Chapter 29. "Angel Of Death"

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_ CHAPTER XXIX. "ANGEL OF DEATH"

It would seem as if the brief tempest of the morning had cleared the air. Two strong natures had asserted themselves. Surgeon Ackley's recognition of Miss Lou's spirit and the justice of her plea turned out to be as politic as it was sincere and unpremeditated. The slaves learned all they could hope from her or any one now in authority and were compelled to see the necessity of submission. Whately was taught another lesson concerning the beauties of headlong action, while even his egotism was not proof against the feeling that his cousin's straightforward fearlessness would baffle all measures opposed to her sense of right. As for Perkins, he began to fear as well as hate her, seeing her triumph again. The only reward of his zeal had been Whately's words, "Get out of the way, you fool." Thereafter, with the exception of the girl's scathing words, he had been ignored. He had been made to feel that Ackley's threats had a meaning for him as well as for the negroes, and that if he needlessly provoked trouble again he would be confronted with the stern old army surgeon. Having known Whately from a boy he stood in little fear of him, but was convinced that he could not trifle with Ackley's patience an instant. He now recognized his danger. In his rage he had forgotten the wide difference in rank between the girl he would injure and himself. The courtesy promptly shown to her by Maynard and especially by the surgeon-in-chief taught him that one whom he had scarcely noticed as she grew up a repressed, brooding child and girl, possessed by birth the consideration ever shown to a Southern lady. He knew what that meant, even if he could not appreciate her conduct. Maynard had scowled upon him; Mrs. Whately bestowed merely a glance of cold contempt, while her son had failed him utterly as an ally. He therefore sullenly drove his malice back into his heart with the feeling that he must now bide his time.

Even Mr. Baron was curt and said briefly before he left the ground, "Be sure you're right before you go ahead. Hereafter give your orders quietly and let me know who disobeys."

The old planter was at his wit's end about his niece, but even he was compelled to see that his former methods with her would not answer. New ideas were being forced upon him as if by surgical operations. Chief among them was the truth that she could no longer be managed or restrained by fear or mere authority on the part of any one. He would look at her in a sort of speechless wonder and ask himself if she were the child to whom he had supposed himself infallible so many years. His wife kept on the even tenor of her way more unswervingly than any one on the place. She was as incapable of Dr. Ackley's fine sentiment as she was of her nephew's ungovernable passion. She neither hoped nor tried to comprehend the "perversity" of her niece, yet, in the perplexed conditions of the time, she filled a most important and useful niche. Since the wounded men were to be fed, she became an admirable commissary general, preventing waste and exacting good wholesome cookery on the part of Aun' Suke and her assistants.

Poor Yarry was buried quietly at last, Miss Lou, with Dr. Borden, Captain Hanfield and two or three of his comrades standing reverently by the grave while Uncle Lusthah offered his simple prayer. Then the girl threw upon the mound some flowers she had gathered and returned to her duties as nurse. The remains of the old Confederate colonel were sent to his family, with the letter which Miss Lou had written for him. Every day the numbers in the hospital diminished, either by death or by removal of the stronger patients to the distant railroad town. Those sent away in ambulances and other vehicles impressed into the service were looked after by Surgeon Ackley with official thoroughness and phlegm; in much the same spirit and manner Dr. Williams presided over the departure of others to the bourne from which none return, then buried them with all proper observance. Uncle Lusthah carried around by a sort of stealth his pearl of simple, vital, hope-inspiring faith, and he found more than one ready to give their all for it. The old man pointed directly to Him who "taketh away the sin of the world," then stood aside that dying eyes might look. With the best intentions Dr. Williams, with his religious formulas, got directly in the way, bewildering weak minds with a creed.

Mrs. Whately and her son went and came from their plantation and were troubled over the condition of things there. The slaves were in a state of sullen, smouldering rebellion and several of them had disappeared. "I fear Madison has been too arbitrary," she admitted to her brother.

