Richard Carvel Part 72

Volume 8.

CHAPTER L. FAREWELL TO GORDON'S

I cannot bear to recall my misery of mind after Mr. Swain's death. One hope had lightened all the years of my servitude. For, when I examined my soul, I knew that it was for Dorothy I had laboured. And every letter that came from Comyn telling me she was still free gave me new heart for my work. By some mystic communion--I know not what--I felt that she loved me yet, and despite distance and degree. I would wake of a morning with the knowledge of it, and be silent for half the day with some particle of a dream in my head, lingering like the burden of a song with its train of memories.

So, in the days that followed, I scarce knew myself. For a while (I shame to write it) I avoided that sweet woman who had made my comfort her care, whose father had taken me when I was homeless. The good in me cried out, but the flesh rebelled.

Poor Patty! Her grief for her father was pathetic to see. Weeks pa.s.sed in which she scarcely spoke a word. And I remember her as she sat in church Sundays, the whiteness of her face enhanced by the c.r.a.pe she wore, and a piteous appeal in her gray eyes. My own agony was nigh beyond endurance, my will swinging like a pendulum from right to wrong, and back again. Argue as I might that I had made the barrister no promise, conscience allowed no difference. I was in despair at the trick fate had played me; at the decree that of all women I must love her whose sphere was now so far removed from mine. For Patty had character and beauty, and every gift which goes to make man's happiness and to kindle his affections.

Her sorrow left her more womanly than ever. And after the first sharp sting of it was deadened, I noticed a marked reserve in her intercourse with me. I knew then that she must have strong suspicions of her father's request. Speak I could not soon after the sad event, but I strove hard that she should see no change in my conduct.

Before Christmas we went to the Eastern Sh.o.r.e. In Annapolis fife and drum had taken the place of fiddle and clarion; militia companies were drilling in the empty streets; despatches were arriving daily from the North; and grave gentlemen were hurrying to meetings. But if the war was to come, I must settle what was to be done at Gordon's Pride with all possible speed. It was only a few days after our going there, that I rode into Oxford with a black c.o.c.kade in my hat Patty had made me, and the army sword Captain Jack had given Captain Daniel at my side. For I had been elected a lieutenant in the Oxford company, of which Percy Singleton was captain.

So pa.s.sed that winter, the darkest of my life. One soft spring day, when the birds were twittering amid new-born leaves, and the hyacinths and tulips in Patty's garden were coming to their glory, Master Tom rode leisurely down the drive at Gordon's Pride. That was a Sat.u.r.day, the 29th of April, 1775. The news which had flown southward, night and day alike, was in no hurry to run off his tongue; he had been lolling on the porch for half an hour before he told us of the bloodshed between the minute-men of Ma.s.sachusetts and the British regulars, of the rout of Percy's panting redcoats from Concord to Boston. Tom added, with the brutal nonchalance which characterized his dealings with his mother and sister, that he was on his way to Philadelphia to join a company.

The poor invalid was carried up the stairs in a faint by Banks and Romney. Patty, with pale face and lips compressed, ran to fetch the hartshorn. But Master Tom remained undisturbed.

"I suppose you are going, Richard," he remarked affably. For he treated me with more consideration than his family. "We shall ride together,"

said he.

"We ride different ways, and to different destinations," I replied dryly. "I go to serve my country, and you to fight against it."

"I think the King is right," he answered sullenly.

"Oh, I beg your pardon," I remarked, and rose. "Then you have studied the question since last I saw you."

"No, by G-d!" he cried, "and I never will. I do not want to know your d--d principles--or grievances, or whatever they are. We were living an easy life, in the plenty of money, and nothing to complain of. You take it all away, with your cursed cant--"

I left him railing and swearing. And that was the last I saw of Tom Swain. When I returned from a final survey of the plantation; and a talk with Percy Singleton, he had ridden North again.

I found Patty alone in the parlour. Her work (one of my own stockings she was darning) lay idle in her lap, and in her eyes were the unshed tears which are the greatest suffering of women. I sat down beside her and called her name. She did not seem to hear me.

"Patty!"

She started. And my courage ebbed.

"Are you going to the war--to leave us, Richard?" she faltered.

"I fear there is no choice, Patty," I answered, striving hard to keep my own voice steady. "But you will be well looked after. Ivie Rawlinson is to be trusted, and Mr. Bordley has promised to keep an eye upon you."

She took up the darning mechanically.

