Audrey

by Mary Johnston

  CHAPTER XXI

  AUDREY AWAKES

  There had lately come to Virginia, and to the convention of its clergy atWilliamsburgh, one Mr. Eliot, a minister after the heart of a large numberof sober and godly men whose reputation as a body suffered at the hands ofMr. Darden, of Fair View parish, Mr. Bailey, of Newport, Mr. Worden, ofLawn's Creek, and a few kindred spirits. Certainly Mr. Eliot was not likethese; so erect, indeed, did he hold himself in the strait and narrow paththat his most admiring brethren, being, as became good Virginians,somewhat easy-going in their saintliness, were inclined to think that heleaned too far the other way. It was commendable to hate sin and reprovethe sinner; but when it came to raining condemnation upon horse-racing,dancing, Cato at the playhouse, and like innocent diversions, Mr. Eliotwas surely somewhat out of bounds. The most part accounted for his turn ofmind by the fact that ere he came to Virginia he had been a sojourner inNew England.

  He was mighty in the pulpit, was Mr. Eliot; no droning reader of lastyear's sermons, but a thunderer forth of speech that was now acrid, nowfiery, but that always came from an impassioned nature, vehement for thedamnation of those whom God so strangely spared. When, as had perforcehappened during the past week, he must sit with his brethren in thecongregation and listen to lukewarm--nay, to dead and cold adjurations andexpoundings, his very soul itched to mount the pulpit stairs, thrust downthe Laodicean that chanced to occupy it, and himself awaken as with thesound of a trumpet this people who slept upon the verge of a precipice,between hell that gaped below and God who sat on high, serenely regardfulof his creatures' plight. Though so short a time in Virginia, he wasalready become a man of note, the prophet not without honor, whom it wasthe fashion to admire, if not to follow. It was therefore natural enoughthat the Commissary, himself a man of plain speech from the pulpit, shouldappoint him to preach in Bruton church this Sunday morning, before hisExcellency the Governor, the worshipful the Council, the clergy inconvention, and as much of Williamsburgh, gentle and simple, as couldcrowd into the church. Mr. Eliot took the compliment as an answer toprayer, and chose for his text Daniel fifth and twenty-seventh.

  Lodging as he did on Palace Street, the early hours of the past night,which he would have given to prayer and meditation, had been profaned bystrains of music from the Governor's house, by laughter and swearing andmuch going to and fro in the street beneath his window. These disturbancesfilling him with righteous wrath, he came down to his breakfast nextmorning prepared to give his hostess, who kept him company at table, lineand verse which should demonstrate that Jehovah shared his anger.

  "Ay, sir!" she cried. "And if that were all, sir"--and straightway sheembarked upon a colored narration of the occurrence at the Governor'sball. This was followed by a wonderfully circumstantial account of Mr.Marmaduke Haward's sins of omission against old and new acquaintances whowould have entertained him at their houses, and been entertained in turnat Fair View, and by as detailed a description of the toils that had beenlaid for him by that audacious piece who had forced herself upon thecompany last night.

  Mr. Eliot listened aghast, and mentally amended his sermon. If he knewVirginia, even so flagrant a case as this might never come before avestry. Should this woman go unreproved? When in due time he was in thechurch, and the congregation was gathering, he beckoned to him one of thesidesmen, asked a question, and when it was answered, looked fixedly at adark girl sitting far away in a pew beneath the gallery.

  It was a fine, sunny morning, with a tang of autumn in the air, and theconcourse within the church was very great. The clergy showed like a wedgeof black driven into the bright colors with which nave and transeptoverflowed. His Excellency the Governor sat in state, with the Council oneither hand. One member of that body was not present. Well-nigh allWilliamsburgh knew by now that Mr. Marmaduke Haward lay at Marot'sordinary, ill of a raging fever. Hooped petticoat and fragrant bodicefound reason for whispering to laced coat and periwig; significant glancestraveled from every quarter of the building toward the tall pew where,collected but somewhat palely smiling, sat Mistress Evelyn Byrd beside herfather. All this was before the sermon. When the minister of the daymounted the pulpit, and, gaunt against the great black sounding-board,gave out his text in a solemn and ringing voice, such was the genuinepower of the man that every face was turned toward him, and throughout thebuilding there fell a sudden hush.