Mr. Baron shrugged his shoulders and smoked in silence. Perhaps his preposterous niece had not been so crazy after all.

Between Maynard and Whately there were increasing evidences of trouble, which the mother of the latter did her best to avert by remonstrances and entreaty. On one occasion Whately had said a little irritably, "I say, Dr. Ackley, what's the use of Maynard's hanging around here? He is almost well enough for duty."

"It is chiefly out of consideration for you that I am keeping him," replied the surgeon gravely, in well-concealed mischief. "It is clear that he has entered the lists with you for your cousin's hand, and I could not further his suit better than by sending him away, especially if it were suspected that I did so at your instigation. He is doing well here, good-naturedly helps me in my writing and can soon go direct to his regiment. It seems to me that your cousin holds a pretty even balance between you, and all a man should want is a fair field."

Whately walked frowningly away, more than ever convinced that the surgeon was too good a friend of his rival to interfere.

At the close of the fourth day after the battle there was an arrival at The Oaks that greatly interested Miss Lou--a stately, white- haired old lady, the mother of Lieutenant Waldo. She was very pale and it would have been hard for Surgeon Ackley to meet her agonized look, her shrinking as if from a blow, were he unable to hold out any hope.

"Mrs. Waldo," he said gravely, "your son is living and there's a chance of his getting well. His cheerfulness and absolute quiet of mind may save him. If he had fretted or desponded he would have died before this."

"Yes," replied his mother with a great sigh of relief, "I know."

"Miss Baron, will you kindly prepare Waldo for his mother's visit? Meanwhile, I will tell her a little about his case and our management of it. He doesn't know that I sent for you, for I was not sure you could come."

"Is this Miss Baron and one of my son's nurses?"

"Yes, and doing more for him than I--giving him all the bovine nectar and honeyed words he can take."

"God bless you, my dear. Please let me kiss you."

When Miss Lou entered Waldo's tent he whispered with a laugh, "It's four hours since you were here."

"No, scarcely two."

"Well, I'm as hungry as if it were four hours."

"That's fine. You're getting right well. Will you be very good and quiet--not a bit excited, if I let some one else bring you your supper?"

She beamed upon him so joyously that he exclaimed aloud, with a rush of tears, "Ah! mother?"

The girl nodded and said, "Now remember, don't break her heart by being worse."

"Oh, how sweet and lovely of her! I'll get well now, sure."

"That's a nice way to treat your old nurse."

Smilingly he held out his hand and said, "You are almost as pretty and good as she is, but you aren't mother." Then he added in strong sympathy, "Forgive me. You haven't any, have you? You don't know about this mother love."

"I know enough about it to have the heartache for its lack. Now you must save your strength till she comes. Good-by."

From that hour he steadily gained, banishing the look of anxiety from his mother's face. Mrs. Whately sighed as she saw how her niece's heart warmed toward the stranger, and how strong an attachment was growing between them. "Louise is drifting away from us all," she thought, "yet I cannot see that she encourages Captain Maynard."

A genuine friendship had also grown between the girl and Captain Hanfield, the Federal officer, and she was heartily sorry when he told her that he would be sent to the railroad town the next day. "My wound isn't doing well and I seem to be running down," he explained. "Dr. Borden has been able to keep me thus far, but I must go to-morrow. Perhaps it's best. He is trying to get me paroled. If I could only get home to my wife and children I'd rally fast enough. I'm all run down and this climate is enervating to me."

She tried to hearten him by kind, hopeful words, and he listened to her with a wistful look on his handsome face. "How I'd like you to meet my little girl!" he said. "Won't I make her blue eyes open when I tell her about you!"

Another bond of union between them was the captain's acquaintance with Scoville, and he soon observed that she listened very patiently and attentively when he spoke of the brave scout's exploits. "I declare," he had said, laughing, "I keep forgetting that you are a Southern girl and that you may not enjoy hearing of the successes of so active an enemy."

