An Original Belle Part 28

Even then Burnside would have crossed, and, in spite of his opponent's preparations and every other obstacle, would have fought a battle, had he not been paralyzed by a foe with which no general could cope,--Virginia mud. The army mired helplessly, supply trains could not reach it. With difficulty the troops were led back to their old quarters, and so ended the disastrous campaigns of the year, so far as the army of the Potomac was concerned.

The storm that drenched and benumbed the soldiers on the Rappahannock was equally furious in the city of New York, and Mr. Vosburgh sat down to dinner frowning and depressed. "It seems as if fate is against us," he said. "This storm is general, I fear, and may prove more of a defence to Lee than his fortifications at Fredericksburg.

It's bad enough to have to cope with treachery and disaffection."

"Treachery, papa?"

"Yes, treachery," replied her father, sternly. "Scoundrels in our own army informed Washington disunionists of the cavalry movement of which Captain Lane wrote you, and these unmolested enemies at the capital are in constant communication with Lee. When will our authorities and the North awake to the truth that this is a life-and-death struggle, and that there must be no more nonsense?"

"Would to Heaven I were a man!" said the young girl. "At this very moment, no doubt, Mr. Merwyn is enjoying his sumptuous dinner, while my friends may be fording a dark, cold river to meet their death.

Oh! I can't eat anything to-night."

"Nonsense!" cried her mother, irritably.

"Come, little girl, you are taking things too much to heart. I am very glad you are not a man. In justice, I must also add that Mr.

Merwyn is doing more for the cause than any of your friends. It so happens that I have learned that he is doing a great deal of which little is known."

"Pardon me," cried the girl, almost pa.s.sionately. "Any man who voluntarily faces this storm, and crosses that river to-night or to-morrow, does infinitely more in my estimation."

Her father smiled, but evidently his appet.i.te was flagging also, and he soon went out to send and receive some cipher despatches.

Merwyn was growing hungry for some evidence of greater friendliness than he had yet received. Hitherto, he had never seen Marian alone when calling, and the thought had occurred that if he braved the storm in paying her a visit, the effort might be appreciated. One part of his hope was fulfilled, for he found her drawing-room empty.

While he waited, that other stormy and memorable evening when he had sought to find her alone flashed on his memory, and he feared that he had made a false step in coming.

This impression was confirmed by her pale face and distant greeting.

In vain he put forth his best efforts to interest her. She remained coldly polite, took but a languid part in the conversation, and at times even permitted him to see that her thoughts were preoccupied.

He had been humble and patient a long time, and now, in spite of himself, his anger began to rise.

Feeling that he had better take his leave while still under self-control, and proposing also to hint that she had failed somewhat in courtesy, he arose abruptly and said: "You are not well this evening, Miss Vosburgh? I should have perceived the fact earlier.

I wish you good-night."

She felt the slight sting of his words, and was in no mood to endure it. Moreover, if she had failed in such courtesy as he had a right to expect, he should know the reason, and she felt at the moment willing that he should receive the implied reproach.

Therefore she said: "Pardon me, I am quite well. It is natural that I should be a little distraite, for I have learned that my friends are exposed to this storm, and will probably engage in another terrible battle to-morrow, or soon."

Again the old desperate expression, that she remembered so well, came into his eyes as he exclaimed, bitterly: "You think me a coward because I remain in the city? What is this storm, or that battle, compared with what I am facing! Good-night;" and, giving her no chance for further words, he hastened away.

CHAPTER XXI.

FEARS AND PERPLEXITIES.

MERWYN found the storm so congenial to his mood that he breasted it for hours before returning to his home. There, in weariness and reaction, he sank into deep dejection.

"What is the use of anger?" he asked himself, as he renewed the dying fire in his room. "In view of all the past, she has more cause for resentment than I, while it is a matter of indifference to her whether I am angry or not. I might as well be incensed at ice because it is cold, and she is ice to me. She has her standard and a circle of friends who come up to it. This I never have done and never can do. Therefore she only tolerates me and is more than willing that I should disappear below her horizon finally. I was a fool to speak the words I did to-night. What can they mean to her when nothing is left for me, apparently, but a safe, luxurious life?

Such outbreaks can only seem hysterical or mere affectations, and there shall be no more of them, let the provocation be what it may.

Indeed, why should I inflict myself on her any more? I cannot say that she has not a woman's heart, but I wronged and chilled it from the first, and cannot now retrieve myself. If I should go to her to-morrow, even in a private's uniform, she would give me her hand cordially, but she compares me with hundreds of thousands who seem braver men than I. It is useless for me to suggest that I am doing more than those who go to fight. Her thought would be: 'I have all the friends I need among more knightly spirits who are not afraid to look brave enemies in the face, and without whom the North would be disgraced. Let graybeards furnish the sinews of war; let young men give their blood if need be. It is indeed strange that a man's arm should be paralyzed, and his best hope in life blighted, by a mother!'"

