I went on to say that she seemed now to have learned, herself, that it was on this shoal she grounded at every low water of her physical and mental powers; as when over-fatigued, for instance; and that I should not wonder if she had bound herself never again at such a time to let her judgment follow her impulses. He laid his hand on me: "Stop; stop; you stab too deep. I thought to take her by surprise at that very point, and right there she has countermined. My G.o.d! can it be that I am served only right?"
"No," I replied, although it was a thing I would have said Ned Ferry would not do, "no, no, it is she who has served both you and herself cruelly wrong. Captain, I believe that when Miss Harper has talked it over with her she will see her mistake as we all see it, and will call you back."
"Ah, me! Ah, me! Do you believe that, d.i.c.k?"
"I do, Captain; but at the same time--"
"What, what? Speak out, d.i.c.k. You blame me some other way?"
"Oh, no, indeed! I am the one to blame, the only one. If you had not, both of you, been so blameless--so splendidly blameless--I should hardly have let myself sink so deep into blame; but I knew you would never take the last glad step until you had seen the last sad proof that you might take it. Oh, Captain, to-night is the third time that in my dreams I have seen that man alive."
I do not know how long after that we lay silent, but it seemed an endless time before he exclaimed at last "My G.o.d! d.i.c.k, you should have told me."
"I know it; I know I should! But it was only a dream, and--"
"Ah! "twas your doubt first and the dream after! But let us think no more of blame, we must settle the doubt. We shall begin that to-morrow." On my venturing to say more he interrupted. "Well, we can do nothing now; at the present, sleep is our first business." However, after a little, he spoke again, and, I believe, purely in order to soothe me to slumber, speculated and counselled with me for the better part of an hour concerning my own poor little love affair.
At breakfast he told me the first step in his further plans would be for us to take the train for Tangipahoa, with our horses, on our way to our own camp; but just before the train came the telegraph brought General Austin"s request--which, of course, carried all the weight of an order--for Ferry to remain here and make ready for further issues of quartermaster"s stores. He turned on his heel and twisted his small mustache: "That means we are kept here to be kept here, Richard."
It was a mistaken kindness, from our point of view, but it had the merit that it kept us busy. In two days the post-quartermaster"s affairs and supplies were reduced to perfect order for the first time in their history. For two days more we ran a construction train and with a swarm of conscripts repaired two or three miles of road-bed and some trestle-work in a swamp; and at every respite in our strenuous activities we discoursed of the girls we"d left behind us; their minds, their manners, their features, figures, tastes and talents, and their walk and talk. So came the end of the week, and while the sun was still above the trees we went on down, inspecting the road beyond our repairs, on our own hand-car to Brookhaven. With heads bare, jackets in our laps, and muddy boots dangling over the car"s front edge, and with six big negroes at the levers behind us, we watched the miles glide under our wheels and grow fewer and fewer between us and the shrine of our hearts. "Sing, d.i.c.k," said Ferry, and we chanted together, as we had done at every sunset these three days, "O my love is like a red, red rose." We could not have done it had we known that yonder glorious sun was setting forever upon the fortunes of our Southern Confederacy. It was the fourth of July; Lee was in full retreat from Gettysburg, Vicksburg was gone, Port Hudson was doomed, and all that was left for us now was to die hard.
LIX
UNDER CHARLOTTE"S WINDOW
At the tavern, where we went to smarten up and to eat, we chanced upon Gregory. He was very shy of Ferry, because Ferry was a captain, but told me the latest news from the Wall place, where he had spent the previous evening. Harry and the surgeon were gone to camp, the Harpers were well, Charlotte was--better, after a bad turn of several days. We felt in duty bound to stay within hail of the telegraph office until it should close for the night; and when the operator was detained in it much beyond the usual time, Ferry, as we hovered near, said at length, "Well, I"m sorry for you, d.i.c.k; "tis now too late for you to go yonder--this evening."
"Didn"t you intend to call, too?" "No," he said; yet the moment the operator turned the key in his door we sauntered away from the station, tavern, town, and out into the rain-famished country. We chose a road on high ground, under pines; the fact that a few miles of it would bring us to Squire Wall"s was not sufficient reason for us to shun it, and we loitered on and on, discoursing philosophically on man and woman and the duties of each to other. Through habit we went softly, and so, in time, came up past a small garden under the house"s southern side. Here silence was only decorum, for every window in the dark upper rooms was thrown open to the sultry air. The house"s front was away from the direction of the town, and at a corner of this garden, where the road entered the open grove, the garden fence turned north at a right angle, while the road went on through the grove into wide cornfields beyond.
