Miss Ravenel's conversion from secession to loyalty Part 19

"What progress!" observed the Doctor. "She wants to be General Butler."

"No I don't," snapped Lillie, whose nerves were indeed much worried by her internal struggles and outward trials. "But I would like to be emperor. I would actually enjoy forcing some of these horrid people to change their style of talking."

"I don't think you would enjoy it, my dear. I did once entertain the design of making myself autocrat, and deciding what should be believed by my fellow citizens, and bringing to deserved punishment such as differed from me. It would be such a fine thing, I thought, to manage in my own way, and manage right, all the religion, politics, business, education, and conscience of the country. But I dropped the plan, after mature consideration, because I foresaw that it would give me more to do than I could attend to."

Lillie, working at her embroidery, made no reply, not apparently appreciating her father's wit. Presently she gave token that the current of her thoughts had changed, by breaking out with her usual routine of questions. "Who did you see in the streets? Didn't you see any body?

Didn't you hear any thing?" etc. etc.

By what has been related in this chapter it will be perceived that Colonel Carter has established a claim to be received with at least courtesy in the house of the Ravenels. The Doctor could not decently turn a cold shoulder to a man who had been so zealous a friend, although he still admired him very little, and never willingly permitted him a moment's unwatched intercourse with Lillie. He occasionally thought with disgust of Van Zandt's leering insinuations concerning the little French boudoir; but he charitably concluded that he ought not to attach much importance to the prattle of a man so clearly under the influence of liquor as was that person at Colburne's quarters; and finally he reflected with a sigh that the boudoir business was awfully common in the world as then const.i.tuted, and that men who were engaged in it could not well be ostracised from society. So outwardly he was civil to the Colonel, and inwardly sought to control his almost instinctive repugnance. As for Lillie, she positively liked the widower, and thought him the finest gentleman of the very few who now called on her. Captain Colburne was very pleasant, lively and good; but--and here she ceased to reason--she felt that he was not magnetic.

CHAPTER XIII.

THE COURSE OF TRUE LOVE BEGINS TO RUN ROUGH.

In some Arabian Nights or other, there is a story of voyagers in a becalmed ship who were drifted by irresistible currents towards an unknown island. As they gazed at it their eyes were deceived by an enchantment in the atmosphere, so that they seemed to see upon the sh.o.r.e a number of beautiful women waiting to welcome them, whereas these expectant figures were really nothing but hideous apes with carniverous appet.i.tes, whose desire it was to devour the approaching strangers.

As Miss Ravenel drifted towards Colonel Carter she beheld him in the guise of a pure and n.o.ble creature, while in truth he was a more than commonly demoralized man, with potent capacities for injuring others.

Mrs. Larue, on the other hand, perceived him much as he was, and liked him none the less for it. Had she lived in the days before the flood she would not have cared specially for the angels who came down to enjoy themselves with the daughters of men, except just so far as they satisfied her vanity and curiosity. Seeing clearly that the Colonel was not a seraph, but a creature of far lower grade, very coa.r.s.e and carnal in some at least of his dispositions, she would still have been pleased to have him fall in love with her, and would perhaps have accepted him as a husband. It is probable that she did not have a suspicion of the glamour which humbugged the innocent eyes of her youthful cousin. But she did presently perceive that it would be Lillie, and not herself, who would receive Carter's offer of marriage, if it was ever made to either. How should she behave under these trying circ.u.mstances? Painful as the discovery may have been to her vanity, it had little effect on a temper so callously amiable, and none on the lucid wisdom of a spirit so clarified by selfishness. She showed that she was a person of good worldly sense, and of little heart. She soon brought herself to encourage the Carter flirtation, partly because she had a woman's pa.s.sion for seeing such things move on, and partly for reasons of state.

