Clarence

“Well, I ain’t purtendin’ to any stratutegical smartness, and I didn’t gradooate at West Point as one of those Apocryphal Engineers; I don’t do much talking about ‘flank’ movements or ‘recognizances in force’ or ‘Ekellon skirmishing,’ but when it comes down to square Ingin fightin’, I reckon I kin have my say. There are men who don’t know the Army Contractor,” he added darkly, “who mebbe have heard of ‘Red Jim.’ I don’t mention names, gentlemen, but only the other day a man that you all know says to me, ‘If I only knew what you do about scoutin’ I wouldn’t be wanting for information as I do.’ I ain’t goin’ to say who it was, or break any confidences between gentlemen by saying how many stars he had on his shoulder strap; but he was a man who knew what he was saying. And I say agin, gentlemen, that the curse of the Northern Army is the want of proper scoutin’. What was it caused Bull’s Run?—Want o’ scoutin’. What was it rolled up Pope?—Want o’ scoutin’. What caused the slaughter at the Wilderness?—Want o’ scoutin’—Ingin scoutin’! Why, only the other day, gentlemen, I was approached to know what I’d take to organize a scoutin’ force. And what did I say?—‘No, General; it ain’t because I represent one of the largest Army Beef Contracts in this country,’ says I. ‘It ain’t because I belong, so to speak, to the “Sinews of War;” but because I’d want about ten thousand trained Ingins from the Reservations!’ And the regular West Point, high-toned, scientific inkybus that weighs so heavily on our army don’t see it—and won’t have it! Then Sherman, he sez to me”—

But here a roar of laughter interrupted him, and in the cross fire of sarcastic interrogations that began Brant saw, with relief, a chance of escape. For in the voice, manner, and, above all, the characteristic temperament of the stranger, he had recognized his old playmate and the husband of Susy,—the redoubtable Jim Hooker! There was no mistaking that gloomy audacity; that mysterious significance; that magnificent lying. But even at that moment Clarence Brant’s heart had gone out, with all his old loyalty of feeling, towards his old companion. He knew that a public recognition of him then and there would plunge Hooker into confusion; he felt keenly the ironical plaudits and laughter of his officers over the manifest weakness and vanity of the ex-teamster, ex-rancher, ex-actor, and husband of his old girl sweetheart, and would have spared him the knowledge that he had overheard it. Turning hastily to the orderly, he bade him bring the stranger to his headquarters, and rode away unperceived.

He had heard enough, however, to account for his presence there, and the singular chance that had brought them again together. He was evidently one of those large civil contractors of supplies whom the Government was obliged to employ, who visited the camp half officially, and whom the army alternately depended upon and abused. Brant had dealt with his underlings in the Commissariat, and even now remembered that he had heard he was coming, but had overlooked the significance of his name. But how he came to leave his theatrical profession, how he had attained a position which implied a command of considerable capital—for many of the contractors had already amassed large fortunes—and what had become of Susy and her ambitions in this radical change of circumstances, were things still to be learned. In his own changed conditions he had seldom thought of her; it was with a strange feeling of irritation and half responsibility that he now recalled their last interview and the emotion to which he had yielded.

He had not long to wait. He had scarcely regained the quarters at his own private office before he heard the step of the orderly upon the veranda and the trailing clank of Hooker’s sabre. He did not know, however, that Hooker, without recognizing his name, had received the message as a personal tribute, and had left his sarcastic companions triumphantly, with the air of going to a confidential interview, to which his well-known military criticism had entitled him. It was with a bearing of gloomy importance and his characteristic, sullen, sidelong glance that he entered the apartment and did not look up until Brant had signaled the orderly to withdraw, and closed the door behind him. And then he recognized his old boyish companion—the preferred favorite of fortune!

For a moment he gasped with astonishment. For a moment gloomy incredulity, suspicion, delight, pride, admiration, even affection, struggled for mastery in his sullen, staring eyes and open, twitching mouth. For here was Clarence Brant, handsomer than ever, more superior than ever, in the majesty of uniform and authority which fitted him—the younger man—by reason of his four years of active service, with the careless ease and bearing of the veteran! Here was the hero whose name was already so famous that the mere coincidence of it with that of the modest civilian he had known would have struck him as preposterous. Yet here he was—supreme, and dazzling—surrounded by the pomp and circumstance of war—into whose reserved presence he, Jim Hooker, had been ushered with the formality of challenge, saluting, and presented bayonets!

