CHAPTER XXVI.
THE "PHANTOM" REMOVED
"Hands to work and hearts to God," once said Emerson, while Tennyson adds: "In this windy world what's up is faith, what's down is heresy!" Anna was nervous and restless as she thought over these things, and all of the next night lay tossing upon her bed, vainly endeavoring to woo the gentle slumbers that would not come to her. It seemed so sad now that it was all over, and it was strange that George St. Clair should have dismissed her so coldly! It was not her fault that she could not dispel this "phantom" as he called it; yet he pitied her! Was this the panacea he strove so hard to apply to her wounded soul? True, she asked him for it, yet pride rebelled at its application! Pity! The long, weary hours were filled with exciting whispers, and ever and anon the chilling words, "I will trouble you no longer," fell like hard, cold pebbles into her sensitive soul. At last summoning all her fortitude she congratulated herself that on the morrow Mrs. St. Clair and Ellen would arrive. Then she could return home, where silently and alone she would dig a grave in some lonely recess of her stricken heart and bury her two great sorrows side by side! To-morrow! The clock struck five and the sound of feet were heard below. The night had passed! She arose from her bed and opened the window. One star yet faintly glimmered just above the eastern horizon, up which the first morning beams were slowly creeping. Calmly and peacefully it looked into the troubled upturned face so full of sorrow and flushed with weeping, until Anna thought that in its pensive gaze there was such pity as the angels might bestow upon their weary earth-born sisters. Then her thoughts wandered away to those who would be weary no more; whose foot-prints would never more be seen along the dusty highway of life, for they were resting now, their journeys over, their spirits freed from their crumbling prison-houses! At rest! The pale tranquil light of the lonely star grew paler and more feeble as she continued to gaze upon it, for a new day was approaching, and in the glory of its brightness the tiny light was to be swallowed up. Fading, changing, everywhere! How sad a lesson is life! How rugged and thorny the way through it! "To look up is faith," repeated Anna again; "Thou wilt show me the path of life; in Thy presence is fullness of joy; at Thy right hand there are pleasures forevermore! Hush!" It was not her own voice to which she was listening, but the echoing of her poor pleading heart which had suddenly remembered that to look down where all the dreary shadows were clustered was "heresy." The day was before her heavily laden with duties. Why should she grope under the clouds where were doubts and unbeliefs? By and by it may be she too would rest! A step along the hall startled her. It was that of the black servant leaving his master's room. "How faithful he has been," she thought, "while I have only brought discomforts where I had so desired to bring relief." It was over now; her dream of hope, of love, of life! All was over; yet her hand still clasped the "golden bowl," and the "silver cord" was not broken! There was sweet water still in the fountain, although at times it might seem bitter to the taste.
She was standing by the mirror arranging the braids of her dark hair as these reflections were passing through her mind. "How changed I am," she continued, "not only in mind but in face! Perplexities and disappointments are making sad havoc with my good looks! I must away from this," and after preparing herself for a walk she hastened to the hospital. She filled the moments of the laggard morning full of untiring work by the side of the young nurse who flitted among the cots where anxious, loving eyes watched for her coming and grew dim as she disappeared from their sight. Still her thoughts were roving and regrets came to disturb her as she remembered that no more could she place the cup of cold water to fevered lips, or with her words soothe troubled minds. She was going home to bury her dead, while so many were to remain to be buried by stranger hands! The voice of the nurse recalled her.
"There was a big skirmish down the river last night and some of our officers were disabled and are to be brought here to-day, we are informed by telegram!" and she walked on where an upraised hand was beckoning.
"Who knows but my poor brother is one of the fallen?" Anna mused as she proceeded towards her temporary home.
It was nearly dinner-time and she must not let the whole day pass without visiting the lonely one under her own roof. True, he had not invited her to come again at the close of their last interview, but he had hinted a wish that she should read the morning papers to him on her return, Mrs. Howard had said. She had hoped to escape this, but she was calmer now. Herbert was gone; men might be falling on the battle field any day! It was the hand of war, not of individuals, that was slaying the mothers' and sisters' loved ones all over the land! Poor heart! The tidal wave was receding, but the waters underneath were black and unfathomable!
