The Long Roll Part 60

Judith, turning a little aside, dreamily listened now to the singer, now to phrases of the Vice-President and the Secretary of State. "After this, if we beat them now, a treaty surely.... Palmerston--The Emperour--The Queen of Spain--Mason says ... Inefficiency of the blockade--Cotton obligations--Arms and munitions...." Still talking, they moved away. A strident voice reached her from the end of the room--L. Q. C. Lamar, here to-night despite physicians. "The fight had to come. We are men, not women. The quarrel had lasted long enough. We hate each other, so the struggle had to come. Even Homer's heroes, after they had stormed and scolded long enough, fought like brave men, long and well--"

"Ye banks and braes and streams around The castle o' Montgomery--"

sang Mrs. Fitzgerald.

There was in the room that slow movement which imperceptibly changes a well-filled stage, places a figure now here, now there, s.h.i.+fts the grouping and the lights. Now Judith was one of a knot of younger women.

In the phraseology of the period, all were "belles"; Hetty and Constance Cary, Mary Triplett, Turner MacFarland, Jenny Pegram, the three Fishers, Evelyn Cabell, and others. About them came the "beaux,"--the younger officers who were here to-night, the aides, the unwedded legislators.

Judith listened, talked, played her part. She had a personal success in Richmond. Her name, her beauty, the at times quite divine expression of her face, made the eye follow, after which a certain greatness of mind was felt and the attention became riveted. The pictures moved again, Mrs. Fitzgerald singing "positively, this time, the last!" Some of the "belles," attended by the "beaux," drifted toward the portico, several toward the smaller room and its softly lowered lights. A very young man, an artillerist, tall and fair, lingered beside Judith. "'Auld lang Syne!' I do not think that she ought to sing that to-night! I have noticed that when you hear music just before battle the strain is apt to run persistently in your mind. She ought to sing us 'Scots wha hae--'"

A gentleman standing near laughed. "That's good, or my name isn't Ran Tucker! Mrs. Fitzgerald, Captain Pelham does not wish to be left in such 'a weavin' way.' He says that song is like an April shower on a bag of powder. The inference is that it will make the horse artillery chicken-hearted. I move that you give John Pelham and the a.s.semblage 'Scots wha hae wi Wallace bled'--"

The singing ended, there was a wider movement through the room. Judith, with Pelham still beside her, walked on the portico, in the warm, rose-laden air. There was no moon, and the light in the east was very marked. "If we strike McClellan's right," said the artillerist, "all this hill and the ground to the north of it will be the place from which to watch the battle. If it lasts after nightfall, you will see the exploding sh.e.l.ls beautifully." They stood at the eastern end, Judith leaning against one of the pillars. Here a poet and editor of the _Southern Literary Messenger_ joined them; with him a young man, a sculptor, Alexander Galt. A third, Was.h.i.+ngton the painter, came, too.

The violins had begun again--Mozart now--"The Magic Flute." "Oh, smell the roses!" said the poet. "To-night the roses, to-morrow the thorns--but roses, too, among the thorns, deep and sweet! There will still be roses, will there not, Miss Cary?"

"Yes, still," said Judith. "If I could paint, Mr. Was.h.i.+ngton, I would take that gleam on the horizon."

"Yes, is it not fine? It is a subject, however, for a mystic. I have an idea myself for a picture, if I can get the tent-cloth to paint it on, and if some brushes and tubes I sent for ever get through the block."

"If I had a tent I certainly would give it to you," said Pelham. "What would you paint?"

"A thing that happened ten days ago. The burial of Latane. The women buried him, you know. At Summer Hill.--Mrs. Brockenborough, and her daughter-in-law and grandchildren. Somebody read me a letter about it--so simple it wrung your heart! 'By G.o.d,' I said, 'what Roman things happen still!' And I thought I'd like to paint the picture."

"I read the letter, too," said the poet. "I am making some verses about it--see if you like them--

"For woman's voice, in accents soft and low, Trembling with pity, touched with pathos, read O'er his hallowed dust the ritual for the dead:

"'Tis sown in weakness, it is raised in power'-- Softly the promise floated on the air, While the low breathings of the sunset hour Came back responsive to the mourner's prayer.

Gently they laid him underneath the sod And left him with his fame, his country and his G.o.d!"

"Yes," said Judith, sweetly and gravely. "How can we but like them? And I hope that you will find the tent-cloth, Mr. Was.h.i.+ngton."

