Читать книгу: «The Bay State Monthly, Volume 3, No. 4», страница 7

"I was searching for nothing in particular, but everything had to me a fascinating interest, and I opened every door and examined every nook and shelf. In one room I came across an antique oaken desk. As I pulled open one of its drawers a half-dozen scared spiders fled before the intruding rays of light. In the drawer there was a small wooden box. There was nothing in this box but a sheet of paper, folded and sealed, and addressed to the attorney-general of England. I hesitated a moment, and then broke it open with excited curiosity. It was the most thrilling moment of my life. Even now, as I tell you this story, I feel the same thrill go through me as when my eyes ran over that page. It was nothing more nor less than a written confession of,—first, treason against the crown of England; and, second, perjury and false witness against Samuel Wickham. It was signed by the officer who appeared against him, and was witnessed by two parties. Strange to say, both of these parties were still living, and able to attest the validity of their signatures and the genuineness of the other. They had merely witnessed this signature at the time, without being aware of the nature of the document.

"The excitement and delight which followed this discovery were so great that I could do nothing at all for a time. I then engaged the services of an able barrister, and within six months the judgment of outlawry, forfeiture, attainder, and corruption of blood, pronounced eighty-five years ago upon Samuel Wickham by the Court of the King's Bench, was, upon a writ of error, reversed by the Court of the King's Exchequer. I then proved that I was the only surviving heir of the wrongfully convicted man, and in a short time the estate became mine. After consideration I decided best not to keep the property, and just before my departure from England I sold it for ninety-two thousand pounds sterling. Four months after my return Cecilia married a man whose blood was, at least, free from the inherited taint of treason.

"And now, my dear fellow, you have the story. To be sure there are some things connected with it not entirely clear; as, for instance, why did my ancestor leave England when he did, and how came he to be travelling over these hills? And, in regard to the traitorous officer, where did he go after he had written the letter of confession?—that is a question, although it has been said that he fled to America and settled in Virginia."

"What was this officer's name?"

"His name was Richard Anthony Treadwell, and he was major of the seventh regiment of cavalry."

The sudden mention of this name brought me to my feet. My surprise was so great that for a moment I could say nothing. Then I said, coolly, "I have Major Treadwell's commission in my pocket." Gault stared at me in blank amazement. I drew from my pocket the old document found in the little house in Virginia after the death of Nancy Blake, and handed it to him. I had put it in my pocket just before I left Washington, intending to at last give it to its owner.

He took the paper and glanced at the name. "Where did you get this?" he exclaimed, bewildered with astonishment.

I briefly related the circumstances.

"Well," said Gault, "this is a wonderful coincidence; it is the most remarkable thing that I ever knew. The traitor, it seems, is still in my family, but not on my side of the house. Fortunately for me, however, I do not share my excellent father-in-law's sentiments on the subject of 'blood,' and this singular discovery regarding my wife's great-great-grandfather will not disturb me in the least. Now," he continued, "this remarkable sequel of a remarkable case is known by you and me only, and we may as well let it rest here. It would be a terrible shock to Mr. Crabshaw, with all his proud ideas regarding everything of this kind, to know that his own daughter was descended from one who had been an actual traitor, and I shall never inflict the suffering which such a revelation would cause him. This historic place has given me one relic which led to all my success, and now I will pay it back with another relic for which I have no further use."

As he said this he tore into shreds the old commission and threw them into the ancient cellar.

ELIZABETH.⁵

A ROMANCE OF COLONIAL DAYS

By Frances C. Sparhawk, Author of "A Lazy Man's Work."

CHAPTER XXII

THE ARMY SAILS

Winter was over by the calendar. But neither the skies nor the thermometer agreed with that. Spring could not bring forward evidences of her reign while her predecessor's snowy foot was still planted upon the earth, and showed no haste to get under it. The season had been unusually mild, but it lingered, fighting the battle with its last reserve forces, the breath of the icebergs that came rushing up the harbor like the charge of ten thousand bayonets. Military comparisons were frequent at that time, for the thoughts of New England were bent upon war. Governor Shirley had pressed his measure well. Defeated in the secret conclave of the General Court, he had attacked the Legislature through a petition signed by merchants in Boston and Salem who urged re-consideration. Before February the measure had passed by a majority of one. No student of history can ever despair of the power of one voice or one will. The measure had not passed until the end of January. But public enthusiasm had mounted high, and now while March had still a week to run, the last transports were ready to sail out of the harbor to meet the others at Nantasket Roads, and thence proceed to Canso, where they were to remain and receive supplies until the ice should clear from the harbor. Then to Louisburg.

