perilous enterprise at all. But with him at least Agatha was accustomed
to have her way, and moreover the spirit of the old soldier was strong
within him still, so that he was intensely in sympathy with Agatha's
courageous purpose to render such service as a woman might to the cause
that both had at heart.
But Agatha had a harder task before her now. Remembering the
heart-broken tone in which he had bidden her good-bye on the former
occasion, and easily imagining the suffering he must have endured
during her absence, both from loneliness and from apprehension for her
safety, she thought with something like terror of her new necessity of
leaving him again, almost in the very hour of his joy at her return. For
it was her resolute purpose to set out again within a very few days,--as
soon, indeed, as she could feel confidence that her preliminary letters
would reach their destination before her own arrival there.
There were other matters that troubled her, too. She must tell her
Chummie the reason for her second journey, and that would be a
distressing thing for her to do. She must tell him frankly--for she
would never in the least trifle with truth, especially in dealing with
him--that she had learned to love Baillie Pegram, and that she had in
effect put it out of possibility that Baillie Pegram should ever ask for
knowledge of that fact.
To a woman of her sensitively proud nature, such a confession, even to
her grandfather, seemed almost shameful. She shrank from the very
thought of it, and flushed crimson every time it came to her mind during
that long day's ride. Yet not for one moment did she falter in her
determination to undergo the ordeal. Not for one moment did she
entertain a thought of evading the painful confession, or in any way
disguising the truth. So much was due to her grandfather, and never in
her life had she cheated him of his dues as Chummie. It was due to
herself also. To shrink from a duty because of its painfulness would be
cowardice, and there was no touch or trace of that most detestable
weakness in her soul.
"Anyhow," she resolved, "I'll let him have one whole day of joy before I
grieve him with the news that I must go away again. And in telling him
of my first journey I'll say as little as I can about the dangers
encountered and the hardships endured; I'll make as much of a frolic of
it as I can in the telling. Surely there will be no untruthfulness in
that."
That day's journey was a long one, but the start was early, and Baillie
Pegram's horse was a willing one, as that energetic young man's horses
were apt to be, while as for the troopers of the escort, they and their
horses were accustomed to follow at any pace their leader might set. It
was barely three o'clock in the afternoon, therefore, when the cavalcade
arrived at Willoughby, and Agatha threw herself into the old gentleman's
arms.
"Oh, Agatha!"
"Oh, Chummie!"
That at first was all that the two could say. When Colonel Archer found
voice he greeted the troopers and bade them leave their horses to the
care of his servants. For the men were of that class, socially, to which
Colonel Archer belonged, and there was no thought at that time in
Virginia of treating a gentleman otherwise than as a gentleman, merely
because he happened to be a private soldier.
"You will be my guests for the night," the host said, quite as if that
settled the matter. But the sergeant had orders which he must
obey,--orders which Stuart, with his unfailing foresight, had probably
given, to make sure that the presence of his men at Willoughby overnight
might not spoil an occasion of tender affection.
"Thank you very cordially, Colonel Archer," answered the sergeant; "but
we are under orders to move on toward Loudoun County to-night. We are
permitted to rest the horses for three hours only. After that we must
march about a dozen miles before sleeping, so that we may complete a
little scouting expedition into Loudoun to-morrow. Our orders on that
point are peremptory."
"Well, Ladybird, we'll have the gentlemen to dinner at any rate. As soon
as I heard of your coming I went out with my gun, and brought back two
big wild turkeys, as fat as butter. I thought you might come under
escort, so I've had them put both the birds on the spit. I'll wager you
gentlemen haven't seen a wild turkey this fall."
So he ran on with his hospitable greetings, managing in his joyous
nervousness to upset two of the glasses which he had ordered a servant
to bring with the decanters, for the troopers' refreshment. Agatha
managed presently to get a word with him aside.
"It is three o'clock, Chummie--an hour before dinner. I'll have time
enough to boil myself a little. Think of it, Chummie, I haven't had a
hot bath for a whole week!" Then turning to her escort she excused
herself until the dinner-hour.
This was an unhappy circumstance, as Agatha learned when she came down,
fresh-faced, to the dinner. For, left alone with the troopers, the old
gentleman naturally asked them concerning the details of her coming into
Stuart's lines, and as the story of her dash through the canister fire
was echoing throughout the army, the young fellows grew enthusiastic in
their minute descriptions of her peril and her heroism. When Agatha
reappeared, therefore, the old gentleman was all a-tremble. He met her
at the foot of the stairway, and a little scene followed, which told the
girl not only that he knew all that had been most harrowing in her
experiences, but that the knowledge of it would make her coming absence
cruelly hard for him to bear.
At dinner he found himself too tremulous to carve, and, for the first
time in his life, he relinquished that most hospitable of all a host's
offices to the younger men.
