XXI
_AT PARTING_
News of Colonel Archer's death ran rapidly through a State of which hehad been one of the foremost citizens, by reason alike of his publicservices and his private virtues. It quickly reached Stuart's ears, andhe promptly sent a courier with a letter of sympathy and friendship, atthe end of which he wrote:
"Now, my dear Miss Agatha, I crave a favour at your hands. Yourgrandfather was a soldier greatly distinguished in two wars. He shouldhave a soldier's burial, and with your permission, which I take forgranted, I am ordering a company of dragoons and a battery now stationedat Warrenton and under my command, to move at once to Willoughby, andthere pay the last honours to the veteran."
Heart-broken as she was, Agatha met calamity with a fortitude whichastonished even herself. She was still scarcely more than a girl, butthe blood of a soldier filled her veins,--a soldier who had neverflinched from danger or murmured under suffering. "I too will neitherflinch nor murmur," she said to herself. "Chummie would like it best tosee me brave and resolute, if he could know--and perhaps he does know. Iwill bear myself as he would like me to."
And she kept that vow to the letter. The tears would mount to hereyelids now and then in spite of her and trickle down her cheeks; butthey were silent tears, accompanied by no moanings that were audible;they were the tears of heart-break, not the tears of weakness andself-pity. They were hidden for the most part from human view, andresolutely restrained in the presence of others. And when any of thosewho thronged about her for her consolation caught momentary sight ofthem, the effect was like that produced when a strong man weeps.
When the soldiers came she directed an attentive ministry to theircomfort, and after the last salutes to the dead had been fired over thegrave, she turned to Captain Marshall Pollard, whose battery it wasthat had paid that tribute of honour, and asked in a steady voice:
"Can you arrange to stay at Willoughby overnight? I have need to talkwith you of matters of some importance. It will be very kind and good ofyou, if you can manage it."
After a moment's reflection, Marshall answered:
"I can stay till midnight, and that will give us time for our talk. Imust be at Warrenton at reveille in the morning, but my horse willeasily make the distance if I start by one o'clock."
Then he spoke a few words in a low tone to his lieutenant, who tookcommand and marched the battery away, with all heads bared till they hadpassed out of the grounds.
"Let us not talk of my grandfather, please," said the girl, as the twoentered the drawing-room. "Not that I shrink from that," she quicklyadded. "It can never be painful to me to speak of him. But it mightdistress you. You knew him and loved him long ago, before--before youand I quarrelled."
She did not shrink from this reference to the past, or try in any way todisguise the truth of it. Her mind was full of the dear dead man's lastwords spoken in praise of her courage and truthfulness, and she was moreresolute than ever to live up to the character he had approved soearnestly and with so much of loving admiration.
"I think we did not quarrel," the young captain responded; "you did not,at any rate. I misjudged you cruelly, and in my anger I falsely accusedyou in my heart. Believe me, Agatha,"--he had called her so in the olddays, and the name came easily to his lips now,--"believe me when I saythat I have outlived all that bitterness. Let us be true, loyal friendshereafter, friends who know and trust each other, friends who do notmisunderstand."
The girl held out her hand, in response, and made no effort to hide thetears with which she welcomed this healing of the old wounds.
The young man, too, rejoiced in a reconciliation which laid his old lovefor this woman for ever to rest and planted flowers of friendship uponits grave. He was astonished at his own condition of mind and heart. Helearned now the truth that his mad love for Agatha had become completelya thing of the past, and that the bitterness which had at firstsucceeded it was utterly gone. He could think of her henceforth with atender affection that had no trace of passion in it. The dead past hadburied its dead, and the grass grew green above it.
At that moment dinner was announced, for Agatha had decreed that life atWilloughby should at once resume its accustomed order. "Chummie wouldlike it so," she thought. So the two friends passed through the hall tothe dining-room hand in hand, just as they had so often done in the olddays before passion had come to disturb their lives.
Marshall had now one supreme desire with respect to Agatha,--a greatyearning to comfort her and help her as a brother might. He told her so,when they returned to the drawing-room after dinner, to sit before thegreat fire of hickory logs during all the remaining hours of Marshall'sstay.
"Tell me now," he said, "of your plans, that I may share in them andhelp you carry them out perhaps. What are you going to do?"
"I'm going to find Baillie if I can, and nurse him back to health--if itis not too late."
"But he is in the hands of the enemy, you know."
"Yes, I know. That makes it more difficult, but we must not shrink fromdifficulties. I shall start north to-morrow."
"But how?--Tell me about it, please."
She explained her plans, telling him of the arrangements she had madefor bringing medicines through the blockade, transmitting letters, andfinding friends at every step in case of need. Then she added:
"I'm going to take Sam with me this time. He is devoted to his master,and his sagacity is extraordinary. I shall depend upon him to help mefind where Baillie is, and to do whatever there is to do for him."