It might be said that the troops had tiptoed through the state to the music of muffled drums, so much stress had been laid upon secrecy, and so much the success of the expedition depended upon it. No vessels were permitted to sail toward Louisburg, lest they should carry the news of the intended attack. Government and people united their efforts to give the expedition every chance. It was well that telegraph and telephone were not to the front then.

But the pressure of public affairs could not keep hearts from being heavy over private griefs. Archdale was wounded both in his affection and his pride, for Katie had refused to marry him on the anniversary of that frustrated wedding, or, indeed, at all, at present. She said that it would be too sudden, that she must first have a little time to regard Stephen as a lover. "But I've never been anything else," he said. Katie insisted that she had been training herself to regard him as Elizabeth's husband. And to his reply that if she were so foolish, she must not make him pay for her folly, she asserted with spirit that no one had ever spoken so to her before. In truth, Lord Bulchester's assiduous humility did make the directness of Stephen Archdale seem like assertion to her; and Katie was not one to forget while she was talking with Stephen that if she chose to turn her head, there were the beauties of a coronet and of Lyburg Chase offered to her on bended knee. She had not turned her head yet. Stephen told himself that he was sure that she never meant to, but for all that, he was not quite sure that she would not do it almost without meaning it. He began by insisting that now Bulchester should be dismissed. But Katie declared that he should not be sent away as if she had lost her own freedom the moment of Stephen's return to her. She would send him away herself at least before she became Stephen's wife. To Archdale's representations of the cruelty of this course, she answered that Lord Bulchester had known of her engagement before he met her. If he could not take care of himself, why, then–. And Katie tossed her charming head a very little, and smiled at Stephen so winningly, and added that it would not hurt him, that he yielded, with as good a grace as he could, a position that he found untenable. So Archdale waited, and Bulchester kept his place, whether more securely or less Stephen could not tell.

One thing, however, was clear, that Stephen lost his peace of mind without even the poor satisfaction of being sure that the state of affairs was such as to make that necessary. Katie was a coquette, but he felt that coquetry was fascinating only when one were sure of the right side being turned toward himself, sure that it was another man's heart, and not his own that was being played with. He had not come to confessing to himself that in any case it was ignoble. So he waited while the winter wore on, and March found him still betrothed to Katie and still at her feet though in a mood that threatened danger. For after asserting that she needed time to adapt herself to the altered condition of things, she had found a new objection. She did not want to marry and have her husband go off to the war before the honeymoon was over; she preferred to wait until he returned. "Do you really mean to marry me at all?" he asked. "Stephen!" she cried tearfully. "Do you realize what I have suffered!" The tears and the appeal conquered him, and for the moment he felt himself a brute.

But when cool judgment came back to him, Katie's conduct looked always more and more unsatisfactory. She certainly was not thinking of his wishes now. He knew that no other human being could have kept him in this position, and while he chafed at it, he made every possible excuse for her, even to condoning a certain childishness which he told himself this proved. Since she was loyal, what mattered a little tantalizing of himself? Still Stephen wavered between his pride and his love. The first told him to end this child's play, to marry Katie if she would have him, but tell her it was now or never. Love put off this evil day, and it may be that his love had a touch of pride in it also, that he did not fancy being superseded by Bulchester.

Then came the expedition.

The streets of Boston were thronged with a crowd of serious faces. One vessel after another had slipped quietly off to the Roads. But the last of the fleet was here. And not only the friends of the soldiers, but friends of the cause, and lookers-on had assembled. The whole city seemed to be there.

