CHAPTER VII

The Pearls

Another week went by, and Deborah, quite recovered from her slight illness, bade Dr. Carroll and his sisters good-bye and returned, on a Sunday afternoon, to the Trevor place. It was then about the 1st of August, and certain rumors relative to the reception of the returning commissioners from Lancaster, rumors dearly exciting to the feminine heart, began to radiate from the gubernatorial palace and to spread throughout the country-side. For once in its long existence rumor spoke truth. Upon the 6th day of August were issued elaborate cards ("tickets," they called them then) of invitation for a Governor's ball to be given upon the evening of the 21st to the returning officials. With the delivery of these cards a thrill of excitement and anticipation pulsated through all Anne Arundel County, even running a little way over its irregular borders; and innumerable were the earnest conversations through town and country houses as to costumes suitable for such an occasion. Great hopes, that sank often to despair, were entertained of the arrival of the _Baltimore_, with her usual cargo of vain and delightful things. It was calculated with the nicest discrimination that she might reach port, provided the winds were amiable to an impossible degree, as early as the 15th. Then the weather of the West Atlantic was watched with supreme interest. It certainly was all that could be desired. Nevertheless, the 15th came and went without the _Baltimore_, and there was wailing on both sides of the Severn. In time the interest in the ship's arrival came to surpass its object; though, indeed, Betty Pritchard voiced many another's feeling when she one day cried out, wofully:

"If the _Baltimore_ doesn't come in, I'll have no pink taffeta for a petticoat to my satin overdress. If I don't have the petticoat, I won't go to the ball; and if I don't go to the ball, I shall die!"

One of the most anxious watchers for the arrival of the ship was, oddly enough, Madam Trevor. Her anxiety concerning it quite passed the comprehension of her daughters, who had not a suspicion of what was in their mother's mind. Vincent knew more, but had never seen fit to talk to his sister on the subject of the pearls which were to form Virginia Trevor's ornaments on the day that she married Sir Charles. It was tacitly understood between young Trevor and his mother that he should speak to his cousin on the arrival of the jewels, and it was madam's ambition to be able to spread the news of Virginia's engagement at the much-talked-of ball.

The _Baltimore_ was a considerate ship, and her captain the favorite of all sea-going men in Annapolis. Neither lost a reputation this time, for, on the 20th of August, at ten o'clock in the morning, the _Baltimore_ cast anchor in the lower piers, and Annapolis womanhood sighed with relief. It was but seven o'clock on the evening of the same day, and the Trevor family sat at supper in the glass room, watching the twilight deepen over the scented garden, when Pompey hastily entered to announce the unexpected arrival of young Charles Carroll.

"An' he say _Baltimo'e_ 's heah, Mis' Trev'," he added, eagerly, glad to be the first with the news.

Madam Trevor rose with a light in her face as the doctor's son came merrily in. Having saluted each member of the party, he advanced to the mistress of the house, paused for an instant to take on an air of heavy responsibility, and finally produced, from the pockets of his new cloth coat, two packages, wrapped in paper and tied with cord, the one square and flat, the other five inches thick and also square.

"From Captain Croft," he observed, handing them to Madam Trevor, while all at the table looked on with interest. In a moment the strings were cut, and the paper wrappings thrown off. Two cases of dark green morocco appeared. With a deep-drawn breath her mother carried them round the table and set them before Virginia.

"They are to be yours," she said, gently. "Open them."

Virginia, surprised, but unmoved, lifted the covers from the cases. In one, upon a green satin lining, reposed a necklace of round, softly shining pearls, set in gold, with a pendant of pear-shaped pearls and sapphires. The other case contained a hair ornament, also of pearls, pink and black, in two even rows, surmounted by a delicate scroll-work of the smaller stones, that shone in the dusk with exquisite beauty.

