IX
_THE BIRTH OF WOMANHOOD_
The captain's stern commands were not needed, and the extra sentinelshad no work to do in restraining the men from offensive speech andconduct. They courteously saluted as Agatha passed them by, and whenthey learned what her kindly mission was, they hurriedly brought armfulsof saddle-blankets and arranged them as a cushion for her on the top ofa limber-chest. Perched up there, she called for their torn garments,and nimbly plied her needle and her scissors for the space of half anhour before observing the sentry who had been posted nearest to her. Hisslouch hat, indeed, was drawn down over his eyes in such fashion thatbut little of his face could be seen. But looking up at last in searchof further work to do, she recognised the form of Marshall Pollard.Instantly a deep flush overspread her face, and, dismounting from thelimber-chest, she approached and addressed him. He presented arms andsaid to her in French, so that those about them might not understand:
"Pardon me, mademoiselle, but it is forbidden to speak to a sentinel onduty." With that he recovered arms and resumed the monotonous pacing ofhis beat.
As the girl hurried out of the battery, flushed and agitated, she againencountered Captain Skinner.
"Has anybody been rude to you, Miss Ronald?" he asked, quickly.
"No, Captain Skinner, I have only praise for your men. They have beencourteous in the extreme. I predict that they will acquit themselvesright gallantly in to-morrow's battle."
"O, they're fighters, and will give a good account of themselves if thismuddled railroad management lets us get to Manassas before the fightingis over."
With thanks to Agatha for her kindness, Captain Skinner bowed low infarewell.
Springing into her carriage she gave the command, "Home," and drove awaywithout waiting to see the remainder of the Army of the Shenandoah asit moved, partly by train, and partly on march, toward the scene of thecoming battle.
During the homeward ride the girl laughed and chatted with hercompanions with more than her usual vivacity, quite as if this had beenthe gladdest of all her gala-days. But the gaiety was forced, and thelaughter had a nervous note in it which would have betrayed its impulseto her companions had they been of closely observant habit of mind.
But when she reached home Agatha excused herself to her friends, andshut herself in her room. Throwing off her hat, but making no otherchange in her costume, she stretched herself upon the polished floor,after a habit she had indulged since childhood whenever her spirit wasperturbed. For an hour she lay there upon the hard ash boards, with herhands clasped under her head, thinking, thinking, thinking.
"God knows," she thought, "I have tried to do my duty, and it isbitterly hard for a woman. In loyalty to my dead father's memory, I haveinsulted and wounded the only man I could ever have loved, and sent himaway from me in anger and wretchedness. And even in doing that--even inbeing cruel to him and to myself, I have fallen short of my duty asAgatha Ronald. I have weakly yielded something at least of that proudattitude which it is my duty to my family traditions to maintain. I haverecognised the state of war, but I have parleyed with the enemy. AndBaillie Pegram is at this hour wearing a plume plucked from my hat andfastened into his by my own hands. God forgive me if I have beendisloyal! But is it disloyalty?"
With that question echoing in her mind she sat up, staring at the wall,as if trying there to read her answer.
"Is it my duty to cherish a feud that is meaningless to me--to hate aman who has done no wrong to me or mine, simply because there was aquarrel between our ancestors before either of us was born? I do notknow! I do not know! But I must be true to my family, true to my race,true to the traditions in which I have been bred. I have fallen short ofthat in this case. I must not err again. I must never again forget, evenfor a moment, that Baillie Pegram is my hereditary enemy."
Then she caught herself thinking and almost wishing that a Federalbullet might end her perplexity--that Baillie Pegram might never live tosee her again. "I wonder," she thought, "if that is what Christ meantwhen he said that one who hates his neighbour is a murderer in hisheart. It is all a blind riddle to me. Here have I been brought up aChristian, taught from my infancy that hatred is murder, and taught atthe same time that it is my highest duty, as a Ronald, to go on hatingall the Pegrams on earth because my father and Baillie Pegram'sgrandfather quarrelled over something that I know absolutely nothingabout!"
