LILLIE BIDS GOOD-BYE TO THE LOVER WHOM SHE HAS CHOSEN, AND TO THE LOVER
WHOM SHE WOULD NOT CHOOSE.
Lillie left Mrs. Larue early, without a word as to the great event which
had just changed the world for her, and retired to her own house and her
own room. She was in a state of being, half stunned, half ecstatic;
every faculty seemed to be suspended, except so far as it was
electrified to action by one idea; she sat by the window with folded
hands, motionless, seeing and hearing only through her memory; she
sought to recollect him as he was when he took her hand and kissed it;
she called to mind all that he had said and looked and done. She could
not tell whether she had been thus occupied five minutes or half an
hour, when she heard the tinkle of the door-bell, followed by her
father's entrance. Then suddenly a great terror and sense of guilt fell
upon her spirit. From the moment when that confession of love had been
uttered down to this moment her mind had been occupied by but one human
being, and that was her lover. Now, for the first time during the
evening, she recollected that the man of her choice was not the man of
her father's choice, but, more than almost any other person, the object
of his suspicion, if not of his aversion. Yet she loved them both; she
could not take sides with one against the other; it would kill her to
give up the affection of either. All impulse, all passion, blood and
brain as tremulous as quicksilver, she ran down stairs, opened the door
into the study where the doctor stood among his boxes, wavered backward
under a momentary throb of fear, then sprang forward, threw her arms
around his neck and sobbed upon his shoulder,
"Oh, papa!--I am so happy!--so miserable!"
The doctor stared in astonishment and in some vague alarm. Hardly aware
of how much energy he used, he detached her from him and held her out at
arm's length, looking anxiously at her for an explanation.
"Oh, don't push me away," begged Lillie, and struggled back to him,
trying to hide her face against his breast.
A suspicion of the truth fell across the Doctor, but he strove to fling
it from him as one dashes off a disagreeable reptile. Still, he looked
quite nervous and apprehensive as he said, "What is it, my child?"
"Mr. Carter will tell you," she whispered; then, before he could speak,
"Do love him for my sake."
He pushed her sobbing into a chair, and turned his back on her with a
groan.
"Oh!--_That_ man!--I can't--I won't."
He walked several times rapidly up and down the room, and then broke out
again.
"I can _not_ consent. I will _not_ consent. It is _not_ my duty. Oh,
Lillie! how could you choose the very man of all that--! I tell you this
must not be. It must stop here. I have _no_ confidence in him. He will
_not_ make you happy. He will make you miserable. I tell you that you
will regret the day that you marry him to the last moment of your life.
My child," (persuasively) "you _must_ believe me. You _must_ trust my
judgment. Will you not be persuaded? Will you not stop where you are?"
He ceased his walk and gazed eagerly at her, hoping for some affirmative
sign. As may be supposed Lillie could not give it; she could make no
very distinct signs just then, either one way or the other; she did not
speak, nor look at him, nor shake her head, nor nod it; she only covered
her face with her hands, and sobbed. Then the Doctor, feeling himself to
be forsaken, and acknowledging it by outward dumb show, after the manner
of men who are greatly moved, went to the other end of the room, sat
down by himself and dropped his head into his hands, as if accepting
utter loneliness in the world. Lillie gave him one glance in his
acknowledged extremity of desertion, and, running to him, knelt at his
feet and laid her head against his. She was certainly the most unhappy
of the two, but her eagerness was even stronger than her misery.
"Oh papa! _Why_ do you hate him so?"
"I don't hate him. I dread him. I suspect him. I know he will not make
you happy. I know he will make you miserable."
"But why?--_why?_ Perhaps he can explain it. Tell him what you think,
papa. I am sure he can explain every thing."
But the Doctor only groaned, rose up, disentangled himself from his
daughter, and leaving her there on the floor, continued his doleful
walk.
