"Doubt you, Ellen? Never for a moment! But my mother; how is she?"
"Sorrow-stricken, of course, but strangely resigned. There is something noble in such a grief as hers, Anna! No, you need not shrink from meeting her; she will comfort you! I see by your face, poor sufferer, that you need it! She will do you good, never fear!"
"Just step in my room for a moment, Ellen; I would not have him see me tear-stained again. I have wept so much for the last few days. You speak truly, I do need my mother, for I am very weak. Ellen, there has been more gall in the cup I have been draining than you can ever know! A darker wave has rolled over my soul than can ever lift your bark, my precious friend; but what matters it after all, when we find ourselves sinking we are led to cry out 'save or I perish?' We shall be chided some day for our faithlessness and doubtings, and it is better that we should receive it while yet on the sea, for the calm, Ellen, is peaceful after the storm." She had been bathing her face and arranging her hair while speaking, andnow turned toward her companion with the old smile wreathing her lips.
"You are like your mother," and again the arm of affection drew them closer together as they proceeded to the room where the father and brother were awaiting them.
That night, contrary to the doctor's instructions, there was a long conversation in the sick man's chamber, in which he earnestly joined.
"Let it be settled, Father, that you return with Anna," he said at length. "I shall get along all right with Ellen and Mrs. Howard, with what Toby can help, I have not the least doubt; and, besides, we rebels must not be too exacting or expect too much." His eyes were upon Anna, and she knew it. Her cheeks flushed, but the great hope in her heart kept back the haunting spectre his words might otherwise have summoned.
"He is a rebel no more," she thought. His voice recalled her.
"Besides, you will be needed in the widow's home to assist and cheer. It will not be a great while before I shall be able to join you all there, for immediately on being well enough to sit up for a few hours I shall leave for the North—through my convalescence at least."
There were quick glances into each other's faces, but he was silent.
"I will do as you say, my son," was the father's conclusion, "but I fear we are tiring you. Yes, you will feel better after a rest, and to-morrow we will talk farther on the subject."
Four days afterward a solemn cortege wended its way through the little village of Glendale, bearing its dead from the station to the home ofbereavement and sorrow. There were warm hand claspings, and words of sympathy and condolence, and tears, such as mothers alone can shed, when maternal love is stricken; when heart answers to heart with the sad echo of loneliness and desolation.
And so they laid Edward Pierson away upon the hillside; the first martyr in all the region on the altar of freedom!
A Scene in the Dismal Swamp, Virginia.
"Teach me thy way, O Lord, and lead me in a plain path, because of mine enemies. Deliver me not over unto the will of mine enemies, for false witnesses are risen up against me, and such as breathe out cruelty."
These words Lillian Belmont repeated to herself as the carriage that was bearing her away from home and early associations rolled down the highway leading to the depot, where she with her cousin Grace Stanley were to take the cars for New Orleans. Mrs. Stanley was the youngest sister of the deceased master of Rosedale, but since his death very little intimacy had been continued between the families, until Mrs. Belmont meeting the vivacious, merry-hearted Grace had conceived the idea of using her for a purpose, and so had invited her to spend a few weeks with her "morbid" cousin. All things, however, had not worked to that lady's satisfaction, as we have learned, and now with a mother's curse weighing her down the daughter had joined with David in the supplication, "lead me in a plain path." Was He leading her? The path as yet was dark and overshadowed, but she had clasped the gentle hand and the promise was, "I will never leave or forsake thee;" and with simple, childlike trust shewalked forward. During the winter she had written several times to her mother, pleading she would clear away the mysteries of the past, remove the maternal edicts, so that over the debris of broken hopes and shattered ambitions they might again come together, reconciled and loving. But no response to these pleadings came to her. To be sure there were letters from loved ones telling of the early removal of her family to the city, of the visit to the Washburn's, of the sudden death of little Shady, with poor old Vina's wail of anguish, but not a word of sympathy from the heart where the maternal love lay buried.
The bugle notes of war sounded through the streets of New Orleans, and the passions of men were stirred as never before. Women too, who had quaffed only from the chalice of ease and pleasure, awoke from the lethargy of indulgence to find themselves tossing upon a sea of excitement and alarm. Lillian was interested, and for a time her own troubled life was swallowed up in the tumults that threatened the peace and harmony of the nation's life. Bustle, energy and activity were everywhere.
"What a useless, helpless thing I am!" she said to her aunt one evening as they sat alone, after the husband, who was wearied with his day's toils in the unpretentious hardware store near the wharf had retired to his room, and Grace was entertaining a friend in the parlor. "It seems to me I am suddenly aroused by a storm, and unless I run for my life shall be covered out of sight in its fury!" She laughed, but there was a seriousness in her pale face her aunt had never seen upon it before.
"I do not wonder you think yourself out in the wind," was the cheerful response, "for Grace is enough to stir up the sleepy faculties of any lover of her country. I do not know but she will 'shoulder arms' and go into the field in defence of her native land!" and the good lady laughed outright. There was a long silence, while Lillian never once removed her gaze from the dying embers in the grate as she actively traced the wanderings and leapings of her busy thoughts.
At last she said in an undertone: "Grace is very gentle considering her confederate proclivities; but has it occurred to you that I have ahusbandsomewhere in that confusion and excitement among our enemies, as we call them?"
