Because of conscience

Mathilde was in a flutter of excitement. For the first time since her marriage she meant to give an entertainment to her friends. Small evening companies were quite a usual thing among the lively French emigrants, and an excuse to entertain one’s friends was seldom wanting. Alaine had declared that she had no heart to dance, but Mathilde had a fertile brain; there should be something else. She, so deft with brush and needle, would arrange some tableaux. These would help to occupy Alaine and give her something new to think about. She had been under such a nervous strain and needed diversion. Mathilde quite appreciated Michelle’s concern; they must rouse this triste Alaine. Life was sad enough at best, why not try to put some joy into it? Therefore Mathilde flitted about like some small bright-eyed bird, singing as she worked. Her slim, clever little fingers gave a twist to this, a touch to that, and lo, an artistic result.

“You are far more clever than I,” Alaine would say, admiringly, “and yet I thought myself not deficient in embroidery and flower-painting. The sisters used to say I was an industrious pupil. Those lovely laces, Mathilde, where did you get them? And those muslins, so beautiful they are.”

“They are what remain of my mother’s wardrobe,” Mathilde told her, fingering the stuffs lovingly. “You shall wear this in the bower of roses which I mean for the rose maiden.”

Alaine gave a little joyless laugh. “I, a rose maiden? No, no, do not press me into any such service; rather am I a weeping Niobe, a desolate Mara.”

Mathilde’s fingers flew back and forth as she sewed some strips together. “And you were once such a happy girl, Alaine. If Pierre should return in time you might find happiness with him, he is so good and true. See how dark it looked to me at one time.”

“Pierre?”

“Yes. Gerard has told me why he went.”

Alaine let her hands lie idle in her lap for a moment and looked mournfully out of the window. The year was past, but there was no Pierre to claim her, and no Lendert to step in between her and duty. “In what strange ways are our doings ordered,” she said, gravely. “We mourn and sigh and fret over the difficulties in our pathway, and before we know it some convulsion of nature has removed them and we walk for evermore through a twilight world in which no stumbling is possible. With the danger we lose the light.”

“Yes, but there is the morning still to come,” returned Mathilde, cheerily. “Here comes Mère Michelle; I will leave you for a little, I have forgotten something that I should have brought from my uncle’s. We shall need it for our tableaux to-night.”

It was a full hour before she returned all in a flutter. She sought Mère Michelle. There were whispers, chatterings, screams of astonishment, falling almost without notice upon Alaine’s dull ears. Mathilde did love surprises; she had some new scheme afoot for the night’s entertainment. But the girl did arouse to a sense of more important things being in prospect when Michelle, with much mystery, came and clasped her in her arms.

“Prepare yourself, my Alainette; this day will have a happy ending for you. Sorrow endureth for a night, but joy cometh in the morning.”

“What is it? What is it?” Alaine asked, faintly.

“We have heard from Pierre.”

“Ah-h!” Alaine started. “He is coming?”

“No, not he. Some one in his stead.”

“My father!” Alaine clasped her hands over her heart, and again Michelle fell upon her neck with tears and kisses and murmuring words of love.

“When will he come?” Alaine asked. “It is not a false report? You are sure, Michelle?”

“The letter arrived to-day; it was written hurriedly, and is only a line: ‘M. Hervieu is discovered. He will set out as soon as possible for Manhatte. I remain here.’ That was all.”

“Poor Pierre!” sighed Alaine, “he has condemned himself to a life of slavery, I fear. Poor Pierre! There must be a drop of bitterness even in this cup, Michelle.”

“Dear little one, so gloomy and unlike your old self. This will not do—no, no. Here, Papa Louis wants you for a walk; the air is brisk and keen and you have bent over those paper flowers all day. Go out and get a breath.”

“Yes, take her off, Papa Louis. Go, both of you, and do not come back for an hour. We do not want you around. We need all the space we can get, and you are of such a size, Papa Louis, that you are in the way.” And, laughing, Mathilde playfully pushed the good man out of the door. “Bring back Alaine with some color, else I shall be ruined in paint for her cheeks to-night.”

Papa Louis, always good company, was to-day in a high state of jocularity. An entertainment such as this was dear to his heart. He and Mathilde had pored over such books as the little community possessed, had drawn upon their memories and upon their imaginations until they felt that the tableaux would surpass anything of the kind yet shown in the village. It was the kind of thing which gave Papa Louis supreme pleasure. He was in his element. He could quote poetry, he could make reference to classical characters, he could recall historical personages with an ease which awoke a new humility in Michelle, grown accustomed to ordering about this little man, whose knowledge of a husbandman’s crafts was so small, and who so often aroused her mocking laughter by his mistakes. He was superior. Yes, she knew it, and he had stooped to marry her. And so Michelle wore a very meek look these days.

