The Storm Centre Part 14

It was a day like yesterday, yet to Baynell all the world had changed.

No day could ever be the same. Life itself was made up of depreciated values. The blow had fallen so heavily, so suddenly, so conclusively.

All, all was dead! It was much with a sense of decorous observance, of reverential respect, that he made haste to bury his slain hopes, his foolish dream, his ardent expectations out of sight, never to rise again. It was unwise to linger here, but not because of his own interest, he said to himself. It would not unfit him for his duty. This was all that was left to him. His feeling for this had never swerved. It was unaffected--all apart from what had come and gone. But his presence could but be distasteful to her. And any moment might reveal his state of feeling to others--to Judge Roscoe, who would resent it if it should suggest an unwelcome urgency. And the neighbors--he had not been unnoting of the glances of surprise that had already greeted that radiant figure in white and red yesterday. While he winced a little from the realization that his sudden departure would ill.u.s.trate the sad plight of a love-lorn suitor, disregarded and cast aside,--for he had a thousand keen susceptibilities to pride,--and he would fain the tongues of gossips should forbear this sacred theme, it were best that he should go, and that shortly.

When he appeared at the breakfast-table, pale and a trifle haggard, he gave no other token of his long vigil and the radical change that he had suffered in his life and prospects. He was a man of theory. He valued his self-respect. He insisted on his self-control. He had exerted all his capacities, summoned all the resources of his courage; and this was the more needed because of the unconventional, informal footing on which he stood with the family. To say farewell and ride away might seem easy enough, but this was like quitting a home with affectionate domestic claims. When he said that he thought he must return to camp to-day, the twin "ladies" laid down knife and fork to enter their protest. They lifted their voices in plaintive entreaty, and the deaf-mute looked at Baynell with limpid eyes and a quivering lip. But Uncle Ephraim, bringing in the waffles, had a vague suggestion of "It's time, too," in the wag of his head. Judge Roscoe doubtless experienced a vivid realization of the advantage to accrue to the young soldier in the attic, whose security in his hiding-place was so endangered by the presence of the Federal officer, for he was very guarded even in his first cordial phrases, and thenceforward said no more than policy required. The twin "ladies," however, continued to loudly urge that the captain might find lizards in his cot; and asked if his tent had a floor; and warned him that frogs were everywhere now. "Tree-toads, o-o-oh! with injer-rubber feet," cried Geraldine, shudderingly, "that blow out and climb!"

"And you'll have _no_ little girl to put a lump of sugar in your after-dinner coffee, Captain," said Adelaide, impressing the merits of her methods.

"And no little girl to bring you a lighted taper for your cigar," chimed in Geraldine.

"It's _my_ turn to-day, Ger'ldine," cried the enterprising Adelaide, springing from her chair to monopolize the precious privilege.

"No--no! mine--_mine_! You had it yesterday!" cried Geraldine, racing after her out of the room.

"'Twas day before!" protested Adelaide's voice far up the hallway.

"You had better get your cigar-case ready, to bestow the boon on the first comer," suggested Mrs. Gwynn. She had entirely recovered her equanimity, as he perceived. The state of his unsought affections was naught to her. The wreck of his heart--she had known wrecked hearts for a more bitter cause! Doubtless she thought the pain transitory in his case; already its contemplation seemed to have pa.s.sed from her mind like a tale that is told. She was sedately suave as always, barely attentive, preoccupied, her usual manner, so incongruous with her youth and beauty, so at variance with her attire from the old wardrobe of by-gone days,--the fresh white lawn, flecked with light blue, the ruffles finished with "footing," and with a bobinet scarf about her throat, wherein was thrust a pin of a single rose carved in coral. She was like some dainty maiden, no refugee from the world, sad and widowed.

She led the way to the library, partly to see that the "ladies" did not set themselves aflame as their short skirts flickered about the small dully burning fire, still lighted night and morning against the chill of the crisp vernal air. They were, indeed, leaping back and forth over the fender with some temerity, and Baynell, seating himself by the table, his cigar between his teeth, thought it best to dispose of both the lighted spills by not drawing at all till both were alternately offered and the extinction of each secured. Then, as the "ladies" flew back to the dining room and out to the parterre, having volunteered to gather the rest of the flowers for the vases, Leonora and Baynell were left for the time together.

