THE GOVERNOR’S BALL
For an hour it had been very quiet, very peaceful, in the small white
house on Palace Street. Darden was not there; for the Commissary had
sent for him, having certain inquiries to make and a stern warning to
deliver. Mistress Deborah had been asked to spend the night with an
acquaintance in the town, so she also was out and gone. Mistress Stagg
and Audrey kept the lower rooms, while overhead Mr. Charles Stagg, a
man that loved his art, walked up and down, and, with many wavings of
a laced handkerchief and much resort to a gilt snuffbox, reasoned with
Plato of death and the soul. The murmur of his voice came down to the
two women, and made the only sound in the house. Audrey, sitting by the
window, her chin upon her hand and her dark hair shadowing her face,
looked out upon the dooryard and the Palace Street beyond. The street
was lit by torches, and people were going to the ball in coaches and
chariots, on foot and in painted chairs. They went gayly, light of
heart, fine of person, a free and generous folk. Laughter floated over
to the silent watcher, and the torchlight gave her glimpses of another
land than her own.
Many had been Mistress Stagg’s customers since morning, and something
had she heard besides admiration of her wares and exclamation at
her prices. Now, as she sat with some gay sewing beneath her nimble
fingers, she glanced once and again at the shadowed face opposite her.
If the look was not one of curiosity alone, but had in it an admixture
of new-found respect; if to Mistress Stagg the Audrey of yesterday,
unnoted, unwhispered of, was a being somewhat lowlier than the Audrey
of to-day, it may be remembered for her that she was an actress of the
early eighteenth century, and that fate and an old mother to support
had put her in that station.
The candles beneath their glass shades burned steadily; the house
grew very quiet; the noises of the street lessened and lessened, for
now nearly all of the people were gone to the ball. Audrey watched
the round of light cast by the nearest torch. For a long time she had
watched it, thinking that he might perhaps cross the circle, and she
might see him in his splendor. She was still watching when he knocked
at the garden door.
Mistress Stagg, sitting in a dream of her own, started violently. “La,
now, who may that be?” she exclaimed. “Go to the door, child. If ’tis
a stranger, we shelter none such, to be taken up for the harboring of
runaways!”
Audrey went to the door and opened it. A moment’s pause, a low cry,
and she moved backward to the wall, where she stood with her slender
form sharply drawn against the white plaster, and with the fugitive,
elusive charm of her face quickened into absolute beauty, imperious for
attention. Haward, thus ushered into the room, gave the face its due.
His eyes, bright and fixed, were for it alone. Mistress Stagg’s curtsy
went unacknowledged save by a slight, mechanical motion of his hand,
and her inquiry as to what he lacked that she could supply received
no answer. He was a very handsome man, of a bearing both easy and
commanding, and to-night he was splendidly dressed in white satin with
embroidery of gold. To one of the women he seemed the king, who could
do no wrong; to the other, more learned in the book of the world, he
was merely a fine gentleman, whose way might as well be given him at
once, since, spite of denial, he would presently take it.
Haward sat down, resting his clasped hands upon the table, gazing
steadfastly at the face, dark and beautiful, set like a flower against
the wall. “Come, little maid!” he said. “We are going to the ball
together, you and I. Hasten, or we shall not be in time for the minuet.”
Audrey smiled and shook her head, thinking that it was his pleasure to
laugh at her a little. Mistress Stagg likewise showed her appreciation
of the pleasantry. When he repeated his command, speaking in an
authoritative tone and with a glance at his watch, there was a moment
of dead silence; then, “Go your ways, sir, and dance with Mistress
Evelyn Byrd!” cried the scandalized ex-actress. “The Governor’s ball is
not for the likes of Audrey!”
“I will be judge of that,” he answered. “Come, let us be off, child! Or
stay! hast no other dress than that?” He looked toward the mistress of
the house. “I warrant that Mistress Stagg can trick you out! I would
have you go fine, Audrey of the hair! Audrey of the eyes! Audrey of the
full brown throat! Dull gold,--have you that, now, mistress, in damask
or brocade? Soft laces for her bosom, and a yellow bloom in her hair.
It should be dogwood, Audrey, like the coronal you wore on May Day. Do
you remember, child? The white stars in your hair, and the Maypole all
aflutter, and your feet upon the green grass”--
“Oh, I was happy then!” cried Audrey and wrung her hands. Within a
moment, however, she was calm again, and could look at him with a
smile. “I am only Audrey,” she said. “You know that the ball is not
for me. Why then do you tell me that I must go? It is your kindness;
I know that it is your kindness that speaks. But yet--but yet”--She
gazed at him imploringly: then from his steady smile caught a sudden
encouragement. “Oh!” she exclaimed with a gesture of quick relief,
and with tremulous laughter in her face and voice,--“oh, you are
mocking me! You only came to show how a gentleman looks who goes to a
Governor’s ball!”
For the moment, in her relief at having read his riddle, there slipped
from her the fear of she knew not what,--the strangeness and heaviness
of heart that had been her portion since she came to Williamsburgh.
