When Lady Pelham descended upon the household the day after the ball,
the sight which met her eyes in the general’s parlor was not one to
add either to her placidity or her ordinarily reliable appetite. Mr.
Truscott, with his uniform blouse thrown loosely over the injured
shoulder, was ensconced in an easy-chair near the west window, and
at the instant of her ladyship’s entrance was looking earnestly up
into the fair face of her daughter, who, for her part, was looking
as earnestly down into the bronzed features of the adjutant, while
her slender white hand was clasped about a goodly-sized envelope and
letter. Considering the fact that the pair had been acquainted less
than twelve hours, it must be conceded that her ladyship had cause to
look surprised. Not another person was in the room when she opened the
door and entered, breaking in upon this interesting _tête-à-tête_.
She paused abruptly upon the threshold, and for an instant simply
stared at them. Truscott courteously rose, though with evident effort,
and bade her a calm good-afternoon. Grace turning and seeing the
expression on her mother’s face flushed crimson, and yet moved quickly
to her, and dutifully raised her lips to the maternal cheek with a
gentle, “I hope you rested well, mother.”
“_Very_ well, thanks,” was madame’s stately reply. “You have all had
lunch, I presume. Is nobody at home, pray?”
She was still smarting under the sting of last night’s interview.
She had been detected, she felt sure, in a piece of out and out
equivocation, to call it by its most innocuous title, and detected
by her only daughter. True to human nature, she was incensed at
her daughter for having discovered her falsehood, and longed for a
pretext to excuse or warrant an exhibition of parental displeasure,
and here it was. Unwelcome as the sight would have been at any other
time, there was something absolutely greedy in her reception of the
circumstance now. Her daughter’s kiss was unreturned, a frigid and
unbending acceptance was all she vouchsafed her. Civility demanded
that she should inquire as to the state of Mr. Truscott’s wound, but
her ladyship was not disposed to be civil, and in her wrath at what
she chose to consider her daughter’s undutiful conduct she decided to
include under the ban of her censure the adjutant himself, who was
in no way responsible. A very distant salutation, therefore, was her
response to his courteous greeting. Seeing which, he as calmly resumed
his seat, and became absorbed in the contemplation of some objects on
the road in the valley below.
As for Grace, who never in her life had concealed a thought or had
a secret from her mother, this assumption of displeasure on her
ladyship’s part startled at first, then wounded her with its utter
injustice. Ten words would have explained the situation, but now she
felt that anything like explanation was a self-humiliation totally
uncalled for; besides, there was really nothing in the situation that
demanded anything of the kind. That is to say, not to the portly and
peevish matron, who, without further word to either, swept through the
parlor into the adjoining dining-room, whence her voice was presently
heard requesting that solace to femininity—a cup of tea.
But the reader will want an explanation beyond doubt, and very humbly
at your feet is it laid.
Truscott had slept but little. The excitement of the previous day, the
irritation of his wound, poor “Apache’s” death, and his anxiety about
the next move of his comrades, all tended to restlessness. At nine to
the morning the surgeon had come in and dressed his shoulder, finding
Jack out of bed and already half attired. After a few questions he
spoke gravely and decidedly.
“I’m not going to condemn you to staying in bed all day, Truscott,
you will be better sitting in the parlor; but, no matter what turns
up, you are not to quit this house; you are on sick report and under
my charge. Of course I know you are fidgeting to get down to Sandy
after the command, but Colonel Pelham is not going, and you shall not
go.” Truscott frowned but made no reply. The doctor went on with his
sponging and his calm talk: “I saw the general fifteen minutes ago;
he is waiting for news from Sandy and asked after you. Canker and his
people started up the valley at daybreak, and the cavalry from McDowell
and here are to work right over to the Mogollon range. The chief says
that in four days most of the renegades will have slipped back to the
reservation, and only a few scattered bands will be out; but, by Jove!
it was a miracle that you got through.”
