On September 1, 1773, and earlier than had been meant, my father set sail for London with my ever dear mother. Many assembled to see the “Fair Trader” leave her moorings. I went with my people as far as Lewes, and on account of weather had much ado to get ashore. The voyage down the Delaware was slow, for from want of proper lights we must needs lay by at night, and if winds were contrary were forced to wait for the ebb.
While I was with them my father spoke much to me of business, but neither blamed my past, nor praised my later care and assiduity in affairs. He was sure the king would have his way, and, I thought, felt sorry to have so readily given up the consigneeship of the teas. I was otherwise minded, and I asked what was to be done in the event of certain troubles such as many feared. He said that Thomas, his old clerk, would decide, and my Aunt Gainor had a power of attorney; as to the troubles I spoke of, he well knew that I meant such idle disturbances of peace as James Wilson and Wetherill were doing their best to bring about.
“Thy Cousin Arthur is better advised,” he said, “and a man of sound judgment. Thou mightst seek worse counsel on occasion of need.”
I was surprised at this, for I should have believed, save as to the king, they could not have had one opinion in common.
Far other were those sweeter talks I had with my mother, as we sat on the deck in a blaze of sunlight. She burned ever a handsome brown, without freckles, and loved to sit out, even in our great heats. She would have me be careful at my aunt’s not to be led into idleness; for the rest I had her honest trust; and her blue eyes, bright with precious tears, declared her love, and hopeful belief. I must not neglect my French—it would keep her in mind; and she went on in that tongue to say what a joy I had been in her life, and how even my follies had let her see how true a gentleman I was. Then, and never before, did she say a thing which left on my mind a fear that life had not brought and kept for her throughout all the happiness which so good and noble a creature deserved.
“There is much of thy father in thee, Hugh. Thou art firm as he is, and fond of thine own way. This is not bad, if thou art thoughtful to see that thy way is a good way. But do not grow hard. And when thou art come to love some good woman, do not make her life difficult.”
“But I love no woman, ma mere,” I cried, “and never shall, as I love thee. It is the whole of my love thou hast, chere, chere maman; thou hast it all.”
“Ah, then I shall know to divide with her, Hugh; and I shall be generous too. If thou hast any little fancies that way, thou must write and tell me. Oh, mon fils, thou wilt write often, and I must know all the news. I do hear that Darthea Peniston is in thy aunt’s house a good deal, and Madam Ferguson, the gossip, would have me believe thou carest for her, and that Arthur Wynne is taken in the same net. I liked her. I did not tell thee that thy Aunt Gainor left her with me for an hour while she went into King street to bargain for a great china god. What a gay, winning creature it is! She must needs tell me all about herself. Why do people so unlock their hearts for me?”
I laughed, and said she had a key called love; and on this she kissed me, and asked did I say such pretty things to other women? Darthea was now to live with her aunt, that stiff Mistress Peniston, who was a fierce Tory. “She will have a fine bargain of the girl. She has twenty ways with her, real or false, and can make music of them all like a mocking-bird. Dost thou like her, Hugh?—I mean Darthea.”
I said, “Yes.”
“And so do I,” she ran on. “I loved her at sight. But if ever thou dost come to love her—and I see signs, oh, I see signs—if ever,—then beware of thy Cousin Wynne. I heard him once say to thy father, ‘If there is only one glass of the Madeira left, I want it, because there is only one.’ And there is only one of a good woman. What another wants that man is sure to want, and I do not like him, Hugh. Thou dost, I think. He has some reason to linger here. Is it this woman? Or would lie spy out the land to know what we mean to do? I am sure he has orders to watch the way things are going, or why should not he have gone with Sir Guy Carleton to Quebec? It is a roundabout way to go through Philadelphia.”
I said I did not know; but her words set me to thinking, and to wondering, too, as I had not done before. Another time she asked me why Arthur talked so as to disgust my father out of all idea of going to see the home of his ancestors. I promised to be careful of my relations with my cousin, whom I liked less and less as time ran on.
At Lewes we parted. Shall I ever forget it? Those great blue eyes above the gunwale, and then a white handkerchief, and then no more. When I could no longer see the ship’s hull I climbed a great sand-dune, and watched even the masts vanish on the far horizon. It was to me a solemn parting. The seas were wide and perilous in those days, the buccaneers not all gone, and the trading ship was small, I thought, to carry a load so precious.
