March had come,--the month of gale and bluster, sleet and storm, in
almost every section of our broad domain,--and March at Warrener was to
the full as blustering and conscienceless as in New England. There were
a few days of sunshine during the first week; then came a fortnight of
raging snow-storms. The cavalry troops, officers and men, went about
their stable-duties as usual, but, except for roll-call on the porch of
the barracks and for guard-mounting over at the guard-house, all
military exercise seemed suspended. This meant livelier times for the
ladies, however, as the officers were enabled to devote just so many
more hours a day to their entertainment. There were two or three hops a
week over in the big assembly-room, and there was some talk of getting
up a german in honor of Miss Travers, but the strained relations
existing between Mrs. Rayner and the ladies of other families at the
post made the matter difficult of accomplishment. There were bright
little luncheon-, dinner-, and tea-parties, where the young officers and
the younger ladies met every day; and, besides all this, despite the
fact that Mrs. Rayner had at first shown a fixed determination to
discuss the rights and wrongs of "the Hayne affair," as it was now
beginning to be termed, with all comers who belonged to the Riflers, it
had grown to be a very general thing for the youngsters to drop in at
her house at all hours of the day; but that was because there were
attractions there which outweighed her combativeness. Then Rayner
himself overheard some comments on the mistake she was making, and
forbade her discussing the subject with the officers even of her own
regiment. She was indignant, and demanded a reason. He would name no
names, but told her that he had heard enough to convince him she was
doing him more harm than good, and, if anything, contributing to the
turn of the tide in Hayne's favor. Then she felt outraged and utterly
misjudged. It was a critical time for her, and if deprived of the use of
her main weapon of offence and defence the battle was sure to go amiss.
Sorely against her inclination, she obeyed her lord, for, as has been
said, she was a loyal wife, and for the time being the baby became the
recipient of her undivided attention.
True to her declaration, she behaved so coldly and with such marked
distance of manner to the colonel and his wife when they met in society
immediately after the dinner that the colonel quietly told his wife she
need not give either dinner or reception in honor of Mrs. Rayner's
return. He would like to have her do something to welcome Miss Travers,
for he thought the girl had much of her father in her. He knew him well
in the old days before and during the war, and liked him. He liked her
looks and her sweet, unaffected, cheery manner. He liked the contrast
between her and her sister; for Miss Travers had listened in silence to
her sister's exposition of what her manner should be to the colonel and
his wife, and when they met she was bright and winsome. The colonel
stood and talked with her about her father, whom she could remember only
vaguely, but of whom she never tired of hearing; and that night Mrs.
Rayner rebuked her severely for her disloyalty to the captain, who had
given her a home.
But when Mrs. Rayner heard that Major and Mrs. Waldron had invited Mr.
Hayne to dine with them, and had invited to meet him two of the cavalry
officers and their wives, she was incensed beyond measure. She and Mrs.
Waldron had a brief talk, as a result of which Mrs. Rayner refused to
speak to Mrs. Waldron at the evening party given by Mrs. Stannard in
honor of her and her sister. It was this that brought on the crisis.
Whatever was said between the men was not told. Major Waldron and
Captain Rayner had a long consultation, and they took no one into their
confidence; but Mrs. Rayner obeyed her husband, went to Mrs. Waldron and
apologized for her rudeness, and then went with her sister and returned
the call of the colonel's wife; but she chose a bright afternoon, when
she knew well the lady was not at home.
She retired from the contest, apparently, as has been said, and took
much Christian consolation to herself from the fact that at so great a
sacrifice she was obeying her husband and doing the duty she owed to
him. In very truth, however, the contest was withdrawn from her by the
fact that for a week or more after his evening at the Waldrons' Mr.
