Kitabı oku: «The Master of Warlock: A Virginia War Story», sayfa 16

XXXI
At warlock and at the oaks

For the first time in her life Agatha Ronald was ill. For the first time her strength had given way under prolonged strain. The surgeon who had been summoned to attend her ordered that she should be sent immediately to some place in rear of the army's exposed position, where she could have complete rest.

Unfortunately there was no such place within a day's journey – no place which might not at any hour become the scene of battle or at the least of massive manœuvring. Nowhere short of Charlottesville was there a secure resting-place for the overwrought nerves that had so stoutly held their own as long as their ministering strength was needed in the service of others.

While this matter was still under perplexed discussion, Marshall Pollard made his timely appearance. Hearing of the arrival of Baillie and Agatha with Stuart's returning column, he had ridden forward from his camp to meet and greet his friends. He had passed a quarter of an hour with the master of Warlock, who was now permitted to sit up most of the time, and who was to start almost immediately on his homeward journey. While they two were talking together, word reached Sam's ears that his "Mis' Agatha" had fallen ill at General Stuart's camp-fire. Marshall went with him immediately to her, under an injunction from Baillie to "get her out of this, Marshall, if you can. Tell her not to mind me, but to take care of herself. Tell her I shall be ready for duty almost immediately – tell her I'm on duty – tell her anything and everything that will persuade her to let you take her to a place of safety."

Marshall was quick to see the necessity of prompt action, and Agatha was far too ill to oppose his plans in any way. Stuart had ordered a little tent stretched for her, and here it was decided she should remain until Captain Pollard could arrange for her removal.

He first secured a week's leave of absence for himself. While arranging that, he had half a dozen of his men scouring the country round about in search of a carriage. One was found which had escaped destruction during the days of Pope's unsparing ravaging. It was an old-fashioned vehicle of family state, swung high upon C springs and stoutly built for service.

In this conveyance, Agatha, still dazed and unresisting, was started on her homeward journey early the next morning. One of Pollard's battery men acted as driver, while Pollard himself rode by the side of the carriage.

About midnight the party reached Charlottesville, where tender, loving hands took charge of Agatha for the night.

The journey had rather rested than wearied her, and the physician who had been summoned to attend her found her free from all positive illness.

"She has need of nothing now but rest and quiet," he said.

When Marshall called upon her in the morning, he found the young woman's mind clear again, and her nerves under control.

"Tell me of Captain Pegram," she eagerly demanded, as soon as she had briefly expressed her gratitude to Pollard for the care he was taking for her comfort.

With that gentle smile which always so invited affection, Marshall reassured her concerning her late patient.

"He is in Sam's excellent hands, and on his way to the rear by this time. He will be on duty again pretty soon. Indeed, if the army were stationed anywhere in particular just now he wouldn't go away from it at all. He would take command of his battery at once, merely reporting himself on the sick-list for a week or two. As it is he must go away for a little while. Now let us talk about yourself. I have a week's leave, granted for the express purpose of letting me do what is best for you. Tell me what is best – or rather – it's the same thing – what is most to your liking? Will you stay here, or – "

"If I may," she answered, quickly, "I want to go home – to The Oaks, I mean, for that is the only home I have in all the world now. Please take me there."

"It would be a very long journey by carriage," he said, as if talking to himself, "but we can make the trip by rail if you are strong enough to stand it."

It was necessary in those days to think of a railway journey as a formidable undertaking for any but the strongest persons. There were no such things known then as sleeping-cars, or drawing-room cars. The railroads were badly built, with the rails spiked down to loose ties, and in no way joined together at their ends. The cars were coupled together by chain links, and operated with hand-brakes, so that when a train was stopping, there was a jolting which in our day would be deemed intolerable. In Virginia at that time there was the additional discomfort of laminated iron rails, and cars badly out of repair.

But Agatha's courage had come back to her now, and she was eager to complete her journey as speedily as possible. So Marshall sent the carriage back to its owner, and with Agatha, took the first train for Lynchburg, whence another railroad would convey them to their destination.

