CHAPTER VII
THE RETURN OF MONSIEUR JEAN HUGON
To the north the glebe was bounded by a thick wood, a rank and dense"second growth" springing from earth where had once stood, decorouslyapart, the monster trees of the primeval forest; a wild maze of youngtrees, saplings and underbrush, overrun from the tops of the slender,bending pines to the bushes of dogwood and sassafras, and the rotting,ancient stumps and fallen logs, by the uncontrollable, all-spreading vine.It was such a fantastic thicket as one might look to find in fairyland,thorny and impenetrable: here as tall as a ten years' pine, there sunkenaway to the height of the wild honeysuckles; everywhere backed by bluesky, heavy with odors, filled, with the flash of wings and the songs ofbirds. To the east the thicket fell away to low and marshy grounds, wheretall cypresses grew, and myriads of myrtle bushes. Later in the year womenand children would venture in upon the unstable earth for the sake of themyrtle berries and their yield of fragrant wax, and once and again anoutlying slave had been tracked by men and dogs to the dark recesses ofthe place; but for the most part it was given over to its immemorialsilence. To the south and the west the tobacco fields of Fair View closedin upon the glebe, taking the fertile river bank, and pressing down to thecrooked, slow-moving, deeply shadowed creek, upon whose farther bankstood the house of the Rev. Gideon Darden.
A more retired spot, a completer sequestration from the world of mart andhighway, it would have been hard to find. In the quiet of the earlymorning, when the shadows of the trees lay across the dewy grass, it wasan angle of the earth as cloistral and withdrawn as heart of scholar or ofanchorite could wish. On one side of the house lay a tiny orchard, and thewindows of the living room looked out upon a mist of pink and white appleblooms. The fragrance of the blossoms had been in the room, but could notprevail against the odor of tobacco and rum lately introduced by themaster of the house and minister of the parish. Audrey, sitting beside atable which had been drawn in front of the window, turned her face aside,and was away, sense and soul, out of the meanly furnished room into themidst of the great bouquets of bloom, with the blue between and above.Darden, walking up and down, with his pipe in his mouth, and the tobaccosmoke curling like an aureole around his bullet head, glanced toward thewindow.
"When you have written that which I have told you to write, say so,Audrey," he commanded. "Don't sit there staring at nothing!"
Audrey came back to the present with a start, took up a pen, and drew thestandish nearer. "'Answer of Gideon Darden, Minister of Fair View Parish,in Virginia, to the several Queries contained in my Lord Bishop ofLondon's Circular Letter to the Clergy in Virginia,'" she read, and poisedher pen in air.
"Read out the questions," ordered Darden, "and write my answer to each inthe space beneath. No blots, mind you, and spell not after the promptingsof your woman's nature."
Going to a side table, be mixed for himself, in an old battered silvercap, a generous draught of bombo; then, with the drink in his hand, walkedheavily across the uncarpeted floor to his armchair, which creaked underhis weight as he sank into its leathern lap. He put down the rum and waterwith so unsteady a hand that the liquor spilled, and when he refilled hispipe half the contents of his tobacco box showered down upon his frayedand ancient and unclean coat and breeches. From the pocket of the latterhe now drew forth a silver coin, which he balanced for a moment upon hisfat forefinger, and finally sent spinning across the table to Audrey.
"'Tis the dregs of thy guinea, child, that Paris and Hugon and I drank atthe crossroads last night. 'Burn me,' says I to them, 'if that long-leggedlass of mine shan't have a drop in the cup!' And say Hugon"--
What Hugon said did not appear, or was confided to the depths of thetankard which the minister raised to his lips. Audrey looked at thesplendid shilling gleaming upon the table beside her, but made no motiontoward taking it into closer possession. A little red had come into theclear brown of her cheeks. She was a young girl, with her dreams andfancies, and the golden guinea would have made a dream or two come true.
"'Query the first,'" she read slowly, "'How long since you went to theplantations as missionary?'"
Darden, leaning back in his chair, with his eyes uplifted through thesmoke clouds to the ceiling, took his pipe from his mouth, for the betteranswering of his diocesan. "'My Lord, thirteen years come St. Swithin'sday,'" he dictated. "'Signed, Gideon Darden.' Audrey, do not forget thycapitals. Thirteen years! Lord, Lord, the years, how they fly! Hast itdown, Audrey?"
Audrey, writing in a slow, fair, clerkly hand, made her period, and turnedto the Bishop's second question: "'Had you any other church before youcame to that which you now possess?'"
"'No, my Lord,'" said the minister to the Bishop; then to the ceiling: "Icame raw from the devil to this parish. Audrey, hast ever heard childrensay that Satan comes and walks behind me when I go through the forest?"
"Yes," said Audrey, "but their eyes are not good. You go hand in hand."