Hayne did not reappear in garrison, and she had no cause to talk about
him. Officers visiting the house avoided mention of his name. Ladies of
the cavalry regiment calling upon Mrs. Rayner and Miss Travers
occasionally spoke of him and his devotion to the men and his bravery at
the fire, but rather as though they meant in a general way to compliment
the Riflers, not Mr. Hayne; and so she heard little of the man whose
existence was so sore a trial to her. What she would have said, what she
would have thought, had she known of the meeting between him and her
guarded Nellie, is beyond us to describe; but she never dreamed of such
a thing, and Miss Travers never dreamed of telling her,--for the
present, at least. Fortunately--or unfortunately--for the latter, it was
not so much of her relations with Mr. Hayne as of her relations with
half a dozen young bachelors that Mrs. Rayner speedily felt herself
compelled to complain. It was a blessed relief to the elder sister. Her
surcharged spirit was in sore need of an escape-valve. She was ready to
boil over in the mental ebullition consequent upon Mr. Hayne's reception
at the post, and with all the pent-up irritability which that episode
had generated she could not have contained herself and slept. But here
Miss Travers came to her relief. Her beauty, her winsome ways, her
unqualified delight in everything that was soldierly, speedily rendered
her vastly attractive to all the young officers in garrison. Graham and
Foster of the infantry, Merton, Webster, and Royce of the cavalry,
haunted the house at all manner of hours, and the captain bade them
welcome and urged them to come oftener and stay later, and told Mrs.
Rayner he wanted some kind of a supper or collation every night. He set
before his guests a good deal of wine, and drank a good deal more
himself than he had ever been known to do before, and they were keeping
very late hours at Rayner's, for, said the captain, "I don't care if
Nellie is engaged: she shall have a good time while she's here; and if
the boys know all about it,--goodness knows you've told them often
enough, Kate,--and they don't mind it, why, it's nobody's
business,--here, at least."
What Mr. Van Antwerp might think or care was another matter. Rayner
never saw him, and did not know him. He rather resented it that Van
Antwerp had never written to him and asked his consent. As Mrs. Rayner's
husband and Nellie's brother-in-law, it seemed to him he stood _in loco
parentis_; but Mrs. Rayner managed the whole thing herself, and he was
not even consulted. If anything, he rather enjoyed the contemplation of
Van Antwerp's fidgety frame of mind as described to him by Mrs. Rayner
about the time it became apparent to her that Nellie was enjoying the
attentions of which she was so general an object, and that the captain
was sitting up later and drinking more wine than was good for him. She
was aware that the very number of Nell's admirers would probably prevent
her becoming entangled with any one of them, but she needed something to
scold about, and eagerly pitched upon this. She knew well that she could
not comfort her husband in the anxiety that was gnawing at his
heart-strings, but she was jealous of comfort that might come to him
from any other source, and the Lethe of wine and jolly companionship she
dreaded most of all. Long, long before, she had induced him to promise
that he would never offer the young officers spirits in his house. She
would not prohibit wine at table, she said; but she never thought of
there coming a time when he himself would seek consolation in the glass
and make up in quantity what it lacked in alcoholic strength. He was
impatient of all reproof now, and would listen to no talk; but Nellie
was years her junior,--more years than she would admit except at such
times as these, when she meant to admonish; and Nellie had to take it.
Two weeks after their arrival at Warrener the burden of Mrs. Rayner's
song--morn, noon, and night--was, "What would Mr. Van Antwerp say if he
could but see this or hear that?"
Can any reader recall an instance where the cause of an absent lover was
benefited by the ceaseless warning in a woman's ear, "Remember, you're
engaged"? The hero of antiquity who caused himself to be attended by a
shadowing slave whispering ever and only, "Remember, thou art mortal,"
is a fine figure to contemplate--at this remote date. He, we are told,
admitted the need, submitted to the infliction. But lives there a woman
who will admit that she needs any instruction as to what her conduct
should be when the lord of her heart is away? Lives there a woman who,
submitting, because she cannot escape, to the constant reminder, "Thou
art engaged," will not resent it in her heart of hearts and possibly
revenge herself on the one alone whom she holds at her mercy? Left to
herself,--to her generosity, her conscience, her innate tenderness,--the
cause of the absent one will plead for itself, and, if it have even
faint foundation, hold its own. "With the best intentions in the world,"
many an excellent cause has been ruined by the injudicious urgings of a
mother; but to talk an engaged girl into mutiny, rely on the
infallibility of two women,--a married sister or a maiden aunt.
