Joseph A. Altsheler – The Complete Collection

Chapter 47

The President received the despatch bearer in his private room, looking taller, thinner and sterner than ever. Although a Kentuckian by birth, he had been bred in the far South, but had little of that far South about him save the dress he wore. He was too cold, too precise, too free from sudden emotion to be of the Gulf Coast State that sent him to the capital. Prescott often reflected upon the odd coincidence that the opposing Presidents, Lincoln and Davis, should have been produced by the same State, Kentucky, and that the President of the South should be Northern in manner and the President of the North Southern in manner.

Mr. Davis read the despatches while their bearer, at his request, waited by. Prescott knew the hopeless tenor of those letters, but he could see no change in the stern, gray face as its owner read them, letter after letter. More than a half-hour passed and there was no sound in the room save the rustling of the paper as the President turned it sheet by sheet. Then in even, dry tones he said:

"You need not wait any longer, Captain Prescott; you have done your part well and I thank you. You will remain in Richmond until further orders."

Prescott saluted and went out, glad to get into the free air again. He did not envy the responsibility of a president in war time, whether the president of a country already established or of one yet tentative. He hurried home, and it was his mother herself who responded to the sound of the knocker--his mother, quiet, smiling and undemonstrative as of old, but with an endless tenderness for him in the depths of her blue eyes.

"Here I am again, mother, and unwounded this time," he cried after the first greeting; "and I suppose that as soon as they hear of my arrival all the Yankees will be running back to the North."

She smiled her quiet, placid smile.

"Ah, my son," she said, and from her voice he could not doubt her seriousness, "I'm afraid they will not go even when they hear of your arrival."

"In your heart of hearts, mother, you have always believed that they would come into Richmond. But remember they are not here yet. They were even closer than this before the Seven Days, but they got their faces burned then for their pains."

They talked after their old custom, while Prescott ate his luncheon and his mother gave him the news of Richmond and the people whom he knew. He noticed often how closely she followed the fortunes of their friends, despite her seeming indifference, and, informed by experience, he never doubted the accuracy of her reports.

"Helen Harley is yet in the employ of Mr. Sefton," she said, "and the money that she earns is, I hear, still welcome in the house of the Harleys. Mr. Harley is a fine Southern gentleman, but he has found means of overcoming his pride; it requires something to support his state."

"But what of Helen?" asked Prescott. He always had a feeling of repulsion toward Mr. Harley, his sounding talk, his colossal vanity and his selfishness.

"Helen, I think," said his mother, "is more of a woman than she used to be. Her mind has been strengthened by occupation. You won't object, Robert, will you, if I tell you that in my opinion both the men and women of the South have suffered from lack of diversity and variety in interests and ambitions. When men have only two ambitions, war and politics, and when women care only for the social side of life, important enough, but not everything, there can be no symmetrical development. A Southern republic, even if they should win this war, is impossible, because to support a State it takes a great deal more than the ability to speak and fight well."

Prescott laughed.

"What a political economist we have grown to be, mother!" he said, and then he added thoughtfully: "I won't deny, however, that you are right--at least, in part. But what more of Helen, mother? Is Mr. Sefton as attentive as ever to his clerk?"

She looked at him covertly, as if she would measure alike his expression and the tone of his voice.

"He is still attentive to Helen--in a way," she replied, "but the Secretary is like many other men: he sees more than one beautiful flower in the garden."

"What do you mean, mother?" asked Prescott quickly.

His face flushed suddenly and then turned pale. She gave him another keen but covert look from under lowered eyelids.

"There's a new star in Richmond," she replied quietly, "and singular as it may seem, it is a star of the North. You know Miss Charlotte Grayson and her Northern sympathies: it is a relative of hers--a Miss Catherwood, Miss Lucia Catherwood, who came to visit her shortly after the battles in the Wilderness--the 'Beautiful Yankee,' they call her. Her beauty, her grace and distinction of manner are so great that all Richmond raves about her. She is modest and would remain in retirement, but for the sake of her own peace and Miss Grayson's she has been compelled to enter our social life here."

"And the Secretary?" said Prescott. He was now able to assume an air of indifference.

"He warms himself at the flame and perhaps scorches himself, too, or it may be that he wishes to make some one else jealous--Helen Harley, for instance. I merely venture the suggestion; I do not pretend to know all the secrets of the social life of Richmond."

Prescott went that very afternoon to the Grayson cottage, and he prepared himself with the greatest care for his going. He felt a sudden and strong anxiety about his clothing. His uniform was old, ragged and stained, but he had a civilian suit of good quality.

