Clarence

But as to the real intruder, spy or thief,—that was another affair, and quickly settled. He gave an order to the officer of the day peremptorily forbidding the entrance of alien servants or slaves within the precincts of the headquarters. Any one thus trespassing was to be brought before him. The officer looked surprised, he even fancied disappointed. The graces of the mulatto woman’s figure had evidently not been thrown away upon his subalterns.

An hour or two later, when he was mounting his horse for a round of inspection, he was surprised to see Miss Faulkner, accompanied by the mulatto woman, running hurriedly to the house. He had forgotten his late order until he saw the latter halted by the sentries, but the young girl came flying on, regardless of her companion. Her skirt was held in one hand, her straw hat had fallen back in her flight, and was caught only by a ribbon around her swelling throat, and her loosened hair lay in a black rippled loop on one shoulder. For an instant Brant thought that she was seeking him in indignation at his order, but a second look at her set face, eager eyes, and parted scarlet lips, showed him that she had not even noticed him in the concentration of her purpose. She swept by him into the hall, he heard the swish of her skirt and rapid feet on the stairs,—she was gone. What had happened, or was this another of her moods?

But he was called to himself by the apparition of a corporal standing before him, with the mulatto woman,—the first capture under his order. She was tall, well-formed, but unmistakably showing the negro type, even in her small features. Her black eyes were excited, but unintelligent; her manner dogged, but with the obstinacy of half-conscious stupidity. Brant felt not only disappointed, but had a singular impression that she was not the same woman that he had first seen. Yet there was the tall, graceful figure, the dark profile, and the turbaned head that he had once followed down the passage by his room.

Her story was as stupidly simple. She had known “Missy” from a chile! She had just traipsed over to see her that afternoon; they were walking together when the sojers stopped her. She had never been stopped before, even by “the patter rollers.1” Her old massa (Manly) had gib leaf to go see Miss Tilly, and hadn’t said nuffin about no “orders.”

More annoyed than he cared to confess, Brant briefly dismissed her with a warning. As he cantered down the slope the view of the distant pickets recalled the window in the wing, and he turned in his saddle to look at it. There it was—the largest and most dominant window in that part of the building—and within it, a distinct and vivid object almost filling the opening, was the vase of flowers, which he had a few hours ago removed, RESTORED TO ITS ORIGINAL POSITION! He smiled. The hurried entrance and consternation of Miss Faulkner were now fully explained. He had interrupted some impassioned message, perhaps even countermanded some affectionate rendezvous beyond the lines. And it seemed to settle the fact that it was she who had done the signaling! But would not this also make her cognizant of the taking of the dispatch-box? He reflected, however, that the room was apparently occupied by the mulatto woman—he remembered the calico dresses and turban on the bed—and it was possible that Miss Faulkner had only visited it for the purpose of signaling to her lover. Although this circumstance did not tend to make his mind easier, it was, however, presently diverted by a new arrival and a strange recognition.

As he rode through the camp a group of officers congregated before a large mess tent appeared to be highly amused by the conversation—half monologue and half harangue of a singular-looking individual who stood in the centre. He wore a “slouch” hat, to the band of which he had imparted a military air by the addition of a gold cord, but the brim was caught up at the side in a peculiarly theatrical and highly artificial fashion. A heavy cavalry sabre depended from a broad-buckled belt under his black frock coat, with the addition of two revolvers—minus their holsters—stuck on either side of the buckle, after the style of a stage smuggler. A pair of long enameled leather riding boots, with the tops turned deeply over, as if they had once done duty for the representative of a cavalier, completed his extraordinary equipment. The group were so absorbed in him that they did not perceive the approach of their chief and his orderly; and Brant, with a sign to the latter, halted only a few paces from this central figure. His speech was a singular mingling of high-flown and exalted epithets, with inexact pronunciation and occasional lapses of Western slang.

