The place reminded him then and later of the storm centre of a cyclone. Outside the tempests of Civil War raged. He could hear, as he sat in the quiet, book-lined room, the turbulent drums fitfully beating in tented camps far down the Tennessee River. Through the broad, old-fashioned window he saw the purple hills opposite begin to glow with a myriad of golden gleams, pulsing like fireflies, that told of thousands of troops in bivouac. He read the mystic message of the signal lights, shining with a different lustre, moving athwart the eminence, then back again, expunged in blackness as a fort across the river flashed out an answer. A military band was playing at headquarters, down in the night-begloomed town, and now and again the great blare of the brasses came widely surging on the raw vernal gusts. In the shadowy grove in front of this suburban home his own battery of horse-artillery was parked. It had earlier made its way over many an obstacle, and, oddly enough, through its agency he was recently enabled to penetrate the exclusive reserve of this Southern household, always hitherto coldly aloof and averse to the invader.
He had chanced to send a pencilled message on his card to the mansion. It merely expressed a warning to lift the sashes of the windows during the trial practice of a new gun, lest in the firing the glass be shattered by the concussion of the air. His name was unusual, and seeing it on the card recalled many pleasant reminiscences to the mind of old Judge Roscoe. Another "Fluellen Baynell" had been his college chum, and inquiry developed the fact that this Federal captain of artillery was the son of this ancient friend. An interchange of calls ensued. And here sat Captain Baynell in the storm centre, the quiet of evening closing in, the lamp on the table serenely aglow, the wood fire flashing on the high brass andirons and fender, the lion delineated on the velvet rug respectfully crouching beneath his feet. But in this suave environment he was beginning to feel somewhat embarrassed, for the old colored servant who had admitted him and replenished the fire, and whom he had politely greeted as "Uncle Ephraim," in deference to his age, now loitered, volubly criticising the unseen, unknown inmates of the house, who would probably overhear, for at any moment the big oak door might usher them into the room.
His excuses for his master's delay to appear absorbed but little time, and he assiduously brushed the polished stone hearth with a turkey wing to justify his lingering in conversation with the guest. Unexpected business had called Judge Roscoe to the town, thus preventing him from being present upon the arrival of Captain Baynell, invited to partake of tea en famille.
"But den, he 'lowed dat Miss Leonora—dat's Mrs. Gwynn, his niece, a widder 'oman—would be ready, but Marster mought hev' knowed dat Miss Leonora ain't never ready for nuffin till day arter ter-morrow! Den dere's de ladies—dey hes been dressin' fur ye fur better dan an hour. But shucks! de ladies is so vain dat dey is jus' ez liable ter keep on dressin' fur anodder hour yit!"
This was indubitably flattering information; but Captain Baynell, a blond man of thirty, of a military stiffness in his brilliant uniform, and of a most uncompromising dignity, glanced with an uneasy monition at the door, a trifle ajar. He was sensible, notwithstanding, of an unusually genial glow of expectation. The rude society of camps was unacceptable to a man of his exacting temperament, and, the sentiment of the country being so adverse to the cause he represented, he had had scant opportunities here to enter social circles of the grade that would elsewhere have welcomed him. He had not adequately realized how he had missed these refinements and felt the deprivation of his isolation till the moment of meeting the ladies of Judge Roscoe's household was at hand. He had hardly expected, however, to create so great a flutter amongst them, and he was at once secretly elated and disdainful.
Although a stranger to the ladies, the officer was well known to the old servant. The guns had hardly been unlimbered in the beautiful grove in front of the house ere the ancient slave had appeared in the camp to express his ebullient patriotism, to thank his liberators for his freedom—for this was the result of the advance of the Federal army, a military measure and not as yet a legal enactment.
Despite his exuberant rhetoric, there was something tenuous about his fervent protestations, and the fact that he still adhered to his master's service suggested a devotion to the old régime incongruous with his loudly proclaimed welcome of the new day.
"Why don't you leave your servitude, then, Uncle Ephraim?" one of the younger officers had tentatively asked him.
"Dat is jes' whut I say!" diplomatically replied Uncle Ephraim, who thus came to be called "the double-faced Janus."
Now indeed, instead of a vaunt of liberty, he was disposed to apologize, for the sake of the credit of the house, that there were no more slaves to make a braver show in servitude.
"Dey ain't got no butler now—he's in a restauroar up north—nor no car'age driver; dat fool nigger went off wid de Union army, an' got killed in a scrimmage. He would hev' stayed wid Marster, dough, if de Fed'ral folks hedn't tuk de hosses off wid de cavalry; he 'lowed he wuz too lonesome yere, wid jes' nuffin' but two-footed cattle ter 'sociate wid."
Once more he whisked the turkey wing along the clean, smooth hearth; then, still on his knees before the fire, he again addressed himself to the explanations he deemed fit as to the reduced status of his master's household.
