CHAPTER X
THE MISSING PAPER
Harry and Dalton did not awake until late the next morning and theyfound they had not suffered at all from sleeping between four walls andunder a roof. Their lungs were full of fresh air, and youth with allits joyous irresponsibility had come back. Harry sprang out of bed.
"Up! up! old boy!" Harry cried to Dalton. "Don't you hear the buglescalling? not to battle but to pleasure! There is no enemy in ourfront! We don't have to cross a river with an overwhelming armypressing down upon us! We don't have to ride before the dawn on ascout which may lead us into a thicket full of hostile riflemen. We'rein a city, boy, and our business now is beauty and pleasure!"
"Harry," said Dalton, "you ought to go far."
"Why, George? What induces you to assume the role of a prophetconcerning me?"
"Because you're so full of life. You're so keen about everything. Youmust have a heart and lungs of extra steam power."
"But I notice you don't say anything about brain power. Maybe youthink it's the quiet, rather silent fellows like yourself, George, whohave an excess of that."
"None of your irony. Am I not looking forward to this ball as much asyou are? I was a boy when I entered the war, Harry, but two years offighting day and night age one terribly. I feel as if I couldpatronize any woman under twenty-five, and treat her as quite a simpleyoung thing."
"Try it, George, and see what happens to you."
"Oh, no! I merely said I felt that way. I've too much sense to put itinto action."
"Do you know, George, that when this war is over it will be really timefor us to be thinking about girls. We'll be quite old enough. Theysay that many of the Yankee maidens in Philadelphia and New York arefine for looks. I wonder if they'll cast a favoring eye on youngSouthern officers as our conquering armies go marching down theirstreets!"
"It's too remote. Don't think about it, Harry. Richmond will do usfor the present."
"But you can let a fellow project his mind into the future."
"Not so far that we'll be marching as conquerors through Philadelphiaand New York. Let's deal with realities."
"I've always thought there was something of the Yankee about you,George, not in political principles--I never question your devotion tothe cause--but in calculating, weighing everything and deciding infavor of the one that weighs an ounce the most."
"Are you about through dressing? You've taken a minute longer than theregular time."
There was a knock at the door, and, when Dalton opened it a few inches,a black head announced through the crack that breakfast was ready.
"See what a disgrace you're bringing upon us," said Dalton. "Delayingeverything. Mrs. Lanham will say that we're two impostors, that suchmalingerers cannot possibly belong to the Army of Northern Virginia."
"Lead on," said Harry. "I'm ready, and I'm hungry as every soldier inthe Southern army always is."
They had a warm greeting from their hospitable hosts, followed by anabundant breakfast. Then at Mrs. Lanham's earnest solicitation theyturned over their dress uniforms to her to be repaired and pressed.Then they went out into the streets again, and spent the whole dayrambling about, enjoying everything with the keen and intense delightthat can come only to the young, and after long abstinence. Richmondwas not depressed. Far from it. There had been a wonderfultransformation since those dark days when the army of McClellan wasnear enough to see the spires of its churches. The flood of battle hadrolled far away since then, and it had never come back. It could nevercome back. It was true that the Army of Northern Virginia had failed atGettysburg, but it was returning to the South unassailed, and was readyto repeat its former splendid achievements.
Harry went to the post office, and found there, to his great surpriseand delight, a letter from his father, written three or four days afterVicksburg.
My dear son: [he wrote]
The news has just come to us that the Army of Northern Virginia, whileperforming prodigies of valor, has failed to carry all the Northernpositions at Gettysburg. Only complete success could warrant a furtheradvance. I assume therefore that General Lee is retreating and Iassume also that you, Harry, my beloved son, are alive, that you cameunharmed out of that terrible battle. It does not seem possible to methat it could be otherwise. I cannot conceive of you fallen. It maybe that it's because you are my son. The sons of others may fall, butnot mine, just as we know that all others are doomed to die, but getinto the habit of thinking ourselves immortal. So, I address thisletter to you in the full belief that it will reach you somewhere, andthat you will read it.
