The Heart's Highway Part 6

"But what was the news which brought you thither, sir?" demanded Captain Tabor.

"You know of the plot--" I begun, but he broke in upon me fiercely.

"May the fiends take me, but what know I of a plot?" he cried.

"Can I not bring over gowns and kerchiefs and silken ribbons for a pretty maid without a plot? How knew you that? There is the woman's tongue again. But can I not bring over goods even of such sort; might I not with good reason suppose them to be for the defence of the cause of his most gracious Majesty King Charles against the savages, or any malcontents in his colonies? What plot, sirrah?"

"The plot for the cutting down of the young tobacco plants, Captain Tabor," said I.

His eyes blazed at me, while his face was pale and grim.

"How many know of the goods I discharged from the Golden Horn yesterday?" he asked.

"Three men, and I know not how many more, and two women," said I.

"Two women!" he groaned out. "Pestilence on these tide-waters which hold a ship like a trap! Two women!"

"But the concern is lest a third woman know," said I.

"If three women know, then G.o.d save us all, for their triple tongues will carry as far as the last trump!" cried Captain Tabor. Perturbed as he was, he never lost that air of reckless daring which compelled me to a sort of liking for him. "Out with the rest of it, sir," he said.

Then I told my story, to which he listened, scowling, yet with that ready laugh at his mouth. "'Tis a scurvy trick to serve a woman, both for her sake and the rest of us, to let her meddle with such matters," he said, "and so I told that cousin of hers, Master Drake, who came with her to give the order ere I sailed for England."

"Came any man save Ralph Drake with her then?" I asked.

"The saints forbid," he replied. "A secret is a secret only when in the keeping of one; with two it findeth legs, but with three it unfoldeth the swiftest wings of flight in all creation, and is everywhere with no alighting. Had three come to me with that mad order to bring powder and shot in the stead of silk stockings and garters and cambric shifts and kerchiefs, I would have clapped full sail on the Golden Horn, though--" he hesitated, then spoke in a whisper--"my mind is against tyranny, to speak you true, though I care not a farthing whether men pray on their knees or their feet, or in gowns or the fashion of Eden. And I care not if they pray at all, nor would I for the sake of that ever have forsaken, had I stood in my grandfather's shoes, the flesh-pots of old England for that howling wilderness of Plymouth. But for the sake of doing as I willed, and not as any other man, would I have sailed or swam the seas had they been blood instead of water. And so am I now with a due regard to the wind and the trim of my sails and the ears of tale-bearers, for a man hath but one head to lose with you of Virginia. But, the Lord, to make a little maid like that run the risk of imprisonment or worse, knew you aught of it, sir?"

I shook my head.

Captain Tabor laughed. "And yet she rode straight to the wharf with you yesterday," said he. "Lord, what hidden springs move a woman!

I'll warrant, sir, had you known, you might have battened down the hatches fast enough on her will, convict though you be, and, faith, sir, but you look to me like one who is convict or master at his own choosing and not by the will of any other." So saying, he gave me a look so sharp that for a second I half surmised that he guessed my secret, but knew better at once, and said that our business was to deal not with what had been, but with what might be.

"Well," said he, "and what may that be, Master Wingfield, in your opinion? You surely do not mean to hold the Golden Horn in midstream with her cargo undischarged until the day of doom, lest yon old beldame offer up her fair granddaughter on the altar of her loyalty, with me and my hearties for kindling, to say naught of yourself and a few of the best gentlemen of Virginia. I forfeit my head if I set sail for England; naught is left for me that I see that shall save my neck but to turn pirate and king it over the high seas. Having swallowed a small morsel of my Puritan misgivings, what is to hinder my bolting the whole, like an exceeding bitter pill, to my complete purging of danger? What say you, Master Wingfield? Small reputation have you to lose, and sure thy reckoning with powers that be leaves thee large creditor. Will you sail with me? My first lieutenant shall you be, and we will share the booty."

