Winter was over by the calendar. But neither the skies nor the
thermometer agreed with that. Spring could not bring forward evidences
of her reign while her predecessor's snowy foot was still planted upon
the earth, and showed no haste to get under it. The season had been
unusually mild, but it lingered, fighting the battle with its last
reserve forces, the breath of the icebergs that came rushing up the
harbor like the charge of ten thousand bayonets. Military comparisons
were frequent at that time, for the thoughts of New England were bent
upon war. Governor Shirley had pressed his measure well. Defeated in the
secret conclave of the General Court, he had attacked the Legislature
through a petition signed by merchants in Boston and Salem who urged
re-consideration. Before February the measure had passed by a majority
of one. No student of history can ever despair of the power of one voice
or one will. The measure had not passed until the end of January. But
public enthusiasm had mounted high, and now while March had still a week
to run, the last transports were ready to sail out of the harbor to meet
the others at Nantasket Roads, and thence proceed to Canso, where they
were to remain and receive supplies until the ice should clear from the
harbor. Then to Louisburg.
It might be said that the troops had tiptoed through the state to the
music of muffled drums, so much stress had been laid upon secrecy, and
so much the success of the expedition depended upon it. No vessels were
permitted to sail toward Louisburg, lest they should carry the news of
the intended attack. Government and people united their efforts to give
the expedition every chance. It was well that telegraph and telephone
were not to the front then.
But the pressure of public affairs could not keep hearts from being
heavy over private griefs. Archdale was wounded both in his affection
and his pride, for Katie had refused to marry him on the anniversary of
that frustrated wedding, or, indeed, at all, at present. She said that
it would be too sudden, that she must first have a little time to regard
Stephen as a lover. "But I've never been anything else," he said. Katie
insisted that she had been training herself to regard him as Elizabeth's
husband. And to his reply that if she were so foolish, she must not make
him pay for her folly, she asserted with spirit that no one had ever
spoken so to her before. In truth, Lord Bulchester's assiduous humility
did make the directness of Stephen Archdale seem like assertion to her;
and Katie was not one to forget while she was talking with Stephen that
if she chose to turn her head, there were the beauties of a coronet and
of Lyburg Chase offered to her on bended knee. She had not turned her
head yet. Stephen told himself that he was sure that she never meant to,
but for all that, he was not quite sure that she would not do it almost
without meaning it. He began by insisting that now Bulchester should be
dismissed. But Katie declared that he should not be sent away as if she
had lost her own freedom the moment of Stephen's return to her. She
would send him away herself at least before she became Stephen's wife.
To Archdale's representations of the cruelty of this course, she
answered that Lord Bulchester had known of her engagement before he met
her. If he could not take care of himself, why, then----. And Katie
tossed her charming head a very little, and smiled at Stephen so
winningly, and added that it would not hurt him, that he yielded, with
as good a grace as he could, a position that he found untenable. So
Archdale waited, and Bulchester kept his place, whether more securely or
less Stephen could not tell.
One thing, however, was clear, that Stephen lost his peace of mind
without even the poor satisfaction of being sure that the state of
affairs was such as to make that necessary. Katie was a coquette, but he
felt that coquetry was fascinating only when one were sure of the right
side being turned toward himself, sure that it was another man's heart,
and not his own that was being played with. He had not come to
confessing to himself that in any case it was ignoble. So he waited
while the winter wore on, and March found him still betrothed to Katie
and still at her feet though in a mood that threatened danger. For after
asserting that she needed time to adapt herself to the altered condition
of things, she had found a new objection. She did not want to marry and
have her husband go off to the war before the honeymoon was over; she
preferred to wait until he returned. "Do you really mean to marry me at
all?" he asked. "Stephen!" she cried tearfully. "Do you realize what I
have suffered!" The tears and the appeal conquered him, and for the
moment he felt himself a brute.
But when cool judgment came back to him, Katie's conduct looked always
more and more unsatisfactory. She certainly was not thinking of his
wishes now. He knew that no other human being could have kept him in
this position, and while he chafed at it, he made every possible excuse
for her, even to condoning a certain childishness which he told himself
this proved. Since she was loyal, what mattered a little tantalizing of
himself? Still Stephen wavered between his pride and his love. The first
told him to end this child's play, to marry Katie if she would have him,
but tell her it was now or never. Love put off this evil day, and it may
be that his love had a touch of pride in it also, that he did not fancy
being superseded by Bulchester.
Then came the expedition.
The streets of Boston were thronged with a crowd of serious faces. One
vessel after another had slipped quietly off to the Roads. But the last
of the fleet was here. And not only the friends of the soldiers, but
friends of the cause, and lookers-on had assembled. The whole city
seemed to be there.
When Elizabeth with her father and Mrs. Eveleigh drove up, the
embarkation was nearly over, and some of the transports were already
standing off to sea. The largest vessel, however, was still at the pier,
and as Elizabeth looked at the troops marching steadily on board, she
saw Archdale near the gangway. He seemed to be in command. She watched
him a moment with a feeling of sadness. Who could tell that he would
ever come back, that youth and prowess might not prove too weak for the
sword of the enemy or for some stray shot? How lightly Mr. Edmonson had
spoken of such a thing! She did not know whom he had been talking of,
but his tone was mocking. He paid people in society more attention than
Archdale did, he certainly was more kind and interested in all that
concerned herself. And yet, in an emergency, if a call came for
self-denial, or devotion to honor, was it Edmonson to whom she would
appeal?