Gerard and Mathilde, two children, frolicked through it all, played jokes upon each other, laughed and danced and quarrelled and kissed between the quarrels, so that it was really quite a hubbub from which Alaine escaped, given, too, a half-dozen other young people to join in the chatter, neighboring maidens and their swains who were to take part in the evening’s festivities.

These were all still there when Alaine returned from her walk, but they were more subdued. They stopped their chatter as Alaine came in and pressed one another’s hands sympathetically. They had an expectant air as Alaine stepped into the room, and cast quick glances at the improvised curtain, the old blue bedspreads hung below the rafters.

Mathilde went to Alaine and kissed her, then took the cold, thin hands in hers. “You are returned just in time, my dear. We have changed the tableaux somewhat, and will now rehearse the first one. Sit there, between Papa Louis and Mère Michelle. We call this The Return. It permits of two scenes. We shall want you for the second one, Alaine, dear Alaine. Draw the curtain, Gerard.”

The blue linen hangings parted, and Alaine saw before her, smiling a little, two men, one whose gray locks hung about a face somewhat older, somewhat more careworn, than she remembered it, but still the same that was her earliest memory. He rested his hand upon the shoulder of a younger man upon whose smooth cheek burned the mark of the red feather.

With parted lips and one cry, in which love, longing, and bewilderment were united, Alaine sprang to her feet, made one bound, and was clasped in her father’s arms.

“Drop the curtain, Gerard,” ordered Mathilde. “You have beheld the second scene, my friends. This tableau will not be repeated.”

An hour later the guests came trooping in, the Allaires and the Bonneaus, the Theroldes and the Thauvets. The news had spread abroad, and Mathilde’s tableaux proved to be less of an excitement than this drama in which the chief actors were Alaine and Theodore Hervieu and Lendert Verplanck.

It was late when the last tableau was announced. Surely it was a rose maiden who stood there in her gown of broidered pink, her short brown curls garlanded, and the bloom on her cheeks and lips that given by the touch of joy. So sweet and fair and slight she stood, and at her feet two little loves from out of the roses aimed their arrows. Around her glowed the flowers made by Mathilde’s cunning hands. At sight of her who had suffered much, who was lost and was found, who had mourned and had been mourned, who had been in perils oft, the whole company arose as if by an impulse, and burst out into a psalm of praise, singing so lustily that they might have been heard far in the quiet forest: “O give thanks unto the Lord; for he is good!” And who in all that company could sing the words with more exalted soul than Alaine?

It was when one after another had tramped home and the snatches of song had died away that Mathilde, unable to curb her curiosity any longer, asked, “And Pierre?”

“And Pierre?” mocked Gerard, his arm around her. “My wife, you see, desires to know of him.”

Mathilde made a saucy face at him. “We desire to know of Pierre,” she repeated. “No doubt you have told his story over a dozen times this evening, but we have not heard, and we are not less friends than the rest, M. Hervieu.”

“Pierre.” M. Hervieu looked at Alaine and smiled. “Pierre is quite comfortable and in good hands. He is married.”

“Married!” the comical expression of dismay upon Mathilde’s face was a sight to see. She turned to Gerard. “Then say no more to me of a man’s constancy.”

“What I wish to know,” said Michelle, “is how it comes that you and M. Verplanck appear in company.”

“That is a coincidence. I returned upon the first ship which touched at Dominica upon her return voyage, and this happened to be the one of which M. Verplanck is half owner. It seems that he,”—he placed a kind hand upon the young man’s arm,—“our friend here, had taken the journey to Guadaloupa some months ago, hoping to find me there. He was misinformed; I was not at Guadaloupa but at Dominica, and there Pierre Boutillier found me by chance. M. Verplanck had taken the precaution to have inquiry made for me at each succeeding voyage, and when I took passage upon the very ship that had come in search of me, the good skipper, when he learned my name, was completely dumfounded. And when upon arriving in port, M. Verplanck was there to receive his ship, he received me also. Then, since our destination was the same, we came together. I had no idea that I was so important a person that I must be sought for by two strangers, but it seems I am of more value than I knew.” He looked with loving eyes at Alaine as he said this.

Papa Louis laughed softly. “It is not always ourselves for which we are valued, M. Hervieu, but for what we possess. I am of little account, but Mathilde has coddled me ever since that day when she came to nurse my wife.”

Mathilde gave him a gentle tap. “For shame, Papa Louis, you would imply that I did so because of Gerard.”