"Lieutenant Scoville is not a personal enemy," she had replied guardedly. "He showed us all very great kindness, me especially. I wish that both you and he were on our side."

"Well, as you say down here, I reckon we are on YOUR side any way," had been the captain's smiling reply.

She spoke to Surgeon Ackley promptly about the prospects of a parole, but he said, "Impossible, Miss Baron. The question would at once arise, 'If granted to Hanfield, why not to others?' I reckon Borden has been trying to rally his friend by hopes even when knowing them baseless."

This proved to be the case, and the following day brought the young girl a strange and very sad experience. Dr. Borden appeared at breakfast looking troubled and perplexed. Miss Lou immediately inquired about the captain. The doctor shook his head saying, "He isn't so well. I'd like to speak with you by and by."

She was so depressed by the surgeon's aspect that she paid little heed to the conversation of her two admirers and soon left the table. Borden followed her, and when they were alone began sadly, "Miss Baron, perhaps I am going to ask of you far too much, but you have shown yourself to be an unusually brave girl as well as a kind- hearted one, Hanfield is an old friend of mine and perhaps I've done wrong to mislead him. But I didn't and couldn't foresee what has happened, and I did hope to start him in genuine convalescence, feeling sure that if he got well he would give up the hope of going home as a matter of course. So far from succeeding, a fatal disease has set in--tetanus, lock-jaw. He's dying and doesn't know it. I can't tell him. I've made the truth doubly cruel, for I've raised false hopes. He continually talks of home and his pleading eyes stab me. You can soften the blow to him, soothe and sustain him in meeting what is sure to come."

"Oh, is there no hope?"

"None at all. He can't live. If you feel that the ordeal would be too painful--I wouldn't ask it if I hadn't seen in you unexpected qualities."

"Oh, I must help him bear it; yet how can I? how shall I?"

"Well, I guess your heart and sympathy will guide you. I can't. I can only say you had better tell him the whole truth. He ought to know it for his own and family's sake now, while perfectly rational. Soften the truth as you can, but you can't injure him by telling it plainly, for he will die. God knows, were it my case, the tidings wouldn't seem so very terrible if told by a girl like you."

"Oh, but the tidings are so terrible to speak, especially to such a man. Think of his beautiful wife and daughter, of his never seeing them again. Oh, it's just awful," and her face grew white at the prospect.

"Yes, Miss Baron, it is. In the midst of all the blood and carnage of the war, every now and then a case comes up which makes even my calloused heart admit, 'It's just awful.' I'm only seeking to make it less awful to my poor friend, and perhaps at too great cost to you."

"Well, he on his side, and others on ours, didn't count the cost; neither must I. I must not think about it or my heart will fail me. I will go at once."

"Come then, and God help you and him."

A straw-bed had been made up in a large, airy box-stall where the captain could be by himself. Uncle Lusthah was in attendance and he had just brought a bowl of milk.

Borden had left Miss Lou to enter alone. The captain held out his hand and said cheerfully, "Well, it's an ill wind that blows nowhere. This one will blow me home all the sooner I trust, for it must be plainer now than ever that I need the home change which will put me on my feet again. You needn't look so serious. I feel only a little more poorly than I did--sore throat and a queer kind of stiffness in my jaws as if I had taken cold in them."

"Do I look very serious?" she faltered.

"Yes, you look as if troubled about something. But there, see what an egotistic fellow I am! As if you hadn't troubles of your own! pretty deep ones, too, I fear. Our coming here has given you a wonderful experience, Miss Baron. No matter; you've met it like a soldier and will have much to remember in after years. You can never become a commonplace woman now and there are such a lot of 'em in the world. When I remember all you have done for us it makes me ill to think of some in our town--giggling, silly little flirts, with no higher ambition than to strut down the street in a new dress."

