THE INVALID AND THE WILD MADONNA--A BRAVE HEART BEATING THE BARS OF ITS
PRISON--ODD COMFORT AND DOUBTFUL CONSOLATION--THE DAWN OF A TERRIBLE
SUSPICION.
In the neat and tastefully-furnished back parlor of a house on West
3--th Street, one afternoon, at very nearly the same period mentioned in
a previous chapter--the latter part of June, 1862--lay on the sofa a
young man, of perhaps twenty-five, with a countenance that would have
been strikingly handsome if it had not been drawn and attenuated by
suffering. He had a well-chiselled face, clear blue eyes, and
light-brown, curling hair, closely shaven of beard or moustache; still
showing, spite of sickness, the manly nature that lay within, and which
always makes, when it radiates outward, a pleasanter picture for the eye
of a true woman than can be supplied by even high health and the most
perfect physical beauty without it. The limbs, extended upon the sofa as
he lay, though a little attenuated like the face, showed that they were
well-formed and athletic. And the hand, drooping over the side of the
couch, though too thinly white to suggest a love-pressure, indicated, in
the taper of the fingers, and the fine round of the back, without any
coarse protruding knuckles, what a handsome little Napoleonic hand it
must have been when the owner was in full health and the life-blood
coursing freely through his veins.
By the appearance of the little back parlor, it seemed to be half
sick-room and half study, for, in addition to the sofa and an
easy-chair, there was a well-filled book-case, in walnut, and a
writing-desk open on a small table, with blank paper, some manuscripts,
pens, ink, and a book or two lying open, as if the occupant had been
writing not long before, and lain down from pain and weariness, without
waiting to replace his writing materials in their proper position.
Through the open door of a small room adjoining, some pieces of bed-room
furniture could be seen, showing that when the invalid wished to find
more complete repose, he could do so without painful removal to any
distance. Close by his side lay a daily newspaper fallen upon the floor,
with the sensation-headings of war-time displayed at the top of one of
the columns; and in his hand he held a palm-leaf fan, with which he had
apparently been trying to wave off some portion of the sultry heat of
the afternoon. At length the fan grew still, the weak hand fell down on
his breast, and he seemed to be dropping away into quiet slumber.
Suddenly a strain of martial music floated through the open windows--at
first low and gentle, then bursting loud and clear, with the rattle of
drums, the screaming of reeds and the clash of cymbals, as a band came
nearer along the avenue and approached the corner of the street. The
invalid's face lit up--he made a motion to rise hastily from the sofa--a
sudden spasm of pain crossed his countenance, and he fell back
exhausted, with a slight cry which instantly brought the sound of
sliding doors between the little back parlor and the large room that
adjoined it in front, and sent a pair of light feet flying into the
room.
"Trying to get up again, eh, old fellow? I know you! Couldn't lie still
when that music was going by! Now you great big boy, you ought to know
better!" Such were the words with which the young girl greeted the
sufferer, as she dropped down on her knees by the side of the sofa and
took one of his hands in both hers.
"Yes, Joe, I _was_ trying to get up and listen to the music," was the
reply. "You know how I have always loved the brass band, and how it
seems to rack my frame even worse than disease, just now! See what a
wreck I am, when I cannot even attempt to rise from the sofa without
screaming in that manner and alarming the house!"
"Oh, never mind alarming the house!" replied the girl, whom he had
called "Joe," the very convenient and popular abbreviation of the
Christian name of Miss Josephine Harris. She was, it may be said here,
an almost every-day visitor from the house of her widowed mother, a lady
in very comfortable circumstances, living not many blocks away up-town
from the residence of the Crawfords. In ordinary seasons Joe and her
mother (the young lady is made to precede the other, advisedly)--had a
habit of getting away from the city, early in the season, to one of the
watering-places or some cool retreat in the country; but this year
perhaps the illness of Richard Crawford had something to do with
retaining at least the daughter late in town. "The house can get along
well enough--it is _you_ that is to be taken care of, and I should like
to know, Dick Crawford, how any body is going to do it if you do not
manage to moderate your transports and lie still when you have not
strength to do any thing else!"
How her tongue ran on, and what a tongue she had! Not a bit of sting in
it, except when she was fully aroused to anger, and then it would
suddenly develope the faculty of morally flaying her victim alive, with
words of indignation that tumbled over each other without calculation or
order, in the effort to escape the tears of vexation that were sure to
follow close behind. At such moments Joe's tongue was actually cruel,
though without premeditation; at other times it was simply a very rapid
and noisy tongue, that spoke very sweet words most of the time and
exercised an influence all around it that no one could attempt to
describe. But perhaps the tongue was not alone concerned in the matter.
