Audrey Part 17

Audrey left her warning to be spoken by MacLean. She was at peace, her head against Mirza's neck, her eyes upon Haward's face, clear in the flashing lightning. That gentleman heard the story with his usual calmness; his companion first swore, and then laughed.

[Ill.u.s.tration: AUDREY LEFT HER WARNING TO BE SPOKEN BY MACLEAN]

"Here's a Canterbury tale!" he cried. "Egad, Haward, are we to take this skipping rope, vault it as though we were courtiers of Lilliput? Neither of us is armed. I conceive that the longest way around will prove our shortest way home."

"My dear Colonel, I want to speak with these two gentlemen."

"But at your leisure, my friend, at your leisure, and not in dying tones!

I like not what I hear of Monsieur Jean Hugon's pistols. Flank an ambush; don't ride into it open-eyed."

"Colonel Byrd is right," said the storekeeper earnestly. "Ride back, the two of you, and take the bridle path that will carry you to Fair View by way of the upper bridge. In the mean time, I will run through the woods to Mr. Taberer's house, cross there, hurry to the quarters, rouse the overseer, and with a man or two we will recross the creek by the lower bridge, and coming upon these rogues unawares, give them a taste of their own medicine! We'll hale them to the great house; you shall have speech of them in your own hall."

Neither of the riders being able to suggest a better plan, the storekeeper, with a wave of his hand, plunged into the forest, and was soon lost to view amidst its serried trunks and waving branches. Haward stooped from his saddle; Audrey set her bare foot upon his booted one, and he swung her up behind him. "Put thine arm around me, child," he told her.

"We will ride swiftly through the storm. Now, Colonel, to turn our backs upon the enemy!"

The lightning was about them, and they raced to the booming of the thunder. Heavy raindrops began to fall, and the wind was a power to drive the riders on. Its voice shrilled above the diapason of the thunder; the forest swung to its long cry. When the horses turned from the wide into the narrow road, they could no longer go abreast. Mirza took the lead, and the bay fell a length behind. The branches now hid the sky; between the flashes there was Stygian gloom, but when the lightning came it showed far aisles of the forest. There was the smell of rain upon dusty earth, there was the wine of coolness after heat, there was the sense of being borne upon the wind, there was the leaping of life within the veins to meet the awakened life without. Audrey closed her eyes, and wished to ride thus forever. Haward, too, traveling fast through mist and rain a road whose end was hidden, facing the wet wind, hearing the voices of earth and sky, felt his spirit mount with the mounting voices. So to ride with Love to doom! On, and on, and on! Left behind the sophist, the apologist, the lover of the world with his tinsel that was not gold, his pebbles that were not gems! Only the man thundering on,--the man and his mate that was meant for him since time began! He raised his face to the strife above, he drew his breath, his hand closed over the hand of the woman riding with him. At the touch a thrill ran through them both; had the lightning with a sword of flame cut the world from beneath their feet, they had pa.s.sed on, immortal in their happiness. But the bolts struck aimlessly, and the moment fled. Haward was Haward again; he recognized his old acquaintance with a half-humorous, half-disdainful smile. The road was no longer a road that gleamed athwart all time and s.p.a.ce; the wind had lost its trumpet tone; Love spoke not in the thunder, nor seemed so high a thing as the lit heaven. Audrey's hand was yet within his clasp; but it was flesh and blood that he touched, not spirit, and he was glad that it was so. For her, her cheek burned, and she hid her eyes. She had looked unawares, as by the lightning glare, into a world of which she had not dreamed. Its portals had shut; she rode on in the twilight again, and she could not clearly remember what she had seen. But she was sure that the air of that country was sweet, she was faint with its beauty, her heart beat with violence to its far echoes. Moreover, she was dimly aware that in the moment when she had looked there had been a baptism. She had thought of herself as a child, as a girl; now and for evermore she was a woman.

They left the forest behind, and came to open fields where the tobacco had been beaten to earth. The trees now stood singly or in shivering copses.

Above, the heavens were bare to their gaze, and the lightning gave glimpses of pale castles overhanging steel-gray, fathomless abysses. The road widened, and the bay was pushed by its rider to Mirza's side. Fields of corn where the long blades wildly clashed, a wood of dripping cedars, a patch of Oronoko, tobacco house in midst, rising ground and a vision of the river, then a swift descent to the lower creek, and the bridge across which lay the road that ran to the minister's house. Audrey spoke earnestly to the master of Fair View, and after a moment's hesitation he drew rein. "We will not cross, Colonel," he declared. "My preserver will have it that she has troubled us long enough; and indeed it is no great distance to the glebe house, and the rain has stopped. Have down with thee, then, obstinate one!"

Audrey slipped to the earth, and pushed back her hair from her eyes.

