Audrey by Mary Johnston

  CHAPTER XXVI

  SANCTUARY

  "Child," demanded Haward, "why did you frighten me so?" He took her handsfrom her face, and drew her from the shadow of the curtain into theevening glow. Her hands lay passive in his; her eyes held the despair of arunner spent and fallen, with the goal just in sight. "Would have had mego again to the mountains for you, little maid?" Haward's voice trembledwith the delight of his ended quest.

  "Call me not by that name," Audrey said. "One that is dead used it."

  "I will call you love," he answered,--"my love, my dear love, my truelove!"

  "Nor that either," she said, and caught her breath. "I know not why youshould speak to me so."

  "What must I call you then?" he asked, with the smile still upon his lips.

  "A stranger and a dreamer," she answered. "Go your ways, and I will gomine."

  There was silence in the room, broken by Haward. "For us two one path," hesaid; "why, Audrey, Audrey, Audrey!" Suddenly he caught her in his arms."My love!" he whispered--"my love Audrey! my wife Audrey!" His kissesrained upon her face. She lay quiet until the storm had passed; then freedherself, looked at him, and shook her head.

  "You killed him," she said, "that one whom I--worshiped. It was not welldone of you.... There was a dream I had last summer. I told it to--to theone you killed. Now part of the dream has come true.... You never were!Oh, death had been easy pain, for it had left memory, hope! But you neverwere! you never were!"

  "I am!" cried Haward ardently. "I am your lover! I am he who says to you,Forget the past, forget and forgive, and come with me out of yourdreaming. Come, Audrey, come, come, from the dim woods into thesunshine,--into the sunshine of the garden! The night you went away I wasthere, Audrey, under the stars. The paths were deep in leaves, the flowersdead and blackening; but the trees will be green again, and the flowersbloom! When we are wed we will walk there, bringing the spring with us"--

  "When we are wed!" she answered. "That will never be."

  "It will be this week," he said, smiling. "Dear dryad, who have no friendsto make a pother, no dowry to lug with you, no gay wedding raiment toprovide; who have only to curtsy farewell to the trees and put your handin mine"--

  She drew away her hands that he had caught in his, and pressed them aboveher heart; then looked restlessly from window to door. "Will you let mepass, sir?" she asked at last. "I am tired. I have to think what I am todo, where I am to go."

  "Where you are to go!" he exclaimed. "Why, back to the glebe house, and Iwill follow, and the minister shall marry us. Child, child! where elseshould you go? What else should you do?"

  "God knows!" cried the girl, with sudden and extraordinary passion. "Butnot that! Oh, he is gone,--that other who would have understood!"

  Haward let fall his outstretched hand, drew back a pace or two, and stoodwith knitted brows. The room was very quiet; only Audrey breathedhurriedly, and through the open window came the sudden, lonely cry of someriver bird. The note was repeated ere Haward spoke again.

  "I will try to understand," he said slowly. "Audrey, is it Evelyn thatcomes between us?"

  Audrey passed her hand over her eyes and brow and pushed back her heavyhair. "Oh, I have wronged her!" she cried. "I have taken her portion. Ifonce she was cruel to me, yet to-day she kissed me, her tears fell upon myface. That which I have robbed her of I want not.... Oh, my heart, myheart!"

  "'T is I, not you, who have wronged this lady," said Haward, after apause. "I have, I hope, her forgiveness. Is this the fault that keeps youfrom me?"

  Audrey answered not, but leaned against the window and looked at the cloudin the south that was now an amethyst island. Haward went closer to her."Is it," he said, "is it because in my mind I sinned against you, Audrey,because I brought upon you insult and calumny? Child, child! I am of theworld. That I did all this is true, but now I would not purchase endlessbliss with your least harm, and your name is more to me than my own.Forgive me, Audrey, forgive the past." He bowed his head as he stoodbefore her.

