The Heart's Highway: A Romance of Virginia in the Seventeenth Century

In 1682, when I was thirty years of age and Mistress Mary Cavendish just turned of eighteen, she and I together one Sabbath morning in the month of April were riding to meeting in Jamestown. We were all alone except for the troop of black slaves straggling in the rear, blurring the road curiously with their black faces. It seldom happened that we rode in such wise, for Mistress Catherine Cavendish, the elder sister of Mistress Mary, and Madam Cavendish, her grandmother, usually rode with us—Madam Judith Cavendish, though more than seventy, sitting a horse as well as her granddaughters, and looking, when viewed from the back, as young as they, and being in that respect, as well as others, a wonder to the countryside. But it happened to-day that Madam Cavendish had a touch of the rheumatics, that being an ailment to which the swampy estate of the country rendered those of advanced years somewhat liable, and had remained at home on her plantation of Drake Hill (so named in honour of the great Sir Francis Drake, though he was long past the value of all such earthly honours). Catherine, who was a most devoted granddaughter, had remained with her—although, I suspected, with some hesitation at allowing her young sister to go alone, except for me, the slaves being accounted no more company than our shadows. Mistress Catherine Cavendish had looked at me after a fashion which I was at no loss to understand when I had stood aside to allow Mistress Mary to precede me in passing the door, but she had no cause for the look, nor for the apprehension which gave rise to it. By reason of bearing always my burthen upon my own back, I was even more mindful of it than others were who had only the sight of it, whereas I had the sore weight and the evil aspect in my inmost soul. But it was to be borne easily enough by virtue of that natural resolution of a man which can make but a featherweight of the sorest ills if it be but put in the balance against them. I was tutor to Mistress Mary Cavendish, and I had sailed from England to Virginia under circumstances of disgrace; being, indeed, a convict.

I knew exceeding well what was my befitting deportment when I set out that Sabbath morning with Mistress Mary Cavendish, and not only upon that Sabbath morning but at all other times; still I can well understand that my appearance may have belied me, since when I looked in a glass I would often wonder at the sight of my own face, which seemed younger than my years, and was strangely free from any recording lines of experiences which might have been esteemed bitter by any one who had not the pride of bearing them. When my black eyes, which had a bold daring in them, looked forth at me from the glass, and my lips smiled with a gay confidence at me, I could not but surmise that my whole face was as a mask worn unwittingly over a grave spirit. But since a man must be judged largely by his outward guise and I had that of a gay young blade, I need not have taken it amiss if Catherine Cavendish had that look in her eyes when I set forth with her young sister alone save for those dark people which some folk believed to have no souls.

I rode a pace behind Mary Cavendish, and never glanced her way, not needing to do so in order to see her, for I seemed to see her with a superior sort of vision compounded partly of memory and partly of imagination. Of the latter I had, not to boast, though it may perchance be naught to boast of, being simply a kind of higher folly, a somewhat large allowance from my childhood. But that was not to be wondered at, whether it were to my credit or otherwise, since it was inherited from ancestors of much nobler fame and worthier parts than I, one of whom, though not in the direct line, the great Edward Maria Wingfield, the president of the first council of the Dominion of Virginia, having written a book which was held to be notable. This imagination for the setting forth and adorning of all common things and happenings, and my woman's name of Maria, my whole name being Harry Maria Wingfield, through my ancestor having been a favourite of a great queen, and so called for her honour, were all my inheritance at that date, all the estates belonging to the family having become the property of my younger brother John.

But when I speak of my possessing an imagination which could gild all the common things of life, I meant not to include Mistress Mary Cavendish therein, for she needed not such gilding, being one of the most uncommon things in the earth, as uncommon as a great diamond which is rumoured to have been seen by travellers in far India. My imagination when directed toward her was exercised only with the comparing and combining of various and especial beauties of different times and circumstances, when she was attired this way or that way, or was grave or gay, or sweetly helpless and clinging or full of daring. When, riding near her, I did not look at her, she seemed all of these in one, and I was conscious of such a great dazzle forcing my averted eyes, that I seemed to be riding behind a star.

