Works of Robert W Chambers

by Robert W. Chambers

  Down the stairs rustled my lady of the rose mantle, finger-tips playing a tattoo over the mahogany balustrade, and on her lips a smile, as I fancied, though later I came to know that it was only the natural expression of her mouth. Something in my memory stirred at that smiling face.

  Now she was looking straight at me, with that delicate curve of her lips which sets men thinking, and at the same moment I perceived that she wore my colours. Marie Livingston! I should never have known her; so we were quits, 104 the affected minx! This was Mrs. Hamilton! — this bright-eyed girl with her smooth rose-petal skin and her snowy hand on the balustrade. Could I be mistaken? Surely she wore my colours! I glanced at the knot on my sword-hilt, then pressed through the throng to the stairway. Now at last I could pay Silver Heels in her own wampum, and I meant to do it under her very nose.

  I met Mrs. Hamilton at the foot of the stairs, but she did not appear to see me. Truly she was a miracle of innocence not to have perceived her colours on my hilt, or perhaps she was over-timid. So I addressed her reassuringly and made her a bow that I knew must be impressive. However, I found her less confused than I, for she insisted on matching ribbons very carefully, which hurt my pride somewhat. But when she could no longer doubt that our ribbons matched, she made me a whimsical reverence, and took my arm with a smile, and a cool: “Oh, I faintly recall you now, Mr. Cardigan. How you have grown!”

  Out into the wilderness of silver and candle-light we passed, fiddle and bassoon a-playing with might and main, and we stood behind our chairs while my Lord Dunmore chattered a blessing, then seated ourselves amid a gale of whispers.

  Through the flare of the candles I saw Brant and Sir John Johnson near us, and also that filthy Indian, Red Jacket, both hands already in a dish of jelly, a-gobbling and grunting to himself, which sent Lord Dunmore into peals of shrill laughter, though Sir William took no notice. Presently I perceived Silver Heels and Mr. Bevan, nearly opposite to us, and strove to catch her eye. But Silver Heels took small notice of me; her cheeks had gone red with her first sip of wine, and she sat there rosy and silent, head a little lowered, while that insufferable coxcomb whispered into her ear, and smirked, and played with his wine-glass till the very sight of the man sickened me.

  Stung to the quick by her indifference to my presence, smarting in my fancied isolation, I resolved to show her that I cared not a whit for her or her dragoon. So I loosened my tongue and set it wagging so smartly that I think I astonished Mrs. Hamilton, who had been observing Mr. Bevan 105 with her fixed smile. At any rate, she gave me a long, pleasant stare, and presently her fixed smile became very sweet and pretty, although I thought a trifle mocking.

  “Is it not amusing?” she said, coolly; “here you sit with me, when you would give your tow-head to be prattling into Mistress Warren’s ears; and here sit I at twiddle-thumbs, devising vengeance on Mr. Bevan, who belongs to me!”

  Perplexed and disconcerted, I found no words to answer such an amazing sally. It shamed me, too. Perhaps my countenance had betrayed me, but her confession concerning Mr. Bevan was a bold one, and not at all to my taste.

  “I thought you had a husband,” said I, with boyish bluntness.

  She coloured up like fire for a moment, and I was sorry I spoke, but I had my pity for my pains, for the next instant she was laughing at me as though I were a ninny, and I could discover no reason for her mirth.

  “Please tell me your Christian name,” she said, sweetly. “I really do desire to recall it.”

  “My name is Michael,” said I, suspiciously.

  “Was it not Saint Michael who so soundly spanked the devil?” she asked, with her innocent smile. “Truly, Mr. Cardigan, you were well named to chastise the wicked with such sturdy innocence!”

  I fumed inwardly, for I had no mind to be considered a gaby among women.

  “I am perfectly aware, madam, that it is the fashion for charming women to turn boys’ heads,” said I, “and I wish you might turn Mr. Bevan’s head till you twisted it off his neck!”

  “I’d rather twist yours,” she said, looking up from her plate of broiled troutlings.

  “Twist it off?” I asked, curiously.

  “I — I don’t know. Look at me, Mr. Cardigan.”

  I met her pretty eyes.

  “No, not quite off,” she said, thoughtfully. “You are a nice boy, but not very bright. If you were you would pay me compliments instead of admonition. Perhaps you will after the Madeira. Perhaps you will even make love to me.”

