Amelia E. Barr - The Bow of Orange Ribbon

A >> Amelia E. Barr >> The Bow of Orange Ribbon

Pages:
1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | 19 | 20

Very disagreeable she thought Batavius had grown, and she also jealously
noted the influence he was exercising over Joanna. There are women who
prefer secrecy to honesty, and sin to truthfulness; but Katherine was
not one of them. If it had been possible to see her lover honourably,
she would have much preferred it. She was totally destitute of that
contemptible sentimentality which would rather invent difficulties in a
love-affair than not have them, but she knew well the storm of reproach
and disapproval which would answer any such request; and her thoughts
were all bent toward devising some plan which would enable her to leave
home early on that morning which she had promised her lover.

But all her little arrangements failed; and it was almost at the last
hour of the evening previous, that circumstances offered her a
reasonable excuse. It came through Batavius, who returned home later
than usual, bringing with him a great many patterns of damask and
figured cloth and stamped leather. At once he announced his intention of
staying at home the next morning in order to have Joanna's aid in
selecting the coverings for their new chairs, and counting up their
cost. He had taken the strips out of his pocket with an air of
importance and complaisance; and Katherine, glancing from them to her
mother, thought she perceived a fleeting shadow of a feeling very much
akin to her own contempt of the man's pronounced self-satisfaction. So
when supper was over, and the house duties done, she determined to speak
to her. Joris was at a town meeting, and Lysbet did not interfere with
the lovers. Katherine found her standing at an open window, looking
thoughtfully into the autumn garden.

"_Mijn moeder_."

"_Mijn kind_."

"Let me go away with Bram in the morning. Batavius I cannot bear. About
every chair-cover he will call in the whole house. The only
chair-covers in the world they will be. Listen, how he will talk: 'See
here, Joanna. A fine piece is this; ten shillings and sixpence the yard,
and good enough for the governor's house. But I am a man of some
substance,--_Gode zij dank!_--and people will expect that I, who give
every Sunday twice to the kirk, should have chairs in accordance.'
_Moeder_, you know how it will be. To-morrow I cannot bear him. Very
near quarrelling have we been for a week."

"I know, Katharine, I know. Leave, then, with Bram, and go first to
Margaret Pitt's, and ask her if the new winter fashions will arrive from
London this month. I heard also that Mary Blankaart has lost a silk
purse, and in it five gold jacobus, and some half and quarter johannes.
Ask kindly for her, and about the money; and so the morning could be
passed. And look now, Katherine, peace is the best thing; and to his own
house Batavius will go in a few weeks."

"That will make me glad."

"Whish, _mijn kind!_ Thy bad thoughts should be dumb thoughts."

"_Mijn moeder_, sad and troubled are thy looks. What is thy sorrow?"

"For thee my heart aches often,--mine and thy good father's, too. Dost
thou not suffer? Can thy mother be blind? Nothing hast thou eaten
lately. Joanna says thou art restless all the night long. Thou art so
changed then, that wert ever such a happy little one. Once thou did love
me, Katrijntje."

"_Ach, mijn moeder_, still I love thee!"

"But that English soldier?"

"Never can I cease to love him. See, now, the love I give him is his
love. It never was thine. For him I brought it into the world. None of
thy love have I given to him. _Mijn moeder_, thee I would not rob for
the whole world; not I!"

"For all that, _kleintje_, hard is the mother's lot. The dear children I
nursed on my breast, they go here and they go there, with this strange
one and that strange one. Last night, ere to our sleep we went, thy
father read to me some words of the loving, motherlike Jacob. They are
true words. Every good mother has said them, at the grave or at the
bridal, 'En mij aangaande, als ik van kinderen beroofd ben, zoo ben ik
beroofd!'"

There was a sad pathos in the homely old words as they dropped slowly
from Lysbet's lips,--a pathos that fitted perfectly the melancholy air
of the fading garden, the melancholy light of the fading day, and the
melancholy regret for a happy home gradually scattering far and wide.
Many a year afterward Katharine remembered the hour and the words,
especially in the gray glooms of late October evenings.

The next morning was one of perfect beauty, and Katharine awoke with a
feeling of joyful expectation. She dressed beautifully her pale brown
hair; and her intended visit to Mary Blankaart gave her an excuse for
wearing her India silk,--the pretty dress Richard had seen her first in,
the dress he had so often admired. Her appearance caused some remarks,
which Madam Van Heemskirk replied to; and with much of her old gayety
Katherine walked between her father and brother away from home.

