WHAT THE WOMEN TOLD THE MAJOR
It was another lovely summer morning, sweet, moist and still. The
squadron had been out as usual, but the drill had been anything but
snappy or spirited. Every officer knew, and most men decided, that
something was weighing heavily on the major's mind, for, though he
labored conscientiously through his duties, comments and corrections
were few, and, to the surprise of all, he even dismissed the troops some
few minutes before the sounding of the recall. Captain Washburn looked
back over his shoulder at the tall, spare, sinewy figure riding slowly,
even dejectedly, with downcast eyes and troubled visage, back toward the
big quarters at the end of the row, and shook his own head as he
marveled what would be the outcome of all this foreboding. Minneconjou
had breathed freer, for all its subdued chatter, over the elimination of
Captain Foster from the column of probabilities. Minneconjou had seen
little of the lovely Mrs. Dwight of late, for though she appeared at
every dance, several dinners and on many a drive, few women had speech
with her, thanks to Foster's incessant supervision, and, looking at
another woman without unlimited conversation is not "seeing" her as
understood in feminine society. Since Foster's departure the previous
day only the doctor and the maid had been admitted to the presence of
Mrs. Dwight, though there had been callers with "kind inquiries." It was
now time for guard-mounting and the busy routine of another day. One
after another prettily gowned matrons and maids began to appear on the
verandas and flit from door to door, and the band marched forth and took
its station on the parade and the details were being inspected by the
sergeants in front of their quarters, while, well over toward the west
end of the big quadrilateral, a dozen army-bred lads of various ages,
from fourteen down to five, were gleefully surrounding a pair of Indian
ponies recently bought for the doctor's twin boys. Prominent in the
group, Jimmy Dwight, ever a prime favorite, was bestriding the more
promising of the pair, a wall-eyed, surly-looking pinto, and, as perhaps
the most accomplished horseman in the lot, was trying to make the
unwilling brute show his paces, a thing that only an Indian, as a rule,
can successfully do. Officers on their way to their company duty stopped
to see the fun. The adjutant paused before signaling to the drum major
and said a laughing word of caution to the merry crowd, lest their
gleeful shouts and laughter should disturb the dignity of the coming
ceremony. The senior surgeon, coming forth from his quarters, Silver
Hill's morning journal just received, open in his hand, moved an
adjournment to the rear of the administration building. But the colonel
himself, likewise provided by a rushing newsboy with a fresh copy of our
morning contemporary, sallied forth from his gate and shouted
encouragement to the plucky little rider. "Stick to him, Jimmy boy, and
you others don't yell so; keep quiet, and the pony will tire of
kicking."
Then he and the doctor fell into converse over the telegraphic headline,
and then the bugles pealed adjutant's call, the band crashed merrily
into "Hands Across the Sea," and the details of the twelve companies
came marching jauntily forth upon the green. The colonel, with soldierly
appreciation in his eyes, stood watching the sharp, snappy formation of
the line, the paper dangling unheeded from his thumb and forefinger,
while the surgeon, more alive to the news of the day than the niceties
of military duty, turned over the outer page, began to scan the
headlines of the inner column, as suddenly, impulsively, unthinkingly
startled the colonel by the exclamation "God!" Stone whirled about in
sudden anxiety. For a moment the doctor simply stared and read, then
glanced at the post commander, and, without a word, handed him the
sheet. Stone, too, stared, started, looked quickly into the surgeon's
face, and then said: "Let's get inside." So together these veterans of
their respective corps quit the field and the sight of men and boys and
went to confer within the depth of the vine-shaded veranda.
