XXX
_THE LAST STRAW_
When the news came to Baillie and Agatha that Lee and McClellan had metin a great battle, and that the Army of Northern Virginia had retracedits steps across the Potomac, both lost heart a little.
But Baillie was now regaining strength at a surprising rate, and hiseagerness to carry out Agatha's plan of escape, by way of England,Nassau, and a blockaded Southern port, became importunate.
Yielding to it, early in October, Agatha hurriedly made her finalpreparations. Through her friend in New York she engaged passage forherself, Baillie, and Sam, on a Cunard steamer appointed to sail on the15th of the month. She made all necessary arrangements for the sickFrench gentleman, his French nurse, and his negro valet to make thejourney to New York on the 14th, in order that they might sail the nextmorning.
But a few days before the time set for their departure a greatexcitement arose in the town where Baillie had so long lain ill. TheConfederates were coming again; they had destroyed McClellan in a greatbattle, current rumour reported, and were now marching upon Washingtonunopposed. So the rumours ran.
Later tidings corrected all this to some extent. It was learned thatthere had been no battle as yet, and that the invading force was onlythe vanguard of Lee's advance.
"I think I understand what it means," said Agatha, who had followedStuart's operations in the past with close attention, learning toappreciate his methods. "This is simply one of General Stuart'ssplendidly audacious raids. He rode around McClellan at Richmond, youremember; he rode around Pope, and captured his baggage, and hisuniform, and all his mules at Manassas two months ago. I suspect that heis simply riding around McClellan again in search of forage and storesand glory."
"That is probably what the movement means," answered Baillie, "thoughit may be made in preparation for another advance of the whole army,just as each of his former exploits was. In either case, if he comesthis way it will answer our purpose. I shall escape with him. If it isonly a cavalry raid, of course Stuart will have to force his way backthrough or over whatever obstacles McClellan may throw in his path, andin that case there will be a continual running fight with no secure rearfor you to take shelter with. Of course, if the whole army advances, asecure way will be open, but if only the cavalry come, there will be noline of communication. In that case it will be necessary for you toremain here, or rather go on to New York and sail for Liverpool as wehave both intended."
"You are forgetful, Captain Pegram. I have ridden with General Stuartbefore, and as to placing myself under fire, I think you know I am notwithout experience. No. If General Stuart comes this way, I shall askhim for a horse and play outrider to the ambulance in which you are totravel."
"But, Agatha!" he pleaded, "I am unwilling to have you expose yourselfthus needlessly. Think of the danger and the hardship, and think too ofthe discomfort you must suffer as a solitary woman in company with ahorde of rough-riding cavalrymen!"
"Hush! I will not hear one word even in suspicion of our Virginiacavaliers. I know those superb fellows, and I trust them. They may berough as riders, and they are certainly rough fellows for the enemy toencounter, but they are gallant gentlemen; they are as gentle as onlygiants of courage can be, in their attitude toward a defenceless woman.If the opportunity comes, I shall certainly ride with them."
At that moment there was a scurrying in the streets, a hurried closingof the little shops, and a scampering of juvenile chronic offenders topoints of secure observation.
A minute or two later some gray-clad regiments of cavalry trotted intothe town, taking temporary possession of it. They created no more ofdisorder, and made far less noise than a Sunday-school picnic might havedone. Not a man of them was permitted to quit his place in the rankseven for a single moment, for Stuart had given strict orders, and hislieutenants enforced them relentlessly.
There were very valuable commissary and ordnance stores belonging to theUnited States government in the town, and the advance squadron of thecavalry quietly took possession of these military supplies, quicklyloading them into wagons, but touching no single cent's worth of privateproperty of any kind, and molesting no citizen. So the orders ran.
Half an hour sufficed for this work, and at the end of that time thecolumn moved out of the town in silence and good order.
Captain Baillie Pegram accompanied it in an ambulance, with Sam ridingat its tail, and Agatha, mounted upon a stout and war-seasoned cavalryhorse, preceding the vehicle.
At nightfall the detachment joined the main column, and there was abrief pause for supper. Agatha, in her capacity of nurse, questionedBaillie closely as to his condition, and found that he had seeminglytaken no harm from excitement or weariness. When she had satisfiedherself on that point, she ventured to tell him that his own battery layaround the ambulance. He promptly sat up and asked to see hissubalterns and certain of his men.
"You may see a few of them," answered his nurse, "if you will receivethem lying down. If you insist upon sitting up, I'll not permit a singleone of them even to grasp your hand."
He yielded to her authority, and during the remainder of the briefhalting time, there was a cheering reunion of comrades and a hastyinterchange of personal news between men who loved each other as onlythose men do who have stood together under an enemy's fire and togetherendured the hardships of campaigning.
