The next day we went to our farm in Merion. My father said no word of the Meeting, nor did I. The summer of ‘73 went on. I rode in to my work daily, sometimes with my father, who talked almost altogether of his cattle or of his ventures, never of the lowering political horizon. He had excused himself from being a consignee of the tea, on the score of his voyage, which was now intended for September.
My aunt lived in summer on the farther slope of Chestnut Hill, where, when the road was in order, came her friends for a night, and the usual card-play. When of a Saturday I was set free, I delighted to ride over and spend Sunday with her, my way being across country to one of the fords on the Schuylkill, or out from town by the Ridge or the Germantown highroad. The ride was long, but, with my saddle-bags and Lucy, a new mare my aunt had raised and given me, and clad in overalls, which we called tongs, I cared little for the mud, and often enough stopped to assist a chaise out of the deep holes, which made the roads dangerous for vehicles.
Late one day in August, I set out with my friend Jack to spend a Sunday with my Aunt Gainor. Jack Warder was no w a prime favourite, and highly approved. We rode up Front street, and crossed the bridge where Mulberry street passed under it, and is therefore to this day called Arch street, although few know why. The gay coats of officers were plentiful, farmers in their smocks were driving in with their vegetables, and to the right was the river, with here and there a ship, and, beyond, the windmill on the island. We talked of the times, of books, of my father’s voyage, and of my future stay with my aunt.
Although Jack’s father was a Quaker, he was too discreet a business man not to approve of Jack’s visits to my aunt, and too worldly not to wish for his son a society to which he was not born; so Mrs. Ferguson and Mrs. Galloway made much of Jack, and he was welcome, like myself, at Cliveden, where the Chews had their summer home.
The Tory ladies laughed at his way of blushing like a girl, and, to Jack’s dismay, openly envied his pink-and-white skin and fair locks. They treated him as if he were younger than I, although, as it chanced, we were born on the same day of the same year; and yet he liked it all—the gay women, the coquettish Tory maids, even the “genteel” Quaker dames, such as Mrs. Sarah Logan or Mrs. Morris, and the pretty girls of the other side, like Sarah Lukens and the Misses Willing, with their family gift of beauty. These and more came and went at my aunt’s, with men of all parties, and the grave Drs. Rush and Parke, and a changing group of English officers.
In the little old house at Belmont, the Rev. Richard Peters was glad to sit at cards with the Tory ladies, whose cause was not his, and still less that of Richard, his nephew. At times, as was the custom, sleighing parties in winter or riding-parties in summer used to meet at Cliveden or Springetsbury, or at a farm-house where John Penn dwelt while engaged in building the great house of Lansdowne, looking over trees to the quiet Schuylkill.
We rode out gaily this August afternoon, along the Germantown road, admiring the fine farms, and the forests still left among the cultivated lands. Near Fisher’s Lane we saw some two or three people in the road, and, drawing near, dismounted. A black man, who lay on the ground, groaning with a cut head, and just coming to himself, I saw to be my aunt’s coachman Caesar. Beside him, held by a farmer, was a horse with a pillion and saddle, all muddy enough from a fall. Near by stood a slight young woman in a saveguard petticoat and a sad-coloured, short camlet cloak.
“It is Miss Darthea Peniston,” said Jack.
“Miss Peniston,” I said, dismounting, “what has happened?”
She told me quietly, that, riding pillion to stay with my aunt, the horse had fallen and hurt Caesar, not badly, she thought. She had alighted on her feet, but what should she do? After some discussion, and the black being better, we settled to leave him, and I proposed that Jack, the lighter weight, should ride my Aunt Gainor’s horse, with Miss Peniston on the pillion behind him. Upon this Jack got red, at the idea, I suppose, of Miss Darthea’s contemplating the back of his head for four miles. The young woman looked on with shy amusement.
At this moment Caesar, a much pampered person, who alone of all her house dared give my aunt advice, declared he must have a doctor. Jack, much relieved, said it was inhuman to leave him in this case, and put an end to our discussion by riding away to fetch old Dr. de Benneville.
