Audrey Part 18

The trader, gasping with pa.s.sion, leaned across the table until his eyes were within a foot of Haward's unmoved face. "Who showed you the trail and told you of the snare?" he whispered. "Tell me that, you Englishman,--tell me that!"

"A storm bird," said Haward calmly. "Okee is perhaps angry with his Monacans, and sent it."

"Was it Audrey?"

Haward laughed. "No, it was not Audrey. And so, Monacan, you have yourself fallen into the pit which you digged."

From the fireplace came the schoolmaster's slow voice: "Dear sir, can you show the pit? Why should this youth desire to harm you? Where is the storm bird? Can you whistle it before a justice of the peace or into a court room?"

If Haward heard, it did not appear. He was leaning back in his chair, his eyes fixed upon the trader's twitching face in a cold and smiling regard.

"Well, Monacan?" he demanded.

The half-breed straightened himself, and with a mighty effort strove in vain for a composure that should match the other's cold self-command,--a command which taunted and stung now at this point, now at that. "I am a Frenchman!" he cried, in a voice that broke with pa.s.sion. "I am of the n.o.blesse of the land of France, which is a country that is much grander than Virginia! Old Pierre at Monacan-Town told me these things. My father changed his name when he came across the sea, so I bear not the _de_ which is a sign of a great man. Listen, you Englishman! I trade, I prosper, I buy me land, I begin to build me a house. There is a girl that I see every hour, every minute, while I am building it. She says she loves me not, but nevertheless I shall wed her. Now I see her in this room, now in that; she comes down the stair, she smiles at the window, she stands on the doorstep to welcome me when I come home from my hunting and trading in the woods so far away. I bring her fine skins of the otter, the beaver, and the fawn; beadwork also from the villages and bracelets of copper and pearl. The flowers bloom around her, and my heart sings to see her upon my doorstep.... The flowers are dead, and you have stolen the girl away....

There was a stream, and the sun shone upon it, and you and she were in a boat. I walked alone upon the bank, and in my heart I left building my house and fell to other work. You laughed; one day you will laugh no more.

That was many suns ago. I have watched"--

Foam was upon his lips, and he strained without ceasing at his bonds.

Already pulled far awry, his great peruke, a cataract of hair streaming over his shoulders, shading and softening the swarthy features between its curled waves, now slipped from his head and fell to the floor. The change which its absence wrought was startling. Of the man the moiety that was white disappeared. The shaven head, its poise, its features, were Indian; the soul was Indian, and looked from Indian eyes. Suddenly, for the last transforming touch, came a torrent of words in a strange tongue, the tongue of his mother. Of what he was speaking, what he was threatening, no one of them could tell; he was a savage giving voice to madness and hate.

Haward pushed back his chair from the table, and, rising, walked across the room to the window. Hugon followed him, straining at the rope about his arms and speaking thickly. His eyes were glaring, his teeth bared.

When he was so close that the Virginian could feel his hot breath, the latter turned, and uttering an oath of disgust struck the back of his hand across his lips. With the cry of an animal, Hugon, bound as he was, threw himself bodily upon his foe, who in his turn flung the trader from him with a violence that sent him reeling against the wall. Here Saunderson, a man of powerful build, seized him by the shoulders, holding him fast; MacLean, too, hurriedly crossed from the door. There was no need, for the half-breed's frenzy was spent. He stood with glittering eyes following Haward's every motion, but quite silent, his frame rigid in the overseer's grasp.

Colonel Byrd went up to Haward and spoke in a low voice: "Best send them at once to Williamsburgh."

Haward shook his head. "I cannot," he said, with a gesture of impatience.

"There is no proof."

"No proof!" exclaimed his guest sharply. "You mean"--

The other met his stare of surprise with an imperturbable countenance.

"What I say," he answered quietly. "My servants find two men lurking beside a road that I am traveling. Being somewhat over-zealous, they take them up upon suspicion of meaning mischief and bring them before me. It is all guesswork why they were at the turn of the road, and what they wanted there. There is no proof, no witness"--

"I see that there is no witness that you care to call," said the Colonel coldly.

Haward waved his hand. "There is no witness," he said, without change of tone. "And therefore, Colonel, I am about to dismiss the case."

With a slight bow to his guest he left the window, and advanced to the group in the centre of the room. "Saunderson," he said abruptly, "take these two men to the quarter and cut their bonds. Give them a start of fifty yards, then loose the dogs and hunt them from the plantation. You have men outside to help you? Very well; go! Mr. MacLean, will you see this chase fairly started?"

