Christmas at Thompson Hall

by Anthony Trollope

  And Frank Reckenthorpe, the other general, made progress also, though it was progress of a different kind. Men did not talk of him so much as they did of Tom; but the War Office at Washington knew that he was useful, — and used him. He remained for a long time attached to the western army, having been removed from Kentucky to St. Louis, in Missouri, and was there when his brother last heard of him. “I am fighting day and night,” he once said to one who was with him from his own State, “and, as far as I can learn, Frank is writing day and night. Upon my word, I think that I have the best of it.”

  It was but a couple of days after this, the time then being about the latter end of September, that he found himself on horseback at the head of three regiments of cavalry near the foot of one of those valleys which lead up into the Blue Mountain ridge of Virginia. He was about six miles in advance of Jackson’s army, and had pushed forward with the view of intercepting certain Federal supplies which he and others had hoped might be within his reach. He had expected that there would be fighting, but he had hardly expected so much fighting as came that day in his way. He got no supplies. Indeed, he got nothing but blows, and though on that day the Confederates would not admit that they had been worsted, neither could they claim to have done more than hold their own. But General Tom’s fighting was in that day brought to an end.

  It must be understood that there was no great battle fought on this occasion. General Reckenthorpe, with about 1500 troopers, had found himself suddenly compelled to attack about double that number of Federal infantry. He did so once, and then a second time, but on each occasion without breaking the lines to which he was opposed; and towards the close of the day he found himself unhorsed, but still unwounded, with no weapon in his hand but his pistol, immediately surrounded by about a dozen of his own men, but so far in advance of the body of his troops as to make it almost impossible that he should find his way back to them. As the smoke cleared away and he could look about him, he saw that he was close to an uneven, irregular line of Federal soldiers. But there was still a chance, and he had turned for a rush, with his pistol ready for use in his hand, when he found himself confronted by a Federal officer. The pistol was already raised, and his finger was on the trigger, when he saw that the man before him was his brother.

  “Your time has come,” said Frank, standing his ground very calmly. He was quite unarmed, and had been separated from his men and ridden over; but hitherto he had not been hurt.

  “Frank!” said Tom, dropping his pistol arm, “is that you?”

  “And you are not going to do it, then?” said Frank.

  “Do what?” said Tom, whose calmness was altogether gone. But he had forgotten that threat as soon as it had been uttered, and did not even know to what his brother was alluding.

  But Tom Reckenthorpe, in his confusion at meeting his brother, had lost whatever chance there remained to him of escaping. He stood for a moment or two, looking at Frank, and wondering at the coincidence which had brought them together, before he turned to run. Then it was too late. In the hurry and scurry of the affair all but two of his own men had left him, and he saw that a rush of Federal soldiers was coming up around him. Nevertheless he resolved to start for a run. “Give me a chance, Frank,” he said, and prepared to run. But as he went, — or rather before he had left the ground on which he was standing before his brother, a shot struck him, and he was disabled. In a minute he was as though he were stunned; then he smiled faintly, and slowly sunk upon the ground. “It’s all up, Frank,” he said, “and you are in at the death.”

  Frank Reckenthorpe was soon kneeling beside his brother amidst a crowd of his own men. “Spurrell,” he said to a young officer who was close to him, “it is my own brother.” — “What, General Tom?” said Spurrell. “Not dangerously, I hope?”

  By this time the wounded man had been able, as it were, to feel himself and to ascertain the amount of the damage done him. “It’s my right leg,” he said; “just on the knee. If you’ll believe me, Frank, I thought it was my heart at first. I don’t think much of the wound, but I suppose you won’t let me go?”

  Of course they wouldn’t let him go, and indeed if they had been minded so to do, he could not have gone. The wound was not fatal, as he had at first thought; but neither was it a matter of little consequence as he afterwards asserted. His fighting was over, unless he could fight with a leg amputated between the knee and the hip.