As the sun went down I walked over the dunes, which are of white sand, and forever shifting, so as at one time to threaten with slow burial the little town, and at another to be moving on to the forest. As they changed, old wrecks came into view, and I myself saw sticking out the bones of sailors buried here long ago, or haply cast ashore. A yet stranger thing I beheld, for the strong northwest wind, which blew hard all day and favoured the “Fair Trader,” had so cast about the fine sand that the buried snow of last winter was to be seen, which seemed to me a thing most singular. When I told Jack, he made verses about it, as he did sometimes, but would show them only to me. I forget entirely what he wrote; how a man can make verses and dig rhymes out of his head has always been to me a puzzle.
At the town inn, “The Lucky Fisherman,” I saw, to my surprise, Jack on horseback, just arrived. He said he had a debt to collect for his father. It was no doubt true, for Jack could not tell even the mildest fib and not get rose-red. But he knew how I grieved at this separation from my mother, and, I think, made an occasion to come down and bear me company on my long ride home. I was truly glad to have him. Together we wandered through the great woodlands Mr. Penn had set aside to provide firewood forever for the poor of Lewes.
The next day we sent Tom on ahead with our sacks to Newcastle, where we meant to bait ourselves and our horses. But first we rode down the coast to Rehoboth, and had a noble sea-bath; also above the beach was a bit of a fresh-water lake, most delicious to take the salt off the skin. After this diversion, which as usual dismissed my blue devils, we set out up the coast of the Bay of Delaware, and were able to reach Newcastle that evening, and the day after our own homes.
This ride gave us a fine chance for talk, and we made good use of it.
As we passed between the hedges and below the old Swede church nigh, to Wilmington, Jack fell into talk of Darthea Peniston. Why we had not done so before I knew not then; we were both shy of the subject. I amused myself by insisting that she was but a light-minded young woman with no strong basis of character, and too fond of a red coat. It did amuse me to see how this vexed Jack, who would by no means accept my verdict. We conversed far longer on the stormy quarrels of the colonies and their stepmother England, who seemed to have quite forgot of what blood and breed they were.
Concerning my Cousin Wynne, with whom at first I had been much taken, Jack was not inclined to speak freely. This I foolishly thought was because Arthur laughed at him, and was, as he knew, of some folks’ notion that Jack was a feminine kind of a fellow. That he had the quick insight and the heart of a woman was true, but that was not all of my dear Jack.
My aunt came back to town early in September, and I took up my abode in her town house, where a new life began for me. Letters went and came at long intervals. Our first reached me far on in October.
My mother wrote: “There is great anger here in London because of this matter of the tea. Lord Germaine says we are a tumultuous rabble; thy father has been sent for by Lord North, and I fear has spoken unadvisedly as to things at home. It is not well for a wife to differ with her husband, and this I will not; nevertheless I am not fully of his way of thinking as to these sad troubles; this, however, is not for any eye or ear but thine. Benjamin, Franklin was here to see us last week. He seems to think we might as well, or better, pay for the tea, and this suited thy father; but after thus agreeing they went wide apart, Franklin having somewhat shed his Quaker views. I did fear at times that the talk would be strong.
“When he had gone away, thy father said he never had the Spirit with him, and was ever of what creed did most advantage him, and perhaps underneath of none at all. But this I think not. He hath much of the shrewd wisdom of New England, which I like not greatly; but as to this, I know some who have less of any wisdom, and, after all, I judge not a man so wise, and so much my elder.
“General Gage, lately come hither on a visit, we are told assured the king that no other colony would stand by Massachusetts, and that four regiments could put an end to the matter. I am no politician, but it makes me angry to hear them talk of us as if we were but a nursery of naughty children. It seems we are to pay for the tea, and until we do no ships may enter Boston harbour. Also all crown officers who may commit murder are to be tried in England; and there is more, but I forget.”
This was most of it fresh news to us. Meanwhile Hutchinson, the governor of the rebel State, was assuring Lord North that to resist was against our interest, and we, being “a trading set,” would never go to extremes. “As if,” said Wilson, “nations, like men, had not passions and emotions, as well as day-books and ledgers.”
Meanwhile at home our private affairs were rapidly wound up and put in good condition. My father found it difficult to collect his English debts, and so had to limit his purchases, which we stowed as they came over, declining to sell. As business failed, I was more and more at leisure, and much in the company of my cousin, whom to-day I disliked, and tomorrow thought the most amusing and agreeable of companions. He taught me to shoot ducks at League Island, and chose a good fowling-piece for me.
