The Crossing

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"You are at Les Iles, Nick," I said; "you are on Monsieur de St. Gre's
plantation, and within a quarter of a mile of his house."

His face became grave all at once. He seized me by both shoulders, and
looked into my face.

"You say that we are at Les Iles?" he repeated slowly.

I nodded, seeing the deception which Auguste had evidently practised in
order to get him here. Then Nick dropped his arms, went to the door, and
stood for a long time with his back turned to us, looking out over the
fields. When finally he spoke it was in the tone he used in anger.

"If I had him now, I think I would kill him," he said.

Auguste had deluded him in other things, had run away and deserted him in
a strange land. But this matter of bringing him to Les Iles was past
pardon. It was another face he turned to the Vicomtesse, a stronger
face, a face ennobled by a just anger.

"Madame la Vicomtesse," he said, "I have a vague notion that you are
related to Monsieur de St. Gre. I give you my word of honor as a
gentleman that I had no thought of trespassing upon him in any way."

"Mr. Temple, we were so sure of that--Mr. Ritchie and I--that we should
not have sought for you here otherwise," she replied quickly. Then she
glanced at me as though seeking my approval for her next move. It was
characteristic of her that she did not now shirk a task imposed by her
sense of duty. "We have little time, Mr. Temple, and much to say.
Perhaps you will excuse us, Lamarque," she added graciously, in French.

"Madame la Vicomtesse!" said the old man. And, with the tact of his
race, he bowed and retired. The Vicomtesse seated herself on one of the
rude chairs, and looked at Nick curiously. There was no such thing as
embarrassment in her manner, no trace of misgiving that she would not
move properly in the affair. Knowing Nick as I did, the difficulty of
the task appalled me, for no man was likelier than he to fly off at a
misplaced word.

Her beginning was so bold that I held my breath, knowing full well as I
did that she had chosen the very note.

"Sit down, Mr. Temple," she said. "I wish to speak to you about your
mother."

He stopped like a man who had been struck, straightened, and stared at
her as though he had not taken her meaning. Then he swung on me.

"Your mother is in New Orleans," I said. "I would have told you in
Louisville had you given me the chance."

"It is an interesting piece of news, David," he answered, "which you
might have spared me. Mrs. Temple did not think herself necessary to my
welfare when I was young, and now I have learned to live without her."

"Is there no such thing as expiation, Monsieur?" said the Vicomtesse.

"Madame," he said, "she made me what I am, and when I might have redeemed
myself she came between me and happiness."

"Monsieur," said the Vicomtesse, "have you ever considered her
sufferings?"

He looked at the Vicomtesse with a new interest. She was not so far
beyond his experience as mine.

"Her sufferings?" he repeated, and smiled.

"Madame la Vicomtesse should know them," I interrupted; and without
heeding her glance of protest I continued, "It is she who has cared for
Mrs. Temple."

"You, Madame!" he exclaimed.

"Do not deny your own share in it, Mr. Ritchie," she answered. "As for
me, Monsieur," she went on, turning to Nick, "I have done nothing that
was not selfish. I have been in the world, I have lived my life,
misfortunes have come upon me too. My visits to your mother have been to
me a comfort, a pleasure,--for she is a rare person."

"I have never found her so, Madame," he said briefly.

"I am sure it is your misfortune rather than your fault, Mr. Temple. It
is because you do not know her now."

Again he looked at me, puzzled, uneasy, like a man who would run if he
could. But by a kind of fascination his eyes went back to this woman who
dared a subject sore to the touch--who pressed it gently, but with
determination, never doubting her powers, yet with a kindness and
sympathy of tone which few women of the world possess. The Vicomtesse
began to speak again, evenly, gently.

"Mr. Temple," said she, "I am merely going to tell you some things which
I am sure you do not know, and when I have finished I shall not appeal to
you. It would be useless for me to try to influence you, and from what
Mr. Ritchie and others have told me of your character I am sure that no
influence will be necessary. And," she added, with a smile, "it would be
much more comfortable for us both if you sat down."

He obeyed her without a word. No wonder Madame la Vicomtesse had had an
influence at court.

"There!" she said. "If any reference I am about to make gives you pain,
I am sorry." She paused briefly. "After Mr. Ritchie took your mother
from here to New Orleans, some five years ago, she rented a little house
in the Rue Bourbon with a screen of yellow and red tiles at the edge of
the roof. It is on the south side, next to the corner of the Rue St.
Philippe. There she lives absolutely alone, except for a servant. Mr.
Clark, who has charge of her affairs, was the only person she allowed to
visit her. For her pride, however misplaced, and for her spirit we must
all admire her. The friend who discovered where she was, who went to her
and implored Mrs. Temple to let her stay, she refused."