Virginia drew a deep sigh of admiration. Lucy cried out with delight; and Madam Trevor and the gentlemen, looking on in high interest, did not notice Deborah, who sat silent, eager, with her great eyes fixed in unwinking fascination on the perfect gems.

"Put them on, Virginia," cried young Charles, and there was a murmur of approval.

Lilith, who had been standing by her husband at a little distance, lost in admiration, nudged old Adam.

"Fetch some can'les," she whispered, excitedly.

Virginia, with a little smile, took up the necklace, and her mother clasped it about her slender throat. Then the tiara was set and pinned upon her powdered curls, and Adam, coming forward with a candle in each hand, held the lights up before her.

"'Ginny, you must wear them to the ball!" cried Lucy, ecstatically.

Virginia had no time to reply, for her mother gently interposed: "They are not Virginia's yet, Lucy. She shall wear them on her wedding-day."

Charles Fairfield started slightly as his unfortunate eyes suddenly encountered those of Virginia, who, in her turn, flushed and bent her head.

"I shall never wear them, then," was on her tongue to say; but her brother interrupted.

"Charlie," he said, addressing his cousin, "come down to the river with me and see the moon rise. It's in the full to-night."

"Oh, may I come, too?" said Lucy, eagerly.

"No, Lucy; I need you here," interposed her mother, much annoyed with Vincent's want of tact.

Fairfield, grasping the whole situation, rose at once, without a word. Before leaving the room he stole an involuntary glance at Deborah. She was looking at him, for she herself guessed what she did not know. Her lips were curled into a little smile of amusement that set the man's heart on fire with anger at--Madam Trevor. He said nothing, however, but quietly followed Vincent into the still evening.

An hour later Madam Trevor sat alone in the great hall. Young Charles and the three girls, one by one, had gone to their various rooms, and the mother was waiting alone for the return of her son and her nephew. She was unaccountably anxious over the result of the interview, though indeed there was not one reason which her nephew could, in honor, conjure up, whereby he might refuse to marry Virginia Trevor. It was with the understanding of a some-time marriage that he had come to America with Vincent months before, and because the matter had been so long silently understood, it should not have been hard for him to hear it finally discussed. Thus, many times over, Virginia's mother argued in the candle-light, while she waited. And still, into the midst of her most unanswerable conclusion, would creep a doubt, a suspicion that she would not voice, the name of one whom she tried in vain to put from her mind. It was Deborah. Deborah Travis and Charles Fairfield? Absurd! And yet--madam could see the face of the girl as it had been that evening when Vincent and his cousin left the room. She could see the ironical light in the gray-blue eyes, the scornful curl of the red mouth, the unconscious insolence of the long, natural curl that fell, powderless, down her shoulder to the muslin ruffles at her elbow. Madam Trevor had a measure of justice in her, and she gave Deborah her due, admitting to herself that Virginia, in all her stateliness, with the pearls upon her, would never have tempted man to half the desperation that might be raised within him over this other silent creature, half child, half woman, of madam's own generation.

The clock on the wall ticked ten and went on again. At a quarter after, Trevor and Fairfield came in from the moonlight to the hall. Fairfield was very pale. Vincent's face was calm and unreadable. Sir Charles, seeing his aunt expectant, went over to her, lifted her passive hand to his lips, bowed, and left the room to retire to his own. When he was gone madam turned a puzzled and anxious face towards her son, who stood still, narrowly scrutinizing a portrait on the opposite wall.

"He has refused, then, Vincent?" she asked, finally.

"On the contrary, he will marry Virginia when you please."

"Then he asked too much dowry?"

"He said nothing at all of dowry."

"In Heaven's name, then--what is the matter?"

Vincent sighed, rather wearily. "Nothing is the matter. He does not love Virginia, of course, but--"

"Nonsense, my boy! He would not marry her if she were distasteful to him. Love will come. What girl loves her husband when she marries him? What else did he say, Vincent?"

