AUDREY
BY
MARY JOHNSTON
AUTHOR OF “TO HAVE AND TO HOLD” AND
“PRISONERS OF HOPE”
WITH ILLUSTRATIONS BY
F.C. YOHN
BOSTON AND NEW YORK
HOUGHTON, MIFFLIN AND COMPANY
The Riverside Press, Cambridge
1902
COPYRIGHT, 1901, 1902, BY MARY JOHNSTON
COPYRIGHT, 1902, BY HOUGHTON, MIFFLIN & CO.
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
_Published February, 1902_
_Books by Mary Johnston._
AUDREY. With Illustrations in color. Crown 8vo, $1.50
PRISONERS OF HOPE. With Frontispiece. Crown 8vo, $1.50.
TO HAVE AND TO HOLD. With 8 Illustrations
by HOWARD PYLE, E.B. THOMPSON,
A.W. BETTS, and EMLEN McCONNELL.
Crown 8vo, $1.50.
HOUGHTON MIFFLIN & CO.
BOSTON AND NEW YORK.
[Illustration: GAZED WITH WIDE-OPEN EYES AT THE INTRUDER (page 106)]
TO
ELOISE, ANNE, AND ELIZABETH
CONTENTS
CHAPTER TITLE PAGE
I. THE CABIN IN THE VALLEY 1
II. THE COURT OF THE ORPHAN 16
III. DARDEN’S AUDREY 38
IV. THE ROAD TO WILLIAMSBURGH 52
V. THE STOREKEEPER 63
VI. MASTER AND MAN 73
VII. THE RETURN OF MONSIEUR JEAN HUGON 92
VIII. UNDER THE GREENWOOD TREE 106
IX. MACLEAN TO THE RESCUE 117
X. HAWARD AND EVELYN 131
XI. AUDREY OF THE GARDEN 145
XII. THE PORTRAIT OF A GENTLEMAN 163
XIII. A SABBATH DAY’S JOURNEY 179
XIV. THE BEND IN THE ROAD 194
XV. HUGON SPEAKS HIS MIND 206
XVI. AUDREY AND EVELYN 222
XVII. WITHIN THE PLAYHOUSE 237
XVIII. A QUESTION OF COLORS 249
XIX. THE GOVERNOR’S BALL 262
XX. THE UNINVITED GUEST 273
XXI. AUDREY AWAKES 287
XXII. BY THE RIVERSIDE 300
XXIII. A DUEL 312
XXIV. AUDREY COMES TO WESTOVER 322
XXV. TWO WOMEN 337
XXVI. SANCTUARY 349
XXVII. THE MISSION OF TRUELOVE 363
XXVIII. THE PLAYER 375
XXIX. AMOR VINCIT 391
XXX. THE LAST ACT 401
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
PAGE
GAZED WITH WIDE-OPEN EYES AT THE INTRUDER (page 106) _Frontispiece_
“HAD YOU LOVED ME--I HAD BEEN HAPPY” 58
AUDREY LEFT HER WARNING TO BE SPOKEN BY MACLEAN 206
“I DO NOT THINK I HAVE THE HONOR OF KNOWING”-- 270
HER DARK EYES MADE APPEAL 342
“JEAN! JEAN HUGON!” 414
AUDREY
CHAPTER I
THE CABIN IN THE VALLEY
The valley lay like a ribbon thrown into the midst of the encompassing
hills. The grass which grew there was soft and fine and abundant; the
trees which sprang from its dark, rich mould were tall and great of
girth. A bright stream flashed through it, and the sunshine fell warm
upon the grass and changed the tassels of the maize into golden plumes.
Above the valley, east and north and south, rose the hills, clad in
living green, mantled with the purpling grape, wreathed morn and eve
with trailing mist. To the westward were the mountains, and they dwelt
apart in a blue haze. Only in the morning, if the mist were not there,
the sunrise struck upon their long summits, and in the evening they
stood out, high and black and fearful, against the splendid sky. The
child who played beside the cabin door often watched them as the valley
filled with shadows, and thought of them as a great wall between her
and some land of the fairies which must needs lie beyond that barrier,
beneath the splendor and the evening star. The Indians called them the
Endless Mountains, and the child never doubted that they ran across the
world and touched the floor of heaven.
