From Kingdom to Colony

"Shall I help you to your room, Aunt Penine?" Dorothy asked with elaborate politeness, holding out her arm.

"No," snapped her aunt. "I wish no assistance from you, whose sharp tongue seems ever ready with insult for your elders. Mary will help me; and ye may find Tyntie, and send her to my room." With this she hobbled away, leaning heavily upon Mary, who looked back reproachfully at Dorothy.

But Dot only laughed again, as she turned and went to a door at the end of the hall which communicated with a side passage leading to the servants' quarters; then, having summoned Tyntie, she came back and seated herself upon a lower step of the main staircase to await Mary's coming.

Her friend's first words were full of reproof. "Oh, Dot, how could you seem so heartless?" she said. "You should see Aunt Penine's foot; 't is swollen fearfully, and her ankle is discolored."

"If you but knew how it came about, Mary, perhaps you'd be less ready to scold me," Dorothy replied, making room on the step. "There are weighty matters being talked of in the dining-room yonder, and I was to tell you what Jack took me in for. Aunt Penine came in with the punch while I was there, and she tried to have me sent away. She was angry that father would not do this, but bade her mind her business and let me alone. When I opened the door just now, she was trying to listen to what they were saying, and I came out so suddenly as to frighten her, so that she stumbled and hurt herself. I am sorry she is hurt; but if it had befallen me, she'd have been ready enough to say I'd but received my just deserts."

"Why should she try to listen at the door?" asked Mary with surprise, as she twisted one of Dorothy's short curls about her slender fingers. But Dorothy gave her head an unruly toss, to release the curl, as she had ever a dislike for being fondled or touched in any way, unless it were by her father or brother.

"There is really to be a war, and that soon," she replied. "The soldiers, they say, are coming down to the Neck in a few days – perhaps even to-morrow; and the people propose – and rightly, too – to fight them, if needs be, should they try to interfere with our doings. Aunt Penine sides with the English, I take it from what I've heard her say; and I know for a surety she has been slyly making tea to drink, for all that father has forbidden it. He and Aunt Lettice miss their tea as much as ever she does herself, and yet they have never touched a drop. I intend to tell him to-morrow that I know of a canful of tea in the store-closet. I was talking with Aunt Lettice about it when you came this evening. She supposed there was not a grain of it in the house, and I am sure father has been thinking the same. Aunt Penine is deceitful and disloyal to him – and so I shall tell him, if I live, to-morrow morning."

"Whatever did she expect to hear, that she did so mean and dishonorable a thing as to listen at the keyhole?" Mary spoke musingly, a fine scorn now touching her lips, and it was clear that her sympathy for the afflicted one was greatly dampened.

"Perhaps she intends to play spy, as she disapproves so entirely of the feeling the townsfolk all have. Spies are well paid, so I've heard; and Aunt Penine would do anything for money." Dorothy's eyes flashed, and she stared straight ahead, pulling at her front locks in an absent-minded way, as though she were speculating over all the mischief her aunt might have in view.

"She may mean nothing, after all, Dot," Mary said, after a moment's thought. "It may be that she was only curious to know why you were admitted to the room, while she and all the rest of us were kept out. Still, if I were you, I'd tell my father of her listening."

"Indeed I shall," was the emphatic reply, "and of the tea as well. I have a notion she got it all from Robert Jameson. You know what they tell of him; and he and Aunt Penine seem to have a deal to say to one another these days. She has sent Pashar to him with notes ever so many times, as I know; and Pashar seems to have more silver nowadays than father gives him, for he has, more than once, brought 'Bitha sweets from the store."

Mary nodded significantly at the mention of Robert Jameson's name. He was the nearest neighbor of Joseph Devereux, and had come to be regarded with distrust – enmity, indeed – by most of his former associates.

He was a widower of some wealth, and had no family; and Aunt Penine had long been suspected of cherishing a desire to entrap him into a second matrimony.

A few months before, an exceedingly complimentary, almost fulsome, address to Hutchinson, the recent Governor, had appeared in the columns of a newspaper known as the "Essex Gazette," to which were attached the names of some residents of the town, Jameson's amongst them. It endorsed all that had been said in praise of his administration, and of his aiming only at the public good; and it asserted that such was the opinion of all thinking and dispassionate citizens.

