CHAPTER XXIILOVE AND LIFE
AT the same hour of the night Angela and Isabey were riding steadily along the moonlit open road toward the Federal lines. The flat and peaceful country was bare with the bareness of autumn and the wind rustled over the broad fields of stubble and through the melancholy woods. There was little evidence of the warfare which was raging only a short distance away. The homesteads were silent and dark; there were not many lights kept burning in those troublous times.
As Isabey and Angela rode along the highway through a world all white moonlight and black shadows, they spoke little. Whenever Isabey looked at her he noticed that there were tears on her cheeks, which she brushed away with her little gloved hand. When they were an hour from Harrowby they entered a great stretch of sandy road through which they walked their horses. Isabey, knowing it would relieve Angela’s overflowing heart to speak of Richard Tremaine, encouraged her to do so, and they talked of the dead man. Isabey told of their student life together, both in Virginia and in Paris.
“I have no other friend like Tremaine,” he said.“It seems to me that among all who loved him there is no one who can quite fill Richard’s place. Mr. Lyddon told me to-day that Richard was an unforgettable man. I replied that he was an unforgettable friend.”
“But he is gone,” cried Angela, who had never seen death before, and who knew for the first time the strangeness which comes with the absence of the beloved. “He will never come into the study any more and sit in the great chair opposite Mr. Lyddon and talk with him on deep and profound things. His father will never again have Richard’s arm to lean upon when he walks up and down the hall in the twilight. They often did that together. And his mother will never again have him at her side when she makes the prayer at night. Richard always sat on her left and Neville on her right. Archie sat by Uncle Tremaine, because he was such a restless little boy. Everybody—Mr. Lyddon, Uncle Tremaine, and Aunt Sophia—thought Richard more brilliant than Neville, although his mother certainly loved Neville best. But now all love and pride is turned into anguish. I have been asking myself ever since I knew that Richard was gone, ‘Where is he now? How far has he fared? Does he know how broken-hearted we are?’”
“Ah,” replied Isabey, putting his hand upon the pommel of Angela’s saddle, “you have got hold of that great question, ‘Whence goes the soul?’ Every thinking human being traverses this problem; you will not be able to escape from it. You will turn it over and over and read the thoughts of many minds concerning it. After all, soldiers and saints take the same view ofthis great matter. We do our duty, expecting to render an account to the Great Commander. We know no more and it is certain we can do no more.”
Isabey smiled a little at his brief preachment to Angela, but she was so young and had read so few pages in the book of life that in many ways she was a child in her questioning.
“I never talked with anyone about this,” she said. “It seemed to me always as if it was impossible that anything could separate us at Harrowby. Yet you see what has come—a frightful separation for Neville, and Richard gone we know not where or how or even why.”
Both fell silent and remained so for a long time.
They had left Harrowby before seven o’clock and Isabey had thought they would be able to make the whole distance, including an hour’s rest for the horses, before midnight. But when at nine o’clock they had still half the distance before them, he noticed how pale and tired Angela looked. They stopped their horses to drink of a little brook that ran silvery in the moonlight and then rippled darkling under a rude bridge and into a thicket beyond where the autumn leaves still hung withered upon the overhanging branches. Beyond lay a belt of pine woods, and when they came to a little clear space within it Isabey said: “Here is a spot where you may rest in safety and unseen. You can scarcely sit your horse.”
“It is true,” replied Angela, wearily.
Isabey’s horse picked his way, followed by Angela’s, under the odorous feathery branches of the pine trees where the ground was softly carpeted with brown pineneedles. When they were out of sight of the road and well in the heart of the woods, Isabey dismounted and took Angela from her horse. Her young strength had given out and she was so fatigued that she sank, rather than sat, upon a fallen tree. Isabey quickly tied the horses and unsaddled them; then with the saddles and blankets he made a kind of rude couch for Angela. She lay down upon it, and Isabey, after arranging her, began to walk up and down among the tree trunks close by.
“Don’t leave me,” Angela called softly, in a voice like a frightened child.
“I shan’t leave you,” replied Isabey, coming back and standing before her, “nor even take my eyes off you. Hear the horses blowing and snorting. Listen to them a little while. They are exactly like tired human creatures in their complaining.”
“And I can listen also to the water under the bridge. Hear it as it ripples past.” Angela listened a while, about five minutes, and then Isabey, coming up softly to her again, found that the little stream to which she had listened had become the river of forgetfulness and she had fallen into a sudden sweet sleep.
