Hugh Wynne, Free Quaker Part 40

Hugh Wynne."

You must have known Mistress Wynne to comprehend what scorn she put into poor Darthea's sad excuses, and her explanations of what could not be explained. I felt sorry for the little lady who was absent and was getting such small mercy. It was vain to try to stop my aunt. That no man and few women could do. I did at last contrive to learn that she had said no more of the visit of Arthur to the jail than that I did not seem satisfied.

I had rather my aunt should have let my luckless love-affair alone. I had been in a way to tell her of it, but now I wanted no interference.

I feared to talk even to Jack Warder of my dear Darthea. That he saw through me and her I have, after many years, come to know, as these pages must have shown. If to speak of her to this delicate-minded friend was not at this time to my taste, you may rest a.s.sured I liked not my aunt's queer way of treating the matter as she would have done a hand at piquet. She ended this wandering talk with her usual shrewd bits of advice, asking me, as she stopped short in her walk, "Have you a little sense left?"

"I hope so."

"Then get your head to help that idiot your heart. Leave Darthea to herself. Bide with Miss Chew or Miss Bedman. Women are like children.

Let them alone, and by and by they will sidle up to you for notice."

When the town was in Sir William Howe's hands, my aunt had rejected all her Tory, and even her neutral, friends. But now that Sir Henry Clinton was flying across the Jerseys, hara.s.sed by militia, and our general was on the way to cross the Delaware after them, things were different. Her Tory friends might come to see her if they pleased. Most of these dames came gladly, liking my aunt, and having always had of her much generous kindness. Bessy Ferguson was cross, and Mistress Wynne had been forced to visit her first. What manner of peace was made I did not hear; but no one else was a match at piquet for my Aunt Gainor, and doubtless this helped to reconcile the lady. I grieve that no historian has recorded their interview.

When I wrote of it to Jack, he was much delighted, and just before the fight at Monmouth wrote me a laughing letter, all about what my aunt and Mrs. Ferguson must have said on this occasion. As he knew no word of it, I could never see how he was able to imagine it. Once, later, when their war broke out anew, my aunt told me all about her former encounter; and so much like was it to what Jack had writ that I laughed outright. My aunt said there was nothing to grin at. But a one-sided laugh is ever the merrier. I could not always tell what Mistress Wynne would do, and never what she would say; but Jack could. He should have writ books, but he never did.

I had heard my aunt's wail over her wardrobe, and was struck dumb at her appearance when, in the evening, I returned as she desired. The G.o.ds and the china dragons were out, and, the Hessian devils having been driven forth, the mansion had been swept and garnished, the rugs were down, and the floor was dangerously polished.

My Aunt Gainor was in a brocade which she told me was flowered beautiful with colours very lively. I thought they were. As to the rest of her toilet, I am at a loss for words. The overskirt was lute-string silk, I was told. The hoops were vast; the dress cut square, with a "modesty-fence" of stiff lace. A huge high cap "with wings is the last thing," cried the lady, turning round to be seen, and well pleased at my admiration. She was an immense and an amazing figure. I did wonder, so big she was, where she meant to put the other women--and I said as much.

"Here is one," she whispered, "who will like your uniform more than will the rest. Mr. Wynne of the army, my nephew, Miss Morris. And how is Mr.

Gouverneur Morris?"

We fell to talking, but when others came and were presented or named by me to the Whig lady, my young woman said, "Are there none but Tories?"

And she was short, I thought, with Mrs. Ferguson, who came in high good humour and a gown of Venice silk. I saw Aunt Gainor glance at her gold-laced handkerchief.

I was glad to see them all. Very soon the rooms were well filled, and here were Dr. Rush and Charles Thomson, the secretary of Congress, who stayed but a little while, leaving the great doctor to growl over the war with Miss Morris, and to tell her how ill read was our great chief, and how he could not spell, and had to have his letters writ for him to copy like a boy. Mr. Adams had said as much. I ventured to remark, having by this time come to understand our doctor, that we knew better in camp, and that at least our chief understood the art of war. The doctor was not of this opinion, and considered General Gates the greater man.