In the hands of the woman who was spinning the thread broke and the
song died in the white throat of the girl who stood in the doorway.
For a moment the two gazed with widening eyes into the green September
world without the cabin; then the woman sprang to her feet, tore from
the wall a horn, and, running to the door, wound it lustily. The echoes
from the hills had not died when a man and a boy, the one bearing a
musket, the other an axe, burst from the shadow of the forest, and at
a run crossed the greensward and the field of maize between them and
the women. The child let fall her pine cones and pebbles, and fled to
her mother, to cling to her skirts, and look with brown, frightened
eyes for the wonder that should follow the winding of the horn. Only
twice could she remember that clear summons for her father: once when
it was winter and snow was on the ground, and a great wolf, gaunt and
bold, had fallen upon their sheep; and once when a drunken trader from
Germanna, with a Pamunkey who had tasted of the trader’s rum, had not
waited for an invitation before entering the cabin. It was not winter
now, and there was no sign of the red-faced trader or of the dreadful,
capering Indian. There was only a sound in the air, a strange noise
coming to them from the pass between the hills over which rose the sun.
The man with the musket sent his voice before him as he approached
the group upon the doorstep: “Alce, woman! What’s amiss? I see naught
wrong!”
His wife stepped forward to meet him. “There’s naught to see, William.
It’s to hear. There was a noise. Molly and I heard it, and then we lost
it. There it is again!”
Fronting the cabin, beyond the maize field and the rich green grass
and the placid stream, rose two hills, steep and thickly wooded, and
between them ran a narrow, winding, and rocky pass. Down this gorge, to
the listening pioneer, now came a confused and trampling sound.
“It is iron striking against the rocks!” he announced. “The hoofs of
horses”--
“Iron!” cried his wife. “The horses in Virginia go unshod! And what
should a troop of horse do here, beyond the frontier, where even the
rangers never come?”
The man shook his head, a frown of perplexity upon his bronzed and
bearded face. “It is the sound of the hoofs of horses,” he said, “and
they are coming through the pass. Hark!”
A trumpet blew, and there came a noise of laughter. The child pressed
close to her brother’s side. “Oh, Robin, maybe ’t is the fairies!”
Out from the gloom of the pass into the sunshine of the valley,
splashing through the stream, trampling the long grass, laughing, and
calling one rider to the other, burst a company of fifty horsemen. The
trumpet blew again, and the entire party, drawing rein, stared at the
unexpected maize field, the cabin, and the people about the door.
Between the intruders and the lonely folk, whose nearest neighbors were
twenty miles away, was only a strip of sunny grass, dotted over with
the stumps of trees that had been felled lest they afford cover for
attacking savages. A man, riding at the head of the invading party,
beckoned, somewhat imperiously, to the pioneer; and the latter, still
with his musket in the hollow of his arm, strode across the greensward,
and finding himself in the midst, not of rude traders and rangers,
but of easy, smiling, periwigged gentlemen, handsomely dressed and
accoutred, dropped the butt of his gun upon the ground, and took off
his squirrel-skin cap.
“You are deep in the wilderness, good fellow,” said the man who
had beckoned, and who was possessed of a stately figure, a martial
countenance, and an air of great authority. “How far is it to the
mountains?”
The pioneer stared at the long blue range, cloudlike in the distance.
“I don’t know,” he answered. “I hunt to the eastward. Twenty miles,
maybe. You’re never going to climb them?”
“We are come out expressly to do so,” answered the other heartily,
“having a mind to drink the King’s health with our heads in the clouds!
We need another axeman to clear away the fallen trees and break the
nets of grapevine. Wilt go along amongst our rangers yonder, and earn a
pistole and undying fame?”
