Part 22 (1/2)
”My mother is a widow in humble circ.u.mstances--”
”Do you imagine that I would burden yourself or your mother?”
”Not that,” she interrupted. ”I was only thinking of the change from a home of luxury to one of only comfort, yet very peaceful and dear, at least to me. But it would be delightful if I could make them as happy and joyous in _my_ humble home as they have made me in theirs. Will they let me try?”
”Has no one but the three you have mentioned added a morsel to your enjoyment since you have been an inmate of this home?”
The blood rushed to her cheeks and brow and she struggled to liberate herself that he might not look so intently down into her swimming eyes, which she well knew would tell him more than she would have him know.
”Then there was no one else! Well--take them; I will consign them to your care until the detestable struggle is over! When this is done I will relieve you. Bertha is a true rebel and will have no fears in remaining where she is.”
The voice of the speaker was low and tremulous as he uttered these words, and Anna thought that she had never before seen his face so pale and thin. He had permitted her to rise and she now stood before him. Did she love him? She had asked herself that question many months previously, and although her lips were prompt in their denial her heart had remained silent. It throbbed now as she met his troubled gaze and beheld the look of sorrow on his face. It was for a moment only. For the first time her eyes fell upon his military dress; it was a rebel uniform! A flood of recollections rolled in upon her in deadly combat.
Would that hand which had so lately touched her cheek spill the life-blood of those who were so dear to her? The thought sent the blood back to her heart and left cheek and lip pallid and cold! With an involuntary shudder she laid her trembling hand on his shoulder and tried to speak, but the words died on her pale lips. George St. Clair pa.s.sed his arm about her and drew her to a seat on the sofa. ”You are ill; sit here until I procure some water!”
”No, no; I am not ill; it is over now. You came to talk to me about going home. It is very kind of you”; and, rising, she extended her hand.
He took it tenderly in his as she continued: ”I joyfully accept the charge you have placed in my care, and will endeavor to be to them all you could wish; and now, before our last farewell, make me one promise, will you.” Her lips quivered, but with an effort she thrust back the tears that were welling up from her full heart, while her hand lay motionless in his. ”It is this: Should one or both of my brothers, through the fickleness of war, be thrown into your power, that you will let the memories of the last eighteen months soften your heart with mercy toward them.”
”Has this uniform converted me into a monster? I do not wonder? Yet I promise you all and more! G.o.d only knows what those memories of which you speak will do with me. Now we will go and talk the departure over with the rest, yet not with that pale face, Anna. It would add a new pang to the sorrows of my parents, who are now unhappy with the prospects of expulsion, as they term it. Have you not one kind word for me now that we are so soon to part, perhaps never to meet again? O, Anna, I had torn from my life's history several pages which I had determined to read to you to-day, but cannot now.” He raised her hand to his lips. ”Farewell! we will go. To-morrow, no doubt, you will be busy; the next day we must be in Charleston to intercept a New Orleans steamer going north. This route will be a little longer but more agreeable, as every train is thoroughly searched for any who may be going thither with more information concerning our plans than would be desirable. Again farewell.” He dropped her hand and left the room.
Anna sank down again on the sofa, and for a few moments gave vent to her pent-up tears. The succeeding day was full of sadness and bustle. Many tears were shed, and presentiments indulged in. The invincible Bertha alone stood firm and apparently unmoved. Only once did the son and brother appear with the family. He came to dinner, but disappeared as soon as it was over. Anna tried to think of her home, where she would soon be, of the joy of her fond mother at the reunion, but it was piercing the cloud to draw the suns.h.i.+ne from beyond.
In one week the little party arrived safely in Was.h.i.+ngton; from there they took the cars for Baltimore, and thence to New York.
