The Cavalier Part 18

"But," I responded, "you put it on for a better reason than you could tell me then or can tell me now, though now I know your story."

"Please don't forget," she murmured, "that you know too much." "No, no! I don't know half enough; I know only what Miss Camilla and--and--Gholson could tell me," was my tricky reply, and I tried to look straight into her eyes, but they took that faint introspective contraction of which I have spoken, and gazed through me like sunlight through gla.s.s. Then again she bent her glance upon her steps, saying--

"Ah, Richard, you have found out all you could, and I am glad of it, except of what I, myself, have had to betray to you; for that was more than one would want to tell her twin brother. But I had to create you my scout, and I had only two or three hours for my whole work of creation."

"Well, you completed it." We went on some steps, and then she said--

"You tell me I risked my life to save yours; I risked more than life, and I risked it for more than to save yours. Yet I did not save your life; you saved it, yourself, and--" here her low tone thrilled like a harp-string--"you risked it--frightfully--at that bridge--merely to save the promise you made me that you need not have made at all--oh, you needn't shake your head; I know."

"Ah, how you gild my base metal!"

"No, no, I have the story exactly, and from one who has no mind to praise you."

"From Gholson?"

"Gholson! no! I have it from Lucius Oliver, who had it from his son. He told me carefully, quietly and entirely, in pure spleen, so that I might know that they know--think they know, that is,--why you and--he in front of us yonder--would not shoot his son when--"

"When as soldiers it was our simple du'--"

"Yes; and also that I may understand that he--the son--has sworn by that right hand you mutilated that the 'pair of you' shall die before he does."

"I ought not to have shown him that envelope addressed to you."

"Ah, but if it saved your life!"

"And this is what you don't want me to tell? Ah, I see; for me to know it is enough; I can put it to him as a theory. I can say Oliver is not a man to be put upon the defensive, and that he is more than likely to be hunting 'the pair of us'--" All at once I thought of something.

"What made you give that sudden start?" she asked as we faced about in the driveway to make our walk a moment longer; "that's a bad habit you've got; why do you do it?"

I fancied the thrilling freshness of the question I was about to put would be explanation enough. "Do you believe Jewett has gone back into his own lines?"

"I don't know; hasn't he?"

"Oh, I don't know, either, but--well, I don't believe there's a braver man in Grant's army than that one a-straddle of my horse to-day! Why, just the way he got him, night before last,--you've heard that, have you not?"

"Yes, I've heard it; he is a very daring man; what of it?"

"Why, I can't help thinking he's out here to make a new record for himself, at whatever cost!"

A note of distress hung on my hearer's stifled voice; her head went lower and she laid her fingers pensively to her lips. "It would be like him," I heard her murmur, and when I asked if she meant Jewett she shook her head.

"No," I said, "you mean it would be like Oliver to join him," and with that the sudden start was hers. "He wouldn't have to touch Ned Ferry or me," I went on, heartlessly, "nor to come near us, to make us rue the hour we let ourselves forget this wasn't our private war."

She whispered something to herself in horrified dismay; but then she looked at me with her eyes very blue and said "You'll see him about it, won't you? You must help unravel this tangle, Richard; and if you do I'll--I'll dance at your wedding; yours and--somebody's we know!" Her eyes began forewith.

A light footfall sounded behind us, and Camille gave both her hands to my companion. "I was in the hall," she said, "telling Cecile she was like a white star that had come out by day, when I saw you here looking like a great red one; and you're still more like a red, red rose, and I've come to get some of your fragrance."

"I'd exchange for yours any day, and thank you, dear," responded Charlotte; "you're a bunch of sweet-peas. Isn't she, Mr. Smith?"

The bunch beamed an ecstatic bliss. What was the explanation; had her father arrived, or--or somebody else? The question went through me like an arrow. Was the cause of this heavenly radiance somebody else?--that was the barb; or was it I?--that was the soothing feather.

In grat.i.tude for Charlotte's word she sank backward in a long obeisance. "May it please your ladyship, dinner is served. Oh, Mr. Smith, I've been listening to Mr. Gholson talking with aunt Martha and Estelle; I don't wonder you and he are friends; I think his ideas of religion are perfectly beautiful!"

At our two-o'clock dinner I found that our company had been reinforced. On one side of Camille sat I; but on the other side sat "Harry."

x.x.xII

A MARTYR'S WRATH

Great news the aide-de-camp brought us; from Lee, from Longstreet, Bragg and Johnston. Johnston was about to fall upon Grant's rear. Across the Mississippi d.i.c.k Taylor was expected this very day to deal the same adversary a crippling blow, and it was partly to mask this movement that we had made our feint upon the Federals near Natchez. Now these had fallen back, and our force had cunningly slipped away southward. Only General Austin and his staff had not gone when Lieutenant Helm left the front, and they were about to go.

