AN UNANSWERED QUESTION.
"As o'er the grass, beneath the larches there
We gayly stepped, the high noon overhead,
Then Love was born--was born so strong and fair."
--GIPSY SONG.
Although Joscelyn continued to hold herself aloof from Richard, yet she
was conscious of his protecting influence in other ways besides the
healing of that family quarrel that had been such a burden to her and to
them all. Most of the women of her set continued to cut her outright, or
to treat her with the scantest courtesy; but there were no more threats
concerning her; the boys who had hooted under her window left off their
insolent ways, and the merchants and tradespeople no longer gave her
indifferent service. And in all this she recognized Richard's work, for
he had openly espoused her cause, and had let it be known that those who
offended or ill-used her should later on be answerable to him. From the
day of his coming, she felt herself shadowed by an unobtrusive but
persistent watchfulness that plucked many a thorn from her path; and
after the stormy months that had passed, she could not but be grateful
for the calm. Invalid though he was, she intuitively felt his to be the
stronger will, and made no fight against what he did in her behalf. The
protection for which she had longed had come to her, and she was glad to
feel his strength between her and her persecutors. Never in any boastful
way did he remind her of the defeat of her cause; and tacitly she
acknowledged his generosity. The very perils they had shared drew them
together with that subtle bond of sympathy a mutual interest creates;
and so seldom was there a return to their former sparring that Mistress
Strudwick protested she knew not which had the better manners.
"I declare, my dear," she said, pinching Joscelyn's cheek, "you are so
beautifully behaved of late that I begin to find you a bit tiresome.
Methinks I must stir up Amanda Bryce to pay you a visit and talk over
the war, or else we'll all be stagnating for lack of excitement."
"Well, after these eight years of fermentation, stagnation is just now
the special estate to which I aspire."
"So? Well, Richard here prefers the estate of matrimony. Is it not true,
my lad?" And from the sofa Richard's eyes said yes; whereupon the old
lady went on, nodding her head with mock solemnity, "And since one of
you wants stagnation and one wants matrimony, I am not so sure but that
you are of the same mind, for some folk find these things of a piece.
And so, miss, you may have come around to Richard's way of thinking
after all."
And seeing Joscelyn stiffen, Richard was sorry that the conversation had
taken such a personal turn; for the two had come in to pay him a visit.
That was one thing that troubled him--she never came by herself; always
it was her mother or Betty or Janet Cameron she brought with her as
though she feared to trust herself alone with him, wishing, perchance,
to hear no more of his love-making. And even with these others she came
so seldom. He could not go to her, for the hard rough journey home had
racked his arm and set the fever to throbbing again in his blood, and he
must remain quiet, or dire consequences were threatened.
But one February night, when she had stayed away several days, and
the longing in his breast grew unbearable, he sent for her. The wind
without howled like some hungry creature seeking its prey, and the
white-fingered spirit of the snowstorm tapped weirdly at his window. But
he gave it no heed; storm or shine, he must see her this night of all
others; and so a word of entreaty was sent across the street. She came
at once, a brilliant apparition in a scarlet shawl over which the snow
lay powdered in shining crystals; on her lips and in her eyes the smile
of which he had dreamed in the copper and crimson sunsets on the
prison-ship. He gathered her cold hands into his feverish ones.
"You knew I must see you this night?"
"Yes; I felt you would send for me, for I knew we were thinking of the
same things."
"A year ago to-night you and I stood in jeopardy of our lives."
She nodded; all day she had been living over those fearful hours of
which this day was the anniversary.
"Yes, a year ago to-night Tarleton held us in his toils."
"We have never talked of that dreadful time; now I want you to tell me
everything you can recall of it. Sit down."
As she obeyed, the wide shawl fell away and left in sight the silver
brocade of her gown, and her shoulders rising white and beautiful from
the lace of the low bodice. He started, and raised himself upon his
elbow. Was he dreaming? No; the powder and the rose were in her hair,
the saucy patch at the corner of her mouth. She had not forgotten; just
so had she looked when she faced Tarleton, and risked her womanhood for
his own safety. He could not speak, but his eyes did full homage to her
beauty.
