Kitabı oku: «A Soldier's Trial: An Episode of the Canteen Crusade», sayfa 9

CHAPTER XII
WHAT THE WOMEN TOLD THE MAJOR

It was another lovely summer morning, sweet, moist and still. The squadron had been out as usual, but the drill had been anything but snappy or spirited. Every officer knew, and most men decided, that something was weighing heavily on the major's mind, for, though he labored conscientiously through his duties, comments and corrections were few, and, to the surprise of all, he even dismissed the troops some few minutes before the sounding of the recall. Captain Washburn looked back over his shoulder at the tall, spare, sinewy figure riding slowly, even dejectedly, with downcast eyes and troubled visage, back toward the big quarters at the end of the row, and shook his own head as he marveled what would be the outcome of all this foreboding. Minneconjou had breathed freer, for all its subdued chatter, over the elimination of Captain Foster from the column of probabilities. Minneconjou had seen little of the lovely Mrs. Dwight of late, for though she appeared at every dance, several dinners and on many a drive, few women had speech with her, thanks to Foster's incessant supervision, and, looking at another woman without unlimited conversation is not "seeing" her as understood in feminine society. Since Foster's departure the previous day only the doctor and the maid had been admitted to the presence of Mrs. Dwight, though there had been callers with "kind inquiries." It was now time for guard-mounting and the busy routine of another day. One after another prettily gowned matrons and maids began to appear on the verandas and flit from door to door, and the band marched forth and took its station on the parade and the details were being inspected by the sergeants in front of their quarters, while, well over toward the west end of the big quadrilateral, a dozen army-bred lads of various ages, from fourteen down to five, were gleefully surrounding a pair of Indian ponies recently bought for the doctor's twin boys. Prominent in the group, Jimmy Dwight, ever a prime favorite, was bestriding the more promising of the pair, a wall-eyed, surly-looking pinto, and, as perhaps the most accomplished horseman in the lot, was trying to make the unwilling brute show his paces, a thing that only an Indian, as a rule, can successfully do. Officers on their way to their company duty stopped to see the fun. The adjutant paused before signaling to the drum major and said a laughing word of caution to the merry crowd, lest their gleeful shouts and laughter should disturb the dignity of the coming ceremony. The senior surgeon, coming forth from his quarters, Silver Hill's morning journal just received, open in his hand, moved an adjournment to the rear of the administration building. But the colonel himself, likewise provided by a rushing newsboy with a fresh copy of our morning contemporary, sallied forth from his gate and shouted encouragement to the plucky little rider. "Stick to him, Jimmy boy, and you others don't yell so; keep quiet, and the pony will tire of kicking."

Then he and the doctor fell into converse over the telegraphic headline, and then the bugles pealed adjutant's call, the band crashed merrily into "Hands Across the Sea," and the details of the twelve companies came marching jauntily forth upon the green. The colonel, with soldierly appreciation in his eyes, stood watching the sharp, snappy formation of the line, the paper dangling unheeded from his thumb and forefinger, while the surgeon, more alive to the news of the day than the niceties of military duty, turned over the outer page, began to scan the headlines of the inner column, as suddenly, impulsively, unthinkingly startled the colonel by the exclamation "God!" Stone whirled about in sudden anxiety. For a moment the doctor simply stared and read, then glanced at the post commander, and, without a word, handed him the sheet. Stone, too, stared, started, looked quickly into the surgeon's face, and then said: "Let's get inside." So together these veterans of their respective corps quit the field and the sight of men and boys and went to confer within the depth of the vine-shaded veranda.

