Charles Egbert Craddock

“ Mrs. Gwynn was filling a large bowl on a centre-table with a gorgeous cluster of deep red tulips, and Baynell noticed that she had thrust two or three into the dense knot of fair hair at the nape of her neck. As she turned around one of the swaying bells was still visible, giving its note of fervid brilliancy to her face. Her dress was a white mull, of simple make—old, even with a delicate darn on one of its floating open sleeves, but to one familiar with her appearance in the sombre garb of widowhood she seemed radiant in a sort of splendor. ”

“ Julius said now and again, as he listened. He had sat long in his rickety arm-chair in the broad slant of the moonlight, that fell athwart the dim furniture and the gray shadows, for the night continued fair and the moon was specially brilliant. Once in the clear glow he saw distinctly in the further spaces the figure of a man, watchful-eyed, eager, springing toward him as he moved, and he experienced the cold chill of despair before he realized that it was his own reflection in a dull mirror at the opposite side of the great room that had elicited this apparition of terror. ”

“ He paused again, looking straight at her with such confident, lucid, trusting eyes,—and she felt that she must say something to divert their gaze.
"Exceptions, such as Miss Fisher's favorite mount, Madcap? How pretty Mildred was to-day! Really beautiful; don't you think so?"
"No." His expression was so tender, so wistful, yet so confident, that, amazed, embarrassed, she felt her color begin to flame in her cheeks. "How could she seem beautiful where you are,—the loveliest woman in all the world and the best beloved."
"Captain Baynell!" she exclaimed, hardly believing that she heard him aright. ”

“ And they both drew up their shoulders to their ears to imitate the shrinking attitude of a ghost who would fain shun observation and get out of the way.
Little Lucille laughed fleeringly, understanding from the motion of their lips what they had said. She gazed around with lustrous, excited eyes; then, she turned toward Baynell, and with infinite élan, she smartly delivered the military salute.
"Why," cried Mrs. Gwynn, on the impulse of the moment, "Lucille says it is Julius Roscoe; that is her sign for him. What is all this foolery, Lucille?" ”

“ Baynell instantly presented the cards to him to draw in turn, but either favored by luck or having acquired some surreptitious unfair knowledge of the outer aspect of the card, Ashley avoided the ill-omened pasteboard, and Baynell was at last left with the single card in his hand, while his triumphant friend made the room riotous with laughter, and the three "ladies" bent compassionate, tender eyes upon him, as if they anticipated the conventional gush of tears. They had grown very fond of him, and deeply felt the disaster that had befallen him. ”

“ He lifted his head and looked at the wasps, building their cells on the window lintel, the broad, dreary spaces of the attic; and he beheld, as it were, in contrast, his own expectation, the welcome, the cherished guest, the guarded secret, the open-hearted talks with his father, with the "ladies," with her whom, since widowed, he might call to himself, without derogation to his affection or disrespect to her, his "best beloved." The hardship it was that for the bleak actuality he should have risked his capture, his life,—yes, even his neck! ”

“ Now and again it flickered in a way that told how the disregarded candle was beginning to gutter in the socket. Still to and fro the regular footfalls went, muffled on the heavy carpet, but in the dead hush of night perceptible enough to the watching listener. At last with a final flare the taper burned out, but the moon was in the windows along the western side of the house, and still to and fro went the steps, betokening the turmoil of unquiet thoughts. Julius watched how the moonbeams shifted from bough to bough as the slow night lingered. ”

“ Gwynn's satiric eyes glowed with the uncomfortable thought that hers at all events had been public enough. If openness be a claim for sympathy, she might well be entitled to receive balm of all her world. It seared every sensitive fibre within her to realize how much of her intimate inner life they all knew,—her friends, who masked this knowledge with a casual face, but talked over her foolish miseries among themselves with the mingled gusto of gossip, the superiority of contemptuous commiseration, and a rabid zest of speculation concerning such poor reserves as she had been able to maintain. ”

“ Seymour resented with an infinite rancor at that moment the contrast with his own flushed, fatigued, tousled, agitated, persistent, querulous personality. He could not have given up to save his life, and yet he could but despise himself for holding on.
"You had better stop pushing me to the wall," he said, and this was literal, for he gave back step by step at each feint of the needle; "you had better be looking out for Captain Baynell. He might have an attack of conscience at any moment, and have all the fruits of your industry seized and confiscated as contraband of war. ”

“ As the door again opened, the very aspect of the room altered—a new presence pervaded the life of Fluellen Baynell that made the idea of strife indeed alien, aloof; the past a forgotten trifle; the future remote, in indifferent abeyance, and the momentous present the chief experience of his existence. It was partially the effect of surprise, although other elements exerted a potent influence.
Instead of the forlorn, faded "widder 'oman" of his fancy, there appeared a girlish shape, whose young, fair face was a magnet to all the romance within him. ”

“ For one instant Judge Roscoe was tempted to call for the sentry's aid. The next the shutter opened, the sash glided up noiselessly, and, as the old gentleman gazed spellbound with starting eyes and chin a-quiver, a tiny flame flickered up, keenly white amongst the embers, illuminating the room, revealing the object at the window. Only for one moment; for in a frenzy of energy Judge Roscoe had caught up the heavy velvet rug and, as he held it against the aperture of the chimney, the room once more sunk into indistinguishable gloom ”

