Berkley's first letter to her was written during that week of
lovely weather, the first week in March. The birds never sang more
deliriously, the regimental bands never played more gaily; every
camp was astir in the warm sunshine with companies, regiments,
brigades, or divisions drilling.
At the ceremonies of guard mount and dress parade the country was
thronged with visitors from Washington, ladies in gay gowns and
scarfs, Congressmen in silk hats and chokers, apparently forgetful
of their undignified role in the late affair at Bull Run--even
children with black mammies in scarlet turbans and white wool
dresses came to watch a great army limbering up after a winter of
inaction.
He wrote to her:
"Dearest, it has been utterly impossible for me to obtain leave of
absence and a pass to go as far as the Farm Hospital. I tried to
run the guard twice, but had to give it up. I'm going to try again
as soon as there seems any kind of a chance.
"We have moved our camp. Why, heaven knows. If our general
understood what cavalry is for we would have been out long
ago--miles from here--if to do nothing more than make a few maps
which, it seems, our august leaders entirely lack.
"During the night the order came: 'This division will move at four
o'clock in the morning with two days' rations.' All night long we
were at work with axe and hammer, tearing down quarters, packing
stores, and loading our waggons.
"We have an absurd number of waggons. There is an infantry
regiment camped near us that has a train of one hundred and
thirty-six-mule teams to transport its household goods. It's the
77th New York,
"The next morning the sun rose on our army in motion. You say that
I am a scoffer. I didn't scoff at that spectacle. We were on
Flint Hill; and, as far as we could see around us, the whole world
was fairly crawling with troops. Over them a rainbow hung. Later
it rained, as you know.
"I'm wet, Ailsa. The army for the first time is under shelter
tents. The Sibley wall tents and wedge tents are luxuries of the
past for officers and men alike.
"The army--that is, the bulk of it--camped at five. We--the
cavalry--went on to see what we could see around Centreville; but
the rebels had burned it, so we came back here where we don't
belong--a thousand useless men armed with a thousand useless
weapons. Because, dear, our lances are foolish things, picturesque
but utterly unsuited to warfare in such a country as this.
"You see, I've become the sort of an ass who is storing up
information and solving vast and intricate problems in order to be
kind to my superiors when, struck with panic at their own tardily
discovered incapacity, they rush to me in a body to ask me how to
do it.
"Rush's Lancers are encamped near you now; our regiment is not far
from them. If I can run the guard I'll do it. I'm longing to see
you, dear.
"I've written to Celia, as you know, so she won't be too much
astonished if I sneak into the gallery some night.
"I've seen a lot of Zouaves, the 5th, 9th, 10th, and other
regiments, but not the 3rd. What a mark they make of themselves in
their scarlet and blue. Hawkins' regiment, the 9th, is less
conspicuous, wearing only the red headgear and facings, but
Duryea's regiment is a sight! A magnificent one from the
spectacular stand-point, but the regiments in blue stand a better
chance of being missed by the rebel riflemen. I certainly wish
Colonel Craig's Zouaves weren't attired like tropical butterflies.
But for heaven's sake don't say this to Celia.
"Well, you see, I betray the cloven hoof of fear, even when I write
you. It's a good thing that I know I am naturally a coward;
because I may learn to be so ashamed of my legs that I'll never run
at all, either way.
"Dear, I'm too honest with you to make promises, and far too
intelligent not to know that when people begin shooting at each
other somebody is likely to get hit. It is instinctive in me to
avoid mutilation and extemporary death if I can do it. I realise
what it means when the air is full of singing, buzzing noises; when
twigs and branches begin to fall and rattle on my cap and saddle;
when weeds and dead grass are snipped off short beside me; when
every mud puddle is starred and splashed; when whack! smack! whack!
on the stones come flights of these things you hear about, and
hear, and never see. And--it scares me.
"But I'm trying to figure out that, first, I am safer if I do what
my superiors tell me to do; second, that it's a dog's life anyway;
third, that it's good enough for me, so why run away from it?
"Some day some of these Johnnies will scare me so that I'll start
after them. There's no fury like a man thoroughly frightened.
"Nobody has yet been hurt in any of the lancer regiments except one
of Rush's men, who got tangled up in the woods and wounded himself
with his own lance.
"Oh, these lances! And oh, the cavalry! And, alas! a general who
doesn't know how to use his cavalry.
