Kitty's Conquest Part 7

And now, looking quickly at Miss Kitty, I saw that she had risen and was eagerly gazing at them, a strange, wistful light in her sweet young face.

"What is it all, colonel?" I inquired.

"The cavalry left for New Orleans at dark. Amory got telegraphic orders soon after we left, and Vinton came in from the West by the evening train and took command at the station. Neither of them had time to come out here to say good-by," he added, with an involuntary glance at Kitty, while still holding Pauline's hand in his own.

"You saw Major Vinton?" Pauline calmly asked.

"Yes, dear. I have a note for you. He was only there thirty minutes.

Amory had the troop, horses and all, on the cars before the Memphis train got in."

She took her note and with him walked into the library. Irresolutely I stepped out on the gallery a moment. Then returning for a cigar or something consolatory, I nearly collided with Miss Kitty at the parlor-door. She recoiled a pace; then with her bonny head bowed in her hands, with great sobs shaking her slender form, my unheroic little heroine rushed past me and up the stairs to her own room. I felt like a spy.

CHAPTER VII.

The next few days pa.s.sed somewhat gloomily. Eager interest centred in the daily paper from New Orleans. The _Times_ in those days was "run"

entirely in the interest of a strong faction not inaptly termed "carpet-baggers." Few of the Republican party of the white element had been natives and property-owners in the State before the war. All of the colored race, most of them at least, had been residents perhaps, but held as property rather than as property-owners. The _Picayune_, always the representative of the old _regime_ in the South, was naturally the journal which found its way into our distant household. Its pictures of affairs in the Crescent City were startling beyond question, and its columns were filled with grave portent of riot, insurrection, and bloodshed.

Judge Summers was visibly worried by its reports. Harrod looked gloomy and ill at ease; Pauline very grave; Kitty picturesquely doleful. All, however, seemed to relax no effort to make me feel at home and "entertained," but the evident cloud overshadowed me. I began to want to get away.

If all New Orleans were swept by the flames, my personal losses would be slight; but the small library I owned would be an excuse. My confidence that neither side would set fire to anything was only equalled by that which I felt that both would join forces to put it out if they did. For two years we had been having just the same exhilarating experiences, and it never came to burning anything but a little powder. Sometimes one side, sometimes another would raise a huge mob, and with much pomp and parade, with much blatant speech-making and wide publication of their intentions, would march noisily through the streets towards some public building, at that moment held by the opposite party, avowedly for the purpose of taking it by force of arms. The first year there had been some desultory shooting, but no casualties to speak of. The second there had been less damage, though far more display; for by this time there were three parties in the field. Then, however, Uncle Sam a.s.sumed the _role_ of peace-maker; sent a general thither with his staff (giving him a major-general's t.i.tle and a major's force), with vague orders as to what he was to do, as I chanced to know, beyond keeping the peace and upholding the law and the const.i.tuted authorities. As three parties claimed to be the "const.i.tuted authorities," it seemed embarra.s.sing at times to tell which to uphold. Washington officials declined to decide for him, so the veteran soldier hit on the happy expedient of upholding the party that was attacked. This put him squarely in the right so far as keeping the peace was concerned; for whichever crowd sallied forth to whip the other, invariably found a small battalion of bayonets, or on one occasion a solitary aide-de-camp representing the United States.

They would not "fire on the flag"; so retired to thunder at one another through the press. But it put him squarely in the wrong where settling the question for good and all was concerned. So long as the factions felt sure they would not be allowed to fight, the more they talked about doing it; and the real sufferers were the patient, plodding infantry officers and men, who were kept trudging up and down, night and day, from town to barracks. They were tired, hungry, jaded-looking fellows that winter. I had called three of them into my room one chill morning after they had been standing all night on the curbstones of the State-house waiting for an attack they knew would never come; warmed them up with coffee or c.o.c.ktails as they might prefer; then one of them opened his heart.

"This whole thing is the most infernal farce," said he. "Ten to one the true way to stop it is to send us miles away and let them get at one another. The Lord knows I'd afford them every encouragement. They don't want to fight. If old General Fitz Blazes would only send me with my company _behind_ instead of between these howling idiots they'd evaporate quick enough."

