Part 10 (2/2)
Antonia stirred, to hide her trembling.
”Are you cold?” inquired Van Corlaer.
”No, mynheer.”
”If the air chills you I will warm your hands in mine.”
”My hands are well m.u.f.fled, mynheer.”
He adjusted his back against the wall and again opened the conversation.
”I brought a young dominie with me. He wished to see Montreal. And I took care to have with him such papers as might be necessary to the marriage.”
”He had best get my leave,” observed Madame Bronck.
”That is no part of his duty. But set your mind at rest; he is a young dominie of credit. When I was in Boston I saw a rich sedan chair made for the viceroy of Mexico, but brought to the colonies for sale. It put a thought in my head, and I set skilled fellows to work, and they made and we have carried through the woods the smallest, most cunning-fas.h.i.+oned sedan chair that woman ever stepped into. I brought it for the comfortable journeying of Madame Van Corlaer.”
”That unknown lady will have much satisfaction in it,” murmured Antonia.
”I hope so. And be better known than she was as Jonas Bronck's wife.”
She colored, but hid a smile within her m.u.f.fling. Her good-humored suitor leaned toward her, resting his arms upon his knees.
”Touching a matter which has never been mentioned between us;--was the curing of Bronck's hand well approved by you?”
”Mynheer, I am angry at Madame La Tour. Or did he,” gasped Antonia, not daring to accuse by name the colonial doctor who had managed her dark secret, ”did he show that to you?”
”Would the boldest chemist out of Amsterdam cut off and salt the member of any honest burgher without leave of the patroon?” suggested Van Corlaer. ”Besides, my skill was needed, for I was once learned in chemistry.”
It was so surprising to see this man over-ride her terror that Antonia stared at him.
”Mynheer, had you no dread of the sight?”
”No; and had I known you would dread it the hand had spoiled in the curing. I thought less of Jonas Bronck, that he could bequeath a morsel of himself like dried venison.”
”Mynheer Bronck was a very good man,” a.s.serted Antonia severely.
”But thou knowest in thy heart that I am a better one,” laughed Van Corlaer.
”He was the best of husbands,” she insisted, trembling with a woman's anxiety to be loyal to affection which she has not too well rewarded.
”It was on my account that he had his hand cut off.”
”I will outdo Bronck,” determined Van Corlaer. ”I will have myself skinned at my death and spread out as a rug to your feet. So good a housekeeper as Antonia will beat my pelt full often, and so be obliged to think on me.”
Afloat in his large personality as she always was in his presence, she yet tried to resist him.
”The relic that you joke about, Mynheer Van Corlaer, I have done worse with; I have lost it.”
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