CONFIDENCES
It was many months before Dorothea saw Val Tracy again and in the quiet
days that followed the departure of all the men in the May household,
she and Miss Imogene often speculated over what had happened to young
Larry Stanchfield. There was no answer to their problem, but this common
secret brought a close intimacy between the two.
It was not to be wondered at that the girl should find her heart drawn
to this gentle, white-haired little lady; and the elder woman, perhaps
because of her past memories, took a special interest in the child of
her old friend.
Miss Imogene, looking back upon the days of her girlhood, regarded the
life about her with the kindly eyes of that romantic time. Indeed the
love affairs of the young people she knew seemed to interest her more
than the momentous events that were happening in the world.
Stirring tales of Forrest’s raids, or of victory nearer home, such as
the brilliant Confederate General Johnston’s defeat of Palmer, which
roused April to wild enthusiasm, drew from her only an anxious inquiry
about one or other of the young officers whose love secrets had been
poured into her sympathetic ear.
“I wouldn’t like anything to happen to Bennie Hardee till he had made it
up with Myrtle Clay,” she would murmur anxiously; or, knitting her
brows, “Every General ought to talk seriously to his young officers
about writing home the minute a battle is over. Emmie Polk hasn’t heard
from Will Cary and she is half crazy with anxiety.”
“If Cousin Immie had her way all love stories would have a happy
ending,” April had said and turned away, half bitterly.
Miss Imogene watched her go, then addressing Dorothea with a sigh, “It
is so easy to miss the best things in life,” she told her. “When we are
young how little we know where our real happiness lies. And, oh, how
foolish are those who will not listen to what their hearts tell them.”
Dorothea knew well enough that Miss Imogene was thinking of April. The
elder lady did not conceal the fact that she had little patience with
her beautiful cousin’s attitude toward Lee Hendon, though she was wise
enough not to force her opinions upon the girl herself.
“When one has missed the greatest happiness because of a coquettish
whim—ah, then, my dear, a lifetime of regret is hard to bear,” she went
on. “I know what I am talking about, Dorothea, my child. You remember
Larry Stanchfield?”
“Yes, indeed,” Dorothea answered. “I’ve never ceased to wonder what has
happened to him.”
“And perhaps you noticed, honey, that when I discovered who he was I was
quite ready to set him safely on his way?” Miss Imogene asked with a
gentle smile.
“You said it was because of an old friendship,” Dorothea replied,
wondering what was coming.
“It was more than a friendship,” Miss Imogene admitted, looking off into
the distance as if she pictured again the well-remembered scene from out
of the past. “To think that he might have been my son, if—if I had not
been so foolish a maid. I would not listen to my heart. Shall I tell you
about it, dear?”
“Please do,” Dorothea murmured.
“It may serve as a warning to you, child,” Miss Imogene continued in her
sweet gentle voice. “That boy’s father and I—well, he was madly in love
with me and I with him. His name was Laurence, too; ‘Larry,’ I called
him, and he came from up North, from Albany in New York State. I met him
while he was visiting in Charleston, and, my dear, I say it without
vanity, I was something of a toast in those days. Yes, I had many lovers
and all would bend to my slightest whims. All but Larry—who was a man.
He would not bend, and so—so I sent him off, but I never forgot him nor
did any other come to take his place in my heart. Perhaps it was because
he would not bend. It isn’t the man you can twist around your finger,
honey, that you remember the longest.”
“What did you want of him that he wouldn’t do?” Dorothea asked after a
pause.
“Nothing very much, it seemed to me at the time,” Miss Imogene replied,
“but now I know that I asked him to sacrifice a principle, and that he
would not do, even for me whom he loved. I know he did love me then—you
remember that I said he was from the North.”
“But there wasn’t any war then,” Dorothea interrupted.
“No, there wasn’t; but Larry was an Abolitionist even in those days,”
Miss Imogene explained. “To tease him I said that I should give my
husband one of my negro boys for a body-servant. I thought what a fine
joke it would be to make him a slave owner, little knowing that my whole
happiness was at stake. And, honey, he refused my gift! So we parted—and
to-day his son is fighting for the very Cause over which we quarreled
twenty years ago. And I—I have lost over twenty years of happiness. All
the slaves in the world were not worth it, and I knew it at the time;
but I had a foolish pride and thought that no one should refuse me what
I wanted. I have missed the best in life for a silly whim and when I see
others about me who are running the same risk, I long to take them in my
arms and whisper my story in their ears. I do not mean you, dear,” Miss
Imogene ended, with a little laugh.
