CHAPTER XXIV.
JOHN CRAWFORD AND HIS NEPHEW--THE WRECK OF A WORKING MAN--THE EPISODE OFTHE COCK--THE EFFECT OF JOSEPHINE HARRIS'S LETTER, AND AN EXODUS.
In order to demonstrate more clearly the state of affairs beforeexisting at the house of John Crawford, and the effect really producedby the missive (it might almost as well have been called a _missile_) ofJosephine Harris,--it will be necessary to change the point of view tothe big house on the hill, at a little before noon on that pleasantSunday of summer.
The back piazza of the house looked north and eastward over a slightdepression which might almost be called a valley, and then at the rangeof hills rising behind and stretching downward on the other side almostto the Mohawk. Nearer, it looked out upon an extensive garden, carefullylaid out and thriftily in growth with all the ground-fruits andvegetables natural to the climate, at that time in full luxuriance.Around the high board fences of the garden stood an almost endlessvariety of fruit-trees, the cherry-trees at that moment literally red,or black, or amber, as the case might be, with those delicious littleglobules of pulpy fruit-flesh which seem like drops of fragrantsweetness squeezed from the very heart of Nature. Among them stood appleand pear-trees, each loaded with the growing fruit of that wonderfulfruit-season, in which the smile of God seemed resting broadly on thewhole American continent in the wealth and variety of its productions,however his hand may have been smiting it with the desolations ofpersonal strife and bloodshed.
Digressions have become so common during the course of this narration,that if the later ones are not excusable on the score of propriety, theyat least have that excuse which is held to be so important by thelawyers and the statesmen--_precedent_. And having already sinned inthat regard, beyond any hope of forgiveness and almost beyond anyfeeling of accountability for the erraticism of the pen--let us pausehere, under the reminder of those hanging fruits in John Crawford'sgarden, to say that while perhaps no nation has ever before been socursed with an extended civil war as this once free and happy republicduring the past two years--yet no nation, plunged into any descriptionof conflict, has ever been so favored of Heaven with the means forcarrying it on and so delivered of Heaven from the dangers of famine andpestilence which so often accompany the other affliction.
At no period in the history of any nation in the world, could thestatistics of that country exhibit the same amount of material wealthand power of production as those shown by the loyal States of theAmerican Union at the moment of the breaking out of the Rebellion--thecapabilities of the seceding States being left entirely out of thequestion. Private coffers and the vaults of our banks were alike full ofgold, which had been for years flowing in and amassing from the mines ofCalifornia and the favorable course of foreign exchanges. We had beenfeeding the world, and at the same time supplying ourselves and theworld with more than half the precious metals yearly contributed to thehoards of the nations; and that the country should literally have become"full of money," was inevitable. But more especially did we hold powerover the whole world in our capacities for fruit-growing and in ourstores of breadstuffs already amassed. With proper management of ourresources, the latter fact alone might have made the whole worldtributary to us, and we could have dictated terms in war as well as inpeace.
When a certain young Lieutenant in the British naval service, from theChina fleet, crossed from Hong Kong to San Francisco on his way home onleave, in 1861, and then came by the overland route from San Franciscoto New York, he fell into conversation in this city with a friend whomhe had known in England; and as there were then rumors of trouble withGreat Britain growing out of her expected help to the rebels, thatconversation very naturally turned towards the relative wealth and powerof the two countries.
"Well, I do hope," said the young English officer, "that there will notbe any trouble between the two countries, because we don't want to fightyou, you know!"
"And so do I," said his friend. "The _people_ of America do not bear anyill will to the people or the government of England."
"But we should beat you if we _did_ fight, you know," pursued theEnglishman, with John Bull's tenacity of national pride.
"Think so?" asked the other, with the slightest suspicion of a sneerupon his lip.
"Oh, no, I don't think anything about it--I _know_ it," said theEnglishman. "Why, you haven't got any navy."
"The deuce we haven't!" observed the other. "I guess you have not _seen_our navy!"
"No!--nor has any one else seen an armament worthy of the name," saidthe Englishman, of course supposing that he referred to the dozen of oldand worm-eaten wooden ships that then made up our whole preparation forcontesting the empire of the seas. "Why any one of our half dozen fleetswould eat up your whole navy in half an hour. If you had seen our Balticfleet reviewed at Spithead, as I did just at the close of the Crimeanwar, you would know something of what the word 'navy' meant, and youwould also have some idea, you know, of what a chance you would have atfighting England!"