Darden paused in the lifting of his tankard. "Thy wits are brightening,Audrey; but keep such observations to thyself. It is only the schoolmasterwith whom I walk. Go on to the next question."
The Bishop desired to know how long the minister addressed had beeninducted into his living. The minister addressed, leaning forward, laid itoff to his Lordship how that the vestries in Virginia did not incline tohave ministers inducted, and, being very powerful, kept the poor servantsof the Church upon uneasy seats; but that he, Gideon Darden, had the loveof his flock, rich and poor, gentle and simple, and that in the first yearof his ministry the gentlemen of his vestry had been pleased to presenthis name to the Governor for induction. Which explanation made, theminister drank more rum, and looked out of the window at the orchard andat his neighbor's tobacco.
"You are only a woman, and can hold no office, Audrey," he said, "but Iwill impart to you words of wisdom whose price is above rubies. Alwaysagree with your vestry. Go, hat in hand, to each of its members in turn,craving advice as to the management of your own affairs. Thunder from thepulpit against Popery, which does not exist in this colony, and thePretender, who is at present in Italy. Wrap a dozen black sheep ofinferior breed in white sheets and set them arow at the church door, butmake it stuff of the conscience to see no blemish in the wealthier andmore honorable portion of your flock. So you will thrive, and come to beinducted into your living, whether in Virginia or some other quarter ofthe globe. What's the worthy Bishop's next demand? Hasten, for Hugon iscoming this morning, and there's settlement to be made of a small bet, anda hand at cards."
By the circular letter and the lips of Audrey the Bishop proceeded topropound a series of questions, which the minister answered withportentous glibness. In the midst of an estimate of the value of a livingin a sweet-scented parish a face looked in at the window, and a dark andsinewy hand laid before Audrey a bunch of scarlet columbine.
"The rock was high," said a voice, "and the pool beneath was deep anddark. Here are the flowers that waved from the rock and threw coloredshadows upon the pool."
The girl shrank as from a sudden and mortal danger. Her lips trembled, hereyes half closed, and with a hurried and passionate gesture she rose fromher chair, thrust from her the scarlet blooms, and with one lithe movementof her body put between her and the window the heavy writing table. Theminister laid by his sum in arithmetic.
"Ha, Hugon, dog of a trader!" he cried. "Come in, man. Hast brought theskins? There's fire-water upon the table, and Audrey will be kind. Stay todinner, and tell us what lading you brought down river, and of yourkindred in the forest and your kindred in Monacan-Town."
The man at the window shrugged his shoulders, lifted his brows, and spreadhis hands. So a captain of Mousquetaires might have done; but the face wasdark-skinned, the cheek-bones were high, the black eyes large, fierce, andrestless. A great bushy peruke, of an ancient fashion, and a coarse,much-laced cravat gave setting and lent a touch of grotesqueness and ofterror to a countenance wherein the blood of the red man warred with thatof the white.
"
I will not come in now," said the voice again. "I am going in my boat tothe big creek to take twelve doeskins to an old man named Taberer. I willcome back to dinner. May I not, ma'm'selle?"
The corners of the lips went up, and the thicket of false hair swept thewindow sill, so low did the white man bow; but the Indian eyes werewatchful. Audrey made no answer; she stood with her face turned away andher eyes upon the door, measuring her chances. If Darden would let herpass, she might reach the stairway and her own room before the tradercould enter the house. There were bolts to its heavy door, and Hugon mightdo as he had done before, and talk his heart out upon the wrong side ofthe wood. Thanks be! lying upon her bed and pressing the pillow over herears, she did not have to hear.
At the trader's announcement that his present path led past the house,she ceased her stealthy progress toward her own demesne, and waited, withher back to the window, and her eyes upon one long ray of sunshine thatstruck high against the wall.
"I will come again," said the voice without, and the apparition was gonefrom the window. Once more blue sky and rosy bloom spanned the opening,and the sunshine lay in a square upon the floor. The girl drew a longbreath, and turning to the table began to arrange the papers upon it withtrembling hands.
"'Sixteen thousand pounds of sweet-scented, at ten shillings thehundredweight; for marriage by banns, five shillings; for the preaching ofa funeral sermon, forty shillings; for christening'"--began Darden for theBishop's information. Audrey took her pen and wrote; but before the listof the minister's perquisites had come to an end the door flew open, and awoman with the face of a vixen came hurriedly into the room. With herentered the breeze from the river, driving before it the smoke wreaths,and blowing the papers from the table to the floor.
Darden stamped his foot. "Woman, I have business, I tell ye,--businesswith the Bishop of London! I've kept his Lordship at the door thisse'nnight, and if I give him not audience Blair will presently be down uonme with tooth and nail and his ancient threat of a visitation. Begone andkeep the house! Audrey, where are you, child?"
