The Long Roll
after winter sunset and Cleave and himself going homeward over the long
hilltop--with talk, among other things, of visitors at Lauderdale. This
was "the beautiful one." He remembered the lift of Cleave's head and his
voice. Judith's large dark eyes had been raised; transparent, showing
always the soul within as did his own, they now met Allan's. "The 65th,"
she said, "was cut to pieces."
The words, dragged out as they were, left a shocked silence. Here, in
the corner by the stair, the arch of wood partially obscuring the ward,
with the still blue sky and the still brick gables, they seemed for the
moment cut away from the world, met on desert sands to tell and hear a
dreadful thing. "Cut to pieces," breathed Allan. "The 65th cut to
pieces!"
The movement which he made displaced the bandage about his shoulder. She
left the box, kneeled by him and straightened matters, then went back to
her seat. "It was this way," she said,--and told him the story as she
had heard it from her father and from Fauquier Cary. She spoke with
simplicity, in the low, bell-like tone that held the ache of the world.
Allan listened, with his hand over his eyes. His regiment that he
loved!... all the old, familiar faces.
"Yes, he was killed--Hairston Breckinridge was killed, fighting
gallantly. He died, they say, before he knew the trap they were caught
in. And Christianna's father was killed, and others of the Thunder Run
men, and very many from the county and from other counties. I do not
know how many. Fauquier called it slaughter, said no worse thing has
happened to any single command. Richard got what was left back across
the swamp."
Allan groaned. "The 65th! General Jackson himself called it 'the
fighting 65th!' Just a remnant of it left--left of the 65th!"
"Yes. The roll was called, and so many did not answer. They say other
Stonewall regiments wept."
Allan raised himself upon the bench. She started forward. "Don't do
that!" and with her hand pressed him gently down again. "I knew," she
said, "that you were here, and I have heard Richard speak of you and say
how good and likable you were. And I have worked hard all the morning,
and just now I thought, 'I must speak to some one who knows and loves
him or I will die.' And so I came. I knew that the ward might hear of
the 65th any moment now and begin to talk of it, so I was not afraid of
hurting you. But you must lie quiet."
"Very well, I will. I want to know about Richard Cleave--about my
colonel."
Her dark eyes met the sea-blue ones fully. "He is under arrest," she
said. "General Jackson has preferred charges against him."
"Charges of what?"
"Of disobedience to orders--of sacrificing the regiment--of--of
retreating at last when he should not have done so and leaving his men
to perish--of--of--. I have seen a copy of the charge. _Whereas the said
colonel of the 65th did shamefully_--"
Her voice broke. "Oh, if I were God--"
There was a moment's silence--silence here in the corner by the stair,
though none beyond in the painful, moaning ward. A bird sailed across
the strip of blue sky; the stalk of phlox on the soldier's narrow bed
lay withering in the light. Allan spoke. "General Jackson is very stern
with failure. He may believe that charge. I don't see how he can; but if
he made it he believes it. But you--you don't believe it?--"
"Believe it?" she said. "No more than God believes it! The question is
now, how to help Richard."
"Have you heard from him?"
She took from her dress a folded leaf torn from a pocket-book. "You are
his friend. You may read it. Wait, I will hold it." She laid it before
him, holding it in her slight, fine, strong fingers.
He read. _Judith: You will hear of the fate of the 65th. How it happened
I do not yet understand. It is like death on my heart. You will hear,
too, of my own trouble. As to me, believe only that I could sit beside
you and talk to-day as we talked awhile ago, in the sunset. Richard._
She refolded the paper and put it back. "The evidence will clear him,"
said Allan. "It must. The very doubt is absurd."
Her face lightened. "General Jackson will see that he was hasty--unjust.
I can understand such anger at first, but later, when he
reflects--Richard will be declared innocent--"
"Yes. An honourable acquittal. It will surely be so."
"I am glad I came. You have always known him and been his friend."
"Let me tell you the kind of things I know of Richard Cleave. No, it
doesn't hurt me to talk."
"I can stay a little longer. Yes, tell me."
Allan spoke at some length, in his frank, quiet voice. She sat beside
him, with her cheek on her hand, the blue sky and old house roofs above
her. When he ceased her eyes were full of tears. She would not let them
fall. "If I began to cry I should never stop," she said, and smiled them
away. Presently she rose. "I must go now. Christianna will be back
to-morrow."
She went away, passing up the narrow path between the wounded and out at
the further door. Allan watched her going, then turned a little on the
flock bed, and lifting his unbandaged arm laid it across his eyes. _The
65th cut to pieces--The 65th cut to pieces--_
At sunset Judith went home. The small room up in the branches of the
tulip tree--she hardly knew how many months or years she had inhabited
it. There had passed, of course, only weeks--but Time had widened its
measure. To all intents and purposes she had been a long while in
Richmond. This high, quiet niche was familiar, familiar! familiar the
old, slender, inlaid dressing-table and the long, thin curtains and the
engraving of Charlotte Corday; familiar the cool, green tree without the
window and the nest upon a bough; familiar the far view and wide
horizon, by day smoke-veiled, by night red-lit. The smoke was lifted
now; the eye saw further than it had seen for days. The room seemed as
quiet as a tomb. For a moment the silence oppressed her, and then she
remembered that it was because the cannon had stopped.
