Milady at Arms/Chapter 17
THERE!" said Mistress Todd, shaking the sand off the drying ink. She held out to Parson Chapman the paper she had but now signed. "Ye have your freedom, Sally." She turned to glance sarcastically at the girl. "See an ye be any better off for it!"
There was silence in the kitchen of the house where Mistress Todd, with Mistress Banks and the children, had been living since the battle of Newark. Everyone gazed at the young girl who, cheeks flushed, eyes downcast, was standing beside the table where her former mistress was seated. Sally raised her eyes, more violet than blue from deep excitement, to look at the older woman in the candelight. "I will try to be the better for it, mistress," she answered as though she were giving her promise.
Mistress Van Houten, who had been watching her sympathetically, now turned inquiringly to the minister. "Art sure this paper be all right, sir?" she asked in a doubtful voice. "Should not Squire Todd ha' signed it, also?"
Parson Chapman shook his head. "Under the circumstances, I believe Mistress Todd's signature to be all that's necessary." Suddenly the minister broke off, as he glanced at the kitchen door. When he continued, it was in a voice of mingled amazement and excitement. "Only—an ye doubt the paper's legality—here be Squire Todd to sign it, too!"
At that, everyone wheeled toward the door which the minister had chanced to be alone in facing. There was a wild cry of "Samuel!" and Mistress Todd was in her husband's arms, sobbing out her welcome upon his shoulder.
Then what a bedlam ensued! Master Todd was led in and seated in a chair of honor which the host hastily pulled forward. Everyone talked and laughed at once; and in the midst of it all, the stair door opened and little Mary, wide-eyed and wondering, entered. An instant later, she was upon her father's knee, hugging and kissing him, and the confusion commenced all over again and continued until Parson Chapman laughingly held up his hand.
"Much as I do dislike to interrupt this rejoicing," he said, smiling broadly, "I would ask Master Todd to sign these articles for Sally; for we must away to Paulus Hook, where Mistress Van Houten wishes to embark to New York Town this night."
"Articles for Sally?" Master Todd repeated it in surprise. He took the paper which Parson Chapman handed to him and, setting down little Mary, rose and went to the place beside the table which the minister indicated. "Why, art freein' Sally?" he asked, seating himself and reading the paper hastily by the light of the candle. He glanced at his wife, who nodded.
"Aye," answered Mistress Todd. "Ah, Samuel," her voice faltered, and, coming to his side, she placed her hand upon his shoulder, "I was fearful ye were ne'er returning to us, and I did think to sell the farm and rid myself o' all responsibilities."
"I escaped the prison ship yesterday," Master Todd looked grimly around the circle of interested faces. "At times, I, too, was fearful o' not returning, Molly!" He paused, sighed. "However," he went on briskly, "that be past, thank Heaven. And so now ye would leave us, Sally?"
"Aye, sir! Mistress Van Houten did ask me to come to her, and since I was but visiting the Widow Ball while Mistress Todd tarried here, I did accept her kind invitation."
"And now I be home, ye still are o' the same mind o' freeing Sally, Moll?" Squire Todd turned to his wife.
"I am, Samuel," Mistress Todd spoke emphatically. "Oil and water will not mix. Just so, Sally and I will be better apart."
"So be it!" Squire Todd reached for the quill pen and placed his signature with a flourish above that of his wife. Rising, then, he returned to his former seat, little Mary following him like a small shadow, while the minister, with a sigh, picked up the paper.
"Not all experiments do turn out well," he said slowly. He handed the paper containing her freedom to Sally. "When I placed ye at the Mountain, I did it thinking 'twas for your best, my child."
"I know. Master Chapman." Clasping the precious paper to her heart, Sally looked at the minister gratefully. "Ever ye have been good to me, sir! And you. Master Todd! And you, little Mary!" She looked at them each in turn.
Mistress Todd, ignored unconsciously, tossed her head and stepped to Mistress Banks's side. "Past favors are easily forgotten!" she sniffed. But Mistress Banks, gazing at her friend with wise, affectionate eyes, only smiled gently and said not a word.
