It was an industrious household at Drake Hill both as to men and women folk. The fields were full of ebony backs and plying arms of toil at sunrise, and the hum and whir of loom and spinning-wheels were to be heard in the negro cabins and the great house as soon as the birds.
Madam Judith Cavendish was a stern task-mistress, and especially for these latter duties. Had it not been for the stress of favour in which she held me, I question if my vocation as tutor to Mistress Mary would have had much scope for the last year, since her grandmother esteemed so highly the importance of a maid's being versed in all domestic arts, such as the spinning and weaving of flax and wool, and preserving and distilling and fine needlework. She set but small store by Latin and arithmetic for a maid, not even if she were naturally quick at them, as was Mistress Mary; and had it not been that she was bent upon keeping me in her service at Drake Hill, I doubt not that she would have clapped together the maid's books, whether or no, and set her to her wheel. As it was, a goodly part of every day was passed by her in such wise, but so fond was my pupil of her book that often I have seen her with it propped open, for her reference, on a chair at her side.
It was thus the next morning, the morning of the day of my Lord Culpeper's ball. It was a warm morning, and the doors and windows of the hall were set wide open, and all the spring wind and scent coming in and dimity curtains flying like flags, and the gold of Mistress Mary's hair tossing now and then in a stronger gust, and she and Catherine cramming down their flax baskets, lest the flax take wings to itself and fly away. Both Mary and Catherine were at their flax-wheels, but Madam Cavendish was in the loom-room with some of the black women. Mary had her Latin book open, as I have said before, on a chair at her side, but Catherine span with her fair face set to some steady course of thought, though she too was fond of books. Never a lesson had she taken of me, holding me in such scorn, but I questioned much at the time, and know now, that she was well acquainted with whatever knowledge her sister had got, having been taught by her mother and then keeping on by herself with her tasks. When I entered the hall, having been to Jamestown after breakfast and just returned, both maids looked up, and suddenly one of the wheels ceased its part in the duet, and Catherine was on her feet and her thread fallen whither it would. "Master Wingfield," said she, "I would speak with you."
"Madam, at your service," said I, and followed her, leading out on the green before the house. "What means this, what means this, sir?" she began when she was scarcely out of hearing of her sister.
"What did you about the goods? Did you, did you—?"
She gasped for further speech, and looked at me with such a haughtiness of scorn as never I had seen. It is hard for any man to be attacked in such wise by a woman, and be under the necessity of keeping his weapons sheathed, though he knoweth full well the exceeding convincing of them and their fine point to the case in hand. I bowed.
"Did you, did you—" she went on—"did you purchase those goods yourself for my sister? Did you?"
I bowed again. "Madam," said I, "whatever I have, and my poor flesh and blood and soul also, are at the service of not only your sister but her family."
I marvelled much as I spoke thus to see no flush of shameful consciousness overspread the maid's face, but none did, and she continued speaking with that sharpness of hers, both as to pale look and voice, which wounded like cold steel, which leaves an additional sting because of the frost in it. "Know you not, sir," said she, "that we cannot suffer a man in your position, a—a—to purchase my sister's wardrobe?" Then, before I knew what she was about to do, in went her hand to a broidered pocket which hung at her girdle, and out she drew a flashing store of rings and brooches, and one long necklace flashing with green stones. "Here, take these," she cried out. "I have no money, but such an insult I will not suffer, that my sister goes clad at your expense to the ball to-night. Take these; they are five times the value of the goods."
I would in that minute have given ten years of my life had Mistress Catherine Cavendish been a man and I could have felled her to the ground, and no man knowing what I believed I knew could have blamed me. The flashes of red and green from those rings and gewgaws which she held out seemed to pass my eyes to my very soul.