The Bow of Orange Ribbon - Amelia Edith Huddleston Barr (best book club books of all time txt) 📗

and plates that adorned the great oak sideboard.

Joanna, who was darning some fine linen, rose and made her respects with perfect composure. She had very little liking, either for Mrs. Gordon or her nephew; and many of their ways appeared to her utterly foolish, and not devoid of sin. But Katherine trembled and blushed with pleasure and excitement, and Mrs. Gordon watched her with a certain kind of curious delight. Her hair was combed backward, plaited, and tied with a ribbon; her arms bare to the shoulders, her black bodice and crimson petticoat neatly shielded with a linen apron: and poised in one hand she held a beautiful silver flagon covered with raised figures, which with patient labour she had brought into shining relief.

"Oh," cried the visitor, "that is indeed a piece of plate worth looking at! Surely, child, it has a history,--a romance perhaps. La, there are words also upon it! Pray, madam, be so obliging as to read the inscription;" and madam, blushing with pride and pleasure, read it aloud,--


"'Hoog van Moed,
Klein van Goed,
Een zwaard in de hand:
Is 't wapen van Gelderland.'"


"Dutch, I vow! Surely, madam, it is very sonorous and emphatic; vastly different, I do assure you, from the vowelled idioms of Italy and Spain. Pray, madam, be so civil as to translate the words for me."


"'Of spirit great,
Of small estate,
A sword in the hand:
Such are the arms of Guelderland.'


"You must know," continued Madam Van Heemskirk, "that my husband's father had a brother, who, in a great famine in Guelderland, filled one hundred flat boats with wheat of Zealand,--in all the world it is the finest wheat, that is the truth,--and help he sent to those who were ready to perish. And when came better days, then, because their hearts were good, they gave to their preserver this flagon. Joris Van Heemskirk, my husband, sets on it great store, that is so."

Conversation in this channel was easily maintained. Madame Van Heemskirk knew the pedigree or the history of every tray or cup, and in reminiscence and story an hour passed away very pleasantly indeed. Joanna did not linger to listen. The visitor did not touch her liking or her interest; and besides, as every one knows, the work of a house must go on, no matter what guest opens the door. But Katherine longed and watched and feared. Surely her friend would not go away without some private token or message for her. She turned sick at heart when she rose as if to depart. But Mrs. Gordon proved herself equal to the emergency; for, after bidding madam an effusive good-by, she turned suddenly and said, "Pray allow your daughter to show me the many ornaments in your parlour. The glimpse I had has made me very impatient to see them more particularly."

The request was one entirely in sympathy with the mood and the previous conversation, and madam was pleased to gratify it; also pleased, that, having fully satisfied the claims of social life, she could with courtesy leave her visitor's further entertainment with Katherine, and return to her regular domestic cares. To her the visit had appeared to be one of such general interest, that she never suspected any motive beneath or beyond the friendliness it implied. Yet the moment the parlour-door had been shut, Mrs. Gordon lifted Katharine's face between her palms, and said,--

"Faith, child, I am almost run off my head with all the fine things I have listened to for your sake. Do you know _who_ sent me here?"

"I think, madam, Captain Hyde."

"Psha! Why don't you blush, and stammer, and lie about it? 'I think, madam, Captain Hyde,'" mimicking Katherine's slight Dutch accent. "'Tis to be seen, miss, that you understand a thing or two. Now, Captain Hyde wishes to see you; when can you oblige him so much?"

"I know not. To come to Madam Semple's is forbidden me by my father."

"It is on my account. I protest your father is very uncivil."

"Madam, no; but it is the officers; many come and go, and he thinks it is not good for me to meet them."

"Oh, indeed, miss, it is very hard on Captain Hyde, who is more in love than is reasonable Has your father forbidden you to walk down your garden to the river-bank?"

"No, madam."

"Then, if Captain Hyde pass about two o'clock, he might see you there?"

"At two I am busy with Joanna."

"La, child! At three then?"

"Three?"

The word was a question more than an assent; but Mrs. Gordon assumed the assent, and did not allow Katharine to contradict it. "And I promised to bring him a token from you,--he was exceedingly anxious about that matter; give me the ribbon from your hair."

"Only last week Joanna bought it for me. She would surely ask me, 'Where is your new ribbon?'"

"Tell her that you lost it."

"How could I say that? It would not be true."

The girl's face was so sincere, that Mrs. Gordon found herself unable to ridicule the position. "My dear," she answered, "you are a miracle. But, among all these pretty things, is there nothing you can send?"

Katherine looked thoughtfully around. There was a small Chinese cabinet on a table: she went to it, and took from a drawer a bow of orange ribbon. Holding it doubtfully in her hand, she said, "My St. Nicholas ribbon."

