WARP AND WOOF
When Isabey left Harrowby, Angela had again that fearful sense of loss
which with the young follows upon the going away of any person who
fills a great place in the mind.
She remembered having that feeling of desolation when she was barely
ten years old and Neville had first gone to West Point. Afterwards,
however, although she always parted from him reluctantly and made a
loud lament, the feeling had not been so poignant as when she was a
child.
Now, however, it returned in full force and not for Neville but for
Philip Isabey. She began to think as Lyddon did, that the sooner she
joined Neville the better.
When she had parted from him it had not occurred to her that she should
not soon see him again. She knew not what war was, but as time passed
on and the first great conflicts began, she realized that every parting
with a soldier might mean a last farewell. She might hear any day of
Neville’s death and also of Philip Isabey’s.
But it was the thought of the latter which made her heart stand still,
then beat tempestuously.
Her letters to Neville were frequent, and she managed to forward them
through Lyddon, who, as a British subject, could communicate with the
British Consul at Norfolk and the British Minister at Washington.
After much delay, these letters reached Neville. His replies were far
more irregular. He was not at the front, but engaged in recruiting duty
in the far West--a duty he always disliked and which he felt now to be
a practical illustration of how little he was trusted by those among
whom he had cast his lot. He accepted it with outward stoicism, but
inwardly it humiliated him to the very marrow of his bones. His work
led him to the roughest part of the then thinly settled West. It was
no place for a woman and least of all for a girl like Angela, who had
never been outside of her native county three times in her life.
When Angela got a letter from Neville she always went immediately
to Mrs. Tremaine and told her what was in the letter. Mrs. Tremaine
received this in perfect silence, but she was always tremulous for a
day or two afterwards. She, who had heretofore possessed a sort of
calm alertness, went about now with a strange preoccupation. Neville’s
room had been closed and locked and Mrs. Tremaine kept the key. In it
were some of his boyish books and belongings, but Mrs. Tremaine made
no offer of them to Angela. There were times when she would disappear
for an hour or so, and all at Harrowby knew that she spent those
stolen hours in Neville’s dark and dismantled room. She paid these
visits secretly, and would not even speak of them to Colonel Tremaine,
although once or twice he met her coming out of the door, and his
eyes, full of pain and sympathy, tried to meet her averted gaze.
Every night at prayer time when the moment came that Neville’s name
had once been mentioned, Mrs. Tremaine could not control a slight
agitation, and once at the omission Colonel Tremaine groaned aloud.
At that, Mammy Tulip, suddenly throwing her white apron over her face,
broke into loud weeping. “My chile,” she cried. “Dat boy I nus same
like he wuz my own an’ ain’t never gib he mammy a impident word sence
he been born, an’ now he ma an’ pa doan’ name him at pray’r time.”
Angela went up to Mammy Tulip and, putting her arm around the old
woman’s neck, leaned upon her broad shoulder, her heart wrung with pity
for Neville. But even in that moment she knew that she was not in love
with him.
With the early summer the stupendous clamor of war and the carnival of
blood began.
Richard Tremaine’s battery had been ordered to the front and was in
most of the great battles of the summer of 1861. Often long periods
of time passed when no news of him reached Harrowby. The Richmond
newspapers, received twice in the week, which had been leisurely
read two or three days after they arrived, were now seized upon with
avidity, and the grewsome list of dead, wounded, and missing was
scanned with anxious eyes by Colonel Tremaine.
Angela, hovering about him as he read over this direful list, would
glance at it herself. Suppose she should find Isabey’s name in it. How
would she take it? She had never fainted in her life, but she had a
haunting fear that if she should read Isabey’s name among the killed
she should faint or shriek or in some way betray herself.
Madame Isabey was keyed up also to periods of anxiety, although she
showed a spirit of cheerfulness and courage which was remarkable. The
life at Harrowby, so placid without, was full of fears and tumults
within, and was extraordinarily different from the years of pleasuring
which Madame Isabey had spent between New Orleans and Paris, but she
made no complaint, nor did Adrienne, though, if anything, it was harder
on her than on the older lady.