It gratified him to perceive that she did not fear the introduction of the subject anew. She experienced not even a momentary embarra.s.sment.

She understood him so well, and the plane of his emotion.

The early morning sunshine was in the cheerful library windows; a mocking-bird on a vine outside swayed so close, as he sang, that his shadow continually flickered over the sill; the flowers were all freshly abloom, and Mrs. Gwynn was standing on the opposite side of the table, her hands full of the spring blossoms that lay already on a tray, preparing to fill the great blue and white Wedgwood bowl.

Baynell, commenting on the splendor of the tulips as he smoked his cigar, spoke of the craze for speculation in the bulb that had existed in Holland, and said he had once seen an old book of ill.u.s.trations of famous prize-takers, with fabulous prices; he had always wondered how they compared with the results of modern culture and the infinite variety to which the bloom had been brought, and he had often wished to see the book again.

"Why, we have that!" exclaimed Mrs. Gwynn, pausing with her hands full of the gold variety "flamed" with scarlet. She glanced uncertainly toward the bookshelves, then suddenly remembering--"Oh, I know now where it is;--in the old bookcase upstairs, at the head of the third flight. I will call one of the ladies to go for it."

Baynell rose, his lighted cigar between his lips. "Don't trouble them; let me go!"

Julius heard the swift step of a young man on the stair. He knew that the crucial moment had come. And yet for the sake of the safety of his father, who had concealed him here, he dared not defend himself with his pistols. He had not a moment for flight or to seek a hiding-place. He could only nerve his powers to meet the crisis as best he might.

Baynell, taken wholly by surprise, felt his senses reel when, like the grotesque inconsequence of a dream, a man in the uniform of a Confederate officer in the quiet, peaceful house confronted him at the head of the flight.

"You are my prisoner!" Baynell mechanically gasped, clutching Julius with one hand and drawing his pistol with the other. "You are my prisoner!"

"In a horn!" retorted Julius, delivering his enemy a blow between the eyes which flung Baynell, stunned and bleeding, down the flight to the landing, while the boy went by him like a flash.

That swift fiery figure, with its gray regimentals and its bra.s.s and steel glitter, covered with blood, pa.s.sed Leonora like some gory apparition as she stood in the library door, amazed, pallid, breathless, summoned by the sound of loud voices and the reverberating clamors of the collision on the stairs. Julius dashed through the drawing-rooms, opened the window on the western balcony, sprang over the rail, and disappeared swiftly among the low boughs of the row of evergreen shrubs planted there in old times as a wind-break, and stretching along the crest of the hill.

And placidly in the sunshine the sentry paced his beat before the south portico, the reaches of the drive in sight, the appropriate entrance of the place, all unconscious of aught amiss, seeing nothing, hearing nothing,--till suddenly, with an effect of confusion, like the distortions of a delirium, he was aware that the grove was full of Federal soldiers, chiefly from the infantry regiment camped in the orchard to the west,--soldiers in wild disorder, hatless, shoeless, coatless, many of them,--all armed, all howling with an unexplained excitement, racing frantically hither and thither, bushwhacking with their rifles every bough in their reach. And now they came at full run, still howling and wild, toward the house.

"Halt!" cried the sentry. "Halt!"

The advance came surging on, regardless.

"Halt, or I fire!" once more the guard warned the onset. And he levelled his weapon.

They clamored out words at him, all madly intermingled, all unintelligible, approaching still at full run.

Perhaps the sentinel had some excusable regard for his own safety, for in the unexplained excitement that possessed them, they were less soldiery than a frantic mob. He had warrant enough to fire into the midst of the crowd. But it seemed that he might in a moment have been torn limb from limb. He interpreted his duty on the side of caution. He c.o.c.ked his weapon, fired into the air, and called l.u.s.tily upon the "Corporal of the guard." The ma.s.s surged into the house, some by the front door, some by the open library window, others scaled the balcony and pressed through the drawing-rooms and into the hall.

