Miss Ravenel's conversion from secession to loyalty Part 21

CHAPTER XIV.

LILLIE CHOOSES FOR HERSELF.

Late in that eventful summer of 1862, so b.l.o.o.d.y in Virginia and Kentucky, so comparatively peaceful in the malarious heats of Louisiana, the Colonel of the Tenth Barataria held a swearing soliloquy. In general when he swore it was at somebody or to somebody; but on the present occasion the performance was confined to the solitude of his own room and the gratification of his own ears; unless, indeed, we may venture to suppose that he had a guardian angel whose painful duty it was to attend him constantly. I suspect that I have not yet enabled the reader to realize how remarkable were the Colonel's gifts in the way of profanity; and I fear that I could not do it without penning three or four such astonishing pages as never were printed, unless it might be in the infernal regions. In the appropriate words, of Lieutenant Van Zandt, who, by the way, honestly admired his superior officer for this and for his every other characteristic, "it was a nasty old swear."

Carter's quarters were a large brick house belonging to a lately wealthy but now impoverished and exiled Secessionist. He had his office, his parlor, his private sitting-room, his dining-room, his billiard-room, and five upper bedrooms, besides the bas.e.m.e.nt. His life corresponded with his surroundings; his dinners were elegant, his wines and segars superior. As it was now evening and his business hours long since over, he was in his sitting-room, lounging in an easy chair, his feet on a table, a half-smoked segar in one hand and an open letter in the other. Only the Colonel or Lieutenant Van Zandt, or men equally gifted in ardent expressions, could suitably describe the heat of the weather. Although he wore nothing but his shirt and pantaloons, his cheeks were deeply flushed, and his forehead beaded with perspiration.

The Louisiana mosquitoes, a numerous and venomous people, were buzzing in his ears, raising blotches on his face and perforating his linen. But it was not about them, it was about the letter, that he was blaspheming.

When the paroxysm was over he restored the segar to his lips, discovered that it was out, and relighted it; for he was old smoker enough and healthy enough to prefer the pungency of a stump to the milder flavor of a virgin weed. While he re-reads his letter, we will venture to look over his shoulder.

"My dear Colonel," it ran, "I am sorry that I can give you no better news. Waldo and I have worked like Trojans, but without bringing anything to pa.s.s. You will see by enclosed copy of application to the Secretary, that we got a respectable crowd of Senators and Representatives to join in demanding a step for you. The Secretary is all right; he fully acknowledges your claims. But those infernal bigots, the Sumner and Wilson crowd, got ahead of us. They went to headquarters, civil and military. We couldn't even secure your nomination, much less a senatorial majority for confirmation. These cursed fools mean to purify the army, they say. They put McClellan's defeat down to his pro-slavery sentiments, and Pope's defeat to McClellan. They intend to turn out every moderate man, and shove in their own sort. They talk of making Banks head of the Army of the Potomac, in place of McClellan, who has just saved the capital and the nation. There never was such fanaticism since the Scotch ministers at Dunbar undertook to pray and preach down Cromwell's army. You are one of the men whom they have blackballed. They have got hold of the tail-end of some old plans of yours in the filibustering days, and are making the most of it to show that you are unfit to command a brigade in 'the army of the Lord.' They say you are not the man to march on with old John Brown's soul and hang Jeff Davis on a sour apple-tree. I think you had better take measures to get rid of that filibustering ghost. I have another piece of advice to offer. Mere administrative ability in an office these fellows can't appreciate; but they can be dazzled by successful service in the field, because that is beyond their own cowardly possibilities; also because it takes with their const.i.tuents, of whom they are the most respectful and obedient servants. So why not give up your mayoralty and go in for the autumn campaign? If you will send home your name with a victory attached to it, I think we can manufacture a public opinion to compel your nomination and confirmation. Mind, I am not finding fault. I know that nothing can be done in Louisiana during the summer. But blockheads don't know this, and in politics we are forced to appeal to blockheads; our supreme court of decisions is, after all, the twenty millions of ignorami who do the voting. Accordingly, I advise you to please these twenty millions by putting yourself into the fall campaign.

"Very truly yours, &c."

"D----n it! of course I mean to fight," muttered the Colonel, when he had finished his second reading. "I'll resign the mayoralty, and ask for active service and a brigade. Then I must write something to explain that filibustering business.--No, I won't. The less that is explained, the better. I'll deny it outright.--Now there's Weitzel. He, by" (this and that) "can have a star, and I can't. My junior, by" (that and the other) "in the service, by" (this and that) "by at least six years. What if he should get the active brigade? It would be just him, by" (this and that) "to want it, and just like Butler, by" (that and the other) "to give it to him."

