The Maid of Maiden Lane
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"To work I will go. That is the best thing to do. My house has no comfort in it. Like a milliner's or a mercer's store it has been for many weeks. Well, then, my Cousin Deborah is at work there, and in a little while—a little while—" He suddenly stopped and looked at the doctor with brimming eyes. In that moment he understood that no putting to rights could ever make his home the same. His little saucy, selfish, but dearly loved Arenta would come there no more; and he found not one word that could express the tide of sorrow rising in his heart. Doctor John understood. He remained quiet, silent, clasping Van Ariens' hand until the desolate father with a great effort blurted out—
"She is gone!—and smiling, also, she went."
"It is the curse of Adam," answered Doctor Moran bitterly—"to bring up daughters, to love them, to toil and save and deny ourselves for them, and then to see some strange man, of whom we have no certain knowledge, carry them off captive to his destiny and his desires. 'Tis a thankless portion to be a father—a bitter pleasure."
"Well, then, to be a mother is worse."
"Who can tell that? Women take for compensations things that do not deceive a father. And, also, they have one grand promise to help them bear loss and disappointment—the assurance of the Holy Scripture that they shall have salvation through child-bearing. And I, who have seen so much of family love and life, can tell you that this promise is all many a mother has for her travail and sorrowful love."
"It is enough. Pray God that we miss not of that reward some share," and with a motion of adieu he turned into his house. Very thoughtfully the Doctor went on to William Street where he had a patient,—a young girl of about Arenta's age—very ill. A woman opened the door—a woman weeping bitterly.
"She is gone, Doctor."
"At what hour?"
"The clock was striking three—she went smiling."
Then he bowed his head and turned away.
There was nothing more that he could do; but he remembered that Arenta had stepped on board the La Belle France as the clock struck three, and that she also had gone smiling to her unknown destiny.
"Two emigrants," he thought, "pilgrims of Love and Death, and both went smiling!" An unwonted tenderness came into his heart; he thought of the bright, lovely bride clinging so trustfully to her husband's arm, and he voiced this gentle feeling to his wife in very sincere wishes for the safety and happiness of the little emigrant for Love. He had a singular reluctance to name her—he knew not why—with the other little maid who also had left smiling at three o'clock, an emigrant for whom Death had opened eternal vistas of delight.
"I do not know," said Mrs. Moran, "how Van Ariens could suffer his daughter to go to a country full of turmoil and bloodshed."
"He was very unhappy to do so, Ava. But when things have gone a certain length they have fatality. The Marquis had promised to become eventually a citizen of this Republic, and Van Ariens had no idea in sanctioning the marriage that his daughter would leave New York. It was even supposed the Marquis would remain here in the Count de Moustier's place, and the sudden turn of events which sent de Tounnerre to France was a severe blow to Van Ariens. But what could he do?"
"He might have delayed the marriage until the return of de Tounnerre."
"Ah, Ava! you are counting without consideration. He could not have detained Arenta against her will, and if he had, a miserable life would have been before both of them—domestic discomfort, public queries and suspicions, questions, doubts, offending sympathies—all the griefs and vexations that are sure to follow a Fate that is crossed. He did the best thing possible when he let the wilful girl go as pleasantly as he could. Arenta needs a wide horizon."
"Is she in any danger from the state of affairs in Paris?"
"Mr. Jefferson says in no danger whatever. Our Minister is living there in safety. Arenta will have his friendship and protection; and her husband has many friends in the most powerful party. She will have a brilliant visit and be very happy."
"How can she be very happy with the guillotine daily enacting such murders?"
"She need not be present at such murders. And Mr. Jefferson may be right, and we outsiders may make too much of circumstances that France, and France alone, can properly estimate. He says that the God that made iron wished not slaves to exist, and thinks there is a profound and eternal justice in this desolation and retribution of aristocrats who have committed unmentionable oppressions. I know not; good and evil are so interwoven in life that every good, traced up far enough, is found to involve evil. This is the great mystery of life. However, Ava, I am a great believer in sequences; there are few events that break off absolutely. In Arenta's life there will be sequences; let us hope that they will be happy ones. Where is Cornelia?"