"O, Lillian!" and the cheerful face put on a look of serious incredulity. "You will not now certainly desire to seek out a relationship from among a people, who would, if in their power, kill or enslave us all?" Lillian's dark eyes wandered slowly to the troubled face of the speaker. "I have fully joined with my daughter in the feeling that a great wrong has been perpetrated on you, still I did hope that this terrible war would obliterate forever all such former ties and leave you free, as free as though they had never been!"
"And here I am shocking you with my heart's cry for its idol, for its tenderest loves, for the purest longings known to woman's nature! Listen to me, Aunt Sylvia, I am going north! The blow has been struck! Fort Sumter has fallen! There will be wounded hearts to bind up and wounded bodies to care for! Sorrow and lamentation will fill many homes, and the cry for help and sympathy will sound over the land. I shall getout of my life of indolence and plunge into the thickest scenes of labor!"
"Yes, Lillian, you do shock me! Why go north? If you must work, will there not be plenty of it to do among your own people? Are they not as deserving of your care and sympathy as their enemies?"
"Auntie, I have told Grace and now will tell you! Somewhere in the north I have a husband and child! Do not look at me with that spirit of incredulity peering out of your eyes, for it is no random suspicion—no new thought. My husband lives, and the letter I received last night from George St. Clair gives me the information that a 'Pearl Hamilton,' who started with a captain's commission from Pennsylvania was promoted to the position of colonel of his regiment by the entire vote of each company upon reaching Washington. This he copied from a paper for my especial benefit; and that Colonel Hamilton ismy husband;my Pearl!He is true to me—our hearts are one, and the fast growing desire to go to him has, since the receipt of that letter, become full-fledged; and before communication between the two sections is entirely cut off I shall go!"
"Did not the knowledge of his notoriety help to feather the wings of love, my child?"
There was something in the tone of voice with which these words were uttered that caused the listener's face to flush with amazement and indignation.
"This from you, Auntie!" she said at last. "Look at me; remember what I have endured, realize for a moment from what I have been torn, consider the burdens that are weighing me down,and then, if it be possible, repeat the question. You do not know me! For this reason I forgive the cruel thrust! Pearl Hamilton would hold my heart as firmly and truly if he were now the humble clerk in the store where I first knew him, as an honored officer in the enemy's army!"
Mrs. Stanley took the little white hand that lay on the arm of the easy chair where Lillian was sitting and holding it in her loving clasp, said, soothingly: "My darling, I did not mean at all what I said. You are too much like your father to be guilty of such unwomanly selfishness. I was a little indignant that you should persist in keeping faith with your childhood's love, and so uttered what I did not at all feel! I cannot, however, endure the thought of your going through the enemy's lines, and if he is a soldier as you hear, he may be brought to you as a prisoner of war, when you could be more speedily reunited than if you should follow out your own wild schemes."
"Pearl is not all I have in that muddle! Did I not say a husband and child? Grace has told you that I was a mother and that my pretty Lily died and was buried; but my dear Aunt, I do not believe it! I never did believe it! Still I had not the power to combat the story that was told me! O, I have been so weak! But a letter received by my mother, and which accidentally fell into my hands, and her confusion and evident alarm as I held it before her, assured me that I was the subject of a heartless fraud and that my child lived! Ever since I have pondered how I could find her! If I knew the place where she was born; at what point on the Atlantic shore stood the romantic'Cliff House'; where I was imprisoned those dreadful weeks, I should before this have visited it. The weird old nurse would, I am sure, tell me all, notwithstanding her bribes for secrecy!"
"Surely you do not believe all this, Lillian? No wonder the hungering of your heart has eaten the bloom from your cheek! But there must be some mistake. No matter how lofty may be a mother's ambition she could not be guilty of so vile an act!"
"Auntie, my cry for months has been 'lead me in a plain path', and I have been watching for the shadows to clear away that I might see the road, and now that my plea has been seemingly answered and the 'path' winds alone through the future mysteries so distinctly to my poor, trembling vision shall I not walk therein? Indeed, Imustgo! I can not sit idly here with folded hands when there is so much to be done and so many links to be gathered up! My mother well understood my inertness and worthlessness; she knew too that my pride would not long allow me to be a dependent on those upon whom I only had the claims of kinship. This, she was sure, would in time bring me in humble penitence to her feet. I cannot do this; and the other path leads me farther away from her! Imustgo!"
True to her conclusions, in a few days Lillian Belmont, the petted child of luxury, weak and enervated by indolence and indulgence, started alone amid the protestations and pleadings of those who loved her, en route for Philadelphia where she knew another aunt, the oldest sister of her father, would give her a hearty welcome. It was a tiresome and exciting journey. Quizzingeyes were upon her everywhere; suspicious glances were thrust at her from every side, and not until she crossed the southern lines did she settle calmly down.
Mrs. Cheevers received her as one risen from the dead. Clasping the slender form in her arms she gazed long and steadfastly into the pale face without speaking. "To think it is Lillian!" she said at last. "O, if Pearl were only here! How he has loved you my child." But tears, the first that had moistened the beautiful eyes of the stricken Lillian for many weeks, were now choking her utterance, and she lay as a weary child on the tender, sympathizing breast where her poor head was pillowed. Mrs. Cheevers had known what the longings of the mother love meant. Well did she understand the hungerings of its unsatisfied greed, and as she kissed over and over again the pure white forehead she thanked God that her brother's child could nestle so closely to her empty breast!
"You can never know how peaceful I feel!" Lillian said an hour after as they sat at a well-filled board, where she was satisfying a keener appetite than she had felt for many day. "I could fly for very joy, so light and buoyant are my spirits! I have carried a burden so long that the release seems almost oppressive!"