Vincent shrugged his shoulders. "He said nothing at all. He informed me, when I spoke, that he did himself the honor formally to ask of me the hand of my elder sister. I accepted the offer. After that we walked about. I suppose you will make the engagement public at the ball on Wednesday. I'm deucedly tired to-night. Permit me to wish that you will sleep well."

"Good-night, my dear Vincent. Your scruples portray the height of your nature. I honor you for them--but do not worry. Everything will be well. And so good-night."

With great relief at her heart the mother gently kissed her son, and then, as he departed with his candle, she blew out all but one of those remaining in the hall, and with that lighted herself to her rooms in the eastern wing.

At the other end of the house, in the chamber corresponding to Madam Trevor's, on the ground floor, was that of Sir Charles. Outside his room, in the passage, were the stairs; and directly overhead were the long, narrow spinning-room, the hand-loom in its corner, and, incidentally, Deborah's diminutive chamber. Sir Charles had retired, for want of anything better to do, and now lay on his cool, flat bed, sleepless, restless, and a prey to unhappy thoughts. It had come to pass, that thing which he had dreaded all the summer through. He was engaged to marry Virginia Trevor. In a night or two all Maryland would be ringing with the affair. In as many months he and his bride would be leaving the colonies, Annapolis, the plantation--in short, Deborah--probably forever. And Sir Charles twisted and turned and tried to put the grayish eyes and the curling red lips out of his mind. They refused to go. Finally another thought came to bear them company--a thought generated by them, perhaps, and certainly bold enough and daring enough to smack of the Court of a Stuart, and to seem absolutely mad in this prim colonial bedroom of old George Guelph's staid American dependency. None the less the thought had found a congenial home, and it expanded, flourished, and gained body and limb till a merry, full-grown plot was playing havoc with young Fairfield's hope of sleep. He continued to lie there, restless and scheming, till all his own thoughts were banished by the sound of footsteps and a trailing of garments, and a curious liveliness of movement coming to his quickened senses from the room overhead.

Deborah also was awake. Rather, the moonlight, creeping along the pillow to her face, had roused her, by slow degrees, from a half waking dream. Alone, in the silent, enchanted night, with no disturbing day-thoughts to banish the lingering visions of sleep, the dream stayed and grew to be a fantasy of reality. She rose from her bed and moved slowly towards her open windows, through which the bluish silver moonlight flowed, changing the room into a misty-veiled fairy place. Below, outside the window, lay the dreaming rose-garden. The lazily floating odor of full-blown flowers came up to her, as incense on its way to a higher heaven. Beyond this lay the deep-shadowed wood, with here and there a high, feathery tree-top waving to the stars. The rippling plash of the river played a low accompaniment to the night hymns of the myriad creatures singing through the country-side. Far beyond the garden, rising like two cloud-shadows through the luminous night, were the great tobacco barns. Slave-cabins, still-house, kitchen, well-sweep, all were changed, by the mysterious power of night, to things of natural beauty. And Deborah was changed. Her dreams had been of courts and palaces, of dimly resplendent royal figures, among which she, and Charles Fairfield, and Claude de Mailly moved in inexplicable near-relationship. She, Deborah Travis, had just been crowned Queen of all Europe by the hand of Majesty, with her cousin Virginia's pearls. Now, in the waking dream, Deborah could not turn her thoughts from those same softly shining things that Virginia was to wear upon her wedding-day.

Presently, with this single image in her mind, Deborah found herself outside her room, and creeping, in her white garment, with naked feet, down, down the stairs, past Sir Charles's door, through the deserted, moonlit living-rooms, with their misplaced furniture and the scattered articles of a day waiting for dawn and Lilith to be put straight. She passed across the sitting-room, down the east passage, and, finally, in at the doorway of Madam Trevor's dressing-room. Once inside Deborah halted. Madam Trevor's garments lay, neatly folded, upon a chair. The door to the bedchamber beyond was half closed. From within came the light sound of regular breathing. Deborah smiled, and turned to the great black chest of drawers beside the window. Here also the moonlight illumined her way. She opened the top drawer noiselessly. Within, on a bed of lavender, lay the two morocco cases for which she had come. She took them up, left the drawer open, and glided quietly away again.