"Audrey, leave the room!" commanded the woman. "I have something to saythat's not for your ears. Let her go, Darden. There's news, I tell you."
The minister glanced at his wife; then knocked the ashes from his pipe andnodded dismissal to Audrey. His late secretary slipped from her seat andleft the room, not without alacrity.
"Well?" demanded Darden, when the sound of the quick young feet had diedaway. "Open your budget, Deborah. There's naught in it, I'll swear, butsome fal-lal about your flowered gown or an old woman's black cat andcorner broomstick."
Mistress Deborah Darden pressed her thin lips together, and eyed her lordand master with scant measure of conjugal fondness. "It's about some onenearer home than your bishops and commissaries," she said. "Hide passed bythis morning, going to the river field. I was in the garden, and hestopped to speak to me. Mr. Haward is home from England. He came to thegreat house last night, and he ordered his horse for ten o'clock thismorning, and asked the nearest way through the fields to the parsonage."
Darden whistled, and put down his drink untasted.
"Enter the most powerful gentleman of my vestry!" he exclaimed. "He'll bethat in a month's time. A member of the Council, too, no doubt, and withthe Governor's ear. He's a scholar and fine gentleman. Deborah, clear awaythis trash. Lay out my books, fetch a bottle of Canary, and give me mySunday coat. Put flowers on the table, and a dish of bonchretiens, and geton your tabby gown. Make your curtsy at the door; then leave him to me."
"And Audrey?" said his wife.
Darden, about to rise, sank back again and sat still, a hand upon eitherarm of his chair. "Eh!" he said; then, in a meditative tone, "That isso,--there is Audrey."
"If he has eyes, he'll see that for himself," retorted Mistress Deborahtartly. "'More to the purpose,' he'll say, 'where is the money that Igave you for her?'"
"Why, it's gone," answered Darden "Gone in maintenance,--gone in meat anddrink and raiment. He didn't want it buried. Pshaw, Deborah, he has quiteforgot his fine-lady plan! He forgot it years ago, I'll swear."
"I'll send her now on an errand to the Widow Constance's," said themistress of the house. "Then before he comes again I'll get her a gown"--
The minister brought his hand down upon the table. "You'll do no suchthing!" he thundered. "The girl's got to be here when he comes. As for herdress, can't she borrow from you? The Lord knows that though only the wifeof a poor parson, you might throw for gewgaws with a bona roba! Go trickher out, and bring her here. I'll attend to the wine and the books."
When the door opened again, and Audrey, alarmed and wondering, slippedwith the wind into the room, and stood in the sunshine before theminister, that worthy first frowned, then laughed, and finally swore.
"'Swounds, Deborah, your hand is out! If I hadn't taken you from service,I'd swear that you were never inside a fine lady's chamber. What's thematter with the girl's skirt?"
"She's too tall!" cried the sometime waiting woman angrily. "As for thatgreat stain upon the silk, the wine made it when you threw your tankard atme, last Sunday but one."
"That manteau pins her arms to her sides," interrupted the ministercalmly, "and the lace is dirty. You've hidden all her hair under thatmazarine, and too many patches become not a brown skin. Turn around,child!"
While Audrey slowly revolved, the guardian of her fortunes, leaning backin his chair, bent his bushy brows and gazed, not at the circling figurein its tawdry apparel, but into the distance. When she stood still andlooked at him with a half-angry, half-frightened face, he brought hisbleared eyes to bear upon her, studied her for a minute, then motioned tohis wife.
"She must take off this paltry finery, Deborah," he announced. "I'll havenone of it. Go, child, and don your Cinderella gown."
"What does it all mean?" cried Audrey, with heaving bosom. "Why did sheput these things upon me, and why will she tell me nothing? If Hugon hashand in it"--
The minister made a gesture of contempt. "Hugon! Hugon, half Monacan andhalf Frenchman, is bartering skins with a Quaker. Begone, child, and whenyou are transformed return to us."
When the door had closed he turned upon his wife. "The girl has been caredfor," he said. "She has been fed,--if not with cates and dainties, thenwith bread and meat; she has been clothed,--if not in silk and lace, thenin good blue linen and penistone. She is young and of the springtime, hathmore learning than had many a princess of old times, is innocent and goodto look at. Thou and the rest of thy sex are fools, Deborah, but wise mendied not with Solomon. It matters not about her dress."
Rising, he went to a shelf of battered, dog-eared books, and taking downan armful proceeded to strew the volumes upon the table. The red blooms ofthe columbine being in the way, he took up the bunch and tossed it out ofthe window. With the light thud of the mass upon the ground eyes ofhusband and wife met.
"Hugon would marry the girl," said the latter, twisting the hem of herapron with restless fingers.
