Audrey

by Mary Johnston

  CHAPTER III

  DARDEN'S AUDREY

  It was May Day in Virginia, in the year 1727. In England there were Georgethe First, by the grace of God of Great Britain, France, and Ireland Kingand Defender of the Faith; my Lord of Orkney, Governor in chief ofVirginia; and William Gooch, newly appointed Lieutenant Governor. InVirginia there were Colonel Robert Carter, President of the Council andGovernor _pro tem._; the Council itself; and Mistress Martha Jaquelin.

  By virtue of her good looks and sprightliness, the position of her fatherin the community, and the fact that this 1st of May was one and the samewith her sixteenth birthday, young Mistress Jaquelin was May Queen inJamestown. And because her father was a worthy gentleman and a gay one,with French blood in his veins and Virginia hospitality in his heart, hehad made a feast for divers of his acquaintances, and, moreover, hadprovided, in a grassy meadow down by the water side, a noble andseasonable entertainment for them, and for the handful of townsfolk, andfor all chance comers.

  Meadow and woodland and marsh, ploughed earth and blossoming orchards, laywarm in the sunshine. Even the ruined town, fallen from her estate, andbecome but as a handmaid to her younger sister, put a good face upon hermelancholy fortunes. Honeysuckle and ivy embraced and hid crumbling walls,broken foundations, mounds of brick and rubbish, all the untouchedmemorials of the last burning of the place. Grass grew in the street, andthe silent square was strewn with the gold of the buttercups. The housesthat yet stood and were lived in might have been counted on the fingers ofone hand, with the thumb for the church. But in their gardens the flowersbloomed gayly, and the sycamores and mulberries in the churchyard werehaunts of song. The dead below had music, and violets in the blowinggrass, and the undertone of the river. Perhaps they liked the peace of thetown that was dead as they were dead; that, like them, had seen of thetravail of life, and now, with shut eyes and folded hands, knew that itwas vanity.

  But the Jaquelin house was built to the eastward of the churchyard and theruins of the town, and, facing the sparkling river, squarely turned itsback upon the quiet desolation at the upper end of the island and upon thetext from Ecclesiastes.

  In the level meadow, around a Maypole gay with garlands and withfluttering ribbons, the grass had been closely mown, for there were to befoot-races and wrestling bouts for the amusement of the guests. Beneath aspreading tree a dozen fiddlers put their instruments in tune, whilebehind the open windows of a small, ruinous house, dwelt in by the sexton,a rustic choir was trying over "The Beggar's Daughter of Bednall Green."Young men and maidens of the meaner sort, drawn from the surroundingcountry, from small plantation, store and ordinary, mill and ferry, cladin their holiday best and prone to laughter, strayed here and there, or,walking up and down the river bank, where it commanded a view of both thelanding and the road, watched for the coming of the gentlefolk. Children,too, were not lacking, but rolled amidst the buttercups or caught at theribbons flying from the Maypole, while aged folk sat in the sun, and aprocession of wide-lipped negroes, carrying benches and chairs, advancedto the shaven green and put the seats in order about the sylvan stage. Itwas but nine of the clock, and the shadow of the Maypole was long upon thegrass. Along the slightly rising ground behind the meadow stretched anapple orchard in full bloom, and between that line of rose and snow andthe lapping of the tide upon the yellow sands lay, for the length of aspring day, the kingdom of all content.

  The shadow of the Maypole was not much shrunken when the guests of thehouse of Jaquelin began to arrive. First to come, and from farthest away,was Mr. Richard Ambler, of Yorktown, who had ridden from that place toWilliamsburgh the afternoon before, and had that morning used theplanter's pace to Jamestown,--his industry being due to the fact that hewas courting the May Queen's elder sister. Following him came five Lees ina chariot, then a delegation of Burwells, then two Digges in a chaise. ABland and a Bassett and a Randolph came on horseback, while a bargebrought up river a bevy of blooming Carters, a white-sailed sloop fromWarwick landed a dozen Carys, great and small, and two periaguas, filledwith Harrisons, Aliens, and Cockes, shot over from the Surrey shore.

