Chapter 9

"'Tis sheer folly, lad," I burst out then, "and let us have no more of it. 'Tis but the idle prating of a lovesick girl, who should have a lover, ere she try to steal a nest in the heart of one of her own sex. 'Tis folly, Sir Humphrey Hyde."

"So said I to Cicely," Sir Humphrey cried, eagerly, too interested in his own cause to heed my slighting words for his sister. "'Tis the rankest folly, I told her. Here is Harry Wingfield, old enough almost to be Mary's father, and beside, beside--oh, confound it, Harry," the generous lad burst out. "I would not like you for a rival, for you are a good half foot taller than I, and you have that about you which would make a woman run to you and think herself safe were all the Indians in Virginia up, and you are a dark man, and I have heard say they like that, but, but--oh, I say, Harry, 'tis a damned shame that you are here as you are, and not as a gentleman and a cavalier with the rest of us, for all the evidence to the contrary and all the government to the contrary, 'tis, 'tis the way you should be, and not a word of that charge do I believe. May the fiends take me if I do, Harry!" So saying, the lad looked at me, and verily the tears were in his blue eyes, and out he thrust his honest hand for me to grasp, which I did with more of comfort than I had had for many a day, though it was the hand of a rival, and the next minute forth he burst again: "Say, Harry, if it be true that thou art out of the running, and I believe it must be so, for how could?--say, Harry, think you there is any chance for me?"

"I know of no reason why there should not be, Sir Humphrey," I said.

"Only, only--that she is what she is, and I but myself. Oh, Harry, was there ever one like that girl? All the spirit of daring of a man she has, and yet is she full of all the sweet ways of a maid. Faith, she would draw sword one minute and tie a ribbon the next. She would have followed Bacon to the death, and sat up all night to broider herself a kerchief. Comrade and sweetheart both she is, and was there ever one like her for beauty? Harry, Harry, saw you ever such a beauty as Mary Cavendish?"

"No, and never will," cried I, so fervently and so echoing to the full his youthful enthusiasm that again that keen look flashed into his eyes. "Harry," he stammered out, "you do not--say, for God's sake, Harry, you are a man if you are a--a--, and every day have you seen that angel, and--and--Harry, may the devil take me if I would go against thee if she--you know I would not, Harry, for I remember well how you taught me to shoot, and, and--I love thee, Harry, not in such fool fashion as my sister loveth Mary, but I love thee, and never would I cross thee."

"Sir Humphrey," said I, "it is not what you would, nor what I would, nor what any other man would, but what be best for Mary Cavendish, and her true happiness of life, that is to consider, whether you love her, or I love her, or any other man love her."

"Faith, and a score do," he said, gloomily. "There be my Lord Estes and her cousin Ralph, and I know not how many more. Faith, I would not have her less fair, but sometimes I would that a few were colour-blind. But 'tis different when it comes to thee, Harry. If she--"

"Sir Humphrey," I said, "were Mary Cavendish thy sister and I myself, and loving her and she me, and you having that affection which you say you have for me, would you yet give her to me in marriage and think it for her good?"

Then the poor lad coloured and stammered, and could not look me in the face, but it was enough. "Let there be no more talk betwixt you and me as to that matter, Sir Humphrey," I said. "There is never now nor at any other time any question of marriage betwixt Mistress Mary Cavendish and her convict tutor, and if he perchance had been not colour-blind and had learned to appraise her at her rare worth, the more had he been set against such. And all that he can do for thee, lad, he will do."

Sir Humphrey was easily pacified, having been accustomed from his babyhood to masterly soothing of his mother into her own ways of thought. Again, in spite of his great stature, he looked up at me like a very child. "Harry," he whispered, "heard you her ever say anything pleasant concerning me?"

"Many a time," I answered, quite seriously, though I was inwardly laughing, and could not for the life of me remember any especial favour which she had paid him in her speech. But I have ever held that a bold lover hath the best chance, and knowing that boldness depends upon assurance of favour, I set about giving it to Sir Humphrey, even at some small expense of truth.