"No sooner does a cavalry regiment arrive than, bang! it's split up
into troops--a troop to escort General A., another to gallop after
General B., another to sit around headquarters while General C.
dozes after dinner! And, if it's not split up, it's detailed
bodily on some fool's job instead of being packed off under a line
officer to find out what is happening just beyond the end of the
commander's nose.
"The visitors like to see us drill--like to see us charge, red
pennons flying, lances at rest. I like to see Rush's Lancers, too.
But, all the same, sometimes when we go riding gaily down the road,
some of those dingy, sunburnt Western regiments who have been too
busy fighting to black their shoes line up along the road and
repeat, monotonously:
"'Who-ever-saw-a-dead-cavalryman?'
"It isn't what they say, Ailsa, it's the expression of their dirty
faces that turns me red, sometimes, and sometimes incites me to
wild mirth.
"I'm writing this squatted under my 'tente d'abri.' General
McClellan, with a preposterous staff the size of a small brigade,
has just passed at a terrific gallop--a handsome, mild-eyed man who
has made us into an army, and who ornaments headquarters with an
entire squadron of Claymore's 20th Dragoons and one of our own 8th
Lancers. Well, some day he'll come to me and say: 'Ormond, I
understand that there is only one man in the entire army fit to
command it. Accept this cocked hat.'
"That detail would suit me, dear. I could get behind the casemates
of Monroe and issue orders. I was cut out to sit in a good, thick
casemate and bring this cruel war to an end.
"A terribly funny thing happened at Alexandria. A raw infantry
regiment was camped near the seminary, and had managed to flounder
through guard mount. The sentinels on duty kept a sharp lookout
and turned out the guard every time a holiday nigger hove in sight;
and sentinels and guard and officer were getting awfully tired of
their mistakes; and the day was hot, and the sentinels grew sleepy.
"Then one sentry, dozing awake, happened to turn and glance toward
the woods; and out of it, over the soft forest soil, and already
nearly on top of him, came a magnificent cavalcade at full
gallop--the President, and Generals McClellan and Benjamin Butler
leading.
"Horror paralyzed him, then he ran toward the guard house,
shrieking at the top of his lungs:
"'Great God! Turn out the guard! Here comes Old Abe and Little
Mac and Beast Butler!'
"And that's all the camp gossip and personal scandal that I have to
relate to you, dear.
"I'll run the guard if I can, so help me Moses!
"And I am happier than I have ever been in all my life. If I don't
run under fire you have promised not to stop loving me. That is
the bargain, remember.
"Here comes your late lamented. I'm no favorite of his, nor he of
mine. He did me a silly trick the other day--had me up before the
Colonel because he said that it had been reported to him that I had
enlisted under an assumed name.
"I had met the Colonel. He looked at me and said:
"'Is Ormond your name?'
[Illustration: "'Is Ormond your name?'"]
"I said: 'It is, partly.'
"He said: 'Then it is sufficient to fight under.'
"Ailsa, I am going to tell you something. It has to do with me, as
you know me, and it has to do with Colonel Arran.
"I'm afraid I'm going to hurt you; but I'm also afraid it will be
necessary.
"Colonel Arran is your friend. But, Ailsa, I am his implacable
enemy. Had I dreamed for one moment that the Westchester Horse was
to become the 10th troop of Arran's Lancers, I would never have
joined it.
"It was a bitter dose for me to swallow when my company was sworn
into the United States service under this man.
"Since, I have taken the matter philosophically. He has not
annoyed me, except by being alive on earth. He showed a certain
primitive decency in not recognizing me when he might have done it
in a very disagreeable fashion. I think he was absolutely
astonished to see me there; but he never winked an eyelash. I give
the devil his due.
"All this distresses you, dear. But I cannot help it; you would
have to know, sometime, that Colonel Arran and I are enemies. So
let it go at that; only, remembering it, avoid always any
uncomfortable situation which must result in this man and myself
meeting under your roof."
His letter ended in lighter vein--a gay message to Celia, a cordial
one to Letty, and the significant remark that he expected to see
her very soon.
The next night he tried to run the guard, and failed.
She had written to him, begging him not to; urging the observance
of discipline, while deploring their separation--a sweet, confused
letter, breathing in every line her solicitation for him, her new
faith and renewed trust in him.
Concerning what he had told her about his personal relations with
Colonel Arran she had remained silent--was too unhappy and
astonished to reply. Thinking of it later, it recalled to her mind
Celia's studied avoidance of any topic in which Colonel Arran
figured. She did not make any mental connection between Celia's
dislike for the man and Berkley's--the coincidence merely made her
doubly unhappy.
