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THE STORM CENTRE
_A NOVEL_
BY CHARLES EGBERT CRADDOCK
AUTHOR OF "THE STORY OF OLD FORT LOUDON," "A
SPECTRE OF POWER," "IN THE STRANGER-PEOPLE'S
COUNTRY," "THE PROPHET OF THE GREAT SMOKY
MOUNTAINS," "WHERE THE BATTLE WAS FOUGHT," ETC.
New York
THE MACMILLAN COMPANY
LONDON: MACMILLAN & CO., LTD.
1905
COPYRIGHT, 1905,
By THE MACMILLAN COMPANY.
Set up and electrotyped. Published June, 1905.
Norwood Press
J. S. Cushing & Co.--Berwick & Smith Co.
Norwood, Mass., U.S.A.
THE STORM CENTRE
CHAPTER I
The place reminded him then and later of the storm centre of a cyclone.
Outside the tempests of Civil War raged. He could hear, as he sat in the
quiet, book-lined room, the turbulent drums fitfully beating in tented
camps far down the Tennessee River. Through the broad, old-fashioned
window he saw the purple hills opposite begin to glow with a myriad of
golden gleams, pulsing like fireflies, that told of thousands of troops
in bivouac. He read the mystic message of the signal lights, shining
with a different lustre, moving athwart the eminence, then back again,
expunged in blackness as a fort across the river flashed out an answer.
A military band was playing at headquarters, down in the night-begloomed
town, and now and again the great blare of the brasses came widely
surging on the raw vernal gusts. In the shadowy grove in front of this
suburban home his own battery of horse-artillery was parked. It had
earlier made its way over many an obstacle, and, oddly enough, through
its agency he was recently enabled to penetrate the exclusive reserve
of this Southern household, always hitherto coldly aloof and averse to
the invader.
He had chanced to send a pencilled message on his card to the mansion.
It merely expressed a warning to lift the sashes of the windows during
the trial practice of a new gun, lest in the firing the glass be
shattered by the concussion of the air. His name was unusual, and seeing
it on the card recalled many pleasant reminiscences to the mind of old
Judge Roscoe. Another "Fluellen Baynell" had been his college chum, and
inquiry developed the fact that this Federal captain of artillery was
the son of this ancient friend. An interchange of calls ensued. And here
sat Captain Baynell in the storm centre, the quiet of evening closing
in, the lamp on the table serenely aglow, the wood fire flashing on the
high brass andirons and fender, the lion delineated on the velvet rug
respectfully crouching beneath his feet. But in this suave environment
he was beginning to feel somewhat embarrassed, for the old colored
servant who had admitted him and replenished the fire, and whom he had
politely greeted as "Uncle Ephraim," in deference to his age, now
loitered, volubly criticising the unseen, unknown inmates of the house,
who would probably overhear, for at any moment the big oak door might
usher them into the room.
His excuses for his master's delay to appear absorbed but little time,
and he assiduously brushed the polished stone hearth with a turkey wing
to justify his lingering in conversation with the guest. Unexpected
business had called Judge Roscoe to the town, thus preventing him from
being present upon the arrival of Captain Baynell, invited to partake of
tea _en famille_.
"But den, he 'lowed dat Miss Leonora--dat's Mrs. Gwynn, his niece, a
widder 'oman--would be ready, but Marster mought hev' knowed dat Miss
Leonora ain't never ready for nuffin till day arter ter-morrow! Den
dere's de ladies--dey hes been dressin' fur ye fur better dan an hour.
But shucks! de ladies is so vain dat dey is jus' ez liable ter keep on
dressin' fur anodder hour yit!"
This was indubitably flattering information; but Captain Baynell, a
blond man of thirty, of a military stiffness in his brilliant uniform,
and of a most uncompromising dignity, glanced with an uneasy monition at
the door, a trifle ajar. He was sensible, notwithstanding, of an
unusually genial glow of expectation. The rude society of camps was
unacceptable to a man of his exacting temperament, and, the sentiment of
the country being so adverse to the cause he represented, he had had
scant opportunities here to enter social circles of the grade that would
elsewhere have welcomed him. He had not adequately realized how he had
missed these refinements and felt the deprivation of his isolation till
the moment of meeting the ladies of Judge Roscoe's household was at
hand. He had hardly expected, however, to create so great a flutter
amongst them, and he was at once secretly elated and disdainful.
