Miss Ravenel's conversion from secession to loyalty Part 13

In this new Capua, the only lap of luxury that our armies found during the war, Carter, a curious compound of hardihood and sybaritism, forgot that he wanted to be Hannibal, and that he had not yet fought his Cannae.

He gave himself up to lazy pleasures, and even allowed his officers to run to the same, in which they were not much discountenanced by the commanding general, whose grim, practical humor was perhaps gratified by the spectacle of freeborn mudsills dwelling in the palaces and emptying the wine-cellars of a rebellious aristocracy. If, indeed, an undesirable cub over-stepped some vague boundary, he found himself court-martialed and dismissed the service. But the ma.s.s of the regimental officers, being jealous in their light duties and not prominently obnoxious in character, were permitted to live in such circ.u.mstances of comfort as they chose to gather about them from the property of self-exiled secessionists. Thus the regiment went through the season: no battles, no marches, no privations, no exposures, no anxieties: not even any weakening loss from the perilous climate. That terrible guardian angel of the land, Yellow Jack, would not come to realize the fond predictions of the inhabitants and abolish the alien garrison as a similar seraph destroyed the host of Sennacherib.

"Don't you find it hot?" said a citizen to Captain Colburne. "You'll find it too much for you yet."

"Pshaw!" answered the defiant youth. "I've seen it hotter than this in Barataria with two feet of snow on the ground."

During the spring Colburne wrote several long letters to the Doctor, with his mind, you may believe, fixed more on Miss Ravenel than on his nominal correspondent. It was a case of moral strabismus, which like many a physical squint, was not without its beauty, and was even quite charming to the gaze of sentimental sympathy. It was a sly carom on the father, with the intention of pocketing the daughter, but done with a hand rendered so timorous by anxiety that the blows seemed to be struck at random. The Captain enjoyed this correspondence; at times he felt all by himself as if he were talking with the young lady; his hazel eyes sparkled and his clear cheeks flushed with the excitement of the imaginary interview; he dropped his pen and pushed up his wavy brown hair into careless tangles, as was his wont in gleesome conversation.

But this happiness was not without its counterweight of trouble, so that there might be no failure of equilibrium in the moral balance of the universe. After Colburne had received two responses to his epistles, there ensued a silence which caused him many lugubrious misgivings. Were the Ravenels sick or dead? Had they gone to Canada or Europe to escape the jealous and exacting loyalty of New England? Were they offended at something which he had written? Was Lillie to be married to young Whitewood, or some other conveniently propinquitous admirer?

The truth is that the Doctor had obtained a permit from the government to go to New Orleans, and that the letter in which he informed Colburne of his plan had miscarried, as frequently happened to letters in those days of wide-spread confusion. On a certain scorching day in June he knocked at the door of the neat little brick house which had been a.s.signed to the Captain as his quarters. It was opened by an officer in the uniform of a second-lieutenant, a man of remarkable presence, very dark and saturnine in visage, tall and broad-shouldered and huge chested, with the limbs of a Heenan and the ringing ba.s.s voice of a Susini. He informed the visitor that Captain Colburne was out, but insisted with an amicable boisterousness upon his entering. He had an elaborate and ostentatious courtesy of manner which puzzled the Doctor, who could not decide whether he was a born and bred gentleman or a professional gambler.

"Nearly dinner time, sir," he said in a rolling deep tone like mellow thunder. "The Captain will be in soon for that good and sufficient reason. You will dine with us, I hope. Give you some capital wine, sir, out of Monsieur Soule's own _cave_. Take this oaken arm-chair, sir, and allow me to relieve you of your chapeau. What name, may I ask?--Ah!

Doctor Ravenel.--My G.o.d, sir! the Captain has a letter for you. I saw it on his table a moment ago."

He commenced rummaging among papers and writing materials with an exhilaration of haste which caused Ravenel to suspect that he had taken a bottle or so of the Soule sherry.

"Here it is," he exclaimed with a smile of triumph and friendliness.

"You had better take it while you see it. If you are a lawyer, sir, you are aware that possession is nine tenths of a t.i.tle. I beg pardon; of course you are not a lawyer. Or have I the honor to address an L. L.

D.?"

"Merely an M. D.," observed Ravenel, and took his letter.

"A magnificent profession!" rejoined the sonorous lieutenant. "Most ancient and honorable profession. The profession of Esculapius and Hippocrates. The physician is older than the lawyer, and more useful to humanity."

Ravenel looked at his letter and observed that it was not post-marked nor sealed; he opened it, and found that it was from Colburne to himself--intended to go, no doubt, by the next steamer.

"I hope it gives you good news from home, sir," observed the lieutenant in the most amicable manner.