“And was not that it?”

Mathilde pouted. “He tells dreadful stories, that Papa Louis. Go on, M. Hervieu, we would hear more. No matter why you were sought, you are here and we are very glad. We wish next to hear of M. Verplanck’s adventures.”

But Michelle declared that that must wait till the morning, else Alaine would have no rest at all. “And she is not yet as strong as we would have her,” she said, solicitously.

It seemed to Alaine, in her little bed up under the eaves, that the night was all too short for her long thoughts. Till morning she lay wide awake, with such great joy and gladness tugging at her heart that once or twice she sat up and put out her hand to touch the wall of her room that she might be sure this was no dream. “Lendert! Father!” she whispered. “I am happy! I am happy! It is so wonderful, dear God, to be happy when I have been wretched for so long, so long.”

At dawn she arose and dressed quietly, then slipped softly down-stairs and out into the autumn morning. Michelle and Gerard were already astir, but she passed Michelle in her kitchen and Gerard in the garden and went on to the edge of the wood, where a golden finger of light was already touching the trees in their crimson. Before entering the well-remembered path she stopped. There were footsteps behind her. She turned to see that Lendert had followed her. He took her hand, and together they went on into the still forest and with one consent knelt there together.

“The house was too narrow for me,” said Alaine, when they arose and faced each other. “I was too full of thanksgiving to give it utterance there. My Lendert! my Lendert! Are we dead and is this heaven?” She yielded her sweet body to his embrace. So thrilled with happiness she was that it seemed that the world must fade before her blurred vision.

“My sweet! my sweet!” whispered Lendert, “I am a gift to you.” And there in his arms she listened to the story of his rescue and received her message.

Standing on tiptoe she touched her lips to the red scar upon his cheek. “So I receive him, François,” she said. “Thou poor mistaken, unhappy soul, God give thee peace in thine hour of death. I forgive thee. So I receive this gift dedicated to me by thy great courage and by thy supreme renunciation.”

The tangy, winelike odor of the leaves under their feet filled the air. From the little farmsteads came the cheerful sounds of stirring life. Through the purple mists at the end of the path could be seen glimpses of the blue sound. The hush of Indian summer, not unlike that of an expectant spring, was around and over them.

“Do you remember that last morning when we went out into the woods together?” Alaine asked.

“Can we forget it?”

“Never has broken a morning since that when I have not felt the horror of it. That was why I came out so early, that I might take my happiness with the dawn and remember that day no more. I have been so wretched, so weary.”

“And now?”

She gazed at him with eyes full of love, while into his own came the look which long ago had caught her heart. “Thou lovest me?” he murmured.

“I love thee! I love thee! Ah, how I love thee!”

“And so I love thee. No one shall ever part us again.”

“But thy mother?”

“She does not know. I have in some way missed her, and therefore I must leave thee for a little that I may find her; but we shall not even then be parted, for there is now no one to do us harm.”

Hand in hand, yet in soberer mood, they went back to the house. Lendert had told his story to Alaine’s father and had not been heard unkindly. If his mother’s consent could be obtained all would go well, he believed.

“You will not leave us?” Michelle exclaimed in dismay when Lendert announced his intention of seeking his mother. Pierre disposed of, Gerard married, François beyond return, she began to think it would be well after all if this young man were not allowed to wander too far away. Besides, she really liked him and was bent upon securing Alaine’s happiness. “He would make a desirable husband for Alaine,” she confided to M. Hervieu. “He has good prospects, and it is not so far to Manhatte, where they could live. It would be well if the girl were settled, she has had so many experiences, and I think she could not do better.”

M. Hervieu nodded and smiled. He understood Michelle’s concern for the girl, who had been as her very own, but he had observed a habit of self-restraint in these years past, and was not inclined to discuss the subject yet. For all that, he, too, advised Lendert not to return at once to his mother’s home. “She has heard of your having been there and of your going on to Manhatte. She will in all probability go there at once to overtake you.”

“And so you may keep it up, dodging each other for weeks,” said Michelle. “Better remain here, my friend.”

Lendert considered the matter. “I will go to the town and leave word with my mother’s friends that I am here, and I will furthermore send a message to her that I await her pleasure. If she wills it so, I will go to her.”

It was late one afternoon a week after that Alaine, from the porch where she had been sitting with her father, looked down the street to see three figures approaching. She had been examining the little packet sent her by Felice. “I send you a small token of my esteem,” the little lady wrote. “May this silver dove take you an olive branch of peace.” Then followed a few gracious words, and at the end, “I have a curiosity to know if you ever loved Pierre Boutillier. You will understand, being a woman, why I wish to know this. If I believed your heart given to him I should not be happy in what I have done, but in sending you your father instead of a lover, I feel sure I am doing you no wrong. Assure me of this and receive my gratitude.”

