COLONEL EGBERT CRAWFORD AND BELL CRAWFORD--SOME SPECULATIONS ON THE SPY
SYSTEM--JOSEPHINE HARRIS ON A RECONNOISSANCE, AND WHAT SHE SAW AND
HEARD.
At any other time than the present, before proceeding with the relation
of the events that transpired in the house on West 3-- Street after the
arrival of Colonel Egbert Crawford and Miss Bell Crawford,--it might be
both proper and politic to indulge in a disquisition on the meanness of
peeping and the general iniquity of the spy system. At any other
time--not now, when the country is deep in the horrors of a war that
principally seems to have been a failure on our side because we have not
"peeped" and "spied" enough.[2] The rebels have had the advantage of us
from the beginning,--not only because they were fighting comparatively
on their own ground and among a friendly population, but because they at
once applied the spy system when they began, and nosed out all our
secrets of army and cabinet, while we have neglected spying and
scouting, and made every important military movement a plunge in the
dark.
[Footnote 2: December 15th, 1862.]
Every military commander has blamed every other military commander for
inefficiency in this respect, and when brought to the test he has showed
that he himself had a _terra incognita_ to go over in making his first
advance. Quite a number of well-known people who were present may
remember a few words of conversation which took place on the Union
Course at one of the contests there between Princess and Flora Temple
(was it not?) in June, 1861. Schenck had just plunged a few regiments,
huddled up in railroad cars, into the mouths of the rebel batteries at
Vienna, as if he had been taking a contract to feed some great military
monster with victims as quickly and in as compact a form as possible.
The country was horrified over the slaughter, Ball's Bluff and
Fredericksburgh not having yet offered up their holocausts to dwarf it
by comparison. An officer of prominence under McDowell, then in command
of the Potomac Army under Scott, had come home on a furlough and was
present. Many inquiries were made of him by acquaintances, as to the
progress and prospects of the war. Among other things, the Vienna
blunder was called to his attention.
"Oh," said the officer--"that was one of the most stupid of
blunders--all owing to the fact that the ground had not been properly
reconnoitered beforehand! They seem to have had neither scouts nor
spies, and what else than failure _could_ be the result?"
"True," said one of the bystanders. "And the Potomac army--that is going
to advance pretty soon, as I hear--is _that_ all right in the respect
you have named?"
"What? _McDowell's_ army?" said the officer, contemptuously. "When you
catch _Irwin McDowell_ not knowing exactly what is ahead of him and
around him, you will catch a weasel asleep!"
So all the bystanders believed, and were confident accordingly. Four
weeks afterwards Irwin McDowell fought the battle of Manassas, the
result of which showed the most utter ignorance of the opposing
fortifications and forces in front, that had ever been recorded in any
history![3]
[Footnote 3: December, 1862.]
So much for the confidence that _one_ entertains, of being able to avoid
the blunders of the other! Not one of the predecessors of Scherazaide,
it is probable, went to the marriage bed of the Sultan without believing
that _she_ could fix the wavering love of the tyrant and avoid the fate
threatened for the morrow! And yet some hundreds of fair white bosoms
furnished a morning banquet to the fishes, before Scherazaide the Wise
succeeded in entangling the Sultan in the meshes of her golden speech!
It may be a little difficult to guess what this has to do with the
narration. Simply this--that one of the most amiable and fascinating of
women played what might have been called "a mean trick" on the occasion,
and there has seemed to exist some occasion for making her excuse before
relating the iniquity. Having settled that during the War for the Union
there has not been half enough of "spying," on the side of right,--and
having before us not only the examples of John Champe and Nathan Hale,
beloved of Washington, but of the two estimable young men not long
emerged from under the area steps in 5-- Street, let us dismiss the
contempt with which we have been wont to regard Paul Pry and Betty the
housemaid, listening at key-holes, in our favorite dramas, and look
mercifully upon the peccadilloes of Miss Josephine Harris.
Colonel Egbert Crawford, who entered the room of the invalid on that
occasion, was a tall and rather fine-looking man, with the least dash of
iron-gray in his hair and a decidedly soldierly bearing. He had dark
eyes, a little too small and not always direct in their glance, but only
close observers would have been able to make the latter discovery. Had
he been wise, he would have worn something more than the full moustache
and military side-whiskers, for the under lip and chin being close
shaven the play of the muscles of the lip, and its shape, were visible.
The lip was heavy and sullen, if not cruel; and any one who watched him
closely enough (close as Josephine Harris had sometimes been watching
him, say!) could see that the under lip had an almost constant twitching
motion, and that the hands, when unoccupied, were always opening and
shutting themselves much too often for a mind at ease. He was dressed in
the full regulation blue uniform, with fatigue-cap, in spite of the heat
of the weather, and with the eagle on shoulder and the red belts and
gilt hook at waist suggesting the sword that was to come some time or
other.
