Books: The Maid of Maiden Lane
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Amelia E. Barr >> The Maid of Maiden Lane
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"Arenta would hardly have given you any opportunity. I wonder at what
hour she will release Joris Van Heemskirk!"
"It will be later than it ought to be."
Indeed it was so late that Madame Van Heemskirk had locked up her house
for the night, and was troubled at her husband's delay--even a little
cross:
"An old man like you, Joris," she said in a tone of vexation--" sitting
till nine o'clock with the last runaway from Paris; a cold you have
already, and all for a girl that threw her senses behind her, to marry a
Frenchman."
"Much she has suffered, Lysbet."
"Much she ought to suffer. And I believe not in Arenta Van Ariens'
suffering. In some way, by hook or crook, by word or deed, she would out
of any trouble work her way."
"I will sit a little by the fire, Lysbet. Sit down by me. My mind is
full of her story."
"That is it. And sleep you will not, and tomorrow sick you will be; and
anxious and tired I shall be; and who for? The Marquise de Tounnerre!
Well then, Joris, in thy old age it is late for thee to bow down to the
Marquise de Tounnerre!"
"To God Almighty only I bow down, Lysbet, and as for titles what care of
them has Jons Van Heemskirk? Think you, when God calls me He will say
'Councillor' or 'Senator'? No, He will say 'Jons Van Heemskirk!' and I
shall answer to that name. But you know well, Lysbet, this bloody trial
of liberty in Paris touches all the world beside."
"Forgive me, Joris! A shame it is to be cross with thee, nor am I cross
even with that poor Arenta. A child, a very child she is."
"But bitter fears and suffering she has come through. Her husband was
guillotined last May, and from her home she was taken--no time to write
to a friend--no time to save anything she had, except a string of
pearls, which round her waist for many weeks, she had worn. From prison
to prison she was sent, until at last she was ordered before the
Revolutionary Tribunal. From that tribunal to the guillotine is only a
step, and she would surely have taken it but for--"
"Minister Morris?"
"No. Twenty miles outside the city, Minister Morris now lives; and no
time was there to send him word of her strait. Hungry and sick upon the
floor of her prison she was sitting, when her name was called, for bead
after bead of her pearl necklace had gone to her jailor, only for a
little black bread and a cup of milk twice a day; and this morning for
twenty-four hours she had been without food or milk."
[Illustration: "ARENTA BEFORE THE REVOLUTIONARY TRIBUNAL"]
"The poor little one! What did she do?"
"This is what she did, and blame her I will not. When in that terrible
iron armchair before those bloody judges, she says she forgot then to be
afraid. She looked at Fouquier-Tinville the public prosecutor, and at
the fifteen jurymen, and flinched not. She had no dress to help her
beauty, but she declares she never felt more beautiful, and well I can
believe it. They asked her name, and my Lysbet, think of this child's
answer! 'I am called Arenta JEFFERSON de Tounnerre,' she said; and at
the name of 'Jefferson' there were exclamations, and one of the jurymen
rose to his feet and asked excitedly, 'What is it you mean? Jefferson!
The great Jefferson! The great Thomas Jefferson! The great American who
loves France and Liberty?' 'It is the same,' she answered, and then she
sat silent, asking no favour, so wise was she, and Fouquier-Tinville
looked at the President and said--'among my friends I count this great
American!' and a juryman added, 'when I was very poor and hungry he fed
and helped me,' and he bowed to Arenta as he spoke. And after that
Fouquier-Tinville asked who would certify to her claim, and she answered
boldly, 'Minister Morris.' When questioned further she answered, 'I
adore Liberty, I believe in France, I married a Frenchman, for Thomas
Jefferson told me I was coming to a great nation and might trust both
its government and its generosity.' They asked her then if she had been
used kindly in prison, and she told them her jailor had been to her very
unkind, and that he had taken from her the pearl necklace which was her
wedding gift, and if you can believe Arenta, they were all extremely
polite to her, and gave her at once the papers which permitted her to
leave France. The next day a little money she got from Minister Morris,
but a very hard passage she had home. And listen now, her jailor was
guillotined before she left, and she declares it was the necklace--very
unfortunate beads they were, and Madame Jacobus said when she heard of
their fate, 'let them go! With blood and death they came, it is fit they
should go as they came!' Arenta thinks as soon as Fouquier-Tinville
heard of them, he doomed the man, for she saw in his eyes that he meant
to have them for himself. Well, then, she is also sure that they will
take Fouquier-Tinville to the guillotine."
