The Heart's Highway Part 11

"But I would have--I would have you!" she cried out, with the ardour of a girl, and down went her ap.r.o.n, and her face, like an aged mask of tragedy, not discoloured by her tears, as would have happened with the tender skin of a maid, confronted me. "I would have you the governor himself, Harry. I would have you--I would have--" Then she stopped and looked at me with a red showing through the yellow whiteness of her cheeks. "You know what I would have, and I know what you would have, and all the rest of my old life would I give could it be so, Harry," she said, and I saw that she knew of my love for her granddaughter Mary. Then suddenly she cried out, vehemently: "Not one word have I said to you about it since that dreadful time, Harry Wingfield, for shame and that pride as to my name, which is a fetter on the tongue, hath kept me still, but at last I will speak, for I can bear it no longer. Harry, Harry, I know that you are what you are, a convict and an exile, to shield Catherine, to shield a granddaughter of mine, who should be in your place. Harry Wingfield, I know that Catherine Cavendish is guilty of the crime for which you are in punishment, and, woe is me, such is my pride, such is my wicked pride, that I have let you suffer and said never one word."

I put her hand to my lips. "Madam," I said, "you mistake; I do not suffer. That which you think of as my suffering and my disgrace is my glory and happiness."

"Yes, and why, and why? Oh, Harry, 'tis that which is breaking my heart. 'Tis because you love Mary, 'tis because, I verily believe, you have loved her from the first minute you set eyes on her, though she was but a baby in arms. At first I thought it was Catherine, in spite of her fault, but now I know it was for the sake of Mary that you sacrificed yourself--for her sister, Harry, I know, I know, and I would to G.o.d that I could give you your heart's desire, for 'tis mine also!"

Then, so saying, this old woman, who had in her such a majesty of character and pride that it held folk aloof at a farther distance than loud swaggerings of importance of men high in office, drew down my head to her withered shoulder and touched my cheek with a hand of compa.s.sionate pity and blessing, as if I had been in truth her son, and caught her breath again and again with a sobbing sigh. All that I could say to comfort her I said, a.s.suring her, as was indeed the truth, that no woman could justly estimate the view which a man might take of such a condition as mine, and how the power of service to love might be enough to content one, and he stand in no need of pity, but she was not much consoled. "Harry," she said, "Harry, thou art like a knight of olden times about whom a song was written, which I heard sung in my girlhood, and which used to bring the tears, though I was never too ready with them. Woe be to me that I, knowing what I know, have yet not the courage to sacrifice my pride and my unworthy granddaughter, and see you free. Oh, Harry, that thou shouldst sit at home when thou art fitted by birth and breeding to go with the best of them! Harry, I pray thee, put on thy plum-coloured suit and go to the ball."

"Dear Madam Cavendish," I said, half laughing, for she seemed more and more like a child, "you know that it cannot be, and that I have no desire for b.a.l.l.s."

"But I would have thee go, Harry."

"But I am not asked," I said.

"What matters that? 'Tis almost with open doors, since it is a farewell of my Lord Culpeper before sailing for England. Harry, go, and--a--and--I swear if any exception be taken to it, I--I--will tell the truth."

"Dear madam, it cannot be," I said, "and the truth is to be concealed not only for your sake, but for that of others."

Then she broke out in another paroxysm of childish wailing that never was such a wretched state of matters, such a wretched old woman handicapped from serving one by her love for another. "Harry, I cannot clear thee unless I convict my own granddaughter Catherine," she said, piteously, "and if I spared her not, neither her nor my pride, what of Mary? Catherine hath been like a mother to the child, and she loves her better than she loves me. 'Twould kill her, Harry. And, Harry, how can I give Mary to thee, and thou under this ban? Mary Cavendish cannot wed a convict."

"That she cannot and shall not," I said; "she shall wed a much worthier man and be happy, and sure 'tis her happiness that is the question."

