She scarcely deigned to glance at me; the gentleman beside her paid me no attention; and I was thankful enough that Lady Shelton had not recognized me.
They were waddling down the paddock some distance away when Mount rejoined me, complaining of the cheerless draught which my obstinacy had compelled him to swallow, and we passed the gate and ascended the pretty slope.
We were, perhaps, half-way up the slope, when I heard a footstep behind us and glanced back. What was my astonishment to behold the Weasel trotting along at our heels.
“Where on earth did you come from?” I asked.
“From the ‘Virginia Arms,’” he replied, seriously. “I like to be near Jack.”
Mount, in pleased surprise, had already laid his great paw on the Weasel’s shoulder. Now he smiled at the little careworn man with wonderful tenderness. It was strange, the affection between these two roaming men, the naïve fidelity of the Weasel, the fostering care of the younger giant, whose attitude was sometimes fatherly, sometimes filial.
The Weasel looked back at the course where, already, the bell was striking to warn the jockeys, and where, one after another, the horses cantered out to the judges’ stand and stood restively, or backed and pirouetted and reared in the sunshine.
“Have you ever before seen a race?” I asked.
“I? A race?” He waved his hand with a peculiarly sad gesture. “Many a noble horse has carried my colours on Cambridge Downs,” he said, simply. “Many a plate have my youngsters won for me, Mr. Cardigan.”
He looked out over the green meadow, folding his small, dry hands meekly.
“Lord, Lord,” he murmured, “the world has changed since then! The world has changed!”
“Friends have not,” murmured Mount.
“No, no, you are quite right, Jack,” said Renard, hastily.
“Then who the devil cares how the world may change,” snapped Mount. “Come, Cade, old friend, sit you here in the sweet grass and you and I will wager straws on the jockeys’ colours yonder, while our young gentleman here lightly goes a-courting!”
I did not choose to notice Mount’s remark, knowing that he meant no offence, so I left the pair sitting on the sod and climbed the remaining half of the slope alone.
Now, no sooner had I reached the top of the knoll than I perceived Silver Heels, sitting upon a rock, reading a letter; and when I drew near, my moccasins making no sound, I could not help but see that it was my letter she perused so diligently. It gratified me to observe that she apparently valued the instructions in my letter, and I trusted she intended to profit by them, for Heaven knew she needed admonition and the judicious counsel of a mature intellect.
“Silver Heels,” I began, kindly.
She started, then crushed the letter to a ball, thrusting it into her bosom.
“Oh, Michael, you are insufferable!” she cried.
“What!” I exclaimed, astonished.
Her eyes filled and she sprang up.
“I know not whether to laugh or cry, so vexed am I!” she stammered, and called me booby and Paul Pry, drying her eyes the while her tongue upbraided me.
“I am not spying,” said I, hotly; “don’t pretend that scrawl was a love-letter, for I know it to be my own!”
“Ah — you did come spying!” she flashed out, stamping her foot furiously.
“Lord! was there ever such a spiteful maid!” I cried. “I came here to have a word with you concerning our journey this night. I care not a penny whistle for your love-letters. Can you not understand that?”
She turned somewhat pale and stood still. Her under-lip quivered between her teeth.
“Yes,” she said, slowly, “I understand.”
I had not meant to speak harshly, and I told her so. She nodded, scarcely listening. Then I spoke of our coming journey, which, though it galled me to say so, I explained to her was nothing less than a flight.
She acquiesced, saying she was ready, and that she only longed to leave the town forever. She said that she had known nothing but unhappiness here, and that the memory of it would always be abhorrent, which surprised me, as I had understood that the gentleman-god dwelt hereabouts. However, I said nothing to disturb her or endanger her docility, and we discussed our plans reasonably and with perfect calmness.
I was pleased to see that she already appeared to be in better health. Rouge and patch had disappeared; her colour was better; her eyes brighter; her lips redder. Also, her gown was simpler and more pleasing to me, and her hair bore no extravagant towers, but was sweetly puffed and rolled from her white forehead. Still, her arms were more frail than I liked to see, and there rested a faint bluish shadow under each eye.
