Chapter 23
Miss Lucy Cary, knitting in hand, stood beside the hearth and surveyed the large Greenwood parlour. "The lining of the window curtains," she said, "is good, stout, small figured chintz. My mother got it from England. Four windows--four yards to a side--say thirty-two yards.
That's enough for a dozen good s.h.i.+rts. The damask itself?--I don't know what use they could make of it, but they can surely do something. The net curtains will do to stretch over hospital beds. Call one of the boys, Julius, and have them all taken down.--Well, what is it?"
"Miss Lucy, chile, when you done sont de curtains ter Richmon', how is you gwine surmantle de windows?"
"We will leave them bare, Julius. All the more sunlight."
Unity came in, knitting. "Aunt Lucy, the velvet piano cover could go."
"That's a good idea, dear. A capital blanket!"
"A soldier won't mind the embroidery. What is it, Julius?"
"Miss Unity, when you done sont dat kiver ter Richmon', what you gwine investigate dat piano wif?"
"Why, we'll leave it bare, Julius! The grain of the wood shows better so."
"The bishop," said Miss Lucy thoughtfully--"the bishop sent his study carpet last week. What do you think, Unity?"
Unity, her head to one side, studied the carpet. "Do you reckon they would really sleep under those roses and tulips, Aunt Lucy? Just imagine Edward!--But if you think it would do any good--"
"We might wait awhile, seeing that spring is here. If the war should last until next winter, of course we shall send it."
Unity laughed. "Julius looks ten years younger! Why, Uncle Julius, we have bare floors in summer, anyhow!"
"Yaas, Miss Unity," said Julius solemnly. "An' on de hottes' day ob July you hab in de back ob yo' haid dat de cyarpets is superimposin' in de garret, in de cedar closet, ready fer de fust day ob November. How you gwine feel when you see November on de road, an' de cedar closet bar ez er bone? Hit ain' right ter take de Greenwood cyarpets an' curtains, an'
my tablecloths an' de blankets an' sheets an' Ole Miss's fringed counterpanes--no'm, hit ain't right eben if de ginerals do sequesterate supplies! How de house gwine look when marster come home?"
Molly entered with her knitting. "The forsythia is in bloom! Aunt Lucy, please show me how to turn this heel. Car'line says you told her not to make sugar cakes for Sunday?"
"Yes, dear, I did. I am sorry, for I know that you like them. But everything is so hard to get--and the armies--and the poor people. I've told Car'line to give us no more desserts."
"Oh!" cried Molly. "I wasn't complaining! It was Car'line who was fussing. I'd give the army every loaf of sugar, and all the flour. Is that the way you turn it?
Knit--knit--knit-- The soldiers' feet to fit!"
She curled herself up on the long sofa, and her needles went click, click! Unity lifted the music from the piano lid, drew off the velvet cover, and began to fold it. Muttering and shaking his head, Julius left the room. Miss Lucy went over and stood before the portrait of her mother. "Unity," she said, "would you send the great coffee urn to Richmond for the Gunboat Fair, or would you send lace?"
Unity pondered the question. "The lace would be easier to send, but maybe they would rather have the silver. I don't see who is to buy at the Fair--every one is _giving_. Oh, I wish we had a thousand gunboats and a hundred _Virginias_--"
A door banged in the distance and the windows of the parlour rattled.
The room grew darker. "I knew we should have
"If it lightens, put by your needles."
Judith came in suddenly. "There's going to be a great storm! The wind is blowing the elms almost to the ground! There are black clouds in the east. I hope that there are clouds over the ocean, and over Chesapeake, and over Hampton Roads--except where the Merrimac lies! I hope that there it is still and sunny. Clouds, and a wind like a hurricane, a wind that will make high waves and drive the s.h.i.+ps--and drive the Monitor!
There will be a great storm. If the elms break, masts would break, too!
Oh, if this night the Federal fleet would only go to the bottom of the sea!"
She crossed the room, opened the French window, and stood, a hand on either side of the window frame, facing the darkened sky and the wind-tossed oaks. Behind her, in the large old parlour, there was an instant's silence. Molly broke it with a shocked cry, "Judith Jacqueline Cary!"
Judith did not answer. She stood with her hair lifted by the wind, her hands wide, touching the window sides, her dark eyes upon the bending oaks. In the room behind her Miss Lucy spoke. "It is they or us, Molly!
