Kincaid's Battery

by George Washington Cable

  XVII

  "OH, CONNIE, DEAR--NOTHING--GO ON"

  The third evening came. On all the borders of dear Dixie more tents thanever whitened sea-shores and mountain valleys, more sentinels paced toand fro in starlight or rain, more fifers and trumpeters woke the echoeswith strains to enliven fortitude, more great guns frowned silently ateach other over more parapets, and more thousands of lovers reclinedabout camp fires with their hearts and fancies at home, where mothersand maidens prayed in every waking moment for God's mercy to keep thebrave truants; and with remembrance of these things Anna strove tobelittle her own distress while about the library lamp she and Mirandaseemed each to be reading a book, and Constance the newspaper sent fromCharleston by Mandeville.

  Out in the mellow night a bird sang from the tip-top of a late-bloomingorange tree, and inside, away inside, inside and through and through thepoor girl's heart, the "years"--which really were nothing but the mantelclock's quarter-hours--"crept slowly by."

  At length she laid her book aside, softly kissed each seated companion,and ascended to her room and window. There she stood long without soundor motion, her eyes beyond the stars, her head pressed wearily againstthe window frame. Then the lids closed while her lips formed soft words:

  "Oh, God, he is not coming!" Stillness again. And then--"Oh, let mebelieve yet that only Thy hand keeps him away! Is it to save him forsome one fairer and better? God, I ask but to know! I'm a rebel, but notagainst Thee, dear Lord. I know it's a sin for me to suffer this way;Thou dost not _owe_ me happiness; I owe it Thee. Oh, God, am I clamoringfor my week's wages before I've earned an hour's pay? Yet oh! yetoh!"--the head rocked heavily on its support--"if only--if only--"

  She started--listened! A gate opened--shut. She sprang to her glass andthen from it. In soft haste she needlessly closed the window and drewits shade and curtains. She bathed her eyelids and delicately driedthem. At the mirror again she laid deft touches on brow and crown,harkening between for any messenger's step, and presently, withoutreason, began to set the room more exquisitely to rights. Now she facedthe door and stood attentive, and now she took up a small volume and satdown by her lamp.

  A tap: Constance entered, beaming only too tenderly. "It was better,wasn't it," she asked, hovering, "to come than to send?"

  "Why, of course, dear; it always is."

  A meditative silence followed. Then Anna languidly inquired, "Who isit?"

  "Nobody but Charlie."

  The inquirer brightened: "And why isn't Charlie as good as any one?"

  "He is, to-night," replied the elder beauty, "except--the oneexception."

  "Oh, Connie"--a slight flush came as the seated girl smilingly drew hersister's hands down to her bosom--"there isn't any one exception, andthere's not going to be any. Now, that smile is downright mean of you!"

  The offender atoned with a kiss on the brow.

  "Why do you say," asked its recipient, "'as good as any one,_to-night_'?"

  "Because," was the soft reply, "to-night he comes from--the other--toexplain why the other couldn't come."

  "Why!"--the flush came back stronger--"why, Connie! why, that'spositively silly--ha, ha, ha!"

  "I don't see how, Nan."

  "My dear Con! Isn't his absence equally and perfectly innocent whetherhe couldn't come or wouldn't come? But an explanation sent!--bycourier!--to--to shorten--ah, ha, ha!--to shorten our agony! Why, Con,wouldn't you have thought better of him than that? H-oh, me! What aman's 'bound to be' I suppose he's bound to be. What is the preciousexplanation?"

  With melting eyes Constance shook her head. "You don't deserve to hearit," she replied. Her tears came: "My little sister, I'm on the man'sside in this affair!"

  "That's not good of you," murmured Anna.

  "I don't claim to be good. But there's one thing, Nan Callender, I neverdid; I never chained up my lover to see if he'd stay chained. WhenSteve--"

  "Oh-h! Oh-h!" panted Anna, "you're too cruel! Hilary Kincaid wears nochain of mine!"

  "Oh, yes, he does! He's broken away, but he's broken away, chain andall, to starve and perish, as one look into his face would show you!"

  "He doesn't show his face. He sends--"

  "An explanation. Yes. Which first you scorn and then consent to hear."

  "Don't scorn _me_, Connie. What's the explanation?"

  "It's this: he's been sent back to those Mobile fortifications--receivedthe order barely in time to catch the boat by going instantly. Nan, theValcours' house is found to stand right on their proposed line, and he'sgone to decide whether the line may be changed or the house must bedemolished."

  Anna rose, twined an arm in her sister's and with her paced the chamber."How perfectly terrible!" she murmured, their steps ceasing and her eyesremote in meditation. "Poor Flora! Oh, the poor old lady! And oh, oh,poor Flora!--But, Con! The line will be changed! He--you know what theboys call him!"

  "Yes, but there's the trouble. He's no one lady's man. Like Steve, he'sso absolutely fair--"

  "Connie, I tell you it's a strange line he won't change for FloraValcour!"

  "Now, Nan Callender! The line will go where it ought to go. By the by,Charlie says neither Flora nor her grandmother knows the house is indanger. Of course, if it is harmed, the harm will be paid for."

  "Oh, paid for!"

  "Why, Nan, I'm as sorry for them as you. But _I_ don't forget to besorry for Hilary Kincaid too."

  "Connie"--walk resumed, speaker's eyes on the floor--"if you'd only seethat to me he's merely very interesting--entertaining--nothing morewhatever--I'd like to say just a word about him."

  "Say on, precious."

  "Well--did you ever see a man so fond of men?"

  "Oh, of course he is, or men wouldn't be so fond of him."

  "_I_ think he's fonder of men than of women!"

  Constance smiled: "Do you?"

  "And I think," persisted Anna, "the reason some women find him soagreeable is that our collective society is all he asks of us, or everwill ask."

  "Nan Callender, look me in the eye! You can't! My little sister, you'vegot a lot more sense than I have, and you know it, but I can tell youone thing. When Steve and I--"

  "Oh, Connie, dear--nothing--go on."

  "I won't! Except to say some lovers take love easy and some--can't. Imust go back to Charlie. I know, Nan, it's those who love hardest thattake love hardest, and I suppose it's born in Hilary Kincaid, and it'sborn in you, to fight it as you'd fight fire. But, oh, in these strangetimes, don't do it! Don't do it. You're going to have trouble a-plentywithout."

  The pair, moving to the door with hands on each other's shoulders,exchanged a melting gaze. "Trouble a-plenty," softly asked Anna, "why doyou--?"

  "Oh, why, why, why!" cried the other, with a sudden gleam of tears. "Iwish you and Miranda had never learned that word."