CHAPTER XXIDUST AND ASHES
AS Isabey opened the iron gate for Angela to pass through, they noticed the few negroes left on the place running toward the main entrance of the house, which faced landward.
They were exclaiming loudly, after the fashion of their race, at something which was coming slowly down the long cedar lane. It was an ordinary one-horse tumbril cart, driven by a negro sitting on a plank laid athwart, and in the cart lay a long narrow box covered over with a military cloak. Tied behind the cart followed a horse, fully accoutered, with the stirrups crossed over the cavalry saddle.
Angela, whose glance was keen, turned to Isabey and said: “That’s Richard’s horse and that’s his body servant, Peter, driving the cart.”
Isabey’s practiced eye took in the truth at a glance—Richard Tremaine lay dead in the cart. He walked with Angela quickly to the front of the house. Colonel and Mrs. Tremaine were already upon the porch. They watched with terrified eyes the cart as it drew near the wide opening in the cedar hedge where the driveway began.
Angela ran forward and took Mrs. Tremaine’s hand.Colonel Tremaine’s tall figure swayed a little, and, putting out his arm, he drew Mrs. Tremaine to his side. A solemn hush had fallen upon the assembled negroes, young and old, who watched the cart drive up.
Lyddon and Archie came out and joined the silent group upon the pillared porch. The cart drove around the carriage path and halted in front of the steps. The horse stood almost as still as the dead man who lay covered up in the cart.
Peter scrambled down, and going up to the steps, his rough cap in his hand, said to Mrs. Tremaine: “Missis, I done brought Marse Richard back to you.”
Mrs. Tremaine said no word, but the father and mother of the dead man clung desperately together as the bolt fell.
Missis, I done brought Marse Richard back to you“‘Missis, I done brought Marse Richard back to you.’”
“‘Missis, I done brought Marse Richard back to you.’”
“‘Missis, I done brought Marse Richard back to you.’”
“’Twas las’ Sunday mornin’,” Peter continued, gasping for breath between his sentences, “in de big battle wid de Yankees. De shot went right thru’ Marse Richard’s heart. He was a-leadin’ he battery on an’ cheerin’ he men an’ de big gun was a-bellowin’ an’ de balls was flyin’ fast. De ho’ses to de guns dey ra’r an’ pitch, an’ Marse Richard he speak kin’ o’ coaxin’ to ’em an’ brought ’em down, an’ dey went off at a hard gallop, de artillerymen arter ’em, yellin’. Marse Richard was gallopin’ ahead, de Yankees was comin’ out of de woods into an open fiel’ where we could see de ridges blue wid ’em, thousands on ’em, an’ dey had a heap o’ cannon a-spittin’ shells an’ grapeshot. De guns was a-thunderin’ an’ de bullets was a-flyin’ wus an’ wus, an’ de yearth a-shakin’ wid all dem ho’ses an’ gun carriages poundin’ over it. I was runnin’ ’longarter de long gray line, an’ kep’ my eye fixed on Marse Richard, jes’ like ole Missis tole me. He tu’n roun’ in he saddle, an’ takin’ off he cap he wave it jes’ de same as a little boy an’ hollered, ‘Come on, boys! Marse Robert say we got to git dem guns,’ an’ while he was lookin’ back an’ smilin’, his ho’se went down. It warn’t no time to stop for nuttin’, an’ de artillery went on a-gallopin’. When I got up to where Marse Richard was, de ho’se had done riz up, an’ Marse Richard lay on he side, wid he arm under he haid, jes’ de same as when Mammy Tulip put him to sleep when he wuz a little boy in de trundle-baid. I done saw enough daid soldiers for to know that Marse Richard was gone. He drawed he breff once or twice an’ open he eyes an’ look at me an’ say, ‘Pete,’ an’ den he breff stopped.”
Peter paused, his brawny frame trembling. Not a sound was uttered; only Mrs. Tremaine’s glance wandered from Peter, with tears streaming down his face, around the group, as if she were in some painful dream.
Colonel Tremaine’s face was set like iron as he said in a strange voice: “Go on, boy.”