Miss Darthea laughed, said it was a sad thing a woman should have no choice, and pretended to be in misery as to my unfortunate lot. I said nothing, but, after looking Caesar’s horse over, I gave my saddle to be kept at the farmer’s, and put the coachman’s saddle on my mare Lucy, with the pillion behind made fast to the saddle-straps arranged for this use. Then I looked well to the girths, and mounted to see how Lucy would like it. She liked it not at all, and was presently all over the road and up against the fence of the old graveyard I was to see again in other and wilder days.
I saw the little lady in the road watching me with a smiling face, by no means ill pleased with the spectacle. At last I cried, “Wait!” and putting Miss Lucy down the road for a mile at a run, soon brought her back quite submissive.
“Art thou afraid?” I said.
“I do not like to be asked if I am afraid. I am very much afraid, but I would die rather than not get on your mare.” So a chair was fetched, Miss Peniston put on her linen riding-mask, and in a moment was seated behind me. For ten minutes I was fully taken up with the feminine creature under me. At last I said:
“Put an arm around my waist. I must let her go. At once!” I added; for the mare was getting to rear a little, and the young woman hesitated. “Do as I tell thee!” I cried sharply, and when I felt her right arm about me, I said, “Hold fast!” and gave the mare her head. A mile sufficed, with the double burden, so to quiet her that she came down to her usual swift and steady walk.
When there was this chance to talk without having every word jolted out in fragments, the young person was silent; and when I remarked, “There is now an opportunity to chat with comfort,” said:
“I was waiting, sir, to hear your excuses; but perhaps Friends do not apologise.”
I thought her saucy, for I had done my best; and for her to think me unmannerly was neither just nor kind.
“If I am of thy friends—”
“Oh, Quakers, I meant. Friends with a large F, Mr. Wynne.”
“It had been no jesting matter if the mare had given thee a hard fall.”
“I should have liked that better than to be ordered to do as your worship thought fit.”
“Then thou shouldst not have obeyed me.”
“But I had to.”
“Yes,” I said. And the talk having fallen into these brevities. Miss Peniston was quiet awhile, no doubt pouting prettily; her face was, of course, hid from me.
After a while she said something about the milestones being near together, and then took to praising Lucy, who, I must say, had behaved as ill as a horse could. I said as much, whereon I was told that mares were jealous animals; which I thought a queer speech, and replied, not knowing well how to reply, that the mare was a good beast, and that it was fair flattery to praise a man’s horse, for what was best in the horse came of the man’s handling.
“But even praise of his watch a man likes,” said she. “He has a fine appetite, and likes to fatten his vanity.”
She was too quick for me in those days, and I never was at any time very smart at this game, having to reflect too long before seeing my way. I said that she was no doubt right, but thus far that I had had thin diet.
Perhaps saying that Lucy was gay and well bred and had good paces was meant to please the rider. This woman, as I found later, was capable of many varieties of social conduct, and was not above flattering for the mere pleasure it gave her to indulge her generosity, and for the joy she had in seeing others happy.
Wondering if what she had said might be true, held me quiet for a while, and busied with her words, I quite forgot the young woman whose breath I felt now and then on my hair, as she sat behind me.
Silence never suited Miss Peniston long in those days, and especially not at this time, she being in a merry mood, such as a little adventure causes. Her moods were, in fact, many and changeful, and, as I was to learn, were too apt to rule even her serious actions for the time; but under it all was the true law of her life, strongly charactered, and abiding like the constitution of a land. It was long before I knew the real woman, since for her, as for the most of us, all early acquaintance was a masquerade, and some have, like this lady, as many vizards as my Aunt Gainor had in her sandalwood box, with her long gloves and her mitts.
The mare being now satisfied to walk comfortably, we were going by the Wister house, when I saw saucy young Sally Wister in the balcony over the stoop, midway of the penthouse. She knew us both, and pretended shame for us, with her hands over her face, laughing merrily. We were friends in afterlife, and if you would know how gay a creature a young Quakeress could be, and how full of mischief, you should see her journal, kept for Deborah Logan, then Miss Norris. It has wonderful gaiety, and, as I read it, fetches back to mind the officers she prettily sketches, and is so sprightly and so full of a life that must have been a joy to itself and to others, that to think of it as gone and over, and of her as dead, seems to me a thing impossible.
