Audrey Part 29

The Colonel hesitated, but Evelyn, leaving Madam Byrd beside the harpsichord, came to her father's side. That gentleman glanced at her keenly. There was no agitation to mar the pensive loveliness of her face; her eyes were steadfast, the lips faintly smiling. "If what you have to say concerns my daughter," said the Colonel, "she will listen to you here and now."

For a few moments dead silence; then Haward spoke, slowly, weighing his words: "I am on my way, Colonel Byrd, to the country beyond the falls. I have entered upon a search, and I know not when it will be ended or when I shall return. Westover lay in my path, and there was that which needed to be said to you, sir, and to your daughter. When it has been said I will take my leave." He paused; then, with a quickened breath, again took up his task: "Some months ago, sir, I sought and obtained your permission to make my suit to your daughter for her hand. The lady, worthy of a better mate, hath done well in saying no to my importunity. I accept her decision, withdraw my suit, wish her all happiness." He bowed again formally; then stood with lowered eyes, his hand griping the edge of the table.

"I am aware that my daughter has declined to entertain your proposals,"

said the Colonel coldly, "and I approve her determination. Is this all, sir?"

"It should, perhaps, be all," answered Haward. "And yet"--He turned to Evelyn, snow-white, calm, with that faint smile upon her face. "May I speak to you?" he said, in a scarcely audible voice.

She looked at him, with parting lips.

"Here and now," the Colonel answered for her. "Be brief, sir."

The master of Fair View found it hard to speak, "Evelyn"--he began, and paused, biting his lip. It was very quiet in the familiar parlor, quiet and dim, and drawing toward eventide. The lady at the harpsichord chanced to let fall her hand upon the keys. They gave forth a deep and melancholy sound that vibrated through the room. The chord was like an odor in its subtle power to bring crowding memories. To Haward, and perhaps to Evelyn, scenes long shifted, long faded, took on fresh colors, glowed anew, replaced the canvas of the present. For years the two had been friends; later months had seen him her avowed suitor. In this very room he had bent over her at the harpsichord when the song was finished; had sat beside her in the deep window seat while the stars brightened, before the candles were brought in.

Now, for a moment, he stood with his hand over his eyes; then, letting it fall, he spoke with firmness. "Evelyn," he said, "if I have wronged you, forgive me. Our friendship that has been I lay at your feet: forget it and forget me. You are n.o.ble, generous, high of mind: I pray you to let no remembrance of me trouble your life. May it be happy,--may all good attend you.... Evelyn, good-by!"

He kneeled and lifted to his lips the hem of her dress. As he rose, and bowing low would have taken formal leave of the two beside her, she put out her hand, staying him by the gesture and the look upon her colorless face. "You spoke of a search," she said. "What search?"

Haward raised his eyes to hers that were quiet, almost smiling, though darkly shadowed by past pain. "I will tell you, Evelyn. Why should not I tell you this, also?... Four days ago, upon my return to Fair View, I sought and found the woman that I love,--the woman that, by all that is best within me, I love worthily! She shrank from me; she listened not; she shut eye and ear, and fled. And I,--confident fool!--I thought, 'To-morrow I will make her heed,' and so let her go. When the morrow came she was gone indeed." He halted, made an involuntary gesture of distress, then went on, rapidly and with agitation: "There was a boat missing; she was seen to pa.s.s Jamestown, rowing steadily up the river. But for this I should have thought--I should have feared--G.o.d knows what I should not have feared! As it is I have searchers out, both on this side and on the southern sh.o.r.e. An Indian and myself have come up river in his canoe. We have not found her yet. If it be so that she has pa.s.sed unseen through the settled country, I will seek her toward the mountains."

"And when you have found her, what then, sir?" cried the Colonel, tapping his snuffbox.

"Then, sir," answered Haward with hauteur, "she will become my wife."

He turned again to Evelyn, but when he spoke it was less to her than to himself. "It grows late," he said. "Night is coming on, and at the fall of the leaf the nights are cold. One sleeping in the forest would suffer ...

if she sleeps. I have not slept since she was missed. I must begone"--

"It grows late indeed," replied Evelyn, with lifted face and a voice low, clear, and sweet as a silver bell,--"so late that there is a rose flush in the sky beyond the river. Look! you may see it through yonder window."

She touched his hand and made him look to the far window. "Who is it that stands in the shadow, hiding her face in her hands?" he asked at last, beneath his breath.

"'Tis Audrey," answered Evelyn, in the same clear, sweet, and pa.s.sionless tones. She took her hand from his and addressed herself to her father.

"Dear sir," she said, "to my mind no quarrel exists between us and this gentleman. There is no reason"--she drew herself up--"no reason why we should not extend to Mr. Marmaduke Haward the hospitality of Westover."

She smiled and leaned against her father's arm. "And now let us three,--you and Maria, whom I protest you keep too long at the harpsichord, and I, who love this hour of the evening,--let us go walk in the garden and see what flowers the frost has spared."

CHAPTER XXVI

SANCTUARY

"Child," demanded Haward, "why did you frighten me so?" He took her hands from her face, and drew her from the shadow of the curtain into the evening glow. Her hands lay pa.s.sive in his; her eyes held the despair of a runner spent and fallen, with the goal just in sight. "Would have had me go again to the mountains for you, little maid?" Haward's voice trembled with the delight of his ended quest.

"Call me not by that name," Audrey said. "One that is dead used it."

"I will call you love," he answered,--"my love, my dear love, my true love!"

