Works of Robert W Chambers

by Robert W. Chambers

Paige and Marye came in from the glass extension where their father was pacing to and fro, smoking his bedtime cigar, and their mother began her invariable running comment concerning the day’s events, rallying her children, tenderly tormenting them with their shortcomings — undarned stockings, lessons imperfectly learned, little household tasks neglected — she was always aware of and ready at bedtime to point out every sin of omission.

  “As fo’ you, Paige, you are certainly a ve’y rare kind of Honey-bird, and I reckon Mr. Ba’num will sho’ly catch you some day fo’ his museum. Who ever heard of a shif’less Yankee girl except you and Marye?”

  “O mother, how can we mend everything we tear? It’s heartless to ask us!”

  “You don’t have to try to mend ev’ything. Fo’ example, there’s

  Jimmy Lent’s heart — —”

  A quick outbreak of laughter swept them — all except Paige, who flushed furiously over her first school-girl affair.

  “That poor Jimmy child came to me about it,” continued their mother, “and asked me if I would let you be engaiged to him; and I said, ‘Certainly, if Paige wants to be, Jimmy. I was engaiged myse’f fo’ times befo’ I was fo’teen — —’”

  Another gale of laughter drowned her words, and she sat there dimpled, mischievous, naively looking around, yet in her careful soul shrewdly pursuing her wise policy of airing all sentimental matters in the family circle — letting in fresh air and sunshine on what so often takes root and flourishes rather morbidly at sixteen.

  “It’s perfectly absurd,” observed Ailsa, “at your age, Paige — —”

  “Mother was married at sixteen! Weren’t you, dearest?”

  “I certainly was; but I am a bad rebel and you are good little Yankees; and good little Yankees wait till they’re twenty odd befo’ they do anything ve’y ridiculous.”

  “We expect to wait,” said Paige, with a dignified glance at her sister.

  “You’ve four years to wait, then,” laughed Marye.

  “What’s the use of being courted if you have to wait four years?”

  “And you’ve three years to wait, silly,” retorted Paige. “But I don’t care; I’d rather wait. It isn’t very long, now. Ailsa, why don’t you marry again?”

  Ailsa’s lip curled her comment upon the suggestion. She sat under the crystal chandelier reading a Southern newspaper which had been sent recently to Celia. Presently her agreeable voice sounded in appreciative recitation of what she was reading.

  ”Hath not the morning dawned with added light?

  And shall not evening call another star

  Out of the infinite regions of the night

  To mark this day in Heaven? At last we are

  A nation among nations; and the world

  Shall soon behold in many a distant port

  Another flag unfurled!”

  “Listen, Celia,” she said, “this is really beautiful:

  A tint of pink fire touched Mrs. Craig’s cheeks, but she said nothing. And Ailsa went on, breathing out the opening beauty of Timrod’s “Ethnogenesis”:

  ”Now come what may, whose favour need we court?

  And, under God, whose thunder need we fear?”

  She stopped short, considering the printed page. Then, doubtfully:

  ”And what if, mad with wrongs themselves have wrought,

  In their own treachery caught,

  By their own fears made bold,

  And leagued with him of old

  Who long since, in the limits of the North,

  Set up his evil throne, and warred with God —

  What if, both mad and blinded in their rage

  Our foes should fling us down the mortal gauge,

  And with a hostile horde profane our sod!”

  The girl reddened, sat breathing a little faster, eyes on the page; then:

  ”Nor would we shun the battleground!

  . . . The winds in our defence

  Shall seem to blow; to us the hills shall lend

  Their firmness and their calm,

  And in our stiffened sinews we shall blend

  The strength of pine and palm!

  Call up the clashing elements around

  And test the right and wrong!

  On one side creeds that dare to preach

  What Christ and Paul refused to teach — —”

  “Oh!” she broke off with a sharp intake of breath; “Do they believe such things of us in the South, Celia?”