She paid a very short visit to the mantua-maker, and then went to Mrs.
Gordon's. There was less effusion in that lady's manner than at her last
interview with Katherine. She had a little spasm of jealousy; she had
some doubts about Katherine's deserts; she wondered whether her nephew
really adored the girl with the fervour he affected, or whether he had
determined, at all sacrifices, to prevent her marriage with Neil Semple.
Katherine had never before seen her so quiet and so cool; and a feeling
of shame sprang up in the girl's heart. "Perhaps she was going to do
something not exactly proper in Mrs. Gordon's eyes, and in advance that
lady was making her sensible of her contempt."

With this thought, she rose, and with burning cheeks said, "I will go
home, madam. Now I feel that I am doing wrong. To write to Captain Hyde
will be the best way."

"Pray don't be foolish, Katherine. I am of a serious turn this morning,
that is all. How pretty you are! and how vastly becoming your gown! But,
indeed, I am going to ask you to change it. Yesterday, at the 'King's
Arms,' I said my sister would arrive this morning with me; and I bespoke
a little cotillon in Dick's rooms. In that dress you will be too
familiar, my dear. See here, is not this the prettiest fashion? It is
lately come over. So airy! so French! so all that!"

It was a light-blue gown and petticoat of rich satin, sprigged with
silver, and a manteau of dark-blue velvet trimmed with bands of delicate
fur. The bonnet was not one which the present generation would call
"lovely;" but, in its satin depths, Katharine's fresh, sweet face
looked like a rose. She hardly knew herself when the toilet was
completed; and, during its progress, Mrs. Gordon recovered all her
animation and interest.

[Illustration: In its satin depths]

Before they were ready, a coach was in waiting; and in a few minutes
they stood together at Hyde's door. There was a sound of voices within;
and, when they entered, Katherine saw, with a pang of disappointment, a
fine, soldierly looking man in full uniform sitting by Richard's side.
But Richard appeared to be in no way annoyed by his company. He was
looking much better, and wore a chamber gown of maroon satin, with deep
laces showing at the wrists and bosom. When Katherine entered, he was
amazed and charmed with her appearance. "Come near to me, my Katherine,"
he said; and as Mrs. Gordon drew from her shoulders the mantle, and from
her head the bonnet, and revealed more perfectly her beautiful person
and dress, his love and admiration were beyond words.

With an air that plainly said, "This is the maiden for whom I fought and
have suffered: is she not worthy of my devotion?" he introduced her to
his friend, Captain Earle. But, even as they spoke, Earle joined Mrs.
Gordon, at a call from her; and Katherine noticed that a door near which
they stood was open, and that they went into the room to which it led,
and that other voices then blended with theirs. But these things were
as nothing. She was with her lover, alone for a moment with him; and
Richard had never before seemed to her half so dear or half so
fascinating.

"My Katharine," he said, "I have one tormenting thought. Night and day
it consumes me like a fever. I hear that Neil Semple is well. Yesterday
Captain Earle met him; he was walking with your father. He will be
visiting at your house very soon. He will see you; he will speak to you.
You have such obliging manners, he may even clasp this hand, _my hand_.
Heavens! I am but a man, and I find myself unable to endure the
thought."

"In my heart, Richard, there is only room for you. Neil Semple I fear
and dislike."

"They will make you marry him, my darling."

"No; that they can never do."

"But I suffer in the fear. I suffer a thousand deaths. If you were only
my wife, Katherine!"

She blushed divinely. She was kneeling at his side; and she put her arms
around his neck, and laid her face against his. "Only your wife I will
be. That is what I desire also."

"_Now_, Katherine? This minute, darling? Make me sure of the felicity
you have promised. You have my word of honour, that as Katherine Van
Heemskirk I will not again ask you to come here. But it is past my
impatience to exist, and not see you. _Katherine Hyde_ would have the
right to come."

"Oh, my love, my love!"

"See how I tremble, Katherine. Life scarcely cares to inhabit a body so
weak. If you refuse me, I will let it go. If you refuse me, I shall know
that in your heart you expect to marry Neil Semple,--the savage who has
made me to suffer unspeakable agonies."

"Never will I marry him, Richard,--never, never. My word is true. You
only I will marry."

"Then _now, now_, Katharine. Here is the ring. Here is the special
license from the governor; my aunt has made him to understand all. The
clergyman and the witnesses are waiting. Some good fortune has dressed
you in bridal beauty. _Now_, Katherine? _Now, now_!"

