CHAPTER XVIIITHE VISITATIONS OF WAR
ANGELA’S shock of delight at seeing him was obvious to Isabey, and the two poor souls looked into each other’s eyes with love and longing for one brief moment. Then reason and good sense resumed their sway.
Isabey came up the steps and held out his hand, and Angela, scarcely knowing what she did, put hers within it.
“I couldn’t imagine what was the matter,” he said, laughing and shaking hands with Lyddon, who stopped churning long enough to do so. “I rode up to the front of the house, and saw not a soul; then I ventured around to the back and witnessed the present inspiring spectacle.”
“Angela put me to it,” replied Lyddon. “Of all the house servants only Hector and Mammy Tulip are left and some small blacks whose names I never have found out. Colonel Tremaine, Archie, and I couldn’t let Angela do all the work, so we have ventured to assist.”
“Hercules churned, I’m sure,” cried Angela, recovering herself, and once more adopting an arch and merry tone. “Perhaps I shall put Mr. Lyddon to spinning yet.”
“If you dance for him,” responded Isabey, smiling, “he will do better than Herod and give you his own, not another man’s head upon a charger, if you ask it.”
As he spoke Angela became suddenly conscious of her pinned-up skirts, her bare arms, and the gay silk handkerchief around her hair. In a moment her skirts were unpinned, her sleeves rolled down, her bright hair uncovered, and she was a picture of demureness.
Then, examining the churn and seeing the butter had come, Angela called Aunty Tulip to take charge of it, and they all went into the drawing-room.
Mrs. Tremaine greeted Isabey with the utmost cordiality, as did Colonel Tremaine. The Colonel, however, did not rise from his satin chair, but, quickly releasing Isabey’s hand after grasping it, said solemnly:
“My dear fellow, will you excuse me for two minutes until I finish this hank of cotton? I have undertaken to assist the ladies of my family in the tasks made necessary by the departure of our house servants, and I feel that nothing, not even the arrival of a friend so valued as yourself, can interfere with my nearly completed labor. Just a moment more.”
He returned to his winding. Isabey then inquired about Richard, and afterwards, turning to Angela, asked with calm courtesy when she had heard from Neville and if he were well. Angela answered readily, Colonel and Mrs. Tremaine maintaining, as always when Neville’s name was spoken, a cold silence.
Then, as the last winding of the hank of cotton was finished, the reel was removed and Colonel Tremaine was prepared to entertain his guest.
Isabey looked fairly well but still limped slightly, and said that the accident to his arm which occurred a month before had prevented his coming to Harrowby. He mentioned that the general commanding at camp had sent him down to get certain topographical information which he would ask privately of Colonel Tremaine, and that he would spend the day, preferring to return to camp by night.
There were some county maps in the old study, and thither Colonel Tremaine, Lyddon, and Isabey repaired and spent nearly the whole day in studying them.
The evening came, soft and sweet as July evenings are. Angela had been busy all day long and had seen Isabey only at the three-o’clock dinner. But the consciousness that she was in sound of his voice was like wine in her veins.
In the afternoon she dressed herself carefully in a fresh white gown and went out upon the lawn. Her afternoons were usually spent on the lawn and in the old garden, which was now in its glory. All was a wealth of bloom and perfume.
She remained in the garden thinking, hoping, fearing, and believing that Isabey would seek her there.
When the shadows grew long and the sun hung low behind the purple woods he came to her. She was standing before a great bed of hollyhocks which flaunted their merry faces boldly in the soft air.
“How changed it is since we were last in this garden!” Isabey said; “but I am not changed;” and then cursed himself for having been betrayed into something dangerously near to sentiment. Angela, asthe case had ever been, passed with proud unconsciousness over his words.
“The garden has not gone back this year as much as one would think,” she said, moving toward the broad main walk. “As you know, we have only two or three small boys to work it now, but it is so old and so well conducted that it seems impossible for it to become wild or irregular.”
They walked up and down the garden path a few times, and Angela gathered some of the July roses, those princesses of the garden.
Isabey spoke with impatience of his being still unable to rejoin his battery and called the surgeons fools for not curing his arm quickly. Then, in an unguarded moment, he spoke of the delicious hours of those snowbound days six months before.
Angela said little, but Isabey saw the quick rising and falling of her fast-beating heart.
Presently they went back to the house and soon supper was served. At table the conversation turned upon Colonel Gratiot, then on duty at the camp of instruction, whom Colonel Tremaine had known as a brother officer during the Mexican War.
