“Home!” exclaimed Sir Peter, surprised. “Why, I thought — I had hoped we were to have her with us until winter. Gad! It is as you say, not too agreeable news, Captain Butler. Why, she has been the life of the town, sir; she has waked us and set us all a-dancing like yokels at a May-pole or a ring-around-a-rosy! Split me! Captain Butler, but Lady Coleville will be sorry to learn this news — and I, too, sir, and every man in New York town.”
He looked at me in genuine distress. My face was perfectly expressionless.
“This should hit you hard, Carus,” he said meaningly. Then, without seeing, I felt Walter Butler’s head slowly turning, and was aware of his eyes on me.
“Come, gentlemen,” said Sir Peter, “the horses are here. Is not that fine chestnut your mount, Captain Butler? You will ride with us, will you not? Where is your baggage? At Flocks? I shall send for it — no, sir, I take no excuse. While you are in New York you shall be my guest, Captain Butler.”
And so, Sir Peter naming Butler to O’Neil and Harkness, and salutes being decently exchanged, we mounted and cantered off along Great George Street, Horrock on his hunter bringing up the rear.
And at every stride of my horse a new misgiving, a deeper distrust of this man Butler stirred in my troubled heart.
CHAPTER IV
SUNSET AND DARK
It was six o’clock in the early evening, the sun still shining, and in the air a sea-balm most delicious. Sir Peter and Captain Butler had gone to see Sir Henry, Butler desiring to be presented by so grand a personage as Sir Peter, I think, through mere vanity; for his own rank and title and his pressing mission should have been sufficient credentials. Sir Henry Clinton was not too difficult of approach.
Meanwhile I, finding neither Lady Coleville nor the Hon. Elsin Grey at home, had retired to my chambers to write to Colonel Willett concerning Butler’s violent designs on the frontier. When I finished I made a sealed packet of all papers accumulated, and, seizing hat, snuff-box, and walking-stick, went out into Wall Street, through the dismal arcades of the City Hall, and down to Hanover Square. Opposite Mr. Goelet’s Sign of the Golden Key, and next door to Mr. Minshall’s fashionable Looking-Glass Store, was the Silver Box, the shop of Ennis the Tobacconist, a Boston man in our pay; and it was here that for four years I was accustomed to bring the dangerous despatches that should go north to his Excellency or to Colonel Willett, passed along from partizan to partizan and from agent to agent, though who these secret helpers along the route might be I never knew, only that Ennis charged himself with what despatches I brought, and a week or more later they were at Dobbs Ferry, West Point, or in Albany. John Ennis was there when I entered; he bowed his dour and angular New England bow, served a customer with snuff, bowed him to the door, then returned grinning to me, rubbing his long, lean, dangerous hands upon his apron — hands to throttle a Tryon County wolf!
“Butler’s in town,” he said harshly, through his beak of a nose. “I guess there’s blood to be smelled somewhere in the north when the dog-wolf’s abroad at sunup. He came by sloop this morning,” he added, taking the packet from my hands and laying it upon a table in plain sight — the best way to conceal anything.
“How do you know?” I asked.
“A Bull’s-Head drover whistled it an hour since,” he said carelessly. “That same drover and his mate desire to see you, Mr. Renault. Could you, by chance, take the air at dusk — say on Great George Street — until you hear a whippoorwill?”
I nodded.
“You will not fail, then, sir? This drover and his fellow go north to-night, bearing the cross o’ fire.”
“I shall not fail them,” I said, drawing a triple roll of guineas from my pocket. “This money goes to the prison-ships; they are worse off there than under Cunningham. See to it, Ennis. I shall bring more to-morrow.”
He winked; then with grimace and circumstance and many a stiff-backed bow conducted me to the door, where I stood a moment, snuff-box in hand, as though testing some new and most delicious brand just purchased from the Silver Box.
There were many respectable folk abroad in Hanover Square, thronging the foot-paths, crowding along the gay shop-windows, officers lagging by the jeweler’s show, sober gentlemen clustering about the book-stalls, ladies returning from their shopping or the hair-dresser’s, young bucks, arm in arm, swaggering in and out of coffee-house and tavern.
