Miss Ravenel's conversion from secession to loyalty

by John William De Forest

  CHAPTER XXVII.

  COLONEL CARTER MAKES AN ASTRONOMICAL EXPEDITION WITH A DANGEROUS FELLOWTRAVELLER.

  A prospect of flat peace and boundless prosperity is tiresome to thehuman eye. Although it is morally agreeable to think about the domestichappiness and innocence of the Carters, as sketched in a late chapter,there is danger that the subject might easily prove tiresome to thereader, and moreover it is difficult to write upon it. I announcetherefore with intellectual satisfaction that our Colonel is summoned tothe trial of bidding good-bye to his wife, and undertaking a journey toWashington.

  It was his own work and for his own interests. He felt the necessity ofadding to his income, and desired the honor and claimed the justice ofpromotion. High Authority in the department admitted that the star of abrigadier was not too high a reward for this brave man, thoroughlyinstructed officer, model colonel. High Authority was tired ofgerrymandering seniorities so as to give a superb brigade of threethousand men to the West Point veteran, Carter, and a skeleton divisionof nine hundred men to the ex-major-general of militia, ex-mayor ofPompoosuc, Brigadier-General John Snooks. Accordingly when the Colonelapplied for a month's leave of absence, with the understood purpose ofsueing for an acknowledgment of his services, High Authority made himbearer of dispatches to Washington, so that, being on duty, he might payhis travelling expenses out of the Government pocket. The same mailwhich brought him his order informed him that a steamer would sail forthe north on the next day but one. Acting with the rapidity which alwaysmarked his movements when he had once decided on his course, he took thenext morning's train for New Orleans, first pressing his wife for manytimes to his breast and kissing away such of her tears as he could stayto witness. To good angels, and other people capable of appreciatingsuch things, it would have been a pretty though pathetic spectacle tosee this slender, blonde-haired girl clinging to the strong, bronzed,richly colored man with the burning black eyes.

  "Oh, what shall I do without you?" she moaned. "What shall I do withmyself?"

  "My dear little child," he said, "you will do just what you like. If youchoose to stay here and keep house, Captain Colburne will see that youare cared for. Perhaps it may be best, however, to join your father.Here are two hundred dollars, all the money that I have except what isnecessary to take me to New Orleans. I shall get a month's pay there.Don't settle any bills. Tell people that I will attend to them when Icome back.--There. Don't keep me, my dear one. Don't make me lose thetrain."

  So he went, driving to the railroad in an ambulance, while Lillie lookedafter him with tearful eyes, and waved her handkerchief and kissed herhand till he was out of sight. At first she decided that she wouldremain at Thibodeaux and think of her husband in every room of thehouse, and every walk of the garden; but after two days she foundherself so miserably lonesome that she shut up the cottage, went to NewOrleans and threw herself upon her father for consolation. Having toldso much in anticipation we will go back to the Colonel. The two hundreddollars which he left with his wife had been borrowed from the willingColburne. Carter had no pay due him as he had hinted, but he hoped toobtain a month's advance from a paymaster, or, failing in that, toborrow from some one, say the commanding general. In fact, one hundredand fifty dollars, abstracted from Government funds, I fear, werefurnished him by a neglected quartermaster, who likewise wantedpromotion and was willing to run this risk for the sake of securing thebenign influences of Carter's future star. With this friend in need theColonel took the first glass of plain whiskey which he had swallowed inthree months. To this followed other glasses, proffered by otherfriends, whose importunity he could not now resist, although yesterdayhe had repulsed them with ease. Every brother colonel, everyappreciating brigadier, seemed possessed of Satan to lead him to a baror to his own quarters and there to toast his health, or his luck, orhis star. It was "Here's how!" and "Here's towards you!" from teno'clock in the morning when he got his money, until four in theafternoon when he sprang on board the Creole just as she loosed hermoorings from the shaky posts of the tattered wooden wharf. Being inthat state of exhilaration which enabled Tam O'Shanter to gaze on thewitches of Alloway kirk-yard without flinching, the Colonel was neitherastonished nor alarmed at encountering on the quarter-deck the calm,beautiful, dangerous eyes of Madame Larue. The day before he would havebeen almost willing to lose the steamer rather than travel with her.Now, in the fearlessness of plain whiskey, he shook both her hands withimpetuous warmth and said, "'Pon honor, Mrs. Larue, perfectly delightedto see you."

