Read the book: «Barbara Ladd», page 11

CHAPTER XXI

After supper, when Barbara came down dressed for riding and calmly told Robert she was ready, Mistress Mehitable gasped, and looked at Glenowen, expecting that he would meet the emergency by making a third. As he seemed unconscious of the need of action, she shot an appealing glance at Doctor Jim and Doctor John in turn. But they only grinned inscrutably. Then she lifted her hands slightly and let them drop into her lap, as if to say, "Bear witness, Heaven, that I am helpless!" and thus she stifled the voice of protest in her bosom. She had given Barbara freedom, and the responsibility that goes with freedom; and she would not take back the gift. But it was one of the notable victories of Mistress Mehitable's career, when she forced herself to sit in smiling acquiescence while Barbara flew full in the face of all convention. Amos, meanwhile, had brought the horses to the door; and when the two young riders were gone, the hoof-beats sounding in slow cadence down the drive, Glenowen said to her, with an understanding smile, "You did right, sweet lady. 'Tis a filly, that, to be ridden without the curb. Give her her head, and you'll have no great trouble!"

"I feel sure you are right, Mr. Glenowen," said Mistress Mehitable, sweetly. "But you may well believe it was a hard lesson for me, a Ladd of Connecticut, to learn. And I fear I have not more than half learned it yet!"

"You can learn anything you have a mind to, Mehitable," said Doctor Jim, with emphasis, "in the time it would take another woman to learn the A, B, C of it!"

Neither Barbara nor Robert spoke till the horses emerged upon the highway. Then Barbara cried:

"Quick! Quick! I want the wind in my face!"

With two miles of good road before them, they set their faces to the night breeze and their horses to the run, and raced madly down the moonlight, their shadows dancing long and black before them. The saddle-leathers creaked a low, exhilarating music, and the galloping swung like a pulse, and the roadside fence and shrubs fled by, and the world was white in the moonlight. And still there was no speech, save a soft word now and then to the rejoicing horses, whose ears turned back for it sympathetically from time to time.

At length they came to rougher ground, and slowed to a gentle canter. Then Robert noticed a narrow wood-road turning off to the right, vaulted over with lofty trees, and mystical with moon-shadows.

"Where does that road go, my lady?" he inquired.

"Where we are going!" answered Barbara, turning into it at a walk. Then, as if she thought the answer too whimsical, she continued, "It will take us back to the village by a longer and more beautiful way!"

"Any longer way would be the more beautiful way!" said Robert.

The reply interested Barbara, and in musing over it she forgot to say anything more.

The wood-road, thick-carpeted with turf and moss, muffled the horses' hoofs, and an enchanted silence sank into the hearts of the young riders. Here and there the woods gave back for a little clearing with a lonely cabin; and the moonlight flooded in; and around the edges of the clearing the thick-leaved branches seemed afloat, bubbles of glass and silver on a sea of dream. Then, again, the fairy-lit glooms, haunted but unterrifying! And Barbara began to think repentantly of her harshness toward Robert. Soon the road dipped sharply, and crossed a wide, shallow brook, upon whose pebbles the horses' hoofs splashed a light music. Here they let the horses drink a mouthful, because Barbara said the waters of that brook were especially sweet. When they emerged on the other side, Barbara discovered she wanted a drink of it herself, so sovereign were the virtues of that water.

"How shall I bring it to you?" asked Robert, instantly dismounting, and casting a hasty glance about him in quest of a birch-tree, from whose bark to make a cup.

"Make me a cup of your hands, of course!" said Barbara. "Give me your reins. I must have the water, at once!"

Robert removed his leather gloves, rinsed his hands in the sliding sand, and then, with mighty painstaking care, got at least two mouthfuls of the crystal uplifted to Barbara's lips. As she sipped, and light as a moth her lips touched his hands, his heart seemed to turn over in his breast, and he could not find voice for a word. Silently he remounted, and in silence they ascended the slope from the brook. His apparent unresponsiveness puzzled Barbara; but an awakening intuition suggested to her that it was perhaps not so uncomplimentary as it might seem; and she was not displeased.