“Well, I ain’t purtendin’ to any stratutegical smartness, and I didn’t gradooate at West Point as one of those Apocryphal Engineers; I don’t do much talking about ‘flank’ movements or ‘recognizances in force’ or ‘Ekellon skirmishing,’ but when it comes down to square Ingin fightin’, I reckon I kin have my say. There are men who don’t know the Army Contractor,” he added darkly, “who mebbe have heard of ‘Red Jim.’ I don’t mention names, gentlemen, but only the other day a man that you all know says to me, ‘If I only knew what you do about scoutin’ I wouldn’t be wanting for information as I do.’ I ain’t goin’ to say who it was, or break any confidences between gentlemen by saying how many stars he had on his shoulder strap; but he was a man who knew what he was saying. And I say agin, gentlemen, that the curse of the Northern Army is the want of proper scoutin’. What was it caused Bull’s Run?—Want o’ scoutin’. What was it rolled up Pope?—Want o’ scoutin’. What caused the slaughter at the Wilderness?—Want o’ scoutin’—Ingin scoutin’! Why, only the other day, gentlemen, I was approached to know what I’d take to organize a scoutin’ force. And what did I say?—‘No, General; it ain’t because I represent one of the largest Army Beef Contracts in this country,’ says I. ‘It ain’t because I belong, so to speak, to the “Sinews of War;” but because I’d want about ten thousand trained Ingins from the Reservations!’ And the regular West Point, high-toned, scientific inkybus that weighs so heavily on our army don’t see it—and won’t have it! Then Sherman, he sez to me”—

But here a roar of laughter interrupted him, and in the cross fire of sarcastic interrogations that began Brant saw, with relief, a chance of escape. For in the voice, manner, and, above all, the characteristic temperament of the stranger, he had recognized his old playmate and the husband of Susy,—the redoubtable Jim Hooker! There was no mistaking that gloomy audacity; that mysterious significance; that magnificent lying. But even at that moment Clarence Brant’s heart had gone out, with all his old loyalty of feeling, towards his old companion. He knew that a public recognition of him then and there would plunge Hooker into confusion; he felt keenly the ironical plaudits and laughter of his officers over the manifest weakness and vanity of the ex-teamster, ex-rancher, ex-actor, and husband of his old girl sweetheart, and would have spared him the knowledge that he had overheard it. Turning hastily to the orderly, he bade him bring the stranger to his headquarters, and rode away unperceived.

He had heard enough, however, to account for his presence there, and the singular chance that had brought them again together. He was evidently one of those large civil contractors of supplies whom the Government was obliged to employ, who visited the camp half officially, and whom the army alternately depended upon and abused. Brant had dealt with his underlings in the Commissariat, and even now remembered that he had heard he was coming, but had overlooked the significance of his name. But how he came to leave his theatrical profession, how he had attained a position which implied a command of considerable capital—for many of the contractors had already amassed large fortunes—and what had become of Susy and her ambitions in this radical change of circumstances, were things still to be learned. In his own changed conditions he had seldom thought of her; it was with a strange feeling of irritation and half responsibility that he now recalled their last interview and the emotion to which he had yielded.

He had not long to wait. He had scarcely regained the quarters at his own private office before he heard the step of the orderly upon the veranda and the trailing clank of Hooker’s sabre. He did not know, however, that Hooker, without recognizing his name, had received the message as a personal tribute, and had left his sarcastic companions triumphantly, with the air of going to a confidential interview, to which his well-known military criticism had entitled him. It was with a bearing of gloomy importance and his characteristic, sullen, sidelong glance that he entered the apartment and did not look up until Brant had signaled the orderly to withdraw, and closed the door behind him. And then he recognized his old boyish companion—the preferred favorite of fortune!

For a moment he gasped with astonishment. For a moment gloomy incredulity, suspicion, delight, pride, admiration, even affection, struggled for mastery in his sullen, staring eyes and open, twitching mouth. For here was Clarence Brant, handsomer than ever, more superior than ever, in the majesty of uniform and authority which fitted him—the younger man—by reason of his four years of active service, with the careless ease and bearing of the veteran! Here was the hero whose name was already so famous that the mere coincidence of it with that of the modest civilian he had known would have struck him as preposterous. Yet here he was—supreme, and dazzling—surrounded by the pomp and circumstance of war—into whose reserved presence he, Jim Hooker, had been ushered with the formality of challenge, saluting, and presented bayonets!