At that same moment the tall, gaunt form of Major Dwight was seen to
issue from the front doorway of the first quarters on the southward
line, the field officer's roomy house, and, looking neither to the right
nor the left, straight, stern and rigidly erect, he strode forth upon
the grassy parade, heading for the merry group about the ponies. The
band had ceased its spirited march music. The adjutant had assigned
officers and non-commissioned officers to their posts. The lieutenant
commanding had ordered "Inspection arms!" and once again the strain of
sweet music swept across the green carpeted quadrangle, and Marion Ray,
seated on her piazza far down the line, chatting with a neighbor who had
just dropped in, lifted her head and listened. It was one of Margaret's
old favorites, a song she used to sing and loved to sing, a song played
by many an army band for many a year, and it seemed never to grow
wearisome or stale--"Happy Be Thy Dreams." With her thoughts all of
Margaret and her eyes following her thoughts, she arose, stepped to the
rail, looking for little Jim, whom she had recently seen but seldom, and
then caught sight of the major a long distance away, bearing straight
and swift upon the romping group at the westward end of the parade.
Barely twenty minutes before, as she was giving Sandy his coffee, for
Sandy had come down late after a restless, almost sleepless night, she
had heard Dwight's deep tones at the front gate in earnest conversation
with Priscilla, who now had entirely disappeared. More than once of late
the two had been in talk over some of Priscilla's schemes, but the
housemaid said she thought Miss Sanford had gone now with the major down
the row, perhaps to Lieutenant Thornton's. Why should they go thither?
Priscilla had been so very silent, subdued and, it was hoped, contrite
since the exposure of her correspondence with the _Banner_ that Mrs. Ray
marveled at her early resumption of the old dominant way; for, though
low-voiced and almost reluctant, for her, Priscilla's words to the major
had been spoken firmly, unflinchingly. Only two or three of these words
had reached the ears of her aunt; the others were not sufficiently loud
or articulate, but whatever they were, they had led to immediate action,
for the major had departed, Priscilla with him, and, anxiously, inspired
partially by the music, partially by some indefinable sense of something
going sadly amiss, something that should be stopped at once, Marion
stepped forward, gazed eastward down the row and saw Priscilla in close
conversation with little Mrs. Thornton, only five doors away, and then,
all in a flash, she remembered----
Sandy, before starting for his office, had gone back to his room. He at
least was on hand and ready to act in case she needed him, but as yet
she did not call. Forgetful, for the moment, of her visitor, she stood
clasping the rail and staring, inert and even possibly fascinated, along
the westward line, following intently and with startled, troubled eyes
the major's movements. Others, too, had noted both among the spectators
along that front and among the laughing lads themselves. By this time
the ponies had been favored with new riders and the riders with every
conceivable suggestion as to what to attempt. Jimmy had given place to
Harold Winn, and rejoicefully was bidding him clamp tighter with his
legs and knees and keep his hands down on the withers, but too late. A
sudden lunge with his heels, a dive with his shaggy head, and the spunky
little brute, half-savage as a result of all-savage training, had
propelled his would-be conqueror sprawling to the edge of the gleaming
waters of the _acequia_, and a shout of mingled delight and derision
went up from a dozen boy throats, and Jimmy, helping his playmate,
unhurt but shaken, to his feet, caught sight of the loved form speeding
toward them over the green, and, bubbling over with fun, laughter, high
health and spirits, just as of old went bounding joyously, confidently,
to meet him.
Of just what was passing in Oswald Dwight's bewildered mind that morning
God alone could judge and tell. All his soldier life he had loved truth
and hated a lie. All his fond and confident teaching of his only boy,
Margaret's darling and his hope and pride, had been to speak the truth,
frankly, fearlessly, fully, first, last and all the time. "Never fear to
come to me with anything you may have done. Never let anything tempt you
to swerve from the truth and the whole truth. Nothing you can ever say
or do will ever so hurt me as will a lie." And so, fearlessly and fully,
from the time Jim had begun to prattle he had learned to own his little
faults, sure of sympathy and forgiveness. He had learned to strive to
conquer them for the sake of the love and trust that was so unfailing,
and in response to the grave but ever gentle admonition, and it had been
the father's fond belief for years that between him and his only son
there lived utter confidence and faith, that Jim would ever shrink from
a lie and never from him. Between the two, father and son, never had
there seemed to come a shadow, until of late that darkly beautiful face
had for the time, at least, replaced--that other. Since then, time and
again when Dwight spoke of his pride and trust in Jim, the new wife had
listened, unresponsive. Since that last night in Naples, whenever Dwight
spoke of his confidence in Jimmy's word she had sometimes looked up
appealingly, timidly, as though she longed to believe as he believed,
yet could not--quite. Sometimes she had looked away. Once or twice she
had ventured a faint negation. Jimmy would not _deliberately_ tell a
falsehood; oh, she was _sure_ of that, but, like all children, she said,
when suddenly accused, the impulse would be to deny, would it not? and
then--had not the major observed?--did he not remember--that Jimmy was
just a bit--imaginative? Dwight puzzled over her apparent unbelief.