"The friend?" he repeated in a low tone. I scarcely dared to glance at
the Vicomtesse.

"Yes, it was Antoinette," she answered. He did not reply, but his eyes
fell. "Antoinette went to her, would have comforted her, would have
cared for her, but your mother sent her away. For five years she has
lived there, Mr. Temple, alone with her past, alone with her sorrow and
remorse. You must draw the picture for yourself. If the world has a
more terrible punishment, I have not heard of it. And when, some months
ago, I came, and Antoinette sent me to her--"

"Sent you to her!" he said, raising his head quickly.

"Under another name than my own," Helene continued, apparently taking no
notice of his interruption. She leaned toward him and her voice
faltered. "I found your mother dying."

He said nothing, but got to his feet and walked slowly to the door, where
he stood looking out again. I felt for him, I would have gone to him
then had it not been for the sense in me that Helene did not wish it. As
for Helene, she sat waiting for him to turn back to her, and at length he
did.

"Yes?" he said.

"It is her heart, Mr. Temple, that we fear the most. Last night I
thought the end had come. It cannot be very far away now. Sorrow and
remorse have killed her, Monsieur. The one thing that she has prayed for
through the long nights is that she might see you once again and obtain
your forgiveness. God Himself does not withhold forgiveness, Mr.
Temple," said the Vicomtesse, gently. "Shall any of us presume to?"

A spasm of pain crossed his face, and then his expression hardened.

"I might have been a useful man," he said; "she ruined my life--"

"And you will allow her to ruin the rest of it?" asked the Vicomtesse.

He stared at her.

"If you do not go to her and forgive her, you will remember it until you
die," she said.

He sank down on the chair opposite to her, his head bowed into his hands,
his elbows on the table among the cards. At length I went and laid my
hands upon his shoulder, and at my touch he started. Then he did a
singular thing, an impulsive thing, characteristic of the old Nick I had
known. He reached across the table and seized the hand of Madame la
Vicomtesse. She did not resist, and her smile I shall always remember.
It was the smile of a woman who has suffered, and understands.

"I will go to her, Madame!" he said, springing to his feet. "I will go
to her. I--I was wrong."

She rose, too, he still clinging to her hand, she still unresisting. His
eye fell upon me.

"Where is my hat, Davy?" he asked.

The Vicomtesse withdrew her hand and looked at me.

"Alas, it is not quite so simple as that, Mr. Temple," she said;
"Monsieur de Carondelet has first to be reckoned with."

"She is dying, you say? then I will go to her. After that Monsieur de
Carondelet may throw me into prison, may hang me, may do anything he
chooses. But I will go to her."

I glanced anxiously at the Vicomtesse, well knowing how wilful he was
when aroused. Admiration was in her eyes, seeing that he was heedless of
his own danger.

"You would not get through the gates of the city. Monsieur le Baron
requires passports now," she said.

At that he began to pace the little room, his hands clenched.

"I could use your passport, Davy," he cried. "Let me have it."

"Pardon me, Mr. Temple, I do not think you could," said the Vicomtesse.
I flushed. I suppose the remark was not to be resisted.

"Then I will go to-night," he said, with determination. "It will be no
trouble to steal into the city. You say the house has yellow and red
tiles, and is near the Rue St. Philippe?"

Helene laid her fingers on his arm.

"Listen, Monsieur, there is a better way," she said. "Monsieur le Baron
is doubtless very angry with you, and I am sure that this is chiefly
because he does not know you. For instance, if some one were to tell him
that you are a straightforward, courageous young man, a gentleman with an
unquenchable taste for danger, that you are not a low-born adventurer and
intriguer, that you have nothing in particular against his government, he
might not be quite so angry. Pardon me if I say that he is not disposed
to take your expedition any more seriously than is your own Federal
government. The little Baron is irascible, choleric, stern, or else
good-natured, good-hearted, and charitable, just as one happens to take
him. As we say in France, it is not well to strike flint and steel in
his presence. He might blow up and destroy one. Suppose some one were
to go to Monsieur de Carondelet and tell him what a really estimable
person you are, and assure him that you will go quietly out of his
province at the first opportunity, and be good, so far as he is
concerned, forever after? Mark me, I merely say SUPPOSE. I do not know
how far things have gone, or what he may have heard. But suppose a
person whom I have reason to believe he likes and trusts and respects, a
person who understands his vagaries, should go to him on such an errand."