There was very little of conversation between the two as they travelled, for the jarring and the rattle of the disjointed train, as it jolted over its intolerably ill-kept road-bed, made talking difficult and hearing well-nigh impossible. But during the long pauses at the stations Agatha related the story of her adventures, with something of that relish which one always feels in telling of experiences past, which were anything but relishful at the time of their occurrence.

Better still, the two friends talked much of Baillie Pegram, a subject that enlisted the sympathetic interest of both, and drew them closer than ever together as friends.

The good ladies of The Oaks welcomed Agatha with all of tenderness that their dignity would permit. They deeply disapproved of all that she had done, of course, but they reflected that she had suffered much, and as she was not now strong they forebore to emphasise by words of censure the condemnation which they could not avoid manifesting in their manner. Agatha did not much mind their disapproval. This was one of the cases in which, feeling that her conduct had been altogether right, she was not troubled by the contrary opinions of others. Moreover she had other subjects to think about.

Captain Pollard went at once to Warlock, after delivering his charge into her aunts' hands, and on the next day, when he visited The Oaks to ask concerning her, he reported that the master of Warlock had reached home and was still rapidly gaining strength.

This news gave Agatha a little shock. She had intended, as we know, to take herself out of Captain Pegram's life as quickly and as completely as possible, and now circumstances had forced her to place herself near to him again. She knew that as soon as he should be able to ride, ordinary courtesy would compel him to visit her, and – well, she did not want him to do that. She felt herself in the position of a woman who has purposely placed herself in the way of inviting attentions, or at least has suffered herself to be so placed.

She had done nothing of the kind, of course. Indeed, she had had no choice in the matter, but the very thought that Baillie Pegram might so interpret her course, distressed her greatly, in her still nerve-tortured condition. She cared nothing whatever for what others, including her aunts, might think of the matter, but the thought that Baillie Pegram might misunderstand was intolerable.

Her aunts added to her embarrassment by adopting a course which plainly showed that they entertained a fear identical with her own. They sent a note to Warlock every day, inquiring concerning the health of that plantation's master. They made these notes as coldly formal as stilted rhetoric could contrive, and they were at pains to read the missives to Agatha before sending them.

"Why do you do that?" she asked, when the second day's note was read. There was almost a querulous tone in her protest.

"Why, it seems to us proper, dear; we want you to be assured that we make no mention of your presence here, but take the utmost possible pains to show Captain Pegram how entirely you are – "

At that point Agatha rose to her feet and looked indignantly at her relatives. For a moment there was danger of an outbreak of offended pride, but by an effort the girl controlled herself and said, simply:

"Please don't do it any more. I shall feel hurt if you offer again to read to me anything you may have written. If you will excuse me I think I will go to my room now. I am not strong to-day."

It was the custom of the good ladies to protest that they "never could understand Agatha;" but on this occasion they understood her sufficiently to know that they had trodden very near a danger-line which they were more than unwilling to cross.

Baillie Pegram in his turn was by no means minded to submit to the manifest purpose of The Oaks ladies that he should hear nothing about Agatha, beyond what Marshall Pollard had reported to him during the two days of his stay at Warlock. Marshall had gone now, and Baillie wrote in response to the second of the notes:

"I am getting well quite as rapidly as my best friends could wish. There is not the slightest occasion for uneasiness about me. I am even permitted to ride horseback a little. But I am exceedingly anxious for tidings of Miss Agatha, whom you have not mentioned in either of your notes. Will you not send me word concerning her, or better still, if she is well enough to write, will you not ask her to send me a few lines? My gratitude to her for all that she has done for me is very great, and so is my anxiety to know that she is recovering from the painful illness which was caused by her generous self-sacrifice in my behalf."

As Agatha had asked her aunts not to read to her their letters to the master of Warlock, those ladies chose to interpret her request as including his letter to them. They made no mention of the fact that he had written to make inquiries concerning her. She wondered a little that he had not done so, but on the whole, she argued, it was better so.

Baillie was not so easily pleased. He chafed when the next note came from The Oaks, bringing no tidings from Agatha, and when still another of like character followed it, he grew uneasy, lest the silence might mean that Agatha had herself forbidden all mention of her in letters from The Oaks.