There may have been something in the rather tall and lithe form--the
brown cheek with a dash of color shining through it the moment she was
in the least degree warmed or excited--the eyes dark but sunny, wavering
between hazel brown and Irish gray, and the most difficult eyes in the
world to look into and yet keep your head--the profile uneven and
partially spoiled by the nose being decidedly pert, retrousse and too
small for the other features--the pouting red lips that never seemed to
fade and grow pale as the lips of so many American women do before one
half their sweetness has been extracted by the human bee--the wealth of
glossy black hair, coming down on the low forehead and plainly swept
back in the Madonna fashion over a face that otherwise had the purity
and goodness of the Madonna in it, but very little of her
devotion,--perhaps there was something in all this, besides the
influence of her flood-tide of language, to make Josephine Harris the
delight, the botheration and the absolute tyrant of more than half the
persons with whom she was thrown in contact. Perhaps there was even more
than all, to those with whom she came into closer intercourse, in the
breath that always seemed as if it came over a bank of over-ripe
strawberries dying in the sun, late in summer--and that intoxicated with
its aroma as rare old wine does with its flavor.
It is not difficult to believe (par parenthese) that the pearls and
diamonds that dropped from the mouth of the good little princess in the
old fairy story, every time she opened the ruby portals of her lips,
dissolved themselves into air and came out in breath suggestive of
spice-fields and orange-groves, and that the toads and scorpions falling
from the mouth of her wicked sister manifested themselves in a
corresponding rank and fetid odor. So bear with us, lady of the fevered
breath, if we take the privilege of ago and long sight to drink in your
flood of pleasant wisdom from a distance; and think not your lover
overbold, Edie of the Red Lips, if he bends so near you when you speak,
that the waves of brown and the curls of black even nestle together!
"Another sermon, eh, Joseph?" said the invalid, trying to smile and
apparently soothed away from his pain by the very presence of the young
girl. "Another sermon just because I cannot _always_ remember that I am
a poor miserable wreck!"
"Miserable fiddlestick!" said Joe, smoothing down his hair with both
hands and accidentally stooping down so low that her lips came near
enough to his forehead to breathe on it and send a pleasant creeping
chill to the very tips of his toes. "I read you sermons, as you call
them, because you are very impatient and very imprudent, and because I
really have no one but yourself who is tied down so as not to be able to
run away when I begin preaching. Don't you see that?"
"Yes, I do!" said the invalid, whom she had unconsciously introduced to
us in calling him Dick Crawford--"I see!" and his face grew into a
transient smile in spite of himself. "But where is my sister, and what
was the music?"
"Two questions at once, like all the men!" the saucy girl answered. "But
go ahead, for asking questions won't hurt your rheumatism. Bell has gone
out shopping, I believe. She discovered an hour ago that there was a
shade of cerise ribbon somewhere or other that she had not managed to
get hold of, and of course she ordered the carriage at once and posted
after it. As for the music--oh, the music was a brass band accompanying
the One Hundred and Ninetieth Regiment. They are going to leave
to-morrow, and they came up the avenue to receive a set of colors from
Mrs. Pearl Dowlas, the ugly old woman with all that brown-stone
incumbrance and three flags in the windows, round the corner."
"Going to-morrow!" said the invalid, and the old pained expression came
back to his face. "Going to-morrow!--everybody is going!--and I lie here
like a crushed worm, unable to move from my couch, useless to myself or
to any one else, when the country is calling upon all her children to
aid her! Pest on it! I would trade life, hopes, brains if I have any,
every thing, for a sound body to-day!"
"And make a great fool of yourself in doing so!" was the flattering
response of Josephine. "Now I suppose that music and my gabble have
started the mill, and we shall have nothing else during the rest of the
day than the same old weepings and wailings and gnashings of teeth. Just
as if, because a war exists, there was nothing else in the world to do
but to go to the war! Just as if we did not require some attention paid
to the needs of the country at home, as well as on the battle-field!
Just as if we did not need that the trade, and the literature--yes, the
_literature_ of the country--should be sustained."
"Pshaw!" said Crawford, impatiently, and making an effort to turn over,
with his face to the wall.
"No you don't, old fellow!" cried the young girl, exercising the little
restraint that was necessary. "You don't get away from me in that
manner. I will stop your grumbling before I have done with you, by a
remedy a little worse than the disease--plenty of my own gabble! I said
literature--do you see that desk littered with papers, you ungrateful
wretch?" (It will be seen that Josephine Harris had a habit of using
strong Saxon words, as well as some that were "fast," not to say
bordering upon popular slang; and the reader may as well be horrified
with her, and get over it, first as last.) "You have sent out from that
desk words that have done more good to the patriotic cause than the
raising of ten regiments, and yet you have not the grace to thank God
for giving you the strength to do _that_! You _dare_ to lie there and
call yourself useless! Out upon you--I am ashamed of you!"
"Words are not deeds!" said the young man, again moving uneasily.
"Words, when they come from the furnace of a true heart, shape
themselves into deeds in others," was the reply.
"In the days of the Revolution, my ancestors did their deeds, instead of
shaping them," said the invalid. "Two of them dead in the Old Sugar
House and the prison ships at the Wallabout, and another crippled for
life at Saratoga, bore witness that patriotism with them was no hollow
pretence. And look at the present. My brother John going through battle
after battle with Duryea's Zouaves, in Virginia, like a brave man and a
soldier; and I lying helpless here, while my cousin Egbert has his
regiment almost raised."