The woodsman looked from the knot of gentlemen to the troop of hardy
rangers, who, with a dozen ebony servants and four Meherrin Indians,
made up the company. Under charge of the slaves were a number of
packhorses. Thrown across one was a noble deer; a second bore a brace
of wild turkeys and a two-year-old bear, fat and tender; a third had a
legion of pots and pans for the cooking of the woodland cheer; while
the burden of several others promised heart’s content of good liquor.
From the entire troop breathed a most enticing air of gay daring and
good-fellowship. The gentlemen were young and of cheerful countenances;
the rangers in the rear sat their horses and whistled to the
woodpeckers in the sugar-trees; the negroes grinned broadly; even the
Indians appeared a shade less saturnine than usual. The golden sunshine
poured upon them all, and the blue mountains that no Englishman had
ever passed seemed for the moment as soft and yielding as the cloud
that slept along their summits. And no man knew what might be just
beyond the mountains: Frenchmen, certainly, and the great lakes and
the South Sea: but, besides these, might there not be gold, glittering
stones, new birds and beasts and plants, strange secrets of the hills?
It was only westward-ho! for a week or two, with good company and good
drink--
The woodsman shifted from one foot to the other, but his wife, who had
now crossed the grass to his side, had no doubts.
“You’ll not go, William!” she cried. “Remember the smoke that you saw
yesterday from the hilltop! If the Northern Indians are on the warpath
against the Southern, and are passing between us and the mountains,
there may be straying bands. I’ll not let you go!”
In her eagerness she clasped his arm with her hands. She was a comely,
buxom dame, and the circle on horseback, being for the most part young
and gallant, and not having seen a woman for some days, looked kindly
upon her.
“And so you saw a smoke, goodwife, and are afraid of roving Indians?”
said the gentleman who had spoken before. “That being the case, your
husband has our permission to stay behind. On my life, ’t is a shame to
ride away and leave you in danger of such marauders!”
“Will your Excellency permit me to volunteer for guard duty?” demanded
a young man who had pressed his horse to the leader’s side. “It’s odds,
though, that when you return this way you’ll find me turned Papist.
I’ll swear your Excellency never saw in Flanders carved or painted
saint so worthy of your prayers as yonder breathing one!”
The girl Molly had followed her parents, and now stood upon a little
grassy knoll, surveying with wide brown eyes the gay troop before her.
A light wind was blowing, and it wrapped her dress of tender, faded
blue around her young limbs, and lifted her loosened hair, gilded by
the sunshine into the likeness of an aureole. Her face was serious and
wondering, but fair as a woodland flower. She had placed her hand upon
the head of the child who was with her, clinging to her dress. The
green knoll formed a pedestal; behind was the sky, as blue as that of
Italy; the two figures might have been some painted altar-piece.
The sprightly company, which had taken for its motto “Sic juvat
transcendere montes,” looked and worshiped. There was a moment of
silent devotion, broken by one of the gentlemen demanding if ’t were
not time for dinner; another remarked that they might go much farther
and fare much worse, in respect of a cool, sweet spot in which to rest
during the heat of the afternoon; and a third boldly proposed that
they go no farther at all that day. Their leader settled the question
by announcing that, Mr. Mason’s suggestion finding favor in his sight,
they would forthwith dismount, dine, drink red wine and white, and
wear out the heat of the day in this sylvan paradise until four of
the clock, when the trumpet should sound for the mount; also, that if
the goodwife and her daughter would do them the honor to partake of
their rustic fare, their healths should be drunk in nothing less than
Burgundy.
As he spoke he swung himself from the saddle, pulled out his ruffles,
and raised his hat. “Ladies, permit me,”--a wave of his hand toward his
escort, who were now also on foot. “Colonel Robertson, Captain Clonder,
Captain Brooke, Mr. Haward, Mr. Beverley, Dr. Robinson, Mr. Fontaine,
Mr. Todd, Mr. Mason,--all of the Tramontane Order. For myself, I am
Alexander Spotswood, at your service.”