  The pink fire deepened in Celia Craig’s cheeks; her lips unclosed, tightened, as though a quick retort had been quickly reconsidered. She meditated. Then: “Honey-bell,” she said tranquilly, “if we are bitter, try to remember that we are a nation in pain.”

  “A nation!”

  “Dear, we have always been that — only the No’th has just found it out. Charleston is telling her now. God give that our cannon need not repeat it.”

  “But, Celia, the cannon can’t! The same flag belongs to us both.”

  “Not when it flies over Sumter, Honey-bird.” There came a subtle ringing sound in Celia Craig’s voice; she leaned forward, taking the newspaper from Ailsa’s idle fingers:

  “Try to be fair,” she said in unsteady tones. “God knows I am not trying to teach you secession, but suppose the guns on Governor’s Island were suddenly swung round and pointed at this street? Would you care ve’y much what flag happened to be flying over Castle William? Listen to another warning from this stainless poet of the South.” She opened the newspaper feverishly, glanced quickly down the columns, and holding it high under the chandelier, read in a hushed but distinct voice, picking out a verse here and there at random:

  ”Calm as that second summer which precedes

  The first fall of the snow,

  In the broad sunlight of heroic deeds

  A city bides her foe.

  ”As yet, behind high ramparts stem and proud

  Where bolted thunders sleep,

  Dark Sumter like a battlemented cloud

  Towers o’er the solemn deep.

  ”But still along the dim Atlantic’s line

  The only hostile smoke

  Creeps like a harmless mist above the brine

  From some frail floating oak.

  ”And still through streets re-echoing with trade

  Walk grave and thoughtful men

  Whose hands may one day wield the patriot’s blade

  As lightly as the pen.

  ”And maidens, with such eyes as would grow dim

  Over a wounded hound

  Seem each one to have caught the strength of him

  Whose sword-knot she hath hound.

  ”Thus, girt without and garrisoned at home,

  Day patient following day,

  Old Charleston looks from roof and spire and dome

  Across her tranquil bay.

  ”Shall the spring dawn, and she, still clad in steel,

  And with an unscathed brow,

  Watch o’er a sea unvexed by hostile keel

  As fair and free as now?

  ”We know not. In the Temples of the Fates

  God has inscribed her doom;

  And, all untroubled in her faith she waits

  Her triumph or her tomb!”

  The hushed charm of their mother’s voice fascinated the children. Troubled, uncertain, Ailsa rose, took a few irresolute steps toward the extension where her brother-in-law still paced to and fro in the darkness, the tip of his cigar aglow. Then she turned suddenly.

  “Can’t you understand, Ailsa?” asked her sister-in-law wistfully.

  “Celia — dearest,” she stammered, “I simply can’t understand. . . .

  I thought the nation was greater than all — —”

  “The State is greater, dear. Good men will realise that when they see a sovereign people standing all alone for human truth and justice — standing with book and sword under God’s favour, as sturdily as ever Israel stood in battle fo’ the right! — I don’t mean to be disloyal to
my husband in saying this befo’ my children. But you ask me, and I must tell the truth if I answer at all.”

  Slender, upright, transfigured with a flushed and girlish beauty wholly strange to them, she moved restlessly back and forth across the room, a slim, lovely, militant figure all aglow with inspiration, all aquiver with emotion too long and loyally suppressed.

  Paige and Marye, astonished, watched her without a word. Ailsa stood with one hand resting on the mantel, a trifle pale but also silent, her startled eyes following this new incarnation wearing the familiar shape of Celia Craig.

  “Ailsa!”

  “Yes, dear.”

  “Can you think evil of a people who po’ out their hearts in prayer and praise? Do traitors importune fo’ blessings?”

  She turned nervously to the piano and struck a ringing chord, another — and dropped to the chair, head bowed on her slim childish neck. Presently there stole through the silence a tremulous voice intoning the “Libera Nos,” with its strange refrain:

  “A furore Normanorum Libera nos, O Domme!” Then, head raised, the gas-light flashing on her dull-gold hair, her voice poured forth all that was swelling and swelling up in her bruised and stifled heart:

  ”God of our fathers! King of Kings!

