IV
IN THE SILENCE OF THE GUNS
At noon the next day, Dan, sitting beside the fireless hearth, with hishead resting on his clasped hands, saw a shadow fall suddenly upon thefloor, and, looking up, found Mrs. Ambler standing in the doorway.
"I am too late?" she said quietly, and he bowed his head and motioned tothe pallet in the corner.
Without seeing the arm he put out, she crossed the room like one bewilderedby a sudden blow, and went to where the Governor was lying beneath thepatchwork quilt. No sound came to her lips; she only stretched out her handwith a protecting gesture and drew the dead man to her arms. Then it wasthat Dan, turning to leave her alone with her grief, saw that Betty hadfollowed her mother and was coming toward him from the doorway. For aninstant their eyes met; then the girl went to her dead, and Dan passed outinto the sunlight with a new bitterness at his heart.
A dozen yards from the cabin there was a golden beech spreading in widebranches against the sky, and seating himself on a fallen log beneath it,he looked over the soft hills that rose round and deep-bosomed from the dimblue valley. He was still there an hour later when, hearing a rustle in thegrass, he turned and saw Betty coming to him over the yellowed leaves. Hisfirst glance showed him that she had grown older and very pale; his secondthat her kind brown eyes were full of tears.
"Betty, is it this way?" he asked, and opened his arms.
With a cry that was half a sob she ran toward him, her black skirt sweepingthe leaves about her feet. Then, as she reached him, she swayed forward asif a strong wind blew over her, and as he caught her from the ground, hekissed her lips. Her tears broke out afresh, but as they stood there ineach other's arms, neither found words to speak nor voice to utter them.The silence between them had gone deeper than speech, for it had in it allthe dumb longing of the last two years--the unshaken trust, the bitternessof the long separation, the griefs that had come to them apart, and thesorrow that had brought them at last together. He held her so closely thathe felt the flutter of her breast with each rising sob, and an anguish thatwas but a vibration from her own swept over him like a wave from head tofoot. Since he had put her from him on that last night at Chericoke theirpassion had deepened by each throb of pain and broadened by each step thathad led them closer to the common world. Not one generous thought, not onetemptation overcome but had gone to the making of their love to-day--forwhat united them now was not the mere prompting of young impulse, but thestrength out of many struggles and the fulness out of experiences that hadripened the heart of each.
"Let me look at you," said Betty, lifting her wet face. "It has been solong, and I have wanted you so much--I have hungered sleeping and waking."
"Don't look at me, Betty, I am a skeleton--a crippled skeleton, and I willnot be looked at by my love."
"Your love can see you with shut eyes. Oh, my best and dearest, do youthink you could keep me from seeing you however hard you tried? Why,there's a lamp in my heart that lets me look at you even in the night."
"Your lamp flatters, I am afraid to face it. Has it shown you this?"
He drew back and held up his maimed hand, his eyes fastened upon her face,where the old fervour had returned.
With a sob that thrilled through him, she caught his hand to her lips andthen held it to her bosom, crooning over it little broken sounds of loveand pity. Through the spreading beech above a clear gold light filtereddown upon her, and a single yellow leaf was caught in her loosened hair. Hesaw her face, impassioned, glorified, amid a flood of sunshine.
"And I did not know," she said breathlessly. "You were wounded and therewas no one to tell me. Whenever there has been a battle I have sat verystill and shut my eyes, and tried to make myself go straight to you. I haveseen the smoke and heard the shots, and yet when it came I did not know it.I may even have laughed and talked and eaten a stupid dinner while you weresuffering. Now I shall never smile again until I have you safe."
"But if I were dying I should want to see you smiling. Nobody ever smiledbefore you, Betty."
"If you are wounded, you will send for me. Promise me; I beg you on myknees. You will send for me; say it or I shall be always wretched. Do youwant to kill me, Dan? Promise."
"I shall send for you. There, will that do? It would be almost worth dyingto have you come to me. Would you kiss me then, I wonder?"
"Then and now," she answered passionately. "Oh, I sometimes think that warsare fought to torture women! Hold me in your arms again or my heart willbreak. I have missed Virginia so--never a day passes that I do not see hercoming through the rooms and hear her laugh--such a baby laugh, do youremember it?"
"I remember everything that was near to you, beloved."
