CHAPTER VIII.
THE BRAVE BID GOOD-BYE TO THE FAIR.
Another circumstance disgusted Colonel Carter even more than the affairof the majority. He received a communication from the War Departmentassigning his regiment to the New England Division, and directing him toreport for orders to Major-General Benjamin F. Butler. Over this paperhe fired off such a volley of oaths as if Uncle Toby's celebrated armyin Flanders had fallen in for practice in battalion swearing.
"A civilian! a lawyer, a political wire-puller! a militiaman!" exclaimedthe high-born southern gentleman, West Point graduate and ex-officer ofthe regular army. "What does such a fellow know about the organizationor the command of troops! I don't believe he could make out the propertyreturns of a company, or take a platoon of skirmishers into action. AndI must report to him, instead of he to me!"
Let us suppose that some inconceivably great power had suddenly createdthe Colonel a first-class lawyer, and ordered the celebratedMassachusetts advocate to act under him as junior counsel. We mayconjecture that the latter might have been made somewhat indignant bysuch an arrangement.
"I'll make official application to be transferred to some othercommand," continued Carter, thinking to himself. "If that won't answer,I'll go to the Secretary myself about it, irregular as personalapplication may be. And if that won't answer, I'll be so long in gettingready for the field, that our Major-General Pettifogger will probably gowithout me."
If Carter attempted to carry out any of these plans, he no doubtdiscovered that the civilian General was greater than the West PointColonel in the eyes of the authorities at Washington. But it is probablethat old habits of soldierly obedience prevented him from offering muchif any resistance to the will of the War Department, just as itprevented him from expressing his dissatisfaction in the presence of anyof his subordinate officers. It is true that the Tenth was anunconscionable long time in getting ready for the field, but that wasowing to the decay of the enlisting spirit in Barataria, and Carterseemed to be as much fretted by the lack of men as any body. Meantimenot even Colburne, the officer to whom he unbosomed himself the mostfreely, overheard a syllable from him in disparagement of GeneralButler.
During the leisurely organization and drilling of his regiment theColonel saw Miss Ravenel often enough to fall desperately in love withher, had he been so minded. He was not so minded; he liked to talk withpretty young ladies, to flirt with them and to tease them; but he didnot easily take sentiment _au grand serieux_. Self-conceit and a certainhard-hearted indifference to the feelings of others, combined with, alove of fun, made him a habitual quiz. He acknowledged the charm ofLillie's outlines and manner, but he treated her like a child whom hecould pet and banter at his pleasure. She, on the other hand, was alittle too much afraid of him to quiz in return; she could not treatthis mature and seemingly worldly-wise man with the playful impertinencewhich sometimes marked her manner towards Colburne.
"Miss Ravenel, have you any messages for New Orleans?" said the Colonel."I begin to think that we shall go just there. It will be such a richpocket for General Butler's fingers."
In speaking to civilians Carter was not always so careful of thecharacter of his superiors as in talking to his subordinate officers.
"Just think of the twelve millions of gold in the banks," he proceeded,"and the sugar and cotton too, and the wholesale nigger-stealing that wecan do to varnish over our robberies. It grieves me to death to thinkthat the Tenth will soon be street-firing up and down New Orleans. Weshall make such an awful slaughter among your crowds of old admirers!"
"I hope you won't kill them all."
"Oh, I shan't kill them all. I am not going to commit suicide," said theColonel with a flippant gallantry which made the young lady color with asuspicion that she was not profoundly appreciated.
"Do you really think that you are going to New Orleans?" she presentlyinquired.
"Ah! Don't ask me. You have a right to command me; but don't, I beg ofyou, order me to tell state secrets."
"Then why do you introduce the subject?" she replied, more annoyed byhis manner than by what he said.
"Because the subject has irresistible charms; because it is connectedwith your past, and perhaps with your future."
