THE LAST ACT
Before eight of the clock, Mr. Stagg, peering from behind the curtain,
noted with satisfaction that the house was filling rapidly; upon the
stroke of the hour it was crowded to the door, without which might be
heard angry voices contending that there must be yet places for the
buying. The musicians began to play and more candles were lighted.
There were laughter, talk, greetings from one part of the house to
another, as much movement to and fro as could be accomplished in so
crowded a space. The manners of the London playhouses were aped not
unsuccessfully. To compare small things with great, it might have
been Drury Lane upon a gala night. If the building was rude, yet it
had no rival in the colonies, and if the audience was not so gay of
hue, impertinent of tongue, or paramount in fashion as its London
counterpart, yet it was composed of the rulers and makers of a land
destined to greatness.
In the centre box sat his Excellency, William Gooch,
Lieutenant-Governor of Virginia, resplendent in velvet and gold lace,
and beside him Colonel Alexander Spotswood, arrived in town from
Germanna that day, with his heart much set upon the passage, by the
Assembly, of an act which would advantage his iron works. Colonel Byrd
of Westover, Colonel Esmond of Castlewood, Colonel Carter, Colonel
Page, and Colonel Ludwell were likewise of the Governor’s party,
while seated or standing in the pit, or mingling with the ladies who
made gay the boxes, were other gentlemen of consequence,--Councilors,
Burgesses, owners of vast tracts of land, of ships and many slaves. Of
their number some were traveled men, and some had fought in England’s
wars, and some had studied in her universities. Many were of gentle
blood, sprung from worthy and venerable houses in that green island
which with fondness they still called home, and many had made for
themselves name and fortune, hewing their way to honor through a
primeval forest of adversities. Lesser personages were not lacking,
but crowded the gallery and invaded the pit. Old fighters of Indians
were present, and masters of ships trading from the Spanish islands
or from the ports of home. Rude lumbermen from Norfolk or the borders
of the Dismal Swamp stared about them, while here and there showed
the sad-colored coat of a minister, or the broad face of some Walloon
from Spotswood’s settlement on the Rapidan, or the keener countenances
of Frenchmen from Monacan-Town. The armorer from the Magazine elbowed
a great proprietor from the Eastern shore, while a famous guide and
hunter, long and lean and brown, described to a magnate of Yorktown
a buffalo capture in the far west, twenty leagues beyond the falls.
Masters and scholars from William and Mary were there, with rangers,
traders, sailors ashore, small planters, merchants, loquacious keepers
of ordinaries, and with men, now free and with a stake in the land,
who had come there as indentured servants, or as convicts, runaways,
and fugitives from justice. In the upper gallery, where no payment was
exacted, many servants with a sprinkling of favorite mulatto or mustee
slaves; in the boxes the lustre and sweep of damask and brocade, light
laughter, silvery voices, the flutter of fans; everywhere the vividness
and animation of a strangely compounded society, where the shadows were
deep and the lights were high.
Nor did the conversation of so motley an assemblage lack a certain
pictorial quality, a somewhat fantastic opulence of reference and
allusion. Of what might its members speak while they waited for the
drawing aside of the piece of baize which hung between them and an
Oriental camp? There was the staple of their wealth, a broad-leafed
plant, the smoke of whose far-spread burning might have wrapped its
native fields in a perpetual haze as of Indian summer; and there
was the warfare, bequeathed from generation to generation, against
the standing armies of the forest, that subtle foe that slept not,
retreated not, whose vanguard, ever falling, ever showed unbroken ranks
beyond. Trapper and trader and ranger might tell of trails through the
wilderness vast and hostile, of canoes upon unknown waters, of beasts
of prey, creatures screaming in the night-time through the ebony woods.
