“Because he — looks like a gentleman?”
“Because he has the bad breeding of one. Nobody can find out anything about him.”
“Isn’t it bad breeding to try?”
Hallam laughed. “Technically. But a regiment that elects its officers is a democracy; and if a man is too good to answer questions he’s let alone.”
“Perhaps,” said Ailsa, “that is what he wants.”
“He has what he wants, then. Nobody except the trooper Burgess ventures to intrude on his sullen privacy. Even his own bunky has little use for him. . . . Not that Ormond isn’t plucky. That’s all that keeps the boys from hating him.”
“Is he plucky?”
Hallam said; “We were on picket duty for three days last week. The Colonel had become sick of their popping at us, and asked for twelve carbines to the troop. On the way to the outposts the ammunition waggon was rushed by the Johnnies, and, as our escort had only their lances, they started to scatter — would have scattered, I understand, in spite of the sergeant if that man Ormond hadn’t ridden bang into them, cursing and swearing and waving his pistol in his left hand.
“‘By God!’ he said, ‘it’s the first chance you’ve had to use these damned lances! Are you going to run away?’
“And the sergeant and the trooper Burgess and this fellow Ormond got ’em into line and started ’em down the road at a gallop; and the rebs legged it.”
Ailsa’s heart beat hard.
“I call that pluck,” said Hallam, “a dozen lancers without a carbine among them running at a company of infantry. I call that a plucky thing, don’t you?”
She nodded.
Hallam shrugged. “He behaved badly to the sergeant, who said warmly: ‘’Tis a brave thing ye did, Private Ormond.’ And ‘Is it?’ said Ormond with a sneer. ‘I thought we were paid for doing such things.’ ‘Och, ye sour-faced Sassenach!’ said Sergeant Mulqueen, disgusted; and told me about the whole affair.”
Ailsa had clasped her hands in her lap. The fingers were tightening till the delicate nails whitened.
But it was too late to speak of Berkley to Hallam now, too late to ask indulgence on the score of her friendship for a man who had mutilated it. Yet, she could scarcely endure the strain, the overmastering desire to say something in Berkley’s behalf — to make him better understood — to explain to Hallam, and have Hallam explain to his troop that Berkley was his own most reckless enemy, that there was good in him, kindness, a capacity for better things ——
Thought halted; was it that which, always latent within her bruised heart, stirred it eternally from its pain-weary repose — the belief, still existing, that there was something better in Berkley, that there did remain in him something nobler than he had ever displayed to her? For in some women there is no end to the capacity for mercy — where they love.
Hallam, hungry to touch her, had risen and seated himself on the flat arm of the chair in which she was sitting. Listlessly she abandoned her hand to him, listening all the time to the footsteps outside, hearing Hallam’s low murmur; heard him lightly venturing to hint of future happiness, not heeding him, attentive only to the footsteps outside.
“Private Berk — Ormond—” she calmly corrected herself— “has had no supper, has he?”
“Neither have I!” laughed Hallam. And Ailsa rose up, scarlet with annoyance, and called to a negro who was evidently bound kitchenward.
And half an hour later some supper was brought to Hallam; and the negro went out into the star-lit court to summon Berkley to the kitchen.
Ailsa, leaving Hallam to his supper, and wandering aimlessly through the rear gallery, encountered Letty coming from the kitchen.
“My trooper,” said the girl, pink and happy, “is going to have such a good supper! You know who I mean, dear — that Mr. Ormond — —”
“I remember him,” said Ailsa steadily. “I thought his name was
Berkley.”
“It is Ormond,” said Letty in a low voice.
“Then I misunderstood. Is he here again?”
“Yes,” ventured Letty, smiling; “he is escort to — your Captain.”
Ailsa’s expression was wintry. Letty, still smiling out of her velvet eyes, looked up confidently into Ailsa’s face.
“Dear,” she said, “I wish you could ever know how nice he is. . . .
