To Have and to Hold Part 5

I rose, also. "You have had no supper!" I cried. "I too have forgotten."

He shook his head. "I cannot wait. Moreover, I have feasted,--yea, and drunk deep."

His eyes were very bright, with an exaltation in them as of wine.

Mine, I felt, had the same light. Indeed, we were both drunk with her laughter, her beauty, and her wit. When he had kissed her hand, and I had followed him out of the house and down the bank, he broke the silence.

"Why she came to Virginia I do not know "--

"Nor care to ask," I said.

"Nor care to ask," he repeated, meeting my gaze. "And I know neither her name nor her rank. But as I stand here, Ralph, I saw her, a guest, at that feast of which I spoke; and Edwyn Sandys picked not his maids from such a.s.semblies."

I stopped him with my hand upon his shoulder. "She is one of Sandys'

maids," I a.s.serted, with deliberation, "a waiting damsel who wearied of service and came to Virginia to better herself. She was landed with her mates at Jamestown a week or more agone, went with them to church and thence to the courting meadow, where she and Captain Ralph Percy, a gentleman adventurer, so pleased each other that they were married forthwith. That same day he brought her to his house, where she now abides, his wife, and as such to be honored by those who call themselves his friends. And she is not to be lightly spoken of, nor comment pa.s.sed upon her grace, beauty, and bearing (something too great for her station, I admit), lest idle tales should get abroad."

"Am I not thy friend, Ralph?" he asked with smiling eyes.

"I have thought so at times," I answered.

"My friend's honor is my honor," he went on. "Where his lips are sealed mine open not. Art content?"

"Content," I said, and pressed the hand he held out to me.

We reached the steps of the wharf, and descending them he entered his barge, rocking lazily with the advancing tide. His rowers cast loose from the piles, and the black water slowly widened between us. From over my shoulder came a sudden bright gleam of light from the house above, and I knew that Mistress Percy was as usual wasting good pine knots. I had a vision of the many lights within, and of the beauty whom the world called my wife, sitting erect, bathed in that rosy glow, in the great armchair, with the turbaned negress behind her. I suppose Rolfe saw the same thing, for he looked from the light to me, and I heard him draw his breath.

"Ralph Percy, thou art the very b.u.t.ton upon the cap of Fortune," he said.

To myself my laugh sounded something of the bitterest, but to him, I presume, it vaunted my return through the darkness to the lit room and its resplendent pearl. He waved farewell, and the dusk swallowed up him and his boat. I went back to the house and to her.

She was sitting as we had left her, with her small feet crossed upon the cus.h.i.+on beneath them, her hands folded in her silken lap, the air from the waving fan blowing tendrils of her dark hair against her delicate standing ruff. I went and leaned against the window, facing her.

"I have been chosen Burgess for this hundred," I said abruptly. "The a.s.sembly meets next week. I must be in Jamestown then and for some time to come."

She took the fan from the negress, and waved it lazily to and fro. "When do we go?" she asked at last.

"We!" I answered. "I had thought to go alone."

The fan dropped to the floor, and her eyes opened wide. "And leave me here!" she exclaimed. "Leave me in these woods, at the mercy of Indians, wolves, and your rabble of servants!"

I smiled. "We are at peace with the Indians; it would be a stout wolf that could leap this palisade; and the servants know their master too well to care to offend their mistress. Moreover, I would leave Diccon in charge."

"Diccon!" she cried. "The old woman in the kitchen hath told me tales of Diccon! Diccon Bravo! Diccon Gamester! Diccon Cutthroat!"

"Granted," I said. "But Diccon Faithful as well. I can trust him."

"But I do not trust him!" she retorted. "And I wish to go to Jamestown.

This forest wearies me." Her tone was imperious.

"I must think it over," I said coolly. "I may take you, or I may not. I cannot tell yet."

"But I desire to go, sir!"

"And I may desire you to stay."

"You are a churl!"

I bowed. "I am the man of your choice, madam."