The Colonel sat for a long time in vexatious thought, slapping his mosquito bites, relighting his stump and smoking it down to its bitterest dregs. Finally, without having written a word, he gave up the battle with the stinging mult.i.tudes, drank a gla.s.s of brandy and water, turned off the gas, stepped into the adjoining bedroom, kicked off his trousers (long since unb.u.t.toned), drew the mosquito-curtain, and went to bed as quickly and quietly as an infant. Soldiering habits had enabled him to court slumber with success under all circ.u.mstances.

During the month of September was formed that famous organization, composed of five regiments of infantry, with four squadrons and two batteries attached, known officially as the Reserve Brigade, but popularly as Weitzel's. It was intended from the first for active service, and the t.i.tle Reserve was applied to it simply to mislead the enemy. The regiments were encamped for purposes of drill and preparation on the flats near Carrollton, a village four or five miles above New Orleans. Carter applied for the brigade, but was unable to obtain it.

Weitzel was not only his superior in rank, but was Butler's favorite officer and most trusted military adviser. Then Carter threw up his mayoralty and reported for duty to his regiment, in great bitterness of spirit at finding himself obliged to serve under a man who had once been his junior and inferior. His only consolation was that this was not the worst; both he and Weitzel were under the orders of an attorney.

But he went to work vigorously at drilling, disciplining and fitting out his regiment. His Sunday morning inspections were awful ordeals which lasted the whole forenoon. If a company showed three or four dirty men the Colonel sent for the Captain and gave him such a lecture as made him think seriously of tendering his resignation. When not on drill or guard duty the soldiers were busy nearly all day in brushing their uniforms, polishing their bra.s.ses and b.u.t.tons, blacking their shoes and accoutrements, and washing their shirts, drawers, stockings, and even their canteen strings. The battalion drills of the Tenth were truly laborious gymnastic exercises, performed in great part on the double-quick. The sentinels did their whole duty, or were relieved and sent to the guardhouse. Corporals who failed to make their rounds properly were reduced to the ranks. Privates who forgot to salute an officer, or who did not do it in handsome style, were put in confinement on bread and water. The company cooking utensils were scoured every day, and the camp was as clean as bare, turfless earth could be. Carter was a hard-hearted, intelligent, conscientious, beneficent tyrant. The Tenth Barataria was the show regiment of the Reserve Brigade. I have not time to a.n.a.lyze the interesting feelings of freeborn Yankees under this searching despotism. I can only say that the soldiers hated their colonel because they feared him; that, like true Americans they profoundly respected him because, as they said, "he knew his biz;" that they were excessively proud of the superior drill and neatness to which he had brought them against their wills; and that, on the whole, they would not have exchanged him for any other regimental commander in the brigade. They firmly believed that under "Old Carter" they could whip the best regiment in the rebel service. It is true that there were exceptional ruffians who could not forget that they had been bucked and put in the stocks, and who muttered vindictive prophecies as to something desperate which they would do on the first field of battle.

"Bedad an' I'll not forget to pay me reshpecs to 'im," growled a Hibernian pugilist. "Let 'im get in front of the line, an I'll show 'im that I know how to fire to the right and left oblike."

Carter laughed contemptuously when informed of the bruiser's threat.

"It's not worth taking notice of," he said. "I know what he'll do when he comes under the enemy's fire. He'll blaze away straight before him as fast as he can load and pull trigger, he'll be in such a cursed hurry to kill the men who are trying to kill him. I couldn't probably make him fire right oblique, if I wanted to. You never have seen men in battle, Captain Colburne. It's really amusing to notice how eager and savage new troops are. The moment a man has discharged his piece he falls to loading as if his salvation depended on it. The moment he has loaded he fires just where he did the first time, whether he sees anything or not.

And he'll keep doing this till you stop him. I am speaking of raw troops, you understand. The old c.o.c.ks save their powder,--that is unless they get bedeviled with a panic. You must remember this when we come to fight. Don't let your men get to blazing away at nothing and scaring themselves with their own noise, under the delusion that they are fiercely engaged."