Toward the end of the meal Mrs. Sessions, in her amiable plantation drawl, said she hoped the bearer of so much good tidings had not come to take away Lieutenant Ferry; and when Harry, flushing, asked what had given her such a thought, the simple soul replied that Mr. Gholson had told her he "suspicioned as much."

At once there arose the prettiest clamor all round the board, in which Charlotte and Cecile joined for the obvious purpose of making confusion. Gholson turned yellow and spoke things n.o.body heard, and Ferry tried to drown Harry's loud declarations that the word he had brought to Ferry was for him to stay, and that he had found him saddling up to go in search of his company. "Isn't that so, Ned?--Now,--now,--isn't that so?"

We left the table all laughing but Gholson. He tried to say something to Harry, which the latter waved away with mock gaiety until on the side veranda we got beyond view of the ladies, when the aide-de-camp reddened angrily and turned his back. As the two lieutenants were lighting cigarettes together, Harry, thinking Gholson had left us, blurted out, "Oh, that's all very well for you to say, Ned, but, d.a.m.n him, he's not the sort of man that has the right to 'suspicion' me of anything; slang-whanging, backbiting sneak, I know what he's here for."

On that the blood surged to Ferry's brow, but he set his mouth firmly, locked arms with the speaker and led him down the veranda. Gholson took on an uglier pallor than before and went back into the house. I followed him. He moved slowly up the two flights of hall stairs and into a room close under the roof, called the "soldiers' room". It had three double beds, one of them ours. Without a fault in the dreary rhythm of his motions he went to the bedpost where hung his revolver, and turning to me buckled the weapon at his waist with hands that kept the same unbroken measure though they trembled and were as pallid as his face. In the same slow beat he shook his head.

"Smith, I rejoice! O--oh! I rejoice and am glad when I'm reviled and persecuted by the hounds of h.e.l.l, and spoken evil against falsely for my religion's sake."

"Now, Gholson, that's nonsense!"

"O--oh! that's what it's for! that's what he meant by 'slang-whanging.' That's what it's for from first to last, no matter what it's for in between; and I know what it's for in between, too, and Ned Ferry knows. Did you see Ned Ferry take him under his protection? O--oh! they're two of one h.e.l.l-scorched kind!" My companion stood gripping the bedpost and fumbling at his holster. I sank to the bed, facing him, expecting his rage to burn itself out in words, but when he began again his teeth were clenched. "You heard him tell Ned Ferry he knows why I'm here. It's true! he does know! he knows I'm here to protect a certain person from him and--"

"From whom? from Harry Helm? Oh, Gholson, that's too fantastical!"

"From him and the likes of him! Not that he loves her; that's the difference between them two cotton-mouth moccasins; Ned Ferry, h.e.l.l grind him! does--or thinks he does; that other whelp don't, and knows he don't; he's only enam'--"

"HUSH!" He ceased. "I swear, Scott Gholson, you must choose your words better when you allude--Lieutenant Helm is the last man in the brigade to be under my protection, but--oh, you're crazy, man, and blind besides. Harry Helm is not in love, but he thinks he is, though with quite another person!"

"O--oh! whether he loves or not, or whoever he loves, I know who he hates; he hates me and my religion; our religion, Smith, mine and yours; because it's put me between him and her. What was that the preacher said this morning? 'The carnal mind, being enmity against G.o.d, is enmity against them that serve G.o.d.' O--oh, I accept his enmity! it proves my religion isn't vain! I'm glad to get it!"

All this from his oscillating head, through his set teeth, in one malign monotone. As he quoted the preacher he mechanically drew his revolver. There was no bravado in this; he might lie, but he did not know how to sham; did not know, now, that his face was drawn with pain. Holding the weapon in one hand, under his absent gaze he turned it from side to side on the palm of the other. I put out my hand for it, but he dropped it into the holster and tried to return my smile.

"Do you propose to call him out?" I asked. "You can't call out an officer; you'll be sent to the water-batteries at Mobile."

"I've thought of all that," he droned.

"Then why do you put that thing on?"

"Why do I put it on? Why, I--you know what I told you about that Yankee--"

"Gholson," I exclaimed, for I saw that murder, even double murder, was hatching in his heart, with Charlotte Oliver for its cause, and looked hard into his evil eyes until they overmatched mine; whereupon I made as if suddenly convinced. "You're right!" I turned, whipped on my own belt with its two "persuaders," and blandly smoothing my ribs, added "Now! here are two ready, Yankees or no Yankees."