But did he dare write Southerland this?
On Monday came another telegram; the Wheeling man was evidently growing restive under the delay. This second telegram threw Benson into something of a panic. Suppose Southerland should come to see Virginia! He had not thought of the possibility of this before, and he realized in spite of the spacious promises he had made himself, that the transaction would have to be brought to a conclusion of some sort; for clearly Southerland was not a man whom it would be safe to ignore.
Benson did the only thing he could think of under the circumstances. He wired, putting him off until the end of the week; which brought an immediate reply. Southerland now wished to know if his offer was accepted; and to this, Benson could only answer in the affirmative.
But even after the deed was drawn up, it lay on his desk for two days; and then it was only the apprehension that Southerland might present himself to Virginia, that induced the lawyer to conclude the purchase.
When he reached Wheeling, and Southerland saw the deed, he was not a little surprised. But he was an excellent man of business himself, in all that the term could imply by the most liberal construction that could be put upon it; and he decided that the smooth-faced lawyer was a sharp hand himself; and made no comment.
CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE
IT was an April morning, mild and warm, in the rutted roads, in the pillaged, trampled fields the sassafras and honey-locust had claimed for their abiding place, two armies were drawn up. Between them, skirmishers moved with the brisk rattle of musketry; while at intervals dull echoes woke to flow reverberatingly across the wasted land.
Suddenly the firing ceased. The long line of advancing men in blue halted. The enemy was withdrawing and was rapidly disappearing from view in the direction of Appomattox Court House.
In front of many of the regiments the officers had formed in groups, and from group to group spread the news that the expected battle was not to be fought.
“A white flag,” one would say, and then they would fall to shaking hands, silently, ceremoniously. If there was any doubt expressed, there was the answer ready: “It's so—I tell you it's so! They got it from a staff-officer who said it was so!”
Further afield small parties of men, medical attendants, and stretcher-bearers, were moving to and fro, gathering in the wounded who had fallen on the skirmish line.
At one point, on the edge of a strip of woodland, lounged the members of a company that had been recalled from the front. Their captain had gone down into the woods, fifty yards distant perhaps, to a spring that gushed out of a bank at the foot of an old oak. This captain was Stephen Landray. Having satisfied his thirst he now sat on the trunk of a fallen tree with a battered tin-cup held idly in his hand. There was nothing of the boy left; and in other ways as well, the physical strain, the hardship, and the suffering he had endured had told on him. His skin was dry and sallow and his worn uniform hung loosely to his erect, nervous figure. Now and again his glance sought the men on the edge of the wood. He had seen soldiers resting before in their intervals of inaction, but he realized that there was a difference now; some subtle change had taken place in their mental relation to their surroundings that said as plainly as words—it is over. Yet curiously enough the realization of this seemed not entirely satisfactory. With it had come a sense of loss at the sudden withdrawal of a purpose, that had been all absorbing and to which they had clung tenaciously; but now that the accomplishment of this purpose was immanent they seemed to feel only the loss of what for four years had been the main motive in their lives.
Landray had gone through that very process himself, only he had carried his speculations beyond the immediate present, and into the future. He would go back to Benson to his wife, and to the old ties; and then what? He had said many times that he would be glad enough when the war was over; and yet now that it seemed the general conviction that it was over, he was conscious of no special satisfaction, and he felt neither enthusiasm nor elation; on the contrary he was strangely quiet, strangely repressed. He wondered what he would take with him from his four years of soldiering that would be useful in the struggle he saw before him; he wondered how these thousands of men would be absorbed in the ordinary channels of life. There was a movement among his men, and he glanced again in their direction, and saw that an officer followed by an orderly, had ridden up and was speaking to one of the loungers. The distance was too great for Stephen to hear what was said; suddenly, however, the new-comer swung himself from his saddle, and leaving his horse in charge of his orderly, came striding across the open woodland toward him. He was a pompous red-faced man, middle-aged, but vigorous and sturdy, and dressed in a handsome well-fitting uniform. Landray scrambled to his feet and saluted. His salute was graciously returned by the stranger, who said:
“I see you have a tin-cup, captain—” pausing, and bestowing an instant's scrutiny on the young man. “Would you mind letting me get a drink with it?”