The pioneer, standing behind his wife, plucked her by the sleeve.
“Ecod, Alce, ’t is the Governor himself! Mind your manners!”
Alce, who had been a red-cheeked dairymaid in a great house in
England, needed no admonition. Her curtsy was profound; and when the
Governor took her by the hand and kissed her still blooming cheek, she
curtsied again. Molly, who had no memories of fine gentlemen and the
complaisance which was their due, blushed fire-red at the touch of his
Excellency’s lips, forgot to curtsy, and knew not where to look. When,
in her confusion, she turned her head aside, her eyes met those of the
young man who had threatened to turn Papist. He bowed, with his hand
upon his heart, and she blushed more deeply than before.
By now every man had dismounted, and the valley was ringing with the
merriment of the jovial crew. The negroes led the horses down the
stream, lightened them of saddle and bridle, and left them tethered
to saplings beneath which the grass grew long and green. The rangers
gathered fallen wood, and kindled two mighty fires, while the gentlemen
of the party threw themselves down beside the stream, upon a little
grassy rise shadowed by a huge sugar-tree. A mound of turf, flanked
by two spreading roots, was the Governor’s chair of state, and Alce
and Molly he must needs seat beside him. Not one of his gay company
but seemed an adept in the high-flown compliment of the age; out of
very idleness and the mirth born of that summer hour they followed
his Excellency’s lead, and plied the two simple women with all the
wordy ammunition that a tolerable acquaintance with the mythology of
the ancients and the polite literature of the present could furnish.
The mother and daughter did not understand the fine speeches, but
liked them passing well. In their lonely lives, a little thing made
conversation for many and many a day. As for these golden hours,--the
jingle and clank and mellow laughter, the ruffles and gold buttons
and fine cloth, these gentlemen, young and handsome, friendly-eyed,
silver-tongued, the taste of wine, the taste of flattery, the sunshine
that surely was never yet so bright,--ten years from now they would
still be talking of these things, still wishing that such a day could
come again.
The negroes were now busy around the fires, and soon the cheerful odor
of broiling meat rose and blended with the fragrance of the forest.
The pioneer, hospitably minded, beckoned to the four Meherrins, and
hastening with them to the patch of waving corn, returned with a goodly
lading of plump, green ears. A second foraging party, under guidance
of the boy, brought into the larder of the gentry half a dozen noble
melons, golden within and without. The woman whispered to the child,
and the latter ran to the cabin, filled her upgathered skirts with the
loaves of her mother’s baking, and came back to the group upon the
knoll beneath the sugar-tree. The Governor himself took the bread from
the little maid, then drew her toward him.
“Thanks, my pretty one,” he said, with a smile that for the moment
quite dispelled the expression of haughtiness which marred an otherwise
comely countenance. “Come, give me a kiss, sweeting, and tell me thy
name.”
The child looked at him gravely. “My name is Audrey,” she answered,
“and if you eat all of our bread we’ll have none for supper.”
The Governor laughed, and kissed the small dark face. “I’ll give thee a
gold moidore, instead, my maid. Odso! thou’rt as dark and wild, almost,
as was my little Queen of the Saponies that died last year. Hast never
been away from the mountains, child?”
Audrey shook her head, and thought the question but a foolish one. The
mountains were everywhere. Had she not been to the top of the hills,
and seen for herself that they went from one edge of the world to the
other? She was glad to slip from the Governor’s encircling arm, and
from the gay ring beneath the sugar-tree; to take refuge with herself
down by the water side, and watch the fairy tale from afar off.
The rangers, with the pioneer and his son for their guests, dined
beside the kitchen fire, which they had kindled at a respectful
distance from the group upon the knoll. Active, bronzed and daring men,
wild riders, bold fighters, lovers of the freedom of the woods, they
sprawled upon the dark earth beneath the walnut-trees, laughed and
joked, and told old tales of hunting or of Indian warfare. The four
Meherrins ate apart and in stately silence, but the grinning negroes
must needs endure their hunger until their masters should be served.