Miss Bell or Isabella Crawford, sister of Richard, who made her
appearance with the Colonel after her more or less successful search
for the peculiar shade of cerise ribbon,--demands a word of description,
and only a word. She was of medium height, well formed and rather plump,
with a pleasantly-moulded face and dark hair and eyes, undeniably
handsome and ladylike, but with something weak and languid about the
mouth, and indefinably creating the impression of a woman incapable of
being quite content with affairs as they came, unless they came very
pleasantly and fashionably, or of making any well-directed effort to
improve them. She was faultlessly dressed and irreproachably gloved, and
a close observer would have judged, after a minute inspection, that she
would be better at home in the pleasant idleness of a ball or an
opera-matinee than where she might be required either to do or to bear.
"A nice couple and belong together! Neither one of them good for
anything!" had more than once been Joe Harris' irreverent comment, when
looking at them as they entered or left carriage or ball room, a little
earlier in her acquaintance and when she had not yet enjoyed so many
opportunities for studying the peculiar character of Col. Egbert
Crawford. Just now she would have had her doubts about sacrificing even
the useless Bell to a man whom she herself began to dislike so much.
"How do you feel, brother?" asked the sister as she came in,--evidently
more as a matter of duty than because she felt any peculiar interest in
the answer.
"You look pale--your face is drawn--you seem to be in pain!" was the
observation of the Colonel, before the invalid could answer, and taking
the hand of the latter without seeming to notice the shudder with which
his touch was met.
"Perhaps so--cousin--Egbert--yes--I do _not_ feel quite so well as I
have done," muttered the invalid, who seemed all the while to be making
a violent effort to command face and feeling. "There was music in the
street, you know--I heard it and I suppose that it agitated me."
"Sorry! tut! tut! tut! You ought to be getting better by this time, I
should think!" said the Colonel, laying his finger on the pulse of
Richard and looking up at vacancy as a Doctor has the habit of doing
when he performs that very imposing (imposing upon _whom_?) operation.
What was there in his glance, that met the eye of Joe Harris, as he did
so--and gave her so plain a confirmation of her worst suspicions? What
power is it that lets in the daylight on our darkest wishes and worst
motives, just at the moment when we flatter ourselves that we have them
more carefully hidden away in darkness than ever before? Joe was still
at the window, where she had been joined by Bell, the latter already
half-forgetful of her sick brother and eager to show some astounding
purchase she had just made at one of the dry-goods palaces.
"There--go away, girls; you bother poor Richard with your chatter!" said
Colonel Egbert, affecting great cordiality and a little familiarity.
(The fact was, as may have been noticed, that Bell had spoken only five
words aloud and Joe not a word, since the two had entered.) "Richard is
not so well, I am afraid. I will sit by him awhile and you may go away
and gabble to your heart's content."
"Just as you like," answered Isabella, doubling up a half-unrolled
little package and preparing to go. "I have some little things to look
after up-stairs. Will you go with me, Joe? Of course you are not going
away until after dinner?"
"Humph! I do not know that I am going away at all!" said the wild girl,
her words very different from her thought at the moment. "You are such
nice people, and Dick is such an interesting invalid, and who
knows--well, I will not speculate any more about that, _in public_, just
yet! Yes, Bell, go up-stairs and attend to your finery; I am going down
into the basement to ask Norah for two slices of bread-and-butter and
the wing of a cold chicken!"
And away through the noiseless glass door buzzed Josephine, on her way
to the basement, followed by Isabella on her way to the inner penetralia
of the second floor; while Col. Egbert Crawford shied his fatigue-cap at
the desk and drew up his chair to the side of the sofa occupied by the
invalid. Isabella really went up-stairs, and for the purpose designated.
Shame for Joe Harris, it must be said that while she really descended to
the basement and made an inroad on Norah's larder to the extent of the
wing of cold chicken and _one_ slice of bread-and-butter, yet she
thrust both the edibles into a piece of paper and into her pocket, at
the imminent risk of greasing the latter convenient receptacle, and was
back again on the parlor floor within the space of one and a half
minutes by the little Geneva watch which she carried so bewitchingly at
her belt. If mischief and sad earnest can both be blended in the
expression of one face at one and the same time, they were so blended in
hers at that moment. What was in the wind and who was to suffer?--for
suffer somebody always did when Josey fairly started out on a campaign!
From the door leading to the basement, to that opening into the parlor
from the hall, she probably stepped lighter than she had ever before
done since playing blind-man's buff in early girlhood; and it is
doubtful whether that parlor door had ever before opened and shut with
so little noise, since the skilful hanger first oiled the plated hinges.
