________________________________________________
_ With the opening spring Virginia went down to Richmond, where Jack Morson
had taken rooms for her in the house of an invalid widow whose three sons
were at the front. The town was filled to overflowing with refugees from
the North and representatives from the South, and as the girl drove through
the crowded streets, she exclaimed wonderingly at the festive air the
houses wore.
"Why, the doors are all open," she observed. "It looks like one big
family."
"That's about what it is," replied Jack. "The whole South is here and
there's not a room to be had for love or money. Food is getting dear, too,
they say, and the stranger within the gates has the best of everything." He
stopped short and laughed from sheer surprise at Virginia's loveliness.
"Well, I'm glad I'm here, anyway," said the girl, pressing his arm, "and
Mammy Riah's glad, too, though she won't confess it.--Aren't you just
delighted to see Jack again, Mammy?"
The old negress grunted in her corner of the carriage. "I ain' seed no use
in all dis yer fittin'," she responded. "W'at's de use er fittin' ef dar
ain' sumpen' ter fit fer dat you ain' got a'ready?"
"That's it, Mammy," replied Jack, gayly, "we're fighting for freedom, and
we haven't had it yet, you see."
"Is dat ar freedom vittles?" scornfully retorted the old woman. "Is it
close? is it wood ter bu'n?"
"Oh, it will soon be here and you'll find out," said Virginia, cheerfully,
and when a little later she settled herself in her pleasant rooms, she
returned to her assurances.
"Aren't you glad you're here, Mammy, aren't you glad?" she insisted, with
her arm about the old woman's neck.
"I'd des like ter git a good look at ole Miss agin," returned Mammy Riah,
softening, "caze ef you en ole Miss ain' des like two peas in a pod, my
eyes hev done crack wid de sight er you. Dar ain' been nuttin' so pretty es
you sence de day I dressed ole Miss in 'er weddin' veil."
"You're right," exclaimed Jack, heartily. "But look at this, Virginia,
here's a regular corn field at the back. Mrs. Minor tells me that
vegetables have grown so scarce she has been obliged to turn her flower
beds into garden patches." He threw open the window, and they went out upon
the wide piazza which hung above the young corn rows.
During the next few weeks, when Jack was often in the city, an almost
feverish gayety possessed the girl. In the war-time parties, where the
women wore last year's dresses, and the wit served for refreshment, her
gentle beauty became, for a little while, the fashion. The smooth bands of
her hair were copied, the curve of her eyelashes was made the subject of
some verses which _The Examiner_ printed and the English papers quoted
later on. It was a bright and stately society that filled the capital that
year; and on pleasant Sundays when Virginia walked from church, in her
Leghorn bonnet and white ruffles flaring over crinoline as they neared the
ground, men, who had bled on fields of honour for the famous beauties of
the South, would drop their talk to follow her with warming eyes. Cities
might fall and battles might be lost and won, but their joy in a beautiful
woman would endure until a great age.
At last Jack Morson rode away to service, and the girl kept to the quiet
house and worked on the little garments which the child would need in the
summer. She was much alone, but the delicate widow, who had left her couch
to care for the sick and wounded soldiers, would sometimes come and sit
near her while she sewed.
"This is the happiest time--before the child comes," she said one day, and
added, with the observant eye of mothers, "it will be a boy; there is a
pink lining to the basket."
"Yes, it will be a boy," replied Virginia, wistfully.
"I have had six," pursued the woman, "six sons, and yet I am alone now.
Three are dead, and three are in the army. I am always listening for the
summons that means another grave." She clasped her thin hands and smiled
the patient smile that chilled Virginia's blood.
"Couldn't you have kept one back?" asked the girl in a whisper.
The woman shook her head. Much brooding had darkened her mind, but there
was a peculiar fervour in her face--an inward light that shone through her
faded eyes.
"Not one--not one," she answered. "When the South called, I sent the first
two, and when they fell, I sent the others--only the youngest I kept back
at first--he is just seventeen. Then another call came and he begged so
hard I let him go. No, I gave them all gladly--I have kept none back."
She lowered her eyes and sat smiling at her folded hands. Weakened in body
and broken by many sorrows as she was, with few years before her and those
filled with inevitable suffering, the fire of the South still burned in her
veins, and she gave herself as ardently as she gave her sons. The pity of
it touched Virginia suddenly, and in the midst of her own enthusiasm she
felt the tears upon her lashes. Was not an army invincible, she asked, into
which the women sent their dearest with a smile?