Adrienne had few resources, music being the chief. But with natural
tact she forbore from spending long hours at the piano, which she
would have done in her own home. Her taste for reading lay in a
few pessimistic French poets and romancers, but even with these,
the time was heavy on her hands. She had found life disappointing
from the first. Formed for love, her first marriage had been as
loveless as it was respectable. Then had come a mortal wound to her
pride--when she was free Isabey no longer cared. It was not as if
they had been separated and her image had gradually faded from his
mind; they had been thrown constantly together during the seven years
of her widowhood, and all their world was continually suggesting
the appropriateness of their marriage. So that the idea of it was
necessarily before Isabey’s mind, yet he had spoken no word, and
Adrienne felt a sad certainty that no word would be spoken by him.
She had a quiet pride which not even jealousy could lash into
resentment. She saw the sudden witchery which this nineteen-year-old
Angela, this wife who was no wife, had cast over Isabey, and did not
wonder at it. Angela was to Adrienne as much an unknown quantity as she
herself was to Angela. Adrienne felt herself robbed of something which
could be of no use to Angela, who possessed it, and Adrienne was thirty
with her youth behind her while Angela, not yet twenty, was entering
upon those ten years which to most women count for more than all that
has gone before or can come after.
The most unfailing courtesy prevailed between these two women. They
exchanged small kindnesses, spent some hours of every day together in
feminine employment, but a great gulf lay between them.
Angela felt instinctively and intuitively the things which Adrienne
knew, and reasoned upon them calmly and sadly. Adrienne had everything
and yet she had nothing. A still and mortal antagonism had been growing
steadily from the first between the women, but not the smallest
indication of it was given in manner or behavior. Both were women of
the highest breeding, and each was secretly ashamed of the ignoble
passion of jealousy which possessed them, and had the art to conceal it.
Something of what each suffered was dimly suspected by the other and
was actually known to one person--Lyddon. Of the two, he felt more
sorry for Adrienne, torn from a life of gayety brightened by art and
music, and transplanted like an exquisite exotic into the depths of a
sunless forest. He felt acutely sorry for her and tried in many ways
to lighten the burden of _ennui_ which he suspected, in spite of her
composure, lay heavy upon her. But there was no common ground between
them.
Lyddon, observing Angela day by day, saw her, as it were, growing up.
In January she had been a child: in July she was a woman with more
problems and perplexities weighing upon her than happen to most women
during the course of a long life.
Everyone at Harrowby was in a state of unrest, the negroes not the
least so. Several of the house servants could read, and occasionally
newspapers would disappear mysteriously and after a time be replaced.
In the summer nights these children of the sun would build a fire out
of doors in their quarters, and sitting around it in a circle, the
house servants would tell in whispers what they had picked up of the
great events going on.
The early autumn in warm climates is a depressing time of feverish
heat alternating with shivery nights like the fever and ague which
was certain to appear at that season. In November, when the cool
weather had declared itself and all danger of fever was supposed to
be passed, Madame Isabey had a slight touch of it. In a great fright
she determined to go to Richmond, where she might consult a doctor.
Adrienne, of course, must go with her, so it was arranged that the two
ladies, late in autumn, should leave Harrowby for the winter in the
Confederate capital.
Adrienne looked forward to it with something like pleasure. Life
at Harrowby was wearing on her. She felt its sameness, which was
now without serenity, and the exciting and kaleidoscopic life of a
beleaguered capital would be a distraction to her. Adrienne’s problems
were not inconsiderable.
In December, therefore, the hegira occurred. The whole journey to
Richmond was made by carriage and took three days. Colonel Tremaine, in
the excess of gallantry and good will, declared to Madame Isabey: “My
boy, Hector, madame, shall drive the coach upon this occasion, and I
will cheerfully do without his services in order to feel sure that you
are in safe hands.”
“O Heavens!” cried Madame Isabey, who abhorred Hector. “That ridiculous
old creature, always getting tipsy and quoting the Bible and telling
romances--such romances! About the war in Mexico! And you, yourself, my
dear Colonel, tell me that the creature is a grand coward. Never can I
let him drive me!”
