An Original Belle Part 51

"Suwanee is right," said Mrs. Barkdale, smiling. "Captain Lane has had the sense to see that my little girl is good-hearted in spite of her nonsense."

The girl's lip was quivering but she concealed the fact by savagely biting off her thread, and then was impa.s.sive again.

"I sincerely regret with you both," resumed their mother, "that these two gentlemen must go from our home to prison, especially so since receiving a letter from Captain Lane, couched in terms of the strongest respect and courtesy, and enclosing a hundred dollars in Northern money as a slight compensation--so he phrased it--for what had been done for his men. Of course he meant to include himself and the surgeon, but had too much delicacy to mention the fact. He also stated that he would have sent more, but that it was nearly all they had."

"You did not keep the money!" exclaimed the two girls in the same breath.

"I do not intend to keep it," said the lady, quietly, "and shall hand it back to him with suitable acknowledgments. I only mention the fact to convince Roberta that Captain Lane is not the typical Yankee, and we have much reason to be thankful that men of a different stamp were not quartered upon us. And yet," continued the matron, with a deep sigh, "you little know how sorely we need the money.

Your father's and brothers' pay is losing its purchasing power.

The people about here all profess to be very hot for the South, but when you come to buy anything from them what they call 'Link.u.m money' goes ten times as far. We have never known anything but profusion, but now we are on the verge of poverty."

"Oh, well," said Suwanee, recklessly, "starving isn't the worst thing that could happen."

"Alas! my child, you can't realize what poverty means. Your heart is as free from care as the birds around us, and, like them, you think you will be provided for."

The girl sprung up with a ringing laugh, and kissed her mother as she exclaimed, "I'll cut off my hair, put on one of brother Bob's old suits, and enlist;" and then she left the room.

At supper there was a constraint on all except Suwanee. Mrs. Barkdale and Roberta felt themselves to be in an embarra.s.sing position. The men at the table, who had been guests so long, would be marched away as prisoners from their door in the morning. The usages of war could not satisfy their womanly and chivalric natures, or make them forget the courtesy and respect which, in spite of prejudices, had won so much good-will. Lane scarcely sought to disguise his perplexity and distress. Honest Surgeon McAllister, who knew that they all had been an awful burden, was as troubled as some men are pleased when they get much for nothing. Suwanee appeared in a somewhat new role. She was the personification of dignity and courtesy. She acted as if she knew all and was aware that their guests did. Therefore levity would be in bad taste, and their only resource was the good breeding which ignores the disagreeable and the inevitable. Her mother looked on her with pride, and wondered at so fine an exibition of tact. She did not know that the poor girl had a new teacher, and that she was like an inexorable general who, in a desperate fight, summons all his reserve and puts forth every effort of mind and body.

Lane had not found a chance to say one word to Suwanee in private during the day, but after supper she went to the piano and began to play some Southern airs with variations of her own improvising.

He immediately joined her and said, "We shall not attempt to escape; we are too closely watched."

She did not reply.

"Miss Suwanee," he began again, and distress and sorrow were in his tones, "I hardly know how to speak to you of what troubles me more than the thought of captivity. How can I manage with such proud, chivalric women as you and your mother and sister? But I am not blind, nor can I ignore the prosaic conditions of our lot. I respect your pride; but have a little mercy on mine,--nay, let me call it bare self-respect. We have caused you the loss of your laborers, your fields are bare, and you have emptied your larder in feeding my men, yet your mother will not take even partial compensation.

You can't realize how troubled I am."

"You, like ourselves, must submit to the fortunes of war," she replied, with a sudden gleam of her old mirthfulness.

"A bodily wound would be a trifle compared with this," he resumed, earnestly. "O Miss Suwanee, have I won no rights as a friend?

rather, let me ask, will you not generously give me some rights?"

"Yes, Captain Lane," she said, gently, "I regard you as a friend, and I honor you as a true man. Though the war should go on forever I should not change in these respects unless you keep harping on this financial question."

"Friends frankly accept gifts from friends; let it be a gift then, by the aid of which you can keep your mother from privation.

Suwanee, Suwanee, why do you refuse to take this dross from me when I would give my heart's blood to shield you from harm?"

"You are talking wildly, Captain Lane," she said, with a laugh.

"Your heart belongs to Miss Vosburgh, and therefore all its blood."

"She would be the first to demand and expect that I should risk all and give all for one to whom I owe so much and who is so deserving."

"I require of her no such sacrifice," Suwanee replied, coldly, "nor of you either, Captain Lane. Unforeseen circ.u.mstances have thrown us together for a time. We have exchanged all that is possible between those so divided,--esteem and friendship. If my father thinks it best he will obtain compensation from our government.

