“Methought I met a Damsel Fair And tears were in her eyes; Her head and arms were bare, I heard her bursting sighs.
“I stopp'd and looked her in the face, 'Twas then she sweetly smiled. Her features shone with mournful grace, Far more than Nature's child.
“With diffident and downcast eye, In modest tones she spoke; She wiped a tear and gave a sigh, And then her silence broke—”
So sang Mrs. Tanberry at the piano, relieving the melancholy which possessed her; but Nelson, pausing in the hail to listen, and exceedingly curious concerning the promised utterance of the Damsel Fair, was to suffer disappointment, as the ballad was broken off abruptly and the songstress closed the piano with a monstrous clatter. Little doubt may be entertained that the noise was designed to disturb Mr. Carewe, who sat upon the veranda consulting a brown Principe, and less that the intended insult was accomplished. For an expression of a vindictive nature was precipitated in that quarter so simultaneously that the bang of the piano-lid and the curse were even as the report of a musket and the immediate cry of the wounded.
Mrs. Tanberry at once debouched upon the piazza, showing a vast, clouded countenance. “And I hope to heaven you already had a headache!” she exclaimed.
“The courtesy of your wish, madam,” Carewe replied, with an angry flash of his eye, “is only equaled by the kindness of heaven in answering it. I have, in fact, a headache. I always have, nowadays.”
“That's good news,” returned the lady heartily.
“I thank you,” retorted her host.
“Perhaps if you treated your daughter even a decent Indian's kind of politeness, you'd enjoy better health.”
“Ah! And in what failure to perform my duty toward her have I incurred your displeasure?”
“Where is she now?” exclaimed the other excitably. “Where is she now?”
“I cannot say.”
“Yes, you can, Robert Carewe!” Mrs. Tanberry retorted, with a wrathful gesture. “You know well enough she's in her own room, and so do I—for I tried to get in to comfort her when I heard her crying. She's in there with the door bolted, where you drove her!”
“I drove her!” he sneered.
“Yes, you did, and I heard you. Do you think I couldn't hear you raging and storming at her like a crazy man? When you get in a temper do you dream there's a soul in the neighborhood who doesn't know it? You're a fool if you do, because they could have heard you swearing down on Main Street, if they'd listened. What are you trying to do to her?—break her spirit?—or what? Because you'll do it, or kill her. I never heard anybody cry so heart-brokenly.” Here the good woman's own eyes filled. “What's the use of pretending?” she went on sorrowfully. “You haven't spoken to her kindly since you came home. Do you suppose I'm blind to that? You weren't a bad husband to the poor child's mother; why can't you be a good father to her?”
“Perhaps you might begin by asking her to be a good daughter to me.”
“What has she done?”
“The night before I went away she ran to a fire and behaved there like a common street hoyden. The ladies of the Carewe family have not formerly acquired a notoriety of that kind.”
“Bah!” said Mrs. Tanberry.
“The next morning, when I taxed her with it, she dutifully defied and insulted me.”
“I can imagine the delicacy with which you 'taxed' her. What has that to do with your devilish tantrums of this afternoon, Robert Carewe?”
“I am obliged to you for the expression,” he returned. “When I came home, this afternoon, I found her reading that thing.” He pointed to many very small fragments of Mr. Cummings's newspaper, which were scattered about the lawn near the veranda. “She was out here, reading an article which I had read downtown and which appeared in a special edition of that rotten sheet, sent out two hours ago.”
“Well?”
“Do you know what that article was, madam, do you know what it was?” Although breathing heavily, Mr. Carewe had compelled himself to a certain outward calmness, but now, in the uncontrollable agitation of his anger, he sprang to his feet and struck one of the wooden pillars of the porch a shocking blow with the bare knuckles of his clenched hand. “Do you know what it was? It was a eulogy of that damned Vanrevel! It pretended to be an account of the enrollment of his infernal company, but it was nothing more than a glorification of that nigger-loving hound! His company—a lot of sneaks, who'll run like sheep from the first Greaser—elected him captain yesterday, and today he received an appointment as major! It dries the blood in my veins to think of it!—that black dog a major! Good God! am I never to hear the last of him? Cummings wrote it, the fool, the lying, fawning, slobbering fool; he ought to be shot for it! Neither he nor his paper ever enter my doors again! And I took the dirty sheet from her hands and tore it to pieces—”
“Yes,” interposed Mrs. Tanberry, “it looks as if you had done it with your teeth.”
“—And stamped it into the ground!”
“Oh, I heard you!” she said.
Carewe came close to her, and gave her a long look from such bitter eyes that her own fell before them. “If you've been treacherous to me, Jane Tanberry,” he said, “then God punish you! If they've met—my daughter and that man—while I was away, it is on your head. I don't ask you, because I believe if you knew anything you'd lie for her sake. But I tell you that as she read that paper, she did not hear my step on the walk nor know that I was there until I leaned over her shoulder. And I swear that I suspect her.”
