THE FLIGHT OF THE MINUTES.
The silence of her entrance was from her having, a few minutes
earlier, exchanged her riding-boots for satin slippers.
"I--I thank you for coming, madam," said Peyton, feeling the necessity
of a prompt reply to her imperious look of inquiry, yet without a
practicable idea in his head. "I had--that is--a request to make."
He was trembling violently, not from fear, but from that kind of
agitation which often precedes the undertaking of a critical task, as
when a suppliant awaits an important interview, or an actor assumes
for the first time a new part.
"Mr. Valentine said a confession," said Elizabeth, holding him in a
coldly resentful gaze.
"Why, yes, a confession," said he, hopelessly.
"A plot to disclose," she added, with sharp impatience. "What is it?"
"You shall hear," he began, in gloomy desperation, without the
faintest knowledge of how he should finish. "I--ah--it is this--" His
wandering glance fell on the table and the writing materials she had
left there. "I wish to write a letter--a last letter--to a friend."
The vague general outline of a project arose in his mind.
Elizabeth was inclined to be as laconic as implacable. "Write it,"
said she. "There are pen and ink."
"But I can't write in this position," said Peyton, quickly, lest she
might leave the room. "I fear I can't even hold a pen. Will you not
write for me?"
"I? Secretary to a horse-thieving rebel!"
"It is a last request, madam. A last request is sacred,--even an
enemy's."
"I will send in some one to write for you." And she turned to go.
"But this letter will contain secrets."
"Secrets?" The very word is a charm to a woman. Elizabeth's curiosity
was touched but slightly, yet sufficiently to stay her steps for the
moment.
"Ay," said Peyton, lowering his tone and speaking quickly, "secrets
not for every ear. Secrets of the heart, madam,--secrets so delicate
that, to convey them truly, I need the aid of more than common tact
and understanding."
He watched her eagerly, and tried to repress the signs of his
anxiety.
Elizabeth considered for a moment, then went to the table and sat down
by it.
"But," said she, regarding him with angry suspicion, "the confession,--the
plot?"
"Why, madam," said he, his heart hammering forcefully, "do you think I
may communicate them to you directly? The letter shall relate them,
too, and if the person who holds the pen for me pays heed to the
letter's contents, is it my fault?"
"I understand," said the woman, entrapped, and she dipped the quill
into the ink.
"The letter," began Peyton, slowly, hesitating for ideas, and glancing
at the clock, yet not retaining a sense of where the hands were, "is
to Mr. Bryan Fairfax--"
"What?" she interrupted. "Kinsman to Lord Fairfax, of Virginia?"
"There's but one Mr. Bryan Fairfax," said Peyton, acquiring confidence
from his preliminary expedient to overcome prejudice, "and, though
he's on the side of King George in feeling, yet he's my friend,--a
circumstance that should convince even you I'm not scum o' the earth,
rebel though you call me. He's the friend of Washington, too."
"Poh! Who is your Washington? My aunt Mary rejected him, and married
his rival in this very room!"
"And a good thing Washington didn't marry her!" said Peyton,
gallantly. "She'd have tried to turn him Tory, and the ladies of this
family are not to be resisted."
"Go on with your letter," said Elizabeth, chillingly.
"'Mr. Bryan Fairfax,'" dictated Peyton, steadying his voice with an
effort, "'Towlston Hall, Fairfax County, Virginia. My dear Fairfax: If
ever these reach you, 'twill be from out a captivity destined,
probably, to end soon in that which all dread, yet to which all must
come; a captivity, nevertheless, sweetened by the divinest presence
that ever bore the name of woman--'"
Elizabeth stopped writing, and looked up, with an astonishment so
all-possessing that it left no room even for indignation.
Peyton, his eyes astray in the preoccupation of composition, did not
notice her look, but, as if moved by enthusiasm, rose on his right leg
and stood, his hands placed on the back of the light chair by the
sofa, the chair's front being turned from him. He went on, with an
affectation of repressed rapture: "''Twere worth even death to be for
a short hour the prisoner of so superb--'"
"Sir, what are you saying?" And Elizabeth dropped the pen, and stood
up, regarding him with freezing resentment.
"My thoughts, madam," said he, humbly, meeting her gaze.
"How dare you jest with me?" said she.
"Jest? Does a man jest in the face of his own death?"