When Elizabeth with her father and Mrs. Eveleigh drove up, the embarkation was nearly over, and some of the transports were already standing off to sea. The largest vessel, however, was still at the pier, and as Elizabeth looked at the troops marching steadily on board, she saw Archdale near the gangway. He seemed to be in command. She watched him a moment with a feeling of sadness. Who could tell that he would ever come back, that youth and prowess might not prove too weak for the sword of the enemy or for some stray shot? How lightly Mr. Edmonson had spoken of such a thing! She did not know whom he had been talking of, but his tone was mocking. He paid people in society more attention than Archdale did, he certainly was more kind and interested in all that concerned herself. And yet, in an emergency, if a call came for self-denial, or devotion to honor, was it Edmonson to whom she would appeal?

Since her freedom the latter had not failed to press his suit eagerly, and he had endeavored to conceal the fury that possessed him when he became convinced that she meant her refusal. He had not succeeded very well in this, and Elizabeth had caught another glimpse of his inner life. She did not believe in his professions of regard for her, but she did believe thoroughly in these glimpses of character. She had been courteous, but he had made her shrink from him. Since the last refusal, for he had not been content with one, she had met him only in society, but here he was constantly near her, really because he was fascinated by her. But to her it seemed under the circumstances like a persecution. She thought of him none the more pleasantly because she met him at every turn. His assiduity meant to her a desire to marry a rich wife. Since his conduct at Colonel Archdale's house she had remembered that she was considered an heiress. She did not believe in Edmonson's capacity for affection for any woman. Here she was mistaken. The young man was as much in love with her as he knew how to be, and that was passionately, if not deeply.

Twice Archdale had been to see her with Katie who was spending the winter with her aunt in Boston. With those exceptions Elizabeth had seen nothing of him, although he had been frequently in the city. He had been very much occupied by military matters, and, apart from these, not in a mood for general society. Until this morning of the embarkation Elizabeth had not caught a glimpse of him for a month. She remembered it as she looked at him and saw a certain fixedness in his face.

A sudden consciousness of observation made her turn her eyes toward the middle of the boat. They met Edmonson's looking at her intently. Bowing to him, she dropped her own, and before his greeting of her was over, she turned to speak to her father.

But she said only a few words to him, and began again to watch the soldiers. How many of these strong men would come back uncrippled? And a good many would not come back at all. But as she looked at them filing through the gangway, the sense of numbers, and of strength, swept back the possibilities of evil, and instead of the embarkation, she seemed to see before her the rush of the troops to the fortress, as Governor Shirley had planned it all, the splendid attack, the defense gallant though useless, the stormy entrance, and the English flag floating over the battlements of Louisburg. The bloodshed and the agony were lost sight of, it was the vision of conquest and the thought of the royal colors floating over the stronghold of French America that flushed her cheek and kindled her eyes.

Archdale watching her felt like holding his breath, lest in some way he should disturb her and lose this glimpse of character. She was looking out to sea. He felt sure that, although she had just smiled and bowed she had already forgotten him again. It was nothing connected with himself that had brought such a look to her face. But here were some of the possibilities of this noble girl, Katie's friend. Sweeping his glance further on as he stood there, he had reason to feel that Elizabeth was much more deeply interested in the expedition than Katie was. The latter had given him her farewell in her uncle's house, to be sure. But now she seemed to have quite forgotten that he might never come back. Any public exhibition of sentiment would have been as distasteful to him as to her, but he had expected a little gravity. He thought as he stood there that perhaps he had been uncourteous in not going to say farewell to Elizabeth to whom he was so much indebted. But it was the consciousness of this that had prevented him. He could not bear to see her until he had returned that money put into the Archdale firm under a mistaken supposition; for not only was Elizabeth not his wife, but Katie for whom she assured him that she had done this, might never be. He looked at his betrothed again in the crowd, and something like scorn came into his face, a scorn that stung himself more deeply than its unconscious object.

As to this money of Elizabeth's, he had not yet been able to make his father return it. The Colonel had declared that he could pay a better per cent. than she could get elsewhere, and would do it. He had assured Mr. Royal of this, and the latter seemed content. But Stephen looking back to Elizabeth again, could not keep from thinking about the money and wishing that it were out of his hands. Yet, with this undercurrent of thought, he at the same time was seeing in her face a beauty that possibly did not wholly vanish with her mood, but lay half hidden behind reserve, and waited the touch of the power that could call it forth.

