Celia told him this on the third day, late in the afternoon — so late that the westering sun was already touching the crests of the oak woods, and all the thickets had turned softly purple like the bloom on a plum; the mounting scent of phlox from the garden was growing sweeter, and the bats fluttered and dipped and soared in the calm evening sky.
She had been talking of his mother when she was Constance Paige and wore a fillet over her dark ringlets and rode to hounds at ten with the hardest riders in all Prince Clarence County.
“And this was her own room, Phil; nothing in it has been moved, nothing changed; this is the same bird and garland chintz, matching the same wall-paper; this is the same old baid with its fo’ ca’ved columns and its faded canopy, the same gilt mirror where she looked and saw reflected there the loveliest face in all the valley. . . . A child’s face, Phil — even a child’s face when she drew aside her bridal veil to look. . . . Ah — God—” She sighed, looking down at her clasped hands, “if youth but knew — if youth but knew!”
He lay silent, the interminable rattle of picket firing in his ears, his face turned toward the window. Through it he could see green grass, a magnolia in bloom, and a long flawless spray of Cherokee roses pendant from the gallery.
Celia sighed, waited for him to speak, sighed again, and picked up the Baltimore newspaper to resume her reading if he desired.
Searching the columns listlessly, she scanned the headings, glanced over the letter press in silence, then turned the crumpled page. Presently she frowned.
“Listen to this, Philip; they say that there is yellow fever among the Yankee troops in Louisiana. It would be like them to bring that horror into the Ca’linas and Virginia — —”
He turned his head suddenly, partly rose from where he lay; and she caught her breath and bent swiftly over him, placing one hand on his arm and gently forcing him down upon the-pillow again.
“Fo’give me, dear,” she faltered. “I forgot what I was reading — —”
He said, thoughtfully: “Did you ever hear exactly how my mother died, Celia? . . . But I know you never did. . . . And I think I had better tell you.”
“She died in the fever camp at Silver Bayou, when you were a little lad,” whispered Celia.
“No.”
“Philip! What are you saying?”
“You don’t know how my mother died,” he said quietly.
“Phil, we had the papers — and the Governor of Louisiana wrote us himse’f — —”
“I know what he wrote and what the papers published was not true. I’ll tell you how she died. When I was old enough to take care of myself I went to Silver Bayou. . . . Many people in that town had died; some still survived. I found the parish records. I found one of the camp doctors who remembered that accursed year of plague — an old man, withered, indifferent, sleeping his days away on the rotting gallery of his tumble-down house. He knew. . . . And I found some of the militia still surviving; and one among them retained a confused memory of my mother — among the horrors of that poisonous year — —”
He lay silent, considering; then: “I was old enough to remember, but not old enough to understand what I understood later. . . . Do you want to know how my mother died?”
Celia’s lips moved in amazed assent.
“Then I will tell you. . . . They had guards north, east, and west of us. They had gone mad with fright; the whole land was quarantined against us; musket, flintlock, shotgun, faced us through the smoke of their burning turpentine. I was only a little lad, but the horror of it I have never forgotten, nor my mother’s terror — not for herself, for me.”
He lay on his side, thin hands clasped, looking not at Celia but beyond her at the dreadful scene his fancy was painting on the wall of his mother’s room:
“Often, at night, we heard the shots along the dead line. Once they murdered a man behind our water garden. Our negroes moaned and sobbed all day, all night, helpless, utterly demoralised. Two were shot swimming; one came back dying from snake bite. I saw him dead on the porch.
“I saw men fall down in the street with the black vomit — women, also — and once I saw two little children lying dead against a garden wall in St. Catharine’s Alley. I was young, but I remember.”
A terrible pallor came into his wan face.
“And I remember my mother,” he said; “and her pleading with the men who came to the house to let her send me across the river where there was no fever. I remember her saying that it was murder to imprison children there in Silver Bayou; that I was perfectly well so far. They refused. Soldiers came and went. Their captain died; others died, we heard. Then my mother’s maid, Alice, an octoroon, died on the East Gallery. And the quarters went insane that day.