Of Indian villages, also, and of red men who, in the fastnesses that
were left them, took and tortured and slew after strange fashions. The
white man, strong as the wind, drove the red man before his face like
an autumn leaf, but he beckoned to the black man, and the black man
came at his call. He came in numbers from a far country, and the manner
of his coming was in chains. What he had to sell was valuable, but the
purchase price came not into his hands. Of him also mention was made
to-night. The master of the tall ship that had brought him into the
James or the York, the dealer to whom he was consigned, the officer
of the Crown who had cried him for sale, the planter who had bought
him, the divine who preached that he was of a race accursed,--all
were there, and all had interest in this merchandise. Others in the
throng talked of ships both great and small, and the quaintness of
their names, the golden flowers and golden women, the swift birds and
beasts, the namesakes of Fortune or of Providence, came pleasantly upon
the ear. The still-vexed Bermoothes, Barbadoes, and all the Indies
were spoken of; ports to the north and ports to the south, pirate
craft and sunken treasure, a flight, a fight, a chase at sea. The men
from Norfolk talked of the great Dismal and its trees of juniper and
cypress, the traders of trading, the masters from William and Mary of
the humanities. The greater men, authoritative and easy, owners of
flesh and blood and much land, holders of many offices and leaders of
the people, paid their respects to horse-racing and cock-fighting,
cards and dice; to building, planting, the genteelest mode of living,
and to public affairs both in Virginia and at home in England. Old
friends, with oaths of hearty affection, and from opposite quarters
of the house, addressed each other as Tom, or Ned, or Dick, while old
enemies, finding themselves side by side, exchanged extremely civil
speeches, and so put a keener edge upon their mutual disgust. In the
boxes where glowed the women there was comfit talk, vastly pretty
speeches, asseverations, denials, windy sighs, the politest oaths,
whispering, talk of the play, and, last but not least, of Mr. Haward of
Fair View, and Darden’s Audrey.
Haward, entering the pit, made his way quietly to where a servant was
holding for him a place. The fellow pulled his forelock in response
to his master’s nod, then shouldered his way through the press to the
ladder-like stairs that led to the upper gallery. Haward, standing
at his ease, looked about him, recognizing this or that acquaintance
with his slow, fine smile and an inclination of his head. He was much
observed, and presently a lady leaned from her box, smiled, waved her
fan, and slightly beckoned to him. It was young Madam Byrd, and Evelyn
sat beside her.
Five minutes later, as Haward entered the box of the ladies of
Westover, music sounded, the curtain was drawn back, and the play
began. Upon the ruder sort in the audience silence fell at once: they
that followed the sea, and they that followed the woods, and all the
simple folk ceased their noise and gesticulation, and gazed spellbound
at the pomp before them of rude scenery and indifferent actors. But
the great ones of the earth talked on, attending to their own business
in the face of Tamerlane and his victorious force. It was the fashion
to do so, and in the play to-night the first act counted nothing, for
Darden’s Audrey had naught to do with it. In the second act, when she
entered as Arpasia, the entire house would fall quiet, staring and
holding its breath.
Haward bent over Madam Byrd’s hand; then, as that lady turned from him
to greet Mr. Lee, addressed himself with grave courtesy to Evelyn,
clothed in pale blue, and more lovely even than her wont. For months
they had not met. She had written him one letter,--had written the
night of the day upon which she had encountered Audrey in the Palace
walk,--and he had answered it with a broken line of passionate thanks
for unmerited kindness. Now as he bent over her she caught his wrist
lightly with her hand, and her touch burned him through the lace of his
ruffles. With her other hand she spread her fan; Mr. Lee’s shoulder
knot also screened them while Mr. Grymes had engaged its owner’s
attention, and pretty Madam Byrd was in animated conversation with the
occupants of a neighboring box. “Is it well?” asked Evelyn, very low.
Haward’s answer was as low, and bravely spoken with his eyes meeting
her clear gaze, and her touch upon his wrist. “For me, Evelyn, it is
very well,” he said. “For her--may I live to make it well for her,
forever and a day well for her! She is to be my wife.”
“I am glad,” said Evelyn,--“very glad.”
“You are a noble lady,” he answered. “Once, long ago, I styled myself
your friend, your equal. Now I know better my place and yours, and as
from a princess I take your alms. For your letter--that letter, Evelyn,
which told me what you thought, which showed me what to do--I humbly
thank you.”
