Elizabeth’s thoughts were in a whirl, her feelings beyond analysis. She was sensible mainly of a wholly novel and vast pleasure at the adoration so impetuously expressed for her by this audacious stranger, of a pride in his masterful way, of applause for that very manner which she had rebuked as insolence. Was this love at last? Undoubtedly; for she had read all the romances and plays and poems, and, if this feeling of hers were a thing other than the love they all described, they would have described such a feeling also. Because she had never felt its soft touch before, she had thought herself exempt from it. But now that it had found lodgment in her, she knew it at once, from the very fact that in a flash she understood all the romances and plays and poems that had before interested her but as mere tales, whose motives had seemed arbitrary and insufficient. Now they all took reality and reason. She knew at last why Hero threw herself into the Hellespont after Leander, why all that commotion was caused by Helen of Troy, why Oriana took such trouble for Mirabel, why Juliet died on Romeo’s body, why Miss Richland paid Honeywood’s debts. The moon, rushing through a cleft in the clouds (she had opened one of the shutters on putting out the candles), had for her a sudden beauty which accounted for the fine things the poets had said of it and love together. Yes, because it opened 162 on her world of romance a magic window, letting in a wondrous light, waking that world to throbbing life, clothing it with indescribable charm, she knew the name of the key that had unlocked her own heart. Now she knew them all,—the heroes, the fairy princes, the knights errant; perceived that they were real and live, recognized their traits and manners, their very faces, in that bold, free, strong young rebel; he was Orlando, and Lovelace, and Prince Charming, and Æneas, and Tom Jones, and King Harry the Fifth, and young Marlowe, and even Captain Macheath (she had read forbidden books guilelessly, in course of reading everything at hand), and Roderick Random, and Captain Plume, and all the conquering, gallant, fine young fellows, at the absurd weakness of whose sweethearts she had marvelled beyond measure. She understood that weakness now, and knew, too, why those sweethearts had, in the first delicious hours of their weakness, trembled and dropped their eyes before those young gentlemen. For, as she mentally beheld his image, she felt her own cheeks glow, and in imagination was fain to drop her own eyes before his bold, unquailing look. She wondered, with confusion and unseen blushes, how she would face him at their next meeting, and felt that she must not, could not, be the one to cause that meeting. Right surely had this fair castle, that had withstood many a long siege, 163 fallen now at a single onslaught, and that but a sham onslaught. The haughty princess in her tower had not longed for the prince, but the prince had arrived, not to her rescue, but to the taming of her. And alas! the prince, whom she fondly thought her lover, was no more lover of her than of the picture of her female ancestor on his bedroom wall!
She gave no thought to consequences, and, as for Jack Colden, she simply, by power of will, kept him out of her mind.
It was three days before Peyton could walk about his room, and two days more before he felt sufficient confidence in his wounded leg to come down-stairs and take his meals with the household. And even then, refusing a crutch, he used a stick in moving about. During the five days when he kept his room, he was waited on alternately by Sam and Cuff, who served at his bath and brought his food; and occasionally Molly carried to him at dinner some belated delicacy or forgotten dish. Williams, too, visited him daily, and expressed a kind of professional satisfaction at the uninterrupted healing of the wound, which the steward treated with the mysterious applications known to home surgery. Williams lent his own clean linen to Harry, while Harry’s underwent washing and mending at the hands of the maid. Old Valentine, who visited the house every day, the weather being cold and sometimes cloudy, but without 164 rain, called at the sick chamber now and then, and filled it with tobacco smoke, homely philosophy, and rustic reminiscence. Harry had no other visitors. During these five days he saw not Elizabeth or Miss Sally, save from his window twice or thrice, at which times they were walking on the terrace. In daytime, when no artificial light was in the room to betray to some possible outsider the presence of a guest, he had the shutters opened of one of the two south windows and of one of the two west ones. Often he reclined near a window, pleasing his eyes with the view. Westward lay the terrace, the wide river, the leafy, cliffs, and fair rolling country beyond. His eye could take in also the deer paddock, which the hand of war had robbed of its inmates, and the great orchard northward overlooking the river. Through the south window he could see the little branch road and boat-landing, the old stone mill, the winding Neperan and its broad mill-pond, and the sloping, ravine-cut, wooded stretch of country, between the post-road on the left and the deep-set Hudson on the right. The spire of St. John’s Church, among the yew-trees, with the few edifices grouped near it, broke gratefully the deserted aspect of things, at the left. The spacious scene, so richly filled by nature, had in its loneliness and repose a singular sweetness. Rarely was any one abroad. Only when the Hessians or Loyalist dragoons patrolled 165 the post-road, or when some British sloop-of-war showed its white sails far down the river, was there sign of human life and conflict. The deserted look of things was in harmony with the spirit of a book with which Harry sweetened the long hours of his recovery. It was a book that Elizabeth had sent up for his amusement, called “The Man of Feeling,” and there was something in the opening picture of the venerable mansion, with its air of melancholy, its languid stillness, its “single crow, perched on an old tree by the side of the gate,” and its young lady passing between the trees with a book in her hand, that harmonized with his own sequestered state. He liked the tale better than the same author’s later novel, “The Man of the World,” which he had read a few years before. Every day he inquired about his hostess’s health, and sent his compliments and thanks. He was glad she did not visit him in person, for such a visit might involve an allusion to their last previous interview, and he did not know in what manner he should make or treat such allusion. He felt it would be an awkward matter to get out of the situation of pretended adorer, and he was for putting that awkward matter off till the last possible moment.