For half an hour they walked their horses thus, Robert sometimes laying a light hand on Black Prince's shoulder or satiny flank, but never daring to touch so much as Barbara's skirt. Then they saw the highway opening ahead of them, a ribbon of moonlit road. Barbara reined up.

"I think my saddle is slipping a little," said she. "I don't believe Amos can have girt it tight enough!"

"Why, I – " began Robert, about to remind her that, like a good horseman, he had himself looked well to the girth before letting her mount. But he cut the words short on his tongue, sprang from his saddle, and busied himself intently with Black Prince's straps. When he raised his head, Barbara smiled down upon him, and reached him her left hand, saying sweetly:

"Thank you, Robert. You are really very nice, you know!"

Whereupon Robert bent abruptly, kissed the instep of the little riding-boot which stuck out from under her skirt, and swung into his saddle.

The action thrilled Barbara somewhat, but at the same time piqued her interest; and the interest dominated.

"Why did you do that, Robert?" she asked, curiously, looking at him with wide, frank eyes. "I didn't mind it a bit, you know! But it's funny, to kiss my old shoe!"

Robert gave a little unsteady laugh.

"It was homage, my lady," said he. "Just my pledge of fealty, before I go. You forget – I have the misfortune to displease you by being a monarchist!"

Barbara was silent a moment. She was sorry he had reminded her of their differences of opinion. But, on the other hand, homage was not unpleasant; and her scorn of kings did not of necessity extend to queens.

"Why do you go?" she asked.

"My grandmother is sending me at a moment's notice, to represent her in a law-scrape which some property of hers – of ours – in New York has suddenly got into. You know that, now that I am through college, I have to get down to work at once in New York, and fit myself to look after our estates. But I didn't dream I should have to go so soon!"

"I am sorry!" said Barbara, simply. "We were having such a pleasant time together!"

"Were we, dear lady?" asked Robert.

"Weren't we?" demanded Barbara.

"I am broken-hearted at going. I dare not tell you how broken-hearted!" replied Robert, gravely. "But until this ride I have been rather unhappy to-day, for you have several times made me feel that you were displeased at my coming!"

Now Barbara hated explanations, and she hated still more to be accused justly. Urging Black Prince to a canter, she retorted:

"I have no patience with you, Robert. I have been an angel to you. Didn't I ride almost half-way home with you, when you were here before? And now, haven't I let you come this perfect ride with me, – when I know Aunt Hitty thought I oughtn't? And you don't deserve that I should even let you talk to me one minute, when you are such a stupid, bigoted Tory."

Robert thought of many things to say in answer to this dashing flank attack; but each answer seemed to carry unknown perils, so he kept a prudent silence. After some time Barbara spoke again, mistaking his silence for contrition.

"Robert," she began, in a voice of thrilling persuasion, "won't you do something I very much want you to do?"

"I can think of no other pleasure to compare with the pleasure of pleasing you, my lady!" he answered, ardently.

"Then, will you not really study, without prejudice, the things that are at the bottom of the trouble between us and King George? You have such a good brain, Robert, I cannot think you will be on the side of a king against your own country, when you have fully informed yourself!"

Robert looked troubled.

"I can honestly promise," said he, "to study the question still more carefully than I have already. But I fear you will still consider me obstinate, even then. If I could imagine myself disloyal to the king, I should not consider myself worthy to profess myself your ever loyal and devoted servant, fair mistress!"

"To serve me, Robert, you must serve your country!"

"And to serve my country, most dear lady, I must serve the king!" persisted Robert.

Barbara set her lips tight together, and galloped on.

"I wish you better wisdom as you grow older!" she said, coldly, after some minutes.

"The best wisdom I may ever hope to attain will be all too little to serve you with, my lady!" answered Robert, half gallantly, yet all in earnest. And Barbara could not but vouchsafe a reluctant smile in acknowledgment of so handsome a compliment. Thereafter there was little more said. They rode through the village, past the lighted inn, up the dim moonlit road to the porch of Westings House. But when Robert, with a sort of bold deference, lifted her from her saddle, holding her, perhaps, just a shade more closely than was requisite, she felt in a forgiving mood. She knew that she liked him, she knew she had been unpleasant to him, she was most sorry he was going away; and what were old kings anyway that friends should be at loggerheads about them? Answering her own thought, she impulsively pulled off her glove, and gave Robert her bare hand.

