Ailsa Paige

CHAPTER XII

In February the birds sang between flurries of snow; but the end of the month was warm and lovely, and robins, bluebirds, and cardinals burst into a torrent of song. The maples' dainty fire illumined every swamp; the green thorn turned greener; and the live-oaks sprouted new leaves amid their olive-tinted winter foliage, ever green.

Magnolia and laurel grew richer and glossier; azaleas were budding; dog-wood twigs swelled; and somewhere, in some sheltered hollow, a spray of jasmine must have been in bloom, because the faint and exquisite scent haunted all the woodlands.

On the 17th the entire army was paraded by regiments to cheer for the fall of Fort Donnelson.

About mid-February the Allotment Commission began its splendid work in camp; and it seemed to Ailsa that the mental relief it brought to her patients was better than any other medicine—that is, better for the Union patients; for now there were, also, in the wards, a number of Confederate wounded, taken at various times during the skirmishing around Fairfax—quiet, silent, dignified Virginians, and a few fiery Louisianians, who at first, not knowing what to expect, scarcely responded to the brusque kindness of the hospital attendants.

The first Confederate prisoner that Ailsa ever saw was brought in on a stretcher, a quiet, elderly man in bloody gray uniform, wearing the stripes of a sergeant.

Prisoners came more often after that. Ailsa, in her letters to Celia Craig, had mentioned the presence of Confederate wounded at the Farm Hospital; and, to her delight and amazement, one day late in February a Commission ambulance drove up, and out stepped Celia Craig; and the next instant they were locked tightly in each other's arms,

"Darling—darling!" sobbed Ailsa, clinging desperately to Celia, "it is heavenly of you to come. I was so lonely, so tired and discouraged. You won't go away soon, will you? I couldn't bear it—I want you so—I need you–"

"Hush, Honey-bud! I reckon I'll stay a while. I've been a week with Curt's regiment at Fortress Monroe. I had my husband to myse'f fo' days, befo' they sent him to Acquia Creek. And I've had my boy a whole week all to myse'f! Then his regiment went away. They wouldn't tell me where.' But God is kinder. . . . You are certainly ve'y pale, Honey-bee!"

"I'm well, dearest—really I am, I'll stay well now. Is Curt all right? And Stephen? And Paige and Marye?—and Camilla?"

"Everybody is well, dear. Curt is ve'y brown and thin—the dear fellow! And Steve is right handsome. I'm just afraid some pretty minx—" She laughed and added: "But I won't care if she's a rebel minx."

"Celia! . . . And I—I didn't think you liked that word."

"What word, Honey-bell?" very demurely.

"Rebel!"

"Why, I reckon George Washington wore that title without reproach. It's a ve'y good title—rebel," she added serenely. "I admire it enough to wear it myse'f."

Quarters were found for Mrs. Craig. Letty shyly offered to move, but Celia wouldn't have it.

"My dear child," she said, "I'm just a useless encumbrance 'round the house; give me a corner where I may sit and look on and—he'p everybody by not inte'fering."

Her corner was an adjoining section of the garret, boarded up, wall-papered, and furnished for those who visited the Farm Hospital on tour of inspection or to see some sick friend or relative, or escort some haggard convalescent to the Northern home.

Celia had brought a whole trunkful of fresh gingham clothes and aprons, and Ailsa could not discover exactly why, until, on the day following her arrival, she found Celia sitting beside the cot of a wounded Louisiana Tiger, administering lemonade.

"Dearest," whispered Ailsa that night, "it is very sweet of you to care for your own people here. We make no distinction, however, between Union and Confederate sick; so, dear, you must be very careful not to express any—sentiments."

Celia laughed. "I won't express any sentiments, Honey-bee. I reckon I'd be drummed out of the Yankee army." Then, graver: "If I'm bitter—I'll keep it to myse'f."

"I know, dear. . . . And—your sympathies would never lead you—permit you to any—indiscretion."

"You mean in talking—ahem!—treason—to sick Confederates? I don't have to, dear."

"And. . . you must never mention anything concerning what you see inside our lines. You understand that, of course, don't you, darling?"

"I hadn't thought about it," said Celia musingly.

Ailsa added vaguely: "There's always a government detective hanging around the hospital."

