Barbara Ladd

"That's just it, honey!" cried Barbara, flashing radiant eyes through her tears. "Oh, what a wise little Aunt Hitty you are! What would we ever do without you!" And her apprehensions laid themselves obediently to rest.

"Well, well!" cried Doctor Jim. "What are two graceless old dogs like us, that the dear eyes of the fairest of their sex should shed tears on our account? We should go and kick each other up and down the length of Second Westings for the rest of the afternoon, for causing such precious tears, – eh, what, John Pigeon?"

"'Tis the least we can do, Jim!" said Doctor John. "But now I come to think of it, we needn't arrange to go to the war before there's a war to go to, after all."

"And when the war does come, you'll both stay right here, where you belong!" decreed Barbara, holding the question well settled.

"Who knows what may happen?" cried Doctor Jim. "You stiff-necked rebels may experience a change of heart, and then where's your war?"

"Barbara, sweet baggage," said Doctor John, wagging his forefinger at her in the way that even now, at her nineteen years, seemed to her as irresistibly funny as she had thought it when a child, "I cannot let this anxiety oppress your tender young spirit. Set your heart at rest. If there be war, Jim Pigeon may go a-soldiering and get shot as full of holes as a colander, and I'll do my duty by staying at home and looking after his patients. There'll be a chance of some of them getting well, then! I've never yet had a fair chance to save Jim Pigeon's patients. I won't desert a lovely maiden in distress, to seek the bubble reputation at the cannon's mouth!"

"How can you lie so shamelessly, John Pigeon?" demanded Doctor Jim. "I'll lay you a barrel of Madeira you'll be leaning against the butt of a musket before I am!"

"Done!" said Doctor John.

"I think you are both perfectly horrid!" cried Barbara.

CHAPTER XXIII

That day of the news was a boundary day. It set sharp limit to Barbara's years of calm. From that day events came quickly, change pressed hard on change, and no day, for her, was quite like its predecessor. A veering of the current had snatched her from her shining eddy, and swept her forth into the tide of life.

On the morning following the dinner, while still alive to a sense of menace in the air, Barbara received a letter from her uncle. As she read it, her eyes sparkled, her heart bounded. Then, as she passed it to Mistress Mehitable, and Mistress Mehitable took it with cheerful interest, her heart sank. She felt a pang of self-reproach, because she found herself willing to go away and leave her aunt uncompanioned in the solitude of Westings House. Glenowen had undertaken certain business, in the way of searching records and examining titles, which was driving him at once to New York, and bade fair, he said, to keep him there for upwards of a year. He wanted Barbara to go with him. And Barbara's pulses bounded. There, she thought, were the lights and the dances, the maskings and the music, the crossing of swords and wits, the gallants and the compliments and the triumphs, which she was longing to taste. Mistress Mehitable's face grew grave as she read the letter. It grew pale as she looked up and saw by Barbara's face the hunger in her heart. Mistress Mehitable had a vision of what Westings House would be, emptied of the wilful, flashing, vivid, restless spirit which for the past few years had been its life. But she was unselfish. She would not say a word to lessen Barbara's delight.

"It will be lovely for you, dear!" said she, with hearty sympathy. "You are just at the age, too, when it will mean most to you, and be of most value to you. I am so glad, dear!"

But Barbara had seen the look in her face, and gave no heed to her brave words.

"I can't go, honey, and leave you here alone!" she cried, impetuously, jumping up and hugging the little lady with a vehemence born of the effort to convince herself that what she said was true. She felt that she could and must go; but that the joy of going would be more than damped – drenched, indeed, with tears – at the thought of how much Mistress Mehitable would miss her, of how empty Westings House would be without her, of the scar her absence would leave in their little world. With her intense individuality, her lively self-concentration, it almost seemed to her as if their little world could not even attempt to go on without her, but must sleep dully through her absence.

"Of course you will go, Barbara dear!" said Mistress Mehitable, decidedly. "It is only natural and right you should want to go, and go. I cannot pretend that it makes me very happy to think of doing without you for a whole year. No words can tell you how I shall miss you, dear child. But I should be a thousand times more unhappy if I were to feel myself standing in the way of your happiness. No, no, indeed, don't talk any nonsense about not going. Besides, your Uncle Bob has the right to have you with him for a while."