During the month or more which the brigade pa.s.sed at Carrollton Ravenel frequently visited Colburne, and did not forget to make an incidental call or two of civility on Colonel Carter. On two or three gala occasions he brought out Mrs. Larue and Miss Ravenel. They always came and went by the railroad, their present means not justifying a carriage.

When the ladies appeared in camp the Colonel usually discovered the fact, and hastened to make himself master of the situation. He invited them under the marquee of his double tent, brought out store of confiscated Madeira, ordered the regimental band to play, sent word to the Lieutenant-Colonel to take charge of dress-parade, and escorted his visitors in front of the line to show them the exercises. In these high official hospitalities neither Colburne nor any other company officer was invited to share. Even the lieutenant-colonel, the major, the first surgeon and the chaplain, though ranking as field and staff officers, kept at a respectful distance from the favored visitors and their awful host. For discipline's sake Carter lived in loftier state among these volunteers than he would have done in a regular regiment. Miss Ravenel was amused, but she was also considerably impressed, by the awe with which he was regarded by all who surrounded him. I believe that all women admire men who can make other men afraid.

"Are you as much scared at the general as your officers are at you?" she laughingly asked. "I wish I could see the general."

"I will bring him to your house," said Carter; but this was one of the promises that he did not keep. That gay speech of the young lady must have been a bitter dose to him, as we know who are aware of his professional disappointment.

The ladies were delighted to walk down the open ranks on inspection, and survey the neat packing of the double lines of unslung knapsacks.

"It is like going through a milliner's shop," said Lillie. "How nicely the things are folded! They really have a great deal of taste in arranging the colors. See, here is blue and red and grey, and then blue again, with a black cravat here and a white handkerchief there. It is like the backs of a row of books."

"Yes, this box knapsack is a good one for show," the Colonel admitted.

"It is too large, however. When the men come to march they will find themselves overloaded. I shall have to make a final inspection and throw away a few tons of these extra-military gewgaws. What does a soldier want of black cravats and daguerreotypes and diaries and Testaments?"

"How cruelly practical you are!" said Lillie.

"Not in every thing," responded the Colonel with a sigh; and for some reason the young lady blushed profoundly at the answer.

Of course these visits, the regiment, the Reserve Brigade, and its destination were matters of frequent conversation at the Ravenel dwelling. Through some leak of indiscretion or treachery it transpired that Weitzel was to oust Mouton from the country between the Mississippi and the Atchafalaya, where he was a constant menace to New Orleans. The whole city, rebel and loyal, argued and quarreled about the chances of success. The Secessionists were rampant; they said that Mouton had fifteen thousand men; they offered to bet their piles that he would have New Orleans back in a month. At every notable corner and in front of every popular drinking saloon were groups of tall, dark, fierce-looking men, carrying heavy canes, who glared at Union officers and muttered about coming Union defeats. Pale brunette ladies flouted their skirts scornfully at sight of Federal uniforms, and flounced out of omnibusses and street cars defiled by their presence. These feminine politicians never visited Miss Ravenel, however intimately they might have known her before the war; and if they met her in the street they complimented her with the same look of hate which they vouchsafed to the flag of their country. With Madame Larue they were still on good terms, although they rarely called at her house for fear of encountering the Ravenels. This suited Madame's purposes precisely; she could thereby be Federal at home and Secessionist abroad.

"You know, my dears," she would say to the female Langdons and Soules, "that one cannot undo one's self of one's own relatives. That would be unreasonable. So I am obliged to receive the Doctor and his poor daughter at my house. But I understand perfectly that their society must be to you disagreeable. Therefore I absolve you, though with pain, from returning my visits. But, my dears, I shall only call on you the more often. Do not be surprised," she would sometimes add, "if you see a Federal uniform enter my door from time to time. I have my objects. I flatter myself that I shall yet be of benefit to the good cause."

And in fact she did occasionally send to a certain secret junto sc.r.a.ps of information which she professed to have extracted from Union officers. This information was of no value; it is even probable that much of it was a deliberate figment of her imagination; but in this way she kept her political odor sweet in the nostrils of the city Secessionists.

In secret she cared for little more than to be on the safe side and keep her property. She laughed with delighted malice at the Doctor's sarcasms upon the absurdities of New Orleans politics, and the rottenness of New Orleans morals. She sympathized with Lillie's youthful indignation at her own social proscription. She flattered Carter's professional pride by predicting his success in the field. She satirized Colburne behind his back, and praised him to his face, for his Catonian principles. She was all things to all men, and made herself generally agreeable.