"Me an' my wife is all de servants dey got now—she's Chaney, de cook in de kitchen. Dey hatter scuse me, fur I never waited in de house afore. No, sah! jes' a wuckin' hand; jes' a cawnfield hand, out'n de cawnfield straight!"
Whisk went the turkey wing.
"Dat's whut I tell Miss Leonora—dat's Mrs. Gwynn, de widder 'oman, Marster's niece whut's been takin' keer ob de house yere sence his wife died—I say I dunno no better when I break de dishes, an' Miss Leonora, she say a b'ar outer a holler tree would know better. Yah! yah!"
The officer, feeling these domestic confidences a burden, began to scrutinize with an appearance of interest the Dresden china shepherd and shepherdess at either end of the tall white wooden mantelpiece, and then the clock of the same ware in the centre.
Old Janus mistook the nature of his motive. "'Tis gittin' late fur shore! Gawd! dem ladies is a-dressin' an' a-dressin' yit! It's a pity Miss Leonora—dat's de widder 'oman—don't fix herself up some; looks ole, fur true, similar to a ole gran'mammy of a 'oman. But, sah, whut did she ever marry dat man fur?"
Captain Baynell, in the stress of an unusual embarrassment, rose and walked to one of the tall book-cases, affecting to examine the title of a long row of books, but the old servant was not sensitive; he resorted to the simple expedient of raising his voice to follow the guest in a detail that brought Captain Baynell back to his chair in unseemly haste, where a lower tone was practicable.
"She could hev' married my Marster's son, Julius, an' him de flower ob de flock! But no! She jus' would marry dis yere Gwynn feller, whut nobody wanted her ter marry, an' eloped wid him—she did! An' shore 'nuff, dey do say he pulled her round de house by de hair ob her head, dough some 'lows he jus' bruk a chair ober her head!"
The officer was a brave man, but now he was in the extremity of panic. What if some one were at the door on the point of entering?—the "widder 'oman" herself, for instance!
"I don't need you any longer, Uncle Ephraim," he ventured to remonstrate.
"I'm gwine, Cap'n, jus' as soon as I git through wid de ha'th," and Uncle Ephraim gave it a perfunctory whisk.
He interpolated an explanation of his diligence. "I don't want Miss Leonora—dat's de widder 'oman—ter be remarkin' on it. Nobody kin do nuthin' ter suit her but Chaney, dis cook dey got, who belong ter Miss Leonora, an' befo' de War used ter be her waitin'-'oman. Chaney is all de estate Miss Leonora hes got lef—an' ye know dat sort o' property ain't wurf much in dis happy day o' freedom. Miss Leonora wuz rich once in her own right. But she flung her marriage-settlements—dat dey had fixed to tie up her property so Gwynn couldn't sell it nor waste it—right inter de fiah! She declared she would marry a man whut she could trust wid her fortune! An'," the narrator concluded his story impressively, "when dat man died—his horse throwed him an' bruk his neck—I wondered dey didn't beat de drum fur joy, 'twuz sich a crownin' mercy! But he hed spent all her fortune 'fore he went!"
The whisking wing was still; Uncle Ephraim's eyes dwelt on the fire with a glow of deep speculation. He lowered his voice mysteriously.
"Dat man wuz de poorest stuff ter make an angel out'n ever you see! I dunno whut's become of him."
There was a stir outside, a footfall; and, as Captain Baynell sprang to his feet, feeling curiously guilty in receiving, however unwillingly, these revelations of the history of the family, Judge Roscoe entered, his welcome the more cordial and expressed because he noticed a certain constraint in his guest's manner, which he ascribed to the unintentional breach of decorum in the failure to properly receive him.
"I had hoped my niece, Mrs. Gwynn, might have been here to save you a dull half hour, or perhaps my granddaughters—where are the ladies and Mrs. Gwynn, Ephraim?" he broke off to ask of "the double-faced Janus," scuttling out with his basket of chips and his turkey wing.
"De ladies is dressin' ter see de company," replied Janus, with a grin wide enough to decorate both his faces. "Miss Leonora, she is helpin' 'em!"
Captain Baynell experienced renewed embarrassment, but Judge Roscoe laughed with obvious relish.
The host, pale, thin, nervous, old, was of a type ill calculated to endure the stress of excitement and turmoil of incident of the Civil War; indeed, he might have succumbed utterly in the mortality of the aged, so general at that period, but for the incongruous rest and inaction of the storm centre. The town was heavily garrisoned by the Federal forces; the firing line was far afield. He had two sons in the Confederate army, but too distant for news, for speculation, for aught but anxiety and prayer. The elder of them was a widower, the father of "the ladies," and hence in his absence Judge Roscoe's charge of his granddaughters.