On Sundays I went to hear my aunt’s friend, the Rev. Mr. White, preach at Christ Church, and would not go to Meeting, despite Samuel Wetherill, whose Society of Free Quakers did not come to life until 1780. Meanwhile by degrees I took to wearing finer garments. Cards I would never touch, nor have I often, to this day.
One morning, long after my parents left, my Aunt Gainor looked me over with care, pleased at the changes in my dress, and that evening she presented me with two fine sets of neck and wrist ruffles, and with paste buckles for knees and shoes. Then she told me that my cousin, the captain, had recommended Pike as a fencing-master, and she wished me to take lessons; “for,” said she, “who knows but you may some day have another quarrel on your hands, and then where will you be?”
I declared that my father would be properly furious; but she laughed, and opened and shut her fan, and said he was three thousand miles away, and that she was my guardian, and responsible for my education. I was by no means loath, and a day later went to see the man with my Cousin Arthur, who asked, as we went, many questions about my mother, and then if my father had left England, or had been to Wyncote.
I had, as he spoke, a letter in my pocket writ in the neat characters I knew so well; our clerk coming from New York had just given it to me, and as I had not as yet read it, liking for this rare pleasure to taste it when alone, I did not mention it to my cousin. I told him I was sure my father would not go to Wales, both because of business, and for other reasons; but I hoped when he came back to get leave to be a year away, and then I should be sure to visit our old nest.
My cousin said, “A year—a year,” musingly, and asked when my parents would return.
I said, “About next October, and by the islands,” meaning the Madeiras.
To this Arthur Wynne returned, in an absent fashion, “Many things may happen in a year.”
I laughed, and said his observation could not be contradicted.
“What observation?” he replied, and then seemed so self-absorbed that I cried out:
“What possesses thee, Cousin Wynne? Thou art sad of late. I can tell thee the women say thou art in love.”
“And if I were, what then?”
This frankness in a man so mature seemed to me odd, when I thought how shy was the growing tenderness my own heart began to hide. His words troubled me. It could only be Darthea Peniston. After a silence, such as was frequent in my cousin, he added, “I fear that blushing friend of yours is fluttering about a certain bright candle. A pity the lad were not warned. You are my cousin, and of course my friend. I may have to go away soon, and I may ask you to do a certain thing for me when I am gone. No man nor lad shall stand in my way, and you must hold your tongue too.”
I was puzzled and embarrassed. I said cautiously, “We shall see.” But as to Jack Warder, I liked not what he said, and for two reasons. I knew that, living next door to Darthea, he was with her almost daily; and here was a new and terrible fear, for who could help but love her? Nor could I hear with patience Jack so contemptuously put aside as a child.
“Cousin Arthur,” I said, “thou art mistaken in Warder. There is no more resolute or courageous man. Jack’s shy ways and soft fashions make him seem like a timid girl, but I would advise no one to count on this.” I went on, hesitating, “He is an older friend than thou, and—holloa, Jack!” for here was the dear fellow himself, smiling and blushing; and where had the captain been of late? and that awkward left hand was taken, and Jack would come with us and see us play with the small sword, and would like to go after the ducks to-morrow. He seemed happy and pleased to meet us.
Pike was a little man who had a room among the shops on Second street. He wore, as I had often seen, a laced cocked hat, and was clad in a red coat, such as none wore except Creoles from the French settlements, or gentlemen from the Carolinas. He had the straight figure and aggressive look all men carry who teach the sword, and a set belief that no man could teach him anything—a small game-cock of a fellow, who had lost one eye by an unlucky thrust of a foil.
I will let Jack’s journal, not writ till long after, tell the story for a while. He saw more than I at the time, even if he understood it all as little.
“I saw Hugh strip,” he writes, “and was amused to see Pike feel his muscles and exclaim at his depth of chest. Then he showed him how to wear the wire mask, while the captain and I sat by and looked on.
“Hugh was awkward, but he had a wrist of steel, and when once he had caught the ideas of Pike, who talked all the time in a squeaky voice, his guard was firm. Pike praised him, and said he would learn soon. The thing so attracted me that I was fain to know how it felt to hold a foil; and saying as much, the captain, who fenced here daily, said: ‘It is my breathing-time of day, as Prince Hamlet says. By George! you should see Mr. Garrick in that fencing scene! I will give Mr. Warder a lesson. I have rather a fancy for giving young men lessons.’