A few miles back from the n.o.ble old Hudson stands a pleasant little village, nestled in among the green hills and wide-spreading trees, cosy and quiet, excepting where the rapid stream comes rus.h.i.+ng down through the valley, turning in its course two huge splas.h.i.+ng wheels that never grow weary as they keep on with their work, propelling the machinery of the ma.s.sive cotton mills which were the life and pride of the inhabitants for many miles around. It looked calm and peaceful as seen from the deck of the steamer, where Anna was sitting, and her heart bounded with ecstacy as the pleasant remembrances of her home life came sweeping over her. She had been sitting with the hand of Ellen St. Clair clasped tightly in her own, apparently listening to her exclamations of delight at the grand scenery through which they were pa.s.sing, while in truth she was harkening to other voices that came up from the past, and gazing on the many sweet faces that filled her heart with a new joy, and drew back for a while the dark curtains that seemed to hang between her and the shadowed future.
”I declare, I do not believe you have heard one word I have been saying.” This from Ellen at last. ”All of that ecstasy is wasted; and I indulge in it so seldom! Tell me, Anna, what were you thinking about?”
”Of home, dear Ellen, and how happy we will all be together.”
”But Father thinks we may better take rooms at the hotel; he is afraid.”
”I understand all. They will be better acquainted with our habits soon, and, it may be, will think more leniently of us; but I am responsible for your safe-keeping, you know, and could not think of extending my care over more than a mile to the hotel.” Anna smiled, while Ellen's laugh reached the parents who were sitting some distance from them.
”They are happy, wife,” suggested Mr. St. Clair, ”and I reckon we might as well be so too, and make the best of circ.u.mstances.”
The little circle in the widow's cottage would have been happy, yes joyous, had there not been two vacant chairs at the evening gatherings and at the morning devotions, while the sound of war came to them from the distance, telling of bloodshed, of anguish, of heart-strings breaking and homes made desolate forever. It was sad; but the widow never ceased to pray, and with her pet.i.tions there went up a meed of praise that He had given her the power to offer, on the altar of sacrifice, her first born, with his brother, both true and n.o.ble.
Colonel St. Clair's letters were frequent, and although full of love and solicitude for his parents and Ellen, he had never more than casually mentioned the name of Anna in any of them. But his sister was with her and she was happy. Having never herself known the love of a sister, she fancied that in this dear friend she had at last found a recompense for her years of unsatisfied longing. Milton has said ”The happiness of a nation consists in true religious piety, justice, prudence, temperance, fort.i.tude, and the contempt of avarice and ambition; they in whom these virtues dwell eminently need not kings to make them happy; but are the architects of their own happiness, and whether to themselves or others are not less than kings.” And we add, the country who has these virtues and lives upon the principles emanating therefrom needs not war to wipe out injustice and wrong.
CHAPTER XXII.
LEADING HER ON.
The path downward is easy of descent, even though the end thereof be eternal ruin! There were thousands at the time of which we are writing (as well as in all stages of human life) who threw themselves from the lofty pinnacle of true n.o.bility to grovel awhile in the slough of wickedness, then perish forever! How terrible must be the awakening of such a soul, if the kind Ruler should ever permit the awakening to come, and yet worse, sadly worse, would be the unconscious sleep that plunges its victim over the precipice of ruin to be aroused at last beyond the boundaries of hope!
One night after the first signal defeat of the southern army, which seemed to dim for awhile the bright halo of victory that had darted up the horizon from northern skies, a circle of ladies were gathered in a s.p.a.cious parlor in Charleston, doubtless for business purposes, and those of no ordinary character, if we should judge by the earnest debates that were carried on in one corner by a group apart from the rest, or by the sage countenances and serious deportment of the others.
One of the number, a tall lady in black, had arisen from her seat on the sofa, where she had been discussing for a long time some important subject in which all appeared particularly interested, and was now walking with measured tread and folded arms up and down the long parlors, seemingly unconscious of the low buzz of subdued voices which fell on her ear at every turn, for her dark, keen eyes had never once been raised from the carpet on which she was treading.