“Gratiot is sixty years old, if he is a day,” complained Colonel Tremaine bitterly, “and always was a puny fellow; yet he can serve his country, while I, who never knew a day’s illness in my life and can stand twelve hours in the saddle as well as I ever could——”
“And can wind a whole hank of cotton in three hours,” interjected Archie, laughing.
“—am not permitted to serve my country because Iam too old! I wish you would say to Gratiot for me that I should be very pleased to renew my acquaintance with him, and perhaps he may be able to come down and spend a day and night with me, the infernal Yankees permitting.”
When supper was over the family sat, according to the Southern custom, on the long porch which faced the river. Angela found herself sitting next Isabey and listening to his smooth, musical voice as he and Colonel Tremaine and Lyddon talked together. His speaking voice had as much charm as his singing voice and to Angela’s sensitive ear it had a note of sadness in it.
She had been accustomed to the conversation of men of sense, and realized with a secret and shamefaced pride that Isabey’s conversation did not fall short of the talk of any man she had ever heard, not excepting Lyddon’s.
The night had fallen and only a few stars shone dimly in a troubled and moonless sky. The river ran black and phosphorescent; a faint wind stirred the great clumps of crape-myrtle on the lawn.
About nine o’clock Archie, after listening for a minute, rose silently and, opening the glass doors leading into the dining room, had a clear view through the hall to the open front door.
Colonel Tremaine was saying, “I opine that the first campaign of Hannibal——”
“The Yankees are coming,” said Archie, coolly and quietly. “I see hundreds of them galloping down the lane.”
Isabey sprang to his feet. He knew the topography of Harrowby well, and his horse, already saddled, wasfastened to the block close to the back porch; but it was vain to think of escape that way.
“Run,” he said quietly to Archie, “and take the saddle and bridle off my horse, and throw them under the porch, and turn the horse loose. I shall make for the marsh back of the garden.”
“Archie’s boat with oars is tied on the river shore behind the garden,” whispered Angela, all her wits coming to her at once. “I can show you, and we can’t be seen from the front if we fly now.”
Isabey’s cap was in his hand and Angela’s red mantle lay over the back of her chair. She threw it around her, hiding her white dress, and together they ran swiftly down the steps and across the lawn.
Isabey suffered agonies in his still unhealed leg, but nevertheless made great speed. Not a word was spoken as they rushed through the darkness around the corner of the old brick wall of the garden and to the marshy river edge.
Tied to a stake lay a small boat with two oars in it. Angela stepped into the boat, assisted by Isabey with cool politeness, who lost not a second in following her.
“I can pull with my left hand,” he said, taking up an oar.
“And I,” replied Angela, “can pull the other oar. I know how to manage a boat. We must make for the big willow tree which dips down into the water across the marsh.”
By that time they could hear the trampling of many hoofs, the sound of voices, and the whinny of a horse.
“That’s my horse,” remarked Isabey, as the boatshot across the still, black water. “I hope Archie succeeded in hiding the saddle and bridle.”
“You may trust Archie to think and act quickly,” replied Angela. “Hadn’t you better lie down in the boat?” she continued anxiously, her voice sounding strange to herself in the darkness.
“No use; if the Federals see the boat at all they will certainly stop it, and I would rather be caught sitting up than lying down.”
Angela said no more, but bent to her oar to keep up with Isabey’s steady stroke. Ten minutes brought the boat to the farther edge of the marsh, where a huge willow, storm-beaten, bent toward the water which lapped its branches. It was in luxuriant leaf, and when, Isabey putting the branches aside, the boat glided in, they found themselves within a tent of branches and leaves, secure even at midday from observation. The oars were laid in the bottom of the boat but close at hand, and Angela and Isabey were alone in a world of their own under a murky night sky. The air had grown warm and sultry, and heat lightning played upon the mass of black clouds on the western horizon. Every moment the darkness increased and the night, like a great black bat, seemed to press with huge and stifling wings upon the earth. In the stillness of the darkness they could hear the trampling of hundreds of iron hoofs and the shouts and cries of men searching the house and grounds and garden. Through the overhanging willow branches lights could be seen flashing from window to window of the Harrowby house as the search for Isabey proceeded. It was so dark under thewillow tree that they could not see each other’s face. The tide was high, but the pungent odor of the salt marsh filled the heavy night air. Afar off a night bird uttered an occasional melancholy note, but that alone broke the silence which encompassed them.
“Are you frightened?” asked Isabey, in a low voice.