Colonel Tremaine colored with displeasure. Not even Mrs. Tremaine had
dared to speak the truth so openly about Hector. But the courtesy due a
guest made the Colonel pass over Madame Isabey’s frankness.
“I, madame,” he responded, a little stiffly, after a moment, “shall
have the pleasure of accompanying you, as I always intended. I could
not think of allowing two ladies to travel from Harrowby to Richmond
alone, although I do not believe that any actual danger may be
apprehended.”
“Until Hector gets drunk and upsets the carriage in a ditch,” whispered
Lyddon to Angela, who was present.
The start was made on a bright morning in the middle of December. The
Harrowby carriage, like all those of the period, had boxes under the
seats meant to carry clothes and a rack behind for a trunk, and that
accommodated the ladies’ luggage. In addition was a large box filled
with provisions and with a dozen bottles of Mrs. Tremaine’s very best
blackberry wine, for supplies were scarce and dear in Richmond. It was
arranged that the ladies should return in April.
To themselves and to all the family at Harrowby, except Archie, there
was a slight feeling of relief at the separation for the winter.
Archie had become devotedly attached to Madame Isabey and insisted on
following the carriage on horseback a day’s journey to show his regret
at parting with his elderly friend, who never ceased to amuse and
delight him.
The parting was courtesy itself on both sides. Mrs. Tremaine accepted
as a certainty that the ladies would return in April to remain during
their pleasure. Many of the county families had guests upon the same
indefinite terms, and the arrangement was thought in no way remarkable.
Madame Isabey and Adrienne both expressed the deepest gratitude for the
kindness shown them, and promised to return in the spring. Yet there
was a certain and secret feeling of satisfaction on both sides when the
carriage drove off.
Colonel Tremaine sat by Hector’s side upon the box to see that he did
not upset the carriage at the first opportunity, and Archie, like a
true cavalier, galloped by the carriage window. He was not expected to
return until the morrow. But at sunset on the same day he was seen
riding rapidly down the wide cedar-bordered lane. Angela, who was
returning from an afternoon walk with Lyddon, said to him: “Archie must
bring bad news.”
So thought Mrs. Tremaine, who saw him from the window and came out on
the porch to meet him.
“It’s nothing, mother!” he cried, “only Richard is a little ill in
Richmond. He caught the measles, just think of it, just think of it!
And father met a messenger coming to tell us of it. He sent me back to
tell you and to say that if you start at once you will be able to catch
up with him at King William Court House to-morrow night, where he will
sleep. I am to drive you in the Stanhope gig.”
“I shall be ready to start in half an hour,” replied Mrs. Tremaine
without a moment’s hesitation.
Immediately preparations were begun for her departure. Angela
followed her, anxious to be of service, and to her Mrs. Tremaine
gave the keys and a few household directions. Angela had taken a
share in housekeeping since she was twelve years old and accepted the
responsibility now laid upon her as the most natural thing in the
world. Most of the autumn labor on the estate was over; the negroes’
clothes and shoes were made, and the winter provisions laid in. The
chief thing to be attended to was an army of turkeys, ducks, and
chickens, and Mammy Tulip, as an expert, had charge of the fowl yard.
Only one thing remained to be arranged, and that a difficult matter.
How was Mrs. Tremaine to get news of Neville when his letters to Angela
came? Pride forbade her to ask, but Angela, who knew what was in her
mind, said gently to her as she tied Mrs. Tremaine’s bonnet strings for
her: “Whenever I hear from Neville, Aunt Sophia, I will let you know.”
Mrs. Tremaine made no reply in words, but her eyes were eloquent.
It was arranged if Richard’s illness was slight, as was supposed, that
Colonel Tremaine would probably return, while Mrs. Tremaine would
remain with Richard in the little town near Richmond where he had been
taken ill.
After Mrs. Tremaine had left the house which had been so populous only
the day before, it had in it but two occupants--Angela and Lyddon.
George Charteris came over every day to do lessons with Lyddon, but he
avoided Angela, and she, while indifferent to his dislike, kept out of
his way.