  Audrey gazed at him with wide, dry eyes whose lids burned. A hot color hadrisen to her cheek; at her heart was a heavier aching, a fuller knowledgeof loss. "There is no past," she said. "It was a dream and a lie. There isonly to-day ... _and you are a stranger_."

  The purple cloud across the river began to darken; there came again thelonely cry of the bird; in the house quarter the slaves were singing asthey went about their work. Suddenly Audrey laughed. It was sad laughter,as mocking and elfin and mirthless a sound as was ever heard in autumntwilight. "A stranger!" she repeated. "I know you by your name, and thatis all. You are Mr. Marmaduke Haward of Fair View, while I--I am Darden'sAudrey!"

  She curtsied to him, so changed, so defiant, so darkly beautiful, that hecaught his breath to behold her. "You are all the world to me!" he cried."Audrey, Audrey! Look at me, listen to me!"

  He would have approached her, would have seized her hand, but she wavedhim back. "Oh, the world! We must think of that! What would they say, theGovernor and the Council, and the people who go to balls, and all thegreat folk you write to in England,--what would they say if you marriedme? Mr. Marmaduke Haward of Fair View, the richest man in Virginia! Mr.Marmaduke Haward, the man of taste, the scholar, the fine gentleman, proudof his name, jealous of his honor! And Darden's Audrey, who hath gonebarefoot on errands to most houses in Fair View parish! Darden's Audrey,whom the preacher pointed out to the people in Bruton church! They wouldcall you mad; they would give you cap and bells; they would say, 'Does hethink that he can make her one of us?--her that we turned and looked longupon in Bruton church, when the preacher called her by a right name'"--

  "Child, for God's sake!" cried Haward.

  "There is the lady, too,--the lady who left us here together! We must notforget to think of her,--of her whose picture you showed me at Fair View,who was to be your wife, who took me by the hand that night at thePalace. There is reproach in her eyes. Ah, do you not think the look mightgrow, might come to haunt us? And yourself! Oh, sooner or later regret andweariness would come to dwell at Fair View! The lady who walks in thegarden here is a fine lady and a fit mate for a fine gentleman, and I am abeggar maid and no man's mate, unless it be Hugon's. Hugon, who has swornto have me in the house he has built! Hugon, who would surely kill you"--

  Haward caught her by the wrists, bruising them in his grasp. "Audrey,Audrey! Let these fancies be! If we love each other"--

  "If!" she echoed, and pulled her hands away. Her voice was strange, hereyes were bright and strained, her face was burning. "But if not, whatthen? And how should I love you who are a stranger to me? Oh, a generousstranger who, where he thinks he has done a wrong, would repair thedamage." Her voice broke; she flung back her head and pressed her handsagainst her throat. "You have done me no wrong," she said. "If you had, Iwould forgive you, would say good-by to you, would go my way.... as I amgoing now. Let me pass, sir!"

  Haward barred her way. "A stranger!" he said, beneath his breath. "Isthere then no tie between shadow and substance, dream and reality?"

  "None!" answered Audrey, with defiance. "Why did you come to themountains, eleven years ago? What business was it of yours whether I livedor died? Oh, God was not kind to send you there!"

  "You loved me once!" he cried. "Audrey, Audrey, have I slain your love?"

  "It was never yours!" she answered passionately, "It was thatother's,--that other whom I imagined, who never lived outside my dream!Oh, let me pass, let me begone! You are cruel to keep me. I--I am sotired."

  White to the lips, Haward moved backward a step or two, but yet stoodbetween her and the door. Moments passed before he spoke; then, "Will youbecome my wife?" he asked, in a studiously quiet voice. "Marry me, Audrey,loving me not. Love may come in time, but give me now the right to be yourprotector, the power to clear your name."