"Humph! well, yes, you _have_ a pretty long string of vessels, such asthey are," said his American friend. "But I told you that you did notknow anything about _our_ navy, and you do not. You speak of the 'Balticfleet.' Now what will you say when I tell you that at one point on theMississippi we have a line of gun-boats that would knock not only yourBaltic fleet but all the rest of your fleets into smithereens, withouteven firing a gun?"
"Why I should only say that you were crazy, as I think you _are_!" saidthe Englishman, really expecting that his friend would by-and-byeattempt to demonstrate that the easiest way of travelling was by walkingon the head instead of the feet.
"Yes, I daresay you do," said the American. "And yet I am _not_ crazy.The only thing is that you do not yet understand me. The line ofgun-boats of which I speak, is a line of warehouses at Chicago,containing at this moment from six to ten millions of bushels of grain,constantly emptying and constantly being replenished. _That_ is the lineof gun-boats to fight the world, and we can conquer the world if we onlyuse them correctly. We can live within ourselves, without buying onedollar's-worth of anything from any nation abroad, except possibly _tea_(for we can make our own _coffee_ while we can grow _peas_ and _beans_);and there is not another nation on the globe that can do the same. Not anation of you all but must have our breadstuffs or go hungry; and thesailors of your 'Baltic fleet' would not fight well, I fancy, on emptystomachs."
"Humph!" said the Englishman. "That is an odd view to take of war." Buthe said no more, and was evidently thinking. He had grounds for thought,and so had the whole world. We had the element of success in our ownhands, in the capacity of living within ourselves. Had our resourcesbeen properly managed, the importation of all foreign goods prohibitedduring the period of the war, and the exportation of gold andbreadstuffs forbidden and guarded against by the closest watch and themost stringent penalties, with our people practicing the self-denial andeconomy of the men and women of the Revolution, setting theirspinning-wheels and looms once more in motion and wearing home-spunsinstead of imported broadcloths and satins,--had these steps been taken,as they should have been taken, starvation would have fallen upon halfEurope, and the rebellion would long before this time[15] have perishedfrom its own weakness or been crushed out, from sheer necessity, by theEuropean powers whose very existence its continuance was perilling.
[Footnote 15: March 7th, 1863.]
The smile of God has not been withdrawn from our fields and orchards; wehave been continued in national health and still supplied with all theluxuries of production and abundance; and yet what is the use which wehave made of these immense advantages, and what thanks have we renderedto the Supreme Being in those two most acceptable of worships, _labor_and _success_, for the health and wealth thus given and continued?
But these reflections over, which have sprung from the fruit glisteningon the trees in John Crawford's garden, the course of this narrationreverts to two who occupied the back piazza of the mansion at that hourof Sunday noon. The piazza was a broad one, old-fas
hioned like thehouse, with pillars of locust, planed and cornered instead of beingturned or fluted in the more modern fashion. Both the ends and the sidefor a considerable distance towards the centre, were enclosed by a lowrailing _in pale_; and the western end had lattice-work extending to thetops of the pillars, with the leaves and tendrils of a large grape-vinethat had been planted many years before at the corner, running over,twisting and interlacing in the lattice, and making a pleasantflickering shade of the summer sunshine on the floor of the piazza. Afew birds, not yet thoroughly exhausted by the noonday heat, werechirping in the thick branches of the fruit-trees near, and the drowsyhum and chirp of insect life made such a sleepy undertone as could notfail to bring rest and quiet to any mind not preternaturally active. Amore charming place could not have been devised, for a half-dreamy andlazy student of either sex to sit down in an easy chair with a pleasantbook, read and muse until the flickering of the sunshine and the shadowson the floor began to be blended with the type of the page, and thenfall away to the lightest and happiest of slumbers.
There were two figures on the western end of the piazza, under theshade of the grape-vine. The first was that of an old man, sitting in ahigh-backed easy-chair, his feet upon a carpet-covered ottoman, leaningback, and if not in physical slumber, at least in that inertia of themind which denotes failing physical faculties and marks a slumber morecomplete than that of shut eyes and stertorous breathing. Apparently hewas very old, for his hair was thin and nearly white, as it showed frombeneath the colored silk handkerchief thrown loosely over the back ofhis head; his skin had that shrivelled and wrinkled appearance, denotingthat the life-fluids had been exhausted beneath it; his eyes, whenopened, had that white opacity more melancholy than apparent blindness,because it shows a sight which after all takes in and recognizesnothing; and his thin lips had that constant tremulous motion whichindicates a continual desire to speak, with scarcely the power of doingso and with little more than the remnants of a mind left to dictate whatshall be uttered. John Crawford was, in short, a miserable human wreck,all its pride, beauty and power shorn and swept away, and driftinghelplessly on to that lee-shore which is called death.