"I knew you would send for me, so I was ready," she said, and smiled
again. So it was for him she had robed herself thus!--there was a thrill
of ecstasy in his veins. And then when he still did not speak, for sheer
joy of looking at her, she began to talk of that terrible day; and both
of them lived over in a quick rush of memory all its hopes and fears,
its uncertainties and dangers. Her fingers were icy cold, and the very
tremors that had then possessed her, crept again through her veins as
she went from scene to scene, and he learned for the first time all of
her deceptions and trials. So absorbed was she that she did not even
know he had taken her hands in his, until she felt the hot pressure at
the end of her narrative. Then when there seemed nothing left to tell,
and he still looked at her in a silence more eloquent than words, she
grew restless and rose to go; but he caught her skirt.
"Not yet, not yet! Betty is happy with her lover in the parlour, and
mother is somewhere down there acting propriety or else fast asleep. For
this one evening, at least, you shall belong to me."
And then when those hot, trembling fingers had drawn her again to her
seat, he went on:--
"There is one question I have wanted to ask you all these months--" And
then, for very fear of her answer, he hesitated and substituted another.
"Why did you not come back to me that last night? You knew I was waiting
for you, longing for you with every heart-throb."
"It was so late."
"Late? What mattered an hour on the dial when I wanted you so much?"
And she flushed and hesitated, remembering she had not gone back at that
unseemingly hour lest he should misunderstand her; men were so cold in
their judgments. Looking at him now she was ashamed of that doubt of
him.
"Was it in truth the lateness of the hour, or--or because of what Barry
said to you on the stair? I opened the attic door and saw you, and I
knew he was talking of his love. My God, how I envied him! Was it for
that you stayed away from me?"
She turned her head aside with a gesture that hurt him like a
knife-thrust. Then the question that had burnt in his thoughts, and
filled his heart with cankering jealousy all these weeks, came out:--
"Joscelyn, did you love him? Tell me the truth in mercy."
Slowly her eyes came back to him, soft and blue, and kindled with a
flame he had never seen before. He rose on his elbow to meet the answer,
eager yet fearful; but before she could speak, Betty opened the door.
"Eustace and I are coming to sit with you awhile, Richard, for you two
must be better acquainted," she said to him; and with the blindness that
is a part of love, neither she nor Eustace saw that their coming was
unwelcome. Before they left, Joscelyn had slipped away, carrying his
question and its answer in her heart. But before she went to bed, she
opened the box where she kept her treasures, and kneeling in front of
her fire, laid upon the glowing embers the scarlet sash of an officer in
the king's service.
"I have no right to keep you any longer," she whispered, as the silk
cracked and crinkled, and passed away in a smoke-fringed flame; "no
right, for now I know, I know!"
The quiet of the town was now frequently broken; for as February drew to
a close, some of the soldiers began to straggle home, some on furlough,
some on dismissal. Billy Bryce, hungry for the toothsome things in his
mother's pantry and impatient for a sight of the yellow curls that
sunned themselves on Janet's head, came first. But ten minutes spent in
that young woman's company so dampened his spirits, that for days his
mother's utmost efforts in culinary arts failed to tempt him. Janet knew
the very hour of his arrival, and she also knew that it was two hours
before he came to seek her. She could not know that his stay with his
mother had been as unwilling as it was dutiful; so to complicate matters
a little more she had gone out to pay some calls that might have waited
a month. But he found her at last on Joscelyn's porch, her hands in her
muff, her curls bobbing from under her hood to the fur-trimmed tippet
below, where the winter sunshine seemed to gather itself into a focus.
He waved to her from halfway down the square, but she only squinted up
her eyes as in a vain effort at recognition.
"Well, I declare," she exclaimed patronizingly, as he sprang eagerly up
the steps, "if it isn't Mistress Bryce's little Billy! Why, Billy,
child, you must have grown quite an inch since you went away. How is
your dear mother to-day?"
