Audrey

by Mary Johnston

  CHAPTER IV

  THE ROAD TO WILLIAMSBURGH

  April had gone out in rain, and though the sun now shone brightly from acloudless sky, the streams were swollen and the road was heavy. Theponderous coach and the four black horses made slow progress. The creepingpace, the languid warmth of the afternoon, the scent of flowering trees,the ceaseless singing of redbird, catbird, robin, and thrush, made itdrowsy in the forest. In the midst of an agreeable dissertation upon MayDay sports of more ancient times the Colonel paused to smother a yawn; andwhen he had done with the clown, the piper, and the hobby-horse, he yawnedagain, this time outright.

  "What with Ludwell's Burgundy, piquet, and the French peace, we sat latelast night. My eyes are as heavy as the road. Have you noticed, my dear,how bland and dreamy is the air? On such an afternoon one is content to bein Virginia, and out of the world. It is a very land of the Lotophagi,--alazy clime that Ulysses touched at, my love."

  The equipage slowly climbed an easy ascent, and as slowly descended to thelevel again. The road was narrow, and now and then a wild cherry-treestruck the coach with a white arm, or a grapevine swung through the windowa fragrant trailer. The woods on either hand were pale green and silvergray, save where they were starred with dogwood, or where rose the pinkmist of the Judas-tree. At the foot of the hill the road skirted a mantledpond, choked with broad green leaves and the half-submerged trunks offallen trees. Upon these logs, basking in the sunlight, lay smalltortoises by the score. A snake glided across the road in front of thehorses, and from a bit of muddy ground rose a cloud of yellow butterflies.

  The Colonel yawned for the third time, looked at his watch, sighed, liftedhis finely arched brows with a whimsical smile for his own somnolence;then, with an "I beg your pardon, my love," took out a lace handkerchief,spread it over his face and head, and, crossing his legs, sunk back intothe capacious corner of the coach. In three minutes the placid rise andfall of his ruffles bore witness that he slept.

  The horseman, who, riding beside the lowered glass, had at intervalsconversed with the occupants of the coach, now glanced from the sleepinggentleman to the lady, in whose dark, almond-shaped eyes lurked no sign ofdrowsiness. The pond had been passed, and before them, between low bankscrowned with ferns and overshadowed by beech-trees, lay a long stretch ofshady road.

  Haward drew rein, dismounted, and motioned to the coachman to check thehorses. When the coach had come to a standstill, he opened the door withas little creaking as might be, and held out a petitionary hand. "Will younot walk with me a little way, Evelyn?" he asked, speaking in a low voicethat he might not wake the sleeper. "It is much pleasanter out here, withthe birds and the flowers."

  His eyes and the smile upon his lips added, "and with me." From what hehad been upon a hilltop, one moonlight night eleven years before, he hadbecome a somewhat silent, handsome gentleman, composed in manner,experienced, not unkindly, looking abroad from his apportioned mountaincrag and solitary fortress upon men, and the busy ways of men, with atolerant gaze. That to certain of his London acquaintance he was simplythe well-bred philosopher and man of letters; that in the minds of othershe was associated with the peacock plumage of the world of fashion, withthe flare of candles, the hot breath of gamesters, the ring of gold uponthe tables; that one clique had tales to tell of a magnanimous spirit anda generous hand, while yet another grew red at mention of his name, andput to his credit much that was not creditable, was perhaps not strange.He, like his neighbors, had many selves, and each in its turn--thescholar, the man of pleasure, the indolent, kindly, reflective self, theself of pride and cool assurance and stubborn will--took its place behindthe mask, and went through its allotted part. His self of all selves, thequiet, remote, crowned, and inscrutable _I_, sat apart, alike curious andindifferent, watched the others, and knew how little worth the while wasthe stir in the ant-hill.

