CHAPTER VII
To Berkley the times were surcharged with agreeable agitation. Ahullabaloo diverted him. He himself was never noisy; but agitatedand noisy people always amused him.
Day after day the city's multi-coloured militia regiments passedthrough its echoing streets; day after day Broadway resounded withthe racket of their drums. Rifles, chasseurs, zouaves, footartillery, pioneers, engineers, rocket batteries, the 79thHighlanders, dismounted lancers of the 69th and dragoons of the8th--every heard-of and unheard-of unnecessary auxiliary to arespectable regiment of state infantry, mustered for inspection andmarched away in polychromatic magnificence. Park, avenue, andsquare shrilled with their windy fifes; the towering sides of thetransports struck back the wild music of their bands; CastleWilliam and Fort Hamilton saluted them from the ferries to theNarrows; and, hoarse with cheering, the people stared through dimeyes till the last stain of smoke off Sandy Hook vanished seaward.All of which immensely diverted Berkley.
The city, too, had become a thoroughfare for New England andWestern troops hurrying pell-mell toward the capital and thatunknown bourne so vaguely defined as the "seat of war." Also allavenues were now dotted with barracks and recruiting stations,around which crowds clamoured. Fire Zouaves, Imperial Zouaves,National Zouaves, Billy Wilson's Zouaves appropriated withoutceremony the streets and squares as drill grounds. All day longthey manoeuvred and double-quicked; all day and all night herds ofsurprised farm horses destined for cavalry, light artillery, andglory, clattered toward the docks; files of brand-new army waggons,gun-carriages, smelling of fresh paint, caissons, forges,ambulances bound South checked the city traffic and added to thecity's tumult as they jolted in hundreds and hundreds toward thewharves--materially contributing to Berkley's entertainment.
Beginning with the uproarious war meeting in Union Square, everyday saw its crowds listening to the harangue of a somebody or anobody. Sometimes short, ugly demonstrations were made against anunpopular newspaper office or the residence of an unpopularcitizen; the police were rough and excitable, the nerves of thepopulace on edge, the city was now nearly denuded of its militia,and everybody was very grateful for the temporary presence ofvolunteer regiments in process of formation.
As yet the tension of popular excitement had not jaded the capacityof the city for pleasure. People were ready for excitement,welcomed it after the dreadful year of lethargy. Stocks fell, butthe theatres were the fuller; Joseph Jefferson at Winter Garden,Wallack at his own theatre, "The Seven Sisters" at Laura Keene's,drew unsatisfied crowds, galloping headlong on the heels ofpleasure.
Philharmonics, plays, burlesques, concerts, minstrelentertainments, never lacked audiences, especially when theproceeds were destined for the Union Defence Committee; the hotels,Bancroft, St. Nicholas, Metropolitan, New York, Fifth Avenue, wereall brilliantly thronged at night; cafes and concert halls like theGaieties, Canterbury, and American, flourished and flaunted theiradvertisements; grills, restaurants, saloons, multiplied. Therewere none too many for Berkley's amusement.
As yet no battle lightning flickered along the Southern horizon tosober folk with premonition; but the nightly illumination of themetropolis was becoming tinged with a more sinister reflectionwhere licence had already begun to lift a dozen hydra-heads fromcertain lurid resorts hitherto limited in number and in impudence.
It was into the streets of such a city, a meaner, dirtier, uglier,noisier, perhaps more vicious edition of the French metropolis ofthe Third Empire, thronged with fantastic soldiery and fox-eyedcontractors, filled already with new faces--faces of Western born,Yankee born, foreign born; stupid faces, crafty faces, hard faces,bedizened faces--it was into the streets of such a city thatBerkley sauntered twice a day to and fro from his office,regretting only that his means did not permit him to go to thedevil like a gentleman.
And one day, out of the hurly-burly, and against all laws ofprobability and finance, an incredible letter was handed to him.And he read it, standing by his window, and calmly realised that hewas now no longer penniless.
Some inspired idiot had become a credulous market for hisapparently unmarketable securities. Who this person was hisbrokers did not say; but, whoever it was, had bought every rottenshare he held; and there was money for him in the world to help himout of it.
