[1]WhyVirginians? Can this so-called Mr. John Bouche Whacker be a carpet-bagger?—Ed.
[1]
WhyVirginians? Can this so-called Mr. John Bouche Whacker be a carpet-bagger?—Ed.
One day, Mary burst into Alice’s room. “Read that,” said she; and she threw herself upon the lounge, with her face to the wall.
Alice was a brave little soul; but Mary’s pale face and tear-stained cheeks upset her, and her hands shook a little as she unfolded the letter. She read the first page with eager haste and contracted brows; then turned nervously to the last (the sixteenth), and read the concluding sentence and signature.
“Why, whatcanthe matter be, Mary? It begins well, it ends well?”
“It is the same all through.”
“The same all through! And you crying! Upon my word, Mary, you—”
“Read it.”
Those satirists who claim that nothing can stop a woman’s tongue have never tried the experiment of handing her a love-letter. Over Alice there now came a sudden stillness, chequered only by exclamations of delight,—
“So nice!—beautiful!—too lovely!—A-a-a-a-h, M-a-r-y! Mary,letme read this aloud? A-a-a-h! No? You goose! A-a-a-h, too beautiful,—too sweet for anything!—I declare I shall be heels over head in love with him myself before—Gracious, what a torrent! What vehemence! Do you know, Mary, he almost frightens me? Well, I have read the letter; and now, miss, be so good as to explain what you mean by scaring people so with your white face and red eyes?”
“It is hard,” said Mary, after a pause, and trying to control her voice,—“it is hard to give—up—all—that—love. And such love!”
“Give it up! Are you crazy?”
“Much nearer than you think. I have scarcely closed my eyes for two nights. I feel that I cannot stand this state of things much longer.”
“What dreadful thingsdoeshe believe, Mary?”
“I have no idea.”
“Then write and ask him. I feel sure that you could bring him over, you who are so brilliant and all that, you know. I wouldn’t say so to your face, but I don’t care what compliments I pay the back of your head.”
Mary turned and laughed.
“I am glad,” continued Alice, “I am not a genius with a bee in my bonnet; and let me tell you, there is a gigantic one, of the bumble variety, buzzing, at this very moment, justhere.” And she rapped Mary’s head with the rosy knuckle of her forefinger.
Mary adopted Alice’s suggestion; and there sprang up, between herself and the Don, a correspondence which lasted for two months. Eight or nine weeks of theological discussion between two lovers! Think of it!
Ole Virginny nebber tire!
Think of it, but tremble not, my reader. Not one line of it all shall you be called on to read. Were I an adherent of the Analytical and Intellectual School, as it is called, of American Novelists, you should have every word of it. Then you would be able to trace the most minute processes of our Mary’s soul, and realize, step by step, how she reached the state of mind to which this correspondence ultimately brought her. But I will spare you; for I am a kind, good Bushwhacker, if ever there was one.
Assume, therefore, a hundred pages, or so, of keenest Insight and most Intellectual Dissection, and that we have reached the end of it. Here is where we find ourselves. (No thanks; it would have bored me as much to write it as you to read it.)
During these two months Mary has been in a perpetual ferment. She has read all the books of evidential polemics that she could lay her hands on, and hermind has become a very magazine of crushing syllogisms. She has been pouring these out with all that eloquence that love is so sure to lend a woman’s pen. Day by day she has become more thoroughly convinced of the impregnability of her position (just as lawyers’ convictions bloom ever stronger under the irrigation of repeated fees,—retainer, reminder, refresher, convincer). From a trembling doubter she has grown into a valiant knight-errant of the faith, ready to measure lances with all comers.
And what has he had to say on the other side? Nothing. Or next to nothing. Has patted her on the head, rather, and praised her eloquence. Has promised that if ever she turn preacher, he will be there, every Sunday, to hear. And, instead of answering her letters, has told her that every one made him love her a thousand times more than before. Not an argument any more than a cliff argues with the waves that break against it.
And, like the waves, her enthusiasm had its ebb-tides. Days of profound discouragement came over her, when arrows she thought sure to pierce his armor glanced harmless away and left him smiling.
Left him smiling. So she thought. But it was not so. Our little heroine stood upon a volcano.
When she was with the Don, there was something about him which told her what she could say to him, what not. But the paper on which he wrote was like other paper, and gave no warning. How could she, so far away, see the dark look that came into his face as he read this in one of her letters:
“How can you,” she had said, at the close of an impassioned burst on the beneficence of the Creator, as evinced in the beauties of nature,—“how can you, as you look upon that beautiful, shining river, and the rosy clouds that float above it, and breathe this balmy air of spring,—how can you lift your eyes from such a scene of loveliness and bounteous plenty as surrounds you,—how dare you raise your eyes to heaven and say, there is no God!”
She could not see his look when he read that. All she saw was something like this:
“I cannot pretend to argue with such a wonderful little theologian as you,—I who know nothing of theology. But where did you get the notion that I was an atheist? I could almost wish I were one, for the mere happiness of being converted by you. In point of fact, I am nothing of the kind. How could I be? I need not look at the rosy sunset, or the smiling fields about me, to learn that there is a God. I have but to gaze into my own heart, and upon your image imprinted there. A fool might say that land and sea came by chance; but my Mary! Her arguments are not needed. She herself is all-sufficient proof, to me at least, that there exists, somewhere, a Divine Artificer. So don’t call names. It isn’t fair. Atheist, deist, infidel, old Nick,—what arrow can I send back in retort? Arrows I have,—a quiver full to bursting,—but all are labelledangel!”
