"But they have thrown it out since dark, five miles. Our fellows skedaddled back to their support. And I tell you it will never do for me to be caught inside the lines. The Yankees might think I was spying around!"
Judge Roscoe turned faint and sick. Then, rising to the emergency, and considering the suspicions the sound of voices here at this hour of the night might excite in the mind of the sentry, he grasped his son's arm, with a warning clutch imposing silence, and led him along the dark hall, groping up the staircase. As the boy was about to bolt in the direction of his former chamber, his father turned the corner to the second flight.
"Sky parlor, is it?" the young daredevil muttered, as they stumbled together up the steep ascent to the garret.
A dreary place it showed as they entered, large, low ceiled, extending above the whole expanse of the square portion of the house. It was lighted only by the windows at either side; through one of these pale watery glimmers were falling from a moon which rolled heavily like a derelict in the surges of the clouds. This sufficed to show to each the other's beloved face; and that Judge Roscoe's ribs were not fractured in the hugs of the filial young bear betokened the enduring strength of his ancient physique.
The place was sorely neglected since the reduction of the service in the old house. Cobwebs hadcongregated about ceiling and windows; the dust was thick on rows of old trunks, which annotated the journeyings of the family since the hair-covered, brass-studded style was the latest fashion to the sole leather receptacle that bore the initials of Judge Roscoe's dead wife, and the gigantic "Saratoga" that had served in Mrs. Gwynn's famous wedding journey. There were many specimens of broken chairs, and some glimmering branching girandoles, five feet high, that had illumined the house at one of the great weddings of long ago. A large cedar chest, proof against moths, preserved the ancient shawls and gowns of beauties of by-gone times, who little thought this ephemeral toggery would survive them. Certain antiquated pieces of furniture, hardly meet for the more modern assortment below,—chests of drawers surmounted by quaint little cabinets with looking-glasses, a lumbering wardrobe that seemed built for high water and stood on four long stilt-like legs, a pair of old mantel mirrors, wide and low, with tarnished gilded frames, dividing the reflecting surface into three equal sections, a great barometer that surlily threatened stormy weather, clumsy bureaus, bedsteads, each with four tall "cluster posts" surmounted by testers of red, quilled cloth drawn to a brass star in the centre, fire-dogs and fenders of dull brass—all were grouped here and there. One of these bedsteads had been occupied on some occasion when the house had been overcrowded, for the cordsthat sufficed in lieu of the more modern slats now supported a huge feather-bed. Judge Roscoe threw on it a carriage rug that had been hung to air on a cord which was stretched across one corner of the room. He almost fainted at a sudden, frightened clutch upon his arm, and, turning, saw his son in the agonies of panic, his teeth chattering, his eyes starting out of his head, his hand pointing tremulously toward the bed, as if bereft of his senses, demanding to be informed what that object might be. It was the time-honored joke of the young Southern soldiers that they had not seen or slept in a bedstead for so long that the mere sight of so unaccustomed a thing threw them into convulsions of fear. His father forgave the genuine tremors the joke had occasioned him for the joker's sake, and as Julius, flinging off his cap, coat, and boots, stretched out at his long length luxuriously, he stood by the pillow and admonished him of the plan of the campaign.
The Yankee officer had been ill, Judge Roscoe explained, and, convalescing now, joined the family in their usual gathering places—the library, dining room, on the portico, in the grove. If Leonora or the "ladies" knew of the presence here of Julius, they could hardly preserve in this close association with the enemy an unaffected aspect; so significant a secret might be betrayed in facial expression, a tone of voice, a nervous start. This would be fatal; his life might prove the forfeit. It was a mistake to come, and this mistake mustforthwith be annulled. Despite the man in the house, Julius could lie perdu here in the garret, observing every precaution of secrecy, till the ever shifting picket-line should be drawn close enough to enable him to hope to reach it without challenge. They would confide in trusty old Ephraim. He would maintain a watch and bring them news. And old Ephraim, too, would bring up food, cautiously purloined from the table.
"The typical raven! appropriately black!" murmured Julius.
"Are you hungry now, dear?" Judge Roscoe asked disconsolately, after telling him that he must wait till morning.
"If you have such a thing as the photograph of a chicken about you, I should be glad to see it," Julius murmured demurely.
Judge Roscoe bent down and kissed him good night on the forehead, then turned to pick his way carefully among the debris of the old furniture. Soon he had reached the stairway, and noiseless as a shadow he flitted down the flight.
The young officer lay for a while intently listening, but no stir reached his ear; naught; absolute stillness. For a long time, despite his fatigue, the change, the pleasant warmth, the soft luxury of the feather-bed, would not let him slumber. He was used to the canopy of heaven, the chill ground, the tumult of rain; the sense of a roof above his head was unaccustomed, and he was stiflingly aware of its propinquity. Nevertheless he contrastedits comfort with his own recent plight and that of his comrades a few miles away, lying now asleep under the security of their camp-guards, some still in the mud of the trenches, all on the cold ground, shelterless, half frozen, half starved, ill, destitute, but fired with a martial ardor and a zeal for the Southern cause which no hardship could damp, and only death itself might quench. As he gazed about at the grotesqueries of the great room, now in the sheen of the moon, and now in the shadow of the cloud, he thought how little he had anticipated finding the enemy here ensconced in his place in his father's house, a convalescent, "the son of an old friend, of whom we have all grown very fond." He raged inwardly at the destruction of his cherished plans wrought by the mere presence of the Federal officer. The joy of his visit was brought to naught. Dangerous as it would have been under the best auspices, its peril was now great and imminent. Instead of the meeting his thoughts had cherished,—the sweets of the stolen hours at the domestic fireside, with the dear faces that he loved, the dulcet voices for which he yearned,—he was to skulk here, undreamed of, like some unhappy ghost haunting a lonely place, fortunate indeed if he might chance to be able to make off elusively after the fashion of the spectral gentry, without becoming a ghost in serious earnest by the event of capture, or catching the pistol ball of the Yankee officer. So much he had risked for thisvisit—life and limb!—and to be relegated to the surplusage of the garret, the loneliness, the desolate moon, the deserted dust of the unfrequented place! He was to approach none of them—none of the hearthstone group! There was to be no joyous greeting, no stealthy laughter, no interchange of loving words, and clasps, and kisses. He was still young; his eyes filled, his throat closed. But that shadowy glimpse of his dear father—he had had that boon!
"I'll remember it, if I bite the dust in the next skirmish. And the question is to get away—for the next skirmish!"
Once more he fell to studying mechanically the grouping of the archaic, disordered furniture; the shifting of the shadows amongst it as a cloud sped by with the wind; the spare boughs of a bare aspen tree etched on the floor by the moon, shining down through the high windows; and that melancholy orb itself, suggestive of a futile vanished past, a time forgotten, and spent illusions, the familiar of loneliness, and the deep empty hours of the midnight—itself a spectre of a dead planet, haunting its wonted pathway of the skies. When its light ceased to fill his lustrous, contemplative eyes he did not know, but as the moon passed on to the west, his melancholy gaze had ceased to follow.
