The Storm Centre Part 15

Dr. Grindley was not of a designing nature; but he was consciously experimenting when he said, rather banteringly, on his next visit, "How about the notion that there was a Confederate officer concealed in this house?"

Baynell looked annoyed. He had heard as yet not an allusion to the raid upon the house during the period of his insensibility, and he did not know that the presence of a Confederate officer had even been rumored.

He supposed that the doctor referred to the chance question he had asked Uncle Ephraim, and he deprecated the fact that the old man should have heedlessly repeated this. The dream of the altercation, as he fancied the recollection, was still vague in his mind, and with that quality of unreality and so blended with other visions of his delirium and fever that he in naught doubted its tenuous state as a figment of a disordered brain.

"There was no Rebel," he said somewhat gruffly.

"That was all merely the love of sensation?" asked the surgeon.

"Of course," Baynell a.s.sented, and fell silent.

This had been the conclusion among the officers of the surrounding camp, and it was not surprising to the surgeon that Baynell should share it, but there was a consciousness, a mortification, in his manner, that implied a personal interest and forced the question to be dropped. The surgeon had no wish to press it, and moreover he was anxious to avoid exciting the patient. He had some doubt as to the result of the fall; he was meditating seriously on symptoms which indicated that the skull had sustained a fracture. But when he remarked that all might be well if Captain Baynell remained quiet and stirred as little as possible, he was surprised and dismayed by the vehemence with which the patient declared that he must move; he must leave the house; he could not, he would not stay under this roof another night, not even an hour longer. He requested the surgeon to make arrangements to attend him elsewhere, and rang the bell to send a message to camp directing his servant to come and get his personal effects. Only a sleeping-potion could restrain this determination at the time, and the next day a return of the fever and delirium solved the surgeon's problem how to bend the will of the refractory patient to the demands of his own best interests.

Uncle Ephraim found some difficulty in sustaining with composure the disasters and excitement and fears that crowded in upon him. He must play his part with requisite spirit when in presence of the public, and he must suffer in silence and alone. He dared not seek to confer apart with his master as to the next step, lest he rouse suspicion that they had some secret understanding, and had indeed harbored the enemy. He dared not confide his troubles even to his wife, Aunt Chaney, although he yearned for sympathy, for rea.s.surance. The old cook, however, had not been admitted to any detail of the secret presence of Julius in the house. For aught she knew, even now, he was five hundred miles away.

The perversity of the falling out of events dismayed and daunted old Ephraim. Only that morning--the morning of that momentous day--Captain Baynell had announced at the table the termination of his visit.

"An' it wuz time, too. 'Fore de Lawd, it wuz surely time," the old servant grumbled, in surly retrospect. For had the officer but taken his leave and his cigar together, how different it might all have been!

"Ma.r.s.e Julius mought hev' seen Miss Leonora, an' mebbe de ladies, an'

come down inter de house an' smoked a _see_gar wid his Pa. Lawdy, ma.s.sy!

wid de curtains drawed, an' de blinds down. Dat's whut he honed for! Oh, 'fore Gawd, I dunno whar dat baby-chile--dat pore leetle Julius--is now!"

His face caught a fleeting grimace to remember the height of the "baby-chile,"--but as helpless, as forlorn, as some tiny waif, and oh, so terribly threatened in this beleaguered, in this thrice-guarded, town!

When at last he was dismissed from his station in the sick room by the sinking of Baynell into slumber under the influence of the sedative administered by the surgeon, old Ephraim, succ.u.mbing both in physique and in spirit, even in gait, stumbled downstairs and took his way into the kitchen to find some talk of trifles, some stir of the familiar duties, that might enable him to be rid of his unquiet thoughts, of his dread prognostications, of his sheer terror of the future. He sunk into a wooden chair beside the stove, for the cooking of supper was already under way. He was feeling very old and weary. His countenance seemed to have collapsed in some sort, so did his usual expression of brisk satisfaction and dapper respectfulness and reserve of intelligence prop and sustain its contours. Its bony structure now seemed withdrawn. It was a sort of dilapidated mask of desolation. He drew a long sigh. And then he said:--

"Dis is a tur'ble, tur'ble world, mon!"

"Dis world is a long sight better dan de nex' world for _you_!" said his wife, rancorously prophetic. "You hear _me_!"

The imperious Chaney had not collapsed. Her "head-handkercher" was bestowed in a turban that had two high standing ends like tufts of feathers above her black, resolute face. Her black eyes snapped as she looked beyond him, not at him. She was stepping about, stoutly, firmly, audibly, in her Sunday shoes, for no amount of mourning materialized the lost slip-shod _chaussure_--pressed deep in the mud of the highway by wagon-wheels and the uninformed hoof of an unimaginative army mule.