The phrase "the ladies and Mrs. Gwynn" grated on Captain Baynell. It seemed incongruous with the punctilious old Southern gentleman to make a discourteous distinction thus between his granddaughters and his niece. Baynell dated his sympathy with her from that moment. However old and faded and reduced the house-keeperish "widder 'oman" might be, it was an affront to thus segregate her. He felt an antagonism toward "the ladies" in their exclusive aristocratic designation even before he heard the first dainty touch of their slippered feet upon the great stairway, or a gush of fairylike treble laughter. As a silken rustle along the hall heralded their bedizened approach, he arose ceremoniously to greet them.
The door flew open with a wide swing; his eyes rested on nothing beyond, for he was looking two feet over range. There rushed into the room three little girls, six and eight years of age, all hanging back for a moment till their grandfather's encouraging "Come, ladies!" nerved them for the introduction of Captain Baynell. Although sensible of a deep disappointment and a sudden cessation of interest in the storm centre, he could hardly refrain from laughing at the downfall of his own confident expectations.
Yet "the ladies," in their way, were well worth looking at, and their diligent care of their toilette had not been in vain. The two younger ones were twins, very rosy, with golden hair, delicately curled and perfumed. The other was far more beautiful than either. Her hair was of a chestnut hue; her dark blue eyes were eloquent with meaning—"speaking eyes." She had an exquisitely fair complexion and an entrancing smile, and amidst the twittering words and fluttering laughter of the others she was silent; it was a sinister, weighty, significant silence.
"A deaf mute," her grandfather explained with a note of pathos and pain.
Captain Baynell's acceptance of the fact had the requisite touch of sympathy and interest, but no more. How could he imagine that the child's infirmity could ever concern him, could be a factor of import in the most notable crisis of his life!
Indeed, he might have forgotten it within the hour had naught else riveted his attention to the house. He had begun to look forward to a dull evening—the reaction from the expectation of charming feminine society of a congenial age. "The ladies" failed in that particular, lovely though they were in the quaint costumes of the day, the golden-haired twins respectively in faint blue and dark red "satin faced" merino, the brown-haired child in rich orange. Over their bodices all three wore sheer spencers of embroidered Swiss muslin, with embroidered ruffles below the waist line. This was encircled with silken sashes, the tint of their gowns. The skirts were short, showing long, white, clocked stockings and red morocco slippers with elastic crossing the instep. The trio were swift in making advances into friendship, and soon were swarming about the officer, counting his shining buttons with great particularity, and squealing with greedy delight when an unexpected row was discovered on the seam of each of his sleeves.
As the door again opened, the very aspect of the room altered—a new presence pervaded the life of Fluellen Baynell that made the idea of strife indeed alien, aloof; the past a forgotten trifle; the future remote, in indifferent abeyance, and the momentous present the chief experience of his existence. It was partially the effect of surprise, although other elements exerted a potent influence.
Instead of the forlorn, faded "widder 'oman" of his fancy, there appeared a girlish shape, whose young, fair face was a magnet to all the romance within him. What mattered it with such beauty that the expression was a dreary lassitude, the pose indifference, the garb a shabby black dress worn with no touch of distinction, no thought, no care for appearances. As he rose, with "the ladies" affectionately clinging about him, and bowed low in the moment of introduction, his searching eyes discerned every minute detail. It was like a sun picture upon his consciousness, realized and fixed in his mind as if he had known it forever. And with a sudden ignoble recollection his face flushed from his forehead to his high military collar. Was it her hair, the old gossip had said, or was it a chair?
It was impossible to look at her without noticing her hair. A rich, golden brown, it waved back from her white brow in heavy undulations, caught and coiled in a great glittering knot at the back of her head, with no ornament, simplicity itself. Certainly, he reflected, no preparations were in progress in this quarter for his captivation. One of the ready-made crape collars of the period was about her neck, the delicate, fine contour of her throat displayed by the cut of her dress. Her luminous gray eyes, with their long black lashes, cast upon him a mere glance, cool, casual, unfriendly, it might even seem, if it were worth her languid while.
He sought to win her to some demonstration of interest when they were presently at table, with old Janus skirmishing about the dining room with a silver salver, hindering the meal rather than serving it. Only conventional courtesy characterized her, although she gave Baynell a radiant smile when offering a second cup of tea; an official smile, so to speak, strictly appertaining to her pose as hostess, as she sat behind the massive silver tea service that had been in the Roscoe family for many years.
She left the conversation almost wholly to the gentlemen when they had returned to the library. Quiescent, inexpressive, she leaned back in a great arm-chair, her beautiful eyes fixed reflectively on the fire. The three "ladies," on a small sofa, apparently listened too, the little dumb girl seeming the most attentive of the trio, to the half-hearted, guarded, diplomatic discussion of politics, such as was possible in polite society to men of opposing factions in those heady, bitter days. Only once, when Baynell was detailing the names of his brothers to gratify Judge Roscoe's interest in the family of his ancient friend, did Mrs. Gwynn suggest her individuality. She suddenly rose.
