Anne: A Novel

by Constance Fenimore Woolson

  CHAPTER XXIII.

  "War! war! war! A thunder-cloud in the south in the early spring-- The launch of a thunder-bolt; and then, With one red flare, the lightning stretched its wing, And a rolling echo roused a million men."

  --EDMUND CLARENCE STEDMAN.

  April. The sound of military music; the sound of feet keeping stepexactly, and overcoming by its regularity the noise of thousands ofother feet hurrying on irregularly in front of them, abreast of them,and behind them. A crowd in the square so dense that no one could passthrough; the tree branches above black with boys; the windows all roundthe four sides filled with heads. And everywhere women pressing forward,waving handkerchiefs, some pallid, some flushed, but all deeply excited,forgetful of self, with eyes fixed on the small compact lines ofmilitary caps close together, moving steadily onward in the midst of theaccompanying throng. And happy the one who had a place in the frontrank: how she gazed! If a girl, no matter how light of heart andfrivolous, a silence and soberness came over her for a moment, and hereyes grew wistful. If a woman, one who had loved, no matter how hard andcold she had grown, a warmer heart came back to her then, and tearsrose. What was it? Only a few men dressed in the holiday uniform thesetowns-people had often seen; men many of whom they knew well, togetherwith their shortcomings and weaknesses, whose military airs they hadlaughed at; men who, taken singly, had neither importance nor interest.What was it, then, that made the women's eyes tearful, and sent thegreat crowd thronging round and after them as though each one had beencrowned king? What made the groups on the steps and piazzas of eachhouse keep silence after they had passed, and watch them as long as theycould distinguish the moving lines? It was that these men had made thefirst reply of this town to the President's call. It was because theseholiday soldiers were on their way to real battle-fields, where ballswould plough through human flesh, and leave agony and death behind. Thepoorest, dullest, soldier who was in these ranks from a sense ofloyalty, however dim and inarticulate it might be, gave all he had:martyr or saint never gave more. Not many of the gazing people thoughtof this; but they did think of death by bayonet and ball as the holidayranks marched by.

  Down through the main street went the little troop, and the crowd made asolid wall on the sidewalk, and a moving guard before and behind. Fromthe high windows above, the handkerchiefs of the work-girls fluttered,while underneath from the law offices, and below from the door-ways, menlooked out soberly, realizing that this meant War indeed--real and nearWar.

  By another way, down the hill toward the railway-station, rattled thewheels of an artillery company; also a little holiday troop, withholiday guns shining brightly. The men sat in their places with foldedarms; the crowd, seeing them, knew them all. They were only Miller, andSieberling, and Wagner, and others as familiar; six months ago--a monthago--they would have laughed inexhaustibly at the idea of calling TomMiller a hero, or elevating Fritz Wagner to any other pedestal than thetop of a beer barrel. But now, as they saw them, they gave a mightycheer, which rang through the air splendidly, and raised a hue of prideupon the faces of the artillerymen, and perhaps the first feeling insome of their hearts higher than the determination not to "back out,"which had been until then their actuating motive. The two shining littleguns rattled down the hill; the infantry company marched down behindthem. The line of cars, with locomotive attached, was in waiting, and,breaking ranks, helter-skelter, in any way and every way, hindered byhand-shaking, by all sorts of incongruous parting gifts thrust upon themat the last moment by people they never saw before, blessed by excited,tearful women, made heart-sick themselves by the sight of the grief oftheir mothers and wives, the soldiers took their places in the cars, andthe train moved out from the station, followed by a long cheer, taken upand repeated again and again, until nothing but a dark speck on thestraight track remained for the shouters to look at, when they stoppedsuddenly, hoarse and tired, and went silently homeward, pondering uponthis new thing which had come into their lives. The petty cares of theday were forgotten. "War is hideous; but it banishes littleness fromdaily life."

  Anne, brought up as she had been in a remote little community, isolatedand half foreign, was in a measure ignorant of the causes and questionsof the great struggle which began in America in April, 1861. Not hersthe prayerful ardor of the New England girl who that day willingly gaveher lover, saw him brought home later dead, buried him, and lived on,because she believed that he had died to free his brother man, as Christhad died for her. Not hers the proud loyalty of the Southern girl to herblood and to her State, when that day she bade her lover go forth andsweep their fanatical assailants back, as the old Cavaliers, from whomthey were descended, swept back the crop-eared Puritans into the sea.

