Barbara Ladd

"I have heard too much already of this duel!" interrupted Barbara. "I do not understand how it concerns me!"

"Oh, lady, this impatience of yours!" said Waite, watching her keenly. "How can you expect to understand the manner in which it concerns you, if you will not let any one tell you the story? I stand pledged to make the story interesting on pain of forfeiting your good will!"

"Well," agreed Barbara, with seeming reluctance. In very truth she was trembling with eagerness for him to go on. "But, I pray you, be as brief as is consistent with justice to your claim as a narrator!"

"I will be most brief!" said Waite. "For the merit lies in the story itself, not in the fashion of the telling. Yesterday, a little after the noon hour, some half-score gentlemen were gathered by chance in Pym's Ordinary, where many of us frequent for the latest bit of gossip. There was talk of this, that, and the other, but most of the charms of a lady whom we know and reverence – "

"Who was she?" asked Barbara.

But Waite, intent upon his story, paid no heed.

"The praises, the compliments, the eulogiums," he went on, "that were heaped upon this magical name seemed to show that every man was at her feet. All but Carberry. Captain Carberry is a chill-souled, carping, sarcastical fellow, and arrogant withal, by reason of the unmatched agility of his blade. It had pleased him to be displeased by certain sweet, if a trifle pungent, sprightlinesses of the lady in question; and now his comments ran sharply counter to those of the rest of the company. He did not admire her at all, – which was, of course, within his undoubted rights, however it discredited his taste. But presently his criticisms became a trifle harsher than was fitting; and there was a moment of uneasy silence. Then, clear upon the silence, Gault spoke, – Gault, who had hitherto been listening without a word.

"'Carberry,' said he, quietly, 'you have said just enough. One word more will be too much!'

"Every one held his breath. There was an ugly look about Gault's mouth, and we trembled for him. He is liked, you know; while Carberry, a man ten years older, is feared. Carberry looked Bob over, with a supercilious smile, which meant mischief, as we knew, and then drawled slowly:

"'I shall say whatever it may please me to say about that damned little – ' But no one was to hear the sentence finished. We can never have our curiosity certainly satisfied as to that word, which just then got smashed beyond recognition behind Carberry's teeth. It was probably not so very bad a word, if the truth were known. Bob was taking no risks on that score. His blow was straight as a bullet; and Carberry went sprawling over two chairs and a table.

"When he picked himself up he was quite cool, – collected and businesslike. That we knew to be his deadly way, and we trembled for Bob. Bob, however, seemed as easy in his mind as Carberry. The two of them, indeed, were so deuced civil you might have thought they were arranging to marry each other's sisters. There was no time lost, you may be sure. Seconds were chosen, terms agreed upon, a doctor sent for, and we promptly made up a little pleasure party to the woods.

"As for the fight, dear lady, I spare your gentle soul the details. It lacked just one element of interest to the connoisseur, – both combatants fought in one fashion. There was no contrast, such as one might have expected between a boy of twenty-three and a veteran of thirty-six. At the very first Carberry had attacked with fury, – but when he felt the quality of Bob's wrist he saw it was not a case for bluster, and settled down to business. Both fought smiling, alike cool, wary, dangerous, sure of the result. Where and when Bob learned it, we none of us knew. He is a queer, reticent chap in some ways. But learned it he had, – and I, who like to study faces, saw the tinge of surprise in Carberry's face pass to admiration. His rage was forgotten in the exhilaration of his favourite game. I never again expect to see two blades so nicely matched. The excitement to us watchers grew intense, till our knees felt weak. But they two seemed as fresh as when they started.

"At last – 'a touch!" said Carberry, – and then, by the slight hissing of the words between his teeth I realised the strain.

"'Not at all!' answered Robert, – and his words, too, came hissingly, for all the easy smile upon his lips. Then both grew white. And for a few minutes there was no change. And it seemed to us that our eyes could follow the blades no longer. And then – for the life of me I could not see how it happened – a red stain came on the shoulder of Bob's shirt; and in the next second Carberry, letting his sword fall, dropped in a heap.

"Before we could recover our astonishment, Robert and the doctor together were bending over the wounded man, and had his shirt ripped open. 'I've got it, eh?' said Carberry, faintly. 'A fair, clean thrust, an' served me damn well right!' And he held out his hand to Bob, – who grasped it with both his, and looked now, all of a sudden, like a boy ready to cry.