The night waxed late when Sally, with Parson Chapman and Mistress Van Houten, set forth upon horseback, followed by a chorus of farewells from the lighted door. Sally sighed a little, thinking of those other farewells a few hours previous which had come to her as she left the Ball house. Uzal, alone, had said nothing, only his eyes had mutely bid her good-bye over his mother's head as he had stood behind the latter. For long years afterward, the girl remembered that strange night trip across the two ferries on the Passaic and the Hackensack rivers—obtained through the influence of Parson Chapman, for it was a stern rule of the ferryman to make daylight trips only—across the great swamps, with their salt-marsh odors and their gloomy cedar woods, up over Bergen Heights and down to Paulus Hook and the ferry there. When at last they reached the inn at Paulus Hook and discovered that the ferryman was out fishing and would not return for another hour or so, according to his wife. Parson Chapman left them and went back to Newark; and Sally, gazing up into his kind face, knew that she was saying good-bye to one of her best friends. Suddenly she gathered courage to ask him something which she had been mulling over in her mind, wondering if she dared mention the subject.
"Oh, sir," she whispered, glancing cautiously toward Mistress Van Houten, whose back was turned as she stared out across the dark water of the mighty Hudson River, "oh, sir, an ye ever meet the—the red-coat concerning whom Uzal Ball did tell o' this night, will ye—wilt write me o't?"
Parson Chapman slapped his thigh. "Why, Sally, I did forget!" he exclaimed with a rueful laugh. "Had ye not mentioned the subject, I would ne'er ha' told ye that, as I was leaving Master Hedden's, when ye rode on, this even, a post rider did arrive from Morris Town wi' a message to Master Hedden. I questioned the rider concerning the young British prisoner—for I thought his case a very sad one, indeed—and the rider happened to know of him and told me"
"Aye, told you?" Sally moistened her dry lips.
"He told me the young man would live," proclaimed Master Chapman triumphantly. "He had passed the crisis o' the plague this day and was on the mend. But why"—the good minister paused and looked down teasingly into the eager face—"art so interested i' the red uniform? Dost not like blue and buff much better?"
"We-ell," Sally hesitated, "mayhap—the—the war will some day end—and—uniforms will go out o' fashion, sir!"
Mistress Van Houten, turning back from her contemplation of the few scattered lights that proclaimed the existence of New York Town, wondered at the minister's sudden amused laugh as he bowed to Sally and herself and, leaping upon his horse, rode away.
Sally and the lady were met by a sleepy-eyed, yawning Cudje when they finally ascended the steps of Mistress Van Houten's New York house. Cudje grinned, however, and reached for Sally's heavy reticule.
Leading the way into a fine, big bedroom at the rear of the second floor, Mistress Van Houten turned to Sally. "Would ye like to sleep down here this night, my dear?" she asked. "I expect company to occupy this room to-morrow night—a real lord and lady, Sally, my child, who are coming to dinner wi' General Clinton, then. The general will return home; but the others will remain, for milady is an old school friend o' mine, whom I have not seen this many years, until her husband was sent across by His Majesty to bring terms to the colonists. She and I went to school together in England, though I was born over here."
"Ye"—Sally placed her reticule upon a chair and looked at her hostess squarely—"ye are not a Tory, mistress?"
"Nay," answered the other carelessly. "'Tis only old friendship which bids me have these people. General Clinton was a good friend o' Hans's once. But what say ye about the room?' There be a smaller one on the next floor, whither ye will have to retire often, whenever we have company."
"I will stay here this night, for Cudje has made ready the bed here," returned the girl quietly, nodding toward the old man who had turned back the bed covers.
She smiled in answer to her hostess's good-night; but, when she was alone, her smile faded. Once more she had changed her place of abode and not yet come home! Overwhelmed by the feeling of transitoriness, of loneliness, of not belonging, poor Sally sank to her knees beside the bed and buried her bright head in its quilts. There she remained very still for a long, long time, with only the irritated squawk of the cockatoo, who had been awakened by Cudje's bedtime candle, breaking the silence from below.