“Not in the least,” replied Angela, in the same subdued tone. “Oh!” As she spoke there was a phosphorescent gleam close to the boat and a water-snake’s body was seen to writhe quickly past. Angela, who could face real danger unflinchingly, was full of feminine fears. She clasped her hands and shrank, panting, toward Isabey. He restrained the impulse to put his arm around her, but he involuntarily laid his hand on hers and said:
“It is nothing. I can keep all ugly things away from you to-night.”
“I know you can,” answered Angela. “I am not in the least afraid of Yankee bullets or anything like that, but hideous creepy things frighten me horribly;” and she shuddered as she spoke, allowing her hand to remain in Isabey’s. Then came a long silence. Isabey could feel her hand trembling in his. She was not thinking about him, but about the water-snake and the slimy things which terrified her woman’s soul. Isabey had no qualms of conscience in thus holding her hand in his; she was, after all, only a frightened child, and to soothe her fears by a reassuring touch was no defilement of her. Angela, however, could not remain insensible to that touch, and after a while she withdrew her hand, saying, with a long breath: “I will try andnot be afraid any more. Isn’t it ridiculous? I have not the least fear of dying or of scarlet fever or runaway horses or anything like that, but I have paroxysms of terror from caterpillars and daddy longlegs and a snake—” She covered her face with her hands as she spoke.
“Come, now,” said Isabey, reassuringly, “there is nothing for either of us to be afraid of; may I smoke?”
“Never,” said Angela, aghast. “You will be seen from the other shore.”
“Oh, no; I can hold my cap before my cigarette, and the distance is too great anyhow for the tip of a cigarette to be seen.” He lighted his cigarette and smoked placidly, holding his cap up meanwhile. The sounds of voices, of rattling sabers, of armed men searching the garden increased. It was evident that a thorough hunt of the garden was being made.
“They are trampling all over your flower beds,” whispered Isabey. “They seem to be looking in the violet bed for me, but as a sleeping place it is not as desirable as the poets have represented.”
“How can you make jokes at this time?” said Angela reproachfully.
“My dearest lady, every soldier has been in far worse places than this. A fighting man must learn to look danger in the eye and advance upon it with a smile. You should see your Stonewall Jackson when the Yankees begin to give us grape in earnest. It is the only time Stonewall ever looks really gay and debonair.”
Isabey went on talking gayly for a time, but Angela,he soon saw, was throbbing with nervous excitement and in no mood to heed his airy conversation. Then he fell silent; the sweet consciousness that she was agitated, palpitating, miserable for him, gave him a feeling of rapture. She was the wife of his friend and sacred to him, but that had not prevented his falling in love with her. And she, the soul of truth and loyalty, was too unsophisticated, too ignorant of the world and of herself, to conceal from him that he was, at least to her imagination, the first man in the world. Her instinctive dignity and good sense made her secret safe from all except Isabey, but he with the prescience of love saw it. He foresaw with calm courage that the time would come when she would learn to love Neville Tremaine—when children would be laid in her arms, and when this dream of her youth would seem only the shadow of a dream. But Isabey felt that it would be among the unforgotten things which sleep but never die in women’s hearts.
An hour passed as they sat together, as much alone as if the world held none other than themselves. Isabey, although conscious of the delicate intoxication of Angela’s nearness, was yet thoroughly alert, while Angela, with every nerve at its utmost tension, was silent and apparently composed. Isabey felt rather than saw that she was profoundly moved. As they listened and watched the opposite shore they could see that the troopers had withdrawn from the garden and that the search for Isabey, which had included the stables and the negro quarters, had been abandoned.
Presently the sound of retreating hoofs was heard,and the detachment, which numbered several hundred, rode off. The hot, still air had grown more inky black, and a dead silence took the place of the commotion in and around the Harrowby house. The negroes had gone off to their quarters, and lights shone only from a single window of the library. Presently the sound of a horse carefully picking his way around the marsh and advancing toward the willow tree was heard, and a step which Angela at once recognized.
“That’s Archie,” she said. “I think he is bringing you your horse.” The next minute Archie had slid down the bank and into the boat.
“Wasn’t it great?” he cried. “You ought to have seen those Yankees—three hundred of ’em, commanded by a major. They were cocksure they had you, Captain Isabey. They surrounded the whole place, garden and all, and then searched the house. Father harangued them, and a private soldier told him to shut up, which made father very angry. Then the soldier was cuffed by another soldier, who said to father: ‘Go on, old cock; I like to hear you talk—just as if you had two hundred niggers to jump when you spoke.’ ‘Niggers!’ roared father. ‘That word, sir, is not admissible in polite society. Negro is the name of the black race, and any diminutive of it is a term of contempt of which I strongly disapprove.’ ‘By Jiminy!’ said the soldier, perfectly delighted. ‘Give us some instructions in manners, my old Roman gent, and if you would throw in a few dancing lessons we would be a thousand times obliged.’ Then mother, quite angry, said to him, ‘How dare you speak so irreverently to my husband? He is seventy-two yearsold, and this is the first disrespectful word that was ever uttered to him.’”
