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.