XX
THE FIGHT FOR THE STANDARD
His red kepi in hand and with all the stalwart briskness of theflag-presentation's day and hour Hilary Kincaid stepped into the roomand halted, as large-eyed as on that earlier occasion, and even morestartled, before the small figure of Anna.
Yet not the very same Hilary Kincaid. So said her heart the instantglance met glance. The tarnish of hard use was on all his trappings;like sea-marshes on fire he was reddened and browned; about him hungpalpably the sunshine and air of sands and waves, and all the stress andswing of wide designs; and on brow and cheek were new lines that lookedold. From every point of his aspect the truth rushed home to herlivelier, deadlier than ever hitherto, that there was War, and that heand she were already parts of it.
But the change was more than this. A second and quieter look, thehand-grasp lingering, showed something deeper; something that wove andtangled itself through and about all designs, toils, and vigils, andsuddenly looking out of his eyes like a starved captive, cried,"you--you--" and prophesied that, whether they would or not, this warwas to be his and hers together. A responding thrill must have run fromher fingers into his and belied the unaccountable restraint of herwelcome, for a joy shone from him which it took her ignoring smile andher hand's withdrawal to quench.
"Miss Anna--"
They sat down. His earlier boyishness came again somewhat, but onlysomewhat, as he dropped his elbows to his knees, looking now into hiscap and now into her face. A glance behind her had assured Anna thatthere was no shadow on the screen, behind which sat Flora on the carpet,at graceful ease listening while she eagerly appraised the jewels in herhands and lap.
"Miss Anna," said the soldier again, "I've come--I've come to tell yousomething. It's mighty hard to tell. It's harder than I thought it wouldbe. For, honestly, Miss Anna, you--from the first time I ever saw you,you--you--Were you going to speak?"
Behind the screen Flora smiled malignly while Anna said, "No, I--I wasonly--no, not at all; go on."
"Yes, Miss Anna, from the first time I--"
"When did you get back from Mobile?" asked Anna seeing he must be headedoff.
"From Mobile? Just now, almost. You don't sup--"
"Oh! I hope"--she must head him off again--"I hope you bring good news?"There was risk in the question, but where was there safety? At her backthe concealed listener waited keenly for the reply.
"Yes," said Hilary, "news the very best and hardly an hour old. Didn'tyou hear the battery cheering? That's what I've come to tell you. Thoughit's hard to tell, for I--"
"It's from Mobile, you say?"
"No, I can tell you the Mobile news first, but it's bad. Miss Flora'shome--"
Anna gave a start and with a hand half upthrown said quietly, "Don'ttell me. No, please, don't, I don't want to hear it. I can't explain,but I--I--" Tears wet her lashes, and her hands strove with each other."I don't like bad news. You should have taken it straight to Flora. Oh,I wish you'd do that now, won't you--please?"
Behind the screen the hidden one stiffened where she crouched withfierce brow and fixed eyes.
Kincaid spoke: "Would you have me pass you by with my good news to gofirst to her with the bad?"
"Oh, Captain Kincaid, yes, yes! Do it yet. Go, do it now. And tell herthe good news too!"
"Tell her the good first and then stab her with the bad?"
"Oh, tell her the bad first. Do her that honor. She has earned it.She'll bear the worst like the heroine she is--the heroine and patriot.She's bearing it so now!"
"What! she knows already?"
In her hiding Flora's intent face faintly smiled a malevolence thatwould have startled even the grandam who still killed time out among theroses with her juniors.
"Yes," replied Anna, "she knows already."
"Knows! Miss Anna--that her home is in ashes?"
Anna gave a wilder start: "Oh, no-o-oh! Oh, yes--oh, no--oh, yes, yes!Oh, Captain Kincaid, how could you? Oh, monstrous, monstrous!" She madeall possible commotion to hide any sound that might betray Flora, whohad sprung to her feet, panting.
"But, but, Miss Anna!" protested Hilary. "Why, Miss Anna--"
"Oh, Captain Kincaid, how could you?"
"Why, you don't for a moment imagine--?"
"Oh, it's done, it's done! Go, tell her. Go at once, Captain Kincaid.Please go at once, won't you?... Please!"
He had risen amazed. Whence such sudden horror, in this fair girl, of athing known by her already before he came? And what was this beside?Horror in the voice yet love beaming from the eyes? He was torn withperplexity. "I'll go, of course," he said as if in a dream. "Of courseI'll go at once, but--why--if Miss Flora already--?" Then suddenly herecovered himself in the way Anna knew so well. "Miss Anna"--hegestured with his cap, his eyes kindling with a strange mixture ofworship and drollery though his brow grew darker--"I'm gone now!"
"In mercy, please go!"