There was one peculiar feature of his situation which has not yet beennamed, and yet it was the most noticeable of all connected with him.From head to foot, sleeping or waking, at all times and under allcircumstances, his nervous system was shaking and shivering, keeping thehead in that continual quiver which is so melancholy to behold becauseit suggests involuntary labor that must exhaust and wear out the system,and making the weak hand so ungovernable that even the cup of tea put tohis mouth required to be held and guided by others to prevent thecontents being spilled and the vessel falling to the floor. Nothingcould be more pitiable, when watched for a considerable time and whenthe impression forced itself upon the observer that at no single momentwould that tremor ever grow still until the spoiler had completed hiswork, and the limbs should stiffen and straighten in the last chill ofmortality.
And yet John Crawford was really by no means the very old man indicatedby his white hairs, his dimmed eyes and his palsied shiverings. He wasvery little past sixty, and at an age when under ordinary circumstancesseveral years of pleasant life might have been calculated upon. Nor washe the victim of constitutional disease, which had been fought andcombatted until it had at last triumphed and brought down the tornbanner of manhood trailing in the dust. And still less had a life ofearly indulgence and evil courses laid the mine for thisafter-destruction. He was not old to senility; he belonged to a familythat had been noted for their long life, continued vigor and freedomfrom hereditary disease; and he had carefully avoided those errors indrink, food and personal indulgence which open the doors of life'scitadel to the invader from beyond the dark valley. What, then, was thefatal secret? John Crawford was a suicide, and he had chosen apeculiarly American mode of self-immolation. Or perhaps it may with morepropriety be said that he was a Faust in ordinary life, and that he hadcalled upon a national demon to be his aid and his foe. He had _workedhimself to death_--a phrase by many supposed to be hollow and unmeaning,but one too sadly illustrated every day in our modern life.
Born wealthy, he seemed to have imbibed with his earliest breath theimpression that he was comparatively poor, and that only the mostlaborious drudgery of mind and body, to which the toil of the slave inthe cotton-field is little more than play, could keep him from becomingstill poorer. He had been a miser at once of his pennies and his hours,when a boy; and as he had grown older he had become a still worse miserin every opportunity for gain, and a reckless spendthrift of his owncomfort and energy. No laborer on his farm had worked so many hours orso laboriously, the impression having seemed all the while to abide withhim that if _he_ did not labor he would have only eye-service, andnothing would be left him. When others had slept, and he had beendebarred from laboring with his hands, he had still toiled with hisbrain, turning restlessly on his bed when he should have slept, andplanning to make his fertile acres still more productive or to add tothem others that lay in tempting proximity. When hours of relaxation hadbeen demanded by the calls of friendship, and even by the inexorabledemands of his own system, he had shut his ears and refused, as ifputting behind his back some tempter of the soul. Friends had said tohim: "John, you are killing yourself!" or "John, you are working toohard and too steadily! Some day you will pay for all this." And one daya blunt-spoken rustic neighbor, observing him at his toil early andlate, had said: "John Crawford, you are a fool! You do too much work!You have a fine constitution, and think that you can take liberties withit; but some day it will pay you, mark my words! You will find yourself,one fine morning, doubled up like an old horse that has beenover-driven; and that will be the end of _you_! But go on, if you likeit!"
John Crawford _had_ "gone on." He had married very late in life,principally on account of his belief that no man should marry until hehad done his life-work and placed himself beyond anxiety on the score ofproperty. When the day of his marriage came, after an engagement ofnearly ten years, people had long been saying that the woman of hischoice, his "Mary," had already worried away the best part of her lifein anxiety for him and in fears for the final prevention of their union.Then, when the marriage was finally consummated and those who loved himbest hoped that he would relax in his life-wearing toil, he had merelycommenced to work the harder, because a married man needed to be bettercircumstanced than a single one! And when, five or six years after hismarriage, and after giving birth to his one daughter and only child,Mary, his wife died, he had gone to work still harder, it seemed, as theonly means of forgetting his bereavement! Rain or shine--early andlate--year after year, he had labored on, enriching his lands andincreasing his outbuildings, adding new acres and putting a few morethousands to those already out at interest on good bond-and-mortgage.
