Before the Dawn: A Story of the Fall of Richmond

They talked after their old custom, while Prescott ate his luncheon and his mother gave him the news of Richmond and the people whom he knew. He noticed often how closely she followed the fortunes of their friends, despite her seeming indifference, and, informed by experience, he never doubted the accuracy of her reports.

"Helen Harley is yet in the employ of Mr. Sefton," she said, "and the money that she earns is, I hear, still welcome in the house of the Harleys. Mr. Harley is a fine Southern gentleman, but he has found means of overcoming his pride; it requires something to support his state."

"But what of Helen?" asked Prescott. He always had a feeling of repulsion toward Mr. Harley, his sounding talk, his colossal vanity and his selfishness.

"Helen, I think," said his mother, "is more of a woman than she used to be. Her mind has been strengthened by occupation. You won't object, Robert, will you, if I tell you that in my opinion both the men and women of the South have suffered from lack of diversity and variety in interests and ambitions. When men have only two ambitions, war and politics, and when women care only for the social side of life, important enough, but not everything, there can be no symmetrical development. A Southern republic, even if they should win this war, is impossible, because to support a State it takes a great deal more than the ability to speak and fight well."

Prescott laughed.

"What a political economist we have grown to be, mother!" he said, and then he added thoughtfully: "I won't deny, however, that you are right—at least, in part. But what more of Helen, mother? Is Mr. Sefton as attentive as ever to his clerk?"

She looked at him covertly, as if she would measure alike his expression and the tone of his voice.

"He is still attentive to Helen—in a way," she replied, "but the Secretary is like many other men: he sees more than one beautiful flower in the garden."

"What do you mean, mother?" asked Prescott quickly.

His face flushed suddenly and then turned pale. She gave him another keen but covert look from under lowered eyelids.

"There's a new star in Richmond," she replied quietly, "and singular as it may seem, it is a star of the North. You know Miss Charlotte Grayson and her Northern sympathies: it is a relative of hers—a Miss Catherwood, Miss Lucia Catherwood, who came to visit her shortly after the battles in the Wilderness—the 'Beautiful Yankee,' they call her. Her beauty, her grace and distinction of manner are so great that all Richmond raves about her. She is modest and would remain in retirement, but for the sake of her own peace and Miss Grayson's she has been compelled to enter our social life here."

"And the Secretary?" said Prescott. He was now able to assume an air of indifference.

"He warms himself at the flame and perhaps scorches himself, too, or it may be that he wishes to make some one else jealous—Helen Harley, for instance. I merely venture the suggestion; I do not pretend to know all the secrets of the social life of Richmond."

Prescott went that very afternoon to the Grayson cottage, and he prepared himself with the greatest care for his going. He felt a sudden and strong anxiety about his clothing. His uniform was old, ragged and stained, but he had a civilian suit of good quality.

"This dates from the fall of '60," he said, looking at it, "and that's more than four years ago; but it's hard to keep the latest fashions in Richmond now."

However, it was a vast improvement, and the change to civilian garb made him feel like a man of peace once more.

He went into the street and found Richmond under the dim cold of a November sky, distant houses melting into a gray blur and people shivering as they passed. As he walked briskly along he heard behind him the roll of carriage wheels, and when he glanced over his shoulder what he beheld brought the red to his face.

Mr. Sefton was driving and Helen Harley sat beside him. On the rear seat were Colonel Harley and Lucia Catherwood. As he looked the Secretary turned back and said something in a laughing manner to Lucia, and she, laughing in like fashion, replied. Prescott was too far away to understand the words even had he wished, but Lucia's eyes were smiling and her face was rosy with the cold and the swift motion. She was muffled in a heavy black cloak, but her expression was happy.

The carriage passed so swiftly that she did not see Prescott standing on the sidewalk. He gazed after the disappearing party and others did likewise, for carriages were becoming too scarce in Richmond not to be noticed. Some one spoke lightly, coupling the names of James Sefton and Lucia Catherwood. Prescott turned fiercely upon him and bade him beware how he repeated such remarks. The man did not reply, startled by such heat, and Prescott walked on, striving to keep down the anger and grief that were rising within him.

