Sitting by the open window and looking out over the bustling street
Major Abbot later in the evening is trying to collect his senses and
convince himself that he really is himself. "It never rains but it
pours," and events have been pouring upon him with confusing rapidity.
Early in the summer he had noted an odd constraint in the tone of the
few letters that came from Miss Winthrop. That they were few and far
between was not in itself a matter to give him much discomfort. From
boyhood he had been accustomed to the household cry that at some time in
the future--the distant future--Viva Winthrop was to be his wife. He had
known her quite as long as he had been conscious of his own existence,
and the relations between the families were such as to render the
alliance desirable. Excellent friends were the young people as they grew
to years of discretion, and, in the eyes of parents and intimate
acquaintances, no formal betrothal was ever necessary, simply because
"it was such an understood thing." For more than a year previous to the
outbreak of the war, however, Miss Winthrop was in Europe, and much of
the time, it was said, she had been studying. So had Mr. Hollins, who
withdrew from Harvard in his second year and read law assiduously in the
office of Winthrop & Lawrence, and then went abroad for his health. They
returned on the Cunarder in the early part of April, and Mrs. Winthrop
was ill from the time she set foot on the saloon deck until they sighted
the State House looming through the fog, and nothing could have been
more fortunate than that Mr. Hollins was with them--he was so attentive,
so very thoughtful. When he wasn't doing something for her he was
promenading with Viva on deck or bundling that young lady in warm wraps
and hedging her in a sunny corner. Pity that Mr. Hollins was so poor and
rather obscure in his family--his immediate family--connections. His
mother was Mr. Winthrop's first cousin, and she had been very fond of
Mr. Winthrop when she was a child, and he had befriended her son when a
friend was needed. She died years ago, and no one knew just when her
husband followed her. He was a person no one ever met, said Mrs.
Winthrop, a man who had a singular career, was an erratic genius, and
very dissipated. But he was a very fascinating person, she understood,
in his younger days, and his son was most talented and deserving, but
entirely out of the question as an intimate or associate. Viva would not
be apt to see anything of him after their return; but the question never
seemed to occur to her, how much had the daughter been influenced by
their frequent companionship abroad? It really mattered nothing. Viva
was to marry Revere Abbot, as Mrs. Winthrop preferred to call him, and
such was distinctly the family understanding. Miss Winthrop had been
home but a few weeks when all the North was thrilled by the stirring
call for volunteers, and the old Bay State responded, as was to be
expected of her. In the --th Massachusetts were a score of officers, as
has been said, whose names were as old as the colony and whose family
connections made them thoroughly well known to each other at the
earliest organization of the command. That Paul Abbot should be among
the first to seek a commission as a junior lieutenant was naturally
expected. Then with all possible hesitancy and delicacy, after a
feminine council in the family, his mother asked him if he did not think
there ought to be some distinct understanding about Viva Winthrop before
he went away to the front. The matter was something that he had thought
of before she went to Europe, but believed then that it could wait, Now
that she had returned, improved both physically and intellectually, Mr.
Abbot had once or twice thought that it would not be long before he
would be asked some such question as his mother now propounded, but
again decided that it was a matter that could be deferred. They had met
with much hearty cordiality, and called each other Paul and Viva, as
they had from babyhood, and then she had a round of social duties and he
became absorbed in drills, day and night, and they saw very little of
each other--much less than was entirely satisfactory to the parental
councils, and these were frequent. While the masters of the households
of Abbot and Winthrop seldom interchanged a word on the subject, they
had their personal views none the less; and, as to the mothers, their
hearts had long been set upon the match. Miss Winthrop had abundant
wealth in her own right. Paul Abbot's blood was blue as the doctrines
of the Puritans. Without being a beauty in face or form, Miss Winthrop
was unquestionably distinguished-looking, and her reputation for a
certain acerbity of temper and the faculty of saying cutting things did
not materially lower her value in the matrimonial market. There was,
however, that constantly recurring statement, "Oh, she's engaged to Paul
Abbot," and that, presumably, accounted for the lack of those attentions
in society which are so intangible when assailed, and yet leave such a
void when omitted. Mrs. Abbot put it very plainly to Paul when she said:
"Everybody considers her as virtually engaged to you and expects you to
look after her. That is why I say it is due to her that you should
arrive at some understanding before your orders come."
Paul had come up from camp that day--a Saturday afternoon--and he stood
there in the old family gathering room, a very handsome young soldier.
He had listened in silence and respect while his mother spoke, but
without much sign of responsive feeling. When she had finished he looked
her full in the face and quietly said:
"And is there any other reason, mother?"