  Lord of the earth and sea!

  With hearts repentant and sincere

  We turn in need to thee.”

  She saw neither her children nor her husband nor Ailsa now, where they gathered silently beside her. And she sang on:

  ”In the name of God! Amen!

  Stand for our Southern rights;

  On our side. Southern men,

  The God of Battles fights!

  Fling the invader far —

  Hurl back his work of woe —

  His voice is the voice of a brother,

  But his hands are the hands of a foe.

  By the blood which cries to Heaven.

  Crimson upon our sod

  Stand, Southrons, fight and conquer

  In the Name of the Living God!”

  Like receding battle echoes the chords, clashing distantly, died away.

  If she heard her husband turn, enter the hallway, and unbolt the door, she made no sign. Ailsa, beside her, stooped and passed one arm around her.

  “You — are not crying, are you, Celia, darling?” she whispered.

  Her sister-in-law, lashes wet, rose with decision.

  “I think that I have made a goose of myse’f to-night. Marye, will you say to your father that it is after eleven o’clock, and that I am waiting to be well scolded and sent to bed?”

  “Father went out a few moments ago,” said Paige in an awed voice.

  “I heard him unbolt the front door.”

  Ailsa turned and walked swiftly out into the hallway; the front door swung wide; Mr. Craig stood on the steps wearing his hat. He looked around as she touched his arm.

  “Oh, is it you, Ailsa?” There was a moment’s indecision. Through it, once more, far away in the city The Voices became audible again, distant, vague, incessant.

  “I thought — if it is actually an extra—” he began carelessly and hesitated; and she said:

  “Let me go with you. Wait. I’ll speak to Celia.”

  “Say to her that I’ll be gone only a moment.”

  When Ailsa returned she slipped her arm through his and they descended the steps and walked toward Fulton Avenue. The Voices were still distant; a few people, passing swiftly through the dusk, preceded them. Far down the vista of the lighted avenue dark figures crossed and recrossed the street, silhouetted against the gas-lights; some were running. A man called out something as they passed him. Suddenly, right ahead in the darkness, they encountered people gathered before the boarded fence of a vacant lot, a silent crowd shouldering, pushing, surging back and forth, swarming far out along the dimly lighted avenue.

  “There’s a bulletin posted there,” whispered Ailsa. “Could you lift me in your arms?”

  Her brother-in-law stooped, clasped her knees, and lifted her high up above the sea of heads. Kerosene torches flickered beyond, flanking a poster on which was printed in big black letters:

  “WASHINGTON, April 13, 1861, 6 A.M. “At half-past four o’clock this morning fire was opened on Fort Sumter by the rebel batteries in the harbour. Major Anderson is replying with his barbette guns.”

  ”8 A.M.

  ”A private despatch to the N. Y. Herald says that

  the batteries on Mount Pleasant have opened on

  Sumter. Major Anderson has brought into action two tiers

  of guns trained on Fort Moultrie and the Iron Battery.”

  ”3 P.M.

  ”The fire at this hour is very heavy. Nineteen

  batteries are bombarding Sumter. The fort replies

  briskly. The excitement in Charleston is intense.”

  ”LATER.

  ”Heavy rain storm. Firing resumed this evening.

  The mortar batteries throw a shell into the fort every

  twenty minutes. The fort replies at intervals.”

  ”LATEST.

  ”The fort is still replying. Major Anderson has

  signalled the fleet outside.”

  All this she read aloud, one hand resting on Craig’s shoulder as he held her aloft above the throng. Men crowding around and striving to see, paused, with up-turned faces, listening to the emotionless young voice. There was no shouting, no sound save the trample and shuffle of feet; scarcely a voice raised, scarcely an exclamation.

  As Craig lowered her to the pavement, a man making his way out said to them:

  “Well, I guess that ends it.”

  Somebody replied quietly: “I guess that begins it.”

