Such a blaze of light as was the governor's mansion house that night
I never saw, and I heard the music of violins, and hautboys, and
viola da gambas coming from within, and a silvery babble of women's
tongues, with a deeper undertone of men's, and the tread of dancing
feet, and the stamping of horses outside, with the whoas of the
negro boys in attendance, and through the broad gleam of the
moonlight came the flare and smoke of the torches. It seemed as if
the whole colony was either dancing at the governor's ball or
standing outside on tiptoe with interest. I sat waiting for some
time, holding my restive horse as best I might, but there coming no
cessation in the music, I dismounted, and seeing one of Madam
Cavendish's black men, gave him the bridle to hold, and went up to
the house and entered, though not in my plum-coloured velvet, and,
indeed, being not only in my ordinary clothes, but somewhat splashed
with mire from my mad gallop through the woods. But I judged rightly
that in so much of a crowd I should pass unnoticed both as to myself
and my apparel. I stood in the great room near the door and watched
the dance, and 'twas as brilliant a scene as ever I had seen
anywhere even in England. The musicians in the gallery were sawing
away for their lives on violins, and working breathlessly at the
hautboys, and all that gay company of Virginia's best, spinning
about in a country dance of old England. Such a brave show of velvet
coats, and breeches, and flowered brocade waistcoats, and powdered
wigs, and feathers, and laces, and ribbons, and rich flaunts of
petticoats revealing in the whirl of the dance clocked hose on
slender ankles, and high-heeled satin shoes, would have done no
discredit to the court. But of them all, Mistress Mary Cavendish was
the belle and the star. She was dancing with my Lord Estes when I
entered, and such a goodly couple they were, that I heard many an
exclamation of delight from the spectators, who stood thickly about
the walls, the windows even being filled with faces of black and
white servants. My Lord Estes was a handsome dark man, handsomer and
older than Sir Humphrey Hyde, who, though dancing with the
governor's daughter Cate, had, I could see, a rueful eye of
watchfulness toward Mary Cavendish. As he and Cate Culpeper swung
past me, Sir Humphrey's eyes fell on my face and he gave a start and
blush, and presently, when the dance was over and his partner
seated, came up to me with hand extended, as if I had been the
noblest guest there. "Harry, Harry," he whispered eagerly, "she hath
danced with me three times to-night, and hath promised again, and
Harry, saw you ever any one so beautiful as she in that blue dress?"
I answered truthfully that I never had. Sir Humphrey, in his blue
velvet suit with the silver buttons, with his rosy face and powdered
wig, was one to look at twice and yet again, and I regarded him as
always, with that liking for him and that fury of jealousy.
I looked at him and loved him as I might have loved my son, with
such a sweet and brave honesty of simplicity he eyed me, and for the
sake of Mary Cavendish, who might find his love for her precious,
and I wished with all my heart that I might fling him to the floor
where he stood; every nerve and muscle in me tingled with the
restraint of the desire, for such an enhancement of a woman's beauty
as was Mary Cavendish's that night, will do away with the best
instincts of men, whether they will or not.
The next dance was the minuet, and Mary Cavendish danced it with my
Lord Culpeper, the Governor of Virginia. The governor, though I
liked him not, was a most personable man with much grace of manner,
which had additional value from a certain harshness of feature which
led one not to expect such suavity, and he was clad most richly in
such a dazzle of gold broidery and fling of yellow laces, and
glitter of buttons, as could not be surpassed.
My Lord was in fact clad much more richly than his wife and
daughter, whose attire, though fair enough, was not of the freshest.
It was my good luck to overhear my Lady Culpeper telling in no very
honeyed tones, a gossip of hers, the lady of one of the burgesses,
that her goods, for which she had sent to England, had miscarried,
and were it not for the fact that there was a whisper of fever on
the ship, she would have had the captain herself for a good rating,
and had my Lord Culpeper not been for him, saying that the man was
of an honest record, she would have had him set in the stocks for
his remissness, that he had not seen to it that her goods were on
board when the ship sailed. "And there goes poor Cate in her old
murrey-coloured satin petticoat," said my lady with a bitter
lengthening of her face, "and there is Mary Cavendish in a
blue-flowered satin with silver, which is the very twin of the one I
ordered for Cate, and which came in on the Cavendish ship."
"Well," said the other woman, who was long and lean, and had wedded
late in life a man she would have scorned in her girlhood, and could
not forgive the wrong she had done herself, and was filled with an
inconsistency of spleen toward all younger and fairer than she, and
who, moreover, was a born toad-eater for all in high places, "'tis
fine feathers make fine birds, and were thy Cate arrayed in that
same gown in Mistress Cavendish's stead--"
"As I believe, she would not have had the dress had not Cate told
Cicely Hyde, who is so intimate with Mary Cavendish," said my Lady
Culpeper. "I had it from my lord's sister that 'twas the newest
fashion in London. How else would the chit have heard of it, I pray?"