“When night came an old body-servant of my grandfather scratched at mother’s door. I heard him. I thought it was Death. I was half dead with terror when mother awoke and whispered to me to dress in the dark and to make no sound.
“I remember it perfectly — remember saying: ‘I won’t go if you don’t, mother. I’d rather be with you.’ And I remember her saying: ‘You shall not stay here to die when you are perfectly well. Trust mother, darling; Jerry will take you to Sainte Jacqueline in a boat.’
“And after that it is vaguer — the garden, the trench dug under the north wall — and how mother and I, in deadly fear of moccasins, down on all fours, crept after Jerry along the ditch to the water’s edge — —”
His face whitened again; he lay silent for a while, crushing his wasted hands together.
“Celia, they fired on us from the levee. After that I don’t know; I never knew what happened. But that doctor at Silver Bayou said that I was found a mile below in a boat with the first marks of the plague yellowing my skin. Celia, they never found my mother’s body. It is not true that she died of fever at Silver Bayou. She fell under the murderous rifles of the levee guard — gave her life trying to save me from that pest-stricken prison. Jerry’s body was found stranded in the mud twenty miles below. He had been shot through the body. . . . And now you know how my mother died.”
He raised himself on one elbow, watching Celia’s shocked white face for a moment or two, then wearily turned toward the window and sank back on his pillows.
In the still twilight, far away through the steady fusillade from the outposts, he heard the dull boom-booming of cannon, and the heavy shocks of the great guns aboard the Union gun-boats. But it sounded very far off; a mocking-bird sang close under his window; the last rosy bar faded from the fleecy cloud bank in the east. Night came abruptly — the swift Southern darkness quickly emblazoned with stars; and the whip-poor-wills began their ghostly calling; and the spectres of the mist crept stealthily inland.
“Celia?”
Her soft voice answered from the darkness near him.
He said: “I knew this was her room before you told me. I have seen her several times.”
“Good God, Phil!” she faltered, “what are you saying?”
“I don’t know. . . . I saw her the night I came here.”
After a long silence Celia rose and lighted a candle. Holding it a little above her pallid face she glided to his bedside and looked down at him. After a moment, bending, she touched his face with her palm; then her cool finger-tips brushed the quiet pulse at his wrist.
“Have I any fever?”
“No, Phil.”
“I thought not. . . . I saw mother’s face a few moments ago in that mirror behind you.”
Celia sank down on the bed’s edge, the candle trembling in her hand. Then, slowly, she turned her head and looked over her shoulder, moving cautiously, until her fascinated eyes found the glass behind her. The mirror hung there reflecting the flowered wall opposite; a corner of the bed; nothing else.
He said in an even voice;
“From the first hour that you brought me into this room, she has been here. I knew it instantly. . . . The first day she was behind those curtains — was there a long while. I knew she was there; I
watched the curtains, expecting her to step out. I waited all day, not understanding that I — that it was better that I should speak. I fell asleep about dusk. She came out then and sat where you are sitting.”
“It was a dream, Phil. It was fever. Try to realise what you are saying!”
“I do. The next evening I lay watching; and I saw a figure reflected in the mirror. It was not yet dusk. Celia, in the sunset light I saw her standing by the curtains. But it was star-light before she came to the bed and looked down at me.
“I said very quietly: ‘Mother dear!’ Then she spoke to me; and I knew she was speaking, but I could not hear her voice. . . . It was that way while she stood beside me — I could not hear her, Celia. I could not hear what she was saying. It was no spirit I saw — no phantom from the dead there by my bed, no ghost — no restless wraith, grave-driven through the night. I believe she is living. She knows I believe it. . . . As you sat here, a moment ago, reading to me, I saw her reflected for a moment in the mirror behind you, passing into the room beyond. Her hair is perfectly white, Celia — or,” he said vaguely to himself, “was it something she wore? — like the bandeaux of the Sisters of Charity — —”
The lighted candle fell from Celia’s nerveless fingers and rolled over and over across the floor, trailing a smoking wick. Berkley’s hand steadied her trembling arm.
