Mistress Thankful remained at the wall until her lover had disappeared.
Then she turned, a mere lissom shadow in that uncertain light, and
glided under the eaves of the shed, and thence from tree to tree of the
orchard, lingering a moment under each as a trout lingers in the shadow
of the bank in passing a shallow, and so reached the farmhouse and the
kitchen door, where she entered. Thence by a back staircase she slipped
to her own bower, from whose window half an hour before she had taken
the signalling light. This she lit again and placed upon a chest of
drawers; and, taking off her hood and a shapeless sleeveless mantle she
had worn, went to the mirror, and proceeded to re-adjust a high horn
comb that had been somewhat displaced by the captain's arm, and
otherwise after the fashion of her sex to remove all traces of a
previous lover. It may be here observed that a man is very apt to come
from the smallest encounter with his dulcinea distrait, bored, or
shame-faced; to forget that his cravat is awry, or that a long blond
hair is adhering to his button. But as to Mademoiselle--well, looking
at Miss Pussy's sleek paws and spotless face, would you ever know that
she had been at the cream-jug?
Thankful was, I think, satisfied with her appearance. Small doubt but
she had reason for it. And yet her gown was a mere slip of flowered
chintz, gathered at the neck, and falling at an angle of fifteen
degrees to within an inch of a short petticoat of gray flannel. But so
surely is the complete mould of symmetry indicated in the poise or line
of any single member, that looking at the erect carriage of her
graceful brown head, or below to the curves that were lost in her
shapely ankles, or the little feet that hid themselves in the
broad-buckled shoes, you knew that the rest was as genuine and
beautiful.
Mistress Thankful, after a pause, opened the door, and listened. Then
she softly slipped down the back staircase to the front hall. It was
dark; but the door of the "company-room," or parlor, was faintly
indicated by the light that streamed beneath it. She stood still for a
moment hesitatingly, when suddenly a hand grasped her own, and half
led, half dragged her, into the sitting-room opposite. It was dark.
There was a momentary fumbling for the tinder-box and flint, a muttered
oath over one or two impeding articles of furniture, and Thankful
laughed. And then the light was lit; and her father, a gray wrinkled
man of sixty, still holding her hand, stood before her.
"You have been out, mistress!"
"I have," said Thankful.
"And not alone," growled the old man angrily.
"No," said Mistress Thankful, with a smile that began in the corners of
her brown eyes, ran down into the dimpled curves of her mouth, and
finally ended in the sudden revelation of her white teeth,--"no, not
alone."
"With whom?" asked the old man, gradually weakening under her strong,
saucy presence.
"Well, father," said Thankful, taking a seat on a table, and swinging
her little feet somewhat ostentatiously toward him, "I was with Capt.
Allan Brewster of the Connecticut Contingent."
"That man?"
"That man!"
"I forbid you seeing him again."
Thankful gripped the table with a hand on each side of her, to
emphasize the statement, and swinging her feet replied,--
"I shall see him as often as I like, father."
"Thankful Blossom!"
"Abner Blossom!"
"I see you know not," said Mr. Blossom, abandoning the severely
paternal mandatory air for one of confidential disclosure, "I see you
know not his reputation. He is accused of inciting his regiment to
revolt,--of being a traitor to the cause."
"And since when, Abner Blossom, have YOU felt such concern for the
cause? Since you refused to sell supplies to the Continental
commissary, except at double profits? since you told me you were glad I
had not polities like Mistress Ford--"
"Hush!" said the father, motioning to the parlor.
"Hush," echoed Thankful indignantly. "I won't be hushed! Everybody
says 'Hush' to me. The count says 'Hush!' Allan says 'Hush!' You say
'Hush!' I'm a-weary of this hushing. Ah, if there was a man who
didn't say it to me!" and Mistress Thankful lifted her fine eyes to the
ceiling.
"You are unwise, Thankful,--foolish, indiscreet. That is why you
require much monition."
Thankful swung her feet in silence for a few moments, then suddenly
leaped from the table, and, seizing the old man by the lapels of his
coat, fixed her eyes upon him, and said suspiciously. "Why did you
keep me from going in the company-room? Why did you bring me in here?"
Blossom senior was staggered for a moment. "Because, you know, the
count--"
"And you were afraid the count should know I had a sweetheart? Well,
I'll go in and tell him now," she said, marching toward the door.
"Then, why did you not tell him when you slipped out an hour ago? eh,
lass?" queried the old man, grasping her hand. "But 'tis all one,
Thankful: 'twas not for him I stopped you. There is a young spark with
him,--ay, came even as you left, lass,--a likely young gallant; and he
and the count are jabbering away in their own lingo, a kind of Italian,
belike; eh, Thankful?"