Then I left them to welcome Mrs. Chew and the lovely Margaret, and Miss Shippen, and last my Darthea with her aunt, who was as thin as a book-marker.

"Aunt," I said slyly, "what is this? Tories again?"

"Be quiet, child! You have pulled their teeth. You will see they are meek enough. The dog on top can always forgive, and I must have my cards. Behave yourself! How handsome you are! Here they come." And now there was a cross-fire of welcomes and "We have missed you so much,"

and "How well you look!" and fine sweep of curtseys, very pretty and refreshing to a war-worn veteran.

I bent to kiss Mrs. Shippen's hand. Mrs. Ferguson tapped me on the arm with her fan, whispering I was grown past the kissing-age, at which I cried that would never be. I took Darthea's little hand with a formal word or two, and, biding my time, sat down to talk with the two Margarets, whom folks called Peggy, although both were like stately lilies, and the pet name had no kind of fitness.

The ombre-tables were set out and ready, and it was all gay and merry, and as if there might never have been war, either civil or social.

"It is all as meek as doves' milk," whispered Mistress Wynne over my shoulder. "Gossip and cards against the world for peacemakers, eh, Hugh?" a.s.suredly here was a beautiful truce, and all the world amiable.

The powdered heads wagged; brocade and silk rustled; the counters rattled. Fans huge as sails set little breezes going; there was wise neutrality of speech, King Ombre being on the throne and everybody happy.

Meanwhile I set my young women laughing with an account of how a Quaker looked in on them through the window at the redcoat ball, but of the incident in the garden I said nothing, nor was it known beyond those immediately concerned. The two Margarets were curious to hear what Mr.

Washington looked like, and one miss would know if Mr. Arnold was a dark man, hearing with the delight of girls how his Excellency gave dinners in camp and sat on one side, with Mr. Hamilton or Mr. Tilghman, at the top, and for diet potatoes and salt herring, with beef when it was to be had, and neither plates nor spoons nor knives and forks for all, so that we had to borrow, and eat by turns.

Miss Morris, just come to town with good Whig opinions, was uneasy in this society, and said, "We shall have enough of everything when we catch Sir Henry Clinton." In a minute there would have been more war had not my aunt risen, and the party turned to drink chocolate and eat cakes.

After a world of little gossip they settled their debts and went away, all but Mrs. p.e.n.i.ston and her niece, my aunt declaring that she wanted the elder lady's advice about the proper mode to cool blackberry jam.

For this sage purpose the shadow-like form of Darthea's aunt in gray silk went out under cover of my aunt's large figure, and Darthea and I were left alone.

How pretty she was in fair white muslin with long gloves, a red rosebud in each sleeve, and only a trace of powder on her hair, smiling, and above all women graceful! She had seemed older when we met in the Provostry, and now to-day was slim and girl-like. I do not know where she got that trick of change, for in after-days, when in the fuller bloom of middle age, she still had a way of looking at times a gay and heedless young woman. She had now so innocent an air of being merely a sweet child that a kind of wonder possessed me, and I could not but look at her with a gaze perhaps too fixed to be mannerly.

"Darthea," I said, as we sat down, "I owe my life to you twice--twice."

"No, no!" she cried. "What could I do but go to the jail? Miss Wynne was away."

"You might have told my father," I said. Why had she not?

"Mr. Wynne is grown older, and--I--There was no time to be lost, and Arthur was gone on duty for I know not what." She was seeing and answering what further might have seemed strange to me. "Aunt p.e.n.i.ston was in a rage, I a.s.sure you. My aunt in a rage, Mr. Wynne, is a tempest in a thimble. All in a minute it boils over and puts out the little fire, and there is an end of it, and she asks what ought to be done. But now I am penitent, and have been scolded by Arthur. I will never, never do it any more. My aunt was right, sir."

