CHAPTER XV.
LOVE’S INVITING LIGHT.
SOMETHING had happened to Mistress Garde Merrill, even as far back as upon that first Sunday at Meeting, when Adam had been beneath the South Church roof, where she could see him from the corners of her eyes. Love had left its sign-manual upon her. She had suddenly become illumined from within, by her heart’s emotions, so that she appeared to shine from afar, in the somewhat gray and unjoyous lives of the Puritan young men about her.
Thus it was that, in addition to Randolph, who attended the service solely for the purpose of feasting his eyes upon her beauty, there was always Wainsworth, who heard nothing of the Meeting’s cheerless proceedings. And there was also young Piety Tootbaker, who knew not at which shrine he was worshiping, from Sunday to Sunday.
Garde was half the time at her uncle, John Soam’s. This fact increased the facilities for the young men to seek her presence, for the Soams were life-loving people, in spite of their Puritan conformity to the somewhat melancholy and smileless practices of the day. Moreover, John Soam, who thought himself something of a farmer, as well as a carpenter and Jack-of-all-genius, not infrequently impressed the would-be suitors into various duties with which he was amusing himself about his place.
Piety Tootbaker was a fat young man of modest wealth in his own right, his father having died leaving Piety his sole heir. He was a heavy lump, who came often and said next to nothing, so that his intentions might have lain anywhere between Prudence, Garde and the family cow, for aught that any one could ascertain definitely. He was John Soam’s easiest prey, when the farmer or carpenter, as the case might be, was seized with a desire to work.
Randolph contented himself with courting David Donner. He felt no small contempt for Wainsworth and Tootbaker, whose movements he was stealthily watching. He had placed his reliance on power always, and with complete success. The present was no time to alter his usual tactics.
Grandfather Donner, left alone with his thoughts, arrived at no conclusions rashly. He went systematically to work on his friends, to get from each an expression of belief that Randolph, if he would become one of them, working for instead of against them, would be a valuable factor for the preservation of the charter. This opinion he readily secured, especially as he gave no hint, as yet, of the method by which Randolph’s conversion was finally to be accomplished. Indeed so much promise could his friends discern in the securing of an end so commendable, that David Donner began to justify himself in the thought of aiding this matter with all reasonable power. He encouraged the growth of a better opinion of Randolph, in his own mind. He argued the man’s case with his friends, with fanatical insistence, until they perforce admitted virtues in Randolph’s disposition, heretofore quite overlooked.
Thus he wrought upon himself until, mentally, he accepted the ex-enemy as his grandson-in-law, to whom he was willing to extend his welcome, if not actually his love. With this development of the case, his dislike for the journey to England increased, while, far from abating, his concern for the charter grew the more active, as he dreamed of preserving it here at his own home.
His state of mind was not a thing at which he arrived immaturely. The proposition had come to him with something of a shock. He had never contemplated Garde’s marriage at all. She was still a child to him, or at least, she had been, up to the moment when Randolph spoke. Not the least difficult of his tasks with himself had been that of compelling himself to admit that Garde had actually arrived at the threshold of womanhood—that she was marriageable. This having been finally accomplished, Randolph had half won his battle.
As long as Garde would presently desire to marry, then why not Randolph, especially as such an alliance would be of such tremendous political significance? Yet he continued still to tell himself that Ruth’s child should not be coerced in any direction whither she was not counseled by her heart and her own inclination to proceed. He could see no reason, however, why she should entertain any notions which might be at variance with his own. Nevertheless it was not without emotion that he finally summoned Garde to the interview in which he meant to broach the proposition.
“My child,” he began, “I have desired to have a talk with you, which bears upon matters of some importance to you and of vast significance to the state.”
“Yes, Grandther,” said Garde dutifully, and she sat down with her knitting. “I suppose you are going to England at last.”
“That remains to be seen,” said David. “The need for something to be done is great. No loyal soul in all our commonwealth could wish for aught but a chance to serve this colony in her present straits. Have you great love for Massachusetts and her people, Garde?”
“Is not love a passion?” she answered, without raising her eyes from her work.
“Love of one’s country is not an unseemly passion,” said her grandfather.
“Then I have for Massachusetts a seemly regard,” said Mistress Merrill, who had given all her love elsewhere.
“And could you sacrifice somewhat of your personal thoughts, and mayhap desires, for the colony? Could you be a little patriot in the hour of your country’s need, my child?” asked the old man, his look intent upon her face.
Garde thought he doubtless referred to his projected trip abroad. She was inclined to believe that she could endure the personal sacrifice of living with the Soams during his absence.
“I should try to be dutiful,” she answered.
David Donner felt his old heart knocking on his ribs. It was a moment of much intensity for him.
“You have always been a dutiful daughter,” he said. “Have you ever had a thought, child, of the womanhood come upon you, and that mayhap you will one day become a wife now, and be as other women, a child no longer?”
“Any young woman would think on these matters by nature,” replied Garde, sagely. “But I have thought of nothing to occur soon, as to such a matter.”
“No, no, to be sure,” said David, nervously. “Yet I have desired to speak with you upon this subject, for an estimable young man has asked me to do this in his favor.”