The Doctor bowed and smiled a.s.sent as he put the letter in his pocket, not thinking it worth while to explain matters to a gentleman who was so evidently muddled by the Soule vintages. As his interlocutor rattled on he looked about the room and admired the costly furniture and tasteful ornaments. There were two choice paintings on the paneled walls, and a dozen or so of choice engravings. The damask curtains edged with lace were superb, and so were the damask coverings of the elaborately carved oaken chairs and lounges. The marble mantels and table, and the extravagant tortoise-sh.e.l.l _tiroir_, were loaded with Italian cameos, Parisian bronzes, Bohemian gla.s.s-ware, Swiss wood-sculpture, and other varieties of European gimcracks. Against the wall in one corner leaned four huge alb.u.ms of photographs and engravings. The Doctor thought that he had never before seen a house in America decorated with such exquisite taste and lavish expenditure. He had not been in it before, and did not know who was its proprietor.

"Elegant little box, sir," observed the lieutenant. "It belongs to a gentleman who is now a captain in the rebel service. He built and furnished it for his affinity, an actress whom he brought over from Paris, which disgusted his wife, I understand. Some women are devilish exacting, sir."

Here the humor of a satyr gleamed in his black eyes and grinned under his black mustache.

"You will see her portrait (the affinity's--not the wife's) all over the house, as she appeared in her various characters. And here she is in her morning-gown, in her own natural part of a plain, straight-forward affinity."

He pointed with another satyr-like grin to a large photograph representing the bust and face of a woman apparently twenty-eight or thirty years of age, who could not have been handsome, but, judging by the air of life and cleverness, might have been quite charming.

"Intelligent old girl, I should say, sir," continued the cicerone, regardless of the Doctor's look of disgust; "but not precisely to my taste. I like them more youthful and innocent, with something of the down of girlhood's purity about them. What is your opinion, sir?"

Thus bullied, the Doctor admitted that he entertained much the same preferences, at the same time wis.h.i.+ng heartily in his soul that Colburne would arrive.

"We have devilish fine times here, sir," pursued the other in his remorseless garrulity. "We finished the rebel captain's wine-cellar long ago, and are now living on old Soule's. Emptied forty-six bottles of madeira and champagne yesterday. Select party of loyal friends, sir, from our own regiment, the bullissimo Tenth Barataria."

"Ah! you belong to the Tenth?" inquired the Doctor with interest.

"Yes, sir. Proud to own it, sir. The best regiment in either service.

Not that I enlisted in Barataria. I had the honor of being the first man to join it here. I was in the rebel service, sir, an unwilling victim, dragged as an innocent sheep to the slaughter, and took a part much against my inclinations in the defence of Fort Jackson. It seemed to me, sir, that the day of judgment had come, and the angel was blowing particular h.e.l.l out of his trumpet. Those sh.e.l.ls of Porter's killed men and buried them at one rap. My eyes stuck out so to watch for them that they havn't got back into their proper place yet. After the fleet forced the pa.s.sage I was the first man to raise the standard of revolt, and bid defiance to my officers. I then made the best time on record to New Orleans, and enlisted under the dear old flag of my country in Captain Colburne's company. I took a fancy to the captain at first sight. I saw that he was a born gentleman and a scholar, sir. I was first made sergeant for good conduct, obedience to orders, and knowledge of my business; and when the second-lieutenant of the company died of bilious fever I was promoted to the vacancy. Our colonel, sir, prefers gentlemen for officers. I am of an old Knickerbocker family, one of the aboriginal Peter Stuyvesant Knickerbockers, as you may infer from my name--Van Zandt, at your service, sir--Cornelius Van Zandt, second-lieutenant, Co.

I, Tenth Regiment Barataria Volunteers. I am delighted to make your acquaintance, and hope to see much of you."

I hope not, thought the Doctor with a shudder; but he bowed, smiled, and continued to wait for Colburne.

"Hope to have the pleasure of receiving you here often," Van Zandt went on. "Always give you a decent bottle of wine. When the Soule _cave_ gives out, there are others to be had for the asking. By the way--I beg a thousand pardons--allow me to offer you a b.u.mper of madeira. You refuse! Then, sir, permit me the pleasure of drinking your health."

He drank it in a silver goblet, holding as much as a tumbler, to the astonishment if not to the horror of the temperate Doctor.

"I was remarking, I believe, sir," he resumed, "that I am a descendant of the venerable Knickerbockers. If you doubt it, I beg leave to refer you to Colonel Carter, who knew my family in New York. I am sensitive on the subject in all its bearings. I have a sort of feud, an ancestral vendetta, with Was.h.i.+ngton Irving on account of his Knickerbocker's History of New York. It casts an undeserved ridicule on the respectable race from which I am proud to trace my lineage. My old mother, sir--G.o.d bless her!--never could be induced to receive Was.h.i.+ngton Irving at her house. By the way, I was speaking of Colonel Carter, I think, sir. He's a judge of old blue blood, sir; comes of an ancient, true-blue cavalier strain himself; what you might call old Virginia particular. A splendid man, sir, a born gentleman, an officer to the back-bone, the best colonel in the service, and soon will be the best general. When he comes to show himself in field service, these militia-generals will have to take the back seats. I a.s.sume whatever responsibility there may be in predicting it, and I request you to mark my words. I am willing to back them with a fifty or so; though don't understand me as being so impertinent as to offer you a bet--I am perfectly well aware of the respect due to your clerical profession, sir--I was only supposing that I might fall into conversation on the subject with a betting character.

