Note: Project Gutenberg also has an HTML version of this
file which includes the original illustrations.
See 44659-h.htm or 44659-h.zip:
(https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/44659/pg44659-images.html)
or
(https://www.gutenberg.org/files/44659/44659-h.zip)
[Illustration: “If he wanted to fight, he’d hardly be in an office”]
------------------------------------------------------------------------
SECRET SERVICE
Being the Happenings of a Night in Richmond in the Spring of 1865
Done into Book Form from the Play by William Gillette
by
CYRUS TOWNSEND BRADY
Illustrated by the Kinneys
New York
Grosset & Dunlap
Publishers
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Copyright, 1912, by
Dodd, Mead and Company
Published, January, 1912
------------------------------------------------------------------------
I DEDICATE MY SHARE OF THIS JOINT PRODUCTION
TO
The many people of the stage, personally known and unknown by me, who
have so often interested, amused, instructed, and inspired me by their
presentations of life in all its infinite variety. They are a much
misunderstood people by the public generally, and I take this occasion
to testify that, in my wide acquaintance with stage people, I have found
them as gentle, as generous, as refined, and as considerate as any group
of people with whom I have associated in my long and varied career.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
PREFACE
Once upon a time a novel of mine was turned into a play. The dramatist
who prepared the story for stage production sent me a copy of his
efforts toward that end. About the only point of resemblance between his
production and mine was the fact that they both bore the same title, the
hero in each had the same name, and the action in both cases took place
on this earth.
I was a young author then, and timid. I ventured humbly to enquire why
the drama differed so entirely from the novel; and this ingenious, I
might almost say ingenuous, explanation was vouchsafed me:
“Well, to tell you the truth, after I had read a chapter or two of your
book, I lost it, and I just wrote the play from my own imagination.”
I do not wish to criticise the results of his efforts, for he has since
proved himself to be a dramatist of skill and ability, but to describe
that particular effort as a dramatisation of my book was absurd.
Incidentally, it was absurd in other ways and, fortunately for the
reputation of both of us, it never saw the light.
When my dear friends, the publishers, asked me to turn this play into a
novel, I recalled my experience of by-gone days, and the idea flashed
into my mind that here was an opportunity to get even, but I am a
preacher as well as a story-writer, and in either capacity I found I
could not do it. Frankly, I did not want to do it.
My experience, however, has made me perhaps unduly sensitive, and I
determined, since I had undertaken this work, to make it represent Mr.
Gillette’s remarkable and brilliant play as faithfully as I could, and I
have done so. I have used my own words only in those slight changes
necessitated by book presentation instead of production on the stage. I
have entered into as few explanations as possible and have limited my
own discussion of the characters, their motives, and their actions, to
what was absolutely necessary to enable the reader to comprehend. On the
stage much is left to the eye which has to be conveyed by words in a
book, and this is my excuse for even those few digressions that appear.
I have endeavoured to subordinate my own imagination to that of the
accomplished playwright. I have played something of the part of the old
Greek Chorus which explained the drama, and there has been a touch of
the scene-painter’s art in my small contribution to the book.
Otherwise, I have not felt at liberty to make any departure from the
setting, properties, episodes, actions, or dialogue. Mine has been a
very small share in this joint production. The story and the glory are
Mr. Gillette’s, not mine. And I am cheerfully determined that as the
author of the first, he shall have all of the second.
Cyrus Townsend Brady.
St. George’s Rectory,
Kansas City, Mo., November, 1911.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
CONTENTS
BOOK I
WHAT HAPPENED AT EIGHT O’CLOCK
I The Battery Passes 3
II A Commission from the President 18
III Orders to Captain Thorne 34
IV Miss Mitford’s Intervention 49
V The Unfaithful Servant 69
VI The Confidence of Edith Varney 86
BOOK II
WHAT HAPPENED AT NINE O’CLOCK
VII Wilfred Writes a Letter 105
VIII Edith Is Forced to Play the Game 133
IX The Shot That Killed 154
BOOK III
WHAT HAPPENED AT TEN O’CLOCK
X Caroline Mitford Writes a Despatch 173
XI Mr. Arrelsford Again Interposes 187
XII Thorne Takes Charge of the Telegraph 204
XIII The Tables Are Turned 217
XIV The Call of the Key 229
XV Love and Duty at the Touch 247
BOOK IV
WHAT HAPPENED AT ELEVEN O’CLOCK
XVI The Tumult in Human Hearts 261
XVII Wilfred Plays the Man 271
XVIII Captain Thorne Justifies Himself 292
XIX The Drumhead Court-Martial 301
XX The Last Reprieve 318
Afterword 330
------------------------------------------------------------------------
BOOK I
WHAT HAPPENED AT EIGHT O’CLOCK
------------------------------------------------------------------------
CHAPTER I
THE BATTERY PASSES
Outside, the softness of an April night; the verdure of tree and lawn,
the climbing roses, already far advanced in that southern latitude,
sweetly silvered in the moonlight. Within the great old house apparently
an equal calm.
Yet, neither within nor without was the night absolutely soundless. Far
away to the southward the cloudless horizon, easily visible from the
slight eminence on which the house stood, was marked by quivering
flashes of lurid light. From time to time, the attentive ear might catch
the roll, the roar, the reverberation of heavy sound like distant
thunder-peals intermingled with sharper detonations. The flashes came
from great guns, and the rolling peals were the sound of the cannon, the
detonations explosions of the shells. There was the peace of God in the
heaven above; there were the passions of men on the earth beneath.
Lights gleamed here and there, shining through the twining rose foliage,
from the windows of the old house, which stood far back from the street.
From a room on one side of the hall, which opened from the broad
pillared portico of Colonial fashion, a hum of voices arose.
A group of women, with nervous hands and anxious faces, working while
they talked, were picking lint, tearing linen and cotton for bandages.
Their conversation was not the idle chatter of other days. They “told
sad stories of the death of kings!” How “Tom” and “Charles” and “Allen”
and “Page” and “Burton” had gone down into the Valley of the Shadow of
Death, whence they had not come back. How this fort had been hammered
yesterday, the other, the day before. How So-and-So’s wounds had been
ministered to. How Such-a-One’s needs had been relieved. How the enemy
were drawing closer and closer and closer, and how they were being held
back with courage, which, alas! by that time was the courage of despair.
And much of their speech was of their own kind, of bereft women and
fatherless children. And ever as they talked, the busy fingers flew.
Upstairs from one of the front rooms the light shone dimly through a
window partly covered by a half-drawn Venetian blind. One standing at
the side of the house and listening would have heard out of the chamber
low moanings, muttered words from feverish lips and delirious brain. The
meaningless yet awful babble was broken now and again by words of
tenderness and anguish. Soft hands were laid on the burning brow of the
poor sufferer within, while a mother’s eyes dropped tears upon
bloodstained bandages and wasted frame.
And now the gentle wind which swept softly through the trees bore a
sudden sharper, stranger sound toward the old house in the garden. The
tramp of horse, the creak of wheels, the faint jingling of arms and
sabres drew nearer and rose louder. Sudden words of command punctured
the night. Here came a battery, without the rattle of drum or the blare
of bugles, with no sound but its own galloping it rolled down the
street. Lean, gaunt horses were ridden and driven by leaner and gaunter
men in dusty, worn, ragged, tattered uniforms. Only the highly polished
brass guns—twelve-pounder Napoleons—gleamed bright in the moonlight.
The sewing women came out on the porch and the blind of the window above
was lifted and a white-haired woman stood framed in the light.
No, those watchers did not cheer as the battery swept by on its way to
the front. For one thing, a soldier lay upstairs dying; for another,
they had passed the time when they cheered that tattered flag. Now they
wept over it as one weeps as he beholds for the last time the face of a
friend who dies. Once they had acclaimed it as the sunrise in the
morning, now they watched it silently go inevitably to the sunset of
defeat.
The men did not cheer either. They were not past cheering—oh, no! They
were made of rougher stuff than the women, and the time would come when,
in final action, they would burst forth into that strange, wild yell
that struck terror to the hearts of the hearers. They could cheer even
in the last ditch, even in the jaws of death—face the end better for
their cheering perhaps; but women are more silent in the crisis. They
bear and give no tongue.
The officer in command saw the little group of women on the porch. The
moonlight shone from the street side and high-lighted them, turning the
rusty black of most of the gowns, home-dyed mourning,—all that could be
come at in those last awful days in Richmond,—into soft shadows, above
which their faces shone angelic. He saw the woman’s head in the window,
too. He knew who lay upon the bed of death within the chamber. He had
helped to bring him back from the front several days before. He bit his
lips for a moment and then, ashamed of his emotion, his voice rang
harsh. With arm and sabre the battery saluted the women and passed on,
while from the window of the great drawing-room, opposite the room of
the lint-pickers and bandage-tearers, a slender boy stared and stared
after the disappearing guns, his eyes full of envy and vexatious tears
as he stamped his foot in futile protest and disappointment.
The noise made by the passing cannon soon died away in the distance.
Stillness supervened as before; workers whispered together, realising
that some of those passing upon whom they had looked would pass no more,
and that they would look upon them never again. Upstairs the moans of
the wounded man had died away, the only thing that persisted was the
fearful thundering of the distant guns around beleaguered Petersburg.
Within the drawing-room, the boy walked up and down restlessly,
muttering to himself, evidently nerving himself to desperate resolution.
“I won’t do it,” he said. “I won’t stay here any longer.”
He threw up his hands and turned to the portraits that adorned the room,
portraits that carried one back through centuries to the days of the
first cavalier of the family, who crossed the seas to seek his fortune
in a new land, and it was a singular thing that practically every one of
them wore a sword.
“You all fought,” said the boy passionately, “and I am going to.”
The door at the other end was softly opened. The great room was but
dimly lighted by candles in sconces on the wall; the great chandelier
was not lighted for lack of tapers, but a more brilliant radiance was
presently cast over the apartment by the advent of old Martha. She had
been the boy’s “Mammy” and the boy’s father’s “Mammy” as well, and no
one dared to speculate how much farther into the past she ran back.
“Is dat you, Mars Wilfred?” said the old woman, waddling into the room,
both hands extended, bearing two many-branched candle-sticks, which she
proceeded to deposit upon the handsome mahogany tables with which the
long drawing-room was furnished.
“Yes, it is I, Aunt Martha. Did you see Benton’s Battery go by?”
“Lawd lub you, chile, Ah done seed so many guns an’ hosses an’ soljahs
a-gwine by Ah don’t tek no notice ob ’em no mo’. ’Peahs lak dey keep on
a-passin’ by fo’ebah.”
“Well, there won’t be many more of them pass by,” said the boy in a
clear accent, but with that soft intonation which would have betrayed
his Southern ancestry anywhere, “and before they are all gone, I would
like to join one of them myself.”
“Why, my po’ li’l lamb!” exclaimed Martha, her arms akimbo, “dat Ah done
nussed in dese ahms, is you gwine to de fight!”
The boy’s demeanour was anything but lamb-like. He made a fierce step
toward her.
“Don’t you call me ‘lamb’ any more,” he said, “it’s ridiculous and——”
Mammy Martha started back in alarm.
“’Peahs mo’ lak a lion’d be better,” she admitted.
“Where’s mother?” asked the boy, dismissing the subject as unworthy of
argument.
“I reckon she’s upstaihs wid Mars Howard, suh. Yo’ bruddah——”
“I want to see her right away,” continued the boy impetuously.
“Mars Howard he’s putty bad dis ebenin’,” returned Martha. “Ah bettah go
an’ tell her dat you want her, but Ah dunno’s she’d want to leab him.”
“Well, you tell her to come as soon as she can. I’m awfully sorry for
Howard, but it’s living men that the Confederacy needs most now.”
“Yas, suh,” returned the old nurse, with a quizzical look out of her
black eyes at the slender boy before her. “Dey suah does need men,” she
continued, and as the youngster took a passionate step toward her, she
deftly passed out of the room and closed the door behind her, and he
could hear her ponderous footsteps slowly and heavily mounting the
steps.
The boy went to the window again and stared into the night. In his
preoccupation he did not catch the sound of a gentler footfall upon the
stairs, nor did he notice the opening of the door and the silent
approach of a woman, the woman with white hair who had stood at the
window. The mother of a son dead, a son dying, and a son living. No
distinctive thing that in the Confederacy. Almost any mother who had
more than one boy could have been justly so characterised. She stopped
half-way down the room and looked lovingly and longingly at the slight,
graceful figure of her youngest son. Her eyes filled with tears—for the
dying or the living or both? Who can say? She went toward him, laid her
hand on his shoulder. He turned instantly and at the sight of her tears
burst out quickly:
“Howard isn’t worse, is he?” for a moment forgetful of all else.
The woman shook her head.
“I am afraid he is. The sound of that passing battery seemed to excite
him so. He thought he was at the front again and wanted to get up.”
“Poor old Howard!”
“He’s quieter now, perhaps——”
“Mother, is there anything I can do for him?”
“No, my son,” answered the woman with a sigh, “I don’t think there is
anything that anybody can do. We can only wait—and hope. He is in God’s
hands, not ours.”
She lifted her face for a moment and saw beyond the room, through the
night, and beyond the stars a Presence Divine, to Whom thousands of
other women in that dying Confederacy made daily, hourly, and momentary
prayers. Less exalted, more human, less touched, the boy bowed his head,
not without his own prayer, too.
“But you wanted to see me, Wilfred, Martha said,” the woman presently
began.
“Yes, mother, I——”
The boy stopped and the woman was in no hurry to press him. She divined
what was coming and would fain have avoided it all.
“I am thankful there is a lull in the cannonading,” she said, listening.
“I wonder why it has stopped?”
“It has not stopped,” said Wilfred, “at least it has gone on all
evening.”
“I don’t hear it now.”
“No, but you will—there!”
“Yes, but compared to what it was yesterday—you know how it shook the
house—and Howard suffered so through it.”
“So did I,” said the boy in a low voice fraught with passion.
“You, my son?”
“Yes, mother, when I hear those guns and know that the fighting is going
on, it fairly maddens me——”
But Mrs. Varney hastily interrupted her boy. Woman-like she would thrust
from her the decision which she knew would be imposed upon her.
“Yes, yes,” she said; “I know how you suffered,—we all suffered,
we——” She turned away, sat down in a chair beside the table, leaned
her head in her hands, and gave way to her emotions. “There has been
nothing but suffering, suffering since this awful war began,” she
murmured.
“Mother,” said Wilfred abruptly, “I want to speak to you. You don’t like
it, of course, but you have just got to listen this time.”
Mrs. Varney lifted her head from her hands. Wilfred came nearer to her
and dropped on his knees by her side. One hand she laid upon his
shoulder, the other on his head. She stared down into his up-turned
face.
“I know—I know, my boy—what you want.”
“I can’t stay here any longer,” said the youth; “it is worse than being
shot to pieces. I just have to chain myself to the floor whenever I hear
a cannon-shot or see a soldier. When can I go?”
The woman stared at him. In him she saw faintly the face of the boy
dying upstairs. In him she saw the white face of the boy who lay under
the sun and dew, dead at Seven Pines. In him she saw all her kith and
kin, who, true to the traditions of that house, had given up their lives
for a cause now practically lost. She could not give up the last one.
She drew him gently to her, but, boy-like, he disengaged himself and
drew away with a shake of his head, not that he loved his mother the
less, but honour—as he saw it—the more.
“Why don’t you speak?” he whispered at last.
“I don’t know what to say to you, Wilfred,” faltered his mother,
although there was but one thing to say, and she knew that she must say
it, yet she was fighting, woman-like, for time.
“I will tell you what to say,” said the boy.
“What?”
“Say that you won’t mind if I go down to Petersburg and enlist.”
“But that would not be true, Wilfred,” said his mother, smiling faintly.
“True or not, mother, I can’t stay here.”
“Oh, Wilfred, Russell has gone, and Howard is going, and now you want to
go and get killed.”
“I don’t want to be killed at all, mother.”
“But you are so young, my boy.”
“Not younger than Tom Kittridge,” answered the boy; “not younger than
Ell Stuart or Cousin Steven or hundreds of other boys down there. See,
mother—they have called for all over eighteen, weeks ago; the seventeen
call may be out any moment; the next one after that takes me. Do you
want me to stay here until I am ordered out! I should think not. Where’s
your pride?”
“My pride? Ah, my son, it is on the battlefield, over at Seven Pines,
and upstairs with Howard.”
“Well, I don’t care, mother,” he persisted obstinately. “I love you and
all that, you know it,—but I can’t stand this. I’ve got to go. I must
go.”
Mrs. Varney recognised from the ring of determination in the boy’s voice
that his mind was made up. She could no longer hold him. With or without
her consent he would go, and why should she withhold it? Other boys as
young as hers had gone and had not come back. Aye, there was the rub:
she had given one, the other trembled on the verge, and now the last
one! Yes, he must go, too,—to live or die as God pleased. If they
wanted her to sacrifice everything on the altar of her country, she had
her own pride, she would do it, as hundreds of other women had done. She
rose from her chair and went toward her boy. He was a slender lad of
sixteen but was quite as tall as she. As he stood there he looked
strangely like his father, thought the woman.
“Well,” she said at last, “I will write to your father and——”
“But,” the boy interrupted in great disappointment, “that’ll take
forever. You never can tell where his brigade is from day to day. I
can’t wait for you to do that.”
“Wilfred,” said his mother, “I can’t let you go without his consent. You
must be patient. I will write the letter at once, and we will send it by
a special messenger. You ought to hear by to-morrow.”
The boy turned away impatiently and strode toward the door.
“Wilfred,” said his mother gently. The tender appeal in her voice
checked him. She came over to him and put her arm about his shoulders.
“Don’t feel bad, my boy, that you have to stay another day with your
mother. It may be many days, you know, before——”
“It isn’t that,” said Wilfred.
“My darling boy—I know it. You want to fight for your country—and I’m
proud of you. I want my sons to do their duty. But with your father at
the front, one boy dead, and the other wounded, dying——”
She turned away.
“You will write father to-night, won’t you?”
“Yes—yes!”
“I’ll wait, then, until we have had time to get a reply,” said the boy.
“Yes, and then you will go away. I know what your father’s answer will
be. The last of my boys—Oh, God, my boys!”