At that same moment the tall, gaunt form of Major Dwight was seen to issue from the front doorway of the first quarters on the southward line, the field officer's roomy house, and, looking neither to the right nor the left, straight, stern and rigidly erect, he strode forth upon the grassy parade, heading for the merry group about the ponies. The band had ceased its spirited march music. The adjutant had assigned officers and non-commissioned officers to their posts. The lieutenant commanding had ordered "Inspection arms!" and once again the strain of sweet music swept across the green carpeted quadrangle, and Marion Ray, seated on her piazza far down the line, chatting with a neighbor who had just dropped in, lifted her head and listened. It was one of Margaret's old favorites, a song she used to sing and loved to sing, a song played by many an army band for many a year, and it seemed never to grow wearisome or stale – "Happy Be Thy Dreams." With her thoughts all of Margaret and her eyes following her thoughts, she arose, stepped to the rail, looking for little Jim, whom she had recently seen but seldom, and then caught sight of the major a long distance away, bearing straight and swift upon the romping group at the westward end of the parade. Barely twenty minutes before, as she was giving Sandy his coffee, for Sandy had come down late after a restless, almost sleepless night, she had heard Dwight's deep tones at the front gate in earnest conversation with Priscilla, who now had entirely disappeared. More than once of late the two had been in talk over some of Priscilla's schemes, but the housemaid said she thought Miss Sanford had gone now with the major down the row, perhaps to Lieutenant Thornton's. Why should they go thither? Priscilla had been so very silent, subdued and, it was hoped, contrite since the exposure of her correspondence with the Banner that Mrs. Ray marveled at her early resumption of the old dominant way; for, though low-voiced and almost reluctant, for her, Priscilla's words to the major had been spoken firmly, unflinchingly. Only two or three of these words had reached the ears of her aunt; the others were not sufficiently loud or articulate, but whatever they were, they had led to immediate action, for the major had departed, Priscilla with him, and, anxiously, inspired partially by the music, partially by some indefinable sense of something going sadly amiss, something that should be stopped at once, Marion stepped forward, gazed eastward down the row and saw Priscilla in close conversation with little Mrs. Thornton, only five doors away, and then, all in a flash, she remembered —

Sandy, before starting for his office, had gone back to his room. He at least was on hand and ready to act in case she needed him, but as yet she did not call. Forgetful, for the moment, of her visitor, she stood clasping the rail and staring, inert and even possibly fascinated, along the westward line, following intently and with startled, troubled eyes the major's movements. Others, too, had noted both among the spectators along that front and among the laughing lads themselves. By this time the ponies had been favored with new riders and the riders with every conceivable suggestion as to what to attempt. Jimmy had given place to Harold Winn, and rejoicefully was bidding him clamp tighter with his legs and knees and keep his hands down on the withers, but too late. A sudden lunge with his heels, a dive with his shaggy head, and the spunky little brute, half-savage as a result of all-savage training, had propelled his would-be conqueror sprawling to the edge of the gleaming waters of the acequia, and a shout of mingled delight and derision went up from a dozen boy throats, and Jimmy, helping his playmate, unhurt but shaken, to his feet, caught sight of the loved form speeding toward them over the green, and, bubbling over with fun, laughter, high health and spirits, just as of old went bounding joyously, confidently, to meet him.

Of just what was passing in Oswald Dwight's bewildered mind that morning God alone could judge and tell. All his soldier life he had loved truth and hated a lie. All his fond and confident teaching of his only boy, Margaret's darling and his hope and pride, had been to speak the truth, frankly, fearlessly, fully, first, last and all the time. "Never fear to come to me with anything you may have done. Never let anything tempt you to swerve from the truth and the whole truth. Nothing you can ever say or do will ever so hurt me as will a lie." And so, fearlessly and fully, from the time Jim had begun to prattle he had learned to own his little faults, sure of sympathy and forgiveness. He had learned to strive to conquer them for the sake of the love and trust that was so unfailing, and in response to the grave but ever gentle admonition, and it had been the father's fond belief for years that between him and his only son there lived utter confidence and faith, that Jim would ever shrink from a lie and never from him. Between the two, father and son, never had there seemed to come a shadow, until of late that darkly beautiful face had for the time, at least, replaced – that other. Since then, time and again when Dwight spoke of his pride and trust in Jim, the new wife had listened, unresponsive. Since that last night in Naples, whenever Dwight spoke of his confidence in Jimmy's word she had sometimes looked up appealingly, timidly, as though she longed to believe as he believed, yet could not – quite. Sometimes she had looked away. Once or twice she had ventured a faint negation. Jimmy would not deliberately tell a falsehood; oh, she was sure of that, but, like all children, she said, when suddenly accused, the impulse would be to deny, would it not? and then – had not the major observed? – did he not remember – that Jimmy was just a bit – imaginative? Dwight puzzled over her apparent unbelief.