One day--some two years before the date of this story--the crash hadcome. The "old horse" had "doubled up." John Crawford had not come downto breakfast at his usual time, and those who went up to look after himhad first discovered what ruin could do in a single night. The hale manof the night before had become a partial paralytic, helpless from thatday forward--never again to lift hand in any employment, and scarcelypermitted brain enough to realize all that he had won and all that hehad lost. Gradually, afterwards, his mind had cleared and his speechreturned, though feebly; but during all the two years his nervousprostration had been increasing and his bodily strength declining, untilfor weeks before that Sunday of July the physicians had pronounced himgradually dying and expected him to drop away at any moment.
Such was half the picture presented at the end of the piazza, the otherhalf being made up of Colonel Egbert Crawford, his military coat changedto a blouse of brown linen and his boots replaced by a pair ofembroidered slippers, but in all other regards quite as we have beforeseen him, and altogether the legitimate commander of the Two HundredthVolunteers. During all his late visits to the farm, and especially sincethe defection and ostracism of Richard, he had made his
"strong point"in paying great attention to the infirm old gentleman; and as personalattention is always pleasant and flattering, and more particularly so tothe old, crippled, tedious and tiresome, he had succeeded in winning aplace in the old man's regard, by this course, which he might havefailed to secure by any other means.
On this particular morning he was rather well pleased than otherwise tosee Mary throw on her flat and run out to make a call on some one of theneighbors, as this gave him an opportunity, on this his last day ofprobation, of making himself very devoted to his prospectivefather-in-law, without any serious drain upon his own personal comfortand energy. To wait upon the old man, after he had been got up anddressed for the morning and assisted out to the cool piazza, as in thisinstance--consisted of very little more than answering the few wordswhich the invalid might happen to address him (and they were likely tobe very few),--brushing away a troublesome fly when the old man sunkinto a doze and the pest came too near his nose,--moving him a little ifthe sun happened to become troublesome through the vines,--or picking upand restoring a dropped handkerchief. The Colonel was rather wellpleased to have something to employ him in this manner on thisparticular morning, especially when he could combine the employmentwith a book and a lounge with his feet upon the piazza-railing; for thehouse was a little ticklish for indiscriminate roaming about, owing tothe arrangements which he knew to be in progress. The dare-devil MajorLally, of the French revolutionary time, is said to have laid his headupon the block with many doubts as to the grace of his position, andwith an apology to the executioner if he should have happened totransgress any of the rules of mortuary good-breeding,--on the groundthat "he never had had his head cut off before;" and Colonel EgbertCrawford, never having been married before, may be excused if he hadsome sort of indefinite impression that all the rooms in the house werefull of awful preparations, liable to be run against at any moment, andaltogether fatal to matrimonial prospects if accidentally disturbed. Sothe piazza and the old man furnished him with a means of killing timethat was "devilish dull," and at the same time with a certainty of beingkept in a place where he could not possibly "run foul of anything" or doany harm.