Then the doctor and Truscott had breakfasted together. The general and
Colonel Pelham had dropped in to see him and charged him to keep quiet,
and then gone over to headquarters. No one else appeared; the ladies
were all asleep aloft. Some of the Sandy party had called at the door
eager, probably, to hear any news the ladies of the general’s household
might have, or to retail that which they had heard, but, informed
by the servant that no one was down, had reluctantly retraced their
steps. All headquarters and Fort Whipple seemed to be sleeping off the
effects of an all-night dance and jollification so far as Truscott
could judge, but he could not see the busy life over at the offices and
in the corrals, and so moped and read and fidgeted about the parlor
until noon, without a soul to speak to and relieve his anxiety. As a
consequence he fretted infinitely more and had less actual repose than
if he had been in the saddle and on his way back to join his comrades
on the war-path; but that is always the way. A man may be worrying his
heart out with eagerness and anxiety to be in his proper place among
his troopers, and some old woman of a doctor says, “Now stay in-doors
and keep perfectly quiet if you want to pull out of this.” How in the
mischief, thought Jack, can a fellow be expected to keep perfectly
quiet, or approximately quiet, at such a time? And then he almost swore
to think that since nine not a man at the office had thought enough
of him to send him word of the latest news from Sandy. There was not
an orderly or a male servant about the premises, and Jack, pacing
feverishly up and down the floor, was just determining on mutiny and
a sortie when the rustle of dainty skirts was heard upon the stairs:
light footsteps came dancing down. Jack stopped short, and the door
opened. For the second time Grace Pelham confronted Mr. Truscott.
“Which is it, good-morning or good-afternoon?” she blithely inquired,
coming forward with frankly extended hand. “How is your shoulder? tell
me that first,” she hastily added, looking up into his face; for the
hand which had taken hers for one brief second was hot and dry, and the
bronzed face was flushed.
“Afternoon, I should say, if not evening or day after to-morrow. The
morning has seemed interminable,” he answered.
“Yes; and you have been growing feverish with every minute, I fear. Has
the doctor been here?”
“He has; but the doctor I most need is your respected father, my
colonel. In fact, Miss Pelham, for the first time in my acquaintance
with that officer I have been tempted to upbraid him savagely. He
promised to send me news from Sandy three hours ago, and here it is
after one o’clock and not a word.”
“Then there is no news,” replied Grace, very calmly and with a half
superior smile.
“I accept the implied rebuke in all humility,” said Truscott,
smiling, despite his worries, at the queenly decision of her words.
“I am unworthy to hold my position another day, and shall resign the
adjutancy in _your_ favor.”
“All the same you are anxious for news, and so am I. Possibly there is
a way of relieving us both. Will you promise to sit down in that big
chair and look at pictures or read the papers for fifteen minutes?
Will you promise?” she repeated.
“Solemnly,” said Jack, and subsided into the seat nearest the window.
The next instant he bent eagerly forward and half rose. “Confound
it, she’s going herself!” For, throwing a light circular over her
shoulders, the girl had quickly left the house, and was even now
briskly stepping down the broad walk towards headquarters. Truscott
watched the graceful, slender form until it disappeared from sight, and
then watched the spot where it disappeared for full five minutes. He
was not given to soliloquy. I never knew a man that was,—novels by the
thousand to the contrary notwithstanding,—but what he would have said,
had he said anything, was, “Glenham, you are a lucky man.”
Near headquarters Grace encountered two or three officers of infantry,
one of whom eagerly went in search of Colonel Pelham, who promptly
appeared and led his daughter into the general’s office. “She says
Truscott is fretting himself into a high fever,” he explained to the
chief, who had risen to greet her cordially, “and that she, too, wants
to know how matters are going down at Sandy.”
“You can tell him that he must have scared the tribe out of their wits
in yesterday’s fight,” said the general. “They seem to be scattering in
every direction.”
“Give him this, daughter,” said the colonel. “A courier just brought it
half an hour ago. It is Canker’s letter to me with full particulars,
and tell him he is to keep quiet or I’ll put a sentinel over him. You
go and be the sentinel,” he added fondly, and with her infantry friends
as escorts Grace returned to the house. Truscott, watching at the
window, saw the quartette as they hove in sight, and instinctively
pushed back his chair. “Confound those fellows!” he thought. “Of course
she will ask them in, and I’m in no mood for talk with any of them.”
With that he slipped off to his own room. Two minutes after he heard
voices on the piazza, the hall-door opened, and Grace Pelham’s breezy
tones fell upon his ear. “I know I ought to ask you in, but I won’t.
Mr. Truscott will defy the doctors and insist on having a talk with you
all, whereas he is ordered to be perfectly quiet. Forgive me, won’t
you?” Then pleasant good-afternoons, a swish of skirts and pit-pat
of feet along the hall, the noise of opening the parlor-door. Then a
“Why!”—then silence.
