THE WEARING OF A RED ROSE.
"She gives thee a garland woven fair,
Take care!
It is a fool's-cap for thee to wear,
Beware! Beware!
Trust her not.
She's fooling thee!"
--LONGFELLOW.
The winter that followed was a quiet one in Hillsboro'. Joscelyn sewed
at the flaming poppies of her embroidery during the mornings, rode with
Betty or Mary Singleton over the commons in the afternoons when the snow
was not too deep, and in the evenings played cribbage with her mother or
sang to the sound of her spinet in the fire-lighted parlour. Now and
then news of the outside strife came over the mountains or out of the
far reaches to the north and east; but the red wave of war spent itself
before it reached the inland town. Washington was jealously watching the
British in New York, and in the south the fate of Charleston was rapidly
being sealed, while now and then a soldier, coming home on furlough or
sick leave, brought tidings of the partisan warfare, ceaselessly waged
through the Carolinas and Georgia by Sumter and Marion and other bold
leaders; but Hillsboro', upon the Eno, dozed through the long winter
months.
"This war is worse than tiresome; it's perfectly hateful," Janet
Cameron said, twisting her yellow curls about her fingers and pouting
disconsolately; "it is making old maids of us whether the men wish it
or not. Here I am, eighteen this coming Whitsuntide, and not a genuine
suitor have I had."
"Fie, Janet! Where is Billy Bryce?" asked Joscelyn, in whose room the
two sat. "Billy has loved you from your pinafore days."
"That baby?" with a scornful accent.
"You did not use to think him such a baby."
"Perchance not; for he is a whole six months older than I, and that is a
mighty age!"
"What manner of lover do you want now?"
"Oh, a grown man--a big strong fellow with a will of his own, who never
asks for a kiss, but just takes it."
"You little minx! what know you of kissing menfolk?"
"Nothing--that is just it--"
"Janet!"
"--for when Billy blushes like a peony, and politely and decorously begs
to kiss my cheek, I am in duty bound to look shocked, and blush back,
and say no; nothing else would satisfy my dignity, though I could pinch
him for it! That is why I call him a baby," stoutly maintained the girl,
her lips curling, and her voice full of mockery.
"He does not wish to forget his manners."
"To say always 'if you please' for tender favours is not the manners for
a lover."
"Since you are so wise, tell me what sort of manners a lover should
have."
"Oh, you know without the telling! He ought to be headstrong and
masterful and a--a bold robber when it comes to claiming favours from
his lady; and full of mock repentance after the theft."
"Well, when Billy comes from the war, I shall give him a hint as to how
to mend his behaviour."
"An you did, I should hate you. Why, he does not even know how to write
to a girl. Here is a letter from him in which he sends his duty to his
mother--did you ever hear of such idiocy? A love-letter with a message
like that! A love letter should be private and confidential, filled full
of such sweetness that one pair of eyes alone should read it; and he
sends his duty to his mother, forsooth! Why, that prying old creature
would insist upon reading every line written here if I gave her the
message--and Heaven knows she might, and be none the wiser, for all of
sentiment there is in it is this last sentence, 'I would send you my
love, an I dared; but I would not for the world make you angry or hurt
your maidenly modesty.' Now that is a love-letter for you!"
"Well, it is not deliriously passionate," admitted Joscelyn.
"It is deliriously idiotic. I'd just have him understand that my modesty
is not quite so thin-skinned as he imagines."
Joscelyn fell back in her chair, shrieking with laughter, while the
yellow-headed tempest before the glass shook her curls, and emphasized
her words with a scouting gesture, "Why, Joscelyn, if I were that boy's
great-grandmother, he could not treat me with more deferential respect."
"I think it is beautiful in him."
"Beautiful! Well, I think it is _imbecile_! Hurt my maidenly modesty,
indeed!--one would think my modesty were a sore toe to be stubbed or
trod upon. Stop laughing, Joscelyn Cheshire; you are as stupid as
Billy." And when Joscelyn answered with another silvery peal, Janet, in
high indignation, flung out of the room and down the steps, her heels
clattering as she went; and the next morning her maid carried the
offending letter to Mistress Bryce with a sweetly worded note, saying
Billy had no doubt made a mistake in the address of his missive. And
Billy swore his first oath when he heard of it.
Nor was Janet the only one who came to confessional in Joscelyn's room.