Never having really feared what had come to pass, but only given
occasional thought to it as a possible though improbable calamity, he
had not inquired strictly into Carter's manner of life, and so had
nothing definite to allege against him. At the same time he knew
perfectly well from trifling circumstances, incidental remarks, general
air and bearing, that he was one of the class known in the world as "men
about town:" a class not only obnoxious to the Doctor's moral sentiments
as the antipodes of his own purity, but also as being a natural product
of that slaveholding system which he regarded as a compendium of
injustice and wickedness; a class the members of which were constantly
coming to grief and bringing sorrow upon those who held them in
affection. He knew them; he had watched and disliked them since his
childhood; he was familiar by unpleasant observation with their
language, feelings, and doings; he knew where they began, how they went
on, and in what sort they ended. The calamities which they wrought for
themselves and all who were connected with them he had witnessed in a
hundred similar, and, so to speak, reflected instances. He remembered
young Hammersley, who had sunk down in drunken paralysis and burned his
feet to a crisp at his father's fire. Young Ellicot had dashed out his
brains by leaping from a fourth story window in a fit of delirium
tremens. Tom Akers was shot dead while drunk by a negro whom he had
horribly tortured. Fred Sanderson beat his wife until she left him,
spent his property at bars and gaming-tables and died in Cuba with
Walker. Others he recollected, by the dozen, it seemed to him, who had
fallen, wild with whiskey, in grog-shop broils or savage street
rencontres. Those who lived to grow old had slave-born children, whom
they either shamelessly acknowledged, or more shamelessly ignored, and
perhaps sold at the auction-block. They were drunkards, gamblers,
adulterers, murderers. Of such was the kingdom of Hell. And this man, to
whom his only child, his Lillie, had entrusted her heart, was, he
feared, he almost knew, one of that same class, although not, it was to
be hoped, so deeply stained with the brutish forms of vice which flow
directly from slavery. He could not entrust her to him; he could not
accept him as a son. At the same time he could not in this interview
make any distinct charges against his life and character. Accordingly
his talk was vague, incoherent, and sounded to Lillie like the frettings
of groundless prejudice. The painful interview lasted above an hour,
and, so far as concerned a decision, ended precisely where it began.
"Go to your bed, my child," the Doctor said at last. "And go to sleep if
you can. You will cry yourself sick."
She gave him a silent kiss, wet with tears, and went away with an aching
heart and a wearied frame.
For two hours or more the Doctor continued his miserable walk up and
down the study, from the door to the window, from corner to corner,
occasionally stopping to rest a tired body which yet had no longing for
slumber. He went back over his daughter's life, beginning with the
infantile days when he used to send the servant away from the cradle in
which she lay, and rock it himself for the pure pleasure of watching
her. He remembered how she had expanded into the whole of his heart when
her mother died. He thought how solely he had loved her since that
bereavement, and how her love for him had grown with her growth and
strengthened with every maturing power of her spirit. In the enthusiasm,
the confidence of this recollection, he did not doubt at moments but
that he could win her back to himself from this misplaced affection. She
was so young yet, her heart must be so pliable yet, that he could surely
influence her. As this comforting hope stole through him he felt a
desire to look at her. Yes, he must see her again before he could get
to sleep; he would go gently to her room and gaze at her without waking
her. Putting on his slippers, he crept softly up stairs and opened her
door without noise. By the light of a dying candle he saw Lillie in her
night dress, sitting up in bed and wiping the tears from her cheeks with
her hands.
"Papa!" she said in an eager gasp, tremulous with affection, grief and
hope.
"Oh, my child! I thought you would be asleep," he answered, advancing to
the bedside.
"You are not very angry with me?" she asked, making him sit down by her.
"No; not angry. But so grieved!"
"Then may he not write to me?"
She looked so loving, so eager, so sorrowful that he could not say No.
"Yes; he may write."
She drew his head towards her with her wet hands, and gave him a kiss
the very gratitude of which pained him.
"But not you," he added, trying to be stern. "You must not write. You
must not entangle yourself farther. I want to make inquiries. I must
have time in this matter. I will not be hurried. You must not consider
yourself engaged, Lillie. I cannot allow it."