"If you could have seen her on her wedding day, when she came down in herpink crepe shawl and white bonnet that I had trimmed, and looked back,smiling at us for the last time. I have almost died with wanting heragain--and now papa--papa! They loved life so, and yet both are dead, andlife goes on without them."
"My poor love, poor Betty."
"But not so poor as if I had lost you, too," she answered; "and if you arewounded even a little remember that you have promised, and I shall come toyou. Prince Rupert and I will pass the lines together. Do you know that Ihave Prince Rupert, Dan?"
"Keep him, dear, don't let him get into the army."
"He lives in the woods night and day, and when he comes to pasture I goafter him while Uncle Shadrach watches the turnpike. When the soldiers comeby, blue or gray, we hide him behind the willows in the brook. They maytake the chickens--and they do--but I should kill the man who touchedPrince Rupert's bridle."
"You should have been a soldier, Betty."
She shook her head. "Oh, I couldn't shoot any one in cold blood--as youdo--that's different. I'd have to hate him as much--as much as I love you."
"How much is that?"
"A whole world full and brimming over; is that enough?"
"Only a little world?" he answered. "Is that all?"
"If I told you truly, you would not believe me," she said earnestly. "Youwould shake your head and say: 'Poor silly Betty, has she gone moon mad?'"
Catching her in his arms again, he kissed her hair and mouth and hands andthe ruffle at her throat. "Poor silly Betty," he repeated, "where is yourwisdom now?"
"You have turned it into folly, sad little wisdom that it was."
"Well, I prefer your folly," he said gravely. "It was folly that made youlove me at the first; it was pure folly that brought you out to me thatnight at Chericoke--but the greatest folly of all is just this, my dear."
"But it will keep you safe."
"Who knows? I may get shot to-morrow. There, there, I only said it to feelyour arms about me."
Her hands clung to him and the tears, rising to her lashes, fell fast uponhis coat.
"Oh, don't let me lose you," she begged. "I have lost so much--don't let melose you, too."
"Living or dead, I am yours, that I swear."
"But I don't want you dead. I want the feel of you. I want your hands, yourface. I want _you_."
"Betty, Betty," he said softly. "Listen, for there is no word in the worldthat means so much as just your name."
"Except yours."
"No interruptions, this is martial law. Dear, dearest, darling, are allempty sounds; but when I say 'Betty,' it is full of life."
"Say it again, then."
"Betty, do you love me?"
"Ask: 'Betty, is the sun shining?'"
"It always shines about you."
"Because my hair is red?"
"Red? It is pure gold. Do you remember when I found that out on the hearthin free Levi's cabin? The colour went to my head, but when I put out myhand to touch a curl, you drew away and fastened them up again. Now I havepulled them all down and you dare not move."
"Shall I tell you why I drew away?"
The tears were still on her lashes, but in the exaltation of a greatpassion, life, death, the grave, and things beyond had dwindled like sta
rsbefore the rising sun.
"You told me then--because I was 'a pampered poodle dog.' Well, I'veoutgrown that objection certainly. Let us hope you have a fancy for leanhounds."
She put up her hands in protest.
"I drew away partly because I knew you did not love me," she said, meetinghis eyes with her clear and ardent gaze, "but more because--I knew that Iloved you."
"You loved me then? Oh, Betty, if I had only known!"
"If you had known!" She covered her face. "Oh, it was terrible enough as itwas. I wanted to beat myself for shame."
"Shame? In loving me, my darling?"
"In loving you like that."
"Nonsense. If you had only said to me: 'My good sir, I love you a littlebit,' I should have come to my senses on the spot. Even pampered poodledogs are not all fat, Betty, and, as it was, I did come to the years ofdiscretion that very night. I didn't sleep a wink."
"Nor I."
"I walked the floor till daybreak."
"And I sat by the window."
"I hurled every hard name at myself that I could think of. 'Dolt and idiot'seemed to stick. By George, I can't get over it. To think that I might havegalloped down that turnpike and swept you off your feet. You wouldn't havewithstood me, Betty, you couldn't."
"Yet I did," she said, smiling sadly.
"Oh, I didn't have a fair chance, you see."
"Perhaps not," she answered, "though sometimes I was afraid you would hearmy heart beating and know it all. Do you remember that morning in thegarden with the roses?--I wouldn't kiss you good-by, but if you had done itagainst my will I'd have broken down. After you had gone I kissed the grasswhere you had stood."