How was she to know that she stood upon a precipice? But Charley saw that all was not well. Looking up from a letter he was reading (his face was red from a sudden stoop to snatch, unobserved, some violets that had fluttered out as he unfolded it). Looking up from this letter—
But Charley had his troubles, too, of which I must tell you before we go an inch further.
Between him and Alice, as well, a controversy raged. But in the case of this couple it was Charley that did all the arguing.
The proposition that young Frobisher maintained, in letter after letter, was this: that when a girl had promised to marry a fellow, she should never thereafter write to him without telling him somewhere—he did not care a fig (not he!) whether it was in the beginning, or the end, or the middle of the letter—that she loved him; just for the sake of cheering a fellow up, you know, away down here in the country, and all that. He would be satisfied even with a postscript of three words (he would), if you would but let him name the words, etc., etc. After this she had never written a letter without a postscript; but whether from the love of teasing, which is innate in cats and young women, when theyhave a mouse or a man in their power, or from genuine maidenly modesty, she never said, in plain English, exactly what Charley wished to hear; as, P.S.—Unreasonable old goose, or,How could I?or,I wonder if I do?or,What do you think?But they were the merriest letters that ever were seen, and made Charley so happy (for all his grumbling) that at this period of his life he used to wake up a dozen times a night, smiling to himself, all in the dark; then float off again into a dreamland populous with postscripts of the most maudlin description. “Do you know,” said he, in one of his letters, “that never once in my whole life has a woman said to me,I love you?”
Opening the reply hastily (to read the postscript first), the violets had dropped out, covering the poor boy with blissful confusion.I don’t hate you a bit, said the postscript.
Some metaphysical notion must have come into Charley’s head, as he read those wordsdon’t hate. Did he, perhaps, think, that somewhere between the negative don’t and the positive hate there must lurk, though invisible, the longed-for word love? At any rate, selecting a spot midway, he kissed it with accuracy and fervor.
“Umgh—umgh!” grunted Uncle Dick, who had happened to step up on the threshold just at this critical and romantic juncture.
“I did nothing of the kind!” said Charley.
“What?” asked the Don, looking up from his letter.
“Nothing,” said Charley.
“Uncle Dick!” called Charley, at the door whence the venerable butler had vanished, “come here! I say, if ever you tell Uncle Tom—”
“Tell him what, Marse Charley?”
“You old villain! There,—go to the sideboard and help yourself!”
“Much obleeged, mahrster; my mouf is a leetle tetched wid de drought, dat’s a fac’. And here’s many happy returns to you, likewise all enquirin’ friends; and here’s hopin’ dat de peach may tase as sweet in you mouf as it look to you a-hangin’ on de tree!” And hevanished, backing out of the room, smiling and bowing—
As though a courtier quitted the presence-chamber of Louis Quatorze!
It was looking up from this very same violet-scented letter that Charley saw the Don gazing out of the window with a troubled look. “What has Mary been writing to the Don?” he asked Alice. “He and I don’t compare notes, as I suppose you do. For some time past his face has been clouded after reading one of her letters. What does it mean?”
Alice acquainted him, in her next, with the nature of the correspondence, and was surprised at the earnestness of Charley’s protest against the course Mary was pursuing. “If you have any influence over Mary, stop this thing; stop it instantly. She is treading on a mine. You and Mary are deceived by the gentleness and courtesy of his replies. You don’t know the man. I do; and, as Uncle Dick says about a certain mule on the place here, he isn’t the kind of man to projick ’long o’. ‘She am a sleepy-lookin’ animil, Marse Charley, and she look like butter wouldn’t melt in her mouf; no mor’n ’twouldn’t, eff you leff her ’lone; but I rickommen’ dat you don’t tetch her nowhar of a suddent, leastwise whar she don’t want to be tetched. De man what tickle dat muil in de flank, to wake her up, sort o’, will find hisself waked up powerful, hisself. Lightnin’ ain’t a suckumstance to dat d’yar self-same Sally-muil when she are tetched onproper to her notion. Don’t you projick ’long o’ Sally, I tell you, mun. Rrrrup! Umgh—umgh! Good-by, chile; for you’re a-gwine to kingdom come.’”
Alice laughed so at this comical illustration that, most likely, she would have forgotten the injunction it enforced, but for a postscript in these words: “It is a habit with me—an affectation, if you will—always to say less than I mean. C. F.”
Startled by this ominous hint, Alice fluttered across the street and into Mary’s room; and there was a field-day between them.
The conflict lasted for hours, and seemed likely toend in a drawn battle,—a defeat, that is, for the attacking party. Alice’s old weapons, with which she had so often gained the victory over her less ready adversary, seemed to have lost their edge. In vain did she coruscate with wit, bubble with humor, caper about the room in a hundred little droll dramatic impromptus. Mary was unmoved, and sat with her eyes bent upon the floor. At last, with a flushed face, Alice rose to go; and it was then that she shot a Parthian arrow.
“Very well, Mary.” And her eyes looked so dark that you would never have said that they were hazel. “Very well; have your way; but I should not have thought it of you!”
“You are not angry with me?” said she, seizing her hand.
“No, not angry; but disappointed. I never pretended to have anything heroic about me, Mary. I am only an every-day sort of a girl; but I can tell you this. If I loved a man—”
“Don’t you?”
“If I loved a man, I should stand by him to the last, no matter what he might think of the—the—Pentateuch—or even Deuteronomy.” And a twinkle danced, for a moment, in her flashing eyes. “What he thought ofAlice,” added she, with a parenthetical smile, “thatwould be the main point withme. And if he loved me as the Don loves you, I would follow him to the ends of the earth. Yes, and to the end of the world. To the end of the world—and—and—beyond!”
A noble devotion illumined her face as she uttered these words, and Mary’s eyes kindled in sympathy.