"Oh, I wish you could go, too!" sighed Barbara. "Can't you? Then it would be lovely!"

Mistress Mehitable laughed softly. "Not very well just now, child!" she answered, assuming a gaiety. "Perhaps some other time it might be managed. Now, we'll have to plan about getting you ready, – and your uncle has only left us a wretched little week to do it in!"

So it was settled, without any stress or argument whatever, that Barbara should go to New York with Uncle Bob just eight days from that day; and so was decreed, with such effort as it might take to order a breakfast, nothing less than a revolution in Barbara's life.

While the two women were discussing weighty problems of dressmaking, lingerie, and equipment various, – what should be made at Second Westings, and what should be left to New York shops and the tried taste of Uncle Bob, – Doctor Jim came in, less robustious and breezy than his wont, his eyes big with momentous tidings. He kissed the ladies' hands, and sat down thoughtfully opposite, scanning their faces from under bushy, drawn brows. They both looked at him with expectant inquiry.

"You were most intent on whatever you were talking about!" said he, presently. "I hope I don't interrupt! May I hear all about it? Or should I run away, eh, what?"

"You never interrupt, – or if you do, you are forgiven beforehand, Jim!" said Mistress Mehitable.

"What we were talking about will interest you, Doctor Jim, you naughty old thing!" cried Barbara, saucily. "It was petticoats, bodices, and silk stockings, and such like feminine frivolities! But what have you got to tell us? You are just bursting, you know you are. Tell us, and we'll tell you something!"

"John Pigeon's going away to-morrow!" said Doctor Jim, and then shut his mouth hard.

"What? Going away?" cried both women at once, scarce crediting their ears.

"Going away to Hartford, to-morrow, to take a hand in organising some of their rebellious militia!" continued Doctor Jim. "I'm ashamed to tell you. But he was ashamed to tell you himself, thinking you would not like it, so he sent me ahead to make his peace for him. It doesn't mean anything, you know. Just a sort of bragging counterblast to those four regiments of ours at Boston. I wouldn't be down on John for it, eh, what, Mehitable?"

"When will he return?" asked Mehitable, feeling that her world was being emptied.

"Down on him!" exclaimed Barbara. "Why, it's noble of him. Think how it will encourage all the patriots of our township!" Since she was going away herself, Doctor John's going was easy enough to bear.

"I wasn't talking to you, you saucy rebel!" retorted Doctor Jim. "We'll have that crazy little black head of yours chopped off for high treason, one of these days, if you don't mend your naughty manners. 'Patriots,' indeed! Addle-pated bumpkins! But" – and he turned to Mistress Mehitable, "you asked me, dear lady, when John Pigeon would return. Within a month, I think. He will tell you more precisely for himself!"

"Jim," said Mistress Mehitable, gravely, "we are going to be lonely for awhile, you and I."

"Lonely!" exclaimed Doctor Jim. "That's not what bothers me. It's the pestilent, low, vulgar business that's taking him!"

"Yes, of course," assented Mistress Mehitable, "but 'tis not Doctor John only that purposes to forsake us, Jim. Barbara is going to New York, to stay a year."

Doctor Jim's face fell. He glared at Barbara for half a minute, his shaggy eyebrows working.

"Nonsense, child!" he cried, wilfully incredulous. "What cock-and-bull story's this? I won't have my feelings worked upon!"

"It's true, Doctor Jim. I'm to go with Uncle Bob, next week!" said Barbara, very soberly.

"But you sha'n't go! We can't spare our bad little girl. You're too young, Barby, for that wicked city down there. We need you here, to keep us from getting too good. You sha'n't go, that's all! You see what John Pigeon'll have to say about it, eh, what?"

"I must, Doctor Jim!" answered Barbara. "Aunt Hitty and Uncle Bob have both decided on that. I feel homesick, sort of, already, at the thought of it. And I know I shall miss you all just horribly. But, oh, I do want to go, after all. It's all so gay and mysterious to me, and I know I'll have such fun. And it will be so lovely, when I'm tired of it, to come back and tell you all about it! Won't it?"

