Complete weird tales of.., p.133
Complete Weird Tales of Robert W Chambers, page 133
There was a lady in the orchard, with her back turned towards me, leaning on a stone-wall and apparently contemplating the town below. My moccasins made no noise until I stepped on the gravel; but, at the craunch of the pebbles, the lady looked around and then came hastily towards me across the grass.
“Are you a runner from Johnstown?” she asked, sharply.
I stood still. The lady was Silver Heels. She did not know me.
She did not know me, nor I her, at first. It was only when she spoke. And this change had come to us both within four weeks’ time!
That she did not recognize me was less to be wondered at. The dark mask of the sun, which I now wore, had changed me to an Indian; anxiety, fatigue, and my awful peril in the Cayuga camp had made haggard a youthful face, perhaps scored and hollowed it. In these weeks I had grown tall; I 229 knew it, for my clothes no longer fitted in leg or sleeve. And I was thin as a kestrel, too; my added belt holes told me that.
But that I had not recognized her till she spoke distressed me. She, too, had grown tall; her face and body were shockingly frail; she had painted her cheeks and powdered her hair, and by her laces and frills and her petticoat of dentelle, she might have been a French noblewoman from Quebec. It were idle to deny her beauty, but it was the beauty of death itself.
“Silver Heels,” I said.
Her hand flew to her bosom, then crept up on her throat, which I saw throbbing and whitening at every breath. Good cause for fear had she, the graceless witch!
After a moment she turned and walked into the orchard. ‘Deed I scared her, too, for her dragging feet told of the shock I had given her, and her silk kirtle trembled to her knees. She leaned on the wall, looking out over the town as I had first seen her, and I followed her and rested against the wall beside her.
“Silver Heels,” I asked, “are you afraid to see me?”
“No,” she said, but the tears in her throat stopped her. Lord! how I had frightened her withal!
“Do you know why I am here?” I demanded, impressively, folding my arms in solemn satisfaction at the situation.
To my amazement she tossed her chin with a hateful laugh, and shrugged her shoulders without looking at me.
“Do you realize why I am here?” I repeated, in displeasure.
She half turned towards me with maddening indifference in voice and movement.
“Why you are here? Yes, I know why.”
“Why, then?” I snapped.
“Because you believed that Marie Hamilton was here,” she said, and laughed that odd, unpleasant laugh again. “But you come too late, Micky,” she added, spitefully; “your bonnie Marie Hamilton is a widow, now, and already back in Albany to mourn poor Captain Hamilton.”
My ears had been growing hot.
“Do you believe—” I began.
But she turned her back, saying, “Oh, Micky, don’t lie.”
“Lie!” I cried, exasperated.
“Fib, then. But you should have arrived in time, my poor friend. Last week came the news that Captain Hamilton had been shot on the Kentucky. Boone and Harrod sent a runner with the names of the dead. If you had only been here! — oh dear; poor boy! Pray, follow Mrs. Hamilton to Albany. She talked of nobody but you; she treated Mr. Bevan to one of her best silk mittens—”
“What nonsense is this?” I cried, alarmed. “Does Mrs. Hamilton believe I am in love with her?”
“Believe it? What could anybody believe after you had so coolly compromised her—”
“What?” I stammered.
“You kissed her, didn’t you?”
“Who — I?”
“Perhaps I was mistaken; perhaps it was somebody else.”
I fairly glared at my tormentor.
“Let me see,” said Silver Heels, counting on her fingers. “There were three of us there — Marie Hamilton, I, and Black Betty. Now I’m sure it was not me you kissed, and if it was not Marie Hamilton — why — it was Betty!”
“Silver Heels,” said I, angrily, “do you suppose I am in love with Mrs. Hamilton?”
“Why did you court her?” demanded Silver Heels, looking at me with bright eyes.
“Why? Oh, I — I fancied I was in love with you — and — and so I meant to make you jealous, Silver Heels. Upon my honour, that was all! I never dreamed she might think me serious.”
The set smile on Silver Heels’s lips did not relax.
