Chapter 73
He did not know who she was; he only looked from the flower in his hand and had a sense of strength and sweetness, of something n.o.ble approaching nearer. She paused to ask a question of one of the women; answered, she came straight on. He saw that she was coming to the cut-off corner by the stair, and instinctively he straightened a little the covering over him. In a moment she was standing beside him, in her cool hospital dress, with her dark hair knotted low, with a flower at her breast. "You are Allan Gold?" she said.
"Yes."
"My name is Judith Cary. Perhaps you have heard of me. I have been to Lauderdale and to Three Oaks."
"Yes," said Allan. "I have heard of you. I--"
There was an empty box beside the wall. Judith drew it nearer to his bed and sat down. "You have been looking for Christianna? I came to tell you about poor little Christianna--and--and other things. Christianna's father has been killed."
Allan uttered an exclamation. "Isham Maydew! I never thought of his going!... Poor child!"
"So she thought she ought not to come to-day. Had there been strong reason, many people dependent upon her, she would have come."
"Poor Christianna--poor wild rose!... It's ghastly, this war! There is nothing too small and harmless for its grist."
"I agree with you. Nothing too great; nothing too small. Nothing too base, as there is nothing too n.o.ble."
"Isham Maydew! He was lean and tough and still, like Death in a picture.
Where was he killed?"
"It was at White Oak Swamp. At White Oak Swamp, the day before Malvern Hill."
Allan looked at her. There was more in her voice than the non-coming of Christianna, than the death of Isham Maydew. She had spoken in a clear, low, bell-like tone that held somehow the ache of the world. He was simple and direct, and he spoke at once out of his thought. He knew that all the men of her house were at the front. "You have had a loss of your own?--"
She shook her head. "I? No. I have had no loss."
"Now," thought Allan, "there's something proud in it." He looked at her with his kindly, sea-blue eyes. In some chamber of the brain there flashed out a picture--the day of the Botetourt Resolutions, winter dusk after winter sunset and Cleave and himself going homeward over the long hilltop--with talk, among other things, of visitors at Lauderdale. This was "the beautiful one." He remembered the lift of Cleave's head and his voice. Judith's large dark eyes had been raised; transparent, showing always the soul within as did his own, they now met Allan's. "The 65th,"
she said, "was cut to pieces."
The words, dragged out as they were, left a shocked silence. Here, in the corner by the stair, the arch of wood partially obscuring the ward, with the still blue sky and the still brick gables, they seemed for the moment cut away from the world, met on desert sands to tell and hear a dreadful thing. "Cut to pieces," breathed Allan. "The 65th cut to pieces!"
The movement which he made displaced the bandage about his shoulder. She left the box, kneeled by him and straightened matters, then went back to her seat. "It was this way," she said,--and told him the story as she had heard it from her father and from Fauquier Cary. She spoke with simplicity, in the low, bell-like tone that held the ache of the world.
Allan listened, with his hand over his eyes. His regiment that he loved!... all the old, familiar faces.
"Yes, he was killed--Hairston Breckinridge was killed, fighting gallantly. He died, they say, before he knew the trap they were caught in. And Christianna's father was killed, and others of the Thunder Run men, and very many from the county and from other counties. I do not know how many. Fauquier called it slaughter, said no worse thing has happened to any single command. Richard got what was left back across the swamp."
Allan groaned. "The
"Yes. The roll was called, and so many did not answer. They say other Stonewall regiments wept."
Allan raised himself upon the bench. She started forward. "Don't do that!" and with her hand pressed him gently down again. "I knew," she said, "that you were here, and I have heard Richard speak of you and say how good and likable you were. And I have worked hard all the morning, and just now I thought, 'I must speak to some one who knows and loves him or I will die.' And so I came. I knew that the ward might hear of the 65th any moment now and begin to talk of it, so I was not afraid of hurting you. But you must lie quiet."
"Very well, I will. I want to know about Richard Cleave--about my colonel."
Her dark eyes met the sea-blue ones fully. "He is under arrest," she said. "General Jackson has preferred charges against him."
"Charges of what?"
"Of disobedience to orders--of sacrificing the regiment--of--of retreating at last when he should not have done so and leaving his men to perish--of--of--. I have seen a copy of the charge. _Whereas the said colonel of the 65th did shamefully_--"
Her voice broke. "Oh, if I were G.o.d--"
There was a moment's silence--silence here in the corner by the stair, though none beyond in the painful, moaning ward. A bird sailed across the strip of blue sky; the stalk of phlox on the soldier's narrow bed lay withering in the light. Allan spoke. "General Jackson is very stern with failure. He may believe that charge. I don't see how he can; but if he made it he believes it. But you--you don't believe it?--"
"Believe it?" she said. "No more than G.o.d believes it! The question is now, how to help Richard."
