Thus we rode homeward, and presently came in sight of the Cavendish
tobacco-fields overlapped with the fresh green of young leaves like
the bosses of a shield, and on the right waved rosy garlands of the
locust grove, and such a wonderful strong sweetness of honey came
from it that we seemed to breast it like a wave, and caught our
breaths, and there was a mighty hum of bees like a hundred
spinning-wheels. But Mistress Mary and I regarded mostly that green
stretch of tobacco, and each of us had our thoughts, and presently
out came hers--"Master Wingfield, I pray you, whose tobacco may
that be?" she inquired in a sudden, fierce fashion.
"Madam Cavendish's and yours and your sister's," said I.
"Nay," said she, "'tis the king's." Then she tossed her head again
and rode on, and said not another word, nor I, but I knew well what
she meant. Since the Navigation Act, it was, indeed, small profit
any one had of his own tobacco, since it all went into the exchequer
of the king, and I did not gainsay her.
When we had passed the negro huts, swarming with black babies
shining in the sun as sleek as mahogany, and all turning toward us
with a marvellous flashing of white eyeballs and opening of red
mouths of smiles, all at once, like some garden bed of black
flowers, at the sight of our gay advance, we reached the great
house, and Mistress Catherine stood in the door clad in a green
satin gown which caught the light with smooth shimmers like the
green sheath of a marsh lily.
Her bare, slender arms were clasped before her, and her long, white
neck was bent into an arch of watchful grace. Her face was the
gravest I ever saw on maid, and not to be reconciled with my first
acquaintance with her, thereby giving me always a slight doubt as of
a mask, but her every feature was as clear and fine as ivory, and
her head proudly crowned with great wealth of hair. Catherine
Cavendish was esteemed a great beauty, by both men and women, which
shows, perchance, that her beauty availed her little in some ways,
else it had not been so freely admitted by her own sex. However that
may be, Catherine Cavendish had had few lovers as compared with many
a maid less fair and less dowered, and at this time she seemed to
have settled into an expectation and contentment of singleness.
She stood looking at her sister and me as we rode toward her, and
the sun was full on her face, which had the cool glimmer of a pearl
in the golden light, and her wide-open eyes never wavered. As she
stood there she might have been the portrait of herself, such a look
had she of unchanging quiet, and the wonder and incredulity which
always seized me at the sight of her to reconcile what I knew with
what she seemed, was strong upon me.