As he stood there, the letter in his hands, drums sounded acrossthe street, and Stephen came in from the outer office.
"Another regiment," he said. "Do you know where they come from?"
Berkley shook his head, and they went to the windows; below themsurged the flood of dead wood driven before the oncomingwaves--haggard men, ragged men, small boys, darkies, Bowery b'hoys,stray red-shirted firemen, then the police, then solid double ranksof drums battered by flashing, brass-bound drumsticks, then lineafter line of blue and steel, steadily flowing through the streetsand away, away into the unknown.
"How young they are!" muttered Farren, the gray-haired cashier,standing behind Stephen's shoulders. "God bless me, they'rechildren!"
"It's a Vermont regiment," said Berkley; "they're filing out of thePark Barracks. What a lot of hawk-nosed, hatchet-faced,turkey-necked cow milkers!--all heroes, too, Steve. You can tellthat because they're in uniform and carry guns."
Stephen watched the lank troops, fascinated by the long, silent,almost gliding stride of officers and men loaded down withknapsack, blanket, and canteen, their caps pushed high on their redand sweating foreheads. There was a halt; big hands, big redknuckles, big feet, and the delicate curve of the hawk's beakoutlining every Yankee nose, queer, humourous, restless glancessweeping Gotham streets and windows where Gotham crowded to gazeback at the halted youngsters in blue; then a far tenor cry, nasalcommands, thin voices penetrating from out of the crowded distance;a sudden steadying of ranks; the level flash of shouldered steel; athousand men marking time; and at last the drums' quick outbreak;and the 1st Vermont Infantry passed onward into the unknown.
"I'd rather like to go there--to see what there is there," observedBerkley.
"Where?"
"Where they're going--wherever that may be--and I think I know."
He glanced absently at his letter again.
"I've sold some stock--all I had, and I've made a lot of money," hesaid listlessly.
Stephen dropped an impulsive hand on his shoulder.
"I'm terribly glad, Berkley! I'm delighted!" he said with a warmththat brought a slight colour into Berkley's face.
"That's nice of you, Stephen. It solves the immediate problem ofhow to go there."
"Go where?"
"Why--where all our bright young men are going, old fellow," saidBerkley, laughing. "I can go with a regiment or I can go alone.But I really must be starting."
"You mean to enlist?"
"Yes, it can be done that way, too. Or--other ways. The mainthing is to get momentum. . . . I think I'll just step out andsay good-bye and many thanks to your father. I shall be quite busyfor the rest of my career."
"You are not leaving here?"
"I am. But I'll pay my rent first," said Berkley, laughing.
And go he did that very afternoon; and the office of Craig & Sonknew him no more.
A few days later Ailsa Paige returned to New York and reoccupiedher own house on London Terrace.
A silk flag drooped between the tall pilasters. Under it, at thefront door stood Colonel Arran to welcome her. It had been herfather's house; he had planted the great catalpa trees on thegrassy terrace in front. Here she had been born; from here she hadgone away a bride; from here her parents had been buried, bothwithin that same strange year that left her widowed who hadscarcely been a wife. And to this old house she had returned alonein her sombre weeds--utterly alone, in her nineteenth year.
This man had met her then as he met her now; she remembered it,remembered, too, that after any absence, no matter how short, thisold friend had always met her at her own door-sill, standing asidewith head bent as she crossed the sill.
Now she gave him
both hands.
"It is so kind of you, dear Colonel Arran! It would not be ahome-coming without you--" And glancing into the hall, noddedradiantly to the assembled servants--her parents' old andprivileged and spoiled servants gathered to welcome the youngmistress to her own.
"Oh--and there's Missy!" she said, as an inquiring "meow!" soundedclose to her skirts. "You irresponsible little thing--I supposeyou have more kittens. Has she, Susan?"
"Five m'm," said Susan drily.
"Oh, dear, I suppose it can't be avoided. But we mustn't drownany, you know." And with one hand resting on Colonel Arran's armshe began a tour of the house to inspect the new improvements.
Later they sat together amid the faded splendours of the southerndrawing-room, where sunshine regilded cornice and pier glass,turned the lace curtains to nets of gold, and streaked the reddamask hangings with slanting bars of fire.
