“What observation?” he replied, and then seemed so self-absorbed that I
cried out:
“What possesses thee, Cousin Wynne? Thou art sad of late. I can tell
thee the women say thou art in love.”
“And if I were, what then?”
This frankness in a man so mature seemed to me odd, when I thought how
shy was the growing tenderness my own heart began to hide. His words
troubled me. It could only be Darthea Peniston. After a silence, such
as was frequent in my cousin, he added, “I fear that blushing friend of
yours is fluttering about a certain bright candle. A pity the lad were
not warned. You are my cousin, and of course my friend. I may have to
go away soon, and I may ask you to do a certain thing for me when I
am gone. No man nor lad shall stand in my way, and you must hold your
tongue too.”
I was puzzled and embarrassed. I said cautiously, “We shall see.” But
as to Jack Warder, I liked not what he said, and for two reasons. I knew
that, living next door to Darthea, he was with her almost daily; and
here was a new and terrible fear, for who could help but love her? Nor
could I hear with patience Jack so contemptuously put aside as a child.
“Cousin Arthur,” I said, “thou art mistaken in Warder. There is no more
resolute or courageous man. Jack’s shy ways and soft fashions make him
seem like a timid girl, but I would advise no one to count on this.”
I went on, hesitating, “He is an older friend than thou, and--holloa,
Jack!” for here was the dear fellow himself, smiling and blushing;
and where had the captain been of late? and that awkward left hand was
taken, and Jack would come with us and see us play with the small sword,
and would like to go after the ducks to-morrow. He seemed happy and
pleased to meet us.
Pike was a little man who had a room among the shops on Second street.
He wore, as I had often seen, a laced cocked hat, and was clad in a red
coat, such as none wore except Creoles from the French settlements, or
gentlemen from the Carolinas. He had the straight figure and aggressive
look all men carry who teach the sword, and a set belief that no man
could teach him anything--a small game-cock of a fellow, who had lost
one eye by an unlucky thrust of a foil.
I will let Jack’s journal, not writ till long after, tell the story for
a while. He saw more than I at the time, even if he understood it all as
little.
“I saw Hugh strip,” he writes, “and was amused to see Pike feel his
muscles and exclaim at his depth of chest. Then he showed him how to
wear the wire mask, while the captain and I sat by and looked on.
“Hugh was awkward, but he had a wrist of steel, and when once he had
caught the ideas of Pike, who talked all the time in a squeaky voice,
his guard was firm. Pike praised him, and said he would learn soon.
The thing so attracted me that I was fain to know how it felt to hold a
foil; and saying as much, the captain, who fenced here daily, said:
‘It is my breathing-time of day, as Prince Hamlet says. By George! you
should see Mr. Garrick in that fencing scene! I will give Mr. Warder a
lesson. I have rather a fancy for giving young men lessons.’
“In a minute I saw my foil fly six feet away with such, a wrench of the
wrist as made my arm tingle.
“‘Hold the foil lightly. Not so stiff.’ said Pike, and we began again.
Of course I was as a child before this man, and again and again he
planted a button where he pleased, and seemed, I thought, to lunge
more fiercely than is decent, for I was dotted with blue bruises that
evening.
“At last I gave up, and the captain and Pike took the foils, while we
sat and watched them. He was more than a match for Pike, and at last
crying, ‘Take care! here is a _botte_ you do not know,’ caught him fair
in the left chest.
“‘By George! Mr. Wynne, that is a pretty piece of play! I remember now
Major Montresor tried to show it to me. He said it was that way you
killed Lord Charles Trevor.’
“I was shocked to know he had killed a man, and Hugh looked up with his
big mother-eyes, while the captain said coolly:
“‘Yes; a sad business, and about a woman, of course. It is dreadful to
have that kind of a disposition, boys, that makes you dangerous to some
one who wants what you want. He was very young too. A pity! a pity!’
“Hugh and I said nothing; but I had the odd notion that he was
threatening us. One gets these ideas vaguely in youth, and sometimes
after-events justify them. However, the fancy soon took me to fence with
Hugh in his room, for I dared not risk asking my father’s leave. As Hugh
got his lessons both from Pike and the captain, and became very expert,
I got on pretty nearly as fast as he.
“At times we practised in our shirt-sleeves in the garden at Miss
Wynne’s, or fenced with Graydon, who was later the most expert small
sword we had in the army. Hugh soon became nearly as skilful, but I was
never as clever at it.”
One day we were busy, as Jack has described, when who should come out
into the garden but Mistress Wynne and Darthea, and behind them the
captain. We dropped our points, but Miss Peniston cried out, “Go on! go
on!” and, laughing, we fell to again.
Presently I, a bit distracted, for I was facing Darthea’s eyes, felt
Jack’s foil full on my chest. Darthea clapped her hands, and, running
forward, would pin a bunch of red ribbons she took from her shoulder on
Jack’s sleeve. Jack fell back, as red as the ribbons, and my aunt cried
out, “Darthea, you are too forward!”
The young woman flushed, and cast down the bow, and as Arthur Wynne bent
to pick it up set her foot on it. I saw the captain rise, and stand
with the half-shut eyes and the little drop of the jaw I have already
mentioned. My aunt, who liked the girl well, went after her at once as
she left us in a pet to return to the house. I saw my aunt put a hand
on her shoulder, and then the captain, looking vexed, followed after. An
hour later I went to look for the ribbon. It was gone, and for years
I knew not where, till, in a little box in Jack’s desk, I came upon it
neatly tied up.
Young as I was, I began to see that here were Captain Wynne, and
possibly my friend, in the toils of a girl,--she was but seventeen,--and
I, alas! no better off; but of this I breathed not a word to any. Jack
hung about her and fell back when any less shy man wanted his place. I
felt that he was little likely to have his way, and that neither he nor
I had much chance in such a game against a man like my cousin. He had
played with hearts before, and the maid listened like Desdemona to this
dark-browed soldier when he talked of courts and kings, and faraway
Eastern battles, and the splendour of the Orient. My aunt, whom nothing
escaped, looked on much amused. Perhaps she did not take as serious the
love-affairs of lads like Jack and me. We were like enough to have a
dozen before we were really captured. That I was becoming at twenty-one
more thoughtful and resolute than far older people, she did not see, and
she was sometimes vexed at my sober ways. I was at times gay enough, but
at others she would reproach me with not taking more pains to please her
guests. Society, she said, had duties as well as pleasures. My friend
Jack no one fully understood in those days, nor knew the sweet manhood
and the unselfishness that lay beneath his girl-like exterior.
One day, late in November, my aunt and I were, for a wonder, alone, when
she dropped the cards with which she was playing, and said to me: “Hugh,
there is something serious between that mischievous kitten and your
cousin. They are much talked of. If you have a boy-fancy that way, get
rid of it. I don’t see through the man. He has been telling her about
the fine house at Wyncote, and the great estate, and how some day he
will have it, his elder brother being far gone in a phthisis.”
“There must be some mistake,” I said. “Thou knowest what he told my
father.”
“Yes; I don’t like it,” she went on; “but the girl is caught. He talks
of soon having to join Sir Guy Carleton in Canada. And there is my
dear girl-boy trapped too, I fear. But, really, he is such a child of
a fellow it hardly matters. How many does she want in her net? The fish
may squabble, I fear. A sweet thing she is; cruel only by instinct; and
so gay, so tender, so truthful and right-minded with all her nonsense.
No one can help loving her; but to-day she has one mood, and to-morrow
another. There will be a mad massacre before she is done with you all.
Run away, Hugh! run! Make love to Kitty Shippen if you want to get Miss
Darthea.”