Joseph A. Altsheler – The Complete Collection

Chapter 9

The honourable member from the Gulf Coast had risen on a question of personal privilege. Then he required the clerk of the House to read the offending editorial from Winthrop's newspaper, during which he stood haughtily erect, his feet rather wide apart, his arms folded indignantly across his breast, and a look of righteous wrath on his face. When the clerk finished, he spat plentifully in a spittoon at his feet, cleared his throat, and let loose the flood of rhetoric which was threatening already to burst over the dam.

The blow aimed by that villainous writer, the honourable gentleman said, was struck at him. He was a member of the Committee on Military Affairs, and he must reply ere the foul stain was permitted to tarnish his name. He came from a sunny land where all the women were beautiful and all the men brave, and he would rather die a thousand deaths than permit any obscure ink-slinger to impeach his fair fame. He carried the honour of his country in his heart; he would sooner die a thousand deaths than to permit--to permit---

He paused, and waved his hand as he sought for a metaphor sufficiently strong-winged.

"Wait a minute, Mr. Redfield, and I'll help you down," dryly said a thin-faced member from the Valley of Virginia.

The sound of subdued laughter arose and the Speaker rapped for order. Mr. Redfield glared at the irreverent member from the Valley of Virginia, then resumed his interrupted flight. Unfortunately for him the spell was broken. Some of the members began to talk in low whispers and others to read documents. Besides the murmur of voices there was a sound of scraping feet. But the honourable member from the sunny shores of the Gulf helped himself down, though somewhat angrily, and choosing a tamer course began to come nearer to the point. He called for the suppression of the offending newspaper and the expulsion of its editor from the city. He spoke of Winthrop by name and denounced him. Robert saw Mr. Sefton appear upon the floor and once nod his head approvingly as Mr. Redfield spoke.

The House now paid more heed, but the dry member from the Valley of Virginia, in reply to Mr. Redfield, called the attention of the members to the fact that they could not suppress the newspapers. They might deny its representatives the privileges of the House, but they could go no further. He was opposed to spreading the thing to so great an extent, as it would be sure to reach the North and would be a standing advertisement to the Yankees that the South was divided against itself.

Then a motion was made to deny the privileges of the House to Winthrop, or any representative of his paper, but it was defeated by a narrow margin.

"That, I think," said Robert, "will be the end of this affair."

"I am glad of it," responded Helen, "because I like Mr. Winthrop."

"And, therefore, you believe everything he says is correct?"

"Yes; why not?"

"Women have more personal loyalty than men," said Robert, not replying directly. "Shall we go now?" he asked a moment later; "I think we have heard all of interest."

"No, I must stay a little," she replied with some embarrassment. "The fact is--I am--waiting to see Mr. Sefton."

"To see Mr. Sefton!" Prescott could not refrain from exclaiming in his surprise.

She looked at him with an air half defiance, half appeal.

"Yes," she said, "and my business is of considerable importance to me. You don't think that a mere woman can have any business of weight with so influential a personage as Mr. Sefton. You Southern men, with all your courtesy and chivalry, really undervalue us, and therefore you are not gallant at all."

Her defiant look and manner told Prescott that she did not wish him to know the nature of her business, so he made a light answer, asking her if she were about to undertake the affairs of the Government. He had no doubt some would be glad to get rid of them.

He excused himself presently and strolled into the rotunda, where he gazed absently at the Washington statue and the Lafayette bust, although he saw neither. Conscious of a feeling of jealousy, he began to wish ill to the clever Secretary. "What business can she have with a man like Sefton?" he said to himself.

Passing out of the rotunda, he walked slowly down the steps, and looking back saw Helen and Mr. Sefton in close and earnest conversation. Then he went on faster with increased ill temper.

"I have a piece of news for you," said Mrs. Prescott the next morning to her son at the breakfast table.

He looked at her with inquiring interest.

"Helen Harley has gone to work," she said.

"Gone to work! Mother, what do you mean?"

"The heiress of seven generations must work like a common Northern mill-hand to support that pompous old father of hers, the heir of six Virginia generations, who certainly would not work under any circumstances to support his daughter."

"Won't you explain yourself more clearly, mother?"

"It's this. The Harleys are ruined by the war. The Colonel is absorbed in his career and spends all his salary on himself. The old gentleman doesn't know anything about his financial affairs and doesn't want to; it's beneath his dignity. Helen, who does know about them, is now earning the bread for her father and herself. Think of a Southern girl of the oldest blood doing such a thing! It is very low and degrading, isn't it?"

She looked at him covertly. A sudden thought occurred to him.

"No, mother," he replied. "It is not low and degrading. You think just the contrary, and so do I. Where has Helen gone to work?"