Luckily, Brant had taken advantage of his first gratified ejaculation to shake him warmly by the hand, and then, with both hands laid familiarly on his shoulder, force him down into a chair. Luckily, for by that time Jim Hooker had, with characteristic gloominess, found time to taste the pangs of envy—an envy the more keen since, in spite of his success as a peaceful contractor, he had always secretly longed for military display and distinction. He looked at the man who had achieved it, as he firmly believed, by sheer luck and accident, and his eyes darkened. Then, with characteristic weakness and vanity, he began to resist his first impressions of Clarence’s superiority, and to air his own importance. He leaned heavily back in the chair in which he had been thus genially forced, drew off his gauntlet and attempted to thrust it through his belt, as he had seen Brant do, but failed on account of his pistols already occupying that position, dropped it, got his sword between his legs in attempting to pick it up, and then leaned back again, with half-closed eyes serenely indifferent of his old companion’s smiling face.

“I reckon,” he began slowly, with a slightly patronizing air, “that we’d have met, sooner or later, at Washington, or at Grant’s headquarters, for Hooker, Meacham & Co. go everywhere, and are about as well known as major-generals, to say nothin’,” he went on, with a sidelong glance at Brant’s shoulder-straps, “of brigadiers; and it’s rather strange—only, of course, you’re kind of fresh in the service—that you ain’t heard of me afore.”

“But I’m very glad to hear of you now, Jim,” said Brant, smiling, “and from your own lips—which I am also delighted to find,” he added mischievously, “are still as frankly communicative on that topic as of old. But I congratulate you, old fellow, on your good fortune. When did you leave the stage?”

Mr. Hooker frowned slightly.

“I never was really on the stage, you know,” he said, waving his hand with assumed negligence. “Only went on to please my wife. Mrs. Hooker wouldn’t act with vulgar professionals, don’t you see! I was really manager most of the time, and lessee of the theatre. Went East when the war broke out, to offer my sword and knowledge of Ingin fightin’ to Uncle Sam! Drifted into a big pork contract at St. Louis, with Fremont. Been at it ever since. Offered a commission in the reg’lar service lots o’ times. Refused.”

“Why?” asked Brant demurely.

“Too much West Point starch around to suit ME,” returned Hooker darkly. “And too many spies!”

“Spies?” echoed Brant abstractedly, with a momentary reminiscence of Miss Faulkner.

“Yes, spies,” continued Hooker, with dogged mystery. “One half of Washington is watching t’other half, and, from the President’s wife down, most of the women are secesh!”

Brant suddenly fixed his keen eyes on his guest. But the next moment he reflected that this was only Jim Hooker’s usual speech, and possessed no ulterior significance. He smiled again, and said, more gently,—

“And how is Mrs. Hooker?”

Mr. Hooker fixed his eyes on the ceiling, rose, and pretended to look out of the window; then, taking his seat again by the table, as if fronting an imaginary audience, and pulling slowly at his gauntlets after the usual theatrical indication of perfect sangfroid, said,—

“There ain’t any!”

“Good heavens!” said Brant, with genuine emotion. “I beg your pardon. Really, I”—

“Mrs. Hooker and me are divorced,” continued Hooker, slightly changing his attitude, and leaning heavily on his sabre, with his eyes still on his fanciful audience. “There was, you understand”—lightly tossing his gauntlet aside—“incompatibility of temper—and—we—parted! Ha!”

He uttered a low, bitter, scornful laugh, which, however, produced the distinct impression in Brant’s mind that up to that moment he had never had the slightest feeling in the matter whatever.

“You seemed to be on such good terms with each other!” murmured Brant vaguely.

“Seemed!” said Hooker bitterly, glancing sardonically at an ideal second row in the pit before him, “yes—seemed! There were other differences, social and political. You understand that; you have suffered, too.” He reached out his hand and pressed Brant’s, in heavy effusiveness. “But,” he continued haughtily, lightly tossing his glove again, “we are also men of the world; we let that pass.”

And it was possible that he found the strain of his present attitude too great, for he changed to an easier position.

“But,” said Brant curiously, “I always thought that Mrs. Hooker was intensely Union and Northern?”

“Put on!” said Hooker, in his natural voice.

“But you remember the incident of the flag?” persisted Brant.

