Kitabı oku: «The Bondwoman», sayfa 17
CHAPTER XXIII
“Of course we are anxious to hear all you dare tell us about the success of your mission over there,” said his mother, an hour later, when the riders had done justice to a delightful breakfast. “Are all the arrangements made by our people entirely satisfactory?”
“Entirely, mother. This is the twenty-second of September, isn’t it? Well, it is an open secret now. The vessel secured goes into commission today, and will be called the Alabama.”
“Hurrah for the Alabama!” cried Evilena, who was leaning on the back of her brother’s chair. He put his arm around her and turned to Judithe.
“Have you become acquainted with the patriotic ardor of my little sister?” he asked. “I assure you we have to fight these days if we want to keep the affections of our Southern girls.”
Gertrude smiled across the table at him.
“I can’t fancy you having to fight very hard battles along that line, Monsieur,” replied Judithe, in the cool, half mocking tone she had adopted for all questions of sentiment with him; and Gertrude, who saw the look exchanged between them, arose from the table.
“Uncle Matthew asked to see you when you have time, Kenneth.”
“Thanks, yes; I’ll go directly. Mother, why not ask the boys of the guard to stop over for your party? They are of Phil Masterson’s company–all Carolina men.”
“Of course, I shall invite them personally,” and she left the room to speak to the men who were just finishing breakfast under an arbor, and congratulating themselves on the good luck of being travelling companions of Colonel McVeigh.
Evilena waltzed around the table in her delight at the entire arrangement; boys in uniform; the longed-for additions to the festivities, and they would have to be a formidable lot if she could not find one of their number worth dancing with; she would show Dr. Delaven that other men did not think her only a baby to be teased!
“Now, Madame Caron, we can show you a regular plantation jubilee, for the darkies shall have a dance at the quarters. You’ll like that, won’t you?”
“Anything that expresses the feminine homage to returning heroes,” replied Judithe, with a little bow of affected humility, at which Colonel McVeigh laughed as he returned it. She passed out of the door with his sister and he stood looking after her, puzzled, yet with hope in his eyes. His impetuousness in plunging into the very heart of the question at once had, at any rate, not angered her, which was a great point gained. He muttered an oath when he realized that but for the Countess Biron’s gossip they might never have been separated, for she did love him then–he knew it. Even today, when she would have run away from him again, she did not deny that! Forty-eight hours in which to win her–and his smile as he watched her disappear had a certain grim determination in it. He meant to do it. She had grown white when he quoted to her her own never forgotten words. Well, she should say them to him again! The hope of it sent the blood leaping to his heart, and he turned away with a quick sigh.
Gertrude, who had only stepped out on the veranda when she left the table, and stood still by the open glass door, saw the lingering, intense gaze with which he followed the woman she instinctively disliked–the woman who was now mistress of Loringwood, and had made the purchase as carelessly as though it were a new ring to wear on her white hand–a new toy to amuse herself with in a new country; the woman who threw money away on whims, had the manner of a princess, and who had aroused in Gertrude Loring the first envy or jealousy she had ever been conscious of in her pleasant, well-ordered life. From the announcement that Loringwood had passed into the stranger’s possession her heart had felt like lead in her bosom. She could not have explained why–it was more a presentiment of evil than aught else, and she thought she knew the reason of it when she saw that look in Kenneth McVeigh’s eyes–a look she had never seen there before.
And the woman who had caused it all was walking the floor of her own apartment in a fever of impatience. If the man she expected would only come–then she would have work to do–definite plans to follow; now all was so vague, and those soldiers staying over, was it only a chance invitation, or was there a hidden purpose in that retained guard? Her messenger should have arrived within an hour of Colonel McVeigh, and the hour was gone.
As she passed the mirror she caught sight of her anxious face in it, and halted, staring at the reflection critically.
“You are turning coward!” she said, between her closed teeth. “You are afraid to be left to yourself an hour longer–afraid because of this man’s voice and the touch of his hand. Aren’t you proud of yourself–you! He is the beast whose name you hated for years–the man for whom that poor runaway was taught the graces and accomplishments of white women–in this house you heard Matthew Loring mention the price of her and the portion to be forfeited to Kenneth McVeigh because the girl was not to be found. Do you forget that? Do you think I shall let you forget it? I shan’t. You are to do the work you came here to do. You are to have no other interest in the people of this house.”
