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CHAPTER XIX
Later that lovely afternoon an open carriage whirled up St. Charles Street towards old Tivoli Circle. Its occupants were Miss Summers and Kitty Carrington, Colonel Summers and myself. At the Circle we were joined by another, in which were seated Mrs. Amory, Madame R – , and Major Vinton. We were late, it seems, and the review had already begun, so there was no time for conversation between the carriage-loads; but smiles and nods and waving hands conveyed cheery greeting, and Kitty's cheeks flamed; her eyes, half veiled as though in shy emotion, followed Mrs. Amory's kindly face until their carriage fell behind; then, detecting me as usual in my occupation of watching her, she colored still more vividly, and looking bravely, saucily up into my face, remarked, —
"Well, Mr. Brandon, have you nothing to say to me? Are you aware that you have not even remarked upon the beauty of the weather this afternoon?"
And this was from the girl whom, hardly two hours before, I had seen plunged in the depths of woe and dejection. Verily, there was nothing I could say. Such alternations of smiles and tears, storm and sunshine, exceeded my comprehension; but it was not a tax upon even my poor powers of discernment to see that my little heroine was now blissfully, radiantly, joyously happy.
Suddenly our carriage slackened speed. Crowds began to appear on the sidewalks of the broad, dusty thoroughfare. We were off the pavement now, and driving along the "dirtroad" of upper St. Charles Street. I could hear a burst of martial music somewhere ahead, and presently Pauline exclaimed, "Here are the cavalry!"
Kitty, sitting on the indicated side, had said never a word. The next moment we rode past the line of troopers sitting stolidly on their horses and looking blankly into space ahead of them. Then, riding backwards as I was, I saw Kitty's soft cheek flushing redder, and happening to extend my left arm outwards at that instant, my hand almost came in contact with the nose of a tall chestnut sorrel, much to that sorrel's disgust, for he set back his ears and glanced savagely at me; but by that time, I had lost all interest in him and was gazing in amaze at his rider. For something absolutely incomprehensible, commend me to military love-making! Less than two hours ago I had bolted out of a room down-town leaving that deliciously pretty young girl opposite me sobbing in the arms of Frank Amory, who, with all a devoted lover's tenderness, was striving to comfort her. Yet here she sat, apparently indifferent; yet there he sat on that very horse whose feelings I had outraged, and though we – no, she – was right under his eyes, – so close that she could stroke his charger's mane with her little hand, – he never so much as glanced at her. Mr. Frank Amory, as commanding officer of his troop on review, actually disdained to look at his lady-love.
"Now if at any time," thought I, "this little imp of coquetry will flash into flame and wither him when they meet, – perhaps flirt with me, faute de mieux, meantime," but to my utter amaze Miss Kitty took it as admirably as did Pauline. Each gave him one quick, demure, satisfied little look, as much as to say, "All right, Frank, I understand." They had learned their tactics already, I suppose, and I – was an inferior being, unable to appreciate the situation in the least.
The review went off all right, I also suppose. It was all a blank to me. The general and his aides rode down the line and our carriages had to get out of the way in a hurry. Then the troops marched over to Camp Street and down that thoroughfare, giving a marching salute as they passed headquarters. We sat in our vehicles on the opposite side of the street, and I simply stared when Amory lowered his sabre in sweeping, graceful salute and positively looked away from us, and at his chief. Why! up to this time I had been ready to take his part, and upbraid Kitty whenever there had been the faintest difference between them. Now, now, I actually wanted her to resent his conduct; and, with the unerring inconsistency of feminine nature, she did nothing of the kind. The instant the march was over, Frank Amory came trotting up beside us, – a glad, glorious light in his brave young eyes, – sprang from his saddle and to her side. The others he did not appear to see at all. His eyes were for her alone, for her in all their boyish adoration, in all their glowing pride and tenderness. Tearing off his gauntlet, he clasped her hand before a word was said, and she looked shyly, yet steadfastly, down into his transfigured face.
"I shall be down right after stables; mother will come sooner," was all he said. Then he condescended to notice the rest of us.
Right after stables indeed! Could you not even resent that, Kitty Carrington? Were you already so abject that a newly-won lover dare tell you that after his horses were seen to he would look after you? Are you already falling into the cavalry groove? learning that unwritten creed that puts the care of his mount as the corner-stone of a trooper's temple?
In a state of daze I drove homeward with the ladies. Nobody talked much. Everybody was happy except my perturbed self. Pauline and Kitty sat hand in hand. We reached the lodgings, and were but a few moments in the parlor when Vinton appeared at the door ushering Mrs. Amory. Kitty was at the window arranging some flowers, but turned instantly, and, blushing like one of her own rosebuds, walked rapidly across the room, looking shyly up into the elder lady's face. How could I help seeing the moistened eye, the slightly quivering lip, when Mrs. Amory bent and, with one softly-spoken word, "dear," kissed the bonny face.