“In a minute I saw my foil fly six feet away with such, a wrench of the wrist as made my arm tingle.
“‘Hold the foil lightly. Not so stiff.’ said Pike, and we began again. Of course I was as a child before this man, and again and again he planted a button where he pleased, and seemed, I thought, to lunge more fiercely than is decent, for I was dotted with blue bruises that evening.
“At last I gave up, and the captain and Pike took the foils, while we sat and watched them. He was more than a match for Pike, and at last crying, ‘Take care! here is a botte you do not know,’ caught him fair in the left chest.
“‘By George! Mr. Wynne, that is a pretty piece of play! I remember now Major Montresor tried to show it to me. He said it was that way you killed Lord Charles Trevor.’
“I was shocked to know he had killed a man, and Hugh looked up with his big mother-eyes, while the captain said coolly:
“‘Yes; a sad business, and about a woman, of course. It is dreadful to have that kind of a disposition, boys, that makes you dangerous to some one who wants what you want. He was very young too. A pity! a pity!’
“Hugh and I said nothing; but I had the odd notion that he was threatening us. One gets these ideas vaguely in youth, and sometimes after-events justify them. However, the fancy soon took me to fence with Hugh in his room, for I dared not risk asking my father’s leave. As Hugh got his lessons both from Pike and the captain, and became very expert, I got on pretty nearly as fast as he.
“At times we practised in our shirt-sleeves in the garden at Miss Wynne’s, or fenced with Graydon, who was later the most expert small sword we had in the army. Hugh soon became nearly as skilful, but I was never as clever at it.”
One day we were busy, as Jack has described, when who should come out into the garden but Mistress Wynne and Darthea, and behind them the captain. We dropped our points, but Miss Peniston cried out, “Go on! go on!” and, laughing, we fell to again.
Presently I, a bit distracted, for I was facing Darthea’s eyes, felt Jack’s foil full on my chest. Darthea clapped her hands, and, running forward, would pin a bunch of red ribbons she took from her shoulder on Jack’s sleeve. Jack fell back, as red as the ribbons, and my aunt cried out, “Darthea, you are too forward!”
The young woman flushed, and cast down the bow, and as Arthur Wynne bent to pick it up set her foot on it. I saw the captain rise, and stand with the half-shut eyes and the little drop of the jaw I have already mentioned. My aunt, who liked the girl well, went after her at once as she left us in a pet to return to the house. I saw my aunt put a hand on her shoulder, and then the captain, looking vexed, followed after. An hour later I went to look for the ribbon. It was gone, and for years I knew not where, till, in a little box in Jack’s desk, I came upon it neatly tied up.
Young as I was, I began to see that here were Captain Wynne, and possibly my friend, in the toils of a girl,—she was but seventeen,—and I, alas! no better off; but of this I breathed not a word to any. Jack hung about her and fell back when any less shy man wanted his place. I felt that he was little likely to have his way, and that neither he nor I had much chance in such a game against a man like my cousin. He had played with hearts before, and the maid listened like Desdemona to this dark-browed soldier when he talked of courts and kings, and faraway Eastern battles, and the splendour of the Orient. My aunt, whom nothing escaped, looked on much amused. Perhaps she did not take as serious the love-affairs of lads like Jack and me. We were like enough to have a dozen before we were really captured. That I was becoming at twenty-one more thoughtful and resolute than far older people, she did not see, and she was sometimes vexed at my sober ways. I was at times gay enough, but at others she would reproach me with not taking more pains to please her guests. Society, she said, had duties as well as pleasures. My friend Jack no one fully understood in those days, nor knew the sweet manhood and the unselfishness that lay beneath his girl-like exterior.
One day, late in November, my aunt and I were, for a wonder, alone, when she dropped the cards with which she was playing, and said to me: “Hugh, there is something serious between that mischievous kitten and your cousin. They are much talked of. If you have a boy-fancy that way, get rid of it. I don’t see through the man. He has been telling her about the fine house at Wyncote, and the great estate, and how some day he will have it, his elder brother being far gone in a phthisis.”
“There must be some mistake,” I said. “Thou knowest what he told my father.”
