The Red City Part 49

He walked slowly homeward, avoiding people and choosing the alley by-ways so numerous in Penn's city.

The hall door was usually open in the afternoon to let the breeze pa.s.s through. He went into Schmidt's room, and then into the garden, seeing only Nanny and black Cicero, with whom he was a favorite. No one was in but madame, his mother. Mr. Girard had been to ask for him and Mr.

Bingham and Mr. Wynne, and others. So it was to be the mother first.

He was used to the quiet, unemotional welcome. He kissed her hand and her forehead, saying, "You look well, mother, despite the heat."

"Yes, I am well. Tell me of your journey. Ah, but I am glad to see you!

I have had but one letter. You should have written more often." The charm of his mother's voice, always her most gracious quality, just now affected him almost to tears.

"I did write, mother, several times. The journey may wait. I have bad news for you."

"None is possible for me while you live, my son."

"Yes, yes," he said. "The man Carteaux, having heard of Schmidt's absence and mine, has formally charged me with shooting him without warning in order to steal his despatches."

"Ah, you should have killed him. I said so."

"Yes, perhaps. The charge is clearly made on paper, attested by witnesses. He is said to be dying."

"Thank G.o.d."

"I have only my word." He told quietly of the weakness of his position, of the political aspect of the affair, of his interview and his resignation.

"Did you ask Mr. Randolph to apologize, Rene?"

"Oh, mother, one cannot do that with a cabinet minister."

"Why not? And is this all? You resign a little clerkship. I am surprised that it troubles you."

"Mother, it is ruin."

"Nonsense! What is there to make you talk of ruin?"

"The good word of men lost; the belief in my honor. Oh, mother, do you not see it? And it is a case where there is nothing to be done, nothing.

If Randolph, after my long service, does not believe me, who will?"

She was very little moved by anything he said. She lived outside of the world of men, one of those island lives on which the ocean waves of exterior existence beat in vain. The want of sympathy painfully affected him. She had said it was of no moment, and had no helpful advice to give. The constantly recurring thought of Margaret came and went as they talked, and added to his pain. He tried to make her see both the shame and even the legal peril of his position. It was quite useless. He was for her the Vicomte de Courval, and these only common people whom a revolution had set in high places. Never before had he fully realized the quality of his mother's una.s.sailable pride. It was a foretaste of what he might have to expect when she should learn of his engagement to Margaret; but now that, too, must end. He went away, exhausted as from a bodily struggle.

In the hall he met Margaret just come in, the joy of time-nurtured love on her face. "Oh, Rene!" she cried. "How I have longed for thee! Come out into the garden. The servants hear everything in the house."

They went out and sat down under the trees, she talking gaily, he silent.

"What is the matter?" she inquired at last, of a sudden anxious.

"Pearl," he said, "I am a disgraced and ruined man."

"Rene, what dost thou mean? Disgraced, ruined!"

He poured out this oft-repeated story of Avignon, the scene on the Bristol road, the despatch, and last, his talk with Randolph and his resignation.

"And this," she said, "was what some day I was to hear. It is terrible, but--ruined--oh, that thou art not. Think of the many who love thee! And disgraced? Thou art Rene de Courval."

"Yes; but, Pearl, dear Pearl, this ends my joy. How can I ask you to marry a man in my position?"

For a moment she said no word. Then she kissed him. "There is my answer, Rene."

"No, no. It is over. I cannot. As a gentleman, I cannot."

Again the wholesome discipline of Friends came to her a.s.sistance. It was a serious young face she saw. He it was who was weak, and she strong.

"Trouble comes to all of us in life, Rene. I could not expect always to escape. It has come to us in the morning of our love. Let us meet it together. It is a terrible story, this. How can I, an inexperienced girl, know how to regard it? I am sure thou hast done what was right in thine own eyes. My mother will say thou shouldst have left it to G.o.d's justice. I do not know. I am not sure. I suppose it is because I so love thee that I do not know. We shall never speak of it again, never. It is the consequences we--yes, we--have to deal with."

"There is no way to deal with them." He was in resourceless despair.

"No, no. Friend Schmidt will return. He is sure to come, and this will all be set right. Dost thou remember how the blessed waters washed away thy care? Is not love as surely good?"

"Oh, yes; but this is different. That was a trifle."

"No; it is the waiting here for Friend Schmidt that troubles me. What is there but to wait? Thou art eager to do something; that is the man's way, and the other is the woman's way. Take thy daily swim, ride, sail; the body will help the soul. It will all come right; but not marry me!

Then, Rene de Courval, I shall marry thee."

A divine hopefulness was in her words, and for the first time he knew what a firm and n.o.ble nature had been given the woman at his side, what power to trust, what tenderness, what common sense, and, too, what insight; for he knew she was right. The contrast to his mother was strange, and in a way distressing.

"I must think it over," he said.

"Thou wilt do no such thing. Thou, indeed! As if it were thy business alone! I am a partner thou wilt please to remember. Thou must see thy friends, and, above all, write to Mr. Hamilton at once, and do as I have said. I shall speak to my mother. Hast thou--of course thou hast seen thy mother?"

"I have; and she takes it all as a matter of no moment, really of not the least importance."

"Indeed, and so must we. Now, I am to be kissed--oh, once, for the good of thy soul--I said once. Mr. Bingham has been here. See him and Mr.

Wynne, and swim to-night, Rene, and be careful, too, of my property, thy--dear self."

Even in this hour of mortification, and with the memory of Randolph's doubt in mind, Rene had some delightful sense of being taken in hand and disciplined. He had not said again that the tie which bound them together must be broken. He had tacitly accepted the joy of defeat, a little ashamed, perhaps.

Every minute of this talk had been a revelation to the man who had lived near Margaret for years. An older man could have told him that no length of life will reveal to the most observant love all the possibilities of thought or action in the woman who may for years have been his wife.

There will always remain surprises of word and deed.

Although Rene listened and said that he could do none of the things she urged, the woman knew that he would do all of them.

At last she started up, saying: "Why, Rene, thou hast not had thy dinner, and now, as we did not look for thee, it is long over. Come in at once."

"Dear Pearl," he said, "I am better let alone. I do not need anything."

He wished to be left by himself to brood over the cruel wrong of the morning, and with any one but Pearl he would have shown some sense of irritation at her persistence.

The wild creatures are tamed by starvation, the animal man by good feeding. This fact is the sure possession of every kindly woman; and so it was that De Courval went meekly to the house and was fed,--as was indeed needed,--and having been fed, with the girl watching him, was better in body and happier in mind.

He went at once into Schmidt's study and wrote to Hamilton, while Margaret, sitting in her room at the eastward window, cried a little and smiled between the tears and wondered at the ways of men.

What she said to her mother may be easily guessed. The vicomtesse was as usual at the evening meal, where Rene exerted himself to talk of his journey to Mrs. Swanwick, less interested than was her way.