For all that, Michelle warned Papa Louis not to let monsieur escape without being sure of his destination, and to be careful that he did not at once join the French to discover to them something which might be detrimental to the colony. But François either suspected or else had his own reasons for slipping away quietly, for one night, after making something of a display of his plans for leaving the next day, he went out, ostensibly to see one of the neighbors, and did not return. Just when and how he left the village no one seemed to know.
CHAPTER X
ON SHIPBOARD
As the weeks passed Alaine counted them, and as to one month was added two, three, and at last six months had gone by, she began to watch and listen and hope for a word from Pierre. If he had succeeded, at any day now she might hope to see her father. She resolutely determined to put from her all thought of Lendert Verplanck, for not a word nor sign had come from him. “He loved me and left me,” she sighed. “It will be hard to forget, but he marries that other whom his mother has chosen, and for me, I marry Pierre, God willing.”
More than once Mère Michelle brought up her darling project. “There is no reason, Alaine, why you and Gerard should not marry, or at least be acknowledged fiancée,” she would say.
“But the spring will soon be here, and we shall all be busy.”
“That evil wolf may return, and finding you still unmarried, will seek to devour you. Pierre has left to seek his fortune elsewhere,—see Mathilde deserted,—and if Gerard in the heat of his youth should become fretful of the quiet life here, he might do the same; but with a wife and home interests he would be so bound by silken chains that he would not desire to leave us.”
“Ah, but, maman, these are uncertain times; look how the colony is rent by strife; and suppose the Jacobites once more rise into power, we might again find it necessary to take flight, and what then? No, no, neither Gerard nor I wish to leave you, and on that score you need have no fear. When this question of government and war is settled it will be time enough to think of marriage.” And Michelle, for the time being, would be silenced.
The destruction of Schenectady by the French and Indians, the arrival of Frontenac as governor of Canada, and the alarming prospect suggested absorbed the attention of even those in the little French settlement of New Rochelle. These who threatened them were their own countrymen, and to them this was civil war, yet they believed in Jacob Leisler. Had he not conveyed these lands to them, and was he not the friend of the people? And did not this Frontenac come armed with terrible orders? It would require one of whose religious beliefs there could be no doubt to be leader for those who shuddered at a possibility of a return of the persecutions from which they had fled.
“Alas! Alas!” cried Michelle, striking her hands together, when Papa Louis, with a grave face, told her of the disputes among the different factions. “It is from bad to worse. Be content to remain at home, Louis, and mix not up with affairs of government. Your head may yet be placed on a pike, and how will you be better off than in that France from which you have escaped? Till your fields, say your prayers, and keep out of this.”
Papa Louis decided to follow this advice, and, in spite of the ferment in the city, affairs went on quietly enough at home while summer came and went.