Joy came in the morning when the raven alighted. The "two-faced Janus" was wreathed in smiles, bent double with chuckles, and tears of delight sparkled in his eyes.
"How dee is growed!" he whispered cautiously. "Mannish now, fur true. Gawd! de han'somest one ob de fam'ly!" For, with the refreshment of sleep and the substance, not merely the similitude, of fried chicken, waffles, and coffee, Julius, in the gray uniform of a first lieutenant, made a very gallant show despite the incongruities of the piled-up lumber of the old garret. He had a keen, high, alert profile, his nose a trifle aquiline; his complexion was fair and florid; his eyes were a fiery brown, his hair, of the same rich tint, was now and again tossed impatiently backward, the style of the day being an inconvenient length, for it was worn to hang about the collar. He had a breezy, offhand, impetuous manner, evidently only bridled in by rigorous training to decorous forms, and he stood six feet one inch in his stockings, taller now by one inch more in his boots, which the old servant had helped him to draw on. "Lawd-a-massy! dis de baby?" cried the old negro,admiringly, still on his knees, contemplating the young officer as he took a turn through the apartment with his straight-brimmed cap on his head and his hand on his sword. "'Fore Gawd, whut sorter baby is dis yere—over six feet high?"
"Wish I was a baby for about two hours, Uncle Ephraim! You could carry me 'pickaback' through the Yankee lines!"
"Hue-come ye run dem lines, Marse Julius? I reckon, dough, you hatter see Miss Leonora," said the discerning old darkey. "'Fore de Lawd, she hed better be wearin' dem widder's weeds fur de good match she flung away in you 'stead o' fur dat ar broken-necked man whut's daid, praise de Lamb!"
If Julius joined in this pious thanksgiving, he made no outward sign. He only flushed slightly as he asked constrainedly, "Is she wearing mourning yet?"
"Yes, sah, to be shore. Dis yere Yankee man, whut ole Marster an' de 'ladies' an' all invited to stay yere, he is gwine round Miss Leonora mighty smilin' an' perlite an' humble. Dat man behaves lak he is mos' too modes' ter say his prayers! 'Anything ye got lef' over, good Lawd, will do Baynell, especially a lef'-over widder 'oman!' Dat's his petition ter de throne ob grace!"
Oh, double-faced Janus!—now partisan of the Rebel, erstwhile so friendly with "de Yankee man."
"Ef 'twarn't fur him, yer Pa could come up yere an' smoke aseegar an' talk, an' Miss Leonora an' de ladies mought play kyerds wid dee wunst in a while, wid dem blinds kept closed."
"He isn't such an awful Tartar, is he, Uncle Ephraim?" said Julius, plaintively, allured by this picture. "Wouldn't he wink at it, if he missed them or heard voices, or caught a suspicion of my being here? They have been so good to him—and I am doing nothing aggressive—only visiting the family."
"Lawsy—Lawsy—Lawsy-massy, no! No!" cried Uncle Ephraim, in extreme agitation and with the utmost emphasis of negation. "Dat man is afflicted wid a powerful oneasy conscience, Marse Julius!"
And he detailed with the most convincing and graphic diction the disaster that had befallen the too-confiding Acrobat.
Julius was very definitely impressed with the imminence of his peril. "The son of Belial!" he exclaimed in dismay.
"Naw sah,—datain't his daddy's Christian name," said Uncle Ephraim, ingenuously. "'Tain't Benial!—dough it's mighty nigh ez comical. Hit's 'Fluellen'—same ez dis man's. I hearn ole Marster call it—but what you laffin' at? Dee bed better come out'n dat duck-fit! Folks can hear ye giggling plumb down ter de Big Gate!"
He was constrained to take himself downstairspresently, lest he be missed, although longing to continue his discourse. His caution in his departure, his crafty listening for sounds from below before he would trust his foot to the stair, his swift, gliding transit to the more accustomed region of the second story, the art he expended in concealing in a dust cloth the bowl in which he had conveyed "the forage," as Julius called it—all were eminently reassuring to the man who stood in such imminent peril for a casual whim as he gazed after "the raven's" flight.
Solitary, silent, isolated, the day became intolerably dull to the young soldier as it wore on. He dared not absorb himself in a book, although there were many old magazines in a case which stood near the stairs, for thus he might fail to note an approach. Once he heard the treble babble of two of the "ladies" and the strange, infrequent harsh tone of the deaf-mute, and he paused to murmur, "Bless their dear little souls!" with a tender smile on his face. And suddenly, his attention still bent upon the region below stairs, so unconscious of his presence above, there came to him the full, mellow sound of a stranger's voice, a well-bred, decorous voice with a conventional but pleasant laugh; and then, both in the hallway now, Leonora's drawling contralto, with its cantabile effects, her speech seeming more beautiful than the singing of other women. The front door closed with a bang, and Julius realizedthat they had gone forth together. He stood in vague wonderment and displeasure. Was it possible, he asked himself, that she really received this man's attentions, appeared publicly in his company, accepted his escort? Then, to assure himself, he sprang to the window and looked out upon the grove.
There was the graceful figure of his dreams in her plain black bombazine dress worn without the slightest challenge to favor, the black crape veil floating backward from the ethereally fair face, the glittering gold-flecked brown hair beneath the white ruche, called the "widow's cap," in the edge of her bonnet. Her fine gray eyes were cast toward the house with a languid smile as the "ladies" tapped on the pane of the library window and signed farewell. Beside her Julius scanned a tall, well-set-up man in a blue uniform and the insignia of a captain of artillery, with blond hair and beard, a grave, handsome face, a dignified manner, a presence implying many worldly and social values.
This walk was an occasion of moment to Baynell. The opportunity had arisen in the simplest manner.
There was to be the funeral of a friend of Judge Roscoe's in the neighborhood, and at the table he had been arranging how "the family should be represented," to use his formal phrase, for business necessitated his absence.
"But I will walk over withyou, Leonora,although I cannot stay for the services. I will call by for you later."
It was natural, both in the interests of civility and his own pleasure, that Baynell should offer to take the old gentleman's place, urging that an officer was the most efficient escort in the unsettled state of the country; and, indeed, how could they refuse? He, however, thought only of her acceptability to him. Apart from her beauty he had never known a woman who so conformed to his ideals of the appropriate, despite the grotesque folly of her blighted romance. It was only her nobility of nature, he argued, that had compassed her unhappiness in that instance. The graces of her magnanimity would not have been wasted on him, he protested inwardly. He appreciated that they were fine and high qualities thus cast before swine and ruthlessly trampled underfoot. She herself had lacked in naught—but the unworthy subject of the largess of her heart.
It was Baynell who talked as they took their way through the grove and down the hill. Now and again she lifted her eyes, murmured assent, seemed to listen, always subacutely following the trend of her own reflections.
He would not intrude into the house of affliction, being a stranger, he said, and therefore he strolled about outside during the melancholy obsequies, patiently waiting till she came out again and joined him. She seemed cast down,agitated; he thought her of a delicately sensitive organization.
"How familiar death is becoming in these war times!" she said drearily, when they were out of the crowd once more and fairly homeward bound. "There was not one woman of the hundred in that house who is not wearing mourning."