  Jeanne-Armande was not especially stirred; save by impatience--impatienceover this interference with the prosperity of the country. It might injureproperty (the half-house), and break up music classes and schools! Whatsympathy she felt, too, was with the South; but she was wise enough toconceal this from all save Anne, since the school was burning with zeal,and the principal already engaged in teaching the pupils to make lint.But if Jeanne-Armande was lukewarm, Miss Lois was at fever heat; the oldNew England spirit rose within her like a giant when she read thetidings. Far away as she was from all the influences of the time, sheyet wrote long letters to Anne which sounded like the clash of spears,the call of the trumpet, and the roll of drums, so fervid were thesentences which fell of themselves into the warlike phraseology of theOld Testament, learned by heart in her youth. But duty, as well ascharity, begins at home, and even the most burning zeal must give waybefore the daily needs of children. Little Andre was not strong; hisspine was becoming curved, they feared. In his languor he had falleninto the habit of asking Miss Lois to hold him in her arms, rock withhim in the old rocking-chair, and sing. Miss Lois had not thought thatshe could ever love "those children"; but there was a soft spot in herheart now for little Andre.

  In June two unexpected changes came. Little Andre grew suddenly worse;and Jeanne-Armande went to Europe. A rich merchant of Weston, wishing totake his family abroad, engaged mademoiselle as governess for his twodaughters, and French speaker for the party, at what she herself termed"the salary of a princess." The two announcements came on the same day.Jeanne-Armande, excited and tremulous, covered a sheet of paper withfigures to show to herself and Anne the amount of the expected gain. Asshe could not retain her place in the school without the magic power ofbeing in two places at once, the next best course was to obtain it forAnne, with the understanding that the successor was to relinquish itimmediately whenever called upon to do so. As they were in the middle ofa term, the principal accepted Miss Douglas, who, although young, hadproved herself competent and faithful. And thus Anne found herselfunexpectedly possessed of a higher salary, heavier duties, and alone.For Jeanne-Armande, in the helmet bonnet, sailed on the twentieth of themonth for England, in company with her charges, who, with all theirbeauty and bird-like activity, would find it impossible to eludemademoiselle, who would guard them with unflinching vigilance, and, itis but fair to add, would earn every cent of even that "salary of aprincess" (whatever that may be) which had attracted her.

  Before mademoiselle departed it had been decided that in consequence oflittle Andre's illness Miss Lois should close the church-house, and takethe child to the hot springs not far distant, in Michigan, and thatLouis and Gabriel should come to their elder sister for a time. The boyswere to travel to Weston alone, Pere Michaux putting them in charge ofthe captain of the steamer, while Anne was to meet them upon theirarrival. Miss Lois wrote that they were wild with excitement, and hadbegged all sorts of farewell presents from everybody, and packed them inthe two chests which Pere Michaux had given them--knives, cord, hammers,nails, the last being "a box-stove, old and rusty, which they hadactually taken to pieces and hidden among their clothes." Jeanne-Armandewent away on Monday; the boys were to arrive on Saturday. Anne spent allher leisure time in preparing for them. Two of the little
black-eyedfellows were coming at last, the children who had clung to her skirts,called her "Annet," and now and then, when they felt like it, swarmed upall together to kiss her, like so many affectionate young bears. Theywere very dear to her--part of her childhood and of the island. The dayarrived; full of expectation, she went down to meet the steamer. Slowlythe long narrow craft threaded its way up the crooked river; the greatropes were made fast, the plank laid in place; out poured thepassengers, men, women, and children, but no Louis, no Gabriel. Annewatched until the last man had passed, and the deck hands were beginningto roll out the freight; then a voice spoke above, "Is that MissDouglas?"

  She looked up, and saw the captain, who asked her to come on board for amoment. "I am very much troubled, Miss Douglas," he began, wiping hisred but friendly face. "The two boys--your half-brothers, Ibelieve--placed in my care by Pere Michaux, have run away."

  Anne gazed at him in silence.

  "They must have slipped off the boat at Hennepin, which is the firstpoint where we strike a railroad. It seems to have been a plan, too, forthey managed to have their chests put off also."

  "You have no idea where they have gone?"

  "No; I sent letters back to Hennepin and to Pere Michaux immediately,making inquiries. The only clew I have is that they asked a number ofquestions about the plains of one of our hands, who has been out thatway."

  "The plains!"

  "Yes; they said they had a sister living out there."

  A pain darted through Anne's heart. Could they have deserted her forTita? She went home desolate and disheartened; the empty rooms, whereall her loving preparations were useless now, seemed to watch hersatirically. Even the boys did not care enough for her to think of herpain and disappointment.