Through the warm spring weather she sat beside the long window that gave on
the street, or walked slowly up and down among the vegetable rows in the
garden. The growing of the crops became an unending interest to her and she
watched them, day by day, until she learned to know each separate plant and
to look for its unfolding. When the drought came she carried water from the
hydrant, and assisted by Mammy Riah sprinkled the young tomatoes until they
shot up like weeds. "It is so much better than war," she would say to Jack
when he rode through the city. "Why will men kill one another when they
might make things live instead?"
Beside the piazza, there was a high magnolia tree, and under this she made
a little rustic bench and a bed of flowers. When the hollyhocks and the
sunflowers bloomed it would look like Uplands, she said, laughing.
Under the magnolia there was quiet, but from her front window, while she
sat at work, she could see the whole overcrowded city passing through sun
and shadow. Sometimes distinguished strangers would go by, men from the far
South in black broadcloth and slouch hats; then the President, slim and
erect and very grave, riding his favourite horse to one of the encampments
near the city; and then a noted beauty from another state, her chin lifted
above the ribbons of her bonnet, a smile tucked in the red corners of her
lips. Following there would surge by the same eager, staring throng--men
too old to fight who had lost their work; women whose husbands fought in
the trenches for the money that would hardly buy a sack of flour; soldiers
from one of the many camps; noisy little boys with tin whistles; silent
little girls waving Confederate flags. Back and forth they passed on the
bright May afternoons, filling the street with a ceaseless murmur and the
blur of many colours.
And again the crowd would part suddenly to make way for a battalion
marching to the front, or for a single soldier riding, with muffled drums,
to his grave in Hollywood. The quick step or the slow gait of the riderless
horse; the wild cheers or the silence on the pavement; the "Bonnie Blue
Flag" or the funeral dirge before the coffin; the eager faces of men
walking to where death was or the fallen ones of those who came back with
the dead; the bold flags taking the wind like sails or the banners furled
with crepe as they drooped forward--there was not a day when these things
did not go by near together. To Virginia, sitting at her window, it was as
if life and death walked on within each other's shadow.
Then came the terrible days when the city saw McClellan sweeping toward it
from the Chickahominy, when senators and clergymen gathered with the slaves
to raise the breastworks, and men turned blankly to ask one another "Where
is the army?" With the girl the question meant only mystification; she felt
none of the white terror that showed in the faces round her. There was in
her heart an unquestioning, childlike trust in the God of battles--sooner
or later he would declare for the Confederacy and until then--well, there
was always General Lee to stand between. Her chief regret was that the
lines had closed and her mother could not come to her as she had promised.
In the intense heat that hung above the town she sat at her southern
window, where the river breeze blew across the garden, and watched placidly
the palm-leaf fan which Mammy Riah waved before her face. The magnolia tree
had flowered in great white blossoms, and the heavy perfume mingled in
Virginia's thoughts with the yellow sunshine, the fretful clamour, and the
hot dust of the city. When at the end of May a rain storm burst overhead
and sent the wide white petals to the earth, it was almost a relief to see
them go. But by the morrow new ones had opened, and the perfume she had
sickened of still floated from the garden.
That afternoon the sound of the guns rolled up the Williamsburg road, and
in the streets men shouted hoarsely of an engagement with the enemy at
Seven Pines. With the noise Virginia thrilled to her first feeling of
danger, starting from a repose which, in its unconsciousness, had been as
profound as sleep. The horror of war rushed in upon her at the moment, and
with a cry she leaned out into the street, and listened for the next roll
of the cannon.
A woman, with a scared face, looked up, saw her, and spoke hysterically.
"There's not a man left in the city," she cried. "They've taken my father
to defend the breastworks and he's near seventy. If you can sew or wash or
cook, there'll be work enough for you, God knows, to-morrow!"
She hurried on and Virginia, turning from the window, buried herself in the
pillows upon the bed, trying in vain to shut out the noise of the
cannonading and the perfume of the magnolia blossoms which came in on the
southern breeze. With night the guns grew silent and the streets empty, but
still the girl lay sleepless, watching with frightened eyes the shadow of
Mammy Riah's palm-leaf fan.
At dawn the restless murmur began again, and Virginia, looking out in the
hot sunrise, saw the crowd hastening back to the hospitals lower down. They
were all there, all as they had been the day before--old men limping out
for news or returning beside the wounded; women with trembling lips and
arms filled with linen; ambulances passing the corner at a walk, surrounded
by men who had staggered after them because there was no room left inside;
and following always the same curious, pallid throng, fresh upon the scent
of some new tragedy. Presently the ambulances gave out, and yet the wounded
came--some walking, and moaning as they walked, some borne on litters by
devoted servants, some drawn in market wagons pressed into use. The great
warehouses and the churches were thrown open to give them shelter, but
still they came and still the cry went up, "Room, more room!"
