The Battle Ground Part 42

V

THE WOMAN'S PART

At sunrise on the morning of the battle Betty and Virginia, from the whitewashed porch of a little railway inn near Mana.s.sas, watched the Governor's regiment as it marched down the single street and into the red clay road. Through the first faint sunshine, growing deeper as the sun rose gloriously above the hills, there sounded a peculiar freshness in the martial music as it triumphantly floated back across the fields. To Betty it almost seemed that the drums were laughing as they went to battle; and when the gay air at last faded in the distance, the silence closed about her with a strangeness she had never felt before--as if the absence of sound was grown melancholy, like the absence of light.

She shut her eyes and brought back the long gray line pa.s.sing across the sunbeams: the tanned eager faces, the waving flags, the rapid, almost impatient tread of the men as they swung onward. A laugh had run along the column as it went by her and she had smiled in quick sympathy with some foolish jest. It was all so natural to her, the gayety and the ardour and the invincible dash of the young army--it was all so like the spirit of Dan and so dear to her because of the likeness.

Somewhere--not far away, she knew--he also was stepping briskly across the first sun rays, and her heart followed him even while she smiled down upon the regiment before her. It was as if her soul were suddenly freed from her bodily presence, and in a kind of dual consciousness she seemed to be standing upon the little whitewashed porch and walking onward beside Dan at the same moment. The wonder of it glowed in her rapt face, and Virginia, turning to put some trivial question, was startled by the pa.s.sion of her look.

"Have--have you seen--some one, Betty?" she whispered.

The charm was snapped and Betty fell back into time and place.

"Oh, yes, I have seen--some one," her voice thrilled as she spoke. "I saw him as clearly as I see you; he was all in sunshine and there was a flag close above his head. He looked up and smiled at me. Yes, I saw him! I saw him!"

"It was Dan," said Virginia--not as a question, but in a wondering a.s.sent.

"Why, Betty, I thought you had forgotten Dan--papa thought so, too."

"Forgotten!" exclaimed Betty scornfully. She fell away from the crowd and Virginia followed her. The two stood leaning against the whitewashed wall in the dust that still rose from the street. "So you thought I had forgotten him," said Betty again. She raised her hand to her bosom and crushed the lace upon her dress. "Well, you were wrong," she added quietly.

Virginia looked at her and smiled. "I am almost glad," she answered in her sweet girlish voice. "I don't like to have Dan forgotten even if--if he ought to be."

"I didn't love him because he ought to be loved," said Betty. "I loved him because I couldn't help it--because he was himself and I was myself, I suppose. I was born to love him, and to stop loving him I should have to be born again. I don't care what he does--I don't care what he is even--I would rather love him than--than be a queen." She held her hands tightly together. "I would be his servant if he would let me," she went on. "I would work for him like a slave--but he won't let me. And yet he does love me just the same--just the same."

"He does--he does," admitted Virginia softly. She had never seen Betty like this before, and she felt that her sister had become suddenly very strange and very sacred. Her hands were outstretched to comfort, but Betty turned gently away from her and went up the narrow staircase to the bare little room where the girls slept together.

Alone within the four white walls she moved breathlessly to and fro like a woodland creature that has been entrapped. At the moment she was telling herself that she wanted to keep onward with the army; then her courage would have fluttered upward like the flags. It was not the sound of the cannon that she dreaded, nor the sight of blood--these would have nerved her as they nerved the generations at her back--but the folded hands and the terrible patience that are the woman's share of a war. The old fighting blood was in her veins--she was as much the child of her father as a son could have been--and yet while the great world over there was filled with noise she was told to go into her room and pray. Pray! Why, a man might pray with his musket in his hand, that was worth while.

In the adjoining room she saw her mother sitting in a square of sunlight with her open Bible on her knees.

"Oh, speak, mamma!" she called half angrily. "Move, do anything but sit so still. I can't bear it!" She caught her breath sharply, for with her words a low sound like distant thunder filled the room and the little street outside. As she clung with both hands to the window it seemed to her that a gray haze had fallen over the sunny valley. "Some one is dead," she said almost calmly, "that killed how many?"

The room stifled her and she ran hurriedly down into the street, where a few startled women and old men had rushed at the first roll of the cannon.