The enemy's cavalry was by this time approaching in considerable force,and Stuart, whose plan did not include any purpose of unnecessaryfighting, set his column in motion again. But he did not take the lineof march which he had been following all day. That had been intended asa blind. By threatening several points in directions quite other thanthe one he meant to take, he had accomplished two important purposes. Hehad gained time for all his scattered detachments to rejoin the column,and he had compelled the enemy to scatter his forces in many directionsfor the defence of the threatened points.
Having thus shaken off the greater part of the force pursuing him, hebegan his march that night in such a direction as to suggest that hemeant to return if possible by the route by which he had come. For thishis enemy was of course prepared. As soon as the cavalry forces thatwere observing his movement discovered what they took to be his purpose,they withdrew for a space and planted themselves across his pathway.Infantry and artillery forces were hurried forward in support, and theenemy confidently believed that at last the wily cavalier was securelyentrapped.
To encourage this mistaken belief, Stuart threw forward a small force ofmen armed with carbines, and instructed them to maintain a scatteringfire upon the enemy's pickets during the night as if feeling of theposition in preparation for an attempt to break through it on themorrow.
No sooner was this disposition made than the main body of theConfederates was turned into the by-roads that led toward the Potomac ata point far east of McClellan's position and farther down the river.
By a rapid march it reached the river at daylight and crossed it bysunrise. In the meanwhile, just before the dawn, the detachment whichhad been left behind to maintain a show of intended battle during thenight, quietly withdrew, and rode at a gallop to rejoin the escapingcolumn. The enemy did not discover their withdrawal until sunrise, bywhich time they were many miles away, galloping toward the river, whichthey crossed without molestation.
It was not until the column halted in Virginia for a breakfast thatmight be taken in security, that Stuart met Baillie and Agatha inperson. He insisted upon hearing the whole story, even making Sam takepart in its telling. At parting he sought a word apart with Agatha, andsaid to her:
"I suppose you and Captain Pegram have quite ceased to be 'almoststrangers' by this time."
The girl flushed crimson, but managed to answer:
"No, General. I have simply been his nurse, you know, and--and--well,he has been very ill."
"Nevertheless," answered the cavalier, "I'll court-martial him when hereturns to duty, if I hear no better report than that of his conduct."
This bit of playfulness on
Stuart's part had the effect of making Agathaexceedingly uncomfortable in her mind. She had so long been caring forBaillie as a man ill nigh unto death, that she had ceased to think ofconventionalities in connection with her relations to him. But Stuart'sjest reminded her that others might not be equally forgetful, especiallynow that her patient was rapidly regaining his strength.
"My work is done," she said to herself, "and I must no longer intrudemyself upon Captain Pegram or his affairs. As soon as he can be sent offto Warlock in Sam's care, I must bid him a final adieu and go back to myloneliness at Willoughby. After all, I shall have enough to do there,caring for the poor negroes and managing the plantation so that it shallyield enough for them to live upon. I wonder if everything has falleninto complete neglect there during my absence? Now that Chummie has goneto the angels, I am needed there. And besides I must look after myunderground railroad affairs. I wonder if the line is in good workingorder, and if it is carrying as much freight as it ought."
She realised, too, now that the parting was drawing near, how muchBaillie Pegram's presence had come to mean to her, how necessary a partof her life he had become, and how barren and desolate that life must bewhen they two should have spoken a final good-bye. For during her periodof nursing, he and she had come to be the best of comrades, and at suchtimes as his condition had permitted, they had fallen into habits ofintimate converse. Their talks, it is true, had never been personal incharacter. They had talked of books and travel and life; now and thenthey had discussed philosophy, ethics, aesthetics, and a hundred othersubjects external to themselves. But although their converse had notbeen personal in character, it had taught each to know the impulses, thesentiments, and the convictions of the other in a degree that purelypersonal intercourse never could have done.
Agatha understood all this now, as she had not understood it before,and the understanding saddened her. For she was resolutely determinednow to take herself as completely out of this man's life as if she hadnever known him at all. She proudly realised her duty, and she would notflinch from its doing.
"Did I not break off the acquaintance at that Christmas-time nearly twoyears ago?" she argued with herself. "Was I not strong and resolute, themoment I learned what my duty was? Why then should I not do the sameagain?"
She let her thoughts wander at will. "It is true there was war betweenus then, and there is none now. There never has been since Chummietalked with me that last night of his life. And it seems harder now inother ways. Since I have come to know Captain Pegram so well, andespecially since I have taken care of him in a time of helplessness, itseems harder to send him away and tell him that we are mereacquaintances, not likely to see much of each other hereafter."