Virginia watched it all, leaning out to follow the wagons as they passed
the corner. The sight sickened her, but something that was half a ghastly
fascination, and half the terror of missing a face she knew, kept her hour
after hour motionless upon her knees. At each roll of the guns she gave a
nervous shiver and grew still as stone.
Then, as she knelt there, a man, in clerical dress, came down the pavement
and stopped before her window. "I hope your husband's wound was not
serious, Mrs. Morson," he said sympathetically. "If I can be of any
assistance, please don't hesitate to call on me."
"Jack wounded!--oh, he is not wounded," replied Virginia. She rose and
stood wildly looking down upon him.
He saw his mistake and promptly retracted what he could.
"If you don't know of it, it can't be true," he urged kindly. "So many
rumours are afloat that half of them are without foundation. However, I
will make inquiries if you wish," and he passed on with a promise to return
at once.
For a time Virginia stood blankly gazing after him; then she turned
steadily and took down her bonnet from the wardrobe. She even went to the
bureau and carefully tied the pink ribbon strings beneath her chin.
"I am going out, Mammy Riah," she said when she had finished. "No, don't
tell me I mustn't--I am going out, I say."
She stamped her foot impatiently, but Mammy Riah made no protest.
"Des let's go den," she returned, smoothing her head handkerchief as she
prepared to follow.
The sun was already high above, and the breeze, which had blown for three
days from the river, had dropped suddenly since dawn. Down the brick
pavement the relentless glare flashed back into the sky which hung hot blue
overhead. To Virginia, coming from the shade of her rooms, the city seemed
a furnace and the steady murmur a great discord in which every note was one
of pain.
Other women looking for their wounded hurried by her--one stopped to ask if
she had been into the unused tobacco warehouse and if she had seen there a
boy she knew by name? Another, with lint bandages in her hand, begged her
to come into a church hard by and assist in ravelling linen for the
surgeons. Then she looked down, saw the girl's figure, and grew nervous.
"You are not fit, my dear, go home," she urged, but Virginia shook her head
and smiled.
"I am looking for my husband," she answered in a cold voice and passed on.
Mammy Riah caught up with her, but she broke away. "Go home if you want
to--oh, go back," she cried irritably. "I am looking for Jack, you know."
Into the rude hospitals, one after one, she went without shuddering,
passing up and down between the ghastly rows lying half clothed upon the
bare plank floors. Her eyes were strained and eager, and more than one
dying man turned to look after her as she went by, and carried the memory
of her face with him to death. Once she stopped and folded a blanket under
the head of a boy who moaned aloud, and then gave him water from a pitcher
close at hand. "You're so cool--so cool," he sobbed, clutching at her
dress, but she smiled like one asleep and passed on rapidly.
When the long day had worn out at last, she came from an open store filled
with stretchers, and started homeward over the burning pavement. Her search
was useless, and the reaction from her terrible fear left her with a sudden
tremor in her heart. As she walked she leaned heavily upon Mammy Riah, and
her colour came and went in quick flashes. The heat had entered into her
brain and with it the memory of open wounds and the red hands of surgeons.
Reaching the house at last, she flung herself all dressed upon the bed and
fell into a sleep that was filled with changing dreams.
At midnight she cried out in agony, believing herself to be still in the
street. When Mammy Riah bent over her she did not know her, but held out
shaking hands and asked for her mother, calling the name aloud in the
silent house, deserted for the sake of the hospitals lower down. She was
walking again on and on over the hot bricks, and the deep wounds were
opening before her eyes while the surgeons went by with dripping hands.
Once she started up and cried out that the terrible blue sky was crushing
her down to the pavement which burned her feet. Then the odour of the
magnolia filled her nostrils, and she talked of the scorching dust, of the
noise that would not stop, and of the feeble breeze that blew toward her
from the river. All night she wandered back and forth in the broad glare of
the noon, and all night Mammy Riah passed from the clinging hands to the
window where she looked for help in the empty street. And then, as the gray
dawn broke, Virginia put her simple services by, and spoke in a clear
voice.
"Oh, how lovely," she said, as if well pleased. A moment more and she lay
smiling like a child, her chin pressed deep in her open palm.
* * * * *
In the full sunrise a physician, who had run in at the old woman's cry,
came from the house and stopped bareheaded in the breathless heat. For a
moment he stared over the moving city and then up into the cloudless blue
of the sky.
"God damn war!" he said suddenly, and went back to his knife. _
Read next: BOOK THIRD - THE SCHOOL OF WAR: Chapter IX - The Montjoy Blood again
Read previous: BOOK THIRD - THE SCHOOL OF WAR: Chapter VII - "I wait my Time"
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