Works of Robert W Chambers

by Robert W. Chambers

  At a dark crossing he ran blindly into a moving horse; was pushed aside by its cloaked rider with a curse; stood dazed, while his senses slowly returned — first, hearing — and his ears were filled with the hollow trample of many horses; then vision, and in the dark street before him he saw the column of shadowy horsemen riding slowly in fours, knee to knee, starlight sparkling on spur and bit and sabre guard.

  Officers walked their lean horses beside the column. One among them drew bridle near him, calling out:

  “Have you the right time?”

  Berkley looked at his watch.

  “Midnight.”

  “Thank you, friend.”

  Berkley stepped to the curb-stone: “What regiment is that?”

  “Eighth New York.”

  “Leaving?”

  “Going into camp. Yorkville.”

  Berkley said: “Do you want a damned fool?”

  “The companies are full of fools. . . . We can stand a few first-class men. Come up to camp to-morrow, friend. If you can pass the surgeons I guess it will be all right.”

  And he prodded his tired horse forward along the slowly moving column of fours.

  CHAPTER X

  Her hatred and horror of him gave her no peace. Angry, incensed, at moments almost beside herself with grief and shame and self-contempt, she awaited the letter which he must write — the humble and hopeless effort for pardon which she never, never would answer or even in her own soul grant.

  Day after day she brooded, intent, obsessed, fiercely pondering his obliteration.

  But no letter came.

  No letter came that week, nor Monday, nor at the end of the next week, nor the beginning of the next.

  Wrath, at night, had dried her eyes where she lay crying in her humiliation; wrath diminished as the days passed; scorn became less rigid, anger grew tremulous. Then what was lurking near her pillow lifted a pallid head. Fear!

  She waited. Wrath died, scorn died; there was not enough to dry her tears at night — a deeper, more hopeless humiliation had become the shame of forgiving him, of loneliness without him, of waiting for his letter, heart sick — his letter that never came.

  Letter after letter to him she destroyed, and fell ill of the tension, or perhaps of a heavy cold caught in the rain where she had walked for hours, aimlessly, unable to bear her longing and her desolation.

  Dr. Benton attended her; the pretty volunteer nurse came to sit with her during convalescence.

  The third week in June she was physically well enough to dress and go about the house. And on that day she came to her shameful decision.

  She wrote him, waited a dreary week for an answer; wrote him again, waited two weeks; wrote him a third and last letter. No answer came. And she went dully about the task of forgetting.

  About the middle of July she heard from Stephen that Berkley had enlisted in one of the new unattached cavalry companies, but which one he did not know. Also she learned that the 3rd Zouaves had their marching orders and would probably come to the city to receive their colours. Later she heard from the mayor, the common council, and from Major Lent; and prepared for the ceremony.

  The ceremony was prettily impressive; Ailsa, Mrs. Craig, her daughters, Paige and Marye, and Camilla Lent wearing a bell button from Stephen’s zouave jacket, stood on the lawn in front of Ailsa’s house, escorted by Colonel Arran who had returned from Washington, with his commission, by the mayor of the city, and several red-faced, fat-paunched gentlemen of the common council, and by a young officer, Captain Hallam, who stood behind Ailsa and seemed unable to keep his handsome eyes off her.

  Twenty-third Street was packed solid with people and all aflutter with flags under the July sun when the distant strains of military music and blue lines of police heralded the coming of the 3rd Zouaves.

  Band crashing, raw, gray horses of field and staff-officers dancing, the regiment came swinging down the wide stony street, — a torrent of red and gold, a broad shaft of silvery bayonets; — and halted facing the group of ladies and officials.

  Celia Craig looked down at her husband where he sat his great gray horse. Their last good-bye had already been said; he sat erect, calm, gazing quietly up at her through his gold-rimmed eye-glasses; from his blue sleeves’ edge to the points of his shoulders glittered in twisted gold the six-fold arabesques of his rank.

