The Bride Of Fort Edward: Founded On An Incident Of The Revolution Part 15

_Helen_. I know it,--I know it all. I do indeed.

_Mrs. G_. Helen, will you place yourself defenceless amidst that savage race, whose very name from your childhood upwards, has filled you with such strange fear? Yesterday I chid you for those fancies,--I was wrong,--they were warnings, heaven-sent, to save you from this doom.

What was that dream you talked of then?

_Helen_. Dreams are nothing. Will you unsay a life's lessons now when most I need them?

_Mrs. G_. Yesterday, all day, a shadow as of coming evil lay upon me, but now I remember the forgotten vision whence it fell. Yesternight I had a dream, Helen, such as yours might be; for in my broken and fevered slumbers, wherever I turned, one vision awaited me. There was a savage arm, and over it fell a shower of golden hair, and ever and anon, in the shadowy light of my dream, a knife glittered and waved before me. We were safe, but over one,--some young and innocent and tender one it was--there hung a hopeless and inexorable fate. Once methought it seemed the young English girl that was wedded here last winter, and once she turned her eye upon me--Ha!--I had forgotten that glance of agony--surely, Helen, it was _yours_.

_Mrs. G_. Helen! my child--(_Aside_.) There it is, that same curdling glance,--'twas but a dream, Helen. Why do you stand there so white and motionless--why do you look on me with that fixed and darkening eye?--'twas but a dream!

_Helen_. And where were you?--tell me truly. Was it not by a gurgling fountain among the pine trees there? and was it not noon-day in your dream, a hot, bright, sultry noon, and a few clouds swelling in the western sky, and nothing but the trilling locusts astir?

_Mrs. G_. How wildly you talk; how should I remember any thing like this?

_Helen_. I will not yield to it; tempt me not. 'Tis folly all, I know it is. Danger there is none. Long ere yonder hill is abandoned, Everard will be here; and who knows that I am left here alone, and who would come here to seek me out but he? Oh no, I cannot break this solemn faith for a dream. What would he give to know I held my promise and his love lighter than a dream? I must _stay_ here, mother.

_Mrs. G_. No, my child. Hear me. If this must be indeed, if all my holy right in you is nothing, if you will indeed go over to our cruel enemy, and rejoice in our sorrows and triumph in our overthrow----

_Helen_. Hear her----

_Mrs. G_. Be it so, Helen,--be it so; but for all that, do not stay here to-day. Bear but a little longer with our wearisome tenderness, and wait for some safer chance of forsaking us. Come.

_Helen_. If I could--Ah, if I could----

_Mrs. G_. You can--you will. Here, let me help you, we shall be ready yet. No one knows of this wild scheme but your brother and myself, no one else shall ever know it. Come.

_Helen_. If I could. 'Tis true, I did not know when I sent him this promise you would leave me alone ere the hour should come. Perhaps--no, it would never do. When he comes and finds that, after all, I have deserted him, once with a word I angered him, and for years it was the last between us;--and what safer chance will there be in these fearful times of meeting him? No, no. If we do not meet now, we are parted for ever;--if I do not keep my promise now, I shall see him no more.

_Mrs. G_. See him no more then. What is he to us--this stranger, this haughty, all-requiring one? Think of the blessed days ere he had crossed our threshold. You have counted all, Helen? The anguish that will bring tears into your proud brother's eyes, your sister's comfortless sorrow?--did you think of her lonely and saddened youth? You counted the wild suffering of this bitter moment,--did you think of the weary years, the long sleepless nights of grief, the days of tears; did you count the anguish of a mother's broken heart, Helen? G.o.d only can count that.

You did not--there come the blessed tears at last. Here's my own gentle daughter, once again. Come, Helen, see, they are waiting for us. There stands the old chaise under the locust tree. You and I will ride together. Come, 'tis but a few steps down that shady path, and we are safe--a few steps and quickly trod. Hark! the respite is past even now.

Do you stand there marble still? Helen, if you stay here, we shall see you no more. This lover of yours hates us all. He will take you to England when the war is over if you outlive its b.l.o.o.d.y hazards, and we are parted for ever. I shall see you no more, Helen, my child; my child, I shall see you no more. (_She sinks upon the chair, and weeps aloud_.)

_Helen_. Has it come to this? Will you break my heart? If it were continents and oceans that you bade me cross, but those few steps--Ah, they would sever me from him for ever, and I cannot, I cannot, I can _not_ take them,--there is no motion so impossible. Yes, they are calling us. Do not stay.

(_Annie enters_.)

_Annie_. Mother, will you tell me what this means?

_Mrs. G_. Yes, come in. We will waste no more time about it. She will stay here to meet her lover, she will forsake us for a traitor. We have nursed an enemy among us. The babe I cherished in this bosom, whose sleeping face I watched with a young mother's love, hath become my enemy. Oh my G.o.d--is it from thee?