Now if Carter had looked in the least as he spoke, I fear that MissLillie would have been flattered and gratified. But he did not; he had aquizzing smile on his audacious face; he seemed to be talking to her ashe would to a child of fourteen. Being a woman of eighteen, andsensitive, she was not pleased by his confident familiarity, and in herinexperience she showed her annoyance perhaps a little more plainly thanwas quite dignified. After watching her for a moment or two with hiswide-open, unwinking eyes, he suddenly changed his tone, and addressedher with an air of entirely satisfactory respect. The truth is that hecould not help being at times semi-impertinent to young ladies; but thenhe had delicacy of breeding enough to know when he was so; he did notquiz them in mere boorish stupidity.
"I should be truly delighted," he said, "I should consider it one of thegreatest honors possible to me--if I could do something towards openingyour way back to your own home."
"Oh! I wish you could," she replied with enthusiasm. "I do so want toget back to Louisiana. But I don't want the South whipped. I wantpeace."
"Do you? That is a bad wish for me," observed Carter, with hischaracteristic frankness, coolly wondering to himself how he would beable to live without his colonelcy. As to how he could pay the thousandor two which he owed to tailors, shoemakers, restaurateurs and winemerchants, that was never to him a matter of marvel or of anxiety, oreven of consideration.
In obedience to a curious instinct which exists in at least somefeminine natures, Miss Ravenel liked the Colonel, or at least felt thatshe could like him, just in proportion as she feared him. A man who canmake some women tremble, can, if he chooses, make them love. Pure andmodest as this girl of eighteen was, she could, and I fear, would havefallen desperately in love with this toughened worldling, had he, withhis despotic temperament, resolutely willed it. In justice to her itmust be remembered that she knew little or nothing about his variousnaughty ways. In her presence he never swore, nor got the worse forliquor, nor alluded to scenes of dissipation. At church he decorouslyput down his head while one could count twenty, and made the responseswith a politeness meant to be complimentary to the parties addressed.Her father hinted; but she thought him unreasonably prejudiced; she madewhat she considered the proper allowance for men who wore uniforms. Shehad very little idea of the stupendous discount which would have to beadmitted before Colonel Carter could figure up as an angel of light, oreven as a decently virtuous member of human society. She thought shestated the whole subject fairly when she admitted that he might be"fast;" but she had an innocently inadequate conception of the meaningwhich the masculine sex attaches to that epithet. She applied it to himchiefly because he had the monumental self-possession, the gracefulaudacity, the free and easy fluency, the little ways, the general air,of certain men in New Orleans who had been pointed out to her as "fast,"and concerning whom there were dubious whisperings among elderlydowagers, but of whom she actually knew little more than that they hadgood manners and were favorites with most ladies. She had learned toconsider the type a satisfactory one, without at all appreciating itsmoral signification. That Colonel Carter had been downright wicked andwas still capable of being so under a moderate pressure of temptation,she did not believe with any realizing and saving faith. Balzac saysthat very corrupt people are generally very agreeable; and it may bethat this extraordinary fact is capable of a simple and sufficientexplanation. They are scared and do not take things seriously; they donot contradict you on this propriety and that belief, because they carenothing about proprieties and beliefs; they love nothing, hate nothing,and are as easy to wear as old slippers. The strict moralist andpietest, on the other hand, is as hard and unyielding as a boot justfrom the hands of the maker; you must conform to his model, or he willconscientiously pinch your moral corns in a mos
t grievous manner; hecannot grant you a hair's-breadth without bursting his uppers andendangering his sole. But pleasant as our corrupt friends are apt to be,you must not trust your affections and your happiness to them, or youmay find that you have cast your pearls before the unclean.
These reflections are not perhaps of the newest, but they are just astrue as when they were first promulgated.
Concerning the possible flirtation to which I have alluded DoctorRavenel was constantly ill at ease. If he found on returning from a walkthat Lillie had received a call from the Colonel during his absence, hewas secretly worried and sometimes openly peevish for hours afterward.He would break out upon that sort of people, though always withoutmentioning names; and the absent Carter would receive a severe lashingover the back of some gentleman whom Lillie had known or heard of in NewOrleans.