You know, of course, of our great loss at Vicksburg. It is disastrousbut not irreparable. We still have a powerful army in the West, hardy,indomitable, one with which the enemy will have to reckon. As formyself I have been spared in many battles and I am well. It seems thesport of chance that you and I, while fighting on the same side, shouldhave been separated in this war, you in the East and I in the West.But it has been done by One who knows best, and after all I am gladthat you have been in such close contact with two of the greatest andhighest-minded soldiers of the ages, Stonewall Jackson and Robert E.Lee. I do not think of them merely as soldiers, but as knights andchampions with flaming swords. One of them, alas! is gone, but we havethe other, and if man can conquer he will. Here in the West we reposeour faith in Lee, as surely as do you in the East, you who see his faceand hear his voice every day.
I have had two or three letters from Pendleton. That part of the Stateis for the present outside the area of conflict, though I hear that theguerilla bands to the east in the mountains still vex and annoy, andthat Skelly is growing bolder. I foresee the time when we shall haveto reckon with this man, who is a mere brigand.
I hear that the prospects for fruit in our orchards were never finer.You will remember how you prowled in them when you were a little boy,Harry, and what a pirate you were among the apples and peaches andpears and good things that grew on tree and bush and briar in thatbeautiful old commonwealth of ours. I often upbraided you then, but Ishould like to see you now, far out on a bough as of old, reaching fora big yellow pear, or a red, red bunch of cherries! Alas! there aremany lads who will never return, who will never see the pear trees andthe cherry trees again, but I repeat I cannot feel that you will beamong them. Who would ever have dreamed when this war began that itcould go so far? More than two years of fierce and deadly battles andI can see no end. A deadlock and neither side willing to yield! Howglad would be the men who made the war to see both sections back wherethey were two and a half years ago! and that's no treason.
Water rose in Harry's eyes. He knew how terribly his father's hearthad been torn by the quarrel between North and South, and that he hadthoughts which he did not tell to his son. Harry was beginning at lastto think some of the same thoughts himself. If the South succeeded,then, after the war, what? Another war later on or reunion.
The rest of the letter was wholly personal, and in the end it directedHarry, when writing to him, to address his letters care of the WesternArmy under General Bragg. Harry was moved and he responded at once. Hewent to the hotel in which he had met the young men who constituted theleading lights in what was called the Mosaic Club, and, securingwriting materials, made a long reply, which he posted with every hopethat it would soon reach its destination.
Early in the evening he rejoined Dalton at the house of the Lanhams andthey found that Mrs. Lanham had done wonders with their best uniforms.When they were dressed in them they felt that it was no harder tocharge the Curtis house than to rush a battery.
"You young men go early," said Mr. Lanham. "Mrs. Lanham and I willappear later."
They departed, daring to practice their dance steps in the street tothe delight of small boys who did not hesitate to chaff them. ButHarry and Dalton did not care. They answered the chaff in kind, andsoon approached the Curtis home, all the windows of which were blazingwith light.
The house stood in exten
sive grounds, and lofty white pillars gave itan imposing appearance. Guests were arriving fast. Most of the menwere military, but there was a fair sprinkling of civiliansnevertheless. The lads saw their friends of the Mosaic Club pass injust ahead of them, all dressed with extreme care. Generals andcolonels and other officers were in most favor now, but these men, withtheir swift and incisive wit and their ability to talk well abouteverything, fully made up for the lack of uniform.
Harry and Dalton, before passing through the side gateway that led tothe house, paused awhile to look at those who came. Many people, andthey ranked among the best in Richmond, walked. They had sent alltheir horses to the front long ago to be ridden by cavalrymen or todraw cannon. Others, not so self-sacrificing, came in heavy carriageswith negroes driving.
Harry noticed that in many cases the clothing of the men showed alittle white at the seams, and there were cuffs the ends of which hadbeen trimmed with great care. But it was these whom he respected most.He remembered that Virginia had not really wanted to go into the war,and that she had delayed long, but, being in it, she was making supremesacrifices.