She let fall her hand from her silken lap, and watched with unseeing
eyes the mimicry of life upon the stage before them, where Selima knelt
to Tamerlane, and Moneses mourned for Arpasia. Presently she said
again, “I am glad;” and then, when they had kept silence for a while,
“You will live at Fair View?”
“Ay,” he replied. “I will make it well for her here in Virginia.”
“You must let me help you,” she said. “So old a friend as I may claim
that as a right. To-morrow I may visit her, may I not? Now we must look
at the players. When she enters there is no need to cry for silence. It
comes of itself, and stays; we watch her with straining eyes. Who is
that man in a cloak, staring at us from the pit? See, with the great
peruke and the scar!”
Haward, bending, looked over the rail, then drew back with a smile.
“A half-breed trader,” he said, “by name Jean Hugon. Something of a
character.”
“He looked strangely at us,” said Evelyn, “with how haggard a face! My
scarf, Mr. Lee? Thank you. Madam, have you the right of the matter from
Kitty Page?”
The conversation became general, and soon, the act approaching its
end, and other gentlemen pressing into the box which held so beautiful
a woman, so great a catch, and so assured a belle as Mistress Evelyn
Byrd, Haward arose and took his leave. To others of the brilliant
company assembled in the playhouse he paid his respects, speaking
deferentially to the Governor, gayly to his fellow Councilors and
planters, and bowing low to many ladies. All this was in the interval
between the acts. At the second parting of the curtain he resumed his
former station in the pit. With intention he had chosen a section of it
where were few of his own class. From the midst of the ruder sort he
could watch her more freely, could exult at his ease in her beauty both
of face and mind.
The curtains parted, and the fiddlers strove for warlike music.
Tamerlane, surrounded by the Tartar host, received his prisoners, and
the defiant rant of Bajazet shook the rafters. All the sound and fury
of the stage could not drown the noise of the audience. Idle talk and
laughter, loud comment upon the players, went on,--went on until there
entered Darden’s Audrey, dressed in red silk, with a jeweled circlet
like a line of flame about her dark flowing hair. The noise sank,
voices of men and women died away; for a moment the rustle of silk, the
flutter of fans, continued, then this also ceased.
She stood before the Sultan, wide-eyed, with a smile of scorn upon her
lips; then spoke in a voice, low, grave, monotonous, charged like a
passing bell with warning and with solemn woe. The house seemed to grow
more still; the playgoers, box and pit and gallery, leaned slightly
forward: whether she spoke or moved or stood in silence, Darden’s
Audrey, that had been a thing of naught, now held every eye, was
regnant for an hour in this epitome of the world. The scene went on,
and now it was to Moneses that she spoke. All the bliss and anguish of
unhappy love sounded in her voice, dwelt in her eye and most exquisite
smile, hung upon her every gesture. The curtains closed; from the
throng that had watched her came a sound like a sigh, after which,
slowly, tongues were loosened. An interval of impatient waiting, then
the music again and the parting curtains, and Darden’s Audrey,--the
girl who could so paint very love, very sorrow, very death; the girl
who had come strangely and by a devious path from the height and
loneliness of the mountains to the level of this stage and the watching
throng.
At the close of the fourth act of the play, Haward left his station in
the pit, and quietly made his way to the regions behind the curtain,
where in the very circumscribed space that served as greenroom to
the Williamsburgh theatre he found Tamerlane, Bajazet, and their
satellites, together with a number of gentlemen invaders from the
front of the house. Mistress Stagg was there, and Selima, perched upon
a table, was laughing with the aforesaid gentlemen, but no Arpasia.
Haward drew the elder woman aside. “I wish to see her,” he said, in a
low voice, kindly but imperious. “A moment only, good woman.”
With her finger at her lips Mistress Stagg glanced about her. “She
hides from them always, she’s that strange a child: though indeed, sir,
as sweet a young lady as a prince might wed! This way, sir,--it’s dark;
make no noise.”