Alaine was smiling over these words when she beheld the three advancing figures. Surely that stride was very familiar. She sprang to her feet. “It is Jeanne! Jeanne Crepin! and Petit Marc, and, oh, my father, it is Madam De Vries herself!”

It was Madam who arrived first, for she was riding ahead of the other two, who tramped along with a free swinging walk. She alighted from her horse and went tremblingly toward the girl, who stood by her father’s side not less agitated. In these months Madam had aged greatly. She looked like an old woman. “My son! My son!” she cried. “Where is he? I want my son!”

“He is here. We have sent for him. He will arrive at once,” M. Hervieu returned courteously. “Allow me to lead you in, madam.”

“Madam!” Alaine stood shyly by.

“Alaine!” The mother sank into a chair and began to weep softly. “Give him back to me, my boy. My poor boy!”

“He is here. You shall see him at once,” repeated Alaine, kneeling by her. “Madam, this is my father, who has lately been restored to his daughter. He can understand.” She saw Lendert coming and ran out another way. For some reason she would rather not witness the meeting between mother and son.

She ran out the gate and down the road to meet Jeanne just beyond the fence. “Jeanne! Jeanne! it is so good to see you again. Oh, you good Jeanne, how can I thank you and Petit Marc for your goodness to M. Verplanck? And Jeanne, Jeanne, it is my father who is in there. There are so many wonderful things happening. Come in, come in.”

Jeanne shrank back a little. “Will I do, Alaine? Will I do? Remember I must meet Michelle with dignity. I am really trembling, Alaine, old stupide that I am. After all these years, and it is Theodore Hervieu in there.”

If she were uncertain of her welcome, its heartiness took away all discomfort. It was M. Hervieu who grasped her hands and called her his dear old friend Jeanne Bisset. It was Michelle who, rather awkwardly, but in all kindliness, first hesitated and then embraced her. It was Lendert who led her to his mother, saying, “But for these two, Jeanne Crepin and Marc Lenoir, I should no longer be living, madam.”

This caused Madam’s tears again to flow, and she sobbed forth, “And I drove her from me. Twice has she heaped coals of fire upon my head: first by warning me on that dreadful morning, and then she saves you. I am a wicked old woman, Jeanne Crepin.”

“We are all wicked, whether we be old or young, men or women,” returned Jeanne, seriously. “I am no saint myself, neither is Petit Marc.”

M. Hervieu looked at the big coureur de bois with attention, then he clapped him on the shoulder. “Surely I should know Marc Lenoir. No, no, let us say nothing of those old days. We know only these new ones. We are friends all, yes?” Yet when he looked around it was Alaine who turned away her head. Madam had not bestowed upon her the greeting one gives a daughter.

“I am not a rich man,” M. Hervieu went on, “but I am a very fortunate one, or I have good friends, and I have enough to begin the world anew. I already have made my plans to go to Manhatte and engage in trade there. We shall be quite comfortable, my daughter and I, and I trust we shall be content.”

Petit Marc had taken a packet from his blouse. “There is a small matter here that I wish to talk about,” he said. “Perhaps we older ones would best discuss it by ourselves at first.”

Mathilde, who had come in some time before, now led the way out. Lendert and Alaine followed. “They do not want us to hear,” Mathilde remarked, “yet I am consumed with curiosity.”

Alaine walked by Mathilde’s side. She did not look at Lendert, but kept her eyes cast down as she walked, and the young man looked troubled. “She does not forgive me,” Alaine’s look said.

Petit Marc drew his chair up to the table; the others followed his example. He slowly opened the paper he held. “I have here a copy of the last will and testament of François Dupont,” he began. “Before the death of the testator he converted all his estates in France into English moneys. The amount is deposited in Orange with trustworthy persons. It is not a sum to be despised. This he leaves share and share alike to Lendert Verplanck and Alaine Hervieu should they marry. If, for any reason, there are objections raised to the marriage of Lendert Verplanck to Alaine Hervieu, he foregoes his share, and it is to be given for the sole use of Alaine Heirvieu. Has any one here a word to say?” His eyes glanced from M. Hervieu to Madam De Vries.

The latter nervously fingered a hand-screen upon the table before her. M. Hervieu looked at her inquiringly. “Madam, I would know your desires in this matter. We are among those who are aware of the attachment of these two, and we need not seem blind to it.”

