Miss Ravenel's conversion from secession to loyalty Part 47

"What! You are not going to the field?" asked Lillie, clutching him by the sleeve. "Oh, don't do that!"

"My little girl, I cannot hold my present position. A Brigadier-General can't remain quartermaster, not even of a department. I must resign it and report for duty. Headquarters may order me to the field, and I certainly ought to go."

"Oh no! It can't be necessary. To think that this should come just when we were so happy. I wish you hadn't been promoted."

"My darling, you want to make a woman of me," he said, holding her close to his side. "I must show myself a man, now that my manhood has been recognized. My honor demands it."

He talked of his honor from long habit; conscious, however, that the word stung him.

"But don't ask to be sent to the field," pleaded Lillie. "Resign your place and report for duty, if you must. But please don't ask to be sent to the field. Promise me that; won't you?"

Looking into his wife's tearful eyes, with his strong and plump hands on her sloping shoulders, the Colonel promised as she asked him. But that evening, writing from his office, he sent a communication to the headquarters of the Department of the Gulf, requesting that he might be relieved from his quartermastership and a.s.signed to duty with the army in the field. What else should he do? He had proved himself unfit for family life, unfit for business; but, by (this and that and the other) he could command a brigade and he could fight. He would do what he had done, and could do again, with credit. Besides, if he should win distinction at Grande Ecore, it might prevent an investigation into that infernal muddle of cotton and steamboats. A great deal is pardoned by the public, and even by the War Department, to courage, capacity, and success.

In a few days he received orders from the General commanding, directing him to report to the headquarters of the army in the field. He signed his last quartermaster papers gaily, kissed his wife and child sadly, shook hands with Ravenel and Mrs. Larue, and took the first boat up the river.

Lillie was amazed and shocked at discovering how little she missed him.

She accused herself of being wicked and heartless; she would not accept the explanation that she was a mother. It was all the more hateful in her to forget him, she said, now that he was the father of her child.

Still, she could not be miserable; she was almost always happy with her baby. Such a lovely baby he was; charming because he was heavy, because he ate, because he slept, because he cried! His wailing troubled her because it denoted that he was ill at ease, and not because the sound was in itself disagreeable to her ear. If she heard it at a little distance from the house, for instance when returning from a walk, she quickened her step and smiled gaily, saying, "He is alive. You will see how he will stop when I take him."

People who feel so strongly are rarely interesting except to those who share their feelings, or who have learned to love them under any circ.u.mstances, and through all the metamorphoses of which a single character is capable. She would have been perfectly tedious at this period to any ordinary acquaintance who had not been initiated into the sweet mystery of love for children. Her character and conversation seemed to be all solved in the great alembic of maternity. She was a mother as pa.s.sionately as she had been a betrothed and a wife; and indeed it appeared as if this culminating condition of her womanhood was the most absorbing of all. This exquisite life, delicious in spite of her occasional anxieties and self-reproaches concerning her husband, flowed on without much mixture of trouble until one day she picked up a letter on the floor of her father's study which opened to her a hitherto inconceivable fountain of bitterness. Let us see how this unfortunate ma.n.u.script found its way into the house.

Doctor Ravenel, deprived for the last two years of his accustomed summer trip to Europe, or the north, or other countries blessed with a mineralogy, sought health and amus.e.m.e.nt in long walks about New Orleans and its flat, ugly vicinity. Lillie, who used to be his comrade in these exercises, now took const.i.tutionals in the pony carriage or in company with the wicker wagon of Master Ravvie. These strolls of the Doctor were therefore somewhat dull business. A country dest.i.tute of stones was to him much like a language dest.i.tute of a literature. He fell into a way of walking without paying much attention to his surroundings, revolving the while new systems of mineralogy, crystallizing his knowledge into novel cla.s.sifications, recalling to memory the characteristics of his specimens, as Lillie recollected the giggles and cunning ways of her baby. In one of these absent-minded moods he was surprised by a heavy shower, three or four miles from home. The only shelter was a deserted shanty, once probably the dwelling of a free negro. A minute or two after the Doctor found himself in its single room, and before he had discovered the soundest part of its leaky roof, a man in the undress uniform of a United States officer, dripping wet, reeled into the doorway, with the observation, "By Jove! this is watering my rum."