The Highlander, who had become very thoughtful of aspect since entering the room, and who had not shared Saunderson's start of surprise at the master's latest orders, nodded a.s.sent. Haward stood for a moment gazing steadily at Hugon, but with no notice to bestow upon the bowing schoolmaster; then walked over to the harpsichord, and, sitting down, began to play an old tune, soft and slow, with pauses between the notes.

When he came to the final chord he looked over his shoulder at the Colonel, standing before the mantel, with his eyes upon the fire. "So they have gone," he said. "Good riddance! A pretty brace of villains!"

"I should be loath to have Monsieur Jean Hugon for my enemy," said the Colonel gravely.

Haward laughed. "I was told at Williamsburgh that a party of traders go to the Southern Indians to-morrow, and he with them. Perhaps a month or two of the woods will work a cure."

He fell to playing again, a quiet, plaintive air. When it was ended, he rose and went over to the fire to keep his guest company; but finding him in a mood for silence, presently fell silent himself, and took to viewing structures of his own building in the red hollows between the logs. This mutual taciturnity lasted until the announcement of supper, and was relapsed into at intervals during the meal; but when they had returned to the drawing-room the two talked until it was late, and the fire had sunken to ash and embers. Before they parted for the night it was agreed that the master of Westover should remain with the master of Fair View for a day or so, at the end of which time the latter gentleman would accompany the former to Westover for a visit of indefinite length.

CHAPTER XVI

AUDREY AND EVELYN

Hugon went a-trading to the Southern Indians, but had lately returned to his lair at the crossroads ordinary, when, upon a sunny September morning, Audrey and Mistress Deborah, mounted upon the sorriest of Darden's sorry steeds, turned from Duke of Gloucester into Palace Street. They had parted with the minister before his favorite ordinary, and were on their way to the house where they themselves were to lodge during the three days of town life which Darden had vouchsafed to offer them.

For a month or more Virginia had been wearing black ribbons for the King, who died in June, but in the last day or so there had been a reversion to bright colors. This cheerful change had been wrought by the arrival in the York of the Fortune of Bristol, with the new governor on board. His Excellency had landed at Yorktown, and, after suitable entertainment at the hands of its citizens, had proceeded under escort to Williamsburgh.

The entry into the town was triumphal, and when, at the doorway of his Palace, the Governor turned, and addressed a pleasing oration to the people whom he was to rule in the name of the King and my Lord of Orkney, enthusiasm reached its height. At night the town was illuminated, and well-nigh all its ladies and gentlemen visited the Palace, in order to pay their duty to its latest occupant. It was a pleasure-loving people, and the arrival of a governor an occasion of which the most must be made.

Gentlemen of consideration had come in from every county, bringing with them wives and daughters. In the mild, sunshiny weather the crowded town overflowed into square and street and garden. Everywhere were bustle and gayety,--gayety none the less for the presence of thirty or more ministers of the Established Church. For Mr. Commissary Blair had convoked a meeting of the clergy for the consideration of evils affecting that body,--not, alas! from without alone. The Governor, arriving so opportunely, must, too, be addressed upon the usual subjects of presentation, induction, and all-powerful vestries. It was fitting, also, that the college of William and Mary should have its say upon the occasion, and the brightest scholar thereof was even now closeted with the Latin master. That the copy of verses giving the welcome of so many future planters, Burgesses, and members of Council would be choice in thought and elegant in expression, there could be no reasonable doubt. The Council was to give an entertainment at the Capitol; one day had been set aside for a muster of militia in the meadow beyond the college, another for a great horse-race; many small parties were arranged; and last, but not least, on the night of the day following Darden's appearance in town, his Excellency was to give a ball at the Palace. Add to all this that two notorious pirates were standing their trial before a court-martial, with every prospect of being hanged within the se'ennight; that a deputation of Nottoways and Meherrins, having business with the white fathers in Williamsburgh, were to be persuaded to dance their wildest, whoop their loudest, around a bonfire built in the market square; that at the playhouse Cato was to be given with extraordinary magnificence, and one may readily see that there might have been found, in this sunny September week, places less entertaining than Williamsburgh.

