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Updated: May 16, 2025
I saw that Mistress Mary had been acquainting him with what had passed and her puzzlement over it. "There is naught to explain, Sir Humphrey," said I. "'Tis very simple: Mistress Mary hath the goods for which she sent to England." "Master Wingfield, you know those are my Lady Culpeper's goods, and I have no right to them," cried Mary.
"Where be my Lady Culpeper's goods?" said he; "'tis time they were here and I on my way to the ship. Devil take me if I run such a risk again for any man." Then I made my errand known. I had some fifty pounds saved up from the wreck of my fortunes; 'twas a third more than the goods were worth.
"Were they, after all, not my Lady Culpeper's?" asked Sir Humphrey. "They are Mistress Mary Cavendish's," said I. Mary turned suddenly to Sir Humphrey. "'Tis time you were gone now, Humphrey," she said, softly. "'Twas only last night you were here, and there is need of caution, and your mother " But Humphrey was loth to go. "'Tis not late," he said, "and I would know more of this matter."
But I bowed and said, "Madam, the goods are yours, and not Lady Culpeper's." "But I I lied when I gave the list to my grandmother," she cried out, half sobbing, for she was, after all, little more than a child tiptoed to womanhood by enthusiasm. "Madam," said I, and I bowed again. "You mistake yourself; Mistress Mary Cavendish cannot lie, and the goods are in truth yours."
And she hath heard me say, that I know well, that I thought 'twas a noble list of Lady Culpeper's, and I wished I were a governor's wife or daughter, that I could have such fine things. I remember me well that I told her thus before ever the Golden Horn sailed for England, that time after Cicely Hyde slept with me and told me what she had from Cate Culpeper.
Never saw I such a rich assortment, and calling to mind my Lady Culpeper's thin and sour visage, I wondered within myself whether such fine feathers might in her case suffice to make a fine bird, though some of them were for her daughter Cate, who was fair enough.
The four daughters Victoria, the eldest, who had nursed in France during the war; Hatty, who ought to have been pretty, and was not; Janet, who was candidly plain; and Mary Byrd, who would have been a beauty in any circle were talking eagerly, with the innumerable little gestures which they had inherited from Mrs. Culpeper's side of the house.
"I have no desire to attend my Lord Culpeper's ball, madam," said she. "Lord Culpeper is the representative of his Majesty here in Virginia," said Madam Cavendish, with a high head, "and no granddaughter of mine absents herself with my approval. To the ball you go, madam, and in that sky-coloured gown, and no more words. Things have come to a pretty pass."
It was late when the ball was done, but Mary would have stayed it out had it not been for Catherine, who almost swooned in the middle of a dance and had to be revived with aromatic vinegar, and lie for a while in my Lady Culpeper's bedchamber, with a black woman fanning her, until she was sufficiently recovered to go home.
As it was, a goodly part of every day was passed by her in such wise, but so fond was my pupil of her book that often I have seen her with it propped open, for her reference, on a chair at her side. It was thus the next morning, the morning of the day of my Lord Culpeper's ball.
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