"When, when, Harry?"

"Oh, many a time, Sir Humphrey."

"But what? I pray thee, tell me what she said, Harry."

"I have not charged my mind, lad."

"But think of something. I pray thee, think of something, Harry." He looked at me with such exceeding wistfulness that I was forced to cudgel my brains for something which, having a slight savour of truth, might be seasoned to pungency at fancy. "Often have I heard her say that she liked a fair man," I replied, and indeed I had, and believed her to have said it because I was dark, and seemingly inattentive to some new grace of hers as to the tying of her hair or fastening of her kerchief.

"Did she indeed say that, Harry, and do you think she had me in mind?" cried Sir Humphrey.

"Are you not a fair man?"

"Yes, yes, I am a fair man, am I not, Harry? What else? Sure you have heard her say more than that."

"I have heard her say she liked a hearty laugh, and one who counted not costs when his mind were set on aught, but rode straight for it though all the bars were up."

"That sure is I, Harry, unless my mother stand in the way. A man cannot bring his mother's head low, Harry, but sure if she forbid nor know not, as in this case of this tobacco plot, I stop for naught. Sure she meant me, then, Harry."

"And I have heard her say that she liked a young man, a man no older than she."

"Sure, sure she meant me by that, Harry, for I am the youngest of them all--not yet twenty. Oh, dear Harry, she had me in mind by that. Do you not think so?"

"I know of no one else whom she could have had in mind," I answered.

The lad was blushing with delight and confusion like a girl. He cast down his eyes before me; he stammered when he spoke. "Harry, if she but love me, I swear I could do as brave deeds as Bacon," he said. "I would die would she but carry about a lock of my hair on her bosom as she does his. I would, Harry. And you think I have some chance?"

My heart smote me lest I had misled him, for I knew with no certainty the maid's mind. "As much chance as any, and more than many, lad," I said, "and I will do what I can for thee."

"Harry," he said, then paused and blushed and twisted his great body about as modestly as a girl, "Harry."

"What, Sir Humphrey?"

"Once, once--I never told of it, and no one ever knew since I was alone, and it would have been boasting--but once--I--fought single-handed with that great Christopher Little, whom I met by chance when I was out in the woods, and 'twas two years since, and I, with scarce my full growth, and he pleading for mercy at the second round, with an eye like a blackberry and a nose like a gillyflower, and--and--Harry, you might tell her of it, and say not where you got the news, if you thought it no harm. And, Harry, you will mind the time when I killed the wolf with naught but an oak club for weapon, and she, maybe, hath not heard of that. And I should have been to the front with Bacon, boy as I was, had it not been for my mother--that you know well and could make her sure of. And, and--oh, confound it, Harry, little book wit have I in my head, and she is so clever as never was, and all I have to win her notice be in my hands and heels, for, Harry, you will remember the race I ran with Tom Talbot that Mayday; think you she knows of that? And--but she must know how I rode against Nick Barry last St. Andrew's, and, and--oh, Lord, Harry, what am I that she should think of me? But at all odds, whether it be me or you or any other man, see to it that these goods be moved and she not be drawn into this which is hatching, for it may be as big a blaze as Bacon started before we be done with it; but shall I not help thee, Harry, and when will you move them and where?"

"I want no help, lad," I said, and was indeed firmly set in my mind that he should know nothing about the disposal of the goods lest Mistress Mary come to grief through her love for him, and reasoning that ignorance was his best safeguard and hers.

We went forth from Locust Creek, I having promised that I would do all that I could to further his suit with Mary Cavendish, and when we reached the bend of the road, he having walked beside me, hitherto leading his horse, he was in his saddle and away, having first acquainted me anxiously with the fact that he was to wear that night to the governor's ball a suit of blue velvet with silver buttons, and asking me if I considered that it would become him in Mistress Mary's eyes. Then I went home to Drake Hill, passing along such a wonderful aisle of bloom of locust and peach and mulberry and honeysuckle and long trails of a purple vine of such a surprise of beauty as to make one incredible that he saw aright--bushes pluming white to the wind, and over all a medley of honey and almond and spicy scents seeming to penetrate the very soul, that I was set to reflecting in the midst of my sadness of renunciation of my love, and my anxiety for her if, after all, such roads of blessing which were set for our feet at every turn led not of a necessity to blessed ends, and if our course tended not to happiness, whether we knew it or not, and along whatever byways of sorrow.

