Audrey

by Mary Johnston

  CHAPTER X

  HAWARD AND EVELYN

  MacLean put aside with much gentleness the hands of his surgeon, and,rising to his feet, answered the question in Haward's eyes by producing aslip of paper and gravely proffering it to the man whom he served. Hawardtook it, read it, and handed it back; then turned to the Quaker maiden."Mistress Truelove Taberer," he said courteously. "Are you staying intown? If you will tell me where you lodge, I will myself conduct youthither."

  Truelove shook her head, and slipped her hand into that of her brotherEphraim. "I thank thee, friend," she said, with gentle dignity, "and thee,too, Angus MacLean, though I grieve that thee sees not that it is notgiven us to meet evil with evil, nor to withstand force with force.Ephraim and I can now go in peace. I thank thee again, friend, and thee."She gave her hand first to Haward, then to MacLean. The former, knowingthe fashion of the Quakers, held the small fingers a moment, then let themdrop; the latter, knowing it, too, raised them to his lips and imprintedupon them an impassioned kiss. Truelove blushed, then frowned, last of alldrew her hand away.

  With the final glimpse of her gray skirt the Highlander came back to thepresent. "Singly I could have answered for them all, one after the other,"he said stiffly. "Together they had the advantage. I pay my debt and giveyou thanks, sir."

  "That is an ugly cut across your forehead," replied Haward. "Mr. Ker hadbest bring you a basin of water. Or stay! I am going to my lodging. Comewith me, and Juba shall dress the wound properly."

  MacLean turned his keen blue eyes upon him. "Am I to understand that yougive me a command, or that you extend to me an invitation? In the lattercase, I should prefer"--

  "Then take it as a command," said Haward imperturbably. "I wish yourcompany. Mr. Ker, good-day; I will buy the piece of plate which you showedme yesterday."

  The two moved down the room together, but at the door MacLean, with hisface set like a flint, stood aside, and Haward passed out first, thenwaited for the other to come up with him.

  "When I drink a cup I drain it to the dregs," said the Scot. "I walkbehind the man who commands me. The way, you see, is not broad enough foryou and me and hatred."

  "Then let hatred lag behind," answered Haward coolly. "I have negroes towalk at my heels when I go abroad. I take you for a gentleman, accept yourenmity an it please you, but protest against standing here in the hotsunshine."

  With a shrug MacLean joined him. "As you please," he said. "I have inspirit moved with you through London streets. I never thought to walk withyou in the flesh."

  It was yet warm and bright in the street, the dust thick, the air heavywith the odors of the May. Haward and MacLean walked in silence, each asto the other, one as to the world at large. Now and again the Virginianmust stop to bow profoundly to curtsying ladies, or to take snuff withsome portly Councilor or less stately Burgess who, coming from theCapitol, chanced to overtake them. When he paused his storekeeper pausedalso, but, having no notice taken of him beyond a glance to discern hisquality, needed neither a supple back nor a ready smile.

  Haward lodged upon Palace Street, in a square brick house, lived in by anancient couple who could remember Puritan rule in Virginia, who had servedSir William Berkeley, and had witnessed the burning of Jamestown by Bacon.There was a grassy yard to the house, and the path to the door lay throughan alley of lilacs, purple and white. The door was open, and Haward andMacLean, entering, crossed the hall, and going into a large, low room,into which the late sunshine was streaming, found the negro Juba settingcakes and wine upon the table.

  "This gentleman hath a broken head, Juba," said the master. "Bring waterand linen, and bind it up for him."

  As he spoke he laid aside hat and rapier, and motioned MacLean to a seatby the window. The latter obeyed the gesture in silence, and in silencesubmitted to the ministrations of the negro. Haward, sitting at the table,waited until the wound had been dressed; then with a wave of the handdismissed the black.

  "You would take nothing at my hands the other day," he said to the grimfigure at the window. "Change your mind, my friend,--or my foe,--and comesit and drink with me."

  MacLean reared himself from his seat, and went stiffly over to the table."I have eaten and drunken with an enemy before to-day," he said. "Once Imet Ewin Mor Mackinnon upon a mountain side. He had oatcake in hissporran, and I a flask of usquebaugh. We couched in the heather, and ateand drank together, and then we rose and fought. I should have slain himbut that a dozen Mackinnons came up the glen, and he turned and fled tothem for cover. Here I am in an alien land; a thousand fiery crosses wouldnot bring one clansman to my side; I cannot fight my foe. Wherefore, then,should I take favors at his hands?"