Meantime Lillie had become what she called a Federalist; for she was not yet so established in the faith as to style it Loyalist or Patriot. What girl would not have been thus converted, driven as she was from the mansion of secession by its bitter inmates, and drawn towards the opposing house by her father and her two admirers? Colonel Carter's visits were frequent and his influence strong and increasing, notwithstanding the Doctor's warning tirades. It made her uneasy, fretful and unhappy, to disagree with her father; but on the subject of this preference she positively could not hold his opinions. He seemed to her to be so unjust; she could not understand why he should be so bitterly and groundlessly prejudiced; the reasons which he hinted at glided off her like rain off a bird's feathers. She granted no faith to the insinuation that the Colonel was a bad man, nor, had she credited it, would she have inferred therefrom that he would make a bad husband.

Let us not be astonished at the delusion of this intelligent and pure-minded young lady. I have witnessed more extraordinary a.s.sortments and choices than this. I have more than once seen an elegant, brilliant, highly-cultured girl make an inexplicable and hungry snap at a man who was stupidly, boorishly, viciously her inferior. The subtle and potent sense which draws the two s.e.xes together is an inexorable despot.

The Colonel was one of its victims, although not quite bereft of reason.

Still, if he did not offer himself to Miss Ravenel before going on this Lafourche expedition, it was simply from considerations of worldly prudence, or, as he phrased it to himself, out of regard to her happiness. He thought that his pay was insufficient to support her in the style to which she had been accustomed, and in which he wished his wife to live. That he would be rejected he did not much expect, being a veteran in love affairs, accustomed to conquer, and gifted by birthright with an audacious confidence. Nor did he so much as suspect that he was not good enough for her. His moral perceptions, not very keen perhaps by nature, had been still further calloused by thirty-five years of wandering in the wilderness of sin. Strange as it may seem to people of staid lives the Colonel did not even consider himself a fast man. He allowed that he drank; yes, that he sometimes drank more than was good for him; but, as he laughingly said, he never took more than his regulation quart a day; by which he meant that, according to the army standard, he was a temperate drinker. As to gambling, that was a gentleman's amus.e.m.e.nt, and moreover he had done very little of it in the last year or two. It was true that he had had various----; but then all men did that sort of thing at times and under temptation; they did it more or less openly, according as they were men of the world or hypocrites; if they said they didn't, they lied. The Colonel did not grant the least faith to the story of Joseph, or, allowing it to be true, for the sake of argument, he considered Joseph no gentleman. In short, after inspecting himself fairly and fully according to his lights, he concluded that he was rather honorable even in his vices. Had he not, for instance, entangled himself in that affair of the French _boudoir_ chiefly to get Miss Ravenel out of his head, and so keep from leading her and himself into a poverty-stricken marriage? Thus, though he was very frank with himself, he still concluded that he was a tolerably good fellow. Yes; and there were many other persons who thought him good enough; men who knew his ways perfectly but could not see much matter of reproach in them.

In this state of opinion, and temper of feeling, the Colonel approached his last interview with Miss Ravenel. He meant to avoid the temptation of seeing her alone on this occasion; but when Mrs. Larue told him that he should have a private interview of half an hour he could not refuse the offer. It must not be supposed that Lillie was a party to the conspiracy. Madame alone originated, planned, and executed. She saw to it beforehand that the Doctor should be invited out; she stopped Colburne on the doorstep with a message that the ladies were not at home; lastly she slipped out of the parlor, dodged through the back pa.s.sage into the Ravenel house, and remained there thirty minutes by the watch. It vexed this amiable creature a trifle that the Colonel should prefer Lillie; but since he would be so foolish, she was determined that he should make a marriage of it. Leaving her to these reflections as she walks the Doctor's studio, kicking his minerals about the carpet with her little feet, or watching at the window lest he should return unexpectedly, let us go back to Miss Ravenel and her still undecided lover. It was understood that the expedition was to sail the next day, although Carter had not said so, not being a man to tattle official secrets. When, therefore, he entered the house that evening, she felt a vague dread of him, as if half comprehending that the occasion might lead him to say something decisive of her future. Carter on his part knew that he would not be interrupted for a reasonable number of minutes; and as Mrs. Larue left the room the sense of opportunity rushed upon him like a flood of temptation. He forgot in an instant that she was poor, that he was poor and extravagant, and that a marriage would be the maddest of follies, compared with which all his by-gone extravagancies were acts of sedate wisdom. He was now what he always had been, and what people of strong pa.s.sions very frequently are, the victim of chance and juxtaposition. He rose from the sofa where he had been sitting and worrying his cap, walked straight across the room with a firm step, like the resolute, irresistible advance of a veteran regiment, and took a chair beside her.