We masculines took ourselves off for a while. It was plain the women had much to talk about, and when they have, the sooner husbands, brothers, and lovers leave, the better for all concerned.
"Mr. Brandon," said the major, as we settled ourselves on the back veranda, "it looks as though your prognostication had come true. Our Sandbrook Ku-Klux affair has brought its romance with it."
"Two of them, major! Two of them! We might call them, in view of your modest estimate of army attractions, 'Miss Summers' Sacrifice' and, and – "
"Kitty's Conquest," said Harrod.
Swiftly through a tawny waste of whirling waters a great steamer ploughs its way. From towering smoke-stacks volumes of smoke stream back along the tumbling wake and settle on the low-lying shores. Breasting the torrent, we have rushed past crowded levee, past sloop, and ship, and shallop, past steamers of every class and build, ocean cruisers, river monarchs, bayou traders, swamp prowlers. Lordly up-stream packets lead or follow; churches, domes, chimneys, cotton-presses, elevators, warehouses, give way to low, one-storied, whitewashed cottages, or deep-veranda'd frame homesteads on the one side, to flat and open plantations on the other. Eastward there is naught to span the horizon but one far-reaching level of swamp or trembling prairie. Westward, two miles back from the river-bank, bold barriers of forest, dense, dark, and impenetrable, shut off the view. In front lies the eddying, swirling, boiling bosom of the Mississippi, – the winding highway to the North, – sweeping in majestic curve through shores of shining green. Behind us, nestling along the grand arcs of its doubling bend, New Orleans and Algiers, close clinging to the mighty stream that at once threatens and cajoles. The river is master here, yet dreams not of his power.
Precious freight our steamer bears this bright and balmy eve. Proud of its strength and grace, it surges ahead, rumbling in the vast caverns of its seething furnaces, panting in the depths of its powerful lungs, straining with muscles that glory in their task, hurling aside from iron-shod beak the burdened billows of the opposing river. Black as Erebus the clouds of smoke from towering chimneys, white as snow the screaming steam-jets, deep and mellow the note of signal-bell, clear, ringing, rollicking the farewell chorus of our swarthy crew. Boom! goes the roar of saucy little field-piece in parting salutation to the sun, redly sinking through the forest to our left, and then, from the lower deck, what unaccustomed sound is that? A trumpet, a cavalry trumpet sounds the final tribute to departing day, and a moment later a young officer comes springing from below and joins our group upon the hurricane-deck.
Here enjoying the scene, the gliding rush of our gallant craft, the balmy softness of the Southern air, we are seated, an almost silent party of seven. We are Mrs. Amory, Miss Summers, and Kitty; Major Vinton, Mr. Amory, Harrod, and myself. We are fellow-passengers for the evening only. The troop, men and horses both, is billeted below, and under command of its young lieutenant goes through to St. Louis, thence up the Missouri to its new sphere of duties in the far Northwest. Vinton is a passenger as far as Memphis, where escorting Mrs. Amory, he takes the train to Washington. The rest of us, Pauline, Kitty, Harrod, and I, go only up to Donaldsonville, where we arrive late at night, and take the local packet back to the city. In all the excitement and perturbation consequent upon the sudden departure of the troop; in all the hurry of preparation, requiring as it did the attention of both officers, there was no time for the interviews, the fond partings, the "sweet sorrows" incident to such occasions. An unusual thing occurred, – a bright idea struck Mr. Brandon. He proposed that the quartette should accompany the troop a short way up the river and there drink with them the stirrup-cup; and at last a proposition of Mr. Brandon's was regarded worthy of acceptance. So it happens that we are here together.
Evening comes on apace, and while Harrod is smoking somewhere forward, and our cavalrymen are paired off and slowly promenading the deck with the ladies of their love, Mrs. Amory and I are chatting quietly in the brilliant saloon, and we are talking of Mars. Her voice is soft and tremulous; her face is full of trust and peace; her eyes fondly follow him and the sweet, girlish form that hangs upon his arm as they stroll forward again after a few loving words with her.
"You have been a good friend to my boy, Mr. Brandon, and you will not forget him now on the distant frontier. It will be late in the fall before he can come East."
"So long as that! I had cherished some wild notion that we might have a double ceremony, when the major and Miss Summers are married."
