Complete weird tales of.., p.525
Complete Weird Tales of Robert W Chambers, page 525
“Nerves,” said West cheerily. “It’ll all come right in a moment,
Mrs. Paige. Go up and sit by Davis for a while. He’s going fast.”
Curious advice, yet good for her. And Ailsa rose and fled; but a moment later, seated at the side of the dying man, all thought of self vanished in the silent tragedy taking place before her.
“Davis?” she whispered.
The man opened his sunken eyes as the sleepy steward rose, gave his bedside chair to Ailsa, and replaced the ominous screen.
“I am here, Private Davis,” she said cheerily, winking away the last tear drop.
Then the man sighed deeply, rested his thin cheek against her hand, and lay very, very still.
At midnight he died as he lay. She scarcely realised it at first. And when at length she did, she disengaged her chilled hand, closed his eyes, drew the covering over his face, and, stepping from behind the screen, motioned to the steward on duty.
Descending the stairs, her pale, pensive glance rested on the locket flashing on its chain over the scarlet heart sewn on her breast. Somehow, at thought of Hallam waiting for her below, she halted on the stairway, one finger twisted in the gold chain. And presently the thought of Hallam reminded her of the trooper and the hot dinner she had promised the poor fellow. Had the cook been kind to him?
She hastened downstairs, passed the closed door of the improvised dining-room, traversed the hall to the porch, and, lifting the skirts of her gray garb, sped across the frozen yards to the kitchen.
The cook had gone; fire smouldered in the range; and a single candle guttered in its tin cup on the table.
Beside it, seated on a stool, elbows planted on both knees, face buried in his spread fingers, sat the lancer, apparently asleep.
She cast a rapid glance at the table. The remains of the food satisfied her that he had had his hot dinner. Once more she glanced at him, and then started to withdraw on tiptoe.
And he raised his head; and she gazed into the face of Berkley.
Neither stirred, although in the shock of discovery she felt that she would drop where she stood. Then, instinctively, she reached for the table’s edge, rested against it, hand clutching it, fascinated eyes never leaving his face.
He got up leisurely, walked toward her, made an abrupt turn and faced her again from the window recess, leaning back against the closed wooden shutters.
Her heart was beating too rapidly for her to speak; she tried to straighten her shoulders, lift her head. Both sank, and she looked down blindly through the throbbing silence.
Berkley spoke first; but she could not answer him. Then he said, again, lightly:
“A woman’s contempt is a bitter thing; but they say we thrive best on bitter medicine. Do you wish me to go, Ailsa? If so, where? I’ll obey with alacrity.”
She raised her dazed eyes.
“W-was that you, with Captain Hallam’s horse — there in the starlight — when I spoke?”
“Yes. Didn’t you know me?”
“No. Did you know me?”
“Of course. I nearly fell out of my saddle.”
She strove hard to collect herself.
“How did you know it was I?”
“How?” He laughed a short, mirthless laugh. “I knew your voice.
Why shouldn’t I know it?”
“Did — had anybody told you I was here?”
“No. Who is there to tell me anything?”
“Nobody wrote you? — or telegraphed?”
He laughed again. “Nobody has my address.”
“And you never — received — receive — letters?”
“Who would write to me? No, I never receive letters. Why do you ask?”
She was silent.
He waited a moment, then said coolly: “If you actually have any interest in what I’m doing—” and broke off with a shrug. At which she raised her eyes, waiting for him to go on.
“I went into an unattached company — The Westchester Horse — and some fool promised us incorporation with the 1st Cavalry and quick service. But the 1st filled up without us and went off. And a week ago we were sent off from White Plains Camp as K Company to” — he bit his lip and stared at her— “to — your friend Colonel Arran’s regiment of lancers. We took the oath. Our captain, Hallam, selected me for his escort to-night. That is the simple solution of my being here. I didn’t sneak down here to annoy you. I didn’t know you were here.”
After a moment she raised her pallid face.
“Have you seen Colonel Arran?”
“No,” he said shortly.