"Miss Ravenel," he said, and stopped. There was more profound feeling in his voice and face than we have yet seen him exhibit in this history; there was so much, and it was so electrical in its nature, at least as regarded her, that she trembled in body and spirit. "Miss Ravenel," he resumed, "I did intend to go to this battle without saying one word of love to you. But I cannot do it. You see I cannot do it."

Such a moment as this is one of the supreme moments of a woman's life.

There is a fulfillment of hope which is thrillingly delicious; there is a demand, amounting to a decree, which involves her whole being, her whole future; there is a surprise,--it is always a surprise,--which is so sudden and great that it falls like a terror. A pure and loving girl who receives a first declaration of love from the man whom she has secretly chosen out of all men as the keeper of her heart is in a condition of soul which makes her womanhood all ecstacy. There is not a nerve in her brain, not a drop of blood in her body, which does not go delirious with the enthusiasm of the moment. She does not seem really to see, nor to hear, nor to speak, but only to feel that presence and those words, and her own reply; to feel them all by some new, miraculous sense, such as we are conscious of in dreams, when things are communicated to us and by us without touch or voice. It is a mere palpitation of feeling, yet full of utterances; a throbbing of happiness so acute and startling as to be almost pain. That man has no just comprehension of this moment, or is very unworthy of the power vested in his manhood, who can awaken such emotions merely for a pa.s.sing pleasure, or blight them afterward by unfaithfulness and neglect. In one sense Carter was as n.o.ble as his triumph; he was not a good man, but he could love fervently. At the same time he was not timorous, but understood her although she did not answer. Precisely because she did not speak, because he saw that she could not speak, because he felt that no more speech was necessary, he took her hand and pressed it to his lips. The color which had left her skin came back to it and burned like a flame in her face and neck.

"May I write to you when I am away?" he asked.

She raised her eyes to his with an expression of loving grat.i.tude which no words could utter. She tried to speak, but she could only whisper--

"Oh! I should be so happy."

"Then, my dear, my dearest one, remember that I am yours, and try to feel that you are mine."

I shall go no farther in the description of this interview.

CHAPTER XV.

LILLIE BIDS GOOD-BYE TO THE LOVER WHOM SHE HAS CHOSEN, AND TO THE LOVER WHOM SHE WOULD NOT CHOOSE.

Lillie left Mrs. Larue early, without a word as to the great event which had just changed the world for her, and retired to her own house and her own room. She was in a state of being, half stunned, half ecstatic; every faculty seemed to be suspended, except so far as it was electrified to action by one idea; she sat by the window with folded hands, motionless, seeing and hearing only through her memory; she sought to recollect him as he was when he took her hand and kissed it; she called to mind all that he had said and looked and done. She could not tell whether she had been thus occupied five minutes or half an hour, when she heard the tinkle of the door-bell, followed by her father's entrance. Then suddenly a great terror and sense of guilt fell upon her spirit. From the moment when that confession of love had been uttered down to this moment her mind had been occupied by but one human being, and that was her lover. Now, for the first time during the evening, she recollected that the man of her choice was not the man of her father's choice, but, more than almost any other person, the object of his suspicion, if not of his aversion. Yet she loved them both; she could not take sides with one against the other; it would kill her to give up the affection of either. All impulse, all pa.s.sion, blood and brain as tremulous as quicksilver, she ran down stairs, opened the door into the study where the doctor stood among his boxes, wavered backward under a momentary throb of fear, then sprang forward, threw her arms around his neck and sobbed upon his shoulder,

"Oh, papa!--I am so happy!--so miserable!"

The doctor stared in astonishment and in some vague alarm. Hardly aware of how much energy he used, he detached her from him and held her out at arm's length, looking anxiously at her for an explanation.

"Oh, don't push me away," begged Lillie, and struggled back to him, trying to hide her face against his breast.

A suspicion of the truth fell across the Doctor, but he strove to fling it from him as one dashes off a disagreeable reptile. Still, he looked quite nervous and apprehensive as he said, "What is it, my child?"

"Mr. Carter will tell you," she whispered; then, before he could speak, "Do love him for my sake."