Читать книгу The Red City - S. Weir Mitchell - Страница 5

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When in a morning of brilliant sunshine again, with the flood and a favoring wind, the brig moved up-stream alone on the broad water, Madame de Courval came on deck for the midday meal. Her son hung over her as she ate, and saw with gladness the faint pink in her cheeks, and, well-pleased, translated her questions to the captain as he proudly pointed out the objects of interest when they neared the city of Penn. There was the fort at Red Bank where the Hessians failed, and that was the Swedes' church, and there the single spire of Christ Church rising high over the red brick city, as madam said, of the color of Amsterdam.

Off the mouth of Dock Creek they came to anchor, the captain advising them to wait on shipboard until he returned, and to be ready then to go ashore.

When their simple preparations were completed, De Courval came on deck, and, climbing the rigging, settled himself in the crosstrees to take counsel with his pipe, and to be for a time alone and away from the boat-loads of people eager for letters and for news from France and England.

The mile-wide river was almost without a sail. A few lazy fishers and the slowly moving vans of the mill on Wind Mill Island had little to interest. As he saw it from his perch, the city front was busy and represented the sudden prosperity which came with the sense of permanence the administration of Washington seemed to guarantee for the great bond under which a nation was to grow. There was the town stretching north and south along the Delaware, and beyond it woodland. What did it hold for him? The mood of reflection was no rare one for a man of twenty-five who had lived through months of peril in France, amid peasants hostile in creed, and who had seen the fortunes of his house melt away, and at last had aged suddenly into gravity beyond his years when he beat his way heartsick out of the grim tragedy of Avignon.

His father's people were of the noblesse of the robe, country gentles; his mother a cousin of the two dukes Rochefoucauld. He drew qualities from a long line of that remarkable judicature which through all changes kept sacred and spotless the ermine of the magistrate. From the mother's race he had spirit, courage, and a reserve of violent passions, the inheritance of a line of warlike nobles unused to recognize any law but their own will.

The quiet life of a lesser country gentleman, the absence from court which pride and lessening means alike enforced, and the puritan training of a house which held tenaciously to the creed of Calvin, combined to fit him better to earn his living in a new land than was the case with the greater nobles who had come to seek what contented their ambitions—some means of living until they should regain their lost estates. They drew their hopes from a ruined past. De Courval looked forward with hope fed by youth, energy, and the simpler life.

It was four o'clock when the captain set them ashore with their boxes on the slip in front of the warehouse of Mr. Wynne, the ship's owner. He was absent at Merion, but his porters would care for their baggage, and a junior clerk would find for them an inn until they could look for a permanent home. When the captain landed them on the slip, the old clerk, Mr. Potts, made them welcome, and would have had madam wait in the warehouse until their affairs had been duly ordered. When her son translated the invitation, she said: "I like it here. I shall wait for you. The sun is pleasant." While he was gone, she stood alone, looking about her at the busy wharf, the many vessels, the floating windmills anchored on the river, and the long line of red brick warehouses along the river front.

On his return, De Courval, much troubled, explained that there was not a hackney-coach to be had, and that she had better wait in the counting-house until a chaise could be found. Seeing her son's distress, and learning that an inn could be reached near by, she declared it would be pleasant to walk and that every minute made her better.

There being no help for it, they set out with the clerk, who had but a mild interest in this addition to the French who were beginning to fly from France and the islands, and were taxing heavily the hospitality and the charity of the city. A barrow-man came on behind, with the baggage for their immediate needs, now and then crying, "Barrow! Barrow!" when his way was impeded.

De Courval, at first annoyed that his mother must walk, was silent, but soon, with unfailing curiosity, began to be interested and amused. When, reaching Second Street, they crossed the bridge over Dock Creek, they found as they moved northward a brisk business life, shops, and more varied costumes than are seen to-day. Here were Quakers, to madam's amazement; nun-like Quaker women in the monastic seclusion of what later was irreverently called the "coal-scuttle" bonnet; Germans of the Palatinate; men of another world in the familiar short-clothes, long, broidered waistcoat, and low beaver; a few negroes; and the gray-clad mechanic, with now and then a man from the islands, when suddenly a murmur of French startled the vicomtesse.

