For a fortnight matters seemed to go on swimmingly. Dinwiddie had, as he
thought, so managed as to bring the young people repeatedly together
without his wife's having a suspicion of what was in the wind; and when
Captain Penrose called on him at his counting-room and asked whether he
might pay his addresses to Barbara, Dinwiddie whirled round on his
office-stool, jumped down, and gave the young soldier a cordial hug.
"Certainly, my dear boy! Win her. She likes you. I like you. Everybody
likes you. Go ahead."
"It is proper to inform you, Sir," said the Captain, "that my income is
only twelve hundred a year; but"--
"Pshaw! What do I care for your income? There! Go and settle it with
Barbara. You'll find her alone, I think. Mrs. Dinwiddie, for the last
week, has been as busy as--as--we'll not say who--in a gale of wind.
Remember, 'Fortune favors the brave.' I'm obliged to go to Philadelphia
this afternoon. Good bye."
In a transport of delight, the Captain darted from the office, took a
carriage, and drove to Dinwiddie's.
"Yes, Miss Barbara is in. Walk up, Captain."
"What could be more propitious? Poets are not always in the right. Isn't
my love true love, and doesn't it run smooth?"
Wait awhile, my Captain! Perhaps Shakspeare was not so much in error,
after all.
Barbara's eyes plainly spoke her pleasure at seeing him. Adjoining the
drawing-room was a little boudoir filled with sunshine and flowers.
Into that she led him. They sat down on one of those snug contrivances
for a _tete-a-tete_, formed like the capital letter S. A fragrance as of
spring was shed through the room from the open door of a conservatory,
and a canary-bird near by was tuning his voice for a song.
"Barbara, do you know it is a whole fortnight that we have known each
other?"
She looked up at him inquiringly, for this was the third time he had
called her by her first name. He continued,--
"Barbara, I had a pleasant interview with your father this morning, and
what do you suppose I said to him?"
"Said it was a fine day, most like," returned Barbara, intent on
spreading out the leaves of a half-blown rose.
"No, I said not a word about the weather. I asked him if he would have
any objection to me for a son-in-law."
"And what did he reply?" asked Barbara, after a pause, during which her
little heart beat wildly.
"He told me I could settle it all with you."
"Indeed!" said Barbara. "But I never had any genius for settlements. I
always hated business."
"But this is a matter of pleasure, not of business," urged the Captain;
and then coming round to her side, and falling on one knee, he took her
unreluctant little hand, put it to his lips, and said, "May I not have
it for my own?"
Before she could reply, approaching steps were heard, and a youth of
some nineteen years, wearing the coarse pea-jacket, red baize shirt, and
glazed hat of a sailor, made his appearance.
"Culpepper!" exclaimed Barbara, while the Captain resumed his seat,--"is
it you?"
"Yes," replied the youth. "Sister, I have a few words to say to this man
privately. Please leave the room."
Master Culpepper was one of those nondescripts in social zoology,
classed by some philosophers as "cubs," and by others as
"hobbledehoys,"--"not a man, nor a boy, but a hobbledehoy." At school he
had been set down as a hopeless blockhead, and Barbara had severely
tasked her patience, trying to insinuate into his brains the little
knowledge of the ordinary branches of education which he possessed.
Consequently, though she was two years his junior, she had been
accustomed to regard herself as several years his senior, and to talk to
him as to the inferior he really was in everything but brute strength.
The cub's strong points, morally considered, were his family pride and
his hatred of "Abolitionism": in these he bade fair to surpass even the
maternal proficiency.
"Captain Penrose," said Barbara, "this is my brother Culpepper. Now,
Cully, go and play in the stable, that's a good boy."
"Do you know, Miss Barbara, that you are addressing a Major in the
Confederate army," replied Cully, folding his arms with a great effort
at dignity. "You will accost me hereafter as Major Dinwiddie, if you
please."
"Well, Major, this gentleman and myself are engaged, so"----
"Engaged!" howled Cully, with flashing eyes and vociferous speech.
"Engaged! And you dare to confess it to me, your brother! Engaged! And
to an Abolitionist,--a low-born Yankee! I cancel the engagement."
