XXIX
A CASTAWAY ROSE
Gone to sleep the camp except its sentinels, and all Callender Housesave one soul. Not Miranda, not the Mandevilles, nor Madame Valcour, norany domestic. Flora knew, though it was not Flora. In her slumbers sheknew.
Two of the morning. Had the leader, the idol of Kincaid's Battery,failed in his endeavor? Anna, on her bed, half disrobed, but sleeplessyet, still prayed he might not succeed. Just this one time, oh, Lord!this one time! With Thee are not all things possible? Canst Thou not soorder all things that a day or two's delay of Kincaid's Battery needwork no evil to the Cause nor any such rending to any heart as must behers if Kincaid's Battery should go to-night? Softly the stair clockboomed three. She lifted her head and for a full three minutes harkenedtoward the camp. Still no sound there, thank God! She turned upon herpillow.
But--what! Could that be the clock again, and had she slumbered? "Three,four," murmured the clock. She slipped from her bed and stole to thewindow. Just above the low, dim parapet, without a twinkle, the morningstar shone large, its slender, mile-long radiance shimmering on thegliding river. In all the scented landscape was yet no first stir ofdawn, but only clearness enough to show the outlines of the camp ground.She stared. She stared again! Not a tent was standing. Oh! and oh!through what bugling, what rolling of drums and noise of hoofs, wheels,and riders had she lain oblivious at last? None, really; by order of thecommanding general--on a private suggestion of Irby's, please notice,that the practice would be of value--camp had been struck in silence.But to her the sole fact in reach was that all its life was gone!
Sole fact? Gone? All gone? What was this long band of darkness where thegray road should be, in the dull shadow of the levee? Oh, God of mercy,it was the column! the whole of Kincaid's Battery, in the saddle and onthe chests, waiting for the word to march! Ah, thou ladies' man! Thus tosteal away! Is this your profound--abiding--consuming love? The whisperwas only in her heart, but it had almost reached her lips, when shecaught her breath, her whole form in a tremor. She clenched thewindow-frame, she clasped her heaving side.
For as though in reply, approaching from behind the house as if alreadythe producer had nearly made its circuit, there sounded close under thebalustrade the walking of a horse. God grant no other ear had noted it!Now just beneath the window it ceased. Hilary Kincaid! She could notsee, but as sure as sight she knew. Her warrior, her knight, her emperornow at last, utterly and forever, she his, he hers, yet the last momentof opportunity flitting by and she here helpless to speak the one wordof surrender and possession. Again she shrank and trembled. Somethinghad dropped in at the window. There it lay, small and dark, on thefloor. She snatched it up. Its scant tie of ribbon, her touch told her,was a bit of the one she had that other time thrown down to him, and thething it tied and that looked so black in the dusk was a red, red rose.
She pressed it to her lips. With quaking fingers that only tangled thetrue-love knot and bled on the thorns, she stripped the ribbon off andlifted a hand high to cast it forth, but smote the sash and dropped theemblem at her own feet. In pain and fear she caught it up, straightened,and glanced to her door, the knot in one hand, the rose in the other,and her lips apart. For at some unknown moment the door had opened, andin it stood Flora Valcour.
Furtively into a corner fluttered rose and ribbon while the emptiedhands extended a counterfeit welcome and beckoned the visitor's aid toclose the window. As the broad sash came down, Anna's heart, in finaldespair, sunk like lead, or like the despairing heart of her disownedlover in the garden, Flora's heart the meantime rising like a recoveredkite. They moved from the window with their four hands joined, thedejected girl dissembling elation, the elated one dejection.
"I don't see," twittered Anna, "how I should have closed it! How chillyit gets toward--"
"Ah!" tremulously assented the subtler one. "And such a dream! I wasoblige' to escape to you!"
"And did just right!" whispered and beamed poor Anna. "What did youdream, dear?"
"I dremp the battery was going! and going to a battle! and with the res'my brother! And now--"
"Now it's but a dream!" said her comforter.
"Anna!" the dreamer flashed a joy that seemed almost fierce. She fondlypressed the hands she held and drew their owner toward the ill-usedrose. "Dearest, behold me! a thief, yet innocent!"
Anna smiled fondly, but her heart had stopped, her feet moved haltingly.A mask of self-censure poorly veiled Flora's joy, yet such as it was itwas needed. Up from the garden, barely audible to ears straining for it,yet surging through those two minds like a stifling smoke, sounded thetread of the departing horseman.
"Yes," murmured Anna, hoping to drown the footfall, and with a doublemeaning though with sincere tenderness, "you are stealing now, notmeaning to."
"Now?" whispered the other, "how can that be?" though she knew. "Ah, ifI could steal now your heart al-_so_! But I've stolen, I fear,only--your--confidenze!" Between the words she loosed one hand, stoopedand lifted the flower. Each tried to press it to the other's bosom, butit was Anna who yielded.