"'Twas a jest to bid me write such lies!"
"Lies? 'Fore gad, the mirror yonder will not call them lies!" He
indicated the oblong glass set in above the mantel. "If there is
lying, 'tis my eyes that lie! 'Tis only what they tell me, that my
lips report."
Keeping his left foot slightly raised from the floor, he pushed the
chair a little towards her, and himself followed it, resting his
weight partly on its back, while he hopped with his right foot. But
Elizabeth stayed him with a gesture of much imperiousness.
"What has such rubbish to do with your confession and your plot?" she
demanded.
"Can you not see?" And he now let some of his real agitation appear,
that it might serve as the lover's perturbation which it would be well
to display.
"My confession is of the instant yielding of my heart to the charms of
a goddess."
In those days lovers, real or pretended, still talked of goddesses,
flames, darts, and such.
"Who desired your heart to yield to anything?" was Miss Elizabeth's
sharply spoken reply.
"Beauty _commanded_ it, madam!" said he, bowing low over his
chair-back.
"So, then, there was no plot?" Her eyes flashed with indignation.
"A plot, yes!" He glanced sidewise at the clock, and drew self-reliance
from the very situation, which began to intoxicate him. "_My_ plot, to
attract you hither, by that message, that I might console myself for
my fate by the joy of seeing you!"
"The joy of seeing me!" She spoke with incredulity and contempt.
A glad boldness had come over Peyton. He felt himself masterful, as
one feels who is drunk with wine; yet, unlike such a one, he had
command of mind and body.
"Ay, joy," said he, "joy none the less that you are disdainful! Pride
is the attribute of queens, and tenderness is not the only mood in
which a woman may conquer. Heaven! You can so discomfit a man with
your frowns, _what_ might you do with your smile!"
He felt now that he could dissimulate to fool the very devil.
But Elizabeth, though interested as one may be in an oddity, seemed
not otherwise impressed. 'Twas something, however, that she remained
in the room to answer:
"I do not know what I have done with my frown, nor what I might do
with my smile, but, whatever it be, _you_ are not like to see!"
"That I know," said Peyton, and added, at a reckless venture, "and am
consoled, when I consider that no other man has seen!"
"How do you know that?"
"Your smile is not for any common man, and I'll wager your heart is as
whole as your beauty."
She looked at him for a moment of silence, then:
"I cannot imagine why you say all this," quoth she, in real
puzzlement.
"'Tis an easing to the tortured heart to reveal itself," he answered,
"as one would fain uncover an inner wound, though there be no hope of
cure. I can go the calmer to my doom for having at least given outlet
in words to the flame kindled in a moment within me. My doom! Yes, and
none so unwelcome, either, if by it I escape a lifetime of vain
longing!"
"Your talk is incomprehensible, sir. If you are serious, it must be
that your head is turned."
"My head is turned, doubtless, but by you!"
He was now assuming the low, quick, nervous utterance that is often
associated with intense repressed feeling; and his words were
accompanied by his best possible counterfeit of the burning, piercing,
distraught gaze of passion. Though he acted a part, it was not with
the cold-blooded art of a mimic who simulates by rule; it was with the
animation due to imagining himself actually swayed by the feeling he
would feign. While he _knew_ his emotion to be fictitious, he _felt_
it as if it were real, and his consequent actions were the same as if
real it were.
"I'm sure the act was not intentional with me," said Elizabeth. "I'd
best leave you, lest you grow worse." And she moved towards the door.
Peyton had rapid work of it, pushing the chair before him and hopping
after it, so as to intercept her. In the excitement of the moment, he
lost his mastery of himself.
"But you must not go! Hear me, I beg! Good God, only a half hour
left!"
"A half hour?" repeated Elizabeth, inquiringly.
"I mean," said Peyton, recovering his wits, "a half hour till the
troops may be here for me,--only a half hour until I must leave your
house forever! Do not let me be deprived of the sight of you for those
last minutes! Tis so short a time, yet 'tis all my life!"
"The man is mad, I think!" She spoke as if to herself.
"Mad!" he echoed. "Yes, some do call it a madness--the love that's
born of a glance, and lasts till death!"
"Love!" said she. "'Tis impossible you should come to love me, in so
short a time."
