Читать книгу Joscelyn Cheshire - Sara Beaumont Kennedy - Страница 6

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“Thou art gone from my gaze like a beautiful dream.”

—Linley.

The Cheshires and Cleverings were not akin, although the young people gave titles of kinship to the older folk. Mistress Cheshire had been twice married, her first husband being brother to James Clevering. After her second widowhood she had moved from New Berne to Hillsboro’-town, to be near her brother-in-law, for neither she nor her last husband had any nearer male relative this side of the sea. There had been no quarrel with the Cleverings concerning her second marriage, so that she found in Hillsboro’ a ready welcome. The inland town promised more peace than the bustling seaport whence she had moved. There news of king and colony came in with every vessel that cast anchor at the wharves, and, as a result, the community was in a constant state of ferment. All this was very repugnant to Mistress Cheshire, who was a timid woman with no very decided views upon public questions. Her one ruling desire was for peace, no matter whence the source; she had lived quite happily under the king’s sceptre; but if Washington could establish a safe and quiet government, she would have no quarrel either with him or fate.

But Joscelyn was different. Her father had been an ardent advocate of kingly rule, and she had imbibed all of his enthusiasm for England and English sovereignty. He had died just before the battle of Lexington set the western continent athrob with a new national life. Consequently, the removal from New Berne had been much against Joscelyn’s inclination, for she desired to be in the front and press of the excitement. But seeing how her mother’s heart was set on it, she finally withdrew her opposition. Still she carried to her new home the bitter Toryism with which her father had so deeply ingrained her nature. In another atmosphere this feeling might have spent itself in idle fancies and vain regrets; but in daily, almost hourly, contact with the Cleverings, whose patriotism was ever at high tide, she was kept constantly on the defensive, and in a spirit of resistance that knew no compromise. The elder Cleverings and Betty looked upon her outbreaks good-humouredly, treating them as the whims of a spoiled child. But not so Richard. His whole soul was in the revolt of the colonies; every nerve in him was attuned to war and strife, and he was vehemently intolerant of any adverse opinion, so that between him and Joscelyn the subject came to be as flint and steel. He did not scruple to tell her that she was foolish, obstinate, logically blind, and that her opinions were not of the smallest consequence; and yet the stanch loyalty with which she defended her cause, and the ready defiance with which she met his every attack won his admiration. Very speedily he separated her personality from her views, and loved the one while he despised the other. Nothing but fear of her ridicule had hitherto held him silent upon the subject of his love.

While the merry-making went on at the Cleverings’ that last night of his stay at home, Joscelyn sat playing cards with the Singletons, whom she persuaded to remain to tea, making her loneliness her plea.

“It passes my understanding,” said Eustace, as he slowly shuffled the cards, “how these insurgents can hope to win. Even their so-called congress has had to move twice before the advance of his Majesty’s troops. A nation that has two seats of government in two years seems rather shifty on its base.”

“It must have been a brave sight to see General Howe march into Philadelphia,” said Joscelyn. “Methinks I can almost hear the drums beat and see the flags flying in the wind. Would I had been there to cry ‘long live the king’ with the faithful of the land.”

But Mary shuddered. “I am content to be no nearer than I am to the battle scenes. The mustering of the Continental company to-day has satisfied my eyes with martial shows.”

“Call you that a martial show?” her brother laughed derisively. “Why, that was but a shabby make-believe with only half of the men properly uniformed and equipped. Martial show, indeed! Rather was it a gathering of scarecrows. I prophesy that in six months the ‘indomitable army of the young Republic,’ as the leaders style the undisciplined rabble that follows them, will be again quietly ploughing their fields or looking after other private affairs.”

“And while you are prophesying you are playing your cards most foolishly, and I am defeating you.”

“True, you have me fairly with that ace. Let us try it again—‘Deprissa resurgit,’ as the Continentals say on their worthless paper money.”

“Joscelyn,” said Mary suddenly, “did I tell you that Aunt Ann said in her letter that Cousin Ellen wore a yellow silk to the ball given to welcome General Howe to Philadelphia?”

“I do believe you left out that important item,” laughed Joscelyn.

“Why, how came you to be so remiss, I pray you, sister? The flight of congress from the Quaker city, and its seizure by his Majesty’s troops, are but insignificant matters compared to the fact that our cousin wore yellow silk to the general’s ball,” teased her brother. Whereupon Mary went pouting across the room and sat at the window, calling out to the players at the table the names of those who went in and out of the house of festivity opposite.

“Yonder are Mistress Strudwick and Doris Henderson—dear me! I wonder what it feels like to be so stout as Mistress Strudwick? Billy Bryce and his mother are just behind them. I see Janet and Betty through the window. Betty has on that pink brocade with the white lace.”

“Then I warrant some of those recruits will go to the war already wounded, for in that gown Mistress Betty is sweet enough to break any man’s heart.”

“Eustace, I do believe you are halfway in love with Betty.”

“Why put it only halfway, my dear? The whole is ever better than a part.”

“What think you, Joscelyn, is he in earnest? And how does Betty like him?”

But Joscelyn laughingly quoted the biblical text about being “unevenly yoked together with unbelievers,” reminding Mary that Betty was a Whig, and Eustace a Loyalist, and this was a bar that even Cupid must not pull down. Whereupon Eustace laughed aloud; and Mary was satisfied.

