The Storm Centre Part 12

Seymour had a very limited sense of humor and could not endure to be made ridiculous, even to gladden so merry a lady-love; but when she declared that she would transfer the whole paraphernalia--thimble, needle, towel, and all--to Captain Baynell, and let him do the hemming, Seymour, all unaware of the secret amus.e.m.e.nt his sudden consent afforded the company, showed that he preferred that she should make him ludicrous rather than compliment another man by her mirthful ridicule.

"Now, there you go! Hurrah! Make haste! Not such a big st.i.tch! Now, Mr.

Seymour, let me tell you, Hercules with the distaff was not a circ.u.mstance to you!"

And the Sewing-Circle could but laugh.

Upstairs in the quiet old attic these evidences of hilarity rose with an intimation of poignant contrast. The dreary entourage of broken furniture and dusty trunks and chests, the silence and loneliness,--no motion but the vague shifting of the motes in the slant of the sun, no sound but the unshared mirth below, in his own home,--this seemed a more remote exile. Julius felt actually further from the ancestral roof than when he lay many miles away in the trenches in the cold spring rains, with never a canopy but the storm, nor a candle but the flash of the lightning. He sat quite still in the great arm-chair that his weight deftly balanced on its three legs, his head bent to a pose of attention, his cap slightly on one side of his long auburn locks, his eyes full of a sort of listening interest, divining even more than he heard. He was young enough, mercurial enough, to yearn wistfully after the fun,--the refined "home-folks fun" of the domestic circle, the family and their friends,--to which he had been so long a stranger; not the riotous dissipation of the wilder phases of army life nor the animal spirits, the "horse-play," of camp comrades. Sometimes at a sudden outburst of laughter, dominated by Millie Fisher's silvery trills of mirth, his own lips would curve in sympathy, albeit this was but the sh.e.l.l of the joke, its zest unimagined, and light would spring into his clear dark eyes responsive to the sound. Now and again he frowned as he noted men's voices, not his father's nor well-remembered tones of old friends. They had been less frequent than the women's voices, but now they came at closer intervals, with an unfamiliar accent, with a different pitch, and he began to realize that here were the Yankee officers.

"Upon my word, they seem to be having a fine time," he said sarcastically.

In the next acclaim he could distinguish, besides the tones of the invaders and the ringing vibration from Millie Fisher that led every laugh, Leonora's drawling contralto accents, now and again punctuated with a suggestion of mirth, and high above all the callow chirp of the twin "ladies." He lifted his head and looked at the wasps, building their cells on the window lintel, the broad, dreary s.p.a.ces of the attic; and he beheld, as it were, in contrast, his own expectation, the welcome, the cherished guest, the guarded secret, the open-hearted talks with his father, with the "ladies," with her whom, since widowed, he might call to himself, without derogation to his affection or disrespect to her, his "best beloved." The hardship it was that for the bleak actuality he should have risked his capture, his life,--yes, even his neck! His hand trembled upon the map, wrought out to every detail of his discoveries, that he kept now in his breast, and now shifted to the sole of his boot, and now slid in the lining of his coat-pocket, always seeking the safest hiding-place,--forever seeking, forever doubting the wisdom of his selection.

But the map--that was something! He had gained this precious knowledge.

Only to get away with it, unharmed, unchallenged, unmolested! This was the problem. This was worth coming for.

"I'll give you some more active entertainment before long, my fine squires of dames," he apostrophized the strangers triumphantly. Then he experienced a species of rage that they should be so merry--and he, he must not see Leonora's face, must not touch her hand, must not tell her all he felt; this would have been dear to him even if she had not cared to listen. It would have been like the votive offering at a shrine, like a prayer from out the fulness of the heart.

There was presently the tinkle of gla.s.ses and spoons, intimating the serving of refreshments. "I'd like to see old Uncle Ephraim playing butler. He must step about as gingerly as a gobbler on hot tin," Julius said to himself with a smile. "I'll bet a million of dollars he has saved me my share--on a high shelf in the pantry it is right now, in a covered dish; and if Leonora should come across it, she would think the old man was thieving on his own account. Such are the insincerities of circ.u.mstantial evidence!"

