Part 14 (1/2)
She bowed and at first did not speak; then Morris came to say that some one awaited the governor, and the two were left alone.
”I have not forgotten,” she began softly, breaking a silence.
”You will think me bold, but I believe you will never forget,” was his meaning reply.
”Yes, you are bold,” she replied, with the demure smile which had charmed him long ago. Suddenly she looked up at him anxiously, and, ”Why did you go to Hudson's Bay?” she asked.
”I would have gone ten times as far for the same cause,” he answered, and he looked boldly, earnestly, into her eyes.
She turned her head away. ”You have all your old recklessness,” she answered. Then her eyes softened, and, ”All your old courage,” she added.
”I have all my old motive.”
”What is-your motive?”
Does a woman ever know how much such speeches cost? Did Jessica quite know when she asked the question, what her own motive was; how much it had of delicate malice--unless there was behind it a simple sincerity?
She was inviting sorrow. A man like Iberville was not to be counted lightly; for every word he sowed, he would reap a harvest of some kind.
He came close to her, and looked as though he would read her through and through. ”Can you ask that question?” he said most seriously. ”If you ask it because from your soul you wish to know, good! But if you ask it as a woman who would read a man's heart, and then--”
”Oh, hus.h.!.+--hus.h.!.+” she whispered. Her face became pale, and her eyes had a painful brightness. ”You must not answer. I had no right to ask. Oh, monsieur!” she added, ”I would have you always for my friend if I could, though you are the enemy of my country and of the man--I am to marry.”
”I am for my king,” he replied; ”and I am enemy of him who stands between you and me. For see: from the hour that I met you I knew that some day, even as now, I should tell you that--I love you--indeed, Jessica, with all my heart.”
”Oh, have pity!” she pleaded. ”I cannot listen--I cannot.”
”You shall listen, for you have remembered me and have understood.
Voila!” he added, hastily catching her silver buckle from his bosom.
”This that you sent me, look where I have kept it--on my heart!”
She drew back from him, her face in her hands. Then suddenly she put them out as though to prevent him coming near her, and said:
”Oh, no--no! You will spare me; I am an affianced wife.” An appealing smile shone through her tears. ”Oh, will you not go?” she begged. ”Or, will you not stay and forget what you have said? We are little more than strangers; I scarcely know you; I--”
”We are no strangers,” he broke in. ”How can that be, when for years I have thought of you--you of me? But I am content to wait, for my love shall win you yet. You--”
She came to him and put her hands upon his arm. ”You remember,” she said, with a touch of her old gaiety, and with an inimitable grace, ”what good friends we were that first day we met? Let us be the same now--for this time at least. Will you not grant me this for to-day?”
”And to-morrow?” he asked, inwardly determining to stay in the port of New York and to carry her off as his wife; but, unlike Bucklaw, with her consent.
At that moment the governor returned, and Iberville's question was never answered. Nor did he dine at Government House, for word came secretly that English s.h.i.+ps were coming from Boston to capture him. He had, therefore, no other resource but to sail out and push on for Quebec.
He would not peril the lives of his men merely to follow his will with Jessica.
What might have occurred had he stayed is not easy to say--fortunes turn on strange trifles. The girl, under the influence of his masterful spirit and the rare charm of his manner, might have--as many another has--broken her troth. As it was, she wrote Iberville a letter and sent it by a courier, who never delivered it. By the same fatality, of the letters which he wrote her only one was received. This told her that when he returned from a certain cruise he would visit her again, for he was such an enemy to her country that he was keen to win what did it most honour. Gering had pressed for a marriage before he sailed for the Spaniards' country, but she had said no, and when he urged it she had shown a sudden coldness. Therefore, bidding her good-bye, he had sailed away with Phips, accompanied, much against his will, by Radisson.
Bucklaw was not with them. He had set sail from England in a trading schooner, and was to join Phips at Port de la Planta. Gering did not know that Bucklaw had share in the expedition, nor did Bucklaw guess the like of Gering.
Within two weeks of the time that Phips in his Bridgwater Merchant, manned by a full crew, twenty fighting men, and twelve guns, with Gering in command of the Swallow, a smaller s.h.i.+p, got away to the south, Iberville also sailed in the same direction. He had found awaiting him, on his return to Quebec, a priest bearing messages and a chart from another priest who had died in the Spaniards' country.