FAREWELL TO GORDON'S
I cannot bear to recall my misery of mind after Mr. Swain's death.
One hope had lightened all the years of my servitude. For, when I
examined my soul, I knew that it was for Dorothy I had laboured. And
every letter that came from Comyn telling me she was still free gave me
new heart for my work. By some mystic communion--I know not what--I felt
that she loved me yet, and despite distance and degree. I would wake of
a morning with the knowledge of it, and be silent for half the day with
some particle of a dream in my head, lingering like the burden of a song
with its train of memories.
So, in the days that followed, I scarce knew myself. For a while
(I shame to write it) I avoided that sweet woman who had made my comfort
her care, whose father had taken me when I was homeless. The good in me
cried out, but the flesh rebelled.
Poor Patty! Her grief for her father was pathetic to see. Weeks passed
in which she scarcely spoke a word. And I remember her as she sat in
church Sundays, the whiteness of her face enhanced by the crape she wore,
and a piteous appeal in her gray eyes. My own agony was nigh beyond
endurance, my will swinging like a pendulum from right to wrong, and back
again. Argue as I might that I had made the barrister no promise,
conscience allowed no difference. I was in despair at the trick fate
had played me; at the decree that of all women I must love her whose
sphere was now so far removed from mine. For Patty had character and
beauty, and every gift which goes to make man's happiness and to kindle
his affections.
Her sorrow left her more womanly than ever. And after the first sharp
sting of it was deadened, I noticed a marked reserve in her intercourse
with me. I knew then that she must have strong suspicions of her
father's request. Speak I could not soon after the sad event, but I
strove hard that she should see no change in my conduct.
Before Christmas we went to the Eastern Shore. In Annapolis fife and
drum had taken the place of fiddle and clarion; militia companies were
drilling in the empty streets; despatches were arriving daily from the
North; and grave gentlemen were hurrying to meetings. But if the war was
to come, I must settle what was to be done at Gordon's Pride with all
possible speed. It was only a few days after our going there, that I
rode into Oxford with a black cockade in my hat Patty had made me, and
the army sword Captain Jack had given Captain Daniel at my side. For I
had been elected a lieutenant in the Oxford company, of which Percy
Singleton was captain.
So passed that winter, the darkest of my life. One soft spring day, when
the birds were twittering amid new-born leaves, and the hyacinths and
tulips in Patty's garden were coming to their glory, Master Tom rode
leisurely down the drive at Gordon's Pride. That was a Saturday, the
29th of April, 1775. The news which had flown southward, night and day
alike, was in no hurry to run off his tongue; he had been lolling on the
porch for half an hour before he told us of the bloodshed between the
minute-men of Massachusetts and the British regulars, of the rout of
Percy's panting redcoats from Concord to Boston. Tom added, with the
brutal nonchalance which characterized his dealings with his mother and
sister, that he was on his way to Philadelphia to join a company.
The poor invalid was carried up the stairs in a faint by Banks and
Romney. Patty, with pale face and lips compressed, ran to fetch the
hartshorn. But Master Tom remained undisturbed.
"I suppose you are going, Richard," he remarked affably. For he treated
me with more consideration than his family. "We shall ride together,"
said he.
"We ride different ways, and to different destinations," I replied dryly.
"I go to serve my country, and you to fight against it."
"I think the King is right," he answered sullenly.
"Oh, I beg your pardon," I remarked, and rose. "Then you have studied
the question since last I saw you."
"No, by G-d!" he cried, "and I never will. I do not want to know your
d--d principles--or grievances, or whatever they are. We were living an
easy life, in the plenty of money, and nothing to complain of. You take
it all away, with your cursed cant--"
I left him railing and swearing. And that was the last I saw of Tom
Swain. When I returned from a final survey of the plantation; and a talk
with Percy Singleton, he had ridden North again.
I found Patty alone in the parlour. Her work (one of my own stockings
she was darning) lay idle in her lap, and in her eyes were the unshed
tears which are the greatest suffering of women. I sat down beside her
and called her name. She did not seem to hear me.
"Patty!"
She started. And my courage ebbed.
"Are you going to the war--to leave us, Richard?" she faltered.
"I fear there is no choice, Patty," I answered, striving hard to keep my
own voice steady. "But you will be well looked after. Ivie Rawlinson
is to be trusted, and Mr. Bordley has promised to keep an eye upon you."
She took up the darning mechanically.
"I shall not speak a word to keep you, Richard. He would have wished
it," she said softly. "And every strong arm in the colonies will be
needed. We shall think of you, and pray for you daily."
I cast about for a cheerful reply.
"I think when they discover how determined we are, they will revoke their
measures in a hurry. Before you know it, Patty, I shall be back again
making the rounds in my broad rim, and reading to you out of Captain
Cook."
