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. Clark
fitted it out before beginning his march and expected it to be of great
assistance to him in the reduction of the fort, but the high waters and
the floating driftwood delayed its progress, so that its disappointed
crew saw Alice's flag floating bright and high when their eyes first
looked upon the dull little town from far down the swollen river. There
was much rejoicing, however, when they came ashore and were
enthusiastically greeted by the garrison and populace. A courier whom
they picked up on the Ohio came with them. He bore dispatches from
Governor Henry of Virginia to Clark and a letter for Beverley from his
father. With them appeared also Simon Kenton, greatly to the delight of
Oncle Jazon, who had worried much about his friend since their latest
fredaine--as he called it--with the Indians. Meantime an expedition
under Captain Helm had been sent up the river with the purpose of
capturing a British flotilla from Detroit.
Gaspard Roussillon, immediately after Clark's victory, thought he saw a
good opening favorable to festivity at the river house, for which he
soon began to make some of his most ostentatious preparations. Fate,
however, as usual in his case, interfered. Fate seemed to like pulling
the big Frenchman's ear now and again, as if to remind him of the
fact--which he was apt to forget--that he lacked somewhat of
omnipotence.
"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 with
his flotilla richly laden, and what little interest may have been
gathering in the direction of M. Roussillon's festal proposition
vanished like the flame of a lamp in a puff of wind when this news
reached Colonel Clark and became known in the town.
Beverley and Alice sat together in the main room of the Roussillon
cabin--you could scarcely find them separated during those happy
days--and Alice was singing to the soft tinkle of a guitar, a Creole
ditty with a merry smack in its scarcely intelligible nonsense. She
knew nothing about music beyond what M. Roussillon, a jack of all
trades, had been able to teach her,--a few simple chords to accompany
her songs, picked up at hap-hazard. But her voice, like her face and
form, irradiated witchery. It was sweet, firm, deep, with something
haunting in it--the tone of a hermit thrush, marvelously pure and
clear, carried through a gay strain like the mocking-bird's. Of course
Beverley thought it divine; and when a message came from Colonel Clark
bidding him report for duty at once, he felt an impulse toward mutiny
of the rankest sort. He did not dream that a military expedition could
be on hand; but upon reaching headquarters, the first thing he heard
was:
"Report to Captain Helm. You are to go with him up the river and
intercept a British force. Move lively, Helm is waiting for you,
probably."
There was no time for explanations. Evidently Clark expected neither
questions nor delay. Beverley's love of adventure and his patriotic
desire to serve his country came to his aid vigorously enough; still,
with Alice's love-song ringing in his heart, there was a cord pulling
him back from duty to the sweetest of all life's joys.
Helm was already at the landing, where a little fleet of boats was
being prepared. A thousand things had to be done in short order. All
hands were stimulated to highest exertion with the thought of another
fight. Swivels were mounted in boats, ammunition and provisions stored
abundantly, flags hoisted and oars dipped. Never was an expedition of
so great importance more swiftly organized and set in motion, nor did
one ever have a more prosperous voyage or completer triumph. Philip
Dejean, Justice of Detroit, with his men, boats and rich cargo, was
captured easily, with not a shot fired, nor a drop of blood spilled in
doing it.
If Alice could have known all this before it happened, she would
probably have saved herself from the mortification of a rebuke
administered very kindly, but not the less thoroughly, by Colonel Clark.
The rumor came to her--a brilliant creole rumor, duly inflated--that an
overwhelming British force was descending the river, and that Beverley
with a few men, not sufficient to base the expedition on a respectable
forlorn hope, would be sent to meet them. Her nature, as was its wont,
flared into high indignation. What right had Colonel Clark to send her
lover away to be killed just at the time when he was all the whole
world to her? Nothing could be more outrageous. She would not suffer it
to be done; not she!
Colonel Clark greeted her pleasantly, when she came somewhat abruptly
to him, where he was directing a squad of men at work making some
repairs in the picketing of the fort. He did not observe her excitement
until she began to speak, and then it was noticeable only, and not very
strongly, in her tone. She forgot to speak English, and her French was
Greek to him.