Peter sighed heavily, and leaned against the great brick pillar of the porch nearest him. He had scarcely slept or eaten since that terrible hour, five days before. But he spoke again after a minute:
“Dey warn’t no doctor about, nor no nuttin’, jes’ cavalry, infantry, an’ artillery a-chargin’, de guns a-boomin’, an’ de soldiers fallin’ over an’ hollerin’ sometimes when de bullets struck ’em an’ de shells cut ’em all to pieces. I tek Marse Richard’s sash from roun’ he waist, an’ wrop it roun’ he chist, so as tosoak up de blood. De ho’se stan’ stock-still, an’ I lay Marse Richard ’cross de saddle, an’ tie him on wid de surcingle, an’ lead de ho’se offen de fiel’. I warn’ skeered, dough de bullets was a-flyin’, an’ I warn’ thinkin’ ’bout Marse Richard. I was thinkin’ ’bout ole Marse an’ Missis. I come ’long ’bout four miles to a tavern, an’ dey laid Marse Richard out on a baid upsty’ars, an’ I foun’ a carpenter to mek him a coffin. When de orficers foun’ Marse Richard dat night, I had done wash him an’ dress him an’ put him in de coffin. Didn’ nobody tech him, ’scusin’ ’twas me. I lay he so’de an’ de hat wid de feather in it an’ he epaulets inside de coffin, an’ de cloak over it, an’ den I wrop’ de coffin up in he blanket. I had some gold in a belt roun’ my waist, dat Marse Richard tole me fur to keep, case he was wounded or kilt, fur to bring him back to Harrowby, an’ I hired dis heah ho’se an’ cyart, an’ druv it every step of de way myself. I got ’way from de tavern jes’ as quick as I could, fur I didn’t want nobody fur to be axin’ questions. I knowed what ole Marse an’ ole Missis want me to do, an’ I gwine do it. When people on de main road ax me what I got in de cyart, I tole ’em ’twas my little Marse dat was kilt, an’ I was tekin’ him home to ole Marse an’ ole Missis. Den I whip up de ho’se an’ nobody didn’t try fur to stop me. An’ I done brought him home, Missis, jes’ like you tole me.”
Mrs. Tremaine put her small withered hand in Peter’s black palm, and said to him in her own sweet, natural voice: “Thank you, Peter; you have done exactly what your master and I wished you to do.”Then she suddenly burst into a wild storm of hysterical weeping, and Colonel Tremaine, himself shaken with sobs, led her gently into the house.
The stricken parents went into the library and shut the door, where they were alone with their grief for an hour. No one went near them, not even Archie, who watched, with awe and grief, the solemn preparations made necessary by his Majesty, Death. Lyddon, always unequal to practical affairs, could do nothing. He was stunned and shaken more than ever in his life before. He went like a man in a dream into Richard’s bedroom and closed and locked the door.
Neither Archie nor Angela knew what directions to give, and were too full of grief and horror to understand what should be done.
Madame Isabey and Adrienne, when they heard the dreadful news, offered to do all that was possible, but nothing lay in their power.
It was Isabey who took charge of everything concerning the dead man, who was more than a brother to him. He had the pine coffin carried into the drawing-room, and gave directions for the immediate making of Richard Tremaine’s grave in the old burying ground in the field.
At the end of an hour Colonel and Mrs. Tremaine came out of the library. Both were singularly calm, as the human soul often is when it has received a mortal blow. They went into the drawing-room, where Richard Tremaine’s rude coffin lay upon four chairs. It was quite covered with wreaths and sprays of laurel, which Angela had gathered, and which she was arranging uponthe rude pine box. This was her first close view of death, and she was awed and shaken with grief, but very far from frightened by it. The peace and repose of it came home strangely to her. Colonel and Mrs. Tremaine sat down at the head of the coffin, and in a moment the old relations between Neville’s parents and Angela, the tie of parents and child, was resurrected. Mrs. Tremaine held out her hand instinctively for Angela’s, and the two women sat with hands clasped. Colonel Tremaine said: “Where is my son, my only remaining son?” He spoke unconsciously, and at these words a tremor passed through the mother of Neville Tremaine. Was Neville, then, still dead, though in life?
