PLOT AND COUNTER-PLOT
The situation in New York at this time was exciting. The air was rife
with reports that the Roman Catholics of other colonies adjacent were
making preparations to march upon New York, and that there were persons
within the city’s borders who were willing to betray it into the hands
of those opposed to Protestantism. It was even rumored that General
Dongan was in the plot, and the people turned to Jacob Leisler, that
impetuous, if indiscreet, upholder of the liberties of the people.
Having first seized the fort, he turned out the English troops,
established himself in the name of the common people, and defied his
enemies. It was quite natural that many of the Huguenots, dreading an
establishment of that power from which they had already suffered so
much, should cling to Leisler’s cause, and that the Dutch militia, all
strong Protestants, should also array themselves against any government
which represented a Jacobite king. Yet there were many office-holders
who because of their being members of the same church as Leisler should
have been above suspicion, but the impetuous Leisler did not believe
in half measures, and pursued, denounced, and arrested in a wholesale
manner. It was all or nothing with him, and honest as his intentions
doubtless were, his hammer-and-nails way of dealing with his political
opponents, his lack of tact, and his uncompromising faculty of making
enemies at last brought about his own downfall.
Without being aware of it those under the roof of the Merciers were
at loggerheads. Papa Louis and Gerard were strong upholders of Jacob
Leisler; Lendert Verplanck was as strongly arrayed on the side of Van
Cortlandt, Bayard, and Phillipse; while François Dupont, an ardent
Frenchman, was ready to do what mischief he could to any foe of his own
country. He considered that no means should be despised if it brought
about the ultimate benefit to France, and he was ready to declare
himself a friend to any cause if by so doing he could accomplish his
ends.
“I love France. How, then? Who of her children does not?” he exclaimed,
when Mère Michelle suspiciously sought to fathom his errand to New
York. “You yourself, madame, and your good husband there, are you
not also the same? And that old man of whom you tell me, he who goes
every day to look toward France and to stretch out his hands in her
direction, émigré though he is, has he forgotten his love for his
country. Of what do you accuse me? Of being a Frenchman instead of a
Dutchman, or an Englishman? Am I not Rouennese, and therefore the more
your compatriot? Judge me not so ill as to think I plot against you,
Mère Michelle.”
“I trust you not, else why did you steal away my child, my Alainette?”
“I steal her away?” He laughed. “’Twas I who rescued her from those
who were her captors. Yes, yes, I know you will not believe that, nor
that when the Indian brought her in I was as surprised as any one.
Those in whose company she found me are no more your enemies than the
Dutch monsieur yonder who receives your good offices. The story is
this: Mademoiselle is carried off by a thieving Indian, who, for hope
of reward, brings her to us with a tale of having rescued her from his
comrades. I desire to aid mademoiselle to a return to her rightful
possessions, and I offer her escape from yonder Dutchman, whose good
intentions I have no reason to know. She, in a spasm of fear, resents
this, and behold the result; I suffer from a gunshot wound, and
monsieur, the Dutchman, suffers from my self-defence, and here we are.”
Michelle, slowly stirring a cup of broth, listened, but was not
convinced by his plausible tale. “You have been too near to death,
monsieur,” she said, “and you should not lie to me.”
“Mon Dieu! and do I lie? I lie on this good bed far too long. When do I
arise, Mother Michelle?”
“Not for some days.”
“And monsieur, the Dutch ox?”
“M. Verplanck will arise to-day and will soon be on his way home.”
The eyes of François shone with satisfaction. “Pray God we have a
chance to meet on other than neutral ground. Pig that he is! I would
fain have a good sword-arm to use when we do meet.”
“Why do you not strive to love your enemies, monsieur?” said Michelle,
with unmoved gravity.
“Strive? I do not strive for such sorry results. He is your enemy as
well as mine. Do you love him?”
“I am not averse to him; he seems a well-disposed and amiable young
man.”
“Who will go hence and do you a harm when he gets a chance. Do you not
know him for an aider and abettor of King James’s minions,--a Jacobite?”
“I know him for nothing but a wounded stranger who is patient and
grateful.”
“And you think I am neither. I may prove to be both some day. To-morrow
I arise from my bed, Mère Michelle, and that Dutchman yonder leaves the
house.”
“Ta-ta-ta, but he is the very evil one, that M. Dupont,” Michelle
confided to her husband the next day. “I am thankful, Louis, that you
remain with us, else I know not what might happen here.”
Papa Louis swelled out his breast in conscious pride of his office as
protector. “I remain, my wife, and you need have no fear; though Gerard
and Pierre have departed, I remain.”