"Oh, you _will_ inquire, papa?" implored the girl, confident that
Carter's character would come unharmed out of the furnace of
investigation.
"Yes, yes. But give me time. This is too important, too solemn a matter
to be hurried over. I will see. I will decide hereafter. There. Now you
must go to sleep. Good night, my darling."
"Good night, dear papa," she murmured, with the sigh of a tired child.
"Forgive me."
It was near morning before either of them slept; and both came to the
breakfast table with pale, wearied faces. There were dark circles around
Lillie's eyes, and her head ached so that she could hardly hold it up,
but still she put on a piteous, propitiating smile. She hoped and
feared unreasonable things every time that her father spoke or seemed to
her to be about to speak. She thought he might say that he had given up
all his opposition; and in the same breath she dreaded lest he might
declare that it must be all over forever. But the conversation of the
evening was not resumed, and the meal passed in absorbed, anxious,
embarrassing silence, neither being able to talk on any subject but the
one which filled their thoughts. An hour later Lillie suddenly fled from
the parlor to her own room. She had seen Carter approaching the house;
she felt certain that he came to demand her of her father; and at such
an interview she could not have been present, she thought, without
dying. The mere thought of it as she sat by her window, looking out
without seeing anything, made her breath come so painfully that she
wondered whether her lungs were not affected, and whether she were not
destined to die early. Her fatigue, and still more her troubles, made
her babyish, like an invalid. After half an hour had passed she heard
the outer door close upon the visitor, and could not resist the
temptation of peeping out to see him, if it were only his back. He was
looking, with those handsome and audacious eyes of his straight at her
window. With a sudden throb of alarm, or shame, or some other womanish
emotion, she hid herself behind the curtain, only to look out again when
he had disappeared, and to grieve lest she had given him offence. After
a while her father called her, and she went down trembling to the
parlor.
"I have seen him," said the Doctor. "I told him what I told you. I told
him that I must wait,--that I wanted time for reflection. I gave him to
understand that it must not be considered an engagement. At the same
time I allowed him to write to you. God forgive me if I have done wrong.
God pity us both."
Lillie did not think of asking if he had been civil to the Colonel; she
knew that he would not and could not be discourteous to any human
being. She made no answer to what he said except by going gently to him
and kissing him.
"Come, you must dress yourself," he added. "The regiment goes on board
the transport at twelve o'clock. I promised the Colonel that we would be
there to bid him--and Captain Colburne good-bye."
Dressing for the street was usually a long operation with Lillie, but
not this morning. Although she reached the station of the Carrollton
railroad in a breathless condition, it seemed to her that her father had
never walked so slowly; and on board the cars she really fatigued
herself with the nervous tension of an involuntary mental effort to push
forward the wheezy engine.
Carrollton is one the suburban offshoots of New Orleans, and contains
some two thousand inhabitants, mostly of the poorer classes, and of
Germanic lineage. Around it stretches the tame, rich, dead level which
constitutes southern Louisiana. The only raised ground is the levee; the
only grand feature of the landscape is the Mississippi; all the rest is
greenery, cypress groves, orange thickets, flowers, or bare flatness. As
Lillie emerged from the brick and plaster railroad-station she saw the
Tenth and its companion regiments along the levee, the men sitting down
in their ranks and waiting patiently, after the manner of soldiers. The
narrow open place between the river and the dusty little suburb was
thronged with citizens;--German shopkeepers, silversmiths, &c., who were
out of custom, and Irish laborers who were out of work;--poor women,
(whose husbands were in the rebel army) selling miserable cakes and beer
to the enlisted men; all, white as well as black, ragged, dirty,
lounging, listless hopeless; none of them hostile, at least not in
manner; a discouraged, subduced, stricken population. Against the bank
were moored six steamboats, their smoke-stacks, and even their upper
decks, overlooking the low landscape. They were not the famous floating
palaces of the Mississippi, those had all been carried away by Lovell,
or burnt at the wharves, or sunk in battle near the forts; these were
smaller craft, such as formerly brought cotton down the Red River, or
threaded the shallows between Lake Pontchartrain and Mobile. They looked
more fragile even than northern steamboats; their boilers and machinery
were unenclosed, visible, neglected, ugly; the superstructure was a
card-house of stanchions and clapboards.