But — I don’t believe I could explain — —”
“Nice? Who? Oh, your trooper!”
“You don’t mistake me, do you?” asked the girl, flushing up. “I only call him so to you. I knew him in New York — and — he is so much of a man — so entirely good — —”
She hesitated, seeing no answering sympathy in Ailsa’s face, sighed, half turned with an unconscious glance at the closed door of the kitchen.
“What were you saying about — him?” asked Ailsa listlessly.
“Nothing—” said Letty timidly— “only, isn’t it odd how matters are arranged in the army. My poor trooper — a gentleman born — is being fed in the kitchen; your handsome Captain — none the less gently born — is at supper in Dr. West’s office. . . . They might easily have been friends in New York. . . . War is so strange, isn’t it?”
Ailsa forced a smile; but her eyes remained on the door, behind which was a man who had held her in his arms. . . . And who might this girl be who came now to her with tales of Berkley’s goodness, kindness — shy stories of the excellence of the man who had killed in her the joy of living — had nigh killed more than that? What did this strange, dark-eyed, dark-haired girl know about his goodness? — a girl of whom she had never even heard until she saw her in Dr. Benton’s office!
And all the while she stood looking at the closed door, thinking, thinking.
They were off duty that night, but Letty was going back to a New Hampshire boy who was not destined to live very long, and whose father was on the way from Plymouth to see his eldest son — his eldest son who had never fought a battle, had never seen one, had never even fired his musket, but who lay dying in the nineteenth year of his age, colour corporal, loved of his guard and regiment.
“Baily asked for me,” she said simply. “I can get some sleep sitting up, I think.” She smiled. “I’m happier and — better for seeing my trooper. . . . I am — a — better — woman,” she said serenely. Then, looking up with a gay, almost childish toss of her head, like a schoolgirl absolved of misdemeanours unnumbered, she smiled wisely at Ailsa, and went away to her dying boy from New Hampshire.
The closed door fascinated Ailsa, distressed, harrowed her, till she stood there twisting her hands between desire and pallid indecision.
Leaden her limbs, for she could not stir them to go forward or to retire; miserably she stood there, swayed by fear and courage alternately, now rigid in bitter self-contempt, now shivering lest he fling open the door and find her there, and she see the mockery darkening his eyes ——
And, “Oh-h!” she breathed, “is there nothing on earth but this shame for me?”
Suddenly she thought of Celia, and became frightened. Suppose Celia had gone to the kitchen! What would Celia think of her attitude toward the son of Constance Berkley? She had never told Celia that she had seen Berkley or that she even knew of his whereabouts. What would Celia think!
In her sudden consternation she had walked straight to the closed door. She hesitated an instant; then she opened the door. And Berkley, seated as he had been seated that Christmas Eve, all alone by the burning candle, dropped his hands from his face and looked up. Then he rose and stood gazing at her.
She said, haughtily: “I suppose I am laying myself open to misconstruction and insult again by coming here to speak to you.”
“Did you come to speak to me, Ailsa?”
“Yes. Celia Craig is here — upstairs. I have never told her that you have even been in this place. She does not know you are here now. If she finds out — —”
“I understand,” he said wearily. “Celia shall not be informed of my disgrace with y
ou — unless you care to tell her.”
“I do not care to tell her. Is there any reason to distress her with — such matters?”
“No,” he said. “What do you wish me to do? Go out somewhere—” He glanced vaguely toward the darkness. “I’ll go anywhere you wish.”
“Why did you come — again?” asked Ailsa coldly.
“Orders—” he shrugged— “I did not solicit the detail; I could not refuse. Soldiers don’t refuse in the army.”
She stood looking at the floor for a moment. Then: “Why have you changed your name?”
“It’s not a permanent change,” he said carelessly.
“Oh. You wish to remain unrecognised in your regiment?”
“While my service lasts.”
Her lips formed the question again; and he understood, though she had not spoken.