The old man had scarcely spoken for half an hour. He had been lulled bythe drowsy sounds of the summer noon, and by the growing listlessness ofhis own nature, into a few moments of doze, in which the Colonel,closing his eyes to the pages of his book, seemed on the point ofjoining him. Suddenly a rooster, that had strolled around from thebarnyard and flown up to a cool location on the top of the garden fence,and under the shade of one of the cherry-trees (at which elevation nodoubt his numerous harem in the yard regarded him with the same reverentrespect paid to the Prophet Brigham, when at a distance, by hisfifty-six wives and a fraction)--suddenly this rooster, forgetting theproprieties of the place and the hour, lazily flapped his big wings andemitted a crow of such magnificent dimensions as might have startled thewhole neighborhood. Colonel Egbert Crawford started and opened his eyes:the old man straightened up his shaking head and did likewise. The soundwas like an icy sword-blade thrust into a slumbering and tepidfountain--startling all the water spirits from repose and propriety,--orlike Christmas suddenly obtruded, keen and pure, into the sluggish restof midsummer. Of what the old man mused as his waking thoughtsrecognized the sound, can never be known--possibly of the wealth whichhe had garnered and of the broad lands over which that sound wentringing--all his own, but his own in what miserable mockery! Of whatColonel Egbert Crawford thought when the sound smote his ears, is muchmore certain. The cock-crow and _betrayal_! He had been brought up inthe country, and many a time, in his younger and better days, whenintercourse with the world had not yet developed the evil germ in hischaracter, he had read and pondered over the mysterious connectionbetween the cock, Shakspeare's "bird of dawning," and the scenes whichpreceded the Crucifixion. Remembering that the cock had seemed to appearand speak as the accuser of Peter, he had insensibly come to connectthose events with the blacker guilt of Iscariot, and to look upon thebird as the watcher and detecter. In olden days this had not troubledhim: perhaps it would not have done so, only four or five months before,when his hands were so much nearer stainless than they could be calledat that hour. Now, on the verge of his marriage, and when the doubletree of murder that he had planted (murder of character and murder ofperson!) was about bearing welcome and triumphant fruit, the rooster'scry, so sharp, sudden and unexpected, came to him like the voice of anaccusing spirit. It may be taken as a proof of his cowardice when we saythat momentarily his cheek whitened and his limbs trembled; and perhapsevery criminal is a coward, because he dares not do right and trust theevent with the overruling providences. But Egbert Crawford was no_physical_ coward, as we may have occasion to know before we have closedthis relation. Yet he did whiten, and he did tremble. Was theresomething ominous in this sudden disturbance of the Sabbath quiet? Didit foreshadow another and a more startling disturbance, through whichthe dark, silent current of the river of guilt would be splashed into bythe falling stones of the temple of error overhanging it? Was there init an omen of the sudden flash of a bright and unendurable light throughthose black caverns, hitherto supposed to be impenetrable, where crawlthe loathsome and slimy reptiles of deceit and treachery?
Pshaw! why should there be anything of this involved? Cocks had crowedbefore, even at noon-tide in summer, and the world had outlived theomen! Nevertheless the sound, especially so loud and grating a one, inwhich the bray of the donkey was so evenly mixed with the hideous screamof the peacock before rain, was an inopportune and impudent one; and theColonel would have been very likely to wring chanticleer's neck if ithad happened to come within the clutch of his fingers. As it was, hedetermined to cause an immediate abandonment of that stronghold, andsprung up to look for a club or a stone with which the enemy could bedislodged; when the rooster espying danger afar off, evacuated hisManassas before the enemy could reach him, and went back to his cacklingharem. To them he no doubt related, in the appropriate language of thebipeds _with_ feathers, what a couple of sleepy-heads he had seen uponthe piazza, and how he had startled them both with a voluntary upon hisprivate organ. Meanwhile the Colonel had dropped back into his seat.
But old John Crawford, fully awakened by the sound, did not seem likelyto fall away into slumber again. As Egbert resumed his place in thechair, the old man said, feebly:
"Egbert."
Instantly the Colonel, never forgetting his cue of attention to theinvalid, drew closer to his side.
"Yes, Uncle, what can I do for you?"
"Where is Mary?" asked the old man, who had probably before asked thequestion half a dozen times since she had left the house.
"Gone out for a walk, Uncle," said the expectant son-in-law. "I supposeshe is calling upon some of the neighbors. It is her last day, you know,Uncle."
"Her last day?--yes, you are going to be married to-night. I know,"whispered the old man, with the air of a child to whom the intelligencehas been communicated as a great secret--not that of a father who hadthus willed for the happiness of a dear child.
"Domine Rodgers is to come at six," said the Colonel. "And then I hope Ishall have the pleasure of calling you by a dearer name than that ofUncle."
"Yes, yes--Mary is a good girl," said the old man. "Take good care ofher, Egbert. I am afraid I shan't live long, myself--not manyyears"--(Poor old man!--no efforts had been sufficient to awake him tothe fact that his remaining time on the earth was probably to bemeasured by days or hours instead of years!) "I am going to have my willmade, Egbert, the moment you are married, and I am going to leave all myproperty to her--_her_--her and you. You will have it all. Don't wasteit, and don't let it go out of the family--not out of the family,Egbert! You are a Crawford, and I want to keep the property in thefamily. Eh, Egbert?"
"I will _try_ to do everything that you wish, Uncle!" said the Colonel;and no doubt that he really meant to obey that portion of his Uncle'sinjunctions--to _keep the property in the family_.
"And look here, Egbert,"
said the old man, who seemed to speak with lessdifficulty than was usual to him, though there were hindrances in hisdelivery very painful to the hearer and which we cannot caricature ageand decrepitude by attempting to convey. "Look here--there is one thingmore. Not a dollar to that scoundrel, Richard!--not a dollar, if hestarves!"