For the first time that day Truscott’s step was springy as he hastened
back to the parlor. “Bless her heart,” he thought, “she is as wise as
she is pretty. Glenham, you are a mighty lucky man.” And somehow his
step faltered and his face clouded a trifle as he reappeared before her.
“Mr. Truscott, you have broken your arrest.”
“I confess it,” he said. “The sight of your escort was too appalling.
Forgive me for ever having doubted your tact, but I’ll never do it
again. I did not see how you could discharge them at the door.”
“Utterly specious and unsatisfactory. Go back at once to your limits.”
Jack returned to the chair. “Sit down.” Jack obeyed. “Now listen to
your instructions.” And with that she stood threateningly over him, and
with mock gravity delivered the general’s message. Then that of the
colonel with reference to the sentinel being posted over him, until
she came to recollect the injunction, “You go and be the sentinel,”
whereat the conclusion of her message lost suddenly its truculent
character and she faltered. _Was_ it a blush that suddenly mounted
to her temples? Watching her intently he was sure he saw it, but she
recovered her self-poise instantly. “And now, sir, here are despatches
from the commanding officer at Camp Sandy which you are to read, mark,
and pigeon-hole, I suppose.” And still holding them in her right hand,
she approached the arm of his chair with impressively uplifted finger.
“But now that I am going to leave you in peace, remember that you are a
prisoner. If you want anything——” And here her ladyship entered.
Jack had received his admonition with becoming gravity, as indeed it
had been delivered. _Very_ becoming he thought as, after the brief
scene with madame, Grace hesitated for an instant at the parlor-door.
She had announced her intention of leaving him alone,—she did mean
to go. She had not been in the room with him more than sixty seconds
when her ladyship appeared and saw fit to assume an air of tragic
displeasure at so finding her. Now, knowing that she had been
misjudged, the spirit of the woman was aroused. Truscott sat there
with the despatch folded in his listless hand, looking not at it, but
at her. Five minutes before this he was all impatience to get the
particulars of the fight near Sandy. Here was the letter, and he did
not open it; his eyes and his thoughts followed Grace, who had paused
and was steadfastly gazing after her mother into the dining-room.
Her hands were clasped before her, the fingers tightly interlacing,
and her bosom rose and fell rapidly once or twice. Something hot and
dry seemed to catch in her throat. She turned abruptly towards him
once more and met his earnest gaze, then without another word quickly
withdrew her eyes, the long lashes sweeping down over her cheeks, bent
her head, and hurried from the room. Truscott heard her ascending the
stairs; he listened to her light footfall overhead, heard her close
the door of her room, and all was still except madame’s clinking knife
and fork in the adjoining room. The letter still lay in his hand, but
he did not open it. Once more he turned his eyes to the window and
gazed thoughtfully out over the shallow valley towards the pine-crested
heights on the western side; full five minutes he sat thus, then
madame’s chair made a discordant noise upon the floor, her voluminous
skirts rustled in premonition of her coming; he started, opened
Canker’s letter, shook himself into attention, and began to read in
earnest as she re-entered the room.
Even that potent mollifier, tea, seemed to have failed in its office
on this occasion. What woman is so hard to placate as she who knows
herself to be in the wrong? Mrs. Pelham was in a most unenviable mood
as she returned to the parlor. Her sleep had been unrefreshing, her
morning toilet unaided by Grace’s deft fingers. She had repelled her
daughter’s affectionate advances on her first appearance, and been
discourteous, if not downright rude, to Mr. Truscott. Now she chose to
consider herself aggrieved because her hostess, the general’s wife,
was still sleeping the sleep of the just and the clear of conscience
in her own room, while she, Lady Pelham, was left without a soul with
whom to sympathize or squabble. It would have been balm to her troubled
spirit just now to have had one or two of her cronies at hand, and
with them to have dissected the toilets and characters of the ladies
attending the ball. Even comparative strangers would not have been
unwelcome, for that feminine freemasonry which puts most of the sex on
terms of interesting ease with one another when discussing the absent
would soon have created a distraction for her gloomy reflections. But
she was practically alone. Truscott merely looked up and bowed gravely,
then returned to his reading. She did not fancy going up-stairs and
possibly meeting Grace. She did not care to disturb her hostess. She
had nothing to occupy her in the parlor. She would have been glad to
talk with Truscott and satisfy herself as to this reputed intractable;
her curiosity was piqued by all she had heard of him; but it was
evident that he had noted her discourteous greeting, and that now any
advances towards conversation must come from her: he was not the man
to be cajoled one minute and dropped the next; but she was still too
rancorous to stoop to conciliation, so she stood a moment tossing
the cards and notes on the centre-table, and carelessly examining
the inscriptions thereon, then she marched out on the piazza and
majestically paced up and down, sniffing the bracing air and keeping
keen watch for any ladies who might appear along “Headquarters Row.”