"What a busy life, maman," her son said; "not like that dark London, and no fog, and the sun—like the sun of home."

"We have no home," she replied, and for a moment he was silent. Then, still intent upon interesting her, he said:

"How strange! There is a sign of a likely black wench and two children for sale. 'Inquire within and see them. Sold for want of use.' And lotteries, maman. There is one for a canal between the Delaware and the Schuylkill rivers; and one to improve the Federal City. I wonder where that is." She paid little attention, and walked on, a tall, dark, somber woman, looking straight before her, with her thoughts far away.

The many taverns carried names which were echoes from the motherland, which men, long after the war, were still apt, as Washington wrote, to call "home." The Sign of the Cock, the Dusty Miller, the Pewter Plate, and—"Ah, maman," he cried, laughing, "The Inn of the Struggler. That should suit us."

The sullen clerk, stirred at last by the young fellow's gay interest, his eager questions, and his evident wish to distract and amuse a tired woman who stumbled over the loose bricks of the sidewalk, declared that was no place for them. Her tall figure in mourning won an occasional glance, but no more. It was a day of strange faces and varied costumes. "And, maman," said her son, "the streets are called for trees and the lanes for berries." Disappointed at two inns of the better class, there being no vacant rooms, they crossed High Street; the son amused at the market stands for fruit, fish, and "garden truck, too," the clerk said, with blacks crying, "Calamus! sweet calamus!" and "Pepper pot, smoking hot!" or "Hominy! samp! grits! hominy!" Then, of a sudden, as they paused on the farther corner, madam cried out, "Mon Dieu!" and her son a half-suppressed "Sacré!" A heavy landau coming down Second Street bumped heavily into a deep rut and there was a liberal splash of muddy water across madam's dark gown and the young man's clothes. In an instant the owner of the landau had alighted, hat in hand, a middle-aged man in velvet coat and knee-breeches.

"Madam, I beg a thousand pardons."

"My mother does not speak English, sir. These things happen. It is they who made the street who should apologize. It is of small moment."

"I thank you for so complete an excuse, sir. You surely cannot be French. Permit me,"—and he turned to the woman, "mille pardons," and went on in fairly fluent French to say how much he regretted, and would not madam accept his landau and drive home? She thanked him, but declined the offer in a voice which had a charm for all who heard it. He bowed low, not urging his offer, and said, "I am Mr. William Bingham. I trust to have the pleasure of meeting madam again and, too, this young gentleman, whose neat excuse for me would betray him if his perfect French did not. Can I further serve you?"

"No, sir," said De Courval, "except to tell me what inn near by might suit us. We are but just now landed. My guide seems in doubt. I should like one close at hand. My mother is, I fear, very tired."

"I think,"—and he turned to the clerk—"yes, St. Tammany would serve. It is clean and well kept and near by." He was about to add, "Use my name," but, concluding not to do so, added: "It is at the corner of Chancery Lane. This young man will know." Then, with a further word of courtesy, he drove away, while madam stood for a moment sadly contemplating the additions to her toilet.

Mr. Bingham, senator for Pennsylvania, reflected with mild curiosity on the two people he had annoyed, and then murmured: "I was stupid. That is where the Federal Club meets and the English go. They will never take those poor French with their baggage in a barrow."

He had at least the outward manners of a day when there was leisure to be courteous, and, feeling pleased with himself, soon forgot the people he had unluckily inconvenienced. De Courval went on, ruefully glancing at his clothes, and far from dreaming that he was some day to be indebted to the gentleman they had left.