We kept to the garden fence till it brought us along the dooryard front, facing the house. Thus far the whole place seemed fast asleep. Along the farthest, the northern, side a line of planted trees ran close to a narrow wing of but one room on each of its two stories, and the upper of these two rooms was Charlotte"s. Where we paused, at the dooryard gate, we could not see this wing, but we knew its exterior perfectly; it had a narrow window in front, looking into the grove, and a broader one at the rear, that overlooked an open stretch of the Wall plantation. The place seemed fast asleep, I say, but we had not a doubt we were being watched--by the two terrible dogs that guarded the house but never barked. By this time they should have recognized us and ought to be coming forward and wagging faintly, as who should say "Yes, that"s all right, but we have our orders."
"Ah!"--Ferry guardedly pointed to the ground at the corner of the house nearest Charlotte"s room; there were both the dogs, dim as phantoms and as silent, standing and peering not toward us but around to the wing side in a way to make one"s blood stop. We drew deeper into the grove and made a short circuit that brought us in line with Charlotte"s two windows, and there, at the farther one, with her back to us, sat Charlotte, looking toward Hazlehurst. The bloodthirsty beasts at the corner of the house were so intently waiting to spring upon something, somebody, between them and the nearer window, that we were secure from their notice. We had hardly more than become aware of these things when, in the line of planted trees, out of the depths of the one nearest the nearer window, sounded a note that brought Charlotte instantly to her feet; the same feeble, smothered cry she had heard the night she was wounded. She crossed to the front window and listened, first standing erect, and then stooping and leaning out. When we saw her do that we knew how little she cared for her life; Ferry beckoned me up from behind him; neither of us needed to say he feared the signal was from Oliver. "Watch here," he whispered, and keeping the deepest shade, started eagerly, with drawn revolver, toward the particular tree. I saw the dogs discover and recognize him and welcome his aid, yet I kept my closest watch on that tree"s boughs and on Charlotte. She was wondering, I guessed, whether the call was from some messenger of Ferry, or was only a bird"s cry. As if she decided it was the latter, she moved away, and had nearly re-crossed the room, when the same sad tremolo came searching the air again. Nevertheless she went on to the farther window and stood gazing out for the better part of a minute, while in my heart I besought her not to look behind. For Ferry and the dogs had vanished in shadow, and outside her nearer window, wavering now above and now below the sill, I could just descry a small pale object that reminded me of that missive Coralie Rothvelt had pa.s.sed up to me outside the window-sill at old Lucius Oliver"s house exactly a month before. From the upper depths of the nearest tree this small thing was being proffered on the end of a fishing-rod. Presently the rod must have tapped the sill, with such a start did she face about. Silently she ran, s.n.a.t.c.hed the dumb messenger, and drew down the window-shade. A moment later the room glowed with a candle, while her shadow, falling upon the shade, revealed her scanning a letter, lifting her arms with emotion, and so pa.s.sing out of the line of view.
I waited on. So absorbed was I that I did not hear the coming of a horseman in the fields beyond the grove, nor the click of a field gate; but when the strange quietude of Ferry and the dogs had begun to rea.s.sure me I became aware of this new-comer approaching the dooryard. There he reined in and hallooed. I knew the voice. An answer came from an upper window. "Is this Squire Wall"s?" asked the traveller. "Well, Squire, I"m from General Austin"s headquarters, with orders to Captain Ferry."
"Captain Ferry ain"t stopping with us now, sir, he"s "way up at Hazlehurst."
"Yes, sir. I didn"t know but he might "a" come down to spend to-morrow with you, it being the Sabbath. My name"s Gholson, sir; I"ve got letters for the Miss Harpers; yes, sir; and one for Private Smith, from his mother, in New Orleans."
"My sakes! yo" pow"ful welcome, Mr. Wholesome; just wait till I call off my dogs, sir, and I"ll let you in."
When the dogs came at the Squire"s call I breathed relief. Ferry appeared behind me and beckoned me deeper into the grove. He sank upon a stump, whispering "That was worse than ten fights."