It had been Mrs. Tremaine’s parting injunction to Angela to have
family prayers for the servants, and so at half past nine o’clock on
the first evening, the servants were all assembled in the library
as usual. Angela read the Gospel, as Colonel Tremaine did, and then
followed closely Mrs. Tremaine’s simple prayer, but when she prayed
for “the sons of this house,” she named Neville first, as had been the
case from the day of his birth until the day of his defection. A loud
Amen burst from Mammy Tulip, followed by a dozen other Amens from the
other servants. When the negroes’ Amens had died away, Lyddon said
distinctly, “Amen!”
Prayers being over, the servants dispersed, and all the house closed
for the night, Angela, as usual, went into the study, and sat an hour
with Lyddon. In the perplexities and the strange events which had
arisen in her life, she had found great comfort in Lyddon. His talk to
her always subtly conveyed the lesson of endurance, and after being
with him, Angela always felt more able to endure. He brought before her
the elemental fact that all the griefs, disappointments, perplexities,
and passions of human life were to be found in the smallest circle,
nay, under every roof.
The conduct of the house and estate, even for a short time, gave Angela
much to do, and in the days that followed she had but little time to
think. It was a full week before any news came of the travelers. Then
arrived a letter from Colonel Tremaine saying that he and Mrs. Tremaine
had reached Richard and found him, although not seriously ill, low in
health, and as the winter had set in with great severity there was no
prospect of moving him for at least a month. Archie would remain with
his mother to bring her and Richard home when the latter was able to
travel, but Colonel Tremaine would return to Harrowby within a few
days, certainly before Christmas eve.
This day was close at hand. Christmas means little, however, as a
festival, in time of war. Angela contrived to fill the stockings of the
negro children with apples and walnuts and molasses candy made in the
kitchen by Mummy Tulip, but otherwise there was no attempt at festivity.
Some of the neighbors and friends had already lost brothers and sons in
the bloody battles of the summer, and the rest were too much concerned
for the fate of their best beloved to attempt any merrymaking.
Mrs. Charteris, whose heart was as good as her tongue was active, had
taken in a family of refugees which included five children, and as she
assumed the duties of doctor, nurse, and governess, her hands were
full, and she scarcely had time even to revile Mr. Brand, who showed no
signs of taking up arms for his country.
The weather, which up to that time had been singularly mild and
beautiful, suddenly grew gray and stormy and bitterly cold. No guest
had passed the doors of Harrowby since Colonel Tremaine left. It was
now the day before Christmas, and all day long Angela had anxiously
watched for Colonel Tremaine’s arrival.
About five o’clock, when it was already dark, and earth and sky and
river were all an icy and forbidding gray, Angela stood by the hall
fire with Lyddon, who had just come in from his afternoon tramp.
“I do so hope,” Angela said, “that Uncle Tremaine will get here before
it snows. Mammy Tulip says that she feels it in her bones that snow
will fall deep and everything will be frozen up. She thinks so because
she hears the owls hooting at night or something of the sort.”
“I think so,” replied Lyddon, “because the wind is from the northwest
and the clouds have hung heavy all day.”
“How different it is,” cried Angela, “from last year!”
She came close to Lyddon and, as she often did in her earnestness, laid
her hand upon his arm and looked with dark and bewildered eyes into his
face.
“Last year,” she continued, “all was peace; this year all is war. Not
only everywhere, but here in my heart. It seems to me as if I were at
war with everyone in this house except you.”
“Poor child!” was all Lyddon could reply.
Angela drew back on the other side of the hearth and said: “But I want
to be at peace. I would like to be at peace with Uncle Tremaine and
Aunt Sophia--I love them so much. Even Archie is changed toward me, and
that little insignificant George Charteris looks at me with contempt
when he takes off his hat to me. And do you remember how pleased I was
at the idea of Madame Isabey and Madame Le Noir coming here? Well,
Madame Le Noir is at war with me.”
“Life is all a battle and a march,” was Lyddon’s answer.