Although a stranger to the ladies, the officer was well known to the old
servant. The guns had hardly been unlimbered in the beautiful grove in
front of the house ere the ancient slave had appeared in the camp to
express his ebullient patriotism, to thank his liberators for his
freedom,--for this was the result of the advance of the Federal army, a
military measure and not as yet a legal enactment.
Despite his exuberant rhetoric, there was something tenuous about his
fervent protestations, and the fact that he still adhered to his
master's service suggested a devotion to the old regime incongruous with
his loudly proclaimed welcome of the new day.
"Why don't you leave your servitude, then, Uncle Ephraim?" one of the
younger officers had tentatively asked him.
"Dat is jes' whut I say!" diplomatically replied Uncle Ephraim, who thus
came to be called "the double-faced Janus."
Now indeed, instead of a vaunt of liberty, he was disposed to apologize,
for the sake of the credit of the house, that there were no more slaves
to make a braver show in servitude.
"Dey ain't got no butler now,--he's in a restauroar up north,--nor no
car'age driver; dat fool nigger went off wid de Union army, an' got
killed in a scrimmage. He would hev' stayed wid Marster, dough, if de
Fed'ral folks hedn't tuk de hosses off wid de cavalry; he 'lowed he wuz
too lonesome yere, wid jes' nuffin' but two-footed cattle ter 'sociate
wid."
Once more he whisked the turkey wing along the clean, smooth hearth;
then, still on his knees before the fire, he again addressed himself to
the explanations he deemed fit as to the reduced status of his master's
household.
"Me an' my wife is all de servants dey got now--she's Chaney, de cook in
de kitchen. Dey hatter scuse me, fur I never waited in de house afore.
No, sah! jes' a wuckin' hand; jes' a cawnfield hand, out'n de cawnfield
straight!"
Whisk went the turkey wing.
"Dat's whut I tell Miss Leonora,--dat's Mrs. Gwynn, de widder 'oman,
Marster's niece whut's been takin' keer ob de house yere sence his wife
died,--I say I dunno no better when I break de dishes, an' Miss Leonora,
she say a b'ar outer a holler tree would know better. Yah! yah!"
The officer, feeling these domestic confidences a burden, began to
scrutinize with an appearance of interest the Dresden china shepherd and
shepherdess at either end of the tall white wooden mantelpiece, and then
the clock of the same ware in the centre.
Old Janus mistook the nature of his motive. "'Tis gittin' late fur
shore! Gawd! dem ladies is a-dressin' an' a-dressin' yit! It's a pity
Miss Leonora--dat's de widder 'oman--don't fix _herself_ up some; looks
ole, fur true, similar to a ole gran'mammy of a 'oman. But, sah, whut
did she ever marry dat man fur?"
Captain Baynell, in the stress of an unusual embarrassment, rose and
walked to one of the tall book-cases, affecting to examine the title of
a long row of books, but the old servant was not sensitive; he resorted
to the simple expedient of raising his voice to follow the guest in a
detail that brought Captain Baynell back to his chair in unseemly haste,
where a lower tone was practicable.
"She could hev' married my Marster's son, Julius, an' him de flower ob
de flock! But no! She jus' would marry dis yere Gwynn feller, whut
nobody wanted her ter marry, an' eloped wid him--she did! An' shore
'nuff, dey do say he pulled her round de house by de hair ob her head,
dough some 'lows he jus' bruk a chair ober her head!"
The officer was a brave man, but now he was in the extremity of panic.
What if some one were at the door on the point of entering?--the "widder
'oman" herself, for instance!
"I don't need you any longer, Uncle Ephraim," he ventured to
remonstrate.