“Then you would marry an unbeliever?”
“Mary, if you were to fall into a river, the Don would leap in to save you. You see him battling with waves of another kind—and—you hesitate! Plunge boldly in,—throw your loving arms around—”
“Oh!”
“Metaphorically speaking!”
“Ah!”
“Of course!”
The two friends sat down and talked ever so much more. Alice did not show Charley’s letter to Mary, but before she said good-night she exacted a promise from her to give up her religious warfare upon the Don.
Mary meant to keep her word, but the fates were too strong for her.
Among her relatives there was a young man—a second cousin, I believe—whose society she greatly enjoyed; for he was well-read, naturally bright, and a capital talker. He had studied law, and, in fact, been admitted to the bar; but he was not strong enough for that laborious profession, and, being an ardent student, soon broke down. During Mary’s stay at Elmington he had had an alarming hemorrhage. This visitation (it had occurred on Christmas Day, too) he looked upon as a call to the ministry, to use the language of the period. And so the man whom she had left, two months before, a bright ambitious young lawyer, she found, on her return, an exceedingly serious theological student.
In Virginia, the relations existing between cousins of opposite sex are pleasanter, I believe, than in most other parts of the world. At any rate, these two were almost like brother and sister.
What kind of man was this Don? and, most important of all, in his eyes, how did he stand as to the question of questions? It was some time before he got the whole truth out of Mary; partly because she was loath to tell it, partly because, as a Virginian of the period, it was difficult for him to take it in. But it dawned on him by degrees, and gave him all the greater concern, knowing Mary, as he did, so thoroughly. Mary had, in fact, made an exception of him in her sceptical days, and told him everything. And now again (when once the ice was broken) she was as unreserved. She feltthat her heart would burst if she could not pour forth her troubles into some sympathetic ear. She had Alice, it is true; but there are many things which a woman would sooner say to a man than to one of her own sex.
And especially, during these conferences, was she never tired of sketching the Don. But, as line after line of his character came out in bolder and bolder relief, more and more convinced became her cousin that it would be a fatal blunder on Mary’s part to unite her destiny with that of this man, whose convictions were as firm as they were objectionable. It was easy to see who would lead and who follow in such partnership.
And at first he had joined the crusade against the erroneous tenets of the Don: lending books and suggesting arguments to Mary; but he soon gave up even the slender hopes he at first had of success, and from that day, to Alice’s great indignation, left no stone unturned to induce Mary to break with her lover.
And his words had great weight with Mary. His strength was rapidly failing. The hectic flush on his wan cheeks and the unnatural lustre of his eyes showed but too plainly that he was not long for this world; and his hollow voice seemed to Mary, at times, almost a warning from the next. Between him and Alice it was an even battle; victory inclining first to one standard and then to the other. Just at the present juncture she is perched on Alice’s banner. For Mary has promised to let Hume and Voltaire take care of themselves for the future; and, since logic had failed, to trust to love.
She slept well that night, and awoke next morning blithe and gay. Awoke singing rather than sighing. Her song was short.
That evening her cousin came. She told him of her resolution. He seemed unusually ill that day; and whether from that cause (he coughed a good deal) or because he deemed it useless to remonstrate, he said little, and soon took his leave, giving her, as he bade her good-night, a look full of affectionate compassion.
Two or three days after this, on Sunday, Mary tookher seat in her mother’s pew, nestling in her accustomed corner. I hardly think she heard much of the service; and when the pastor gave out chapter and verse (of his sermon), his voice fell upon her outward ear merely. Her thoughts were far away.
Ah, brother and sister Virginians, who can wonder that we stream to church so, on Sunday? What serener half-hour can there be than when the good man is talking to us? Have we not sat under his teaching for years? And doth not all the world allow him to be orthodox? Shall we watch him, then? Shall we weigh his words?That, being a safe man,hewill do. Let him talk! He will say the right thing, never fear! Trust him! Give him room! While we, free from the anxieties of business and the petty cares of home, sit there, peacefully dreaming, each one of us the dreams that each loves best!
No; I am afraid Mary did not even hear what chapter and verse the text was from that Sunday. That Sunday, particularly; for the very day before she had received a letter in which her lover had said something like this: Yes,hewent to church now; that is, he sat in the Argo every Sunday, from eleven till one; sat there and thought of nothing but her,—and so found that heaven which she sought.
Strictly speaking, these were what were thought wicked words in those days (ole Virginny neber tire); but Mary forgave, though she did not even try to forget them. And no sooner had she taken her seat than her thoughts flew to the Argo. She could see him as plainly as though he stood before her; and he was thinking of her. And of her only, of all the world!
Are you in love, lovely reader? Then you will not be hard on my poor little heroine, who ought to have waited, I allow, till Monday.
“You will find the words of my text in II. Corinthians, vi. 14.”
In those days I sat in the Carters’ pew. The Rolfes were across the aisle, a few pews in advance of us. Mary’s cousin was still nearer the pulpit.
I suppose it is none of my business, but when I castmy eyes over the placid faces of a congregation, I always fall to wondering what they are thinking about. Not the grandmothers in Israel, but the rest?
“II. Corinthians, vi. 14,” repeated the preacher, slowly emphasizing the figures. They all do it.
There was to be heard that faint rustle that we all know, of the people making themselves comfortable. Here a little foot peeps cautiously around, and, finding the accustomed stool, draws it deftly beneath snowy skirts. There a wide sole seeks unoccupied space; while length of limb penetrates unexplored regions, avoiding cramp. Let us adjust ourselves, you in that corner, I in this, where we can sit and muse according to the bent of our several backs and minds.
“II. Corinthians, vi. 14.”