  From a stand at one end of the grassy stage, trumpet and drum proclaimedthat the company had gathered beneath the sycamores before the house, andwas about to enter the meadow. Shrill-voiced mothers warned theirchildren from the Maypole, the fiddlers ceased their twanging, and PrettyBessee, her name cut in twain, died upon the air. The throng of humblefolk--largely made up of contestants for the prizes of the day, and oftheir friends and kindred--scurried to its appointed place, and with theissuing from the house gates of the May Queen and her court thefestivities commenced.

  An hour later, in the midst of a bout at quarterstaff between theJamestown blacksmith and the miller from Princess Creek, a coach and four,accompanied by a horseman, crossed the neck, rolled through the street,and, entering the meadow, drew up a hundred feet from the ring ofspectators.

  The eyes of the commonalty still hung upon every motion of the blacksmithand the miller, but by the people of quality the cudgelers were for themoment quite forgot. The head of the house of Jaquelin hurried over thegrass to the coach door. "Ha, Colonel Byrd! When we heard that you werestaying overnight at Green Spring, we hoped that, being so near, you wouldcome to our merrymaking. Mistress Evelyn, I kiss your hands. Though wecan't give you the diversions of Spring Garden, yet such as we have are atyour feet. Mr. Marmaduke Haward, your servant, sir! Virginia has missedyou these ten years and more. We were heartily glad to hear, t'other day,that the Golden Rose had brought you home."

  As he spoke the worthy gentleman strove to open the coach door; but thehorseman, to whom the latter part of his speech was addressed, and who hadnow dismounted, was beforehand with him. The door swung open, and a younglady, of a delicate and pensive beauty, placed one hand upon thedeferential arm of Mr. Marmaduke Haward and descended from the paintedcoach to the flower-enameled sward. The women amongst the assembled guestsfluttered and whispered; for this was youth, beauty, wealth, London, andthe Court, all drawn in the person of Mistress Evelyn Byrd, bred sincechildhood in the politest society of England, newly returned with herfather to his estate of Westover in Virginia, and, from her garlandedgypsy hat to the point of her silken shoe, suggestive of the rainbow worldof _mode_.

  Her father--alert, vivacious, handsome, with finely cut lips that werequick to smile, and dark eyes that smiled when the lips werestill--followed her to the earth, shook out his ruffles, and extended hisgold snuffbox to his good friend Mr. Jaquelin. The gentleman who hadridden beside the coach threw the reins of his horse to one of the negroeswho had come running from the Jaquelin stables, and, together with theirhost, the three walked across the strip of grass to the row of expectantgentry. Down went the town-bred lady until the skirt of her blue-greengown lay in folds upon the buttercups; down went the ladies opposite incurtsies as profound, if less exquisitely graceful. Off came the hats ofthe gentlemen; the bows were of the lowest; snuffboxes were drawn out,handkerchiefs of fine holland flourished; the welcoming speeches werehearty and not unpolished.

  It was a society less provincial than that of more than one shire that wasnearer to London by a thousand leagues. It dwelt upon the banks of theChesapeake and of great rivers; ships dropped their anchors before itsvery doors. Now and again the planter followed his tobacco aboard. Thesands did not then run so swiftly through the hourglass; if the voyage toEngland was long, why, so was life! The planters went, sold theirtobacco,--Sweet-scented, E. Dees, Oronoko, Cowpen, Non-burning,--talkedwith their agents, visited their English kindred; saw the town, the opera,and the play,--perhaps, afar off, the King; and returned to Virginia andtheir plantations with the last but one novelty in ideas, manner, anddress. Of their sons not a few were educated in English schools, whiletheir wives and daughters, if for the most part they saw the enchantedground only through the eyes of husband, father, or brother, yet followedits fashions, when learned, with religious zeal. In Williamsburgh, whereall men went on occasion, there was polite enough living: the
re were thecollege, the Capitol, and the playhouse; the palace was a toy St. James;the Governors that came and went almost as proper gentlemen, fitted torule over English people, as if they had been born in Hanover and couldnot speak their subjects' tongue.