“So you fancied you loved me?” she asked.
“I — oh — yes. Silver Heels, I was such a fool—”
“Indeed you were,” she motioned with her lips.
How thin she had grown. Even the colour had left her lips now.
“There’s one thing certain,” I said. “I don’t feel bound in honour to wed Mrs. Hamilton. I like her; she’s pretty and sweet. I might easily fall in love with her, but I don’t want to wed anybody. I could wed you if I chose, now, for Sir William wishes it, and he promised me means to maintain you.”
“I thank Sir William — and you!” said Silver Heels, paler than ever.
“Oh, don’t be frightened,” I muttered. “I can’t have you, and — and my country too. Silver Heels, I’m a rebel!”
She did not answer.
“Or, at least, I’m close to it,” I went on. “I’m here to seek Lord Dunmore.”
As I pronounced his name I suddenly remembered what I had come for, and stopped short, scowling at Silver Heels.
“Well, Micky?” she said, serenely. “What of Lord Dunmore?”
I bent my head, looking down at the grass, and in a shamed voice I told her what I had heard. She did not deny it. When I drew for her a portrait of the Earl of Dunmore in all his proper blazonry, she only smiled and set her lips tight to her teeth.
“What of it?” she asked. “I am to marry him; you and Sir William will not have him to endure.”
“It’s a disgraceful thing,” I said, hotly. “If you are in your senses and cannot perceive the infamy of such a marriage, then I’ll do your thinking for you and stop this shameful betrothal now!”
“You will not, I suppose, presume to interfere in my affairs?” she demanded, icily.
“Oh yes, I will,” said I. “You shall not wed Dunmore. Do you hear me, Silver Heels?”
“I shall wed Dunmore in July.”
“No, you won’t!” I retorted, stung to fury. “Sir William has betrothed you to me. And, by Heaven! if it comes to that, I will wed you myself, you little fool!”
The old wild-cat light flickered in her eyes, and for a moment I thought she meant to strike me.
“You!” she stammered, clinching her slender hands. “Wed you! Not if I loved you dearer than hope of heaven, Michael Cardigan!”
“I do not ask you to love me,” I retorted, sullenly. “I do not ask you to wed me, save as a last resort. But I tell you, I will not suffer the infamy of such a match as you mean to make. Renounce Dunmore and return with me to Johnstown, and I promise you I will not press my suit. But if you 232 do not, by Heaven! I shall claim my prior right under our betrothal, and I shall take you with me to Johnstown. Will you come?”
“Lord Dunmore will give you your answer,” she said, looking wicked and shaking in every limb.
“And I will give him his!” I cried. “Pray you attend to-night’s ceremony in the fortress, and you will learn such truths as you never dreamed!”
I wiped my hot forehead with my sleeve, glaring at her.
“Doubtless,” said I, sneeringly, “my attire may shock your would-be ladyship and your fashionable friends. But what I shall have to say will shock them more than my dirty clothes. True, I have not a bit of linen to clean my brow withal, and I use my sleeve as you see. But it’s the sleeve of an honest man that dries the sweat of a guiltless body, and all the laces and fine linen of my Lord Dunmore cannot do the like for him!”
“I think,” said she, coldly, “you had best go.”
“I think so too,” I sneered. “I ask your indulgence if I have detained you from the races, for which I perceive you are attired.”
“It is true; I remained here for you, when I might have gone with the others.”
Suddenly she broke down and laid her head in her arms.
Much disturbed I watched her, not knowing what to say. Anger died out; I leaned on the wall beside her, speaking gently and striving to draw her fingers from her face. In vain I begged for her confidence again; in vain I recalled our old comradeship and our thousand foolish quarrels, which had never broken the strong bond between us until that last night at Johnstown.
As I spoke all the old tenderness returned, the deep tenderness and affection for her that lay underneath all my tyranny and jealousy and vanity and bad temper, and which had hitherto survived all quarrels and violence and sullen resentment for real or imaginary offence.
I asked pardon for all wherein I had hurt her, I prayed for her trustful comradeship once more as few men pray for love from a cold mistress.
