Audrey Part 19

"There's a lady in it."

The chair was a very fine painted one, borne by two gayly dressed negroes, and escorted by a trio of beribboned young gentlemen, prodigal of gallant speeches, amorous sighs, and languishing glances. Mistress Stagg looked, started up, and, without waiting to raise from the floor the armful of delicate silk which she had dropped, was presently curtsying upon the doorstep.

The bearers set down their load. One of the gentlemen opened the chair door with a flourish, and the divinity, compressing her hoop, descended. A second cavalier flung back Mistress Stagg's gate, and the third, with a low bow, proffered his hand to conduct the fair from the gate to the doorstep. The lady shook her head; a smiling word or two, a slight curtsy, the wave of a painted fan, and her attendants found themselves dismissed.

She came up the path alone, slowly, with her head a little bent. Audrey, watching her from the window, knew who she was, and her heart beat fast.

If this lady were in town, then so was he; he would not have stayed behind at Westover. She would have left the room, but there was not time. The mistress of the house, smiling and obsequious, fluttered in, and Evelyn Byrd followed.

There had been ordered for her a hood of golden tissue, with wide and long streamers to be tied beneath the chin, and she was come to try it on.

Mistress Stagg had it all but ready,--there was only the least bit of st.i.tchery; would Mistress Evelyn condescend to wait a very few minutes?

She placed a chair, and the lady sank into it, finding the quiet of the shadowed room pleasant enough after the sunlight and talkativeness of the world without. Mistress Stagg, in her role of milliner, took the gauzy trifle, called by courtesy a hood, to the farthest window, and fell busily to work.

It seemed to grow more and more quiet in the room: the shadow of the leaves lay still upon the floor; the drowsy humming of the bees outside the windows, the sound of locusts in the trees, the distant noises of the town,--all grew more remote, then suddenly appeared to cease.

Audrey raised her eyes, and met the eyes of Evelyn. She knew that they had been upon her for a long time, in the quiet of the room. She had sat breathless, her head bowed over her work that lay idly in her lap, but at last she must look. The two gazed at each other with a sorrowful steadfastness; in the largeness of their several natures there was no room for self-consciousness; it was the soul of each that gazed. But in the mists of earthly ignorance they could not read what was written, and they erred in their guessing. Audrey went not far wide. This was the princess, and, out of the fullness of a heart that ached with loss, she could have knelt and kissed the hem of her robe, and wished her long and happy life.

There was no bitterness in her heart; she never dreamed that she had wronged the princess. But Evelyn thought: "This is the girl they talk about. G.o.d knows, if he had loved worthily, I might not so much have minded!"

From the garden came a burst of laughter and high voices. Mistress Stagg started up. "'Tis our people, Mistress Evelyn, coming from the playhouse.

We lodge them in the house by the bowling green, but after rehearsals they're apt to stop here. I'll send them packing. The hood is finished.

Audrey will set it upon your head, ma'am, while I am gone. Here, child!

Mind you don't crush it." She gave the hood into Audrey's hands, and hurried from the room.

Evelyn sat motionless, her silken draperies flowing around her, one white arm bent, the soft curve of her cheek resting upon ringed fingers. Her eyes yet dwelt upon Audrey, standing as motionless, the mist of gauze and lace in her hands. "Do not trouble yourself," she said, in her low, clear voice. "I will wait until Mistress Stagg returns."

The tone was very cold, but Audrey scarce noticed that it was so. "If I may, I should like to serve you, ma'am," she said pleadingly. "I will be very careful."

Leaving the window, she came and knelt beside Evelyn; but when she would have put the golden hood upon her head, the other drew back with a gesture of aversion, a quick recoil of her entire frame. The hood slipped to the floor. After a moment Audrey rose and stepped back a pace or two. Neither spoke, but it was the one who thought no evil whose eyes first sought the floor. Her dark cheek paled, and her lips trembled; she turned, and going back to her seat by the window took up her fallen work. Evelyn, with a sharp catch of her breath, withdrew her attention from the other occupant of the room, and fixed it upon a moted sunbeam lying like a bar between the two.

