XXVIII
THE CUP OF TANTALUS
Queer world. Can you be sure the next pair you meet walking together ofa summer eve are as starry as they look? Lo, Constance and Miranda. Didthe bride herself realize what a hunger of loneliness was hers? Or Annaand Irby, with Madame between them. Could you, maybe, have guessed theveritable tempest beneath the maiden's serenity, or his inward gnashingsagainst whatever it was that had blighted his hour with the elusiveFlora?
Or can any one say, in these lives of a thousand concealments andrestraints, _when_ things _are_ happening and when not, within us orwithout, or how near we are _now_ to the unexpected--to fate? See, Floraand Hilary. He gave no outward show that he was burning to flee the spotand swing his fists and howl and tear the ground.
Yet Flora knew; knew by herself; by a cold rage in her own fair bosom,where every faculty stood gayly alert for each least turn of incident,to foil or use it, while they talked lightly of Virginia's great step,or of the night's loveliness, counting the stars. "How small they look,"she said, "how calm how still."
"Yes, and then to think what they really are! so fearfully far fromsmall--or cold--or still!"
"Like ourselves," she prompted.
"Yes!" cried the transparent soldier. "At our smallest the smallestthing in us is that we should feel small. And how deep down are we calmor cold? Miss Flora, I once knew a girl--fine outside, inside. Lovers-she had to keep a turnstile. I knew a pair of them. To hear those twofellows separately tell what she was like, you couldn't have believedthem speaking of the same person. The second one thought the firsthad--sort o'--charted her harbor for him; but when he came to sail in,'pon my soul, if every shoal on the chart wasn't deep water, and everydeep water a fortified shore--ha, ha, ha!"
Flora's smile was lambent. "Yes," she said, "that sweet Anna she's veryintric-ate." Hilary flamed and caught his breath, but she met his eyeswith the placidity of the sky above them.
Suddenly he laughed: "Now I know what I am! Miss Flora, I--I wish you'dbe my pilot."
She gave one resenting sparkle, but then shook her averted headtenderly, murmured "Impossible," and smiled.
"You think there's no harbor there?"
"Listen," she said.
"Yes, I hear it, a horse."
"Captain Kincaid?"
"Miss Flora?"
"For dear Anna's sake _and_ yours, shall I be that little bit yourpilot, to say--?"
"What! to say. Don't see her to-night?"
Flora's brow sank.
"May I go with you, then, and learn why?" The words were hurried, for ahorseman was in front and the others had so slackened pace that all wereagain in group. Anna caught Flora's reply:
"No, your cousin will be there. But to-morrow evening, bif-ore--"
"Yes," he echoed, "before anything else. I'll come. Why!"--a whinny ofrecognition came from the road--"why, that's my horse!"
The horseman dragged in his rein. Constance gasped and Kincaidexclaimed, "Well! since when and from where, Steve Mandeville?"
The rider sprang clanking to the ground and whipped out a document. Allpressed round him. He gave his bride two furious kisses, held her in onearm and handed the missive to Kincaid:
"With the compliment of General Brodnax!"
Irby edged toward Flora, drawn by a look.
Hilary spoke: "Miss Anna, please hold this paper open for me whileI--Thank you." He struck a match. The horse's neck was some shelter andthe two pressed close to make more, yet the match flared. The otherslistened to Mandeville:
"And 'twas me dizcover' that tranzportation, juz' chanzing to arrive bythe railroad--"
"Any one got a newspaper?" called Hilary. "Steve--yes, let's have a wispo' that."
The paper burned and Hilary read. "Always the man of the moment, me!"said Mandeville. "And also 't is thangs to me you are the firs' inform',and if you are likewise the firs' to ripport--"
"Thank you!" cried Kincaid, letting out a stirrup leather. "Adolphe,will you take that despatch on to Bartleson?" He hurried to the otherstirrup.
"_Tell him no!_" whispered Flora, but in vain, so quickly had Annahanded Irby the order.
"Good-night, all!" cried Hilary, mounting. He wheeled, swung his cap andgalloped.
"Hear him!" laughed Miranda to Flora, and from up the dim way his songcame back:
"'I can't stand the wilderness But a few days, a few days.'"
Still swinging his cap he groaned to himself and dropped his head, thenlifted it high, shook his locks like a swimmer, and with a soft word tohis horse sped faster.
"Yo' pardon, sir," said Mandeville to Irby, declining the despatch, "Iwou'n't touch it. For why he di'n' h-ask me? But my stable is juzyondeh. Go, borrow you a horse--all night 'f you like."
