GENTRY AT FORT BEATRIX
Inside the stockade, posted unevenly around three sides of a foot-worn
square, were five buildings of rough logs. From a platform in the
southeast corner two small cannon presented their muzzles to the river.
At the back of this platform, on the southern side of the square, stood
the Donnelly cabin. It was stoutly built, and measured fifteen paces
across the front. Against the western palisade the Trigget cabin and
Captain d'Antons' habitation faced the square. On the north side stood a
fourth dwelling and a small storehouse. In the centre of the yard
bubbled a spring of clear water under a rustic shed. A tiny brook
sparkled away from it, under the stockade and down to the river. The
well was flanked on both sides by a couple of slim birches, now leafless
under the white November sun.
The visitors were led to the Triggets' cabin, and Skipper Trigget's wife
and daughter--both big, comely women--fed them with the best in the
little plantation. After breakfast, Kingswell and Ouenwa were taken to
D'Antons' quarters. The Frenchman was the spirit of hospitality, and
took blankets and sheets from his own bed to dress their couches. Also
he produced a flask of priceless brandy, from which he and Kingswell
pledged a couple of glasses to the Goddess of Chance. The toast was
D'Antons' suggestion.
Presently D'Antons excused himself, saying that he had a matter of
business to attend to, and left his guests to their own devices. The
house was divided into two apartments by curtains of caribou hides,
which were hung from one of the low crossbeams of the ceiling. At the
end of each room a fire burned on a roughly built hearth. Two small
windows of clouded glass partially lit the sombre interior. Books in
English, French, and Spanish, a packet of papers, ink and quills, and a
neatly executed drawing of a pinnace under sail lay on a table near one
of the windows. Antlers of stags, decorated quivers and bows, painted
hides, and glossy skins adorned the rough walls. Above the hearth in the
room in which Kingswell and his young companion sat, hung a musket with
a silver inlaid stock, a carved powder-horn, and several knives and
daggers in beaded sheaths. On the floor lay two great, pink-lipped West
Indian shells. A steel head-piece, a breastplate of the same sure metal,
and a heavy sword with a basket hilt hung above D'Antons' bed.
Kingswell looked over the books on the table. He found that one of them
was a manual of arms, written in the Spanish language; another a work of
navigation, by a Frenchman; a third a weighty thesis on the science and
practice of surgery; and the fourth was a volume as well-loved as
familiar,--Master William Shakespeare's "Romeo and Juliet." He took up
this last, and, seating himself with his shoulder to the window, was
soon far away from the failures and daily perils of the wilderness. The
greedy, hard-bitted materialist Present, with its quests of "fish," and
fur, and gold, was replaced by the magic All-Time of the playwright
poet.
Ouenwa wandered about the room, prying into every nook and corner, and
examining the shells, the arms, and the decorations. He even knelt on
the hearthstone, and, at the risk of setting fire to his hair, tried to
solve the mystery of the chimney--for a fire indoor unaccompanied by a
lodgeful of smoke was a new thing in his experience. He looked
frequently at Kingswell, in the hope of finding him open to questions,
but was always disappointed. At last the thought occurred to him that
it would be a fine thing to get hold of the great sword above the bed,
and make cut, lunge, and parry with it as Kingswell had shown him how to
do on several occasions. So he climbed on to the bed, and, in trying to
clear the sword from its peg, knocked the steel cap ringing to the
floor. Kingswell sprang from his stool, with his arm across his body and
his hand on his sword-hilt, and Master Shakespeare's immortal drama
sprawled at his feet. "Oh, that's all, is it?" he exclaimed, in tones of
relief. "But you must not handle other people's goods, lad," he added,
kindly, "especially a gentleman's arms and armour."
Ouenwa flushed and apologized, and was about to step from D'Antons'
couch to recover the head-piece, when D'Antons himself entered the
cabin. Kingswell turned to him and explained the accident.
"My young friend is very sorry," he said, "and would beg your pardon if
he felt less embarrassed. However, captain, I beg it for him. I was so
intent on the affairs of Romeo that I was not watching him. He is
naturally of an investigating turn of mind."
The Frenchman waved a slim hand and flashed his white teeth. "It is
nothing, nothing," he cried. "I beg you not to mention it again, or
give it another thought. The old pot has sustained many a shrewder whack
than a tumble on the floor. Ah, it has turned blades of Damascus before
now! But enough of this triviality! I have returned to request you to
come with me to our governor. Neither Trigget nor I have mentioned him
to you, as he is not desirous of meeting strangers. But he will make his
own apologies, Master Kingswell."
He stood aside, for Kingswell and Ouenwa to pass out before him.
Kingswell went first. As Ouenwa crossed the threshold, D'Antons nipped
him sharply by the arm, and hissed, "Dog! Cur!" in a voice so low, so
sinister, that the boy gasped. But in a breath the Frenchman was his
affable self again, and the Beothic, with the invectives still burning
his ears, almost believed that he had been the victim of some evil
magic. Kingswell caught nothing of the incident.
Ouenwa was requested to wait outside. Master Kingswell was ushered into
the governor's cabin, and D'Antons closed the door behind him. The young
Englishman found himself in a dimly lit apartment very similar to that
which he had just left. He hesitated, a step inside the threshold, and
narrowed his lids in an effort to see more clearly. The Frenchman paused
at his elbow. Two figures advanced from the farther side of the room.
He ventured another step, and bowed with all the grace at his command,
for one of the figures was that of a young woman in flashing raiment.
The other was of a slim, foppishly dressed man of a little past middle
age, with a worn face that somehow retained its air of youthfulness
despite its haggard lines and faded skin.
