by Howard Pyle
Amid much shouting and laughter the lots were cast, and when it was found that the lucky numbers had been drawn by Mistress Neville and Captain Snow, all the company save one found the result vastly diverting. The Captain fastened his half conspicuously over his breast, and Peggy mischievously slipped hers upon the marriage finger.
Humphrey Huntoon, seeing the gathering cloud on Romney’s brow, filled a goblet from the great punch-bowl which stood in the centre of the table flanked by candelabra bearing twenty candles each.
“A toast, my boy! a toast!” he called out, and under his breath he murmured, “Forget not that to-night you are host first and lover afterward.”
Romney colored but took the goblet, raised it and said, bowing to all corners of the room, —
“To my guests, one and all!”
“I give you ‘The Ladies of Virginia!’” called Colonel Payne.
“Here’s to Maryland! Confusion to her men, but long life to her women!” It was Claiborne who spoke, and Captain Snow capped the toast by clinking his new ring against his goblet and crying, “I drink to Her!”
Peggy, seeing Romney’s face darken again, took her courage in both hands and with it her goblet, which she lifted, saying in a soft voice which could yet be heard over all the room, —
“To Master and Mistress Huntoon, the kindest hostess and the noblest host, and—” here she stretched out her hand to Romney, “to the hero of the night, the best comrade in the world!”
A chorus of “Long life to them all!” greeted the toast, and the goblets clinked merrily; but to Romney it might have been water or wine or poison they were drinking, for all he knew or cared.
At last, when supper was ended Sir William Berkeley rose in his place, and with a solemnity quite different from his jovial manner of the evening hitherto he said, “One last toast, and we will, if you please, drink it standing. The King, God bless him!”
Fifty men sprang to their feet, fifty goblets flashed in air. Then utter silence fell. It was as if the shadow of the scaffold at Whitehall already cast its gloom over the loyal hearts of the colonial cavaliers.
The guests broke up into little groups of two and three and wandered back to the dancing-hall, where the fiddles were still working away for dear life at the strains of “The Jovial Beggar” and “Joan’s Ale is New.” The long lines of reel and brantle formed again, and the dancers refused to give over their merry-making till the gray dawn came peeping in at the window, turning the yellow candlelight to an insignificant glimmer, and hinting of the approaching day and its humdrum duties.
As the guests, one by one, came up to bid their hosts a good-night, which might more appropriately have been a good-morning, Master Claiborne drew Huntoon aside a moment, asking, —
“Will you be at home to-morrow — I mean to-day?”
“Ay.”
“Then I may come to see you?”
“Why not stay now, since ’tis already day?”
“Because there be others I must see first, but I will be back before noon.”
“And I glad as always to see you, but too sleepy, I fear, to give heed to any business.”
“Then get your sleep before, for it is business of moment touching which we need your aid and counsel.”
Before Huntoon could answer, another guest claimed his attention, and he followed to the door to help the ladies, who had donned their hoods and safeguards, to mount their horses or embark in the boats.
As they rode or sailed away into the gray dawn, Peggy, wrapped in her red cloak, stood with Romney watching them from the porch.
“It has been such a beautiful ball!” she sighed.
“You think so?”
“Of course I do; but then, you see, I never saw a real, big ball before. Do you think they are all like that?”
“To girls like you, yes, and I suppose to men like me.”
“But there are so few men like you.”
Romney’s eyes looked a question.
“So persistent and so jealous and so — dear—”
With this Peggy pulled the ring off her finger and, tossing it lightly toward the lad, whispered, —
“Catch! and keep it if you can! It is my birthday gift.”
“I take the dare and I take the gift, and I will yet take something else. So there, Peggy!”
But ere he had finished she had vanished up the stairway and the ball was over.
CHAPTER XXI. A ROOTED SORROW
BEFORE THE LAST guest had taken his departure from Romney the red sun came bobbing up across the river and shot his rays in at the window.
There is a sarcastic common-sense about the morning sun on such occasions. “Was it all worth while?” he seems to ask. “Consider the labor of preparation, the rushing about of the servants, the hours that my lady spent before her mirror with patch and powder-puff, the effort my fine gentleman expended upon his ruffles and falling bands. Then the occasion itself, the weary feet that trod the measure long after the toilsome pleasure had ceased to please, the lips that murmured sentiment knowing it was nonsense, the eyes that reversed the old moral maxim and strove to beam and not to see — Reflect upon all these and then sum up the aftermath, — the disordered rooms, the guttering candles, the faded flowers, the regretted vows, the heavy eyelids, the aching heads. Now, was it all worth while?”
The answer of the overnight revellers would doubtless depend chiefly on age and temperament. Young men and maidens would reply that it was none of the sun’s business; that he had never been at a ball, and did not know what he was talking about, and for themselves they preferred to reserve their confidences for the sympathetic moon, who, being so much younger than the sun, could better understand youthful experiences and emotions.
Certainly that is what Romney Huntoon would have said. The commonplace day annoyed him. His mood was too sentimental for its searching light. He had slept little, and now at near noon hung about the foot of the stairway wondering at what time it would occur to Mistress Margaret Neville to come down.
