Ailsa Paige Part 59

To Berkley the sunset world had become only an infernal pit of scarlet strung with raw nerves. The terrible pain in his face and head almost made him lose consciousnesss. Later he seemed to be drifting into a lurid sea of darkness, where he no longer felt his saddle or the movement of his horse; he scarcely saw the lanterns cl.u.s.tering, scarcely heard the increasing murmur around him, the racket of picket firing, the noise of many bewildered men, the cries of staff-officers directing divisions and brigades to their camping ground, the confused tumult which grew nearer, nearer, mounting like the ominous clamour of the sea as the regiment rode through Azalea under the July stars.

He might have fallen from his saddle; or somebody perhaps lifted him, for all he knew. In the glare of torches he found himself lying on a moving stretcher. After that he felt straw under him; and vaguely wondered why it did not catch fire from his body, which surely now was but a ma.s.s of smouldering flame.

For days the fever wasted him-not entirely, for at intervals he heard cannon, and always the interminable picket firing; and he heard bugles, too, and recognised the various summons. But it was no use trying to obey them-no use trying to find his legs. He could not get up without his legs-he laughed weakly at the thought; then, drowsy, indifferent, decided that they had been shot away, but could not remember when; and it bothered him a good deal.

Other things bothered him; he was convinced that his mother was in the room. At intervals he was aware of Hallam's handsome face, cut out like a paper picture from Harper's Weekly and pasted flat on the tent wall. Also there were too many fire zouaves around his bed-if it was a bed, this vague vibrating hammock he occupied. It was much more like a hollow nook inside a gigantic pendulum which swung eternally to and fro until it swung him into senselessness-or aroused him with fierce struggles to escape. But his mother's slender hand sometimes arrested the maddening motion, or-and this was curiously restful-she cleverly transferred him to a cradle, which she rocked, leaning close over him. Only she kept him wrapped up too warmly.

And after a long while there came a day when his face became cooler, and his skin grew wet with sweat; and on that day he partly unclosed his eyes and saw Colonel Arran sitting beside him.

Surprised, he attempted to sit up, but not a muscle of his body obeyed him, and he lay there stupid, inert, hollow eyes fixed meaninglessly on his superior, who spoke cautiously.

"Berkley, do you know me?"

His lips twitched a voiceless affirmative.

Colonel Arran said: "You are going to get well, now... . Get well quickly, because-the regiment misses you... . What is it you desire to say? Make the effort if you wish."

Berkley's sunken eyes remained focussed on s.p.a.ce; he was trying to consider. Then they turned painfully toward Colonel Arran again.

"Ailsa Paige?" he whispered.

The other said quietly: "She is at the base hospital near Azalea. I have seen her. She is well... . I did not tell her you were ill. She could not have left anyway... . Matters are not going well with the army, Berkley."

"Whipped?" His lips barely formed the question.

Colonel Arran's careworn features flushed.

"The army has been withdrawing from the Peninsula. It is the commander-in-chief who has been defeated-not the Army of the Potomac."

"Back?"

"Yes, certainly we shall go back. This rebellion seems to be taking more time to extinguish than the people and the national authorities supposed it would require. But no man must doubt our ultimate success. I do not doubt it. I never shall. You must not. It will all come right in the end."

"Regiment?" whispered Berkley.

"The regiment is in better shape, Berkley. Our remounts have arrived; our wounded are under shelter, and comfortable. We need rest, and we're getting it here at Azalea, although they sh.e.l.l us every day. We ought to be in good trim in a couple of weeks. You'll be in the saddle long before that. Your squadron has become very proud of you; all the men in the regiment have inquired about you. Private Burgess spends his time off duty under the oak trees out yonder watching your window like a dog... . I-ah-may say to you, Berkley, that you-ah-have become a credit to the regiment. Personally-and as your commanding officer-I wish you to understand that I am gratified by your conduct. I have said so in my official reports."

Berkley's sunken eyes had reverted to the man beside him. After a moment his lips moved again in soundless inquiry.

Colonel Arran replied: "The Zouaves were very badly cut up; Major Lent was wounded by a sabre cut. He is nearly well now. Colonel Craig and his son were not hurt. The Zouaves are in cantonment about a mile to the rear. Both Colonel Craig and his son have been here to see you-" he hesitated, rose, stood a moment undecided.

"Mrs. Craig-the wife of Colonel Craig-has been here. Her plantation, Paigecourt, is in this vicinity I believe. She has requested the medical authorities to send you to her house for your convalescence. Do you wish to go?"

The hollow-eyed, heavily bandaged face looked up at him from the straw; and Colonel Arran looked down at it, lips aquiver.

