Before the Dawn Part 45

"I am here now, I may say, almost by chance," she continued. "After I left you I reached the main body of the Northern army in safety, and I intended to go at once to Washington, where I have relatives, though none so near and dear as Miss Grayson--you see I am really of the South, in part at least--but there was a long delay about a pa.s.s, the way of going and other such things, and while I was waiting General Grant began his great forward movement. There was nothing left for me to do then but to cling to the army--and--and I thought I might be of some use there.

Women may not be needed on a battlefield, but they are afterward."

"I, most of all men, ought to know that," said Prescott, earnestly.

"Don't I know that you, unaided, brought me to that house? Were it not for you I should probably have died alone in the Wilderness."

"I owed you something, Captain Prescott, and I have tried to repay a little," she said.

"You owe me nothing; the debt is all mine."

"Captain Prescott, I hope you do not think I have been unwomanly," she said.

"Unwomanly? Why should I think it?"

"Because I went to Richmond alone, though I did so really because I had nowhere else to go. You believe me a spy, and you think for that reason I was trying to escape from Richmond!"

She stopped and looked at Prescott, and when she met his answering gaze the flush in her cheeks deepened.

"Ah, I was right; you do think me a spy!" she exclaimed with pa.s.sionate earnestness, "and G.o.d knows I might have been one! Some such thought was in my mind when I went to Miss Grayson's in Richmond. That day in the President's office, when the people were at the reception I was sorely tempted, but I turned away. I went into that room with the full intention of being a spy. I admit it. Morally, I suppose that I was one until that moment, but when the opportunity came I could not do it. The temptation would come again, I knew, and it was one reason why I wished to leave Richmond, though my first attempt was made because I feared you--I did not know you then. I do not like the name of spy and I do not want to be one. But there were others, and far stronger reasons. A powerful man knew of my presence in that office on that day; he could have proved me guilty even though innocent, and he could have involved with my punishment the destruction of others. There was Miss Grayson--how could I bring ruin upon her head! And--and----"

She stopped and the brilliant colour suffused her face.

"You used the word 'others,'" said Prescott. "You mean that so long as you were in Richmond my ruin was possible because I helped you?"

She did not reply, but the vivid colour remained in her face.

"It is nothing to me," said Prescott, "whether you were or were not a spy, or whether you were tempted to be one. My conscience does not reproach me because I helped you, but I think that it would give me grievous hurt had I not done so. I am not fitted to be the judge of anybody, Miss Catherwood, least of all of you. It would never occur to me to think you unwomanly."

"You see that I value your good opinion, Captain Prescott," she said, smiling slightly.

"It is the only thing that makes my opinion of any worth."

Talbot approached at that moment. Prescott introduced him with the courtesy of the time, not qualified at all by their present circ.u.mstances, and he regarded Talbot's look of wonder and admiration with a secret pleasure. What would Talbot say, he thought, if he were to tell him that this was the girl for whom he had searched Miss Grayson's house?

"Prescott," said Talbot, "a bruised head has put you here and a scratched arm keeps me in the same fix, but this is almost our old crowd and Richmond again--Miss Harley and her brother, Mrs. Markham, you and myself. We ought to meet Winthrop, Raymond and General Wood."

"We may," added Prescott, "as they are all somewhere with the army; Raymond is probably printing an issue of his paper in the rear of it--he certainly has news--and as General Wood is usually everywhere we are not likely to miss him."

"I think it just as probable that we shall meet a troop of Yankee cavalry," said Talbot. "I don't know what they would want with a convoy of wounded Confederates, but I'm detailed to take you to safety and I'd like to do it."

He paused and looked at Lucia. Something in her manner gave him a pa.s.sing idea that she was not of his people.

"Still there is not much danger of that," he continued. "The Yankees are poor hors.e.m.e.n--not to be compared with ours, are they, Miss Catherwood?"

She met his gaze directly and smiled.

"I think the Yankee cavalry is very good," she said. "You may call me a Yankee, too, Captain Talbot. I am not traveling in disguise."

Talbot stroked his mustache, of which he was proud, and laughed.

"I thought so," he said; "and I can't say I'm sorry. I suppose I ought to hate all the Yankees, but really it will add to the spice of life to have with us a Yankee lady who is not afraid to speak her mind. Besides, if things go badly with us we can relieve our minds by attacking you."

Talbot was philosophical as well as amiable, and Prescott saw at once that he and Lucia would be good friends, which was a comfort, as it was in the power of the commander of the convoy to have made her life unpleasant.

Talbot stayed only a minute or two, then rode on to the head of the column, and when he was gone Lucia said:

"Captain Prescott, you must go back to your wagon; it is not wise for you to stay on your feet so long--at least, not yet."

He obeyed her reluctantly, and in a few moments the convoy moved on through the deep woods to the note of an occasional and distant cannon shot and a faint hum as of great armies moving. An hour later they heard a swift gallop and the figure of Wood at the head of a hundred hors.e.m.e.n appeared.