"In the Treasury Department, under Mr. Sefton. She is copying documents there."

Robert felt a sudden relief and then alarm that she should owe so much to Sefton.

"I understand that Harley senior stormed and threatened for awhile," continued his mother. "He said no female member of his family had ever worked before, and he might have added, few male members either. He said his family would be disgraced forever by the introduction of such a low Yankee innovation; but Helen stood firm, and, moreover, she was urged by the hand of necessity. I understand that she has quite a good place and her salary is to be paid in gold. She will pass here every day at noon, coming home for her luncheon."

Prescott spent most of the morning at home, the remainder with his new friends, wandering about the city; but just before noon he was in front of the Custom House, waiting by the door through which Helen must come. She appeared promptly at the stroke of twelve and seemed surprised to see him there.

"I came merely to tell you how much I admire your resolution," he said. "I think you are doing a noble thing."

The colour in her cheeks deepened a little. He knew he had pleased her.

"It required no great amount of courage," she replied, "for the work is not hard and Mr. Sefton is very kind. And, aside from the money I am happier here. Did you never think how hard it was for women to sit with their hands folded, waiting for this war to end?"

"I have thought of it more than once," he replied.

"Now I feel that I am a part of the nation," she continued, "not a mere woman who does not count. I am working with the others for our success."

Her eyes sparkled like the eyes of one who has taken a tonic, and she looked about her defiantly as if she would be ready with a fitting reply to any who might dare to criticize her.

Prescott liked best in her this quality of independence and self-reliance, and perhaps her possession of it imparted to her that slight foreign air which he so often noticed. He thought the civilization of the South somewhat debilitating, so far as women were concerned. It wished to divide the population into just two classes--women of beautiful meekness and men of heroic courage.

Helen had broken down an old convention, having made an attempt that few women of her class and period would have dared, and at a time, too, when she might have been fearful of the results. She was joyous as if a burden had been lifted. Prescott rarely had seen her in such spirits. She, who was usually calm and grave, seemed to have forgotten the war. She laughed and jested and saw good humour in everything.

Prescott could not avoid catching the infection from the woman whom he most admired. The atmosphere--the very air--took on an unusual brilliancy. The brick walls and the shingled roofs glittered in the crisp, wintry sunshine; the schoolboys, caps over their ears and mittens on their fingers, played and shouted in the streets just as if peace reigned and the cannon were not rumbling onward over there beyond the trees.

"Isn't this world beautiful at times?" said Helen.

"It is," replied Robert, "and it seems all the more strange to me that we should profane it by war. But here comes Mrs. Markham. Let us see how she will greet you."

Mrs. Markham was in a sort of basket cart drawn by an Accomack pony, one of those ugly but stout little horses which do much service in Virginia and she was her own driver, her firm white wrists showing above her gloves as she held the reins. She checked her speed at sight of Robert and Helen and stopped abreast of them.

"I was not deceiving you the other night, Captain Prescott," she said, after a cheerful good-afternoon "when I told you that all my carriage horses had been confiscated. Ben Butler, here--I call him Ben Butler because he is low-born and has no manners--arrived only last night, bought for me by my husband with a whole wheelbarrowful of Confederate bills: is it not curious how we, who have such confidence in our Government, will not trust its money."

She flicked Ben Butler with her whip, and the pony reared and tried to bolt, but presently she reduced him to subjection.

"Did I not tell you that he had no manners," she said. "Oh, how I wish I had the real Ben Butler under my hand, too! I've heard what you've done, Helen. But, tell me, is it really true? Have you actually gone to work--as a clerk in an office, like a low-born Northern woman?"

The colour in Helen's cheeks deepened and Robert saw the faintest quiver of her lower lip.

"It is true," she replied. "I am a secretary in Mr. Sefton's office and I get fifteen dollars a week."

"Confederate money?"

"No, in gold."

"What do you do it for?"

"For the money. I need it."

Mrs. Markham flicked the pony's mane again and once more he reared, but, as before, the strong hand restrained him.

"What you are doing is right, Helen," she said. "Though a Southern woman, I find our Southern conventions weigh heavily upon me: but," she added quizzically, "of course, you understand that we can't know you socially now."

"I understand," said Helen, "and I don't ask it."

Her lips were pressed together with an air of defiance and there was a sparkle in her eyes.

Mrs. Markham laughed long and joyously.

"Why, you little goose," she said, "I believe you actually thought I was in earnest. Don't you know that we of the Mosaic Club and its circle represent the more advanced and liberal spirit of Richmond--if I do say it myself--and we shall stand by you to the utmost. I suspect that if you were barred, others would choose the same bars for themselves. Would they not, Captain Prescott?"

"I certainly should consider myself included in the list," replied the young man sturdily.