"And where is such a person to be found," said Nick, amused in spite of
himself.

Madame la Vicomtesse courtesied.

"Monsieur, she is before you," she said.

"Egad," he cried, "do you mean to say, Madame, that you will go to the
Baron on my behalf?"

"As soon as I ever get to town," she said. "He will have to be waked
from his siesta, and he does not like that."

"But he will forgive you," said Nick, quick as a flash.

"I have reason to believe he will," said Madame la Vicomtesse.

"Faith," cried Nick, "he would not be flesh and blood if he didn't."

At that the Vicomtesse laughed, and her eye rested judicially on me. I
was standing rather glumly, I fear, in the corner.

"Are you going to take him with you?" said Nick.

"I was thinking of it," said the Vicomtesse. "Mr. Ritchie knows you, and
he is such a reliable and reputable person."

Nick bowed.

"You should have seen him marching in a Jacobin procession, Madame," he
said.

"He follows his friends into strange places," she retorted.

"And now, Mr. Temple," she added, "may we trust you to stay here with
Lamarque until you have word from us?"

"You know I cannot stay here," he cried.

"And why not, Monsieur?"

"If I were captured here, I should get Monsieur de St. Gre into trouble;
and besides," he said, with a touch of coldness, "I cannot be beholden to
Monsieur de St. Gre. I cannot remain on his land."

"As for getting Monsieur de St. Gre into trouble, his own son could not
involve him with the Baron," answered Madame la Vicomtesse. "And it
seems to me, Monsieur, that you are already so far beholden to Monsieur
de St. Gre that you cannot quibble about going a little more into his
debt. Come, Mr. Temple, how has Monsieur de St. Gre ever offended you?"

"Madame--" he began.

"Monsieur," she said, with an air not to be denied, "I believe I can
discern a point of honor as well as you. I fail to see that you have a
case."

He was indeed no match for her. He turned to me appealingly, his brows
bent, but I had no mind to meddle. He swung back to her.

"But Madame--!" he cried.

She was arranging the cards neatly on the table.

"Monsieur, you are tiresome," she said. "What is it now?"

He took a step toward her, speaking in a low tone, his voice shaking.
But, true to himself, he spoke plainly. As for me, I looked on
frightened,--as though watching a contest,--almost agape to see what a
clever woman could do.

"There is--Mademoiselle de St. Gre--"

"Yes, there is Mademoiselle de St. Gre," repeated the Vicomtesse, toying
with the cards.

His face lighted, though his lips twitched with pain.

"She is still--"

"She is still Mademoiselle de St. Gre, Monsieur, if that is what you
mean."

"And what will she think if I stay here?"

"Ah, do you care what she thinks, Mr. Temple?" said the Vicomtesse,
raising her head quickly. "From what I have heard, I should not have
thought you could."

"God help me," he answered simply, "I do care."

Helene's eyes softened as she looked at him, and my pride in him was
never greater than at that moment.

"Mr. Temple," she said gently, "remain where you are and have faith in
us. I begin to see now why you are so fortunate in your friends." Her
glance rested for a brief instant on me. "Mr. Ritchie and I will go to
New Orleans, talk to the Baron, and send Andre at once with a message.
If it is in our power, you shall see your mother very soon."

She held out her hand to him, and he bent and kissed it reverently, with
an ease I envied. He followed us to the door. And when the Vicomtesse
had gone a little way down the path she looked at him over her shoulder.

"Do not despair, Mr. Temple," she said.

It was an answer to a yearning in his face. He gripped me by the
shoulders.

"God bless you, Davy," he whispered, and added, "God bless you both."

I overtook her where the path ran into the forest's shade, and for a long
while I walked after her, not breaking her silence, my eyes upon her, a
strange throbbing in my forehead which I did not heed. At last, when the
perfumes of the flowers told us we were nearing the garden, she turned to
me.

"I like Mr. Temple," she said, again.

"He is an honest gentleman," I answered.

"One meets very few of them," she said, speaking in a low voice. "You
and I will go to the Governor. And after that, have you any idea where
you will go?"

"No," I replied, troubled by her regard.

"Then I will tell you. I intend to send you to Madame Gravois's, and she
will compel you to go to bed and rest. I do not mean to allow you to
kill yourself."



CHAPTER IX

MONSIEUR LE BARON

The sun beat down mercilessly on thatch and terrace, the yellow walls
flung back the quivering heat, as Madame la Vicomtesse and I walked
through the empty streets towards the Governor's house. We were followed
by Andre and Madame's maid. The sleepy orderly started up from under the
archway at our approach, bowed profoundly to Madame, looked askance at
me, and declared, with a thousand regrets, that Monsieur le Baron was
having his siesta.