The air was sharp, and Isabey, taking off his military cape, wrapped it around her. Angela was so worn out with the fatigues and agitations of the day that she slept as soundly as if she were in her own great four-posted bed at Harrowby. Isabey, sitting on the fallen tree trunk, kept watch over her. There were still tears upon her cheeks, and, taking out his white handkerchief, he gently wiped them away without waking her. Her face was pale at first, but as she felt the warmth of the capethe blood returned to her cheeks, which in a little while were overspread with a rosy glow like that of a sleeping child. Her long braided hair had become loosened, and Isabey, lifting it gently from where it had fallen against a half-bare bush, carefully disengaged it. The silky locks fell over his hands, and he held them in his clasp for a minute or two, then involuntarily pressed his lips upon them and laid them upon Angela’s breast, covered with his cloak.
It seemed to Isabey the most solemn hour of his life when he found himself alone with Angela in the darkness of the heart of the forest. It was as if a kindly fate had given him this last farewell. He never expected, or even desired, to see her as Neville Tremaine’s wife. He could not disguise from himself what Angela, in her simplicity, had not been able to disguise from him—that her soul answered to his as the echo answers to the voice and a lake reflects the sky. She was so little sophisticated, so frank, so fearless, that she betrayed herself in every word and glance to his practiced eye. But not to others did she betray herself. Though innocent she was not ignorant, and Isabey felt a lofty pride in the same discretion of which Lyddon had spoken. He remembered with a smile how she always brought in Neville’s name, as if it were a talisman, when they found themselves on dangerous ground. Isabey himself had been enough on his guard to escape a rebuff from her or even a rebuking glance. He could look Neville Tremaine in the eye without fear or reproach. Then, not being a man to dwell wholly upon his own sufferings, his mind turned to Richard Tremaine. Ah,there again was loss without repair! In war men grow not only familiar with but contemptuous of death. Isabey had, however, but one Richard Tremaine to lose, and when he remembered this he stopped in his halting and stealthy walk up and down upon the pine needles and felt as if a bolt had entered his heart. It was not meant, he thought, that he should ever have wife or friend.
At ten o’clock, when he intended to rouse Angela, he went close to her and found her sleeping so soundly he had not the heart to waken her. It would, perhaps, be just as well if they reached the lines at six o’clock in the morning. That would still give him time to return within twenty-four hours.
The moon, hanging high in the heavens, increased in radiance, but only here and there a patch of moonlight penetrated the plumelike branches of the pine trees. The night grew suddenly cold and Isabey was forced to quicken his noiseless walk. But Angela slept warmly and sweetly. How very pretty she was, Isabey thought, in her irregular, piquant way. She did not resemble any person or any picture that he had ever seen. Her beauty was illusive, so dependent upon her mood that it was difficult to reproduce. Isabey had tried often to sketch her, but he had always thrown away the sketches in disgust. They were like Angela and yet unlike her, having little beauty of any kind. Her charm was one which could not be transferred through any medium whatever. Isabey had never rated her actual beauty highly nor had it even impressed his greatly; but when he considered her extraordinary power to interest, tocharm, to claim love as her heritage, he realized that she was one of those women whom age could not wither nor custom stale. At first his thoughts, his feelings, his griefs, and disappointments were fierce and tempestuous, but as the night wore on he grew composed and even resigned. He would take as a soldier meets death this coming blow of a parting with Angela—take it quietly and unflinchingly and not degrade himself by making a useless outcry against fate or fortune.
The moon grew wan and dropped out of sight and the pallid stars heralded daybreak; it was that unearthly hour which is neither night nor morning, when there is neither daylight nor moonlight nor starlight, when Isabey, drawn against his will toward Angela, sat near her and leaned over.
Suddenly she quietly opened her eyes and looked, wide awake, into his. The hour, the place, the time, the circumstances, were such as to give each insight into the soul of the other, and Angela saw farewell in Isabey’s eyes. After a moment or two she spoke involuntarily, still looking into his face: “This is the last time we shall see each other.” She spoke softly, quietly, as if she were in a dream.
“Yes,” replied Isabey, in the same calm voice in which Angela had spoken, “this is the last time.”
They sat quite still a minute longer, exchanging that unspoken but intelligible language which both understood perfectly. Then Angela, rising, held out her hand to Isabey. “Come,” she said, “we must go.”
Isabey rose, too, and they stood looking around them at the gloomy pine trees in the faint cold light which wasnot light or darkness, as if seeking to impress the spot forever upon their memories. Angela noticed Isabey’s cloak lying at her feet, and she picked it up, saying: “You wrapped me in your cloak; you shouldn’t have done it. But perhaps that is why I slept in warmth and peace. I never had a sweeter sleep in my life. I had no dream, but two or three times I was near waking, and then I knew I was being watched over, and that made me feel so safe and at peace, and I dropped asleep again.”
