VIII
THE ALTAR OF THE WAR GOD
With the opening spring Virginia went down to Richmond, where Jack Morsonhad taken rooms for her in the house of an invalid widow whose three sonswere at the front. The town was filled to overflowing with refugees fromthe North and representatives from the South, and as the girl drove throughthe crowded streets, she exclaimed wonderingly at the festive air thehouses wore.
"Why, the doors are all open," she observed. "It looks like one bigfamily."
"That's about what it is," replied Jack. "The whole South is here andthere's not a room to be had for love or money. Food is getting dear, too,they say, and the stranger within the gates has the best of everything." Hestopped short and laughed from sheer surprise at Virginia's loveliness.
"Well, I'm glad I'm here, anyway," said the girl, pressing his arm, "andMammy Riah's glad, too, though she won't confess it.--Aren't you justdelighted to see Jack again, Mammy?"
The old negress grunted in her corner of the carriage. "I ain' seed no usein all dis yer fittin'," she responded. "W'at's de use er fittin' ef darain' sumpen' ter fit fer dat you ain' got a'ready?"
"That's it, Mammy," replied Jack, gayly, "we're fighting for freedom, andwe haven't had it yet, you see."
"Is dat ar freedom vittles?" scornfully retorted the old woman. "Is itclose? is it wood ter bu'n?"
"Oh, it will soon be here and you'll find out," said Virginia, cheerfully,and when a little later she settled herself in her pleasant rooms, shereturned to her assurances.
"Aren't you glad you're here, Mammy, aren't you glad?" she insisted, withher arm about the old woman's neck.
"I'd des like ter git a good look at ole Miss agin," returned Mammy Riah,softening, "caze ef you en ole Miss ain' des like two peas in a pod, myeyes hev done crack wid de sight er you. Dar ain' been nuttin' so pretty esyou sence de day I dressed ole Miss in 'er weddin' veil."
"You're right," exclaimed Jack, heartily. "But look at this, Virginia,here's a regular corn field at the back. Mrs. Minor tells me thatvegetables have grown so scarce she has been obliged to turn her flowerbeds into garden patches." He threw open the window, and they went out uponthe wide piazza which hung above the young corn rows.
During the next few weeks, when Jack was often in the city, an almostfeverish gayety possessed the girl. In the war-time parties, where thewomen wore last year's dresses, and the wit served for refreshment, hergentle beauty became, for a little while, the fashion. The smooth bands ofher hair were copied, the curve of her eyelashes was made the subject ofsome verses which _The Examiner_ printed and the English papers quotedlater on. It was a bright and stately society that filled the capital thatyear; and on pleasant Sundays when Virginia walked from church, in herLeghorn bonnet and white ruffles flaring over crinoline as they neared theground, men, who had bled on fields of honour for the famous beauties ofthe South, would drop their talk to follow her with warming eyes. Citiesmight fall and battles might be lost and won, but their joy in a beautifulwoman would endure until a great age.
At last Jack Morson rode away to service, and the girl kept to the quiethouse and worked on the little garments which the child would need in thesummer. She was much alone, but the delicate widow, who had left her couchto care for the sick and wounded soldiers, would sometimes come and sitnear her while she sewed.
"This is the happiest time--before the child comes," she said one day, andadded, with the observant eye of mothers, "it will be a boy; there is apink lining to the basket."
"Yes, it will be a boy," replied Virginia, wistfully.
"I have had six," pursued the woman, "six sons, and yet I am alone now.Three are dead, and three are in the army. I am always listening for thesummons that means another grave." She clasped her thin hands and smiledthe patient smile that chilled Virginia's blood.
"Couldn't you have kept one back?" asked the girl in a whisper.
The woman shook her head. Much brooding had darkened her mind, but therewas a peculiar fervour in her face--an inward light that shone through herfaded eyes.
"Not one--not one," she answered. "When the South called, I sent the firsttwo, and when they fell, I sent the others--only the youngest I kept backat first--he is just seventeen. Then another call came and he begged sohard I let him go. No, I gave them all gladly--I have kept none back."
She lowered her eyes and sat smiling at her folded hands. Weakened in bodyand broken by many sorrows as she was, with few years before her and thosefilled with inevitable suffering, the fire of the South still burned in herveins, and she gave herself as ardently as she gave her sons. The pity ofit touched Virginia suddenly, and in the midst of her own enthusiasm shefelt the tears upon her lashes. Was not an army invincible, she asked, intowhich the women sent their dearest with a smile?