Early the next morning Betty ran over to make her protest against Joscelyn’s absence of the night before. “Richard seemed not to care, but mother and I were much chagrined that you did not come.”

“I certainly meant no offence to you and Aunt Clevering,” answered Joscelyn, “but Richard and I have a way of forgetting our company manners which is most unpleasant to spectators.”

“Yes; mother read Richard a most proper lecture this morning about the way he quarrels with you, and he is coming over later to make his peace; he says he thinks that perhaps mother is right, and that he will feel better to carry in his heart no grudge against any one when he goes into battle. And you must be very kind to him, Joscelyn, for it is a great concession on his part to apologize thus. Supposing if—if anything happened to him, and you had sent him away in anger!”

Joscelyn drew the young girl to her. “So you have appointed yourself keeper-in-chief of my conscience? Well, well; I will hold a most strict watch over my tongue during the next few hours, so that it may give you no offence. Still, I am not easily conscience-stricken, and neither, I think, is Master Clevering.”

“The Singletons passed the evening with you, did they not?” asked Betty, who had glanced across at her friend’s window the night before, and had seen them playing cards together.

“Yes; and Eustace said some very pretty things about you and your pink frock. What a pity you are of different political beliefs, for—Why, Betty, what a beautiful colour has come into your cheeks.”

“Stuff, Joscelyn! But—what said Master Singleton?” And when the speech was repeated, the girl’s sweet face was redder than ever.

For a few moments Joscelyn looked at her in consternation. Betty cared for Eustace! It seemed the very acme of irony. Then tenderly she stroked the brown hair, wondering silently at the game of cross-purposes love is always playing. Uncle and Aunt Clevering, with their violent views, would follow Betty to her grave rather than to her bridal with Eustace, for, besides the party differences, the older folk of the two families had long been separated by a bitter quarrel over a title-deed. Joscelyn’s own friendship for Mary and Eustace had been the cause of some sharp words between her and her uncle; a thousand times more would he resent Betty’s defection. “But they shall not break her heart!” she said to herself, with a sudden tightening of her arms about the clinging girl.

An hour later Richard knocked at the door and was admitted by Mistress Cheshire, for Joscelyn had gone to her own room at the sound of his step outside.

“No, I will not come down. I have promised Betty not to quarrel with him, and the only way to keep my word is not to see him,” she said to her mother over the banister. “Tell him I hope he will soon come back whole of body, but as gloriously defeated as all rebels deserve to be.”

In vain her mother urged, and in vain Richard called from the foot of the stair; she neither answered nor appeared in sight.

“Tell her, Aunt Cheshire, that I never thought to find her hiding in her covert; a soldier who believes in his cause hesitates not to meet his adversary in open field; it is the doubtful in courage or confidence who run to cover.” And he went down the step with his head up angrily and his sword clanging behind him.

In the upper hall Joscelyn held her hands tightly over her mouth to force back the stinging retort. Then, with a derisive smile, she went downstairs and sat in the hall window, in plain view of the street and the house across the way.

That afternoon his company marched afield. The town was full of noise and excitement, and the mingled sound of sobbing and of forced laughter, as the line was formed in the market-place and moved with martial step down the long, unpaved street, the rolling drums and clear-toned bugles stirring the blood to a frenzy of enthusiasm. The sidewalks were lined with spectators, the patriots shouting, the luke-warm looking on silently. Every house along the route through the town was hung with wind-swung wreaths of evergreen or streamers of the bonny buff and blue—every one until they reached the Cheshire dwelling. There the shutters were close drawn as though some grief brooded within, and upon the outside of the closed door hung a picture of King George framed in countless loops of scarlet ribbon that flamed out like a sun-blown poppy by contrast with the soberer tints of the Continentals. Here was a challenge that none might misunderstand. The sight was as the red rag in the toreador’s hand to the bull in the arena; and, like an infuriated animal, the crowd surged and swayed and rent the air with an angry roar. The marching line came suddenly to a full stop without a word of command, and the roar was interspersed with hisses. Then there was a rush forward, and twenty hands tore at the pictured face and flaunting ribbons, and brought them out to be trampled under foot in the dust of the road, while a voice cried out of the crowd:—

“Down with the Royalists! Fire!”

And there was a rattle and a flash of steel down the martial line as muskets went to shoulders. But Richard Clevering, pale with fear, sprang to the steps between the deadly muzzles and the door and lifted a hand to either upright, while his voice rang like a trumpet down the line:—

“Stay! There are no men here. This is but a girl’s mad prank. Men, men, turn not your guns against two lonely women; save your weapons for rightful game! Shoulder arms! Forward! March!”

There was a moment’s hesitation, a muttering down the ranks; then the guns were shouldered and the column fell once more into step with the drums, while the crowd shouted its approval. But above the last echoes of that shout a woman’s jeering laugh rang out upon the air; and, lifting eyes, the crowd beheld Joscelyn Cheshire, clad in a scarlet satin bodice, lean out of her opened casement and knot a bunch of that same bright-hued ribbon upon the shutter. With the throng in such volcanic temper it was a perilous thing to do; and yet so insidious was her daring, so great her beauty, that not so much as a stone was cast at this new signal of loyalty, and not a voice was lifted in anger.

And this was the last vision that Richard had of her—the vivid, glowing picture he carried in his heart through the long campaigns, whether it was as he rushed through the smoke-swirls of battle or bivouacked under the cold, white stars.