Shiftless old Jonas shuffled in presently with the oval silvertray, ancient decanters, and seedcakes.
And here, over their cakes and Madeira, she told him about hermonth's visit to the Craigs'; about her life in the quaint andquiet city, the restful, old-fashioned charm of the cultivatedcircles on Columbia Heights and the Hill; the attractions of alimited society, a little dull, a little prim, pedantic, perhapsprovincially simple, but a society caring for the best in art, inmusic, in literature, instinctively recognising the best althoughthe best was nowhere common in the city.
She spoke of the agreeable people she had met--unobtrusive,gentle-mannered folk whose homes may have lacked such Madeira andsilver as this, but lacked nothing in things of the mind.
She spoke of her very modest and temporary duties in church workthere, and in charities; told of the advent of the war news and itseffect on the sister city.
And at last, casually, but without embarrassment, she mentionedBerkley.
Colonel Arran's large hand lay along the back of the Virginia sofa,fingers restlessly tracing and retracing the carved foliationssupporting the horns of plenty. His heavy, highly coloured headwas lowered and turned aside a little as though to bring one ear tobear on what she was saying.
"Mr. Berkley seems to be an--unusual man," she ventured. "Do youhappen to know him, Colonel Arran?"
"Slightly."
"Oh. Did you know his parents?"
"His mother."
"She is not living, I believe."
"No."
"Is his father living?"
"I--don't know."
"You never met him?"
Colonel Arran's forefinger slowly outlined the deeply carved hornof plenty.
"I am not perfectly sure that I ever met Mr. Berkley's father."
She sat, elbows on the table, gazing reflectively into space.
"He is a--curious--man."
"Did you like him?" asked Colonel Arran with an effort.
"Yes," she said, so simply that the Colonel's eyes turned directlytoward her, lingered, then became fixed on the sunlit damask foldsbehind her.
"What did you like about Mr. Berkley, Ailsa?"
She considered.
"I--don't know---exactly."
"Is he cultivated?"
"Why, yes--I suppose so."
"Is he well bred?"
"Oh, yes; only--" she searched mentally--"he is not--may I say,conventional? formal?"
"It is an age of informality," observed Colonel Arran, carefullytracing out each separate grape in the horn of plenty.
Ailsa assented; spoke casually of something else; but when ColonelArran brought the conversation around again to Berkley, she innowise seemed reluctant.
"He is unusually attractive," she said frankly; "his features, atmoments, are almost beautiful. I sometimes wonder whether heresembles his mother. Was she beautiful?"
"Yes."
"I thought she must have been. He resembles her, does he not?"
"Yes."
"His father was--is--" She hesitated, looked curiously at ColonelArran, then smiled.
"There was something I never thought of when I first met Mr.Berkley, but now I understand why his features seemed to me notentirely unfamiliar. I don't know exactly what it is, but thereseems to be something about him that recalls you."
Colonel Arran sat absolutely still, his heavy hand gripping thehorn of plenty, his face so gray that it was almost colourless.
Ailsa, glancing again at his profile, saw nothing now in itresembling Berkley; and, as he made no response, thought himuninterested. But when again she would have changed the subject,the Colonel stirred, interrupting:
"Does he seem--well?"
"Well?" she repeated. "Oh, yes."
"He--seems well . . . and in good spirits? Contented? Is he thattype of young man? Happy?"
"I don't think he is really very happy, though he is cheerfuland--and amusing. I don't see how he can be very light-hearted."
"Why?"
She shook her head:
"I believe he--I know he must be in painfully straightenedcircumstances."
"I have heard so," nodded Colonel Arran.
"Oh, he certainly _is_!" she said with decision. "He losteverything in the panic, and he lives in a most wretchedneighbourhood, and he hasn't any business except a very little nowand then. It made me quite unhappy," she added naively.
"And you find him personally agreeable?"
"Yes, I do. I didn't at first--" She checked herself--"I mean I_did_ at the very first--then I didn't--then I did again, thenI--didn't--" The delicate colour stole into her cheeks; she liftedher wineglass, looked into it pensively, set it back on the table."But I understand him better now, I think."
"What, in him, do you understand better now?"
"I--don't--know."
"Is he a better kind of a man than you thought him at first?"