Thence Irby galloped to Bartleson's tent, returned to Callender House,dismounted and came up the steps. There stood Anna, flushed and eager,twining arms with the placid Flora. "Ah," said the latter, as he offeredher his escort home, "but grandma and me, we--"
Anna broke in: "They're going to stay here all night so that you mayride at once to General Brodnax. Even we girls, Captain Irby, must doall we can to help your cousin get away with the battery, the one wishof his heart!" She listened, untwined and glided into the house.
Instantly Flora spoke: "Go, Adolphe Irby, go! Ah, _snatch_ your luck,you lucky--man! Get him away to-night, cost what cost!" Her fingerspushed him. He kissed them. She murmured approvingly, but tore themaway: "Go, go, go-o!"
Anna, pacing her chamber, with every gesture of self-arraignment anddistress, heard him gallop. Then standing in her opened window shelooked off across the veranda's balustrade and down into the camp, whereat lines of mess-fires like strings of burning beads the boys werecooking three days' rations. A tap came on her door. She snatched up atoilet brush: "Come in?"
She was glad it was only Flora. "Cherie," tinkled the visitor, "theyhave permit' me!"
Anna beamed. "I was coming down," she recklessly replied, touching hertemples at the mirror.
"Yes," said the messenger, "'cause Mandeville he was biggening to tellabout Fort Sumter, and I asked them to wait--ah"--she took Anna's latepose in the window--"how plain the camp!"
"Yes," responded Anna with studied abstraction, "when the window happensto be up. It's so warm to-night, I--"
"Ah, Anna!"
"What, dear?" In secret panic Anna came and looked out at Flora's sidecaressingly.
"At last," playfully sighed the Creole, "'tis good-by, Kincaid'sBattery. Good-by, you hun'red good fellows, with yo' hun'red horses andyo' hun'red wheels and yo' hun'red hurras."
"And hundred brave, true hearts!" said Anna.
"Yes, and good-by, Bartleson, good-by, Tracy, good-by ladies' man!--mydear, tell me once more! For him why always that name?" Both laughed.
"I don't know, unless it's because--well--isn't it--because every ladyhas a piece of his heart and--no one wants all of it?"
"Ah! no one?--when so many?--"
"Now, Flora, suppose some one did! What of it, if he can't, himself,get his whole heart together to give it to any one?" The arguer offeredto laugh again, but Flora was sad:
"You bil-ieve he's that way--Hilary Kincaid?"
"There are men that way, Flora. It's hard for us women to realize, butit's true!"
"Ah, but for him! For him that's a dreadful!"
"Why, no, dear, I fancy he's happiest that way."
"But not best, no! And there's another thing--his uncle! You know ab-outthat, I su'pose?"
"Yes, but he--come, they'll be sending--"
"No,--no! a moment! Anna! Ah, Anna, you are too wise for me! Anna, doyou think"--the pair stood in the room with the inquirer's eyes on thefloor--"you think his cousin is like that?"
Anna kissed her temples, one in pity, the other in joy: "No, dear, he'snot--Adolphe Irby is not."
On the way downstairs Flora seized her hands: "Oh, Anna, likealways--this is just bit-win us? Ah, yes. And, oh, I wish you'd try notto bil-ieve that way--ab-out _his_ cousi
n! Me, I hope no! And yet--"
"Yet what, love?" (Another panic.)
"Nothing, but--ah, he's so ki-ind to my brother! And his cousinAdolphe," she whispered as they moved on down, "I don't know, but I fearperchanze he don't like his cousin Adolphe--his cousin Adolphe--on theoutside, same as the General, rough--'t is a wondrous how his cousinAdolphe is fond of him!"
Poor Anna. She led the way into the family group actually wheedled intothe belief that however she had blundered with her lover, with Flora shehad been clever. And now they heard the only true account of howCaptain Beauregard and General Steve had taken Fort Sumter. At the sametime every hearer kept one ear alert toward the great open windows. Yetnothing came to explain that Kincaid's detention up-town was his fondcousin's contriving, and Sumter's story was at its end when all startedat once and then subsided with relief as first the drums and then thebugles sounded--no alarm, but only, drowsily, "taps," as if to say toCallender House as well as to the camp, "Go to slee-eep ... Go toslee-eep ... Go to bed, go to bed, go to slee-eep ... Go to slee-eep, goto slee-eep ... Go to slee-ee-eep."
"'Tis good-by, Kincaid's Battery"]