It was necessary for him to think of his return to the army. Duty and inclination required he should make that return as soon as could be. His first impulse 166 had been to send word of his whereabouts and condition. But as Elizabeth had not offered a messenger, he was loath to ask for one. Moreover, the messenger might be intercepted by the enemy’s patrols and induced by fear to betray the message. Then, too, even if the messenger should reach the American lines uncaught, a consequent attempt to convey a wounded man from the manor hall to the camp might attract the attention of the vigilant patrols, and risk not only Harry’s own recapture, but also the loss of other men. Decidedly, the best course was to await the healing of his wound, and then to make his way alone, under cover of night, to the army. He knew that, whatever might occur, it was now Elizabeth’s interest to protect him, for should she give him up, the disclosure that she had formerly shielded him would render her liable to suspicion and ridicule. He felt, too, from the manifestations he had seen of her will and of her ingenuity, that she was quite able to protect him. So he rested in security in the quiet old chamber, dreading only the task of taking back his love-making. Of that task, the difficulty would depend on Elizabeth’s own conduct, which he could not foresee, and that in turn on her state of heart, which he did not exactly divine. He knew only that she had, in that critical moment of the troops’ arrival, felt for him a tenderness that betokened love. Whether that feeling had 167 flourished or declined, he could not, during the five days when they did not meet, be aware.
It had not declined. She had gone on idealizing the confident rebel captain all the while. The fact that he was of the enemy added piquancy to the sentiments his image aroused. It lent, too, an additional poetic interest to the idea of their love. Was not Romeo of the enemies of Juliet’s house? The fact of her being now his protector, by its oppositeness to the conventional situation, gave to their relation the charm of novelty, and also gratified her natural love of independence and domination. Yet that very love, in a woman, may afford its owner keen delight by receiving quick and confident opposition and conquest from a man, and such Elizabeth’s had received from Peyton, both in the matter of the horse and in that of his successful wooing. But the greater her softness for him, the greater was her delicacy regarding him, and the more in conformity with the strictest propriety must be her conduct towards him. Her pride demanded this tribute of her love, in compensation for the latter’s immense exactions on the former in the sudden yielding to his wooing. Moreover, she would not appear in anything short of perfection in his eyes. She would not make her company cheap to him. If she had been a quick conquest, up to the point of her first token of submission, she would be all the slower in 168 the subsequent stages, so that the complete yielding should be no easier than ought to be that of one valued as she would have him value her. All this she felt rather than thought, and she acted on it punctiliously.
She did not confide in her aunt, though that lady watched her closely and had her suspicions. Yet there was apparent so little warrant for these suspicions, save the protection of the rebel in itself, that Miss Sally often imagined Elizabeth had other reasons, reasons of policy, for the sudden change of intention that had resulted in that protection. Elizabeth’s conduct was always so mystifying to everybody! And when this thought possessed Miss Sally, she underwent a pleasing agitation, which she in turn kept secret, and which attended the hope that perhaps the handsome captain might not be averse to her conversation. She had both read and observed that the taste of youth sometimes was for ripeness. She might atone, in a measure, for Elizabeth’s disdain. She would have liked to visit him daily, with condolence and comfortings, but she could not do so without previous sanction of the mistress of the house, which sanction Elizabeth briefly but very peremptorily refused. Miss Sally thought it a cruelty that the prisoner should be deprived of what consolation her society might afford, and dwelt on this opinion until she became convinced he was 169 actually pining for her presence. This made her poutish and reproachfully silent to Elizabeth, and sighful and whimsical to herself. The slightly strained feeling that arose between aunt and niece was quite acceptable to Elizabeth, as it gave her freedom for her own dreams, and prohibited any occasion for an expression of feelings or opinions of her own as to the captain. But Miss Sally’s symptoms were observed by old Mr. Valentine, who, inferring their cause, underwent much unrest on account of them, became snappish and sarcastic towards the lady, watchful both of her and of Peyton, and moody towards the others in the house. It was the old man’s disquietude regarding the state of Miss Sally’s affections that brought him to the house every day. For one brief while he considered the advisability of transferring his attentions back from Miss Sally to the widow Babcock, who had possessed them first, but, when he tarried in the parsonage, his fears as to what might be going on in the manor-house made his stay in the former intolerable, and led him irresistibly to the latter.
Meanwhile the wounded guest, so unconscious of the states of mind caused by him in the household, was the evoker of flutters in yet another female breast. The girl, Molly, had read toilsomely through “Pamela,” and saw no reason why an equally attractive housemaid should not aspire to an equally high 170 destiny on this side of the ocean. But, often as she artfully contrived that the black boy should forget some part of the guest’s dinner, and timely as she planned her own visits with the missing portion, she found the officer heedless of her smiles, engrossed sometimes in his meal, sometimes in his book, sometimes in both. She conceived a loathing for that book, more than once resisted a temptation to make way with it, and, having one day stolen a look into it, thenceforth abominated the poor young lady of it, with all the undying bitterness of an unpreferred rival.
Though Elizabeth and her aunt found each other reticent, they yet passed their time together, breakfasting early, then visiting the widow Babcock or some tenant, dining at noon, spending the early afternoon, the one at her book or embroidery, the other in a siesta before the fireplace, supping early, then preparing for the night by a brisk walk in the garden, or on the terrace, or to the orchard and back. Elizabeth had Williams provided with instructions as to his conduct in the event of a visit from King’s troops, and, to make Peyton’s security still less uncertain, she confined her walks to the immediate vicinity. The house itself was kept in a pretence of being closed, the shutters of the parlor being skilfully adjusted to admit light, and yet, from the road, appear fast.
Thus Elizabeth, finding enjoyment in the very look and atmosphere of the old house, fulfilled quietly the purpose of her capricious visit, and at the same time cherished a dreamy pleasure such as she had not thought of finding in that visit.