"I am glad to see you, Mademoiselle," he said, rather inconsequently,
lifting his hat and bowing with rough grace, while he extended his
right hand cordially. "You have something to say to me? Come with me to
my 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 came
to--" It was not so easy as she had imagined it would be to utter what
she had in mind. Clark's steadfast, inscrutable eyes, kindly yet not
altogether sympathetic, met her own and beat them down. Her voice
failed.
He offered her his arm and gravely said:
"We will go to my office. I see that you have some important
communication to make. There are too many ears here."
Of a sudden she felt like running home. Somehow the situation broke
upon her with a most embarrassing effect. She did not take Clark's arm,
and she began to tremble. He appeared unconscious of this, and probably
was, 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, walked
away in that direction.
She was helpless. Not the slightest trace of her usual brilliant
self-assertion was at her command. Saving the squad of men sawing and
hacking, digging and hammering, the fort appeared as deserted as her
mind. She stood gazing after Clark. He did not look back, but strode
right on. If she would speak with him, she must follow. It was a
surprise to her, for heretofore she had always had her own way, even if
she found it necessary to use force. And where was Beverley? Where was
the garrison? Colonel Clark did not seem to be at all concerned about
the approach of the British--and yet those repairs--perhaps he was
making ready for a desperate resistance! She did not move until he
reached the door of his office where he stopped and stepped aside, as
if to let her pass in first; he even lifted his hat, then looked a
trifle surprised when he saw that she was not near him, frowned
slightly, changed the frown to a smile and said, lifting his voice so
that 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 time
just 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 her
breast came very near mastering her will. Clark saw a look in her face
which made him speak again:
"I assure you, Mademoiselle, that you need not feel embarrassed. You
can rely upon me to--"
She made a gesture that interrupted him; at the same time she almost
ran toward him, gathering in breath, as one does who is about to force
out a desperately resisting and riotous thought. The strong, grave man
looked at her with a full sense of her fascination, and at the same
time he felt a vague wish to get away from her, as if she were about to
cast unwelcome responsibility upon him.
"Where is Lieutenant Beverley?" she demanded, now close to Clark, face
to face, and gazing straight into his eyes. "I want to see him." Her
tone suggested intensest excitement. She was trembling visibly.
Clark's face changed its expression. He suddenly recalled to mind
Alice's rapturous public greeting of Beverley on the day of the
surrender. He was a cavalier, and it did not agree with his sense of
high propriety for girls to kiss their lovers out in the open air
before a gazing army. True enough, he himself had been hoodwinked by
Alice's beauty and boldness in the matter of Long-Hair. He confessed
this to himself mentally, which may have strengthened his present
disapproval of her personal inquiry about Beverley. At all events he
thought she ought not to be coming into the stockade on such an errand.
"Lieutenant Beverley is absent acting under my orders he said, with
perfect respectfulness, yet in a tone suggesting military finality. He
meant to set an indefinite yet effective rebuke in his words.
"Absent?" she echoed. "Gone? You sent him away to be killed! You had no
right--you--"
"Miss Roussillon," said Clark, becoming almost stern, "you had better
go home and stay there; young girls oughtn't to run around hunting men
in places like this."
His blunt severity of speech was accompanied by a slight frown and a
gesture of impatience.
Alice's face blazed red to the roots of her sunny hair; the color
ebbed, giving place to a pallor like death. She began to tremble, and
her lips quivered pitifully, but she braced herself and tried to force
back the choking sensation in her throat.
"You must not misconstrue my words," Clark quickly added; "I simply
mean that men will not rightly understand you. They will form
impressions very harmful to you. Even Lieutenant Beverley might not see
you in the right light."
"What--what do you mean?" she gasped, shrinking from him, a burning
spot reappearing under the dimpled skin of each cheek.
"Pray, Miss, do not get excited. There is nothing to make you cry." He
saw tears shining in her eyes. "Beverley is not in the slightest
danger. All will be well, and he'll come back in a few days. The
expedition will be but a pleasure trip. Now you go home. Lieutenant
Beverley is amply able to take care of himself. And let me tell you, if
you expect a good man to have great confidence in you, stay home and
let him hunt you up instead of you hunting him. A man likes that
better."
