CHAPTER VII
THE MAYOR'S PARTY
Beverley was so surprised and confused in his mind by the ease with which he had been mastered at swordplay by a mere girl, that he felt as if just coming out of a dream. In fact the whole affair seemed unreal, yet so vivid and impressive in all its main features, that he could not emerge from it and look it calmly over from without. His experience with women had not prepared him for a ready understanding and acceptance of a girl like Alice. While he was fully aware of her beauty, freshness, vivacity and grace, this Amazonian strength of hers, this boldness of spirit, this curious mixture of frontier crudeness and a certain adumbration--so to call it--of patrician sensibilities and aspirations, affected him both pleasantly and unpleasantly. He did not sympathize promptly with her semi-barbaric costume; she seemed not gently feminine, as compared with the girls of Virginia and Maryland. He resented her muscular development and her independent disposition. She was far from coarseness, however, and, indeed, a trace of subtle refinement, although not conventional, imbued her whole character.
But why was he thinking so critically about her? Had his selfishness received an incurable shock from the button of her foil? A healthy young man of the right sort is apt to be jealous of his physical prowess--touch him there and he will turn the world over to right himself in, his own admiration and yours. But to be beaten on his highest ground of virility by a dimple-faced maiden just leaving her teens could not offer Beverley any open way to recoupment of damages.
He tried to shake her out of his mind, as a bit of pretty and troublesome rubbish, what time he pursued his not very exacting military duties. But the more he shook the tighter she clung, and the oftener he went to see her.
Helm was a good officer in many respects, and his patriotism was of the best; but he liked jolly company, a glass of something strong and a large share of ease. Detroit lay many miles northeastward across the wilderness, and the English, he thought, would scarcely come so far to attack his little post, especially now that most of the Indians in the intervening country had declared in favor of the Americans. Recently, too, the weather had been favoring him by changing from wet to dry, so that the upper Wabash and its tributaries were falling low and would soon be very difficult to navigate with large batteaux.
Very little was done to repair the stockade and dilapidated remnant of a blockhouse. There were no sufficient barracks, a mere shed in one angle serving for quarters, and the old cannon could not have been used to any effect in case of attack. As for the garrison, it was a nominal quantity, made up mostly of men who preferred hunting and fishing to the merest pretense of military duty.
Gaspard Roussillon assumed to know everything about Indian affairs and the condition of the English at Detroit. His optimistic eloquence lulled Helm to a very pleasant sense of security. Beverley was not so easy to satisfy; but his suggestions regarding military discipline and a vigorous prosecution of repairs to the blockhouse and stockade were treated with dilatory geniality by his superior officer. The soft wonder of a perfect Indian summer glorified land, river and sky. Why not dream and bask? Why not drink exhilarating toddies?
Meantime the entertainment to be given by Gaspard Roussillon occupied everybody's imagination to an unusual extent. Rene de Ronville, remembering but not heeding the doubtful success of his former attempt, went long beforehand to claim Alice as his partenaire; but she flatly refused him, once more reminding him of his obligations to little Adrienne Bourcier. He would not be convinced.
"You are bound to me," he said, "you promised before, you know, and the party was but put off. I hold you to it; you are my partenaire, and I am yours, you can't deny that."
"No you are not my partenaire," she firmly said; then added lightly, "Feu mon partenaire, you are dead and buried as my partner at that dance."
He glowered in silence for a few moments, then said:
"It is Lieutenant Beverley, I suppose."
She gave him a quick contemptuous look, but turned it instantly into one of her tantalising smiles.
"Do you imagine that?" she demanded.
"Imagine it! I know it," he said with a hot flush. "Have I no sense?"
"Precious little," she replied with a merry laugh.
"You think so."
"Go to Father Beret, tell him everything, and then ask him what he thinks," she said in a calm, even tone, her face growing serious.
There was an awkward silence.
She had touched Rene's vulnerable spot; he was nothing if not a devout Catholic, and his conscience rooted itself in what good Father Beret had taught him.
The church, no matter by what name it goes, Catholic or Protestant, has a saving hold on the deepest inner being of its adherents. No grip is so hard to shake off as that of early religious convictions. The still, small voice coming down from the times "When shepherds watched their flocks by night," in old Judea, passes through the priest, the minister, the preacher; it echoes in cathedral, church, open-air meeting; it gently and mysteriously imparts to human life the distinctive quality which is the exponent of Christian civilization. Upon the receptive nature of children it makes an impress that forever afterward exhales a fragrance and irradiates a glory for the saving of the nations.