"Never mind, Ladybird," he said, cheerily, as he saw how greatly
troubled she was, "it will pass presently, and you shall find me quite
myself again in the morning. We're going after the birds, you know, you
and I. I haven't allowed a partridge to be killed on the plantation this
fall, so that you might be sure of a good day's sport with Chummie."
Thus it came about that as the old man and the young woman sat in the
firelight that evening, after the troopers were gone, Agatha changed her
purpose and told him of Baillie Pegram. Delicately, but with perfect
candour, she told the whole of the truth.
"I learned to like him very much while I was in Richmond last Christmas,
and I was not to blame for that, was I, Chummie? He was so kind to me,
so good in a thousand little ways, so gentle in all his strength that he
reminded me of you, more than anybody else ever did. I used often to
think that he was very much the sort of man you must have been when you
were in your twenties. There was no reason, that I knew of, why I should
not like him. He was a gentleman, the representative of one of the best
families in the State, a man of the highest character, well-educated,
travelled, intellectual, and of charming manners. He did more than
anybody else--or everybody else for that matter--to make the time pass
pleasantly for me. You see how it was, don't you, Chummie?"
The old gentleman nodded his head with a smile, and answered:
"I see how it was, Ladybird. Go on. Tell me all about it."
"Then one day there came a letter from The Oaks. It wasn't just a
scolding letter. It was something much worse than that. For if my aunts
had scolded me, I shouldn't have stood it."
"What would you have done, Ladybird?" asked the grandfather, with a look
of pleased and loving pride upon his countenance.
"I should have come back to Willoughby and you."
"And right welcome you would have been. But go on. What did the old
cats--psha! I didn't mean that; I thought I heard a cat yowling as I
spoke--what did the good ladies of The Oaks say to you?"
"O, they wrote very kindly and sorrowfully. They were shocked to know
that I had permitted something like intimacy to grow up between myself
and a young man without consulting them as to the proprieties of the
situation. But how could I have done that, Chummie? You see I didn't sit
down and say, 'I'm going to be intimate with this young man if my aunts
approve.' The friendship just grew, quite naturally, like the grass on a
lawn. I didn't think about it at all, and I don't see why I should. I
met Mr. Pegram in all the best houses; everybody was fond of him, and
everybody spoke of him in the highest terms. Why should I think--"
"You shouldn't, Ladybird. I should have been ashamed of you if you had.
Only a vain or morbidly self-conscious girl would have thought in such a
case. And only--there goes that confounded cat again--only elderly
gentlewomen of secluded lives and a badly perverted sense of propriety
would ever have thought of such a thing. But continue, my child. I
suppose they told you about that idiotic old quarrel--"
"Yes, Chummie--they told me and they didn't tell me. They never would
say what it was all about, or how much there was in it. Indeed, they
told me I was guilty of a great irreverence in even asking concerning
it. They said it should be quite enough for a well-ordered young woman
to know that these people were my father's enemies. As Mr. Baillie
Pegram never knew my father, I couldn't understand why he and I should
be enemies, but when I said something like that, I saw that the aunties
were terribly shocked. I suppose I'm not a 'well-ordered' young lady,
Chummie."
"No! Thank God you're not. You are just a sweet, wholesome, lovable
girl--and that is very different from what those old--ladies call a
'well-ordered' young woman."
"Well, anyhow," the girl resumed, "I obeyed my instructions. I wrote to
Mr. Pegram, telling him there could be no friendship between him and me,
and do you know, Chummie, they blamed me more for that than for all the
rest. They said it was 'unladylike' and a lot more things, for me to
write to him at all. But I never could find out what they thought I
ought to have done. I couldn't break off the acquaintance without
telling him I must do so, could I?"
"_You_ couldn't, and I'm glad you couldn't. A 'well-ordered' young lady
would have done it easily. She would have told a lot of lies about not
being at home when he called, or having a headache when he wanted to
see her. You couldn't do that because you are honest and truthful, and
that's the best thing about you, except your love for your old Chummie,
and even that wouldn't be of much account if I couldn't trust its truth
and sincerity. Go on, child. I didn't mean to interrupt."
"O, but you must interrupt. That's the only way I know what you're
thinking. Well, I went to The Oaks sometime later, and while there I
went out one morning for a ride by myself. My poor horse broke his leg,
as I told you in a letter, and Mr. Baillie Pegram happened along, and
was very kind in helping me out of my trouble. He insisted that I should
ride his mare home. I tried all I could to refuse, but he showed me that
I simply could not help myself, and so I took the mare,--the same one
that was killed under him at Manassas. That time the aunties did
actually scold me, or pretty nearly that. So I rebelled, and made up my
mind to come back to you at once. Mr. Pegram dined at The Oaks on the
day before I started, and he and I had a long talk, but of course it
could not change the situation. That was the last I saw of him until
the day before the battle of Manassas, when he took a red feather out of
my hat and wore it in the battle. He was terribly wounded in the fight,
but he sent the feather back to me as he had promised to do. I had
quoted to him or let him quote to me the Indian's defiance, 'There is
war between me and thee.' It was after that that he insisted upon taking
the feather and wearing it through the battle."