  "And so am I delighted," she answered with a flash of unfeigned pleasurein her eyes, which might have alarmed the Carter of yesterday but whichgratified the Carter of to-day.

  "Now I shall have a cavalier," she continued, allowing him to pull herdown on a seat by his side. "Now I shall have a protector and adviser. Ihave had such need of one. Did you know that I was going on this boat? Iam so flattered if you meant to accompany me! I am going north toinvest my little property. I still fear that it is not safe here. No oneknows what may happen here. As soon as I could sell for a convenablesum, I resolved to go north. I shall expect you to be my counsellor howto invest."

  Carter laughed boisterously.

  "My dear, I never invested a picayune in my life," he said.

  She noticed the term of endearment and the fact of semi-intoxication,but she was not vexed nor alarmed by either. She was tolerably wellaccustomed to drunken gentlemen, and she was not easily hurt bylove-making, no matter how vigorous.

  "You have always invested in the Bank of Love," she remarked with one ofthose amatory glances which black eyes, it seems to me, can make moreeffective than blue ones.

  "And in monte and faro, and bluff and euchre," he added, laughing loudlyagain. "In wine bills, and hotel bills, and tailors' bills, and allsorts of negatives."

  The debts which weighed somewhat heavily yesterday were merecomicalities and piquancies of life to-day.

  "Oh! you are a terrible personage. I fear you are not the protector Iought to choose."

  He made no reply, feeling vaguely that the conversation was growingdangerous, and sending back a thought to his wife like a cry for help.Mrs. Larue divined his alarm and changed the subject.

  "What makes you voyage north?" she asked with a knowing smile. "Are youin search of a new planet?"

  Through his plain whiskey the Colonel could not see her joke on the starwhich he was seeking, but he was still clever enough to shun theconfession that he was on an expedition in search of promotion.

  "I am bearer of dispatches," he said. "Nothing to do now in Louisiana. Ishall be back before any more fighting comes off."

  "Shall you? I am enchanted of it. I shall return soon, and hope to makethe voyage with you. I am not going to forsake New Orleans. I love thecity well enough--and more, I cannot sell my house. Remember, you mustlet me know when you return, and arrange yourself to come on mysteamer."

  Next morning, in possession of his sober senses, Carter endeavored todetach himself a little from Mrs. Larue, impelled to this seeming lackof chivalry by remembrance of his wife, and mistrust of his own power ofself-government. But this prudent course soon appeared to be impossiblefor a variety of reasons. In the first place it happened, whether bychance or through her forethought he did not know, that theirstate-rooms opened on the same narrow passage. In the second place, hewas the only acquaintance that Mrs. Larue had on board, and there wasnot another lady to take her up, the Creole being a Governmenttransport, and civilian travel being in those times rare between NewYork and New Orleans. Moreover, the other passengers were in hisestimation low, or at least plain people, such as sutlers, speculators,and rough volunteer officers--so that, if he left her, she was alone,and could not even venture on deck for a breath of fresh air. At anyrate, that was the way that she chose to put it, although there was notthe least danger that she would be insulted, and although, had Carterbeen absent, she would not have failed to strike up a flirtation withsome other representative of my noble sex. Finally, he was obliged tocon
sider that she was a relative of his wife. Thus before the second daywas over, he found himself under bonds of courtesy to be the constantattendant of Mrs. Larue. They sat together next the head of the table,the lady being protected from the ignoble crowd of volunteers by theColonel on one side, and the captain of the Creole on the other.Opposite them were a major and a chaplain, highly respectable persons sofar as one could judge from their conversation, but who never got aword, rarely a look, from Mrs. Larue or Carter. The captain talked,first with one party, then with the other, but never with both at once.He was a polite and considerate man, accustomed to his delicate officialposition as a host, and he saw that he would not be thanked for makingthe conversation general. Except to him, to Carter, and to the servants,Mrs. Larue did not speak one word during the first seven days of thepassage. All the volunteer officers admired her nun-like demeanor. Keptafar off, and with no other woman in sight, they began to worship her,much as the brigade at Thibodeaux adored that solitary planet ofloveliness, Mrs. Carter. The fact that she was a widow, which crept outin some inexplicable manner, only heightened the enthusiasm.

