Hugh Wynne, Free Quaker Part 18

"At last I gave up, and the captain and Pike took the foils, while we sat and watched them. He was more than a match for Pike, and at last crying, 'Take care! here is a _botte_ you do not know,' caught him fair in the left chest.

"'By George! Mr. Wynne, that is a pretty piece of play! I remember now Major Montresor tried to show it to me. He said it was that way you killed Lord Charles Trevor.'

"I was shocked to know he had killed a man, and Hugh looked up with his big mother-eyes, while the captain said coolly:

"'Yes; a sad business, and about a woman, of course. It is dreadful to have that kind of a disposition, boys, that makes you dangerous to some one who wants what you want. He was very young too. A pity! a pity!'

"Hugh and I said nothing; but I had the odd notion that he was threatening us. One gets these ideas vaguely in youth, and sometimes after-events justify them. However, the fancy soon took me to fence with Hugh in his room, for I dared not risk asking my father's leave. As Hugh got his lessons both from Pike and the captain, and became very expert, I got on pretty nearly as fast as he.

"At times we practised in our s.h.i.+rt-sleeves in the garden at Miss Wynne's, or fenced with Graydon, who was later the most expert small sword we had in the army. Hugh soon became nearly as skilful, but I was never as clever at it."

One day we were busy, as Jack has described, when who should come out into the garden but Mistress Wynne and Darthea, and behind them the captain. We dropped our points, but Miss p.e.n.i.ston cried out, "Go on! go on!" and, laughing, we fell to again.

Presently I, a bit distracted, for I was facing Darthea's eyes, felt Jack's foil full on my chest. Darthea clapped her hands, and, running forward, would pin a bunch of red ribbons she took from her shoulder on Jack's sleeve. Jack fell back, as red as the ribbons, and my aunt cried out, "Darthea, you are too forward!"

The young woman flushed, and cast down the bow, and as Arthur Wynne bent to pick it up set her foot on it. I saw the captain rise, and stand with the half-shut eyes and the little drop of the jaw I have already mentioned. My aunt, who liked the girl well, went after her at once as she left us in a pet to return to the house. I saw my aunt put a hand on her shoulder, and then the captain, looking vexed, followed after. An hour later I went to look for the ribbon. It was gone, and for years I knew not where, till, in a little box in Jack's desk, I came upon it neatly tied up.

Young as I was, I began to see that here were Captain Wynne, and possibly my friend, in the toils of a girl,--she was but seventeen,--and I, alas! no better off; but of this I breathed not a word to any. Jack hung about her and fell back when any less shy man wanted his place. I felt that he was little likely to have his way, and that neither he nor I had much chance in such a game against a man like my cousin. He had played with hearts before, and the maid listened like Desdemona to this dark-browed soldier when he talked of courts and kings, and faraway Eastern battles, and the splendour of the Orient. My aunt, whom nothing escaped, looked on much amused. Perhaps she did not take as serious the love-affairs of lads like Jack and me. We were like enough to have a dozen before we were really captured. That I was becoming at twenty-one more thoughtful and resolute than far older people, she did not see, and she was sometimes vexed at my sober ways. I was at times gay enough, but at others she would reproach me with not taking more pains to please her guests. Society, she said, had duties as well as pleasures. My friend Jack no one fully understood in those days, nor knew the sweet manhood and the unselfishness that lay beneath his girl-like exterior.

One day, late in November, my aunt and I were, for a wonder, alone, when she dropped the cards with which she was playing, and said to me: "Hugh, there is something serious between that mischievous kitten and your cousin. They are much talked of. If you have a boy-fancy that way, get rid of it. I don't see through the man. He has been telling her about the fine house at Wyncote, and the great estate, and how some day he will have it, his elder brother being far gone in a phthisis."

"There must be some mistake," I said. "Thou knowest what he told my father."

"Yes; I don't like it," she went on; "but the girl is caught. He talks of soon having to join Sir Guy Carleton in Canada. And there is my dear girl-boy trapped too, I fear. But, really, he is such a child of a fellow it hardly matters. How many does she want in her net? The fish may squabble, I fear. A sweet thing she is; cruel only by instinct; and so gay, so tender, so truthful and right-minded with all her nonsense.

No one can help loving her; but to-day she has one mood, and to-morrow another. There will be a mad ma.s.sacre before she is done with you all.

Run away, Hugh! run! Make love to Kitty s.h.i.+ppen if you want to get Miss Darthea."

I laughed, but I had little mirth in my heart.

"Aunt Gainor," I said, "I love that woman, and no other man shall have her if I can help it."

"If? if? Stuff! you can't help it. Don't be a fool! The sea is full of fish. This is news indeed."

"The land has but one Darthea," said I. "I am a boy no longer, Aunt Gainor. Thou hast made me tell thee, and, now it is out, I may as well say I know all about my cousin. He as good as told me, and in a way I did not like. The man thinks I am a boy to be scared out of going my own way. I have told no one else; but if I can get her I will, and it is no laughing matter."

