MISS MAUD HASBROUK.
THE lady conducted Captain Somers to the sitting-room of the house. He
was followed by Major Riggleston, who, judging by his looks and actions,
regarded the staff officer with no special favor. Miss Hasbrouk did all
the talking, however, and seemed to do it for the purpose of keeping the
major in the shade, for she carefully turned aside two or three
observations he made, as though they were of no consequence, or as
though they might provoke an unpleasant discussion.
“I am particularly delighted to meet you again, Captain Somers,” said
the imperial beauty, as they entered the apartment.
“Thank you,” replied he; though he could see no good reason why Miss
Maud Hasbrouk should be particularly delighted to see him.
He was a Union man and a loyal soldier, while she was a rebel, with
strength of mind enough to regret that her sex compelled her to be a
non-combatant. She was a magnificent creature, even to Somers, whose
knowledge of the higher order of beauties that float about in the mists
of fashionable society was very limited. She was fascinating, and he
could not resist the charm of her society; albeit in the present
instance he was too much exhausted by ill health and over-exertion to be
very brilliant himself.
“This is very unexpected, considering the distance from the place at
which I met you last evening,” said he.
“O, it isn’t a very great distance to Frederick. The major drove me over
in three hours,” replied she.
“Three and a half, Maud,” interposed the major, apparently because he
felt the necessity of saying something to avoid being regarded as a mere
cipher.
“How do you feel to-day, after the little brush we had yesterday,
major?” added Somers, turning to the gentleman.
“What brush do you refer to?” asked Major Riggleston, rather coldly.
“The little rub we had with the guerillas.”
“Really, you have—”
“Now, gentlemen, will you excuse me for a few moments?” said Miss
Hasbrouk, very impolitely breaking in upon the major’s remark.
“Certainly,” replied Somers, with his politest bow. “You are a fighting
man, Major Riggleston; and the affair of yesterday was pretty sharp work
for a few minutes.”
“Of course I’m a fighting man; but—”
“Major, you promised me something, you will remember,” said the lady,
who still lingered in the room; “and now is the best time in the world
to redeem your promise.”
“What do you mean, Maud?” demanded the major.
“Why, don’t you remember?”
“Upon my life I don’t.”
“Perhaps Captain Somers will excuse you for a few moments, while I
refresh your memory.”
“Certainly; to be sure,” added the polite staff officer.
He moved towards the door at which the lady stood. Somers saw her
whisper something to him as she took him familiarly by the arm.
“O, yes, I remember all about it now!” exclaimed he, with sudden
vivacity. “I will return in a few moments, Captain Somers, if you will
excuse me.”
“By all means; don’t let me interfere with any arrangement you have
made.”
They retired, and the door closed behind them. Somers was not a little
befogged by the conduct of both the lady and the gentleman. Several
times she had interrupted him, and the major had an astonishingly bad
memory. He seemed not to remember even the skirmish on the road; and he
was equally unmindful of what had passed between him and the lady at
some period antecedent to the present.
They were quite intimate; and, slightly versed as the young officer was
in affairs of love and matrimony, he had no difficulty in arriving at
the conclusion that the interesting couple who had just left him were
more than friends; and though he had not the skill to determine what
particular point in the courtship they had reached, he ventured to
believe they were engaged. Though it was rather a rash and unauthorized
conclusion, it was a correct one; showing that young men know some
things by intuition.
Somehow Major Riggleston did not appear exactly as he had appeared the
preceding day. His uniform did not look quite so bright; his manner was
more brusque and less polished; and he spoke with a heavier and more
solid tone. But men are not always the same on one day that they are on
another; and it was quite probable that the major was suffering for the
want of his dinner, or from some vexation not apparent to the casual
observer.
Somers wanted his dinner; not as an epicure is impatient for the feast
which is to tickle his palate, but as a man who knows and feels that
meat is strength. His health was not yet sufficiently established to
enable him to endure the hardship of an empty stomach; for his muscles
seemed, in his present weak state, to derive their power more directly
than usual from that important organ. He did not, therefore, worry
himself to obtain a solution of what was singular in the conduct of the
lady and her lover.
They were absent but a few moments before the major returned. If he had
been gone seven years, and passed through a Parisian polishing school in
the interim, his tone and his manner could not have been more
effectually changed. He looked and acted more like the Major Riggleston
of yesterday. He was all suavity now; and, what was vastly more
remarkable, his memory was as perfect as though he had made mnemonics
the study of a lifetime. He remembered all about the skirmish on the
road, and even recalled incidents connected with that affair of which
Somers was profoundly ignorant.
“Captain Somers, that was the hardest fight for a little one I ever
happened to be in,” said the major, after the event had been thoroughly
rehearsed.
“It was sharp for a few moments. By the way, major, what is your opinion
of Alick now?” asked Somers.
“Well, I was rather surprised to see him go in as he did. He is a brave
fellow.”
“So he is; I did not know whether he would fight or not; but I thought
he would.”
“O, I was sure of it.”
“Were you? Before the fight you seemed to be of the opinion that he was
of no account.”
“That was said concerning niggers in general. I always had a great deal
of confidence in Alick. When he fired his gun I knew what the boy
meant.”
“His pistol, you mean; he had no gun.”
“You are right; it was a pistol,” said the major, with more confusion
than this trifling inaccuracy justified.
“In the pursuit of the guerillas—”
“Yes, in the pursuit Alick was splendid,” continued Riggleston, taking
the words out of Somers’s mouth.
“You forget, major; you conducted the pursuit alone,” mildly added the
staff officer.