"He is better, I think," Mrs. Howard went on to say, "and in a few days, no doubt, will be able to sit up in an easy chair part of the time. He asked a while ago if you had returned from the hospital, and looked, as he always does, a little out of patience that you should devote so much of your time to others."
Anna was not listening as her hostess bustled about the table prattling in an unusual manner, as it was evident that she was probing with her feminine curiosity deeper than had been her wont, and it seemed the duty of her victim to push the intruding hand away.
"But you will go to him?" was the abrupt query at last.
"It is my intention," and Anna passed into the hall. The door of the sick man's chamber was open, and before she had reached the upper landing she heard her name called.
"I want to see you Anna. Please bring the morning papers, will you?"
She could not resist the pleading of the voice, and, besides, she had expected to see him again; but how could she read to him.
"I was intending to brush away a little of the dust of morning labor before coming to you," she remarked with a smile as she entered and took a seat beside the bed.
"Do a better thing, Anna, and brush away the dust from my hopes and out of my life! Would not that be a more merciful act?"
"Can I do all that, George?" and she laid her hand soothingly upon his white forehead.
"You ought to be able to do so, since it was your hands scattered it."
There was a long silence.
"Is it your purpose to go home and leave me here with your bloody spectre to haunt and distract me? Do I deserve such punishment? Should loyalty to my native land be crowned with such terrible thorns? You have confessed, Anna, that a few months ago you loved me, is that most holy attribute so easily uprooted? If so, then I have been mistaken in woman's heart?" He was looking in her face, that was thinner and, it may be, paler than he had ever seen it, and his manly nature came to the rescue. "Forgive me, Anna, I will not be so cruel! There is somewhere a God who will make all right in His own good time, as Old Auntie would say; and last night as Toby lay snoring on the lounge yonder, I thought it all over. Yes, there is a God; and it may be He is at work in this great war problem, and when the final result is summed up, we shall be glad that the storm passed this way, because of the happy issues. Who knows? But, dear girl, assure me of my guiltlessness in creating the blast, or the terrible lightning that is desolating so many hearts and homes! Will you?"
She raised her eyes to his face, and a smile broke over her own. "How low are the mighty fallen!" and a low, rippling laugh mingled itself with her words. "Did you ever imagine that I thought you such a great man, so strong and powerful?"
"My own Anna!" he exclaimed, taking her hand passionately in his. "You are not going to leave me comfortless, but will wipe away the mold from hopes, and thus brighten up the future by letting the sunshine in upon them again." He drew the beaming face down to his own and their lips sealed the contract of mutual love and forgiveness.
"I did not mean to grieve you," she said at last, "but the blow was a heavy one, and all things seemed to combine their powers to keep my 'phantom' in active existence, but they are gone now."
"Tell me that no more shall this murderous spectre stand between us. This terrible war may have crippled me for life; my home and fortune be taken from me through its ravages; but if you love and trust me, I shall, notwithstanding all, be the happiest of men."
"Is the wound then, so very bad."
"The surgeon has more than hinted that my days of soldiering are over, but was that all you heard of my long speech, made especially for your ear?" he laughed. "You would not care to unite your destinies with a cripple, and how would it be if the fortune was also gone? O, Anna!"
"Do not, George. I had not thought of all that, my mind is not capable of taking such fanciful leaps; I was only thinking how sad all this would be for one like you. But I could not be sorry if assured that you would fight no more."
"Even though a broken back was my preventive?"
"The glimpses that come to us at this moment from the overshadowed future are too bright to be flecked with such dark presentiments; I cannot believe them. But there is Mrs. Howard's steps, on the stairs. How kind she has been, and what a miserable nurse I have proven myself."
"Oh pshaw! I have improved more during the last half hour, under your fostering care, than I should have done in three weeks of her nursing. But you must not go yet or there will be great danger of a serious relapse! I will send the good soul to Jericho as soon as I have swallowed her potion, for I have much I want to say while the opportunity is ours."