As I stood there, making pretense to take snuff, I noticed a sedan-chair standing before Mrs. Ballin’s millinery-shop, and seeing that the bearers were Lady Coleville’s men, I crossed the street.
As I came up they touched their hats, and at the same moment the shop-door opened and out tripped, not Lady Coleville at all, but the Hon. Elsin Grey in the freshest of flowered gowns, wearing a piquant chip hat à la Gunning, with pink ribbons tied under her dainty chin.
“You!” she cried. “Of all men, to be caught a-raking in Hanover Square like some mincing macaroni, peeping into strange sedan-chairs!”
“I knew it was Lady Coleville’s chair,” I said, laughing, yet a little vexed, too.
“It isn’t; it’s Mrs. Barry’s,” she said. “Our chairs are all at the varnishers. Now what excuse can you trump up?”
“The bearers are Lady Coleville’s,” I said. “Don’t be disagreeable. I came to walk with you.”
“Expecting to meet Rosamund Barry! Thank you, Carus. And I may add that I have seen little of you since Friday; not that I had noticed your absence, but meeting you on your favorite promenade reminded me how recreant are men. Heigho! and alas! You may hand me to my chair before you leave me to go ogling Broad Street for your Sacharissa.”
I conducted her to the curb in silence, tucking her perfumed skirts in as she seated herself. The bearers resumed the bars, and I, hat under one arm and stick at a fashionable angle, strolled along beside the chair as it proceeded up Wall Street. It was but a step to Broadway. I opened the chair door and aided her to descend, then dismissed the bearers and walked slowly with her toward the stoop.
“This silence is truly soothing,” she observed, nose in the air, “but one can not expect everything, Mr. Renault.”
“What is it that you lack?” I asked.
“A man to talk to,” she said disdainfully. “For goodness sake, Carus, change that sulky face for a brighter mask and find a civil word for me. I do not aspire to a compliment, but, for mercy’s sake, say something!”
“Will you walk with me a little way?” I inquired stiffly.
“Walk with you? Oh, what pleasure! Where? On Broadway? On Crown Street? On Queen Street? Or do you prefer Front Street and Old Slip? I wish to be perfectly agreeable, Carus, and I’ll do anything to please you, even to running away with you in an Italian chaise!”
“I may ask you to do that, too,” I said.
“Ask me, then! Mercy on the man! was there ever so willing a maid? Give me a moment to fetch a sun-mask and I’m off with you to any revel you please — short of the Coq d’Or,” she added, with a daring laugh— “and I might be persuaded to that — as far as the cherry-trees — with you, Carus, and let my reputation go hang!”
We had walked on into Broadway and along the foot-path under the lime-trees where the robins were singing that quaint evening melody I love, and the pleasant scent of grass and salt breeze mingled in exquisite freshness.
“I had a dish of tea with some very agreeable people in Queen Street,” she remarked. “Lady Coleville is there still. I took Mrs. Barry’s chair to buy me a hat — and how does it become me?” she ended, tipping her head on one side for my inspection.
“It is modish,” I replied indifferently.
“Certainly it is modish,” she said dryly— “a Gunning hat, and cost a penny, too. Oh, Carus, when I think what that husband of mine must pay to maintain me — —”
“What husband?” I said, startled.
“Why, any husband!” She made a vague gesture. “Did I say that I had picked him out yet, silly? But there must be one some day, I suppose.”
> We had strolled as far as St. Paul’s and had now returned as far as Trinity. The graves along the north transept of the ruined church were green and starred with wild flowers, and we turned into the churchyard, walking very slowly side by side.
“Elsin,” I began.
“Ah! the gentleman has found his tongue,” she exclaimed softly. “Speak, Sir Frippon; thy Sacharissa listens.”
“I have only this to ask. Dance with me once to-night, will you? — nay, twice, Elsin?”
She seated herself upon a green mound and looked up at me from under her chip hat. “I have not at all made up my mind,” she said. “Captain Butler is to be there. He may claim every dance that Sir Henry does not claim.”
“Have you seen him?” I asked sullenly.
“Mercy, yes! He came at noon while you and Sir Peter were gambling away your guineas at the Coq d’Or.”