"I'm gwine, Cap'n, jus' as soon as I git through wid de ha'th," and
Uncle Ephraim gave it a perfunctory whisk.
He interpolated an explanation of his diligence. "I don't want Miss
Leonora--dat's de widder 'oman--ter be remarkin' on it. Nobody kin do
nuthin' ter suit her but Chaney, dis cook dey got, who belong ter Miss
Leonora, an' befo' de War used ter be her waitin'-'oman. Chaney is all
de estate Miss Leonora hes got lef,--an' ye know dat sort o' property
ain't wurf much in dis happy day o' freedom. Miss Leonora wuz rich once
in her own right. But she flung her marriage-settlements--dat dey had
fixed to tie up her property so Gwynn couldn't sell it nor waste
it--right inter de fiah! She declared she would marry a man whut she
could trust wid her fortune! An'," the narrator concluded his story
impressively, "when dat man died--his horse throwed him an' bruk his
neck--I wondered dey didn't beat de drum fur joy, 'twuz sich a crownin'
mercy! But he hed spent all her fortune 'fore he went!"
The whisking wing was still; Uncle Ephraim's eyes dwelt on the fire with
a glow of deep speculation. He lowered his voice mysteriously.
"Dat man wuz de poorest stuff ter make an angel out'n ever you see! I
dunno _whut's_ become of him."
There was a stir outside, a footfall; and, as Captain Baynell sprang to
his feet, feeling curiously guilty in receiving, however unwillingly,
these revelations of the history of the family, Judge Roscoe entered,
his welcome the more cordial and expressed because he noticed a certain
constraint in his guest's manner, which he ascribed to the unintentional
breach of decorum in the failure to properly receive him.
"I had hoped my niece, Mrs. Gwynn, might have been here to save you a
dull half hour, or perhaps my granddaughters--where are the ladies and
Mrs. Gwynn, Ephraim?" he broke off to ask of "the double-faced Janus,"
scuttling out with his basket of chips and his turkey wing.
"De ladies is dressin' ter see de company," replied Janus, with a grin
wide enough to decorate both his faces. "Miss Leonora, she is helpin'
'em!"
Captain Baynell experienced renewed embarrassment, but Judge Roscoe
laughed with obvious relish.
The host, pale, thin, nervous, old, was of a type ill calculated to
endure the stress of excitement and turmoil of incident of the Civil
War; indeed, he might have succumbed utterly in the mortality of the
aged, so general at that period, but for the incongruous rest and
inaction of the storm centre. The town was heavily garrisoned by the
Federal forces; the firing line was far afield. He had two sons in the
Confederate army, but too distant for news, for speculation, for aught
but anxiety and prayer. The elder of them was a widower, the father of
"the ladies," and hence in his absence Judge Roscoe's charge of his
granddaughters.
The phrase "the ladies and Mrs. Gwynn" grated on Captain Baynell. It
seemed incongruous with the punctilious old Southern gentleman to make a
discourteous distinction thus between his granddaughters and his niece.
Baynell dated his sympathy with her from that moment. However old and
faded and reduced the house-keeperish "widder 'oman" might be, it was an
affront to thus segregate her. He felt an antagonism toward "the ladies"
in their exclusive aristocratic designation even before he heard the
first dainty touch of their slippered feet upon the great stairway, or a
gush of fairylike treble laughter. As a silken rustle along the hall
heralded their bedizened approach, he arose ceremoniously to greet them.
The door flew open with a wide swing; his eyes rested on nothing beyond,
for he was looking two feet over range. There rushed into the room three
little girls, six and eight years of age, all hanging back for a moment
till their grandfather's encouraging "Come, ladies!" nerved them for the
introduction of Captain Baynell. Although sensible of a deep
disappointment and a sudden cessation of interest in the storm centre,
he could hardly refrain from laughing at the downfall of his own
confident expectations.