He glanced at the dim and worn painting of Penelope and the suitors
over the fireplace. Here, indeed, was a Penelope, and Lyddon considered
she had narrowly missed having an unconscious suitor in the person of
Philip Isabey. Luckily he had gone away before the impression made upon
him by Angela had deepened and changed the current of his being.
Lyddon looked critically at Angela. She was certainly growing very
pretty, with a kind of beauty captivating as it was irregular. She
would never be classed as a beauty, but was as charming as Adrienne Le
Noir was seductive.
While these thoughts flashed through Lyddon’s mind he glanced toward
the western window and saw in the gloom of the wintry evening the
Harrowby carriage coming down the cedar lane.
“There’s Colonel Tremaine,” he said.
Angela’s thoughts were suddenly diverted into practical channels. “I
must have Uncle Tremaine’s fire lighted at once!” she cried, and,
stepping out upon the back porch, she rang the bell five times, which
was supposed to summon Tasso, but, after ringing in turn for Mirandy
and Jim Henry, finally succeeded in getting both of them, who proceeded
to hunt the place for Tasso instead of lighting the fire themselves.
Meanwhile the carriage was at the door, and Angela, snatching up her
crimson mantle and throwing it over her fair head, ran down the steps
and herself opened the carriage door.
Out stepped Colonel Tremaine and kissed her affectionately. But there
was another person within the carriage--a man, pale and worn and
haggard, with a leg and an arm bound up. It was Philip Isabey.
The shock of seeing him was shown in Angela’s expressive face. Instead
of the warm and ready greeting which a guest usually receives, she
stood at the carriage door, her mantle dropping off her shoulders,
looking at Isabey with eyes which had in them something both of fear
and of delight. She felt more emotion at this sudden apparition of him
than she had ever felt at seeing anyone in her life before. And with it
an instinctive dread of being thrown with him again instantly sprang
into life.
Isabey, himself, had the disadvantage of being a close observer. He had
looked forward to this meeting not with fear but with pure delight, and
was prepared to watch how Angela greeted him; she was so guileless that
she was easily read by an experienced eye.
He held out his hand feebly and said in his old, pleasant, musical
voice: “How glad I am to see you again!”
Then Colonel Tremaine began explaining sonorously: “My dear Angela,
I had the extreme good fortune to come across Captain Isabey when he
most needed a friend. He had been severely wounded and, though out
of danger, was quite helpless, and lying on the floor in a miserable
shanty. I, of course, picked him up, bag and baggage, and, instead of
leaving him in the hospital at Richmond, brought him back to Harrowby.
You must do for him what my dearest Sophie is doing for our beloved
Richard--be nurse, amanuensis, reader, and companion for him.”
“I will do all I can,” answered Angela, as if in a dream. And then
Lyddon appearing, he and Colonel Tremaine assisted Isabey up the steps
and into the hall.
It was not until he was seated in a great chair before the hall fire
and in the full glare of the blazing lightwood knots, that Angela saw
the havoc made in him by wounds and illness. He was very thin, and his
gray uniform was shabby and too large for his shrunken figure. His dark
complexion had grown pale, and there was a painful thinness about his
eyes and temples. His voice, however, had the same cheerful, musical
ring.
Isabey, in truth, was filled with rapture. By the hand of fate he had
been brought out of the direst misery into the companionship, without
seeking it, of this girl whose image he had been unable to drive from
his mind. His imagination had already been at work. He knew perfectly
well the conditions which prevailed at Harrowby. No one would be there
except Colonel Tremaine, Lyddon, Angela, and himself. He would see
Angela every day and all day long. She would minister to him, and he
might ask services of her inexpressibly sweet to receive from her. And
he would have long hours when he could talk to her unheard by others.
He had pictured to himself the welcome which would shine in her face
when she saw him, and the divine pity with which she would listen to
the story of his sufferings.
He did not fail to remind himself that Angela was not for him; she was
the wife of another man. But it is not in masculine nature to refrain
from inhaling the odor of a delicious flower which belongs to another
man or of breathing the air of heaven, although it may be in the garden
of another.