Her troubled eyes sought Angela’s, and Angela, falling upon her knees by Richard Tremaine’s coffin, cried to his father and mother: “Have you forgotten Neville? Will you still thrust him from your hearts? Richard did not. He loved Neville just the same and never called him a traitor, but a man of honor and the best of brothers and of sons. O Aunt Sophia, won’t you take pity on Neville now?” And then, catching Colonel Tremaine’s hand, she cried, while tears rained down her cheeks: “Ask Aunt Sophia to take pity on Neville!”
Colonel and Mrs. Tremaine remained silent, and Angela, leaning her head against the rude pine coffin, said, weeping: “O Richard, if you could speak, you would plead for Neville!”
Then Colonel Tremaine asked brokenly of Mrs. Tremaine: “Shall we forgive our son?”
“Yes, yes,” answered Mrs. Tremaine, and a sense of solemn joy came into their riven hearts.
At that moment Archie entered and stood by his parents. All at once the boy seemed to reach the stature of a man.
“My son,” said Colonel Tremaine, “your mother and I have given this dear son to his country. He is now no more, and you, although you are not yet of age to bear arms, must take your brother’s place.”
“Thank you, father,” answered Archie.
Mrs. Tremaine rose, laying her hand on his shoulder: “If it be that I must give you up, too, I do it cheerfully. If I had to lose my son, this is the way in which I should choose to give him up.”
Isabey, standing outside the door, heard this, and bowed his head in reverence. He had seen this indomitable courage of the Southern women before, and he recognized all its beauty and splendor—this calm surrender of their best beloved, this readiness to see the dearest of their hearts laid upon the Bed of Honor.
It was a time when tragedies moved rapidly, and Richard Tremaine’s body was laid in the old burying ground before sunset of that day. It had been impossible to get a clergyman in time. It was Colonel Tremaine himself who, in a steady voice, read the burial service. The faithful negro servants, headed by Hector and Peter, carried Richard Tremaine to his last resting place. In the waning afternoon the solemn procession took its way across the open field and into the old burial ground with the decaying brick walls and the moss-grown tombs. Mrs. Tremaine walked with Colonel Tremaine,and her step was steadier than his. She carried in her hand a small Testament, and grasped it as if she could not bear to part with it. Angela walked with Archie, and next them came Isabey with Lyddon, and last of all came Madame Isabey and Adrienne, followed by every negro on the place. Isabey thought Lyddon would drop as he stood at the foot of the grave, so pallid was he, so totally unnerved. It was Mrs. Tremaine who spoke words of courage to him.
“Take comfort,” she said. “We shall all meet again in a place of refreshment, light, and peace.”
Colonel Tremaine’s voice grew steady as he uttered the awful words, “Dust to dust,” and threw the first shovelful of earth upon the coffin in which lay so much of pride and joy, excellence and comeliness of mind and body as had died with Richard Tremaine. When the grave was filled up and the mound made into shape, those who loved Richard Tremaine best walked back through the October twilight to the old house which was to know him no more.
Archie went and put on his brother’s gray uniform, from which the officer’s insignia of rank had been cut. Before the main door stood Richard Tremaine’s horse, saddled and bridled and accoutered, and another horse for Peter. When he came out upon the porch, Mrs. Tremaine took Archie in her arms and, kissing him, said:
“Take your brother’s place, and be worthy of him and of your father.”
“I will, mother,” answered the boy, weeping, while he kissed her.
Colonel Tremaine, placing his hands upon Archie’s uncovered head, said to him: “You are our Benjamin, but we give you willingly. Remember, boy, that your mother and I shall require a good account of you.”
