Читать книгу The Soldier from Virginia - Bowen Marjorie - Страница 6

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Martha entered the withdrawing-room with a delicate slowness; she closed the door behind her softly.

"Good afternoon, Mr. Washington," she said formally.

He was standing by the window looking out on the boughs of red maple, and it flashed across her composure that when she had glanced up at the purple flowers she might, by raising her eyes a little higher, have seen him; and instantly, after this thought came another, that she had known all the time, by some terrifying magic she had learned of late, that he was there, waiting for her coming.

She seated herself on a striped settee and folded her hands in her lap; the many frills of her white muslin skirts flowed over the polished wooden floor, and the gleaming pink of her satin coat was thrown up against the warm darkness of the polished panelled walls.

Behind her hung an oval mirror which reflected the long dusky ringlets, confined by a soft bondage of violet velvet ribbons, and the crimson silk roses in her wide straw hat.

Mr. Washington turned from the window and looked at her, resting his hand on the back of an old gilt chair, the brocade seat of which was cut from the wedding gown of Martha's grandmother, which had been woven in Italy and sold at the Exchange in London at five guineas a yard.

Martha looked at this hand, at the fall of white lace at the wrist, at the dark blue cuff with crystal buttons, and never raised her eyes to his face.

"Won't you be seated?" she said. There was an extraordinary stillness about her pose, voice, and expression.

"I wish to stand, Mistress Dandrige," he answered. "I can, I think, speak better so."

She was silent; her eyes were still on his slack, fine right hand.

"Governor Dinwiddie," he continued in his soft, slow voice, "hath appointed me second to Captain Joshua Fry in this expedition to build, and hold, forts in the Ohio Valley."

"I know," she said. "Sir, I congratulate you."

"It is a chance," he answered simply. "I know the country a little now; I may be useful."

She raised her eyes to his face, then dropped them instantly; though she perfectly remembered his face, yet every time she saw him she had a sense of something strange in him, as if she met him for the first time; her instant's glance had remarked keenly the little things to which she was so quiveringly alive in this man, the bright blue colour of his neck ribbon, the pattern of lace he wore, the powder in his curled hair.

"You have come to say good-bye, I suppose," she said. "It is very courteous of you, Mr. Washington."

"We start to-morrow for Mills Creek," he replied, with an evasion of a direct answer. He crossed to the mantelpiece, where early wood lilies stood in a great jar of black pottery from China. "I wished above all things," he added, "to see you before I left Williamsburg. I rode over from my lodging this morning, hoping to see you."

Her heart gave a jerk at the changed sound of his voice, at his nearer approach.

"Believe me," he continued, "I could not have left in peace without seeing you again."

She looked down at the floor, pale, unsmiling.

"But now," he went on, with a note of fierceness in that new voice at whose bidding all her pulses were beating, "I wish I had not come."

She lifted her head, but kept her eyes veiled, for she could not bear to look full at him.

"Have I given you so poor a welcome?" she asked in trembling tones.

Even though he had his back to the light and she was gazing at him through her lashes, she could not help seeing that his eyes were marvellously dark and bright and shining.

"I should not have come," he said, with a gloomy glance at the lilies, "if I had been sure of returning."

She drew a long breath and looked straight ahead of her, out of the window, at the view of the house opposite with a lead weather-cock shining from the borrowed glory of the sun against the vivid blue, and in front the maple blooming with flowers like wet balls of blood.

"Yes," she said, "we may never see you in Richmond again. But death that way is better than inaction, Mr. Washington."

"I was not made for that—inaction," he answered simply; then swiftly: "Why do you never look at me, Mistress Dandrige?"

The blood rushed over her throat and face, the muslin of her gown quivered; she lifted her face proudly.

"I? Oh—I am looking at you now," she stammered; she opened her large eyes on him bravely, and he was faced full with her unconscious beauty, her transparent sweetness, even as she was forced to face his dark handsomeness, his dangerous, passionate composure.

"What made you say that?" she asked, struggling for her dignity. "'Twas a strange remark, Mr. Washington."

For all her pride, her eyes were overborne again by his, and sought once more the refuge of the blue sky without.

"Forgive me," he said, slightly unsteadily. "Only—I shall like to remember it—but I had no right—nor any right to be here, taking your time, madam."

"Have I complained?" she asked faintly.

"You have always been gracious to me," he responded; "and I fear that I have taken advantage of it—both in coming here and speaking as I have spoken, Mistress Dandrige."

"You have not displeased me," she answered even more faintly.

"Your goodness," he murmured, "maketh it more difficult—"

He moved nearer to her and she shivered; it seemed as if he would take the place on the sofa beside her; there was something impelling, masterful, in his quick forward step; a feeling of utter confusion and fear crushed Martha Dandrige.

"Mr. Washington," she said, "will you open the window—'tis so mighty close."

Her swift glance saw him flush from his Malines neckband to his pomaded curls.

"Forgive me," he said, and withdrew instantly.

"Nay, the window, please," she repeated, anxious to justify her excuse. He crossed and set the casement open on the fragrant peace and light of the square. When he turned again into the room the colour was still in his face.

"You must think ill of me," he said, with a proud humility, "for this intrusion. I came to ask your good wishes on the venture on which I start to-morrow; before you dismiss me utterly, will you give them to me?"

"Yes—sincerely," she murmured.

He bowed very low.

"Long after you have forgotten this afternoon, Mistress Dandrige, I shall be remembering those words with great gratitude."

She said nothing; she rose and gave him a formal courtesy of farewell; she sank on to the settee again, still silent, and would not look at him.