CHAPTER II
A COMMISSION FROM THE PRESIDENT
The door giving entrance to the hall was opened unceremoniously by the
rotund and privileged Martha. She came at an opportune time, relieving
the tension between the mother and son. Wilfred was not insensible to
his mother’s feelings, but he was determined to go to the front. He was
glad of the interruption and rather shamefacedly took advantage of it by
leaving the room.
“Well, Martha, what is it?” asked Mrs. Varney, striving to regain her
composure.
“Deys one ob de men fum de hossiple heah, ma’am.”
“Another one?”
“Ah ’clah to goodness, ma’am, dey jes’ keeps a-comin’ an’ a-comin’.
’Peahs like we cain’t keep no close fo’ ourse’f; de sheets an’
tablecloths an’ napkins an’ eben de young misstess’ petticoats, dey all
hab to go.”
“And we have just sent all the bandages we have,” said Mrs. Varney,
smiling.
“Den we got to git some mo’. Dey says dey’s all used up, an’ two mo’
trains jes’ come in crowded full o’ wounded sojahs—an’ mos’ all ob ’em
dreffeul bad!”
“Is Miss Kittridge here yet, Martha?”
“Yas’m, Ah jes’ seed her goin’ thu de hall into de libr’y.”
“Ask her if they have anything to send. Even if it’s only a little let
them have it. What they need most is bandages. There are some in
Howard’s room, too. Give them half of what you find there. I think what
we have left will last long enough to—to——”
“Yas’m,” said old Martha, sniffing. “Ah’m a-gwine. Does you want to see
de man?”
“Yes, send him in,” said Mrs. Varney.
There was a light tap on the door after Martha went out.
“Come in,” said the mistress of the house, and there entered to her a
battered and dilapidated specimen of young humanity, his arm in a sling.
“My poor man!” exclaimed Mrs. Varney. “Sit down.”
“Thank you, ma’am.”
“Martha,” she called to the old woman, who paused at the door on her way
to the stairs, “can’t you get something to eat and drink for this
gentleman?”
“Well, the pantry ain’t obahflowin’, as you know, Mrs. Varney. But Ah
reckon Ah might fin’ a glass o’ milk ef Ah jes’ had to.”
“All our wine has gone long ago,” said Mrs. Varney to the soldier, “but
if a glass of milk——”
“I haven’t seen a glass of milk for three years, ma’am,” answered the
man, smiling; “it would taste like nectar.”
“Martha will set it for you in the dining-room while you are waiting.
What hospital did you come from, by the way?”
“The Winder, ma’am.”
“And is it full?”
“They are laying them on blankets on the floor. You can hardly step for
wounded men.”
“I suppose you need everything?”
“Everything, but especially bandages.”
“Have you been over to St. Paul’s Church? The ladies are working there
to-night.”
“Yes, ma’am, I’ve been over there, but they’re not working for the
hospital; they’re making sand-bags for fortifications.”
“And where are you from?”
“I’m a Louisiana Tiger, ma’am,” answered the man proudly.
“You don’t look much like it now,” said the woman, smiling.
“No, I guess the lamb is more like me now, but just wait until I get
well enough to go to the front again,” admitted the soldier cheerfully.
At this moment one of the ladies who had been working in the other room
came in carrying a small packet of bandages done up in a coarse brown
paper.
“Oh, Miss Kittridge,” said Mrs. Varney, “here is the gentleman who——”
Miss Kittridge was a very business-like person.
“This is every scrap we have,” she said, handing the soldier the parcel
with a little bow. “If you will come back in an hour or two, perhaps we
shall have more for you.”
“Thank you, ladies, and God bless you. I don’t know what our poor
fellows in the hospitals would do if it weren’t for you.”
“Don’t forget your milk in the dining-room,” said Mrs. Varney.
“I’m not likely to, ma’am,” returned the soldier, as, in spite of his
wounded arm, he bowed gracefully to the women.
In the hall Martha’s voice could be heard exclaiming:
“Come right dis way, you po’ chile, an’ see what Ah’s got fo’ you in de
dinin’-room.”
“You must be tired to death,” said Mrs. Varney to Miss Kittridge,
looking at the white face of the other woman. Her brother had been
killed a few days before, but the clods had scarcely rattled down upon
his coffin before she was energetically at work again—for other women’s
brothers.
“No, no,” she said bravely; “and our tiredness is nothing compared to
the weariness of our men. We are going to stay late to-night, Mrs.
Varney, if you will let us. There’s so many more wounded come in it
won’t do to stop now. We have found some old linen that will make
splendid bandages, and——”
“My dear girl,” said the matron, “stay as long as you possibly can. I
will see if Martha can’t serve you something to eat after a while. I
don’t believe there is any tea left in the house.”
“Bread and butter will be a feast,” said Miss Kittridge.
“And I don’t believe there is much butter either,” smiled the older
woman.
“Well, it doesn’t matter,” said the other. “Is—is your son—is there
any change?”
“Not for the better,” was the reply. “I am afraid his fever is
increasing.”
“And has the surgeon seen him this evening?”
“Not to-night.”
“Why not!” exclaimed Miss Kittridge in great surprise. “Surely his
condition is sufficiently critical to demand more than one brief visit
in the morning.”
“I can’t ask him to come twice with so many waiting for him,” said Mrs.
Varney.
“But they would not refuse you, Mrs. Varney,” said Miss Kittridge
quickly. “There’s that man going back to the hospital, he’s in the
dining-room yet. I’ll call him and send word that——”
She started impulsively toward the door, but Mrs. Varney caught her by
the arm.
“No,” she said firmly; “I can’t let you.”
“Not for your own son?”
“I am thinking of the sons of other mothers. The surgeon has done all
that he can for him. And think how many other sons would have to be
neglected if he visited mine twice. He will come again to-morrow.”
The second woman stood looking at her in mingled sympathy and amazement,
and there was a touch of pride in her glance, too. She was proud of her
sex, and she had a right to be there in Richmond that spring, if ever.
“I understand,” said Miss Kittridge at last. “I suppose you are right.”
They stared at each other, white-faced, a moment, when there entered to
them youth and beauty incarnate. There was enough resemblance between
the pale, white-haired mother and the girlish figure in the doorway to
proclaim their relationship. The girl’s cheek had lost some of its bloom
and some of its roundness. There was too much that was appalling and
fearful in and about Richmond then not to leave its mark even upon the
most youthful and the most buoyant, yet things did not come home to the
young as they did to those older. She was still a lovely picture,
especially in the soft radiance of the candles. She carried her hat in
her hand. The flowers upon it were assuredly those of yester-year, it
would not have passed muster as the mode anywhere except in besieged
Richmond; and her dress, although it fitted her perfectly, was worn and
faded and had been turned and patched and altered until it was quite
beyond further change, yet she wore it as airily as if it had been
tissue of silver or cloth of gold.
The mother’s face brightened.
“Edith dear,” she exclaimed, “how late you are! It is after eight
o’clock. You must be tired out.”
“I am not tired at all,” answered the girl cheerily. “I have not been at
the hospital all afternoon; this is my day off. How is Howard?”
“I wish I could say just the same, but he seems a little worse.”
The girl’s face went suddenly grave. She stepped over to her mother,
took her hand and patted it softly.
“Is there nothing you can do?”
“My dear,” said her mother, “Howard—we—are all in God’s hands.”
She drew a long breath and lifted her head bravely.
“Miss Kittridge,” said the girl, “I have something very important to
tell mother, and——”
Miss Kittridge smiled back at her.
“I am going right away, honey. There is lots of work for us to do
and——”
“You don’t mind, I hope,” said Edith Varney, calling after her as she
went into the hall.
“No, indeed,” was the reply.
Mrs. Varney sat down wearily by the table, and Edith pulled up a low
stool and sat at her feet.
“Well, my dear?”
“Mamma—what do you think? What do you think?”
“I think a great many things,” said Mrs. Varney, “but——”
“Yes, but you wouldn’t ever think of this.”
“Certainly I shall not, unless you tell me.”
“Well, I have been to see the President.”
“The President—Mr. Davis!”
“Yes.”
“And what did you go to see the President for?”
“I asked him for an appointment for Captain Thorne.”
“For Captain Thorne! My dear——”
“Yes, mother, for the War Department Telegraph Service. And he gave it
to me, a special commission. He gave it to me for father’s sake and for
Captain Thorne’s sake,—he has met him and likes him,—and for my own.”
“What sort of an appointment?”
“Appointing him to duty here in Richmond, a very important position. He
won’t be sent to the front, and he will be doing his duty just the
same.”
“But, Edith, you don’t—you can’t——”
“Yes, it will, mother. The President,—I just love him,—told me they
needed a man who understood telegraphing and who was of high enough rank
to take charge of the service. As you know, most of the telegraph
operators are privates, and Captain Thorne is an expert. Since he’s been
here in Richmond he’s helped them in the telegraph office often.
Lieutenant Foray told me so.”
Mrs. Varney rose and moved away. Edith followed her.
“Now, mamma!” she exclaimed; “I feel you are going to scold me, and you
must not, because it’s all fixed and the commission will be sent over
here in a few minutes—just as soon as it can be made out—and when it
comes I am going to give it to him myself.”
Mrs. Varney moved over toward the table and lifted a piece of paper,
evidently a note.
“He is coming this evening,” she said.
“How do you know?” asked her daughter.
“Well, for one thing,” said her mother, “I can remember very few
evenings when he hasn’t been here since he was able to walk out of the
hospital.”
“Mamma!”
“And for another thing, this note came about half an hour ago.”
“Is it for me?”
“For me, my dear, else I shouldn’t have opened it. You can read it, if
you like.”
“Has it been here all this time?” exclaimed Edith jealously.
“All this time. You will see what he says. This will be his last call;
he has his orders to leave.”
“Why, it’s too ridiculous!” said the girl; “just as if the commission
from the President wouldn’t supersede everything else. It puts him at
the head of the Telegraph Service. He will be in command of the
Department. He says it is a good-bye call, does he?” She looked at the
note again and laughed, “All the better, it will be that much more of a
surprise. Now, mamma, don’t you breathe a word about it, I want to tell
him myself.”
“But, Edith dear—I am sorry to criticise you—but I don’t at all
approve of your going to the President about this. It doesn’t seem quite
the proper thing for a young lady to interest herself so far——”
“But listen, mamma,” and as she spoke the light went out of Miss Edith’s
face at her mother’s grave and somewhat reproving aspect. “I couldn’t go
to the War Department people. Mr. Arrelsford is there in one of the
offices, and ever since I—I refused him, you know how he has treated
me! If I had applied for anything there, it would have been refused at
once, and he would have got them to order Captain Thorne away right off.
I know he would—why, that is where his orders came from!”
“But, my dear——”
“That is where they came from. Isn’t it lucky I got that commission
to-day. There’s the bell; I wonder who it can be?” She stopped and
listened while the door opened and Jonas, the butler, entered. “Is it
Captain Thorne?” asked Edith eagerly.
“No, ma’am.”
“Oh!”
“It’s another offisuh, ma’am. He says he’s fum de President an’ he’s got
to see Miss Edith pussonally.”
Jonas extended a card which, as he spoke, Edith took and glanced at
indifferently.
“Lieutenant Maxwell,” she read.
“Ask the gentleman in, Jonas,” said Mrs. Varney.
“It’s come,” whispered Edith to her mother.
“Do you know who he is?”
“No—but he’s from the President—it must be that commission.”
At this moment old Jonas ushered into the drawing-room a very dashing
young officer, handsome in face, gallant in bearing, and dressed in a
showy and perfectly fitting uniform, which was quite a contrast to the
worn habiliments of the men at the front. Mrs. Varney stepped forward a
little, and Lieutenant Maxwell bowed low before her.
“Good-evening, ma’am. Have I the honour of addressing Miss Varney?”
“I am Mrs. Varney, sir.”
“Madam,” said the Lieutenant, “I am very much afraid this looks like an
intrusion on my part, but I come from the President, and he desires me
to see Miss Varney personally.”
“Any one from the President could not be otherwise than welcome, sir.
This is my daughter. Edith, let me present Lieutenant Maxwell.”
The young Lieutenant, greatly impressed, bowed profoundly before her,
and taking a large brown envelope from his belt, handed it to her.
“Miss Varney,” he said, “the President directed me to deliver this into
your hands, with his compliments. He is glad to be able to do this, he
says, not only at your request, but because of your father and for the
merits of the gentleman in question.”
“Oh, thank you,” cried the girl, taking the envelope.
“Won’t you be seated, Lieutenant Maxwell?” said Mrs. Varney.
“Yes, do,” urged the girl, holding the envelope pressed very tightly to
her side.
“Nothing would please me so much, ladies,” answered the Lieutenant, “but
I must go back to the President’s house right away. I’m on duty this
evening. Would you mind writing me off a line or two, Miss Varney, just
to say you have received the communication?”
“Why, certainly, you want a receipt. I’ll go upstairs to my desk; it
won’t take a moment. And could I put in how much I thank him for his
kindness?”
“I am sure he would be more than, pleased,” smiled Lieutenant Maxwell,
as Edith left the room and hastened up the stairs.
“We haven’t heard so much cannonading to-day, Lieutenant,” said Mrs.
Varney. “Do you know what it means?”
“I don’t think they are quite positive, ma’am, but they can’t help
looking for a violent attack to follow.”
“I don’t see why it should quiet down before an assault.”
“Well, there is always a calm before a storm,” said the Lieutenant. “It
might be some signal, or it might be they are moving their batteries to
open on some special point of attack. They are trying every way to break
through our defences, you know.”
“It’s very discouraging. We can’t seem to drive them back this time.”
“We’re holding them where they are, though,” said Maxwell proudly.
“They’ll never get in unless they do it by some scurvy trick; that’s
where the danger lies. We are always looking out for it, and——”
At this moment Edith Varney reëntered the room. She had left her hat
upstairs with the official-looking envelope, and had taken time to
glance at a mirror and then to thrust a red rose in her dark hair. The
impressionable young Lieutenant thought she looked prettier than ever.
“Lieutenant Maxwell,” she said, extending a folded paper, “here is your
receipt——”
The butler’s words to some one in the hall interrupted her further
speech.
“Will you jes’ kin’ly step dis way, suh!” she heard Jonas say, and as
Edith turned she found herself face to face with Captain Thorne!
CHAPTER III
ORDERS TO CAPTAIN THORNE
On the sleeves of Captain Thorne’s coat the insignia of a Captain of
Confederate Artillery were displayed; his uniform was worn, soiled, and
ill-fitting, giving honourable evidence of hard service; his face was
pale and thin and showed signs of recent illness, from which he had
scarcely recovered. In every particular he was a marked contrast to
Lieutenant Maxwell.
“Miss Varney,” he said, bowing low.
“We were expecting you,” answered Edith, giving her hand to Thorne.
“Here’s Captain Thorne, mamma!”
Mrs. Varney shook hands with him graciously while her daughter turned
once more to the other man, with the acknowledgment of the order, which
she handed to him.
“I wasn’t so very long writing it, was I, Lieutenant Maxwell?” she
asked.
“I’ve never seen a quicker piece of work, Miss Varney,” returned that
young man, putting the note in his belt and smiling as he did so. “When
you want a clerkship over at the Government offices, you must surely let
me know.”
“You would better not commit yourself,” said Edith jestingly; “I might
take you at your word.”
“Nothing would please me more,” was the prompt answer. “All you have got
to do is just apply, and refer to me, of course.”
“Lots of the other girls are doing it,” continued Edith half-seriously.
“They have to live. Aren’t there a good many where you are?”
“Well, we don’t have so many as they do over at the Treasury. I believe
there are more ladies over there than men. And now I must go.”
“A moment,” said Mrs. Varney, coming forward with Thorne. “Do you
gentlemen know each other?”
Captain Thorne shook his head and stepped forward, looking intently at
the other.
“Let me have the pleasure of making you acquainted, then. Captain
Thorne—Lieutenant Maxwell.”
Thorne slowly inclined his head. Maxwell also bowed.
“I have not had the pleasure of meeting Captain Thorne before, although
I have heard of him a great many times,” he said courteously.
“Yes?” answered the other, who seemed to be a man of few words.
“In fact, Captain, there is a gentleman in one of our offices who seems
mighty anxious to pick a fight with you.”
“Really!” exclaimed Captain Thorne, smiling somewhat sarcastically;
“pick a fight with me! To what office do you refer, sir?”
“The War Office, sir,” said Lieutenant Maxwell, rather annoyed, he could
not exactly say why.
“Dear, dear!” continued Thorne urbanely; “I didn’t suppose there was
anybody in the War Office who wanted to fight!”
“And why not, sir?” asked Lieutenant Maxwell haughtily, while Edith
barely stifled a laugh, and her mother even smiled.
“Well, if he wanted to fight, he’d hardly be in an office at a time like
this, would he?”
Captain Thorne’s sarcasm seemed to perturb the youngster, but his good
breeding got the better of his annoyance.
“I’d better not tell him that, Captain,” he said with a great effort at
lightness; “he would certainly insist upon having you out.”
“That would be too bad,” said the Captain. “It might interfere with his
office hours and——”
“He doesn’t believe it, Miss Varney,” said Maxwell, turning to the
younger woman, “but it is certainly true. I dare say you know the
gentleman——”
“Please don’t, Lieutenant,” interrupted Edith quickly. “I would rather
not talk about it, if you please.”
“Of course,” said Maxwell, “I didn’t know there was anything——”
“Yes,” said Edith. “Let’s talk about something else. You know there is
always the weather to fall back on——”
“I should say so,” laughed the Lieutenant, “and mighty bad weather for
us, too.”
“Yes, isn’t it?”
They turned away, talking and laughing somewhat constrainedly, while
Mrs. Varney picked up the note that was still lying on the table.
“From your note, I suppose you are leaving us immediately, Captain
Thorne. Your orders have come?”
“Yes, Mrs. Varney,” said the Captain. “I am afraid this must be the last
of my pleasant calls.”
“Isn’t it rather sudden? Are you quite well? It seems to me they ought
to give you a little more time to recover.”
“I have no doubt that I am, or feel, much better than I look,” said the
Captain, “and we have to be ready for anything, you know. I have been
idle too long already.”
“Yes, I suppose so,” said Mrs. Varney. “Well, it has been a great
pleasure to have you call upon us. When you are away, we shall greatly
miss your visits.”
“Thank you; I shall never forget what they have been to me.”
“Lieutenant Maxwell is going, mamma,” said Edith.