"You would like to see the portraits of Judge Roscoe's sons," she said as definitely as if he had asked this privilege. It may not have been the fact, but Baynell felt that she was making amends to the absent for the apostasy of "entertaining a Yankee officer," as the phrase went in that day, by exhibiting with pride their cherished images and forcing him to perform polite homage before them.
He meekly followed, however, as she took from a wide-mouthed jar on the table a handful of tapers, made of rolled paper, and, lighting one at the fire, led the way across the wide hall and into the cold, drear gloom of the drawing-rooms. There in the dim light from the hall chandelier, shining through the open door, she flitted from lamp to lamp, and instantly there was a chill, white glitter throughout the great apartments, showing the floriated velvet carpets, affected at that time, the carved rosewood furniture upholstered with satin damask of green and gold, the lambrequins of a harmonizing brocade and lace curtains at the windows, the grand piano, and marble-topped tables, and on the walls a great inexpressive mirror, above each of the white marble mantelpieces, and some large oil paintings, chiefly the portraits of the family.
The three "ladies" gathered under the picture of their father with the fervor of pilgrims at a votive shrine. Clarence Roscoe's portrait seemed to gaze down at them smilingly. He it was who had given his little daughters their quaint, formal sobriquet of "the ladies," the phrase seriously accepted by others, until no longer recognized as a nickname. Suddenly the deaf mute rushed back to officiously claim the officer's attention. Her brilliant eyes were aglow; the fascination of her smile transfigured her face; she was now gazing at another portrait. This was of a very young man, extraordinarily handsome, in full Confederate uniform, and, carrying her hand to her forehead with the most spirited air imaginable, she gave the military salute.
"That is her sign for Julius," cried Mrs. Gwynn, delightedly. "We have seen many armies with banners, but Julius is her ideal of a soldier, and the only one in all the world whom she distinguishes by the military salute."
"My younger son," explained Judge Roscoe; while "the ladies" with their quick transitions from subject to subject were sidling about the rooms, sinking their feet as deep as possible into the soft pile of the velvet carpets, and feeling with their slim fingers the rich gloss of the satin damask coverings, complacent in the consciousness that it was all very fine and revelling in a sense of luxury. Poor little ladies!
But Mrs. Gwynn with a word presently sent them scuttling back to the warmth of the library. As she began to extinguish the lamps Baynell offered to assist. She accepted civilly, of course, but with the unnoting, casual acquiescence that had begun to pique him, and as they closed the door upon the shadowy deserted apartments he thought they were of a grewsome favor, that the evening was of an untoward drift, and he lingered only for the conventional interval after returning to the library before he took his leave.
As the door closed after him he noted that the stars were in the dark sky. The wind was laid. The lights in the many camps had all disappeared, for "taps" had sounded. Now and again in close succession he heard the clocks in divers towers in Roanoke City striking the hour. There was no token of military occupation in all the land, save that from far away on a turnpike toward the dark west came the dull continuous roll of wagon wheels as an endless forage train made its way into the town; and as he passed out of the portico, a sentry posted on the gravelled drive in front of the house challenged him. He had ordered a guard to be stationed there for its protection against wandering marauders, so remote was the place. He gave the countersign, and took his way down through the great oak and tulip trees of the grove that his authority had also been exerted to preserve. His father's old friend had this claim upon his courtesy, he felt, for century oaks cannot be replaced in a fortnight, and without them the home would indeed be bereft.
Thinking still of the placid storm centre, Leonora Gwynn's face was continually in his mind; the tones of her voice echoed in his revery. And then suddenly he heard his step ringing on the frosty ground with a new spirit; he felt his finger tips tingle; his face glowed with rancor. The man was dead, and this indeed was well! But—profane thought! was it her hair? her beautiful hair? "The coward! the despicable villain!" he called aloud between his set teeth.
The next day naught of interest would Baynell detail of his venture into the storm centre. His invitation to the house of Judge Roscoe, somewhat noted for the vigor of his rebellious sentiments, resentful, implacable, even heady in the assumptions of his age, had roused the curiosity of Baynell's two most intimate friends concerning the traits of that secluded inner exclusive circle which only the accident of ancient association had enabled him to penetrate. In the tedium of camp routine even slight matters were of interest, and it was the habit of the three to compare notes and relate for mutual entertainment their varied experiences since last they had met.
The battery of six pieces which Baynell commanded enjoyed a certain renown as a crack corps, and spectators were gathering to witness the gun-drill—a number of soldiers from the adjoining cavalry and infantry camps, a few of the railroad hands from the repair work on a neighboring track, and a contingent of freedmen, jubilantly idle. Standing a little apart from these was a group, chiefly mounted, consisting of several officers of the different arms of the service, military experts, critically observant, among whom was Colonel Vertnor Ashley, who commanded a volunteer regiment of horse, and a younger man, Lieutenant Seymour of the infantry.