"How else, indeed?" asked the burgess's wife.
"And here my poor Cate must go in her old murrey-coloured
petticoat," said my lady.
"But even thus, to one who looks at her and not at her attire, she
outshines Mary Cavendish," said the other. That was, to my thinking,
as flagrant hypocrisy as was ever heard, for if those two maids had
been clad alike as beggars, Mary Cavendish would have carried off
the palm, with no dissenting voice, though Cate Culpeper was fair
enough to see, with her father's grace of manner, and his harshness
of feature softened by her rose-bloom of youth.
Catherine Cavendish was dancing as the others, but seemingly with no
heart in it, whereas her sister was all glowing with delight in the
merriment of it, and her sense of her own beauty, and the admiration
of all about her, and smiling as if the whole world, and at life
itself, with the innocent radiance of a child.
As I stood watching her, I felt a touch on my arm, and looked, and
there stood Mistress Cicely Hyde, and her brown face was so puckered
with wrath and jealousy that I scarcely knew her. "Did not Mary's
grandmother send you to escort her home, Master Wingfield?" said she
in a sharp whisper, and I stared at her in amazement. "When the ball
is over, Mistress Hyde," I said.
"'Tis time the ball was over now," said she. "'Tis folly to keep it
up so late as this, and Mary hath not had a word for me since we
came."
"But why do you not dance yourself, Mistress Hyde?"
"I care not to dance," said she pettishly, and with a glance of
mingled wrath and admiration at Mary Cavendish that might have
matched mine or her brother's, and I marvelled deeply at the
waywardness of a maid's heart. But then came Ralph Drake, who had
not drunken very deeply, being only flushed, and somewhat lost to
discrimination, and disposed to dance with another since he could
not have his cousin Mary, and he and Cicely went away together, and
presently, when the minuet was over and another dance on, I saw them
advancing in time, but always Cicely had that eye of watchful injury
upon Mary.
It was late when the ball was done, but Mary would have stayed it
out had it not been for Catherine, who almost swooned in the middle
of a dance and had to be revived with aromatic vinegar, and lie for
a while in my Lady Culpeper's bedchamber, with a black woman fanning
her, until she was sufficiently recovered to go home. Mary did not
espy me until, returning from her sister's side to order the sedan
chairs, she jostled against me. Then such a blush of delight and
relief came over her face as made my heart stand still with rapture
and something like fear. "You here, you here, Harry?" she cried, and
stammered and blushed again, and Sir Humphrey and Cicely, who were
pressing up, looked at me jealously.
"I am here at your grandmother's request, Mistress Mary," I said.
Then my Lord Estes came elbowing me aside, and made no more of me
than if I were a black slave, and hoarsely shouting for the sedan
chairs and the bearers, and after him Ralph Drake and half a score
of others, and all cursing at me for a convict tutor and thrusting
at me. Then truly that temper of mine, which I have had some cause
to lament, and yet I know not if it be aught I can help, it being
seemingly as beyond the say of my own will as the recoil of a musket
or the rebound of a ball, sent me forth into the midst of that
gallant throng, and I would not say for certain, but at this late
date I am inclined to believe that I saw Ralph Drake, who came in my
way with a storm of curses, raising himself sorely from a pool of
mud, which must have worked havoc with his velvets, and my Lord
Estes struggling forth from a thorny rose bush at the gate, with
much rending of precious laces. Then I, convict though I was, yet
having, when authorised by the very conditions of my servitude, that
resolution to have my way, that a king's army could not have stopped
me, had the sedan chairs, and the bearers to the fore, and presently
we were set forth on the homeward road, I riding alongside. All the
road was white with moonlight, and when we came alongside Margery
Key's house, as I live, that white cat shot through the door, and
immediately after, I, looking back, saw the old dame herself
standing therein, though it was near morning, and she quavered forth
a blessing after me. "God bless thee, Master Wingfield, in life and
death, and may the fish of the sea come to thy line, may the birds
of the air minister to thee, and all that hath breath of life,
whether it be noxious or guileless, do thy bidding. May even He who
is nameless stand from the path of thy desire, and hold back from
thy face the boughs of prevention whither thou wouldst go." This
said old Margery Key in a strange, chanting-like tone, and withdrew,
and a light flashed out in the next house, and the woman who dwelt
therein screamed, and Mistress Mary, thrusting forth her head from
the chair, called me to come close.