“You shall have it, father,” replied Archie, drawing himself up and looking a man, not a boy. But suddenly he became a boy again, and, throwing his arms around his father’s neck, kissed Colonel Tremaine’s furrowed cheek, saying: “I will do my best, father. I am not as clever as Richard, and can’t be an officer like him, but I can fight, aye, and die, too, as bravely as he.” Then he went up to Angela, and, again remembering that he was now a man and a soldier, took the initiative in a way he had never done before. “Good-by, Angela,” he said, kissing her, “and when you write to Neville give him my love. Tell him, although we are fighting on different sides, he is just as much my brother as Richard was. I haven’t said anything about him, but I think of Neville every day and love him just as much as I did my brother Richard, and I believe he is as brave and true a man as Richard was.”
The boy, as he spoke, looked fearlessly into the eyes of his parents. He had never before dared to speak Neville’s name in their presence, but now, being a man, he spoke like a man. At his words Colonel and Mrs. Tremaine grew deeply agitated. They had reckoned their eldest-born a traitor and false to his honor; but this boy, the youngest of all their household, looking at things with clear young eyes, reckoned Neville a true man. And Angela replied steadily:
“Dear Archie, I shall tell Neville so. He loves youand everybody at Harrowby, and he is where he thinks his duty calls him.”
There was something strange and piteous in these two young creatures daring to touch this family tragedy. It staggered Colonel and Mrs. Tremaine, already trembling under the heavy hand of calamity. Their anxious eyes sought each other as if asking, “Have we done wrong in casting out our son from our hearts?”
Then Aunt Tulip spoke:
“Mist’iss,” she said solemnly, “’tain’t right fer you an’ ole Marse not to forgive dat chile. He allers wuz as good a boy as any on ’em, an’ ain’t never give you an’ ole Marse a minute’s trouble ’twell he went wid de No’th. Ef he mar an’ par done fergit him, mammy ain’. I got six pya’r o’ yarn socks fer him. Ev’y time I knit a pya’r o’ socks fer Marse Richard I knit a pya’r fer Marse Neville an’ lay ’em away in my chist, an’ I gwine sen’ ’em to him some day, an’ I ain’ feered to say so.”
Neville’s hold was strong upon the children and the negroes, and when they, forgetting subordination, mentioned his forbidden name with love and recollections, the father and mother were overborne.
Up to this time not one word had been spoken concerning Angela’s departure, but the mention of it could no longer be delayed.
“Aunt Sophia,” said Angela, “I have had a message which takes me to Neville. Captain Isabey brought it, and he will have charge of me until I am within the Federal lines.”
In the agitation and excitement of that terrible day,no one had thought to ask the reason of Isabey’s presence at Harrowby, which Angela thus explained.
“You will see my son soon?” asked Mrs. Tremaine, tremulously. “Thank God! Then you can tell him—” Mrs. Tremaine hesitated, and Angela, knowing what she would have said, supplied it:
“I shall tell him that you and Uncle Tremaine forgive him and love him. I hope to see Neville at latest in two days, as Captain Isabey says that we must start at once—to-night.”
Colonel and Mrs. Tremaine, having had forgiveness wrung from them for their eldest son, seemed to feel a strange anxiety that this forgiveness should reach Neville quickly, and Colonel Tremaine said:
“As soon as Archie is out of sight we must prepare for your departure, Angela, my love.”
Archie, who had listened silently to all that had passed, did not trust himself for another farewell, and, running down the steps, flung himself on his horse and galloped off, Peter riding after him.
The group on the porch watched his boyish figure in the obscure twilight as his horse clattered down the cedar lane and disappeared in the dusk of the woods at the end; then, with that singular energy which sometimes possesses people when the seal has been placed upon a tragedy, they all turned to think of Angela’s affairs. Captain Isabey briefly explained to Colonel Tremaine that he had been deputed to escort Angela within the lines and to arrange for her as best he could afterwards. It was known that Neville was within fifty miles of the Federal lines, and Angelawould have no difficulty in reaching him under proper escort.
A glimmer of the truth penetrated Colonel Tremaine’s mind, and was followed by a complete illumination—Angela was a suspect, but was innocent, as innocent as the day when, a wailing infant, she was brought to Harrowby in Mrs. Tremaine’s arms.
“You will make an early start in the morning, I suppose,” said Colonel Tremaine to Isabey.