"No. That would be too precipitate. She is very young yet; so is Frank for that matter, but he is thoroughly in earnest. It is not that I anticipate any change of feeling, but it is best for her sake there should be no undue haste. She will spend the time with Miss Summers until that wedding comes off, then visit relations in the North during the summer. Then 'Aunt Mary' will doubtless claim her. You know that as yet 'Aunt Mary' has had no intimation of what has been going on. Indeed, but for their sudden orders for the field, I doubt very much if the young people would have settled their outstanding differences. She is a lovely child at heart, and Frank has been a truthful and a devoted son," – the dimmed eyes are filling now, and a tear starts slowly down the warm cheek, – "but he is impulsive impetuous, quick, and sensitive, and, sweet as Kitty is, she has no little coquetry. It will not all be smiles and sunshine, 'bread and butter and kisses,' Mr. Brandon."
"Perhaps not, dear lady, perhaps not, yet I have no fear. He is true and brave and stanch as steel, and she is loving. God bless them!"
"Amen."
Late at night. The lights of Donaldsonville lie over our larboard bow. The broad river glistens in the glorious sheen of silvery light from the moon aloft. We are gathered in the captain's cabin on the texas and our glasses are filled. Moët and Chandon sparkles over the brim.
"My charger is jangling his bridle and chain,
The moment is nearing, dear love, we must sever,
But pour out the wine, that thy lover may drain
A last stirrup-cup to his true maiden ever."
Mr. Brandon has the floor, and eloquence, forensic, judicial, social, is fled. His idea is to say something stirring and appropriate, but his heart fails him. He can only stammer, "Bon voyage, boys, and safe and speedy return!" Then he slinks out into the shadow of the huge paddle-box, a vanquished man.
What a thundering uproar is made by the signal-whistle of these Mississippi steamers! The boat fairly quivers from stem to stern in response to the atmospheric disturbance created by the long-drawn blasts. For two minutes at least, in protracted, resounding, deep bellowing roar, that immense clarion heralds our approach to drowsy Donaldsonville. Three long-drawn blasts of equal length, and while they din upon the drum of the sensitive ear, not another sound can be heard. I clasp my hands to my head and shudderingly cling to the guards. All other sensations are deadened. Quick light footsteps approach, but I hear them not. Two young hearts are painfully beating close behind me, but I know it not. Clasping arms and quivering lips are bidding fond farewell so near that, could I but put one hand around the corner of the narrow passage-way, it would light on a cavalry shoulder-strap (the right shoulder, for the other is pre-empted), but I see it not. Not until the deafening uproar ceases with sudden jerk, am I aware of what is going on almost at my invisible elbow. I hear a long-drawn sibilant something that is not a whistle, is not a hiss, yet something like; I hear a plaintive sob; I hear a deep, manly voice, tremulous in its tenderness. And again the miserable conviction flashes over me that I'm just where I ought not to be, – am not supposed to be, – and yet cannot get out without ruining the impressive climax. Forgive me, Kitty! Forgive me, Frank! For years I've kept your secret. For years you never suspected that you were overheard. Nearly all your story was jotted down that very spring, but not this part, not this; and now that the brief chronicle is wellnigh closed, – now that "this part" is as old a story as the rest, and as the rest would be utterly incomplete without just such a finale, can you not find it in your hearts to forgive me for hearing your sweet and sad and sacred farewell? It was hard, it was bitter trial; it was so sudden, so brief. Yet my heart went out to you, gallant and faithful young soldier, when I heard these words, "Five long months at least, my darling. You will be true to me, as, God knows, I will be to you?"
And you, Kitty, rampant little rebel Kit, you whom I had seen all coquetry, all mischief, all tormenting, was it your voice, low, tremulous, fond as his own, that I heard murmur, "Yes, even if it were years."
A few moments more and four of us are standing on the wharf-boat, while the steamer, a brilliant illumination, ploughs and churns her way out into the broad moonlit stream. Pauline is waving her handkerchief to the group of three standing by the flag-staff over the stern. Kitty, leaning on my arm, trembles, but says no word. Tears still cling to the long, fringing lashes. Lovely are the humid eyes, the soft rounded cheek, the parted lips. She throws one kiss with her little white hand, and, as the gallant steamer fades away in the distance, her myriad lights blending into one meteoric blaze upon the bosom of the waters, the cousins seek each other's eyes. Pauline bends and kisses the smooth white brow and bravely drives back her own tears. Kitty leans her bonny head one moment upon the sheltering arm that is then so lovingly thrown around her, relieving mine, and lays her little hand upon her shoulder. A new ring glistens in the moonlight. Tiny crossed sabres stand boldly in relief upon the gold; beneath them a bursting shell, above them gleams the polished stone with its sculptured motto. I know it well. 'Tis Amory's class ring, and his is the proud device, "Loyauté m'oblige."
