The Crossing Part 106

"Money?" I repeated in a sinking voice.

"Oh, a lot of jargon." The Vicomtesse pushed me out of the room, and after that I was never allowed to be there when you had those flights.

Curse the mosquitoes! He seized a fan and began to ply it vigorously. "I remember. You were giving Auguste a lecture. Then I had to go."

These and other reminiscences gave me sufficient food for reflection, and many a shudder over the possibilities of my ravings. She had put him out! No wonder.

After a while I was carried to the gallery, and there I would talk to the little doctor about the yellow fever which had swept the city.

Monsieur Perrin was not much of a doctor, to be sure, and he had a heartier dread of the American invasion than of the scourge. He wors.h.i.+pped the Vicomtesse, and was so devoid of professional pride as to give her freely all credit for my recovery. He too, clothed her with the qualities of statesmans.h.i.+p.

"Ha, Monsieur," he said, "if that lady had been King of France, do you think there would have been any States General, any red bonnets, any Jacobins or Cordeliers? Parbleu, she would have swept the vicemongers and traitors out of the Palais Royal itself. There would have been a house-cleaning there. I, who speak to you, know it."

Every day Nick wrote a bulletin to be sent to the Vicomtesse, and he took a fiendish delight in the composition of these. He would come out on the gallery with ink and a blank sheet of paper and try to enlist my help. He would insert the most ridiculous statements, as for instance, "Davy is worse to-day, having bribed Lindy to give him a pint of Madeira against my orders." Or, "Davy feigns to be sinking rapidly because he wishes to have you back." Indeed, I was always in a torture of doubt to know what the rascal had sent.

His company was most agreeable when he was recounting the many adventures he had had during the five years after he had left New Orleans and been lost to me. These would fill a book, and a most readable book it would be if written in his own speech. His love for the excitement of the frontier had finally drawn him back to the c.u.mberland country near Nashville, and he had actually gone so far as to raise a house and till some of the land which he had won from Darnley. It was perhaps characteristic of him that he had named the place "Rattle-and-Snap" in honor of the game which had put him in possession of it, and "Rattle-and-Snap" it remains to this day. He was going back there with Antoinette, so he said, to build a brick mansion and to live a respectable life the rest of his days.

There was one question which had been in my mind to ask him, concerning the att.i.tude of Monsieur de St. Gre. That gentleman, with Madame, had hurried back from Pointe Coupee at a message from the Vicomtesse, and had gone first to Les Iles to see Antoinette. Then he had come, in spite of the fever, to his own house in New Orleans to see Nick himself. What their talk had been I never knew, for the subject was too painful to be dwelt upon, and the conversation had been marked by frankness on both sides. Monsieur de St. Gre was a just man, his love for his daughter was his chief pa.s.sion, and despite all that had happened he liked Nick. I believe he could not wholly blame the younger man, and he forgave him.

Mrs. Temple, poor lady, had died on that first night of my illness, and it was her punishment that she had not known her son or her son's happiness. Whatever sins she had committed in her wayward life were atoned for, and by her death I firmly believe that she redeemed him. She lies now among the Temples in Charleston, and on the stone which marks her grave is cut no line that hints of the story of these pages.

One bright morning, when Nick and I were playing cards, we heard some one mounting the stairs, and to my surprise and embarra.s.sment I beheld Monsieur de St. Gre emerging on the gallery. He was in white linen and wore a broad hat, which he took from his head as he advanced. He had aged somewhat, his hair was a little gray, but otherwise he was the firm, dignified personage I had admired on this same gallery five years before.

"Good morning, gentlemen," he said in English; "ha, do not rise, sir"

(to me). He patted Nick's shoulder kindly, but not familiarly, as he pa.s.sed him, and extended his hand.

"Mr. Ritchie, it gives me more pleasure than I can express to see you so much recovered."

"I am again thrown on your hospitality, sir," I said, flus.h.i.+ng with pleasure at this friendliness. For I admired and respected the man greatly. "And I fear I have been a burden and trouble to you and your family."

He took my hand and pressed it. Characteristically, he did not answer this, and I remembered he was always careful not to say anything which might smack of insincerity.

"I had a glimpse of you some weeks ago," he said, thus making light of the risk he had run. "You are a different man now. You may thank your Scotch blood and your strong const.i.tution."

"His good habits have done him some good, after all," put in my irrepressible cousin.

Monsieur de St. Gre smiled.

"Nick," he said (he p.r.o.nounced the name quaintly, like Antoinette), "his good habits have turned out to be some advantage to you. Mr. Ritchie, you have a faithful friend at least." He patted Nick's shoulder again.

"And he has promised me to settle down."

"I have every inducement, sir," said Nick.

Monsieur de St. Gre became grave.

"You have indeed, Monsieur," he answered.

"I have just come from Dr. Perrin's, David,"--he added, "May I call you so? Well, then, I have just come from Dr. Perrin's, and he says you may be moved to Les Iles this very afternoon. Why, upon my word," he exclaimed, staring at me, "you don't look pleased. One would think you were going to the calabozo."