“I — it would give me — pleasure — to recommend you to his — attention.
May I write — —”
“Thank you, no.”
There was another painful interval of silence. Then:
“May I speak to Captain Hallam about you?”
“No, thank you!” he said contemptuously, “I am currying no favours.”
Hurt, she shrank away, and the blood mounted to her temples.
“You see,” he said, “I’m just a plain brute, and there’s no use being kind to me.” He added in a lower voice, but deliberately: “You once found out that.”
She quivered and straightened up.
“Yes,” she said, “I found that out. I have paid very dearly for my — my—” But she could not continue.
Watching her, cap hanging in his gauntleted hand, he saw the colour deepen and deepen in neck and cheek, saw her eyes falter, and turn from him.
“Is there any forgiveness for me?” he said. “I didn’t ask it before — because I’ve still some sense of the ludicrous left in me — or did have. It’s probably gone now, since I’ve asked if it is in you to pardon—” He shrugged again, deeming it useless; and she made no sign of comprehension.
For a while he stood, looking down at his cap, turning it over and over, thoughtfully.
“Well, then, Ailsa, you are very kind to offer what you did offer. But — I don’t like Colonel Arran,” he added with a sneer, “and I haven’t any overwhelming admiration for Captain Hallam. And there you are, with your kindness and gentleness and — everything — utterly wasted on a dull, sordid brute who had already insulted you once. . . . Shall I leave your kitchen?”
“No,” she said faintly. “I am going.”
He offered to open the door for her, but she opened it herself, stood motionless, turned, considered him, head high and eyes steady;
“You have killed in me, this night — this Christmas night — something that can never again l-live in me. Remember that in the years to come.”
“I’m sorry,” he said. “That’s the second murder I’ve attempted.
The other was your soul.”
Her eyes flashed.
“Even murderers show some remorse — some regret — —”
“I do regret,” he said deliberately, “that I didn’t kill it. . . .
You would have loved me then.”
She turned white as death, then, walking slowly up in front of him:
“You lie!” she said in even tones.
Confronted, never stirring, their eyes met; and in the cold, concentrated fury which possessed her she set her small teeth and stared at him, rigid, menacing, terrible in her outraged pride.
After a while he stirred; a quiver twitched his set features.
“Nevertheless—” he said, partly to himself. Then, drawing a long breath, he turned, unhooked his sabre from a nail where it hung, buckled his belt, picked up the lance which stood slanting across a chair, shook out the scarlet, swallow-tailed pennon, and walked slowly toward the door — and met Letty coming in.
“Mrs. Paige,” she said, “we couldn’t imagine what had become of you—” and glancing inquiringly at Berkley, started, and uttered a curious little cry:
“You!”
“Yes,” he said, smiling through his own astonishment.
“Oh!” she cried with a happy catch in her voice, and held out both hands to him; and he laid aside his lance and took them, laughing down into the velvet eyes. And he saw the gray garb of Sainte Ursula that she wore, saw the scarlet heart on her breast, and laughed again — a kindly, generous, warm-hearted laugh; but there was a little harmless malice glimmering in his eyes.
“Wonderful — wonderful, Miss Lynden” — he had never before called her
Miss Lynden— “I am humbly overcome in the presence of Holy Sainte
Ursula embodied in you. How on earth did old Benton ever permit
you to escape? He wrote me most enthusiastically about you before
I — ahem — left town.”
“Why didn’t you let me know where you were going?” asked Letty with a reproachful simplicity that concentrated Ailsa’s amazed attention on her, for she had been looking scornfully at Berkley.
“Why — you are very kind, Miss Lynden, but I, myself, didn’t know where I was going.”
“I — I wanted to write you,” began Letty; and suddenly remembered
Ailsa’s presence and turned, shyly:
“Mrs. Paige,” she said, “this private soldier is Mr. Berkley — a gentleman. May I be permitted to present him to you?”