“So soon! Please excuse me a moment, Captain. I am very sorry you have
to hurry away, Lieutenant; we shall hope for the pleasure of seeing you
again, if your duties permit.”
“I shall certainly avail myself of your invitation, if you will allow
me.” He saluted Captain Thorne. “Good-evening, sir.”
Thorne, of course, returned the courteous salute of his junior.
“Lieutenant Maxwell,” he said pleasantly, as Mrs. Varney followed
Lieutenant Maxwell into the hall.
“Now remember, you are to come some time when duty doesn’t call you away
so soon,” she said, as he bowed himself out.
“Trust me not to forget that, Mrs. Varney,” said the Lieutenant, as he
disappeared on the porch.
Captain Thorne and Edith were left alone. The girl stepped over to a
small table on which stood a vase of roses, and, with somewhat nervous
hands, she busied herself arranging them. The young officer watched her
in silence for a little while, the moments tense with emotion.
“Shall I see Mrs. Varney again?” he began at last.
“Oh, I suppose so, but not now. I heard her go upstairs to Howard.”
“How is he?”
“Desperately ill.”
“I am sorry.”
“Yes,” said the girl.
“I have a very little time to stay and——”
“Oh—not long?” asked Edith.
“No, I am sorry to say.”
“Well, do you know,” she looked at him archly, “I believe you will have
more time than you really think you have. It would be odd if it came out
that way, wouldn’t it?” she continued, as she played with the flower in
her hand.
“Yes, but it won’t come out that way,” said Thorne, as he stepped closer
to her.
“You don’t know,” she faltered, as Thorne drew the flower from her and
took her hand in his. They stood there quiet a moment, and she did not
draw her hand away. “Well, it makes no difference how soon you are going
away; you can sit down in the meantime if you want to.”
“It is hardly worth while,” he said; “my time is so short.”
“You would better,” interrupted the girl; “I have a great many things to
say to you.”
“Have you?” he asked, sitting down on the little sofa by her side in
compliance with her invitation.
“Yes.”
“But I have only one thing to say to you—Miss Varney and—that
is”—Thorne took her other hand in both of his—“good-bye.”
Very different words had trembled on his lips, as he knew and as the
girl knew.
“But I don’t really think you will have to say that, Captain Thorne,”
said Edith slowly.
“I know I will.”
“Then,” said Edith more softly, “it will be because you want to say it.”
“No,” said Thorne, resolutely and of his own motion releasing her hands,
which she had allowed him to hold without remonstrance; “it will be
because I must.”
He rose to his feet and took up his hat from the table as if, the thing
being settled, he had only to go. But the girl observed with secret joy
that he made no other effort at departure.
“Oh, you think you must, do you, Captain Thorne?” said Edith, looking up
at him mischievously. “You are a very wise person, but you don’t know
all that I know.”
“I think that is more than likely, Miss Varney, but won’t you tell me
some of the things that you know that I don’t, so that I can approach
your knowledge in that respect?”
“I wouldn’t mind telling you one thing, and that is that it is very
wrong for you to think of leaving Richmond now.”
“Oh, but you don’t know.”
“Yes, I do.”
“Well, what do you know?” asked Thorne curiously.
“Whatever you were going to say. Most likely it was that there’s
something or other I don’t know about, but I do know this. You were sent
here to recover, and you haven’t nearly had enough time for it yet.”
“I do look as if a high wind would blow me away, don’t I?” he laughed.
“No matter how you look, you ought not to go. You are just making fun of
it, as you always do of everything. No matter, you can have all the fun
you like, but the whole thing is settled; you are not going away at all,
you are going to stay here,” she concluded with most decided but winning
emphasis.
“Oh, I’m not going? Well, that is quite a change for me,” said Thorne
composedly. He laid his hat back on the table and came closer to Edith.
“Perhaps you wouldn’t mind telling me what I am going to do.”
“I don’t mind at all, and it is this. You see, I have been to see—I am
almost afraid to tell you.”
“Don’t tell me,” said the man with sudden seriousness, laying aside all
his pleasantry, “because it can’t be true. I have my orders, and I am
leaving to-night.”
“Where—to Petersburg—to the front?”
“We can’t always tell where orders will take us,” he said evasively,
again sitting down beside her on the lounge.
He could scarcely tear himself away from her, from the delicious yet
painful emotion aroused by her presence. He ought to have gone long
since, yet he was with her, as he supposed, for the last time. Surely he
might indulge himself a little. He loved her so desperately, so
hopelessly.
“But listen,” said the girl; “supposing there were other orders, orders
from a higher authority, appointing you to duty here?”
“It would not make any difference.”
“You don’t mean you would go in spite of them!” cried the girl in sudden
alarm.
Thorne looked at her gravely and nodded his head.
“But if it were proved that your first orders were a mistake——”
She stretched out her hand toward him, which Thorne clasped closely
again.
“But it wasn’t a mistake, and I must go,” he said slowly, rising to his
feet once more, but still holding her hand.
“Is it something dangerous?” asked the girl apprehensively.
“Oh, well, enough to make it interesting.”
But Edith did not respond to his well simulated humour. She drew her
hand away, and Thorne fancied with a leap of his heart that she did it
with reluctance. She began softly:
“Don’t be angry with me if I ask you again about your orders. I must
know.”
“But why?” asked Thorne curiously.
“No matter, tell me.”
“I can’t do that. I wish I could,” he answered with a slight sigh.
“You needn’t,” said the girl triumphantly; “I do know.”
The Captain started and, in spite of his control, a look of dismay and
apprehension flitted across his face as the girl went on:
“They’re sending you on some mission where death is almost certain. They
will sacrifice your life, because they know you are fearless and will do
anything. There is a chance for you to stay here, and be just as much
use, and I am going to ask you to take it. It isn’t your life
alone—there are—others to think of and—that’s why I ask you. It may
not sound well, perhaps I ought not—you won’t understand, but you——”
As she spoke she rose to her feet, confronting him, while she
impulsively thrust out her hand toward him again. Once more he took that
beloved hand in his own, holding it close against him. Burning avowals
sprang to his lips, and the colour flamed into her face as she stood
motionless and expectant, looking at him. She had gone as far as a
modest woman might. Now the initiative was his. She could only wait.
“No,” said the man at last, by the exercise of the most iron
self-control and repression, “you shall not have this against me, too.”
Edith drew closer to him, leaving her hand in his as she placed her
other on his shoulder. She thought she knew what he would have said. And
love gave her courage. The frankness of war was in the air. If this man
left her now, she might never see him again. She was a woman, but she
could not let him go without an effort.
“Against you! What against you? What do you mean?” she asked softly.
The witchery of the hour was upon him, too, and the sweetness of her
presence. He knew he had but to speak to receive his answer, to summon
the fortress and receive the surrender. Her eyes dropped before his
passionately searching look, her colour came and went, her bosom rose
and fell. She thought he must certainly hear the wild beating of her
heart. He pressed her hands closely to his breast for a moment, but
quickly pulled himself together again.
“I must go,” he said hoarsely; “my business is—elsewhere. I ought never
to have seen you or spoken to you, but I had to come to this house and
you were here, and how could I help it? Oh—I couldn’t for my
whole—it’s only you in this——” He stopped and thrust her hands away
from him blindly and turned away. As there was a God above him he would
not do it. “Your mother—I would like to say good-bye to her.”
“No, you are not going,” cried the girl desperately, playing her last
card. “Listen, they need you in Richmond: the President told me so
himself—your orders are to stay here. You are to be given a special
commission on the War Department Telegraph Service, and you——”
“No, no, I won’t take it—I can’t take it, Miss Varney.”
“Can’t you do that much for—me?” said the girl with winning sweetness,
and again she put out her hands to him.
“It is for you that I will do nothing of the kind,” he answered quickly;
“if you ever think of me again after—well, when I am gone, remember
that I refused.”
“But you can’t refuse; it is the President’s desire, it is his order,
you have got to obey. Wait a moment, I left it upstairs. I will fetch it
for you and you will see.”
She turned toward the door.
“No,” said Thorne, “don’t get it, I won’t look at it.”
“But you must see what it is. It puts you at the head of everything. You
have entire control. When you see it I know you will accept it. Please
wait.”
“No, Miss Varney, I can’t——”
“Oh, yes, you can,” cried Edith, who would hear no denial as she ran
swiftly toward the door.
CHAPTER IV
MISS MITFORD’S INTERVENTION
The Captain stared after her departing figure; he listened to her
footfalls on the stair, and then came to an instant resolution. He would
take advantage of her opportune withdrawal. He turned back to the table,
seized his hat, and started for the door, only to come face to face with
another charming young woman, who stood breathless before him to his
great and ill-concealed annoyance. Yet the newcomer was pretty enough
and young enough and sweet enough to give any man pause for the sheer
pleasure of looking at her, to say nothing of speaking to her.
The resources of an ancient wardrobe, that looked as though it had
belonged to her great-grandmother, had been called upon for a costume
which was quaint and old-fashioned and altogether lovely. She was
evidently much younger than Edith Varney, perhaps just sixteen,
Wilfred’s age. With outstretched arms she barred the door completely,
and Thorne, of course, came to an abrupt stop.
“Oh, good-evening,” she panted, as soon as she found speech; she had run
without stopping from her house across the street.
“Good-evening, Miss Mitford,” he answered, stepping to one side to let
her pass, but through calculation or chance she kept her position at the
door.
“How lucky this is!” she continued. “You are the very person I wanted to
see. Let’s sit down and then I’ll tell you all about it. Goodness me, I
am all out of breath just running over from our house.”
Thorne did not accept her invitation, but stood looking at her. An idea
came to him.
“Miss Mitford,” he said at last, stepping toward her, “will you do
something for me?”
“Of course I will.”
“Thank you very much, indeed. Just tell Miss Varney when she comes
down—just say good-night for me and tell her that I’ve gone.”
“I wouldn’t do such a thing for the wide, wide world,” returned Caroline
Mitford in pretended astonishment.
“Why not?”
“It would be a wicked, dreadful story, because you wouldn’t be gone.”
“I am sorry you look at it that way,” said Thorne, “because I am going.
Good-night, Miss Mitford.”
But before he could leave the room, the girl, who was as light on her
feet as a fairy, caught him by the arm.
“No—you don’t seem to understand. I’ve got something to say to you.”
“Yes, I know,” said Thorne; “but some other time.”
“No, now.”
Of course, he could have freed himself by the use of a little force, but
such a thing was not to be thought of. Everything conspired to keep him
when his duty called him away, he thought quickly.
“There isn’t any other time,” said Caroline, “it is to-night. We are
going to have a Starvation party.”
“Good Heavens!” exclaimed Thorne; “another!”
“Yes, we are.”
“I can’t see how it concerns me.”
“It is going to be over at our house, and we expect you in half an
hour.”
“I shouldn’t think you would want to play at this time.”
“We are not going to play. We are going to make bandages and sandbags
and——”
“You won’t need me.”
“Yes, you can tell us the best way to——”
“Thank you, Miss Mitford, I can’t come. I have my orders and I am
leaving to-night.”
“Now, that won’t do at all,” said the girl, pouting. “You went to Mamie
Jones’ party; I don’t see why you should treat me like this.”
“Mamie Jones!” said Thorne. “Why, that was last Thursday, and now I have
got orders, I tell you, and——”
But Caroline was not to be put off.
“Now, there’s no use talking about it,” she said vehemently.
“Yes, I see that.”
“Didn’t you promise to obey orders when I gave them? Well, these are
orders.”
“Another set,” laughed Thorne.
“I don’t know anything about any others. These are mine.”
“Well, but this time——”
“This time is just the same as all the other times, only worse; besides
I told her you would be there.”
“What’s that?”
“I say she expects you, that’s all.”
“Who expects me?”
“Why, Edith, of course; who do you suppose I was talking about all this
time?”
“Oh, she expects me to——”
“Why, of course, she does. You are to take her over. You needn’t stay if
you don’t want to. Now I will go and tell her you are waiting.”
“Oh, very well,” said Thorne, smiling; “if she expects me to take her
over I will do so, of course, but I can’t stay a moment.”
“Well,” said Caroline, “I thought you would come to your senses some
time or another. See here, Mr. Captain, was she ’most ready?”
“Well, how do I know.”
“What dress did she have on?”
“Dress?”
“Oh, you men! Why, she’s only got two.”
“Yes; well, very likely, this was one of them, Miss Mitford.”
“No matter, I am going upstairs to see, anyway. Captain Thorne, you can
wait out there on the veranda or, perhaps, it would be pleasanter if you
were to smoke a cigar out in the summerhouse at the side of the garden.
It is lovely there in the moonlight, and——”
“I know, but if I wait right here——”
“Those are my orders. It’s cooler outside, you know, anyway, and——”
“Pardon me, Miss Mitford, orders never have to be explained, you know,”
interrupted the Captain, smiling at the charming girl.
“That’s right; I take back the explanation,” she said, as Thorne stepped
toward the window; “and, Captain,” cried the girl.
“Yes?”
“Be sure and smoke.”
Thorne laughed, as he lighted his cigar and stepped out onto the porch,
and thence into the darkness of the garden path.
“Oh,” said Caroline to herself, “he is splendid. If Wilfred were only
like that!” she pouted. “But then—our engagement’s broken off anyway,
so what’s the difference. If he were like that—I’d—— No!—I don’t
think I’d——”
Her soliloquy was broken by the entrance of Mrs. Varney, who came slowly
down the room.
“Why, Caroline dear! What are you talking about, all to yourself?”
“Oh—just—I was just saying, you know—that—why, I don’t know what I
was—— Do you think it is going to rain?” she returned in great
confusion.
“Dear me, child; I haven’t thought about it. Why, what have you got on?
Is that a new dress, and in Richmond?”
“A new dress? Well, I should think so. These are my great-grandmother’s
mother’s wedding clothes. Aren’t they lovely? Just in the nick of time,
too. I was on my very last rags, or, rather, they were on me, and I
didn’t know what to do. Mother gave me a key and told me to open an old
horsehair trunk in the attic, and these were in it.” She seized the
corners of her dress and pirouetted a step or two forward to show it
off, and then dropped the older woman an elaborate, old-fashioned
courtesy. “I ran over to show them to Edith,” she resumed. “Where is
she? I want her to come over to my house.”
“Upstairs, I think. I am afraid she can’t come. I have just come from
her room,” Mrs. Varney continued as Caroline started to interrupt, “and
she means to stay here.”
“I will see about that,” said Caroline, running out of the room.
Mrs. Varney turned and sat down at her desk to write a letter which
evidently, from her sighs, was not an easy task. In a short time the
girl was back again. Mrs. Varney looked up from writing and smiled at
her.
“You see it was no use, Caroline,” she began.
“No use,” laughed the girl; “well, you will see. I didn’t try to
persuade her or argue with her. I just told her that Captain Thorne was
waiting for her in the summerhouse. Yes,” she continued, as Mrs. Varney
looked her astonishment; “he is still here, and he said he would take
her over. You just watch which dress she has on when she comes down. Now
I will go out there and tell him she’ll be down in a minute. I have more
trouble getting people fixed so that they can come to my party than it
would take to run a blockade into Savannah every fifteen minutes.”
Mrs. Varney looked at her departing figure pleasantly for a moment, and
then, with a deep sigh, resumed her writing, but she evidently was not
to conclude her letter without further interruption, for she had
scarcely begun again when Wilfred came into the room with a bundle very
loosely done up in heavy brown paper. As his mother glanced toward him
he made a violent effort to conceal it under his coat.
“What have you got there, Wilfred?” she asked incuriously.
“That? Oh, nothing; it is only—say, mother, have you written that
letter yet?”
“No, my dear, I have been too busy. I have been trying to write it,
though, since I came down, but I have had one interruption after
another. I think I will go into your father’s office and do it there.”
She gathered up her paper and turned to leave the room. “It is a hard
letter for me to write, you know,” she added as she went away.
Wilfred, evidently much relieved at his mother’s departure, took the
package from under his coat, put it on the table, and began to undo it.
He took from it a pair of very soiled, dilapidated, grey uniform
trousers. He had just lifted them up when he heard Caroline’s step on
the porch, and the next moment she came into the room through the long
French window. Wilfred stood petrified with astonishment at the sudden
and unexpected appearance of his young beloved, but soon recovered
himself and began rolling the package together again, hastily and
awkwardly, while Caroline watched him from the window. She coldly
scrutinised his confusion while he made his ungainly roll, and, as he
moved toward the door, she broke the silence.
“Ah, good-evening, Mr. Varney,” she said coolly.
“Good-evening,” he said, his voice as cold as her own.
They both of them had started for the hall door and in another second
they would have met.
“Excuse me,” said Caroline, “I’m in a hurry.”
“That’s plain enough. Another party, I suppose, and dancing.”
“What of it? What’s the matter with dancing, I’d like to know.”
“Nothing is the matter with dancing if you want to, but I must say that
it is a pretty way of going on, with the cannon roaring not six miles
away.”
“Well, what do you want us to do? Cry about it! I have cried my eyes out
already; that would do a heap of good now, wouldn’t it?”
“Oh, I haven’t time to talk about such petty details. I have some
important matters to attend to,” he returned loftily.
“It was you that started it,” said the girl.
Wilfred turned suddenly, his manner at once losing its badly assumed
lightness.
“Oh, you needn’t try to fool me,” he reproached her; “I know well enough
how you have been carrying on since our engagement was broken off. Half
a dozen officers proposing to you—a dozen for all I know.”
“What difference does it make?” she retorted pertly. “I haven’t got to
marry them all, have I?”
“Well, it isn’t very nice to go on like that,” said Wilfred with an air
into which he in vain sought to infuse a detached, judicial, and
indifferent appearance. “Proposals by the wholesale!”
“Goodness me!” exclaimed Caroline, “what’s the use of talking about it
to me. They’re the ones that propose, I don’t. How can I help it?”
“Oh,” said Wilfred loftily, “you can help it all right. You helped it
with me.”
“Well,” she answered, with a queer look at him, “that was different.”
“And ever since you threw me over——” he began.
“I didn’t throw you over, you just went over,” she interrupted.
“I went over because you walked off with Major Sillsby that night we
were at Drury’s Bluff,” said the boy, “and you encouraged him to
propose. You admit it,” he said, as the girl nodded her head.
“Of course I did. I didn’t want him hanging around forever, did I?