My eye chanced to fall on Mary’s face just at that moment. It wore the usual Sunday-dreamy look.
“Be ye not unequally yoked together with unbelievers.”
She shivered.
Alice glanced quickly towards her; but the thrill had already passed. She had regained outward composure, and sat looking at the preacher, calm and unobtrusively attentive.
The cousin fidgeted in his seat and coughed softly in his hand.
Alice fixed her eyes upon him.
Perhaps he felt them, for a deeper glow suffused his hectic cheek.
The preacher, after a few introductory remarks on the state of things which led the apostle to use these words, began with a sort of apology for calling the attention of his flock to such a text. And again Alice fixed her eyes upon the cousin, and again he seemed to feel their glow.
I shall not attempt to reproduce the sermon. His sketch of the advance of skepticism in Europe, in England, and in the North, struck me as labored; showing clearly that he had been set upon the task. But I shall not criticise it. He was at home, certainly, when he pictured the life of a pious, Christian woman whoseyoke-fellow was an atheist. It was a fearful picture (from the point of view of his hearers,—and he was preaching to them), of which every detail was harrowing. But I leave that picture to the imagination of my readers.
It is the last feather that breaks the camel’s back.
Alice had lost.
The dying cousin had won.
I have stated, elsewhere, that the dogma of the plenary inspiration of the Scriptures was held, at this period, throughout the length and breadth of Virginia. It was held, in truth, in a way to warm the heart of a thoroughgoing theologian; for to doubt it was to be totally bereft of reason. But many of my middle-aged fellow-citizens who are accustomed to laugh at the Catholic doctrine of papal infallibility, will be surprised when I remind them that, at that day, we believed, also, in something very nearly akin to the plenary inspiration of sermons (those of our own sect, of course).
And my Bushwhackerish candor compels me to go further, and to add that it seems to me that we Virginia Protestants, at that day, carried the dogma of parsonic infallibility to even greater lengths than Catholics do that of the papal. For, as I understand it, it is only in matters of faith that the Pope cannot err (and if he be infallible more than that, I kiss his holiness’s toe and beg absolution); whereas, our Protestant pontiffs did not hesitate to pronounce on all manner of questions,—questions of hygiene, for example; going so far as to add an eleventh commandment. As it is short, I will give it:
“Thou shalt not dance!” they cried in thunder tones; and, trembling, their flocks obeyed!
Yet dancing is (as you may find in the first dictionary you shall lay your hands on)—dancing is but therhythmic capering of the young of our species for a brief season (ah,howbrief and fleeting!). The rhythmic capering of the boys and girls, reinforced, perhaps, by an occasional widower (vivacious, high-prancing, nor hard to please), or else a sporadic widow or so, forgetting her first and for getting her second.
This capering our Protestant pontiffs put down. Motion,per se, they argued, was harmless; for the lamb, most scriptural of animals, frisketh where he listeth. ’Twas the rhythm of motion that was hurtful.
“Miss Sally,” cried a colored slave and sister to her young mistress, “you jump de rope and swing in de hammock, and you a member o’ de church!” [Her very words; nor were they the remains of a half-forgotten African fetich. They were a legitimate deduction from the theology current in my young days.]
“Thou shalt not dance!” they thundered.
As though one bade the birds cease singing. And Virginia bowed her head and obeyed.
We had our youthful sinners, of course, who wickedly refused to be content with Blind Man’s Buff and Who’s Got the Thimble? (just as His Holiness is bothered with his heretics). The Pope, however, wisely remembering that this is the nineteenth century, would probably leave it to the astronomers to say whether the earth revolves around its axis; but as to the exclusively physiological question whether it were injurious to dance a Virginia reel, no Virginian of those days ever dreamed of consulting his family physician.
Am I beyond the mark, reader, when I say that the papal infallibility pales in presence of the parsonic?
Can you wonder, then, that our poor little Mary was pale as ashes as she hurried home that day?
Her mother walked beside her in silence. That was bitter; for during these two months past Mrs. Rolfe had been more and more won over to the side of the Don by what she had heard, not only from Mrs. Carter and Alice, but from several of her acquaintance who had met him in Leicester during the winter; and the aggregate of her favorable impressions had been greatlystrengthened by a little incident that had recently come to her ears.
It appears that Mrs. Poythress had been greatly interested in having a new roof and other repairs put upon the old church, and had succeeded in raising the whole amount, with the exception of eighty dollars. Now, one Sunday, as she was coming out of church with the congregation, a negro man, taking off his hat, handed her a small parcel, saying, “I were inquested to han’ you dis, ma’am,” and immediately bowed himself around the corner of the building and disappeared. When this was opened it was found to contain five twenty-dollar gold-pieces and a strip of paper on which was written the wordroofin a disguised hand. The incident made some stir, as such things will, in a country neighborhood. Who was this, who was hiding from his left hand what his right hand did? The negro was hunted down by amateur female detectives, and proved to be none other than our friend Sam (who, it will be remembered, caught Charley and Alice at their love-making in the Argo). But nothing could be gotten out of honest Sam. “I was not to name no names,”—that was all he would say (adding thereunto, in the Elmington kitchen that night, that eff a five-dollar note wouldn’t shet a nigger mouf, twan’t no use to wase stickin’-plaster on him).
It was never discovered who had contributed the hundred dollars, but it was generally believed that it was the Don. As for Mrs. Rolfe, she never doubted for one moment that it was he, basing, too, upon this conclusion, half a dozen inferences, all favorable to the young man,—first, that his not going to church was a transient eccentricity; secondly, that he was a man of means; and, thirdly, that he was freehanded with the said means, etc., etc., etc.