And, one afternoon when Letty was on duty and she and Celia were
busy with their mending in Celia's room, she thought about
Berkley's letter and his enmity, and remembered Celia's silent
aversion at the same moment.
"Celia," she said, looking up, "would you mind telling me what it
is that you dislike about my old and very dear friend, Colonel
Arran?"
Celia continued her needlework for a few moments. Then, without
raising her eyes, she said placidly:
"You have asked me that befo', Honey-bird."
"Yes, dear. . . . You know it is not impertinent curiosity----"
"I know what it is, Honey-bee. But you can not he'p this gentleman
and myse'f to any ground of common understanding."
"I am so sorry," sighed Ailsa, resting her folded hands on her work
and gazing through the open window.
Celia continued to sew without glancing up. Presently she said:
"I reckon I'll have to tell you something about Colonel Arran after
all. I've meant to for some time past. Because--because my
silence condemns him utterly; and that is not altogether just."
She bent lower over her work; her needle travelled more slowly as
she went on speaking:
"In my country, when a gentleman considers himse'f aggrieved, he
asks fo' that satisfaction which is due to a man of his
quality. . . . But Colonel Arran did not ask. And when it was
offered, he refused." Her lips curled. "He cited the _Law_,"
she said with infinite contempt.
"But Colonel Arran is not a Southerner," observed Ailsa quietly.
"You know how all Northerners feel----"
"It happened befo' you were born, Honey-bud. Even the No'th
recognised the code then."
"Is _that_ why you dislike Colonel Arran? Because he refused to
challenge or be challenged when the law of the land forbade private
murder?"
Celia's cheeks flushed deeply; she tightened her lips; then:
"The law is not made fo' those in whom the higher law is inherent,"
she said calmly. "It is made fo' po' whites and negroes."
"Celia!"
"It is true, Honey-bird. When a gentleman breaks the law that
makes him one, it is time fo' him to appeal to the lower law. And
Colonel Arran did so."
"What was his grievance?"
"A deep one, I reckon. He had the right on his side--and his own
law to defend it, and he refused. And the consequences were ve'y
dreadful."
"To--him?"
"To us all. . . . His punishment was certain."
"Was he punished?"
"Yes. Then, in his turn, _he_ punished--terribly. But not as a
gentleman should. Fo' in that code which gove'ns us, no man can
raise his hand against a woman. He must endure all things; he may
not defend himse'f at any woman's expense; he may not demand
justice at the expense of any woman. It is the privilege of his
caste to endure with dignity what cannot be remedied or revenged
except through the destruction of a woman. . . . And Colonel Arran
invoked the lower law; and the justice that was done him
destroyed--a woman."
She looked up steadily into Ailsa's eyes.
"She was only a young girl, Honey-bud--too young to marry anybody,
too inexperienced to know her own heart until it was too late.
"And Colonel Arran came; and he was ve'y splendid, and handsome,
and impressive in his cold, heavy dignity, and ve'y certain that
the child must marry him--so certain that she woke up one day and
found that she had done it. And learned that she did not love him.
"There was a boy cousin. He was reckless, I reckon; and she was
ve'y unhappy; and one night he found her crying in the garden; and
there was a ve'y painful scene, and she let him kiss the hem of her
petticoat on his promise to go away fo' ever. And--Colonel Arran
caught him on his knees, with the lace to his lips--and the child
wife crying. . . . He neither asked nor accepted satisfaction; he
threatened the--_law_! And that settled him with her, I reckon,
and she demanded her freedom, and he refused, and she took it.
"Then she did a ve'y childish thing; she married the boy--or
supposed she did----"
Celia's violet eyes grew dark with wrath:
"And Colonel Arran went into co't with his lawyers and his
witnesses and had the divorce set aside--and publicly made this
silly child her lover's mistress, and their child nameless! That
was the justice that the law rendered Colonel Arran. And now you
know why I hate him--and shall always hate and despise him."
Ailsa's head was all awhirl; lips parted, she stared at Celia in
stunned silence, making as yet no effort to reconcile the memory of
the man she knew with this cold, merciless, passionless portrait.
Nor did the suspicion occur to her that there could be the
slightest connection between her sister-in-law's contempt for
Colonel Arran and Berkley's implacable enmity.