It was a fine fresh morning, with white clouds scudding across a densely blue sky chased by the wind, the grass springing into richer verdure, the buds bourgeoning, with almost the effect of leaflets already, in the great oak and tulip trees of the grove. Daffodils were blooming here and there, scattered throughout the sward—even beneath the carriages of the guns a score perhaps, untrampled still, reared aloft the golden "candlesticks" with an illuminating effect. The warm sun was flashing with an embellishing glitter on the rows of the white tents of the army on the hills around the little city as far as the eye could reach. The deep, broad river, here and there dazzling with lustrous stretches of ripples, was full of craft—coal-barges, skiffs, gunboats, the ordinary steam-packets, flatboats, and rafts; the peculiar dull roar of a railway train heavily laden, transporting troops, came to the ear as the engine, shrieking like a monster, rushed upon the bridge with its great consignment of crowded humanity in the long line of box cars, an additional locomotive assisting the speed of the transit.
"Come here, Ashley, and see if you can make anything of Baynell," said the infantry lieutenant, whose regiment lay in camp a little to the west, as the colonel reined in his horse under the tree where Seymour was hanging on to Baynell's stirrup-leather. "He hasn't a syllable to say. I want to know what is the name of that pretty girl at Judge Roscoe's."
Ashley came riding up with his inimitable pompous swagger, half the result of jocose bravado, half of genuine and justifiable vanity. It went very well with the suggestions of his high cavalry boots, his clanking sword, and his jingling spurs. His somewhat broad ruddy face had the merit of a sidelong glance of great archness, delivered from a pair of vivacious hazel eyes, and he twirled his handsome, long, dark mustache with the air of a conqueror at the very mention of a pretty girl.
"I can tell you more about Judge Roscoe's family than Fluellen Baynell ever will," Ashley declared gayly. "So ask me what you want to know, Mark, and don't intrude on Nellie's finical delicacy."
Throughout the campaign Colonel Ashley's squadrons had coöperated with Baynell's artillery. The officers had come to know and respect each other well in the stress of danger and mutual dependence. It may be doubted whether any other man alive could with impunity have called Fluellen Baynell "Nellie."
Baynell was in full uniform, splendidly mounted, awaiting the hour appointed, and now and again casting his eye on the camp "street" at some distance, the stable precincts all a turmoil of hurrying drivers and artillerymen harnessing horses and adjusting accoutrements, while a continuous hum of voices, jangling of metal, and tramping of steeds came on the air. He withdrew his attention with an effort.
"Why, what do you want me to tell?" he demanded sarcastically;—"what they had for supper?"
"No—no—but just be neighborly. For sheer curiosity I want to know his daughter's name," persisted the lieutenant of infantry.
"Judge Roscoe has no daughter," replied Baynell.
"His granddaughter, then."
"His granddaughters are children—I have forgotten their names."
"Well, who is that young lady there?—a beauty of beauties. I caught a glimpse of her at the window the day we pitched our camp in the peach orchard over there."
"She is the most beautiful girl I have ever seen," solemnly declared Ashley, who had artistic proclivities. "I never saw a face like that—such chiselling, so perfect—unless it were some fine antique cameo. It has the contour, the lines, the dignity, of a Diana! And her hair is really exquisite! Who is she, Fluellen?"
Baynell was conscious of the constraint very perceptible in his voice as he replied, "She is Judge Roscoe's niece, Mrs. Gwynn."
Ashley stared. "Mrs.! Why, she doesn't look twenty years old!" Then, with sudden illumination, "Why—that must be the 'widder 'oman!'" with an unctuous imitation of old Ephraim's elocution. "I am surprised. Mrs. Gwynn! 'De widder 'oman!'" He broke off to laugh at a sudden recollection.
"I wish you could have heard old Janus's account of his effort to clean the knives to suit her. She seems to be in command of the commissariat up there. The old darkey came into camp, searching for the methods of polishing metals that the soldiers use for their accoutrements. 'Brilliancy without labor,' was Uncle Ephraim's desideratum. I gave him some rotten-stone. His sketch of how the judgment day would overtake him still polishing knives for the 'widder 'oman' was worth hearing."
Baynell would not have so considered it—thus far apart were the friends in prejudice and temperament. Yet there was no derogation in the simple gossip. To the campaigners the Roscoe household was but the temporary incident of the mental landscape, and the confidential bit of criticism and comment served only to make conversation and pass the time.
All of Vertnor Ashley's traits were on a broad scale, genial and open. He had the best opinion imaginable of himself, and somehow the world shared it—so ingratiating was his joviality. His very defects were obviated and went for naught. Although, being only of middle height, his tendency to portliness threatened the grace of his proportions, he was esteemed a fine figure and a handsome man. He made a brave show in the saddle, and was a magnificent presentment of a horseman. He was a poor drill; his discipline was lax, for he dearly loved popularity and fostered this incense to his vanity. He was adored in his regiment, and he never put foot in stirrup to ride in or out of camp that even this casual appearance was not cheered to the echo. "That must be Vert Ashley, or a rabbit!" was a usual speculation upon the sound of sudden shouting, for the opportunity to chase a rabbit was a precious break in the monotony of the life of the rank and file.