Uncle Ephraim gazed up in growing anxiety, not to say fright, for Aunt Chaney's mood was not suave. She suddenly paused on the other side of the stove, and, gesticulating across it with a long spoon, demanded: "You--ole--_dee_stracted--cawnfield--hand! What fur did you send _me_ fur de doctor-man?"

"Whut you go fur, den?"

Aunt Chaney reflected on her appearance on the highway, in her old homespun dress, "coat," as she called it, one slipper, no bonnet, the cake-dough dripping from her hands. She remembered that some wagoners of a forage train, struck by her agitated aspect, had looked back to laugh from their high perches among the hay and fodder; she remembered that some little imp-like boys had twitted her, calling after her in their high, callow chirp, and sorry was she that she had not left all to chase them--to chase them till they died of fright! She--_she_ who was accustomed to flaunt in a "changeable" silk, and her bonnet had an ostrich plume! She wore a bracelet, too, on grand occasions, and this was gold, solid and heavy, fine and engraved, for "Miss Leonora" herself had it bought in New Orleans expressly for her, after she had discovered and unaided extinguished a midnight fire. Not that old Chaney would have wasted all this splendor on the errand for the doctor. If she had thought but for a moment, she would have garbed herself as now, as she did instantly on her return home, to save her self-respect,--in a purple calico and a clean, white, domestic ap.r.o.n, with her respected and respectable green-and-white checked sun-bonnet, all laundered, as ever, to absolute perfection. Her haste had destroyed her judgment.

"Whyn't ye tole me dat de man hed jes' fell downsteers,--when ye come out yere, howlin' lak a painter wid a misery in his jaw. I 'lowed de Yankee had deestroyed his-self on dese yere premises."

"So did I! So did I! He bled--and _bled_!" Old Ephraim paused, his face fallen. The a.s.sociation of ideas brought by the mention of blood was uncanny.

"What ailed de man dat he hatter fall downsteers?"

"I dunno." The denial was pat.

"Whut's he come down here fightin' in the War without he's able ter keep from fallin' downsteers? De Roscoes kin stan' up! I'll say dat fur 'em."

"Dey kin dat," replied the "double-faced Ja.n.u.s" admiringly, thinking of Julius.

"How long he gwine stay?"

"'Twell he git well, I reckon."

"Den _I_ say dis ain't no house nor home. Dis is horspital Number Forty--dat's whut. Ma.r.s.e Gerald Roscoe ain't got no more sense 'n a good-sized chicken, dough he _is_ a jedge, ter hev' dat man yere fur Miss Leonora ter keer fur, an' take ter marryin' agin 'fore her old sweetheart, Julius Roscoe, kin git home. 'Fore de Lawd, I stood it ez long ez dere seemed enny end to it, but now--" she banged her pots, and pans, and kettles about with virulence.

"Ma.r.s.e Julius," she continued, "_he's_ de man fur Leonora Roscoe,--_I_ ain't gwine call her 'Gwynn,'--Ma.r.s.e Julius is good-hearted and free-handed; I knowed him from a baby, an' he wuz a big one! I always knowed he war in love wid her ever since dat Christmas up at the Devrett place, when he an' some o' dem limber-jack Devrett boys got inter de wall or inter de groun'--I dunno whar--an' sung right inter de company's ear, powerful mysterious,--skeered 'em all! Ma.r.s.e Julius, he tuk his guitar an' sung,--'Oh, my love's like a red, red rose!' An' she looked lak one while she listened, fur she knowed his voice. I wuz peekin' in at de company at de winder--Lawd--Lawd! I 'lowed _dat_ would be a match--but yere come along dat Gwynn feller!"

A sudden white flare of burning lard spread over the red-hot stove, for Uncle Ephraim had sprung up so abruptly as to strike the long handle of the skillet and overturn the utensil.

"Ain't ye got no mo' use of yer haid 'n ter go b.u.t.tin' 'roun' de kitchen, lak a ole deestracted Billy-goat, lak you is!" Aunt Chaney demanded.

As the smoke circled about she s.n.a.t.c.hed up the skillet with its flaming contents.

"Git out my kitchen, else I'll scald de grizzled woolly soul out'n you!"

"Bress de Lawd, 'oman, _I_ ain't wantin' ter stay in yer kitchen," said Uncle Ephraim, suddenly spry and saucy and brisk,--a trifle more brisk, indeed, accelerating his pace toward the door, as she took two or three long, agile, elastic steps toward him.

