THE MEETING
All Virginia had caught fire and was immediately a blazing furnace
of enthusiasm. The people were of a military temper and the spirit
militant had always possessed them. Their ancestors, having fought
stubbornly for Charles the First, had come to Virginia rather than
submit to Cromwellianism. Almost as soon as these cavaliers became
Virginians, they took up arms in Bacon’s Rebellion and fought so
stubbornly that fifty years afterwards families who had been in the
Nathaniel Bacon cause would not walk on the same side of the street
or road as those who had upheld Sir William Berkeley. They welcomed
fighting during the whole of the Revolution and in 1812 they again
faced the Redcoats. They were a primitive and isolated people and
belonged more to the eighteenth than to the nineteenth century; their
place in chronology, in truth, was of a time when fighting was loved
for fighting’s sake. They knew little and cared less concerning the
forces against which they were hurling themselves. Being an untraveled
people, they had no conception of any better or other life than their
own. They gave high-sounding names to things and places and fully
believed in the illusions thus created.
No people on earth ever went more seriously into a civil war than did
these Virginians, and civil war is serious business always. Every
family in the county was united except the Harrowby family, that one
which had been the most united, the most devoted of them all.
The news of the tragic happenings of that April night were known
magically through the whole community. Colonel and Mrs. Tremaine were
extolled as was Virginius, the Roman father. They were considered to
have performed an act of the loftiest patriotic virtue in giving up the
son whom they reckoned to have given up his honor.
Angela was generally condemned and had in the whole county only one
partisan; this was Mrs. Charteris, who was scarcely less of a Spartan
mother than Mrs. Tremaine, but who remembered that she had once been
young herself and rashly assumed that Angela must have been too
desperately in love with Neville Tremaine to refuse him anything.
Vain delusion, and wholly unshared by Angela! The entire face of
existence seemed to have changed for her in that April night and
nothing seemed to have its right proportions. But one sad truth made
itself felt at the moment when she became Neville Tremaine’s wife--she
was not in love with him. She loved him deeply and truly and would not
have turned from him in any event, even though the mother that bore him
did so. But mothers have a sense of responsibility in their love, and
Mrs. Tremaine felt as if, through some secret wickedness on her part
or Colonel Tremaine’s, she had brought into the world a traitor and
that God’s judgment was upon Neville therefor. She could not make this
intelligible to anyone except Colonel Tremaine, who himself inclined to
the same dread theory.
Richard Tremaine’s broad intelligence took a more just view of
Neville’s course, but Richard was powerless to move his parents. From
the hour when Neville went forth an outcast from his father’s house,
his name was never mentioned at family prayers, an omission which went
like a sword to the hearts of all those assembled at those prayers.
Also by a tacit understanding Neville’s name was no more spoken in the
presence of the master and mistress of Harrowby.
Apparently there was not the smallest outward alteration in Angela
herself or in her position. But in reality a stupendous change had
occurred. Angela was a wife, and subject to no authority except that
of her husband, and could no longer be disposed of as if she were a
child. Something of this showed subtly in her air and manner from the
beginning. There was a gravity and self-command which she adopted
instinctively with her new name of Angela Tremaine. No one saw and felt
this more than Lyddon. He read Angela’s heart like an open book, and
sighed for her.
Three days after her marriage, a small parcel addressed to Lyddon
reached Harrowby. It had been forwarded through the British consul at
Norfolk. Within was a letter addressed to Mrs. Neville Tremaine, and
the parcel consisted of a considerable sum of money in gold eagles.
Lyddon handed it to Angela in the presence of Mrs. Tremaine. It was
a sweet spring morning and the two were superintending the work in
the old garden just as they had done since Angela was a child. After
reading the letter she had not offered to show it to Mrs. Tremaine, but
put it quietly into her pocket.