"Poor child!" murmured the aunt, while the masculine face opposite wore an expression of the deepest sympathy.
"And to think," he said at last, "that we should have believed for a moment what those letters contained! You will, however, do me the honor, wife, to assure our little Lillian that I never did!"
"I will do you the justice to acknowledge that if it had not been for Pearl Hamilton your guilt would never have been a whit less than my own." A merry laugh followed this remark, and when it died away Lillian asked with as much calmness as she could summon if she might be permitted to examine the letters spoken of.
"Of course you may," interposed the uncle. "Read them, every one, and then forgive your fickle relative for swallowing the absurd idea that she who could believe one of the noblest of men was heartless! But he will be around after the first three months are over, and then we shall see how this matter is to be settled! In the meantime you just rest here and grow fat, for we shall have regular news from the battle field, and he is no private! His mother is the proudest woman in this immense city to-night; and I am going to tell her that the dead is alive, and—"
"Please do not Uncle!" pleaded Lillian. "Permit me to remain secluded and unknown until—well, for the present at least. It would be so awkward to explain, and so impossible to convince. Besides, I am in my swaddling clothes yet; let me get a little stronger and firmer. I am so happy that I fear any intrusion; and shall be jealous of every interference."
"Say no more; I am not a woman, and can govern the 'unruly member' with true masculine power! Be happy, nothing shall interfere with your growth or pleasure while you remain under my roof;" and he took his hat from the rack and stepped nimbly from the house.
Weeks passed. There had been a dead calm on the Potomac which only served to agitate and stirup a greater excitement elsewhere. There were murmurings of discontent; whisperings ever so faint of rebellion in high places; there were impetuous longings and low mutterings of censure because the wheels of progress were blocked and the final consummation of overhanging difficulties was not speedily brought about; not realizing that God was marking out the path to a grand and glorious victory. How prone are human eyes to seek after their own paths and rely upon their own strength to "overcome."
But the great battle, which sent terror into thousands of hearts and homes, came at last! Men gathered upon the street corners in the great city, and quivering lips talked over the great defeat! The hearts of women pressed silently the bleeding wounds from which life-blood was ebbing, for loved ones were slain; and the dark cloud which had heretofore seemed no larger than a man's hand was covering the whole sky. Where was it all to end?
Lillian was mute but not inactive. Reports heralded the startling facts that many officers were wounded and many were killed. In the confusion and excitement, names were withheld or not yet ascertained, and three days cleared not away the uncertainties.
"I shall go to Washington on the night train," said Lillian very calmly as the little circle were talking it over at the table.
"You, my child? Pray what could you do in such a place at a time like this?"
"Please do not think me entirely worthless Uncle; I can do many things if sympathy compels me, I feel sure. Why not I, as well as others?Nurses are called for and if my hands have never learned what belongs to them, my heart has become familiar with the necessities sorrow demands. I can speak soothing words to smooth the pillow of the dying. I can give a cup of cold water if too weak to bind up a broken limb! There is work and I am going to offer myself to aid in performing it. Do not oppose me. I have passed through so many grades of opposition and contention that I have become well skilled in the art of defeating, so do not trouble yourself to combat me." She smiled, but the new resolve had left its impress on the calm, mild face, and no further opposition was raised.
We have seen her in the hospital doing the work of kindness and sympathy nobly and well. There was not one whose gentle voice could woo the sufferer into repose as could hers. Not one whose nerves were firmer when duty laid her demand upon them.
"There was a serious skirmish down the river last night," she had said to Anna Pierson during her last visit to the hospital, "and the wounded were brought in." Colonel Hamilton, however, did not arrive for two or three days, as his wounds were aggravated, being the fracture of an arm and the dislocation of the opposite shoulder, caused by the falling from his horse. A bullet had also lodged in his side at the time he was disabled, and the uncertainties of his situation barred his removal. The papers, however had not been silent, and the young nurse had learned, before his coming, of the fears entertained regarding him. How she longed to administer to his every need, while her heart shrank from the very thought of standingbefore him. How would he meet her? He was true, they had said; but could they read his secret thought, or be sure of the emotions beneath his calm exterior? He was noble and good, but years would deck the saddest grave with blossoms, and spread over it a rich covering of emerald brightness.
She wondered and trembled, and prayed until the day came when the stately form was carried through the long ward and laid tenderly on a neat white couch prepared for it. Then they came to her.
"This new patient we will commit expressly to your care;" said one. "He must soon be able to mount his horse again, and no one can soothe an impatient soldier back to life and activity as soon as yourself, I am told, so do your best. Let me introduce you," and the attendant turned toward the bed where Colonel Hamilton was lying.
How her knees trembled, and what a faintness came over her, yet she walked mechanically forward. "Miss, Miss," and he turned towards Lillian who was waiting for the introduction. "I think you will get along rapidly with this young lady to care for you;" and he bowed graciously. The eyes of the wounded man were fixed intently upon the pallid face before him, as the attendant walked slowly away to conclude another matter in the farther part of the ward. Neither spoke. Sixteen years had, indeed, brought changes into the face of each. He had grown handsomer and nobler, she thought. Her face had become thinner and paler, but those eyes; no, no one could mistake their lustre or beauty.
"Lillian?" he interrogated at last, with a doubtful tone, "It must be, surely it must be Lillian!—my own—my wife!"
She was beside him—her arms around his neck;
"Pearl! O, my husband! Thank God, you are mine at last! You cannot leave me now, and no one shall tear me from you."