Well I recalled every bit of this! It was when the "radical" party was split up into local factions, each demanding the State-house--and the Treasury; but--things were different now. The old residents, the business men, the representative citizens of the city had stood that sort of thing just as long as human endurance and their ebbing purses could stand it. They now had organized and risen against the perturbed State authorities; and when that cla.s.s of men began shooting somebody was going to be hurt. As yet nothing aggressive had been done; but the Republican government was tottering on its Louisiana throne, and appealed for aid. This it was that was sending troops from all directions to the Crescent City. I decided to go and protect my lares and penates, trivial though they might be.

To my relief, yet surprise, the moment I mentioned this to Colonel Summers his face lighted up with an expression of delight.

"Mr. Brandon, we'll go together, and as soon as you like."

Noticing my evident surprise, he added, "To tell the truth I ought to go, and at once. Will you come into father's library and let me explain?"

a.s.senting, as a matter of course, I followed him. Pauline was seated by her father's side as we entered, writing, as she often did, from his dictation.

"Father," broke in the colonel, abruptly, "we can spare you all that work. Mr. Brandon tells me he has decided to go at once to New Orleans.

I will go with him, and take the papers."

The judge rose somewhat slowly--anxiety had told on him very much in the last day or two--and greeted me with his old-fashioned courtesy.

"It is a source of great regret to me--to us all--that you should leave us; yet you have doubtless anxieties, as indeed I have,--great ones,--and I wish it were in my power to go myself; but that cannot be, for a fortnight at least; and by that time, as things are looking now, it may be too late,--it may be too late. My son will tell you----" he broke off suddenly.

Miss Summers had risen; her sweet, thoroughbred face had grown a little paler of late, and she stood anxiously regarding her father, but saying not a word. For some moments we sat in general conversation; then, noticing how tired the judge was looking, I rose, saying it was time to make preparations.

Two hours later, the old carriage rattled up to the steps. The colonel stood aside, holding some final consultation with his father. Miss Summers, with a blush that was vastly becoming to her, handed me a letter for the major. "As yet, you know, Major Vinton has not been able to send me his New Orleans address. They are barely there by this time; but you were so incautious as to offer to take anything to him, so I burden you with this."

Kitty Carrington was looking on with wistful eyes.

"And you, little lady? what note or message will you intrust to me?"

She had smoothed back her bright hair. She was looking again as she had the night she begged to play nurse over our unconscious Mars. She looked older, graver, but so gentle, so patient in the trouble that had come into her young life. Whatever that trouble might have been _I_ could not say. There was something very pathetic about the slender little figure as she stood there.

For all answer to my question, she shook her head, smiling rather sadly, yet striving to throw archness into her accompanying gesture. The faint shrug of her pretty shoulders, the forward movement of her hands, with open and extended palms,--something so Southern in it all. I could not help noting it. Possibly I stared, as previous confessions indicate that I had that adventurous night in the cars.

My rudeness caused her to turn sharply away with heightened color.

Then came general good-byes, good speeds, good lucks, promises to write,--those promises, like so many others, made only to be broken. We clambered into the carriage. Already the driver was gathering his whip and reins; had "chucked" to his sleepy team. Harrod was sitting on the side nearest the group on the steps; I craning my neck forward for a last look at them. Kitty was eagerly bending forward; her lips parted, her eyes dilated, her fingers working nervously. Already the wheels had begun to crunch through the gravel, when with sudden movement she darted like a bird down the steps.

"_Harrod!_" she cried.

"Hold on, driver," was the response, as he bent to the doorway to meet her.

Standing on tiptoe, her tiny white hands clutching his arm, a vivid color shooting over her face, her eyes one moment nervously, apprehensively, reproachfully glancing at me, plainly saying, "Please don't listen," then, raised to his bronzed, tender face, as he bent ear towards her lips in response to the evident appeal. She rapidly whispered half a dozen words. "_Do_ you understand? _Sure_ you understand?" she questioned eagerly, as now she leaned back, looking up into his eyes.