Father Beret was the humble, self-effacing, never-tiring agent of good in his community. He preached in a tender sing-song voice the sweet monotonies of his creed and the sublime truths of Christ's code. He was indeed the spiritual father of his people. No wonder Rene's scowling expression changed to one of abject self-concern when the priest's name was suddenly connected with his mood. The confessional loomed up before the eyes of his conscience, and his knees smote together, spiritually if not physically.
"Now," said Alice, brusquely, but with sweet and gentle firmness, "go to your fiancee, go to pretty and good Adrienne, and ask her to be your partenaire. Refresh your conscience with a noble draught of duty and make that dear little girl overflow with joy. Go, Rene de Ronville."
In making over what she said into English, the translation turns out to be but a sonorous paraphrase. Her French was of that mixed creole sort, a blending of linguistic elegance and patois, impossible to imitate. Like herself it was beautiful, crude, fascinating, and something in it impressed itself as unimpeachable, despite the broken and incongruous diction. Rene felt his soul cowering, even slinking; but he fairly maintained a good face, and went away without saying another word.
"Ciel, ciel, how beautiful she is!" he thought, as he walked along the narrow street in the dreamy sunshine. "But she is not for me, not for me."
He shook himself and tried to be cheerful. In fact he hummed a Creole ditty, something about
"La belle Jeanette, qu' a brise mon coeur."
Days passed, and at last the time of the great event arrived. It was a frosty night, clear, sparkling with stars, a keen breath cutting down from the northwest. M. Roussillon, Madame Roussillon, Alice and Lieutenant Beverley went together to the river house, whither they had been preceded by almost the entire population of Vincennes. Some fires had been built outside; the crowd proving too great for the building's capacity, as there had to be ample space for the dancers. Merry groups hovered around the flaming logs, while within the house a fiddle sang its simple and ravishing tunes. Everybody talked and laughed; it was a lively racket of clashing voices and rhythmical feet.
You would have been surprised to find that Oncle Jazon was the fiddler; but there he sat, perched on a high stool in one corner of the large room, sawing away as if for dear life, his head wagging, his elbow leaping back and forth, while his scalpless crown shone like the side of a peeled onion and his puckered mouth wagged grotesquely from side to side keeping time to his tuneful scraping.
When the Roussillon party arrived it attracted condensed attention. Its importance, naturally of the greatest in the assembled popular mind, was enhanced--as mathematicians would say, to the nth power--by the gown of Alice. It was resplendent indeed in the simple, unaccustomed eyes upon which it flashed with a buff silken glory. Matrons stared at it; maidens gazed with fascinated and jealous vision; men young and old let their eyes take full liberty. It was as if a queen, arrayed in a robe of state, had entered that dingy log edifice, an apparition of dazzling and awe-inspiring beauty. Oncle Jazon caught sight of her, and snapped his tune short off. The dancers swung together and stopped in confusion. But she, fortified by a woman's strongest bulwark, the sense of resplendency, appeared quite unconscious of herself.
Little Adrienne, hanging in blissful delight upon Rene's strong arm, felt the stir of excitement and wondered what was the matter, being too short to see over the heads of those around her.
"What is it? what is it?" she cried, tiptoeing and tugging at her companion's sleeve. "Tell me, Rene, tell me, I say."
Rene was gazing in dumb admiration into which there swept a powerful anger, like a breath of flame. He recollected how Alice had refused to wear that dress when he had asked her, and now she had it on. Moreover, there she stood beside Lieutenant Beverley, holding his arm, looking up into his face, smiling, speaking to him.
"I think you might tell me what has happened," said Adrienne, pouting and still plucking at his arm. "I can't see a thing, and you won't tell me."
"Oh, it's nothing," he presently answered, rather fretfully. Then he stooped, lowered his voice and added; "it's Mademoiselle Roussillon all dressed up like a bride or something. She's got on a buff silk dress that Mo'sieu' Roussillon's mother had in France."
"How beautiful she must look!" cried the girl. "I wish I could see her."