"I think it will be necessary for you to begin again on these fever drops, as I see your cheeks are quite red this afternoon," carelessly remarked the good lady, as she placed the spoon to his lips. There was a roguish twinkle in her eye, however, which Anna did not fail to perceive.
"Hang the fever drops!" exclaimed the patient; "I am ever so much better, and am pondering the propriety of going home with Miss Pierson to-morrow."
The kind lady shook with suppressed mirth as she went from the room, for her keen eyes had looked deeper than ever before.
In the evening Ellen and her father arrived. It had been a weary morning to Anna, for she had waited their coming with an anxious heart, but the sky was clear now and she returned their greetings with fervor, wearing her great grief, it was true, but the joys of the previous hours had so covered it that the dear ones were astonished to find her bright beneath the shadow of sorrow.
"My poor son," exclaimed Mr. St. Clair, as the first greetings were over. "Yes, Anna; show us the way to him." She obeyed, and as they were ascending the stairs, the father remarked, "I have no doubt we shall receive a favorable report of your nursing, for I am convinced by the pallor of your cheeks that there have been sad hours of watching and anxiety."
"How I shrink from taking your place," interrupted the sister. "Poor George! He will readily perceive the difference, I fear."
Anna's heart sank within her as she listened to the words of her companions, who were all unconscious of the wounds they were probing. Ellen must not know it; and then she was so soon to leave him! This would be harder now, but he was to fight no more and they might yet be happy! It was a grief to her that she had ever neglected him and brought sorrow instead of joy into his hours of suffering. She opened the door of the sick man's chamber, and as the father and sister passed in reclosed it and retired to her own room. More than one reason prompted her to do this, yet they must know in time that a great joy had been amid her throes of bereavement. She would not have them grieved by her seeming idiosyncrasies. They might blame her for apparent neglect; and O if it had not been! Still he had not suffered as had she; her heart assured her of this, and it pressed the thought as a consolation over the bleeding fissure as the wounded bird attempts to hide its ebbing life's blood beneath its fluttering wing! But it was over, and now the phantom had been driven, ah whither? Would it ever haunt her again? He had said: "There is a God somewhere who will make it all right in His own good time," and she would wait.
Tea was ready and the three sat down together, Mr. St. Clair and Ellen to satisfy a sharpened appetite after a long and tiresome journey, and Anna to do the honors of the table after their home style in the north.
"George is looking so much better than I had hoped to find him," said the father. "I think I shall be obliged to bless you Miss Anna for his rapid improvement. It has been so kind in you to think of others, although you were so heavily burdened with your own bitter sorrow! What a debt of gratitude you and yours are heaping upon us!" he continued, musingly. "But war must always bear its 'apples of ashes' and God only knows where the ax should be laid!"
There were tears in Anna's eyes, for the fountain of grief had been for so many days open that the liquid drops flowed now almost unconsciously when the angel of pity stirred the bitter waters. Ellen saw them and the dew-drops of sympathy moistened her own dark ones. "It would be so hard to lose a brother," she thought. "How glad she was that George was better!"
"You must go with us," said Ellen as they arose from the table and went out into the hall. "You must begin to initiate me in your skill of hygiene; beside, George inquired for you. I see how it will be, you are to be sadly missed when only my poor inexperienced hands are brought into service!" She noticed the agitation of her companion, and placing an arm affectionately around her said, soothingly: "You know my heart, dear girl, and that it is full of sympathy, but my tongue is a miserable medium with which to communicate it to another! Let it be sufficient that I can feel that you are sure of this and will never doubt me!"
"Doubt you, Ellen? Never for a moment! But my mother; how is she?"
"Sorrow-stricken, of course, but strangely resigned. There is something noble in such a grief as hers, Anna! No, you need not shrink from meeting her; she will comfort you! I see by your face, poor sufferer, that you need it! She will do you good, never fear!"
"Just step in my room for a moment, Ellen; I would not have him see me tear-stained again. I have wept so much for the last few days. You speak truly, I do need my mother, for I am very weak. Ellen, there has been more gall in the cup I have been draining than you can ever know! A darker wave has rolled over my soul than can ever lift your bark, my precious friend; but what matters it after all, when we find ourselves sinking we are led to cry out 'save or I perish?' We shall be chided some day for our faithlessness and doubtings, and it is better that we should receive it while yet on the sea, for the calm, Ellen, is peaceful after the storm." She had been bathing her face and arranging her hair while speaking, and now turned toward her companion with the old smile wreathing her lips.