  She looked at him with a strange smile, a fine gesture of scorn. "Marryyou, loving you not! That will I never do. Protector! That is a word Ihave grown to dislike. My name! It is a slight thing. What
matter if folklook askance when it is only Darden's Audrey? And there are those whom anill fame does not frighten. The schoolmaster will still give me books toread, and tell me what they mean. He will not care, nor the drunkenminister, nor Hugon.... I am going back to them, to Mistress Deborah andthe glebe house. She will beat me, and the minister will curse, but theywill take me in.... I will work very hard, and never look to Fair View. Isee now that I could never reach the mountains." She began to move towardthe door. He kept with her, step for step, his eyes upon her face. "Youwill come no more to the glebe house," she said. "If you do, though themountains be far the river is near."

  He put his hand upon the latch of the door. "You will rest here to-night?"he asked gently, as of a child. "I will speak to Colonel Byrd; to-morrowhe will send some one with you down the river. It will be managed for you,and as you wish. You will rest to-night? You go from me now to your room,Audrey?"

  "Yes," she answered, and thought she spoke the truth.

  "I love you,--love you greatly," he continued. "I will conquer,--conquerand atone! But now, poor tired one, I let you go. Sleep, Audrey, sleep anddream again." He held open the door for her, and stood aside with benthead.

  She passed him; then turned, and after a moment of silence spoke to himwith a strange and sorrowful stateliness. "You think, sir," she said,"that I have something to forgive?"

  "Much," he answered,--"very much, Audrey."

  "And you wish my forgiveness?"

  "Ay, Audrey, your forgiveness and your love."

  "The first is mine to give," she said. "If you wish it, take it. I forgiveyou, sir. Good-by."

  "Good-night," he answered. "Audrey, good-night."

  "Good-by," she repeated, and slowly mounting the broad staircase passedfrom his sight.

  It was dark in the upper hall, but there was a great glimmer of sky, anopal space to mark a window that gave upon the sloping lawn and pallidriver. The pale light seemed to beckon. Audrey went not on to her atticroom, but to the window, and in doing so passed a small half-open door. Asshe went by she glanced through the aperture, and saw that there was anarrow stairway, built for the servants' use, winding down to a door inthe western face of the house.

  Once at the open window, she leaned forth and looked to the east and thewest. The hush of the evening had fallen; the light was faint; above thelast rose flush a great star palely shone. All was quiet, deserted;nothing stirring on the leaf-carpeted slope; no sound save the distantsinging of the slaves. The river lay bare from shore to shore, save wherethe Westover landing stretched raggedly into the flood. To its piles smallboats were tied, but there seemed to be no boatmen; wharf and riverappeared as barren of movement and life as did the long expanse of duskylawn.

  "I will not sleep in this house to-night," said Audrey to herself. "If Ican reach those boats unseen, I will go alone down the river. That will bewell. I am not wanted here."

  When she arrived at the foot of the narrow stair, she slipped through thedoor into a world all dusk and quiet, where was none to observe her, noneto stay her. Crouching by the wall she crept to the front of the house,stole around the stone steps where, that morning, she had sat in thesunshine, and came to the parlor windows. Close beneath one was a block ofstone. After a moment's hesitation she stood upon this, and, pressing herface against the window pane, looked her last upon the room she had solately left. A low fire upon the hearth, darkly illumined it: he sat bythe table, with his arms outstretched and his head bowed upon them. Audreydropped from the stone into the ever growing shadows, crossed the lawn,slipped below the bank, and took her way along the river edge to the longlanding. When she was half way down its length, she saw that there was acanoe which she had not observed and that it held one man, who sat withhis back to the shore. With a quick breath of dismay she stood still, thensetting her lips went on; for the more she thought of having to see thosetwo again, Evelyn and the master of Fair View, the stronger grew herdetermination to commence her backward journey alone and at once.

  She had almost reached the end of the wharf when the man in the boat stoodup and faced her. It was Hugon. The dusk was not so great but that thetwo, the hunter and his quarry, could see each other plainly. The latterturned with the sob of a stricken deer, but the impulse to flight lastednot. Where might she go? Run blindly, north or east or west, through thefields of Westover? That would shortly lead to cowering in some wood orswamp while the feet of the searchers came momently nearer. Return to thehouse, stand at bay once more? With all her strength of soul she put thiscourse from her.