  Before nightfall General Tom found himself in his brother’s quarters, a prisoner on parole, with his leg all but condemned by the surgeon. The third day after that saw the leg amputated. For three weeks the two brothers remained together, and after that the elder was taken to Washington, — or rather to Alexandria, on the other side of the Potomac, as a prisoner, there to wait his chance of exchange. At first the intercourse between the two brothers was cold, guarded, and uncomfortable; but after a while it became more kindly than it had been for many a day. Whether it were cold or kindly, its nature, we may be sure, was such as the younger brother made it. Tom was ready enough to forget all personal animosity as soon as his brother would himself be willing to do so; though he was willing enough also to quarrel, — to quarrel bitterly as ever, — if Frank should give him occassion. As to that threat of the pistol, it had passed away from Tom Reckenthorpe, as all his angry words passed from him. It was clean forgotten. It was not simply that he had not wished to kill his brother, but that such a deed was impossible to him. The threat had been like a curse that means nothing, — which is used by passion as its readiest weapon when passion is impotent. But with Frank Reckenthorpe words meant what they were intended to mean. The threat had rankled in his bosom from the time of its utterance, to that moment when a strange coincidence had given the threatener the power of executing it. The remembrance of it was then strong upon him, and he had expected that his brother would have been as bad as his word. But his brother had spared him; and now, slowly, by degrees, he began to remember that also.

  “What are your plans, Tom?” he said, as he sat one day by his brother’s bed before the removal of the prisoner to Alexandria.

  “Plans,” said Tom. “How should a poor fellow like me have plans? To eat bread and water in prison at Alexandria, I suppose.”

  “They’ll let you up to Washington on your parole, I should think. Of course I can say a word for you.”

  “Well, then, do say it. I’d have done as much for you, though I don’t like your Yankee politics.”

  “Never mind my politics now, Tom.”

  “I never did mind them. But at any rate, you see I can’t run away.”

  It should have been mentioned a little way back in this story that the poor old Major had been gathered to his fathers during the past year. As he had said to himself, it would be better for him that he should die. He had lived to see the glory of his country, and had gloried in it. If further glory or even further gain were to come out of this terrible war, — as great gains to men and nations do come from contests which are very terrible while they last, — he at least would not live to see it. So when he was left by his sons, he turned his face to the wall and died. There had of course been much said on this subject between the two brothers when they were together, and Frank had declared how special orders had been given to protect the house of the widow if the waves of the war in Kentucky should surge up around Frankfort. Land very near to Frankfort had become debatable between the two armies, and the question of flying from their house had more than once been mooted between the aunt and her niece; but, so far, that evil day had been staved off, and as yet Frankfort, the little capital of the State, was Northern territory.

  “I suppose you will get home?” said Frank, after musing awhile, “and look after my mother and Ada?”

  “If I can I shall, of course. What else can I do with one leg?”

  “Nothing in this war, Tom, of course.” Then there was another pause between them. “And what will Ada do?” said Frank.

  “What will Ada do? Stay at home with my moth
er.”

  “Ah, — yes. But she will not remain always as Ada Forster.”

  “Do you mean to ask whether I shall marry her; — because of my one leg? If she will have me, I certainly shall.”

  “And will she? Ought you to ask her?”

  “If I found her seamed all over with small-pox, with her limbs broken, blind, disfigured by any misfortune which could have visited her, I would take her as my wife all the same. If she were pennyless it would make no difference. She shall judge for herself; but I shall expect her to act by me, as I would have acted by her.” Then there was another pause. “Look here, Frank,” continued General Tom; “if you mean that I am to give her up as a reward to you for being sent home, I will have nothing to do with the bargain.”

  “I had intended no such bargain,” said Frank, gloomily.

  “Very well; then you can do as you please. If Ada will take me, I shall marry her as soon as she will let me. If my being sent home depends upon that, you will know how to act now.”

