Читать книгу The Red City - S. Weir Mitchell - Страница 8

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As they went northward on Front Street, with the broad Delaware to the right, for as yet no Water Street narrowed the river frontage, the German said: "I left out of my portrait gallery one Schmidt, but you will come to know him in time. He has a talent for intimacy. Come, now; you have known him five years. What do you think of him?"

More and more strange seemed this gentleman to his young companion. He glanced aside at the tall, strongly built man, with the merry blue eyes, and, a little embarrassed and somewhat amused, replied with habitual caution, "I hardly know as yet, but I think I shall like him."

"I like the answer. You will like him, but we may leave him and time to beget opinion. How dignified these Georgian fronts are, and the stoops! Once folks sat on them at evening, and gossiped of the miseries of war. Now there are changed ways and more luxury and a new day—less simpleness; but not among the good people we have left. No. They are of the best, and aristocrats, too, though you may not suspect it. The habit of hospitality in a new land remains. A lady with small means loses no social place because, like our hostess, she receives guests who pay. Here will come rich kinsfolk and friends, visitors on even terms—Whartons, Morrises, Cadwaladers, Logans—the old, proud Welsh, grandsons of Welsh, with at times Quaker people and the men in office, for madame is clever and well liked. I tell her she has a Quaker salon, which is not my wit, but true."

"I had supposed Friends too rigid for this."

"Oh, there are Quakers and Quakers, and sometimes the overseers feel called upon to remonstrate; and then there is an unpleasantness, and our hostess is all of a sudden moved by the spirit to say things, and has her claws out. And my rose, my rose Pearl, can be prickly, too."

"She does not look like it, sir."

"No? When does a young woman look like what she is or may be? She is a good girl—as good as God makes them; her wits as yet a bit muzzled by the custom of Friends. A fair bud—prophetic of what the rose will be."

They wandered on to Arch Street and then westward. "Here," said Schmidt, as they turned into the open entrance of a graveyard—"here I come at evening sometimes. Read that. There are sermons in these stones, and history."

De Courval saw on a gray slab, "Benjamin Franklin and Deborah, his wife." He took off his hat, saying as he stood: "My father knew him. He came to Normandy once to see the model farms of our cousin, Rochefoucauld Liancourt."

"Indeed. I never knew the philosopher, but the duke—I knew the duke well—in Paris—oh, very well, long ago; a high-minded noble. We will come here again and talk of this great man, under the marble, quiet as never in life. You must not be late for Wynne. He will not like that."

Turning southward and walking quickly, they came in half an hour to the busy space in front of Wynne's warehouse. He met them at the door, where Schmidt, leaving them, said, "I leave you a man, Colonel Wynne."

Wynne said, smiling: "I am no longer a colonel, Vicomte, but a plain merchant. Have the kindness to follow me, Vicomte," and so passed on through a room where clerks were busy and into a small, neatly kept office.

"Sit down, Vicomte. We must have a long talk and come quickly to know one another. You speak English, I observe, and well, too. And, now, you have a letter of exchange on me for five thousand livres, or, rather, two hundred pounds. Better to leave it with me. I can give you interest at six per cent., and you may draw on me at need. Have you any present want?"

"No, sir; none—just yet none."

"I am told that you left France for England and have had, pardon me, much to lament."

"Yes, we have suffered like many others." He was indisposed to be frank where there was no need to say more.

"What do you purpose to do? A few thousand livres will not go far."

"I do not know. Anything which will help us to live."

"Anything? You may teach French like De Laisne, or fencing like Du Vallon, or dancing like the Marquis de Beau Castel. I offered him a clerkship."

"Offer me one," said De Courval. "I write a good hand. I speak and write English. I can learn, and I will."

Wynne took stock, as he would have said, of the rather serious face, of the eyes of gray which met his look, of a certain eagerness in the young man's prompt seizure of a novel opportunity.

"Can you serve under a plain man like my head clerk, run errands, obey without question—in a word, accept a master?"

"I have had two bitter ones, sir, poverty and misfortune."

"Can you come at eight thirty, sweep out the office, make the fires at need in winter, with an hour off, at noon, and work till six? Such is our way here."

The young man flushed. "Is that required?"

"I did it for a year, Vicomte, and used the sword for five years, and came back to prosper."

De Courval smiled. "I accept, sir; we have never been rich, and I ought to say that we are not of the greater noblesse. When our fortunes fell away, I worked with our peasants in the field. I have no false pride, and my sword is in a box in Mrs. Swanwick's attic. I fancy, sir, that I shall have no use for it here. Why gentlemen should prefer to teach French or dancing to good steady work I cannot understand."