Sally deliberately primped that next evening before Mistress Van Houten's mirror. Enemy or no enemy, she meant to look her very best; for she had a plan under her red-gold curls by which she hoped to achieve wonderful things. And some plans, some feminine instinct told her, are ever helped by pleasing attire and bright eyes and curls that tumble riotously about the cheek. She turned self-consciously, when the door opened and Mistress Van Houten entered the room hurriedly. "Will I do?" she asked demurely.
Mistress Van Houten's gaze brightened. "Splendidly!" she exclaimed. "Is it not lucky that I had some o' the gowns outgrown by Hans's niece left in my chest? I know not how many times I ha' started to give them away, and always something inside whispered, 'Wait!'" She paused and stared at the dainty, brilliant little figure in blue satin gown and lace overskirt. "Ye will make a nice sixth guest this even, my child—I needed a sixth!" she finished, with a kind smile. To herself she thought: "Ah, ye are a beauty, Sally; but ye will find it out soon enow wi'out my telling ye so."
As though Sally had not primped for hours to further that deep-laid plan of hers!
About five o'clock, the girl, peeping out from behind the curtains of Mistress Van Houten's parlor, felt her heart beat as a fine coach drove up and stopped before the house to allow a lady and three gentlemen to descend from it. Something about the lady's tall, slender figure caught the girl's attention, and she wrinkled her brow in remembering. Where had she seen that high-held head, those lovely sloping shoulders! Then, as the lady turned and, led by a gentleman, came up the steps, Sally started. It was Lady Holden! And the auburn-haired gentleman, following with a handsome man in uniform, was most certainly her husband, Lord Holden!
Mistress Van Houten hurried into the parlor just as Cudje, clad for once in a new uniform, shuffled toward the door. Mistress Van Houten's kind face was flushed and moist, and she raised trembling hands to pat her lace cap. "Is't on straight—my cap, Sally?" she whispered, ducking her head to gaze frantically into a near-by mirror. "I had to o'ersee the pigeon pastries—Clara would ha' spoiled 'em by serving 'em cold."
"Your cap was all right—here, let me arrange it!" said Sally, hiding her own excitement beneath a show of severity. Her deft fingers busied with the folds of lace upon Mistress Van Houten's bobbing, anxious head. Thus it was that Lady Holden, entering the parlor as Cudje majestically threw open the door, beheld her hostess's broad back turned to her and beyond, nervously staring, two great blue eyes in a white face beneath a mass of glorious red-gold curls. For an instant, as upon that other occasion, one May day, in Marshal Cunningham's office, a queer, intangible shock seemed to pass between woman and maid, then Mistress Van Houten, whirling around, gathered her old friend into an affectionate embrace, and Sally shrank back.
"Ah, madam," General Clinton now came forward gallantly to present his hostess with a fine nosegay in a paper-lace holder, "we are a lucky crowd this even, an my nose does me no wrong, for I'm sure I smell pigeon pasties."
They all laughed as Lord Holden and the third gentleman, Major André, the aide and good friend of General Clinton, paid their respects in turn to Mistress Van Houten and bowed courteously in response to Sally's respectful, trembling curtsey. Then Mistress Van Houten led the girl toward Lady Holden, who had seated herself languidly upon the sofa.
"This be Sally, Margot," said Mistress Van Houten, smiling at the girl.
Lady Holden leaned forward to scan the girl's face. "Sally—what?" she asked in a strange kind of breathless voice.
"Just Sally," answered the girl, low-toned and glancing in embarrassment at the others. But the other guests were conversing among themselves. Mistress Van Houten had turned away, and Lady Holden and Sally were alone.
Suddenly the former seized Sally's face between two cold hands, looked fiercely into her eyes and, releasing her, sank back with a hopeless gesture. "Trevor!" she called, drops of moisture starting out upon her forehead.
Hardly had his wife breathed his name when Lord Holden was at her side.
