The Storm Centre Part 9

"Pshaw! Uncle Ephraim, it couldn't be the south; the crest of the hill slopes that way," Julius contradicted, still actively plying the spoon.

"You don't know north from south; you don't know gee from haw!"

"'Twas de souf, now! 'Twas de souf!" protested the old servant.

"Now look here," argued Julius, beginning to draw with the spoon upon the broad, dusty top of a cedar chest close by. "Here is the Dripping Spring road, and here runs the turnpike. Now here is the rise of the hill, and--"

"Dar is Gen'al Belden's cavalry brigade camped at de foot," put in Uncle Ephraim, rising on his knees, taking a casual interest in cartography.

"And here is the bend of the river,"--the bowl of the spoon made a great swirl to imply the broad sweep of the n.o.ble Tennessee.

"Dat's whar dey got some infantry, four reg'ments."

"I see," with several dabs to mark the spot, "convenient for embarkation."

"An' dar," said the old man, unaware of any significance in the disclosure, "is one o' dem big siege batteries hid ahint de bresh--"

"Masked, hey? to protect launching and prevent approach by water; they _are_ fixed up mighty nice! And here goes the slope of the hill to the fort."

"No, dat's de ravelin, de covered way, an' de par'pet."

"As far down as this, Uncle Ephraim? surely not!"

"Now, ye ain't so much ez chipped de sh.e.l.l ob dis soldierin' business, ye nuffin' but a onhatched deedie! An' yere I been takin' ye fur a perfessed soldier-man! You lissen! _yere_ is de covered way ob de ravelin, outside ob a redoubt, whar dey got a big traverse wid a powder-magazine built into it. I been up dar when dis artillery captain sent his wagons arter his ammunition."

"About where is the magazine located?" demanded Julius, gravely intent.

"Jes' dar--dar--"

"No, no!" cried the Confederate officer, in a loud, elated voice.

The old servant caught him by the sleeve, trembling and with a warning finger lifted. Then they were both silent, intently listening.

The sunlight across the garret floor lay still, save for the bright bar of glittering, dancing motes. The tall aspen tree by the window made no sound as it touched the pane with its white velvet buds. A wasp noiselessly flickered up and down the gla.s.s. Absolute quietude, save for a gentle, continuous murmur of voices in conversation in the library below.

"I'se gwine ter take myse'f away from yere," said old Ja.n.u.s, loweringly, his eyes full of reproach, his nerves shaken by the sudden fright. "Ye ain't fitten fur dis yere soldierin' business; jes' pipped de sh.e.l.l. You gwine ter git yerself cotched by dat ar Yankee man whut we-all done loaded ourself up wid, an' _den_ whar will ye be? He done got well enough ter knock down a muel, an' I dunno _why_ he don't go on back ter his camp. Done wore out his welcome yere, good-fashion!"

But Julius had entirely recovered from the _contretemps_. He was gazing in fixed intentness at the map drawn in the dust on the smooth, polished top of the cedar chest.

"Uncle Ephraim," he said in an impressive whisper, "this powder-magazine is built right over a cave! I _know_, because there is a hole, a sort of grotto down in the grove, where you can go in; and in half a mile you come right up against the wall of my cousin Frank Devrett's cellar. We played off ghost tricks there one Christmas, the Devrett boys and me, singing and howling in the cave, and it made a great mystery in the house, frightening my Cousin Alice; but Cousin Frank was in the secret."

"Gimme--gimme dat spoon! I don't keer if de Yankees built deir magazine in de _well_ instead ob de cellar. I'm gwine away 'fore dat widder 'oman begins arter me 'bout dat spoon an' bowl! Gimme de bowl, sah, it's de salad bowl!"

"Oh, I see," still pondering on the map; "they utilized part of the cellar, the wine vault, blown out of the solid rock, for the bottom of the powder-magazine to save work, and then covered it over with the traverse, and--"

"Gimme dat bowl, Ma.r.s.e Julius, dat widder 'oman will be on our track direc'ly. She keeps up wid every silver spoon as if she expected ter own 'em one day! But shucks! _you_ gwine ter miss her again, wid all dis foolishness ob playin' Rebel soldier. Dat ar widder 'oman is all dressed out in blue an' pink ter-day, an' dat Yankee man smile same ez a possum!"

Julius Roscoe's absorption dropped in an instant. "You are an egregious old fraud!" he cried impetuously. "I saw her myself, yesterday, dressed in deep mourning."