That’s the only way to finish them off. What do you want me to
do—string a placard around my neck, saying, ‘No proposals received
here. Apply at the office’? Would that make you feel any better? Well,”
she continued, as the boy shrugged his shoulders, “if it doesn’t make
any difference to you what I do, it doesn’t even make as much as that to
me.”
“Oh, it doesn’t? I think it does, though. You looked as if you enjoyed
it pretty well while the Third Virginia was in the city.”
“I should think I did,” said Caroline ecstatically. “I just love every
one of them. They are going to fight for us and die for us, and I love
them.”
“Why don’t you accept one of them before he dies, then, and have done
with it? I suppose it will be one of those smart young fellows with a
cavalry uniform.”
“It will be some kind of a uniform, I can tell you that. It won’t be any
one that stays in Richmond.”
“Now I see what it was,” said Wilfred, looking at her gloomily. “I had
to stay in Richmond, and——”
The boy choked up and would not finish.
“Well,” said Caroline, “that made a heap of difference. Why, I was the
only girl on Franklin Street that didn’t have a—some one she was
engaged to—at the front. Just think what it was to be out of it like
that! You have no idea how I suffered; besides, it is our duty to help
all we can. There aren’t many things a girl can do, but Colonel
Woolbridge—he’s one of Morgan’s new men, you know—said that the boys
fight twice as well when they have a—sweetheart at home. I couldn’t
waste an engagement on——”
“And is that why you let them all propose to you?” rejoined the youth
bitterly.
“Certainly; it didn’t hurt me, and it pleased them. Most of ’em will
never come back to try it again, and it is our duty to help all we can.”
“And you really want to help all you can, do you?” asked Wilfred
desperately. “Well, if I were to join the army would you help me—that
way?”
This was a direct question. It was the _argumentum ad feminam_ with a
vengeance. Caroline hesitated. A swift blush overspread her cheek, but
she was game to the core.
“Why, of course I would, if there was anything I—could do,” she
answered.
“Well, there is something you can do.” He unrolled his package and
seized the trousers by the waistband and dangled them before her eyes.
“Cut those off,” he said; “they are twice too long. All you have to do
is to cut them here and sew up the ends, so that they don’t ravel out.”
Caroline stared at him in great bewilderment. She had expected something
quite different.
“Why, they are uniform trousers,” she said finally. “You are going to
join the army?” She clapped her hands gleefully. “Give them to me.”
“Hush! don’t talk so loud, for Heaven’s sake,” said Wilfred. “I’ve got a
jacket here, too.” He drew out of the parcel a small army jacket, a
private soldier’s coat. “It’s nearly a fit. It came from the hospital.
Johnny Seldon wore it, but he won’t want it any more, you know, and he
was just about my size, only his legs were longer. Well,” he continued,
as the girl continued to look at him strangely, “I thought you said you
wanted to help me.”
“I certainly do.”
“What are you waiting for, then?” asked Wilfred.
The girl took the trousers and dropped on her knees before him.
“Stand still,” she said, as she measured the trousers from the waistband
to the floor.
“This is about the place, isn’t it?”
“Yes, just there.”
“Wait,” she continued, “until I mark it with a pin.”
Wilfred stood quietly until the proper length had been ascertained, and
then he assisted Caroline to her feet.
“Do you see any scissors about?” she asked in a businesslike way.
“I don’t believe there are any in the drawing-room, but I can get some
from the women sewing over there. Wait a moment.”
“No, don’t,” said the girl; “they would want to know what you wanted
with them, and then you would have to tell them.”
“Yes,” said the boy; “and I want to keep this a secret between us.”
“When are you going to wear them?”
“As soon as you get them ready.”
“But your mother——”
“She knows it. She is going to write to father to-night. She said she
would send it by a special messenger, so we ought to get an answer by
to-morrow.”
“But if he says no?”
“I am going anyway.”
“Oh, Wilfred, I am so glad. Why, it makes another thing of it,” cried
the girl. “When I said that about staying in Richmond, I didn’t know——
Oh, I do want to help all I can.”
“You do? Well, then, for Heaven’s sake, be quick about it and cut off
those trousers. So long as I get them in the morning,” said Wilfred, “I
guess it will be in plenty of time.”
“When did you say your mother was going to write?”
“To-night.”
“Of course, she doesn’t want you to go, and she’ll tell your father not
to let you. Yes,” she continued sagely, as Wilfred looked up,
horror-stricken at the idea; “that’s the way mothers always do.”
“What can I do, then?” he asked her.
“Why don’t you write to him yourself, and then you can tell him just
what you like.”
“That’s a fine idea. I’ll tell him that I can’t stay here, and that I’m
going to enlist whether he says so or not. That’ll make him say yes,
won’t it?”
“Why, of course; there’ll be nothing else for him to say.”
“Say, you are a pretty good girl,” said Wilfred, catching her hand
impulsively. “I’ll go upstairs and write it now. You finish these as
soon as you can. You can ask those women for some scissors, and when
they are ready leave them in this closet, but don’t let any one see you
doing it, whatever happens.”
“No, I won’t,” said Caroline, as Wilfred hurried off.
She went over to the room where the women were sewing, and borrowed a
pair of scissors; then she came back and started to cut off the trousers
where they were marked. The cloth was old and worn, but it was,
nevertheless, stiff and hard, and her scissors were dull. Men spent
their time in sharpening other things than women’s tools during those
days in Richmond, and her slender fingers made hard work of the
amputations. Beside, she was prone to stop and think and dream of her
soldier boy while engaged in this congenial work. She had not finished
the alteration, therefore, when she heard a step in the hall. She caught
up the trousers, striving to conceal them, entirely forgetful of the
jacket which lay on the table.
“Oh,” said Mrs. Varney, as she came into the room; “you haven’t gone
yet?”
“No,” faltered the girl; “we don’t assemble for a little while, and——”
“Don’t assemble?”
“I mean for the party. It doesn’t begin for half an hour yet, and——”
“Oh; then you have plenty of time.”
“Yes,” said Caroline. “But I will have to go now, sure enough.” She
turned away and, as she did so, her scissors fell clattering to the
floor.
“You dropped your scissors, my dear,” said Mrs. Varney.
“I thought I heard something fall,” she faltered in growing confusion.
She came back for her scissors, and, in her agitation and nervousness,
she dropped one of the pieces of trouser leg on the floor.
“What are you making, Caroline?” asked Mrs. Varney, looking curiously at
the little huddled-up soiled piece of grey on the carpet, while Caroline
made a desperate grab at it.
“Oh, just altering an old—dress, Mrs. Varney. That’s all.”
Mrs. Varney looked at her through her glasses. As she did so, Caroline’s
agitated movement caused the other trouser leg, with its half-severed
end hanging from it, to dangle over her arm.
“And what is that?” asked Mrs. Varney.
“Oh—that’s—er—one of the sleeves,” answered Caroline desperately,
hurrying out in great confusion.
Mrs. Varney laughed softly to herself. As she did so, her glance fell
upon the little heap of grey on the table. She picked it up and opened
it. It was a grey jacket, a soldier’s jacket. It looked as if it might
be about Wilfred’s size. There was a bullet hole in the breast, and
there was a dull brown stain around the opening. Mrs. Varney kissed the
worn coat. She saw it all now.
“For Wilfred,” she whispered. “He has probably got it from some dead
soldier at the hospital, and Caroline’s dress that she was altering——”
She clasped the jacket tightly to her breast, looked up, and smiled and
prayed through her tears.
CHAPTER V
THE UNFAITHFUL SERVANT
But Mrs. Varney was not allowed to indulge in either her bitter
retrospect or her dread anticipations very long. Her reverie was
interrupted by the subdued trampling of heavy feet upon the floor of the
back porch. The long drawing-room extended across the house, and had
porches at front and back, to which access was had through long French
windows. The sound was so sudden and so unexpected that she dropped the
jacket on the couch and turned to the window. The sound of low, hushed
voices came to her, and the next moment a tall, fine-looking young man
of rather distinguished appearance entered the room. He was not in
uniform, but wore the customary full-skirted frock coat of the period,
and carried his big black hat in his hand. For the rest, he was a very
keen, sharp-eyed man, whose movements were quick and stealthy, and whose
quick, comprehensive glance seemed to take in not only Mrs. Varney, but
everything in the room. Through the windows and the far door soldiers
could be seen dimly. Mrs. Varney was very indignant at the entrance of
this newcomer in this unceremonious manner.
“Mr. Arrelsford!” she exclaimed haughtily.
In two or three quick steps Mr. Benton Arrelsford of the Confederate
Secret Service was by her side. Although she was alone, through habit
and excessive caution he lowered his voice when he spoke to her.
“Your pardon, Mrs. Varney,” he said, with just a shade too much of the
peremptory for perfect breeding, “I was compelled to enter without
ceremony. You will understand when I tell you why.”
“And those men——” said Mrs. Varney, pointing to the back windows and
the far door. “What have we done that we should be——”
“They are on guard.”
“On guard!” exclaimed the woman, greatly surprised and equally
resentful.
“Yes, ma’am; and I am very much afraid we shall be compelled to put you
to a little inconvenience; temporary, I assure you, but necessary.” He
glanced about cautiously and pointed to the door across the hall. “Is
there anybody in that room, Mrs. Varney?”
“Yes, a number of ladies sewing for the hospital; they expect to stay
all night.”
“Very good,” said Arrelsford. “Will you kindly come a little farther
away? I would not have them overhear by any possibility.”
There was no possibility of any one overhearing their conversation, but
if Mr. Arrelsford ever erred it was not through lack of caution. Still
more astonished, Mrs. Varney followed him. They stopped by the
fireplace.
“One of your servants has got himself into trouble, Mrs. Varney, and
we’re compelled to have him watched,” he began.
“Watched by a squad of soldiers?”
“It is well not to neglect any precaution, ma’am.”
“And what kind of trouble, pray?” asked the woman.
“Very serious, I am sorry to say. At least that is the way it looks now.
You’ve got an old white-haired butler here——”
“You mean Jonas?”
“I believe that’s his name,” said Arrelsford.
“And you suspect him of something?”
Mr. Arrelsford lowered his voice still further and assumed an air of
great importance.
“We don’t merely suspect him; we know what he has done.”
“And what has he done, sir?”
“He has been down to Libby Prison under pretence of selling things to
the Yankees we’ve got in there, and he now has on his person a written
communication from one of them which he intends to deliver to some
Yankee spy or agent, here in Richmond.”
Mrs. Varney gasped in astonishment at this tremendous charge, which was
made in Arrelsford’s most impressive manner.
“I don’t believe it,” she said at last. “He has been in the family for
years; he wouldn’t dare.”
Arrelsford shook his head.
“I am afraid it is true,” he said.
“Very well,” said Mrs. Varney decidedly, apparently not at all
convinced. “I will send for the man. Let us see——”
She reached out her hand to the bell-rope hanging from the wall, but Mr
Arrelsford caught her arm, evidently to her great repugnance.
“No, no!” he said quickly, “not yet. We have got to get that paper, and
if he’s alarmed he will destroy it, and we must have it. It will give us
the clue to one of their cursed plots. They have been right close on
this town for months, trying to break down our defences and get in on
us. This is some rascally game they are at to weaken us from the inside.
Two weeks ago we got word from our secret agents that we keep over there
in the Yankee lines, telling us that two brothers, Lewis and Henry
Dumont——”
“The Dumonts of West Virginia?” interrupted Mrs. Varney, who was now
keenly attentive to all that was said.
“The very same.”
“Why, their father is a General in the Yankee Army.”
“Yes; and they are in the Federal Secret Service, and they are the
boldest, most desperately determined men in the whole Yankee Army.
They’ve already done us more harm than an army corps.”
“Yes?”
“They have volunteered to do some desperate piece of work here in
Richmond, we have learned. We have close descriptions of both these men,
but we have never been able to get our hands on either of them until
last night.”
“Have you captured them?”
“We’ve got one of them, and it won’t take long to get the other,” said
Arrelsford, in a fierce, truculent whisper.
“The one you caught, was he here in Richmond?” asked Mrs. Varney,
greatly affected by the other’s overwhelming emotion.
“No, he was brought in last night with a lot of men we captured in a
little sortie.”
“Taken prisoner?”
“Yes, but without resistance.”
“I don’t understand.”
“He let himself be taken. That’s one of their tricks for getting into
our lines when they want to bring a message or give some signal.”
“You mean that they deliberately allow themselves to be taken to Libby
Prison?”
“Yes, damn them!” said Arrelsford harshly. “I beg your pardon, ma’am,
but——”
Mrs. Varney waved her hand as if Mr. Arrelsford’s oaths, like his
presence, were nothing to her.
“We were on the lookout for this man, and we spotted him pretty quickly.
I gave orders not to search him, and not to have his clothes taken away
from him, but to put him in with the others and keep the closest watch
on him that was ever kept on a man. We knew from his coming in that his
brother must be here in the city, and he’d send a message to him the
first chance he got.”
“But Jonas, how could he——”
“Easily enough. He comes down to the prison to sell things to the
prisoners with other negroes. We let him pass in, watching him as we
watch them all. He fools around a while, until he gets a chance to brush
against this man Dumont. My men are keeping that fellow under close
observation, and they saw a piece of paper pass between them. By my
orders they gave no sign. We want to catch the man to whom he is to
deliver the paper. He has the paper on him now.”
“I will never believe it.”
“It is true, and that is the reason for these men on the back porch that
you see. I have put others at every window at the back of the house. He
can’t get away; he will have to give it up.”
“And the man he gives it to will be the man you want?” said Mrs. Varney.
“Yes; but I can’t wait long. If that nigger sees my men or hears a
sound, he will destroy it before we can jump in on him. I want the man,
but I want the paper, too. Excuse me.” He stepped to the back window.
“Corporal!” he said softly. The long porch window was open on account of
the balmy air of the night, and a soldier, tattered and dusty, instantly
appeared and saluted. “How are things now?” asked Arrelsford.
“All quiet now, sir.”
“Very good,” said Arrelsford. “I was afraid he would get away. We’ve got
to get the paper. If we have the paper, perhaps we can get the man. It
is the key to the game they are trying to play against us, and without
it the man is helpless.”
“No, no,” urged Mrs. Varney. “The man he is going to give it to, get
him.”
“Yes, yes, of course,” assented Arrelsford; “but that paper might give
us a clue. If not, I’ll make the nigger tell. Damn him, I’ll shoot it
out of him. How quickly can you get at him from that door, Corporal?”
“In no time at all, sir. It’s through a hallway and across the
dining-room. He is in the pantry.”
“Well,” said Arrelsford, “take two men, and——”
“Wait,” said Mrs. Varney; “I still doubt your story, but I am glad to
help. Why don’t you keep your men out of sight and let me send for him
here, and then——”
Arrelsford thought a moment.
“That may be the better plan,” he admitted. “Get him in here and, while
you are talking to him, they can seize him from behind. He won’t be able
to do a thing. Do you hear, Corporal?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Keep your men out of sight; get them back there in the hall, and while
we’re making him talk, send a man down each side and pin him. Hold him
stiff. He mustn’t destroy any paper he’s got.”
The Corporal raised his hand in salute and left the room. The men
disappeared from the windows, and the back porch looked as empty as
before. The whole discussion and the movements of the men had been
practically noiseless.
“Now, Mr. Arrelsford, are you ready?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
Mrs. Varney rang the bell on the instant. The two watched each other
intently, and in a moment old Martha appeared at the door.
“Did you-all ring, ma’am?”
“Yes,” said Mrs. Varney; “I want some one to send to the hospital.”
“Luthah is out heah, ma’am.”
“Luther? He’s too small, I don’t want a boy.”
“Well, den, Jonas——”
“Yes, Jonas will do; tell him to come in here immediately.”
“Yas’m.”
“Perhaps you had better sit down, Mrs. Varney,” said Arrelsford; “and if
you will permit me, I will stand back by the front window yonder.”
“That will be just as well,” said Mrs. Varney, seating herself near the
table, while Arrelsford, making no effort at concealment, stepped over
to the window. Old Jonas entered the door just as they had placed
themselves. He bowed low before Mrs. Varney, entirely unsuspicious of
anything out of the ordinary until his eye fell on the tall form of
Arrelsford. He glanced furtively at the man for a moment, stiffened
imperceptibly, but, as there was nothing else to do, came on.
“Jonas,” said Mrs. Varney, her voice low and level in spite of her
agitation.
“Yes’m.”
“Have you any idea why I sent for you?”
“Ah heahd you was gwine send me to de hossiple, ma’am.”
“Oh, then Martha told you,” said Mrs. Varney.
While the little dialogue was taking place, Mr. Arrelsford had made a
signal, and the Corporal and two men had entered the room silently, and
now swiftly advanced to the side of the still unobserving old negro.
“She didn’t ezzactly say whut you——” he began.
The next instant the two men fell upon him. He might have made some
struggle, although it would have been useless. The windows were
instantly filled with men, and an order would have called them into the
room. He was an old man, and the two soldiers that seized him were
young. He was too surprised to fight, and stood as helpless as a lamb
about to be slaughtered, his face fairly grey with sudden terror. The
Corporal flung open the butler’s faded livery coat, and for the moment
Jonas, menaced now by a search, and knowing what the result would be,
struggled furiously, but the men soon mastered him, and the Corporal,
continuing his search, presently drew from an inside pocket a small
folded paper.
“Jonas! Jonas!” said Mrs. Varney, in bitter disappointment; “how could
you?”
“I told you so,” said Mr. Arrelsford truthfully, triumphantly, and most
aggravatingly under the circumstances, taking the folded paper.
“Corporal,” he added, “while I read this, see if he has got anything
more.”
A further search, however, revealed nothing. Arrelsford had scarcely
completed the reading of the brief note when the Corporal reported:
“That is all he has, sir.”
Arrelsford nodded. The men had released Jonas, but stood by his side,
and the Secret Service Agent now approached him.
“Who was this for?” he asked sharply and tensely.
The negro stared at him stolidly and silently, his face ashen with
fright.
“Look here,” continued the other, “if you don’t tell me it is going to
make it pretty bad for you.”
The words apparently made no further impression upon the servant.
Arrelsford tried another tack. He turned to Mrs. Varney, who was
completely dismayed at this breach of trust by one who had been attached
to the family fortunes for so many years.
“I am right sorry, ma’am,” he said very distinctly, “but it looks like
we have got to shoot him.”