"Trevor!" Lady Holden took his hand and held it tightly clasped in hers as she looked up at him pleadingly. "Find—out—about—this girl! Ah, she might be"—her face whitened as she saw the angry frown come into his blue eyes—"ye never can tell!—she might be—Constance!"
"Nay, Margot!" Lord Holden looked down at her sternly. "Ye know what ye promised me when I said ye might come to America wi' me! I ha' no time to follow silly notions o' yours!"
"But that May day—" Lady Holden spoke with difficulty—"ye know I told ye that May day about this girl. Ah, Trevor, it might be!"
"Tut, tut!" Lord Holden moved to one side as Cudje passed him to draw the shades and to light the wall sconces. The flickering candle gleams threw grim shadows over his face as he gazed down angrily at his wife, after noticing that the other occupants of Mistress Van Houten's parlor were looking at them in astonishment. "I told ye. Margot, that I would not fall victim to your foolishness more! How many times ha' ye sworn ye ha' found Baby Constance! How many times ha' we been mocked! Nay, she did perish that wild night, and"
"An ye please, my lord," Sally interrupted him quietly, "are ye related, by chance, to Gerald Lawrence?"
"He is my ward." Lord Holden looked at her keenly.
"Then why ha' ye made no attempt to free him?" asked the girl bluntly. "Know ye not the New Jersey Council o' Safety are but waiting for him to recover from a bad case o' smallpox to try him for treason to his country, when he may hang?"
"What!" Lord and Lady Holden uttered the exclamation together. "Why, Marshal Cunningham assured me that he was working upon his exchange," added his lordship. He turned in agitation to General Clinton. "Is that not so, sir?" he demanded.
General Clinton strode forward. "What know ye o' this matter, little mistress?" he asked.
"I will tell ye, sir," said Sally, and plunged forthwith into the tale of Jerry Lawrence's first appearance at the Mountain, of his being wounded, of Stockton's treachery and her own kidnapping, of Stockton's hatred of Jerry, of Jerry's escape and his subsequent recapture. She ended upon the high note of Stockton's death and Jerry's danger, while the pigeon pasties, to the hostess's dismay, cooled upon the dinner table in the next room and were removed by the interested Cudje to be reheated.
"See that the lass's story be investigated, and push the matter o' young Lawrence's exchange," ordered General Clinton at last; and, taking out his snuffbox, he turned suggestively toward the dining room.
Her plan had worked! Yet, glancing at the set, unhappy face of Lady Holden who, though she sat at the table, neither ate nor drank, Sally felt no elation. What was there, anyway, in the atmosphere that evening which made everyone tense and restless? The pigeon pasties were at length carried back to the kitchen almost untasted, and soon afterward General Clinton and Major André excused themselves and hurried away to more congenial quarters.
"And now, Margot, ye do indeed look weary!" Mistress Van Houten gazed with concern at her friend. "Would ye not like to retire?"
Before Lady Holden could answer, Sally uttered an exclamation and darted upstairs. She had forgotten to remove her reticule from the guest room that afternoon, after having dressed. Cudje, however, had spied it upon the chest where the girl had placed it and was carrying it out, swinging from his arm, when Sally, bursting in upon him, ran headlong into him. The old bag, as might have been expected, and as Sally had always feared, being worn and full to overflowing, burst in protest at such rough treatment; and Lady Holden, entering a few moments later, found the girl upon her hands and knees, aided by the apologetic Cudje, trying hastily to retrieve the poor little possessions she hated to have exposed to public gaze. Sally's face was crimson and embarrassed—such scuffed slippers, such a shabby gown, such faded ribbon! She gathered them all into a ball and stuffed them back as well as she could into the aged bag and rose to her feet, much like a belated Cinderella who, still garbed in her party gown, hears the clock strike twelve and sees her gown turn visibly to rags.
"Ah, too bad!" said Lady Holden sympathetically, stooping to pick up an object at her feet. When she straightened up, her face wore a frightened expression. Sally, following the direction of the other's bent gaze, saw that Lady Holden held a little red shoe!
Lord Holden, who had entered at that moment, snatched the shoe out of his wife's hand and turned almost threateningly to the girl. "To whom—doth—this—belong?" he stammered hoarsely.