She rarely introduced a topic, and, with more alacrity than the subject might warrant, he spoke in responsive vein on the increased losses in battle as arms are improved, presently drifting to the comparison of statistics of the mortality in hospitals, the relative chances for life under shell or musketry fire, the destructive efficacy of sabre cuts, and the military value of cavalry charges. The cavalry fought much now on foot, he said, using the carbine, but this reduced the efficiency of the force one-fourth, the necessary discount for horse-holders; he thought there was great value in the cavalry charge, with the unsheathed sabre; it was like the rush of a cyclone; only few troops, well disciplined, could hold their ground before it; thus he pursued the subject of cognate interest to his profession. And meantime she was thinking only of these women, mourning their dead and dear, while she—the hypocrite—wore the garb of the bereaved to emphasize her merciful and gracious release. She wondered how she had ever endured it, she who hated deceit, a fanciful pose, and the emptyconventions, she who did not mourn save for her lost exaltations, her wasted affection, the hopeless aspirations—all the dear, sweet illusions of life! Perhaps she had owed some compliance with the customs of mere widowhood, the outward respect to the status. Well, then, she had paid it; farther than this she would not go.
The next morning as Captain Baynell took his seat at the breakfast-table she was coming in through the glass door from the parterre at one side of the dining room, arrayed in a mazarine blue mousseline-de-laine flecked with pink, a trifle old-fashioned in make, with a bunch of pink hyacinths in her hand, their delicate cold fragrance filling all the room.
Even a man less desirous of being deceived than Baynell might well have deduced a personal application. He was sufficiently conversant with the conventions of feminine attire to be aware that this change was something of the most sudden. His finical delicacy was pained to a certain extent that the casting off her widow's weeds could be interpreted as a challenge to a fresh romance. But he argued that if this were for his encouragement, surely he should not cavil at her candor, for it would require a bolder man than he to offer his heart and hand under the shadow of that swaying crape veil. Nevertheless when his added confidence showed in his elated eyes, his assured manner, she stared at him for a moment with asurprise so obvious that it chilled the hope ardently aglow in his consciousness. The next instant realizing that all the eyes at the table were fixed on her blooming attire, noting the change, she flushed in confusion and vexation. She had not counted on being an object of attention and speculation.
Judge Roscoe's ready tact mitigated the stress of the situation. "Leonora," he said, "you look like the spring! That combination of sky-blue and peach-blow was always a favorite with your aunt,—French taste, she called it. It seems to me that the dyes of dress goods were more delicate then than now; that is not something new, is it?"
"Oh, no; a worn-out thing, as old as the hills!" she answered casually.
And so the subject dropped.
It was renewed in a different quarter.
Old Ephraim was sitting on the floor in the garret, while his young master, adroitly balanced in a crazy arm-chair with three legs, was scraping with a spoon the bottom of the bowl that had contained "the forage."
Julius made these meals as long as he dared, so yearning he was for the news of the dear home life below, so tantalized by its propinquity and yet its remoteness. He was barred from it by his peril and the presence of the Federal officer as if he were a thousand miles away. But old Ephraim came freshly from its scenes;from the table that he served, around which the familiar faces were grouped; from the fireside he replenished, musical with the voices that Julius loved. He caught a glimpse, he heard an echo, through the old gossip's talk, and thus the symposium was prolonged. The old negro told the neighborhood news as well; who was dead, and how and why they died; who was married, and how and when this occurred; what ladies "received Yankee officers," for some there were who put off and on their political prejudices as easily as an old glove; what homes had been seized for military purposes or destroyed by the operations of war.
"De Yankees built a fote on Marse Frank Devrett's hill," he remarked of the home of a relative of the Roscoes.
"Which side," demanded the boy; "toward the river?"
"Todes de souf."
"Pshaw! Uncle Ephraim, it couldn't be the south; the crest of the hill slopes that way," Julius contradicted, still actively plying the spoon. "You don't know north from south; you don't know gee from haw!"
"'Twas de souf, now! 'Twas de souf!" protested the old servant.
"Now look here," argued Julius, beginning to draw with the spoon upon the broad, dusty top of a cedar chest close by. "Here is the Dripping Spring road, and here runs the turnpike.Now here is the rise of the hill, and—"
"Dar is Gen'al Belden's cavalry brigade camped at de foot," put in Uncle Ephraim, rising on his knees, taking a casual interest in cartography.
"And here is the bend of the river,"—the bowl of the spoon made a great swirl to imply the broad sweep of the noble Tennessee.
"Dat's whar dey got some infantry, four reg'ments."
"I see," with several dabs to mark the spot, "convenient for embarkation."
"An' dar," said the old man, unaware of any significance in the disclosure, "is one o' dem big siege batteries hid ahint de bresh—"
"Masked, hey? to protect launching and prevent approach by water; theyarefixed up mighty nice! And here goes the slope of the hill to the fort."
"No, dat's de ravelin, de covered way, an' de par'pet."
"As far down as this, Uncle Ephraim? surely not!"
"Now, ye ain't so much ez chipped de shell ob dis soldierin' business, ye nuffin' but a onhatched deedie! An' yere I been takin' ye fur a perfessed soldier-man! You lissen!yereis de covered way ob de ravelin, outside ob a redoubt, whar dey got a big traverse wid a powder-magazine built into it. I been up dar when dis artillery captain sent his wagons arter his ammunition."
"About where is the magazine located?" demanded Julius, gravely intent.
"Jes' dar—dar—"
"No, no!" cried the Confederate officer, in a loud, elated voice.
The old servant caught him by the sleeve, trembling and with a warning finger lifted. Then they were both silent, intently listening.
The sunlight across the garret floor lay still, save for the bright bar of glittering, dancing motes. The tall aspen tree by the window made no sound as it touched the pane with its white velvet buds. A wasp noiselessly flickered up and down the glass. Absolute quietude, save for a gentle, continuous murmur of voices in conversation in the library below.
"I'se gwine ter take myse'f away from yere," said old Janus, loweringly, his eyes full of reproach, his nerves shaken by the sudden fright. "Ye ain't fitten fur dis yere soldierin' business; jes' pipped de shell. You gwine ter git yerself cotched by dat ar Yankee man whut we-all done loaded ourself up wid, an'denwhar will ye be? He done got well enough ter knock down a muel, an' I dunnowhyhe don't go on back ter his camp. Done wore out his welcome yere, good-fashion!"
But Julius had entirely recovered from thecontretemps. He was gazing in fixed intentness at the map drawn in the dust on the smooth, polished top of the cedar chest.
"Uncle Ephraim," he said in an impressive whisper, "this powder-magazine is built right over a cave! Iknow, because there is a hole, a sort of grotto down in the grove, where you can go in; and in half a mile you come right up against the wall of my cousin Frank Devrett's cellar. We played off ghost tricks there one Christmas, the Devrett boys and me, singing and howling in the cave, and it made a great mystery in the house, frightening my Cousin Alice; but Cousin Frank was in the secret."
"Gimme—gimme dat spoon! I don't keer if de Yankees built deir magazine in dewellinstead ob de cellar. I'm gwine away 'fore dat widder 'oman begins arter me 'bout dat spoon an' bowl! Gimme de bowl, sah, it's de salad bowl!"