"I don't see how I ever lived among such a disreputable population," hewould say. "I look upon myself sometimes as a man who has just come froma twenty-five year's residence among the wealthy and genteel pirates ofthe Isle of Pines. I actually feel that I have no claims upon a decentsociety to be received as a respectable character. If a New Boston manshould refuse to shake hands with me on the ground that my associationshad not been what they should be, I could not find it in my heart todisagree with him. Among that people I used to wonder at the patience ofthe Almighty. I obtained a conception of his long-suffering mercies suchas I could not have obtained in a virtuous community. Just look at thatColonel McAllister, who used to be the brightest ornament of New Orleansfashion. A mass of corruption! The immoral odor of him must have been anoffense to the heavens. I can imagine the angels and glorified spiritslooking down at him with disgust, and actually holding their noses, likethe king in Orcagna's picture when he comes across the dead body. Therenever was a subject brought into our dissecting room so abominable tothe physical senses as that man was to the moral sense."
"Oh, papa, don't!" implored Miss Lillie. "You talk most horridly whenyou get started on certain subjects."
"My conversation isn't half pungent enough to do justice to the perfumeof the subject," insisted the Doctor. "When I speak or try to speak ofthat McAllister, and of similar people to be met there and everywhere, Iam obliged to admit the inadequacy of language. Nothing but the lasttrump can utter a sound appropriate to such personages."
"But Colonel McAllister is a very respectable middle-aged planter now,papa," said Lillie.
"Respectable! Oh, my child! do not persist in talking as if you werestill in the nursery. Saint Paul, Pascal, Wilberforce couldn't haveremained respectable if they had been slaveholding planters."
To Colonel Carter personally the Doctor was perfectly civil, as he wasto every one with whom he was obliged to come in contact, including thereprobated McAllister and his similars. Even had he been of a combativedisposition, or been twice as prejudiced against Carter as he was, hecould not have brought himself in these days and with his present loyalenthusiasm, to discourteously entreat an officer who wore the UnitedStates uniform and who had bled in the cause of country against treason.Moreover he felt a certain degree of good-will towards our military_roue_, as being the patron of his particular friend Colburne. Of thisyoung man he seemed almost as fond as if he were his father, without,however, entertaining the slightest thought of gaining him for ason-in-law. I never knew, nor read of, not even in the most unnaturalnovels, an American father who was a matchmaker.
So the autumn and half the winter passed away, without any one fallingin love, unless it might be Colburne. It needed all his good sense tokeep him from it; or rather to keep him from paying Miss Ravenel whatare called significant attentions; for as to his being in love, I admitit, although he did not. To use old-fashioned language, alarming in itsdirectness and strength of meaning, I suppose he would have courted herif she would have let him. But there was something in the young lady'smanner towards him which kept him at arm's length; which had the charmof friendship, indeed, but no faintest odor of even the possibility oflove, just as certain flowers have beauty but no perfume; which said tohim very gently but also very firmly, "Mr. Colburne, you had better notbe in a hurry."
At times he was under sudden and violent temptation. The trusting Doctorplaced Lillie under his charge to go to one or two concerts and popularlectures, following therein the simple and virtuous ways of New Boston,where young ladies have a freedom which in larger and wickeder cities isonly accorded to married women. On the way to and from these amusements,Lillie's hand resting lightly on his arm, and the obscurity of thestreets veiling whatever reproof or warning might sparkle in her eyes,his heart was more urgent and his soul less timid than usual.
"I have only one subject of regret in going to the war," he once said;"and that is that I shall not see you for a long time, and may never seeyou again."
There was a magnetic tremulousness in his voice which thrilled throughMiss Ravenel and made it difficult for her to breathe naturally. For afew seconds she could not answer, any more than he could continue. Shefelt as we do in dreams when we seem to stand on the edge of a gulfwavering whether we shall fall backward into safety or forward into theunknown. It was one of the perilous and decisive moments of the younglady's life; but the end of it was that she recovered self-possessionenough to speak before he could rally to pursue his advantage. Tenseconds more of silence might have resulted in an engagement ring.