"Thankee, sah!" hoa.r.s.ely whispered the infuriated old negro. "Ye'se powerful perlite ter pore ole Ephraim, whut's worked faithful fur you Roscoes all de days ob his life. I reckon I'se toted ye a thousand miles on dis ole back! An' I larned _ye_ how ter feesh an' ter dig in the gyarden,--dough ye is a mighty pore hand wid a hoe,--an' ter set traps fur squir'ls, an' how ter find de wild bee tree. An' dem fine house sarvants never keered half so much fur ye ez de ole cawnfield hand; an'

now dey hes all lef', an' de plantation gangs have all gone, too, an' ye would lack yer vittles ef 'twarn't fur de ole cawnfield hand! I'll fetch ye yer breakfus', sah, in de mornin', fur all ye are so perlite.

Thankee, kindly, sah, callin' _me_ names!"

And he took his way down the stair. Albeit in danger of capture and death, Julius flew across the floor to the head of the flight, beguilingly beckoning the old negro to return, for the ministering raven had cast up reproachful eyes as he faced about on the first landing.

Although obviously relenting, and placated by the tacit apology, the old servant obdurately shook his head surlily. Julius jocosely menaced him with his fists; then, as the gray head finally disappeared, the young man with a sudden change of sentiment strode restlessly up and down the clear s.p.a.ce of the garret, feeling more cast down and ill at ease than ever before.

"Oh, why did I come home!" Julius said over and again, reflecting on his heady venture and its scanty joy. It seemed that the great unhappiness of his life was about to be repeated under his eyes; once before he had witnessed the woman he loved won by another man. Then, however, he was scarcely more than a mere boy; now he was older, and the defeat would go more harshly with him. But was he not even to enter the lists, to break a lance for her favor? Although he had controverted the idea of her doffing her weeds in this connection, he now nothing doubted the fact.

Her choice was made, the die was cast. And he stood here a fugitive in his father's house, in peril of capture--nay, it might be even his neck, the shameful death of a spy--that he might once more look upon her face!

He could not be calm, he could no longer be still; and ceaselessly treading to and fro after the house had long grown quiet, and the brilliant radiance of the moon was everywhere falling through the broad, tall windows, his restless spirit was tempted beyond the bounds of the shadowy staircase that he might at least, wandering like some unhappy ghost, see again the old familiar haunts. He pa.s.sed through the halls, silent, slow, unafraid, as if invested with invisibility. He was grave, heavy-hearted, as aloof from all it once meant as if he were indeed some sad spirit revisiting the glimpses of the moon. Now and again he paused to gaze on some arrangement of sofas or chairs familiar to his earlier youth. By this big window always lay the backgammon-board. There was the old guitar, with memory, moonlight, romantic dreams, all entangled in the strings! It had been a famous joke to drag that light card-table before the pier gla.s.s, which reflected the hand of the unwary gamester. He sank down in a great fauteuil in the library, and through the long window on the opposite side of the room he could see the sheen of the moonlight lying as of old amidst the familiar grove.

The sentry, with his cap and light blue overcoat, its cape fluttering in the breeze, ever and anon marched past, his musket shouldered, all unaware of the eyes that watched him; the budding trees cast scant shadows, spare and linear, on the dewy turf; the flowers bloomed all ghostly white in the parterre at one side. So might he indeed revisit the scene were he dead, Julius thought; so might he silently, listlessly, gaze upon it, his share annulled, his hope bereft.

Were he really dead, he wondered, could he look calmly at Leonora's book where she had laid it down? He knew its owner from her habit of marking the place with a flower; it held a long blooming rod of the _Pyrus j.a.ponica_, the blossoms showing a scarlet glow even in the pallid moonlight. One of the "ladies" had cast on the floor her "nun's bonnet," a tube-like straw covering, fitted with lining and curtain of blue barge and blue ribbons; that belonged to Adelaide, he was sure, the careless one, for the bonnets of the other two "nuns" hung primly on the rack in the side hall. His father's pen and open portfolio lay on the desk, and there too was the pipe that had solaced some knotty perplexity of his business affairs, growing complicated now in the commercial earthquake that the war had superinduced.

Without doubt more troublous times yet were in store. Julius rose suddenly. He must not add to these trials! He must exert every capacity to compa.s.s his safe withdrawal from this heady venture, for his father's sake as well as his own. With this monition of duty the poor ghost bade farewell to the scene that so allured him, the old home atmosphere so dear to his sense of exile, and took his way silently, softly, up the stairs.

He met the dawn at the head of the flight, filtering down from a high window. It fell quite distinct on the map of the town and its defences that he had drawn, in the dust on the polished top of the cedar chest, and suddenly a thought came to him altogether congruous with the garish day.

