Read The Victim: A Romance of the Real Jefferson Davis Page 21

  CHAPTER VI

  GOD'S WILL

  Dick Welford had played directly into the hands of his enemy. WhenSocola called at the Barton home to pay his respects to Miss Jennie andwish them health and happiness and success in their new and dangerousenterprise, he found the girl in a receptive mood. The accusation ofinterest had stimulated her to her first effort to entertain theself-poised and gentlemanly foreigner.

  He turned to Jennie with a winning appeal in his modulated voice:

  "Will you do me a very great favor, Miss Barton?"

  "If I can--certainly," was the quick answer.

  "I wish to meet your distinguished father. He is a great Southernleader. I have been commissioned by the Sardinian Ministry to cultivatethe acquaintance of the leaders of the Confederacy. I am to make areport direct to the Court of King Emmanuel on the prospects of theSouth."

  Jennie rose with a smile.

  "With pleasure. I'll call father at once."

  Barton was delighted at the announcement.

  "Invite him to spend a week with us at Fairview," Jennie suggested.

  "Good idea--we'll show him what Southern hospitality means!"

  Burton grasped Socola's outstretched hand with enthusiasm.

  "Permit me," he began in his grand way, "to extend you a welcome to theSouth. Your King is interested in our movement. It's natural. Europemust reckon with us from the first. Cotton is the real King. We aregoing to build on this staple an industrial empire whose influence willdominate the world. The sooner the political rulers realize this thebetter."

  Socola bowed.

  "I quite agree with you, Senator Barton. His Majesty King VictorEmmanuel has great plans for the future. He is profoundly interested inyour movement. He does not believe that the map of Italy has yet beenfixed. It will be quite easy to convince his brilliant, open mind thatthe boundaries of this country may be readjusted--"

  "I shall be delighted to show you every courtesy within my power, sir,"Barton responded. "You must go South with us to-morrow and spend a weekat Fairview, our country estate. You must meet my grand old father andmy mother and see the curse of slavery at its worst!"

  Barton laughed heartily and slipped his arm persuasively about thegraceful shoulders of his guest.

  "I hadn't thought of being so honored, I assure you--"

  He paused and looked at Jennie with a timid sort of appeal.

  "Come with us--we'll be delighted to have you--"

  "I'll enjoy it, I'm sure," he said hesitatingly. "We will reachMontgomery in time for the meeting of the Convention of SecedingStates?"

  "Certainly," Barton replied. "I'm already elected a delegate from myState. Her secession is but a question of days."

  Socola's white, even teeth gleamed in a happy smile.

  "I'll go with pleasure, Senator. You leave to-morrow?"

  "The ten-twenty train for the South. You'll join our party, of course?"

  "Of course."

  With a graceful bow he hurried home to complete the final preparationsfor his departure. He walked with quick, strong step. And yet as heapproached the door of the little house in the humbler quarter of thecity his gait unconsciously slowed down.

  He dreaded this last struggle with his mother. But it must come. Heentered the modestly furnished sitting room and looked at her calm,sweet face with a sudden sinking. She would be absolutely alone in theworld. And yet no harm could befall her. She was the friend of everyhuman being who knew her. It was the agony of this parting he dreadedand the loneliness that would torture her in his absence.

  He spoke with forced cheerfulness.

  "Well, mater, it's all settled. I leave at ten-twenty to-morrowmorning."

  She rose and placed her hands on his shoulders. The tears blinded her.

  "How little I thought when I taught your boyish lips to speak themusical tongue of Italy I was preparing this bitter hour for my soul! Ibegged your father to resign his consulship at Genoa and brought youhome to teach you the great lesson--to love your country and reverenceyour country's God. And since your father's death the dream of my hearthas been to see you a minister, teaching and uplifting the people into ahigher and nobler life--"

  "That is my aim, mater dear. I am consecrating body, mind and soul tothe task now of saving the Union, an inheritance priceless and gloriousto millions yet unborn. I'm going to break the chains that bind slaves.I'm going to break the brutal and cruel power of the Southern Tyrannythat has been strangling the nation for forty years!"

  His eyes flashed with the fire of fanatical enthusiasm.

  He slipped his arm about his mother's slender waist, drew her to thewindow and pointed to the unfinished dome of the white, majesticcapitol.

  "See, mater dear, the sun is bursting through the clouds now andlighting with splendor the marble columns. Last night when the speecheswere done and the crowds gone I stood an hour and studied the flawlesssymmetry of those magnificent wings and over it all the great solemndome with its myriad gleaming eyes far up in the sky--and I wondered ifGod meant nothing big or significant to humanity when he breathed thedream of that poem in marble into the souls of our people! I can'tbelieve it, dear. I stood and prayed while I dreamed. I saw in theragged scaffolding and the big ugly crane swinging from its place in thesky the symbol of our crude beginnings--our ragged past. And then thesnow-white vision of the finished building, the most majestic monumentever reared on earth to Freedom and her cause--and I saw the glory of anew Democracy rising from the blood and agony of the past to be the hopeand inspiration of the world!

  "You hate this masquerade--this battle name I've chosen. Forget this,dear, and see the vision your God has given to me. You've prayed that Imight be His minister. And so I am--and so I shall be when danger calls;you dislike this repulsive mission on which I'm entering. Just now it'sthe _one_ and only thing a brave man can do for his country. Forget thatI'm a spy and remember that I'm fitted for a divine service. I speak twolanguages beside my own. Our people don't study languages. Few men of myculture and endowment will do this dangerous and disagreeable work. Irise on wings at the thought of it!"

  The mother's spirit caught at last the divine spark from the soul of theyoung enthusiast. Her eyes were wide and shining without tears when sheslipped both arms about his neck and spoke with deep tenderness.

  "You have fully counted the cost, my son?"

  "Yes."

  "The lying, the cheating, the false pretenses, the assumed name, thetrusting hearts you must betray, the men you must kill alone, sometimesto save your own life and serve your country's?"

  "It's war, mater dear. I hate its cruelty and its wrongs. I'll do mybest in these early days to make it impossible. But if it comes, I'llplay the game with my life in my hands, and if I had a hundred lives I'dgive them all to my country--my only regret is that I have but one--"

  "How strange the ways of God!" the mother broke in. "He planted thislove in your soul. He taught it to me and I to you and now it ends indarkness and blood and death--"

  "But out of it, dear, must come the greater plan. You believe inGod--you must believe this, or else the Devil rules the universe, andthere is no God."

  The mother drew the young lips down and kissed them tenderly.

  "God's will be done, my Boy--it's the bitterness of death to me--but Isay it!"