“My son is all I have in the world,” began Madam.

“My daughter is all I have,” returned M. Hervieu. “I am not anxious that she should marry. I can maintain her in comfort, and she goes into no family not proud to receive her.”

“She’ll have no lack of suitors either,” put in Jeanne’s gruff voice.

“With such a purse,” added Michelle complacently.

“Without it,” came from Papa Louis. “Alaine Hervieu has never had to lack for lovers. She has birth and beauty, and there are still those in France who would think themselves rich in gaining her if she were penniless.”

“And,” said Jeanne, watching Madam narrowly, “it is she who will be the gainer if the marriage does not take place. After all is said, would it not be better that it should not? I have stood in place of mother to her, and that is my opinion.”

“And I the same,” Michelle agreed, interpreting rightly the sly glance from Jeanne’s eye, and giving her husband a nudge.

Papa Louis looked thoughtful. “She might do better,” he said, reflectively; and then, as if recovering himself, “I beg your pardon, Madam De Vries, but I speak as a father, and, all things considered, you will admit that she might do better.”

“You are all against me,” passionately Madam broke forth, roused to anger by this seeming defiance of her opinion and this setting aside of her son’s interests. “Have I nothing to say? Do you all dare to dismiss the matter without a word from me?” She arose and swept to the door. “Alaine,” she called. “Alaine, come, my daughter, it is your Lendert’s mother who calls you. Come, my daughter.” And Alaine, from where she was dejectedly pacing the walk, ran to her and was clasped in Madam’s arms.

“Sh! sh!” said Jeanne, as all the rest began to laugh, though her own face was broad with smiles. “We must not let her suspect that we have done it. It was the only way to manage her.”

There were several other bequests in François’s will. A ring and all personal effects to Adriaen, except a sword and a brace of pistols to Petit Marc. To Michelle was left a tidy sum: “In affectionate acknowledgment of past kindnesses.”

A silence fell upon them all as the last words of the will were read. Even now the man’s strong individuality touched them all with a nearness not possible in their thought of another less forceful though more worthy of being loved.

“You will stay with us, Jeanne,” Alaine begged, when they were alone in the garden, for Alaine must show this old friend all her haunts. “You will not return to that rough life.”

Jeanne hitched her shoulders and gave a twitch to her petticoats. “I couldn’t stand them much longer. We must go back. We could not endure any other life now.”

“But why we? You do not need to follow Petit Marc. Come and live with us in our home in Manhatte.”

Jeanne screwed up her eyes in the way that she had when embarrassed or amused. “Didn’t I tell you?” she said. “We are married.”

And then Alaine hugged her and kissed her till she cried, and called herself an old stupide, a chat-huant, an insensée, a dindon, and various other names with which Alaine had been familiar of old.

“I have not forgotten,” she told Alaine, “but one must have something to do, and Petit Marc, he will soon be growing old, and who will take care of him then?”

“Who indeed?” Alaine held the good weather-beaten face between her palms. “I shall often, often think of you up there, you two who have done so much for me, to whom I owe so much, and it will make me very glad to know you are together. But you must remain to see me married. Trynje and her husband and Mynheer van der Deen and Madam, his goede vrouw, and I cannot miss you from among those who love me and who will come to see me take my Lendert for my husband.”

After more persuasion Jeanne promised, and with Petit Marc attended the ceremony, a month later, the two being the most conspicuous couple present, if one may except the bride and groom. And, even in that day when romantic stories were common and thrilling adventure no novelty, the tale of the love of Lendert and Alaine brought to the French church in Marketfield Street such a crowd on that Sunday that the “cars” and the people fairly jostled each other for blocks around.

It was a few days after her marriage that Alaine answered the letter of Felice, and among other things she wrote: “If it be any comfort to you, madame, take my assurance that with my whole heart I love and have ever loved the man who is now my very dear husband. He is Lendert Verplanck, whom your husband will remember, and though fate has played us many sad tricks, we are now supremely happy. At one time it seemed that we should never marry, yet even then, believe me, I could never have become the wife of any one else. We shall live in Manhatte, where my father and my husband have entered into business, and my husband has promised that upon one of his voyages to the islands he will take me with him that I may thank you in person for your great kindness to my father. I congratulate you, madame, upon possessing so good a husband, and I congratulate, with all my heart, my old friend Pierre Boutillier, who has been so fortunate as to win you for his wife.”

When Felice showed this to Pierre she did so with dancing eyes and dimpling mouth. “What did I tell you?” she said. “Are you fortunate, my melancholy love?”

And Pierre, for answer, smiled, and kissed her.

THE END.