Reentering, presently, the large room, they found a vague stir, people beginning to say good-night, and yet lingering. "It is growing late,"

said some one, "and yet I think that he will come." Her father came up to her and drew her hand through his arm. "Here is General Lee now. We will wait a moment longer, then go."

They stood in the shadow of the curtains watching the Commander-in-Chief just pausing to greet such and such an one in his progress toward the President. An aide or two came behind; the grand head and form moved on, simple and kingly. Judith drew quicker breath. "Oh, he looks so great a man!"

"He looks what he is," said Warwick Cary. "Now let us go, too, and say good-night."

CHAPTER x.x.xI

THE FIRST OF THE SEVEN DAYS

Miriam and Christianna sat at the window, watching. The day was parching, the sky hot blue steel, the wind that blew the dust through the streets like a breath from the sun himself. People went by, all kinds of people, lacking only soldiers. There seemed no soldiers in town. Miriam, alternately listless and feverishly animated, explained matters to the mountain girl. "When there's to be a battle, every one goes to the colours.--Look at that old, old, old man, hobbling on his stick. You'd think that death was right beside him, wouldn't you?--ready to tap him on the shoulder and say, 'Fall, fall, old leaf! But it isn't so; death is on the battlefield looking for young men. Listen to his stick--tap, tap, tap, tap, tap--"

Christianna rose, looked at the clock, which was about to strike noon, left the room and returned with a gla.s.s of milk. "Mrs. Cleave said you was to drink this--Yes, Miss Miriam, do!--There now! Don't you want to lie down?"

"No, no!" said Miriam. "I don't want to do anything but sit here and watch.--Look at that old, old woman with the basket on her arm! I know what is in it--Things for her son; bread and a little meat and s.h.i.+rts she has been making him--There's another helping her, as old as she is.

I mean to die young."

The people went by like figures on a frieze come to life. The room in which the two girls sat was on the ground floor of a small, old-fas.h.i.+oned house. Outside the window was a tiny balcony, with a graceful ironwork railing, and heavy ropes and twists of wistaria shaded this and the window. The old brick sidewalk was almost immediately below. For the most part the people who pa.s.sed went by silently, but when there was talking the two behind the wistaria could hear. A nurse girl with her charges came by. "What's a 'cisive battle, honey? Yo'd better ask yo' pa that. Reckon it's where won't neither side let go. Why won't they? Now you tell me an' then I'll tell you! All I knows is, they're gwine have a turrible rumpus presently, an' yo' ma said tek you to yo' gran'ma kaze she gwine out ter git jes' ez near the battle an'

yo' pa ez she kin git!" Nurse and children pa.s.sed, and there came by an elderly man, stout and amiable-looking. His face was pale, his eyes troubled; he took off his straw hat, and wiped his forehead with a large white handkerchief. Appearing from the opposite direction, a young man, a case of surgeon's instruments in his hand, met him, and in pa.s.sing said good-day. The elder stopped him a moment, on the hot brick pavement before the wistaria. "Well, doctor, they're all out Mechanicsville way!

I reckon we may expect to hear the cannon any moment now. I saw you at Gilland's, didn't I, yesterday?"

"Yes, I am there--"

"Well, if by ill luck my boy is wounded and brought there, you'll look out for him, eh? Youngest boy, you know--Blue eyes, brown hair. I'm on the Ambulance Committee. We've got a string of wagons ready on the Nine-Mile road. You look out for him if he's brought in--"

The surgeon promised and each went his way. Three women pa.s.sed the window. One was knitting as she walked, one was in deep black, and a third, a girl, carried a great silver pitcher filled with iced drink for some near-by convalescent. Two men came next. A negro followed, bearing a spade. One of the two was in broadcloth, with a high silk hat. "I told them," he was saying, "better bury her this morning, poor little thing, before the fighting begins. _She_ won't mind, and it will be hard to arrange it then--" "Yes, yes," said the second, "better so! Leave to-morrow for the Dead March from 'Saul.'"

They pa.s.sed. A church bell began to ring. Miriam moved restlessly. "Is not mother coming back? She ought to have let me go with her. I can't knit any more,--the needles are red hot when I touch them,--but I can sew. I could help her.--If I knew which sewing-room she went to--"

Christianna's hand timidly caressed her. "Better stay here, Miss Miriam.

I'm going to give you another gla.s.s of milk now, directly--There's a soldier pa.s.sing now."