"Welcome to our humble retreat, Master Kingswell," said the gentleman,
extending his hand and laughing softly. "This is indeed an unlooked-for
pleasure. We last met, I believe, at Randon Hall--or was it at Beverly?"
"Sir Ralph Westleigh!" exclaimed Kingswell, in a voice of ill-concealed
consternation and surprise. For a moment he stood in an attitude of
half-recoil. For a moment he hesitated, staring at the other with wide
eyes. Then he caught the waiting hand in a firm grip.
"Thank you, Sir Ralph. Yes, it was at Beverly that we last met," he
said, evenly. He turned to the girl, who stood beside her father with
downcast eyes and flaming cheeks and throat. The baronet hastened to
make her known to the visitor.
"My daughter Beatrix," he said. "A good girl, who willingly and
cheerfully shares her worthless father's exile."
Mistress Westleigh extended a firm and shapely hand, and Kingswell,
bending low above it, intoxicated by the sudden presence of beauty and a
flood of homesick memories, pressed his lips to the slim fingers with a
warmth that startled the lady and brought a flash of anger to D'Antons'
eyes. He recovered himself in an instant. "To see you in this
wilderness--amid these bleak surroundings!" he exclaimed, scarcely above
a whisper. "I cannot realize it, Mistress Beatrix! And once we played at
racquets together in the court at Beverly."
The girl smiled at him, with a gleam of understanding in her dark,
parti-coloured eyes.
"I remember," she said. "You have not changed greatly, save in size."
And at that she laughed, with a note of embarrassment.
"But you have," replied Kingswell. "You were not very beautiful as a
little girl. To me you looked much the same as my own sisters."
For a second, or less, the maiden's eyes met his with merriment and
questioning in their depths. Then they were lowered. Sir Ralph moved
uneasily.
"Come, come," he said, "we must not stand here all day, like geese on a
village green. There are seats by the fire." He led the way. "Captain,
if you are not busy I hope you'll stay and hear some of Master
Kingswell's adventures," he added, turning to D'Antons.
"With pleasure," answered the captain.
"One moment, sir," said Kingswell to Sir Ralph Westleigh. "I have a
young friend--a sort of ward--whom I left outside. I'll tell him to run
over to the men and amuse himself with them."
As he opened the door and spoke a few kind words to Ouenwa, there was a
sneer on D'Antons' lips that did not escape Mistress Beatrix Westleigh.
It irritated her beyond measure, and she had all she could do to
restrain herself from slapping him--for hot blood and a fighting spirit
dwelt in that fair body. She wondered how she had once considered him
attractive. She blushed crimson at the thought.
Kingswell returned and seated himself on a stool between the governor of
the little colony and the maiden. First of all, he told them who Ouenwa
was, and of the time the lad saved him from injury by flooring old
Trowley with his canoe paddle. Then he briefly sketched the voyage of
the _Pelican_, and told something of his interests in the fishing fleet
and in the new land.
"And you found no indications of gold?" queried D'Antons.
"None," replied the voyager, "but some splendid copper ore in great
quantities, and one mine of 'fool's gold.'"
The baronet nodded, with one of his wan smiles. "There are other kinds
of fool's gold than these iron pyrites, I believe," he said, "and one
finds it nearer home than in this God-forsaken--ah--in this wild
country."
The others understood the reference, and even the polished Frenchman
looked into the fire and had nothing to say. Kingswell studied the
water-bleached toes of his boots, and Beatrix glanced piteously at her
father. For Sir Ralph Westleigh's life had known much of fool's gold,
and much of many another folly, and something of that to which his
acquaintances in Somerset--and, for that matter, in all England--gave a
stronger and less lenient name. The baronet had lived hard; but his
story comes later.
"I knew nothing of this plantation of yours," said Kingswell, presently.
"I did not know, even, that you were interested in colonization--and yet
you have been here a matter of two years, so Trigget tells me."
"Yes, and likely to die here--unless I am unearthed," replied Sir Ralph,
bitterly, and with a meaning glance at Kingswell. "I put entire faith in
my friends," he added. "And they are all in this little fort on Gray
Goose River. My undoing lies in their hands."
"Sir Ralph," replied Kingswell, uneasily but stoutly, "I hope your trust
has been extended to me,--yes, and to my men. Your wishes in any matter
of--of silence or the like--are our orders. My fellows are true as
steel. My friends are theirs. The young Beothic would risk his life for
you at a word from me."
The baronet was visibly affected by this speech. He laid a hand on the
young man's knee and peered into his face.
"Then you are a friend--out and out?" he inquired.
"To the death," said the other, huskily.
"And you have heard? Of course you have heard!"
"Yes."
"It is not for me to say 'God bless you' to any man," said Sir Ralph,
"but it's good of you. I feel your kindness more deeply than I can say.
I have forgotten my old trick of making pretty speeches."
Kingswell blushed uncomfortably and wished that D'Antons, with his
polite, superior, inscrutable smile, was a thousand miles out of sight
of his embarrassment. The girl leaned toward him. But she did not look
at him. "God bless you--my fellow countryman," she whispered, in a voice
so low that he alone caught the words. He had no answer to make to that
unexpected reward. For a little they maintained a painful silence. It
was broken by the Frenchman.
"You understand, Master Kingswell, that, for certain reasons, it is
advisable that the place of Sir Ralph Westleigh's retreat be kept from
the knowledge of every one save ourselves," he said, slowly and easily.
"I understand," replied Kingswell, shortly. Captain d'Antons jarred on
him, despite all his faultless and affable manners.