"I got other feesh ter fry!" he chuckled to himself.

For the blazing lard but typified a certain illumination in old Ephraim's mind.

CHAPTER X

It was a clear, gusty night when he emerged on the lawn at the side entrance of the house. For two hours with the faint and freakish light of candle ends he had been rummaging over old chests and boxes in the attic. The aspect of the desolate, deserted place that had held his young master, a tenant dear to his loyal heart, wrung from him a sigh.

Sometimes he dropped his hands, lifted himself from his crouching att.i.tude to a kneeling posture, looked wistfully about the dreary, dusty silence, shook his head sorrowfully to and fro, and then once more addressed himself to his search. When he began to find the various articles he desired, he grew tremulous, agitated. His breath was fast, and now and again he must needs check himself in his disposition to fluent soliloquy lest some one overhear in his sonorous voice such significant words as would reveal his intention. When these seizures supervened, he became anxious concerning the possible betrayal of his enterprise by the feeble light cast from the windows, and ever and anon he screened the bit of candle behind a trunk or some ma.s.sive piece of furniture. He knew that the house was a marked spot; the events of the day had rendered the locality of special and suspicious interest to all the camps in the vicinity. Many an eye was turned thither, he was aware, as the evening drew on, and in fact he hardly dared to light the tiny tapers till he had heard tattoo sound and taps beat. The tents were lost in darkness and slumber, but there were the camp and quarter guards, and soon would come the patrol and grand rounds. The sentries about the house gave him less anxiety.

"They be 'bleeged to know we-all keep some of our stuff in the garrit--mought be huntin' fur suthin' fur dat ar Yankee man's nicked haid. But _I ain't_!" he soliloquized.

When at last he had found all he desired, he extinguished the light and quietly waited. Thus in the darkness the place was even more grewsome with its a.s.sociations of concealment and flight, the imminence of his young master's capture and violent death. He heard his heart plunge at every stir of the wind, every clash of the boughs, and he muttered: "Dat pore chile wuz denied a light. His Pa p'intedly wouldn't 'low him a candle, fur fear folks would spy it out. An' here he set an' waited in de ever-lastin' night!"

Old Ephraim suffered here in the dark from a terror which had loosed its hold on his young master long ago,--the fear of the supernatural. Ghosts of many types, "ha'nts," headless horrors, spectral sounds from the other world, direful prognostications of signs, all in grisly procession pa.s.sed and repa.s.sed and crowded the garret to suffocation. It would be impossible to imagine what the old gray-headed negro saw and heard as he crouched on the dusty floor, and listened to the rout of the wind in the trees, and watched the eerie aspect of the old furniture, itself a.s.sociated with the long-gone dead, as the moon and the gust-driven shadowy clouds flickered and faded and flickered and faded across the dim s.p.a.ces. When suddenly a shrill sound pierced the ghostly solitude, he fell p.r.o.ne in complete surrender on the floor, terrified, his nerves almost shattered. An inarticulate scream came again and again, and then a low chuckling chatter. A screech-owl, a tiny thing, had alighted on the window-sill, and hearing the stir, turned its head without shifting its body, its great round eyes encountering the reproachful rolling stare of old Ephraim as he tremulously gathered himself from the floor.

Taking a package under his arm under the long coat he wore, he at last went noiselessly and swiftly down the stairs.

He looked out heedfully for Judge Roscoe, whom he did not wish to encounter.

"Marster hes been a jedge, an' dey say he hes set on de bench--dough I dunno whut fur dat's so oncommon, fur mos' ennybody kin set on a bench!

He's sot in his own cushioned arm-chair in de lawbrary whut kin lean backwards on a spring, and recline his foots upwards, an' dat's a deal ch'icer dan enny bench I knows on! But he's been a jedge, an' he's got book-larnin', but somehow I 'low he ain't tricky enough ter be up ter _dis_ kink. I ain't gwine ter let him know nuffin'."

When fairly out of the house all suggestion of secrecy and caution vanished. The old darkey flung his feet on the stone steps with a noisy impact, and before he reached the pavement, he had burst into song, marking the time with an emphatic rhythm--a wide blare of melody with a great baritone voice, that sounded far down the bosky recesses of the grove, all dappled with shadow and sheen.

"Rise an' shine, _children_!

Rise an' _shine_, children!

Rise an' shine, _children_!

De angels bid me ter come along!

O-h-h, I want ter go ter heaben when I die--"