  So it was that the assembly which had risen to greet Mr. Jaquelin's latestguests, besides being sufficiently well born, was not at all ill bred, noruninformed, nor untraveled. But it was not of the gay world as were thethree whom it welcomed. It had spent only months, not years, in England;it had never kissed the King's hand; it did not know Bath nor the Wells;it was innocent of drums and routs and masquerades; had not even aspeaking acquaintance with great lords and ladies; had never supped withPope, or been grimly smiled upon by the Dean of St. Patrick's, or courtedby the Earl of Peterborough. It had not, like the elder of the two men,studied in the Low Countries, visited the Court of France, and contractedfriendships with men of illustrious names; nor, like the younger, had itwritten a play that ran for two weeks, fought a duel in the Field of FortyFootsteps, and lost and won at the Cocoa Tree, between the lighting andsnuffing of the candles, three thousand pounds.

  Therefore it stood slightly in awe of the wit and manners and finefeathers, curled newest fashion, of its sometime friends and neighbors,and its welcome, if warm at heart, was stiff as cloth of gold withceremony. The May Queen tripped in her speech as she besought MistressEvelyn to take the flower-wreathed great chair standing proudly forth fromthe humbler seats, and colored charmingly at the lady of fashion's smilingshake of the head and few graceful words of homage. The young men slylynoted the length of the Colonel's periwig and the quality of Mr. Hayward'sMechlin, while their elders, suddenly lacking material for discourse, madeshift to take a deal of snuff. The Colonel took matters into his owncapable hands.

  "Mr. Jaquelin, I wish that my tobacco at Westover may look as finely afortnight hence as does yours to-day! There promise to be more Frenchmenin my fields than Germans at St. James. Mr. Gary, if I come to Denbighwhen the peaches are ripe, will you teach me to make persico? Mr. Allen, Ihear that you breed cocks as courageous as those of Tanagra. I shallborrow from you for a fight that I mean to give. Ladies, for how much goldwill you sell the recipe for that balm of Mecca you must use? There aredames at Court would come barefoot to Virginia for so dazzling a bloom.Why do you patch only upon the Whig side of the face? Are you all of onecamp, and does not one of you grow a white rosebush against the 29th ofMay? May it please your Majesty the May Queen, I shall watch the sportsfrom this seat upon your right hand. Egad, the miller quits himself asthough he were the moss-grown fellow of Sherwood Forest!"

  The ice had thawed; and by the time the victorious miller had been pushedforward to receive the smart cocked hat which was the Virginia renditionof the crown of wild olive, it had quite melted. Conversation becamegeneral, and food was found or made for laughter. When the twelve fiddlerswho succeeded the blacksmith and the miller came trooping upon the green,they played, one by one, to perhaps as light-hearted a company as a MayDay ever shone upon. All their tunes were gay and lively ones, and theyounger men moved their feet to the music, while a Strephon at the lowerend of the lists seized upon a blooming Chloe, and the two began to dance"as if," quoth the Colonel, "the musicians were so many tarantuladoctors."

  A flower-wreathed instrument of his calling went to the player of thesprightliest air; after which awardment, the fiddlers, each to the tune ofhis own choosing, marched off the green to make room for Pretty Bessee,her father the beggar, and her suitors the innkeeper, the merchant, thegentleman, and the knight.

  The high, quick notes of the song suited the sunshiny weather, the sheenof the river, the azure skies. A light wind brought from the orchard avagrant troop of pink and white petals to camp upon the silken sleeve ofMistress Evelyn Byrd. The gentleman sitting beside her gathered them upand gave them again to the breeze.

  "It sounds sweetly enough," he said, "but terribly old-fashioned:--

  'I weigh not true love by the weight of the purse, And beauty is beauty in every degree.'

  That's not Court doctrine."

  The lady to whom he spoke rested her cheek upon her hand, and looked pastthe singers to the blossoming slope and the sky above. "So much the worsefor the Court," she said. "So much the better for"--

  Haward glanced at her. "For Virginia?" he ended, with a smile. "Do youthink that they do not weigh love with gold here in Virginia, Evelyn? Itisn't really Arcady."

