CHAPTER XXII
CLARK ADVISES ALICE
A few days after the surrender of Hamilton, a large boat, the Willing,arrived from Kaskaskia. It was well manned and heavily armed. Clarkfitted it out before beginning his march and expected it to be of greatassistance to him in the reduction of the fort, but the high waters andthe floating driftwood delayed its progress, so that its disappointedcrew saw Alice's flag floating bright and high when their eyes firstlooked upon the dull little town from far down the swollen river. Therewas much rejoicing, however, when they came ashore and wereenthusiastically greeted by the garrison and populace. A courier whomthey picked up on the Ohio came with them. He bore dispatches fromGovernor Henry of Virginia to Clark and a letter for Beverley from hisfather. With them appeared also Simon Kenton, greatly to the delight ofOncle Jazon, who had worried much about his friend since their latestfredaine--as he called it--with the Indians. Meantime an expeditionunder Captain Helm had been sent up the river with the purpose ofcapturing a British flotilla from Detroit.
Gaspard Roussillon, immediately after Clark's victory, thought he saw agood opening favorable to festivity at the river house, for which hesoon began to make some of his most ostentatious preparations. Fate,however, as usual in his case, interfered. Fate seemed to like pullingthe big Frenchman's ear now and again, as if to remind him of thefact--which he was apt to forget--that he lacked somewhat ofomnipotence.
"Ziff! Je vais donner un banquet a tout le moonde, moi!" he cried,hustling and bustling hither and thither.
A scout from up the river announced the approach of Philip Dejean withhis flotilla richly laden, and what little interest may have beengathering in the direction of M. Roussillon's festal propositionvanished like the flame of a lamp in a puff of wind when this newsreached Colonel Clark and became known in the town.
Beverley and Alice sat together in the main room of the Roussilloncabin--you could scarcely find them separated during those happydays--and Alice was singing to the soft tinkle of a guitar, a Creoleditty with a merry smack in its scarcely intelligible nonsense. Sheknew nothing about music beyond what M. Roussillon, a jack of alltrades, had been able to teach her,--a few simple chords to accompanyher songs, picked up at hap-hazard. But her voice, like her face andform, irradiated witchery. It was sweet, firm, deep, with somethinghaunting in it--the tone of a hermit thrush, marvelously pure andclear, carried through a gay strain like the mocking-bird's. Of courseBeverley thought it divine; and when a message came from Colonel Clarkbidding him report for duty at once, he felt an impulse toward mutinyof the rankest sort. He did not dream that a military expedition couldbe on hand; but upon reaching headquarters, the first thing he heardwas:
"Report to Captain Helm. You are to go with him up the river andintercept a British force. Move lively, Helm is waiting for you,probably."
There was no time for explanations. Evidently Clark expected neitherquestions nor delay. Beverley's love of adventure and his patrioticdesire to serve his country came to his aid vigorously enough; still,with Alice's love-song ringing in his heart, there was a cord pullinghim back from duty to the sweetest of all life's joys.
Helm was already at the landing, where a little fleet of boats wasbeing prepared. A thousand things had to be done in short order. Allhands were stimulated to highest exertion with the thought of anotherfight. Swivels were mounted in boats, ammunition and provisions storedabundantly, flags hoisted and oars dipped. Never was an expedition ofso great importance more swiftly organized and set in motion, nor didone ever have a more prosperous voyage or completer triumph. PhilipDejean, Justice of Detroit, with his men, boats and rich cargo, wascaptured easily, with not a shot fired, nor a drop of blood spilled indoing it.
If Alice could have known all this before it happened, she wouldprobably have saved herself from the mortification of a rebukeadministered very kindly, but not the less thoroughly, by Colonel Clark.
The rumor came to her--a brilliant creole rumor, duly inflated--that anoverwhelming British force was descending the river, and that Beverleywith a few men, not sufficient to base the expedition on a respectableforlorn hope, would be sent to meet them. Her nature, as was its wont,flared into high indignation. What right had Colonel Clark to send herlover away to be killed just at the time when he was all the wholeworld to her? Nothing could be more outrageous. She would not suffer itto be done; not she!
Colonel Clark greeted her pleasantly, when she came somewhat abruptlyto him, where he was directing a squad of men at work making somerepairs in the picketing of the fort. He did not observe her excitementuntil she began to speak, and then it was noticeable only, and not verystrongly, in her tone. She forgot to speak English, and her French wasGreek to him.
"I am glad to see you, Mademoiselle," he said, rather inconsequently,lifting his hat and bowing with rough grace, while he extended hisright hand cordially. "You have something to say to me? Come with me tomy office."
She barely touched his fingers.