Edmonson's voice, speaking to one of the officers, reached him at the moment. Elizabeth moved her head. Instinctively he watched to see if she turned toward the speaker. No, it was toward himself that she was looking with a smile of farewell. He bowed eagerly, decidedly, for by this time the troops had all embarked, the plank was up, and he was free for the moment.

He bowed to Elizabeth. But the next instant she saw him looking intently at some one behind her in the crowd, and she felt sure that Katie was giving him her silent farewell. While she dropped her eyes as if this parting were not for strangers to watch, the shouts of the crowd on shore and the cheers of the soldiers marked the widening space between ship and shore.

When Mr. Royal's horses were turned about, Elizabeth found that Katie Archdale had been almost directly behind. She was with her aunt and uncle. Kenelm Waldo sat beside her, while Lord Bulchester with one foot on the ground and the other on the step of the carriage, talked from the opposite side. Katie turned readily from one to the other, and if she intercepted an angry glance, her eyes grew brighter and her brilliant smile deepened. Her laugh was not forced, it came with that musical ripple which had always added so much to her fascination.

Elizabeth caught it as she passed with a bow, and a grave face. After all, she thought, Katie could not have seen Mr. Archdale the moment before.

CHAPTER XXIII

KATIE ARCHDALE

It was a beautiful morning, warmer than May mornings usually are in Boston. But the warm sunshine that came into the drawing-room where Katie Archdale was seated was unheeded. Katie was still at her uncle's and that morning, as she had been very many mornings of late, was much occupied with a visitor who sat on the sofa beside her with an assumption of privilege which his diffident air at times failed to carry out well.

"Are you quite sure, Lord Bulchester?" she asked. And her voice had a touch of tremulousness, so inspiring to lovers.

"Sure? Am I sure?" he asked, his little figure expanding in his earnestness, his face aglow with an emotion which gave dignity to his plain features. "Sure that I love you?" he repeated wonderingly. "How could anybody help it?"

"Then its not any especial discernment in you?" Her tones had the softness of a coquetry about to lose itself in a glad submission to a power higher than its own.

"No," he sighed. "And, yet, it is some special discernment. For, if not, why should I love you better than anyone else does?"

"Do you?" The arch glance softened to suit his mood, half bewildered him with ecstasy. To the music of them the drawing-room seemed to heighten and broaden before his eyes, and to lengthen out into vistas of the halls and parks of his own beautiful home, Lyburg Chase, and through them all, Katie moved, and gave them a new charm. And, then, he seemed to be in different places on the Continent, among the Swiss Mountains, beside the Italian lakes, in gay Paris, and every where Katie moved by his side, and gave new life to the familiar scenes.

"Give me my answer to-day," he cried; "for to-day my treasure, you are sure of yourself, to-day you know that you love me."

Katie's face changed, as the sky changes when a rift of blue that promised a smiling day is swallowed up again in the midst of uncertain weather; whatever softness lingered was veiled by doubt. "I don't know," she said hesitatingly, "I'm not sure yet. I can't tell. Must you have your answer to-day?" And she looked at him half defiantly. An expression of bitter disappointment swept over Bulchester's face and seemed actually to affect his whole personality, for he appeared to shrink into himself until there was less of him. "You see," Katie went on, "between you I am driven, I am tossed; I don't even know what I feel. How can I? Poor Stephen, you know, has loved me all my life, and one does not easily forget that, Lord Bulchester. He does have a claim, you know."

"Only your preference has any claim," he answered in a voice of entreaty.

"Yes," she said, and sighed. The assent and the sigh completely puzzled him. Were they for himself, or for Stephen Archdale? Had she already chosen without being willing to speak, or was she still hesitating? In either case, the decision was equally momentous, the only question was of lengthening or shortening the suspense of waiting for it.

"Then take your time," he answered drearily, "and I will leave you, I will go and hide my impatience. You must not be tortured."