"Oh, I see," still pondering on the map; "they utilized part of the cellar, the wine vault, blown out of the solid rock, for the bottom of the powder-magazine to save work, and then covered it over with the traverse, and—"
"Gimme dat bowl, Marse Julius, dat widder 'oman will be on our track direc'ly. She keeps up wid every silver spoon as if she expected ter own 'em one day! But shucks!yougwine ter miss her again, wid all dis foolishness ob playin' Rebel soldier. Dat ar widder 'oman is all dressed out in blue an' pink ter-day, an' dat Yankee man smile same ez a possum!"
Julius Roscoe's absorption dropped in an instant."You are an egregious old fraud!" he cried impetuously. "I saw her myself, yesterday, dressed in deep mourning."
"Thankee, sah!" hoarsely whispered the infuriated old negro. "Ye'se powerful perlite ter pore ole Ephraim, whut's worked faithful fur you Roscoes all de days ob his life. I reckon I'se toted ye a thousand miles on dis ole back! An' I larnedyehow ter feesh an' ter dig in the gyarden,—dough ye is a mighty pore hand wid a hoe,—an' ter set traps fur squir'ls, an' how ter find de wild bee tree. An' dem fine house sarvants never keered half so much fur ye ez de ole cawnfield hand; an' now dey hes all lef', an' de plantation gangs have all gone, too, an' ye would lack yer vittles ef 'twarn't fur de ole cawnfield hand! I'll fetch ye yer breakfus', sah, in de mornin', fur all ye are so perlite. Thankee, kindly, sah, callin'menames!"
And he took his way down the stair. Albeit in danger of capture and death, Julius flew across the floor to the head of the flight, beguilingly beckoning the old negro to return, for the ministering raven had cast up reproachful eyes as he faced about on the first landing. Although obviously relenting, and placated by the tacit apology, the old servant obdurately shook his head surlily. Julius jocosely menaced him with his fists; then, as the gray head finally disappeared, the young man with a sudden change of sentiment strode restlessly up and down the clearspace of the garret, feeling more cast down and ill at ease than ever before.
"Oh, why did I come home!" Julius said over and again, reflecting on his heady venture and its scanty joy. It seemed that the great unhappiness of his life was about to be repeated under his eyes; once before he had witnessed the woman he loved won by another man. Then, however, he was scarcely more than a mere boy; now he was older, and the defeat would go more harshly with him. But was he not even to enter the lists, to break a lance for her favor? Although he had controverted the idea of her doffing her weeds in this connection, he now nothing doubted the fact. Her choice was made, the die was cast. And he stood here a fugitive in his father's house, in peril of capture—nay, it might be even his neck, the shameful death of a spy—that he might once more look upon her face!
He could not be calm, he could no longer be still; and ceaselessly treading to and fro after the house had long grown quiet, and the brilliant radiance of the moon was everywhere falling through the broad, tall windows, his restless spirit was tempted beyond the bounds of the shadowy staircase that he might at least, wandering like some unhappy ghost, see again the old familiar haunts. He passed through the halls, silent, slow, unafraid, as if invested with invisibility. He was grave, heavy-hearted, as alooffrom all it once meant as if he were indeed some sad spirit revisiting the glimpses of the moon. Now and again he paused to gaze on some arrangement of sofas or chairs familiar to his earlier youth. By this big window always lay the backgammon-board. There was the old guitar, with memory, moonlight, romantic dreams, all entangled in the strings! It had been a famous joke to drag that light card-table before the pier glass, which reflected the hand of the unwary gamester. He sank down in a great fauteuil in the library, and through the long window on the opposite side of the room he could see the sheen of the moonlight lying as of old amidst the familiar grove.
The sentry, with his cap and light blue overcoat, its cape fluttering in the breeze, ever and anon marched past, his musket shouldered, all unaware of the eyes that watched him; the budding trees cast scant shadows, spare and linear, on the dewy turf; the flowers bloomed all ghostly white in the parterre at one side. So might he indeed revisit the scene were he dead, Julius thought; so might he silently, listlessly, gaze upon it, his share annulled, his hope bereft.
Were he really dead, he wondered, could he look calmly at Leonora's book where she had laid it down? He knew its owner from her habit of marking the place with a flower; it held a long blooming rod of thePyrus Japonica, the blossoms showing a scarlet glow even in the pallid moonlight.One of the "ladies" had cast on the floor her "nun's bonnet," a tube-like straw covering, fitted with lining and curtain of blue barège and blue ribbons; that belonged to Adelaide, he was sure, the careless one, for the bonnets of the other two "nuns" hung primly on the rack in the side hall. His father's pen and open portfolio lay on the desk, and there too was the pipe that had solaced some knotty perplexity of his business affairs, growing complicated now in the commercial earthquake that the war had superinduced.
Without doubt more troublous times yet were in store. Julius rose suddenly. He must not add to these trials! He must exert every capacity to compass his safe withdrawal from this heady venture, for his father's sake as well as his own. With this monition of duty the poor ghost bade farewell to the scene that so allured him, the old home atmosphere so dear to his sense of exile, and took his way silently, softly, up the stairs.
He met the dawn at the head of the flight, filtering down from a high window. It fell quite distinct on the map of the town and its defences that he had drawn, in the dust on the polished top of the cedar chest, and suddenly a thought came to him altogether congruous with the garish day.
"I know a chief of artillery who would like mightily to hear where that masked battery is! I do believe he could reach it from Sugar Loaf Pinnacle if he could get a few guns up there!"
Then he was reminded anew of the subterranean secret passage from the grotto in the grove through the cave to the cellar of the old Devrett place, where now there was a powder-magazine. "I'd like to get out of the lines with that map set in my head precisely." He thought for a minute with great concentration. "Better still, I'll draw it off on paper."
He had half a mind to take Uncle Ephraim into his confidence to procure pencils and paper, but a prudent monition swayed him. This was going far, very far! He would possess himself of the map duly drawn, but he would share this secret with no one. He resolved that when next the family should be out of the house, for daily they and their invalid guest strolled for exercise in the grove or wandered among the flowers in the old-fashioned garden, he would then venture into the library quietly and secure the materials.
The opportunity, however, did not occur till late in the afternoon. He did not postpone the quest for a midnight hazard, for he daily hoped that with the darkness might come news of the drawing in of the picket-lines, affording him a better chance to make a run for escape. Hence it so happened that when the elder members of the household came in to tea, they found the "ladies" already at the table, the twins gloomily whimpering, the dumb child with an elated yet scornful air, her bright eyes dancing.
They had seen a ghost, the twins protested.
"Oh, fie! fie!" their grandfather uneasily rebuked them, and Captain Baynell turned with the leniency of the happy and consequently the easily pleased to inquire into this juvenile mystery.
Oh, yes, theyhadseen a ghost! a truly true ghost! They mopped their eyes with their diminutive handkerchiefs and wept in great depression of spirit. It was in the library, they further detailed, just about dark. And it had seen them! It scrabbled and scrunched along the wall! And they both drew up their shoulders to their ears to imitate the shrinking attitude of a ghost who would fain shun observation and get out of the way.