"Oh, don't think of them or over-praise me. Perhaps if they had been here and compelled to face things they would have done better than I. A short time ago I didn't dream of these experiences, and then I would have said I couldn't possibly endure them."

"Well, you have," resumed the captain, who was slightly feverish, excited and inclined to talk. "One of my dearest hopes now is to get back to my little girl soon and deepen her mind by making her ashamed of the silly things in a girl's life. Of course I wish her to be joyous and happy as a young thing should be, as I think you would be if you had the chance. By means of your story I can make her ashamed ever to indulge in those picayune, contemptible feminine traits which exasperate men. I want her to be brave, helpful, sincere, like you, like her mother. How quickly poor Yarry recognized the spirit in which you came among us at first! Jove! I didn't think him capable of such feeling. I tell you, Miss Baron, the roughest of us reverence an unselfish woman--one who doesn't think of herself first and always. She mayn't be a saint, but if she has heart enough for sympathy and is brave and simple enough to bestow it just as a cool spring gushes from the ground, we feel she is the woman God meant her to be. Ah, uncle, that reminds me-- another cup of that cold water. For some reason I'm awfully thirsty this morning."

Miss Lou listened with hands nervously clasping and unclasping, utterly at a loss to know how to tell the man, dreaming of home and planning for the future, that he must soon sleep beside poor Yarry. She had already taken to herself the mournful comfort that his grave also should be where she could care for it and keep it green.

"I wish to tell you more about my little Sadie and my wife. Some day, when this miserable war is over, you will visit us. We'll give you a reception then which may turn even your head. Ha! ha! you thought we'd be worse than Indians. Well, I'll show you a lot of our squaws in full evening dress and you'll own that my wife is the prettiest in the tribe. Every day, until we started on this blasted raid, I received a letter from her. I knew about as well what was going on at home as if there. With my wife it was love almost at first sight, but I can tell you that it's not 'out of sight out of mind' with us. Time merely adds to the pure, bright flame, and such a pair of lovers as we shall be when gray as badgers will be worth a journey to you."

Miss Lou could maintain her self-control no longer. She burst into tears and sobbed helplessly.

"You poor little girl," exclaimed the captain in deep commiseration. "Here I've been talking like a garrulous fool when your heart is burdened with some trouble that perhaps you would like to speak to me about. Tell me, my child, just as little Sadie would."

"My heart is burdened with trouble, captain; it feels as if it would break when I hear you talk so. Would to God little Sadie were here, and your beautiful wife too! Oh, what shall I say? How can I, how can I?"

"Miss Baron!" he exclaimed, looking at her in vague alarm.

"Oh, Captain Hanfield, you are a brave, unselfish man like Yarry. Don't make it too hard for me. Oh, I feel as if I could scarcely breathe."

As he saw her almost panting at his side and tears streaming from her eyes, the truth began to dawn upon him. He looked at her steadily and silently for a moment, then reached out his hand as he said in an awed whisper, "Is it on account of me? Did Borden send you here?"

She took his hand, bowed her forehead upon it and wept speechlessly.

She felt it tremble for a moment, then it was withdrawn and placed on her bowed head. "So you are the angel of death to me?" the officer faltered.

Her tears were her only, yet sufficient answer. Both were silent, she not having the heart to look at him.

At last he said in deep tones, "I wasn't expecting this. It will make a great change in"--and then he was silent again.

She took his limp hand and bowed her forehead on it, as before feeling by some fine instinct that her unspoken sympathy was best.