  Pere Michaux had had no suspicion of the plan: but he knew of one darkfact which might have, he wrote to Anne, a bearing upon it. Miss Loishad mysteriously lost, in spite of all her care, a sum of money, uponwhich she had depended for a part of the summer's expenses, andconcerning which she had made great lamentation; it had been made up bythe renting of the church-house; but the mystery remained. If the boyshad taken it, bad as the action was, it insured for a time at leasttheir safety. The priest thought they had started westward to join Rastand Tita, having been fascinated by what they had overheard of Rast'sletters.

  The surmise was correct. After what seemed to Anne very long delay, aletter came; it was from Rast. The night before, two dirty littletramps, tired and hungry, with clothes soiled and torn, had opened thedoor and walked in, announcing that they were Louis and Gabriel, andthat they meant to stay. They had asked for food, but had fallen asleepalmost before they could eat it. With their first breath that morningthey had again declared that nothing should induce them to returneastward, either to the island or to Anne. And Rast added that hethought they might as well remain; he and Tita would take charge ofthem. After a few days came a letter from the boys themselves, printedby Louis. In this document, brief but explicit, they sent their love,but declined to return. If Pere Michaux came after them, they would runaway again, and _this_ time no one should ever know where they were,"exsep, purhaps, the _Mormons_." With this dark threat the letter ended.

  Pere Michaux, as in the case of Tita, took the matter into his ownhands. He wrote to Rast to keep the boys, and find some regularoccupation for them as soon as possible. Anne's ideas about them hadalways been rather Quixotic; he doubted whether they could ever havebeen induced to attend school regularly. But now they would grow tomanhood in a region where such natural gifts as they possessed would bean advantage to them, and where, also, their deficiencies would not beespecially apparent. The old priest rather enjoyed this escapade. Heconsidered that three of the Douglas children were now, on the whole,well placed, and that Anne was freed from the hampering responsibilitywhich her father's ill-advised course had imposed upon her. He sailedround his water parish with brisker zeal than ever, although in truth hewas very lonely. The little white fort was empty; even Miss Lois wasgone; but he kept himself busy, and read his old classics on stormyevenings when the rain poured down on his low roof.

  But Anne grieved.

  As several of her pupils wished to continue their music lessons duringthe vacation, it was decided by Miss Lois and herself that she shouldremain where she was for the present; the only cheer she had was in thehope that in autumn Miss Lois and the little boy would come to her. Butin spite of all her efforts, the long weeks of summer stretched beforeher like a desert; in her lonely rooms without the boys, withoutmademoiselle, she was pursued by a silent depression unlike anything shehad felt before. She fell into the habit of allowing herself to sitalone in the darkness through the evening brooding upon the past. Thekind-hearted woman who kept the house, in whose charge she had been leftby mademoiselle, said that she was "homesick."

  "How can one be homesick who has no home?" answered the girl, smilingsadly.

  One day the principal of the school asked her if she would go onSaturdays for a while, and assist those who were at work in the AidRooms for the soldiers' hospitals. Anne consented languidly; but oncewithin the dingy walls, languor vanished. There personal sorrow seemedsmall in the presence of ghastly lists of articles required for thewounded and dying. At least those she loved were not confronting cannon.Those in charge of the rooms soon learned to expect her, this youngteacher, a stranger in Weston, who with a settled look of sadness on herfair face had become the most diligent worker there. She came moreregularly after a time, for the school had closed, the long vacationbegun.

  On Sunday, the 21st of July, Anne was in church; it was a warm day; fanswaved, soft air came in and played around the heads of the people, who,indolent with summer ease, leaned back comfortably, and listened withdrowsy peacefulness to the peaceful sermon. At that very moment, on alittle mill-stream near Washington, men were desperately fighting thefirst great battle of the war, the Sunday battle of Bull Run. Theremnant of the Northern army poured over Long Bridge into the capitalduring all that night, a routed, panic-stricken mob.

  The North had suffered a great defeat; the South had gained a greatvictory. And both sides paused.

  The news flashed over the wires and into Weston, and the town wasappalled. Never in the four long years that followed was there again aday so filled with stern astonishment to the entire North as that Mondayafter Bull Run. The Aid Rooms, where Anne worked during her leisurehours, were filled with helpers now; all hearts were excited and inearnest. West Virginia was the field to which their aid was sent, amountain region whose streams were raised in an hour into torrents, andwhose roads were often long sloughs of despond, through which thesoldiers of each side gloomily pursued each other by turns, the slownessof the advancing force only equalled by that of the pursued, which wasencountering in front the same disheartening difficulties. The men inhospital on the edges of this region, worn out with wearying marches,wounded in skirmishes, stricken down by the insidious fever which hauntsthe river valleys, suffered as much as those who had the names of greatbattles wherewith to identify themselves; but they lacked the glory.

