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Thomas Hardy - "Satires of Circumstance, Lyrics and Reveries, with"

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To Have and To Hold:

M >> Mary Johnston >> To Have and To Hold:




To the larger of these rooms I now led the way, deposited her
bundle upon the settle, and saw that Diccon had provided fair
water for her face and hands; which done, I told her that supper
waited upon her convenience, and went back to the great room.

She was long in coming, so long that I grew impatient and went to
call her. The door was ajar, and so I saw her, kneeling in the
middle of the floor, her head thrown back, her hands raised and
clasped, on her face terror and anguish of spirit written so large
that I started to see it. I stared in amazement, and, had I followed
my first impulse, would have gone to her, as I would have gone to
any other creature in so dire distress. On second thoughts, I went
noiselessly back to my station in the great room. She had not seen
me, I was sure. Nor had I long to wait. Presently she appeared, and
I could have doubted the testimony of my eyes, so changed were
the agonized face and figure of a few moments before. Beautiful
and disdainful, she moved to the table, and took the great chair
drawn before it with the air of an empress mounting a throne. I
contented myself with the stool.

She ate nothing, and scarcely touched the canary I poured for her. I
pressed upon her wine and viands, - in vain; I strove to make
conversation, - equally in vain. Finally, tired of "yes" and "no"
uttered as though she were reluctantly casting pearls before swine,
I desisted, and applied myself to my supper in a silence as sullen as
her own. At last we rose from table, and I went to look to the
fastenings of door and windows, and returning found her standing
in the centre of the room, her head up and her hands clenched at
her sides. I saw that we were to have it out then and there, and I
was glad of it.

"You have something to say," I said. "I am quite at your
command," and I went and leaned against the chimneypiece.

The low fire upon the hearth burnt lower still before she broke the
silence. When she did speak it was slowly, and with a voice which
was evidently controlled only by a strong effort of a strong will.
She said: -

"When - yesterday, to-day, ten thousand years ago you went from
this horrible forest down to that wretched village yonder, to those
huts that make your London, you went to buy you a wife?"

"Yes, madam," I answered. "I went with that intention."

"You had made your calculation? In your mind you had pitched
upon such and such an article, with such and such qualities, as
desirable? Doubtless you meant to get your money's worth?"

"Doubtless," I said dryly.

"Will you tell me what you were inclined to consider its
equivalent?"

I stared at her, much inclined to laugh. The interview promised to
be interesting.

"I went to Jamestown to get me a wife," I said at length, "because I
had pledged my word that I would do so. I was not over-anxious. I
did not run all the way. But, as you say, I intended to do the best I
could for myself; one hundred and twenty pounds of tobacco being
a considerable sum, and not to be lightly thrown away. I went to
look for a mistress for my house, a companion for my idle hours, a
rosy, humble, docile lass, with no aspirations beyond cleanliness
and good temper, who was to order my household and make me a
home. I was to be her head and her law, but also her sword and
shield. That is what I went to look for."

"And you found - me!" she said, and broke into strange laughter.

I bowed.

"In God's name, why did you not go further?"

I suppose she saw in my face why I went no further, for into her
own the color came flaming.

"I am not what I seem!" she cried out. "I was not in that company
of choice!"

I bowed again. "You have no need to tell me that, madam," I said.
"I have eyes. I desire to know why you were there at all, and why
you married me."

She turned from me, until I could see nothing but the coiled wealth
of her hair and the bit of white neck between it and the ruff. We
stood so in silence, she with bent head and fingers clasping and
unclasping, I leaning against the wall and staring at her, for what
seemed a long time. At least I had time to grow impatient, when
she faced me again, and all my irritation vanished in a gasp of
admiration.

Oh, she was beautiful, and of a sweetness most alluring and fatal!
Had Medea worn such a look, sure Jason had quite forgot the
fleece, and with those eyes Circe had needed no other charm to
make men what she would. Her voice, when she spoke, was no
longer imperious; it was low pleading music. And she held out
entreating hands.

"Have pity on me," she said. "Listen kindly, and have pity on me.
You are a strong man and wear a sword. You can cut your way
through trouble and peril. I am a woman, weak, friendless,
helpless. I was in distress and peril, and I had no arm to save, no
knight to fight my battle. I do not love deceit. Ah, do not think that
I have not hated myself for the lie I have been. But these forest
creatures that you take, - will they not bite against springe and
snare? Are they scrupulous as to how they free themselves? I too
was in the toils of the hunter, and I too was not scrupulous. There
was a thing of which I stood in danger that would have been
bitterer to me, a thousand times, than death. I had but one thought,
to escape; how, I did not care, - only to escape. I had a waiting
woman named Patience Worth. One night she came to me,
weeping. She had wearied of service, and had signed to go to
Virginia as one of Sir Edwyn Sandys' maids, and at the last
moment her heart had failed her. There had been pressure brought
to bear upon me that day, - I had been angered to the very soul. I
sent her away with a heavy bribe, and in her dress and under her
name I fled from - I went aboard that ship. No one guessed that I
was not the Patience Worth to whose name I answered. No one
knows now, - none but you, none but you."

