Seldom have my forebodings gone unverified--possibly because I am not
superstitious, and they are usually founded upon some more or less
clearly realized cause. I had not been home a quarter of an hour till I
felt that something had gone wrong; that the usual sweet and serene home
atmosphere was impregnated with an illusive element of discord. Every
one capable of the finer shades of feeling has experienced, doubtless,
the subtle influence of an atmosphere, surcharged with carefully hidden
emotion that yet jars each soul, and sets all nerves a-quiver. Not
always, however, is there present a serene, commanding spirit, which can
dissipate the threatened storm, by tact and the sunshine of genial
graciousness.
So did Ellen, being for a while my mother's guest, during Aunt Martha's
absence at a famed medicinal spring. My father, strangely stern and
silent, after his first hearty greeting for me, and courteous one for
his latest guest, would warm into fitful geniality under Ellen's
blandishments, mother's face lose its look of anxious distress, Jean
dimple and brighten in the old way, and Buford relax somewhat his air of
dignity and reserve.
Yet the cause of the evident gloom hanging over the household was, on
the second day after my return, still a mystery; the entire family
seemed to have entered into a tacit agreement to withhold it from me,
and each one carefully avoided a private interview. For a while it
defied guessing even; I could only surmise that Nelly's presence had
complicated the situation, and was to some extent the reason for my
exclusion from the family confidence. From the first hour I had seen
that Ellen was surprised by Nelly's manner to me, though I alone guessed
her unconscious resentment, noting the expression of it through an added
flush to her cheeks, a slightly more erect attitude of her head, and a
firmer tone in her voice. Mother, too, had presently observed Nelly's
apparently unconscious appropriation of me, and watched us both
anxiously; then Buford seemed to note it, looked annoyed, and exchanged
a quick glance of mingled despair and tender assurance with Jean. That
intercepted glance gave me my first hint, and I longed more than ever to
get Ellen alone, and to ask the score of questions that hung upon my
lips.
Through all, Nelly seemed unconscious of the false note in her welcome,
and the gloom hanging over the household. After her first regret at
finding that her brother, though almost as strong as ever, was yet lame,
and likely to be always slightly so, she seemed to be entirely content
with her new surroundings, and grew blithe as a child, putting forth all
her charms to win over her new friends. I, meanwhile, was driven to
despair by Ellen's manner--by disappointment, longing, and hope
continually deferred. Once more she was the unapproachable Ellen of
Kaskaskia--sweetly dignified, graciously charming, cousinly kind--yet
the distance of the poles between us! And, continually, she found
excuses to leave me alone with Nelly, constituting me her host and
entertainer, while she kept herself occupied with helping mother or with
entertaining Buford.
From Thomas, home for his vacation, the explanation came at last.
"Tom," I asked abruptly, "what is the matter? I have not had a moment's
satisfaction since I came home. Father is stern, mother unhappy, Jean
feverish, and Buford sullen. As for Ellen she avoids me as if I were a
dangerous lunatic."
Tom gazed at me, astonished at my petulance, and answered with provoking
calmness: "The trouble or at least their knowledge of it, is so recent
that they have had no time as yet to adjust themselves to it, and they
do not know how you may take it--especially since they are in doubt as
to your relations with Miss Buford."
"What trouble? Speak out, lad! I'm sick of mystery."
"Jean's avowed love for Captain Buford. Neither your mother nor your
father suspected their interest in each other until four days ago,
though Ellen tells me she had guessed it for weeks."
"Well, it is no such grave trouble that the family need sink into
despondency because of it. Buford is a Tory, and likely to be always a
little lame; nevertheless he's a gentleman by birth and breeding, and
lacks none of the qualities necessary to make him a good husband."
"All that may be true, and yet it is not surprising that Uncle William
should object to a penniless, lame Tory, and ex-British officer, as
husband for his only daughter. Your bringing his sister here just at
this time complicates the situation. Buford had decided to go to
Staunton, if such move were consistent with the terms of his parole, but
Miss Buford's arrival brings him the double embarrassment of providing
means for two to live upon, and of seeming to decline for his sister
your proffered hospitality--which for himself he has so long accepted."