From the door to the back part of the room she went on tip-toe--the fact
cannot be denied,--little noise as her light shoes would have made on
the heavy velvet. We all have something of the cat about us--man and the
other animals; though the quality developes itself under different
circumstances. Pussy treads even softer than usual, when after the
coveted cream; that larger pussy, the tiger, steals lightly towards the
ambushed hunter who is to furnish him the next delicious meal; and
"Tarquin's ravishing strides" are undoubtedly a misnomer, for the Roman
must have been something more or less than man if he did not tip-toe his
sandals or cast them off altogether, when he stole towards the midnight
bed of Lucrece.
The cream for which Pussy Harris--shame upon her for that same!--was
just then making an adventurous foray,--was _a hearing of the
conversation which might take place between Richard Crawford and his
cousin_! That conversation she had determined to hear, at all hazards;
for what, she scarcely knew herself, but with an undefinable impression
that she must hear it--that (Jesuitically, and of course most horrible
doctrine!) the end might justify the otherwise indefensible means--and
that--that--in short, that she was going to do it, and this settled the
matter as well as finished up the reason!
The piano stood on the left, passing down from the parlor door towards
the rear of the room, and behind it was a small inlaid table covered
with books, and a large easy chair designed for lazy reading. Any person
in the chair would be within twelve inches of the glass doors and not
over ten feet from the two men at the sofa in the little back room.
Josephine distinctly heard, through the thin glass, the hum of their
voices as she approached the table, but not many of the words were
audible. Confound it!--she thought--her plan of sitting in the chair,
pretending to read as a safeguard against possible detection, and
overhearing by laying her head back against the door--this would never
do. Time was pressing--finesse must give way to boldness; and in the
sixteenth of a minute thereafter the sliding doors were softly parted by
less than half an inch of space--too little to be readily noticed from
the back room, which was the lighter of the two, and yet enough to see
through if necessary, (but she did not intend to look,) and to _hear_
through, which was the matter of first consequence. And there she
stood--an eaves-dropper of the first order--a flush of shame and of
half-conscious guilt on cheek and brow, and a wild, startled look in her
eyes, such as a hare might show when listening for the second bay of the
hound--liable to be caught by some one entering the parlor from the
hall, or by the Colonel taking a fancy to enter the room for any
purpose--and yet chained there, with her ear within an inch of the
opening, as if present happiness and eternal salvation had both depended
upon her keeping that position!
Could anything be more shameful?--anything more despicable? Was ever a
heroine so placed, even by English romancers or French dramatists? And
was not the long dissertation at the beginning of this chapter, to prove
the applicability of the spy system to war time, an absolute necessity?
What might have passed precedently, while she was looking after the
chicken and the bread-and-butter, Josephine had no means of divining. At
the time of her assuming her post of observation, Richard Crawford was
still lying back upon the sofa, and looking up; as he had been half an
hour before when she was herself conversing with him. If the spasms had
not ceased altogether, they were at least conquered by the will and
concealed from the eyes of the Colonel, as they had not been from hers.
The young girl thought she could detect, too, upon the face of the
invalid, a less hopeless look, and some evidence of more determined
insight in the glance, than she had marked for a considerable period.
Colonel Egbert Crawford was sitting with his chair drawn up reasonably
close in front of his cousin, and conversing eagerly with him, yet with
his face partially turned away most of the time, and not meeting his
gaze directly as most honest and earnest men do the observation of those
with whom they converse on important subjects. Perhaps that disposition
of the Colonel's face gave both his seen and his unseen listeners better
opportunities for close study of his expression than they might
otherwise have enjoyed.
"I am sorry to say that things are _not_ as we both wish them to be, at
West Falls," the young girl heard the Colonel say. "Of course I am not
less anxious than yourself to have everything arranged and the
property--"
"Ah, there is some _property_ involved, then! and at West Falls, of all
the places in the world!" commented the uninvited listener, speaking to
herself, and with her words very carefully kept between her teeth, as
was becoming under such circumstances--always provided there could be
anything "becoming" about the affair.
"Uncle John," the Colonel went on to say, "seems to have imbibed some
kind of singular prejudice against your mode of life in the city, if not
against you, and Mary--"
"Humph! there is a 'Mary'--a woman in the case, as well as the
property," commented the listener. "Little while as I have been here,
the thing already begins to grow interesting!"
"Well, Mary? what of her? Why does she answer my letters no more?" asked
the invalid, calming his voice by an evidently strong effort and
speaking as the Colonel paused for an instant. "Does she too begin to
share so bitterly in the--in the--"
"In the prejudice? I am sorry to say--yes," the Colonel went on, "though
I do not think that either of them could give a reason. I tried to probe
the matter a little when there, but the old gentleman answered me so
shortly that I had no excuse to go on; and Mary--"
"You did not say anything to _her_?" broke in the invalid, with the same
evident suppression in his voice.