She continued her nervous walk back and forth across the room. She put aside the grey habit and donned a soft, pretty house-gown of the same color. Her hands were trembling. She clasped and unclasped them with a despairing gesture.
“It is not love,” she whispered, as though in wild argument against the fear of it. “Not love–some curse in the blood–that is what it is. And to think that after three years–three years!–it all comes back like this. Oh, you fool, you fool! Love,” she continued, in more clear, reasoning tones, speaking aloud slowly as though to impress it on her mind, as a child will repeat a lesson to be learned; “love must be based on respect–what respect can you have for this buyer of young girls?–this ardent-eyed animal who has the good fortune, to be classed as a gentleman. Love in a woman’s heart should be her religion; what religion could be centered on so vile a creature? To look up to such a man, how low a woman would have to sink.”
Evilena knocked at the door to show some little gift brought by her brother from across the ocean, and Judithe turned to her feverishly, glad of some companionship to drive away her dread and suspense until the expected messenger arrived–the minutes were as long as hours, now!
Colonel McVeigh had scarcely more than greeted Loring when Pluto announced Captain Masterson and some other gentleman. Evilena saw them coming from the window and reported there were two soldiers besides Captain Masterson, and a man in blue clothes, who aroused her curiosity mightily. They were out of range before Judithe reached the window, but her heart almost stopped beating for an instant; the man she expected wore a blue yachting suit, and this sudden gathering of soldiery at the Terrace?
Colonel McVeigh greeted Masterson cordially and turned to the others. Two were men in Confederate uniform, just outside the door, and the third was a tall man in the uniform of a Federal Captain. His left wrist was bandaged. He was smiling slightly as McVeigh’s glance became one of doubt for an instant, and then brightened into unmistakable recognition.
“By Jove, this is a surprise!” and he shook hands cordially with the stranger. “Captain Monroe, I am delighted to see you in our home.”
“Thank you; I’m glad to get here,” replied Monroe, with a peculiar look towards Masterson, who regarded the cordial greeting with evident astonishment, “I had not expected to call on you this morning, but–Captain Masterson insisted.”
He smiled as he spoke–a smile of amusement, coolly careless of the amazement of Masterson, and the inquiry in the glance of McVeigh.
“Colonel McVeigh, he is a prisoner,” said Masterson, in reply to that glance, and then, as the prisoner himself maintained an indifferent silence, he explained further, “We caught sight of him galloping ahead of us through the pines, a few miles back. Realizing that we were near enough to the coast for the Federals to send in men for special service, we challenged him, got no explanation except that he rode for his own pleasure; so I put him under arrest.”
“Well, well! Since luck has sent you into our lines I’m glad it has done us a good turn and sent you to our home,” said McVeigh, though he still looked mystified at the situation. “I’ve no doubt satisfactory explanations can be made, and a parole arranged.”
“That’s good of you, Colonel,” said the prisoner, appreciatively; “you are a good sort of friend to meet when in trouble–brother Fred used to think so up at the Point; but in this case it really isn’t necessary–as I have one parole.”
He drew a paper from an inner pocket and passed it to McVeigh, who looked relieved.
“Yes, certainly, this is all right,” and he looked inquiringly at Masterson, “I don’t understand–”
Neither did that officer, who turned in some chagrin to the prisoner, who glanced from one to the other in evident indifference.
“May I ask,” said Masterson, with cold courtesy, “why you did not state when taken prisoner that you were paroled?”
“Certainly,” and the easy nonchalance of the other was almost insolent; evidently Masterson had not picked up an affinity. “I was coming your way; had been riding alone for several hours, and feared I should be deprived of the pleasure of your society if I allowed you to know how harmless I was.”
He paused for a moment–smiled in a quizzical way at McVeigh, and continued: “Then I heard your orderly mention Colonel McVeigh, whose place you were bound for, and I did not object in the least to being brought to him for judgment. But since you see I am paroled, as well as crippled,” and he motioned to the arm which he moved carefully, “incapable in any way of doing harm to your cause, I trust that a flag of truce will be recognized by you,” and he extended his hand in smiling unconcern.