"I know not," she said thoughtfully. "Which way came the other?" In
fact, a fear that this young stranger might have witnessed the
captain's embrace began to creep over her.
"From town, my lass."
Thankful turned to her father as if she had been waiting a reply to a
long-asked question: "Well?"
"Were it not well to put on a few furbelows and a tucker?" queried the
old man. "'Tis a gallant young spark; none of your country folk."
"No," said Thankful, with the promptness of a woman who was looking her
best, and knew it. And the old man, looking at her, accepted her
judgment, and without another word led her to the parlor door, and,
opening it, said briefly, "My daughter, Mistress Thankful Blossom."
With the opening of the door came the sound of earnest voices that
instantly ceased upon the appearance of Mistress Thankful. Two
gentlemen lolling before the fire arose instantly, and one came forward
with an air of familiar yet respectful recognition.
"Nay, this is far too great happiness, Mistress Thankful," he said,
with a strongly marked foreign accent, and a still more strongly marked
foreign manner. "I have been in despair, and my friend here, the Baron
Pomposo, likewise."
The slightest trace of a smile, and the swiftest of reproachful
glances, lit up the dark face of the baron as he bowed low in the
introduction. Thankful dropped the courtesy of the period,--i. e., a
duck, with semicircular sweep of the right foot forward. But the right
foot was so pretty, and the grace of the little figure so perfect, that
the baron raised his eyes from the foot to the face in serious
admiration. In the one rapid feminine glance she had given him, she
had seen that he was handsome; in the second, which she could not help
from his protracted silence, she saw that his beauty centred in his
girlish, half fawn-like dark eyes.
"The baron," explained Mr. Blossom, rubbing his hands together as if
through mere friction he was trying to impart a warmth to the reception
which his hard face discountenanced,--"the baron visits us under
discouragement. He comes from far countries. It is the custom of
gentlefolk of--of foreign extraction to wander through strange lands,
commenting upon the habits and doings of the peoples. He will find in
Jersey," continued Mr. Blossom, apparently appealing to Thankful, yet
really evading her contemptuous glance, "a hard-working yeomanry, ever
ready to welcome the stranger, and account to him, penny for penny, for
all his necessary expenditure; for which purpose, in these troublous
times, he will provide for himself gold or other moneys not affected by
these local disturbances."
"He will find, good friend Blossom," said the baron in a rapid, voluble
way, utterly at variance with the soft, quiet gravity of his eyes,
"Beauty, Grace, Accomplishment, and--eh--Santa Maria, what shall I
say?" He turned appealingly to the count.
"Virtue," nodded the count.
"Truly, Birtoo! all in the fair lady of thees countries. Ah, believe
me, honest friend Blossom, there is mooch more in thees than in thoss!"
So much of this speech was addressed to Mistress Thankful, that she had
to show at least one dimple in reply, albeit her brows were slightly
knit, and she had turned upon the speaker her honest, questioning eyes.
"And then the General Washington has been kind enough to offer his
protection," added the count.
"Any fool--any one," supplemented Thankful hastily, with a slight
blush--"may have the general's pass, ay, and his good word. But what
of Mistress Prudence Bookstaver?--she that has a sweetheart in
Knyphausen's brigade, ay,--I warrant a Hessian, but of gentle blood, as
Mistress Prudence has often told me,--and, look you, all her letters
stopped by the general, ay, I warrant, read by my Lady Washington too,
as if 'twere HER fault that her lad was in arms against Congress.
Riddle me that, now!"
"'Tis but prudence, lass," said Blossom, frowning on the girl. "'Tis
that she might disclose some movement of the army, tending to defeat
the enemy."
"And why should she not try to save her lad from capture or ambuscade
such as befell the Hessian commissary with the provisions that you--"
Mr. Blossom, in an ostensible fatherly embrace, managed to pinch
Mistress Thankful sharply. "Hush, lass," he said with simulated
playfulness; "your tongue clacks like the Whippany mill.--My daughter
has small concern--'tis the manner of womenfolk--in politics," he
explained to his guests. "These dangersome days have given her sore
affliction by way of parting comrades of her childhood, and others whom
she has much affected. It has in some sort soured her."
Mr. Blossom would have recalled this speech as soon as it escaped him,
lest it should lead to a revelation from the truthful Mistress Thankful
of her relations with the Continental captain. But to his
astonishment, and, I may add, to my own, she showed nothing of that
disposition she had exhibited a few moments before. On the contrary,
she blushed slightly, and said nothing.
And then the conversation changed,--upon the weather, the hard winter,
the prospects of the Cause, a criticism upon the commander-in-chief's
management of affairs, the attitude of Congress, etc., between Mr.