"And why am I so far honored, madam?" I said bluntly.

She crimsoned, then went white again. She was trembling now
through her whole frame. At last she broke out: "I am not of that
crew that came to marry! To me you are the veriest stranger, - you
are but the hand at which I caught to draw myself from a pit that
had been digged for me. It was my hope that this hour would never
come. When I fled, mad for escape, willing to dare anything but
that which I left behind, I thought, 'I may die before that ship with
its shameless cargo sets sail.' When the ship set sail, and we met
with stormy weather, and there was much sickness aboard, I
thought, 'I may drown or I may die of the fever.' When, this
afternoon, I lay there in the boat, coming up this dreadful river
through the glare of the lightning, and you thought I slept, I was
thinking, 'The bolts may strike me yet, and all will be well.' I
prayed for that death, but the storm passed. I am not without
shame. I know that you must think all ill of me, that you must feel
yourself gulled and cheated. I am sorry - that is all I can say - I am
sorry. I am your wife - I was married to you to-day - but I know
you not and love you not. I ask you to hold me as I hold myself, a
guest in your house, nothing more. I am quite at your mercy. I am
entirely friendless, entirely alone. I appeal to your generosity, to
your honor" -

Before I could prevent her she was kneeling to me, and she would
not rise, though I bade her do so.

I went to the door, unbarred it, and looked out into the night, for
the air within the room stifled me. It was not much better outside.
The clouds had gathered again, and were now hanging thick and
low. From the distance came a rumble of thunder, and the whole
night was dull, heavy, and breathless. Hot anger possessed me:
anger against Rolfe for suggesting this thing to me; anger against
myself for that unlucky throw; anger, most of all, against the
woman who had so cozened me. In the servants' huts, a hundred
yards away, lights were still burning, against rule, for the hour was
late. Glad that there was something I could rail out against, I strode
down upon the men, and caught them assembled in Diccon's cabin,
dicing for to-morrow's rum. When I had struck out the light with
my rapier, and had rated the rogues to their several quarters, I went
back through the gathering storm to the brightly-lit, flower-decked
room, and to Mistress Percy.

She was still kneeling, her hands at her breast, and her eyes, wide
and dark, fixed upon the blackness without the open door. I went
up to her and took her by the hand.

"I am a gentleman, madam," I said. "You need have no fear of me.
I pray you to rise."

She stood up at that, and her breath came hurriedly through her
parted lips, but she did not speak.

"It grows late, and you must be weary," I continued. "Your room is
yonder. I trust that you will sleep well. Good-night."

I bowed low, and she curtsied to me. "Good-night," she said.

On her way to the door, she brushed against the rack wherein hung
my weapons. Among them was a small dagger. Her quick eye
caught its gleam, and I saw her press closer to the wall, and with
her right hand strive stealthily to detach the blade from its
fastening. She did not understand the trick. Her hand dropped to
her side, and she was passing on, when I crossed the room,
loosened the dagger, and offered it to her, with a smile and a bow.
She flushed scarlet and bit her lips, but she took it.

"There are bars to the door within," I said. "Again, good-night."

"Good-night," she answered, and, entering the room, she shut the
door. A moment more, and I heard the heavy bars drop into place.



CHAPTER V IN WHICH A WOMAN HAS HER WAY


TEN days later, Rolfe, going down river in his barge, touched at
my wharf, and finding me there walked with me toward the house.

"I have not seen you since you laughed my advice to scorn - and
took it," he said. "Where's the farthingale, Benedick the married
man?"

"In the house."

"Oh, ay!" he commented. "It's near to supper time. I trust she's a
good cook?"

"She does not cook," I said dryly. "I have hired old Goody Cotton
to do that."

He eyed me closely. "By all the gods! a new doublet! She is skillful
with her needle, then?"

"She may be," I answered. "Having never seen her with one, I am
no judge. The doublet was made by the tailor at Flowerdieu
Hundred."

By this we had reached the level sward at the top of the bank.
"Roses!" he exclaimed, - "a long row of them new planted! An
arbor, too, and a seat beneath the big walnut! Since when hast thou
turned gardner, Ralph?"