“Mrs. Hooker was always an actress,” said Hooker significantly. “But,” he added cheerfully, “Mrs. Hooker is now the wife of Senator Boompointer, one of the wealthiest and most powerful Republicans in Washington—carries the patronage of the whole West in his vest pocket.”

“Yet, if she is not a Republican, why did she”—began Brant.

“For a purpose,” replied Hooker darkly. “But,” he added again, with greater cheerfulness, “she belongs to the very elite of Washington society. Goes to all the foreign ambassadors’ balls, and is a power at the White House. Her picture is in all the first-class illustrated papers.”

The singular but unmistakable pride of the man in the importance of the wife from whom he was divorced, and for whom he did not care, would have offended Brant’s delicacy, or at least have excited his ridicule, but for the reason that he was more deeply stung by Hooker’s allusion to his own wife and his degrading similitude of their two conditions. But he dismissed the former as part of Hooker’s invincible and still boyish extravagance, and the latter as part of his equally characteristic assumption. Perhaps he was conscious, too, notwithstanding the lapse of years and the condonation of separation and forgetfulness, that he deserved little delicacy from the hands of Susy’s husband. Nevertheless, he dreaded to hear him speak again of her; and the fear was realized in a question.

“Does she know you are here?”

“Who?” said Brant curtly.

“Your wife. That is—I reckon she’s your wife still, eh?”

“Yes; but I do not know what she knows,” returned Brant quietly. He had regained his self-composure.

“Susy,—Mrs. Senator Boompointer, that is,”—said Hooker, with an apparent dignity in his late wife’s new title, “allowed that she’d gone abroad on a secret mission from the Southern Confederacy to them crowned heads over there. She was good at ropin’ men in, you know. Anyhow, Susy, afore she was Mrs. Boompointer, was dead set on findin’ out where she was, but never could. She seemed to drop out of sight a year ago. Some said one thing, and some said another. But you can bet your bottom dollar that Mrs. Senator Boompointer, who knows how to pull all the wires in Washington, will know, if any one does.”

“But is Mrs. Boompointer really disaffected, and a Southern sympathizer?” said Brant, “or is it only caprice or fashion?”

While speaking he had risen, with a half-abstracted face, and had gone to the window, where he stood in a listening attitude. Presently he opened the window, and stepped outside. Hooker wonderingly followed him. One or two officers had already stepped out of their rooms, and were standing upon the veranda; another had halted in the path. Then one quickly re-entered the house, reappeared with his cap and sword in his hand, and ran lightly toward the guard-house. A slight crackling noise seemed to come from beyond the garden wall.

“What’s up?” said Hooker, with staring eyes.

“Picket firing!”

The crackling suddenly became a long rattle. Brant re-entered the room, and picked up his hat.

“You’ll excuse me for a few moments.”

A faint sound, soft yet full, and not unlike a bursting bubble, made the house appear to leap elastically, like the rebound of a rubber ball.

“What’s that?” gasped Hooker.

“Cannon, out of range!”

CHAPTER V

In another instant bugles were ringing through the camp, with the hurrying hoofs of mounted officers and the trampling of forming men. The house itself was almost deserted. Although the single cannon-shot had been enough to show that it was no mere skirmishing of pickets, Brant still did not believe in any serious attack of the enemy. His position, as in the previous engagement, had no strategic importance to them; they were no doubt only making a feint against it to conceal some advance upon the centre of the army two miles away. Satisfied that he was in easy supporting distance of his division commander, he extended his line along the ridge, ready to fall back in that direction, while retarding their advance and masking the position of his own chief. He gave a few orders necessary to the probable abandonment of the house, and then returned to it. Shot and shell were already dropping in the field below. A thin ridge of blue haze showed the line of skirmish fire. A small conical, white cloud, like a bursting cotton-pod, revealed an open battery in the willow-fringed meadow. Yet the pastoral peacefulness of the house was unchanged. The afternoon sun lay softly on its deep verandas; the pot pourri incense of fallen rose-leaves haunted it still.

He entered his room through the French window on the veranda, when the door leading from the passage was suddenly flung open, and Miss Faulkner swept quickly inside, closed the door behind her, and leaned back against it, panting and breathless.