“Yes; I don’t like it,” she went on; “but the girl is caught. He talks of soon having to join Sir Guy Carleton in Canada. And there is my dear girl-boy trapped too, I fear. But, really, he is such a child of a fellow it hardly matters. How many does she want in her net? The fish may squabble, I fear. A sweet thing she is; cruel only by instinct; and so gay, so tender, so truthful and right-minded with all her nonsense. No one can help loving her; but to-day she has one mood, and to-morrow another. There will be a mad massacre before she is done with you all. Run away, Hugh! run! Make love to Kitty Shippen if you want to get Miss Darthea.”
I laughed, but I had little mirth in my heart.
“Aunt Gainor,” I said, “I love that woman, and no other man shall have her if I can help it.”
“If? if? Stuff! you can’t help it. Don’t be a fool! The sea is full of fish. This is news indeed.”
“The land has but one Darthea,” said I. “I am a boy no longer, Aunt Gainor. Thou hast made me tell thee, and, now it is out, I may as well say I know all about my cousin. He as good as told me, and in a way I did not like. The man thinks I am a boy to be scared out of going my own way. I have told no one else; but if I can get her I will, and it is no laughing matter.”
“I am sorry, Hugh,” she said. “I knew not it was so serious. It is hard to realise that you are no more a boy, and must have the sorrows my sex provides for you. I like her, and I would help you if I could, but you are late.” And she went on shuffling the cards, while I took up a book, being inclined to say no more.
That evening two letters came by the New York packet. One from my father I put aside. It was dated outside, and was written two weeks later than my mother’s, which I read first. I opened it with care.
“MY OWN DEAR SON: Thy last sweet letter was a great refreshment to me, and the more so because I have not been well, having again my old ache in the side, but not such as need trouble thee. I blush to hear the pretty things thy letters say; but it is love that holds thy pen, and I must not be too much set up in my own esteem. How much love I give thee in return thou knowest, but to pay in this coin will never beggar us. I love thee because thou art all I can desire, and again because thou lovest me, and again for this same dear reason which is all I can say to excuse my mother-folly. Thy father is well, but weary of this great town; and we both long to be at home.”
Then there was more about my Aunt Wynne, and some woman-talk for her friends about the new fashions, which do not concern her, she being not of this world. “Am I not?” she says. “I love it all—the sea, even the sea, and flowers, and our woods, and, dear me! also gay gowns. I hope the last I got here will not disturb the Meeting, and my new muff,—very big it is,—and a green joseph to ride in. I mean to ride with thee next spring often—often.” And so on, half mother, half child, with bits of her dear French, and all about a new saddle for me, and silver spurs. The postscript was long.
“I saw last week a fair Quaker dame come out of Wales. I asked her about the Wynnes. She knew them not, but told me of their great house, and how it was a show-place people went to see, having been done over at great cost; and how a year or two since coal was found on the estate, and much iron, so that these last two years they were rich, and there was some talk of making the present man a baronet. Also that the elder brother is ill, nigh to death. It seems strange after what thy cousin said so often. Thy father is away in Holland. I will tell him when he is come back. Be cautious not to talk of this. I never liked the man.”
I sat back in my chair to read it all over again, first giving my aunt my father’s letter. In a few minutes I heard a cry, and saw my aunt, pale and shaken, standing up, the letter in her hand.
“My God!” I cried, “what is it? Is it my mother?”
“Yes, yes!” she said. “Be strong, my boy! She is—dead!”
For a moment I saw the room whirl, and then, as my Aunt Gainor sat down, I fell on my knees and buried my face in her lap. I felt her dear old hands on my head, and at last would have the letter. It was brief.
“MY SON: The hand of God has fallen heavily upon me. Thy mother died to-day of a pleurisy which none could help. I had not even the consolation to hear her speak, since, when I came from Holland, she was wandering in talk of thee, and mostly in French, which I know not. I seek to find God’s meaning in this chastisement. As yet I find it not. It is well that we should not let bereavements so overcome us as to make us neglect to be fervent in the business of life, or to cease to praise Him who has seen fit to take away from us that which it may be we worshipped as an idol. What more is to say I leave until I see thee. My affairs are now so ordered that I may leave them. I shall sail in a week for home in the ship in which I came out, and shall not go, as I did mean, to the islands.”
It seemed to me, as I read and re-read it, a cold, hard letter. I said as much to my aunt some days after this; but she wisely urged that my father was ever a reticent man, who found it difficult to let even his dearest see the better part of him.
