Because of conscience

Alaine’s youthful appetite sufficed to cause her to consume a good supper. The talk around the table was cheerful, and there were no issues raised. “A strange position for a young French girl,” Alaine thought, “in company of these men, I who all my life have taken refuge by the side of my aunt or Michelle, and have never even taken a walk with any man save Gerard or Papa Louis, unless I except that one Sunday when I walked to church with Pierre as companion. What would my aunt say to my present situation? Allowed free converse with a young man? Shocking!” She smiled to herself in spite of the condition of affairs. The Indian woman stood in one corner of the room during the meal, and the girl wondered if she were to be again conducted to her chamber, but she was relieved to find that this was not intended, for the other gentlemen, sitting over their wine, allowed François Dupont to lead her from the room.

“I am your guard, mademoiselle, therefore see that you do not overpower me and make your escape,” he said, playfully.

“Into what?” she asked. “Into the terrors of the forest? Into unknown ways? I am not so foolhardy, monsieur. I wish I might trust you,” she added after a pause in which she had eyed him wistfully.

“Have I given you reason for lack of confidence?”

“Have you not? Ever since your arrival you have been persistently following me up and prescribing my actions. For why is this?”

“Said I not that I was a friend of Étienne Villeneau? I will tell you, mademoiselle, they believe you to have been spirited away by your nurse, if not by force, by over-persuasion, and that once you are brought back you will conform.”

She shook her head. “That will I never do. I am Protestant as my father is. If I did not accept entirely the teachings of his faith before I left France it was because I was not sufficiently informed. I now know them and accept them fully. I shall never retract.”

“But you cannot blame your friends over there in France if they desire it.”

“No, I cannot blame them, for they do not know the truth of it: how I begged to be taken with Michelle when my father’s letter came, and how I knew that I would rather by far suffer with her and with my father than to live at ease as the wife of my cousin. No, they could not know that, nor that I would never conform.”

“Not to save your father?”

“From what?”

“From the life of an engagé.”

“He is that? My poor father! Ah, I was not wrong, then, when I felt this to be so.”

“If he be still alive you can save him, and if he be not alive you can still save yourself from this life of poverty and labor. It is the wish of madame, your aunt, of your cousin Étienne, that you do not lose the property which is yours while you are Catholic, but which was in danger of confiscation when your father became Protestant. In view of the relation of the Villeneaux, who are not without influence in high circles, the estates await your return, and once you are Madame Étienne Villeneau they are yours. Am I not candid, mademoiselle?”

“You are. I understand it all but your part in the matter. I confess you seem frank, Monsieur Dupont, but why this extreme interest on your part?”

“You still doubt me? Be it so.” He shrugged his shoulders and changed the subject by saying, “’Tis not so bad a country this, if one had never lived in France.”

“It is a very good country in spite of France. We who are émigrés have brought over our own plants, have planted the vegetables familiar to us, and are cultivating the vine. We have modelled our homes upon those we have left, and we are not strangers.”

“We who are émigrés,” he repeated. “I do not accept the term in the case of yourself. You are still a daughter of France, la belle France.”

“Let us return to our first subject. My father, it is of him I think continually. To-day is his fête-day, and for him I dressed in my best that I might do him honor, though he knows it not, and for him I am become a prisoner. Alas, I am unfortunate!” She sighed and folded her hands resignedly.

François watched her for some moments, his head bent, his eyes taking in every detail of the delicate profile, the fine lines of the figure leaning against the post of the porch. “Mademoiselle,” he said at last, “I have another proposition to make. I throw myself at your feet. Escape you may. Your father, too, shall be free if——”

“If——” She turned quickly and leaned eagerly forward. “You mock me, monsieur. What would you say? If——”

“If you will fly with me to Canada.”

“With you?”

“With me, as my wife. Do you not see that I adore you?”

“I do not see it. You scarcely know me, monsieur.”

“To know you an hour is to love you.”

“And Étienne, your friend? This is your honorable love for him.”

“Did I not first plead his cause, and did you not refuse to consider him? Have I placed myself first? Listen, Alaine; it is so easy. We arise early; we go forth. I take you to Canada, to the convent. When you are ready we are united. I do not urge it now? I even make this concession: one year and you will marry me. I leave you with the Sisters, and at once I proceed to Guadaloupa, where I win the release of your father. I buy his discharge and I present him to you as my wedding-present. Is it not all so easy? We return to France, to your old home; you leave behind you but a company of poor peasants, and you return to your own.”

“And Étienne?”