“I trust those two will return.”
“And why not?”
“There are signs and rumors and distresses; one cannot tell who is
safe. If the French be ready to descend upon us we shall, ah, my
husband! we shall again fall under the shadow of persecution.”
Papa Louis spread out his fingers and raised his hand as if to say,
That flies away, that possibility. “For myself I am not anticipating
that,” he said. “The good God who has brought us this far will not
desert us.”
At this moment a white face and tottering form appeared from behind
the curtain at the other side of the room. “Monsieur, you are defying
Providence!” cried Michelle.
“I said I would arise, and I keep my word. Give me your shoulder, good
Papa Mercier, and I will get to that seat by the door. Mon Dieu! but it
is good to see the sunshine again. Ho, there, lubber, I am up before
you!”
He turned toward the bed occupied by Lendert, and Papa Louis chuckled
at his sudden change of expression. “Whom do you address, M. Dupont?
Is it perhaps M. Verplanck? He has been sitting outside the door this
half-hour.”
François ground his teeth. “The pig! How did he manage it?”
“You were asleep and we helped him quietly to dress. You would best sit
here, monsieur.”
“No, nearer, where I can look out. Ah-h, I see why that other sits
there outside; that he may the better converse alone with mademoiselle.
I will be watch-dog, Papa Mercier. You do not guard your daughter any
too well.”
“She needs no overlooking,” spoke up Michelle, sharply, “and it is not
M. Verplanck from whom she must be guarded.”
François laughed mockingly. “We will prove the truth of that later
on.” He dropped trembling into his chair and gazed out upon the autumn
landscape showing that haziness peculiar to the season. Under a large
tree were two figures: Lendert Verplanck and Alaine. The girl with her
hands folded before her was talking earnestly to the young man, with
once in a while a toss of her head toward the house.
“They speak of me, no doubt,” said François.
“You are egotist, monsieur,” laughed Papa Louis as he was about to
leave the room.
François called him back and motioned to a chair opposite. “Sit there,
M. Mercier,” he said. “I have said to Madame Mercier that I may yet be
able to prove myself a grateful, if I have not been a welcome, guest. I
see that mademoiselle has finished her conversation with M. Verplanck.
We are alone?” He glanced around the room. Mère Michelle had gone out
of the back door to attend to her dairy. No one was in sight. François
leaned forward. “M. Mercier, you who are a friend of Jacob Leisler’s
cannot be a friend of Nicholas Bayard’s. It is not a secret that Jacob
Leisler desires to place Nicholas Bayard where his tongue will not run
away with him. He is in hiding, this Bayard, and you who are for the
people would like to discover him I suppose.”
Papa Louis gently patted one knee, but did not commit himself by so
much as a word. The back door softly opened and shut again. François
looked around impatiently. No one was visible. “This Verplanck,” he
continued, “it is at the house of his relatives that you will find
Bayard, or at least he was there, and ten to one some one there can
be bought over to tell where he can be found if he chance to have
left. You have but to escort M. Verplanck to this house, where he will
probably go first, and behold who is likely to come out to welcome him
back but Nicholas Bayard. You say nothing; you ride away; at night you
return and capture one or both.”
“At the expense of doing wrong to our guest, who delivered our daughter
from danger.”
“Danger! I tell you not danger, a misunderstanding, a misconstruction.
What do you know of this stranger? Whither was he taking her? What
cause have you for thinking you would have had her restored to you by
his hands? I, for myself, I have only her good at heart. I pray you, M.
Mercier, think of your leader who would deliver you from a papistical
king. Is Bayard not one of those whom you call aristocrats and papists?
This fellow, too, is one of the same stamp. If you will I can arrange
as pretty a plot as you could wish, and the people, the people whom
Leisler leads, will be free of one Romanist in disguise.” He watched
his listener narrowly.
Papa Louis did not change expression, but sat absorbed in thought. “One
does not send away a guest to follow him with disaster,” he replied,
after a time.
“Guest! A guest perforce. Who asks you to bring disaster upon a guest?
He is one no longer when he leaves your roof, and it is of the man
Bayard of whom we chiefly speak. Well, you do not care to prove your
friendship for your cause. You are not a very stanch champion, M.
Mercier. Perhaps you, too, are a Jacobite, and are not without ambition
to show yourself a partisan of these aristocrats. A man of your
intellect might well expect to be admitted into what the adherents of
Leisler call the court circle.”
“No, no, that is no ambition of mine!” cried Papa Louis, vehemently.
“I assure you I am not of that party at all. I will consult with my
friends, monsieur. I will go to Manhatte to-morrow.”
“And when does M. Verplanck depart?”