All the while, too, her clearer sense of right and justice cried
out in dumb protest against the injury done to the man who had been
her friend, and her parents' friend--kind, considerate, loyal,
impartially just in all his dealings with her and with the world,
as far as she had ever known.
From Celia's own showing the abstract right and justice of the
matter had been on his side; no sane civilisation could tolerate
the code that Celia cited. The day of private vengeance was over;
the era of duelling was past in the North--was passing in the
South. And, knowing Colonel Arran, she knew also that twenty odd
years ago his refusal to challenge had required a higher form of
courage than to face the fire of a foolish boy's pistol.
And now, collecting her disordered thoughts, she began to
understand what part emotion and impulse had played in the painful
drama--how youthful ignorance and false sentiment had combined to
invest a silly but accidental situation with all the superficial
dignity of tragedy.
What must it have meant to Colonel Arran, to this quiet, slow,
respectable man of the world, to find his girl wife crying in the
moonlight, and a hot-headed boy down on his knees, mumbling the
lace edge of her skirts?
What must it have meant to him--for the chances were that he had
not spoken the first word--to be confronted by an excited,
love-smitten, reckless boy, and have a challenge flung in his face
before he had uttered a word.
No doubt his calm reply was to warn the boy to mind his business
under penalty of law. No doubt the exasperated youth defied
him--insulted him--declared his love--carried the other child off
her feet with the exaggerated emotion and heroics. And, once off
their feet, she saw how the tide had swept them together--swept
them irrevocably beyond reason and recall.
Ailsa rose and stood by the open window, looking out across the
hills; but her thoughts were centred on Colonel Arran's tragedy,
and the tragedy of those two hot-headed children whom his
punishment had out-lawed.
Doubtless his girl wife had told him how the boy had come to be
there, and that she had banished him; but the clash between
maturity and adolescence is always inevitable; the misunderstanding
between ripe experience and Northern logic, and emotional
inexperience and Southern impulse was certain to end in disaster.
Ailsa considered; and she knew that now her brief for Colonel Arran
was finished, for beyond the abstract right she had no sympathy
with the punishment he had dealt out, even though his conscience
and civilisation and the law of the land demanded the punishment of
these erring' ones.
No, the punishment seemed too deeply tainted with vengeance for her
to tolerate.
A deep unhappy sigh escaped her. She turned mechanically, seated
herself, and resumed her sewing.
"I suppose I ought to be asleep," she said. "I am on duty
to-night, and they've brought in so many patients from the new
regiments."
Celia bent and bit off her thread, then passing the needle into the
hem, laid her work aside.
"Honey-bud," she said, "you are ve'y tired. If you'll undress I'll
give you a hot bath and rub you and brush your hair."
"Oh, Celia, will you? I'd feel so much better." She gave a dainty
little shudder and made a wry face, adding:
"I've had so many dirty, sick men to cleanse--oh, incredibly dirty
and horrid!--poor boys--it doesn't seem to be their fault, either;
and they are so ashamed and so utterly miserable when I am obliged
to know about the horror of their condition. . . . Dear, it will
be angelic of you to give me a good, hot scrubbing. I could go to
sleep if you would."
"Of co'se I will," said Celia simply. And, when Ailsa was ready to
call her in she lifted the jugs of water which a negro had
brought--one cold, one boiling hot--entered Ailsa's room, filled
the fiat tin tub; and, when Ailsa stepped into it, proceeded to
scrub her as though she had been two instead of twenty odd.
Then, her glowing body enveloped in a fresh, cool sheet, she lay
back and closed her eyes while Celia brushed the dull gold masses
of her hair.
"Honey-bee, they say that all the soldiers are in love with you,
even my po' Confederate boys in Ward C. Don't you dare corrupt
their loyalty!"
"They are the dearest things--all of them," smiled Ailsa sleepily,
soothed by the skilful brushing. "I have never had one cross word,
one impatient look from Union or Confederate." She added: "They
say in Washington that we women are not needed--that we are in the
way--that the sick don't want us. . . . Some very important
personage from Washington came down to the General Hospital and
announced that the Government was going to get rid of all women
nurses. And such a dreadful row those poor sick soldiers made!
Dr. West told us; he was there at the time. And it seems that the
personage went back to Washington with a very different story to
tell the powers that be. So I suppose they've concluded to let us
alone."
"It doesn't surprise me that a Yankee gove'nment has no use fo'
women," observed Celia.