But to Captain Masterson there was something irritating in the smile, and he only bowed coldly, ignoring the flag of truce, upon which Captain Monroe seemed quietly amused as he turned to McVeigh and explained that he was wounded and taken prisoner a month before over in Tennessee by Morgan’s cavalry, who had gathered in Johnson’s brigade so effectively that General Johnson, his staff, and somewhere between two and three hundred others had been taken prisoners. He, Monroe, had found a Carolina relative badly wounded among Morgan’s boys, had secured a parole, and brought the young fellow home to die, and when his own wound was in a fair way to take care of itself he had left the place–a plantation south of Allendale, and headed for the coast to connect with the blockading fleet instead of making the journey north through Richmond.
It was a very clear statement, but Masterson listened to it suspiciously, without appearing to listen at all. McVeigh, who had known both Monroe and his family in the North, and was also acquainted with the Carolina family mentioned, accepted the Federal’s story without question, and invited him to remain at the Terrace so long as it suited him to be their guest.
“I have only two days at home until I leave for my regiment,” he explained; “but my mother has enough pleasant people here to make your visit interesting, I hope. She will be delighted to welcome you, and some Beaufort acquaintances of yours are here–the Lorings.”
Captain Monroe showed interest in this information, and declared it would give him pleasure to stop over until McVeigh left for the front.
“Good! and you, Captain Masterson?”
Masterson glanced coldly towards Monroe, evidently desirous of a private interview with McVeigh. But seeing little chance of it without a pointed request, he took two packets from a case carefully fastened in his pocket, and presented them.
“I am detailed to convey to you some important papers, and I congratulate you on your promotion to Brigadier-General,” he said, with a bow.
“Brigadier? Well, well; they are giving me a pleasant reception,” and his face showed his pleasure as he looked at the papers. “Thank you, Captain Masterson. By the way, how much time have you?”
“Until tomorrow night; I meant to ride over to the plantation after delivering this.”
“The ladies won’t hear to that when they get sight of you. They are giving a party tonight and need all the uniforms we can muster; a squad of your men on their way to the forts below have stopped over for breakfast, and they’ve even captured them, and you’ll be welcome as the flowers of May.”
Masterson glanced at Monroe and hesitated. “Those men are needed at one of the fortifications,” he said guardedly; “they had better take some other time for a party. With your permission I’ll send them on, and remain in their place with one orderly, if convenient.”
“Certainly; glad to have you; give your own orders about the men. I do not know that they have accepted the invitation to linger, I only know that the ladies wanted them to.”
He rang for Pluto, who was given orders concerning rooms for Captain Monroe, and for Captain Masterson, who left to speak with the men waiting orders without. He made a gesture towards the packet in McVeigh’s hand and remarked: “I have reason apart from the commission to think the contents are important. Our regiment is to be merged in your brigade, and all pressed to the front. Towards what point I could not learn at Columbia, but your information will doubtless cover all that, General.”
“Colonel will answer until I find my brigade,” said McVeigh, with a smile. “You stay over until I learn, since we are to go together, and I will look them over soon as possible.”
He himself showed Monroe the room he was to occupy, to the chagrin of Pluto, who was hanging about in a fever of curiosity and dread at sight of a Northern soldier–the first he had ever seen, and the rumor that he was brought there a prisoner suggested calamities to the army through which, alone, his own race dared hope for freedom; and to hear the two men chat and laugh over West Point memories was an aggravation to him, listening, as he was, for the news of today, and the serious questions involved. Only once had there been allusion to the horrors of war–when McVeigh inquired concerning his former classmate, Monroe’s brother, Fred, and was told he had been numbered with the dead at Shiloh. The door was open and Pluto could hear all that was said–could see the bronzed face of the Northerner, a face he liked instinctively though it was not exactly handsome–an older face than McVeigh’s. He was leaving West Point as the young Southerner entered–a man of thirty years, possibly–five of them, the hard years of the frontier range. A smile lit up his face, changing it wonderfully. His manner was neither diffident nor overconfident–there was a certain admirable poise to it. His cool, irritating attitude towards the zealous Masterson had been drawn out by the innate antagonism of the two natures, but with McVeigh only the cordial side was appealed to, and he responded with frank good will.