Let us drop the veil; there are scenes too holy for intruding eyes to dwell upon.
Camp Fires
Swiftly the weeks sped onward, laden with the events of the nation's disasters. Battles in the far west were being fought, and mourning and bereavements swept as a terrible wave over the land, lighted up here and there with the exultations of victory; but beneath all the waters lay deep and turbid. Mrs. Southey remained secluded for some days after her return from Alexandria. She had no doubt but her daughter had recognized her, notwithstanding her disguise, and in all probability would endeavor to hunt her out. "Would she expose me?" There was madness in the very thought, but the question would often present itself. "Yet what else could she do? Understanding, as she does, my Confederate sentiments, she cannot be at a loss in regard to my mission here," was her daily conclusion, and strongly was she tempted to fly from the city. But where could she go? To Philadelphia? She had been criticised severely from that source in regard to her treatment of that very one from whom she was now contemplating hiding herself. It would not be pleasant going there, and no other northern home was, to her knowledge, open to her.
After thinking it over, she calmly informed her hostess that she proposed to remain where she was,for the present at least, and trust the pride and natural kindness of her daughter, who she must confess had a goodly share of both these commodities.
"She would not willingly disgrace herself, nor," and she added with some hesitancy, "bring misery, perhaps death, upon her mother: at least I must rely upon all this as the lesser of the two evils."
"Then she is not wholly depraved, as you have been so willing I should believe," remarked her companion. "I thought I could not be mistaken in that face. What if you should go and throw yourself on her mercy? I can but feel sure that you would receive it."
"No, I cannot do that. And then you thought it impossible that she should recognize me. It may be so. There certainly would be a want of discretion should I wantonly expose myself without a surety of protection. The only way I can discover is to trust in Providence and wait results."
"Providence!" sneered her companion. "Meager claims have we on its friendly protection I imagine. The fact is, Mrs. Southey, we must figure this whole matter for ourselves. There seems to be considerable spunk in the plethoric old gentleman this war is stirring up, and I doubt if he would treat such as we with a great amount of gallantry if introduced to him, and, therefore, let us figure closely, and not trust to vagaries of which we know so little. It may do for aChristian like yourself, but you know that I am an outsider." This last remark was a little too cynical, and the lady to whom it was addressed arose to her feet with flashing eyes. Her companion only smiled, however, as she motioned her to be reseated.
"I beg your pardon,mon amie, I did not really think you would resent the first compliment I ever gave you," she laughed, then continued. "I have been hindering you all the time. Where were you going? Out for a walk?"
No sisters ever understood each other better than did these two women, and seldom was it that two ever despised each other more. They had met but seldom before "Mrs. Southey" came to Washington as a southern spy, but well she knew that in the home she sought she would find co-operation. In this she had not been mistaken. Her mission was carefully guarded, but her everyday life underwent careful scrutiny. Her dignity as the 'Mistress of Rosedale' was continually pierced and wounded without mercy, while she remained powerless in the hands of her tormentor. The morning scene we are chronicling was not an exceptional one; still it left the lady in a burning rage. At dinner, however, the hostess met her with many bland excuses for neglecting her so long, thus pressing the thorns deeper that were sorely goading her victim all unconsciously to other eyes. How true that the spirit of evil despises and seeks to lacerate itself when its reflection is seen in the bosom of another!
"I have an invitation for you to take an airing in the elegant turn-out of our pet senator, by the side of his queenly wife, this p.m., at four." The bustling housekeeper said this amid the superintending of the dinner arrangements. "You will go, of course, and so I told the servant who brought in the card. You are looking so pale and thin that I am sure the ride will do you good."
At the hour appointed the carriage stood before the door, and the senator's wife called out pleasantly, as the two ladies appeared in sight, "the air is delicious, Mrs. Southey, and I can fully recommend its sanitary powers, having been cured of an oppressive headache already. You are not looking as well as usual," she continued, as the lady addressed tripped down the stone steps where the footman was waiting to hand her into the carriage.
"Will it reach the heart and conscience and drive out its ailments?" queried the hostess.
The thin lips of Mrs. Southey parted slightly as she threw back a keen glance at the speaker in the doorway. Without apparently noticing it she continued, "If I thought it would I would order a carriage and perform some long-neglected duties."
It was a lovely afternoon, as the senator's wife had reported, and as Mrs. Southey reclined dreamily in one corner of the luxurious barouche, a sensation, almost peaceful, came stealing over her while she listened to the agreeable words of her companion, and felt the cool soft breezes playing about her. For a while, at least, she forgot herself with all the attending perplexities of her situation, in the musical clatter of the horses' hoofs on the hard road. At last she was waked from her reveries as from a dream, by observing the carriage stop in the street and hearing her companion accost some one outside.
"I am happy to meet you," she said; "I have been so anxious about your patient. How is he getting along?"
"Slowly improving," came back the answer.
"Good heavens! That voice!" How the guilty woman trembled! It was that of her only daughter—herLillian! Did she long to clasp again that form, once so beloved, in her maternal embrace? Why did her cheeks and lips suddenly become chill and pallid? Why should every nerve quiver as she sat there mute with a palsying fear? Ah, she well knew that a pair of large dark eyes were fastened upon her, reading the emotions of her very soul, avoid them as she would! In vain did she endeavor to adjust her veil, which was thoughtlessly thrown back from her face in her dream of peace; but it became entangled with the trimmings of her bonnet, and it was impossible to disengage it. With a sensation of despair she settled back as far as possible among the shadows and painfully waited for the issue.