"Of course not!" was the answer. "You know me, Richard, I hope, and know
that I would not have lost a chance of saying anything in your favor--"
"Trust _you_ for _that_!" was the mental comment of the listener.
"Wouldn't _you_ glorify _him_! Wouldn't _you_ make him blue and gold,
with gilt edges! I see you doing it!"
"--If I had any opportunity," concluded the Colonel.
"I should think not," said the invalid, his words so forced from between
his teeth that his interlocutor, had he been less absorbed in his own
calculations, must have noticed the difference from his usual manner.
"Richard Crawford, you are beginning to wake, for you know that man is
lying--I see it by your eyes!" was the comment of the young girl, this
time.
"I am going to West Falls again in a few days--that is, if we do not get
orders for Washington," continued the Colonel; "and if I have your
permission--as you are not likely to be well enough to go out even by
that time--I shall speak to both on the subject, as it would be the
world's pity if you should be thrown out of so fine a property and the
possession of a girl who I believe once loved you, by false reports,
or--"
"False reports? eh? who should have circulated false reports?" asked the
invalid, his face firing for a moment and his voice temporarily under
less command. But the momentary flush passed away, and it was only with
the querulous voice and petulant manner of sickness that he concluded:
"Eh, well, no matter; we will see about all that by-and-by, when I get
well."
"That is right--I am glad to hear you speak so hopefully," said the
Colonel. "All will be right, no doubt, when you _get well_." Did he or
did he not lay a peculiar stress on the two words, as the old jokers
used to do on a few others when they informed the boys that the statue
of St. Paul, in the niche in the front of St. Paul's church, always came
down and took a drink of water from the nearest pump, _when it heard the
clock strike twelve_? If there was such an emphasis, did Richard
Crawford hear and recognize it? That some one else in the immediate
vicinity did, and duly commented upon it, is beyond a question.
"You must modulate your voice better than that, Colonel Egbert Crawford,
before you go on the stage!" said the wild girl. "You think he is
dying--you mean he shall die--I have an impression that I did not come
here for nothing, after all!"
"And now," said the Colonel, rising, and taking out his watch, "I must
leave you. We have a recruiting meeting at ---- Hall at six, and I must
be there without fail. Oh," as if suddenly recollecting something
comparatively unimportant, that had been overlooked in the pressure of
more interesting matter--"I had nearly forgotten. Your bandage--is it
all right? I hope the Doctor and Bell have not found out the secret, so
as to laugh at what they would call our _superstition_. Shall I renew
it? I believe I have some of the preparation in one or another of my
pockets," feeling in one and then another, as if doubtful. "Ah, here it
is," and he took out from one of his pockets which he had hurriedly gone
over with his hands at least half a dozen of times, a small black box,
four or five inches in length and perhaps two in width by an inch deep.
Were Josephine Harris' eyes playing fantastic tricks with her on that
occasion; or did she see, as that little black box met the view, a
momentary repetition of the suffering spasm which had crossed the face
of Richard Crawford half an hour before, when she first suggested a
conflict of interests between them? At all events the spasm, if such it
was, passed away, and he merely answered, languidly:
"Yes, thank you, Egbert--yes, if you please."
At this stage of the proceedings, had Josephine Harris been a "real
lady," or had she possessed any well-defined sense of "propriety," she
would have left her post of observation on the instant. For though the
Colonel was partially between her and the patient, she saw him open the
little black box, take out a broad knife from his vest pocket, and then
proceed to other operations very improper for a young lady to witness.
She saw Richard Crawford unbutton his vest, a little assisted by the
Colonel. What followed she could not see, very fortunately. All that she
could make out, was that some sort of narrow white bandage seemed to
have been removed from the breast or stomach of the invalid--that the
Colonel took out a dark paste from the box with his knife, spread a
portion of it on the opened bandage, then re-folded it and assisted in
replacing it on the breast or stomach and re-arranging the disordered
clothing. This done, and the box put back into his pocket, he took his
cap and stooped down to shake hands with Richard; whereupon Josephine,
knowing that his way out would be through the parlor, shoved the two
doors together by a silent but very nervous movement, and managed to
escape from the room as silently, before the Colonel's hand had yet been
laid upon the glass door to open it.
There were half a dozen unoccupied rooms on the next floor, as she well
knew, and up the stairs and into one of these she bounded, her cheeks
still more aglow than they had been when she set out on her
"reconnoissance," and her eyes still more wild and startled, while a
strange tremor creeping at her heart told her that she had been witness
to much more than could yet be shaped into words or embodied even in
thought! Poor girl!--how her brain throbbed and how her heart beat like
ten thousand little trip-hammers!--the usual and very proper penalty
which we pay for an indiscretion!