"I know not. She is asleep. The ball to-night is to be fairy-land and love-land, an Arabian night's dream and a midsummer night's dream all in one. I told her to rest, for she was weary and nervous with expectation."
"I dare say. But what is the good of being young if it is not to expect miracles?"
"George Hyde calls for her at eight o'clock. I shall let her sleep until seven, give her some refreshment, and then assist her to dress."
"George Hyde! So you still believe in trusting the cat with the cream?"
"I still believe in Cornelia. Come, now, and drink a cup of tea. To-morrow the Van Ariens' excitement will be over, and we shall have rest."
"I think not. The town is now ready to move to Philadelphia. I hear that Mrs. Adams is preparing to leave Richmond Hill. Washington has already gone, and Congress is to meet in December. Even the Quakers are intending all sorts of social festivities."
"But this will not concern us."
"It may. If George Hyde does not go very soon to England, we shall go to Philadelphia. I wish to rid myself and Cornelia of his airs and graces and wearisome good temper, his singing and reciting and tringham-trangham poetry. This story has been long enough; we will turn over and end it."
"It will be a great trial to Cornelia."
"It may, or it may not—there is Rem—Rem is your own suggestion. However, we have all to sing the hymn of Renunciation at some time; it is well to sing it in youth."
Mrs. Moran did not answer. When answering was likely to provoke anger, she kept silence and talked the matter over with herself. A very wise plan. For where shall we find a friend so intimate, so discreet, so conciliating as self? Who can speak to us so well?—without obscurity, without words, without passion. Yes, indeed: "I will talk to myself" is a very significant phrase.
CHAPTER VIII
TWO PROPOSALS
The ruling idea of any mind assumes the foreground of thought; and after Arenta's marriage the dominant desire of George Hyde was to have his betrothal to Cornelia recognized and assured. He was in haste to light his own nuptial torch, and afraid every day of that summons to England which would delay the event. Hitherto, both had been satisfied with the delicious certainty of their own hearts. To bring Love to discussion and catechism, to talk of Love in connection with house and money matters, to put him into bonds, however light those bonds might be, was indeed a safe and prudent thing for their future happiness; but, so far, the present with its sweet freedom and uncertainty had been more charming to their imagination. Suddenly, however, Hyde felt the danger and stress of this uncertainty and the fear of losing what he appeared to hold so lightly.
"I may have to go away with mother at any time—I may be detained by events I cannot help—and I have not bound Cornelia to me by any personal recognized tie—and Rem Van Ariens will be ever near her. Oh, indeed, this state of affairs will never do! I will write to Cornelia this very moment and tell her I must see her father this evening. I cannot possibly delay it longer. I have been a fool—a careless, happy fool—too long. There is not now a day to lose. I have already wasted more time than was reasonable over the love affairs of other people; now I must look after my own. Safe bind, safe find; I will bind Cornelia to me before I leave her, then I have a good right to find her safe when I return to claim her."
While such thoughts were passing through his mind he had risen hastily from the chair in which he had been musing. He opened his secretary and sitting resolutely down, began a letter to Doctor Moran. He poured out his heart and desires, and then he read what he had written. It would not do at all. It was a love letter and not a business letter. He wrote another, and then another. The first was too long, it left nothing in the inkstand; the last was not to be thought of. When he had finished reading them over, he was in a passion with himself.