Dorothea knew to whom Miss Imogene referred, but she kept that knowledge
to herself. Thereafter, however, she understood better why April’s
affairs were of such vital interest to her cousin.
But love affairs were not the only matters these two discussed. As the
weeks passed Dorothea grew to know more intimately the causes of the war
between the North and the South and many perplexing questions entered
her mind. Her sympathy for the Confederacy she had taken for granted;
but, with an increasing knowledge of the actual conditions, she began to
think for herself and, being an English girl, she was free from the
prejudices that would have hampered the cool judgment of one born in
America.
She was very glad to find that she could talk freely with Miss Imogene,
who, although none doubted her loyalty, showed, to Dorothea at least,
some understanding of the Union point of view.
“You know, honey,” Miss Imogene began upon one occasion, “I was at home
in Charleston when this war broke out. It was my own State that began
it, and perhaps if it hadn’t been for the lesson Larry Stanchfield had
taught me I should have been as bitter as the other females who clamored
for States’ rights and longed to see the old flag torn down at Fort
Sumter. As it was, I had already determined to set all my negroes free;
but I couldn’t do it all at once, either for their sakes or for my own.
No, my dear, I had first to have them taught trades so that they could
take care of themselves, and then I had to let them go secretly, one at
a time.”
“But why, Cousin Imogene?” Dorothea asked, puzzled at this. “They
belonged to you, didn’t they? You could do as you pleased with them,
couldn’t you?”
“Yes, honey, but the feeling against freeing slaves was very marked,”
Miss Imogene explained. “Particularly when the war began.”
“But the war wasn’t because of slavery,” Dorothea objected. “It was
because of secession. That is what we all thought in England.”
“That is what we all said it was,” Miss Imogene agreed, “but the address
that South Carolina sent to the other states invited them to form a
‘Confederacy of Slave-holding States.’ They are the very words, my
dear—and then it went on to say that the North did not like slavery and
would stop it sooner or later. It did not give one good reason for
secession. I know, because I read it. I reckon I’m the only Southern
woman who did!” She laughed a little as she ended.
“Would it have made any difference if they had read it?” Dorothea asked.
“Not a mite, honey,” Miss Imogene answered cheerfully. “We were all past
reasoning, then. Every one was just swept along on one grand wave of
excitement. There was martial music, and new uniforms; shouting,
singing, sobbing—just anything to keep the war-fever up to its highest
pitch. Nobody wanted to think. They just wanted to feel. It was all as
contagious as the measles. And they believed in Toombs next to the
Bible.”
“It isn’t quite easy to understand,” Dorothea said thoughtfully. “You’d
think going to war was a serious matter.”
“And so it is, honey,” Miss Imogene replied, “and that’s the reason why
nobody did any thinking in those days. The politicians wanted the war,
General Toombs and such men didn’t want anybody to do anything but shout
for secession. And there were sad things and funny things a-plenty, too.
I saw the old flag go down on Fort Sumter. That did not seem sad to me
then, though when I learned later that the fort had been evacuated and
not surrendered, I confess I felt a throb of pride.”
“What were the funny things?” asked Dorothea.
“Well, there were the newspapers,” Miss Imogene went on. “All the
dispatches from the North were printed under the heading ‘Foreign News.’
Just silly pretenses like that, which the politicians encouraged. But
I’m silly, too, to be going over an old story.”
“But you were always for the South, Cousin Imogene,” Dorothea remarked
half-questioningly.
“To be sure, honey,” came the ready answer. “I was no different from the
others. And what else could I do? My home was here. I had no kin outside
the South, and besides I was not accustomed to traveling without a
gentleman escort. I’m not a strong-minded female, you know.” She laughed
a little. “After all I’m just like the others you have met here, except
that I learned a lesson when I wasn’t very old which has set me
thinking. I don’t like war at all and shall be very glad when this one
is over, as I hope it soon will be. But I don’t say that to any one but
you. Particularly not to April.”
* * * * *
The life in the May household, of which Dorothea had become a permanent
part, went on busily week after week. There were alternating periods of
depression and elation as rumors of good or bad fortune for the
Confederate armies reached the little town. But no matter whether they
won or lost, the confidence of her Southern cousins never flagged. The
social gayeties continued unabated, although the lack of young men
emphasized the cause of their absence.
“I suppose you’d have us act like the Yanks had scared us till we forgot
how to dance,” Harriot told Dorothea, echoing the opinion generally held
by those about her.