Through the warm spring weather she sat beside the long window that gave onthe street, or walked slowly up and down among the vegetable rows in thegarden. The growing of the crops became an unending interest to her and shewatched them, day by day, until she learned to know each separate plant andto look for its unfolding. When the drought came she carried water from thehydrant, and assisted by Mammy Riah sprinkled the young tomatoes until theyshot up like weeds. "It is so much better than war," she would say to Jackwhen he rode through the city. "Why will men kill one another when theymight make things live instead?"
Beside the piazza, there was a high magnolia tree, and under this she madea little rustic bench and a bed of flowers. When the hollyhocks and thesunflowers bloomed it would look like Uplands, she said, laughing.
Under the magnolia there was quiet, but from her front window, while shesat at work, she could see the whole overcrowded city passing through sunand shadow. Sometimes distinguished strangers would go by, men from the farSouth in black broadcloth and slouch hats; then the President, slim anderect and very grave, riding his favourite horse to one of the encampmentsnear the city; and then a noted beauty from another state, her chin liftedabove the ribbons of her bonnet, a smile tucked in the red corners of herlips. Following there would surge by the same eager, staring throng--mentoo old to fight who had lost their work; women whose husbands fought inthe trenches for the money that would hardly buy a sack of flour; soldiersfrom one of the many camps; noisy little boys with tin whistles; silentlittle girls waving Confederate flags. Back and forth they passed on thebright May afternoons, filling the street with a ceaseless murmur and theblur of many colours.
And again the crowd would part suddenly to make way for a battalionmarching to the front, or for a single soldier riding, with muffled drums,to his grave in Hollywood. The quick step or the slow gait of the riderlesshorse; the wild cheers or the silence on the pavement; the "Bonnie BlueFlag" or the funeral dirge before the coffin; the eager faces of menwalking to where death was or the fallen ones of those who came back withthe dead; the bold flags taking the wind like sails or the banners furledwith crepe as they drooped forward--there was not a day when these thingsdid not go by near together. To Virginia, sitting at her window, it was asif life and death walked on within each other's shadow.
Then came the terrible days when the city saw McClellan sweeping toward itfrom the Chickahominy, when senators and clergymen gathered with the slavesto raise the breastworks, and men turned blankly to ask one another "Whereis the army?" With the girl the question meant only mystification; she feltnone of the white terror that showed in the faces round her. There was inher heart an unquestioning, childlike trust in the God of battles--sooneror later he would declare for the Confederacy and until then--well, therewas always General Lee to stand between. Her chief regret was that thelines had closed and her mother could not come to her as she had promised.
In the intense heat that hung above the town she sat at her southernwindow, where the river breeze blew across the garden, and watched placidlythe palm-leaf fan which Mammy Riah waved before her face. The magnolia treehad flowered in great white blossoms, and the heavy perfume mingled inVirginia's thoughts with the yellow sunshine, the fre
tful clamour, and thehot dust of the city. When at the end of May a rain storm burst overheadand sent the wide white petals to the earth, it was almost a relief to seethem go. But by the morrow new ones had opened, and the perfume she hadsickened of still floated from the garden.
That afternoon the sound of the guns rolled up the Williamsburg road, andin the streets men shouted hoarsely of an engagement with the enemy atSeven Pines. With the noise Virginia thrilled to her first feeling ofdanger, starting from a repose which, in its unconsciousness, had been asprofound as sleep. The horror of war rushed in upon her at the moment, andwith a cry she leaned out into the street, and listened for the next rollof the cannon.
A woman, with a scared face, looked up, saw her, and spoke hysterically.
"There's not a man left in the city," she cried. "They've taken my fatherto defend the breastworks and he's near seventy. If you can sew or wash orcook, there'll be work enough for you, God knows, to-morrow!"
She hurried on and Virginia, turning from the window, buried herself in thepillows upon the bed, trying in vain to shut out the noise of thecannonading and the perfume of the magnolia blossoms which came in on thesouthern breeze. With night the guns grew silent and the streets empty, butstill the girl lay sleepless, watching with frightened eyes the shadow ofMammy Riah's palm-leaf fan.
At dawn the restless murmur began again, and Virginia, looking out in thehot sunrise, saw the crowd hastening back to the hospitals lower down. Theywere all there, all as they had been the day before--old men limping outfor news or returning beside the wounded; women with trembling lips andarms filled with linen; ambulances passing the corner at a walk, surroundedby men who had staggered after them because there was no room left inside;and following always the same curious, pallid throng, fresh upon the scentof some new tragedy. Presently the ambulances gave out, and yet the woundedcame--some walking, and moaning as they walked, some borne on litters bydevoted servants, some drawn in market wagons pressed into use. The greatwarehouses and the churches were thrown open to give them shelter, butstill they came and still the cry went up, "Room, more room!"