Just what Mr. Van Antwerp would have said could he have seen the
situation at Warrener is perhaps impossible to predict. Just what he did
say without seeing was, perhaps, the most unwise thing he could have
thought of: he urged Mrs. Rayner to keep reminding Nellie of her
promise. His had not been a life of unmixed joy. He was now nearly
thirty-five, and desperately in love with a pretty girl who had simply
bewitched him during the previous summer. It was not easy to approach
her then, he found, for her sister kept vigilant guard; but, once
satisfied of his high connections, his wealth, and his social standing,
the door was opened, and he was something more than welcomed, said the
gossips at the Surf House. What his past history had been, where and how
his life had been spent, were matters of less consequence, apparently,
than what he was now. He had been wild at college, as other boys had
been, she learned; he had tried the cattle-business in the West, she was
told; but there had been a quarrel with his father, a reconciliation, a
devoted mother, a long sojourn abroad,--Heidelberg,--a sudden summons to
return, the death of the father, and then the management of a valuable
estate fell to the son. There were other children, brother and sisters,
three in all, but Steven was the first-born and the mother's glory. She
was with him at the sea-side, and the first thing that moved Nellie
Travers to like him was his devotion to that white-haired woman who
seemed so happy in his care. Between that mother and Mrs. Rayner there
had speedily sprung up an acquaintance. She had vastly admired Nellie,
and during the first fortnight of their visit to the Surf House had
shown her many attentions. The illness of a daughter called her away,
and Mrs. Rayner announced that she, too, was going elsewhere, when Mr.
Van Antwerp himself returned, and Mrs. Rayner decided it was so late in
the season that they had better remain until it was time to go to town.
In October they spent a fortnight in the city, staying at the
Westminster, and he was assiduous in his attentions, taking them
everywhere, and lavishing flowers and bonbons upon Nell. Then Mrs. Van
Antwerp invited them to visit her at her own comfortable, old-fashioned
house down town, and Mrs. Rayner was eager to accept, but Nellie said
no; she would not do it: she could not accept Mr. Van Antwerp; she
liked, admired, and was attracted by him, but she felt that love him she
did not. He was devoted, but had tact and patience, and Mrs. Rayner at
last yielded to her demand and took her off in October to spend some
time in the interior of the State with relations of their mother, and
there, frequently, came Mr. Van Antwerp to see her and to urge his suit.
They were to have gone to Warrener immediately after the holidays, but
January came and Nellie had not surrendered. Another week in the city, a
long talk with the devoted old mother whose heart was so wrapped up in
her son's happiness and whose arms seemed yearning to enfold the lovely
girl, and Nellie was conquered. If not fully convinced of her love for
Mr. Van Antwerp, she was more than half in love with his mother. Her
promise was given, and then she seemed eager to get back to the
frontier which she had known and loved as a child. "I want to see the
mountains, the snow-peaks, the great rolling prairies, once more," she
said; and he had to consent. Man never urged more importunately than he
that the wedding should come off that very winter; but Nellie once more
said no; she could not and would not listen to an earlier date than the
summer to come.
No one on earth knew with what sore foreboding and misery he let her go.
It was something that Mrs. Rayner could not help remarking,--his
unconquerable aversion to every mention of the army and of his own
slight experience on the frontier. He would not talk of it even with
Nellie, who was an enthusiast and had spent two years of her girlhood
almost under the shadow of Laramie Peak and loved the mere mention of
the Wyoming streams and valleys. In her husband's name Mrs. Rayner had
urged him to drop his business early in the spring and come to them for
a visit. He declared it was utterly impossible. Every moment of his time
must be given to the settling of estate affairs, so that he could be a
free man in the summer. He meant to take his bride abroad immediately
and spend a year or more in Europe. These were details which were
industriously circulated by Mrs. Rayner and speedily became garrison
property. It seemed to the men that in bringing her sister there engaged
she had violated all precedent to begin with, and in this instance, at
least, there was general complaint. Mr. Blake said it reminded him of
his early boyhood, when they used to take him to the great toy-stores at
Christmas: "Look all you like, long for it as much as you please, but
don't touch." Merton and Royce, of the cavalry, said it was simply a
challenge to any better fellow to cut in and cut out the Knickerbocker;
and, to do them justice, they did their best to carry out their theory.
