The next day naught of interest would Baynell detail of his venture into
the storm centre. His invitation to the house of Judge Roscoe, somewhat
noted for the vigor of his rebellious sentiments, resentful, implacable,
even heady in the assumptions of his age, had roused the curiosity of
Baynell's two most intimate friends concerning the traits of that
secluded inner exclusive circle which only the accident of ancient
association had enabled him to penetrate. In the tedium of camp routine
even slight matters were of interest, and it was the habit of the three
to compare notes and relate for mutual entertainment their varied
experiences since last they had met.
The battery of six pieces which Baynell commanded enjoyed a certain
renown as a crack corps, and spectators were gathering to witness the
gun-drill,--a number of soldiers from the adjoining cavalry and infantry
camps, a few of the railroad hands from the repair work on a neighboring
track, and a contingent of freedmen, jubilantly idle. Standing a little
apart from these was a group, chiefly mounted, consisting of several
officers of the different arms of the service, military experts,
critically observant, among whom was Colonel Vertnor Ashley, who
commanded a volunteer regiment of horse, and a younger man, Lieutenant
Seymour of the infantry.
It was a fine fresh morning, with white clouds scudding across a densely
blue sky chased by the wind, the grass springing into richer verdure,
the buds bourgeoning, with almost the effect of leaflets already, in the
great oak and tulip trees of the grove. Daffodils were blooming here and
there, scattered throughout the sward,--even beneath the carriages of
the guns a score perhaps, untrampled still, reared aloft the golden
"candlesticks" with an illuminating effect. The warm sun was flashing
with an embellishing glitter on the rows of the white tents of the army
on the hills around the little city as far as the eye could reach. The
deep, broad river, here and there dazzling with lustrous stretches of
ripples, was full of craft,--coal-barges, skiffs, gunboats, the ordinary
steam-packets, flatboats, and rafts; the peculiar dull roar of a railway
train heavily laden, transporting troops, came to the ear as the engine,
shrieking like a monster, rushed upon the bridge with its great
consignment of crowded humanity in the long line of box cars, an
additional locomotive assisting the speed of the transit.
"Come here, Ashley, and see if you can make anything of Baynell," said
the infantry lieutenant, whose regiment lay in camp a little to the
west, as the colonel reined in his horse under the tree where Seymour
was hanging on to Baynell's stirrup-leather. "He hasn't a syllable to
say. I want to know what is the name of that pretty girl at Judge
Roscoe's."
Ashley came riding up with his inimitable pompous swagger, half the
result of jocose bravado, half of genuine and justifiable vanity. It
went very well with the suggestions of his high cavalry boots, his
clanking sword, and his jingling spurs. His somewhat broad ruddy face
had the merit of a sidelong glance of great archness, delivered from a
pair of vivacious hazel eyes, and he twirled his handsome, long, dark
mustache with the air of a conqueror at the very mention of a pretty
girl.
"I can tell you more about Judge Roscoe's family than Fluellen Baynell
ever will," Ashley declared gayly. "So ask _me_ what you want to know,
Mark, and don't intrude on Nellie's finical delicacy."
Throughout the campaign Colonel Ashley's squadrons had cooperated with
Baynell's artillery. The officers had come to know and respect each
other well in the stress of danger and mutual dependence. It may be
doubted whether any other man alive could with impunity have called
Fluellen Baynell "Nellie."
Baynell was in full uniform, splendidly mounted, awaiting the hour
appointed, and now and again casting his eye on the camp "street" at
some distance, the stable precincts all a turmoil of hurrying drivers
and artillerymen harnessing horses and adjusting accoutrements, while a
continuous hum of voices, jangling of metal, and tramping of steeds came
on the air. He withdrew his attention with an effort.
"Why, what do you want me to tell?" he demanded sarcastically;--"what
they had for supper?"
"No--no--but just be neighborly. For sheer curiosity I want to know his
daughter's name," persisted the lieutenant of infantry.