Once more in her own room the girl opened the cases and placed them on her dressing-table, their priceless contents all unveiled. Then she went to her own chest of drawers, and took from one of them the dress that she was to wear two nights later at the Governor's ball, a petticoat of stiff, white satin, and an overdress of China crepe, of the color of apple-blossoms, a thing that clung lovingly to her lithe figure, and vied in softness of tone with her neck and arms. These things she put on, with rapid, careless precision; and then, her fingers grown a little colder, she lifted the pearl necklace from its satin bed and clasped it about her warm throat. Afterwards she sat down on a low chair before the dressing-table, with its dim mirror, and took the tiara from the other box, placing it over her rebellious, silky curls.

"Ah, Claude, Claude, how was it, that thy cousin looked?" she murmured indistinctly, with a vague smile at her thought.

The dreamy, languorous eyes that knew not all they beheld, gazed at the reflected image of her face. How beautifully the young head in its coronet was poised upon the pearl-wreathed neck! Was it a new Deborah sprung to life here, in this August midnight? Was it only a momentary madness that should not be told, this carrying out of a dim vision? What was it that Deborah murmured to her mirror? What did she say to the shadowy throngs of courtiers that pressed about her chair? Was ever la Châteauroux more regal, more gracious? Were ever Comtesse de Mailly, and poor little Pauline Félicité, Marie Anne's predecessors, more gay, more delicately glowing, than this other, of alien race?

From the heap of her finery Deborah sought out a painted fan, and, with this finishing touch of coquetry, she began walking up and down her tiny room, pausing now and then at the window, for the night would not be disregarded, waving the fan with an air inimitable and unacquired, seeing herself thus in the Orangerie of Versailles, or on one of the Paris boulevards as crowded with fashion and gallantry upon a Sunday afternoon. After a little she grew tired, and her mind dropped its imaginings. She seated herself beside the window, and, unclasping the necklace, took it off and held the jewels up in the moonlight, pressing their soft smoothness to her cheek, where the pendant drops hung like falling tears.

Suddenly, upon the perfect stillness around her, broke a sound. Slow stealthy footsteps were crossing the floor of the spinning-room just outside. Deborah grew cold with instant terror. She heard a hand placed upon her door, and then came a voice, soft, well known, through the stillness: "Deborah--Deborah!"

It was the lightest of whispers, but every accent fell distinctly on the girl's terrified ears. Moving noiselessly in her bare feet, she carried the necklace to the bureau, took the ornament from her head, and laid each piece in its case. Then, running across the floor, she knelt in her ball-dress, at the door, grasping its handle firmly.

"Deborah--you are awake?" repeated Sir Charles, more delicately yet.

The girl breathed fast, but made not a sound. Only her hand tightened upon the handle, and her figure stiffened with determination.

"Let me come in," he said.

Then silence fell between the two, separated by three inches of board and Deborah's will, there in the August night. There was no one to know that he was there. Vincent, and Lucy, and young Charles Carroll, sound sleepers all of them, were in the body of the house; and Virginia was above her mother in the far eastern wing. The muscles in Deborah's body grew more rigid, and desperately she held herself against the door. But Fairfield was making no effort to enter. It should be only with her own consent that he would do that.

"Deborah--beloved--open to me! Deborah--hear me as I have heard you for an hour past. Let me in--Deborah--my dear!"

