THE SNARE OF THE FOWLER
Long before Jennie Barton arrived in Richmond Socola had waked to the
realization of the fact that he had been caught in the trap he had set
for another. He had laughed at his growing interest in the slender dark
little Southerner. He imagined that he had hypnotized himself into the
idea that he really liked her. He had kept no account of the number of
visits he had made. They were part of his programme. They had grown so
swiftly into the habit of his thought and life he had not stopped to
question the motive that prompted his zeal in pressing his attentions.
In fact his mind had become so evenly adjusted to hers, his happiness
had been so quietly perfect, he had lost sight of the fact that he was
pressing his attentions at all.
The day she was suddenly called South and he said good-by with her brown
eyes looking so frankly into his he was brought sharply up against the
fact that he was in love.
When he took her warm hand in his to press it for the last time, he felt
an almost resistless impulse to bend and kiss her. From that moment he
realized that he was in love--madly, hopelessly, desperately.
He had left the car and hurried back to his post in the State
Department, his heart beating like a trip hammer. It was a novel
experience. He had never taken girls seriously before. The last girl on
earth he had ever meant to take seriously was this slip of a Southern
enthusiast. For a moment he was furious at the certainty of his abject
surrender. He lifted his eyes to the big columns of the Confederate
Capitol and laughed:
"Come, come, man--common sense--this is a joke! Forget it all. To your
work--your country calls!"
Somehow the country refused to issue but one call--the old eternal cry
of love. Wherever he turned, Jennie's brown eyes were smiling into his.
He looked at the Confederate Capitol to inspire him to deeds of daring
and all he could remember was that she was a glorious little rebel with
three brothers fighting for the flag that floated there. All he could
get out of the supreme emblem of the "Rebellion" was that it was her
Capitol and _her_ flag and he loved her.
And then he laughed for sheer joy that love had come into his heart and
made the world beautiful. He surrendered himself body and soul to the
madness and wonder of it all.
If he could only see his mother and tell her, she could understand. He
couldn't talk to the bundle of nerves Miss Van Lew had become. Her eyes
burned each day with a deeper and deeper light of fanatical patriotism.
He had yielded none of his own enthusiasm. But this secret of his heart
was too sweet to be shared by a comrade in arms.
Only God's eye, or the soul of the mother who bore him, could understand
what he felt. The realization of his love for Jennie brought a new fear
into his heart. His nerve was put daily to supreme test in the dangerous
work in which he was engaged. A single mistake would start an
investigation sure to end with a rope around his neck. Love had given
life a new meaning. The chatter of the squirrels in the Capitol Square
was all about their homes and babies in the tree tops. The song of
birds in the old flower garden on Church Hill made his heart thump with
a joy that was agony. The flowers were just bursting into full bloom and
their perfume filled the air with the lazy dreaming of the southern
spring.
He must speak his love. His heart would burst with its beating. His mate
must know. And she had returned to Richmond with a bitterness against
the North that was something new in the development of her character.
The newspapers of Richmond had published an elaborate account of the
sacking of her father's house, the smashing of its furniture and theft
of its valuables. It had created a profound sensation. There was no
mistaking the passion with which she had told this story.
He had laughed at first over the fun of winning the fairest little rebel
in the South and carrying his bride away a prize of war, against the
combined efforts of his Southern rivals. His love and pride had not
doubted for a moment that her heart would yield to the man she loved no
matter what uniform he might wear at the end of this war.
He couldn't make up his mind to ask her to marry him until she should
know his real name and his true principles.
What would she do if the truth were revealed? His heart fairly stopped
its beating at the thought. The fall of Richmond he now regarded as a
practical certainty. The _Merrimac_ had proven a vain hope to the
Confederacy.
McClellan was landing his magnificent army on the Peninsula and
preparing to sweep all before him. McDowell's forty thousand men were
moving on his old line of march straight from Washington. Their two
armies would unite before the city and circle it with an invincible wall
of fire and steel. Fremont, Milroy and Banks were sweeping through the
valley of the Shenandoah. Their armies would unite, break the
connections of the Confederacy at Lynchburg and the South would be
crushed.
That this would all be accomplished within thirty days he had the most
positive assurances from Washington. So sure was Miss Van Lew of
McClellan's triumphant entry into Richmond she had put her house in
order for his reception. Her parlor had been scrupulously cleaned. Its
blinds were drawn and the room dark, but a flag staff was ready and a
Union standard concealed in one of her feather beds. Over the old house
on Church Hill the emblem of the Nation would first be flung to the
breeze in the conquered Capital of the Confederacy.