  “I will do it before the Madeira,” said I. “You are certainly 106 the prettiest woman in Johnson Hall to-night, and if you’ve a mind for vengeance on your faithless dragoon yonder, pray take me for the instrument, Mrs. Hamilton.”

  “Hush!” she said, with a startled smile. “I may take you at your word.”

  “I am taking you at yours,” said I, recklessly, and loud enough for Silver Heels to hear.

  In the dull din of voices around us I heard Silver Heels’s laugh, but the laugh was strained, and I knew she was looking at me and listening.

  “I don’t know what you mean,” said Mrs. Hamilton, reddening, “but I know you to be a somewhat indiscreet young man who handles a woman as he would a club to beat his rival to the earth withal.”

  “I mean,” said I, in a low voice, “to make love to you and so serve us both. Look at me, Mrs. Hamilton.”

  “I will not,” she said, between her teeth.

  “Tell me,” I pleaded, “what is your Christian name. I do really wish to know, Mrs. Hamilton.”

  Spite of the angry red in her cheeks she laughed outright, glanced sideways at me, and laughed again, so blithely that I thought I had truly never seen such careless ripened healthy beauty in any woman.

  “My name is Marie Hamilton, of Saint Sacrement, please you, kind sir,” she lisped, with an affected simper which set us both a-laughing again.

  “If you ever had your heart stormed you had best prepare for no quarter now!” I said, coolly.

  “Insolent!” she murmured, covering her bright cheeks with her hands, and giving me a glance in which amusement, contempt, curiosity, and invitation were not inharmoniously blended.

  The Madeira had now turned my blood to little rivers of fire, I being but lately enfranchised from the children’s pewters and small-beer; but yet I am so made that never then nor since have the delicate vapours of wines stifled such wits as I possess. It is my conscience only that wine dulls.

  So amid the low tumult, the breezy gush of whispers, the laughter, and the crystal tinkle of silver and glass, I made indiscreet, clear-headed love to Mistress Marie Hamilton, retreating 107 under her cruel satire, rallying in the bright battery of her eyes, charging the citadel of her heart with that insincere and gay abandon which harasses, disconcerts, and piques a woman who understands better how to repel true passion.

  “In what school have you been taught to make love, sir?” she said, at last, breathless, amused, yet exasperated.

  “In the school of necessity, madam,” I replied.

  “I pray you teach something of your art to Mr. Bevan,” said she, spitefully, over her fan’s silk edge.

  “I am teaching him now,” said I.

  It was true. The dragoon was staring at Mrs. Hamilton in undisguised displeasure. As for Silver Heels, she observed us with a scornful amazement which roused all the cruelty in me, though I knew I was losing her innocent belief in me and tearing my respectability to shreds under her clear gray eyes.

  For a bud from Mrs. Hamilton’s caushet I threw away the pure faith of my little comrade; for a touch of her hand I blighted her trust; and laughed as I did it.

  Only once was Mrs. Hamilton off her guard, when my earnest acting had suddenly become real to me — a danger, I have since found, that no actors are too clever to escape sometimes.

  “If for one moment you could be in earnest,” she ventured, with a smile.

  I was on guard again before she finished, and she saw it, but was too wise to betray regret or a
nger for her mistake.

  “Pray, cease,” she said; “you weary me, Mr. Cardigan. The coldest among us reflect fire, even though it be as false as the dead fires of the moon. You are prettily revenged; let us have peace.”

  Now the healths flew thick and fast from Sir William and Lord Dunmore, the titled toast-masters, and we drank his Majesty George the Third in bumpers which set the Indians a-howling like timber wolves at Candlemas.

  Indeed, our forest of lights might have served for the Romish feast itself.

  Toast followed toast in a tempest of cheers, through which the yelps of the Indians sounded faintly. I saw Brant take 108 a silver plate and a solid candle-stick from under Red Jacket’s shirt, while that great orator, very drunk, sat a-hacking the cloth with a table-knife. I saw my Lord Dunmore, all in white silk and blazing with stars, rise to pledge the ladies, and stand swaying and leering and gumming his glass till it upset on his chin, and the jewels in his lace front dripped wine.

