The Maid of Maiden Lane

"I like not my house-door struck so rudely, Lysbet. No man in all America, but Joris Hyde, would dare to do it."

At these words Joris flung himself from his horse and clasped his grandfather's hand. "I did wrong," he said warmly; "but I am beside myself with happiness; and I thought of nothing but telling you. My heart was in such a hurry that my hands forgot how to behave themselves."

"So happy as that, art thou? Good! Come in, and tell us what has happened to thee."

But Lysbet divined the joy in her grandson's face; and she said softly as he seated himself at the open window where his grandfather's chair was placed—

"It is Cornelia?"

"Yes, it is Cornelia. She loves me! The most charming girl the sun ever shone upon loves me. It is incredible! It is amazing! I cannot believe in my good fortune. Will you assure me it is possible? I want to hear some one say so—and who is there but my grandfather and you? I do not like to tell my mother, just yet. What do you say?"

"I say that thou hast chosen a good girl for a wife. God bless thee," answered Lysbet with great emotion.

Van Heemskirk smiled, but was silent; and Hyde stooped forward, gently moved his long pipe away from his lips, and said, "Grandfather, speak, You know Cornelia Moran?"

"I have seen her. With thee I saw her—walking with thee—dancing with thee. A great beauty I thought her. Thy grandmother says she is good. Well, then, the love of a good, beautiful girl, is something to be glad over. Not twice in a lifetime comes such great fortune. But make up thy mind to expect much opposition. Doctor John and thy father were ever unfriends. Thy father has other plans for thee; Cornelia's father has doubtless other plans for her. Few men can stand against Doctor John; he has the word, and the way, to carry all before him. I know not how the little Cornelia can dare to disobey him."

"She has said 'yes' to me; and, before heaven and earth, she will stand by it."

"Say that much. And of thyself, art thou sure?"

"Why art thou throwing cold water on such sweet hopes?" said Lysbet to her husband.

"Because, when love flames beyond duty and honour and all expediences, Lysbet, some one a little cold water ought to throw. And THOU will not do it. No! Rather, would thou add fuel to the flame."

"I know not what you mean, sir," said Hyde, vaguely troubled by his grandfather's words.

"I think thou knowest well what I mean. Thy father has told thee that thy duty and thy honour are pledged to Annie Hyde."

"I never pledged! Never!"

"But, as in thy baptism thy father made vows for thee, so also for thy marriage he made promises. Noble birth has responsibility, as well as privilege. For thyself alone it is not permitted thee to live, from both the past and the future there are demands on thee."

"Grandfather, this living for the future is the curse of the English land-owners. They enjoy not the present, for they are busy taking care of the years they will never see. Their sons are in their way; it is their grandsons and their great-grandsons that interest them. Why should my father plan for my marriage? He may be Earl Hyde for twenty years—and I hope he will. For twenty years Cornelia and I can be happy here in America; and twenty years is a great opportunity. Everything can happen in twenty years. Of one thing I am sure—I will marry Cornelia Moran, even if I run away with her to the ends of the earth."

"'Run away with her.' To be sure! That is in the blood;" and the old man looked sternly back to the days when Hyde's father ran away with his own little daughter.

With some anger Lysbet answered his thoughts. "What art thou talking about? What art thou thinking of? Many good men have run away with their wives. This almighty Doctor John ran away with his wife. Did not Ava Willing leave her father's house and her friends and her faith for him? And did not the Quakers read her out of their Meeting for her marriage?—and I blame them not. Doctor John was no match for Ava Willing. More, too, if thou must look back; remember one May night, when thou and I sat by the Collect in the moonlight, and thou gave me this ring. What did thou say to me that night?"

"'Tis years ago, Lysbet, and If I have forgotten—"

"Forgotten! Well, then, men do forget; but they may be thankful that God has so made women that they do NOT forget. The words thou said that night have been singing in my heart for fifty years; and yet, if thou must be told, some of those words were about RUNNING AWAY WITH THEE;—for, at the first, my father liked thee not."

"Lysbet! My sweet Lysbet! I have not forgotten. For thy dear sake I will stand by Joris, though in doing so I am sure I shall make some unfriends."

"Good, my husband. I take leave to say that thou art doing right."

"Well, then," said Hyde, "if my grandmother stand by me, and you also, sir; and also Madame Jacobus—"

"Madame Jacobus!" cried Lysbet.

"Yes, indeed!" answered Hyde. "'Tis to her understanding and kindness I owe my opportunity; and she gave me, also, one look which I cannot pretend to misunderstand—a look of clear sympathy—a look that promised help."

"She is a clever woman," said Van Heemskirk. "If Joris has her good will it is not to be thrown away."

"I like her not," said Lysbet. "With my grandson, with my affairs, why should she meddle? Pray, now, what took thee, Joris, to her house? It is full of idolatries and graven images. Doctor Kunz once wrote to her a letter about them. He said she ought to remember the Second Commandment. And she wrote to him a letter, and told him to trouble himself with his own business. Much anger and shame there might have been out of this, but Angelica Jacobus is rich, and she is generous to the church, and to the poor; and Doctor Kunz said to the elders, 'Let her alone, for there is a savour of righteousness in her;' and when she heard of that, she was pleased with the Doctor, and sent him one hundred dollars for the Indian Mission. But, Joris, she is no good to thee. I hear many queer stories of her."

"Downright lies, all of them," replied Hyde. Then he rose, saying, "I must ride onward. My mother will not sleep until she sees me."

"It is nearly dark," said Van Heemskirk, "and to-night thou art in the clouds. The land and the water will be alike to thee. Rest until the morning."

"I fear not the dark. I know the road by night or by day."

"Yet, even so, mind what I tell thee—if thou ride in the dark, be not wiser than thy beast."

