Audrey

by Mary Johnston

"I have been busy. I must learn to be a planter, you know. But I have thought of you, little maid."

Audrey was glad of that, but there was yet a weight upon her heart. "After that dream I lay awake all night, and it came to me how wrongly I had done. Hugon is a wicked man,—an Indian. Oh, I should never have told you, that first day in the garden, that he was waiting for me outside! For now, because you took care of me and would not let him come near, he hates you. He is so wicked that he might do you a harm." Her eyes widened, and the hand that touched his was cold and trembling. "If ever hurt came to you through me, I would drown myself in the river yonder. And then I thought—lying awake last night—that perhaps I had been troublesome to you, those days at Fair View, and that was why you had not come to see the minister, as you had said you would." The dark eyes were pitifully eager; the hand that went to her heart trembled more and more. "It is not as it was in the mountains," she said. "I am older now, and safe, and—and happy. And you have many things to do and to think of, and many friends—gentlemen and beautiful ladies—to go to see. I thought—last night—that when I saw you I would ask your pardon for not remembering that the mountains were years ago; for troubling you with my matters, sir; for making too free, forgetting my place"—Her voice sank; the shamed red was in her cheeks, and her eyes, that she had bravely kept upon his face, fell to the purple and gold blooms in her lap.

Haward rose from the grass, and, with his back to the gray hole of the willow, looked first at the veil of leaf and stem through which dimly showed house, orchard, and blue sky, then down upon the girl at his feet. Her head was bent and she sat very still, one listless, upturned hand upon the grass beside her, the other lying as quietly among her flowers.

"Audrey," he said at last, "you shame me in your thoughts of me. I am not that knight without fear and without reproach for which you take me. Being what I am, you must believe that you have not wearied me; that I think of you and wish to see you. And Hugon, having possibly some care for his own neck, will do me no harm; that is a very foolish notion, which you must put from you. Now listen." He knelt beside her and took her hand in his. "After a while, perhaps, when the weather is cooler, and I must open my house and entertain after the fashion of the country; when the new Governor comes in, and all this gay little world of Virginia flocks to Williamsburgh; when I am a Councilor, and must go with the rest, and must think of gold and place and people,—why, then, maybe, our paths will again diverge, and only now and then will I catch the gleam of your skirt, mountain maid, brown Audrey! But now in these midsummer days it is a sleepy world, that cares not to go bustling up and down. I am alone in my house; I visit not nor am visited, and the days hang heavy. Let us make believe for a time that the mountains are all around us, that it was but yesterday we traveled together. It is only a little way from Fair View to the glebe house, from the glebe house to Fair View. I will see you often, little maid, and you must dream no more as you dreamed last night." He paused; his voice changed, and he went on as to himself: "It is a lonely land, with few to see and none to care. I will drift with the summer, making of it an idyl, beautiful,—yes, and innocent! When autumn comes I will go to Westover."

Of this speech Audrey caught only the last word. A wonderful smile, so bright was it, and withal so sad, came into her face. "Westover!" she said to herself. "That is where the princess lives."

"We will let thought alone," continued Haward. "It suits not with this charmed light, this glamour of the summer." He made a laughing gesture. "Hey, presto! little maid, there go the years rolling back! I swear I see the mountains through the willow leaves."

"There was one like a wall shutting out the sun when he went down," answered Audrey. "It was black and grim, and the light flared like a fire behind it. And there was the one above which the moon rose. It was sharp, pointing like a finger to heaven, and I liked it best. Do you remember how large was the moon pushing up behind the pine-trees? We sat on the dark hillside watching it, and you told me beautiful stories, while the moon rose higher and higher and the mockingbirds began to sing."

Haward remembered not, but he said that he did so. "The moon is full again," he continued, "and last night I heard a mockingbird in the garden. I will come in the barge to-morrow evening, and the negroes shall row us up and down the river—you and me and Mistress Deborah—between the sunset and the moonrise. Then it is lonely and sweet upon the water. The roses can be smelled from the banks, and if you will speak to the mockingbirds we shall have music, dryad Audrey, brown maid of the woods!"

Audrey's laugh, was silver-clear and sweet, like that of a forest nymph indeed. She was quite happy again, with all her half-formed doubts and fears allayed. They had never been of him,—only of herself. The two sat within the green and swaying fountain of the willow, and time went by on eagle wings. Too soon came the slave to call them to the house; the time within, though spent in the company of Darden and his wife, passed too soon; too soon came the long shadows of the afternoon and Haward's call for his horse.

Audrey watched him ride away, and the love light was in her eyes. She did not know that it was so. That night, in her bare little room, when the candle was out, she kneeled by the window and looked at the stars. There was one very fair and golden, an empress of the night. "That is the princess," said Audrey, and smiled upon the peerless star. Far from that light, scarce free from the murk of the horizon, shone a little star, companionless in the night. "And that is I," said Audrey, and smiled upon herself.