  Mistress Molly we pledged with a shout, and she returned our courtesy with gentle gravity, but her eyes were for Sir William alone.

  Then Lord Dunmore gave:

  “Our lovely heiress, Mistress Warren!” ending in a hiccough, and poor Silver Heels, pale as a white blossom, half rose from her seat as though to fly to Mistress Molly.

  Red Jacket was on his feet now, slavering and mouthing and hacking at the air, and Brant and I dragged him out into the garden where his squaw took charge, leading him lurching and howling down the hill. Before I returned, the ladies were in the hallway and the card-room, the gentlemen following in groups from the table, some shamefully unsteady of leg, and feebly scattering snuff in amiable invitation to their neighbours.

  But Sir William had disappeared, and I hunted vainly for him until I encountered Mrs. Hamilton, who directed me to the library, whither, she averred, Sir William, Governor Tryon, and Lord Dunmore had retired.

  “State secrets, Master Michael,” she added, saucily. “You had best find Mr. Bevan and start those same lessons we have discussed.”

  “Let me instruct him by proxy,” said I, drawing her under the stairs, and ere she could protest or escape, I kissed her lips three separate times.

  She was in tears in an instant, which I had not counted on, and it needed my most earnest acting to subdue her indignation.

  I had my arm around her, and my coat was all powder and rouge, when something made me look around. There was Silver Heels going towards the pantry with Betty, doubtless to pouch some sweets for her black nurse. Her head was steadily lowered, her lashes rested on her cheeks, but face and 109 neck and bosom were glowing in a deep colour, and I knew she had perceived us, and that she despised us with all the strength of her innocent soul.

  Stunned with the conviction that I had gone too far, I made out to play my miserable farce to an end and led Mrs. Hamilton out where Mr. Bevan could pounce upon her, which he did with an insolence that I had little spirit to notice or resent.

  Then I hastened to the pantry where Silver Heels stood before the rifled dishes, hands to her face, and black Betty a-petting her. But at sight of me she turned scarlet and shrank back, nor would she listen to one word.

  “What yoh done to mah li’l Miss Honey-bee?” exclaimed Betty, wrathfully, shaking her turban till the rings in her big ears jingled like sledge-bells in December. “I done ‘spec’ yoh, Mars Ca’digan, suh! Yaas, I ‘spec’ yoh is lak all de young gemmen!”

  Then the old witch began a-crooning over Silver Heels with deadly glances at me:

  “Doan yoh cyah, li’l Miss Honey-bee, doan yoh mind nuff’n! Huh! Had mah s’picions ‘bout dat young Mars Ca’digan. Doan yoh mind him no moh’n a blue-tail fly!”

  “Very well,” said I, angrily, “you can do as you choose, and think what you like. As for your fool of a dragoon, Mrs. Hamilton will settle him, and if she doesn’t I will.”

  My foolish outburst seemed to rouse a panther in Silver Heels, and for a moment I believed she meant to strike me. But the storm swept over, leaving her with limbs a-quiver and eyes wet.

  “You have spoiled my first pleasure,” she said, in a low, trembling voice. “You have conducted like a clown and a libertine where all beheld you making shameful love to a wedded woman! Oh, Betty, Betty, send him away!” she sobbed, burying her head in the black woman’s breast.

  “Silver Heels,” I said, choking, “can you not understand that it is I who wish to wed you?”

  Again the panther blazed in her gray eyes, but her lips were bloodless as she gasped: “Oh, the insult! Betty — do you hear? He would marry me out of pity! That is twice he has said it!”

  “I said it before because I would not have you marry Mr. Butler,” said I, wincing at her scorn. “But I say it now because — because — I love you, Silver Heels.”

  All her horror of me was in her eyes. I saw it and set my teeth hard, hopeless now forever, even of her careless affection.

  And so I left her there, with Betty’s arms around her, and the hot scorn in her eyes. But as I went away, chilled with self-contempt and mortification, heedless, utterly careless what I did to further degrade myself in her eyes, came black Betty a-waddling to pluck me by the sleeve and whisper:

  “Doan yoh go to wed wif nobody, Mars Ca’digan, suh! Doan yoh go foh to co’t nobody. Mah li’l chile — mah li’l Miss Honey-bee ain’t done growed up yet, suh. Bime-by she’ll know moh’n she ‘specs ‘bout gemmens, suh.”

