* * * * *
In Williamsburgh as at Westover the autumn was dying, the winter was
coming, but neither farewell nor greeting perturbed the cheerful town. To
and fro through Palace and Nicholson and Duke of Gloucester streets were
blown the gay leaves; of early mornings white frosts lay upon the earth
like fairy snows, but midday and afternoon were warm and bright. Mistress
Stagg's garden lay to the south, and in sheltered corners bloomed
marigolds and asters, while a vine, red-leafed and purple-berried, made a
splendid mantle for the playhouse wall.
Within the theatre a rehearsal of "Tamerlane" was in progress. Turk and
Tartar spoke their minds, and Arpasia's death cry clave the air. The
victorious Emperor passed final sentence upon Bajazet; then, chancing to
glance toward the wide door, suddenly abdicated his throne, and in the
character of Mr. Charles Stagg blew a kiss to his wife, who, applauding
softly, 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 September
Mistress Stagg had entertained her old friend, my Lady Squander's sometime
waiting-maid. Now the vines were bare of leaves, and the sunshine
streaming through lay in a flood upon the earth. Mary Stagg's chair was
set in that golden warmth, and upon the ground beside it had fallen some
bright sewing. The silken stuff touched a coarser cloth, and that was the
skirt of Darden's Audrey, who sat upon the ground asleep, with her arm
across the chair, and her head upon her arm.
"How came she here?" demanded Mr. Stagg at last, when he had given a
tragedy start, folded his arms, and bent his brows.
"She ran away," answered Mistress Stagg, in a low voice, drawing her
spouse to a little distance from the sleeping figure. "She ran away from
the glebe house and went up the river, wanting--the Lord knows why!--to
reach the mountains. Something happened to bring her to her senses, and
she turned back, and falling in with that trader, Jean Hugon, he brought
her to Jamestown in his canoe. She walked from there to the glebe
house,--that was yesterday. The minister was away, and Deborah, being in
one 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 the
woods last night. I vow I'll never speak again to Deborah, not though
there were twenty Baths behind us!" Mistress Stagg's voice began to
tremble. "I was sitting sewing in that chair, now listening to your voices
in the theatre, and now harking back in my mind to old days when we
weren't prosperous like we are now.... And at last I got to thinking of
the babe, Charles, and how, if she had lived and grown up, I might ha' sat
there sewing a pretty gown for my own child, and how happy I would have
made her. I tried to see her standing beside me, laughing, pretty as a
rose, waiting for me to take the last stitch. It got so real that I raised
my head to tell my dead child how I was going to knot her ribbons, ... and
there was this girl looking at me!"