  But on a May Day, in the sunshine and the blossoming woods and the companyof Mistress Evelyn Byrd, it seemed, for the moment, worth the while. Athis invitation she had taken his hand and descended from the coach. Thegreat, painted thing moved slowly forward, bearing the unconsciousColonel, and the two pedestrians walked behind it: he with his horse'sreins over his arm and his hat in his hand; she lifting her silken skirtsfrom contact with the ground, and looking, not at her companion, but atthe greening boughs, and at the sunlight striking upon smooth, pale beechtrunks and the leaf-strewn earth beneath. Out of the woods came a suddenmedley of bird notes, clear, sweet, and inexpressibly joyous.

  "That is a mockingbird," said Haward. "I once heard one of a moonlightnight, beside a still water"--

  He broke off, and they listened in silence. The bird flew away, and theycame to a brook traversing the road, and flowing in wide meanders throughthe forest. There were stepping-stones, and Haward, crossing first, turnedand held out his hand to the lady. When she was upon his side of thestreamlet, and before he released the slender fingers, he bent and kissedthem; then, as there was no answering smile or blush, but only a quietwithdrawal of the hand and a remark about the crystal clearness of thebrook, looked at her, with interrogation in his smile.

  "What is that crested bird upon yonder bough," she asked,--"the one thatgave the piercing cry?"

  "A kingfisher," he answered, "and cousin to the halcyon of the ancients.If, when next you go to sea, you take its feathers with you, you need haveno fear of storms."

  A tree, leafless, but purplish pink with bloom, leaned from the bank abovethem. He broke a branch and gave it to her. "It is the Judas-tree," hetold her. "Iscariot hanged himself thereon."

  Around the trunk of a beech a lizard ran like a green flame, and theyheard the distant barking of a fox. Large white butterflies went pastthem, and a hummingbird whirred into the heart of a wild honeysuckle thathad hasted to bloom. "How different from the English forests!" she said."I could love these best. What are all those broad-leaved plants with thewhite, waxen flowers?"

  "May-apples. Some call them mandrakes, but they do not rise shrieking, norkill the wight that plucks them. Will you have me gather them for you?"

  "I will not trouble you," she answered, and presently turned aside to pullthem for herself.

  He looked at the graceful, bending figure and lifted his brows; then,quickening his pace until he was up with the coach, he spoke to the negroupon the box. "Tyre, drive on to that big pine, and wait there for yourmistress and me. Sidon,"--to the footman,--"get down and take my horse. Ifyour master wakes, tell him that Mistress Evelyn tired of the coach, andthat I am picking her a nosegay."

  Tyre and Sidon, Haward's steed, the four black coach horses, thevermilion-and-cream coach, and the slumbering Colonel, all made a progressof an hundred yards to the pine-tree, where the cortege came to a halt.Mistress Evelyn looked up from the flower-gathering to find the road barebefore her, and Haward, sitting upon a log, watching her with somethingbetween a smile and a frown.

  "You think that I, also, weigh true love by the weight of the purse," hesaid. "I do not care overmuch for your gold, Evelyn."

  She did not answer at once, but stood with her head slightly bent,fingering the waxen flowers with a delicate, lingering touch. Now thatthere was no longer the noise of the wheels and the horses' hoofs, theforest stillness, which is composed of sound, made itself felt. The callof birds, the whir of insects, the murmur of the wind in the treetops,low, grave, incessant, and eternal as the sound of the sea, joinedthemselves to the slow waves of fragrance, the stretch of road whereonnothing moved, the sunlight lying on the earth, and made a spacious quiet.

  "I think that there is nothing for which you care overmuch," she said atlast. "Not for gold or the lack of it, not for friends or for enemies, noteven for yourself."

  "I have known you for many years," he answered. "I have watched you growfrom a child into a gracious and beautiful woman. Do you not think that Icare for you, Evelyn?"

  Near where he sat so many violets were blooming that they made a purplecarpet for the ground. Going over to them, she knelt and began to pl
uckthem. "If any danger threatened me," she began, in her clear, low voice,"I believe that you would step between me and it, though at the peril ofyour life. I believe that you take some pleasure in what you are pleasedto style my beauty, some pride in a mind that you have largely formed. IfI died early, it would grieve you for a little while. I call you myfriend."