Presently she answered a question; other questions and 233 other answers followed; she raised her tear-marred eyes and dried them with a rag of tightly fisted lace.
To soothe and gain her I told her bits of what I had been through since that last quarrel in Johnstown. I asked her if she remembered that sunset by the river, where she had spoken charms to the tiny red and black beetles, so that when they flew away the charm would one day save me from the stake.
But when I related the story of my great peril, she turned so sick and pallid that I ceased, and took her frail hands anxiously.
“What is the matter, Silver Heels?” I said. “Never have I seen you like this. Have you been ill long? What is it, little comrade?”
“Oh, I don’t know — I don’t know, truly,” she sobbed. “It has come within the few weeks, Michael. I am so old, so tired, so strangely ill of I know not what.”
“You do know,” I said. “Tell me, Silver Heels.”
She raised her eyes to me, then closed them. Neck and brow were reddening.
“You are not in love!” I demanded, aghast.
“Ay, sick with it,” she said, slowly, with closed lids.
It was horrible, incredible! I attempted to picture Dunmore as an inspirer of love in any woman. The mere idea revolted me. What frightful spell had this shrunken nobleman cast over my little comrade that she should confess her love for him?
And all I could say was: “Oh, Silver Heels! Silver Heels! That man! It is madness!”
“What man?” she asked, opening her eyes.
“What man?” I repeated. “Do you not mean that you love Dunmore?”
She laughed a laugh that frightened me, so mirthless, so bitter, so wickedly bitter it rang in the summer air.
“Oh yes — Dunmore, if you wish — or any man — any man. I care not; I am sick, sick, sick! They have flattered and followed and sought me and importuned me — great and humble, young and old — and never a true man among them all — only things of powder and silks and painted smiles — and all wicked save one.”
“And he?”
“Oh, he is a true man — the only one among them all — a true man, for he is stupid and vain and tyrannical and violent, eaten to the bone with self-assurance — and a fool to boot, Michael — a fool to boot. And as this man is, among them all, the only real man of bone and blood — why, I love him.”
“Who is this man?” I asked, cautiously.
“Not Dunmore, Michael.”
“Not Dunmore? And yet you wed Dunmore?”
“Because I love the other, Michael, who uses me like a pedigreed hound, scanning and planning his kennel-list to mate me with a blooded mate to his taste. Because I hate him as I love him, and shall place myself beyond his power to shame me. Because I am dying of the humiliation, Michael, and would wish to die so high in rank that even death cannot level me to him. Now, tell me who I love.”
“God knows!” I said, in my amazement.
“True,” she said, “God knows I love a fool.”
“But who is this fellow?” I insisted. “What man dares attempt to mate you to his friends? The insolence, the presumption — why, I thought I was the only man who might do that!”
How she laughed at me as I stood perplexed and scowling and fingering the fringe on my leggings, and how her laughter cut, with its undertone ringing with tears. What on earth had changed her to a woman like this, talking a language that dealt in phrases which one heard and marked and found meant nothing, with a sting in their very emptiness?
“Very well,” said I, “you shall not have Dunmore for spite of a fool unworthy of you; and as for that, you shall not have the fool either!”
“I am not likely to get him,” she said.
“You could have him for the wish!” I cried, jealously. “I’d like to see the man who would not crawl from here to Johnstown to kiss your silken shoe!”
“Would you?”
“It pleases you to mock me,” I said; “but I’ll tell you this: If I loved you as a sweetheart I’d do it! I’ll have the world know it is honoured wherever you touch it with your foot!”
“Do you mean it?” she asked, looking at me strangely.
“Mean it! Have you ever doubted it?”
The colour in her face surged to her hair.
“You speak like a lover,” she said, with a catch in her breath.
“I speak like a man, proud of his kin!” said I, suspiciously, alert to repel ridicule. Lover! What did she mean by that? Had I not asked pardon for my foolishness in Johnson Hall? And must she still taunt me?
