40 The Tale That Pembroke Told

But I saw little of the gathering armies on that night and heard none of the clicking wires. The most of it was told to me afterward; even the chances of the great battle suddenly became of much less importance in my mind, a message brought by one I knew causing this abrupt change in the course of my attention. It was Mason who came. He found me early in the night, lying on the slope of Cemetery Hill and gazing at the opposite ridge that threatened us.

“I have been looking for you more than an hour,” he said. “A friend of ours from the other side is badly wounded and a prisoner.”

“Who is it?” I asked.

“Pembroke.”

Poor Pembroke! I was shocked. My personal friends, except in the case of Tourville, and his wound evidently was slight, had escaped the bullets so far, and in a vague way it seemed to me that they would continue to do so. I went at once with Mason, and Shaftoe accompanied us. We had lost our own command long since, fighting with whatsoever body of troops we chose, and we were free to go where it pleased us to go.

“It was in one of the last charges that the rebels made,” said Mason, as we picked our way among the hurt. “We beat them off for a little while, but the fighting had been so close that they left several wounded with us. Pembroke was among them and I helped bring him up the hill. He’s badly hit, though the surgeon says he’ll recover, but he asked for you at once. He has something to tell you that you must know.”

We found Pembroke lying on Mason’s blanket near the crest of Cemetery Hill. He was hit in the shoulder, and, having lost considerable blood, looked pale and extremely weak, but he had received the most careful attention and evidently was suffering little pain. A camp fire burned near him, and many soldiers were lying on the ground, sleeping so soundly that they looked like the dead. Pembroke smiled faintly when he saw me.

“It’s a change of place since we met last, eh, Henry?” he said. “Then you were the prisoner and now it’s I. But don’t please yourself too much; Bobby Lee’s coming to-morrow to take me back, and all you Yankees with me.”

I knelt beside him, grieved at the hurt of this true friend, but he ridiculed his wound and deprecated sympathy.

“Just one little bullet!” he said. “Why, we’ve men in our army who have been shot fifteen or sixteen times, and they improve with each wound. You’ve heard of the German general who said, ‘Raw troops need to be shooted, over a little.’ Well, ours never reach their best until they are ‘shooted’ through a few times! But let that go; it’s something else that I want to talk to you about. She’s over there.”

He pointed toward the hill where the Southern lights twinkled and passed and repassed in the darkness, and I knew whom he meant.

“Yes, she’s there, and so is Varian,” continued Pembroke; “and I tell you he is not to be trusted. We don’t trust him ourselves. I’ve much to tell you that concerns Elinor and you most nearly. He, Varian, was fierce when he heard of your escape the night of the play in Libby. He said there was collusion; he intimated that you had been helped by your Southern friends; that otherwise you could not have escaped from the city, even after getting out of the prison. He renewed his claims for Elinor, saying that this marriage of yours must be annulled; he seemed to forget that man and wife can not be separated, in our time, without the consent of at least one of them, and his influence was so great that I do not know what he would not have succeeded in doing if the unexpected had not happened. There came a rumour to Richmond and the army that Varian was not so confident of our ultimate success as he used to be. We had failed to secure the alliance of any of the European powers—you know how we relied upon him to do that work for us, and you know his ambition and love of place and power. He was disappointed, too, because you were not punished for what he considered a crime against himself; and, in short, Henry, it was said that he was not true to us, that he was willing to be tempted if anybody was willing to make the temptation great. I do not understand what his views of life and honour are; he seems to have a code somewhat different from ours, but it never became more than a whisper. It was said that Stonewall Jackson had the proofs and meant to use them, but he was killed a few days later at Chancellorsville, and what he knew no one now knows. However, it weakened his power and influence in our government, and suddenly he ceased to make complaints against any of us who were your friends, or to demand higher rewards. They say, though, that he fought brilliantly at Chancellorsville, and even now he has an important command over there on the hill. You see, with nothing but a whisper against him, and that silenced with Stonewall Jackson’s death, they could not displace him after the real service he has done for our cause.”

Pembroke was now silent a little and thoughtful, and I waited until returning strength would permit him to resume his narrative.

“It was directly after Chancellorsville,” he continued presently, “that the quarrel between Tourville and Blanchard occurred, and that concerned Elinor and you too.”

“Blanchard—that scoundrel!” I exclaimed.

“Ay, a scoundrel he was, but he will never trouble any one again. I think that you owe Tourville a debt of thanks. I do not approve of the duel which usually decides in favour of might rather than right, but this one of Tourville and Blanchard was an exception. Blanchard, you know, was the most faithful ally of Varian—Varian must have saved him from some great embarrassment in Europe—and wished to help him in all his purposes. He cherished, too, a fine hatred of you, so his desires accorded well with his master’s. It was a few days after your escape—Blanchard said it was treason that helped you, and then he mentioned Elinor’s name. He said that he did not understand her affection for you, but that Varian would get her yet, if not with marriage then without it; and then Tourville, who heard him, stopped his foul mouth with his fist. Blanchard demanded a duel, according to the custom of France and Germany, saying that it was the alternative of brave men. You know Tourville, rash and hot-blooded, but good of heart—he accepted instantly and chose swords, the very weapon that Blanchard wanted. General Lee, of course, would not permit a duel in his army if he knew it, but he can not know everything. They fought just at daylight in a little wood barely inside our lines. De Courcelles was Tourville’s second, and one of Blanchard’s men acted for him. Blanchard was openly exultant, sure that he would kill Tourville, but five minutes after the duel began he was a dead man, thrust squarely through the heart, and Tourville did not have a wound upon him. We have never told of it to Elinor. She has heard that Blanchard is dead, but she thinks that he fell in a cavalry skirmish.”