Mistress Stagg returned. The hood was fitted, and its purchaser prepared to leave. Audrey rose and made her curtsy, timidly, but with a quick, appealing motion of her hand. Was not this the lady whom he loved, that people said he was to wed? And had he not told her, long ago, that he would speak of her to Mistress Evelyn Byrd, and that she too would be her friend? Last May Day, when the guinea was put into her hand, the lady's smile was bright, her voice sweet and friendly. Now, how changed! In her craving for a word, a look, from one so near him, one that perhaps had seen him not an hour before; in her sad homage for the object of his love, she forgot her late repulse, and grew bold. When Evelyn would have pa.s.sed her, she put forth a trembling hand and began to speak, to say she scarce knew what; but the words died in her throat. For a moment Evelyn stood, her head averted, an angry red staining neck and bosom and beautiful, down-bent face. Her eyes half closed, the long lashes quivering against her cheek, and she smiled faintly, in scorn of the girl and scorn of herself. Then, freeing her skirt from Audrey's clasp, she pa.s.sed in silence from the room.

Audrey stood at the window, and with wide, pained eyes watched her go down the path. Mistress Stagg was with her, talking volubly, and Evelyn seemed to listen with smiling patience. One of the bedizened negroes opened the chair door; the lady entered, and was borne away. Before Mistress Stagg could reenter her house Audrey had gone quietly up the winding stair to the little whitewashed room, where she found the minister's wife astir and restored to good humor. Her sleep had helped her; she would go down at once and see what Mary was at. Darden, too, was coming as soon as the meeting at the church had adjourned. After dinner they would walk out and see the town, until which time Audrey might do as she pleased. When she was gone, Audrey softly shut herself in the little room, and lay down upon the bed, very still, with her face hidden in her arm.

With twelve of the clock came Darden, quite sober, distrait in manner and uneasy of eye, and presently interrupted Mistress Stagg's flow of conversation by a demand to speak with his wife alone. At that time of day the garden was a solitude, and thither the two repaired, taking their seats upon a bench built round a mulberry-tree.

"Well?" queried Mistress Deborah bitterly. "I suppose Mr. Commissary showed himself vastly civil? I dare say you're to preach before the Governor next Sunday? Or maybe they've chosen Bailey? He boasts that he can drink you under the table! One of these fine days you'll drink and curse and game yourself out of a parish!"

Darden drew figures on the ground with his heavy stick. "On such a fine day as this," he said, in a suppressed voice, and looked askance at the wife whom he beat upon occasion, but whose counsel he held in respect.

She turned upon him. "What do you mean? They talk and talk, and cry shame,--and a shame it is, the Lord knows! But it never comes to anything"--

"It has come to this," interrupted Darden, with an oath: "that this Governor means to sweep in the corners; that the Commissary--d.a.m.ned Scot!--to-day appointed a committee to inquire into the charges made against me and Bailey and John Worden; that seven of my vestrymen are dead against me; and that 'deprivation' has suddenly become a very common word!"

"Seven of the vestry?" said his wife, after a pause. "Who are they?"

Darden told her.

"If Mr. Haward"--she began slowly, her green eyes steady upon the situation. "There's not one of that seven would care to disoblige him. I warrant you he could make them face about. They say he knew the Governor in England, too; and there's his late gift to the college,--the Commissary wouldn't forget that. If Mr. Haward would"--She broke off, and with knit brows studied the problem more intently.

"If he would, he could," Darden finished for her. "With his interest this cloud would go by, as others have done before. I know that, Deborah. And that's the card I'm going to play."

"If you had gone to him, hat in hand, a month ago, he'd have done you any favor," said his helpmate sourly. "But it is different now. He's over his fancy; and besides, he's at Westover."

"He's in Williamsburgh, at Marot's ordinary," said the other. "As for his being over his fancy,--I'll try that. Fancy or no fancy, if a woman asked him for a fairing, he would give it her, or I don't know my gentleman.

We'll call his interest a ribbon or some such toy, and Audrey shall ask him for it."

