Part 8 (1/2)
The rector was especially bitter toward the good people of Boston Town, whom he dubbed Puritan fanatics. To him Mr. Otis was but a meddling fool, and Mr. Adams a traitor whose head only remained on his shoulders by grace of the extreme clemency of his Majesty, which Mr. Allen was at a loss to understand. When beaten in argument, he would laugh out some sneer that would set my blood simmering. One morning he came in late for the lesson, smelling strongly of wine, and bade us bring our books out under the fruit trees in the garden. He threw back his gown and tilted his cap, and lighting his pipe began to speak of that act of Townshend's, pa.s.sed but the year before, which afterwards proved the King's folly and England's ruin.
”Principle!” exclaimed my fine clergyman at length, blowing a great whiff among the white blossoms. ”Oons! your Americans wors.h.i.+p his Majesty stamped upon a golden coin. And though he saved their tills from plunder from the French, the miserly rogues are loth to pay for the service.”
I rose, and taking a guinea-piece from my pocket, held it up before him.
”They care this much for gold, sir, and less for his Majesty, who cares nothing for them,” I said. And walking to the well near by, I dropped the piece carelessly into the clear water. He was beside me before it left my hand, and Philip also, in time to see the yellow coin edging this way and that toward the bottom. The rector turned to me with a smile of cynical amus.e.m.e.nt playing over his features.
”Such a spirit has brought more than one brave fellow to Tyburn, Master Carvel,” he said. And then he added reflectively, ”But if there were more like you, we might well have cause for alarm.”
Volume 2.
CHAPTER VIII. OVER THE WALL
Dorothy treated me ill enough that spring. Since the minx had tasted power at Carvel Hall, there was no accounting for her. On returning to town Dr. Courtenay had begged her mother to allow her at the a.s.semblies, a request which Mrs. Manners most sensibly refused. Mr. Marmaduke had given his consent, I believe, for he was more impatient than Dolly for the days when she would become the toast of the province. But the doctor contrived to see her in spite of difficulties, and Will Fotheringay was forever at her house, and half a dozen other lads. And many gentlemen of fas.h.i.+on like the doctor called ostensibly to visit Mrs. Manners, but in reality to see Miss Dorothy. And my lady knew it. She would be lingering in the drawing-room in her best bib and tucker, or strolling in the garden as Dr. Courtenay pa.s.sed, and I got but scant attention indeed. I was but an awkward lad, and an old playmate, with no novelty about me.
”Why, Richard,” she would say to me as I rode or walked beside her, or sat at dinner in Prince George Street, ”I know every twist and turn of your nature. There is nothing you could do to surprise me. And so, sir, you are very tiresome.”
”You once found me useful enough to fetch and carry, and amusing when I walked the Oriole's bowsprit,” I replied ruefully.
”Why don't you make me jealous?” says she, stamping her foot. ”A score of pretty girls are languis.h.i.+ng for a glimpse of you,--Jennie and Bess Fotheringay, and Betty Tayloe, and Heaven knows how many others. They are actually accusing me of keeping you trailing. 'La, girls!' said I, 'if you will but rid me of him for a day, you shall have my lasting grat.i.tude.'”
And she turned to the spinet and began a lively air. But the taunt struck deeper than she had any notion of. That spring arrived out from London on the Belle of the Wye a box of fine clothes my grandfather had commanded for me from his own tailor; and a word from a maid of fifteen did more to make me wear them than any amount of coaxing from Mr. Allen and my Uncle Grafton. My uncle seemed in particular anxious that I should make a good appearance, and reminded me that I should dress as became the heir of the Carvel house. I took counsel with Patty Swain, and then went to see Betty Tayloe, and the Fotheringay girls, and the Dulany girls, near the Governor's. And (fie upon me!) I was not ill-pleased with the brave appearance I made. I would show my mistress how little I cared. But the worst of it was, the baggage seemed to trouble less than I, and had the effrontery to tell me how happy she was I had come out of my sh.e.l.l, and broken loose from her ap.r.o.n-strings.
”Indeed, they would soon begin to think I meant to marry you, Richard,”
says she at supper one Sunday before a tableful, and laughed with the rest.
”They do not credit you with such good sense, my dear,” says her mother, smiling kindly at me.
And Dolly bit her lip, and did not join in that part of the merriment.
I fled to Patty Swain for counsel, nor was it the first time in my life I had done so. Some good women seem to have been put into this selfish world to comfort and advise. After Prince George Street with its gilt and marbles and stately hedged gardens, the low-beamed, vine-covered house in the Duke of Gloucester Street was a home and a rest. In my eyes there was not its equal in Annapolis for beauty within and without. Mr.