"My God! I can't leave you, Betty."
She met his passionate gaze with steady eyes.
"If you were not to go I should never have told you," she answered; "but ifyou die in battle you must remember it at the last."
"It seems an awful waste of opportunities," he said, "but I'll make it upon the day that I come back a Major-general. Then I shall say 'forward,madam,' and you'll marry me on the spot."
"Don't be too sure. I may grow coy again when the war is over."
"When you do I'll find the remedy--for I'll be a Major-general, then, andyou a private. This war must make me, dear. I shan't stay in the ranks muchlonger."
"I like you there--it is so brave," she said.
"But you'll like me anywhere, and I prefer the top--the very top. Oh, mylove, we'll wring our happiness from the world before we die!"
With a shiver she came back to the earth.
"I had almost forgotten him," she said in keen self-reproach, and wentquickly over the rustling leaves to the cabin door. As Dan followed her theday seemed to grow suddenly darker to his eyes.
On the threshold he met Mrs. Ambler, composed and tearless, wearing hergrief as a veil that hid her from the outside world. Before her calm grayeyes he fell back with an emotion not unmixed with awe.
"I did the best I could," he said bluntly, "but it was nothing."
She thanked him quietly, asking a few questions in her grave and gentlevoice. Was he conscious to the end? Did he talk of home? Had he expressedany wishes of which she was not aware?
"They are bringing him to the wagon now," she finished steadily. "No, donot go in--you are very weak and your strength must be saved to hold yourmusket. Shadrach and Big Abel will carry him, I prefer it to be so. We leftthe wagon at the end of the path; it is a long ride home, but we havearranged to change horses, and we shall reach Uplands, I hope, by sunrise."
"I wish to God I could go with you!" he exclaimed.
"Your place is with the army," she answered. "I have no son to send, so youmust go in his stead. He would have it this way if he could choose."
For a moment she was silent, and he looked at her placid face and thesmooth folds of her black silk with a wonder that checked his words.
"Some one said of him once," she added presently, "that he was a man whoalways took his duty as if it were a pleasure; and it was true--so true. Ialone saw how hard this was for him, for he hated war as heartily as hedreaded death. Yet when both came he met them squarely and without lookingback."
"He died as he had lived, the truest gentleman I have ever known," he said.
A pleased smile hovered for an instant on her lips.
"He fought hard against secession until it came," she pursued quietly, "forhe loved the Union, and he had given it the best years of his life--hisstrong years, he used to say. I think if he ever felt any bitterness towardany one, it was for the man or men who brought us into this; and at last heused to leave the room because he could not speak of them without anger. Hethrew all his strength against the tide, yet, when it rushed on in spite ofhim, he knew where his duty guided him, and he followed it, as always, likea pleasure. You thought him sanguine, I suppose, but he never was so--inhis heart, though the rest of us think differently, he always felt that hewas fighting for a hopeless cause, and he loved it the more for very pityof its weakness. 'It is the spirit and not the bayonet that makes history,'he used to say."
Heavy steps crossed the cabin floor, and Uncle Shadrach and Big Abel cameout bringing the dead man between them. With her hand on the gray coat,Mrs. Ambler walked steadily as she leaned on Betty's shoulder. Once ortwice she noticed rocks in the way, and cautioned the negroes to gocarefully down the descending grade. The bright leaves drifted upon them,and through the thin woods, along the falling path, over the lacework oflights and shadows, they went slowly out into the road where Hosea waswaiting with the open wagon.
The Governor was laid upon the straw that filled the bottom, Mrs. Amblersat down beside him, and as Betty followed, Uncle Shadrach climbed upon theseat above the wheel.
"Good-by, my boy," said Mrs. Ambler, giving him her hand.
"Good-by, my soldier," said Betty, taking both of his. Then Hosea crackedthe whip and the wagon rolled out into the road, scattering the gray dusthigh into the sunlight.
Dan, standing alone against the pines, looked after it with a gnawinghunger at his heart, seeing first Betty's eyes, next the gleam of her hair,then the dim figures fading into the straw, and at last the wagon caught upin a cloud of dust. Down the curving road, round a green knoll, across alittle stream, and into the blue valley it passed as a speck upon thelandscape. Then the distance closed over it, the sand settled in the road,and the blank purple hills crowded against the sky.