One black detachment spread before the gentlemen of the expedition a
damask cloth; another placed upon the snowy field platters of smoking
venison and turkey, flanked by rockahominy and sea-biscuit, corn
roasted Indian fashion, golden melons, and a quantity of wild grapes
gathered from the vines that rioted over the hillside; while a third
set down, with due solemnity, a formidable array of bottles. There
being no chaplain in the party, the grace was short. The two captains
carved, but every man was his own Ganymede. The wines were good and
abundant: there was champagne for the King’s health; claret in which
to pledge themselves, gay stormers of the mountains; Burgundy for the
oreads who were so gracious as to sit beside them, smile upon them,
taste of their mortal fare.
Sooth to say, the oreads were somewhat dazed by the company they
were keeping, and found the wine a more potent brew than the liquid
crystal of their mountain streams. Red roses bloomed in Molly’s
cheeks; her eyes grew starry, and no longer sought the ground; when
one of the gentlemen wove a chaplet of oak leaves, and with it crowned
her loosened hair, she laughed, and the sound was so silvery and
delightful that the company laughed with her. When the viands were
gone, the negroes drew the cloth, but left the wine. When the wine
was well-nigh spent, they brought to their masters long pipes and
japanned boxes filled with sweet-scented. The fragrant smoke, arising,
wrapped the knoll in a bluish haze. A wind had arisen, tempering the
blazing sunshine, and making low music up and down the hillsides.
The maples blossomed into silver, the restless poplar leaves danced
more and more madly, the hemlocks and great white pines waved their
broad, dark banners. Above the hilltops the sky was very blue, and the
distant heights seemed dream mountains and easy of climbing. A soft
and pleasing indolence, born of the afternoon, the sunlight, and the
red wine, came to dwell in the valley. One of the company beneath the
spreading sugar-tree laid his pipe upon the grass, clasped his hands
behind his head, and, with his eyes on the azure heaven showing between
branch and leaf, sang the song of Amiens of such another tree in such
another forest. The voice was manly, strong, and sweet; the rangers
quit their talk of war and hunting to listen, and the negroes, down by
the fire which they had built for themselves, laughed for very pleasure.
When the wine was all drunken and the smoke of the tobacco quite blown
away, a gentleman who seemed of a somewhat saturnine disposition, and
less susceptible than his brother adventurers to the charms of the
wood nymphs, rose, and declared that he would go a-fishing in the
dark crystal of the stream below. His servant brought him hook and
line, while the grasshoppers in the tall grass served for bait. A rock
jutting over the flood formed a convenient seat, and a tulip-tree lent
a grateful shade. The fish were abundant and obliging; the fisherman
was happy. Three shining trophies had been landed, and he was in the
act of baiting the hook that should capture the fourth, when his eyes
chanced to meet the eyes of the child Audrey, who had left her covert
of purple-berried alder, and now stood beside him. Tithonus, green and
hale, skipped from between his fingers, and he let fall his line to
put out a good-natured hand and draw the child down to a seat upon the
rock. “Wouldst like to try thy skill, moppet?” he demanded.
The child shook her head. “Are you a prince?” she asked, “and is the
grand gentleman with, the long hair and the purple coat the King?”
The fisherman laughed. “No, little one, I’m only a poor ensign. The
gentleman yonder, being the representative in Virginia of my Lord of
Orkney and his Majesty King George the First, may somewhat smack of
royalty. Indeed, there are good Virginians who think that were the King
himself amongst us he could not more thoroughly play my Lord Absolute.
But he’s only the Governor of Virginia, after all, bright eyes.”
“Does he live in a palace, like the King? My father once saw the King’s
house in a place they call London.”
The gentleman laughed again. “Ay, he lives in a palace, a red brick
palace, sixty feet long and forty feet deep, with a bauble on top
that’s all afire on birth-nights. There are green gardens, too, with
winding paths, and sometimes pretty ladies walk in them. Wouldst like
to see all these fine things?”