He concluded that he need not hurry now, because if he went at once to the little house in the cross street she would not be there; and he came to an angry conclusion that while he had been upon an errand of hardship and danger she had been enjoying all the excitement of life in the capital and with a powerful friend at court. He had always felt a sense of proprietorship in her and now it was rudely shocked. He forgot that if he had saved her she had saved him. It never occurred to him in his glowing youth that she had an entire right to love and marry James Sefton if fate so decreed.

He walked back and forth so angrily and so thoroughly wrapped in his own thoughts that he noticed nobody, though many noticed him and wondered at the young man with the pale face and the hot eyes.

It was twilight before he resumed his journey to the little house. The gray November day was thickening into the chill gloom of a winter night when he knocked at the well-remembered door. The shutters were closed, but some bars of ruddy light shone through them and fell across the brown earth. He was not coming now in secrecy as of old, but he had come with a better heart then.

It was Lucia herself who opened the door—Lucia, with a softer face than in the earlier time, but with a royal dignity that he had never seen in any other woman, and he had seen women who were royal by birth. She was clad in some soft gray stuff and her hair was drawn high upon her head, a crown of burnished black, gleaming with tints of red, like flame, where the firelight behind her flickered and fell upon it.

The twilight was heavy without and she did not see at once who was standing at the door. She put up her hands to shade her eyes, but when she beheld Prescott a little cry of gladness broke from her. "Ah, it is you!" she said, holding out both her hands, and his jealousy and pain were swept away for the moment.

He clasped her hands in the warm pressure of his own, saying: "Yes, it is I; and I cannot tell you how glad I am to see you once more."

The room behind her seemed to be filled with a glow, and when they went in the fire blazed and sparkled and its red light fell across the floor. Miss Grayson, small, quiet and gray as usual, came forward to meet him. Her tiny cool hand rested in his a moment, and the look in her eyes told him as truly as the words she spoke that he was welcome.

"When did you arrive?" asked Lucia.

"But this morning," he replied. "You see, I have come at once to find you. I saw you when you did not see me."

"When?" she asked in surprise.

"In the carriage with the Secretary and the Harleys," he replied, the feeling of jealousy and pain returning. "You passed me, but you were too busy to see me."

She noticed the slight change in his tone, but she replied without any self-consciousness.

"Yes; Mr. Sefton—he has been very kind to us—asked me to go with Miss Harley, her brother and himself. How sorry I am that none of us saw you."

The feeling that he had a grievance took strong hold of Prescott, and it was inflamed at the new mention of the Secretary's name. If it were any other it might be more tolerable, but Mr. Sefton was a crafty and dangerous man, perhaps unscrupulous too. He remembered that light remark of the bystander coupling the name of the Secretary and Lucia Catherwood, and at the recollection the red flushed into his face.

"The Secretary is able and powerful," he said, "but not wholly to be trusted. He is an intriguer."

Miss Grayson looked up with her quiet smile.

"Mr. Sefton has been kind to us," she said, "and he has made our life in Richmond more tolerable. We could not be ungrateful, and I urged Lucia to go with them to-day."

The colour flickered in the sensitive, proud face of Lucia Catherwood.

"But, Charlotte, I should have gone of my own accord, and it was a pleasant drive."

There was a shade of defiance in her tone, and Prescott, restless and uneasy, stared into the fire. He had expected her to yield to his challenge, to be humble, to make some apology; but she did not, having no excuses to offer, and he found his own position difficult and unpleasant. The stubborn part of his nature was stirred and he spoke coldly of something else, while she replied in like fashion. He was sure now that Sefton had transferred his love to her, and if she did not return it she at least looked upon him with favouring eyes. As for himself, he had become an outsider. He remembered her refusal of him. Then the impression she gave him once that she had fled from Richmond, partly and perhaps chiefly to save him, was false. On second thought no doubt it was false. And despite her statement she might really have been a spy! How could he believe her now?