He was silent again for a little while, and I felt that I could never repay Tourville. Then I noticed that Pembroke was looking at me curiously, as if he were making a study of me. But I waited again for him to speak of his own accord.

“Henry,” he said, “Elinor Maynard is your wife, but you do not know what a woman she is, or rather what a woman will do for the man whom she loves. Would any woman ever do as much for me?”

I looked at him in the deepest surprise.

“I have been holding this back,” he said, “and it’s another cause why the favour of Varian has declined. It is a tale that Major Titus Tyler brought to Richmond after he recovered from the wound that he received in the Valley of Virginia.”

My surprise increased. Major Tyler’s name had been mentioned that night when Lee and Jackson came to see me in Libby.

“And the story that Major Tyler tells,” he resumed, “seems incredible, but the major swears that it’s true—you know that he never lies—and we, who know Elinor, believe that he is not mistaken. He says that Varian and Blanchard, or rather Blanchard, because he planned it and Varian merely shut his eyes to it, intended to kill you that night you escaped from them in the Valley of Virginia. The way for you to escape was to be left open, and was to be so obvious that you must accept the chance. Elinor heard of it—it seems from Major Tyler himself before whom Blanchard spoke incautiously—and she took your place that you might escape in another way, because she believed that if they did not kill you that night they would soon find another pretext for doing it. It was very easy for them to mistake her for you in the darkness, and the rain, and the confusion, but, in some strange or perhaps providential way, she escaped all their bullets. Major Tyler says that Varian himself, seeing her about to escape, and believing that it was you, fired at her. Now that he knows his mistake and sees what she will do for a man whom she loves, his love for her has become fire. He swears that no matter what happens she must belong to him, that he alone is worthy of a woman capable of such an act. I felt from the first that the major’s story was true, but the hitch comes with Elinor. I told it to my sister Mary, and, full of the wonderful tale, she ran at once to Elinor to ask her about it. But Elinor will not say a word; you can not talk to her about it, unless you enjoy talking to a stone wall.”

I knew in my heart too that it was true. I could see it now, looking back at all the circumstances. I was filled with a deep joy and pride that Elinor was my wife, and I acknowledged humbly to myself that I was unworthy of her. I was silent, looking across the valley at the southern ridge where Pembroke said that she was, and he, too, weak from his wound, again remained a little while without speaking.

“Why is she over yonder?” I asked at last, pointing toward the hostile lights.

“She tried to go to her uncle in Washington,” he replied. “It was because she believed you were there, but she could not get away from Richmond. It was no fault of ours, but the authorities were too busy with preparations for the present invasion to arrange the transfer of a girl from Richmond to Washington. But when she heard that we were going to invade the North she insisted upon following. She wished to serve as a nurse attached to one of the travelling hospitals, and God knows that both sides have ample need of nurses! It may be that she hoped for an opportunity to reach you. Yes, she’s over there. I saw her this morning before that pestiferous little bullet stretched me on my back, and she is well. Varian is there too; and look after her if you can, Henry, because the man is mad with love of her, and to have his own way he will scruple at nothing. He would kill her rather than lose her.”

Pembroke’s story was finished, and he was right when he said that it concerned me deeply. Mason and Shaftoe with instinctive delicacy had drawn away when he began, that they might not hear, but now they returned to his side.

“Pembroke,” I said, “I owe you too much to make you any promise of repayment.”

He smiled faintly.

“What little I have done,” he replied, “is for her as much as for you.”

There was no more that we could do for him, and presently he closed his eyes, saying that he would sleep. Then I walked away in the darkness and down the slope toward the dividing valley. My mind was quite made up. But before I went far, a heavy hand was laid upon my shoulder, and turning I saw Shaftoe.

“What do you mean to do?” he asked.

“I am going up yonder,” I replied, pointing toward the Southern position.

“You are crazy,” he said.

“No, Shaftoe, my wife is up there and she is in great danger. If you were in my place you would go as I am going.”

“How do you mean to do it?” he asked.

“I shall put on a Southern uniform; it is easy to get one.”

I pointed to a cluster of the dead not far away.

“And be caught and hanged as a spy!”

“I must risk it, Shaftoe.”

He said no more, except to mutter, “It’s a foolhardy thing,” and turned away.

I stole down a little ravine, and then fell in behind a burying-party, passing with it our farthest sentinels, and was soon in the heart of the valley where the dead lay thickest. Informal burying parties from both sides were traversing the field, and occasionally exchanging a nod as they passed, none exhibiting the slightest hostility toward one another. I let the party which I had followed go on without me, stealing away again toward the darkest place that I could find, and there, conquering my repulsion, I removed the uniform from a dead Confederate soldier, substituting it for my own. Then I advanced boldly toward Seminary Ridge.

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