“How came you to find me out, here in my retreat?” she asked, slowly.
“Mr. Bevan told me,” I replied, watching her.
“Poor Mr. Bevan,” she murmured; “how jealous you were of him.”
“He is a splendid fellow,” I declared, much ashamed.
“So you are already friends,” she observed, in a musing way.
“I trust so,” I replied, fervently.
“Is it not sudden?” she asked.
But I would not commit myself.
“Silver Heels,” I said, “does it not seem good to be together again here in the sunshine?”
“Ah, yes!” she cried, impetuously, then stopped.
Doubtless she was thinking of the gentleman-god.
I sat down on the grass beside her and began pulling buttercups. One I held under her white chin to see if she still loved butter.
“I love all that I ever loved,” she said, leaning forward over her knees to pluck a tiny blue bud in the grass.
“Do you remember that day you bit me in the school-room?” I asked, with youthful brutality.
The crimson flooded her temples. She involuntarily glanced at my left hand; the scar was still there, and she covered her eyes tightly with her hands.
“Oh! Oh! Oh!” she murmured, in horror. “What a savage I was! No wonder you hated me—”
“Only at moments,” I said, magnanimously; “I always liked you, Silver Heels.”
Presently she drew her hands from her eyes and touched her flushed cheeks with the blue blossom thoughtfully.
“Michael,” she said, “I — I never told you, but I was very glad when you came to explain to me that night in the pantry.”
“Well,” said I, stiffly, “you certainly concealed your pleasure. Lord, child, how you scorned me!”
“I know it,” she muttered, in quick vexation; “I was a perfect fool. You see, I — I was hurt so deeply that it frightened me—”
“You ought to have known that I meant nothing,” said I. “Mrs. Hamilton tormented me till I — I — well, whatever I did was harmless. Anyway, it was done because I thought I loved you — I mean like a lover, you know—”
“I know,” said Silver Heels.
“After that,” said I, smiling, “I knew my own mind.”
“And I knew mine,” said Silver Heels.
“And now I know the difference between hurt vanity and love,” I added, complacently.
“I, too,” said Silver Heels.
“You can’t know such things; you are scarcely sixteen,” I insisted.
“My mother was wedded at sixteen; she wedded for love.”
After a silence I asked her how she knew that, as she had never seen her mother.
“Sir Peter Warren has told me in his letters,” she said, simply. “Besides, you are wrong when you say I never saw my mother. I did, but I was too young to remember. She died when I was a year old.”
“But you never saw your father,” I said.
“Oh no. He was killed at sea by the French.”
That was news to me, although I had always been aware that he had died at sea on board his Majesty’s ship Leda, one of Sir Peter’s squadron.
“Who told you he was killed by the French?” I asked, soberly.
“Sir Peter. A few days after you left Johnstown I receive
d a packet from Sir Peter. It came on a war-ship which put in at New York, and the express brought it. Sir Peter also wrote to Sir William. I don’t know what he said. Sir William was very silent with me after that, but just before I left with Lady Shelton to come here, he had a long talk with me—”
She stopped abruptly.
“Well?” I asked.
Silver Heels twirled the blue bud in her fingers.
“He said — to — to tell you if I saw you in Pittsburg — to — to — I mean that I was to say to you that Sir William had changed his mind—”
“About what?” I demanded, irritably.
“Our betrothal.”
“Our betrothal?”
“Yes. I am not to wed you.”
“Of course not,” I said, rather blankly; “but I thought Sir William desired it. He said that he did. He said it to me!”
“He no longer wishes it,” said Silver Heels.
“Why?”
“I don’t know,” she answered, faintly.
I was hurt.