As for Catherine, she was borne along as silently as though she
slept, being, I doubt not, still exhausted with her swoon. When I
came close to Mistress Mary's chair, forth came her little hand,
shining with that preciousness of fairness beyond that of a pearl,
and "Master Wingfield," said she in a whisper, lest she disturb
Catherine, "what, what, I pray thee, was it the witch-woman said?"
I laughed. "She was calling down a blessing upon my head, Madam," I
said.
"A blessing and not a curse?"
"As I understood it, though I know not why she should have blessed
me."
"They say she is a white witch, and worketh good instead of harm,
and yet--" said Mistress Mary, and her voice trembled, showing
her fear, and I could see the negroes rolling eyes of wide alarm at
me, for they were much affected by all hints of deviltry.
"I pray you, Madam, to have no fear," I said, and thought within
myself that never should she know of what had happened on my way
thither.
"They say that her good deeds work in the end to mischief," said
Mary, "and, and--'tis sure no good whatever can come from
unlawful dealing with the powers of evil even in a good cause. I
wish the witch-woman had neither cursed thee nor blessed thee,
Harry."
I strove again to reassure her, and said, as verily I begun to
believe, that the old dame's words whether of cursing or blessing
were of no moment, but presently Mistress Mary declared herself
afraid of riding alone shut within her sedan chair, and would
alight, and have one of the slaves lead my horse, and walk with me,
taking my arm the remainder of the way.
I had never known Mistress Mary Cavendish to honour me so before,
and knew not to what to attribute it, whether to alarm as she said,
or not. And I knew not whether to be enraptured or angered at my own
rapture, or whether I should use or not that authority which I had
over her, and which she could not, strive as best she could,
gainsay, and bid her remain in her chair.
But being so sorely bewildered I did nothing, but let her have her
way, and on toward Drake Hill we walked, she clinging to my arm, and
seemingly holding me to a slow pace, and the slaves with the chairs,
and my horse, forging ahead with ill-concealed zeal on account of
that chanting proclamation of Margery Key, which, I will venture to
say, was considered by every one of the poor fellows as a special
curse directed toward him, instead of a blessing for me.
As we followed on that moonlight night, she and I alone, of a sudden
I felt my youth and love arise to such an assailing of the joy of
life, that I knew myself dragged as it were by it, and had no more
choosing as to what I should not do. Verily it would be easier to
lead an army of malcontents than one's own self. And something there
was about the moonlight on that fair Virginian night, and the
heaviness of the honey-scents, and the pressure of love and life on
every side, in bush and vine and tree and nest, which seemed to
overbear me and sweep me along as on the crest of some green tide of
spring. Verily there are forces of this world which are beyond the
overcoming of mortal man so long as he is encumbered by his
mortality.
Mary Cavendish gathered up her blue and silver petticoats about her
as closely as a blue flower-bell at nightfall, and stepped along
daintily at my side, and the feel of her little hand on my arm
seemed verily the only touch of material things which held me to
this world. We came to a great pool of wet in our way, and suddenly
I thought of her feet in her little satin shoes. "Madam, you will
wet your feet if you walk through that pool in your satin shoes," I
said, and my voice was so hoarse with tenderness that I would not
have known it for my own, and I felt her arm tremble. "No," she said
faintly. But without waiting for any permission, around her waist I
put an arm, and had her raised in a twinkling from the ground, and
bore her across the pool, she not struggling, but only whispering
faintly when I set her down after it was well passed. "You--you
should not have done that, Harry."
Then of a sudden, close she pressed her soft cheek against my
shoulder as we walked, and whispered, as though she could keep
silent no longer, and yet as if she swooned for shame in breaking
silence: "Harry, Harry, I liked the way you thrust them aside when
they were rude with you, to do me a service, and Harry, you are
stronger, and--and--than them all."
Then I knew with such a shock of joy, that I wonder I lived, that
the child loved me, but I knew at the same time as never I had known
it before, my love for her.
"Mistress Mary," I said, "I but did my duty and my service, which
you can always count upon, and I did no more than others would have
done. Sir Humphrey Hyde--"
But she flung away from me at that with a sudden movement of
amazement and indignation and hurt, which cut me to the quick.
"Yes," she said, "yes, Master Wingfield, truly I believe that Sir
Humphrey Hyde would do me any service that came in his way, and
truly he is a brave lad. I have a great esteem for Humphrey--I
have a greater esteem for Humphrey than for all the rest--and I
care not if you know it, Master Wingfield."
So saying she called to the bearers of her chair, and would have a
slave assist her to it instead of me, and rode in silence the rest
of the way, I following, walking my horse, who pulled hard at his
bits.