Part 10 (1/2)
And De Lancy started on the run and collided with Brayton at the door.
”For G.o.d's sake, go and hurry up 'Funnybone,'” moaned the youngster.
”Here's Barclay bleeding to death.”
De Lancy ran his best: guardsmen across the parade stopped and stared, men in s.h.i.+rt-sleeves rushed out on the barrack stoops and stood and gazed, and a corporal, with rifle trailed, came running over to see what was amiss, just as the junior doctor, in cap and overcoat, trousers and slippers, came bolting out of his hallway and flying up the path. In front of De Lancy's one slipper went hurtling back through midair, but the doctor rushed on in stocking-foot. The corporal picked up the shoe and followed. No one seemed to look for the moment at Winn, who turned slowly back to the pathway and like a blind man seemed groping his way towards Frazier's. The officer of the day pa.s.sed him by on the run, following at the doctor's heels, with never another look at him. Men seemed to think only of Barclay. Was it credible that an officer and a gentleman, as Winn had been regarded, could purposely have dealt that honored soldier a mortal blow, unless--unless--but who could find words to frame the thought? Once within Brayton's hallway, De Lancy turned and slammed shut the door, for others were coming on the run from far across the parade. Over at the guard-house the men had started for their breakfast, but hung there, cl.u.s.tered about the sentry-post, gazing over the criss-cross plat of the parade, and muttering their conjectures as to the cause of the trouble. The sight of Lieutenant Winn wandering on down the row, turning from time to time, halting as though uncertain what he ought to do, while every other officer was running to the other end of the row, was something they could not understand.
Then Mrs. Winn, in riding-habit, came suddenly forth upon her piazza, and, gazing wildly up and down, caught sight of her husband, now some fifty paces away along the gravel walk. Stretching forth her arms to him, she began to call aloud, ”Harry! Harry! please come back!” He never turned. She ran down the steps and out to the gate and called him, louder, louder, so that they could hear the voice all over the garrison in the sweet, still morning air; but on he went, doggedly now, faster and faster. She gathered up her clinging skirts in one hand, and, pleading still, followed after. Not until he had mounted the steps at the colonel's did the young officer turn again; then with uplifted hand and arm he stood warning her back. Something in the att.i.tude, something in the stern, quivering white face, seemed at last to bring to her the realization of the force of his unspoken denunciation.
”Harry! Harry!” she cried. ”Oh, come and let me tell you. You don't understand! I meant no wrong! I was only going for a ride,--not with him,--not with him, Harry!” And so, pleading, weeping, she followed almost to the colonel's gate before the door was opened from within and Winn was swallowed up in the darkness of the hall.
By this time some inkling of the trouble had been borne to Collabone, ever an early riser. As he came hastily forth from his quarters, the first thing he saw was the drooping form of Mrs. Winn, weeping at the colonel's gate. Seizing her arm with scant ceremony, he whirled her about and bore her homeward, she sobbing out her story as they sped along, he listening with clouded, anxious face.
”Go back to your room, Mrs. Winn,” he said, so solemnly and warningly she could not but heed. ”Go to your baby. I'll go first next door, then I'll find your husband.” She shrank within the hallway, and threw herself, weeping miserably, upon the sofa in the pretty parlor,--the parlor where she had so fascinated Hodge. There the sound of her baby's wailing reached her in an interval of her own, and she called to the nurse to do something to comfort that child. There was no answer. ”Miss Purdy,” with clattering tongue and eager eyes and ears and half a dozen sympathizing neighbors, was out in rear of the house, deaf to demands of either mother or child; there Collabone found her, and sent her scurrying within before the fury of his wrath.
”Now, this will not do, Mrs. Winn,” he said, as, following, he lifted the moaning woman from the sofa. ”You must go to your room,--to your child, as I told you. Captain Barclay will soon be all right. He has lost much blood, but the hemorrhage is checked. Now I will go for Mr.
Winn. It's a bad business, but don't make it worse by any more--nonsense.” With that he not too gently pushed her up the first few stairs, then turned abruptly and hastened away to Frazier's.
In the hall he found that gray-haired, gray-faced veteran listening stupidly to Winn.
”I don't understand, sir,” he was saying. ”You struck him--with what?”
”I don't know,” said Winn. ”They say I've killed him. I have come to surrender myself.” His eyes were as dull and leaden as his heart.
”It's not so bad,” burst in the doctor. ”Barclay fell or was knocked over a chair, and the jar reopened his wound. He fainted from loss of blood, but it's checked now.”
