The Fanatics/Chapter 16
CHAPTER XVI
DOLLY AND WALTER
Down there in Virginia, where Walter had now settled into staying with a certain self-satisfaction, the tides of war flowed with vigor but did not reach and submerge the house where he kept the even tenor of his days. There wore, of course, midnight visits at times from the soldiers of both sides. But the place enjoyed a peculiar exemption from molestation by either Confederate or Unionist. To the one, it was the home of old Colonel Stewart, an ardent Southerner. To the others, it was the place of abode of a paroled Union prisoner. Walter's position was anomalous, and although he was forced into it, he felt keenly that he was playing a double rôle. He no longer yearned to be with the Northern forces, but would it not be foolish to proclaim his defection from the house tops? The Southern soldiers and his neighbors looked upon him as a Unionist chafing at restraint, and they laughed at him for a caged bantam. Had their surmises been true, he would have scorned their laughter, but as it was, it out him like a whip, because to his shame, what they laughed at, did not exist. Nor could he tell them this. They would have thought even less of him as a renegade who changed his allegiance and views under the stress of imprisonment.
Now and then, rather too frequently than he cared to own, he felt a thrill of envy for Nelson Etheridge, who had flung himself body and soul into the Union cause, and from whom he heard occasionally when he rode over to see Miss Etheridge, or when she and his sister Emily exchanged visits "Here's a man for you," he would say to himself. "One who has not only dared, but continues to dare, one who, placed as I am placed, would feel the galling bonds of his restraint and do something besides feel ridiculously comfortable."
Perhaps it was because he was so young—and youth takes itself seriously, being in its own eyes either God or devil, hero or craven—that Walter was so hard upon his own failings. Sometimes, however, the truth that his position was not of his own seeking, forced itself upon his mind. But unwilling to accept this excuse, he questioned himself if he were not glad that things had turned out as they had. To this he must answer yes, and so he fell again to cursing his own complacency.
It is not to be supposed, however, that he lived constantly in a state of self-condemnation. Other moods were frequent and lasting. It took him a very short time to fall into the ways of a gentleman farmer, and he took a boyish pleasure in directing the work of the negroes about the place. His moments of greatest happiness were when he was riding about the fields on some duty or other, and he would be joined by Emily or Miss Etheridge. But his greatest moments of depression would follow when he saw, or thought he saw, a question or a reproach in the girl's eyes.
Since his arrival at his father's house, he had come to see more and more of this radiant Southern beauty, and a frank friendship had grown up between them. Friendship, he called it, for cherishing in his heart the memory of his regard for Nannie, he did not dream that love could touch him. But slowly and reluctantly, he began to compare the image in his heart with the fair girl at his side and the image suffered. Finally, he began to say that Nannie had appealed strongly to his boyish fancy, while this woman reached his maturer manhood. In spite of his self-questionings, Walter failed to see the humor implied in the fact that without any great moral, mental or spiritual cataclysm, this maturer manhood had come to him in a very short time after he had looked into Dolly's grey eyes.
She often rallied him about their first romantic meeting, and she would laugh the most musical of laughs as he told her about his trepidation as he approached the house. When she forgot herself, and was merry among friends, she had the habit of falling into the soft-Southern manner of speech.
"It's right down mean," she said to Walter in one of her bantering moods, "that you didn't let a body know you were coming. I reckon you and my brother Nelson would have had a mighty nice time together, but you were entirely too startling."
"If I had known that I was going to find friends behind those doors," he bent his gaze tenderly upon her, "I should have acted differently, knocked easily, or roared me as gently as a sucking dove."
"Poor Nelson, I don't reckon many folks would have stayed on and dared capture like he did; but Nelson always was such a daring boy."
Walter winced. He thought he saw the question in her eyes, and something veiled in what she said.
Did she despise him after all, and only give him the semblance of friendship for his sister's sake? The thought made him miserable, although he never stopped to tell himself what logical reason there was for his being miserable, if the girl whom he had known but a few weeks did despise him.
"The Union has gained a gallant man in your brother," he said, because his head was in a tumult, and he could not say anything else. She did not recognize the commonplaceness of his remark, however. It was praise for her brother, and so, sublime.
"Oh, I wish you could have known him," she went on. "You'd have been sure to love him. Don't you know," she said, with a sudden impulse, "since I've known you, I've always thought of you and him in the same company, marching and fighting together. I don't care in what uniform, blue or grey. There, there, now," she added, gravely, "I've made you feel bad, but don't let's think of it. Yours is the fortune of war, just as whatever happens to him will be."
Walter was pale from forehead to lips and it was the knowledge of this that checked the girl with the belief that she had pained him by touching the subject of his detention.
"I'm afraid you're not a very good Unionist," said the young man somewhat recovering himself.
"I'm a woman, Mr. Stewart, and I reckon you're too young to know just what that implies. I'm in favor of the Union, because Nelson's fighting for it, and he wouldn't do anything that he didn't think was right. But I am a southern girl, and I love the South. Now what am I going to do? You don't know, though, for it's only women who let their affections run against principle."