The terrified children clung to the skirt of Mrs. Gwynn's dress, as amazed and bewildered she stood in the wide long hall, by the great carved newel of the stairs, while with frantic interrogatories--"Where is he? Where is he? Who is he?"--the intruders searched every nook and cranny of the lower floor. Destruction, the inadvertent incident of haste, or the concomitant of clumsy accoutrements, seemed to attend their steps. Now sounded the shiver of gla.s.s as a soldier burst through one of the long French windows of the dining room. A trooper caught his huge cavalry spurs in the meshes of a lace curtain in one of the parlors and brought down cornice, lambrequin, and all with a crash. The crystal shades of the hall chandelier were not proof against a bayonet, held unduly aloft at the posture of Shoulder Arms. A tussle for precedence knocked a weighty marble statue, half life-size, out of the niche at the turn of the staircase. These casualties and the attendant noise, the heavy tramp of booted feet, the raucous sonority of their voices as they called suggestions to each other, all intensified the terror, the tumult of their uncontrolled and turbulent presence.

As a score raced up the stairs a sudden hush fell upon the rout. Those still below apprehended developments of moment and pressed to the scene.

The foremost had encountered Judge Roscoe and old Ephraim bearing down to the second story the prostrate body of Captain Baynell, all dripping with blood, while the floor of the stairs to the attic showed the stains of the fall.

The unexpected spectacle stayed the tumult for a moment. Then as a hoa.r.s.e murmur rose, Judge Roscoe turned toward the foremost standing at the foot of the attic flight.

"Lend a hand here," he said with a calm, steady voice. Then, looking over the bal.u.s.trade to those below, "Has the surgeon come?"

The question went from one to another--"Has the surgeon come?" to those that filled the halls and made sudden excursions to and fro in the adjoining rooms as suspicion of hiding-places occurred to them; to others that gorged the main staircase, packed close at its head, with necks craning forward, and ears and eyes intent to hear and see what had chanced.

By this time officers were in the house and the unwelcome voice of command curtailed the activities of the mob and reduced it speedily to the aspect of soldiery. The voice of command had irate intonations, and one or two of the younger officers showed a disposition to lay about with the flat of their swords, as a "wand of authority" indeed, but, apparently inadvertently, dealing blows that had tingling intimations.

They cleared the mansion quickly, the unruly manifestation serving to minimize its provocation.

To Judge Roscoe's infinite relief the officers were disposed to regard the disturbance as one of those inexplicable attacks of folly which sometimes lay hold on a ma.s.s of men, but which would be incapable of affecting them as individuals. For a search-party organized on a strict military principle had carefully ransacked every portion of the house and cellar and also the attic,--where no traces betrayed recent habitation,--examined all the vineyard, hedges, shrubbery, and even the boughs of the great trees, and invaded the stable, barn, crib, ice-house, poultry yards, dairy, kennel, dove-cote, the miscellaneous outbuildings, sties and byres, all empty, devoid even of the usual domestic animals--absolutely with no result. No Confederate fugitive, covered with blood or in any other plight, was found, and in the thrice-guarded camps that surrounded the place escape seemed impossible.

The ranking officer who ordered the search naturally believed that the sudden conviction of the presence of a Confederate soldier in the house was a sheer delusion, promulgated and distorted by rumor. Some story of Captain Baynell's fall and wound, caught possibly from the messenger sent to fetch the surgeon, had been misunderstood. This he considered was the only reasonable explanation. No one, he argued, could have escaped under the circ.u.mstances. No Rebel was in the house or in the grounds. It was impossible for a man to have fled except into the midst of the camps.

Notwithstanding the conviction thus reached, special precautionary measures were taken. New sentries were stationed on the rear and west of the house as well as in front. These posts were to be visited by a sergeant with a patrol, twice during the night. If any Rebel had contrived to escape from the place, he would find it difficult indeed to renter it. These duties concluded, the officer dismissed the whole matter as a canard or one of the inexplicable manifestations of human folly, and departed, leaving quiet descending upon the distracted scene.