"Then you will wake him," said Madame la Vicomtesse.

Wake Monsieur le Baron! Bueno Dios, did Madame understand what it meant
to wake his Excellency? His Excellency would at first be angry, no
doubt. Angry? As an Andalusian bull, Madame. Once, when his Excellency
had first come to the province, he, the orderly, had presumed to awake
him.

"Assez!" said Madame, so suddenly that the man straightened and looked at
her again. "You will wake Monsieur le Baron, and tell him that Madame la
Vicomtesse d'Ivry-le-Tour has something of importance to say to him."

Madame had the air, and a title carried with a Spanish soldier in New
Orleans in those days. The orderly fairly swept the ground and led us
through a court where the sun drew bewildering hot odors from the fruits
and flowers, into a darkened room which was the Baron's cabinet. I
remember it vaguely, for my head was hot and throbbing from my exertions
in such a climate. It was a new room,--the hotel being newly
built,--with white walls, a picture of his Catholic Majesty and the
royal arms of Spain, a map of Louisiana, another of New Orleans
fortified, some walnut chairs, a desk with ink and sand and a seal, and a
window, the closed lattice shutters of which showed streaks of light
green light. These doubtless opened on the Royal Road and looked across
the levee esplanade on the waters of the Mississippi. Madame la
Vicomtesse seated herself, and with a gesture which was an order bade me
do likewise.

"He will be angry, the dear Baron," she said. "He is harassed to death
with republics. No offence, Mr. Ritchie. He is up at dawn looking to
the forts and palisades to guard against such foolish enterprises as this
of Mr. Temple's. And to be waked out of a well-earned siesta--to save a
gentleman who has come here to make things unpleasant for him--is
carrying a joke a little far. Mais--que voulez-vous?"

She gave a little shrug to her slim shoulders as she smiled at me, and
she seemed not a whit disturbed concerning the conversation with his
Excellency. I wondered whether this were birth, or training, or both, or
a natural ability to cope with affairs. The women of her order had long
been used to intercede with sovereigns, to play a part in matters of
state. Suddenly I became aware that she was looking at me.

"What are you thinking of?" she demanded, and continued without waiting
for a reply, "you strange man."

"I was thinking how odd it was," I replied, "that I should have known you
all these years by a portrait, that we should finally be thrown together,
and that you should be so exactly like the person I had supposed you to
be."

She lowered her eyes, but she did not seem to take offence. I meant
none.

"And you," she answered, "are continually reminding me of an Englishman I
knew when I was a girl. He was a very queer person to be attached to the
Embassy,--not a courtier, but a serious, literal person like you, Mr.
Ritchie, and he resembled you very much. I was very fond of him."

"And--what became of him?" I asked. Other questions rose to my lips, but
I put them down.

"I will tell you," she answered, bending forward a little. "He did
something which I believe you might have done. A certain Marquis spoke
lightly of a lady, an Englishwoman at our court, and my Englishman ran
him through one morning at Versailles."

She paused, and I saw that her breath was coming more quickly at the
remembrance.

"And then?"

"He fled to England. He was a younger son, and poor. But his King heard
of the affair, had it investigated, and restored him to the service. I
have never seen him since," she said, "but I have often thought of him.
There," she added, after a silence, with a lightness which seemed
assumed, "I have given you a romance. How long the Baron takes to
dress!"

At that moment there were footsteps in the court-yard, and the orderly
appeared at the door, saluting, and speaking in Spanish.

"His Excellency the Governor!"

We rose, and Madame was courtesying and I was bowing to the little man.
He was in uniform, his face perspiring in the creases, his plump calves
stretching his white stockings to the full. Madame extended her hand and
he kissed it, albeit he did not bend easily. He spoke in French, and his
voice betrayed the fact that his temper was near slipping its leash. The
Baron was a native of Flanders.

"To what happy circumstance do I owe the honor of this visit, Madame la
Vicomtesse?" he asked.

"To a woman's whim, Monsieur le Baron," she answered, "for a man would
not have dared to disturb you. May I present to your Excellency, Mr.
David Ritchie of Kentucky?"

His Excellency bowed stiffly, looked at me with no pretence of pleasure,
and I had had sufficient dealings with men to divine that, in the coming
conversation, the overflow of his temper would be poured upon me. His
first sensation was surprise.