“We must start at once; my time is short,” replied Isabey. “Mrs. Neville Tremaine is a good rider and will not mind the twenty miles from here to the Federal lines. It is not yet six o’clock and we should reach the lines to-night. My directions admit no delay.”
Colonel Tremaine, having been a soldier himself, understood the need for haste. Mrs. Tremaine made no objection. She would not have delayed Angela one single hour in carrying that message of forgiveness to Neville and was secretly eager for her to start. Isabey, who had the art of seducing reason, and was at all times a powerful advocate, made light of the twenty-mile ride by moonlight, and mentioned one practical consideration, that the weather was mild and the roads dry, while a delay of twelve hours, even if it were possible, might mean, at that season of the year, a journey in bad weather.
Mrs. Tremaine went to Angela’s room to assist her in putting up the few articles she could carry in her portmanteau. Angela, already dressed in her riding habit, sat before her dressing table, her long fair hair being plaited down her back, as when she was a little girl,by Mammy Tulip, for no hairpins could hold that mass of hair during a twenty-mile ride. Mrs. Tremaine was perfectly calm. She had received a mortal blow, as mothers do when called to give up a child, but she had, in a way, recovered the son until then lost to her. She spoke tenderly of Neville, sending him messages, and, sitting at Angela’s table, wrote him a few lines eloquent with a mother’s love.
“It seems to me,” said Angela, with tender superstition, as Mrs. Tremaine handed her the letter to Neville, “that Richard’s spirit must have spoken for Neville, and since I must be the bearer of such heavy grief to Neville as Richard’s death will be, isn’t it good of God that I should, at the same time, be able to tell him that you and his father forgive him and love him?”
“God is ever good,” replied Mrs. Tremaine. She had a deep and consistent piety, which had never, until the breaking out of the war, had any real test, but it sufficed her when the moment came in which all faith, all love, is tested.
Madame Isabey and Adrienne had kept to themselves that day, except for joining the funeral procession to Richard’s grave. They rightly judged that there was little room for strangers in those heartbreaking hours, and although their sympathy was deep with those under whose roof they lived, they lacked the means and even the language in which to express it. Angela went to their rooms to bid them farewell. Madame Isabey, whose heart was deeply sympathetic, kissed her and wept over her. Adrienne could not remain unshaken by those tragic and fateful hours which had seen two sons takenfrom Harrowby, one by death and one by war, and another restored, at least in affection.
For the first time in their lives Angela and Adrienne kissed each other. Adrienne had scarcely spoken a word to Isabey during that whole sad day. It was to her as if she saw his shade and not the real man moving about, helpful to others, forgetful of his own grief, and only remotely conscious of Adrienne’s presence. From her window, as the moon rose, she saw Angela and Isabey mount and ride away. The deep blue heavens were gloriously starred, while a faint rosy glow still lingered on the western edge of the world.
Lyddon, who had been more moved and agitated that day than ever in his life before, shut himself up in the old study. As he sat in the great worn leather chair all the scenes which had passed in that old room returned to him and the flight of time was like a dream in the night. He recalled Angela in her white frock climbing up on his knee and, when he would have turned away from her, thrusting the odd volume of the “Odyssey” in his face and asking him in a wailing, babyish voice: “Do, pray, Mr. Lyddon, read me something out of this nice old book.” How childishly clever it was of her to find out that the “Odyssey” was the spell through which she was to conjure him! And she was gone, perhaps never to return. Then Archie, but yesterday a lad and now a man, was gone to take his place upon the firing line. Neville was Lyddon’s first pupil at Harrowby, a handsome, gentle, silent stripling, fond of reading and fonder still of mathematics, which he mastered with a marvelous ease and precision that delightedLyddon. And Richard, the most brilliant of them all, his character as admirable as his mind, his superiority affectionately proclaimed by Neville and laughingly denied by Richard. Never were there two brothers’ souls more closely knit together. And the pride and joy of Colonel and Mrs. Tremaine in their children, for Angela was a child to them, had always seemed to Lyddon one of the most beautiful things in existence. Into this exquisite family life had come in the twinkling of an eye a dissension and division, a separation, the most frightful that could be imagined—as much worse than death as disgrace is worse than death. To-day only had that great gaping wound been healed. It did not seem fanciful to Lyddon that Richard Tremaine, lying stark in his new-made grave under the bare branches of the weeping willows which made dappled shadows in the moonlight, should in the far-off land of spirits know of this healed wound. It seemed to Lyddon as if Richard’s life were like a broken melody, and at the thought he groaned aloud. Presently he took down a battered volume and read from it those words of Sir Walter Raleigh: “O eloquent and mighty Death! Whom none could advise, thou hast persuaded; what none have dared, thou hast done; and whom all the world hath flattered, thou hast cast out of the world and despised. Thou hast drawn together all the far scattered greatness, all the pride, cruelty, and ambition of man, and covered it all over with these two narrow words: ‘Hic jacet.’”