"You are like your mother," and again the arm of affection drew them closer together as they proceeded to the room where the father and brother were awaiting them.
That night, contrary to the doctor's instructions, there was a long conversation in the sick man's chamber, in which he earnestly joined.
"Let it be settled, Father, that you return with Anna," he said at length. "I shall get along all right with Ellen and Mrs. Howard, with what Toby can help, I have not the least doubt; and, besides, we rebels must not be too exacting or expect too much." His eyes were upon Anna, and she knew it. Her cheeks flushed, but the great hope in her heart kept back the haunting spectre his words might otherwise have summoned.
"He is a rebel no more," she thought. His voice recalled her.
"Besides, you will be needed in the widow's home to assist and cheer. It will not be a great while before I shall be able to join you all there, for immediately on being well enough to sit up for a few hours I shall leave for the North – through my convalescence at least."
There were quick glances into each other's faces, but he was silent.
"I will do as you say, my son," was the father's conclusion, "but I fear we are tiring you. Yes, you will feel better after a rest, and to-morrow we will talk farther on the subject."
Four days afterward a solemn cortege wended its way through the little village of Glendale, bearing its dead from the station to the home of bereavement and sorrow. There were warm hand claspings, and words of sympathy and condolence, and tears, such as mothers alone can shed, when maternal love is stricken; when heart answers to heart with the sad echo of loneliness and desolation.
And so they laid Edward Pierson away upon the hillside; the first martyr in all the region on the altar of freedom!
CHAPTER XXVII.
NEW RESOLVES – AND NEW ADVENTURES
"Teach me thy way, O Lord, and lead me in a plain path, because of mine enemies. Deliver me not over unto the will of mine enemies, for false witnesses are risen up against me, and such as breathe out cruelty."
These words Lillian Belmont repeated to herself as the carriage that was bearing her away from home and early associations rolled down the highway leading to the depot, where she with her cousin Grace Stanley were to take the cars for New Orleans. Mrs. Stanley was the youngest sister of the deceased master of Rosedale, but since his death very little intimacy had been continued between the families, until Mrs. Belmont meeting the vivacious, merry-hearted Grace had conceived the idea of using her for a purpose, and so had invited her to spend a few weeks with her "morbid" cousin. All things, however, had not worked to that lady's satisfaction, as we have learned, and now with a mother's curse weighing her down the daughter had joined with David in the supplication, "lead me in a plain path." Was He leading her? The path as yet was dark and overshadowed, but she had clasped the gentle hand and the promise was, "I will never leave or forsake thee;" and with simple, childlike trust she walked forward. During the winter she had written several times to her mother, pleading she would clear away the mysteries of the past, remove the maternal edicts, so that over the debris of broken hopes and shattered ambitions they might again come together, reconciled and loving. But no response to these pleadings came to her. To be sure there were letters from loved ones telling of the early removal of her family to the city, of the visit to the Washburn's, of the sudden death of little Shady, with poor old Vina's wail of anguish, but not a word of sympathy from the heart where the maternal love lay buried.
The bugle notes of war sounded through the streets of New Orleans, and the passions of men were stirred as never before. Women too, who had quaffed only from the chalice of ease and pleasure, awoke from the lethargy of indulgence to find themselves tossing upon a sea of excitement and alarm. Lillian was interested, and for a time her own troubled life was swallowed up in the tumults that threatened the peace and harmony of the nation's life. Bustle, energy and activity were everywhere.
"What a useless, helpless thing I am!" she said to her aunt one evening as they sat alone, after the husband, who was wearied with his day's toils in the unpretentious hardware store near the wharf had retired to his room, and Grace was entertaining a friend in the parlor. "It seems to me I am suddenly aroused by a storm, and unless I run for my life shall be covered out of sight in its fury!" She laughed, but there was a seriousness in her pale face her aunt had never seen upon it before.
