CHAPTER XXXI.
A TORTURE WHICH MIGHT HAVE BEEN SPARED.
A week after the conflagration Carter received his commission asBrigadier-General. His first impression was one of exultation: hisenemies and his adverse fate had been beaten; he was on the road todistinction; he could wear the silver star. Then came a feeling ofdespondency and fear, while he remembered the crime into which he hadbeen driven, as he thought or tried to think, by the lack of this justrecognition of his services. Oh the bitterness of good fortune, longdesired, which comes too late!
"A month ago this might have saved me," he muttered, and then burst intocurses upon his political opponents, his creditors, himself, all thosewho had brought about his ruin.
"My only crime! The only ungentlemanly act of my life!" was anotherphrase which dropped from his lips. Doubtless he thought so: many peopleof high social position hold a similarly mixed moral creed; they allowthat a gentleman may be given to expensive immoralities, but not tomoney-getting ones; that he may indulge in wine, women, and play, butnot in swindling. All over Europe this curious ethical distinctionprevails, and very naturally, for it springs out of the conditions of ahereditary aristocracy, and makes allowance for the vices to whichwealthy nobles are tempted, but not for vices to which they are nottempted. A feeble echo of it has traversed the ocean, and influencedsome characters in America both for good and for evil.
Carter was almost astonished at the child-like joy, so contradictory tohis own angry remorse, with which Lillie received the news of hispromotion.
"Oh!--My General!" she said, coloring to her forehead with delight,after a single glance at the commission which he dropped into her lap.She rose up and gave him a mock military salute; then sprang at him andcovered his bronzed face and long mustache with kisses.
"I am so happy! They have done you justice at last--a little justice.Oh, I am so glad and proud! I am going with you to buy the star. Youshall let me choose it."
Then, her mind taking a forward leap of fifteen years, she added, "Wewill send Ravvie to West Point, and he shall be a general, too. He isgoing to be very intelligent. And brave, also. He isn't in the leasttimid."
Carter laughed for the first time since he had received the commission.
"My dear," said he, "Ravvie will probably become a general long after Ihave ceased to be one. I am a volunteer. I am only a general while thewar lasts."
"But the war will last a long time," hopefully replied the monster inwoman's guise, who loved her husband a hundred times as much as she didher country.
"There is one unpleasant result of this promotion," observed Carter.
"What! You are not going to the field?" asked Lillie, clutching him bythe sleeve. "Oh, don't do that!"
"My little girl, I cannot hold my present position. A Brigadier-Generalcan't remain quartermaster, not even of a department. I must resign itand report for duty. Headquarters may order me to the field, and Icertainly ought to go."
"Oh no! It can't be necessary. To think that this should come just whenwe were so happy. I wish you hadn't been promoted."
"My darling, you want to make a woman of me," he said, holding her closeto his side. "I must show myself a man, now that my manhood has beenrecognized. My honor demands it."
He talked of his honor from long habit; conscious, however, that theword stung him.
"But don't ask to be sent to the field," pleaded Lillie. "Resign yourplace and report for duty, if you must. But please don't ask to be sentto the field. Promise me that; won't you?"
Looking into his wife's tearful eyes, with his strong and plump hands onher sloping shoulders, the Colonel promised as she asked him. But thatevening, writing from his office, he sent a communication to theheadquarters of the Department of the Gulf, requesting that he might berelieved from his quartermastership and assigned to duty with the armyin the field. What else should he do? He had proved himself unfit forfamily life, unfit for business; but, by (this and that and the other)he could command a brigade and he could fight. He would do what he haddone, and could do again, with credit. Besides, if he should windistinction at Grande Ecore, it might prevent an investigation into thatinfernal muddle of cotton and steamboats. A great deal is pardoned bythe public, and even by the War Department, to courage, capacity, andsuccess.
In a few days he received orders from the General commanding, directinghim to report to the headquarters of the army in the field. He signedhis last quartermaster papers gaily, kissed his wife and child sadly,shook hands with Ravenel and Mrs. Larue, and took the first boat up theriver.
Lillie was amazed and shocked at discovering how little she missed him.She accused herself of being wicked and heartless; she would not acceptthe explanation that she was a mother. It was all the more hateful inher to forget him, she said, now that he was the father of her child.Still, she could not be miserable; she was almost always happy with herbaby. Such a lovely baby he was; charming because he was heavy, becausehe ate, because he slept, because he cried! His wailing troubled herbecause it denoted that he was ill at ease, and not because the soundwas in itself disagreeable to her ear. If she heard it at a littledistance from the house, for instance when returning from a walk, shequickened her step and smiled gaily, saying, "He is alive. You will seehow he will stop when I take him."