“Oh!” cried Mrs. Varney at that. “Jonas, speak!”
But even to that appeal he remained silent. Arrelsford waited a moment
and then:
“Corporal,” he said; “take him outside and get it out of him. String him
up until he talks. But don’t let him yell or give any alarm; gag him
until he’s ready to tell. You understand?”
The Corporal nodded and turned toward the hall door.
“Not that way,” said Arrelsford; “take him to the back of the house and
keep him quiet, whatever you do. Nobody must know about this, not a
soul.”
“Very good, sir,” said the Corporal, saluting. He gave an order to the
men, and they marched Jonas off, swiftly and silently. Nothing that had
been said or done had disturbed the women across the hall. Mrs. Varney
glanced up at the unfolded piece of paper in Mr. Arrelsford’s hand. He
was smiling triumphantly.
“Was there anything in that?” she asked.
“Yes, there was. We know the trick they meant to play.”
“But not the man who was to play it?”
“I didn’t say that, ma’am.”
“Does it give you a clue to it?”
“It does.”
“Will it answer?”
“It will.”
“Then you know——”
“As plain as if we had his name.”
“Thank God for that,” exclaimed the woman. “May I see it?”
Arrelsford hesitated.
“I see no reason why you should not.”
He extended his hand toward her, and she glanced at the paper.
“_Attack to-night. Plan 3. Use telegraph!_” she read. She looked up.
“What does it mean?” she asked tremulously.
“They are to attack to-night, and the place where they are to strike is
indicated by Plan 3.”
“Plan 3?” questioned the woman.
“Yes; the man this is sent to will know what is meant by that. It has
been arranged beforehand, and——”
“But the last words,” said Mrs. Varney. “Use telegraph?”
“That is plain, too. He is to use our War Department Telegraph and send
some false order to weaken that position, the one they indicate by ‘Plan
3,’ so that when they assault it, they will find it feebly defended or
not at all, and break through and come down on the city and swamp us.”
“But,” exclaimed Mrs. Varney in deepest indignation and excitement, “the
man who was to do this? Who is he? There is nothing about him that I can
see.”
“But I can see something.”
“What? Where?”
“In the words, ‘Use Telegraph.’ We know every man on the telegraph
service, and every one of them is true. There is some one who will try
to get into that service if the game is carried out, and——”
“Then he will be the man,” said Mrs. Varney.
“Yes; there aren’t so many men in Richmond that can do that. It isn’t
every man that’s expert enough——Mrs. Varney, Jonas brought this paper
to your house, and——”
“To my house?” exclaimed the woman in great astonishment, and then she
stopped, appalled by a sudden thought which came to her.
“At the same time,” said Arrelsford, “your daughter has been trying to
get an appointment for some one on the telegraph service. Perhaps she
could give us some idea, and——”
Mrs. Varney rose and stood as if rooted to the spot.
“You mean——”
“Captain Thorne,” said Arrelsford impressively.
CHAPTER VI
THE CONFIDENCE OF EDITH VARNEY
Mrs. Varney had, of course, divined toward whom Arrelsford’s suspicion
pointed. She had been entirely certain before he had mentioned the name
that the alleged spy or traitor could be none other than her daughter’s
friend; indeed, it would not be stretching the truth to say that Thorne
was her friend as well as her daughter’s, and her keen mother’s wit was
not without suspicion that if he were left to himself, or if he were
permitted to follow his own inclinations, the relation between himself
and the two women might have been a nearer one still and a dearer one,
yet, nevertheless, the shocking announcement came to her with sudden,
sharp surprise.
We may be perfectly certain, absolutely sure, of a coming event, but
when it does occur its shock is felt in spite of previous assurance. We
may watch the dying and pray for death to end anguish, and know that it
is coming, but when the last low breath has gone, it is as much of a
shock to us as if it had not been expected, or even dreamed of.
The announcement of the name was shattering to her composure. She knew
very well why Arrelsford would rejoice to find Thorne guilty of
anything, and she would have discounted any ordinary accusation that he
brought against him, but the train of the circumstances was so complete
in this case and the coincidences so unexplainable upon any other
theory, the evidence so convincing, that she was forced to admit that
Arrelsford was fully justified in his suspicion, and that without regard
to the fact that he was a rejected suitor of her daughter’s.
Surprise, horror, and conviction lodged in her soul, and were mirrored
in her face. Arrelsford saw and divined what was passing in her mind,
and, eager to strike while the iron was hot, bent forward open-mouthed
to continue his line of reasoning and denunciation, but Mrs. Varney
checked him. She laid her finger upon her lips and pointed with the
other hand to the front of the house.
“What!” exclaimed the Confederate Secret Service agent; “is he there?”
Mrs. Varney nodded.
“He may be. He went out to the summerhouse some time ago to wait for
Edith; they were going over to Caroline Mitford’s later on. I saw him go
down the walk.”
“Do you suppose my men could have alarmed him?” asked Arrelsford,
greatly perturbed at this unexpected development.
“I don’t know. They were all at the back windows. They didn’t seem to
make much noise. I suppose not. You have a description of the man for
whom the letter was intended?”
“Yes, at the office; but I remember it perfectly.”
“Does it fit this—this Captain Thorne?”
“You might as well know sooner as later, Mrs. Varney, that there is no
Captain Thorne. This is an assumed name, and the man you have in your
house is Lewis Dumont.”
“Do you mean that he came here to——”
“He came to this town, to this house,” said Arrelsford vindictively, his
voice still subdued but full of fury, “knowing your position, the
influence of your name, your husband’s rank and service, for the sole
purpose of getting recognised as a reputable person, so that he would be
less likely to be suspected. He has corrupted your servants—you saw old
Jonas—and he has contrived to enlist the powerful support of your
daughter. His aim is the War Department Telegraph Office. He is friends
with the men at that office. What else he hasn’t done or what he has,
the Lord only knows. But Washington is not the only place where they
have a secret service; we have one at Richmond. Whatever game he plays,
it is one that two can play; and now it is my play.”
The patter of light footsteps was heard on the stairs, a flash of white
seen through the open door into the hall dimly lighted, and Edith Varney
came rapidly, almost breathlessly, into the room. She had changed her
dress, and if Caroline Mitford had been there, she would have known
certainly from the little air of festivity about her clean but faded and
darned, sprigged and flowered white muslin frock that she was going to
accept the invitation. In one hand she held her hat, which she swung
carelessly by its long faded ribbons, and in the other that official
envelope which had come to her from the President of the Confederacy.
She called to her mother as she ran down.
“Mamma!” Her face was white and her voice pitched high, fraught with
excited intensity. “Under my window, in the rosebushes, at the back of
the house! They’re hurting somebody frightfully, I am sure!”
She burst into the room with the last word. Mrs. Varney stared at her,
understanding fully who, in all probability, was being roughly dealt
with in the rosebushes, and realising what a terrible effect such
disclosures as she had listened to would produce upon the mind of the
girl.
“Come,” said Edith, turning rapidly toward the rear window; “we must
stop it.”
Mrs. Varney stood as if rooted to the floor.
“Well,” said the girl, in great surprise, “if you aren’t coming, I will
go myself.”
These words awakened her mother to action.
“Wait, Edith,” she said.
Now, and for the first time, Edith noticed Mr. Arrelsford, who had
stepped back and away from her mother. She replied to his salutation
with a cold and distant bow. The man’s face flushed; he turned away.
“But, mamma, the men outside,” persisted the girl.
“Wait, my dear,” said her mother, taking her gently by the arm; “I must
tell you something. It will be a great shock to you, I am afraid.”
“What is it, mamma? Has father or——”
“No, no, not that,” said Mrs. Varney. “A man we have trusted as a friend
has shown himself a conspirator, a spy, a traitor.”
“Who is it?” cried the girl, at the same time instinctively
divining—how or why she could not tell, and that thought smote her
afterward—to whom the reference was being made.
Mrs. Varney naturally hesitated to say the name. Arrelsford, carried
away by his passion for the girl and his hatred for Thorne, was not so
reticent. He stepped toward her.
“It is the gentleman, Miss Varney, whose attentions you have been
pleased to accept in the place of mine,” he burst out bitterly.
His manner and his meaning were unmistakable. The girl stared at him
with a white, haughty face, in spite of her trembling lips. Mechanically
she thrust the envelope with the commission into her belt, and
confronted the man who loved her and whom she did not love, who accused
of this hateful thing the man whom, in the twinkling of an eye, she
realised she did love. Then the daughter turned to her mother.
“Is it Mr Arrelsford who makes this accusation?” she asked.
“Yes,” said Arrelsford, again answering for Mrs. Varney, “since you wish
to know. From the first I have had my suspicions about this——”
But Edith did not wait for him to finish his sentence. She turned away
from him with loathing, and moved rapidly toward the front window.
“Where are you going!” asked Arrelsford.
“For Captain Thorne.”
“Not now,” he said peremptorily.
The colour flamed in the girl’s cheek again.
“Mr. Arrelsford, you have said something to me about Captain Thorne. Are
you afraid to say it to him?”
“Miss Varney,” answered Arrelsford hotly, “if you—if you——”
“Edith,” said Mrs. Varney, “Mr. Arrelsford has good reasons for not
meeting Captain Thorne now.”
“I should think he had,” returned the girl swiftly; “for a man who made
such a charge to his face would not live to make it again.”
“My dear, my dear,” said her mother, gently but firmly, “you don’t
understand, you don’t——”
“Mamma,” said the girl, “this man has left his desk in the War
Department so that he can have the pleasure of persecuting me.”
Both the mother and the rejected suitor noticed her identification of
herself with Captain Thorne in the pronoun “me,” one with sinking heart
and the other with suppressed fury.
“He has never attempted anything active in the service before,”
continued Edith, “and when I ask him to face the man he accuses, he
turns like a coward!”
“Mrs. Varney, if she thinks——”
“I think nothing,” said the girl furiously; “I know that Captain
Thorne’s character is above suspicion.”
Arrelsford sneered.
“His character! Where did he come from—what is he?”
“For that matter,” said Edith intensely, “where did you come from, and
what are you?”
“That is not the question,” was the abrupt reply.
“Neither,” said the girl, “is it the question who he is. If it were, I’d
answer it—I’d tell you that he is a soldier who has fought and been
wounded in service, while you——”
Arrelsford made a violent effort to control himself under this bitter
jibing and goading, and to his credit, succeeded in part.
“We are not so sure of that, Miss Varney,” he said more coolly.
“But I am sure,” answered the girl. “Why, he brought us letters from
Stonewall Jackson himself.”
“Has it occurred to you that General Jackson was dead before his letters
were presented?” asked Arrelsford quickly.
“What does that signify if he wrote them before he was killed?”
“Nothing certainly,” assented the other, “if he wrote them.”
“The signatures and the letters were verified.”
“They may have been written for some one else and this Thorne may have
possessed himself of them by fraud, or——”
“Mr. Arrelsford,” cried the girl, more and more angry, “if you mean——”
“My dear child,” said Mrs Varney, “you don’t understand. They have
proofs of a conspiracy. The Yankees are going to try to break through
our lines to-night, some one is going to use the telegraph, and two men
in the Northern Secret Service have been sent here to do this work. One
is in Libby Prison. Our faithful Jonas has been corrupted. He went there
to-day and took a message from one and brought it here to deliver it to
the other. They are trying to make him speak out there to tell
who——Our country, our cause, is at stake.”
“Is this Mr. Arrelsford’s story?” asked the daughter stubbornly,
apparently entirely unconvinced.
“No; these are facts. We had Jonas in here,” answered her mother;
“caught him off his guard, and found the incriminating paper on him.”
“But he has not said it was for——” persisted Edith desperately.
“Not yet,” whispered Mr. Arrelsford, “but he will. You may be sure of
that; we have means to—Oh, Corporal,” he broke off eagerly, looking
toward the door where the Corporal stood, his hand at salute. “Well,
speak out, what does he say?”
“Nothing, sir.”
“What have you done with him?”
“Strung him up three times, and——”
“Well, string him up again,” snarled Arrelsford. “If he won’t speak,
shoot it out of him, kill the dog. We don’t need his evidence any way,
there’s enough without it.”
“There is nothing,” said Edith tersely.
“By midnight,” answered Arrelsford, “you shall have all the proof——”
“There is no proof to have,” persisted the girl.
“I will show it to you at the telegraph office, if you dare to go with
me.”
“Dare! I will go anywhere, even with you, for that——”
“I will call for you in half an hour then,” said Arrelsford, going
toward the door.
“Wait,” interrupted Edith; “what are you going to do?”
“I am going to let him get this paper,” said Arrelsford, coming back to
the table. “He will know what they want him to do, and then we’ll see
him try to do it.”
“You are going to spy on him, are you?”
“I am going to prove what he is.”
“Then prove it openly at once. It is shameful to let such a suspicion
rest upon an honourable man. Let him come in here, and——”
“It is impossible.”
“Then do something, something, but do it now!” cried the girl. “You will
soon know that he is innocent, you must know it. Wait! You say the
prisoner in Libby is his brother—that’s what you said—his brother.
Bring him here. Go to the prison and bring that man here.”
“What?”
“Let them meet. Bring them face to face, then you can see whether——”
“You mean bring them together here?”
“Yes.”
“As if the prisoner were trying to escape?”
“Exactly.”
“There is something in that,” said Arrelsford; “when do you suggest——”
“Now.”
“I am willing to try it, but it depends upon you. Can you keep Thorne
here?”
“I can.”
“It won’t take more than half an hour. Be out there on the veranda. When
I tap on the glass bring him into this room and leave him alone. And I
can rely upon you to give him no hint or sign that we suspect——”
“Mr. Arrelsford!” said the girl, indignant and haughty, and her mother
stepped swiftly toward her, looking at him contemptuously, as if he
should have known that such an action would be impossible for either of
them.
Arrelsford gazed at them a minute or two, smiled triumphantly, and
passed out of the room.
“Mamma, mamma!” moaned the girl, her eyes shut, her hand extended.
“Mamma,” she repeated in anguish.
“I am here, Edith dear; I am here,” said Mrs. Varney, coming toward her
and taking her tenderly in her arms.
“Do you think—do you think—that he—he could be what they say?” Her
hand fell upon the commission in her belt “This commission I got for him
this afternoon——”
“Yes?”
“The commission, you know, from the President, for the Telegraph
Service—why, he refused to take it,” her voice rose and rang
triumphantly through the room; “he refused to take it! That doesn’t look
as if he wanted to use the telegraph to betray us.”
“Refused! That’s impossible!” said her mother.
“He said that it was for me that he couldn’t take it.”
“For you! Then it is true,” answered Mrs. Varney.
“No, no,” said the girl; “don’t say it.”
“Yes,” said her mother; “the infamous——” The girl tried to stifle with
her hand upon her mother’s lips the words, but Mrs. Varney shook off her
hand. “The spy, the traitor,” she added witheringly.
“No, no!” cried the girl, but as she spoke, conviction seemed to come to
her. Why was it that her faith was not more substantially based and
enduring? she asked herself. “Mamma,” she wailed, “it can’t be.” She
buried her face in her hands for a moment and then tore them away and
confronted her mother boldly. “Won’t you leave me alone for a little
while, mamma?” she asked plaintively. “I must get——”
“I will go to Howard; I will be back in a short time, my dear,” said her
mother, gently laying her hand on her daughter’s bent head.
Left alone, the girl took the commission from her belt, opened it,
smoothed it out, and read it through, as if bewildered and
uncomprehending. She folded it up again, and walked slowly over to one
of the front windows, drew aside the curtains, and pushed it open. All
was still. She listened for she knew not what. There was a footstep from
the far end of the walk leading from the summerhouse, a footstep she
knew. Edith moved rapidly away from the window to the table and stood by
it, her hand resting upon it, her knees fairly trembling in her emotion,
as she waited. The next moment the open space framed the figure of
Captain Thorne. He entered fearlessly, but when his eye fell upon her
there was something so strained about her attitude that a spark of
suspicion was kindled in his soul. Yet his action was prompt enough. He
came instantly toward her and took her hand.
“Miss Varney,” he said.
Edith watched his approach fascinated, as a bird by a serpent. His touch
awakened her to action. She snatched her hand away and shrank back.
“No; don’t touch me!” she cried.
He looked at her in amazement. The spark of suspicion burst into flame,
but she recovered herself instantly.
“Oh, it was you,” she faltered. She forced a smile to her lips. “How
perfectly absurd I am. I am sure I ought to be ashamed of myself. Come,
let’s go out on the veranda. I want to talk to you about so many things.
There’s—there’s half an hour—yet before we must go to Caroline’s.”
She had possessed herself of his hand again as she spoke. She now
stepped swiftly toward the window. He followed her reluctantly until
they reached the opening. She stepped through it and archly looked back
at him, still in the room.
“How lovely is the night,” she said with tender persuasiveness. “Come
with me.”
The man looked around him hastily. Every moment was precious to him. Did
Miss Varney know. If so, what did she know? What was to be gained or
lost by half an hour’s delay on his part? He drew out his watch and
glanced at it swiftly. There was time. He would never see her again. He
might say he would possibly never see any one again after the hazards of
this night. He was entitled to one brief moment of happiness. How long
had she said? Half an hour. He would take it.
“Aren’t you coming, Captain Thorne?” cried the girl from the porch, all
the coquettish witchery of youth and the South in her voice.
“I am coming,” answered the officer, deliberately stepping through the
window, “for just half an hour,” he added.
“That will be time enough,” replied the girl, laughing.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
BOOK II
WHAT HAPPENED AT NINE O’CLOCK
CHAPTER VII
WILFRED WRITES A LETTER
Half an hour is a short or a long time, depending upon the individual
mood or the exigencies of the moment. It was a short half hour to
Captain Thorne—to continue to give him the name by which he was
commonly known—out in the moonlight and the rose garden with Edith
Varney. It was short to him because he loved her and because he realised
that in that brief space must be packed experience enough to last him
into the long future, it might be into the eternal future!
It was short to Edith Varney, in part at least for the same reason, but
it was shorter to him than to her, for at the end of that period the
guilt or innocence of the man she loved and who loved her would be
established beyond peradventure; either he was the brave, devoted,
self-sacrificing Confederate soldier she thought him, or he was a spy;
and since he came of a Virginia family, although West Virginia had
separated from the Old Dominion, she coupled the word spy with that of
traitor. Either or both would be enough to condemn him. Fighting against
suspicion, she would fain have postponed the moment of revelation, of
decision, therefore too quickly passed the flying moments.