He laughed, and I stared at him that he should stoop to jest, yet having a ready leap of comradeship toward him for it; then suddenly his mood changed. Close to me he edged, and began talking with a serious shrewdness which showed his mind brought fully to bear upon the situation. "You say, sir," said he, "that Mistress Mary Cavendish, in a spirit of youthful daring and levity, gave her grandmother a list of the goods which my Lady Culpeper ordered from England, and which even now is due?" I nodded.

"Know you by what ship?"

"The Earl of Fairfax," I replied, and recalled as I spoke a rumour that my Lord Culpeper designed his daughter Cate for the eldest son of the earl, and had so named his ship in honour of him.

"You say that the Earl of Fairfax is even now due?" said Captain Tabor.

I replied that she was hourly expected by what I had learned; then Captain Tabor, sitting loosely hunched with that utter abandon of all the muscles which one sees in some when they are undergoing a fierce strain of thought, remained silent for a s.p.a.ce, his brows knitted. Then suddenly my shoulder tingled with the clap which he gave it, and the cabin rang and rang again with a laugh so loud and gay that it seemed a very note of the May day. "You are merry," I said, but I laughed myself, though somewhat doubtfully, when he unfolded his scheme to me, which was indeed both bold and humorous.

He knew well the captain of the Earl of Fairfax, who had been shipmate with him.

"Many a lark ash.o.r.e have we had together," said Calvin Tabor, "and, faith, but I know things about him now which compel him to my turn; the devil's mess have we both been in, but I need not use such means of persuasion, if I know honest d.i.c.k Watson." The scheme of which Captain Tabor delivered himself, with bursts of laughter enough to wake the ship, was, to speak briefly, that he should go with a boat, rowing against the current, by keeping close to bank and taking advantage of eddies, and meet the Earl of Fairfax before she reached Jamestown, board her, and persuade her captain to send the cases of my Lady Culpeper's goods under cover of night to the Golden Horn, whence he would unload them next morning, and Mistress Mary could show them to her grandmother, and then they were to be reshipped with all possible speed and secrecy, the Earl of Fairfax meanwhile laying at anchor at the mouth of the river, and then delivered to my Lady Culpeper.

There was but one doubt as to the success of this curious scheme in my mind, and that was that Mistress Mary might not easily lend herself to such deception. However, Captain Tabor, with a skill of devising concerning which I have often wondered whether it may be more common in the descendants of those who settled in New England, who were in such sore straits to get their own wills, than with us of Virginia, provided a way through that difficulty.

"'Tis full easy," said he. "You say that the maid's sister will say naught against it--and you?"

"I will say naught against her safety," said I. "What think you I care for any little quibbles of the truth when that be in question?"

"Well," said Captain Tabor, "then must you and Mistress Catherine Cavendish show the goods to the maid, and say naught as to the means by which you came by them; tell her they are landed from the Golden Horn, as indeed they will be; let her think aught she chooses, that they are indeed her own, purchased for her by her sister or her lovers, if she choose to think so, and bid her display them with no ado to Madam Cavendish, if she value the safety of the others who are concerned in this. Betwixt the mystery and the fright and the sight of the trinkets, if she be aught on the pattern of any other maid, show them she will, and hold her tongue till she be out of her grandmother's presence."

"It can be but tried," said I.

Then the captain sprang out on deck, and ordered a boat lowered, and presently had set me ash.o.r.e, and was himself, with a half-dozen sailors, fighting way down-stream.

I found my horse on the bank where I had left him, and by him, waiting anxiously, Catherine Cavendish. She listened with deepening eyes while I told her Captain Tabor's scheme, and when I had done looked at me with her beautiful mouth set and her face as white as a white flower on a bush beside her. "Mary shall show the goods," said she. "Such a story will I tell her as will make her innocent of aught save bewilderment, and as for you and me, we are both of us ready to burn for a lie for the sake of her."