"Judge Roscoe has no daughter," replied Baynell.
"His granddaughter, then."
"His granddaughters are children--I have forgotten their names."
"Well, _who_ is that young lady there?--a beauty of beauties. I caught a
glimpse of her at the window the day we pitched our camp in the peach
orchard over there."
"She is the most beautiful girl I have ever seen," solemnly declared
Ashley, who had artistic proclivities. "I never saw a face like
that--such chiselling, so perfect--unless it were some fine antique
cameo. It has the contour, the lines, the dignity, of a Diana! And her
hair is really exquisite! Who is she, Fluellen?"
Baynell was conscious of the constraint very perceptible in his voice as
he replied, "She is Judge Roscoe's niece, Mrs. Gwynn."
Ashley stared. "_Mrs.!_ Why, she doesn't look twenty years old!" Then,
with sudden illumination, "Why--that must be the '_widder 'oman!_'" with
an unctuous imitation of old Ephraim's elocution. "I _am_ surprised.
Mrs. Gwynn! 'De widder 'oman!'" He broke off to laugh at a sudden
recollection.
"I wish you could have heard old Janus's account of his effort to clean
the knives to suit her. She seems to be in command of the commissariat
up there. The old darkey came into camp, searching for the methods of
polishing metals that the soldiers use for their accoutrements.
'Brilliancy without labor,' was Uncle Ephraim's desideratum. I gave him
some rotten-stone. His sketch of how the judgment day would overtake him
still polishing knives for the 'widder 'oman' was worth hearing."
Baynell would not have so considered it--thus far apart were the friends
in prejudice and temperament. Yet there was no derogation in the simple
gossip. To the campaigners the Roscoe household was but the temporary
incident of the mental landscape, and the confidential bit of criticism
and comment served only to make conversation and pass the time.
All of Vertnor Ashley's traits were on a broad scale, genial and open.
He had the best opinion imaginable of himself, and somehow the world
shared it--so ingratiating was his joviality. His very defects were
obviated and went for naught. Although, being only of middle height,
his tendency to portliness threatened the grace of his proportions, he
was esteemed a fine figure and a handsome man. He made a brave show in
the saddle, and was a magnificent presentment of a horseman. He was a
poor drill; his discipline was lax, for he dearly loved popularity and
fostered this incense to his vanity. He was adored in his regiment, and
he never put foot in stirrup to ride in or out of camp that even this
casual appearance was not cheered to the echo. "That must be Vert
Ashley, or a rabbit!" was a usual speculation upon the sound of sudden
shouting, for the opportunity to chase a rabbit was a precious break in
the monotony of the life of the rank and file.
Baynell's coming and going, on the contrary, was greeted with no
demonstration. He was a rigid disciplinarian. He exacted every capacity
for work that the men possessed, and his battery was one of the most
efficient of the horse artillery in the service. But when it came to the
test of battle, the cannoneers could not shout loud and long enough.
They were sure of fine execution and yet of careful avoidance of the
reckless sacrifice of their lives and the capture of their guns, often
returning, indeed, from action, covered with glory, having lost not one
man, not so much as a sponge-staff. So fine an officer could well
dispense with the arts that fostered popularity and ministered to
vanity. Thus the slightest peccadillo made the offender and the wooden
horse acquaint.
None of Baynell's qualities were of the jovial order. He was a martinet,
a technical expert in the science of gunnery, a stern and martial leader
of men. His mind was an orderly assimilation of valuable information,
his consciousness a repelling exclusive assortment of sensitive fibres.
He had a high and exacting moral sense, and his pride of many various
kinds passed all bounds. He listened with aghast dismay to the story of
Mrs. Gwynn's unhappy married life that Ashley rehearsed,--the ordinary
gossip of the day, to be heard everywhere,--and then a discussion took
place as to whether or not the horse that killed her husband were the
vicious charger now ridden by the colonel of a certain regiment.
"It couldn't be," said Ashley, "that happened nearly a year ago."