It was a short half hour to Thorne, because he might see her no more. It
was a short half hour again to Edith because she might see him no more,
and it might be possible that she could not even allow herself to dream
upon him in his absence in the future. The recollection of the woman
would ever be sweet and sacred to the man, but it might be necessary for
the woman to blot out utterly the remembrance of the man.
It was a short half hour to young Wilfred in his own room, waiting
impatiently for old Martha to bring him the altered uniform, over which
Caroline was busily working in the large old-fashioned kitchen. She had
chosen that odd haven of refuge because there she was the least likely
to be interrupted and could pursue her task without fear of observation
by any other eyes than those of old Martha. The household had been
reduced to its smallest limit and the younger maids who were still
retained in the establishment had been summarily dismissed to their
quarters for the night by the old mammy.
Now that Wilfred had taken the plunge, his impatience to go was at fever
heat. He could not wait, he felt, for another moment. He had spent some
of his half hour in composing a letter with great care. It was a short
letter and therefore was soon finished, and he was now pacing up and
down his room with uneasy steps waiting for old Martha’s welcome voice.
It was a long half hour for little Caroline Mitford, busily sewing away
in the kitchen. It seemed to her that she was taking forever to turn up
the bottoms of the trouser legs and make a “hem” on each, as she
expressed it. She was not very skilful at such rough needlework and her
eyes were not so very clear as she played at tailoring. This is no
reflection upon their natural clarity and brightness, but they were
quite often dimmed with tears, which once or twice brimmed over and
dropped upon the coarse fabric of the garment upon which she worked. She
had known the man who had worn them last, he had been a friend of hers,
and she knew the boy who was going to wear them next.
If she could translate the emotions of her girlish heart, the new wearer
was more than a friend. Was the same fate awaiting the latter that the
former had met?
The half hour was very long to Jonas, the old butler, trembling with
fright, suffering from his rough usage and terror-stricken with
anticipation of the further punishment that awaited him.
The half hour was longest of all to Mrs. Varney. After her visit to
Howard, who had enjoyed one of his lucid moments and who seemed to be a
little better, she had come down to the drawing-room, at Mr.
Arrelsford’s suggestion, to see that no one from the house who might
have observed, or divined, or learned, in any way what was going on
within should go out into the garden and disturb the young couple, or
give an alarm to the man who was the object of so much interest and
suspicion, so much love and hatred.
About the only people who took no note of the time were the busy
sempstresses in the room across the hall, and the first sign of life
came from that room. Miss Kittridge, who appeared to have been
constituted the messenger of the workers, came out of the room, went
down the hall to the back of the house, and presently entered the
drawing-room, by the far door.
“Well,” she began, seeing Mrs. Varney, “we have just sent off another
batch of bandages.”
“Did the same man come for them?” asked the mistress of the house.
“No, they sent another one.”
“Did you have much?”
“Yes, quite a lot. We have all been at the bandages, they say that that
is what they need most. So long as we have any linen left we will work
at it.” She turned to go away, but something in the elder woman’s face
and manner awakened a slight suspicion in her mind. She stopped, turned,
and came back. “You look troubled, Mrs. Varney,” she began. “Do you want
anything?”
“No, nothing, thank you.”
“Is there anything I can do or anything any of us can do?”
“Not a thing, my dear,” answered Mrs. Varney, trying to smile and
failing dismally.
“Is it Howard?” persisted the other, anxious to be of service.
“He seems to be a little better,” returned the woman.
“I am glad to hear it, and if there is anything any of us could do for
you, you would certainly tell me.”
The elder woman nodded and Miss Kittridge turned decisively away and
stepped briskly toward the door. On second thought, there was something
she could do, reflected Mrs. Varney, and so she rose, stepped to the
door in turn, and called her back.
“Perhaps it would be just as well,” she said, “if any of the ladies want
to go to let them out the other way. You can open the door into the back
hall. We’re expecting some one here on important business, you know, and
we——”
“I understand,” said Miss Kittridge.
“And you will see to this?”
“Certainly; trust me.”
“Thank you.”
Mrs. Varney turned with a little sigh of relief and went back to her
place by the table, where her work basket sat near to hand. No woman in
Richmond was without a work basket with work in it for any length of
time during those days. The needle was second only to the bayonet in the
support of the dying Confederacy! She glanced at it, but, sure evidence
of the tremendous strain under which she laboured, she made no motion to
take it up. Instead, after a moment of reflection, she crossed to the
wall and pulled the bell rope. In a short time, considering her bulk and
unwieldiness, old Martha appeared at the far door.
“Did you ring, ma’am?” she asked.
“Yes,” was the answer. “Has Miss Caroline gone yet?”
“No, ma’am,” answered Martha, smilingly displaying a glorious set of
white teeth. “She’s been out in de kitchen fo’ a w’ile.”
“In the kitchen?”
“Yas’m. Ah took her out dere. She didn’t want to be seed by no one.”
“And what is she doing there?”
“She’s been mostly sewin’ an’ behabin’ mighty strange about sumfin a
gret deal ob de time. She’s a-snifflin’ an’ a-weepin’, but Ah belieb
she’s gittin’ ready to gwine home now.”
“Very well,” said Mrs. Varney, “will you please ask her to come in here
a moment before she goes.”
“Yas’m, ’deed Ah will,” said old Martha, turning and going out of the
door through which, presently, Caroline herself appeared.
She looked very demure and the air of innocence, partly natural but
largely assumed, well became her although it did not deceive Mrs. Varney
for a moment, or would not have deceived her if she had had any special
interest in Caroline’s actions or emotions. The greater strain under
which she laboured made the girl of small moment; she would simply use
her, that was all.
“Caroline, dear,” she began immediately, “are you in a great hurry to go
home?”
“No, ma’am, not particularly, especially if I can do anything for you
here,” answered the girl readily, somewhat surprised.
“It happens that you can,” said Mrs. Varney; “if you can stay here a few
minutes while I go upstairs to Howard it will be a great help to me.”
“You want me just to wait here, is that it?” asked the girl, somewhat
mystified.
Why on earth anybody should be required to wait in a vacant room was
something which Caroline could not understand, but Mrs. Varney’s next
words sought to explain it.
“I don’t want you merely to wait here but—well, in fact, I don’t want
anybody to go out on the veranda, or into the garden, from the front of
the house, under any circumstances.”
Caroline’s eyes opened in great amazement. She did not in the least
understand what it was all about until Mrs. Varney explained further.
“You see Edith’s there with——”
“Oh, yes,” laughed the girl, at last, as she thought, comprehending,
“you want them to be left alone. I know how that is, whenever I am—when
some—that is of course I will see to it,” she ended rather lamely and
in great confusion.
“Just a few minutes, dear,” said Mrs. Varney, smiling faintly at the
girl’s blushing cheeks and not thinking it worth while to correct the
misapprehension, “I won’t be long.” She stepped across the room, but
turned in the doorway for her final injunction, “Do be careful, won’t
you?”
“Careful!” said Caroline to herself, “I should think I would be careful.
As if I didn’t know enough for that. I can guess what is going on out
there in the moonlight. I wouldn’t have them disturbed for the world.
Why, if I were out there with—with—Wil—with anybody, I wouldn’t——”
She stopped in great dismay at her own admissions and stood staring
toward the front windows, over which Mrs. Varney had most carefully
drawn the heavy hangings.
Presently her curiosity got the better of her sense of propriety. She
went to the nearest window, pulled the curtains apart a little, and
peered eagerly out. She saw nothing, nothing but the trees in the
moonlight, that is; Edith and Captain Thorne were not within view nor
were they within earshot. She turned to the other window. Now that she
had made the plunge, she determined to see what was going on if she
could. She drew the couch up before the window and knelt down upon it,
and parting the curtains, looked out, but with the same results as
before. In this questionable position she was unfortunately caught by
Wilfred Varney.
He was dressed in the grey jacket and the trousers which she had
repaired. She had not made a skilful job of her tailoring but it would
serve. The whole suit was worn, ill-fitting, and soiled; but it was
whole. That was more than could be said of ninety-nine per cent. of the
uniforms commonly seen round about Richmond. Measured by these, Wilfred
was sumptuously, even luxuriously, dressed, and the pride expressed in
his port and bearing was as complete as it was naïve. He walked softly
up the long room, intending to surprise the girl, but boy-like, he
stumbled over a stool on his way forward, and the young lady turned
about quickly and confronted him with an exclamation. Wilfred came close
to her and spoke in a low, fierce whisper.
“Mother isn’t anywhere about, is she?”
“No,” said Caroline in the same tone, “she’s just gone upstairs to see
Howard, but she is coming back in a few minutes, she said.”
“Well,” returned Wilfred, throwing his chest out impressively, “I am not
running away from her, but if she saw me with these on she might feel
funny.”
“I don’t think,” returned Caroline quickly, “that she would feel very
funny.”
“Well, you know what I mean,” said Wilfred, flushing a little. “You know
how it is with a fellow’s mother.”
Caroline nodded gravely.
“Yes, I have learned how it is with mothers,” she said, thinking of the
mothers she had known since the war began, young though she was.
“Other people don’t care,” said Wilfred, “but mothers are different.”
“Some other people don’t care,” answered Caroline softly, fighting hard
to keep back a rush of tears.
In spite of herself her eyes would focus themselves upon that little
round blood-stained hole in the left breast of the jacket. She had not
realised before how straight that bullet had gone to the heart of the
other wearer. There was something terribly ominous about it. But Wilfred
blundered blindly on, unconscious of this emotion or of its cause. He
drew from the pocket in his blouse a paper. He sat down at the table,
beckoning Caroline as he did so. The girl came closer and looked over
his shoulder as he unfolded the paper.
“I have written that letter,” he said, “to the General, my father, that
is. Here it is. I have got to send it to him in some way. It is all
written but the last words and I am not sure about them. I’m not going
to say ‘your loving son’ or anything of that kind. This is a man’s
letter, a soldier’s letter. I love him, of course, but this is not the
time or the place to put that sort of a thing in. I have been telling
him——” He happened to glance up as he spoke and discovered to his
great surprise that Caroline had turned away from him and was no longer
looking at him. “Why, what’s the matter?” he exclaimed.
“Nothing, nothing,” answered the girl, forcing herself to face him once
more.
“I thought you wanted to help me,” he continued.
“Oh, yes! I do, I do.”
“Well, you can’t help me way off there,” said Wilfred. “Come closer.”
He spoke like a soldier already, thought the girl, but she meekly, for
her, obeyed the imperious command. He stared at her, as yet unconscious
but strangely agitated nevertheless. The silence was soon insupportable,
and Caroline herself broke it.
“The—the——” she pointed at the trousers, “are they how you wanted
them?”
“Fine,” replied Wilfred; “they are just perfect. There isn’t a girl in
Richmond who could have done them better. Now about the letter. I want
your advice on it; what do you think?”
“Tell me what you said.”
“You want to hear it?” asked Wilfred.
“I’ve got to, haven’t I? How could I help you if I didn’t know what it
was all about?”
“You’re a pretty good girl, Caroline. You will help me, won’t you?”
Her hand rested on the table as she bent over him, and he laid his own
hand upon it and squeezed it warmly, too warmly thought Caroline, as she
slowly drew it away and was sorry she did it the moment she had done so.
“Yes, I will help you,” she said. “But about the letter? You will have
to hurry. I am sure your mother will be here in a short time.”
“Well, that letter is mighty important, you know. Everything depends
upon it, much more than on mother’s letter, I am sure.”
“I should think so,” said the girl.
She drew a chair up to the table and sat down by the side of the boy.
“I am just going to give it to him strong,” said Wilfred.
“That’s the way to give it to him,” said Caroline. “He’s a soldier and
he’s accustomed to such things.”
“You can’t fool much with father. He means business,” said Wilfred; “but
he will find that I mean business, too.”
“That’s right,” assented Caroline sapiently, “everybody has got to mean
business now. What did you say to him?”
“I said this,” answered the youngster, reading slowly and with great
pride, “‘General Ransom Varney, Commanding Division, Army of Northern
Virginia, Dear Papa’——”
“I wouldn’t say ‘dear papa’ to a General,” interrupted Caroline
decisively.
“No? What would you say?”
“I would say ‘Sir,’ of course; that is much more businesslike and
soldiers are always so awfully abrupt.”
“You are right,” said the boy, beginning again, “‘General Ransom Varney,
Commanding Division, Army of Northern Virginia, Sir’—that sounds fine,
doesn’t it?”
“Splendid,” said the girl, “go on.”
“‘This is to notify you that I want you to let me join the Army right
now. If you don’t, I will enlist anyway, that’s all. The seventeen call
is out and I am not going to wait for the sixteen. Do you think I am a
damned coward’——”
Wilfred paused and looked apprehensively at Caroline, who nodded with
eyes sparkling brightly.
“That’s fine,” she said.
“I thought it sounded like a soldier.”
“It does; you ought to have heard the Third Virginia swear——”
“Oh,” said Wilfred, who did not quite relish that experience; but he
went on after a little pause. “‘Tom Kittridge has gone; he was killed
yesterday at Cold Harbor. Billie Fisher has gone and so has Cousin
Stephen. He is not sixteen, he lied about his age, but I don’t want to
do that unless you make me. I will, though, if you do. Answer this right
now or not at all.’”
“I think that is the finest letter I have ever heard,” said Caroline
proudly, as Wilfred stopped, laid the paper down, and stared at her.
“Do you really think so?”
“It is the best letter I——”
“I am glad you are pleased with it. Now the next thing is how to end
it.”
“Why, just end it.”
“But how?”
“Sign your name, of course.”
“Nothing else?”
“What else is there?”
“Just Wilfred?”
“No, Wilfred Varney.”
“That’s the thing.” He took up a pen from the table and scrawled his
name at the bottom of this interesting and historical document. “And you
think the rest of it will do?”
“I should think it would,” she assented heartily. “I wish your father
had it now.”
“So do I,” said Wilfred. “Maybe it will take two or three days to get it
to him and I just can’t wait that long.”
Caroline rose to her feet suddenly under the stimulus of a bright idea
that came into her mind.
“I tell you what we can do.”
“What?”
“We can telegraph him,” she exclaimed.
“Good idea,” cried Wilfred, more and more impressed with Caroline’s
wonderful resourcefulness, but a disquieting thought immediately struck
him. “Where am I going to get the money?” he asked dubiously.
“It won’t take very much.”
“It won’t? Do you know what they are charging now? Over seven dollars a
word only to Petersburg.”
“Well, let them charge it,” said Caroline calmly, “we can cut it down to
only a few words and the address won’t cost anything.”
“Won’t it?”
“No, they never charge for that,” continued the girl. “That’s a heap of
money saved, and then we can use what we save on the address for the
rest.”
Wilfred stared at her as if this problem in economics was not quite
clear to his youthful brain, but she gave him no time to question her
ingenious calculations.
“What comes after the address?” she asked in her most businesslike
manner.
“‘Sir.’”
“Leave that out.”
Wilfred swept his pen through it.
“He knows it already,” said Caroline. “What’s next?”
“‘This is to notify you that I want you to let me come right now.’”
“We could leave out that last ‘to,’” said Caroline.
Wilfred checked it off, and then read, “‘I want you—let me come right
now.’ That doesn’t sound right, and anyway it is such a little word.”
“Yes, but it costs seven dollars just the same as a big word,” observed
Caroline.
“But it doesn’t sound right without it,” argued the boy; “we have got to
leave it in. What comes after that?”
Caroline in turn took up the note and read,
“‘If you don’t, I’ll come anyhow, that’s all.’”
“You might leave out ‘that’s all,’” said Wilfred.
“No, don’t leave that out. It’s very important. It doesn’t seem to be so
important, but it is. It shows—well—it shows that that’s all there is
about it. That one thing might convince him.”
“Yes, but we’ve got to leave out something.”
“Not that, though. Perhaps there is something else. ‘The seventeen call
is out’—that’s got to stay.”
“Yes,” said Wilfred.
“‘The sixteen comes next.’ That’s just got to stay.”
“Of course. Now, what follows?”
“‘I’m not going to wait for it,’” read Caroline.
“We can’t cut that out,” said Wilfred; “we don’t seem to be making much
progress, do we?”
“Well, we will find something in a moment. ‘Do you think I am’——” she
hesitated a moment, “‘a damned coward,’” she read with a delicious
thrill at her rash, vicarious wickedness.
Wilfred regarded her dubiously. He felt as an author does when he sees
his pet periods marked out by the blue pencil of the ruthless editor.
“You might leave that out,” he began, cutting valiantly at his most
cherished and admired phrase.
“No,” protested Caroline vehemently, “certainly not! That is the best
thing in the whole letter.”
“That ‘damn’ is going to cost us seven dollars, you know.”
“It is worth it,” said Caroline, “it is the best thing you have written.
Your father is a General in the army, he’ll understand that kind of
language. What’s next? I know there’s something now.”
“‘Tom Kittridge has gone. He was killed yesterday at Cold Harbor.’”
“Leave out that about”—she caught her breath, and her eyes fixed
themselves once more on that little round hole in the breast of his
jacket—“about his being killed.”
“But he was killed and so was Johnny Sheldon—I have his uniform, you
know.”
“I know he was, but you don’t have to tell your father,” said Caroline,
choking up, “you don’t have to telegraph him the news, do you?”
“No, of course not, but——”
“That’s all there is to the letter except the end.”
“Why, that leaves it just the same except the part about——”
“Yes,” said Caroline in despair, “and after all the work we have done.”
“Let’s try it again,” said Wilfred.
“No,” said Caroline, “there is no use. Everything else has got to stay.”
“Well, then we can’t telegraph it. It would cost hundreds of dollars.”
“Yes, we can telegraph it,” said Caroline determinedly, “you give it to
me. I’ll get it sent.”
“But how are you going to send it?” asked Wilfred, extending the letter.
“Never you mind,” answered the girl.
“See here!” the boy cried. “I am not going to have you spend your money,
and——”
“There’s no danger of that, I haven’t any to spend.” She took the letter
from his hand. “I reckon Douglass Foray’ll send it for me. He’s in the
telegraph office and he’ll do most anything for me.”
“No,” said Wilfred sternly.
“What’s the reason he won’t?” asked the girl.
“Because he won’t.”
“What do you care so long as he sends it?”