And there, while the tragic and comic masks grinned side by side, and the sky and earth seemed unsteadily grinning above and under her feet, Ailsa Paige suffered the mockery of the presentation; felt the terrible irony of it piercing her; felt body and senses swaying there in the candle-light; heard Letty’s happy voice and Berkley’s undisturbed replies; found courage to speak, to take her leave; made her way back through a dreadful thickening darkness to her room, to her bed, and lay there silent, because she could not weep.
CHAPTER XII
IN FEBRUARY THE birds sang between flurries of snow; but the end of the month was warm and lovely, and robins, bluebirds, and cardinals burst into a torrent of song. The maples’ dainty fire illumined every swamp; the green thorn turned greener; and the live-oaks sprouted new leaves amid their olive-tinted winter foliage, ever green.
Magnolia and laurel grew richer and glossier; azaleas were budding; dog-wood twigs swelled; and somewhere, in some sheltered hollow, a spray of jasmine must have been in bloom, because the faint and exquisite scent haunted all the woodlands.
On the 17th the entire army was paraded by regiments to cheer for the fall of Fort Donnelson.
About mid-February the Allotment Commission began its splendid work in camp; and it seemed to Ailsa that the mental relief it brought to her patients was better than any other medicine — that is, better for the Union patients; for now there were, also, in the wards, a number of Confederate wounded, taken at various times during the skirmishing around Fairfax — quiet, silent, dignified Virginians, and a few fiery Louisianians, who at first, not knowing what to expect, scarcely responded to the brusque kindness of the hospital attendants.
The first Confederate prisoner that Ailsa ever saw was brought in on a stretcher, a quiet, elderly man in bloody gray uniform, wearing the stripes of a sergeant.
Prisoners came more often after that. Ailsa, in her letters to Celia Craig, had mentioned the presence of Confederate wounded at the Farm Hospital; and, to her delight and amazement, one day late in February a Commission ambulance drove up, and out stepped Celia Craig; and the next instant they were locked tightly in each other’s arms,
“Darling — darling!” sobbed Ailsa, clinging desperately to Celia, “it is heavenly of you to come. I was so lonely, so tired and discouraged. You won’t go away soon, will you? I couldn’t bear it — I want you so — I need you — —”
“Hush, Honey-bud! I reckon I’ll stay a while. I’ve been a week with Curt’s regiment at Fortress Monroe. I had my husband to myse’f fo’ days, befo’ they sent him to Acquia Creek. And I’ve had my boy a whole week all to myse’f! Then his regiment went away. They wouldn’t tell me where.’ But God is kinder. . . . You are certainly ve’y pale, Honey-bee!”
“I’m well, dearest — really I am, I’ll stay well now. Is Curt all right? And Stephen? And Paige and Marye? — and Camilla?”
“Everybody is well, dear. Curt is ve’y brown and thin — the dear fellow! And Steve is right handsome. I’m just afraid some pretty minx—” She laughed and added: “But I won’t care if she’s a rebel minx.”
“Celia! . . . And I — I didn’t think you liked that word.”
“What word, Honey-bell?” very demurely.
“Rebel!”
“Why, I reckon George Washington wore that title without reproach. It’s a ve’y good title — rebel,” she added serenely. “I admire it enough to wear it myse’f.”
Quarters were found for Mrs. Craig. Letty shyly offered to move, but Celia wouldn’t have it.
“My dear child,” she said, “I’m just a useless encumbrance ‘round the house; give me a corner where I may sit and look on and — he’p everybody by not inte’fering.”
Her corner was an adjoining section of the garret, boarded up, wall-papered, and furnished for those who visited the Farm Hospital on tour of inspection or to see some sick friend or relative, or escort some haggard convalescent to the Northern home.
Celia had brought a whole trunkful of fresh gingham clothes and aprons, and Ailsa could not discover exactly why, until, on the day following her arrival, she found Celia sitting beside the cot of a wounded Louisiana Tiger, administering lemonade.
“Dearest,” whispered Ailsa that night, “it is very sweet of you to care for your own people here. We make no distinction, however, between Union and Confederate sick; so, dear, you must be very careful not to express any — sentiments.”