"I am sorry, Hugh," she said. "I knew not it was so serious. It is hard to realise that you are no more a boy, and must have the sorrows my s.e.x provides for you. I like her, and I would help you if I could, but you are late." And she went on shuffling the cards, while I took up a book, being inclined to say no more.

That evening two letters came by the New York packet. One from my father I put aside. It was dated outside, and was written two weeks later than my mother's, which I read first. I opened it with care.

"MY OWN DEAR SON: Thy last sweet letter was a great refreshment to me, and the more so because I have not been well, having again my old ache in the side, but not such as need trouble thee. I blush to hear the pretty things thy letters say; but it is love that holds thy pen, and I must not be too much set up in my own esteem. How much love I give thee in return thou knowest, but to pay in this coin will never beggar us. I love thee because thou art all I can desire, and again because thou lovest me, and again for this same dear reason which is all I can say to excuse my mother-folly. Thy father is well, but weary of this great town; and we both long to be at home."

Then there was more about my Aunt Wynne, and some woman-talk for her friends about the new fas.h.i.+ons, which do not concern her, she being not of this world. "Am I not?" she says. "I love it all--the sea, even the sea, and flowers, and our woods, and, dear me! also gay gowns. I hope the last I got here will not disturb the Meeting, and my new m.u.f.f,--very big it is,--and a green joseph to ride in. I mean to ride with thee next spring often--often." And so on, half mother, half child, with bits of her dear French, and all about a new saddle for me, and silver spurs.

The postscript was long.

"I saw last week a fair Quaker dame come out of Wales. I asked her about the Wynnes. She knew them not, but told me of their great house, and how it was a show-place people went to see, having been done over at great cost; and how a year or two since coal was found on the estate, and much iron, so that these last two years they were rich, and there was some talk of making the present man a baronet. Also that the elder brother is ill, nigh to death. It seems strange after what thy cousin said so often. Thy father is away in Holland. I will tell him when he is come back. Be cautious not to talk of this. I never liked the man."

I sat back in my chair to read it all over again, first giving my aunt my father's letter. In a few minutes I heard a cry, and saw my aunt, pale and shaken, standing up, the letter in her hand.

"My G.o.d!" I cried, "what is it? Is it my mother?"

"Yes, yes!" she said. "Be strong, my boy! She is--dead!"

For a moment I saw the room whirl, and then, as my Aunt Gainor sat down, I fell on my knees and buried my face in her lap. I felt her dear old hands on my head, and at last would have the letter. It was brief.

"MY SON: The hand of G.o.d has fallen heavily upon me. Thy mother died to-day of a pleurisy which none could help. I had not even the consolation to hear her speak, since, when I came from Holland, she was wandering in talk of thee, and mostly in French, which I know not. I seek to find G.o.d's meaning in this chastis.e.m.e.nt. As yet I find it not.

It is well that we should not let bereavements so overcome us as to make us neglect to be fervent in the business of life, or to cease to praise Him who has seen fit to take away from us that which it may be we wors.h.i.+pped as an idol. What more is to say I leave until I see thee. My affairs are now so ordered that I may leave them. I shall sail in a week for home in the s.h.i.+p in which I came out, and shall not go, as I did mean, to the islands."

It seemed to me, as I read and re-read it, a cold, hard letter. I said as much to my aunt some days after this; but she wisely urged that my father was ever a reticent man, who found it difficult to let even his dearest see the better part of him.

I have no mind to dwell on this sad calamity. I went to and fro, finding neither possibility of repose nor any consolation. I saw as I rode, or lay in my boat, that one dear face, its blue-eyed tenderness, its smile of love. I could never thus recall to sight any other of those who, in after-years, have left me; but this one face is here to-day as I write, forever smiling and forever young.

And so time ran on, and nigh to Christmas day my father came home. The weather was more mild than common, and his s.h.i.+p met no delay from ice.

I joined him off Chester Creek. He was grayer, older, I thought, but not otherwise altered, having still his erect stature, and the trick I have myself of throwing his head up and his shoulders back when about to meet some emergent occasion. I saw no sign of emotion when we met, except that he opened and shut his hands as usual when disturbed. He asked if I were well, and of my Aunt Gainor, and then, amid the tears which were choking me, if I were satisfied as to the business, and if the tea had arrived. I said yes, and that the s.h.i.+p had been sent away without violence. He said it was a silly business, and the king would soon end it; he himself had been too hasty--with more to like effect.

It seemed to me while we talked as though he had just come from my mother's death-bed, whereas a long time had elapsed, and he had been able to get over the first cruel shock. My own grief was still upon me, and I wondered at his tranquillity. A little later he said:

"I see thou hast taken to the foolishness of black garments. This is thy aunt's doings." In fact, it was her positive wish. I made no reply, but only looked him in the face, ready to cry like a child.

"Why hast thou no answers, Hugh? Thy tongue used to be ready enough.

Thou hast thy mother's eyes. I would thou hadst them not."

This was as near as he ever came to speech of her, whom, to my amazement, he never again mentioned. Was it a deeper feeling than I knew, that so silenced him, or did he wish to forget her! I know not.