“Why are you frightened?” he asked calmly.
“There is nothing dead about what I saw.”
“I c-can’t he’p myse’f,” stammered Celia; “you say such frightful things to me — you tell me that they happen in my own house — in her own room — How can I be calm? How can I believe such things of — of Constance Berkley — of yo’ daid mother — —”
“I don’t know,” he said dully.
The star-light sparkled on the silver candle-stick where it lay on the floor in a little pool of wax. Quivering all over, Celia stooped to lift, relight it, and set it on the table. And, over her shoulder, he saw a slim shape enter the doorway.
“Mother dear?” he whispered.
And Celia turned with a cry and stood swaying there in the rays of the candle.
But it was only a Sister of Charity — a slim, childish figure under the wide white head-dress — who had halted, startled at Celia’s cry. She was looking for the Division Medical Director, and the sentries had misinformed her — and she was very sorry, very deeply distressed to have frightened anybody — but the case was urgent — a Sister shot near the picket line on Monday; and authority to send her North was, what she had come to seek. Because the Sister had lost her mind completely, had gone insane, and no longer knew them, knew nobody, not even herself, nor the hospital, nor the doctors, nor even that she lay on a battle-field. And she was saying strange and dreadful things about herself and about people nobody had ever heard of. . . . Could anybody tell her where the Division Medical Director could be found?
It was not yet daybreak when Berkley awoke in his bed to find lights in the room and medical officers passing swiftly hither and thither, the red flames from their candles blowing smokily in the breezy doorways.
The picket firing along the river had not ceased. At the same instant he felt the concussion of heavy guns shaking his bed. The lawn outside the drawn curtains resounded with the hurrying clatter of waggons, the noise of pick and spade and crack of hammer and mallet.
He drew himself to a sitting posture. A regimental surgeon passing through the room glanced at him humorously, saying: “You’ve got a pretty snug berth here, son. How does it feel to sleep in a real bed?” And, extinguishing his candle, he went away through the door without waiting for any answer.
Berkley turned toward the window, striving to reach the drawn curtains. And at length he managed to part them, but it was all dark outside. Yet the grounds were evidently crowded with waggons and men; he recognised sounds which indicated that tents were being erected, drains and sinks dug; the rattle of planks and boards were significant of preparation for the construction of “shebangs.”
Farther away on the dark highway he could hear the swift gallop of cavalry and the thudding clank of light batteries, all passing in perfect darkness. Then, leaning closer to the sill, he gazed between the curtains far into the southwest; and saw the tall curve of Confederate shells traced in whirling fire far down the river, the awful glare of light as the enormous guns on the Union warships replied.
Celia, her lovely hair over her shoulders, a scarf covering her night-dress, came in carrying a lighted candle; and instantly a voice from outside the window bade her extinguish the light or draw the curtain.
She looked at Berkley in a startled manner, blew out the flame, and came around between his bed and the window, drawing the curtains entirely aside.
“General Claymore’s staff has filled eve’y room in the house except yours and mine,” she said in her gentle, bewildered way. “There’s a regiment — Curt’s Zouaves — encamped befo’ the west quarters, and a battery across the drive, and all the garden is full of their horses and caissons.”
“Poor little Celia,” he said, reaching out to touch her hand, and drawing her to the bed’s edge, where she sat down helplessly.
“The Yankee officers are all over the house,” she repeated. “They’re up in the cupola with night-glasses now. They are ve’y polite. Curt took off his riding boots and went to sleep on my bed — and oh he is so dirty! — my darling Curt’ my own husband! — too dirty to touch! I could cry just to look at his uniform, all black and stained and the gold entirely gone from one sleeve! And Stephen! — oh, Phil, some mise’ble barber has shaved the heads of all the Zouaves, and Steve is perfectly disfigured! — the poor, dear boy” — she laughed hysterically— “he had a hot bath and I’ve been mending the rags that he and Curt call unifo’ms — and I found clean flannels fo’ them both in the attic — —”
“What does all this mean — all this camping outside?” he interrupted gently.