Without change of countenance, Darden leaned forward, seized her by theshoulder and shook her violently. "You are too given to idle andmeaningless words, Deborah," he declared, releasing her. "By the Lord, oneof these days I'll break you of the habit for good and all! Hugon, andscarlet flowers, and who will marry Audrey, that is yet but a child anduseful about the house,--what has all this to do with the matter in hand,which is simply to make ourselves and our house presentable in the eyes ofmy chief parishioner? A man would think that thirteen years in Virginiawould teach any fool the necessity of standing well with a powerfulgentleman such as this. I'm no coward. Damn sanctimonious parsons and myLord Bishop's Scotch hireling! If they yelp much longer at my heels, I'llscandalize them in good earnest! It's thin ice, though,--it's thin ice;but I like this house and glebe, and I'm going to live and die inthem,--and die drunk, if I choose, Mr. Commissary to the contrary! It's ofimport, Deborah, that my parishioners, being easy folk, willing to liveand let live, should like me still, and that a majority of my vestryshoul
d not be able to get on without me. With this in mind, get out thewine, dust the best chair, and be ready with thy curtsy. It will be timeenough to cry Audrey's banns when she is asked in marriage."
Audrey, in her brown dress, with the color yet in her cheeks, entering atthe moment, Mistress Deborah attempted no response to her husband'sadjuration. Darden turned to the girl. "I've done with the writing forthe nonce, child," he said, "and need you no longer. I'll smoke a pipe andthink of my sermon. You're tired; out with you into the sunshine! Go tothe wood or down by the creek, but not beyond call, d'ye mind."
Audrey looked from one to the other, but said nothing. There were manythings in the world of other people which she did not understand; onething more or less made no great difference. But she did understand thesunlit roof, the twilight halls, the patterned floor of the forest.Blossoms drifting down, fleeing shadows, voices of wind and water, and allmurmurous elfin life spoke to her. They spoke the language of her land;when she stepped out of the door into the air and faced the portals of herworld, they called to her to come. Lithe and slight and light of foot, sheanswered to their piping. The orchard through which she ran was fair withits rosy trees, like gayly dressed curtsying dames; the slow, clear creekthat held the double of the sky enticed, but she passed it by. Straight asan arrow she pierced to the heart of the wood that lay to the north. Thornand bramble, branch of bloom and entangling vine, stayed her not; longsince she had found or had made for herself a path to the centre of thelabyrinth. Here was a beech-tree, older by many a year than the youngwood,--a solitary tree spared by the axe what time its mates had fallen.Tall and silver-gray the column of the trunk rose to meet wide branchesand the green lace-work of tender leaves. The earth beneath was cleanswept, and carpeted with the leaves of last year; a wide, dry, pale brownenchanted ring, against whose borders pressed the riot of the forest. Vineand bush, flower and fern, could not enter; but Audrey came and laidherself down upon a cool and shady bed.
By human measurement the house that she had left was hard by; even fromunder the beech-tree Mistress Deborah's thin call could draw her back tothe walls which sheltered her, which she had been taught to call her home.But it was not her soul's home, and now the veil of the kindly woodswithdrew it league on league, shut it out, made it as if it had neverbeen. From the charmed ring beneath the beech-tree she took possession ofher world; for her the wind murmured, the birds sang, insects hummed orshrilled, the green saplings nodded their heads. Flowers, and the beddedmoss, and the little stream that leaped from a precipice of three feetinto the calm of a hand-deep pool spoke to her. She was happy. Gone wasthe house and its inmates; gone Paris the schoolmaster, who had taught herto write, and whose hand touching hers in guidance made her sick and cold;gone Hugon the trader, whom she feared and hated. Here were no toil, noannoy, no frightened flutterings of the heart; she had passed thefrontier, and was safe in her own land.
She pressed her cheek against the dead leaves, and, with the smell of theearth in her nostrils, looked sideways with half-closed eyes and made aradiant mist of the forest round about. A drowsy warmth was in the air;the birds sang far away; through a rift in the foliage a sunbeam came andrested beside her like A gilded snake.
For a time, wrapped in the warmth and the green and gold mist, she lay asquiet as the sunbeam; of the earth earthy, in pact with the mould beneaththe leaves, with the slowly crescent trunks, brown or silver-gray, withmoss and lichened rock, and with all life that basked or crept or flew. Atlast, however, the mind aroused, and she opened her eyes, saw, and thoughtof what she saw. It was pleasant in the forest. She watched the flash of abird, as blue as the sky, from limb to limb; she listened to the elfinwaterfall; she drew herself with hand and arm across the leaves to theedge of the pale brown ring, plucked a honeysuckle bough and brought itback to the silver column of the beech; and lastly, glancing up from therosy sprig within her hand, she saw a man coming toward her, down the paththat she had thought hidden, holding his arm before him for shield againstbrier and branch, and looking curiously about him as for a thing which hehad come out to seek.
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