"Who was it?" I asked. "Where is he?"
He pointed to the field gate through which Gholson had come. In the field a small man was re-closing it cautiously, and now he mounted and rode away; it was Isidore Goldschmidt, of the Plank-road swamp. I was wondering why he had behaved in this skulking way, when Ferry, as if reading my thought, said, "Isidore can"t afford to be found seventy-five miles inside our lines with no papers except a letter from a Yankee officer--and not knowing, himself, what"s in it."
"Oh! why should he risk his life to bring such a thing to her?"
"Because three months ago she risked her life to save the life of his father, and now, since only last week, that Yankee has saved the life of his mother." I asked who this Yankee might be. "Well, that is yet more strange; he is the brother of Captain Jewett."
We were moving to the house; at the steps we halted; the place was all alight and the ladies were arriving in the parlor. A beam of light touching Ferry"s face made his smile haggard. I asked if this Jewett was another leader of scouts.
"No, he is a high-rank surgeon. Yet I think he must have heard all about her; he wouldn"t send that letter, that way, just for grat.i.tude."
"Yes," I responded, pondering, "he may easily have learned about her," and I called to mind that chief-of-staff of whom Charlotte had told us. Then, remembering her emotional shadow-play on the window-shade, I added, "He knew at least what would be important news to her--Captain, I have it!"
He made a motion of pain--"Don"t say it!" and we read in each other"s eyes the one conviction that from a surgeon"s personal knowledge this man had written to warn Charlotte that Oliver was alive.
LX
TIDINGS
All the glad difference between hope stark drowned and hope sighing back into life lightened Ferry"s heart; he gripped my shoulder--the sound one, by good luck,--and drew me into the dining-room, where the whole company were gathered to see Gholson eat. Our entry was a fresh surprise. As we drank the flatteries of seven lovely welcomes, from behind Gholson I reconnoitred Charlotte, and the fullest confirmation of our guess was in the peaceful resolve of her eyes. I noted the Harpers, all, and dear Mrs. Wall"s sweet freckled face, take new gladness of the happy change, while unable to define its cause.
But now came raptures and rhapsodies over the opened letters. Ferry"s orders had not been expected to reach him to-night, Gholson said, and so we insisted they and my letter should remain in the saddle-pockets while Gholson ate, and while the good news, public and personal, of the Harpers" letters went round.
"But I thought the" was fi-ive letters," said the Squire as we were about to leave the board; at which Mrs. Wall mumbled to him to "hush up;" for the fifth was to Cecile.
"Yes," guilefully said Charlotte, "Richard"s letter!" and we all followed Gholson to where his saddle lay on the gallery. There he handed out Ferry"s doc.u.ment and went on rummaging for mine.
"The two were right here together," he said, "and Mr. Smith"s was marked "valuable" and had something hard in one corner of it." Camille brought a candle, Estelle another; Gholson rose from his knee: "Smith, it"s gone! I"ve lost it! And yet"--he slapped his breast-pockets--"no, it"s somewhere in the grove; it"s between here and that cornfield gate! I counted all the papers just this side of that gate, and I must "a" dropped yours then!" Cecile brought a third light and we sallied forth into the motionless air, Estelle with a candle and Gholson, Camille with a candle and me, Cecile with a candle and Mrs. Wall, Miss Harper and the Squire, and Charlotte and Ferry. In the heart of the grove Estelle gave a soft cry, sprang, stooped, straightened, and handed me the letter.
"Yes," exclaimed Camille as the three candle-bearers gathered close, "that"s your mother"s writing," and as we fell into marching order again, with the lights still in the front files, I opened it. It was thick and soft with sheet after sheet of thinnest paper. With these was a sealed letter, unaddressed, containing in one corner what seemed to be a ring. Around all was a sheet of writing of later date than any other. Wonderful, my mother"s lines declared, was the Providence that had brought her wounded boy among such priceless friends; and wonderful that same Providence that now gave her the chance to send three weeks" daily letters in one, and to send them by a hand so sure that she ventured to add this other note, a matter so secret that it must be delivered only by my own hands, or hands which I could trust as my own, to Charlotte Oliver. We glanced back in search of Charlotte. She and Ferry were well in the rear of the procession, moving with laggard steps, she lighting his page with a borrowed candle, and he evidently reading not his orders, but the Federal surgeon"s letter. "Oh, don"t speak yet," murmured Camille, "let them alone!"