But very recently he had noticed other little things that vaguely
worried him. Could it be that, as his boy grew older and mingled more
with other boys, he was learning to be influenced more by them and less
by the father? Could it be that he was seeing, hearing, things, to speak
of which he dared not? There might be things of which he would be
ashamed. Certainly the father had seen at times, since the homeward
voyage, a certain hesitancy on part of the son, and within the past few
days, for the first time in Jimmy's life, Dwight had noted symptoms of
something like avoidance, concealment, embarrassment, _some_thing that
told his jealous, over-anxious heart the boy no longer utterly confided
in the man. It was late the previous evening when the little fellow had
returned with his stanch friend, Sergeant French, and a fine string of
trout, happy, radiant, proud of his success, but so tired he could
hardly keep his eyes open long enough to undress and get to bed. Dwight
had met him at the door, cautioning silence on mamma's account, and the
young face that beamed up at his, all delight and eagerness at first,
clouded almost instantly at the word. Jimmy did not even care for the
tempting supper set aside for him--he had had such a big lunch, he said,
in smothered tone, as he prattled eagerly to his father and showed his
finny prizes, and sipped at his glass of milk. But Dwight had been
brooding over little things that had come to him since Foster's assisted
emigration. He had returned straight from his conference with Stone and
the surgeon to find Inez reduced to the sofa and smelling salts--to tell
her at once that their guest was gone, not because of a fracas with Ray,
as Foster had furiously declared, but because of telegraphic orders from
Washington that had come, possibly, as the result of Foster's own
telegraphic inquiries of Saturday and Sunday. Not for a star would
Dwight let his wife suppose that Foster's protracted visit had given him
the least uneasiness! But the maid, that pert and flippant young person
so much in evidence about the house, so indispensable to Inez, so
intangibly a nuisance to him, kept flitting in and out, with her
persistent, "Madame should compose herself"; "Madame should not try to
talk."
The "young person's" nationality, Dwight believed, was Swiss-Italian,
rather than French. They had picked her up in Milan, but her
professional interests, it seems, were advanced by the adoption of
French methods and mannerisms. She had early striven to establish
herself as companion rather than maid, to be called Mademoiselle rather
than Felicie, but the dragoon had sharply drawn the line, and in the
beginning, at least, the man was master. As ills accumulated, however,
and masculine strength deferred to feminine weakness, he succumbed to
their wishes, with the result that the ascendency of the domestic was
becoming a matter of gossip. Once established at the post, Felicie's
swift methods of acquiring knowledge of all that was going on about her,
and unlimited means of imparting the same to her mistress, had quite
speedily established confidential relations to which the putative master
of the house was a stranger. There is a garrison "Service of Security
and Information" that differs widely from that of the field--and is even
more comprehensive.
Felicie had heard the various versions of the affray at Ray's office.
Felicie had heard of the lamentable affair of Georgie Thornton's injury
and its cause, and Felicie had been quick to see and suggest how this
incident might be utilized in case Master James could not be persuaded
to forget that, when he came hurrying in from church the previous day,
mamma, who had been too ill to arise at ten o'clock, was in most
becoming morning toilet _tete-a-tete_ with Captain Foster in the parlor.
Felicie had even assured Madame that she could and would influence
Master James accordingly, and this, too, after one unsuccessful attempt
on Sunday. Felicie had fairly flown, all sympathy and helpfulness, to
fetch Master James fresh, cool water, towels, ice for the back of his
neck, a preventive the most assured for nose-bleed, and all this despite
Jimmy's repellent silence, for the lad shrank from her instinctively.