"We will be friends, won't we, king or no king?"

And the radiance of the smile she lifted to him, as he held her thin little hand in both his own, nearly turned the poor boy's head. He bent over her – and just saved himself, with a gasp, from kissing the ignorantly provocative mouth so rashly upraised. But he recovered his balance, in part, and compensated himself by kissing the hand passionately, – fingers and soft palm, and rosy oval nails, and wrist, – in a fashion that seemed to Barbara very singular. At length she withdrew the hand with a soft laugh, saying, composedly:

"There, don't you think that will do, Robert? You did not kiss Mrs. Sawyer's hand like that, did you?"

"Of course I did!" declared Robert. "There was more of it to kiss, so I kissed it more!"

"Now you are horrid!" she cried, and ran past him into the house.

But when he said good-bye to them all on the porch the next morning, and set forth on his long ride back to Gault House, Robert carried with him in the pocket over his heart what Barbara considered the highest token of her favour, her well-studied, intimately marked, oft-slept-with copy of Sir Philip Sidney's sonnets.

CHAPTER XXII

The life of the individual, within its limits, is apt to present a sort of microcosmic image of the life of the nation. There comes a period of stress, when the germs of change and growth are sown. Then, apparently without reason, time drags. The seasons roll apathetically in their rut, and all is done as it was done last year. But in the deeps the great impulses are maturing, the great forces are gathering. The hour comes that looses them. Then in an instant, it seems almost without warning, the quiet heart is in an insurrection, the people of ploughshares is become a people of swords. With a life, or with a nation, the events of a day may crowd ten volumes, or the annals of ten years leave a page but meanly filled. Significance is all. We live in our great moments. The rest is a making ready.

That blue and yellow morning of sweet winds, when Robert rode away from Second Westings, and Barbara, looking after him, felt three-fourths regretful for his going and one-fourth for her dear copy of Sir Philip Sidney's sonnets, was a morning in the late summer of 1769. He was to have returned the following June. But neither that June nor the next, nor the next following nor the one thereafter, did he return to the quiet villages of Connecticut and the banks of the great river that had given him birth. From year's end to year's end he found himself tied to the desk in his mother's brother's office, the office with the coat of arms over the door, and the diamond windows looking out on Bowling Green. He worked faithfully; but, being of the king's party yet sturdily American, a loyalist yet alive to the grievances of the people, a Tory yet not intolerant of views hostile to his own, an aristocrat, yet unfettered by the traditions of his clique and clan, he had all the social diversion that the gay, extravagant, rich, and foppish little city in the toe of Manhattan Island could afford. Wealthy, well-born, courtly, and kindly, the garlanded snares of the mammas of Manhattan were laid thickly but vainly for his feet. He was squire to all the fair; but not one, unless by some of those thrilling fictions with which maids triumph over their rivals, could claim aught of him that was exclusive or committal. And he knew Sir Philip Sidney's sonnets by heart.

About once in two months, or thereabouts, went a letter to Second Westings, full of coloured comment on the doings of the city, – of remarks sometimes stilted and sometimes illuminating on the latest books from London, – of elaborate compliments that concealed rather than revealed the emotion glowing behind them, – but of the questions of the day, of Penal Acts, Port Bills, Tea Duties, Coercion, and Continental Congresses, no word. Robert had fulfilled to the letter and the spirit Barbara's demand that he study minutely the points at issue between the colonies and the king. He had realised the blindness and folly of the king, he had acknowledged that the colonies were right to resist, by every constitutional means, taxation by a parliament in which they were not represented. But his loyalty to the throne was unshaken by his regret that the king should be unjust. He tried to believe that the counsels of the great Englishmen whom he adored, – Pitt and Burke, the friends of America, – would open the eyes of George III. in time to prevent the cruel arbitrament of war. But – should it be war, – well, his ancestors had bled cheerfully for Charles Stuart when they knew he was in the wrong, and Robert felt that he would maintain, at whatever cost, the tradition of his ancestors. To be loyal to a good king, a king in the right, where was the distinguishing merit of that? But to be loyal to king in the wrong, and at great cost, – that, to Robert, seemed loyalty worth the name.