Everything in the room seemed to speak Richard’s name to Lyddon, to cry aloud his virtues, his gifts, hisgraces, and Lyddon, to escape from them, flung out of doors.
The moon shone in pale splendor over the autumn woods and the river was a sheet of silver. Lyddon, looking toward the garden, saw Adrienne’s slender black figure pacing up and down the Ladies’ Walk under the black shadows of the yew hedge. It suddenly came to him that this woman was suffering a sort of death in life—the death of love and hope. He had seen long ago how things were with Adrienne and with Isabey as plainly as he had read what was passing in Angela’s soul, for Lyddon was acute and it is impossible for people who live under the same roof to successfully practice disguises one to another. Adrienne was young, had far more of positive beauty than Angela, had grace and splendid accomplishments and wealth, which gave her leisure to think over all she had not. Her first marriage had been loveless and childless and Lyddon felt sure she would never make another. There was in her life none of those stupendous griefs, shocks, alienations, and losses which had shaken the family at Harrowby; but there was a silent, aching disappointment, an aridity which had become her portion at the time when most women know the joy of living and which would be hers through all time. In the midst of his own desolation Lyddon felt pity for Adrienne, and joining her the two walked together up and down the flagged walk. He talked to her of Richard, and she listened to him with a sympathy which was touching and consoling. But through all her words rang a note of patience without hope of joy.
“Death is not the worst of evils,” she said, with perfect sincerity. “For one who has suffered, life merely as life is nothing. If one can work and can be happy and can give happiness in return, that alone is living. We grieve, not because Richard Tremaine is dead, but because so much that he might have done remains undone.”
Lyddon, whose agitation was deep, found himself calmed and even a little comforted by Adrienne.
After an hour they saw candles gleaming through the library window and knew it was time to go within. As they turned toward the house Adrienne said suddenly:
“They must be well on their way by this time. They will grow more intimate in these few hours than in half an ordinary lifetime. The tie established between them will be very strong.”
Lyddon knew, although she spoke no name, that she referred to Isabey and Angela.
“Quite true,” he said briefly; “but the tie was strong between them long ago.” And then, realizing that, like Adrienne, he had said what he never meant to utter, he stopped aghast and spoke no more until he was assisting Adrienne up the steps. Then he added: “Luckily, both of them have remarkable self-control. It is not enough in these fateful cases merely to have a high sense of honor. Some of the wildest and most unfortunate things on earth are done by people who have honor but no discretion. Those two, however, have both honor and discretion.”
“You are right,” was Adrienne’s response.
They went together into the library, where the fewremaining servants were now collecting for family prayers.
The stand, with the open Bible on it and two wax candles in silver candlesticks, was in its usual place, and in a moment the door opened and Colonel and Mrs. Tremaine entered and took their accustomed seats. Colonel Tremaine, in an unshaken voice, read from the Gospels, and Mrs. Tremaine made the usual prayer for all under the roof of Harrowby, and then uttered another prayer which had not passed her lips since the April night, eighteen months before, when Neville Tremaine had been ordered from his father’s roof, an outcast:
“We ask Thy mercy and guidance for the sons of this house, Neville and Archibald.”