  The roar of cheers was dying away now; a girlish figure in white had moved forward to the edge of the lawn, carrying two standards in her arms, and her voice was very clear and sweet and perfectly audible to everybody;

  “Colonel Craig, officers, and soldiers of the 3rd New York Zouaves; the ladies of the Church of Sainte Ursula have requested me, in their name, to present to you this set of colours. God guard them and you!

  “Remember that, although these flags are now yours, they still remain ours. Your cause is ours. Your vows our vows. Your loyalty to God and country is part of our loyalty to God, to country, and to you.”

  She stood silent, pensive a moment; then stretched out her arms, a flag in either hand; and the Colonel rode straight up to where she stood, took the silken colours and handed them to the two colour-sergeants. Then, while an orderly advanced to the head of his horse, Colonel Craig dismounted and quietly ascended the steps beside the little group of ladies and city officials:

  “On behalf of the officers and men of the 3rd New York Zouaves,” he said, “I thank you. We are grateful. I think that we all mean to do our best.

  “If we cannot, in the hour of trial, do all that is expected of us, we will do all that is in us to do.

  “It is very easy to dress a thousand men in uniform, and invest them with the surroundings of military life; but it is not thus alone that soldiers are made. It is only discipline; regular steady, rigid discipline — that forms a soldier to be relied upon in the hour of need.

  “At present we are only recruits. So I ask, in justice to the regiment, that you will not demand too much of us in the beginning. We desire to learn; we desire most earnestly to deserve your confidence. I can only say that we will try to prove ourselves not unworthy guardians of these flags you have given us.”

  He bowed, turned to go, swung around sharply and looked at his wife.

  “Good-bye, my darling,” he said under his breath; and the nest moment he was in the saddle.

  All the rest that Ailsa recollected distinctly was the deafening outcrash of military music, the sustained cheering, the clatter of hoofs, the moving column of red and gold — and Celia, standing there under the July sun, her daughters’ hands in hers.

  So the 3rd Zouaves marched gaily away under their new silk flags to their transport at Pier No. 3, North River. But the next day another regiment received its colours and went, and every day or so more regiments departed with their brand-new colours; and after a little only friends and relatives remembered the 3rd Zouaves, and what was their colonel’s name.

  By the middle of July the transformation of the metropolis from a city into a vast military carnival was complete. Gaudy uniforms were no longer the exception; a madness for fantastic brilliancy seized the people; soldiers in all kinds of colours and all kinds of dress filled the streets. Hotels, shops, ferry-boats, stages, cars, swarmed with undisciplined troops of all arms of the service, clad in every sort of extravagant uniforms. Except for the more severe state uniform and the rarer uniform of National troops, eccentric costumes were the rule. It was a carnival of military absurdity. Regiments were continually entering the city, regiments were continually leaving it; regiments in transit disembarked overnight only to resume the southward journey by steamer or train; regiments in camp and barrack were completing organisation and being mustered in by United States officers. Gorgeous regiments paraded for inspection, for drill, for the reception of state and regimental colours; three-month troops were returning, bands madly playing; two- and three-year regiments leaving, drums beating frantically.

  The bewildering variety of cut and colour in the uniforms of this vast army, whi
ch was being made to order, had been, in a measure, rendered comparatively homogeneous by the adoption of the regulation blue overcoat, but many a regiment wore its own pattern of overcoat, many a regiment went forward in civilian attire, without arms and equipment, on the assurance that these details were to be supplied in Washington.

  The dress of almost every foreign army in Europe was represented among the regiments forming or in transit. The 79th Highlanders, it is true, discarded kilt and bagpipe on the eve of departure, marching in blouse and cap and breeks of army blue; but the 14th. Brooklyn departed in red cap and red breeches, the 1st and 2d Fire Zouaves discarded the Turkish fez only; the 5th, 9th, 10th Zouaves marched wearing fez and turban; and bizarre voltigeurs, foot chasseurs, hussars, lancers, rocket batteries in costume de fantasie poured southward, — no two regiments equipped and armed alike.