"La, miss, I thought you were a Calvinist! What are you talking of the saints for?"

"St. Nicholas is our saint, our own saint; and on his day we wear orange. Yes, even my father then, on his silk cap, puts an orange bow. Orange is the Dutch colour, you know, madam."

"Indeed, child, I do _not_ know; but, if so, then it is the best colour to send to your true love."

"For the Dutch, orange always. On the great days of the kirk, my father puts blue with it. Blue is the colour of the Dutch Calvinists."

"Make me thankful to learn so much. Then when Councillor Van Heemskirk wears his blue and orange, he says to the world, 'I am a Dutchman and a Calvinist'?"

"That is the truth. For the _Vaderland_ the _Moeder-Kerk_ he wears their colours. The English, too, they will have their own colour!"

"La, my dear, England claims every colour! But, indeed, even an English officer may now wear an orange favour; for I remember well when our Princess Anne married the young Prince of Orange. Oh, I assure you the House of Nassau is close kin to the House of Hanover! And when English princesses marry Dutch princes, then surely English officers may marry Dutch maidens. Your bow of orange ribbon is a very proper love-knot."

"Indeed, madam, I never"--

"There, there! I can really wait no longer. _Some one_ is already in a fever of impatience. 'Tis a quaintly pretty room; I am happy to have seen its curious treasures. Good-by again, child; my service once more to your mother and sister;" and so, with many compliments, she passed chatting and laughing out of the house.

Katherine closed the best parlour, and lingered a moment in the act. She felt that she had permitted Mrs. Gordon to make an appointment for her lover, and a guilty sense of disobedience made bitter the joy of expectation. For absolute truthfulness is the foundation of the Dutch character; and an act of deception was not only a sin according to Katherine's nature, but one in direct antagonism to it. As she turned away from the closed parlour, she felt quite inclined to confide everything to her sister Joanna; but Joanna, who had to finish the cleaning of the silver, was not in that kind of a temper which invites confidence; and indeed, Katherine, looking into her calm, preoccupied face, felt her manner to be a reproof and a restraint.

So she kept her own counsel, and doubted and debated the matter in her heart until the hands of the great clock were rising quickly to the hour of fate. Then she laid down her fine sewing, and said, "Mother, I want to walk in the garden. When I come back my task I will finish."

"That is well. Joanna, too, has let her work fall down to her lap. Go, both of you, and get the fine air from the river."

This was not what Katherine wished; but nothing but assent was possible, and the girls strolled slowly down the box-bordered walks together. Madam Van Heemskirk watched them from the window for a few minutes. A smile of love and pleasure was on her fine, placid face; but she said with a sigh, as she turned away,--

"Well, well, if it is the will of God they should not rise in the world, one must be content. To the spider the web is as large as to the whale the whole wide sea; that is the truth."

Joanna was silent; she was thinking of her own love-affairs; but Katherine, doubtful of herself, thought also that her sister suspected her. When they reached the river-bank, Joanna perceived that the lilacs were in bloom, and at their root the beautiful auriculas; and she stooped low to inhale their strange, nameless, earthy perfume. At that moment a boat rowed by with two English soldiers, stopped just below them, and lay rocking on her oars. Then an officer in the stern rose and looked towards Katherine, who stood in the full sunlight with her large hat in her hand. Before she could make any sign of recognition, Joanna raised herself from the auriculas and stood beside her sister; yet in the slight interval Katherine had seen Captain Hyde fling back from his left shoulder his cloak, in order to display the bow of orange ribbon on his breast.

The presence of Joanna baffled and annoyed him; but he raised his beaver with a gallant grace, and Joanna dropped a courtesy, and then, taking Katherine's hand, turned toward home with her, saying, "That is the boat of Captain Hyde. What comes he this way for?"

"The river way is free to all, Joanna." And Joanna looked sharply at her sister and remained silent.

But Katherine was merry as a bird. She chattered of this and of that, and sang snatches of songs, old and new. And all the time her heart beat out its own glad refrain, "My bow of orange ribbon, my bow of orange ribbon!" Her needle went to her thoughts, and her thoughts went to melody; for, as she worked, she sang,--

"Will you have a pink knot?
Is it blue you prize?
One is like a fresh rose,
One is like your eyes.
No, the maid of Holland,
For her own true love,
Ties the splendid orange,
Orange still above!
_O oranje boven!_
Orange still above.

"Will you have the white knot?
No, it is too cold.
Give me splendid orange,
Tint of flame and gold;
Rich and glowing orange,
For the heart I love;
_Under_, white and pink and blue;
Orange still _above_!
_O oranje boven!_
Orange still