Isabey, without a word, took up the blankets, and, going to the horses, arranged the saddles; then, lifting Angela on her horse, himself mounted and made his way, Angela following, back through the thicket into the straight white road beyond. Isabey looked at his watch. It was after four o’clock in the morning. The pale gray sky was touched by the coming dawn and a fresh wind rushed in from the sea, bringing with it a faint mist, as cloudlike as elfland, which lay over the far-stretching flat country. The horses, feeling the cold, were restless and struck a sharp gait. They were not checked. Both Isabey and Angela had the desire, having said farewell to each other, to flee from the place of parting. They rode rapidly, without speaking to each other, except an occasional word referring to their journeying. The wind of dawning rose and swept away the mists and cleared the sky of clouds. All at once the earth and the heavens were steeped in glory and the sunrise of a new day was at hand. Isabey and Angela could see before them a long line of breastworks and a white city of tents, and in the center a great flagstaff up which aflag was climbing and then was flung to the breeze with the sound of trumpets calling to one another.
Beyond the camp a great, broad, blue, rapid river flowed, and on the opposite shore, which rose abruptly in cliffs, was another huge camp gleaming whitely in the new-risen sun.
As they drew near the breastworks Isabey looked at Angela. She was very pale, but she sat her horse well.
Isabey pulled up his horse. One more hateful thing remained to be done—the delivery of General Farrington’s letter to Angela.
“I have a letter to give from General Farrington,” said Isabey gently. “I need not say that nothing could induce me to give you such a letter except the compulsion which is laid upon a soldier.”
He took the letter from his breast pocket and handed it to Angela, who opened and glanced at it, her face lighting up with anger and scorn as she read. Then, tearing the letter in half, she threw it violently from her and, turning to Isabey, said in a trembling voice: “I feel sorry that you should have been forced to give me such a letter. I know what it must have cost you.”
“Thank you for saying so,” replied Isabey. “And let me speak one more word. I would ask you not to say anything to Neville concerning the reasons for your departure from Harrowby. It would give him deep and unnecessary pain. Forgive me for mentioning this.”
In the storm and stress of the last twenty-four hours the thought had vanished from Angela’s mind. All at once it returned to her—that she was being driven away from the place of her birth and rearing by hatred and apersecuting suspicion. It roused in her soul a tempest of resentment and brought the beautiful angry blood to her cheeks.
“You need not ask my forgiveness,” she replied; “it is most thoughtful to remind me, for otherwise I might have told Neville and it would have been another pang for him, who has suffered so much. There are, however, a few persons in the world who could never believe me guilty of wrongdoing; Neville is one of them. No one who knows Neville will ever dare to say one word against me where he can hear of it. I shall always have the refuge of his love and confidence.”
Angela felt at that moment glad that she was on her way to Neville. She had ever fled to him in all her childish griefs and sorrows, and now, when the whole universe appeared changed to her, when she was brought face to face on the one hand with hate and obloquy and on the other with an unspoken love and all its mysteries and perplexities, it seemed as if she had but one refuge, Neville Tremaine’s honest and tender heart. Isabey, acute by nature and made more so by the prescience of love, seeing on Angela’s part this turning to Neville, thought to himself, “It is better so. This may be the beginning of love,” and then was stabbed to the heart by his own thoughts. Only yesterday Angela had been among the butterflies in the sun, and to-day she seemed like some beautiful flowering plant cast upon the ocean. For so the great outside world appeared to Angela.
When they came in sight of the sentry, Isabey, tying his white handkerchief to the point of his saber, rodeup and asked to see the officer of the guard. He quickly appeared, a well-meaning, mild-mannered young man who had recently exchanged the ferule of a country schoolmaster for the sword of an officer. He looked keenly, with unsophisticated admiration, at Angela, and, with the careless ease of the volunteer, offered to pass Isabey and Angela to the tent of the commanding officer.
When they reached, under this escort, the headquarters tent, the commanding officer was standing before it. He was a gray-mustached veteran who had been through the Florida wars, the Mexican War, and that eternal warfare with the Indians on the frontier. The unexpected presence of a lady did not disconcert him in the least. He had escorted officers’ wives across the continent when every man in the escort had been ordered to reserve a bullet for the ladies in case the party should be overpowered by the Indians. He had himself taken his young wife to a frontier post where she was the only woman among five hundred men, and he secretly thought the ladies of the present day rather wanting in the spirit of those fearless women of forty years before.
Isabey introduced himself and then made the necessary explanations with tact and briefness. The old general’s bearing was courtesy itself, and with his expert knowledge of military and social etiquette which was a part of his training everything went smoothly.
“I have the pleasure of knowing your husband, madam,” he said, with old-fashioned grace, to Angela. “I was once his instructor at the Military Academy. His command is, I judge, about forty miles from here and I can readily communicate with him by militarytelegraph. If Captain Isabey will allow me to take charge of you, I can have you conveyed, under proper escort, to Captain Tremaine—or is it Major Tremaine? Promotion is rapid in these days.”
“He is still Captain Tremaine,” replied Angela, a slight blush coming into her face. There had been no promotion for Neville, and Angela well knew why.