"Y-es. He has it in him to be better, I mean. . . . Yes, he is abetter man than I thought him--once."
"And you like him----"
"Yes, I do. Colonel Arran."
"Admire him?"
She flushed up. "How do you mean?"
"His qualities?"
"Oh. . . . Yes, he has qualities."
"Admirable?"
"He is exceedingly intelligent."
"Intellectual?"
"I don't exactly know. He pretends to make fun of so many things.It is not easy to be perfectly sure what he really believes;because he laughs at almost everybody and everything. But I amquite certain that he really has beliefs."
"Religious?"
She looked grave. "He does not go to church."
"Does he--does he strike you as being--well, say,irresponsible--perhaps I may even say reckless?"
She did not answer; and Colonel Arran did not ask again. Heremained silent so long that she presently drifted off into othersubjects, and he made no effort to draw her back.
But later, when he took his leave, he said in his heavy way:
"When you see Mr. Berkley, say to him that Colonel Arran remembershim. . . . Say to him that it would be my--pleasure--to renew ourvery slight acquaintance."
"He will be glad, I know," she said warmly.
"Why do you think so?"
"Why? Because _I_ like you!" she explained with a gay littlelaugh. "And whoever I like Mr. Berkley must like if he and I areto remain good friends."
The Colonel's smile was wintry; the sudden animation in his facehad subsided.
"I should like to know him--if he will," he said absently. Andtook his leave of Ailsa Paige.
Next afternoon he came again, and lingered, though neither he norAilsa spoke of Berkley. And the next afternoon he reappeared, andsat silent, preoccupied, for a long time, in the peculiar hushedattitude of a man who listens. But the door-bell did not ring andthe only sound in tile house was from Ailsa's piano, where she satidling through the sunny afternoon.
The next afternoon he said:
"Does he never call on you?"
"Who?"
"Mr. Berkley."
"I--asked him," sh
e replied, flushing faintly.
"He has not come, then?"
"Not yet. I suppose--business----"
The Colonel said, ponderously careless: "I imagine that he islikely to come in the late afternoon--when he does come."
"I don't know. He is in business."
"It doesn't keep him after three o'clock at his office."
She looked up surprised: "Doesn't it?" And her eyes askedinstinctively: "How did you know?" But the Colonel sat silentagain, his head lowered and partly averted as though to turn hisgood ear toward her. Clearly his mind already dwelt on othermatters, she was thinking; but she was mistaken.
"When he comes," said Colonel Arran slowly, "will you have thekindness to say to him that Colonel Arran will be glad to renew theacquaintance?"
"Yes. . . . Perhaps he has forgotten the street and number. Imight write to him--to remind him?" Colonel Arran made no answer.
She wrote that night:
"DEAR MR. BERKLEY:
"I am in my own house now and am very contented--which does notmean that I did not adore being with Celia Craig and Estcourt andthe children.
"But home is pleasant, and I am wondering whether you might care tosee the home of which I have so often spoken to you when you usedto come over to Brooklyn to see me [_me_ erased and _us_ neatlysubstituted in long, sweeping characters].
"I have been doing very little since I last saw you--it is notsheer idleness, but somehow one cannot go light-heartedly todinners and concerts and theatres in times like these, whentraitors are trampling the nag under foot, and when thousands andthousands of young men are leaving the city every day to go to thedefence of our distracted country.
"I saw a friend the other day--a Mrs. Wells--and _three_ of herboys, friends of mine, have gone with the 7th, and she is sonervous and excited that she can scarcely speak about it. _So_many men I know have gone or are going. Stephen was hereyesterday, wild to go with the 8d Zouaves, but I promised hisfather to use my influence--and he _is_ too young--although it isvery fine and chivalrous of him to wish to go.
"I thought I would write you a little note, to remind you that I amat home, and already it has become a letter. Please remember--whenyou think of it at all--that it would give me pleasure to receiveyou.
"Sincerely yours,
"AILSA PAIGE."
Toward the end of the week she received a heart-broken note fromCelia Craig, which caused her to hasten over to Brooklyn. Shearrived late; the streets were continually blocked by departingtroops, and the omnibus took a circuitous course to the ferry,going by way of Fourth Avenue and the Bowery.
