The Bow of Orange Ribbon: A Romance of New York

“Let me not to the marriage of true minds
Admit impediments:  love is not love
Which alters when it alteration finds.”

In some respects, the pedler’s anticipations were correct.  Katherine had “a bad time by herself” that night; for evil has this woful prerogative,—­it can wound the good and the innocent, it can make wretched without provocation and without desert.  But, whatever her suffering, it was altogether her own.  She made no complaint, and she offered no explanation of her singular conduct.  Her household, however, had learned to trust her; and the men and women servants sitting around the kitchen-fire that night, talked over the circumstance, and found its very mystery a greater charm than any possible certainty, however terrible, could have given them.

“She be a stout-hearted one,” said the ostler admiringly.  “Tony and I a-watched her and the dog a-driving him through the gates.  With his bundle on his back, he was a-shuffling along, a-nigh on his all-fours; and the madam at his heels, with her head up in the air, and her eyes a-shining like candles.”

“It would be about the captain he spoke.”

The remark was ventured by Lettice in a low voice, and the company looked at each other and nodded confidentially.  For the captain was a person of great and mysterious importance in the house.  All that was done was in obedience to some order received from him.  Katherine quoted him continually, granted every favour in his name, made him the authority for every change necessary.  His visits were times of holiday, when discipline was relaxed, and the methodical economy of life at the manor house changed into festival.  And Hyde had precisely that dashing manner, that mixture of frankness and authority, which dependents admire.  The one place in the whole world where nobody would have believed wrong of Hyde was in Hyde’s own home.

And yet Katherine, in the secrecy of her chamber, felt her heart quake.  She had refused to think of the circumstance until after she had made a pretence of eating her supper, and had seen little Joris asleep, and dismissed Lettice, with all her accustomed deliberation and order.  But, oh, how gratefully she turned the key of her room!  How glad she felt to be alone with the fear and the sorrow that had come to her!  For she wanted to face it honestly; and as she stood with eyes cast down, and hands clasped behind her back, the calm, resolute spirit of her fathers gathered in her heart, and gave an air of sorrowful purpose to her face and attitude.  At that hour she was singularly like Joris Van Heemskirk; and any one familiar with the councillor would have known Katherine to be his daughter.

Most women are restless when they are in anxiety.  Katherine felt motion to be a mental disturbance.  She sat down, and remained still as a carven image, thinking over what had been told her.  There had been a time when her husband’s constant talk of Lady Suffolk had pained her, and when she had been a little jealous of the apparent familiarity which existed in their relations with each other; but Hyde had laughed at her fears, and she had taken a pride in putting his word above all her suspicions.  She had seen him receive letters which she knew to be from Lady Suffolk.  She had seen him read and destroy them without remark.  She was aware that many a love-billet from fine ladies followed him to Hyde.  But it was in accord with the integrity of her own nature to believe in her husband’s faithfulness.  She had made one inquiry on the subject, and his assurance at that time she accepted as a final settlement of all doubts.  And if she had needed further evidence, she had found it in his affectionate and constant regard for her, and in his love for his child and his home.

It was also a part of Katherine’s just and upright disposition to make allowances for the life by which her husband was surrounded.  She understood that he must often be placed in circumstances of great temptation and suspicion.  Hyde had told her that there were necessarily events in his daily experience of which it was better for her to be ignorant.  “They belong to it, as my uniform does,” he said; “they are a part of its appearance; but they never touch my feelings, and they never do you a moment’s wrong, Katherine.”  This explanation it had been the duty both of love and of wisdom to accept; and she had done so with a faith which asked for no conviction beyond it.

And now she was told that for years he had been the lover of another woman; that her own existence was doubted or denied; that if it were admitted, it was with a supposition which affected both her own good name and the rights of her child.  In those days, America was at the ends of the earth.  A war with it was imminent.  The Colonies might be conquered.  She knew nothing of international rights, nor what changes such a condition might render possible.  Hyde was the probable representative of an ancient noble English family, and its influence was great:  if he really wished to annul their marriage, perhaps it was in his power to do so.  She knew well how greedy rank was of rank and riches, and she could understand that there might be powerful family reasons for an alliance which would add Lady Suffolk’s wealth to the Hyde earldom.