"No," returned the girl with a low sigh. At that instant she turned her face away from him toward the window, a knock at the door being the ostensible reason. But if anyone had seen the smile with which she received the assurance that she was not to be tortured, he would have believed that there was no imminent danger of it. Had it been a question of torturing,—that was another thing. When she turned a grave face toward Lord Bulchester again he had risen. "No, No," she cried. "Don't go, sit down, I would rather have you here, for a time at least. It's Elizabeth,—Mistress Royal." Her tones threw the listener from dreariness into despair. A moment since he thought he had her assurance that his own claims were seriously considered. And, now, what could give her manner this nervousness, but the fact that her attachment to Archdale was still in force? For Bulchester had learned from her that since her arrested wedding Elizabeth had always been associated in her mind with Stephen. She was so in his own also, for this reason, and another. The young man sat down again. It was not consistent with his feelings, nor his knowledge of affairs, and, still less, with his character to perceive that Katie's conscience troubled her a little.

Elizabeth had always found likable things in Lord Bulchester: and although she had been indignant at his taking advantage of the position of affairs to try to win Katie, she had owned to herself that he was not responsible for such position, and ought not to have been expected to feel about as she did. And now that Katie and Stephen Archdale were once more united, Elizabeth felt a deep pity for Bulchester, and believed that he was behaving well in being manly enough to have won Katie's respect and friendship. No shadow of doubt of her friend's loyalty to Stephen crossed her mind. And nothing gave her warning that out of this morning visit in which there would be said and done no single thing that would seem at the time of any consequence, would come results that would influence her life.

The conversation, after ranging about a little turned upon the quiet that had settled down upon the city, now that the excitement of fitting out the expedition was over. Elizabeth said that it seemed to her the hush of anxiety and expectation, for it was felt that the fate of the country hung upon the issue. Whether New England were still English in government or became French provinces depended more upon the fate of Louisburg than anybody liked to confess.

"I don't believe there's any danger of our being French provinces," said Katie.

"I ought to have put it that we fight the battle there or in our own home," said Elizabeth. Then as they went on to speak of the soldiers, she said suddenly to Bulchester: "What does your lordship do without Mr. Edmonson?" The latter shifted his foot on the floor uneasily.

"I suppose you think that I ought to have gone too," he said half in apology, "but—," He looked at Katie and his face brightened: she was not a woman to blame him because his love for her had kept him at home. He did not linger upon the other part of the truth, that he was not fond of war in any event. "I have helped in my small way," he said. "Don't believe me quite without patriotism." Elizabeth looked surprised.

"I did not mean that at all," she answered. "I was not thinking of it, but only that you had been so much with Mr. Edmonson, that you must miss him."

"I don't know," answered Bulchester. After a moment's hesitation he added, "I see you look surprised: the intimacy between us seemed to you close?"

"Why, yes, it did," assented Elizabeth, "very close. But I don't see why I should say so, or how it should be any affair of mine."

Bulchester looked uncomfortable. "All the same," he answered, "you are judging me, and thinking me disloyal, and that it is a strange time to forget one's friendship when the friend has gone to peril life for his country."

"Perhaps something like that did come to me," confessed Elizabeth.

"You can't judge," pursued the other eagerly, speaking to Elizabeth, but thinking of the impression that this might be making upon Katie. "There are things I cannot explain, things that have made me draw away from Edmonson. It is not because he has gone to the war and I have found reason to stay at home. There are impressions that come sometimes like dreams, you can't put them into words. But without being able to do that, you are sure certain things are so. No, not sure." He stopped again. It was impossible to explain.

"Don't stop there," cried Katie. "How tantalizing. Either you should not have begun, or you ought to go on. You must," she insisted with a gesture of impatience, while her eyes met his with a smile that always conquered him.

"I've nothing to say,—that is, there is nothing I can say. One doesn't betray one's friends. But Edmonson—" He halted again.

"Yes, but Mr. Edmonson," she repeated, "is a delightful man when one is on a frolic. What else about him?"

"Oh—nothing."

The girl frowned. "Very well," she said. "Everybody trusts Mistress Royal. I understand it is I who am unworthy of your confidence. As you please."

"You!" he cried. "You unworthy of my confidence!" There was consternation in his tones. "You?" he repeated, looking at her helplessly. The idea was too much for him.