Celia nodded and gazed out of the open window. Very far away the purple top of a hill peeped above the forest. Ailsa had told her that a Confederate battery was there. And now she looked at it in silence, her blue eyes very soft, her lips resting upon one another in tender, troubled curves.

Somewhere on that hazy hill-top a new flag was flying; soldiers of a new nation were guarding it, unseen by her. It was the first outpost of her own people that she had ever seen; and she looked at it wistfully, proudly, her soul in her eyes. All the pain, all the solicitude, all the anguish of a Southern woman, and a wife of a Northern man, who had borne him Northern children deepened in her gaze, till her eyes dimmed and her lids quivered and closed; and Ailsa's arms tightened around her.

"It is ve'y hard, Honey-bud," was all she said.

She had Dr. West's permission to read to the sick, mend their clothing, write letters for them, and perform such little offices as did not require the judgment of trained nurses.

By preference she devoted herself to the Confederate sick, but she was very sweet and gentle with all, ready to do anything any sick man asked; and she prayed in her heart that if her husband and her son were ever in need of such aid. God would send, in mercy, some woman to them, and not let them lie helpless in the clumsy hands of men.

She had only one really disagreeable experience. Early in March a government detective sent word that he wished to speak to her; and she went down to Dr. West's office, where a red-faced, burly man sat smoking a very black cigar. He did not rise as she entered; and, surprised, she halted at the doorway.

"Are you Mrs. Craig?" he demanded, keeping his seat, his hat, and the cigar between his teeth.

"Are you a government detective?"

"Yes, I am."

"Then stand up when you speak to me!" she said sharply. "I reckon a Yankee nigger has mo' manners than you display."

And the astonished detective presently found himself, hat in hand, cigar discarded, standing while Mrs. Craig, seated, replied indifferently to his very mild questions.

"Are you a Southerner, Mrs. Craig?"

"I am."

"Your husband is Colonel Estcourt Craig, 3rd New York Zouaves?"

"He is."

"You have a son serving in that regiment?"

"Yes."

"Private soldier?"

"Yes."

"You are not a volunteer nurse?"

"No."

"Your sister-in-law, Mrs. Paige, is?"

"Yes."

"Now, Mrs. Craig"—but he could not succeed in swaggering, with her calm, contemptuous eyes taking his measure—"now, Mrs. Craig, is it true that you own, a mansion called Paigecourt near Richmond?"

"I do."

"It was your father's house?"

"It was my father's home befo' he was married."

"Oh. Who owns your father's house—the one he lived in after he was married?"

"Mrs. Paige."

"She is your sister-in-law? Your brother inherited this house?

And it is called Marye Mead, isn't it?"

"Yes."

"It is not occupied?"

"No."

"Is Paigecourt—your own house—ah—occupied?"

"It is."

"By an overseer?"

"By a housekeeper. The overseer occupies his own quarters."

"I see. So you hold slaves."

"There are negroes on the plantations. Mr. Paige, my father, freed his slaves befo' I was married."

The man looked surprised and incredulous.

"How did your father come to do that? I never heard of a Southern slave owner voluntarily freeing his slaves."

"A number of gentlemen have done so, at va'ious times, and fo' va'ious reasons," said Celia quietly. "Mr. Paige's reason was a personal matter. . . . Am I obliged to give it to you?"

"I think you had better," said the detective, watching her.

"Ve'y well. Mr. Paige happened to find among family papers a letter written by General Washington to my grandfather, in which his Excellency said;

"'I never mean to possess another slave, it being now among my first wishes to see slavery, in this country, abolished by law.' That is why my father freed his slaves."

The detective blinked; then, reddening, started toward the door, until he suddenly remembered his rudiments of manners. So he halted, bowed jerkily, clapped the hat on his head and the cigar into his mouth, and hastily disappeared.

When Celia scornfully informed Ailsa what had happened, the latter looked worried.

"You see," she said, "how easily trouble is created. Somehow the Government has learned about your coming here."

"Oh, I had to have a pass."

"Of course. And somebody has informed somebody that you own Paigecourt, and that you hold slaves there, and therefore you might be a suspicious person. And they told that detective to find out all about you. You see, dear, for Curt's sake and Stephen's sake as well as for your own, you will have to be particularly careful. You see it, don't you?"