Then she generalised in this fashion:
"Life is very hard on women in any case--much harder than it is on men,in every way. And the worst of it is that men do not want it to be so,and nothing they can do can prevent. Even in that restriction of ourlives which petty conventionality forces upon us, men cannot come to ourrelief. It is women who hold women to such restrictions. Men would laughthem away, if we would let them, but we never will. We hold each otherto the rigidest standards of propriety, even when propriety makesneedless and foolish exactions of us. Men never do that. They want us tobe innocently as free as they are, but we are afraid to be so. We areafraid of other women. Even Chummie could not succeed in setting mefree. I was too much afraid of other women's opinions, too much a slaveto other women's standards to accept the freedom he tried so hard toforce upon me.
"No, that isn't just it. I am not really afraid of other women'sopinions; I am afraid of my own. I have laughed at and defied otherwomen's standards, many a time, and I shall go on doing so to the end,whenever I am convinced that their opinions are unsound and theirstandards wrong. I did that when I went North to find and rescue CaptainPegram. I knew perfectly that my good aunts would look upon my conductwith positive horror, and that the least any other woman of myacquaintance would say about my conduct would be 'How could she?' intones that meant all that is possible of condemnation. But I did notcare for all that, and I do not care for it now, because I know thatwhat I did was right, and that Chummie would have said so if he hadlived till now. The trouble is that in the main I share those opinionsof other women which so restrict the liberty of all women. I am afraidof those opinions because they are my own as well as others'; I submitmyself to those standards of feminine conduct because I share theopinion that sets them up and enforces obedience to them."
At this point Agatha "shied" away from the thought that had in factsuggested all this introspective meditation. She would not admit, evento herself, that she was strongly moved by a perfectly natural impulse,to bridge the chasm that lay between her and Baillie Pegram, to remindhim of what he had said to her that far-away morning on the picket-lineat Fairfax Court-house, and so give him opportunity to say it again.When that thought intruded itself upon her, she was shocked andstartled by it. It seemed to her immodest in an extreme degree,unwomanly, almost atrocious. She would not harbour it for a moment. Shecast it out of her mind, and was bitterly resentful against herself forhaving permitted it even to suggest itself.
"I must act at once," she resolved, when the day's march was resumed. "Imust flee from the devil of this temptation. If Captain Pegram suffersno relapse to-day, I will bid him good-bye in the morning. No, I willnot bid him good-bye. That would be too--well, it would be almost likeacting upon that hideous thought. I shall simply go without saying aword to him. Perhaps I shall leave a little note for him, simply tellinghim that I am going to look after affairs at Willoughby, as he no longerneeds his French nurse. I'll be very careful, in writing it, not to--notto make it more than coldly courteous and friendly."
It was nearly nightfall when the cavalcade rejoined the main body ofLee's army. Agatha made haste to secure a careful examination of Baillieby a staff surgeon. He reported that the convalescent man had taken noharm from the journey, but was so far recovered that a month's restwould render him fit for duty again. Assured of this, Agatha sent forSam and minutely instructed him as to the care of his master on thehomeward journey which, she had arranged, was to begin immediately, withthe assistance of an ambulance for a part of the way.
Then, early the next morning, she went to Stuart, and preferred arequest. In the present disturbed state of things she hesitated to makethe journey to Willoughby alone, and she asked for an escort for a day.
Stuart looked at her with a face far sadder than his was accustomed tobe, and said:
"I have very bad news for you, Miss Agatha. You cannot go toWilloughby--for there is no Willoughby. That was one of the manyplantations ravaged by Pope while he held Northern Virginia. The houseand all the barns were burned, and every living animal for a score ofmiles around was killed. Even if Willoughby had been spared, it wouldnot do for you to live there now. The armies will move to new positionspresently,--nobody knows where,--and this northern part of Virginia willbe no fit place for women and children to live in till the war isover."
The girl sat pale and speechless, as she listened. It was as if she hadreceived a blow in the face. She had bravely met danger and sorrow andhardship, and had endured them all with heroic resolution. She seemednow quite unable to endure this new trial of her courage. She made nooutcry and shed no tears. She simply sat there before the headquarterscamp-fire, statue-like in her pallor and her immobility. Stuart gentlylaid his hand upon her head, and sought to soothe her with a voice thatwas always gentle when he spoke to a woman.
Agatha seemed not to know what he was doing. She made no response to hiswords, and as he looked into her face the light went out of her greatbrown eyes.
A moment later she reeled, and Stuart caught her in his brawny arms.
"Bring a surgeon quick," he commanded.
Then he gently laid the seemingly lifeless form upon a blanket which thesentinel spread upon the ground.