She shut her eyes and pressed her forehead against her arm. There was a silence, breathless, endless, terrifying to the girl in the room. Then her weight of fear was lifted. The footsteps slowly retreated from her door, out of the spinning-room, down the stairs, and entered into the room below her own. She sank weakly to her knees, and a breath like a sob shook her slight frame. She was intensely sleepy now. For very weariness, it was hard to realize the crisis through which she had passed. But there was a task still before her, and one at which she trembled. Rising unsteadily, too wise to give herself time to think, she took the jewel-cases from her toilet-table, opened her door, crept out, and down the stairs, and passed stealthily back to madam's dressing-room. The room, the drawer, were as she had left them. Replacing Virginia's pearls in their bed of lavender, she pushed the drawer to, inch by inch, till it was closed. Three minutes later she had once more crossed the threshold of her own room. And while the pale moon set and the day dawned in crimson and turquoise over the distant Chesapeake, Deborah slept dreamlessly--Claude, and the Versailles pageants, and Charles Fairfield's strange madness all lost to her for the moment under the spell of the great blessing of youth.

Matters were different with Sir Charles, below. No sleep had the dusky dawn, with its liquid bird-warblings and its fresh day-odor, for him. He was thinking of what he had done--and of what he should do. The impulse that had driven him to go to the room above was past now. He knew only that he had forfeited her very tolerance of him; and the thought quickened his half-generated love into a sudden, fervid life that swayed his senses and fired his brain to plots and plans of unwise daring. At six o'clock he was dressed, and sat him down to wait for Deborah's waking. It was an endless hour, and day had begun over the whole plantation before he heard her cross the floor over his head, and knew that his waiting was bounded at last.

Deborah was half dressed before the sudden memory of the past night flashed over her. Then her hands dropped to her sides, and she sat still for a little, thinking. How should she meet Charles Fairfield before them all--or, worse yet, if possible, alone? How could he meet her? Had she done anything wrong? No. What he had done was not her concern. And thereupon, with a lighter heart, but doubt still in her face, she finished dressing, set her room to rights--for she was immaculately neat--and started away without seeming reluctance. She was going downstairs, her thoughts centred on the breakfast-room as the place of ordeal. The door at the stair-foot opened; Sir Charles came out of his room and stood below her, barring the way.

She stopped stock-still, noting the pallor of his face and the dark circles below his blue eyes. Then suddenly she smiled, and said, brightly, "Good-morning, Sir Charles."

"Is it good-morning to me, Deborah? Deborah, I make you my humblest apologies. I crave your for--"

She came down the last three steps with a changed expression. "We'll not speak of that," she said, slowly, in a perfectly frigid tone.

Thereupon she would have passed him, but he caught her suddenly by the delicate wrists. "Yes, we will speak of it, Debby. I will have it so. You shall grant me pardon, Debby."

"And why, sir, pray? Is my pardon at your command?"

"You'll forgive me because--because I love you, Deborah. You'll forget when you are become my wife. You will pardon me when you know all."

Down the upper hall came the blithe, morning whistle of young Charles Carroll. He was approaching the stairs.

"Speak to me, Deborah," muttered Fairfield, with desperate earnestness.

Deborah gave him a long, strange look from her gray eyes. It was an inscrutable look, one that baffled him who caught it; but he did not know that the feeling which it called forth had baffled also the girl.

"Good-morning to you, Deborah!" cried young Charles. "Good-morning, Fairfield! Oh, but I'm hungry! Are we going to breakfast now?"

"Yes, I suppose so," responded Deborah, absently.

"Do you return to town this morning?" inquired Fairfield, as they all passed through the sitting-room.

"Yes. Though if I could help it, I would not."

"I'll ride with you, then. I am going to-day to call on Rockwell. Good-morning, Lucy. Ah, Vincent!"

"You ride to town to-day?" inquired Vincent, when the greetings were over. "You'll see Rockwell to-morrow, you know, at our famous ball."

"Um--yes, but I prefer to-day. I've a matter to arrange with him."

At this speech Deborah glanced at Fairfield, and, at the meaning in his look, a wave of color rolled swiftly over her face. It was as well that, at this moment, Madam Trevor, with Virginia close behind her, entered the breakfast-room, and the morning meal began.