It was the cook, Aunt Chaney, who had been sent at full speed for the surgeon. She had vaguely understood from old Ephraim's aspect and frantic mandate that something terrifying had befallen the household, and she did not realize until afterward the sacrifice of dignity her aspect must have presented as she ran, fatly waddling, over the hill, across the commons, and then up a path to a hospital on an eminence overlooking the town, formerly a Medical College. She was bonnetless, limping actively, for one of her large, loose slippers had gone, and gone forever. Its loss destroyed the equipoise of her gait; her unshod foot was pierced with stones and chilled with the damp ground; her sleeves were rolled up, her arms held out at a bandy angle, for her fingers were dripping with cake-batter, and she did not have sufficient composure to wring them free till she was following the surgeon home.

The condition of the messenger intimated the seriousness of the call, and the surgeon hardly waited to hear more than the wild appeal--"Come at once! Captain Baynell has killed his-self--Heabenly Friend! I wish he could hev' tuk enny other premises ter hev' c'mitted the deed." As she toiled along behind the surgeon, "Oh, my Lawd an' King!" she panted at intervals.

Baynell remained unconscious for some time. When at length he came to himself he was lying quietly in the great, commodious bedroom that he had of late occupied in the storm centre, the green Venetian blinds half closed, the afternoon sunlight softly flecking the carpet, the air of high decorum and gentle nurture which so characterized the place peculiarly in evidence, and old Ephraim noiselessly flitting about with a palm-leaf fan in his hand, ready to annihilate any vagrant fly with enough temerity to appear.

"Ye los' yer balance, sah, an' fell down de steers," he unctuously explained.

"I know--I remember that--but who--where is that Rebel officer?"

"I reckon ye mus' hev' drempt about him, Cap'n," the "double-faced Ja.n.u.s" responded casually, with the superior air of humoring a delusion.

"Ye been talkin' 'bout him afore whenst ye wuz deelerious. But dar ain't none ob dem miser'ble slave-drivers round dese diggin's now'-days, praise de Lawd! Freedom come wid de Union army."

This a.s.surance convinced the Federal officer. The old servant's interest was so obviously with the invading force that his motive was not open to question. Moreover, it was not the first time that Baynell had dreamed of the Confederate officer, the erstwhile lover of Leonora Gwynn, whose splendid portrait hung on the wall, and whom she often mentioned with interest.

When the surgeon next called he expressed to his patient great surprise: "It is very natural that in your state of convalescence you should grow dizzy and fall; but I can't for my life understand how you contrived to get such a blow from the edge of a step. It has all the style about it of a hit straight from the shoulder of an expert boxer. Uncle Ephraim doesn't happen to be something of a pugilist, now?" he added jocosely, smiling and glancing at the old negro.

"I don't happen to be nuffin, sah, dat ain't perlite," grinned the amenable "Ja.n.u.s."

"Your friends downstairs seemed frightened out of their wits, Baynell,--lest your wound should be imputed to them, I suppose," the surgeon said openly, for he did not consider the presence of the ex-slave.

"Yes, sah!" put in Uncle Ephraim, "eider me or Marster, or de widder 'oman, or de ladies air sure bound ter hev' knocked him up dat way, kase 'twould take a puffick reel-foot man ter fall downstairs dat fashion.

Yah! Yah!"

It did not occur to Baynell to doubt this statement, and not one word did he say to the surgeon of his dream of the presence of the Confederate officer. He made no effort to account for the disaster, merely lending himself to the surgeon's view that he had grown suddenly dizzy and the stairs were steep in the third flight.

This gave the surgeon a disquieting sense of suspicion some time afterward. When returning from his tour of duty at the hospital he was again in the camp, he heard there the amazing rumor among the soldiers that a Confederate officer, covered with blood, had been seen to issue from the Roscoe house and with lightning-like speed disappear among the shrubbery. He wondered that Baynell should not have mentioned the commotion, forgetting that as he was unconscious he might be still unaware of the fact.