Richard Carvel — Complete

by Winston Churchill

  CHAPTER VIII. OVER THE WALL

  Dorothy treated me ill enough that spring. Since the minx had tastedpower at Carvel Hall, there was no accounting for her. On returning totown Dr. Courtenay had begged her mother to allow her at the assemblies,a request which Mrs. Manners most sensibly refused. Mr. Marmaduke hadgiven his consent, I believe, for he was more impatient than Dolly forthe days when she would become the toast of the province. But the doctorcontrived to see her in spite of difficulties, and Will Fotheringay wasforever at her house, and half a dozen other lads. And many gentlemen offashion like the doctor called ostensibly to visit Mrs. Manners, but inreality to see Miss Dorothy. And my lady knew it. She would be lingeringin the drawing-room in her best bib and tucker, or strolling in thegarden as Dr. Courtenay passed, and I got but scant attention indeed. Iwas but an awkward lad, and an old playmate, with no novelty about me.

  "Why, Richard," she would say to me as I rode or walked beside her, orsat at dinner in Prince George Street, "I know every twist and turn ofyour nature. There is nothing you could do to surprise me. And so, sir,you are very tiresome."

  "You once found me useful enough to fetch and carry, and amusing when Iwalked the Oriole's bowsprit," I replied ruefully.

  "Why don't you make me jealous?" says she, stamping her foot. "A scoreof pretty girls are languishing for a glimpse of you,--Jennie and BessFotheringay, and Betty Tayloe, and Heaven knows how many others. Theyare actually accusing me of keeping you trailing. 'La, girls!' saidI, 'if you will but rid me of him for a day, you shall have my lastinggratitude.'"

  And she turned to the spinet and began a lively air. But the tauntstruck deeper than she had any notion of. That spring arrived out fromLondon on the Belle of the Wye a box of fine clothes my grandfather hadcommanded for me from his own tailor; and a word from a maid of fifteendid more to make me wear them than any amount of coaxing from Mr. Allenand my Uncle Grafton. My uncle seemed in particular anxious that Ishould make a good appearance, and reminded me that I should dress asbecame the heir of the Carvel house. I took counsel with Patty Swain,and then went to see Betty Tayloe, and the Fotheringay girls, andthe Dulany girls, near the Governor's. And (fie upon me!) I was notill-pleased with the brave appearance I made. I would show my mistresshow little I cared. But the worst of it was, the baggage seemed totrouble less than I, and had the effrontery to tell me how happy she wasI had come out of my shell, and broken loose from her apron-strings.

  "Indeed, they would soon begin to think I meant to marry you, Richard,"says she at supper one Sunday before a tableful, and laughed with therest.

  "They do not credit you with such good sense, my dear," says her mother,smiling kindly at me.

  And Dolly bit her lip, and did not join in that part of the merriment.

  I fled to Patty Swain for counsel, nor was it the first time in my lifeI had done so. Some good women seem to have been put into this selfishworld to comfort and advise. After Prince George Street with its giltand marbles and stately hedged gardens, the low-beamed, vine-coveredhouse in the Duke of Gloucester Street was a home and a rest. In my eyesthere was not its equal in Annapolis for beauty within and without. Mr.Swain had bought the dwelling from an aged man with a history, deadsome nine years back. Its furniture, for the most part, was of theRestoration, of simple and massive oak blackened by age, which I everfancied better than the Frenchy baubles of tables and chairs withspindle legs, and cabinets of glass and gold lacquer which were thenmaking their way into the fine mansions of our town. The house was fullof twists and turns, and steps up and down, and nooks and passages andqueer hiding-places which we children knew, and in parts queer leadedwindows of bulging glass set high in the wall, and older than the reignof Hanover. Here was the shrine of cleanliness, whose high-priestess wasPatty herself. Her floors were like satin-wood, and her brasses lightsin themselves. She had come honestly enough by her gifts, her fatherhaving married the daughter of an able townsman of Salem, in theMassachusetts colony, when he had gone north after his first greatsuccess in court. Now the poor lady sat in a padded armchair frommorning to night, beside the hearth in winter, and under the trees insummer, by reason of a fall she had had. There she knitted all the daylong. Her placid face and quiet way come before me as I write.