Yet "the ladies," in their way, were well worth looking at, and their
diligent care of their toilette had not been in vain. The two younger
ones were twins, very rosy, with golden hair, delicately curled and
perfumed. The other was far more beautiful than either. Her hair was of
a chestnut hue; her dark blue eyes were eloquent with meaning--"speaking
eyes." She had an exquisitely fair complexion and an entrancing smile,
and amidst the twittering words and fluttering laughter of the others
she was silent; it was a sinister, weighty, significant silence.
"A deaf mute," her grandfather explained with a note of pathos and pain.
Captain Baynell's acceptance of the fact had the requisite touch of
sympathy and interest, but no more. How could he imagine that the
child's infirmity could ever concern him, could be a factor of import in
the most notable crisis of his life!
Indeed, he might have forgotten it within the hour had naught else
riveted his attention to the house. He had begun to look forward to a
dull evening,--the reaction from the expectation of charming feminine
society of a congenial age. "The ladies" failed in that particular,
lovely though they were in the quaint costumes of the day, the
golden-haired twins respectively in faint blue and dark red "satin
faced" merino, the brown-haired child in rich orange. Over their bodices
all three wore sheer spencers of embroidered Swiss muslin, with
embroidered ruffles below the waist line. This was encircled with
silken sashes, the tint of their gowns. The skirts were short, showing
long, white, clocked stockings and red morocco slippers with elastic
crossing the instep. The trio were swift in making advances into
friendship, and soon were swarming about the officer, counting his
shining buttons with great particularity, and squealing with greedy
delight when an unexpected row was discovered on the seam of each of his
sleeves.
As the door again opened, the very aspect of the room altered--a new
presence pervaded the life of Fluellen Baynell that made the idea of
strife indeed alien, aloof; the past a forgotten trifle; the future
remote, in indifferent abeyance, and the momentous present the chief
experience of his existence. It was partially the effect of surprise,
although other elements exerted a potent influence.
Instead of the forlorn, faded "widder 'oman" of his fancy, there
appeared a girlish shape, whose young, fair face was a magnet to all the
romance within him. What mattered it with such beauty that the
expression was a dreary lassitude, the pose indifference, the garb a
shabby black dress worn with no touch of distinction, no thought, no
care for appearances. As he rose, with "the ladies" affectionately
clinging about him, and bowed low in the moment of introduction, his
searching eyes discerned every minute detail. It was like a sun picture
upon his consciousness, realized and fixed in his mind as if he had
known it forever. And with a sudden ignoble recollection his face
flushed from his forehead to his high military collar. Was it her hair,
the old gossip had said, or was it a chair?
It was impossible to look at her without noticing her hair. A rich,
golden brown, it waved back from her white brow in heavy undulations,
caught and coiled in a great glittering knot at the back of her head,
with no ornament, simplicity itself. Certainly, he reflected, no
preparations were in progress in this quarter for his captivation. One
of the ready-made crape collars of the period was about her neck, the
delicate, fine contour of her throat displayed by the cut of her dress.
Her luminous gray eyes, with their long black lashes, cast upon him a
mere glance, cool, casual, unfriendly, it might even seem, if it were
worth her languid while.
He sought to win her to some demonstration of interest when they were
presently at table, with old Janus skirmishing about the dining room
with a silver salver, hindering the meal rather than serving it. Only
conventional courtesy characterized her, although she gave Baynell a
radiant smile when offering a second cup of tea; an official smile, so
to speak, strictly appertaining to her pose as hostess, as she sat
behind the massive silver tea service that had been in the Roscoe family
for many years.
She left the conversation almost wholly to the gentlemen when they had
returned to the library. Quiescent, inexpressive, she leaned back in a
great arm-chair, her beautiful eyes fixed reflectively on the fire. The
three "ladies," on a small sofa, apparently listened too, the little
dumb girl seeming the most attentive of the trio, to the half-hearted,
guarded, diplomatic discussion of politics, such as was possible in
polite society to men of opposing factions in those heady, bitter days.
Only once, when Baynell was detailing the names of his brothers to
gratify Judge Roscoe's interest in the family of his ancient friend, did
Mrs. Gwynn suggest her individuality. She suddenly rose.