"Ah," said Nick, slyly, "I know. He has tasted freedom, Monsieur, and Madame la Vicomtesse will be in command again."

I flushed. Nick could be very exasperating.

"You must not mind him, Monsieur," I said.

"I do not mind him," answered Monsieur de St. Gre, laughing in spite of himself. "He is a sad rogue. As for Helene--"

"I shall not know how to thank the Vicomtesse," I said. "She has done me the greatest service one person can do another."

"Helene is a good woman," answered Monsieur de St. Gre, simply. "She is more than that, she is a wonderful woman. I remember telling you of her once. I little thought then that she would ever come to us."

He turned to me. "Dr. Perrin will be here this afternoon, David, and he will have you dressed. Between five and six if all goes well, we shall start for Les Iles. And in the meantime, gentlemen," he added with a stateliness that was natural to him, "I have business which takes me to-day to my brother-in-law's, Monsieur de Beausejour's."

Nick leaned over the gallery and watched meditatively his prospective father-in-law leaving the court-yard.

"He got me out of a devilish bad sc.r.a.pe," he said.

"How was that?" I asked listlessly.

"That fat little Baron, the Governor, was for deporting me for running past the sentry and giving him all the trouble I did. It seems that the Vicomtesse promised to explain matters in a note which she wrote, and never did explain. She was here with you, and a lot she cared about anything else. Lucky that Monsieur de St. Gre came back. Now his Excellency graciously allows me to stay here, if I behave myself, until I get married."

I do not know how I spent the rest of the day. It pa.s.sed, somehow. If I had had the strength then, I believe I should have fled. I was to see her again, to feel her near me, to hear her voice. During the weeks that had gone by I had schooled myself, in a sense, to the inevitable. I had not let my mind dwell upon my visit to Les Iles, and now I was face to face with the struggle for which I felt I had not the strength. I had fought one battle,--I knew that a fiercer battle was to come.

In due time the doctor arrived, and while he prepared me for my departure, the little man sought, with misplaced kindness, to raise my spirits. Was not Monsieur going to the country, to a paradise?

Monsieur--so Dr. Perrin had noticed--had a turn for philosophy. Could two more able and brilliant conversationalists be found than Philippe de St. Gre and Madame la Vicomtesse? And there was the happiness of that strange but lovable young man, Monsieur Temple, to contemplate. He was in luck, ce beau garcon, for he was getting an angel for his wife. Did Monsieur know that Mademoiselle Antoinette was an angel?

At last I was ready, arrayed in my best, on the gallery, when Monsieur de St. Gre came. Andre and another servant carried me down into the court, and there stood a painted sedan-chair with the St. Gre arms on the panels.

"My father imported it, David," said Monsieur de St. Gre. "It has not been used for many years. You are to be carried in it to the levee, and there I have a boat for you."

Overwhelmed by this kindness, I could not find words to thank him as I got into the chair. My legs were too long for it, I remember. I had a quaint feeling of unreality as I sank back on the red satin cus.h.i.+ons and was borne out of the gate between the lions. Monsieur de St. Gre and Nick walked in front, the faithful Lindy followed, and people paused to stare at us as we pa.s.sed. We crossed the Place d'Armes, the Royal Road, gained the willow-bordered promenade on the levee's crown, and a wide barge was waiting, manned by six negro oarsmen. They lifted me into its stern under the awning, the barge was cast off, the oars dipped, and we were gliding silently past the line of keel boats on the swift current of the Mississippi. The spars of the s.h.i.+pping were inky black, and the setting sun had struck a red band across the waters. For a while the three of us sat gazing at the green sh.o.r.e, each wrapped in his own reflections,--Philippe de St. Gre thinking, perchance, of the wayward son he had lost; Nick of the woman who awaited him; and I of one whom fate had set beyond me. It was Monsieur de St. Gre who broke the silence at last.

"You feel no ill effects from your moving, David?" he asked, with an anxious glance at me.

"None, sir," I said.

"The country air will do you good," he said kindly.

"And Madame la Vicomtesse will put him on a diet," added Nick, rousing himself.

"Helene will take care of him," answered Monsieur de St. Gre.

He fell to musing again. "Madame la Vicomtesse has seen more in seven years than most of us see in a lifetime," he said. "She has beheld the glory of France, and the dishonor and pollution of her country. Had the old order lasted her salon would have been famous, and she would have been a power in politics."

"I have thought that the Vicomtesse must have had a queer marriage,"

Nick remarked.

Monsieur de St. Gre smiled.

"Such marriages were the rule amongst our n.o.bility," he said. "It was arranged while Helene was still in the convent, though it was not celebrated until three years after she had been in the world. There was a romantic affair, I believe, with a young gentleman of the English emba.s.sy, though I do not know the details. He is said to be the only man she ever cared for. He was a younger son of an impoverished earl."