The girl paused, but her grandfather said nothing for a whole minute.
Perhaps he felt that she needed the pause before speaking further. At
last he said, very low and gently:
"Tell me about yesterday morning."
She did so, sparing herself at no point. She told of Baillie's outburst,
and of the declaration of his love. She told, too, of her chilling
answer, and her perversity in so managing the conversation as to prevent
a recurrence to the subject. Finally she broke down, saying with
streaming eyes:
"Oh, Chummie! I have ruined his life--and my own!"
"I don't know so well about that. He may recover, you know."
"Yes, I know. But what then?" At that she laid her head upon the old
man's breast and let herself become a little child again, in an
abandonment of grief. And with a childlike confidence and candour she
said at last:
"Oh, Chummie! Don't you understand? He can never know. He will always
think of me as hard and cold and unresponsive. After what I said to him
yesterday morning, he cannot again tell me--why, Chummie, it was as bad
as if I had slapped him in the face!"
The old man caressed her till her agitation subsided. Then, speaking in
a tone of wisdom which irresistibly carried conviction with it, he said:
"You are wholly wrong, Agatha. Baillie Pegram is much too brave and
true, and much too generous a man to let this matter rest where it is.
If he recovers, as I pray God he may, be very sure he will come to you
again and tell you calmly what he blurted out without meaning to do so,
under stress of a trying situation. You must go to sleep now, little
girl. You are very weary and greatly overwrought. And we must be up with
the sun to-morrow on account of the birds. Good night, dear. You must
never leave me again while I live."
There was unsteadiness in his step, as he gallantly ushered her through
the doorway, and as he returned to the room to extinguish the solitary
lamp. Then a heaviness came over him, and he sat down again in his easy
chair before the fire. The logs had ceased to blaze and crackle now, but
the old man sat still. The logs fell into a mass of glowing coals after
a time, and slowly the coals ceased to glow. One by one they went out.
Still he did not move.
There were only ashes in the great fireplace when the morning came and
Agatha found her Chummie still sitting there where the fire of his life
had so gently gone out.
XXI
_AT PARTING_
News of Colonel Archer's death ran rapidly through a State of which he
had been one of the foremost citizens, by reason alike of his public
services and his private virtues. It quickly reached Stuart's ears, and
he promptly sent a courier with a letter of sympathy and friendship, at
the end of which he wrote:
"Now, my dear Miss Agatha, I crave a favour at your hands. Your
grandfather was a soldier greatly distinguished in two wars. He should
have a soldier's burial, and with your permission, which I take for
granted, I am ordering a company of dragoons and a battery now stationed
at Warrenton and under my command, to move at once to Willoughby, and
there pay the last honours to the veteran."
Heart-broken as she was, Agatha met calamity with a fortitude which
astonished even herself. She was still scarcely more than a girl, but
the blood of a soldier filled her veins,--a soldier who had never
flinched from danger or murmured under suffering. "I too will neither
flinch nor murmur," she said to herself. "Chummie would like it best to
see me brave and resolute, if he could know--and perhaps he does know. I
will bear myself as he would like me to."
And she kept that vow to the letter. The tears would mount to her
eyelids now and then in spite of her and trickle down her cheeks; but
they were silent tears, accompanied by no moanings that were audible;
they were the tears of heart-break, not the tears of weakness and
self-pity. They were hidden for the most part from human view, and
resolutely restrained in the presence of others. And when any of those
who thronged about her for her consolation caught momentary sight of
them, the effect was like that produced when a strong man weeps.
When the soldiers came she directed an attentive ministry to their
comfort, and after the last salutes to the dead had been fired over the
grave, she turned to Captain Marshall Pollard, whose battery it was
that had paid that tribute of honour, and asked in a steady voice:
"Can you arrange to stay at Willoughby overnight? I have need to talk
with you of matters of some importance. It will be very kind and good of
you, if you can manage it."
After a moment's reflection, Marshall answered:
"I can stay till midnight, and that will give us time for our talk. I
must be at Warrenton at reveille in the morning, but my horse will
easily make the distance if I start by one o'clock."
Then he spoke a few words in a low tone to his lieutenant, who took
command and marched the battery away, with all heads bared till they had
passed out of the grounds.
"Let us not talk of my grandfather, please," said the girl, as the two
entered the drawing-room. "Not that I shrink from that," she quickly
added. "It can never be painful to me to speak of him. But it might
distress you. You knew him and loved him long ago, before--before you
and I quarrelled."