"I do not wonder you think yourself out in the wind," was the cheerful response, "for Grace is enough to stir up the sleepy faculties of any lover of her country. I do not know but she will 'shoulder arms' and go into the field in defence of her native land!" and the good lady laughed outright. There was a long silence, while Lillian never once removed her gaze from the dying embers in the grate as she actively traced the wanderings and leapings of her busy thoughts.
At last she said in an undertone: "Grace is very gentle considering her confederate proclivities; but has it occurred to you that I have a husband somewhere in that confusion and excitement among our enemies, as we call them?"
"O, Lillian!" and the cheerful face put on a look of serious incredulity. "You will not now certainly desire to seek out a relationship from among a people, who would, if in their power, kill or enslave us all?" Lillian's dark eyes wandered slowly to the troubled face of the speaker. "I have fully joined with my daughter in the feeling that a great wrong has been perpetrated on you, still I did hope that this terrible war would obliterate forever all such former ties and leave you free, as free as though they had never been!"
"And here I am shocking you with my heart's cry for its idol, for its tenderest loves, for the purest longings known to woman's nature! Listen to me, Aunt Sylvia, I am going north! The blow has been struck! Fort Sumter has fallen! There will be wounded hearts to bind up and wounded bodies to care for! Sorrow and lamentation will fill many homes, and the cry for help and sympathy will sound over the land. I shall get out of my life of indolence and plunge into the thickest scenes of labor!"
"Yes, Lillian, you do shock me! Why go north? If you must work, will there not be plenty of it to do among your own people? Are they not as deserving of your care and sympathy as their enemies?"
"Auntie, I have told Grace and now will tell you! Somewhere in the north I have a husband and child! Do not look at me with that spirit of incredulity peering out of your eyes, for it is no random suspicion – no new thought. My husband lives, and the letter I received last night from George St. Clair gives me the information that a 'Pearl Hamilton,' who started with a captain's commission from Pennsylvania was promoted to the position of colonel of his regiment by the entire vote of each company upon reaching Washington. This he copied from a paper for my especial benefit; and that Colonel Hamilton is my husband; my Pearl! He is true to me – our hearts are one, and the fast growing desire to go to him has, since the receipt of that letter, become full-fledged; and before communication between the two sections is entirely cut off I shall go!"
"Did not the knowledge of his notoriety help to feather the wings of love, my child?"
There was something in the tone of voice with which these words were uttered that caused the listener's face to flush with amazement and indignation.
"This from you, Auntie!" she said at last. "Look at me; remember what I have endured, realize for a moment from what I have been torn, consider the burdens that are weighing me down, and then, if it be possible, repeat the question. You do not know me! For this reason I forgive the cruel thrust! Pearl Hamilton would hold my heart as firmly and truly if he were now the humble clerk in the store where I first knew him, as an honored officer in the enemy's army!"
Mrs. Stanley took the little white hand that lay on the arm of the easy chair where Lillian was sitting and holding it in her loving clasp, said, soothingly: "My darling, I did not mean at all what I said. You are too much like your father to be guilty of such unwomanly selfishness. I was a little indignant that you should persist in keeping faith with your childhood's love, and so uttered what I did not at all feel! I cannot, however, endure the thought of your going through the enemy's lines, and if he is a soldier as you hear, he may be brought to you as a prisoner of war, when you could be more speedily reunited than if you should follow out your own wild schemes."
"Pearl is not all I have in that muddle! Did I not say a husband and child? Grace has told you that I was a mother and that my pretty Lily died and was buried; but my dear Aunt, I do not believe it! I never did believe it! Still I had not the power to combat the story that was told me! O, I have been so weak! But a letter received by my mother, and which accidentally fell into my hands, and her confusion and evident alarm as I held it before her, assured me that I was the subject of a heartless fraud and that my child lived! Ever since I have pondered how I could find her! If I knew the place where she was born; at what point on the Atlantic shore stood the romantic 'Cliff House'; where I was imprisoned those dreadful weeks, I should before this have visited it. The weird old nurse would, I am sure, tell me all, notwithstanding her bribes for secrecy!"