"Not a dollar, Uncle; I promise you this, solemnly." And this promise,too, he meant to keep, beyond a question.
"And, Egbert, keep Mary away from him. Don't let him even see her if youcan avoid it. They used to be together a great deal, and I don't know--Idon't know!" What the old man did not know, must remain among the othermysteries not yet to be revealed. "Keep her away from him--don't let hergo near him."
Though there were words in this last sentence of his Uncle's which didnot entirely please the Colonel, yet there were others which did pleasehim thoroughly. He made the third promise with the same alacrity. Howeasy the old man was making his path! To keep the property in the family(that meant, to keep it himself!) to give Richard no part of it underany circumstances (a thing not very likely)--and to keep his young wifefrom the presence of a man from whom he had only won her by the basestfalsehood (a thing he was certain to do at all events)--these were thethree injunctions: how easy to fulfil! The cup of the young man'scontent was at that moment brimming over, and the impudent chanticleerwho only five minutes before had tortured him from the garden palings,was quite forgotten.
Just then there was a light foot-fall on the piazza behind the twospeakers. The dulled senses of John Crawford were too dim to recognizeit, but the keener faculties of the Colonel heard the beat of the littlefoot at once and knew it to be Mary's. He was just opening his mouth tosay to his uncle, "Here is Mary, now!" when he caught a glimpse of herface; and then he remained gazing and said nothing. Mary had returnedfrom her walk, had thrown off her bonnet, and stepped out to the piazzato look after the comfort of her father, and perhaps for some otherpurpose. She was at that moment just outside the door, and from theposition of the Colonel, framed between the pillars at the other end ofthe piazza and against the dark green foliage of an arborvitae standingbeyond. What was it that the quick eye of the Colonel saw, as he turned,that stopped the words upon his lips and made him look in silence on theyoung girl's face and figure? She had been absent from the house lessthan an hour--what could have occurred to her, within that space oftime, to change their relative positions? And yet their relativepositions _were_ changed--he felt the truth in an instant. He had partedwith her less than two hours before--he the successful deceiver and shethe blind victim. They met again, and she had gone beyond his power andhis knowledge. We have often before had occasion, in the course of thisnarration, to speak of sudden changes in the human face and demeanor, somarked as to be absolutely startling. None of those changes could havebeen more marked than that shown by the face and figure of this younggirl, as glanced at by the practiced eye of this man of the world. Shelooked taller, straighter in form, and no longer drooping and inelastic.Her glorious auburn hair was partially shaken loose from itsconfinement, as it had become during the exciting interview withJosephine Harris; and while the negligence added to the charm of herappearance, the very fact that she had not displayed a woman's coquetryin smoothing it rapidly into order before the glass when she threw offher bonnet, betrayed that she was much more awake and excited thanusual. Was this on account of the near approach of the hour of hermarriage? Egbert Crawford scarcely thought so, for the eye was not thatof an expectant bride. That soft, sweet hazel eye still looked sad andtroubled, but there seemed to be a spark of something fiercer andsharper than love, amid the trouble. Once more, what was it? Neverbefore had she seemed so handsome, but never so unapproachable; and ifthe unscrupulous man had really held a true sentiment of love for her,at the bottom of all his selfish and evil designs (and who shall saythat he had _not_?) there came the sharpest and deepest pang of his lifein the first awakening of the thought that she was _slipping away fromhim_ even at the moment when he had apparently clutched her.
The Colonel, thoroughly mystified and a little alarmed, rose from hisseat and was advancing towards the young girl, when she moved a pacetowards him, her eyes first downcast and then even sternly raised to hisface. She did not call him by name, nor wait until he had so addressedher, but held close to him, as if to avoid any possible observation, asmall sealed note--and said, her voice trembling and husky:
"A private note for you. Please read it at once."
