RANDOLPH’S COURTSHIP.
GARDE fled home as if some unthinkable fate were in pursuit. She was
haunted by the look she had seen in the eyes of that girl-mother, back
in the hut. She could hear the young thing still begging her not to rob
her of the man who had taken her all and given her an ineradicable shame
in exchange.
Yet beneath every other emotion, Garde felt a sense of exultation. The
estimate of her instinct was confirmed—Randolph was perfidy itself. Not
a soul among the Puritans, she believed, could do aught but support her
against this man. And if only she could wrench herself free, how gladly
would she welcome the penance of waiting years for Adam, in payment for
her act, which she felt was disloyalty, in consenting to the provisional
betrothal into which she had been forced!
Her grandfather now would have to be the first to protect her from the
dread fate which had come so near, she thought. To confuse politics and
the personal affairs of her narrow life is the privilege of the sex to
which Garde belonged. She planned, as she darted through the wind-swept
streets. She would tell it all to Grandfather Donner, and then he should
save her the ordeal of meeting Edward Randolph in any manner whatsoever.
She gave no thought to the charter, nor to what the man with the power
he wielded would do in revenge to their liberties, now that he would
find himself baffled, at the end of his term of waiting.
She yearned for Adam. She could tell him, now, what she had been driven
to do, whereas before this she had always wished him to come, yet had
shrunk from the thought of confessing what she had permitted to be done.
Yes, she could lay it all bare before him now, and fairly scourge
herself with her own reproaches, joyously. What an exquisite pleasure it
would be to ask his forgiveness thus, and not at first receive it, and
then at last be taken home to his arms and his love! For her thoughts,
her heart-beats, her soul’s longings had all been constant to him, and
to him alone. She would like to tell him all this. And she would let him
kiss her, now. For through what hours had she wished, when she had
thought they might never meet in that way again, that his kiss had been
placed upon her lips that day of their parting. She almost frightened
herself with the thought of how that one kiss on her fingers might have
been his only kiss. But the next moment she tingled with ecstasy, to
think she was free and that some day he would come back, and then she
would know how to love him and to cherish him as never before she could
have known.
Thus glowing one moment, with love’s own reveries, and chilling the
next, with sudden reminders of what had just been and what might still
be, she reached her grandfather’s house, where she had been staying with
the old man for the past year, with only rare visits to the Soams. She
went in by the kitchen door. This apartment being dark, she passed
through to the dining-room, which was lighted but unoccupied, hence she
continued on to the parlor, where she fancied she heard voices. Entering
here, she could have fallen to the floor in sheer astonishment and
fright.
She found herself confronting her grandfather and Edward Randolph
himself.
“Ah, here she is, you see,” said David Donner, rubbing his hands
together, delightedly. “I thought she couldn’t be far away. My child,
Mr. Randolph has come to have a little chat. Natural enough, I should
think.” He chuckled with pleasure, adding: “Dear me, I mustn’t forget to
cover my rose, on a night like this.” With fatuous smiles, that ill
suited his grim old visage, he quitted the room, in a sprightly, playful
manner, and left Garde facing Randolph, alone.
“Good evening, Mistress Merrill,” said the man, fastening the hungry
gaze of his deep-set eyes upon her face. “I am glad to see you looking
so well.”
“Good evening, sir, and thank you,” said Garde, in a voice scarcely
audible. She had become suddenly pale. She trembled. She looked at the
man as one fascinated by a baleful point of light.
“It seemed but reasonable that I should call and see you, since our
betrothal is so soon to end in our marriage,” said Randolph, moving
slowly toward her, as if to prolong his own anticipation of standing
where he could reach her at last. “I have been very patient, have I not,
my pretty sweetheart?”
“You—have been very—patient,” echoed Garde, helplessly and panting like
a spent doe, to catch her breath.
“And I have kept my word,” he went on, still slowly approaching.
“Massachusetts has her charter, and now—I have my wife.”
He put out his hand, like a talon, to clutch her fast.
One convulsive shiver seemed to break the spell which had held Garde
enthralled. She leaped away, her eyes blazing, her lips quivering, her
frame shaken with emotion.