Miss Grayson, quiet and observant, noticed the change. She liked this young man, so serious and steady and so different from the passionate and reckless youths who are erroneously taken by outsiders to be the universal type of the South. Her heart rallied to the side of her cousin, Lucia Catherwood, with whom she had shared hardships and dangers and whose worth she knew; but with the keen eye of the kindly old maid she saw what troubled Prescott, and being a woman she could not blame him. Taking upon herself the burden of the conversation, she asked Prescott about his southern journey, and as he told her of the path that led him through mountains, the glory of the autumn woods and the peace of the wilderness, there was a little bitterness in his tone in referring to those lonesome but happy days. He had felt then that he was coming north to the struggles and passions of a battleground, and now he was finding the premonition true in more senses than one.

Lucia sat in the far corner of the little room where the flickering firelight fell across her face and dress. They had not lighted candle nor lamp, but the rich tints in her hair gleamed with a deeper sheen when the glow of the flames fell across it. Prescott's former sense of proprietorship was going, and she seemed more beautiful, more worth the effort of a lifetime than ever before. Here was a woman of mind and heart, one not bounded by narrow sectionalism, but seeing the good wherever it might be. He felt that he had behaved like a prig and a fool. Why should he be influenced by the idle words of some idle man in the street? He was not Lucia Catherwood's guardian; if there were any question of guardianship, she was much better fitted to be the guardian of him.

Had he obeyed this rush of feeling he would have swept away all constraint by words abrupt, disjointed perhaps, but alive with sincerity, and Miss Grayson gave him ample opportunity by slipping with excuses into the next room. The pride and stubbornness in Prescott's nature were tenacious and refused to die. Although wishing to say words that would undo the effect of those already spoken, he spoke instead of something else—topics foreign then to the heart of either—of the war, the social life of Richmond. Miss Harley was still a great favourite in the capital and the Secretary paid her much attention, so Lucia said without the slightest change in her tone. Helen's brother had made several visits to Richmond; General Wood had come once, and Mr. Talbot once. Mr. Talbot—and now she smiled—was overpowered on his last visit. Some Northern prisoners had told how the vanguard of their army was held back in the darkness at the passage of the river by a single man who was taken prisoner, but not until he had given his beaten brigade time to escape. That man was discovered to be Talbot and he had fled from Richmond to escape an excess of attention and compliments.

"And it was old Talbot who saved us from capture," said Prescott. "I've often wondered why we were not pursued more closely that night. And he never said anything about it."

"Mrs. Markham, too, is in Richmond," Lucia continued, "and she is, perhaps, the most conspicuous of its social lights. General Markham is at the front with the army"—here she stopped abruptly and the colour came into her face. But Prescott guessed the rest. Colonel Harley was constantly in Mrs. Markham's train and that was why he came so often to Richmond. The capital was not without its gossip.

The flames died down and a red-and-yellow glow came from the heart of the coals. The light now gleamed only at times on the face of Lucia Catherwood. It seemed to Prescott (or was it fancy) that by this flickering radiance he saw a pathetic look on her face—a little touch of appeal. Again he felt a great wave of tenderness and of reverence, too. She was far better than he. Words of humility and apology leaped once more to the end of his tongue, but they did not pass his lips. He could not say them. His stubborn pride still controlled and he rambled on with commonplace and idle talk.

Miss Grayson came back bearing a lamp, and by chance, as it were, she let its flame fall first upon the face of the man and then upon the face of the woman, and she felt a little thrill of disappointment when she noted the result in either case. Miss Charlotte Grayson was one of the gentlest of fine old maids, and her heart was soft within her. She remembered the long vigils of Prescott, his deep sympathy, the substantial help that he had given, and, at last, how, at the risk of his own career, he had helped Lucia Catherwood to escape from Richmond and danger. She marked the coldness and constraint still in the air and was sorry, but knew not what to do.

Prescott rose presently and said good-night, expressing the hope that it would not be long until he again saw them both. Lucia echoed his hope in a like formal fashion and Prescott went out. He did not look back to see if the light from the window still fell across the brown grass, but hurried away in the darkness.