She had then striven to coax him to promise that he would mention to no
man that mamma was dressed and downstairs: it would so annoy the doctor,
who had said she should remain in bed, and, indeed, she (Felicie) and
the dear captain had remonstrated with mamma, and were even then
striving to persuade mamma to return to her room, as later she had to
when--Master James came so hurriedly in. The only response had been a
blank look of bewilderment and dislike and an uncompromising: "Well,
'spose somebody _asks_ me?"
All this, of course, was known at the moment only to the three; but, as
luck would have it, when Dwight came walking slowly homeward from church
with Mrs. Ray, communion service ended, Jim had run to meet them, the
nose-bleed already forgotten, and, to the father's "I hope you didn't
disturb mamma, my boy. She was trying hard to sleep," the little man had
promptly, impulsively responded: "No, indeed, daddy, mamma is up and
dressed----" And then he remembered, faltered, blushed.
Dwight did not question his boy about his new mamma. That was another
thing from which the father shrank. He saw the lad's sudden confusion,
and knew that something was being held back, but it was something that
should be held back. In all his teachings as to utter frankness, truth,
confidence, he, of course, had never meant that his boy should be a
tale-bearer--above all that he should ever come with tales of his new
mamma; yet Dwight, unfortunately, had never given him to understand that
there were matters, now that the boy was growing older and observant,
concerning which no confidences were expected or invited. But it had set
him to thinking--to questioning Inez as to her sudden recovery, and
again, more pointedly that Monday afternoon between the hour of his
visit with the colonel and his ominous symptoms at parade, thereby
bringing on a fit of nerves for her and a swimming of the head for
himself. It was while he was waiting for Jimmy's home-coming that
Felicie--ostentatiously bustling to and fro, all sympathy for Madame in
her prostration and anxiety as to M'sieu, the Commandant--had contrived
to intimate that Monsieur James had been so imprudent as to rush, all
ensanguined, into the presence of Madame, and now and under such
circumstances, and in virgin modesty, Felicie's eyelids drooped, "Madame
should be spared all possibility of shock or emotion." Under any other
circumstances with what a thrill would he have listened to her words!
Did not Monsieur conceive? And Madame's heart and sympathies so
all-responsive! Had they not already been lacerated by the story of the
suffering of the little George, an infant, oh, heaven, the most amiable!
But assuredly Monsieur James had apprised his father of all that had
taken place. He, too, was an infant the most amiable, and Dwight,
overwrought and bewildered, before Jimmy went to his bed that night, had
again asked him what all this meant about Georgie Thornton, and, looking
squarely into his father's face, with Margaret's soul speaking from his
clear, unflinching, fearless eyes, the little man had said again, "Why,
daddy, I haven't an idea! I didn't even _hear_ he was hurt until you
told me."
Then had come a morning's drill following an almost sleepless night, and
during drill he had rebuked young Thornton for the faults of his
platoon, and after drill had lectured him a bit for seeming neglect or
indifference, and even of sullen acceptance of deserved criticism. Then,
suddenly, remembering, he ceased his rebuke, turned the subject and
asked how was George, and then as they were parting, again asked how it
happened, and was again startled by the words: "Ask your own boy, sir,"
for Thornton, like many an older, stronger, wiser man, accepted
unchallenged the views of his wife. Jim had had his breakfast and was
gone by the time Dwight reached home, but Felicie, in answer to
question, with infinite regret and becoming reluctance owned that Miss
Sanford and other witnesses of the unfortunate affair united in saying
that Monsieur James had, in a moment of boyish petulance perhaps, swung
his jacket full in the face of Monsieur George, never thinking,
doubtless, of the cruel, sharp-edged, metal button that should so nearly
cut out the eye; and then, terrified at the sight of so much blood, was
it not natural that any child should run from the sight and try to
forget, and perhaps _might_ forget, and so deny?
Dwight listened in a daze, spurning the toothsome breakfast set before
him; then, rising, took his cap, left the house without another word
and, hastening thither, found Priscilla Sanford on the veranda at the
Rays'.