  "By Heavens!" declared one flustered Captain, "if I only had Colonelbefore my name, and a hundred thousand dollars after it, I would rush toher and say, 'Madame, are you inconsolable? _Could_ I persuade you toforget the dear departed?'"

  While these gentlemen worshipped her, Carter hoped she would getsea-sick. This great, brawny, boisterous, domineering, heroic fighterhad just enough moral vitality to know when he was in danger of falling,and to wish for safety. Those were perilous hours at evening, when theship swept steadily through a lulling whisper of waters, when a trail offoamy phosphorescense, like a transitory Milky Way, followed in pursuit,when a broad bar of rippling light ran straight out to the setting moon,when the decks were deserted except by slumberers, and Mrs. Laruepersisted in dallying. The temptation of darkness, the temptation ofsolitude, the fever which begins to turn sleepless brains at midnight,made this her possible hour of coquettish conquest. She varied fromdelicately phrased sentimentalities to hoydenish physical impertinences.He was not permitted for five minutes together to forget that she was abodily, as well as a spiritual presence. He was not checked in anytransitory license of speech or gesture. Meantime she quoted finerhapsodies from Balzac, and repeated telling situations from Dumas leJeune, and commented on both in the interest of the _sainte passion del'amour_. Once, after a few moments of silence and revery, she said withan air of earnest feeling, "Is it not a horrible fate for awoman--solitude? Do you not pity me? Thirty years old, a widow, andchildless! No one to love; no right to love any one."

  She changed into French now, as she frequently did when she was animatedand wished to express herself freely. Such talk as this sounds unnaturalin the language of the Anglo-Saxon, but is not so unbecoming to thetongue of the Gauls.

  "A woman to whom the affections are forbidden, is deprived of the use ofmore than half her being. Whatever her possibilities, she is denied allexpansion beyond a certain limit. She may not explore, much less use,her own heart. It contains chambers of joy which she can only guess of,and into which she must not enter. There is a nursery of affectionsthere, but she can only stand with her ear to the door, trying to hearthe sweet prattle within. There is an innermost chapel, with an altarall set for the communion of love, but no priest to invite her to theholy banquet. She is capable of a mother's everlasting devotion, but shescarcely dares suspect it. She is fitted to enter upon the tendermysteries of wifehood, and yet she is constantly fearing that she shallnever meet a man whom she can love. That is the old maid, horrible name!The widow is less ashamed, but she is more unhappy. She has been taughther possibilities, and then suddenly forbidden the use of them."

  Had the Colonel been acquainted with Michelet and his fellow rhapsodistson women, he might have suspected Madame of a certain amount ofplagiarism. But he only thought her amazingly clever, at the same timethat he was unable to answer her in her own style.

  "Why don't you marry?" he asked, striking with Anglo-Saxon practicalityat the root of the matter.

  "Satirical question!" responded Madame, putting her face close to his,doubtless in order to make her smile visible by moonlight. "It is not soeasy to marry in these frightful times. Besides,--shall I avow it?--whatif I cannot marry the man of my choice?"

  "That's bad."