"What a hard heart you have!" she laughed. "No greater cause of regretthan that! And here you are, going to lay waste my country, and perhapsburn up my house. You abolitionists are dreadful."
He immediately changed his manner of conversation with a painfulconsciousness that she had as good as ordered him to do so.
"Oh! I have no sort of compunction about turning the South into adesert," he said, with a poor attempt at making merry. "I mean to take abag of salt with me, and sow all Louisiana with it."
And the rest of the dialogue, until he left her at the door of thehotel, was conducted in the same style of laborious and painfultrifling.
As the day approached for the sailing of the regiment, Colburne lookedforward with dread yet with eagerness to the last interview. At times hethought and hoped and almost expected that it would bring about somedecisive expression of feeling which should give a desirable directionto the perverse heart of this inexplicable young lady. Then he reflectedduring certain flashes of pure reason, how foolish, how cruel it wouldbe to win her affection only to quit her on the instant, certainly formonths, probably for years, perhaps for ever. Moreover, suppose heshould lose a leg or a nose in his first battle, how could he demandthat she should keep her vows, and yet how could he give her up? Butthese last interviews are frequently unsatisfactory; and the one whichColburne excitedly anticipated was eminently so. It took place in thepublic parlor of the hotel; the Doctor was present, and so were severaldowager boarders. The regiment had marched through the city in theafternoon, surrounded and cheered by crowds of enthusiastic citizens,and was already on board of the coasting steamer which would transferit to the ocean transport at New York. Colburne had obtained permissionto remain in New Boston until the evening through train from the east.
"This is a proud day for you," said the warm-hearted Doctor. "But I mustsay that it is a sad one for me. I am truly grieved to think how long itmay be before we shall see you again."
"I hope not very long," answered the young man with a gravity andsadness which did not consort with his words.
He was pale, nervous and feverish, partly from lack of sleep the nightbefore.
"I really think it will not be very long," he repeated after a moment.
Now that peace was apparently his only chance of returning to MissRavenel, he longed for it, and like most young people he could musterconfidence to believe in what he hoped. Moreover it was at this time amatter of northern faith that the contest could not last a year; thatthe great army which was being drilled and disciplined on the banks ofthe Potomac would prove irresistible when it should take the field; thatMcClellan woul
d find no difficulty in trampling out the life of therebellion. Colonel Carter, Doctor Ravenel and a few obstinate old hunkerdemocrats were the only persons in the little State of Barataria who didnot give way to this popular conviction.
"Where are you going, Mr. Colburne?" asked Lillie eagerly.
"I don't know, really. The Colonel has received sealed orders. He is notto open them until we have been twenty-four hours at sea."
"Oh! I think that is a shame. I do think that is abominable," said theyoung lady with excitement. She was very inquisitive by nature, and shewas particularly anxious to know if the regiment would reach Louisiana.
"I am inclined to believe that we shall go to Virginia," resumedColburne. "I hope so. The great battle of the war is to be fought there,and I want to take part in it."
Poor young man! he felt like saying that he wanted to be killed in it;mistaken young man! he believed that there would be but one greatbattle.
"Wherever you go you will be doing your duty as a patriot and a friendof the interests of humanity," put in the Doctor, emphatically. "Iconfidently anticipate for you the greatest successes. I anticipate yourpersonal success. Colonel Carter will undoubtedly be made a general, andyou will return the commander of your regiment. But even if you neverreceive a grade of promotion, nor have a chance to strike a blow inbattle, you will still have performed one of the highest duties ofmanhood and be entitled to our lasting respect. I sincerely andfervently envy you the feelings which you will be able to carry throughlife."
"Thank you, sir," was all the answer that Colburne could think of at themoment.