Mrs. Abbot flushed. There was another reason, and one that after much
mental dodging both she and Mrs. Winthrop had been compelled to admit to
each other within a very few days. Mr. Hollins was constantly finding
means to come over to the city and see Miss Winthrop, and the ladies
could not grapple with the intricacies of a military problem which
permitted one officer to be in town three or four days a week and kept
the others incessantly drilling at camp. Mrs. Abbot, motherlike, had
more than once suggested to her son that he ought to be able to visit
town more frequently, and on his replying that it was simply impossible,
and that none of the officers could leave their duties, had triumphantly
pointed to Mr. Hollins.
"But he is quartermaster," said Paul, "and has to come on business."
"He manages to combine a good deal of pleasure with his business," was
the tentative response, and Abbot knew that he was expected to ask the
nature of Mr. Hollins's pleasures. He was silent, however, much to his
mother's disappointment, for he had heard from other sources of the
frequency with which Mr. Hollins and Miss Winthrop were seen together.
Finding that he would not ask, Mrs. Abbot was compelled to suppress the
inclination she felt to have her suspicions dragged to light. She wished
he had more curiosity, or jealousy, or something; but in its absence she
could only say,
"Well, I wish you were quartermaster, that's all."
And now that he _had_ asked her if there were no other reason, there was
something in his placid tone she did not like. A month agone she wanted
him to know of Mr. Hollins's evident attentions to Genevieve because it
would probably, or possibly, spur him into some exertion on his own
account. Now that she felt sure he had heard of it, and it had not
spurred him, she was as anxious to conceal the fact that, both to Mrs.
Winthrop and herself, these attentions were becoming alarming. If he did
_not_ care for Viva, the chances were that so soon as he found that
public attention had been drawn to her acceptance of such devotions,
Paul would drop the matter entirely, and that would be a calamity.
Knowing perfectly well, therefore, what was in his mind when he asked
the question, Mrs. Abbot parried the thrust. Though she flushed, and
her voice quivered a little, she looked him straight in the face.
"There is, Paul. I--think she has a right to expect it of you;
that--that she does expect it."
Abbot looked with undisguised perplexity into his mother's face.
"You surprise me very much, mother; I cannot, see how Viva would betray
such an idea, even if she had it; it is not like her."
"Women see these things where men cannot," was the somewhat sententious
reply. "Besides, Paul--"
"Well, mother, besides--?"
"Mrs. Winthrop has told me as much."
That evening, before returning to camp, Lieutenant Abbot went round the
square--or what is the Bostonian equivalent therefor--and surprised Miss
Winthrop with a call. He told her what he had not told his mother, that
Colonel Raymond that morning received a telegram from Washington saying
that on the following Tuesday they must be in readiness to start.
"We have been good friends always, Viva," he said; "but you have been
something more to me than that. I did not mean to make so sudden an
avowal, but soldiers have no time to call their own just now, and every
hour has been given up to duty with the regiment. Now this sharp summons
comes and I must go. If I return, shall we--" (he had almost said,
"shall we fulfil our manifest destiny, and make our parents happy?" but
had sense enough to realize that she was entitled to a far more personal
proposition). He broke off nervously.
"You have always been so dear to me, Viva. Will you be my wife?"
She was sitting on the sofa, nervously twisting the cords of a fan in
and out among her slender white fingers. Her eyes were downcast and her
cheeks suffused. For an instant she looked up and a question seemed
trembling on her lips. She was a truthful woman and no coward. There was
something she was entitled to know, something the heart within her
craved to know, yet she knew not how to ask, or, if she did, was too
proud to frame the words, to plead for that thing of all others which a
woman prizes and glories in, yet will never knowingly beg of any
man--his honest and outspoken love. She looked down again, silent.
His tone softened and his voice quivered a little as he bent over her.
"Has any one else won away the heart of my little girl-love?" he asked.
"We were sweethearts so long, Viva; but have you learned to care for
some other?"
"No. It--it is not that."
"Then cannot you find a little love for me left over from the childish
days? You were so loyal to me then, Viva--and it would make our home
people so happy."
"I suppose it might--them."
"Then promise me, dear; I go so soon, and--"
She interrupted him now, impetuously. Looking straight up into his eyes,
she spoke in low, vehement tone, rapidly, almost angrily.
"On this condition, Paul; on this condition. You ask me to be your wife
and--and I suppose it is what is expected of us--what you have expected
all along, and are entitled to an answer now. Promise me this, if ever
you have a thought for another woman, if ever you feel in your heart
that perhaps another girl would make you happier, or if--if you feel the
faintest growing fancy for another, that you will tell me."
He smiled gravely as he encircled her in his arm. She drew back, but he
held her.
"Why, Viva, I have never had a thought for any other girl. I simply
thought you might care for some one more than you did for me. It is
settled, then--I promise," and he bent and softly kissed her.