Rene put a hand on each side of her slender waist and lifted her high, so that her pretty head rose above the crowding people. Alice chanced to turn her face that way just then and saw the unconventional performance. Her eyes met those of Adrienne and she gave a nod of smiling recognition. It was a rose beaming upon a gilliflower.
M. Roussillon naturally understood that all this stir and crowding to see was but another demonstration of his personal popularity. He bowed and waved a vast hand.
But the master of ceremonies called loudly for the dancers to take their places. Oncle Jazon attacked his fiddle again with startling energy. Those who were not to dance formed a compact double line around the wall, the shorter ones in front, the taller in the rear. And what a scene it was! but no person present regarded it as in any way strange or especially picturesque, save as to the gown of Alice, which was now floating and whirling in time to Oncle Jazon's mad music. The people outside the house cheerfully awaited their turn to go in while an equal number went forth to chat and sing around the fires.
Beverley was in a young man's seventh heaven. The angels formed a choir circling around his heart, and their song brimmed his universe from horizon to horizon.
When he called at Roussillon place, and Alice appeared so beautifully and becomingly robed, it was another memorable surprise. She flashed a new and subtly stimulating light upon him. The old gown, rich in subdued splendor of lace and brocade, was ornamented at the throat with a heavy band of pearls, just above which could be seen a trace of the gold chain that supported her portrait locket. There, too, with a not unbecoming gleam of barbaric colors, shone the string of porcupine beads to which the Indian charmstone hidden in her bosom was attached. It all harmonized with the time, the place, the atmosphere. Anywhere else it would have been preposterous as a decorative presentment, but here, in this little nook where the coureurs de bois, the half- breeds, the traders and the missionaries had founded a centre of assembly, it was the best possible expression in the life so formed at hap-hazard, and so controlled by the coarsest and narrowest influences. To Fitzhugh Beverley, of Beverley Hall, the picture conveyed immediately a sweet and pervading influence.
Alice looked superbly tall, stately and self-possessed in her transforming costume, a woman of full stature, her countenance gravely demure yet reserving near the surface the playful dimples and mischievous smiles so characteristic of her more usual manner. A sudden mood of the varium et mutabile semper femina had led her to wear the dress, and the mood still illuminated her.
Beverley stood before her frankly looking and admiring. The underglow in her cheeks deepened and spread over her perfect throat; her eyes met his a second, then shyly avoided him. He hardly could have been sure which was master, her serenity or her girlish delight in being attractively dressed; but there could be no doubt as to her self-possession; for, saving the pretty blush under his almost rude gaze of admiration, she bore herself as firmly as any fine lady he remembered.
They walked together to the river house, she daintily holding up her skirts, under the insistent verbal direction of Madame Roussillon, and at the same time keeping a light, strangely satisfying touch on his arm. When they entered the room there was no way for Beverley to escape full consciousness of the excitement they aroused; but M. Roussillon's assumption broke the force of what would have otherwise been extremely embarrassing.
"It is encouraging, very encouraging," murmured the big man to Beverley in the midst of the staring and scrambling and craning of necks, "to have my people admire and love me so; it goes to the middle of my heart." And again he bowed and waved his hand with an all-including gesture, while he swept his eyes over the crowd.
Alice and Beverley were soon in the whirl of the dance, forgetful of everything but an exhilaration stirred to its utmost by Oncle Jazon's music.
A side remark here may be of interest to those readers who enjoy the dream that on some fortunate day they will invade a lonely nook, where amid dust and cobwebs, neglected because unrecognized, reposes a masterpiece of Stradivari or some other great fiddle- maker. Oncle Jazon knew nothing whatever about old violins. He was a natural musician, that was all, and flung himself upon his fiddle with the same passionate abandon that characterizes a healthy boy's assault when a plum pudding is at his mercy. But his fiddle was a Carlo Bergonzi; and now let the search be renewed, for the precious instrument was certainly still in Vincennes as late as 1819, and there is a vague tradition that Governor Whitcomb played on it not long before he died. The mark by which it may be identified is the single word "Jazon" cut in the back of its neck by Oncle Jazon himself.
When their dance was ended Alice and Beverley followed the others of their set out into the open air while a fresh stream of eager dancers poured in. Beverley insisted upon wrapping Alice in her mantle of unlined beaver skin against the searching winter breath. They did not go to the fire, but walked back and forth, chatting until their turn to dance should come again, pausing frequently to exchange pleasantries with some of the people. Curiously enough both of them had forgotten the fact that other young men would be sure to ask Alice for a dance, and that more than one pretty creole lass was rightfully expecting a giddy turn with the stalwart and handsome Lieutenant Beverley.