  Nevertheless he was sent home. There was not another word spoken between the two brothers about Ada Forster. Whether Frank thought that he might still have a chance through want of firmness on the part of the girl; or whether he considered that in keeping his brother away from home he could at least do himself no good; or whether, again, he resolved that he would act by his brother as a brother should act, without reference to Ada Forster, I will not attempt to say. For a day or two after the above conversation he was somewhat sullen, and did not talk freely with his brother. After that he brightened up once more, and before long the two parted on friendly terms. General Frank remained with his command, and General Tom was sent to the hospital at Alexandria, — or to such hospitalities as he might be able to enjoy at Washington in his mutilated state, — till that affair of his exchange had been arranged.

  In spite of his brother’s influence at headquarters this could not be done in a day; nor could permission be obtained for him to go home to Kentucky till such exchange had been effected. In this way he was kept in terrible suspense for something over two months, and mid-winter was upon him before the joyful news arrived that he was free to go where he liked. The officials in Washington would have sent him back to Richmond had he so pleased, seeing that a Federal general officer, supposed to be of equal weight with himself, had been sent back from some Southern prison in his place; but he declined any such favour, declaring his intention of going home to Kentucky. He was simply warned that no pass South could after this be granted to him, and then he went his way.

  Disturbed as was the state of the country, nevertheless railways ran from Washington to Baltimore, from Baltimore to Pittsburgh, from Pittsburgh to Cincinnati, and from Cincinnati to Frankfort. So that General Tom’s journey home, though with but one leg, was made much faster, and with less difficulty, than that last journey by which he reached the old family house. And again he presented himself on Christmas-eve. Ada declared that he remained purposely at Washington, so that he might make good his last promise to the letter; but I am inclined to think that he allowed no such romantic idea as that to detain him among the amenities of Washington.

  He arrived again after dark, but on this occasion did not come knocking at the back door. He had fought his fight, had done his share of the battle, and now had reason to be afraid of no one. But again it was Ada who opened the door for him. “Oh, Tom; oh, my own one.” There never was a word of question between them as to whether that unseemly crutch and still unhealed wound was to make any difference between them. General Tom found before three hours were over that he lacked the courage to suggest that he might not be acceptable to her as a lover with one leg. There are times in which girls throw off all their coyness, and are as bold in their loves as men. Such a time was this with Ada Forster. In the course of another month the elder General simply sent word to the younger that they intended to be married in May, if the war did not prevent them; and the younger General simply sent back word that his duties at headquarters would prevent his being present at the ceremony.

  And they were married in May, though the din of war was going on around them on every side. And from that time to this the din of war is still going on, and they are in the thick of it. The carnage of their battles, the hatreds of their civil contests, are terrible to us when we think of them; but may it not be that the beneficient power of Heaven, which they acknowledge as we do, is thus cleansing their land from that stain of slavery, to abolish which no human power seemed to be sufficient?

  Not If I Know It

  NOT IF I KNOW IT.” IT WAS AN ILL-NATURED ANSWER TO GIVE, MADE IN THE TONE THAT WAS used, by a brother-in-law to a brother-in-law, in the hearing of the sister of the one and wife of the other, — made, too, on Christmas Eve, when the married couple had come as visitors to the house of him who made it! There was no joke in the words, and the man who had uttered them had gone for the night. There was to be no other farewell spoken indicative of the brightness of the coming day. “Not if I know it!” and the door was slammed behind him. The words were very harsh in the ears even of a loving sister.

  “He was always a cur,” said the husband.

  “No; not so. George has his ill-humours and his little periods of bad temper; but he was not always a cur. Don’t say so of him, Wilfred.”

  “He always was so to me. He wanted you to marry that fellow Cross because he had a lot of money.”

  “But I didn’t,” said the wife, who now had been three years married to Wilfred Horton.

  “I cannot understand that you and he should have been children of the same parents. Just the use of his name, and there would be no risk.”