As neither of his auditors spoke, the boy went on:
“All the soldiers around were laughing, but they quieted down as soon as mother spoke. Then an old sergeant came up and touched his cap and said very respectfully to mother, ‘Don’t be frightened, marm; we ain’t a-going to do you or this gentleman here any harm. We’re jest looking for that Rebel captain that we know came this way before twelve o’clock to-day, but we wouldn’t alarm you for nothing, marm.’ ‘Alarm me,’ said mother, smiling. ‘I can’t imagine myself alarmed by you.’ Then a young rough-looking fellow, a lieutenant, came up, and my mother’s words seemed to make him mad. ‘Very well, madam,’ he hollered, ‘I’ll show you something to alarm you.’ He picked up a newspaper, twisted it up into a torch, and lighted it at the candle on the hall table. ‘Now,’ he said, ‘if you don’t tell me within one minute by the clock where that Rebel rascal is, I’ll set fire to this house and burn up everything in it.’ ‘Just as you please,’ replied mother, exactly in the tone when she says, ‘Archibald, my son, come in to prayers.’ The soldiers around her all stood and looked at her and my father while the lieutenant kept his eyes on the clock. ‘My dearest Sophie,’ said father, ‘this is most annoying, and it is peculiarly humiliating to me that it is not in my power to demand satisfaction from these villains for their discourtesy to you.’ ‘Pray, don’t let it trouble you, my dear,’ replied mother. ‘The only thing that distresses me is that you should be subject at your time of life to such insults.’
“Then the sergeant went up and, taking the newspaper out of the lieutenant’s hand, threw it into the fireplace. ‘Look here,’ he said, ‘I have been thirty years in the United States army and I never heard an officer say anything like that before to a woman. You have been in the army about three months. You got your commission because your father made a lot of money in a pawnbroking shop. The major’s just outside, and if you say another impudent word to this lady I’ll prefer charges against you as soon as we get back to camp.’ You should have seen the lieutenant wilt then.
“The major was a big, oldish sort of man, very polite, but bent on finding Captain Isabey if he could. He had every hole and corner searched, and asked all the negroes what had become of you. They all owned up that you had been at Harrowby at supper-time, but none of them had seen you since. Mammy Tulip defied them and called them ‘po’ white trash.’ Uncle Hector went and hid in the garret closet and was hauled out by the heels when that place was searched. While they were looking about the grounds and stables the soldiers wrung the necks of all the fowls they could lay their hands on; but the horses were all out in the field and they didn’t trouble the cattle or sheep. The worst thing they did was when they found all father’s bottles of hair dye and caught my white pointer and poured the dye all over him. He’s as black as a crow. That made father furious.
“Mr. Lyddon was very cool through it all. He told the Yankees he was a British subject, but they were perfectly welcome to search his room, only if they laid their hands on anything he would report it to the British Ministerat Washington. At last they seemed to give up finding Captain Isabey, and then the major sent for me. I made out I was scared to death, and when the major talked very threateningly to me, to make me tell what had become of Captain Isabey, I whispered in his ear that Captain Isabey had gone to spend the night at the rectory, seven miles off; and so I have sent them off after Mr. Brand. They will get there about midnight, and I don’t believe Mr. Brand will be alive to-morrow morning. They will frighten the old fellow to death.” And Archie chuckled, gloating over Mr. Brand’s prospective sufferings. “Then they all rode down the road. As soon as the last one had ridden off I took your saddle and bridle and slipped into the field and got your horse, and here he is, and if you will follow the road through the woods to Greenhill you can strike the main road in an hour, and there will be at least ten miles between you and the Yankees. They will be going lickety-split in the wrong direction.”
Isabey grasped Archie’s hand, while Angela, throwing her arms around his neck, kissed him, whispering: “Oh, what a clever boy you are, and how proud Neville and Richard will be of you!”
There was a brief farewell. Isabey pressed Angela’s hand, saying, “I thank you more than anyone else for my escape,” and then, mounting his horse, melted away in the darkness. Archie got in the boat and, taking both oars, pulled swiftly back to the wharf at Harrowby. Angela’s heart was full of thankfulness. Then, suddenly and strangely to herself, she found tears upon her cheeks.