Her tone and manner were indescribably superior, as though she were
talking to a child of six, so that the amazed and abashed boy, instead
of hugging her in his long arms as he wanted to, took the tips of the
little fingers she put out to him, and stammeringly and solicitously
asked if she had been quite well since he saw her last. She said it was
a long time to remember, but she would do the best she could, and
immediately began to count off on her fingers the number of headaches
and toothaches she had had in the past two years; until Joscelyn, sorry
for the boy's unprovoked misery, stopped her abruptly, and finally sent
Billy across the street to pour out his disappointment to Richard.
"Janet, you little barbarian, you have no heart!"
"Oh, yes I have," replied that imperturbable young woman; "I have a
great big heart for a grown man, but you see I do not particularly care
for children who are still dangling at their mother's apron string."
Even a lecture from Richard, to whom she was much attached, did her no
good; for all the while he was speaking she sat studying the effect of
her high-heeled shoe on Betty's blue footstool, and answered his
peroration about Billy's broken heart with the utterly irrelevant
assertion that Frederick Wyley said she had the prettiest foot in the
colonies. Did Richard agree with him? So Billy's cause was not advanced
any, and Richard began to advise him to think no more of this
yellow-haired tormentor.
"I declare, Billy Bryce looks like a child with perpetual cramps,"
Mistress Strudwick exclaimed to Joscelyn one day, when the lad passed
the window where the two sat; and then she glanced down the room to her
medicine-box.
"But it is a course of sweets, not bitters, that he needs," laughed
Joscelyn. "It's his heart and not his stomach that ails Billy."
"Half the lovesickness in the world is nothing but dyspepsia; mighty few
cases of disappointed affection outlast a torpid liver."
"I never heard you make such an unsentimental remark."
"You never heard me tell such a truth. Bone-set and senna is the thing
for Billy, and I'll see that he gets a bottle; if it does not cure his
disappointment, it will at least kill off that particular brand of long
face he is wearing. No wonder Janet turns up her nose at him."
"Yes, I begin to think she is permanently at outs with him."
Then other soldiers began to arrive. Thomas Nash got sick-leave from
Washington's staff; and from the south came Master Strudwick, more
anxious for a sight of home and wife than for the gold which the
dissatisfied army was awaiting; and out of the north came Peter Ruffin,
a weird wraith of his former self, to tell anew the horrible story of
the prison-ships. The other Hillsboro' man, who had been with him had
succumbed to the plague, and gone to swell the number of those at whose
shallow graves the hungry sea was forever calling.
"And Dame Grant?" asked Richard, when Peter came to see him.
"She, too, fell a victim to the disease of the hulks, and sorely did we
miss her. I knew you had escaped in safety, because one day she came to
the ship wearing a new woollen hood, and when we twitted her about it
over the rail, asking her if it was a lover's gift, she said that Dick
Clevering's sweetheart had sent it to her out of gratitude from the
south."
"I helped to knit it," Betty cried, while Joscelyn's eyes were not
lifted from the floor. In the semi-twilight of the room, Richard reached
out and touched her hand gently.
"It was like your generous heart."
"But I made it out of the reddest wool I could find, with never a touch
of blue or buff," she answered, laughing; but Richard was content.
Nor did these home-coming men bring the only tidings from the outside
world. Now and then letters came that set the tongues to wagging; now
with news of Washington's refusal of a crown, now with a description of
Mary Singleton's marriage to Edward Moore. Janet refused persistently to
show her letters which came in the Halifax post, but one day Richard had
one from Colborn that made him laugh with delight:--
"The miniature is set in a narrow gold frame, without jewels; for
although I won my promotion, it was only a lieutenancy. However, I
am content. It was at Guilford Court-house, in your own Carolina
country, the day Tarleton was wounded. Soon I am going home, with
my pockets full of American pebbles, to claim the original, and
bring her back here to this great country to enjoy the freedom I am
glad you won."
And when Joscelyn went home, after hearing the letter read, she again
opened her box of treasures and took from it a shining gold piece, and
looked at it with a startled sweetness in her eyes.
[Illustration: "'MY HEART'S PRISONER FOR TIME AND ETERNITY.'"]