"She is taking that method, probably," he argued, "of dismissing me again, and letting me know that I must not presume upon the service she has done me. What a fool I am, to be sure! I have been reckoning upon her devotion to me in my illness and captivity as proof that what I brutally blurted out at Fairfax Court-house was not unwelcome to her after all. With her quick feminine perceptions, she has discovered how I have been misinterpreting her duty doing, and she wants now to show me my error in the simplest way possible."

As he meditated, the soldier impulse in him asserted itself, – the impulse to dare the worst in the hope of achieving the best.

Acting upon that impulse he immediately wrote a note to Agatha, and sent it by Sam, with orders to deliver it to her in person, if possible, and at all events to ask for an answer and fetch it.

In his note he told Agatha of his unanswered inquiries, and of the great uneasiness he felt concerning her health. Finally he begged her to relieve his anxiety by sending a line in reply.

XXXII
In righteous wrath

The grounds about The Oaks mansion were much more extensive than was customary on Virginia plantations. The late owner, Agatha's father, had cherished the forest growths jealously, permitting no tree to be cut that could in any wise be preserved, and forbidding the encroachment of the lawns immediately about the house upon the wild woodland growths that bordered and surrounded them. It was Agatha's delight on windy autumn days to wander in these woodlands, and on this morning Sam encountered her quite half a mile from the house. She was hatless, and the wind was taking what liberties it pleased with her thick-growing hair, while she, having turned child again in her enjoyment of the brilliant, gusty morning, was wading about in the depths of the fallen leaves, delighting her soul with their rustling.

Sam delivered his note and she read it. Instantly the child spirit in her took flight and she became the strong, resolute, self-contained young woman that she had learned to be during the storm and stress period of her recent life. Her sudden access of dignity did not spare even Sam. Like an officer in battle issuing his orders, she turned to the negro boy and said:

"Return to your master at once. Tell him you met me far from the house. Say to him that I am almost as well as ever, and that I will answer his note during the day. There. Go now, and deliver the message as I have given it to you. Do you hear?"

Sam's face grew long, as he turned about, and Agatha caught sight of it. She was in a mighty rage, but not with Sam. She bethought her that the boy had misunderstood, to the injury of his feelings, so she called to him, and added:

"I did not mean to speak sharply to you, Sam. You don't deserve any but kindly words. I was thinking of something else. How are you since you got back to Warlock, and tell me truly how your master is."

"Thank you, Mis' Agatha," answered the boy, his face all smiles again, "Mas' Baillie he's a-gittin' as lively as a spring chicken what don't mean to be ketched. He rides every day now, an' don't he jes' eat! He'll be all right in a week or two, yo' may be sure. As fer Sam, he ain't never nothin' else but well, specially now dat we done git away from dem Yankees an' back to Warlock ag'in!"

Nevertheless Sam grew distinctly melancholy as he rode homeward, repeating his message time and again in order that he might deliver it correctly. The message seemed to him unduly curt, and certainly the note he had delivered seemed somehow to have angered Agatha. Sam wondered how and why, and he grieved over the circumstance, too, for Sam had taken the liberty of making up his mind that Agatha would make an ideal mistress at Warlock, and that the master of Warlock was planning some such destiny for her. Her message and her manner suggested that she resented all this, and that his master's hopes, which he took for granted, were likely to be disappointed.

Baillie Pegram's interpretation of the message when it was delivered to him did not materially differ from that which Sam had put upon it.

"She resents the liberty I have taken," he thought, "in writing to her directly. She has forbidden her aunts to reply to my inquiries made through them. She has sought in that way to tell me, by indirection, that the old family war between herself and me still endures; that all her suffering and sacrifice in ministering to me was inspired solely by a sense of duty; that she wishes now to end our intimacy as she did two years ago. Clearly that is the state of the case, and she is naturally angry now that I have forced an attention upon her which compels her to tell me directly what she had meant me to infer. What an idiot I was to do that!"