Little Lucille laughed fleeringly, understanding from the motion of their lips what they had said. She gazed around with lustrous, excited eyes; then, she turned toward Baynell, and with infinite élan, she smartly delivered the military salute.
"Why," cried Mrs. Gwynn, on the impulse of the moment, "Lucille says it is Julius Roscoe; that is her sign for him. What is all this foolery, Lucille?"
But just then Uncle Ephraim, in his functions as waiter, overturned the large, massive coffee urn, holding much scalding fluid, upon the table, causing the group to scatter to avoid contact with the turbulent flood. The "widder 'oman"struggled valiantly to keep her temper, and said only a little of what she thought. The rearrangement of the table, with her awkward and untrained servant, for the service of the meal so occupied her faculties that the matter passed from her mind.
Miss Mildred Fisher was one of the happiest of women, and this was the result of her own peculiar temperament, although she enjoyed the endowments of a kind fate, for she came of a good family and had a fine fortune in expectation. Her resolute intention was to make the best of everything. With a strong, fresh, buoyant physique and an indomitable spirit it became evident to her in the early stages of this effort that the world is a fairly pleasant planet to live on. Her red hair—a capital defect in those days, when Titian's name was never associated with anything so unfashionable, and which bowed to the earth the soul of many an otherwise deserving damsel—was most skilfully manipulated, and dressed in fleecy billows, usually surmounted with an elaborate comb of carved tortoise-shell, but on special occasions with a cordon of very fine pearls, as if to attract the attention that other flame-haired people avoided by the humblest coiffure. By reason of this management it was described sometimes as auburn, and even golden, but this last was the aberration usually of youths who had lost their own heads, red and otherwise, for Mildred was a bewildering coquette. She had singularly fine hazel eyes,which she used rather less for the purpose of vision than for the destruction of the peace of man. Her complexion of that delicate fairness so often concomitant of red hair did not present the usual freckles. In fact it was the subject of much solicitous care. She wore so many veils and mufflers that her identity often might well be a matter of doubt as far as her features could be discerned, and Seymour, being a very glib young lieutenant, once facetiously threatened her with arrest for going masked and presumably entertaining designs pernicious to the welfare of the army. That she did entertain such designs, in a different sense, was indeed obvious, for with her determination to make the best of everything, Miss Fisher had resolved to harass the heart of the invader the moment a personable man with a creditable letter of introduction presented himself. For she "received the Yankees," as the phrase went, while others closed their doors and steeled their hearts in bitterness.
"Weallreceive the Yankees," she was wont to say smilingly. "It is a family failing with us. My father and five brothers in the Confederate vanguard are waiting now to receive Yankees—as many Yankees as care to come to Bear-grass Creek."
"Oh, Miss Fisher!" remonstrated the gay young lieutenant, perceiving her drift; "how can you consign me so heartlessly to six red-handed Rebels!"
"Only red-headed as yet, fiery,—allof them! They'll be red-handed enough after you and they come to blows!"
This mimic warfare had a certain zest, and many were the youths among the officers of the garrison who liked to "talk politics" in this vein with "Sister Millie," as she was often designated in jocose allusion to the five fiery-haired brothers. And indeed, as the Fisher family was so numerously represented in the Confederate army, she considered that her Southern partisanship was thus comprehensively demonstrated, and she felt peculiarly at liberty to make merry with the enemy if the enemy would be merry in turn.
Very merry and good-natured the enemy was pleased to be as far as she was concerned. They wrote home for social credentials. They secured introductions from brother-officers who had the entrée, and especially courted for this purpose were two elderly colonels who had been classmates of her father's at West Point, where he was educated, although he had resigned from the army many years ago. The two had sought and naturally had found a cordial welcome at the home of his wife, sister, and mother. It was natural, too, that they should feel and exert a sort of prudential care of the household, in the midst of inimical soldiers, and although their ancient companion-in-arms was in an adverse force hardly fifty miles away, they regarded this as merely the political aspect of the situation, whichdid not diminish their amity and bore no relation to their personal sentiment, as they came and went in his house on the footing of friends of the family. Now and again the incongruity was brought home to them by some audacity of Mildred Fisher's.
"If you should meet papa, Colonel Monette," she said one day as one of these elderly officers was going out to command a scouting expedition—"if youshouldmeet papa, don't fail to reintroduce yourself, and give him our prettiest compliments."
The elderly officer was a literal-minded campaigner, and as he put his foot in the stirrup he felt rather dolorously that if ever he did meet Guy Fisher again, it would probably be at point-blank range where one would have to swallow the other's pistol ball.
The war, however, was seldom so seriously regarded at the Fisher mansion, one of the fine modern houses of the town,—brick with heavy limestone facings and much iron grille work, perched up on a double terrace, from which two flights of stone steps descended to the pavement. The more youthful officers contrived to import fruits and hothouse flowers, the fresh books and sheet music of the day, and they stood by the piano and wagged their heads to the march in "Faust," which was all the rage at that time, and sped around nimbly to the vibrations of its waltz, that might have made a pair of spursdance. She had a very pretty wit of an exaggerated tenor, and it seemed to whet the phrase of every one who was associated with "The Fair One with the Equivocal Locks," as an imitator of her methods had dubbed her.
No order was so strictly enforced as to touch her mother's and her aunt's household. Their poultry roosted in peace. Their firearms were left by officers conducting searches through citizens' houses and confiscating pistols, guns, and knives.
"Weare as capable of armed rebellion as ever," she would declare joyously.
Miss Fisher's favorite horse bore her airy weight as jauntily down the street as if no impress had desolated equestrian society. On these occasions she was always accompanied by two or three officers, sometimes more, and there was a fable in circulation that once the cavalcade was so numerous that the guard was turned out at the fort, the sentries mistaking the gayly caparisoned approach for the major general commanding the division and his mounted escort.
She sang in a very high soprano voice and with a considerable degree of culture, but one may be free to say that her rendering of "Il Bacio" and "La Farfalletta" was by no means the triumph of art that it seemed to Seymour, and it was suggested to the mind of several of the elder officers that there ought to be something more arduous for him to do than to languish overthe piano in a sentimental daze, fairly hypnotized by the simpler melodies—"Her bright smile haunts me still" and "Sweet Evangeline."
Serious thoughts were sometimes his portion, and Vertnor Ashley now and again received the benefit of them.
"I heard some news when I was in town to-day—and I don't believe it," Seymour said as he sat on a camp-stool on the grass in front of the colonel's tent.