"'Stuff and nonsense, Captain!' exclaimed the doctor. 'You've not got your quietus with this bare bodkin. You'll be all right, sound as ever, in a month, a fortnight maybe!'

"'Thank God!' cried Robert.

"'My sentiments exactly!' said Carberry, his voice stronger with the knowledge that he was not dying. 'Gault, my compliments, with my best apologies! Great sword, my boy, great – ' and with that he swooned from the pain and loss of blood. And we, very happy that all had ended so happily, got him to the coach, and so home. And the rest, dear Mistress Ladd, you know!"

"A mighty interesting story, I admit!" said Barbara. "But still I ask, of what especial, immediate interest to me?"

Waite looked at her curiously. Was it possible she could be so blind? But her wide eyes were innocent of all comprehension. It suddenly occurred to him that, new come to town as she was, she found it impossible to imagine her name the theme of tongues. He began to understand.

"You know the lady," said he, and paused.

"Well, sir, 'tis possible. I have met many in the few days that I have been in New York. What is her name – since you seem to hold it an important matter."

"Her name, dear lady – her name is one that stirs a thrill of admiring homage in all our hearts. It is —Mistress Barbara Ladd!"

Barbara caught her breath, and her eyes dilated.

"What?" she cried, though she had heard quite clearly.

"Her name is Mistress Barbara Ladd!" repeated Jerry Waite.

"Oh, Mr. Waite. No! No! Don't tell me it was on my account that Robert fought. Impossible! He might have been killed! And I thought – " but she stopped herself in time, without saying what it was she had thought.

Jerry Waite became serious.

"It seems to me, dear lady, that your thought, whatever it was, did Gault an injustice," said he, gently. "And that is my explanation. Am I forgiven?"

Barbara conquered her distress. This was the easier – after the first pang of remorse – because the fact that Robert had not failed her soon overtopped in her mind the fact that she had failed Robert. That unknown woman – the hateful vision vanished in a burst of light. The ache of loss was healed in her heart. She was reinstated, too, in her self-esteem. New York grew bright again. Her conquests were once more worth while. Robert should behold them all, – and be one of them, – the most subjugated of them all. At last her face grew radiant, – her eyes dancing, her teeth flashing, her mouth the reddest rose, her clear brown cheeks softly aflush.

"Yes, indeed, Mr. Waite," she cried, holding out her hand. "It is a beautiful story, and wins you a very high place in my regard. You may stay and talk to me till dinner-time, if you like; and then my uncle will be glad to have you dine with us!"

The first part of the invitation Waite accepted with alacrity, and cursed himself bitterly that he had an engagement to prevent him staying for dinner. In the conversation that followed Barbara gained him and chained him fast, not as a mad, intoxicated lover, but as one of the best and most loyal of her friends. But the moment he was gone she rushed to her scrutoir and in fierce haste scribbled a note. It ran:

"DEAR ROBERT: – I did not understand at all. I thought something quite different from the truth. I have just found out about things. Please come and talk to me till dinner-time, if you like; and then let me tell you how perfectly horrid I think myself.

"BARBARA."

This she sealed with a care that contrasted curiously with the haste with which she had written it. Then she called her maid and sent it around to the stately-doorwayed office on Bowling Green.

The answer that came was merely a bunch of dark red roses, with never a written word; but Barbara found it quite satisfactory. To Robert it would have seemed superfluous to have said he would come. Barbara made her toilet with especial care, selecting everything with a view to making herself look as nearly as possible like the Barbara of the old Second Westings days. As she surveyed herself in the glass, she was astonished at the result. Had she really put the hands of time back five years? As she remembered, she had looked just so on the afternoon when Robert came, and found her in the apple-tree reading "Clarissa." It was three o'clock already, – and Robert had been waiting already half an hour in the drawing-room below, – but she took yet a few minutes more for a finishing touch. She basted up a deep tuck in her petticoat, – about half an inch off for each year blotted from her calendar, – and then, with flaming eyes and mouth wreathed in laughter, she ran down to receive her guest. It was the direct obverse of the meeting she had planned.

"Did you ride over, Robert? Or did you come in the canoe?" she asked, as if she had but that moment jumped down out of the apple-tree.

"Barbara!" he cried, and seized and kissed both hands.