"'Tis born of a glance, I tell you!" he cried. "What is it, if not
love, that makes me forget my coming death, see only you, hear only
you, think of only you? Why do I not spend this time, this last hour,
in pleading for my life, in begging you to hide me and send the troops
away without me when they come? They would take your word, and you are
a woman, and women are moved by pleading. Why, then, do I not, in the
brief time I have left, beg for my life? Because my passion blinds me
to all else, because I would use every moment in pouring out my heart
to you, because my feelings must have outlet in words, because it is
more than life or death to me that you should know I love you!--God,
how fast that clock goes!"
She had stood in wonderment, under the spell of his vehemence. Now, as
he leaned towards her, over the chair-back, his breath coming rapidly,
his eyes luminous, she seemed for a moment abashed, softened, subdued.
But she put to flight his momentary hope by starting again for the
doorway, with a low-spoken, "I must go!"
But he thrust his chair in her way.
"Nay, don't go!" he said. "You may hear my avowal with propriety. My
people are as good as any in Virginia."
She stood regarding him with a look of scrutiny.
"You are a rebel against your king," she said, but not harshly.
"Is not the King soon to have his revenge? And is that a reason why
you should leave me now?"
"You deserted your first colors."
"'Twas in extraordinary circumstances, and in the right cause. And is
that a reason why you--"
"You took my horse."
"But paid you for it, and you have your horse again. Abuse me, madam,
but do not go from me. Call me rebel, deserter, robber, what you will,
but remain with me. Denunciation from your lips is sweeter than praise
from others. Chastise me, strike me, trample on me,--I shall worship
you none the less!"
He inclined his body further forward over the chair-back, and thus was
very near her. She put out her hand to repel him. He moved back with
humility, but took her hand and kissed it, with an appearance of
passion qualified by reverence.
"How dare you touch my hand?" And she quickly drew it from him.
"A poor wretch who loves, and is soon to die, dares much!"
"You seem resigned to dying," she remarked.
"Have I not said 'tis better than living with a hopeless passion?"
"And yet death," she said, "_that_ kind of a death is not pleasant."
"I'm not afraid of it," said he, wondering how the minutes were
running, yet not daring the loss of time to look. "'Tis not in
consigning me to the enemy that you have your revenge on me, 'tis in
making me vainly love you. I receive the greater hurt from your
beauty, not from the British provost-marshal!"
"Bravado!" said she.
"Time will show," said he.
"If you are so strong a man that you can endure the one hurt so
calmly, why are you not a little stronger,--strong enough to ignore
this other hurt,--this _love_-wound, as you call it?"
She blushed furiously, and much against her will, at the mere word,
"love-wound." Her mood now seemed to be one of pretended incredulity,
and yet of a vague unwillingness that the man should be so weak to her
charms.
Peyton conceived that a change of play might aid his game.
"By heaven," he cried, "I will! 'Tis a weakness, as you imply! I shall
close my heart, vanquish my feelings! No word more of love! I defy
your beauty, your proud face, your splendid eyes! I shall die free of
your image. Go where you will, madam. It sha'n't be a puling lover
that the British hang. A snap o' the finger for your all-conquering
charms!--why do you not leave me?"
"What! Do you order me from my own parlor?"
Hope accelerated Peyton's heart at this, but he feigned indifference.
"Go or stay," he said; "'tis nothing to me!"
"You rebel, you speak like that to me!"
Her speech rang with genuine anger, and of a little hotter quality
than he had thought to raise.
He was about to answer, when suddenly a sound, far and faint, reached
his ear. "Isn't that--do you hear--" he said, huskily, and turning
cold.
"Horses?" said Elizabeth. "Yes,--on the road from King's Bridge."
She went to one of the eastern windows, opened the sash, unfastened
the shutter without, and let in a rush of cold air. Then she closed
the sash and looked out through the small panes.
"Is it--" said Peyton, quietly, with as much steadiness as he could
command, "I wonder--can it be--"
"A troop of rangers!" said Elizabeth. "And Sam is with them!" She
closed the shutter, and turned to Peyton, her face still glowing with
the resentment elicited by the cavalier attitude he had assumed before
this alarm. "Go or stay, 'tis nothing to you, you said! The last
insult, Sir Rebel Captain!" and she made for the door.
"You mustn't go! You mustn't go!" was the only speech he could summon.