The so-called "street" of the cavalry encampment lay well to the rear. Hardly a sound emanated therefrom save now and then the echo of a step, the jingling of a spur or sabre, and sometimes voices in drowsy talk—perhaps a snatch of song or the thrumming of a guitar. A sort of luminous hush pervaded the atmosphere of the sunny spring afternoon. The shadows slanted long on the lush blue-grass that, despite the trampling to which it had been subjected, sent a revivifying impetus from its thickly interlaced mat of roots and spread a turf like dark rich velvet. The impulse of bloom was rife throughout nature—in a sort of praise offering for the grace of the spring. Humble untoward sprigs of vegetation, nameless, one would think, unnoticed, must needs wear a tiny corolla or offer a chalice full of dew—so minute, so apart from observation, that their very creation seemed a work of supererogation. The dandelions' rich golden glow was instarred along the roadside, and therewas a bunch of wood violets in the roots of the maple near Ashley's head, the branches of the tree holding far down their dark garnet blossoms with here and there clusters of flat wing-like seed-pods, striped with green and brown. A few paces distant was a tulip-tree, gloriously aflare with red and yellow blooms through all its boughs to the height of eighty feet, and between was swung Ashley's hammock with Ashley luxuriously disposed therein. His eyes were on the infinite roseate ranges of the Great Smoky Mountains in the amethystine distance; the purple Chilhowee darkly loomed closer at hand, and about the foot-hills was belted the placid cestus of tents, all gleaming white, while the splendid curves of the river, mirroring the sky, vied with the golden west. Nothing could have more picturesquely suggested the warrior in his hours of ease. The consciousness of one's own graces ought to add a zest to their value, especially when vanity is as absolutely harmless as Vertnor Ashley's enjoyment of his own good opinion of himself.
"What news? Why don't you believe it? Grape-vine?" asked Ashley. (Grape-vine was the telegraph of irresponsible rumor.)
"No—no—nothing fresh from the army. I heard a rumor to-day about Miss Fisher—that she is engaged to be married."
"I am not surprised—the contrary would surprise me."
Seymour looked alarmed. "Had you heard it, too?"
"No; but from what I have seen of 'Sister Millie,' as they call her about here, I should say she is a fine recruiting officer."
There was an interval of silence, while Ashley swung back and forth in the hammock and Seymour sat in a clumped posture on the camp-stool, his hands on his knees, and his gloomy eyes on the square toes of his new boots. At length he resumed:—
"Did you ever hear of a fellow that hails from somewhere near here named Lloyd?"
"Lawrence Lloyd?"
"That's the man," said Seymour.
"I've heard of him. That's the Lloyd place a little down the river,—old brick house, but all torn down now—burned by Gibdon's men; good-sized park, or 'grove,' as they call it. That's the man, is it? Commanded some Rebel cavalry in the Bear-grass Creek skirmish."
"Fought like a bear with a sore head—mad about his house, I suppose."
"If Iknewthat Miss Fisher was engaged to him, I would send her a barrel or two of fine old books that I rescued from Gibdon's men—thought I'd save 'em for the owner. They made a bonfire of the library there."
"Lloyd used 'em up in a raid last fall—Gibdon's fellows. I don't blame 'em. But, sayMiss Fisher has not been fair to me if she is engaged to that man."
"I always thought Miss Fisher was particularly fair—owing to a sun-bonnet, rather than to a just mind."
"You think she would treat me as she has—encourage me to make a fool of myself—if she is engaged to another man?"
"I think she is likelier to be engaged to five than 'another.'"
"You should not say that, Ashley," retorted Seymour, gravely. "It is not appropriate. You should not say that," he urged again.
"Oh, I mean no offence, and certainly no disrespect to the lovely Miss Fisher, who is my heart's delight. But you have heard the five-swain story?"
As Seymour looked an inquiry—
"Five Rebs in camp, all homesick, very blue, on a Sunday morning," began Ashley, graphically; "all sitting on logs, each brooding over his fiancée's ivory-type. And, as misery loves company, one sympathized with another, and, by way of boastfulness, showed the beautiful counterfeit presentment of his lady-love. Their clamors brought up the rest of the five, andeachhad the identical photograph of Miss Millie Fisher. She was engaged to all five! There was nothing else they could do—so they held a prayer-meeting!"
"What bosh!" exclaimed Seymour, fretfully."People are always at some extravagant story about her like that. It isn't true, of course."
"It is as much like her as if it were true," Ashley declared laughingly.
The serious, not to say petulant traits of Seymour were intensified by the conscious jeopardy of his happiness, and the continual doubt in his mind as to whether he had any ground for hope at all.
"By George! if I knew she was engaged—or—if I knew—anything at all about anything—I'd cut it all, and give it up. I don't want to be a source of amusement to her—or to be made a show of. Sometimes, I pledge you my word, I feel like a dancing bear."
"Miss Fisher has something of the style of a bear-ward, it must be confessed," said Ashley. "I fancied at one time she had a notion of getting a chain on me—she is enterprising, you know."
Then, after a moment, "Whydon'tyou cut it all, Mark?"
"Oh," cried Seymour, with an accent of positive pain, "I can't. Sometimes I believe shedoescare—she makes me believe it."
"Well," smiled Ashley, banteringly, "you dance very prettily—not a bit clumsily—a very creditable sort of bear."
Another interval of silence ensued.
"I blame Baynell for all this," said Seymour, sullenly.
"Why? Is he a rival?"
"No. But it was not at all serious—I wasn't so dead gone, I mean—when I wanted him to take me to the Roscoes'. If I had had some other place to visit—some other people to know—some distraction of a reasonable social circle, she couldn't have brought me to such a—a—"
"—state of captivity," suggested Ashley.
"Well, you know, seeing nobody else of one's own sort—and a charming girl—and nothing to do but to watch her sing—and hear her talk—and all the other men wild about her—and—it's—it's—"
"You'll forget it all before long," suggested the consolatory Ashley. "You know we are here to-day and gone to-morrow, in a sense that General Orders make less permanent than Scripture. If the word should come to break camp and march—how little you would be thinking of Miss Fisher."
"I suppose you were never in love, Ashley," Seymour said, a trifle drearily, adding mentally, "except with yourself!"
"I!" exclaimed Ashley, twirling his mustache. "Oh, I have had my sad experiences, too—but I have survived them—and partially forgotten them."
"I have no interest now in going to the Roscoes'. Mrs. Fisher offered to introduce me. She and Miss Millie are going there to-morrow to some sort of a sewing-circle—they justwant an officer's escort through the suburbs, I know. That sewing-circle is a fraud, and ought to be interdicted. They pretend to sew and knit for the hospitals here and Confederate prisoners, and I feel sure they smuggle the lint and clothes and supplies through the lines to Rebels openly in arms. I hate to go."
"Well, now, I'll engage to eat all the homespun cotton shirts that Miss Fisher ever makes for the Rebel in arms, or any other man. You need have no punctilio on that score."
"Oh, it isn't that. I hate to meet Baynell—what is he staying on there for? He is as rugged now as ever in his life. Is he in love with the widow?"
"He has a queer way of showing it if he is." And Ashley detailed the circumstance of the impressing of the horse. Seymour listened with a look of searching, keen intentness.
"Baynell would never have done that in this world," he declared, "if you had not been there to hear the neighing, too. Why, it stands to reason. The family must have known the horse might whinny at any moment. They relied on his winking at it, and he would have done it if you had not been there. He took that pose of being so regardful of the needs of the service because he has been favoring the Roscoes in every way imaginable. Why, hardly anybody else has a stick of timber left, and every day houses are seized for military occupation, and theowners turned adrift, butIknow that when one of his men stole only a plank from Judge Roscoe's fence, he had the fellow tied up by his thumbs with the plank on his back for hours in the sun. That was for the sake ofdiscipline, my dear fellow—not for Judge Roscoe's plank. On the contrary—quite the reverse!"
