Clarence

Meantime, he had reported himself for duty at the War Department—with little hope, however, in that formality. But he was surprised the next day when the chief of the bureau informed him that his claim was before the President.

“I was not aware that I had presented any claim,” he said, a little haughtily.

The bureau chief looked up with some surprise. This quiet, patient, reserved man had puzzled him once or twice before.

“Perhaps I should say ‘case,’ General,” he said, drily. “But the personal interest of the highest executive in the land strikes me as being desirable in anything.”

“I only mean that I have obeyed the orders of the department in reporting myself here, as I have done,” said Brant, with less feeling, but none the less firmness; “and I should imagine it was not the duty of a soldier to question them. Which I fancy a ‘claim’ or a ‘case’ would imply.”

He had no idea of taking this attitude before, but the disappointments of the past month, added to this first official notice of his disgrace, had brought forward that dogged, reckless, yet half-scornful obstinacy that was part of his nature.

The official smiled.

“I suppose, then, you are waiting to hear from the President,” he said drily.

“I am awaiting orders from the department,” returned Brant quietly, “but whether they originate in the President as commander-in-chief, or not—it is not for me to inquire.”

Even when he reached his hotel this half-savage indifference which had taken the place of his former incertitude had not changed. It seemed to him that he had reached the crisis of his life where he was no longer a free agent, and could wait, superior alike to effort or expectation. And it was with a merely dispassionate curiosity that he found a note the next morning from the President’s private secretary, informing him that the President would see him early that day.

A few hours later he was ushered through the public rooms of the White House to a more secluded part of the household. The messenger stopped before a modest door and knocked. It was opened by a tall figure—the President himself. He reached out a long arm to Brant, who stood hesitatingly on the threshold, grasped his hand, and led him into the room. It had a single, large, elaborately draped window and a handsome medallioned carpet, which contrasted with the otherwise almost appalling simplicity of the furniture. A single plain angular desk, with a blotting pad and a few sheets of large foolscap upon it, a waste-paper basket and four plain armchairs, completed the interior with a contrast as simple and homely as its long-limbed, black-coated occupant. Releasing the hand of the general to shut a door which opened into another apartment, the President shoved an armchair towards him and sank somewhat wearily into another before the desk. But only for a moment; the long shambling limbs did not seem to adjust themselves easily to the chair; the high narrow shoulders drooped to find a more comfortable lounging attitude, shifted from side to side, and the long legs moved dispersedly. Yet the face that was turned towards Brant was humorous and tranquil.

“I was told I should have to send for you if I wished to see you,” he said smilingly.

Already mollified, and perhaps again falling under the previous influence of this singular man, Brant began somewhat hesitatingly to explain.

But the President checked him gently,—

“You don’t understand. It was something new to my experience here to find an able-bodied American citizen with an honest genuine grievance who had to have it drawn from him like a decayed tooth. But you have been here before. I seem to remember your face.”

Brant’s reserve had gone. He admitted that he had twice sought an audience—but—

“You dodged the dentist! That was wrong.” As Brant made a slight movement of deprecation the President continued: “I understand! Not from fear of giving pain to yourself but to others. I don’t know that THAT is right, either. A certain amount of pain must be suffered in this world—even by one’s enemies. Well, I have looked into your case, General Brant.” He took up a piece of paper from his desk, scrawled with two or three notes in pencil. “I think this is the way it stands. You were commanding a position at Gray Oaks when information was received by the department that, either through neglect or complicity, spies were passing through your lines. There was no attempt to prove your neglect; your orders, the facts of your personal care and precaution, were all before the department. But it was also shown that your wife, from whom you were only temporarily separated, was a notorious secessionist; that, before the war, you yourself were suspected, and that, therefore, you were quite capable of evading your own orders, which you may have only given as a blind. On this information you were relieved by the department of your command. Later on it was discovered that the spy was none other than your own wife, disguised as a mulatto; that, after her arrest by your own soldiers, you connived at her escape—and this was considered conclusive proof of—well, let us say—your treachery.”

“But I did not know it was my wife until she was arrested,” said Brant impulsively.

The President knitted his eyebrows humorously.

“Don’t let us travel out of the record, General. You’re as bad as the department. The question was one of your personal treachery, but you need not accept the fact that you were justly removed because your wife was a spy. Now, General, I am an old lawyer, and I don’t mind telling you that in Illinois we wouldn’t hang a yellow dog on that evidence before the department. But when I was asked to look into the matter by your friends, I discovered something of more importance to you. I had been trying to find a scrap of evidence that would justify the presumption that you had sent information to the enemy. I found that it was based upon the fact of the enemy being in possession of knowledge at the first battle at Gray Oaks, which could only have been obtained from our side, and which led to a Federal disaster; that you, however, retrieved by your gallantry. I then asked the secretary if he was prepared to show that you had sent the information with that view, or that you had been overtaken by a tardy sense of repentance. He preferred to consider my suggestion as humorous. But the inquiry led to my further discovery that the only treasonable correspondence actually in evidence was found upon the body of a trusted Federal officer, and had been forwarded to the division commander. But there was no record of it in the case.”

“Why, I forwarded it myself,” said Brant eagerly.

“So the division commander writes,” said the President, smiling, “and he forwarded it to the department. But it was suppressed in some way. Have you any enemies, General Brant?”

“Not that I know of.”

“Then you probably have. You are young and successful. Think of the hundred other officers who naturally believe themselves better than you are, and haven’t a traitorous wife. Still, the department may have made an example of you for the benefit of the only man who couldn’t profit by it.”