"_Almost_," said the young girl, in a tone which showed that she did not
think he had quite accomplished that laudable endeavor.
"And will be going down directly," Crawford continued.
"Yes, going down, clear down, that is if he ever starts!" commented
saucy Josephine.
"Yes, I remember, you do not like my cousin Egbert," said the invalid.
"I do not like humbugs anywhere!" sharply said the young girl. "Why
don't you call him 'Eg.,' as you do sometimes? Then I should be tempted
to make a few bad puns, and to say that in my opinion he is not a 'good
egg,' but a 'hard egg,' if not a 'bad egg,' and that I hope if he ever
gets among the Virginia sands he will come out a 'roast egg' or a
'cracked' one!"
"Shame, Joe, what do you mean!" said the invalid, really pained by her
flippancy.
"Mean? why, mean what I say!" was the answer, "and that is a good deal
more than most of the people do now-a-days. Your cousin Egbert is a big
humbug! I never see him strutting about, with his shoulder-straps and
his red sword-belts, but I have a mind to take the first off his
shoulders, with claws like a cat, and use the second to strap him with,
like a truant school-boy!"
"Why, Josephine, Josephine!" cried the invalid, still more surprised.
"Don't stop me!" said the wild girl. "I have intended for some time to
say this to you, but you have been very sick, and somehow I could not
begin the conversation. Now that it is begun, I am going to out with it,
if it costs a lawsuit. I do not like that man, nor would you if you
could know him half as well as I do. In the first place, I believe he is
a coward, and worth no more to the cause than just what his gimcracks
would sell for."
"Shame!" again said the invalid. "Josephine, you are really going too
far. If he was a coward, why would he have placed himself in a position
which must by-and-by be one of danger?
"Bah!" said the young girl, "I do not see that he has done any thing of
the kind. Officers have the right of resigning, and some of them have
the habit of skulking, I have heard. I will bet my best bonnet against
your old worn-out slippers there, that if ever brought to the test your
shoulder-strapped cousin would do one or the other! Besides--" and here
she paused.
"Well, what is the 'besides'?" asked the young man, a little
impatiently.
"Besides, he hates you like a rattlesnake, and would do any thing in his
power to get you out of his way," the young girl said, giving out the
words as if she was performing a painful operation and only doing it
under a strong sense of duty. "Tell me: is there any point in which your
interests would run counter to each other? I have seen daggers and
poison in that man's eyes when looking at you, and when you have not
observed him!"
"Interests?--in conflict? Good heavens, what are you saying, Josephine?
Hate me--he?" and a terrible shadow passed over the face of the invalid.
A moment before he had been unable to raise himself from the sofa, or
bear the least motion, without agony. Now, in the excitement produced by
her words and by some horrible doubt which they seemed to have awakened,
he forgot the pain, or did not heed it, and struggled up to a sitting
posture, his hands to his head and the whole expression of his face
changed to one of intense mental suffering.
"Mr. Crawford--Dick!" the young girl cried in alarm; "what has
happened--what have I said?--tell me: are you in sudden pain?" and she
threw her arm around him to sustain him in his sitting position.
"Do not ask me!" he said, hoarsely. "I cannot speak just now, but you
have agitated me very much. My cousin--in his way--heavens!"
At this moment, and when the young girl, frightened at what she had
done, scarcely dared to speak another word, and was altogether at a loss
what to do, there was a rattle of carriage wheels at the door, the sound
of a latch-key applied to the lock, then steps and voices in the hall.
"Talk of the Prince of Darkness, and he is not very far from your
elbow!" said Josephine, whose ears were sharper than those of the
invalid. "I hear Bell's voice and that of the puissant and patriotic
Colonel Egbert Crawford, who has evidently come home with her."
"_His_ voice with hers, after what you have said!" the invalid gasped.
"Lay me down quick, and hurt me as little as possible. I have not
strength to sit up, and this pain--this pain--it drives me to
distraction!" One hand was still at his head, and the other had fallen,
whether accidentally or otherwise, over his heart. Whether the one hand
or the other covered the pain of which he had that moment spoken, was
difficult to tell. One thing was certain--that something in the last few
moments had broken him down in health and spirits, even more than his
long previous sickness. What was it?
Josephine, ever an excellent nurse in sickness (spite of her rapid
tongue), and the one of all a crowd who was certain to have the head of
the fainted woman on her breast, and her hands chafing the pallid
temples,--assisted the invalid back to his recumbent position as quickly
and as easily as possible; and at the moment when she had once more
arranged the pillow under his head on the sofa, the glass doors between
the front and back parlors slid gently apart, and Isabel Crawford and
her cousin the Colonel, who had lately been the subject of so much
speculation and agitation, approached the sofa of the rheumatic. His
eyes were closed, and Josephine was standing at the open window with its
closed blinds. Still she saw what the new-comers did not--a quick,
convulsive shudder pass over the recumbent form, and the hand that lay
on his heart close with a nervous spasm, as if it was crushing something
hateful and dangerous that lay within it.
But the personal appearance of the two who had just entered, and the
after events of that interview, must be recorded in a subsequent
chapter.