They or all we love. The sooner they suffer the sooner they will let us alone. They have shut up all our ports. G.o.d forgive me, but I am blithe when I hear of their s.h.i.+ps gone down at sea!"
"Yes," said Judith, without turning. "Not stranded as they were before Roanoke Island, but wrecked and sunken. Come, look, Unity, at the wild storm!"
Unity came and stood beside her. The oaks outside, like the elms at the back of the house, were moving in the blast. Over them hurried the clouds, black, large, and low. Down the driveway the yellow forsythias, the red pyrus j.a.ponicas showed in blurs of colours. The lightning flashed, and a long roll of thunder jarred the room. "You were the dreamer," said Unity, "and you had most of the milk of human kindness, and now you have been caught up beyond us all!"
Her sister looked at her, but with a distant gaze. "It is because I can dream--no, not dream, see! I follow all the time--I follow with my mind the troops upon the march, and the s.h.i.+ps on the sea. I do not hate the s.h.i.+ps--they are beautiful, with the green waves about them and the sea-gulls with s.h.i.+ning wings. And yet I wish that they would sink--down, down quickly, before there was much suffering, before the men on them had time for thought. They should go like a stone to the bottom, without suffering, and they should lie there, peacefully, until their spirits are called again. And our ports should be open, and less blood would be shed. Less blood, less anger, less wretchedness, less pain, less shedding of tears, less watching, watching, watching--"
"Look!" cried Unity. "The great oak bough is going!"
A vast spreading bough, large itself as a tree, snapped by the wind from the trunk, came cras.h.i.+ng down and out upon the lawn. The thunder rolled again, and large raindrops began to splash on the gravel paths.
"Some one is coming up the drive," exclaimed Unity. "It's a soldier!
He's singing!"
The wind, blowing toward the house, brought the air and the quality of the voice that sang it.
"Beau chevalier qui partez pour la guerre, Qu'allez-vous faire Si loin d'ici?
Voyez-vous pas que la nuit est profonde, Et que le monde N'est que souci?"
"Edward!" cried Judith. "It is Edward!"
The Greenwood ladies ran out on the front porch. Around the house appeared the dogs, then, in the storm, two or three turbaned negresses.
Mammy, coifed and kerchiefed, came down the stairs and through the house. "O my Lawd! Hit's my baby! O glory be! Singin' jes' lak he uster sing, layin' in my lap--mammy singin' ter him, an' he singin' ter mammy!
O Ma.r.s.e Jesus! let me look at him--"
"Beau chevalier qui partez pour la guerre, Qu'allez-vous faire Si loin de nous?--"
Judith ran down the steps and over the gra.s.s, through the storm. Beyond the nearer trees, by the great pyrus j.a.ponica bush, flame-red, she met a ragged spectre, an Orpheus afoot and travel-stained, a demiG.o.d showing signs of service in the trenches, Edward Cary, in short, beautiful still, but gaunt as any wolf. The two embraced; they had always been comrades. "Edward, Edward--"
"Eleven months," said Edward. "Judith, Judith, if you knew how good home looks--"
"How thin you are, and brown! And walking!--Where is Prince John--and Jeames?"
"Didn't I tell you in my last letter? Prince John was killed in a fight we had on the Warwick River.... Jeames is in Richmond down with fever.
He cried to come, but the doctor said he mustn't. I've only three days myself. Furloughs are hard to get, but just now the government will do anything for anybody who was on the Merrimac--You're worn yourself, Judith, and your eyes are so big and dark!--Is it Maury Stafford or Richard Cleave?"
Amid the leaping of the dogs they reached the gravelled s.p.a.ce before the house. Miss Lucy folded her nephew in her arms. "G.o.d bless you, Edward--" She held him off and looked at him. "I never saw it before--but you're like your grandfather, my dear; you're like my dear father!--O child, how thin you are!"
Unity and Molly hung upon him. "The papers told us that you were on the Merrimac--though we don't know how you got there! Did you come from Richmond? Have you seen father?"
"Yes, for a few moments. He has come up from the south with General Lee.
General Lee is to be commander of all the forces of the Confederacy.
Father is well. He sent his dear love to you all. I saw Fauquier, too--"
Mammy met him at the top of the steps. "Oh, my lamb! O glory hallelujah!
What you doin' wid dem worn-out close? An' yo' sh'ut tohn dat-er-way?