Colonel Byrd observed her curiously. "Faith," he exclaimed, "'tis the Atalanta of last May Day! Well, child, I believe thou hast saved our lives. Come, here are three gold baubles that may pa.s.s for Hippomenes'

apples!"

Audrey put her hands behind her. "I want no money, sir. What I did was a gift; it has no price." She was only Darden's Audrey, but she spoke as proudly as a princess might have spoken. Haward smiled to hear her; and seeing the smile, she was comforted. "For he understands," she said to herself. "He would never hurt me so." It did not wound her that he said no word, but only lifted his hat, when she curtsied to them both. There was to-morrow, and he would praise her then for her quickness of wit and her courage in following Hugon, whom she feared so much.

The riders watched her cross the bridge and turn into the road that led to the glebe house, then kept their own road in silence until it brought them to the doors of Fair View.

It was an hour later, and drawing toward dusk, when the Colonel, having changed his wet riding clothes for a suit of his friend's, came down the stairs and entered the Fair View drawing-room. Haward, in green, with rich lace at throat and wrist, was there before him, walking up and down in the cheerful light of a fire kindled against the dampness. "No sign of our men," he said, as the other entered. "Come to the fire. Faith, Colonel, my russet and gold becomes you mightily! Juba took you the aqua vitae?"

"Ay, in one of your great silver goblets, with a forest of mint atop. Ha, this is comfort!" He sank into an armchair, stretched his legs before the blaze, and began to look about him. "I have ever said, Haward, that of all the gentlemen of my acquaintance you have the most exact taste. I told Bubb Dodington as much, last year, at Eastbury. Damask, mirrors, paintings, china, cabinets,--all chaste and quiet, extremely elegant, but without ostentation! It hath an air, too. I would swear a woman had the placing of yonder painted jars!"

"You are right," said Haward, smiling. "The wife of the minister of this parish was good enough to come to my a.s.sistance."

"Ah!" said the Colonel dryly. "Did Atalanta come as well? She is his reverence's servant, is she not?"

"No," answered Haward shortly to the last question, and, leaning across, stirred the fire.

The light caused to sparkle a jeweled pin worn in the lace of his ruffles, and the toy caught the Colonel's eye. "One of Spotswood's golden horseshoes!" he exclaimed. "I had them wrought for him in London. Had they been so many stars and garters, he could have made no greater pother! 'Tis ten years since I saw one."

Haward detached the horseshoe-shaped bauble from the lace, and laid it on the other's palm. The master of Westover regarded it curiously, and read aloud the motto engraved upon its back: "'Sic Juvat Transcendere Montes.'

A barren exploit! But some day I too shall please myself and cross these sun-kissing hills. And so the maid with the eyes is not his reverence's servant? What is she?"

Haward took the golden horseshoe in his own hand, and fell to studying it in the firelight. "I wore this to-night," he said at length, with deliberation, "in order that it might bring to your mind that sprightly ultramontane expedition in which, my dear Colonel, had you not been in England, you had undoubtedly borne a part. You have asked me a question; I will answer it with a story, and so the time may pa.s.s more rapidly until the arrival of Mr. MacLean with our friends who set traps." He turned the mimic horseshoe this way and that, watching the small gems, that simulated nails, flash in the red light. "Some days to the west of Germanna," he said, "when about us were the lesser mountains, and before us those that propped the sky, we came one sunny noon upon a valley, a little valley, very peaceful below the heights. A stream shone through it, and there were n.o.ble trees, and beside the stream the cabin of a frontiersman."

On went the story. The fire crackled, reflecting itself in mirrors and polished wood and many small window panes. Outside, the rain had ceased, but the wind and the river murmured loudly, and the shadows of the night were gathering. When the narrative was ended, he who had spoken and he who had listened sat staring at the fire. "A pretty story!" said the Colonel at last. "d.i.c.k Steele should have had it; 'twould have looked vastly well over against his Inkle and Yarico. There the maid the savior, here the man; there perfidy, here plain honesty; there for the woman a fate most tragical, here"--

"Here?" said Haward, as the other paused.

The master of Westover took out his snuffbox. "And here the continued kindness of a young and handsome preserver," he said suavely, and extended the box to his host.

"You are mistaken," said Haward. He rose, and stood leaning against the mantel, his eyes upon the older man's somewhat coldly smiling countenance. "She is as innocent, as high of soul, and as pure of heart as--as Evelyn."

The Colonel clicked to the lid of his box. "You will be so good as to leave my daughter's name out of the conversation."

"As you please," Haward answered, with hauteur.

Another silence, broken by the guest. "Why did you hang that kit-kat of yourself behind the door, Haward?" he asked amiably. "'Tis too fine a piece to be lost in shadow. I would advise a change with yonder shepherdess."

"I do not know why," said Haward restlessly. "A whim. Perhaps by nature I court shadows and dark corners."