She led him through a dim passageway, and softly opened a door. “There,
sir, for just five minutes! I’ll call her in time.”
The door gave upon the garden, and Audrey sat upon the step in the
moonshine and the stillness. Her hand propped her chin, and her eyes
were raised to the few silver stars. That mock crown which she wore
sparkled palely, and the light lay in the folds of her silken dress.
At the opening of the door she did not turn, thinking that Mistress
Stagg stood behind her. “How bright the moon shines!” she said. “A
mockingbird should be singing, singing! Is it time for Arpasia?”
As she rose from the step Haward caught her in his arms. “It is I, my
love! Ah, heart’s desire! I worship you who gleam in the moonlight,
with your crown like an aureole”--
Audrey rested against him, clasping her hands upon his shoulder. “There
were nights like this,” she said dreamily. “If I were a little child
again, you could lift me in your arms and carry me home, I am tired ...
I would that I needed not to go back to the glare and noise. The moon
shines so bright! I have been thinking”--
He bent his head and kissed her twice. “Poor Arpasia! Poor tired child!
Soon we shall go home, Audrey,--we two, my love, we two!”
“I have been thinking, sitting here in the moonlight,” she went on,
her hands clasped upon his shoulder, and her cheek resting on them. “I
was so ignorant. I never dreamed that I could wrong her ... and when I
awoke it was too late. And now I love you,--not the dream, but you. I
know not what is right or wrong; I know only that I love. I think she
understands--forgives. I love you so!” Her hands parted, and she stood
from him with her face raised to the balm of the night. “I love you
so,” she repeated, and the low cadence of her laugh broke the silver
stillness of the garden. “The moon up there, she knows it. And the
stars,--not one has fallen to-night! Smell the flowers. Wait, I will
pluck you hyacinths.”
They grew by the doorstep, and she broke the slender stalks and gave
them into his hand. But when he had kissed them he would give them
back, would fasten them himself in the folds of silk, that rose and
fell with her quickened breathing. He fastened them with a brooch which
he took from the Mechlin at his throat. It was the golden horseshoe,
the token that he had journeyed to the Endless Mountains.
“Now I must go,” said Audrey. “They are calling for Arpasia. Follow me
not at once. Good-night, good-night! Ah, I love you so! Remember always
that I love you so!”
She was gone. In a few minutes he also reëntered the playhouse, and
went to his former place where, with none of his kind about him, he
might watch her undisturbed. As he made his way with some difficulty
through the throng, he was aware that he brushed against a man in a
great peruke, who, despite the heat of the house, was wrapped in an
old roquelaure tawdrily laced; also that the man was keeping stealthy
pace with him, and that when he at last reached his station the cloaked
figure fell into place immediately behind him.
Haward shrugged his shoulders, but would not turn his head, and thereby
grant recognition to Jean Hugon, the trader. Did he so, the half-breed
might break into speech, provoke a quarrel, make God knew what
assertion, what disturbance. To-morrow steps should be taken--Ah, the
curtain!
The silence deepened, and men and women leaned forward holding their
breath. Darden’s Audrey, robed and crowned as Arpasia, sat alone
in the Sultan’s tent, staring before her with wide dark eyes, then
slowly rising began to speak. A sound, a sigh as of wonder, ran from
the one to the other of the throng that watched her. Why did she look
thus, with contracted brows, toward one quarter of the house? What
inarticulate words was she uttering? What gesture, quickly controlled,
did she make of ghastly fear and warning? And now the familiar words
came halting from her lips:--
“‘Sure ’tis a horror, more than darkness brings,
That sits upon the night!’”
With the closing words of her speech the audience burst into a great
storm of applause. ’Gad! how she acts! But what now? Why, what is this?