"After all, it was a lie she told, Joris."
"That is so, but I think her life was worth a few words. And Thomas
Jefferson says she was ten thousand times welcome to the protection his
name gave her. I thank my God I have never had such temptation. I will
say one thing though, Lysbet, that if coming home some night, a thief
should say to me 'your money I must have' and if in my pocket I had some
false money, as well as true money, the false money I would give the
thief and think no shame to do it. Overly righteous we must not be,
Lysbet."
"I am astonished also. I thought Arenta would cry out and that only."
"What a man or a woman will do and suffer, and how they will do and
suffer, no one knows till comes some great occasion. When the water is
ice, who could believe that it would boil, unless they had seen ice
become boiling water? All the human heart wants, is the chance."
"As men and women have in Paris to live, I wonder me, that they can wish
to live at all! Welcome to them must be death."
"So wrong are you, Lysbet. Trouble and hardship make us love life. A
zest they give to it. It is when we have too much money, too much good
food and wine, too much pleasure of all kinds, that we grow melancholy
and sad, and say all is vanity and vexation. You may see that it is
always so, if you look in the Holy Scriptures. It was not from the Jews
in exile and captivity, but from the Jews of Solomon's glory came the
only dissatisfied, hopeless words in the Bible. Yes, indeed! it is the
souls that have too much, who cry out vanity, vanity, all is vanity! For
myself, I like not the petty prudencies of Solomon. There is better
reading in Isaiah, and in the Psalms, and in the blessed Gospels."
"To-morrow, Joris, I will go and see Arenta. She is fair, and she knows
it; witty, and she knows it; of good courage, and she knows it; the
fashion, and she knows it; and when she speaks, she speaks oracles that
one must believe, even though one does not understand them. To Aurelia
Van Zandt she said, my heart will ache forever for my beloved Athanase,
and Aurelia says, that her old lover Willie Nicholls is at her feet
sitting all the day long--yet for all these things, she is a brave woman
and I will go and see her."
"Willie Nicholls is a good young man, and he is rich also; but of him I
saw nothing at all. Cornelia Moran was there and no flower of Paradise
is so sweet, so fair!"
"A very proud girl! I am glad she said 'no' to my Joris."
"Come, my Lysbet, we will now pray and sleep. There is so much NOT to
say."
CHAPTER XIII
THE NEW DAYS COME
One afternoon in the late autumn Annie was sitting watching Hyde playing
with his dog, a big mastiff of noble birth and character. The creature
sat erect with his head leaning against Hyde, and Hyde's arm was thrown
around his neck as he talked to him of their adventures on the Broad
that day. Annie's small face, though delicate and fragile looking was
full of peace, and her eyes, soft, deep and heavenly, held thoughts that
linked her with heaven.
Outside there was in the air that November feeling which chills like the
passing breath of death, the deserted garden looked sad and closed-in,
and everywhere there was a sense of the languishing end of the year, of
the fading and dropping of all living things. But in the house Annie and
Hyde and the dog sat within the circle of warmth and light made by the
blazing ash logs, and in that circle there was at least an atmosphere of
sweet content. Suddenly George looked up and his eyes caught those of
Annie watching him. "What have you been reading, Annie?" he asked, as he
stooped forward and took a thin volume from her lap. "Why!" he cried,
"'tis Paul and Virginia. Do you indeed read love stories?"
"Yes. The mystery of a love affair pleases every one; and I think we
shall not tire of love stories till we tire of the mystery of spring, or
of primroses and daffodils. Every one I know takes their tale of love to
be quite a new tale."
"Love has been cruel to me. It has made a cloud on my life that will
help to cover me in my grave."
"You still love Cornelia?"
"I cannot cure myself of a passion so hopeless. However, as I see no end
to my unhappiness, I try to submit to what I cannot avoid. What is the
use of longing for that which I have no hope to get?"
"My uncle grows anxious for you to marry. He would be glad to see the
succession of Hyde assured."
"Oh, indeed, I have no mind to take a wife. I hear every day that some
of my acquaintance have married, I hear of none that have done worse."
"You believe nothing of what you say. My uncle was much pleased with
Sarah Capel. What did you think of the beauty?"
"Cornelia has made all other women so indifferent to me, that if I
cannot marry her, my father may dispose of me as he chooses."