I knew full well, though, as I said before, not studying the matter, just how Mistress Mary Cavendish sat her horse, which was a noble thoroughbred from England, though the one which I rode was a nobler, she having herself selected him for my use. The horse which she rode, Merry Roger, did not belie his name, for he was full of prances and tosses of his fine head, and prickings of his dainty pointed ears, but Mistress Mary sat him as lightly and truly and unswervingly as a blossom sits a dancing bough.

That morning Mistress Mary glowed and glittered and flamed in gorgeous apparel, until she seemed to fairly overreach all the innocent young flowery beauties of the spring with one rich trill of colour, like a high note of a bird above a wide chorus of others. Mistress Mary that morning wore a tabby petticoat of a crimson colour, and a crimson satin bodice shining over her arms and shoulders like the plumage of a bird, and down her back streamed her curls, shining like gold under her gauze love-hood. I knew well how she had sat up late the night before fashioning that hood from one which her friend Cicely Hyde's grandmother had sent her from England, and I knew, the first pages of a young maid being easy to spell out, that she wondered if I, though only her tutor, approved her in it, but I gave no sign. The love-hood was made of such thin and precious stuff that the gold of her head showed through.

Mistress Mary wore a mask of black velvet to screen her face from the sun, and only her sweet forehead and her great blue eyes and the rose-leaf tip of her chin showed.

All that low, swampy country was lush and green that April morning, with patches of grass gleaming like emeralds in the wetness of sunken places and unexpected pools of marsh water gleaming out of the distances like sapphires. The blossoms thrust out toward us from every hand like insistent arms of beauty. There was a frequent bush by the wayside full of a most beautiful pink-horned flower, so exceeding sweet that it harmed the worth of its own sweetness, and its cups seemed fairly dripping with honey and were gummed together with it. There were patches of a flower of a most brilliant and wonderful blue colour, and spreads as of cloth of gold from cowslips over the lowlands. The road was miry in places, and then I would fall behind her farther still that the water and red mud splashing from beneath my horse's hoofs might not reach her. Then, finally, after I had done thus some few times, she reined in her Merry Roger, and looked over her shoulder with a flash of her blue eyes which compelled mine.

"Why do you ride so far away, Master Wingfield?" said she.

I lifted my hat and bent so low in my saddle that the feather on it grazed the red mud.

"Because I fear to splash your fine tabby petticoat, Madam," I answered.

"I care not for my fine petticoat," said she in a petulant way, like that of a spoiled child who is forbidden sweets and the moon, and questions love in consequence, yet still there was some little fear and hesitation in her tone. Mistress Mary was a most docile pupil, seeming to have great respect for my years and my learning, and was as gentle under my hand as was her Merry Roger under hers, and yet with the same sort of gentleness, which is as the pupil and not as the master decides, and let the pull of the other will be felt.

I answered not, yet kept at my distance, but at the next miry place she held in Merry Roger until I was forced to come up, and then she spoke again, and as she spoke a mock-bird was singing somewhere over on the bank of the river.

"Did you ever hear a sweeter bird's song than that, Master Wingfield?" said she, and I answered that it was very sweet, as indeed it was.

"What do you think the bird is mocking, Master Wingfield?" said she, and then I answered like a fool, for the man who meets sweetness with his own bitterness and keeps it not locked in his own soul is a fool.

"I know not," said I, "but he may be mocking the hope of the spring, and he may be mocking the hope in the heart of man. The song seems too sweet for a mock of any bird which has no thought beyond this year's nest."

I spoke thus as I would not now, when I have learned that the soul of man, like the moon, hath a face which he should keep ever turned toward the Unseen, and Mistress Mary's blue eyes, as helpless of comprehension as a flower, looked in mine.

"But there will be another spring, Master Wingfield," said she somewhat timidly, and then she added, and I knew that she was blushing under her mask at her own tenderness, "and sometimes the hopes of the heart come true."

She rode on with her head bent as one who considers deeply, but I, knowing her well, knew that the mood would soon pass, as it did. Suddenly she tossed her head and flung out her curls to the breeze, and swung Merry Roger's bridle-rein, and was away at a gallop and I after her, measuring the ground with wide paces on my tall thoroughbred. In this fashion we soon left the plodding blacks so far behind that they became a part of the distance-shadows. Then, all at once, Mistress Mary swerved off from the main road and was riding down the track leading to the plantation-wharf, whence all the tobacco was shipped for England and all the merchandise imported for household use unladen. There the way was very wet and the mire was splashed high upon Mistress Mary's fine tabby skirt, but she rode on at a reckless pace, and I also, much at a loss to know what had come to her, yet not venturing, or rather, perhaps, deigning to inquire. And then I saw what she had doubtless seen before, the masts of a ship rising straightly among the trees with that stiffness and straightness of dead wood, which is beyond that of live, unless, indeed, in a storm at sea, when the wind can so inspirit it, that I have seen a mast of pine possessed by all the rage of yielding of its hundred years on the spur of a mountain.

