The minister had lost his gravity, and spoke with warmth and bitterness.
As he paused for breath, Mistress Evelyn took her eyes from the group of
those about to run and opened her fan. "A careless father, at least," she
said. "If he hath learning, he should know better than to set his daughter
there."
"She's not his own, ma'am. She's an orphan, bound to Darden and his wife,
I suppose. There's some story or other about her, but, not being curious
in Mr. Darden's affairs, I have never learned it. When I came to
Virginia, five years ago, she was a slip of a girl of thirteen or so.
Once, when I had occasion to visit Darden, she waylaid me in the road as I
was riding away, and asked me how far it was to the mountains, and if
there were Indians between them and us."
"Did she so?" asked Haward. "And which is--Audrey?"
"The dark one--brown as a gypsy--with the dogwood in her hair. And mark
me, there'll be Darden's own luck and she'll win. She's fleeter than a
greyhound. I've seen her running in and out and to and fro in the forest
like a wild thing."
Bare of foot and slender ankle, bare of arm and shoulder, with heaving
bosom, shut lips, and steady eyes, each of the six runners awaited the
trumpet sound that should send her forth like an arrow to the goal, and to
the shining guinea that lay thereby. The spectators ceased to talk and
laugh, and bent forward, watching. Wagers had been laid, and each man kept
his eyes upon his favorite, measuring her chances. The trumpet blew, and
the race was on.
When it was over and won, the May Queen rose from her seat and crossed the
grass to her fine lady guest. "There are left only the prizes for this and
for the boys' race and for the best dancer. Will you not give them,
Mistress Evelyn, and so make them of more value?"
More curtsying, more complimenting, and the gold was in Evelyn's white
hand. The trumpet blew, the drum beat, the fiddlers swung into a quick,
staccato air, and Darden's Audrey, leaving the post which she had touched
some seconds in advance of the foremost of those with whom she had raced,
came forward to receive the guinea.
The straight, short skirt of dull blue linen could not hide the lines of
the young limbs; beneath the thin, white, sleeveless bodice showed the
tint of the flesh, the rise and fall of the bosom. The bare feet trod the
grass lightly and firmly; the brown eyes looked from under the dogwood
chaplet in a gaze that was serious, innocent, and unashamed. To Audrey
they were only people out of a fairy tale,--all those gay folk, dressed in
silks and with curled hair. They lived in "great houses," and men and
women were born to till their fields, to row their boats, to doff hats or
curtsy as they passed. They were not real; if you pricked them they would
not bleed. In the mountains that she remembered as a dream there were pale
masses of bloom far up among the cliffs; very beautiful, but no more to be
gained than the moon or than rainbow gold. She looked at the May party
before which she had been called much as, when a child, she had looked at
the gorgeous, distant bloom,--not without longing, perhaps, but
indifferent, too, knowing that it was beyond her reach.