It was. The brave man, in this last emergency, did as he would have done in the field at the head of his company if subjected to a sudden attack. He promptly rearranged and marshalled all his faculties to face the enemy. There was not a moment of despairing, vain retreat. In the strong pressure upon his mind of those questions which must now be settled once for all, he forgot the girl by his side. He was still so long that she timidly raised her head and was awed by his stern, fixed expression of deep abstraction. She did not disturb him except as the stifled sobs of her deep, yet now passing agitation convulsed her bosom, and she began to give her attention to Uncle Lusthah, hitherto unheeded. The old man was on his knees in a dusky corner, praying in low tones. "Oh, I'm so glad he's here," she thought. "I'm glad he's praying God to help us both." In the uncalculating sympathy and strength of her nature she had unconsciously entered into the dying man's experience and was suffering with him. Indeed, her heart sank with a deeper dread and awe than he from the great change which he had faced so often as to be familiar with its thought.

At last he seemed to waken to her presence and said compassionately, "Poor little girl! so all your grief was about me. How pale you are!"

"I do so wish you could go home," she breathed; "I am so very, VERY sorry."

"Well, Miss Baron," he replied with dignity, "I'm no better than thousands of others. I always knew this might happen any day. You have learned why it is peculiarly hard for me--but that's not to be thought of now. If I've got my marching orders, that's enough for a soldier. It was scarcely right in Borden to give you this heavy task. I could have faced the truth from his lips."

"He felt so dreadfully about it," she replied. "He said he had been giving you false hopes in trying to make you get well."

"Oh, yes, he meant kindly. Well, if it hasn't been too much for you, I'm glad you told me. Your sympathy, your face, will be a sweet memory to carry, G--od only knows where. Since it can't be little Sadie's face or my wife's I'm glad it's yours. What am I saying? as if I should forget their dear faces through all eternity."

"Ah! captain, I wish you could hear one of our soldiers, talk. Dying with him just means going to Heaven."

The officer shook his head. "I'm not a Christian," he said simply.

"Neither am I," she replied, "but I've been made to feel that being one is very different from what I once thought it was."

"Well, Miss Baron, what is it to be a Christian--what is your idea of it? There has always seemed to me such a lot of conflicting things to be considered--well, well, I haven't given the subject thought and it's too late now. I must give my mind to my family and--"

Uncle Lusthah stepped before him with clasped hands and quivering lips. "Ef marse cap'n des list'n ter de ole man a minit. I ain't gwine ter talk big en long. I kyant. I des wanter say I hab 'spearance. Dat sump'n, marse cap'n, you kyant say not'n agin-- rale 'spearance, sump'n I KNOWS."

"Well, you kind old soul, what do you know?"

"P'raps des what mars'r knows ef he ony tinks a lil. Let us git right down ter de root ob de marter, kaze I feared dere ain' time fer 'locutions."

"Now you're right at least, uncle. I must set my house in order. I must write to my wife."

"Marse cap'n, you gwine on a journey. Wa't yo' wife wish mo'n dat you git ready fer de journey? She tek dat journey too, bime by soon, en you bof be at de same deah home."

"Ah, uncle, if that could be true, the sting of death would be gone."

"Sut'ny, marse cap'n. Didn't I know dat ar w'en I mek bole ter speak? Now des tink on hit, mars'r. Yere I is, an ole ign'rant slabe, kyant eben read de good Book. De worl' full ob poor folks lak me. Does you tink ef de Lawd mean ter sabe us't all He'd do hit in some long rounerbout way dat de wise people kyant mos' fin' out? No, bress He gret big heart, He des stan' up en say to all, 'Come ter me en I gib you res'."

"Yes, uncle, but I haven't gone to Him. I don't know how to go, and what's more, I don't feel it's right to go now at the last minute as if driven by fear."

"Now, cap'n, fergib de ole man fer sayin' you all wrong. Haint young mistis been breakin' her lil gyurlish heart ober yo' trouble? Am de Lawd dat die fer us wuss'n a graven himage? Doan He feel fer you mo'n we kin? I reck'n you got des de bes' kin' of prep'ration ter go ter 'Im. You got trouble. How He act toward folks dat hab trouble-- ev'y kin' ob trouble? Marse cap'n, I des KNOWS dat de Lawd wanter brung you en yo' wife en dat lil Sadie I year you talk 'bout all togeder whar He is. I des KNOWS hit. Hit's 'spearance."