  But my evil nature was uppermost, and I laughed and bade Betty mind her own affairs, leaving her there grumbling and mumbling about “fool boys” and “li’l fool Honey-bees,” till the clatter and din from the card-room shut her voice from my ears.

  CHAPTER VIII

  When I came to the library the door stood partly open, and I could see a party of gentlemen lounging within, and somewhat boisterous over their wine and filberts; so thinking no harm to enter, I walked in and sat down on the arm of a leather chair by the window.

  Nobody had observed me, however, and I was on the point of respectfully making known my presence to Sir William, when I saw Walter Butler rise and shut the door, taking the additional precaution to lock it. Turning to rejoin the company around the table, his dark golden eyes fell upon me, and he stood still, one hand tightening on the back of his chair.

  “Well?” inquired Sir William, testily, looking up at Mr. Butler. “When you are seated, sir, I will continue, unless I weary the company.”

  “If Mr. Cardigan has been here all this time, I, for one, was not aware of it,” observed Mr. Butler, coldly, never taking his unblinking eyes off me.

  I began to explain to Sir William that I had but that moment came in, when he interrupted querulously, and motioned Mr. Butler to be seated.

  “Tush! tush! Let be, let be, Captain Butler! My young kinsman has my confidence, and it is time he should know something of what passes in his own country.”

  “At sixteen,” observed my Lord Dunmore, with a maudlin chuckle, “I knew a thing or two, I’ll warrant you — curse me if I didn’t, Sir William!”

  Sir John Johnson regarded me without interest; Colonel Claus never even troubled to give me a glance, but I saw the hawk’s eyes of Walter Butler watching me steadily.

  “To resume,” began Sir William, but Lord Dunmore broke out:

  “At sixteen I had outlived you all — pierce me if I hadn’t, 112 now, Sir William! Scratch me raw! if I hadn’t put a finger in the world’s pudding, a-stirring the plums at sixteen, by God!”

  “Doubtless, my Lord,” said Sir William, dryly. “And now, gentlemen, concerning our show of force here, I have only to say — and I say it with all respect and submission to Governor Tryon — that I do not believe it will produce that salutary effect on the discontented in New York and Boston which Governor Tryon expects.”

  “Gad! I do expect it!” said Tryon, briskly. “Look you, Sir William, you and your militia dominate the county, and these rascals must be brought to understand it. Trust me, messires, the damned Yankees wil
l know of this militia display before the post rides into Boston!”

  “Add our Mohawks to the militia,” observed Walter Butler, in a colourless voice.

  Sir William’s jaw was set hard, but he said nothing.

  “Add the whole Six Nations,” suggested Lord Dunmore, leering at Sir William; “come, now! curse me blind! but we shall have the whole Six Nations, and that filthy little Red Jacket to boot.”

  “My Lord,” replied Sir William, “if it lay with your Lordship you would have Red Jacket against you.”

  This blunt rebuke almost sobered Lord Dunmore for a moment, and he asked Sir William what he meant.

  “I mean,” said the Baronet, “that you mocked this powerful chief, Red Jacket, at my table to-night, and he knew it. That is not the way to gain allies, my Lord.”

  “The drunken, guzzling son of a slut!” bawled Lord Dunmore, “d’ye think I care what the bandy-legged little beast thinks?”

  “I only know,” replied Sir William, curtly, “that if your Lordship has so conducted in Virginia, the King cannot look for any Indian support in that colony.”

  “Oh, choke me, Sir William, but that’s too bad now! — pinch me blue if it isn’t!” protested Lord Dunmore in a pet. Then a subtle smirk settled on his waxen cast of a face and he winked his weak eyes at Walter Butler, a proceeding observed by me and by Sir William.

  Not for a moment now did I doubt that Lord Dunmore 113 had set Colonel Cresap to drive the Cayugas into a hatred for the colonies, nor did I doubt but that Walter Butler knew of this plan, perhaps had even connived at it.

  Sir William, too, had come to some quick conclusion, for I saw the crease deepen around his jaws, and his steady eyes strike fire. But he said nothing to interrupt Lord Dunmore, who had now launched into a gust of incoherent words and protestations and hiccoughs, to which all listened sneeringly until his voice ended with a hollow buzz inside his wine-glass.