"Yes," said Celia, thoughtfully, "I–"

The sudden thunder of a field battery drowned her voice. Ailsa ran to the door and looked out, and a soldier shouted to her the news of the Monitor's combat with the Merrimac. Battery after battery saluted; regiment after regiment blackened the hill-tops, cheering. At dusk gigantic bonfires flamed.

That evening Hallam came unexpectedly.

Now Ailsa had neither worn her ring and locket since her sister-in-law had arrived at the Farm Hospital, nor had she told her one word about Hallam.

Since her unhappy encounter with Berkley, outraged pride had aided to buoy her above the grief over the deep wound he had dealt her. She never doubted that his insolence and deliberate brutality had killed in her the last lingering spark of compassion for the memory of the man who had held her in his arms that night so long—so long ago.

Never, even, had she spoken to Letty about him, or betrayed any interest or curiosity concerning Letty's knowing him. . . . Not that, at moments, the desire to ask, to know had not burned her.

Never had she spoken of Berkley to Hallam. Not that she did not care to know what this private in Colonel Arran's regiment of lancers might be about. And often and often the desire to know left her too restless to endure her bed; and many a night she rose and dressed and wandered about the place under the yellow stars.

But all fires burn themselves: to extinction; a dull endurance, which she believed had at last become a God-sent indifference, settled on her mind. Duties helped her to endure; pride, anger, helped her toward the final apathy which she so hopefully desired to attain. And still she had never yet told Celia about Hallam and his ring; never told her about Berkley and his visit to the Farm Hospital that Christmas Eve of bitter memory.

So when, unexpectedly, Hallam rode into the court, dismounted, and sent word that he was awaiting Ailsa in Dr. West's office, she looked up at Celia in guilty consternation.

They had been seated in Celia's room, mending by candle-light, and the steward who brought the message was awaiting Ailsa's response, and Celia's lifted eyes grew curious as she watched her sister-in-law's flushed face.

"Say to Captain Hallam that I will come down, Flannery."

And when the hospital steward had gone:

"Captain Hallam is a friend of Colonel Arran, Celia."

"Oh," said Celia drily, and resumed her mending.

"Would you care to meet him, dear?"

"I reckon not, Honey-bud."

A soldier had found a spray of white jasmine in the woods that afternoon and had brought it to Ailsa. She fastened a cluster in the dull gold masses of her hair, thickly drooping above each ear, glanced at her hot cheeks in the mirror, and, exasperated, went out and down the stairs.

And suddenly, there in the star-lit court, she saw Berkley leaning against one of the horses, and Letty Lynden standing beside him, her pretty face uplifted to his.

The shock of it made her falter. Dismayed, she shrank back, closing the door noiselessly. For a moment she stood leaning against it, breathing fast; then she turned and stole through to the back entrance, traversed the lower gallery, and came into Dr. West's office, offering Hallam a lifeless hand.

They talked of everything—every small detail concerning their personal participation in the stirring preparations which were going on all around them; gossip of camp, of ambulance; political rumours, rumours from home and abroad; and always, through her brain, ran the insistent desire to know what Berkley was doing in his regiment; how he stood; what was thought of him; whether the Colonel had yet noticed him. So many, many things which she had supposed no longer interested her now came back to torment her into inquiry. . . . And Hallam talked on, his handsome sun-bronzed face aglow, his eager eyes of a lover fastened on her and speaking to her a different but silent language in ardent accompaniment to his gaily garrulous tongue.

"I tell you, Ailsa, I witnessed a magnificent sight yesterday. Colonel Rush's regiment of lancers, a thousand strong, rode into the meadow around Meridian Hill, and began to manoeuvre at full speed, not far away from us. Such a regiment! Every man a horseman; a thousand lances with scarlet pennons fluttering in the sunlight! By ginger! it was superb! And those Philadelphians of the 6th Pennsylvania Lancers can give our 8th Lancers a thousand keener points than the ends of their lance blades!"

"I thought your regiment was a good one," she said surprised.

"It is—for greenhorns. Every time we ride out past some of these dirty blue regiments from the West, they shout: 'Oh my! Fresh fish! Fresh fish!' until our boys are crazy to lay a lance butt across their ragged blouses."

"After all," said Ailsa, smiling, "what troops have really seen war yet—except the regiments at Bull Run—and those who have been fighting in the West?"

