"'Welcome, my son! Here lay him down, my friends,
Full in my sight, that I may view at leisure
The bloody corse, and count those glorious wounds.'"
A smile irradiated Mistress Stagg's faded countenance, and she blew a kiss toward the open window. "He does Cato so extremely well; and it's a grave, dull, odd character, too. But Mirabell—that's Charles, you know—manages to put a little life in it, a Je ne sais quoi, a touch of Sir Harry Wildair. Now—now he's pulling out his laced handkerchief to weep over Rome! You should see him after he has fallen on his sword, and is brought on in a chair, all over blood. This is the third rehearsal; the play's ordered for Monday night. Who is it, Peggy? Madam Travis! It's about the lace for her damask petticoat, and there's no telling how long she may keep me! My dear Deborah, when you have finished your wine, Peggy shall show you your room. You must make yourself quite at home. For says I to Mirabell this morning, 'Far be it from me to forget past kindnesses, and in those old Bath days Deborah was a good friend to me,—which was no wonder, to be sure, seeing that when we were little girls we went to the same dame school, and always learned our book and worked our samplers together.' And says Mirabell—Yes, yes, ma'am, I'm coming!"
She disappeared, and the black girl showed the two guests through the hall and up a tiny stairway into a little dormer-windowed, whitewashed room. Mistress Deborah, who still wore remnants of my Lady Squander's ancient gifts of spoiled finery, had likewise failed to discard the second-hand fine-lady airs acquired during her service. She now declared herself excessively tired by her morning ride, and martyr, besides, to a migraine. Moreover, it was enough to give one the spleen to hear Mary Stagg's magpie chatter and to see how some folk throve, willy-nilly, while others just as good—Here tears of vexation ensued, and she must lie down upon the bed and call in a feeble voice for her smelling salts. Audrey hurriedly searched in the ragged portmanteau brought to town the day before in the ox-cart of an obliging parishioner, found the flask, and took it to the bedside, to receive in exchange a sound box of the ear for her tardiness. The blow reddened her cheek, but brought no tears to her eyes. It was too small a thing to weep for; tears were for blows upon the heart.
It was a cool and quiet little room, and Mistress Deborah, who had drunk two full glasses of the Madeira, presently fell asleep. Audrey sat very still, her hands folded in her lap and her eyes upon them, until their hostess's voice announced from the foot of the stairs that Madam Travis had taken her departure. She then slipped from the room, and was affably received below, and taken into the apartment which they had first entered. Here Mistress became at once extremely busy. A fan was to be mounted; yards of silk gathered into furbelows; breast knots, shoulder knots, sword knots, to be made up. Her customers were all people of quality, and unless she did her part not one of them could go to the ball. Audrey shyly proffered her aid, and was set to changing the ribbons upon a mask.
Mistress Stagg's tongue went as fast as her needle: "And Deborah is asleep! Poor soul! she's sadly changed from what she was in old England thirteen years ago. As neat a shape as you would see in a day's journey, with the prettiest color, and eyes as bright as those marcasite buttons! And she saw the best of company at my Lady Squander's,—no lack there of kisses and guineas and fine gentlemen, you may be sure! There's a deal of change in this mortal world, and it's generally for the worse. Here, child, you may whip this lace on Mr. Lightfoot's ruffles. I think myself lucky, I can tell you, that there are so few women in Cato. If 'tweren't so, I should have to go on myself; for since poor, dear, pretty Jane Day died of the smallpox, and Oriana Jordan ran away with the rascally Bridewell fellow that we bought to play husbands' parts, and was never heard of more, but is supposed to have gotten clean off to Barbadoes by favor of the master of the Lady Susan, we have been short of actresses. But in this play there are only Marcia and Lucia. 'It is extremely fortunate, my dear,' said I to Mirabell this very morning, 'that in this play, which is the proper compliment to a great gentleman just taking office, Mr. Addison should have put no more than two women.' And Mirabell says—Don't put the lace so full, child; 'twon't go round."
"A chair is stopping at the gate," said Audrey, who sat by the window. "There's a lady in it."
The chair was a very fine painted one, borne by two gayly dressed negroes, and escorted by a trio of beribboned young gentlemen, prodigal of gallant speeches, amorous sighs, and languishing glances. Mistress Stagg looked, started up, and, without waiting to raise from the floor the armful of delicate silk which she had dropped, was presently curtsying upon the doorstep.
The bearers set down their load. One of the gentlemen opened the chair door with a flourish, and the divinity, compressing her hoop, descended. A second cavalier flung back Mistress Stagg's gate, and the third, with a low bow, proffered his hand to conduct the fair from the gate to the doorstep. The lady shook her head; a smiling word or two, a slight curtsy, the wave of a painted fan, and her attendants found themselves dismissed. She came up the path alone, slowly, with her head a little bent. Audrey, watching her from the window, knew who she was, and her heart beat fast. If this lady were in town, then so was he; he would not have stayed behind at Westover. She would have left the room, but there was not time. The mistress of the house, smiling and obsequious, fluttered in, and Evelyn Byrd followed.
There had been ordered for her a hood of golden tissue, with wide and long streamers to be tied beneath the chin, and she was come to try it on. Mistress Stagg had it all but ready,—there was only the least bit of stitchery; would Mistress Evelyn condescend to wait a very few minutes? She placed a chair, and the lady sank into it, finding the quiet of the shadowed room pleasant enough after the sunlight and talkativeness of the world without. Mistress Stagg, in her role of milliner, took the gauzy trifle, called by courtesy a hood, to the farthest window, and fell busily to work.
It seemed to grow more and more quiet in the room: the shadow of the leaves lay still upon the floor; the drowsy humming of the bees outside the windows, the sound of locusts in the trees, the distant noises of the town,—all grew more remote, then suddenly appeared to cease.