If he could have known Marian's thoughts and heard the conversation that ensued with her father, he would not have been so despondent.

When he left her so abruptly she again experienced the compunctions she had felt before. Whether he deserved it or not she could not shut her eyes to the severity of the wound inflicted, or to his suffering. In vain she tried to a.s.sure herself that he did deserve it.

Granting this, the thoughts a.s.serted themselves: "Why am I called upon to resent his course? Having granted his request to visit me, I might, at least, be polite and affable on his own terms. Because he wishes more, and perhaps hopes for more, this does not, as papa says, commit me in the least. He may have some scruple in fighting openly against the land of his mother's ancestry. If that scruple has more weight with him than my friendly regard, that is his affair.

His words to-night indicated that he must be under some strong restraint. O dear! I wish I had never known him; he perplexes and worries me. The course of my other friends is simple and straightforward as the light. Why do I say other friends? He's not a friend at all, yet my thoughts return to him in a way that is annoying."

When her father came home she told him what had occurred, and unconsciously permitted him to see that her mind was disturbed.

He did not smile quizzically, as some sagacious people would have done, thus touching the young girl's pride and arraying it against her own best interests, it might be. With the thought of her happiness ever uppermost, he would discover the secret causes of her unwonted perturbation. Not only Merwyn--about whom he had satisfied himself--should have his chance, but also the girl herself. Mrs.

Vosburgh's conventional match-making would leave no chance for either. The profounder man believed that nature, unless interfered with by heavy, unskilful hands, would settle the question rightly.

He therefore listened without comment, and at first only remarked, "Evidently, Marian, you are not trying to make the most and best of this young fellow."

"But, papa, am I bound to do this for people who are disagreeable to me and who don't meet my views at all?"

"Certainly not. Indeed, you may have frozen Merwyn out of the list of your acquaintances already."

"Well," replied the girl, almost petulantly, "that, perhaps, will be the best ending of the whole affair."

"That's for you to decide, my dear."

"But, papa, I FEEL that you don't approve of my course."

"Neither do I disapprove of it. I only say, according to our bond to be frank, that you are unfair to Merwyn. Of course, if he is essentially disagreeable to you, there is no occasion for you to make a martyr of yourself."

"That's what irritates me so," said the girl, impetuously. "He might have made himself very agreeable. But he undervalued and misunderstood me so greatly from the first that it was hard to forgive him."

"If he hadn't shown deep contrition and regret for that course I shouldn't wish you to forgive him, even though his antecedents had made anything better scarcely possible."

"Come down to the present hour, then. What he asked of you is one thing. I see what he wishes. He desires, at least, the friendship that I give to those who fulfil my ideal of manhood in these times.

He has no right to seek this without meeting the conditions which remove all hesitation in regard to others. It angers me that he does so. I feel as if he were seeking to buy my good-will by donations to this, that, and the other thing. He still misunderstands me.

Why can't he realize that, to one of my nature, fording the icy Rappahannock to-night would count for more than his writing checks for millions?"

"Probably he does understand it, and that is what he meant by his words to-night, when he said, 'What is this storm, or what a battle?'"

She was overwrought, excited, and off her guard, and spoke from a deep impulse. "A woman, in giving herself, gives everything. If he can't give up a scruple--I mean if his loyalty is so slight that his mother's wishes and dead ancestors--"

"My dear little girl, you are not under the slightest obligation to give anything," resumed her father, discreetly oblivious to the significance of her words. "If you care to give a little good-will and kindness to one whom you have granted the right to visit you, they will tend to confirm and develop the better and manly qualities he is now manifesting. You know I have peculiar faculties of finding out about people, and, incidentally and casually, I have informed myself about this Mr. Merwyn. I think I can truly say that he is doing all and more than could be expected of a young fellow in his circ.u.mstances, with the one exception that he does not put on our uniform and go to the front. He may have reasons--very possibly, as you think, mistaken and inadequate ones--which, nevertheless, are binding on his conscience. What else could his words mean to-night?

He is not living a life of pleasure-seeking and dissipation, like so many other young nabobs in the city. Apparently he has not sought much other society than yours. Pardon me for saying it, but you have not given him much encouragement to avoid the temptations that are likely to a.s.sail a lonely, irresponsible young fellow. In one sense you are under no obligation to do this; in another, perhaps you are, for you must face the fact that you have great influence over him. This influence you must either use or throw away, as you decide. You are not responsible for this influence; neither are your friends responsible for the war. When it came, however, they faced the disagreeable and dangerous duties that it brought."

"O papa! I have been a stupid, resentful fool."

"No, my dear; at the worst you have been misled by generous and loyal impulses. Your deep sympathy with recent events has made you morbid, and therefore unfair. To your mind Mr. Merwyn represented the half-hearted element that shuns meeting what must be met at every cost. If this were true of him I should share in your spirit, but he appears to be trying to be loyal and to do what he can in the face of obstacles greater than many overcome."