And there were many young girls who did not need elaborate dress. Intheir simple white or pink, often but cotton, their cheeks showing thedelicate color that is possessed only by the girls in the border statesof the South, they seemed very beautiful to Harry and George, who hadknown nothing but camps and armies so long.
It was the healthy admiration of the brave youth of one sex for thefair youth of the other, but there was in it a deeper note, too. Agecan stand misfortune. Youth wonders why it is stricken, and Harry feltas they passed by, bright of face and soft of voice, that the cloudswere gathering heavily over them.
But he was too young himself for the feeling to endure long. Daltonwas proposing that they go in and they promptly joined the stream ofentering guests. Randolph soon found them and presented them to Mrs.Curtis, a large woman of middle years, and dignified manner, related tonearly all the old families of Virginia, and a descendant of acollateral branch of the Washingtons. Her husband, William Curtis,seemed to be of a different type, a man of sixty, tall, thin and morereserved than most Southerners of his time. His thin lips were usuallycompressed and his pale blue eyes were lacking in warmth. But the longstrong line of his jaw showed that he was a man of strength anddecision.
"A Northern bough on a Southern tree," whispered Dalton, as they passedon. "He comes from some place up the valley and they say that theNorth itself has not his superior in financial skill."
"I did not warm to him at first," said Harry, "but I respect him. Asyou know, George, we've put too little stress upon his kind of ability.We'll need him and more like him when the Confederacy is established.We'll have to build ourselves up as a great power, and that's done bytrade and manufactures more than by arms."
"It's so, Harry. But listen to that music!"
A band of four pieces placed behind flowers and shrubbery was playing.Here was no blare of trumpets or call of bugles. It was the music ofthe dance and the sentimental old songs of the South, nearly all ofwhich had a sad and wailing note. Harry heard the four black men playthe songs that he had heard Samuel Jarvis sing, deep in the Kentuckymountains, and his heart beat with an emotion that he could notunderstand. Was it a cry for peace? Did his soul tell him that an endshould come to fighting? Then throbbed the music of the lines:
Soft o'er the fountain lingering falls the Southern moon Far o'er the mountain breaks the day too soon. In thy dark eyes' splendor, where the moonlight loves to dwell Weary looks, yet tender, speak their fond farewell. Nita, Juanita! Ask thy soul if we should part, Nita, Juanita! Lean thou on my heart!
The music of the sad old song throbbed and throbbed, and sank deep intoHarry's heart. At another time he might not have been stirred, but atthis moment he was responsive in every fiber. He saw once more thegreen wilderness, and he heard once more the mellow tones of the singercoming back in far echoes from the gorges.
"Nita, Juanita! Ask thy soul if we should part," hummed Dalton, butHarry was still far away in the green wilderness, listening to thesinger of the mountains. Then the singer stopped suddenly, and he waslistening once more to the startling prediction of the old, old woman:
"I am proud that our house has sheltered you, but it is not for thelast time. You will come again, and you will be thin and pale and inrags, and you will fall at the door. I see you coming with these twoeyes of mine."
That prediction had been made a long time ago, years since, it seemed,but whenever it returned to him, and it returned at most unexpectedtimes, it lost nothing of its amazing vividness and power; rather theywere increased. Could it be true that the supremely old had a visionor second sight? Then he rebuked himself angrily. There was nothingsupernatural in this world.
"Wake up, Harry! What are you thinking about?" whispered Daltonsharply. "You seem to be dreaming, and here's a house full of prettygirls, with more than a half-dozen looking at you, the gallant youngofficer of the Army of Northern Virginia, the story of whose romanticexploits had already reached Richmond."
"I was dreaming and I apologize," said Harry. That minute in which hehad seen so much, so far away, passed utterly, and in another minuteboth he and Dalton were dancing with Virginia girls, as fair as dreamsto these two, who had looked so long only upon the tanned faces ofsoldiers.