It would be impossible to describe Alice's feelings, as they just then
rose like a whirling storm in her heart. She was humiliated, she was
indignant, she was abashed; she wanted to break forth with a tempest of
denial, self-vindication, resentment; she wanted to cry with her face
hidden in her hands. What she did was to stand helplessly gazing at
Clark, with two or three bright tears on either cheek, her hands
clenched, her eyes flashing. She was going to say some wild thing; but
she 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 get
orders about some matter of town government, and Alice scarcely knew
how she made her way home. Every vein in her body was humming like a
bee 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 with
garlic. It was Father Beret's favorite dish, wherefore his tongue ran
freely--almost as freely as that of his hostess, and when he heard
Alice come in, he called gayly to her through the kitchen door:
"Come here, ma fille, and lend us old folks your appetite; nous avons
une 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 her
with his hand on her head.
"What is the matter now, little one?" he tenderly demanded. "Tell your
old Father."
She began to cry, laying her face in her crossed arms, the tears
gushing, her whole frame aquiver, and heaving great sobs. She seemed to
shrink like a trodden flower. It touched Father Beret deeply.
He suspected that Beverley's departure might be the cause of her
trouble; but when presently she told him what had taken place in the
fort, 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 his
words. You can't always be a wilful, headstrong little girl, running
everywhere and doing just as you please. You have grown to be a woman
in stature--you must be one in fact. You know I told you at first to be
careful how you acted with--"
"Father, dear old Father!" she cried, springing from her seat and
throwing her arms around his neck. "Have I appeared forward and
unwomanly? Tell me, Father, tell me! I did not mean to do anything--"
"Quietly, my child, don't give way to excitement." He gently put her
from him and crossed himself--a habit of his when suddenly
perplexed--then added:
"You have done no evil; but there are proprieties which a young woman
must not overstep. You are impulsive, too impulsive; and it will not do
to 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 the
fire, 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 first
at Father Beret, then at Alice.
"Quarreling again about the romances?" she inquired. "She's been at it
again?--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 the
shadow of a great dread. It seemed to her that Beverley could not love
her, could not help looking upon her as a poor, wild, foolish girl,
unworthy of consideration. She magnified her faults and crudities, she
paraded before her inner vision her fecent improprieties, as they had
been disclosed to her, until she saw herself a sort of monstrosity at
which all mankind was gazing with disgust. Life seemed dry and
shriveled, a mere jaundiced shadow, while her love for Beverley took on
a new growth, luxuriant, all-embracing, uncontrollable. The ferment of
spirit going on in her breast was the inevitable process of
self-recognition which follows the terrible unfolding of the
passion-flower, in a nature almost absolutely simple and
unsophisticated.
Vincennes held its breath while waiting for news from Helm's
expedition. Every day had its nimble, yet wholly imaginary account of
what had happened, skipping from mouth to mouth, and from cabin to
cabin. The French folk ran hither and thither in the persistent rain,
industriously improving the dramatic interest of each groundless
report. Alice's disturbed imagination reveled in the kaleidoscopic
terrors conjured up by these swift changes of the form and color of the
stories "from the front," all of them more or less tragic. To-day the
party is reported as having been surprised and massacred to a
man--to-morrow there has been a great fight, many killed, the result in
doubt--next day the British are defeated, and so on. The volatile
spirit of the Creoles fairly surpassed itself in ringing the changes on
stirring rumors.
Alice scarcely left the house during the whole period of excitement and
suspense. Like a wounded bird, she withdrew herself from the light and
noisy chatter of her friends, seeking only solitude and crepuscular
nooks in which to suffer silently. Jean brought her every picturesque
bit of the ghastly gossip, thus heaping coals on the fire of her
torture. But she did not grow pale and thin. Not a dimple fled from
cheek or chin, not a ray of saucy sweetness vanished from her eyes. Her
riant health was unalterable. Indeed, the only change in her was a
sudden ripening and mellowing of her beauty, by which its colors, its
lines, its subtle undercurrents of expression were spiritualized, as if
by some powerful clarifying process.