Nothing remained for Isabey to do. He had been directed to place Mrs. Neville Tremaine in safe hands and he felt that he had done so when he put her in charge of the chivalrous old general. Then came the formal farewell, which each wished to make brief—their real farewell had been said the dawn before under the whispering pines.
Angela put her hand in Isabey’s and, with a smile both of the lips and eyes, said: “I thank you more than I can say, and I also thank you in Nev—in Captain Tremaine’s name. He will express his gratitude to you himself and far better than I can.”
“It is nothing,” responded Isabey, calmly and gracefully. “I shall always be happy to do a service to any of the Tremaine family, and particularly to Captain Tremaine, whom I consider only a little farther off as a friend than Richard Tremaine. When I recall all your kindness to me at the time that I was wounded, I feel that I can never do enough to show my appreciation of it. Pray remember me to Neville Tremaine. Adieu—or good-by, as you say.”
“Good-by,” replied Angela, gently pressing his hand. And in another moment he was gone.
Then the general, with antique courtesy, himselfshowed Angela into a compartment of the headquarters tent which he desired her to consider her own until she should depart to join her husband. It held a small iron bed and some boxes which did duty for a toilet table and washstand. The general apologized to Angela for the plainness of her surroundings, but reminded her that she was a soldier’s wife and must not mind trifles.
Then, the general leaving her, an orderly brought in Angela’s portmanteau and she exchanged her riding habit for a conventional costume, and combed and plaited her long, fair hair. In half an hour the orderly, who was deputed to be Angela’s lady’s maid, informed her that the general sent his compliments and begged the honor and pleasure of her company at breakfast with him alone. Angela went into the outer tent, where she found a small table laid for two and the gallant old general waiting to receive her.
“Everything is arranged, my dear madam,” he said, as they seated themselves. “I have secured a conveyance for you, not very stylish, perhaps, but it will do—a small carriage and a pair of army mules, with a soldier-driver. Your escort will be Lieutenant Farley, a nephew of mine. I think it fair to tell you what, of course, I could not mention before Captain Isabey, that your husband’s command is on the march, and there is fighting going on. But, nevertheless, there is a point at which you can intercept Captain Tremaine about thirty miles from here and can, at least, have a brief interview.”
“Thank you,” replied Angela. “As you say, I am a soldier’s wife and so must learn to bear a little hardshipin order to see my husband, even for a short time. Then he will decide what I shall do.”
Nothing could exceed the delicacy, tact, and thoughtfulness of the old officer. He told Angela that she could send a dispatch by military telegraph to Neville which would reach him within a few hours and prepare him for her arrival. Angela thanked him again and felt as if she had found a second Colonel Tremaine in this gray-mustached, soft-voiced general. She began to speak with the frankness of an unsophisticated nature of Neville Tremaine and his action in remaining in the United States army. The general listened with the utmost suavity, but made no comment. Angela had expected high commendation from him for Neville, but instead was merely this smooth courtesy, an attitude gracefully sympathetic but wholly noncommittal. Against Neville Tremaine was an iron wall of prejudice which Angela’s soft hands could not batter down. Some intuitive knowledge of this forced itself upon her mind and cut her to the heart. The unspoken enmity of his own people against Neville was easier than this secret distrust on the part of those to whom Neville gave his service from the deepest principle of conscience. This thought aroused something of the pride and sensitiveness of wifehood in Angela. She changed from the attitude of a young girl to that of a self-possessed woman, and told the general, with the coolness and composure of twice her age, of the obloquy visited upon Neville among his own people, “which,” she said, with dignity and even stateliness, “is most undeserved. My husband lost his inheritance; for that he does not grieve, but thedisapproval of his father and mother and of all those dear to him, except myself, is very hard to bear. His brother Richard, who was killed only six days ago, understood my husband better than anyone, and there was never any breach between them. Richard Tremaine knew that only the strongest conviction of his duty would keep his brother in your army.”
To this the general bowed again politely and sympathetically, but said no word. Suspicion, that impalpable poison, that nameless destroyer, had gone forth against Neville Tremaine and was withering him.
All at once the general’s kindness and hospitality grew irksome to Angela. She asked when she could leave, and the general, who had been all courtesy, felt that his guest wished to depart. He told her that a boat was at her command, and the carriage would be waiting on the other side. Then the general escorted her to the dock, his orderly carrying her portmanteau, and there the young lieutenant, the general’s nephew, who was to take charge of her for the next twenty-four hours, met them.
The general introduced him. He was a pink-and-white boy who had left Harvard, where he had luxuriated on a large allowance, in order to become a soldier. The general had no mind to trust Angela with any man not of her own class in life, and had selected the greatest coxcomb, who was also one of the bravest of his youngsters, to escort her.
Nothing could have pleased Farley better. He knew more of drawing-rooms than of camps, and was delighted to figure as the guardian of anything so charming asthis young girl who was already a matron. The general, assuming himself to be the obliged party and thanking Angela for the privilege of serving her, put her into the boat in which the river was crossed. On the other side was a rickety carriage drawn by a couple of stout mules.