The certainty of his discovery in the rush of the Union army into the
city was now the nightmare which haunted his imagination.
He could fight the Confederate Government on even terms. He asked no
odds. His life was on the hazard. Something more than the life of a
Union spy was at stake in his affair with Jennie. Her life and happiness
were bound in his. He felt this by an unerring instinct.
If this proud, sensitive, embittered girl should stumble on even a
suspicion of the truth, she would tear her heart out of her body if
necessary to put him out of her life.
For a moment he was tempted to give up his work and return to the North.
It was the one sure way to avoid discovery when Richmond fell. The war
over, he would have his even chance with other men when its bitterness
had been softened. His work in Richmond was practically done. His men
could finish it. The number of soldiers in the Southern armies had been
accurately counted and reported to Washington. Why should he risk the
happiness of the woman he loved and his own happiness for life by
remaining another day?
The thought had no sooner taken shape than he put it out of his mind.
"Bah! I've set my hand to a great task. I'm not a quitter. I'll stand by
my guns. No true woman ever loved a coward!"
He would take his chances and tell her his love.
He lifted the old-fashioned brass knocker on Senator Barton's door and
banged it with such force he laughed at his own foolish eagerness:
"At least I needn't smash my way in!" he muttered.
"Yassah, des walk right in de parlor, sah," Jennie's maid said, with her
teeth shining in a knowing smile.
Senator Barton had recovered from his illness. There could be no doubt
about it. He was in the library holding forth in eloquent tones to a
group of Confederate Congressmen who made his house their rendezvous. He
was enjoying the martyrdom which the outrage on his home and the death
of his aged mother and father had brought. He was using it to inveigh
with new bitterness against the imbecility of Jefferson Davis and his
administration. He held Davis personally responsible for every defeat of
the South. He was the one man who had caused the fall of New Orleans,
the loss of Fort Donelson and the failure to reap the victory at Shiloh.
"But you must remember, Senator," one of his henchmen mildly protested,
"that Davis did save Albert Sidney Johnston to us and that alone made a
victory possible."
"And what of it, if he threw it away by appointing a fool second in
Command?"
There was a good answer to this--too good for the henchman to dare use
it. He had sent Beauregard west to join Albert Sidney Johnston's command
because Barton's junta, supporting Joseph E. Johnston against the
administration, would no longer tolerate Beauregard in the same camp
with their chief. They had demanded a free field for Joseph E. Johnston
in the conflict with McClellan or they had threatened his resignation
and the disruption of the Confederate army.
The President, sick unto death over the wrangling of these two generals,
had separated them and sent Beauregard west where the genius of Albert
Sidney Johnston could use his personal popularity, and his own more
powerful mind would neutralize in any council of war the little man's
feeble generalship.
Socola listened to Barton's fierce, unreasoning invective with a sense
of dread. It was impossible to realize that this big-mouthed, bitter,
vindictive, ridiculous politician was the father of the gentle girl he
loved. There must be something of his power of malignant hatred
somewhere in Jennie's nature. He had caught just a glimpse of it in the
story she had told the Richmond papers.
She stood in the doorway at last, a smiling vision of modest beauty. Her
dress of fine old lace seemed woven of the tender smiles that played
about the sensitive mouth.
He sprang to his feet and took her hand, his heart thumping with joy.
She felt it tremble and laughed outright.
"So you have returned a fiercer rebel than ever, Miss Jennie?" he said
hesitatingly.
He tried to say something purely conventional but it popped out when he
opened his mouth--the ugly thought that was gnawing at his happiness.
"Yes," she answered thoughtfully, "I never realized before what it meant
to be with my own people. I could have burned New Orleans and laughed
at its ruins to have smoked Ben Butler out of it--"
"President Davis has proclaimed him an outlaw I see," Socola added.
"If he can only capture and hang him, the people of Louisiana would be
perfectly willing to lose all--"
"But your brother, the Judge, is still loyal to the Union--you can't
hate him you know?"
Jennie's eyes flashed into Socola's.
Why had he asked the one question that opened the wound in her heart?
Perhaps her mind had suggested it. She had scarcely spoken the bitter
words before she saw the vision of his serious face and regretted it.
"Strange you should have mentioned my brother's name at the very moment
his image was before me," the girl thoughtfully replied.
"Clairvoyance perhaps--"
"You believe in such things?" Jennie asked.
