With Lee in Virginia: a story of the American Civil War Part 28

Having engaged a room and indulged in a thorough wash Vincent sallied out into the little town, and was fortunate enough to succeed in purchasing a suit of tweed clothes, which, although they scarcely fitted him as if they had been made for him, were still an immense improvement upon the rough clothes in which he had traveled. Returning to the hotel he put on his new purchases, and then walked to the house of Lucy's aunts, which was a quarter of a mile outside the town.

Lucy had walked up the little path through the garden in front of the house, and turning the handle of the door had entered unannounced and walked straight into the parlor. Two elderly ladies rose with some surprise at the entry of a strange visitor. It was three years since she had paid her last visit there, and for a moment they did not recognize her.

"Don't you know me, aunts?"

"Why, goodness me!" the eldest exclaimed, "if it isn't our little Lucy grown into a woman! My dear child, where have you sprung from?" And the two ladies warmly embraced their niece, who, as soon as they released her from their arms, burst into a fit of crying, and it was some time before she could answer the questions showered upon her.

"It is nothing, aunts," she said at last, wiping her eyes; "but I am so glad to be with you again, and I have gone through so much, and I am so happy, and it is so nice being with you again. Here is Chloe waiting to speak to you, aunts. She has come with me all the way."

The old negress, who had been waiting in the pa.s.sage, was now called in.

"Why, Chloe, you look no older than when you went away from here six years ago," Miss Kingston said. "But how ever did you both get through the lines? We have been terribly anxious about you. Your brother was here only a fortnight ago, and he and your father were in a great way about you, and reproached themselves bitterly that they did not send you to us before the troubles began, which certainly would have been a wiser step, as I told them. Of course your brother said that when they left you to join the army they had no idea that matters were going so far, or that the Yankees would drive us out of Tennessee, or they would never have dreamed of leaving you alone. However, here you are, so now tell me all about it."

Lucy told the story of the various visits of the Federal bushwhackers to the house, and how they had narrowly escaped death for refusing to betray the Confederate officer who had come to the house for food. Her recital was frequently interrupted by exclamations of indignation and pity from her aunts.

"Well, aunts, after that," she went on, "you see it was impossible for me to stop there any longer. No doubt they came back again a few hours afterward and burned the house, and had I been found there I should have been sure to be burned in it, so Chloe agreed with me that there was nothing to do but to try and get through the lines and come to you. There was no way of my getting my living at Nashville except by going out as a help, and there might have been some difficulties about that."

"Quite right, my dear. It was clearly the best thing for you to come to us--indeed, the only thing. But how in the world did you two manage to travel alone all that distance and get through the Federal lines?"

"You see, we were not alone, aunts," Lucy said; "the Confederate officer and his servant were coming through, and of course they took care of us. We could never have got through alone, and as Chloe was with me we got on very nicely; but we have been a long time getting through, for in that fight, where he saved my life and killed five of the band, he had his shoulder broken by a pistol bullet, and we had to stop in a farmhouse near Mount Pleasant, and he was very ill for some time, but the doctor who attended him was a true Southerner, and so we were quite safe till he was able to move again."

"And who is this officer, Lucy?" Miss Kingston asked rather anxiously.

"He is a Virginian gentleman, auntie. His mother has large estates near Richmond. He was in the cavalry with Stuart, and was made prisoner while he was lying wounded and insensible, at Antietam; and I think, auntie, that that--" and she hesitated--"some day we are going to be married."

"Oh, that's it, is it?" the old lady said kindly. "Well, I can't say anything about that until I see him, Lucy. Now tell us the whole story, and then we shall be better able to judge about it. I don't think, my dear, that while you were traveling under his protection he ought to have talked to you about such things."

"He didn't, auntie; not until we were half a mile from the station here. I never thought he cared for me the least bit; he was just like a brother to me--just like what Jack would have been if he had been bringing me here."

"That's right, my dear; I am glad to hear it. Now, let us hear all about it."

Lucy told the whole story of her escape and her adventures, and when she had finished her aunts nodded to each other.

"That's all very satisfactory, Lucy. It was a difficult position to be placed in, though I don't see how it was to be avoided, and the young man really seems to have behaved very well. Don't you think so, Ada?" The younger Miss Kingston agreed, and both were prepared to receive Vincent with cordiality when he appeared.

The hour had been considerably exceeded when Vincent came to the door. He felt it rather an awkward moment when he was ushered into the presence of Lucy's aunts, who could scarcely restrain an exclamation of surprise at his youth, for although Lucy had said nothing about his age, they expected to meet an older man, the impression being gained from the recital of his bravery in attacking singlehanded twelve men, and by the manner in which he had piloted the party through their dangers.

"We are very glad to see you--my sister Ada and myself," Miss Kingston said, shaking hands cordially with their visitor. "Lucy has been telling us all about you; but we certainly expected from what you had gone through that you were older."

"I am two or three years older than she is, Miss Kingston, and I have gone through so much in the last three years that I feel older than I am. She has told you, I hope, that she has been good enough to promise to be my wife some day?"

"Yes, she has told us that, Mr. Wingfield; and although we don't know you personally, we feel sure--my sister Ada and I--from what she has told us of your behavior while you have been together that you are an honorable gentleman, and we hope and believe that you will make her happy."