Blossom and the count; characterized, I hardly need say, by that
positiveness of opinion that distinguishes the unprofessional. In
another part of the room, it so chanced that Mistress Thankful and the
baron were talking about themselves; the assembly balls; who was the
prettiest woman in Morristown; and whether Gen. Washington's attentions
to Mistress Pyne were only perfunctory gallantry, or what; and if Lady
Washington's hair was really gray; and if that young aide-de-camp,
Major Van Zandt were really in love with Lady or whether his attentions
were only the zeal of a subaltern,--in the midst of which a sudden gust
of wind shook the house; and Mr. Blossom, going to the front door, came
back with the announcement that it was snowing heavily.
And indeed, within that past hour, to their astonished eyes the whole
face of nature had changed. The moon was gone, the sky hidden in a
blinding, whirling swarm of stinging flakes. The wind, bitter and
strong, had already fashioned white feathery drifts upon the threshold,
over the painted benches on the porch, and against the door-posts.
Mistress Thankful and the baron had walked to the rear door--the baron
with a slight tropical shudder--to view this meteorological change. As
Mistress Thankful looked over the snowy landscape, it seemed to her
that all record of her past experience had been effaced: her very
footprints of an hour before were lost; the gray wall on which she
leaned was white and spotless now; even the familiar farm-shed looked
dim and strange and ghostly. Had she been there? had she seen the
captain? was it all a fancy? She scarcely knew.
A sudden gust of wind closed the door behind them with a crash, and
sent Mistress Thankful, with a slight feminine scream, forward into the
outer darkness. But the baron caught her by the waist, and saved her
from Heaven knows what imaginable disaster; and the scene ended in a
half-hysterical laugh. But the wind then set upon them both with a
malevolent fury; and the baron was, I presume, obliged to draw her
closer to his side.
They were alone, save for the presence of those mischievous
confederates, Nature and Opportunity. In the half-obscurity of the
storm she could not help turning her mischievous eyes on his. But she
was perhaps surprised to find them luminous, soft, and, as it seemed to
her at that moment, grave beyond the occasion. An embarrassment
utterly new and singular seized upon her; and when, as she half feared
yet half expected, he bent down and pressed his lips to hers, she was
for a moment powerless. But in the next instant she boxed his ears
sharply, and vanished in the darkness. When Mr. Blossom opened the door
to the baron he was surprised to find that gentleman alone, and still
more surprised to find, when they re-entered the house, to see Mistress
Thankful enter at the same moment, demurely, from the front door.
When Mr. Blossom knocked at his daughter's door the next morning it
opened upon her completely dressed, but withal somewhat pale, and, if
the truth must be told, a little surly.
"And you were stirring so early, Thankful," he said: "'twould have been
but decent to have bidden God-speed to the guests, especially the
baron, who seemed much concerned at your absence."
Miss Thankful blushed slightly, but answered with savage celerity, "And
since when is it necessary that I should dance attendance upon every
foreign jack-in-the-box that may lie at the house?"
"He has shown great courtesy to you, mistress, and is a gentleman."
"Courtesy, indeed!" said Mistress Thankful.
"He has not presumed?" said Mr. Blossom suddenly, bringing his cold
gray eyes to bear upon his daughter's.
"No, no," said Thankful hurriedly, flaming a bright scarlet;
"but--nothing. But what have you there? a letter?"
"Ay,--from the captain, I warrant," said Mr. Blossom, handing her a
three-cornered bit of paper: "'twas left here by a camp-follower.
Thankful," he continued, with a meaning glance, "you will heed my
counsel in season. The captain is not meet for such as you."
Thankful suddenly grew pale and contemptuous again as she snatched the
letter from his hand. When his retiring footsteps were lost on the
stairs she regained her color, and opened the letter. It was slovenly
written, grievously misspelled, and read as follows:--
"SWEETHEART: A tyranous Act, begotten in Envy and Jealousie, keeps me
here a prisoner. Last night I was Basely arrested by Servile Hands for
that Freedom of Thought and Expression for which I have already
Sacrifized so much--aye all that Man hath but Love and Honour. But the
End is Near. When for the Maintenance of Power, the Liberties of the
Peoples are subdued by Martial Supremacy and the Dictates of Ambition
the State is Lost. I lie in Vile Bondage here in Morristown under
charge of Disrespeck--me that a twelvemonth past left a home and
Respectable Connexions to serve my Country. Believe me still your own
Love, albeit in the Power of Tyrants and condemned it may be to the
scaffold.
"The Messenger is Trustworthy and will speed safely to me such as you
may deliver unto him. The Provender sanktified by your Hands and made
precious by yr. Love was wrested from me by Servil Hands and the Eggs,
Sweetheart, were somewhat Addled. The Bacon is, methinks by this time
on the Table of the Comr-in-Chief. Such is Tyranny and Ambition.
Sweetheart, farewell, for the present.