Miss Ravenel's conversion from secession to loyalty Part 2

Let us now return to the dinner of Professor Whitewood. The party consisted of eight persons; the male places being filled by Professor Whitewood, Doctor Ravenel, Colburne, and a Lieutenant-Colonel Carter; the female by Mrs. and Miss Whitewood, Miss Ravenel, and John Whitewood, Jr. This last named individual, the son and heir of the host, a youth of twenty years of age, was a very proper person to fill the position of fourth lady. Thin, pale and almost sallow, with pinched features surmounted by a high and roomy forehead, tall, slender, narrow-chested and fragile in form, shy, silent, and pure as the timidest of girls, he was an example of what can be done with youthful blood, muscle, mind and feeling by the studious severities of a puritan university. Miss Ravenel, accustomed to far more masculine men, felt a contempt for him at the first glance, saying to herself, How dreadfully ladylike! She was far better satisfied with the appearance of the stranger, Lieutenant-Colonel Carter. A little above the middle height he was, with a full chest, broad shoulders and muscular arms, brown curling hair, and a monstrous brown mustache, forehead not very high, nose straight and chin dimpled, brown eyes at once audacious and mirthful, and a dark rich complexion which made one think of pipes of sherry wine as well as of years of sunburnt adventure. When he was presented to her he looked her full in the eyes with a bold flash of interest which caused her to color from her forehead to her shoulders. In age he might have been anywhere from thirty-three to thirty-seven. In manner he was a thorough man of the world without the insinuating suavity of her father, but with all his self-possession and readiness.

Colburne had not expected this alarming phenomenon. He was clever enough to recognize the stranger's gigantic social stature at a glance, and like the Israelitish spies in the presence of the Amakim, he felt himself shrink to a gra.s.shopper mediocrity.

At table the company was arranged as follows. At the head sat Mrs.

Whitewood, with Dr. Ravenel on her right, and Miss Whitewood on her left. At the foot was the host, flanked on the right by Miss Ravenel and on the left by Lieutenant-Colonel Carter. The two central side places were occupied by young Whitewood and Colburne, the latter being between Miss Whitewood and Miss Ravenel. With a quickness of perception which I suspect he would not have shown had not his heart been interested in the question he immediately decided that Doctor Ravenel was intended to go _tete-a-tete_ with Mrs. Whitewood, and this strange officer with Miss Ravenel, while he was to devote himself to Miss Whitewood. The worrying thought drove every brilliant idea from his head. He could no more talk and be merry than could that hermaphrodite soul whose lean body and cadaverous countenance fronted him on the opposite side of the table.

Miss Whitewood, who was nearly as great a student as her brother, was almost as deficient in the powers of speech; she made an effort, first in the direction of the coming Presentation Day, then towards somebody's notes on Cicero, finally upon the weather; at last, with a woman's sympathetic divination, she guessed the cause of Colburne's gloom, and sank into a pitying silence. As for Mrs. Whitewood, amiable woman and excellent housewife, though an invalid, her conversational faculty consisted in listening. Thus n.o.body talked except the Ravenels, Lieutenant-Colonel Carter, and Professor Whitewood.

Colburne endeavored to conceal his troubled condition by a smile of counterfeit interest in the conversation. Then he grew ashamed of himself, and tearing off his fict.i.tious smirk, subst.i.tuted a look of stern thought, thereby exhibiting an honest countenance, but not one suitable to the occasion. There was sherry on the table; not because wine-bibbing was a habit of the Whitewoods, inasmuch as the hostess had brought it out of the family medical stores with a painful twinge of conscience; but there it was, in deference to the supposed tastes of the army gentleman and the strangers from the south. Colburne was tempted to rouse himself with a gla.s.s of it, but did not, being a pledged member of a temperance society. Instead of this he made a gallant moral effort, and succeeded in talking copiously to the junior Whitewood. But as what he said is of little consequence to our story, let us go back a few moments and learn what it was that had depressed his spirits.

"I am delighted to meet some one from Louisiana, Miss Ravenel," said the Lieutenant-Colonel, after the master of the house had said grace.