Farley took his seat by the side of the soldier who drove. The coachman’s seat was on the same level as those within, and the roof of the carriage overhung it. Farley had fully expected to be asked to take a place within, but Angela totally forgot to ask him.
It was close upon ten o’clock when the carriage started off, and soon, clearing the camp, passed through a flat green country, interspersed with woods, along a road which had been cut up by artillery and commissary wagons. The morning was beautifully fair and bright, and Angela, leaning back in the carriage, had the feeling that she was beginning a new volume of life. That other volume, which had begun with her childhood as bright and fair as the morning, and had closed in blood and tears and agony, was now locked and laid away forever.
A new perplexity occurred to her. If Neville had not heard of Richard’s death, should she tell him? She was too inexperienced to know what was judicious, but some instinct of the heart told her that the little time she could spend with Neville, that one hour of brightness in his life of undeserved hardship, should not be marred in any way. If he did not know of Richard’s death already, he would learn it soon enough.
Thinking these thoughts, Angela, grave and preoccupied,with downcast eyes, sat back in the corner of the carriage and took no note of whither she went or how.
Farley had supposed that it was pure bashfulness which kept Mrs. Neville Tremaine from inviting him to sit in the carriage with her, but as they jolted steadily along the heavy road and the morning grew into noon, and Angela was obviously unconscious of his existence, he began to feel himself a much-injured man. He glanced back at her occasionally and did not see her once look up, and, like most men, every time he looked at her he thought her nearer to beauty. But she was no nearer to conversation. Farley would have dearly liked to find out if her talk were as interesting as her appearance, but she gave him no opportunity of judging.
At sunset they reached a farmhouse where it had been arranged that Angela should spend the night. It was a homely, tumble-down place, and the mistress of it, Sarah Brown, a little withered, bloodless creature, had clung to it, although it lay in the debatable ground between contending armies. Sarah always ran away whenever a shot was fired, but invariably trudged back to work and tremble and palpitate until her fears drove her off again. She welcomed Angela with a kind of furtive pleasure, she whose guests were usually embattled men, and showed her a little plain room up a rickety flight of stairs where Angela might rest for the night.
Farley thought it certain that he would meet Angela at supper, which was served by Sarah in the kitchen. Angela, however, sent a polite message asking to be excused from coming down and her supper was served in her own little room.
Farley, reduced to his own society, soon went to his sleeping place, which was on the floor of the “settin’ room.”
The next morning dawned mild and bright, and at eight o’clock the mules were harnessed and the carriage was ready to start. Again was Farley disappointed; he only saw Angela as she came tripping down the narrow stair and bade him good morning.
She thanked Sarah Brown cordially, and, not daring to offer money for her accommodation, took off a little gold brooch she wore, one of her few ornaments, and handed it to Sarah. It was received in speechless gratitude and admiration. Then Angela, smiling at Farley but without seeing him, took her seat in the carriage. Farley by this time was thoroughly exasperated with her for her want of appreciation of his society, and he concluded that the surest punishment would be to leave her to herself.
They drove on steadily through the same flat country, but around them were evidences of fighting, past and to come. There were dreary piles of brick, showing where humble houses had been destroyed by the fortunes of war. The fences were all gone and gates had ceased to exist. The people in the few homesteads they passed kept within doors and the whole scene was one of desolation.
Presently, however, the stillness of the autumn day was broken by ominous sounds. Afar off could be heard the dull thunder made by the movement of troops, and about midday the highroad was suddenly blocked by artillery wagons. For the first time Angelaroused herself and asked Farley, with interest, what it meant.
“Fighting, madam,” he replied promptly and expecting Angela’s face to grow pale. On the contrary, she showed no tremor whatever and only said:
“I hope it will not interfere with my seeing Captain Tremaine, if only for an hour.”
“I don’t think it will,” responded Farley. “This movement on the part of the enemy is not entirely unexpected and we knew that Captain Tremaine’s regiment would be on the march.”
Angela said no more and the carriage jolted on. The shadows were growing long when the carriage, drawing up on the side of a wide road leading through a belt of woods, stopped, and Farley, opening the door and standing, cap in hand, said stiffly to Angela: “This is the point, Mrs. Tremaine, where we are instructed to wait. Captain Tremaine’s regiment will pass within a mile of us in half an hour and he will be on the lookout for us.”
“Thank you,” Angela responded sweetly, and, accepting Farley’s proffered hand, she descended from the carriage. “I think,” she said, “I will walk a little way into the woods; but I shall keep within sight of the road, so Captain Tremaine will see me as soon as he arrives.”
Farley, whose instructions were to remain with Angela and to place himself at Neville Tremaine’s disposal, stood discontentedly watching her as she walked daintily through the thicket, and he thought her one of the most ungrateful women that ever lived.