Late as many, if not most of them, had slept, she knew full well that
the interest and excitement attendant upon the sudden departure of
the cavalry officers for the field would soon bring them together to
discuss the probabilities, and presently there appeared, leading her
little daughter by the hand, poor Mrs. Tanner, “like Niobe, all tears.”
Among some of her companions this gentle lady was held pretty much as
Mrs. Major O’Dowd, of blessed memory, regarded that poor, weak-spurted
Amelia, and like Amelia there wasn’t a man in the —th who would not
have leaped to her defence. She had married early, had lost the darling
of her heart—a winning blue-eyed baby girl—in the stirring days when
the regiment was clearing the way for the transcontinental railways,
and her dearly-loved husband was constantly with his troop scouting
over the prairies, while she, lonely and heart-sick, watched over
the cradle of their little one in the humble log hut which had been
assigned them as quarters. Her agony when that baby was taken from her,
her dumb, patient suffering when the regiment was ordered to Arizona
and she had to bid farewell to the little grave under the cottonwoods
(poor Tanner had lifted her in his arms, finding her white hands firmly
clutching the bunch-grass on the tiny mound), the wistful, far-away
gaze in her soft eyes all through that tedious and dreary journey, none
of the officers had ever forgotten; nor had they forgotten her constant
efforts to appear bright and cheerful, especially to her husband, whose
heart was sorely wrung with their loss, yet, stubborn and manlike,
strove to hide its wound under the guise of unwonted brusqueness of
manner, sometimes even to her.
And then the night of that dreadful storm on the Pacific, when they
were off the coast of Lower California, and not a soul on board the
laboring steamer believed that day would ever dawn upon them, how calm
and brave and serene she was! while, if regimental traditions were
reliable, Mesdames Turner and others whom we won’t mention had behaved
like lunatics, and made consummate nuisances of themselves. Somehow
that storm-night on the old “Montana” was never a popular reminiscence
with the ladies of the —th. It _could_ not be, since no man of their
acquaintance could ever be induced to omit some such remark as, “By
Jove, what a little heroine Mrs. Tanner was!” when alluding to it.
They had always spoken of her rather pityingly up to that time. “So
daft about her husband and that baby, you know; she can’t think of
anything else.” But that night she had serenely taken care of other
women’s olive branches while their husbands were on deck helping the
ship’s officers, and they themselves were indulging in hysterics or
lamentations. Not all, be it understood. There were three brave women
there that night, but two of them are so fortunate as to have no
place in our story, and to have had the good luck not to be stationed
with regimental headquarters at Sandy when all those most unpleasant
episodes—but this is anticipating. The ladies of the —th respected
Mrs. Tanner,—they could not help respecting her,—but all the same
they levelled their little slings of malice and all uncharitableness
whenever they were in conclave among themselves, and whenever they
dared at other times, for they could not forgive it in her that the
officers to a man should refer to her as the bravest and pluckiest
and sweetest-natured little woman in the regiment. They could not be
expected to forgive it in her that she absolutely held herself aloof
from all garrison gossip or small talk, that she was always courteous
and kindly, always bright and cordial to those who sought her society;
but she had no intimates, as women define them, except her husband,
and feminine confidences were with her unknown. A devoted wife, a
rapturously loving mother to the little ones who had come to partially
replace the idolized first-born, she made her home her sanctuary, and
his, and there peace and happiness, if ever they are permitted to abide
with us, reigned perennially.
Mrs. Tanner was not the utterly weak-spirited woman her sisters would
have made her out to be. Though she preferred to shine in the pure
light of her own fireside rather than in the glare of garrison society,
and in her retiring way was far more apt to hide her light under a
bushel than to permit its radiance to be seen abroad, those who knew
her well soon discovered that she was far better informed, far _deeper_
than the average army woman, that she had cultivated and refined
tastes, that she was not plain by any means, for, when interested,
her face would light up vividly, and her eyes were lovely whether in
animation or repose. Her features, despite their habitual pallor,
were delicate and regular, her hair soft and brown and wavy, and her
voice—ever that matchless gift in the woman who wins and would hold
the queendom of her home—low and sweet. The ladies of the —th had long
since abandoned their sly allusions at her expense when speaking to
their husbands or the men who knew her. Green subalterns, just joining,
were disposed at first to keep at a distance from her, and were wont to
dance attendance for their year of “plebe-hood” at the skirts of other
ladies her seniors in years but juniors in manners. She never sought
to attract anybody.