It was quite in nature and the mode for an actress to pause in the
middle of a scene to curtsy thanks for generous applause, to smile and
throw a mocking kiss to pit and boxes, but Darden’s Audrey had hitherto
not followed the fashion. Also it was not uncustomary for some spoiled
favorite of a player to trip down, between her scenes, the step or two
from the stage to the pit, and mingle with the gallants there, laugh,
jest, accept languishing glances, audacious comparisons, and such
weighty trifles as gilt snuffboxes and rings of price. But this player
had not heretofore honored the custom; moreover, at present she was
needed upon the stage. Bajazet must thunder and she defy; without her
the play could not move, and indeed the actors were now staring with
the audience. What was it? Why had she crossed the stage, and, slowly,
smilingly, beautiful and stately in her gleaming robes, descended those
few steps which led to the pit? What had she to do there, throwing
smiling glances to right and left, lightly waving the folk, gentle and
simple, from her path, pressing steadily onward to some unguessed-at
goal. As though held by a spell they watched her, one and all,--Haward,
Evelyn, the Governor, the man in the cloak, every soul in that motley
assemblage. The wonder had not time to dull, for the moments were few
between her final leave-taking of those boards which she had trodden
supreme and the crashing and terrible chord which was to close the
entertainment of this night.
Her face was raised to the boxes, and it seemed as though her dark eyes
sought one there. Then, suddenly, she swerved. There were men between
her and Haward. She raised her hand, and they fell back, making for her
a path. Haward, bewildered, started forward, but her cry was not to
him. It was to the figure just behind him,--the cloaked figure whose
hand grasped the hunting-knife which from the stage, as she had looked
to where stood her lover, she had seen or divined. “Jean! Jean Hugon!”
she cried.
Involuntarily the trader pushed toward her, past the man whom he meant
to stab to the heart. The action, dragging his cloak aside, showed the
half-raised arm and the gleaming steel. For many minutes the knife had
been ready. The play was nearly over, and she must see this man who
had stolen her heart, this Haward of Fair View, die. Else Jean Hugon’s
vengeance were not complete. For his own safety the maddened half-breed
had ceased to care. No warning cried from the stage could have done
aught but precipitate the deed, but now for the moment, amazed and
doubtful, he turned his back upon his prey.
In that moment the Audrey of the woods, a creature lithe and agile and
strong of wrist as of will, had thrown herself upon him, clutching the
hand that held the knife. He strove to dash her from him, but in vain;
the house was in an uproar; and now Haward’s hands were at his throat,
Haward’s voice was crying to that fair devil, that Audrey for whom he
had built his house, who was balking him of revenge, whose body was
between him and his enemy! Suddenly he was all savage; as upon a night
in Fair View house he had cast off the trammels of his white blood, so
now. An access of furious strength came to him; he shook himself free;
the knife gleamed in the air, descended.... He drew it from the bosom
into which he had plunged it, and as Haward caught her in his arms, who
would else have sunk to the floor, the half-breed burst through the
horror-stricken throng, brandishing the red blade and loudly speaking
in the tongue of the Monacans. Like a whirlwind he was gone from the
house, and for a time none thought to follow him.
[Illustration: “JEAN! JEAN HUGON!”]
They bore her into the small white house, and up the stair to her own
room, and laid her upon the bed. Dr. Contesse came and went away, and
came again. There was a crowd in Palace Street before the theatre.
A man mounting the doorstep so that he might be heard of all, said
clearly, “She may live until dawn,--no longer.” Later, one came out of
the house and asked that there might be quiet. The crowd melted away,
but throughout the mild night, filled with the soft airs and thousand
odors of the spring, people stayed about the place, standing silent in
the street or sitting on the garden benches.
In the room upstairs lay Darden’s Audrey, with crossed hands and head
put slightly back. She lay still, upon the edge of death, nor seemed to
care that it was so. Her eyes were closed, and at intervals one sitting
at the bed head laid touch upon her pulse, or held before her lips a
slight ringlet of her hair. Mary Stagg sat by the window and wept, but
Haward, kneeling, hid his face in the covering of the bed. The form
upon it was not more still than he; Mistress Stagg, also, stifled her
sobs, for it seemed not a place for loud grief.