People who feel so strongly are rarely interesting except to those whoshare their feelings, or who have learned to love them under anycircumstances, and through all the metamorphoses of which a singlecharacter is capable. She would have been perfectly tedious at thisperiod to any ordinary acquaintance who had not been initiated into thesweet mystery of love for children. Her character and conversationseemed to be all solved in the great alembic of maternity. She was amother as passionately as she had been a betrothed and a wife; andindeed it appeared as if this culminating condition of her womanhood wasthe most absorbing of all. This exquisite life, delicious in spite ofher occasional anxieties and self-reproaches concerning her husband,flowed on without much mixture of trouble until one day she picked up aletter on the floor of her father's study which opened to her a hithertoinconceivable fountain of bitterness. Let us see how this unfortunatemanuscript found its way into the house.
Doctor Ravenel, deprived for the last two years of his accustomed summertrip to Europe, or the north, or other countries blessed with amineralogy, sought health and amusement in long walks about New Orleansand its flat, ugly vicinity. Lillie, who used to be his comrade in theseexercises, now took constitutionals in the pony carriage or in companywith the wicker wagon of Master Ravvie. These strolls of the Doctor weretherefore somewhat dull business. A country destitute of stones was tohim much like a language destitute of a literature. He fell into a wayof walking without paying much attention to his surroundings, revolvingthe while new systems of mineralogy, crystallizing his knowledge intonovel classifications, recalling to memory the characteristics of hisspecimens, as Lillie recollected the giggles and cunning ways of herbaby. In one of these absent-minded moods he was surprised by a heavyshower, three or four miles from home. The only shelter was a desertedshanty, once probably the dwelling of a free negro. A minute or twoafter the Doctor found himself in its single room, and before he haddiscovered the soundest part of its leaky roof, a man in the undressuniform of a United States officer, dripping wet, reeled into thedoorway, with the observation, "By Jove! this is watering my rum."
The Doctor immediately recognized in the herculean form, bronzed face,black eyes and twisted nose, the personality of Lieutenant Van Zandt. Hehad not seen him for nearly two years, but the man's appearance andvoice were unforgettable. The Doctor was charitable in philosophisingconcerning coarse and vicious people, but he abominated their societyand always avoided it if possible. He looked about him for a means ofescape and found none; the man filled up the only door-way, and the rainwas descending in torrents. Accordingly the Doctor turned his back onthe Lieutenant and ruminated mineralogy.
"I prefer plain whisky," continued Van Zandt, staring at the rain with
acontemptuous grin. "I don't want, by Jove! so much water in my grog.None of your mixed drinks, by Jove! Plain whisky!"
After a minute more of glaring and smiling, he remarked, "Dam slowbusiness, by Jove! Van Zandt, my bully boy, we won't wait to see thisthing out. We'll turn in."
Facing about with a lurch he beheld the other inmate of the shanty.
"Hullo!" he exclaimed. Then recollecting the breeding of his youth, headded, "I beg pardon, sir. Am I intruding?"
"Not at all; of course not," replied Ravenel. "Our rights here are thesame."
"I am glad to hear it. And, by the way, have the kindness to understandme, sir. I didn't mean to insinuate that I supposed this to be yourresidence. I only thought that you might be the proprietor of theestate."
"Not so unfortunate," said the Doctor.
The Lieutenant laughed like a twelve-pound brass howitzer, the noisiestgun, I believe, in existence.
"Very good, sir. The more a man owns here in Louisiana, the poorer heis. That's just my opinion, sir. I feel honored in agreeing with you,sir. By Jove, I own nothing. I couldn't afford it--on my pay."
A stream of water from a hole in the roof was pattering on his broadback, but he took no notice of it, and probably was not conscious of it.He stared at the Doctor with unblinking, bulging eyes, not in the leastrecollecting him, but perfectly conscious that he was in the presence ofa gentleman. Drunk or sober, Van Zandt never forgot that he came of oldKnickerbocker stock, and never failed to accord respect to aristocraticdemeanor wherever he found it.
