Ailsa Paige Part 35

The household below stairs was inclined to tears; old Jonas sniffled and shuffled about, shrunken hands hanging helpless, mild eyes following his young mistress as she moved decisively from room to room, gathering up or indicating to servants what she required for her journey.

Shawls, handbags, umbrellas, cloaks, and trunk were packed and strapped and carried off below. Letty arrived with her trunk, was taken to Ailsa's room where luncheon for two was ready on a big silver tray.

Later Jonas arrived, still sniffling, to announce the hack; and the two gray-garbed women hurried away amid the hysterical snivel of servants and the friendly mewing of Missy, who trotted after them to the front door, tail erect, followed by her latest progeny on diminutive and wavering legs.

All the way to the ferry Ailsa sat silent in her corner of the hack, worried, reflecting, trying to recollect what it was that she had left undone.

Something important she certainly had forgotten; she knew it, searching her mind, while Letty furtively watched her in silence, gloved hands clasped in her lap.

And suddenly Ailsa knew, and a flood of colour dyed her face; for the vague sense of leaving something undone was the instinct to let Berkley know she was going-the blind, unreasoning need for some communication with him.

Had it been possible that all this time she had not utterly uprooted this man from her insulted heart! Had hope, all this time, unconsciously lived latent in her; was it possible that somehow, somewhere, there remained a chance for him yet-a chance for her-a cure-the only cure for all he had done to her-himself!

She reddened painfully again as memory, insolent, imperious, flashed in her brain, illuminating the unquiet past, sparing her nothing-no, not one breathless heart beat, not one atom of the shame and the sweetness of it, not one dishonourable thrill she had endured for love of him, not one soundless cry at night where she lay tortured, dumb, hands clenched but arms wide flung as her heart beat out his name, calling, calling to the man who had ended himself for ever.

And Letty, silent in her comer, watched her without a word.

At the station, scarcely knowing what she did, Ailsa stopped at the telegraph office and wrote a despatch to him, addressing it to his old lodgings:

"I don't know whether this will ever reach you, but I can't go without trying to let you know that I am leaving for Washington as volunteer nurse. They have my address at the house.

"AILSA PAIGE."

Then the two gray-garbed women hurried to the train, but found no seats together until a lank, sad-eyed lieutenant of artillery gave up his place and doubled in with a sweating, red-necked contractor from St. Louis, who sat in his shirt sleeves, fanning himself with his straw hat.

The day was hot; the car dusty, ill-smelling, uncomfortable.

At Philadelphia their train was stalled for hours. Two long trains, loaded with ammunition and a section of field-artillery, had right of way; and then another train filled with jeering, blue-clad infantry blocked them.

The soldiers, bare headed and in their undershirts, lolled and yelled and hung from the car windows, chewing tobacco, smoking, or gazing, jaws a-gape, at the crowds in the station.

Another train rolled by, trailing a suffocating stench of cattle and hogs from its slatted stock-cars; and Ailsa was almost stifled before her train at last moved heavily southward, saluted by good-natured witticisms from the soldiers at the windows of the stalled troop train.

Evening came, finding them somewhere in Delaware; the yellow stars appeared, the air freshened a little. Letty had fallen asleep; her dark lashes rested quietly on her cheeks, but the car jolted her head cruelly, and Ailsa gently drew it to her own shoulder and put one arm around her.

A major of heavy artillery turned toward her from his seat and said:

"Are you a volunteer nurse, ma'am?"

"Yes," motioned Ailsa with her lips, glancing cautiously at Letty.

"Can I do anything for you at Wilmington?"

She thanked him, smiling. He was disposed to be very friendly.

"You ladies arc the right stuff," he said. "I've seen you aboard those abominable transports, behaving like angels to the poor sea-sick devils. I saw you after Big Bethel, sc.r.a.ping the blood and filth off of the wounded zouaves; I saw you in Washington after Bull Run, doing acts of mercy that, by G.o.d, madam! would have turned my stomach... . Won't you let me do something for you. You don't need any whisky for your sick boys, do you?"

Ailsa smiled and shook her head, saying they had not yet been a.s.signed to duty.