“Will submit to the fate which has given you to me rather than to him. I will say, My good friend, I tried to induce mademoiselle to consider you, but since you commissioned me instead of going yourself, you see the result. Is it not so easy, so beautiful, this plan of mine?”

“But my father, you forget as a Huguenot he cannot return to France. How, then, shall I be benefited after all?”

“We can then do this: we can take up a residence in these colonies. I do not even say that I will not in time embrace your religion.”

Alaine’s heart was beating fast; she had learned one supreme fact: her father was in Guadaloupa. Inside the house the others were playing cards with many excited exclamations and much laughter; the clink of mugs of wine, the occasional thump of a hand as it laid a pile of jingling coin upon the table, the stir of a chair upon the bare floor, these sounds broke the stillness. Outside the insects kept up a monotonous jarring noise; the damps of a September night began to chill the air. Alaine shivered slightly and leaned back again against the post of the porch. Her father’s life or hers, for one does not have to die to lay down a life for a friend. At last she drew a long breath. “You would take me away alone?” she asked.

“Marie, the half-breed, shall attend you.”

“And your plan is——”

He leaned eagerly forward; she could feel his warm breath against her cheek; where the light of the candles fell on his face she could see the intenseness of his eyes. Her hands folded themselves in a rigid clasp as she listened to what he said in his low, rapid voice: “To-morrow morning early, very early, by break of day, I will have some one unlock your door, the one toward the rear of the house. Leave your room, follow the entry to the back of the house; at the farthest window you will see a ladder; climb down and follow the path to the edge of the wood; I will be there to meet you. We will go to the water’s brink and find the boat left there last night; we have but to pursue our way a little farther and then strike inland, cross the northern colonies to Canada, and all is well.”

“But why this great secrecy? These, your friends here, do they not agree with your way of settling this?”

“One cannot tell; they are Frenchmen, but they are also Jesuits; they would not agree to the escape of your father; they might discover our intention with regard to him.” He watched her narrowly to see the effect of his words.

“Oh, my father,” she murmured.

“You understand; these men are Frenchmen, and there is war between France and England; there is no need to explain their mission here, nor the reason of secrecy where they are concerned. When they have accomplished their intention they will depart; we shall not see them again, but now, while they are here, one must be discreet.”

For a long time Alaine sat with her chin resting in her two hands. At last she spoke: “If I consent to this, you will permit me to send a note to Michelle and M. Mercier to explain that I am safe. They have been very good to me, peasants though you call them.”

“You shall certainly do so if it be no more than a note, and if it does not compromise these your present entertainers.”

The girl arose to her feet. “Then, monsieur, if you see me at the edge of the wood to-morrow morning it will be because I consent; otherwise I shall have no object in going forth to tread an unknown way. I will retire.”

He seized her hand and pressed a kiss upon it, and Alaine shuddered. “I will send Marie to you. Good-night, sweet Alaine,” he murmured.

Slowly Alaine ascended the stairs and entered her room. The sound of the revellers came up from below-stairs. The girl knelt before the open window. Somewhere beneath the stars her father, a wretched slave, was resting. Conform? She would never do that; perhaps, after all, she need not. Yet, the nunnery, the ever-vigilant watchers, the loss of liberty. Alas! alas! there would be worse than all that. If she, of her own accord, by her own efforts, could win her father’s release, how hard she would work. She would appeal to her friends; perhaps they could help her. “My father, my father,” she sighed, “if I but knew what to do.” She leaned her forehead on the window-sill, and back to her remembrance came those peaceful days at home in France before those hours of terror threatened her; then came the recollection of the quiet dwelling in New Rochelle, the good pious parents, the simple, earnest, happy ways. “I know now,” she said, rising. “No one, not even my father, would have me seem to renounce my faith for any material good, nor have me live a lie. Die will I, and die must my father, but we will not, we cannot be treacherous to our friends nor our faith. This man, what do I know of him? How can I tell what designs induce his fair promises? No, no; I dare not trust myself in his hands. I do not know much of the world, but I have distrusted him from the first. He may never try to liberate my father once he wins me from my friends; he may be making these fair promises but as a ruse to tempt me away.”

Marie’s soft step aroused her from her thoughts. There was an angry glitter in the woman’s eyes. “Marie, Marie,” cried Alaine, pleadingly, “I am a lonely, friendless girl; be good to me this night.” Suddenly she slipped the silver chain from her neck, and, stooping, tore the buckles from her shoes. “See, see,” she whispered, “I will give you these if you will help me to escape. I do not want to go with François Dupont; I do not want to go back to France. Oh, Marie, you are a woman, save me.”

The woman’s brown fingers touched the silver ornaments caressingly. “Marie like zis,” she said. “She no like you go wis François Dupont. Marie sink you lof zis man, ees it so, yes?”

