To Have and to Hold Part 44

"I need no telling," she answered. "I am glad that I did so forget my womanhood as to come to Virginia on such an errand; glad that they did laugh at and insult me in the meadow at Jamestown, for else thou mightst have given me no thought; very heartily glad that thou didst buy me with thy handful of tobacco. With all my heart I love thee, my knight, my lover, my lord and husband"--Her voice broke, and I felt the trembling of her frame. "I love not thy tears upon my hands," she murmured. "I have wandered far and am weary. Wilt rise and put thy arm around me and lead me home?"

I stood up, and she came to my arms like a tired bird to its nest. I bent my head, and kissed her upon the brow, the blue-veined eyelids, the perfect lips. "I love thee," I said. "The song is old, but it is sweet.

See! I wear thy color, my lady."

The hand that had touched the ribbon upon my arm stole upwards to my lips. "An old song, but a sweet one," she said. "I love thee. I will always love thee. My head may lie upon thy breast, but my heart lies at thy feet."

There was joy in the haunted wood, deep peace, quiet thankfulness, a springtime of the heart,--not riotous like the May, but fair and grave and tender like the young world in the sunshine without the pines. Our lips met again, and then, with my arm around her, we moved to the giant pine beneath which stood the minister. He turned at our approach, and looked at us with a quiet and tender smile, though the water stood in his eyes. "'Heaviness may endure for a night,'" he said, "'but joy cometh in the morning.' I thank G.o.d for you both."

"Last summer, in the green meadow, we knelt before you while you blessed us, Jeremy," I answered. "Bless us now again, true friend and man of G.o.d."

He laid his hands upon our bowed heads and blessed us, and then we three moved through the dismal wood and beside the sluggish stream down to the great bright river. Ere we reached it the pines had fallen away, the haunted wood was behind us, our steps were set through a fairy world of greening bough and springing bloom. The blue sky laughed above, the late sunshine barred our path with gold. When we came to the river it lay in silver at our feet, making low music amongst its reeds.

I had bethought me of the boat which I had fastened that morning to the sycamore between us and the town, and now we moved along the river bank until we should come to the tree. Though we walked through an enemy's country we saw no foe. Stillness and peace encompa.s.sed us; it was like a beautiful dream from which one fears no wakening.

As we went, I told them, speaking low, for we knew not if we were yet in safety, of the slaughter that had been made and of Diccon. My wife shuddered and wept, and the minister drew long breaths while his hands opened and closed. And then, when she asked me, I told of how I had been trapped to the ruined hut that night and of all that had followed.

When I had done she turned within my arm and clung to me with her face hidden. I kissed her and comforted her, and presently we came to the sycamore tree reaching out over the clear water, and to the boat that I had fastened there.

The sunset was nigh at hand, and all the west was pink. The wind had died away, and the river lay like tinted gla.s.s between the dark borders of the forest. Above the sky was blue, while in the south rose clouds that were like pillars, tall and golden. The air was soft as silk; there was no sound other than the ripple of the water about our keel and the low dash of the oars. The minister rowed, while I sat idle beside my love. He would have it so, and I made slight demur.

We left the bank behind us and glided into the midstream, for it was as well to be out of arrowshot. The shadow of the forest was gone; still and bright around us lay the mighty river. When at length the boat head turned to the west, we saw far up the stream the roofs of Jamestown, dark against the rosy sky.

"There is a ship going home," said the minister.

We to whom he spoke looked with him down the river, and saw a tall ship with her prow to the ocean. All her sails were set; the last rays of the sinking sun struck against her p.o.o.p windows and made of them a half-moon of fire. She went slowly, for the wind was light, but she went surely, away from the new land back to the old, down the stately river to the bay and the wide ocean, and to the burial at sea of one upon her. With her pearly sails and the line of flame color beneath, she looked a dwindling cloud; a little while, and she would be claimed of the distance and the dusk.

"It is the George," I said.

The lady who sat beside me caught her breath. "Ay, sweetheart," I went on. "She carries one for whom she waited. He has gone from out our life forever."

She uttered a low cry and turned to me, trembling, her lips parted, her eyes eloquent. "We will not speak of him," I said. "As if he were dead let his name rest between us. I have another thing to tell thee, dear heart, dear court lady masking as a waiting damsel, dear ward of the King whom his Majesty hath thundered against for so many weary months.

Would it grieve thee to go home, after all?"

"Home?" she asked. "To Weyanoke? That would not grieve me."

"Not to Weyanoke, but to England," I said. "The George is gone, but three days since the Esperance came in. When she sails again I think that we must go."

She gazed at me with a whitening face. "And you?" she whispered. "How will you go? In chains?"

I took her clasped hands, parted them, and drew her arms around my neck.

"Ay," I answered, "I will go in chains that I care not to have broken.

My dear love, I think that the summer lies fair before us. Listen while I tell thee of news that the Esperance brought."

While I told of new orders from the Company to the Governor and of my letter from Buckingham, the minister rested upon his oars that he might hear the better. When I had ceased to speak he bent to them again, and his tireless strength sent us swiftly over the gla.s.sy water toward the town that was no longer distant. "I am more glad than I can tell you, Ralph and Jocelyn," he said, and the smile with which he spoke made his face beautiful.

The light streaming to us from the ruddy west laid roses in the cheeks of the sometime ward of the King, and the low wind lifted the dark hair from her forehead. Her head was on my breast, her hand in mine; we cared not to speak, we were so happy. On her finger was her wedding ring, the ring that was only a link torn from the gold chain Prince Maurice had given me. When she saw my eyes upon it, she raised her hand and kissed the rude circlet.

The hue of the sunset lingered in cloud and water, and in the pale heavens above the rose and purple shone the evening star. The cloudlike ship at which we had gazed was gone into the distance and the twilight; we saw her no more. Broad between its blackening sh.o.r.es stretched the James, mirroring the bloom in the west, the silver star, the lights upon the Esperance that lay between us and the town. Aboard her the mariners were singing, and their song of the sea floated over the water to us, sweetly and like a love song. We pa.s.sed the ship unhailed, and glided on to the haven where we would be. The singing behind us died away, but the song in our hearts kept on. All things die not: while the soul lives, love lives: the song may be now gay, now plaintive, but it is deathless.

THE END.