For Love of Country: A Story of Land and Sea in the Days of the Revolution
Page 30
CHAPTER XXIX
_The Last of the Talbots_
It was with a sinking heart that Seymour rode up the hill toward FairviewHall a few days later. There had been a light fall of snow during thepreceding night, and the brilliant sun of the early morning had not yetgained sufficient strength to melt it away. There was a softening touchtherefore about the familiar scene, and Seymour, who had never viewed itin the glory of its summer, thought he had never known it to look sobeautiful. Heartily greeted as he passed on by the various servants ofthe family, with whom he was a great favorite, he finally drew rein anddismounted before the great flight of steps which led up to the terraceupon which the house stood. His arrival had not been unnoticed, andMadam Talbot was standing in the doorway to greet him. He noticed thatshe looked paler and thinner and older, but she held herself as erect andcarried herself as proudly as she had always done. Grief anddisappointment and broken hope might change and destroy the naturaltissues and fibres of her being, but they could not alter her iron will.Tossing the bridle to one of the attendant servants, Seymour, hat inhand, walked slowly up the steps and across the grass plat, and steppedupon the porch. She watched him in silence, with a frightful sinking ofthe heart; the gravity of his demeanor and the pallor of his face, inwhich she seemed to detect a shade of pity which her pride resented,apprised her that whatever news he had brought would be ill for her tohear, but her rigid face and composed manner gave no indication of thedeadly conflict within. Seymour bowed low to her, and she returned hissalute with a sweeping courtesy, old-fashioned and graceful.
"Lieutenant Seymour is very welcome to Fairview Hall, though I trust itbe not the compelling necessity of a wound which makes him seek ourhospitality again," she said, faintly smiling.
"Oh, madam," said Seymour, softly, yet in utter desperation as to how tobegin, "unfortunately it is not to be cured of wounds, but to inflictthem that this time I am come. I--I am sorry--that I have to tell youthat--I--" he continued with great hesitation.
"You are a bearer of ill tidings, I perceive," she continued gravely."Speak your message, sir. Whatever it may be, I trust the God I serve togive me strength to bear it. Is it--is it--Hilary?" she went on, withjust a suggestion of a break in her even, carefully modulated tones.
"Yes, dear madam. He--he--"
"Stop! I had almost forgotten my duty. Tell me first of the armies ofmy king. The king first of all with our house, you know."
Poor Seymour! he must overwhelm her with bad news in every field of heraffection. For a moment he almost wished the results had been the otherway. The perspiration stood out upon his forehead in spite of thecoldness, and he felt he would rather charge a battery than face thisterrible old woman who put the armies of a king--and such a kingtoo--before the fate of her only son! And yet he knew that what he hadto tell her would break down even her iron will, and reaching themother's heart beating warm within her in spite of her assumed coldnessand self-repression, would probably give her a death-blow. He feltliterally like a murderer before her, but he had to answer. Talbot's ownletter, General Washington's command, and the promptings of his ownaffection had made him an actor in this pathetic drama. He had no choicebut to proceed. The truth must be told. Nerving himself to theinevitable, he replied to her question,--
"The armies of the king have been defeated and forced to retire. GeneralWashington has outmanoeuvred and outfought them; they are now shut up inNew York again. The Jerseys are free, and we have taken upward of twothousand prisoners, and many are killed and wounded among them,--on bothsides, in truth," he added.
"The worst news first," she replied. "One knows not why these things areso. It seems the God of Justice slumbers when subjects rebel againsttheir rightful kings! But I have faith, sir. The right will win in theend--must win."
"So be it," he said, accepting the implied challenge, but adding nothingfurther. He would wait to be questioned now, and this strange womanshould have the story in the way that pleased her best. As for her shecould not trust herself to speak. Never before had her trembling body,her beating heart escaped from the domination of her resolute will.Never before had her mobile lips refused to formulate the commands of heractive brain. She fought her battle out in silence, and finally turnedtoward him once more.
"There was something else you said, I think. My--my son?" Her voicesank to a whisper; in spite of herself one hand went to her heart. Ah,mother, mother, this was indeed thy king! "Is--is he wounded?--My God,sir! Not dead?"