"It's Diccon's doing. He is anxious to please his mistress."

"Who neither sews, nor cooks, nor plants! What does she do?"

"She pulls the roses," I said. "Come in."

When we had entered the house he stared about him; then cried
out, "Acrasia's bower! Oh, thou sometime Guyon!" and began to
laugh.

It was late afternoon, and the slant sunshine streaming in at door
and window striped wall and floor with gold. Floor and wall were
no longer logs gnarled and stained: upon the one lay a carpet of
delicate ferns and aromatic leaves, and glossy vines,
purple-berried, tapestried the other. Flowers - purple and red and
yellow - were everywhere. As we entered, a figure started up from
the hearth.

"St. George!" exclaimed Rolfe. "You have never married a
blackamoor?"

"It is the negress, Angela," I said. "I bought her from William
Pierce the other day. Mistress Percy wished a waiting damsel."

The creature, one of the five females of her kind then in Virginia,
looked at us with large, rolling eyes. She knew a little Spanish, and
I spoke to her in that tongue, bidding her find her mistress and tell
her that company waited. When she was gone I placed a jack of ale
upon the table, and Rolfe and I sat down to discuss it. Had I been
in a mood for laughter, I could have found reason in his puzzled
face. There were flowers upon the table, and beside them a litter of
small objects, one of which he now took up.

"A white glove," he said, "perfumed and silver-fringed, and of a
size to fit Titania."

I spread its mate out upon my palm. "A woman's hand. Too white,
too soft, and too small."

He touched lightly, one by one, the slender fingers of the glove he
held. "A woman's hand, - strength in weakness, veiled power, the
star in the mist, guiding, beckoning, drawing upward!"

I laughed and threw the glove from me. "The star, a
will-of-the-wisp; the goal, a slough," I said.

As he sat opposite me a change came over his face, a change so
great that I knew before I turned that she was in the room.

The bundle which I had carried for her from Jamestown was
neither small nor light. Why, when she fled, she chose to burden
herself with such toys, or whether she gave a thought to the
suspicions that might be raised in Virginia if one of Sir Edwyn's
maids bedecked herself in silk and lace and jewels, I do not know,
but she had brought to the forest and the tobacco fields the gauds
of a maid of honor. The Puritan dress in which I first saw her was
a thing of the past; she clothed herself now like the parrakeets in
the forest, - or liker the lilies of the field, for verily she toiled not,
neither did she spin.

Rolfe and I rose from our seats. "Mistress Percy," I said, "let me
present to you a right worthy gentleman and my very good friend,
Master John Rolfe."

She curtsied, and he bowed low. He was a man of quick wit and
had been at court, but for a time he could find no words. Then:
"Mistress Percy's face is not one to be forgotten. I have surely seen
it before, though where" -

Her color mounted, but she answered him indifferently enough.
"Probably in London, amongst the spectators of some pageant
arranged in honor of the princess, your wife, sir," she said
carelessly. "I had twice the fortune to see the Lady Rebekah
passing through the streets."

"Not in the streets only," he said courteously. "I remember now: 't
was at my lord bishop's dinner. A very courtly company it was.
You were laughing with my Lord Rich. You wore pearls in your
hair" -

She met his gaze fully and boldly. "Memory plays us strange tricks
at times," she told him in a clear, slightly raised voice, "and it hath
been three years since Master Rolfe and his Indian princess were
in London. His memory hath played him false."

She took her seat in the great chair which stood in the centre of the
room, bathed in the sunlight, and the negress brought a cushion for
her feet. It was not until this was done, and until she had resigned
her fan to the slave, who stood behind her slowly waving the
plumed toy to and fro, that she turned her lovely face upon us and
bade us be seated.

An hour later a whippoorwill uttered its cry close to the window,
through which now shone the crescent moon. Rolfe started up.
"Beshrew me! but I had forgot that I am to sleep at Chaplain's
to-night. I must hurry on."

I rose, also. "You have had no supper!" I cried. "I too have
forgotten."

He shook his head. "I cannot wait. Moreover, I have feasted, - yea,
and drunk deep."

His eyes were very bright, with an exaltation in them as of wine.
Mine, I felt, had the same light. Indeed, we were both drunk with
her laughter, her beauty, and her wit. When he had kissed her
hand, and I had followed him out of the house and down the bank,
he broke the silence.

"Why she came to Virginia I do not know " -

"Nor care to ask," I said.

"Nor care to ask," he repeated, meeting my gaze. "And I know
neither her name nor her rank. But as I stand here, Ralph, I saw
her, a guest, at that feast of which I spoke; and Edwyn Sandys
picked not his maids from such assemblies."