"I beg your pardon, sir," he resumed. "You must excuse me for addressingyou in this free and easy way. I only saw you indistinctly at first,sir, and couldn't judge as to your social position and individualcharacter. I perceive that you are a gentleman, sir. You will excuse mefor mentioning that I come of an old Knickerbocker family which dates inAmerican history from the good old jolly Dutch times of PeterStuyvesant--God bless his jolly old Dutch memory! You will understand,sir, that a man who feels such blood as that in his veins is glad tomeet a gentleman anywhere, even in such a cursed old hovel as this, asleaky and rickety, by Jove! as the Southern Confederacy. And, sir, inthat connection allow me to say, hoping no offence if you hold acontrary opinion, that the Confederacy is played out. We licked them onthe Red River, sir. The bully old First Division--God bless its raggedold flags! I can't speak of them without feeling my eyes water--much asI hate the fluid--the jolly, fighting old First Division fairly murderedthem at Sabine Cross Roads. At Pleasant Hill the old First, and AndrewJackson Smith's western boys laid them out over two miles square ofprairie. If we had had a cracker in our haversacks we would have gonebang up to Shreveport--if we had had a cracker apiece, and the firm ofW. C. Do you know what I mean, sir, by W. C? Weitzel and Carter! Thoseare the boys for an advance. That's the firm that our brigade anddivision banks on. Weitzel and Carter would have taken us to Shreveport,with or without crackers, by Jove! We wanted nothing but energy. If wehad had half the go, the vim, the forward march, to lead us, that therebels had, we would have finished the war in the southwest. We musttake a leaf out of Johnny Reb's book. _Fas est ab hostes doceri._ Ibelieve I quote correctly. If not, please correct me. By the way, did Imention to you that I am a graduate of Columbia College in New YorkCity? Allow me to repeat the statement. I have reason to be proud of thefact, inasmuch as I took the Greek salutatory, the second highest honor,sir, of the graduation. You are a college man yourself, sir, I perceive,and can make allowance for my vanity in the circumstance. But I amwandering from my subject. I was speaking, I believe, of ColonelCarter--I beg his pardon--General Carter. At last, sir, theAdministration has done justice to one of the most gallant and capableofficers in the service. So much the better for the Administration.Colonel Carter--I beg pardon--General Carter is not only an officer buta gentleman; not one of those plebeian humbugs whom our ridiculousDemocracy delights to call nature's gentlemen; but a gentleman born andbred--_un echantillon de bonne race_--a jet of pure old sangre azul. I,who am an old Knickerbocker--as I believe I had the honor to informyou--I delight to see such men put forward. Don't you, sir?"
The Doctor admitted with a polite smile that the promotion of GeneralCarter gave him pleasure.
"I knew it would, sir. You came of good blood yourself. I can see it inyour manners and conversation, sir. Well, as I was saying, the promotionof Carter is one of the most intelligent moves of the Administration.Carter--I beg pardon--I don't mean to insinuate that I am on familiarterms with him--I acknowledge him as my superior officer and keep mydistance--General Carter is born for command and for victory. Whereverhe goes he conquers. He is triumphant in the field and in the boudoir.He is victorious over man and women. By Jove, sir," (here he gave asaturnine chuckle, and leer.) "I came across the most amusing proof ofhis capacity for bringing the fair sex to a surrender."
The Doctor grew uneasy, and looked out anxiously at the pouring rain,but saw no chance of effecting an escape.
"You see, sir, I am wounded," continued Van Zandt. "They gave me a weltat Port Hudson, and they gave me another at Pleasant Hill."
"My dear sir, you will catch your death, standing under the dripping inthat way," said the Doctor.
"Thank you, sir," replied Van Zandt, changing his position. "No greatharm, however. Water, sir, doesn't hurt me, unless it gets into mywhiskey. Exteriorly it is simply disagreeable; interiorly the same, aswell as injurious. Not that I am opposed to bathing. On the contrary, itis my practice to take a sponge bath every morning--that is, when Idon't sleep within musket range of the enemy. Well, as I was saying,they gave me a welt at Pleasant Hill--a mere flesh wound through thethigh--nothing worth blathering about--and I was sent to St. JamesHospital. I can't stand the hospital. I don't fancy the fare at themilk-toast table, sir. (This with a grimace of unutterable disgust.) Itook out a two-legged leave of absence to-day, and went over to the LakeHouse; lost my horse there, and had to foot it back to the city. That ishow I came to have the pleasure of listening to your conversation here,sir. But I believe I was speaking of General Carter. Some miserablelight wine which I had the folly to drink at the Lake has muddled myhead, I fancy. Plain whisky is the only safe thing. Allow me torecommend you to stick to it. I wish we had a canteen of honestcommissary now; we could pass the night very comfortably, sir. But I wasspeaking of General Carter, and his qualities as an officer. Ah! Iremember. I mentioned a letter. And, by Jove! here it is in mybreast-pocket, soaked with this cursed water. If you will have thegoodness to peruse it, you will see that I am not exaggerating when Iboast of the conquests of my superior officer. The lady frankly owns upto the fact that she has surrendered to him; no capitulation, no terms,no honors of war; unconditional surrender, by Jove! a U. S. G.surrender. It is an unreserved coming down of the coon."