"Hush, dear. That kind of comment won't do. Besides, some horrid
stories were afloat about some of the nurses not being all they
ought to be."
"That sounds ve'y Yankee, too!"
"Celia! And perhaps it was true that one or two among thousands
might not have been everything they should have been," admitted
Ailsa, loyal to her government in everything. "And perhaps one or
two soldiers were insolent; but neither Letty Lynden nor I have
ever heard one unseemly word from the hundreds and hundreds of
soldiers we have attended, never have had the slightest hint of
disrespect from them."
"They certainly do behave ve'y well," conceded Celia, brushing away
vigorously. "They behave like our Virginians."
Ailsa laughed, then, smiling reflectively, glanced at her hand
which still bore the traces of a healed scar. Celia noticed her
examining the slender, uplifted hand, and said:
"You promised to tell me how you got that scar, Honey-bud."
"I will, now--because the man who caused it has gone North."
"A--man!"
"Yes, poor fellow. When the dressings were changed the agony
crazed him and he sometimes bit me. I used to be so annoyed," she
added mildly, "and I used to shake my forefinger at him and say,
'Now it's got to be done, Jones; will you promise not to bite me.'
And the poor fellow would promise with tears in his eyes--and then
he'd forget--poor boy----"
"I'd have slapped him," said Celia, indignantly. "What a darling
you are, Ailsa! . . . Now bundle into bed," she added, "because
you haven't any too much time to sleep, and poor little Letty
Lynden will be half dead when she comes off duty."
Letty really appeared to be half dead when she arrived, and bent
wearily over the bed where Ailsa now lay in calm-breathing, rosy
slumber.
"Oh, you sweet thing!" she murmured to herself, "you can sleep for
two hours yet, but you don't know it." And, dropping her garments
from her, one by one, she bathed and did up her hair and crept in
beside Ailsa very softly, careful not to arouse her.
But Ailsa, who slept lightly, awoke, turned on her pillow, passed
one arm around Letty's dark curls.
"I'll get up," she said drowsily. "Why didn't Flannery call me?"
"You can sleep for an hour or two yet, darling," cooed Letty,
nestling close to her. "Mrs. Craig has taken old Bill Symonds, and
they'll be on duty for two hours more."
"How generous of Celia--and of old Symonds, too. Everybody seems
to be so good to me here."
"Everybody adores you, dear," whispered Letty, her lips against
Ailsa's flushed cheek. "Don't you know it?"
Ailsa laughed; and the laugh completed her awakening past all hope
of further slumber.
"You quaint little thing," she said, looking at Letty. "You
certainly are the most engaging girl I ever knew."
Letty merely lay and looked her adoration, her soft cheek pillowed
on Ailsa's arm. Presently she said:
"Do you remember the first word you ever spoke to me?"
"Yes, I do."
"And--you asked me to come and see you."
"Who wouldn't ask you--little rosebud?"
But Letty only sighed and closed her eyes; nor did she awaken when
Ailsa cautiously withdrew her arm and slipped out of bed.
She still had an hour and more; she decided to dress and go out for
a breath of fresh, sweet air to fortify her against the heavy
atmosphere of the sick wards.
It was not yet perfectly dark; the thin edge of the new moon traced
a pale curve in the western sky; frogs were trilling; a night-bird
sang in a laurel thicket unceasingly.
The evening was still, but the quiet was only comparative because,
always, all around her, the stirring and murmur of the vast army
never entirely ended.
But the drums and bugles, answering one another from hill to hill,
from valley to valley, had ceased; she saw the reddening embers of
thousands of camp fires through the dusk; every hill was jewelled,
every valley gemmed.
In the darkness she could hear the ground vibrate under the steady
tread of a column of infantry passing, but she could not see
them--could distinguish no motion against the black background of
the woods.
Standing there on the veranda, she listened to them marching by.
From the duration of the sound she judged it to be only one
regiment, probably a new one arriving from the North.
A little while afterward she heard on some neighbouring hillside
the far outbreak of hammering, the distant rattle of waggons, the
clash of stacked muskets. Then, in sudden little groups, scattered
starlike over the darkness, camp fires twinkled into flame. The
new regiment had pitched its tents.
It was a pretty sight; she walked out along the fence to see more
clearly, stepping aside to avoid collision with a man in the dark,
who was in a great hurry--a soldier, who halted to make his
excuses, and, instead, took her into his arms with a breathless
exclamation.