"Honey-bee! O Honey-bell!" whispered her sister-in-law, takingAilsa into her arms, "I could have behaved myse'f better if Curtwere on the side of God and Justice!--But to have to let him gothis way--to know the awful danger--to know he is going against myown people, my own home--against God and the Right!--O Honey-bird!Honey-bud! And the Charleston _Mercury_ says that the South ismost bitter against the Zouaves----"
"Curt! With the Zouaves!"
"Oh yes, yes, Honey-bee! The Third Regiment. And he--some wickedold men came here yesterday and read a speech--right befo' me--herein this ve'y room--and began to say that they wished him to becolonel of the 3d Zouaves, and that the Governor wished itand--other fools! And I rose straight up f'om my chair and I said,'Curt!' And he gave me one look. Oh, Honey-bud! His face waschanged; there was _that same thing_ in it that I saw the night thenews came about Sumter! And he said: 'Gentlemen, my countryeducated me; now it honours me.' And I tried to speak again and mylips were stiff; and then he said: 'I accept the command youoffer----'"
"Oh, Celia!"
"Yes, he said it, darling! I stood there, frozen--in a corner ofmy heart I had been afraid--such a long time!--but to have it comereal--'this terror!--to have this thing take my husband--come intoour own home befo' I knew--befo' I dreamed--and take Curt!--take--my--Curt!"
"Where is he?"
"With--_them_. They have a camp near Fort Hamilton. He went therethis morning."
"When is he coming back?"
"I don't know. Stephen is scaring me most to death; he is wild togo, too. And, oh--do you believe it? Captain Lent has gone withCurt to the camp, and Curt means to recommend him for his major._What_ a regiment!--all the soldiers are mere boys, theysay--wilful, reckless, hair-brained boys who don't know--_can't_know--where they're going. . . . And Curt is so blind without hisglasses, and Captain Lent is certainly a little mad, and I'm mostdistracted myse'f----"
"Darling--darling--don't cry!"
"Cry? Oh, I could die, Ailsa. Yet, I'm Southern enough to chokeback eve'y tear and let them go with a smile if they had to go fo'God and the Right! But to see my Curt go this way--and my only soncrazy to join him--Oh, it is ha'd, Honey-bee, ve'y, ve'y ha'd."
"Dearest!"
"O Honey-bud! Honey-bud!"
And the two women mourned, uncomforted.
Ailsa remained for three unhappy days in Fort Greene Place, thenfled to her own house. A light, amusing letter from Berkleyawaited her. It was so like him, gay, cynical, epigrammatic, andinconsequent, that it cheered her. Besides, he subscribed himselfvery obediently hers, but on re-examining the letter she noticedthat he had made no mention of coming to pay his respects to her.
So she lived her tranquil life for another week; and Colonel Arrancame every day and seemed always to be waiting forsomething--always listening--gray face buried in his stock. And atthe week's end she answered Berkley's letter--although, in it, hehad asked no question.
"DEAR MR. BERKLEY:
"Such sad news from the Craigs. Estcourt has accepted the commandof one of the new zouave regiments--the 3d, in camp near FortHamilton. But, being in his office, I suppose you have heard allabout it from Stephen. Poor Celia Craig! It is peculiarlydistressing in her case; all her sympathies are with her nativestate, and to have her husband go under such unusually tragiccircumstances seems too dreadful. Celia is convinced that he willnever return; she reads some Southern paper which breathes awfulthreats against the Zouaves in particular. Besides, Stephen isperfectly determined to enlist in his father's regiment, and I cansee that they can't restrain him much longer. I have done my best;I have had him here and talked to him and argued with him, but Ihave made no headway. No appeal moves him; he says that the landwill need every man sooner or later, and that the quicker he beginsthe sooner he will learn how to look out for himself in battle.
"The regiment is almost full; to-day, the first six companies areto be mustered into the United States service for three years orfor the war. Captain Barris of the regular army is the musteringofficer. And on their departure I am to present a set of coloursto the regiment. It is to be quite solemn. I have already boughtthe lances, and they are beautiful; the spears are silver gilt, therings gilded, too, and the flags are made of the most beautifulsilk with tassels and fringe of gold bullion. There are threeflags: the national colours, the state flag, and a purpleregimental flag lettered in gold: '3d Regt. N. Y. Zouaves,' andunder it their motto: '_Multorum manibus grande levatur onus_.' Ihope it is good Latin, for it is mine. Is it?