”But--how?--why?” the colonel was stammering. Over the bal.u.s.trade aloft popped one head night-capped, and two with touseled hair, and blanched faces were framed in all three, and gasping words were heard, and whisperings as of awe-stricken, news-craving souls. ”Where did this occur, and when did you return, sir?”
”On the back porch of my--of our quarters, colonel,--when I got back, just before gun-fire.”
”And what possible excuse or explanation have you, sir? What could warrant such--such conduct?” demanded Frazier, as though at a loss for suitable words. Yet, even as he asked, his wife's predictions rea.s.serted themselves, and he glanced uneasily aloft.
”Come into the parlor, colonel,” implored Collabone. ”Say no more here.
Let me explain. It's all a wretched mistake.” And, half pus.h.i.+ng, half pulling, but all impelling, the doctor succeeded in hustling the post commander and the inert, unresisting subaltern within the parlor. Then, to the infinite disgust of the colonel's wife, he shut--yes, slammed--the door.
A quarter of an hour later, in close arrest, Lieutenant Winn returned to his own roof and locked himself in his den. Mrs. Winn, kneeling at the keyhole, pleaded ten minutes for admission, all in vain; then she sent her maid for Dr. Collabone and Mrs. Faulkner, and went straightway to bed.
CHAPTER XVI.
Three days more, and back came Mullane with the wretched prisoner Marsden. The Irish captain's eyes grew saucer-big when he heard the harrowing details of recent events at the post. Never in its liveliest days, before or since, had Worth known an excitement to match this; for, with the best intentions in the world, there wasn't a woman in officers'
row who could get at the bottom facts of the episode. Rumors of the wildest kind that were early in circulation were best left to the imagination of the reader. The only thing actually known was that Mrs.
Winn and Captain Barclay were going out riding at reveille, that Winn surprised them and knocked the captain down, that Winn was now in close arrest, Barclay on the mend and again sitting up, Mrs. Winn confined by illness to her bed, Mrs. Faulkner (a most important person she) in devoted attendance, all their differences forgiven if not forgotten,--and there were few Mrs. Faulkner would not have forgiven for the bliss of being for the time the most sought-after woman at Worth, for every one wanted to know how Mrs. Winn was every hour of the day, and hoped to hear what dreadful imprudence of hers it was that caused the equally dreadful fracas.
Gravely and quietly the doctors told their story to the colonel; that there was no arrangement or engagement to ride together; that Captain Barclay had no idea Mrs. Winn ever rose--much less rode--that early; and most men accepted the statement as true. But there was the fatal exhibition of Barclay's letter by Mrs. Winn to confront the women, who would have held him guiltless and saddled all the blame upon her lovely, sloping shoulders. What had he to write to her about, unless it was to ask her to ride or something of the kind? And the idea of their daring to select such an hour, instead of going out when--when people could see! And then there was the fact that Mr. Winn still refused to be reconciled to his wife. What did that mean, if not that he deemed her guilty? Blythe, who had a kindlier feeling for Winn than had most men at Worth (for Brayton now was utterly set against him and refused to go near him), sent in his card and begged to be allowed to see him; and Blythe's face was sad and gray when, half an hour later, he came forth again.
”Colonel,” said he to Frazier, ”something has got to be done for that poor fellow, or he'll go mad. Collabone has told him Barclay was totally ignorant of Mrs. Winn's plan to ride that morning,--that his a.s.sault was utterly unjustifiable; and between that and the contemplation of his wife's brainless freak, and all his old trouble, I'm sorely afraid he'll break down,--go all to pieces. Can't something be done?”
Both Frazier and Brooks thought something ought to be done; and so said Blythe and De Lancy, and Follansbee and Fellows, when they came trooping home, empty-handed, from their scout. Only Mullane's detachment had accomplished anything, and such success as he had was due almost entirely to Winn's persistent effort and energetic trailing. Something was being done to hunt up stolen stores as revealed by Marsden, but poor Winn, who had ridden home so full of hope and pluck and energy, now paced his narrow room for hours, or lay upon his lounge, face buried in his arms, either dull and apathetic or smarting with agony. On Mrs. Winn old Collabone had little sympathy to waste. Bluntly he told her that she was responsible for the whole business and deserved to be down sick. So, too, he told the colonel, who was having a blissful time answering the questions and squirming under the nagging of his household at home. At first Laura had shown tremendous spirit. Mr. Winn's conduct was an insult. The doctor's comments were an insult. The instant she was well enough to move she would take her precious child and return to her mother's roof.