He turned and walked to the door, while the indomitable Mrs. Tanberry, silenced for once, sank into the chair he had vacated. Before he disappeared within the house, he paused.
“If Mr. Vanrevel has met my daughter,” he said, in a thick voice, stretching out both hands in a strange, menacing gesture toward the town that lay darkling in the growing dusk, “if he has addressed one word to her, or so much as allowed his eyes to rest on her overlong, let him take care of himself!”
“Oh, Robert, Robert,” Mrs. Tanberry cried, in a frightened whisper to herself, “all the fun and brightness went out of the world when you came home!”
For, in truth, the gayety and light-heartedness which, during the great lady's too brief reign, had seemed a vital adjunct of the house to make the place resound with music and laughter, were now departed. No more did Mrs. Tanberry extemporize Dan Tuckers, mazourkas, or quadrilles in the ball-room, nor Blind-Man's Buff in the library; no more did serenaders nightly seek the garden with instrumental plunkings and vocal gifts of harmony. Even the green bronze boy of the fountain seemed to share the timidity of the other youths of the town where Mr. Carewe was concerned, for the goblet he held aloft no longer sent a lively stream leaping into the sunshine in translucent gambols, but dribbled and dripped upon him like a morbid autumn rain. The depression of the place was like a drape of mourning purple; but not that house alone lay glum, and there were other reasons than the return of Robert Carewe why Rouen had lost the joy and mirth that belonged to it. Nay, the merry town had changed beyond all credence; it was hushed like a sick-room, and dolefully murmurous with forebodings of farewell and sorrow.
For all the very flower of Rouen's youth had promised to follow Tom Vanrevel on the long and arduous journey to Mexico, to march burning miles under the tropical sun, to face strange fevers and the guns of Santa Anna.
Few were the houses of the more pretentious sort that did not mourn, in prospect, the going of son, or brother, or close friend; mothers already wept not in secret, fathers talked with husky bravado; and everyone was very kind to those who were to go, speaking to them gently and bringing them little foolish presents. Nor could the hearts of girls now longer mask as blocks of ice to the prospective conquistadores; Eugene Madrillon's young brother, Jean, after a two years' Beatrice-and-Benedict wooing of Trixie Chenoweth (that notable spitfire) announced his engagement upon the day after his enlistment, and recounted to all who would listen how his termagant fell upon his neck in tears when she heard the news. “And now she cries about me all the time,” finished the frank Jean blithely.
But there was little spirit for the old merriments: there were no more carpet-dances at the Bareauds', no masquerades at the Madrillons', no picnics in the woods nor excursions on the river; and no more did light feet bear light hearts through the “mazes of the intricate schottische, the subtle mazourka, or the stately quadrille,” as Will Cummings remarked in the Journal. Fanchon, Virginia, and five or six others, spent their afternoons mournfully, and yet proudly, sewing and cutting large pieces of colored silk, fashioning a great flag for their sweethearts and brothers to bear southward and plant where stood the palace of the Montezumas.
That was sad work for Fanchon, though it was not for her brother's sake that she wept, since, as everyone knew, Jefferson was already so full of malaria and quinine that the fevers of the South and Mexico must find him invulnerable, and even his mother believed he would only thrive and grow hearty on his soldiering. But about Crailey, Fanchon had a presentiment more vivid than any born of the natural fears for his safety; it came to her again and again, reappearing in her dreams; she shivered and started often as she worked on the flag, then bent her fair head low over the gay silks, while the others glanced at her sympathetically. She had come to feel quite sure that Crailey was to be shot.
“But I've dreamed it—dreamed it six!” she cried, when he laughed, at her and tried to cheer her. “And it comes to me in the day-time as though I saw it with my eyes: the picture of you in an officer's uniform, lying on the fresh, green grass, and a red stain just below the throat.”
“That shows what dreams are made of, dear lady,” he smiled. “We'll find little green grass in Mexico, and I'm only a corporal; so where's the officer's uniform?”
Then Fanchon wept the more, and put her arms about him, while it seemed to her that she must cling to him so forever and thus withhold him from fulfilling her vision, and that the gentle pressure of her arms must somehow preserve him to life and to her. “Ah, you can't go, darling,” she sobbed, while he petted her and tried to soothe her. “You can't leave me! You belong to me! They can't, can't, can't take you away from me!”
And when the flag was completed, save for sewing the stars upon the blue ground, she took it away from the others and insisted upon finishing the work herself. To her own room she carried it, and each of the white stars that the young men of Rouen were to follow in the struggle that would add so many others to the constellation, was jewelled with her tears and kissed by her lips as it took its place with its brothers. Never were neater stitches taken, for, with every atom of her body yearning to receive the shot that was destined for Crailey, this quiet sewing was all that she could do! She would have followed him, to hold a parasol over him under the dangerous sun, to cook his meals properly, to watch over him with medicines and blankets and a fan; she would have followed barefoot and bareheaded, and yet, her heart breaking with the crucial yearning to mother him and protect him, this was all that she could for him, this small stitching at the flag he had promised to follow.