This manifest untruth had raised a storm of indignation. A town meeting was held, and a committee appointed, with instructions to inform the signers of this false and malicious statement that they would be exonerated only by making a public retraction of all sentiments contained therein; and that upon refusing to do this, they would be denounced as enemies of the province, desiring to insult both branches of the legislature, and to affront the town.

Jameson had been one of the few who refused to comply with the committee's demand; and he had since been shunned as an enemy to the cause, and looked upon with suspicion and distrust.

CHAPTER IX

The household was astir early the next morning to set the travellers on their road with a warm meal and a parting word; and despite the absence of Aunt Penine, all the domestic machinery moved as smoothly as usual.

There could still be seen a few stars, not yet blotted out by the pearly haze, shot with palest blue, that the dawn was putting in front of them.

Over the sea hung a curtain-like gathering of fog, and the air was heavy with the odors from the wood and fern, brought forth by the damp.

Nicholson Broughton, having borrowed a saddle from his host, had decided to pursue the remainder of his journey on horseback; and he, with his two younger companions, was now about to set forth.

Mary stood near her father's horse, while he gave her some parting words of encouragement.

"Now bear in mind, Pigsney, all I have said, and never fail to keep a watchful eye and stout heart. All at the house will go well until my return; and do you abide here, safe and close, with our good friends. Be sure to keep away from the town, and whether the Britishers come to the Neck or no, you will be safe."

She promised all this, and turned away as he rode off, waving a farewell to his host, who stood within the porch, with Aunt Lettice and little 'Bitha alongside him.

Hugh Knollys followed, with a gay good-by to all, while John Devereux, who had been talking with Dorothy, now vaulted into his saddle.

As he was about to start, Mary Broughton passed along in her slow walk to the house. She turned, and their eyes met in a look that told of a mutual understanding. But she flushed a little, while he only smiled, doffing his hat as he rode slowly past her down the driveway.

Dorothy was waiting, close to her father, on the porch.

"Don't you wish you were a man, Mary," she said, as her friend came up the steps, "so that you could ride away to do battle for our rights, instead of being only a woman, to stop at home and wonder and worry over matters, while the baking and churning must be done day after day?"

Her father smiled at this, and pinched Dorothy's cheek; then a sadness came to his face as he looked at her.

"To be a woman does not always mean the doing of over-much baking or housework," said Mary, with a meaning smile, her cheeks fresher and her blue eyes brighter, like the flowers, from the pure morning air.

Joseph Devereux nodded an assent. "If you and Mary," he said to Dorothy, "were to ride to Boston this day, who would there be to do what you are entrusted with the doing on? Mark ye, my daughter," and he bent a grave look upon her bright face, "women, as well as men, have high and holy duties to perform, – aye, indeed, some of them even higher. Where would come the nerve and hope for the proper ambition o' men's minds, were there no mothers and wives and – sweethearts, to make their lives worth the living, and their homes worth fighting for, – yes, and their country so much more worth saving from oppression. Nay, my baby, what would become o' your old father, if he had not a little maid to console him, when his only son must needs face risks and dangers?"

Dorothy did not answer, but her face softened, and her arm stole up about his neck.

"Dot," said Mary, presently, "do not forget the matter we talked of last evening, – that your father was to know."

"And pray, what is that?" the old gentleman asked briskly.

"Come into the library, father, with Mary and me, and we will tell you." And slipping her hand around his arm, she started to lead him in. Mary was about to follow, when he turned to her and held out his other arm. With an answering smile she placed her hand within it, and all three went inside.

Aunt Lettice had gone off to her own apartments, taking 'Bitha for her usual morning instructing, and so they were not likely to be disturbed.

As soon as her father was seated, Dorothy, standing by the window, burst forth with her accustomed vehemence.

"I want to tell you, father," she exclaimed, "that I am sure Aunt Penine is a loyalist!"

"Chut, chut!" he replied reprovingly. But he smiled, used as he was to the differences betwixt his daughter and her exacting relative.

