CHAPTER XXII.
THE ARMY SAILS.
Winter was over by the calendar. But neither the skies nor the thermometer agreed with that. Spring could not bring forward evidences of her reign while her predecessor's snowy foot was still planted upon the earth, and showed no haste to get under it. The season had been unusually mild, but it lingered, fighting the battle with its last reserve forces, the breath of the icebergs that came rushing up the harbor like the charge of ten thousand bayonets. Military comparisons were frequent at that time, for the thoughts of New England were bent upon war. Governor Shirley had pressed his measure well. Defeated in the secret conclave of the General Court, he had attacked the Legislature through a petition signed by merchants in Boston and Salem who urged re-consideration. Before February the measure had passed by a majority of one. No student of history can ever despair of the power of one voice or one will. The measure had not passed until the end of January. But public enthusiasm had mounted high, and now while March had still a week to run, the last transports were ready to sail out of the harbor to meet the others at Nantasket Roads, and thence proceed to Canso, where they were to remain and receive supplies until the ice should clear from the harbor. Then to Louisburg.
It might be said that the troops had tiptoed through the state to the music of muffled drums, so much stress had been laid upon secrecy, and so much the success of the expedition depended upon it. No vessels were permitted to sail toward Louisburg, lest they should carry the news of the intended attack. Government and people united their efforts to give the expedition every chance. It was well that telegraph and telephone were not to the front then.
But the pressure of public affairs could not keep hearts from being heavy over private griefs. Archdale was wounded both in his affection and his pride, for Katie had refused to marry him on the anniversary of that frustrated wedding, or, indeed, at all, at present. She said that it would be too sudden, that she must first have a little time to regard Stephen as a lover. "But I've never been anything else," he said. Katie insisted that she had been training herself to regard him as Elizabeth's husband. And to his reply that if she were so foolish, she must not make him pay for her folly, she asserted with spirit that no one had ever spoken so to her before. In truth, Lord Bulchester's assiduous humility did make the directness of Stephen Archdale seem like assertion to her; and Katie was not one to forget while she was talking with Stephen that if she chose to turn her head, there were the beauties of a coronet and of Lyburg Chase offered to her on bended knee. She had not turned her head yet. Stephen told himself that he was sure that she never meant to, but for all that, he was not quite sure that she would not do it almost without meaning it. He began by insisting that now Bulchester should be dismissed. But Katie declared that he should not be sent away as if she had lost her own freedom the moment of Stephen's return to her. She would send him away herself at least before she became Stephen's wife. To Archdale's representations of the cruelty of this course, she answered that Lord Bulchester had known of her engagement before he met her. If he could not take care of himself, why, then——. And Katie tossed her charming head a very little, and smiled at Stephen so winningly, and added that it would not hurt him, that he yielded, with as good a grace as he could, a position that he found untenable. So Archdale waited, and Bulchester kept his place, whether more securely or less Stephen could not tell.
One thing, however, was clear, that Stephen lost his peace of mind without even the poor satisfaction of being sure that the state of affairs was such as to make that necessary. Katie was a coquette, but he felt that coquetry was fascinating only when one were sure of the right side being turned toward himself, sure that it was another man's heart, and not his own that was being played with. He had not come to confessing to himself that in any case it was ignoble. So he waited while the winter wore on, and March found him still betrothed to Katie and still at her feet though in a mood that threatened danger. For after asserting that she needed time to adapt herself to the altered condition of things, she had found a new objection. She did not want to marry and have her husband go off to the war before the honeymoon was over; she preferred to wait until he returned. "Do you really mean to marry me at all?" he asked. "Stephen!" she cried tearfully. "Do you realize what I have suffered!" The tears and the appeal conquered him, and for the moment he felt himself a brute.
But when cool judgment came back to him, Katie's conduct looked always more and more unsatisfactory. She certainly was not thinking of his wishes now. He knew that no other human being could have kept him in this position, and while he chafed at it, he made every possible excuse for her, even to condoning a certain childishness which he told himself this proved. Since she was loyal, what mattered a little tantalizing of himself? Still Stephen wavered between his pride and his love. The first told him to end this child's play, to marry Katie if she would have him, but tell her it was now or never. Love put off this evil day, and it may be that his love had a touch of pride in it also, that he did not fancy being superseded by Bulchester.
Then came the expedition.
The streets of Boston were thronged with a crowd of serious faces. One vessel after another had slipped quietly off to the Roads. But the last of the fleet was here. And not only the friends of the soldiers, but friends of the cause, and lookers-on had assembled. The whole city seemed to be there.
When Elizabeth with her father and Mrs. Eveleigh drove up, the embarkation was nearly over, and some of the transports were already standing off to sea. The largest vessel, however, was still at the pier, and as Elizabeth looked at the troops marching steadily on board, she saw Archdale near the gangway. He seemed to be in command. She watched him a moment with a feeling of sadness. Who could tell that he would ever come back, that youth and prowess might not prove too weak for the sword of the enemy or for some stray shot? How lightly Mr. Edmonson had spoken of such a thing! She did not know whom he had been talking of, but his tone was mocking. He paid people in society more attention than Archdale did, he certainly was more kind and interested in all that concerned herself. And yet, in an emergency, if a call came for self-denial, or devotion to honor, was it Edmonson to whom she would appeal?