  Audrey looked with the rest, but she could not have said that shelistened,--not at first. She was there because she always went to churchon Sunday. It had not occurred to her to ask that she might stay at home.She had come from her room that morning with the same still face, the samestrained and startled look about the eyes, that she had carried to it thenight before. Black Peggy, who found her bed unslept in, thought that shemust have sat the night through beside the window. Mistress Stagg, meetingher at the stairfoot with the tidings (just gathered from the lips of apasser-by) of Mr. Haward's illness, thought that the girl took the newsvery quietly. She made no exclamation, said nothing good or bad; only drewher hand across her brow and eyes, as though she strove to thrust away aveil or mist that troubled her. This gesture she repeated now and againduring the hour before church time. Mistress Stagg heard no more of theball this morning than she had heard the night before. Something ailed thegirl. She was not sullen, but she could not or would not talk. Perhaps,despite the fact of the Westover coach, she had not been kindly used atthe Palace. The ex-actress pursed her lips, and confided to her Mirabellthat times were not what they once were. Had she not, at Bath, been givena ticket to the Saturday ball by my Lord Squander himself? Ay, and she hadfooted it, too, in the country dance, with the best of them, with captainsand French counts and gentlemen and ladies of title,--ay, and had gonedown the middle with, the very pattern of Sir Harry Wildair! To be sure,no one had ever breathed a word against her character; but, for her part,she believed no great harm of Audrey, either. Look at the girl's eyes,now: they were like a child's or a saint's.

  Mirabell nodded and looked wise, but said nothing.

  When the church bells rang Audrey was ready, and she walked to church withMistress Stagg much as, the night before, she had walked between thelilacs to the green door when the Westover coach had passed from hersight. Now she sat in the church much as she had sat at the window thenight through. She did not know that people were staring at her; nor hadshe caught the venomous glance of Mistress Deborah, already in the pew,and aware of more than had come to her friend's ears.

  Audrey was not listening, was scarcely thinking. Her hands were crossed inher lap, and now and then she raised one and made the motion of pushingaside from her eyes something heavy that clung and blinded. What part ofher spirit that was not wholly darkened and folded within itself was backin the mountains of her childhood, with those of her own blood whom shehad loved and lost. What use to try to understand to-day,--to-day with itsfalling skies, its bewildered pondering over the words that were said toher last night? And the morrow,--she must leave that. Perhaps when itshould dawn he would come to her, and call her "little maid," and laugh ather dreadful dream. But now, while it was to-day, she could not think ofhim without an agony of pain and bewilderment. He was ill, too, andsuffering. Oh, she must leave the thought of him alone! Back then to thelong yesterdays she traveled, and played quietly, dreamily, with Robin onthe green grass beside the shining stream, or sat on the doorstep, herhead on Molly's lap, and watched the evening star behind the EndlessMountains.

  It was very quiet in the church save for that one great voice speaking.Little by little the voice impressed itself upon her consciousness. Theeyes of her mind were upon long ranges of mountains distinct against thesplendor of a sunset sky. Last seen in childhood, viewed now through theillusion of the years, the mountains were vastly higher than nature hadplanned them; the streamers of light shot to the zenith; the black forestswere still; everywhere a fixed glory, a gigantic silence, a holding of thebreath for things to happen.

  By degrees the voice in her ears fitted in with the landscape, b
ecame, sosolemn and ringing it was, like the voice of the archangel of that sunsetland. Audrey listened at last; and suddenly the mountains were gone, andthe light from the sky, and her people were dead and dust away in thathidden valley, and she was sitting in the church at Williamsburgh, alone,without a friend.

  What was the preacher saying? What ball of the night before was hedescribing with bitter power, the while he gave warning of handwritingupon the wall such as had menaced Belshazzar's feast of old? Of whatshameless girl was he telling,--what creature dressed in silks that shouldhave gone in rags, brought to that ball by her paramour--

  The gaunt figure in the pulpit trembled like a leaf with the passion ofthe preacher's convictions and the energy of his utterance. On had gonethe stream of rhetoric, the denunciations, the satire, the tremendousassertions of God's mind and purposes. The lash that was wielded wasfar-reaching; all the vices of the age--irreligion, blasphemy,drunkenness, extravagance, vainglory, loose living--fell under its sting.The condemnation was general, and each man looked to see his neighborwince. The occurrence at the ball last night,--he was on that for finaltheme, was he? There was a slight movement throughout the congregation.Some glanced to where would have sat Mr. Marmaduke Haward, had not thegentleman been at present in his bed, raving now of a great run of luck atthe Cocoa Tree; now of an Indian who, with his knee upon his breast, wasthrottling him to death. Others looked over their shoulders to see if thatgypsy yet sat beneath the gallery. Colonel Byrd took out his snuffbox andstudied the picture on the lid, while his daughter sat like a carven lady,with a slight smile upon her lips.