This talk hung on for a long time, as it seemed to Baynell. Yet he did
not welcome its conclusion, for a greater source of irritation was to
come.
"But now that you have a footing there, Fluellen, I want you to
introduce me," said Colonel Ashley, who was a person of consideration in
high and select circles at home, and spoke easily from the
vantage-ground of an acknowledged social position. "I should be glad to
meet Mrs. Gwynn. I never saw any one whose appearance so impressed me."
"Take me with you when you two call," the lieutenant, all unprescient,
interjected casually. The next moment he was flushing angrily, for,
impossible as it seemed, Baynell was declining in set terms.
"My footing there would not justify me in asking to introduce my
friends," he said. "I should be afraid of a refusal."
Ashley, too, cast a swift, indignant glance upon him. Then, "I'll risk
it," he said easily; for ill-humor with him was "about face" so suddenly
that it was hardly to be recognized.
Baynell showed a stiff distaste for the persistence, but maintained his
position.
"Judge Roscoe made it plain that it was only for the sake of his
friendship with my father that he offered any civility to me--no
concession politically. My status as an officer of the 'Yankee army' is
an offence and a stumbling-block to him."
"Bless his fire-eating soul! I don't want to convert him from his
treason. I desire only to call on the lady."
"I myself could not call on Mrs. Gwynn," protested Baynell. "She hardly
spoke a word to me."
"It will be quite sufficient for her to listen to me," laughed Ashley.
"She took only the most casual notice of my presence--barely to give me
a cup of tea."
"Now, Baynell," said the lieutenant, exceedingly wroth. "I want you to
understand that I take this very ill of you."
He was a tall, spare young fellow, with light, straight brown hair, a
light-brown mustache, and a keen, excitable blue eye, which showed
well-opened and alert from under the dark brim of his cap as he looked
upward, still standing at the side of Baynell's restive horse. "I think
it a very poor return for similar courtesy. I took _you_ with me to call
on Miss Fisher--and--"
"This is a very different case. I, personally, am not on terms with Mrs.
Gwynn. Besides, she is very different from Miss Fisher, who entertains
general society. Mrs. Gwynn is a widow--in deep mourning."
"But it _is_ told in Gath that widows are not usually inconsolable,"
suggested Ashley, with a brightening of his arch eyes, and still
laughing it off.
"I am much affronted, Captain Baynell," declared the irascible
lieutenant. "I consider this personal. And I will get even with you for
this!"
"And I will get an introduction to Mrs. Gwynn without your kind
offices," declared Ashley, with a jocular imitation of their young
friend's indignant manner.
"I shall be very happy if you can meet her in any appropriate way. It is
not appropriate for me, cognizant of their ardent rebel sympathies and
intense antagonism to the Union cause and antipathy to all its
supporters, to ask to introduce my friends of the invading 'Yankee
army,'" Baynell replied with stiff hauteur.
Just then the bugle sang out, its mandatory, clear, golden tones lifting
into the sunshine with such a full buoyant effect that it was like the
very spirit of martial courage transmuted into sound. Baynell instantly
put his horse into motion, and rode off through the brilliant air and
the sparse shadows of the budding trees. His blond hair and mustache,
gilded by the sunlight, had as decorative an effect as his gold lace;
his blue eyes glittered with a stern, vigilant light; his face was
flushed, something unusual, for he was wont to be pale, and his erect,
imposing, soldierly figure sat his spirited young charger with the
firmness of a centaur. The eyes of all the group followed him, several
commenting on his handsome appearance, his fine bearing, his splendid
horse, and his great value as an officer.
"He is an admirable fellow," declared Dr. Grindley, a surgeon on his way
to the hospital hard by. He had paused at a little distance, and had not
heard the conversation.
"If he were not such a prig," Ashley assented dubiously. "Such an
uncompromising stickler on trifles! Any other man in the world would
have slurred the matter over, and never kept the promise of the
introduction. If inconvenient or undesirable, he might have postponed
the call indefinitely."