  The quick strife in her mind ended in her moving slowly, as though drawnby an invisible hand, to the edge of the wharf, above Hugon and his canoe.She did not wonder to see him there. Every word that Haward had spoken inthe Westover parlor was burned upon her brain, and he had said that he hadcome up river with an Indian. This was the Indian, and to hunt her downthose two had joined forces.

  "Ma'm'selle Audrey," whispered the trader, staring as at a spirit.

  "Yes, Jean Hugon," she answered, and looked down the glimmering reaches ofthe James, then at the slender canoe and the deep and dark water thatflowed between the piles. In the slight craft, with that strong man theriver for ally, she were safe as in a tower of brass.

  "I am going home, Jean," she said. "Will you row me down the riverto-night, and tell me as we go your stories of the woods and your father'sglories in France? If you speak of other things I will drown myself, forI am tired of hearing them. In the morning we will stop at some landingfor food, and then go on again. Let us hasten"--

  The trader moistened his lips. "And him," he demanded hoarsely,--"thatEnglishman, that Marmaduke Haward of Fair View, who came to me and said,'Half-breed, seeing that an Indian and a bloodhound have gifts in common,we will take up the quest together. Find her, though it be to lose her tome that same hour! And look that in our travels you try no foul play, forthis time I go armed,'--what of him?"

  Audrey waved her hand toward the house she had left. "He is there. Let usmake haste." As she spoke she descended the steps, and, evading his eagerhand, stepped into the canoe. He looked at her doubtfully, half afraid, sostrange was it to see her sitting there, so like a spirit from the landbeyond the sun, a _revenant_ out of one of old Pierre's wild tales, hadshe come upon him. With quickened breath he loosed the canoe from itsmooring and took up the paddle. A moment, and they were quit of theWestover landing and embarked upon a strange journey, during which hourafter hour Hugon made wild love, and hour after hour Audrey opened not herlips. As the canoe went swiftly down the flood, lights sprung up in thehouse it was leaving behind. A man, rising from his chair with a heavysigh, walked to the parlor window and looked out upon lawn and sky andriver, but, so dark had it grown, saw not the canoe; thought only howdeserted, how desolate and lonely, was the scene.

  * * * * *

  In Williamsburgh as at Westover the autumn was dying, the winter wascoming, but neither farewell nor greeting perturbed the cheerful town. Toand fro through Palace and Nicholson and Duke of Gloucester streets wereblown the gay leaves; of early mornings white frosts lay upon the earthlike fairy snows, but midday and afternoon were warm and bright. MistressStagg's garden lay to the south, and in sheltered corners bloomedmarigolds and asters, while a vine, red-leafed and purple-berried, made asplendid mantle for the playhouse wall.

  Within the theatre a rehearsal of "Tamerlane" was in progress. Turk andTartar spoke their minds, and Arpasia's death cry clave the air. Thevictorious Emperor passed final sentence upon Bajazet; then, chancing toglance toward the wide door, suddenly abdicated his throne, and in thecharacter of Mr. Charles Stagg blew a kiss to his wife, who, applaudingsoftly, stood in the opening that was framed by the red vine.

  "Have you done, my dear?" she cried. "Then pray come with me a moment!"

  The two crossed the garden, and entered the grape arbor where in SeptemberMistress Stagg had entertained her old friend, my Lady Squander's sometimewaiting-maid. Now the vines were bare of leaves,
and the sunshinestreaming through lay in a flood upon the earth. Mary Stagg's chair wasset in that golden warmth, and upon the ground beside it had fallen somebright sewing. The silken stuff touched a coarser cloth, and that was theskirt of Darden's Audrey, who sat upon the ground asleep, with her armacross the chair, and her head upon her arm.

  "How came she here?" demanded Mr. Stagg at last, when he had given atragedy start, folded his arms, and bent his brows.