But very recently he had noticed other little things that vaguely worried him. Could it be that, as his boy grew older and mingled more with other boys, he was learning to be influenced more by them and less by the father? Could it be that he was seeing, hearing, things, to speak of which he dared not? There might be things of which he would be ashamed. Certainly the father had seen at times, since the homeward voyage, a certain hesitancy on part of the son, and within the past few days, for the first time in Jimmy's life, Dwight had noted symptoms of something like avoidance, concealment, embarrassment, something that told his jealous, over-anxious heart the boy no longer utterly confided in the man. It was late the previous evening when the little fellow had returned with his stanch friend, Sergeant French, and a fine string of trout, happy, radiant, proud of his success, but so tired he could hardly keep his eyes open long enough to undress and get to bed. Dwight had met him at the door, cautioning silence on mamma's account, and the young face that beamed up at his, all delight and eagerness at first, clouded almost instantly at the word. Jimmy did not even care for the tempting supper set aside for him – he had had such a big lunch, he said, in smothered tone, as he prattled eagerly to his father and showed his finny prizes, and sipped at his glass of milk. But Dwight had been brooding over little things that had come to him since Foster's assisted emigration. He had returned straight from his conference with Stone and the surgeon to find Inez reduced to the sofa and smelling salts – to tell her at once that their guest was gone, not because of a fracas with Ray, as Foster had furiously declared, but because of telegraphic orders from Washington that had come, possibly, as the result of Foster's own telegraphic inquiries of Saturday and Sunday. Not for a star would Dwight let his wife suppose that Foster's protracted visit had given him the least uneasiness! But the maid, that pert and flippant young person so much in evidence about the house, so indispensable to Inez, so intangibly a nuisance to him, kept flitting in and out, with her persistent, "Madame should compose herself"; "Madame should not try to talk."

The "young person's" nationality, Dwight believed, was Swiss-Italian, rather than French. They had picked her up in Milan, but her professional interests, it seems, were advanced by the adoption of French methods and mannerisms. She had early striven to establish herself as companion rather than maid, to be called Mademoiselle rather than Félicie, but the dragoon had sharply drawn the line, and in the beginning, at least, the man was master. As ills accumulated, however, and masculine strength deferred to feminine weakness, he succumbed to their wishes, with the result that the ascendency of the domestic was becoming a matter of gossip. Once established at the post, Félicie's swift methods of acquiring knowledge of all that was going on about her, and unlimited means of imparting the same to her mistress, had quite speedily established confidential relations to which the putative master of the house was a stranger. There is a garrison "Service of Security and Information" that differs widely from that of the field – and is even more comprehensive.

Félicie had heard the various versions of the affray at Ray's office. Félicie had heard of the lamentable affair of Georgie Thornton's injury and its cause, and Félicie had been quick to see and suggest how this incident might be utilized in case Master James could not be persuaded to forget that, when he came hurrying in from church the previous day, mamma, who had been too ill to arise at ten o'clock, was in most becoming morning toilet tête-à-tête with Captain Foster in the parlor. Félicie had even assured Madame that she could and would influence Master James accordingly, and this, too, after one unsuccessful attempt on Sunday. Félicie had fairly flown, all sympathy and helpfulness, to fetch Master James fresh, cool water, towels, ice for the back of his neck, a preventive the most assured for nose-bleed, and all this despite Jimmy's repellent silence, for the lad shrank from her instinctively. She had then striven to coax him to promise that he would mention to no man that mamma was dressed and downstairs: it would so annoy the doctor, who had said she should remain in bed, and, indeed, she (Félicie) and the dear captain had remonstrated with mamma, and were even then striving to persuade mamma to return to her room, as later she had to when – Master James came so hurriedly in. The only response had been a blank look of bewilderment and dislike and an uncompromising: "Well, 'spose somebody asks me?"