"Audrey is a fool!" cried Mistress Deborah. "And you had best be careful, or you'll prove yourself another! There's been talk enough already.

Audrey, village innocent that she is, is the only one that doesn't know it. The town's not the country; if he sets tongues a-clacking here"--

"He won't," said Darden roughly. "He's no hare-brained one-and-twenty! And Audrey's a good girl. Go send her here, Deborah. Bid her fetch me Stagg's inkhorn and a pen and a sheet of paper. If he does anything for me, it will have to be done quickly. They're in haste to pull me out of saddle, the d.a.m.ned canting pack! But I'll try conclusions with them!"

His wife departed, muttering to herself, and the reverend Gideon pulled out of his capacious pocket a flask of usquebaugh. In five minutes from the time of his setting it to his lips the light in which he viewed the situation turned from gray to rose color. By the time he espied Audrey coming toward him through the garden he felt a moral certainty that when he came to die (if ever he died) it would be in his bed in the Fair View glebe house.

CHAPTER XVII

WITHIN THE PLAYHOUSE

Haward, sitting at the table in Marot's best room, wrote an answer to Audrey's letter, and tore it up; wrote another, and gave it to Juba, to be given to the messenger waiting below; recalled the negro before he could reach the door, destroyed the second note, and wrote a third. The first had been wise and kind, telling her that he was much engaged, lightly and skillfully waving aside her request--the only one she made--that she might see him that day. The second had been less wise. The last told her that he would come at five o'clock to the summer-house in Mistress Stagg's garden.

When he was alone in the room, he sat for some time very still, with his eyes closed and his head thrown back against the tall woodwork of his chair. His face was stern in repose: a handsome, even a fine face, with a look of power and reflection, but to-day somewhat worn and haggard of aspect. When presently he roused himself and took up the letter that lay before him, the paper shook in his hand. "Wine, Juba," he said to the slave, who now reentered the room. "And close the window; it is growing cold."

There were but three lines between the "Mr. Haward" and "Audrey;" the writing was stiff and clerkly, the words very simple,--a child's asking of a favor. He guessed rightly that it was the first letter of her own that she had ever written. Suddenly a wave of pa.s.sionate tenderness took him; he bowed his head and kissed the paper; for the moment many-threaded life and his own complex nature alike straightened to a beautiful simplicity.

He was the lover, merely; life was but the light and shadow through which moved the woman whom he loved. He came back to himself, and tried to think it out, but could not. Finally, with a weary impatience, he declined to think at all. He was to dine at the Governor's. Evelyn would be there.

Only momentarily, in those days of early summer, had he wavered in his determination to make this lady his wife. Pride was at the root of his being,--pride and a deep self-will; though because they were so sunken, and because poisonous roots can flower most deceivingly, he neither called himself nor was called of others a proud and willful man. He wished Evelyn for his wife; nay, more, though on May Day he had shown her that he loved her not, though in June he had offered her a love that was only admiring affection, yet in the past month at Westover he had come almost to believe that he loved her truly. That she was worthy of true love he knew very well. With all his strength of will, he had elected to forget the summer that lay behind him at Fair View, and to live in the summer that was with him at Westover. His success had been gratifying; in the flush of it, he persuaded himself that a chamber of the heart had been locked forever, and the key thrown away. And lo now! a touch, the sudden sight of a name, and the door had flown wide; nay, the very walls were rived away! It was not a glance over the shoulder; it was full presence in the room so lately sealed.

He knew that Evelyn loved him. It was understood of all their acquaintance that he was her suitor; months ago he had formally craved her father's permission to pay his addresses. There were times in those weeks at Westover when she had come nigh to yielding, to believing that he loved her; he was certain that with time he would have his way.... But the room, the closed room, in which now he sat!

He buried his face in his hands, and was suddenly back in spirit in his garden at Fair View. The cherries were ripe; the birds were singing: great b.u.t.terflies went by. The sunshine beat on the dial, on the walks, and the smell of the roses was strong as wine. His senses swam with the warmth and fragrance; the garden enlarged itself, and blazed in beauty. Never was sunshine so golden as that; never were roses so large, never odors so potent-sweet. A spirit walked in the garden paths: its name was Audrey....