“Why? Yes, I’ll tell you,” he said with a reckless laugh. “I’ll tell you why I wear a new name. It’s because I love my old one — and the mother who bore it — and from whom I received it! And it’s because I won’t risk disgracing it. You have asked, and that’s why! Because — I’m afraid in battle! — if you want to know! — afraid of getting hurt — wounded — killed! I don’t know what I might do; I don’t know! And if the world ever sees Private Ormond running away, they’ll never know it was Constance Berkley’s son. And that’s why I changed my name!”
“W-what?” she faltered. Then, revolted. “It is not true! You are not afraid!”
“I tell you I am,” he repeated with a mirthless laugh. “Don’t you suppose I ought to know? I want to get out of bullet range every time I’m shot at. And — if anybody ever turns coward, I prefer that it should be trooper Ormond, not trooper Berkley. And that is the truth, Ailsa.”
She was scarcely able to suppress her anger now. She looked at him, flushed, excited, furious.
“Why do you say such untruthful things to me! Who was it that fairly kicked his fellow troopers into charging infantry with nothing but lances against bullets?”
Amazed for a second, he burst into an abrupt laugh that rang harshly in the room.
“Who told you such cock-and-bull stories, Ailsa?”
“Didn’t you do it? Isn’t it true?”
“Do what? Do what the Government pays me for doing? Yes, I happened to come up to the scratch that time. But I was scared, every inch of me — if you really want the truth.”
“But — you did it?”
He laughed again, harshly, but apparently puzzled by her attitude.
She came nearer, paler in her suppressed excitement.
“Private Ormond,” she faltered, “the hour that you fail under fire is the hour when I — shall be able to — forget — you. Not — until — then.”
Neither moved. The slow, deep colour mounted to the roots of his hair; but she was white as death.
“Ailsa.”
“Yes.”
And suddenly he had dropped to one knee, and the hem of her gray garb was against his lips — and it was a thing of another age that he did, there on one knee at her feet, but it became him as it had become his ancestors. And she saw it, and, bending, laid her slim hands on his head.
After a long silence, her hands still resting on his dark hair, she found voice enough to speak.
“I know you now.”
And, as he made no answer:
“It is there, in you — all that I believed. It was to that
I — yielded — once.”
She looked intently down at him.
“I think at last you have become — my champion. . . . Not my — destroyer. Answer me, Philip!”
He would not, or could not.
“I take you — for mine,” she said. “Will you deny me?”
“No, Ailsa.”
She said, steadily: “The other — the lesser happiness is to be — forgotten. Answer.”
“It — must be.”
She bent lower, whispering: “Is there no wedlock of the spirit?”
“That is all there ever was to hope for.”
“Then — will you — Philip?”
“Yes. Will you, Ailsa?”
“I — will.”
He rose; her fingers slipped from his hair to his hands, and they stood, confronted.
She said in a dull voice: “I am engaged to — be — married to Captain
Hallam.”
“I know it.”
She spoke again, very white.
“Can you tell me why you will not marry me?”
“No, I cannot tell you.”
“I — would love you none the less. Don’t you believe me?”
“Yes, I do now. But I — cannot ask that of you.”
“Yet — you would have — taken me without — marriage.”
He said, quietly:
“Marriage — or love to the full, without it — God knows how right or wrong that may be. The world outlaws those who love without it — drives them out, excommunicates, damns. . . . It may be God does, too; but — I — don’t — believe it, Ailsa.”
She said, whiter still: “Then I must not think of — what cannot be?”
“No,” he said dully, “it cannot be.”
She laid her hands against his lips in silence.
“Good night. . . . You won’t leave me — too much — alone?”
“May I write to you, dear?”
“Please. And come when — when you can.”
He laughed in the utter hopelessness of it all.
“Dear, I cannot come to you unless — he comes.”
At that the colour came back into her face.
