The Maid-At-Arms Part 38

"It must be crushed!" she exclaimed, flushing scarlet. "If we both are tied by honor, how can we hope? Cousin, I think I must be mad to say it, but I never see you that I do not hope. We are not safe, I tell you, spite of all our vows and promises.... You do not need to woo me, you do not need to persuade me! Ere you could speak I should be yours, now, this very moment, for a look, a smile--were it not for that pale spectre of my own self which rises ever before me, stern, inexorable, blocking every path which leads to you, and leaving only that one path free where the sign reads 'honor.' ... And I--I am sometimes frightened lest, in an overwhelming flood of love, that sign be torn away and no spectre of myself rise to confront me, barring those paths that lead to you....

Don't touch me; Cato is looking at us.... He's gone.... Wait, do not leave me.... I have been so wretched and unhappy.... I could scarce find strength and heart to let them dress me, thinking on your face when I answered you so cruelly.... Oh, cousin! where are our vows now? Where are the solemn promises we made never to speak of love?... Lovers make promises like that in story-books--and keep them, too, and die sanctified, blessing one another and mounting on radiant wings to heaven.... Where I should find no heaven save in you! Ah, G.o.d! that is the most terrible. That takes my heart away--to die and wake to find myself still his wife--to live through all eternity without you--and no hope of you--no hope!... For I could be patient through this earthly life, losing my youth and yours forever, ... but not after death! No, no! I cannot.... Better h.e.l.l with you than endless heaven with him!...

Don't speak to me.... Take your hand from my hand.... Can you not see that I mean nothing of what I say--that I do not know what I am saying?... I must go back; I am hostess--a happy one, as you perceive....

Will I never learn to curb my tongue? You must forget every word I uttered--do you hear me?"

She sprang up in her rustling silks and took a dozen steps towards the door, then turned.

"Do you hear me?" she said. "I bid you remember every word I uttered--every word!"

She was gone, leaving me staring at the flowers and silver and the cl.u.s.tered lights. But I saw them not; for before my eyes floated the vision of a slender hand, and on the wedding-finger I saw a faint, rosy circle, as I had seen it there a moment since, when Dorothy dropped her bare arms on the cloth and laid her head between them.

So it was true; whether for good or ill my cousin wore the ghost-ring which for ages, Cato says, we Ormonds have worn before the marriage-ring. There was Ormond blood in Dorothy. Did she wear the sign as prophecy for that ring Sir George should wed her with? I dared not doubt it--and yet, why did I also wear the sign?

Then in a flash the forgotten legend of the Maid-at-Arms came back to me, ringing through my ears in clamorous words:

"Serene, 'mid love's alarms, For all time shall the Maids-at-Arms, Wearing the ghost-ring, triumph with their constancy!"

I sprang to the door in my excitement and stared at the picture of the Maid-at-Arms.

Sweetly the violet eyes of the maid looked back at me, her armor glittered, her soft throat seemed to swell with the breath of life.

Then I crept nearer, eyes fixed on her wedding-finger. And I saw there a faint rosy circle as though a golden ring had pressed the snowy flesh.

XIII

THE MAID-AT-ARMS

I remember little of that dinner save that it differed vastly from the quarrelsome carousal at which the Johnsons and Butlers figured in so sinister a role, and at which the Glencoe captains disgraced themselves.

But now, if the patroon's wine lent new color to the fair faces round me, there was no feverish laughter, nothing of brutal license. Healths were given and drunk with all the kindly ceremony to which I had been accustomed. At times pattering gusts of hand-clapping followed some popular toast, such as "Our New Flag," to which General Schuyler responded in perfect taste, veiling the deep emotions that the toast stirred in many with graceful allegory tempered by modesty and self-restraint.

At the former dinner I had had for my neighbors Dorothy and Magdalen Brant. Now I sat between Miss Haldimand and Maddaleen Dirck, whom I had for partner, a pretty little thing, who peppered her conversation with fashionable New York phrases and spiced the intervals with French. And I remember she a.s.sured me that New York was the only city fit to live in and that she should never survive a prolonged transportation from that earthly paradise of elegance and fashion. Which made me itch to go there.

I think, without meaning any unkindness, that Miss Haldimand, the Canadian beauty, was somewhat surprised that I had not already fallen a victim to her lovely presence; but, upon reflection, set it down to my stupidity; for presently she devoted her conversation exclusively to Ruyven, whose delight and grat.i.tude could not but draw a smile from those who observed him. I saw Cecile playing the maiden's game with young Paltz Clavarack, and Lady Schuyler on Sir Lupus's right, charmingly demure, faintly amused, and evidently determined not to be shocked by the free bluntness of her host.

The mischievous Carmichael twins had turned the batteries of their eyes on two solemn, faultlessly dressed subalterns, and had already reduced them to the verge of capitulation; and busy, bustling Dr. Sleeper cracked witticisms with all who offered him the fee of their attention, and the dinner went very well.

Radiant, beautiful beyond word or thought, Dorothy sat, leaning back in her chair, and the candle-light on the frosty-gold of her hair and on her bare arms and neck made of her a miracle of celestial loveliness.

And it was pleasant to see the stately General on her right bend beside her with that grave gallantry which young girls find more grateful than the privileged badinage of old beaus. At moments her sweet eyes stole towards me, and always found mine raised to greet her with that silent understanding which brought the faintest smile to her quiet lips. Once, above the melodious hum of voices, the word "war" sounded distinctly, and General Schuyler said:

"In these days of modern weapons of precision and long range, conflicts are doubly deplorable. In the times of the old match-locks and blunderbusses and unwieldly weapons weighing more than three times what our modern light rifles weigh, there was little chance for slaughter.