Mrs. Tremaine, knowing from whom it came, and panting for news of the
outcast, still would not speak, and Angela, who was as sensitive to
Neville’s honor as if she were in love with him, had the haughtiness
of a wife in the presence of those who have dealt injustice to her
husband. She balanced the little packet of gold in her delicate
fingers, and her eyes, which had grown dark and serious, suddenly
assumed the inquisitiveness of a child.
Lyddon, who was watching her, knew she had never before owned so much
money as the modest sum which Neville had sent her. She glanced at
Lyddon, who was smiling, and knowing the thought in his mind, she
blushed deeply, and dropped the money into her pocket. Lyddon walked
away and Angela went on with her work of suggesting and assisting Mrs.
Tremaine in the planting of flower seeds.
Mrs. Tremaine was outwardly calm and her voice unmoved, but Angela
knew that storm and tempest raged within. An impulse of divine pity,
like the sun upon snow, flashed into her heart, and after a minute of
struggle she said softly to Mrs. Tremaine: “He is well.”
Mrs. Tremaine averted her head as if she had not heard, but Angela knew
she had, and then the next moment the mother turned quickly and kissed
the daughter-in-law who had shown mercy to her.
From the day after his return from Richmond, Richard had actively
canvassed the county for the raising of a battery of artillery of which
he wished to be elected captain. On the evening of the day when Angela
had got her first letter from Neville, Richard rode home tired with his
three days of riding and working, but exultant over his prospects. The
family were already at supper when he entered the dining room in his
riding dress and sat down to the table.
“I think, sir,” he said to his father, “the matter is settled and I
have enough votes pledged to me to secure the captaincy. We hope to
raise the whole equipment by subscription so that the State shan’t be
put to any expense whatever.”
“I, myself, will contribute all the wheat grown on the middle wheat
field,” replied Colonel Tremaine. And then, looking toward Mrs.
Tremaine, added: “We can afford to be generous now that we have but two
sons whom we can in honor own.”
Angela, who was sitting at the table, turned pale and then crimson, and
after a moment rose quietly and left the room. All knew what she meant
by this silent protest--she was Neville Tremaine’s wife and nothing
could be said against him in her presence, even by implication, without
her resenting it.
After supper, when Colonel and Mrs. Tremaine were in the library, they
sent for Angela and she came in promptly.
“My dear,” said Colonel Tremaine, in his most polished and elaborate
manner, “I have to beg your pardon for a most unfortunate allusion
which I inadvertently made at supper.”
“It was, indeed, most unfortunate,” answered Angela quietly.
Colonel and Mrs. Tremaine looked at her and felt as if the center of
the universe had dropped out. Here was this child, the companion of
Archie, daring to assert herself, nay, to assert the dignity of her
position as Neville Tremaine’s wife.
She was, however, so clearly right that Colonel Tremaine, after a gasp
or two, finished what he had begun to say.
“We understand perfectly what your attitude must be, and if by chance
allusion we seem to forget this, I beg that you will excuse us, and
believe that it is very far from intentional.”
Angela bowed and left the room.
It was not uncommon for Colonel Tremaine to make these elaborate
apologies and to ask pardon from the Throne of Grace when he had
offended, and he had been known, when the family was assembled for
prayers, to offer a ceremonious explanation for having thrown his boot
jack at Jim Henry’s head.
Toward Angela, however, Colonel Tremaine had ever been indulgence
itself and had always treated her as a favored child.
After the little scene in the library, Angela returned to the study,
where Richard and Lyddon sat, and told them what had happened. “I don’t
know how it was,” she said, “but although I was not thinking of Neville
at the time, the instant Uncle Tremaine said that about his sons whom
he could in honor own, I felt that I must not sit quiet under it. It
makes a great difference,” she added sagely, “when a woman is married
to a man.”
“A very great difference,” answered Lyddon, who could not forbear
laughing, and then growing serious he said: “You were always wanting
something to happen; wonderful things have happened and will continue
to happen, and the time may come when you will apply to the present the
old saw, ‘Happy the country which has no history.’”