Passing by him without another word and without waiting for any reply,she advanced towards the end of the piazza where her father was sitting,and knelt down beside him. Colonel Egbert Crawford noted every featureof the movement, and saw that his fancy of the change in her appearancewas not fancy alone. There _was_ something threatening. Mechanically hehad taken the note as she had handed it to him and passed by. He glancedat the superscription, and though his wonder was increased, his fears ofa rupture with Mary were partially dissipated, for the hand was totallyunknown to him. Ha! he had it! The hand-writing on the note was that ofa woman--the note had come to the house for him--she had seen it andconceived a sudden spasm of jealousy on account of it! How easily hecould dissipate that idea by showing her the note, which he was certaincould not be from any illicit female correspondent who had brought himwithin her power. The note was almost certain to be from some lady onprofessional business, or from the wife, sister or mother of somerecruit who had enlisted in the famous Two Hundredth, asking for hisinfluence towards a discharge or a furlough. He would show her the noteat once, after he had read it, and with some kind of laughing excuse forshowing it which would not betray the fact that he knew of her havingany interest in it; and then this sudden but not dangerous hurricanewould be over.
He glanced round at the pair on the end of the piazza, a smile oftriumph on his face, as he came to this conclusion. Mary was kneelingbeside her father, her back towards himself, fondling the old man's poorwithered face, and paying so little attention to the man so soon to beher husband, that the jealousy hypothesis might have seemed wellsupported. What was it that the little girl had said to JosephineHarris, not half an hour before?--that "she could never meet EgbertCrawford after such a revelation?" Something of the kind, certainly. Andshe had met him, and unconsciously and without calculation gone throughthe very-brief interview in a manner worthy of the most finishedactress--say of _La Heron, La Hoey_ or _La Bateman_, to name three ofthe most dissimilar but ablest representatives of dramatic character onthe American stage. Oh, these little women, who make a boast of theirweakness--there is very little that they cannot do when brought to thetest!
Colonel Egbert Crawford tore open the note, walking towards the upper oreastern end of the piazza as he did so. His back was towards the two onthe other end, and perhaps it was well that he should have been sopositioned at that moment. Naturally, he glanced first at the bottom,and saw a name which he immediately recognized as that of one who hadbeen _in the way_ sometimes at the Crawfords. He had never liked her, orheld any more intercourse with her than was unavoidable with a veryfrequent guest at the same house with himself. He had considered her alittle loud in voice, rather rapid, and a _fool_. He had been satisfiedthat she told all that she knew, and he would not have been surprised tofind that sometimes she told considerably more. He had considered herutterly incapable of keen research, and the very last person in theworld to keep a secret, supposing that such a thing could come into herpossession. What did he find here, and from her?
He read that note three times over, standing on the extreme east end ofthe piazza, leaning against the corner-board of the house, and with hisface so averted from those at the other end that even if Mary Crawfordonce or twice threw a quick glance around, she could see nothing. Thenhe turned, shoving the letter into his vest-pocket as he did so, andwalked slowly down the piazza to the hall-door, his face calm, to alldistant appearance, and whistling "_Strida la Vampa_."
If Mary Crawford had not before been able to see his movements, she arosefrom her knees as he
came down the piazza, and saw him _then_. She saw himas he passed in at the hall-door, heard him whistle without an apparenttremor in a note, and heard his slippered steps as he slowly lounged upthe stair towards the room on the second floor which had been for somemonths kept as his. The young girl was disappointed--astonished--astounded!She had seen no agitation--had heard and seen the indications of theopposite! The blow had not been effectual--it had either been feeblystruck or delivered from a false aim! He was not guilty, or he was beyondfear and knew himself to be beyond the reach of public exposure! She hadhoped too soon--the bond she dreaded was not broken or even deferred;and God help her, after all!
Such were the impressions of the young girl, as the man within a fewhours to be her husband disappeared into the hall. Were they wellfounded? Ah, young eyes!--you may be schooled to do your part, veryearly, but you cannot at once be schooled to read the eyes of othersaright. Perhaps you _never_ learn to read aright, until you lose thebrightness of your own truth and beauty. Seventeen cannot well realize,to-night at Mrs. Pearl Dowlas's hop, when Mr. Pearl Dowlas, the eminentmerchant, supposed to be worth a million, caresses his handsomeside-whiskers with his faultless hand and interchanges pleasant nothingswith the fashionable women who all admire him and all hate hiswife,--that Mr. Pearl Dowlas is suffering, all the while, the intenseagonies of ruin, and that he has the revolver already loaded and cappedwith which he intends to blow out his brains after the last carriage hasrolled away. And Seventeen will be quite as slow to discover, unlessSeventeen has lived too fast for her own self-respect and eventualhappiness, that Lady Flora, patting her white-gloved hands to-night atthe Opera, with the blonde Emperor by her side, apparently the happiestand the most truly envied woman in all that brilliant house, has suchpangs of rage and jealousy tugging at her heart-strings, when she looksover at a much plainer woman in the opposite row of boxes, that couldthe terror of the law be removed, she would sacrifice self-respect,dignity, hope, everything, and bury a knife in the heart of that plainerwoman as they brush by each other in the lobby. Seventeen will be slowto discover these things. Twenty-five may have a nearer appreciation ofthem, though yet dim as compared with the reality alas!--it needsForty-five or Fifty, or a younger age made so old by sadexperience--Forty-five or Fifty, with the bloom gone, the gray hair hereand the wrinkles coming, to look beneath the surface and see the agonywrithing at the bottom. Thank God that some agonies never can bediscovered at all, until they break forth in uncontrollable madness: theworld might be sadder if we _could_ look in through transparent fleshinto our neighbors' hearts, as we do through glass windows into theirhouses!