If the Colonel married Lillie he would be a valuable friend at court; moreover the match could not hurt the social position of her relatives, who were ostracised as Yankees already; it would be all gain and no loss. She soon discovered, as she thought, that there was no need of blowing the Colonel's trumpet in the ears of Miss Lillie, and that the young lady could be easily brought to greet him with a betrothal hymn of, "Hail to the chief who in triumph advances." But the Doctor, who evidently did not like the Colonel, might exercise a deleterious influence on these fine chances. Madame Larue must try to lead the silly old gentleman to take a reasonable look at his own interests. What a paroxysm of vexation and contempt she would have gone into, had she known of his refusal to make forty or fifty thousand dollars on sugar, merely because the transaction might furnish the Confederate army with salt and quinine! Not being aware of this act of cretinism, she went at him on the marriage business with a hopeful spirit.

"What an admirable _parti_ for some of our New Orleans young ladies would be the Colonel Carter!"

The Doctor smiled and bowed his a.s.sent, because such was his habit concerning all matters which, were indifferent to him. The fact that he had lived twenty-five years in New Oceans without ever being driven to fight a duel, although disagreeing with its fiery population on various touchy subjects, shows what an exquisite courtesy he must have maintained in his manners and conversation.

"I must positively introduce him to Mees Langdon or Mees Dumas, and see what will come of it," pursued Madame.

Ravenel professed and looked his delight at the proposition, without caring a straw for the subject, being engaged in a charming mineralogical revery. Mrs. Larue perceived his indifference and was annoyed by it, but continued to smile with the Indian-like fort.i.tude of a veteran worldling.

"He is of an excellent family--one of the best families of Virginia. He would be a suitable _parti_ for any young lady of my acquaintance. There is no doubt that he has splendid prospects. He is almost the only regular officer in the department. Of course he will win promotion. I should not be surprised to see him supersede Picayune Butler. I beg your pardon--I mean Major-General Butler. I hear him so constantly called Picayune that I feel as if that was his name of baptism. Mark my prophecy now. In a year that man will be superseded by Colonel Carter."

"It might be a change for the better," admitted the Doctor with the composure of a Gallio.

"The Colonel has a large salary," continued Madame. "The mayoralty gives him three thousand, and his pay as colonel is two thousand six hundred.

Five thousand six hundred dollars seems a monstrous salary in these days of poverty."

"It does, indeed," coincided the Doctor, remembering his own fifteen hundred, with a momentary dread that it would hardly keep him out of debt.

Mrs. Larue paused and considered whether she should venture further. She had already got as far as this two or three times without eliciting from her brother-in-law a word good or bad as to the matter which she had at heart. She had been like a boy who walks two miles to a pond, puts on his skates, looks at the thinly frozen surface, shakes his doubtful head, unbuckles his skates and trudges home again. She resolved to try the ice this time, at no matter what risk of breaking it.

"I have been thinking that he would not be a bad _parti_ for my little cousin."

The Doctor laid aside his Robinsonites in some quiet corner of his mind, and devoted himself to the subject of the conversation, leaning forward and surveying Madame earnestly through his spectacles.

"I would almost rather bury her," he said in his excitement.

"You amaze me. There is a difference in age, I grant. But how little! He is still what we call a young man. And then marriages are so difficult to make up in these horrible times. Who else is there in all New Orleans?"

"I don't see why she should marry at all," said the Doctor very warmly.

"Why can't she continue to live with me?"

"Positively you are not serious."

"I certainly am. I beg pardon for disagreeing with you, but I don't see why I shouldn't entertain the idea I mention."

"Oh! when it comes to that, there is no arguing. You step out of the bounds of reason into pure feeling and _egosme_. I also beg your pardon, but I must tell you that you are _egoste_. To forbid a girl to marry is like forbidding a young man to engage in business, to work, to open his own _carriere_. A woman who must not love is defrauded of her best rights."

"Why can't she be satisfied with loving me?" demanded the Doctor. He knew that he was talking irrationally on this subject; but what he meant to say was, "I don't like Colonel Carter."

"Because that would leave her an unhappy, sickly old maid," retorted Madame. "Because that would leave you without grandchildren."

Ravenel rose and walked the room with a melancholy step and a countenance full of trouble. Suddenly he stopped short and turned upon Mrs. Larue a look of anxious inquiry.

"I hope you have not observed in Lillie any inclination towards this--this idea."

"Not the slightest," replied Madame, lying frankly, and without the slightest hesitation or confusion.

"And you have not broached it to her?"

"Never!" affirmed the lady solemnly, which was another whopper.

