The Water-Witch by James Fenimore Cooper (ebook reader online free TXT) 📕

"Am I to understand, Captain Ludlow, that Alida Barbérie has not fled my house, during the past night, to seek a refuge in your ship?"

"Fled!" echoed the young man, in a voice of horror. "Has Alida de Barbérie fled from the house of her uncle, at all?"

"Captain Ludlow, this is not acting. On the honor of a gentleman, are you ignorant of my niece's absence?"

The young commander did not answer; but, striking his head fiercely, he smothered words that were unintelligible to his companion. When this momentary burst of feeling was past, he sunk into a chair, and gazed about him in stupid amazement. All this pantomime was inexplicable to the Alderman, who, however, began to see that more of the conditions of the arrangement in hand were beyond the control of his companion, than he had at first believed. Still the plot thickened, rather than grew clear; and he was afraid to speak, lest he might utter more than was prudent. The silence, therefore, continued for quite a minute; during which time, the parties sat gazing at each other in dull wonder.

"I shall not deny, Captain Ludlow, that I believed you had prevailed on my niece to fly aboard the Coquette; for, though a man who has always kept his feelings in his own command, as the safest manner of managing particular interests, yet I am not to learn that rash youth is often guilty of folly. I am now equally at a loss with yourself, to know what has become of her, since here she is not."

"Hold!" eagerly interrupted Ludlow. "A boat left your wharf, for the city, in the earlier hours of the morning. Is it not possible that she may have taken a passage in it?"

"It is not possible. I have reasons to know—in short, Sir, she is not there."

"Then is the unfortunate—the lovely—the indiscreet girl for ever lost to herself and us!" exclaimed the young sailor, actually groaning under his mental agony. "Rash, mercenary man! to what an act of madness has this thirst of gold driven one so fair—would I could say, so pure and so innocent!"

But while the distress of the lover was thus violent, and caused him to be so little measured in his terms of reproach, the uncle of the fair offender appeared to be lost in surprise. Though la belle Barbérie had so well preserved the decorum and reserve of her sex, as to leave even her suitors in doubt of the way her inclinations tended, the watchful Alder man had long suspected that the more ardent, open, and manly commander of the Coquette was likely to triumph over one so cold in exterior, and so cautious in his advances, as the Patroon of Kinderhook. When, therefore, it became apparent Alida had disappeared, he quite naturally inferred that she had taken the simplest manner of defeating all his plans for favoring the suit of the latter, by throwing herself, at once, into the arms of the young sailor. The laws of the colonies offered few obstacles to the legality of their union; and when Ludlow appeared that morning, he firmly believed that he beheld one, who, if he were not so already, was inevitably soon to become his nephew. But the suffering of the disappointed youth could not be counterfeited; and, prevented from adhering to his first opinion, the perplexed Alderman seemed utterly at a loss to conjecture what could have become of his niece. Wonder, rather than pain, possessed him; and when he suffered his ample chin to repose on the finger and thumb of one hand, it was with the air of a man that revolved, in his mind, all the plausible points of some knotty question.

"Holes and corners!" he muttered, after a long silence; "the wilful minx cannot be playing at hide-and-seek with her friends! The hussy had ever too much of la famille de Barbérie, and her high Norman blood about her, as that silly old valet has it, to stoop to such childish trifling. Gone she certainly is," he continued, looking, again, into the empty drawers and closets, "and with her the valuables have disappeared. The guitar is missing—the lute I sent across the ocean to purchase, an excellently-toned Dutch lute, that cost every stiver of one hundred guilders, is also wanting, and all the—hem—the recent accessions have disappeared. And there, too, are my sister's jewels, that I persuaded her to bring along, to guard against accidents while our backs are turned, they are not to be seen. François! François I Thou long-tried servitor of Etienne Barbérie, what the devil has become of thy mistress?"

"Mais, Monsieur," returned the disconsolate valet, whose decent features exhibited all the signs of unequivocal suffering, "she no tell le pauvre François! En supposant, que Monsieur ask le capitaine, he shall probablement know."

The burgher cast a quick suspicious glance at Ludlow, and shook his head, to express his belief that the young man was true.