The mountaineer seemed to embrace the whole column in one comprehensive look that was a smile of pleasure when it pa.s.sed over the face of Helen Harley, a glance of curiosity when it lingered on Lucia Catherwood, and inquiry when it reached Talbot, who quickly explained his mission. All surrounded Wood, eager for news.

"We're going to meet down here somewhere near a place they call Spottsylvania," said the General succinctly. "It won't be many days--two or three, I guess--and it will be as rough a meeting as that behind us was. If I were you, Talbot, I'd keep straight on to the south."

Then the General turned with his troopers to go. It was not a time when he could afford to tarry; but before starting he took Helen Harley's hand in his with a grace worthy of better training:

"I'll bring you news of the coming battle, Miss Harley."

She thanked him with her eyes, and in a moment he was gone, he and his troopers swallowed up by the black forest. The convoy resumed its way through the Wilderness, pa.s.sing on at a pace that was of necessity slow owing to the wounded in the wagons and the rough and tangled nature of the country, which lost nothing of its wild and somber character. The dwarf cedars and oaks and pines still stretched away to the horizon.

Night began to come down in the east and there the Wilderness heaved up in a black ma.s.s against the sullen sky. The low note of a cannon shot came now and then like the faint rumble of dying thunder.

Lucia walked alone near the rear of the column. She had grown weary of the wagons and her strong young frame craved exercise. She was seldom afraid or awed, but now the sun sinking over the terrible Wilderness and the smoke of battle around chilled her. The long column of the hurt, winding its way so lonely and silent through the illimitable forest, seemed like a wreck cast up from the battles, and her soul was full of sympathy. In a nature of unusual strength her emotions were of like quality, and though once she had been animated by a deep and pa.s.sionate anger against that South with which she now marched, at this moment she found it all gone--slipped away while she was not noticing. She loved her own cause none the less, but no longer hated the enemy. She had received the sympathy and the friendship of a woman toward whom she had once felt a sensation akin to dislike. She did not forget how she had stood in the fringe of the crowd that day in Richmond and had envied Helen Harley when, in her glowing beauty, she received the tribute of the mult.i.tude. Now the two women were drawn together. Something that had been between them was gone, and in her heart Lucia knew what it was; but she rejoiced in a companionship and a friendship of her own s.e.x when she was among those who were not of her cause.

It was impossible to resist sharing the feelings of the column: when it was in dread lest some wandering echo might be the tread of Northern hors.e.m.e.n, she, too, was in dread. She wanted this particular column to escape, but when she looked toward another part of the Wilderness, saw the dim light and heard the far rumble of another cannon shot, she felt a secret glow of pride. Grant was still coming, always coming, and he would come to the end. The result was no longer in doubt; it was now merely a matter of time and patience.

The sun sank behind the Wilderness; the night came down, heavy, black and impenetrable; slow thunder told of rain, and Talbot halted the convoy in the densest part of the forest, where the shelter would be best--for he was not sure of his way and farther marching in the dark might take him into the enemy's camp. All day they had not pa.s.sed a single house nor met a single dweller in the Wilderness; if they had been near any woodcutter's hut it was hidden in a ravine and they did not see it. If a woodcutter himself saw them he remained in his covert in the thicket and they pa.s.sed on, unspoken.

Talbot thought it best to camp where they were for the night, and he drew up the wagons in a circle, in the centre of which were built fires that burned with a smoky flame. All hovered around the blaze, as they felt lonely in this vast Wilderness and were glad when the beds of coal began to form and glow red in the darkness. Even the wounded in the wagons turned their eyes that way and drew cheer from the ruddy glow.

A rumour arose presently, and grew. It said that a Yankee woman was among them, traveling with them. Some one added that she bore a pa.s.s from the powerful Mr. Sefton and was going to Richmond, but why he did not know. Then they looked about among the women and decided that it could be none save Lucia; but if there was any feeling of hostility toward her it soon disappeared. Other women were with the column, but none so strong, none so helpful as she. Always she knew what to do and when to do it. She never grew tired nor lost her good humour; her touch had healing in it, and the wounded grew better at the sight of her face.

"If all the Yankees are like her, I wish I had a few more with this column," murmured Talbot under his breath.

Lucia began to feel the change in the atmosphere about her. The coldness vanished. She looked upon the faces that welcomed her, and being a woman she felt warmth at her heart, but said nothing.

Prescott crawled again from his wagon and said to her as she pa.s.sed:

"Why do you avoid me, Miss Catherwood?"

A gleam of humour appeared in her eye.

"You are getting well too fast. I do not think you will need any more attention," she replied.

He regarded her with an unmoved countenance.

"Miss Catherwood," he said, "I feel myself growing very much worse. It is a sudden attack and a bad one."

But she pa.s.sed on, disbelieving, and left him rueful.

The night went by without event, and then another day and another night, and still they hovered in the rear of their army, uncertain which way to go, tangled up in the Wilderness and fearing at any moment a raid of the Northern cavalry. They yet saw the dim fire in the forest, and no hour was without its distant cannon shot.