[Illustration:  She knelt speechless and motionless]

She was no craven, and she faced the position in all its cruel bearings.  She asked herself if, even for the sake of her little Joris, she would remain a wife on sufferance, or by the tie of rights which she would have to legally enforce; and then she lifted the candle, and passed softly into his room to look at him.  Though physically like the large, fair, handsome Van Heemskirks, little Joris had certain tricks of expression, certain movements and attitudes, which were the very reflection of his father’s,—­the same smile, the same droop of the hair on the forehead, the same careless toss of the arm upward in sleep.  It was the father in the son that answered her at that hour.  She slipped down upon her knees by the sleeping boy, and out of the terror and sorrow of her soul spoke to the Fatherhood in heaven.  Nay, but she knelt speechless and motionless, and waited until He spoke to her; spoke to her by the sweet, trustful little lips whose lightest touch was dear to her.  For the boy suddenly awoke; he flung his arms around her neck, he laid his face close to hers, and said,—­

“Oh, mother, beautiful mother, I thought my father was here!”

“You have been dreaming, darling Joris.”

“Yes; I am sorry I have been dreaming.  I thought my father was here—­my good father, that loves us so much.”

Then, with a happy face, Katherine rose and gave the child cool water, and turned his hot pillow, and with kisses sent him smiling into dreamland again.  In those few tender moments all her fears slipped away from her heart.  “I will not believe what a bad man says against my husband—­against my dear one who is not here to defend himself.  Lies, lies!  I will make the denial for him.”

And she kept within the comfort of this spirit, even though Hyde’s usual letter was three days behind its usual time.  Certainly they were hard days.  She kept busy; but she could not swallow a mouthful of food, and the sickness and despair that crouched at the threshold of her life made her lightest duties so heavy that it required a constant effort and a constant watchfulness to fulfil them.  And yet she kept saying to herself, “All is right.  I shall hear in a day or two.  There is some change in the service.  There is no change in Richard—­none.”

On the fourth day her trust had its reward.  She found then that the delay had been caused by the necessary charge and care of ceremonies which Lady Capel’s death forced upon her husband.  She had almost a sentiment of gratitude to her, although she was yet ignorant of her bequest of eight thousand pounds.  For Hyde had resolved to wait until the reading of the will made it certain, and then to resign his commission, and carry the double good news to Katherine himself.  Henceforward, they were to be together.  He would buy more land, and improve his estate, and live happily, away from the turmoil of the town, and the disagreeable duties of active service in a detestable quarrel.  So this purpose, though unexpressed, gave a joyous ring to his letter; it was lover-like in its fondness and hopefulness, and Katherine thought of Lady Suffolk and her emissary with a contemptuous indifference.

“My dear one she intended that I should make miserable with reproaches, and from his own home drive him to her home for some consolations;” and Katherine smiled as she reflected how hopeless such a plan of separation would be.

Never, perhaps, are we so happy as when we have just escaped some feared calamity.  That letter lifted the last fear from Katherine’s heart, and it gave her also the expectation of an early visit.  “I am very impatient to see you, my Kate,” he wrote; “and as early as possible after the funeral, you may expect me.”  The words rang like music in her heart.  She read them aloud to little Joris, and then the whole household warmed to the intelligence.  For there was always much pleasant preparation for Hyde’s visits,—­clean rooms to make still cleaner, silver to polish, dainties to cook; every weed to take from the garden, every unnecessary straw from the yards.  For the master’s eye, everything must be beautiful.  To the master’s comfort, every hand was delighted to minister.

So these last days of May were wonderfully happy ones to Katherine.  The house was in its summer draperies—­all its windows open to the garden, which had now not only the freshness of spring, but the richer promise of summer.  Katherine was always dressed with extraordinary care and taste.  Little Joris was always lingering about the gates which commanded the longest stretch of observation.  A joyful “looking forward” was upon every face.

Alas, these are the unguarded hours which sorrow surprises!  But no thought of trouble, and no fear of it, had Katherine, as she stood before her mirror one afternoon.  She was watching Lettice arrange the double folds of her gray taffeta gown, so as to display a trifle the high scarlet heels of her morocco slippers, with their scarlet rosettes and small diamond buckles.

“Too cold a colour is gray for me, Lettice:  give me those scarlet ribbons for a breast knot;” and as Lettice stood with her head a little on one side, watching her mistress arrange the bright bows at her stomacher, there came a knock at the chamber door.

“Here be a strange gentleman, madam, to see you; from London, he do say.”