[Illustration: Katherine knelt by Richard's side]

She rose, and stood white and trembling by his dear side,--speechless,
also. To her father and her mother her thoughts fled in a kind of
loving terror. But how could she resist the pleading of one whom she so
tenderly loved, and to whom, in her maiden simplicity, she imagined
herself to be so deeply bounden? That very self-abnegation which forms
so large a portion of a true affection urged her to compliance far more
than love itself. And when Richard ceased to speak, and only besought
her with the unanswerable pathos of his evident suffering for her sake,
she felt the argument to be irresistible.

"Well, my Katherine, will you pity me so far?"

"All you ask, my loved one, I will grant."

"Angel of goodness! _Now_?"

"At your wish, Richard."

He took her hand in a passion of joy and gratitude, and touched a small
bell. Immediately there was a sudden silence, and then a sudden
movement, in the adjoining room. The next moment a clergyman in
canonical dress came toward them. By his side was Colonel Gordon, and
Mrs. Gordon and Captain Earle followed. If Katherine had then been
sensible of any misgiving or repentant withdrawal, the influences
surrounding her were irresistible. But she had no distinct wish to
resist them. Indeed, Colonel Gordon said afterward to his wife, "he had
never seen a bride look at once so lovely and so happy." The ceremony
was full of solemnity, and of that deepest joy which dims the eyes with
tears, even while it wreathes the lips with smiles. During it, Katherine
knelt by Richard's side; and every eye was fixed upon him, for he was
almost fainting with the fatigue of his emotions; and it was with
fast-receding consciousness that he whispered rapturously at its close,
"My wife, my wife!"

Throughout the sleep of exhaustion which followed, she sat watching him.
The company in the next room were quietly making merry "over Dick's
triumph," but Katherine shook her head at all proposals to join them.
The band of gold around her finger fascinated her. She was now really
Richard's wife; and the first sensation of such a mighty change was, in
her pure soul, one of infinite and reverent love. When Richard awoke, he
was refreshed and supremely happy. Then Katherine brought him food and
wine, and ate her own morsel beside him. "Our first meal we must take
together," she said; and Hyde was already sensible of some exquisite
change, some new and rarer tenderness and solicitude in all her ways
toward him.

The noon hour was long past, but she made no mention of it. The wedding
guests also lingered, talking and laughing softly, and occasionally
visiting the happy bride and bridegroom in their blissful companionship.
In those few hours Richard made sure his dominion over his wife's heart;
and he had so much to tell her, and so many directions to give her,
that, ere they were aware, the afternoon was well spent. The clergyman
and the soldiers departed, Mrs. Gordon was a little weary, and Hyde was
fevered with the very excess of his joy. The moment for parting had
come; and, when it has, wise are those who delay it not. Hyde fixed his
eyes upon his wife until Mrs. Gordon had arranged again her bonnet and
manteau; then, with a smile, he shut in their white portals the
exquisite picture. He could let her go with a smile now, for he knew
that Katherine's absence was but a parted presence; knew that her better
part remained with him, that

"Her heart was never away,
But ever with his forever."

The coach was waiting; and, without delay, Katharine returned with Mrs.
Gordon to her lodgings. Both were silent on the journey. When a great
event has taken place, only the shallow and unfeeling chatter about it.
Katherine's heart was full, even to solemnity; and Mrs. Gordon, whose
affectation of fashionable levity was in a large measure pretence, had a
kind and sensible nature, and she watched the quiet girl by her side
with decided approval. "She may not be in the mode, but she is neither
silly nor heartless," she decided; "and as for loving foolishly my poor,
delightful Dick, why, any girl may be excused the folly."

Upon leaving the coach at Mrs. Gordon's, Katherine went to an inner room
to resume her own dress. The India silk lay across a chair; and she took
off, and folded with her accustomed neatness, the elegant suit she had
worn. As she did so, she became sensible of a singular liking for it;
and, when Mrs. Gordon entered the room, she said to her, "Madam, very
much I desire this suit: it is my wedding-gown. Will you save it for me?
Some day I may wear it again, when Richard is well."

"Indeed, Katherine, that is a womanly thought; it does you a vast deal
of credit; and, upon my word, you shall have the gown. I shall be put to
straits without it, to out-dress Miss Betty Lawson; but never mind, I
have a few decent gowns beside it."

"Richard, too, he will like it? You think so, madam?"