"He is a most confounded prig," said Lieutenant Seymour, in great
irritation.
"Baynell must have everything out--to the bitter end," said Ashley.
"I'd like to break his head! I'd like to break his face--with my fist,"
exclaimed the lieutenant, petulantly, clenching his hand again and
again. He detailed the tenor of the conversation to the surgeon as the
group watched the manoeuvring battery. "Isn't that a dog-in-the-manger-ish
trick, Dr. Grindley? He wants to keep his Roscoes to himself. Mrs. Gwynn
won't speak to him, and so he wants nobody else to go there whom she
_might_ speak to!"
Baynell, still uncomfortably conscious of the rancor he had roused, had
taken his position in the centre, just the regulation twelve paces in
front of the leading horses, with the music four paces distant from the
right of the first gun. As the sound blared out gayly on the crisp,
clear, vernal breeze, the glittering ranks, every soldier mounted on a
strong, fresh steed, moved forward swiftly, with the gun-carriages and
caissons each drawn by a team of six horses. The air was full of the
tramp of hoofs and the clangor of heavy, revolving wheels, ever and anon
punctuated by the sharp monition, "Obstacle!" as one of the giant oaks
of the grove intervened and the direction of the march of a piece was
obliqued. The efficiency of the battery was very evident. The drill was
almost perfect, despite the difficulty of manoeuvring among the trees.
But when the ranks passed from the grove they swept like a whirlwind
over the open spaces of the adjoining pasture-lands, the whole battery
swinging here and there in sharp turns, never losing the prescribed
intervals of the relative distance of squads, and guns, and
caissons--all like some single intricate piece of connected mechanism,
impossible of disassociation in its several parts. Ever and anon the
clear tenor tones of the captain rang out with a trumpet-like effect,
and the refrain of the subalterns and non-commissioned officers
commanding the sections followed in their various clamors, while the
great whirling congeries of horses and men and wheels and guns obeyed
the sound like some automatic creation of the ingenuity of man. Once the
surgeon bent an attentive ear.
"By sections--break from the right to march to left!" called the
commander, with a sudden "catch" in the tones.
"Caissons forward! Trot! March!" came from a different voice.
"Section forward, guide left!" thundered a basso profundo.
"March!" cried the captain, sharply.
"March!" came the subaltern's echo.
As the moving panorama turned and wheeled and shifted, the surgeon
commented in a spirit of forecast:--
"If that fellow doesn't pay some attention to his bronchial tubes, they
will pay some attention to him, and that promptly."
So promptly indeed was this prophecy verified that within the next few
days old Ephraim, who purveyed all the news of the period to the remote
secluded country house, informed Judge Roscoe that Captain Baynell was
seriously ill with bronchitis and threatened with pneumonia. In order to
have indoor protection and treatment he was to be removed as soon as
possible to the hospital near the town. Judge Roscoe verified this rumor
upon hastening to camp, and with hospitable warmth he invited the son of
his old schoolmate to sojourn instead in his house; for in the college
days to which he was fond of recurring he had been taken into the home
of the elder Fluellen Baynell, and nursed by his friend's mother through
a typhoid attack. To repay the obligation thus was peculiarly acceptable
to a man of his type. But Baynell hardly heeded the detail of the
hospitable precedent. He needed no persuasion, and thereafter he seemed
more than ever lapsed in the serenities of the storm centre, ensconced
in one of the great square upper bedrooms, with the spare furnishing of
heavy mahogany that gave an idea of so much space, the order of the day
when the plethora of decoration, the "cosy corner," the wall pocket, the
"art drapery," the crowded knickknackery, did not obtain. For more than
a week Baynell could not rise; the surgeon visited him at regular
intervals, and Judge Roscoe appeared unfailingly each morning in the
sick room; but the rest of the family remained invisible, and held
unsympathetically aloof.