“No!” she cried. “No! Don’t touch me! Keep away! I loathe you! I know
what you are! Keep away,—I can’t bear you!”
“What’s this?” said the man, scowling, till his great brow threw a
sinister shadow as far down as his cheek bones. “Have a care, my dear
Garde. We made our bargain a year ago. This is no time for kittenish
pranks. Come back here where you were.”
His tone was authoritative. The gleam in his eyes was a warning against
disobedience. But Garde could be no further frightened than he had made
her by his mere presence. She stood there, alert for the first sign
which would send her running, if need be, to jump through the window.
“I shall never touch you, nor go near you!” she said. “There is no
bargain between us. I would rather die than to be your wife! I know what
you are, I say. I have been to Hester Hodder’s, to-night! I have seen
her. I know what you are!”
Randolph took hold of his lip and pinched it viciously. He glared at the
girl in silence, for a moment. “This has nothing to do with me,” he
said. “You have made some mistake.”
“I made a terrible mistake when I first submitted to this loathsome
plan,” said Garde, gaining courage as she spoke. “I always distrusted
you, despised you. Do you think I would trust a man to save our charter
who wouldn’t save a woman’s honor—who would do what you have done? You
may go—you may go away! I loathe you! I scorn you! Oh, I have found you
out in time!”
“This is silly talk, Mistress Merrill,” said the man. “I know nothing of
your Hester Hodder.”
Garde made a gesture expressive of disgust and impatience.
“But all this has no bearing on anything one way or the other,” Randolph
continued. “You must not forget that I have as much power over the
charter and the colony as ever—in fact, more. I have become the friend
of these people, but you can make me their enemy with a very little of
your nonsense. Come, now, let us be two sensible beings and not begin
our union by quar——”
“If you have had any power to do us injury,” interrupted Garde, “we will
find it done. You wouldn’t dare to trust yourself. I have a fear, such
as I never had before, of the harm you have doubtless done this colony,
darkly, in the year just passed.”
Garde had a way, fairly uncanny, of saying terrible truths, as if from
some sort of inspiration, which came upon her unawares. Randolph had his
pockets full of documents, at that moment, which lay there like a mine
of explosives, ready to shatter the charter and government, almost at
his whisper of command. His mind could conceive of nothing so exquisite
in treachery, to these people that he hated, and in vengeance against
Garde, for the attitude she had always assumed toward him, as to marry
her first and then to destroy the charter afterward. This had been his
dream for more than the year. He had waited for its climax as patiently
as a cat will wait before a hole till the mouse shall reappear. Garde’s
words were as so many poignards, only that they failed to strike him in
a fatal spot. They stung him to greater fury than he had ever felt and
to a hotter determination to humble the girl and to reduce Massachusetts
to abject servility and despair.
The man saw that this was an ill time to threaten Garde. She was not
made of the wax which his sophistries had substituted for the metal once
in David Donner’s composition.
“You have entertained some strange ideas of me, Mistress Merrill, for
which I am at a loss to account,” he said, more quietly. “I feel sure we
merely misunderstand each other. Have I not shown, for a year, that my
one wish is to prove myself a staunch friend of these good people and
worthy of your esteem? I am willing to do anything further, if you can
think of anything you would like to suggest, before we are married.”
“We shall never be married,” said the girl, self-possessed, now, and
calm enough to be fairly judicial. “If you wish to win my respect, go
and marry Hester Hodder, and let your child not be buried in shame.”
The man winced, but not visibly. He took his lip in his fingers again
and pinched it till it was white. He realized that in her present frame
of mind, Garde was utterly incorrigible. He only made matters worse by
remaining where she was. He knew of a trick worth two of prolonging this
interview. Yet he must retire in good order.
“I must tell you once more,” he said, “that I know nothing about this
person of whom you speak. I regret that something has prejudiced your
mind against me, especially when you insist upon doing me this wrong.
Let me say good night, for I am sure I shall find you in an altered mood
to-morrow.”
“Good night,” said Garde, icily.
The man smiled and went out, closing the door as if it had been the bars
of a cage, which he had dared to enter, at the risk of frightening his
prey to death.
He went out into the garden and called to David Donner.
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