Virginia watched it all, leaning out to follow the wagons as they passedthe corner. The sight sickened her, but something that was half a ghastlyfascination, and half the terror of missing a face she knew, kept her hourafter hour motionless upon her knees. At each roll of the guns she gave anervous shiver and grew still as stone.
Then, as she knelt there, a man, in clerical dress, came down the pavementand stopped before her window. "I hope your husband's wound was notserious, Mrs. Morson," he said sympathetically. "If I can be of anyassistance, please don't hesitate to call on me."
"Jack wounded!--oh, he is not wounded," replied Virginia. She rose andstood wildly looking down upon him.
He saw his mistake and promptly retracted what he could.
"If you don't know of it, it can't be true," he urged kindly. "So manyrumours are afloat that half of them are without foundation. However, Iwill make inquiries if you wish," and he passed on with a promise to returnat once.
For a time Virginia stood blankly gazing after him; then she turnedsteadily and took down her bonnet from the wardrobe. She even went to thebureau and carefully tied the pink ribbon strings beneath her chin.
"I am going out, Mammy Riah," she said when she had finished. "No, don'ttell me I mustn't--I am going out, I say."
She stamped her foot impatiently, but Mammy Riah made no protest.
"Des let's go den," she returned, smoothing her head handkerchief as sheprepared to follow.
The sun was already high above, and the breeze, which had blown for threedays from the river, had dropped suddenly since dawn. Down the brickpavement the relentless glare flashed back into the sky which hung hot blueoverhead. To Virginia, coming from the shade of her rooms, the city seemeda furnace and the steady murmur a great discord in which every note was oneof pain.
Other women looking for their wounded hurried by her--one stopped to ask ifshe had been into the unused tobacco warehouse and if she had seen there aboy she knew by name? Another, with lint bandages in her hand, begged herto come into a church hard by and assist in ravelling linen for thesurgeons. Then she looked down, saw the girl's figure, and grew nervous."You are not fit, my dear, go home," she urged, but Virginia shook her headand smiled.
"I am looking for my husband," she answered in a cold voice and passed on.Mammy Riah caught up with her, but she broke away. "Go home if you wantto--oh, go back," she cried irritably. "I am looking for Jack, you know."
Into the rude hospitals, one after one, she went without shuddering,passing up and down between the ghastly rows lying half clothed upon thebare plank floors. Her eyes were strained and eager, and more than onedying man turned to look after her as she went by, and carried the memoryof her face with him to death. Once she stopped and folded a blanket underthe head of a boy who moaned aloud, and then gave him water from a pitcherclose at hand. "You're so cool--so cool," he sobbed, clutching at herdress, but she smiled like one asleep and passed on rapidly.
When the long day had worn out at last, she came from an open store filledwith stretchers, and started homeward over the burning pavement. Her searchwas useless, and the reaction from her terrible fear left her with a suddentremor in her heart. As she walked she leaned heavily upon Mammy Riah, andher colour came and went in quick flashes. The heat had entered into herbrain and with it the memory of open wounds and the red hands of surgeons.Reaching the house at last, she flung herself all dressed upon the bed andfell into a sleep that was filled with changing dreams.
At midnight she cried out in agony, believing herself to be still in thestreet. When Mammy Riah bent over her she did not know her, but held outshaking hands and asked for her mother, calling the name aloud in thesilent house, deserted for the sake of the hospitals lower down. She waswalking again on and on over the hot bricks, and the deep wounds wereopening before her eyes while the surgeons went by with dripping hands.Once she started up and cried out that the terrible blue sky was crushingher down to the pavement which burned her feet. Then the odour of themagnolia filled her nostrils, and she talked of the scorching dust, of thenoise that would not stop, and of the feeble breeze that blew toward herfrom the river. All night she wandered back and forth in the broad glare ofthe noon, and all night Mammy Riah passed from the clinging hands to thewindow where she looked for help in the empty street. And then, as the graydawn broke, Virginia put her simple services by, and spoke in a clearvoice.
"Oh, how lovely," she said, as if well pleased. A moment more and she laysmiling like a child, her chin pressed deep in her open palm.
* * * * *
In the full sunrise a physician, who had run in at the old woman's cry,came from the house and stopped bareheaded in the breathless heat. For amoment he stared over the moving city and then up into the cloudless blueof the sky.
"God damn war!" he said suddenly, and went back to his knife.
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