"I have good reason for what I say," Dorothy insisted; "and Mary can tell you so, as well."

"Well, child, first tell me all about it, and do not begin by misnaming any one," her father said gently.

She told him in a few rapid words, – first, what had happened the evening before, and ending by a detailed account of finding the tea in the store-closet.

Her father was scowling ominously by the time the story was finished; and he sat in silence for a few moments, his head bent, as though considering what she had told him. Then he said: "I thank you, my child, for what you have told me. I must speak with Penine o' these matters, and that right away. Do you go, Dot, and tell her I wish to talk with her, and must do so as soon as she can see me in her room."

"Why not let Mary go?" Dorothy suggested. "Aunt Penine likes Mary, and she does not like me – nor I her." And she looked quite belligerent.

"I will be glad to go, if you say so," Mary offered, rising from her chair.

"Well, well," he said, "it matters little to me who goes; only I must see her at once. And thank you, Mary, child, if you will kindly tell her so."

As soon as Mary left the room, Dorothy came over to her father's chair and perched herself upon one of its oaken arms.

"And now there is another thing I wish to tell you," she said, "and I'd best do it now."

He put an arm about her and smiled up into her troubled face.

"Well, well," he said playfully, while he smoothed her curls, "what a wise little head it has grown to be all on a sudden! We shall be hearing soon that Mistress Dorothy Devereux has been invited by the great men o' the town – Lee and Orne and Gerry, and the rest o' them – to be present at their next meeting, and instruct them on matters they wot not on, despite their age and wisdom."

She would not smile at his badinage, but went on soberly to warn him of what she suspected between her Aunt Penine and their ostracized neighbor, Jameson, – telling him also of the unusual amount of coin being spent by the boy, Pashar, whom she had seen carrying notes for her aunt.

The smile left her father's face as he listened to this, and he shook his head gravely. And when she finished, he said, as though to himself, "'T is the enemies in one's own household that are ever the most dangerous." Then rising, he added, "Come with me, Dot, while I speak first to Tyntie."

The old Indian woman had been devoted to the interests of the family since forty years before, when Joseph Devereux found her – a beaten, half-starved child of ten – living with her drunken father in a wretched hut on the outskirts of the town, and brought her to his own house for his wife to rear and instruct. And because of her idolatrous love for her benefactor and his family, she had endured patiently the exacting tyranny of Aunt Penine, whom she detested.

Her tall, spare figure was now moving about her domain with a curious dignity inseparable from her Indian birth; but she paused in what she was doing the moment her master and his daughter appeared at the door, and remained facing them in respectful silence.

She was alone, the men having gone off to their duties about the farm, and the maids to the dairy, or to the housework above stairs.

"I desire to ask you, Tyntie," her master began, addressing her with the same grave courtesy he would have used in speaking to the best-born lady in the land, "if, since I forbade the making or using o' tea in my house, any has been brewed?"

"Yes, master," she answered without any hesitancy; and a sly look, as of revenge, crept into her black eyes.

"How dared ye do such a thing?" he demanded, his face severe with indignation.

"I never did it," was her laconic reply.

"Then who did? I command ye to make a clean breast o' the matter." And he struck his stick peremptorily upon the floor, while Dorothy, awed by the unusual anger showing in his voice and bearing, drew a little away from him.

"It was Mistress Penine brewed the tea, for her own drinking." And Tyntie showed actual pleasure in being thus enabled to expose her oppressor.

"And how often hath this happened since I gave strict orders that none should be had or drunk in this house o' mine?"

"'Most every day; and sometimes more than once in the day."

"And how were you guarding your master's interests, to permit such secret goings on under his roof, without giving him warning?"

The tears rose to Tyntie's eyes and stood sparkling there; but her voice was firm as she replied, "It was not for me to know that Mistress Penine was doing anything wrongful, nor for me, a servant, to come to you, my master, with evil reports o' your own kinsfolk."

She spoke slowly and with calm dignity, and her words softened the white wrath from the old man's face.