This trait, as I presume everybody knows, is that which, next to personal courage, women most admire in a man. With what enthusiasm will a bevy of girls hail a bouquet, costly beyond the means of the giver, while the recipient of it, as she passes it from nose to nose, actually tosses hers with pride,—yes,—becauseher lover has not had the prudence to lay by what he gave for it against a rainy day and shoes for the children. Which is enough to make a philosopher rage; and it is all I can do to restrain my hand from levelling a sneer at the whole sex; and I’ll do it yet, one of these days, and come out as a wit,—one of these days when I can manage to forget that I once had a mother.
The more, therefore, Mrs. Rolfe heard of the Don, the more favorable she grew to his suit; and the more favorable she grew to his suit the more frequently did she allude to the absolute necessity of Mr. Rolfe’s seeing the young man and hearing his account of himself, before he could be allowed even to look at her Mary. It would be time enough, etc., etc.; but let a cloud appear on her daughter’s brow,—let her come down to breakfast pale and worn—
“I believe, Mary,” Alice used to say, “that you often assume a rueful countenance simply to lead your mother on to sing his praises.”
Never, in truth, had Mary felt herself so drawn to her mother as during this trying period of her young life; and to her ineffably tender, maternal solicitude her heart made answer with an unspoken yet passionate gratitude.
And now this mother, who was always ready with a soothing word, walked by her side in silence.
And Alice,—Alice, the merry and the brave,—where was she? Why does she, contrary to her custom, hang back so far in the rear, talking to Mr. Whacker in undertones? See, she has crossed over, and is walking down the street on the other side! Has she, too, deserted me? Oh, that terrible, terrible sermon! She ran up-stairs, locked her door, and threw herself upon the lounge.
Mary was right. The same words of the preacher which had stunned her had staggered her mother and Alice. Such was the power of the pulpit in those days. To both, as they stepped from the church-door into the street, the responsibility of combating the fulminations of their pastor seemed too heavy for their shoulders.
But our plucky little Alice was only staggered, andsoon rallied. She would not go to see Mary that evening, so she told me; next morning would be better.
And so the shades of evening came, and the shades of evening deepened into night; and still she came not. Is it not enough that my mother should desert me? The clock struck nine. No hope! There, the bell rang! A soft tap on her door; not Alice’s merry rub-a-dub. A young slave and sister announced the cousin. Mary sprang to her feet: “I won’t see him,” she almost screamed; “tell him that!” cried she, advancing upon her late pupil in Bunyan’s “Pilgrim’s Progress” with looks so fierce and gestures so vehement as to drive her back in alarm upon the door which she had just entered with a smile.
“Yes, ma’am, yes, ma’am,” stammered the Pilgrim, fumbling over the door-knob in her confused effort to escape. “Yes, ma’am, I’ll tell him,” added she, courtesying herself out, and shutting the door softly behind her.
“Hi!” half whispered, half thought she to herself, as she stood upon the landing, collecting her breath and her wits. “Hi, what de matter wid Miss Mary? Fore Gaud, I was afeard she was gwine to bite me, I was! What he done do, I wonder? Oh, I tell you. She done git tired o’ him a-comin’ round and a-comin’ round, and f’reverlahstin’ coughin’, and coughin’ and coughin’, same like one o’ dese here little fice-dogs what bark and bark and never tree nothin’, dough he do drive off de oder varmints dat you mought cotch; and no gal don’t like dat, be she whiteorblack. He’s a nice gent’mun, I don’t ’spute dat; but hearepowerful wizzened up, dat’s a fac’. Howsomdever, I ain’t got de heart to give him no sich message. A gent’mun is a gent’mun, for all dat, and I ain’t had no sich raisin’. Nebberdeless, I ain’t a-blamin’ Miss Mary. She tired o’ dat kind. Well, I likes ’em spry and sassy myself, I does, and I s’pose folks is folks, dough deybediff’ent colors. Ahem! Ahem!”
She was nearing the parlor-door, and was clearing her throat for a polite paraphrase, when she saw the front door gently close.
He had heard, and was gone.
Mary never saw him again. When he died, about a year afterwards, she said that she had forgiven him; but I doubt if she knew her own heart. There are some things a woman can never pardon.
Nor do I think that Alice has ever quite forgiven herself for her delay at this crisis. For she feels to this day, I suspect, that had she gone to see Mary that evening this story might have ended like a fairy-tale, with everybody happy, just as it fares in real life. But she waited till next morning.
And she awoke with the first twittering salutations of the birds to the dawn; the dawn of a lovely April day. She too (for she was young and happy) saluted Aurora; but with a sleepy smile; and readjusting the pillow to her fair head, dozed off again; dozed off again, just as her friend across the way, exhausted with pacing her room, had thrown herself, all dressed as she was, upon her bed. Her mother, stealing softly in, found her lying there, shortly afterwards, pale, haggard, breathing hard, her features bearing, even while she slept, traces of the struggle through which she had passed. And every now and then her overwrought frame shook with a quick nervous tremor. Her mother wrung her hands in silence, and turned to leave the room.
There was a letter, scaled and addressed, lying upon the table at which her daughter wrote; while all about her chair lay fragments of other letters, begun, but torn in pieces, and thrown upon the floor, though a basket stood near at hand. “This will not do,” thought her mother. “She must tell me what is in that letter before she mails it. We must look into this matter, carefully, before any irrevocable step be taken. Shall I take possession of it now? No, I will speak to her after breakfast. Poor child! Poor child!” And she stole out on tiptoe.