“Curt doesn’t know. The camps and hospitals west of us have been shelled, and all the river roads are packed full of ambulances and stretchers going east.”
“Where is my regiment?”
“The Lancers rode away yesterday with General Stoneman — all except haidqua’ters and one squadron — yours, I think — and they are acting escort to General Sykes at the overseers house beyond the oak grove. Your colonel is on his staff, I believe.”
He lay silent, watching the burning fuses of the shells as they soared up into the night, whirling like fiery planets on their axes, higher, higher, mounting through majestic altitudes to the pallid stars, then, curving, falling faster, faster, till their swift downward glare split the darkness into broad sheets of light.
“Phil,” she whispered, “I think there is a house on fire across the river!”
Far away in the darkness rows of tiny windows in an unseen mansion had suddenly become brilliantly visible.
“It — it must be Mr. Ruffin’s house,” she said in an awed voice. “Oh, Phil! It is! Look! It’s all on fire — it’s — oh, see the flames on the roof! This is terrible — terrible—” She caught her breath.
“Phil! There’s another house on fire! Do you see — do you see! It’s Ailsa’s house — Marye-mead! Oh, how could they set it on fire — how could they have the heart to burn that sweet old place!”
“Is that Marye-mead?” he asked.
“It must be. That’s where it ought to stand — and — oh! oh! it’s all on fire, Phil, all on fire!”
“Shells from the gun-boats,” he muttered, watching the entire sky turn crimson as the flames burst into fury, lighting up clumps of trees and outhouses. And, as they looked, the windows of another house began to kindle ominously; little tongues of fire fluttered over a distant cupola, leaped across to a gallery, ran up in vinelike tendrils which flowered into flame, veining everything in a riotous tangle of brilliancy. And through the kindling darkness the sinister boom — boom! of the guns never ceased, and the shells continued to mount, curve, and fall,
streaking the night with golden incandescence.
Outside the gates, at the end of the cedar-lined avenue, where the highway passes, the tumult was increasing every moment amid shouts, cracking of whips, the jingle and clash of traces and metallic racket of wheels. The house, too, resounded with the heavy hurried tread of army boots trampling up and down stairs and crossing the floors above in every direction.
In the summer kitchen loud-voiced soldiers were cooking; there came the clatter of plates from the dining-room, the odour of hot bread and frying pork.
“All my negroes except old Peter and a quadroon maid have gone crazy,” said Celia hopelessly. “I had them so comfo’tably qua’tered and provided foh! — Cary, the ove’seer, would have looked after them while the war lasts — but the sight of the blue uniforms unbalanced them, and they swa’med to the river, where the contraband boats were taking runaways. . . . Such foolish creatures! They were ve’y happy here and quite safe and well treated. . . . And everyone has deserted, old and young! — toting their bundles and baskets on their silly haids — every negro on Paigecourt plantation, every servant in this house except Peter and Sadie has gone with the contrabands . . . I’m sure I don’t know what these soldiers are cooking in the kitchen. I expect they’ll end by setting the place afire, and I told Curt so, but he can’t he’p it, and I can’t. It’s ve’y hard to see the house turned out of the windows, and the lawns and gardens cut to pieces by hoofs and wheels, but I’m only too thankful that Curt can find shelter under this roof, and nothing matters any mo’ as long as he and Stephen are alive and well.”
“Haven’t you heard from Ailsa yet?” asked Berkley in a low voice.
“Oh, Phil! I’m certainly worried. She was expecting to go on board some hospital boat at the landing the day befo’ your regiment arrived. I haven’t set eyes on her since. A gun-boat was to take one of the Commission’s steamers to Fortress Monroe, and all that day the fleet kept on firing at our — at the Confederate batteries over the river” — she corrected herself wearily— “and I was so afraid, that Ailsa’s steamer would try to get out — —”
Works of Robert W Chambers Page 507