When the work was quite finished, she went all over it again with double thread, not facing the superstition of her motive, which was to safeguard her lover: the bullet that was destined for Crailey might, in the myriad chances, strike the flag first and be deflected, though never so slightly, by one of these last stitches, and Crailey's heart thus missed by the same margin. It was at this juncture, when the weeping of women was plentiful, when old men pulled long faces, and the very urchins of the street observed periods of gravity and even silence, that a notion entered the head of Mrs. Tanberry—young Janie Tanberry—to the effect that such things were all wrong. She declared energetically that this was no decent fashion of farewell; that after the soldiers went away there would be time enough to enact the girls they had left behind them; and that, until then, the town should be made enlivening. So she went about preaching a revival of cheerfulness, waving her jewelled hand merrily from the Carewe carriage to the volunteers she saw upon the street, calling out to them with laughter and inspiring quip; everywhere scolding the mourners viciously in her husky voice, and leaving so much of heartening vivacity in her wake that none could fail to be convinced that she was a wise woman.
Nor was her vigor spent in vain. It was decided that a ball should be given to the volunteers of Rouen two nights before their departure for the State rendezvous, and it should be made the noblest festival in Rouen's history; the subscribers took their oath to it. They rented the big dining-room at the Rouen House, covered the floor with smooth cloth, and hung the walls solidly with banners and roses, for June had come. More, they ran a red carpet across the sidewalk (which was perfectly dry and clean) almost to the other side of the street; they imported two extra fiddles and a clarionet to enlarge the orchestra; and they commanded a supper such as a hungry man beholds in a dream.
Miss Betty laid out her prettiest dress that evening, and Mrs. Tanberry came in and worshipped it as it rested, like foam of lavender and white and gray, upon the bed, beside the snowy gloves with their tiny, stiff lace gauntlets, while two small white sandal-slippers, with jeweled buckles where the straps crossed each other, were being fastened upon Miss Betty's silken feet by the vain and gloating Mamie.
“It's a wicked cruelty, Princess!” exclaimed Mrs. Tanberry. “We want cheer the poor fellows and help them to be gay, and here do you deliberately plan to make them sick at the thought of leaving the place that holds you! Or have you discovered that there's one poor vagabond of the band getting off without having his heart broken, and made up your mind to do it for him tonight?”
“Is father to go with us?” asked Betty. It was through Mrs. Tanberry that she now derived all information concerning Mr. Carewe, as he had not directly addressed her since the afternoon when he discovered her reading the Journal's extra.
“No, we are to meet him' there. He seems rather pleasanter than usual this evening,” remarked Mrs. Tanberry, hopefully, as she retired.
“Den we mus' git ready to share big trouble tomorrer!” commented the kneeling Mamie, with a giggle.
Alas! poor adoring servitress, she received a share unto herself that very evening, for her young mistress, usually as amiable as a fair summer sky, fidgetted, grumbled, found nothing well done, and was never two minutes in the same mind. After donning the selected dress, she declared it a fright, tried two others, abused each roundly, dismissed her almost weeping handmaiden abruptly, and again put on the first. Sitting down to the mirror, she spent a full hour over the arrangement of her hair, looking attentively at her image, sometimes with the beginning of doubtful approval, often angrily, and, now and then, beseechingly, imploring it to be lovely.
When Mrs. Tanberry came in to tell her that Nelson was at the block with the carriage, Miss Betty did not turn, and the elder lady stopped on the threshold and gave a quick, asthmatic gasp of delight. For the picture she saw was, without a doubt in the world, what she proclaimed it, a moment later, ravishingly pretty: the girlish little pink and white room with all its dainty settings for a background, lit by the dozen candles in their sconces and half as many slender silver candlesticks, and, seated before the twinkling mirror, the beautiful Miss Carewe, in her gown of lace and flounces that were crisp, yet soft, her rope of pearls, her white sandals, and all the glory of her youth. She had wound a wreath of white roses into her hair, her cheeks were flushed, and her eyes warm and glowing, yet inscrutable in their long gaze into the mirror.
“Oh,” said Mrs. Tanberry, “you make me want to be a man! I'd pick you up and run to the North Pole, where no one could ever follow. And I can tell you that it hurts not to throw my arms round you and kiss you; but you're so exquisite I don't want to touch you!”
In answer, Miss Betty ran to her and kissed her rapturously on both cheeks. “Am I—after all?” she cried. “Am I? Is it? Will the roses do?” And without heeding her companion's staccatoes of approval she went rapidly to the open bureau, snatched up a double handful of ribbons and furbelows, and dashed out of the room in search of the disgraced Mamie. She found her seated on the kitchen door-step in lonely lamentation, and showered the gifts into her lap, while the vain one shrieked inimitably with pride in the sudden vision of her mistress and joy of the incredible possessions.