When she did appear disappointment was in store for him. She seemed to have forgotten wholly that little scene on the terrace, and when he held out his hand with her ring, that blessed little ring upon it, she only courtesied and asked if his mother were yet down stairs.
At breakfast it was little better: she raved over Colonel Theophilus Payne, praised the bearing of Councillor Claiborne, said how she doted upon army men, commended the curls of one cavalier and the bearing of another, — all as if no such youth as Romney Huntoon had ever crossed her path.
Romney avowed his intention of spending the afternoon in his boat on the river. Peggy thought it an excellent plan, and purposed retiring to her room unless Mistress Huntoon had need of her.
Mistress Huntoon had no need of her. In fact, in reviewing last night’s events she felt that Peggy had treated her son rather badly, and she was inclined to make the culprit feel it, too. It must be admitted that justice is never so unrelenting as when Rhadamanthus has been up overnight. On another occasion excuses might have been found for the girl, but this morning she was pronounced unquestionably vain and presumably heartless, — in short, Elizabeth Huntoon was out of temper.
It was not much better with her husband. He was uneasy over the approaching visit of William Claiborne, and annoyed with himself that he had not had the wit to devise an excuse. He knew well Claiborne’s insubordinate temper, and had no mind to be drawn into any of his schemes.
Peggy alone worked away at her stitching in exasperating content. At length Romney could bear it no longer. He rose, thrust his hands into his pockets and rushed out, opening the door with his head as he went, like a goat butting a wall.
Peggy smiled, and the smile brought a frown to the face of her hostess.
“Romney is not over well this morning, I fear,” said his mother.
“I thought he was not behaving well — I mean not behaving as if he were well.”
“He hath much to try him.”
“ That
is hard to believe, in this beautiful home and with thee for a mother.”
Elizabeth tapped the floor with her slipper.
“‘Twere well for young men if a mother’s love sufficed them.”
“Ho! ho!” laughed Humphrey, roused from his abstraction by the tilt between the two women. “Faith, good wife, I felt the need of another love than my mother’s, and I look not to see Romney more filial than I.”
“Oh, you may make a jest of me,” began Elizabeth, stiffly; but there was a catch in her voice which led Peggy to throw down her netting, and run across the room to kneel beside her. “I need a mother’s love more than any,” she whispered.
Elizabeth’s anger weakened.
“Tell me where Romney has gone and I will follow and strive to make my peace.”
For answer Mistress Huntoon pointed through the window to where Romney sat on the edge of the wharf vexing the placid breast of the York River by a volley of pebbles, flipped between his thumb and forefinger.
As the boy sat thus idly occupied, his hand full of pebbles, his head full of bitter thoughts, his heart of a curious numbness, he felt a light touch on his shoulder, but he did not turn.
“Master Huntoon!”
No answer.
“Romney!”
“Ay.”
“Of what art thou thinking?”
“Nothing.”
“And what dost thou think of when thou art thinking of nothing?”
“A woman’s promise.”
“Hath some woman promised thee aught and failed thee?”
“Ay, it comes to the same thing. Eyes may speak promises as well as lips.”
“Oh, yes, eyes may say a great deal, especially when they are angry eyes and look out from under drawn brows. I should scarce think any maid would dare wed a man with eyes that could look black when their color by nature is blue.”
Clever Peggy to shift the ground of attack! Silly Romney to fall into the trap!
“I am not angry.”
“Yes you are, and have been all the morning in a temper. I felt quite sorry for your mother, she was so shamed by it.”
“What said she?”
“Oh, that you were not well, which is what mothers always say when their son’s actions do them no credit.”
“If my temper did me no credit, who drove me to it?”
Peggy raised her eyebrows, puckered her pretty lips, and looked straight up into the sky as if striving to solve a riddle.
“For my life I cannot guess,” she said at last, “unless — unless it was that wretched woman who broke her promise.”
“Thou hast keen insight for one of thy years.”
“Then it was she!”
“It was no other.”
“Tell me her name, that I may go to her and denounce her to her face.”
“Strangers know her as Mistress Margaret Neville. To her friends she is plain Peggy. Now denounce her to her face if thou wilt.”
Tripping to the edge of the bank, the girl bent over till she could catch the reflection of her curls and dancing eyes in the water.
“Plain Peggy,” she said, shaking her finger at the image below with a wicked smile, “you must be a bad baggage. It seems you have broken your promise to marry a gentleman here, and such a perfect gentleman! he says so himself, — one who never gets angry, never butts with his head at doors, never shames his mother. Why, plain Peggy, you must be a fool to lose such a chance; but since you have thrown away such a treasure, I trust you will meet the punishment you do deserve, and that he will go away and never — never — never speak — to you again!”
With this Peggy turned sharply on her heel, burning with curiosity to see the effect of her words. Poor, discomfited little maiden! Romney had withdrawn to the edge of the wharf, and there, close beside her, with his horse’s bridle over his arm, stood Councillor Claiborne.