"It is one of Lillie's letters," thought Ravenel. "This drunkard doesnot know that the General is married, and mistakes the frank affectionof a wife for the illicit passion of an _intriguante_. It is best that Ishould expose the mistake and prevent further misrepresentation."
He took the moist, blurred sheet, unfolded it, and found the envelopecarefully doubled up inside. It was addressed to "Colonel J. T. Carter,"with the addition in one corner of the word "personal." The handwritingwas not Lillie's, but a large, round hand, foreign in style, and, as hejudged, feigned. Glancing at the chirography of the note itself, heimmediately recognized, as he thought, the small, close, neat penmanshipof Mrs. Larue. Van Zandt was too drunk to notice how pale the Doctorturned, and how his hand trembled.
"By Jove! I am tired," said the Bacchanal. "I shall, with yourpermission, take the d--st nap that ever was heard of since the days ofthe seven sleepers. Don't be alarmed, sir, at my snoring. I go off likea steamboat bursting its boiler."
Tearing a couple of boards from the wall of the shanty, he laid themside by side in one corner, selected a blackened stone from thefire-place for a pillow, put his cap on it, stretched himself out withan inebriated smile, and was fast asleep before the Doctor had decidedwhether
he would or would not read the letter. He was most anxious toestablish innocence; if there was any guilt, he did not want to know it.He ran over all of Mrs. Larue's conduct since the marriage, and couldnot call to mind a single circumstance which had excited in him asuspicion of evil. She was coquettish, and, he feared, unprincipled; buthe could not believe that she was desperately wicked. Nevertheless, ashe did not understand the woman, as he erroneously supposed her to be ofan ardent, impulsive nature, he thought it possible that she had beenfascinated by the presence of such a masculine being as Carter. Of himas yet he had no suspicion: no, he could not have been false, even inthought, to his young wife; or, as Ravenel phrased it to himself, "to mydaughter." He would read the letter and probe the ugly mystery anddiscover the falsity of its terrors. As he unfolded the paper he waschecked by the thought that to peruse unbidden a lady's correspondencewas hardly honorable. But there was a reply to that: the mischief ofpublicity had already commenced; the sleeping drunkard there had readthe letter. After all, it might be a mere joke, a burlesque, anApril-Fool affair; and if so, it was properly his business to discoverit and to make the explanation to Van Zandt. And if, on the other hand,it should be really a confession of criminal feeling, it was his duty tobe informed of that also, in order that he might be able to protect thedomestic peace of his daughter.
He read the letter through, and then sat down on the door-sill,regardless of the driving rain. There was no charitable doubt possiblein the matter; the writer was a guilty woman, and she addressed a guiltyman. The letter alluded clearly and even grossly to past assignations,and fixed the day and hour for a future one. Carter's name did notappear except on the envelope; but his avocations and business hourswere alluded to; the fact of their voyage together to New York wasmentioned; there was no doubt that he was the man. The Doctor was moremiserable than he remembered to have been before since the death of hiswife. After half an hour of wretched meditation, walking meanwhile upand down the puddles which had collected on the earthen floor of theshanty, he became aware that the rain had ceased, and set out on hismiserable walk homeward.
Should he destroy the letter? Should he give it to Mrs. Larue and crushher? Should he send it to Carter? Should he show it to Lillie? How couldhe answer any one of these horrible questions? What right had Fate toput such questions to him? It was not his crime.
On reaching home he changed his wet clothes, put the billet in hispocket-book, sat down to the dinner-table and tried to seem cheerful.But Lillie soon asked him, "What is the matter with you, papa?"
"I got wet, my dear. It was a very hard walk back through the mud. I amquite worn out. I believe I shall go to bed early."
She repeated her question two or three times: not that she suspected thetruth, or suspected anything more than just what he told her: butbecause she was anxious about his health, and because she had a habit ofputting many questions. Even in the absorption of his inexplicabletrouble she worried him, so that he grew fretful at her importunity, andanswered her crisply, that he was well enough, and needed nothing butquiet. Then suddenly he repented himself with invisible tears, wonderingat his irrational and seemingly cruel peevishness, and seeming to excusehimself to himself by calling to mind that he was tormented on heraccount. He almost had a return of his vexation when Lillie commencedupon him about her husband, asking, "Isn't it time to hear, papa? Andhow soon do you think I will get a letter?"