But now that we have our deadly flint-locks, a battle-field will be a sad spectacle. Bunker Hill has taught the whole world a lesson that might not be in vain if it incites us to rid the earth of this wicked frenzy men call war."

"General," said Sir Lupus, "if weapons were twenty times as quick and deadly--which is, of course, impossible, thank G.o.d!--there would always be enough men in the world to get up a war, and enjoy it, too!"

"I do not like to believe that," said Schuyler, smiling.

"Wait and see," muttered the patroon. "I'd like to live a hundred years hence, just to prove I'm right."

"I should rather not live to see it," said the General, with a twinkle in his small, grave eyes.

Then quietly the last healths were given and pledged; Dorothy rose, and we all stood while she and Lady Schuyler pa.s.sed out, followed by the other ladies; and I had to restrain Ruyven, who had made plans to follow Marguerite Haldimand. Then we men gathered once more over our port and walnuts, conversing freely, while the fiddles and ba.s.soons tuned up from the hallway, and General Schuyler told us pleasantly as much of the military situation as he desired us to know. And it did amuse me to observe the solemn subalterns nodding all like wise young owlets, as though they could, if they only dared, reveal secrets that would astonish the General himself.

Snuff was pa.s.sed, offered, and accepted with ceremony befitting; spirits replaced the port, but General Schuyler drank sparingly, and his well-trained suite perforce followed his example. So that when it came time to rejoin our ladies there was no evidence of wandering legs, no amiably vacant laughter, no loud voices to strike the postprandial discord at the dance or at the card-tables.

"How did I conduct, cousin?" whispered Ruyven, arm in arm with me as we entered the long drawing-room. And my response pleasing him, he made off straight towards Marguerite Haldimand, who viewed his joyous arrival none too cordially, I thought. Poor Ruyven! Must he so soon close the gate of Eden behind him?--leaving forever his immortal boyhood sleeping amid the never-fading flowers.

It was a fascinating and alarming spectacle to see Sir Lupus walking a minuet with Lady Schuyler, and I marvelled that the gold b.u.t.tons on his waistcoat did not fly off in volleys when he strove to bend what once, perhaps, had been his waist.

Ceremony dictated what we had both forgotten, and General Schuyler led out Dorothy, who, scarlet in her distress, looked appealingly at me to see that I understood. And I smiled back to see her sweet face brighten with grat.i.tude and confidence and a promise to make up to me what the stern rule of hospitality had deprived us of.

So it was that I had her for the Sir Roger de Coverley, and after that for a Delaware reel, which all danced with a delightful abandon, even Miss Haldimand unbending like a G.o.ddess surprised to find a pleasure in our mortal capers. And it was a pretty sight to see the ladies pa.s.s, gliding daintily under the arch of glittering swords, led by Lady Schuyler and Dorothy in laughing files, while the fiddle-bows whirred, and the music of ba.s.soon and hautboys blended and ended in a final mellow crash. Then breathless voices rose, and skirts swished and French heels tapped the polished floor and solemn subalterns stalked about seeking ices and lost buckles and mislaid fans; and a faint voice said, "Oh!" when a jewelled garter was found, and a very red subaltern said, "Honi soit!" and everybody laughed.

Presently I missed the General, and, a moment later, Dorothy. As I stood in the hallway, seeking for her, came Cecile, crying out that they were to have pictures and charades, and that General Schuyler, who was to be a judge, awaited me in the gun-room.

The door of the gun-room was closed. I tapped and entered.

The General sat at the mahogany table, leaning back in his arm-chair; opposite sat Dorothy, bare elbows on the table, fingers clasped.

Standing by the General, arms folded, Jack Mount loomed a colossal figure in his beaded buckskins.

[Ill.u.s.tration: "JACK MOUNT LOOMED A COLOSSAL FIGURE IN HIS BEADED BUCKSKINS".]

"Ah, Mr. Ormond!" said the General, as I closed the door quietly behind me; "pray be seated. They are to have pictures and charades, you know; I shall not keep Miss Dorothy and yourself very long."

I seated myself beside Dorothy, exchanging a smile with Mount.

"Now," said the General, dropping his voice to a lower tone, "what was it you saw in the forest to-day?"

So Mount had already reported the apparition of the painted savage!

I told what I had seen, describing the Indian in detail, and repeating word for word his warning message to Mount.

The General looked inquiringly at Dorothy. "I understand," he said, "that you know as much about the Iroquois as the Iroquois do themselves."

"I think I do," she said, simply.

"May I ask how you acquired your knowledge, Miss Dorothy?"

"There have always been Iroquois villages along our boundary until last spring, when the Mohawks left with Guy Johnson," she said. "I have always played with Iroquois children; I went to school with Magdalen Brant. I taught among our Mohawks and Oneidas when I was thirteen. Then I was instructed by sachems and I learned what the witch-drums say, and I need use no signs in the six languages or the clan dialects, save only when I speak with the Lenni-Lenape. Maybe, too, the Hurons and Algonquins have words that I know not, for many Tuscaroras do not understand them save by sign."

"I wish that some of my interpreters had your knowledge, or a fifth of it," said the General, smiling. "Tell me, Miss Dorothy, who was that Indian and what did that paint mean?"

"The Indian was Joseph Brant, called Thayendanegea, which means, 'He who holds many peoples together,' or, in plainer words, 'A bundle of sticks.'"

"You are certain it was Brant?"

"Yes. He has dined at this table with us. He is an educated man." She hesitated, looking down thoughtfully at her own reflection in the polished table. "The paint he wore was not war-paint. The signs on his body were emblems of the secret clan called the 'False-Faces.'"

The General looked up at Jack Mount.