When a little out of sight of the road Angela lookedabout her. It might have been the same spot in which she had taken her real farewell of Isabey—the same dark overhanging pine trees, their resonant aroma filling the air, and the same slippery carpet of brown pine needles lay under her feet. Angela, hitherto so calm, began to feel a strange agitation. Neville Tremaine had been so much a part of her life since her babyhood that she had never had any right conception of him as her husband, but now all was changed. Her whole life was cast behind her and Neville was her only refuge and her sole possession.
She wished, however, to forget all the past and set about resolutely at forgetting. She had put Isabey out of her mind so far as she could, but it is quite possible to throttle a thought and yet hear it breathing in one’s ear. So it was with Angela. She fixed her consciousness upon Neville Tremaine, but her subconsciousness was with Isabey. One thing was certain: she could ever count upon Neville Tremaine’s tenderness, chivalry, and unshakable kindness.
As she walked up and down with her own peculiar and airy grace, she kept her eyes fixed on the open roadway. A mile off she could hear distinctly the clanking of ammunition wagons, the steady tramp of thousands of feet, the dull beating of the earth by horses’ hoofs.
Ten minutes had passed when she saw a horseman coming at a hard gallop along the woodland road. It was Neville Tremaine. In a minute or two he reached the carriage and flung himself off his horse. Farley spoke a word to him. Throwing his bridle toward the soldier-driver, Neville made straight through the thicketto where Angela stood. Angela felt herself taken in his strong arms and his mustached lips against hers. She clung to him, and it seemed to her as if it were Neville and yet not Neville. Only one thing was unmistakable: the old sense of well-being and protection when he was near came sweetly back to her. But of all else that passed in those first few minutes she scarcely knew, except that Neville held her to his strong beating heart and told her how dear she was to him.
Then he put her off a little way and gazed at her with tender admiration. Angela saw the great changes made in Neville by time and war. He looked much older and his naturally dark skin had grown darker with tan and sunburn. She could see, where his cap was raised a little from his brow, the whiteness of his forehead contrasted with the brownness of his face. He was campaigning, but otherwise there was the same immaculateness about him—neatly shaven, smartly uniformed, his accoutrement shining, all the marks of the trained officer.
As for Neville, his admiration for Angela burst from him as he looked at her. “Dearest,” he said, holding both her hands, “you have become beautiful. You are a woman now and not a child. You have grown up since that night on the wharf at Harrowby.”
“I have gone through that which makes a girl into a woman,” replied Angela, softly. “Until two nights ago I had every night at family prayers to hear every name called except yours, but I called your name in my heart.”
“I know it, I know it.”
“Two nights ago all was changed. Your motheronce more mentioned your name and your father sent you his blessing.”
“Thank God!” replied Neville, lifting his cap.
“And here is a letter from your mother. They sent you a thousand messages, and so did Archie and Mr. Lyddon and all the servants. You are forgiven.”
“Yes, forgiven by all who thought that I acted dishonorably. One person, however, I shall never need any forgiveness from, because he knows and respects my motives—my brother Richard.”
Richard’s name, spoken so suddenly, disconcerted Angela for a moment. She trembled a little and looked away and then her pitying eyes sought Neville’s, but she replied calmly: “Yes, Richard never said one word in condemnation of you.”
“That is like him. Of all men I ever knew in my life, I think best of Richard. Not because he is my brother, but because he is better, larger-minded, braver, than any other man I ever knew. I had a letter from him by flag of truce a fortnight ago and managed to reply by the same means. He has no doubt got my letter by this time. I have so many things to ask you, so many things to tell you, the chief of which is how much I love you; and I only have one hour with you.”
And then Angela, with tender sophistry, replied: “I would not miss the chance of spending this one hour with you; but surely I can be near you—nearer than at Harrowby.”
“Yes,” answered Neville gravely; “we shall be fighting probably, if not to-night, certainly from early in the morning, and a soldier cannot look beyond thepresent hour. If I am alive, we shall meet again within the week. If I am killed, you will return at once to Harrowby.”
Angela caught Neville’s arm. The thought of a world without him staggered her. “Don’t say that,” she cried breathlessly, and then stopped. In another moment the tragedy of Richard’s death would have burst from her involuntarily.
Neville, thinking he saw in Angela’s face and words and tone that a love for him, like his love for her, had been born in her soul, caught her to his breast in rapture. The hour passed so quickly to Neville it seemed as if they had but scarcely exchanged their first confidences when it was time for him to go.
He gave Angela his last instructions—to remain for at least three days, or until she should hear from him, at the little farmhouse where she had spent the night.
“I shall do exactly as you say,” answered Angela quietly. “And you may depend upon it that I shan’t fall into a panic and run away.”
“I know that you will never fall into a panic,” answered Neville, smiling. “I think the Southern women are very like the great captain who asked when he was a boy, ‘What is fear?’ I don’t think you know as much about fear as I do.”