“Well, I do care and that’s enough. I’m not going to have you making
eyes at Dug Foray on my account.”
“Oh, well,” said the girl, blushing. “Of course if you feel that way
about it, I——”
“That’s the way I feel all right. But you won’t give up the idea of
helping me, will you, because I—feel like that?”
“No,” answered Caroline softly, “I’ll help you all I can—about that
letter, do you mean?”
“Yes, about that letter and about other things, too.”
“Give it to me,” said the girl, “I will go over it again.”
She sat down at the desk, and as she scanned it, Wilfred watched her
anxiously. To them Mrs. Varney entered. She had an open letter in one
hand and a cap and belt in the other. She stopped in the doorway and
motioned for some one in the hall to follow her, and an orderly entered
the room. His uniform was covered with dust, his sunburned, grim face
was covered with sweat and dust also. He stood in the doorway with the
ease of a veteran soldier, that is without the painful effort to be
precise or formal which marks the young aspirant for military honours.
“Wilfred,” said Mrs. Varney, quickly approaching him, “here is a letter
from your father.” She extended the paper. “He sent it by his orderly.”
Wilfred stepped closer to the elder woman while Caroline slowly rose
from her chair, her eyes fixed on Mrs. Varney.
“What does he say, mother?” asked Wilfred.
“He says——” answered his mother with measured quietness, and
controlling herself with the greatest difficulty, “he tells me
that—that you—are——” in spite of her tremendous effort, her voice
failed her. “Read it yourself, my boy,” she whispered pitifully.
The letter was evidently exceedingly brief. A moment put Wilfred in
possession of its contents. His mother stood with head averted. Caroline
stared with trembling lips, a pale face, and a heaving bosom. It was to
the orderly that Wilfred addressed himself.
“I am to go back with you?”
“General’s orders, sir,” answered the soldier, saluting, “to enter the
service. God knows we need everybody now.”
“When do we start?” asked Wilfred eagerly, his face flushing as he
realised that his fondest desire was now to be gratified.
“As soon as you are ready, sir. I am waiting.”
“I am ready now,” said Wilfred. He turned to his mother. “You won’t
mind, mother,” he said, his own lips trembling a little for the first
time at the sight of her grief.
Mrs. Varney shook her head. She stepped nearer to him, smoothed the hair
back from his forehead, and stretched out her arms to him as if she fain
would embrace him, but she controlled herself and handed him the cap and
belt.
“Your brother,” she said slowly, “seems to be a little better. He wants
you to take his cap and belt. I told him your father had sent for you,
and I knew you would wish to go to the front at once.”
Wilfred took the belt from her trembling hands, and buckled it about
him. His mother handed him the cap.
“Howard says he can get another belt when he wants it, and you are to
have his blankets, too. I will go and get them.”
She turned and left the room. She was nearly at the end of her resisting
power, and but for the welcome diversion incident to her departure, she
could not have controlled herself longer. The last one! One taken, one
trembling, and now Wilfred!
The boy entered into none of the emotions of his mother. He clapped the
cap on his head and threw it back.
“Fits me just as if it were made for me,” he said, settling the cap
firmly in place. “Orderly, I will be with you in a jiffy.”
Caroline stood still near the table, her eyes on the floor.
“We won’t have to send it now, will we?” he pointed to the letter.
Caroline, with a long, deep sigh, shook her head, and slowly handed the
letter to him. Wilfred took it mechanically, his eyes fixed on the girl,
who had suddenly grown very white of face, trembly of lip, and teary of
eye-lashes.
“You are very good,” he said, tearing the letter into pieces, “to help
me like you did.”
“It was nothing,” whispered the girl.
“You can help me again, if you want to.”
Caroline lifted her eyes to his face, and he saw within their depths
that which encouraged him.
“I can fight twice as well, if——”
Poor little Caroline couldn’t trust herself to speak. She nodded through
her tears.
“Good-bye,” said Wilfred, “you will write to me about helping me to
fight twice as well, won’t you. You know what I mean?”
Caroline nodded again.
“I wouldn’t mind if you telegraphed me that you would.”
What might have happened further will never be determined, for at this
juncture Mrs. Varney came back with an old faded blanket tied in a roll.
She handed it to the boy without speaking. Wilfred threw it over his
shoulder, and kissed his mother hurriedly.
“You won’t mind much, will you, mother. I will soon be back. Orderly!”
he cried.
“Sir.”
“I am ready,” said Wilfred.
He threw one long, meaning look at Caroline, and followed the soldier
out of the door and across the hall. The opening and closing of an
outside door was heard, and then all was still. Mrs. Varney held her
hand to her heart, and long, shuddering breaths came from her. He might
soon be back, but how. She knew all about the famous injunction of the
Spartan woman, “With your shield or on it,” but somehow she had had no
idea of the full significance until it came to her last boy, and for a
moment she was forgetful of poor, little Caroline until she saw the girl
wavering toward the door, and there was no disguise about the real tears
in her eyes now.
“Are you going, dear?” asked Mrs. Varney, forcing herself to speak.
Caroline nodded her head as before.
“Oh, yes,” continued the older woman, “your party, you have to be
there.”
At that the girl found voice, and without looking back she murmured,
“There won’t be any party to-night.”
CHAPTER VIII
EDITH IS FORCED TO PLAY THE GAME
Caroline’s departure was again interrupted by the inopportune reëntrance
from the back hall of Mr. Arrelsford, who was accompanied by two
soldiers, whom he directed to remain by the door. As he advanced rapidly
toward Mrs. Varney, Caroline stepped aside toward the rear window.
“Is he——” began Arrelsford, turning toward the window, and starting
back in surprise as he observed Caroline for the first time.
“Yes, he is there,” answered the woman.
“Oh, Mrs. Varney,” cried Caroline, “there’s a heap of soldiers out in
your backyard here. You don’t reckon anything’s the matter, do you?”
The girl did not lower her voice, and was greatly surprised at the
immediate order for silence which proceeded from Mr. Arrelsford, whose
presence she acknowledged with a very cool, indifferent bow.
“No, there is nothing the matter, dear,” said Mrs. Varney. “Martha,” she
said to the old servant who had come in response to her ring, “I want
you to go home with Miss Mitford. You must not go alone, dear.
Good-night.”
“Thank you very much, Mrs. Varney,” answered Caroline. “Come, Martha.”
As she turned, she hesitated. “You don’t reckon she could go with me
somewhere else, do you?”
“Why, where else do you want to go at this hour, my dear girl?” asked
Mrs. Varney.
“Just to—to the telegraph office,” answered Caroline.
Mr. Arrelsford, who had been waiting with ill-concealed impatience
during this dialogue, started violently.
“Now!” exclaimed Mrs. Varney in great surprise, not noticing the actions
of her latest guest. “At this time of night?”
“Yes,” answered Caroline, “it is on very important business, and—I——”
“Oh,” returned Mrs. Varney, “if that is the case, Martha must go with
you.”
“You know we haven’t a single servant left at our house,” Caroline said
in explanation of her request.
“I know,” said Mrs. Varney, “and, Martha, don’t leave her for an
instant.”
“No’m,” answered Martha, “Ah’ll take ca’ ob huh.”
As soon as she had left the room, passing between the two soldiers,
Arrelsford took up the conversation. He spoke quickly and in a sharp
voice. He was evidently greatly excited.
“What is she going to do at the telegraph office?” he asked.
“I have no idea,” answered the woman.
“Has she had any conversation with him?” said Arrelsford, pointing to
the front of the house.
“They were talking together in this room early this evening before you
came the first time, but it isn’t possible she could——”
“Anything is possible,” snapped Arrelsford impatiently. He was evidently
determined to suspect everybody, and leave no stone unturned to prevent
the failure of his plans. “Corporal,” he cried, “have Eddinger follow
that girl. He must get to the telegraph office as soon as she does, and
don’t let any despatch she tries to send get out before I see it. Let
her give it in, but hold it. Make no mistake about that. Get an order
from the department for you to bring it to me.” As the Corporal saluted
and turned away to give the order, Arrelsford faced Mrs. Varney again.
“Are they both out there?”
“Yes,” answered the woman. “Did you bring the man from Libby Prison?”
“I did, the guards have him out in the street on the other side of the
house. When we get Thorne in here alone I’ll have him brought over to
that back window and shoved into the room.”
“And where shall I stay?”
“Out there,” said Arrelsford, “by the lower door, opening upon the back
hall. You can get a good view of everything from there.”
“But if he sees me?”
“He won’t see you if it is dark in the hall.” He turned to the Corporal
who had reëntered and resumed his station. “Turn out those lights out
there,” he said. “We can close these curtains, can’t we?”
“Certainly,” said Mrs. Varney, opening the rear door and drawing the
heavy portières, but leaving space between them so that any one in the
dark hall could see through them but not be seen from the room.
“I don’t want too much light in here, either,” said Arrelsford. As he
spoke he blew out the candles in the two candelabra which had been
placed on the different tables, and left the large, long room but dimly
illuminated by the candles in the sconces on the walls.
Mrs. Varney watched him with fascinated awe. In spite of herself there
still lingered a hope that Arrelsford might be mistaken. Thorne had
enlisted her interest, and he might under other conditions have aroused
her matronly affections, and she was hoping against hope that he might
yet prove himself innocent, not only because of his personality but as
well because the thought that she might have entertained a spy was
repugnant to her, and because of the honour of the Dumont family, which
was one of the oldest and most important ones in the western hills of
the Old Dominion.
Arrelsford meantime completed his preparations by moving the couch which
Caroline Mitford had placed before the window back to the wall.
“Now, Mrs. Varney,” he said, stepping far back out of sight of the
window, “will you open the curtains? Do it casually, carelessly, please,
so as not to awaken any suspicion if you are seen.”
“But your soldiers, won’t they——”
“They are all at the back of the house. They came in the back way, and
the field in front is absolutely clear, although I have men concealed in
the street to stop any one who may attempt to escape that way.”
Mrs. Varney walked over to the window and drew back the curtains. She
stood for a moment looking out into the clear, peaceful quietness of a
soft spring night. The moon was full, and being somewhat low shone
through the long windows and into the room, the candle light not being
bright enough to dim its radiance. Her task being completed, she turned,
and once more the man who was in command pointed across the hall toward
the room on the other side.
“Are those women in there yet?” he asked peremptorily.
“Yes.”
“Where is the key?”
Mrs. Varney left the room and went to the door.
“It is on this side,” she said.
“Will you lock it, please?”
The woman softly turned the key in the lock, and returned to the
drawing-room without a sound. As she did so the noise of the opening of
one of the long French windows in the front of the room attracted the
attention of both of them. Edith Varney entered the room nervously and
stepped forward. She began breathlessly, in a low, feverishly excited
voice.
“Mamma!”
Mrs. Varney hurried toward her and caught her outstretched hand.
“I want to speak to you,” whispered the girl.
“We can’t wait,” said Arrelsford, stepping forward.
“You must,” persisted the girl. She turned to her mother again, “I can’t
do it, I can’t! Oh, let me go!”
“But, my dear,” said her mother, “you were the one who suggested
that——”
“But I was sure then, and now——”
“Has he confessed?” asked Mrs. Varney.
“No, no,” answered the girl with a glance of fear and apprehension
toward Arrelsford, who stood staring menacingly at her elbow.
“Don’t speak so loud,” whispered the Secret Service Agent.
“Edith,” said her mother soothingly, “what is it that has changed you?”
She waited for an answer, but none came. The girl’s face had been very
pale but it now flushed suddenly with colour.
“Dear,” said her mother, “you must tell me.”
Edith motioned Mr. Arrelsford away. He went with ill-concealed
impatience to the far side of the room and waited nervously to give the
signal, anxious lest something should miscarry because of this
unfortunate unwillingness of the girl to play her part.
“What is it, dear?” whispered her mother.
“Mamma,” said Edith, she forced the words out, “he—he—loves me.”
“Impossible!” returned Mrs. Varney, controlling her voice so that the
other occupant of the room could not hear.
“Yes,” faltered the girl, “and I—some one else must do it.”
“You don’t mean,” said Mrs. Varney, “that you return——”
But Mr. Arrelsford’s patience had been strained to the breaking point.
He did not know what interchange was going on between the two women, but
it must be stopped. He came forward resolutely. The girl saw his
determination in his face.
“No, no,” she whispered, “not that, not now!”
She shrank away from him as she spoke.
“But, Edith,” said Mrs. Varney, “more reason now than ever.”
“I don’t know what you are talking about,” said Mr. Arrelsford, “but we
must go on.”
“But why—why are you doing this?” asked Edith, pleading desperately.
“Because I please,” snapped out the Secret Service Agent, and it was
quite evident that he was pleased. Some of his satisfaction was due to
the fact that he had by his own efforts at last succeeded in unearthing
a desperate plot, and had his hands on the plotters. That he was thereby
serving his country and demonstrating his fitness for his position of
responsibility and trust also added to his satisfaction, but this was
greatly enhanced by the fact that Thorne was his rival, and he could
make a guess that he was a successful rival in love as well as in war.
“You have never pleased before,” persisted Edith. “Hundreds of
suspicious cases have come up—hundreds of men have been run down—but
you preferred to sit at your desk in the War Department, until——”
“Edith! Edith!” interposed her mother.
“I can’t discuss that now,” said Arrelsford.
“No, we will not discuss it. I will have nothing more to do with the
affair.”
“You won’t,” whispered Arrelsford threateningly.
“Don’t say that,” urged Mrs. Varney.
“Nothing, nothing at all,” said Edith.
“At your own suggestion, Miss Varney,” persisted the Secret Service
Agent vehemently, “I agreed to accept a plan by which we could criminate
this friend of yours or establish his innocence. When everything is
ready you propose to withdraw and make the experiment a failure, perhaps
allowing him to escape altogether and being a party to treason against
your own country.”
Edith looked from Arrelsford’s set face, with his bitter words, the
truth of which she was too just not to acknowledge, ringing in her ears,
to the face of her mother. It was a sweet face, full of sympathy and
love, but it was set in the same way as the man’s. The patriotism of the
woman was aroused. The kind of help that Edith wanted in her mother’s
look she did not find there.
“You mustn’t do this, Edith; you must do your part,” said Mrs. Varney.
The resolution of the girl gave way.
“He is there,” she faltered piteously, “he is there at the further end
of the veranda. What more do you want of me?” Her voice rose in spite of
her efforts to control herself.
“Call him to the room, and do it naturally. If any one else should do it
he would suspect something immediately and be on his guard.”
“Very well,” said the girl helplessly. “I will call him.”
She turned toward the window.
“Wait,” said Arrelsford, “one thing more. I want him to have this
paper.” He handed Edith the communication which had been taken from
Jonas earlier in the evening.
“What am I to do with this?” asked the girl, taking it.
“Give it to him, and tell him where it came from. Tell him old Jonas got
it from a prisoner at Libby Prison and brought it to you.”
“But why am I to do this?” asked the girl.
“Why not? If he is innocent, what’s the harm? If not, if he is in the
plot and we can’t catch him otherwise, the message on the paper will
send him to the telegraph office to-night, and that’s where we want
him.”
“But I never promised that,” said the girl with obvious reluctance to do
anything not only that might tend to harm the suspected, but that might
work to the furtherance of Arrelsford’s designs.
“Do you still believe him innocent?” sneered the man.
Edith lifted her head and for the first time she looked Arrelsford full
in the face.
“I still believe him innocent,” answered the girl, slowly and with
deliberate emphasis.
“Then why are you afraid to give him the paper?” asked Arrelsford,
directly with cunning adroitness.
The girl, thus entrapped, clasped the paper to her breast, and turned
toward the window. Her mind was made up, but it was not necessary for
her to call. Her ear, tuned to every sound he made, caught the noise of
his footfall on the porch. She turned her head and spoke to the other
two.
“Captain Thorne is coming,” she whispered expressionlessly, “unless you
want to be seen, you had better go.”
“Here, this way, Mrs. Varney,” said Arrelsford, taking that lady by the
arm and going down to the far end to the door covered by the portières.
The two disappeared, and it was impossible for a soul to see them in the
darkness of the hall, although they could see clearly enough, even in
the dimly lighted drawing-room, everything that would happen. Edith
stood as if rooted to the floor, the paper still in her hand, when
Thorne opened the sash which she had closed behind her and entered in
his turn the window through which she had come a short time before. He
stepped eagerly toward her.
“You were so long,” he whispered, “coming for me, that——” He stopped
abruptly, and looked at her face, “is anything the matter?”
“No.”
“You had been away such a long time that I thought——”
“Only a few minutes.”
“Only a few years,” said the man passionately. His voice was low and
gently modulated, not because he had anything to conceal but because of
the softness of the moonlight and the few candles dimly flickering upon
the walls of the great room, the look in the girl’s eyes, and the
feeling in his heart. A few minutes, the girl had said!—Ah, it was
indeed a few years to him.
“If it was a few years to you,” returned the girl with a violent effort
at lightness, although her heart was torn to pieces with the emotions of
the moment, “what a lot of time there is.”
“No,” said Thorne, “there is only to-night.”
Edith threw out her hand to check what she would fain have heard, but
Thorne caught it. He came closer to her.
“There’s only to-night, and you in the world,” he said.
“You overwhelm me.”
“I can’t help myself. I came here determined not to tell you how I loved
you, and for the last half hour I have been telling you nothing else. I
could tell you all my life and never finish. Ah, my darling, my
darling,—there’s only to-night and you.”
Edith swayed toward him for a moment, completely influenced by his
ardour, but then drew back.
“No, no,” she faltered. “You mustn’t.” She glanced around the room
apprehensively. “No, no, not now!”
“You are right,” said the man. She dragged herself away from him. He
would not retain her against her will, and without a struggle he
released her hand. “You are right. Don’t mind what I said, Miss Varney.
I have forgotten myself, believe me.” He drew further away from her. “I
came to make a brief call, to say good-bye, and——”
He turned and walked toward the hall door, after making her a low bow,
and it was not without a feeling of joy that she noticed that he walked
unsteadily, blindly.
“Oh, Captain Thorne,” she said, just as he had reached the door, “I——”
He stopped and looked back.
“Before you go I want to ask your advice about something.”
“My advice!”
“Yes, it seems to be a military matter, and——”
“What is it?” asked Thorne, turning back.
“What do you think this means?” said the girl, handing him the folded
despatch.