It was there that Betty found the only outlet for her secret joy. In
spite of the war and its sad consequences, the year had been such a
happy one--the sweetest year she had ever known; for it had been full of
dreams and fancies, of thrills and hopes. Even the self-reproach, with
which she sometimes tormented herself because of her mother, had in it
a touch of sweetness since it was linked with her love. The whole world
was as a new place; the winter snows held an unthought of revelation of
beauty, and each flower that budded to the spring sunshine was a fresh
creation bearing on its petals an unspelled message of love. She would
not write to Eustace, for that would be undutiful to her mother; but
Joscelyn's letters were filled with tender messages for her, with now
and then a little wafered note that burnt her fingers with a delicious
sense of forbidden fruit, and which she read and re-read in the privacy
of her white-curtained room, trembling and flushing at the story they
told,--the future they painted.
But as the spring advanced, a shade of sadness crept over her happiness,
a film like the impalpable dust that gathers on a fine picture hanging
always in the light. Eustace had ceased to write. Two months had gone
by, and no word had come from him. A strange, new fear was tugging at
Betty's heart.
"Naught of evil has befallen him, or Mary would know; and you said they
had no tidings?" she asked wistfully one evening, as she leaned against
Joscelyn's window and watched the pale-petalled stars blossom through
the purple gloaming.
"I rode all the way to the Singletons' yesterday afternoon on purpose to
ask, and they know nothing."
"And his mother feels no uneasiness?"
"None. She says Lord Cornwallis would immediately inform her if he
should be killed."
Betty heaved a deep sigh; and then that latent fear came out, "I suppose
he finds the ladies of the city so beautiful and entertaining that he
has forgotten his--his friends here."
"S-o! that is what makes you so long of face these days? Well, I do not
believe a word of it. Eustace is no jilt. You will find that you at
least are remembered, and that his silence is from reasonable cause."
"His cousin, Ellen Singleton, is such a beautiful woman--you remember
Richard told us of her in his letter about the Philadelphia fete. Like
Mary, he said, only more lovely. They must of necessity be much
together, for she, too, is in New York."
"And betrothed to Major Grant, you jealous child."
"But that need really make no difference so far as Eustace's admiration
goes. Besides, there must be others as lovely."
"Of course; but you are pretty, too, when your face is not long and your
eyes red with weeping."
Betty went home comforted; and that night, when her mother made some
sharp remark about the Singleton household, she plucked up courage to
say it was scarcely fair to judge the whole family adversely because of
the father's shortcomings. And then, scared at her own temerity, she
ran away to her room, and cried out her trouble to that insensate and
inanimate confessor of wronged or sorrowing womanhood,--her pillow.
A week later, Joscelyn, coming from the Singletons', tied a red ribbon
on her shutter as a sign that she had news; and Betty, hastening over,
soon learned of Clinton's long and tempestuous voyage from New York to
Charleston, whither he went to subdue that city. Eustace had been badly
hurt in the storm that wrecked so many of the transports, and had been
laid up in the hospital at Tybee Bay for weeks, while Clinton went on to
Charleston to begin the siege.
So the British had come again to the south to teach the people of that
section their duty to their king, and the quiet that had reigned at
Hillsboro' was broken by the coming and going of recruiting parties, and
by the vacillating reports of victory or failure from the beleaguered
city.
But it was not until August that the climax came. Then Gates, smarting
with the defeat at Camden, halted the remnant of his flying army,
scarcely a thousand strong, at the town on the Eno, to rest and sum up
the full measure of the disaster that had befallen him. During the short
time that he remained, the town was in a ferment. The way to the camp
was thronged with sympathizers; kitchen chimneys smoked with the extra
cooking, and in every house was a banquet of the best that could be had.
Only in the Cheshire house was there no preparation, nor yet upon the
door was there the blue and buff cockade that marked the others. There
were not lacking those who called official attention to this fact, and
so many comments and criticisms crept about among the soldiers that a
couple of young officers, bent on a frolic and thinking to teach this
wilful Joscelyn a needed lesson, stopped upon her porch and sent word
that they would speak with her. And presently she came down to them,
dressed fit to dance in a queen's minuet in silver brocade over a
scarlet petticoat, the round whiteness of her neck and arms shining
through foamy lace, a red rose in her powdered hair, and a black patch
near the corner of her mouth giving a saucy emphasis to her lips. As she
stepped out of the door, the young fellows who had been lounging on the
porch rail instantly sprang up and uncovered at the sight of so much
beauty and dignity. They had thought to find a country maid, mayhap a
woman past her youth; and instead, this glowing creature stood before
them.
"What is your pleasure, gentlemen?" she asked; but the stiff courtesy of
her question was belied by the laugh in her eyes.