Richard then took out a letter. “I had this to-day from Isabey, who
seems to have reached Richmond a few hours after I left. He is lucky
enough already to have got his captaincy of artillery and has been sent
to Virginia on a secret mission. He writes that he wishes to see me and
is likely to arrive at any moment.”
Angela listened to this with the new sense which had come to her
since the marriage ceremony between herself and Neville--the sense of
analysis. She had taken such tremendous interest in Isabey and had
dreamed so many idle dreams about him, decorating him with all the
girlish fancies of her heart; and now Isabey, the much-talked-of, the
long-expected, was nothing to her. She was still at the age when the
only interest possible was a personal interest, when her own destiny
she thought must be affected by every person who crossed her path.
Then she remembered that Isabey’s coming could mean nothing to her,
that she could no longer steal into Richard’s room to look at Isabey’s
sketches on the wall, and it gave her a slight shock. Many other things
in her new position puzzled her. She did not know in the least whether
she ought to be interested in Richard’s account of the raising of
troops in the county, and it suddenly occurred to her that when she
should join Neville, she would still be at a loss to know which side
she should take. She had been red-hot for war, but quickly and even
instantly had learned to sit silent when the coming conflict was spoken
of before her.
A day or two after was the time when the artillery volunteers were
to meet at the courthouse and elect their officers. Colonel and
Mrs. Tremaine sent Richard off with their blessing. He reached the
courthouse, which was ten miles away, by ten o’clock in the morning. It
was a day of brightness, and the old colonial courthouse and clerk’s
office lay basking in the warm April sun.
A great crowd had assembled, chiefly men from eighteen to forty-five,
but there were boys and graybeards present, and a few ladies. The
election of officers was held _viva voce_, and Richard was elected,
almost without a dissentient vote, captain of the battery of artillery.
The enrollment was large because Richard Tremaine carried men’s bodies
as well as minds with him.
When the business part of the programme was over, there was a call for
a speech, that invariable concomitant of every species of business
transacted in Virginia. This was responded to by Colonel Carey, who had
an inveterate passion for speechmaking, inherited from a long line of
speechmaking ancestors.
The colonel mounted the stone steps of the old courthouse and began
with his usual preliminary, which was the declaration that he was
totally unprepared for this honor and averse to public speaking, and
then promptly drew from his pocket a manuscript of the speech it
took him precisely three-quarters of an hour to deliver and which
had been prepared for the occasion as soon as secession had become a
living issue. The exordium of the colonel’s speech was that which is
invariably required of every orator on Virginia soil--a tribute to the
women of Virginia.
Richard Tremaine, standing on the edge of the crowd of all sorts
and conditions of men, listened gravely to the colonel’s roaring
platitudes, his torrent of adjectives, his prophetic visions. The
colonel was a fighting man, but Richard had no doubt would indulge his
speechmaking, if allowed, when bullets were whizzing and shell tearing
up the ground around him.
Colonel Tremaine had frequently complained that during the Mexican War,
Randolph Carey was always making speeches when the Mexicans were doing
their best work, while Colonel Carey often told of his annoyance when,
in a ticklish position, Colonel Tremaine would insist upon discussing
tailors and quoting long excerpts from the “Lake Poets.”
Richard, remembering this, smiled. Never were there two more determined
old fire-eaters than this couple of Virginia colonels.
While these thoughts were passing through Richard’s mind, Colonel Carey
was still thundering upon the courthouse steps. Like many others, he
believed that a loud enunciation had all the force of reason, and wound
up his speech by shouting that he saw among them a young man destined
to lead the hosts of Virginia to victory upon many a hard-fought field
and who, when the Southern Confederacy had achieved the first place
among the nations of the world, would stand high upon the roll of
statesmen. He referred to his young friend, young in years, but old in
wisdom, courage, and understanding, Richard Tremaine, Esq., of Harrowby.