_Annie_. Helen! my sister! Helen!

_Mrs. G_. Ay, look at her. Would you think that the spirit which heaves in that light frame, and glances in those soft eyes, held such cruel power? Yesterday I would have counted it a breath in the way of my lightest purpose, and now--come away, Annie--it is vain, you cannot move her.

(_George enters_.)

_George_. Mother, if Helen will not go now, we must leave her to her fate or share it with her. Every wagon is on the road but ours. A little more, and we shall be too late for the protection of the army. Shall I stay with her?

_Mrs. G_. No, never. That were a sure and idle waste of life. Helen, perhaps, may be safe with them. Oh. yes, the refugees are safe, else desertion would grow out of fas.h.i.+on soon.

_Annie_. Refugees! Refugee! Helen!

_Mrs. G_. It sounds strange for one of us I know. You will grow used to it soon. Helen belongs to the British side, she will go over to them to-day, but she must go alone, for none of us would be safe in British hands, at least I trust so--this morning's experience might make me doubtful, but I trust we are all true here yet beside.

_Annie_. Have I heard aright, Helen?--or is this all some fearful dream?

You and I, who have lived together all the years of our lives, to be parted this moment, and for ever,--no, no!

(_A young American Officer enters hastily_.)

_Capt. Grey_. Softly, softly! What is this? Are you in this conspiracy to disgrace me, mother? Oh, very well; if you have all decided to stay here, I'll take my leave.

_Annie_. Oh, Henry, stay. You can persuade her it may be.

_Capt. G. Persuade_! What's all this! A goodly time for rhetoric forsooth! Who's this that's risking all our lives, waiting to be persuaded now?

_Mrs. G_. That Tory, Henry! We should have thought of this. Ah, if we had gone yesterday,--that haughty Maitland,--she will stay here to meet him! She will marry him, my son.

_Capt. G_. Maitland!--and stay here!

_Helen_. Dear Henry, let us part in kindness. Do not look on me with that angry eye. It was I that played with you in the woods and meadows, it was I that roamed with you in those autumn twilights,--you loved me then, and we are parting for ever it may be..

_Capt. G_. (_To the children at the door_.) Get you down, young ones, get you down. Pray, mother, lead the way, will you?--break up this ring.

Come, Helen, you and I will talk of this as we go on, only in pa.s.sing give me leave to say, of all the mad pranks of your novel ladies, this caps the chief. You have outdone them, Helen; I'll give you credit for it, you have outdone them all.

Why you'll be chronicled,--there's nothing on record like it, that ever I heard of; I am well-read in romances too. We'll have a new love-ballad made and set to tune, under the head of "Love and Murder," it will come though, if you don't make haste a little. Come, come.

_Helen_. Henry!

_Capt. G_. Are you in earnest, Helen? Did you suppose that we were mad enough to leave you here? You'll not go with us? But you will, by Heaven!

_Helen_. Henry! Mother!--Nay, Henry, this is vain. I shall stay here, I shall--I shall stay here,--so help me Heaven.

_Capt. G_. Helen Grey! Is that young lioness there my sometime sister?--my delicate sister?--with her foot planted like iron, and the strength of twenty men nerving her arm?

_Helen_. Let go.--I shall stay here.

_Capt. G_. Well, have your way, young lady, have your way; but--Mother, if you choose to leave that mad girl here, you can,--but as for this same Everard Maitland, look you, my lady, if I don't stab him to his heart's core, never trust me.

(_He goes out--Mrs. Grey follows him to the door_.)

_Mrs. G_. Stay, Henry,--stay. What shall we do?

_Capt. G_. Do!--Indeed, a straight waistcoat is the only remedy I know of, Madam, for such freaks as these. If you say so, she shall go with us yet.

_Mrs. G_. Hear me. This is no time for pa.s.sion now Hear me, Henry. This Maitland, _Tory_ as he is, is her betrothed husband, and she has chosen her fate with him; we cannot keep her with us; nay, with what we have now seen, it would be vain to think of it, to wish it even. She must go to him,--it but remains to see that she meets him safely. Noon is the hour appointed for his coming. Could we not stay till then?

_Capt. G_. Impossible. Noon?--well.--Oh, if its all fixed upon;--if you have settled it between yourselves that Helen is to abandon us and our protection, for Everard Maitland's and the British, the sooner done, the better. She's quite right,--she's like to find no safer chance for it than this. Noon,--there is a picket left on yonder hill till after that time, certainly, and a hundred men or so in the fort. I might give Van Vechten a hint of it--nay, I can return myself this afternoon, and if she is not gone then, I will take it upon me she is not left a second time. Of course Maitland would be likely to care for her safety. At all events there's nothing else for us to do, at least there's but one alternative, and that I have named to you.