She let him go to the door and open it, conscious that she was sitting lifeless as a doll, that she had been like a doll ever since she had entered the room, that she had said nothing of what was raging in her heart, that she was letting him go in a miserable fashion—that he might never return...

The mocking-bird gave a queer low call; Martha rose suddenly.

"Mr. Washington!" she cried. "Mr. Washington—come back!"

He turned instantly and shut the door; a wave of cowardice shook Martha, but the thought of the lifetime of regret to be lived through if she let him go like this and he never came back nerved her.

"I should like to tell you," she forced her voice to some steadiness, "that my sincere wishes, my earnest thoughts, will be with you in—in this venture." Scorn at her own weakness and folly swept over her, giving her strength. Why should she be so shame-faced at saying what was next her heart? "It is a splendid chance for you—for Virginia; I am glad that we are acting like this; I am glad we are going to keep our own territory free; I think you mean that there shall be war—do you not?"

He was looking at her very earnestly.

"I do," he said.

There was a little pause of silence, during which she walked to the hearth with drooping head, the wide shade of her hat over her eyes and the wood lilies a background for her lace-covered shoulders.

Mr. Washington spoke again.

"War is the only way—we must have Canada."

"Governor Dinwiddie sendeth so few men!" answered Martha.

"Yes, we have a small force; but the British Government is not over-generous, and we dare not empty Virginia of men."

She marked with a thrill the "we" he used so unconsciously, as if he was already one of the rulers of the land, one of the makers of the destinies of the future.

"I envy you," she said.

He came nearer to her and stood by the settee on which she had been seated.

"I am nothing," he answered in a restrained voice. "I have all to do—"

Martha turned and pulled one of the wood lilies from the black bowl.

"The doing must be—splendid," she answered thoughtfully.

He replied with a kind of passionate gravity:

"Yes, but one might fail, or one might succeed only to find the reward one hoped for—vanished."

Martha trembled and kept her eyes on the wood lily. "What reward are you thinking of?" she asked.

"That I may not tell you—yet."

The white fingers closed round the green stalk till it was bruised, and the lily-head bent and rested against the stormily heaving breast, as Martha Dandrige turned her eyes on the ardent face of the man by the settee.

Strange and magic scents wafted in through the open casement, strange and magic sounds of whisperings of birds, of leaves in the bud, of even more subtle murmurs like the music of the passing fairy clouds that floated behind the old lead weather-cock opposite, filled the room as completely as the soft gold light that gleamed on wall, ceiling, floor, and the figure of the lady with her hands crushed on the lily she held above the black velvet bow on her breast, the ends of which fell over the fine frills of muslin that rippled from her waist to her ankles.

"You may tell me what this reward is—please tell me," she said.

She saw him pale and quiver.

"I am nothing," he repeated, and his voice was hoarse.

She still looked at him, though his figure began to swim before her eyes in mists of extraordinary gold.

"I am nothing, too," she answered.

He gazed at her with his changeful hazel eyes darkened to near black.

"You mean?" he questioned, and stood in an attitude of arrested motion, with his hand on his heart.

"That I called you back, Mr. Washington," she answered very faintly.

For one fatal instant he did not move nor speak, and Martha Dandrige plunged into an abyss of shame, a blackness of humiliation, from which rose, grimly, the one support of a bitter pride.

"I called you back," she said in another voice; "you must forgive me—that was what I wanted to ask you—to forgive me for my whim—"

"Your whim?" he echoed.

"Yes," she answered with deadly coldness. "For what should I have to say to you, Mr. Washington?"

He was very pale indeed now, and in the strong revulsion of her agony of shame she rejoiced cruelly in the wounded anger that sparkled in his eyes.

"'Twas kind of you to come," she continued, with the easy fluency of the lips that often comes to the aid and concealment of a great emotion. "My father should have been in to see you. Will you take some refreshments?"

"No," he said; then, in a tone as contained as her own: "Farewell, Mistress Dandrige."

"Farewell," she answered, and was vaguely surprised at the complete indifference of her tone.

He went to the door for the second time and opened it; then spoke, looking back at her.

"You gave me your good wishes, did you not?"

She faced him with a meaningless smile. "My good wishes go with the Virginians, of a surety, Mr. Washington."

The door closed; he was gone.

The lily fell from Martha's fingers and her hands went up to her throat; she turned swiftly and instantly to the window; all her emotions were suspended, she had only one thought—to see him again—to watch him out of sight. She heard the front door shut; a second more of unutterable tension, and she saw the tall figure in the dark blue mantle cross the square, pass under the light shadow of the trees and walk rapidly away.

Another moment (scarcely that, measured by the time the gilt bracket clock was ticking out on the wall) and he was gone completely, and the square was empty as the house, as her heart and life were and would be.

It was over; he had gone like this; she had done violence to her own heart to speak to him—to give him his chance, and the incredibly horrible had happened. He had not responded, he had not spoken.

Her deeply hurt pride saw herself as something offered and rejected; struggling with her wild regret, her wild sense of loss, was another emotion: "Did I deceive him? Did he think I did not care? Ah, heart, heart, what can I do to make him believe I did not care?"

She saw the lily on the hearth, almost mechanically picked it up and restored it to the bowl.

As she did so she noticed the bruised stem and blushed fiercely; the flower seemed symbolical of herself; she, too, had been bruised and cast down by a careless hand; would some one put her back again among her comrades, where she might hide her wound as the lily concealed the bent stalk among the leaves?

She crossed to the red lacquer desk by the window, still in a mood of proud self-containment, drew out a sheet of gold-edged note-paper and wrote a letter.