“He waited upon you?”
“He waited on Lady Coleville. I was there.”
“Were you not surprised to see him in New York?”
“Not very” — she considered me with a far-away smile— “not very greatly nor very — agreeably surprised. I have told you his sentiments regarding me.”
“I can not understand,” I said, “what you see in him to fascinate you.”
“Nor I,” she replied so angrily that she startled me. “I thought to-day when I met him, Oh, dear! Now I’m to be harrowed with melancholy and passion, when I was having such an agreeable time! But, Carus, even while I pouted I felt the subtle charm of that very sadness, the strange, compelling influence of those melancholy eyes.” She sighed and plucked a late violet, drawing the stem slowly between her white teeth and staring at the ruined church.
After a while I said: “Do you regret that you are so soon to leave us?”
“Regret it?” She looked at me thoughtfully. “Carus,” she said, “you are wonderfully attractive to me. I wish you had acquired that air of gentle melancholy — that poet’s pallor which becomes a noble sadness — and I might love you, if you asked me.”
“I’m sad enough at your going,” I said lightly.
“Truly, are you sorry? And when I am gone will you forget la belle Canadienne? Ah, monsieur, l’amitié est une chose si rare, que, n’eut-elle duré qu’un jour, on doit en respecter jusqu’au souvenir.”
“It is not I who shall forget to respect it, madam, jusqu’au souvenir.”
“Nor I, mon ami. Had I not known that love is at best a painful pleasure I might have mistaken my happiness with you for something very like it.”
“You babble of love,” I blurted out, “and you know nothing of it! What foolish whim possesses you to think that fascination Walter Butler has for you is love?”
“What is it, then?” she asked, with a little shudder.
“How do I know? He has the devil’s own tenacity, bold black eyes and a well-cut head, and a certain grace of limb and bearing nowise remarkable. But” — I waved my hand helplessly— “how can a sane man understand a woman’s preference? — nay, Elsin, I do not even pretend to understand you. All I know is that our friendship began in an instant, opened to full sweetness like a flower overnight, and, like a flower, is nearly ended now — nearly ended.”
“Not ended; I shall remember.”
“Well, and if we both remember — to what purpose?”
“To what purpose is friendship, Carus, if not to remember when alone?”
I listened, head bent. Then, pursuing my own thoughts aloud: “It is not wise for a maid to plight her troth in secret, I care not for what reasons. I know something of men; it is a thing no honest man should ask of any woman. Why do you fear to tell Sir Frederick Haldimand?”
“Captain Butler begged me not to.”
“Why?” I asked sharply.
“He is poor. You must surely know what the rebels have done — how their commissioners of sequestration seized land and house from the Tryon County loyalists. Captain Butler desires me to say nothing until, through his own efforts and by his sword, he has won back his own in the north. And I consented. Meanwhile,” she added airily, “he has a glove of mine to kiss, I refusing him my hand to weep upon. And so we wait for one another, and pin our faith upon his sword.”
“To wait for him — to plight your troth and wait for him until he and Sir John Johnson have come into their own again?”
“Yes, Carus.”
“And then you mean to wed him?”
She was silent. The color ebbed in her cheeks.
I stood looking at her through the evening light. Behind her, gilded by the level rays of the sinking sun, a new headstone stood, and on it I read:
IN MEMORY OF
Michael Cresap, First Cap’t
Of the Rifle Battalions,
And Son to Col. Thomas
Cresap, Who Departed this
Life, Oct. 18, a.d. 1775.
Cresap, the generous young captain, whose dusty column of Maryland riflemen I myself had seen when but a lad, pouring through Broadalbin Bush on the way to Boston siege! This was his grave; and a Tory maid in flowered petticoat and chip hat was seated on the mound a-prattling of rebels!
“When do you leave us?” I asked grimly.
“Captain Butler has gone to see Sir Henry to ask for a packet. We sail as soon as may be.”
“Does he go with you?” I demanded, startled.
“Why, yes — I and my two maids, and Captain Butler. Sir Frederick Haldimand knows.”
