Complete weird tales of.., p.1142
Complete Weird Tales of Robert W Chambers, page 1142
And though report seemed clear, and what I had witnessed plainer still, I seemed to be unable to come to any conclusion as to my true sentiments in this business, or why, indeed, it was any business of mine, and why I concerned myself at all.
Men found her young and soft and inexperienced; and so stole from her the kiss that heaven sent them.
And Steve Watts, at least, was more wildly enamoured.... And, no doubt, that reckless flame had not left her entirely cold.... Else how could she have strolled away to meet him that same night when her lips must still have felt the touch of mine?... And how endured his passion there in the starlight?... And if she truly were a loyal friend to liberty, how in God’s name give secret tryst and countenance to a spy?
* * *
One morning, when Nick had bathed me, I made him dress me in forest leather. Lord, but I was weak o’ the feet, and light in head as a blown egg-shell!
Thus, dressed, I lay all morning on my trundle, and there, seated on the edge, was given my noon dinner.
But I had no mind, now, to undress and rest. I desired to go to the veranda, and did fume and curse and bully poor Nick until he picked me up and carried me thither and did seat me within a large and cushioned Windsor chair.
Then, madded, he went away to fish for a silver pike in our canoe, saying with much viciousness that I might shout my throat raw and perish there ere he would stir a foot to put me to bed again.
So I watched him go down to the shore where the canoe lay, lift in rod and line and paddle, and take water in high dudgeon.
“Even an ass knows when he’s sick!” he called out to me. But I laughed at him and saw his broad paddle stab the water, and the birchen craft shoot out among the reeds.
Now it was in my thoughts to see how Mistress Penelope would choose to conduct, who had so long and so tranquilly ignored me.
For here was I established upon the spot where she had been accustomed to sit through the long afternoons ... and think on Steve Watts, no doubt!...
Comes Mistress Penelope in sprigged gown of lavender, and smelling fresh of the herb itself or of some faint freshness.
I rested both hands upon the arms of my Windsor chair and so managed to stand erect.
She turned rosy to her ear-tips at the sudden encounter, but her voice was self-possessed and in nowise altered when she greeted me.
I offered my hand; she extended hers and I saluted it.
Then she seated herself at leisure in her Windsor reading-chair, laid her basket of wool-skeins upon the polished book-rest, and calmly fell to knitting.
“So, you are mending fast, sir,” says she; and her smooth little fingers travelling steadily with her shining needles, and her dark eyes intent on both.
“Oh, for that,” said I, “I am well enough, and shall soon be strong to strap war-belt and sling pack and sack.... Are you in health, Mistress Pen?”
She expressed thanks for the civil inquiry. And knitted on and on. And silence fell between us.
If it was then that I first began to fear I was in love with her, I do not surely remember now. For if such a doubt assailed me, then instantly my mind resented so unwelcome a notion. And not only was there no pleasure in the thought, but it stirred in me a kind of breathless anger which seemed to have long slumbered in its own ashes within me and now gave out a dull heat.
“Have you news of Lady Johnson and of Mistress Swift?” I asked at last.
She lifted her eyes in surprise.
“No, sir. How should news come to us here?”
“I thought there might be channels of communication.”
“I know of none, sir. York is far, and the Canadas are farther still. No runners have come to Summer House.”
“Still,” said I, “communication was possible when I got my hurt last June.”
“Sir?”
“Is that not true?”
She looked at me in troubled silence.
“Did not Lady Johnson’s brother come here in secret to give her news, and take as much away?”
She did not answer.
“Once,” said I, “although I had not asked, you told me that you were a friend to liberty.”
“And am so,” said she.
“And have a Tory lover.”
At that her face flamed and her wool dropped into her lap. She did not look at me but sat with gaze ahead of her as though considering.
At last: “Do you mean Captain Watts?” she asked.
“Yes, I mean him.”
“He is not my lover.”
“I ask your pardon. The inference was as natural as my error.”
“Sir?”
