But now Charlotte's recovery took on new speed. Maybe her new brightness
meant only that her heart was learning to bear its load; but we hoped
that was just what it was unlearning, as she and Ferry sat at chess on
the gallery in the afternoons.
One night the fellows gave a dance in Brookhaven. We went in two wagons
and by the light of mounted torch-bearers, and Charlotte and Ferry stood
at the dooryard gate and sent after us their mirthful warnings and
good-byes. It set some of us a-hoping--to see them there--a dooryard
gate means so much. We fairly prayed he might compel her decision before
she should turn to re-enter the house. But the following morning it was
evident we had prayed in vain.
On the next afternoon but one we heard that a great column of our
soldiers was approaching on the nearest highway, bound up the railroad
to Joe Johnston's army from the region about Port Hudson, and Charlotte
instantly proposed that our ladies deal out food and drink from some
shady spot on the roadside. It was one of those southern summer days
when it verily seems hotter in the shade than in the sun--unless you are
in the sun. The force was wholly artillery and infantry, the last
Confederate infantry that region ever saw in column under arms; poor,
limping, brown-faced, bloody-footed boys! their weapons were the only
clean things, the only whole things, about them except their unbroken
spirit; and when the very foremost command chanced to be one which the
Harpers had seen in New Orleans the day it left there marching in
faultless platoons and spotless equipments through the crowds that
roared acclaim and farewell, our dear ladies, for one weak moment, wept.
"Here come the real heroes, Harry," said my crippled leader; "we are
dandies and toy-soldiers, by the side of those infantry boys, Doctor, we
cavalry fellows;" and we cavalry fellows would have hid if we honorably
could. Yet hardly had he spoken when he and a passing field-officer
cried out in mutual recognition, and from that time until the rear-guard
was clear gone by we received what the newspapers call "a continuous
ovation." A group of brigade officers went back with us to Squire
Wall's, to supper, and you could see by the worship they paid Charlotte
that they knew her story. Her strength was far overtaxed, and the moment
the last fond straggler had gone we came in out of the splendid
moonlight.
"Now, Charlotte, my dear," began Miss Harper, "you are too terribly
tired to--why, where is Charlotte; did she not come in with us from
the--gate?"
Ferry, too, was missing. Mrs. Wall made eyes at the inquirer, Estelle
and Cécile began to speak but deferred to each other, and Camille,
putting on a deadly exhaustion, whined as she tottered to her smiling
guardian, "Kiss your sweet baby good-night, auntie dear, and"--with a
hand reached out to Estelle--"make Naughty come, too." She turned to say
good-night to Cécile but spoiled her kiss with an unintended laugh. The
surgeon, Harry and I bowed from the room and stepped out to the
water-bucket and gourd. From there we could see the missing two,
lingering at the dooryard gate, in the bright moonlight. As we finished
drinking, "Gentlemen," murmured Harry, "I fear our position is too
exposed to be tenable."
The surgeon started upstairs. "I'll join you directly, Doctor," Harry
said, and in a lower voice added "Smith and I will just lounge in and
out of the hall here to sort o' show nobody needn't be in any hurry,
don't you see?"
But the other jerked his thumb toward the half-closed parlor, where
Miss Harper and Cécile sat close, to each other absorbed in some matter
of the tenderest privacy. "They'll attend to that," he muttered; "come
on to bed and mind your own business."
Harry huffed absurdly. "You go mind yours," he retorted, and then more
generously added, "we'll be with you in a minute." The surgeon went, and
the aide-de-camp, as we began to pace the hall, fairly took my breath by
remarking without a hint of self-censure, "Damn a frivolous man!" Then
irrelatively he added, "Those two out at that gate--this is a matter of
life and death with them;" and when I would have qualified the
declaration, he broke in upon me--"Right, Dick, you're right, it _is_
worse; it's a choice between true life and death-in-life; whether
they'll make life's long march in sunshine together or in
darkness apart."
Well, of course, it was no such simple question, and never could be
while life held so many values more splendid than any wilfulness could
win. There lay the whole of Charlotte's real difficulty--for she had
made it all hers. But when I tried in some awkward way to say this Harry
cut me short. "Oh, Dick, I--eh--you bother me! I want to tell you
something and if I don't hurry I can't. Something's happened to me, old
fellow, something that's sobered me more than I ever would 'a' thought
anything could. I want to tell you because I can trust you with a
secr'--wh'--what's the matter, did I hurt your wound? Honestly, I want
to tell you because--well--because I've been deceiving you all along:
I've deceived you shamefully, letting on to like this girl more than
that, and so on and so on."
"Yes, you thought you were deceiving me."
"Oh, well, maybe I wasn't, but I want to tell you to-night because I'm
going to camp in the morning. Oh, yes,"--he named the deepest place
known--"the sight of those webfoot boys to-day was too much for me; I'm
going; and Dick, when I told her I was going--"
"_Told whom_?"
"Aw, come, now, Dick, you know every bit as well as I know. Well, when I
told her I was going I didn't dream I was going to tell her anything
else; I give you my word! Where in the"--same place again--"I ever got
the courage I'll never tell you, but all of a sudden thinks I, 'I'm
never going to get anything but no, anyhow, and so, Dick, I've been and
gone and done it!"
I leaned on the stair-newel, sorry for the poor fool, but glad of this
chance. "Why, Lieutenant, not many men would have done as well. You felt
honor-bound not to slip away uncommitted, so you took your dose like a
hero and licked the spoon." I felt that I was salting his wound, but we
were soldiers and--I had the salt.
He drew a sigh. "Yes, I took my dose--of astonishment. Dick, she said
yes! Oh, good Lord, Dick, do you reckon they'll ever be such full-blown
idiots as to let me have her?"
I sank upon the steps; every pore in my body was a fountain of cold
sweat: "Have whom?"
"Cécile." He was going on to declare himself no more fit for her than
for the presidency of the Confederate States, which was perfectly true;
but I sprang up, caught him (on my well side) by one good hand, and had
begun my enthusiastic congratulations, when Charlotte appeared and we
swerved against the rail to let her pass upstairs. In some way as she
went by it was made plain to us that she had said no. "Good-night,"
ventured both of us, timorously.
"Good-night," she responded, very musically, but as if from a great
distance.