  "What if he _would_ marry some one else?--Is it not a humiliatingconfession?--Do you know what is left to a woman then? Either hiddenlove, or spiritual self-murder. Which is the greater of the two crimes?_Is_ the former a crime? Society says so. But are there not exceptionsto all rules, even moral ones? Love always has this great defence--thatnature prompts it, commands it. As for self-repression, asphyxia of theheart, Nature never prompts that."

  The logical conclusion of all this sentimental sophistry was clearenough to Carter's intellect, although it did not deceive hisAnglo-Saxon conscience. He understood, briefly and in a matter of factway that Madame was quite willing to be his wife's rival. He was not yetprepared to accept the offer; he only feared and anticipated that heshould be brought to accept it.

  Mrs. Larue was a curious study. Her vices and virtues (for she had both)were all instinctive, without a taint of education or effort. She didjust what she liked to do, unchecked by conscience or by anything butprudence. She was as corrupt as possible without self-reproach, and asamiable as possible without self-restraint. Her serenity was at alltimes as unrippled as was that of Lillie in her happiest conditions. Hertemper was so sunny, her smile so ready, and her manner so flattering,that few persons of the male sex could resist liking her. But she wasthe detestation of most of her lady acquaintance--who were venomouslyjealous of her attractions--or rather seductions--and abhorred her forthe unscrupulous manner in which she put them to use, abusing her in away which was enough to make a man rally to her rescue. She really caredlittle for that _divin sens du genesiaque_ concerning which she prattledso freely to her intimates; and therefore she was cool and sure in hercoquetries, at the same time that vanity gave her motive force whichsome naughty flirts derive from passion. She took a pride in makingconquests of men, at no matter what personal sacrifice.

  Carter saw where he was drifting to, and groaned over it in spirit, andmade resolutions which he broke in half an hour, and rowed desperatelyagainst the tide, and then drifted again.

  "A woman in the same house has so many devilish chances at a fellow," herepeated to himself with a bitter laugh; and indeed he coarsely said asmuch to Mrs. Larue, with a desperate hope of angering and alienatingher. She put on a meekly aggrieved air, drew away from him, andanswered, "That is unmanly in you. I did not think you could be sodishonorable."

  He was deeply humiliated, begged her pardon, swore that he was merelyjesting, and troubled himself much to obtain forgiveness. During thewhole of that day she was distant, dignified and silently reproachful.Yet all the while she was not a bit angry with him; she was as maliciousas Mephistopheles, but she was also as even-tempered; moreover she wasflattered and elated by the evident desperation which drove him to theimpertinence. In his efforts to obtain a reconciliation Carter succeededso thoroughly that the scene took place late at night, his arm aroundher waist and his lips touching her cheek. You must remember--charitablyor indignantly, as you please--that she was his wife's relative. Fromthis time forward he pretty much stopped his futile rowing against thetide. He let Mrs. Larue take the helm and guide him down the current ofhis own emotions, singing meanwhile her syren lyrics about _la saintepassion_, etc. etc. There were hours, indeed, when he grated over reefsof remorse. At the thought of his innocent, loving, trusting wife heshut his eyes as if to keep out the gaze of a reproachful spectre,clenched his hands as if trying to grasp some rope of escape, and cursedhimself for a fool and a villain. But it was a penitence without fruit,a self-reproach without self-control.

  Mrs. Larue treated him now with a familiar and confiding fondness whichhe sometimes liked and sometimes not, according as the present or thepast had the stronge
st hold on his feelings.

  "I am afraid that you do not always realize that we are one for life,"she said in one of her earnest, French speaking moods. "You are my swornfriend forever. You must never hate me; you cannot. You must neverchange towards me; it would be a perjury of the heart. But I do notdoubt you, my dear friend. I have all confidence in you. Oh, I am sohappy in feeling that we are united in such an indissoluble concord ofsympathy."

  Carter could only reply by taking her hand and pressing it in silence.He was absolutely ashamed of himself that he was able to feel so littleand to say nothing.