"A fool in your teeth twice over, Joris Hyde!" he cried, "yes, sir, three times, and far too good for you! Since you cannot write a decent business letter, write, then, to the adorable Cornelia; the words will be at your finger ends for that letter, and will slip from your pen as if they were dancing:
"MY SWEET CORNELIA:
"I have not seen you for two days, and 'tis a miracle that I have endured it. I can tell you, beloved, that I am much concerned about our affairs, and now that I have begun to talk wisely I may talk a little more without wearying you. You know that I may have to go to England soon, and go I will not until I have asked your father what favour he will show us. On the street, he gets out of my way as if I had the plague. Tell me at what hour I may call and see him in his house. I will then ask him point blank for your hand, and he is so candid that I shall have in a word Yes or No on the matter. Do not keep me waiting longer than seven this very night. I have a fever of anxiety, and I shall not grow better, but worse, until I settle our engagement. Oh, my peerless Cornelia, pearl and flower of womanhood, I speak your speech, I think your thought; you are the noblest thing in my life, and to remember you is to remember the hours when I was the very best and the very happiest. Your image has become part of me, your memory is a perfume which makes sweet my heart. I wish this moment to give you thousands and thousands of kisses. Bid me come to you soon, very soon, sooner than seven, if possible, for your love is my life. Send your answer to my city lodging. I shall follow this letter and be impatiently waiting for it. Oh, Cornelia, am I not ever and entirely yours?
"GEORGE HYDE."
It was not more than eight o'clock in the morning when he wrote this letter, and as soon as possible he despatched a swift messenger with it to Cornelia. He hoped that she would receive it soon after the Doctor had left his home for his usual round of professional visits; then she might possibly write to him at once, and if so, he would get the letter very soon after he reached the city.
Probably Madame Hyde divined something of the importance and tenor of a missive sent in such a hurry of anxious love, so early in the day, but she showed neither annoyance nor curiosity regarding it. In the first place, she knew that opposition would only strengthen whatever resolve her son had made; in the second place, she was conscious of a singular restlessness of her own spirit. She was apprehending change, and she could think of no change but that call to leave her home and her native land which she so much dreaded. If this event happened, then the affairs of Joris would assume an entirely different aspect. He would be obliged to leave everything which now interested him, and he could not live without interests; very well, then, he would be compelled to accept such as a new Fate thrown into his new life. She had a great faith in circumstances. She knew that in the long run every one wrote beneath that potent word, "Your obedient servant." Circumstances would either positively deny all her son's hopes, or they would so powerfully aid them that opposition would be useless; and she mentally bowed herself to an influence so powerful and perhaps so favourable.
"Joris, my dear one," she said, as they rose from the breakfast table; "Joris, I think there is a letter from your father. To the city you must go as soon as you can, for I have had a restless night, full of feeling it has been."
"You should not go to bed to feel, mother. Night is the time for sleep."
"And for dreams, and for many good things to come, that come not in the day. Yes, indeed, the nighttime of the body is the daytime of the soul."
Then Joris smiled and kissing her, said, "I am going at once. If there is a letter I will send a quick rider with it."
"But come thyself."
"That I cannot." "But why, then?"
"To-morrow, I will tell you."
"That is well. Into thy mother's heart drop all thy joys and sorrows. Thine are mine." And she kissed him, and he went away glad and hopeful and full of tender love for the mother who understood him so sympathetically. He stood up in his stirrups to wave her a last adieu, and then he said to himself, "How fortunate I am about women! Could I have a sweeter, lovelier mistress? No! Mother? No! Grandmother? No! Friend? No! Cornelia, mother, grandmother, Madame Jacobus, all of them just what I love and need, sweet souls between me and the angels."
It happened—but doubtless happened because so ordered—that the very hour in which Joris left Hyde Manor, Peter Van Ariens received a letter that made him very anxious. He left his office and went to see his son. "Rem," he said, "there is now an opportunity for thee. Here has come a letter from Boston, and some one must go there; and that too in a great hurry. The house of Blume and Otis is likely to fail, and in it we have some great interests. A lawyer we must have to look after them; go thyself, and it shall be well for both of us."
"I am ready to go—that is, I can be ready in one or two days."
"There are not one or two days to spare. Gerard will take care of thy work here. To-day is the best time of all."
"I cannot go with a happy mind to-day. I will tell you, father. I think now my case with Cornelia will bear putting to the question. As you know, it has been step with step between Joris Hyde and myself in that affair, and if I go away now without securing the ground I have gained, what can hinder Hyde from taking advantage over me? He too must go soon, but he will try and secure his position before he leaves. To do the same thing is my only way. I wish, then, the time to give myself this security."
