When Mrs. Annandale and her niece repaired to the quarters assigned
them, the young lady passed through the room of the elder to the inner
apartment, as if she feared that her contumacy might be upbraided.
But if Mrs. Annandale felt her armor a burden and was a-wearied with
the untoward result of the evening’s campaign she made no sign, but
gallantly persevered, realizing the truism that more skill is requisite
in conducting a retreat than in leading the most spirited assault. She
followed her niece and seated herself by the fire while Arabella at the
dressing-table let down her mass of golden hair and began to ply the
brush, looking meanwhile at a very disaffected face in the mirror. The
youthful maid who officiated for both ladies, monopolized chiefly by
Mrs. Annandale, was busied with some duties touching a warming-pan in
the outer room, and thus the opportunity for confidential conversation
was ample.
“These soldiers talk so much about their hard case,” said the elder
lady, looking about her with an appraising eye. “Many folks at home
might call this luxury.”
For Captain Howard had exerted his capacity and knowledge to the utmost
to compass comfort for his sister and daughter, with the result that
he was held to complain without a grievance. A great fire roared in
a deep chimney-place--there were no andirons, it is true, but two
large dornicks served as well. The log walls were white-washed and
glittered with a vaunt of cleanliness. The bed-curtains were pink, and
fluttered in a draught from the fire. Rose-tinted curtains veiled the
meagre sashes of the glazed windows. The chairs, of the clumsy post
manufacture, were big and covered with dressed furs. Buffalo rugs lay
before the wide hearth and on the floor. A candle flickered unneeded on
the white-draped dressing-table, and there was the glitter of silver
and glass and of such _bijouterie_ as dressing-case and jewel-box could
send forth. The young girl, now in a pink _robe de chambre_, seemed in
accord with the rude harmony of the place.
“They line their nests right well, these tough soldiers,” said the
elder woman. “If it were not for the Indians, and the marching, and the
guns, and the noisy powder, and the wild-cats, and the wilderness, one
might marry a soldier with a fair prospect. George Mervyn is a handsome
young man, Bella.”
“He looks like a sheep,” said Arabella, petulantly. “That long, thin,
mild face of his, pale as the powder on his hair, without a spark of
spirit, and those stiff side-curls on each side of his head, exactly
like a ram’s horns! He looks like a sheep, and he _is_ a sheep.”
With all her unrevealed and secret purposes it was difficult to hold
both temper and patience after the strain of the mishaps of the
evening. But Mrs. Annandale merely yawned and replied, “I think he is a
handsome young man, and much like Sir George.”
“Ba-a-a!--Ba-a-a!”--said the dutiful niece.
The weary little woman still held stanchly on. “I believe you’d rather
marry the grandfather.”
“I would--but I don’t choose to marry either.”
Mrs. Annandale had a sudden inspiration. “No, my poor love,” she said
with a downward inflection, “a girl like you, with beauty, and brains,
and good birth, and fine breeding,--but no money, too often doesn’t
_choose_ to marry anybody, for anybody that _is_ anybody doesn’t want
her.”
There was dead silence in front of the mirror. A troublous shade
settled on the fair face reflected therein. The brush was motionless.
An obvious dismay was expressed in the pause. Self-pity is a poignant
pain.
“Lord! Lord!--how unevenly the good things of this world are divided,”
sighed the philosopher. “The daughter of a poor soldier, and it makes
no difference how lovely, how accomplished!--while if you were the
bride of Sir George Mervyn’s grandson--bless me, girl, your charms
would be on every tongue. You’d be the toast of all England!”
There was a momentary silence while the light flashed from the lengths
of golden hair as the brush went back and forth with strong, quick
strokes. The head, intently poised, betokened a sedulous attention.
“Out upon the injustice of it!” cried Mrs. Annandale, with unaffected
fervor. “To be beautiful, and well-bred, and well-born, and
well-taught, and faultless, and capable of gracing the very highest
station in the land, and to be driven by poverty to take a poor,
meagre, contemned portion in life, simply and solely because those whom
you are fit for, and who are fit for you, will not condescend to think
of you.”
“I am not so sure of that!” cried Arabella, suddenly, with a tense note
of elation. The mirror showed the vivid flush rising in her cheeks, the
spirit in her eyes, the pride in the pose of her head. “And, Aunt, mark
you now,--no man can _condescend_ to me!”
“Lord! you poor child, how little you know of the ways of the world.
But they were not in the convent course, I warrant you. Wealth marries
wealth. Station climbs to higher station. Gallantry, admiration, all
that is very well in a way, to pass the time. But men’s wounded hearts
are easily patched with title-deeds and long rent-rolls. Don’t let your
pride make you think that your bright eyes can shine like the Golightly
diamonds. Bless my soul, Miss Eva had them all on at the county ball
last year. Ha! ha! ha! I remember Sir George Mervyn said she looked a
walking pawn-shop,--they were so prodigiously various. You know the
Mervyns always showed very chaste taste in the matter of jewellery--the
family jewels are few, but monstrous fine; every stone is a small
fortune. But he was vastly polite to her at supper. I thought I would
warn you, sweet, don’t bother to be civil to young George, for old Sir
George is determined on that match. Though the money was made in trade
’twas a long time ago, and there’s a mort of it. The girl has a dashing
way with her, too, and sets up for a beauty when _you_ are out of the
county.”