"Well! Well! I suppose we'll have to let her go," sighed Doctor Jim. "Thank Heaven, you're not going, Mehitable, dear lady!"

"I'm glad you're not going, Jim, – either to New York or to Hartford!" said Mistress Mehitable, with a little laugh. Then she held out her hand to him, flushing softly.

"It would be hard indeed for me to go anywhere, Mehitable, were you to bid me stay!" said Doctor Jim, kissing very reverently the hand she had held out. Then, without waiting for an answer to this, he hastily turned again to Barbara, saying:

"By the way, sweetheart, Bobby Gault is in New York, is he not, – eh, what? He will be glad to see you again, perhaps! It is possible he may help make things pleasant for you, eh, you baggage?"

But Barbara was not in a mood to repay his raillery in kind.

"I don't know that I'll make things pleasant for Robert," she answered, thoughtfully, "if he still clings to his ridiculous views about kings and things!"

"Tell that to the marines, you sly hussy!" exclaimed Doctor Jim, regaining mysteriously his wonted large good humour. "Don't tell me this isn't all made up between you and Robert!"

Barbara looked at him soberly for a moment. Then the old audacious light laughed over her face, her eyes danced perilously, – and Mistress Mehitable felt a tremor of apprehension. She always felt nervous when Doctor Jim had the hardihood to draw Barbara's fire.

"Do you know, Doctor Jim, I don't feel quite so badly as I did about leaving you and Aunt Hitty! I think, you know, you will be quite a comfort to each other, won't you, even if Doctor John should have to stay longer than he expects in Hartford!"

At this moment Doctor John himself came in, to Mistress Mehitable's infinite relief.

CHAPTER XXIV

When Glenowen came to Second Westings he was in such haste that Barbara concluded he had other duties in New York than the searching of records and verification of titles; but with unwonted discretion she asked no questions. Affairs of state, it seemed to her, were the more mysterious and important the less she knew about them; and it pleased her to feel that the fate of commonwealths, perchance, was carried secretly within the ruffled cambric of her debonair and brown-eyed uncle. From Second Westings they journeyed by coach to New Haven, and from that city voyaged by packet down the Sound to New York. Arrived in New York, they went straight into lodgings which Glenowen had already engaged, in an old, high-stooped Dutch house on State Street.

From the moment of her landing on the wharf, Barbara was in a state of high exhilaration. The thronging wharves, the high, black, far-travelled hulls, the foreign-smelling freights, all thrilled her imagination, and made her feel that now at last unexpected things might happen to her and story-books come true. Then the busy, bustling streets, where men jostled each other abstractedly, intent each on his own affairs, how different from Second Westings, where three passers-by and a man on horseback would serve to bring faces to the windows, and where the grass on each side of the street was an item of no small consequence to the village cows! And then the houses – huddled together, as if there was not space a-plenty in the world for houses! It was all very stirring. She felt that it was what she wanted, at the moment, – a piquant sauce to the plain wholesomeness of her past. But she felt, too, that it would never be able to hold her long from the woods and fields and wild waters.

Of her arrival Barbara sent no word to Robert, though she knew by somewhat careful calculation that his office was but a stone's throw away from her lodging. She looked forward to some kind of a dramatic meeting, and would not let her impatience – which she scarcely acknowledged – risk the marring of a picturesque adventure. When Glenowen, the morning after their arrival, gave her the superfluous information that Robert's office was close by, right among the fashionable houses of Bowling Green, and proposed that they should begin their exploration of the city by strolling past his window, Barbara demurred with emphasis.

"Well," said Glenowen, thinking he understood what no man ever has a right to think he understands, "just as you like, mistress mine. I'll drop in on him myself, and let him know where we are, so he can call with all due and fitting ceremony!"

"Oh, Uncle Bob!" she cried, laughing at his density, "don't you know yet how little I care for ceremony? 'Tis not that – by any manner of means. But I want to surprise Robert, – I want to meet him at some fine function, in all my fine feathers, and see if he'll know me! You know, it is five years, nearly, since we saw him. Have I changed much, Uncle Bob?"