"AILSA PAIGE."
To this letter he made no reply, and, after a week, his silencehurt her.
One afternoon toward the middle of May Stephen was announced; andwith a sudden sense of foreboding she hastened down to thedrawing-room.
"_Oh_!" she cried. "_You_--Stephen!"
But the boy in his zouave uniform was beside himself withexcitement and pride, and he embraced her, laughing, and then beganto walk up and down the room gesticulating.
"I couldn't stand it any longer, and they let me go. I'm sorry formother, but look at other men's mothers! They're calling for moreand more troops every week! I knew everybody would have to go, andI'm mighty fortunate to get into father's regiment--And O Ailsa!It is a fine regiment! We're drilling every minute, and now thatwe've got our uniforms it won't be long before our orders come----"
"Stephen--does
your mother----"
"Mother knows I can't help it. I _do_ love her; she knows thatperfectly well. But men have got to settle this thing----"
"Two hundred thousand are getting ready to settle it! Are therehot enough without you?--your mother's only son----"
"Suppose everybody thought that way, where would our army be?"
"But there are hundreds of regiments forming here--getting ready,drilling, leaving on boats and trains every day----"
"And every regiment is composed of men exactly like me! They gobecause the Nation's business is everybody's business. And theNation's business comes first. There's no use talking to me,Ailsa. I've had it but with father. He saw that he couldn'tprevent me from doing what he has done. And old Lent is our major!Lord, Ailsa, _what_ a terrible old man for discipline! And fatheris--well he is acting as though we ought to behave like WestPointers. They're cruelly hard on skylarkers and guard runners,and they're fairly kicking discipline into us. But I'm willing.I'm ready to stand anything as long as we can get away!"
He was talking in a loud, excited voice, pacing restlessly to andfro, pausing at intervals to confront Ailsa where she sat, limp andsilent, gazing up at this slender youth in his short blue jacketedged with many bell-buttons, blue body sash, scarlet zouavetrousers and leather gaiters.
Presently old Jonas shuffled in with Madeira, cakes, andsandwiches, and Stephen began on them immediately.
"I came over so you could see me in my uniform," he explained; "andI'm going back right away to see mother and Paige and Marye andCamilla." He paused, sandwich suspended, then swallowed what hehad been chewing and took another bite, recklessly.
"I'm very fond of Camilla," he said condescendingly. "She's verynice about my going--the only one who hasn't snivelled. I tellyou, Ailsa, Camilla is a good deal of a girl. . . . And I'vepromised to look out for her uncle--keep an eye on old Lent, youknow, which seems to comfort her a good deal when she beginscrying----
"Oh. . . I thought Camilla didn't cry."
"She cries a little--now and then."
"About her uncle?"
"Certainly."
Ailsa looked down at her ringless fingers. Within the week she hadlaid away both rings, meaning to resume them some day.
"If you and your father go, your office will be closed, I suppose."
"Oh, no. Farren will run it."
"I see. . . . And Mr. Berkley, too, I suppose."
Stephen looked up from his bitten seedcake.
"Berkley? He left long ago."
"Left--where?" she asked, confused.
"Left the office. It couldn't be helped. There was nothing forhim to do. I was sorry--I'm sorrier now----"
He checked himself, hesitated, turned his troubled eyes on Ailsa.
"I _did_ like him so much."
"Don't you like him--still?"
"Yes--_I_ do. I don't know what was the matter with that man. Hewent all to pieces."
"W-what!"
"Utterly. Isn't it too bad."
She sat there very silent, very white. Stephen bit into anothercake, angrily.
"It's the company he keeps," he said--"a lot of fast men--fastenough to be talked about, fashionable enough to be tolerated--JackCasson is one of them, and that little ass, Arthur Wye. _That's_the crowd--a horse-racing, hard-drinking, hard-gambling crew."
"But--he is--Mr. Berkley's circumstances--how can he do suchthings----"
"Some idiot--even Berkley doesn't know who--took all those deadstocks off his hands. Wasn't it the devil's own luck for Berkleyto find a market in times like these?"