Darden's old white horse, with its double load, plodded along the street that led to the toy Palace of this toy capital. The Palace, of course, was not its riders' destination; instead, when they had crossed Nicholson Street, they drew up before a particularly small white house, so hidden away behind lilac bushes and trellised grapevines that it gave but here and there a pale hint of its existence. It was planted in the shadow of a larger building, and a path led around it to what seemed a pleasant, shady, and extensive garden.

Mistress Deborah gave a sigh of satisfaction. "Seven years come Martinmas since I last stayed overnight with Mary Stagg! And we were born in the same village, and at Bath what mighty friends we were! She was playing Dorinda,--that's in 'The Beaux' Stratagem,' Audrey,--and her dress was just an old striped Persian, vastly unbecoming. Her Ladyship's pink alamode, that Major D---- spilt a dish of chocolate over, she gave to me for carrying a note; and I gave it to Mary (she was Mary Baker then),--for I looked hideous in pink,--and she was that grateful, as well she might be! Mary, Mary!"

A slender woman, with red-brown hair and faded cheeks, came running from the house to the gate. "At last, my dear Deborah! I vow I had given you up! Says I to Mirabell an hour ago,--you know that is my name for Charles, for 'twas when he played Mirabell to my Millamant that we fell in love,--'Well,' says I, 'I'll lay a gold-furbelowed scarf to a yard of oznaburg that Mr. Darden, riding home through the night, and in liquor, perhaps, has fallen and broken his neck, and Deborah can't come.' And says Mirabell--But la, my dear, there you stand in your safeguard, and I'm keeping the gate shut on you! Come in. Come in, Audrey. Why, you've grown to be a woman! You were just a brown slip of a thing, that Lady Day, two years ago, that I spent with Deborah. Come in the both of you. There are cakes and a bottle of Madeira."

Audrey fastened the horse against the time that Darden should remember to send for it, and then followed the ex-waiting-woman and the former queen of a company of strollers up a gra.s.sy path and through a little green door into a pleasant room, where grape leaves wreathed the windows and cast their shadows upon a sanded floor. At one end of the room stood a great, rudely built cabinet, and before it a long table, strewn with an orderly litter of such slender articles of apparel as silk and tissue scarfs, gauze hoods, breast knots, silk stockings, and embroidered gloves.

Mistress Deborah must needs run and examine these at once, and Mistress Mary Stagg, wife of the lessee, manager, and princ.i.p.al actor of the Williamsburgh theatre, looked complacently over her shoulder. The minister's wife sighed again, this time with envy.

"What with the theatre, and the bowling green, and tea in your summer-house, and dancing lessons, and the sale of these fine things, you and Charles must turn a pretty penny! The luck that some folk have! _You_ were always fortunate, Mary."

Mistress Stagg did not deny the imputation. But she was a kindly soul, who had not forgotten the gift of my Lady Squander's pink alamode. The chocolate stain had not been so very large.

"I've laid by a pretty piece of sarcenet of which to make you a capuchin,"

she said promptly. "Now, here's the wine. Shan't we go into the garden, and sip it there? Peggy," to the black girl holding a salver, "put the cake and wine on the table in the arbor; then sit here by the window, and call me if any come. My dear Deborah, I doubt if I have so much as a ribbon left by the end of the week. The town is that gay! I says to Mirabell this morning, says I, 'Lord, my dear, it a'most puts me in mind of Bath!' And Mirabell says--But here's the garden door. Now, isn't it cool and pleasant out here? Audrey may gather us some grapes. Yes, they're very fine, full bunches; it has been a bounteous year."

The grape arbor hugged the house, but beyond it was a pretty, shady, fancifully laid out garden, with sh.e.l.l-bordered walks, a grotto, a summer-house, and a gate opening into Nicholson Street. Beyond the garden a glimpse was to be caught through the trees of a trim bowling green. It had rained the night before, and a delightful, almost vernal freshness breathed in the air. The bees made a great buzzing amongst the grapes, and the birds in the mulberry-trees sang as though it were nesting time.

Mistress Stagg and her old acquaintance sat at a table placed in the shadow of the vines, and sipped their wine, while Audrey obediently gathered cl.u.s.ters of the purple fruit, and thought the garden very fine, but oh, not like--There could be no garden in the world so beautiful and so dear as that! And she had not seen it for so long, so long a time. She wondered if she would ever see it again.

