It’s all over. It will be a long time before I add another chapter to
my “Memoirs.” When I have written this one they are to be sealed, and
to-morrow they are to be packed away in Aunt Mary’s cedar chest. I am
now writing these lines after everyone else has gone to bed.
It happened after dinner. Aunt Mary was upstairs, and Beatrice was at
the piano. We were waiting for Lowell, who had promised to come up and
spend the evening. I was sitting at the centre-table, pretending to
read, but watching Beatrice. Her back was turned toward me, so I could
stare at her as long as I pleased. The light of the candles on each side
of the music-rack fell upon her hair, and made it flash and burn. She
had twisted it high, in a coil, and there never was anything more
lovely than the burnished copper against the white glow of her skin,
nor anything so noble as the way her head rose upon her neck and sloping
shoulders. It was like a flower on a white stem.
She was not looking at the music before her, but up at nothing, while
her hands ran over the keyboard, playing an old sailor’s “chantey” which
Lowell has taught us. It carries with it all the sweep and murmur of the
sea at night.
She could not see me, she had forgotten that I was even in the room,
and I was at liberty to gaze at her and dream of her undisturbed. I felt
that, without that slight, white figure always at my side, the life I
was to begin on the morrow, or any other life, would be intolerable.
Without the thought of Beatrice to carry me through the day I could not
bear it. Except for her, what promise was there before me of reward or
honor? I was no longer “an officer and a gentleman,” I was a copying
clerk, “a model letter-writer.” I could foresee the end. I would become
a nervous, knowing, smug-faced civilian. Instead of clean liquors, I
would poison myself with cocktails and “quick-order” luncheons. I would
carry a commuter’s ticket. In time I might rise to the importance of
calling the local conductors by their familiar names. “Bill, what was
the matter with the 8.13 this morning?” From to-morrow forward I would
be “our” Mr. Macklin, “Yours of even date received. Our Mr. Macklin will
submit samples of goods desired.” “Mr.” Macklin! “Our” Mr. Macklin! Ye
Gods! Schwartz any servitude, I would struggle to rise above the most
hateful surroundings.
I had just registered this mental vow, my eyes were still fixed
appealingly on the woman who was all unconscious of the sacrifice I was
about to make for her, when the servant came into the room and handed
me a telegram. I signed for it, and she went out. Beatrice had not heard
her enter, and was still playing. I guessed the telegram was from Lowell
to say he could not get away, and I was sorry. But as I tore open the
envelope, I noticed that it was not the usual one of yellow paper, but
of a pinkish white. I had never received a cablegram. I did not know
that this was one. I read the message, and as I read it the blood in
every part of my body came to a sudden stop. There was a strange buzzing
in my ears, the drums seemed to have burst with a tiny report. The shock
was so tremendous that it seemed Beatrice must have felt it too, and I
looked up at her stupidly. She was still playing.
The cablegram had been sent that morning from Marseilles. The message
read, “Commanding Battalion French Zouaves, Tonkin Expedition, holding
position of Adjutant open for you, rank of Captain, if accept join
Marseilles. Laguerre.”
I laid the paper on my knee, and sat staring, scarcely breathing, as
though I were afraid if I moved I would wake. I was trembling and cold,
for I was at the parting of the ways, and I knew it. Beyond the light
of the candles, beyond the dull red curtains jealously drawn against the
winter landscape, beyond even the slight, white figure with its crown
of burnished copper, I saw the swarming harbor of Marseilles. I saw the
swaggering turcos in their scarlet breeches, the crowded troop-ships,
and from every ship’s mast the glorious tri-color of France; the flag
that in ten short years had again risen, that was flying over advancing
columns in China, in Africa, in Madagascar; over armies that for Alsace
Lorraine were giving France new and great colonies on every seaboard
of the world. The thoughts that flew through my brain made my fingers
clench until the nails bit into my palms. Even to dream of such
happiness was actual pain. That this might come to me! To serve under
the tri-color, to be a captain of the Grand Armee, to be one of the army
reared and trained by Napoleon Bonaparte.
I heard a cheery voice, and Lowell passed me, and advanced bowing toward
Beatrice, and she turned and smiled at him. But as she rose, she saw my
face.
“Roy!” she cried. “What is it? What has happened?”
I watched her coming toward me, as someone projected from another life,
a wonderful, beautiful memory, from a life already far in the past. I
handed her the cablegram and stood up stiffly. My joints were rigid and
the blood was still cold in my veins. She read the message, and gave a
little cry, and stood silent, gazing at me. I motioned her to give it to
Lowell, who was looking at us anxiously, his eyes filled with concern.
He kept his head lowered over the message for so long, that I thought
he was reading it several times. When he again raised his face it was
filled with surprise and disapproval. But beneath, I saw a dawning look
which he could not keep down, of a great hope. It was as though he had
been condemned to death, and the paper Beatrice had handed him to read
had been his own reprieve.
“Tell me,” said Beatrice. Her tone was as gentle and as solemn as the
stroke of a bell, and as impersonal. It neither commended nor reproved.
I saw that instantly she had determined to conceal her own wishes, to
obliterate herself entirely, to let me know that, so far as she could
affect my choice, I was a free agent. I looked appealingly from her to
Lowell, and from Lowell back to Beatrice. I still was trembling with the
fever the message had lit in me. When I tried to answer, my voice was
hoarse and shaking.
“It’s like drink!” I said.
Lowell raised his eyes as though he meant to speak, and then lowered
them and stepped back, leaving Beatrice and myself together.
“I only want you to see,” Beatrice began bravely, “how--how serious it
is. Every one of us in his life must have a moment like this, and, if
he could only know that the moment had come, he might decide wisely. You
know the moment has come. You must see that this is the crisis. It
means choosing not for a year, but for always.” She held out her hands,
entwining the fingers closely. “Oh, don’t think I’m trying to stop you,
Royal,” she cried. “I only want you to see that it’s final. I know that
it’s like strong drink to you, but the more you give way to it--. Don’t
you think, if you gave your life here a fairer trial, if you bore with
it a little longer--”
She stopped sharply as though she recognized that, in urging me to a
choice, she was acting as she had determined she would not. I did not
answer, but stood in silence with my head bent, for I could not look at
her. I knew now how much dearer to me, even than her voice, was the one
which gave the call to arms. I did indeed understand that the crisis had
come. In that same room, five minutes before the message arrived, I had
sworn for her sake alone to submit to the life I hated. And yet in an
instant, without a moment’s pause, at the first sound of “Boots and
Saddles,” I had sprung to my first love, and had forgotten Beatrice
and my sworn allegiance. Knowing how greatly I loved her, I now could
understand, since it made me turn from her, how much greater must be my
love for this, her only rival, the old life that was again inviting me.
I was no longer to be deceived; the one and only thing I really
loved, the one thing I understood and craved, was the free, homeless,
untrammelled life of the soldier of fortune. I wanted to see the shells
splash up the earth again, I wanted to throw my leg across a saddle,
I wanted to sleep on a blanket by a camp-fire, I wanted the kiss and
caress of danger, the joy which comes when the sword wins honor and
victory together, and I wanted the clear, clean view of right and wrong,
that is given only to those who hourly walk with death.