"Yes, I have something to say to you. I can tell it here," she said,speaking English now with softest Creole accent. "I wanted--I cameto--" It was not so easy as she had imagined it would be to utter whatshe had in mind. Clark's steadfast, inscrutable eyes, kindly yet notaltogether sympathetic, met her own and beat them down. Her voicefailed.
He offered her his arm and gravely said:
"We will go to my office. I see that you have some importantcommunication to make. There are too many ears here."
Of a sudden she felt like running home. Somehow the situation brokeupon her with a most embarrassing effect. She did not take Clark's arm,and she began to tremble. He appeared unconscious of this, and probablywas, for his mind had a fine tangle of great schemes in it just then;but he turned toward his office, and bidding her follow him, walkedaway in that direction.
She was helpless. Not the slightest trace of her usual brilliantself-assertion was at her command. Saving the squad of men sawing andhacking, digging and hammering, the fort appeared as deserted as hermind. She stood gazing after Clark. He did not look back, but stroderight on. If she would speak with him, she must follow. It was asurprise to her, for heretofore she had always had her own way, even ifshe found it necessary to use force. And where was Beverley? Where wasthe garrison? Colonel Clark did not seem to be at all concerned aboutthe approach of the British--and yet those repairs--perhaps he wasmaking ready for a desperate resistance! She did not move until hereached the door of his office where he stopped and stepped aside, asif to let her pass in first; he even lifted his hat, then looked atrifle surprised when he saw that she was not near him, frownedslightly, changed the frown to a smile and said, lifting his voice sothat she felt a certain imperative meaning in it:
"Did I walk too fast for you? I beg your pardon, Mademoiselle."
He stood waiting for her, as a father waits for a lagging, wilful child.
"Come, please," he added, "if you have something to say to me; my timejust now is precious--I have a great deal to do."
She was not of a nature to retreat under fire, and yet the panic in herbreast came very near mastering her will. Clark saw a look in her facewhich made him speak again:
"I assure you, Mademoiselle, that you need not feel embarrassed. Youcan rely upon me to--"
She made a gesture that interrupted him; at the same time she almostran toward him, gathering in breath, as one does who is about to forceout a desperately resisting and riotous thought. The strong, grave manlooked at her with a full sense of her fascination, and at the sametime he felt a vague wish to get away from her, as if she were about tocast unwelcome responsibility upon him.
"Where is Lieutenant Beverley?" she demanded, now close to Clark, faceto face, and gazing straight into his eyes. "I want to see him." Hertone suggested intensest excitement. She was trembling visibly.
Clark's face changed its expression. He suddenly recalled to mindAlice's rapturous public greeting of Beverley on the day of thesurrender. He was a cavalier, and it did not agree with his sense ofhigh
propriety for girls to kiss their lovers out in the open airbefore a gazing army. True enough, he himself had been hoodwinked byAlice's beauty and boldness in the matter of Long-Hair. He confessedthis to himself mentally, which may have strengthened his presentdisapproval of her personal inquiry about Beverley. At all events hethought she ought not to be coming into the stockade on such an errand.
"Lieutenant Beverley is absent acting under my orders he said, withperfect respectfulness, yet in a tone suggesting military finality. Hemeant to set an indefinite yet effective rebuke in his words.
"Absent?" she echoed. "Gone? You sent him away to be killed! You had noright--you--"
"Miss Roussillon," said Clark, becoming almost stern, "you had bettergo home and stay there; young girls oughtn't to run around hunting menin places like this."
His blunt severity of speech was accompanied by a slight frown and agesture of impatience.
Alice's face blazed red to the roots of her sunny hair; the colorebbed, giving place to a pallor like death. She began to tremble, andher lips quivered pitifully, but she braced herself and tried to forceback the choking sensation in her throat.
"You must not misconstrue my words," Clark quickly added; "I simplymean that men will not rightly understand you. They will formimpressions very harmful to you. Even Lieutenant Beverley might not seeyou in the right light."
"What--what do you mean?" she gasped, shrinking from him, a burningspot reappearing under the dimpled skin of each cheek.
"Pray, Miss, do not get excited. There is nothing to make you cry." Hesaw tears shining in her eyes. "Beverley is not in the slightestdanger. All will be well, and he'll come back in a few days. Theexpedition will be but a pleasure trip. Now you go home. LieutenantBeverley is amply able to take care of himself. And let me tell you, ifyou expect a good man to have great confidence in you, stay home andlet him hunt you up instead of you hunting him. A man likes thatbetter."