"My dear, don't begin to quote Richard to me. I shall be impatient if
you do. I assure you I have never considered him a prodigy." Then,
kissing her fondly, "Madam Katherine Hyde, my entire service to you.
Pray be sure I shall give your husband my best concern. And now I think
you can walk out of the door without much notice; there is a crowd on
the street, and every one is busy about their own appearance or
affairs."

"The time, madam? What is the hour?"

"Indeed, I think it is much after four o'clock. Half an hour hence, you
will have to bring out your excuses. I shall wish for a little devil at
your elbow to help them out. Indeed, I am vastly troubled for you."

"Her excuses" Katherine had not suffered herself to consider. She could
not bear to shadow the present with the future. She had, indeed, a happy
faculty of leaving her emergencies to take care of themselves; and
perhaps wiser people than Katherine might, with advantage, trust less to
their own planning and foresight, and more to that inscrutable power
which we call chance, but which so often arranges favourably the events
apparently very unfavourable. For, at the best, foresight has but
probabilities to work with; but chance, whose tools we know not, very
often contradicts all our bad prophecies, and untangles untoward events
far beyond our best prudence or wisdom. And Katharine was so happy. She
was really Richard's wife; and on that solid vantage-ground she felt
able to beat off trouble, and to defend her own and his rights.

"So much better you look, Katherine," said Madam Van Heemskirk. "Where
have you been all the day? And did you see Mary Blankaart? And the
money, is it found yet?"

The family were at the supper-table; and Joris looked kindly at his
truant daughter, and motioned to the vacant chair at his side. She
slipped into it, touching her father's cheek as she passed; and then she
answered, "At Mary Blankaart's I was not at all, mother."

"Where, then?"

"To Margaret Pitt's I went first, and with Mrs. Gordon I have been all
the day. She is lodging with Mrs. Lanier, on Pearl Street."

"Who sent you there, Katherine?"

"No one, mother. When I passed the house, my name I heard, and Mrs.
Gordon came out to me; and how could I refuse her? Much had we to talk
of."

Batavius saw the girl's placid face, and heard her open confession, with
the greatest amazement. He looked at Joanna, and was just going to
express his opinion, when Joris rose, pushed his chair a little angrily
aside, and said, "There is no blame to you, Katherine. Very kind was
Mrs. Gordon to you, and she is a pleasant woman. For others' faults she
must not answer. That, also, is what Elder Semple says; for when past
was her anger, with a heart full of sorrow she went to him and to Madam
Semple."

"The sorrow that is too late, of what use is it? A very pleasant woman!
Perhaps she is, but then, also, a very vain, foolish woman. Every person
of discretion says so; and if I had a daughter"--

"Well, then, Batavius, a daughter thou may have some day. To the man
with a tender heart, God gives his daughters. Wanting in some good thing
I had felt myself, if only sons I had been trusted with. A daughter is a
little white lamb in the household to teach men to be gentle men."

"I was going to say this, if I had a daughter"--

"Well, then, when thou hast, more wisdom will be given thee. Come with
thy father, _Katrijntje_, and down the garden we will walk, and see if
there are dahlias yet, and how grow the gold and the white
chrysanthemums."

But all the time they were in the garden together, Joris never spoke of
Mrs. Gordon, nor of Katherine's visit to her. About the flowers, and the
restless swallows, and the bluebirds, who still lingered, silent and
anxious, he talked; and a little also of Joanna, and her new house, and
of the great wedding feast that was the desire of Batavius.

"Every one he has ever spoken to, he will ask," said Katherine; "so hard
he tries to have many friends, and to be well spoken of."

"That is his way, _Katrijntje_; every man has his way."

"And I like not the way of Batavius."

"In business, then, he has a good name, honest and prudent. He will
make thy sister a good husband."

But, though Joris said nothing to his daughter concerning her visit to
Mrs. Gordon, he talked long with Lysbet about it. "What will be the end,
thou may see by the child's face and air," he said; "the shadow and the
heaviness are gone. Like the old Katherine she is to-night."

"And this afternoon comes here Neil Semple. Scarcely he believed me that
Katherine was out. Joris, what wilt thou do about the young man?"

"His fair chance he is to have, Lysbet. That to the elder is promised."

"The case now is altered. Neil Semple I like not. Little he thought of
our child's good name. With his sword he wounded her most. No patience
have I with the man. And his dark look thou should have seen when I
said, 'Katherine is not at home.' Plainly his eyes said to me, 'Thou art
lying.'"

"Well, then, what thought hast thou?"

