“Who?” said he, without looking around. “Why, they’re going to fetch a young lady”; and that was all Jack knew until she was actually aboard the pirate sloop.
Colonel Parker was away from home. He had gone to Williamsburgh, but there was some company at Marlborough—Mr. Cartwright (a cousin of Madam Parker’s), his wife, and the Reverend Jonathan Jones, minister of Marlborough parish church—a rather sleek, round-faced man, dressed in sober clerical black, with a very white wig and a smooth, clean, starched band of fine, semi-transparent linen. Madam Parker and her guests sat at a game of ruff. Miss Eleanor Parker was trying a piece of music at the spinet, playing smoothly but with an effort at certain points, and then stumbling at the more difficult passages, to which she sometimes returned, repeating them. The four played their game out without speaking, and then, as the last trick was taken, released the restraint of attentive silence to a sudden return of ease. “‘Twas two by honors this time, I think,” said Mr. Cartwright to Madam Parker, who was his partner.
“Yes,” she said, “I held the queen and ace myself, and you the knave.”
“Then that makes four points for us,” said Mr. Cartwright, as he marked them.
“’Tis strange how ill the hands run with me to-night,” said the reverend gentleman; “that makes the third hand running without a single court card.” He opened his snuff-box and offered it to Madam Parker, and then to the others, taking finally a profound and vigorous pinch himself, and then shutting the lid of the box with a snap. Madam Parker and her partner smiled with the amused good-nature of winners at the game.
“Upon my word, Eleanor,” said Madam Parker, “I wish you would not play so loud; my nerves are all of a jingle to-day; as ’tis, I can’t fix my mind on the game.” The young lady made no answer; she did not even turn round, but she continued her playing in a more subdued key.
“Was not that Lady Betty Arkwright in your pew last Sunday, Madam?” asked the rector of Madam Parker, as he shuffled the cards.
“Yes, ’twas,” said the lady. “She came up from Williamsburgh last week, and Colonel Parker went back with her yesterday.”
“I thought I could not be mistook,” said the Reverend Jonathan, “and that ’twas indeed her. She hath a fine air of good breeding, hath she not, Madam?”