“Here, and here, and here!” said Miss Betty in a breath, hurling the fineries upon her. “I'm an evil-tongued shrew, Mamie, and these aren't to make up for the pain I gave you, but just to show that I'd like to if I knew how! Good-by!” And she was off like an April breeze.
“Dance wid the han'somdest,” screamed Mamie, pursuing uproariously to see the last of her as she jumped into the carriage, “bow to de wittriest, an' kiss de one you love de bes'!”
“That will be you!” said Miss Betty to Mrs. Tanberry, and kissed the good lady again.
It is a matter not of notoriety but of the happiest celebrity that Mrs. Tanberry danced that night, and not only that she danced, but that she waltzed. To the lot of Tappingham Marsh (whom she pronounced the most wheedlmg vagabond, next to Crailey Gray, of her acquaintance) it fell to persuade her; and, after a quadrille with the elder Chenoweth, she was with Tappingham. More extraordinary to relate, she danced down both her partner and music. Thereupon did Mr. Bareaud, stung with envy, dare emulation and essay a schottische with Miss Trixie Chenoweth, performing marvelously well for many delectable turns before he unfortunately fell down. It was a night when a sculptured god would have danced on his pedestal: June, but not over-warm, balm in the air and rose leaves on the breeze; and even Minerva's great heels might have marked the time that orchestra kept. Be sure they waltzed again to “Those Endearing Young Charms “:
“Oh, the heart that has truly loved never forgets, But as truly loves on to the close: as the sunflower turns on her god when he sets, The same look that she gave when he rose.”
Three of the volunteers were resplendent in their regimentals: Mr. Marsh (who had been elected captain of the new company to succeed Vanrevel), and Will Cummings and Jean Madrillon, the lieutenants. This glory was confined to the officers, who had ordered their uniforms at home, for the privates and non-commissioned officers were to receive theirs at the State rendezvous. However, although this gala adornment was limited to the three gentlemen mentioned, their appearance added “an indescribable air of splendor and pathos to the occasion,” to quote Mr. Cummings once more. A fourth citizen of the town who might have seized upon this opportunity to display himself as a soldier neglected to take advantage of it and stole in quietly, toward the last, in his ordinary attire, leaving his major's uniform folded on a chair in his own room. The flag was to be presented to the volunteers at the close of the evening, and Tom came for that—so he claimed to his accusing soul.
He entered unobserved and made his way, keeping close to the wall, to where Mrs. Bareaud sat, taking a chair at her side; but Robert Carewe, glancing thither by chance, saw him, and changed countenance for an instant. Mr. Carewe composed his features swiftly, excused himself with elaborate courtesy from Miss Chenoweth, with whom he was talking, and crossed the room to a corner near his enemy. Presently, as the music ceased, the volunteers were bidden to come forward, whereupon Tom left Mrs. Bareaud and began to work his way down the room. Groups were forming and breaking up in the general movement of the crowd, and the dissolving of one brought him face to face with Elizabeth Carewe, who was moving slowly in the opposite direction, a small flock of suitors in her train.
The confrontation came so suddenly and so unexpectedly that, before either was aware, they looked squarely into each other's eyes, full and straight, and both stopped instantly as though transfixed, Miss Betty leaving a sentence forever half-complete. There was a fierce, short vocal sound from the crowd behind Vanrevel; but no one noticed Mr. Carewe; and then Tom bowed gravely, as in apology for blocking the way, and passed on.
Miss Betty began to talk again, much at random, with a vivacity too greatly exaggerated to be genuine, while the high color went from her cheeks and left her pale. Nothing could have enraged her more with herself than the consciousness, now suddenly strong within her, that the encounter had a perceptible effect upon her. What power had this man to make her manner strained and mechanical? What right had his eyes always to stir her as they did? It was not he for whom she had spent an hour over her hair; not he for whom she had driven her poor handmaiden away in tears: that was for one who had not come, one great in heart and goodness, one of a pure and sacrificial life who deserved all she could give, and for whose sake she had honored herself in trying to look as pretty as she could. He had not come; and that hurt her a little, but she felt his generosity, believing that his motive was to spare her, since she could not speak to him in Mr Carewe's presence without open and public rupture with her father. Well, she was almost ready for that, seeing how little of a father hers was! Ah! that other should have come, if only to stand between her and this tall hypocrite whose dark glance had such strength to disturb her. What lies that gaze contained, all in the one flash!—the strange pretence of comprehending her gently but completely, a sad compassion, too, and with it a look of farewell, seeming to say: “Once more I have come for this—and just, 'Good-by!” For she knew that he was going with the others, going perhaps forever, only the day after tomorrow—-then she would see him no more and be free of him. Let the day after tomorrow come soon! Miss Betty hated herself for understanding the adieu, and hated herself more because she could not be sure that, in the startled moment of meeting before she collected herself, she had let it go unanswered.