She had intended to look him full in the face as he took it, but at the
last moment her courage failed her. She looked away and did not see the
instant but quickly mastered start of surprise. She was only conscious
that Thorne had possessed himself of the document.
“What is it?” asked Thorne, holding it in his hand.
“That is what I want you to tell me,” said the girl.
“Oh, don’t you know?” said Thorne, now entirely master of himself.
“No,” answered the girl, but there was something in her voice which now
fully aroused the suspicions of the man.
“It appears to be a note from some one,” he said casually, “but it is so
dark in here. With your permission, I will light some of the candles on
the table, and then we can see what it is.”
He took one of the candles from the sconces on the wall and lighted the
candelabra that stood on the nearest table. Holding the paper near the
light, he glanced around rapidly, and then read it, giving no outward
evidence of his surprise and alarm, although the girl was now watching
him narrowly. He glanced at her and then looked at the paper again, and
slowly read aloud its message.
“‘_Attack to-night?_’” he said very deliberately. “Umph, ‘_Plan 3?
Attack to-night, plan 3!_’ This seems to be in some code, Miss Varney,
or a puzzle.”
“It was taken from a Yankee prisoner.”
“From a Yankee prisoner!” he exclaimed in brilliantly assumed surprise.
“Yes, one captured to-day. He is down at Libby now. He gave it to one of
our servants, old Jonas, and——”
“That’s a little different,” said Thorne, examining the paper again. “It
puts another face on the matter. This may be something important.
‘_Attack to-night_,’” he read again, “_‘Plan 3, use telegraph’!_ This
sounds important to me, Miss Varney. It looks to me like a plot to use
the Department Telegraph lines. To whom did Jonas give it?”
“To no one.”
“Well, how did you——”
“We took it away from him,” answered Edith.
This was a very different statement from her original intention, but for
the moment the girl forgot her part.
“Oh,” said Thorne, “I think that was a mistake.”
“A mistake?”
“Yes.”
“But why?”
“You should have let him deliver it, but it is too late now. Never
mind.” He turned toward the door.
Edith caught him by the arm. Was he going out to certain death or what?
“What are you going to do?” she asked breathlessly.
“Find Jonas, and make him tell for whom this paper was intended. He is
the man we want.”
The girl released him, and caught her throat with her hand.
“Captain Thorne,” she choked out, and there was joy and triumph in her
face, “they have lied about you.”
Thorne turned to her quickly.
“Lied about me!” he exclaimed. “What do you mean?”
He caught the girl’s hands in his and bent over her.
“Don’t be angry,” pleaded Edith, “I didn’t think it would be like this.”
“Yes, yes, but what do you mean?”
Edith sought to draw her hands away from him, but Thorne would not be
denied.
“I must know,” he said.
“Let me go,” pleaded the girl, “don’t you understand——”
But what she might have said further was interrupted by the sharp, stern
voice of the Corporal outside. He spoke loud and clearly, there was no
necessity for precaution now.
“This way! Look out for that side, will you?”
Thorne released the hands of the woman he loved and stood listening.
Edith Varney took advantage of such a diversion to dart through the
upper door, the nearer one, into the hall.
“I don’t want to be here now,” she said, as she flew away.
Thorne’s hand went to his revolver which hung at his belt. He had not
time to draw it before the Corporal and the two men burst through the
door. There were evidently others outside. Thorne’s hand fell away from
his revolver, and his position was one of charming nonchalance.
“Out here!” cried the Corporal to one of the soldiers. “Look out there!”
pointing to the doorway through which the two men instantly disappeared.
“What is it, Corporal?” asked Thorne composedly.
The Corporal turned and saluted.
“Prisoner, sir, broke out of Libby! We’ve run him down the street, and
he turned in here somewhere. If he comes in that way, would you be good
enough to let us know?”
“Go on, Corporal,” said Thorne coolly. “I’ll look out for this window.”
He stepped down the long room toward the far window, drew the curtains,
and with his hand on his revolver, peered out into the trees beyond the
front of the house.
CHAPTER IX
THE SHOT THAT KILLED
A glance through the window showed Captain Thorne that the yard beyond,
which had been empty all evening, was now full of armed men. The
Corporal had gone out through the hall door back of the house whence he
had entered. There was no doubt but that the back windows would be
equally well guarded. The house was surrounded, no escape was possible.
He was trapped, virtually a prisoner, although for the time being, they
had left him a certain liberty—the liberty of that one large room! It
was quite evident to him that he was the object of their suspicions, and
he more than feared that his real affiliations had been at last
discovered.
Apparently, there would be no opportunity now in which he could carry
out his part in the cunningly devised scheme of attack. “_Plan 3_” would
inevitably result in failure, as so many previous plans had resulted,
because he would not be able to send the orders that would weaken the
position. The best he could hope for, in all probability, was the short
shrift of a spy. He had staked his life on the game and it appeared that
he had lost.
Nay, more than life had been wagered, honour. He knew the contempt in
which the spy was held; he knew that even the gallantry and intrepidity
of André and Hale had not saved them from opprobrium and disgrace.
And there was even more than honour upon the board. His love! Not the
remotest idea of succumbing to the attractions of Edith Varney ever
entered his head when he attempted the desperate, the fatal rôle. At
first he had regarded the Varney house and herself as a chessboard and a
pawn in the game. The strength of character which had enabled him to
assume the unenviable part he played, because of his country’s need, for
his country’s good, and which would have carried him through the obloquy
and scorn that were sure to be visited upon him—with death at the
end!—did not stand him in good stead when it came to thoughts of her.
Until he yielded to his passion, and broke his self-imposed vow of
silence, he had fought a good fight. Now he realised that the woman who
should accept his affections would compromise herself forever in the
eyes of everything she held dear, even if he succeeded and lived, which
was unlikely.
He had never, so he fancied, in the least and remotest way given her any
evidence that he loved her. In reality, she had read him like an open
book, as women always do. He had come there that night to get the
message from Jonas, and then to bid her good-bye forever, without
disclosing the state of his affections. If he succeeded in manipulating
the telegraph and carrying out his end of the project, he could see no
chance of escape. Ultimate detection and execution appeared certain, and
any avowal would therefore be useless. But he had counted without her.
She had shown her feelings, and he had fallen. To the temptation of her
presence and her artless disclosure, he had not been able to make
adequate resistance.
He was the last man on earth to blame her or to reproach her for that;
but the fierce, impetuous temperament of the man was overwhelming when
it once broke loose, and he felt that he must tell her or die.
Because of his iron self-repression for so long he was the less able to
stand the pressure in the end. He had thrown everything to the winds,
and had told her how he loved her.
Out there in the moonlight in the rose arbour, the scent of the flowers,
the southern night wind, the proximity of the girl, her eyes shining
like stars out of the shadows in which they stood, the pallor of her
face, the rise and fall of her bosom, the fluttering of her hand as
unwittingly or wittingly, who knows, she touched him, had intoxicated
him, and his love and passion had broken all bounds, and he had spoken
to her and she had answered. She loved him. What did that mean to him
now?
Sometimes woman’s love makes duty easy, sometimes it makes it hard.
Sometimes it is the crown which victors wear, and sometimes it is the
pall that overshadows defeat.
What Edith Varney knew or suspected concerning him, he could not tell.
That she knew something, that she suspected something, had been evident,
but whatever her knowledge and suspicion, they were not sufficiently
powerful or telling to prevent her from returning love for love, kiss
for kiss. But did she love him in spite of her knowledge and suspicion?
The problem was too great for his solution then.
These things passed through his mind as he stood there by the window,
with his hand on his revolver, waiting. It was all he could do.
Sometimes even to the most fiery and the most alert of soldiers comes
the conviction that there is nothing to do but wait. And if he thinks of
it, he will sympathise with the women who are left behind in times of
war, who have little to do but wait.
The room had suddenly become his world, the walls his horizon, the
ceiling his sky. At any exit he would find the way barred. Why had they
left him in the room, free, armed, his revolver in his hand?
None but the bravest would have entered upon such a career as he had
chosen. His nerves were like steel in the presence of danger. He had
trembled before the woman in the garden a moment since; the stone walls
of the house were no more rigidly composed than he in the drawing-room
now. It came to him that there was nothing left but one great battle in
that room unless they shot him from behind door or window or portière,
giving him no chance. If they did confront him openly he would show them
that if he had chosen the Secret Service and the life of a spy he could
fight and die like a man and a soldier. He held some lives within the
chamber of his revolver, and they should pay did they give him but a
chance.
Indeed, they were already giving him a chance, he thought to himself as
he waited and listened. He was utterly unable to divine why he was at
liberty in the room, and why he was left alone, or what was toward.
In the very midst of these crowding and tumultuous thoughts which ran
through his mind in far, far less time than it has taken to record them,
he heard a noise at the window at the farther side of the room, as if
some one fumbled at the catch. Instantly Thorne shrank back behind the
portières of the window he was guarding, not completely concealing
himself but sufficiently hid as to be unobserved except by careful
scrutiny in the dim light. Once more he clutched the butt of his
revolver swinging at his waist. He bent his body slightly, and even the
thought of Edith Varney passed from his mind. He stood ready, powerful,
concentrated, determined, confronting an almost certain enemy with the
fierce heart and envenomed glance of the fighter at bay.
He had scarcely assumed this position when the window was opened, and a
man was thrust violently through into the room. At the first glance,
Thorne as yet unseen, recognised the newcomer as his elder brother,
Henry Dumont. Unlike the two famous brothers of the parable, these two
loved each other.
Thorne’s muscles relaxed, his hand still clutched the butt of his
revolver, he was still alert, but here was not an enemy. He began at
once to fathom something at least of the plan and the purpose of the
people who had trapped him. In a flash he perceived that his enemies
were not yet in possession of all the facts which would warrant them in
laying hands upon him. He was suspected, but the final evidence upon
which to turn suspicion into certainty was evidently lacking. He could
feel, although he could not see them, that every door and window had
eyes, solely for him, and that he was closely watched for some false
move which would betray him. The plan for which he had ventured so much
was still possible; he had not yet failed. His heart leaped in his
breast. The clouds around his horizon lifted a little. There was yet a
possibility that he could succeed, that he could carry out his part of
the cunningly devised and desperate undertaking, the series of events of
which this night and the telegraph office were to be the culmination.
A less cautious and a less resourceful man might have evinced some
emotion, might have gone forward or spoken to the newcomer, would have
at least done something to have attracted his attention, but save for
that relaxation of the tension, which no one could by any possibility
observe, Thorne stood motionless, silent, waiting; just as he might have
stood and waited had he been what he seemed and had the newcomer been
utterly unknown and indifferent to him.
His brother was dressed in the blue uniform of the United States; like
the others it had seen good service, but as Thorne glanced from his own
clothes to those of his brother, the blood came to his face, it was like
seeing his own flag again. For a fleeting moment he wished that he had
on his own rightful uniform himself and that he had never put it off for
anything; but duty is not made up of wishes, gratified or ungratified,
and the thought passed as he watched the other man.
Henry Dumont had been thrust violently into the room by the soldiers
outside. He had been captured, as Arrelsford had said, earlier in the
day; he had allowed himself to be taken. He had been thrust into Libby
Prison with dozens of prisoners taken in the same sortie. He had not
been searched, but then none of the others had been; had he been
selected for that unwonted immunity alone it would have awakened his
suspicions, but the Confederates had made a show of great haste in
disposing of their prisoners, and had promised to search them in the
morning. Therefore, Henry Dumont had retained the paper which later he
had given Jonas, when by previous arrangement he made his daily visit to
the prison.
He had been greatly surprised, when about a quarter to nine o’clock, a
squad of soldiers had taken him from the prison, had marched him
hurriedly through the streets with which he was entirely unfamiliar, and
had taken him to the residence section of the city, and had halted at
the back of a big house. He had asked no questions, and no explanations
had been vouchsafed to him. He was more surprised than ever when he was
taken up to the porch, the window was opened, and he was thrust
violently into a room, so violently that he staggered and had some
difficulty in recovering his balance.
He made a quick inspection of the room. Thorne, in the deeper shadows at
the farther end of the room was invisible to him. He stood motionless
save for the turning of his head as he looked around him. He moved a few
steps toward the end of the room, opposite his entrance, passed by the
far door opening into the back hall which was covered with portières,
and went swiftly toward the near door into the front hall. The door was
slightly ajar, and as he came within range of the opening he saw in the
shadows of the hall, crossed bayonets and men. No escape that way!
He went on past the door toward the large windows at the front of the
house and in another moment would have been at the front window where
Thorne stood. The latter dropped the curtain and stepped out into the
room.
For the thousandth part of a second the two brothers stared at each
other, and then in a fiercely intense voice, Thorne, playing his part,
desperately called out:
“Halt! You are a prisoner!”
Both brothers were quick witted, both knew that they were under the
closest observation, both realised that they were expected to betray
relationship, which would incriminate both, and probably result fatally
for one and certainly ruin the plan. Thorne’s cue was to regard his
brother as the prisoner whom it was important to arrest, and Dumont’s
cue was to regard his brother as an enemy with whom it was his duty to
struggle. The minds of the two were made up instantly. With a quick
movement Dumont sought to pass his brother, but with a movement equally
as rapid, Thorne leaped upon him, shouting again:
“Halt, I say!”
The two men instantly grappled. It was no mimic struggle that they
engaged in, either. They were of about equal height and weight, if
anything Thorne was the stronger, but this advantage was offset by the
fact that he had been recently ill, and the two fought therefore on
equal terms at first. It was a fierce, desperate grapple in which they
met. As they struggled violently, both by a common impulse, reeled
toward that part of the room near the mantel which was farthest away
from doors or windows, and where they would be the least likely to be
overheard or to be more closely observed. As they fought together,
Thorne called out again:
“Corporal of the Guard, here is your man! Corporal of the Guard, what
are you doing?”
At that instant the two reeling bodies struck the wall next to the
mantel with a fearful smash, and a chair that stood by was overturned by
a quick movement on the part of Henry Dumont, who did not know his
brother had already received the important message. In the confusion of
the moment, he hissed in Thorne’s ear:
“_Attack to-night, plan 3, use telegraph!_ Did you get that?”
“Yes,” returned Thorne, still keeping up the struggle.
“Good,” said Dumont. “They are watching us. Shoot me in the leg.”
“No, I can’t do it,” whispered Thorne.
All the while the two men were reeling and staggering and struggling
against the wall and furniture. The encounter would have deceived the
most suspicious.
“Shoot, shoot,” said the elder.
“I can’t shoot my own brother,” the younger panted out.
“It is the only way to throw them off the scent,” persisted Dumont.
“I won’t do it,” answered Thorne, and then he shouted again:
“Corporal of the Guard, I have your prisoner!”
“Let me go, damn you!” roared Dumont furiously, making another desperate
effort,—“if you don’t do it, I will,” he added under his breath. “Give
me the revolver!”
“No, no, Harry,” was the whispered reply, and “Surrender, curse you!”
the shouted answer. “You’ll hurt yourself,” he pleaded.
“I don’t care,” muttered Dumont. “Let me have it.”
His hands slipped down from Thorne’s shoulders and grasped the butt of
the revolver. The two grappled for it fiercely, but the struggle was
beginning to tell on Thorne, who was not yet in full possession of his
physical vitality. His long illness had sapped his strength.
“Don’t, don’t, for God’s sake!” he whispered, and then shouted
desperately, “Here’s your man, Corporal, what’s the matter with you?”
“Give me that gun,” said Dumont, and in spite of himself his voice rose
again. There was nothing suspicious in the words, it was what he might
have said had the battle been a real one; as he spoke by a more violent
effort he wrenched the weapon from the holster and away from Thorne’s
detaining hand. The latter sought desperately to repossess himself of
it.
[Illustration: “Look out, Harry!” he implored]
“Look out, Harry! You’ll hurt yourself,” he implored, but the next
moment by a superhuman effort Dumont threw him back. As Thorne
staggered, Dumont turned the pistol on himself. Recovering himself with
incredible swiftness, Thorne leaped at his brother, and the two figures
went down together with a crash in the midst of which rang out the sharp
report of the heavy service weapon. Instead of shooting himself
harmlessly in the side, in the struggle Dumont had unfortunately shot
himself through the lung.
Not at first comprehending exactly what had happened, Thorne rose to his
feet, took the revolver from the other’s hand, and stood over the body
of his mortally wounded brother, the awful anguish of his heart in his
face. Fortunately, they were near the far end of the room, next the
wall, and no one could see the look in Thorne’s eyes or the distortion
of his features in his horror.
“Harry!” he whispered. “My God, you have shot yourself!”
But Henry Dumont was past speaking. He simply smiled at his brother, and
closed his eyes. The next instant the room was filled with light and
sound. From every window and door people poured in; the soldiers from
the porches, from the hall, Mrs. Varney, Arrelsford and Edith; from the
other side of the hall a hubbub of screams and cries rose from behind
the locked door where the sewing women sat. Martha brought up the rear
with lights, which Arrelsford took from her and set on the table. The
room was again brightly illuminated.
As they crowded through the various entrances, their eyes fell upon
Thorne. He was leaning nonchalantly against the table, his revolver in
his hand, a look of absolute indifference upon his face. His acting was
superb had they but known it. He could not betray himself now and make
vain his brother’s sublime act of self-sacrifice for the cause. There
was a tumult of shouts and sudden cries:
“Where is he? What has he done? This way now!”
Most of those who entered had eyes only for the man lying upon the
floor, blood welling darkly through his grey shirt exposed by the
opening of his coat which had been torn apart in the struggle. Three
people had eyes only for Thorne, the man who hated him, the girl who
loved him, and the woman who suspected him. Between the soldiers and
these three stood the Corporal of the Guard, representing as it were,
the impartial law.
Thorne did not glance once at the girl who loved him, or at the man who
hated him, or at the woman who suspected him. He fixed his eyes upon the
Corporal of the Guard.
“There’s your prisoner, Corporal,” he said calmly, without a break in
his voice, although such anguish possessed him as he had never before
experienced and lived through, but his control was absolutely perfect.
And his quiet words and quiet demeanour increased the hate of one man,
and the suspicions of one woman, and the love and admiration of the
other.
“There’s your prisoner,” he said, slipping his revolver slowly back into
its holster. “We had a bit of a struggle and I had to shoot him. Look
out for him.”
------------------------------------------------------------------------
BOOK III
WHAT HAPPENED AT TEN O’CLOCK