  "I would be called your lover," he said.

  She laid her fan upon the ground, heaped it with violets, and turned againto her reaping. "How might that be," she asked, "when you do not love me?I knew that you would marry me. What do the French call it,--_mariage deconvenance_?"

  Her voice was even, and her head was bent so that he could not see herface. In the pause that followed her words treetop whispered to treetop,but the sunshine lay very still and bright upon the road and upon theflowers by the wayside.

  "There are worse marriages," Haward said at last. Rising from the log, hemoved to the side of the kneeling figure. "Let the violets rest, Evelyn,while we reason together. You are too clear-eyed. Since they offend you,I will drop the idle compliments, the pretty phrases, in which neither ofus believes. What if this tinted dream of love does not exist for us? Whatif we are only friends--dear and old friends"--

  He stooped, and, taking her by the busy hands, made her stand up besidehim. "Cannot we marry and still be friends?" he demanded, with somethinglike laughter in his eyes. "My dear, I would strive to make you happy; andhappiness is as often found in that temperate land where we would dwell asin Love's flaming climate." He smiled and tried to find her eyes, downcastand hidden in the shadow of her hat. "This is no flowery wooing such aswomen love," he said; "but then you are like no other woman. Always thetruth was best with you."

  Upon her wrenching her hands from his, and suddenly and proudly raisingher head, he was amazed to find her white to the lips.

  "The truth!" she said slowly. "Always the truth was best! Well, then, takethe truth, and afterwards and forever and ever leave me alone! You havebeen frank; why should not I, who, you say, am like no other woman, be so,too? I will not marry you, because--because"--The crimson flowed over herface and neck; then ebbed, leaving her whiter than before. She put herhands, that still held the wild flowers, to her breast, and her eyes, darkwith pain, met his. "Had you loved me," she said proudly and quietly, "Ihad been happy."

  "HAD YOU LOVED ME--I HAD BEEN HAPPY"]

  Haward stepped backwards until there lay between them a strip of sunnyearth. The murmur of the wind went on and the birds were singing, and yetthe forest seemed more quiet than death. "I could not guess," he said,speaking slowly and with his eyes upon the ground. "I have spoken like abrute. I beg your pardon."

  "You might have known! you might have guessed!" she cried, with passion."But, you walk an even way; you choose nor high nor low; you look deepinto your mind, but your heart you keep cool and vacant. Oh, a verytemperate land! I think that others less wise than you may also be lessblind. Never speak to me of this day! Let it die as these blooms are dyingin this hot sunshine! Now let us walk to the coach and waken my father. Ihave gathered flowers enough."

  Side by side, but without speaking, they moved from shadow to sunlight,and from sunlight to shadow, down the road to the great pine-tree. Thewhite and purple flowers lay in her hand and along her bended arm; fromthe folds of her dress, of some rich and silken stuff, chameleon-like inits changing colors, breathed the subtle fragrance of the perfume thenmost in fashion; over the thin lawn that half revealed, half concealedneck and bosom was drawn a long and glossy curl, carefully let to escapefrom the waved and banded hair beneath the gypsy hat. Exquisite from headto foot, the figure had no place in the unpruned, untrained, savage, andprimeval beauty of those woods. Smooth sward, with jets of water andcarven nymphs embowered in clipped box or yew, should have been itssetting, and not this wild and tangled growth, this license of bird andbeast and growing things. And yet the incongruous riot, the contrast ofprofuse, untended beauty, enhanced the value of the picture, gave itpiquancy and a completer charm.

  When they were within a few feet of the coach and horses and negroes, alldrowsing in the sunny road, Haward made as if to speak, but she stoppedhim with her lifted hand. "Spare me," she begged. "It is bad enough as itis, but words would make it worse. If ever a day might come--I do notthink that I am unlovely; I even rate myself so highly as to think that Iam worthy of your love. If ever the day shall come when you can say to me,'Now I see that love is no tinted dream; now I ask you to be my wifeindeed,' then, upon that day--But until then ask not of me what you askedback there among the violets. I, too, am proud"--Her voice broke.