Then, as the moment of parting approached, their voices and eyes grew grave, and presently Neville kissed Angela in the shade of the pine trees. They walked through the purple shadows of the late afternoon back to the road where the carriage still stood and the orderly led Neville’s horse up and down.
Farley, consumed with chagrin and impatience, still maintained a gentlemanlike outside. Neville thanked him with sincere gratitude, and Angela added some graceful phrases without taking any more interest in him than in the orderly, a fact which Farley bitterly realized. Neville put Angela in the carriage, and, laying a letter upon her lap, said to her:
“Good-by. Keep this letter, but do not open it unless you hear bad news of me. You will hear something from me within three days, in any event.”
Farley turned his back and the orderly looked hard in the opposite direction as Neville kissed Angela for the last time.
When a soldier says good-by it may be the last farewell. Angela’s heart was suddenly pierced with this thought, and when Neville would have turned quickly away, she drew him back to her and kissed him once again. The next moment he was gone.
The sun was setting when Angela found herself once more upon the road. It seemed to her as if that brief hour with Neville had been a dream; but all had been dreamlike with her of late. Until a year or so ago nothing had happened. That had been her grievance: she had so longed for life, movement, color, love, even grief, anything to move the silent pool in which she thought herself, at twenty, anchored for life.
All at once everything came. War, persecution, estrangement, love, death, all those things most moving in human life. She looked at the letter addressed to her in Neville’s firm handwriting, and knew well enough what it meant—it was what she was to do in the eventof his death; but like most young creatures brimming with life, Angela could scarcely believe in death. It seemed to her an anachronism so frightful as to be almost incredible.
When the carriage reached once more the public road there was, even to Angela’s untrained eyes, every sign of approaching battle. A great, dark blue stream, with glittering muskets which the dying sun tipped with fire, poured along the highroad. Officers were riding at a steady pace with their commands, while constantly orderlies dashed back and forth, silent, grimly concentrated upon their errands.
Over the quiet autumn landscape, which should have been all peace, brooded the spirit of coming battle. The red sun itself seemed to Angela’s mind a great bloody disk dropping behind the dreary woods. How many of these men marching cheerfully along would live to see another sun set?
Suddenly a sound, distant but unmistakable, smote Angela’s ear—the reverberation across the distant hills and far-off wide river of heavy guns. Angela had never before in her life heard a cannon fired, but that menacing thunder, that wolfish howl before the banquet of death begins, could not be misunderstood. Angela felt a sensation of horror, but nothing like fear; she came of good fighting stock, and the thought of battle did not intimidate her. Then the far-off roar was overborne by a loud, quick crashing of guns within half the distance. Instantly the thrill of conflict seemed to animate the long blue line, and there were a few quick evolutions, like a lion crouching before his spring.
Farley, who had been leaning forward listening intently, took the whip out of the hands of the soldier-driver and laid it heavily on the mules, and they sprang ahead. Then turning to Angela, sitting upright within the carriage, and now fully awake to all that was going on around her, he said:
“Pray, don’t be alarmed, Mrs. Tremaine. I can get you to the farmhouse within an hour, where you will be quite safe and out of danger.”
“Don’t disturb yourself on my account,” replied Angela. “I only regret that I am giving you trouble when I am sure you wish to be with your command.”
As she spoke, the soldier-driver, with the familiarity of the volunteer, glancing back at her, said to Farley, above the rattle of the rickety carriage: “I don’t believe she is afeered, but it’s more ’an some of them fellows on both sides can say.”
Angela said no more, but watched with a fast-beating heart what seemed to be tumult passing before her, but was really expedition and apparent confusion which meant order.
In a little while the carriage struck off from the highroad and passed into a region all quietude and peace. The distant roar of the guns stopped for a time, and the intervening hill and valley shut off the sounds of the marching troops. The red sun was gone and the short, enchanted autumn twilight had fallen. When the carriage drew up at the door of the farmhouse Angela, when Farley had assisted her to alight, said: “I think that I should now release you from your kind attendance on me. Captain Tremaine directed me to remain hereuntil I should hear from him. I shan’t need any protection, and I beg that you will feel no hesitation in leaving me.”
Farley, whose orders were to place himself at Mrs. Tremaine’s disposal and who had looked forward to days of inaction for himself while fighting was going on, felt a thrill of gratitude.
“Thank you,” he replied, bowing low. “If I thought there was any possibility of danger to you, I assure you I should not leave you; but this place is well out of the way, and, besides, we hardly expect a general engagement.”
Sarah Brown, slatternly, frightened, helpless, but sympathetic, came out to greet Angela, and suddenly began to wring her hands. “I thought,” she cried hysterically, “we would have a man here in case the Yankees, or the Confederates either, wanted to burn the house down, and then he would stand up for us and wouldn’t let ’em do it. Oh, my, oh, my!”