XI

I have seen many beautiful things in my life, as happens to every one living in a world which hath little fault as to its appearance, if one can outlook the shadow which his own selfishness of sorrow and disappointment may cast before him; but it seemed that evening, when I saw Mary Cavendish dressed for the governor's ball, that she was the crown of all. I verily believe that never since the world was made, not even that beautiful first woman who comprehended in herself all those witcheries of her sex which have been ever since to our rapture and undoing, not even Eve when Adam first saw her in Paradise, nor Helen, nor Cleopatra, nor any of those women whose faces have made powers of them and given them niches in history, were as beautiful as Mary Cavendish that night. And I doubt if it were because she was beheld by the eyes of a lover. I verily believe that I saw aright, and gave her beauty no glamour because of my fondness for her, for not one whit more did I love her in that splendour than in her plainest gown. But, oh, when she stood before her grandmother and me and a concourse of slaves all in a ferment of awe and admiration, with flashings of white teeth and upheavals of eyes and flingings aloft of hands in half-savage gesticulation, and courtesied and turned herself about in innocent delight at her own loveliness, and yet with the sweetest modesty and apology that she was knowing to it! That stuff which had been sent to my Lady Culpeper and which had been intercepted ere it reached her was of a most rich and wonderful kind. The blue of it was like the sky, and through it ran the gleam of silver in a flower pattern, and a great string of pearls gleamed on her bosom, and never was anything like that mixture of triumph in, and abashedness before, her own exceeding beauty and her perception of it in our eyes in her dear and lovely face. She looked at us and actually shrank a little, as if our admiration were something of an affront to her maiden modesty, and blushed, and then she laughed to cover it, and swept a courtesy in her circling shimmer of blue, and tossed her head and flirted a little fan, which looked like the wing of a butterfly, before her face.

"Well, how do you like me, madam?" said she to her grandmother, "and am I fine enough for the governor's ball?"

Madam Cavendish gazed at her with that rapture of admiration in a beloved object which can almost glorify age to youth. She called Mary to her and stroked the rich folds of her gown; she straightened a flutter of ribbon. "'Tis a fine stuff of the gown," she said, "and blue was always my colour. I was married in it. 'Tis fine enough for the governor's wife, or the queen for that matter." She pulled out a fold so that a long trail of silver flowers caught the light and gleamed like frost. No misgivings and no suspicions she had, and none, by that time, had Mary, believing as she did that her sister had bought all that bravery for her, and that it was hers by right, and only troubled by the necessity of secrecy with her grandmother lest she discover for what purpose her own money had been spent. But Catherine eyed her with such exceedingly worshipful love, admiration, and yet distress that even I pitied her. Catherine herself that night did no discredit to her beauty, her dress being, though it was an old one, as rich as Mary's, of her favourite green with a rose pattern broidered on the front of it, and a twist of green gauze in her fair hair, and that same necklace of green stones which she had shown me in the morning around her long throat, and her long, milky-white arms hanging at her sides in the green folds of her gown, and that pale radiance of perfection in her every feature that made many call her the pearl of Virginia, though, as I have said before, she had no lovers. She and Mary were going to the ball, and a company of black servants with them. As for me, balls were out of the question for a convict tutor, and I knew it, and so did they. But suddenly, to my great amazement, Madam Cavendish turned to me: "And wherefore are you not dressed for the ball, Master Wingfield?" she said.

I stared at her, as did also Catherine and Mary, almost as if they suspected she had gone demented. "Madam," I stammered, scarce thinking I had understood her rightly.