“Yes, but he does not know that Captain Butler has presumed — has dared to press a clandestine suit with you!” I retorted angrily. “It does not please me that you go under such doubtful escort, Elsin.”
“And pray, who are you to please, sir?” she asked in quick displeasure. “You speak of presumption in others, Mr. Renault, and, unsolicited, you offer an affront to me and to a gentleman who is not here to answer.”
“I wish he were,” I said between my teeth.
Her fair face hardened.
“Wishes are very safe, sir,” she said in a low voice.
At that, suddenly, such a blind anger flooded me that the setting sun swam in my eyes and the blood dinned in ears and brain as though to burst them. At such moments, which are rare with me, I fall silent; and so I stood, while the strange rage shook me, and passed, leaving me cold and very quiet.
“I think we had best go,” I said.
She held out her hand. I aided her to rise; and she kept my hand in hers, laying the other over it, and looked up into my eyes.
“Forgive me, Carus,” she whispered. “No man can be more gallant and more sweet than you.”
“Forgive me, Elsin. No maid so generous and just as you.”
And that was all, for we crossed the street, and I mounted the stoop of our house with her, and bowed her in when the great door opened.
“Are you not coming in?” she asked, lingering in the doorway.
“No. I shall take the air.”
“But we sup in a few moments.”
“I may sup at the Coq d’Or,” I said. Still she stood there, the wind blowing through the doorway fluttering the pink bows tied under her chin — a sweet, wistful face turned up to mine, and the early candle-light from the hall sconces painting one rounded cheek with golden lusters.
“Have you freely forgiven me, Carus?”
“Yes, freely. You know it.”
“And you will be at the Fort? I shall give you that dance you ask to-night, shall I not?”
“If you will.”
There was a silence; she stretched out one hand. Then the door was closed and I descended the steps once more, setting my hat on my head and tucking my walking-stick under one arm, prepared to meet my drover friend, who, Ennis said, desired to speak with me.
But I had no need to walk out along Great George Street to find my bird; for, as I left Wall Street and swung the corner into Broadway, the husky, impatient whisper of a whippoorwill broke out from the dusk among the ruins of Trinity, and I started and turned
, crossing the street. Wild birds there were a-plenty in the city, yet the whippoorwill so seldom came into the streets that the note alone would have attracted me had Ennis not warned me of the signal.
And so I strolled once more into the churchyard and among the felled trees which the soldiers had cut down for fire-wood, as they were scorched past hope of future growth; and presently, prowling through the dusk among the graves by Lambert Street, I came upon my drover, seated upon a mound, smoking his clay as innocent as any tavern slug in the sun.
“Good even, friend,” he said, looking up. “I thought I heard a whippoorwill but now, and being country bred, stole in to listen. Did you hear it, sir?”
“I thought I did,” said I, amused. “I thought it sang, Pro Gloria in Excelsis — —”
“Hush!” whispered the drover, smiling; “sit here beside me and we’ll listen. Perhaps the bird may sing that anthem once again.”
I seated myself on the green mound, and the next moment sprang to my feet as a shape before me seemed to rise out of the very ground; then, hearing my drover laugh, I resumed my place as the short figure came toward us.
“Another drover,” said my companion, “and a famous one, Mr. Renault, for he drove certain wild cattle at a headlong gallop from the pastures at Saratoga — he and I and another drover they call Dan’l Morgan. We have been strolling here among these graves, a-prying for old friends — brother drovers. We found one drover’s grave — a lad called Cresap — hard by the arch there to the north.”
“Did you know him?” I asked.
“Yes, lad. I was a herder of his at Dunmore’s slaughter-house. I saw him jailed at Fortress Pitt; I saw him freed, too. And one fine day in ‘76, a-lolling at my ease in the north, what should I hear but a jolly conch-horn blowing in the forest, and out of it rolled a torrent of men in buckskin, Cresap leading, bound for that famous cattle-drive at Boston town. So I, being by chance in buckskin, and by merest chance bearing a rifle, fell in and joined the merry ranks — I and my young friend Cardigan, who is now with certain mounted drovers called, I think, Colonel Washington’s Dragoons, harrying those Carolina cattle owned by Tarleton.”
Works of Robert W Chambers Page 229