CHAPTER XXV

THE MOUNTAIN GENERAL

It was a bleak, cold night and Prescott's feelings were of the same tenor. The distant buildings seemed to swim in a raw mist and pedestrians fled from the streets. Prescott walked along in aimless fashion until he was hailed by a dark man on a dark horse, who wished to know if he were going "to walk right over us," but the rough words were belied by joviality and welcome.

Prescott came out of his cloud and, looking up, recognized the great cavalryman, Wood. His huge beard seemed bigger than ever, but his keen eyes shone in the black tangle as if they were looking through the holes in a mask.

"What ails you, boy?" he asked Prescott. "You were goin' to walk right into me, horse an' all, an' I don't believe you'd have seen a house if it had been planted right in your path!"

"It's true I was thinking of something else," replied Prescott with a smile, "and did not see what was about me; but how are you, General?"

Wood regarded him closely for a moment or two before replying and then said:

"All right as far as that goes, but I can't say things are movin' well for our side. We're in a deadlock down there at Petersburg, and here comes winter, loaded with snow an' hail an' ice, if signs count for anythin'. Mighty little for a cavalryman to do right now, so I just got leave of absence from General Lee, an' I've run up to Richmond for a day or two."

Then the big man laughed in an embarrassed way, and Prescott, looking up at him, knew that his face was turning red could it but be seen.

"A man may employ his time well in Richmond, General," said Prescott, feeling a sudden and not unsympathetic desire to draw him out.

The General merely nodded in reply and Prescott looked at him again and more closely. The youth of General Wood and himself had been so different that he had never before recognized what there was in this illiterate man to attract a cultivated woman.

The crude mountaineer had seemed to him hitherto to be a soldier and nothing else; and soldiership alone, in Prescott's opinion, was very far from making up the full complement of a man. The General sitting there on his horse in the darkness was so strong, so masterful, so deeply touched with what appeared to be the romantic spirit, that Prescott could readily understand his attraction for a woman of a position originally different in life. His feeling of sympathy grew stronger. Here at least was a man direct and honest, not evasive and doubtful.

"General," he said with abrupt frankness, "you have come to Richmond to see Miss Harley and I want to tell you that I wish you the utmost success."

He held out his hand and the great mountaineer enclosed it in an iron grasp. Then Wood dismounted, threw his bridle over his arm and said:

"S'pose we go along together for awhile?"

They walked a minute or two in silence, the General running his fingers nervously through his thick black beard.

"See here, Prescott," he said at last, "you've spoke plain to me an' I'll do the same to you. You wished me success with Miss Harley. Why, I thought once that you stood in the way of me or any other man."

"Not so, General; you credit me with far more attractions than I have," replied Prescott deliberately. "Miss Harley and I were children together and you know that is a tie. She likes me, I am sure, but nothing more. And I—well I admire her tremendously, but–"

He hesitated and then stopped. The mountaineer gave him a sudden keen glance and laughed softly.

"There's somebody else?" he said.

Prescott was silent but the mountaineer was satisfied.

"See here, Prescott," he exclaimed with great heartiness. "Let's wish each other success."

Their hands closed again in a firm grasp.

"There's that man Sefton," resumed the mountaineer, "but I'm not so much afraid of him as I was of you. He's cunnin' and powerful, but I don't think he's the kind of man women like. He kinder gets their teeth on edge. They're afraid of him without admirin' his strength. There's two kinds of strong men: the kind that women are afraid of an' like and the kind that they're afraid of an' don't like; an' I think Sefton falls into the last class."

Prescott's liking for his companion increased, and mingled with it was a growing admiration wholly aside from his respect for him as a soldier. He was showing observation or intuition of a high order. The General's heart was full. He had all of the mountaineer's reserve and taciturnity, but now after years of repression and at the touch of real sympathy his feelings overflowed.

"See here, Prescott," he said abruptly, "I once thought it was wrong for me to love Helen Harley—the difference between us is so great—and maybe I think so yet, but I'm goin' to try to win her anyhow. I'm just that deep in love, and maybe the good God will forgive me, because I can't help it. I loved that girl the first time I ever set eyes on her; I wasn't asked about it, I just had to."

"There is no reason why you should not go ahead and win her," said the other, warmly.