"Philip!" she faltered, trembling all over.
"Darling! I forgot I was not to touch you!" He crushed her hands
swiftly to his lips and let them drop.
"My little Ailsa! My--little--Ailsa!" he repeated under his
breath--and caught her to him again.
"Oh--darling--we mustn't," she protested faintly. "Don't you
remember, Philip? Don't you remember, dear, what we are to be to
one another?"
He stood, face pressed against her burning cheeks; then his arm
encircling her waist fell away.
"You're right, dear," he said with a sigh so naively robust, so
remarkably hearty, that she laughed outright--a very tremulous and
uncertain laugh.
"What a tragically inclined boy! I never before heard a
'thunderous sigh'; but I had read of them in poetry. Philip, tell
me instantly how you came here!"
"Ran the guard," he admitted.
"No! Oh, dear, oh, dear!--and I told you not to. Philip!
_Philip_! Do you want to get shot?"
"Now you know very well I don't," he said, laughing. "I spend
every minute trying not to. . . . And, Ailsa, what do you think?
A little while ago when I was skulking along fences and lurking in
ditches--all for your sake, ungrateful fair
one!--tramp--tramp--tramp comes a column out of the darkness!
'Lord help us,' said I, 'it's the police guard, or some horrible
misfortune, and I'll never see my Ailsa any more!' Then I took a
squint at 'em, and I saw officers riding, with about a thousand
yards of gold lace on their sleeves, and I saw their music trudging
along with that set of silver chimes aloft between two scarlet
yaks' tails; and I saw the tasselled fezzes and the white gaiters
and--'Aha!' said I--'the Zou-Zous! But _which_?'
"And, by golly, I made out the number painted white on their
knapsacks; and, Ailsa, it was the 3d Zouaves, Colonel Craig!--just
arrived! And there--on that hill--are their fires!"
"Oh, Phil!" she exclaimed in rapture, "how heavenly for Celia! I'm
perfectly crazy to see Curt and Steve----"
"Please transfer a little of that sweet madness to me."
"Dear--I can't, can I?"
But she let him have her hands; and, resting beside him on the rail
fence, bent her fair head as he kissed her joined hands, let it
droop lower, lower, till her cheek brushed his. Then, turning very
slowly, their lips encountered, rested, till the faint fragrance of
hers threatened his self-control.
She opened her blue eyes as he raised his head, looking at him
vaguely in the dusk, then very gently shook her head and rested one
cheek on her open palm.
"I don't know," she sighed. "I--don't--know--" and closed her lids
once more.
"Know what, dearest of women?"
"What is going to happen to us, Phil. . . . It seems
incredible--after our vows--after the lofty ideals we----"
"The ideals are there," he said in a low voice. And, in his tone
there was a buoyancy, a hint of something new to her--something
almost decisive, something of protection which began vaguely to
thrill her, as though that guard which she had so long mounted over
herself might be relieved--the strain relaxed---the duty left to
him.
She laid one hand on his arm, looked up, searching his face,
hesitated. A longing to relax the tension of self-discipline came
over her--to let him guard them both--to leave all to him--let him
fight for them both. It was a longing to find security in the
certainty of his self-control, a desire to drift, and let him be
responsible, to let him control the irresponsibility within her,
the unwisdom, the delicate audacity, latent, mischievous, that
needed a reversal of the role of protector and protected to blossom
deliciously into the coquetry that she had never dared.
"Are you to be trusted?" she asked innocently.
"Yes, at last. You know it. Even if I----"
"Yes, dear."
She considered him with a new and burning curiosity. It was the
feminine in her, wondering, not yet certain, whether it might
safely dare.
"I suppose I've made an anchorite out of you," she ventured.
"You can judge," he said, laughing; and had her in his arms again,
and kissed her consenting lips and palms, and looked down into the
sweet eyes; and she smiled back at him, confident, at rest.
"What has wrought this celestial change in you, Phil?" she
whispered, listlessly humourous.
"What change?"
"The spiritual."
"Is there one? I seem to kiss you just as ardently."
"I know. . . . But--for the first time since I ever saw you--I
feel that I am safe in the world. . . . It may annoy me."
He laughed.
"I may grow tired of it," she insisted, watching him. "I may
behave like a naughty, perverse, ungrateful urchin, and kick and
scream and bite. . . . But you won't let me be hurt, will you?"
"No, child." His voice was laughing at her, but his eyes were
curiously grave.