Leaving the white wall against which she had leaned, she came a little
forward, and with gayety and grace dropped him a curtsy. “Oh, the
white satin like the lilies in your garden!” she laughed. “And the red
heels to your shoes, and the gold-fringed sword knot, and the velvet
scabbard! Ah, let me see your sword, how bright and keen it is!”
She was Audrey of the garden, and Haward, smiling, drew his rapier and
laid it in her hands. She looked at the golden hilt, and passed her
brown fingers along the gleaming blade. “Stainless,” she said, and gave
it back to him.
Taking it, he took also the hand that had proffered it. “I was not
laughing, child,” he said. “Go to the ball thou shalt, and with me.
What! Thou art young and fair. Shalt have no pleasure”--
“What pleasure in that?” cried Audrey. “I may not go, sir; nay, I will
not go!”
She freed her hand, and stood with heaving bosom and eyes that very
slowly filled with tears. Haward saw no reason for her tears. It
was true that she was young and fair; true, also, that she had few
pleasures. Well, he would change all that. The dance,--was it not woven
by those nymphs of old, those sprites of open spaces in the deep woods,
from whose immemorial company she must have strayed into this present
time? Now at the Palace the candles were burning for her, for her the
music was playing. Her welcome there amidst the tinsel people? Trust
him for that: he was what he was, and could compass greater things than
that would be. Go she should, because it pleased him to please her,
and because it was certainly necessary for him to oppose pride with
pride, and before the eyes of Evelyn demonstrate his indifference to
that lady’s choice of Mr. Lee for the minuet and Mr. Lightfoot for the
country dance. This last thought had far to travel from some unused,
deep-down quagmire of the heart, but it came. For the rest, the image
of Audrey decked in silk and lace, turned by her apparel into a dark
Court lady, a damsel in waiting to Queen Titania, caught his fancy in
both hands. He wished to see her thus,--wished it so strongly that he
knew it would come to pass. He was a gentleman who had acquired the
habit of having his own way. There had been times when the price of his
way had seemed too dear; when he had shrugged his shoulders and ceased
to desire what he would not buy. To-night he was not able to count
the cost. But he knew--he knew cruelly well--how to cut short this
fruitless protest of a young girl who thought him all that was wise and
great and good.
“So you cannot say ‘yes’ to my asking, little maid?” he began, quiet
and smiling. “Cannot trust me that I have reasons for the asking? Well,
I will not ask again, Audrey, since it is so great a thing’”--“Oh,”
cried Audrey, “you know that I would die for you!” The tears welled
over, but she brushed them away with a trembling hand; then stood with
raised face, her eyes soft and dewy, a strange smile upon her lips.
She spoke at last as simply as a child: “Why you want me, that am only
Audrey, to go with you to the Palace yonder, I cannot tell. But I will
go, though I am only Audrey, and I have no other dress than this”--
Haward got unsteadily to his feet, and lightly touched the dark head
that she bowed upon her hands. “Why, now you are Audrey again,” he said
approvingly. “Why, child, I would do you a pleasure!” He turned to
the player’s wife. “She must not go in this guise. Have you no finery
stowed away?”
Now, Mistress Stagg, though much scandalized, and very certain that
all this would never do, was in her way an artist, and could see as
in a mirror what bare throat and shoulders, rich hair drawn loosely
up, a touch of rouge, a patch or two, a silken gown, might achieve for
Audrey. And after all, had not Deborah told her that the girl was Mr.
Haward’s ward, not Darden’s, and that though Mr. Haward came and went
as he pleased, and was very kind to Audrey, so that Darden was sure of
getting whatever the girl asked for, yet she was a good girl, and there
was no harm? For the talk that day,--people were very idle, and given
to thinking the forest afire when there was only the least curl of
smoke. And in short and finally it was none of her business; but with
the aid of a certain chest upstairs, she knew what she could do! To
the ball might go a beauty would make Mistress Evelyn Byrd look to her
laurels!
“There’s the birthday dress that Madam Carter sent us only last week,”
she began hesitatingly. “It’s very beautiful, and a’most as good as
new, and ’twould suit you to a miracle--But I vow you must not go,
Audrey!... To be sure, the damask is just the tint for you, and there
are roses would answer for your hair. But la, sir, you know ’twill
never do, never in this world.”
Half an hour later, Haward rose from his chair and bowed low as to some
highborn and puissant dame. The fever that was now running high in his
veins flushed his cheek and made his eyes exceedingly bright. When he
went up to Audrey, and in graceful mockery of her sudden coming into
her kingdom, took her hand and, bending, kissed it, the picture that
they made cried out for some painter to preserve it. Her hand dropped
from his clasp, and buried itself in rich folds of flowered damask; the
quick rise and fall of her bosom stirred soft, yellowing laces, and
made to flash like diamonds some ornaments of marcasite; her face was
haunting in its pain and bewilderment and great beauty, and in the lie
which her eyes gave to the false roses beneath those homes of sadness
and longing. She had no word to say, she was “only Audrey,” and she
could not understand. But she wished to do his bidding, and so, when he
cried out upon her melancholy, and asked her if ’twere indeed a Sunday
in New England instead of a Saturday in Virginia, she smiled, and
strove to put on the mind as well as the garb of a gay lady who might
justly go to the Governor’s ball.