The little party, thus directed, turned into Mulberry Street, or, as men called it, Arch, and, with his mother, De Courval entered a cleanly front room under the sign of St. Tammany. There was a barred tap in one corner, maids in cap and apron moving about, many men seated at tables, with long pipes called churchwardens, drinking ale or port wine. Some looked up, and De Courval heard a man say, "More French beggars." He flushed, bit his lip, and turned to a portly man in a white jacket, who was, as it seemed, the landlord. The mother shrank from the rude looks and said a few words in French.

The host turned sharply as she spoke, and De Courval asked if he could have two rooms. The landlord had none.

"Then may my mother sit down while I inquire without?"

A man rose and offered his chair as he said civilly: "Oeller's Tavern might suit you. It is the French house—a hotel, they call it. You will get no welcome here."

"Thank you," said De Courval, hearing comments on their muddy garments and the damned French. He would have had a dozen quarrels on his hands had he been alone. His mother had declined the seat, and as he followed her out, he lingered on the step to speak to his guide. They were at once forgotten, but he heard behind him scraps of talk, the freely used oaths of the day, curses of the demagogue Jefferson and the man Washington, who was neither for one party nor for the other. He listened with amazement and restrained anger.

He had fallen in with a group of middle-class men, Federalists in name, clamorous for war with Jacobin France, and angry at their nominal leader, who stood like a rock against the double storm of opinion which was eager for him to side with our old ally France or to conciliate England. It was long before De Courval understood the strife of parties, felt most in the cities, or knew that back of the mischievous diversity of opinion in and out of the cabinet was our one safeguard—the belief of the people in a single man and in his absolute good sense and integrity. Young De Courval could not have known that the thoughtless violence of party classed all French together, and as yet did not realize that the émigré was generally the most deadly foe of the present rule in France.

Looking anxiously at his mother, they set out again up Mulberry Street, past the meeting-house of Friends and the simple grave of the great Franklin, the man too troubled, and the mother too anxious, to heed or question when they moved by the burial-ground where Royalist and Whig lay in the peace of death and where, at the other corner, Wetherill with the free Quakers built the home of a short-lived creed.

Oeller's Tavern—because of its French guests called a hotel—was on Chestnut Street, west of Fifth, facing the State House. A civil French servant asked them into a large room on the right of what was known as a double house. It was neat and clean, and the floor was sanded. Presently appeared Maxim Oeller. Yes, he had rooms. He hoped the citizen would like them, and the citizeness. De Courval was not altogether amused. He had spoken English, saying, however, that he was of France, and the landlord had used the patois of Alsace. The mother was worn out, and said wearily: "I can go no farther. It will do. It must do, until we can find a permanent lodging and one less costly."

Mr. Oeller was civil and madam well pleased. For supper in her room, on extra payment, were fair rolls and an omelet. De Courval got the mud off his clothes and at six went down-stairs for his supper.

At table, when he came in, were some twenty people, all men. Only two or three were of French birth and the young man, who could not conceive of Jacobin clubs out of France, sat down and began to eat with keen relish a well-cooked supper.

By and by his neighbors spoke to him. Had he just come over the seas, as the landlord had reported? What was doing in France? He replied, of course, in his very pure English. News in London had come of Mirabeau's death. Much interested, they plied him at once with questions. And the king had tried to leave Paris, and there had been mobs in the provinces, bloodshed, and an attack on Vincennes—which was not quite true. Here were Americans who talked like the Jacobins he had left at home. Their violence surprised him. Would he like to come to-morrow to the Jacobin Club? The king was to be dealt with. Between amusement and indignation the grave young vicomte felt as though he were among madmen. One man asked if the decree of death to all émigrés had been carried out. "No," he laughed; "not while they were wise enough to stay away." Another informed him that Washington and Hamilton were on the way to create a monarchy. "Yes, Citizen, you are in a land of titles—Your Excellency, Their Honors of the supreme court in gowns—scarlet gowns." His discreet silence excited them. "Who are you for? Speak out!"

"I am a stranger here, with as yet no opinions."

"A neutral, by Jove!" shouted one.

At last the young man lost patience and said: "I am not, gentlemen, a Jacobin. I am of that noblesse which of their own will gave up their titles. I am—or was—the Vicomte de Courval."