"I'd make you take it," she protested as Flora pinned it on, "if Ihadn't thrown it away."
"Dearest," cooed the other, "that would make me a thief ag-ain, andthis time guilty."
"Can't I give a castaway rose to whom I please?"
"Not this one. Ah, sweet, a thousand thousand pardon!"--the speaker bentto her hearer's ear--"I saw you when you kiss' it--and before."
Anna's face went into her hands, and face and hands to Flora's shoulder;but in the next breath she clutched the shoulder and threw up her head,while the far strain of a bugle faintly called, "Head of column to theright."
The cadence died. "Flora! your dream is true and that's the battery!It's going, Flora. It's gone! Your brother's gone! Your brother, Flora,your brother! Charlie! he's _gone_." So crying Anna sprang to the windowand with unconscious ease threw it up.
The pair stood in it. With a bound like the girl's own, clear day hadcome. Palely the river purpled and silvered. No sound was anywhere, nohuman sign on vacant camp ground, levee, or highroad. "Ah!"--Flora madea well pretended gesture of discovery and distress--"'tis true! Thatbugl' muz' have meant us good-by."
"Oh, then it was cruel!" exclaimed Anna. "To you, dear, cruel to you tosteal off in that way. Run! dress for the carriage!"
Flora played at hesitation: "Ah, love, if perchanze that bugl' was tocall you?"
"My dear! how could even _he_--the 'ladies' man,' ha, ha!--_imagine_ anytrue woman would come to the call of a bugle? Go! while I order thecarriage."
They had left the window. The hostess lifted her hand toward abell-cord but the visitor stayed it, absently staring while lettingherself be pressed toward the door, thrilled with a longing as wild asAnna's and for the same sight, yet cunningly pondering. Nay, waiting,rather, on instinct, which the next instant told her that Anna wouldinevitably go herself, no matter who stayed.
"You'll come al-long too?" she pleadingly asked.
"No, dear, I cannot! Your grandmother will, of course, and Miranda." Thebell-cord was pulled.
"Anna, you _must_ go, else me, I will not!"
"Ah, how can I? Dear, dear, you're wasting such _golden_ moments! Well,I'll go with you! Only _make_ haste while I call the others--stop!"Their arms fell lightly about each other's neck. "You'll never tell onme?... Not even to Miranda?... Nor h-his--his uncle?... Nor"--thepetitioner pressed closer with brightening eyes--"nor his--cousin?"
Softly Flora's face went into her hands, and face and hands to Anna'sshoulder, as neat a reduplication as ever was. But suddenly there werehoof-beats again. Yes, coming at an easy gallop. Now they trottedthrough the front gate. The eyes of the two stared. "A courier,"whispered Anna, "to Captain Mandeville!" though all her soul hopeddifferently.
Only a courier it was. So said the maid who came in reply to the latering, but received no command. The two girls, shut in together, Annalosing moments more golden than ever, heard the rider at the verandasteps accost the ol
d coachman and so soon after greet Mandeville that itwas plain the captain had already been up and dressing.
"It's Charlie!" breathed Anna, and Flora nodded.
Now Charlie trotted off again, and now galloped beyond hearing, whileMandeville's booted tread reascended to his wife's room. And now cameConstance: "Nan, where on earth is Fl--? Oh, of course! News, Nan! Goodnews, Flora! The battery, you know--?"
"Yes," said Anna, with her dryest smile, "it's sneaked off in the dark."
"Nan, you're mean! It's marching up-town now, Flora. At least the gunsand caissons are, so as to be got onto the train at once. And oh, girls,those poor, dear boys! the train--from end to end it's to be nothing buta freight train!"
"Hoh!" laughed the heartless Anna, "that's better than staying here."
The sister put out her chin and turned again to Flora. "But just now,"she said, "the main command are to wait and rest in Congo Square, andabout ten o'clock they're to be joined by all the companies of theChasseurs that haven't gone to Pensacola and by the whole regiment ofthe Orleans Guards, as an escort of honor, and march in that way to thedepot, led by General Brodnax and his staff--and Steve! And every onewho wants to bid them good-by must do it there. Of course there'll be aperfect jam, and so Miranda's ordering breakfast at seven and thecarriage at eight, and Steve--he didn't tell even me last nightbecause--" Her words stuck in her throat, her tears glistened, shegnawed her lips. Anna laid tender hands on her.
"Why, what, Connie, dear?"
"St--Ste--Steve--"
"Is Steve going with them to Virginia?"
The face of Constance went into her hands, and face and hands to Anna'sshoulder. Meditatively smiling, Flora slipped away to dress.