"Then you will come to-morrow?" she heard Lillian say. "I want much to see you for more than one reason."
"I think I will not fail," was the cheerful answer.
"Then I will tell him. The prospect, I am sure, will speed his convalescence."
The carriage moved on. The crouching figure straightened a little for a freer breath.
"Did you see those beautiful eyes?" asked her companion turning towards her. "I beg your pardon!" was the impulsive exclamation as she looked into the face beside her. "I ought not to have kept you out so long. You look as though you were chilled through; we will return immediately!"
"O, no! I am not cold! A sudden—dizziness I think—must have come over me! Do not return; indeed—I am not cold—the ride is exceedingly pleasant! Let us go on."
Her listener was surprised. Never had she seen the aristocratic Mrs. Southey so beside herself. Her words and manner perplexed her, still she made no reply.
"The young lady—who was she? Her eyes? O, yes! They were very fine! I think I must have seen her before!"
"At the hospital then," was the reply; "for she seldom goes out. I must tell you about her. She has been in Alexandria, doing good service I believe, and has now come to the city to nurse her husband, who is badly wounded and was brought thither for better accommodations, as he is an officer in high rank and is much needed in the field."
"Her husband!" almost shrieked the miserable woman; "did you say herhusband?"
"Certainly! Why not? Do you know her? You astonish me by your looks and appearance! Enlighten me, I beseech you, Mrs. Southey!" exclaimed the lady.
The wretched woman tried to speak, but found not the power to do so.
At last she gasped, "I beg your pardon! I am strangely nervous to-day, I confess. It is true, I thought at first that I had seen the lady some years ago, but conclude I must have been mistaken or she would have remembered me. The mother of the one she so much resembles is a very dear friend of mine and her marriage was clandestine and seriously against her parents' wishes. I knew that the news of their reunion would greatly distress them, and so allowed my sympathies to run away with me and frighten you. You will pardon me?" she interrogated, beseechingly, as she laid her hand on her companion's arm.
"Did you say her husband?""Did you say her husband?"
"Certainly. I do not wonder at your agitation! But really, I think your friend ought not to distress herself about her daughter's choice were it so. Colonel Hamilton is one of our noblest and most heroic officers, and it is now being whispered in military circles that as soon as he is recovered his promotion will be speedy to the rank of brigadier, whether he is ever able to occupy it or not. I wish you would go with me to-morrow and see him. He is certainly one of the finest looking men I ever saw!"
Mrs. Southey, however, declined the honor. She was "too weak and sensitive to endure excitement," as she had given abundant proof during the last hour.
It was true, and the lady accepted the refusal gracefully. "Sometime you must tell me more about this colonel's wife in whom we both are so much interested, will you?" she asked, as they reached the street where was Mrs. Southey's temporary home.
"I shall be happy to keep you informed as to his recovery, and will call as soon as possible after my next visit to the hospital."
"Thank you!" and so they parted.
How little either knew of the emotions or convictions of the other! What a long catalogue of ills were being chronicled in the inner chamber of the guilty soul! It was a slight peep the penetrating eyes caught through the partially opened door ere the power of self-control returned to close it, but no sophistry could dispose of the horrors thus revealed! When again in her room she dropped into an easy chair evidently exhausted.
"Your ride must have been wearisome," suggested her hostess. "You do not look as well as when you went out," she continued, carelessly, raising her eyes from the paper she had in her hand.
"I am not well," was the prompt reply.
"Have you been driven under a halter? One would imagine that justice had been close upon you;" and she turned the page with perfectsang froid.
"Be merciful, I beseech you!" was the plaintive wail of her companion. "I will tell you all! I have not been chased byjusticeas you intimate, but what is worse—I have seen Lillian and she has seen me! The carriage stopped while the two friends talked, and all the time her eyes were fixed upon my uncovered face; and to-morrow they meet at the hospital! I know my uncontrollable agitation has betrayed much, and there is little doubt but she will finish what I have so ignobly begun. Beside this my daughter has found her husband, who is none other than the Colonel Hamilton of whom so much has been said of late! Of course he will aid her in performing what she would never have the strength to accomplish herself!" The head of the wretched mother sank upon her hand, while her whole frame shook with emotion. Her companion had risen and now stood before her.
"The time has come when you must leave!" she said with a tone as ringing and metallic as the clinking of steel when rudely smiting its fellow. "I have the arrangements all made, expecting it would come to this, for, as you are well aware, it would not be very comfortable for the innocent tobe found in such bad company!" The tall figure became erect as her keen eyes were fixed upon the face of the speaker, while she continued: "Send your usual message and add in postscript a command to get that horse ready as ordered and brought around at eleven to the spot designated. I have a suit prepared, and at about ten miles there is a friend who will grant you a retreat for the present. I can send you word when you must fly farther. Now I will leave you, for it is nearly six and the order must be written immediately!"
Alone! What dismal horrors haunt the guilty mind when let loose upon itself! A spy! And in the enemy's country, hemmed in by the barriers of war with no way of escape to a land of safety, if such a place could be found! A rebel! And truth all ready to whisper in the ear of offended justice "behold the traitor!"
"Where is my strength? My pride?" she murmured, as she arose and walked across the room. "How I tremble! The gallows! What a reward for my persevering and arduous labors! I understand it!"