Pluto watched them leave the room and enter the apartments of Mr. Loring, where Mrs. McVeigh, Miss Gertrude and Delaven were at that time, and the latter was entertained by seeing one of the Northern wolves welcomed most cordially by the Southern household. Fred Monroe had been Kenneth’s alter-ego during the West Point days. Mrs. McVeigh had photographs of them together, which she brought out for inspection, and Kenneth had pleasant memories of the Monroe home where he had been a guest for a brief season after graduation; altogether it was an interesting incident of the war to Delaven, who was the one outsider. He was sorry the Marquise was not there to observe.
The Marquise was, however, making observations on her own account, but not particularly to her satisfaction. She walked from one window to another watching the road, and the only comforting view she obtained was the departure of the squad of soldiers who had breakfasted in the arbor. They turned south along the river, and when they passed through the Terrace gates she drew a breath of relief at the sight. They would not meet Pierson, who was to come over the road to the east, and they would leave on the place only the orderlies of Colonel McVeigh and Captain Masterson, and the colored men whose quarters were almost a half mile in the rear of the Terrace. She was glad they were at that distance, though she scarcely knew why. Pierson’s delay made her fear all sorts of bungling and extreme measures–men were such fools!
Evilena had flitted away again to look up a dress for the party, and did not return, so she was left alone. She heard considerable walking about and talking in the rooms below and on the veranda. No one came along her corridor, however, so she could ask no questions as to the latest arrivals. For reasons of her own she had dispensed with a personal attendant after the departure of Louise; there was no maid to make inquiries of.
An hour passed in this feverish suspense, when she went to the mirror with an air of decision, arranged her hair becomingly, added a coral brooch to the lace at her throat, slipped some glimmering rings on her white fingers, and added those little exquisite touches to the toilet which certain women would naturally linger over though it be the last hour on earth.
Then she opened the door and descended the stairs, a picture of beauty and serenity–a trifle of extra color in the cheeks, perhaps, but it would be a captious critic who would object to the added lustre.
Captain Monroe certainly did not, as he halted in the library at sight of her, and waited to see if she passed out on the veranda, or–
She looked out on the veranda; no one was there; with an impatient sigh she turned, pushed the partly opened door of the library back, and was inside the room before she perceived him. Involuntarily she shut the door back of her.
“Oh–h!” and she held out her hand with a quick, pretty gesture of surprise and pleasure–“well met, Captain Jack!”
He took the hand she offered and looked at her with a certain questioning directness.
“I hope so, Madame Caron,” and the gaze was so steady, his grasp so firm, that she drew her hand away with a little laugh that was a trifle nervous.
“Your voice and face reassure me! I dare breathe again!” she said, with a mock sigh of relief; “my first glimpse of your uniform made me fear a descent of the enemy.”
“Have you need to fear any special enemy here?” he asked, bluntly. She put her hand out with a little gesture of protest as she sank back into the chair he offered.
“Why should you be so curious on a first meeting?” she asked, with a quizzical smile. “But I will tell you, Monsieur, for all that; I am, of course, very much afraid of the Northern armies. I left Orleans rather than live under the Federal government, if you please! I have bought a very handsome estate a few miles from here which, of course, binds my interests more closely to the South,” and she flashed a meaning, mocking glance up at him. “Do not look so serious, my friend, it is all very beautifully arranged; I had my will made as soon as the deed was signed, of course; no matter what accidents should happen to me, all my Southern properties will be held intact to carry on the plans for which they were purchased. I am already building my monuments,” and she unfurled a silken fan the color of her corals and smiled across it at him.
Their backs were towards the window. She was seated in the deep chair, while he stood near her, leaning on the back of another one and looking down in her face. Pluto, who was still hovering around with the hope of getting speech with a “sure enough Lincum man,” had come noiselessly to the open window and only halted an instant when he saw the stranger so pleasantly occupied, and heard the musical voice of Madame Caron say “My friend.” It was to him the sweetest voice in the world now, and he would gladly have lingered while she spoke, but the rest of the words were very soft and low, and Miss Loring was moving towards him coming slowly up the steps, looking at him as though the veranda was no place for a nigger to lounge when unemployed–a fact he was well enough aware of to walk briskly away around the corner of the house, when he found her eye on him.