"But it ended him. . . . Oh, I was fond of him, I tell you, Ailsa!I hate like thunder to see him this way----"
"_What_ way!"
"Oh, not caring for anybody or anything. He's never sober. Idon't mean that I ever saw him otherwise--he doesn't get drunk likean ordinary man: he just turns deathly white and polite. I've methim--and his friends--several times. They're too fast a string ofcolts for me. But isn't it a shame that a man like Berkley shouldgo to the devil--and for no reason at all?"
"Yes," she said.
When Stephen, swinging his crimson fez by the tassel, stood readyto take his leave, she put her arms around his neck and kissed him.
After he departed Colonel Arran came, and sat, as usual, silent,listening.
Ailsa was very animated; she told him about Stephen's enlistment,asked scores of questions about military life, the chances inbattle, the proportion of those who went through war unscathed.
And at length Colonel Arran arose to take his departure; and shehad not told what was hammering for utterance in every heart beat;she did not know how to tell, what to ask.
Hat in hand Colonel Arran bent over her hot little hand where itlay in his own.
"I have been offered the colonelcy of a volunteer regiment nowforming," he said without apparent interest.
"You!"
"Cavalry," he explained wearily.
"But--you have not accepted!"
He gave her an absent glance. "Yes, I have accepted. . . . I amgoing to Washington to-night."
"Oh!" she breathed, "but you are coming back before--before----"
"Yes, child. Cavalry is not made in a hurry. I am to see GeneralScott--perhaps Mr. Cameron and the President. . . . If, in myabsence--" he hesitated, looked down, shook his head. And somehowshe seemed to know that what he had not said concerned Berkley.
Neither of them mentioned him. But after Colonel Arran had goneshe went slowly to her room, sat down at her desk, sat there along, long while thinking. But it was after midnight before shewrote to Berkley:
"Have you quite forgotten me? I have had to swallow a little prideto write you again. But perhaps I think our pleasant friendshipworth it.
"Stephen has been here. He has enlisted as a private in hisfather's regiment of zouaves. I learned by accident from him thatyou are no longer associated with Craig & Son in business. I trustthis means at least a partial recovery of your fortune. If itdoes, with fortune recovered responsibilities increase, and Ichoose to believe that it is these new and exacting duties whichhave prevented me from seeing you or from hearing from you for morethan three weeks.
"But surely you could find a moment to write a line to a friend whois truly your very sincere well-wisher, and who would be the firstto express her pleasure in any good fortune which might concern you.
"AILSA PAIGE."
Two days passed, and her answer came:
"Ailsa Paige, dearest and most respected, I have not forgotten youfor one moment. And I have tried very hard.
"God knows what my pen is trying to say to you, and not hurt you,and yet kill utterly in you the last kindly and charitable memoryof the man who is writing to you.
"Ailsa, if I had known you even one single day before that night Imet you, you would have had of me, in that single day, all that aman dare lay at the feet of the truest and best of women.
"But on that night I came to you a man utterly and hopelesslyruined--morally dead of a blow dealt me an hour before I saw youfor the first time.
"I had not lived an orderly life, but at worst it was only aheedless life. I had been a fool, but not a damned one. There wasin me something loftier than a desire for pleasure, somethingworthier than material ambition. What else lay latent--ifanything--I may only surmise. It is all dead.
"The blow dealt me that evening--an hour before I first laid eyeson you--utterly changed me; and if there was anything spiritual inmy character it died then. And left what you had a glimpseof--just a man, pagan, material, unmoral, unsafe; unmoved byanything except by what appeals to the material senses.
"Is that the kind of man you suppose me? That is the man I am.And you _know_ it now. And you know, now, what it was in me thatleft you perplexed, silent, troubled, not comprehending--why it wasyou would not dance with me again, nor suffer my touch, nor endureme too near you.
"It was the less noble in me--all that the blow had notkilled--only a l
esser part of a finer and perfect passion thatmight perhaps have moved you to noble response in time.