The genial hubbub in the parlors below was resumed after the decorous service of salad and sherbet, and became even more animated when Colonel Ashley chanced to call to see Baynell on a matter affecting their respective commands. He had of course no idea that he would find Baynell engaged with the Sewing-Society, but he met Miss Fisher on her own ground, as it were, and there ensued an encounter of wits, a gay joust, neither being more sincere than the other, nor with any _arrire pense_ of irritable feeling to treat a feint as a threat or to cause a thrust to rankle.

Seymour did not welcome him. The prig, Baynell, as he regarded the captain, was so null, so stiffly inexpressive, that his presence had sunk out of account, and the young lieutenant felt that he could rely to a degree on the quiet kindness of the mature dames at work. They did not laugh at his sewing over much, although they noted with secret amus.e.m.e.nt that, being of the ambitious temper which cannot endure to be found lacking, he had bent his whole energies to the endeavor, and had sewed, indeed, as well as it was possible for a lieutenant of infantry to do on a first lesson. He had a sort of pride in his performance as he handed it up to Miss Fisher, and she showed it to Ashley with an air of p.r.o.nounced amaze.

"A well-conducted Rebel," she said at last, solemnly, "grounded in the proper conviction as to the ordinance of secession and the doctrine of States' Rights, would go into strong convulsions if he should have to bathe with that towel in a hospital. That wavering hem is an epitome of all the Yankee crooks, and quirks, and skips, and evasions, and concealments of the straight path that typifies right and justice, and Mason and Dixon's line! Therefore out it comes!"

As Ashley's joyous laughter rang out with its crisp, genial intonations, the listening exile in the attic again involuntarily smiled in sympathy, albeit the next moment he was frowning in jealous discomfort, with a poignant sense of supersedure. Here, under his own roof-tree--his father's home!

Lieutenant Seymour protested with ardor, and in truth he was aghast at the prospect. He had taken so much pains. He had wrought with his whole soul. He had imagined that he had hemmed so well. Although he had lost all thought of Baynell in his interest in the exercises of the afternoon, now that Ashley was at hand to witness his discomfiture he became resentfully conscious of the presence of the other officer. He was suddenly mindful that he could not appear to distinguished advantage as the b.u.t.t of a joke, however mirthful and merry, and this pointed the fact that he was not gracing the introduction here which he had earlier sought through Baynell's kind offices, and had been, as he thought, most impertinently refused. He forgot the grounds of the declination and took no heed of the circ.u.mstance that they included Ashley's request as well as his own. He did not realize that had it fallen to Ashley's lot to hem the towel and thread the needle and wear the bra.s.s thimble in a genuine sewing-circle, his genial gay adaptability would have accorded so well with the humor of the company that the jest itself would have been blunted. Its edge was whetted by Lieutenant Seymour's serious disfavor, the red embarra.s.sment of his countenance, even the stiff lock of hair, at the apex of the back of the skull, that stood out and quivered with his eager insistence, as he rose erect and held on to the towel and looked both angrily and pleadingly at Miss Fisher.

"I hope you will not be mutinous and disobedient," she said gravely. "I should be sorry to discipline you with the weapons of the society."

She threatened to pierce his fingers with a very sharp needle, and as he hastily withdrew one hand, shifting the towel to the other, she opened a very keen pair of shears; as he evaded this she brought up the needle, enfilading his retreat.

As he stood among a crowd of ladies, insisting that his work should be spared with a vehemence which most of them thought was only a humorous affectation and a part of the fun, he noted that Baynell was laughing too, slightly, languidly. Baynell was standing beside the low, marble mantelpiece, with one elbow upon it, the light from the flaming west full on his trim blond beard and hair, his handsome, distinguished face, the manly grace of the att.i.tude. Seymour resented with an infinite rancor at that moment the contrast with his own flushed, fatigued, tousled, agitated, persistent, querulous personality. He could not have given up to save his life, and yet he could but despise himself for holding on.