I stopped him with my hand upon his shoulder. "She is one of
Sandys' maids," I asserted, with deliberation, "a waiting damsel
who wearied of service and came to Virginia to better herself. She
was landed with her mates at Jamestown a week or more agone,
went with them to church and thence to the courting meadow,
where she and Captain Ralph Percy, a gentleman adventurer, so
pleased each other that they were married forthwith. That same
day he brought her to his house, where she now abides, his wife,
and as such to be honored by those who call themselves his
friends. And she is not to be lightly spoken of, nor comment
passed upon her grace, beauty, and bearing (something too great
for her station, I admit), lest idle tales should get abroad."

"Am I not thy friend, Ralph?" he asked with smiling eyes.

"I have thought so at times," I answered.

"My friend's honor is my honor," he went on. "Where his lips are
sealed mine open not. Art content?"

"Content," I said, and pressed the hand he held out to me.

We reached the steps of the wharf, and descending them he
entered his barge, rocking lazily with the advancing tide. His
rowers cast loose from the piles, and the black water slowly
widened between us. From over my shoulder came a sudden bright
gleam of light from the house above, and I knew that Mistress
Percy was as usual wasting good pine knots. I had a vision of the
many lights within, and of the beauty whom the world called my
wife, sitting erect, bathed in that rosy glow, in the great armchair,
with the turbaned negress behind her. I suppose Rolfe saw the
same thing, for he looked from the light to me, and I heard him
draw his breath.

"Ralph Percy, thou art the very button upon the cap of Fortune," he
said.

To myself my laugh sounded something of the bitterest, but to
him, I presume, it vaunted my return through the darkness to the lit
room and its resplendent pearl. He waved farewell, and the dusk
swallowed up him and his boat. I went back to the house and to
her.

She was sitting as we had left her, with her small feet crossed upon
the cushion beneath them, her hands folded in her silken lap, the
air from the waving fan blowing tendrils of her dark hair against
her delicate standing ruff. I went and leaned against the window,
facing her.

"I have been chosen Burgess for this hundred," I said abruptly.
"The Assembly meets next week. I must be in Jamestown then and
for some time to come."

She took the fan from the negress, and waved it lazily to and fro.
"When do we go?" she asked at last.

"We!" I answered. "I had thought to go alone."

The fan dropped to the floor, and her eyes opened wide. "And
leave me here!" she exclaimed. "Leave me in these woods, at the
mercy of Indians, wolves, and your rabble of servants!"

I smiled. "We are at peace with the Indians; it would be a stout
wolf that could leap this palisade; and the servants know their
master too well to care to offend their mistress. Moreover, I would
leave Diccon in charge."

"Diccon!" she cried. "The old woman in the kitchen hath told me
tales of Diccon! Diccon Bravo! Diccon Gamester! Diccon
Cutthroat!"

"Granted," I said. "But Diccon Faithful as well. I can trust him."

"But I do not trust him!" she retorted. "And I wish to go to
Jamestown. This forest wearies me." Her tone was imperious.

"I must think it over," I said coolly. "I may take you, or I may not. I
cannot tell yet."

"But I desire to go, sir!"

"And I may desire you to stay."

"You are a churl!"

I bowed. "I am the man of your choice, madam."

She rose with a stamp of her foot, and, turning her back upon me,
took a flower from the table and commenced to pull from it its
petals. I unsheathed my sword, and, seating myself, began to polish
away a speck of rust upon the blade. Ten minutes later I looked up
from the task, to receive full in my face a red rose tossed from the
other side of the room. The missile was followed by an enchanting
burst of laughter.

"We cannot afford to quarrel, can we?" cried Mistress Jocelyn
Percy. "Life is sad enough in this solitude without that. Nothing
but trees and water all day long, and not a soul to speak to! And I
am horribly afraid of the Indians! What if they were to kill me
while you were away? You know you swore before the minister to
protect me. You won't leave me to the mercies of the savages, will
you? And I may go to Jamestown, may n't I? I want to go to
church. I want to go to the Governor's house. I want to buy a many
things. I have gold in plenty, and but this one decent dress. You'll
take me with you, won't you?"

"There's not your like in Virginia," I told her. "If you go to town
clad like that and with that bearing, there will be talk enough. And
ships come and go, and there are those besides Rolfe who have
been to London."

For a moment the laughter died from her eyes and lips, but it
returned. "Let them talk," she said. "What care I? And I do not
think your ship captains, your traders and adventurers, do often
dine with my lord bishop. This barbarous forest world and another
world that I wot of are so far apart that the inhabitants of the one
do not trouble those of the other. In that petty village down there I
am safe enough. Besides, sir, you wear a sword."