  "Why should you be my foe?" demanded Haward. "Look you, now! There was atime, I suppose, when I was an insolent youngster like any one of thosewho lately set upon you; but now I call myself a philosopher and man of aworld for whose opinions I care not overmuch. My coat is of fine cloth,and my shirt of holland; your shirt is lockram, and you wear no coat atall: _ergo_, saith a world of pretty fellows, we are beings of separateplanets. 'As the cloth is, the man is,'--to which doctrine I am at timesheretic. I have some store of yellow metal, and spend my days in riddingmyself of it,--a feat which you have accomplished. A goodly number ofacres is also counted unto me, but in the end my holding and your holdingwill measure the same. I walk a level road; you have met with yourprecipice, and, bruised by the fall, you move along stony ways; butthrough the same gateway we go at last. Fate, not I, put you here. Whyshould you hate me who am of your order?"

  MacLean left the table, and twice walked the length of the room, slowlyand with knitted brows. "If you mean the world-wide order,--the order ofgentlemen,"--he said, coming to a pause with the breadth of the tablebetween him and Haward, "we may have that ground in common. The rest isdebatable land. I do not take you for a sentimentalist or a redresser ofwrongs. I am your storekeeper, purchased with that same yellow metal ofwhich you so busily rid yourself; and your storekeeper I shall remainuntil the natural death of my term, two years hence. We are notcountrymen; we own different kings; I may once have walked your levelroad, but you have never moved in the stony ways; my eyes are blue, whileyours are gray; you love your melting Southern music, and I take no joysave in the pipes; I dare swear you like the smell of lilies which Icannot abide, and prefer fair hair in women where I would choose the dark.There is no likeness between us. Why, then"--

  Haward smiled, and drawing two glasses toward him slowly filled them withwine. "It is true," he said, "that it is not my intention to become apetitioner for the pardon of a rebel to his serene and German Majesty theKing; true also that I like the fragrance of the lily. I have my fancies.Say that I am a man of whim, and that, living in a lonely house set in aSahara of tobacco fields, it is my whim to desire the acquaintance of theonly gentleman within some miles of me. Say that my fancy hath been caughtby a picture drawn for me a week agone; that, being a philosopher, I playwith the idea that your spirit, knife in hand, walked at my elbow for tenyears, and I knew it not. Say that the idea has for me a curiousfascination. Say, finally, that I plume myself that, given the chance, Imight break down this airy hatred."

  He set down the bottle, and pushed one of the brimming glasses across thetable. "I should like to make trial of my strength," he said, with, alaugh. "Come! I did you a service to-day; in your turn do me a pleasure."

  MacLean dragged a chair to the table, and sat down. "I will drink withyou," he said, "and forget for an hour. A man grows tired--It is Burgundy,is it not? Old Borlum and I emptied a bottle between us, the day he wentas hostage to Wills; since then I have not tasted wine. 'Tis a prettycolor."

  Haward lifted his glass. "I drink to your future. Freedom, better days, astake in a virgin land, friendship with a sometime foe." He bowed to hisguest and drank.

  "In my country," answered MacLean, "where we would do most honor, we drinknot to life, but to death. _Crioch onarach!_ Like a gentleman may youdie." He drank, and sighed with pleasure.

  "The
King!" said Haward. There was a china bowl, filled with red anemones,upon the table. MacLean drew it toward him, and, pressing aside the massof bloom, passed his glass over the water in the bowl. "The King! with allmy heart," he said imperturbably.

  Haward poured more wine. "I have toasted at the Kit-Kat many a piece ofbrocade and lace less fair than yon bit of Quaker gray that cost you abroken head. Shall we drink to Mistress Truelove Taberer?"

  By now the Burgundy had warmed the heart and loosened the tongue of theman who had not tasted wine since the surrender of Preston. "It is but amile from the store to her father's house," he said. "Sometimes onSundays I go up the creek upon the Fair View side, and when I am overagainst the house I holloa. Ephraim comes, in his boat and rows me across,and I stay for an hour. They are strange folk, the Quakers. In her sightand in that of her people I am as good a man as you. 'Friend AngusMacLean,' 'Friend Marmaduke Haward,'--world's wealth and world's rankquite beside the question."

  He drank, and commended the wine. Haward struck a silver bell, and badeJuba bring another bottle.

  "When do you come again to the house at Fair View?" asked the storekeeper.

  "Very shortly. It is a lonely place, where ghosts bear me company. I hopethat now and then, when I ask it, and when the duties of your day areended, you will come help me exorcise them. You shall find welcome andgood wine." He spoke very courteously, and if he saw the humor of thesituation his smile betrayed him not.

  MacLean took a flower from the bowl, and plucked at its petals withnervous fingers. "Do you mean that?" he asked at last.