“Oh, very well,” I observed, resentfully, “doubtless Sir William has chosen a wealthy gentleman of rank and distinction for you. He is quite right. I am only a cornet of horse, and won’t be that long. All the same, I cannot see why he forbids me to wed you. He told me he wished it! I cannot see why he should so slight me! Why should he forbid me to wed you?”
“Do you care?” asked Silver Heels.
“Who — I? Care? Why — why, I don’t know. It is not 284 very pleasant to be told you are too poor and humble to wed your own kin if you wish to. Suppose I wished to?”
After a moment she said: “Well — it’s too late now.”
“How do you know?” I said, sharply. “I do not see why I should be driven away from you! It is unfair! It is unkind! It is mortifying and I don’t like it! See here, Silver Heels, why should Sir William drive me away from you?”
“You have never needed driving,” said Silver Heels.
“Yes, I have!” I retorted. “Didn’t you drive me away for Bevan?”
After a silence she stole a glance at me.
“Would you come back — now?”
Something in her voice startled me.
“Why — yes,” I stammered, not knowing exactly what she meant; “I cannot see that there is such difference in rank between us that Sir William should forbid me to wed you. Of course you would not wed beneath you, and, as for me, I’d sooner cut my head off!”
“I was afraid,” she ventured, “that perhaps — perhaps Sir William thought you had become too fine for me. I could not endure to wed you if that were true.”
This was a new idea. Was it true that my quality unfitted me to mate with Silver Heels? The idea did not gratify me now.
“I’ll tell you this,” said I, “that if I loved you in that way — you know what I mean! — I’d wed you anyhow!”
“But I would not wed you!” she said, haughtily.
“You would not refuse me?” I asked, in amazement.
“I should hate you — if you were above me — in rank!”
“Even if you loved me before?”
“Ah, yes — even if I loved you — as I love — him whom I love.”
Her clear eyes were looking straight into mine now. Again her voice had stirred some new and untouched chord which curiously thrilled, sounding stealthily within me.
She lowered her eyes to the blue blossom in her fingers, and I saw her crush it. What soft, white fingers she had! The flushed tips, crushing the blossom, fascinated me.
Again, suddenly, my heart began to beat heavily, thumping in my throat so strangely that I shivered and passed my hand over my breast.
Silver Heels bent lower over her idle hands; her fingers, so exquisite, were still now.
Presently I said, “Who is this fool whom you love?”
I had not thought to fright or hurt her, but she flushed and burned until all her face was surging scarlet to her hair.
“Silver Heels,” I stammered, catching her fingers.
At the touch the strange thrill struck through my body and I choked, unable to utter a word; but the desire for her hands set me quivering, and I caught her fingers and drew them, interlocked, from her eyes. Her eyes! Their beauty amazed me; their frightened, perilous sweetness drew my head down to them. Breathless, her mouth touched mine; against me her heart was beating; then suddenly she had gone, and I sprang to my feet to find her standing tearful, quivering, with her hands on her throbbing throat. I leaned against a sapling, dazed, content to meet her eyes and strive to think. Useless! In my whirling thoughts I could but repeat her name, endlessly. Other thoughts crept in, but flew scattering to the four winds, while every pulse within me throbbed out her name, repeating, ceaselessly repeating, in my beating heart.
We were so poor in years, so utterly untried in love, that the strangeness of it set us watching one another. Passion, shaking frail bodies, startles, till pain, always creeping near, intrudes, dismaying maid and youth to love’s confusion.
With a sort of curious terror she watched me leaning there, and I saw her trembling fingers presently busied with the silken hat ribbons under her chin, tying and retying as though she knew not what she did. Then of a sudden she dropped on the rock and fell a-weeping without a sound; and I knelt beside her, crushing her shoulders close to me, and kissing her neck and hands, nay, the very damask on her knees, and the silken tongue of her buckled shoon among the buttercups.
Why she wept I knew not, nor did she — nor did I ask her why. Her frail hands fell listlessly, scarcely moving under my lips. Once she laid her arm about my neck, then dropped it as though repelled. And never a word could we find to break the silence.