Seymour wagged his satiric head, unconvinced, and Ashley remembered afterward that he vaguely wished that Baynell would not make so definite a point about these matters, provoking a sort of comment that ordinary conduct could hardly incur. Baynell ought to be in camp.
Baynell, himself, reached the same conclusion the next evening, but by an altogether different process of reasoning.
He had noticed the unusual stir among the "ladies" early in the afternoon and a sort of festival aspect that the old house was taking on. The parlors were opened and a glow of sunshine illumined the windows and showed the grove from a new aspect—the choicer view where the slope was steep. The river rounded the point of woods, and there was a great stretch of cliffs opposite; beyond were woods again, reaching to the foot-hills that clustered about the base of the distant mountains bounding the prospect. The glimpse seen through the rooms was like a great painting in intense, clear, fine colors, and he paused for a moment to glance at it as he passed down the hall, for all the doors were standing broadly aflare and all the windows were open to the summer-like zephyr that played through the house.
"Oh, Captain Baynell!" cried Adelaide, catching sight of him and gasping in the sheer joy of the anticipation of a great occasion. "The Sewing-Society is going to meet here, and you can come in, too! Mayn't he come in, Cousin Leonora?"
Mrs. Gwynn was filling a large bowl on a centre-table with a gorgeous cluster of deep red tulips, and Baynell noticed that she had thrust two or three into the dense knot of fair hair at the nape of her neck. As she turned around one of the swaying bells was still visible, giving its note of fervid brilliancy to her face. Her dress was a white mull, of simple make—old, even with a delicate darn on one of its floating open sleeves, but to one familiar with her appearance in the sombre garb of widowhood she seemed radiant in a sort of splendor. What was then called a "Spanish waist," a deeply pointed girdle of black velvet, flecked with tiny red tufts, made the sylphlike grace of her figure more pronounced, and at her throat was a collarette of the same material. Her cheeks were flushed. It had been a busy day—with the morning lessons, with the arrangement of the parlors, the array of materials, the setting of the sewing-machines in order, including two or three of the earlier hand-power contrivances, sent in expressly from the neighbors, the baskets for lint,—one could hear even now the whirring of the grindstone as old Ephraim put a keener edge on the scissors. Last but not least Leonora had accomplished the bedizenment of the "ladies."
Adelaide was not born to blush unseen. She realized the solecism that her vanity lured her to commit, yet she said hardily, "Look atme, Captain—I'm got me a magenta sash!"
"And it's beautiful!" cried Baynell, responsively. "And so are you!"
Mrs. Gwynn glanced down at her reprovingly and was out of countenance for a moment.
"How odious it is to give to colors the names of battles," she said,—"Magenta and Solferino!"
"This is a beautiful color, though," said Baynell.
"But the name gives such an ensanguined suggestion," she objected.
Her eye critically scanned the three "ladies" in their short white mull dresses and magenta sashes, each with a bow of black velvet in her hair, as they led Captain Baynell into the room, and it did not occur to her till too late to canvass the acceptability of the presence of the Yankee officer to the ladies of the vicinity, assembling in this choice symposium, who had some of them the cruel associations of death itself with the very sight of the uniform.
Whether it were good breeding, or the magnanimity that exempts the unit from the responsibility of the multitude, or a realization that Judge Roscoe's guest, be he whom he might, was entitled to the consideration of all in the Roscoe house, there was no demonstration of even the slightest antagonism. The usual civility of salutation in acknowledging the introduction served to withhold from Captain Baynell himself the fact that he could hardly hope to bepersona grata;and ensconced in an arm-chair at the window overlooking the lovely landscape, he found a certain amusement and entertainment in watching the zealous industry of the little Roscoe "ladies," who were very competent lint-pickers and boasted some prodigies of performance. A large old linen crumb-cloth, laundered for the occasion, had been spread in the corner between the rear and side windows of the back parlor, so that the flying lint should not bespeck the velvet carpet, or an overturned basket work injury, and here in their three little chairs they sat and competed with each other, appealing to Captain Baynell to time them by his watch.
Now and then their comments, after the manner of their age, were keenly malapropos and occasioned a sense of embarrassment.
"Don't you reckon Ac'obat is homesick by this time, Captain?" demanded Adelaide.
"Look out of the window, Captain—you can see the grating to the wine-cellar where he could put his nose out to take the air," said Geraldine.
"An' he thought the lightning could come in there to take him—kee—kee—" giggled Adelaide.
"Oh,wasn'the a foolish horse!" commented Geraldine, regretfully.
"Uncle Ephraim said Ac'obat had no religion else he'd have stayed where he was put like a Christian," Adelaide observed.
"Oh, but he wasjusta horse—poor Ac'obat!"
At this moment emulation seized Geraldine. "Oh, my—just look how Lucille is double-quickin' about that lint pickin'!"
And a busy silence ensued.
The large rooms were half full of members of the society. In those days the infinite resources of the "ready-made" had not penetrated to these regions, and doubtless the work of such eager and industrious coteries carried comfort and help farther than one can readily imagine, and the organized aid of woman's needle was an appreciable blessing. Two or three matrons, with that wise, capable look of the able house-sovereign, when scissors, or a dish, or a vial of medicine is in hand, sat with broad "lapboards" across their knees, and cut and cut the coarse garments with the skill of experts, till great piles were lying on the floor, caught up with a stitch to hold component parts together and passed on to the younger ladies at the sewing-machines that whirred and whirred like the droning bees forever at the jessamine blooming about the windows. Nothing could be more unbeautiful or uninviting than the aspect of these stout garments, unless it were to the half-clad soldier in the trenches to whom they came like an embodied benediction. The thought of him—that unknown, unnamed beneficiary, for whose grisly needs they wrought—was often, perhaps, in the mind of each.
"And oh!" cried Adelaide, "while I'm pickin' lint for this hospital, I dust know some little girlaway out yonder in the Confederacy is pickin' lint too—an' if my papa was to get wounded, they'd have plenty."
"Pickin' fast, she is, like us!" cried the hastening Geraldine.
The deft-fingered mute, discerning their meaning by the motion of their lips, redoubled her speed.
Others were sewing by hand, and one very old lady had knitted some lamb's wool socks, which were passed about and greatly admired; she was complacent, almost coquettish, so bland was her smile under these compliments.
And into this scene of placid and almost pious labor came Miss Mildred Fisher presently, leading her "dancing bear."
If there were any question of the acceptability of the enforced presence of a Yankee officer, either in the mind of the Sewing-Circle or Lieutenant Seymour, it was not allowed to smoulder in discomfort, but set ablaze to burn itself out.
"I know you are all just perfectly amazed at our assurance in bringing a Yankee officer here,—don'tbe mortified, Lieutenant Seymour,—but mamma wouldn't hear of coming without a valiant man-at-arms as an escort, so I begged and prayed him to come, and now I want you all to beg and pray him to stay!"