  My friendship with Patty had begun early. One autumn day when I was alittle lad of eight or nine, my grandfather and I were driving back fromWhitehall in the big coach, when we spied a little maid of six bythe Severn's bank, with her apron full of chestnuts. She was trudgingbravely through the dead leaves toward the town. Mr. Carvel pulledthe cord to stop, and asked her name. "Patty Swain, and it pleaseyour honour," the child answered, without fear. "So you are theyoung barrister's daughter?" says he, smiling at something I did notunderstand. She nodded. "And how is it you are so far from home, andalone, my little one?" asked Mr. Carvel again. For some time he couldget nothing out of her; but at length she explained, with much coaxing,that her big brother Tom had deserted her. My grandfather wished thatTom were his brother, that he might be punished as he deserved. Hecommanded young Harvey to lift the child into the coach, chestnutsand all, and there she sat primly between us. She was not as pretty asDorothy, so I thought, but her clear gray eyes and simple ways impressedme by their very honesty, as they did Mr. Carvel. What must he do butdrive her home to Green Street, where Mr. Swain then lived in a littlecottage. Mr. Carvel himself lifted her out and kissed her, andhanded her to her mother at the gate, who was vastly overcome by thecircumstance. The good lady had not then received that fall which madeher a cripple for life. "And will you not have my chestnuts, sir, foryour kindness?" says little Patty. Whereat my grandfather laughed andkissed her again, for he loved children, and wished to know if she wouldnot be his daughter, and come to live in Marlboro' Street; and told thestory of Tom, for fear she would not. He was silent as we drove away,and I knew he was thinking of my own mother at that age.

  Not long after this Mr. Swain bought the house in the Duke of GloucesterStreet. This, as you know, is back to back with Marlboro. To reachPatty's garden I had but to climb the brick wall at the rear of ourgrounds, and to make my way along the narrow green lane left there forperhaps a hundred paces of a lad, to come to the gate in the woodenpaling. In return I used to hoist Patty over the wall, and we would playat children's games under the fruit trees that skirted it. Some instinctkept her away from the house. I often caught her gazing wistfully at itswings and gables. She was not born to a mansion, so she said.

  "But your father is now rich," I objected. I had heard Captain Danielsay so. "He may have a mansion of his own and he chooses. He can betterafford it than many who are in debt for the fine show they make." I wasbut repeating gossip.

  "I should like to see the grand company come in, when your grandfatherhas them to dine," said the girl. "Sometimes we have grand gentlemencome to see father in their coaches, but they talk of nothing butpolitics. We never have any fine ladies like--like your Aunt Caroline."

  I startled her by laughing derisively.

  "And I pray you never may, Patty," was all I said.

  I never told Dolly of my intimacy with the barrister's little girl overthe wall. This was not because I was ashamed of the friendship, butarose from a fear-well-founded enough--that she would make sport of it.At twelve Dolly had notions concerning the walks of life that mostother children never dream of. They were derived, of course, from Mr.Marmaduke. But the day of reckoning arrived. Patty and I were rompingbeside the back wall when suddenly a stiff little figure in a starchedfrock appeared through the trees in the direction of the house, followedby Master Will Fotheringay in his visiting clothes. I laugh now when Ithink of that formal meeting between the two little ladies. There wasno time to hoist Miss Swain over the wall, or to drive Miss Manners backupon the house. Patty stood blushing as though caught in a guilty act,while she of the Generations came proudly on, Will sniggering behindher.

  "Who is this, Richard?" asks Miss Manners, pointing a small forefinger.

  "Patty Swain, if you must kn
ow!" I cried, and added boylike: "And she isjust as good as you or me, and better." I was quite red in the face,and angry because of it. "This is Dorothy Manners, Patty, and WillFotheringay."

  The moment was a pregnant one. But I was resolved to carry the matterout with a bold front. "Will you join us at catch and swing?" I asked.

  Will promptly declared that he would join, for Patty was good to lookupon. Dolly glanced at her dress, tossed her head, and marched backalone.

  "Oh, Richard!" cried Patty; "I shall never forgive myself! I have madeyou quarrel with--"

  "His sweetheart," said Will, wickedly.

  "I don't care," said I. Which was not so.

  Patty felt no resentment for my miss's haughty conduct, but only atearful penitence for having been the cause of a strife between us.Will's arguments and mine availed nothing. I must lift her over thewall again, and she went home. When we reached the garden we foundDolly seated beside her mother on my grandfather's bench, from whichstronghold our combined tactics were powerless to drag her.