I have no mind to dwell on this sad calamity. I went to and fro, finding neither possibility of repose nor any consolation. I saw as I rode, or lay in my boat, that one dear face, its blue-eyed tenderness, its smile of love. I could never thus recall to sight any other of those who, in after-years, have left me; but this one face is here to-day as I write, forever smiling and forever young.
And so time ran on, and nigh to Christmas day my father came home. The weather was more mild than common, and his ship met no delay from ice. I joined him off Chester Creek. He was grayer, older, I thought, but not otherwise altered, having still his erect stature, and the trick I have myself of throwing his head up and his shoulders back when about to meet some emergent occasion. I saw no sign of emotion when we met, except that he opened and shut his hands as usual when disturbed. He asked if I were well, and of my Aunt Gainor, and then, amid the tears which were choking me, if I were satisfied as to the business, and if the tea had arrived. I said yes, and that the ship had been sent away without violence. He said it was a silly business, and the king would soon end it; he himself had been too hasty—with more to like effect.
It seemed to me while we talked as though he had just come from my mother’s death-bed, whereas a long time had elapsed, and he had been able to get over the first cruel shock. My own grief was still upon me, and I wondered at his tranquillity. A little later he said:
“I see thou hast taken to the foolishness of black garments. This is thy aunt’s doings.” In fact, it was her positive wish. I made no reply, but only looked him in the face, ready to cry like a child.
“Why hast thou no answers, Hugh? Thy tongue used to be ready enough. Thou hast thy mother’s eyes. I would thou hadst them not.”
This was as near as he ever came to speech of her, whom, to my amazement, he never again mentioned. Was it a deeper feeling than I knew, that so silenced him, or did he wish to forget her! I know not. Some deal thus with their dead. He bade my aunt take away my mother’s clothes, and asked no questions as to how she disposed of them; nor for a month did he desire my return home.
What then passed between him and my Aunt Gainor I do not know; but he said nothing more of my dress, although I wore mourning for six months. Nor did he say a word as to my exactness and industry, which was honestly all they should have been. At meals he spoke rarely, and then of affairs, or to blame me for faults not mine, or to speak with cold sarcasm of my friends.
Except for Jack, and my Aunt Gainor, and Wilson and Wetherill, of whom I saw much, I should have been miserable indeed. Captain Wynne still came and went, and his strange intimacy with my father continued. I thought little of it then, and for my own part I liked to hear of his adventurous life, but the man less and less; and so the winter of ‘73 and ‘74 went by with fencing and skating and books, which now I myself ordered to suit me, or found in Mr. Logan’s great library, of which I was made free.
In March my cousin left us for Canada and the army. Once I spoke before him of the news in my mother’s postscript; but he laughed, saying he had heard some such rumours, but that they were not true. They did not much trouble a hungry beggar of a younger son with letters; still if there had been such good news he should have heard it. He wished it might be so and as to his brother, poor devil! he would last long enough to marry and have children. Were the ducks still in the river! He said no more to me of Darthea, or of what I was to do for him, but he found a way at need, I am sure, to get letters to her, and that without difficulty. At last, as I have said, he was gone to join Sir Guy. I was not sorry.
Mrs. Peniston, Darthea’s aunt, usually talked little, and then of serious matters as if they were trivial, and of these latter as if they were of the utmost importance. With regard to this matter of Darthea and my cousin, she was free of speech and incessant, so that all the town was soon assured of the great match Darthea would make. The fine house at Wyncote grew, and the estate also. Neither Jack nor I liked all this, and my friend took it sadly to heart, to my Aunt Gainor’s amusement and Mrs. Ferguson’s, who would have Dr. Rush set up a ward in the new hospital for the broken-hearted lovers of Darthea. When first Jack Warder was thus badgered, he fell into such a state of terror as to what the madcap woman would say next that he declined all society for a week, and ever after detested the Tory lady.
I became, under the influence of this much-talked-of news, as mute as Jack; but, while he had only a deep desire toward sadness, and to stay away from her who had thus defeated his love, I, neither given over to despair nor hope, had only a fierce will to have my way; nor, for some reason or for none, did I consider Jack’s case as very serious,—my aunt it much amused,—so little do we know those who are most near to us.