But Madam Cavendish stared at me with unreasoning anger, not understanding, since she was a woman, and unreasoning as a woman will be in such matters. "If you love not my granddaughter, Harry Wingfield," she cried out, "'tis not her grandmother will fling her at your head. I will let you know, sir, that she could have her pick in the colony if she so chose, and it may be that she might not choose you, Master Harry Wingfield."

I laughed. "Madam Cavendish," I said, rising and bowing, "were I a king instead of a convict, then would I lay my crown at Mary Cavendish's feet; as it is, I can but pave, if I may, her way to happiness with my heart."

"Then you love her as I thought, Harry?"

"Madam," I said, "I love her to my honour and glory and never to my discontent, and I pray you to believe with a love that makes no account of selfish ends, and that I am happier at home with my books than many a cavalier who shall dance with her at the ball."

"But, Harry," she said, piteously, "I pray thee to go."

I laughed and shook my head, and went away to my own quarters and sat down to my books, but, at something past midnight, Madam Cavendish sent for me in all haste. She had gone to bed, and I was ushered to her bedroom, and when I saw her thin length of age scarce rounding the coverlids, and her face frilled with white lace, and her lean neck stretching up from her pillows with the piteous outreaching of a bird, a great tenderness of compa.s.sion for womanhood, both in youth and beauty and age and need, beyond which I can express, came over me. It surely seems to me the part of man to deal gently with them at all times, even when we suffer through them, for there is about them a mystery of helplessness and misunderstanding of themselves which should give us an exceeding patience. And it seems to me that, even in the cases of those women who are perhaps of greater wit and force of character than many a man, not one of them but hath her helplessness of s.e.x in her heart, however concealed by her majesty of carriage. So, when I saw Madam Cavendish, old and ill at ease in her mind because of me, and realised all at once how it was with her in spite of that clear head of hers and imperious way which had swayed to her will all about her for near eighty years, I went up to her, and, laying a gentle hand upon her head, laid it back upon the pillow, and touched her poor forehead, wrinkled with the cares and troubles of so many years, and felt all the pity in me uppermost. "'Tis near midnight, and you have not slept, madam," I said. "I pray you not to fret any longer about that which we can none of us mend, and which is but to be borne as the will of the Lord."

"Nay, nay, Harry," she cried out, with a pitiful strength of anger.

"I doubt if it be the will of the Lord. I doubt if it be not the devil--Catherine, Catherine--Harry, my brain reels when I think that she should have done it--a paltry ring, and to let you--"

"It may be that she had not her wits," I said. "Such things have been, I have heard, and especially in the case of a woman with jewels. It may be that she knew not what she did, and in any case I pray you to think no more of it, dear madam." And all the time I spoke I was smoothing her old forehead under the flapping frills of her cap.

One black woman was there in the room, sitting in the shadow of the bed-curtains, fast asleep and making a strange purring noise like a cat as she slept.

Suddenly Madam Cavendish clutched hard at my hand. "Harry," she said, "I sent for you because I have lain here fretting lest Mary and Catherine get not home in safety with only the black people to guard them. I fear lest the Indians may be lurking about."

"Dear Madam Cavendish," I said, "you know that we stand in no more danger from the Indians."

"Nay," she persisted, "we can never tell what plans may be brewing in such savage brains. I pray thee, Harry, ride to meet them and see if they be safe."