As she stood among them, straining her eyes from end to end of the little village, her heart beat in her throat and she could only quaver out an appeal for news.

"Where is it? Doesn't any one know anything? What does it mean?"

"It means a battle, Miss, that's one thing," remarked on obliging by-stander who leaned heavily upon a wooden leg. "Bless you, I kin a'most taste the powder." He smacked his lips and spat into the dust. "To think that I went all the way down to Mexico fur a fight," he pursued regretfully, "when I could have set right here at home and had it all in old Virginny. Well, well, that comes of hurryin' the Lord afo' he's ready."

He rambled on excitedly, but Betty, frowning with impatience, turned from him and walked rapidly up and down the single street, where the voices of the guns growled through the m.u.f.fling distance. "That killed how many? how many?" she would say at each long roll, and again, "How many died that moment, and was one Dan?"

Up and down the little village, through the heavy sunshine and the white dust, among the whimpering women and old men, she walked until the day wore on and the shadows grew longer across the street. Once a man had come with the news of a sharp repulse, and in the early afternoon a deserter straggled in with the cry that the enemy was marching upon the village. It was not until the night had fallen, when the wounded began to arrive on baggage trains, that the story of the day was told, and a single shout went up from the waiting groups. The Confederacy was established! Washington was theirs by right of arms, and tomorrow the young army would dictate terms of peace to a great nation! The flags waved, women wept, and the wounded soldiers, as they rolled in on baggage cars, were hailed as the deliverers of a people. The new Confederacy! An emotion half romantic, half maternal filled Betty as she bent above an open wound--for it was in her blood to do battle to the death for a belief, to throw herself into a cause as into the arms of a lover. She was made of the stuff of soldiers, and come what might she would always take her stand upon her people's side.

There were cheers and sobs in the little street about her; in the distance a man was shouting for the flag, and nearer by a woman with a lantern in her hand was searching among the living for her dead. The joy and the anguish of it entered into the girl like wine. She felt her pulses leap and a vigour that was not her own nerved her from head to foot. With that power of ardent sacrifice which lies beneath all shams in the Southern heart, she told herself that no endurance was too great, no hope too large with which to serve the cause.

The exaltation was still with her when, a little later, she went up to her room and knelt down to thank G.o.d. Her people's simple faith was hers also, and as she prayed with her brow on her clasped hands it was as if she gave thanks to some great warrior who had drawn his sword in defence of the land she loved. G.o.d was on her side, supreme, beneficent, watchful in little things, as He has been on the side of all fervent hearts since the beginning of time.

But after her return to Uplands in midsummer she suffered a peculiar restlessness from the tranquil August weather. The long white road irritated her with its aspect of listless patience, and at times she wanted to push back the crowding hills and leave the horizon open to her view.

When a squadron of cavalry swept along the turnpike her heart would follow it like a bird while she leaned, with straining eyes, against a great white column. Then, as the last rider was blotted out into the landscape, she would clasp her hands and walk rapidly up and down between the lilacs. It was all waiting--waiting--waiting--nothing else.

"Something must happen, mamma, or I shall go mad," she said one day, breaking in upon Mrs. Ambler as she sorted a heap of old letters in the library.

"But what? What?" asked Virginia from the shadow of the window seat.

"Surely you don't want a battle, Betty?"

Mrs. Ambler shuddered.

"Don't tempt Providence, dear," she said seriously, untying a faded ribbon about a piece of old parchment. "Be grateful for just this calm and go out for a walk. You might take this pitcher of flaxseed tea to Floretta's cabin, if you've nothing else to do. Ask how the baby is to-day, and tell her to keep the red flannel warm on its chest."

Betty went into the hall after her bonnet and came back for the pitcher.

"I'm going to walk across the fields to Cheric.o.ke," she said, "and Hosea is to bring the carriage for me about sunset. We must have some white silk to make those flags out of, and there isn't a bit in the house."

She went out, stepping slowly in her wide skirts and holding the pitcher carefully before her.