Then she introduced him to several ladies, while Mrs. Fisher, always the mainspring of the executive committee, a keen, thin, birdlikewoman, swift of motion and of a graceful presence, but prone to settle moot points with a decisive and not altogether amiable peck, gave him no attention, but darting from group to group devoted herself wholly to the business in hand. She seemed altogether oblivious, too, of Mildred's whims, which were to her an old story. Seldom, indeed, had Mildred Fisher looked more audaciously sparkling. Her fairness was enhanced by the black velvet facing of her white Leghorn turban, encircled with one of those beautiful long white ostrich plumes then so much affected that, after passing around the crown, fell in graceful undulations over the equivocal locks and almost to the shoulder of her black-and-white checked walking suit of "summer silk," trimmed with a narrow black-and-white fringe.
"Grandma sent these socks and shirts—" she said officiously, taking a bundle from a neat colored maid who had followed her—"and I brought my thimble—here it is—golden gold—and a large brass thimble for Mr. Seymour. You wouldn't think he has so much affinity for brass—to look at him now! I intend to make him sew, too. Mrs. Clinton, I know you think I am justawful," turning apologetically upon the very old lady her sweet confiding eyes. "But—oh, Mrs. Warren—before I forget it, I want to let you know that your son wasnotwounded in that Bear-grass Creek skirmish at all. I have a letter from one of my brothers—brother numberfour—and he says it is a mistake; your son was not hurt, but distinguished himself greatly. Here's the letter. I can't tell youhowit came through the lines, for Lieutenant Seymour mightrepeatit; he has the l-o-n-g-e-s-t tongue, though you wouldn't think it, to see him now, speechless as he is."
Lieutenant Seymour rallied sufficiently to protest he couldn't get in a word edgewise, and Mrs. Gwynn, with her official sense of hospitality and a real pity for anything that Millie Fisher had undertaken to torment on whatever score, adopted the tone of the conversation, and said with a smile that he might consider himself "begged and prayed" to remain.
Lieutenant Seymour was instantly placed at ease by this episode, but Mrs. Gwynn experienced a vague disquietude because of the genuine surprise that expressed itself in Mildred Fisher's face as that comprehensive feminine glance of instantaneous appraisement of attire took account of her whole costume. Leonora had not reckoned on this development when, in that sudden revulsion of feeling, she had discarded the fictitious semblance of mourning for the villain who had been the curse of her life. The momentary glance passed as if it had not been, but she could not at once rid herself of a sense of disadvantage. She knew that to others as well the change must seem strange—yet, why should it? All knew that her widow's weeds had been butan empty form—what significance could the fact possess that they were worn for a time as a concession to convention, then laid aside? She could not long lend herself, however, to the absorption of reflection. The present was strenuous.
Miss Fisher was bent on investing Lieutenant Seymour with the thimble and requiring him to thread a needle for himself, while she soberly and with despatch basted a towel which she destined him to hem. The comedy relief that these arrangements afforded to the serious business of the day was very indulgently regarded, and her bursts of silvery laughter and the young officer's frantic pleas for mercy—utterly futile, as all who knew Millie Fisher foresaw they must be—brought a smile to grave faces and relaxed the tension of the situation, placing the unwelcome presence of the unasked visitor in the category of one of Millie Fisher's many freaks.
Seymour had a very limited sense of humor and could not endure to be made ridiculous, even to gladden so merry a lady-love; but when she declared that she would transfer the whole paraphernalia—thimble, needle, towel, and all—to Captain Baynell, and let him do the hemming, Seymour, all unaware of the secret amusement his sudden consent afforded the company, showed that he preferred that she should make him ludicrous rather than compliment another man by her mirthful ridicule.
"Now, there you go! Hurrah! Make haste!Not such a big stitch! Now, Mr. Seymour, let me tell you, Hercules with the distaff was not a circumstance to you!"
And the Sewing-Circle could but laugh.
Upstairs in the quiet old attic these evidences of hilarity rose with an intimation of poignant contrast. The dreary entourage of broken furniture and dusty trunks and chests, the silence and loneliness,—no motion but the vague shifting of the motes in the slant of the sun, no sound but the unshared mirth below, in his own home,—this seemed a more remote exile. Julius felt actually further from the ancestral roof than when he lay many miles away in the trenches in the cold spring rains, with never a canopy but the storm, nor a candle but the flash of the lightning. He sat quite still in the great arm-chair that his weight deftly balanced on its three legs, his head bent to a pose of attention, his cap slightly on one side of his long auburn locks, his eyes full of a sort of listening interest, divining even more than he heard. He was young enough, mercurial enough, to yearn wistfully after the fun,—the refined "home-folks fun" of the domestic circle, the family and their friends,—to which he had been so long a stranger; not the riotous dissipation of the wilder phases of army life nor the animal spirits, the "horse-play," of camp comrades. Sometimes at a sudden outburst of laughter, dominated by Millie Fisher's silvery trills of mirth, his own lips would curve in sympathy,albeit this was but the shell of the joke, its zest unimagined, and light would spring into his clear dark eyes responsive to the sound. Now and again he frowned as he noted men's voices, not his father's nor well-remembered tones of old friends. They had been less frequent than the women's voices, but now they came at closer intervals, with an unfamiliar accent, with a different pitch, and he began to realize that here were the Yankee officers.
"Upon my word, they seem to be having a fine time," he said sarcastically.
In the next acclaim he could distinguish, besides the tones of the invaders and the ringing vibration from Millie Fisher that led every laugh, Leonora's drawling contralto accents, now and again punctuated with a suggestion of mirth, and high above all the callow chirp of the twin "ladies." He lifted his head and looked at the wasps, building their cells on the window lintel, the broad, dreary spaces of the attic; and he beheld, as it were, in contrast, his own expectation, the welcome, the cherished guest, the guarded secret, the open-hearted talks with his father, with the "ladies," with her whom, since widowed, he might call to himself, without derogation to his affection or disrespect to her, his "best beloved." The hardship it was that for the bleak actuality he should have risked his capture, his life,—yes, even his neck! His hand trembled upon the map,wrought out to every detail of his discoveries, that he kept now in his breast, and now shifted to the sole of his boot, and now slid in the lining of his coat-pocket, always seeking the safest hiding-place,—forever seeking, forever doubting the wisdom of his selection.
But the map—that was something! He had gained this precious knowledge. Only to get away with it, unharmed, unchallenged, unmolested! This was the problem. This was worth coming for.
"I'll give you some more active entertainment before long, my fine squires of dames," he apostrophized the strangers triumphantly. Then he experienced a species of rage that they should be so merry—and he, he must not see Leonora's face, must not touch her hand, must not tell her all he felt; this would have been dear to him even if she had not cared to listen. It would have been like the votive offering at a shrine, like a prayer from out the fulness of the heart.
There was presently the tinkle of glasses and spoons, intimating the serving of refreshments. "I'd like to see old Uncle Ephraim playing butler. He must step about as gingerly as a gobbler on hot tin," Julius said to himself with a smile. "I'll bet a million of dollars he has saved me my share—on a high shelf in the pantry it is right now, in a covered dish; and if Leonora should come across it, she would think the old man was thieving on his own account. Such are the insincerities of circumstantial evidence!"