It was the misfortune of Mr. Cummings's first literary offering to annoy
one of the editor's friends. The Journal was brought to the corporal at
noon, while he was considering whether he should rise from his couch
or sleep another hour. Reclining among his pillows, he glanced through
Cummings's description with the subdued giggle he always had for the
good William's style but as his eye fell upon one paragraph he started
sat upright, and proceeded to read the passage several times with
anxious attention.
“Only two or three sources of regret occurred to mar the delight (in
which young and old participated) of that festal and dazzling scene. One
was the absence of Miss Fanchon Bareaud, one the donors; another, that
of Corporal Gray; a third was the excessive modesty of Major Vanrevel,
although present at the time, refused to receive the ladies' sumptuous
offering and insisted that Captain Marsh was the proper person to do the
honors, to which the latter reluctantly, though gracefully consented.
Also, we were sorry that the Major appeared in citizen's dress, as
all were anxious to witness him in his uniform. However, in our humble
judgment, he will be compelled by etiquette to don it this afternoon, to
receive the officers of the regular army, who will arrive by the stage
about five o'clock, it is expected, to inspect the company and swear
them into the service of the Federal Government at the Court House. We,
for one, have little doubt that, owing to the Major's well-known talent
in matters of apparel, his appearance will far eclipse in brilliancy
that of his fellow-officers.”
Crailey dressed slowly, returning to the paper, now and then, with a
perturbed countenance. How would Miss Betty explain this paragraph to
herself, and how account for the fact that she had not seen Crailey, how
for the fact that she had seen Tom? It seemed unlikely that she could
have overlooked the latter--Tom was one of those whom everybody saw,
wherever he went. And what inquiries would she make? For Crailey had no
means of knowing that she would not see the Journal. Tomorrow he would
be gone, it would be all over, but he wanted this last day to run
smoothly. What wild hopes he had of things that should happen when
they all came marching home, no one can say; even if it were not to be
doubted that Crailey ever entertained hopes of any kind whatever, since
to hope is to bestow thought upon the future.
But, however affairs ran with him so far as hope was concerned, he
seldom lacked an idea; and one came to him presently, a notion that put
the frown to rout and brought the old smile to his lips, his smile of
the world-worn and tolerant prelate. He flicked the paper lightly from
him, and it sped across the room like a big bird in awkward flight.
For he knew how to preserve his last day as he wished, and to make all
smooth.
He finished his toilet with particular care, took a flower from a vase
on his table, placed it in his coat, and went down to the dusty street,
where everything was warm and bright with summer. It was joy to be
alive; there was wine enough in the air; and Crailey made up his mind
not to take a drink that day--the last day! The last day! The three
words kept ringing through his head like a minor phrase from a song.
Tomorrow, at noon, they would be churning down the river; and this was
the last day--the last day!
“Still not too late to make another friend at home,” he said, stopping
to pat the head of a mangy street cur that came crouching and wobbling
toward him like a staveless little keg worried by scurries of wind. Dogs
and children always fell in love with Crailey at first sight, and he
never failed to receive them in the spirit of their approach. Now the
mongrel, at his touch, immediately turned himself over and lay upon the
pavement with all paws in air, to say: “Great lord, magnificent in the
graciousness which deigns to cast a glimpse upon this abject cluster of
ribs, I perceive that your heart is too gentle to kick me in my present
helplessness; yet do with me as you will.”
“I doubt if you've breakfasted, brother,” Crailey responded aloud,
rubbing the dog's head softly with the tip of his boot. “Will you share
the meagre fare of one who is a poet, should be a lawyer, but is about
to become a soldier? Eh, but a corporal! Rise, my friend. Up! and be
in your own small self a whole Corporal's Guard! And if your Corporal
doesn't come home from the wars, perhaps you'll remember him kindly?
Think?”
He made a vivacious gesture, the small animal sprang into the air,
convoluted with gratitude and new love, while Crailey, laughing softly,
led the way to the hotel. There, while he ate sparsely himself, he
provided munificently for his new acquaintance, and recommended him,
with an accompaniment of silver, to the good offices of the Rouen House
kitchen. After that, out into the sunshine again he went, with elastic
step, and a merry word and a laugh for everyone he met. At the old
English gardener's he bought four or five bouquets, and carried them on
a round of visits of farewell to as many old ladies who had been kind to
him. This done, leaving his laughter and his flowers behind him, he
went to Fanchon and spent part of the afternoon bringing forth cunning
arguments cheerily, to prove to her that General Taylor would be in the
Mexican capital before the volunteers reached New Orleans, and urging
upon her his belief that they would all be back in Rouen before the
summer was gone.
But Fanchon could only sob and whisper, “Hush, hush!” in the dim room
where they sat, the windows darkened so that, after he had gone, he
should not remember how red her eyes were, and the purple depths under
them, and thus forget how pretty she had been at her best. After a time,
finding that the more he tried to cheer her, the more brokenly she wept,
he grew silent, only stroking her head, while the summer sounds came
in through the window: the mill-whir of locusts, the small monotone of
distant farm-bells, the laughter of children in the street, and the gay
arias of a mocking-bird singing in the open window of the next house. So
they sat together through the long, still afternoon of the last day.