Any thought of betraying himself to Angela, or acquiring any ascendency
over her, was very far from Isabey’s mind, but when at last they had
met he had seen enough of agitation in her to know that the meeting
meant something to her as well as to him. And being a very human man,
he was penetrated with secret joy.
He saw still more plainly when she stood looking at him by the
firelight that she was reckoning up with a sympathy dangerously near to
tenderness all of his wounds, his pains, his fevers, all the miseries
which he had suffered. It seemed to Isabey then as if they were but a
small price to pay for a month in Angela’s society or even for that one
hour of peace and warmth and rest with Angela looking down upon him
with eyes of sweetest pity.
Colonel Tremaine, in response to Lyddon’s inquiries, began to tell
about Richard, and Angela, forcing herself to look away from Isabey,
listened to the story:
“We found our son recovering from the measles, a most grotesque
complaint for a soldier to have, but he had not taken proper care of
himself during the illness and was in a very low state when we arrived.
If he had been in fit condition to travel like our friend Captain
Isabey, we should have at once brought him to Harrowby, but the snow
is four feet deep in the upper country, and it is impossible to think
of moving Richard at this inclement season. His mother, therefore,
remains with him and Archibald also to minister to them both. I felt it
my duty to return to Harrowby. Your Aunt Sophia, my dear, has sent you
a letter, so has your brother Archibald, and Richard sent you his best
love and says you are to write to him as well as to your Aunt Sophia.”
And Colonel Tremaine handed two letters to Angela.
“Our son had heard that Captain Isabey had been badly wounded, and was
somewhere in the neighborhood of Winchester. I at once caused inquiries
to be made and found that he was easily accessible----”
“I beg your pardon,” interrupted Isabey with a wan smile, “coming to
fetch me meant traveling twenty-five miles over mountain roads in
December after a fortnight of snow.”
“At all events,” cried Colonel Tremaine expansively, “I was able to
find Captain Isabey, and, unlike our son, he was in a condition to
be moved, and the surgeon said if he could be made comfortable and
have rest and proper treatment for a couple of months, his right arm
and right leg would be as good as his left arm and left leg. So I
and my boy, Hector, wrapped him up in blankets, bundled him in the
carriage----”
“And drove most of the way himself,” said Isabey in a voice of
gratitude.
“And here he is, and I think, my dear Angela, if you could get him some
of your aunt’s excellent blackberry wine----”
Angela disappeared as soon as the word blackberry wine was mentioned.
In a few minutes she returned with a glass of it, piping hot with
spices in it. By that time she had recovered her composure and was the
Angela of old.
“This,” she said, smiling as she handed the glass to Isabey, “is an
Elizabethan drink--one of what Mr. Lyddon calls his formulas. In the
Elizabethan days, you know, people made wine out of everything.”
“And very good wine, too,” responded Isabey. “Better, no doubt, than
the doctored stuff of the post-Elizabethan days.”
He took the glass from Angela’s hand and drank the mulled wine, warm
and comforting. The wine and the fire brought the color into his pale
face and warmth into his chilled body. Angela, leaning her elbow upon
the mantle, said meditatively and with the air of the chatelaine of
Harrowby: “What would be the best room for Captain Isabey?”
“Richard’s room,” suggested Lyddon. “It’s on the same level with the
study.”
“Capital!” exclaimed Colonel Tremaine.
“I think so,” said Angela, “and I shall go now and have it prepared.”
She went out, and in half an hour Mammy Tulip came into the hall and
delivered this message to Isabey:
“Miss Angela, she sent her bes’ ’spects an’ say Marse Richard’s room is
ready fur you, an’ I’se gwine ondress you an’ put you to baid.”
Colonel Tremaine looked much shocked. “That, Tulip,” he said severely,
“will be Tasso’s duty, who in the absence of Peter in attendance upon
his young master has charge of that room.”
Mammy Tulip received this emendation with undisguised contempt. “Tasso,
he good ’nuff fur well folks, but Cap’n Isabey, he’s wounded and
distrusted an’ I ain’t gwine let dat fool nigger ondress a sick man.”
