The House of de Mailly

by Margaret Horton Potter

Vincent shrugged his shoulders. "He said nothing at all. He informed me, when I spoke, that he did himself the honor formally to ask of me the hand of my elder sister. I accepted the offer. After that we walked about. I suppose you will make the engagement public at the ball on Wednesday. I'm deucedly tired to-night. Permit me to wish that you will sleep well."

"Good-night, my dear Vincent. Your scruples portray the height of your nature. I honor you for them—but do not worry. Everything will be well. And so good-night."

With great relief at her heart the mother gently kissed her son, and then, as he departed with his candle, she blew out all but one of those remaining in the hall, and with that lighted herself to her rooms in the eastern wing.

At the other end of the house, in the chamber corresponding to Madam Trevor's, on the ground floor, was that of Sir Charles. Outside his room, in the passage, were the stairs; and directly overhead were the long, narrow spinning-room, the hand-loom in its corner, and, incidentally, Deborah's diminutive chamber. Sir Charles had retired, for want of anything better to do, and now lay on his cool, flat bed, sleepless, restless, and a prey to unhappy thoughts. It had come to pass, that thing which he had dreaded all the summer through. He was engaged to marry Virginia Trevor. In a night or two all Maryland would be ringing with the affair. In as many months he and his bride would be leaving the colonies, Annapolis, the plantation—in short, Deborah—probably forever. And Sir Charles twisted and turned and tried to put the grayish eyes and the curling red lips out of his mind. They refused to go. Finally another thought came to bear them company—a thought generated by them, perhaps, and certainly bold enough and daring enough to smack of the Court of a Stuart, and to seem absolutely mad in this prim colonial bedroom of old George Guelph's staid American dependency. None the less the thought had found a congenial home, and it expanded, flourished, and gained body and limb till a merry, full-grown plot was playing havoc with young Fairfield's hope of sleep. He continued to lie there, restless and scheming, till all his own thoughts were banished by the sound of footsteps and a trailing of garments, and a curious liveliness of movement coming to his quickened senses from the room overhead.

Deborah also was awake. Rather, the moonlight, creeping along the pillow to her face, had roused her, by slow degrees, from a half waking dream. Alone, in the silent, enchanted night, with no disturbing day-thoughts to banish the lingering visions of sleep, the dream stayed and grew to be a fantasy of reality. She rose from her bed and moved slowly towards her open windows, through which the bluish silver moonlight flowed, changing the room into a misty-veiled fairy place. Below, outside the window, lay the dreaming rose-garden. The lazily floating odor of full-blown flowers came up to her, as incense on its way to a higher heaven. Beyond this lay the deep-shadowed wood, with here and there a high, feathery tree-top waving to the stars. The rippling plash of the river played a low accompaniment to the night hymns of the myriad creatures singing through the country-side. Far beyond the garden, rising like two cloud-shadows through the luminous night, were the great tobacco barns. Slave-cabins, still-house, kitchen, well-sweep, all were changed, by the mysterious power of night, to things of natural beauty. And Deborah was changed. Her dreams had been of courts and palaces, of dimly resplendent royal figures, among which she, and Charles Fairfield, and Claude de Mailly moved in inexplicable near-relationship. She, Deborah Travis, had just been crowned Queen of all Europe by the hand of Majesty, with her cousin Virginia's pearls. Now, in the waking dream, Deborah could not turn her thoughts from those same softly shining things that Virginia was to wear upon her wedding-day.

Presently, with this single image in her mind, Deborah found herself outside her room, and creeping, in her white garment, with naked feet, down, down the stairs, past Sir Charles's door, through the deserted, moonlit living-rooms, with their misplaced furniture and the scattered articles of a day waiting for dawn and Lilith to be put straight. She passed across the sitting-room, down the east passage, and, finally, in at the doorway of Madam Trevor's dressing-room. Once inside Deborah halted. Madam Trevor's garments lay, neatly folded, upon a chair. The door to the bedchamber beyond was half closed. From within came the light sound of regular breathing. Deborah smiled, and turned to the great black chest of drawers beside the window. Here also the moonlight illumined her way. She opened the top drawer noiselessly. Within, on a bed of lavender, lay the two morocco cases for which she had come. She took them up, left the drawer open, and glided quietly away again.

Once more in her own room the girl opened the cases and placed them on her dressing-table, their priceless contents all unveiled. Then she went to her own chest of drawers, and took from one of them the dress that she was to wear two nights later at the Governor's ball, a petticoat of stiff, white satin, and an overdress of China crepe, of the color of apple-blossoms, a thing that clung lovingly to her lithe figure, and vied in softness of tone with her neck and arms. These things she put on, with rapid, careless precision; and then, her fingers grown a little colder, she lifted the pearl necklace from its satin bed and clasped it about her warm throat. Afterwards she sat down on a low chair before the dressing-table, with its dim mirror, and took the tiara from the other box, placing it over her rebellious, silky curls.

"Ah, Claude, Claude, how was it, that thy cousin looked?" she murmured indistinctly, with a vague smile at her thought.

The dreamy, languorous eyes that knew not all they beheld, gazed at the reflected image of her face. How beautifully the young head in its coronet was poised upon the pearl-wreathed neck! Was it a new Deborah sprung to life here, in this August midnight? Was it only a momentary madness that should not be told, this carrying out of a dim vision? What was it that Deborah murmured to her mirror? What did she say to the shadowy throngs of courtiers that pressed about her chair? Was ever la Châteauroux more regal, more gracious? Were ever Comtesse de Mailly, and poor little Pauline Félicité, Marie Anne's predecessors, more gay, more delicately glowing, than this other, of alien race?

From the heap of her finery Deborah sought out a painted fan, and, with this finishing touch of coquetry, she began walking up and down her tiny room, pausing now and then at the window, for the night would not be disregarded, waving the fan with an air inimitable and unacquired, seeing herself thus in the Orangerie of Versailles, or on one of the Paris boulevards as crowded with fashion and gallantry upon a Sunday afternoon. After a little she grew tired, and her mind dropped its imaginings. She seated herself beside the window, and, unclasping the necklace, took it off and held the jewels up in the moonlight, pressing their soft smoothness to her cheek, where the pendant drops hung like falling tears.