"Cannot you forget Cornelia?"
"It is impossible. Every day I resolve to think of her no more, and then
I continue thinking; and every day I am more and more in love with her.
Her very name moves me beyond words."
"There is no name, George, however sweet and dear, however lovingly
spoken, whose echo does not at last grow faint."
"Cornelia will echo in my heart as long as my heart beats."
Then they were silent, and Hyde drew his dog closer and watched the
blaze among some lighter branches, which a servant had just brought in.
At his entrance he had also given Annie a letter, which she was eagerly
reading. Hyde had no speculation about it; and even when he found Annie
regarding him with her whole soul in her face, he failed to understand,
as he always had done, the noble love which had been so long and so
faithfully his--a love holding itself above endearments; self-repressed,
self-sacrificing, kept down in the inmost heart-chamber a dignified
prisoner behind very real bars. Yet he was conscious that the letter was
of more than usual interest, and when the servant had closed the door
behind him, he asked, "Whom is your letter from, Annie? It seems to
please you very much."
She leaned forward to him with the paper in her little trembling hand,
and said,
"It is from Cornelia."
"My God!" he ejaculated; and the words were fraught with such feeling,
as could have found no other vehicle of expression.
"She has sent you, dear George, a copy of the letter you ought to have
received more than two years ago. Read it."
His eyes ran rapidly over the sweet words, his face flamed, his hands
trembled, he cried out impetuously--
"But what does it mean? Am I quite in my senses? How has this letter
been delayed? Why do I get only a copy ?"
"Because Mr. Van Ariens has the original."
"It is all incredible. What do you mean, Annie? Do not keep me in such
torturing suspense."
"It means that Mr. Van Ariens asked Cornelia to marry him on the same
day that you wrote to her about your marriage. She answered both letters
in the same hour, and misdirected them."
"GOD'S DEATH! How can I punish so mean a scoundrel? I will have my
letter from him, if I follow him round the world for it."
"You have your letter now. I asked Cornelia to write it again for you;
and you see she has done it gladly."
"Angel of goodness! But I will have my first letter."
"It has been in that man's keeping for more than two years. I would not
touch it. 'Twould infect a gentleman, and make of him a rascal just as
base."
"He shall write me then an apology in his own blood. I will make him do
it, at the point of my sword."
"If I were you, I would scorn to wet my sword in blood so base."
"Remember, Annie, what this darling girl suffered. For his treachery she
nearly died. I speak not of my own wrong--it is as nothing to hers."
"However, she might have been more careful."
"Annie, she was in the happy hurry of love. Your calm soul knows not
what a confusing thing that is--she made a mistake, and that sneaking
villain turned her mistake into a crime. By a God's mercy, it is found
out--but how? Annie! Annie, how much I owe you! What can I say? What can
I do?"
"Be reasonable. Mary Damer really found it out. His guilty restless
conscience forced him to tell her the story, though to be sure he put
the wrong on people he did not name. But I knew so much of the mystery
of your love sorrow, as to put the two stories together, and find them
fit. Then I wrote to Cornelia."
"How long ago?"
"About two months."
"Why then did you not give me hope ere this?"
"I would not give you hope, till hope was certain. Two years is a long
time in a girl's life. It was a possible thing for Cornelia to have
forgotten--to have changed."
"Impossible! Quite impossible! She could not forget. She could not
change. Why did you not tell me? I should have known her heart by mine
own."
"I wished to be sure," repeated Annie, a little sadly.
"Forgive me, dear Annie. But this news throws me into an unspeakable
condition. You see that I must leave for America at once."
"No. I do not see that, George."
"But if you consider--"
"I have been considering for two months. Let me decide for you now, for
you are not able to do so wisely. Write at once to Cornelia, that is
your duty as well as your pleasure. But before you go to her, there are
things indispensable to be done. Will you ask Doctor Moran for his
child, and not be able to show him that you can care for her as she
deserves to be cared for? Lawyers will not be hurried, there will be
consultations, and engrossings, and signings, and love--in your case--
will have to wait upon law."
"'Tis hard for love, and harder perhaps for anger to wait. For I am in a
passion of wrath at Van Ariens. I long to be near him. Oh what suffering
his envy and hatred have caused others!"
"And himself also. Be sure of that, or he had not tried to find some
ease in a kind of confession. Doctor Roslyn will tell you that it is an
eternal law, that wherever sin is, sorrow will answer it."