No, it was speaking, speaking words of pa.s.sion and of woe.... Its name was Elosa!

When he rose from his chair, he staggered slightly, and put his hand to his head. Recovering himself in a moment, he called for his hat and cane, and, leaving the ordinary, turned his face toward the Palace. A garrulous fellow Councilor, also bidden to his Excellency's dinner party, overtook him, and, falling into step, began to speak first of the pirates' trial, and then of the weather. A hot and feverish summer. 'Twas said that a good third of the servants arriving in the country since spring had died of their seasoning. The slaver lying in the York had thrown thirty blacks overboard in the ran from Barbadoes,--some strange sickness or other.

Adsbud! He would not buy from the lot the master landed; had they been white, they had showed like spectres! September was the worst month of the year. He did not find Mr. Haward in looks now. Best consult Dr.

Contesse, though indeed he himself had a preventive of fever which never failed. First he bled; then to so much of Peruvian bark--

Mr. Haward declared that he was very well, and turned the conversation piratewards again.

The dinner at the Palace was somewhat hurried, the gentlemen rising with the ladies, despite the enticements of Burgundy and champagne. It was the afternoon set apart for the Indian dance. The bonfire in the field behind the magazine had been kindled; the Nottoways and Meherrins were waiting, still as statues, for the gathering of their audience. Before the dance the great white father was to speak to them; the peace pipe, also, was to be smoked. The town, gay of mood and s.n.a.t.c.hing at enjoyment, emptied its people into the sunny field. Only they who could not go stayed at home.

Those light-hearted folk, ministers to a play-loving age, who dwelt in the house by the bowling green or in the shadow of the theatre itself, must go, at all rates. Marcia and Lucia, Syphax, Semp.r.o.nius, and the African prince made off together, while the sons of Cato, who chanced to be twin brothers, followed with a slower step. Their indentures would expire next month, and they had thoughts, the one of becoming an overseer, the other of moving up country and joining a company of rangers: hence their somewhat haughty bearing toward their fellow players, who--except old Syphax, who acted for the love of it--had not even a bowing acquaintance with freedom.

Mr. and Mrs. Stagg saw their minions depart, and then themselves left the little white house in Palace Street. Mistress Deborah was with them, but not Audrey. "She can't abide the sight of an Indian," said the minister's wife indifferently. "Besides, Darden will be here from the church presently, and he may want her to write for him. She and Peggy can mind the house."

The Capitol clock was telling five when Haward entered the garden by the Nicholson Street gate. There had arisen a zephyr of the evening, to loosen the yellow locust leaves and send them down upon the path, to lay cool fingers upon his forehead that burned, and to whisper low at his ear.

House and garden and silent street seemed asleep in the late sunshine, safe folded from the storm of sound that raged in the field on the border of the town. Distance m.u.f.fled the Indian drums, and changed the scream of the pipes into a far-off wailing. Savage cries, bursts of applause and laughter,--all came softly, blent like the hum of the bees, mellow like the sunlight. There was no one in the summer-house. Haward walked on to the grape arbor, and found there a black girl, who pointed to an open door, pertaining not to the small white house, but to that portion of the theatre which ab.u.t.ted upon the garden. Haward, pa.s.sing a window of Mr.

Stagg's domicile, was aware of Darden sitting within, much engaged with a great book and a tankard of sack. He made no pause for the vision, and another moment found him within the playhouse.

The sunlight entered in at the door and at one high window, but yet the place was dim. The gallery and the rude boxes were all in shadow; the sunbeams from the door struck into the pit, while those from the high window let fall a shaft of misty light upon the stage itself, set for a hall in Utica, with five cane chairs, an ancient settle, and a Spanish table. On the settle, in the pale gold of the falling light, sat Audrey, her hands clasped over her knees, her head thrown back, and her eyes fixed upon the shadowy, chill, and soundless s.p.a.ce before her. Upon Haward's speaking her name she sighed, and, loosing her hands, turned toward him.