For answer, Stephen stooped and filled his cup and handed it to him. .
“Rather warm for so early in the spring, general,” he said.
“Thanks—eh? Oh, yes, very warm indeed. The season's unusually well advanced.” He sat down on one of the exposed roots of the oak, and removing his hat carefully, polished his bald head with his handkerchief.
Stephen had seated himself on the fallen tree again. The stranger tossed his handkerchief into the crown of his hat, and fixed the latter on his head with a decided rake over one eye; then he looked across at Stephen and smiled, showing a row of white even teeth.
“Well, young man,” he observed briskly, and with an air of pleasant patronage, “I reckon you're beginning to think of the home folks, and I reckon the home folks are beginning to think of you; but maybe there's some one else you're thinking of hardest of all! I guess she'll be glad enough to see you back, eh?”
“That was all settled when I got my first furlough,” said Stephen laughing, “and that was over three years ago.”
“Was it though! Well, I guess we can consider this rumpus at an end; I understand General Grant and General Lee are going to get together and see what can be done to stop the effusion of blood. I hope Grant will be in a complaisant mood, there's never any harm in making it easy for the other fellow to quit.” He paused, and looked the young man over attentively. “Ah—Ohio regiment! An Ohio man yourself, captain?” interrogated the general beaming blandly upon him.
“Yes, born there, and lived there until I enlisted,” answered Stephen.
“What part of the state do you come from?” inquired the general after another brief pause.
“The central part of the state, a little place called Benson.”
“Benson—the devil!” cried his questioner, starting. “I lived there myself once—owned a paper there, in fact.”
“Did you indeed?” said Stephen.
“Yes, sir, I did, and I had a pretty wide acquaintance. Dabbled a bit in politics, too, and knew everybody in the town, and pretty near everybody in the county—what's your name, sir?”
“Landray, Stephen Landray.”
“Landray?” cried the other. “Why, God bless my soul, young man, I knew your father well—we were the same as brothers, for I take it you're Bushrod Landray's son—yes, of course you're Bush-rod Landray's son, for Stephen had no children.”
“Yes, my father was Bushrod Landray,” said Stephen; he wondered who the stranger might be.
“He was one of my most intimate friends, a man I admired immensely. I'm pleased to know you;” and he held out his hand. His delight seemed unbounded, for he wrung Stephen's hand with a hearty good-will. “Well, it is a small world, ain't it? And to think I should meet you here after all these years! Eh, you want to know who I am? Gibbs is my name— General Gibbs of Missouri, formerly of Lyon's staff.” It rolled sonorously from his lips.
“I have heard of you, General Gibbs,” said Stephen.
“I bet you have!” said the general chuckling.
“I mean they have not forgotten you at Benson,” Stephen made haste to say. He was rather embarrassed, however, for he was aware that he had never heard anything of this old friend of his father's that was in any sense creditable; indeed he had not known until that moment that he had been a friend of his father's—but Gibbs himself seemed very sure of that point.
“Of course they ain't!” still chuckling and unabashed. “I usually manage to make myself felt in one way or another—ain't always the best way perhaps, but it's usually warranted to last. Tell me about everybody—your own folks—I love any man by the name of Landray!”
“I've not been home in two years,” said Stephen.
“How's your mother?”
“Didn't you know—but of course you couldn't, she is dead.”
“God bless my soul, you don't tell me! I'm shocked to hear it,” cried Gibbs. “Inexpressibly shocked to hear it, when did it happen?”
“Years ago, she died out in India. She had married again, and had gone there with her husband who was a missionary.”
“You don't tell me!” repeated Gibbs. “And your aunt, Stephen's widow?”
“She is well; or was when I heard from her last.”
“Never married again, eh?” said Gibbs.
“No.”
“Remarkable! but I reckon it wa'n'. for any lack of opportunity, she was a most beautiful woman as I recall her.”
“She is still a very beautiful woman,” said Stephen, but for some reason he did not care to discuss Virginia with Gibbs. He had felt no such reluctance where his own mother was concerned.