Presently the girl's mind reverted to the second meeting of thateventful day,--her encounter with Marshall Pollard. She wondered why hehad enlisted in company with such men as those who constituted CaptainSkinner's battery, for even thus early those men had become known as theworst gang of desperadoes imaginable,--a band that must be kept day andnight under a discipline as rigid and as watchful as that of any Stateprison, lest they lapse into crimes of violence. She wondered if thismeant that the peculiarly gentle-souled Marshall Pollard was trying to"throw himself away," as she had heard that men disappointed in lovesometimes do,--that he wished to degrade himself by low associations.
"And I am the cause of it all," she mourned. For she knew that MarshallPollard had loved her with the love of an honest man, and that his lifehad been darkened, to say the least, by her inability to respond to hisdevotion. In this case she should have had the consolation of knowingthat she had been guilty of no wilful, no conscious wrong, but, in herpresent mood, she was disposed to flagellate her soul for an imaginedoffence.
"He came to me," she reflected, "loving me from the first. Little idiotthat I was, I did not understand. I liked him as a girl may like aboy,--for I was only a girl then,--and I did not dream that theaffection he manifested toward me meant more than that sort of thing onhis part. Those things which ought to have revealed to me his state ofmind meant nothing more to me then than do the little gallantries anddeferences which all men pay to all women. How bitterly he reproached meat the last for having deceived him and led him on with encouragementswhich I at least had not intended as such. Are all women borncoquettes? Is it our cruel instinct to trifle with the souls of men, aslittle children love to torture their pets? Have we women no principles,no earnestness, no consciences--except afterward, when remorse awakensus? Are we blind, that we do not see, and deaf that we do not hear? Oris it our nature to be cruel, especially to those who love us and offerus the best that there is in their strong natures?
"I remember how we stood out there in the grounds, under the jessaminearbour, as the sun went down; and how at last, when I had made himunderstand, he plucked a sprig of the beautiful, golden flowers from thebunch that I held in my hand, and how I bade him beware, for that thejessamine is poisonous, and how he replied, 'Not more poisonous than itis to love a coquette.'
"I remember that he gave me no chance to answer, no opportunity toprotest again my innocence of such intent as he had imputed to me in hispassionate speech, but turned his back and stalked away, with thatstride which I saw again to-day, as he paced his beat. That was twoyears ago--and to-day I have seen him again in such company as he wouldnever have sought but for me,--the willing companion of ruffians, theassociate of desperadoes, the messmate of thieves!"
Agatha was on her feet now, and nervously laying aside one after anotherof the little fripperies with which she had decorated her person thatday. She found herself presently half-unconsciously searching for thegown that she must wear at dinner, though her never-failing maid hadlaid it out long before her home-coming, that it might be in readinessfor her need.
A sudden thought came into the suffering girl's mind.
"These two men, whose lives are hurt by their love for me, will sufferfar less than I shall. They are soldiers as strong to endure as they arestrong to dare. They have occupation for all their waking hours. Theywill be upon the march, in battle, or otherwise actively employed allthe time. In remembering more strenuous things they will forget theirsorrows and throw aside their griefs as they cast away everything whenthey go into battle that may in any wise hinder their activity orembarrass their freedom. I must sit still
here at Willoughby, and think,and think, and think."
Then like a lightning flash another thought came into her mind, and shespoke it aloud:
"Why should I be idler than they are? Why should I sit here broodingwhile they are toiling and fighting for Virginia? I am no more afraid ofdeath or of danger than they are, and while women may not fight, thereare other ways in which a woman of courage may render quite as good aservice. I'll do it. I'll take the risks. I'll endure the hardships.I'll render my country a _service that shall count_."
With that she rang for her maid and bade her prepare a cold plunge bath.When she descended to dinner, an hour later, Agatha no longer chatteredfrivolously, as she had done in the carriage, by way of concealing heremotions, but bore herself seriously, as became her in view of theprospect of battle on the morrow.
In that hour of agonising thought, Agatha Ronald had ceased to be agirl, and had become an earnest, resolute woman, strong to do, strong toendure, and, if need be, strong to dare. Life had taken on a new meaningin her eyes.