It would be impossible to describe Alice's feelings, as they just thenrose like a whirling storm in her heart. She was humiliated, she wasindignant, she was abashed; she wanted to break forth with a tempest ofdenial, self-vindication, resentment; she wanted to cry with her facehidden in her hands. What she did was to stand helplessly gazing atClark, with two or three bright tears on either cheek, her handsclenched, her eyes flashing. She was going to say some wild thing; butshe did not; her voice lodged fast in her throat. She moved her lips,unable to make a sound.
Two of Clark's officers relieved the situation by coming up to getorders about some matter of town government, and Alice scarcely knewhow she made her way home. Every vein in her body was humming like abee when she entered the house and flung herself into a chair.
She heard Madame Roussillon and Father Beret chatting in the kitchen,whence came a fragrance of broiling buffalo steak besprinkled withgarlic. It was Father Beret's favorite dish, wherefore his tongue ranfreely--almost as freely as that of his hostess, and when he heardAlice come in, he called gayly to her through the kitchen door:
"Come here, ma fille, and lend us old folks your appetite; nous avonsune tranche a la Bordelaise!"
"I am not hungry," she managed to say, "you can eat it without me."
The old man's quick ears caught the quaver of trouble in her voice,much as she tried to hide it. A moment later he was standing beside herwith his hand on her head.
"What is the matter now, little one?" he tenderly demanded. "Tell yourold Father."
She began to cry, laying her face in her crossed arms, the tearsgushing, her whole frame aquiver, and heaving great sobs. She seemed toshrink like a trodden flower. It touched Father Beret deeply.
He suspected that Beverley's departure might be the cause of hertrouble; but when presently she told him what had taken place in thefort, he shook his head gravely and frowned.
"Colonel Clark was right, my daughter," he said after a short silence,"and it is time for you to ponder well upon the significance of hiswords. You can't always be a wilful, headstrong little girl, runningeverywhere and doing just as you please. You have grown to be a womanin stature--you must be one in fact. You know I told you at first to becareful how you acted with--"
"Father, dear old Father!" she cried, springing from her seat andthrowing her arms around his neck. "Have I appeared forward andunwomanly? Tell me, Father, tell me! I did not mean to do anything--"
"Quietly, my child, don't give way to excitement." He gently put herfrom him and crossed himself--a habit of his when suddenlyperplexed--then added:
"You have done no evil; but there are proprieties which a young womanmust not overstep. You are impulsive, too impulsive; and it will not doto let a young man see that you--that you--"
"Father, I understand," she interrupted, and her face grew very pale.
Madame Roussillon came to the door, flushed with stooping over thefire, and announced that the steak was ready.
"Bring the wine, Alice," she added, "a bottle of Bordeaux."
She stood for a breath of two, her red hands on her hips, looking firstat Father Beret, then at Alice.
"Quarreling again about the romances?" she inquired. "She's been at itagain?--she's found 'em again?"
"Yes," said Father Beret, with a queer, dry smile, "more romance. Yes,she's been at it again! Now fetch the Bordeaux, little one."
The following days were cycles of torture to Alice. She groveled in theshadow of a great dread. It seemed to her that Beverley could not loveher, could not help looking upon her as a poor, wild, foolish girl,unworthy of consideration. She magnified her faults and crudities, sheparaded before her inner vision her fecent improprieties, as they hadbeen disclosed to her, until she saw herself a sort of monstrosity atwhich all mankind was gazing with disgust. Life seemed dry andshriveled, a mere jaundiced shadow, while her love for Beverley took ona new growth, luxuriant, all-embracing, uncontrollable. The ferment ofspirit going on in her breast was the inevitable process ofself-recognition which follows the terrible unfolding of thepassion-flower, in a nature almost absolutely simple andunsophisticated.
Vincennes held its breath while waiting for news from Helm'sexpedition. Every day had its nimble, yet wholly imaginary account ofwhat had happened, skipping from mouth to mouth, and from cabin tocabin. The French folk ran hither and thither in the persistent rain,industriously improving the dramatic interest of each groundlessreport. Alice's disturbed imagination reveled in the kaleidoscopicterrors conjured up by these swift changes of the form and color of thestories "from the front," all of them more or less tragic. To-day theparty is reported as having been surprised and massacred to aman--to-morrow there has been a great fight, many killed, the result indoubt--next day the British are defeated, and so on. The volatilespirit of the Creoles fairly surpassed itself in ringing the changes onstirring rumors.
Alice scarcely left the house during the whole period of excitement andsuspense. Like a wounded bird, she withdrew herself from the light andnoisy chatter of her friends, seeking only solitude and crepuscularnooks in which to suffer silently. Jean brought her every picturesquebit of the ghastly gossip, thus heaping coals on the fire of hertorture. But she did not grow pale and thin. Not a dimple fled fromcheek or chin, not a ray of saucy sweetness vanished from her eyes. Herriant health was unalterable. Indeed, the only change in her was asudden ripening and mellowing of her beauty, by which its colors, itslines, its subtle undercurrents of expression were spiritualized, as ifby some powerful clarifying process.