"Will you let me have writing materials?" the young man abruptly asked.
Without asking for an explanation, she brought her lap desk, and withthe awkwardness which a man always manifests in attempting to use thatpeculiarly feminine device, he managed to fill two or three sheets. Whenhe had done, he handed the papers to her, saying:
"I can really help, I think. You will need money for your expenses. Youmust have it in sufficient supply to meet all emergencies, so that youmay never be delayed or baffled in any purpose for want of it. And itmay easily happen that you shall need a considerable sum at once. Moneyis the pass-key to many difficult doors. It so happens that I have avery considerable sum invested in railroad and other securities, in thehands of a very close friend of mine in New York. I have written to himto sell out the whole of them and place the proceeds at your disposal inany banks that may be most convenient to you."
"But, Marshall, you are impoverishing yourself--"
"In the which case," he responded, with his gentle, half-mocking smile,"I should be doing no more than all the rest of us Virginians are doingin this struggle. But I am doing nothing of the kind. I have aplantation, you know, and absolutely nobody dependent upon me. If Isurvive the war I shall have some land, at any rate, out of which to diga living. These investments of mine at the North were made long beforethe war, and I should have sold them out at the beginning of thetrouble if I hadn't been too lazy to attend to my affairs. I'm glad nowthat I was lazy. It enables me to help the two best friends I ever hadin this rather lonely world,--Baillie Pegram and you. A man may do as helikes with his own, you know, and this is precisely what I like to dowith my securities. Fortunately my friend who has them in charge is ablue-blooded Virginian, who would be fighting with us out there on thelines, if he were not a helpless cripple, fit for nothing, as he wroteto me when the trouble came, but to manage his banking-house. But howare you to get these papers through with you, without risk ofdiscovery?"
"I'll make Sam carry them," she responded. "Nobody will ever think ofsearching him, particularly as his connection with my affairs will beknown to nobody except my friends and co-conspirators."
"What a strategist you are, Agatha! What a general you would have madeif you'd happened to be a man!" exclaimed the young man in admiration.
"No," she answered, hesitating for a moment, and then resolutely goingon to speak truthfully the thought that was in her. "No, Marshall, forthen I should not have had the impulse that teaches me now what
to do.Tell me now, about the war. Shall I find Willoughby occupied as aFederal general's headquarters when I get back to Virginia?"
"I don't know. I cannot even guess what the officials at Richmond mean.I only know we have thrown away an opportunity that will never come backto us. The army was full of enthusiasm after Manassas--it is discouragedand depressed now. Then it was strong with the hope and confidence thatare born of victory; now it sits there wondering when the enemy will beready for it to fight again. It was fit for any enterprise then, and theenemy was utterly unfit to resist anything it might have undertaken. Butit was not permitted to undertake anything. It was made to lie still,like a pointer in a turkey blind, quivering with eagerness to be up anddoing, but restrained by the paralysis of misdirected authority. Whilewe have been doing nothing, the Federal enemy has been swollen to morethan twice our numbers. More important still, it has been fashioned byMcClellan's skilled hand into as fine a fighting-machine as any generalneed wish for his tool. The officers have been instructed in theirprofession, and the men have been taught their trade. Their organisationis perfect, their discipline is almost as good as that of regulars, andtheir confidence in themselves and their commanders is daily and hourlyincreasing. Our men have abundant confidence in themselves, but none atall in generals who throw away their opportunities or in a governmentthat touches nothing without paralysing it. Moreover, the Federal armyhas supply departments behind it that could not be bettered, while oursseem wholly imbecile and incapable. It should have been obvious to everyintelligent man at the outset, that with our vastly inferior materialresources, our best chance of winning in this war was by bringing tobear from the first all we could of dash and ceaseless activity. Weshould have taken the aggressive at once and all the time, knowing thatevery day of delay must strengthen the enemy and weaken us. Instead ofthat, after winning a great battle in such fashion as well-nigh todestroy for a time the enemy's capacity of resistance, we have taken upa defensive attitude and let the precious opportunity slip from ourgrasp. It will never return. I do not say that we shall be beaten in theend; I say only that our task is immeasurably more difficult now than itwas three months ago, and it is growing more and more difficult everyday."
"You are discouraged then?"
"No. I am only depressed. As for courage, we must all of us keep that upto the end. We must be brave to endure as well as to fight,--if we areever graciously permitted to fight again. But I did not mean to talk ofthese things. I am only a battery captain. I have no business to think.But unfortunately our army is largely composed of men who can't helpthinking. Tell me now, for I must ride presently, is there anything thatI can do for you--any way in which I can help you?"
"You will be helping me all the time, just by letting me feel that theold boy and girl friendship is mine again. That is more precious to methan you can imagine. Good-bye, now. Your horse is at the door. Thankyou for all, and God bless you."
The Master of Warlock: A Virginia War Story Page 21