This was not the first time that Mrs. Rolfe had visited her daughter that night. At two o’clock in the morning, detecting the sound of footsteps in Mary’s room, she had gone up-stairs and found her pacing herroom. She had entreated her to go to bed,—begged her to compose herself,—had pressed her daughter to her heart and wept upon her shoulder and bidden her good-night. Mary, hearing her mother coming, had hoped for a word of encouragement. But Mrs. Rolfe had not dared to give it, with the words of the preacher still resounding in her ears.
“It is all over, then,” she thought, when her mother closed the door; and seizing her pen, began to write. Wrote letter after letter, each in a different vein; each to be torn in pieces in turn. At last she wrote one which was barely two pages long. As she folded the letter there fell upon it a big tear, which she quickly dried with her handkerchief.
That tear-stain, poor child, had you left it there,—but it was not to be.
Another fell upon the address, blotting it. She got another envelope. This time, as she wrote the address, she averted her head. The hot tears fell upon the table.
That would tell no tales.
Her mother had seen the letter lying there, and was startled. She would talk to her daughter after breakfast.
After breakfast. That was Alice’s plan, too, you remember.
Mr. Rolfe, that man of peace, had slept through all the turmoil of the night. “Where is Mary?” asked he, as he seated himself at table, next morning; a question which evoked two simultaneous, though divergent replies: one from Mrs. Rolfe that Mary was rather indisposed, and would hardly be down to breakfast; the other from the Pilgrim, to the effect that her young mistress had gone out, betimes, for a walk. “D’yar she is now,” she added, as Mary’s footsteps were heard in the front hall.
Mr. Rolfe greeted his daughter with a smile of bright benignity. He praised the roses in her cheeks. After all, there was nothing like fresh air and exercise. As she bent over him and kissed him with unusual affection, he patted her cheek; accompanying each tap with a sort of cooing little murmur, which was his way whenshe caressed him. He was delighted. He couldn’t remember when he had seen her so gay. She must walk before breakfast every morning. What would she have? No doubt her walk had made her ravenous. No? Yes, we all lose our appetites in spring.
But her mother’s eye saw no roses painted by the breath of morning, but a burning flush, rather; and when she took her daughter’s hand in hers, it was icy cold. Her gayety, too, which rejoiced her father’s heart, made her mother’s ache.
Presently, and while our party still lingered around the breakfast-table, Alice came tripping in, fresh and cheery, the very personification of that April which was abroad in the land.
Alice was not long in detecting the hysteria which lurked beneath Mary’s assumed joyousness. What had happened? An acute attack of curiosity, complicated with anxiety, seized upon her; and in less than a quarter of an hour she and Mary stood in the hallway across the street, exchanging a few words with Mrs. Carter.
“Let us go up to my room,” said Alice.
“State secrets, I suppose,” said Mrs. Carter.
“Oh, of course.” And the two girls tripped lightly up the stairs.
“How jolly you are to-day, Mary,” called out Mrs. Carter.
“Oh,” replied she from the first landing, “as merry as a lark. It’s the bright spring weather, I suppose.”
“Well, that’s right; be happy while the sun shines, my child. The clouds will come soon enough.”
No sooner had the girls entered Alice’s room than her face became serious. “Sit down in that chair,” said she, in her quick, business-like manner. “And now,” added she, drawing a seat close beside Mary, and taking her hand, “now tell me,—what is all this?”
“I am happy, that’s all.”
“Happy?”
“Yes, it is all over—and I am free—and so-o-o-o ha-ha-ha-happy!” And throwing herself on Alice’s neck, she sobbed convulsively.
Alice stroked her friend’s hair in silence, waiting till she should recover from this paroxysm of bliss. At last Mary began to speak.
“It is all over,” she sobbed. “It was more than my strength could bear. After that sermon—” and she shivered.
“How all over?”
“I have broken off the engagement.”
“How? when? where?”
“I wrote the letter last night.”
“Oh,” said Alice, with a sigh of relief. “Will you just be so kind as to let me have that letter?” added she, reaching out her hand.
“It is already mailed.”
“Mailed!” shouted Alice, springing to her feet.
“Yes. I took it to the post-office myself before breakfast.”
In those days, before the mail-delivery system had been introduced, we had to send to the post-office for our letters.
If we were in love, we went in person, of course.
“Where are you going?” called out Alice across the street.
Mary came over to her. “I am going to the post-office,” said she, in a low voice.
“I will go part of the way with you,” said Alice.
The two girls walked on for a little while in silence.
“Mary,” said Alice, presently, “tell me,—what do you expect him to say?”
“Don’t ask me that,” she said, with a shiver.
“I think I can tell you. Your letter, as you quoted it to me, severed all relations between you. But have you not a kind of dim, unacknowledged hope that he will recant his heresies and bridge the chasm between you?”
Mary walked on in silence.
“It is natural that you should nourish such a hope. But suppose it should prove delusive?”
“The die is cast. I must abide the issue. And, Alice,—though you think I have been hasty,—I feel a profound conviction that it is best as it is.”
“Well, good-by! Be brave.” And more than once, as she hastened homeward, Alice passed her hand across her eyes.
Mary stood before the little square window at the post-office.
“Any letters?”
The clerk knew who she was, and the sight of her pretty, pale face lent a certain alacrity to his calm, official legs. Briskly diving into her father’s box, he handed her half a dozen letters. As she passed them nervously between thumb and finger, glancing at the addresses, he held his steady, postmasterish eye upon her. What else had he to do? Could not that other woman who stood there, could not she wait? Was not her nose red; and her chin, was not her chin (by a mysterious dispensation of Providence) bumpy? Let her stand there, then, craning her anatomical neck to catch his stony gaze. Let her wait till pretty little Miss Rolfe sorts her letters. Ah, that’s the one she hoped to get,—that with the distinct, yet bold and jagged address, that I have noticed so often. Ah, that’s the one—What name, madam? Adkins? Miss Elizabeth Ann? One for Miss Elizabeth Adkins. Beg your pardon,—five cents due, Miss Adkins.