  The city remained in painful suspense concerning its raw, multicoloured, and undisciplined army. Every few days arose rumours of a great battle fought on Virginia soil, corroborated by extras, denied next morning. During the last half of July such reports had been current daily, tightening the tension, frightening parents, wives, and sweethearts. Recent armed affrays had been called battles; the dead zouaves at Big Bethel, a dead trooper at Alexandria sobered and silenced the street cheering. Yet, what a real battle might be, nobody really comprehended or even surmised.

  To Ailsa Paige June and July passed like fevered dreams; the brief sweet spring had suddenly turned into summer in a single day — a strange, stifling, menacing summer full of heavy little thunder-storms which rolled crackling and banging up the Hudson amid vivid electric displays, leaving no coolness behind their trailing wake of rain.

  Society was lingering late in town — if the few nebulous, unorganised, and scattered social groups could be called society — small coteries drawn temporarily together through accident of environment, inherited family acquaintance, traditional, material, or religious interest, and sometimes by haphazard intellectual compatibility.

  In the city, and in Ailsa’s little world, the simple social routine centring in Sainte Ursula’s and the Assembly in winter, and in Long Branch and Saratoga in summer, had been utterly disorganised. Very few of her friends had yet left for the country; nor had she made any arrangements for this strange, unreal summer, partly because, driven to find relief from memory in occupation, she was devoting herself very seriously to the medical instruction under Dr. Benton; partly because she did not consider it a fitting time to seek the coolness and luxury of inland spa or seaside pier.

  Colonel Arran had brought back with him from Washington a Captain Hallam, a handsome youngster who wore his cavalry uniform to perfection and who had become instantly attentive to Ailsa, — so attentive that before she realised it he was a regular visitor at her house, appropriating the same chair that Berkley always had — Berkley! ——

  At the memory she closed her eyes instinctively. The wound throbbed,

  “What is the matter, Mrs. Paige?” inquired Captain Hallam anxiously. “Are you faint?”

  She opened her eyes and smiled in pretence of surprise at such a question; and Hallam muttered: “I thought you seemed rather pale all of a sudden.” Then he brightened up and went gaily on with what he had been saying:

  “We’ve got nine full companies already, and the 10th, K, is an independent company which we’re taking in to complete our organisation. Colonel Arran and I stopped in Philadelphia to inspect Colonel Rush’s regiment of lancers — the 6th Pennsylvania Cavalry — because the French officers on McClellan’s staff have put it into his head that he needs lancers — —”

  “Is Colonel Arran’s regiment to carry lances?” interrupted Ailsa in surprise.

  Hallam nodded, laughing: “We recruited as light cavalry, armed with sabre and pistol, but General McClellan has ordered that we carry the lance in addition. The department had none to issue until the foreign samples arrived. We are ordered to carry a lance of the Austrian pattern, nine feet long with an eleven-inch, three-edged blade; the staff of Norway fir about an inch and a quarter through, with ferrule and counter poise at the heel. Do I make myself clear, Mrs. Paige?”

  Ailsa, thinking of Berkley, flushed slightly and nodded.

  “There’ll be a scarlet swallow-tailed pennon on the end just below the blade point. The whole affair will weigh about five pounds,” concluded Hallam, rising to take his leave; “and I’ve got to be off to camp.”

  “Must you go, Captain Hallam?”

  “I really must. That K Company is due in camp this evening, and I expect our uniforms and equipments will be delivered in the morning. Are you coming to see us off, Mrs. Paige?”

  “When do you go? Colonel Arran said nothing about going.”

  “Oh, I expect we’ll be on our way before very long. We are not in the best of shape yet; that’s not to be expected. But there’s a sad lack of cavalry in Washington, and they may want us to go whether we’re ready or not. They sent off a regiment that had neither arms nor uniforms and couldn’t even keep step, the other day. I’ve an idea we are going pretty soon.” He took Ailsa’s offered hand, looked at her a little earnestly, smiled in self-satisfaction, and went his way.

  Later in the week he came back for a few moments; and all through the week he continued to come back for a few moments whenever he had an hour’s leave.

  And every time he took his leave his smile became less nervous and more confident.