Floretta's baby was sleeping, and after a few pleasant words the girl kept on to Cheric.o.ke. There she found that the Major had gone to town for news, leaving Mrs. Lightfoot to her pickle making in the big storeroom, where the earthenware jars stood in clean brown rows upon the shelves. The air was sharp with the smell of vinegar and spices, and fragrant moisture dripped from the old lady's delicate hands. At the moment she had forgotten the war just beyond her doors, and even the vacant places in her household; her nervous flutter was caused by finding the plucked corn too large to salt.

"Come in, child, come in," she said, as Betty appeared in the doorway.

"You're too good a housekeeper to mind the smell of brine."

"How the soldiers will enjoy it," laughed Betty in reply. "It's fortunate that both sides are fond of spices."

The old lady was tying a linen cloth over the mouth of a great brown jar, and she did not look up as she answered. "I'm not consulting their tastes, my dear, though, as for that, I'm willing enough to feast our own men so long as the Yankees keep away. This jar, by the bye, is filled with 'Confederate pickle'--it was as little as I could do to compliment the Government, I thought, and the green tomato catchup I've named in honour of General Beauregard."

Betty smiled; and then, while Mrs. Lightfoot stood sharply regarding Car'line, who was shucking a tray of young corn, she timidly began upon her mission. "The flags must be finished, and I can't find the silk," she pleaded. "Isn't there a sc.r.a.p in the house I may have? Let me look about the attic."

The old lady shook her head. "I haven't allowed anybody to set foot in my attic for forty years," she replied decisively. "Why, I'd almost as soon they'd step into my grandfather's vault." Then as Betty's face fell she added generously. "As for white silk, I haven't any except my wedding dress, and that's yellow with age; but you may take it if you want it. I'm sure it couldn't come to a better end; at least it will have been to the front upon two important occasions."

"Your wedding dress!" exclaimed Betty in surprise, "oh, how could you?"

Mrs. Lightfoot smiled grimly.

"I could give more than a wedding dress if the Confederacy called for it, my dear," she answered. "Indeed, I'm not perfectly sure that I couldn't give the Major himself--but go upstairs and wait for me while I send Car'line for the keys."

She returned to the storeroom, and Betty went upstairs to wander leisurely through the cool faintly lighted chambers. They were all newly swept and scented with lavender, and the high tester beds, with their slender fluted posts, looked as if they had stood spotless and untouched for generations.

In Dan's room, which had been his mother's also, the girl walked slowly up and down, meeting, as she pa.s.sed, her own eyes in the darkened mirror. Her mind fretted with the thought that Dan's image had risen so often in the gla.s.s, and yet had left no hint for her as she looked in now. If it had only caught and held his reflection, that blank mirror, she could have found it, she felt sure, though a dozen faces had pa.s.sed by since. Was there nothing left of him, she wondered, nothing in the place where he had lived his life? She turned to the bed and picked up, one by one, the scattered books upon the little table. Among them there was a copy of the "Morte d'Arthur," and as it fell open in her hand, she found a bit of her own blue ribbon between the faded leaves. A tremor ran through her limbs, and going to the window she placed the book upon the sill and read the words aloud in the fragrant stillness. Behind her in the dim room Dan seemed to rise as suddenly as a ghost--and that high-flown chivalry of his, which delighted in sounding phrases as in heroic virtues, was loosened from the leaves of the old romance.

"For there was never worshipful man nor worshipful woman but they loved one better than another, and worship in arms may never be foiled; but first reserve the honour to G.o.d, and secondly the quarrel must come of thy lady; and such love I call virtuous love."

She leaned her cheek upon the book and looked out dreamily into the green box mazes of the garden. In the midst of war a great peace had come to her, and the quiet summer weather no longer troubled her with its unbroken calm.

Her heart had grown suddenly strong again; even the long waiting had become but a fit service for her love.

There was a step in the hall and Mrs. Lightfoot rustled in with her wedding dress.

"You may take it and welcome, child," she said, as she gave it into Betty's arms. "I can't help feeling that there was something providential in my selecting white when my taste always leaned toward a peach-blow brocade.

Well, well, who would have believed that I was buying a flag as well as a frock? If I'd even hinted such a thing, they would have said I had the vapours."

Betty accepted the gift with her pretty effusion of manner, and went downstairs to where Hosea was waiting for her with the big carriage. As she drove home in a happy revery, her eyes dwelt contentedly on the sunburnt August fields, and the thought of war did not enter in to disturb her dreams.