She had reached the top of the steps and was thinking the colored folks at the Terrace were allowed a great many privileges, when she heard the low tones of a man’s voice. Supposing it was Kenneth and possibly his mother, she stepped softly towards the window. Before she reached it she perceived her mistake–the man wore a blue uniform, and though she could not see Madame Caron, she could see the soft folds of her dress, and the white hand moving the coral fan.
Disappointed, and not being desirous of joining the woman whose charm evidently enthralled every one but herself, she stepped quietly back out of range, and passed on along the veranda to the sitting room, where Evilena was deeply engaged over the problem of a dress to be draped and trimmed for the party. And the two talked on within the closed doors of the library, the man’s voice troubled, earnest; the woman’s, careless and amused.
“I shall tell you what I wish, Captain Jack,” she said, tapping the fan slowly on the palm of her hand and looking up at him, “I am most pleased to see you, but for all that I wish you had not come to this particular house, and I wish you would go away.”
“Which means,” he said, after a pause, “that you are in some danger?”
“Oh, no! if it were that,” and her glance was almost coquettish, “I should ask you to remain as my champion.”
“Pardon, Madame,” and he shook his head, doubtfully, “but I remember days in New Orleans, and I know you better than that.”
She only raised her brows and smiled. He watched her for a moment and then said: “Colonel McVeigh is a friend; I should not like to think that your presence means danger to him.”
“What an idea!” and she laughed heartily; “am I grown such a thing of terror that I dare not enter a door lest danger follow? Who could be oppressed with political schemes in this delightful life of the plantation? It is really Eden-like; that is why I have purchased one of the places for my own; it is worth seeing. If you remain I shall invite you over; shall you?”
“For some reason you wish I would not; if I only knew what the reason is!”
“A few months ago you did not question my motives,” she said, reprovingly; then in a lower tone, “Your commander has never questioned, why should you? Your President has sent me messages of commendation for my independent work. One, received before I left Mobile, I should like you to see,” and she rose from the chair. He put out his hand to stop her.
“Not if it has connection with any plot or plan of work against the people on this side of the line; remember, I am on parole.”
“Oh, I shall respect your scruples,” she said, lightly. “But you need have no dread of that sort. I would not keep by me anything dangerous; it is not compromising to the Marquise de Caron in any way.” She halted at the door and added, “Will you wait?”
“Yes, I will wait,” he said; “but I can’t approve, and I don’t need the evidence of any one else in order to appreciate your value,” he added, grimly; “but be careful, remember where you are.”
“I could not forget it if I tried, Captain Jack,” she declared, with a peculiar smile, of which the meaning escaped him until long after.
That ride from Loringwood in the morning, and the nervous expectancy after, had evidently tended to undermine her own self-confidence and usual power of resource, for when she returned to the room a few minutes later, and found Gertrude and her uncle there, she halted in absolute confusion–could not collect her thoughts quickly enough for the emergency, and glanced inquiringly towards Monroe, as one looks at a stranger, while he, after one look as she entered, continued some remark to Mr. Loring.
For an instant Gertrude’s eyes grew narrow as she glanced from one to the other; then she recovered her usual sweet manner, as she turned to Judithe:
“Pardon me, I fancied you two had met. Madame Caron, permit me to present Captain Monroe, one of our recent acquisitions.”
Both bowed; neither spoke. Colonel McVeigh entered at that moment. He had changed the grey travelling suit in which he arrived, for the grey uniform of his regiment, and Judithe, however critical she tried to be, could not but acknowledge that he was magnificent; mentally she added, “Magnificent animal; but what of the soul, the soul?”
There was no lack of soul in his eyes as he looked at her and crossed the room, as though drawn by an invisible chain, and noted, as a lover ever notes, that the dress she wore had in its soft, silvery folds, a suggestion of sentiment for the cause he championed.
But when he murmured something of his appreciation, she dropped her eyes to the fan she held, and when she glanced slowly up it was in a manner outlawing the tete-a-tete.
“I realize now, Colonel McVeigh, that you are really a part of the army,” she remarked in the tone of one who makes the conversation general. “You were a very civilian-looking person this morning. I have, like your Southern ladies, acquired a taste for warlike trappings; the uniform is very handsome.”