"This: one lover must push away the other. The young dominie that is now
with the Rev. Lambertus de Ronde, he is handsome and a great hero. From
Surinam has he come, a man who for the cross has braved savage men and
savage beasts and deadly fever. No one but he is now to be talked of in
the kirk; and I would ask him to the house. Often I have seen the gown
and bands put the sword and epaulets behind them."

"Well, then, at the wedding of Batavius he will be asked; and if before
there is a good time, I will say, 'Come into my house, and eat and drink
with us.'"

So the loving, anxious parents, in their ignorance, planned. Even then,
accustomed in all their ways to move with caution, they saw no urgent
need of interference with the regular and appointed events of life. A
few weeks hence, when Joanna was married, if there was in the meantime
no special opportunity, the dominie could be offered as an antidote to
the soldier; and, in the interim, Neil Semple was to honourably have
such "chance" as his ungovernable temper had left him.

The next afternoon he called again on Katherine. His arm was still
useless; his pallor and weakness so great as to win, even from Lysbet,
that womanly pity which is often irrespective of desert. She brought him
wine, she made him rest upon the sofa, and by her quiet air of sympathy
bespoke for him a like indulgence from her daughter. Katherine sat by
her small wheel, unplaiting some flax; and Neil thought her the most
beautiful creature he had ever seen. He kept angrily asking himself why
he had not perceived this rare loveliness before; why he had not made
sure his claim ere rivals had disputed it with him. He did not
understand that it was love which had called this softer, more exquisite
beauty into existence. The tender light in the eyes; the flush upon the
cheek; the lips, conscious of sweet words and sweeter kisses; the heart,
beating to pure and loving thoughts,--in short, the loveliness of the
soul, transfiguring the meaner loveliness of flesh and blood, Neil had
perceived and wondered at; but he had not that kind of love experience
which divines the cause from the result.

On the contrary, had Hyde been watching Katherine, he would have been
certain that she was musing on her lover. He would have understood that
bewitching languor, that dreaming silence, that tender air and light and
colour which was the physical atmosphere of a soul communing with its
beloved; a soul touching things present only with its intelligence, but
reaching out to the absent with intensity of every loving emotion.

For some time the conversation was general. The meeting of the
delegates, and the hospitalities offered them; the offensive and
tyrannical Stamp Act; the new organization of patriots who called
themselves "Sons of Liberty;" and the loss of Miss Mary Blankaart's
purse,--furnished topics of mild dispute. But no one's interest was in
their words, and presently Madam Van Heemskirk rose and left the room.
Her husband had said, "Neil was to have some opportunities;" and the
words of Joris were a law of love to Lysbet.

Neil was not slow to improve the favour. "Katherine, I wish to speak to
you. I am weak and ill. Will you come here beside me?"

She rose slowly, and stood beside him; but, when he tried to take her
hands, she clasped them behind her back.

"So?" he asked; and the blood surged over his white face in a crimson
tide that made him for a moment or two speechless. "Why not?"

"Blood-stained are your hands. I will not take them."

The answer gave him a little comfort. It was, then, only a moral qualm.
He had even no objection to such a keen sense of purity in her; and
sooner or later she would forgive his action, or be made to see it with
the eyes of the world in which he moved.

"Katherine, I am very sorry I had to guard my honour with my sword; and
it was your love I was fighting for."

"My honour you cared not for, and with the sword I could not guard it.
Of me cruel and false words have been said by every one. On the streets
I was ashamed to go. Even the dominie thought it right to come and give
me admonition. Batavius never since has liked or trusted me. He says
Joanna's good name also I have injured. And my love,--is it a thing to
be fought for? You have guarded your honour, but what of mine?"

"Your honour is my honour. They that speak ill of you, sweet Katherine,
speak ill of me. Your life is my life. O my precious one, my wife!"

"Such words I will not listen to. Plainly now I tell you, your wife I
will never be,--never, never, never!"

"I will love you, Katherine, beyond your dream of love. I will die
rather than see you the wife of another man. For your bow of ribbon,
only see what I have suffered."

"And, also, what have you made another to suffer?"

"Oh, I wish that I had slain him!"

"Not your fault is it that you did not murder him."

"An affair of honour is not murder, Katherine."

"Honour!--Name not the word. From a dozen wounds your enemy was
bleeding; to go on fighting a dying man was murder, not honour. Brave
some call you: in my heart I say, 'Neil Semple was a savage and a
coward.'"

"Katherine, I will not be angry with you."

"I wish that you should be angry with me."

Pages:
1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | 19 | 20