The door opened and a shadow swept slowly across the room. Always pale and in black--wrapped in her mourning the shadow of sorrow never left this mother; and now it seemed to envelop even Mary Ballard, bright and warm of nature as she was.
Hester Craigmile barely smiled as she held out her slender, blue-veined hand.
"It is very good of you to come to me, Mary Ballard, but you can"t make me think I should be reconciled to this. No! It is hard enough to be reconciled to the blows G.o.d has dealt me, without accepting what my husband and son see fit to give me in this." Her hand was cold and pa.s.sive, and her voice was restrained and low.
Mary Ballard"s hands were warm, and her tones were rich and full. She took the proffered hand in both her own and drew the shadow down to sit at her side.
"No, no. I"m not going to try to make you reconciled, or anything.
I"ve just come to tell you that I understand, and that I think you are justified in withholding your consent to Peter Junior"s going off in this way."
"If he were killed, I should feel as if I had consented to his death."
"Of course you would. I should feel just the same. Naturally you can"t forbid his going,--now,--for it"s too late, and he would have to go with the feeling of disobedience in his heart, and that would be cruel to him, and worse for you."
"I know. His father has consented; they think I am wrong. My son thinks I am wrong. But I can"t! I can"t!" In her suppressed tones sounded the ancient wail of women--mothers crying for their sons sacrificed in war. For a few moments neither of them spoke. It was hard for Mary to break the silence. Her friend sat at her side withdrawn and still; then she lifted her eyes to the picture of herself and the children and spoke again, only breathing the words: "Peter Junior--my beautiful oldest boy--he is the last--the others are all gone--three of them."
"Peter Junior is splendid. I thought so last evening as I saw him coming up the path. I took it home to myself--what I should feel, and what I would think if he were my son. Somehow we women are so inconsistent and foolish. I knew if he were my son, I never could give my consent to his going, never in the world,--but there! I would be so proud of him for doing just what your boy has done; I would look up to him in admiration, and be so glad that he was just that kind of a man!"
Hester Craigmile turned and looked steadily in her friend"s eyes, but did not open her lips, and after a moment Mary continued:--
"To have one"s sons taken like these--is--is different. We know they are safe with the One who loved little children; we know they are safe and waiting for us. But to have a boy grow into a young man like Peter Junior--so straight and fine and beautiful--and then to have him come and say: "I"m going to help save our country and will die for it if I must!" Why, my heart would grow big with thanksgiving that I had brought such an one into the world and reared him. I--What would I do!
I couldn"t tell him he might go,--no,--but I"d just take him in my arms and bless him and love him a thousand times more for it, so he could go away with that warm feeling all about his heart; and then--I"d just pray and hope the war might end soon and that he might come back to me rewarded, and--and--still good."
"That"s it. If he would,--I don"t distrust my son,--but there are always things to tempt, and if--if he were changed in that way, or if he never came back,--I would die."
"I know. We can"t help thinking about ourselves and how we are left--or how we feel--" Mary hesitated and was loath to go on with that train of thought, but her friend caught her meaning and rose in silence and paced the room a moment, then returned.
"It is easy to talk in that way when one has not lost," she said.
"I know it seems so, but it is not easy, Hester Craigmile. It is hard--so hard that I came near staying at home this morning. It seemed as if I could not--could not--"
"Yes, what I said was bitter, and it wasn"t honest. You were good to come to me--and what you have said is true. It has helped me; I think it will help me."
"Then good-by. I"ll go now, but I"ll come again soon." She left the shadow sitting there with the basket of fruit and flowers at her side unnoticed and forgotten, and stepped quietly out of the darkened room into the sunlight and fresh air.
"I do wish I could induce her to go out a little--or open up her house. I wish--" Mary Ballard said no more, but shut her lips tightly on her thoughts, untied the mare, and drove slowly away.
Hester Craigmile stood for a moment gazing on the picture of her little sons, then for an hour or more wandered up and down over her s.p.a.cious home, going from room to room, mechanically arranging and rearranging the chairs and small articles on the mantels and tables.
Nothing was out of place. No dust or disorder anywhere, and there was the pity of it. If only a boy"s cap could be found lying about, or books left carelessly where they ought not to be! One closed door she pa.s.sed again and again. Once she laid her hand on the k.n.o.b, but pa.s.sed on, leaving it still unopened. At last she turned, and, walking swiftly down the long hall, entered the room.
There the blinds were closed and the curtains drawn, and everything set in as perfect order as in the parlor below. She sat down in a chair placed back against the wall and folded her hands in her lap.
No, it was not so hard for Mary Ballard. It would not be, even if she had a son old enough to go. Mary had work to do.
On the wall above Hester"s head was one of the portraits which helped to establish the family dignity of the Craigmiles. If the blinds had been open, one could have seen it in sharp contrast to the pale moth of a woman who sat beneath it. The painting, warm and rich in tone, was of a dame in a long-bodiced dress. She held a fan in her hand and wore feathers in her powdered hair. Her eyes gazed straight across the room into those of a red-coated soldier who wore a sword at his side and gold on his shoulders. Yes, there had been soldiers in the family before Peter Junior"s time.