"Nor that either," she said, and caught her breath. "I know not why you should speak to me so."

"What must I call you then?" he asked, with the smile still upon his lips.

"A stranger and a dreamer," she answered. "Go your ways, and I will go mine."

There was silence in the room, broken by Haward. "For us two one path," he said; "why, Audrey, Audrey, Audrey!" Suddenly he caught her in his arms.

"My love!" he whispered--"my love Audrey! my wife Audrey!" His kisses rained upon her face. She lay quiet until the storm had pa.s.sed; then freed herself, looked at him, and shook her head.

"You killed him," she said, "that one whom I--worshiped. It was not well done of you.... There was a dream I had last summer. I told it to--to the one you killed. Now part of the dream has come true.... You never were!

Oh, death had been easy pain, for it had left memory, hope! But you never were! you never were!"

"I am!" cried Haward ardently. "I am your lover! I am he who says to you, Forget the past, forget and forgive, and come with me out of your dreaming. Come, Audrey, come, come, from the dim woods into the sunshine,--into the sunshine of the garden! The night you went away I was there, Audrey, under the stars. The paths were deep in leaves, the flowers dead and blackening; but the trees will be green again, and the flowers bloom! When we are wed we will walk there, bringing the spring with us"--

"When we are wed!" she answered. "That will never be."

"It will be this week," he said, smiling. "Dear dryad, who have no friends to make a pother, no dowry to lug with you, no gay wedding raiment to provide; who have only to curtsy farewell to the trees and put your hand in mine"--

She drew away her hands that he had caught in his, and pressed them above her heart; then looked restlessly from window to door. "Will you let me pa.s.s, sir?" she asked at last. "I am tired. I have to think what I am to do, where I am to go."

"Where you are to go!" he exclaimed. "Why, back to the glebe house, and I will follow, and the minister shall marry us. Child, child! where else should you go? What else should you do?"

"G.o.d knows!" cried the girl, with sudden and extraordinary pa.s.sion. "But not that! Oh, he is gone,--that other who would have understood!"

Haward let fall his outstretched hand, drew back a pace or two, and stood with knitted brows. The room was very quiet; only Audrey breathed hurriedly, and through the open window came the sudden, lonely cry of some river bird. The note was repeated ere Haward spoke again.

"I will try to understand," he said slowly. "Audrey, is it Evelyn that comes between us?"

Audrey pa.s.sed her hand over her eyes and brow and pushed back her heavy hair. "Oh, I have wronged her!" she cried. "I have taken her portion. If once she was cruel to me, yet to-day she kissed me, her tears fell upon my face. That which I have robbed her of I want not.... Oh, my heart, my heart!"

"'T is I, not you, who have wronged this lady," said Haward, after a pause. "I have, I hope, her forgiveness. Is this the fault that keeps you from me?"

Audrey answered not, but leaned against the window and looked at the cloud in the south that was now an amethyst island. Haward went closer to her.

"Is it," he said, "is it because in my mind I sinned against you, Audrey, because I brought upon you insult and calumny? Child, child! I am of the world. That I did all this is true, but now I would not purchase endless bliss with your least harm, and your name is more to me than my own.

Forgive me, Audrey, forgive the past." He bowed his head as he stood before her.

Audrey gazed at him with wide, dry eyes whose lids burned. A hot color had risen to her cheek; at her heart was a heavier aching, a fuller knowledge of loss. "There is no past," she said. "It was a dream and a lie. There is only to-day ... _and you are a stranger_."

The purple cloud across the river began to darken; there came again the lonely cry of the bird; in the house quarter the slaves were singing as they went about their work. Suddenly Audrey laughed. It was sad laughter, as mocking and elfin and mirthless a sound as was ever heard in autumn twilight. "A stranger!" she repeated. "I know you by your name, and that is all. You are Mr. Marmaduke Haward of Fair View, while I--I am Darden's Audrey!"

She curtsied to him, so changed, so defiant, so darkly beautiful, that he caught his breath to behold her. "You are all the world to me!" he cried.

"Audrey, Audrey! Look at me, listen to me!"

He would have approached her, would have seized her hand, but she waved him back. "Oh, the world! We must think of that! What would they say, the Governor and the Council, and the people who go to b.a.l.l.s, and all the great folk you write to in England,--what would they say if you married me? Mr. Marmaduke Haward of Fair View, the richest man in Virginia! Mr.

Marmaduke Haward, the man of taste, the scholar, the fine gentleman, proud of his name, jealous of his honor! And Darden's Audrey, who hath gone barefoot on errands to most houses in Fair View parish! Darden's Audrey, whom the preacher pointed out to the people in Bruton church! They would call you mad; they would give you cap and bells; they would say, 'Does he think that he can make her one of us?--her that we turned and looked long upon in Bruton church, when the preacher called her by a right name'"--

"Child, for G.o.d's sake!" cried Haward.

"There is the lady, too,--the lady who left us here together! We must not forget to think of her,--of her whose picture you showed me at Fair View, who was to be your wife, who took me by the hand that night at the Palace. There is reproach in her eyes. Ah, do you not think the look might grow, might come to haunt us? And yourself! Oh, sooner or later regret and weariness would come to dwell at Fair View! The lady who walks in the garden here is a fine lady and a fit mate for a fine gentleman, and I am a beggar maid and no man's mate, unless it be Hugon's. Hugon, who has sworn to have me in the house he has built! Hugon, who would surely kill you"--