This was a shrewd loss to Ashley, for although he had called at first
with genuine anxiety as to his friend's state, the humors of the
situation appealed to him as time wore on, and he recollected with the
enhanced interest of enforced idleness his boast that he would compass
an introduction to Mrs. Gwynn, despite Baynell's stiff refusal. Seymour
still resented the circumstance so seriously that he had withheld all
manifestations of sympathy or concern, and this, the kind Ashley
considered, carried the matter much too far. He thought it might effect
a general reconciliation if he should meet Mrs. Gwynn by accident, when
he fancied he would not fear to introduce any one whom he considered fit
for good society. Thus, after he had ceased to be apprehensive
concerning Baynell's condition, he called on him again and again, but
hearing never a light footfall on the stair or the flutter of flounces
that might promise a realization of his quest. He was all unconscious
that his project had an unwitting ally in Judge Roscoe himself. For more
than once Judge Roscoe was uncomfortably visited by hospitable
monitions.
"I should have liked to ask Colonel Ashley to dine with us," he said
tentatively to Mrs. Gwynn. "He was leaving the house just as the meal
was being served. Old Ephraim--confound the old fellow--has no sort of
tact. He brought in the soup to Captain Baynell with Colonel Ashley
sitting by the bedside! It was indeed a hint to beat a retreat. I was--I
was mortified. I was really mortified not to ask him to stay."
"Heavens, Uncle Gerald!--what are you dreaming about? Ask people to
dine, and no trained servant to wait on the table--and this china--and
the ladies in their pinafores!" And Mrs. Gwynn glanced scoffingly around
the domestic board, for the place had once been famous for the elegance
of its entertainments; but the balls, the "wine suppers," the formal
late dinners of many courses, had come to an end with the conclusion of
the period of prosperity, and the perfectly trained service had vanished
with the vanishing butler and his corps of assistants whom he himself
had rigorously drilled in the school of the pantry, in strict accordance
with old traditions.
"Well, we have better china," said the judge, inexorably. "And the
pinafores don't grow on the ladies; we have excellent precedent for
believing they can be dispensed with."
Mrs. Gwynn fixed him with a resolute eye. "I don't intend to have the
ladies taken from their studies in the forenoon to dress for company and
distract their minds with fascinating gentlemen. Besides it is too great
a compliment to receive an absolute stranger informally, as one of
ourselves,--as we treat Captain Baynell,--and it is almost impossible
to entertain Colonel Ashley otherwise. You forget that we have no
trained servants. And I am not going to trust the handling of my aunt's
beautiful old Sevres dinner set to our inexperienced factotum--oh, the
idea! It makes me shudder to think of the nicks and smashings. It ought
to be kept intact for Julius's wife when he takes one, or for Clarence's
if he should ever marry again. A stray Yankee officer isn't sufficient
justification for risking it."
"He has called so often, and has been so kind to Captain Baynell."
"Well, so have I been kind to Captain Baynell, and here am I eating on
the everyday china--no Sevres for me! And I am going to be kinder still,
for he is allowed to have some dessert to-day, and I have spread this
tray with mine own hands."
She touched a call-bell, and, as old Janus appeared, "Take this tray
upstairs to Captain Baynell," she said, as she transferred it, "be
careful--don't tilt it so!" Then, as the old servant left the room, she
resumed, addressing Judge Roscoe: "You can sentimentalize about your
precious Captain Baynell, if you like, on the score of old friendship. I
can appreciate the claims of old friendship, especially as he has been
so ill, and possibly was better off here than at the hospital. But to go
in generally for entertaining Yankee officers,--and all our near and
dear out yonder in those cold wet trenches, half starved, and ragged,
and wounded, and dying,--indeed, no! For my own part, I couldn't be
induced to spread a board for another one, except at the point of the
bayonet."
"Colonel Ashley don't wear no bayonet," interposed Adelaide, glibly.
"He's got him a sword," acceded Geraldine.
"A long sword, clickety-clank," suggested the first "lady."
"Clickety, clickety-clank," echoed the other, with brightening eyes.