  One sultry evening, when the day's various labor was ended, Anne, havingmade a pretense of eating in her lonely room, went across to the bank ofthe lake to watch the sun set in the hazy blue water, and look northwardtoward the island. She was weary and sad: where were now the resolutionand the patience with which she had meant to crown her life? You did notknow, poor Anne, when you framed those lofty purposes, that suffering isjust as hard to bear whether one is noble or ignoble, good or bad. Inthe face of danger the heart is roused, and in the exaltation ofdetermination forgets its pain; it is the long monotony of dangerlessdays that tries the spirit hardest.

  A letter had come to her that morning, bearing a Boston postmark; theaddress was in the neat, small handwriting of Jeanne-Armande's friend.Anne, remembering that it was this Boston address which she had sent toher grandaunt, opened the envelope eagerly. But it was only the formalletter of a lawyer. Miss Vanhorn had died, on the nineteenth of June, inS
witzerland, and the lawyer wrote to inform "Miss Anne Douglas" that acertain portrait, said in the will to be that of "Alida Clanssen," hadbeen bequeathed to her by his late client, and would be forwarded to heraddress, whenever she requested it. Anne had expected nothing, not eventhis. But an increased solitariness came upon her as she thought ofthat cold rigid face lying under the turf far away in Switzerland--theface of the only relative left to her.

  The sun had disappeared; it was twilight. The few loiterers on the bankwere departing. The sound of carriage wheels roused her, and turning shesaw that a carriage had approached, and that three persons had alightedand were coming toward her. They proved to be the principal of theschool and the president of the Aid Society, accompanied by one of herassociates. They had been to Anne's home, and learning where she was,had followed her. It seemed that one of the city physicians had gonesouthward a few days before to assist in the regimental hospitals on theborder; a telegraphic dispatch had just been received from him, urgingthe Aid Society to send without delay three or four nurses to thatfever-cursed district, where men were dying in delirium for want ofproper care. It was the first personal appeal which had come to Weston;the young Aid Society felt that it must be answered. But who could go?Among the many workers at the Aid Rooms, few were free; wives, mothers,and daughters, they could give an hour or two daily to the work of love,but they could not leave their homes. One useful woman, a nurse byprofession, was already engaged; another, a lady educated and refined,whose hair had been silvered as much by affliction as by age, hadoffered to go. There were two, then; but they ought to send four. Manyhad been asked during that afternoon, but without success. The societywas at its wits' end. Then some one thought of Miss Douglas.

  She was young, but she was also self-controlled and physically strong.Her inexperience would not be awkwardness; she would obey withintelligence and firmness the directions given her. Under the charge ofthe two older women, she could go--if she would!

  It would be but for a short time--two weeks only; at the end of thatperiod the society expected to relieve these first volunteers withregularly engaged and paid nurses. The long vacation had begun; asteacher, she would lose nothing; her expenses would be paid by thesociety. She had seemed so interested; it would not be much more to gofor a few days in person; perhaps she would even be glad to go. All thisthey told her eagerly, while she stood before them in silence. Then,when at last their voices ceased, and they waited for answer, she said,slowly, looking from one to the other: "I could go, if it were not forone obstacle. I have music scholars, and I can not afford to lose them.I am very poor."

  "They will gladly wait until you return, Miss Douglas," said theprincipal. "When it is known where you have gone, you will not onlyretain all your old scholars, but gain many new ones. They will be proudof their teacher."

  "Yes, proud!" echoed the associate. Again Anne remained silent; she wasthinking. In her loneliness she was almost glad to go. Perhaps, by theside of the suffering and the dying, she could learn to be ashamed ofbeing so down-hearted and miserable. It was but a short absence. "Yes, Iwill go," she said, quietly. And then the three ladies kissed her, andthe associate, who was of a tearful habit, took out her handkerchief."It is so sweet, and so--so martial!" she sobbed.

  The next morning they started. Early as it was, a little company hadgathered to see them off. The school-girls were there, half in grief,half in pride, over what they were pleased to call the "heroism" oftheir dear Miss Douglas. Mrs. Green, Anne's landlady, was there in herSunday bonnet, which was, however, but a poor one. These, with theprincipal of the school and the other teachers, and the ladies belongingto the Aid Society, made quite a snowy shower of white handkerchiefs asthe train moved out from the station, Anne's young face contrasting withthe strong features and coarse complexion of Mary Crane, theprofessional nurse, on one side, and with the thin cheeks and silverhair of Mrs. Barstow on the other, as they stood together at the reardoor of the last car. "Good-by! good-by!" called the school-girls intears, and the ladies of the Aid Society gave a shrill little femininecheer. They were away.