The Doctor immediately recognized in the herculean form, bronzed face, black eyes and twisted nose, the personality of Lieutenant Van Zandt. He had not seen him for nearly two years, but the man's appearance and voice were unforgettable. The Doctor was charitable in philosophising concerning coa.r.s.e and vicious people, but he abominated their society and always avoided it if possible. He looked about him for a means of escape and found none; the man filled up the only door-way, and the rain was descending in torrents. Accordingly the Doctor turned his back on the Lieutenant and ruminated mineralogy.

"I prefer plain whisky," continued Van Zandt, staring at the rain with a contemptuous grin. "I don't want, by Jove! so much water in my grog.

None of your mixed drinks, by Jove! Plain whisky!"

After a minute more of glaring and smiling, he remarked, "Dam slow business, by Jove! Van Zandt, my bully boy, we won't wait to see this thing out. We'll turn in."

Facing about with a lurch he beheld the other inmate of the shanty.

"Hullo!" he exclaimed. Then recollecting the breeding of his youth, he added, "I beg pardon, sir. Am I intruding?"

"Not at all; of course not," replied Ravenel. "Our rights here are the same."

"I am glad to hear it. And, by the way, have the kindness to understand me, sir. I didn't mean to insinuate that I supposed this to be your residence. I only thought that you might be the proprietor of the estate."

"Not so unfortunate," said the Doctor.

The Lieutenant laughed like a twelve-pound bra.s.s howitzer, the noisiest gun, I believe, in existence.

"Very good, sir. The more a man owns here in Louisiana, the poorer he is. That's just my opinion, sir. I feel honored in agreeing with you, sir. By Jove, I own nothing. I couldn't afford it--on my pay."

A stream of water from a hole in the roof was pattering on his broad back, but he took no notice of it, and probably was not conscious of it.

He stared at the Doctor with unblinking, bulging eyes, not in the least recollecting him, but perfectly conscious that he was in the presence of a gentleman. Drunk or sober, Van Zandt never forgot that he came of old Knickerbocker stock, and never failed to accord respect to aristocratic demeanor wherever he found it.

"I beg your pardon, sir," he resumed. "You must excuse me for addressing you in this free and easy way. I only saw you indistinctly at first, sir, and couldn't judge as to your social position and individual character. I perceive that you are a gentleman, sir. You will excuse me for mentioning that I come of an old Knickerbocker family which dates in American history from the good old jolly Dutch times of Peter Stuyvesant--G.o.d bless his jolly old Dutch memory! You will understand, sir, that a man who feels such blood as that in his veins is glad to meet a gentleman anywhere, even in such a cursed old hovel as this, as leaky and rickety, by Jove! as the Southern Confederacy. And, sir, in that connection allow me to say, hoping no offence if you hold a contrary opinion, that the Confederacy is played out. We licked them on the Red River, sir. The bully old First Division--G.o.d bless its ragged old flags! I can't speak of them without feeling my eyes water--much as I hate the fluid--the jolly, fighting old First Division fairly murdered them at Sabine Cross Roads. At Pleasant Hill the old First, and Andrew Jackson Smith's western boys laid them out over two miles square of prairie. If we had had a cracker in our haversacks we would have gone bang up to Shreveport--if we had had a cracker apiece, and the firm of W. C. Do you know what I mean, sir, by W. C? Weitzel and Carter! Those are the boys for an advance. That's the firm that our brigade and division banks on. Weitzel and Carter would have taken us to Shreveport, with or without crackers, by Jove! We wanted nothing but energy. If we had had half the go, the vim, the forward march, to lead us, that the rebels had, we would have finished the war in the southwest. We must take a leaf out of Johnny Reb's book. _Fas est ab hostes doceri._ I believe I quote correctly. If not, please correct me. By the way, did I mention to you that I am a graduate of Columbia College in New York City? Allow me to repeat the statement. I have reason to be proud of the fact, inasmuch as I took the Greek salutatory, the second highest honor, sir, of the graduation. You are a college man yourself, sir, I perceive, and can make allowance for my vanity in the circ.u.mstance. But I am wandering from my subject. I was speaking, I believe, of Colonel Carter--I beg his pardon--General Carter. At last, sir, the Administration has done justice to one of the most gallant and capable officers in the service. So much the better for the Administration.