There was an uproar. "We are citizens, we would have you to know. Damn your titles! We are citizens, not gentlemen."

"That is my opinion," said De Courval, rising. Men hooted at him and shook fists in his face. "Take care!" he cried, backing away from the table. In the midst of it came the landlord. "He is a royalist," they cried; "he must go or we go."

The landlord hurried him out of the room. "Monsieur," he said—"Citizen, these are fools, but I have my living to think of. You must go. I am sorry, very sorry."

"I cannot go now," said De Courval. "I shall do so to-morrow at my leisure." It was so agreed. He talked quietly a while with his mother, saying nothing of this new trouble, and then, still hot with anger, he went to his room, astonished at his reception, and anxious that his mother should find a more peaceful home.

He slept the sleep of the healthy young, rose at early dawn, and was able to get milk and bread and thus to escape breakfast with the citizen-boarders, not yet arisen. Before he went out, he glanced at the book of guests. He had written Vicomte de Courval, with his mother's name beneath it, La Vicomtesse de Courval, without a thought on so casual a matter, and now, flushing, he read "Citizen" above his title with an erasure of de and Vicomte. Over his mother's title was written the last affectation of the Jacobins, "Citizeness" Courval. It was so absurd that, the moment's anger passing into mirth, he went out into the air, laughing and exclaiming: "Mais qu'ils sont bêtes! Quelle enfantillage! What childishness!" The servant, a man of middle age, who was sweeping the steps, said in French, "What a fine day, monsieur."

"Bon jour, Citizen," returned De Courval, laughing. The man laughed also, and said, "Canailles, Monsieur," with a significant gesture of contempt. "Bon jour, Monsieur le Vicomte," and then, hearing steps within, resumed his task with: "But one must live. My stomach has the opinions of my appetite." For a moment he watched the serious face and well-knit figure of the vicomte as he turned westward, and then went into the house, remarking, "Qu'il est beau"—"What a handsome fellow!"

De Courval passed on. Independence Hall interested him for a moment. Many people went by him, going to their work, although it was early. He saw the wretched paving, the few houses high on banks of earth beyond Sixth Street, and then, as he walked westward on Chestnut Street, pastures, cows, country, and the fine forest to the north known as the Governor's Wood. At last, a mile farther, he came upon the bank of a river flowing slowly by. What it was he did not know. On the farther shore were farms and all about him a thinner forest. It was as yet early, and, glad of the lonely freshness, he stood still a little while among the trees, saw bees go by on early business bent, and heard in the edge of the wood the love song of a master singer, the cat-bird. Nature had taken him in hand. He was already happier when, with shock of joy he realized what she offered. No one was in sight. He undressed in the edge of the wood and stood a while in the open on the graveled strand, the tide at full of flood. The morning breeze stirred lightly the pale-green leaves of spring with shy caress, so that little flashes of warm light from the level sun-shafts coming through the thin leafage of May flecked his white skin. He looked up, threw out his arms with the naked man's instinctive happiness in the moment's sense of freedom from all form of bondage, ran down the beach, and with a shout of pure barbarian delight plunged into the river. For an hour he was only a young animal alone with nature—diving, swimming, splashing the water, singing bits of love-songs or laughing in pure childlike enjoyment of the use of easy strength. At last he turned on his back and floated luxuriously. He pushed back his curly hair, swept the water from his eyes, and saw with a cry of pleasure that which is seen only from the level of the watery plain. On the far shore, a red gravel bank, taking the sun, was reflected a plain of gold on the river's breadth. The quickened wind rolled the water into little concave mirrors which, dancing on the gold surface, gathered the clear azure above him in cups of intense indigo blue. It was new and freshly wonderful. What a sweet world! How good to be alive!

When ashore he stood in a flood of sunshine, wringing the water from body and limbs and hair, and at last running up and down the beach until he was dry and could dress. Then, hat in hand, he walked away, feeling the wholesome languor of the practised swimmer and gaily singing a song of home: