though i dared not hope she would keep her promise and was sometimes so sorely beset as to tremble at her coming, margery looked in upon me oftener, and soon there grew up between us a comradeship the like of which, i think, had never been between a woman loved and a man who, loving her, was yet constrained to play the part of her true lover's friend.
if i played this part but stumblingly; if at times the madness of my passion would not be denied the look or word or hand-clasp not of poor cool friendship; i have this to comfort me: that in after time, when my dear lad came to know, he forgave me freely—nay, held me altogether blameless, as i was not.
of what these looks and words and hand-clasps meant to margery i had no hint. but in my hours of sanity, when i would pass these slippings in review, i could recall no answering flash of hers to salt the woundings of the conscience-whip. so far from it, it seemed, as this sweet comradeship budded and blossomed on the stock of a better acquaintance, she came to hold me more as if i were some cross between a father or an elder brother, and some closer confidant of her own sex.
you are not to understand that she was always thus, nor over-often. more frequently that side of her which i soon came to call the mother's was turned to me, and i was made to stand a target for her wit and raillery. but she was ever changeful as a child, and in the midst of some light jesting mood would sober instantly and give my age its due.
in some of these, her soberer times, i felt her lean upon me as my sister might, had i had one; at others she would frankly set me in her father's place, declaring i must tell her what to say or do in this or that entanglement. again, and this came oftener as our friendship grew, she would talk to me as surely woman never talked to any but a kinsman, telling me naïvely of her conquests, and sparing no gallant of them all save only richard jennifer.
and of dick and his devotion she spoke now and then, as well, though never mockingly, as of the others. nay, once when i pressed her on this point, asking her plainly if my dear lad had not good cause to hope, she would only smile and turn her face away, and say that of all the men she knew the hopeful ones pleased her best. so i was thus assured that if it were a scale for love to tip, my lady's heart would fall to richard.
now i took this to be a hopeful sign, that she would tell me freely of these her little heart affairs; and seeing her so safe upon the side of friendship, held the looser rein upon my own unchartered passion. so long as i could keep my love well masked and hidden what harm could come to her or any if i should give it leave to live in prison? none, i thought; and yet at times was made a very coward by the thought. for love, like other living things, will grow by what it feeds upon, and once full-grown, may haply come to laugh at bonds, however strong or cunningly devised.
with such a fever in my veins it was little wonder that my wound healed slowly. as time passed by, with never a word of news from the world without—if margery knew aught of the fighting she would never lisp a syllable to me—and with gilbert stair still keeping churlishly beyond the sight or sound of me, i fretted sorely and would be gone.
yet this was but a passing mood. when margery was with me i was not ill-content to eat the bread of sufferance in her father's house, and angry pride had scanty footing. but when she was away this same pride took sharp revenges, getting me out of bed to bully darius into dressing me that i might foot it up and down the room while i was still unfit for any useful thing.
one morning in the summer third of june my lady came early and surprised me at this business of pacing back and forth. whereat she scolded me as was her wont when i grew restive.
"what weighty thing have you to do that you should be so fierce to be about it, monsieur impetuous?" she cried. "fi donc! you'd try the patience of a saint!"
"which you are not," i ventured. "but truly, margery, i am growing stronger now, and the bed does irk me desperately, if you must know. besides—"
"well, what is there else besides? do i not pamper you enough?"
i laughed. "i'll say whatever you would have me say—so it be not the truth."
"i'll have you say nothing until you sit down."
she pushed the great chair of indian wickerwork into place before the window-bay, and when i was at rest she drew up a low hassock and sat at my feet.
"now you may go on," she said.
"you have not told me what you would have me say."
"the truth," she commanded.
"'"what is truth," said jesting pilate,'" i quoted. "why do you suppose my lord bacon thought the roman procurator jested at such a time and place?"
"you are quibbling, monsieur john. i want to know why you are so impatient to be gone."
"saw you ever a man worthy the name who could be content to bide inactive when duty calls?"
"that is not the whole truth," she said, half absently. "you think you are unwelcome here."
"'twas you said that; not i. but i must needs know your father will be relieved when he is safely quit of me."
"'twas you said that, not i, monsieur john," she retorted, giving me back my own words. "has ever word been brought you that he would speed your parting?"
"surely not, since i am still here. but you must know that i have never seen his face, as yet."
"and is that strange? you must not forget that he is gilbert stair, and you are roger ireton's son."
"i am not likely to forget it. but still a word of welcome to the unbidden guest would not have come amiss. and it was none of my seeking—this asylum in his house."
"true; but that has naught to do with any coolness of my father's."
"what is it, then?—besides the fact that i am roger ireton's son?"
"i think 'twas what you said to mr. pengarvin."
"that little smirking wretch? what has he to say or do in this?"
she looked away from me and said: "he is my father's factor and man of affairs."
"ah, i have always to be craving your pardon, margery. but i said naught to this parchment-faced—to this mr. pengarvin, that might offend your father, or any."
"how, then, will you explain this, that you swore to drive my father from appleby hundred as soon as ever you had raised a following among the rebels?"
"'tis easily explained: this thrice-accursed—oh, pardon me again, i pray you; i will not name him any name at all. what i meant to say was that he lied. i made no threats to him; to tell the plain truth, i was too fiercely mad to bandy words with him."
"what made you mad, monsieur john?"
"'twas his threat to me—to taint me with my father's outlawry. do you greatly blame me, margery?"
"no."
thereat a silence came and sat between us, and i fell to loving her the more because of it; but when she spoke i always loved her more for speaking.
"my father has had little peace since coming here," she said, at length. "he is old and none too well; and as for king and congress, asks nothing but his right to hold aloof. and this they will not give him."
remembering what jennifer had told me of gilbert stair's trimming, i smiled within.
"that is the way of all the world in war-time, ma petite. a partizan may suffer once for all, but both sides hold a neutral lawful prey."
'twas as the spark to tinder; my word the spark and in her eyes the answering flash.
"i tell him so!" she cried. "i tell him always that the king will have his own again. but still he halts and hesitates; and when these rebels come and quarter on us—"
i fear she must have seen my inward smile this time, for she broke off in the midst, and i made haste to forestall her flying out at me.
"oh, come, my dear; you should not be so fierce with him when you yourself have brought a rebel to his house to nurse alive."
she looked me fairly in the eye. "you should be the last to remind me of my treason, monsieur john."
"then you are free to call it treason, are you, margery?" i said.
she looked away from me again. "how can it well be less than treason?" then suddenly she turned and clasped her hands upon my knee. "you must not be too hard upon me, monsieur john. i've tried to do my duty as i saw it, and i have asked no questions. and yet i know much more than you have told me."
"what do you know?"
"i know your wound has been your safety. if you should leave this room and house to-day you would never wear the buff and blue again, captain ireton."
"you mean they would hang me for a spy. will you believe me, margery, if i say i have not yet worn the buff and blue at all?"
"oh!" the little exclamation was of pure delight. "then they were all mistaken? you are no rebel, after all?"
was ever man so tempted since the fall of adam? as i have writ it down for you in measured words, i was no more than half a patriot at this time. and love has made more traitors than its opposites of lust or greed. in no uncertain sense i was a man without a country; and this fair maiden on the hassock at my feet was all the world to me. i saw in briefer time than any clock hands ever measured how much a yielding word might do for me; and then i thought of richard jennifer and was myself again.
"nay, little one," i said; "there has been no mistake. for their own purposes my enemies have passed the word that i am here as the baron de kalb's paid spy. that is no mistake; 'tis a lie cut out of whole cloth. i came here straight from new berne, and back of that from london and the continent, and scarcely know the buff and blue by sight. but i am carolina born, dear lady; and this king george's governor hanged my father. so, when god gives me strength to mount and ride—"
"now who is fierce?" she cried. and then, like lightning: "will you raise a band of rebels and come and take your own again?"
"you know i will not," i protested, so gravely that she laughed again, though now there were tears, from what well-spring of emotion i knew not, in her eyes.
"oh, mercy me! have you never one little grain of imagination, monsieur john? you are too monstrous literal for our poor jesting age." then she sobered quickly and added this: "and yet i fear that this is what my father fears."
i did not tell her that he might have feared it once with reason, or that now the houseless dog she petted should have life of me though mine enemy should sick him on. but i did say her father had no present cause to dread me.
"he thinks he has. and surely there is cause enough," she added.
i smiled, and, loving her the more for her fairness, must smile again.