Baynell's coming and going, on the contrary, was greeted with no demonstration. He was a rigid disciplinarian. He exacted every capacity for work that the men possessed, and his battery was one of the most efficient of the horse artillery in the service. But when it came to the test of battle, the cannoneers could not shout loud and long enough. They were sure of fine execution and yet of careful avoidance of the reckless sacrifice of their lives and the capture of their guns, often returning, indeed, from action, covered with glory, having lost not one man, not so much as a sponge-staff. So fine an officer could well dispense with the arts that fostered popularity and ministered to vanity. Thus the slightest peccadillo made the offender and the wooden horse acquaint.
None of Baynell's qualities were of the jovial order. He was a martinet, a technical expert in the science of gunnery, a stern and martial leader of men. His mind was an orderly assimilation of valuable information, his consciousness a repelling exclusive assortment of sensitive fibres. He had a high and exacting moral sense, and his pride of many various kinds passed all bounds. He listened with aghast dismay to the story of Mrs. Gwynn's unhappy married life that Ashley rehearsed—the ordinary gossip of the day, to be heard everywhere—and then a discussion took place as to whether or not the horse that killed her husband were the vicious charger now ridden by the colonel of a certain regiment.
"It couldn't be," said Ashley, "that happened nearly a year ago."
This talk hung on for a long time, as it seemed to Baynell. Yet he did not welcome its conclusion, for a greater source of irritation was to come.
"But now that you have a footing there, Fluellen, I want you to introduce me," said Colonel Ashley, who was a person of consideration in high and select circles at home, and spoke easily from the vantage-ground of an acknowledged social position. "I should be glad to meet Mrs. Gwynn. I never saw any one whose appearance so impressed me."
"Take me with you when you two call," the lieutenant, all unprescient, interjected casually. The next moment he was flushing angrily, for, impossible as it seemed, Baynell was declining in set terms.
"My footing there would not justify me in asking to introduce my friends," he said. "I should be afraid of a refusal."
Ashley, too, cast a swift, indignant glance upon him. Then, "I'll risk it," he said easily; for ill-humor with him was "about face" so suddenly that it was hardly to be recognized.
Baynell showed a stiff distaste for the persistence, but maintained his position.
"Judge Roscoe made it plain that it was only for the sake of his friendship with my father that he offered any civility to me—no concession politically. My status as an officer of the 'Yankee army' is an offence and a stumbling-block to him."
"Bless his fire-eating soul! I don't want to convert him from his treason. I desire only to call on the lady."
"I myself could not call on Mrs. Gwynn," protested Baynell. "She hardly spoke a word to me."
"It will be quite sufficient for her to listen to me," laughed Ashley.
"She took only the most casual notice of my presence—barely to give me a cup of tea."
"Now, Baynell," said the lieutenant, exceedingly wroth. "I want you to understand that I take this very ill of you."
He was a tall, spare young fellow, with light, straight brown hair, a light-brown mustache, and a keen, excitable blue eye, which showed well-opened and alert from under the dark brim of his cap as he looked upward, still standing at the side of Baynell's restive horse. "I think it a very poor return for similar courtesy. I took you with me to call on Miss Fisher—and—"
"This is a very different case. I, personally, am not on terms with Mrs. Gwynn. Besides, she is very different from Miss Fisher, who entertains general society. Mrs. Gwynn is a widow—in deep mourning."
"But it is told in Gath that widows are not usually inconsolable," suggested Ashley, with a brightening of his arch eyes, and still laughing it off.
"I am much affronted, Captain Baynell," declared the irascible lieutenant. "I consider this personal. And I will get even with you for this!"
"And I will get an introduction to Mrs. Gwynn without your kind offices," declared Ashley, with a jocular imitation of their young friend's indignant manner.
"I shall be very happy if you can meet her in any appropriate way. It is not appropriate for me, cognizant of their ardent rebel sympathies and intense antagonism to the Union cause and antipathy to all its supporters, to ask to introduce my friends of the invading 'Yankee army,'" Baynell replied with stiff hauteur.
Just then the bugle sang out, its mandatory, clear, golden tones lifting into the sunshine with such a full buoyant effect that it was like the very spirit of martial courage transmuted into sound. Baynell instantly put his horse into motion, and rode off through the brilliant air and the sparse shadows of the budding trees. His blond hair and mustache, gilded by the sunlight, had as decorative an effect as his gold lace; his blue eyes glittered with a stern, vigilant light; his face was flushed, something unusual, for he was wont to be pale, and his erect, imposing, soldierly figure sat his spirited young charger with the firmness of a centaur. The eyes of all the group followed him, several commenting on his handsome appearance, his fine bearing, his splendid horse, and his great value as an officer.