  On went the word picture that showed how vice could flaunt it in so fallenan age. The preacher spared not plain words, squarely turned himselftoward the gallery, pointed out with voice and hand the object of hiscensure and of God's wrath. Had the law pilloried the girl before themall, it had been but little worse for her. She sat like a statue, staringwith wide eyes at the window above the altar. This, then, was what thewords in the coach last night had meant--this was what the princessthought--this was what his world thought--

  There arose a commotion in the ranks of the clergy of Virginia. TheReverend Gideon Darden, quitting with an oath the company of his brethren,came down the aisle, and, pushing past his wife, took his stand in the pewbeside the orphan who had lived beneath his roof, whom during many yearshe had cursed upon occasion and sometimes struck, and whom he had latterlymade his tool, "Never mind him, Audrey, my girl," he said, and put anunsteady hand upon her shoulder. "You're a good child; they cannot harmye."

  He turned his great shambling body and heavy face toward the preacher,stemmed in the full tide of his eloquence by this unseemly interruption,"Ye beggarly Scot!" he exclaimed thickly. "Ye evil-thinking saint fromSalem way, that know the very lining of the Lord's mind, and yet, walkingthrough his earth, see but a poisonous weed in his every harmless flower!Shame on you to beat down the flower that never did you harm! The girl'sas innocent a thing as lives! Ay, I've had my dram,--the more shame to youthat are justly rebuked out of the mouth of a drunken man! I have done,Mr. Commissary," addressing himself to that dignitary, who had advanced tothe altar rail with his arm raised in a command for silence. "I've nochild of my own, thank God! but the maid has grown up in my house, andI'll not sit to hear her belied. I've heard of last night; 'twas the madwhim of a sick man. The girl's as guiltless of wrong as any lady here. I,Gideon Darden, vouch for it!"

  He sat heavily down beside Audrey, who never stirred from her still regardof that high window. There was a moment of portentous silence; then, "Letus pray," said the minister from the pulpit.

  Audrey knelt with the rest, but she did not pray. And when it was allover, and the benediction had been given, and she found herself withoutthe church, she looked at the green trees against the clear autumnalskies and at the graves in the churchyard as though it were a new worldinto which she had stepped. She could not have said that she found itfair. Her place had been so near the door that well-nigh all thecongregation was behind her, streaming out of the church, eager to reachthe open air, where it might discuss the sermon, the futile and scandalousinterruption by the notorious Mr. Darden, and what Mr. Marmaduke Hawardmight have said or done had he been present.

  Only Mistress Stagg kept beside her; for Mistress Deborah hung back,unwilling to be seen in her company, and Darden, from that momentaryawakening of his better nature, had sunk to himself again, and thought nothow else he might aid this wounded member of his household. But Mary Staggwas a kindly soul, whose heart had led her comfortably through life withvery little appeal to her head. The two or three young women--Oldfieldsand Porters of the Virginian stage--who were under indentures to herhusband and herself found her as much their friend as mistress. Theirtriumphs in the petty playhouse of this town of a thousand souls werehers, and what woes they had came quickly to her ears. Now she would haveslipped her hand into Audrey's and have given garrulous comfort, as thetwo passed alone through the churchyard gate and took their way up PalaceStreet toward the small white house. But Audrey gave not her hand, did notanswer, made no moan, neither justified herself nor blamed another. Shedid not speak at all, but after the first glance about her moved like asleepwalker.

  When the house was reached she went up to the bedroom. Mistress Deborah,entering stormily ten minutes later, found herself face to face with astrange Audrey, who, standing in the middle of the floor, raised her handfor silence in a gesture so commanding that the virago stayed her tirade,and stood open-mouthed.

  "I wish to speak," said the new Audrey. "I was waiting for you. There's aquestion I wish to ask, and I'll ask it of you who were never kind to me."

  "Never kind to her!" cried the minister's wife to the four walls. "Andshe's been taught, and pampered, and treated more like a daughter than thebeggar wench she is! And this is my return,--to sit by her in churchto-day, and have all Virginia think her belonging to me"--

  "I belong to no one," said Audrey. "Even God does not want me. Be quietuntil I have done." She made again the gesture of pushing aside from faceand eyes the mist that clung and blinded. "I know now what they say," shewent on. "The preacher told me awhile ago. Last night a lady spoke to me:now I know what was her meaning. Because Mr. Haward, who saved my life,who brought me from the mountains, who left me, when he sailed away, wherehe thought I would be happy, was kind to me when he came again after somany years; because he has often been to the glebe house, and I to FairView; because last night he would have me go with him to the Governor'sball, they think--they say out loud for all the people to hear--thatI--that I am like Joan, who was whipped last month at the Court House. Butit is not of the lies they tell that I wish to speak."