"Certainly. Or you would at least tell us what you mean about Mr. Edmonson, even if your former friendship for him—that is supposing it gone now—prevented you from going into details." She spoke earnestly and wondered as she did so why she had never felt any curiosity before as to the break of the intimacy between Edmonson and his friend, for, evidently, there had been a coolness, something more than mere separation. As Elizabeth sat looking at his perturbed face, an old legend crossed her mind. "Mr. Edmonson has lost his shadow," she thought; and it seemed ominous to her.

"There are no details," answered the earl. "Nothing has happened. If you imagine I have quarrelled with him, you are mistaken. Nothing of the sort. There were reasons, as I have said, to keep me at home, and he had no claim upon me to accompany him. Besides, there's a something, that as I said, I can't put into words, and I may be entirely wrong. But Edmonson is a terrible fellow at times. One day he—." Then Bulchester stopped abruptly, and began a new sentence. "I know nothing," he said. "I have nothing to tell, only I fear, because if he wants anything, he must have it through every obstacle. When he takes the bits between his teeth, Heaven only knows where he will bring up, and Heaven hasn't much to do with the direction of his running, I imagine. Sometimes one would rather not ride behind him." As he finished, his eyes were on Elizabeth's face, and it seemed as if he were speaking especially for her. But in a moment as they met hers full of inquiry, he dropped them and looked disturbed.

"You are frightfully mysterious," cried Katie.

"Not at all," he entreated. "There is no mystery anywhere. I never said anything about mysteries. Please don't think I spoke of such a thing."

"Yes, you are very mysterious," she insisted. "Nobody can help seeing that you know evil of your friend, and don't want to tell it. I dare say it's to your credit. But, all the same, it's tantalizing."

Not even her commendation could keep a sharp anxiety from showing itself on Bulchester's face. "I have said nothing," he answered, "it all might happen and he have no concern in it—, I mean," he caught himself back with a startled look and then went on with an assumption of coolness, "I mean exactly what I say, Mistress Archdale, simply that Edmonson does not please me so much as he did before I saw better people. But I assure you that this has no connection with any special thing that he has done."

"Or may do?" asked Elizabeth.

"Or that I believe he will do," he answered resolutely. But it was after an instant's hesitation which was not lost upon one of his listeners who sat watching him gravely, and in a moment as if uttering her thought aloud, said,

"That is new; he used to please you entirely."

Bulchester fidgetted, and glanced at Katie who had turned toward the speaker. There was no need, he thought, of bringing out his past infatuation so plainly. In the light of a new one, it looked absurd enough to him not to want to have it paraded before one of his present companions at least. But Elizabeth had had no idea of parading his absurdities; for when he said apologetically that one learned in time to regulate his enthusiasms, she looked at him with surprise, as if roused, and answered that the ability to be a good friend was the last thing to need apology. Then she sat busy with her own thoughts.

"What, the mischief, is she after?" thought the young man watching her as Katie talked, and there must have been strong reason that could have diverted his mind in any degree from Katie. "Is it possible she has struck my uncanny suspicion? If she has, she's cool about it. No, it's impossible; I've buried it fathoms deep. Nobody could find it. It's too evil a suspicion, too satanical, ever to be brought to light. I wish to Heaven, though, I had never run across it, it makes me horribly uncomfortable." Then he turned to Katie, but soon his thoughts were running upon Elizabeth again. "She's one of those people," he mused, "that you think don't notice anything, and all at once she'll score a hit that the best players would be proud of. I can't make her out. But I hardly think Edmonson would have everything quite his own way. Pity he can't try it. I'd like to see it working. And perhaps some day—." So, he tried to put away from him a suggestion, which, dwelt upon, gave him a sense of personal guilt, because, only supposing this thing came that Edmonson had hinted at, it would be an advantage to himself. He shivered at the suggestion; there was no such purpose in reality, he was sure of it. Edmonson only talked wildly as he had a way of doing. The very thought seemed a crime to Bulchester. If he really believed, he ought to speak. But he did not believe, and he could hardly denounce his friend on a vagary. Still, he was troubled by Elizabeth's evident pondering, and was glad to have the conversation turned into any channel that would sweep out thoughts of Edmonson from their minds.