When I saw the mast I knew that the ship belonging to Madam Cavendish, which was called "The Golden Horn," and had upon the bow the likeness of a gilt-horn, running over with fruit and flowers, had arrived. It was by this ship that Madam Cavendish sent the tobacco raised upon the plantation of Drake Hill to England.

But even then I knew not what had so stirred Mistress Mary that she had left her sober churchward road upon the Sabbath day, and judged that it must be the desire to see "The Golden Horn" fresh from her voyage, nor did I dream what she purposed doing.

Toward the end of the rolling road the wetness increased; there were little pools left from the recedence of the salt tide, and the wild breath of it was in our faces. Then we heard voices singing together in a sailor-song which had a refrain not quite suited to the day, according to common opinions, having a refrain about a lad who sailed away on bounding billow and left poor Jane to wear the willow; but what's a lass's tears of brine to the Spanish Main and a flask of wine?

As we came up to the ship lying in her dock, we saw sailors on deck grouped around a cask of that same wine which they had taken the freedom to broach, in order to celebrate their safe arrival in port, though it was none of theirs. The sight aroused my anger, but Mary Cavendish did not seem to see any occasion for wrath. She sat her prancing horse, her head up, and her curls streaming like a flag of gold, and there was a blue flash in her eyes, of which I knew the meaning. The blood of her great ancestor, the sea king, Thomas Cavendish, who was second only to Sir Francis Drake, was astir within her. She sat there with the salt sea wind in her nostrils, and her hair flung upon it like a pennant of victory, and looked at the ship wet with the ocean surges, the sails stiff with the rime of salt, and the group of English sailors on the deck, and those old ancestral instincts which constitute the memory of the blood awoke. She was in that instant as she sat there almost as truly that ardent Suffolkshire lad, Thomas Cavendish, ready to ride to the death the white plungers of the sea, and send the Spanish Armada to the bottom, as Mary Cavendish of Drake Hill, the fairest maid of her time in the Colony of Virginia.

Then as suddenly that mood left her, as she sat there, the sailors having risen, and standing staring with shamefaced respect, and covertly wiping with the hairy backs of hands their mouths red with wine. But the captain, one Calvin Tabor, stood before them with more assurance, as if he had some warrant for allowing such license among his men; he himself seemed not to have been drinking. Mistress Mary regarded them, holding in Merry Roger with her firm little hand, with the calm grace of a queen, although she was so young, and all the wild fire was gone from her blue eyes. All this time, I being as close to her side as might be, in case of any rudeness of the men, though that was not likely, they being a picked crew of Suffolkshire men, and having as yet not tasted more wine than would make them unquestioning of strange happenings, and render them readily acquiescent to all counter currents of fate.

They had ceased their song and stood with heavy eyes sheepishly averted in their honest red English faces, but Captain Calvin Tabor spoke, bowing low, yet, as I said before, with assured eyes.

"I have the honour to salute you, Mistress," he spoke with a grace somewhat beyond his calling. He was a young man, as fair as a Dutchman and a giant in stature. He bore himself also curiously for one of his calling, bowing as steadily as a cavalier, with no trembling of the knees when he recovered, and carrying his right arm as if it would grasp sword rather than cutlass if the need arose.

"God be praised! I see that you have brought 'The Golden Horn' safely to port," said Mistress Mary with a stately sweetness that covered to me, who knew her voice and its every note so well, an exultant ring.

"Yes, praised be God, Mistress Cavendish," answered Captain Tabor, "and with fine head winds to swell the sails and no pirates."

"And is my new scarlet cloak safe?" cried Mistress Mary, "and my tabby petticoats and my blue brocade bodice, and my stockings and my satin shoes, and laces?"