He bent his head for a moment, as though pondering deeply; then he looked at her and said in a very different tone: "You are a right-minded, faithful servant, Tyntie, and I must tell you I am sorry to have spoken as I did a moment agone. But from this day henceforth, bear in mind that should you ever see aught being done under my roof that you've heard me forbid, 't is your bounden duty to come and inform me freely o' such matter."

"Yes, master." Tyntie now wiped her eyes, and looked very much comforted.

"Now," he asked, his voice growing stern once more, "know you where aught o' the forbidden stuff be kept, or if there still be any in the house?"

Tyntie went silently to the store-closet and fetched a sizable can of burnished copper. This she opened and held toward her master and young mistress, who saw that it was nearly half filled with the prohibited tea.

Joseph Devereux scowled fiercely as he beheld this tangible evidence of Penine's bad faith and selfishness.

"Do you take that in your own hands, Tyntie, as soon as may be," he said; "or no – take it this instant, down to the beach, and throw it, can and all, into the water. And see to it that you make mention o' this matter to no one."

Then turning slowly, he took his way again to the front of the house, Dorothy following in silence, and feeling unwontedly awed by the apprehension of the storm she felt was about to break; for it was a rare matter indeed for Aunt Penine to be the one entirely at fault in anything.

CHAPTER X

Dorothy saw Mary Broughton on the porch outside and was about to join her, when Mary turned and called out, "Aunt Penine is waiting to see your father."

At this Dorothy retraced her steps to the library, where she had left her father sitting in moody silence, tracing with his stick invisible writings upon the floor, the iron ferule making angry clickings against the oaken polish.

He made no reply to the message she gave him; so, after pausing a moment, she said again that her aunt was awaiting him.

"Yes, yes, child; I hear ye," he replied almost impatiently, and as though not wishing to be disturbed.

Dorothy said nothing more, but went out and joined Mary, who was waiting on the porch; and, arm in arm, they strolled out into the sunshiny morning.

They had gone but a little way when Dorothy's sharp eyes spied Pashar coming from a side door of the house. His black hand held something white, which he was thrusting into the pocket of his jacket.

She called to him sharply, and he turned his head in her direction, while his eyes rolled restlessly. But he made no movement to come to her, and stood motionless, as though awaiting her orders.

"Come here!" she called peremptorily; but still he hesitated.

"Do you come here this instant, Pashar, as I bid you," she commanded, now taking a few steps toward him.

At this he came forward, but in a halting way, and at length stood before her, looking very ill at ease.

"Give me that letter," Dorothy demanded, extending her hand for it.

"Mist'ess Penine done say – " he began in a hesitating, remonstrative fashion; but Dorothy cut him short.

"Give me that letter," she repeated, stamping her small foot, "or you'll be sorry!"

Trained like a dumb beast to obedience, the negro boy fumbled in his pocket and took out a folded paper which he handed to his imperious young mistress.

"What'll I say ter Massa Jameson when I sees him?" he asked tremblingly, as Dorothy's little white fingers closed over the letter. "He'll lay his ridin'-whip 'bout my shoulders, if I goes ter him now."

"My father will surely lay his riding-whip about your shoulders, if you go near Jameson again. I'll see to it myself that you get whipped, if you dare do such a thing," exclaimed Dorothy; and the angry flashing of her dark eyes bore witness to her sincerity.

"Now," she added, "go about your work, – whatever you have to do. And mind, don't you dare stir a step – no matter who bids you – to Jameson's place; else you will get into trouble that will make you wish you had obeyed me."

With this she turned back with Mary in the direction of the house.

"Ye won't have me whipped, will ye, mist'ess?" Pashar whimpered, as he looked after her. "Mist'ess Penine – she tole me I was ter go. An', 'sides, I gets money from Massa Jameson for ev'ry letter I fetches him."

"I'll see presently about your getting whipped," was Dorothy's uncomforting reply, as she glanced over her shoulder at the trembling boy.

The two girls walked quickly toward the house, while Pashar betook himself off with a very downcast air, digging his black fists into his eyes as if he felt only too certain of being punished for his wrongdoing.

Joseph Devereux was ascending the stairway, bound for his sister-in-law's room, when the two girls came in from outside. Dorothy called quickly, and speeding after him, placed the letter in his hand, as he paused and turned to face her.