No sooner was the redcoat lover gone awhile than, as Miss Chew declared, Darthea put off mourning for the absent. Indeed, the pretty kitten began once more to tangle the threads of Jack’s life and mine. For a month Jack was in favour, and then a certain captain, but never I, until one day late in April. She was waiting among my aunt’s china for her return, and had set the goggle-eyed mandarin to nodding, while, with eyes as wide as his, she nodded in reply, and laughed like a merry child.
I stood in the doorway, and watched this delicious creature for a minute while she amused herself—and me also, although she knew it not. “Say No!” she cried out to the great china nobleman; quite a foot high he was. But, despite her pretence at altering his unvaried affirmative, it still went on. My lady walked all around him, and presently said aloud: “No! no! It must be No! Say No!” stamping a foot, as if angry, and then of a sudden running up to the mandarin and laughing. “He has a crack in his head. That is why he says Yes! Yes! I must be a female mandarin, and that is why I say No! No! I wonder does he talk broken China?”
At this moment she saw my tall black figure in a corner mirror, and made some exclamation, as if startled; an instant later she knew it was I, but as if by magic the laughing woman was no longer there. What I saw as she came toward me was a slight, quiet nun with eyes full of tears.
I was used to her swift changes of mood, but what her words, or some of them, meant I knew not; and as for this pitying face, with its sudden sadness, what more did it mean? Major Andre said of her later that Mistress Darthea was like a lake in the hills, reflecting all things, and yet herself after all. But how many such tricksy ways, pretty or vexing, she was to show some of us in the years to come did not yet appear.
In a moment I seemed to see before me the small dark child I first knew at school. Why was she now so curiously perturbed? “Mr. Wynne,” she said, “you never come near me now—oh, not for a month! And to-day your aunt has shown me a part of the dear mother’s letter, and—and—I am so sorry for you! I am indeed! I have long wanted to say so. I wish I could help you. I do not think you forget easily, and—and—you were so good to me when I was an ugly little brat. I think your mother loved me. That is a thing to make one think better of one’s self. I need it, sir. It is a pretty sort of vanity, and how vain you must be, who had so much of her love!”
“I thank thee,” I said simply. Indeed, for a time I was so moved that say more I could not. “I thank thee, Miss Peniston. There is no one on earth whom I would rather hear say what thou hast said.”
I saw her colour a little, and she replied quickly, “I am only a child, and I say what comes to my lips; I might better it often if I stayed to think.”
“No!” I cried. Whenever she got into trouble—and she was ready to note the tenderness in my voice—this pretty pretext of the irresponsibility of childhood would serve her turn. “No,” said I; “I like dearly to hear my mother praised,—who could praise her too much?—but when it is thou who sayest of her such true things, how shall I tell thee what it is to me who love to hear thee talk—even nonsense?”
“I talk nonsense? Do I?”
“Yes, sometimes. I—want thee to listen to me. I have cared for thee—”
“Now please don’t, Mr. Wynne. They all do it, and—I like you. I want to keep some friends.”
“It is useless. Darthea. I am so made that I must say my say. Thou mayest try to escape, and hate it and me, but I have to say I love thee. No, I am not a boy. I am a man, and I won’t let thee answer me now.”
“I do not want to. It would hurt you. You must know; every one knows. It was his fault and my aunt’s, all this gossip. I would have kept it quiet.”
“It will never be,” I broke out. “Thou wilt never marry that man!” I knew when I said this that I had made a mistake. I had learned to distrust Arthur; but I had too little that was of moment to say against him to make it wise to speak as I had done. I was young in those days, and hasty.
“Who?” says my lady, all on fire. “What man? Jack Warder? And why not? I do not know what I shall do.”
“It is not my dear Jack,” I cried. “Why dost thou trifle with me?”
“Your dear Jack, indeed! How he blushes! I might ask him. He never would have the courage.”
“It is my cousin, Arthur Wynne, as thou well knowest. And thou art wicked to mock at an honest gentleman with thy light talk. Thou dost not know the man, this man, my cousin.”
“Only a boy would be so foolish or so unfair as to speak thus of one behind his back, and to a woman too, who—” And she paused, confused and angry.
I could not tell her what was only suspicion or hearsay as to my cousin’s double statements concerning his father’s estate, or how either she or we were deceived. I had, in fact, lost my head a little, and had gone further than was wise. I would not explain, and I was too vexed to say more than that I would say the same to his face. Then she rejoined softly:
“Tell it to me. You are as mysterious as Miss Wynne; and have I not a right to know?”