"Go; desire Mr. Van Staats of Kinderhook to favor us with his company."

"Hold," cried Ludlow, motioning to the valet to withdraw. "Mr. Beverout, an uncle should be tender of the errors of one so dear as this cruel, unreflecting girl. You cannot think of abandoning her to so frightful a fortune!"

"I am not addicted to abandoning any thing, Sir to which my title is just and legal. But you speak in enigmas. If you are acquainted with the place where my niece is secreted, avow it frankly, and permit me to take those measures which the case requires."

Ludlow reddened to his forehead, and he struggled powerfully with his pride and his regrets.

"It is useless to attempt concealing the step which Alida Barbérie has been pleased to take," he said, a smile so bitter passing over his features, as to lend them the expression of severe mockery; "she has chosen more worthily than either of us could have believed; she has found a companion more suited to her station, her character, and her sex, than Van Staats of Kinderhook, or a poor commander of a Queen's ship!"

"Cruisers and manors! What in the name of mysteries is thy meaning? The girl is not here; you declare she is not on board of the Coquette, and there remains only——"

"The brigantine!" groaned the young sailor uttering the word by a violent effort of the will.

"The brigantine!" repeated the Alderman, slowly "My niece can have nothing to do aboard a dealer in contraband. That is to say, Alida Barbérie is not a trader."

"Alderman Van Beverout, if we wish to escape the contamination of vice, its society must be avoided. There was one in the pavilion, of a mien and assurance the past night, that might delude an angel. Ah! woman! woman! thy mind is composed of vanities, and thy imagination is thy bitterest foe!"

"Women and vanities!" echoed the amazed burgher. "My niece, the heiress of old Etienne Marie de Barbérie, and the sought of so many of honorable names and respectable professions, to be a refugee with a rover!--always supposing your opinions of the character of the brigantine to be just. This is a conjecture too improbable to be true."

"The eye of a lover, Sir, may be keener than that of a guardian—call it jealousy, if you will,—would to Heaven my suspicions were untrue!--but if she be not there, where is she?"

The opinion of the Alderman seemed staggered. If la belle Barbérie had not yielded to the fascinations of that wayward, but seductive, eye and smile, to that singular beauty of face, and to the secret and often irresistible charm that encircles eminent personal attractions, when aided by mystery, to what had she yielded, and whither had she fled?

These were reflections that now began to pass through the thoughts of the Alderman, as they had already planted stings in the bosom of Ludlow. With reflection, conviction began slowly to assert its power. But the truth did not gleam upon the mind of the calculating and wary merchant, with the same instinctive readiness that it had flashed upon the jealous faculties of the lover. He pondered on each circumstance of the interview between the dealer in contraband and his niece; recalled the manner and discourse of the former; drew certain general and vague conjectures concerning the power which novelty, when coupled with circumstances of romance, might exercise over a female fancy; and dwelt long and secretly on some important facts that were alone known to himself,—before his judgment finally settled down into the same opinion, as that which his companion had formed, with all the sensitiveness of jealous alarm.

"Women and vagaries!" muttered the burgher, after his study was ended. "Their conceits are as uncertain as the profits of a whaling voyage, or the luck of a sportsman. Captain Ludlow, your assistance will be needed in this affair; and, as it may not be too late, since there are few priests in the brigantine—always supposing her character to be what you affirm—my niece may yet see her error, and be disposed to reward so much assiduity and attachment."

"My services shall always be ready, so long as they can be useful to Alida Barbérie," returned the young officer with haste, and yet a little coldly. "It will be time enough to speak of the reward, when we shall have succeeded."

"The less noise that is made about a little domestic inconvenience like this, the better; and I would therefore suggest the propriety of keeping our suspicions of the character of the vessel a secret, until we shall be better informed."

The captain bowed his assent to the proposal.

"And now that we are of the same mind in the preliminaries, we will seek the Patroon of Kinderhook, who has a claim to participate in our confidence."

Myndert then led the way from the empty and melancholy Cour des Fées, with a step that had regained its busy and firm tread, and a countenance that expressed far more of vexation and weariness, than of real sorrow.