"My sword is ever at your service, madam."

"Then I may go to Jamestown?"

"If you will it so."

With her bright eyes upon me, and with one hand softly striking a
rose against her laughing lips, she extended the other hand.

"You may kiss it, if you wish, sir," she said demurely.

I knelt and kissed the white fingers, and four days later we went to
Jamestown.



CHAPTER VI IN WHICH WE GO TO JAMESTOWN


IT was early morning when we set out on horseback for
Jamestown. I rode in front, with Mistress Percy upon a pillion
behind me, and Diccon on the brown mare brought up the rear.
The negress and the mails I had sent by boat.

Now, a ride through the green wood with a noble horse beneath
you, and around you the freshness of the morn, is pleasant enough.
Each twig had its row of diamonds, and the wet leaves that we
pushed aside spilled gems upon us. The horses set their hoofs
daintily upon fern and moss and lush grass. In the purple distances
deer stood at gaze, the air rang with innumerable bird notes, clear
and sweet, squirrels chattered, bees hummed, and through the
thick leafy roof of the forest the sun showered gold dust. And
Mistress Jocelyn Percy was as merry as the morning. It was now
fourteen days since she and I had first met, and in that time I had
found in her thrice that number of moods. She could be as gay and
sweet as the morning, as dark and vengeful as the storms that came
up of afternoons, pensive as the twilight, stately as the night, - in
her there met a hundred minds. Also she could be childishly frank
- and tell you nothing.

To-day she chose to be gracious. Ten times in an hour Diccon was
off his horse to pluck this or that flower that her white forefinger
pointed out. She wove the blooms into a chaplet, and placed it
upon her head; she filled her lap with trailers of the vine that
swayed against us, and stained her fingers and lips with the berries
Diccon brought her; she laughed at the squirrels, at the scurrying
partridges, at the turkeys that crossed our path, at the fish that
leaped from the brooks, at old Jocomb and his sons who ferried us
across the Chickahominy. She was curious concerning the musket
I carried; and when, in an open space in the wood, we saw an eagle
perched upon a blasted pine, she demanded my pistol. I took it
from my belt and gave it to her, with a laugh. "I will eat all of your
killing," I said.

She aimed the weapon. "A wager!" she declared. "There be
mercers in Jamestown? If I hit, thou 'lt buy me a pearl hatband?"

"Two."

She fired, and the bird rose with a scream of wrath and sailed
away. But two or three feathers came floating to the ground, and
when Diccon had brought them to her she pointed triumphantly to
the blood upon them. "You said two!" she cried.

The sun rose higher, and the heat of the day set in. Mistress Percy's
interest in forest bloom and creature flagged. Instead of laughter,
we had sighs at the length of way; the vines slid from her lap, and
she took the faded flowers from her head and cast them aside. She
talked no more, and by and by I felt her head droop against my
shoulder.

"Madam is asleep," said Diccon's voice behind me.

"Ay," I answered. "She'll find a jack of mail but a hard pillow. And
look to her that she does not fall."

"I had best walk beside you, then," he said.

I nodded, and he dismounted, and throwing the mare's bridle over
his arm strode on beside us, with his hand upon the frame of the
pillion. Ten minutes passed, the last five of which I rode with my
face over my shoulder. "Diccon!" I cried at last, sharply.

He came to his senses with a start. "Ay, sir?" he questioned, his
face dark red.

"Suppose you look at me for a change," I said. "How long since
Dale came in, Diccon?"

"Ten years, sir."

"Before we enter Jamestown we'll pass through a certain field and
beneath a certain tree. Do you remember what happened there,
some years ago?"

"I am not like to forget, sir. You saved me from the wheel."

"Upon which you were bound, ready to be broken for drunkenness,
gaming, and loose living. I begged your life from Dale for no other
reason, I think, than that you had been a horse-boy in my old
company in the Low Countries. God wot, the life was scarcely
worth the saving!"

"I know it, sir."

"Dale would not let you go scot-free, but would sell you into
slavery. At your own entreaty I bought you, since when you have
served me indifferently well. You have showed small penitence for
past misdeeds, and your amendment hath been of yet lesser bulk.
A hardy rogue thou wast born, and a rogue thou wilt remain to the
end of time. But we have lived and hunted, fought and bled
together, and in our own fashion I think we bear each other good
will, - even some love. I have winked at much, have shielded you
in much, perhaps. In return I have demanded one thing, which if
you had not given I would have found you another Dale to deal
with."

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