Both he and Dalton were at home in a half-hour. People in the OldSouth then, as in the New South now, are closely united by ties ofkinship which are acknowledged as far as they run. One is usually amember of a huge clan and has all the privileges that clanship canconfer. Kentucky was the daughter of Virginia, and mother and daughterwere fond of each other, as they are to-day.
After the third dance Harry was sitting with Rosamond Lawrence ofPetersburg in a window seat. She was a slender blonde girl, and thedancing had made the pink in her cheeks deepen into a flush.
"You're from Kentucky, I know," said Miss Lawrence, "but you haven'tyet told me your town."
"Pendleton. It's small but it's on the map. My father is a colonel inthe Western army."
"Aren't you a Virginian by blood? Most all Kentuckians are."
"Partly. My great grandfather, though, was born in Maryland."
"What was his name, Lieutenant Kenton?"
"Henry Ware!"
"Henry Ware! Kentucky's first and greatest governor."
"Yes, he was my great grandfather. I'm proud to be his descendant."
"I should think you would be."
"But his wife, who was Lucy Upton, my great grandmother, was ofVirginia blood, and all of the next two generations intermarried withpeople of Virginia stock."
"Then you are a Kentuckian and a Virginian, too. I knew it! You havea middle name, haven't you?"
"Yes."
"Will you tell me what it is?"
"Cary."
The girl laughed.
"Harry Cary Kenton. Why Cary is one of our best old Virginia names.Will you tell me too what was your mother's name before she wasmarried?"
"Parham."
"Another. Oh, all this unravels finely. And what was yourgrandmother's name?"
"Brent."
"Nothing could be more Virginian than Brent. Oh, you're one of us,Lieutenant Kenton, a real Virginian of the true blood."
"And heart and soul too!" giving her one of his finest young militaryglances.
She laughed. It was only quick friendship between them and no more,and a half-hour later he was dancing with another Virginia girl, not soblonde, but just as handsome, and their talk was quite as friendly. Hername was Lockridge, and as they sat down near the musicians to rest,and listen a while, Harry saw a figure, slender and black-robed, pass.He knew at once who she was, and it had been predicted that he mightmeet her there, but she had stirred his curiosity a little, andthinking he might obtain further information he asked Miss Lockridge:
"Who is the woman who just passed us?"
"That's Miss Carden, Miss Henr
ietta Carden, a sewing woman, verycapable too, who always helps at the big balls. Mrs. Curtis reliesgreatly upon her. The door through which she went leads to the ladies'dressing-room."
"A native of Richmond?"
"I don't know. But why are you so curious about a sewing woman,Lieutenant Kenton?"
Harry flushed. There was a faint tinge of rebuke in her words, and heknew that he merited it.
"It was just an idle question," he replied quickly, and with an air ofindifference. "I noticed her on the train when we came into thecapital, and we are so little used to women that we are inquisitiveabout every one whom we see. Why, Miss Lockridge, I didn't realizeuntil I came to this ball that women could be so extraordinarilybeautiful. Every one of you looks like an angel, just lowered gentlyfrom Heaven."
"If you're not merely a flatterer then it's long absence that givescharm. I assure you, Lieutenant Kenton, that we're very, very commonclay. You should see us eat."
"I'll get you an ice at once."
"Oh, I don't mean that. I mean substantial things!"
"A healthy appetite doesn't keep a girl from being an angel."
"When men marry us they find out that we're not angels."
"The word 'angel' is with me merely a figure of speech. I don't wantany real angel. I want my wife, if I ever marry, to be thoroughlyhuman."
Harry's progress was rapid. A handsome figure and face, and aningenuous manner made him a favorite. After midnight he wandered intoa room where older men were smoking and talking. They were mostlyofficers, some of high rank, one a general, and they talked of thatwhich they could never get wholly from their minds, the war. All knewHarry, and, as he wanted fresh air, they gave him a place by a windowwhich looked upon a small court.