All this, of course, was known at the moment only to the three; but, as luck would have it, when Dwight came walking slowly homeward from church with Mrs. Ray, communion service ended, Jim had run to meet them, the nose-bleed already forgotten, and, to the father's "I hope you didn't disturb mamma, my boy. She was trying hard to sleep," the little man had promptly, impulsively responded: "No, indeed, daddy, mamma is up and dressed – " And then he remembered, faltered, blushed.

Dwight did not question his boy about his new mamma. That was another thing from which the father shrank. He saw the lad's sudden confusion, and knew that something was being held back, but it was something that should be held back. In all his teachings as to utter frankness, truth, confidence, he, of course, had never meant that his boy should be a tale-bearer – above all that he should ever come with tales of his new mamma; yet Dwight, unfortunately, had never given him to understand that there were matters, now that the boy was growing older and observant, concerning which no confidences were expected or invited. But it had set him to thinking – to questioning Inez as to her sudden recovery, and again, more pointedly that Monday afternoon between the hour of his visit with the colonel and his ominous symptoms at parade, thereby bringing on a fit of nerves for her and a swimming of the head for himself. It was while he was waiting for Jimmy's home-coming that Félicie – ostentatiously bustling to and fro, all sympathy for Madame in her prostration and anxiety as to M'sieu, the Commandant – had contrived to intimate that Monsieur James had been so imprudent as to rush, all ensanguined, into the presence of Madame, and now and under such circumstances, and in virgin modesty, Félicie's eyelids drooped, "Madame should be spared all possibility of shock or emotion." Under any other circumstances with what a thrill would he have listened to her words! Did not Monsieur conceive? And Madame's heart and sympathies so all-responsive! Had they not already been lacerated by the story of the suffering of the little George, an infant, oh, heaven, the most amiable! But assuredly Monsieur James had apprised his father of all that had taken place. He, too, was an infant the most amiable, and Dwight, overwrought and bewildered, before Jimmy went to his bed that night, had again asked him what all this meant about Georgie Thornton, and, looking squarely into his father's face, with Margaret's soul speaking from his clear, unflinching, fearless eyes, the little man had said again, "Why, daddy, I haven't an idea! I didn't even hear he was hurt until you told me."

Then had come a morning's drill following an almost sleepless night, and during drill he had rebuked young Thornton for the faults of his platoon, and after drill had lectured him a bit for seeming neglect or indifference, and even of sullen acceptance of deserved criticism. Then, suddenly, remembering, he ceased his rebuke, turned the subject and asked how was George, and then as they were parting, again asked how it happened, and was again startled by the words: "Ask your own boy, sir," for Thornton, like many an older, stronger, wiser man, accepted unchallenged the views of his wife. Jim had had his breakfast and was gone by the time Dwight reached home, but Félicie, in answer to question, with infinite regret and becoming reluctance owned that Miss Sanford and other witnesses of the unfortunate affair united in saying that Monsieur James had, in a moment of boyish petulance perhaps, swung his jacket full in the face of Monsieur George, never thinking, doubtless, of the cruel, sharp-edged, metal button that should so nearly cut out the eye; and then, terrified at the sight of so much blood, was it not natural that any child should run from the sight and try to forget, and perhaps might forget, and so deny?

Dwight listened in a daze, spurning the toothsome breakfast set before him; then, rising, took his cap, left the house without another word and, hastening thither, found Priscilla Sanford on the veranda at the Rays'.