I laughed, for the danger from Indians was long since past, but said readily enough that I would do as she wished, being, in fact, glad enough of a gallop in the moonlight, with the prospect of meeting Mary. So in a few minutes I was in the saddle and riding toward Jamestown. The night was very bright with the moon, and there was a great mist rising from the marshy lands, and such strangely pale and luminous developments in the distances of the meadows, marshalling and advancing and retreating, like companies of spectres, and lingering as if for consultation on the borders of the woods, with floating draperies caught in the boughs thereof, that one might have considered danger from others than Indians. And, indeed, I often caught the note of an owl, and once one flitted past my face and my horse shied at the evil bird, which is thought by the ignorant to be but a feathered cat and of ill omen, and indeed is considered by many who are wise to have presaged ill oftentimes, as in the cases of the deaths of the emperors Valentinian and Commodus. Be that as it may, I, having a pistol with me, shot at the bird, and, though I was as good a shot as any thereabouts, missed, and away it flew, with a great hoot as of laughter, which I am ready to swear I heard multiplied in a trice, as if the bird were joined by a whole company, and my horse shied again and would have bolted had I not held him tightly. Now, this which I am about to relate I am ready to swear did truly happen, though it may well be doubted. I had come within a short distance of Jamestown when I reached two houses of a small size, not far apart, not much removed from the fashion of the negro cabins, but inhabited by English folk. In the one dwelt a man who had been transported for a grievous crime, whether justly or not I cannot say, but his visage was such as to condemn him, and he was often in his cups and had spent many days in the stocks, and had made frequent acquaintance with the whipping-post, and with him dwelt his wife, an old dame with a tongue which had once earned her the ducking-stool in England. As I pa.s.sed this house I saw over the door a great bunch of dill and vervain and white thorn, which is held to keep away witches from the threshold if gathered upon a May day. And I knew well the reason, for not many rods distant was the hut where dwelt one Margery Key, an ancient woman, who had been verily tied crosswise and thrown in a pond for witchcraft and been weighed against the church Bible, and had her body searched for witch-marks and the thatch of her house burned. I know not why she had not come to the stake withal, but instead she had fled to Virginia, where, witches being not so common, were treated with more leniency. It may have been that she had escaped the usual fate of those of her kind by being considered by some a white witch, and one who worked good instead of ill if approached rightly, though many considered that they who approached a white witch for the purpose of profiting by her advice or warning, were of equal guilt, and that it all led in the end to mischief. Be that as it may, this old dame Margery Key dwelt there alone in her little hut so over-thatched and grown by vines, and scarce showing the s.h.a.ggy slant of its roof above the bushes, that it resembled more the hole of some timid and wary animal than a human habitation. And if any visited her for consultation it was by night and secretly, and no one ever caught sight of her except now and then the nodding white frill of her cap in the green gloom of a window or the painful bend of her old back as she gathered sticks for her fire in the woods about. How she lived none knew. A little garden-patch she had, and a hive or two of bees, and a red cow, which many affirmed to have the eye of a demon, and there were those who said that her familiars stole bread for her from the plantation larders, and that often a prime ham was missed and a cut of venison, with no explanation, but who can say? Without doubt there are strange things in the earth, but we are all so in the midst of them, and even a part of their workings, that we can have no outside foothold to take fair sight thereof. Verily a man might as well strive to lift himself by his boot-straps over a stile.

