Kincaid's Battery
Page 15
XV
THE LONG MONTH OF MARCH
Ole mahs' love' wine, ole mis' love' silk, De piggies, dey loves buttehmilk, An' eveh sence dis worl' began, De ladies loves de ladies' man. I loves to sing a song to de ladies! I loves to dance along o' de ladies! Whilse eveh I can breave aw see aw stan' I's bound to be a ladies' man.
So sang Captain Hilary Kincaid at the Mandeville-Callender weddingfeast, where his uncle Brodnax, with nearly everyone we know, waspresent. Hilary had just been second groomsman, with Flora for his "fileleader," as he said, meaning second bridesmaid. He sat next her attable, with Anna farthest away.
Hardly fortunate was some one who, conversing with the new MissCallender, said the charm of Kincaid's singing was that the song camefrom "the entire man." She replied that just now it really seemed so! Ina sense both comments were true, and yet never in the singer's life hadso much of "the entire man" refused to sing. All that night of theillumination he had not closed his eyes, except in anguish for havingtried to make love on the same day when--and to the same Anna Callenderbefore whom--he had drawn upon himself the roaring laugh of the crowdedstreet; or in a sort of remorse for letting himself become the rival ofa banished friend who, though warned that a whole platoon of him wouldmake no difference, suddenly seemed to plead a prohibitory differenceto one's inmost sense of honor.
At dawn he had risen resolved to make good his boast and "fight like awhale." Under orders of his own seeking he had left the battery themoment its tents were up and had taken boat for Mobile. Whence he hadreturned only just in time to stand beside Flora Valcour, preceded by arelative of the bridegroom paired with Anna.
Yet here at the feast none was merrier than Kincaid, who, charminglyegged on by Flora, kept those about him in gales of mirth, and even lethimself be "cajoled" (to use his own term) into singing this song whosetitle had become his nickname. Through it all Anna smiled and laughedwith the rest and clapped for each begged-for stanza. Yet all the timeshe said in her heart, "He is singing it at me!"
De squir'l he love' de hick'ry tree, De clover love' de bummle-bee, De flies, dey loves mullasses, an'-- De ladies loves de ladies' man. I loves to be de beau o' de ladies! I loves to shake a toe wid de ladies! Whilse eveh I'm alive, on wateh aw Ian', I's bound to be a ladies' man.
The General, seeing no reason why Hilary should not pay Anna at leastthe attentions he very properly paid his "file leader," endured the songwith a smile, but took revenge when he toasted the bride:
"In your prayers to-night, my dear Constance, just thank God yourhusband is, at any rate, without the sense of humor--Stop, my friends!Let me finish!"
A storm of laughter was falling upon Mandeville, but the stubbornGeneral succeeded after all in diverting it to Hilary, to whom in solemnmirth he pointed as--"_that_ flirtatious devotee of giddiness, withouta fault big enough to make him interesting!" ["Hoh!"--"Hoh!"--from menand maidens who could easily have named huge ones.] Silent Anna knew atleast two or three; was it not a fault a hundred times too grave to beuninteresting, for a big artillerist to take a little frightened lassieas cruelly at her word as he was doing right here and now?
Interesting to her it was that his levity still remained unsubmerged,failing him only in a final instant: Their hands had clasped inleave-taking and her eyes were lifted to his, when some plea with which"the entire man" seemed overcharged to the very lips was suddenly,subtly, and not this time by disconcertion, but by self-mastery,withheld. Irby put in a stiff good-by, and as he withdrew, Hilary echoedonly the same threadbare word more brightly, and was gone; saying tohimself as he looked back from the garden's outmost bound:
"She's _cold;_ that's what's the matter with Anna; cold and cruel!"
Tedious was the month of March. Mandeville devise' himself a splandidjoke on that, to the effect that soon enough there would be months oftedieuse marches--ha, ha, ha!--and contribute' it to the news-pape'. Yetthe tedium persisted. Always something about to occur, nothing everoccurring. Another vast parade, it is true, some two days after themarriage, to welcome from Texas that aged general (friend of theCallenders) who after long suspense to both sides had at last joinedthe South, and was to take command at New Orleans. Also, consequent uponthe bursting of a gun that day in Kincaid's Battery, the funeralprocession of poor, handsome, devil-may-care Felix de Gruy; saxhornsmoaning and wailing, drums muttering from their muffled heads, Anna'sensign furled in black, captain and lieutenants on foot, brows inclined,sabres reversed, and the "Stars and Bars," new flag of the Confederacy,draping the slow caisson that bore him past the Callenders' gates inmajesty so strange for the gay boy.