  Haward leaned across the table, and their eyes met. "On my word I do,"said the Virginian.

  The knocker on the house door sounded loudly, and a moment later a woman'sclear voice, followed by a man's deeper tones, was heard in the hall.

  "More guests," said Haward lightly. "You are a Jacobite; I drink mychocolate at St. James' Coffee House; the gentleman approaching--despitehis friendship for Orrery and for the Bishop of Rochester--is but aHanover Tory; but the lady,--the lady wears only white roses, and every10th of June makes a birthday feast."

  The storekeeper rose hastily to take his leave, but was prevented both byHaward's restraining gesture and by the entrance of the two visitors whowere now ushered in by the grinning Juba. Haward stepped forward. "You arevery welcome, Colonel. Evelyn, this is kind. Your woman told me thismorning that you were not well, else"--

  "A migraine," she answered, in her clear, low voice. "I am better now, andmy father desired me to take the air with him."

  "We return to Westover to-morrow," said that sprightly gentleman. "Evelynis like David of old, and pines for water from the spring at home. It alsoappears that the many houses and thronged streets of this town weary her,who, poor child, is used to an Arcady called London! When will you come tous at Westover, Marmaduke?"

  "I cannot tell," Haward answered. "I must first put my own house in order,so that I may in my turn entertain my friends."

  As he spoke he moved aside, so as to include in the company MacLean, whostood beside the table. "Evelyn," he said, "let me make known to you--andto you, Colonel--a Scots gentleman who hath broken his spear in his tiltwith fortune, as hath been the luck of many a gallant man before him.Mistress Evelyn Byrd, Colonel Byrd--Mr. MacLean, who was an officer in theHighland force taken at Preston, and who has been for some years aprisoner of war in Virginia."

  The lady's curtsy was low; the Colonel bowed as to his friend's friend. Ifhis eyebrows went up, and if a smile twitched the corners of his lips, thefalling curls of his periwig hid from view these tokens of amused wonder.MacLean bowed somewhat stiffly, as one grown rusty in such matters. "I amin addition Mr. Marmaduke Haward's storekeeper," he said succinctly, thenturned to the master of Fair View. "It grows late," he announced, "and Imust be back at the store to-night. Have you any message for Saunderson?"

  "None," answered Haward. "I go myself to Fair View to-morrow, and then Ishall ask you to drink with me again."

  As he spoke he held out his hand. MacLean looked at it, sighed, thentouched it with his own. A gleam as of wintry laughter came into his blueeyes. "I doubt that I shall have to get me a new foe," he said, withregret in his voice.

  When he had bowed to the lady and to her father, and had gone out of theroom and down the lilac-bordered path and through the gate, and when thethree at the window had watched him turn into Duke of Gloucester Street,the master of Westover looked at the master of Fair View and burst outlaughing. "Ludwell hath for an overseer the scapegrace younger son of abaronet; and there are three brothers of an excellent name underindentures to Robert Carter. I have at Westover a gardener who annuallymakes the motto of his house to spring in pease and asparagus. I have nothad him to drink with me yet, and t'other day I heard Ludwell give to thebaronet's son a hound's rating."

  "I do not drink with the name," said Haward coolly. "I drink with the man.The churl or coward may pass me by, but the gentleman, though his hands beempty, I stop."

  The other laughed again; then dismissed the question with a wave of hishand, and pulled out a great gold watch with cornelian seals. "Carterswears that Dr. Contesse hath a specific that is as sovereign for the goutas is St. Andrew's cross for a rattlesnake bite. I've had twinges lately,and the doctor lives hard by. Evelyn, will you rest here while I gopetition AEsculapius? Haward, when I have the recipe I will return, andimpart it to you against the time when you need it. No, no, child, staywhere you are! I will be back anon."

  Having waved aside his daughter's faint protest, the Colonel departed,--agallant figure of a man, with a pretty wit and a heart that wasbenevolently gay. As he went down the path he paused to gather a sprig oflilac. "Westover--Fair View," he said to himself, and smiled, and smelledthe lilac; then--though his ills were somewhat apocryphal--walked off at agouty pace across the buttercup-sprinkled green toward the house of Dr.Contesse.

  Haward and Evelyn, left alone, kept silence for a time in the quiet roomthat was filled with late sunshine and the fragrance of flowers. He stoodby the window, and she sat in a great chair, with her hands folded in herlap, and her eyes upon them. When silence had become more loud thanspeech, she turned in her seat and addressed herself to him.