"Why? Are you a Louisianian?" asked the young lady with a blush of interest which was the first thing that troubled Colburne.

"Not precisely. I came very near calling myself such at one time, I liked the State and the people so much. I was stationed there for several years."

"Indeed! At New Orleans?"

"Not so fortunate," replied the Lieutenant Colonel with a smile and a slight bow, which was as much as to say that, if he had been stationed there, he might have hoped for the happiness of knowing Miss Ravenel earlier. "I was stationed in the a.r.s.enal at Baton Rouge."

"I never was at Baton Rouge; I mean I never visited there. I have pa.s.sed there repeatedly in going up and down the river, just while the boat made its landings, you know. What a beautiful place it is! I don't mean the buildings, but the situation, the bluffs."

"Precisely. Great relief to get to Baton Rouge and see a hill or two after staying in the lowlands."

"Oh! don't say anything against the lowlands," begged Miss Ravenel.

"I won't," promised the Lieutenant Colonel. "Give you my word of honor I won't do it, not even in the strictest privacy."

There was a cavalier dash in the gentleman's tone and manner; he looked and spoke as if he felt himself quite good enough for his company. And so he was, at least in respect to descent and social position; for no family in Virginia boasted a purer strain of old colonial blue blood than the Carters. In addition the Lieutenant Colonel was a gentleman by right of a graduation from West Point, and of a commission in the regular service which dated back to the times when there were no volunteers and few civilian appointments, and when by consequence army officers formed a caste of aristocratic military brahmins. From the regular service, however, in which he had been only a lieutenant, his name had vanished several years previous. His lieutenant-colonelcy was a volunteer commission issued by the governor of the State. It was in the Second Barataria, a three-months' regiment, which was shortly to distinguish itself by a masterly retreat from Bull Run. Carter had injured his ancle by a fall from his horse, and was away from the army on a sick leave of twenty days, avoiding the hospitals of Washington, and giving up his customary enjoyments in New York for the sake of attending to business which will transpire during this narrative. His leave had nearly expired, but he had applied to the War Department for an extension of ten days, and was awaiting an answer from that awful headquarters with the utmost tranquillity. If he found himself in the condition of being absent without leave, he knew how to explain things to a military commission or a board of inquiry.

The Lieutenant-Colonel liked the appearance of the young person whom he had been invited to meet. In the first place, he said to himself, she had a charming mixture of girlish freshness and of the thorough-bred society air which he considered indispensable to a lady. In the second place she looked somewhat like his late wife; and although he had been a wasteful and neglectful husband, he still kept a moderately soft spot in his heart for the memory of the departed one; not being in this respect different, I understand, from the majority of widowers. He saw that Miss Ravenel was willing to talk any kind of nothing so long as she could talk of her native State, and that therefore he could please her without much intellectual strain or chance of rivalry. Consequently he prattled and made prattle for some minutes about Louisiana.

"Were you acquainted with the McAllisters?" he wanted to know. "Very natural that you shouldn't be. They lived up the river, and seldom went to the city. They had such a n.o.ble plantation, though! You could enjoy the true, old-style, princely Louisiana hospitality there. Splendid life, that of a southern planter. If I hadn't been in the army--or rather, if I could have done everything that I fancied, I should have become a sugar planter. Of course I should have run myself out, for it takes a frightful capital and some business faculty, or else the best of luck. By the way, I am afraid those fine fellows will all of them come to grief if this war continues five or six years."

"Five or six years!" exclaimed Professor Whitewood in astonishment, but not in dismay, so utter was his incredulity. "Do you suppose, Colonel, that the rebels can resist for five or six years?"

"Why not? Ten or twelve millions of people on their own ground, and difficult ground too, will make a terrific resistance. They are as well prepared as we are, and better. Frederic of Prussia wasn't conquered in seven years. I don't see anything unreasonable in allowing these fellows five or six. By the way," he laughed, "I am giving you an honest professional opinion. Talking outside--to the rabble--talking as a patriot," (here he laughed again) "and not as an officer, I say three months. Do it in three months, gentlemen!" he added, setting his head back and swelling his chest in imitation of the conventional popular orator.