She had done more than that: without knowing it she had bent her head to his bow, and Mr. Carewe had seen both the salutation and the look.
The young men were gathered near the orchestra, and, to the hilarious strains of “Yankee Doodle,” the flag they were to receive for their regiment was borne down the room by the sisters and sweethearts who had made it, all of whom were there, except Fanchon Bareaud. Crailey had persuaded her to surrender the flag for the sake of spending this evening—next to his last in Rouen—at home alone with him.
The elder Chenoweth made the speech of presentation, that is, he made part of it before he broke down, for his son stood in the ranks of the devoted band. Until this incident occurred, all had gone trippingly, for everyone had tried to put the day after to-morrow from his mind. Perhaps there might not have been so many tears even now, if the young men had not stood together so smilingly to receive their gift; it was seeing them so gay and confident, so strong in their youth and so unselfish of purpose; it was this, and the feeling that all of them must suffer and some of them die before they came back. So that when Mr. Chenoweth, choking in his loftiest flight, came to a full stop, and without disguise buried his face in his handkerchief, Mrs. Tanberry, the apostle of gayety, openly sobbed. Chenoweth, without more ado, carried the flag over to Tappingham Marsh, whom Vanrevel directed to receive it, and Tappingham thanked the donors without many words, because there were not then many at his command. .
Miss Carewe bad been chosen to sing “The Star Spangled Banner,” and she stepped out a little from the crowd to face the young men as the orchestra sounded the first chord. She sang in a full, clear voice, but when the volunteers saw that, as she sang, the tears were streaming down her cheeks in spite of the brave voice, they began to choke with the others. If Miss Betty found them worth weeping for, they could afford to cry a little for themselves. Yet they joined the chorus nobly, and raised the roof with the ringing song, sending the flamboyant, proud old words thunderously to heaven.
That was not the last song of the night. General Trumble and Mr. Chenoweth had invited their young friends to attend, after the ball, a collation which they chose to call a supper, but which, to accord with the hour, might more aptly have been designated a breakfast. To afford a private retreat for the scene of this celebration, they had borrowed the offices of Gray and Vanrevel, and Crailey hospitably announced that any guest was welcome to stay for a year or two, since, probably, neither of the firm would have need of an office for at least that length of time. Nine men gathered about the table which replaced Tom's work-a-day old desk: the two Chenoweths, Eugene Madrillon, Marsh, Jefferson Bareaud, the stout General, Tom Vanrevel, Crailey, and Will Cummings, the editor coming in a little late, but rubbing his hands cheerfully over what he declared was to be the last column from his pen to rear its length on the Journal's front page for many a long day—a description of the presentation of the flag, a bit of prose which he considered almost equal to his report of the warehouse fire.
This convivial party made merry and tried to forget that most of them had “been mighty teary,” as Marsh said, an hour earlier; while Mr. Chenoweth sat with his hand on his son's shoulder, unconsciously most of the time, apologetically removing, it when he observed it. Many were the witticisms concerning the difference in rank hence forth to be observed between the young men, as Tom was now a major, Marsh a captain, Will Cummings a second lieutenant, and the rest mere privates, except Crailey, who was a corporal. Nevertheless, though the board was festive, it was somewhat subdued and absent until they came to the toasts.
It was Tappingham who proposed Miss Betty Carewe. “I know Tom Vanrevel will understand—nay, I know he's man enough to join us,” said Marsh as he rose. “Why shouldn't I say that we may hail ourselves as patriots, indeed, since at the call of our country we depart from the town which is this lady's home, and at the trumpet's sound resign the gracious blessing of seeing her day by day, and why shouldn't we admit loyally and openly that it is her image alone which shines in the hearts of most of us here?”
And no man arose to contradict that speech, which appears to have rung true, seeing that four of those present had proposed to her (again) that same evening. “So I give you,” cried Tappingham, gallantly, “the health of Miss Betty Carewe, the loveliest rose of our bouquet! May she remember us when we come home!”
They rose and drank it with a shout. But Tom Vanrevel, not setting down his cup, went to the window and threw wide the shutters, letting in a ruddy shaft of the morning sun, so that as he stood in the strong glow he looked like a man carved out of red gold. He lifted his glass, not toward the table and his companions, while they stared at him, surprised, but toward the locusts of Carewe Street.
“To Miss Betty Carewe,” he said, “the finest flower of them all! May she remember those who never come home!”
And, without pausing, he lifted his rich baritone in an old song that had been vastly popular with the young men of Rouen ever since the night of Miss Betty's debut; they had hummed it as they went about their daily work, they had whistled it on the streets; they had drifted, into dreams at night with the sound of it still chiming in their ears; and now, with one accord, as they stood gathered together for the last time in Rouen, they joined Tom Vanrevel and sang it again. And the eyes of Crailey Gray rested very gently upon his best friend as they sang:
“Believe me, If all those endearing young charms, Which I gaze on so fondly to-day, Were to change by to-morrow and fleet from my arms, Like fairy gifts fading away, Thou wouldst still be adored as this moment thou art: Let thy loveliness fade as it will, And around the dear ruin, each wish of my heart Would entwine itself verdantly still.”