At the garden gate the most of the company pa.s.sed on into the house, Gholson among them. His face, as for an instant he turned aside to me, betrayed a frozen rage; for Ferry and Charlotte tarried just at our backs, she seated on the "horse-block" and he leaning against it. A stir of air brought by the rising moon had blown out their light. Gholson left me, and Camille waited at my side while I tried to read by the flare of her guttering candle. "Come, my dear," said Miss Harper from half-way up the walk, but Charlotte called Miss Harper.
"You"d better go in, Camille," insisted the aunt as she pa.s.sed us, but Charlotte had just asked for our candle to relight her own, and she said to Miss Harper, "Let them stay, won"t you?" and then to Ferry, "They might as well, mightn"t they? Oh, now,"--as Camille handed her my mother"s letter--"they must!" She toyed with the envelope"s thinner edge without noticing the ring in the corner. "My dears," she said, looking frail and distressed, yet resolute, "I have positive intelligence--not through Captain, nor Richard, nor Mr. Gholson,--I"ll tell you how some day--positive intelligence that--the dead--is not dead; the blow, Richard, glanced. I was foolish never to think of that possibility, it occurs so often. He was profoundly stunned, so that he didn"t come-to until he was brought to a surgeon. It"s from that surgeon I have the news; here"s his letter."
"Charlotte, my dear," interrupted Miss Harper, "tell us the remainder to-morrow, but now--"
"No, sweetest friend, there will never be another chance like this; Captain Ferry"s orders carry him to Jackson at daylight to-morrow, and--and we may not meet again for years; let me go on. When the gash was sewed up, the hand was really the worse hurt of the two, and after a few days he was sent down on a steamer to New Orleans with a great lot of other sick and wounded, and with the commanding general"s warning not to come back on peril of his life. "Tisn"t easy to tell this, but you four have a particular right to know it from me and at once. So let me say"--she handed Ferry my mother"s letter as if it were a burdensome distraction--"I"m not sorry for the mistake, Richard, which we all so innocently made; and you mustn"t be sorry for me and be saying to yourselves that my captivity is on me again; for I"m happier tonight than I"ve been since the night the mistake was made."
She dropped a hand to Ferry"s to receive again the neglected letter, and chanced to take it by the corner that held the ring. With that she stared at us, fingered it, rended the envelope, gave one glance to her own name engraved inside a plain gold ring of the sort New Orleans girls bestow upon those to whom they are betrothed, and springing to the ground between our two candles, bent over the open page and cried through a flood of tears, "Oh, G.o.d, have mercy on him, he is gone! He is gone, Edgard! Oh, Edgard, he is gone at last; gone beyond all doubt, and our hands--our hands and our hearts are clean!"
Ferry tossed away his candle and turned upon her, but she retreated into Miss Harper"s arms laughing through her tears. "Oh, no, no! we"ve never hurried yet, never yet, my master in patience, and we"ll not hurry now! Go and come again. Go, wait, hide your eyes till I cry "whoop," and come again and find me, and, I pledge you before these dear witnesses, I"ll be "it" for the rest of my life!"
With the letter again held open, and bidding Miss Harper and Camille read with her, she swept a fleet glance along the close lines that told how Oliver, half cured of his wounds, had died in a congestive chill, of swamp-fever, the day he landed in New Orleans. "See, see, Richard, here your mother has copied the hospital"s certificate."
She read on aloud how two private Federal soldiers, hospital convalescents, had come to my mother telling her of his death, and how he had named my mother over and over in his delirium, desiring that she should be given charge of the small effects on his person and that she would return them to his father in the Confederacy. My mother wrote how she had been obliged secretly to buy back from the hospital steward a carte-de-visite photograph of Charlotte, and this ring; how, Oliver not being a Federal soldier, she had been allowed to a.s.sume the expense and task of his burial; how she had found the body already wrapped and bound, in the military way, when she first saw it, but heard the two convalescents praising to each other the strong, hard-used beauty of the hidden face, and was shown the suit of brown plantation jeans we all knew so well; and how, lastly, when her overbearing conscience compelled her to tell them she might find it easier to send the relics to the wife rather than the father, they had furtively advised her to do as she pleased.