Tremendous is the effect of a soul surprised by passion and broughthard up against an opposing force which dashes it back upon itself witha flare and explosion of self-revealment. Nor shall we ever be able toforetell just how small a circumstance, just how slight an exigency,will suffice to bring on the great change. The shifting of a smile tothe gloom of a frown, the snap of a string on the lute of ourimagination, just at the point when a rich melody is culminating; thewaving of a hand, a vanishing face--any eclipse of tender, joyousexpectation--dashes a nameless sense of despair into the soul. And a
young girl's soul--who shall uncover its sacred depths ofsensitiveness, or analyze its capacity for suffering under such astroke?
On the fifth day of March, back came the victorious Helm, havingsurrounded and captured seven boats, richly loaded with provisions andgoods, and Dejean's whole force. Then again the little Creole town wentwild with rejoicing. Alice heard the news and the noise; but somehowthere was no response in her heart. She dreaded to meet Beverley;indeed, she did not expect him to come to her. Why should he?
M. Roussillon, who had volunteered to accompany Helm, arrived in a moodof unlimited proportions, so far as expressing self-admiration andabounding delight was concerned. You would have been sure that he haddone the whole deed single-handed, and brought the flotilla andcaptives to town on his back. But Oncle Jazon for once held his tongue,being too disgusted for words at not having been permitted to fire asingle shot. What was the use of going to fight and simply meeting andescorting down the river a lot of non-combatants?
There is something inscrutably delightful about a girl's way ofthinking one thing and doing another. Perversity, thy name ismaidenhood; and maidenhood, thy name is delicious inconsequence! WhenAlice heard that Beverley had come back, safe, victorious, to begreeted as one of the heroes of an important adventure, she immediatelyran to her room frightened and full of vague, shadowy dread, to hidefrom him, yet feeling sure that he would not come! Moreover, she busiedherself with the preposterous task of putting on her most attractivegown--the buff brocade which she wore that evening at the riverhouse--how long ago it seemed!--when Beverley thought her thequeenliest beauty in the world. And she was putting it on so as to lookher prettiest while hiding from him!
It is a toss-up where happiness will make its nest. The palace, thehut, the great lady's garden, the wild lass's bower,--skip here, alightthere,--the secret of it may never be told. And love and beauty findlodgment, by the same inexplicable route, in the same extremes ofcircumstances. The wind bloweth where it listeth, finding many amatchless flower and many a ravishing fragrance in the wildest nooks ofthe world.
No sooner did Beverley land at the little wharf than, rushing to hisquarters, he made a hasty exchange of water-soaked apparel forsomething more comfortable, and then bolted in the direction ofRoussillon place.
Now Alice knew by the beating of her heart that he was coming. In spiteof all she could do, trying to hold on hard and fast to her doubt andgloom, a tide of rich sweetness began to course through her heart andbreak in splendid expectation from her eyes, as they looked through thelittle unglazed window toward the fort. Nor had she long to wait. Hecame up the narrow wet street, striding like a tall actor in the heightof a melodrama, his powerful figure erect as an Indian's, and his faceglowing with the joy of a genuine, impatient lover, who is proud ofhimself because of the image he bears in his heart.
When Alice flung wide the door (which was before Beverley could crossthe veranda), she had quite forgotten how she had gowned and bedeckedherself; and so, without a trace of self-consciousness, she flashedupon him a full-blown flower--to his eyes the loveliest that everopened under heaven.
Gaspard Roussillon, still overflowing with the importance of his partin the capture of Dejean, came puffing homeward just in time to see aman at the door holding Alice a-tiptoe in his arms.
"Ziff!" he cried, as he pushed open the little front gate of the yard,"en voila assez, vogue la galere!"
The two forms disappeared within the house, as if moved by his roaringvoice.
The letter to Beverley from his father was somewhat disturbing. It borethe tidings of his mother's failing health. This made it easier for theyoung Lieutenant to accept from Clark the assignment to duty with aparty detailed for the purpose of escorting Hamilton, Farnsworth andseveral other British officers to Williamsburg, Virginia. It also gavehim a most powerful assistance in persuading Alice to marry him atonce, so as to go with him on what proved to be a delightful weddingjourney through the great wilderness to the Old Dominion. Spring'sverdure burst abroad on the sunny hills as they slowly went their way;the mating birds sang in every blooming brake and grove by which theypassed, and in their joyous hearts they heard the bubbling of love'seternal fountain.