"Because I should have given you all at the first meeting; I couldno more have helped it than I could have silenced my heart andlived. But what was left to give could awake in you no echo, noresponse, no comprehension. In plainer, uglier words, I meant tomake you love me; and I was ready to carry you with me to that hellwhere souls are lost through love--and where we might lose oursouls together.
"And now you will never write to me again."
All the afternoon she bent at her desk, poring over his letter. Inher frightened heart she knew that something within her, notspiritual, had responded to what, in him, had evoked it; that herindefinable dread was dread of herself, of her physicalresponsiveness to his nearness, of her conscious inclination for it.
Could this be she--herself--who still bent here over his writtenwords--this tense, hot-cheeked, tremulous creature, staringdry-eyed at the blurring lines which cut her for ever asunder fromthis self-outlawed man!
Was this letter still unburned. Had she not her fill of itsbrutality, its wickedness?
But she was very tired, and she laid her arms on the desk and herhead between them. And against her hot face she felt the coolletter-paper.
All that she had dreamed and fancied and believed and cared for inman passed dully through her mind. Her own aspirations towardideal womanhood followed--visions of lofty desire, high ideals,innocent passions, the happiness of renunciation, the glory offorgiveness----
She sat erect, breathing unevenly; then her eyes fell on theletter, and she covered it with her hands, as hands cover the shameon a stricken face. And after a long time her lips moved,repeating:
"The glory of forgiveness--the glory of forgiveness----"
Her heart was beating very hard and fast as her thoughts ran on.
"To forgive--help him--teach truth--nobler ideals----"
She could not rest; sleep, if it really came, was a ghostly thingthat mocked her. And all the next day she roamed about the house,haunted with the consciousness of where his letter lay locked inher desk. And that day she would not read it again; but the nextday she read it. And the next.
And if it were her desire to see him once again before all endedirrevocably for ever--or if it was what her heart was striving totell her, that he was in need of aid against himself, she could nottell. But she wrote him:
"It is not you who have written this injury for my eyes to read,but another man, demoralised by the world's cruelty--not knowingwhat he is saying--hurt to the soul, not mortally. When herecovers he will be you. And this letter is my forgiveness."
Berkley received it when he was not particularly sober; andlighting the end of it at a candle let it burn until the last ashesscorched his fingers.
"Burgess," he said, "did you ever notice how hard it is for thefrailer things to die? Those wild doves we used to shoot inGeorgia--by God! it took quail shot to kill them clean."
"Yes, sir?"
"Exactly. Then, that being the case, you may give me aparticularly vigorous shampoo. Because, Burgess, I woo my volatilegoddess to-night--the Goddess Chance, Burgess, whose wanton andnaughty eyes never miss the fall of a card. And I desire that allmy senses work like lightning, Burgess, because it is a fastcompany and a faster game, and that's why I want an unusuallymuscular shampoo!"
"Yes, sir. Poker, sir?"
"I--ah--believe so," said Berkley, lying back in his chair andclosing his eyes. "Go ahead and rub hell into me--if I'll hold anymore."
The pallor, the shadows under eyes and cheeks, the nervous lines atthe corners of the nose, had almost disappeared when Burgessfinished. And when he stood in his evening clothes pulling arose-bud stem through the button-hole of his lapel, he seemed veryfresh and young and graceful in the gas-light.
"Am I very fine, Burgess? Because I go where youth and beautychase the shining hours with flying feet. Oh yes, Burgess, thefair and frail will be present, also the dashing andself-satisfied. And we'll try to make it agreeable all around,won't we? . . . And don't smoke _all_ my most expensive cigars,Burgess. I may want one when I return. I hate to ask too much ofyou, but you won't mind leaving one swallow of brandy in thatdecanter, will you? Thanks. Good night, Burgess."
"Thank _you_, sir. Good night, sir."
As he walked out into the evening air he swung his cane inglittering circles.
"Nevertheless," he said under his breath, "she'd better be careful.If she writes again I might lose my head and go to her. You cannever tell about some men; and the road to hell is a lonelyone--damned lonely. Better let a man travel it like a gentleman ifhe can. It's more dignified than sliding into it on your back,clutching a handful of lace petticoat."
He added: "There's only one hell; and it's hell, perhaps, becausethere are no women there."
Ailsa Paige: A Novel Page 7