Rene de Ronville before long broke rudely into their selfish dream and led Alice into the house. This reminded Beverley of his social duty, wherefore seeing little Adrienne Bourcier he made a rush and secured her at a swoop from the midst of a scrambling circle of mutually hindered young men.
"Allons, ma petite!" he cried, quite in the gay tone of the occasion, and swung her lightly along with him.
It was like an eagle dancing with a linnet, or a giant with a fairy, when the big Lieutenant led out la petite Adrienne, as everybody called her. The honor of Beverley's attention sat unappreciated on Adrienne's mind, for all her thoughts went with her eyes toward Rene and Alice. Nor was Beverley so absorbed in his partner's behalf that he ever for a moment willingly lost sight of the floating buff gown, the shining brown hair and the beautiful face, which formed, indeed, the center of attraction for all eyes.
Father Beret was present, sharing heartily in the merriment of his flock. Voices greeted him on all sides with intonations of tender respect. The rudest man there was loyal to the kind-hearted priest, and would as soon have thought of shooting him as of giving him any but the most reverent attention. It is to be noted, however, that their understanding of reverence included great freedom and levity not especially ecclesiastical in its nature. Father Beret understood the conditions around him and had the genius to know what not to hear, what not to see; but he never failed when a good word or a fatherly touch with his hand seemed worth trying on a sheep that appeared to be straying dangerously far from the fold. Upon an occasion like this dance at the river house, he was no less the faithful priest because of his genial sympathy with the happiness of the young people who looked to him for spiritual guidance.
It was some time before Beverley could again secure Alice for a dance, and he found it annoying him atrociously to see her smile sweetly on some buckskin-clad lout who looked like an Indian and danced like a Parisian. He did not greatly enjoy most of his partners; they could not appeal to any side of his nature just then. Not that he at all times stood too much on his aristocratic traditions, or lacked the virile traits common to vigorous and worldly-minded men; but the contrast between Alice and the other girls present was somehow an absolute bar to a democratic freedom of the sort demanded by the occasion. He met Father Beret and passed a few pleasant words with him.
"They have honored your flag, my son, I am glad to see," the priest said, pointing with a smile to where, in one corner, the banner that bore Alice's name was effectively draped.
Beverley had not noticed it before, and when he presently got possession of Alice he asked her to tell him the story of how she planted it on the fort, although he had heard it to the last detail from Father Beret just a moment ago. They stood together under its folds while she naively sketched the scene for him, even down to her picturesquely disagreeable interview with Long-Hair, mention of whom led up to the story of the Indian's race with the stolen dame jeanne of brandy under his arm on that memorable night, and the subsequent services performed for him by Father Beret and her, after she and Jean had found him in the mud beyond the river.
The dancing went on at a furious pace while they stood there. Now and again a youth came to claim her, but she said she was tired and begged to rest awhile, smiling so graciously upon each one that his rebuff thrilled him as if it had been the most flattering gift of tender partiality, while at the same time he suspected that it was all for Beverley.
Helm in his most jovial mood was circulating freely among those who formed the periphery of the dancing-area; he even ventured a few clumsy capers in a cotillion with Madame Godere for partner. She danced well; but he, as someone remarked, stumbled all over himself.
There was but one thing to mar the evening's pleasure: some of the men drank too much and grew boisterous. A quarrel ended in a noisy but harmless fight near one of the fires. M. Roussillon rushed to the spot, seized the combatants, tousled them playfully, as if they had been children, rubbed their heads together, laughed stormily and so restored the equilibrium of temper.
It was late when fathers and mothers in the company began to suggest adjournment. Oncle Jazon's elbow was tired and the enthusiasm generated by his unrecognized Bergonzi became fitful, while the relaxing crowd rapidly encroached upon the space set apart for the dancers. In the open lamps suspended here and there the oil was running low, and the rag wicks sputtered and winked with their yellow flames.
"Well," said M. Roussillon, coming to where Alice and Beverley stood insulated and isolated by their great delight in each other's company, "it's time to go home."
Beverley looked at his watch; it was a quarter to three!