But this much I will say, that, as I was riding along, cogitating something deeply in my mind as to the best disposal of the powder and the shot which Mary Cavendish had ordered from England, I, coming abreast of Margery Key's house, saw of a sudden a white cat, which many affirmed to be her familiar, spring from her door like a white arrow of speed and off down a wood-path, and my horse reared and plunged, and then, with my holding him of no avail, though I had a strong hand on the bridle, was after her with such a mad flight that I had hard work to keep the saddle. Pell-mell through the wood we went, I ducking my head before the mad lash of the branches and feeling the dew therefrom in my face like a drive of rain, until we came to a cleared s.p.a.ce, then a great spread of tobacco fields, overlapping silver-white in the moonlight, and hamlet of negro cabins, and then Major Robert Beverly's house, standing a ma.s.s of shadow except for one moonlit wall, for all the family were gone to the governor's ball. Then, as I live, that white cat of Margery Key's led me in that mad chase around Beverly's house, and when I came to the north side of it I saw a candle gleam in a window and heard a baby's wail, and knew 'twas where his infant daughter was tended, and as we swept past out thrust a black head from the window, and a screech as savage as any wild cat's rent the peace of the night, and I believe that the child's black nurse took us, no doubt, for the devil himself. Then all the dogs howled and bayed, though not one approached us, and a great bat came fanning past, like a winged shadow, and again I heard the owl's hoot, and ever before us, like a white arrow, fled that white cat, and my horse followed in spite of me. Then, verily I speak the truth, though it may well be questioned, did that white cat lead us straight to the tomb which Major Beverly had made upon his plantation at the death of his first wife, and in which she lay, and 'twas on a rising above the creek, and then the cat, with a wail which was like nothing I ever heard in this world, was away in a straight line toward the silver gleam of the creek, though every one knows well how cats hate water, and had disappeared. But, though to this I will not swear, I thought I saw a white gleam aloft, and heard a wail of a cat skyward along with the owl-hoots. And then my horse stood and trembled in such wise that I thought he would fall under me, and I dismounted and stroked his head and tried as best I could to soothe him, and we were all the time before the tomb, which was a large one. Then of a sudden it came to me that here was the hiding-place for the powder and shot, for what safer hiding-place can there be than the tomb of the first wife, when the second hath reigned but a short time, and is fair, and hath but just given her lord that little darling whose cries of appealing helplessness I could hear even there? So I gave the tomb-door a pull, knowing that I should not, by so doing, disturb the slumbers of the poor lady within, and decided with myself that it would be easy enough to force it, and mounted and rode back as best I might to the road. And when I came to the little dwelling of Margery Key a thought struck me, and I rode close, though my horse shuddered as if with some strange fright of something which I could not see. I bent in my saddle and looked in the door, but naught could I see. Then I dismounted and tied my horse to a tree near by, and entered the house and looked about the sorry place as well as I could in the pale sift of moonlight, and--the old woman was not there. But one room there was, with a poor pallet in a corner and a chest against the wall and a stool, and a kettle in the fireplace, with a little pile of sticks and a great scattering of ashes, but no one there, and also, if I may be believed, _no broom._ All this I tell for what it may be worth to the credulity of them who hear; the facts be such as I have said.

But whether believing it myself or not, yet knowing that that white cat, though it had been Margery Key in such guise, or her familiar imp on his way to join her at some revel whither she had ridden her broom, had done me good service, and, seeing the piteous smallness of the pile of sticks on the hearth, and reflecting upon the distressful bend of the old soul's back, whether she had sold herself to Satan or not, I lingered a minute to break down a goodly armful of brush in the wood outside and carry inside for the replenishment of her store. And as I came forth, having done so, I heard the door of the nearby house open, and saw two white faces peering out at me, and heard a woman's voice shriek shrilly that here was the devil seeking the witch, and though I called out to rea.s.sure them, the door clapped to with a bang like a pistol-shot, and my horse danced about so that I could scarcely mount. Then I rode away, something wondering within myself, since I had been taken for the devil, how many others might have been, and whether men made their own devils and their own witches, instead of the Prince of Evil having a hand in it, and yet that happened which I have related, and I have told the truth.

XII

Such a blaze of light as was the governor's mansion house that night I never saw, and I heard the music of violins, and hautboys, and viola da gambas coming from within, and a silvery babble of women's tongues, with a deeper undertone of men's, and the tread of dancing feet, and the stamping of horses outside, with the whoas of the negro boys in attendance, and through the broad gleam of the moonlight came the flare and smoke of the torches. It seemed as if the whole colony was either dancing at the governor's ball or standing outside on tiptoe with interest. I sat waiting for some time, holding my restive horse as best I might, but there coming no cessation in the music, I dismounted, and seeing one of Madam Cavendish's black men, gave him the bridle to hold, and went up to the house and entered, though not in my plum-coloured velvet, and, indeed, being not only in my ordinary clothes, but somewhat splashed with mire from my mad gallop through the woods. But I judged rightly that in so much of a crowd I should pa.s.s unnoticed both as to myself and my apparel. I stood in the great room near the door and watched the dance, and 'twas as brilliant a scene as ever I had seen anywhere even in England. The musicians in the gallery were sawing away for their lives on violins, and working breathlessly at the hautboys, and all that gay company of Virginia's best, spinning about in a country dance of old England. Such a brave show of velvet coats, and breeches, and flowered brocade waistcoats, and powdered wigs, and feathers, and laces, and ribbons, and rich flaunts of petticoats revealing in the whirl of the dance clocked hose on slender ankles, and high-heeled satin shoes, would have done no discredit to the court. But of them all, Mistress Mary Cavendish was the belle and the star. She was dancing with my Lord Estes when I entered, and such a goodly couple they were, that I heard many an exclamation of delight from the spectators, who stood thickly about the walls, the windows even being filled with faces of black and white servants. My Lord Estes was a handsome dark man, handsomer and older than Sir Humphrey Hyde, who, though dancing with the governor's daughter Cate, had, I could see, a rueful eye of watchfulness toward Mary Cavendish. As he and Cate Culpeper swung past me, Sir Humphrey's eyes fell on my face and he gave a start and blush, and presently, when the dance was over and his partner seated, came up to me with hand extended, as if I had been the n.o.blest guest there. "Harry, Harry," he whispered eagerly, "she hath danced with me three times to-night, and hath promised again, and Harry, saw you ever any one so beautiful as she in that blue dress?"