The Doctor led Lillie through the crowd to a pile of lumber which
promised a view of the scene. As she mounted the humble lookout she
caught sight of a manly equestrian figure, and heard a powerful bass
voice thunder out a sentence of command. It was so guttural as to be
incomprehensible to her; but in obedience to it the lounging soldiers
sprang to their feet and resumed their ranks; the shining muskets rose
straight from the shoulder, and then took a uniform slope; there was a
bustle, a momentary mingling, and she saw knapsacks instead of faces.
"Battalion!" the Colonel had commanded. "Shoulder arms. Right shoulder
shift arms. Right face."
He now spoke a few words to the adjutant, who repeated the orders to the
captains, and then signalled to the drum-major. To the sound of drum and
fife the right company, followed successively by the others from right
to left, filed down the little slope with a regular, resounding tramp,
and rapidly crowded one of the transports with blue uniforms and shining
rifles. How superb in Lillie's eyes was the Colonel, though his face was
grim and his voice harsh with arbitrary power. She liked him for his
bronzed color, his monstrous mustache, his air of matured manhood; yes,
how much better she liked him for being thirty-five years old than if he
had been only twenty-five! How much prouder of him was she because she
was a little afraid of him, than if he had seemed one whom she might
govern! Presently a brilliant blush rose like a sunrise upon her
countenance. Carter had caught sight of them, and was approaching. A
wave of his hand and a stare of his imperious eyes drove away the flock
of negroes who had crowded their lookout. The interview was short, and
to a listener would have been uninteresting, unless he had known the
sentimental relations of the parties. The Doctor did nearly all of that
part of the talking which was done in words; and his observations, if
they were noted at all, probably seemed to the other two mere flatness
and irrelevancy. He prophecied success to the expedition; he wished the
Colonel success for the sake of the good cause; finally he warmed so far
as to wish him personal success and safety. But what was even this to
that other question of union or separation for life?
Presently the Adjutant approached with a salute, and reported that the
transport would not accommodate the whole regiment.
"It must," said the Colonel. "The men are not properly stowed. I suppose
they won't stow. They hav'n't learned yet that they can't have a
state-room apiece. I will attend to it, Adjutant."
Turning to the Ravenels, he added, "I suppose I must bid you good-bye. I
shall have little more time to myself. I am so much obliged to you for
coming to see us off. God bless you! God bless you!"
When a man of the Colonel's nature utters this benediction seriously he
is unquestionably much more moved than ordinarily. Lillie felt this: not
that she considered Carter wicked, but simply more masculine than most
men: and she was so much shaken by his unusual emotion that she could
hardly forbear bursting into tears in public. When he was gone she would
have been glad to fly immediately, if only she could have found a place
where she might be alone. Then she had to compose herself to meet
Colburne.
"The Colonel sent me to take care of you," he said, as he joined them.
"How good of him!" thought Lillie, meaning thereby Carter, and not the
Captain.
"Will they all get on board this boat?" she inquired.
"Yes. They are moving on now. The men of course hate to stow close, and
it needed the Colonel to make them do it."
"It looks awfully crowded," she answered, searching the whole craft over
for a glimpse of Carter.
The Doctor had little to say, and seemed quite sad; he was actually
thinking how much easier he could have loved this one than the other.
Colburne knew nothing of the great event of the previous evening, and so
was not miserable about it. He hoped to send back to this girl such a
good report of himself from the field of impending battle as should
exact her admiration, and perhaps force her heart to salute him
Imperator. He was elated and confident; boasted of the soldierly,
determined look of the men; pointed out his own company with pride;
prophesied brilliant success. When at last he bade them good-bye he did
it in a light, kindly brave way which was meant to cheer up Miss Ravenel
under any possible cloud of foreboding.
"I won't say anything about being brought back on my shield. I won't
ever promise that there shall be enough left to fill a table-spoon."
Yet the heart felt a pang of something like remorse for this counterfeit
gayety of the lips.
The gangway plank was hauled in; a few stragglers leaped aboard at the
risk of a ducking; the regimental band on the upper deck struck up a
national air; the negroes on shore danced and cackled and screamed with
childish delight; the noisy high-pressure engine began to sob and groan
like a demon in pain,--the boat veered slowly into the stream and
followed its consorts. Two gunboats and six transports steamed up the
yellow river, trailing columns of black smoke athwart the blue sky, and
away over the green levels of Louisiana.
Now came nearly a week of anxiety to Lillie and trouble to her father.
She was with him as much as possible, partly because that was her old
and loving habit, and partly because she wanted him continually at hand
to comfort her. She was not satisfied with seeing him morning and
evening; she must visit him at the hospitals, and go back and forth with
him on the street cars; she must hear from him every half hour that
there was no danger of evil tidings, as if he were a newspaper issued by
extras; she must keep at him with questions that no man could answer.
"Papa, do you believe that Mouton has fifteen thousand men? Do you
believe that there will be a great battle? Do you believe that our side"
(she could call it _our_ side now) "will be beaten? Do you believe that
our loss will be very heavy? What is the usual proportion of killed in a
battle? You don't know? Well, but what are the probabilities?"
If he took up a book or opened his cases of minerals, it was, "Oh,
please don't read," or, "Please let those stones alone. I want you to
talk to me. When do you suppose the battle will happen? When shall we
get the first news? When shall we get the particulars?"
And so she kept questioning; she was enough to worry the life out of
papa: but then he was accustomed to be thus worried. He was a most
patient man, even in the bosom of his own family, which is not so common
a trait as many persons suppose. One afternoon those sallow, black-eyed
Hectors at the corners of the streets, who looked so much like gamblers
and talked so much like traitors, had an air of elation which scared
Miss Ravenel; and she accordingly hurried home to receive a confirmation
of her fears from Mrs. Larue, who had heard that there had been a great
battle near Thibodeaux, that Weitzel had been defeated and that Mouton
would certainly be in the city by next day afternoon. For an hour she
was in an agony of unalleviated terror, for her comforter had not
returned from the hospital. When he came she flew upon him and
ravenously demanded consolation.
"My dear, you must not be so childish," remonstrated the Doctor. "You
must have more nerve, or you won't last the year out."
"But what will become of you? If Mouton comes here you will be
sacrificed--you and all the Union men. I wish you would take refuge on
board some of the ships of war. Do go and see if they will take you. I
shan't be hurt. I can get along."
Ravenel laughed.
"My dear, _have_ you gone back to your babyhood? I don't believe this
story at all. When the time comes I will look out for the safety of both
of us."
"But do please go somewhere and see if you can't hear something."
And when the Doctor was thus driven to pick up his hat, she took hers
also and accompanied him, not being able to wait for the news until his
return. They could learn nothing; the journals had no bulletins out; the
Union banker, Mr. Barker, had nothing to communicate; they looked
wistfully at headquarters, but did not dare to intrude upon General
Butler. As they went homeward the knots of well-dressed Catilines at the
corners carried their treasonable heads as high and stared at Federal
uniforms as insolently as ever. Ravenel thought sadly how much they
resembled in air the well-descended gentleman to whom he feared that he
should have to trust the happiness of his only child. Those of them who
knew him did not speak nor bow, but glared at him as a Pawnee might
glare at the captive hunter around whose stake he expected to dance on
the morrow. Evidently his life would be in peril if Mouton should enter
the city; but he was a sanguine man and did not believe in the calamity.
Next morning, as the father set off for the hospital, the daughter said,
"If you hear any thing, do come right straight and tell me."