Both they and their comrades of the Riflers were assiduous in their
attentions to Miss Travers, and other ladies, less favored, made
acrimonious comment in consequence. A maiden sister of one of the
veteran captains in the ----th, a damsel whose stern asceticism of
character was reflected in her features and grimly illustrated in her
dress, was moved to censure of her more attractive neighbor. "If I had
given my heart to a gentleman," said she, and her manner was indicative
of the long struggle which such a bestowal would cost both him and her,
"nothing on earth would induce _me_ to accept attentions from any one
else, not if _he_ were millions of miles away."
But Nellie Travers was "accepting attentions" with laughing grace and
enjoying the society of these young fellows immensely. The house would
have been gloomy without her and "the boys," Rayner was prompt to admit,
for he was ill at ease and sorely worried, while his inflammable Kate
was fuming over the situation of her husband's affairs. Under ordinary
circumstances she would have seen very little to object to so long as
Nellie showed no preference for any one of her admirers at Warrener, and
unless peevish or perturbed in spirit would have made little allusion to
it. As matters stood, however, she was in a most querulous and excitable
mood: she could not rail at the real cause of her misery, and so,
woman-like, she was thankful for a pretext for uncorking the vials of
her wrath on somebody or something else. If the young matrons in
garrison who, with the two or three visiting maidens, were disposed to
rebel at Miss Nell's apparent absorption of all the available cavaliers
at the post, and call her a too lucky girl, could but have heard Mrs.
Rayner's nightly tirades and hourly rebukes, they might have realized
that here, as elsewhere, the rose had its stinging thorns. As for Miss
Travers, she confounded her sister by taking it all very submissively
and attempting no defence. Possibly conscience was telling her that she
deserved more than she was getting, or than she would be likely to get
until her sister heard of the adventure with Mr. Hayne.
"By the way," said Mr. Royce one evening as they were stamping off the
snow and removing their heavy wraps in Rayner's hall-way after a series
of garrison calls, "Mrs. Waldron says she expects you to play for her
to-morrow afternoon, Miss Travers. Of course it will be my luck to be at
stables."
"You hear better music every afternoon than I can give you, Mr. Royce."
"Where, pray?" asked Mrs. Rayner, turning quickly upon them.
Mr. Royce hesitated, and--with shame be it said--allowed Miss Travers to
meet the question:
"At Mr. Hayne's, Kate."
There was the same awkward silence that always followed the mention of
Hayne's name. Mrs. Rayner looked annoyed. It was evident that she wanted
more information,--wanted to ask, but was restrained. Royce determined
to be outspoken.
"Several of us have got quite in the way of stopping there on our way
from afternoon stables," he said, very quietly. "Mr. Hayne has his
piano now, and has nearly recovered the full use of his eyes. He plays
well."
Mrs. Rayner turned about once more, and, without saying so much as
good-night, went heavily up-stairs, leaving her escort to share with Mr.
Royce such welcome as the captain was ready to accord them. If forbidden
to talk on the subject nearest her heart, she would not speak at all.
She would have banged her door, but that would have waked baby. It stung
her to the quick to know that the cavalry officers were daily visitors
at Mr. Hayne's quarters. It was little comfort to know that the infantry
officers did not go, for she and they both knew that, except Major
Waldron, no one of their number was welcome under that roof unless he
would voluntarily come forward and say, "I believe you innocent." She
felt that but for the stand made by Hayne himself most of their number
would have received him into comradeship again by this time, and she
could hardly sleep that night from thinking over what she had heard.
But could she have seen the figure that was slinking in the snow at the
rear door of Hayne's quarters that very evening, peering into the
lighted rooms, and at last, after many an irresolute turn, knocking
timidly for admission and then hiding behind the corner of the shed
until Sam came and poked his pig-tailed head out into the wintry
darkness in wondering effort to find the visitor, she would not have
slept at all.
It was poor Clancy, once more mooning about the garrison and up to his
old tricks. Clancy had been drinking; but he wanted to know, "could he
spake with the lieutenant?"