“He will not be strong enough for some days to come. There is nothing
to be gained by haste, monsieur. I will consider what you have said,
meanwhile remembering that you are no friend of the young man who has
shared our attentions with you. Sit there and rest. For myself I have
remained too long; I must go to my work. Without Gerard my hands are
full.”
“I could go a step farther, I think,” returned François. “Why may I not
sit outside as well as yon indolent churl? I’ll warrant he has not an
idea in his head as he sits there like a blinking owl. Your shoulder
again, M. Mercier, and I can creep along.”
As the two figures disappeared out of the door, from behind the
curtains peeped Alaine’s face. She shook her finger at the two. “Plots,
Papa Louis, plots. I will not have you mixed up in them, neither will I
allow good M. Bayard to suffer; and as for you, you scheming monster,
I am not sure what is bad enough for you. Go to Manhatte if you must,
go to-morrow, Papa Louis, we can manage without you. Adieu!” And she
lightly blew him a kiss from the ends of her fingers.
“To Manhatte!” cried Mère Michelle, when her husband announced his
intention of an early start. “And for why? Politics? Many a better man
has been ruined by them. For my part I advise you to remain at home and
watch your garden, your fields, your family. It is here you are needed
and not in Manhatte. I pray you do not mix yourself up in affairs. It
is better to be the small, the undistinguished, so you are overlooked,
otherwise place yourself in the way, at a turn of the wheel, lo! you
are crushed.”
Papa Louis shook his head. “I must go,” he said.
“And who will protect us?”
“I trust there will be no need, and even if there were, there are
neighbors besides messieurs our guests. They have both recovered
sufficiently to handle a gun.”
“To shoot each other? No, no. I will not be responsible for them.”
“Gerard returns this afternoon. You will be safe enough then.” Papa
Louis spoke rather shortly. He did not half like his errand, yet was
not inclined to give it up.
Alaine, from the door, watched him depart. She returned to the big
living-room to hear Mère Michelle expostulating with François. “But,
monsieur, I assure you it is still very early. You will weary before
the day is out. I beg of you to rest till you have breakfasted.” She
emerged from behind the curtains. “He will wear me to a bone, that
one there,” she made her complaint to Alaine as she stirred about to
prepare the breakfast. “M. Verplanck arises like a gentleman without
discourse. He takes my advice; if I say, ‘Remain in bed,’ he remains.”
“And this morning?”
“He has already arisen, as you may perceive.”
Alaine ate her breakfast silently; once or twice she raised her eyes
to M. Verplanck, who sat opposite, and when Mère Michelle went to the
buttery, she said in a quick whisper, “Monsieur, I wish to speak to
you; much depends upon it. I go to the garden.”
Into Lendert’s sleepy blue eyes came a flash of understanding. He was
not long in following Alaine to the garden. She stood waiting for him
with something like impatience. “Monsieur Verplanck,” she began, “you
must leave us to-day.”
“So?” he said, with a smile.
“Yes, they are plotting against you; they will follow you. M. Bayard
will be discovered if you wait.”
“Who will do this?”
Alaine was silent for a moment, then she raised her truthful eyes. “I
overheard that one in there talking to Papa Louis. He, dear man, does
not understand, or at least he is, you perceive, upon the other side,
and--and---- Oh, monsieur, you will keep my secret as I do yours? You
will not inform?”
“I should be base to do such a thing when I have been sheltered and
cared for as a son or a brother. No, I could not do other than keep
your secret, and again I would defend any one of this family if my
opportunity came. I will go at once if it will please you.”
“Your horse is in the stable; I will help you to get him. I wish you
were altogether strong, monsieur.”
“I am well enough; there is nothing to fear. I will not say which road
I take lest your good conscience trouble you if you are asked. We must
meet again; I go with regret. May I kiss your hand?”
Alaine with a blush extended her little brown fingers. He pressed them
fervently, raised them to his lips and murmured, “We meet again; yes,
we meet again.”
“Adieu, monsieur,” Alaine whispered, her eyes dropping before his gaze.
“You--you are not an ox nor a stupid,” she laughed, “though that one in
there does call you so.”
He laughed. “I thank you, gracious little lady; I cannot find words to
say what you are; it would take a life in which to find words to praise
you as I ought.”
“Ah!” Alaine sighed. There was a kindling up of the smouldering fire
in the blue eyes which did not remove their gaze from her face. This
young man was something different from the sombre Pierre or the bold
François. The very difference pleased the girl; this calmness attracted
her, and for an instant she allowed her hand to rest in the big fingers
of the young Dutchman, then she withdrew it and repeated, “Adieu,
monsieur; I must not stay.”