"I sincerely hope that you will not. Oblige me, I beg you, by promising that you will not."

"If such is your pleasure," sighed Madame. "Well--I promise."

"I am so much obliged to you," said the Doctor.

"I know that there is a difference in age," Mrs. Larue recommenced, thereby insinuating that that was the only objection to the match that she could imagine: but her brother-in-law solemnly shook his head, as if to say that he had other reasons for opposition compared with which this was a trifle: and so, after taking a sharp look at him, she judged it wise to drop the subject.

"I hope," concluded the Doctor, "that hereafter, when I am away, you will allow Lillie to receive calls in your house. There is a back pa.s.sage. It is neither quite decorous to receive gentlemen alone here, nor to send them away."

Mrs. Larue made no objection to this plan, seeing that she could be just as strict or just as careless a duenna as she chose.

"I wonder why he has such an aversion to the match," she thought.

Accustomed to see men matured in vice lead innocent young girls to the altar, habituated to look upon the notoriously pure-minded Doctor as a social curiosity rather than a social standard, she scarcely guessed, and could not realize, the repugnance with which such a father would resign a daughter to the doubtful protection of a husband chosen from the cla.s.s known as men about town.

"Aurait il decouvert," she continued to meditate; "ce pet.i.t liaison de monsieur le colonel? Il est vraiment curieux mon beau-frere; c'est plutot une vierge qu'un homme."

I beg the reader not to do this clever lady the injustice to suppose that she kept or ever intended to keep her promise to the Doctor. To him, indeed, she did not for a long time speak of the proposed marriage, intending thereby to lull his suspicions to sleep, and thus prevent him from offering any timely opposition to that natural course of human events which might alone suffice to bring about the desired end. But into Lillie's ears she perpetually whispered pleasant things concerning Carter, besides leaving the two alone together for ten, fifteen, twenty minutes at a time, until Lillie would get alarmed at her unusual position, and become either nervously silent or nervously talkative. For these services the Colonel was not as grateful as he should have been.

He was just the man to believe that he could make his own way in a love affair, and need not burden himself with a sense of obligation for any one's a.s.sistance. Moreover, valuing himself on his knowledge of life, he thought that he understood Mrs. Larue's character perfectly, and declared that he was not the man to be managed by such an intriguante, however knowing. He did in fact perceive that she was corrupt, and by the way he liked her none the worse for it, although he would not have married her. To Colburne he spoke of her gaily and conceitedly as "the Larue," or sometimes as "La rouee," for he knew French well enough to make an occasional bad pun in it. The Captain, on the other hand, never mentioned her except respectfully, feeling himself bound to treat any relative of Miss Ravenel with perfect courtesy.

But while Carter supposed that he comprehended the Larue, he walked in the path which she had traced out for him. From week to week he found it more agreeable to be with Miss Ravenel. Those random tete-a-tetes which to her were so alarming, were to him so pleasant that he caught himself antic.i.p.ating them with anxiety. The Colonel might have known from his past experience, he might have known by only looking at his high-colored face and powerful frame in a mirror, that it was not a safe amus.e.m.e.nt for him to be so much with one charming lady. Self-possessed in his demeanor, and, like most roues, tolerably cool for a little distance below the surface of his feelings, he was at bottom and by the decree of imperious nature, very volcanic. As we say of some fiery wines, there was a great deal of body to him. At this time he was determined not to fall in love. He remembered how he had been infatuated in other days, and dreaded the return of the pa.s.sionate dominion. To use his own expression, "he made such a blasted fool of himself when he once got after a woman!"

Nevertheless, he began to be, not jealous; he could not admit that very soft impeachment; but he began to want to monopolize Miss Ravenel. When he found Colburne in her company he sometimes talked French to her, thereby embarra.s.sing and humiliating the Captain, who understood nothing of the language except when he saw it in print, and could trace out the meaning of some words by their resemblance to Latin. The young lady, either because she felt for Colburne's awkward position, or because she did not wish to be suspected of saying things which she might not have dared utter in English, usually restored the conversation to her mother tongue after a few sentences. Once her manner in doing this was so pointed that the Colonel apologized.