My reader, be pretty. Let me entreat you—be pretty, if you can in anywise compass it. If not, be good. Even that is better than nothing. It will be a comfort to you in your declining years.
And your little nephews and nieces will rise up, some day, and call you blessed.
“Will you be so kind as to put these back in the box?”
The clerk bowed with a gracious smile; and Mary, placing three or four letters in her pocket, left the building, and turned in the direction of the CapitolSquare. She passed in through the first gate, and hurried along the gravel path. By the time she had reached the first seat she had grown so weak that she was glad to throw herself upon it.
Had Mary had her eyes about her, she would have been struck with the unwonted aspect of the Square. Our pretty little park, usually the resort of merry children, wore, on this particular day, a rather serious look. Men, in earnest conversation, stood about in groups. Others hurried past, without even giving her pretty face the tribute of a glance. But she saw nothing, heeded nothing; not even the dark, gathering throng which crowned the summit of the green slope in front of the Capitol; though it was not a stone’s throw from where she sat.
She drew her letters from her pocket, placing the one with the jagged address quickly beneath the others. She tore open an envelope and began to read. The letter was from a former schoolmate,—a bright girl, but its cleverness gave Mary no pleasure now, but seemed frivolity, rather; and as for the cordial invitation (on the eighth page), before she got to that she had thrust the letter back into its cover. She gave but a glance at the contents of the next. The third made her forget herself, for an instant. It was a large, business-looking envelope, stamped New York; and she gave a quick little start, when, upon opening it, a cheque fluttered down before her feet. As she read the accompanying letter, a sudden flash of joyful surprise illumined her face when she found that her article (mailed with many misgivings two months ago, and long since forgotten) had been accepted. A sudden flash of joyous surprise, followed by quick gathering clouds; for, as she stooped to pick up the cheque, a fourth letter slid from her lap and fell upon it. The characteristic hand in which it was addressed she had often admired; it was so firm and bold. Was it her imagination that transformed it now? Was it changed? Was it more than firm now, and had its boldness become ferocity? A sudden revulsion came over Mary; and upon the words of the publishers—words of commendationand encouragement, which, a fortnight since, would have filled her young heart with exultation,—for would nothebe proud?—more than one big tear fell.
But that fourth letter remained unread. She held it in her hand, as one does a telegram, sometimes, dreading to open it.
Her own to him had been brief and to the point; giving him to understand that their engagement was at an end, without betraying the fact that her heart, too, was broken. She had even dried the tears that fell upon the paper, you remember. She had begged his pardon, of course, but had purposely excluded from her language all traces of feeling. As the thing had to be done, it should be done effectually.
What would he do? What would he say? A thousand possibilities had been dancing through Mary’s mind.
First and foremost, would he recant?
Inconceivable! Still, this hope refused to vanish.
Would he be violent? Would his reply be a burst of fierce indignation? Very likely. Yes, that was just what one might expect from such a man.
Would he be sarcastic? Will he sneer at a religion which can make me break my word? That was what she dreaded most of all. Not, oh male reader (if I shall have any such), not lest his flings and gibes should woundher. If you think that, sir, you have never penetrated into the mysteries of the female heart. It was a dread lest he—lest HE should descend to such weapons,—lest this soaring eagle of her imagination should stoop to be a mousing owl. A Hero may not use poisoned arrows; least of all against a woman. She had never known the Don to use a sarcastic word. He was too earnest, too fearfully earnest to be satirical. He left that to triflers, male and female. He was never witty, even. He is above it, Mary used to say, within her heart, with that blessed alchemy whereby women know how to convert into virtues the blemishes of those whom they love. No, thought she; let him upbraid me; let him tell me that I have been false to my word; let him even say that I have proven myself unworthyto link my destiny with his (and am I worthy of the homage of such a heart? Did not even unsentimental Alice say that a true woman would follow the man she loved to the ends of the earth?); no; let him cover me with fierce reproaches,—but let him not be little! It is enough, and more than enough, that I have to give him up. Let his image remain untarnished in my heart!
Or, would his letter be a broken-hearted wail? She hoped not,—so she said, at least; and let us try to believe her.
Pressing her hand upon her heart for a moment, to calm its tumultuous throbbing, she broke the seal of the letter, took in the first page at one mad, ravenous glance, and the hand that held the sheet fell upon her lap.
No sarcasms, no fierce reproaches, no wail of a broken heart!—no anything that she had thought possible.
Brief, yet not curt, he accepted her decree without a murmur; as though a prisoner bowed in silence under the sentence of the judge. No commonplace, no rhetoric; no trace of feeling; and yet no flippant suggestion of the want of it. In a word, his letter was an absolutely impenetrable veil. As though he had not written. Mary was stunned.
She had seen, as she drew the letter from the envelope, that the top of the second page contained little more than the signature. She had not strength, just yet, to read the dozen concluding words. She leaned back upon the bench, resting her poor, dizzy head upon her hand. She heard nothing, saw nothing. Yet there was something to see and something to hear.
The craunching of many feet upon the gravel walk,—the feet of strong, earnest men. And every now and then women passed, with faces pale but resolute. And here, close beside her, a mob of boys, with eager eyes, sweep across the greensward, unmindful of the injunction to keep off the grass. Movement everywhere. The very air of the peaceful little park seemed to palpitate.
Then a sudden hush!
She turned the page and read,—
“It is not probable that we shall ever meet again, and I therefore bid you an eternal farewell.”
A shiver ran through her frame. A moment afterwards she leaped from her seat with a piercing shriek; for almost at the very instant that those cruel words froze her heart a terrific sound smote upon her ear.