  "So much the better for some place, somewhere," she answered quietly. "Idid not say Virginia. Indeed, from what travelers like yourself have toldme, I think the country lies not upon this earth. But the story is at anend, and we must applaud with the rest. It sounded sweetly, afterall,--though it was only a lying song. What next?"

  Her father, from his station beside the May Queen, caught the question,and broke the flow of his smiling compliments to answer it. "A racebetween young girls, my love,--the lucky fair who proves her descent fromAtalanta to find, not a golden apple, but a golden guinea. Here come fromthe sexton's house the pretty light o' heels!"

  The crowd, gentle and simple, arose, and pushed back all benches, stools,and chairs, so as to enlarge the circumference of the ring, and the sixgirls who were to run stepped out upon the green. The youngest son of thehouse of Jaquelin checked them off in a shrill treble:--

  "The blacksmith's Meg--Mall and Jenny from the crossroads ordinary--theWidow Constance's Barbara--red-headed Bess--Parson Darden's Audrey!"

  A tall, thin, grave gentleman, standing behind Haward, gave an impatientjerk of his body and said something beneath his breath. Haward looked overhis shoulder. "Ha, Mr. Le Neve! I did not know you were there. I had thepleasure of hearing you read at Williamsburgh last Sundayafternoon,--though this is your parish, I believe? What was that last namethat the youngster cried? I failed to catch it."

  "Audrey, sir," answered the minister of James City parish; "GideonDarden's Audrey. You can't but have heard of Darden? A minister of thegospel of the Lord Jesus Christ, sir; and a scandal, a shame, and astumbling-block to the Church! A foul-mouthed, brawling, learned sot! Astranger to good works, but a frequenter of tippling houses! A brazen,dissembling, atheistical Demas, who will neither let go of the lusts ofthe flesh nor of his parish,--a sweet-scented parish, sir, with the bestglebe in three counties! And he's inducted, sir, inducted, which is morethan most of the clergy of Virginia, who neither fight nor drink norswear, can say for themselves!"

  The minister had lost his gravity, and spoke with warmth and bitterness.As he paused for breath, Mistress Evelyn took her eyes from the group ofthose about to run and opened her fan. "A careless father, at least," shesaid. "If he hath learning, he should know better than to set his daughterthere."

  "She's not his own, ma'am. She's an orphan, bound to Darden and his wife,I suppose. There's some story or other about her, but, not being curiousin Mr. Darden's affairs, I have never learned it. When I came toVirginia, five years ago, she was a slip of a girl of thirteen or so.Once, when I had occasion to visit Darden, she waylaid me in the road as Iwas riding away, and asked me how far it was to the mountains, and ifthere were Indians between them and us."

  "Did she so?" asked Haward. "And which is--Audrey?"

  "The dark one--brown as a gypsy--with the dogwood in her hair. And markme, there'll be Darden's own luck and she'll win. She's fleeter than agreyhound. I've seen her running in and out and to and fro in the forestlike a wild thing."

  Bare of foot and slender ankle, bare of arm and shoulder, with heavingbosom, shut lips, and steady eyes, each of the six runners awaited thetrumpet sound that should send her forth like an arrow to the goal, and tothe shining guinea that lay thereby. The spectators ceased to talk andlaugh, and bent forward, watching. Wagers had been laid, and each man kepthis eyes upon his favorite, measuring her chances. The trumpet blew, andthe race was on.

  When it was over and won, the May Queen rose from her seat and crossed thegrass to her fine lady guest. "There are left only the prizes for this a
ndfor the boys' race and for the best dancer. Will you not give them,Mistress Evelyn, and so make them of more value?"

  More curtsying, more complimenting, and the gold was in Evelyn's whitehand. The trumpet blew, the drum beat, the fiddlers swung into a quick,staccato air, and Darden's Audrey, leaving the post which she had touchedsome seconds in advance of the foremost of those with whom she had raced,came forward to receive the guinea.