“Appearances,” said I, “are proverbially deceitful. Instead of saying ‘your lover,’ I should, perhaps, have said ‘one of your lovers.’ And so again ask pardon.”
“Are you my lover, sir?”
“I?” said I, taken aback at the direct shot so unexpected.
“Yes, you, my lord. Are you one of my lovers?”
“I think not. Why do you ask me that which never could be a question that yes or no need answer?”
“I thought perhaps you might deem yourself my lover.”
“Why?”
“Because you kissed me once, — as did Captain Watts.... And two other gentlemen.”
“Two other gentlemen?”
“Yes, sir. A cornet of horse, — his name escapes me — and Sir John.”
“Who!” I blurted angrily.
“Sir John Johnson.”
“The dissolute beast!” said I. “Had I known it that night at Johnson Hall — —” But here I checked my speech and waited till the hot blood in my face was done burning.
And when again I was cool: “I am sorry for my heat,” said I. “Your conduct is your own affair.”
“You once made it yours, sir, — for a moment.”
Again I went hot and red; and how I had conducted with this maid plagued me so that I found no word to answer.
She knitted for a little while. Then, lifting her dark young eyes:
“You have as secure a title to be my lover as has any man, Mr. Drogue. Which is no title at all.”
“Steve Watts took you in his arms near the lilacs.”
“What was that to you, Mr. Drogue?”
“He was a spy in our uniform and in our camp!”
“Yes, sir.”
“And you gave him your lips.”
“He took what he took. I gave only what was in my heart to give to any friend in peril.”
“What was that?”
“Solicitude.”
“Oh. You warned him to leave? And he an enemy and a spy?”
“I begged him to go, Mr. Drogue.”
“Do you still call yourself a friend to liberty?” I asked angrily.
“Yes, sir. But I was his friend too. I did not know he had come here. And when by accident I recognized him I was frightened, because I thought he had come to carry news to Lady Johnson.”
“And so he did! Did he not?”
“He said he came for me.”
“To visit you?”
“Yes, sir. And I think that was true. For when he made himself known to his sister, she came near to fainting; and so he spoke no more to her at all but begged me for a tryst before he left.”
“Oh. And you granted it?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Why?”
“I was in great fright, fearing he might be taken.... Also I pitied him.”
“Why so?” I sneered.
“Because he had courted me at Caughnawaga.... And at first I think he made a sport of his courting, — like other young men of Tryon gentry who hunt and court to a like purpose.... And so, one day at Caughnawaga, I told him I was honest.... I thought he ought to know, lest folly assail us in unfamiliar guise and do us a harm.”
“Did you so speak to this young man?”
“Yes, sir. I told him that I am a maiden. I thought it best that he should know as much.... And so he courted me no more. But every day he came and glowered at other men.... I laughed secretly, so fiercely he watched all who came to Cayadutta Lodge.... And then Sir John fled. And war came.... Well, sir, there is no more to tell, save that Captain Watts dared come hither.”
“To take you in his arms?”
“He did so, — yes, sir, — for the first time ever.”
“Then he is honestly in love with you?”
“But you, also, did the like to me. Is it a consequence of honest love, Mr. Drogue, when a young man embraces a maiden’s lips?”
Her questions had so disconcerted me that I found now no answer to this one.
“I know nothing about love,” said I, looking out at the sunlit waters.
“Nor I,” said she.
“You seem willing to be schooled,” I retorted.
“Not willing, not unwilling. I do not understand men, but am not averse to learning something of their ways. No two seem similar, Mr. Drogue, save in the one matter.”
“Which?” I asked bluntly.
“The matter of paying court. All seem to do it naturally, though some take fire quicker, and some seem to burn more ardently than others.”
“It pleasures you to be courted? Gallantries suit you? And the flowery phrases suitors use?”
“They pleasurably perplex me. Time passes more agreeably when one is knitting. To be courted is not an unwelcome diversion to any woman, I think. And flowery phrases are pleasant to notice, — like music suitably played, and of which one is conscious though occupied with other matters.”