“ This was indubitably flattering information; but Captain Baynell, a blond man of thirty, of a military stiffness in his brilliant uniform, and of a most uncompromising dignity, glanced with an uneasy monition at the door, a trifle ajar. He was sensible, notwithstanding, of an unusually genial glow of expectation. The rude society of camps was unacceptable to a man of his exacting temperament, and, the sentiment of the country being so adverse to the cause he represented, he had had scant opportunities here to enter social circles of the grade that would elsewhere have welcomed him. ”

“ Her incongruous indifference, her elderly assumptions,—if, indeed, she was conscious of the effect of her manner,—all betokened that she considered it no part of her duty, and certainly no point of interest, to entertain young men.
"We are mere boys to her, Baynell and I; she'll never see her sixtieth birthday again. I have known younger grandmothers," was Colonel Ashley's farcical thought.
Her nullity of attitude toward him was so complete that she limited the possibilities of his imagination. He began to devote himself to the gentle pursuit in hand with a freshened ardor. ”

“ Baynell was constrained to comfort them both, but in the hope to which he magnanimously affected to appeal he had scant confidence indeed.
Even amidst the turmoil of his emotions and the crisis of his personal jeopardy he did not forget that the hand that hurled the bolts of doom had been innocent of cruel intent. "Never let her know," he warned Judge Roscoe, again and again. For although the testimony of the deaf-mute must needs have been elicited, she would be grieved to learn that she had wrought all these woes. Though literally the truth, it had the deceptive functions of a lie. ”

“ Upstairs in the quiet old attic these evidences of hilarity rose with an intimation of poignant contrast. The dreary entourage of broken furniture and dusty trunks and chests, the silence and loneliness,—no motion but the vague shifting of the motes in the slant of the sun, no sound but the unshared mirth below, in his own home,—this seemed a more remote exile. Julius felt actually further from the ancestral roof than when he lay many miles away in the trenches in the cold spring rains, with never a canopy but the storm, nor a candle but the flash of the lightning. ”

“ Now, face to face with the long-sought opportunity, Colonel Ashley was grievously disappointed. A woman—young, singularly beautiful, dressed like a middle-aged frump, with the manners of a matron of fifty, staid, reserved, inattentive, uninterested!
The incongruity affected him like a discourtesy; its rarity had no attractions for him, nor in the slightest degree roused his curiosity. He had expected charm, glow, responsiveness, coquetry,—all the various traits that attend on beauty and youth. ”

“ Presently the world was sunk in a slate-tinted gloom, and the night came on raw and dark, with moon and stars showing only in infrequent glimpses through gusty clouds. A great fire had burned out on the library hearth; the group had genially sat together till the candles were guttering in their sockets in the old crystal-hung candelabra. Judge Roscoe still lingered, smoking, meditating before the embers. All the house was asleep, silent save for the martial tread of the sentry walking to and fro before the portico. ”

“ Mildred could hear the sentry's tread outside up and down before the door. Once, far away, she noted the measured tramp of marching feet, then a challenge, and anon, "Stand! Grand Rounds! Advance, Sergeant, with the countersign!" and presently the march was resumed in the distance. And again—silence! Only the wind astir in the forest, only the rustle of the lush foliage. All—how different from her dainty bedroom where she had spent last night, the downy couch, the silken coverlet, the velvet carpet, the lace curtains, the tremulous flicker of the wind in the flower-stand on the balcony! ”

“ She could hear even now in the tones of his voice, steadied and sonorous by the habit of command, sharp and decisive on the air, the words, "You are my prisoner!" twice repeated, that had summoned her, stricken with sudden panic, from her flowers on the library table to the hall, where she saw the balustrade of the stairs still shaking with the concussion of a heavy fall. ”

“ A rocket went up from the fort hard by; another rose, starlike and stately, from unseen regions beyond a hill. Presently the lights were dying out like magic all along the encampments, as if some great cataclysm were among the stellular reflections, blotting them from the sphere of being. The constellations above glowed more brightly as the earth darkened. The wind was gathering force. Baynell listened as the boughs clashed and surged together. ”

“ The next morning as Captain Baynell took his seat at the breakfast-table she was coming in through the glass door from the parterre at one side of the dining room, arrayed in a mazarine blue mousseline-de-laine flecked with pink, a trifle old-fashioned in make, with a bunch of pink hyacinths in her hand, their delicate cold fragrance filling all the room.
Even a man less desirous of being deceived than Baynell might well have deduced a personal application. He was sufficiently conversant with the conventions of feminine attire to be aware that this change was something of the most sudden. ”

“ The first rays of the sun struck upon the Confederate flag flying from the redoubt, and its paroled garrison were trooping across to the main line of fortifications, bearing the miraculous story that they had awakened to find the work full of Confederate soldiers who seemed to have mined their way into the place from some subterranean access, and who were now in the name of Julius Roscoe, their ranking officer, demanding the surrender of the fort which the redoubt overlooked. ”

“ A horse, furiously ridden, brutally beaten, reared suddenly, lost his balance, fell backward, crushing the rider and breaking his neck. And so Rufus Gwynn reached his goal, and his wife was free at last.
Free as some defenceless, hunted, tremulous animal, miraculously escaping fierce fangs, and a furious rush of a murderous pursuit; forever dominated by the sense of disaster, and despair, and flight; forever looking backward, forever hearkening to the echoes of the troublous past—exhausted, listless, hopeless, every impulse of volition stunned. ”