They met again--twice--before the regiment took the cars. It had been
settled that no announcement of the engagement should be made, but there
are some secrets mothers cannot keep, and there were not lacking men and
women to obtrude premature "congratulations" even on the day she came
with mothers, sisters, cousins, and sweethearts by the score to witness
the presentation of colors and say adieu. That afternoon the regimental
quartermaster returned from the city after a stay of thirty-six hours,
thirty of which were unauthorized, and it was rumored that Colonel
Raymond was very angry and had threatened extreme measures. It was this
prospect, possibly, that shrouded Mr. Hollins's face in gloom, but most
people were disposed to think that he had taken the engagement very much
to heart. There were many who considered that, despite the fact of his
lack of fortune, birth, and "position," Mr. Hollins had been treated
very shabbily by the heiress. There were a few who said that but for his
"lacks" she would have married him. What she herself said was something
that caused Mr. Abbot a good deal of wonderment and reflection.
"Paul, I want you to promise me another thing. Mr. Hollins has very few
friends in the regiment. He is poor, sensitive, and he feels it keenly.
He is our kinsman, though distant, and he placed me under obligations
abroad by his devotion to mother, and his courtesy to me when we needed
attention. He thinks you dislike him, as well as many of the others.
Remember what he is to us, and how hard a struggle he has had, and be
kind to him--for me."
And though his college remembrances of Mr. Hollins were not tinged with
romance, Paul Abbot was too glad and proud in the thought of going to
the front--too happy and prosperous, perhaps, to feel anything but pity
for the quartermaster's isolation. He made the promise, and found its
fulfilment, before they had been away a fortnight, a very irksome thing.
Hollins fairly lived at his tent and better men kept away. Gradually
they had drifted apart. Gradually the feeling of coldness and aversion
had become so marked that he could not conceal it; and finally, after
one of the frequent lapses of which the quartermaster was guilty, there
had come rupture of all social relations, and the only associate left to
Mr. Hollins was the strange character whom he had foisted upon the
regiment at its organization--the quondam quartermaster-sergeant, Rix.
But in all the marching and fighting of the battle summer of '62, these
things were of less account than they had been during the inaction of
the winter and early spring, until, at the Monocacy, Mr. Abbot's
curiosity was excited by the singular language used by Rix when ordered
under guard. What could such a man as he have to do with the affairs,
personal or professional, of the officers of the regiment? It was rabid
nonsense--idle boasting, no doubt; and yet the new-made major found that
melodramatic threat recurring to his mind time and again.
Another thing that perplexed him was the fact already alluded to, that
during the winter Viva's letters, never too frequent or long, had begun
to grow longer as to interval and shorter as to contents. He made
occasional reference to the fact, but was referred to the singular
circumstance that "he began it." Matters were mended for a while, then
drifted into the old channel again. Then came the stirring incidents of
June; the sharp, hard marches of July and August; the thrilling battles
of Cedar Mountain and Second Bull Run; and he felt that his letters were
hardly missed. Then came the dash at Turner's Gap; his wounds, rest,
recovery, and promotion. But there was silence at home. He had not
missed _her_ letters before. Now he felt that they ought to come, and
had written more than once to say so.
And now, alone in his room, he is trying to keep cool and clear-headed;
to fathom the mystery of his predicament before going to his father and
telling him that between Genevieve Winthrop and himself there has arisen
a cloud which at any moment may burst in storm.
Her letter--the first received since Antietam--he has read over time and
again. It must be confessed that there is a good deal therein to anger
an honest man, and Abbot believes he is entitled to that distinction:
"You demand the reason for my silence, and shall have it. I did not
wish to endanger your recovery, and so have kept my trouble to
myself, but now I write to tell you that the farce is ended. You
have utterly broken your promise; I am absolved from mine. The fact
that you could find time to write day after day to Miss Warren,
and neglect me for weeks, would in itself be justification for
demanding my release from an engagement you have held so lightly.
But that you should have sought and won another's love even while
your honor was pledged to me, is _more_ than enough. I do not ask
release. I break the bond--once and for all.
"You will have no place to receive your letters at the front. They,
with your ring, and certain gifts with which you have honored me
from time to time, will be found in a packet which is this day
forwarded to your mother.
"GENEVIEVE WINTHROP."
Abbot is seated with his head buried in his hands. That name again! the
girl who fainted at sight of him! the old man who was prostrate at his
denial on the Monocacy! the picture of himself in _her_ desk! and now,
this bitter, insulting letter from the woman who was to have been his
wife! Rix's words at the field hospital!--what in Heaven's name can it
all mean? What network of crime and mystery is this that is thrown
around him?
There is a sudden knock at the door--a negro waiter with a telegram:
"POINT OF ROCKS, MD., _Oct._ --, 1862.
"Major PAUL R. ABBOT,
Willard's Hotel, Washington:
"Hollins still missing; believed to have followed you to
Washington. Use every effort to secure arrest.
"PUTNAM."