Meanwhile to Barbara, in her green world of Second Westings, life seemed to have got caught in a drowsy eddy. The months went by in uneventful circuit, for all the echoes of great doings that came up from time to time and stirred the tranquil air. She rode, canoed, read, studied spasmodically, bullied Amos, loved the animals, distilled strange essences, repudiated the needle and the crochet-hook, as of old. As of old, she had wild whims, repentances, indignations, dreams, and ardours born of dreams. But all these things had grown paler, in a way, had lost something of their bite and vividness. It was as if Fate had turned a screw and changed the focus. Moreover, she could no longer, as before, believe each mood eternal and all-important. She had a consciousness that there were other interests lurking in life, and this kept her in an attitude of waiting. But the love between her and Doctor John and Doctor Jim lost nothing in this waiting time, but grew as Barbara grew in stature and self-knowledge; and she lost nothing of her delight in the friendship of Mrs. Debby Blue, to whose cabin she would flee about once a month, when the vagrant blood, growing riotous in her breast, would make her tolerant of no company but that of the shrewd old outlaw dame. As for her aunt, Barbara's love for the blue-eyed little Puritan spinster, born that crucial morning of Mistress Mehitable's unexpected forbearance and seed-cakes, flourished and ripened with not one serious setback. Of course, a complete understanding between two such opposite tempers could not spring up in a day; but Mistress Mehitable was nothing less than heroic in the consistency with which she held herself to her new policy; and Barbara, having been astonished into an incongruous devotion, was ready enough to make sacrifices on the new altar. Whenever the atmosphere began to feel overcharged between them, they would say the nicest things they could think of to each other, and then, with much ingenuity of chance, keep apart for two or three days. In this way new misunderstandings were avoided; till gradually the natural love between them set deep root into their hearts, and grew strong enough to dare such tempestuous flurries of the mood as cannot but blow up once in awhile when two women are living alone together.

But while her own life had seemed to have grown so tranquil that she wondered if things had forgotten to happen, Barbara knew that in the outside world it was different, so different as to make her stillness seem like sleep. In the outside world she knew events were crowding and clamouring upon one another's heels, under a sky of strange portent. She kept herself informed. She wrangled lovingly with Doctor Jim; she argued tactfully, though hopelessly, with Mistress Mehitable; she debated academically with the Reverend Jonathan Sawyer; she ranted joyously with Doctor John, and Squire Gillig, and Lawyer Perley, and old Debby, all four patriots, and the last two frank rebels. For the sake of finding out the drift of Second Westings sentiment, she once in awhile emerged from her prickly exclusiveness to smile upon her fellows of quality, and was surprised to find them mostly patriots in their way, with souls that strove to rise above embroidery and tatting. As for the common people, the workmen and apprentices and their kind, she got at their hearts easily in her impulsive fashion, and found the majority of them slowly heating to rebellion. In Amos, her devoted Amos, however, she unearthed a fiery royalist, ready to out-thunder Doctor Jim himself; so she ceased to do Amos the favour of bullying him, and Amos grew at times too dejected to care much about King George. The results of these observations she conveyed minutely in frequent letters to her Uncle Bob, who was now committed to the so-called 'Continental' side. To Robert Gault, also, in his office looking out on Bowling Green, Barbara would write about once in three months. But in these letters she wrote of the woods and the winds, of what blooms were out in the river-meadows, of what birds were nesting or winging, – and never a word of what was in all men's mouths. She was waiting for Robert to declare himself converted to her views, after digesting the course of study to which she had set him. And she refused to admit the possibility of a clear-headed gentleman, as she knew him to be, being so misguided as to cling to opinions different from her own. To her mind Truth was a crystal of which but one facet could be lighted at a time. One side of a question was apt to present itself to her with such brilliancy that all the other sides were thrown into obscurity together. As for the flamboyant Toryism of Doctor Jim, she regarded it with an invincible indulgence, as one of those things preordained from the first, – a thing which she could not even regret, because without it Doctor Jim, who was in every way adorable, would be so much the less himself. Who cared for an eccentricity or two in a being so big of body and soul as Doctor Jim? But she could not help being glad that Doctor John's eccentricity, to which she would have been equally indulgent in case of need, took a different form from Doctor Jim's. The Toryism of her Aunt Hitty she regarded as a part of the lady's religion, and with that Barbara would never dream of meddling. By an unspoken understanding, she and Mistress Mehitable had agreed to leave each other's sanctuaries unprofaned.