“No, no, I love only my own dear people, and I must go back to them. Oh, if I could but reach them on the other side of Long Point, could be sure that they and I were safe! If I could but get home again away from all this! Marie! Marie! help me, and anything I have is yours.”

The woman’s eyes were fixed upon the trinkets, but she raised them and allowed them to travel up and down the girl’s dress, and presently the brown finger pointed to a silver clasp in the shape of a dove which fastened Alaine’s kerchief.

“That, too? Yes, yes; you shall have all if you will but help me away, early, so early, before it is day. Can you? Will you?”

Marie lifted the chain and dropped it from one hand to the other, as she considered the subject. After a few moments she nodded.

“I take you. No Long Point; ozzer place where is some one will show you ze way.”

“Is it far? Can we walk, or do we have to go by water?”

“We walk. Early I come for you. I sleep here. François Dupont say meet him. I meet him.” She nodded her head emphatically. “Before ze sun, he is arise, we go.”

Comforted by this hope of escape Alaine fell asleep, to be awakened before the first indications of dawn had begun to tinge the sky. The gray shadows were just giving place to a streak of light in the east when the two women stole from the house, hurried across the wet grass and into the deep woods. The birds were chirping sleepily in their nests in the trees above them, though it was still dark in the forest. Save for a fox bounding along, a rabbit leaping from the underbrush, or a mole scuttling to his mound, there were no signs of wild creatures. A walk of two or three miles brought the two women to another clearing. Here Marie paused and pointed to a house from the chimney of which a wreath of blue smoke was beginning to curl. “It is there you find friend,” Alaine was told by her companion. “I go to meet François Dupont.”

Alaine caught her hand. “Adieu, Marie! The good God bless you for helping me.”

Marie held up the chain with a grim smile. “I am well pay, mam’selle.” Then she turned and disappeared into the sombre shadows of the woods.

Across the fields Alaine took her way and presented herself before the door of a house. Some one came clattering through the hall as the girl’s knock was heard,—a sturdy Dutchwoman, who gazed at this early visitor in stolid surprise. “May I come in?” asked Alaine.

The woman looked at the little shoes, damp with the morning dew, and at the draggled skirts. Then she came out, shut the door behind her, and beckoned Alaine around the corner of the house to the back door, where she pointed to a mat on the step outside the kitchen. Alaine understood. She gave her shoes many rubbings upon the mat and stepped into the kitchen, warm from the wood-fire crackling upon the hearth. After a moment’s gazing at the girl the woman pattered off into the house, and came back with a lady, who looked with curious eyes at the intruder. “Who are you, and where do you come from, my child?” she asked. Alaine in her broken English began to stammer out her story. The eyes of the lady lighted up as the stranger’s accent bespoke her nationality, and she rapidly put her questions in French, and to these Alaine was able to reply clearly. “Poor little one, a refugee and a tool of enemies. Ah, me, how much wickedness there is in this world! Come see my husband; he is French, a Protestant and an émigré, so you may consult together and, companions in misery, may help each other. We are but guests here ourselves, but Annetje, guessing your French birth, brought me to you. She is not so stupid as she looks, that good Annetje.”

Alaine followed her guide to an inner room. Before a window stood a grave-looking man. “Nicholas, I have brought you a compatriot,” said his wife, “and, like a good knight, you must lend your aid to a maiden in distress. This is my husband, Nicholas Bayard,” she said, turning to Alaine, “and you are?”

“Alaine Mercier, of the Huguenot colony at New Rochelle. I was carried away from my home yesterday.” And she told the details.

Her new-found friends listened attentively. “A plot!” cried Nicholas Bayard, striking his hands together. “French spies, without doubt, those men. Ah, that I had the power to drag them from their retreat! These friends of yours, can you imagine why these men are trying to secure them?”

Alaine answered in the negative.

“I can tell you. They have been commissioned as bearers of messages to certain points. They were to have started to-morrow. Doubtless these men desire to get them into their hands, knowing they are refugees, and that a threat to return them to France will cause them to divulge all they know of the affairs of the colonies. They will probably offer to take them into their service as spies, offering them such reward as they think will be of value to them in return for their promise to act in complicity with them. I think that explains it. We fear a descent of the French and Indians, and I feel quite sure these men are acting for the enemy. As for me, I am a friend of the government, but not of Jacob Leisler, consequently, as an office-holder under James II., I am suspected of upholding the papists. Now you understand why I am here in hiding. You say these messages to your friends mentioned this evening as the time to find you. We must, then, return you before then, but, mind you, not a word of whom you have seen here. These friends of yours are all for Leisler, I suppose.”