Colonel Carter--I beg pardon--General Carter is not only an officer but a gentleman; not one of those plebeian humbugs whom our ridiculous Democracy delights to call nature's gentlemen; but a gentleman born and bred--_un echantillon de bonne race_--a jet of pure old sangre azul. I, who am an old Knickerbocker--as I believe I had the honor to inform you--I delight to see such men put forward. Don't you, sir?"

The Doctor admitted with a polite smile that the promotion of General Carter gave him pleasure.

"I knew it would, sir. You came of good blood yourself. I can see it in your manners and conversation, sir. Well, as I was saying, the promotion of Carter is one of the most intelligent moves of the Administration.

Carter--I beg pardon--I don't mean to insinuate that I am on familiar terms with him--I acknowledge him as my superior officer and keep my distance--General Carter is born for command and for victory. Wherever he goes he conquers. He is triumphant in the field and in the boudoir.

He is victorious over man and women. By Jove, sir," (here he gave a saturnine chuckle, and leer.) "I came across the most amusing proof of his capacity for bringing the fair s.e.x to a surrender."

The Doctor grew uneasy, and looked out anxiously at the pouring rain, but saw no chance of effecting an escape.

"You see, sir, I am wounded," continued Van Zandt. "They gave me a welt at Port Hudson, and they gave me another at Pleasant Hill."

"My dear sir, you will catch your death, standing under the dripping in that way," said the Doctor.

"Thank you, sir," replied Van Zandt, changing his position. "No great harm, however. Water, sir, doesn't hurt me, unless it gets into my whiskey. Exteriorly it is simply disagreeable; interiorly the same, as well as injurious. Not that I am opposed to bathing. On the contrary, it is my practice to take a sponge bath every morning--that is, when I don't sleep within musket range of the enemy. Well, as I was saying, they gave me a welt at Pleasant Hill--a mere flesh wound through the thigh--nothing worth blathering about--and I was sent to St. James Hospital. I can't stand the hospital. I don't fancy the fare at the milk-toast table, sir. (This with a grimace of unutterable disgust.) I took out a two-legged leave of absence to-day, and went over to the Lake House; lost my horse there, and had to foot it back to the city. That is how I came to have the pleasure of listening to your conversation here, sir. But I believe I was speaking of General Carter. Some miserable light wine which I had the folly to drink at the Lake has muddled my head, I fancy. Plain whisky is the only safe thing. Allow me to recommend you to stick to it. I wish we had a canteen of honest commissary now; we could pa.s.s the night very comfortably, sir. But I was speaking of General Carter, and his qualities as an officer. Ah! I remember. I mentioned a letter. And, by Jove! here it is in my breast-pocket, soaked with this cursed water. If you will have the goodness to peruse it, you will see that I am not exaggerating when I boast of the conquests of my superior officer. The lady frankly owns up to the fact that she has surrendered to him; no capitulation, no terms, no honors of war; unconditional surrender, by Jove! a U. S. G.

surrender. It is an unreserved coming down of the c.o.o.n."

"It is one of Lillie's letters," thought Ravenel. "This drunkard does not know that the General is married, and mistakes the frank affection of a wife for the illicit pa.s.sion of an _intriguante_. It is best that I should expose the mistake and prevent further misrepresentation."

He took the moist, blurred sheet, unfolded it, and found the envelope carefully doubled up inside. It was addressed to "Colonel J. T. Carter,"

with the addition in one corner of the word "personal." The handwriting was not Lillie's, but a large, round hand, foreign in style, and, as he judged, feigned. Glancing at the chirography of the note itself, he immediately recognized, as he thought, the small, close, neat penmanship of Mrs. Larue. Van Zandt was too drunk to notice how pale the Doctor turned, and how his hand trembled.