  “I suppose he thinks that there might have been risk,” said the wife. “He cannot know you as I do.”

  “Had he asked me I would have given him mine without thinking of it. Though he knows that I am a busy man, I have never asked him to lend me a shilling. I never will.”

  “Wilfred!”

  “All right, old girl — I am going to bed; and you will see that I shall treat him to-morrow just as though he had refused me nothing. But I shall think that he is a cur.” And Wilfred Horton prepared to leave the room.

  “Wilfred!”

  “Well, Mary, out with it.”

  “Curs are curs —— ”

  “Because other curs make them so; that is what you are going to say.”

  “No, dear, no; I will never call you a cur, because I know well that you are not one. There is nothing like a cur about you.” Then she took him in her arms and kissed him. “But if there be any signs of ill-humour in a man, the way to increase it is to think much of it. Men are curs because other men think them so; women are angels sometimes, just because some loving husband like you tells them that they are. How can a woman not have something good about her when everything she does is taken to be good? I could be as cross as George is if only I were called cross. I don’t suppose you want the use of his name so very badly.”

  “But I have condescended to ask for it. And then to be answered with that jeering pride! I wouldn’t have his name to a paper now, though you and I were starving for the want of it. As it is, it doesn’t much signify. I suppose you won’t be long before you come.” So saying, he took his departure.

  She followed him, and went through the house till she came to her brother’s apartments. He was a bachelor, and was living all alone when he was in the country at Hallam Hall. It was a large, rambling house, in which there had been of custom many visitors at Christmas time. But Mrs. Wade, the widow, had died during the past year, and there was nobody there now but the owner of the house, and his sister, and his sister’s husband. She followed him to his rooms, and found him sitting alone, with a pipe in his mouth, and as she entered she saw that preparations had been made for the comfort of more than one person. “If there be anything that I hate,” said George Wade, “it is to be asked for the use of my name. I would sooner lend money to a fellow at once, — or give it to him.”

  “There i
s no question about money, George.”

  “Oh, isn’t there? I never knew a man’s name wanted when there was no question about money.”

  “I suppose there is a question — in some remote degree.” Here George Wade shook his head. “In some remote degree,” she went on repeating her words. “Surely you know him well enough not to be afraid of him.”

  “I know no man well enough not to be afraid of him where my name is concerned.”

  “You need not have refused him so crossly, just on Christmas Eve.”

  “I don’t know much about Christmas where money is wanted.”

  “‘Not if I know it!’ you said.”

  “I simply meant that I did not wish to do it. Wilfred expects that everybody should answer him with such constrained courtesy! What I said was as good a way of answering him as any other; and if he didn’t like it — he must lump it.”

  “Is that the message that you send him?” she asked.

  “I don’t send it as a message at all. If he wants a message you may tell him that I’m extremely sorry, but that it’s against my principles. You are not going to quarrel with me as well as he?”

  “Indeed, no,” she said, as she prepared to leave him for the night. “I should be very unhappy to quarrel with either of you.” Then she went.

  “He is the most punctilious fellow living at this moment, I believe,” said George Wade, as he walked alone up and down the room. There were certain regrets which did make the moment bitter to him. His brother-in-law had on the whole treated him well, — had been liberal to him in all those matters in which one brother comes in contact with another. He had never asked him for a shilling, or even for the use of his name. His sister was passionately devoted to her husband. In fact, he knew Wilfred Horton to be a fine fellow. He told himself that he had not meant to be especially uncourteous, but that he had been at the moment startled by the expression of Horton’s wishes. But looking back over his own conduct, he could remember that in the course of their intimacy he himself had been occasionally rough to his brother-in-law, and he could remember that his brother-in-law had not liked it. “After all what does it mean, ‘Not if I know it’? It is just a form of saying that I had rather not.” Nevertheless, Wilfred Horton could not persuade himself to go to bed in a good humour with George Wade.