  "I have known you do many good deeds," she said slowly. "That gentlemanthat was here is your servant, is he not, and an exile, and unhappy? Andyou sent him away comforted. It was a generous thing."

  Haward moved restlessly. "A generous thing," he answered. "Ay, it wasgenerous. I can do such things at times, and why I do them who can tell?Not I! Do you think that I care for that grim Highlander, who drinks mydeath in place of my health, who is of a nation that I dislike, and aparty that is not mine?"

  She shook her head. "I do not know. And yet you helped him."

  Haward left the window, and came and sat beside her. "Yes, I helped him. Iam not sure, but I think I did it because, when first we met, he told methat he hated me, and meant the thing he said. It is my humor to fix myown position in men's minds; to lose the thing I have that I may gain thething I have not; to overcome, and never prize the victory; to hunt down aquarry, and feel no ardor in the chase; to strain after a goal, and yetcare not if I never reach it."

  He took her fan in his hand, and fell to counting the slender ivorysticks. "I tread the stage as a fine gentleman," he said. "It is the partfor which I was cast, and I play it well with proper mien and gait. I wasnot asked if I would like the part, but I think that I do like it, as muchas I like anything. Seeing that I must play it, and that there is thatwithin me which cries out against slovenliness, I play it as an artistshould. Magnanimity goes with it, does it not, and generosity, courtesy,care for the thing which is, and not for that which seems? Why, then, withthese and other qualities I strive to endow the character."

  He closed the fan, and, leaning back in his chair, shaded his eyes withhis hand. "When the lights are out," he said; "when forever and a nightthe actor bids the stage farewell; when, stripped of mask and tinsel, hegoes home to that Auditor who set him
his part, then perhaps he will betold what manner of man he is. The glass that now he dresses before tellshim not; but he thinks a truer glass would show a shrunken figure."

  He sat in silence for a moment; then laughed, and gave her back her fan."Am I to come to Westover, Evelyn?" he asked. "Your father presses, and Ihave not known what answer to make him."

  "You will give us pleasure by your coming," she said gently and at once."My father wishes your advice as to the ordering of his library; and youknow that my pretty stepmother likes you well."

  "Will it please you to have me come?" he asked, with his eyes upon herface.

  She met his gaze very quietly. "Why not?" she answered simply. "You willhelp me in my flower garden, and sing with me in the evening, as of old."

  "Evelyn," he said, "if what I am about to say to you distresses you, liftyour hand, and I will cease to speak. Since a day and an hour in the woodsyonder, I have been thinking much. I wish to wipe that hour from yourmemory as I wipe it from mine, and to begin afresh. You are the fairestwoman that I know, and the best. I beg you to accept my reverence, homage,love; not the boy's love, perhaps; perhaps not the love that some men haveto squander, but _my_ love. A quiet love, a lasting trust, deep pride andpleasure"--

  At her gesture he broke off, sat in silence for a moment, then rising wentto the window, and with slightly contracted brows stood looking out at thesunshine that was slipping away. Presently he was aware that she stoodbeside him.

  She was holding out her hand. "It is that of a friend," she said. "No, donot kiss it, for that is the act of a lover. And you are not mylover,--oh, not yet, not yet!" A soft, exquisite blush stole over her faceand neck, but she did not lower her lovely candid eyes. "Perhaps some day,some summer day at Westover, it will all be different," she breathed, andturned away.

  Haward caught her hand, and bending pressed his lips upon it. "It isdifferent now!" he cried. "Next week I shall come to Westover!"

  He led her back to the great chair, and presently she asked some questionas to the house at Fair View. He plunged into an account of the cases ofgoods which had followed him from England by the Falcon, and which now layin the rooms that were yet to be swept and garnished; then spoke lightlyand whimsically of the solitary state in which he must live, and of theentertainments which, to be in the Virginia fashion, he must give. Whilehe talked she sat and watched him, with the faint smile upon her lips. Thesunshine left the floor and the wall, and a dankness from the long grassand the closing flowers and the heavy trees in the adjacent churchyardstole into the room. With the coming of the dusk conversation languished,and the two sat in silence until the return of the Colonel.

  If that gentleman did not light the darkness like a star, at least hisentrance into a room invariably produced the effect of a sudden accessionof was lights, very fine and clear and bright. He broke a jest or two,bade laughing farewell to the master of Fair View, and carried off hisdaughter upon his arm. Haward walked with them to the gate, and came backalone, stepping thoughtfully between the lilac bushes.

  It was not until Juba had brought candles, and he had taken his seat attable before the half-emptied bottle of wine, that it came to Haward thathe had wished to tell Evelyn of the brown girl who had run for the guinea,but had forgotten to do so.