"Oh, we are fresh fish," laughed Hallam. "I don't deny it. But Lord! what an army we look like! It ought to scare the Johnnies into the Union again, just to look at us; but I don't suppose it will."

Ailsa scarcely heard him; she had caught the sound of regular and steady steps moving up and down the wooden walk outside; and she had caught glimpses, too, of a figure in the starlight, of two figures, Berkley and Letty, side by side, pacing the walk together.

To and fro, to and fro, they passed, until it seemed as though she could not endure it. Hallam laughed and talked, telling her about something or other—she did not know what—but all she listened to was the steady footsteps passing, repassing.

"Your orderly—" she scarce knew what she was saying—"is the same—the one you had Christmas Eve?"

"Yes," said Hallam. "How did you know?"

"I re—thought so."

"What wonderfully sharp eyes those violet ones of yours are, Ailsa!

Yes, I did take Ormond with me on Christmas Eve—the surly brute."

"Or—Ormond?"

"That's his rather high-flown name. Curious fellow. I like him—or try to. I've an odd idea he doesn't like me, though. Funny, isn't it, how a man goes out of his way to win over a nobody whom he thinks doesn't like him but ought to? He's an odd crab," he added.

"Odd?" Her voice sounded so strange to her that she tried again.

"Why do you think him odd?"

"Well, he is. For one thing, he will have nothing to do with others of his mess or troop or squadron, except a ruffianly trooper named Burgess; consequently he isn't very popular. He could be. Besides, he rides better than anybody except the drill-master at White Plains; he rides like a gentleman–and looks like one, with that infernally cool way of his. No, Ormond isn't very popular."

"Because he—looks like a gentleman?"

"Because he has the bad breeding of one. Nobody can find out anything about him."

"Isn't it bad breeding to try?"

Hallam laughed. "Technically. But a regiment that elects its officers is a democracy; and if a man is too good to answer questions he's let alone."

"Perhaps," said Ailsa, "that is what he wants."

"He has what he wants, then. Nobody except the trooper Burgess ventures to intrude on his sullen privacy. Even his own bunky has little use for him. . . . Not that Ormond isn't plucky. That's all that keeps the boys from hating him."

"Is he plucky?"

Hallam said; "We were on picket duty for three days last week. The Colonel had become sick of their popping at us, and asked for twelve carbines to the troop. On the way to the outposts the ammunition waggon was rushed by the Johnnies, and, as our escort had only their lances, they started to scatter—would have scattered, I understand, in spite of the sergeant if that man Ormond hadn't ridden bang into them, cursing and swearing and waving his pistol in his left hand.

"'By God!' he said, 'it's the first chance you've had to use these damned lances! Are you going to run away?'

"And the sergeant and the trooper Burgess and this fellow Ormond got 'em into line and started 'em down the road at a gallop; and the rebs legged it."

Ailsa's heart beat hard.

"I call that pluck," said Hallam, "a dozen lancers without a carbine among them running at a company of infantry. I call that a plucky thing, don't you?"

She nodded.

Hallam shrugged. "He behaved badly to the sergeant, who said warmly: ''Tis a brave thing ye did, Private Ormond.' And 'Is it?' said Ormond with a sneer. 'I thought we were paid for doing such things.' 'Och, ye sour-faced Sassenach!' said Sergeant Mulqueen, disgusted; and told me about the whole affair."

Ailsa had clasped her hands in her lap. The fingers were tightening till the delicate nails whitened.

But it was too late to speak of Berkley to Hallam now, too late to ask indulgence on the score of her friendship for a man who had mutilated it. Yet, she could scarcely endure the strain, the overmastering desire to say something in Berkley's behalf—to make him better understood—to explain to Hallam, and have Hallam explain to his troop that Berkley was his own most reckless enemy, that there was good in him, kindness, a capacity for better things–

Thought halted; was it that which, always latent within her bruised heart, stirred it eternally from its pain-weary repose—the belief, still existing, that there was something better in Berkley, that there did remain in him something nobler than he had ever displayed to her? For in some women there is no end to the capacity for mercy—where they love.