"This dates from the fall of '60," he said, looking at it, "and that's more than four years ago; but it's hard to keep the latest fashions in Richmond now."

However, it was a vast improvement, and the change to civilian garb made him feel like a man of peace once more.

He went into the street and found Richmond under the dim cold of a November sky, distant houses melting into a gray blur and people shivering as they passed. As he walked briskly along he heard behind him the roll of carriage wheels, and when he glanced over his shoulder what he beheld brought the red to his face.

Mr. Sefton was driving and Helen Harley sat beside him. On the rear seat were Colonel Harley and Lucia Catherwood. As he looked the Secretary turned back and said something in a laughing manner to Lucia, and she, laughing in like fashion, replied. Prescott was too far away to understand the words even had he wished, but Lucia's eyes were smiling and her face was rosy with the cold and the swift motion. She was muffled in a heavy black cloak, but her expression was happy.

The carriage passed so swiftly that she did not see Prescott standing on the sidewalk. He gazed after the disappearing party and others did likewise, for carriages were becoming too scarce in Richmond not to be noticed. Some one spoke lightly, coupling the names of James Sefton and Lucia Catherwood. Prescott turned fiercely upon him and bade him beware how he repeated such remarks. The man did not reply, startled by such heat, and Prescott walked on, striving to keep down the anger and grief that were rising within him.

He concluded that he need not hurry now, because if he went at once to the little house in the cross street she would not be there; and he came to an angry conclusion that while he had been upon an errand of hardship and danger she had been enjoying all the excitement of life in the capital and with a powerful friend at court. He had always felt a sense of proprietorship in her and now it was rudely shocked. He forgot that if he had saved her she had saved him. It never occurred to him in his glowing youth that she had an entire right to love and marry James Sefton if fate so decreed.

He walked back and forth so angrily and so thoroughly wrapped in his own thoughts that he noticed nobody, though many noticed him and wondered at the young man with the pale face and the hot eyes.

It was twilight before he resumed his journey to the little house. The gray November day was thickening into the chill gloom of a winter night when he knocked at the well-remembered door. The shutters were closed, but some bars of ruddy light shone through them and fell across the brown earth. He was not coming now in secrecy as of old, but he had come with a better heart then.

It was Lucia herself who opened the door--Lucia, with a softer face than in the earlier time, but with a royal dignity that he had never seen in any other woman, and he had seen women who were royal by birth. She was clad in some soft gray stuff and her hair was drawn high upon her head, a crown of burnished black, gleaming with tints of red, like flame, where the firelight behind her flickered and fell upon it.

The twilight was heavy without and she did not see at once who was standing at the door. She put up her hands to shade her eyes, but when she beheld Prescott a little cry of gladness broke from her. "Ah, it is you!" she said, holding out both her hands, and his jealousy and pain were swept away for the moment.

He clasped her hands in the warm pressure of his own, saying: "Yes, it is I; and I cannot tell you how glad I am to see you once more."

The room behind her seemed to be filled with a glow, and when they went in the fire blazed and sparkled and its red light fell across the floor. Miss Grayson, small, quiet and gray as usual, came forward to meet him. Her tiny cool hand rested in his a moment, and the look in her eyes told him as truly as the words she spoke that he was welcome.

"When did you arrive?" asked Lucia.

"But this morning," he replied. "You see, I have come at once to find you. I saw you when you did not see me."

"When?" she asked in surprise.

"In the carriage with the Secretary and the Harleys," he replied, the feeling of jealousy and pain returning. "You passed me, but you were too busy to see me."

She noticed the slight change in his tone, but she replied without any self-consciousness.

"Yes; Mr. Sefton--he has been very kind to us--asked me to go with Miss Harley, her brother and himself. How sorry I am that none of us saw you."

The feeling that he had a grievance took strong hold of Prescott, and it was inflamed at the new mention of the Secretary's name. If it were any other it might be more tolerable, but Mr. Sefton was a crafty and dangerous man, perhaps unscrupulous too. He remembered that light remark of the bystander coupling the name of the Secretary and Lucia Catherwood, and at the recollection the red flushed into his face.

"The Secretary is able and powerful," he said, "but not wholly to be trusted. He is an intriguer."

Miss Grayson looked up with her quiet smile.

"Mr. Sefton has been kind to us," she said, "and he has made our life in Richmond more tolerable. We could not be ungrateful, and I urged Lucia to go with them to-day."

The colour flickered in the sensitive, proud face of Lucia Catherwood.

"But, Charlotte, I should have gone of my own accord, and it was a pleasant drive."