"Precious little have you changed, sweet minx!" answered Glenowen. "You're just the same small, peppery, saucy, unmanageable, thin brown witch that you were then, only a little taller, a little more good-looking, a little – a very little – more dignified. No fear but he'd know you, though he saw you not for a score of years. 'Twere as easy perhaps for a man to hate you as love you, my Barbe! But forget you! Oh, no!"

So it was that in the walks which they took about the point of Manhattan Island, during the first three or four days after their coming, they avoided Bowling Green, save in the dim hours of twilight; and Glenowen, prone to humour Barbara in everything, had a care to shun the resorts which Robert Gault affected. He learned, by no means to his surprise, that Robert was uncompromisingly committed to the Tory party, but this he did not feel called upon to tell Barbara.

"Time enough! Time enough!" said he to himself, half whimsical, half sorrowful. "Let the child have her little play with all the mirth that's in it! Let hearts not bleed until they must! She won't forgive him, – and he won't yield, – or I'm not Bob Glenowen!"

In New York, where most of his life had been spent, Glenowen knew everybody; and he was persona grata to almost everybody of consequence. His standing was so impregnable, his antecedents so unimpeachable, his social talents so in demand, that even the most arrogant of the old Tory aristocrats – the Delanceys, the Philipses, the Beverley Robinsons – were not disposed to let their hostility to his views hamper their hospitality to his person.

It followed, therefore, as a matter of course, that almost before she had gathered her wits after the excitement of the journey and the changed surroundings, Barbara found herself afloat upon the whirl of New York gaieties. Every night, in the solitude of her bedroom in the old Dutch house, in the discreet confidence of her pillow, she was homesick, very homesick, and a child again. She would sob for Aunt Hitty, and Doctor John, and Doctor Jim, – and for big, round-faced, furry "Mr. Grim," whom she had so tearfully left behind, – and for Black Prince, who, she felt sure, would let no one else ride him in her absence, – and for dear old Debby in her lonely cabin. She would think very tenderly of Amos, – and then, with a very passion of tenderness, of her own little room over the porch, now silent and deserted. With great surges of pathos she would picture Mistress Mehitable going into the little room every day, and dusting it a bit, and then sitting down by the bed and wishing Barbara would come back. In such a melting mood Barbara would resolve not to be horrid any more, but to send for Robert the first thing in the morning, and tell him just how glad she was to see him.

But when morning came, she would be no more the homesick child, but a very gay, petulant, spoiled, and sparkling young woman, her head full of excitements and conquests to come.

CHAPTER XXV

To her first ball Barbara went in a chair, just five days after her arrival in New York. The method of locomotion appealed greatly to her mood; and as the bearers jogged her gently along, she kept her piquant face at the window and felt as if she were playing one of the pictures of court ladies on their way to St. James's, – ladies such as she had often dreamed over in the London prints. For this ball, given at the Van Griff house, just a few blocks from her own lodgings, she was dressed in the very height of the mode, as to all save her hair. She was obstinate in her aversion to the high, elaborate coiffure, – in her adherence to the simple fashion and the single massive curl which she had decided upon, after many experiments, as best becoming her face. She liked her hair, accounting it her only beauty, and rather than disguise it she would let the mode go hang. For the rest, her attire met the severest demands of Uncle Bob, who was even won, at the last, to approve what he called her eccentricity in the matter of hair. He decided that her very precise modishness in other respects would prove her title to independence in the one respect; and it was with unqualified satisfaction that he contemplated the effect she would produce on the New York fashionables.

"Are you sure I look fit to be seen with you, Uncle Bob?" she had inquired, anxiously, the last thing before they set out. "You are such a beau, you dear; and so distinguished-looking!"

"I shall take no discredit by reason of you, I think!" answered Glenowen, dryly. "Unless, indeed, by reason of the slayings of your eyes! But slay the gallants, slay them, sweetheart! They be king's men, mostly, – and there'll be so many the less to fight, by and by, for the king!"

"I'll do what such a homely little brown thing can!" laughed Barbara, blithely, an excited thrill in her voice. But even at the moment her heart misgave her, at the thought that, more than likely, Robert was one of these same "king's men!"