Harry was tired. In dancing he had been compelled to bring into playmuscles long unused, and he luxuriated in the cushioned chair, whilethe pleasant night breeze blew upon him. They were discussing Lee'sprobable plans to meet Meade, who would certainly follow him in timeacross the Potomac. They spoke with weight and authority, because theywere experienced men who had been in many battles, and they were hereon furlough, most of them recovering from wounds.
Harry heard them, but their words were like the flowing of a river. Hepaid no heed. They did not bring the war back to him. He was thinkingof the music and of the brilliant faces of the girls whom he lovedcollectively. What that Lawrence girl had said was true. He was aVirginian as well as a Kentuckian, and the Kentuckians and Virginianswere all one big family. All those pretty Virginia girls were hiscousins. It might run to the thirty-second degree, but they were hiscousins just the same, and he would claim them with confidence.
He smiled and his eyelids drooped a little. It was rather darkoutside, and he was looking directly into the court in which rosebushesand tall flowering plants grew. A shadow passed. He did not seewhence it came or went, but he sat up and laughed at himself for dozingand conjuring up phantoms when he was at his first real ball in ages.
All the civilians had gone out and only five or six of the officers,the most important, were left. Their talk had grown more eager, and onthe center of the table around which they sat lay a large piece ofwhite canvas upon which they were drawing a map expressing theircollective opinion. Every detail was agreed upon, after muchdiscussion, and Harry, as much interested as they, began to watch,while the lines grew upon the canvas. He ventured no opinion, being somuch younger than the others.
"We don't know, of course, exactly what General Lee will do," said acolonel, "but we do know that he's always dangerous. He invariablyacts on the offensive, even if he's retreating. I should think thathe'd strike Meade about here."
"Not there, but not far from it," said the general. "Make a dot atthat point, Bathurst, and make another dot here about twenty miles tothe east, which represents my opinion."
Bathurst made the dots and the men, wholly absorbed, bent lower overtheir plans, which were growing almost unconsciously into a map, and agood one too. Harry was as much interested as they, and he still kepthimself in the background, owing to his youth and minor rank.
The door to the room was open a little and the music, a waltz, came ina soft ripple from the drawing room. It was rhythmic and languorous,and Harry's feet would have moved to its tune at any other time, but hewas too deeply absorbed in the conjectures and certainties that theywere drawing with their pencils on the white canvas.
Many of the details, he knew, were absolutely true, and others he wasquite sure must be true, because these were men of high rank whocarried in their minds the military secrets of the Confederacy.
"I think we're pretty well agreed on the general nature of the plan,"said Bathurst. "We differ only in details."
"That's so," said the general, "but we're lingering too long here. Godknows that we see little enough of our women folks, and, when we havethe chance to see them, and feel the touch of their hands, we waste ourtime like a lot of fools making military guesses. If I'm not too oldto dance to the tune of the shells I'm not too old to dance to the tuneof the fiddle and the bow. That's a glorious air floating in from theballroom. I think I can show some of these youngsters like Kenton herehow to shake a foot."
"After you, General," laughed Bathurst. "We know your capacity on boththe field and the floor, and how you respond to the shell and the bow.Come on! The ballroom is calling to us, and I doubt whether we'llexplain to the satisfaction of everybody why we've been away from it solong. You, too, Harry!"
They rose in a group and went out hastily. Harry was last, and hishand was on the bolt of the door, preparatory to closing it, when thegeneral turned to Bathurst and said:
"You've that diagram of ours, haven't you, Bathurst? It's not a thingto be left lying loose."
"Why, no, sir, I thought you put it in your pocket."
The general laughed.
"You're suffering from astigmatism, Bathurst," he said. "Doubtless itwas Colton whom you saw stowing it away. I think we'd better tear itinto little bits as we have no further use for it."
"But I haven't it, sir," said Colton, a veteran colonel, justrecovering from a wound in the arm. "I supposed of course that one ofthe others took it."
An uneasy look appeared in the general's eyes, but it passed in aninstant.