“If this be not coquetry,” I thought, “then it is most perilously akin to it.”
Obscurely yet deeply disturbed by the blind stirring of emotions I could not clearly analyze, I sat brooding there. Now I watched her fingers playing with the steels, and her young face lowered; now I gazed afar across the blue Vlaie Water to the bluer mountains beyond, which dented the horizon as the great blue waves of Lake Ontario make molten mountains against an azure sky.
So still was the world that the distant leap and splash of a great silver pike sounded like a gun-shot in that breathless, sun-drenched solitude.
Yet I found no solace now in all this golden peace; for, of the silence between this maid and me, had been born a vague and malicious thing; and like a subtle demon it had come, now, into my body to turn me sullen and restless with the scarce-formed, scarce-comprehended thoughts it hatched within me. And one of these had to do with Stevie Watts, and how he had come here for the sake of this girl.... And had taken her into his arms under the stars, near the lilacs.... And my lips still warm from hers.... Yet she had gone to him in the dusk.... Was afeard for him.... Pitied him.... And doubtless loved him, whatever she might choose to say to me.... Under any circumstances a coquette; and, innocent or wise, to the manner born at any rate.... And some Tryon County gallant likely to take her measure some day ere she awake from her soft bewilderment at the ways and conducting of mankind.
Nick came at eventide, carrying a pike by the gills, and showed us his fingers bleeding of the watery conflict.
“Is all calm on the Sacandaga?” I enquired.
“Calm as a roadside puddle, Jack. And every day I ask myself if there be truly any war in North America or no, so placid shines God’s sun on Tryon.... You mend apace, old friend. Do you suffer fatigue?”
“None, Nick. I shall sit at table tonight with Mistress Grant and you — —”
My voice ceased, and, without warning, the demon that had entered into me began a-whispering. Then the first ignoble and senseless pang of jealousy assailed me to remember that this girl and my comrade had been alone for weeks together — supped all alone at table — companioned each the other while I lay ill! ——
Senseless, miserable clod that I was to listen to that demon’s whispering till my very belly seemed sick-sore with the pain of it and my heart hurt me under the ribs.
Now she rose and looked at Nick and laughed; and they said a word or two I could not quite hear, but she laughed again as though with some familiar understanding, and went lightly away to her evening milking.
“We shall be content indeed,” said Nick, “that you sit at supper with us, old friend.”
But I had changed my mind, and said so.
“You will not sit with us tonight?” he asked, concerned.
I looked at him coldly:
“I shall go to bed,” said I, “and desire no supper.... Nor any aid whatever.... I am tired. The world wearies me.... And so do my own kind.”
And I got up and all alone walked to my little chamber.
So great an ass was I.
* * *
CHAPTER XXII
HAG-RIDDEN
SO PASSED THAT unreal summer of ‘76; and so came autumn upon us with its crimsons, purples, and russet-gold; its cherry-red suns a-swimming in the flat marsh fogs; its spectral mists veiling Vlaie Water and curtaining the Sacandaga from shore to shore.
Rumours of wars came to us, but no war; gossip of armies and of battles, but no battles.
Armies of wild-fowl, however, came to us on the great Vlaie; duck and geese and companies of snowy swans; and at night I could hear their fairy trumpets in the sky heralding the white onset from the North.
And pigeons came to the beech-woods, millions and millions, so that their flight was a windy roaring in the sky and darkened the sun.
Birches and elms and chestnuts and soft maples turned yellow; and so turned the ghostly tamaracks ere their needles fell. Hard maples and oaks grew crimson and scarlet and the blueberry bushes and sumachs glowed like piles of fire.
But the world of pines darkened to a deeper emerald; spruce and hemlock took on a more sober hue; and the flowing splendour of the evergreens now robed plain and mountain in sombre magnificence, dully brocaded here and there by an embroidery of silver balsam.