"An American!" he said, in a tone that implied reproach to Madame la
Vicomtesse for having fallen into such company. "Ah," he cried,
breathing hard in the manner of stout people, "I remember you came down
with Monsieur Vigo, Monsieur, did you not?"

It was my turn to be surprised. If the Baron took a like cognizance of
all my countrymen who came to New Orleans, he was a busy man indeed.

"Yes, your Excellency," I answered.

"And you are a Federalist?" he said, though petulantly.

"I am, your Excellency."

"Is your nation to overrun the earth?" said the Baron. "Every morning
when I ride through the streets it seems to me that more Americans have
come. Pardieu, I declare every day that, if it were not for the
Americans, I should have ten years more of life ahead of me." I could
not resist the temptation to glance at Madame la Vicomtesse. Her eyes,
half closed, betrayed an amusement that was scarce repressed.

"Come, Monsieur le Baron," she said, "you and I have like beliefs upon
most matters. We have both suffered at the hands of people who have
mistaken a fiend for a Lady."

"You would have me believe, Madame," the Baron put in, with a wit I had
not thought in him, "that Mr. Ritchie knows a lady when he sees one. I
can readily believe it."

Madame laughed.

"He at least has a negative knowledge," she replied. "And he has brought
into New Orleans no coins, boxes, or clocks against your Excellency's
orders with the image and superscription of the Goddess in whose name all
things are done. He has not sung 'Ca Ira' at the theatres, and he
detests the tricolored cockades as much as you do."

The Baron laughed in spite of himself, and began to thaw. There was a
little more friendliness in his next glance at me.

"What images have you brought in, Mr. Ritchie?" he asked. "We all
worship the sex in some form, however misplaced our notions of it."

There is not the least doubt that, for the sake of the Vicomtesse, he was
trying to be genial, and that his remark was a purely random one. But
the roots of my hair seemed to have taken fire. I saw the Baron as in a
glass, darkly. But I kept my head, principally because the situation had
elements of danger.

"The image of Madame la Vicomtesse, Monsieur," I said.

"Dame!" exclaimed his Excellency, eying me with a new interest, "I did
not suspect you of being a courtier."

"No more he is, Monsieur le Baron," said the Vicomtesse, "for he speaks
the truth."

His Excellency looked blank. As for me, I held my breath, wondering what
coup Madame was meditating.

"Mr. Ritchie brought down from Kentucky a miniature of me by Boze, that
was painted in a costume I once wore at Chantilly."

"Comment! diable," exclaimed the Baron. "And how did such a thing get
into Kentucky, Madame?"

"You have brought me to the point," she replied, "which is no small
triumph for your Excellency. Mr. Ritchie bought the miniature from that
most estimable of my relations, Monsieur Auguste de St. Gre."

The Baron sat down and began to fan himself. He even grew a little
purple. He looked at Madame, sputtered, and I began to think that, if he
didn't relieve himself, his head might blow off. As for the Vicomtesse,
she wore an ingenuous air of detachment, and seemed supremely unconscious
of the volcano by her side.

"So, Madame," cried the Governor at length, after I know not what
repressions, "you have come here in behalf of that--of Auguste de St.
Gre!"

"So far as I am concerned, Monsieur," answered the Vicomtesse, calmly,
"you may hang Auguste, put him in prison, drown him, or do anything you
like with him."

"God help me," said the poor man, searching for his handkerchief, and
utterly confounded, "why is it you have come to me, then? Why did you
wake me up?" he added, so far forgetting himself.

"I came in behalf of the gentleman who had the indiscretion to accompany
Auguste to Louisiana," she continued, "in behalf of Mr. Nicholas Temple,
who is a cousin of Mr. Ritchie."

The Baron started abruptly from his chair.

"I have heard of him," he cried; "Madame knows where he is?"

"I know where he is. It is that which I came to tell your Excellency."

"Hein!" said his Excellency, again nonplussed. "You came to tell me
where he is? And where the--the other one is?"

"Parfaitement," said Madame. "But before I tell you where they are, I
wish to tell you something about Mr. Temple."

"Madame, I know something of him already," said the Baron, impatiently.

"Ah," said she, "from Gignoux. And what do you hear from Gignoux?"

This was another shock, under which the Baron fairly staggered.

"Diable! is Madame la Vicomtesse in the plot?" he cried. "What does
Madame know of Gignoux?"

Madame's manner suddenly froze.

"I am likely to be in the plot, Monsieur," she said. "I am likely to be
in a plot which has for its furtherance that abominable anarchy which
deprived me of my home and estates, of my relatives and friends and my
sovereign."