Mistress Mary spoke with that sweetness of maiden vanity which calls for tender leniency and admiration from a man instead of contempt. And it may easily chance that he may be as filled with vain delight as she, and picture to himself as plainly her appearance in those new fallalls.

I wondered somewhat at the length of the list, as not only Mistress Mary's wardrobe, but those of her grandmother and sister and many of the household supplies, had to be purchased with the proceeds of the tobacco, and that brought but scanty returns of late years, owing to the Navigation Act, which many esteemed a most unjust measure, and scrupled not to say so, being secure in the New World, where disloyalty against kings could flourish without so much danger of the daring tongue silenced at Tyburn.

It had been a hard task for many planters to purchase the necessaries of life with the profits of their tobacco crop, since the trade with the Netherlands was prohibited by His Most Gracious Majesty, King Charles II, for the supply being limited to the English market, had so exceeded the demand that it brought but a beggarly price per pound. Therefore, I wondered, knowing that many of those articles of women's attire mentioned by Mistress Mary were of great value, and brought great sums in London, and knowing, too, that the maid, though innocently fond of such things, to which she had, moreover, the natural right of youth and beauty such as hers, which should have all the silks and jewels of earth, and no questioning, for its adorning, was not given to selfish appropriation for her own needs, but rather considered those of others first. However, Mistress Mary had some property in her own right, she being the daughter of a second wife, who had died possessed of a small plantation called Laurel Creek, which was a mile distant from Drake Hill, farther inland, having no ship dock and employing this. Mistress Mary might have sent some of her own tobacco crop to England wherewith to purchase finery for herself. Still I wondered, and I wondered still more when Mistress Mary, albeit the Lord's Day, and the penalty for such labour being even for them of high degree not light, should propose, as she did, that the goods be then and there unladen. Then I ventured to address her, riding close to her side, that the captain and the sailors should not hear, and think that I held her in slight respect and treated her like a child, since I presumed to call her to account for aught she chose to do.

"Madam," said I as low as might be, "do you remember the day?"

"And wherefore should I not?" asked she with a toss of her gold locks and a pout of her red lips which was childishness and wilfulness itself, but there went along with it a glance of her eyes which puzzled me, for suddenly a sterner and older spirit of resolve seemed to look out of them into mine. "Think you I am in my dotage, Master Wingfield, that I remember not the day?" said she, "and think you that I am going deaf that I hear not the church bells?"

"If we miss the service for the unlading of the goods, and it be discovered, it may go amiss with us," said I.

"Are you then afraid, Master Wingfield?" asked she with a glance of scorn, and a blush of shame at her own words, for she knew that they were false.

I felt the blood rush to my face, and I reined back my horse, and said no more.

"I pray you have the goods that you know of unladen at once, Captain Tabor," said she, and she made a motion that would have been a stamp had she stood.

Calvin Tabor laughed, and cast a glance of merry malice at me, and bowed low as he replied:

"The goods shall be unladen within the hour, Mistress," said he, "and if you and the gentleman would rather not tarry to see them for fear of discovery—"

"We shall remain," said Mistress Mary, interrupting peremptorily.

"Then," said Captain Calvin Tabor with altogether too much of freedom as I judged, "in case you be brought to account for the work upon the Sabbath, 'The Golden Horn' hath wings for such a wind as prevails to-day as will outspeed all pursuers, even should they borrow wings of the cherubim in the churchyard."

I was glad that Mistress Mary did not, for all her youthfulness of temper, laugh in return, but answered him with a grave dignity as if she herself felt that he had exceeded his privilege.

"I pray you order the goods unladen at once, Captain Tabor," she repeated. Then the captain coloured, for he was quick-witted to scent a rebuff, though he laughed again in his dare-devil fashion as he turned to the sailors and shouted out the order, and straightway the sailors so swarmed hither and thither upon the deck that they seemed five times as many as before, and then we heard the hatches flung back with claps like guns.

We sat there and waited, and the bell over in Jamestown rang and the long notes died away with sweet echoes as if from distant heights. All around us the rank, woody growth was full of murmurs and movements of life, and perfumes from unseen blossoms disturbed one's thoughts with sweet insistence at every gust of wind, and always one heard the lapping of the sea-water through all its countless ways, for well it loves this country of Virginia and steals upon it, like a lover who will not be gainsaid, through meadows and thick woods and coarse swamps, until it is hard sometimes to say, when the tide be in, whether it be land or sea, and we who dwell therein might well account ourselves in a Venice of the New World.