"You had better stop pushing me to the wall," he said, and this was literal, for he gave back step by step at each feint of the needle; "you had better be looking out for Captain Baynell. He might have an attack of conscience at any moment, and have all the fruits of your industry seized and confiscated as contraband of war. You must remember he had Mrs. Gwynn's horse impressed."

Baynell was rigid with an intense displeasure. Twice he was about to speak--twice, mindful of the presence of ladies, he hesitated. Then he said, quite casually, though visibly with a heedful self-control:--

"That was because of an order, calling for all citizens' horses in this district for cavalry."

"With which _you_ had as much to do as last year's snow. Just see, Miss Fisher,"--Seymour waved his hand toward the piles of clothing,--"'all the coats and garments that Dorcas made'; for Captain Baynell might report that they are intended to give aid and comfort to the enemy!--to be smuggled out of the lines! He has a dangerous conscience!"

There was a sudden agitated flutter in the coterie. The beautiful aged countenance of Mrs. Clinton was overcast with a sort of tremor of fright. A sense of discovery, as of a moral paralysis, pervaded the atmosphere. A long significant pause ensued. Then with the intimations of a stanch reserve of resolution,--a sort of "die in the last ditch"

spirit,--those more efficient members of the a.s.sociation, middle-aged, competent, experienced matrons, recovered their dignified equanimity and went on with the examining and counting of the results of the day's work and the contributions from without,--Mrs. Fisher, the acting secretary, receiving the reports of the conferring squads and jotting the enumeration down during the sorting and folding of the completed product.

Baynell, apparently losing self-control, had started angrily forward.

Ashley, grave, perturbed, had changed color--even he was at a loss. One might not say what a moment so charged with angry potentialities might bring forth. But nothing, no collocation of invented circ.u.mstances seemed capable of baffling Miss Fisher. She was equal to any emergency.

She had s.n.a.t.c.hed the towel from the lieutenant's hand, and, flying to meet Baynell, her smiling face incongruous with a serious, steady light in her eyes, she stopped him midway the room.

"Now do me the favor to look at that," she cried gayly, presenting the hem for inspection; "wouldn't you despise an enemy who could take aid and comfort from such a hem as that?"

"A good soldier should never despise the enemy," replied Baynell, seeking to adopt her mood and repeating the truism with an air of banter.

"Well, then, to fit the phrase to your precision, such an enemy would deserve to be despised! What--going--Mrs. Clinton? It _is_ getting late."

It was not the usual hour of their separation, but to a very old woman the turmoils of war were overwhelming. As long as the idea of conflict was expressed in the satisfaction of being able to aid in her little way the needy with the work of her own hands,--to knit as she sat by her desolate fireside and wrought for the unknown comrades of her dead sons; to join friends in furnishing blankets and making stout clothes for the soldiers; to bottle her famous blackberry cordial, and to pick lint for the hospitals,--it seemed to have some gentle phase, to bear a human heart. But when the heady tumult, the secret inquisitions, the bitter rancors, the cruelty of bloodshed, and the savagery of death that const.i.tute the incorporate ent.i.ty of the great monster, War, were rea.s.serted with menace, her gentle, wrinkled hands fell, her hope fled.

The grave was kind in those days to the aged.

Ashley had contrived to give Seymour a glance so significant that he heeded its meaning, though he was already repentant and cowed by the fear of Miss Fisher's displeasure. His heart beat fast as she turned her face all rippling with smiles toward him, albeit he told himself in the same breath that she would have smiled exactly so sweetly had she been as angry as he deserved. For Miss Fisher was not in the business of philanthropy. She had no call to play missionary to any petulant young man's rle of heathen.

"Are you going to take mamma and me home?" she asked, "or are you going to leave us to be eaten up by the cows homeward bound?"

