Part 8 (1/2)
”I reckon that your knowledge of Southern ladies is, for certain reasons, not very extensive.”
”Pardon me; I have had the honor of marrying one.”
Apparently more exasperated than before, she turned upon him abruptly.
”You say my pa.s.s is all right. Then I presume I may attend to the business that brought me here.”
”Certainly; but you will forgive me if I imagined that an expression of contempt for your hosts was a part of it.”
He rang a bell on the table. It was responded to by an orderly.
”Send all the household servants here.”
The room was presently filled with the dusky faces of the negro retainers. Here and there was the gleaming of white teeth, but a majority of the a.s.sembly wore the true negro serious acceptance of the importance of ”an occasion.” One or two even affected an official and soldierly bearing. And, as he fully expected, there were several glances of significant recognition of the stranger.
”You will give,” said Brant sternly, ”every aid and attention to the wants of this young lady, who is here to represent the interests of your old master. As she will be entirely dependent upon you in all things connected with her visit here, see to it that she does not have to complain to me of any inattention,--or be obliged to ask for other a.s.sistance.”
As Miss Faulkner, albeit a trifle paler in the cheek, but as scornful as ever, was about to follow the servants from the room, Brant stopped her, with a coldly courteous gesture.
”You will understand, therefore, Miss Faulkner, that you have your wish, and that you will not be exposed to any contact with the members of my military family, nor they with you.”
”Am I then to be a prisoner in this house--and under a free pa.s.s of your--President?” she said indignantly.
”By no means! You are free to come and go, and see whom you please. I have no power to control your actions. But I have the power to control theirs.”
She swept furiously from the room.
”That is quite enough to fill her with a desire to flirt with every man here,” said Brant to himself, with a faint smile; ”but I fancy they have had a taste enough of her quality.”
Nevertheless he sat down and wrote a few lines to the division commander, pointing out that he had already placed the owner's private property under strict surveillance, that it was cared for and perfectly preserved by the household servants, and that the pa.s.s was evidently obtained as a subterfuge.
To this he received a formal reply, regretting that the authorities at Was.h.i.+ngton still found it necessary to put this kind of risk and burden on the army in the field, but that the order emanated from the highest authority, and must be strictly obeyed. At the bottom of the page was a characteristic line in pencil in the general's own hand--”Not the kind that is dangerous.”
A flush mounted Brant's cheeks, as if it contained not only a hidden, but a personal significance. He had thought of his own wife!
Singularly enough, a day or two later, at dinner, the conversation turned upon the intense sectional feeling of Southern women, probably induced by their late experiences. Brant, at the head of the table, in his habitual abstraction, was scarcely following the somewhat excited diction of Colonel Strangeways, one of his staff.
”No, sir,” reiterated that indignant warrior, ”take my word for it! A Southern woman isn't to be trusted on this point, whether as a sister, sweetheart, or wife. And when she is trusted, she's bound to get the better of the man in any of those relations!”
The dead silence that followed, the ominous joggle of a gla.s.s at the speaker's elbow, the quick, sympathetic glance that Brant instinctively felt was directed at his own face, and the abrupt change of subject, could not but arrest his attention, even if he had overlooked the speech. His face, however, betrayed nothing. It had never, however, occurred to him before that his family affairs might be known--neither had he ever thought of keeping them a secret. It seemed so purely a personal and private misfortune, that he had never dreamed of its having any public interest. And even now he was a little ashamed of what he believed was his sensitiveness to mere conventional criticism, which, with the instinct of a proud man, he had despised.
He was not far wrong in his sardonic intuition of the effect of his prohibition upon Miss Faulkner's feelings. Certainly that young lady, when not engaged in her mysterious occupation of arranging her uncle's effects, occasionally was seen in the garden, and in the woods beyond.
Although her presence was the signal for the ”oblique” of any lounging ”shoulder strap,” or the vacant ”front” of a posted sentry, she seemed to regard their occasional proximity with less active disfavor. Once, when she had mounted the wall to gather a magnolia blossom, the chair by which she had ascended rolled over, leaving her on the wall. At a signal from the guard-room, two sappers and miners appeared carrying a scaling-ladder, which they placed silently against the wall, and as silently withdrew. On another occasion, the same spirited young lady, whom Brant was satisfied would have probably imperiled her life under fire in devotion to her cause, was brought ignominiously to bay in the field by that most appalling of domestic animals, the wandering and untrammeled cow! Brant could not help smiling as he heard the quick, harsh call to ”Turn out, guard,” saw the men march stolidly with fixed bayonets to the vicinity of the affrighted animal, who fled, leaving the fair stranger to walk shamefacedly to the house. He was surprised, however, that she should have halted before his door, and with tremulous indignation, said,--
”I thank you, sir, for your chivalrousness in turning a defenseless woman into ridicule.”
”I regret, Miss Faulkner,” began Brant gravely, ”that you should believe that I am able to control the advances of farmyard cattle as easily as”--But he stopped, as he saw that the angry flash of her blue eyes, as she darted past him, was set in tears. A little remorseful on the following day, he added a word to his ordinary cap-lifting when she went by, but she retained a reproachful silence. Later in the day, he received from her servant a respectful request for an interview, and was relieved to find that she entered his presence with no trace of her former aggression, but rather with the resignation of a deeply injured, yet not entirely unforgiving, woman.