"I have General Morgan's permission to release Buford as soon as he is
well," I said, "so his parole need not interfere with his plans. And he
can sell Miss Nelly's carriage and horses if he is too proud to borrow.
Perhaps General Morgan can induce Congress to restore Buford's
confiscated property, so that his poverty need not influence father, if
he can bring himself to forgive his Tory principles. Moreover, I have
always intended to divide my western bounty lands with Jean."
"If you are to marry Miss Buford any objection to her brother as husband
for your sister would be untenable."
"I have no intention, and no wish to marry Miss Buford," I responded
impatiently, "nor she to marry me."
"She seems greatly interested in you, Donald, and lays open claim to
you. Well, I despair of ever knowing any woman, and am thankful I have
resolved to live a bachelor. Ellen never treated you as familiarly as
Miss Buford, after all your months of comradeship."
"Ellen is as rare among women, as the nightingale among song birds," I
answered, "but Nelly is lovable and womanly, and I owe her an unpaid
debt. Look here, Tom; if you'll do me one great kindness I will consider
myself under obligations to you for life. Pay Miss Nelly devoted
attention for the next two days; take her for a long ride to-morrow; do
anything to give me a chance for some private talk with Ellen before I
go back to the army. Think of it, lad," and I laid my hand entreatingly
on his shoulder. "My furlough is almost gone, and I haven't had a moment
alone with Ellen! I might be killed in the next battle and never see her
again! She might take a sudden resolve and immure herself before I can
return! I _must_ see her before I go!"
"I'll do all I can to help you, Don," said Thomas, with a long drawn
sigh, "but you couldn't well ask a harder thing of me. Miss Buford,
though pretty and gay enough, is not my style of woman; and moreover,
the least I have to say to young women, now-a-days, the better pleased I
am!"
I might have smiled to see Thomas, not yet twenty-six, affect to be
already so blase, and a woman scorner. But I was too feverishly
engrossed with my own passionate longings, and half angry defiance of
circumstances, to be greatly interested in the feelings of
others--except Ellen's, upon which I knew now depended all my hopes of a
life rounded and completed as God meant a man's to be.
My next confidential talk was with Jean. She poured out all her innocent
heart to me, surprising me by the depth of her feelings. My sympathy
seemed to comfort her and she promised, without urgence, to heed my
counsel for patience and to impose like conduct upon Buford. They must
wait, I told her, until the war was over and I came home for good. Then,
with time and intercession, there was good hope that she would win the
full consent of our parents, which meant a far better prospect of
happiness than a union unblessed by their approval. I promised her, too,
a last interview with Buford, before he should leave for Staunton, and
she assured me that she would make him no promises I would not be likely
to sanction.
A second plan had come to me, which offered, I thought, a better chance
to both Buford and myself than my first one of sending Thomas and Nelly
for a long ride together, which was to make up a horseback party to the
big cave, that Tom and I had often explored in our boyhood and which had
now become a resort for pleasure parties. It was but natural that I
should wish to show our guest the greatest curiosity in the
neighborhood, and also that I should desire one day's pleasuring before
I should return to the stern duties of war. I boldly proclaimed my plan,
therefore, at breakfast table, the next morning; it was warmly seconded
by Thomas and Nelly, and met with no spoken opposition from any one.
A negro boy was sent ahead, with cart laden with skins, wraps, lunch
baskets and candles, and we followed on horseback an hour later. Tom and
Jean, Nelly and I, Ellen and Buford, we started out, and mother viewed
the pairing with little less satisfaction than she would have an
arrangement more pleasing to most of us. Freed from the suspicious eyes
of our elders, we forgot our reserve and self-consciousness, and enjoyed
the cool, dim ramble through the crystal studded passage ways, and also
our lunch in the cool grove near by, with the light chatter afterward.
When we were mounting for the homeward ride, Thomas revived my waning
hopes by boldly proposing a change of partners all around, coolly
sending Jean off with Buford, and himself appropriating Nelly, leaving
Ellen no choice but to ride with me. Even then I was like to be
checkmated, for Ellen kept close behind Thomas and Nelly. At last I grew
desperate, and riding close laid a restraining hand upon her bridle,
stopping her horse just as we were about to enter a beautiful strip of
open forest through which the road extended for a mile.