"Prescott," continued the mountaineer, "you don't know all that I've been."

"It's nothing dishonest, that I'd swear."

"It's not that, but look where I started. I was born in the mountains back there, an' I tell you we weren't much above the wild animals that live in them same mountains. There was just one room to our log house—one for father, mother and all of us. I never was taught nothin'. I didn't learn to read till I was twenty years old and the big words still bother me. I went barefoot six months every year till I was a man grown. Why, my cavalry boots pinch me now."

He uttered the lamentation of the boots with such tragic pathos that Prescott smiled, but was glad to hide it in the darkness.

"An' I don't know nothin' now," resumed the mountaineer sadly. "When I go into a parlour I'm like a bear in a cage. If there's anythin' about to break, I always break it. When they begin talkin' books and pictures and such I don't know whether they are right or wrong."

"You are not alone in that."

"An' I'm out of place in a house," continued the General, not noticing the interruption. "I belong to the mountains an' the fields, an' when this war's over I guess I'll go back to 'em. They think somethin' of me now because I can ride an' fight, but war ain't all. When it's over there'll be no use for me. I can't dance an' I can't talk pretty, an' I'm always steppin' on other peoples' feet. I guess I ain't the timber they make dandies of."

"I should hope not," said Prescott with emphasis. He was really stirred by the big man's lament, seeing that he valued so much the little things that he did not have and so little the great things that he did have.

"General," he said, "you never shirked a battle and I wouldn't shirk this contest either. If I loved a woman I'd try to win her, and you won't have to go back to the mountains when this war is over. You've made too great a name for that. We won't give you up."

Wood's eyes shone with satisfaction and gratitude.

"Do you think so?" he asked earnestly.

"I haven't a doubt of it," replied Prescott with the utmost sincerity. "If fortune was unkind to you in the beginning nature was not so. You may not know it, but I think that women consider you rather good to look at."

Thus they talked, and in his effort to console another Robert forgot some of his own pain. The simple, but, on the whole, massive character of Wood appealed to him, and the thought came with peculiar force that what was lacking in Helen Harley's nature the tougher fiber of the mountaineer would supply.

It was late when they separated and much later before Prescott was able to sleep. The shadow of the Secretary was before him and it was a menacing shadow. It seemed that this man was to supplant him at every turn, to appear in every cause his successful rival. Nor was he satisfied with himself. A small but audible voice told him he had behaved badly, but stubborn pride stopped his ear. What right did he have to accuse her? In a worldly sense, at least, she might fare well if she chose the Secretary.

There was quite a crowd in the lobby of the Spotswood Hotel next morning, gathered there to talk, after the Southern habit, when there is nothing pressing to be done, and conspicuous in it were the editors, Raymond and Winthrop, whom Prescott had not seen in months and who now received him with warmth.

"How's the Patriot?" asked Prescott of Raymond.

"The Patriot is resting just now," replied Raymond quietly.

"How is that—no news?"

"Oh, there's plenty of news, but there's no paper. I did have a little, but Winthrop was short on a supply for an edition of his own sheet, and he begged so hard that I let him have mine. That's what I call true professional courtesy."

"The paper was so bad that it crumbled all to pieces a day after printing," said Winthrop.

"So much the better," replied Raymond. "In fact, a day is much too long a life for such a sheet as Winthrop prints."

The others laughed and the talk returned to the course from which it had been taken for a moment by the arrival of Prescott. Conspicuous in the crowd was the Member of Congress, Redfield, not at all improved in appearance since the spring. His face was redder, heavier and coarser than ever.

"I tell you it is so," he said oratorically and dogmatically to the others. "The Secretary is in love with her. He was in love with Helen Harley once, but now he has changed over to the other one."

Prescott shifted uneasily. Here was the name of the Secretary dogging him and in a connection that he liked least of all.

"It's the 'Beautiful Yankee,' then," said another, a young man named Garvin, who aspired eagerly to the honours of a ladykiller. "I don't blame him. You don't see such a face and figure more than once in a lifetime. I've been thinking of going in there myself and giving the Secretary something to do."