I answered truthfully that I never had. Sir Humphrey, in his blue velvet suit with the silver b.u.t.tons, with his rosy face and powdered wig, was one to look at twice and yet again, and I regarded him as always, with that liking for him and that fury of jealousy.

I looked at him and loved him as I might have loved my son, with such a sweet and brave honesty of simplicity he eyed me, and for the sake of Mary Cavendish, who might find his love for her precious, and I wished with all my heart that I might fling him to the floor where he stood; every nerve and muscle in me tingled with the restraint of the desire, for such an enhancement of a woman's beauty as was Mary Cavendish's that night, will do away with the best instincts of men, whether they will or not.

The next dance was the minuet, and Mary Cavendish danced it with my Lord Culpeper, the Governor of Virginia. The governor, though I liked him not, was a most personable man with much grace of manner, which had additional value from a certain harshness of feature which led one not to expect such suavity, and he was clad most richly in such a dazzle of gold broidery and fling of yellow laces, and glitter of b.u.t.tons, as could not be surpa.s.sed.

My Lord was in fact clad much more richly than his wife and daughter, whose attire, though fair enough, was not of the freshest.

It was my good luck to overhear my Lady Culpeper telling in no very honeyed tones, a gossip of hers, the lady of one of the burgesses, that her goods, for which she had sent to England, had miscarried, and were it not for the fact that there was a whisper of fever on the ship, she would have had the captain herself for a good rating, and had my Lord Culpeper not been for him, saying that the man was of an honest record, she would have had him set in the stocks for his remissness, that he had not seen to it that her goods were on board when the ship sailed. "And there goes poor Cate in her old murrey-coloured satin petticoat," said my lady with a bitter lengthening of her face, "and there is Mary Cavendish in a blue-flowered satin with silver, which is the very twin of the one I ordered for Cate, and which came in on the Cavendish ship."

"Well," said the other woman, who was long and lean, and had wedded late in life a man she would have scorned in her girlhood, and could not forgive the wrong she had done herself, and was filled with an inconsistency of spleen toward all younger and fairer than she, and who, moreover, was a born toad-eater for all in high places, "'tis fine feathers make fine birds, and were thy Cate arrayed in that same gown in Mistress Cavendish's stead--"

"As I believe, she would not have had the dress had not Cate told Cicely Hyde, who is so intimate with Mary Cavendish," said my Lady Culpeper. "I had it from my lord's sister that 'twas the newest fashion in London. How else would the chit have heard of it, I pray?"

"How else, indeed?" asked the burgess's wife.

"And here my poor Cate must go in her old murrey-coloured petticoat," said my lady.

"But even thus, to one who looks at her and not at her attire, she outshines Mary Cavendish," said the other. That was, to my thinking, as flagrant hypocrisy as was ever heard, for if those two maids had been clad alike as beggars, Mary Cavendish would have carried off the palm, with no dissenting voice, though Cate Culpeper was fair enough to see, with her father's grace of manner, and his harshness of feature softened by her rose-bloom of youth.