A startled look came into Katherine’s face; she dropped the ribbon from her hand, and turned to the servant, who stood twisting a corner of her apron at the front-door.

“Well, then, Jane, like what is the stranger?”

“He be in soldier’s dress, madam”—­

“What?”

She asked no further question, but went downstairs; and, as the tapping of her heels was heard upon them, Jane lifted her apron to her eyes and whimpered, “I think there be trouble; I do that, Letty.”

“About the master?”

[Illustration:  Jane lifted her apron to her eyes]

“It be like it.  And the man rides a gray horse too.  Drat the man, to come with news on a gray horse!  It be that unlucky, as no one in their seven senses would do it.”

“For sure it be!  When I was a young wench at school”—­and then, as she folded up the loose ribbons, Letty told a gruesome story of a farmer robbed and murdered; but as she came to the part the gray horse played in the tale, Katherine slowly walked into the room, with a letter in her hand.  She was white, even to her lips; and with a mournful shake of her head, she motioned to the girls to leave her alone.  She put the paper out of her hand, and stood regarding it.  Fully ten minutes elapsed ere she gathered strength sufficient to break its well-known seal, and take in the full meaning of words so full of agony to her.

“It is midnight, beloved Katherine, and in six hours I may be dead.  Lord Paget spoke of my cousin to me in such terms as leaves but one way out of the affront.  I pray you, if you can, to pardon me.  The world will condemn me, my own actions will condemn me; and yet I vow that you, and you only, have ever had my love.  You I shall adore with my last breath.  Kate, my Kate, forgive me.  If this comes to you by strange hands, I shall be dead or dying.  My will and papers of importance are in the drawer marked “B” in my escritoire.  Kiss my son for me, and take my last hope and thought.”

These words she read, then wrung her hands, and moaned like a creature that had been wounded to death.  Oh, the shame!  Oh, the wrong and sorrow!  How could she bear it?  What should she do?  Captain Lennox, who had brought the letter, was waiting for her decision.  If she would go to her husband, then he could rest and return to London at his leisure.  If not, Hyde wanted his will, to add a codicil regarding the eight thousand pounds left him by Lady Capel.  For he had been wounded in his side; and a dangerous inflammation having set in, he had been warned of a possible fatal result.

Katherine was not a rapid thinker.  She had little, either, of that instinct which serves some women instead of all other prudences.  Her actions generally arose from motives clear to her own mind, and of whose wisdom or kindness she had a conviction.  But in this hour so many things appealed to her that she felt helpless and uncertain.  The one thought that dominated all others was that her husband had fought and fallen for Lady Suffolk.  He had risked her happiness and welfare, he had forgotten her and his child, for this woman.  It was the sequel to the impertinence of the pedler’s visit.  She believed at that moment that the man had told her the truth.  All these years she had been a slighted and deceived woman.

This idea once admitted, jealousy of the crudest and most unreasonable kind assailed her.  Incidents, words, looks, long forgotten rushed back upon her memory, and fed the flame.  Very likely, if she left her child and went to London, she might find Lady Suffolk in attendance on her husband, or at least be compelled for his life’s sake to submit to her visits.  She pondered this supposition until it brought forth one still more shameful.  Perhaps the whole story was a scheme to get her up to London.  Perhaps she might disappear there.  What, then, would be done to her child?  If Richard Hyde was so infatuated with Lady Suffolk, what might he not do to win her and her large fortune?  Even the news of Lady Capel’s death was now food for her suspicions.  Was she dead, or was the assertion only a part of the conspiracy?  If she had been dead, Sir Thomas Swaffham would have heard of the death; yet she had seen him that morning, and he had made no mention of the circumstance.

“To London I will not go,” she decided.  “There is some wicked plan for me.  The will and the papers are wanted, that they may be altered to suit it.  I will stay here with my child.  Even sorrow great as mine is best borne in one’s own home.”

She went to the escritoire to get the papers.  When she opened the senseless chamber of wood, she found herself in the presence of many a torturing, tender memory.  In one compartment there were a number of trout-flies.  She remembered the day her husband had made them—­a long, rainy, happy day during his last visit.  Every time she passed him, he drew her face down to kiss it.  And she could hear little Joris talking about the work, and his father’s gay laughter at the child’s remarks.  In an open slide, there was a rude picture of a horse.  It was the boy’s first attempt to draw Mephisto, and it had been carefully put away.  The place was full of such appeals.  Katherine rarely wept; but, standing before these mementos, her eyes filled, and with a sob she clasped her hands across them, as if the sight of such tokens from a happy past was intolerable.