No one in Rouen found that afternoon particularly enlivening. Even Mrs.
Tanberry gave way to the common depression, and, once more, her
doctrine of cheerfulness relegated to the ghostly ranks of the purely
theoretical, she bowed under the burden of her woe so far as to sing
“Methought I Met a Damsel Fair” (her of the bursting sighs) at the
piano. Whenever sadness lay upon her soul she had acquired the habit
of resorting to this unhappy ballad; today she sang it four times. Mr.
Carewe was not at home, and had announced that though he intended to
honor the evening meal by his attendance, he should be away for the
evening itself; as comment upon which statement Mrs. Tanberry had
offered ambiguously the one word, “Amen!” He was stung to no reply, and
she had noted the circumstance as unusual, and also that he had appeared
to labor with the suppression of a keen excitement, which made him
anxious to escape from her sharp little eyes; an agitation for which
she easily accounted when she recalled that he had seen Vanrevel on the
previous evening. Mr. Carewe had kept his promise to preserve the peace,
as he always kept it when the two met on neutral ground, but she had
observed that his face showed a kind of hard-leashed violence whenever
he had been forced to breathe the air of the same room with his enemy,
and that the thing grew on him.
Miss Betty exhibited not precisely a burning interest in the adventure
of the Damsel Fair, wandering out of the room during the second
rendition, wandering back again, and once more away. She had moved
about the house in this fashion since early morning, wearing what Mamie
described as a “peak-ed look.” White-faced and restless, with distressed
eyes, to which no sleep had come in the night, she could not read; she
could no more than touch her harp; she could not sleep; she could not
remain quiet for three minutes together. Often she sank into a chair
with an air of languor and weariness, only to start immediately out of
it and seek some other part of the house, or to go and pace the garden.
Here, in the air heavy with roses and tremulous with June, as she walked
rapidly up and down, late in the afternoon, at the time when the faraway
farm-bells were calling men from the fields to supper, the climax of her
restlessness came. That anguish and desperation, so old in her sex, the
rebellion against the law that inaction must be her part, had fallen
upon her for the first time. She came to an abrupt stop and struck her
hands together despairingly, and spoke aloud.
“What shall I do! What shall I do!”
“Ma'am?” asked a surprised voice, just behind her.
She wheeled quickly about, to behold a shock-headed urchin of ten in
the path near the little clearing. He was ragged, tanned, dusty, neither
shoes nor coat trammelling his independence; and he had evidently
entered the garden through the gap in the hedge.
“I thought you spoke to me?” he said, inquiringly.
“I didn't see you,” she returned. “What is it?”
“You Miss Carewe?” he asked; but before she could answer he said,
reassuringly, “Why, of course you are! I remember you perfect, now I git
the light on you, so to speak. Don't you remember me?”
“No, I don't think I do.”
“Lord!” he responded, wonderingly. “I was one of the boys with you on
them boxes the night of your pa's fire!” Mingled with the surprise in
his tone was a respectful unction which intimated how greatly he honored
her father for having been the owner of so satisfactory a conflagration.
“Were you? Perhaps I'll remember you if you give me time.”
But at this point the youth recalled the fact that he had an errand
to discharge, and, assuming an expression of businesslike haste too
pressing to permit farther parley, sought in his pocket and produced a
sealed envelope, with which he advanced upon her.
“Here. There's an answer. He told me not to tell nobody who sent it, and
not to give it to nobody on earth but you, and how to slip in through
the hedge and try and find you in the garden when nobody was lookin',
and he give a pencil for you to answer on the back of it, and a dollar.”
Miss Betty took the note, glancing once over her shoulder at the house,
but Mrs. Tanberry was still occupied with the Maiden, and no one was in
sight. She read the message hastily.
“I have obeyed you, and shall always. You have not sent for me. Perhaps
that was because there was no time when you thought it safe. Perhaps you
have still felt there would be a loss of dignity. Does that weigh with
you against good-by? Tell me, if you can, that you have it in your heart
to let me go without seeing you once more, without good-by--for the last
time. Or was it untrue that you wrote me what you did? Was that dear
letter but a little fairy dream of mine? Ah, will you see me again, this
once--this once--let me look at you, let me talk with you, hear your
voice? The last time!”
There was no signature.
Miss Betty quickly wrote four lines upon the same sheet: “Yes--yes!
I must see you, must talk with you before you go. Come at dusk. The
garden--near the gap in the hedge. It will be safe for a little while.
He will not be here.” She replaced the paper in its envelope, drew
a line through her own name on the letter, and wrote “Mr. Vanrevel”
underneath.
“Do you know the gentleman who sent you?” she asked.
“No'm; but he'll be waitin' at his office, 'Gray and Vanrevel,' on Main
Street, for the answer.”
“Then hurry!” said Betty.