And then to Isabey, “Come ’long, honey, an’ le’ me do fur you jes’ what
I do fur dem boys.”
Lyddon had seen this cool defiance of master and mistress every day of
the twelve years he had spent at Harrowby, but was still surprised at
it.
However, Isabey with the weakness of illness felt a placid pleasure in
yielding himself to Mammy Tulip’s motherly care, and willingly allowed
her to “hyst” him up as she expressed it, and leaning upon her stout
arm with Lyddon on the other side, Colonel Tremaine walking behind, and
Tasso, Jim Henry, Mirandy, and several of their coadjutors bringing up
the rear, the procession moved toward Richard’s room.
One charm no room at Harrowby could ever lack--a roaring wood fire.
It had already taken the chill off the unused room, and to Isabey the
glow, the warmth, the great soft feather bed with its snowy linen,
was a little glimpse of paradise. And Angela moving softly about and
concerned for his comfort was the sweetest part of the dream.
A round table was drawn up to an armchair in front of the fireplace,
and on it were quilled pens, cut by Lyddon, and red ink made from
the sumac berries, and the coarse writing paper which was the best
to be had in the Confederacy; and there were also some books. One
rapid glance showed Isabey that they were the books he liked; Angela
remembered all his tastes.
“Here,” she said, “you will have your supper, and then,” she added with
perfect simplicity, “Mammy Tulip will put you to bed.”
“And,” continued Mammy Tulip as she settled Isabey comfortably in the
chair with pillows, “I gwine to hab a big washtub brought in heah an’
a kittle of b’iling water an’ I gwine gib you a nice hot bath wid
plenty ob soap an’ towels.” At which Isabey laughed faintly and Lyddon
grinned, much to the amazement of Angela and Colonel Tremaine, who were
accustomed to Mammy Tulip’s ministrations.
Isabey did not see Angela any more that night, and did not in truth
feel able to stand further excitement.
Mummy Tulip was as good as her word, and took entire charge of him, and
when she had given him his supper and had bathed him in the big washtub
as she had threatened, and had covered him up in the great soft bed,
Isabey felt that most exquisite of all bodily sensations, release from
pain. He had not slept an unbroken night through since his leg and arm
had been torn by a shell, but by the time he realized his delicious
well-being, sleep came upon him. Nor did he open his eyes again until
next morning. The fire was again dancing in the chimney and Mammy Tulip
was standing by his bedside and holding a cup of something hot.
“It sutney is Gord’s mercy,” she said to him, “dat you an’ ole Marse
git heah lars’ night. De snow begin fallin’ a’ter sundown an’ ain’ stop
one single minit sence. De boys had to shovel a path in de snow so ter
git f’om de kitchen to de house, an’ dey had to breck de ice in de
waterin’ troughs fur de ho’ses an’ cows an’ sich.”
Isabey felt if anything an increase in his ease of body and mind at
what Mammy Tulip told him. There was something ineffably seductive in
the thought that he was, as it were, shut in from the whole world by
the rampart of snow and ice. That he could lie in the soft bed and
rise when he chose, and be washed and dressed like an infant, and take
that short and easy journey into the study where he would find the
companionship of books and Lyddon’s strong talk and Colonel Tremaine’s
warm courtesy and best of all--Angela.
For many months he had marched and fought and starved by day and night.
In summer heats, in autumn’s drenching rains and chilling nights he
had ridden and tramped through mud and latterly through snow, and had
known hunger and sleeplessness and, with all, incessant fighting. Then
had come a day of battle when almost the last shot that was fired
had nearly torn him to pieces. Following had come a time of fearful
suffering in a wretched shanty, where all that could be done for him
was an occasional hurried dressing of his wounds by a surgeon who had
learned to do without food or sleep. Around Isabey had been others
suffering as miserably as himself, and his mind was distracted from
his own tortures by watching with pity others more tortured than
himself.
Now, however, all this seemed a painful dream, and here he was in
warmth and peace and ease and paradise for a little time, and when
these should have done their work he would be ready once more for hard
campaigning.