It was the misfortune of Mr. Cummings's first literary offering to annoy one of the editor's friends. The Journal was brought to the corporal at noon, while he was considering whether he should rise from his couch or sleep another hour. Reclining among his pillows, he glanced through Cummings's description with the subdued giggle he always had for the good William's style but as his eye fell upon one paragraph he started sat upright, and proceeded to read the passage several times with anxious attention.
“Only two or three sources of regret occurred to mar the delight (in which young and old participated) of that festal and dazzling scene. One was the absence of Miss Fanchon Bareaud, one the donors; another, that of Corporal Gray; a third was the excessive modesty of Major Vanrevel, although present at the time, refused to receive the ladies' sumptuous offering and insisted that Captain Marsh was the proper person to do the honors, to which the latter reluctantly, though gracefully consented. Also, we were sorry that the Major appeared in citizen's dress, as all were anxious to witness him in his uniform. However, in our humble judgment, he will be compelled by etiquette to don it this afternoon, to receive the officers of the regular army, who will arrive by the stage about five o'clock, it is expected, to inspect the company and swear them into the service of the Federal Government at the Court House. We, for one, have little doubt that, owing to the Major's well-known talent in matters of apparel, his appearance will far eclipse in brilliancy that of his fellow-officers.”
Crailey dressed slowly, returning to the paper, now and then, with a perturbed countenance. How would Miss Betty explain this paragraph to herself, and how account for the fact that she had not seen Crailey, how for the fact that she had seen Tom? It seemed unlikely that she could have overlooked the latter—Tom was one of those whom everybody saw, wherever he went. And what inquiries would she make? For Crailey had no means of knowing that she would not see the Journal. Tomorrow he would be gone, it would be all over, but he wanted this last day to run smoothly. What wild hopes he had of things that should happen when they all came marching home, no one can say; even if it were not to be doubted that Crailey ever entertained hopes of any kind whatever, since to hope is to bestow thought upon the future.
But, however affairs ran with him so far as hope was concerned, he seldom lacked an idea; and one came to him presently, a notion that put the frown to rout and brought the old smile to his lips, his smile of the world-worn and tolerant prelate. He flicked the paper lightly from him, and it sped across the room like a big bird in awkward flight. For he knew how to preserve his last day as he wished, and to make all smooth.
He finished his toilet with particular care, took a flower from a vase on his table, placed it in his coat, and went down to the dusty street, where everything was warm and bright with summer. It was joy to be alive; there was wine enough in the air; and Crailey made up his mind not to take a drink that day—the last day! The last day! The three words kept ringing through his head like a minor phrase from a song. Tomorrow, at noon, they would be churning down the river; and this was the last day—the last day!
“Still not too late to make another friend at home,” he said, stopping to pat the head of a mangy street cur that came crouching and wobbling toward him like a staveless little keg worried by scurries of wind. Dogs and children always fell in love with Crailey at first sight, and he never failed to receive them in the spirit of their approach. Now the mongrel, at his touch, immediately turned himself over and lay upon the pavement with all paws in air, to say: “Great lord, magnificent in the graciousness which deigns to cast a glimpse upon this abject cluster of ribs, I perceive that your heart is too gentle to kick me in my present helplessness; yet do with me as you will.”
“I doubt if you've breakfasted, brother,” Crailey responded aloud, rubbing the dog's head softly with the tip of his boot. “Will you share the meagre fare of one who is a poet, should be a lawyer, but is about to become a soldier? Eh, but a corporal! Rise, my friend. Up! and be in your own small self a whole Corporal's Guard! And if your Corporal doesn't come home from the wars, perhaps you'll remember him kindly? Think?”
He made a vivacious gesture, the small animal sprang into the air, convoluted with gratitude and new love, while Crailey, laughing softly, led the way to the hotel. There, while he ate sparsely himself, he provided munificently for his new acquaintance, and recommended him, with an accompaniment of silver, to the good offices of the Rouen House kitchen. After that, out into the sunshine again he went, with elastic step, and a merry word and a laugh for everyone he met. At the old English gardener's he bought four or five bouquets, and carried them on a round of visits of farewell to as many old ladies who had been kind to him. This done, leaving his laughter and his flowers behind him, he went to Fanchon and spent part of the afternoon bringing forth cunning arguments cheerily, to prove to her that General Taylor would be in the Mexican capital before the volunteers reached New Orleans, and urging upon her his belief that they would all be back in Rouen before the summer was gone.