The child nodded. “Ay, that I would! Who is the gentleman that sang,
and that now sits by Molly? See! with his hand touching her hair. Is he
a Governor, too?”
The other glanced in the direction of the sugar-tree, raised his
eyebrows, shrugged his shoulders, and returned to his fishing. “That
is Mr. Marmaduke Haward,” he said, “who, having just come into a great
estate, goes abroad next month to be taught the newest, most genteel
mode of squandering it. Dost not like his looks, child? Half the ladies
of Williamsburgh are enamored of his _beaux yeux_.”
Audrey made no answer, for just then the trumpet blew for the mount,
and the fisherman must needs draw in and pocket his hook and line.
Clear, high, and sweet, the triumphant notes pierced the air, and were
answered from the hills by a thousand fairy horns. The martial-minded
Governor would play the soldier in the wilderness; his little troop of
gentlemen and rangers and ebony servants had come out well drilled for
their tilt against the mountains. The echoes were still ringing, when,
with laughter, some expenditure of wit, and much cheerful swearing, the
camp was struck. The packhorses were again laden, the rangers swung
themselves into their saddles, and the gentlemen beneath the sugar-tree
rose from the grass, and tendered their farewells to the oreads.
Alce roundly hoped that their Honors would pass that way again upon
their return from the high mountains, and the deepening rose of Molly’s
cheeks and her wistful eyes added weight to her mother’s importunity.
The Governor swore that in no great time they would dine again in the
valley, and his companions confirmed the oath. His Excellency, turning
to mount his horse, found the pioneer at the animal’s head.
“So, honest fellow,” he exclaimed good-naturedly, “you will not with
us to grave your name upon the mountain tops? Let me tell you that you
are giving Fame the go-by. To march against the mountains and overcome
them as though they were so many Frenchmen, and then to gaze into the
promised land beyond--Odso, man, we are as great as were Cortez and
Pizarro and their crew! We are heroes and paladins! We are the Knights
of”--
His horse, impatient to be gone, struck with a ringing sound an
iron-shod hoof against a bit of rock. “The Knights of the Horseshoe,”
said the gentleman nearest the Governor.
Spotswood uttered a delighted exclamation: “’Gad, Mr. Haward, you’ve
hit it! Well-nigh the first horseshoes used in Virginia--the number
we were forced to bring along--the sound of the iron against the
rocks--the Knights of the Horseshoe! ’Gad, I’ll send to London and have
little horseshoes--little gold horseshoes--made, and every man of us
shall wear one. The Knights of the Golden Horseshoe! It hath an odd,
charming sound, eh, gentlemen?”
None of the gentlemen were prepared to deny that it was a quaint and
pleasing title. Instead, out of very lightness of heart and fantastic
humor, they must needs have the Burgundy again unpacked, that they
might pledge at once all valorous discoverers, his Excellency the
Governor of Virginia, and their new-named order. And when the wine was
drunk, the rangers were drawn up, the muskets were loaded, and a volley
was fired that brought the echoes crashing about their heads. The
Governor mounted, the trumpet sounded once more, and the joyous company
swept down the narrow valley toward the long, blue, distant ranges.
The pioneer, his wife and children, watched them go. One of the
gentlemen turned in his saddle and waved his hand. Alce curtsied, but
Molly, at whom he had looked, saw him not, because her eyes were full
of tears. The company reached and entered a cleft between the hills; a
moment, and men and horses were lost to sight; a little longer, and not
even a sound could be heard.
It was as though they had taken the sunshine with them; for a cloud had
come up from the west, and the sun was hidden. All at once the valley
seemed a sombre and lonely place, and the hills with their whispering
trees looked menacingly down upon the clearing, the cabin, and the five
simple English folk. The glory of the day was gone. After a little more
of idle staring, the frontiersman and his son returned to their work in
the forest, while Alce and Molly went indoors to their spinning, and
Audrey sat down upon the doorstep to listen to the hurry of voices in
the trees, and to watch the ever-deepening shadow of the cloud above
the valley.