She put both arms up around his neck with a quick catch of her
breath.
"I do love you--I do love you. I know it now, Phil--I know it as I
never dreamed of knowing it. . . . You will never let me be hurt,
will you? Nothing can harm me now, can it?"
"Nothing, Ailsa."
She regarded him dreamily. Sometimes her blue eyes wandered toward
the stars, sometimes toward the camp fires on the hill.
"Perfect--perfect belief in--your goodness--to me," she murmured
vaguely. "Now I shall--repay you--by perversity--misbehaviour--I
don't know what--I don't know--what----"
Her lids closed; she yielded to his embrace; one slim, detaining
hand on his shoulder held her closer, closer.
"You must--never--go away," her lips formed.
But already he was releasing her, pale but coolly master of the
situation. Acquiescent, inert, she lay in his arms, then
straightened and rested against the rail beside her.
Presently she smiled to herself, looked at him, still smiling.
"Shall we go into Dr. West's office and have supper, Phil? I'm on
duty in half an hour and my supper must be ready by this time; and
I'm simply dying to have you make up for the indignity of the
kitchen."
"You ridiculous little thing!"
"No, I'm not. I could weep with rage when I think of _you_ in the
kitchen and--and-- Oh, never mind. Come, will you?" And she held
out her hand.
Her supper was ready, as she had predicted, and she delightedly
made room for him beside her on the bench, and helped him to
freshly baked bread and ancient tinned vegetables, and some
doubtful boiled meat, all of which he ate with an appetite and a
reckless and appreciative abandon that fascinated her.
"Darling!" she whispered in consternation, "don't they give you
_anything_ in camp?"
"Sometimes," he enunciated, chewing vigorously on the bread. "We
don't get much of this, darling. And the onions have all sprouted,
and the potatoes are rotten."
She regarded him for a moment, then laughed hysterically.
"I _beg_ your pardon, Phil, but somehow this reminds me of our cook
feeding her policeman:--just for one tiny second, darling----"
They abandoned any effort to control their laughter. Ailsa had
become transfigured into a deliciously mischievous and bewildering
creature, brilliant of lip and cheek and eye, irresponsible,
provoking, utterly without dignity or discipline.
She taunted him with his appetite, jeered at him for his recent and
marvellous conversion to respectability, dared him to make love to
her, provoked him at last to abandon his plate and rise and start
toward her. And, of course, she fled, crying in consternation:
"Hush, Philip! You _mustn't_ make such a racket or they'll put us
both out!"--keeping the table carefully between them, dodging every
strategy of his, every endeavour to make her prisoner, quick,
graceful, demoralising in her beauty and abandon. They behaved
like a pair of very badly brought up children, until she was in
real terror of discovery.
"Dearest," she pleaded, "if you will sit down and resume your
gnawing on that crust, I'll promise not to torment you. . . . I
will, really. Besides, it's within a few minutes of my tour of
duty----"
She stopped, petrified, as a volley of hoof-beats echoed outside,
the clash of arms and accoutrements rang close by the porch.
"Phil!" she gasped.
And the door opened and Colonel Arran walked in.
There was a dreadful silence. Arran stood face to face with
Berkley, looked him squarely in the eye where he stood at salute.
Then, as though he had never before set eyes on him, Arran lifted
two fingers to his visor mechanically, turned to Ailsa, uncovered,
and held out both his hands.
"I had a few moments, Ailsa," he said quietly. "I hadn't seen you
for so long. Are you well?"
She was almost too frightened to answer; Berkley stood like a
statue, awaiting dismissal, and later the certain consequences of
guard running.
And, aware of her fright, Arran turned quietly to Berkley:
"Private Ormond," he said, "there is a led-horse in my escort, in
charge of Private Burgess. It is the easier and--safer route to
camp. You may retire."
Berkley's expression was undecipherable as he saluted, shot a
glance at Ailsa, turned sharply, and departed.
"Colonel Arran," she said miserably, "it was all my fault. I am
too ashamed to look at you."
"Let me do what worrying is necessary," he said quietly. "I
am--not unaccustomed to it. . . . I suppose he ran the guard."
She did not answer.
The ghost of a smile--a grim one--altered the Colonel's expression
for a second, then faded. He looked at Ailsa curiously. Then:
"Have you anything to tell me that--perhaps I may be entitled to
know about, Ailsa?"
"No."