At this, Richard Tremaine bowed gracefully and recognized that the
colonel had made a very good opening for the battery of artillery.
Cries of “Speech! Speech!” came in deep tones of men’s voices and
pretty feminine cries, and Richard Tremaine, mounting the courthouse
steps in his turn, said more in three minutes than the colonel had said
in his three-quarters of an hour.
Standing in the noonday light of the springtime, his figure outlined
against the mass of the old brick building, Richard Tremaine looked
like one of the straight vigorous young trees transplanted from the
primeval woods.
When he had finished speaking he walked across the courthouse green
to the clerk’s office. There was still much business to be attended
to concerning the enrollment and while Richard, with a group of
gentlemen, including Mr. Wynne, the gray-haired clerk of the court,
were discussing details, a horseman appeared before the open door, and,
flinging himself from his horse, entered the clerk’s office. A shout
went up, “Here’s George Charteris!”
He was a handsome, black-browed youth with a hint of mustache, and
wore a students’ cap set rakishly on the side of his head.
Cries of “Hello, George!” “How are you, George?” welcomed him. “Where
did you come from?”
“From Baltimore, straight,” answered George Charteris, going up to
Richard Tremaine and clapping him on the shoulder. “I heard four days
ago how things had gone and I determined to make straight for home.
Maryland is all right, gentlemen, she will be out of the Union in a
week. Baltimore is on fire with enthusiasm, and everybody might have
known what would happen as soon as Abe Lincoln tried to put his foot on
the neck of Maryland.” Here he raised his slight boyish figure up, and
his dark eyes flashed as he said: “I was in the fighting on the 19th of
April.”
They all looked at him with new eyes. This stripling had seen blood
flow and smelled powder burn. Murmurs of interest arose and Richard
Tremaine cried out: “Go on, boy, tell us about it.”
“I was staying at Barnum’s Hotel,” said George, delighted with the joy
of seventeen at telling his own “Iliad,” “and early in the morning I
was out on the streets which were crowded. Everybody knew the Yankee
troops would be passed through Baltimore that day, and the people were
determined that it shouldn’t be done without a struggle. The Governor,
an infernal old rapscallion, would not call the State troops out, so we
could only get together a lot of fighting men with stones and brickbats
in their hands and revolvers in their pockets. There were hundreds of
us around the station when the train full of bluecoats, thousands of
’em, came rolling in. I never saw so many soldiers in my life before.
We began to throw stones at the train so as to force the soldiers to
come out, and we did. There was a crash of breaking glass. I, myself,
threw a stone at a car window out of which an officer was peering
and I saw him fall back with blood upon his forehead. Then, after a
fusillade, the bluecoats came pouring out of the train and met us
face to face. We fired at them with our pistols and then the soldiers
formed and charged up the street. Of course, we couldn’t resist them,
so we scattered, but we made a stand at two or three places and did as
good street fighting as was ever done in Paris. I had read how they
made barricades by just upsetting a cart and tearing up paving stones.
There were a lot of us youngsters and in ten minutes we had made a
first-class barricade.”
George’s face was flushed and he pushed his students’ cap still more
rakishly to one side. He felt himself every inch a man and gloried at
coming into the heritage of manhood. While he was speaking he turned
his back to the open door. Before it came a lady, dark-haired and
white-skinned like himself--his mother. Mrs. Charteris raised her hand
for silence among the listening group and smiled, but her eyes, which
were exactly like these of her tall stripling, sparkled as did his.