"Why are you not dressed for the ball?" she repeated.

"Madam," I said, "pardon me, but you are well acquainted with the fact that I am not a welcome guest at the governor's ball."

"And wherefore?" cried she imperiously.

"Wherefore, madam?"

Mary and Catherine both looked palely at their grandmother, not knowing what had come to her.

"Madam," I said, "do you forget?"

"I forget not that you are the eldest son and heir of one of the best families in England, and as good a gentleman as the best of them," she cried out. "That I do not forget, and I would have you go to the ball with my granddaughters. Put on thy plum-coloured velvet suit, Harry, and order thy horse saddled."

For the first time I seemed to understand that Madam Judith Cavendish had, in spite of her wonderful powers of body and mind, somewhat of the childishness of age, for as she looked at me the tears were in her stern eyes and a flush was on the ivory white of her face, and her tone had that querulousness in it which we associate with childhood which cannot have its own will.

"Madam," I said, gently, "you know that it is not possible for me to do as you wish, and also that my days of gayeties are past, though not to my regret, and that I am looking forward to an evening with my books, which, when a man gets beyond his youth, yield him often more pleasure than the society of his kind."

"But, Harry," she said piteously, and still like a child, "you are young, and I would not have--" Then imperiously again: "Get into thy plum-coloured velvet suit, Master Wingfield, and accompany my granddaughters."

But then I affected not to hear her, under pretence of seeing that the sedan chairs were ready, and hallooed to the slaves with such zeal that Madam Cavendish's voice was drowned, though with no seeming rudeness, and Mary and Catherine came forth in their rustling spreads of blue and green, and the black bearers stood grinning whitely out of the darkness, for the moon was not up yet, and I aided them both into the chairs, and they were off. I stood a few moments watching the retreating flare of flambeaux, for runners carrying them were necessary on those rough roads when dark, and the breath of the dewy spring night fanned my face like a wing of peace, and I regretted nothing very much which had happened in this world, so that I could come between that beloved girl and the troubles starting up like poisonous weeds on her path.

But when I entered the hall Madam Cavendish, having sent away the slaves, even to the little wench who had been fanning her, with verily I believe no more of consciousness as to what was going on about her than a Jimson weed by the highway, called me to her in a voice so tremulous that I scarce knew it for hers.

"Harry, Harry," she said, "I pray thee, come here." Then, when I approached, hesitating, for I had a shrinking before some outburst of feminine earnestness, which has always intimidated me by its fire of helplessness and futility playing against some resolve of mine which I could not, on account of my masculine understanding of the requirements of circumstances, allow to melt, she reached up one hand like a little nervous claw of ivory, and caught me by the sleeve and pulled me down to a stool by her side. Then she looked at me, and such love and even adoration were in her face as I never saw surpassed in it, even when she regarded her granddaughter Mary, yet withal a cruel distress and self-upbraiding and wrath at herself and me. "Harry, Harry," she said, "I can bear no more of this." Then, to my consternation, up went her silken apron with a fling to her old face, and she was weeping under it as unrestrainedly as any child.

I did not know what to do nor say. "Madam," I ventured, finally, "if you distress yourself in such wise for my sake, 'tis needless, I assure, 'tis needless, and with as much truth as were you my own mother."

"Oh, Harry, Harry," she sobbed out, "know you not that is why I cannot bear it longer, because you yourself bear it with no complaint?" Then she sobbed and even wailed with that piteousness of the grief of age exceeding that of infancy, inasmuch as the weight of all past griefs of a lifetime go to swell it, and it is enhanced by memory as well as by the present and an unknown future. I knew not what to do, but laid a hand somewhat timidly on one of her thin silken arms, and strove to draw it gently from her face. "Madam Cavendish," I said, "indeed you mistake if you weep for me. At this moment I would change places with no man in Virginia."

"But I would have--I would have you!" she cried out, with the ardour of a girl, and down went her apron, 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 God 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 compassionate 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, assuring 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 balls."

"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?"