“Thanks; I hope you will find my next one more becoming, since it is to be that of Brigadier-General.”
Although Matthew Loring’s sight was impaired, his locomotion slow, and his left hand and arm yet helpless, his sense of hearing was acute enough to hear the words even across Monroe’s conversation, for his sunken eyes lit up as he twisted his head towards the speaker:
“What’s that, Kenneth? You to command a brigade?”
“So they tell me,” assented McVeigh. “The commission just reached me.”
“Good enough! Do you hear that, Gertrude? A Brigadier-General at twenty-five. Well, I don’t see what more a man could want.”
“I do,” he said, softly, to Judithe, so softly that she felt rather than heard the words, to which his eyes bore witness. Then he turned to reply to Mr. Loring’s questions of military movements.
“No, I can’t give you much special information today,” and he smiled across at Monroe, when Loring found fault with the government officials who veiled their plans and prospects from the taxpayers–the capitalists of the South who made the war possible. “But the instructions received lead me to believe a general movement of much importance is about to be made in our department, and my opportunities will be all a soldier could wish.”
“So you have become a Brigadier-General instead of the Lieutenant we knew only three years ago,” and Judithe’s eyes rested on him graciously for an instant, as Monroe and Gertrude helped Loring out to the wheeled chair on the lawn. “You travel fast–you Americans! I congratulate you.”
She had arisen and crossed the room to the little writing desk in the corner. He followed with his eyes her graceful walk and the pretty fluttering movements of her hands as she drew out note paper and busied herself rather ostentatiously. He smiled as he noticed it; she was afraid of a tete-a-tete; she was trying to run away, if only to the farther side of the room.
“I shall consider myself a more fit subject for congratulation if you prove more kind to the General than you were to the Lieutenant.”
“People usually are,” she returned lightly. “I do not fancy you will have much of unkindness to combat, except from the enemy.”
Evilena entered the room humming an air, and her brother remarked carelessly that the first of the enemy to invade their domain was not very formidable at present, though Captain Jack Monroe had made a fighting record for himself in the western campaign. Judithe did not appear particularly interested in the record of the Northern campaign, but Evilena, who had been too much absorbed in the question of wardrobe to keep informed of the late arrivals, fairly gasped at the name.
“Really and truly, is that Yankee here?” she demanded, “right here in the house? Caroline said it wasn’t a Yankee–just some friend of yours.”
“So he is.”
“And–a–Yankee?”
He nodded his head and smiled at her. Judithe had picked up a pen and was writing. Evilena glanced towards her for assistance in this astonishing state of affairs, but no one appeared to be shocked but herself.
“Well!” she said, at last, resignedly, “since we are to have any Yankee here, I’m glad it’s the one Gertrude met at Beaufort. I’ve been conjuring up romances about them ever since, and I am curious to see if he looks like the Jack Monroe in the song.”
“Not likely,” said her brother, discouragingly, “he is the least romantic hero for a song you can imagine; but if you put on your prettiest dress and promise not to fight all the battles of the war over with him, I’ll manage that you sit beside him at dinner and make romances about him at closer range, if you can find the material.”
“To think of me dressing my prettiest for a Yankee! and oh, Ken, I can’t dress so astonishingly pretty, either. I’m really,” and she sighed dejectedly, “down to my last party dress.”
“Well, that’s better than none.”
“None!” she endeavored to freeze him with a look, but his smile forbade it, and she left the room, singing
“Just as she stepped on ship board,
‘Your name I’d like to know?’
And with a smile she answered,
‘My name is Jack Monroe.’”
“Thanks; glad to find so charming a namesake,” said a deep voice, and she looked up to see a tall man gazing down at her with a smile so kindly she should never have guessed he was a Yankee but for the blue uniform.
“Oh!” she blushed deliciously, and then laughed. There really was no use trying to be dignified with a stranger after such a meeting as that.
“I never did mean to steal your name, Captain Monroe,” she explained, “for you are Captain Monroe?”
“Yes, except when I am Jack,” and then they both smiled.
“Oh, I’ve known Jack was your name, too, for this long time,” she said, with a little air of impressing him with her knowledge; “but I couldn’t call you that, except in the song.”