"He is an admirable fellow," declared Dr. Grindley, a surgeon on his way to the hospital hard by. He had paused at a little distance, and had not heard the conversation.
"If he were not such a prig," Ashley assented dubiously. "Such an uncompromising stickler on trifles! Any other man in the world would have slurred the matter over, and never kept the promise of the introduction. If inconvenient or undesirable, he might have postponed the call indefinitely."
"He is a most confounded prig," said Lieutenant Seymour, in great irritation.
"Baynell must have everything out—to the bitter end," said Ashley.
"I'd like to break his head! I'd like to break his face—with my fist," exclaimed the lieutenant, petulantly, clenching his hand again and again. He detailed the tenor of the conversation to the surgeon as the group watched the manœuvring battery. "Isn't that a dog-in-the-manger-ish trick, Dr. Grindley? He wants to keep his Roscoes to himself. Mrs. Gwynn won't speak to him, and so he wants nobody else to go there whom she might speak to!"
Baynell, still uncomfortably conscious of the rancor he had roused, had taken his position in the centre, just the regulation twelve paces in front of the leading horses, with the music four paces distant from the right of the first gun. As the sound blared out gayly on the crisp, clear, vernal breeze, the glittering ranks, every soldier mounted on a strong, fresh steed, moved forward swiftly, with the gun-carriages and caissons each drawn by a team of six horses. The air was full of the tramp of hoofs and the clangor of heavy, revolving wheels, ever and anon punctuated by the sharp monition, "Obstacle!" as one of the giant oaks of the grove intervened and the direction of the march of a piece was obliqued. The efficiency of the battery was very evident. The drill was almost perfect, despite the difficulty of manœuvring among the trees. But when the ranks passed from the grove they swept like a whirlwind over the open spaces of the adjoining pasture-lands, the whole battery swinging here and there in sharp turns, never losing the prescribed intervals of the relative distance of squads, and guns, and caissons—all like some single intricate piece of connected mechanism, impossible of disassociation in its several parts. Ever and anon the clear tenor tones of the captain rang out with a trumpet-like effect, and the refrain of the subalterns and non-commissioned officers commanding the sections followed in their various clamors, while the great whirling congeries of horses and men and wheels and guns obeyed the sound like some automatic creation of the ingenuity of man. Once the surgeon bent an attentive ear.
"By sections—break from the right to march to left!" called the commander, with a sudden "catch" in the tones.
"Caissons forward! Trot! March!" came from a different voice.
"Section forward, guide left!" thundered a basso profundo.
"March!" cried the captain, sharply.
"March!" came the subaltern's echo.
As the moving panorama turned and wheeled and shifted, the surgeon commented in a spirit of forecast:—
"If that fellow doesn't pay some attention to his bronchial tubes, they will pay some attention to him, and that promptly."
So promptly indeed was this prophecy verified that within the next few days old Ephraim, who purveyed all the news of the period to the remote secluded country house, informed Judge Roscoe that Captain Baynell was seriously ill with bronchitis and threatened with pneumonia. In order to have indoor protection and treatment he was to be removed as soon as possible to the hospital near the town. Judge Roscoe verified this rumor upon hastening to camp, and with hospitable warmth he invited the son of his old schoolmate to sojourn instead in his house; for in the college days to which he was fond of recurring he had been taken into the home of the elder Fluellen Baynell, and nursed by his friend's mother through a typhoid attack. To repay the obligation thus was peculiarly acceptable to a man of his type. But Baynell hardly heeded the detail of the hospitable precedent. He needed no persuasion, and thereafter he seemed more than ever lapsed in the serenities of the storm centre, ensconced in one of the great square upper bedrooms, with the spare furnishing of heavy mahogany that gave an idea of so much space, the order of the day when the plethora of decoration, the "cosy corner," the wall pocket, the "art drapery," the crowded knickknackery, did not obtain. For more than a week Baynell could not rise; the surgeon visited him at regular intervals, and Judge Roscoe appeared unfailingly each morning in the sick room; but the rest of the family remained invisible, and held unsympathetically aloof.
This was a shrewd loss to Ashley, for although he had called at first with genuine anxiety as to his friend's state, the humors of the situation appealed to him as time wore on, and he recollected with the enhanced interest of enforced idleness his boast that he would compass an introduction to Mrs. Gwynn, despite Baynell's stiff refusal. Seymour still resented the circumstance so seriously that he had withheld all manifestations of sympathy or concern, and this, the kind Ashley considered, carried the matter much too far. He thought it might effect a general reconciliation if he should meet Mrs. Gwynn by accident, when he fancied he would not fear to introduce any one whom he considered fit for good society. Thus, after he had ceased to be apprehensive concerning Baynell's condition, he called on him again and again, but hearing never a light footfall on the stair or the flutter of flounces that might promise a realization of his quest. He was all unconscious that his project had an unwitting ally in Judge Roscoe himself. For more than once Judge Roscoe was uncomfortably visited by hospitable monitions.