"I shall not speak a word to keep you, Richard. He would have wished it," she said softly. "And every strong arm in the colonies will be needed. We shall think of you, and pray for you daily."

I cast about for a cheerful reply.

"I think when they discover how determined we are, they will revoke their measures in a hurry. Before you know it, Patty, I shall be back again making the rounds in my broad rim, and reading to you out of Captain Cook."

It was a pitiful attempt. She shook her head sadly. The tears were come now, and she was smiling through them. The sorrow of that smile!

"I have something to say to you before I go, Patty," I said. The words stuck. I knew that there must be no pretence in that speech. It must be true as my life after, the consequence of it. "I have something to ask you, and I do not speak without your father's consent. Patty, if I return, will you be my wife?"

The stocking slipped unheeded to the floor. For a moment she sat transfixed, save for the tumultuous swelling of her breast. Then she turned and gazed earnestly into my face, and the honesty of her eyes smote me. For the first time I could not meet them honestly with my own.

"Richard, do you love me?" she asked.

I bowed my head. I could not answer that. And for a while there was no sound save that of the singing of the frogs in the distant marsh.

Presently I knew that she was standing at my side. I felt her hand laid upon my shoulder.

"Is--is it Dorothy?" she said gently.

Still I could not answer. Truly, the bitterness of life, as the joy of it, is distilled in strong drops.

"I knew," she continued, "I have known ever since that autumn morning when I went to you as you saddled--when I dreaded that you would leave us. Father asked you to marry me, the day you took Mr. Stewart from the mob. How could you so have misunderstood me, Richard?"

I looked up in wonder. The sweet cadence in her tone sprang from a purity not of this earth. They alone who have consecrated their days to others may utter it. And the light upon her face was of the same source.

It was no will of mine brought me to my feet. But I was not worthy to touch her.

"I shall make another prayer, beside that for your safety, Richard," she said.

In the morning she waved me a brave farewell from the block where she had stood so often as I rode afield, when the dawn was in the sky.

The invalid mother sat in her chair within the door; the servants were gathered on the lawn, and Ivie Rawlinson and Banks lingered where they had held my stirrup. That picture is washed with my own tears.

The earth was praising G.o.d that Sunday as I rode to Mr. Bordley's. And as it is sorrow which lifts us nearest to heaven, I felt as if I were in church.

I arrived at Wye Island in season to dine with the good judge and his family, and there I made over to his charge the property of Patty and her mother. The afternoon we spent in sober talk, Mr. Bordley giving me much sound advice, and writing me several letters of recommendation to gentlemen in Congress. His conduct was distinguished by even more of kindness and consideration than he had been wont to show me.

In the evening I walked out alone, skirting the acres of Carvel Hall, each familiar landmark touching the quick of some memory of other days.

Childhood habit drew me into the path to Wilmot House. I came upon it just as the sunlight was stretching level across the Chesapeake, and burning its windows molten red. I had been sitting long on the stone steps, when the gaunt figure of McAndrews strode toward me out of the dusk.

"G.o.d be gude to us, it is Mr. Richard!" he cried. "I hae na seen ye're bonny face these muckle years, sir, sync ye cam' back frae ae sight o'

the young mistress." (I had met him in Annapolis then.) "An' will ye be aff to the wars?"

I told him yes. That I had come for a last look at the old place before I left.

He sighed. "Ye're vera welcome, sir." Then he added: "Mr. Bordley's gi'en me a fair notion o' yere management at Gordon's. The judge is thinking there'll be nane ither lad t' hand a candle to ye."

"And what news do you hear from London?" I asked, cutting him short.

"Ill uncos, sir," he answered, shaking his head with violence. He had indeed but a sorry tale for my ear, and one to make my heart heavier than it was. McAndrews opened his mind to me, and seemed the better for it. How Mr. Marmaduke was living with the establishment they wrote of was more than the honest Scotchman could imagine. There was a country place in Suss.e.x now, said he, that was the latest. And drafts were coming in before the wheat was in the ear; and the plantations of tobacco on the Western Sh.o.r.e had been idle since the non-exportation, and were mortgaged to their limit to Mr. Willard. Money was even loaned on the Wilmot House estate. McAndrews had a shrewd suspicion that neither Mrs. Manners nor Miss Dorothy knew aught of this state of affairs.

"Mr. Richard," he said earnestly, as he bade me good-by, "I kennt Mr.