Alice also looked at the watch, and saw engraved and enameled on its massive case the Beverley crest, but she did not know what it meant. There was something of the sort in the back of her locket, she remembered with satisfaction.
Just then there was a peculiar stir in the flagging crowd. Someone had arrived, a coureur de bois from the north. Where was the commandant? the coureur had something important for him.
Beverley heard a remark in a startled voice about the English getting ready for a descent upon the Wabash valley. This broke the charm which thralled him and sent through his nerves the bracing shock that only a soldier can feel when a hint of coming battle reaches him.
Alice saw the flash in his face.
"Where is Captain Helm? I must see him immediately. Excuse me," he said, abruptly turning away and looking over the heads of the people; "yonder he is, I must go to him."
The coureur de bois, Adolphe Dutremble by name, was just from the head waters of the Wabash. He was speaking to Helm when Beverley came up. M. Roussillon followed close upon the Lieutenant's heels, as eager as he to know what the message amounted to; but Helm took the coureur aside, motioning Beverley to join them. M. Roussillon included himself in the conference.
After all it was but the gossip of savages that Dutremble communicated; still the purport was startling in the extreme. Governor Hamilton, so the story ran, had been organizing a large force; he was probably now on his way to the portage of the Wabash with a flotilla of batteaux, some companies of disciplined soldiers, artillery and a strong body of Indians.
Helm listened attentively to Dutremble's lively sketch, then cross-questioned him with laconic directness.
"Send Mr. Jazon to me," he said to M. Roussillon, as if speaking to a servant.
The master Frenchman went promptly, recognizing Captain Helm's right to command, and sympathizing With his unpleasant military predicament if the news should prove true.
Oncle Jazon came in a minute, his fiddle and bow clamped under his arm, to receive a verbal commission, which sent him with some scouts of his own choosing forthwith to the Wabash portage, or far enough to ascertain what the English commander was doing.
After the conference Beverley made haste to join Alice; but he found that she had gone home.
"One hell of a fix we'll be in if Hamilton comes down here with a good force," said Helm.
Beverley felt like retorting that a little forethought, zeal and preparation might have lessened the prospective gloom. He had been troubled all the time about Helm's utter lack of military precaution. True, there was very little material out of which that optimistic officer could have formed a body of resistance against the army probably at Hamilton's command; but Beverley was young, energetic, bellicose, and to him everything seemed possible; he believed in vigilance, discipline, activity, dash; he had a great faith in the efficacy of enthusiasm.
"We must organize these Frenchmen," he said; "they will make good fighters if we can once get them to act as a body. There's no time to be lost; but we have time enough in which to do a great deal before Hamilton can arrive, if we go at it in earnest."
"Your theory is excellent, Lieutenant, but the practice of it won't be worth a damn," Helm replied with perfect good nature. "I'd like to see you organize these parly-voos. There ain't a dozen of 'em that wouldn't accept the English with open arms. I know 'em. They're good hearted, polite and all that; they'll hurrah for the flag; that's easy enough; but put 'em to the test and they'll join in with the strongest side, see if they don't. Of course there are a few exceptions. There's Jazon, he's all right, and I have faith in Bosseron, and Legrace, and young Ronville."
"Roussillon--" Beverley began.
"Is much of a blow-hard," Helm interrupted with a laugh. "Barks loud, but his biting disposition is probably not vicious."
"He and Father Beret control the whole population at all events," said Beverley.
"Yes, and such a population!"
While joining in Captain Helm's laugh at the expense of Vincennes, Beverley took leave to indulge a mental reservation in favor of Alice. He could not bear to class her with the crowd of noisy, thoughtless, mercurial beings whom he heard still singing gay snatches and calling to one another from distance to distance, as they strolled homeward in groups and pairs. Nor could the impending danger of an enforced surrender to the English and Indians drive from his mind her beautiful image, while he lay for the rest of the night between sleeping and waking on his primitive bed, alternately hearing over again her every phrase and laugh, and striving to formulate some definite plan for defending the town and fort. His heart was full of her. She had surprised his nature and filled it, as with a wonderful, haunting song. His youth, his imagination, all that was fresh and spontaneously gentle and natural in him, was flooded with the magnetic splendor of her beauty. And yet, in his pride (and it was not a false pride, but rather a noble regard for his birthright) he vaguely realized how far she was from him, how impossible.