I waited and listened while the sailors unloaded the goods with many a shout and repeated loud commands from the captain, and Mistress Mary kept her eyes turned away from my face and watched persistently the unlading, and had seemingly no more thought of me than of one of the swamp trees for some time. Then all at once she turned toward me, though still her eyes evaded mine.

"Why do you not go to church, Master Wingfield?" said she in a sweet, sharp voice.

"I go when you go, Madam," said I.

"You have no need to wait for me," said she. "I prefer that you should not wait for me."

I made no reply, but reined in my horse, which was somewhat restive with his head in a cloud of early flies.

"Do you not hear me, Master Wingfield?" said she. "Why do you not proceed to church and leave me to follow when I am ready?"

She had never spoken to me in such manner before, and she dared not look at me as she spoke.

"I go when you go, Madam," said I again.

Then, suddenly, with an impulse half of mischief and half of anger, she lashed out with her riding whip at my restive horse, and he sprang, and I had much ado to keep him from bolting. He danced to all the trees and bushes, and she had to pull Merry Roger sharply to one side, but finally I got the mastery of him, and rode close to her again.

"Madam," said I, "I forbid you to do that again," and as I spoke I saw her little fingers twitch on her whip, but she dared not raise it. She laughed as a child will who knows she is at fault and is scared by her consciousness of guilt and would conceal it by a bravado of merriment; then she said in the sweetest, wheedling tone that I had ever heard from her, and I had known her from her childhood:

"But, Master Wingfield, 'tis broad daylight and there are no Indians hereabouts, and if there were, here are all these English sailors and Captain Tabor. Why need you stay? Indeed, I shall be quite safe—and hear, that must be the last stroke of the bell?"

But I was not to be moved by wheedling. I repeated again that I should remain where she was. Then she, grown suddenly stern again, withdrew a little from me, and made no further efforts to get rid of me, but sat still watching the unlading with a gravity which gave me a vague uneasiness. I began to have a feeling that here was more than appeared on the surface, and my suspicion grew as I watched the sailors lift those boxes which were supposed to contain Mistress Mary's finery. In the first place there were enough of them to contain the wardrobe of a lady in waiting, in the second place they were of curious shape for such purposes, in the third place 'twas all those lusty English sailors could do to lift them.

"They be the heaviest furbelows that ever maiden wore," I thought as I watched them strain at the cases, both hauling and pulling, with many men to the ends to get them through the hatch, then ease them to the deck, with regard to the nipping of fingers. I noted, too, an order given somewhat privately by Captain Tabor to put out the pipes, and noted that not one man but had stowed his away.

There was a bridle-path leading through the woods to Laurel Creek, and by that way to my consternation Mistress Mary ordered the sailors to carry the cases. 'Twas two miles inland, and I marvelled much to hear her, for even should nearly all the crew go, the load would be a grievous one, it seemed to me. But to my mind Captain Calvin Tabor behaved as if the order was one which he expected, neither did the sailors grumble, but straightway loaded themselves with the case raised upon a species of hurdles which must have been provided for the purpose, and proceeded down the bridle-path, singing to keep up their hearts another song even more at odds with the day than the first. The captain marched at the head of the sailors, and Mistress Mary and I followed slowly through the narrow aisle of green. I rode ahead, and often pulled my horse to one side, pressing his body hard against the trees that I might hold back a branch which would have caught her headgear. All the way we never spoke. When we reached Laurel Creek, Mistress Mary drew the key from her pocket, which showed to me that the visit had been planned should the ship have arrived. She unlocked the door, and the sailors, no longer singing, for they were well-nigh spent by the journey under the heavy burdens, deposited the cases in the great room. Laurel Creek had belonged to Mistress Mary's maternal grandfather, Colonel Edmond Lane, and had not been inhabited this many a year, not since Mary was a baby in arms. The old furniture still stood in the accustomed places, looking desolate with that peculiar desolateness of lifeless things which have been associated with man. The house at Laurel Creek was a fine mansion, finer than Drake Hill, and the hall made me think of England. Great oak chests stood against the walls, hung with rusting swords and armour and empty powder-horns. A carven seat was beside the cold hearth, and in a corner was a tall spinning-wheel, and the carven stair led in a spiral ascent of mystery to the shadows above.

