Barbara Ladd Part 20

But Barbara was not in a mood to repay his raillery in kind.

"I don't know that I'll make things pleasant for Robert," she answered, thoughtfully, "if he still clings to his ridiculous views about kings and things!"

"Tell that to the marines, you sly hussy!" exclaimed Doctor Jim, regaining mysteriously his wonted large good humour. "Don't tell me this isn't all made up between you and Robert!"

Barbara looked at him soberly for a moment. Then the old audacious light laughed over her face, her eyes danced perilously,--and Mistress Mehitable felt a tremor of apprehension. She always felt nervous when Doctor Jim had the hardihood to draw Barbara's fire.

"Do you know, Doctor Jim, I don't feel quite so badly as I did about leaving you and Aunt Hitty! I think, you know, you will be quite a comfort to each other, won't you, even if Doctor John should have to stay longer than he expects in Hartford!"

At this moment Doctor John himself came in, to Mistress Mehitable's infinite relief.

CHAPTER XXIV.

When Glenowen came to Second Westings he was in such haste that Barbara concluded he had other duties in New York than the searching of records and verification of t.i.tles; but with unwonted discretion she asked no questions. Affairs of state, it seemed to her, were the more mysterious and important the less she knew about them; and it pleased her to feel that the fate of commonwealths, perchance, was carried secretly within the ruffled cambric of her debonair and brown-eyed uncle. From Second Westings they journeyed by coach to New Haven, and from that city voyaged by packet down the Sound to New York. Arrived in New York, they went straight into lodgings which Glenowen had already engaged, in an old, high-stooped Dutch house on State Street.

From the moment of her landing on the wharf, Barbara was in a state of high exhilaration. The thronging wharves, the high, black, far-travelled hulls, the foreign-smelling freights, all thrilled her imagination, and made her feel that now at last unexpected things might happen to her and story-books come true. Then the busy, bustling streets, where men jostled each other abstractedly, intent each on his own affairs, how different from Second Westings, where three pa.s.sers-by and a man on horseback would serve to bring faces to the windows, and where the gra.s.s on each side of the street was an item of no small consequence to the village cows! And then the houses--huddled together, as if there was not s.p.a.ce a-plenty in the world for houses!

It was all very stirring. She felt that it was what she wanted, at the moment,--a piquant sauce to the plain wholesomeness of her past. But she felt, too, that it would never be able to hold her long from the woods and fields and wild waters.

Of her arrival Barbara sent no word to Robert, though she knew by somewhat careful calculation that his office was but a stone's throw away from her lodging. She looked forward to some kind of a dramatic meeting, and would not let her impatience--which she scarcely acknowledged--risk the marring of a picturesque adventure. When Glenowen, the morning after their arrival, gave her the superfluous information that Robert's office was close by, right among the fashionable houses of Bowling Green, and proposed that they should begin their exploration of the city by strolling past his window, Barbara demurred with emphasis.

"Well," said Glenowen, thinking he understood what no man ever has a right to think he understands, "just as you like, mistress mine. I'll drop in on him myself, and let him know where we are, so he can call with all due and fitting ceremony!"

"Oh, Uncle Bob!" she cried, laughing at his density, "don't you know yet how little _I_ care for ceremony? 'Tis not that--by any manner of means. But I want to surprise Robert,--I want to meet him at some fine function, in all my fine feathers, and see if he'll know me! You know, it is five years, nearly, since we saw him. Have I changed much, Uncle Bob?"

"Precious little have you changed, sweet minx!" answered Glenowen.

"You're just the same small, peppery, saucy, unmanageable, thin brown witch that you were then, only a _little_ taller, a _little_ more good-looking, a little--a very little--more dignified. No fear but he'd know you, though he saw you not for a score of years. 'Twere as easy perhaps for a man to hate you as love you, my Barbe! But forget you! Oh, no!"

So it was that in the walks which they took about the point of Manhattan Island, during the first three or four days after their coming, they avoided Bowling Green, save in the dim hours of twilight; and Glenowen, p.r.o.ne to humour Barbara in everything, had a care to shun the resorts which Robert Gault affected. He learned, by no means to his surprise, that Robert was uncompromisingly committed to the Tory party, but this he did not feel called upon to tell Barbara.

"Time enough! Time enough!" said he to himself, half whimsical, half sorrowful. "Let the child have her little play with all the mirth that's in it! Let hearts not bleed until they must! She won't forgive him,--and he won't yield,--or I'm not Bob Glenowen!"

In New York, where most of his life had been spent, Glenowen knew everybody; and he was _persona grata_ to almost everybody of consequence. His standing was so impregnable, his antecedents so unimpeachable, his social talents so in demand, that even the most arrogant of the old Tory aristocrats--the Delanceys, the Philipses, the Beverley Robinsons--were not disposed to let their hostility to his views hamper their hospitality to his person.

