4 A Sky of Steel

I met Shaftoe the next day, according to appointment, and the second talk with him strengthened the first impression. He was a man who had served his country well for many years and had received little reward, but was without bitterness. His steady optimism made me feel ashamed of my momentary fits of depression, when I reflected how much kinder Providence had been to me than to this veteran, who was never gloomy. I introduced him to Pembroke, and they became good friends at once.

“Sorry you are going wrong,” said Shaftoe to Pembroke. “The South is in for a terrible licking, and she won’t be able to say that it was in a just cause.”

“I can’t help it,” replied Pembroke. “I am a son of Virginia, and what Virginia does, that I do. I am like Colonel Randolph, one of our neighbours, Mr. Shaftoe. They came to him last week and offered him a general’s commission in the Confederate army, because he was a veteran of the Mexican War, and a man of influence and judgment. He said: ‘Well, boys, you will get whipped like the devil and you will deserve it, but you are my people and I am with you.’ That’s the way I feel about it, without admitting that we are to get the whipping or that we shall deserve it, and I mean no criticism of you, Henry, for I believe in a man following the course that he thinks right.”

Meanwhile the days passed, and that most frightful of all disasters, a civil war, came nearer and nearer to our poor country.

The development of events in Washington could not fail to be of the deepest interest. Every one was free to look on and watch. The arrival of Lincoln set the torch, in truth, and the conflagration had begun. And but one party to the inevitable war was preparing.

Spring again made treacherous promises; tender young blades of grass crept up among the withered herbage of winter, streaks of green began to appear in the foliage, and the breezes of the south had the scent of flowers, but then the cold winds would come again and the skies would turn gray and overcast. Through warmth and cold alike the warlike work of the South went on, the capital clung to its old sloth, and the heavy North, immersed in business, refused to believe; it said that the South was only joking.

I kept away from Paul Warner’s house for the present, nor did I pay my promised visit to Varian. Yet I often heard of both Elinor and him through Pembroke and Major Tyler. In truth, I passed Elinor twice in the street. Once she was riding with Varian and did not notice me until she was near, when he called her attention. She bowed, and I saw a faint flush on her face.

She was in a carriage the second time with her aunt, who sat erect, stiff, and sharper faced than ever.

“Henry,” said Major Tyler to me, “the odds are ten to five that she will be Varian’s wife inside of six months. The uncle favours it and so does the aunt, both from worldly reasons. The uncle’s god is money, and therefore he has no party; he wants to keep favour with both sides: if the South wins, Varian, his friend and nephew-in-law, will be a power, while if the South doesn’t win there is nothing lost. The aunt is caught by Varian’s foreign glitter, visions of a title for her niece, a great position at the French Emperor’s court, and much reflected glory for herself; it’s a failing of our American women—the only one that they have, I admit. There were those Baltimore beauties who married British noblemen of high rank, and they have set a most unfortunate example. Stick to your own kind, I say, and you will be happier.”

“But Varian is not a nobleman,” I said. “You do not even know that he is not American.”

“That is true,” admitted the major; “but whatever he is he is a splendid fellow, and a man of power. He represents at least one great sovereign, and perhaps he can speak for another, too. And I don’t mind telling you, Henry, for you know it already, he’s one of the best friends the South ever had. What a pity you can’t go with us! Change your mind and make your friends happy.”

All the major’s sanguine nature beamed in his eyes, and I saw that he, too, had succumbed to the personality and influence of Varian. He repeated his statement that Varian would be Elinor’s husband inside of six months, and he asked why not? Elinor was a fine girl and Varian was a fine man, and a fine couple they would make. As for himself, he was enchanted with him. He had never before met a man who was at once a courtier, a diplomatist, a scholar, and a philosopher, a man of taste and humour, who excelled in all things. He was proud to know him.

Then he spoke of Varian’s value to the South, and from that subject passed to the South itself, speaking of its glorious and approaching future.

“What are your plans for an independent South?” I asked, curious to see the full splendour of the major’s dream.