  Her hand went again to her forehead, then dropped at her side. A look offear and of piteous appeal came into her face. "The witch said that Idreamed, and that it was not well for dreamers to awaken." Suddenly thequiet of her voice and bearing was broken. With a cry, she hurried acrossthe room, and, kneeling, caught at the other's gown. "Ah! that is nodream, is it? No dream that he is my friend, only my friend who has alwaysbeen sorry for me, has always helped me! He is the noblest gentleman, thetruest, the best--he loves the lady at Westover--they are to bemarried--he never knew what people were saying--he was not himself when hespoke to me so last night"--Her eyes appealed to the face above her. "Icould never have dreamed all this," she said. "Tell me that I was awake!"

  The minister's wife looked down upon her with a bitter smile. "So you'vehad your fool's paradise? Well, once I had mine, though 'twas not yourkind. 'Tis a pretty country, Audrey, but it's not long before they turnyou out." She laughed somewhat drearily, then in a moment turned shrewagain. "He never knew what people were saying?" she cried. "You littlefool, do you suppose he cared? 'Twas you that played your cards all wrongwith your Governor's ball last night!--setting up for a lady,forsooth!--bringing all the town about your ears! You might have knownthat he would never have taken you there in his senses. At Fair Viewthings went very well. He was entertained,--and I meant
to see that noharm came of it,--and Darden got his support in the vestry. For he wasbit,--there's no doubt of that,--though what he ever saw in you more thanbig eyes and a brown skin, the Lord knows, not I! Only your friend!--afine gentleman just from London, with a whole Canterbury book of storiesabout his life there, to spend a'most a summer on the road between hisplantation and a wretched glebe house because he was only your friend, andhad saved you from the Indians when you were a child, and wished to bekind to you still! I'll tell you who did wish to be kind to you, and thatwas Jean Hugon, the trader, who wanted to marry you."

  Audrey rose to her feet, and moved slowly backward to the wall. MistressDeborah went shrilly on: "I dare swear you believe that Mr. Haward had youin mind all the years he was gone from Virginia? Well, he didn't. He putsyou with Darden and me, and he says, 'There's the strip of Oronoko down bythe swamp,--I 've told my agent that you're to have from it so many poundsa year;' and he sails away to London and all the fine things there, andnever thinks of you more until he comes back to Virginia and sees you lastMay Day at Jamestown. Next morning he comes riding to the glebe house.'And so,' he says to Darden, 'and so my little maid that I brought fortrophy out of the Appalachian Mountains is a woman grown? Faith, I'd quiteforgot the child; but Saunderson tells me that you have not forgot to drawupon my Oronoko.' That's all the remembrance you were held in, Audrey."

  She paused to take breath, and to look with shrewish triumph at the girlwho leaned against the wall. "I like not waking up," said Audrey toherself. "It were easier to die. Perhaps I am dying."

  "And then out he walks to find and talk to you, and in sets your prettysummer of all play and no work!" went on the other, in a high voice. "Oh,there was kindness enough, once you had caught his fancy! I wonder if thelady at Westover praised his kindness? They say she is a proud young lady:I wonder if she liked your being at the ball last night? When she comesto Fair View, I'll take my oath that you'll walk no more in its garden!But perhaps she won't come now,--though her maid Chloe told MistressBray's Martha that she certainly loves him"--

  "I wish I were dead," said Audrey. "I wish I were dead, like Molly." Shestood up straight against the wall, and pushed her heavy hair from herforehead. "Be quiet now," she said. "You see that I am awake; there is noneed for further calling. I shall not dream again." She looked at theolder woman doubtfully. "Would you mind," she suggested,--"would you be sovery kind as to leave me alone, to sit here awake for a while? I have toget used to it, you know. To-morrow, when we go back to the glebe house, Iwill work the harder. It must be easy to work when one is awake. Dreamingtakes so much time."

  Mistress Deborah could hardly have told why she did as she was asked.Perhaps the very strangeness of the girl made her uncomfortable in herpresence; perhaps in her sour and withered heart there was yet some littlesoundness of pity and comprehension; or perhaps it was only that she hadsaid her say, and was anxious to get to her friends below, and shake fromher soul the dust of any possible complicity with circumstance in mouldingthe destinies of Darden's Audrey. Be that as it may, when she had flungher hood upon the bed and had looked at herself in the cracked glass abovethe dresser, she went out of the room, and closed the door somewhat softlybehind her.