But Fanchon could only sob and whisper, “Hush, hush!” in the dim room where they sat, the windows darkened so that, after he had gone, he should not remember how red her eyes were, and the purple depths under them, and thus forget how pretty she had been at her best. After a time, finding that the more he tried to cheer her, the more brokenly she wept, he grew silent, only stroking her head, while the summer sounds came in through the window: the mill-whir of locusts, the small monotone of distant farm-bells, the laughter of children in the street, and the gay arias of a mocking-bird singing in the open window of the next house. So they sat together through the long, still afternoon of the last day.
No one in Rouen found that afternoon particularly enlivening. Even Mrs. Tanberry gave way to the common depression, and, once more, her doctrine of cheerfulness relegated to the ghostly ranks of the purely theoretical, she bowed under the burden of her woe so far as to sing “Methought I Met a Damsel Fair” (her of the bursting sighs) at the piano. Whenever sadness lay upon her soul she had acquired the habit of resorting to this unhappy ballad; today she sang it four times. Mr. Carewe was not at home, and had announced that though he intended to honor the evening meal by his attendance, he should be away for the evening itself; as comment upon which statement Mrs. Tanberry had offered ambiguously the one word, “Amen!” He was stung to no reply, and she had noted the circumstance as unusual, and also that he had appeared to labor with the suppression of a keen excitement, which made him anxious to escape from her sharp little eyes; an agitation for which she easily accounted when she recalled that he had seen Vanrevel on the previous evening. Mr. Carewe had kept his promise to preserve the peace, as he always kept it when the two met on neutral ground, but she had observed that his face showed a kind of hard-leashed violence whenever he had been forced to breathe the air of the same room with his enemy, and that the thing grew on him.
Miss Betty exhibited not precisely a burning interest in the adventure of the Damsel Fair, wandering out of the room during the second rendition, wandering back again, and once more away. She had moved about the house in this fashion since early morning, wearing what Mamie described as a “peak-ed look.” White-faced and restless, with distressed eyes, to which no sleep had come in the night, she could not read; she could no more than touch her harp; she could not sleep; she could not remain quiet for three minutes together. Often she sank into a chair with an air of languor and weariness, only to start immediately out of it and seek some other part of the house, or to go and pace the garden. Here, in the air heavy with roses and tremulous with June, as she walked rapidly up and down, late in the afternoon, at the time when the faraway farm-bells were calling men from the fields to supper, the climax of her restlessness came. That anguish and desperation, so old in her sex, the rebellion against the law that inaction must be her part, had fallen upon her for the first time. She came to an abrupt stop and struck her hands together despairingly, and spoke aloud.
“What shall I do! What shall I do!”
“Ma'am?” asked a surprised voice, just behind her.
She wheeled quickly about, to behold a shock-headed urchin of ten in the path near the little clearing. He was ragged, tanned, dusty, neither shoes nor coat trammelling his independence; and he had evidently entered the garden through the gap in the hedge.
“I thought you spoke to me?” he said, inquiringly.
“I didn't see you,” she returned. “What is it?”
“You Miss Carewe?” he asked; but before she could answer he said, reassuringly, “Why, of course you are! I remember you perfect, now I git the light on you, so to speak. Don't you remember me?”
“No, I don't think I do.”
“Lord!” he responded, wonderingly. “I was one of the boys with you on them boxes the night of your pa's fire!” Mingled with the surprise in his tone was a respectful unction which intimated how greatly he honored her father for having been the owner of so satisfactory a conflagration.
“Were you? Perhaps I'll remember you if you give me time.”
But at this point the youth recalled the fact that he had an errand to discharge, and, assuming an expression of businesslike haste too pressing to permit farther parley, sought in his pocket and produced a sealed envelope, with which he advanced upon her.
“Here. There's an answer. He told me not to tell nobody who sent it, and not to give it to nobody on earth but you, and how to slip in through the hedge and try and find you in the garden when nobody was lookin', and he give a pencil for you to answer on the back of it, and a dollar.”
Miss Betty took the note, glancing once over her shoulder at the house, but Mrs. Tanberry was still occupied with the Maiden, and no one was in sight. She read the message hastily.
“I have obeyed you, and shall always. You have not sent for me. Perhaps that was because there was no time when you thought it safe. Perhaps you have still felt there would be a loss of dignity. Does that weigh with you against good-by? Tell me, if you can, that you have it in your heart to let me go without seeing you once more, without good-by—for the last time. Or was it untrue that you wrote me what you did? Was that dear letter but a little fairy dream of mine? Ah, will you see me again, this once—this once—let me look at you, let me talk with you, hear your voice? The last time!”
There was no signature.
Miss Betty quickly wrote four lines upon the same sheet: “Yes—yes! I must see you, must talk with you before you go. Come at dusk. The garden—near the gap in the hedge. It will be safe for a little while. He will not be here.” She replaced the paper in its envelope, drew a line through her own name on the letter, and wrote “Mr. Vanrevel” underneath.
“Do you know the gentleman who sent you?” she asked.
“No'm; but he'll be waitin' at his office, 'Gray and Vanrevel,' on Main Street, for the answer.”