She rose with a stamp of her foot, and, turning her back upon me, took a flower from the table and commenced to pull from it its petals. I unsheathed my sword, and, seating myself, began to polish away a speck of rust upon the blade. Ten minutes later I looked up from the task, to receive full in my face a red rose tossed from the other side of the room. The missile was followed by an enchanting burst of laughter.

"We cannot afford to quarrel, can we?" cried Mistress Jocelyn Percy.

"Life is sad enough in this solitude without that. Nothing but trees and water all day long, and not a soul to speak to! And I am horribly afraid of the Indians! What if they were to kill me while you were away? You know you swore before the minister to protect me. You won't leave me to the mercies of the savages, will you? And I may go to Jamestown, may n't I? I want to go to church. I want to go to the Governor's house. I want to buy a many things. I have gold in plenty, and but this one decent dress. You'll take me with you, won't you?"

"There's not your like in Virginia," I told her. "If you go to town clad like that and with that bearing, there will be talk enough. And s.h.i.+ps come and go, and there are those besides Rolfe who have been to London."

For a moment the laughter died from her eyes and lips, but it returned.

"Let them talk," she said. "What care I? And I do not think your s.h.i.+p captains, your traders and adventurers, do often dine with my lord bishop. This barbarous forest world and another world that I wot of are so far apart that the inhabitants of the one do not trouble those of the other. In that petty village down there I am safe enough. Besides, sir, you wear a sword."

"My sword is ever at your service, madam."

"Then I may go to Jamestown?"

"If you will it so."

With her bright eyes upon me, and with one hand softly striking a rose against her laughing lips, she extended the other hand.

"You may kiss it, if you wish, sir," she said demurely.

I knelt and kissed the white fingers, and four days later we went to Jamestown.

CHAPTER VI IN WHICH WE GO TO JAMESTOWN

IT was early morning when we set out on horseback for Jamestown. I rode in front, with Mistress Percy upon a pillion behind me, and Diccon on the brown mare brought up the rear. The negress and the mails I had sent by boat.

Now, a ride through the green wood with a n.o.ble horse beneath you, and around you the freshness of the morn, is pleasant enough. Each twig had its row of diamonds, and the wet leaves that we pushed aside spilled gems upon us. The horses set their hoofs daintily upon fern and moss and lush gra.s.s. In the purple distances deer stood at gaze, the air rang with innumerable bird notes, clear and sweet, squirrels chattered, bees hummed, and through the thick leafy roof of the forest the sun showered gold dust. And Mistress Jocelyn Percy was as merry as the morning. It was now fourteen days since she and I had first met, and in that time I had found in her thrice that number of moods. She could be as gay and sweet as the morning, as dark and vengeful as the storms that came up of afternoons, pensive as the twilight, stately as the night,--in her there met a hundred minds. Also she could be childishly frank--and tell you nothing.

To-day she chose to be gracious. Ten times in an hour Diccon was off his horse to pluck this or that flower that her white forefinger pointed out. She wove the blooms into a chaplet, and placed it upon her head; she filled her lap with trailers of the vine that swayed against us, and stained her fingers and lips with the berries Diccon brought her; she laughed at the squirrels, at the scurrying partridges, at the turkeys that crossed our path, at the fish that leaped from the brooks, at old Jocomb and his sons who ferried us across the Chickahominy. She was curious concerning the musket I carried; and when, in an open s.p.a.ce in the wood, we saw an eagle perched upon a blasted pine, she demanded my pistol. I took it from my belt and gave it to her, with a laugh. "I will eat all of your killing," I said.

She aimed the weapon. "A wager!" she declared. "There be mercers in Jamestown? If I hit, thou 'lt buy me a pearl hatband?"

"Two."

She fired, and the bird rose with a scream of wrath and sailed away. But two or three feathers came floating to the ground, and when Diccon had brought them to her she pointed triumphantly to the blood upon them.

"You said two!" she cried.