“As soon as our independence is established and our power consolidated we shall round out our empire,” he said in his grandest manner. “Cuba is to come first. It belongs to the American continent, and Spain is no longer able to manage the island. Then we shall annex Mexico—an easy enough matter, as she is eaten up by internal dissensions and needs us. Central America will follow, and maybe more after that. We shall have an empire of two million square miles at the least, as much as Imperial Rome had in her zenith, and we shall build around the Gulf and the Caribbean a power equal to that which she established around the Mediterranean. Our propaganda is already in progress; the Knights of the Golden Circle have attended to that.”

His eyes sparkled and his face flushed with the splendour of his vision as he saw it. He was not too old to dream dreams. He never would be.

The major’s discourse confirmed me in my avoidance of Elinor and her people. But Pembroke reproached me.

“You are doing wrong, Henry,” he said. “It’s stupid stubbornness, and I tell you so. Only yesterday she was asking about you, and wondering at your strange conduct. I was unable to make any apology for you.”

“There was no necessity for your doing so,” I replied hastily.

“You can not quarrel with me, I warn you,” said the honest boy, looking at me so frankly that I was ashamed of myself. He came the next day with a positive message from Elinor that I must see her at Mr. Warner’s.

When I called at the house I was in dread lest Mrs. Maynard’s sour face should be the first to appear, but my fortune was better; it was Elinor who met me.

“You wished to see me?” I said stiffly.

She seemed to take no notice of my manner, but asked me why I had deserted her uncle’s house. I was embarrassed, and I made some vague explanations about preparing for the war.

“I thought that I would not be missed,” I added, coming nearer to the heart of the matter. “Mr. Varian fills my place so well—that is, if I ever had one.”

“It is sufficient for Mr. Varian to fill his own place, if he have any,” she replied, the colour in her cheeks deepening a little. She saw that I noticed the new flush, and it increased. Then she attacked me with fine irony, telling me that she had heard how I was passing my time in moody loneliness—I knew that Pembroke was the informer—and was I to turn off all my old friends merely because they were choosing a different side in the war?

“Don’t you see how hard it is for me to stand firm when all those around me oppose me?” she said. “It is easy for a man to choose his course and pursue it, but what can a woman do when the world has bound her with many cords?”

There was appeal in her voice, and I replied, rather weakly:

“Your aunt does not wish me to come here.”

“Let us not quarrel now,” she continued. “The war will soon separate all of us who are here in Washington.”

“And then we may never see each other again,” I said.

She did not answer, and I left presently. As I passed through the hall I was overtaken by Paul Warner. He was friendly and familiar, shook my hand heartily, and then took my arm under his.

“I am going your way,” he said, “and we shall walk together. I want to talk to you, and you have seen Elinor. I am glad you came. She has been inquiring what has become of you. Elinor is a girl who is faithful to old acquaintance, and she will not forget when she enters upon a newer and larger life. It’s all true. You’ve heard the gossip, of course, about her and Varian. He is ready to think that the ground she walks on is sacred. He is a great man, too, and if his plans here fail, he’ll take her to Europe, where she’ll have a position worthy of her. It will be either Madame la Comtesse So-and-so at Paris, or My Lady Something-or-other at London, and you and I, Henry, shall go over there some day and see them in all their glory.”

He talked volubly, a coarse and in the main good-natured man, and passing from one topic to another soon approached the subject of the war.

“It’s an ill wind that blows nobody good, eh, Henry?” he quoted. “Who said that? Either the Bible or Shakespeare, I’ll wager, and both are good authorities. Now young men like you will shoulder rifles, go off and get killed, while I shall stay here and—and——”

“What shall you do, Mr. Warner?”I asked, as he hesitated.

“I shall stay here out of range of the bullets and not get killed,” he replied.

But I knew very well that he saw before him the gleam of a pyramid of golden dollars, and he continued to talk of the opportunities the war would offer to the alert and the cautious. I did not say nay, and when we parted he was still under the impression that I had been drinking at the fountain of wisdom.

Meanwhile the time for the inauguration of the new President approached.

►   ▲