Part 47 (1/2)
I smiled bitterly at this designation of my journey's end.
”Yes, if you can so name a few weed-grown fields and a vacant negro cabin. I certainly shall have to lay the foundation anew most literally.”
”Will you not let me aid you?” he questioned eagerly. ”I possess some means, and surely our friends.h.i.+p is sufficiently established to warrant me in making the offer. You will not refuse?”
”I must,” I answered firmly. ”Yet I do not value the offer the less.
Sometime I may even remind you of it, but now I prefer to dig, as the others must. I shall be the stronger for it, and shall thus sooner forget the total wreck.”
For a few moments we walked on together in silence, each leading his horse. I could not but note the contrast between us in dress and bearing. Victory and defeat, each had stamped its own.
”Wayne,” he asked at length, glancing furtively at me, as if to mark the effect of his words, ”did you know that Mrs. Brennan was again with us?”
The name thus spoken set my heart to instant throbbing, but I sought to answer carelessly. Whatever he may have surmised, it was plainly my duty to hide our secret still.
”I was not even aware she had been away.”
”Oh, yes; she returned North immediately after your last parting, and came back only last week. So many wives and relatives of the officers have come down of late, knowing the war to be practically at an end, that our camp has become like a huge picnic pavilion. It is quite the fas.h.i.+onable fad just now to visit the front. Mrs. Brennan accompanied the wife of one of the division commanders from her State--Connecticut, you know.”
There was much I longed to ask regarding her, but I would not venture to fan his suspicions. In hope that I might turn his thought I asked, ”And you; are you yet married?”
He laughed good-humoredly. ”No, that happy day will not occur until after we are mustered out. Miss Minor is far too loyal a Virginian ever to become my wife while I continue to wear this uniform. By the way, Mrs. Brennan was asking Celia only yesterday if she had heard anything of you since the surrender.”
”She is at Appomattox, then?”
”No, at the headquarters of the Sixth Corps, only a few miles north from here.”
”And the Major?”
Caton glanced at me, a peculiar look in his face, but answered simply:
”Naturally I have had small intimacy with him after what occurred at Mountain View, but he is still retained upon General Sheridan's staff.
At Mrs. Brennan's request we breakfasted together yesterday morning, but I believe he is at the other end of the lines to-day.”
We sat down upon a bank, our conversation drifting back to their uneventful ride northward, and later to our experiences during those last weeks of war. I have often reflected since on the vivid contrast we must have made while resting there, each holding the rein of his horse, our animals as widely differing in appearance as ourselves. Both were typical of the two services in those last days. Caton was attired in natty uniform, fleckless and well groomed, his linen immaculate, his b.u.t.tons gleaming, the rich yellow stripes of his arm of the service making marked contrast with the blue he wore and the green he sat upon.
I, on the other hand, was haggard from hard, sleepless service and insufficient food, my shapeless old slouch hat and dull gray jacket torn and disfigured, the marks of rank barely discernible.
But his manly, hopeful spirit reawakened my courage, and for the time I forgot disaster while listening to his story of love and his plans for the future. His one thought was of Celia and the Northern home so soon now to be made ready for her coming. The sun sank lower into the western sky, causing Caton to draw down his fatigue cap until its glazed visor almost completely hid his eyes. With buoyant enthusiasm he talked on, each word drawing me closer to him in bonds of friends.h.i.+p.
But the time of parting came, and after we had promised to correspond with each other, I stood and watched while he rode rapidly back down the road we had traversed together. At the summit of the hill he turned and waved his cap, then disappeared, leaving me alone, with Edith's face more clearly than ever a torture to my memory of defeat,--her face, fair, smiling, alluring, yet the face of another man's wife.
CHAPTER x.x.xIX
MY LADY OF THE NORTH
I walked the next mile thoughtfully, pondering over those vague hopes and plans with which Caton's optimism had inspired me. Then the inevitable reaction came. The one thing upon which he built so happily had been denied me,--the woman I loved was the wife of another. I might not even dream of her in my loneliness and poverty; the remembrance of her could be no incentive to labor and self-denial. The Lieutenant's chance words, kindly as they were spoken, only opened wider the yawning social chasm between us. The greatest mercy would be for us never again to meet.
I bent my head to keep the westering sun from my eyes, and breathing the thick red dust, I trudged steadily forward. Suddenly there sounded behind me the thud of hoofs, while I heard a merry peal of laughter, accompanied by gay exchange of words. I drew aside, leading my horse into a small thicket beside the road to permit the cavalcade to pa.s.s.