In a low voice she acquainted him with what she had taken upon herself to do, adding, "I was fearful of what she might have told him, if perchance she overheard anything last night of the gunpowder and arms."

"Wise, trusty little maid," he said, a slow smile touching the gloom of his set face. "You have acted rightly and with great discretion, Dot. And now I will see what Penine has to say o' the matters that look so grave, as we see them."

Pausing at her closed door, on the left-hand side of the upper passage, he knocked, and then entered, as her querulous voice, now somewhat subdued, bade him.

Penine was lying back on a settle, a bright-hued patchwork of silk thrown over her spare form; and her eyes showed traces of recent tears.

Her brother-in-law seated himself in an arm-chair near her, his face grave to sternness, as he bent a piercing look upon her troubled face.

She cast a furtive glance at the paper he still held in his hand; then her eyes fell, and she began to pluck nervously at the edge of the covering, while her face became filled with an expression of guilty embarrassment.

"Penine," he began, in a voice quite low, but full of severity, "these be times when, as you well know, it behooves a householder to look most carefully to the doings of those about him. He must see to it that all appearance, as well as doing, o' wrong be most strictly avoided. And so I have come to ask you, as one o' my own household, how is it that you have been brewing tea for yourself, after all that's been done and said; and how 't is that you have such a supply of the stuff in my house?"

Penine flushed angrily, and tried to look him in the eyes, while her lips half parted, as though to make some retort. Then she seemed to alter her mind, for she remained silent, her eyes falling guiltily before his stern, searching gaze.

"Do not seek to hide your fault by another one – o' falsehood," he warned her, more sternly than before. "I know what I am accusing you of to be the truth, – more's the pity. And it surprises and grieves me that a woman o' such years as you should set a pernicious example to those who, younger and inferior in station to yourself, look to you for a proper code of action for their following."

"What harm is it, I would like to know," she burst out, but weakly, "that I should drink my tea, if I like?"

"The harm you do is to defy your country's law, and make me seem disloyal and false to my word of honor," he replied with increasing sternness. "And this you have no right to do, while you abide under my roof."

"My country's law is the law of His Gracious Majesty," she answered, plucking up a little spirit, but yet unable to meet his dark, angry eyes, "and I have never heard that he forbade his loyal subjects all the tea they could pay for and drink."

"Do ye mean me to understand that ye set yourself up as the enemy o' your townsfolk and kindred?" he demanded, his voice rising. "I've suspected as much since I had knowledge o' the fact o' your sending notes to Robert Jameson."

"You have no right to talk to me so, Joseph," she said, with a whimper, terrified at the angry lighting of his face, now ablaze with wrath.

"And ye have no right to act in a manner that makes it possible for me to presume to. If things be not so black against ye as they surely look, take this note that ye sent my servant with just now, to be delivered to our country's avowed enemy, and read every word aloud to me."

He held the letter toward her; but she made such an eager clutch for it that a sudden impulse led him to change his mind, and he drew back his hand.

"No," he said, "on second thought, 't is best that ye give me permit to read it myself, aloud."

"No, no!" she exclaimed almost breathlessly; and the unmistakable terror in her voice and eyes confirmed him in his determination to see for himself the contents of the letter.

"I have to beg your pardon, Penine," he said with formal courtesy, "for seeming to do a most ungallant act; but your manner only proves to me what is my duty."

With this he deliberately broke the seal and ran his eyes over the paper, while Penine cast one terrified glance at him, and then fell back, silent and cowering, her ashy face covered by her trembling hands.

She had written Jameson of the intended landing of the arms and powder. And Joseph Devereux knew she had done so with a view to having him send word of the matter to the Governor, hoping in this way to win honor and reward for the man she expected to lure into speedy wedlock.

He read the letter once more, and then sat silent, as though pondering over all her selfish treachery and disloyalty. And while he was thus musing, the clock on the mantel ticked with painful loudness, and some flies crawling about the panes of the closed windows buzzed angrily.

When at length he spoke, his wrath seemed to have given place to pity, mingled with utter contempt.