“O, yes! so I did. I am mixing up this matter with another affair, in
which my boy Mingo chased the Yankees—”
“Chased the what?” interposed Somers, confounded by this singular and
inappropriate remark.
“The guerillas, I said,” laughed the major. “What did you think I said?”
“I understood you to say the Yankees.”
“O, no! Yankees? No; I am one myself. I said guerillas.”
“If you did, I misunderstood you.”
“Of course I didn’t say Yankees. That is quite impossible.”
Somers was disposed to be polite, even at the sacrifice of the point of
veracity; therefore he did not contradict his companion, though he felt
entirely certain in regard to the language used.
“Of course you could not have meant Yankees, whatever you said,” added
Somers.
“Certainly not. Do you know why I didn’t catch those—those guerillas?”
continued the major.
“I do not,” replied Somers; but he had a strong suspicion that it was
because he did not want to catch them; because it would have been
imprudent for him to catch them; because it would have been in the
highest degree dangerous for him to catch them.
“I’ll tell you why I didn’t catch them,” added the major, rubbing his
hands as a man does when he has a point to make. “It was because their
horses went faster than mine.”
“Good!” exclaimed Somers, who had the judgment to perceive that this
answer was intended as a joke, and who was politic enough to render the
homage due to such a tremendous effort—a laugh, as earnest as the
circumstances would permit.
“Or possibly it was because my horse went slower than theirs,” added the
major, with the evident design of perpetrating a joke even more
stupendous than the last.
We beg to suggest to our readers, young and old, that a person lays
himself open more by his jokes, his puns, and his witticisms, than by
any other means of communication between one soul and another with which
we are acquainted. Hear a man talk about business, politics, morality,
or religion, and you have a very inadequate idea of his moral and mental
resources. Hear him jest, hear him make a pun, hear him indulge in a
witticism, and you have his brains mapped out before you. We have heard
a man get off a witticism, and felt an infinite contempt for him; we
have heard a man get off a witticism, and felt a profound respect for
him. It is not the thing said; it is not the manner in which it is said;
it is not the look with which it is said. It is all three combined. He
who would conceal himself from those around him should neither get drunk
nor attempt to be funny.
Major Riggleston had revealed himself to Captain Somers more completely
in that unguarded joke than in all that had passed between them before.
The young staff officer was not a moral nor a mental philosopher; but
that agonizing jest had given him a poorer opinion of his companion than
he had before entertained. It was fortunate for the major that Miss
Hasbrouk returned before he had an opportunity to launch another
witticism upon the sea of the captain’s charity, or the latter might
have prematurely learned to despise him.
“We have not lately been honored by the voluntary presence of gentlemen
at dinner, Captain Somers; and you will pardon me for lingering an extra
moment before my glass,” said the merry lady.
“Happy glass!” replied Somers.
“Thank you, captain; that was very pretty.”
“Excellent!” added the major, who seemed to be hungering and thirsting
for something funny or smart.
A bell rang in the hall, which Somers took to be the summons for dinner;
and he was thankful, and took courage accordingly; for however much he
enjoyed the society of the fascinating Maud, he could not forget that he
owed a solemn duty to the outraged member of his body corporate, which
had been kept fasting since an early breakfast hour.
“Now, gentlemen, shall I have the pleasure of conducting you to the
dining-room?” continued Miss Hasbrouk.
“Thank you.”
“Your arm, if you please, Captain Somers,” said the brilliant lady.
Of course Somers complied with this reasonable request, though he had
not been in the habit of observing these little courtesies at the
cottage in Pinchbrook, nor even in some of the best regulated families
at the Harbor, making no little pretensions to gentility. It seemed to
him that it would have been more proper, in the present instance, and
with the supposed relation between them, for the lady to take the arm of
the gentleman to whom she was engaged; but he had not very recently read
any book on the etiquette of good society, and he was utterly unable to
settle the difficult question.
They passed through the hall and entered the dining-room. The table was
laid for only three; and while Somers was wondering where the rest of
the family were, a tremendous knocking was heard at the front door.
“Somebody is in earnest,” said Maud. “He knocks like a sheriff who comes
with authority. Take this seat, if you please, captain.”
“Thank you, Miss Hasbrouk,” replied Somers, as he took the appointed
place.
“I hope that isn’t any one after me,” added the major, as he seated
himself opposite to Somers. “I don’t want to lose my dinner.”
“You shall not lose it, major,” answered Maud, as a colored servant
entered the room with a salver in his hand, on which lay a letter.
“For Major Riggleston,” said the man, as he presented the salver to him.
The major took the letter and broke the seal, apologizing to Somers for
doing so. His eyes suddenly opened wider than their natural spread, and
his chin dropped till mouth and eyes were both eloquent with
astonishment. He sprang out of his chair, and assumed an attitude in the
highest degree dramatic. Somers almost expected to hear him perpetrate a
witticism.
“What is it, major?” demanded Maud, who seemed to be enduring the most
agonizing suspense.
“I must go this instant!” exclaimed the major, still gazing at the
momentous letter.
“What has happened?”
“Don’t ask me, Maud,” answered he, in excited tones. “I will be back
before night; perhaps in an hour. You will excuse me, Captain Somers.”
“Certainly,” replied Somers.
The major rushed to the door, cramming the letter into his pocket, or
attempting to do so, as he moved off. The document fell on the floor
without the owner’s notice.
“What can it mean?” said Maud, with a troubled look.
Somers did not know what it meant; if he had, it is doubtful whether he
would have had the temerity to stop to dinner.
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