Hallam, hungry to touch her, had risen and seated himself on the flat arm of the chair in which she was sitting. Listlessly she abandoned her hand to him, listening all the time to the footsteps outside, hearing Hallam's low murmur; heard him lightly venturing to hint of future happiness, not heeding him, attentive only to the footsteps outside.

"Private Berk—Ormond—" she calmly corrected herself—"has had no supper, has he?"

"Neither have I!" laughed Hallam. And Ailsa rose up, scarlet with annoyance, and called to a negro who was evidently bound kitchenward.

And half an hour later some supper was brought to Hallam; and the negro went out into the star-lit court to summon Berkley to the kitchen.

Ailsa, leaving Hallam to his supper, and wandering aimlessly through the rear gallery, encountered Letty coming from the kitchen.

"My trooper," said the girl, pink and happy, "is going to have such a good supper! You know who I mean, dear—that Mr. Ormond–"

"I remember him," said Ailsa steadily. "I thought his name was Berkley."

"It is Ormond," said Letty in a low voice.

"Then I misunderstood. Is he here again?"

"Yes," ventured Letty, smiling; "he is escort to—your Captain."

Ailsa's expression was wintry. Letty, still smiling out of her velvet eyes, looked up confidently into Ailsa's face.

"Dear," she said, "I wish you could ever know how nice he is. . . .

But—I don't believe I could explain–"

"Nice? Who? Oh, your trooper!"

"You don't mistake me, do you?" asked the girl, flushing up. "I only call him so to you. I knew him in New York—and—he is so much of a man—so entirely good–"

She hesitated, seeing no answering sympathy in Ailsa's face, sighed, half turned with an unconscious glance at the closed door of the kitchen.

"What were you saying about—him?" asked Ailsa listlessly.

"Nothing—" said Letty timidly—"only, isn't it odd how matters are arranged in the army. My poor trooper—a gentleman born—is being fed in the kitchen; your handsome Captain—none the less gently born—is at supper in Dr. West's office. . . . They might easily have been friends in New York. . . . War is so strange, isn't it?"

Ailsa forced a smile; but her eyes remained on the door, behind which was a man who had held her in his arms. . . . And who might this girl be who came now to her with tales of Berkley's goodness, kindness—shy stories of the excellence of the man who had killed in her the joy of living—had nigh killed more than that? What did this strange, dark-eyed, dark-haired girl know about his goodness?—a girl of whom she had never even heard until she saw her in Dr. Benton's office!

And all the while she stood looking at the closed door, thinking, thinking.

They were off duty that night, but Letty was going back to a New Hampshire boy who was not destined to live very long, and whose father was on the way from Plymouth to see his eldest son—his eldest son who had never fought a battle, had never seen one, had never even fired his musket, but who lay dying in the nineteenth year of his age, colour corporal, loved of his guard and regiment.

"Baily asked for me," she said simply. "I can get some sleep sitting up, I think." She smiled. "I'm happier and—better for seeing my trooper. . . . I am—a—better—woman," she said serenely. Then, looking up with a gay, almost childish toss of her head, like a schoolgirl absolved of misdemeanours unnumbered, she smiled wisely at Ailsa, and went away to her dying boy from New Hampshire.

The closed door fascinated Ailsa, distressed, harrowed her, till she stood there twisting her hands between desire and pallid indecision.

Leaden her limbs, for she could not stir them to go forward or to retire; miserably she stood there, swayed by fear and courage alternately, now rigid in bitter self-contempt, now shivering lest he fling open the door and find her there, and she see the mockery darkening his eyes–

And, "Oh-h!" she breathed, "is there nothing on earth but this shame for me?"

Suddenly she thought of Celia, and became frightened. Suppose Celia had gone to the kitchen! What would Celia think of her attitude toward the son of Constance Berkley? She had never told Celia that she had seen Berkley or that she even knew of his whereabouts. What would Celia think!

In her sudden consternation she had walked straight to the closed door. She hesitated an instant; then she opened the door. And Berkley, seated as he had been seated that Christmas Eve, all alone by the burning candle, dropped his hands from his face and looked up. Then he rose and stood gazing at her.

She said, haughtily: "I suppose I am laying myself open to misconstruction and insult again by coming here to speak to you."

"Did you come to speak to me, Ailsa?"

"Yes. Celia Craig is here—upstairs. I have never told her that you have even been in this place. She does not know you are here now. If she finds out–"