Miss Ravenel laughed outright to hear the enemies of her section satirized.

"But how will the South stand a contest of five or six years?" queried the Professor.

"Oh, badly, of course; get whipped, of course; that is, if we develope energy and military talent. We have the resources to thrash them. War in the long run is pretty much a matter of arithmetical calculation. Oh, Miss Ravenel, I was about to ask you, did you know the Slidells?"

"Very slightly."

"Why slightly? Didn't you like them? I thought they were very agreeable people; though, to be sure, they were _parvenus_."

"They were very ultra, you know; and papa was of the other party."

"Oh, indeed!" said the Lieutenant-Colonel, turning his head and surveying Ravenel with curiosity, not because he was loyal, but because he was the young lady's papa. "How I regret that I had no chance to make your father's acquaintance in Louisiana. Give you my honor that I wasn't so simple as to prefer Baton Rouge to New Orleans. I tried to get ordered to the crescent city, but the War Department was obdurate. I am confident," he added, with his audacious smile, half flattering and half quizzical, "that if the Washington people had known _all_ that I lost by not getting to New Orleans, they would have relented."

It was perfectly clear to Miss Ravenel that he meant to pay her a compliment. It occurred to her that she was probably in short dresses when the gallant Lieutenant-Colonel was on duty at Baton Rouge, and thus missed a chance of seeing her in New Orleans. But she did not allude to this ludicrous possibility; she only colored at his audacity, and said, "Oh, it's such a lovely city! I think it is far preferable to New York."

"But is it not a very wicked city?" asked the host, quite seriously.

"Mr. Whitewood! How can you say that to me, a native of it?" she laughed.

"Jerusalem," pursued the Professor, getting out of his sc.r.a.pe with a kind of ponderous dexterity, like an elephant backing off a shaky bridge, and taking his time about it, like Noah spending a hundred and twenty years in building his ark--"Jerusalem proved her wickedness by casting out the prophets. It seems to me that your presence here, and that of your father, as exiles, is sufficient proof of the iniquity of New Orleans."

"Upon my honor, Professor!" burst out the Lieutenant-Colonel, "you beat the best man I ever saw at a compliment."

It was now Professor Whitewood's pale and wrinkled cheek which flushed, partly with gratification, partly with embarra.s.sment. His wife surveyed him in mild astonishment, almost fearing that he had indulged in much sherry.

The Lieutenant-Colonel, by the way, had taken to the wine in a style which showed that he was used to the taste of it, and liked the effects.

His conversation grew more animated; his ba.s.s voice rang from end to end of the table, startling Mrs. Whitewood; his fine brown eyes flashed, and a few drops of perspiration beaded his brow. It must not be supposed that the sherry alone could do as much as this for so old a campaigner.

That afternoon, as he lounged and yawned in the reading-room of the New Boston House, he had thought of Professor Whitewood's invitation, and, feeling low-spirited and stupid, had concluded not to go to the dinner, although in the morning he had sent a note of acceptance. Then, feeling low-spirited and stupid, as I said, he took a gla.s.s of ale, and subsequently a stiffish whiskey-punch, following up the treatment with a segar, which by producing a dryness of the throat, induced him to try another whiskey-punch. Fortified by twenty-five cents' worth of liquor (at the then prices) he felt his ambition and industry revive. By Jove, Carter, he said to himself, you must go to that dinner-party. Whitewood is just one of those pious heavyweights who can bring this puritanical governor to terms. Put on your best toggery, Carter, and make your bow, and say how-de-do.

Thus it was that when the Professor's sherry entered into the Lieutenant-Colonel, it found an ally there which aided it to produce the afore-mentioned signs of excitement. Colburne, I grieve to say, almost rejoiced in detecting these symptoms, thinking that surely Miss Ravenel would not fancy a man who was, to say the least, inordinately convivial.