Some deal thus with their dead. He bade my aunt take away my mother's clothes, and asked no questions as to how she disposed of them; nor for a month did he desire my return home.

What then pa.s.sed between him and my Aunt Gainor I do not know; but he said nothing more of my dress, although I wore mourning for six months.

Nor did he say a word as to my exactness and industry, which was honestly all they should have been. At meals he spoke rarely, and then of affairs, or to blame me for faults not mine, or to speak with cold sarcasm of my friends.

Except for Jack, and my Aunt Gainor, and Wilson and Wetherill, of whom I saw much, I should have been miserable indeed. Captain Wynne still came and went, and his strange intimacy with my father continued. I thought little of it then, and for my own part I liked to hear of his adventurous life, but the man less and less; and so the winter of '73 and '74 went by with fencing and skating and books, which now I myself ordered to suit me, or found in Mr. Logan's great library, of which I was made free.

In March my cousin left us for Canada and the army. Once I spoke before him of the news in my mother's postscript; but he laughed, saying he had heard some such rumours, but that they were not true. They did not much trouble a hungry beggar of a younger son with letters; still if there had been such good news he should have heard it. He wished it might be so and as to his brother, poor devil! he would last long enough to marry and have children. Were the ducks still in the river! He said no more to me of Darthea, or of what I was to do for him, but he found a way at need, I am sure, to get letters to her, and that without difficulty. At last, as I have said, he was gone to join Sir Guy. I was not sorry.

Mrs. p.e.n.i.ston, Darthea's aunt, usually talked little, and then of serious matters as if they were trivial, and of these latter as if they were of the utmost importance. With regard to this matter of Darthea and my cousin, she was free of speech and incessant, so that all the town was soon a.s.sured of the great match Darthea would make. The fine house at Wyncote grew, and the estate also. Neither Jack nor I liked all this, and my friend took it sadly to heart, to my Aunt Gainor's amus.e.m.e.nt and Mrs. Ferguson's, who would have Dr. Rush set up a ward in the new hospital for the broken-hearted lovers of Darthea. When first Jack Warder was thus badgered, he fell into such a state of terror as to what the madcap woman would say next that he declined all society for a week, and ever after detested the Tory lady.

I became, under the influence of this much-talked-of news, as mute as Jack; but, while he had only a deep desire toward sadness, and to stay away from her who had thus defeated his love, I, neither given over to despair nor hope, had only a fierce will to have my way; nor, for some reason or for none, did I consider Jack's case as very serious,--my aunt it much amused,--so little do we know those who are most near to us.

No sooner was the redcoat lover gone awhile than, as Miss Chew declared, Darthea put off mourning for the absent. Indeed, the pretty kitten began once more to tangle the threads of Jack's life and mine. For a month Jack was in favour, and then a certain captain, but never I, until one day late in April. She was waiting among my aunt's china for her return, and had set the goggle-eyed mandarin to nodding, while, with eyes as wide as his, she nodded in reply, and laughed like a merry child.

I stood in the doorway, and watched this delicious creature for a minute while she amused herself--and me also, although she knew it not. "Say No!" she cried out to the great china n.o.bleman; quite a foot high he was. But, despite her pretence at altering his unvaried affirmative, it still went on. My lady walked all around him, and presently said aloud: "No! no! It must be No! Say No!" stamping a foot, as if angry, and then of a sudden running up to the mandarin and laughing. "He has a crack in his head. That is why he says Yes! Yes! I must be a female mandarin, and that is why I say No! No! I wonder does he talk broken China?"

At this moment she saw my tall black figure in a corner mirror, and made some exclamation, as if startled; an instant later she knew it was I, but as if by magic the laughing woman was no longer there. What I saw as she came toward me was a slight, quiet nun with eyes full of tears.

I was used to her swift changes of mood, but what her words, or some of them, meant I knew not; and as for this pitying face, with its sudden sadness, what more did it mean? Major Andre said of her later that Mistress Darthea was like a lake in the hills, reflecting all things, and yet herself after all. But how many such tricksy ways, pretty or vexing, she was to show some of us in the years to come did not yet appear.

In a moment I seemed to see before me the small dark child I first knew at school. Why was she now so curiously perturbed? "Mr. Wynne," she said, "you never come near me now--oh, not for a month! And to-day your aunt has shown me a part of the dear mother's letter, and--and--I am so sorry for you! I am indeed! I have long wanted to say so. I wish I could help you. I do not think you forget easily, and--and--you were so good to me when I was an ugly little brat. I think your mother loved me. That is a thing to make one think better of one's self. I need it, sir. It is a pretty sort of vanity, and how vain you must be, who had so much of her love!"

"I thank thee," I said simply. Indeed, for a time I was so moved that say more I could not. "I thank thee, Miss p.e.n.i.ston. There is no one on earth whom I would rather hear say what thou hast said."

I saw her colour a little, and she replied quickly, "I am only a child, and I say what comes to my lips; I might better it often if I stayed to think."