"Surely you do not believe all this, Lillian? No wonder the hungering of your heart has eaten the bloom from your cheek! But there must be some mistake. No matter how lofty may be a mother's ambition she could not be guilty of so vile an act!"
"Auntie, my cry for months has been 'lead me in a plain path', and I have been watching for the shadows to clear away that I might see the road, and now that my plea has been seemingly answered and the 'path' winds alone through the future mysteries so distinctly to my poor, trembling vision shall I not walk therein? Indeed, I must go! I can not sit idly here with folded hands when there is so much to be done and so many links to be gathered up! My mother well understood my inertness and worthlessness; she knew too that my pride would not long allow me to be a dependent on those upon whom I only had the claims of kinship. This, she was sure, would in time bring me in humble penitence to her feet. I cannot do this; and the other path leads me farther away from her! I must go!"
True to her conclusions, in a few days Lillian Belmont, the petted child of luxury, weak and enervated by indolence and indulgence, started alone amid the protestations and pleadings of those who loved her, en route for Philadelphia where she knew another aunt, the oldest sister of her father, would give her a hearty welcome. It was a tiresome and exciting journey. Quizzing eyes were upon her everywhere; suspicious glances were thrust at her from every side, and not until she crossed the southern lines did she settle calmly down.
Mrs. Cheevers received her as one risen from the dead. Clasping the slender form in her arms she gazed long and steadfastly into the pale face without speaking. "To think it is Lillian!" she said at last. "O, if Pearl were only here! How he has loved you my child." But tears, the first that had moistened the beautiful eyes of the stricken Lillian for many weeks, were now choking her utterance, and she lay as a weary child on the tender, sympathizing breast where her poor head was pillowed. Mrs. Cheevers had known what the longings of the mother love meant. Well did she understand the hungerings of its unsatisfied greed, and as she kissed over and over again the pure white forehead she thanked God that her brother's child could nestle so closely to her empty breast!
"You can never know how peaceful I feel!" Lillian said an hour after as they sat at a well-filled board, where she was satisfying a keener appetite than she had felt for many day. "I could fly for very joy, so light and buoyant are my spirits! I have carried a burden so long that the release seems almost oppressive!"
"Poor child!" murmured the aunt, while the masculine face opposite wore an expression of the deepest sympathy.
"And to think," he said at last, "that we should have believed for a moment what those letters contained! You will, however, do me the honor, wife, to assure our little Lillian that I never did!"
"I will do you the justice to acknowledge that if it had not been for Pearl Hamilton your guilt would never have been a whit less than my own." A merry laugh followed this remark, and when it died away Lillian asked with as much calmness as she could summon if she might be permitted to examine the letters spoken of.
"Of course you may," interposed the uncle. "Read them, every one, and then forgive your fickle relative for swallowing the absurd idea that she who could believe one of the noblest of men was heartless! But he will be around after the first three months are over, and then we shall see how this matter is to be settled! In the meantime you just rest here and grow fat, for we shall have regular news from the battle field, and he is no private! His mother is the proudest woman in this immense city to-night; and I am going to tell her that the dead is alive, and – "
"Please do not Uncle!" pleaded Lillian. "Permit me to remain secluded and unknown until – well, for the present at least. It would be so awkward to explain, and so impossible to convince. Besides, I am in my swaddling clothes yet; let me get a little stronger and firmer. I am so happy that I fear any intrusion; and shall be jealous of every interference."
"Say no more; I am not a woman, and can govern the 'unruly member' with true masculine power! Be happy, nothing shall interfere with your growth or pleasure while you remain under my roof;" and he took his hat from the rack and stepped nimbly from the house.
Weeks passed. There had been a dead calm on the Potomac which only served to agitate and stir up a greater excitement elsewhere. There were murmurings of discontent; whisperings ever so faint of rebellion in high places; there were impetuous longings and low mutterings of censure because the wheels of progress were blocked and the final consummation of overhanging difficulties was not speedily brought about; not realizing that God was marking out the path to a grand and glorious victory. How prone are human eyes to seek after their own paths and rely upon their own strength to "overcome."