When the cases were all deposited in the great room, Mistress Mary held a short conference apart with Captain Calvin Tabor, and I saw some gold pass from her hand to his. Then she thanked him and the sailors for their trouble very prettily in that way she had which would have made every one as willing to die for her as to carry heavy weights. Then we all filed out from the house, and Mistress Mary locked the door, and bade good-bye to Captain Tabor; then he and his men took again the bridle-path back to the ship, and she and I proceeded churchward on the highway.

When we were once alone together I spurred my horse up to hers and caught her bridle and rode alongside and spoke to her as if all the past were naught, and I with the rights to which I had been born. It had come to that pass with me in those days that all the pride I had left was that of humility, but even that I was ready to give up for her if necessary.

"Tell me, Madam," said I, "what was in those cases?"

"Have I not told you?" said she, and I knew that she whitened under her mask.

"There is more than woman's finery in those cases, which weigh like lead," said I. "What do they contain?"

Mistress Mary had, after all, little of the feminine power of subterfuge in her. If she tried it, it was, as in this case, too transparent. Straight to the point she went with perfect frankness of daring and rebellion as a boy might.

"It requires not much wit, methinks, Master Wingfield, to see that," said she. Then she laughed. "Lord, how the poor sailor-men toiled to lift my gauzes and feathers and ribbons!" said she. Then her blue eyes looked at me through her mask with indescribable daring and defiance.

"Well, and what will you do?" said she. "You are a gentleman in spite—you are a gentleman, you cannot betray me to my hurt, and you cannot command me like a child, for I am a child no longer, and I will not tell you what those cases contain."

"You shall tell me," said I.

"Make me if you can," said she.

"Tell me what those cases contain," said I.

Then she collapsed all at once as only the citadel of a woman's will can do through some inner weakness.

"Guns and powder and shot and partizans," said she. Then she added, like one who would fain readjust herself upon the heights of her own resolution by a good excuse for having fallen—"Fie, why should I not have told you, Master Wingfield? You cannot betray me, for you are a gentleman, and I am not a child."

"Why have you had guns and ammunition brought from England?" I asked; but in the shock of the discovery I had loosened my grasp of her bridle and she was off, and in a minute we were in Jamestown, and could not disturb the Sabbath quiet by talk or ride too fast.

We were a good hour and a half late, but there was to my mind enough of preaching yet for my soul's good, for I thought not much of Parson Downs nor his sermons, but I dreaded for Mistress Mary that which might come from her tardiness and her Sabbath-breaking, if that were discovered. I dismounted, and assisted Mistress Mary to the horse block, and off came her black velvet mask, and she clapped a pretty hand to her hair and shook her skirts and wiped off a mud splash. Then up the aisle she went, and I after her and all the people staring.

I can see that church as well to-day as if I were this moment there. Heavily sweet with honey and almond scent it was, as well as sweet herbs and musk, which the ladies had on their handkerchiefs, for it was like a bower with flowers. Great pink boughs arched overhead, and the altar was as white as snow with blossoms. Up the aisle she flashed, and none but Mary Cavendish could have made that little journey under the eyes of the governor in his pew and the governor's lady and all the burgesses, and the churchwarden half starting up as if to exercise his authority, and the parson swelling with a vast expanse of sable robes over the Book, with no abashedness and yet no boldness nor unmaidenly forwardness. There was an innocent gayety on her face like a child's, and an entire confidence in good will and loving charity for her tardiness which disarmed all. She looked out from that gauze love-hood of hers as she came up the aisle, and the governor, who had a harsh face enough ordinarily, beamed mildly indulgent. His lady eyed her with a sort of pleasant and reminiscent wonder, though she was a haughty dame. The churchwarden settled back, and as for Parson Downs, his great, red face curved in a smile, and his eyes twinkled under their heavy overhang of florid brow, and then he declaimed in a hoarser and louder shout than ever to cover the fact of his wandering attention. And young Sir Humphrey Hyde, sitting between his mother, Lady Betty, and his sister, Cicely, turned as pale as death when he saw her enter, and kept so, with frequent covert glances at her from time to time, and I saw him, and knew that he knew about Mistress Mary's furbelow boxes.

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