GARDE’S LONELY VIGIL.
DAVID DONNER was not to be deterred for long, by the shadow of a memory
which he had seen flit like a ghost of his past, across Garde’s
features. He was arriving at that age when a man’s memory is not so
strong as in years past and when the events of the day at hand seem
therefore the more important. He fretted under his promise to go abroad,
desiring this to be abrogated by his fellow-colonists, and this could
only be done when he should persuade them that the charter would be
saved, or at least his country better served, by his remaining where he
was. He had not as yet spoken to his colleagues of Randolph’s
proposition. He was waiting for Garde to give him her answer.
The girl watched the old man narrowly, to see how long she could wait,
for her answer was no more ready after a week than it had been on the
first day. This was not entirely because her affections were placed
elsewhere. She was a little patriot, otherwise her love for Adam would
have prompted her reply at once, and from hot lips. She was undergoing a
genuine struggle with herself. If it were true that she could save the
charter, should she permit her own happiness or Adam’s to stand before
the happiness and rights of all the Massachusetts people? Had not Adam
himself written that when there are three and only two could be happy,
the one, representing the minority, should suffer sorrow, that the
greater number might preserve their joy? Then, when she and Adam were
only two, how much more they should endure sorrow, when all the people
of that colony weighed against them in the question.
No, it was not a simple matter in which her own desires could speak out
above the clamor of duty. And yet, she could not feel the truth of
Randolph’s position and promise. Suppose he had not the ability, so to
save the charter as her grandfather believed he would. Suppose, having
the power, he should prove dishonest, when once he had won his desire.
What was there in a wife to tie him to his obligation? If politics had
prompted him to go so far, would they not continue to prompt him
further, after the marriage had given him his way? To sacrifice herself
and Adam was to Garde a mighty thing. She was capable of any heroism,
but her mind and her nature exacted that it be not specious. No travail
of motherhood ever gave a more acute or prolonged agony than was Garde’s
portion as she strove to give birth to a wise and right resolution.
Her grandfather, in the meantime, waxed more and more impatient. It had
been his habit from early manhood to have his own way. In avoiding
precisely the difficulties into which he had fallen with Garde’s mother,
he felt that he was on the safe side in his promise not to coerce his
grandchild. This gave him the greater latitude in which to bring
pressure upon her from what he conceived to be another standpoint. Yet
that repression of his feelings and passions which he had practised for
long among the Puritans, made him more patient with Garde’s indecision
than would otherwise have been the case. He became childishly eager,
more than harshly insistent, in this frame of mind. He coaxed her many
times in a day, to see what her bravery and loyalty could do.
Christmas and New Year were long past, and still Garde had made no
decision. In the spring, when she could make no more excuses for
delaying, she told her grandfather how gladly she would comply with his
wishes, if only she could know, absolutely, that Randolph would keep
faith with the colonists and secure them their charter against all need
for anxiety. This was her honest word. It came from her heart as if
every word had been jagged, leaving her wounded and all but ill.
“Let Mr. Randolph prove that he will work for our good with the King,”
she said. “Let him secure us but one year of ease from this constant
worry—let him show us a year of the favor he can win from Charles, and
then I shall be content. This is not much that I ask. If his heart is so
set upon me as he says, surely he could wait this time and do these
things. A true regard could wait for as many years as Jacob served for
Rachel.”
With this decision, which he regarded as a binding promise, and which he
represented to Randolph as a betrothal, David Donner had to be content.
Randolph could not, without betraying intended perfidy, object to
conditions so wisely conceived. Argument was precluded. Grimly shutting
his jaws, the man consented to the arrangement, for else he must have
abandoned his quest altogether.
As the months wore on, he went regularly to South Church, there to sit
out the service, which he detested like poison, for the purpose of
fixing his eyes upon Garde, as if he had been a beauty-vulture, only to
be satisfied by gazing upon her until he was all but self-hypnotized. As
for Garde, conscious as she was that the man thus stared in her
direction, she never so much as once gave his eyes an answering glance.
She did not love him; there should never be any pretense, come what
might, that she did. Her thoughts and her heart beats were true to Adam,
and so should remain to the end.
David Donner told his colleagues in triumph of what he had done, of the
answer Garde had made and of the hope they had for the future. He had
justified himself in remaining in Boston.
The measure of the power wielded, even at the throne of England by
Edward, Randolph could never have been estimated in Massachusetts, but
month after month slipped away while the charter remained intact and the
men of that anxious colony breathed with a sense of relief which none
had felt before, in nearly a score of years.
Garde, with what hope her year’s respite inspired, began her lonely wait
and watch for Adam’s return.
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