And so the songs and merriment went on, and if there was a hollow ring
in the laughter Dorothea was not able to detect it. The sherbets might
be sweetened with watermelon sugar, the cake made of sorghum and rice
flour, dresses might be re-dyed and refurbished till they were
thread-bare; but the dances and parties never flagged.
Letters from her father had come several times to Dorothea, some by way
of Mexico, others in a roundabout way from Canada, but he had warned her
that it was becoming increasingly difficult to communicate with her,
that few of her letters sent through his agents in England ever reached
him. He suggested that in case of necessity a personal item in the
_Richmond Enquirer_ which coöoperated with the _New York Daily News_
would be forwarded to him. Meanwhile both must rest assured that no news
was good news.
Mrs. Stewart remained in little Washington although she still talked of
instant flight, and one day late in May she was visiting her
sister-in-law and discussing the matter as if it were an entirely new
subject.
“What I maintain,” she insisted, “is that there is no future for us here
any longer. Even if we win the war, our good old Wilkes County families
have been humiliated to the depths. I have seen my own child eat clabber
from a cracked plate.” She looked about her, doubtless expecting groans
from sympathetic relatives.
“Did it have cinnamon and sugar on it?” demanded Harriot. “Aunt Decent
gives most of ours to the babies, but I just love it.”
They were interrupted at that moment by the sound of a horse trotting up
the drive and Harriot ran out to see who it was.
“Oh, mother, here’s Hal!” she called, and a moment later the young man
himself walked in.
He was lean and worn-looking and his mother gazed at him anxiously as
she took him in her arms.
“You have bad news, I fear,” she murmured. “Is it your father?”
“You have heard from him since I have,” he answered quickly. “No,
mother, there’s no personal misfortune to tell. All our kin have come
through safely. Val Tracy has been made a Captain and is as well as you
can expect. But I fear he’s hungry, or in love. He hasn’t been cheerful
a minute since we left here.” He was striving to speak lightly, but his
mother saw through the pretense.
“There is something troubling you, dear,” she insisted. “I can tell by
your face that something is wrong.”
Hal shrugged his shoulders and half turned away.
“The fact is,” he said, after a slight pause, “the Yanks are getting a
little too near to suit me. We hoped to hold them at Chattanooga, but
you know what happened there!”
“I am going home to pack _now_!” Mrs. Stewart exclaimed, rising
majestically to her feet. “Come, Corinne. We should have started for
Mexico long ago.”
“You’d better hear Hal’s news before you go,” Mrs. May suggested.
“Yes, Aunt Cora,” Hal went on with the ghost of a smile. “You’ll have to
decide on Brazil. Sherman has the jump on you.”
“You mean we’re cut off?” cried Mrs. Stewart in anguish.
“Oh, not entirely,” Hal answered, laughing at her exaggerated despair.
“You can at least get out of Washington; but, if you’re going, I
shouldn’t advise delay. Sherman isn’t one to lose time, and when he
tears up a railroad he does it completely. He builds a great fire with
the ties and heats the rails till they’re red-hot and twists them around
trees. ‘Jeff Davis’ neckties,’ he calls them.”
“A very poor joke indeed!” Mrs. Stewart remarked with dignity. “I do not
know what kind of neckties our good President Davis wears, but I am sure
they are not twisted around trees.”
There was a laugh at this sally, at which Mrs. Stewart looked still more
dignified and important, but Hal spoke directly to his mother.
“Seriously,” he went on, “I have really come to warn you that it is best
you should leave Washington.”
“That’s quite impossible, Hal,” his mother answered quietly.
“Don’t say that yet,” he went on earnestly. “Of course there’s nothing
positive in war and it may be that we shall give the Yanks a good
beating after all; but to tell you the truth I don’t expect it. At any
rate Sherman is in Georgia, and he doesn’t stand still!”
“I shall not go, in any circumstances,” Mrs. May replied firmly. “I do
not believe the war has changed the Union officers into monsters. If we
stay here we shall be respected even if the Yankees do come. I feel sure
an empty house is much more likely to be a prey to stragglers.”
“Perhaps your mother is right, Hal,” Mrs. Stewart put in anxiously, her
uncertainty again getting the better of her. “I have heard that there
were a few really nice people in the North in spite of everything. I
never quite believed it until I met a Mrs. Biddle from Philadelphia at
the White Sulphur who was really quite a cultivated female. Though to be
sure her mother was from Baltimore, which may account for it.”