It followed, therefore, as a matter of course, that almost before she had gathered her wits after the excitement of the journey and the changed surroundings, Barbara found herself afloat upon the whirl of New York gaieties. Every night, in the solitude of her bedroom in the old Dutch house, in the discreet confidence of her pillow, she was homesick, very homesick, and a child again. She would sob for Aunt Hitty, and Doctor John, and Doctor Jim,--and for big, round-faced, furry "Mr. Grim," whom she had so tearfully left behind,--and for Black Prince, who, she felt sure, would let no one else ride him in her absence,--and for dear old Debby in her lonely cabin. She would think very tenderly of Amos,--and then, with a very pa.s.sion of tenderness, of her own little room over the porch, now silent and deserted. With great surges of pathos she would picture Mistress Mehitable going into the little room every day, and dusting it a bit, and then sitting down by the bed and wishing Barbara would come back. In such a melting mood Barbara would resolve not to be horrid any more, but to send for Robert the first thing in the morning, and tell him just how glad she was to see him.

But when morning came, she would be no more the homesick child, but a very gay, petulant, spoiled, and sparkling young woman, her head full of excitements and conquests to come.

CHAPTER XXV.

To her first ball Barbara went in a chair, just five days after her arrival in New York. The method of locomotion appealed greatly to her mood; and as the bearers jogged her gently along, she kept her piquant face at the window and felt as if she were playing one of the pictures of court ladies on their way to St. James's,--ladies such as she had often dreamed over in the London prints. For this ball, given at the Van Griff house, just a few blocks from her own lodgings, she was dressed in the very height of the mode, as to all save her hair. She was obstinate in her aversion to the high, elaborate coiffure,--in her adherence to the simple fashion and the single ma.s.sive curl which she had decided upon, after many experiments, as best becoming her face.

She liked her hair, accounting it her only beauty, and rather than disguise it she would let the mode go hang. For the rest, her attire met the severest demands of Uncle Bob, who was even won, at the last, to approve what he called her eccentricity in the matter of hair. He decided that her very precise modishness in other respects would prove her t.i.tle to independence in the one respect; and it was with unqualified satisfaction that he contemplated the effect she would produce on the New York fashionables.

"Are you sure I look fit to be seen with you, Uncle Bob?" she had inquired, anxiously, the last thing before they set out. "You are such a beau, you dear; and so distinguished-looking!"

"I shall take no discredit by reason of you, I think!" answered Glenowen, dryly. "Unless, indeed, by reason of the slayings of your eyes! But slay the gallants, slay them, sweetheart! They be king's men, mostly,--and there'll be so many the less to fight, by and by, for the king!"

"I'll do what such a homely little brown thing can!" laughed Barbara, blithely, an excited thrill in her voice. But even at the moment her heart misgave her, at the thought that, more than likely, Robert was one of these same "king's men!"

This first ball, at the Van Griffs', was to Barbara a whirl of lights, and colours, and flowers, and bowing, promenading, pirouetting forms.

The s.p.a.cious rooms and shining floors and smiling faces and stirring music intoxicated her. The variety and brightness of the costumes astonished her, the women's dresses being fairly outshone by the strong colours of the uniforms worn by the English officers, and by the even more dazzling garb affected by the civilians. Yet if all this bewildered her heart, outwardly she was at ease, composed, and ready; and Glenowen, across the room, watching her the centre of a group of eager gallants,--fop, officer, and functionary alike clamouring for her hand in the dance,--wondered if this could be the headlong, hard-riding little hussy whom he had brought from the wilds of Second Westings.

The stately belles of Manhattan, beauties serene or beauties gay, sisters to the lily or sisters to the poppy and the tulip, eyed with critical half-disfavour this wilding rose from the backwoods, agreed that she was queer-looking if not ugly, and resented her independence in wearing her hair so as to display its beauties to full advantage.

That she was well gowned and danced well, they were in general fair enough to acknowledge; but they could not see why so many men found her interesting to talk to. In a word, she was a success from the start.

She went home at last, very wide-eyed, tired, triumphant, excited--and disappointed. She had not seen Robert. She had just once heard his name, spoken casually, as that of one whose absence seemed a thing unusual, whose presence seemed a thing to be desired. She knew that she had made an impression. She knew, even, that she had made herself popular, at least with the men. With her accustomed candour she had proclaimed herself a rebel, in response to some jest at the expense of Boston, and had settled the score thrice over by her witty jibes at King George. But even in that royalist circle her audacity had done her no harm. The English officers themselves, carried away by her brilliance and amused by her daring, were loudest in their applause.

They not unreasonably agreed in their hearts that it could do the king no harm, while it undoubtedly would be a great satisfaction to themselves, if they could win some favour in the eyes of this most bewildering and provocative little rebel. Perceiving this, Barbara had not spared her shafts; and the most deeply wounded of her victims had been the most a.s.siduous of her admirers. But of all the men who had been presented to her, danced with her, paid court to her, of all the women whom she had met, favoured, or in clash of glances subtly defied, she retained but a bright jumble of una.s.sorted names and faces. One only had gained a foothold in her remembrance. A certain young officer in the colonial militia, one Cary Patten by name, had been presented to her by her uncle with particular commendation, as being altogether of his own way of thought; and him, for his laughing blue eyes, his frank mouth, his broad shoulders, and his boyish swagger, she had liked so well that he stood out among her impressions, and she felt it would be pleasant to meet him again. In fact, to his open and immense elation, she had told him so.

