Part 14 (1/2)
”Oh, Bert!--What nonsense! Don't look at me so, here in the street--people will take notice.”
”What do I care for people? Let the fellows all see, and envy me, if you'll give me what I ask. What say you, dearest? Speak; tell me! Nay, if you won't, I'll make you blush all the more--I love you, I love you, I love you! Now will you speak?”
”Oh, Bert, dear, at least wait till we are home!”
”If you'll promise to say yes then.”
”Very well--if 'twill please you.”
”Nay, it must be to please yourself too. You do love me a little, don't you?”
”Why, of course I do; and you must have known it all the time!”
But, alas, her father's ”yes” was not so easily to be won. I broached the matter to him that very evening (f.a.n.n.y and I meanwhile having come to a fuller understanding in the seclusion of the garden); but he shook his head, and regarded me coldly.
”No, sir,” said he. ”For, however much you are to be esteemed as a young gentleman of honour and candour and fine promise, 'tis for me to consider you rather as an adherent of a government that has persecuted my country, and now makes war upon it. The day may come when you will find a more congenial home nearer the crown you have already expressed your desire to fight for. And then, if f.a.n.n.y were your wife, you would carry her off to make an Englishwoman of her, as my first daughter would have been carried by her husband, upon different motives, but for this war. Perhaps 'twere better she could have gone,” he added, with a sigh, for Margaret had been his favourite child; ”my loss of her could scarce have been more complete than it is. But 'tis not so with f.a.n.n.y.”
”But, sir, I am not to take it that you refuse me, definitely, finally?--I beg--”
”Nay, sir, I only say that we must wait. Let us see what time shall bring to pa.s.s. I believe that you will not--and I am sure that f.a.n.n.y will not--endeavour any act without my consent, or against my wish.
Nay, I don't bid you despair, neither. Time shall determine.”
I was not so confident that I would not endeavour any act without his consent; but I shared his certainty that f.a.n.n.y would not. And so, in despondency, I took the news to her.
”Well,” says she, with a sigh. ”We must wait, that's all.”
While we were waiting, and during the Fall and Winter, we heard now and then from Philip, for communication was still possible between New York and the rebel army proceeding toward Canada. He wrote Margaret letters of which the rest of us never saw the contents; but he wrote to Mr. Faringfield and me also. His history during this time was that of his army, of which we got occasional news from other sources.
During part of September and all of October it was besieging St.
John's, which capitulated early in November. Schuyler's ill-health had left the supreme active command to Montgomery. The army pushed on, and occupied Montreal, though it failed to capture Governor Carleton; who escaped to Quebec in a boat, by ingeniously disguising himself as a countryman. At Montreal the jealousies and quarrels of officers, so summarily created such, gave Montgomery much trouble, and when he set forward for Quebec, there to join the force sent under Arnold through the Maine wilderness from the rebel main army at Cambridge, he could take with him but three hundred men--so had the patriot warriors of New York fallen off in zeal and numbers! But you may be sure it was not from Philip's letters that we got these items disadvantageous to his cause.
Our last word from him was when he was in quarters before Quebec: Cornelius was with him; and they were having a cold and snowy time of it, waiting for Quebec to fall before them. He mentioned casually that he had been raised to a captaincy: we afterward learned that this was for brave conduct upon the occasion of a sally of Scotch troops from one of the gates of Quebec to cut off a mortar battery and a body of riflemen; Philip had not only saved the battery and the riflemen, but had made prisoners of the sallying party.
Late in the Winter--that is to say, early in 1776--we learned of the dire failure of the night attack made by the combined forces of Montgomery and Arnold upon Quebec at the end of December, 1775; that Arnold had been wounded, his best officers taken prisoners, and Montgomery killed. The first reports said nothing of Winwood. When Margaret heard the news, she turned white as a sheet; and at this triumph of British arms my joy was far outweighed, Mr. Faringfield's grief multiplied, by fears lest Philip, who we knew would s.h.i.+rk no danger, had met a fate similar to his commander's. But subsequent news told us that he was a prisoner, though severely wounded. We comforted ourselves with considering that he was like to receive good nursing from the French nuns of Quebec. And eventually we found the name of Captain Winwood in a list of rebel prisoners who were to be exchanged; from which, as a long time had pa.s.sed, we inferred that he was now recovered of his injuries; whereupon Margaret, who had never spoken of him, or shown her solicitude other than by an occasional dispirited self-abstraction, regained all her gaiety and was soon her old, charming self again. In due course, we learned that the exchange of prisoners had been effected, and that a number of officers (among whom was Captain Winwood) had departed from Quebec, bound whither we were not informed; and after that we lost track of him for many and many a month.
Meanwhile, the war had made itself manifest in New York: at first distantly, as by the pa.s.sage of a few rebel companies from Pennsylvania and Virginia through the town on their way to Cambridge; by continued enlistments for the rebel cause; by the presence of a small rebel force of occupation; and by quiet enrolments of us loyalists for service when our time should come. But in the beginning of the warm weather of 1776, the war became apparent in its own shape.
The king's troops under Sir William Howe had at last evacuated Boston and sailed to Halifax, taking with them a host of loyalists, whose flight was held up to us New York Tories as prophetic of our own fate.
Was.h.i.+ngton now supposed, rightly, that General Howe intended presently to occupy New York; and so down upon our town, and the island on which it was, and upon Long Island, came the rebel main army from Cambridge; and brought some very bad manners with it, for all that there never was a finer gentleman in the world than was at its head, and that I am bound to own some of his officers and men to have been worthy of him in good breeding. Here the army was reinforced by regiments from the middle and Southern provinces; and for awhile we loyalists kept close mouths. Margaret, indeed, for the time, ceased altogether to be a loyalist, in consequence of the gallantry of certain officers in blue and buff, and several Virginia dragoons in blue and red, with whom she was brought into acquaintance through her father's attachment to the rebel interest. She expanded and grew brilliant in the suns.h.i.+ne of admiration (she had even a smile and compliment from Was.h.i.+ngton himself, at a ball in honour of the rebel declaration of independence) in which she lived during the time when New York abounded with rebel troops.
But that was a short time; for the British disembarked upon Long Island, met Was.h.i.+ngton's army there and defeated it, so that it had to slip back to New York in boats by night; then landed above the town, almost in time to cut it off as it fled Northward; fought part of it on the heights of Harlem; kept upon its heels in Westchester County; encountered it again near White Plains; and came back triumphant to winter in and about New York. And now we loyalists and the rebel sympathisers exchanged tunes; and Margaret was as much for the king again as ever--she never cared two pins for either cause, I fancy, save as it might, for the time being, serve her desire to s.h.i.+ne.
She was radiant and joyous, and made no attempt to disguise her feelings, when it was a settled fact that the British army should occupy New York indefinitely.
”'Tis glorious!” said she, dancing up and down the parlour before Tom and me. ”This will be some relief from dulness, some consolation! The town will be full of gallant generals and colonels, handsome majors, das.h.i.+ng captains; there are lords and baronets among 'em; they'll be quartered in all the good houses; there will be fine uniforms, regimental bands, and b.a.l.l.s and banquets! Why, I can quite endure this! War has its compensations. We'll have a merry winter of it, young gentlemen! Sure 'twill be like a glimpse of London.”
”And there'll be much opportunity for vain ladies to have their heads turned!” quoth Tom, half in jest, half in disapproval.