Garde, who had believed his thought anywhere but here, looked up at him quickly. She saw the old man’s face drawn and eager, his eyes bright with the flame of incipient fanaticism. She was wholly at a loss to understand him.
“A young man?” she repeated. “Some one has spoken to you thus of me?” For a moment her thought ran wildly to Adam. Could it be possible that he had returned and spoken to Grandther Donner already?
Donner cleared his throat. He was pale, for he had not come to this moment without some violence to his own conscience.
“My child,” he said, a little huskily, “a great opportunity is offered to you to render a vast service to your country—to Massachusetts. Edward Randolph, who has long been against us, has come to me with an earnest desire to become one of us, working with us and not against us longer, and asking your hand in marriage, to cement the unity of his interests and hopes with ours. He appears to be an earnest, sincere man, at last heartily in sympathy with our struggles, and worthy of good citizenship among us. I have told him I would speak to you upon this matter, Garde, and take him your answer.” He paused and mopped his forehead with his handkerchief.
Garde could hardly believe her ears. She looked at her grandfather oddly. The color left her cheeks, for a moment, only to rush back in a flood at thought of Adam and the betrothal, to her so sacred. She had no thought whatsoever, during that interval, of the colony, or of patriotism, or of anything save what this proposition meant to Adam and to her. As for Randolph, she know him only by sight, and her instinct had prompted her to shun him, if not to loathe him. Her impulse was to start to her feet and cry out a shrill repudiation of the man’s offer. But the sight of Donner’s face awed her. She had never seen him look like this before. She remained seated. She resumed her knitting.
“But I do not even know Mr. Randolph,” she said, mildly. “I have not been taught to trust or to respect him.”
“But if we have done him injustice,” said David, eagerly, “surely we must welcome an opportunity to correct it. He has worked against us, it is true. He could overthrow our charter, but he chooses rather to become one of our number. If I go abroad, I may fail at the Court of Charles. If we can save our charter here at home, it will be the grandest thing we have ever done. And you can do it, my child—you can do this great thing! You will, I feel you will!”
Garde was a little terrified. The old man’s anxiety was almost dreadful to see. Had he been laying bare a steel crow-bar in his nature, she could not have comprehended more thoroughly the stubbornness which she felt opposition to him now would discover in her grandfather.
“This comes to me so suddenly,” she said, “that I cannot at once think upon it.”
“But you can think what it means to the colony!” said the man, passionately. “You would wish to save the charter! Mr. Randolph has become my friend. I have found that my former estimate of his character was false. He can take away our charter in a moment—his work is done. But he also can save us! He shall save us! Are you a daughter of this commonwealth—a daughter of a patriot? You can save the charter. Oh, what a glorious honor! You will let me take your answer back?”
Garde’s color had gone again, not to return. This was a moment that frightened her heart. No one could have lived there as she had done and not be saturated with the hopes and fears of the colonists, not be trembling for the government, the independence, the manhood they had builded up on those stern rocks. In her first baby utterances she had lisped the word “Charter.” For ten years their charter had been their Holy Grail to those American men and women of Massachusetts. The air was pregnant with patriotism. The Charter had hung trembling in the balance month after month, ever since Cromwell’s son had abdicated the English throne and Charles had sat in power once again. Garde could not have been the true daughter of America she was, had she not thrilled first with the possibilities of this fateful moment, before her soul shivered at the price she would have to pay to perform this splendid-seeming deed.
Sense of duty had been bred and ingrained in the children of that hour. It held a sway well-nigh incredible in youthful minds. It fell athwart Garde’s thought with appalling weight. And yet her soul leaped to Adam’s arms for protection, as her heart bounded to his with love. She felt as if she could crash through the window and run away, to the woods,——anywhere, to escape even the contemplation of this thing. Had it not been for her knitting she felt she must have done something dreadful. As it was she seemed to tie herself into the pattern—the wilder self—and so to gain a sense of calmness.
“I could hardly answer this so soon,” she said. “Haste first leaves no time for thought after.”
“Thought, child?” demanded the old man, on whom her calmness acted as her mother’s had before her. “Can you wish to hesitate, when the whole state stands breathless for your answer?”
“And did you hold me so lightly that you said, ‘Yes,’ the moment this was presented to you?” said Garde. “Grandther, I was but a young girl this morning. What has a moment done to make me such a woman as this?”
“But our charter—our government—our liberty, child!” cried David, raising his two shaking hands above his head. “You can save them all!”
“And is it so light a matter for me to become the mother of our liberty?” said Garde, on whom the spirit of wisdom had strangely descended, no doubt from Goody Dune. “Grandther, you would wish to think of this yourself.”
She had risen from her seat. She faced her grandfather and he saw her eyes nearly on a level with his own. A look of her mother, sad, appealing, forgiving, played intangibly across her face. The old man’s look seemed to follow its transit. He passed his nervous fingers along his brow. The fire died away in his eyes.
“Then think it over,” he said, huskily. “Think it over, my child, think it over. I will not coerce your decision. No, I’ll not coerce her, Ruth, no, no, I’ll not!”
He moved to the door, as one in a dream, and left the room.