  When Dolly was gone, I asked my grandfather in great indignation whyPatty did not play with the children I knew, with Dorothy and theFotheringays. He shook his head dubiously. "When you are older, Richard,you will understand that our social ranks are cropped close. Mr. Swainis an honest and an able man, though he believes in things I do not.I hear he is becoming wealthy. And I have no doubt," the shrewd oldgentleman added, "that when Patty grows up she will be going to theassemblies, though it was not so in my time." So liberal was he thathe used to laugh at my lifting her across the wall, and in his leisuredelight to listen to my accounts of her childish housekeeping. Her lifewas indeed a contrast to Dorothy's. She had all the solid qualities thatmy lady lacked in early years. And yet I never wavered in my likingto the more brilliant and wayward of the two. The week before my nextbirthday, when Mr. Carvel drew me to him and asked me what I wished fora present that year, as was his custom, I said promptly:

  "I should like to have Patty Swain at my party, sir."

  "So you shall, my lad," he cried, taking his snuff and eying mewith pleasure. "I am glad to see, Richard, that you have none of Mr.Marmaduke's nonsense about you. She is a good girl, i' faith, and moreof a lady now than many who call themselves such. And you shall haveyour present to boot. Hark'ee, Daniel," said he to the captain; "ifthe child comes to my house, the poll-parrots and follow-me-ups will bewanting her, too."

  But the getting her to go was a matter of five days. For Patty wassensitive, like her father, and dreaded a slight. Not so with MasterTom, who must, needs be invited, too. He arrived half an hour aheadof time, arrayed like Solomon, and without his sister! I had to go forPatty, indeed, after the party had begun, and to get the key to thewicket in the wall to take her in that way, so shy was she. My deargrandfather showed her particular attention. And Miss Dolly herself,being in the humour, taught her a minuet.

  After that she came to all my birthdays, and lost some of her shyness.And was invited to other great houses, even as Mr. Carvel had predicted.But her chief pleasure seemed ever her duty. Whether or no suchcharacters make them one and the same, who can tell? She became thelight of her father's house, and used even to copy out his briefs, atwhich task I often found her of an evening.

  As for Tom, that graceless scamp, I never could stomach him. I wonderedthen, as I have since, how he was the brother of such a sister. He couldscarce bide his time until Mr. Swain should have a coach and a seat inthe country with the gentry. "A barrister," quoth he, "is as good as anyone else. And if my father came out a redemptioner, and worked his way,so had old Mr. Dulany. Our family at home was the equal of his." All ofwhich was true, and more. He would deride Patty for sewing and baking,vowing that they had servants enough now to do the work twice over. Shebore with him with a patience to be marvelled at; and I could never getit through my head why Mr. Swain indulged him, though he was theelder, and his mother's favourite. Tom began to dress early. His openadmiration was Dr. Courtenay, his confessed hope to wear five-poundruffles and gold sword knots. He clung to Will Fotheringay with atenacity that became proverbial among us boys, and his boasts at KingWilliam's School were his father's growing wealth and intimacy with thegreat men of the province.

  As I grew older, I took the cue of political knowledge, as I have said,from Mr. Swain rather than Captain Daniel, who would tell me nothing. Ifell into the habit of taking supper in Gloucester Street. The meal wasearly there. And when the dishes were cleared away, and the barrister'spipe lit, and Patty and her mother had got their sewing, he would talkby the hour on the legality of our resistance to the King, and discussthe march of affairs in England and the other colonies. He found me aready listener, and took pains to teach me clearly the right and wrongof the situation. 'Twas his religion, even as loyalty to the King was mygrandfather's, and he did not think it wrong to spread it. He likewiseinstilled into me in that way more of history than Mr. Allen had evertaught me, using it to throw light upon this point or that. But I neverknew his true power and eloquence until I followed him to the StadtHouse.

  Patty was grown a girl of fifteen then, glowing with health, and hadample good looks of her own. 'Tis odd enough that I did not fall inlove with her when Dolly began to use me so outrageously. But a lad ofeighteen is scarce a rational creature. I went and sat before myoracle upon the vine-covered porch under the eaves, and poured out mycomplaint. She laid down her needlework and laughed.

  "You silly boy," said she, "can't you see that she herself hasprescribed for you? She was right when she told you to show attentionto Jenny. And if you dangle about Miss Dolly now, you are in danger oflosing her. She knows it better than you."

  I had Jenny to ride the very next day. Result: my lady smiled on me moresweetly than ever when I went to Prince George Street, and vowed Jennyhad never looked prettier than when she went past the house. This leftmy victory in such considerable doubt that I climbed the back wallforthwith in my new top-boots.

  "So you looked for her to be angry?" said Patty.

  "Most certainly," said I.

  "Unreasoning vanity!" she cried, for she knew how to speak plain. "Byyour confession to me you have done this to please her, for she warnedyou at the beginning it would please her. And now you complain of it. Ibelieve I know your Dorothy better than you."

  And so I got but little comfort out of Patty that time.