Now, one would suppose that such a woman was above suspicion, and that
so pure, so chaste, so retiring in thought and act, she at least would
escape calumny. But once, just once, a strange thing had happened, and
over and over again had the ladies of the —th rolled it with their
tongues, pulled it out of shape, twisted and tortured and, some of
them, swearing that they did not believe, believing had gone so far as
to transplant the story to alien soil and let it grow like a weed in
the luxuriant gardens of other regiments. During the first year after
they came into Arizona the heroine of the “Montana” had noted an odd,
half-hesitating manner on the part of the ladies of the infantry and
the staff on receiving her; some had failed to call. Finally Tanner
had noticed it, and not until he questioned her did she admit that she
was struck by the circumstance. Tanner tried to fathom it, but found
that his brother officers fought shy of the question. Truscott was his
stand-by ordinarily, but Truscott and he were not at the same post for
some time after entering the Territory; indeed, the entire regiment
was in the field scouting and fighting through the Apache-infested
mountains, and in all the anxiety and distress experienced by the
ladies in garrison while the regiment was in daily conflict with the
savages, and in the excitement and incidents of the campaign, the
affair faded from the mind of the people generally, and nothing more
was said or done on the subject for quite a little while.
But the story was a serious one, and in a very few minutes Mrs. Pelham
was to be made acquainted with it in all its details. How mach better,
therefore, not to tell it here, but to wait and let those innate
romancers, the ladies of her coterie, tell it themselves! As yet there
was but slight acquaintance between Mrs. Pelham and Mrs. Tanner, the
former, however, had been greatly impressed, shrewd society woman that
she was, by the perfect manners and gentle ways of the little lady;
had admired her at the ball the night before, and was disposed to
“cultivate” her, as the expression goes. At this moment, however, Mrs.
Tanner would have been glad to avoid an interview. The captain had left
her at sunrise hurrying back with his comrades to join their commands
at Sandy, and she, late in the day, had started out to give her little
girl a needed airing when she met a soldier of her husband’s troop, who
had come back with despatches and brought her a few pencilled lines
from him. Their loving tenderness and the allusion he made to a little
locket which he always carried in his breast,—a locket containing a
golden curl from the bright head sleeping under the sod in far-away
Kansas,—these combined had overcome her self-control, and as she
retraced her steps and strove to reply to the light-hearted prattle of
her little one, the tears were streaming from her eyes, and it was thus
she encountered the glances of the colonel’s wife.
“What is it, Mrs. Tanner?” said that lady, by no means
unsympathetically, as she hastened down the steps to greet her. “No
ill tidings, I hope; you look so distressed. Do come with me and rest
awhile; there is no one here.” And, taking her hand, she led the young
mother to the piazza.
Hurriedly thanking her and striving hard to control her emotion,
Mrs. Tanner assured Lady Pelham that there was no real cause for her
apparent distress, apologised in fact for her weakness, and presently
succeeded in leading the conversation to the ball of the night before
and to Grace herself. On these topics the ladies were getting along
admirably when little Rosalie, playing about the balcony, suddenly
exclaimed, “Oh, mamma, mamma, here’s Uncle Jack!” and turning, Mrs.
Tanner caught sight of Mr. Truscott seated close to the parlor-window
and smiling greeting to the child. She rose instantly, walked to the
window, and finding it impossible to hear his reply to her inquiries,
and in response to his beckoned “Come in!” she returned to Mrs. Pelham,
saying, “I had not hoped to find Mr. Truscott able to sit up; may I go
in and see him?”