  "I never shall desire a husband," she proceeded. "I can now use all myheart. What does a woman need more? How strangely Heaven has made us! Awoman is only happy when she is the slave, body and soul, of some man.She is happy, just in proportion to her obedience and self-sacrifice.Then only she is aware of her full nature. She is relieved from prisonand permitted the joy of expansion. It is a seeming paradox, but it issolemnly true."

  Carter made no answer, not even by a look. He was thinking that his wifenever philosophised concerning her love, never analyzed her sentiments,and a shock of self-reproach, as startling as the throb of aheart-complaint, struck him as he called to mind her purity, trust andaffection. It is curious, by the way, that he suffered no remorse onaccount of Mrs. Larue. In his opinion she fared no worse than shedeserved, and in fact fared precisely as she desired, only he had notthe nerve to tell her so. When, late one night, on the darkened anddeserted quarter-deck, she cried on his shoulder and whispered, "I amafraid you don't love me--I have a right to claim your love," he felt noaffection, no gratitude, not even any profound pity. It annoyed him thatshe should weep, and thus as it were reproach him, and thus troublestill further his wretched happiness. He was not hypocrite enough tosay, "I _do_ love you;" he could only kiss her repeatedly, penitentlyand in silence. He still had a remnant of a conscience, and a mangled,sore sense of honor. Nor should it be understood that Mrs. Larue's tearswere entirely hypocritical, although they arose from emotions which wereso trivial as to be somewhat difficult to handle, and so mixed that Iscarcely know how to assort them. In the first place she was not verywell that evening, and was oppressed by the despondency which all humanbeings, especially women, suffer from when vitality throbs lessvigorously than usual. Moreover a little emotion of this sort wasdesirable, firstly to complete the conquest of Carter by reminding himhow much she had sacrificed for him, and secondly to rehabilitateherself in her own esteem by proving that she possessed a species ofconscience. No woman likes to believe herself hopelessly corrupt: whenshe reaches that point she is subject to moral spasms which makeexistence seem a horror; and we perhaps find her floating in the river,or asphyxiated with charcoal. Therefore let no one be surprised at thetemporary tenderness, similar to compunction, which overcame Mrs. Larue.

  Now that these two had that conscience which makes cowards of us all,they dropped a portion of the reserve with which they had hitherto kepttheir fellow-passengers at a distance. The captain was encouraged tointroduce his two neighbors, the major and chaplain; and Mrs. Larue casta few telling glances at the former and discussed theological subjectswith the latter. To one who knew her, and was not shocked by hermasquerades, nothing could be more diverting than the nun-like airswhich she put on _pour achalander le pretre_. Carter and she laughedheartily over them in their evening asides. She would have made acapital actress in the natural comedy school known on the boards of theGymnase and at Wallack's, for it was an easy amusement to her to play avariety of social characters. She had no strong emotions nor profoundprinciples of action, it is true, but she was sympathetic enough todivine them, and clever enough to imitate their expression. Her mannerto the chaplain was so religiously respectful as to pull all the stringsof his unconscious vanity, personal and professional, so that he fell aneasy prey to her humbugging, declared that he considered her state ofmind deeply interesting, prayed for her in secret, and hoped to converther from the errors of papacy. Indeed her profession of faith waspromising if not finally satisfactory.

  "I believe in the holy catholic church," she said. "But I am not_dogmatique_. I think that others also may have the truth. Our faith,yours and mine, is at bottom one, indivisible, uncontradictory. It isonly our human weakness which leads us to dispute with each other. Wedispute, not as to the faith, but as to who holds it. This isuncharitable. It is like quarrelsome children."

  The chaplain was charmed to agree with her. He thought her the mosthopefully religious catholic that he had ever met; he also thought herthe wittiest, the most graceful, and on the whole the handsomest. Hereyes alone were enough to deceive him: they were inexhaustiblegreenrooms of sparkling masks and disguises; and he was especially takenwith the Madonnesque gaze which issued from their recesses. He wasbamboozled also by the prim, broad, white collar, like a surplice, whichshe put on expressly to attract him; by the demure air of childlikepiety which clothed her like a mantle; by her deference to his opinion;by her teachable spirit. Perhaps he may also have been pleased with herplump shoulders and round arms, and he certainly did glance at themoccasionally as their outlines showed through the transparent muslin;but he said nothing of them in his talks concerning Mrs. Larue with hisroom-mate the Major.