"I was beginning to fear that you had forgotten the way to Second Westings!" she went on, in gay reproach. "Why, it is weeks since you were over; and the young catbirds in the currant bush have grown their wings and flown; and the goldenrod's in flower; and the 'Early Harvests' are beginning to turn red on the old apple-tree over by the gate; and how will you explain your long absence, sir, to Aunt Hitty, and Doctor John, and Doctor Jim, I'd like to know!"

Robert was devouring her with his eyes as she spoke. "Oh, you do indeed look just as you did that day I found you in the apple-tree!" he cried, at last. "So weary long ago, – yet now, sweet lady, it seems but now!"

"Let us play it is but now," laughed Barbara.

"Yes," said Robert, – "but please don't send me right away to Doctor Jim, as you did that morning! I will try not to incur your displeasure. And don't be in such a hurry to get back to 'Clarissa' as you were then!"

So all the afternoon they talked the language and the themes of Second Westings, with the difference that Barbara was all graciousness, instead of her old mixture of acid and sweet. And when Glenowen came in to supper he was admitted to the game, and played it with a relish. And when, after supper, the three went riding, they took what they swore to be the Westings Landing Road, – though certain of the landmarks, as they could not but agree, looked unfamiliar. Almost they persuaded themselves that on their return they might entreat Mistress Mehitable to brew them a sack posset.

It was not till three days later, when Robert was begging more than his share of dances for a ball to be given that night at Government House, that Barbara explained – lightly and laughingly, but in a way that suffered Robert to understand – her quite inadequate reasons for having treated him so cavalierly on the evening after his duel.

CHAPTER XXVII

For the next few weeks Barbara enjoyed herself without stint, and found New York quite all that she had painted it. To Robert she now vouchsafed sufficient favour to keep him fairly happy and good company, – or, at least, to enable him to make himself good company by an effort of will. Yet she held him on the chilly side of that frontier which separates the lover from the comrade. He was her favoured escort, but not so favoured that other admirers could fancy themselves warned from the field. And he was kept restless, tormented, jealous. He was made to feel – as others were allowed to think – that his primacy in privilege was based solely upon old friendship and familiar memories. But the moment he attempted to crowd aside the new friends, – among whom Cary Patten, Jerry Waite, and young Paget caused him especial worry, – Barbara would seem to forget all their intimacy and relegate him to a position somewhat more remote than that of the merest acquaintance. The utmost that he durst claim at any time was a certain slight precedence in her train of devoted cavaliers. She danced, rode, flirted, with something so near approaching impartiality that she let no moth quite feel itself a fool in scorching its wings at her eyes. Yet no one could presume upon her graciousness; and no one but Cary Patten had the temerity to push his suit to the point where she was put on the defensive. Cary Patten was promptly dismissed. But when he as promptly came back on the very first occasion, she had forgotten the matter, and remembered only how she liked his honest boyishness, his sanguine boldness. Cary, applying one of those general rules which were apt to be so inapplicable in the special case of Barbara, decided that not one, nor indeed a dozen, refusals need reduce him to despair! And Barbara, when afterward she came to think of it, liked Cary Patten the better because he had not sulked over his defeat.

Meanwhile Barbara was exercising a restraint upon one point, which was in flat contradiction to her wonted directness. She was carefully avoiding, in Robert's presence, a discussion of those political questions with which the whole country, from Maine to Georgia, was then seething. This was easier than it would have been even a few weeks before, for the reason that as the differences grew more deadly society grew more cautious about letting them intrude themselves among its smooth observances. Barbara, in fact, had come to fear the inevitable discussion with Robert. She knew he was identified with the Tory party, but she did not know how far. And she feared her own heat of partisanship not less than his resolution – which she called obstinacy. So, by tacit consent, she and Robert gave wide berth to the perilous theme; till at length their avoidance of it, when it was thrilling on the very air they breathed, made it begin to loom all the larger and darker between them. Presently the apprehension that it was an impending peril to their relation drove Robert to speak, precipitately, on the subject that was bursting his heart night and day.

They had just come in from an afternoon ride, and were alone in the drawing-room. Barbara was in high good humour; and Robert seized the moment to ask leave to return that same evening.

"I'm sorry, Robert! I'd love to have you come," she replied. "But I've promised the evening to Cary Patten. He wants to bring his fiddle and try over some new music with me."

Robert's face darkened.

"Cary Patten seems to be here all the time!" he exclaimed, with natural exaggeration.