Half frightened at her own success, Mistress Stagg hovered around her,
giving this or that final touch to her costume; but it was Haward
himself who put the roses in her hair. “A little longer, and we will
walk once more in my garden at Fair View,” he said. “June shall come
again for us, and we will tread the quiet paths, my sweet, and all the
roses shall bloom again for us. There, you are crowned! Hail, Queen!”
Audrey felt the touch of his lips upon her forehead, and shivered.
All her world was going round; she could not steady it, could not
see aright, knew not what was happening. The strangeness made her
dizzy. She hardly heard Mistress Stagg’s last protest that it would
never do,--never in the world; hardly knew when she left the house.
She was out beneath the stars, moving toward a lit Palace whence came
the sound of violins. Haward’s arm was beneath her hand; his voice
was in her ear, but it was as the wind’s voice, whose speech she did
not understand. Suddenly they were within the Palace garden, with its
winding, torchlit walks, and the terraces at the side; suddenly again,
they had mounted the Palace steps, and the doors were open, and she
was confronted with lights and music and shifting, dazzling figures.
She stood still, clasped her hands, and gave Haward a piteous look.
Her face, for all its beauty and its painted roses, was strangely the
child’s face that had lain upon his breast, where he knelt amid the
corn, in the valley between the hills, so long ago. He gave her mute
appeal no heed. The Governor’s guests, passing from room to room,
crossed and recrossed the wide hall, and down the stairway, to meet
a row of gallants impatient at its foot, came fair women, one after
the other, the flower of the colony, clothed upon like the lilies of
old. Haward, entering with Audrey, saw Mr. Lee at the stairfoot, and,
raising his eyes, was aware of Evelyn descending alone and somewhat
slowly, all in rose color, and with a smile upon her lips.
She was esteemed the most beautiful woman in Virginia, the most
graceful and accomplished. Wit and charm and fortune were hers, and the
little gay world of Virginia had mated her with Mr. Marmaduke Haward
of Fair View. Therefore that portion of it that chanced to be in the
hall of the Governor’s house withdrew for the moment its attention from
its own affairs, and bestowed it upon those of the lady descending the
stairs, and of the gold-and-white gentleman who, with a strange beauty
at his side, stood directly in her path. It was a very wise little
world, and since yesterday afternoon had been fairly bursting with its
own knowledge. It knew all about that gypsy who had come to town from
Fair View parish,--“La, my dear, just the servant of a minister!”--and
knew to a syllable what had passed in the violent quarrel to which Mr.
Lee owed his good fortune.
[Illustration: “I DO NOT THINK I HAVE THE HONOR OF KNOWING”--]
That triumphant gentleman now started forward, and, with a low bow,
extended his hand to lead to the ballroom this rose-colored paragon and
cynosure of all eyes. Evelyn smiled upon him, and gave him her scarf
to hold, but would not be hurried; must first speak to her old friend
Mr. Haward, and tell him that her father’s foot could now bear the
shoe, and that he might appear before the ball was over. This done, she
withdrew her gaze, from Haward’s strangely animated, vividly handsome
countenance, and turned it upon the figure at his side. “Pray present
me!” she said quickly. “I do not think I have the honor of knowing”--
Audrey raised her head, that had been bent, and looked again, as she
had looked yesterday, with all her innocent soul and heavy heart,
into the eyes of the princess. The smile died from Evelyn’s lips, and
a great wave of indignant red surged over face and neck and bosom.
The color fled, but not the bitter anger. So he could bring his fancy
there! Could clothe her that was a servant wench in a splendid gown,
and flaunt her before the world--before the world that must know--oh,
God! must know how she herself loved him! He could do this after that
month at Westover! She drew her breath, and met the insult fairly. “I
withdraw my petition,” she said clearly. “Now that I bethink me, my
acquaintance is already somewhat too great. Mr. Lee, shall we not join
the company? I have yet to make my curtsy to his Excellency.”
With head erect, and with no attention to spare from the happy Mr. Lee,
she passed the sometime suitor for her hand and the apple of discord
which it had pleased him to throw into the assembly. A whisper ran
around the hall. Audrey heard suppressed laughter, and heard a speech
which she did not understand, but which was uttered in an angry voice,
much like Mistress Deborah’s when she chided. A sudden terror of
herself and of Haward’s world possessed her. She turned where she stood
in her borrowed plumage, and clung to his hand and arm. “Let me go,”
she begged. “It is all a mistake,--all wrong. Let me go,--let me go.”
He laughed at her, shaking his head and looking into her beseeching
face with shining, far-off eyes. “Thou dear fool!” he said. “The ball
is made for thee, and all these folk are here to do thee honor!”
Holding her by the hand, he moved with her toward a wide doorway,
through which could be seen a greater throng of beautifully dressed
ladies and gentlemen. Music came from this room, and she saw that there
were dancers, and that beyond them, upon a sort of dais, and before a
great carved chair, stood a fine gentleman who, she knew, must be his
Excellency the Governor of Virginia.