“No,” I said; “not now, at least. Thou mayest tell him if thou wilt.”
“If I will, indeed! Every one is against him—you and Mistress Wynne and that impudent boy, Jack Warder, despite his blushes. Oh, he can be bold enough. Isn’t he a dear fellow?”
How could one deal with a woman like this? I hesitated, and as I did so, not having ready anything but sad reproaches of her levity, my aunt appeared in the doorway.
“Are you two children quarrelling?” she said, in her outspoken way. “You will have time to repent. Here has been your father, sir, to-day, and his affairs in Jamaica are all in a nice pickle, and you and the old clerk are to up and away in the packet for Kingston, and that to-morrow.”
“Indeed!” I cried. I was not sorry.
“I envy you,” said my lady, as demure as you please. “You will fetch me a feather fan, and come back soon. I hate all those cornets and captains, and now I shall have no one but Jack.”
My aunt looked on amused. Her news was true indeed, and with no chance to talk to any one, except to say a mere good-by to Jack, I spent the evening with my father and our head clerk over the business which took me away so hastily. At early morning on a cold day at the close of April, 1774, we were gliding down the Delaware with all sail set.
The voyage was long, the winds contrary. I had ample leisure to reflect upon my talk with Darthea. I was sure she must have known she was to me not as other women. Except for the accident of this chance encounter, I might long have waited before finding courage to speak. I had made nothing by it, had scarce had an answer, and should, like enough, have fallen back into the coldness of relation, by which she had so long kept me at a distance. I had been foolish and hasty to speak of my cousin at all; it did but vex her.
Of my errand in Jamaica there is little to be said. My father’s letters were of business only. Of these long months and of what went on at home I heard but little from him, and with my request to have the gazettes he had evidently no mind to comply; nor were the chances of letters frequent. I heard, indeed, from my aunt but twice, and from Jack thrice; but he said nothing of Darthea. Years after I found in his record of events:
“Hugh left us the last of April. It may be he cares too much for that wayward witch, Darthea.”
I should say that it was at this time or soon after my dear friend began to keep a somewhat broken diary of events. What he says of former years was put on paper long afterward.
“If I did but know,” writes Jack, “that he is seriously taken, I should understand, alas! what not to do. But as to some things Hugh is a silent man. I think, as Mr. Wilson says, some men are made for friends, and some for lovers. I fear the latter is not my role. Is there—can there be—such a thing as revering a woman too much to make successful love? I think I see what Darthea is more truly than does my dear Hugh. There must come a day when she will show it. Sometimes I can hardly trust myself with her; and I yearn to tell her that I alone know her, and that I love her. I must watch myself. If it really be that Hugh cares for her, and yet I were to be the fortunate man, how could I face him again, having had the advantage of his long absence? It seems strange that I should ask myself if I am more her lover than his friend. He does not talk of her to me.
“It is now September, ‘74, and Hugh must soon return. Mr. Gage is fortifying Boston Neck, and we have had the mischievous Boston Port Bill, and Virginia up in a rage, which I do not understand. We, who have our commerce crippled by foolish laws, may well be on the side of resistance; but why the planters should put in peril their only tobacco market I see less well. A Continental Congress is to meet here on the fifth day of this month, and already the town is alive with gentlemen from the South and North.
“No doubt Darthea has letters from Mr. Arthur Wynne. I think Mr. Wilson judges that man correctly. He says he is selfish, and more weak as to morals than really bad, and that he will be apt to yield to sudden temptation rather than to plan deliberate wickedness. Why should he have need to plan at all! Mistress Wynne says he does not like Hugh. How could any not like my Hugh, and how do women see the things which we do not?
“It is sad to see my father’s state of mind. Yesterday he was with me to visit Mr. Hancock, very fine in a purple velvet coat with gold buttons, and a flowered waistcoat. He is our correspondent in Boston. My father came home a hot Whig; and tomorrow is Meeting-day, and he will be most melancholy, and all for the king if this and that should happen. John Wynne can turn Mm which way he likes. If my Hugh remains of a Whig mind—and who less like to change?—he will have a hot time with his father, I fear.”
Is it any wonder I. his friend, loved this man? He seemed so gentle that all but I, even James Wilson, misunderstood him. No more obstinate fellow ever was or will be. I ought to say “determined,” for there was always a reason of head or heart for what he would or would not do, and I really by and by I may have to tell.
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