His open hand which he had extended to her held two little objects. Whatwere they? The bright sunlight was reflected from one of them, thelocket she had given him. There was a dark discoloration on one side ofit which she had never seen before. The other was his Prayer Book. OGod--prayer! Was there then a God, that such things could happen? Wherewas He that day? She had given that book to him when he was yet a child."Dead,"--she whispered,--"dead," shrinking back and staring at him.
"Would God I had died in his place, dear madam!" he said with infinitepity.
"How--how was it?" she went on, dry-eyed, in agony, moistening hercracking lips.
"Fighting like a hero over the body of General Mercer at Princeton. Hismen retreated and left them--"
"The rebel cowards," she interrupted.
"Nay, not cowards, but perhaps less brave than he. The British chargedwith their bayonets; our men had not that weapon, they fell back."
"Were you there, sir?"
"Surely not! Should I be here now if I had been there then, madam?" hereplied proudly.
"True, true! you at least are a gentleman. Forgive the question."
"General Mercer and some of his officers sprang at the line. I had itfrom his own lips. Some one cut the general down; Hilary interposed, andenabled him to rise to his feet; they were attacked, fought bravelyuntil--until--they died."
Stricken to the death at least, but determined to die as the rest haddied, fighting, she drew herself up resolutely, and lifted her hand tothat pitiless heaven above her. "So--be--it--unto--all--the--enemies--"When had he heard her say that before, he wondered in horror. Shestopped, her face went whiter before him, the light went out of it.
"Oh, my son, my son--O God, my son, my son--Oh, give him back, my son--myson!" She reeled and fell against him, moaning and beating the air withher little feeble hands. The break had come at last; she was no longer aTalbot, but a woman. With infinite pity and infinite care he half led,half carried her into the house, and then, after being bidden not tosummon assistance, he sank down on his knees by her side, where she layon the sofa in the parlor, crushed, broken, feeble, helpless, old. Withmany interruptions he told her the sad story. He laid the long dark lockof hair he had cut from her son's head in her hand. There was a letterfrom George Washington which he read to her, in which, after many tenderwords of consolation, he spoke of Talbot as "one who would have donehonor to any country." He told her of that military funeral, the kindwords of Cornwallis, the guard of honor, the soldiers of the king, andthen he put Talbot's own letter to him before her, and she must be toldof the loss of the frigate. Kate dead too, and Colonel Wilton. Alas,poor friends! But all her plans and hopes were gone; what matteredit--what mattered anything now!
"Oh, what a load must those unrighteous men bear before God who haveinaugurated this wicked war!" she cried; but no echo of her reproach washeard in the houses of Parliament in London, or whispered in theantechamber of the king, to whom, assuredly, they belonged.
And by and by he left her. It wrung his heart so to do, but the call ofduty was stronger than her need. His ship was ready, or would be in ashort time, and he had snatched a few days from his pressing work tofulfil this task. His presence was absolutely necessary on the vessel,and he must go. Saying nay to her piteous plea that he should stay, andmost reluctantly refusing her proffers of hospitality, after leaving withher the letters and the pictures, he left the room. But in the doorwayhe looked back at her. The tears had come at last. M
oved by a suddenimpulse, he ran back and knelt down by her, and took her old face betweenhis hands and kissed her.
"Good-by, dear madam," he whispered; "would it had been I!"
She laid her thin hands upon his head.
"Good-by," she whispered; "God bless you. Oh, my boy--my boy!" Sheturned her face to the wall in bitterness, and so he fled.
On the brow of the hill one could see, if he were keen-eyed, the Wiltonplace. There was the boat-house. There she had said she loved him. Hestruck spurs to his horse and galloped madly away. Was there nothing butgrief and sorrow, then, under the sun?
The lawyer and the doctor and the minister were with Madam Talbot allthat day, but it was little they could do. She added a codicil to herwill with the lawyer, submissively took the medicine the doctor left her,and listened quietly to the prayers of the priest. In the morning theyfound her whiter, stiller, calmer than ever. She had gone to meet herson in that new country where none rebel against the King!
BOOK IV
A DEATH GRAPPLE ON THE DEEP