As she herself subsequently admitted to her aunt, Priscilla, who had
been bred to the doctrine of original sin and innate propensity for
evil, who had long thought that the major stood sorely in ignorance as
to Jimmy's spiritual needs, and who herself stood solemnly convinced of
the truth of the Thornton story, now conceived it her duty to fully and
unreservedly answer the major's questions. Had she witnessed the affair?
She had in great part, she said, little considering that of the most
essential part, the actual blow or slash, she had seen nothing. Was it
true that his son was--the assailant? Priscilla answered that, though
she was not at that instant where she could herself _see_ the blow, she
an instant later saw everything, and the relative position of the boys
was such that there was no room for doubt it was James who struck. She
heard the scream when near the door and at once ran out. And had not
Jimmy stopped to offer aid or--do anything? No, Jimmy had rushed on as
though bent on overtaking the leaders, as though he never heard what,
much farther away, she had heard distinctly. And then Priscilla owned
that the look of agony in the father's face was such that her resolution
well-nigh failed her.
But, unhappily, not quite. There are possibly no people so possessed
with the devil of meddling in the management of other people's children
as those who never had any, or else have been phenomenal failures in the
rearing of their own. Dwight asked her presently to go with him to the
Thorntons', which she did, beginning to tremble now as her eyes studied
his face. Mrs. Thornton was on the veranda. Young hopeful, with bandaged
forehead, was blissfully chasing a little terrier pup about the yard.
She, too, began to tremble; the little wrath and resentment left was
oozing from her finger tips as Dwight lifted his cap from the lined and
haggard brow and she saw the infinite trouble in his deep-set eyes. But
he gave her no time to speak.
"I have come," he said, "to express my deep sorrow at what I must now
believe my son has done. I should have come before had--had----" He
stumbled miserably. Then, with sudden effort, "I will see Mr. Thornton
and make my acknowledgments later, and see the doctor, but first----"
Then abruptly he bent, caught Georgie by an arm, lifted the bandage just
enough to see the adhesive plaster underneath, muttered something under
his breath, dropped his hand by his side, looked appealingly one instant
in Priscilla's eyes as though he would ask one more question, never
heeding, perhaps never hearing, Mrs. Thornton's: "Oh, Major, I'm sure
Jimmy could not have meant it!" Womanlike, all vehemence in accusation
at first, all insistence in extenuation now that vengeance threatened.
The next moment Dwight was gone, and Priscilla dare not follow the first
impulse of her heart to run home and tell Aunt Marion and Sandy, or to
run after him. She saw the major turn stiffly in at his own gate, far up
the row, saw Aunt Marion come forth, and, like guilty things, the maiden
of mature years, the mother of immature mind, held there, shrinking, not
knowing what to look for--what to do. They, too, saw Dwight come forth
again; but none of the anxious eyes along that anxious line had
witnessed what had befallen in the few minutes Dwight spent in presence
of his wife. That was known, until some days later, only to Felicie.
She was still abed, sipping her chocolate, and looking but a shade
lighter, when he abruptly entered. She could almost have screamed at
sight of his twitching face, but he held up warning hand.
"Just a moment, Inez. You had come home--you were on the veranda, I
believe; did you see--anything of that--that trouble among the boys
yesterday?"
She had seen nothing. She was listening at the moment with downcast lids
and heaving bosom to Foster's eager, hurried words. She had heard the
shouts of merriment, and faintly heard the screams, and had not even
looked to see the cause, but Felicie had found no inapt pupil. Inez
buried her face in her jeweled hands. Under the filmy veiling of her
dainty nightdress Dwight could see the pretty shoulders beginning to
heave convulsively. Was she sobbing? Stepping closer, he repeated the
question. "I _must_ know," said he.
"Ah, Oswald--how--how can I? You love him so! You love him so much more
than--me, and he--he hates me! He shrinks from me! He would not shrink
from--poisoning you--against me!"
"Inez, this is childish! Tell me at once what you know--why
you--distrust him?"