"The man is hateful to me."
"He has done a thing that makes him hateful; but perhaps for all that,
he has been so miserable about it, as to have the pity of the
Uncondemning One. I hear your father coming. I am sure you will have his
sympathy in all things."
She left the room as the Earl entered it. He was in unusually high
spirits. Some political news had delighted him, and without noticing his
son's excitement he said--
"The Commons have taken things in their own hands, George. I said they
would. They listen to the King and the Lords very respectfully, and then
obey themselves. Most of the men in the Lower House are unfit to enter
it."
"Well, sir, the Lords as a rule send them there--you have sent three of
them yourself--and unfit men in public places, suppose prior unfitness
in those who have the places to dispose of. But the government is not
interesting. I have something else, father, to think about."
"Indeed, I think the government is extremely interesting. It is very
like three horses arranged in tandem fashion--first, you know, the King,
a little out of the reach of the whip; then the Lords follow the King,
and the Commons are in the shafts, a more ignoble position, but yet--as
we see to-day, possessing a special power of upsetting the coach."
"Father, I have very important news from America. Will you listen to
it?"
"Yes, if you will tell it to me straight, and not blunder about your
meaning." "Sir, I have just discovered that a letter sent to me more
than two years ago, has been knowingly and purposely detained from me."
"By whom?"
"A man into whose hands it fell by misdirection."
"Did the letter contain means of identifying it, as belonging to you?"
"Ample means."
"Then the man is outside your recognition. You might as well go to the
Bridewell, and seek a second among its riff-raff of scoundrels. Tell me
shortly whom it concerns."
"Miss Moran."
"Oh indeed! Are we to have that subject opened again?"
His face darkened, and George, with an impetuosity that permitted no
interruption, told the whole story. As he proceeded the Earl became
interested, then sympathetic. He looked with moist eyes at the youth so
dear to him, and saw that his heart was filled with the energy and
tenderness of his love. His handsome face, his piercingly bright eyes,
his courteous, but obstinately masterful manner, his almost boyish
passion of anger and impatience, his tall, serious figure, erect, as if
ready for opposition; even that sentiment of deadly steel, of being
impatient to toss his sheath from his sword, pleased very much the elder
man; and won both his respect and his admiration. He felt that his son
had rights all his own, and that he must cheerfully and generously allow
them.
"George," he answered, "you have won my approval. You have shown me that
you can suffer and be faithful, and the girl able to inspire such an
affection, must be worthy of it. What do you wish to do?"
"I am going to America by the next packet."
"Sit down, then we can talk without feeling that every word is a last
word, and full of hurry and therefore of unreason. You desire to see
Miss Moran without delay, that is very natural."
"Yes, sir. I am impatient also to get my letter."
"I think that of no importance."
"What would you have done in my case, and at my age, father?"
"Something extremely foolish. I should have killed the man, or been
killed by him. I hope that you have more sense. Society does not now
compel you to answer insult with murder. The noble not caring of the
spirit, is beyond the mere passion of the animal. What does Annie say?"
"Annie is an angel. I walk far below her--and I hate the man who has so
wronged--Cornelia. I think, sir, you must also hate him."
"I hate nobody. God send, that I may be treated the same. George, you
have flashed your sword only in a noble quarrel, will you now stain it
with the blood of a man below your anger or consideration? You have had
your follies, and I have smiled at them; knowing well, that a man who
has no follies in his youth, will have in his maturity no power. But now
you have come of age, not only in years but in suffering cheerfully
endured and well outlived; so I may talk to you as a man, and not
command you as a father."
"What do you wish me to do, sir?"
"I advise you to write to Miss Moran at once. Tell her you are more
anxious now to redeem your promise, than ever you were before. Say to
her that I already look upon her as a dear daughter, and am taking
immediate steps to settle upon you the American Manor, and also such New
York property as will provide for the maintenance of your family in the
state becoming your order and your expectations. Tell her that my
lawyers will go to this business to-morrow, and that as soon as the
deeds are in your hand, you will come and ask for the interview with
Doctor Moran, so long and cruelly delayed."
"My dear father! How wise and kind you are!"
"It is my desire to be so, George. You cannot, after this unfortunate
delay, go to Doctor Moran without the proofs of your ability to take
care of his daughter's future."
"How soon can this business be accomplished?"
"In about three weeks, I should think. But wait your full time, and do
not go without the credentials of your position. This three or four
weeks is necessary to bring to perfection the waiting of two years."