"You would like to see the portraits of Judge Roscoe's sons," she said
as definitely as if he had asked this privilege. It may not have been
the fact, but Baynell felt that she was making amends to the absent for
the apostasy of "entertaining a Yankee officer," as the phrase went in
that day, by exhibiting with pride their cherished images and forcing
him to perform polite homage before them.
He meekly followed, however, as she took from a wide-mouthed jar on the
table a handful of tapers, made of rolled paper, and, lighting one at
the fire, led the way across the wide hall and into the cold, drear
gloom of the drawing-rooms. There in the dim light from the hall
chandelier, shining through the open door, she flitted from lamp to
lamp, and instantly there was a chill, white glitter throughout the
great apartments, showing the floriated velvet carpets, affected at that
time, the carved rosewood furniture upholstered with satin damask of
green and gold, the lambrequins of a harmonizing brocade and lace
curtains at the windows, the grand piano, and marble-topped tables, and
on the walls a great inexpressive mirror, above each of the white marble
mantelpieces, and some large oil paintings, chiefly the portraits of the
family.
The three "ladies" gathered under the picture of their father with the
fervor of pilgrims at a votive shrine. Clarence Roscoe's portrait seemed
to gaze down at them smilingly. He it was who had given his little
daughters their quaint, formal sobriquet of "the ladies," the phrase
seriously accepted by others, until no longer recognized as a nickname.
Suddenly the deaf mute rushed back to officiously claim the officer's
attention. Her brilliant eyes were aglow; the fascination of her smile
transfigured her face; she was now gazing at another portrait. This was
of a very young man, extraordinarily handsome, in full Confederate
uniform, and, carrying her hand to her forehead with the most spirited
air imaginable, she gave the military salute.
"That is her sign for Julius," cried Mrs. Gwynn, delightedly. "We have
seen many armies with banners, but Julius is her ideal of a soldier, and
the only one in all the world whom she distinguishes by the military
salute."
"My younger son," explained Judge Roscoe; while "the ladies" with their
quick transitions from subject to subject were sidling about the rooms,
sinking their feet as deep as possible into the soft pile of the velvet
carpets, and feeling with their slim fingers the rich gloss of the satin
damask coverings, complacent in the consciousness that it was all very
fine and revelling in a sense of luxury. Poor little ladies!
But Mrs. Gwynn with a word presently sent them scuttling back to the
warmth of the library. As she began to extinguish the lamps Baynell
offered to assist. She accepted civilly, of course, but with the
unnoting, casual acquiescence that had begun to pique him, and as they
closed the door upon the shadowy deserted apartments he thought they
were of a grewsome favor, that the evening was of an untoward drift, and
he lingered only for the conventional interval after returning to the
library before he took his leave.
As the door closed after him he noted that the stars were in the dark
sky. The wind was laid. The lights in the many camps had all
disappeared, for "taps" had sounded. Now and again in close succession
he heard the clocks in divers towers in Roanoke City striking the hour.
There was no token of military occupation in all the land, save that
from far away on a turnpike toward the dark west came the dull
continuous roll of wagon wheels as an endless forage train made its way
into the town; and as he passed out of the portico, a sentry posted on
the gravelled drive in front of the house challenged him. He had ordered
a guard to be stationed there for its protection against wandering
marauders, so remote was the place. He gave the countersign, and took
his way down through the great oak and tulip trees of the grove that his
authority had also been exerted to preserve. His father's old friend had
this claim upon his courtesy, he felt, for century oaks cannot be
replaced in a fortnight, and without them the home would indeed be
bereft.
Thinking still of the placid storm centre, Leonora Gwynn's face was
continually in his mind; the tones of her voice echoed in his revery.
And then suddenly he heard his step ringing on the frosty ground with a
new spirit; he felt his finger tips tingle; his face glowed with rancor.
The man was dead, and this indeed was well! But--profane thought! was it
her hair? her beautiful hair? "The coward! the despicable villain!" he
called aloud between his set teeth.