When she brought the fruit to the table, Mistress Stagg made room for her kindly enough; and she sat and drank her wine and went to her world of dreams, while her companions bartered town and country gossip. It has been said that the small white house adjoined a larger building. A window in this structure, which had much the appearance of a barn, was now opened, with the result that a confused sound, as of several people speaking at once, made itself heard. Suddenly the noise gave place to a single high-pitched voice:--

"'Welcome, my son! Here lay him down, my friends, Full in my sight, that I may view at leisure The b.l.o.o.d.y corse, and count those glorious wounds.'"

A smile irradiated Mistress Stagg's faded countenance, and she blew a kiss toward the open window. "He does Cato so extremely well; and it's a grave, dull, odd character, too. But Mirabell--that's Charles, you know--manages to put a little life in it, a _Je ne sais quoi_, a touch of Sir Harry Wildair. Now--now he's pulling out his laced handkerchief to weep over Rome! You should see him after he has fallen on his sword, and is brought on in a chair, all over blood. This is the third rehearsal; the play's ordered for Monday night. Who is it, Peggy? Madam Travis! It's about the lace for her damask petticoat, and there's no telling how long she may keep me! My dear Deborah, when you have finished your wine, Peggy shall show you your room. You must make yourself quite at home. For says I to Mirabell this morning, 'Far be it from me to forget past kindnesses, and in those old Bath days Deborah was a good friend to me,--which was no wonder, to be sure, seeing that when we were little girls we went to the same dame school, and always learned our book and worked our samplers together.' And says Mirabell--Yes, yes, ma'am, I'm coming!"

She disappeared, and the black girl showed the two guests through the hall and up a tiny stairway into a little dormer-windowed, whitewashed room.

Mistress Deborah, who still wore remnants of my Lady Squander's ancient gifts of spoiled finery, had likewise failed to discard the second-hand fine-lady airs acquired during her service. She now declared herself excessively tired by her morning ride, and martyr, besides, to a migraine.

Moreover, it was enough to give one the spleen to hear Mary Stagg's magpie chatter and to see how some folk throve, w.i.l.l.y-nilly, while others just as good--Here tears of vexation ensued, and she must lie down upon the bed and call in a feeble voice for her smelling salts. Audrey hurriedly searched in the ragged portmanteau brought to town the day before in the ox-cart of an obliging parishioner, found the flask, and took it to the bedside, to receive in exchange a sound box of the ear for her tardiness.

The blow reddened her cheek, but brought no tears to her eyes. It was too small a thing to weep for; tears were for blows upon the heart.

It was a cool and quiet little room, and Mistress Deborah, who had drunk two full gla.s.ses of the Madeira, presently fell asleep. Audrey sat very still, her hands folded in her lap and her eyes upon them, until their hostess's voice announced from the foot of the stairs that Madam Travis had taken her departure. She then slipped from the room, and was affably received below, and taken into the apartment which they had first entered.

Here Mistress became at once extremely busy. A fan was to be mounted; yards of silk gathered into furbelows; breast knots, shoulder knots, sword knots, to be made up. Her customers were all people of quality, and unless she did her part not one of them could go to the ball. Audrey shyly proffered her aid, and was set to changing the ribbons upon a mask.

Mistress Stagg's tongue went as fast as her needle: "And Deborah is asleep! Poor soul! she's sadly changed from what she was in old England thirteen years ago. As neat a shape as you would see in a day's journey, with the prettiest color, and eyes as bright as those marcasite b.u.t.tons!

And she saw the best of company at my Lady Squander's,--no lack there of kisses and guineas and fine gentlemen, you may be sure! There's a deal of change in this mortal world, and it's generally for the worse. Here, child, you may whip this lace on Mr. Lightfoot's ruffles. I think myself lucky, I can tell you, that there are so few women in Cato. If 'tweren't so, I should have to go on myself; for since poor, dear, pretty Jane Day died of the smallpox, and Oriana Jordan ran away with the rascally Bridewell fellow that we bought to play husbands' parts, and was never heard of more, but is supposed to have gotten clean off to Barbadoes by favor of the master of the Lady Susan, we have been short of actresses.

But in this play there are only Marcia and Lucia. 'It is extremely fortunate, my dear,' said I to Mirabell this very morning, 'that in this play, which is the proper compliment to a great gentleman just taking office, Mr. Addison should have put no more than two women.' And Mirabell says--Don't put the lace so full, child; 'twon't go round."

"A chair is stopping at the gate," said Audrey, who sat by the window.