"Miss Baron," said the captain calmly, "Isn't it wonderful? This old slave says he knows what, if true, is worth more to me than all the accumulated wisdom of the world. What do you think of it?"

"It seems as if it ought to be true," she answered earnestly. "I never so felt before that it OUGHT to be true. We never should have been born, or given such love as you have for your dear ones, if it isn't true. Oh, to be just snatched hopelessly away from such ties is horrible. My whole soul revolts at it."

"See here, uncle," said the captain almost sternly, "I'm not going to groan, sigh, weep, and take on in any of your camp-meeting tactics. I am before the last great enemy and I know how to meet him like a man and soldier, if not a Christian. I'm willing to do anything not insincere or unmanly to meet my wife and children again. If my thought and feeling for them at this time isn't right, then I've been created wrong."

"Marse cap'n, I'se seen de mos' po'ful feelin's en miseries ob de 'victed ones vaperate lak de maunin' dew en I'se larn in my ole age dat de sabin po'r ain' in we uns, ner in any ting we is ob oursefs ner in w'at we po' lil chil'n of yearth kin do. De Lawd say, He come ter seek en sabe de loss; I wuz loss. De wuss ting He enemies cud speak agin 'Im wuz, Dis man 'ceiveth sinners: I wuz a sinner. I des arst 'Im ter sabe me, en He did. I des trus' 'Im fer life en death en does de bes' I kin. Dat's all. But hit's 'SPEARANCE, marse cap'n, en I KNOWS hit. Now, marse cap'n, w'at fo' you go way in the de dark, you dunno whar? De bressed Lawd say, I go ter prepare a place fer you. Now you des let young mistis write ter yo' folks dat you gwine wid Jesus ter dat ar place en dat you gwine ter wait fer dem dar en welcome urn home bime by des lak dey wud welcome you home way up Norf. Dat ud comf't em a heap, en hit's all true. I knows hit. Young mistis berry sens'ble w'en she say we neber orter be bawn ef hit ain' true."

The officer looked fixedly at the tearful, wrinkled face for a few moments and then said firmly, "I'll soon find out if it's true. If I do this thing at all, I'll do it in the only way I can. Miss Baron, you may write to my wife that I accept her faith. It's much the same as Uncle Lusthah's--too simple and unphilosophical, I used to think; but it meets my need now. I can't deal even with God in any other way than this. The mind he has endowed me with revolts at anything else as hypocritical. I can and do say that I will accept in grateful, downright sincerity the terms which Uncle Lusthah accepted, which my wife accepted. I submit myself to His will. I do this calmly, as I would give my hand and pledge my faith to a man, and I cannot do any more. Now He may do with me as He pleases. Miss Baron, you do the same and you'll be just as good--yes, a much better Christian than I, for I've done rough, bad things in my life. Don't you wait till you're in my extremity. I must say that I have a wretched sense of self-contempt that I am looking Heavenward with dying eyes. There's only one thing that reconciles me to it--the words 'Our Father.' God knows that I'd open my arms to my little Sadie under any possible circumstances. What the old man here says must be true, for to trifle with or mock a man in my position presupposes a degree of malignity inconceivable. I ask nothing better than that Christ will receive me as I would receive my child from world-wide wandering."

"Ah, bress He big gret heart," cried Uncle Lusthah, dropping on his knees, "w'en yo' fader en yo' moder forsook you den de Lawd took you up."

"Miss Baron, I wish to think a while and learn from Borden just how much time I have left. You will come to me again?"

"Yes, whenever you wish."

"Well, then, good-by for a short time. Thank God for sending me such an angel of death. You stay with me, uncle, till I send you for Borden." _

Read next: Chapter 30. Glimpses Of Moods And Minds

Read previous: Chapter 28. Truth If The Heavens Fall

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