"Don't eat with your fingers--nor the spoon; take the fork." Mrs.
Gwynn's admonitory aside was hardly an interruption.
"That is a very narrow view, Leonora," the judge contended. "There can
be no parity between the fervor of convictions on the issues of a great
national question and merely human predilections as between individuals.
Patriotism is not license for rancor. I have shown my devotion to the
Southern cause. I have risked the lives of my dear, dear sons. I have
expended much in its interests; I have endangered and lost my fortune.
The future of all I hold dear is in jeopardy in many aspects. But I _do
not_ feel bound for that reason to hate individually every
fellow-creature who has opposite convictions, to which he has a right,
and takes up arms to sustain them."
"Well--_I do_! Being a woman, and having no reasoning capacities, there
is no necessity for me to be logical on the subject. I feel what I
feel, without qualification. And I know what I know without either legal
proof or ocular demonstration. You are welcome to your intellect, Uncle
Gerald! Much good may it do you! Intuition is enough for me. Meantime
the Sevres is safe on the shelves."
Beaten from the field as Judge Roscoe must needs be when his vaunted
ratiocination was no available weapon, he held stanchly nevertheless to
his own opinion, helpless though he was in the domestic administration.
He adopted such measures as were practicable to comport with his own
view. Flattered by Ashley's interest in Baynell and recognizant of the
frequency of his visits, never dreaming that a glimpse of Mrs. Gwynn was
their ultimate object, he took occasion to offer him such slight
courtesies as opportunity presented.
One day when they were descending the stairs Judge Roscoe chanced to
comment on the fine bouquet of a certain choice old wine. He still
hoarded a few costly bottles of an ancient importation, and with a
sudden thought he insisted on pausing in the library to take a glass and
finish a discussion happily begun by the invalid's bedside. The room was
vacant, as the colonel's keen glance swiftly assured him, and the
judge's order for wine was inaugurated through the bell-cord, which
jangling summons old Ephraim answered somewhat procrastinatingly. The
expression of surprise in the old darkey's eyes, even admonitory
dissuasion, as he hearkened to the demand, very definitely nettled the
judge and secretly amused Ashley, who divined the old servitor's doubts
as to gaining the permission of "de widder 'oman." The host was more
relieved than he cared to acknowledge to himself when the factotum
presently reappeared, bearing a tray, with the old-fashioned
red-and-white Bohemian wine-glasses and decanter which contained the
rare vintage, and he felt with a sigh that he was still supreme in his
own house, despite the sway of Mrs. Gwynn. He recognized the more
gratefully, however, her influence in the perfection of the service and
the solemnly careful, preternaturally watchful step of old Ephraim, as
he bore about the delicate glass with all the effect of treading on
eggs,--finally depositing it on the table and withdrawing at his
habitual plunging gait.
Although Ashley dawdled as he listened and sipped his wine languorously,
no rustle of draperies rewarded his attentive ear, no graceful presence
gladdened his expectant eye. And when at last he could linger no longer,
he took up his hope even as he had laid it down, in the expectation of a
luckier day.
"Come again, my dear sir, whenever you can. I am always glad to see you,
and your presence cheers Captain Baynell. His father was my dearest
friend. I felt his death as if he had been a brother. I have grown
greatly attached to his son, who closely resembles him. Anything you can
do for Captain Baynell I appreciate as a personal favor. Come again!
Come again soon!"
Perhaps if Colonel Ashley had not been so bereft of the normal interests
of life, in this interval of inactivity, his curiosity as to that
fleeting glimpse of a beautiful woman might not have maintained its
whetted edge. Perhaps constantly recurrent disappointment roused his
persistence. He came again and yet again, and still he saw no member of
the family save Judge Roscoe. Even the surgeon commented. "There is a
considerable feminine garrison up there," he said one day; "I often hear
mention of the ladies, but they never make a sally. I suspect the old
judge is more of a fire-eater than he shows nowadays, for his womenfolks
are evidently straight-out 'Secesh'!"