“Yes, they are Protestant, you know.”

“And am I not Protestant? Is not Van Cortlandt Protestant? Bah! ’tis a poor excuse to gain the encouragement of the people. He is a vile upstart and usurper, that Leisler. To hale us out of town, who are the proper upholders of the government. Yet, I suppose you, mademoiselle, also believe in Leisler.”

Alaine nodded. She was nothing if not truthful.

“Then no friend of mine,” he returned, but he smiled as he spoke. “Poor little dove with the hawks after her,” he said, half to himself; “we must send her under safe escort to her home. Where is Lendert, my wife?”

“He is here and ready for breakfast. And will be the more ready when he sees the guest we have,” Madame Bayard said, smiling at Alaine. “Our good cousin Lendert Verplanck it is of whom we speak. Here he is. Your aunt will not leave her bed this morning, cousin, but we have a guest you see, Mademoiselle Mercier, and you may take her out to breakfast.”

The good-looking young Dutchman was nothing loath despite Alaine’s torn clothes and dilapidated shoes, for it did not need that she should wear dainty raiment; the graceful head and little hands and feet were not those of a peasant.

“Lendert,” said his cousin, “it must be you who will see this young lady to her home, for I know none better to protect her by the way.”

“A horse from the stable and we are off whenever you say the word, my cousin,” he returned. “We can cut across country and be out of the way of followers, I think. Then I will continue on to the city and bring you news of what goes on there. I believe it is not safe for you to venture there while Leisler holds the reins. It is best you should keep your hiding-place a secret.” He glanced at Alaine as he spoke.

“It will never be known through me,” she ventured, softly, “for, woman though I am, I can keep a secret. My days have been too full of trouble not to know the feeling of one hunted.” She smiled at the young man, who protested that he had never dreamed of distrusting her.

“So lovely she is I could wish the way longer,” he whispered to his cousin a half-hour later when they set off, Alaine mounted on a pillion behind her cavalier. Her graceful, well-knit, buoyant figure was a strong contrast to his big heavy one, and her sense of humor of the situation once or twice caused her to smile behind the broad back. Here was she travelling through the country with a strange young man whose rosy Dutch face she had never seen till that morning. What would Michelle say, and Gerard and Pierre? Strange that she had perfect confidence in this escort, and had not the slightest fear of any one or anything while he was there. How angry M. Dupont must be by this time!

She gave a little shiver at the thought, and Lendert’s blue eyes cast her a glance over his shoulder. “Are you not comfortable, mademoiselle?” he asked.

“Oh, yes,” she returned, “but I suddenly thought of where I might now be but for my good fortune in finding friends.”

He nodded in reply. He was rather silent, this young man of the flaxen locks, Alaine considered, but then, like Pierre, he might be of a thoughtful inclination. He was at least a good listener, for although Alaine did not understand Dutch, and his knowledge of French was evidently slight, they both knew enough English to make themselves understood and Alaine noticed that mynheer could always supply the word over which she hesitated, if not in English then in his familiar Dutch. So that a good understanding between them was reached before they had compassed half their journey.

But it must be said that in following the bridle-path through the dense forest Alaine felt somewhat less assured. She stopped her eager chatter, and her arm around the waist of Lendert crept closer. At this he turned and smiled at her with a reassuring expression of sympathy. “You are all safe,” he told her.

She gave him a smile in return. “I know, but the forests are so still, so deep, so interminable, one fancies, one dreams, one almost fears that something terrifying may be lurking in the unknown beyond.” Through the leaves patches of sunlight flickered down upon them; across their pathway a squirrel leaped; birds at their approach started from the branches overhead and, with sudden cries, darted deeper into the dim recesses.

“I know the way well,” Lendert told her. “I travel here frequently. Half-way we are. There is a long straight path ahead; you can see where the sunlight comes through the trees all the way.”

It was, as he said, a path of sunlight ahead of them, checkered, indeed, by leaf shadows, but much brighter than the surrounding woods. As they advanced something was discerned moving toward them rapidly. Presently their eyes discovered it to be a horseman urging his steed to its utmost. Lendert glanced at his pistols, gathered his bridle more firmly in his hand, cast a reassuring glance at Alaine, and continued his way with seeming placid unconcern. “He journeys fast,” he remarked. “A messenger express, I take it.” As they drew within closer range he called out, “What, ho, my friend? What is the news you ride so fast with?”

But Alaine gave a little scream of dismay and hid her face behind Lendert’s broad shoulder. She had caught sight of the wrathful countenance of François Dupont.