Then her mind wandered to the story of a German monarch who caused the executioner to blow his death-blast before the door of his brother's palace. "Ah, you tremble," said the king, "when the prospect of temporal death is so near; but look a little farther and behold the eternal pangs of the soul! How now? Does the sight appall thee? Go to thy home, my brother, the king desires not thy life; but remember the errors of a temporal death and shun the horrors of the second!"
"If I had done this! O, Lillian, Lillian my child! You cannot see your mother at this hour,and it is well! The first—yes the second death is for such as I!"
"I shall do no such thing!" she exclaimed aloud at last as she reseated herself by the window. "The horse perish with its rider! I want neither; I swear it! This hateful business stops here! O wretched, wretched woman that I am! Who shall deliver me from the body of this death? Was not that in the Bible? Ah, I remember! The voice that has been silent for many years once repeated those words in my hearing when his hour had come. The Bible! I will go to Philadelphia. Mrs. Cheevers will not turn me from her door for—for—she is a Christian! Pride? Away with it! O the curse of a false ambition!"
The shadows of twilight fell noiselessly about her, spreading over the bent figure a pall of tender sympathy. Then she arose, lighted the gas and hurriedly threw into her trunks the plain, rich wardrobe of the elegant "English lady," and locking them prepared to go out. She had remembered that the northern train left the depot at eight, and she was going upon it! She passed out without interruption, and in a half hour the drayman was standing in the hall ready to be shown where the trunks were waiting. "This way," called Mrs. Southey; "you will need help for they are large."
"Where are you going?" asked the lady of the house with great astonishment, opening the parlor door. "Surely you are not going to tear yourself away so abruptly? How lonely I shall be without my aristocratic English guest! But do tell me, where are you going?"
"Out of death unto life," was the quick reply. "This way! Do not mar the railing;" and thetwo men passed on with the last trunk. "Forty minutes before train time, I believe?" she interrogated as she stepped forward to close the door. "Yes, madam;" and she turned to the bewildered woman who was silently gazing at her.
"Well, I am going," she said calmly; "it matters not to you where, but remember this! If there is a path for such as I back to womanhood I am determined to find it!" A cynical laugh was her only response. "Nevertheless, it is true! The miseries of the last few days have completed the grave into which I have cast my pride and ambitions; would that the bitter memories of the past could be buried with them! But I must go. Farewell—do not wait to attempt your own rescue until the quicksands have swallowed you up; again farewell!"
Her companion did not speak, but turned coldly away, while Mrs. Belmont, with a heart lighter than it had been for many months, tripped down the steps. New resolutions had taken possession of her soul, and with them had entered a ray of cheering light. The door had been thrown ajar for the spirit of penitence, but how dark the long closed chamber appeared, how ghostly the spectral memories that crouched among its shadows! The "broken and contrite heart" had not as yet opened the windows to the glories of the noonday sun of righteousness; and the door was reclosed, and upon the outside the new resolves were laid with trembling hands. She was Mrs. Belmont again—the mistress of Rosedale, and nevermore would she stoop to fraud or ignominy! Her daughter would come to her and ask for the mother-love her disobedience had forfeited, and she would humblygrant it! Colonel Hamilton was not one to be ashamed of; and then the dark night at the seashore, the cry of the abducted Lily rolled its burden of remorse close where the new resolutions were lying, and she trembled as the engine whistled its frightful alarm—something was on the track! "O God! What if Thy anger should fall upon me, where O where shall the sinner appear?" burst from her lips as she covered her face with her hands.
"There is no danger," shouted the brakeman at last; "the track is clear." And with folded hands she rode on breathing freely once more.
The Night Train
How the circumstances of life throw us about! Now, upon the revolving wheel, we are raised high above our fellows, where, from our dizzy elevation, we look about us with a sense of giddiness lest we fall; then with sudden revolution we descend while those upon the low grounds are carried up. Change! Change!
Our little circle of actors in the present drama were on the "wheel," but not one experienced more disagreeable sensations in its turnings than did Mrs. Belmont, the once haughty mistress of Rosedale. Hers was not alone in the experience of external disagreeables; but in her soul, where the continual revolvings of the corresponding whirlings of good resolutions and evil passions, which the hand of avarice was turning. Poor soul; with only such a power to govern its weal or woe!
Mrs. Gaylord lingered about the maelstrom where her darling had disappeared from sight many weeks, loth to believe that she would not rise again to bless and cheer her loneliness. "She was so like me," she would repeat over and over again; "the same restless ambitions, the same longings after something her hand could never reach! And now she is gone! I could bear it if the beautiful casket, emptied of its treasure had been left for mystricken heart to cherish and lay away in its bed of flowers under the green grass; but to lose all but the memory of her uncertain fate! This is the darkest cloud of all. Then what will Willie, the poor struggling cripple, say? How shall I ever meet him."
The shadows deepened in the home of the St. Clair's, and none rejoiced more when the husband bore his weeping wife back to her Virginia life than did the sympathizing Mrs. Mason. "It was dreadful," she said to her mother, after the good-byes were over; "but as we could not help it became a trifle monotonous,—this petting and soothing."
"Well, as for me, I would give a pretty large sum to know the whole of that transaction," remarked Mr. St. Clair, one day as the whole matter was being talked over. "There is a wheel within a wheel or I am mistaken. These old eyes are not so very blind when they have their spectacles on."
"I do wish you would never again throw out one of your wild and foolish 'perhaps so's!" exclaimed the wife pettishly. "I should not be surprised if your cousin should bring you before the courts for slander."
The husband threw up his broad hands high above his head while a merry peal of laughter rang through the apartment.
