“I won’t do it,” he said. “I won’t stay here any longer.”
He threw up his hands and turned to the portraits that adorned the room, portraits that carried one back through centuries to the days of the first cavalier of the family, who crossed the seas to seek his fortune in a new land, and it was a singular thing that practically every one of them wore a sword.
“You all fought,” said the boy passionately, “and I am going to.”
The door at the other end was softly opened. The great room was but dimly lighted by candles in sconces on the wall; the great chandelier was not lighted for lack of tapers, but a more brilliant radiance was presently cast over the apartment by the advent of old Martha. She had been the boy’s “Mammy” and the boy’s father’s “Mammy” as well, and no one dared to speculate how much farther into the past she ran back.
“Is dat you, Mars Wilfred?” said the old woman, waddling into the room, both hands extended, bearing two many-branched candle-sticks, which she proceeded to deposit upon the handsome mahogany tables with which the long drawing-room was furnished.
“Yes, it is I, Aunt Martha. Did you see Benton’s Battery go by?”
“Lawd lub you, chile, Ah done seed so many guns an’ hosses an’ soljahs a-gwine by Ah don’t tek no notice ob ’em no mo’. ’Peahs lak dey keep on a-passin’ by fo’ebah.”
“Well, there won’t be many more of them pass by,” said the boy in a clear accent, but with that soft intonation which would have betrayed his Southern ancestry anywhere, “and before they are all gone, I would like to join one of them myself.”
“Why, my po’ li’l lamb!” exclaimed Martha, her arms akimbo, “dat Ah done nussed in dese ahms, is you gwine to de fight!”
The boy’s demeanour was anything but lamb-like. He made a fierce step toward her.
“Don’t you call me ‘lamb’ any more,” he said, “it’s ridiculous and – ”
Mammy Martha started back in alarm.
“’Peahs mo’ lak a lion’d be better,” she admitted.
“Where’s mother?” asked the boy, dismissing the subject as unworthy of argument.
“I reckon she’s upstaihs wid Mars Howard, suh. Yo’ bruddah – ”
“I want to see her right away,” continued the boy impetuously.
“Mars Howard he’s putty bad dis ebenin’,” returned Martha. “Ah bettah go an’ tell her dat you want her, but Ah dunno’s she’d want to leab him.”
“Well, you tell her to come as soon as she can. I’m awfully sorry for Howard, but it’s living men that the Confederacy needs most now.”
“Yas, suh,” returned the old nurse, with a quizzical look out of her black eyes at the slender boy before her. “Dey suah does need men,” she continued, and as the youngster took a passionate step toward her, she deftly passed out of the room and closed the door behind her, and he could hear her ponderous footsteps slowly and heavily mounting the steps.
The boy went to the window again and stared into the night. In his preoccupation he did not catch the sound of a gentler footfall upon the stairs, nor did he notice the opening of the door and the silent approach of a woman, the woman with white hair who had stood at the window. The mother of a son dead, a son dying, and a son living. No distinctive thing that in the Confederacy. Almost any mother who had more than one boy could have been justly so characterised. She stopped half-way down the room and looked lovingly and longingly at the slight, graceful figure of her youngest son. Her eyes filled with tears – for the dying or the living or both? Who can say? She went toward him, laid her hand on his shoulder. He turned instantly and at the sight of her tears burst out quickly:
“Howard isn’t worse, is he?” for a moment forgetful of all else.
The woman shook her head.
“I am afraid he is. The sound of that passing battery seemed to excite him so. He thought he was at the front again and wanted to get up.”
“Poor old Howard!”
“He’s quieter now, perhaps – ”
“Mother, is there anything I can do for him?”
“No, my son,” answered the woman with a sigh, “I don’t think there is anything that anybody can do. We can only wait – and hope. He is in God’s hands, not ours.”
She lifted her face for a moment and saw beyond the room, through the night, and beyond the stars a Presence Divine, to Whom thousands of other women in that dying Confederacy made daily, hourly, and momentary prayers. Less exalted, more human, less touched, the boy bowed his head, not without his own prayer, too.
“But you wanted to see me, Wilfred, Martha said,” the woman presently began.
“Yes, mother, I – ”
The boy stopped and the woman was in no hurry to press him. She divined what was coming and would fain have avoided it all.
“I am thankful there is a lull in the cannonading,” she said, listening. “I wonder why it has stopped?”
“It has not stopped,” said Wilfred, “at least it has gone on all evening.”
“I don’t hear it now.”
“No, but you will – there!”
“Yes, but compared to what it was yesterday – you know how it shook the house – and Howard suffered so through it.”
“So did I,” said the boy in a low voice fraught with passion.
“You, my son?”
“Yes, mother, when I hear those guns and know that the fighting is going on, it fairly maddens me – ”
But Mrs. Varney hastily interrupted her boy. Woman-like she would thrust from her the decision which she knew would be imposed upon her.
“Yes, yes,” she said; “I know how you suffered, – we all suffered, we – ” She turned away, sat down in a chair beside the table, leaned her head in her hands, and gave way to her emotions. “There has been nothing but suffering, suffering since this awful war began,” she murmured.
“Mother,” said Wilfred abruptly, “I want to speak to you. You don’t like it, of course, but you have just got to listen this time.”
Mrs. Varney lifted her head from her hands. Wilfred came nearer to her and dropped on his knees by her side. One hand she laid upon his shoulder, the other on his head. She stared down into his up-turned face.
“I know – I know, my boy – what you want.”
“I can’t stay here any longer,” said the youth; “it is worse than being shot to pieces. I just have to chain myself to the floor whenever I hear a cannon-shot or see a soldier. When can I go?”
The woman stared at him. In him she saw faintly the face of the boy dying upstairs. In him she saw the white face of the boy who lay under the sun and dew, dead at Seven Pines. In him she saw all her kith and kin, who, true to the traditions of that house, had given up their lives for a cause now practically lost. She could not give up the last one. She drew him gently to her, but, boy-like, he disengaged himself and drew away with a shake of his head, not that he loved his mother the less, but honour – as he saw it – the more.
“Why don’t you speak?” he whispered at last.
“I don’t know what to say to you, Wilfred,” faltered his mother, although there was but one thing to say, and she knew that she must say it, yet she was fighting, woman-like, for time.
“I will tell you what to say,” said the boy.
“What?”
“Say that you won’t mind if I go down to Petersburg and enlist.”
“But