Part 70 (1/2)
The surgeon got down beside her and took the man's pulse. The eyes closed. For a while the doctor knelt there, shaking his head. ”He has fainted,” he said.
”Do you think he can be saved?” asked the lady again. The surgeon smiled,--such a smile as a good man gives after eighteen hours of amputating, of bandaging, of advising,--work which requires a firm hand, a clear eye and brain, and a good heart.
”My dear Mrs. Brice,” he said, ”I shall be glad to get you permission to take him, but we must first make him worth the taking. Another hour would have been too late.” He glanced hurriedly about the busy room, and then added, ”We must have one more to help us.”
Just then some one touched Virginia's arm. It was her father.
”I am afraid we must go, dear,” he said, ”your aunt is getting impatient.”
”Won't you please go without me, Pa?” she asked. ”Perhaps I can be of some use.”
The Colonel cast a wondering glance at the limp uniform, and went away. The surgeon, who knew the Carvel family, gave Virginia a look of astonishment. It was Mrs. Brice's searching gaze that brought the color to the girl's, face.
”Thank you, my dear,” she said simply.
As soon as he could get his sister-in-law off to Locust Street in the carriage, Colonel Carvel came back. For two reeking hours he stood against the newly plastered wall. Even he was surprised at the fort.i.tude and skill Virginia showed from the very first, when she had deftly cut away the stiffened blue cloth, and helped to take off the rough bandages. At length the fearful operation was finished, and the weary surgeon, gathering up his box, expressed with all the energy left to him, his thanks to the two ladies.
Virginia stood up, faint and dizzy. The work of her hands had sustained her while it lasted, but now the ordeal was come. She went down the stairs on her father's arm, and out into the air. All at once she knew that Mrs. Brice was beside her, and had taken her by the hand.
”My dear?” she was saying, ”G.o.d will reward you for this act. You have taught many of us to-day a lesson we should have learned in our Bibles.”
Virginia trembled with many emotions, but she answered nothing. The mere presence of this woman had a strange effect upon the girl,--she was filled with a longing unutterable. It was not because Margaret Brice was the mother of him whose life had been so strangely blended with hers--whom she saw in her dreams. And yet now some of Stephen's traits seemed to come to her understanding, as by a revelation. Virginia had labored through the heat of the day by Margaret Brice's side doing His work, which levels all feuds and makes all women sisters. One brief second had been needful for the spell.
The Colonel bowed with that courtesy and respect which distinguished him, and Mrs. Brice left them to go back into the room of torment, and watch by the sergeant's pallet. Virginia's eyes followed her up the stairs, and then she and her father walked slowly to the carriage. With her foot on the step Virginia paused.
”Pa,” she said, ”do you think it would be possible to get them to let us take that Arkansan into our house?”
”Why, honey, I'll ask Brinsmade if you like,” said the Colonel. ”Here he comes now, and Anne.”
It was Virginia who put the question to him.
”My dear,” replied that gentleman, patting her, ”I would do anything in the world for you. I'll see General Fremont this very afternoon.
Virginia,” he added, soberly, ”it is such acts as yours to-day that give us courage to live in these times.”
Anne kissed her friend.
”Oh, Jinny, I saw what you were doing for one of our men. What am I saying?” she cried. ”They are your men, too. This horrible war cannot last. It cannot last. It was well that Virginia did not see the smile on the face of the commanding general when Mr. Brinsmade at length got to him with her request. This was before the days when the wounded arrived by the thousands, when the zeal of the Southern ladies threatened to throw out of gear the workings of a great system. But the General, had had his eye on Mr. Carvel from the first. Therefore he smiled.
”Colonel Carvel,” said Mr. Brinsmade, with dignity, ”is a gentleman.
When he gives his word, it is sacred, sir.”
”Even to an enemy,” the General put in, ”By George, Brinsmade, unless I knew you, I should think that you were half rebel yourself. Well, well, he may have his Arkansan.”
Mr. Brinsmade, when he conveyed the news to the Carvel house, did not say that he had wasted a precious afternoon in the attempt to interview his Excellency, the Commander in-chief. It was like obtaining an audience with the Sultan or the Czar. Citizens who had been prominent in affairs for twenty years, philanthropists and patriotic-spirited men like Mr. Brinsmade, the mayor, and all the ex-mayors mopped their brows in one of the general's anterooms of the big mansion, and wrangled with beardless youths in bright uniforms who were part of the chain. The General might have been a Richelieu, a Marlborough. His European notions of uniformed inaccessibility he carried out to the letter. He was a royal personage, seldom seen, who went abroad in the midst of a glittering guard. It did not seem to weigh with his Excellency that these simple and democratic gentlemen would not put up with this sort of thing. That they who had saved the city to the Union were more or less in communication with a simple and democratic President; that in all their lives they had never been in the habit of sitting idly for two hours to mop their brows.
On the other hand, once you got beyond the gold lace and the etiquette, you discovered a good man and a patriot. It was far from being the General's fault that Mr. Hopper and others made money in mules and worthless army blankets. Such things always have been, and always will be unavoidable when this great country of ours rises from the deep sleep of security into which her sons have lulled her, to demand her sword. We shall never be able to realize that the maintenance of a standing army of comfortable size will save millions in the end. So much for Democracy when it becomes a catchword.
The General was a good man, had he done nothing else than encourage the Western Sanitary Commission, that glorious army of drilled men and women who gave up all to relieve the suffering which the war was causing.
Would that a novel--a great novel--might be written setting forth with truth its doings. The hero of it could be Calvin Brinsmade, and a n.o.bler hero than he was never under a man's hand. For the glory of generals fades beside his glory.
It was Mr. Brinsmade's carriage that brought Mrs. Brice home from her trying day in the hospital. Stephen, just returned from drill at Verandah hall, met her at the door. She would not listen to his entreaties to rest, but in the evening, as usual, took her sewing to the porch behind the house, where there was a little breeze.