  The straight, short skirt of dull blue linen could not hide the lines ofthe young limbs; beneath the thin, white, sleeveless bodice showed thetint of the flesh, the rise and fall of the bosom. The bare feet trod thegrass lightly and firmly; the brown eyes looked from under the dogwoodchaplet in a gaze that was serious, innocent, and unashamed. To Audreythey were only people out of a fairy tale,--all those gay folk, dressed insilks and with curled hair. They lived in "great houses," and men andwomen were born to till their fields, to row their boats, to doff hats orcurtsy as they passed. They were not real; if you pricked them they wouldnot bleed. In the mountains that she remembered as a dream there were palemasses of bloom far up among the cliffs; very beautiful, but no more to begained than the moon or than rainbow gold. She looked at the May partybefore which she had been called much as, when a child, she had looked atthe gorgeous, distant bloom,--not without longing, perhaps, butindifferent, too, knowing that it was beyond her reach.

  When the gold piece was held out to her, she took it, having earned it;when the little speech with which the lady gave the guinea was ended, shewas ready with her curtsy and her "Thank you, ma'am." The red came intoher cheeks because she was not used to so many eyes upon her, but she didnot blush for her bare feet, nor for her dress that had slipped low overher shoulder, nor for the fact that she had run her swiftest five timesaround the Maypole, all for the love of a golden guinea, and for mereyouth and pure-minded ignorance, and the springtime in the pulses.

  The gold piece lay within her brown fingers a thought too lightly, for asshe stepped back from the row of gentlefolk it slid from her hand to theground. A gentleman, sitting beside the lady who had spoken to her,stooped, and picking up the money gave it again into her hand. Though shecurtsied to him, she did not look at him, but turned away, glad to be quitof all the eyes, and in a moment had slipped into the crowd from which shehad come. It was midday, and old Israel, the fisherman, who had broughther and the Widow Constance's Barbara up the river in his boat, would begoing back with the tide. She was not loath to leave: the green meadow,the gaudy Maypole, and the music were good, but the silence on the river,the shadow of the brooding forest, the darting of the fish hawk, werebetter.

  In the meadow the boys' race and the rustic dance were soon over. Thedinner at the Jaquelin house to its guests lasted longer, but it too washurried; for in the afternoon Mr. Harrison's mare Nelly was to run againstMajor Burwell's Fearnaught, and the stakes were heavy.

  Not all of the company went from the banquet back to the meadow, where thehumbler folk, having eaten their dinner of bread and meat and ale, werewhiling away with sports of their own the hour before the race. ColonelByrd had business at Williamsburgh, and must reach his lodgings there anhour before sunset. His four black horses brought to the door the greatvermilion-and-cream coach; an ebony coachman in scarlet cracked his whipat a couple of negro urchins who had kept pace with the vehicle as itlumbered from the stables, and a light brown footman flung open the doorand lowered the steps. The Colonel, much regretting that occasion shouldcall him away, vowed that he had never spent a pleasanter May Day, kissedthe May Queen's hand, and was prodigal of well-turned compliments, likethe gay and gallant gentleman that he was. His daughter made her gracefuladieux in her clear, low, and singularly sweet voice, and together theywere swallowed up of the mammoth coach. Mr. Haward took snuff with Mr.Jaquelin; then, mounting his horse,--it was supposed that he too hadbusiness in Williamsburgh,--raised his hat and bade farewell to thecompany with one low and comprehensive bow.

  The equipage made a wide turn; the ladies and gentlemen upon the Jaquelinporch fluttered fans and handkerchiefs; the Colonel, leaning from thecoach window, waved his hand; and the horseman lifted his hat the secondtime. The very especial guests were gone; and though the remainder of theafternoon was as merry as heart could wish, yet a bouquet, a flavor, atang of the Court and the great world, a breath of air that was notcolonial, had gone with them. For a moment the women stood in a brownstudy, revolving in their minds Mistress Evelyn's gypsy hat and theexceeding thinness and fineness of her tucker; while to each of theyounger men came, linked to the memory of a charming face, a vision ofmany-acred Westover.

  But the trumpet blew, summoning them to the sport of the afternoon, andwork stopped upon castles in Spain. When a horse-race was on, a meadow inVirginia sufficed.