Catherine Cavendish was dancing as the others, but seemingly with no heart in it, whereas her sister was all glowing with delight in the merriment of it, and her sense of her own beauty, and the admiration of all about her, and smiling as if the whole world, and at life itself, with the innocent radiance of a child.

As I stood watching her, I felt a touch on my arm, and looked, and there stood Mistress Cicely Hyde, and her brown face was so puckered with wrath and jealousy that I scarcely knew her. "Did not Mary's grandmother send you to escort her home, Master Wingfield?" said she in a sharp whisper, and I stared at her in amazement. "When the ball is over, Mistress Hyde," I said.

"'Tis time the ball was over now," said she. "'Tis folly to keep it up so late as this, and Mary hath not had a word for me since we came."

"But why do you not dance yourself, Mistress Hyde?"

"I care not to dance," said she pettishly, and with a glance of mingled wrath and admiration at Mary Cavendish that might have matched mine or her brother's, and I marvelled deeply at the waywardness of a maid's heart. But then came Ralph Drake, who had not drunken very deeply, being only flushed, and somewhat lost to discrimination, and disposed to dance with another since he could not have his cousin Mary, and he and Cicely went away together, and presently, when the minuet was over and another dance on, I saw them advancing in time, but always Cicely had that eye of watchful injury upon Mary.

It was late when the ball was done, but Mary would have stayed it out had it not been for Catherine, who almost swooned in the middle of a dance and had to be revived with aromatic vinegar, and lie for a while in my Lady Culpeper's bedchamber, with a black woman fanning her, until she was sufficiently recovered to go home. Mary did not espy me until, returning from her sister's side to order the sedan chairs, she jostled against me. Then such a blush of delight and relief came over her face as made my heart stand still with rapture and something like fear. "You here, you here, Harry?" she cried, and stammered and blushed again, and Sir Humphrey and Cicely, who were pressing up, looked at me jealously.

"I am here at your grandmother's request, Mistress Mary," I said.

Then my Lord Estes came elbowing me aside, and made no more of me than if I were a black slave, and hoa.r.s.ely shouting for the sedan chairs and the bearers, and after him Ralph Drake and half a score of others, and all cursing at me for a convict tutor and thrusting at me. Then truly that temper of mine, which I have had some cause to lament, and yet I know not if it be aught I can help, it being seemingly as beyond the say of my own will as the recoil of a musket or the rebound of a ball, sent me forth into the midst of that gallant throng, and I would not say for certain, but at this late date I am inclined to believe that I saw Ralph Drake, who came in my way with a storm of curses, raising himself sorely from a pool of mud, which must have worked havoc with his velvets, and my Lord Estes struggling forth from a th.o.r.n.y rose bush at the gate, with much rending of precious laces. Then I, convict though I was, yet having, when authorised by the very conditions of my servitude, that resolution to have my way, that a king's army could not have stopped me, had the sedan chairs, and the bearers to the fore, and presently we were set forth on the homeward road, I riding alongside. All the road was white with moonlight, and when we came alongside Margery Key's house, as I live, that white cat shot through the door, and immediately after, I, looking back, saw the old dame herself standing therein, though it was near morning, and she quavered forth a blessing after me. "G.o.d bless thee, Master Wingfield, in life and death, and may the fish of the sea come to thy line, may the birds of the air minister to thee, and all that hath breath of life, whether it be noxious or guileless, do thy bidding. May even He who is nameless stand from the path of thy desire, and hold back from thy face the boughs of prevention whither thou wouldst go." This said old Margery Key in a strange, chanting-like tone, and withdrew, and a light flashed out in the next house, and the woman who dwelt therein screamed, and Mistress Mary, thrusting forth her head from the chair, called me to come close.

As for Catherine, she was borne along as silently as though she slept, being, I doubt not, still exhausted with her swoon. When I came close to Mistress Mary's chair, forth came her little hand, shining with that preciousness of fairness beyond that of a pearl, and "Master Wingfield," said she in a whisper, lest she disturb Catherine, "what, what, I pray thee, was it the witch-woman said?"

I laughed. "She was calling down a blessing upon my head, Madam," I said.