"I think you gave me more than life, Darthea, that day. And did you think I would take the parole?"

"Never for a moment!" she cried, with flashing eyes. "I would have taken it, but I want my friends to be wiser and stronger than I. I--I was proud of you in your misery and ragged blanket." And with this the wonderful face went tender in a moment, and for my part I could only say, "Darthea! Darthea!"

She was quick to see and to fear, and to avoid that which was ever on my lips when with her, and which she seemed to bid to live, and then to fly from as if she had never tempted me.

"Ah, you were a droll figure, and Arthur could not but laugh when I described this hero in a blanket. It was then he told me more fully what before he had wrote, how in the hurry of an inspection he saw many men dying, and one so like you that he asked who it was, and was given another name; but now he thought it must have been you, and that you had perhaps chosen, why he knew not, a name not your own, or you had been misnamed by the turnkey. It was little wonder where men were dying in scores and changed past recognition; it was no wonder, I say, he did not know you, Mr. Wynne. He was so sorry, for he says frankly that just because you and he are not very good friends--and why are you not?--he feels the worse about it. After he had scolded me well, and I made believe to cry, he said it was a n.o.ble and brave thing I had done, and he felt he should have been the one to do it had he known in season.

He did really mean to get the parole, but then you ran away. And you do see, Mr. Wynne, that it was all a frightful mistake of Arthur's, and he is--he must be sorry?"

I would then and there have said to her that the man was a liar, and had meanly left me to die; but it was my word against his, and Delaney had long ago gotten out and been exchanged and gone South, whither I knew not. As of course she must trust the man she loved, if I were to say I did not believe him we should quarrel, and I should see her no more.

"My dear lady," I said, keeping myself well in hand, "the moral is that women should be sent to inspect the hungry, the ragged, the frozen, and the dying."

I saw she did not relish my answer. Was she herself quite satisfied? Did she want to be fortified in her love and trust by me, who had suffered?

A shadow of a frown was on her brow for a moment, and then she said, "He will write to you. He promised me he would write to you. And that dear old Sister of Charity!--you must go and thank her at the little convent beside St. Joseph's, in Willing's Alley. You upset her as you went out in that rude fashion. Any but a Quaker would have stayed to apologise.

Mr. Wynne was pleased I went to the jail with the dear sister. I believe the man really thought I would have gone alone. And I would; I would!

When he told me it was clever and modest to get the sweet old papist for company, I swept him a mighty curtsey and thanked him and puzzled him, which is what men are for."

Sitting in the open bow-window above the garden, my Darthea had most of the talk, while, when I dared no longer stare at her changeful face, I looked past her at the June roses swaying in the open window-s.p.a.ce.

"Yes," I laughed, "that is what men are for; but I have not done with you. I have also to thank you for my escape in the garden--you and Mr.

Andre. He has a good memory, I fancy."

"Oh, the fainting--yes," said Miss p.e.n.i.ston, lightly. "It was fortunate it came just then. And Mr. Wynne was glad enough of it later. He said it had saved him from the most horrible regret life could bring. If he had but had time to think--or had known--"

"Known what?"

"No matter; I was in time to stop myself from saying a foolish thing.

Let me give thanks for my escape. I have a restless tongue, and am apt to say what I do not mean; and I do faint at nothing."

"It was very opportune, my dear Miss p.e.n.i.ston."

"La! la! as aunt says, one would think I went faint on purpose, in place of its being the heat, and a providential accident, and very annoying too; not a woman anywhere near me."

"It saved a worthless life," I said; "and but for it I should have had short shrift and the gallows on the Common."

"Hush!" she returned. "That is not pretty talk. Your cousin is unlucky, he says, to have had you fall in his way when it was impossible to escape from arresting you. He told me Mr. Andre a.s.sured him he could have done no other thing, and that it was vain to regret what was the inevitable duty of a soldier. I think Arthur was the most pleased of all when you got away. I must say you went very fast for so grave a Quaker."

"And could you see?" said I, slyly.