  Farther down the avenue toward the City Hall where the new marble court house was being built, a red glare quivered incessantly against the darkness; distant hoarse rumours penetrated the night air, accented every moment by the sharper clamour of voices calling the Herald’s extras.

  “Curt?”

  “Yes, dear.”

  “If he surrenders — —”

  “It makes no difference what he does now, child.”

  “I know it. . . . They’ve dishonoured the flag. This is war, isn’t it?”

  “Yes.”

  “Will it be a long war?”

  “I think not.”

  “Who will go?”

  “I don’t know. . . . Soldiers.”

  “I didn’t suppose we had enough. Where are we going to get more?”

  “The people—” he said absently— “everybody, I suppose. How do I know, child?”

  “Just ordinary people?”

  “Just ordinary people,” he responded quietly. A few minutes later as they entered their own street he said:

  “I suppose I had better tell my wife about this to-night. I don’t know — it will be in the morning papers; but I think I had better break it to her to-night.”

  “She will have to know — sometime — of course — —”

  Halting at the foot of the stoop he turned and peered through his glasses at his sister-in-law.

  “I don’t want Stephen to start any nonsense about going.”

  “Going where?” she asked innocently.

  He hesitated: “I don’t want to hear any talk from him about enlisting. That is what I mean. Your influence counts with him more deeply than you know. Remember that.”

  “Steve — enlist!” she repeated blankly.

  She could not yet comprehend what all this had to do with people she personally knew — with her own kin.

  “He must not enlist, of course,” she said curtly. “There are plenty of soldiers — there will be plenty, of course. I — —”

  Something silenced her, something within her sealed her lips. She stood in silence while Craig fitted his night-key, then entered the house with him. Gas burned low in the hall globes; when he turned it off a fainter light from above guided them.

  “Celia, is that you?” she called gently,

/>   “Hush; go to bed, Honey-bell. Everybody is asleep. How pale you are, Curt — dearest — dearest — —”

  The rear room was Ailsa’s; she walked into it and dropped down on the bed in the darkness. The door between the rooms closed: she sat perfectly still, her eyes were wide open, staring in front of her.

  Queer little luminous shapes danced through obscurity like the names from the kerosene torches around the bulletin; her ears still vibrated with the hoarse alarm of the voices; through her brain sounded her brother-in-law’s words about Steve, repeated incessantly, stupidly.

  Presently she began to undress by sense of touch. The gas in the bathroom was lighted; she completed her ablutions, turned it off, and felt her way back to the bed.

  Lying there she became aware of sounds from the front room. Celia was still awake; she distinguished her voice in quick, frightened exclamation; then the low murmur continued for a while, then silence fell.

  She raised herself on one elbow; the crack of light under the door was gone; there was no sound, no movement in the house except the measured tick of the hall clock outside, tic-toc! — tic-toc! — tic-toc!

  And she had been lying there a long, long while, eyes open, before she realised that the rhythm of the hall clock was but a repetition of a name which did not concern her in any manner:

  “Berk-ley! — Berk-ley! — Berk-ley!”

  How it had crept into her consciousness she could not understand; she lay still, listening, but the tic-toc seemed to fit the syllables of his name; and when, annoyed, she made a half disdainful mental attempt to substitute other syllables, it proved too much of an effort, and back into its sober, swinging rhythm slipped the old clock’s tic-toe, in wearisome, meaningless repetition:

  “Berk-ley! — Berk-ley! — Berk-ley!”

  She was awakened by a rapping at her door and her cousin’s imperative voice:

  “I want to talk to you; are you in bed?”

  She drew the coverlet to her chin and called out:

  “Come in, Steve!”

  He came, tremendously excited, clutching the Herald in one hand.

  “I’ve had enough of this rebel newspaper!” he said fiercely. “I don’t want it in the house again, ever. Father says that the marine news makes it worth taking, but — —”

  “What on earth are you trying to say, Steve?”

  “I’m trying to tell you that we’re at war! War, Ailsa! Do you understand? Father and I’ve had a fight already — —”