It proved but a battered soldier--thin and hollow-eyed, arm in a sling, and a halt in his walk. He came on slowly, and he leaned for rest against a sycamore at the edge of the pavement. Miriam bent out from the frame of wistaria. "Oh, soldier! don't you want a gla.s.s of milk?"

"Oh, soldier" looked nothing loath. He came over to the little balcony, and Miriam took the gla.s.s from Christianna and, leaning over, gave it to him. "Oh, but that's nectar!" he said, and drank it. "Yes--just out of hospital. Said I might go and snuff the battle from afar. Needed my pallet for some other poor devil. Glad I'm through with it, and sorry he isn't!--Yes, I've got some friends down the street. Going there now and get out of this sun. Reckon the battle'll begin presently. Hope the Accomac Invincibles will give them h.e.l.l--begging your pardon, I'm sure.

That milk certainly was good. Thank you, and good-bye, Hebe--two Hebes."

He wavered on down the street. Christianna looked after him critically.

"They oughtn't to let that thar man out so soon! Clay white, an' thin as a bean pole, an' calling things an' people out of their names--"

Men and women continued to pa.s.s, the church bell to ring, the hot wind to blow the dust, the sun to blaze down, the sycamore leaves to rustle.

A negro boy brought a note. It was from Margaret Cleave. "_Dearest: There is so much to do. I will not come home to dinner nor will Cousin Harriet neither. She says tell Sarindy to give you two just what you like best. Christianna must look after you. I will come when I can._"

Sarindy gave them thin crisp toast, and a pitcher of cool milk, and a custard sweetened with brown sugar. Sarindy was excited. "Yaas, Lawd, dar's sho' gwine ter be doin's this day! What you reckon, Miss Miriam?

Dar's er lady from South Callina stayin' cross't de street, 'n' she's got er maid what's got de impidence ob sin! What you reckon dat yaller gal say ter me? She say dat South Callina does de most ob de fightin'

'n' de bes' ob it, too! She say Virginia pretty good, but dat South Callina tek de cake. She say South Callina mek 'em run ebery time!

Yaas'm! 'n' I gits up 'n' I meks her er curtsy, 'n' I say ter her, 'Dat's er pretty way ter talk when you're visitin' in Virginia, 'n' ef dat's South Callina manners I'se glad I wuz born in Virginia!' Yaas'm.

'N' I curtsy agin, 'n' I say, 'Ain' n.o.body or nothin' ever lay over Virginia fer fightin' 'n' never will! 'N' ef Virginia don' mek 'em run ebery time, South Callina needn't hope ter!' 'N' I asks her how come she never hear ob Gineral Stonewall Jackson? Yaas'm. 'N' I curtsy ter her ebery time--lak dis! 'N' ain' she never hear ob Gineral Lee? An' I ain'

er doubtin' dat Gineral Wade Hampton is a mighty fine man--'deed I knows he is--but ain' she never heard ob Gineral Johnston? 'N' how erbout Gineral Stuart--Yaas'm! 'n' the Black Troop, 'n' the Crenshaw Battery, 'n' the Purcell Battery. Yaas'm! 'n' the Howitzers, 'n' the Richmon'

Blues--Yaas'm! I sho' did mek her shet her mouf!--Braggin' ter er Virginia woman ob South Callina!"

The two went back to the large room. The air was scorching. Miriam undressed, slipped her thin, girlish arms into a muslin sacque, and lay down. Christianna drew the blinds together, took a palm-leaf fan and sat beside her. "I'll fan you, jest as easy," she said, in her sweet, drawling voice. "An' I can't truly sing, but I can croon. Don't you want me to croon you 's.h.i.+ning River'?"

Miriam lay with closed eyes. A fly buzzed in the darkened room. The fan went monotonously to and fro. Christianna crooned "s.h.i.+ning River" and then "Shady Grove." Outside, on the brick pavement, the sound of feet went by in a slender stream.

"Shady Grove! Shady Grove-- Going to Church in Shady Grove--"

The stream without grew wide and deep, then hurrying. Christianna looked over her shoulder, then at Miriam. The latter's long lashes lay on her cheek. Beneath them glistened a tear, but her slight, girlish bosom rose and fell regularly. Christianna crooned on,

"Shady Grove! Shady Grove-- Children love my Shady Grove--"

_Boom! Boom!--Boom, Boom! Boom, Boom, Boom, Boom!_