George continued, folding his arms and drawing himself up as he talked:
“A line of bluecoats came charging up the street. They were very
steady, but so were we. They fired a volley, but we knew it was blank
and didn’t mind it. Then when they got close to us we gave them our
pistol fire. We didn’t use blank cartridges; three of the bluecoats
fell over and then all at once the soldiers swarmed upon us. It seemed
to me as if the earth and air and sky were all full of soldiers. They
were on top of me and around me and then, in some way, I can’t imagine
how, I tore myself loose and ran as hard as I could. I found myself
down on the docks among the shipping. There was a schooner making ready
to leave, and the captain was just stepping aboard. I spoke to him and
as soon as he opened his mouth I knew he was a Virginian. I told him
that I was a Virginia man, boy, I mean, trying to get back to tidewater
Virginia, and he told me to come along with him, that he was bound for
York River. We got off directly, but the wind failed almost as soon as
we reached Chesapeake Bay. We lay there becalmed for three days and
on the last day we got the Baltimore newspapers and one of them had a
poem in it, a great poem. It’s called ‘Maryland, My Maryland.’ It’s the
finest thing I ever read in my life.”
He took out of his pocket a newspaper clipping and, in a ringing voice
and with all the power of feeling, read the lines of the poem.
The effect was something like that produced by the first rendering of
the “Marseillaise.” As George finished, every man present sprang to his
feet and followed Stonewall Jackson’s advice, to “yell like devils.”
Richard Tremaine found himself hurrahing as loud as anybody. George
stood in an involuntarily heroic attitude, tasting the rapture of being
a hero. In a minute or two a soft arm stole around his neck, and close
to him he saw his mother’s delicate, handsome, middle-aged face, her
eyes, still young and exactly like those of the boy. He caught her in
his arms and kissed her rapturously. The mother and son were evidently
near together. When the cheering had subsided a little, Mrs. Charteris
turned to Richard Tremaine.
“Mr. Tremaine,” she said, “I have a contribution to make to your
battery of artillery. Here is my son, the only son of his mother, and
she a widow. You are welcome to him. I only wish I had ten more sons to
give my country.”
Richard Tremaine took Mrs. Charteris’s hand and kissed it. “It was
mothers like you,” he said, “who made Sparta and Rome.”
Mr. Wynne, the clerk of the court, a small, oldish man, with stiff gray
hair and a prim pursed-up, thin mouth, spoke: “Wait a bit,” he said.
“This Charteris boy is under age. He is too young to enlist.”
“I assure you he is not,” replied Mrs. Charteris positively. “He was
eighteen years old his last birthday. I, his mother, should know.”
Everybody present doubted whether George Charteris was really eighteen
or not, but Mr. Wynne settled it. He coolly took down a ledger and
turning over the leaves rapidly, came to a certain entry in it.
“Here, madam,” he said, suavely, “is the record of your marriage
license. It is dated fourth of June, 1843. Not quite eighteen years
ago.”
There was a moment’s silence and then an involuntary burst of laughter
from everyone present except Mrs. Charteris, who blushed deeply,
and the stripling, who looked thoroughly disappointed at the turn of
affairs.
“Never mind, my son,” said Mrs. Charteris, smiling. “Another two years
will see you old enough to serve your country.”
“Meanwhile,” said Richard Tremaine, putting his hand on the boy’s
shoulder, “send him to Harrowby and let Mr. Lyddon teach him along
with Archie. That boy, you know, is just about as crazy as your boy to
enlist, and I shouldn’t be surprised if George and Archie and my father
were all to run away together and join the army.”
“You are very kind,” answered Mrs. Charteris, “and if Colonel Tremaine
will allow it, and Mr. Lyddon will be so good, I think I can’t do
better with my boy.”
“I think you could do a great deal better, ma’am,” replied George,
promptly. “There are plenty of schools where nobody knows my age and I
can easily pass for eighteen or even twenty, and I am going to do it.”
“That’s just the way my brother Archie talks,” said Richard Tremaine.
“But sixteen-year-old boys are not good for campaigning.”
“Aren’t we, though,” replied George, slyly, “wait and see.”
“Observe, gentlemen,” continued Richard Tremaine, smiling as he looked
about him. “It is much to have such a spirit in our lads, but far more
such a spirit in their mothers, as Mrs. Charteris has shown. That alone
will make us invincible.”