"What nonsense! You know that's not true, Robert. He's not here half as much as you are. But if he were, what of it? He's very good-looking, and Uncle Bob and I both like him, and, indeed, he's much more entertaining than you, Robert!"

Robert walked quickly across the room and back, then seized both her slim brown wrists in a grip whose severity she rather liked. She felt that something disturbing was at hand, however, and she braced her wits to manage it.

"Barbara, – my lady, – my lady, – I love you!" he said, very quietly.

"Of course, Robert! I know that," she answered, with composure, smiling up at him, and making no effort to free her wrists. Yet in some way her smile checked him, as he was about to crush her in his arms. His breast ached fiercely so to crush her, yet it was impossible.

"With all my heart and soul, my lady," he went on, his voice on the dead level of intense emotion, "with every drop of blood in my body, I love you, I have loved you, ever since the old child days in Second Westings!"

"That is very dear of you, Robert," she responded, her voice and eyes showing nothing but frank pleasure at his words. "But, of course, I have always known that," which was not quite true, though it seemed true to her at the moment.

He could not tell what there was in this answer to hold him back, or if it was the frankness of her eyes that daunted him, but he began to feel that, so far from clasping her to his heart and satisfying his lips upon her eyes, her hair, her mouth, he had no right even to be holding her wrists as he was. He flung them from him, drew back a step, and searched her face with a desperate look.

"And you – you do not love me at all!"

Barbara looked thoughtful, regretful.

"No, Robert, I don't love you – not in the way you mean. I'm not in love with you, you know. But I do care a lot for you, more than for almost any one else!"

They had both forgotten – for it was weeks away – how Barbara had felt about the imaginary unknown lady.

That "almost" was, to Robert, the end of all things. He thought at once of Cary Patten. Pain and jealous madness struggled together in his breast, strangling him.

"Good-bye!" he said at last, finding his voice, and turning to the door. "I shall leave to-night!"

"Robert!" cried Barbara, sharply. "Come back at once!"

He paused near the door, half turned, as if compelled by mere civility, but showed no sign of obeying.

"Come back to me!" she commanded. And he, being a courteous gentleman, obeyed.

"What is it, lady?"

"What on earth do you mean by being so crazy?" she demanded.

No answer occurred to him as necessary. He looked at her inquiringly, his face very white, his eyes deep sunken, his lips straight and hard. Barbara began to regret that she had not managed in some other way. She certainly could not let him go. Yet she certainly did not love him enough to give up her freedom for him, – to sacrifice all the enchanting experience of which she had not yet begun to tire, to dismiss all the interesting men, whose homage was so sweet to her young, unsatiated vanity.

"Don't you know, Robert," she went on, beguilingly, "that I couldn't possibly get along without you? I don't love you, but I do love you to love me, you know. I couldn't bear to have you go away and forget me, and love some other woman, – some kind, sweet, beautiful woman who could love you and make you happy. I need you to love me. Though I know there is no earthly reason why you should, and I think you are a crazy goose to do it, and I believe you only think you do, anyhow!"

Robert stood motionless. The storm raging up and down within him turned him to steel on the surface. From a dry throat he tried to speak clearly and with moderation.

"You said – 'almost!' Who is it – you care more for? – Cary Patten?"

Barbara broke into a clear peal of laughter, and clapped her hands with a fine assumption of glee.

"Oh, you silly, silly child!" she exclaimed. "It was Uncle Bob, of course, that I was thinking of when I said that. I love Uncle Bob better than any one else in the world, —far better than I love you, Robert, I can tell you that. But I care for you almost as much as for Aunt Hitty. Cary Patten! Why, he and these other nice men who are making things so pleasant for me, they are just new friends. I like them, that's all. You are altogether different, you know. But I'm just not in love with you, – and so you talk of going away and spoiling everything for me. I don't call that loving me, Robert, – not as I would love a girl if I were a man. But it's not my fault if I'm not in love myself, is it? I'm sorry, – but I don't believe I can love, really, the way you mean! Cary Patten, indeed! Why, he's just a boy, – a nice, good-looking, saucy, conceited boy!"

"Can't you try to love me, Barbara?" pleaded Robert, his wrath all gone. He flung himself down at her feet, and wildly kissed them. All this she permitted smilingly, but the request seemed to her, as it was, a very foolish one.

