XLVI
THE SCHOOL OF SUSPENSE
Thus it fell to Flora to be letter-bearer and news-bearer in herbrother's stead. Yet he had first to be cared for by her and thegrandmother in a day long before "first aid" had become commonknowledge. The surgeon they had hailed in had taken liberal time to showthem how, night and morning, to unbandage, cleanse and rebind, and totell them (smiling into the lad's mutinous eyes) that the only otherimperative need was to keep him flat on his back for ten days. Thosesame weeks of downpour which had given the Shiloh campaign two-thirds ofits horrors had so overfed the monstrous Mississippi that it was runningfour miles an hour, overlapping its levees and heaving up through thewharves all along the city's front, until down about the Convent andBarracks and Camp Callender there were streets as miry as Corinth. Andbecause each and all of these hindrances were welcome to Flora as givingleisure to read and reread Irby's long letter about his cousin anduncle, and to plan what to say and do in order to reap all the fellmoment's advantages, the shadows were long in the Callender's grove whenshe finally ascended their veranda steps.
She had come round by way of Victorine's small, tight-fenced garden ofcrape-myrtles, oleanders and pomegranates--where also the water was inthe streets, backwater from the overflowed swamp-forests between cityand lake--and had sent her to Charlie's bedside. Pleasant it would befor us to turn back with the damsel and see her, with heart as open asher arms, kiss the painted grandam, and at once proceed to make herselfpractically invaluable; or to observe her every now and then dazzle heradored patient with a tear-gem of joy or pity, or of gratitude that shelived in a time when heroic things could happen right at home and to thelowliest, even to her; sweet woes like this, that let down, for virtuouslove, the barriers of humdrum convention. But Flora draws us on, she andAnna. As she touched the bell-knob Constance sprang out to welcome her,though not to ask her in--till she could have a word with her alone, theyoung wife explained.
"I saw you coming," she said, drawing her out to the balustrade. "Youdidn't get Anna's note of last night--too bad! I've just found out--hermaid forgot it! What do you reckon we've been doing all day long?Packing! We're going we don't know where! Vicksburg, Jackson, Meridian,Mobile, wherever Anna can best hunt Hilary from--and Charlie too, ofcourse."
"Yes," said Flora, one way to the speaker and quite another way toherself.
"Yes, she wants to do it, and Doctor Sevier says it's the only thing forher. Ah, Flora, how well _you_ can understand that!"
"Indeed, yes," sighed the listener, both ways again.
"We know how absolutely you believe the city's our best base, else we'dhave asked you to go with us." The ever genuine Constance felt amortifying speciousness in her words and so piled them on. "_We_ knowthe city is best--unless it should fall, and it won't--oh, it won't,God's not going to let so many prayers go unanswered, Flora! But we'vetossed reason aside and are going by instinct, the way I always feelsafest in, dear. Ah, poor Anna! Oh, Flora, she's so sweet about it!"
"Yes? Ab-out what?"
"You, dear, and whoever is suffering the same--"
Flora softly winced and Constance blamed herself so to have painedanother sister's love. "And she's so quiet," added the speaker, "but,oh, so pale--and so hard either to comfort or encourage, or even todiscourage. There's nothing you can say that she isn't alreadyheart-sick of saying herself, _to_ herself, and I beg you, dear, in yourlonging to comfort her, please don't bring up a single maybe-this ormaybe-that; any hope, I mean, founded on a mere doubt."
"Ah, but sometime' the doubt--it is the hope!"
"Yes, sometimes; but not to her, any more. Oh, Flora, if it's just astrue of you, you won't be--begrudge my saying it of my sister--that nosaint ever went to her matyrdom better prepared than she is, right now,for the very worst that can be told. There's only one thing to which shenever can and never will resign herself, and that is doubt. She can'tbreathe its air, Flora. As she says herself, she isn't so built; shehasn't that gift."
The musing Flora nodded compassionately, but inwardly she said that,gift or no gift, Anna should serve her time in Doubting Castle, withher, Flora, for turnkey. Suddenly she put away her abstraction and witha summarizing gesture and chastened twinkle spoke out: "In short, youwant to know for w'at am I come."
"Flora!"
"Ah, but, my dear, you are ri-ight. That is 'all correct,' as they say,and one thing I'm come for--'t is--" She handed out Mandeville's twoletters.
The wife caught them to her bosom, sprang to her tiptoes, beamed on thepacket a second time and read aloud, "Urbanity of Corporal Valcour!" Sheheaved an ecstatic breath to speak on, but failed. Anna and Miranda hadjoined them and Flora had risen from her seat on the balustrade, awareat once that the role she had counted on was not to be hers, the role ofcomforter to an undone rival.
Pale indeed was the rival, pale as rivalry could wish. Yet instantlyFlora saw, with a fiery inward sting, how beautiful pallor may be. Andmore she saw: with the chagrin then growing so common on every armedfront--the chagrin of finding one's foe entrenched--she saw how utterlydespair had failed to crush a gentle soul. Under cover of affliction'snight and storm Anna, this whole Anna Callender, had been reinforced,had fortified and was a new problem.
She greeted Flora with a welcoming beam, but before speaking she caughther sister's arm and glanced herself, at the superscription.
"Flora!" she softly cried, "oh, Flora Valcour! has your brother--yourCharlie!--come home alive and well?--What; no?--No, he has not?"
The visitor was shaking her head: "No. Ah, no! home, yes, and al-I've;but--"
"Oh, Flora, Flora! alive and at home! home and alive!" While the wordscame their speaker slowly folded her arms about the bearer of tidings,and with a wholly unwonted strength pressed her again to the rail anddrew bosom to bosom, still exclaiming, "Alive! alive! Oh, whatever hisplight, be thankful, Flora, for so much! Alive enough to _come_ home!"
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