"I see. I beg your pardon. If you ever are--perplexed--in
doubt--I shall always----"
"Thank you," she said faintly. . . . "And--I am so sorry----"
"So am I. I'm sorrier than you know--about more matters than you
know, Ailsa--" He softly smote his buckskin-gloved hands together,
gazing at vacancy. Then lifted his head and squared his heavy
shoulders.
"I thought I'd come when I could. The chances are that the army
will move if this weather continues. The cavalry will march out
anyway. So I thought I'd come over for a few moments, Ailsa. . . .
Are you sure you are quite well? And not overdoing it? You
certainly look well; you appear to be in perfect health. . . . I
am very much relieved. . . . And--don't worry. Don't cherish
apprehension about--anybody." He added, more to himself than to
her: "Discipline will be maintained--_must_ be maintained. There
are more ways to do it than by military punishments, I know that
now."
He looked up, held out his hand, retained hers, and patted it
gently.
"Don't worry, child," he said, "don't worry." And went out to the
porch thoughtfully, gazing straight ahead of him as his horse was
brought up. Then, gathering curb and snaffle, he set toe to
stirrup and swung up into his saddle.
"Ormond!" he called.
Berkley rode up and saluted.
"Ride with me," said Colonel Arran calmly.
"Sir?"
"Rein up on the left." And, turning in his saddle, he motioned
back his escort twenty paces to the rear. Then he walked his big,
bony roan forward.
"Ormond?"
"Yes, Colonel."
"You ran the guard?"
"Yes, Colonel."
"Why?"
Berkley was silent.
The Colonel turned in his saddle and scrutinised him. The lancer's
visage was imperturbable.
"Ormond," he said in a low voice, "whatever you think of
me--whatever your attitude toward me is, I would like you to
believe that I wish to be your friend."
Berkley's expression remained unchanged.
"It is my desire," said the older man, "my--very earnest--desire."
The young lancer was mute.
Arran's voice fell still lower:
"Some day--if you cared to--if you could talk over some--matters
with me, I would be very glad. Perhaps you don't entirely
understand me. Perhaps I have given you an erroneous impression
concerning--matters--which it is too late to treat differently--in
the light of riper experience--and in a knowledge born of
years--solitary and barren years----"
He bent his gray head thoughtfully, then, erect in his saddle again:
"I would like to be your friend," he said in a voice perceptibly
under control.
"Why?" asked Berkley harshly. "Is there any reason on God's earth
why I could ever forgive you?"
"No; no reason perhaps. Yet, you are wrong."
"Wrong!"
"I say so in the light of the past, Berkley. Once I also believed
that a stern, uncompromising attitude toward error was what God
required of an upright heart."
"Error! D-do you admit that?" stammered Berkley. "Are you awake
at last to the deviltry that stirred you--the damnable, misguided,
distorted conscience that twisted you into a murderer of souls? By
God, _are_ you alive to what you did to--_her_?"
Colonel Arran, upright in his saddle and white as death, rode
straight on in front of him.. Beside him, knee to knee, rode
Berkley, his features like marble, his eyes ablaze.
"I am not speaking for myself," he said between his teeth, "I am
not reproaching you, cursing you, for what you have done to me--for
the ruin you have made of life for me, excommunicating me from
every hope, outlawing me, branding me! I am thinking, now, only of
my mother. God!--to think--to _think_ of it--of her----"
Arran turned on him a face so ghastly that the boy was silenced.
Then the older man said:
"Do you not know that the hell men make for others is what they are
destined to burn in sooner or later? Do you think you can tell me
anything of eternal punishment?" He laughed a harsh, mirthless
laugh. "Do you not think I have learned by this time that
vengeance is God's--and that He never takes it? It is man alone
who takes it, and suffers it. Humanity calls it justice. But I
have learned that what the laws of men give you is never yours to
take; that the warrant handed you by men is not for you to execute.
I--have--learned--many things in the solitary years, Berkley. . . .
But this--what I am now saying to you, here under the stars--is the
first time I have ever, even to myself, found courage to confess
Christ."
Very far away to the south a rocket rose--a slender thread of fire.
Then, to the northward, a tiny spark grew brighter, flickered,
swung in an arc to right, to left, dipped, soared, hung motionless,
dipped again to right, to left, tracing faint crimson semicircles
against the sky.
Two more rockets answered, towering, curving, fading, leaving blue
stars floating in the zenith.
And very, very far away there was a dull vibration of thunder, or
of cannon.