Barbara was too much roused by the cub's insolence to care to correct
the misapprehension which he had blundered into so precipitately, and
which she was now disposed to make a verity.
"Do you mean to tell me," demanded the cub, "that you are engaged to be
married to this man?"
"Yes, if he'll have me," said Barbara, putting forth her hand, which
Penrose eagerly seized, exclaiming,--
"Will I _have_ you, Barbara? Yes, as the best treasure life can offer."
And the first kiss was exchanged.
"Look here," said Cully, "this business must stop where it is. I demand,
Sir, that you leave the house with me this instant."
And then, as an amused expression flitted over the Captain's face, the
cub asked angrily,--
"Why do you smile, Sir?"
"Sir," said the Captain, "your sister and I have cause for smiling; we
are happy."
The cub took from his side-pocket a revolver and cocked it. Penrose
stood up, and Barbara threw herself between him and her brother.
"Coward!" cried the cub, "to allow yourself to be shielded by a woman!"
The cub, under the influence of Pro-slavery precedents, had really got
it into his thick head, that he, under the circumstances, was the man of
chivalry and valor, and that because the unarmed Penrose would not
present a fair shot to his revolver, that gentleman was chargeable with
an excess of poltroonery of which only a Yankee could be guilty.
The cub's heroics were ignominiously cut short. Suddenly his two arms
were seized from behind, while his pistol was wrenched from his grasp.
Two armed policemen, followed by Mr. Dinwiddie and Nero, had entered the
room.
"Am I betrayed?" exclaimed the cub.
"Blockhead!" said his father, "Fort Warren shall henceforth be your
school, till we knock a little common-sense into that obstinate skull of
yours."
"Fort Warren!" cried Cully, gnashing his teeth. "But I'm here on a
furlough, disguised as a sailor, you perceive. I promised to be back to
my regiment by Friday. Fort Warren?"
"Never!" shrieked Mrs. Dinwiddie, entering the room from the
conservatory, where she had been hiding. "Kill me, but don't compel my
son to break his pledge to the Confederate authority."
"Bah!" said Dinwiddie. "Officers, take the booby away."
Nero almost sank into his boots with excess of enjoyment, but abruptly
put on a very agonized face, and showed the whites of his eyes, as Mrs.
Dinwiddie looked towards him.
Cully submitted, though with an ill grace, to what was plainly a case of
necessity; but he turned, before crossing the threshold, and said to
Penrose,--
"I take everybody to witness, Sir, that I prohibit your having anything
further to do with my sister. The consequences be on your own head, if
you disobey."
"And I, Captain Penrose," said Dinwiddie, "take everybody to witness,
that, if, after having paid the court that you have to my daughter, you
now refuse to take her as your wife, the consequences, Sir, must be on
your own head."
"Sir," said the Captain, "that is the most agreeable threat that I can
imagine. I have already committed myself to your daughter."
"Ah! disgraceful!" groaned Mrs. Dinwiddie.
"What do you say to that, Cully?" said the father, as, with no very
gentle thrust, he replaced the glazed hat on the youth's head.
Cully kept silent. The recollection of certain debts which could be paid
only from the paternal purse inspired a prudent reserve.
"Take him now," said Dinwiddie to the officers; "give him as much
gingerbread as he wants, and charge it to me."
Cully and the officers disappeared.
"And now," resumed Dinwiddie, "it is time for me to drive to the cars.
Mrs. Dinwiddie, this is Captain Penrose, your future son-in-law. Treat
him kindly in my absence. Farewell."
The lady bowed not ungraciously, as Dinwiddie departed. She had been
meditating, during the last minute, a new flank movement in favor of
Colonel Pegram. She determined to change her base of operations. Barbara
was amazed, but, in her inexperience, was wholly unsuspicious of
strategy.
"Captain Penrose, you'll stop and take tea with us?" said the wily lady
of the house.
"I shall be charmed to," replied the Captain.
"Mother, let me kiss you!" cried the innocent Barbara, delighted at what
seemed the vanishing of the only obstacle to the betrothal of herself
and the Yankee officer.
There was an ambush in preparation, of which these two did not dream.