"Well, mistress mine, how did you like it?" asked Glenowen, as, candle in one hand and skirts in the other, she held up her face to be kissed good-night.

"Oh, I loved it, Uncle Bob!" she answered, with conviction.

"Well, it loved you!" said Uncle Bob.

But as he turned away to his own room, he wondered if Barbara was really quite as satisfied as she professed, or whether her failure to meet Robert, and include him among the numbers of her slain, had clouded at all the splendour of her triumph.

Two evenings later there was another ball, an altogether bigger and more imposing function, at the house of the Surveyor-General half a mile out of town. At this, as she was told, every one would be present, and therefore, she agreed, Robert would certainly appear.

With a view to circ.u.mstances which might conceivably arise in the event of Robert's appearance, she had with great difficulty kept a number of dances free, when her admiring cavaliers at the Van Griffs' were striving to fill her cards in advance. If he should fail to come,--well, she had reason to think that she would not be left to languish unattended.

Meanwhile, however, she little knew how violently her pretty scheme was being brought to nought, she little knew how emphatically Robert was being enlightened as to her presence in New York. She should, indeed, have thought that the story of her triumphs at the Van Griffs' would reach his ears, for on the day following that event, her maid, a garrulous West Indian mulatto whom Glenowen had engaged immediately on their arrival, had told her over her toilet that her name was already the toast of the finest gentlemen in town. But somehow it never occurred to her that Robert would hear anything. She thought of him only as riding, or paddling a canoe, or sitting at his desk, or going to b.a.l.l.s and wandering about alone, thinking of her, gravely smiling now and then, courteous, and silent. As a vital factor in this glittering life he had never presented himself to her imagination,--or it is possible she might have written to him from Second Westings more often than twice or thrice in the year!

The house of the Surveyor-General stood behind its trees far back from the road, on a series of terraces set with walks, parterres, trimmed hedges, statuary, and secret arbours. The house was a blaze of light.

The terraces were lighted with a gay discretion, here shining, there enshadowed. As she drove up with her uncle in the coach, a little late, and heard the music and the musical babble of voices, Barbara thrilled deliciously, with a prescience that this was to be an eventful night. She was no longer dazzled,--only strung to the highest tension.

She realised that all this was her birthright, to be used, played with, thrown aside when tired of, but meanwhile enjoyed to the topmost pitch of relish,--hers just as much as the b.u.t.tercup fields, the thrush-sweet orchards, the ancient woods of Connecticut. She felt herself mistress of the situation.

"Oh, Uncle Bob," she whispered, drawing a quick breath of antic.i.p.ation, as she gave him her hand and stepped daintily from the coach, her high-buckled, high-heeled white satin slippers and little white silken ankles glimmering for an instant to the ensnaring of the favoured eye,--"oh, Uncle Bob, isn't it lovely?"

"You are, my Barbe!" he answered, peering down with high content upon the small disastrous face half-hidden in the hood of her scarlet cardinal.

"Let me tell you, Uncle Bob, you look extremely nice yourself!" she responded, squeezing his hand hard. "I didn't see one other man at Mr.

Van Griff's so handsome and distinguished-looking as you!"

"Dear me!" retorted Glenowen, musingly, "what is the baggage going to ask me for to-morrow? Whatever it be, she must have it!"

Barbara reached her hostess with difficulty, and was given small time for her greetings. All through her first dance she was so absorbed in looking for Robert that she paid scant attention to her partner's compliments, though she realised that they contained imcomprehensible veiled reference to something which she was supposed to know all about.

To her partner, one Jerry Waite by name, her ignorance seemed a.s.sumed, and vastly well a.s.sumed; and presently with his growing admiration for her cleverness came a dread lest he should transgress, so he diplomatically shifted to new ground. But had she not been quite absorbed in her quest, Barbara's most lively curiosity would have been awakened by his meaning words.

At last she sat down by a curtained doorway and sent Mr. Waite to get her fan, that she might make up her mind as to the advisability of inquiring frankly about Robert. Her scheme was working too slowly for her impatient spirit; and, moreover, it was beginning to dawn upon her that Robert might not unnaturally feel aggrieved, and perhaps even prove difficult and exasperating, if she did not see him soon. She had about concluded to invoke the aid of Uncle Bob,--with whom she was by and by to dance the minuet,--when a word behind the curtain caught her ear.

"La! Mr. Gault!" cried a pretty, affected, high-pitched voice. "Who thought we should be so favoured as to see you here to-night! Not dancing, surely! But 'twere less cruel to us poor maids to stay away entirely, than to come and let us look and pine in vain. But you are very white,--sit down by me and tell me all about it. La, there's nothing I so love!"

It was Robert's voice that answered,--Robert's voice, but grown deeper, stronger, more a.s.sured, than as Barbara thought she remembered it.

"It was nothing at all, dear Miss Betty,--a mere scratch!" he answered.

"'Tis but the loss of a little blood makes me paler than ordinary, I suppose. But the doctor said there was no reason in the world I should not look in on the gaieties for a minute or two,--and see what new wonder of a gown Miss Betty was wearing,--provided I gave my word not to dance."