Part 8 (1/2)
”You are only a woman, and can hold no office, Audrey,” he said, ”but I will impart to you words of wisdom whose price is above rubies. Always agree with your vestry. Go, hat in hand, to each of its members in turn, craving advice as to the management of your own affairs. Thunder from the pulpit against Popery, which does not exist in this colony, and the Pretender, who is at present in Italy. Wrap a dozen black sheep of inferior breed in white sheets and set them arow at the church door, but make it stuff of the conscience to see no blemish in the wealthier and more honorable portion of your flock. So you will thrive, and come to be inducted into your living, whether in Virginia or some other quarter of the globe. What's the worthy Bishop's next demand? Hasten, for Hugon is coming this morning, and there's settlement to be made of a small bet, and a hand at cards.”
By the circular letter and the lips of Audrey the Bishop proceeded to propound a series of questions, which the minister answered with portentous glibness. In the midst of an estimate of the value of a living in a sweet-scented parish a face looked in at the window, and a dark and sinewy hand laid before Audrey a bunch of scarlet columbine.
”The rock was high,” said a voice, ”and the pool beneath was deep and dark. Here are the flowers that waved from the rock and threw colored shadows upon the pool.”
The girl shrank as from a sudden and mortal danger. Her lips trembled, her eyes half closed, and with a hurried and pa.s.sionate gesture she rose from her chair, thrust from her the scarlet blooms, and with one lithe movement of her body put between her and the window the heavy writing table. The minister laid by his sum in arithmetic.
”Ha, Hugon, dog of a trader!” he cried. ”Come in, man. Hast brought the skins? There's fire-water upon the table, and Audrey will be kind. Stay to dinner, and tell us what lading you brought down river, and of your kindred in the forest and your kindred in Monacan-Town.”
The man at the window shrugged his shoulders, lifted his brows, and spread his hands. So a captain of Mousquetaires might have done; but the face was dark-skinned, the cheek-bones were high, the black eyes large, fierce, and restless. A great bushy peruke, of an ancient fas.h.i.+on, and a coa.r.s.e, much-laced cravat gave setting and lent a touch of grotesqueness and of terror to a countenance wherein the blood of the red man warred with that of the white.
”I will not come in now,” said the voice again. ”I am going in my boat to the big creek to take twelve doeskins to an old man named Taberer. I will come back to dinner. May I not, ma'm'selle?”
The corners of the lips went up, and the thicket of false hair swept the window sill, so low did the white man bow; but the Indian eyes were watchful. Audrey made no answer; she stood with her face turned away and her eyes upon the door, measuring her chances. If Darden would let her pa.s.s, she might reach the stairway and her own room before the trader could enter the house. There were bolts to its heavy door, and Hugon might do as he had done before, and talk his heart out upon the wrong side of the wood. Thanks be! lying upon her bed and pressing the pillow over her ears, she did not have to hear.
At the trader's announcement that his present path led past the house, she ceased her stealthy progress toward her own demesne, and waited, with her back to the window, and her eyes upon one long ray of suns.h.i.+ne that struck high against the wall.
”I will come again,” said the voice without, and the apparition was gone from the window. Once more blue sky and rosy bloom spanned the opening, and the suns.h.i.+ne lay in a square upon the floor. The girl drew a long breath, and turning to the table began to arrange the papers upon it with trembling hands.
”'Sixteen thousand pounds of sweet-scented, at ten s.h.i.+llings the hundredweight; for marriage by banns, five s.h.i.+llings; for the preaching of a funeral sermon, forty s.h.i.+llings; for christening'”--began Darden for the Bishop's information. Audrey took her pen and wrote; but before the list of the minister's perquisites had come to an end the door flew open, and a woman with the face of a vixen came hurriedly into the room. With her entered the breeze from the river, driving before it the smoke wreaths, and blowing the papers from the table to the floor.
Darden stamped his foot. ”Woman, I have business, I tell ye,--business with the Bishop of London! I've kept his Lords.h.i.+p at the door this se'nnight, and if I give him not audience Blair will presently be down uon me with tooth and nail and his ancient threat of a visitation. Begone and keep the house! Audrey, where are you, child?”
”Audrey, leave the room!” commanded the woman. ”I have something to say that's not for your ears. Let her go, Darden. There's news, I tell you.”
The minister glanced at his wife; then knocked the ashes from his pipe and nodded dismissal to Audrey. His late secretary slipped from her seat and left the room, not without alacrity.
”Well?” demanded Darden, when the sound of the quick young feet had died away. ”Open your budget, Deborah. There's naught in it, I'll swear, but some fal-lal about your flowered gown or an old woman's black cat and corner broomstick.”
Mistress Deborah Darden pressed her thin lips together, and eyed her lord and master with scant measure of conjugal fondness. ”It's about some one nearer home than your bishops and commissaries,” she said. ”Hide pa.s.sed by this morning, going to the river field. I was in the garden, and he stopped to speak to me. Mr. Haward is home from England. He came to the great house last night, and he ordered his horse for ten o'clock this morning, and asked the nearest way through the fields to the parsonage.”
Darden whistled, and put down his drink untasted.
”Enter the most powerful gentleman of my vestry!” he exclaimed. ”He'll be that in a month's time. A member of the Council, too, no doubt, and with the Governor's ear. He's a scholar and fine gentleman. Deborah, clear away this trash. Lay out my books, fetch a bottle of Canary, and give me my Sunday coat. Put flowers on the table, and a dish of bonchretiens, and get on your tabby gown. Make your curtsy at the door; then leave him to me.”
”And Audrey?” said his wife.
Darden, about to rise, sank back again and sat still, a hand upon either arm of his chair. ”Eh!” he said; then, in a meditative tone, ”That is so,--there is Audrey.”
”If he has eyes, he'll see that for himself,” retorted Mistress Deborah tartly. ”'More to the purpose,' he'll say, 'where is the money that I gave you for her?'”
”Why, it's gone,” answered Darden ”Gone in maintenance,--gone in meat and drink and raiment. He didn't want it buried. Pshaw, Deborah, he has quite forgot his fine-lady plan! He forgot it years ago, I'll swear.”
”I'll send her now on an errand to the Widow Constance's,” said the mistress of the house. ”Then before he comes again I'll get her a gown”--
The minister brought his hand down upon the table. ”You'll do no such thing!” he thundered. ”The girl's got to be here when he comes. As for her dress, can't she borrow from you? The Lord knows that though only the wife of a poor parson, you might throw for gewgaws with a bona roba! Go trick her out, and bring her here. I'll attend to the wine and the books.”
When the door opened again, and Audrey, alarmed and wondering, slipped with the wind into the room, and stood in the suns.h.i.+ne before the minister, that worthy first frowned, then laughed, and finally swore.
”'Swounds, Deborah, your hand is out! If I hadn't taken you from service, I'd swear that you were never inside a fine lady's chamber. What's the matter with the girl's skirt?”