It was a pitiful attempt. She shook her head sadly. The tears were come
now, and she was smiling through them. The sorrow of that smile!
"I have something to say to you before I go, Patty," I said. The words
stuck. I knew that there must be no pretence in that speech. It must be
true as my life after, the consequence of it. "I have something to ask
you, and I do not speak without your father's consent. Patty, if I
return, will you be my wife?"
The stocking slipped unheeded to the floor. For a moment she sat
transfixed, save for the tumultuous swelling of her breast. Then she
turned and gazed earnestly into my face, and the honesty of her eyes
smote me. For the first time I could not meet them honestly with my own.
"Richard, do you love me?" she asked.
I bowed my head. I could not answer that. And for a while there was no
sound save that of the singing of the frogs in the distant marsh.
Presently I knew that she was standing at my side. I felt her hand laid
upon my shoulder.
"Is--is it Dorothy?" she said gently.
Still I could not answer. Truly, the bitterness of life, as the joy of
it, is distilled in strong drops.
"I knew," she continued, "I have known ever since that autumn morning
when I went to you as you saddled--when I dreaded that you would leave
us. Father asked you to marry me, the day you took Mr. Stewart from the
mob. How could you so have misunderstood me, Richard?"
I looked up in wonder. The sweet cadence in her tone sprang from a
purity not of this earth. They alone who have consecrated their days to
others may utter it. And the light upon her face was of the same source.
It was no will of mine brought me to my feet. But I was not worthy to
touch her.
"I shall make another prayer, beside that for your safety, Richard," she
said.
In the morning she waved me a brave farewell from the block where she had
stood so often as I rode afield, when the dawn was in the sky. The
invalid mother sat in her chair within the door; the servants were
gathered on the lawn, and Ivie Rawlinson and Banks lingered where they
had held my stirrup. That picture is washed with my own tears.
The earth was praising God that Sunday as I rode to Mr. Bordley's. And
as it is sorrow which lifts us nearest to heaven, I felt as if I were in
church.
I arrived at Wye Island in season to dine with the good judge and his
family, and there I made over to his charge the property of Patty and her
mother. The afternoon we spent in sober talk, Mr. Bordley giving me much
sound advice, and writing me several letters of recommendation to
gentlemen in Congress. His conduct was distinguished by even more of
kindness and consideration than he had been wont to show me.
In the evening I walked out alone, skirting the acres of Carvel Hall,
each familiar landmark touching the quick of some memory of other days.
Childhood habit drew me into the path to Wilmot House. I came upon it
just as the sunlight was stretching level across the Chesapeake, and
burning its windows molten red. I had been sitting long on the stone
steps, when the gaunt figure of McAndrews strode toward me out of the
dusk.
"God be gude to us, it is Mr. Richard!" he cried. "I hae na seen ye're
bonny face these muckle years, sir, sync ye cam' back frae ae sight o'
the young mistress." (I had met him in Annapolis then.) "An' will ye be
aff to the wars?"
I told him yes. That I had come for a last look at the old place before
I left.
He sighed. "Ye're vera welcome, sir." Then he added: "Mr. Bordley's
gi'en me a fair notion o' yere management at Gordon's. The judge is
thinking there'll be nane ither lad t' hand a candle to ye."
"And what news do you hear from London?" I asked, cutting him short.
"Ill uncos, sir," he answered, shaking his head with violence. He had
indeed but a sorry tale for my ear, and one to make my heart heavier than
it was. McAndrews opened his mind to me, and seemed the better for it.
How Mr. Marmaduke was living with the establishment they wrote of was
more than the honest Scotchman could imagine. There was a country place
in Sussex now, said he, that was the latest. And drafts were coming in
before the wheat was in the ear; and the plantations of tobacco on the
Western Shore had been idle since the non-exportation, and were mortgaged
to their limit to Mr. Willard. Money was even loaned on the Wilmot House
estate. McAndrews had a shrewd suspicion that neither Mrs. Manners nor
Miss Dorothy knew aught of this state of affairs.
"Mr. Richard," he said earnestly, as he bade me good-by, "I kennt Mr.
Manners's mind when he lea'd here. There was a laird in't, sir, an' a
fortune. An' unless these come soon, I'm thinking I can spae th' en'."
In truth, a much greater fool than McAndrews might have predicted that
end.
On Monday Judge Bordley accompanied me as far as Dingley's tavern, and
showed much emotion at parting.
"You need have no fears for your friends at Gordon's Pride, Richard,"
said he. "And when the General comes back, I shall try to give him a
good account of my stewardship."
The General! That title brought old Stanwix's cobwebbed prophecy into my
head again. Here, surely, was the war which he had foretold, and I ready
to embark in it.
Why not the sea, indeed?