In the room below, amidst the tinsel frippery of small wares, waited
others whose lives had touched the life that was ebbing away. Now
and then one spoke in a hushed voice, a window was raised, a servant
bringing in fresh candles trod too heavily; then the quiet closed
in again. Late in the night came through the open windows a distant
clamor, and presently a man ran down Palace Street, and as he ran
called aloud some tidings. MacLean, standing near the door, went softly
out. When he returned, Colonel Byrd, sitting at the table, lifted
inquiring brows. “They took him in the reeds near the Capitol landing,”
said the Highlander grimly. “He’s in the gaol now, but whether the
people will leave him there”--
The night wore on, grew old, passed into the cold melancholy of its
latest hour. Darden’s Audrey sighed and stirred, and a little strength
coming to her parting spirit, she opened her eyes and loosed her
hands. The physician held to her lips the cordial, and she drank a
very little. Haward lifted his head, and as Contesse passed him to set
down the cup, caught him by the sleeve. The other looked pityingly at
the man into whose face had come a flush of hope. “’T is but the last
flickering of the flame,” he said. “Soon even the spark will vanish.”
Audrey began to speak. At first her words were wild and wandering, but,
the mist lifting somewhat, she presently knew Mistress Stagg, and liked
to have her take the doctor’s place beside her. At Haward she looked
doubtfully, with wide eyes, as scarce understanding. When he called her
name she faintly shook her head, then turned it slightly from him and
veiled her eyes. It came to him with a terrible pang that the memory of
their latest meetings was wiped from her brain, and that she was afraid
of his broken words and the tears upon her hand.
When she spoke again it was to ask for the minister. He was below, and
Mistress Stagg went weeping down the stairs to summon him. He came, but
would not touch the girl; only stood, with his hat in his hand, and
looked down upon her with bleared eyes and a heavy countenance.
“I am to die, am I not?” she asked, with her gaze upon him.
“That is as God wills, Audrey,” he answered.
“I am not afraid to die.”
“You have no need,” he said, and going out of the room and down the
stairs, made Stagg pour for him a glass of aqua vitæ.
Audrey closed her eyes, and when she opened them again there seemed to
be many persons in the room. One was bending over her whom at first she
thought was Molly, but soon she saw more clearly, and smiled at the
pale and sorrowful face. The lady bent lower yet, and kissed her on the
forehead. “Audrey,” she said, and Audrey looking up at her answered,
“Evelyn.”
When the dawn came glimmering in the windows, when the mist was cold
and the birds were faintly heard, they raised her upon her pillows, and
wiped the death dew from her forehead. “Audrey, Audrey, Audrey!” cried
Haward, and caught at her hands.
She looked at him with a faint and doubtful smile, remembering nothing
of that hour in the room below, of those minutes in the moonlit garden.
“Gather the rosebuds while ye may,” she said; and then, “The house is
large. Good giant, eat me not!”
The man upon his knees beside her uttered a cry, and began to speak to
her, thickly, rapidly, words of agony, entreaty, and love. To-morrow
and for all life habit would resume its sway, and lost love, remorse,
and vain regrets put on a mask that was cold and fine and able to
deceive. To-night there spoke the awakened heart. With her hands cold
in his, with his agonized gaze upon the face from which the light was
slowly passing, he poured forth his passion and his anguish, and she
listened not. They moistened her lips, and one opened wide the window
that gave upon the east. “It was all a dream,” she said; and again,
“All a dream.” A little later, while the sky flushed slowly and the
light of the candles grew pale, she began suddenly, and in a stronger
voice, to speak as Arpasia:--
“‘If it be happiness, alas! to die,
To lie forgotten in the silent grave’”--
“Forgotten!” cried Haward. “Audrey, Audrey, Audrey! Go not from me! Oh,
love, love, stay awhile!”
“The mountains,” said Audrey clearly. “The sun upon them and the
lifting mist.”
“The mountains!” he cried. “Ay, we will go to them, Audrey, we will go
together! Why, you are stronger, sweetheart! There is strength in your
voice and your hands, and a light in your eyes. Oh, if you will live,
Audrey, I will make you happy! You shall take me to the mountains--we
will go together, you and I! Audrey, Audrey”--
But Audrey was gone already.