"If you find yourself near a post-office you will let us know it, won'tyou?" asked Lillie with a thoughtless frankness for which sheimmediately blushed painfully. In the desire to know whether Louisianawould be attacked and assaulted by Colonel Carter, she had said morethan she meant.
Colburne brightened into a grateful smile at the idea that he mightventure to write to her.
"Certainly," added the Doctor. "You must send me a letter at once whenyou reach your destination."
Colburne promised as he was required, but not with the light heart whichhad shone in his face an instant before. It was sadly clear, he thought,that he must not on any account write to Miss Ravenel.
"And now I must say good-bye, and God bless you," he sighed, putting outhis hand to the young lady, while his face grew perceptibly whiter, ifwe may believe the reports of the much affected dowager spectators.
As Miss Ravenel gave him her hand, her cheeks also became discolored,not with pallor however, but only with her customary blush when excited.
"I do hope you will not be hurt," she murmured.
She was so simply kind and friendly in her feelings that she did notnotice with any thrill of emotion the fervent pressure, the clinging asof despair, with which he held her hand for a few seconds. An hourafterward she remembered it suddenly, blushing as she interpreted toherself its significance, but with no sentiment either of love or anger.
"God bless you! God bless you!" repeated the Doctor, much moved. "Let meknow as early and as often as possible of your welfare. Our best wishesgo with you."
Colburne had found the interview so painful, so different from what hishopes had pictured it, that, under pretence of bidding farewell to otherfriends, he left the hotel half an hour before the arrival of his train.As he passed through the outer door he met the Colonel entering.
"Ah! paid you adieux?" said Carter in his rough-and-ready, jaunty way."I must say good-bye to those nice people. Meet you at the train."
Colburne merely replied, "Very well sir," with a heart as gloomy as thesour February weather, and strolled away, not to take leave of any morefriends, but to smoke an anchorite, uncomforting segar in the purlieusof the station.
"Delighted to have found you," said the Colonel intercepting theRavenels as they were leaving the parlor for their rooms. "Miss Ravenel,I have neglected my duty for the sake of the pleasure--no, the pain, ofbidding you good-bye."
The Doctor cringed at this speech, but expressed delight at the visit.Lillie adorned the occasion by a blush as sumptuous as a bouquet ofroses, and led the way back to the parlor, defiant of her father'sevident intention to shorten the scene by remaining standing in thehall. The Doctor, finding himself thus out-generalled, retorted bytaking the lead in the conversation, and talked volubly for ten minutesof the magnificent appearance of the regiment as it marched through thecity, of the probable length of the war, and of the differingcharacteristics of northerners and southerners. Meanwhile Miss Ravenelsat quietly, after the fashion of a French _demoiselle_, saying nothing,but perhaps thinking all the more dangerously. At last the Colonel brokeloose from the father and resolutely addressed himself to the daughter.
"Miss Ravenel, I suppose that you have not a friendly wish to send withme."
"I don't know why I should have," she replied, "until I know that youare not going to harm my people. But I have no very bad wishes."
"Thank you for that," he said with a more serious air than usual. "I dosincerely desire that your feelings were such as that I could considermyself to be fighting your cause. Perhaps you will find before we getthrough that I am fighting it. If we should go to New Orleans--which isamong the possibilities--it may be the means of restoring you to yourhome."
"Oh! I should thank you for that--almost. I should be tempted to feelthat the end justified the means."
"Let me hope that I shall meet you there, or somewhere, soon," he added,rising.
His manner was certainly more earnest and impressive than it had everbeen before in addressing her. The tremor of her hand was perceptible tothe strong steady hand which took it, and her eyes dropped under thefirm gaze which met them, and which for the first time, she thought, hadan expression deeply significant to her.
"If she turns out to have any prospects"--thought the Colonel as he wentdown stairs. "If they ever get back their southern property"--
He left the sentence unfinished on the writing tablets of his soul, tolight a segar. His impulses and passions were strong when once aroused,but on this subject they had only begun to awaken.
Miss Ravenel's conversion from secession to loyalty Page 11