As she herself subsequently admitted to her aunt, Priscilla, who had been bred to the doctrine of original sin and innate propensity for evil, who had long thought that the major stood sorely in ignorance as to Jimmy's spiritual needs, and who herself stood solemnly convinced of the truth of the Thornton story, now conceived it her duty to fully and unreservedly answer the major's questions. Had she witnessed the affair? She had in great part, she said, little considering that of the most essential part, the actual blow or slash, she had seen nothing. Was it true that his son was – the assailant? Priscilla answered that, though she was not at that instant where she could herself see the blow, she an instant later saw everything, and the relative position of the boys was such that there was no room for doubt it was James who struck. She heard the scream when near the door and at once ran out. And had not Jimmy stopped to offer aid or – do anything? No, Jimmy had rushed on as though bent on overtaking the leaders, as though he never heard what, much farther away, she had heard distinctly. And then Priscilla owned that the look of agony in the father's face was such that her resolution well-nigh failed her.

But, unhappily, not quite. There are possibly no people so possessed with the devil of meddling in the management of other people's children as those who never had any, or else have been phenomenal failures in the rearing of their own. Dwight asked her presently to go with him to the Thorntons', which she did, beginning to tremble now as her eyes studied his face. Mrs. Thornton was on the veranda. Young hopeful, with bandaged forehead, was blissfully chasing a little terrier pup about the yard. She, too, began to tremble; the little wrath and resentment left was oozing from her finger tips as Dwight lifted his cap from the lined and haggard brow and she saw the infinite trouble in his deep-set eyes. But he gave her no time to speak.

"I have come," he said, "to express my deep sorrow at what I must now believe my son has done. I should have come before had – had – " He stumbled miserably. Then, with sudden effort, "I will see Mr. Thornton and make my acknowledgments later, and see the doctor, but first – " Then abruptly he bent, caught Georgie by an arm, lifted the bandage just enough to see the adhesive plaster underneath, muttered something under his breath, dropped his hand by his side, looked appealingly one instant in Priscilla's eyes as though he would ask one more question, never heeding, perhaps never hearing, Mrs. Thornton's: "Oh, Major, I'm sure Jimmy could not have meant it!" Womanlike, all vehemence in accusation at first, all insistence in extenuation now that vengeance threatened. The next moment Dwight was gone, and Priscilla dare not follow the first impulse of her heart to run home and tell Aunt Marion and Sandy, or to run after him. She saw the major turn stiffly in at his own gate, far up the row, saw Aunt Marion come forth, and, like guilty things, the maiden of mature years, the mother of immature mind, held there, shrinking, not knowing what to look for – what to do. They, too, saw Dwight come forth again; but none of the anxious eyes along that anxious line had witnessed what had befallen in the few minutes Dwight spent in presence of his wife. That was known, until some days later, only to Félicie.

She was still abed, sipping her chocolate, and looking but a shade lighter, when he abruptly entered. She could almost have screamed at sight of his twitching face, but he held up warning hand.

"Just a moment, Inez. You had come home – you were on the veranda, I believe; did you see – anything of that – that trouble among the boys yesterday?"

She had seen nothing. She was listening at the moment with downcast lids and heaving bosom to Foster's eager, hurried words. She had heard the shouts of merriment, and faintly heard the screams, and had not even looked to see the cause, but Félicie had found no inapt pupil. Inez buried her face in her jeweled hands. Under the filmy veiling of her dainty nightdress Dwight could see the pretty shoulders beginning to heave convulsively. Was she sobbing? Stepping closer, he repeated the question. "I must know," said he.

"Ah, Oswald – how – how can I? You love him so! You love him so much more than – me, and he – he hates me! He shrinks from me! He would not shrink from – poisoning you – against me!"

"Inez, this is childish! Tell me at once what you know – why you – distrust him?"

