NEWS FROM CLARENCE
The epithet aristocrat may become odious and fatal on the banks of the
Mississippi as it was on the banks of the Seine. Let no man deceive
himself! These are fearful times. Thousands of our population, by the
sudden stoppage of business, are thrown out of employment. When gaunt
famine intrudes upon their household, it is but natural that they should
inquire the cause. Hunger began the French Revolution.
Virginia did not read this editorial, because it appeared in that
abhorred organ of the Mudsills, the 'Missouri Democrat.' The wheels of
fortune were turning rapidly that first hot summer of the war time. Let
us be thankful that our flesh and blood are incapable of the fury of the
guillotine. But when we think calmly of those days, can we escape without
a little pity for the aristocrats? Do you think that many of them did not
know hunger and want long before that cruel war was over?
How bravely they met the grim spectre which crept so insidiously into
their homes!
"Virginia, child." said Mrs. Colfax, peevishly, one morning as they sat
at breakfast, "why do you persist it wearing that old gown? It has gotten
on my nerves, my dear. You really must have something new made, even if
there are no men here to dress for."
"Aunt Lillian, you must not say such things. I do not think that I ever
dressed to please men."
"Tut, tut; my dear, we all do. I did, even after married your uncle. It
is natural. We must not go shabby in such times as these, or be out of
fashion, Did you know that Prince Napoleon was actually coming here for a
visit this autumn? We must be ready for him. I am having a fitting at
Miss Elder's to-day."
Virginia was learning patience. She did not reply as she poured out her
aunt's coffee.
"Jinny," said that lady, "come with me to Elder's, and I will give you
some gowns. If Comyn had been as careful of his own money as of mine, you
could dress decently."
"I think I do dress decently, Aunt Lillian," answered the girl. "I do not
need the gowns. Give me the money you intend to pay for them, and I can
use it for a better purpose."
Mrs. Colfax arranged her lace pettishly.
"I am sick and tired of this superiority, Jinny." And in the same breath.
"What would you do with it?"
Virginia lowered her voice. "Hodges goes through the lines to-morrow
night. I should send it to Clarence." "But you have no idea where
Clarence is."
"Hodges can find him."
"Pshaw!" exclaimed her aunt, "I would not trust him. How do you know that
he will get through the Dutch pickets to Price's army? Wasn't Souther
captured last week, and that rash letter of Puss Russell's to Jack
Brinsmade published in the Democrat?" She laughed at the recollection,
and Virginia was fain to laugh too. "Puss hasn't been around much since.
I hope that will cure her of saying what she thinks of people."
"It won't," said Virginia.
"I'll save my money until Price drives the Yankees from the state, and
Clarence marches into the city at the head of a regiment," Mrs. Colfax
went on, "It won't be long now."
Virginia's eyes flashed.
"Oh, you can't have read the papers. And don't you remember the letter
Maude had from George? They need the bare necessities of life, Aunt
Lillian. And half of Price's men have no arms at all."
"Jackson," said Mrs. Colfax, "bring me a newspaper. Is there any news
to-day?"
"No," answered Virginia, quickly. "All we know is that Lyon has left
Springfield to meet our troops, and that a great battle is coming,
Perhaps--perhaps it is being fought to-day."
Mrs. Colfax burst into tears, "Oh, Jinny," she cried, "how can you be so
cruel!"
That very evening a man, tall and lean, but with the shrewd and kindly
eye of a scout, came into the sitting-room with the Colonel and handed a
letter to Mrs. Colfax. In the hall he slipped into Virginia's hand
another, in a "Jefferson Davis" envelope, and she thrust it in her gown
--the girl was on fire as he whispered in her ear that he had seen
Clarence, and that he was well. In two days an answer might be left at
Mr. Russell's house. But she must be careful what she wrote, as the
Yankee scouts were active.
Clarence, indeed, had proven himself a man. Glory and uniform became him
well, but danger and deprivation better. The words he had written,
careless and frank and boyish, made Virginia's heart leap with pride.
Mrs. Colfax's letter began with the adventure below the Arsenal, when the
frail skiff had sunk near the island, He told how he had heard the
captain of his escort sing out to him in the darkness, and how he had
floated down the current instead, until, chilled and weary, he had
contrived to seize the branches of a huge tree floating by. And how by a
miracle the moon had risen. When the great Memphis packet bore down upon
him, he had, been seen from her guards, and rescued and made much of; and
set ashore at the next landing, for fear her captain would get into
trouble. In the morning he had walked into the country, first providing
himself with butternuts and rawhide boots and a bowie-knife. Virginia
would never have recognized her dashing captain of dragoons in this
guise.
The letter was long for Clarence, and written under great difficulties
from date to date. For nearly a month he had tramped over mountains and
across river bottoms, waiting for news of an organized force of
resistance in Missouri. Begging his way from cabin to cabin, and living
on greasy bacon and corn pone, at length he crossed the swift Gasconade
(so named by the French settlers because of its brawling ways) where the
bridge of the Pacific railroad had been blown up by the Governor's
orders. Then he learned that the untiring Lyon had steamed up the
Missouri and had taken possession of Jefferson City without a blow, and
that the ragged rebel force had fought and lost at Booneville. Footsore,
but undaunted, he pushed on to join the army, which he heard was
retreating southward along the western tier of counties of the state.
On the banks of the Osage he fell in with two other young amen in as bad
a plight as himself. They travelled together, until one day some rough
farmers with shotguns leaped out of a bunch of willows on the borders of
a creek and arrested all three for Union spies. And they laughed when Mr.
Clarence tried to explain that he had not long since been the dapper
captain of the State Dragoons.
His Excellency, the Governor of Missouri (so acknowledged by all good
Southerners), likewise laughed when Mr. Colfax and the two others were
brought before him. His Excellency sat in a cabin surrounded by a camp
which had caused the dogs of war to howl for very shame.
"Colfax!" cried the Governor. "A Colfax of St. Louis in butternuts and
rawhide boots?"
"Give me a razor," demanded Clarence, with indignation, "a razor and a
suit of clothes, and I will prove it." The Governor laughed once more.
"A razor, young man! A suit of clothes You know not what you ask."
"Are there any gentlemen from St. Louis here?" George Catherwood was
brought in,--or rather what had once been George. Now he was a big
frontiersman with a huge blond beard, and a bowie, knife stuck into his
trousers in place of a sword. He recognized his young captain of dragoons
the Governor apologized, and Clarence slept that night in the cabin. The
next day he was given a horse, and a bright new rifle which the
Governor's soldiers had taken from the Dutch at Cole Camp on the way
south, And presently they made a junction with three thousand more who
were their images. This was Price's army, but Price had gone ahead into
Kansas to beg the great McCulloch and his Confederates to come to their
aid and save the state.
"Dear mother, I wish that you and Jinny and Uncle Comyn could have
seen this country rabble. How you would have laughed, and cried,
because we are just like them. In the combined army two thousand
have only bowie-knives or clubs. Some have long rifles of Daniel
Boone's time, not fired for thirty years. And the impedimenta are a
sight. Open wagons and conestogas and carryalls and buggies, and
even barouches, weighted down with frying-pans and chairs and
feather beds. But we've got spirit, and we can whip Lyon's Dutchmen
and Yankees just as we are. Spirit is what counts, and the Yankees
haven't got it, I was made to-day a Captain of Cavalry under
Colonel Rives. I ride a great, raw-boned horse like an elephant.
He jolts me until I am sore,--not quite as easy as my thoroughbred,
Jefferson. Tell Jinny to care for him, and have him ready when we
march into St. Louis."
"COWSKIN PRAIRIE, 9th July.
"We have whipped Sigel on the prairie by Coon Creek and killed--we
don't know how many. Tell Maude that George distinguished himself
in the fight. We cavalry did not get a chance.
"We have at last met McCulloch and his real soldiers. We cheered
until we cried when we saw their ranks of gray, with the gold
buttons and the gold braid and the gold stars. General McCulloch
has taken me on his staff, and promised me a uniform. But how to
clothe and feed and arm our men! We have only a few poor cattle,
and no money. But our men don't complain. We shall whip the
Yankees before we starve."
For many days Mrs. Colfax did not cease to bewail the hardship which her
dear boy was forced to endure. He, who was used to linen sheets and eider
down, was without rough blanket or shelter; who was used to the best
table in the state, was reduced to husks.
"But, Aunt Lillian," cried Virginia, "he is fighting for the South. If he
were fed and clothed like the Yankees, we should not be half so proud of
him."
Why set down for colder gaze the burning words that Clarence wrote to
Virginia. How she pored over that letter, and folded it so that even the
candle-droppings would not be creased and fall away! He was happy, though
wretched because he could not see her. It was the life he had longed for.
At last (and most pathetic!) he was proving his usefulness in this world.
He was no longer the mere idler whom she had chidden.
"Jinny, do you remember saying so many years ago that our ruin would
come of our not being able to work? How I wish you could see us
felling trees to make bullet-moulds, and forging slugs for canister,
and making cartridges at night with our bayonets as candlesticks.
Jinny dear, I know that you will keep up your courage. I can see
you sewing for us, I can hear you praying for us."
It was, in truth, how Virginia learned to sew. She had always detested
it. Her fingers were pricked and sore weeks after she began. Sad to
relate, her bandages, shirts, and havelocks never reached the front,
--those havelocks, to withstand the heat of the tropic sun, which were made
in thousands by devoted Union women that first summer of the war, to be
ridiculed as nightcaps by the soldiers.
"Why should not our soldiers have them, too?" said Virginia to the
Russell girls. They were never so happy as when sewing on them against
the arrival of the Army of Liberation, which never came.
The long, long days of heat dragged slowly, with little to cheer those
families separated from their dear ones by a great army. Clarence might
die, and a month--perhaps a year--pass without news, unless he were
brought a prisoner to St. Louis. How Virginia envied Maude because the
Union lists of dead and wounded would give her tidings of her brother
Tom, at least! How she coveted the many Union families, whose sons and
brothers were at the front, this privilege!
We were speaking of the French Revolution, when, as Balzac remarked, to
be a spy was to be a patriot. Heads are not so cheap in our Anglo-Saxon
countries; passions not so fierce and uncontrollable. Compare, with a
prominent historian, our Boston Massacre and St. Bartholomew.
They are both massacres. Compare Camp Jackson, or Baltimore, where a few
people were shot, with some Paris street scenes after the Bastille.
Feelings in each instance never ran higher. Our own provost marshal was
hissed in the street, and called "Robespierre," and yet he did not fear
the assassin's knife. Our own Southern aristocrats were hemmed in in a
Union city (their own city). No women were thrown into prison, it is
true. Yet one was not permitted to shout for Jeff Davis on the street
corner before the provost's guard. Once in a while a detachment of the
Home Guards, commanded by a lieutenant; would march swiftly into a street
and stop before a house, whose occupants would run to the rear, only to
encounter another detachment in the alley.
One day, in great excitement, Eugenie Renault rang the bell of the Carvel
house, and ran past the astounded Jackson up the stairs to Virginia's
room, the door of which she burst open.
"Oh, Jinny!" she cried, "Puss Russell's house is surrounded by Yankees,
and Puss and Emily and all the family are prisoners!"
"Prisoners! What for?" said Virginia, dropping in her excitement her last
year's bonnet, which she was trimming with red, white, and red.
"Because," said Eugenie, sputtering with indignation "because they waved
at some of our poor fellows who were being taken to the slave pen. They
were being marched past Mr. Russell's house under guard--Puss had a
small--"
"Confederate flag," put in Virginia, smiling in spite of herself.
"And she waved it between the shutters," Eugenie continued. And some one
told, the provost marshal. He has had the house surrounded, and the
family have to stay there."
"But if the food gives out?"
"Then," said Miss Renault, in a voice of awe, "then each one of the
family is to have just a common army ration. They are to be treated as
prisoners."
"Oh, those Yankees are detestable!" exclaimed Virginia. "But they shall
pay for it. As soon as our army is organized and equipped, they shall pay
for it ten times over." She tried on the bonnet, conspicuous with its red
and white ribbons, before the glass. Then she ran to the closet and drew
forth the white gown with its red trimmings. "Wait for me, Genie," she
said, "and we'll go down to Puss's house together. It may cheer her to
see us."
"But not in that dress," said Eugenie, aghast. "They will arrest you."
"Oh, how I wish they would!" cried Virginia. And her eyes flashed so that
Eugenie was frightened. "How I wish they would!"
Miss Renault regarded her friend with something of adoration from beneath
her black lashes. It was about five in the afternoon when they started
out together under Virginia's white parasol, Eugenie's slimmer courage
upheld by her friend's bearing. We must remember that Virginia was young,
and that her feelings were akin to those our great-grandmothers
experienced when the British held New York. It was as if she had been
born to wear the red and white of the South. Elderly gentlemen of
Northern persuasion paused in their homeward walk to smile in admiration,
--some sadly, as Mr. Brinsmade. Young gentlemen found an excuse to
retrace their steps a block or two. But Virginia walked on air, and saw
nothing. She was between fierce anger and exaltation. She did not deign
to drop her eyes as low as the citizen sergeant and guard in front of
Puss Russell's house (these men were only human, after all); she did not
so much as glance at the curious people standing on the corner, who could
not resist a murmur of delight. The citizen sergeant only smiled, and
made no move to arrest the young lady in red and white. Nor did Puss
fling open the blinds and wave at her.
"I suppose its because Mr. Russell won't let her," said Virginia,
disconsolately, "Genie, let's go to headquarters, and show this Yankee
General Fremont that we are not afraid of him."
Eugenie's breath was taken away by the very boldness of this
proposition.. She looked up timidly into Virginia's face, and
hero-worship got the better of prudence.
The house which General Fremont appropriated for his use when he came
back from Europe to assume command in the West was not a modest one. It
still stands, a large mansion of brick with a stone front, very tall and
very wide, with an elaborate cornice and plate-glass windows, both tall
and broad, and a high basement. Two stately stone porches capped by
elaborate iron railings adorn it in front and on the side. The chimneys
are generous and proportional. In short, the house is of that type built
by many wealthy gentlemen in the middle of the century, which has best
stood the test of time,--the only type which, if repeated to-day, would
not clash with the architectural education which we are receiving. A
spacious yard well above the pavement surrounds it, sustained by a wall
of dressed stones, capped by an iron fence. The whole expressed wealth,
security, solidity, conservatism. Alas, that the coal deposits under the
black mud of our Western states should, at length, have driven the owners
of these houses out of them! They are now blackened, almost buried in
soot; empty, or half-tenanted by boarders, Descendants of the old
families pass them on their way to business or to the theatre with a
sigh. The sons of those who owned them have built westward, and west-ward
again, until now they are six miles from the river.
On that summer evening forty years ago, when Virginia and Eugenie came in
sight of the house, a scene of great animation was before them. Talk was
rife over the commanding general's pomp and circumstance. He had just
returned from Europe, where pomp and circumstance and the military were
wedded. Foreign officers should come to America to teach our army dress
and manners. A dashing Hungarian commanded the general's body-guard,
which honorable corps was even then drawn up in the street before the
house, surrounded at a respectable distance by a crowd that feared to
jest. They felt like it save when they caught the stern military eye of
the Hungarian captain. Virginia gazed at the glittering uniforms,
resplendent in the sun, and at the sleek and well-fed horses, and
scalding tears came as she thought of the half-starved rabble of Southern
patriots on the burning prairies. Just then a sharp command escaped in
broken English from the Hungarian. The people in the yard of the mansion
parted, and the General himself walked proudly out of the gate to the
curb, where his charger was pawing the gutter. As he put foot to the
stirrup, the eye of the great man (once candidate, and again to be, for
President) caught the glint of red and white on the corner. For an
instant he stood transfixed to the spot, with one leg in the air. Then he
took it down again and spoke to a young officer of his staff, who smiled
and began to walk toward them. Little Eugenie's knees trembled. She
seized Virginia's arm, and whispered in agony.
"Oh, Jinny, you are to be arrested, after all. Oh, I wish you hadn't been
so bold!"
"Hush," said Virginia, as she prepared to slay the young officer with a
look. She felt like flying at his throat, and choking him for the
insolence of that smile. How dare he march undaunted to within six paces
of those eyes? The crowd drew back, But did Miss Carvel retreat? Not a
step. "Oh, I hope he will arrest me," she said passionately, to Eugenie.
"He will start a conflagration beyond the power of any Yankee to quell."
But hush! he was speaking. "You are my prisoners"? No, those were not the
words, surely. The lieutenant had taken off his cap. He bowed very low
and said:
"Ladies, the General's compliments, and he begs that this much of the
sidewalk may be kept clear for a few moments."
What was left for them, after that, save a retreat? But he was not
precipitate. Miss Virginia crossed the street with a dignity and bearing
which drew even the eyes of the body-guard to one side. And there she
stood haughtily until the guard and the General had thundered away. A
crowd of black-coated civilians, and quartermasters and other officers in
uniform, poured out of the basement of the house into the yards. One
civilian, a youngish man a little inclined to stoutness, stopped at the
gate, stared, then thrust some papers in his pocket and hurried down the
side street. Three blocks thence he appeared abreast of Miss Carvel. More
remarkable still, he lifted his hat clear of his head. Virginia drew
back. Mr. Hopper, with his newly acquired equanimity and poise, startled
her.
"May I have the pleasure," said that gentleman, "of accompanying you
home?"
Eugenie giggled, Virginia was more annoyed than she showed.
"You must not come out of your way," she said. Then she added. "I am sure
you must go back to the store. It is only six o'clock."
Had Virginia but known, this occasional tartness in her speech gave
Eliphalet an infinite delight, even while it hurt him. His was a nature
which liked to gloat over a goal on the horizon He cared not a whit for
sweet girls; they cloyed. But a real lady was something to attain. He had
revised his vocabulary for just such an occasion, and thrown out some of
the vernacular.
"Business is not so pressing nowadays, Miss Carvel," he answered, with a
shade of meaning.
"Then existence must be rather heavy for you," she said. She made no
attempt to introduce him to Eugenie. "If we should have any more
victories like Bull Run, prosperity will come back with a rush," said the
son of Massachusetts. "Southern Confederacy, with Missouri one of its
stars an industrial development of the South--fortunes in cotton"
Virginia turned quickly, "Oh, how dare you?" she cried. "How dare you
speak flippantly of such things?" His suavity was far from overthrown.
"Flippantly Miss Carvel?" said he. "I assure you that I want to see the
South win." What he did not know was that words seldom convince women.
But he added something which reduced her incredulity for the time. "Do
you cal'late," said he,--that I could work for your father, and wish ruin
to his country?"
"But you are a Yankee born," she exclaimed.
"There be a few sane Yankees," replied Mr. Hopper, dryly. A remark which
made Eugenie laugh outright, and Virginia could not refrain from a smile.
But much against her will he walked home with her. She was indignant by
the time she reached Locust Street. He had never dared do such a thing
before, What had got into the man? Was it because he had become a
manager, and governed the business during her father's frequent absences?
No matter what Mr. Hopper's politics, he would always be to her a
low-born Yankee, a person wholly unworthy of notice.
At the corner of Olive Street, a young man walking with long strides
almost bumped into them. He paused looked back, and bowed as if uncertain
of an acknowledgment. Virginia barely returned his bow. He had been very
close to her, and she had had time to notice that his coat was
threadbare. When she looked again, he had covered half the block. Why
should she care if Stephen Brice had seen her in company with Mr, Hopper?
Eliphalet, too, had seen Stephen, and this had added zest to his
enjoyment. It was part of the fruits of his reward. He wished in that
short walk that he might meet Mr. Cluyme and Belle, and every man and
woman and child in the city whom he knew. From time to time he glanced at
the severe profile of the aristocrat beside him (he had to look up a bit,
likewise), and that look set him down among the beasts of prey. For she
was his rightful prey, and he meant not to lose one tittle of enjoyment
in the progress of the game. Many and many a night in the bare little
back room at Miss Crane's, Eliphalet had gloated over the very event
which was now come to pass. Not a step of the way but what he had lived
through before.
The future is laid open to such men as he. Since he had first seen the
black cloud of war rolling up from the South, a hundred times had he
rehearsed the scene with Colonel Carvel which had actually taken place a
week before. A hundred times had he prepared his speech and manner for
this first appearance in public with Virginia after he had forced the
right to walk in her company. The words he had prepared--commonplace, to
be sure, but carefully chosen--flowed from his lips in a continual nasal
stream. The girl answered absently, her feminine instinct groping after a
reason for it all. She brightened when she saw her father at the doors
and, saying good by to Eugenie, tripped up the steps, bowing to Eliphalet
coldly.
"Why, bless us, Jinny," said the Colonel, "you haven't been parading the
town in that costume! You'll have us in Lynch's slave pen by to-morrow
night. My land!" laughed he, patting her under the chin, "there's no
doubt about your sentiments, anyhow."
"I've been over to Puss Russell's house," said she, breathless. "They've
closed it up, you know--" (He nodded.) "And then we went--Eugenie and I,
to headquarters, just to see what the Yankees would do."
The Colonel's smile faded. He looked grave. "You must take care, honey,"
he said, lowering his voice. "They suspect me now of communicating with
the Governor and McCulloch. Jinny, it's all very well to be brave, and to
stand by your colors. But this sort of thing," said he, stroking the
gown, "this sort of thing doesn't help the South, my dear, and only sets
spies upon us. Ned tells me that there was a man in plain clothes
standing in the alley last night for three hours."
"Pa," cried the girl, "I'm so sorry." Suddenly searching his face with a
swift instinct, she perceived that these months had made it yellow and
lined. "Pa, dear, you must come to Glencoe to-morrow and rest You must
not go off on any more trips."
The Colonel shook his head sadly.
"It isn't the trips, Jinny There are duties, my dear, pleasant duties
--Jinny--"
"Yes?"
The Colonel's eye had suddenly fallen on Mr, Hopper, who was still
standing at the bottom of the steps. He checked himself abruptly as
Eliphalet pulled off his hat,
"Howdy, Colonel?" he said.
Virginia was motionless, with her back to the intruder, She was frozen by
a presentiment. As she saw her father start down the steps, she yearned
to throw herself in front of him--to warn him of something; she knew not
what. Then she heard the Colonel's voice, courteous and kindly as ever.
And yet it broke a little as he greeted his visitor.
"Won't--won't you come in, Mr. Hopper?"
Virginia started
"I don't know but what I will, thank you, Colonel," he answered; easily.
"I took the liberty of walking home with your daughter."
Virginia fairly flew into the house and up the stairs. Gaining her room,
she shut the door and turned the key, as though he might pursue her
there. The man's face had all at once become a terror. She threw herself
on the lounge and buried her face in her hands, and she saw it still
leering at her with a new confidence. Presently she grew calmer; rising,
she put on the plainest of her scanty wardrobe, and went down the stairs,
all in a strange trepidation new to her. She had never been in fear of a
man before. She hearkened over the banisters for his voice, heard it, and
summoned all her courage. How cowardly she had been to leave her father
alone with him.
Eliphalet stayed to tea. It mattered little to him that Mrs. Colfax
ignored him as completely as if his chair had been vacant He glanced at
that lady once, and smiled, for he was tasting the sweets of victory. It
was Virginia who entertained him, and even the Colonel never guessed what
it cost her. Eliphalet himself marvelled at her change of manner, and
gloated over that likewise. Not a turn or a quiver of the victim's pain
is missed by your beast of prey. The Colonel was gravely polite, but
preoccupied. Had he wished it, he could not have been rude to a guest. He
offered Mr. Hopper a cigar with the same air that he would have given it
to a governor.
"Thank'ee, Colonel, I don't smoke," he said, waving the bog away.
Mrs. Colfax flung herself out of the room.
It was ten o'clock when Eliphalet reached Miss Crane's, and picked his
way up the front steps where the boarders were gathered.
"The war doesn't seem to make any difference in your business, Mr.
Hopper," his landlady remarked, "where have you been so late?"
"I happened round at Colonel Carvel's this afternoon, and stayed for tea
with 'em," he answered, striving to speak casually.
Miss Crane lingered in Mrs. Abner Reed's room later than usual that
night.