“Then hurry!” said Betty.
He needed no second bidding, but, with wings on his bare heels, made off through the gap in the hedge. At the corner of the street he encountered an adventure, a gentleman's legs and a heavy hand at the same time. The hand fell on his shoulder, arresting his scamper with a vicious jerk; and the boy was too awed to attempt an escape, for he knew his captor well by sight, although never before had he found himself so directly in the company of Rouen's richest citizen. The note dropped from the small trembling fingers, yet those fingers did not shake as did the man's when, like a flash, Carewe seized upon the missive with his disengaged hand and saw what two names were on the envelope.
“You were stealing, were you!” he cried, savagely. “I saw you sneak through my hedge!”
“I didn't, either!”
Mr. Carewe ground his teeth, “What were you doing there?”
“Nothing!”
“Nothing!” mocked Carewe. “Nothing! You didn't carry this to the young lady in there and get her answer?”
“No, sir!” answered the captive, earnestly.
“Cross my heart I didn't. I found it!”
Slowly the corrugations of anger were levelled from the magnate's face, the white heat cooled, and the prisoner marvelled to find himself in the presence of an urbane gentleman whose placidity made the scene of a moment ago appear some trick of distorted vision. And yet, curious to behold, Mr. Carewe's fingers shook even more violently than before, as he released the boy's shoulder and gave him a friendly tap on the head, at the same time smiling benevolently.
“There, there,” he said, bestowing a wink upon the youngster. “It's all right; it doesn't matter—only I think I see the chance of a jest in this. You wait, while I read this little note, this message that you found!” He ended by winking again with the friendliest drollery.
He turned his back to the boy, and opened the note; continuing to stand in that position while he read the two messages. It struck the messenger that, after this, there need be no great shame in his own lack of this much-vaunted art of reading, since it took so famous a man as Mr. Carewe such length of time to peruse a little note. But perhaps the great gentleman was ill, for it appeared to the boy that he lurched several times, once so far that he would have gone over if he had not saved himself by a lucky stagger. And once, except for the fact that the face that had turned away had worn an expression of such genial humor, the boy would have believed that from it issued a sound like the gnashing of teeth.
But when it was turned to him again, it bore the same amiable jocosity of mouth and eye, and nothing seemed to be the matter, except that those fingers still shook so wildly, too wildly, indeed, to restore the note to its envelope.
“There,” said Mr. Carewe, “put it back, laddie, put it back yourself. Take it to the gentleman who sent you. I see he's even disguised his hand a trifle-ha! ha!—and I suppose he may not have expected the young lady to write his name quite so boldly on the envelope! What do you suppose?”
“I d'know,” returned the boy. “I reckon I don't hardly understand.”
“No, of course not,” said Mr. Carewe, laughing rather madly. “Ha, ha, ha! Of course you wouldn't. And how much did he give you?”
“Yay!” cried the other, joyously. “Didn't he go and hand me a dollar!”
“How much will you take not to tell him that I stopped you and read it; how much not to speak of me at all?”
“What?”
“It's a foolish kind of joke, nothing more. I'll give you five dollars never to tell anyone that you saw me today.”
“Don't shoot, Colonel,” exclaimed the youth, with a riotous fling of bare feet in the air, “I'll come down!”
“You'll do it?”
“Five!” he shouted, dancing upon the boards. “Five! I'll cross my heart to die I never hear tell of you, or ever knew they was sich a man in the world!”
Carewe bent over him. “No! Say: 'God strike me dead and condemn me eternally to the everlasting flames of hell if I ever tell!”
This entailed quick sobriety, though only benevolence was in the face above him. The jig-step stopped, and the boy pondered, frightened.
“Have I got to say that?”
Mr. Carewe produced a bank-bill about which the boy beheld a halo. Clearly this was his day; heaven showed its approval of his conduct by an outpouring of imperishable riches. And yet the oath misliked him; there was a savor of the demoniacal contract; still that was to be borne and the plunge taken, for there fluttered the huge sum before his dazzled eyes. He took a deep breath. “'God strike me dead' “—he began, slowly—“' if I ever '—”
“No. 'And condemn me to the everlasting flames of hell '—”
“Have I got to?”
“Yes.”—“'And condemn me to—to the everlasting flames of—of hell, if I ever tell!'”
He ran off, pale with the fear that he might grow up, take to drink and some day tell in his cups, but so resolved not to coquet with temptation that he went round a block to avoid the door of the Rouen House bar. Nevertheless, the note was in his hand and the fortune in his pocket.
And Mr. Carewe was safe. He knew that the boy would never tell, and he knew another thing, for he had read the Journal, though it came no more to his house: he knew that Tom Vanrevel wore his uniform that evening, and that, even in the dusk, the brass buttons on an officer's breast make a good mark for a gun steadied along the ledge of a window. As he entered the gates and went toward the house he glanced up at the window which overlooked his garden from the cupola.