"Nor I," said Wynne, beginning to like this grave and decisive young noble. "Think it over," he said.

"I have done so."

"Very good. You will receive thirty dollars a month—to be increased, I trust. When will you come?"

"To-morrow—at eight and a half, you said."

"Yes; but to-morrow a little earlier. The junior clerk you replace will tell you what you are to do, and for the rest Mr. Potts will give you your orders. A word more: you had better drop your title and be plain Mr. de Courval. When, as will chance, you go among our friends, it would be an affectation. Well, then, to-morrow; but—and you will pardon me—to-day we are two gentlemen, equals; to-morrow, here at least, you are a simple clerk among exact and industrious people, and I the master. Let us be clear as to this. That is all."

"I think I understand. And now may I ask how I may find the French minister? There is a letter my mother would send to her cousin, and I am at a loss, for I fear there are no mails I can trust."

"Jean de Ternant is the French minister, but he will hardly be likely to oblige a ci-devant vicomte. They talk of a new one. Give it to me; I will see that it goes by safe hands." With this he rose and added: "Mrs. Wynne will have the honor to call on the vicomtesse, and we shall be at her service."

"Thank you," said De Courval, a little overcome by his kindness. "My mother is in mourning, sir. She will, I fear, be unwilling to visit."

"Then my wife will come again. We may leave two good women to settle that; and now I must let you go." Then, seeing that De Courval lingered, he added, "Is there anything else?"

"Only a word of thanks, and may I ask why you are so good to us? I am—sadly unused to kindness. There was not much of it in England."

Wynne smiled. "I have heard a little about you—some things I liked—from my correspondents in Bristol and London; and, Vicomte, my mother was French. When you visit us at Merion you shall see her picture Stuart made for me from a miniature, and then you will understand why my heart goes out to all French people. But they are not easy to help, these unlucky nobles who will neither beg nor do a man's work. Oh, you will see them, and I, too, more and more, I fear. Good morning."

With this the young man walked thoughtfully away. Hugh Wynne watched him for a moment, and said to himself, "A good deal of a man, that; Schmidt is right." And then, having seen much of men in war and peace, "there must be another side to him, as there was to me. I doubt he is all meekness. I must say a word to Mary Swanwick," and he remembered certain comments his wife had made on Margaret's budding beauty. Then he went in.

The thoughts of the young man were far from women. He went along the road beside Dock Creek, and stood a moment on the bridge, amused at the busy throng of which he was now to become a part. On the west side of Second Street a noisy crowd at a shop door excited his curiosity.

"What is that?" he asked a passing mechanic. "I am a stranger here."

"Oh, that's a vandoo of lottery shares. The odd numbers sell high, specially the threes. That's what they're after."

"Thank you," said De Courval, and then, as he drew nearer, exclaimed, "Mon Dieu!" The auctioneer was perched on a barrel. Just below him stood a young Frenchman eagerly bidding on the coveted number 33. Not until De Courval was beside him was he disillusioned. It was not Carteaux, nor was the man, on nearer view, very like him. When clear of the small crowd, De Courval moved away slowly, vexed with himself and disturbed by one of those abrupt self-revelations which prove to a man how near he may be to emotional insurrection.

"If it had been he," he murmured, "I should have strangled him, ah, there at once." He had been imprudent, lacking in intelligence. He felt, too, how slightly impressed he had been by his mother's desire that he should dismiss from his life the dark hour of Avignon. More than a little dissatisfied, he put it all resolutely aside and began to reconsider the mercantile career before him. He was about to give up the social creed and ways in which he had been educated. He had never earned a sou, and was now to become a part of the life of trade, a thing which at one time would have seemed to him impossible. Would his mother like it? No; but for that there was no help, and some of it he would keep to himself. Thirty dollars would pay his own board, and he must draw on his small reserve until he made more. But there were clothes to get and he knew not what besides; nor did he altogether like it himself. He had served in the army two years, and had then been called home, where he was sorely needed. It would have been strange if, with his training and traditions, he had felt no repugnance at this prospect of a trader's life. But it was this or nothing, and having made his choice, he meant to abide by it. And thus, having settled the matter, he went on his way, taking in with observant eyes the wonders of this new country.

He made for his mother a neat little tale of how he was to oblige Mr. Wynne by translating or writing French letters. Yes, the hours were long, but he was sure he should like it, and Mrs. Swanwick would, she had said, give him breakfast in time for him to be at his work by half after eight o'clock; and where was the letter which should be sent, and Mrs. Wynne would call. The vicomtesse wished for no company, and least of all for even the most respectable bourgeois society; but she supposed there was no help for it, and the boarding-house was very well, indeed, restful, and the people quiet. Would she be expected to say thou to them? Her son thought not, and after a rather silent noon dinner went out for a pull on the river with Schmidt, and bobbed for crabs to his satisfaction, while Schmidt at intervals let fall his queer phrases as the crabs let go the bait and slid off sideways.