Celia laughed. “I won’t express any sentiments, Honey-bee. I reckon I’d be drummed out of the Yankee army.” Then, graver: “If I’m bitter — I’ll keep it to myse’f.”
“I know, dear. . . . And — your sympathies would never lead you — permit you to any — indiscretion.”
“You mean in talking — ahem! — treason — to sick Confederates? I don’t have to, dear.”
“And. . . you must never mention anything concerning what you see inside our lines. You understand that, of course, don’t you, darling?”
“I hadn’t thought about it,” said Celia musingly.
Ailsa added vaguely: “There’s always a government detective hanging around the hospital.”
Celia nodded and gazed out of the open window. Very far away the purple top of a hill peeped above the forest. Ailsa had told her that a Confederate battery was there. And now she looked at it in silence, her blue eyes very soft, her lips resting upon one another in tender, troubled curves.
Somewhere on that hazy hill-top a new flag was flying; soldiers of a new nation were guarding it, unseen by her. It was the first outpost of her own people that she had ever seen; and she looked at it wistfully, proudly, her soul in her eyes. All the pain, all the solicitude, all the anguish of a Southern woman, and a wife of a Northern man, who had borne him Northern children deepened in her gaze, till her eyes dimmed and her lids quivered and closed; and Ailsa’s arms tightened around her.
“It is ve’y hard, Honey-bud,” was all she said.
She had Dr. West’s permission to read to the sick, mend their clothing, write letters for them, and perform such little offices as did not require the judgment of trained nurses.
By preference she devoted herself to the Confederate sick, but she was very sweet and gentle with all, ready to do anything any sick man asked; and she prayed in her heart that if her husband and her son were ever in need of such aid. God would send, in mercy, some woman to them, and not let them lie helpless in the clumsy hands of men.
She had only one really disagreeable experience. Early in March a government detective sent word that he wished to speak to her; and she went down to Dr. West’s office, where a red-faced, burly man sat smoking a very black cigar. He did not rise as she entered; and, surprised, she halted at the doorway.
“Are you Mrs. Craig?” he demanded, keeping his seat, his hat, and the cigar between his teeth.
“Are you a government detective?”
“Yes, I am.”
“Then stand up when you speak to me!” she said sharply. “I reckon a Yankee nigger has mo’ manners than you display.”
And the astonished detective presently found himself, hat in hand, cigar discarded, standing while Mrs. Craig, seated, replied indifferently to his very mild questions.
“Are you a Southerner, Mrs. Craig?”
“I am.”
“Your husband is Colonel Estcourt Craig, 3rd New York Zouaves?”
“He is.”
“You have a son serving in that regiment?”
“Yes.”
“Private soldier?”
“Yes.”
“You are not a volunteer nurse?”
“No.”
“Your sister-in-law, Mrs. Paige, is?”
“Yes.”
“Now, Mrs. Craig” — but he could not succeed in swaggering, with her calm, contemptuous eyes taking his measure— “now, Mrs. Craig, is it true that you own, a mansion called Paigecourt near Richmond?”
“I do.”
“It was your father’s house?”
“It was my father’s home befo’ he was married.”
“Oh. Who owns your father’s house — the one he lived in after he was married?”
“Mrs. Paige.”
“She is your sister-in-law? Your brother inherited this house?
And it is called Marye Mead, isn’t it?”
“Yes.”
“It is not occupied?”
“No.”
“Is Paigecourt — your own house — ah — occupied?”
“It is.”
“By an overseer?”
“By a housekeeper. The overseer occupies his own quarters.”
“I see. So you hold slaves.”
“There are negroes on the plantations. Mr. Paige, my father, freed his slaves befo’ I was married.”
The man looked surprised and incredulous.
“How did your father come to do that? I never heard of a Southern slave owner voluntarily freeing his slaves.”
“A number of gentlemen have done so, at va’ious times, and fo’ va’ious reasons,” said Celia quietly. “Mr. Paige’s reason was a personal matter. . . . Am I obliged to give it to you?”
