Audrey

by Mary Johnston

A tall, thin, grave gentleman, standing behind Haward, gave an impatient jerk of his body and said something beneath his breath. Haward looked over his shoulder. "Ha, Mr. Le Neve! I did not know you were there. I had the pleasure of hearing you read at Williamsburgh last Sunday afternoon,—though this is your parish, I believe? What was that last name that the youngster cried? I failed to catch it."

"Audrey, sir," answered the minister of James City parish; "Gideon Darden's Audrey. You can't but have heard of Darden? A minister of the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ, sir; and a scandal, a shame, and a stumbling-block to the Church! A foul-mouthed, brawling, learned sot! A stranger to good works, but a frequenter of tippling houses! A brazen, dissembling, atheistical Demas, who will neither let go of the lusts of the flesh nor of his parish,—a sweet-scented parish, sir, with the best glebe in three counties! And he's inducted, sir, inducted, which is more than most of the clergy of Virginia, who neither fight nor drink nor swear, can say for themselves!"

The minister had lost his gravity, and spoke with warmth and bitterness. As he paused for breath, Mistress Evelyn took her eyes from the group of those about to run and opened her fan. "A careless father, at least," she said. "If he hath learning, he should know better than to set his daughter there."

"She's not his own, ma'am. She's an orphan, bound to Darden and his wife, I suppose. There's some story or other about her, but, not being curious in Mr. Darden's affairs, I have never learned it. When I came to Virginia, five years ago, she was a slip of a girl of thirteen or so. Once, when I had occasion to visit Darden, she waylaid me in the road as I was riding away, and asked me how far it was to the mountains, and if there were Indians between them and us."

"Did she so?" asked Haward. "And which is—Audrey?"

"The dark one—brown as a gypsy—with the dogwood in her hair. And mark me, there'll be Darden's own luck and she'll win. She's fleeter than a greyhound. I've seen her running in and out and to and fro in the forest like a wild thing."

Bare of foot and slender ankle, bare of arm and shoulder, with heaving bosom, shut lips, and steady eyes, each of the six runners awaited the trumpet sound that should send her forth like an arrow to the goal, and to the shining guinea that lay thereby. The spectators ceased to talk and laugh, and bent forward, watching. Wagers had been laid, and each man kept his eyes upon his favorite, measuring her chances. The trumpet blew, and the race was on.

When it was over and won, the May Queen rose from her seat and crossed the grass to her fine lady guest. "There are left only the prizes for this and for the boys' race and for the best dancer. Will you not give them, Mistress Evelyn, and so make them of more value?"

More curtsying, more complimenting, and the gold was in Evelyn's white hand. The trumpet blew, the drum beat, the fiddlers swung into a quick, staccato air, and Darden's Audrey, leaving the post which she had touched some seconds in advance of the foremost of those with whom she had raced, came forward to receive the guinea.

The straight, short skirt of dull blue linen could not hide the lines of the young limbs; beneath the thin, white, sleeveless bodice showed the tint of the flesh, the rise and fall of the bosom. The bare feet trod the grass lightly and firmly; the brown eyes looked from under the dogwood chaplet in a gaze that was serious, innocent, and unashamed. To Audrey they were only people out of a fairy tale,—all those gay folk, dressed in silks and with curled hair. They lived in "great houses," and men and women were born to till their fields, to row their boats, to doff hats or curtsy as they passed. They were not real; if you pricked them they would not bleed. In the mountains that she remembered as a dream there were pale masses of bloom far up among the cliffs; very beautiful, but no more to be gained than the moon or than rainbow gold. She looked at the May party before which she had been called much as, when a child, she had looked at the gorgeous, distant bloom,—not without longing, perhaps, but indifferent, too, knowing that it was beyond her reach.