"There is a man comes here to pester Mrs. Swanwick at times. He goes out of the doors sideways, there, like that fellow in the water—Monsieur Crab, I call him. He is meek and has claws which are critical and pinch until madame boils over, and then he gets red like a crab. That was when Pearl had of Miss Gainor a gold locket and a red ribbon, and wore it on a day when with Miss Gainor the girl was by evil luck seen of our Quaker crab.

"But not all are like that. There is one, Israel Morris, who looks like a man out of those pictures by Vandyke you must have seen, and with the gentleness of a saint. Were I as good as he, I should like to die, for fear I could not keep it up. Ah you got a nip. They can bite. It can not be entirely true—I mean that man's goodness; but it is naturally performed. The wife is a fair test of humility. I wonder how his virtue prospers at home."

De Courval listened, again in wonder where had been learned this English, occasionally rich with odd phrases; for usually Schmidt spoke a fluent English, but always with some flavor of his own tongue.

The supper amused the young man, who was beginning to be curious and observant of these interesting and straightforward people. There were at times long silences. The light give and take of the better chat of the well-bred at home in France was wanting. His mother could not talk, and there were no subjects of common interest. He found it dull at first, being himself just now in a gay humor.

After the meal he ventured to admire the buff-and-gold china in a corner cupboard, and then two great silver tankards on a sideboard. Mrs. Swanwick was pleased. "Yes," she said, "they are of Queen Anne's day, and the arms they carry are of the Plumsteads and Swanwicks."

He called his mother's attention to them. "But," she said, of course in French, "what have these people to do with arms?"

"Take care," he returned under his breath. "Madame speaks French."

Mrs. Swanwick, who had a fair knowledge of the tongue, quickly caught her meaning, but said with a ready smile: "Ah, they have had adventures. When my husband would not pay the war tax, as Friends would not, the vendue master took away these tankards and sold them. But when the English came in, Major André bought them. That was when he stole Benjamin Franklin's picture, and so at last Gainor Wynne, in London, years after, saw my arms on them in a shop and bought them back, and now they are Margaret's."

De Courval gaily related the tale to his mother and then went away with her to her room, she exclaiming on the stair: "The woman has good manners. She understood me."

The woman and Pearl were meanwhile laughing joyously over the sad lady's criticism. When once in her bed-room, the vicomtesse said that on the morrow she would rest in bed. Something, perhaps the voyage and all this new life, had been too much for her, and she had a little fever. A tisane, yes, if only she had a tisane, but who would know how to make one? No, he must tell no one that she was not well.

He left her feeling that here was a new trouble and went down-stairs to join Schmidt. No doubt she was really tired, but what if it were something worse? One disaster after another had left him with the belief that he was marked out by fate for calamitous fortunes.

Schmidt cheered him with his constant hopefulness, and in the morning he must not fail Mr. Wynne, and at need Schmidt would get a doctor. Then he interested him with able talk about the stormy politics of the day, and for a time they smoked in silence. At last, observing his continued depression, Schmidt said: "Take this to bed with you—At night is despair, at morning hope—a good word to sleep on. Let the morrow take care of itself. Bury thy cares in the graveyard of sleep." Then he added with seriousness rare to him: "You have the lesson of the mid-years of life yet to learn—to be of all thought the despot. Never is man his own master till, like the centurion with his soldiers, he can say to joy come and to grief or anger or anxiety go, and be obeyed of these. You may think it singular that I, a three-days' acquaintance, talk thus to a stranger; but the debt is all one way so far, and my excuse is those five years under water, and, too, that this preacher in his time has suffered."

Unused till of late to sympathy, and surprised out of the reserve both of the habit of caste and of his own natural reticence, De Courval felt again the emotion of a man made, despite himself, to feel how the influence of honest kindness had ended his power to speak.

In the dim candle-light he looked at the speaker—tall, grave, the eagle nose, the large mouth, the heavy chin, a face of command, with now a little watching softness in the eyes.

He felt later the goodness and the wisdom of the German's advice. "I will try," he said; "but it does seem as if there were little but trouble in the world," and with this went away to bed.

Then Schmidt found Mrs. Swanwick busy over a book and said: "Madame de Courval is not well, I fear. Would you kindly see to her?"

"At once," she said, rising.