“Lord, ma’am, Eva Golightly?” questioned Arabella, in scornful amaze.
“Sure, she has fine dark eyes, and she can make them flash and play
equal to the diamonds in her hair. Maybe I’m as dazzled as the
men, but she fairly looked like a princess to me. Heigho! has that
besom ever finished fixing my bed? Good night--good night--my poor
precious--and--say your prayers, child, say your prayers!”
The face in the mirror--the brush was still again--showed a depression
of spirit, but the set teeth and an intimation of determination
squared its delicate chin till Arabella looked like Captain Howard in
the moment of ordering a desperate assault on the enemy’s position.
There was, nevertheless, a sort of flinching, as of a wound received,
sensitive in a thousand keen appreciations of pain. The word
“condescend” had opened her eyes to new interpretations of life. Her
father might realize that a captain, however valorous, did not outrank
a major-general, but in the splendor of her young beauty, and cultured
intelligence, and indomitable spirit, she had felt a regal preëminence,
and the world accorded her homage. That it was a mere _façon de parler_
had never before occurred to her--a sort of cheap indulgence to a
pretension without solid foundation. Her pride was cut to the quick.
She was considered, forsooth, very pretty, and vastly accomplished,
and almost learned with her linguistic acquirements and the mastery of
heavy tomes of dull convent lore, yet of no sort of account because
her people were not rich and she had no dowry, and unless she should
be smitten by some stroke of good fortune, as uncontrollable as a bolt
of lightning, she was destined to mate with some starveling curate or
led captain, when as so humbly placed a dame she would lack the welcome
in the circles that had once flattered her beauty and her transient
belleship. The candle on the dressing-table was guttering in its
socket when its fitful flaring roused her to contemplate the pallid
reflection, all out of countenance, the fire dwindling to embers, and
the shadows that had crept into the retired spaces of the bed, between
the rose-tinted curtains, with a simulacrum of dull thoughts for the
pillow and dreary dreams.
The interval had not passed so quietly within the precincts of Mrs.
Annandale’s chamber. The connecting door was closed, and Arabella did
not notice the clamor, as the maid was constrained to try the latches
of the outer door and adjust and readjust the bars, and finally to push
by main force and a tremendous clatter one of the great chairs against
it, lest some discerning and fastidious marauder should select out
of all Fort Prince George, Mrs. Annandale’s precious personality to
capture, or “captivate,” to use the incongruous and archaic phrase of
the day. Now that the outer door was barricaded beyond all possibility
of being carried by storm or of surreptitious entrance, Mrs. Annandale
was beset with anxiety as to egress on an emergency.
“But look, you hussy,” she exclaimed, as she stood holding the candle
aloft to light the tusslings and tuggings of the maid with the
furniture and the bar, “suppose the place should take fire. How am I to
get out! You have shut me in here to perish like a rat in a trap, you
heartless jade!”
“Oh, sure, mem, the fort will never take fire--the captain is that
careful--the foine man he is!” said the girl, turning up her fresh,
rosy, Irish face.
“I know the ‘foine man’ better than you do,” snapped her mistress. The
victory of the evening had been so long deferred, so hardly won at
last, that the conqueror was in little better case than the defeated;
she was fit to fall with fatigue, and her patience was in tatters.
The War Office intrusted Captain Howard with the lives of its stanch
soldiers and the value of many pounds sterling in munitions of war. But
his sister belittled the enemy she had so often worsted, and who never
even knew that he was beaten. “And those zanies of soldiers--smoking
their vile tobacco like Indians!”
“Lord, mem,” said the girl, still on her knees, vigorously chunking and
jobbing at the door, “the sojers are in barracks, in bed and asleep
these three hours agone.”
“Look at that guard-house, flaring like the gates of hell! What do
you mean by lying, girl!” Mrs. Annandale glanced out of the white
curtained window, showing a spark of light in the darkness.
“Sure, ma’am, it’s the watch they be kapin’ so kindly all night, like
the stars, or the blissed saints in heaven!”
“Mightily like the ‘blissed saints in heaven,’ I’ll wager,” said the
old lady, sourly.
“I was fair afeard o’ Injuns and wild-cats till I seen the gyard turn
out, mem,” said the maid, relishing a bit of gossip.
Mrs. Annandale gave a sudden little yowl, not unlike a feline utterance.
“You Jezebel,” she cried in wrath, “what did you remind me of
them for--look behind the curtains--under the valance of the
bed--yow!--there is no telling who is hid there--robbers, murderers!”