"That is fair. A man is not a man till he has won a wife. Cornelia Moran is much to my mind. Tell her my home is thine, and she will be a mistress dearly loved and honoured. And if a thing is to be done, there is no time like the hour that has not struck. Go and see her now. She was in the garden gathering asters when I left home this morning."
"I will write to her. I will tell her what is in my heart—though she knows it well—and ask her for her love and her hand. If she is kind to my offer she will tell me to come and see her to-night, then I can go to Boston with a free heart and look after your money and your business."
"If things be this way, thou art reasonable. A good wife must not be lost for the peril of some gold sovereigns. At once write to the maid; such letters are best done at the first thought, some prudences or some fears may come with the second thoughts."
"I have no fear but Joris Hyde. That Englishman I hate. His calm confidence, his smiling insolent air is intolerable."
"It is the English way. But Cornelia is American—as thou art."
"She thinks much of that, but yet—"
"Be not afraid. The brave either find, or make, a way to success. What is in a girl's heart no man can tell, if she be cold and shy that should not cause thee to doubt. When water is ice, who would suspect what great heat is stored away in it? Write thy letter at once. Put thy heart into thy pen. Not always prudent is this way, but once in a man's life it is wisdom."
"My pen is too small for my heart."
"My opinion is that thou hast wavered too long. It is a great foolishness to let the cherry knock against the lips too often or too long. A pretty pastime, perhaps, to will, and not will, to dare, and not dare; but at last the knock comes that drops the cherry—it may be into some other mouth."
"I fear no one but that rascal, Joris Hyde."
"A rascal he is not, because the same woman he loves as thyself. Such words weaken any cause. No wrong have I seen or known of Lieutenant Hyde."
"I will call him a rascal, and I will give him no other title, though his father leave him an earl."
"Now, then, I shall go. I like not ill words. Write thy letter, but put out of thy mind all bad thoughts first. A love letter from a bitter heart is not lucky. And of all thy wit thou wilt have great need if to a woman thou write."
"Oh, they are intolerable, aching joys! A man who dares to love a woman, or dares to believe in her, dares to be mad."
"Come, come! No evil must thou speak of good women, I swear that I was never out of it yet, when I judged men as they judged women. The art of loving a woman is the art of trusting her—yes, though the heavens fall. Now, then, haste with thy letter. Thou may have 'Yes' to it ere thou sleep to-night."
"And I may have 'No.'"
"To be sure, if thou think 'no.' But, even so, if thou lose the wedding ring, the hand is still left; another ring may be found."
"'No,' would be a deathblow to me."
"It will not. While a man has meat and drink love will not starve him; with world's business and world's pleasure an unkind love he makes shift to forget. Bring to me word of thy good fortune this night, and in the morning there is the Boston business. Longer it can hardly wait."
But the letter to Cornelia which Hyde found to slip off his pen like dancing was a much more difficult matter to Rem. He wrote and destroyed, and wrote again and destroyed, and this so often that he finally resolved to go to Maiden Lane for his inspiration. "I may see Cornelia in the garden, or at the window, and when I see what I desire, surely I shall have the wit to ask for it."
So he thought, and with the thought he locked his desk and went towards his home in Maiden Lane. He met George Hyde sauntering up the street looking unhappy and restless, and he suspected at once that he had been walking past Doctor Moran's house in the hope of seeing Cornelia and had been disappointed. The thought delighted him. He was willing to bear disappointment himself, if by doing so some of Hyde's smiling confidence was changed to that unhappy uneasiness which he detected in his rival's face and manner. The young men bowed to each other but did not speak. In some occult way they divined a more positive antagonism than they had ever before been conscious of.
"I cannot go out of the house," thought Rem, "without meeting that fop. He is in at one door, and out at another; this way, that way, up street, and down street—the devil take the fellow!"