"Ellen," I said, in firm tones, "I _must_ have an hour alone with you.
Let them ride on; we'll follow when they are out of hearing. Can you not
trust yourself with me for one brief ride after all our journeying
together?"
Over throat, cheek and brow came a sudden glow of crimson like that
which was flaming in the western sky; the thick fringed lids dropped
over her eyes, and the harp-like vibration I loved was in her voice, as
she said:
"You cannot doubt I trust you, Cousin Donald; you saved me once from
claw of wild beast, once from my own folly, and once again from a fate
worse than common death, from the Indian's torture stake. I would trust
my safety to you under all circumstances."
"But not your happiness, Ellen?"
"My happiness would be but too safe in your hands, dear cousin. One has
not always the right to be happy."
"And it is sometimes a sacred duty to make one who loves you with every
fiber of his being, one who would die to save you sorrow, miserable for
life. Oh, Ellen, I know that you are true and holy beyond my
understanding, yet I can see no reason in this fixed purpose of yours to
divert your life from its evident destiny."
"My weakness assents to all you say, Cousin Donald," and Ellen lifted
eyes to mine that were tenderly aglow with feeling, "but you have missed
the true reason on which my final decision must depend. If my vow to God
may be honestly broken, if I may be absolved from it, it would be only
because that were true beyond question which you have so earnestly
claimed--that your single hope of happiness, Donald, depends upon
me--that by fulfilling my vow, I should leave you to bear the man's
struggle, without hope of the man's God-appointed cheer and solace. But
recently I have been convinced that no one woman circumscribes a man's
possibility of happiness, that God wisely has ordained a quick healing
for heart wounds. Therefore, cousin, since happiness, thank God, would
still be possible to you without me, I am bound by my vow. You will find
some one to devote her life to you who is not of alien faith, who has
not broken sacred vows that she might come to you; and I, meantime, will
be adding to your happiness by daily intercessions for you before God's
holy altar."
Why it was I do not know, but a sudden anger flamed in my heart. Was I
always to be answered in this absurd, illogical way, with platitudes of
holy vows, and sacred consecration? Were all my protestations of
devotion to be brushed aside, as not worth believing, and my life's
happiness to weigh as nothing against Ellen's will, and pride, her
sudden whims and conclusions? Making no attempt to conceal my anger and
my bitterness, I answered her:
"Let us have no more of this cant of sacred vows, Ellen. Think you God
has cared to register a disobedient girl's sick fancy that, by
immolating herself, she could render Him special homage, or add one
ounce to His power and His influence? You say I do not need your life,
that I can find happiness without you--thus casting back my words as too
light for belief, and my heart, my very soul, as of small value beside
your vaunted vow. I would I could believe, Ellen, that happiness were
possible for me without you. But it is too late for that, and if in
perversity of stubborn superstition you condemn me to a lonely, loveless
life, I can but endure it with such fortitude as I may learn to command.
It would seem to me but poor reflection for quiet convent hours--that an
honest man's life had been wrecked--that a noble family name had
perished from the earth--all that one more nun might count her beads and
offer up prayers in needless repetition to an all powerful God who has
no need of such mummery to help him rule with eternal wisdom a universe
of worlds."
"So far apart are we in mind and heart, Donald McElroy," answered Ellen,
with flashing eyes, having reined her horse to a standstill that she
might fully face me, "if these be your true sentiments, that never could
we hope to be one in spirit; never would I dare to unite my life with
yours," and, putting whip to her horse, she joined Thomas and Nelly, nor
deigned to show consciousness of my presence again that evening.
The next day she kept her room, "with headache," said Jean. The morning
after she came down only at the last moment to say good-by to our guests
and me. Vainly I sought the chance to whisper my regret and repentance
in her ear; she was careful to give me opportunity only for a formal
farewell in the presence of them all.
To Buford and his sister I said good-by, after I had settled them
comfortably in Staunton, almost with coolness. They, it seemed to me,
had repaid my generous wish to more than return their kindness by a
crass indifference to my feelings.
Then I faced to the scene of war, once more, with fierce satisfaction.
For the first time I felt a thirst for danger. Since I had thrown away
all chance for happiness, I would win a glorious death in the last
glorious and successful struggle of my country for liberty!