With no attempt at salutation Peggy clapped her hands over her burning cheeks, and ran, yes, ignominiously ran, toward the house. At the door she met Mistress Huntoon. “Councillor Claiborne is — is — coming,” she stammered breathlessly.
“Why didst thou not stay to speak with him?” But Peggy attempted no answer, only fled on indoors.
When Humphrey had been left alone, by Peggy’s exit to the wharf and his wife’s withdrawal to the offices, his thoughts turned with renewed irritation to Claiborne, till Christopher’s entrance shed its usual benison of tranquillity. The glimpse of the ball which Neville had caught from over the stairway had lingered in his mind as a charming vision. The lights cheered him, and the music had lulled him to sweet slumber, from which he had wakened at peace with the world, yet with a haze of the Indian-summer sadness over the serenity.
After breakfast, Neville and Huntoon sat by the open door smoking their pipes in that social silence so dear to men, so difficult to women.
“Neville,” said his host at length, breaking the long quiet, “you look better to-day than at any time since you came to Romney.”
“Oh, I am well enough.”
“Your tone hath somewhat of discouragement in it.”
“I do feel a certain sadness of late, as if I were ever grasping for something I could not see, much less reach. It doth often seem to me that I and you and all of us here at Romney are shut out from the world by a wall of fog, not dark, because it is ofttimes flooded by sunlight, but heavy, dense, dull. It is like a thick curtain with vague distances in it, like the distances between the sun and the earth, and through these spaces float familiar scenes and faces, and all the while I feel that if I could grasp one word it would prove a clue to guide me through the spaces from one scene to another; but the word — a name, I think it is — will not come, and when I think on it too hard I seem to hear an echo murmuring ‘Far away, far away.’ Then the whole vision fades, and I come back to you and Mistress Huntoon and the rest; and yet it is as if only half of me came back, and half were still wandering through these vague, gray spaces of mist, following the name. Think you I shall ever find it?”
Touched to the quick, Huntoon opened his lips to speak. “Is the name—”
At that point his attention was caught by a stranger’s voice outside the door saying, “I am surprised to see you abroad so early after last night’s mighty merry dance, Mistress Huntoon.”
“I am honored that you found it so merry, Councillor,” said Elizabeth.
“Ay, all counted it the most brilliant festivity yet given in Virginia, and as for the young Maryland beauty, she has turned the heads of half the cavaliers in York County.”
“Some heads are set on pivots, and turn to each new face,” answered Elizabeth, irritably conscious that Romney and Peggy were both within hearing.
“Perhaps, but many of these heads will find some difficulty in turning another way. Captain Snow raved all the way home over her charms, and Colonel Payne swore her coming had gone far to do away with his grudge toward Maryland; and by the way, the name reminds me that I came to see your husband on a matter of somewhat urgent business. Is he within?”
“I left him in the hall,” Elizabeth replied, leading the way back to the house, and turning back after she had waved the new-comer to enter.
“Good-morning, Master Huntoon!”
“Ah, Claiborne, you look as though you had had even less sleep than I.”
“I do suspect ’tis true, for I have been in the saddle since dawn.”
“You must have pressing affairs on hand.”
“Most pressing, and it is concerning them that I am come to consult with you privately.”
A certain emphasis on the last word caused Huntoon to glance toward Neville, who was scrutinizing the inside of his pipe, and had scarcely noted the stranger’s entrance.
“Go on,” said Huntoon, “it is quite safe. I’ll be warrant for the close mouth of my friend here. Besides,” here he drew back behind Neville, and tapped his forehead significantly, “he is a stranger here, and neither cares nor knows anything of our entanglements.”
“Then, Master Huntoon, I will make a clean breast of the matter that brought me hither. You are a Virginian, and a man of honor.”
“Certainly the former, and I have some hopes of the latter.”
“Then join us in our effort to wrest away the land which the perfidious Calverts have stolen under guise of royal grant from the Commonwealth.”
“‘Stolen’ is a strong word, Councillor.”
“Not too strong to fit the occasion. Was not the license to trade with the natives along the Maryland shore granted to me by the government of Virginia, and afterward by the King himself?”
“It was.”
“Was it not under authority of Virginia that I made a settlement at Kent Island?”
“Yes, but—”
“Did not Kent belong to Virginia by right of a charter antedating the patent of that upstart, Calvert?”
“The Commissioners in England decided differently.”
“Ay, of course wire-pulling will always move the wires.”
Huntoon’s only response was a non-committal smile.
“You may remember, Councillor Huntoon, that this same question came before the Virginia Council ten years ago, that I did ask the opinion of that honorable body as to whether I should yield to Baltimore’s claims. The board answered that they wondered how any such question could be asked, that they knew no reason why they should give up their rights in the Isle of Kent more than any other formerly granted to Virginia by His Majesty’s patent, and that I was in duty bound to maintain the rights and privileges of our colony.”
“But that was before the decision of the Commission.”
“Ay, but that goes for nothing. ’Twas unjust, unfair, and should be unrecognized.”