He tried to put the memory of Katherine away, but he could not
accomplish a miracle. The girl's face was ever before him. He felt her
caressing fingers linked in his own; and, as he walked in his house and
his garden, her small feet pattered beside him. For as there are in
creation invisible bonds that do not break like mortal bonds, so also
there are correspondences subsisting between souls, despite the
separation of distance.
"I would forget Katherine if I could," he said to Dominie Van Linden;
and the good man, bravely putting aside his private grief, took the
hands of Joris in his own, and bending toward him, answered, "That would
be a great pity. Why forget? Trust, rather, that out of sorrow God will
bring to you joy."
"Not natural is that, Dominie. How can it be? I do not understand how it
can be."
"You do not understand! Well, then, och mijn jongen, what matters
comprehension, if you have faith? Trust, now, that it is well with the
child."
But Joris believed it was ill with her; and he blamed not only himself,
but every one in connection with Katherine, for results which he was
certain might have been foreseen and prevented. Did he not foresee them?
Had he not spoken plainly enough to Hyde and to Lysbet and to the child
herself? He should have seen her to Albany, to her sister Cornelia. For
he believed now that Lysbet had not cordially disapproved of Hyde; and
as for Joanna, she had been far too much occupied with Batavius and her
own marriage to care for any other thing. And one of his great fears was
that Katherine also would forget her father and mother and home, and
become a willing alien from her own people.
He was so wrapped up in his grief, that he did not notice that Bram was
suffering also. Bram got the brunt of the world's wonderings and
inquiries. People who did not like to ask Joris questions, felt no such
delicacy with Bram. And Bram not only tenderly loved his sister: he
hated with the unreasoning passion of youth the entire English soldiery.
He made no exception now. They were the visible marks of a subjection
which he was sworn, heart and soul, to oppose. It humiliated him among
his fellows, that his sister should have fled with one of them. It gave
those who envied and disliked him an opportunity of inflicting covert
and cruel wounds. Joris could, in some degree, control himself; he could
speak of the marriage with regret, but without passion; he had even
alluded, in some cases, to Hyde's family and expectations. The majority
believed that he was secretly a little proud of the alliance. But Bram
was aflame with indignation; first, if the marriage were at all doubted;
second, if it were supposed to be a satisfactory one to any member of
the Van Heemskirk family.