The Hidden Children Part 33

Presently I turned the portrait over. There was a lock of hair there under the gla.s.s--bright, curly hair exactly like her own. And at first I saw nothing else. Then, as the gla.s.s-backed locket glanced in the lantern-light, I saw that on the gla.s.s something had been inscribed with a diamond. This is what I read, written across the gla.s.s:

"Jean Coeur a son coeur cheri."

I looked up at her.

"Jean Coeur," I repeated. "That is no name for a man----" Suddenly I remembered, years ago--years and years since--hearing Guy Johnson cursing some such man. Then in an instant all came back to me; and she seemed to divine it, for her small hand clutched my arm and her eyes were widening as I turned to meet them.

"Lois," I said unsteadily, "there was a man called Jean Coeur, deputy to the adventurer, Joncaire. Joncaire was the great captain who all but saved this Western Continent to France. Captain Joncaire was feared, detested, but respected by Sir William Johnson because he held all Canada and the Hurons and Algonquins in the hollow of his hand, and had even gained part of the Long House--the Senecas. His clever deputy was called Jean Coeur. Never did two men know the Indians as these two did."

I thought a moment, then: "Somewhere I heard that Captain Joncaire had a daughter. But she married another man--one Louis de Contrecoeur----"

I hesitated, glanced again at the name scratched on the gla.s.s over the lock of hair, and shook my head.

"Jean Coeur--Louis de Contrecoeur. The names scarce hang together--yet----"

"Look at this!" she whispered in a low, tense voice, and laid a bit of printing in my hand.

It was a stained and engraved sheet of paper--a fly-leaf detached from a book of Voltaire. And above the scroll-encompa.s.sed t.i.tle was written in faded ink: "Le Capitaine Vicomte Louis Jean de Contrecoeur du Regiment de la Reine." And under that, in a woman's fine handwriting: "Mon coeur, malgre; mon coeur, se rendre a Contrecoeur, dit Jean Coeur; coeur contre coeur."

"That," she said, "is the same writing that the birch bark bears, sewed in my moccasins."

"Then," I said excitedly, "your mother was born Mademoiselle Joncaire, and you are Lois de Contrecoeur!"

She sat with eyes lowered, fingering the stained and faded page. After a moment she said:

"I wrote to France--to the Headquarters of the Regiment de la Reine--asking about my--father."

"You had an answer?"

"Aye, the answer came.... Merely a word or two.... The Vicomte Louis Jean de Contrecoeur fell at Lake George in '55----" She lifted her clear eyes to mine. "And died--unmarried."

A chill pa.s.sed through me, then the reaction came, taking me by the throat, setting my veins afire.

"Then--by G.o.d!" I stammered. "If de Contrecoeur died unmarried, his child shall not!"

"Euan! I do not credit what they wrote. If my father married here perhaps they had not heard."

"Lois! Dearest of maids--whichever is the truth I wish to marry you!"

But she stopped her ears with both palms, giving me a frightened look; and checked, but burning still, I stared at her.

"Is that then all you are?" she asked. "A wisp of tow to catch the first spark that flies? A brand ever smouldering, which the first breath o' woman stirs to flame?"

"Never have I loved before----"

"Love! Euan, are you mad?"

We both were breathing fast and brokenly.

"What is it then, if it be not love!" I asked angrily.

"What is it?" she repeated slowly. Yet I seemed to feel in her very voice a faint, cool current of contempt. "Why, it is what always urges men to speak, I fancy--their natural fire--their easily provoked emotions.... I had believed you different."

"Did you not desire my friends.h.i.+p?" I asked in hot chagrin.

"Not if it be of this kind, Euan."

"You would not have me love you?"

"Love!" And the fine edge of her contempt cut clean. "Love!" she repeated coolly. "And we scarcely know each other; have never pa.s.sed a day together; have never broken bread; know nothing, nothing of each other's minds and finer qualities; have awakened nothing in each other yet except emotions. Friends.h.i.+ps have their deeps and shallows, but are deathless only while they endure. Love hath no shallows, Euan, and endures often when friends.h.i.+p dies.... I speak, having no knowledge.

But I believe it. And, believing n.o.bly of true love--in ignorance of it, but still in awe--and having been a.s.sailed by clamours of a shameful pa.s.sion calling itself love--and having builded in my heart and mind a very lofty altar for the truth, how can I feel otherwise than sorry that you spoke--hotly, unthinkingly, as you did to me?"

I was silent.

She rose, lifted the lantern, laid open the trap-door.

"Come," she whispered, beckoning.

I followed her as she descended, took the lantern from her hand, glanced at the shadowy heap, asleep perhaps, on the corner settle, then walked to the door and opened it. A thousand, thousand stars were sparkling overhead.

On the sill she whispered:

"When will you come again?"

"Do you want me?" I said sullenly.

She made no answer for a moment; suddenly she caught my hand and pressed it, crus.h.i.+ng it between both of hers; and turning I saw her almost helpless with her laughter.

"Oh, what an infant have I found in this tall gentleman of Morgan's corps!" said she. "A boy one moment and a man the next--silly and wise in the same breath--headlong, headstrong, tender, and generous, petty and childish, grave and kind--the sacred and wondrous being, in point of fact, known to the world as man! And now he asks, with solemn mien and sadly ruffled and reproachful dignity whether a poor, friendless, homeless, nameless girl desires his company again!"

She dropped my hand, caught at her skirt's edge, and made me a mocking reverence.

"Dear sir," she said, "I pray you come again to visit me tomorrow, while I am mending regimental s.h.i.+rts at tuppence each----"

"Lois!" I said sadly. "How can you use me so!"

She began to laugh again.

"Oh, Euan, I can not endure it if you're solemn and sorry for yourself----"

"That is too much!" I exclaimed, furious, and marched out, boiling, under the high stars. And every star o' them, I think, was laughing at the sorriest a.s.s who ever fell in love.

Nevertheless, that night I wrote her name in my letter to Mr. Hake; and the ink on it was scarce sanded when an Oneida runner had it and was driving his canoe down the Mohawk River at a speed that promised to win for him the bonus in hard money which I had promised for a swift journey and a swift return.

And far into the July morning I talked with the Sagamore of Amochol and of Catharines-town; and he listened while he sat tirelessly polis.h.i.+ng his scalping-knife and hatchet.

CHAPTER VIII