"_Strida la Vampa_" had been bravely whistled. Not braver the conduct ofthe poor cartman at the hospital a few months ago, when he looked calmlyon without a groan or a wince, while the surgeon sawed off the ends ofthe bone of his fractured arm, drilled holes through them and screwedthem together with a fastening of gold wire! That was physical bravery,or perhaps stolid exemption from pain: this was that moral bravery, in abad cause, but none the less real, which could see wholesale andundeniable ruin fall without betraying one sign of agony to the observermost interested. Though he had read that letter three times to fix thewords in his mind, he had understood it at the first reading. It toldhim all that needed to be known. Mary's changed look and her avertedface were now accounted for--accounted for at once and forever. No wordof explanation was necessary and none would be given or demanded. Somemen might have hesitated, and questioned whether the blow could not besoftened or averted. This was not Egbert Crawford. He had played,boldly, wickedly and recklessly, though apparently with all care. At thevery moment when he seemed to have won all, he had lost all. At the barhe had always been known as contesting a case unscrupulously and to thebitter end, but as giving up gracefully and bearing a defeat withoutcomplaint, _when_ defeated. A suspicion once aroused, and backed as was_this_ suspicion, the wearer of the eyes he had just seen could neveragain be deceived. Had he been less of a resolute man he might havedared the other threats of the young girl, perhaps impotent. But the onegreat stake lost, in the hand and fortune of Mary Crawford, there wasnothing left to play for, worth even hazarding exposure.
We will not say that in his own chamber, and while changing his slippersfor boots and his linen-wrapper to a coat more fit for the street, hedid not more than once gnash his teeth, utter an oath below his breath,and curse the whole race of meddling women. But if he did so, he saidnothing aloud; and if his dark brows were darker than usual, no humaneye saw them. He had writing materials upon the table in thatroom--_that room_, the best in the house, and into which, on the nightto follow, he had expected to be accompanied by _his bride_. He sat downat the table but a moment, but in that moment he dashed off, with a handwonderfully steady under the circumstances, the following note:
SUNDAY, 1 P.M.
_Miss Harris_:--
You have meddled successfully, and whether you are right or wrong in what you allege, I shall not be here to contest the question. If your husband, if you ever get one, keeps half as close a watch over you, he will probably see quite enough to satisfy him. Perhaps you will be kind enough to communicate _this_ to Miss Mary Crawford, and thus finish the obligations under which I rest.
Yours, humbly,
EGBERT CRAWFORD.
In a moment more this note was sealed and directed to "Miss JosephineHarris--Care of Miss Crawford" and left lying on the table, with thesuperscription upward. Then Colonel Egbert Crawford put on his hat,walked deliberately down-stairs and out at the front of the house. Noone seemed to observe him--not even a domestic, and probably nothingwould have pleased him better at that moment. Walking down the lane tothe road, he turned up the road to the left, went up to a little countrytavern where he had sometimes hired a riding-horse on previous visits,and hired a horse and buggy, with a driver, to go at once to Utica. Tenminutes completed the negotiation, and ten more harnessed up the horseto the vehicle; so that before the call to dinner was made at theCrawford mansion, before old John Crawford was assisted in from theportico, or Mary thought of the arbiter of her destiny as elsewhere thanin his own room,--he was bowling down the dusty road towards Utica. Whenthe down-train from Suspension Bridge left Utica for Albany thatafternoon, the detected and beaten gambler in reputations, lives andmatrimonial ventures, was a passenger.
Shoulder-Straps: A Novel of New York and the Army, 1862 Page 25