Tremendous is the effect of a soul surprised by passion and brought
hard up against an opposing force which dashes it back upon itself with
a flare and explosion of self-revealment. Nor shall we ever be able to
foretell just how small a circumstance, just how slight an exigency,
will suffice to bring on the great change. The shifting of a smile to
the gloom of a frown, the snap of a string on the lute of our
imagination, just at the point when a rich melody is culminating; the
waving of a hand, a vanishing face--any eclipse of tender, joyous
expectation--dashes a nameless sense of despair into the soul. And a
young girl's soul--who shall uncover its sacred depths of
sensitiveness, or analyze its capacity for suffering under such a
stroke?
On the fifth day of March, back came the victorious Helm, having
surrounded and captured seven boats, richly loaded with provisions and
goods, and Dejean's whole force. Then again the little Creole town went
wild with rejoicing. Alice heard the news and the noise; but somehow
there 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 mood
of unlimited proportions, so far as expressing self-admiration and
abounding delight was concerned. You would have been sure that he had
done the whole deed single-handed, and brought the flotilla and
captives 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 a
single shot. What was the use of going to fight and simply meeting and
escorting down the river a lot of non-combatants?
There is something inscrutably delightful about a girl's way of
thinking one thing and doing another. Perversity, thy name is
maidenhood; and maidenhood, thy name is delicious inconsequence! When
Alice heard that Beverley had come back, safe, victorious, to be
greeted as one of the heroes of an important adventure, she immediately
ran to her room frightened and full of vague, shadowy dread, to hide
from him, yet feeling sure that he would not come! Moreover, she busied
herself with the preposterous task of putting on her most attractive
gown--the buff brocade which she wore that evening at the river
house--how long ago it seemed!--when Beverley thought her the
queenliest beauty in the world. And she was putting it on so as to look
her prettiest while hiding from him!
It is a toss-up where happiness will make its nest. The palace, the
hut, the great lady's garden, the wild lass's bower,--skip here, alight
there,--the secret of it may never be told. And love and beauty find
lodgment, by the same inexplicable route, in the same extremes of
circumstances. The wind bloweth where it listeth, finding many a
matchless flower and many a ravishing fragrance in the wildest nooks of
the world.
No sooner did Beverley land at the little wharf than, rushing to his
quarters, he made a hasty exchange of water-soaked apparel for
something more comfortable, and then bolted in the direction of
Roussillon place.
Now Alice knew by the beating of her heart that he was coming. In spite
of all she could do, trying to hold on hard and fast to her doubt and
gloom, a tide of rich sweetness began to course through her heart and
break in splendid expectation from her eyes, as they looked through the
little unglazed window toward the fort. Nor had she long to wait. He
came up the narrow wet street, striding like a tall actor in the height
of a melodrama, his powerful figure erect as an Indian's, and his face
glowing with the joy of a genuine, impatient lover, who is proud of
himself because of the image he bears in his heart.
When Alice flung wide the door (which was before Beverley could cross
the veranda), she had quite forgotten how she had gowned and bedecked
herself; and so, without a trace of self-consciousness, she flashed
upon him a full-blown flower--to his eyes the loveliest that ever
opened under heaven.
Gaspard Roussillon, still overflowing with the importance of his part
in the capture of Dejean, came puffing homeward just in time to see a
man 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 roaring
voice.
The letter to Beverley from his father was somewhat disturbing. It bore
the tidings of his mother's failing health. This made it easier for the
young Lieutenant to accept from Clark the assignment to duty with a
party detailed for the purpose of escorting Hamilton, Farnsworth and
several other British officers to Williamsburg, Virginia. It also gave
him a most powerful assistance in persuading Alice to marry him at
once, so as to go with him on what proved to be a delightful wedding
journey through the great wilderness to the Old Dominion. Spring's
verdure burst abroad on the sunny hills as they slowly went their way;
the mating birds sang in every blooming brake and grove by which they
passed, and in their joyous hearts they heard the bubbling of love's
eternal fountain.