Perhaps, in happier times, we may meet again," she added, her tone and manner becoming gentle once more; "and then I hope you will find me a little more like what you have thought me to be."

"G.o.d grant that we may meet again. There, I can't trust myself to speak to you any more. Your unaffected blending of humility and pride with rare, unconscious n.o.bility touches my very soul.

Our leave-taking in the morning must be formal. Good-by, Suwanee Barkdale. As sure as there is a G.o.d of justice your life will be filled full with happiness."

Instead of taking his proffered hand, she trembled, turned to the piano, and said hastily between the notes she played: "Control yourself and listen. We may be observed. You and the surgeon be ready to open your door and follow me at any time to-night. Hang your sword where it may be seen through the open window. I have contrived a chance--a bare chance--of your escape. Bow and retire."

He did so. She bent her head in a courtly manner towards him, and then went on with her playing of Southern airs.

A moment later the rebel sergeant disappeared from some shrubbery a little beyond the parlor window, and chuckled, "The Yankee captain has found out that he can't make either an ally or a sweetheart out of a Southern girl; but I suspicioned her a little last night."

At two o'clock that night there was an almost imperceptible tap at Lane's door. He opened it noiselessly, and saw Suwanee with her finger on her lips.

"Carry your shoes in your hands," she said, and then led the way down the stairs to the parlor window. Again she whispered: "The guard here is bribed,--bribed by kindness. He says I saved his life when he was wounded. Steal through the shrubbery to the creek-road; continue down that, and you'll find a guide. Not a word. Good-by."

She gave her hand to the surgeon, whose honest eyes were moist with feeling, and then he dropped lightly to the ground.

"Suwanee," began Lane.

"Hush! Go."

Again he raised her hand to his lips, again heard that same low, involuntary sob that had smote his heart the preceding night; and then followed the surgeon. The guard stood out in the garden with his back towards them, as, like shadows, they glided away.

On the creek-road the old colored man who worked in the garden joined them, and led the way rapidly to the creek, where under some bushes a skiff with oars was moored. Lane slipped twenty dollars into the old man's hand, and then he and his companion pushed out into the sluggish current, and the surgeon took the oars and pulled quietly through the shadows of the overhanging foliage. The continued quiet proved that their escape had not been discovered. Food had been placed in the boat. The stream led towards the Potomac. With the dawn they concealed themselves, and slept during the day, travelling all the following night. The next day they were so fortunate as to fall in with a Union scouting party, and so eventually reached Washington; but the effort in riding produced serious symptoms in Lane's wound, and he was again doomed to quiet weeks of convalescence, as has already been intimated to the reader.

When Mrs. Barkdale and Roberta came down the next morning they found Suwanee in the breakfast room, fuming with apparent irritability.

"Here is that Lieutenant Macklin again," she said, "and he is very impatient, saying that his orders are imperative, and that he is needed on some special duty. His orders are to convey the prisoners to the nearest railroad station, and then report for some active service. From all I can gather it is feared that the Yankees propose an attack on Richmond, now that General Lee is away."

"It's strange that Captain Lane and the surgeon don't come down,"

Roberta remarked. "I truly wish, however, that we had not to meet them again."

"Well, since it must be, the sooner the ordeal is over the better,"

said Suwanee, with increasing irritation. "Captain Lane has sense enough to know that we are not responsible for his being taken away."

"Hildy," said Mrs. Barkdale, "go up and tell the gentlemen that breakfast is ready."

In a few moments the old woman returned in a fl.u.s.ter and said, "I knock on de doah, and dey ain't no answer."

"What!" exclaimed Suwanee, in the accents of surprise; then, sharply, "go and knock louder, and wake them up," adding, "it's very strange."

Hildy came back with a scared look, and said, "I knock and knock; den I open de doah, and der' ain't no one dere."

"They must be out in the grounds for a walk," exclaimed Roberta.

"Haven't you seen them this morning?"

"I ain't seen nuffin' nor heard nuffin'," protested the old woman.

"Girls, this is serious," said Mrs. Barkdale, rising; and she summoned Lieutenant Macklin, who belonged to a cla.s.s not received socially by the family.

"We have but this moment discovered," said the lady, "that Captain Lane and Surgeon McAllister are not in their room. Therefore we suppose they are walking in the grounds. Will you please inform them that breakfast is waiting?"

"Pardon me, madam, they cannot be outside, or I should have been informed."

"Then you must search for them, sir. The house, grounds, and buildings are open to you."