“Why—certainly—I suppose so,” replied madame, not very cordially,
however, for she did not relish the evident pleasure with which the
younger lady accepted the prospect of quitting her society for his;
but Mrs. Tanner never noticed the change in tone, and, taking Rosalie
with her, entered the house. She had hardly closed the hall-door
when three ladies appeared, issuing from the adjoining quarters of
the adjutant-general, and came briskly down the path, all smiles and
salutations, to greet her ladyship. In another minute Mrs. Raymond,
Mrs. Turner, and the wife of one of the staff-officers were seated in
cosey conversation with Mrs. Pelham, chatting as gleefully as though
separation from their lords were an every-day affair, and not at all
to be deplored beyond the conventional, “So horrid, you know; and now
I suppose the infantry ball will be abandoned entirely.” Then came
inquiries for Grace, and lavish praises of Grace’s beauty and bearing.
Both ladies of the —th were evidently bent on making as favorable an
impression as possible on the colonel’s wife, and their Fort Whipple
friend as a consequence was allowed small share in the chatter. In the
midst of the talk the hall-door opened, and as they rose expectant of
receiving Miss Pelham there reappeared Mrs. Tanner and Rosalie.
“Why, good-afternoon, Mrs. Tanner; I’d no idea you were here,” was
the greeting of the three. Mrs. Tanner pleasantly responded to their
salutations, inquired if they had heard any news from the detachment,
briefly told them of the note she had received from her husband, and
then turning to Mrs. Pelham bade her good-morning, left some message
for Grace, and excusing herself to all for hurrying home she and
Rosalie went smilingly away.
“What a charming little woman!” said her ladyship after a pause, during
which all four pairs of eyes had followed the two out of earshot.
“Sweet,” said Mrs. Turner, reflectively.
“So gentle and ladylike,” said Mrs. Raymond.
“I’ve always admired her so much,” said their companion. Then came a
pause.
“It is a perfect mystery to me how any one can help liking her,” said
Mrs. Raymond, softly and slowly. Another pause.
“Well, I _always_ did,” said Mrs. Turner, dreamily gazing across the
valley.
“And I supposed everybody did,” said Mrs. Pelham, looking very
intently at her two “subordinates,” who thereupon became more
intently interested in some distant objects, waiting with well-assured
shrewdness to be drawn out by farther questioning.
“Has she been in to see Grace?” asked the staff lady.
“No,” replied her ladyship, promptly. “She went in to see Mr. Truscott.”
Instantly Mrs. Raymond and Mrs. Turner exchanged glances of much
significance, which Mrs. Pelham was as quick to observe, and which, as
soon as satisfied that she had observed, the two ladies discontinued
and again became absorbed and preoccupied in manner.
The other lady said “Oh!”
Now, there are dozens of ways of saying “oh,” each eminently expressive
of some different idea or emotion. This one was eminently expressive
of, “Well, of course it’s her own business, but if _I_ were in _her_
place,” etc., and then there was a general lull of at least three
seconds in the conversation. Just enough had been said, indicated, and
acted to pique her ladyship’s curiosity to the utmost. She readily
divined that any one of the three ladies could impart interesting
information, and as all sat silent, as no attempt had been made by
any one of them to change the subject of conversation, it was evident
enough that all she had to do was to start them and the story, whatever
it was, would speedily be at her service. There _are_ women in the
army, thank God! who at such a crisis would have calmly and decidedly
led the talk into another channel and virtually have declined to be
made the recipients of a garrison scandal, but their number is not
legion, and Lady Pelham is not of their number.
The silence was broken by her.
“Why, I hope there is no reason why I should not like Mrs. Tanner. Is
there, Mrs. Raymond?”
“No indeed. Far from it—only——” said that politic lady, beginning
vehemently and concluding with vague and hesitating manner, indicative
of anything but triumphant confidence.
“If anything is not as it should be, surely _I_ ought to know it,”
persisted madame, slowly and impressively; “and surely, Mrs. Raymond,
my friends ought not to keep me in ignorance.”
This being precisely what both Mrs. Raymond and Mrs. Turner thought,
and exactly what both expected Mrs. Pelham to say at this juncture, a
little further coquetting with the subject became appropriate.
“Indeed, Mrs. Pelham, there isn’t anything,—that is, _I_ never believed
it; and it’s something I never can _bear_ to think of, and have _never_
alluded to,” said Mrs. Raymond, and actually at the moment she believed
her own assertion.
“Mrs. Turner, it is evidently a matter you all know. Is there any
reason (majestically) why _I_ should not be informed?”