"I know a chief of artillery who would like mightily to hear where that masked battery is! I do believe he could reach it from Sugar Loaf Pinnacle if he could get a few guns up there!"

Then he was reminded anew of the subterranean secret pa.s.sage from the grotto in the grove through the cave to the cellar of the old Devrett place, where now there was a powder-magazine. "I'd like to get out of the lines with that map set in my head precisely." He thought for a minute with great concentration. "Better still, I'll draw it off on paper."

He had half a mind to take Uncle Ephraim into his confidence to procure pencils and paper, but a prudent monition swayed him. This was going far, very far! He would possess himself of the map duly drawn, but he would share this secret with no one. He resolved that when next the family should be out of the house, for daily they and their invalid guest strolled for exercise in the grove or wandered among the flowers in the old-fashioned garden, he would then venture into the library quietly and secure the materials.

The opportunity, however, did not occur till late in the afternoon. He did not postpone the quest for a midnight hazard, for he daily hoped that with the darkness might come news of the drawing in of the picket-lines, affording him a better chance to make a run for escape.

Hence it so happened that when the elder members of the household came in to tea, they found the "ladies" already at the table, the twins gloomily whimpering, the dumb child with an elated yet scornful air, her bright eyes dancing.

They had seen a ghost, the twins protested.

"Oh, fie! fie!" their grandfather uneasily rebuked them, and Captain Baynell turned with the leniency of the happy and consequently the easily pleased to inquire into this juvenile mystery.

Oh, yes, they _had_ seen a ghost! a truly true ghost! They mopped their eyes with their diminutive handkerchiefs and wept in great depression of spirit. It was in the library, they further detailed, just about dark.

And it had seen them! It scrabbled and scrunched along the wall! And they both drew up their shoulders to their ears to imitate the shrinking att.i.tude of a ghost who would fain shun observation and get out of the way.

Little Lucille laughed fleeringly, understanding from the motion of their lips what they had said. She gazed around with l.u.s.trous, excited eyes; then, she turned toward Baynell, and with infinite lan, she smartly delivered the military salute.

"Why," cried Mrs. Gwynn, on the impulse of the moment, "Lucille says it is Julius Roscoe; that is her sign for him. What is all this foolery, Lucille?"

But just then Uncle Ephraim, in his functions as waiter, overturned the large, ma.s.sive coffee urn, holding much scalding fluid, upon the table, causing the group to scatter to avoid contact with the turbulent flood.

The "widder 'oman" struggled valiantly to keep her temper, and said only a little of what she thought. The rearrangement of the table, with her awkward and untrained servant, for the service of the meal so occupied her faculties that the matter pa.s.sed from her mind.

CHAPTER VII

Miss Mildred Fisher was one of the happiest of women, and this was the result of her own peculiar temperament, although she enjoyed the endowments of a kind fate, for she came of a good family and had a fine fortune in expectation. Her resolute intention was to make the best of everything. With a strong, fresh, buoyant physique and an indomitable spirit it became evident to her in the early stages of this effort that the world is a fairly pleasant planet to live on. Her red hair--a capital defect in those days, when t.i.tian's name was never a.s.sociated with anything so unfashionable, and which bowed to the earth the soul of many an otherwise deserving damsel--was most skilfully manipulated, and dressed in fleecy billows, usually surmounted with an elaborate comb of carved tortoise-sh.e.l.l, but on special occasions with a cordon of very fine pearls, as if to attract the attention that other flame-haired people avoided by the humblest coiffure. By reason of this management it was described sometimes as auburn, and even golden, but this last was the aberration usually of youths who had lost their own heads, red and otherwise, for Mildred was a bewildering coquette. She had singularly fine hazel eyes, which she used rather less for the purpose of vision than for the destruction of the peace of man. Her complexion of that delicate fairness so often concomitant of red hair did not present the usual freckles. In fact it was the subject of much solicitous care. She wore so many veils and m.u.f.flers that her ident.i.ty often might well be a matter of doubt as far as her features could be discerned, and Seymour, being a very glib young lieutenant, once facetiously threatened her with arrest for going masked and presumably entertaining designs pernicious to the welfare of the army. That she did entertain such designs, in a different sense, was indeed obvious, for with her determination to make the best of everything, Miss Fisher had resolved to hara.s.s the heart of the invader the moment a personable man with a creditable letter of introduction presented himself. For she "received the Yankees," as the phrase went, while others closed their doors and steeled their hearts in bitterness.