"nay, you have changed all that, dear lady. truly, i did at first fly out at him and all concerned for what has made me a poor pensioner in my father's house—or rather in the house that was my father's. but that was while the hurt was new. i have been a soldier of fortune too long to think overmuch of the loss of appleby hundred. 'twas my father's, certainly; but 'twas never mine."
"and yet—and yet it should be yours, john ireton." she said it bravely, with uplifted face and eloquent eyes that one who ran might read.
"'tis good and true of you to say so, little one; but there be two sides to that, as well. so my father's acres come at last to you and richard jennifer, i shall be well content, i do assure you, margery."
she sprang up from her low seat and went to stand in the window-bay. after a time she turned and faced me once again, and the warm blood was in cheek and neck, and there was a soft light in her eyes to make them shine like stars.
"then you would have me marry richard jennifer?" she asked.
'twas but a little word that honor bade me say, and yet it choked me and i could not say it.
"dick would have you, margery; and dick is my dear friend—as i am his."
"but you?" she queried. "were you my friend, as well, is this as you would have it?"
my look went past her through the lead-rimmed window-panes to the great oaks and hickories on the lawn; to these and to the white road winding in and out among them. while yet i sought for words in which to give her unreservedly to my dear lad, two horsemen trotted into view. one of them was a king's man; the other a civilian in sober black. the redcoat rode as english troopers do, with a firm seat, as if the man were master of his mount; but the smaller man in black seemed little to the manner born, and daylight shuttled in and out beneath him, keeping time to the jog-trot of his beast.
i thought it passing strange that with all good will to answer her, these coming horsemen seemed to hold me silent. and, indeed, i did not speak until they came so near that i could make them out.
"i am your friend, margery mine; as good a friend as you will let me be. and as between richard jennifer and another, i should be a sorry friend to dick did i not—"
she heard the clink of horseshoes on the gravel and turned, signing to me for silence while she looked below. the window overhung the entrance on that side, and through the opened air-casement i heard some babblement of voices, though not the words.
"i must go down," she said. "'tis company come, and my father is away."
she passed behind my chair, and, hearing her hand upon the latch, i had thought her gone—gone down to welcome my enemy and his riding mate, the factor. but while i was cursing my unready tongue and repenting that i had not given her some small word of warning, she spoke again.
"you say 'richard jennifer or another.' what know you of any other, monsieur john?"
"nay, i know nothing save what you have told me; and from that i have been hoping there was no other."
"but if i say there may be?"
my heart went sick at that. true, i had thought to give her generously to dick, whose right was paramount; but to another—
"margery, come hither where i may see you." and when she stood before me like a bidden child: "tell me, little comrade, who is that other?"
but now her mood was changed again, and from standing sweet and pensive she fell a-laughing.
"what impudence!" she cried. "ma foi! you should borrow père matthieu's cassock and breviary; then, mayhap, i might confess to you. but not before."
but still i pressed her.
"tell me, margery."
she tossed her head and would not look at me. "dick jennifer is but a boy; suppose this other were a man full-grown."
"yes?"
"and a soldier."
the sickness in my heart became a fire.
"o margery! don't tell me it is this fiend who came just now!"
all in a flash the jesting mood was gone, but that which took its place was strange to me. tears came; her bosom heaved. and then she would have passed me but i caught her hands and held them fast.
"margery, one moment: for your own sweet sake, if not for dick's or mine, have naught to do with this devil's emissary of a man. if you only knew—if i dared tell you—"
but for once, it seemed, i had stretched my privilege beyond the limit. she whipped her hands from my hold and faced me coldly.
"sir francis says you are a brave gentleman, captain ireton, and though he knows well what you would be about, he has not sent a file of men to put you in arrest. and in return you call him names behind his back. i shall not stay to listen, sir."
with that she passed again behind my chair, and once again i heard her hand upon the latch. but i would say my say.
"forgive me, margery, i pray you; 'twas only what you said that made me mad. 'tis less than naught if you'll deny it."
i waited long and patiently, and thought she must have gone before her answer came. and this is what she said:
"if i must tell you then;'tis now two weeks and more since sir francis falconnet asked me to marry him. i—i hope you do feel better, captain ireton."
and with these bitterest of all words to her leave-taking, she left me to endure as best i might the hell of torment they had lighted for me.