“Oh, dear, no! Mrs. Pelham,” replied Mrs. Turner, “only it’s a thing I
never would have mentioned for the world. Even now I can’t believe it;
and when I heard it at the time, _you_ know, Nellie (appealingly to
Mrs. Raymond), I said it couldn’t be true. She was too thorough a lady,
and then he had never——”
“Yes, I know, dear,” broke in Mrs. Raymond, “and so did I, and how
it ever got out I _never_ could imagine. I know Captain Raymond was
furious when he heard that Mrs. McGinty, of the infantry, speak of it,
and he said it would be a bad day for the gossips if it ever reached
Truscott’s ears.”
“Truscott! Mr. Truscott!” exclaimed Lady Pelham, now all agog with
curiosity. “Pray what had he to do with it?”
And then, little by little, in fragments, and with mutual assistance,
promptings, and suggestions, but never without such comments as, “You
know I can’t believe it, although——” and, “He has never shown her any
more attention than he has anybody else, except——” etc., etc., the
direful story came out.
Divested of its feminine embroidery, it amounted, substantially, to
this: Truscott had been first lieutenant of Tanner’s troop in the
old Kansas days, and when in garrison, which was seldom, had shown a
decided fondness for spending his evenings at the Tanners’ quarters; he
“messed with them,” as the army expression goes, in the days when only
two companies of the —th were stationed at Fort Harker, and he did not
find the society of the infantry officers altogether as desirable as it
subsequently became.
He used to write frequently to them after he was made adjutant and
joined headquarters, especially after the baby died, and all this
seemed natural enough. When the regiment was ordered to Arizona,
Captain Tanner’s troop went with the first detachment, leaving
Kansas early in December. Truscott did not arrive in Arizona until
some months after they did. Tanner with his company was out on a
scout, and she, with her new mite of a baby, was at Camp Phœnix when
Truscott unexpectedly appeared at the post and went, within an hour
of his arrival, to call upon her, and Mrs. Treadwell, rushing in
unceremoniously as next-door neighbors will, was stupefied to find
Mrs. Tanner sobbing in Jack Truscott’s arms. She could have sworn she
was looking up in his face and kissing him as she entered the hall
and saw them through the half-opened door. Now, in justice to Mrs.
Treadwell, who was the wife of one of the prominent field-officers of
the regiment and a most worthy woman, let it be recorded that for an
entire fortnight she kept the thing to herself.
Truscott was at the post four days, and during that time had otherwise
shown no more attention to Mrs. Tanner than to the other ladies, and
_possibly_ not a soul would ever have heard of this affair but for the
fact that a nurse-maid employed by Mrs. Tanner was suddenly discharged
about this time for good and sufficient reason, and was furnished
transportation to the nearest town. Servants were scarce and high
in Arizona, and the Abigail had no difficulty in finding immediate
employment, and in informing her new mistress, the wife of a large
contractor, that the reason of her leaving Mrs. Tanner was that she
couldn’t stay in a house where there was such goings on as she had seen
between her and the adjutant. Thus started, the story attained in less
than no time colossal proportions and soon reached Camp Phœnix. Mrs.
Treadwell was told confidentially by another lady of the servant’s
story, and was asked point-blank whether she had ever noticed anything,
which, being a next-door neighbor, she might have done, and, the lady
being her most intimate friend, Mrs. Treadwell imparted her secret.
Thus it was that the story gained the solid foundation that first was
lacking, but once surely grounded there is no telling to what heights
an army story may not soar. It fairly flew about from post to post,
and women who had never seen anything out of the way in the friendship
of the Tanners and Truscott before now recalled a dozen suspicious
circumstances they never could account for. This explained her
agitation at Yuma on receiving a letter in his handwriting. This was
why she never could listen to any of the stories in circulation about
other people’s frivolities. This was why he was so set against gossip
and small talk, and finally a dozen ladies of the —th had settled in
their own minds that that artful little Mrs. Tanner was actually the
cause of his broken engagement. How they wished they knew the girl’s
name!
Nor was it a story confined to the fair sex. Such worthies as Mrs.
Wilkins and others had speedily imparted it to their husbands and to
the men who were jealous of Truscott; and Canker, Crane, Wilkins, and
others of that ilk had stealthily discussed it among themselves, but
had been cautious enough to say nothing about it to Truscott’s friends
or to Tanner’s. One night, however, Mrs. Turner, in the exasperation of
some trivial matrimonial squabble, stung by a most injudicious though
very just comparison drawn by her liege lord between her conduct and
Mrs. Tanner’s, had burst forth with, “Mrs. Tanner, indeed; if you knew
what I know about that woman you would not dare insult me by comparing
me with her!” whereat honest Captain Turner was thunderstruck, and then
very flatly told his wife that he had heard too many garrison stories
laid at her door, and warned her that there was one woman she had
better not asperse, and that was Mrs. Tanner.