They exchanged uneasy glances, and one took a step toward the porch
exit; but the other, who was to be spokesman, summing up resolution,
stammered and answered:--
"We found no cockade of the nation's colours on your door, and did but
stop to ask the reason."
"Your general sent you?"
"No, no; we were but passing, and came of our own accord."
"Oh, a friendly visit, with no official significance? I pray you present
each other," and she courtesied at each name. "And now let us go into
the parlour and see what can be done for your entertainment."
And in the parlour she gave them the best chairs, and set herself with
much graciousness of manner to entertain them, plying them with delicate
compliments, singing her Tory ballads with such laughing abandon that in
the same spirit of fun they applauded her, thinking not a moment of the
songs, but of the singer. Later on she brewed them a cup of tea, telling
them it was a love potion to win a fair one's favour; and although they
began by protesting vehemently, yet they ended by drinking it, for she
first put her own lips to the cups, and then dared them with her eyes.
After that they would scarcely have hesitated at hemlock. At the end of
an hour she dismissed them, each with a red rose in his coat.
"The colour suits your handsome eyes," she said softly to one, with a
ravishing glance, as she fastened the flower in place. And to the other
she murmured, with downcast lids and a sweet similitude of faltering,
"This is for memory," as though for them both this hour was to be a
tryst for thought and tender recollection, and the rose its symbol.
Neither of them had the wish nor the will to tear the flower away; and
so with a certain crestfallen exhilaration they took their leave, riding
slowly down the street, swearing each other to silence. But the story
got the rounds within the hour, for Mistress Strudwick, seeing them
enter the house and fearing some danger or annoyance to Joscelyn, had
followed quickly, and sat in the next room with the door ajar during the
entire interview. And she was not slow in publishing it abroad, so that
the young officers were twitted unmercifully at mess and headquarters;
even General Gates, when told of it, forgot for a moment the humiliation
of his late defeat, and laughed long and loud. Under the banter one of
the men threw his rose away; but the other held stoutly to his, meeting
the raillery with the assertion that it was a lady's favour and not a
king's colour that he wore.
"It was not kindly of you to take such mean advantage of them, Joscelyn,
seeing how irresistible you can make yourself, but it was just the
cleverest thing you ever did," Janet cried, squeezing Joscelyn's waist.
"Mistress Strudwick has near had apoplexy with laughter, and even
Mistress Bryce--who hates you like a double dose of senna and was the
first to call attention to your undecorated door--could not keep a
straight face to hear how neatly you outwitted the young coxcombs. But
really, my dear, you deserve no great credit for it; for in that gown
you are fit to melt harder hearts than Providence gave our gallant
young soldiers."
"I do not flatter myself their hearts were touched; it was only their
vanity that melted like wax in the flame of my flattery."
"Well, they deserved what they got,--trying to teach you behaviour,
indeed!"
The next day the army, refreshed and rested, took up its line of march,
passing directly in front of the Cheshire homestead. On the veranda, in
her brocade and brilliant petticoat and framed by the riotous rose vine,
Joscelyn sat and made pretence to be very busy with her flax wheel; but
from under her drooping lids she saw the whole procession.
Beside his company rode a young lieutenant, his eager gaze ahead of him
until he reached the undecorated house; then his hat came off, and
lifting his lapel on which hung a faded red rose, he cried up to the
girl in the balcony:--
"This is for memory!"
And Joscelyn laughed and fluttered her white handkerchief with what
might or might not be the suggestion of a kiss. And he, forgetful of
military decorum, turned in his saddle and kept his gaze upon her until
the troop passed beyond the corner.
"Do you know, Joscelyn," cried Janet, rushing up the steps, her eyes
shining and her yellow curls flying in the wind, "that was Lieutenant
Wyley from Halifax--and he is brother to Frederick--and Frederick
danced with no one but me last night (you don't know what you missed in
not going to the cotillion!)--and he has been at my house the livelong
morning."
"S-o! You have then a new beau to your string?"
"Oh, yes! and he is strong and masterful, and talks love beautifully,
and he does not say 'by your leave' like Billy, but is just what a lover
should be."
"Janet, Janet!" cried Joscelyn, reprovingly; but the laughing girl
tossed her yellow curls coquettishly, the exhilaration of a new conquest
upon her; then suddenly hid her face on Joscelyn's shoulder:--
"Joscelyn, dearest, did you ever feel a lover's lips against your cheek
for just one little moment?"
And Joscelyn went suddenly as red as she, remembering that November day
when Richard came home.