Luckily, Brant had taken advantage of his first gratified ejaculation to shake him warmly by the hand, and then, with both hands laid familiarly on his shoulder, force him down into a chair. Luckily, for by that time Jim Hooker had, with characteristic gloominess, found time to taste the pangs of envy—an envy the more keen since, in spite of his success as a peaceful contractor, he had always secretly longed for military display and distinction. He looked at the man who had achieved it, as he firmly believed, by sheer luck and accident, and his eyes darkened. Then, with characteristic weakness and vanity, he began to resist his first impressions of Clarence’s superiority, and to air his own importance. He leaned heavily back in the chair in which he had been thus genially forced, drew off his gauntlet and attempted to thrust it through his belt, as he had seen Brant do, but failed on account of his pistols already occupying that position, dropped it, got his sword between his legs in attempting to pick it up, and then leaned back again, with half-closed eyes serenely indifferent of his old companion’s smiling face.

“I reckon,” he began slowly, with a slightly patronizing air, “that we’d have met, sooner or later, at Washington, or at Grant’s headquarters, for Hooker, Meacham & Co. go everywhere, and are about as well known as major-generals, to say nothin’,” he went on, with a sidelong glance at Brant’s shoulder-straps, “of brigadiers; and it’s rather strange—only, of course, you’re kind of fresh in the service—that you ain’t heard of me afore.”

“But I’m very glad to hear of you now, Jim,” said Brant, smiling, “and from your own lips—which I am also delighted to find,” he added mischievously, “are still as frankly communicative on that topic as of old. But I congratulate you, old fellow, on your good fortune. When did you leave the stage?”

Mr. Hooker frowned slightly.

“I never was really on the stage, you know,” he said, waving his hand with assumed negligence. “Only went on to please my wife. Mrs. Hooker wouldn’t act with vulgar professionals, don’t you see! I was really manager most of the time, and lessee of the theatre. Went East when the war broke out, to offer my sword and knowledge of Ingin fightin’ to Uncle Sam! Drifted into a big pork contract at St. Louis, with Fremont. Been at it ever since. Offered a commission in the reg’lar service lots o’ times. Refused.”

“Why?” asked Brant demurely.

“Too much West Point starch around to suit ME,” returned Hooker darkly. “And too many spies!”

“Spies?” echoed Brant abstractedly, with a momentary reminiscence of Miss Faulkner.

“Yes, spies,” continued Hooker, with dogged mystery. “One half of Washington is watching t’other half, and, from the President’s wife down, most of the women are secesh!”

Brant suddenly fixed his keen eyes on his guest. But the next moment he reflected that this was only Jim Hooker’s usual speech, and possessed no ulterior significance. He smiled again, and said, more gently,—

“And how is Mrs. Hooker?”

Mr. Hooker fixed his eyes on the ceiling, rose, and pretended to look out of the window; then, taking his seat again by the table, as if fronting an imaginary audience, and pulling slowly at his gauntlets after the usual theatrical indication of perfect sangfroid, said,—

“There ain’t any!”

“Good heavens!” said Brant, with genuine emotion. “I beg your pardon. Really, I”—

“Mrs. Hooker and me are divorced,” continued Hooker, slightly changing his attitude, and leaning heavily on his sabre, with his eyes still on his fanciful audience. “There was, you understand”—lightly tossing his gauntlet aside—“incompatibility of temper—and—we—parted! Ha!”

He uttered a low, bitter, scornful laugh, which, however, produced the distinct impression in Brant’s mind that up to that moment he had never had the slightest feeling in the matter whatever.

“You seemed to be on such good terms with each other!” murmured Brant vaguely.

“Seemed!” said Hooker bitterly, glancing sardonically at an ideal second row in the pit before him, “yes—seemed! There were other differences, social and political. You understand that; you have suffered, too.” He reached out his hand and pressed Brant’s, in heavy effusiveness. “But,” he continued haughtily, lightly tossing his glove again, “we are also men of the world; we let that pass.”

And it was possible that he found the strain of his present attitude too great, for he changed to an easier position.

“But,” said Brant curiously, “I always thought that Mrs. Hooker was intensely Union and Northern?”

“Put on!” said Hooker, in his natural voice.

“But you remember the incident of the flag?” persisted Brant.

“Mrs. Hooker was always an actress,” said Hooker significantly. “But,” he added cheerfully, “Mrs. Hooker is now the wife of Senator Boompointer, one of the wealthiest and most powerful Republicans in Washington—carries the patronage of the whole West in his vest pocket.”