It was not thought proper then for a young woman to go on pillion behind a young man, and this Miss Sally well knew. I dare say she set it down for the edification of her young friend.
“The child” (she was rather more than that) “is saucy,” said my lady, who understood well enough what her gestures meant. “I should like to box her ears. You were very silent just now, Mr. Wynne. A penny is what most folks’ thoughts are bid for, but yours may be worth more. I would not stand at a shilling.”
“Then give it to me,” said I. “I assure thee a guinea were too little.”
“What are they?”
“Oh, but the shilling.”
“I promise.”
“I seem to see a little, dark-faced child crying because of a boy in disgrace—”
“Pretty?” she asked demurely.
“No, rather plain.”
“You seem to have too good a memory, sir. Who was she?”
“She is not here to-day.”
“Yes, yes!” she cried. “I have her—oh, somewhere! She comes out on occasions. You may never see her; you may see her to-morrow.”
I was to see her often. “My shilling,” I said.
“That was only a jest, Mr. Wynne. My other girl has stolen it, for remembrance of a lad that was brave and—”
“He was a young fool! My shilling, please.”
“No, no!”
At this I touched the mare with my spur. She, not seeing the joke, pranced about, and Miss Darthea was forced to hold to my waist for a minute.
“The mare is ill broke,” she cried. “Why does she not go along quietly?”
“She hates dishonesty,” said.
“But I have not a penny.”
“Thou shouldst never run in debt if thon art without means. It is worse than gambling, since here thou hast had a consideration for thy money, and I am out of pocket by a valuable thought.”
“I am very bad. I may get prayed over in Meeting, only we do not have the custom at Christ Church.”
I was struck dumb. Of course every one knew of my disaster and what came of it; but that a young girl should taunt me with it, and for no reason, seemed incredible. No one ever spoke of it to me, not even Mistress Ferguson, whose daily food was the saying of things no one else dared to say. I rode on without a word.
At last I heard a voice back of me quite changed—tender, almost tearful. “Will you pardon me, Mr. Wynne? I was wicked, and now I have hurt you who was once so good to me. Your aunt says that I am six girls, not one, and that—Will you please to forgive me?”
“Pray don’t; there is nothing to forgive. I am over-sensitive, I suppose. My friend Mr. Wilson says it is a great thing in life to learn how to forget wisely. I am learning the lesson; but some wounds take long to heal, and this is true of a boy’s folly. Pray say no more.” I put the mare to trotting, and we rode on past Cliveden and Mount Airy, neither speaking for a while.
I wondered, as we rode, at her rashness of talk and her want of consideration; and I reflected, with a certain surprise, at the frequent discovery, of late, on how much older I seemed to be. It was a time which quickly matured the thoughtful, and I was beginning to shake off, in some degree, the life-long shackles of limitation as to conduct, dress, and minor morals, imposed upon me by my home surroundings. In a word, being older than my years, I began to think for myself. Under the influence of Mr. Wetherill I had come, as without him I could not have done, to see how much there was of the beautiful and noble in the creed of Fox and Penn, how much, too, there was in it to cramp enterprise, to limit the innocent joys of life, to render progress impossible, and submission to every base man or government a duty.
I had learned, too, in my aunt’s house, the ways and manners of a larger world, and, if I had yielded to its temptations, I had at least profited by the bitter lesson. I was on the verge of manhood, and had begun to feel as I had never done before the charm of woman; this as yet I hardly knew.
As we breasted the hill, and saw beneath us the great forest-land spread out, with its scattered farms, an exclamation of delight broke from my companion’s lips. It was beautiful then, as it is today, with the far-seen range of hills beyond the river, where lay the Valley Forge I was to know so well, and Whitemarsh, all under the hazy blue of a cool August day, with the northwest wind blowing in my face.
Within there were my aunt and some young women, and my Cousin Arthur, with explanations to be made, after which my young woman hurried off to make her toilet, and I to rid me of my riding-dress.