“Might it not have been, sir, that this suppression was for the good report of the service—as the chief offender was dead?”

“I am glad to hear you say so, General, for it is the argument I have used successfully in behalf of your wife.”

“Then you know it all, sir?” said Brant after a gloomy pause.

“All, I think. Come, General, you seemed just now to be uncertain about your enemies. Let me assure you, you need not be so in regard to your friends.”

“I dare to hope I have found one, sir,” said Brant with almost boyish timidity.

“Oh, not me!” said the President, with a laugh of deprecation. “Some one much more potent.”

“May I know his name, Mr. President?”

“No, for it is a woman. You were nearly ruined by one, General. I suppose it’s quite right that you should be saved by one. And, of course, irregularly.”

“A woman!” echoed Brant.

“Yes; one who was willing to confess herself a worse spy than your wife—a double traitor—to save you! Upon my word, General, I don’t know if the department was far wrong; a man with such an alternately unsettling and convincing effect upon a woman’s highest political convictions should be under some restraint. Luckily the department knows nothing of it.”

“Nor would any one else have known from me,” said Brant eagerly. “I trust that she did not think—that you, sir, did not for an instant believe that I”—

“Oh dear, no! Nobody would have believed you! It was her free confidence to me. That was what made the affair so difficult to handle. For even her bringing your dispatch to the division commander looked bad for you; and you know he even doubted its authenticity.”

“Does she—does Miss Faulkner know the spy was my wife?” hesitated Brant.

The President twisted himself in his chair, so as to regard Brant more gravely with his deep-set eyes, and then thoughtfully rubbed his leg.

“Don’t let us travel out of the record, General,” he said after a pause. But as the color surged into Brant’s cheek he raised his eyes to the ceiling, and said, in half-humorous recollection,—

“No, I think THAT fact was first gathered from your other friend—Mr. Hooker.”

“Hooker!” said Brant, indignantly; “did he come here?”

“Pray don’t destroy my faith in Mr. Hooker, General,” said the President, in half-weary, half-humorous deprecation. “Don’t tell me that any of his inventions are TRUE! Leave me at least that magnificent liar—the one perfectly intelligible witness you have. For from the time that he first appeared here with a grievance and a claim for a commission, he has been an unspeakable joy to me and a convincing testimony to you. Other witnesses have been partisans and prejudiced; Mr. Hooker was frankly true to himself. How else should I have known of the care you took to disguise yourself, save the honor of your uniform, and run the risk of being shot as an unknown spy at your wife’s side, except from his magnificent version of HIS part in it? How else should I have known the story of your discovery of the Californian conspiracy, except from his supreme portrayal of it, with himself as the hero? No, you must not forget to thank Mr. Hooker when you meet him. Miss Faulkner is at present more accessible; she is calling on some members of my family in the next room. Shall I leave you with her?”

Brant rose with a pale face and a quickly throbbing heart as the President, glancing at the clock, untwisted himself from the chair, and shook himself out full length, and rose gradually to his feet.

“Your wish for active service is granted, General Brant,” he said slowly, “and you will at once rejoin your old division commander, who is now at the head of the Tenth Army Corps. But,” he said, after a deliberate pause, “there are certain rules and regulations of your service that even I cannot, with decent respect to your department, override. You will, therefore, understand that you cannot rejoin the army in your former position.”

The slight flush that came to Brant’s cheek quickly passed. And there was only the unmistakable sparkle of renewed youth in his frank eyes as he said—

“Let me go to the front again, Mr. President, and I care not HOW.”

The President smiled, and, laying his heavy hand on Brant’s shoulder, pushed him gently towards the door of the inner room.

“I was only about to say,” he added, as he opened the door, “that it would be necessary for you to rejoin your promoted commander as a major-general. And,” he continued, lifting his voice, as he gently pushed his guest into the room, “he hasn’t even thanked me for it, Miss Faulkner!”

The door closed behind him, and he stood for a moment dazed, and still hearing the distant voice of the President, in the room he had just quitted, now welcoming a new visitor. But the room before him, opening into a conservatory, was empty, save for a single figure that turned, half timidly, half mischievously, towards him. The same quick, sympathetic glance was in both their faces; the same timid, happy look in both their eyes. He moved quickly to her side.

“Then you knew that—that—woman was my wife?” he said, hurriedly, as he grasped her hand.

She cast a half-appealing look at his face—a half-frightened one around the room and at the open door beyond.

“Let us,” she said faintly, “go into the conservatory.”

It is but a few years ago that the veracious chronicler of these pages moved with a wondering crowd of sightseers in the gardens of the White House. The war cloud had long since lifted and vanished; the Potomac flowed peacefully by and on to where once lay the broad plantation of a great Confederate leader—now a national cemetery that had gathered the soldier dead of both sections side by side in equal rest and honor—and the great goddess once more looked down serenely from the dome of the white Capitol. The chronicler’s attention was attracted by an erect, handsome soldierly-looking man, with a beard and moustache slightly streaked with gray, pointing out the various objects of interest to a boy of twelve or fourteen at his side.

“Yes; although, as I told you, this house belongs only to the President of the United States and his family,” said the gentleman, smilingly, “in that little conservatory I proposed to your mother.”

“Oh! Clarence, how can you!” said the lady, reprovingly, “you know it was LONG after that!”

1

i. e., patrols,—a civic home-guard in the South that kept surveillance of slaves.