He bent still farther, kissed her forehead. "Sure," he nodded. "Sure."

Then back she sprang. Crack went the whip, and we rolled away towards the gate.

Looking back, my eyes took in for the last time the old home; and the picture lingers with me, will live with me to the end of my lonely life.

The red-gold light of the setting sun streamed in all its glory on the southern front of the quaint plantation house. The tangled shrubbery, the sombre line of the dense forest beyond the fields, the vines and tendrils that clung about the gallery railing and the wooden pillars, the low-hanging eaves, the moss-covered line of porch-roof,--all were tinged, gilded, gleaming here and there with the warmth and glow of the gladness-giving rays. The windows above blazed with their reflected glory. Even old Blondo's curly hide and Jake Biggs's woolly pate gained a l.u.s.tre they never knew before. All around the evidences of approaching decay and present dilapidation, so general throughout the bright sunny South years after the war, all around the homeliest objects, the wheelbarrow and garden tools, there clung a tinge of gladness in answering homage to the declining king of day; but, central figures of all, the trio we left upon the steps, _they_ fairly stood in a halo of mellow gold. The gray-haired gentleman waving his thin hand in parting salutation; the n.o.ble, womanly girl at his side, half supporting, half leaning upon him; and on the lower stair, kissing her hand, waving her dainty kerchief, her eyes dancing, her cheeks aflame, her white teeth flashing through the parted lips, her fragile form all radiance, all sweet, glowing, girlish beauty, stood Kitty Carrington; she who but a moment before had seemed so patiently sad.

"Did you ever see anything prettier?" I gasped, as at last the winding roadway hid them from our sight.

"Kitty, Brandon?--she's a darling!" was the warm-hearted answer.

That was precisely my opinion.

All the way into Sandbrook I was tortured with curiosity to know the purport of the mysterious parting whisper. It would not do to let Colonel Summers suspect that of me; neither would it answer to propound any question. We had much to talk of that is of no interest and has no bearing on our story, but it kept us employed until we reached the station.

Our train was due at 7.45, going west, the same hour at which the troops had left. Their single pa.s.senger-car and the four freight-cars on which their horses were carried had been coupled to the regular train. They had gone, we learned, to Grand Junction; thence down the Mississippi Central. The station-master was an old army friend of the colonel's. He received us with all courtesy, and immediately asked us into his own little office.

"Reckon you'd best just make yourselves comfortable, gentlemen; that train's nigh onto two hours late, near as I can make it."

"Two hours late! Why, that will ruin our connection!" exclaimed Harrod.

"They're going to try and make the Central wait over," was the answer, "but I'd bet high on our being later'n we think for. Once a fellow gets off his schedule on this road, he's more apt to be losing all the time than gaining."

The colonel and I looked at each other a moment in some dismay. Quandary though it was, there was nothing for it but to wait, and wait we did, two--three hours. The darkness grew intense back towards the Tennessee; the loungers in the waiting-room or platform in groups of two or three, rose, yawned, stretched themselves, "'Lowed t'warn't no use waitin'; could see the derned train any other night just as well," and took themselves and their tobacco-juice off. The lights across the way, beyond the tracks, died out one by one, until only those two were left which represented the rival saloons, still keeping open for the presumable benefit of some prowler hoping to get trusted for a drink.

Finally only the station-master and ourselves were left, all drowsy, but the former still seated, with his one remaining hand close to his telegraph instrument. Still no news of the train. I began to doze.

It could not have been more than ten or fifteen minutes before the clicking of the instrument aroused me. Having long since ceased to care whether the train now came or not, since we had heard by nine that the Central would not wait, I only sleepily gazed at the operator. The colonel had gone asleep, and the sound did not awake him. But another moment the expression on the face of the man sitting so intently over his table aroused me to eagerness. At first professionally indifferent, it grew suddenly clouded; then a look of keen distress came upon it as he quickly glanced around at his old comrade.

I involuntarily sprang up and approached the table. He had written half the message, then dropped pencil and hammered away at the key.

"For him," said he, with a backward jerk of the head to indicate the colonel.