"Have you heard from him?"
She took from her dress a folded leaf torn from a pocket-book. "You are his friend. You may read it. Wait, I will hold it." She laid it before him, holding it in her slight, fine, strong fingers.
He read. _Judith: You will hear of the fate of the 65th. How it happened I do not yet understand. It is like death on my heart. You will hear, too, of my own trouble. As to me, believe only that I could sit beside you and talk to-day as we talked awhile ago, in the sunset. Richard._
She refolded the paper and put it back. "The evidence will clear him,"
said Allan. "It must. The very doubt is absurd."
Her face lightened. "General Jackson will see that he was hasty--unjust.
I can understand such anger at first, but later, when he reflects--Richard will be declared innocent--"
"Yes. An honourable acquittal. It will surely be so."
"I am glad I came. You have always known him and been his friend."
"Let me tell you the kind of things I know of Richard Cleave. No, it doesn't hurt me to talk."
"I can stay a little longer. Yes, tell me."
Allan spoke at some length, in his frank, quiet voice. She sat beside him, with her cheek on her hand, the blue sky and old house roofs above her. When he ceased her eyes were full of tears. She would not let them fall. "If I began to cry I should never stop," she said, and smiled them away. Presently she rose. "I must go now. Christianna will be back to-morrow."
She went away, pa.s.sing up the narrow path between the wounded and out at the further door. Allan watched her going, then turned a little on the flock bed, and lifting his unbandaged arm laid it across his eyes. _The 65th cut to pieces--The 65th cut to pieces--_
At sunset Judith went home. The small room up in the branches of the tulip tree--she hardly knew how many months or years she had inhabited it. There had pa.s.sed, of course, only weeks--but Time had widened its measure. To all intents and purposes she had been a long while in Richmond. This high, quiet niche was familiar, familiar! familiar the old, slender, inlaid dressing-table and the long, thin curtains and the engraving of Charlotte Corday; familiar the cool, green tree without the window and the nest upon a bough; familiar the far view and wide horizon, by day smoke-veiled, by night red-lit. The smoke was lifted now; the eye saw further than it had seen for days. The room seemed as quiet as a tomb. For a moment the silence oppressed her, and then she remembered that it was because the cannon had stopped.
She sat beside the window, through the dusk, until the stars came out; then went downstairs and took her part at the table, about which the soldier sons of the house were gathering. They brought comrades with them. The wounded eldest son was doing well, the army was victorious, the siege was lifted, the house must be made gay for "the boys." No house was ever less bright for Judith. Now she smiled and listened, and the young men thought she did not realize the seriousness of the army talk about the 65th. They themselves were careful not to mention the matter. They talked of a thousand heroisms, a thousand incidents of the Seven Days; but they turned the talk--if any one, unwary, drew it that way--from White Oak Swamp. They mistook her feeling; she would rather they had spoken out. Her comfort was when, afterwards, she went for a moment into the "chamber" to see the wounded eldest. He was a warm-hearted, rough diamond, fond of his cousin.
"What's this d.a.m.ned stuff I hear about Richard Cleave and a court-martial? What--nonsense! I beg your pardon, Judith." Judith kissed him, and finding "Le Vicomte de Bragelonne" face down on the counterpane offered to read to him.
"You would rather talk about Richard," he said. "I know you would. So should I. It's all the d.a.m.nedest nonsense! Such a charge as that!--Tell you what, Judith. D'ye remember 'Woodstock' and Cromwell in it? Well, Stonewall Jackson's like Cromwell--of course, a better man, and a greater general, and a n.o.bler cause, but still he's like him! Don't you fret! Cromwell had to listen to the truth. He did it, and so will Stonewall Jackson. Such d.a.m.ned stuff and nonsense! It hurts me worse than that old bayonet jab ever could! I'd like to hear what Edward says."
"He says, 'Duck your head and let it go by. The gra.s.s'll grow as green to-morrow.'"
"You aren't crying, are you, Judith?--I thought not. You aren't the crying kind. Don't do it. War's the stupidest beast."
"Yes, it is."
"Cousin Margaret's with Richard, isn't she?"
"Not with him--that couldn't be, they said. But she and Miriam have gone to Merry Mount. It's in the lines. I have had a note from her."
"What did she say?--You don't mind, Judith?"