The Maid of Maiden Lane by Amelia E. Barr (free novels to read TXT) 📗

or heard, and madame—who watched every expression of her husband—was easily led to the same observation. She observed Cornelia closely, and her gay laugh especially revealed some change. It was like the burst of bird song in early spring, and she followed the happy girl to the front door, and called her back when she had gone down the steps, and said, as she looked earnestly in her face—

“You have heard from Joris Hyde? I know you have!” and Cornelia nodded her head, and blushed, and smiled, and ran away from further question.

When she reached home she found Madame Van Heemskirk sitting with her mother, and the sweet old lady rose to meet her, and said before Cornelia could utter a word:

“Come to me, Cornelia. This morning a letter we have had from my Joris, and sorry am I that I did thee so much wrong.”

“Madame, I have long ago forgotten it; and there was a mistake all round,” answered Cornelia, cheerfully.

“That is so—and thy mistake first of all. Hurry is misfortune; even to be happy, it is not wise to hurry. Listen now! Joris has written to his grandfather, and also to me, and very busy he will keep us both. His grandfather is to look after the stables and the horses, and to buy more horses, and to hire serving men of all kinds. And a long letter also I have had from my daughter Katherine, and she tells me to make her duty to thee my duty. That is my pleasure also, and I have been talking with thy mother about the house. Now I shall go there, and a very pleasant home I shall make it. Many things Joris will bring with him—two new carriages and much fine furniture—and I know not what else beside.”

Then Cornelia kissed madame, and afterwards removed her bonnet; and madame looked at her smiling. The vivid coral in her dark hair, the modest grey dress with its knots of colour, and above all the lovely face alight with love and hope, delighted her.

“Very pretty art thou, very pretty indeed!” she said, impulsively; and then she added, “Many other girls are very pretty also, but my Joris loves thee, and I am glad that it is thee, and very welcome art thou to me, and very proud is my husband of thee. And now I must go, because there is much to do, and little time to do it in.”

For nearly a week Cornelia was too busy to take Arenta into her consideration. She did not care to tell her about Rem’s cruel and dishonourable conduct, and she was afraid the shrewd little Marquise would divine some change, and get the secret out of her. Indeed, Arenta was not long in suspecting something unusual in the Doctor’s household—the number of parcels and of work people astonished her; and she was not a little offended at Madame Van Heemskirk spending a whole afternoon so near to her, and “never even,” as she said to her father, “turning her head this way.” For Arenta had drunk a rather long draught of popular interest, and she could not bear to believe it was declining. Was she not the American heroine of 1793? It was almost a want of patriotism in Madame Van Heemskirk to neglect her.

After a week had elapsed Cornelia went over one morning to see her friend. But by this time Arenta knew everything. Her brother Rem had been with her and confessed all to his sister. It had not been a pleasant meeting by any means. She heard the story with indignation, but contrived to feel that somehow Rem was not so much to blame as Cornelia, and other people.

“You are right served,” she said to her brother, “for meddling with foreigners, and especially for mixing your love affairs up with an English girl. Proud, haughty creatures all of them! And you are a very fool to tell any woman such a—crime. Yes, it is a crime. I won’t say less. That girl over the way nearly died, and you would have let her die. It was a shame. I don’t love Cornelia—but it was a shame.”

“The letter was addressed to me, Arenta.”

“Fiddlesticks! You knew it was not yours. You knew it was Hyde’s. Where is it now?”

She asked the question in her usual dominant way, and Rem did not feel able to resist it. He looked for a moment at the angry woman, and was subdued by her air of authority. He opened his pocketbook and from a receptacle in it, took the fateful letter. She seized and read it, and then without a word, or a moment’s hesitation threw it into the fire.

Rem blustered and fumed, and she stood smiling defiantly at him. “You are like all criminals,” she said; “you must keep something to accuse yourself with. I love you too well to permit you to carry that bit of paper about you. It has worked you harm enough. What are you going to do? Is Miss Darner’s refusal quite final?”

“Quite. It was even scornful.”

“Plenty of nice girls in Boston.”

“I cannot go back to Boston.”

“Why then?”

“Because Mary’s cousin has told the whole affair.”

“Nonsense!”

“She has. I know it. Men, whom I had been friendly with, got out of my way; women excused themselves at their homes, and did not see me on the streets. I have no doubt all Boston is talking of the affair.”

“Then come back to New York. New Yorkers attend strictly to their own love affairs. Father will stand by you; and I will.”

“Father will not. He called me a scoundrel, when I told him last night, and advised me to go to the frontier. Joris Van Heemskirk will not talk, but madame will chatter for him, and I could not bear to meet Doctor Moran. As for Captain Jacobus, he would invent new words and oaths to abuse me with, and Aunt Angelica would, of course, say amen to all he says;—and there are others.”

“Yes, there is Lord Hyde.”

“Curse him! But I intended to give him his letter—now you have burnt it.”

“You intended nothing of the kind, Rem. Go away as soon as you can. I don’t want to know where you go just yet. New York is impossible, and Boston is impossible. Father says go to the frontier, I say go South. What you have done, you have done; and it cannot be undone; so don’t carry it about with you. And I would let women alone—they are beyond you—go in for politics.”

That day Rem lingered with his sister, seeing no one else; and in the evening shadows he slipped quietly away. He was very wretched, for he really loved Mary Damer, and his disappointment was bitterly keen and humiliating. Besides which, he felt that his business efforts for two years were forfeited, and that he had the world to begin over again. Without a friend to wish him a Godspeed the wretched man went on board the Southern packet, and in her dim lonely cabin sat silent and despondent, while she fought her way through swaying curtains of rain to the open sea. Its great complaining came up through the darkness to him, and seemed to be the very voice of the miserable circumstances, that had separated and estranged his life