"I'm gone, Miss Anna, I'm truly gone. I always am when I'm with you.Fred said it would be so. You scare the nonsense out of me, and whenthat goes I go--the bubble bursts! Miss Anna--oh, hear me--it's my lastchance--I'll vanish in a moment. The fellows tell me I always know justwhat to say to any lady or to anything a lady says; but, on my soul, Idon't think I've ever once known what to say to you or to anythingyou've ever said to me, and I don't know now, except that I must andwill tell you--"
"That you did not order the torch set! Oh, say that!"
"No one ordered it. It was a senseless mistake. Some private soldierswho knew that my lines of survey passed through the house--"
"Ah-h! ah-h!"
"Miss Anna, what would you have? Such is war! Many's the Southern homemust go down under the fire of--of Kincaid's Battery, Miss Anna, beforethis war is over, else we might as well bring you back your flag andguns. Shall we? We can't now, they're ordered to the front. There! I'vegot it out! That's my good news. Bad enough for mothers and sisters. Badfor the sister of Charlie Valcour. Good for you. So good and bad in onefor me, and so hard to tell and say no more! Don't you know why?"
"Oh, I've no right to know--and you've no right--oh, indeed, youmustn't. It would be so unfair--to you. I can't tell you why, but it--itwould be!"
"And it wouldn't be of--?"
"Any use? No, no!"
Torturing mystery! that with such words of doom she should yet blushpiteously, beam passionately.
"Good-by, then. I go. But I go--under your flag, don't I? Under yourflag! captain of your guns!"
"Ah--one word--wait! Oh, Captain Kincaid, right is right! Not half thoseguns are mine. That flag is not mine."
There was no quick reply. From her concealment Flora, sinkingnoiselessly again to the carpet, harkened without avail. The soldier--sonewly and poignantly hurt that twice when he took breath he failed tospeak--gazed on the disclaiming girl until for; very distress she brokethe silence: "I--you--every flag of our cause--wherever our bravesoldiers--"
"Oh, but Kincaid's Battery!--and _that_ flag, Anna Callender! The flagyou gave us! That sacred banner starts for Virginia to-morrow--goes intothe war, it and your guns, with only this poor beggar and his boys towin it honor and glory. Will you deny us--who had it from yourhands--your leave to call it yours? Oh, no, no! To me--to me you willnot!"
For reply there came a light in Anna's face that shone into his heartand was meant so to shine, yet her dissent was prompt: "I must. I must.Oh, Capt--Captain Kincaid, I love that flag too well to let it gomisnamed. It's the flag of all of us who made it, us hundred girls--"
"Hundred--yes, yes, true. But how? This very morning I chanced upon yoursecret--through little Victorine--that every stitch in all that flag'sembroideries is yours."
"Yet, Captain Kincaid, it is the flag of all those hundred girls; and ifto any one marching under it it is to be the flag of any one of ussingly, that one can only be--you know!"
Majestically in her hiding-place the one implied lowered and lifted herhead in frigid scorn and awaited the commander's answer.
"True agai
n," he said, "true. Let the flag of my hundred boys be to alland each the flag of a hundred girls. Yet will it be also the flag ofhis heart's one choice--sister, wife, or sweetheart--to every manmarching, fighting, or dying under it--and more are going to die underit than are ever coming back. To me, oh, to me, let it be yours. Mytasks have spared me no time to earn of you what would be dearer thanlife, and all one with duty and honor. May I touch your hand? Oh, justto say good-by. But if ever I return--no, have no fear, I'll not say itnow. Only--only--" he lifted the hand to his lips--"good-by. God's smilebe on you in all that is to come."
"Good-by," came her answering murmur.
"And the flag?" he exclaimed. "The flag?" By the clink of his sabreFlora knew he was backing away. "Tell me--me alone--the word to perishwith me if I perish--that to me as if alone"--the clinking came neareragain--"to me and for me and with your blessing"--again the sound drewaway--"the flag--the flag I must court death under--is yours."
Silence. From out in the hall the lover sent back a last beseechinglook, but no sound reached the hiding of the tense listener whose ownheart's beating threatened to reveal her; no sound to say that now Annahad distressfully shaken her head, or that now her tears ran down, orthat now in a mingled pain and rapture of confession she nodded--nodded!and yet imploringly waved him away.
It was easy to hear the door open and close. Faintly on this other handthe voices of the ladies returning from the garden foreran them. Thesoldier's tread was on the outer stair. Now theirs was in the rearveranda. With it tinkled their laughter. Out yonder hoofs galloped.
The hidden one stole forth. A book on a table was totally engaging theeyes of her hostess and at the instant grandma reentered laden withroses. Now all five were in, and Anna, pouring out words with everymotion, and curiously eyed by Constance, took the flowers to give them ahandier form, while Flora rallied her kinswoman on wasting theirfriends' morning these busy times, and no one inquired, and no onetold, who had been here that now had vanished.