"I should have liked to ask Colonel Ashley to dine with us," he said tentatively to Mrs. Gwynn. "He was leaving the house just as the meal was being served. Old Ephraim—confound the old fellow—has no sort of tact. He brought in the soup to Captain Baynell with Colonel Ashley sitting by the bedside! It was indeed a hint to beat a retreat. I was—I was mortified. I was really mortified not to ask him to stay."
"Heavens, Uncle Gerald!—what are you dreaming about? Ask people to dine, and no trained servant to wait on the table—and this china—and the ladies in their pinafores!" And Mrs. Gwynn glanced scoffingly around the domestic board, for the place had once been famous for the elegance of its entertainments; but the balls, the "wine suppers," the formal late dinners of many courses, had come to an end with the conclusion of the period of prosperity, and the perfectly trained service had vanished with the vanishing butler and his corps of assistants whom he himself had rigorously drilled in the school of the pantry, in strict accordance with old traditions.
"Well, we have better china," said the judge, inexorably. "And the pinafores don't grow on the ladies; we have excellent precedent for believing they can be dispensed with."
Mrs. Gwynn fixed him with a resolute eye. "I don't intend to have the ladies taken from their studies in the forenoon to dress for company and distract their minds with fascinating gentlemen. Besides it is too great a compliment to receive an absolute stranger informally, as one of ourselves—as we treat Captain Baynell—and it is almost impossible to entertain Colonel Ashley otherwise. You forget that we have no trained servants. And I am not going to trust the handling of my aunt's beautiful old Sèvres dinner set to our inexperienced factotum—oh, the idea! It makes me shudder to think of the nicks and smashings. It ought to be kept intact for Julius's wife when he takes one, or for Clarence's if he should ever marry again. A stray Yankee officer isn't sufficient justification for risking it."
"He has called so often, and has been so kind to Captain Baynell."
"Well, so have I been kind to Captain Baynell, and here am I eating on the everyday china—no Sèvres for me! And I am going to be kinder still, for he is allowed to have some dessert to-day, and I have spread this tray with mine own hands."
She touched a call-bell, and, as old Janus appeared, "Take this tray upstairs to Captain Baynell," she said, as she transferred it, "be careful—don't tilt it so!" Then, as the old servant left the room, she resumed, addressing Judge Roscoe: "You can sentimentalize about your precious Captain Baynell, if you like, on the score of old friendship. I can appreciate the claims of old friendship, especially as he has been so ill, and possibly was better off here than at the hospital. But to go in generally for entertaining Yankee officers—and all our near and dear out yonder in those cold wet trenches, half starved, and ragged, and wounded, and dying—indeed, no! For my own part, I couldn't be induced to spread a board for another one, except at the point of the bayonet."
"Colonel Ashley don't wear no bayonet," interposed Adelaide, glibly.
"He's got him a sword," acceded Geraldine.
"A long sword, clickety-clank," suggested the first "lady."
"Clickety, clickety-clank," echoed the other, with brightening eyes.
"Don't eat with your fingers—nor the spoon; take the fork." Mrs. Gwynn's admonitory aside was hardly an interruption.
"That is a very narrow view, Leonora," the judge contended. "There can be no parity between the fervor of convictions on the issues of a great national question and merely human predilections as between individuals. Patriotism is not license for rancor. I have shown my devotion to the Southern cause. I have risked the lives of my dear, dear sons. I have expended much in its interests; I have endangered and lost my fortune. The future of all I hold dear is in jeopardy in many aspects. But I do not feel bound for that reason to hate individually every fellow-creature who has opposite convictions, to which he has a right, and takes up arms to sustain them."
"Well—I do! Being a woman, and having no reasoning capacities, there is no necessity for me to be logical on the subject. I feel what I feel, without qualification. And I know what I know without either legal proof or ocular demonstration. You are welcome to your intellect, Uncle Gerald! Much good may it do you! Intuition is enough for me. Meantime the Sèvres is safe on the shelves."
Beaten from the field as Judge Roscoe must needs be when his vaunted ratiocination was no available weapon, he held stanchly nevertheless to his own opinion, helpless though he was in the domestic administration. He adopted such measures as were practicable to comport with his own view. Flattered by Ashley's interest in Baynell and recognizant of the frequency of his visits, never dreaming that a glimpse of Mrs. Gwynn was their ultimate object, he took occasion to offer him such slight courtesies as opportunity presented.
One day when they were descending the stairs Judge Roscoe chanced to comment on the fine bouquet of a certain choice old wine. He still hoarded a few costly bottles of an ancient importation, and with a sudden thought he insisted on pausing in the library to take a glass and finish a discussion happily begun by the invalid's bedside. The room was vacant, as the colonel's keen glance swiftly assured him, and the judge's order for wine was inaugurated through the bell-cord, which jangling summons old Ephraim answered somewhat procrastinatingly.