"Mine!" answered Sally. She stared from one to the other. "Mine—'when—I was little!"
Lady Holden, at that, uttered a strangled cry.
"Why, my baby! My baby!" she sobbed. And turning, Sally walked straight into her mother's arms.
The story really ends here, don't you think? But one September day a ship stole out of the New York harbor at dawn. The British agents, sent over by His Majesty to offer the colonists new terms and rights only to be spurned by the United Colonies, were returning to England.
Gaily the ocean danced and seemed to smile back at her from beneath the stern, over the railing of which the Lady Constance Holden was pensively gazing.
But Sally was not allowed to dream there alone. Soon a tall, thin figure approached, and, propping his arms upon the railing, Jerry smiled down into her vacant eyes.
"Sally," he began.
Lady Constance held up her hand, then suddenly dimpled.
"Jerry, ye be the only one, now, who calls me Sally! Prithee, promise ye will always call me that!"
"An ye like," said Jerry, nodding.
There was a little silence, during which the girl's eyes followed some white sea gulls.
"Why the doldrums?" asked Jerry, watching her and wondering if it were from the sky or the water that Sally got the blue of her long-lashed eyes. "Ye look as though ye were gazing back at your last friend, instead o' going—home!"
"Home!" The girl gazed unseeingly ahead of her. "Tell me," she whispered then, "what home looks like, Jerry!"
Jerry fell into her mood. "Your home, Sally, is in a great park, wi' high trimmed hedges all about it, a fine place wi' spacious lawns and gardens and tall, stately trees. And i' the loveliest garden o' all there is a little lake on which glide long-necked swans, while, across the near-by terraces, ye may see peacocks strutting."
"Jerry," Sally turned to him abruptly from her daydreams, "'tis all so strange and new to me. Only you, who knew me at the Mountain, can realize how strange it all be, like—like—a fairy story. This calling me milady—why, half the time, I know not they mean me!"
"Always," Jerry softly, "I ha' called ye" He stopped self-consciously, for boyhood lay not far behind him.
"Always what?" begged Sally eagerly. "Ah, tell me, Jerry!"
"Well, when I was i' Morris Town, your image came to me out o' the darkness and the pain, Sally—you, wi' your bright hair and your blue eyes and your eager, helpful ways; and I called ye"—he stopped again—"I called ye milady at arms, Sally, because ever ye seemed to be i' the midst o' war's alarms, riding to someone's rescue!"
"Did you, Jerry? But here I be, turning traitor! No longer do I ride at arms!" Sally's lips trembled. "I belong back there wi' my country!"
"Nay—for 'twas an accident your being there at all, Sally—your ship going down that time and Granny What's-Her-Name's son saving ye!" said the boy simply. "Some day, an ye like," his eyes twinkled, "we will return and visit the new country—together!"
"I wonder what the Todds are doing now?" mused Sally. She had not heard Jerry's last words, and he did not repeat them, merely stood watching her grave young face. "And the Balls and the Williamses? But I forget, ye did not know the Williamses!"
"The Todds? Well, 'tis breakfast time on that Mountain, Sally, and breakfast time, by my appetite, right here on board ship. Let us go down!"
Halfway across the deck, Sally stopped and pointed. "Look! Look!" she cried in an awed voice.
As they both gazed, a magnificent light overspread sky and sea. A great red ball of fire showed a glimmering, shimmering edge above the horizon. It was the sun, giving them a hint of a glorious day, with yesterday's sorrows already forgotten and to-morrow but another radiant promise!
But they were young, and the sun was—only the sun, so, "I'll beat ye down to the cabin!" shrieked Sally suddenly.
"I'll wager ye do not!" shouted Jerry firmly.
And laughing, screaming, shoving, pellmell they tumbled down the narrow stairs into the ship's cabin.
"Come, children!" said Lady Holden, her mother smile welcoming them both. "Breakfast be ready! Sit ye down and eat, for dinner be more than four long hours away, and there is to be no piecing between meals!"
The end