A few feet from where she sat the fierce throats of cannon proclaimed to the city and the world that old Virginia was no longer one of the United States of America.
Four years have passed since our story opened, and the autumn of 1864 is upon us. For more than three years Virginia has been devastated by war. Most of Leicester’s pleasant homes have been broken up. My grandfather, however, trusting to his gray hairs, had remained at Elmington. The Poythresses were refugees in Richmond. Charley, who was now a major, commanding a battalion of artillery in the army defending Richmond, had, two months before, been taken in an ambulance-wagon to Mr. Carter’s. A bullet had passed through his body, but he was now convalescent. Any bright morning you might see him sunning himself in the garden. The house was crowded to overflowing with refugee relatives and friends from the invaded districts.
And illumined by a baby.
“He was born the very day I was wounded,” said Charley. “I remember how anxious I was to see him before I died.”
“I knew you wouldn’t die,” said Alice; “and you didn’t!”
“I am here,” said Charley.
So, fair reader, Charley, in the last week of September, 1864, was a father two months old. As for the baby (and I hereby set the fashion of introducingone or more into every romance[1]), his mother had already discovered whom he was like. He was a Carter, every inch of him, especially his nose. But he had his father’s sense of humor,—there was not the slightest doubt ofthat. For when Charley, who, in speaking to the infant, always alluded to himself in those words,—when Charley, chucking him gingerly under the chin, would ask him what he thought of his venerable p-p-p-p-pop, he could be seen to smile, with the naked eye. To smile that jerky, sudden-spreading, sudden-shrinking smile of babyhood. You see it,—’tis gone! Ah, can it be that even then we dimly discern how serious a world this is to be born into!
Major Frobisher’s battalion was in front of Richmond. The Don and I were under General Jubal Early, in the lower valley,—he a captain in command of the skirmishers of the Stonewall Division, I a staff-officer of the same rank.
I know nothing which makes one’s morning paper more interesting than the news of a great battle. It’s nice to read, between sips of coffee, how the grape and canister mowed ’em down; and the flashing of sabres is most picturesque, and bayonets glitter delightfully, in the columns of a well-printed journal. Taking a hand in it—that’s different. Then the bodily discomfort and mental inanition of camp-life. Thinking is impossible. This, perhaps, does not bear hard upon professionals, with whom, for the most part, abstention from all forms of thought is normal and persistent; but to a civilian, accustomed to give his faculties daily exercise, the routine-life of a soldier is an artesian bore. So, at least, I found it. No doubt, with us, the ever-present consciousness that we were enormously outnumbered made a difference. One boy, attacked by three or four, may be plucky. It is rather too much to expect him to be gay. I was not gay.
It was different with our friend, Captain Smith. He was one of the half-dozen men I knew in those days who actually rejoiced in war.He longed for death,my lovely and romantic reader is anxious to be told; but I am sorry I cannot give her any proofs of this. It was Attila’sgaudium certaministhat inspired him. He was never tired of talking of war, which, with Hobbes, he held to be the natural state of man. At any rate, said he, one day, drawing forth his Iliad and tapping it affectionately, they have been hard at it some time.
This little volume was on its last legs. He had read it to pieces, and could recite page after page of it in the original. How closely, he would say, we skirmishers resemble the forefighters of Homer. He never spoke of his own men save as Myrmidons.
He had become an ardent student, too, of the art of war, and had Dumont and Jomini at his fingers’ ends. Indeed, I am convinced that he would have risen to high rank had he not begun, and for two years remained, a private in the ranks. At the time of which we speak, his capacity and courage were beginning to attract attention; and more than one general officer looked upon Captain Smith as a man destined to rise high.
It remains for me to say that he and Mary have never met since that farewell letter. What his feelings are towards her I can only conjecture; for, although he frequently speaks of the old times, her name never passes his lips. An analytical writer could tell you every thought that had crossed his mind during all these years, and, in twenty pages of Insight, work him up, by slow degrees, from a state of tranquil bliss to one of tumultuous jimjams. But, if you wish to know what my characters feel and think, you must listen to what they say, and see what they do; which I find is the only way I have of judging of people in real life. I should say, therefore (for guessing is inexpensive), that the captain’s lips were sealed, either by deep, sorrowing love, or else by implacable resentment. Choose for yourself, fair reader. I told you, long ago, that this book is but the record of things seen or heard by Charley, or by Alice, supplemented occasionally by facts which chanced to fall under my own observation. Even where I seemed to play analytical, through those weary chapters touching Mary’s religious misgivings, I was notswerving from the line I had laid down. Every word therein written down is from the lips of Mary herself, as reported to me by Alice. Now, Charley tells me that never once did Captain Smith mention Mary’s name, even to him. How, then, am I to know what were his feelings towards her? I remember, indeed, that once a young lieutenant of his, returning from furlough, greeted him with warmth; adding, almost with his first breath, that he had met a friend of his—a lady—in Richmond,—Miss Rolfe—Leigh Street—I spent an evening there—we talked a great deal of you—
The captain touched the visor of his cap.
Here was a chance of finding out what he thought!
“She said she—she said she—”
The young fellow had met a siren during his furlough, and fallen horribly in love himself (as he told me, a few moments afterwards, in a burst of confidence), and would willingly have invented a tender phrase for the consolation of his captain, whom he adored; but truth forbade.
“She said she was glad to hear you were well.”
“Miss Rolfe is very kind,” replied the captain, again touching his cap.
The young officer glanced at his chief, and instantly fell back upon the weather. “I think there is a storm brewing,” he faltered.
“Very likely,” replied the captain of the Myrmidons.