This was Peter Junior"s room, but the boy was there no longer. He had come home from college one day and had entered it a boy, and then he came out of it and down to his mother, dressed in his new uniform--a man. Now he entered it no more, for he stayed at the camp over on the high bluff of the Wisconsin River. He was wholly taken up with his new duties there, and his room had been set in order and closed as if he were dead.
Sitting there, Hester heard the church clock peal out the hour of twelve, and started. Soon she would hear the front door open and shut, and a heavy tread along the lower hall, and she would go down and sit silently at the table opposite her husband, they two alone. There would be silence, because there would be nothing to say. He loved her and was tender of her, but his word was law, and in all matters he was dictator, lawmaker, and judge, and from his decisions there was no appeal. It never occurred to him that there ever need be. So Hester Craigmile, reserved and intense, closed her lips on her own thoughts, which it seemed to her to be useless to utter, and let them eat her heart out in silence.
At the moment expected she heard the step on the floor of the vestibule, and the door opened, but it was not her husband"s step alone that she heard. Surely it was Peter Junior"s and his cousin"s.
Were they coming to dinner? But no word had been sent. Hester stepped out of the room and stood at the head of the stairs waiting. She did not wish to go down and meet her son before the others, and if he did not find her below, he would know where to look for her.
Peter Senior was an Elder in the Presbyterian Church, and he was always addressed as Elder, even by his wife and son. On the street he was always Elder Craigmile. She heard the men enter the dining room and the door close after them, but still she waited. The maid would have to be told to put two more places at the table, but Hester did not move. The Elder might attend to that. Presently she heard quick steps returning and knew her son was coming. She went to meet him and was clasped in his arms, close and hard.
"You were waiting for me here? Come, mother, come." He stroked her smooth, dark hair, and put his cheek to hers. It was what she needed, what her heart was breaking for. She could even let him go easier after this. Sometimes her husband kissed her, but only when he went a journey or when he returned, a grave kiss of farewell or greeting; but in her son"s clasp there was something of her own soul"s pent-up longing.
"You"ll come down, mother? Rich came home with me."
"Yes, I heard his voice. I am glad he came."
"See here, mother! I know what you are doing. This won"t do. Every one who goes to war doesn"t get killed or go to the bad. Look at that old redcoat up in my room. He wasn"t killed, or where would I be now? I"m coming back, just as he did. We are born to fight, we Craigmiles, and father feels it or he never would have given his consent."
Slowly they went down the long winding flight of stairs--a flight with a smooth banister down which it had once been Peter Junior"s delight to slide when there was no one nigh to reprove. Now he went down with his arm around his slender mother"s waist, and now and then he kissed her cheek like a lover.
The Elder looked up as they entered, with a slight wince of disapproval, the only demonstration of reproof he ever gave his wife, which changed instantly to as slight a smile, as he noticed the faint color in her cheek, and a brighter light in her eyes than there was at breakfast. He and Richard were both seated as they entered, but they rose instantly, and the Elder placed her chair with all the manner of his forefathers, a courtesy he never neglected.
Hester Craigmile forced herself to converse, and tried to smile as if there were no impending gloom. It was here Mary Ballard"s influence was felt by them all. She had helped her friend more than she knew.
"I"m glad to see you, Richard; I was afraid I might not."
"Oh, no, Aunt Hester. I"d never leave without seeing you. I went into the bank and the Elder asked me to dinner and I jumped at the chance."
"This is your home always, you know."
"And it"s good to think of, too, Aunt Hester."
She looked at her son and then her nephew. "You are so like in your uniforms I would not know you apart on the street in the dark," she said. Richard shot a merry glance in his uncle"s eyes, then only smiled decorously with him and Peter Junior.
"I wish you"d visit the camp and see us drill. We go like clockwork, Peter and I. They call us the twins."
"There is a very good reason for that, for your mother and I were twins, and you resemble her, while Peter Junior resembles me," said the Elder.
"Yes," said Hester, "Peter Junior looks like his father;" but as she glanced at her son she knew his soul was hers.
Thus the meal pa.s.sed in quiet, decorous talk, touching on nothing vital, but holding a smoldering fire underneath. The young men said nothing about the fact that the regiment had been called to duty, and soon the camp on the bluff would be breaking up. They dared not touch on the past, and they as little dared touch on the future--indeed there might be no future. So they talked of indifferent things, and Hester parted with her nephew as if they were to meet again soon, except that she called him back when he was halfway down the steps and kissed him again. As for her son, she took him up to his room and there they stayed for an hour, and then he came out and she was left in the house alone.
CHAPTER IV
LEAVE-TAKING
Early in the morning, while the earth was still a ma.s.s of gray shadow and mist, and the sky had only begun to show faint signs of the flush of dawn, Betty, awake and alert, crept softly out of bed, not to awaken Martha, who slept the sleep of utter weariness at her side.
Martha had returned only the day before from her visit to her grandfather"s, a long carriage ride away from Leauvite.
Betty bathed hurriedly, giving a perfunctory brushing to the tangled ma.s.s of curls, and getting into her clothing swiftly and silently. She had been cautioned the night before by her mother not to awaken her sister by getting up at too early an hour, for she would be called in plenty of time to drive over with the rest to see the soldiers off.