"You have it, Morton?"
"No, sir. Like Bathurst I thought one of the others took it."
"And you, Kitteridge?"
"I did not take it, sir."
"You surely have it, Johnson?"
"No, sir, I was under the impression that you had taken it away withyou."
"And you, McCurdy?"
McCurdy shook his head.
"Then Kenton, as you were the last to rise, you certainly have it."
"I was just a looker-on; I did not touch it," said Harry, whose handwas still on the bolt of the partly opened door.
The general laughed.
"Another case of everybody expecting somebody else to do a thing, andnobody doing it," he said. "Kenton, go back and take it from thetable. In our absorption we've been singularly forgetful, and that planmust be destroyed at once."
Harry reentered the room, and in their eagerness all of the officersfollowed. Then a simultaneous "Ah!" of dismay burst from them all.There was nothing on the table. The plan was gone. They looked at oneanother, and in the eyes of every one apprehension was growing.
"The window is partly open," said the general, affecting a laugh,although it had an uneasy note, "and of course it has blown off thetable. We'll surely find it behind the sofa or a chair."
They searched the room eagerly, going over every inch of space, everypossible hiding place, but the plan was not there.
"Perhaps it's in the court," said the general. "It might havefluttered out there. Raise the sash higher, Kenton. Let nobody makeany noise. We must be as quiet as possible about this. Luckily there'senough moonlight now for us to find even a small scrap of paper in thecourt."
They stole through the wind
ow silently, one by one, and searched everyinch of the court's space. But nothing was in it, save the grass andthe flowers and the rosebushes that belonged there. They returned tothe room, and once more looked at one another in dismay.
"Shut the window entirely and lock the door, Kenton," said the general.
Harry did so. Then the general looked at them all, and his face wasset and very firm.
"We must all be searched," he said. "I know that every one of you isthe soul of honor. I know that not one of you has concealed about hisperson this document which has suddenly become so valuable. I knowthat not one of you would smuggle through to the enemy such a plan atany price, no matter how large. Nevertheless we must know beyond theshadow of a doubt that none of us has the map. And I insist, too, thatI be searched first. Bathurst, Colton, begin!"
They examined one another carefully in turn. Every pocket or possibleplace of concealment was searched. Harry was the last and when theywere done with him the general heaved a huge sigh of relief.
"We know positively that we are not guilty," he said. "We knew itbefore, but now we've proved it. That is off our minds, but themystery of the missing map remains. What a strange combination ofcircumstances. I think, gentlemen, that we had best say nothing aboutit to outsiders. It's certainly to the interest of every one of us notto do so. It's also to the interest of all of us to watch the best wecan for a solution. You're young, Kenton, but from what I hear of youyou're able to keep your own counsel."
"You can trust me, sir," said Harry.
"I know it, and now unlock the door. We've held ourselves prisonerslong enough, and they'll be wondering about us in the ballroom."
Harry turned the key promptly enough and he was glad to escape from theroom. He felt that he had left behind a sinister atmosphere. He hadnot mentioned to the older men the faint shadow that he thought he hadseen crossing the courtyard. But then it was only fancy, nothing more,an idle figment of the brain! There was the music now, softer and moretempting than ever, an irresistible call to flying feet, and anotherdance with Rosamond Lawrence was due.
"I thought you weren't coming, Lieutenant Kenton," she said. "Some onesaid that you had gone into the smoking-room and that you were talkingwar with middle-aged generals and colonels."
"But I escaped as soon as I could, Miss Rosamond," he said--he wasthinking of the locked door and the universal search.
"Well, you came just in time. The band is beginning and I was about togive your dance to that good-looking Lieutenant Dalton."
"You wouldn't treat me like that! Throw over your cousin in such amanner! I can't think it!"
"No, I wouldn't!"
Then the full swell of the music caught them both, and they glidedaway, as light and swift as the melody that bore them on.
The Shades of the Wilderness: A Story of Lee's Great Stand Page 12