She did not shrink from this reference to the past, or try in any way to
disguise the truth of it. Her mind was full of the dear dead man's last
words spoken in praise of her courage and truthfulness, and she was more
resolute than ever to live up to the character he had approved so
earnestly and with so much of loving admiration.
"I think we did not quarrel," the young captain responded; "you did not,
at any rate. I misjudged you cruelly, and in my anger I falsely accused
you in my heart. Believe me, Agatha,"--he had called her so in the old
days, and the name came easily to his lips now,--"believe me when I say
that I have outlived all that bitterness. Let us be true, loyal friends
hereafter, friends who know and trust each other, friends who do not
misunderstand."
The girl held out her hand, in response, and made no effort to hide the
tears with which she welcomed this healing of the old wounds.
The young man, too, rejoiced in a reconciliation which laid his old love
for this woman for ever to rest and planted flowers of friendship upon
its grave. He was astonished at his own condition of mind and heart. He
learned now the truth that his mad love for Agatha had become completely
a thing of the past, and that the bitterness which had at first
succeeded it was utterly gone. He could think of her henceforth with a
tender affection that had no trace of passion in it. The dead past had
buried its dead, and the grass grew green above it.
At that moment dinner was announced, for Agatha had decreed that life at
Willoughby should at once resume its accustomed order. "Chummie would
like it so," she thought. So the two friends passed through the hall to
the dining-room hand in hand, just as they had so often done in the old
days before passion had come to disturb their lives.
Marshall had now one supreme desire with respect to Agatha,--a great
yearning to comfort her and help her as a brother might. He told her so,
when they returned to the drawing-room after dinner, to sit before the
great fire of hickory logs during all the remaining hours of Marshall's
stay.
"Tell me now," he said, "of your plans, that I may share in them and
help you carry them out perhaps. What are you going to do?"
"I'm going to find Baillie if I can, and nurse him back to health--if it
is not too late."
"But he is in the hands of the enemy, you know."
"Yes, I know. That makes it more difficult, but we must not shrink from
difficulties. I shall start north to-morrow."
"But how?--Tell me about it, please."
She explained her plans, telling him of the arrangements she had made
for bringing medicines through the blockade, transmitting letters, and
finding friends at every step in case of need. Then she added:
"I'm going to take Sam with me this time. He is devoted to his master,
and his sagacity is extraordinary. I shall depend upon him to help me
find where Baillie is, and to do whatever there is to do for him."
"Will you let me have writing materials?" the young man abruptly asked.
Without asking for an explanation, she brought her lap desk, and with
the awkwardness which a man always manifests in attempting to use that
peculiarly feminine device, he managed to fill two or three sheets. When
he had done, he handed the papers to her, saying:
"I can really help, I think. You will need money for your expenses. You
must have it in sufficient supply to meet all emergencies, so that you
may never be delayed or baffled in any purpose for want of it. And it
may easily happen that you shall need a considerable sum at once. Money
is the pass-key to many difficult doors. It so happens that I have a
very considerable sum invested in railroad and other securities, in the
hands of a very close friend of mine in New York. I have written to him
to sell out the whole of them and place the proceeds at your disposal in
any banks that may be most convenient to you."
"But, Marshall, you are impoverishing yourself--"
"In the which case," he responded, with his gentle, half-mocking smile,
"I should be doing no more than all the rest of us Virginians are doing
in this struggle. But I am doing nothing of the kind. I have a
plantation, you know, and absolutely nobody dependent upon me. If I
survive the war I shall have some land, at any rate, out of which to dig
a living. These investments of mine at the North were made long before
the war, and I should have sold them out at the beginning of the
trouble if I hadn't been too lazy to attend to my affairs. I'm glad now
that I was lazy. It enables me to help the two best friends I ever had
in this rather lonely world,--Baillie Pegram and you. A man may do as he
likes with his own, you know, and this is precisely what I like to do
with my securities. Fortunately my friend who has them in charge is a
blue-blooded Virginian, who would be fighting with us out there on the
lines, if he were not a helpless cripple, fit for nothing, as he wrote
to me when the trouble came, but to manage his banking-house. But how
are you to get these papers through with you, without risk of
discovery?"
"I'll make Sam carry them," she responded. "Nobody will ever think of
searching him, particularly as his connection with my affairs will be
known to nobody except my friends and co-conspirators."
"What a strategist you are, Agatha! What a general you would have made
if you'd happened to be a man!" exclaimed the young man in admiration.
"No," she answered, hesitating for a moment, and then resolutely going
on to speak truthfully the thought that was in her. "No, Marshall, for
then I should not have had the impulse that teaches me now what to do.
Tell me now, about the war. Shall I find Willoughby occupied as a
Federal general's headquarters when I get back to Virginia?"