Alas! Miss Ravenel had been too much accustomed to just such gentlemen in New Orleans society to see anything disgusting or even surprising in the manner of the Lieutenant-Colonel. She continued to prattle with him in her pleasantest manner about Louisiana, not in the least restrained by Colburne's presence, and only now and then casting an anxious glance at her father; for Ravenel the father, man of the world as he was, did not fancy the baccha.n.a.lian New Orleans type of gentility, having observed that it frequently brought itself and its wife and children to grief.

The dinner lasted an hour and a half, by which time it was nearly twilight. The ordinary prandial hour of the Whitewoods, as well as of most fashionable New Boston people, was not later than two o'clock in the afternoon, but this had been considered a special occasion on account of the far-off origin of some of the guests, and the meal had therefore commenced at five. On leaving the table the party went into the parlor and had coffee. Then Miss Ravenel thought it wise to propitiate her father's searching eye by quitting the Lieutenant-Colonel with his pleasant worldly ways and his fascinating masculine maturity, and going to visit the greenhouse in company with that pale bit of human celery, John Whitewood. Carter politely stood up to the rack for a while with Miss Whitewood, but, finding it dry fodder to his taste, soon made his adieux. Colburne shortly followed, in a state of mind to question the goodness of Providence in permitting lieutenant-colonels.

CHAPTER III.

MR. COLBURNE TAKES A SEGAR WITH LIEUTENANT-COLONEL CARTER.

As Colburne neared his house he saw the Lieutenant-Colonel standing in the flare of a street lamp and looking up at the luminary with an air of puzzled consideration. With a temperance man's usual lack of charity to people given to wine, the civilian judged that the soldier was disgracefully intoxicated, and, instead of thinking how to conduct him quietly home, was about to pa.s.s him by on the other side. The Lieutenant-Colonel turned and recognized the young man. In other states of feeling he would have cut him there and then, on the ground that it was not binding on him to continue a chance acquaintance. But being full at the moment of that comprehensive love of fellow existences which some const.i.tutions extract from inebriating fluids, he said,

"Ah! how are you? Glad to come across you again."

Colburne nodded, smiled and stopped, saying, "Can I do anything for you?"

"Will you smoke?" asked the Lieutenant-Colonel, offering a segar. "But how to light it? there's the rub. I've just broken my last match against this cursed wet lamp-post--never thought of the dew, you know--and was studying the machine itself, to see if I could get up to it and into it."

"I have matches," said Colburne. He produced them; they lighted and walked on together.

Being a great fancier of good segars, and of moonlit summer walks under New Boston elms, I should like here to describe how sweetly the fragrance of the Havanas rose through the still, dewy air into the interlacing arches of nature's cathedral aisles. The subject would have its charms, not only for the great mult.i.tude of my brother smokers, but for many young ladies who dearly love the smell of a segar because they like the creatures who use them. At a later period of this history, if I see that I am likely to have the necessary s.p.a.ce and time, I may bloom into such pleasant episodes.

"Come to my room," said the soldier, taking the arm of the civilian.

"Hope you have nothing better to do. We will have a gla.s.s of ale."

Colburne would have been glad to refuse. He was modest enough to feel himself at a disadvantage in the company of men of fashion; and moreover he was just sufficiently jealous of the Lieutenant-Colonel not to desire to fraternize with him. Finally, a strong suspicion troubled his mind that this military personage, indifferent to New Boston opinions, and evidently a wine-bibber, might proceed to get publicly drunk, thus making a disagreeable scene, with a chance of future scandal. Why then did not Colburne decline the invitation? Because he was young, good-natured, modest, and wanting in that social tact and courage which most men only acquire by much intercourse with a great variety of their fellow creatures. The Lieutenant-Colonel's walk was the merest trifle unsteady, or at least careless, and his herculean arm, solid and knotted as an apple-tree limb, swayed repeatedly against Colburne, eliciting from him a stroke-oarsman's approbation. Proud of his own biceps, the young man had to acknowledge its comparative inferiority in volume and texture.

"Are you a gymnast, Colonel?" he asked. "Your arm feels like it."