Clarence was startled, and for a moment ashamed. He had suddenly realized that in the excitement he had entirely forgotten her and the dangers to which she might be exposed. She had probably heard the firing, her womanly fears had been awakened; she had come to him for protection. But as he turned towards her with a reassuring smile, he was shocked to see that her agitation and pallor were far beyond any physical cause. She motioned him desperately to shut the window by which he had entered, and said, with white lips,—

“I must speak with you alone!”

“Certainly. But there is no immediate danger to you even here—and I can soon put you beyond the reach of any possible harm.”

“Harm—to me! God! if it were only that!”

He stared at her uneasily.

“Listen,” she said gaspingly, “listen to me! Then hate, despise me—kill me if you will. For you are betrayed and ruined—cut off and surrounded! It has been helped on by me, but I swear to you the blow did not come from MY hand. I would have saved you. God only knows how it happened—it was Fate!”

In an instant Brant saw the whole truth instinctively and clearly. But with the revelation came the usual calmness and perfect self-possession which never yet had failed him in any emergency. With the sound of the increasing cannonade and its shifting position made clearer to his ears, the view of his whole threatened position spread out like a map before his eyes, the swift calculation of the time his men could hold the ridge in his mind—even a hurried estimate of the precious moments he could give to the wretched woman before him—he even then, gravely and gently, led her to a chair and said in a calm voice,—

“That is not enough! Speak slowly, plainly. I must know everything. How and in what way have you betrayed me?”

She looked at him imploringly—reassured, yet awed by his gentleness.

“You won’t believe me; you cannot believe me! for I do not even know. I have taken and exchanged letters—whose contents I never saw—between the Confederates and a spy who comes to this house, but who is far away by this time. I did it because I thought you hated and despised me because I thought it was my duty to help my cause—because you said it was ‘war’ between us—but I never spied on you. I swear it.”

“Then how do you know of this attack?” he said calmly.

She brightened, half timidly, half hopefully.

“There is a window in the wing of this house that overlooks the slope near the Confederate lines. There was a signal placed in it—not by me—but I know it meant that as long as it was there the plot, whatever it was, was not ripe, and that no attack would be made on you as long as it was visible. That much I know,—that much the spy had to tell me, for we both had to guard that room in turns. I wanted to keep this dreadful thing off—until”—her voice trembled, “until,” she added hurriedly, seeing his calm eyes were reading her very soul, “until I went away—and for that purpose I withheld some of the letters that were given me. But this morning, while I was away from the house, I looked back and saw that the signal was no longer there. Some one had changed it. I ran back, but I was too late—God help me!—as you see.”

The truth flashed upon Brant. It was his own hand that had precipitated the attack. But a larger truth came to him now, like a dazzling inspiration. If he had thus precipitated the attack before they were ready, there was a chance that it was imperfect, and there was still hope. But there was no trace of this visible in his face as he fixed his eyes calmly on hers, although his pulses were halting in expectancy as he said—

“Then the spy had suspected you, and changed it.”

“Oh, no,” she said eagerly, “for the spy was with me and was frightened too. We both ran back together—you remember—she was stopped by the patrol!”

She checked herself suddenly, but too late. Her cheeks blazed, her head sank, with the foolish identification of the spy into which her eagerness had betrayed her.

But Brant appeared not to notice it. He was, in fact, puzzling his brain to conceive what information the stupid mulatto woman could have obtained here. His strength, his position was no secret to the enemy—there was nothing to gain from him. She must have been, like the trembling, eager woman before him, a mere tool of others.

“Did this woman live here?” he said.

“No,” she said. “She lived with the Manlys, but had friends whom she visited at your general’s headquarters.”

With difficulty Brant suppressed a start. It was clear to him now. The information had been obtained at the division headquarters, and passed through his camp as being nearest the Confederate lines. But what was the information—and what movement had he precipitated? It was clear that this woman did not know. He looked at her keenly. A sudden explosion shook the house,—a drift of smoke passed the window,—a shell had burst in the garden.

She had been gazing at him despairingly, wistfully—but did not blanch or start.

An idea took possession of him. He approached her, and took her cold hand. A half-smile parted her pale lips.

“You have courage—you have devotion,” he said gravely. “I believe you regret the step you have taken. If you could undo what you have done, even at peril to yourself, dare you do it?”