"Very soon, my dear," he replied gloomily, remembering the wicked letterin his pocket, and clenching his hands under the table to resist asudden impulse to give it to her.
"I hope there will be no more battles. Don't you think that thefighting is over?"
"Perhaps it may be best for him to have a battle."
"Oh no, papa! He has his promotion. I am perfectly satisfied. I don'twant him to fight any more."
The father made no answer, for he could not tell her what he thought,which was that perhaps her husband had better die. It must be rememberedthat he did not know that the intrigue had terminated.
"Here comes the little Brigadier," said Lillie, when the baby made hisusual after-dinner irruption into the parlor.
"Isn't he sweet?" she asked for the ten thousandth time, as she took himfrom the hands of the nurse and put him in her father's lap. The cooing,jumping, clinging infant clawing at watch-chain, neck-tie andspectacles, soft, helpless and harmless, gave the Doctor the firstemotion similar to happiness which he had felt for the last three hours.How we fly for consolation to the dependent innocence of childhood whenwe have been grievously and lastingly wounded by the perfidy or crueltyof the adult creatures in whom we had put our trust! Stricken ones whohave no children sometimes take up with dogs and cats, knowing that, ifthey are feeble, they are also faithful. But with the baby in his arms,Ravenel could not decide what to do with the baby's father; and so hehanded the boy back to his mother, saying with more significance ofmanner than he intended, "There, my dear, there is your comfort."
"Papa, you are sick," replied Lillie, looking at him anxiously. "Do liedown on the sofa."
"I will go to my room and go to bed," said he. "It is eight o'clock; andit will do me no harm if I sleep twelve hours to-night. Now don't followme, my child; don't tease me. I only want rest."
After kissing her and the child he hurried away, for he heard Mrs. Laruecoming through the back hall toward the parlor, and as frequentlyhappens, the innocent had not the audacity to face the guilty. In thepassage he paused, glanced back through the crack of the door, and wasamazed, almost infuriated, to see that woman kneel at Lillie's feet andfondle the baby with her usual air of girlish gayety.
"What infernal hypocrisy!" he muttered as he turned away, a littleindignant at the giggling delight with which Ravvie welcomed thewell-known visitor. His charitable philosophy had all evaporated for thetime, and he could not believe that this wicked creature had a spark ofgood in her, not even enough to smile upon a child honestly. To his mindthe caresses which she lavished on Ravvie were part of a deep-laid planof devilish deceit.
Four wretched hours passed over him, and at midnight he was stillundecided what to do. There were fathers in Louisiana who did not mindthis sort of thing; but he could not understand those fathers; he mindedit. There were fathers who would simply say to an erring son-in-law overa glass of wine, "Now look here, my dear sir, you must be cautious aboutpublicity;" or who would quietly send Mrs. Larue her letter, with a notepolitely requesting that she would make arrangements which would notinterfere with the quiet of, "Yours very respectfully," etc. But suchfathers could not love their daughters as he loved his, and could nothave such a daughter as he had. To be false to Lillie was an almostunparalleled crime--a crime which demanded not only reproach butpunishment; a crime which, if passed over, would derange the moralbalance of the universe. It seemed to him that he must show Lillie theletter, and take her away from this unworthy husband, and carry hernorth or somewhither where she should never see him more. This was whatought to be; but then it might kill her. Late in the night, when he fellasleep on the outside of his bed, still dressed, his light stillburning, the letter in his hand, he had not yet decided what to do.
About dawn, awakened early as usual by the creeping of Ravvie, Lilliethought of her father, and slipping on a dressing-gown, stole to hisroom to see if he were well or ill. She was alarmed to find him dressed,and looking pale and sunken. Before she had decided whether to let himsleep on, or to awaken him and tell him to go to bed as a sick manshould, her eye fell upon the letter. It must be that which had made himso gloomy and strange. What could it be about? Had he lost his place atthe hospital? That need not trouble him, for her husband had left hertwo thousand dollars in bank, and he would not object to have her shareit with her father. Her husband was so generous and loving, that shecould trust his affection for any thing! She was accustomed to open andread her father's letters without asking his permission. She took upthis one, and glanced through it with delirious haste. The Doctor wasawakened by a shriek of agony, and found Lillie senseless on the
floor,with the open letter under her hand.
Now he knew what to do; she must go far away at once--she must neveragain see her husband.
Miss Ravenel's conversion from secession to loyalty Page 34
