and tastes of her youth.

"Does you remember this, missus?" said Nanny.

"A doll," cried Gainor, "and in Quaker dress! It will do for your children, Margaret."

"No, it is not a child's doll," said Mrs. Swanwick. "Friends in London sent it to Marie Wynne, Hugh's mother, for a pattern of the last Quaker fashions in London--a way they had. I had quite forgotten it."

"And very pretty, quite charming," said the vicomtesse.

"And stays, my dear, and a modesty fence," cried Miss Wynne, holding them up. "You will have to fatten, Pearl."

Upon this the young man considered it as well to retire. He went down-stairs unmissed, thinking of the agreeable intimacy of stays with the fair figure he left bending over the trunk, a ma.s.s of black lace in her hand.

[Ill.u.s.tration: "She threw the fairy tissue about Pearl's head, smiling as she considered the effect"]

"Spanish, my dear," said Madame, with animation; "quite a wonder. Oh, rare, very rare. Not quite fit for a young woman--a head veil."

"Are they all mine, Mother?" cried Margaret.

"Yes, my child."

"Then, Madame," she said, with rising color and engaging frankness, "may I not have the honor to offer thee the lace?"

"Why not?" said Gainor, pleased at the pretty way of the girl.

"Oh, quite impossible, child," said the vicomtesse. "It is quite too valuable."

"Please!" said Pearl. "It would so become thee."

"I really cannot."

"Thy roquelaure," laughed Mrs. Swanwick, "was--well--I did remonstrate.

Why may not we too have the pleasure of extravagance?"

"I am conquered," said Madame, a trace of color in her wan cheeks as Mrs. Swanwick set the lace veil on her head, saying: "We are obliged, Madame. And where is the vicomte? He should see thee."

"Gone," said Miss Gainor; "and just as well, too," for now Nanny was holding up a variety of lavender-scented delicacies of raiment, fine linens, and openwork silk stockings.

Rene, still laughing, met Schmidt in the hall.

"You were merry up-stairs."

"Indeed we were." And he gaily described his mother's unwonted mood; but of the sacred future of the stays he said no word.

"And so our gray moth has become a b.u.t.terfly. I think Mother Eve would not have abided long without a milliner. I should like to have been of the party up-stairs."

"You would have been much enlightened," said Miss Wynne on the stair. "I shall send for the boxes, Mary." And with this she went away with Margaret, as the doctor had declared was still needful.

"Why are you smiling, Aunt?" said Margaret.

"Oh, nothing." Then to herself she said: "I think that if Rene de Courval had heard her talk to Arthur Howell, he would have been greatly enlightened. Her mother must have understood; or else she is more of a fool than I take her to be."

"And thou wilt not tell me?" asked the Pearl.

"Never," said Gainor, laughing--"never."

Meanwhile there was trouble in the western counties of Pennsylvania over the excise tax on whisky, and more work than French translations for an able and interested young clerk, whom his mother spoke of as a secretary to the minister.

"It is the first strain upon the new Const.i.tution," said Schmidt; "but there is a man with bones to his back, this President." And by November the militia had put down the riots, and the first grave trial of the central government was well over; so that the President was free at last to turn to the question of the treaty with England, already signed in London.

Then once more the clamor of party strife broke out. Had not Jay kissed the hand of the queen? "He had prostrated at the feet of royalty the sovereignty of the people."

Fauchet was busy fostering opposition long before the treaty came back for decision by the Senate. The foreign office was busy, and Randolph ill pleased with the supposed terms of the coming doc.u.ment.

To deal with the causes of opposition to the treaty in and out of the cabinet far into 1795 concerns this story but indirectly. No one was altogether satisfied, and least of all Fauchet, who at every opportunity was sending despatches home by any French war-ship seeking refuge in our ports.

A little before noon, on the 29th of November, of this year, 1794, a date De Courval was never to forget, he was taking the time for his watch from the clock on the western wall of the State House. As he stood, he saw Dr. Chovet stop his chaise.

"_Bonjour_, citizen," cried the doctor. "Your too intimate friend, Monsieur Carteaux, is off for France. He will trouble you no more." As usual, the doctor, safe in his chaise, was as impertinent as he dared to be.

Too disturbed to notice anything but this startling information in regard to his enemy, De Courval said: "Who told you that? It cannot be true. He was at the State Department yesterday, and we were to meet this afternoon over the affair of a British ship captured by a French privateer."