The Victim: A romance of the Real Jefferson Davis Part 68

With sudden emotion she leaped to her feet her little fists clinched.

She stood trembling in silence for a moment and her face paled.

"No, Signor," she went on in cold tones. "There can be no readjustment of this war. It's to the death now. I confess myself a rebel body and soul--_Confess_? I glory in it! I'm proud of being one. I thought my father extravagant at first. Ben Butler has changed my views. The South can't look back now. It's forward--forward--always forward to death--or independence!"

She paused overcome with emotion.

"Yes," she went on in quick tones, "I thank G.o.d we're two different tribes! I'm proud of the South and her old-fas.h.i.+oned, out-of-date chivalry. The South respects and honors women. G.o.d never made the Southern white man who could issue Butler's orders in New Orleans or insult the heart-broken women who are forced to enter his office with the vile motto he has placed over his desk--"

Socola lifted his hand in gentle smiling protest.

"But you must remember, Miss Jennie, that General Butler is a peculiar individual. He probably does not represent the best that's in New England--"

"G.o.d knows I hope not for their sakes," was the answer. "I only wish I could fight in the ranks with our boys. If I can't fight at least I'm going to help our men in other ways. I'll work with my hands as a slave.

I'll sew and knit and nurse. I'll breathe my soul into the souls of our men. I sing Dixie when I rise in the morning. I hum it all day. I sing it with my last thoughts as I go to sleep."

Socola moved uneasily.

She looked at him a moment with an expression of sudden tenderness.

"I can't tell you how proud and happy I am in the thought that I may have helped you to give your brilliant mind to the service of the South.

It's my offering to my country and her cause!"

It was impossible to resist the glow of love in her s.h.i.+ning face. Socola felt his soul dissolve.

With a little gesture of resignation she dropped to a seat on the lounge beside the window, her young face outlined against a ma.s.s of early roses in full bloom. Their perfume poured through the window and filled the room.

Socola seated himself deliberately by her side and held her gaze with direct purpose. She saw and understood and her heart beat in quick response.

"You realize that you _are_ the incarnate Cause of the South for me?"

She smiled triumphantly.

"I have always known it."

There was no silly boasting in her tones, no trace of the Southern girl's light mood with one of her numerous beaux. Her words were spoken with deliberate tenderness.

"And yet how deeply and wonderfully you could not know--"

"I have guessed perhaps--"

He took her hand in his.

"I love you, Jennie--"

Her voice was the tenderest whisper.

"And I love you, my sweetheart--"

He clasped her in his arms and held her in silence.

She pushed him at arm's length and looked wistfully into his face.

"For the past month my heart has been singing. Through all the shame and misery of the sacking of our home, I could laugh and be happy--foolishly happy, because I knew that you loved me--"

"How did you know?"

"You told me--"

"When?"

"With the last little touch of your hand when I went South."

He pressed it with desperate tenderness.

"It shall be forever?"

"Forever!"

"Neither life nor death, nor height nor depth can separate us?"

"What could separate us, my lover? You are mine. I am yours. You have given your life to our cause--"

"I am but a soldier of fortune--"

"You are my soldier--you have given your life because I asked it. I give you mine in return--"

"Swear to me that you'll love me always!"

She answered with a kiss.

"I swear it."

Again he clasped her in his arms and hurried from the house. The twilight was falling. Artillery wagons were rumbling through the streets. A troop train had arrived from the South. Its regiments were rus.h.i.+ng across the city to reenforce McGruder's thin lines on the Peninsula. McClellan's guns were already thundering on the sh.o.r.es.

He hurried to the house on Church Hill, his dark face flushed with happiness, his heart beating a reveille of fear and joy.

CHAPTER XXIX

THE PANIC IN RICHMOND

Richmond now entered the shadows of her darkest hour. Three armies were threatening from the west commanded by Fremont, Milroy, and Banks, whose forces were ordered to unite. McDowell with forty thousand men lay at Fredericksburg and threatened a junction with McClellan, who was moving up the Peninsula with an effective army of 105,000.

Joseph E. Johnston had under his command more than fifty thousand with which to oppose McClellan's advance. It was the opinion of Davis and Lee that the stand for battle should be made on the narrow neck of the Peninsula which lent itself naturally to defense.