“Yet, if she is not a Republican, why did she”—began Brant.

“For a purpose,” replied Hooker darkly. “But,” he added again, with greater cheerfulness, “she belongs to the very elite of Washington society. Goes to all the foreign ambassadors’ balls, and is a power at the White House. Her picture is in all the first-class illustrated papers.”

The singular but unmistakable pride of the man in the importance of the wife from whom he was divorced, and for whom he did not care, would have offended Brant’s delicacy, or at least have excited his ridicule, but for the reason that he was more deeply stung by Hooker’s allusion to his own wife and his degrading similitude of their two conditions. But he dismissed the former as part of Hooker’s invincible and still boyish extravagance, and the latter as part of his equally characteristic assumption. Perhaps he was conscious, too, notwithstanding the lapse of years and the condonation of separation and forgetfulness, that he deserved little delicacy from the hands of Susy’s husband. Nevertheless, he dreaded to hear him speak again of her; and the fear was realized in a question.

“Does she know you are here?”

“Who?” said Brant curtly.

“Your wife. That is—I reckon she’s your wife still, eh?”

“Yes; but I do not know what she knows,” returned Brant quietly. He had regained his self-composure.

“Susy,—Mrs. Senator Boompointer, that is,”—said Hooker, with an apparent dignity in his late wife’s new title, “allowed that she’d gone abroad on a secret mission from the Southern Confederacy to them crowned heads over there. She was good at ropin’ men in, you know. Anyhow, Susy, afore she was Mrs. Boompointer, was dead set on findin’ out where she was, but never could. She seemed to drop out of sight a year ago. Some said one thing, and some said another. But you can bet your bottom dollar that Mrs. Senator Boompointer, who knows how to pull all the wires in Washington, will know, if any one does.”

“But is Mrs. Boompointer really disaffected, and a Southern sympathizer?” said Brant, “or is it only caprice or fashion?”

While speaking he had risen, with a half-abstracted face, and had gone to the window, where he stood in a listening attitude. Presently he opened the window, and stepped outside. Hooker wonderingly followed him. One or two officers had already stepped out of their rooms, and were standing upon the veranda; another had halted in the path. Then one quickly re-entered the house, reappeared with his cap and sword in his hand, and ran lightly toward the guard-house. A slight crackling noise seemed to come from beyond the garden wall.

“What’s up?” said Hooker, with staring eyes.

“Picket firing!”

The crackling suddenly became a long rattle. Brant re-entered the room, and picked up his hat.

“You’ll excuse me for a few moments.”

A faint sound, soft yet full, and not unlike a bursting bubble, made the house appear to leap elastically, like the rebound of a rubber ball.

“What’s that?” gasped Hooker.

“Cannon, out of range!”

CHAPTER V

In another instant bugles were ringing through the camp, with the hurrying hoofs of mounted officers and the trampling of forming men. The house itself was almost deserted. Although the single cannon-shot had been enough to show that it was no mere skirmishing of pickets, Brant still did not believe in any serious attack of the enemy. His position, as in the previous engagement, had no strategic importance to them; they were no doubt only making a feint against it to conceal some advance upon the centre of the army two miles away. Satisfied that he was in easy supporting distance of his division commander, he extended his line along the ridge, ready to fall back in that direction, while retarding their advance and masking the position of his own chief. He gave a few orders necessary to the probable abandonment of the house, and then returned to it. Shot and shell were already dropping in the field below. A thin ridge of blue haze showed the line of skirmish fire. A small conical, white cloud, like a bursting cotton-pod, revealed an open battery in the willow-fringed meadow. Yet the pastoral peacefulness of the house was unchanged. The afternoon sun lay softly on its deep verandas; the pot pourri incense of fallen rose-leaves haunted it still.

He entered his room through the French window on the veranda, when the door leading from the passage was suddenly flung open, and Miss Faulkner swept quickly inside, closed the door behind her, and leaned back against it, panting and breathless.

Clarence was startled, and for a moment ashamed. He had suddenly realized that in the excitement he had entirely forgotten her and the dangers to which she might be exposed. She had probably heard the firing, her womanly fears had been awakened; she had come to him for protection. But as he turned towards her with a reassuring smile, he was shocked to see that her agitation and pallor were far beyond any physical cause. She motioned him desperately to shut the window by which he had entered, and said, with white lips,—

“I must speak with you alone!”