Now and again might be heard the fitful clanking of a bell as the cows, wending their way along the river bank, paused to graze and once more took up their leisurely progress toward the town. The sunlight was reddening through the rooms. It had painted on the walls arabesques of the lace curtains of the western windows; the glow touched with a sort of revivifying effect the family portraits. Groups of the members of the society having resumed their bonnets and swaying c.r.a.pe veils were going from one to another and commenting on the likeness to the subject and the resemblance to other members of the family, and one or two of artistic bent discussed the relative merits of the artists, for several canvases were painted by eminent brushes. All were going home, though in the grove the mocking-birds were singing with might and main, but there indeed in the moonlight they would sing the night through with a romantic jubilance impossible to describe.

Ashley, with the ready tact and good breeding which caused him so much to be admired, and so much to admire himself, pa.s.sed by the more attractive of the younger members of the Circle, and did not even heed the half-veiled challenge of Miss Fisher to join her party homeward, for she had become exceedingly exasperated with Lieutenant Seymour, and had Colonel Ashley been attainable, she would have made the younger man rabid with jealousy on the walk to the town.

But no! He offered his services as escort to Mrs. Clinton, who looked suspiciously and helplessly at him like some tender old baby.

"There is no necessity, but I thank you very much," she said; "I came alone."

The engaging Ashley would not be denied. He had noticed, he said, that to-day some droves of mules were being driven into town, and the heedless soldiers raced along perfectly regardless of what was in the roads before them. They should have some order taken with them, really.

"Oh, _don't_ report them," said the old lady. "The--the discipline of the army is so--so _painful_."

"But there are no painless methods yet discovered of making men obey,"

said Ashley, laughing.

She still looked at him, doubtfully, as a mouse might contemplate the graces of a very suave cat. But when Julius gazed out from the garret window at the departing group, he was duly impressed with the handsome colonel of cavalry conducting the aged lady on one arm and bearing her delicate little extra shawl on the other, while Mrs. Fisher with Mildred and her "dancing bear," who had taken some clumsy steps that day, made off toward Roanoke City, and the other ladies variously dispersed, Captain Baynell attending the party only to the end of the drive.

Ashley's graceful persistence was justified by the meeting of some of the reckless muleteers in full run down the road, with furious cries and snapping whips and turbulent clatter of animals and men. As his tremulous charge shrunk back aghast, he simply lifted his sword "like a wand of authority," as she always described it, and the noisy rout was turned aside, as if by magic, into a byway, leaving the whole stretch of the turnpike for the pa.s.sage of the gallant cavalier and one aged lady.

When Baynell came back through the grove and into the house, the parlor doors still stood open. The western radiance was yet red on the walls, albeit the moon was in the sky. The crumb-cloth that had protected the carpet from lint was gone, the sewing-machines had vanished, all traces of the work were removed, and wonted order was restored among chairs and tables. The rear apartment was as he had seen it hitherto, save that the windows on the western balcony were open, and Mrs. Gwynn, in her white dress, was standing at the vanishing point of the perspective, glimpsed through the swaying curtains and a delicate climbing vine. He hardly hesitated, but pa.s.sed through the rooms and stepped out, meeting her surprised eyes as she leaned one hand on the iron railing of the balcony.

"I want to speak to you," he said. "I want to know if you think I should have made it plain to those ladies this afternoon that they need fear no interference from me?"

"Oh, I think they understood," she said listlessly, as if it was no great matter.

Her eyes were fixed on the purple western hills. The last vermilion segment of the great solar sphere was slipping beyond them, the sunset gun boomed from the fort, and the flag fluttered down the staff.

"I felt very keenly the position in which I was placed."

She merely glanced at him and then gazed at the outline of the fort against the red sky, all flecked and barred with dazzling flakes of amber. The rampart remained ma.s.sive and heavy, but the sentry-boxes, giving their queer little castellated effect, were growing indistinct in the distance.

"I was tempted to express my resentment, but I was afraid of going too far--of getting into a wrangle with that fellow--"

"Oh, _that_ would have been unpardonable; in the presence of Mrs.

Clinton and the rest of the Circle!" she said definitely.