Since her freedom the latter had not failed to press his suit eagerly,
and he had endeavored to conceal the fury that possessed him when he
became convinced that she meant her refusal. He had not succeeded very
well in this, and Elizabeth had caught another glimpse of his inner
life. She did not believe in his professions of regard for her, but she
did believe thoroughly in these glimpses of character. She had been
courteous, but he had made her shrink from him. Since the last refusal,
for he had not been content with one, she had met him only in society,
but here he was constantly near her, really because he was fascinated by
her. But to her it seemed under the circumstances like a persecution.
She thought of him none the more pleasantly because she met him at every
turn. His assiduity meant to her a desire to marry a rich wife. Since
his conduct at Colonel Archdale's house she had remembered that she was
considered an heiress. She did not believe in Edmonson's capacity for
affection for any woman. Here she was mistaken. The young man was as
much in love with her as he knew how to be, and that was passionately,
if not deeply.
Twice Archdale had been to see her with Katie who was spending the
winter with her aunt in Boston. With those exceptions Elizabeth had seen
nothing of him, although he had been frequently in the city. He had been
very much occupied by military matters, and, apart from these, not in a
mood for general society. Until this morning of the embarkation
Elizabeth had not caught a glimpse of him for a month. She remembered it
as she looked at him and saw a certain fixedness in his face.
A sudden consciousness of observation made her turn her eyes toward the
middle of the boat. They met Edmonson's looking at her intently. Bowing
to him, she dropped her own, and before his greeting of her was over,
she turned to speak to her father.
But she said only a few words to him, and began again to watch the
soldiers. How many of these strong men would come back uncrippled? And a
good many would not come back at all. But as she looked at them filing
through the gangway, the sense of numbers, and of strength, swept back
the possibilities of evil, and instead of the embarkation, she seemed
to see before her the rush of the troops to the fortress, as Governor
Shirley had planned it all, the splendid attack, the defense gallant
though useless, the stormy entrance, and the English flag floating over
the battlements of Louisburg. The bloodshed and the agony were lost
sight of, it was the vision of conquest and the thought of the royal
colors floating over the stronghold of French America that flushed her
cheek and kindled her eyes.
Archdale watching her felt like holding his breath, lest in some way he
should disturb her and lose this glimpse of character. She was looking
out to sea. He felt sure that, although she had just smiled and bowed
she had already forgotten him again. It was nothing connected with
himself that had brought such a look to her face. But here were some of
the possibilities of this noble girl, Katie's friend. Sweeping his
glance further on as he stood there, he had reason to feel that
Elizabeth was much more deeply interested in the expedition than Katie
was. The latter had given him her farewell in her uncle's house, to be
sure. But now she seemed to have quite forgotten that he might never
come back. Any public exhibition of sentiment would have been as
distasteful to him as to her, but he had expected a little gravity. He
thought as he stood there that perhaps he had been uncourteous in not
going to say farewell to Elizabeth to whom he was so much indebted. But
it was the consciousness of this that had prevented him. He could not
bear to see her until he had returned that money put into the Archdale
firm under a mistaken supposition; for not only was Elizabeth not his
wife, but Katie for whom she assured him that she had done this, might
never be. He looked at his betrothed again in the crowd, and something
like scorn came into his face, a scorn that stung himself more deeply
than its unconscious object.
As to this money of Elizabeth's, he had not yet been able to make his
father return it. The Colonel had declared that he could pay a better
per cent. than she could get elsewhere, and would do it. He had assured
Mr. Royal of this, and the latter seemed content. But Stephen looking
back to Elizabeth again, could not keep from thinking about the money
and wishing that it were out of his hands. Yet, with this undercurrent
of thought, he at the same time was seeing in her face a beauty that
possibly did not wholly vanish with her mood, but lay half hidden behind
reserve, and waited the touch of the power that could call it forth.
Edmonson's voice, speaking to one of the officers, reached him at the
moment. Elizabeth moved her head. Instinctively he watched to see if she
turned toward the speaker. No, it was toward himself that she was
looking with a smile of farewell. He bowed eagerly, decidedly, for by
this time the troops had all embarked, the plank was up, and he was free
for the moment.
He bowed to Elizabeth. But the next instant she saw him looking intently
at some one behind her in the crowd, and she felt sure that Katie was
giving him her silent farewell. While she dropped her eyes as if this
parting were not for strangers to watch, the shouts of the crowd on
shore and the cheers of the soldiers marked the widening space between
ship and shore.
When Mr. Royal's horses were turned about, Elizabeth found that Katie
Archdale had been almost directly behind. She was with her aunt and
uncle. Kenelm Waldo sat beside her, while Lord Bulchester with one foot
on the ground and the other on the step of the carriage, talked from the
opposite side. Katie turned readily from one to the other, and if she
intercepted an angry glance, her eyes grew brighter and her brilliant
smile deepened. Her laugh was not forced, it came with that musical
ripple which had always added so much to her fascination.
Elizabeth caught it as she passed with a bow, and a grave face. After
all, she thought, Katie could not have seen Mr. Archdale the moment
before.