Part 18 (1/2)
”At last I gave up, and the captain and Pike took the foils, while we sat and watched them. He was more than a match for Pike, and at last crying, 'Take care! here is a _botte_ you do not know,' caught him fair in the left chest.
”'By George! Mr. Wynne, that is a pretty piece of play! I remember now Major Montresor tried to show it to me. He said it was that way you killed Lord Charles Trevor.'
”I was shocked to know he had killed a man, and Hugh looked up with his big mother-eyes, while the captain said coolly:
”'Yes; a sad business, and about a woman, of course. It is dreadful to have that kind of a disposition, boys, that makes you dangerous to some one who wants what you want. He was very young too. A pity! a pity!'
”Hugh and I said nothing; but I had the odd notion that he was threatening us. One gets these ideas vaguely in youth, and sometimes after-events justify them. However, the fancy soon took me to fence with Hugh in his room, for I dared not risk asking my father's leave. As Hugh got his lessons both from Pike and the captain, and became very expert, I got on pretty nearly as fast as he.
”At times we practised in our s.h.i.+rt-sleeves in the garden at Miss Wynne's, or fenced with Graydon, who was later the most expert small sword we had in the army. Hugh soon became nearly as skilful, but I was never as clever at it.”
One day we were busy, as Jack has described, when who should come out into the garden but Mistress Wynne and Darthea, and behind them the captain. We dropped our points, but Miss p.e.n.i.ston cried out, ”Go on! go on!” and, laughing, we fell to again.
Presently I, a bit distracted, for I was facing Darthea's eyes, felt Jack's foil full on my chest. Darthea clapped her hands, and, running forward, would pin a bunch of red ribbons she took from her shoulder on Jack's sleeve. Jack fell back, as red as the ribbons, and my aunt cried out, ”Darthea, you are too forward!”
The young woman flushed, and cast down the bow, and as Arthur Wynne bent to pick it up set her foot on it. I saw the captain rise, and stand with the half-shut eyes and the little drop of the jaw I have already mentioned. My aunt, who liked the girl well, went after her at once as she left us in a pet to return to the house. I saw my aunt put a hand on her shoulder, and then the captain, looking vexed, followed after. An hour later I went to look for the ribbon. It was gone, and for years I knew not where, till, in a little box in Jack's desk, I came upon it neatly tied up.
Young as I was, I began to see that here were Captain Wynne, and possibly my friend, in the toils of a girl,--she was but seventeen,--and I, alas! no better off; but of this I breathed not a word to any. Jack hung about her and fell back when any less shy man wanted his place. I felt that he was little likely to have his way, and that neither he nor I had much chance in such a game against a man like my cousin. He had played with hearts before, and the maid listened like Desdemona to this dark-browed soldier when he talked of courts and kings, and faraway Eastern battles, and the splendour of the Orient. My aunt, whom nothing escaped, looked on much amused. Perhaps she did not take as serious the love-affairs of lads like Jack and me. We were like enough to have a dozen before we were really captured. That I was becoming at twenty-one more thoughtful and resolute than far older people, she did not see, and she was sometimes vexed at my sober ways. I was at times gay enough, but at others she would reproach me with not taking more pains to please her guests. Society, she said, had duties as well as pleasures. My friend Jack no one fully understood in those days, nor knew the sweet manhood and the unselfishness that lay beneath his girl-like exterior.
One day, late in November, my aunt and I were, for a wonder, alone, when she dropped the cards with which she was playing, and said to me: ”Hugh, there is something serious between that mischievous kitten and your cousin. They are much talked of. If you have a boy-fancy that way, get rid of it. I don't see through the man. He has been telling her about the fine house at Wyncote, and the great estate, and how some day he will have it, his elder brother being far gone in a phthisis.”
”There must be some mistake,” I said. ”Thou knowest what he told my father.”
”Yes; I don't like it,” she went on; ”but the girl is caught. He talks of soon having to join Sir Guy Carleton in Canada. And there is my dear girl-boy trapped too, I fear. But, really, he is such a child of a fellow it hardly matters. How many does she want in her net? The fish may squabble, I fear. A sweet thing she is; cruel only by instinct; and so gay, so tender, so truthful and right-minded with all her nonsense.
No one can help loving her; but to-day she has one mood, and to-morrow another. There will be a mad ma.s.sacre before she is done with you all.
Run away, Hugh! run! Make love to Kitty s.h.i.+ppen if you want to get Miss Darthea.”
I laughed, but I had little mirth in my heart.
”Aunt Gainor,” I said, ”I love that woman, and no other man shall have her if I can help it.”
”If? if? Stuff! you can't help it. Don't be a fool! The sea is full of fish. This is news indeed.”
”The land has but one Darthea,” said I. ”I am a boy no longer, Aunt Gainor. Thou hast made me tell thee, and, now it is out, I may as well say I know all about my cousin. He as good as told me, and in a way I did not like. The man thinks I am a boy to be scared out of going my own way. I have told no one else; but if I can get her I will, and it is no laughing matter.”
”I am sorry, Hugh,” she said. ”I knew not it was so serious. It is hard to realise that you are no more a boy, and must have the sorrows my s.e.x provides for you. I like her, and I would help you if I could, but you are late.” And she went on shuffling the cards, while I took up a book, being inclined to say no more.
That evening two letters came by the New York packet. One from my father I put aside. It was dated outside, and was written two weeks later than my mother's, which I read first. I opened it with care.
”MY OWN DEAR SON: Thy last sweet letter was a great refreshment to me, and the more so because I have not been well, having again my old ache in the side, but not such as need trouble thee. I blush to hear the pretty things thy letters say; but it is love that holds thy pen, and I must not be too much set up in my own esteem. How much love I give thee in return thou knowest, but to pay in this coin will never beggar us. I love thee because thou art all I can desire, and again because thou lovest me, and again for this same dear reason which is all I can say to excuse my mother-folly. Thy father is well, but weary of this great town; and we both long to be at home.”
Then there was more about my Aunt Wynne, and some woman-talk for her friends about the new fas.h.i.+ons, which do not concern her, she being not of this world. ”Am I not?” she says. ”I love it all--the sea, even the sea, and flowers, and our woods, and, dear me! also gay gowns. I hope the last I got here will not disturb the Meeting, and my new m.u.f.f,--very big it is,--and a green joseph to ride in. I mean to ride with thee next spring often--often.” And so on, half mother, half child, with bits of her dear French, and all about a new saddle for me, and silver spurs.
The postscript was long.
”I saw last week a fair Quaker dame come out of Wales. I asked her about the Wynnes. She knew them not, but told me of their great house, and how it was a show-place people went to see, having been done over at great cost; and how a year or two since coal was found on the estate, and much iron, so that these last two years they were rich, and there was some talk of making the present man a baronet. Also that the elder brother is ill, nigh to death. It seems strange after what thy cousin said so often. Thy father is away in Holland. I will tell him when he is come back. Be cautious not to talk of this. I never liked the man.”
I sat back in my chair to read it all over again, first giving my aunt my father's letter. In a few minutes I heard a cry, and saw my aunt, pale and shaken, standing up, the letter in her hand.
”My G.o.d!” I cried, ”what is it? Is it my mother?”
”Yes, yes!” she said. ”Be strong, my boy! She is--dead!”