Such happenings, of course; but nothing that ever brought those thingsfor which one, wakening in the night, lay and prayed while forced by thesongster's rapture to "listen to the mocking-bird."
While the Judge lived the Callenders had been used to the company of menby the weight of whose energies and counsel the clock of public affairsran and kept time; senators, bishops, bank presidents, great lawyers,leading physicians; a Dr. Sevier, for one. Some of these still enjoyedtheir hospitality, and of late in the old house life had recovered muchof its high charm and breadth of outlook. Yet March was tedious.
For in March nearly all notables felt bound to be up at Montgomeryhelping to rock the Confederacy's cradle. Whence came back sad storiesof the incapacity, negligence, and bickerings of misplaced men. It was"almost as bad as at Washington." Friends still in the city weretremendously busy; yet real business--Commerce--with scarce a moan ofcomplaint, lay heaving out her dying breath. Busy at everything butbusiness, these friends, with others daily arriving in command ofrustic volunteers, kept society tremendously gay, by gas-light; andcourage and fortitude and love of country and trust in God and scorn ofthe foe went clad in rainbow colors; but at the height of all manner ofrevels some pessimist was sure to explain to Anna why the war must belong, of awful cost, and with a just fighting chance to win.
"Then why do we not turn about right here?"
"Too late now."
Such reply gave an inward start, it seemed so fitted to her ownirrevealable case. But it was made to many besides her, and women camehome from dinings or from operas and balls for the aid of this or thatnew distress of military need, and went up into the dark and knelt inall their jewels and wept long. In March the poor, everywhere, began tobe out of work, and recruiting to be lively among them too, because forthousands of them it was soldier's pay or no bread. Among the troopsfrom the country death had begun to reap great harvests ere a gun wasfired, and in all the camps lovers nightly sang their lugubrious"Lorena," feeling that "a hundred months had passed" before they hadreally dragged through one. March was so tedious, and lovers are suchpoor arithmeticians. Wherever Hilary Kincaid went, showing these how tocast cannon (that would not burst), those where to build fortifications,and some how to make unsickly camps, that song was begged of him in thelast hour before sleep; last song but one, the very last beingalways--that least liked by Anna.
Tedious to Kincaid's Battery were his absences on so many errands.Behind a big earthwork of their own construction down on the river'sedge of the old battle ground, close beyond the Callenders', they laycamped in pretty white tents that seemed to Anna, at her window, nobigger than visiting-cards. Rarely did she look that way but the fellowswere drilling, their brass pieces and their officers' drawn sabresglinting back the sun, horses and men as furiously diligent as big andlittle ants, and sometimes, of an afternoon, their red and yellow silkand satin standard unfurled--theirs and hers. Of evenings small bunchesof the boys would call to chat and be sung to; to threaten to desert ifnot soon sent to the front; and to blame all delays on colonels andbrigadiers "known" by them to be officially jealous of--They gave onlythe tedious nickname.
"Why belittle him with that?" queried Miranda, winning Anna's silentgratitude.
"It doesn't belittle _him_," cried Charlie. "That's the joke. It makes_him_ loom larger!"
Others had other explanat
ions: Their guns were "ladies' guns!" Were theguns the foremost cause? Some qualified: "Foremost, yes; fundamental,no." Rather the fact that never was a woman cited in male gossip butinstantly he was her champion; or that no woman ever brought a grievanceto any camp where he might be but she wanted to appeal it to him.
Anna "thought the name was all from the song."
"Oh, fully as much from his hundred and one other songs! Had he neversung to her--
"'I'd offer thee this hand of mine--'?"
Frankly, it was agreed, he did most laughably love ladies' company;that he could always find it, as a horse can find water; that althoughno evening in their society could be so gay or so long that he would notbe certain to work harder next day than any one else, no day could be socruelly toilsome that he could not spend half the next night dancingwith the girls; and lastly, that with perfect evenness and a boyishmodesty he treated them all alike.
Anna laughed with the rest, but remembered three separate balls towhich, though counted on, he had not come, she uninformed that militaryexigencies had at the last moment curtly waved him off, and he unawarethat these exigencies had been created by Irby under inspiration fromthe daintiest and least self-assertive tactician in or about NewOrleans.