"Berkley-if you go there, I shall not see you again until you return to the regiment. I-" suddenly his gray face began to twitch again-and he set his jaw savagely to control it.

"Good-bye," he said... "I wish-some day-you could try to think less harshly of me. I am a-very-lonely man."

Berkley closed his eyes, but whether from weakness or sullen resentment the older man could not know. He stood looking down wistfully at the boy for a moment, then turned and went heavily away with blurred eyes that did not recognise the woman in bonnet and light summer gown who was entering the hospital tent. As he stood aside to let her pa.s.s he heard his name p.r.o.nounced, in a cold, decisive voice; and, pa.s.sing his gloved hand across his eyes to clear them, recognised Celia Craig.

"Colonel Arran," she said coolly, "is it necessa'y fo' me to request yo' permission befo' I am allowed to move Philip Berkley to my own house?"

"No, madam. The brigade surgeon is in charge. But I think I can secure for you the necessary authority to do so if you wish."

She thanked him haughtily, and pa.s.sed on; and he turned and walked out, impa.s.sive, silent, a stoop to his ma.s.sive shoulders which had already become characteristic.

And that evening Berkley lay at Paigecourt in the chintz-hung chamber where, as a girl, his mother had often slept, dreaming the dreams that haunt young hearts when the jasmine fragrance grows heavier in the stillness and the magnolia's snowy chalice is offered to the moon, and the thrush sings in the river thickets, and the fire-fly's lamp drifts through the fairy woods.

Celia told him this on the third day, late in the afternoon-so late that the westering sun was already touching the crests of the oak woods, and all the thickets had turned softly purple like the bloom on a plum; the mounting scent of phlox from the garden was growing sweeter, and the bats fluttered and dipped and soared in the calm evening sky.

She had been talking of his mother when she was Constance Paige and wore a fillet over her dark ringlets and rode to hounds at ten with the hardest riders in all Prince Clarence County.

"And this was her own room, Phil; nothing in it has been moved, nothing changed; this is the same bird and garland chintz, matching the same wall-paper; this is the same old baid with its fo' ca'ved columns and its faded canopy, the same gilt mirror where she looked and saw reflected there the loveliest face in all the valley... . A child's face, Phil-even a child's face when she drew aside her bridal veil to look... . Ah-G.o.d-" She sighed, looking down at her clasped hands, "if youth but knew-if youth but knew!"

He lay silent, the interminable rattle of picket firing in his ears, his face turned toward the window. Through it he could see green gra.s.s, a magnolia in bloom, and a long flawless spray of Cherokee roses pendant from the gallery.

Celia sighed, waited for him to speak, sighed again, and picked up the Baltimore newspaper to resume her reading if he desired.

Searching the columns listlessly, she scanned the headings, glanced over the letter press in silence, then turned the crumpled page. Presently she frowned.

"Listen to this, Philip; they say that there is yellow fever among the Yankee troops in Louisiana. It would be like them to bring that horror into the Ca'linas and Virginia--"

He turned his head suddenly, partly rose from where he lay; and she caught her breath and bent swiftly over him, placing one hand on his arm and gently forcing him down upon the-pillow again.

"Fo'give me, dear," she faltered. "I forgot what I was reading--"

He said, thoughtfully: "Did you ever hear exactly how my mother died, Celia? ... But I know you never did... . And I think I had better tell you."

"She died in the fever camp at Silver Bayou, when you were a little lad," whispered Celia.

"No."

"Philip! What are you saying?"

"You don't know how my mother died," he said quietly.

"Phil, we had the papers-and the Governor of Louisiana wrote us himse'f--"

"I know what he wrote and what the papers published was not true. I'll tell you how she died. When I was old enough to take care of myself I went to Silver Bayou... . Many people in that town had died; some still survived. I found the parish records. I found one of the camp doctors who remembered that accursed year of plague-an old man, withered, indifferent, sleeping his days away on the rotting gallery of his tumble-down house. He knew... . And I found some of the militia still surviving; and one among them retained a confused memory of my mother-among the horrors of that poisonous year--"

He lay silent, considering; then: "I was old enough to remember, but not old enough to understand what I understood later... . Do you want to know how my mother died?"

Celia's lips moved in amazed a.s.sent.

"Then I will tell you... . They had guards north, east, and west of us. They had gone mad with fright; the whole land was quarantined against us; musket, flintlock, shotgun, faced us through the smoke of their burning turpentine. I was only a little lad, but the horror of it I have never forgotten, nor my mother's terror-not for herself, for me."

He lay on his side, thin hands clasped, looking not at Celia but beyond her at the dreadful scene his fancy was painting on the wall of his mother's room: