AFTER THE WAR.
We had done our best to win and had failed. We were conquered, but in
Lovering at least we accepted the situation and rejoiced for the peace
and quiet which came to us with the disappearance of the soldiers from
our soil. Even Fan was glad to go to bed feeling sure that her sleep
would not be disturbed by the tramp of horses’ feet or the clamor of
hungry men for food and shelter. Our little town had been visited so
often by both armies and levied on so frequently for means to carry on
the war that its people were greatly impoverished. Whether it were that
our house was larger and our accommodations generally more ample, or
that our father’s manner of receiving an unwelcome visitor was different
from our neighbors, we seemed to have suffered most. Our horses and cows
and sheep were gone. Our negroes were gone with the exception of
Phyllis, who, after her first attempt to leave, stood firmly by us,
refusing wages after she knew she was free.
Only poor white truck work for pay, and she wasn’t one of them, she
said.
Our timber was damaged for the soldiers had cut down the trees in our
woods for their camp fires, and worst of all our father’s patients were
mostly gone. Belonging to the old school, in which he believed as he did
in his religion, he adhered strictly to his morphine and calomel, and
when a young physician from Richmond opened an office in town, with
little bottles and little pills, and prices to correspond, the people
flocked to him, and father was left with only a few patients and a long
list of uncollectible bills against some of the deserters. Both Fan and
I inclined to homeopathy and urged him to adopt it to some extent, but
he shook his head. He had sat on the fence during the war, he said, and
received only kicks from either side, and now he should stick to his
principles and allopathy if he starved. We did not starve, but we were
at times in great straits. Fan and I made over our old dresses for
ourselves and little Katy, and we brushed and mended father’s clothes,
which, in spite of our care grew more and more threadbare and shabby
until his dress coat was the only garment which was not shiny and had
not more or less darns in it. This he always wore to dinner, partly from
habit, partly to please us, and more I think to please old Phyllis, who
felt that the glory of the family had not quite departed so long as the
swallow tail appeared at dinner, even if it were laid aside the moment
the meal was over. There was no denying the fact that grim poverty was
staring us in the face, and no one felt it more keenly than Phyllis,
who, although she would take nothing from us, offered to hire out for
wages which she would give to us. This we would not allow, and we
struggled on through the summer, raising and selling what we could from
our land, which we all worked together, and living on as little as it
was possible for five people to live upon. Fan suffered the most, she
was so proud and so luxurious in her tastes and so averse to any thing
like economy.
“I’d do anything for money,” she said one day to Jack Fullerton, who was
helping us pick our grapes, which he was to sell for us in Petersburg.
Jack had won his shoulder-straps and was a lieutenant when the war
closed, but he dropped the title with his uniform and was only Jack to
us,—a handsome, honest-hearted young man, whom everybody liked, whom I
adored in secret, and whom Fan worried and teased and flirted with
outrageously. She knew he loved her, and I believed she loved him in
return. But she encouraged him one day and repelled him the next, saying
often in his presence that she should never marry unless the man had
money and it would be useless for one without it to offer himself to
her.
“Then I’d better not do it,” Jack would say, jokingly, with the most
intense love burning in his eyes and sounding in his voice.
“No, you’d better not, if you don’t want me to refuse to speak to you
again,” she would answer, with a laugh and a look which only made him
more in love than ever.
He knew she cared for him, and that it was only the barrier of poverty
which stood between them. And so they joked and quarreled and made up,
and he was with us every day, helping in the garden and yard and at
last with the grapes, of which we had quantities that year. Father was
in Boston, where he had gone on some business which he hoped might
result in a little profit. While there he had, through the influence
of a friend, been called to see a Mrs. Haverleigh, who was very ill.
As her family physician was in Europe she had asked him to attend her
until she was better. To this he had consented and had been gone from
home three or four weeks. Knowing that our grapes must be picked Jack
had offered his services and on a lovely September morning we were all
out by the vines filling the baskets with great purple clusters of
fruit which Jack sometimes cut for us and sometimes Fan, who was in
wild spirits. She had taken her turn at cutting and was sitting half
way up the step-ladder, looking very lovely and picturesque against
the green background, in her old black skirt and scarlet jacket, with
the bright color in her face and her hair blowing around her forehead.
A handsome carriage drawn by a span of fine horses had gone by. Its
occupants,—a gentleman and lady,—seemed to be scanning our house
curiously. We could see the lady distinctly and felt sure she was from
some city, Richmond presumably, and Fan was speculating about her and
wishing she could ride in her carriage, when I heard a step on the
grass, and a tall distinguished-looking man came towards us. In his
citizen’s dress I did not at once recognize him; but Fan did, and,
without coming from her perch, exclaimed, “Col. Errington!”
Then I knew the handsome officer, who had once been our guest and who
now greeted us with the smile I remembered so well, because it had in it
something so cold and patronizing.
“Good afternoon, Colonel,” Fan said to him. “You have come back to see
your conquered enemies, I suppose. We heard of your promotion and of the
bullet wound some of our boys gave you at Petersburg. Was it in your
back?”
She was very saucy, and for an instant a hot color flamed into the
Colonel’s face, and there came into his grey eyes a red look such as I
had seen once or twice when he was quartered upon us and his men
displeased him. But it quickly faded under the spell of Fan’s beauty,
and the light which flashed from her eyes and belied her words.
Laughing good-humoredly, the colonel replied, “Rebellious as ever, I
see; I hoped I might find you reconstructed.”
“Not a bit of it,” Fan said, stepping down from the ladder and running
her fingers through her hair, by which means she left a long mark of
grape juice on her forehead. “We are just as big rebels as ever. You
beat us because you had more men and money, and we were obliged to give
up. It was like a big dog fighting a little dog, which has just as much
courage and more, too, than the big one, but is finally worn out by
strength rather than by skill. Do you see the point?”
“Yes, I see,” he said, “and in Constantinople I have also seen the big
dog, after the fight was over, take the little one in its paws and toss
it up and fondle it as if there had been no bone of contention. I hope
it may be so in this case.”
There was no mistaking the admiration with which the Colonel regarded
Fan. Jack saw it and drew a step nearer to her, while she answered
hotly, “Never! We are not Turks, and only a dog would suffer itself to
be fondled by the hand which had whipped it.” Then she added with a
laugh: “Don’t let us quarrel over spilled milk, but let me present to
you my friend, Lieut. Fullerton, Col. Errington.”
During the skirmish between the Colonel and Fan, I had mentally
contrasted the two men, Jack and the Colonel, between whose ages there
was a difference of several years. Both were tall and erect, with a
bearing which comes only from military discipline. By the majority of
people the Colonel would have been called the finer looking, as he was
the more _distingué_, with his polish and air of fashion and city
breeding. But to me he bore no comparison to Jack Fullerton, with his
honest face and kindly smile and eyes which met yours fearlessly. His
clothes were shabby and country made, it is true; his shoes were worn
and grey, and his hands were not as soft and white as those which the
Colonel had a trick of rubbing together as he talked, and on one of
which a small diamond was shining. But they were helpful hands, ready
always for service both to friend or foe, and in his heart no passions
had ever stirred like those which at times showed themselves on Col.
Errington’s face.
After the introduction the two men, who had fought against each other in
more than one battle, shook hands as cordially as if they had been old
friends and for a few moments chatted together pleasantly. Then, turning
to Fan, the Colonel explained that he had come to Petersburg on business
and that his sister Cornelia, who kept his house in Washington, had
accompanied him. Remembering his visit to our neighborhood a little more
than a year ago, and desirous to see the place again, he had suggested
to his sister that they drive out from Petersburg.
“We started early,” he said, “and have enjoyed ourselves immensely.
Cornie is delighted with your Virginia scenery. She is at the Golden
Horn, and if agreeable to you I will bring her to call.”
Both Fan and I gasped at the thought of so great a lady, as we felt sure
Miss Cornelia Errington must be, coming to call upon us. But we soon
rallied and said we should be pleased to see her, and then to my
amazement Fan added: “We would invite you to lunch if we were going to
have anything but potatoes, green corn, hoe-cake and grapes. We don’t
have very elaborate meals since you Yankees spoiled us.”
The Colonel took no notice of the last remark, but said: “Grapes,
hoe-cake, green corn and baked potatoes, the four things I like best in
all the culinary department, and so does Cornie; we’ll come. To say the
truth I did not much like the looks of the Golden Horn. What time do you
lunch?”
Fan told him, and then extended an invitation to Jack to lunch with us.
But he declined, and I could see a shadow on his face as he walked away
from the house, followed soon by the Colonel, who was going for his
sister.
“Fanny Hathern!” I exclaimed, when we were alone, “are you crazy to ask
those people here when you know we’ve nothing fit to offer them.”
“What is good enough for us is good enough for them,” Fan answered,
proudly, starting for the kitchen and a conference with Phyllis, while I
began to put our rooms in order for the expected visitors.
Cornelia Errington, whom her brother called Cornie, was a very handsome
woman of twenty-eight or thirty, but seemingly as cold as a block of
marble, except when she smiled. Then the whole expression of her face
changed as completely as if she had been another person. She was born in
New York, but had lived many years in Washington, where she
superintended her brother’s house. She was highly accomplished, had
traveled extensively, knew the best people everywhere, and was in every
sense a lady. She met us very graciously, and affected to be delighted
with our rambling old Virginia house; which she said was her ideal of a
planter’s home, with its great airy rooms, wide hall and broad piazzas.
“But my papa ain’t a planter, he’s a doctor and a gentleman,” Katy said.
She had been greatly impressed with the lady’s manner and dress and
diamond rings, and evidently wished to impress her in turn with her
father’s greatness. Drawing Katy to her and stroking her golden hair
Miss Errington replied, “I am sure he is a gentleman, whether he is a
doctor or a farmer, and you are a dear little creature. Was it you I
heard singing in the yard before lunch?”
Katy was always singing and so accustomed were we to it that we seldom
paid much attention, except sometimes to wonder if it were she or the
canary bird in its cage trilling so loud and clear. Now, however, we
remembered to have heard her imitating a mocking bird just before
Phyllis, with her red turban built up five or six inches higher than
usual, announced with a low courtesy that lunch was served. There was in
the room our old piano brought from Charleston by our mother and seldom
used for neither Fan nor I were very musical. Going up to it Miss
Errington ran her fingers up and down the keys in a way which showed
that she was mistress of the instrument.
“Shocking!” she said, involuntarily, then apologetically to Fan, “I beg
your pardon, but with such a voice in embryo as that I heard outside you
ought to have a better piano;” then to Katy, “Sing to me, child,
something, I don’t care what.”
Nothing could suit Katy better. She had often sang alone in school and
Sunday school, and striking her stage attitude, as Fan called it she
sang as I had never heard her sing before, soaring up and up until she
touched high C without the slightest effort or break in her voice.
“You will be a second Patti, you sing just as I have heard she sang when
a child,” Miss Errington said when Katy finished. Then, turning to us,
she continued: “Do you know there is a fortune in that voice. She must
have instruction; the best, too, there is to be had, and one day you
will be proud when she stands before thousands and holds them spellbound
as she has me, even with her simple songs.”
Miss Errington was evidently an enthusiast in music, but Fan cut her
short by saying scornfully, “Do you think a daughter of Dr. Hathern
would ever go on the stage? Never! We have not fallen so low as that,
poor as we are. I’d rather see her dead.”
She was greatly excited, and Miss Errington looked at her wonderingly,
while Katy pulled Fan’s dress and whispered, “What is it? What did I do?
Didn’t I sing well?”
“Yes, too well; never sing again,” Fan answered fiercely, and Katy
replied, half crying, “But I must; I can’t help it; it will come; it
would choke me if I didn’t.”
“Choke, then,” Fan said, while the Colonel, who had listened with an
expression, half cynical and half amused, on his face, now spoke and
said, “Quite a tempest in a teapot over nothing; Cornie is music mad,
and the child certainly has a wonderful voice for one so young.”
Just then a robin flew down upon a sprig of honeysuckle near the window
and began to trill its evening song; quick as thought Katy darted
through the door, and unmindful of Fan’s injunction never to sing again,
began to imitate the bird, which stopped a moment and poising itself
first on one foot and then upon the other looked around for the
fellow-songster it seemed to think was near it.
“I never heard anything like it,” Miss Errington said. “That talent must
be cultivated, but she must not strain her voice while growing. I see no
reason why she should not have as much a night as Patti, or if you
object so to the stage, there are the churches where she could command a
large salary.”
As she spoke her eyes wandered about the room and I felt sure they were
taking an inventory of our faded carpet and worn, old-fashioned
furniture. She seemed to me more and more like a woman accustomed to
dictate and to have her own way, and I could not rid myself of a feeling
that having once seen Katy she would not readily forget her. The songs
outside had ceased by this time; the robin had flown away, and the child
had disappeared. Col. Errington had Fan all to himself at one end of the
piazza to which we had repaired, and I was listening to a dissertation
from Miss Errington on the best method for removing stains and spots
from old carpets and dresses and feeling sure she had seen them in ours
and was taking this way to instruct me. We had heard the whistle of the
mail train from the east, and twenty minutes later Black Beauty went
galloping down the lane at one side of the house with Katy on his back,
bareheaded, with her fair hair blowing in the wind and her face turned
smilingly towards us as she passed. We were expecting a letter from
father and she was going to the Postoffice, as she often did on Black
Beauty, saddleless and sometimes bridleless, for she was a fearless
little rider and Black Beauty the most gentle of beasts.
“See, Cornie, that is the pony I told you about, the one some of my
rascally soldiers stole,” the Colonel said to his sister, who looked
admiringly after the horse and rider, saying, “Upon my word, she sits
the creature well, and without a saddle, too. She has more than one
accomplishment.”
“You will be advising us next to train her for a circus,” Fan said
sarcastically, but Miss Errington did not reply, and went on giving me
good advice until Katy came cantering back, holding a letter in her hand
and reining Beauty up to the side of the piazza.
Springing from his back and handing the letter to me she stood holding
the pony by the mane, while Miss Errington bent forward and began to
examine him with the eye of a connoisseur.
“Really,” she said to her brother, “he is a beauty and no mistake; I
should like him for my own when we go to our place in the country. Is he
yours?” and she looked at me.
I shook my head, and nodded towards Fan, to whom she said, “What will
you take for him?”
“He is not for sale,” Fan answered, decidedly, stepping down by the
horse and winding her arm around his neck.
The brother and sister, so much alike in looks, were also so far alike
in disposition that opposition only increased their determination to
succeed. In this instance Miss Errington was the more earnest of the two
and seemed resolved to carry her point and have Black Beauty whether we
were willing or not, and her brother seconded her wishes. Two hundred
dollars cash down in crisp greenbacks were finally offered, and I shall
never forget the look on Fan’s face as she put it down on Beauty’s neck,
thinking intently, as I well knew, of the many things we needed and
which two hundred dollars would buy. Of our worn furniture generally,
our house, from which the paint was gone, our shutters, unhinged and
loose, and more than all father’s darned and threadbare coats and
shocking hat, and our own dresses, made over so many times. Two hundred
dollars seemed a fortune, and Beauty was only a luxury. Father had his
saddle horse for visiting the few patients who lived beyond walking
distance, and Black Beauty was really more ornamental than useful to us.
This was the train of thought passing through her mind, while I watched
her curiously. Lifting her head at last she said proudly, with great
tears standing on her long lashes, “Next to father, Ann and Katy, I love
Black Beauty better than any living thing. You can see that we are poor
enough, made so by the war,” here her voice began to break, but she
steadied it and went on: “We need many things, but until poverty has a
firmer foothold in our house than it has now I cannot let Black Beauty
go. If a time comes when I must part with him I will let you know; I’d
rather you had him than any one, for I believe you would be kind to
him.”
Taking her arm from the horse’s neck she gave a peculiar whistle,
saying, “Go, Beauty, go.”
He understood her and went prancing down the rear lane towards his
pasture; sometimes with his heels in the air and sometimes his forefeet,
as if giving vent to his delight at having escaped some threatened
danger. I had thought Miss Errington cold and emotionless and was
surprised at the sudden transformation in her manner after this as she
talked to Fan, who was soon herself again, chatting gaily and repeating
ludicrous and exaggerated stories of the Colonel when he was our
unbidden guest and our place full of blue coats.
It was now five o’clock and Phyllis brought in the tea service for our
five o’clock tea, a custom Fan, who was extravagantly fond of tea, had
introduced in imitation of an English family recently come to town and
with whom we were on terms of intimacy. In our low financial state this
seemed to me a useless expenditure, but when I remonstrated Phyllis
silenced me by saying, “Lors, honey, what’s a pinch of tea and dust of
sugar, and don’t I bile de groun’s over in de mornin’ for my breakfast.
Let Miss Fanny ’lone. All de quality in England does it, dat big red
coat at Mass’r Harwood’s say, an’ ain’t we quality, if we is poor.”
So we had our five o’clock tea, in which Jack often joined us, while
other young people sometimes dropped in so that the occasion was usually
a very enjoyable one. This afternoon it was especially so. With the
appearance of the china and silver teapot Fan’s spirits increased. She
liked to be “quality” quite as well as Phyllis, and did the honors
gracefully, serving Miss Errington from a red Dresden cup which had been
one of our mother’s wedding presents, and giving the colonel a royal
Worcester, which belonged to Katy’s mother. Whether it was the pleasure
of being waited upon by Fan, or whether he was really so fond of tea,
the Colonel took so many cups that several “pinches” were added to the
pot, and the next morning I saw a bowl full of grounds on Phyllis’s
kitchen table, but knew by the fresh, pungent odor of old Hyson which
permeated the room that she was indulging in something more than a
“bilin’ over.” After our tea-drinking the carriage came for our guests
who expressed themselves as delighted with their call.
“Come to Washington and I will show you all the sights,” Miss Errington
said to us both; then to me, “Take care of Katy’s voice.”
Just what the Colonel said to Fan I did not hear. He was talking very
low and looking at her with his cold, steely eyes, which kindled as he
looked and brought a hot flush to her face.
“No, no. I don’t think I will,” I heard her say, and that was all.
After he was gone she stood watching the carriage until it was out of
sight; then said to me, “That man had the effrontery to ask me to write
to him, and he squeezed my hand so hard that it aches now; the old
idiot! I am going to wash it.”
Bouncing out of the room she ran into the arms of Jack Fullerton, who
came to say that all the grape baskets at the vines were full and to ask
if there were more to be filled. I am afraid we were rather a shiftless
lot; at least we were told so often enough in the future—coming on
apace. We were certainly thoughtless, and while visiting and
tea-drinking entirely forgot that the baskets must be ready that night
if they went on the early morning train to Richmond. But Jack had not
forgotten, and while I talked to Miss Errington and Fan flirted with the
Colonel, he worked steadily on, occasionally crushing a cluster of the
ripe fruit so hard that the juice spurted over his coat as he caught the
sound of Fan’s rippling laughter and the deep tones of the man whom he
began to dread as his rival. But Fan more than made amends now.
Seizing his arm with both hands and rubbing her cheek against it, she
exclaimed, “You dear old Jack, how good you are to us, doing our work,
while we entertain those people for whom we don’t care a pin; and don’t
you think, he asked me to correspond with him!”
“He did?” Jack said, indignantly, and Fan replied, “Yes, he did, and
he’s forty, if he’s a day.”
She knew he wasn’t forty, but she was trying to appease Jack, whose
brown eyes shone with delight as he looked at her, and who, when he
thought I did not see him, tried to raise her hand to his lips. But she
wrenched it away, and stood back from him, saying laughingly, “No, you
don’t. No man has ever kissed me except father and Charlie and the boy,
and never will until——”
She didn’t say when, but Jack did not seem at all disturbed, and that
night long after I was in bed he sat upon the piazza with her, and I
heard the low murmur of their voices and felt again the old pain in my
heart, and knew that I would give years of my life for the love for
which Fan cared so little.