He gave her a quick, suspicious glance. She was unconscious. He was on the rack.
"It isn't only women," he said.
"You only say that to be polite, and because it's so different with you, but I know better."
He rose quickly and on the plea of some obligation moved away, leaving her to Emily's company and conversation. The rest of the day was a trying time for Walter. It was now unmistakable. Dolly Etheridge had seen through him, had seen his weakness and his defection, and in her contempt for him delighted to stab him with her quiet sarcasm. What a thing he must be to call forth the girl's disgust. How she must look down upon him when she compared him with her brother, such a brother; and in fancy, he saw Nelson Etheridge sweeping the enemy before him to the huzzas of a great nation. Well, anyway, Dolly could not think less of him than he thought of himself.
He would rather not have seen her any more that night. But he had promised to go with Emily to take her home. He appeared at supper with the best grace possible, and when it was over, joined the girls for the ride in the moon- light. It would have been pleasant to him, this cantering by Dolly's side, with the moon, a silver globe above them, and the scent of magnolias coming sweetly to their senses, but that his mind was sadly busy with what she must be thinking of him. He kept a moody silence while the girls chattered on. Sometimes, even, in his desperation, he thought of violating his parole, but his face grew hot with shame, and the thought went as quickly as it came.
Dolly and Emily, because they both believed Walter immersed in sad thoughts, respected his silence, and when he had helped the girl alight at her door, and given the horse to a black servant aroused from somewhere, the former gave him her hand with a little sympathetic pressure that made his heart leap. But then, the next moment he was saying, "Bah, she is only sorry for having stabbed me so cruelly, but the reason for the stabbing remains."
As they turned their horses homeward again, Walter seemed in no better mood for talking than before. But the moonlight and the sweetness of the soft night seemed to have got into his sister's tongue. She drew her horse close to her brother's and laid her hand gently on his.
"I'm afraid you're not well, to-night, Walter. What's the matter?"
"Oh, nothing, nothing. I'm really very well."
"But you have been so silent, and I really believe Dolly expected you to talk to her."
"I hardly think she could have cared much, either one way or the other," he said bitterly.
"If you can say that, you know very little about Dolly, or in fact, about women at all. You must know that she likes you, and likes you very well."
"I don't believe it," said Walter doggedly, but something he did just at the moment to the horse he was riding, made her arch her neck and step out as daintily as a lady.
"But she does like you, and if she didn't, you would soon know it. She's very peculiar and as open as the day. She can never conceal her thoughts and feelings. Some people call it a fault, but I call it a virtue."
"One would think at times that she was sarcastic or spoke under a veil." He was making a great effort to be indifferent, but the bridle in his hand grew tense.
"Why, she's as innocent of such things as a child. How stupid you are, Walter. I never knew you to be so before, and I did so hope you would be good friends."
"Well, well, haven't we been?"
"It seemed so for awhile, but you were so different to-night."
"Was I? Did she notice it?" The question was eager.
"Being a woman, she could scarcely help noticing it."
"Well, I was thinking," he said lamely, and then burst out, "What a glorious night it is, and how sweet those magnolias are. I didn't notice it before. Why, Emily, it's good to be alive."
"One wouldn't have thought it of you a little while ago, you were so quiet and subdued."
"Oh, well, there are times when the beauty of a night sinks into our souls too deep for words." Walter winced in spirit at his own hypocrisy.
"There, I told Dolly that you felt more than you said."
"You told her that? She talks about me to you?"
"Oh sometimes you come up in the course of conversation."
"What a wonderful girl she is."
"You—do you think so?"
"That is, she shows a deep affection for her brother, which is commendable."
"Oh,—but—don't most sisters?"
"There are very few such sisters as I imagine Miss Etheridge and know you to be."
She forgave him instantly. "You dear old Walter."
"And you think she likes me?" It was sweet to him to say it after his bitter thoughts.
"I know she does, and you should have known it too."
"Her brother must be a fine fellow."
"You would like him, I know."
"Let's sit out and talk awhile. It's altogether too lovely to go in," said the young man, as they turned in at the gate.
"I shall like it," said Emily, and giving their horses to a groom, they sat down on the veranda steps. For a few moments there was a silence between them, and both sat gazing at the starry heavens. Then Walter said falteringly, "I—I—really—I am very much interested in Miss Etheridge's brother. Tell me more about him."
Then his sister laughed, not teasingly nor banteringly, as some sisters would have done, but with a little satisfied note, and she said, "Brother mine, there is only one thing more transparent than glass," and her brother caught her about the waist, and kissed her for some reason not quite clear to himself. So they sat together long that night and talked of the Etheridges, brother and sister.
In the young man, his fellow-soldier, Walter evinced a polite and conservative interest, but he was apt to bring the conversation back to the sister when it seemed to have a tendency to remain too long away from her. If he found no more pertinent remark to make, he would turn to Emily and say, "So you think she likes me?" and this was sufficient to start the stream of talk flowing in the proper channel.
When, finally, they sought their rooms that night, and the young man dropped asleep, there was a smile on his lips, and the words on his tongue, "She likes me, she likes me."