  "Evelyn!" he cried. "Poor child--poor friend"--

  She turned her face upon him. "Don't!" she said, and her lips weresmiling, though her eyes were full of tears. "We have forgot that it isMay Day, and that we must be light of heart. Look how white is thatdogwood-tree! Break me a bough for my chimney-piece at Williamsburgh."

  He brought her a branch of the starry blossoms. "Did you notice," sheasked, "that the girl who ran--Audrey--wore dogwood in her hair? You couldsee her heart beat with very love of living. She was of the woods, like adryad. Had the prizes been of my choosing, she should have had a gift morepoetical than a guinea."

  Haward opened the coach door, and stood gravely aside while she enteredthe vehicle and took her seat, depositing her flowers upon the cushionsbeside her. The Colonel stirred, uncrossed his legs, yawned, pulled thehandkerchief from his face, and opened his eyes.

  "Faith!" he exclaimed, straightening himself, and taking up his radianthumor where, upon falling-asleep, he had let it drop. "The way must havesuddenly become smooth as a road in Venice, for I've felt no jolting thishalf hour. Flowers, Evelyn? and Haward afoot? You've been on a woodlandsaunter, then, while I enacted Solomon's sluggard!" The worthy parent'seyes began to twinkle. "What flowers did you find? They have strangeblooms here, and yet I warrant that even in these woods one might comeacross London pride and none-so-pretty and forget-me-not"--

  His daughter smiled, and asked him some idle question about the May-appleand the Judas-tree. The master of Westover was a treasure house ofsprightly lore. Within ten minutes he had visited Palestine, paid hiscompliments to the ancient herbalists, and landed again in his own coach,to find in his late audience a somewhat _distraite_ daughter and a friendin a brown study. The coach was lumbering on toward Williamsburgh, andHaward, with level gaze and hand closed tightly upon his horse's reins,rode by the window, while the lady, sitting in her corner with downcasteyes, fingered the dogwood blooms that were not paler than her face.

  The Colonel's wits were keen. One glance, a lift of his arched brows, themerest ghost of a smile, and, dragging the younger man with him, heplunged into politics. Invective against a refractory House of Burgessesbrought them a quarter of a mile upon their way; the necessity for an actto encourage adventurers in iron works carried them past a milldam; andfrauds in the customs enabled them to reach a crossroads ordinary, wherethe Colonel ordered a halt, and called for a tankard of ale. A slipshod,blue-eyed Cherry brought it, and spoke her thanks in broad Scotch for theshilling which the gay Colonel flung tinkling into the measure.

  That versatile and considerate gentleman, having had his draught, cried tothe coachman to go on, and was beginning upon the question of the militia,when Haward, who had dismounted, appeared at the coach door. "I do notthink that I will go on to Williamsburgh with you, sir," he said. "There'ssome troublesome business with my overseer that ought not to wait. If Itake this road and the planter's pace, I shall reach Fair View by sunset.You do not return to Westover this week? Then I shall see you atWilliamsburgh within a day or two. Evelyn, good-day."

  Her hand lay upon the cushion nearest him. He would have taken it in hisown, as for years he had done when he bade her good-by; but though shesmiled and gave him "Good-day" in her usual voice, she drew the hand away.The Colonel's eyebrows went up another fraction of an inch, but he was adiscreet gentleman who had bought experience. Skillfully unobservant, hisparting words were
at once cordial and few in number; and after Haward hadmounted and had turned into the side road, he put his handsome, periwiggedhead out of the coach window and called to him some advice about thetransplanting of tobacco. This done, and the horseman out of sight, andthe coach once more upon its leisurely way to Williamsburgh, the modelfather pulled out of his pocket a small book, and, after affectionatelyadvising his daughter to close her eyes and sleep out the miles toWilliamsburgh, himself retired with Horace to the Sabine farm.