By the time of the "Boston Tea-Party," a little before Christmas in 1773, Second Westings was so established in its stiff-necked, though indolent, Whiggery, that Doctor Jim and Mistress Mehitable sat enthroned, as it were, in the lonely isolation of their Toryism, with Amos proudly humble at their feet. The Reverend Jonathan Sawyer, whose interest in the controversy had been almost wholly academic from the first, and who cultivated on all matters outside his creed a breadth of mind to compensate for his narrowness within it, had judged it right to follow his flock where he could not lead it, and had amused himself by letting Barbara – of whose conquest he was genuinely proud – convert him to her doctrines. He was now a constitutional patriot, a temperate and conservative champion of colonial privilege, as opposed to kingly prerogative. When came the soul-stirring news of how the valiant men of Boston Town had confronted the dread tea-chests in their harbour, and torn them piecemeal, and cast their fragrant contents into the tide, then no soul in Second Westings but Doctor Jim, Mistress Mehitable, and Amos, would drink a drop of tea – except in private. Certain compromising spirits, anxious to be both patriotic and comfortable, had laid in a supply betimes, and so without public scandal could dally in secret with the uninebriating cup. But Barbara despised the alien leaf at all times; and Doctor John preferred hard cider or New England rum; and old Debby had a potent concoction of "yarbs" which made the Chinese visitor insipid; so Mistress Mehitable and Doctor Jim were free to victual their strongholds with nearly all the tea in Second Westings. Over the achievement of the Boston heroes Mistress Mehitable was gently sarcastic and Doctor Jim boisterously derisive; while Doctor John exclaimed, "Tut! Tut! such child's play does no good! Such mummery! Tut! Tut!" and Squire Gillig, ardent "Continental" but cautious merchant, said, "Such wicked waste! There's a lot of good money gone! They should have confiscated the stuff, an' hid it, an' sold it by an' by cheap, along through the back townships!"

But to Barbara it seemed that the act was one shrewdly devised and likely to bring matters to a head. Her reading of it seemed justified a few months later, when the port of Boston was closed, as a punishment for rebellious contumacy, – and the charter of Massachusetts abrogated, – and a military governor, with four English regiments, established in the haughty city by the Charles, – and the capital of the province removed to its ancient rival, Salem.

The news of the billeting of the troops on Boston, and the removal of the capital to Salem, came with a shock to Westings House. It came in a copy of the Connecticut Gazette, delivered at Mistress Mehitable's dinner-table while she and Barbara were entertaining Doctor John and Doctor Jim, Squire Gillig, and the Reverend Jonathan and Mrs. Sawyer. It had been a gay repast, but when Mistress Mehitable, craving indulgence by reason of the times, read out the Boston news, a cloud descended upon the company. Squire Gillig began to say something bitter, forgetful of Mistress Mehitable's sentiments, but was stopped by a level stare from the Reverend Jonathan Sawyer's authoritative eyes. Then Doctor John spoke – no longer droll and jibing, but with the gravity of prescience, and turning by instinct to his brother.

"Jim! Jim!" said he, "this is going to mean war. I see it! I see it! The people will not stand much more, – and more is coming, as sure as my name's John Pigeon. Your precious king's gone mad. He's going to force it on us!"