When I was strong enough to trail a rifle and walk my post on the veranda roof, my Saguenay Indian took to the Drowned Lands, scouting the meshed water-leads like a crested diving-duck; and his canoe nosed into every creek from Mayfield to Fish House.
Nick foraged, netting pigeons on the Stacking Ridge, shooting partridge, turkey, and squirrel as our need prompted, or dropping a fat doe at evening on the clearing’s edge beyond Howell’s house.
Of fish we had our fill, — chain-pike and silver-pike from Vlaie Water; trout out of Hans Creek and Frenchman’s Creek.
Corn, milled grain, and pork we drew a-horse from Johnstown or Mayfield; we had milk and butter of our own cows, and roasting ears and potatoes, squash, beets, and beans, and a good pumpkin for our pies, all from Summer House garden. And a great store of apples — for it was a year for that fruit — and we had so many that Nick pitted scores of bushels; and we used them to eat, also, and to cook.
Now, against first frost, Penelope had sewed for us sacks out o’ tow cloth; and when frost came to moss the world with spongy silver, we went after nuts, Nick and I, — chestnuts from the Stacking Ridge, and gathered beechnuts there, also. Butternuts we found, sticky and a-plenty, along the Sacandaga; and hickory nuts on every ridge, and hazel filberts bordering clearing and windfall in low, moist woods.
Sure we were well garnered if not well garrisoned at Summer House when the first snow flakes came a-drifting like errant feathers floating from a wild-fowl shot in mid-air.
The painted leaves dropped in November, settling earthward through still sunshine in gold and crimson clouds.
“Mother Earth hath put on war-paint,” quoth Penelope, knitting. She spoke to Nick, turning her head slightly. She spoke chiefly to him in these days, I having become, as I have said, a silent ass; and so strange and of so infrequent speech that they did not even venture to remark to me my reticence; and I think they thought my hurt had changed me in my mind and nature. Yet I was but a simple ass, differing only from other asses in that they brayed more frequently than I.
In silence I nursed a challenging in my breast, where love should have lain secure and warm; and I wrapped the feverish, mewling thing in envy, jealousy, and sullen pride, — fit rags to swaddle such a waif.
For once, coming upon Penelope unawares, I did see her gazing upon a miniature picture of Steve Watts, done bravely in his red regimentals.
Which, perceiving me, she hid in her bosom and took her milk-pails to the orchard without a word spoken, though the colour in her face was eloquent enough.
And very soon, too, I had learned for sure what I already believed of her, that she was a very jade; for it was plain that she had now ensnared Nick, and that they were thick as a pair o’ pup hounds, and had confidences between them in low voices and with smiles. Which my coming checked only so far. For it was mostly to him she spoke openly at table, when, the smoking dishes set, she took her seat between us, out o’ breath and sweet as a sun-hot rose.
God knows they were not to blame; for in one hour I might prove glum and silent as a stone; and in another I practiced carelessness and indifference in my speech; and in another, still, I was like to be garrulous and feverish, insisting upon any point raised; laughing without decent provocation; moody and dull, loquacious and quarrelsome by turns, — unstable, unhinged, out o’ balance and incapable of any decent equilibrium. Oh, the sorry spectacle a young man makes when that sly snake, jealousy, hath fanged him!
And my disorder was such that I knew I was sick o’ jealousy and sore hurt of it to the bones, yet conducted like a mindless creature that, trapped, falls to mutilating itself.
And so I was ever brooding how I might convince her of my indifference; how I might pain her by coldness; how I might subtly acquaint her of my own desirability and then punish her by a display of contempt and a mortifying revelation of the unattainable. Which was to be my proper self.
Jealousy is sure a strange malady and breaketh out in divers disorders in different young men, according to their age and kind.
I was jealous because she had been courted by others; was jealous because she had been caressed by other men; I was wildly jealous because of Steve Watts, their tryst by the lilacs; his picture which I discovered she wore in her bosom; I was madly jealous of her fellowship with my old comrade, Nick, and because, chilled by my uncivil conduct and by my silences, she conversed with him when she spoke at all.