“What about Jake Benson? I've sort of lost track of him, we used to exchange occasional letters, but I drifted about a good deal. I was living in Alabama when the war broke out, but I got back to St. Louis in a hurry then, my politics were of the wrong complexion for down South. But what about Jake Benson? I reckon he's gone on piling up the dollars; give him a start and you'll never stop a Yankee doing that.”
“Of course you are not aware that I married his cousin.”
“Didn't know he had any cousin left when I took my wife,” said the general.
“His uncle's daughter, you know,” explained Stephen.
“Oh, yes, of course—Tom Benson's daughter—I recollect he had a daughter. I declare that sort of makes a tie, don't it? But how is Jake? He wa'n'. such a bad fellow as I knew him; he had his notions, that was the worst I ever had to say of him. I used to tell him that all he needed to make a right decent fellow was to limber up some. Well, you must look me up at headquarters, I'd like to show them there the sort of a chap I used to carry around in my arms when he wa'n'. no higher than a walking-stick.”
“If you all ain't using that tin-cup,” said a gentle voice, “will you kindly give it here a minute?” The speaker who had approached unnoticed and now stood at Stephen's elbow, was a lank loose-jointed young man of about Stephen's own age. A sandy stubble that had not known a razor in many days covered his chin and lips, his hair was long and almost swept his shoulders, but his eyes were mild, and in the corners of them lurked a humorous twinkle which softened his savage unkempt appearance, giving him an air of genial burlesque. He was clothed in tattered grey homespun, and halted on one foot as a man will who is footsore. On the damaged member he wore a list slipper, the other foot was encased in a soldier's rough brogan. “I've just been gathered in,” he said, with a slight deprecatory gesture and a pleasant twinkle. “They picked me up along with my whole company. We didn't know anything about the white flag until it was too late. Gentlemen, do you think it's over?”
“Yes,” said Gibbs promptly. “I think it is, the backbone's broken.”
“Well, the stomach's been empty for some time,” murmured the stranger with gentle melancholy. “And it got to us—yes, it certainly got to us bad!” He took the tin-cup Stephen had filled and now extended to him, and gulped down thirsty swallows of water. “Well, I'm glad it's over with, if it is over with,” he said, returning the cup to Stephen. “I done my share of fighting. I've run from you all; and I've run after you all when you were going in that direction.”
“Which happened now and then,” said Gibbs laughing good-naturedly.
“Oh some; but I don't wish to disparage what you've accomplished,” said the stranger, laughing too. “Taking it altogether, I'm satisfied. I don't care if I never see another war.”
Gibbs approved of his attitude, for he commended it highly. “That's the proper spirit! You stood out for your convictions, as long as you could; for it's safe to assume that General Lee is fully convinced of the futility of further resistance.”
“Well, I don't know as I had any convictions; I'm a Utah man myself; and it was just my contrary luck that I happened to be in Texas buying cattle when Mr. Davis and the rest was for going out, and I was asked by an intimate friend which I preferred—being hung or joining the army—he got my answer right off, and I joined.” He meditated for an instant in silence. “I reckon I must have thought they needed just such a soldier as I knew I'd make. But the war's been fought to a finish without any one higher than a corporal ever asking my opinion. Well, I'm glad to get acquainted with you, gentlemen; I been living on what I could just naturally pick up for the past week, and there was mighty little to pick up; but I hear you all have got grub, so I reckon it's a heap worse not to get captured than it is to get captured. I want somebody to set me down with a skillet and a coffee-pot, and leave me alone for a spell with plenty of Yankee groceries to my hand!”
Gibbs and Landray had risen to their feet while he was speaking, and now the three turned back out of the wood.
In the open fields, the long line of halted men were already in motion. They were being withdrawn from the front of what was to have been the Union position. Where they emerged there was considerable confusion. A battery had just come up from the rear, while a regiment recently arrived from the skirmish line had broken ranks and its thirsty members were hurrying down to the spring to fill their canteens. They left the Confederate captain with his men, a sparse handful as wildly tattered and unkempt as himself, with whom the blue-clad soldiers were already sharing the contents of their haversacks. Stephen extricated his company and prepared to march back to the camp he had quitted at four o'clock that morning. For a moment he and Gibbs lingered to speak with the stranger; to commend him to his captors and to wish him well; and then Gibbs turned to Stephen.