"I haven't anything else to offer you except tobacco," said the Major ruefully, and subsided.

At Wilmington, however, he got out, and presently reappeared with hard-boiled eggs and sandwiches, a big bottle of cold, sweet milk, and a basket of fruit. Letty awoke; realised that Ailsa had been holding her in her arms; looked at her in confusion, then impulsively bent and laid her lips against Ailsa's hands.

"Why-child-I didn't mind," faltered Ailsa, flushing in response to Letty's swift emotion. "See what this very kind officer has brought us for dinner, dear! Isn't it delicious?"

They were as hungry as two school children and ate everything; and by and by the Major of heavy artillery came back and reversed the seat he had been occupying, and arranged it so he could sit facing them. He was fat, red-faced, with a pair of terrific moustaches, and a closely clipped head showing two scars.

"I've daughters older than you, ma'am," he said, in part explanation of his friendliness. "One's got a new baby. He's a devil!"

"W-what?" asked Ailsa.

"The right kind of devil, ma'am. I've been to see him! He wanted my sword; he tried to chew off my shoulder straps; he almost impaled himself on my spurs. By heaven, ma'am, that's a boy for you!"

Ailsa smiled. She knew about babies; implanted in her had always been a perfect madness to possess one.

She and the red-faced Major talked babies. Letty, knowing nothing about babies and not deeply interested, lay back in her seat, watching Ailsa in the dim light of the ceiling lamps. She seemed never to have enough of Ailsa. It had been so from the first.

In Baltimore dawn was breaking when Ailsa awoke at the summons of the major; and he remained devoted to the two nurses of Sainte Ursula, attending to their baggage and transfer across the city, finding seats in the waiting-room already invaded by the officers of several regiments in transit, and finally saw them safely aboard the cars again.

"Good-bye, little ladies," he said cheerily. "If I'm hit, G.o.d send one of you to wash my face for me. My card, ladies-if I may be permitted the honour. I'm to be at Fortress Monroe as soon as my command leaves Baltimore."

After he had gone away, Ailsa looked at his card:

A. J. DENISLOW MAJOR, ART., U. S. A.

"I thought he was a regular," she said, smiling at Letty. "He's a perfect old dear. Shall we open the parcel and see what he has left us for breakfast?"

There was more milk, more peaches and pears, more bread and b.u.t.ter, and a cold roast chicken; and they made very merry over it, doing the best they could without knife and fork.

They were nearing Washington now. Every little while they pa.s.sed bodies of troops marching or encamped along the roads; and once they saw a line of army waggons, drab coloured, with yellow canvas tops, moving slowly in clouds of dust.

In the limpid morning light buzzards were already soaring over the green fields; the fresh odour of wild flowers came blowing in at the open car window; b.u.t.terflies fluttered, wind-driven, helpless.

And now they were pa.s.sing mounds of freshly turned red earth-long stretches of hillocks banked high and squared at the ends. Hundreds of negroes were at work sodding them; here and there a flag fluttered and a bayonet gleamed.

"I believe all these little hills and ditches have something to do with forts," said Ailsa. "Certainly that great mound must be part of a fort. Do you see the cannon?"

Letty nodded, wide-eyed. And now they were pa.s.sing soldiers on every road, at every bridge, along every creek bank.

Squads of them, muskets shining, marched briskly along beside the railroad track; sentinels stood at every culvert, every flag house, every water tank and local station past which they rolled without stopping. Acres of white tents flashed into view; houses and negro cabins became thicker; brick houses, too, appeared at intervals, then half-finished blocks fronting the dusty roads, then rows and lines of dwellings, and street after street swarming with negroes and whites. And before they realised it they had arrived.

They descended from the car amid a pandemonium of porters, hackmen, soldiers, newsboys, distracted fellow-pa.s.sengers, locomotives noisily blowing off steam, baggagemen trundling and slamming trunks about; and stood irresolute and confused.

"Could you direct us to the offices of the Sanitary Commission?" asked Ailsa of a pa.s.sing soldier wearing the insignia of the hospital service on his sleeve.

"You bet I can, ladies! Are you nurses?"

"Yes," said Ailsa, smiling.