Oh, foolish and short-sighted mortal! What greater provocation could he
give the wife of his bosom? In a minute she had accused Mrs. Tanner,
and that “paragon of yours, Mr. Truscott,” of half the sins in the
Decalogue, and was ready to prove it. “Ask Mrs. Raymond, ask Mrs.
Wilkins, ask Mrs. Anybody,” flashed the indignant lady in response to
the pishes and pshaws and trashes with which he greeted her vehement
recital, till finally both had lost utter control of their tempers,
and Captain Turner had clinched the nail of his domestic enormities by
slamming out of the room with the parting remark, “Well, my dear, if
you have known all this of Mr. Truscott for the last six months, your
eagerness for his society and attentions is utterly unbecoming, to say
the least,” and very properly she would not speak to him for a week
afterwards.
All the same, Turner was seriously discomfited; he thoroughly liked
Truscott and he loved his regiment, was proud of its name and its
record, proud of the honor of its officers and of their ladies. In
her fury Mrs. Turner had told him that those two names, Truscott’s
and Mrs. Tanner’s, were bandied about all through the Territory. He
didn’t believe it, but something had to be done if such were the case.
He didn’t want to go to the colonel with the story, for then there
would be an awful row. He did not want to go to Truscott, for then
he would have to give his authority, and the chances were that in
tracing the thing to its foundation there would be no end of snarls
and entanglements, and if any man was found to have had a word in
the thing, why, the Lord be merciful to us, thought Turner—Truscott
or that man would have a military funeral, and we’re having too much
of that now. Raymond was away and he couldn’t consult him; as for the
others, the only man at headquarters whom he felt willing to talk to
was old Bucketts, and Bucketts had blocked the whole game by sharply
declining to hear a word on the subject “I don’t know; I don’t want to
know. Whatever it is, it’s a d—d infamous lie, and I won’t listen to
it!” said the quartermaster hotly. It seems he had overheard Canker
and Wilkins one evening, had just caught enough of their conversation
to get the drift of it, and had thereupon burst upon their startled
ears with such a “tongue-lashing” as even their wives did not often
devote to them. Just what to do Turner could not imagine, but, as has
been said, the all-engrossing excitements of the campaign soon drove
the matter out of his thoughts, and when that was over the ladies
had apparently dropped it. Then Major and Mrs. Treadwell had been
promoted to another sphere of duty and left Arizona, and up to this
day neither Tanner, Truscott, nor Colonel Pelham had ever heard a word
of the story. As for Mrs. Tanner, it soon became evident even to her
detractors that her general character and conduct would absolutely
render them liable to the imputation of deliberate slander. The men
would listen to no repetition of their statements. The contractor’s
wife, who with the nurse had started the story, had both fallen into
the further disrepute to be expected of them, and Mrs. Treadwell, the
one reliable though only partial witness, was now two thousand miles
away. And so the story only smouldered for two or three years, and
even when, a few months before the coming of her ladyship, the Tanners
had been transferred with their troop to regimental headquarters,
and several ladies watchfully waited to note the bearing of Truscott
and Mrs. Tanner towards each other, the sharpest eye could detect no
difference between the grave courtesy with which he always treated her
in public and that which marked his intercourse with all the rest.
As for other indications, he perhaps was more frequently at Tanner’s at
dinner or tea than elsewhere, but always with Tanner, and it must be
confessed that the situation was rather disappointing.
All this or most of it, and much more than some parts of it, Mrs.
Pelham listened to with politely veiled avidity, and when finally she
had extracted all the information possible from her three not unwilling
witnesses (once started they outrivalled one another in volubility),
she carefully expressed her conviction that though there might have
been something very imprudent some years past, it was all over and done
with now. “And so we won’t tell any one of this conversation, will
we?” was the parting injunction to the ladies of her “suite” as the
appearance of Colonel Pelham, sturdily tramping up the walk, warned
them that it was time to change the subject. Then as that gentleman
manifested no desire to remain with them, but immediately inquired for
Truscott and went in to see him, the ladies, finding other subjects of
trivial interest compared with the one they had so wellnigh exhausted,
concluded to leave.
But tell it Mrs. Pelham did, and mercilessly, and soon