"I will do my best to do so," Vincent said earnestly. "As to my circ.u.mstances, I shall in another year come into possession of estates sufficient to keep her in every comfort."

"I have no doubt that that is all satisfactory, Mr. Wingfield, and that her father will give his hearty approval when he hears all the circ.u.mstances of the case. Now, if you will go into the next room, Mr. Wingfield, I will call her down"--for Lucy had run upstairs when she heard Vincent knock.

"I dare say you will like a quiet talk together," she added smiling, "for she tells me you have never been alone together since you started."

Lucy required several calls before she came down. A new shyness such as she had never before felt had seized her, and it was with flushed cheeks and timid steps that she at last came downstairs, and it needed an encouraging--"Go in, you silly child, your lover will not eat you," before she turned the handle and went into the room where Vincent was expecting her.

Vincent had telegraphed from the first station at which he arrived within the limits of the Confederacy to his mother, announcing his safe arrival there, and asking her to send money to him at Antioch.

Her letter in reply reached him three days after his arrival. It contained notes for the amount he wrote for; and while expressing her own and his sisters' delight at hearing he had safely reached the limits of the Confederacy, she expressed not a little surprise at the out-of-the-way place to which he had requested the money to be sent.

"We have been examining the maps, my dear boy," she said, "and find that it is seventy or eighty miles out of your direct course, and we have puzzled ourselves in vain as to why you should have made your way there. The girls guess that you have gone there to deliver in person some message from one of your late fellow-prisoners to his family. I am not good at guessing, and am content to wait until you return home. We hope that you will leave as soon as you get the remittance. We shall count the hours until we see you. Of course we learned from a Yankee paper smuggled through the lines that you had escaped from prison, and have been terribly anxious about you ever since. We are longing to hear your adventures."

A few hours after the receipt of this letter Vincent was on his way home. It was a long journey. The distance was considerable, and the train service greatly disordered and unpunctual. When within a few hours of Richmond he telegraphed, giving the approximate time at which he might be expected to arrive. The train, however, did not reach Richmond until some hours later. The carriage was waiting at the station, and the negro coachman shouted with pleasure at the sight of his young master.

"Missis and the young ladies come, sah; but de station-master he say de train no arrive for a long time, so dey wait for you at de town house, sah."

Dan jumped up beside the coachman and Vincent leaped into the carriage, and a few minutes later he was locked in the arms of his mother and sisters.

"You grow bigger and bigger, Vincent," his mother said after the first greeting was over. "I thought you must have done when you went away last, but you are two or three inches taller and ever so much wider."

"I think I have nearly done now, mother--anyhow as to height. I am about six feet one."

"You are a dreadful trouble to us, Vincent," Annie said. "We have awful anxiety whenever we hear of a battle being fought, and it was almost a relief to us when we heard that you were in a Yankee prison. We thought at least you were out of danger for some time; but since the news came of your escape it has been worse than ever, and as week pa.s.sed after week without our hearing anything of you we began to fear that something terrible had happened to you."

"Nothing terrible has happened at all, Annie. The only mishap I had was getting a pistol bullet in my shoulder which laid me up for about six weeks. There was nothing very dreadful about it," he continued, as exclamations of alarm and pity broke from his mother and sister. "I was well looked after and nursed. And now I will tell you my most important piece of news, and then I will give you a full account of my adventures from the time when Dan got me out of prison, for it is entirely to him that I owe my liberty."

"Well, what is the piece of news?" Annie asked.

"Guess!" Vincent replied smiling.

"You have got promoted?" his mother said. He shook his head.

"Is it about a lady?" Annie asked.

Vincent smiled.

"Oh, Vincent, you are not engaged to be married! That would be too ridiculous!" Vincent laughed and nodded.

"Annie is right, mother; I am engaged to be married." Mrs.

Wingfield looked grave, Rosie laughed, and Annie threw her arms round his neck and kissed him.

"You dear, silly old boy:" she said. "I am glad, though it seems so ridiculous. Who is she, and what is she like?"

"We needn't ask where she lives," Rosie said. "Of course it is in Antioch, though how in the world you managed it all in the two or three days you were there I can't make out."

Mrs. Wingfield's brow cleared. "At any rate, in that case, Vincent, she is a Southerner. I was afraid at first it was some Yankee woman who had perhaps sheltered you on your way."

"Is she older than you, Vincent?" Annie asked suddenly. "I shouldn't like her to be older than you are."

"She is between sixteen and seventeen," Vincent replied, "and she is a Southern girl, mother, and I am sure you will love her, for she saved my life at the risk of her own, besides nursing me all the time I was ill."

"I have no doubt I shall love her, Vincent, for I think, my boy, that you would not make a rash choice. I think you are young, much too young, to be engaged; still, that is a secondary matter. Now tell us all about it. We expected your story to be exciting, but did not dream that love-making had any share in it."

Vincent accordingly told them the whole story of his adventures from the time of his first meeting Dan in prison. When he related the episode of Lucy's refusal to say whether he would return, although threatened with instant death unless she did so, his narrative was broken by the exclamations of his hearers.