In the meanwhile Agatha had walked rapidly to the house. At the beginning of her journey she indulged her indignation freely. She rehearsed all the bitingly sarcastic things she meant to say to her aunts, all the defiance she intended to hurl at their helpless heads. But as she spent her superfluous vitality in brisk walking, she recovered her self-control.

"I will not scold," she resolved. "That would be undignified. I will be calm and courteous, saying as little as may be necessary to let them see my displeasure. They have grievously compromised my dignity by what they have done. I must not sacrifice what remains of it by a petulant outbreak. They have treated me like a child in pinafores, who must be restrained lest she misbehave. I must show them that I have outgrown pinafores. I must prove myself incapable of childish misbehaviour."

Firm in this determination, she entered the house with Baillie Pegram's note in her hand, and upon joining her aunts before the library fire, she said quite calmly:

"I have a note from Captain Pegram, who has got a notion into his head that I am seriously ill, and that you are concealing the fact from his friendly knowledge. He tells me he has twice asked you for news of me, and you have made no response. Of course you forgot to mention in your notes that I am quite well again."

The ladies looked at each other with troubled eyes. Presently one of them spoke:

"No, dear, we did not forget. We have only been mindful of proprieties which Mr. Pegram seems strangely to forget or ignore. Under the circumstances, and in view of the relations between the Ronalds and the Pegrams, it seemed to us rather impertinent in him to send messages to you, even through us. We intended to rebuke his presumption by ignoring the messages. Why, he even went so far as to ask us to let you write to him yourself."

Agatha received all this in silence, controlling herself with difficulty. It was not until a full minute after her aunt had ceased to speak that she said:

"Go on, please."

"There would seem to be no more to say; for surely it is needless to comment upon Mr. Pegram's crowning impertinence in writing directly to you."

"Go on, please. Tell me all about it. You see I don't at all understand."

By this time the good dames began to realise that Agatha was either very angry or very deeply hurt, so they decided to soothe and placate her. This is how they did it.

"No, dear, I suppose you do not understand. How should you, with such bringing up as your grandfather gave you? Of all the strange perversities – "

"Stop!" cried Agatha, rising from her chair with a look upon her face which her aunts did not understand but gravely feared. Their last spoken words had set her free to speak. She had not dared resent their criticism of Baillie Pegram's conduct. That might have been misinterpreted. But the reflection upon her grandfather was a different matter. She stood there livid to the lips and shaking with the indignation which she was struggling to suppress. After that one word, "Stop!" she remained silent for a space, struggling to restrain the angry utterance that was surging to her lips. At last, speaking in a constrained voice, she said:

"I will not hear another word. Neither you nor any other human being is worthy to speak my grandfather's name except with reverence. He was great, and wise, and unspeakably good. He hated lies and shams and false conventionalities."

Here the roused tigress in Agatha was sharply restrained. She found herself about to indulge in a tirade, and that she was resolved not on any account to do. Still speaking in a voice of enforced calm, she added:

"I must go now and write to Captain Pegram. I shall dine with the Misses Blair at The Forest to-day."

To Baillie she wrote:

"It is very kind of you to feel so much solicitude on my account. But it is needless, as I am quite well again and growing stronger every day. I go in half an hour to dine at The Forest, where I shall remain till to-morrow. After that I shall go to Richmond in search of some way in which I may be of service. I am pleased to hear through Sam that you are so greatly better. Thank you again for all your kindness to me, and good-bye."

Having despatched this note, Agatha donned her hat and cloak and walked out of the house. Without a pause she passed on through the grounds and along the road to the plantation known as The Forest.

She had made no adieus to her aunts. "To do that," she reflected, "I should have to tell lies, or act them. I should have to say I am sorry to leave them, and I am not sorry. Oh, Chummie! the world is very lonely now that you are not in it! But you mustn't grieve in heaven, Chummie. It will not be for long, you know, and while I stay here I'm going to try harder than ever to be true and good and altogether truthful, as you want me to be, and when I go to join you I'll be happy enough to make up for all these little troubles here."

At that moment a merry gust of wind blew off her headgear. She picked it up, but did not replace it on her head. She liked to feel the crisp breezes in her face. She even indulged the fancy that they bore caresses to her from Chummie.