Suddenly she stooped, touched his hands swiftly with her lips — the very ghost of contact — turned, and was gone.
Hallam’s voice was hearty and amiable; also he welcomed her with a smile; but there seemed to be something hard in his eyes as he said:
“I began to be afraid that you’d gone to sleep, Ailsa. What the deuce has kept you? A sick man?”
“Y-es; he is — better — I think.”
“That’s good. I’ve only a minute or two left, and I wanted to speak — if you’ll let me — about — —”
“Can’t you come again next week?” she asked.
“Well — of course, I’ll do my best. I wanted to speak — —”
“Don’t say everything now,” she protested, forcing a smile, “otherwise what excuse will you have for coming again?”
“Well — I wished to — See here, Ailsa, will you let me speak about the practical part of our future when I come next time?”
For a moment she could, not bring herself to the deception; but the memory of Berkley rendered her desperate.
“Yes — if you will bring back to Miss Lynden her trooper friend when you come again. Will you?”
“Who? Oh, Ormond. Yes, of course, if she wishes — —”
But she could not endure her own dishonesty any longer.
“Captain Hallam,” she said with stiffened lips, “I — I have just lied to you. It is not for Miss Lynden that I asked; it is for myself!”
He looked at her in a stunned sort of way. She said, forcing herself to meet his eyes:
“Trooper Ormond is your escort; don’t you understand? I desire to see him again, because I knew him in New York.”
“Oh,” said Hallam slowly.
She stood silent, the colour racing through her cheeks. She could not, in the same breath, ask Hallam to release her. It was impossible. Nothing on earth could prevent his believing that it was because she wished to marry Berkley. And she was never to marry Berkley. She knew it, now.
“Who is this Private Ormond, anyway?” asked Hallam, handsome eyes bent curiously on her.
And she said, calmly: “I think you did not mean to ask me that,
Captain Hallam.”
“Why not?”
“Because the man in question would have told you had he not desired the privilege of privacy — to which we all are entitled, I think.”
�
��It seems to me,” said Hallam, reddening, “that, under the circumstances, I myself have been invested by you with some privileges.”
“Not yet,” she returned quietly. And again her reply implied deceit; and she saw, too late, whither that reply led — where she was drifting, helpless to save herself, or Berkley, or this man to whom she had been betrothed.
“I’ve got to speak now,” she began desperately calm. “I must tell you that I cannot marry you. I do not love you enough. I am forced to say it. I was a selfish, weak, unhappy fool when I thought I could care enough for you to marry you. All the fault is mine; all the blame is on me. I am a despicable woman.”
“Are you crazy, Ailsa!”
“Half crazed, I think. If you can, some day, try to forgive me — I should be very grateful.”
“Do you mean to tell me that you — you are — have been — in love with this — this broken-down adventurer — —”
“Yes. From the first second in my life that I ever saw him. Now you know the truth. And you will now consider me worthy of this — adventurer — —”
“No,” he replied. And thought a moment. Then he looked at her.
“I don’t intend to give you up,” he said.
“Captain Hallam, believe me, I am sorry — —”
“I won’t give you up,” he repeated doggedly.
“You won’t — release me?”
“No.”
She said, with heightened colour: “I am dreadfully sorry — and bitterly ashamed. I deserve no mercy, no consideration at your hands. But — I must return your ring—” She slipped it from her finger, laid it on the table, placed the chain and locket beside it.
She said, wistfully: “I dare not hope to retain your esteem — I dare not say to you how much I really desire your forgiveness — your friendship — —”
Suddenly he turned on her a face, red, distorted, with rage.
“Do you know what this means to me? It means ridicule in my regiment! What kind of figure do you think I shall cut after this? It’s — it’s a shame! — it’s vile usage. I’ll appear absurd — absurd! Do you understand?”
Shocked, she stared into his inflamed visage, which anger and tortured vanity had marred past all belief.
Works of Robert W Chambers Page 498