"Only to think, wife! Slander! I tell you there are chapters in that woman's life that she would not like to have me or any one else be fumbling over, and there is not much danger that she will ever turn the leaves for my especial benefit."
"You are too bad; the mother of Lillian Belmont ought to be above such insinuations, Mr. St. Clair!"
"That is a fact, but she is not, and there is where the too bad comes in;" and the merry laugh again resounded.
Mrs. Gaylord reached her home in safety. It was a fine old residence, standing back from the highway, nearly hidden from the passer by because of the large wide-spreading trees with which it was surrounded; yet the broadly-paved walks that branched off in every direction as they wound around among the cool shadows of the overhanging branches were delightfully inviting to the weary traveler who looked in upon them. The mistress of that pleasant retreat now, however, walked with languid step up the winding path to the house with a heavy heart. The darker shades of an overhanging gloom oppressed her. On the portico the servants were collected to give her welcome, and as she took the tawny hand of each in her own, said, "You too will miss your young mistress. You loved her, Jenny,—she will make no more turbans for you, Phebe—and poor little Pegs! who will fix his kite or teach him how to spin his top?"
"Whar is she Missus?" asked Phebe, with the great tears rolling down her ebony cheeks, and several other voices chimed in "Dar—dar—Missus, whar is she?"
"Dead! Swallowed up by the big sea, and we shall see her no more!" She passed on, for Mr. Gaylord had taken her arm and was leading her into the long drawing-room, where he bade her stop her prating and making a simpleton of herself.
"It might as well be she as any one," he continued, noticing the look of distress on the pale face; "Seldom could there be found a young ladyof her attractions who would break fewer hearts by disappearing than would she. But I am sorry for you. There was a little more color in your face, and a slight return of the former sprightliness in your manner while she was with you. But she is gone, Mrs. Gaylord, and what is the use of throwing misery over every one who crosses your path because of it? If you must pine away the few attractions you have left out of your life, why, do it silently and alone."
Her tears ceased at the commencement of this little sympathetic(?) speech and she now stood before her husband cold and chilling. Servants came and went with little acts of attention and considerable bustle of ceremony, yet, with her arm resting upon the marble mantel, she moved not, for her thoughts had driven away her weariness. A visitor was announced and she turned to see that her husband had seated himself by the window with his paper, and was deep in the perplexing problems it had brought to him.
"War! War!" Its columns were full. Preparations were going on everywhere. Calls were made for every lover of his country and home to see to it that his powers, of whatever sort, were immediately put in working order. He yawned as he turned to the last page, and looked up as if supposing his lady was still present, and he had something to say to her, but he was alone. "Well," he said, between the snatches of a military air which he was whistling; "I must away. 'The bugle sounds to arms, to arms,' and Fred Gaylord can as well be spared from the loving embraces of his adorable spouse as any one. Heigho! 'The echos are ringing alarms, alarms.' Hello,my good fellow! Nero, come and greet your master," and the huge mastiff walked boldly in through the open window, and with many demonstrations of pleasure licked the hand that caressed him.
"Yes, Mrs. Gaylord," he said the next morning as they were sitting at the breakfast table, "in a week I shall go to Richmond!"
"To join the army?"
"Well—no! I cannot say as I have any particular desire to set up this six feet of flesh and bones as a target for designing men to shoot at! It wouldn't be comfortable, you know! Besides, I can do a better thing for my country. Mine is to plan, advise and superintend. There will be plenty of this work to do, and you will get along very well without me." He arose and sauntered out into the open air, whistling as he went "the girl I left behind me." The wife watched the manly figure until it disappeared among the trees.
"Not much nobility in the character of a coward," she thought, as she looked after him. "Our grandest and noblest men in the South, as well as in the North, will enter the field of battle and—yes, will die and be buried! Hearts will ache and homes will be saddened, and the great wheel of destiny will keep on turning just as if nothing unusual was happening! Lives are being continually thrown upon it, and as rapidly hurled by its flying motion into darkness—into forgetfulness! Where is it? Where do they go? Where is Lily? That soul so full of longings, of ambitious, of unbounded faiths, hopes and shadowy desires, real to itself but mysterious to the uninitiated? Surely such a being has not been cast away amongthe rubbish of past ages as worthless, to find in the darkness the end of all these? No! no! She was right! There is something in these compounds of humanity that are not easily satisfied and cannot readily be extinguished. My own wild, restless cravings tell me this! Why should this 'hungering and thirsting' be given me if there was nothing with which to satisfy it? I once foolishly imagined that wealth and position would do this, but I starve with it all! I have said in my heart, 'eat, drink, and be merry; get the brightest things out of life that are possible, for the end cometh.' O Lily, my child! How much I need you! The shadows were lifting—there was a faint light in the east, the glimmering of a new day; but the darkness has set in again, the night is not ended!" She was listlessly walking up and down the elegant parlors as these thoughts ran through her mind.
Weeks passed. Mr. Gaylord had long been away, swallowed up in the excitements and business of war, and she seldom heard from him; still she had no fears, for he was only "planning, engineering and advising!" This was safe business surely! The grand old house had been filled with friends and relatives who had fled from the immediate scenes of action to take refuge out of harm's way; still when the hot July days were come with their enervating oppressiveness Mrs. Gaylord thought of the quiet village inn at the north where she had first met her Lily, and her heart pined for its cooling shades once more. But the husband had said she must not attempt to go into the enemy's country, or she would be taken for a spy.