If she read my suspicions I do not know, but I think she did, for the colour died out in her face and she set her lips together as she always did when meaning mischief.
“I pray you, dear friend,” she said, wearily, “concern yourself with your kin as little as I do. Bid me good-bye, now. I am tired, Michael — tired to the soul of me.”
She held out her slim hand. I took it, then I bent to touch it with my lips.
“You will not wed Dunmore?” I asked.
She did not reply.
“And you will come with me to Johnstown on the morrow, Silver Heels?”
There was no answer.
“Silver Heels?”
“If you are strong enough to take me from Dunmore, take me,” she said, in a dull, tired voice.
“And — and from the other — the one you love — the fool?”
“He will leave me — when you leave me,” she answered.
“You mean to say this pitiful ass will follow you and me to Johnstown!” I cried, excited.
“Truly, he will!” she said, hysterically, and covered her face with her hands. But whether she was laughing or crying or doing both together I could not determine; and I stalked wrathfully away, determined to teach this same fool that his folly was neither to my taste nor fancy.
And as I passed swiftly southward through the darkening town I heard the monotonous call of the town watchman stumping his beat:
“Lanthorn, and a whole candle-light! Hang out your lights here! Light — ho! Maids, hang out your light, and see your lamp be clear and bright!”
CHAPTER XIV
I HAD LEARNED from our host of the “Virginia Arms” that the so-called “Governor’s Hall,” which stood within the limits of the fortifications, had been built by the French in 1755. Poor Braddock’s brief début before Fort Duquesne in that same year interrupted the building of “Governor’s Hall,” which was called by the French “La Fortresse de la Reine,” and which, with the exception of our stone fort at Johnstown, was the only formidable and solidly fortified edifice of stone west of the Hudson.
When in ‘58 our troops seized Fort Duquesne and razed it, they not only spared La Fortresse de la Reine, but completed it — in exceeding poor taste — set the arms of Virginia over the portal, ran up their red, powder-stained flag, and saluted “Governor’s Hall” with hurrahs of satisfaction, drums and fifes playing “The White Cockade.”
Now the hall served sometimes as a court-house, sometimes as a temporary jail, often as a ballroom, occasionally as the Governor’s residence when he came to Fort Pitt from Williamsburg.
In it he gave audiences to all plaintiffs, white or Indian; in it he received deputies from other colonies or from England.
The Governor of Virginia lived on the second floor while sojourning at Pittsburg; under his white and gold apartments stretched a long, blank, stone hall, around the walls of which ran a wooden balcony half way between the stone flagging and the ceiling of massive buckeye beams.
It was in this naked and gloomy hall, damp and rank with the penetrating odour of mortar and dropping, mouldy plaster, that my Lord Dunmore consented to receive the old Cayuga chief, Logan, of the clan of the Wolf, and by right of birth — which 237 counts not with chiefs unless they be sachems, too — the chief also of the Oquacho of the Oneida nation.
Towards dusk a company of red-coated British infantry, with drummers leading, left the barracks opposite our inn, the “Virginia Arms,” and marched away towards “Governor’s Hall,” drummers beating “The Huron.” A crowd of men and boys trailed along on either flank of the column, drawn by curiosity to catch a glimpse of Logan, “The White Man’s Friend,” who was to ask justice this night of the most noble Governor of Virginia, the great Earl of Dunmore.
When the distant batter of the drums, echo and beat, had died away down the dark vista of the King’s Road, I left my window in the “Virginia Arms” and descended the stairway into the street below, where Jack Mount and the Weasel ruffled it bravely and swaggered to and fro, awaiting my coming.
Mulled wine and sundry cups of cider, mixed rashly with long libations of James Rolfe’s humming ale, had set their heads and tongues a-buzzing. They were glorious in their dingy buckskins, coon-skin caps cocked over their left ears, thumbs hooked jauntily under their arm-pits. They now occupied the middle of the street and patrolled it gayly, singing and shouting and interrupting traffic, returning a jest for a gibe, a laugh for a smile, or a terrible threat for any wayfarer who dared complain of being hustled or trodden on.
