Part 54 (1/2)

XXVII

Both mothers had accepted a situation which neither entirely liked; but the atmosphere was cleared, and the people most concerned were well satisfied and happy. Miss Gainor joyously distributed the news. Gay cousins called, and again the late summer afternoons saw in the garden many friends who had st.u.r.dily stood by De Courval in his day of discredit.

If Randolph was cool to him, others were not, and the office work and the treaty were interesting, while in France affairs were better, and the reign of blood had pa.s.sed and gone.

The warm days of August went by, and De Courval's boat drifted on the river at evening, where he lay and talked to Margaret, or listened, a well-contented man. There were parties in the country, dinners with the Peters at Belmont, or at historic Cliveden. Schmidt, more grave than usual, avoided these festivities, and gave himself to lonely rides, or to long evenings on the river when De Courval was absent or otherwise occupied, as was commonly the case.

When late one afternoon he said to Rene, ”I want you to lend me Margaret for an hour,” she cried, laughing, ”Indeed, I lend myself; and I make my lord vicomte obey, as is fitting before marriage. I have not yet promised to obey after it, and I am at thy service, Friend Schmidt.”

Rene laughed and said, ”I am not left much choice,” whereupon Schmidt and Margaret went down to the sh.o.r.e, and soon their boat lay quiet far out on the river.

”They are talking,” said the young lover. ”I wonder what about.”

In fact they had not exchanged even the small current coin of conventional talk; both were silent until Schmidt laid down his oars, and the boat silently drifted upward with the tide. It was the woman who spoke first.

”Ah, what a true friend thou hast been!”

”Yes, I have that way a talent. Why did you bring me out here to flatter me?”

”I did think it was thou proposed it; but I do wish to talk with thee.

My mother is not well pleased because the other mother is ill pleased. I do want every one I love to feel that all is well with Rene and me, and that the love I give is good for him.”

”It is well for you and for him, my child, and as for that grim fortress of a woman, she will live to be jealous of your mother and of Rene. An east wind of a woman. She will come at last to love you, Pearl.”

”Ah, dost thou really think so?”

”Yes.”

”And thou art pleased. We thought thou wert grave of late and less--less gay.”

”I am more than pleased, Margaret. I am not sad, but only grieved over the coming loss out of my life of simple days and those I love, because soon, very soon, I go away to a life of courts and idle ceremonies, and perhaps of strife and war.”

For a moment or two neither spoke. The fading light seemed somehow to the girl to fit her sense of the gravity of this announcement of a vast loss out of life. Her eyes filled as she looked up.

”Oh, why dost thou go? Is not love and reverence and hearts that thank thee--oh, are not these enough? Why dost thou go?”

”You, dear, who know me will understand when I answer with one word--duty.”

”I am answered,” she said, but the tears ran down her cheeks.

”Rene will some day tell you more, indeed, all; and you will know why I must leave you.” Then, saying no more, he took up the oars and pulled into the sh.o.r.e. Rene drew up the boat.

”Will you go out with me now, Margaret?”

”Not this evening, Rene,” she said, and went slowly up to the house.

On one of these later August days, Mr. Hammond, the English minister, at his house in the country was pleased, being about to return home, to ask the company of Mr. Wolcott of the Treasury. There were no other guests, and after dinner the minister, to add zest to his dessert, handed to Wolcott the now famous intercepted Despatch No. 10, sent back by Lord Grenville after its capture, to make still further mischief. Having been told the story of the wanderings of this fateful doc.u.ment, the Secretary read it with amazement, and understood at once that it was meant by Hammond to injure Randolph, whose dislike of the Jay treaty and what it yielded to England was well known in London. Much disturbed by what he gathered, Wolcott took away the long doc.u.ment, agreeing to give a certified copy to Hammond, who, having been recalled, was well pleased to wing this Parthian arrow.

The next day Wolcott showed it to his colleagues, Pickering and the Attorney-General. As it seemed to them serious, they sent an urgent message to the President, which brought back the weary man from his rest at Mount Vernon. On his return, the President, despite Randolph's desire for further delay, called a cabinet meeting, and with a strong remonstrance against the provision clause which yielded the hated rights of search, decided to ratify the treaty with England.