"By Jove! I am tired," said the Baccha.n.a.l. "I shall, with your permission, take the d--st nap that ever was heard of since the days of the seven sleepers. Don't be alarmed, sir, at my snoring. I go off like a steamboat bursting its boiler."

Tearing a couple of boards from the wall of the shanty, he laid them side by side in one corner, selected a blackened stone from the fire-place for a pillow, put his cap on it, stretched himself out with an inebriated smile, and was fast asleep before the Doctor had decided whether he would or would not read the letter. He was most anxious to establish innocence; if there was any guilt, he did not want to know it.

He ran over all of Mrs. Larue's conduct since the marriage, and could not call to mind a single circ.u.mstance which had excited in him a suspicion of evil. She was coquettish, and, he feared, unprincipled; but he could not believe that she was desperately wicked. Nevertheless, as he did not understand the woman, as he erroneously supposed her to be of an ardent, impulsive nature, he thought it possible that she had been fascinated by the presence of such a masculine being as Carter. Of him as yet he had no suspicion: no, he could not have been false, even in thought, to his young wife; or, as Ravenel phrased it to himself, "to my daughter." He would read the letter and probe the ugly mystery and discover the falsity of its terrors. As he unfolded the paper he was checked by the thought that to peruse unbidden a lady's correspondence was hardly honorable. But there was a reply to that: the mischief of publicity had already commenced; the sleeping drunkard there had read the letter. After all, it might be a mere joke, a burlesque, an April-Fool affair; and if so, it was properly his business to discover it and to make the explanation to Van Zandt. And if, on the other hand, it should be really a confession of criminal feeling, it was his duty to be informed of that also, in order that he might be able to protect the domestic peace of his daughter.

He read the letter through, and then sat down on the door-sill, regardless of the driving rain. There was no charitable doubt possible in the matter; the writer was a guilty woman, and she addressed a guilty man. The letter alluded clearly and even grossly to past a.s.signations, and fixed the day and hour for a future one. Carter's name did not appear except on the envelope; but his avocations and business hours were alluded to; the fact of their voyage together to New York was mentioned; there was no doubt that he was the man. The Doctor was more miserable than he remembered to have been before since the death of his wife. After half an hour of wretched meditation, walking meanwhile up and down the puddles which had collected on the earthen floor of the shanty, he became aware that the rain had ceased, and set out on his miserable walk homeward.

Should he destroy the letter? Should he give it to Mrs. Larue and crush her? Should he send it to Carter? Should he show it to Lillie? How could he answer any one of these horrible questions? What right had Fate to put such questions to him? It was not his crime.

On reaching home he changed his wet clothes, put the billet in his pocket-book, sat down to the dinner-table and tried to seem cheerful.

But Lillie soon asked him, "What is the matter with you, papa?"

"I got wet, my dear. It was a very hard walk back through the mud. I am quite worn out. I believe I shall go to bed early."

She repeated her question two or three times: not that she suspected the truth, or suspected anything more than just what he told her: but because she was anxious about his health, and because she had a habit of putting many questions. Even in the absorption of his inexplicable trouble she worried him, so that he grew fretful at her importunity, and answered her crisply, that he was well enough, and needed nothing but quiet. Then suddenly he repented himself with invisible tears, wondering at his irrational and seemingly cruel peevishness, and seeming to excuse himself to himself by calling to mind that he was tormented on her account. He almost had a return of his vexation when Lillie commenced upon him about her husband, asking, "Isn't it time to hear, papa? And how soon do you think I will get a letter?"

"Very soon, my dear," he replied gloomily, remembering the wicked letter in his pocket, and clenching his hands under the table to resist a sudden impulse to give it to her.

"I hope there will be no more battles. Don't you think that the fighting is over?"

"Perhaps it may be best for him to have a battle."

"Oh no, papa! He has his promotion. I am perfectly satisfied. I don't want him to fight any more."

The father made no answer, for he could not tell her what he thought, which was that perhaps her husband had better die. It must be remembered that he did not know that the intrigue had terminated.

"Here comes the little Brigadier," said Lillie, when the baby made his usual after-dinner irruption into the parlor.