Doctor Jim shook his great head sorrowfully. "I am sorry for this, John. I think the king is not well advised in this – on my word I do. It is too harsh, too sudden. But the people won't fight. They may riot, and talk, – but they won't fight. We are too strong for you, John. There will be no war. That would be absurd!"

"There will be war!" repeated Doctor John, still looking into his brother's eyes. The two men had forgotten every one else. "There will be war, if not this year, the next. The people will fight, – and that soon!"

"Then the people will be beaten, and that soon, John!" retorted Doctor Jim, firmly, but in a low voice.

"The king's armies will be beaten, Jim! You mark my words! But it is going to be a terrible thing! A horrible and unrighteous thing! There will be dividing of houses, Jim!"

There were several seconds of silence, a heavy, momentous silence, and Barbara held her breath, a strange ache at her throat. Then Doctor Jim brought down his fist upon the table, and cried in his full voice:

"A dividing of houses, maybe, – but not a dividing of hearts, John Pigeon, never a dividing of hearts, eh, what? eh, what?"

He reached out his hand across the table, and Doctor John seized it in a mighty grip. The long years of love and trust between them spoke suddenly in their strong, large faces.

"No, never a dividing of hearts, Jim, in the days that are to come, when our swords go different ways, and we see each other not for a time!"

Then their hands dropped apart, and both laughed uneasily, as they glanced with a shamefaced air about the table.

"Tut! Tut!" said Doctor John. "That precious king of yours bids fair to make life damnably serious, Jim. Send him away from the table at once!"

But the diversion came too late; for Barbara was weeping heedlessly, and Mistress Mehitable, with her white chin quivering, was dabbing her handkerchief to her eyes with an air of vexation at her own weakness; while good Mrs. Sawyer gazed at them both in wide-eyed, uncomprehending wonder.

"If there's a war," sobbed Barbara, "you sha'nt go to it, either of you! We need you, here. And – and – you'd both get killed, I know! You're both so splendid and big and tall, – and you wouldn't – take care of yourselves, and the bullets couldn't miss you!"

At this picture Mistress Mehitable grew pale, where she had been red, and cast a frightened look at Doctor Jim, then at Doctor John, – then back at Doctor Jim.

"Barbara's right, I think," she said, with an air of having weighed the question quite dispassionately. "You should not leave your patients, on any account. There are so many men who can destroy life, so few who can save it. Physicians have no right to go soldiering."

"That's just it, honey!" cried Barbara, flashing radiant eyes through her tears. "Oh, what a wise little Aunt Hitty you are! What would we ever do without you!" And her apprehensions laid themselves obediently to rest.

"Well, well!" cried Doctor Jim. "What are two graceless old dogs like us, that the dear eyes of the fairest of their sex should shed tears on our account? We should go and kick each other up and down the length of Second Westings for the rest of the afternoon, for causing such precious tears, – eh, what, John Pigeon?"

"'Tis the least we can do, Jim!" said Doctor John. "But now I come to think of it, we needn't arrange to go to the war before there's a war to go to, after all."

"And when the war does come, you'll both stay right here, where you belong!" decreed Barbara, holding the question well settled.

"Who knows what may happen?" cried Doctor Jim. "You stiff-necked rebels may experience a change of heart, and then where's your war?"

"Barbara, sweet baggage," said Doctor John, wagging his forefinger at her in the way that even now, at her nineteen years, seemed to her as irresistibly funny as she had thought it when a child, "I cannot let this anxiety oppress your tender young spirit. Set your heart at rest. If there be war, Jim Pigeon may go a-soldiering and get shot as full of holes as a colander, and I'll do my duty by staying at home and looking after his patients. There'll be a chance of some of them getting well, then! I've never yet had a fair chance to save Jim Pigeon's patients. I won't desert a lovely maiden in distress, to seek the bubble reputation at the cannon's mouth!"

"How can you lie so shamelessly, John Pigeon?" demanded Doctor Jim. "I'll lay you a barrel of Madeira you'll be leaning against the butt of a musket before I am!"

"Done!" said Doctor John.

"I think you are both perfectly horrid!" cried Barbara.