This first ball, at the Van Griffs', was to Barbara a whirl of lights, and colours, and flowers, and bowing, promenading, pirouetting forms. The spacious rooms and shining floors and smiling faces and stirring music intoxicated her. The variety and brightness of the costumes astonished her, the women's dresses being fairly outshone by the strong colours of the uniforms worn by the English officers, and by the even more dazzling garb affected by the civilians. Yet if all this bewildered her heart, outwardly she was at ease, composed, and ready; and Glenowen, across the room, watching her the centre of a group of eager gallants, – fop, officer, and functionary alike clamouring for her hand in the dance, – wondered if this could be the headlong, hard-riding little hussy whom he had brought from the wilds of Second Westings. The stately belles of Manhattan, beauties serene or beauties gay, sisters to the lily or sisters to the poppy and the tulip, eyed with critical half-disfavour this wilding rose from the backwoods, agreed that she was queer-looking if not ugly, and resented her independence in wearing her hair so as to display its beauties to full advantage. That she was well gowned and danced well, they were in general fair enough to acknowledge; but they could not see why so many men found her interesting to talk to. In a word, she was a success from the start. She went home at last, very wide-eyed, tired, triumphant, excited – and disappointed. She had not seen Robert. She had just once heard his name, spoken casually, as that of one whose absence seemed a thing unusual, whose presence seemed a thing to be desired. She knew that she had made an impression. She knew, even, that she had made herself popular, at least with the men. With her accustomed candour she had proclaimed herself a rebel, in response to some jest at the expense of Boston, and had settled the score thrice over by her witty jibes at King George. But even in that royalist circle her audacity had done her no harm. The English officers themselves, carried away by her brilliance and amused by her daring, were loudest in their applause. They not unreasonably agreed in their hearts that it could do the king no harm, while it undoubtedly would be a great satisfaction to themselves, if they could win some favour in the eyes of this most bewildering and provocative little rebel. Perceiving this, Barbara had not spared her shafts; and the most deeply wounded of her victims had been the most assiduous of her admirers. But of all the men who had been presented to her, danced with her, paid court to her, of all the women whom she had met, favoured, or in clash of glances subtly defied, she retained but a bright jumble of unassorted names and faces. One only had gained a foothold in her remembrance. A certain young officer in the colonial militia, one Cary Patten by name, had been presented to her by her uncle with particular commendation, as being altogether of his own way of thought; and him, for his laughing blue eyes, his frank mouth, his broad shoulders, and his boyish swagger, she had liked so well that he stood out among her impressions, and she felt it would be pleasant to meet him again. In fact, to his open and immense elation, she had told him so.

"Well, mistress mine, how did you like it?" asked Glenowen, as, candle in one hand and skirts in the other, she held up her face to be kissed good-night.

"Oh, I loved it, Uncle Bob!" she answered, with conviction.

"Well, it loved you!" said Uncle Bob.

But as he turned away to his own room, he wondered if Barbara was really quite as satisfied as she professed, or whether her failure to meet Robert, and include him among the numbers of her slain, had clouded at all the splendour of her triumph.

Two evenings later there was another ball, an altogether bigger and more imposing function, at the house of the Surveyor-General half a mile out of town. At this, as she was told, every one would be present, and therefore, she agreed, Robert would certainly appear. With a view to circumstances which might conceivably arise in the event of Robert's appearance, she had with great difficulty kept a number of dances free, when her admiring cavaliers at the Van Griffs' were striving to fill her cards in advance. If he should fail to come, – well, she had reason to think that she would not be left to languish unattended.

Meanwhile, however, she little knew how violently her pretty scheme was being brought to nought, she little knew how emphatically Robert was being enlightened as to her presence in New York. She should, indeed, have thought that the story of her triumphs at the Van Griffs' would reach his ears, for on the day following that event, her maid, a garrulous West Indian mulatto whom Glenowen had engaged immediately on their arrival, had told her over her toilet that her name was already the toast of the finest gentlemen in town. But somehow it never occurred to her that Robert would hear anything. She thought of him only as riding, or paddling a canoe, or sitting at his desk, or going to balls and wandering about alone, thinking of her, gravely smiling now and then, courteous, and silent. As a vital factor in this glittering life he had never presented himself to her imagination, – or it is possible she might have written to him from Second Westings more often than twice or thrice in the year!