Again the sobs, the convulsive shoulder-heaving before she would speak, and, as though fired with wrath inexpressible, Dwight started for the door. Then she called him. Félicie was there, all distress, anxiety, concern for Madame. Indeed, Monsieur should refrain – at such a time, and then there were two to talk, each supplementing – reminding the other. It was true that little Monsieur James could not seem to respond to the love of his young mother, this angel, and he was rude and insolent to Félicie, who adored him, and he – he so hurt and distressed Captain Foster, who was goodness itself to him. It was for rudely, positively contradicting the captain she, Inez, had been compelled to send James to his room and require him to remain there until his father's return, not thinking how long the father would be gone on his visit to town, and even then James was obstinate; he would not apologize, although she had striven, and Félicie, too, to make him understand how his father would grieve that the son he so loved could so affront his guest; and they feared, they feared James deceived sometimes his noble father. The Naples incident was brought up again, and Jimmy's odd insistence that an officer had spoken to and frightened her, and then – those little things he had told on the homeward voyage (Heaven knows how true they were!) and then, oh, it wrung their hearts to see the father's grief, but when Jimmy denied all knowledge of the injury to Georgie Thornton, they knew and Jimmy knew – he must have known – it was his own doing. Leaving them both in tears, the father flung himself from, the room and down the stairs, and with his brain afire went straightway in search of his son. Good God! To think that, after all his years of hope and prayer and faith and pride – of careful teaching and utter trust – that it should come to this, that the boy on whom his great heart was centered should after all – after all prove a coward and a liar! His eyes seemed clouded. He saw only as through a lurid glass. The sunlight in the crisp, delicious air was clear as crystal, yet there was a blur that seemed to overshadow every object. There was a ringing in his ears that dulled the sweet strains of the song his wife, his own wife, his love, his treasure, Jimmy's mother, used to sing, for now he never heard it. His temples throbbed; his head seemed burning, yet the face was ashen. The twitching lips, bitten into gashes, were blue between the savage teeth marks, and yet at sight of the straight, soldierly form he loved, little Jim had quit his fellows and, to the music of his mother's song – just as of old, beaming, joyous, confident, brimming over with fun and health – had come bounding to meet him.

It had been the father's way at such times to halt, to bend forward with outstretched arms, almost as he had done in Jimmy's earliest toddling baby boyhood, but he never halted now. Erect and stern he moved straight on. It was the boy who suddenly faltered, whose fond, happy, radiant face grew suddenly white and seemed to cloud with dread, whose eager bounding ceased as he neared his sire, and, though the hands as of old went forth to clasp the hand that never yet had failed them, for the first time in his glad young life Jimmy Dwight looked in vain for the love and welcome that had ever been his, for the first time his brave young heart well-nigh ceased its beating, for the first time he seemed to shrink from his father's gaze.

And in fear, too, but not for himself; oh, never for himself! Vaguely, strangely, of late he had begun to feel that all was not well with the father he so loved, and now the look in his father's face was terrible. "Oh, daddy!" he cried, a great sob welling up in his throat, but the answering word checked him instantly, checked his anxious query, turned his dread at the instant into relief, almost into joy. It was not then that his father was ill and stricken. It was that he was angry – angry, and at him, and in the flash of a second, in that one hoarse word – "Home!" he knew what it must be, and though his lips quivered and his eyes filled and again the sobs came surging from his breast, just as of old, all confidence that his word could not be questioned, he strove to find his father's hand, even as homeward now, with Inez and her hellcat of a handmaid peeping trembling through the slats, the father striding, the little fellow fairly running before, the two went hurrying on, and Jimmy, looking back, found tongue, and his one thought found words:

"Oh, daddy, indeed I wasn't – impudent to Captain Foster – to mamma, at least, I didn't mean it! They were there in the parlor when I ran in from church, and he wanted me to promise – "

And then Marion Ray, far down the line, with one cry for Sandy, sprang forward to the gate, for Oswald Dwight, with heavy hand, had struck his little son across the face and stretched him on the turf.