"What a mere sullen creature that Rem Van Ariens is!" thought Hyde, "and with all the good temper in the world I affirm it. I wonder what he is on the street for at this hour! Shall I watch him? No, that would be vile work. I will let him alone; he may as well play the ill-natured fool on the street as in the house—better, indeed, for some one may have a title to tell him so. But I may assure myself of one thing, when I met him he was building castles in the future, for he was looking straight before him; and if he had been thinking of the past, he would have been looking down. I should not wonder if it was Cornelia that filled his dreams. Faith, we have blockheads of all ages; but on that road he will never overtake his thought"—then with a movement of impatience he added,
"Why should I let him into my mind?—for he is the least welcome of all intruders.—Good gracious! how long the minutes are! It is plain to me that Cornelia is not at home, and my letter may not even have touched her hands yet. How shall I endure another hour?—perhaps many hours. Where can she have gone? Not unlikely to Madame Jacobus. Why did I not think of this before? For who can help me to bear suspense better than madame? I will go to her at once."
He hastened his steps and soon arrived at the well-known residence of his friend. He was amazed as soon as the door was opened to find preparations of the most evident kind for some change. The corded trunk in the hall, the displaced furniture, all things he saw were full of the sad hurry of parting. "What is the matter?" he asked in a voice of fear.
"I am going away for a time, Joris, my good friend," answered madame, coming out of a shrouded and darkened parlour as she spoke. She had on her cloak and bonnet, and before Joris could ask her another question a coach drove to the door. "I think it is a piece of good fortune," she continued, "to see you before I go."
"But where are you going?"
"To Charleston."
"But why?"
"I am going because my sister Sabrina is sick—dying; and there is no one so near to her as I am."
"I knew not you had a sister."
"She is the sister of my husband. So, then, she is twice my sister. When Jacobus comes home he will thank me for going to his dear Sabrina. But what brings you here so early? Yesterday I asked for you, and I was told that you were waiting on your good mother."
"My mother felt sure there was a letter from father, and I came at once to get it for her."
"Was there one?"
"There was none."
"It will come in good time. Now, I must go. I have not one moment to lose. Good-bye, dear Joris!"
"For how long, my friend?"
"I know not. Sabrina is incurably ill. I shall stay with her till she departs." She said these words as they went down the steps together, and with eyes full of tears he placed her carefully in the coach and then turned sorrowfully to his own rooms. He could not speak of his own affairs at such a moment, and he realized that there was nothing for him to do but wait as patiently as possible for Cornelia's answer.
In the meantime Rem was writing his proposal. He was not assisted in the effort by any sight of his mistress. It was evident Cornelia was not in her home, and he looked in vain for any shadow of the sweet face that he was certain would have made his words come easily. Finally, after many trials, he desisted with the following, though it was the least affective of any form he had written:
To MISS MORAN,
Honoured and Beloved Friend:
Twenty times this day I have tried to write a letter worthy to come into your hands and worthy to tell you how beyond all words I love you, But what can I say more than that I love you? This you know. It has been no secret to you since ever you were a little girl. Many years I have sought your love,—pardon me if now I ask you to tell me I have not sought in vain. To-morrow I must leave New York, and I may be away for some time. Pray, then, give me some hope to-night to take with me. Say but one word to make me the proudest and happiest lover in the world. Give me the permission to come and show to your father that I am able to maintain you in every comfort that is your right; and all my life long I will prove to you the devotion that attests my undying affection and gratitude. I am sick with longing for the promise of your love. May I presume to hope so great a blessing? O dearest Cornelia, I am, as you know well, your humble servant, REMBRANDT VAN ARIENS.
When he had finished this letter, he folded and sealed it, and walked to the window with it in his hand. Then he saw Cornelia returning home from some shopping or social errand, and hastily calling a servant, ordered him to deliver the letter at once to Miss Moran. And as Cornelia lingered a little among the aster beds, the man put it into her own hands. She bowed and smiled as she accepted it, but Rem, watching with his heart in his eyes, could see that it awakened no special interest. She kept it unopened as she wandered among the purple and pink, and gold and white flowers, until Mrs. Moran came to the door to hurry her movements; then she followed her mother hastily into the house, "Do you know how late it is, Cornelia? Dinner is nearly ready. There is a letter on your dressing table that came by Lieutenant Hyde's servant two or three hours ago."
"And Tobias has just brought me a letter from Rem—at least the direction is in Rem's handwriting."