“Nonsense!” cried Angela sharply, catching Sarah by the arm. “If anything like that should happen, no one could help us. We are just as well off alone. Good-by, Mr. Farley, and thank you.” And bowing politely to the soldier-driver, she fairly dragged her hostess within. Once inside, she managed to somewhat calm Sarah Brown’s chronic trepidation. Sarah gave her supper, and then would, out of pure good nature, have remained with her during the night, but this Angela declined.
When darkness fell, all grew still, and Sarah Brown took Angela’s advice and went to bed. Angela herselfdid not follow her own recommendation, and felt a strange disinclination to go to bed. Usually her strong young nerves had given her sleep whenever she had desired it, but this night, when every nerve was on quivering edge, sleep eluded and defied her. She threw her mantle around her and sat for a long time at the open window watching the moon as it rose in silvery splendor over the half-bare woods. How still and sad and woe-begone was the aspect of the country! Only two nights before she had been riding with Isabey through a region almost as still and sad and woe-begone as this, along the weed-grown highway and untraveled forest roads, and now that time was as far removed as if æons had passed.
As the thought of Isabey occurred to her she put it resolutely out of her mind and began to think of Neville—how he looked, what he said.
She took from her pocket the letter he had given her, and then thrust it back out of sight. She was not to open it unless she had bad news of him. Existence with Neville absent had been strange enough, but with him dead—Angela could scarcely conceive of a world without him. Her heart was oppressed with a thousand griefs and perplexities. If only Isabey had not come into her life, how much easier would all things have been! She remembered Lyddon having told her once, long ago, that human beings in this world suffer or enjoy according to the imagination with which they are endowed, and he had added, “You have a tremendous imagination.”
This and many other half-forgotten things came backto her memory, and all suggested struggle and conflict. After midnight she lay down across her hard, coarse bed and fell into a restless and uneasy sleep, haunted by painful dreams. She was glad to waken from it, and, looking at her watch, found that it was four o’clock. Just the time, two nights before, when she had said farewell to Isabey. Life appeared to her all farewells. She rose and went again to the open window, and the scene of two nights before seemed to repeat itself before her eyes, until the miracle of the dawning came. Then Angela’s head dropped upon the window sill and she fell for the first time into a quiet and dreamless sleep.
The sun rose in splendor, and the whole fresh and dewy world was sparkling when Angela was awakened by a terrible sound—the crash of bursting shells. She looked toward the woods a mile away and heard through the stillness of the autumn morning the fearful thunder, the shouts and cries of conflict. Almost immediately she saw half a dozen ambulances with their attendants driving into the open field and making straight for the farmhouse. She knew well what it meant. Those were the wounded seeking a place of refuge. As the ambulances reached the house she opened her door and ran quickly down the narrow stair. The passage door was wide open, and two soldiers, carrying a stretcher, were coming in. On it lay a figure covered up in a blue cloak. They took their burden and laid it down in the room to the right on the ground floor. Following them came a surgeon, grimy, bloody, anxious-eyed, but cool. He scarcely saw Angela, and paid no heed to her, but followed the stretcher into the little room. Then Angela heard himsay, in a quick voice: “He is gone; there is nothing more to be done here, but plenty to be done outside.”
He passed again through the hall, followed by the two soldiers. Three stretchers, with wounded men groaning and moaning in their agony, were carried into the narrow hall.
Something quite outside of her own volition made Angela walk toward the room in which the dead officer lay. As she reached the door she felt a hand upon her arm, and the surgeon was saying to her: “Excuse me, but you had better not go in there. The officer is dead and much disfigured.”
“What is his name?” asked Angela.
“Captain Neville Tremaine,” was the surgeon’s answer. “Killed leading the Forlorn Hope; as brave a man as ever lived or died.”
One night, a week later, Colonel and Mrs. Tremaine sat together in the library at Harrowby. Usually they were alone, but since the family circle had grown so pitifully small, Lyddon had left his ancient habitat, the old study, and sat with them in the evenings. He was pretending to read, and so was Colonel Tremaine, but both were really absorbed in reverie. Mrs. Tremaine, with more self-possession than either, sat knitting. Lyddon, watching her furtively, thought how like she was to those Spartan women who bade their sons return with their shields or upon them. Only with Mrs. Tremaine this sublime courage was accompanied with a gentleness and softness like a Lesbian air.
The stillness remained unbroken for an hour, whenthere was a sound of hoofs and wheels upon the carriage drive. As they listened the hall door was quickly opened and some one entered.
“That is Angela,” said Mrs. Tremaine. And the next moment Angela entered the library. She wore a black gown, which Mrs. Tremaine instantly noticed. The two women, looking into each other’s eyes, opened their arms, and then were clasped together.
“Neville is gone!” cried Angela. “He is with Richard.”