It was about seven when we assembled out of doors under the trees, where on summer days my Aunt Gainor liked to have supper served. My Cousin Wynne left Mrs. Ferguson and came to meet me. We strolled apart, and he began to ask me questions about the tea cargoes expected soon, but which came not until December. I said my father’s voyage would prevent his acting as consignee, and this seemed to surprise him and make him thoughtful, perhaps because he was aware of my father’s unflinching loyalty. He spoke, too, of Mr. Wilson, appearing—and this was natural enough—to know of my intimacy with the Whig gentleman. I was cautious in my replies, and he learned, I think, but little. It was a pity, he said, that my father would not visit Wyncote. It seemed to me that he dwelt overmuch on this matter, and my aunt, who greatly fancied him, was also of this opinion. I learned long after that he desired to feel entirely assured as to the certainty of this visit not being made. I said now that I wished I had my father’s chance to see our Welsh home, and that I often felt sorry my grandfather had given it up.
“But he did,” said my cousin, “and no great thing, either. Here you are important people. We are petty Welsh squires, in a decaying old house, with no money, and altogether small folk. I should like to change places with you.”
“And yet I regret it,” said I. My Aunt Gainor had filled me full of the pride of race.
I spoke as we approached the group about my aunt, and I saw his face take an expression which struck me. He had a way of half closing his eyes, and letting his jaw drop a little. I saw it often afterward. I suspect now that he was dealing intensely with some problem which puzzled him.
He seemed to me to be entirely unconscious of this singular expression of face, or, as at this time, to be off his guard; for the look did not change, although I was gazing at him with attention. Suddenly I saw come down the green alley, walled with well-trimmed box, a fresh vision of her who had been riding with me so lately. My cousin also became aware of the figure which passed gaily under the trees and smiled at us from afar.
“By George! Hugh,” said Arthur, “who is the sylph? what grace! what grace!”
For a moment I did not reply. She wore a silken brocade with little broidered roses here and there, a bodice of the same, cut square over a girl-like neck, white, and not yet filled up. Her long gloves were held up to the sleeve by tightens of plaited white horsehair, which held a red rosebud in each tie; and her hair was braided with a ribbon, and set high in coils on her head, with but little powder. As she came to meet us she dropped a curtsey, and kissed my aunt’s hand, as was expected of young people.
I have tried since to think what made her so unlike other women. It was not the singular grace which had at once struck my cousin; neither was she beautiful. I long after hated Miss Chew for an hour because she said Darthea Peniston had not one perfect feature. She had, notwithstanding, clear, large brown eyes, and a smile which was so variously eloquent that no man saw it unmoved. This was not all. Her face had some of that charm of mystery which a few women possess—a questioning look; but, above all, there was a strange flavour of feminine attractiveness, more common in those who are older than she, and fuller in bud; rare, I think, in one whose virgin curves have not yet come to maturity. What she was to me that summer evening she was to all men—a creature of many moods, and of great power to express them in face and voice. She was young, she loved admiration, and could be carried off her feet at times by the follies of the gay world.
If you should wonder how, at this distant day, I can recall her dress, I may say that one of my aunt’s lessons was that a man should notice how a woman dressed, and not fail at times to compliment a gown, or a pretty fashion of hair. You may see that I had some queer schoolmasters.
I said to my cousin, “That is Miss Darthea Peniston.”
“Darthea,” he repeated. “She looks the name. Sad if she had been called Deborah, or some of your infernally idiotic Scripture names.”
He was duly presented, and, I must say, made the most of his chances for two days, so that the elder dames were amused at Darthea’s conquest, my cousin having so far shown no marked preference for any one except the elder Miss Franks, who was rich and charming enough to have many men at her feet, despite her Hebrew blood.
In truth he had been hit hard that fatal August afternoon, and he proved a bold and constant wooer. With me it was a more tardy influence which the fair Darthea as surely exerted. I was troubled and disturbed at the constancy of my growing and ardent affection. At first I scarce knew why, but by and by I knew too well; and the more hopeless became the business, the more resolute did I grow; this is my way and nature.
During the remaining weeks of summer I saw much of Miss Peniston, and almost imperceptibly was made at last to feel, for the first time in my life, the mysterious influence of woman. Now and then we rode with my aunt, or went to see the troops reviewed. I thought she liked me, but it was no match for my dark, handsome cousin, in his brilliant uniform.
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