Twenty minutes afterward Ravenel was back at the house, breathless and
radiant. Weitzel had gained a victory; had taken cannon and hundreds of
prisoners; was in full march on the rebel capital, Thibodeaux.
"Oh! I am so happy!" cried the heretofore Secessionist. "But is there no
list of killed and wounded? Has our loss been heavy? What do you think?
What do you think are the probabilities? How strange that there should
be no list of killed and wounded! Was that positively all that you
heard? So little? Oh, papa, don't, please, go to the hospital to-day. I
can't bear to stay alone.--Well, if you must go, I will go with you."
And go she did, but left him in half an hour after she got there, crazy
to be near the bulletin boards. During the day she bought all the
extras, and read four descriptions of the battle, all precisely alike,
because copied from the same official bulletin, and all unsatisfactory
because they did not contain lists of killed and wounded. But at the
post-office, just before it closed, she was rewarded for that long day
of wearying inquiries. There was a letter from Carter to herself, and
another from Colburne to her father.
"My dear Lillie," began the first; and here she paused to kiss the
words, and wipe away the tears. "We have had a smart little fight, and
whipped the enemy handsomely. Weitzel managed matters in a way that
really does him great credit, and the results are one cannon, three
hundred prisoners, possession of the killed and wounded, and of the
field of battle. Our loss was trifling, and includes no one whom you
know. Life and limb being now doubly valuable to me for your sake, I am
happy to inform you that I did not get hurt. I am tired and have a great
deal to do, so that I can only scratch you a line. But you must believe
me, and I know that you will believe me, when I tell you that I have the
heart to write you a dozen sheets instead of only a dozen sentences.
Good bye, my dear one.
"Ever and altogether yours."
It was Lillie's first love letter; it was from a lover who had just
come unharmed out of the perils of battle; it was a blinding, thrilling
page to read. She would not let her father take it; no, that was not in
the agreement at all; it was too sacred even for his eyes. But she read
it to him, all but those words of endearment; all but those very words
that to her were the most precious of all. In return he handed her
Colburne's epistle, which was also brief.
"MY DEAR DOCTOR,--I have had the greatest pleasure of my whole
life; I have fought under the flag of my country, and seen it
victorious. I have not time to write particulars, but you will of
course get them in the papers. Our regiment behaved most nobly, our
Colonel proved himself a hero, and our General a genius. We are
encamped for the night on the field of battle, cold and hungry, but
brimming over with pride and happiness. There may be another battle
to-morrow, but be sure that we shall conquer. Our men were
greenhorns yesterday, but they are veterans to-day, and will face
any thing. Ask Miss Ravenel if she will not turn loyal for the sake
of our gallant little army. It deserves even that compliment.
"Truly yours."
"He doesn't say that he is unhurt," observed the Doctor.
"Of course he is," answered Lillie, not willing to suppose for him the
honor of a wound when her paragon had none. "Colonel Carter says that
the loss includes no one whom we know."
"He is a noble fellow," pursued the Doctor, still dwelling on the young
man's magnanimity in not thinking to speak of himself. "He is the most
truly heroic, chivalrous gentleman that I know. He is one of nature's
noblemen."
Lillie was piqued at these praises of Colburne, not considering him half
so fine a character as Carter, in eulogy of whom her father said
nothing. She thought of asking him if he had noticed how the Captain
spoke of the Colonel as a hero--but concluded not to do it, for fear he
might reply that the latter ought to have paid the former the same
compliment. She felt that for the present, until her father's prejudices
should wear away, she must be contented with deifying her Achilles
alone. Notwithstanding this pettish annoyance, grievous as it was to a
most loving spirit strongly desirous of sympathy, the rest of the day
passed delightfully, the time being divided between frequent readings of
Carter's letter, and intervals of meditation thereon. The epistle which
her father wrote to the Colonel was also thoroughly read, and was in
fact so emendated and enlarged by her suggestions that it might be
considered her composition.