"I will take your advice, sir. I thank you for your generosity."
"All that I have is yours, George. And you can write to this dear girl
every day in the interim. Go now and tell her what I say. I had other
dreams for you as you know--they are over now--I have awakened."
"Dear Annie!" ejaculated George.
"Dear Annie!" replied the Earl with a sigh. "She is one of the daughters
of God, I am not worthy to call her mine; but I have sat at her feet,
and learned how to love, and how to forgive, and how to bear
disappointment. I will tell you, that when Colonel Saye insulted me last
year, and I felt for my sword and would have sent him a letter on its
point--Annie stepped before him. 'Forget, and go on, dear uncle,' she
said; and I did so with a proud, sore heart at first, but quite
cheerfully in a week or two; and at the last Hunt dinner he came to me
with open hand, and we ate and drank together, and are now firm friends.
Yet, but for Annie, one of us might be dead; and the other flying like
Cain exiled and miserable. Think of these things, George. The good of
being a son, is to be able to profit from your father's mistakes."
They parted with a handclasp that went to both hearts, and as Hyde
passed his mother's loom, he went in, and told her all that happened to
him, She listened with a smile and a heartache. She knew now that the
time had come to say "farewell" to the boy who had made her life for
twenty-seven years. "He must marry like the rest of the world, and go
away from her," and only mothers know what supreme self-sacrifice a
pleasant acquiescence in this event implies. But she bravely put down
all the clamouring selfishness of her long sweet care and affection, and
said cheerfully--
"Very much to my liking is Cornelia Moran, She is world-like and heaven-
like, and her good heart and sweet nature every one knows. A loving wife
and a noble mother she will make, and if I must lose thee, my Joris,
there is no girl in America that I like better to have thee."
"Never will you lose me, mother."
"Ah then! that is what all sons say. The common lot, I look for nothing
better. But see now! I give thee up cheerfully. If God please, I shall
see thy sons and daughters; and thy father has been anxious about the
Hydes. He would not have a stranger here--nor would I. Our hope is in
thee and thy sweet wife, and very glad am I that thy wife is to be
Cornelia Moran."
And even after Joris had left her she smiled, though the tears dropped
down upon her work. She thought of the presents she would send her
daughter, and she told herself that Cornelia was an American, and that
she had made for her, with her own hands and brain, a lovely home
wherein HER memory must always dwell. Indeed she let her thoughts go far
forward to see, and to listen to the happy boys and girls who might run
and shout gleefully through the fair large rooms, and the sweet shady
gardens her skill and taste had ordered and planted. Thus her generosity
made her a partaker of her children's happiness, and whoever partakes of
a pleasure has his share of it, and comes into contact--not only with
the happiness--but with the other partakers of that happiness--a divine
kind of interest for generous deeds, which we may all appropriate.
Nothing is more contagious than joy, and Hyde was now a living joy
through all the house. His voice had caught a new tone, his feet a more
buoyant step, he carried himself like a man expectant of some glorious
heritage. So eager, so ardent, so ready to be happy, he inspired every
one with his buoyant gladness of heart. He could at least talk to
Cornelia with his pen every day, yes, every hour if he desired; and if
it had been possible to transfer in a letter his own light-heartedness,
the words he wrote would have shone upon the paper.
The next morning Mary Damer called. She knew that a letter from Cornelia
was possible, and she knew also that it would really be as fateful to
herself, as to Hyde. If, as she suspected, it was Rem Van Ariens who had
detained the misdirected letter, there was only one conceivable result
as regarded herself. She, an upright, honourable English girl, loving
truth with all her heart, and despising whatever was underhand and
disloyal, had but one course to take--she must break off her engagement
with a man so far below her standard of simple morality. She could not
trust his honour, and what security has love in a heart without honour?
So she looked anxiously at Annie as she entered, and Annie would not
keep her in suspense. "There was a letter from Miss Moran last night,"
she said. "She loves George yet. She re-wrote the unfortunate letter,
and this time it found its owner. I think he has it next his heart at
this very moment."
"I am glad of that, Annie. But who has the first letter?"
"I think you know, Mary."
"You mean Mr. Van Ariens?"
"Yes."
"Then there is no more to be said. I shall write to him as soon as
possible."
"I am sorry--"
"No, no! Be content, Annie. The right must always come right. Neither
you nor I could desire any other end, even to our own love story."
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