Drawer B was a large compartment full of papers and of Hyde’s personal treasures.  Among them was a ring that his father had given him, his mother’s last letter, a lock of his son’s hair, her own first letter—­the shy, anxious note that she wrote to Mrs. Gordon.  She looked sadly at these things, and thought how valueless all had become to him at that hour.  Then she began to arrange the papers according to their size, and a small sealed parcel slipped from among them.  She lifted it, and saw a rhyme in her husband’s writing on the outside,—­

“Oh, my love, my love!  This thy gift I hold More than fame or treasure, more than life or gold.”

It had evidently been sealed within a few months, for it was in a kind of bluish-tinted paper which Hyde bought in Lynn one day during the past winter.  She turned it over and over in her hand, and the temptation to see the love-token inside became greater every moment.  This was a thing her husband had never designed any human eye but his own to see.  Whatever revelation there was in it, much or little, would be true.  Tortured by doubt and despair, she felt that impulse to rely on chance for a decision which all have experienced in matters of grave moment, apparently beyond natural elucidation.

“If in this parcel there is some love-pledge from Lady Suffolk, then I go not; nothing shall make me go.  If in it there is no word of her, no message to her or from her; if her name is not there, nor the letters of her name,—­then I will go to my own.  A new love, one not a year old, I can put aside.  I will forgive every one but my Lady Suffolk.”

So Katherine decided as she broke the seal with firmness and rapidity.  The first paper within the cover made her tremble.  It was a half sheet which she had taken one day from Bram’s hand, and it had Bram’s name across it.  On it she had written the first few lines which she had had the right to sign “Katherine Hyde.”  It was, indeed, her first “wife” letter; and within it was the precious love-token, her own love-token,—­the bow of orange ribbon.

She gave a sharp cry as it fell upon the desk; and then she lifted and kissed it, and held it to her breast, as she rocked herself to and fro in a passionate transport of triumphant love.  Again and again she fed her eyes upon it.  She recalled the night she wore it first, and the touch of her mother’s fingers as she fastened it at her throat.  She recalled her father’s happy smile of proud admiration for her; the afternoon, next, when she had stood with Joanna at the foot of the garden and seen her lover wearing it on his breast.  She remembered what she had heard about the challenge, and the desperate fight, and the intention of Semple’s servant to remove the token from her senseless lover’s breast, and her father’s noble interference.  The bit of fateful ribbon had had a strange history, yet she had forgotten it.  It was her husband who had carefully sealed it away among the things most precious to his heart and house.  It still kept much of its original splendid colour, but it was stained down all its length with blood.  Nothing that Hyde could have done, no words that he could have said, would have been so potent to move her.

“I will give it to him again.  With my own hands I will give it to him once more.  O Richard, my lover, my husband!  Now I will hasten to see thee.”

[Illustration:  “O Richard, my lover, my husband!”]

With relays at every post-house, she reached London the next night, and, weary and terrified, drove at once to the small hostelry where Hyde lay.  There was a soldier sitting outside his chamber-door, but the wounded man was quite alone when Katherine entered.  She took in at a glance the bare, comfortless room, scarcely lit by the sputtering rush-candle, and the rude bed, and the burning cheeks of the fevered man upon it.

“Katherine!” he cried; and his voice was as weak and as tearful as that of a troubled child.

“Here come I, my dear one.”

“I do not deserve it.  I have been so wicked, and you my pure good wife.”

“See, then, I have had no temptations, but thou hast lived in the midst of great ones.  Then, how natural and how easy was it for thee to do wrong!”

“Oh, how you love me, Katherine!”

“God knows.”

“And for this wrong you will not forsake me?”

She took from her bosom the St. Nicholas ribbon.  “I give it to thee again.  At the first time I loved thee; now, my husband, ten thousand times more I love thee.  As I went through the papers, I found it.  So much it said to me of thy true love!  So sweetly for thee it pleaded!  All that it asks for thee, I give.  All that thou hast done wrong to me, it forgives.”

And between their clasped hands it lay,—­the bit of orange ribbon that had handselled all their happiness.

“It is the promise of everything I can give thee, my loved one,” whispered Katherine.

“It is the luck of Richard Hyde.  Dearest wife, thou hast given me my life back again.”

[Illustration:  Chapter heading]