  "_J'ai apprivoise le pretre_," she observed laughingly to Carter. "Ihave assured myself a firm friend in his reverence. He will defend methe character always. He has asked me to visit his family, and promisedto call to see me at New York. Madame La Pretresse is to call also. Heis quite capable of praying me to stand godmother to his next child. Ifhe were not married, I should have an offer. I believe I could bring himto elope with me in a fortnight."

  "Why don't you?" asked Carter. "It would make a scandal that would amuseyou," he added somewhat bitterly, for he was at times disgusted by herheartlessness.

  "No, my dear," she replied gently, pressing his arm. "I am quitesatisfied with my one conquest. It is all I desire in the world."

  They were leaning against the taffrail, listening to the gurgling of thewaters in the luminous wake and watching the black lines of the mastswaving against the starlit sky.

  "You are silent," she observed. "Why are you so sad?"

  "I am thinking of my wife," he replied, almost sullenly.

  "Poor Lillie! I wish she were here," said Mrs. Larue.

  "My God! what a woman you are!" exclaimed the Colonel. "Don't you knowthat I should be ashamed to look her in the face?"

  "My dear, why do you distress yourself so? You can love her still. I amnot exacting. I only want a corner in your heart. If I might, I woulddemand the whole; but I know I could not have it. You ought not to beunhappy; that is my part in the drama. I have sacrificed much. What haveyou sacrificed? A man risks nothing, loses nothing, in these affairs _ducoeur_. He has a bonne fortune, _voila tout_."

  Carter was heavy laden in secret with his bonne fortune. He was gladwhen the voyage ended, and he could leave Mrs. Larue at New York, with apleasing chance that he might never meet her again, and a hope that hehad heard the last of her _sainte passion de l'amour_. Of course he wasobliged, before he quitted her, to see that she was established in agood boarding house, and to introduce her to one or two respectablefamilies among his old acquaintance in the city. Of course also he saidnothing to these families about her propensities towards the _divinsens_ and the _sainte passion_. She quickly made herself a character asa southern loyalist, and as such became quite a pet in society. Beforeshe had been a week in the city she was an inmate of the household ofthe Rev. Dr. Whitehead, a noted theologian and leading abolitionist, whoworked untiringly at the seemingly easy task of converting her from theerrors of slavery and papacy. It somewhat scandalized his graverparishioners, especially those of Copperhead tendencies, that he shouldpatronize so gay a lady. But the Reverend Doctor did not see her pranks,and did not believe the tale when others related them. How could he whenshe looked the picture of a saint, dressed entirely in black and white,wore her hair plain _a la Madonne_, and talked theology with thosee
arnest eyes, and that childlike smile? To the last he honestly regardedher as very nigh unto the kingdom of heaven. It was to shield her fromenvious slanders, to cover her with the aegis of his great and venerablename, that the warm-hearted, unsuspicious old gentleman dedicated to herhis little work on moral reform, entitled "St. Mary Magdalen." Howecstatically Mrs. Larue laughed over this book when she got to her ownroom with it, after the presentation! She had not had such a paroxysm ofmerriment before, since she was a child; for during all her adult lifeshe had been too _blasee_ to laugh often with profound heartiness andhonesty: her gayety had been superficial, like most of her otherexpressions of feeling. I can imagine that she looked very attractive inher spasm of jollity, with her black eyes sparkling, her brunettecheeks flushed, her jetty streams of hair waving and her darkly roseatearms and shoulders bare in the process of undressing. Before she went tobed she put the book in an envelope addressed to Carter, and wrote aplayful letter to accompany it, signed "Your best and most lovingfriend, St. Marie Madeleine."