Then they walked with him to the door, and watched him leap to his saddle and ride into the twilight trembling over the misty meadows, trickling with dews. And a great melancholy fell over them, and they could not resume the conversation. Joris re-lit his pipe, and Lysbet went softly and thoughtfully about her household duties. It was one of those hours in which Life distills for us her vague melancholy wine; and Joris and Lysbet drank deeply of it.

The moon was in its third day, and the silent crescent has no calmer and sweeter time; yet Joris it inclined to a sad presentiment. "In my heart there is a fear, Lysbet," he said softly. "I think our boy has gone a road he will dearly rue. I foresee disputing, and wounded hearts, and lives made barren by many disappointed hopes."

"Nothing of the kind," answered Lysbet cheerfully. "Our little Joris is so happy to-night, why wilt thou think evil for him? To think evil is to bring evil. Out of foolishness or perchance such a great love has not come. No, indeed! That it comes from heaven I am sure; and to heaven I will leave its good fortune."

"Pleasant are thy hopes, Lysbet; but, too often, vain and foolish."

"Thy reasoning, is it any wiser? No. Often I have found it wrong. One thing the years have said to me, it is this—'Lysbet put not thy judgment in the place of Providence. If thou trust Providence, thou hast the easy heart of a child of God; if thou trust to thine own judgment, thou hast the troubled heart of an anxious woman.'"

CHAPTER VII

ARENTA'S MARRIAGE

For a few weeks, Hyde's belief that the very stars would connive with a true lover seemed a reliable one. Madame Jacobus, attracted at their first meeting to the youth, soon gave him an astonishing affection. And yet this warm love of an old woman for youth and beauty was a very natural one—a late development of the maternal instinct leading her even to what seemed an abnormal preference. For she put aside her nephew's claims with hardly a thought, and pleased herself day by day in so managing and arranging events that Hyde and Cornelia met, as a matter of course. Arenta was not, however, deceived; she understood every maneuvre, but the success of her own affairs depended very much on her aunt's cooperation and generosity, and so she could not afford, at this time, to interfere for her brother.

"But I shall alter things a little as soon as I am married," she told herself. "I will take care of that. At this time I must see, and hear, and say nothing. I must act politely—for I am always polite—and Athanase also is in favour of politeness—but I take leave to say that Joris Hyde shall not carry so much sail when a few weeks are gone by. So happy he looks! So pleased with himself! So sure of all he says and does! I am angry at him all the time. Well, then, it will be a satisfaction to abate a little the confidence of this cock-sure young man."

Arenta's feelings were in kind and measure shared by several other people; Doctor Moran held them in a far bitterer mood; but he, also,—environed by circumstances he could neither alter nor command,—was compelled to satisfy his disapproval with promises of a future change. For the wedding of Arenta Van Ariens had assumed a great social importance. Arenta herself had talked about the affair until all classes were on the tiptoe of expectation. The wealthy Dutch families, the exclusive American set, the home and foreign diplomatic circles, were alike looking forward to the splendid ceremony, and to the great breakfast at Peter Van Ariens' house, and to the ball which Madame Jacobus was to give in the evening. None of the younger people had ever been in madame's fantastic ballroom, and they were eager for this entry into her wonderful house. For their mothers—seeing things through the mists of Time—had, innocently enough, exaggerated the marvels of the Chinese lanterns, the feather flowers and gorgeously plumed birds, the cases of tropical butterflies and beetles, and the fascination of the pagan deities, until they were ready to listen to any tale about Madame Jacobus and to swallow it like cream.

So Doctor Moran, being physician and family friend to most of the invited guests, had to listen to such reminiscences and anticipations wherever he went. He knew that he could not talk against the great public current, and that in the excited state of social feeling it would be a kind of treason even to hint disapproval of Arenta, or of any of her friends or doings. But he suffered. He was questioned by some, he was enlightened by others; his opinion was asked about dresses and ceremonies, he was constantly congratulated on his daughter's prominence as bridesmaid, and he was sent for professionally, that he might be talked to socially. Yet if he ventured to hint dissatisfaction, or to express himself by a scornful "Pooh! Pooh!" he was answered by looks of such astonishment, of such quick-springing womanly suspicions, that he could not doubt the kind of conversation which followed his exit:

"Do you think Doctor Moran VERY clever?"

"Most people think so."

"He is so unsympathetic. Doctor Moore knows everything Madame Jacobus is going to have, and to do. I think doctors ought to be chatty. It is so good for their patients to be cheered up a little."

Doctor Moran divined perfectly this taste for gossip and MEDICINAL sympathy combined, and to administer it was, to him, more nauseous than his own bitterest drugs. So in these days he was not a cheerful man to live with, and Cornelia's beauty and radiant happiness affected him very much as Hyde's pronounced satisfaction affected Arenta. One morning, as he was returning home after a round of disagreeable visits, he saw Cornelia and Hyde coming up Broadway together. They were sauntering side by side in all the lazy happiness of perfect love; and as he looked at them the sorrow of an immense disillusion filled him to the lips. He had believed himself, as yet, to be the first and the dearest in his child's love; but in that moment his eyes were opened, and he felt as if he had been suddenly thrust out from it and the door closed upon him.

He did the wisest thing possible: he went home to his wife. She heard him ride with clattering haste into the stone court, and soon after enter the house from the back, banging every door after him. She knew then that something had angered him—that he was in that temper which makes a woman cry, but which a man can only relieve by noisy or emphatic movement of some kind. A resolute look came into her face and she said to herself, "John has always had his own way—and my way also; but Cornelia's way—the child must surely have something to say about that."

"Where is Cornelia, Ava?" He asked the question with a quick glance round the room, as if he expected to find her present.