“Well, good-bye, Landray,” he said, as he swung himself into his saddle; then he leaned forward in the direction of the young man.
“Now, don't forget—be sure and look me up if you get the chance; I want to see more of you!”
“I will, with pleasure,” answered Stephen heartily, for he meant to see Gibbs again. The latter galloped away With his orderly at his heels.
“Landray!” muttered the Confederate, staring hard at Stephen. The name was strangely familiar—he had known some one once—“Landray!” he repeated, still under his breath, and watched Stephen and his men move briskly off across the field. They were about to disappear from sight behind a clump of trees, when he turned suddenly to one of his guards.
“Call him back!” he cried excitedly. “Tell, him a man by the name of Rogers wants a word with him! You won't? Well, maybe it wa'n'. him.”
CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX
STEPHEN was mustered out, and returned to Benson, where having nothing better in prospect he opened a real estate office; but from the very first this feeble enterprise was doomed to failure; and in disgust, at the end of a few weeks, he disposed of the business for a trifling sum to an aimless appearing stranger, who endured for perhaps a month in a small and dirty room at the back of a large gilt sign which read “Thomas Carrington, Successor to Stephen Landray, Real Estate and Insurance. Money to Loan.” The last being the merest fiction, and meant to meet a future contingency; and then Mr. Carrington, no more fortunate than Stephen had been, retired precipitously from business, and was successorless.
It was shortly after his retirement that he chanced to meet Stephen on the street.
“Anything doing, captain?” he asked casually, and with the happy unconcern of a gentleman the stress of whose condition was relieved by a temperament that rendered even failure endurable.
“No,” said Stephen; he was slightly embarrassed, he recalled the trifling sum he had taken in exchange for the fiction of good-will. Glancing furtively at his questioner, he was impressed by the fact that Mr. Carrington was looking the reverse of prosperous, his coat was shiny and the seams showed white in spite of the liberal inking he had given them with the last ink in the office ink-well.
“I didn't know but you might have hit on something. You got out easy, yet not so easy as I did; I was kicked out. Couldn't pay my rent. But I figure I'm saving ten a month; that's better than nothing.” Carrington said with a cheerful twinkle.
“Yes,” agreed Stephen, “that's better than nothing.”
“It only shows up on paper though,” said Carrington. “Now if I could live on paper—”
“Some of my friends are urging me to go into politics,” said Stephen. “They want me to run for county clerk.”
Carrington nodded; he had heard this it seemed.
“If I secure the nomination, I am certain of election. And I may be able to throw something in your way—I should like to,” said Stephen.
“Why?” asked Carrington.
“Well, our first transaction couldn't have been very satisfactory to you.”
“Don't worry about that, captain; bless your heart, I always knew the business wasn't worth a damn. When do you begin your canvass?”
“At once.”
“Say supposing you don't get the nomination?” and Mr. Carrington surveyed him critically. “Young man,” he said, “why don't you pull out of here while you can? Go West. What you want is a place where you can get out and hustle, and fill your lungs with fresh air. Politics! Why, sir, you're wasting time and money. You ain't cut out for that game—not the way they play it here.”
And Stephen remembered this when the nomination he had worked for through all of one hot summer, went to another. In his bitterness, Carrington's words remained with him, repeating themselves over and over again; go West—there he could make a start amid new surroundings, unhampered by the tradition of family riches and position. He broached the subject to Marian, and found her not only willing but anxious to consider some such change.
At this crisis in his fortunes Landray received a letter from Gibbs. The general was now located at a place called Grant City in Kansas; located permanently, he informed Stephen, and in a region destined soon to sustain a great and thriving population. He entreated Stephen not to waste life and energy in the overcrowded East, when he could come West and enjoy the more abundant opportunities offered by a new country. He imagined that Stephen's needs were somewhat similar to his own; and in his case, by all odds, the most urgent of those needs was the need to make money. He was convinced that Grant City was the place for this; he had gone there early—in fact, it appeared that he had actually preceded the town into Kansas; for with his clear vision he had detected the necessity for just such a centre as it was bound to become. It was on the projected line of a projected railroad, it was also the projected county seat of a projected county. It was many things besides; but most of all it was clearly and logically the spot for a town.
