Читать книгу The Soldier from Virginia - Bowen Marjorie - Страница 5

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Two ladies were buying taffeta in a shop opposite the old State House in Williamsburg. The low shop, surrounded with straight shelves and divided by a long counter, polished by much use, was cool and fragrantly dim, but beyond the diamond-paned window the street lay in bright, early spring sunshine, which glowed on the red brick houses in the Dutch style, with white lines of mortaring, and on the State House and the cupola surmounted by an elaborate iron weather-cock.

The muslin gowns and satin coats of the ladies fell in delicate folds over their high stools; bales of taffeta—mauve, pink, white, and flowered—covered the counter between them; but they were not looking at the stuffs, but, very earnestly, at the old merchant, and the two fair faces under the chip hats and the withered face under the white peruke wore the same expression of interest, excitement and anxiety.

"I heard to-day, madam," said the silk mercer, addressing the younger of the two ladies, "that Mr. Fry and Mr. Washington were to be sent to the Ohio valley to build a fort—with orders to resist any one who opposed them—and that, madam, in my opinion, means war."

"Ah, no," answered the fair customer, shaking her golden head. "I can't believe it, I won't believe it!"

The other lady spoke.

"I think it will be war, Sarah, if Mr. Washington goes."

"Do you know him, madam?" asked the shopman.

"I have met him," she answered, "at the Government House. I am sure he is very resolute."

"But why should he want war, Martha?" persisted Sarah Mildmay.

"Because war is the only honourable way," replied her companion. "The French defy us—you may 'read in the news-letters the high behaviour of Governor Duquesne."

"Ay, madam," put in the old man; "but Governor Dinwiddie is equal to them, of a surety—he hath writ to the Carolinas, to Maryland, to New York, and only this morning I saw the volunteers from Maryland marching through the town, four hundred of them, madam."

"But they start on a peaceable expedition," urged Mistress Mildmay.

"Mr. Washington is to occupy the trading-station at Mills Creek," smiled Martha Dandrige, "and all the outposts on the Alleghany—methinks such an expedition can scarce be peaceable."

"La, Martha, but one would think that you want war," exclaimed the other reproachfully; "and hordes of Indians and Jesuits overrunning Virginia—"

"'Tis to prevent such a misfortune that Governor Dinwiddie sends this force," smiled Martha. She had a lovely smile that dimpled a cheek as soft and delicate as a blossom of the redbud bush.

"Mr. Washington should be the head of this same expedition," remarked the mercer, smoothing with absent fingers the bale of mauve taffeta before him, "not Mr. Joshua Fry; Mr. Washington's family is better thought of than any in Virginia—"

"But 'tis such a youth," protested Sarah Mildmay.

"Nay," answered Martha with a sparkle in her eyes and a kind of sparkle, too, in her voice. "Say Mr. Fry is English and University trained, and you have a truer reason; we have that prejudice here to honour the English above our own."

"That hath a disloyal sound," laughed Mistress Mildmay.

"Indeed not; but 'tis hard to be ever deferring to those so far away—" She bent over the stuffs, perhaps to disguise the colour that had mounted into her cheeks and to control the feeling that had crept into her voice.

"But we must choose your gown," she added. "Politics had put it out of my head, and here am I wasting Mr. Saunders' time and yours."

Mistress Mildmay turned her blue eyes on the pile of stuffs.

"After all," she said, "there is nothing so serious as to distract one long from the choice of a silk!"

With her delicate, white lace-mittened hands she held up a fine taffeta, yellow of a primrose tint, embroidered in wreaths of blue and pink flowers.

"'Tis straight come from Paris, madam," said the old merchant with a touch of prided; "and I have heard that the Queen had a sacque of such a stuff when last she went to the opera."

"But it is a swinging price?" questioned Sarah doubtfully.

"Two pistoles a yard, madam, and it would be more in Paris."

"Faith, methinks 'tis cheap enough," said Martha Dandrige; "but over-bright for a maiden's dress, Sarah—there would be more eyes gazing at the gown than at Mistress Mildmay."

Sarah agreed demurely.

"What is right for the Queen of France, Mr. Saunders, is too fine for me. I could fancy a blue and pink interchangeable, like you sold Mrs. Capel last week; 'twas a mighty pretty piece and looked as if it would wear like a tabinet."

"'Twas a sarcenet, madam; the interchangeable taffetas are not being sold this season; but the mantua makers do say that this hangs in more elegant folds."

"It is excellent for ruching," said Martha. "I should advise it, Sarah—with flouncings of silvered silk and a Dresden apron."

Mistress Mildmay considered.

"'Tis but a pistole a yard," remarked Mr. Saunders, shaking out the gleaming lengths of the sarcenet the watchful apprentice had brought forward.

"Eighteen yards at the most," said Martha, with a practical air, "and two for the mob—'tis a bargain, my dear."

"Well, you may put me down for that, Mr. Saunders," answered Sarah.

The silk merchant bowed over his counter. "And bath Mistress Dandrige any orders?" he asked.

"I wish to dispose of a few pistoles, sir, on some silk, of a wearing quality, for a capuchin—some sober colour, Mr. Saunders, such as I might wear in Richmond town."

At a whispered word from the old man a lad neatly dressed in grey cleared away the taffetas and brought down several rolls of silk; after a little earnest consultation, Martha, with a grave deliberation, chose a puce-colored silk for the capuchin, and a white for the lining.