I heard the wind blowing somewhere in the world, but 286 where, I cared not. I heard blossoms discreetly stirring, and dusky branches interlacing, taking counsel together behind their leafy, secret screens. My ears were filled with voiceless whisperings, delicate and noiseless words were forming in the silence, “I love you”; and my dumb tongue and lips, unstirring, understood, and listened. Then, when my sweetheart had also heard, she turned and put both arms around my neck, linking her fingers, and her gray eyes looked down at me, beside her knees.
“Now you must go,” she was repeating, touching her little French hat with tentative fingers to straighten it, but eyes and lips tenderly smiling at me. “My Lady Shelton and Sir Timerson Chank will surely return to catch you here if you hasten not — dear heart.”
“But will you not tell me when you first loved me, Silver Heels?” I persisted.
“Well, then — if you must be told — it was on the day when you first wore your uniform, and I saw you were truly a man!”
“That day! When you scarcely spoke to me?”
“Ay, that was the reason. Yet now I think of it, I know I have always loved you dearly; else why should I have been so hurt when you misused me; why should I have cried abed so many, many nights, vowing to my heart that I did hate you as I hated no man! Ah — dear friend, you will never know—”
“But,” I insisted, “you grew cool enough to wed Lord Dunmore—”
“Horror! Why must you ever hark back to him when I tell you it was not I who did that, but a cruelly used and foolish child, stung with the pain of your indifference, maddened to hear you talk of mating me as though I were your hound! — and my only thought was to put myself above you and beyond your reach to shame me—”
“Oh, Silver Heels!” I murmured, aghast at my own wickedness.
But she was already smiling again, with her slender hands laid on my shoulders.
“All that tastes sweetly — now,” she said.
“It is ashes in my mouth,” I said, bitterly, and upbraided myself aloud, until she placed her fingers on my face and silently signed me to turn around.
At the same instant a wheezy noise came to my ears, and the next moment, over the edge of the slope, a large, round face rose like the full moon.
Fascinated, I watched it; the whe
ezing grew louder and more laboured.
“Lady Shelton! Oh, go! go!” whispered Silver Heels. But it was too late for flight had I been so minded.
Suddenly my Lady Shelton’s fat feet began to trot as though of their own notion, for her cold, flabby features expressed no emotion, although, from the moment her moon-like face had risen behind the hill, I saw that her eyes were fixed on me.
After her puffed the fat gentleman, Sir Timerson Chank, and behind him came mincing Lord Dunmore, fanning his face with a lace handkerchief, his little gold-edged French hat under his arm. Faith, he was in a rare temper.
Lady Shelton paddled up to Silver Heels, halted, and panted at her. Then she turned on me and panted at me until her voice returned. With her voice, her features assumed a most extraordinary change; billows of fat agitated the expanse of chin and cheek, and her voice, babyish in fury, made me jump, for it sounded as though some tiny, pixy creature, buried inside of her, was scolding me.
Sir Timerson Chank now bore down on my left and presently rounded to, delivering his broadside at short range; but I turned on him savagely, bidding him hold his tongue, which so astonished him that he obeyed me.
As for Dunmore, his shrill prattle never ceased, and he danced and vapoured and fingered his small-sword, till my hands itched to throw him into the blackberry thicket.
“If,” said I, to Lady Shelton, “you are pleased to forbid me your door, pray remember, madam, that your authority extends no farther! I shall not ask your permission to address my cousin, Miss Warren — nor yours!” I added, wheeling on Sir Timerson Chank.
“Sir Timerson! Sir Timerson! Arrest him! You are a 288 magistrate. Sir Timerson! Arrest him! Oh, I’m all of a twitter!” panted Lady Shelton.
But Sir Timerson Chank made no sign of compliance.
“Lord Dunmore,” I said, “by what privilege do you assume to vapour and handle the hilt of your small-sword in Miss Warren’s presence?”
Works of Robert W Chambers Page 111