But she was already passing him. He snatched a kerchief from her
dress, and dropped it on the floor. She did not observe his act.
"Pardon me!" he cried. "Your kerchief! You've dropped it, don't you
see?"
She turned and saw it on the floor.
Peyton quickly stepped from behind his chair, stooped and picked up
the kerchief, kissed it, and handed it to her, then staggered to his
former support, showing in his face and by a groan the pain caused him
by his movement.
"Your wound!" said Elizabeth, standing still. "You shouldn't have
stooped!"
Harry's pain and consequent weakness, added to his consciousness of
the rapidly approaching enemy, who had already turned in from the main
road, gave him a pallor that would have claimed the attention of a
less compassionate woman even than Elizabeth.
"No matter!" he murmured, feebly. Then, as if about to swoon, he threw
his head back, lost his hold of the chair-back, and staggered to the
spinet. Leaning on this, he gasped, "My cravat! I feel as if I were
choking!" and made some futile effort with his hand to unfasten the
neck-cloth. "Would you," he panted, "may I beg--loosen it?"
She went to his side, undid the cravat, and otherwise relieved his
neck of its confinement. She could not but meet his gaze as she did
so. It was a gaze of eager, adoring eyes. He feebly smiled his
thanks, and spoke, between short breaths, the words, "The hour--I
love you--yes, the troops!"
The horses were clattering up towards the house.
A voice of command was heard through the window.
"Halt! Guard the windows and the rear, you four!"
"Colden's voice!" exclaimed Peyton.
Elizabeth was somewhat startled. "He must have been still at King's
Bridge when Sam arrived," said she.
"He must be a close friend," said Peyton.
"He is my affianced husband."
Peyton staggered, as if shot, around the projection of the spinet, and
came to a rest in the small space between that projection and the west
wall of the room. "Her affianced! Then it's all up with me!"
The outside door was heard to open. Elizabeth turned her back towards
the spinet and Peyton, and faced the door to the hall. That, too, was
flung wide. Peyton dropped on his right knee, behind the spinet,
leaning forward and stretching his wounded leg out behind him, just as
Colden rushed in at the head of six of the Queen's Rangers, who were
armed with short muskets. The major stopped short at sight of
Elizabeth, and the rangers stood behind him, just within the door.
Peyton was hidden by the spinet.
"Where is the rebel, Elizabeth?" cried Colden.
She met his gaze straight, and spoke calmly, with a barely perceptible
tremor.
"You are too late, Jack! The prisoner has eluded me. Look for him on
the road to Tarrytown,--and be quick about it, for God's sake!"
Colden drew back aghast, thrown from the height of triumph to the
depth of chagrin. Peyton, fearing lest the one joyous bound of his
heart might have betrayed him, remained perfectly still, knowing that
if any movement should take Elizabeth from between the soldiers and
the projection of the spinet, or if the soldiers should enter further
and chance to look under the spinet, he would be seen.
"Don't you understand?" said Elizabeth, assuming one impatience to
conceal another. "There's no time to lose! 'Twas the rebel Peyton!
He's afoot!"
"The road to Tarrytown, you say?" replied Colden, gathering back his
faculties.
"Yes, to Tarrytown! Why do you wait?" Her vehemence of tone sufficed
to cover the growing insupportability of her situation.
"To the road again, men!" Colden ordered. "Till we meet, Elizabeth!"
And he hastened, with the rangers, from the place.
[Illustration: "'YOU ARE TOO LATE, JACK!'"]
Peyton and Elizabeth remained motionless till the sound of the horses
was afar. Then Elizabeth called Williams, who, as she had supposed,
had come into the hall with the rangers. He now entered the parlor.
Elizabeth, whose back was still towards Peyton, who had risen and was
leaning on the spinet, addressed the steward in a low, embarrassed
tone, as if ashamed of the weakness newly come over her.
"Williams, this gentleman will remain in the house till his wound is
healed. His presence is to be a secret in the household. He will
occupy the southwestern chamber." She then turned and spoke, in a
constrained manner, to Peyton, not meeting his look. "It is the room
your General Washington had when he was my father's guest."
With an effort, she raised her eyes to his, but shyly dropped them
again. He bowed his thanks gravely, rather shamefaced at the success
of his deception. A moment later, Elizabeth, with averted glance,
walked quickly from the room.