I feel bound to tell you how much I admire Captain Colburne, of whom I think I was speaking. He saw that I was a gentleman and a man of education. (By the way, did I tell you that I am a graduate of Columbia College?) He saw that I was above my place in the ranks, and he started me on my career of promotion. I would go to the death for him, sir. He is a man, sir, that you can depend on. You know just where to find him.

He is a man that you can tie to."

The Doctor looked gratified at this statement, and listened with visible interest.

"He would have died in the cause of total abstinence, but for Colonel Carter," continued Van Zandt. "The Colonel came in when he was at his lowest."

"Sick!" exclaimed the Doctor. "Has he been sick?"

"Sick, sir? Yes, sir! Wofully broken up--slow bilious typhoid fever--and wouldn't drink, sir--conscientious against it. 'You _must_ drink, by ----! sir,' says the Colonel; 'you must drink and wear woollen s.h.i.+rts.'

'But,' says the Captain, 'if I drink and get well, my men will drink and go to h.e.l.l.' By the way, those were not his exact words, sir. I am apt to put a little swearing into a story. It's like lemon in a punch. Don't you think so, sir?--Where was I? Oh, I remember. 'How can I punish my men,' says the Captain, 'for doing what I do myself?' 'It's none of their dam business what you do,' says the Colonel. 'If they get drunk and neglect duty thereby, it's your business to punish them. And if you neglect duty, it's my business to punish you. But don't suppose it is any affair of your men. The idea is contrary to the Regulations, sir.'

Those are the opinions of Colonel Carter, sir, an officer, a gentleman and a philosopher. Nothing but good old Otard brandy and woollen s.h.i.+rts brought the Captain around--woollen s.h.i.+rts and good old Otard brandy with the Soule seal on it. He was dying of bilious night-sweats, sir.

Horrible climate, this Louisiana. But perhaps you are acquainted with it. By the way, I was speaking of Colonel Carter, I believe. _He_ knows how to enjoy himself. He keeps the finest house and most hospitable board in this city. He has the prettiest little French--_boudoir_--"

He was about to utter quite another word, but recollected himself in time to subst.i.tute the word _boudoir_, while a saturnine twinkle in his eye showed that he felt the humor of the misapplication. Then, tickled with his own wit, he followed up the idea on a broad grin.

"I am more envious of the Colonel's _boudoir_, sir, than of his commission. Nothing like a trim little French _boudoir_ for a bachelor.

You are a man of the world, sir, and understand me."

And so on, prattling _ad nauseam_, meanwhile pouring down the madeira.

The Doctor, who wanted to say, "Sir, your goose has come for you," had never before listened to such garrulity nor witnessed such thirst. When Colburne entered, Van Zandt undertook to introduce the two, although they met each other with extended hands and friendly inquiries. The Captain was somewhat embarra.s.sed, knowing that his surroundings were of a nature to rouse suspicion as to the perfect virtuousness of his life, and thinking, perhaps in consequence of this knowledge, that the Doctor surveyed him with an investigating expression. Presently he turned his eyes on Van Zandt; and, gently as they had been toned by nature, there was now a something in them which visibly sobered the baccha.n.a.lian; he rose to his feet, saluted as if he were still a private soldier, and left the room murmuring something about hurrying up dinner. The Doctor noticed with interest the authoritative demeanor which had usurped the place of the old New Boston innocence.

"And where is Miss Ravenel?" was of course one of the first questions.

"She is in the city," was the answer.

"Is it possible?" (With a tremendous beating of the heart.)

"Yes. You may suppose that I could not get her to stay behind when it was a question of re-visiting New Orleans. She is as fierce a rebel as ever."

Colburne laughed, with the merest shadow of hysteria in his amus.e.m.e.nt, and, patriot as he was, felt that he hated Miss Ravenel none the worse for the announcement. There is a state of the affections in which every peculiarity of the loved object, no matter how offensive primarily or in itself, becomes an additional charm. People who really like cats like them all the better for their cattishness. A mother who dotes on a deformed child takes an interest in all lame children because they remind her of her own unfortunate.

"Besides, there was no one to leave her with in New Boston," continued the Doctor.

"Certainly," a.s.sented Colburne in a manifestly cheerful humor.

"But I am truly sorry to see you so thin and pale," the Doctor went on.

"You are suffering from our horrible climate. You positively must be careful. Let me beg of you to avoid as much as possible going out in the night air."

Colburne could not help laughing outright at the recommendation.

"I dare say it's good advice," said he. "But when I am officer of the day I must make my rounds after midnight. It puts me in mind of the counsel which one of our Union officers who was in the siege of Vicksburg received from his mother. She told him that the air near the ground is always unhealthy, and urged him never to sleep lower than the third story. This to a man who lay on the ground without even a tent to cover him."