This accomplished, the two ladies sighed with satisfaction; and at another whisper, the apprentice brought a bottle of wine, two fine glasses, and some sweet macaroons, which Mr. Saunders offered with much courtesy to his customers.

Sarah Mildmay, sipping the Syracuse, referred again to the threatened war with Canada. Mr. Saunders, directing with a jealous eye the folding up and putting away of the bales of costly silk, sarcenet, taffetas and satin, answered with a slightly distracted air:

"We can't afford a war, madam."

"As well as Canada or France!" exclaimed Martha Dandrige, rising. "There is sometimes a peace, Mr. Saunders, as costly as any wars."

Then, with a smile of great sweetness, she bowed to the old merchant, and slipping her hand through Sarah Mildmay's arm, left the shop with her companion.

A number of people were leaving the State House, which contained the News room, the Post Office and the chambers of the burgesses of Virginia, and most of these knew and saluted the ladies who, as they crossed the street, looked like two bouquets of delicate flowers in the faint bright hues of their muslin gowns. Two gentlemen in particular showed a most gallant greeting and seemed wishful of speaking, but Martha Dandrige passed on, nor would she look back. But Mistress Mildmay glanced at the two tall gentlemen on the steps of the State House, standing bareheaded and smiling, with sunlight in their hair.

"'Tis Mr. Conway and Mr. Custis," she said; "two proper gentlemen!"

"Is their properness a reason that we must stop and speak to them?" smiled Martha.

Sarah answered demurely: "As good a reason as any you will find, dear heart. Had it been Mr. Washington—"

Martha interrupted.

"Mr. Washington hath qualities—" her colour heightened.

"He is not so rich as Mr. Custis,"—Sarah pursed her lips—"though I think he hath a good property in Stafford County."

"Oh, for shame!" cried Martha. "What is that?"

"A great deal," replied Sarah with an air of wisdom.

"Have you seen him since he returned from Fort le Boeuf?" she added.

The elder lady answered rather hurriedly. "Twice at Belvoir, my Lord Fairfax's place; then—before you came to Williamsburg we went out to Captain Lawrence's plantation on the Potomac, where they used to live with their mother—so sweet she is! Captain Lawrence is a fighting man; he was a volunteer with Admiral Vernon in the late Spanish War, and 'tis from him he calls his plantation Mount Vernon—"

"Ah," said Sarah, not vastly interested. "And will you see him before he leaves Virginia again?"

"See who?"

"Why, what a simpleton it is, to be sure—see who? Why, Mr. George Washington!"

Martha answered with attempted lightness, yet unsteadily:

"Of course not. I think they start to-morrow, and we have a very slight acquaintance."

"Oh, la!" cried Sarah.

A retired square composed of flat, dark red houses in the Dutch fashion, approached by double flights of short stone steps, was the home of Martha Dandrige.

Some trees had been transplanted from the woods and induced to shed their beauty over the quiet, pleasant town, and here, between the dark, upright houses, grew the buttonwood, still bare of leaves, the shellbark hickory, and the red maple, already beginning to burst into its purplish flowers that herald the leaves.

Such an air of leisure, of peace, of elegant refinement, dwelt in the little square. The houses with their green shutters and porticoed doors conveyed such a gentle austerity that the rudest hushed their voices, the gayest stilled-their laughter, the most self-assured stepped more lightly on entering this domain of almost cloistral quietness.

It was very near the end of the town, and full of the holy fragrance the wind blew daily from the great spaces of wood and plain; now, with the first unutterable throb of the spring, this sensation of the near presence of the beautiful wild, pulsed in the stillness almost unbearable.

A mocking-bird was in one of the red maples; Martha Dandrige shivered as she ascended the winged steps to her home; an inexplicable and bittersweet longing stirred her heart; the golden silence seemed at once too exquisite and too melancholy to endure. Sarah Mildmay noticed, too, the beautiful peace of the square, the houses, the budding trees, and the great arc of blue, glimmering with soft light.

"It is so pleasant in Williamsburg now that I shall be sorry to return to Dumfries," she said as they entered the house.

Her young hostess smiled, but did not answer. The mansion was very still, everyone seemed abroad.

The two ladies stepped into the dining-room that opened off the hall; it was shuttered from the sun and cool with a drowsy shade.

"How silent you are!" exclaimed Sarah curiously. Martha started and flushed. "Would you have one chattering all the time?" she answered lightly.

There was a tap on the door and a maid servant entered.

"Madam," she said to Martha, "there is a gentleman above, waiting to see you—"

Martha turned very pale.

"Nay, it was to see my father," she corrected.

"Madam, to see you—he came here an hour since and would not be denied."

Martha flushed now, then paled again. "You should not have suffered him," she answered.

"Why do you not ask his name?" inquired Sarah slyly. "Eh, dear heart?"

"Of course," said Mistress Dandrige, confused. "Who is it, Ann?"

"'Tis Mr. Washington, madam, Mr. George Washington—maybe one should say General now, as he is to fight the French."

"Here's another fire-eater!" cried Sarah. "Ann is ready to see them all coming home with scalps at their belts—'tis not war yet, thou naughty maid, and we are still praying for peace."

Then, seeing Martha's still figure and pale face, she said in sudden tenderness: "Why do you not go up to him, sweet?"

Martha put her hand to her heart.

"I never expected this—ought I to go—should I? Will you come too, Sarah?"

"Nay, that I will not."

Martha Dandrige turned her fine eyes on Ann. "Tell Mr. Washington," she said, "that I am coming up."