Again the sobs, the convulsive shoulder-heaving before she would speak,
and, as though fired with wrath inexpressible, Dwight started for the
door. Then she called him. Felicie was there, all distress, anxiety,
concern for Madame. Indeed, Monsieur should refrain--at such a time, and
then there were two to talk, each supplementing--reminding the other. It
was true that little Monsieur James could not seem to respond to the
love of his young mother, this angel, and he was rude and insolent to
Felicie, who adored him, and he--he so hurt and distressed Captain
Foster, who was goodness itself to him. It was for rudely, positively
contradicting the captain she, Inez, had been compelled to send James to
his room and require him to remain there until his father's return, not
thinking how long the father would be gone on his visit to town, and
even then James was obstinate; he would not apologize, although she had
striven, and Felicie, too, to make him understand how his father would
grieve that the son he so loved could so affront his guest; and they
feared, they feared James deceived sometimes his noble father. The
Naples incident was brought up again, and Jimmy's odd insistence that an
officer had spoken to and frightened her, and then--those little things
he had told on the homeward voyage (Heaven knows how true they were!)
and then, oh, it wrung their hearts to see the father's grief, but when
Jimmy denied all knowledge of the injury to Georgie Thornton, they knew
and Jimmy knew--he _must_ have known--it was his own doing. Leaving them
both in tears, the father flung himself from, the room and down the
stairs, and with his brain afire went straightway in search of his son.
Good God! To think that, after all his years of hope and prayer and
faith and pride--of careful teaching and utter trust--that it should
come to this, that the boy on whom his great heart was centered should
after all--after all prove a coward and a liar! His eyes seemed clouded.
He saw only as through a lurid glass. The sunlight in the crisp,
delicious air was clear as crystal, yet there was a blur that seemed to
overshadow every object. There was a ringing in his ears that dulled the
sweet strains of the song his wife, his own wife, his love, his
treasure, Jimmy's mother, used to sing, for now he never heard it. His
temples throbbed; his head seemed burning, yet the face was ashen. The
twitching lips, bitten into gashes, were blue between the savage teeth
marks, and yet at sight of the straight, soldierly form he loved, little
Jim had quit his fellows and, to the music of his mother's song--just as
of old, beaming, joyous, confident, brimming over with fun and
health--had come bounding to meet him.
It had been the father's way at such times to halt, to bend forward with
outstretched arms, almost as he had done in Jimmy's earliest toddling
baby boyhood, but he never halted now. Erect and stern he moved straight
on. It was the boy who suddenly faltered, whose fond, happy, radiant
face grew suddenly white and seemed to cloud with dread, whose eager
bounding ceased as he neared his sire, and, though the hands as of old
went forth to clasp the hand that never yet had failed them, for the
first time in his glad young life Jimmy Dwight looked in vain for the
love and welcome that had ever been his, for the first time his brave
young heart well-nigh ceased its beating, for the first time he seemed
to shrink from his father's gaze.
And in fear, too, but not for himself; oh, never for himself! Vaguely,
strangely, of late he had begun to feel that all was not well with the
father he so loved, and now the look in his father's face was terrible.
"Oh, daddy!" he cried, a great sob welling up in his throat, but the
answering word checked him instantly, checked his anxious query, turned
his dread at the instant into relief, almost into joy. It was not then
that his father was ill and stricken. It was that he was angry--angry,
and at him, and in the flash of a second, in that one hoarse
word--"Home!" he knew what it must be, and though his lips quivered and
his eyes filled and again the sobs came surging from his breast, just as
of old, all confidence that his word could not be questioned, he strove
to find his father's hand, even as homeward now, with Inez and her
hellcat of a handmaid peeping trembling through the slats, the father
striding, the little fellow fairly running before, the two went hurrying
on, and Jimmy, looking back, found tongue, and his one thought found
words:
"Oh, daddy, indeed I wasn't--impudent to Captain Foster--to mamma, at
least, I didn't mean it! They _were_ there in the parlor when I ran in
from church, and he wanted me to promise----"
And then Marion Ray, far down the line, with one cry for Sandy, sprang
forward to the gate, for Oswald Dwight, with heavy hand, had struck his
little son across the face and stretched him on the turf.