"Yes. My mother leaped from her bed with a scream one night and told me
that she had seen my father's spirit, felt him bend over her and touch
her lips. He had died at exactly that moment."
"Wonderful, isn't it," Jennie murmured softly, "the vision of love!"
She was dreaming of the moments of her distress in the sacking of her
home when the vision of this man's smiling face had suddenly set her to
laughing.
"Yes," Socola answered. "I asked you about your older brother because I
don't like the idea of you poisoning your beautiful young life with
hatred. Such thoughts kill--they can't bring health and strength, Miss
Jennie."
"Of course," the girl responded tenderly, "you can see things more
calmly. You can't understand how deep the knife has entered our hearts
in the South."
"That's just what I do understand. It's that against which I'm warning
you. This war can't last always you know. There must be a
readjustment--"
"Between the North and South?"
"Of course--"
"Never!"
With sudden emotion she leaped to her feet her little fists clinched.
She stood trembling in silence for a moment and her face paled.
"No, Signor," she went on in cold tones. "There can be no readjustment
of this war. It's to the death now. I confess myself a rebel body and
soul--_Confess_? I glory in it! I'm proud of being one. I thought my
father extravagant at first. Ben Butler has changed my views. The South
can't look back now. It's forward--forward--always forward to death--or
independence!"
She paused overcome with emotion.
"Yes," she went on in quick tones, "I thank God we're two different
tribes! I'm proud of the South and her old-fashioned, out-of-date
chivalry. The South respects and honors women. God never made the
Southern white man who could issue Butler's orders in New Orleans or
insult the heart-broken women who are forced to enter his office with
the vile motto he has placed over his desk--"
Socola lifted his hand in gentle smiling protest.
"But you must remember, Miss Jennie, that General Butler is a peculiar
individual. He probably does not represent the best that's in New
England--"
"God knows I hope not for their sakes," was the answer. "I only wish I
could fight in the ranks with our boys. If I can't fight at least I'm
going to help our men in other ways. I'll work with my hands as a slave.
I'll sew and knit and nurse. I'll breathe my soul into the souls of our
men. I sing Dixie when I rise in the morning. I hum it all day. I sing
it with my last thoughts as I go to sleep."
Socola moved uneasily.
She looked at him a moment with an expression of sudden tenderness.
"I can't tell you how proud and happy I am in the thought that I may
have helped you to give your brilliant mind to the service of the South.
It's my offering to my country and her cause!"
It was impossible to resist the glow of love in her shining face. Socola
felt his soul dissolve.
With a little gesture of resignation she dropped to a seat on the lounge
beside the window, her young face outlined against a mass of early roses
in full bloom. Their perfume poured through the window and filled the
room.
Socola seated himself deliberately by her side and held her gaze with
direct purpose. She saw and understood and her heart beat in quick
response.
"You realize that you _are_ the incarnate Cause of the South for me?"
She smiled triumphantly.
"I have always known it."
There was no silly boasting in her tones, no trace of the Southern
girl's light mood with one of her numerous beaux. Her words were spoken
with deliberate tenderness.
"And yet how deeply and wonderfully you could not know--"
"I have guessed perhaps--"
He took her hand in his.
"I love you, Jennie--"
Her voice was the tenderest whisper.
"And I love you, my sweetheart--"
He clasped her in his arms and held her in silence.
She pushed him at arm's length and looked wistfully into his face.
"For the past month my heart has been singing. Through all the shame and
misery of the sacking of our home, I could laugh and be happy--foolishly
happy, because I knew that you loved me--"
"How did you know?"
"You told me--"
"When?"
"With the last little touch of your hand when I went South."
He pressed it with desperate tenderness.
"It shall be forever?"
"Forever!"
"Neither life nor death, nor height nor depth can separate us?"
"What could separate us, my lover? You are mine. I am yours. You have
given your life to our cause--"
"I am but a soldier of fortune--"
"You are my soldier--you have given your life because I asked it. I give
you mine in return--"
"Swear to me that you'll love me always!"
She answered with a kiss.
"I swear it."
Again he clasped her in his arms and hurried from the house. The
twilight was falling. Artillery wagons were rumbling through the
streets. A troop train had arrived from the South. Its regiments were
rushing across the city to reënforce McGruder's thin lines on the
Peninsula. McClellan's guns were already thundering on the shores.
He hurried to the house on Church Hill, his dark face flushed with
happiness, his heart beating a reveille of fear and joy.