Norah, young, plump, neat, and docile to the last degree, sprang up
from her knees and rushed at these white dimity fabrics, tossing
their fringed edges, with a speed and spirit that might have implied
a courage equal to the encounter with concealed braves or beasts. But
too often had she had this experience, finding nothing to warrant a
fear. It was a mere form of search in her estimation, and her ardor
was assumed to give her mistress assurance of her efficiency and
protection. Therefore, when on her knees by the bedside she sprang back
with a sudden cry of genuine alarm, her unexpected terror out-mastered
her, and she fled whimpering to the other side of the room behind the
little lady, who, dropping the candle in amazement and a convulsive
tremor, might have achieved the conflagration she had prefigured
without the aid of the zanies of the barracks, but that the flame
failed in falling.
“Boots!--Boots!--” cried the girl, her teeth chattering.
Mrs. Annandale’s courage seemed destined to unnumbered strains. It
was not her will to exert it. She preferred panic as her prerogative.
She glanced at the door, barred by her own precautions against all
possibility of a speedy summons for help. Even to hail the guard-house
through the window was futile at the distance; to escape by way of the
casement was impossible, the rooms being situated in the second story
of the large square building; a moment of listening told her that her
niece was all unaware of the crisis, asleep, perhaps, silent, still.
There was nothing for it but her own prowess.
“I have a blunderbuss here, man,” she said, seizing the curling-iron
from her dressing-table and marking with satisfaction the long and
formidable shadow it cast in the firelight on the white wall. “Bring
those boots out or I’ll shoot them off you!”
There was dead silence. She heard the fire crackle, the ash stir, even,
she fancied, the tread of a sentry in the tower above the gate.
“It’s a Injun--a Injun--he don’t understand the spache, mem!” said
Norah, wondering that the unknown had the temerity to disregard this
august summons.
“Norah,” said Mrs. Annandale, autocratically, and as she flourished
the curling-tongs Norah cowered and winced as from a veritable
blunderbuss, so did the little lady dominate by her asseverations the
mind of her dependent--and indeed stancher mental endowments than poor
little Norah’s--“fetch me out those boots.”
“Oh, mem--what am I to do with the man that’s in ’em?” quavered the
Abigail, dolorously.
“Fetch him, too, if he’s there. Give him a tug, I say, girl.”
The doubt that this mandate expressed, nerved the timorous maid to
approach the silent white-draped bed. That she had nevertheless
expected both resistance and weight was manifest in the degree of
strength she exerted. She fell back, overthrown by the sheer force of
the recoil, with a large empty boot in her hand, nor would she believe
that the miscreant had not craftily slipped off the footgear till the
other came as empty, and a timorous peep ascertained that there were no
feet to match within view.
“Some officer’s boots!” soliloquized Mrs. Annandale. “He must have left
them here when he was turned out of these snug quarters to make room
for us. I wonder when that floor was swept.”
“Sure, mem, they’re not dusty,” said Norah, all blithe and rosy once
more. “I’m rej’iced that he wasn’t in ’em.”
“Who--the officer?” with a withering stare.
“No’m, the Injun I was looking for”--with a quaver.
“Or the wild-cat you was talking about! Nasty things! Never mention
them again.”
Mrs. Annandale was a good deal shaken by the experience and tottered
slightly as she paused at the dressing-table and laid down the
curling-tongs that had masqueraded as a blunderbuss. The maid, all
smiling alacrity to make amends, bustled cheerily about in the
preparations for the retirement of her employer. “Sure, mem, yez would
love to see ’em dead.”
“You’ve got a tongue now, but some day it will be cut out,” the old
woman remarked, acridly.
“I’m maning to say, mem, they have the beautifulest fur--them
wild-cats, not the Injuns. There’s a robe or blanket av ’em in the
orderly room--beautiful, mem, sure, like the cats may have in heaven.”
As Mrs. Annandale sat in her great chair she seemed to be falling to
pieces, so much of her identity came off as her hand-maiden removed
her effects. She was severally divested of her embroidered cape, the
full folds of her puce-colored satin gown, her slippers and clocked
stockings; and when at last in her night-rail and white night-cap, she
looked like a curious antique infant, with a malignant and coercive
stare. Norah handled her with a fearful tenderness, as if she might
break in two, such a wisp of a woman she was! Little like a conquering
hero she seemed as she sat there before the fire, now girding at the
offices of her attendant, now whimpering weakly, like a spoiled child,
her white-capped head nodding and her white-clad figure fairly lost
in the great chair, but she was the most puissant force that had
ever invested Fort Prince George, though it had sustained both French
military strategy and Indian savage wiles. And the days to come were
to bear testimony to her courage, her address, and her dominant rage
for power. When her little fateful presence was eclipsed at last by the
ample white bed-curtains and Norah was free to draw forth her pallet
and lay herself down on the floor before the fire, the girl could not
refrain a long-drawn sigh, half of fatigue and half self-commiseration.
It seemed a hard lot with her exacting and freakish employer. But the
cold bitter wind came surging around the corner of the house, and she
remembered the bleak morasses across the wild Atlantic, the little
smoky hovel she called home, the many to fend from frost and famine,
the close and crowded quarters, the straw bed where she had lain,
neighboring the pig. She thought of her august room-mate in comparison.
“But faix!--how much perliter was the crayther to be sure!”