"However," she thought one day, "I will write to Mr. Bancroft and hear about Willie; this will do me a little good at least." She did write. The tumults of war increased. The reports of conflicts were heard everywhere! The dark wave was rolling up from the far south and threatening to sweep over the boundary lines east and west, scorching and destroying everything in its progress. Mrs. Gaylord watched its coming with a great fear stirring her whole being. What would become of them? Then there came an answer to her letter. How greedily she broke the seal; how her heart bounded as she unfolded the well-filled sheet!
"How glad I was to hear from you," it began. "I did not know but you had been lost in the terrible fire! How it rages! Where will it end? When the passions of men become aroused Justice and Mercy must fold their arms and wait. But, my dear Mrs. Gaylord, cruelties, wrong dealings, abominations are not confined to war or kept within the machinations of my own sex. You speak of your loss and loneliness—come to us. You will be happier here, and a great problem still unsolved requires your aid. Next week a friend of mine will go to Washington for a few days only; now if you can get through Baltimore meet him there and he will conduct you safely to my home. I will see him to-day and write the particulars to-morrow. Willie is not with me just now, there being greater attractions elsewhere. All will be explained when you are with us. It is best that you should follow out my suggestions. I should have written you many weeks ago if I had not heard that you were not at home, and itwas very uncertain whether a letter would find you in these troublesome times."
"How strangely he writes," she thought, as the paper dropped from her hand. "A problem! He had heard I was not at home; who told him? Why am I needed to help solve the problem? There is a mystery in all this! It is not like him. I must—yes, I will go! Mr. Gaylord's brother's widow, who must remain here with her family, should do all that I could, and I must go!" How restlessly she tossed upon her pillow that night! The problem! The mystery! Mr. Gaylord might not like it; he had told her to remain where she was; but something within bade her go. Another letter came, as was expected. There was much advise, counsel and many directions, and then it said: "I will just add for your perusal a short preface to a most exciting story. It may be that the interest it will awaken will have more power to draw you than anything I can say by way of persuasion. You know that there is an assurance somewhere that 'the sea shall give up its dead,' and that we 'shall meet our loved ones,' etc. These are, without doubt, true, for we have many a foretaste of the good things to come even here. One to the point is fresh before me. More than two months ago Willie received a letter from over the ocean that the good ship Constitution had picked up from off the dark billows a floating waif alone in an open boat somewhere along the southern shore, and as they were bound for Liverpool had no alternative but to take their prize with them. They did so and it was then lying in a hospital very sick, and the greater part of the time delirious. The physicians, however, had prophesieda speedy recovery when the crisis was passed, and as they had succeeded in learning the address of the one about whom she had talked almost incessantly, concluded to write to him. 'Be not alarmed' it went on to say, 'for it was not strange that such a night on the billows of a stormy sea should have upset a stronger set of nerves, or bewildered even a more massive brain.' But she would recover, and when strong enough would be brought back to Boston where her home was, as they had gathered from her talk. Still it was their desire to hear immediately if a young lady had been missing from those parts; a Miss 'Lily Gaylord', the name found on the clothing."
"My Lily!" almost shrieked the excited woman unable to read farther. "Preserved again! What a wonderful power is holding her! But how did she come on the sea? This is the problem—O, who can solve it?" Her burning eyes again fell upon the paper.
"And now she is with Willie in their old home. I was there a few days ago and found her very pale and thin. I told her I was going to insist that you should come north, when her dark eyes brightened and she said, 'O do!' Her story told Willie is a strange one; more wonderful than fiction. But you will come now, and so I will reserve the rest until your arrival."
Did she go? How laggard were the days that intervened between the receipt of this letter and the "next Thursday week" when she was to meet Mr. Bancroft's friend in Washington. Then she thought it all over. The strange incidents concerning the disappearance of her darling; the suspicions so abruptly spoken by Mr. St. Clair onthat sad evening! True, he was excited and might have said what he did not feel; but Mrs. Belmont's unsatisfactory explanations as to why she should be out in such a place, at such a time, with no other attendant than a cowardly servant, was all such a mystery! Why should that lady wish to injure the child? Had she not said on several occasions that she "had taken a fancy to the dear girl?" Yes, several times! And this was nothing strange; everybody admired her! Certainly she had done nothing to the mistress of Rosedale to excite in her a desire to do her harm! It could not be! The more she thought it over, the more she recalled half-forgotten looks and words, the more was she perplexed.
"I will wait," she thought at last; "perhaps Lily can throw a little light upon the transaction. Whatever were the designs of Mrs. Belmont, Lily is safe! More than ever now will she believe that a mighty hand kept her above the dark billows! Twice has she ridden alone and unguided upon them, yet she did not sink! The picture in the old Bible in the library, which I have pondered so many times, seems to impress itself now upon my soul. Like Peter, Jesus must have walked beside her, upheld and guided the frail boat with its precious freight; and it may be—it may be He spoke to the angry deep 'peace, be still'! I wish I believed it all. How cheering it must be—such faith I mean—to the lone mariner on the dark billows of life to be cared for by one who can do these things! Hush the storms and command the waves and they obey Him! I think I should not toss about in my little boat as hopelessly, or shudder with such fear as I look out over the darkwaters that are rolling about me, if this faith were mine. O Lily! So like me, yet so far removed, with the great God of heaven for your father, and the Saviour for your friend and protector! I will know more of this! I am disappointed, hungry and thirsty. The waters are deep; the waves dash upon my frail bark!"