He only nodded in reply, still keeping his eyes fixed upon her.
“Shall I help you to get your horse?”
“No, I can get him.”
“Then--adieu, monsieur.”
She retreated a step; he followed her, that light in his eyes gathering
strength and fascinating her so that a little grieving sigh she
breathed as his arms enfolded her closer, closer, and his lips pressed
hers. “Too sweet thou art for me to leave thee,” he murmured.
Trembling, half crying, her heart beating tumultuously, Alaine thrust
him from her. “This is very wrong, monsieur. I should not---- Oh, what
is it I have done?” The tears had their way, and she leaned against the
side of the barn, hiding her face.
But again she felt those enfolding arms and kisses showered on her
brow, her hair. “Thou dost not love me?” Lendert whispered.
“I must not, I must not.”
“But I love thee, so brave, so beautiful. Where would Lendert Verplanck
be but for thee?”
“In heaven, I hope,” returned Alaine, with an irresistible impulse.
He held her off and regarded her gravely. The autumn sunlight found the
ruddy golds and browns of her hair, a soft peach-like hue bloomed on
her cheek, her sweet red lips were parted. “Thou dost love me as I love
thee, as I love thee, so beautiful?”
This time Alaine allowed her head to rest on the broad shoulder. “I
love thee; I will be true in saying it, monsieur,” she whispered.
“Not that, but Lendert.”
“Then listen, Lendert. I must not love thee, for, alas! I am half
promised to another, I do not know but to two others. You must go,
Lendert, but first I will tell thee how it is. Those two, my adopted
parents, wish me to marry Gerard, and there is another who has loved
me this year past. Gerard loves Mathilde, but Pierre, poor Pierre, so
good, so true, he has none but me. He has suffered much, and to him I
have promised my hand if he can find a way to restore my father to me,
and if my father desires me to marry him.”
Lendert softly stroked her hair back from her forehead while he
listened, but he made no comment.
“And therefore, you see, Lendert, I should not love you,” she continued.
He lifted her arms to clasp his neck and looked down with that
compelling glance. “I love thee, Alaine, and thou lovest me; there
is nothing else in the world to remember. It is not wrong to love,
and we have not been able to do else than choose each other from out
of the entire universe, then what? We love, and that is all. I will
tell thee a confession, too; my mother wishes me to marry one of her
choosing, the daughter of a friend and distant relative. I was content
to consider her wishes, although I made no promise, but now I have
seen thee, sweet Alaine, I cannot do it. As I lay in bed and heard
thy voice, and saw thy face day after day, it grew, this love, and I
thought, If she can love this big clumsy ox, as the Frenchman calls
him, I will love her forever; I will marry none other; but I did not
hope as yet, Alaine, that thou couldst love Lendert Verplanck, who
loves thee so dearly.”
“I did not know, either,” sighed Alaine; “I did not know till now when
thou must leave me.”
“When I will not leave thee. I do not go to-day.”
“Oh, but thou must.”
“Not at all; it is all a needless alarm. When I go I shall take another
road, and shall go where I select. I have nothing to take me directly
home, nor even to those my relatives. None will wonder at my delay. The
good Mother Mercier has sent messages more than once by a safe hand,
and they know I am faring well. I will not leave thee to-day, Alaine; I
wish to say more, to hear more.”
“But I must not stay here so long; Mère Michelle will wonder, though
she knows I am taking some of Gerard’s duties. Since he and Papa Louis
are away, I must do more.”
“And I will help thee.”
“She would be shocked, that good mother, so shocked if she knew what I
have been doing. I am a very wicked girl.”
He laughed softly. “Wicked is it to love?”
“No, but I should not have told it. Thou shouldst have gone to Papa
Louis very properly, and I should have been surprised when he told me
and have behaved with great decorum. Perhaps they would not have told
me at all; they might have said, You cannot have her, M. Verplanck; she
is to be betrothed to Gerard.”
“And then this hour would have been lost to us. We would never have
lived it. Art sorry, Alaine, sorry that it was not as thou hast
described? Art sorry, sweet Alaine?”
“No,” she confessed, “I am not, for, Lendert, I, too, have been
learning to love ever since that moment when thou wast wounded in the
wood.”
They stood looking into each other’s eyes, overcome by the remembrance
of the fateful hour; then a cloud came over Alaine’s face; “Poor
Pierre,” she murmured, as she moved away to finish the tasks left for
her to do. Lendert kept by her side and was able to give her such aid
that it was not long before she returned to Mère Michelle, who more
than once had gone to the door to look after the delinquents.