Swain had bought the dwelling from an aged man with a history, dead some nine years back. Its furniture, for the most part, was of the Restoration, of simple and ma.s.sive oak blackened by age, which I ever fancied better than the Frenchy baubles of tables and chairs with spindle legs, and cabinets of gla.s.s and gold lacquer which were then making their way into the fine mansions of our town. The house was full of twists and turns, and steps up and down, and nooks and pa.s.sages and queer hiding-places which we children knew, and in parts queer leaded windows of bulging gla.s.s set high in the wall, and older than the reign of Hanover. Here was the shrine of cleanliness, whose high-priestess was Patty herself. Her floors were like satin-wood, and her bra.s.ses lights in themselves. She had come honestly enough by her gifts, her father having married the daughter of an able townsman of Salem, in the Ma.s.sachusetts colony, when he had gone north after his first great success in court. Now the poor lady sat in a padded armchair from morning to night, beside the hearth in winter, and under the trees in summer, by reason of a fall she had had. There she knitted all the day long. Her placid face and quiet way come before me as I write.
My friends.h.i.+p with Patty had begun early. One autumn day when I was a little lad of eight or nine, my grandfather and I were driving back from Whitehall in the big coach, when we spied a little maid of six by the Severn's bank, with her ap.r.o.n full of chestnuts. She was trudging bravely through the dead leaves toward the town. Mr. Carvel pulled the cord to stop, and asked her name. ”Patty Swain, and it please your honour,” the child answered, without fear. ”So you are the young barrister's daughter?” says he, smiling at something I did not understand. She nodded. ”And how is it you are so far from home, and alone, my little one?” asked Mr. Carvel again. For some time he could get nothing out of her; but at length she explained, with much coaxing, that her big brother Tom had deserted her. My grandfather wished that Tom were his brother, that he might be punished as he deserved. He commanded young Harvey to lift the child into the coach, chestnuts and all, and there she sat primly between us. She was not as pretty as Dorothy, so I thought, but her clear gray eyes and simple ways impressed me by their very honesty, as they did Mr. Carvel. What must he do but drive her home to Green Street, where Mr. Swain then lived in a little cottage. Mr. Carvel himself lifted her out and kissed her, and handed her to her mother at the gate, who was vastly overcome by the circ.u.mstance. The good lady had not then received that fall which made her a cripple for life. ”And will you not have my chestnuts, sir, for your kindness?” says little Patty. Whereat my grandfather laughed and kissed her again, for he loved children, and wished to know if she would not be his daughter, and come to live in Marlboro' Street; and told the story of Tom, for fear she would not. He was silent as we drove away, and I knew he was thinking of my own mother at that age.
Not long after this Mr. Swain bought the house in the Duke of Gloucester Street. This, as you know, is back to back with Marlboro. To reach Patty's garden I had but to climb the brick wall at the rear of our grounds, and to make my way along the narrow green lane left there for perhaps a hundred paces of a lad, to come to the gate in the wooden paling. In return I used to hoist Patty over the wall, and we would play at children's games under the fruit trees that skirted it. Some instinct kept her away from the house. I often caught her gazing wistfully at its wings and gables. She was not born to a mansion, so she said.
”But your father is now rich,” I objected. I had heard Captain Daniel say so. ”He may have a mansion of his own and he chooses. He can better afford it than many who are in debt for the fine show they make.” I was but repeating gossip.
”I should like to see the grand company come in, when your grandfather has them to dine,” said the girl. ”Sometimes we have grand gentlemen come to see father in their coaches, but they talk of nothing but politics. We never have any fine ladies like--like your Aunt Caroline.”
I startled her by laughing derisively.
”And I pray you never may, Patty,” was all I said.
I never told Dolly of my intimacy with the barrister's little girl over the wall. This was not because I was ashamed of the friends.h.i.+p, but arose from a fear-well-founded enough--that she would make sport of it.
At twelve Dolly had notions concerning the walks of life that most other children never dream of. They were derived, of course, from Mr.
Marmaduke. But the day of reckoning arrived. Patty and I were romping beside the back wall when suddenly a stiff little figure in a starched frock appeared through the trees in the direction of the house, followed by Master Will Fotheringay in his visiting clothes. I laugh now when I think of that formal meeting between the two little ladies. There was no time to hoist Miss Swain over the wall, or to drive Miss Manners back upon the house. Patty stood blus.h.i.+ng as though caught in a guilty act, while she of the Generations came proudly on, Will sn.i.g.g.e.ring behind her.