This letter gave Stephen what he lacked before, an objective point.
His mind fastened itself upon Grant City. He wrote Gibbs asking for fuller particulars, and that there might be no misconception on the part of the latter, informed him frankly that he would have nothing to invest. Marian discussed the proposed change with him eagerly, and did not attempt to hide her impatience; for she knew that if they went at all it must be soon while the means remained to them, and if they went to Grant City it would not be quite like going to a strange place; General Gibbs would be there; they could count on him to help them where he could; indeed he had intimated that he had an opening already prepared for Stephen if he would only come and take it.
“You must decide quickly,” she urged. “Of course he can't wait for you, he will get some one else.”
“I suppose there is that danger,” said Stephen dubiously. “If it just wasn't for one or two things I shouldn't hesitate, we'd start West to-morrow.”
“Yes, I know—your aunt. But if it is for your good, Stephen.”
“I'll never be able to convince her of that, she just won't believe it; she thinks I should stay here in Benson, where I belong and am known.”
“But what good is there in being known?”
“Little enough, apparently; I'll write Gibbs to-morrow.”
“Don't be over-persuaded, Stephen,” she said, following him to the door. “Your aunt won't want you to go, but remember this does look like an opportunity.”
“I know it does,” he said as he left the house. He admitted to himself that he was terribly anxious, he felt singularly unfit for the struggle that was before him; he had no large adaptability, the power to push himself he was sensible he altogether lacked; but the West was still the West; there, muscle was capital. If his aunt could only be made to understand this; and that she might, he found himself preparing his arguments with such skill as he had. He was still doing this when he walked in on Virginia.
“I've just had a letter from General Gibbs,” he observed, sinking into a chair at her side. “You remember Gibbs, don't you? You know I told you how I met him, and that I saw a good deal of him afterward in Washington. He's gone to a place in Kansas called Grant City; it's a new town—he wants me to join him there.”
“But surely you are not going, Stephen—you have no thought of that?” said Virginia quickly. He realized with a touch of bitterness that much as he might wish it, it could not be otherwise, his purposes and desires would always be at variance with what she would have chosen for him.
“Well, I'm not so sure about that, Aunt Virginia,” he said, smiling moodily.
“What does Marian say?” she asked.
“She is willing enough. She knows I must do something. I've rather made a failure of it here.”
“I suppose if you and Marian have decided that this is the thing for you to do, Stephen, no argument of mine will have any weight with you.”
“I don't want you to feel that way about it; but what am I to do? I haven't any choice. There is nothing that I can get here that you would care to see me take.”
“I don't want you to go West, Stephen,” said Virginia.
“It's not likely that I shall remain there always.”
“If you go, the more successful you are the less likely your return will be.”
“If there was anything for me here, I wouldn't consider it—but there is nothing, and I've very little money left. Gibbs has something definite for me.”
“You'll have to decide for yourself, Stephen,” said Virginia with a touch of weariness. “I don't know what is best for you; you only can settle that point.”
“Well, then, I think it's Grant City,” he answered. “Fact is, I've felt it was Grant City ever since I heard there was such a place. It's too much of a problem for me here.”
“Would you mind if I saw Mr. Benson, and found if he knew of anything?” asked Virginia.
Stephen frowned but the frown cleared itself away almost immediately.
“No,” he answered. “Not if you are careful to let him understand that I don't ask you to, but I don't think he can or will do anything for me; still, if you want to see him, if it will be any satisfaction to you, I'm quite willing.”
Virginia saw Benson the next day, for while she had seemed to accept Stephen's decision, she was determined to keep him near her if she could. .
“He is arranging to go West to General Gibbs. I think I told you once of their meeting,” she said to the lawyer.
Benson remembered and smiled. He was rather amused that Lan-dray should have pinned his faith to Gibbs.
“Can nothing be done for him here, Mr. Benson—I mean will you do nothing? Can't you sec him and discuss matters with him?” she asked.