“You have been long, Alaine,” she said, sharply.
“I know,” replied Alaine, meekly. “We were talking, M. Verplanck and I,
and then he helped me.”
“You must not allow it again. It is not proper, nor a maidenly thing to
permit.” Mère Michelle spoke in her most reproving tones. “Where did
you leave M. Verplanck?”
“In the barn, attending to his horse.”
“They will soon be gone, those two,” Michelle went on, in a less severe
voice, “and I shall not be sorry. I do not regret that we have been
able, with God’s help, to mend their wounds, though the one is as if he
were a child of the evil one; the other, stolid Dutchman though he is,
cannot be disliked.”
Alaine smiled at the word stolid; if Michelle could have seen her
stolid Dutchman an hour ago! She drew so long and quivering a sigh
that Michelle stopped her spinning and looked at her sharply.
“I would you and Gerard were safely married,” she said; “another year
and you should be.”
“He is too young, that brother of mine,” Alaine answered, “not yet
twenty, Mère Michelle, and it would be wiser if he were possessed of
more before he takes to himself a wife.”
“So Louis says, and so would I say were it not for the eyes of young
men who trouble me by looking too long at you.”
“Whose eyes?”
“Pierre Boutillier’s and that evil creature’s yonder, out of doors
there, not to mention this mynheer’s.”
Alaine was silent, but she gave a quick glance to where François sat
under the tree. She, too, would feel more comfortable when he had
departed. How was it that, openly culpable as he had been, he had yet
almost persuaded them all that he had contrived no ill again her? “Yet
a wicked, deceitful maid am I,” she reflected. “I am this moment posing
as an innocent before Michelle; I have let Pierre go with my promise,
while out there is a man I have known only a few weeks, and to whom
I have given my inconstant heart. No, no, Lendert, it is my constant
heart which I give you.” Mère Michelle had left her alone, and she had
taken up the spinning. With the whir of the wheel her thoughts kept
time. “I love you, love you, love you, Lendert Verplanck. I see you
out there with the sun shining on your yellow hair, under the blue sky,
blue like your eyes. Lendert, who loves me, who kissed me, who held me
in his strong arms. I feel so safe, so happy, Lendert, with you near. I
wish you might never go, Lendert Verplanck, with your yellow hair, your
beautiful smile, and your broad shoulders. Monkey under the tree, if
you but knew how insignificant you look beside him you would cease your
mowing and grimacing.”
François was beckoning to Lendert, who viewed him imperturbably from
his point of vantage within the stable-yard. “Here, oaf, boor, ox,
stolid ox! By St. Michael! it is as much as one’s life is worth to
bring an idea into that thick skull. He does well out there with the
cattle in the barn-yard, for he looks at me as if he had no notion of
what I am. I might be a stick or a stone for all the intelligence in
his perception of me. The devil! I cannot rise without assistance and
he does not budge. Here, you, I want your arm.”
Lendert, over the fence, looked at him composedly. “I want both my arms
myself,” he said. “You’d better get the man who deprived you of the use
of yours to supply you with what you want.”
François laughed grimly. “He actually tries to display a sense of
humor, the elephant; he would be light of speech. Eh bien, monsieur,
stay where you are; mademoiselle there must help me, for go indoors
will I.”
At this Lendert came forward.
François laughed maliciously. “It is because you fear the word to
mademoiselle, I see, and not of compassion for me. Well, monsieur, it
will not be long that the occasion for rivalry exists; you leave us,
and then----”
“And then?” said Lendert, a heavier set to his mouth.
“And then--she is mine.”
“You lie,” returned Lendert, quietly.
“Ox! I would fell you to the earth were I able. As it is, you shall
see. I owe you something, but not thanks, and I will have my payment
for the pains I have endured, and the payment I shall take will be
mademoiselle herself.”
Lendert made a sudden movement, at which François gave a cry of pain.
“Stupid ox! to make a misstep! However, it goes in with the rest, but
the payment is sure; digest that with your grass and hay and stubble,
ox.” He sank heavily into the chair ready for him inside. The hum of
the wheel was scarcely stilled, but Alaine had vanished. Lendert smiled
to himself and went out.
“Good mother,” he said, when he had found Michelle, “your patient
yonder needs you.”
“And you?” she asked.
“I am beyond the necessity of your kind ministrations. I depart. I may
not return for some time, but I take my leave with many thanks, and
I shall never forget. Remember, good Mother Mercier, that here is a
friend if you ever have need of one.”
“And you go at once?”
“Before night.”
Michelle kissed him on each cheek. “Adieu then, my friend, may good
fortune attend you.”