“I am certain it is best to stay,” Miss Ivory cut in upon Mrs. Stewart
with scant ceremony. “A party of ladies will be perfectly safe, no
matter who gets the upper hand. But, Parthenia, my dear, if you have a
wish to take the children and the servants to the Magnolia plantation
I’ll stay here till you return. I can get along with Sally and Aunt
Decent and one or two of the younger girls. We could manage nicely.”
“No, Imogene,” said Mrs. May, “it’s sweet of you to suggest it, but I
have many reasons for staying. One of the best is that here I am half
way between Hal and his father and can go to either one of them in case
of need or have them brought home. So here I’ll stay. As to the girls, I
think they’re perfectly safe. As a matter of fact, Hal,” she went on,
turning directly to her son, “I cannot see what would take the Northern
army in this direction. We have no iron mines or large manufactories.
There are no supply depots to tempt an invader to Washington.”
“Now that is indeed a thought, ’Thenia,” her sister-in-law interjected.
“You have almost persuaded me to stay with you. But I always have in
mind what the conditions are likely to be after the war. Of course you
may expect that the North will find some pretext for getting even for
Andersonville. They will probably put thousands of our bravest boys in
prison, _literally thousands_. As to our valuables,” she lifted her
brows with a superior expression, “I know what to do with them.”
“You had best send them over here if you are determined to go away,”
Mrs. May suggested.
“Indeed no, my dear,” was the answer, “I shall put them in a safer place
still. Judge Andrews will care for them.”
“But he’s a Yankee—or as good as one!” Harriot exclaimed.
“Exactly,” her aunt went on. “He is a man with convictions, and I always
have an admiration for a person who will stand up for his opinions. When
all of you scorned him, I had ever a pleasant word for him. Of course I
could not openly associate with him, in the circumstances, but I am sure
he knows my sympathy. Now you see what I gain by looking ahead a little,
and having a kind word to say to one in adversity. I shall have a safe
place for my valuables, don’t you think?”
Miss Ivory emitted a lady-like little snort of contempt and Cora turned
to her.
“Oh, I know how intolerant you are, Imogene!” she said, with a touch of
anger in her voice. “But I can’t afford to be selfish. I have a daughter
to provide for. For her sake I must curb my pride and take help where I
can find it.”
Saying which she again rose and, giving every one the impression that
she had been deeply injured, quitted the house, followed by Corinne, who
took her cue from her mother.
“I am glad that a wise providence put it out of my power to marry a
woman like that,” Miss Imogene said softly. “I do not quite understand
how Charles Stewart has permitted her to live this long.”
“Don’t bother about her,” Hal interjected. “She’ll do as she pleases
anyway, and no amount of advice will move her. And you can remember,
too, that she isn’t the only one in the South who has been ‘looking
ahead,’ as she calls it. There are thousands who are trying to prepare a
place in the other camp, in case worst comes to worst.”
“Yes,” April, who up to that moment had scarcely said a word, now cried
bitterly. “There are too many carrying water on both shoulders, and that
is why people are beginning to talk about our losing. I did not expect
it of you, Hal,” she ended, with a straight look at her brother.
“I can only see what the plain facts are, sis,” he answered. “Sherman
has a hundred thousand men and we have less than fifty thousand. What
are we going to do against such odds?”
“Do!” cried April in a ringing voice. “We’re going to fight till they’re
beaten. There’s nothing else we can do!” At the words the young girl
seemed transfigured. “A victory! A victory!” she cried, and running to
the piano she started singing “Dixie.”
But for once she failed to carry her audience with her. “What is the
matter with you-all?” she demanded, standing up pale but defiant beside
the piano. “Are we to be beaten by talk? If we all grow glum when
everything is not going right how can we expect to win? We wouldn’t
deserve to win. The Yankees have twice as many men as we have, you say.
Well, we have Johnston! He’ll stop Sherman if he only had quarter what
he has. We shall win in spite of all the croaking and croakers!”
She was half beside herself for the moment, almost hysterical, and
realizing it, or perhaps fearing that she would break down and cry, she
quitted the room in haste.
Harriot began to sob from excitement and sympathy for the sister she
adored, and Dorothea put an arm about her comfortingly.
Harriot looked at her cousin through her tears.
“I don’t think you care at all,” she murmured, and Dorothea was
surprised to find that there was some truth in the words. At least she
did not find herself sorrowing over the waning fortunes of the South.