"That is not so," Byrd replied quietly. He had turned in his chair, the better to observe the distant portrait that was now lightened, now darkened, as the flames rose and fell. "A speaking likeness," he went on, glancing from it to the original and back again. "I ever thought it one of Kneller's best. The portrait of a gentleman. Only--you have noticed, I dare say, how in the firelight familiar objects change aspect many times?--only just now it seemed to me that it lost that distinction"--

"Well?" said Haward, as he paused.

The Colonel went on slowly: "Lost that distinction, and became the portrait of"--

"Well? Of whom?" asked Haward, and, with his eyes shaded by his hand, gazed not at the portrait, but at the connoisseur in gold and russet.

"Of a dirty tradesman," said the master of Westover lightly. "In a word, of an own brother to Mr. Thomas Inkle."

A dead silence; then Haward spoke calmly: "I will not take offense, Colonel Byrd. Perhaps I should not take it even were it not as my guest and in my drawing-room that you have so spoken. We will, if you please, consign my portrait to the obscurity from which it has been dragged. In good time here comes Juba to light the candles and set the shadows fleeing."

Leaving the fire he moved to a window, and stood looking out upon the windy twilight. From the back of the house came a sound of voices and of footsteps. The Colonel put up his snuffbox and brushed a grain from his ruffles. "Enter two murderers!" he said briskly. "Will you have them here, Haward, or shall we go into the hall?"

"Light all the candles, Juba," ordered the master. "Here, I think, Colonel, where the stage will set them off. Juba, go ask Mr. MacLean and Saunderson to bring their prisoners here."

As he spoke, he turned from the contemplation of the night without to the brightly lit room. "This is a murderous fellow, this Hugon," he said, as he took his seat in a great chair drawn before a table. "I have heard Colonel Byrd argue in favor of imitating John Rolfe's early experiment, and marrying the white man to the heathen. We are about to behold the result of such an union."

"I would not have the practice universal," said the Colonel coolly, "but 'twould go far toward remedying loss of scalps in this world, and of infidel souls hereafter. Your sprightly lover is a most prevailing missionary. But here is our Huguenot-Monacan."

MacLean, very wet and muddy, with one hand wrapped in a blood-stained rag, came in first. "We found them hidden in the bushes at the turn of the road," he said hastily. "The schoolmaster was more peaceably inclined than any Quaker, but Hugon fought like the wolf that he is. Can't you hang him out of hand, Haward? Give me a land where the chief does justice while the king looks the other way!" He turned and beckoned. "Bring them in, Saunderson."

There was no discomposure in the schoolmaster's dress, and as little in his face or manner. He bowed to the two gentlemen, then shambled across to the fire, and as best he could held out his bound hands to the grateful blaze. "May I ask, sir," he said, in his lifeless voice, "why it is that this youth and I, resting in all peace and quietness beside a public road, should be set upon by your servants, overpowered, bound, and haled to your house as to a judgment bar?"

Haward, to whom this speech was addressed, gave it no attention. His gaze was upon Hugon, who in his turn glared at him alone. Haward had a subtle power of forcing and fixing the attention of a company; in crowded rooms, without undue utterance or moving from his place, he was apt to achieve the centre of the stage, the head of the table. Now, the half-breed, by very virtue of the pa.s.sion which, false to his Indian blood, shook him like a leaf, of a rage which overmastered and transformed, reached at a bound the Englishman's plane of distinction. His great wig, of a fashion years gone by, was pulled grotesquely aside, showing the high forehead and shaven crown beneath; his laced coat and tawdry waistcoat and ruffled shirt were torn and foul with mud and mould, but the man himself made to be forgotten the absurdity of his trappings. Gone, for him, were his captors, his accomplice, the spectator in gold and russet; to Haward, also, sitting very cold, very quiet, with narrowed eyes, they were gone.

He was angered, and in the mood to give rein after his own fashion to that anger. MacLean and the master of Westover, the overseer and the schoolmaster, were forgotten, and he and Hugon met alone as they might have met in the forest. Between them, and without a spoken word, the two made this fact to be recognized by the other occupants of the drawing-room. Colonel Byrd, who had been standing with his hand upon the table, moved backward until he joined MacLean beside the closed door: Saunderson drew near to the schoolmaster: and the centre of the room was left to the would-be murderer and the victim that had escaped him.

"Monsieur le Monacan," said Haward.

Hugon snarled like an angry wolf, and strained at the rope which bound his arms.

Haward went on evenly: "Your tribe has smoked the peace pipe with the white man. I was not told it by singing birds, but by the great white father at Williamsburgh. They buried the hatchet very deep; the dead leaves of many moons of Cohonks lie thick upon the place where they buried it. Why have you made a warpath, treading it alone of your color?"

"Diable!" cried Hugon. "Pig of an Englishman! I will kill you for"--

"For an handful of blue beads," said Haward, with a cold smile. "And I, dog of an Indian! I will send a Nottoway to teach the Monacans how to lay a snare and hide a trail."