  "She ran away," answered Mistress Stagg, in a low voice, drawing herspouse to a little distance from the sleeping figure. "She ran away fromthe glebe house and went up the river, wanting--the Lord knows why!--toreach the mountains. Something happened to bring her to her senses, andshe turned back, and falling in with that trader, Jean Hugon, he broughther to Jamestown in his canoe. She walked from there to the glebehouse,--that was yesterday. The minister was away, and Deborah, being inone of her passions, would not let her in. She's that hard, is Deborah,when she's angry, harder than the nether millstone! The girl lay in thewoods last night. I vow I'll never speak again to Deborah, not thoughthere were twenty Baths behind us!" Mistress Stagg's voice began totremble. "I was sitting sewing in that chair, now listening to your voicesin the theatre, and now harking back in my mind to old days when weweren't prosperous like we are now.... And at last I got to thinking ofthe babe, Charles, and how, if she had lived and grown up, I might ha' satthere sewing a pretty gown for my own child, and how happy I would havemade her. I tried to see her standing beside me, laughing, pretty as arose, waiting for me to take the last stitch. It got so real that I raisedmy head to tell my dead child how I was going to knot her ribbons, ... andthere was this girl looking at me!"

  "What, Millamant! a tear, my soul?" cried the theatric Mr. Stagg.

  Millamant wiped away the tear. "I'll tell you what she said. She justsaid: 'You were kind to me when I was here before, but if you tell me togo away I'll go. You need not say it loudly.' And then she almost fell,and I put out my arm and caught her; and presently she was on her kneesthere beside me, with her head in my lap.... And then we talked togetherfor a while. It was mostly me--she didn't say much--but, Charles, thegirl's done no wrong, no more than our child that's dead and in Christ'sbosom. She was so tired and worn. I got some milk and gave it to her, anddirectly she went to sleep like a baby, with her head on my knee."

  The two went closer, and looked down upon the slender form and still, darkface. The sleeper's rest was deep. A tress of hair, fallen from itsfastening, swept her cheek; Mistress Stagg, stooping, put it in placebehind the small ear, then straightened herself and pressed her Mirabell'sarm.

  "Well, my love," quoth that gentleman, clearing his throat. "'Great minds,like Heaven, are pleased in doing good.' My Millamant, declare yourthoughts!"

  Mistress Stagg twisted her apron hem between thumb and finger. "She's morethan eighteen, Charles, and anyhow, if I understand it rightly, she wasnever really bound to Darden. The law has no hold on her, for neithervestry nor Orphan Court had anything to do with placing her with Dardenand Deborah. She's free to stay."

  "Free to stay?" queried Charles, and took a prodigious pinch of snuff. "Tostay with us?"

  "Why not?" asked his wife, and stole a persuasive hand into that of herhelpmate. "Oh, Charles, my heart went out to her! I made her so beautifulonce, and I could do it again and all the time. Don't you think herprettier than was Jane Day? And she's graceful, and that quick to learn!You're such a teacher, Charles, and I know she'd do her best.... Perhaps,after all, there would be no need to send away to Bristol for one to takeJane's place."

  "H'm!" said the great man thoughtfully, and bit a curl of Tamerlane's vastperiwig. "'Tis true I esteem her no dullard," he at last vouchsafed; "truealso that she hath beauty. In fine, solely to give thee pleasure, myMillamant, I will give the girl a trial no later than this veryafternoon."

  Audrey stirred in her sleep, spoke Haward's name, and sank again to rest.Mr. Stagg took a second pinch of snuff. "There's the scandal, my love. HisExcellency the Governor's ball, Mr. Eliot's sermon, Mr. Marmaduke Haward'sillness and subsequent duels with Mr. Everard and Mr. Travis, are in nodanger of being forgotten. If this girl ever comes to the speaking of anepilogue, there'll be in Williamsburgh a nine days' wonder indeed!"

  "The wonder would not hurt," said Mistress Stagg simply.

  "Far from it, my dear," agreed Mr. Stagg, and closing his snuffbox, wentwith a thoughtful brow back to the playhouse and the Tartar camp.