He needed no second bidding, but, with wings on his bare heels, made off
through the gap in the hedge. At the corner of the street he encountered
an adventure, a gentleman's legs and a heavy hand at the same time. The
hand fell on his shoulder, arresting his scamper with a vicious jerk;
and the boy was too awed to attempt an escape, for he knew his captor
well by sight, although never before had he found himself so directly in
the company of Rouen's richest citizen. The note dropped from the small
trembling fingers, yet those fingers did not shake as did the man's
when, like a flash, Carewe seized upon the missive with his disengaged
hand and saw what two names were on the envelope.
“You were stealing, were you!” he cried, savagely. “I saw you sneak
through my hedge!”
“I didn't, either!”
Mr. Carewe ground his teeth, “What were you doing there?”
“Nothing!”
“Nothing!” mocked Carewe. “Nothing! You didn't carry this to the young
lady in there and get her answer?”
“No, sir!” answered the captive, earnestly.
“Cross my heart I didn't. I found it!”
Slowly the corrugations of anger were levelled from the magnate's face,
the white heat cooled, and the prisoner marvelled to find himself in
the presence of an urbane gentleman whose placidity made the scene of
a moment ago appear some trick of distorted vision. And yet, curious to
behold, Mr. Carewe's fingers shook even more violently than before, as
he released the boy's shoulder and gave him a friendly tap on the head,
at the same time smiling benevolently.
“There, there,” he said, bestowing a wink upon the youngster. “It's all
right; it doesn't matter--only I think I see the chance of a jest in
this. You wait, while I read this little note, this message that you
found!” He ended by winking again with the friendliest drollery.
He turned his back to the boy, and opened the note; continuing to stand
in that position while he read the two messages. It struck the messenger
that, after this, there need be no great shame in his own lack of this
much-vaunted art of reading, since it took so famous a man as Mr. Carewe
such length of time to peruse a little note. But perhaps the great
gentleman was ill, for it appeared to the boy that he lurched several
times, once so far that he would have gone over if he had not saved
himself by a lucky stagger. And once, except for the fact that the face
that had turned away had worn an expression of such genial humor, the
boy would have believed that from it issued a sound like the gnashing of
teeth.
But when it was turned to him again, it bore the same amiable jocosity
of mouth and eye, and nothing seemed to be the matter, except that those
fingers still shook so wildly, too wildly, indeed, to restore the note
to its envelope.
“There,” said Mr. Carewe, “put it back, laddie, put it back yourself.
Take it to the gentleman who sent you. I see he's even disguised his
hand a trifle-ha! ha!--and I suppose he may not have expected the young
lady to write his name quite so boldly on the envelope! What do you
suppose?”
“I d'know,” returned the boy. “I reckon I don't hardly understand.”
“No, of course not,” said Mr. Carewe, laughing rather madly. “Ha, ha,
ha! Of course you wouldn't. And how much did he give you?”
“Yay!” cried the other, joyously. “Didn't he go and hand me a dollar!”
“How much will you take not to tell him that I stopped you and read it;
how much not to speak of me at all?”
“What?”
“It's a foolish kind of joke, nothing more. I'll give you five dollars
never to tell anyone that you saw me today.”
“Don't shoot, Colonel,” exclaimed the youth, with a riotous fling of
bare feet in the air, “I'll come down!”
“You'll do it?”
“Five!” he shouted, dancing upon the boards. “Five! I'll cross my heart
to die I never hear tell of you, or ever knew they was sich a man in the
world!”
Carewe bent over him. “No! Say: 'God strike me dead and condemn me
eternally to the everlasting flames of hell if I ever tell!”
This entailed quick sobriety, though only benevolence was in the face
above him. The jig-step stopped, and the boy pondered, frightened.
“Have I got to say that?”
Mr. Carewe produced a bank-bill about which the boy beheld a halo.
Clearly this was his day; heaven showed its approval of his conduct by
an outpouring of imperishable riches. And yet the oath misliked him;
there was a savor of the demoniacal contract; still that was to be
borne and the plunge taken, for there fluttered the huge sum before his
dazzled eyes. He took a deep breath. “'God strike me dead' “--he began,
slowly--“' if I ever '--”
“No. 'And condemn me to the everlasting flames of hell '--”
“Have I got to?”
“Yes.”--“'And condemn me to--to the everlasting flames of--of hell, if
I ever tell!'”
He ran off, pale with the fear that he might grow up, take to drink and
some day tell in his cups, but so resolved not to coquet with temptation
that he went round a block to avoid the door of the Rouen House bar.
Nevertheless, the note was in his hand and the fortune in his pocket.
And Mr. Carewe was safe. He knew that the boy would never tell, and he
knew another thing, for he had read the Journal, though it came no more
to his house: he knew that Tom Vanrevel wore his uniform that evening,
and that, even in the dusk, the brass buttons on an officer's breast
make a good mark for a gun steadied along the ledge of a window. As he
entered the gates and went toward the house he glanced up at the window
which overlooked his garden from the cupola.