She sat beside the window, through the dusk, until the stars came out;
then went downstairs and took her part at the table, about which the
soldier sons of the house were gathering. They brought comrades with
them. The wounded eldest son was doing well, the army was victorious,
the siege was lifted, the house must be made gay for "the boys." No
house was ever less bright for Judith. Now she smiled and listened, and
the young men thought she did not realize the seriousness of the army
talk about the 65th. They themselves were careful not to mention the
matter. They talked of a thousand heroisms, a thousand incidents of the
Seven Days; but they turned the talk--if any one, unwary, drew it that
way--from White Oak Swamp. They mistook her feeling; she would rather
they had spoken out. Her comfort was when, afterwards, she went for a
moment into the "chamber" to see the wounded eldest. He was a
warm-hearted, rough diamond, fond of his cousin.
"What's this damned stuff I hear about Richard Cleave and a
court-martial? What--nonsense! I beg your pardon, Judith." Judith kissed
him, and finding "Le Vicomte de Bragelonne" face down on the counterpane
offered to read to him.
"You would rather talk about Richard," he said. "I know you would. So
should I. It's all the damnedest nonsense! Such a charge as that!--Tell
you what, Judith. D'ye remember 'Woodstock' and Cromwell in it? Well,
Stonewall Jackson's like Cromwell--of course, a better man, and a
greater general, and a nobler cause, but still he's like him! Don't you
fret! Cromwell had to listen to the truth. He did it, and so will
Stonewall Jackson. Such damned stuff and nonsense! It hurts me worse
than that old bayonet jab ever could! I'd like to hear what Edward
says."
"He says, 'Duck your head and let it go by. The grass'll grow as green
to-morrow.'"
"You aren't crying, are you, Judith?--I thought not. You aren't the
crying kind. Don't do it. War's the stupidest beast."
"Yes, it is."
"Cousin Margaret's with Richard, isn't she?"
"Not with him--that couldn't be, they said. But she and Miriam have gone
to Merry Mount. It's in the lines. I have had a note from her."
"What did she say?--You don't mind, Judith?"
"No, Rob, I don't mind. It was just a verse from a psalm. She said, _I
had fainted unless I had believed to see the goodness of the Lord in the
land of the living.... Be of good courage and He shall strengthen thy
heart._"
Later, in her room again, she sat by the window through the greater part
of the night. The stars were large and soft, the airs faint, the jasmine
in the garden below smelled sweet. The hospital day stretched before
her; she must sleep so that she could work. She never thought--in that
city and time no woman thought--of ceasing from service because of
private grief. Moreover, work was her salvation. She would be betimes at
the hospital to-morrow, and she would leave it late. She bent once more
a long look upon the east, where were the camp-fires of Lee and
Stonewall Jackson. In imagination she passed the sentries; she moved
among the sleeping brigades. She found one tent, or perhaps it would be
instead a rude cabin.... She stretched her arms upon the window-sill,
and they and her thick fallen hair were wet at last with her tears.
Three days passed. On the third afternoon she left the hospital early
and went to St. Paul's. She chose again the dusk beneath the gallery,
and she prayed dumbly, fiercely, "O God.... O God--"
The church was fairly filled. The grey army was now but a little way
without the city; it had come back to the seven hills after the seven
days. It had come back the hero, the darling. Richmond took the cypress
from her doors; put off the purple pall and tragic mask. Last July
Richmond was to fall, and this July Richmond was to fall, and lo! she
sat secure on her seven hills and her sons did her honour, and for them
she would have made herself a waste place. She yet toiled and watched,
yet mourned for the dead and hung over the beds of the wounded, and more
and more she wondered whence were to appear the next day's yard of cloth
and measure of flour. But in these days she overlaid her life with
gladness and made her house pleasant for her sons. The service at St.
Paul's this afternoon was one of thankfulness; the hymns rang
triumphantly. There were many soldiers. Two officers came in together.
Judith knew General Lee, but the other?... in a moment she saw that it
was General Jackson. Her heart beat to suffocation. She sank down in the
gold dusk of her corner. "O God, let him see the truth. O God, let him
see the truth--"
Outside, as she went homeward in the red sunset, she paused for a moment
to speak to an old free negro who was begging for alms. She gave him
something, and when he had shambled on she stood still a moment here at
the corner of the street, with her eyes upon the beautiful rosy west.
There was a garden wall behind her and a tall crape myrtle. As she
stood, with the light upon her face, Maury Stafford rode by. He saw her
as she saw him. His brooding face flushed; he made as if to check his
horse, but did not so. He lifted his hat high and rode on, out of the
town, back to the encamped army. Judith had made no answering motion;
she stood with lifted face and unchanged look, the rosy light flooding
her, the rosy tree behind her. When he was gone she shivered a little.
"It is not Happiness that hates; it is Misery," she thought. "When I was
happy I never felt like this. I hate him. He is _glad_ of Richard's
peril."
That night she did not sleep at all but sat bowed together in the
window, her arms about her knees, her forehead upon them, and her dark
hair loose about her. She sat like a sibyl till the dawn, then rose and
bathed and dressed, and was at the hospital earliest of all the workers