"No, I can't!" she answered, with decision. "Trying wouldn't make me. And I don't think I want to, anyhow. I want to enjoy myself here while I can. And I want you to be nice, and help me enjoy myself, and not bother me. Love me just as much as you like, Robert, but don't tell me so – too often! And don't ask me to love you. And don't go and be lovely to the other girls, and make believe you are not in love with me, for that would displease me very much, though I should know it was making believe because you were cross at me. So, don't be horrid!"

This seemed to Robert a somewhat one-sided arrangement. He knew he would accept it, yet his honesty compelled him to express his sense of its injustice.

"I certainly would be lovely to the other girls if I wanted to, my lady," said he, doggedly. "The trouble is, I don't want to. And I sha'n't bore myself just for the sake of trying to make you think I don't care. I love you, that's all – better than anything else in heaven or earth. And I shall make you love me, my lady!"

This threat amused Barbara, but did not displease her.

"Very well, Robert," she answered, with a teasing, alluring look that made his heart jump. "I sha'n't try to prevent you. I'll even like you a little better now, at once, if you will go right away this minute and let me dress."

"Dress for Cary Patten!" muttered Robert, kissing her hand without enthusiasm, and retiring with sombre brow. That he should go in this temper did not please her ladyship at all.

"And, Robert!" she cried, when he had just reached the door.

"Yes, my lady!" and he came back once more.

"You said good-bye as if you were still in a nasty, black temper!" She held out her hand to him again. This time he kissed it with what she considered a more fitting warmth.

"And, Robert, don't forget that I am very, very good to you, far more so than you deserve. I don't think of telling Cary Patten, or any of the others, not to flirt with the other girls. Cary Patten may be as lovely to them as he likes, and I sha'n't mind one bit, so long as it does not interfere with his being as attentive as he ought to be to me! Now, it is a great honour I do you, Robert, in not letting you flirt."

"I appreciate it, my lady," he answered, permitting himself to smile. "A great honour, indeed, – though a superfluous one!"

"I have no objection to that word, 'superfluous,' in that connection," said Barbara, thoughtfully, to herself, as Robert disappeared.

CHAPTER XXVIII

After this Robert was careful, and so was permitted to be fairly happy when he could keep the fires of jealousy banked down in his heart. Once in awhile they would begin to get the better of him; and then, after letting Barbara see just a glimpse of the flame, that she might not forget it was there, he would leave before she could find him troublesome and work it under by hours of furious riding. He skilfully avoided giving her any further excuse for discipline; and was even so cunning, at times, as to pique her by his show of self-control. In this way he scored continually over the too confident Cary Patten, who, after a week or two of almost daily calls at the old Dutch house on State Street, would disappear and not be seen near Barbara for days. At such times Robert concluded that Cary had been tempting Providence and suffering the usual disaster of those who so presume. As for Jerry Waite, and young Paget, and the rest of the infatuated train, Robert thought that Barbara was quite too infernally nice to them all, and cursed them all hotly in his heart; but he could not refrain from admiring the neat manner in which she held them all in hand.

Early in the autumn, however, it became still more difficult for Barbara and Robert to keep silent on the great questions which they so dreaded to discuss. The First Continental Congress was in session at Philadelphia, and its deliberations formed a theme to blister men's tongues. Made up of Tories, Radical Patriots or potential rebels, and Moderates, in fairly even proportion, it satisfied neither Barbara nor Robert. The latter, in spite of the fact that its New York delegates were of his own party, viewed it with singularly clear eyes, and saw in it not merely an instrument for the constitutional redress of just grievances, – wherein it had his sympathy, – but a forerunner of revolt, – wherein it called forth his passionate reprobation. To Barbara, on the other hand, this Continental Congress, of which she had hoped so much, seemed a mean-spirited, paltering, blear-eyed thing, incapable of seeing what destiny had written large across the continent, or too timorous to acknowledge what it saw. The strain was further increased by matters which touched them both personally. With the news that Connecticut, stirred up by false rumours of a struggle with the royal troops in Boston, had thousands of her militia under arms, came a letter from Mistress Mehitable, saying that Doctor John was among them, in command of a regiment, and that Doctor Jim was looking after his patients. At this tidings Barbara's heart swelled with mingled pride and anxiety. She pictured the heroic figure Doctor John would make, in his uniform, about to fight for the cause which she held so splendid and so righteous. At the same time she saw him already in the fight, waving his sword amid the smoke and slaughter, and she shook with terror for him. Both Robert and Glenowen were with her when the letter came, and as she read it out her voice broke and the tears rolled down her cheeks.