IX

I know not how Capt. Calvin Tabor managed his part to tranship those goods without discovery, but he had a shrewd head, and no doubt the captain of the Earl of Fairfax another, and by eight o'clock that May day the Golden Horn lay at her wharf discharging her cargo right l.u.s.tily with such openness of zeal and shouts of encouragement and groans of labour 'twas enough to acquaint all the colony. And straightway to the great house they brought my Lady Culpeper's fallals, and clamped them in the hall where we were all at supper.

Mistress Mary sprang to her feet, and ran to them and bent over them. "What are these?" she said, all in a quiver.

"The goods which you ordered, madam," spoke up one of the sailors, with a grin which he had copied from Captain Tabor, and pulled a forelock and ducked his head.

"The goods," said she, speaking faintly, for hers was rather the headlong course of enthusiasm than the secret windings of diplomacy.

"Art thou gone daft, sweetheart? The goods of which you gave the list this morning, which have but now come in on the Golden Horn,"

spake up Catherine, sharply. I marvelled as I heard her whether it be ease or tenderness of conscience which can appease a woman with the letter and not the substance of the truth, for I am confident that her keeping to the outward show of honesty in her life was no small comfort to Catherine Cavendish.

Madam Cavendish was at table that night, though moving with grimaces from the stiffness of her rheumatic joints, and she ordered that the sailors be given cider, the which they drank with some haste, and were gone. Then Madam Cavendish asked Mistress Mary, with her wonderful keenness of gaze, which I never saw excelled, "Are those the goods which you ordered by the Golden Horn?" But I answered for her, knowing that Madam Cavendish would pardon such presumption from me. "Madam, those are the goods. I have it from Capt. Calvin Tabor himself." I spoke with no roundings nor glossings of subterfuge, having ever held that all the excuse for a lie was its boldness in a good cause, and believing in slaying a commandment like an enemy with a clean cut of the sword.

Mistress Mary gave a little gasp, and looked at me, and looked at her sister Catherine, and well I knew it was on the tip of her tongue to out with the whole to her grandmother. And so she would doubtless have done had not her wonderment and suspicion that maybe in some wise Catherine had conspired to buy for her in England the goods of which she had cheated herself, and the terror of doing harm to her sister and me. But never saw I a maid go so white and red and make the strife within her so evident.

We were well-nigh through supper when the goods arrived, and Madam Cavendish ordered some of the slaves to open the cases, which they did forthwith, and all my Lady Culpeper's finery was displayed.

Never saw I such a rich a.s.sortment, and calling to mind my Lady Culpeper's thin and sour visage, I wondered within myself whether such fine feathers might in her case suffice to make a fine bird, though some of them were for her daughter Cate, who was fair enough.

Nothing would do but Mistress Mary, with her lovely face still strange to see with her consternation of puzzlement, should severally display every piece to her grandmother, and hold against her complexion the rich stuffs to see if the colours suited her.

Madam Cavendish was pleased to express her satisfaction with them all, though with some demur at the extravagance. "'Tis rich enough a wardrobe for my Lady Culpeper," said she, at which innocent shrewdness I was driven to hard straits to keep my face grave, but Mistress Catherine was looking on with a countenance as calm as the moon which was just then rising.

Madam Cavendish was pleased especially with one gown of a sky colour, shot with silver threads, and ordered that Mistress Mary should wear it to the ball which was to be given at the governor's house the next night.

When I heard that I started, and Catherine shot a pale glance of consternation at me, but Mistress Mary flushed rosy-red with rebellion.

"I have no desire to attend my Lord Culpeper's ball, madam," said she.

"Lord Culpeper is the representative of his Majesty here in Virginia," said Madam Cavendish, with a high head, "and no granddaughter of mine absents herself with my approval. To the ball you go, madam, and in that sky-coloured gown, and no more words.

Things have come to a pretty pa.s.s." So saying, she rose and, leaning heavily on her stick, with her black maid propping her, she went out. Then turned Mistress Mary imperiously to us and demanded to know the meaning of it all. "Whence came these goods?" said she to Catherine.

"On the Golden Horn, sweetheart; 'tis the list you gave this morning," replied Catherine, without a change in the fair resolve of her face.