  She was very unhappy; devotion to Dr. Benton’s class helped; devotion to Celia in her brief visits to Brooklyn helped, too; devotion to others, to prayer, all helped as long as it was devotion of some sort.

  And now this young, blue-eyed, blonde-haired fellow was on the edge of offering to devote himself to her. She knew it, wondered whether this was her refuge from care. And when he did, at last, she was quietly prepared to answer.

  “Captain Hallam,” she said slowly, “I do like you. I don’t know whether I could ever learn to love you. I am not very happy; it might influence my judgment. If you are willing to wait until I know more about myself — —”

  Oh, he would wait! Certainly. Meanwhile would she wear his ring — not exactly an engagement — unless she was willing — but ——

  She hesitated. Lonelier than she had ever been in all her life, no longer self-sufficient, wistfully hopeless, needing to devote herself absolutely to something or somebody, she hesitated. But that evening when Hallam came with his ring she could not bring herself to accept what she now seemed to be most deeply in need of — the warm, eager, complacent affection that he laid at her feet. She was not yet able — could not; and the desolate memories of Berkley set the wound aching anew. . . . No, she could promise nothing to this young fellow — nothing yet. . . . Perhaps, in the future — as time passed — she might venture to wear his ring, and see what happened to her. But she would not promise — she would not talk of marrying him. . . . And cried herself to sleep over the memory of Berkley, and his vileness, and his heartless wickedness, and his ignoble love that had left her so ashamed, so humiliated, so cruelly crushed for ever. And all night long she dreamed of Berkley and of his blessed nearness; and the sweetness of her dream troubled her profoundly. She sat up, still asleep, her straining throat whispering his name, her arms outstretched, blindly searching the darkness for him, until suddenly awake, she realised what she was doing, and dropped back among her pillows.

  All that day the city was filled with rumours of a great battle fought in Virginia. The morning’s papers hailed it with triumphant head-lines and columns of praise and thanksgiving for a great victory won. But at night the stunned city knew that Bull Run had been fought and lost, and the Confederacy was at the gates of Washington.

  CHAPTER XI

  In a city where thousands and thousands of women were now organising relief work for the troops already in the field, Ailsa Paige had been among the earliest to respond to the call for a meeting at the Church of the Puritans. Here she had left her name for enrolment with Mrs.
Gerard Stuyvesant.

  Later, with Mrs. Marquand, Mrs. Aspinwall, Mrs. Astor, and Mrs. Hamilton Fish, and a hundred others, she had signed the call for the great mass-meeting; had acted on one of the subcommittees chosen from among the three thousand ladies gathered at the Institute; had served with Mrs. Schuyler on the board of the Central Relief Association; had been present at the inception of the Sanitary Commission and its adjunct, the Allotment Commission; had contributed to the Christian Commission, six thousand of whose delegates were destined to double the efficiency of the armies of the Union.

  Then Sainte Ursula’s Sisterhood, organised for field as well as hospital service, demanded all her energies. It was to be an emergency corps; she had hesitated to answer the call, hesitated to enroll for this rougher service, and, troubled, had sought counsel from Mr. Dodge and Mr. Bronson of the Allotment Commission, and from Dr. Agnew of the Sanitary Commission.

  Dr. Agnew wrote to Dr. Benton:

  “Mrs. Paige is a very charming and very sweet little lady, excellently equipped by experience to take the field with Sainte Ursula’s Sisterhood, but self-distrustful and afraid of her own behaviour on a battle-field where the emergency corps might be under fire. In this sort of woman I have every confidence.”

  The next day Ailsa enrolled; arranged her household affairs so that she could answer any summons at a few hours’ notice; and went to bed dead tired, and slept badly, dreaming of dead men. The morning sun found her pale and depressed. She had decided to destroy Berkley’s letters. She burned all, except one; then went to her class work.

  Dr. Benton’s class was very busy that morning, experimenting on the doctor’s young assistant with bandages, ligatures, lint, and splints. Letty, wearing only her underclothes, lay on the operating table, her cheek resting on her bared arm, watching Ailsa setting a supposed compound fracture of the leg, and, at intervals, quietly suggesting the proper methods.