Shoulder-Straps: A Novel of New York and the Army, 1862

  CHAPTER II.

  THE INVALID AND THE WILD MADONNA--A BRAVE HEART BEATING THE BARS OF ITSPRISON--ODD COMFORT AND DOUBTFUL CONSOLATION--THE DAWN OF A TERRIBLESUSPICION.

  In the neat and tastefully-furnished back parlor of a house on West3--th Street, one afternoon, at very nearly the same period mentioned ina previous chapter--the latter part of June, 1862--lay on the sofa ayoung man, of perhaps twenty-five, with a countenance that would havebeen strikingly handsome if it had not been drawn and attenuated bysuffering. He had a well-chiselled face, clear blue eyes, andlight-brown, curling hair, closely shaven of beard or moustache; stillshowing, spite of sickness, the manly nature that lay within, and whichalways makes, when it radiates outward, a pleasanter picture for the eyeof a true woman than can be supplied by even high health and the mostperfect physical beauty without it. The limbs, extended upon the sofa ashe lay, though a little attenuated like the face, showed that they werewell-formed and athletic. And the hand, drooping over the side of thecouch, though too thinly white to suggest a love-pressure, indicated, inthe taper of the fingers, and the fine round of the back, without anycoarse protruding knuckles, what a handsome little Napoleonic hand itmust have been when the owner was in full health and the life-bloodcoursing freely through his veins.

  By the appearance of the little back parlor, it seemed to be halfsick-room and half study, for, in addition to the sofa and aneasy-chair, there was a well-filled book-case, in walnut, and awriting-desk open on a small table, with blank paper, some manuscripts,pens, ink, and a book or two lying open, as if the occupant had beenwriting not long before, and lain down from pain and weariness, withoutwaiting to replace his writing materials in their proper position.Through the open door of a small room adjoining, some pieces of bed-roomfurniture could be seen, showing that when the invalid wished to findmore complete repose, he could do so without painful removal to anydistance. Close by his side lay a daily newspaper fallen upon the floor,with the sensation-headings of war-time displayed at the top of one ofthe columns; and in his hand he held a palm-leaf fan, with which he hadapparently been trying to wave off some portion of the sultry heat ofthe afternoon. At length the fan grew still, the weak hand fell down onhis breast, and he seemed to be dropping away into quiet slumber.

  Suddenly a strain of martial music floated through the open windows--atfirst low and gentle, then bursting loud and clear, with the rattle ofdrums, the screaming of reeds and the clash of cymbals, as a band camenearer along the avenue and approached the corner of the street. Theinvalid's face lit up--he made a motion to rise hastily from the sofa--asudden spasm of pain crossed his countenance, and he fell backexhausted, with a slight cry which instantly brought the sound ofsliding doors between the little back parlor and the large room thatadjoined it in front, and sent a pair of light feet flying into theroom.

  "Trying to get up again, eh, old fellow? I know you! Couldn't lie stillwhen that music was going by! Now you great big boy, you ought to knowbetter!" Such were the words with which the young girl greeted thesufferer, as she dropped down on her knees by the side of the sofa andtook one of his hands in both hers.

  "Yes, Joe, I _was_ trying to get up and listen to the music," was thereply. "You know how I have always loved the brass band, and how itseems to rack my frame even worse than disease, just now! See what awreck I am, when I cannot even attempt to rise from the sofa withoutscreaming in that manner and alarming the house!"

  "Oh, never mind alarming the house!" replied the girl, whom he hadcalled "Joe," the very convenient and popular abbreviation of theChristian name of Miss Josephine Harris. She was, it may be said here,an almost every-day visitor from the house of her widowed mother, a ladyin very comfortable circumstances, living not many blocks away up-townfrom the residence of the Crawfords. In ordinary seasons Joe and hermother (the young lady is made to precede the other, advisedly)--had ahabit of getting away from the city, early in the season, to one of thewatering-places or some cool retreat in the country; but this yearperhaps the illness of Richard Crawford had something to do withretaining at least the daughter late in town. "The house can get alongwell enough--it is _you_ that is to be taken care of, and I should liketo know, Dick Crawford, how any body is going to do it if you do notmanage to moderate your transports and lie still when you have notstrength to do any thing else!"

  How her tongue ran on, and what a tongue she had! Not a bit of sting init, except when she was fully aroused to anger, and then it wouldsuddenly develope the faculty of morally flaying her victim alive, withwords of indignation that tumbled over each other without calculation ororder, in the effort to escape the tears of vexation that were sure tofollow close behind. At such moments Joe's tongue was actually cruel,though without premeditation; at other times it was simply a very rapidand noisy tongue, that spoke very sweet words most of the time andexercised an influence all around it that no one could attempt todescribe. But perhaps the tongue was not alone concerned in the matter.There may have been something in the rather tall and lithe form--thebrown cheek with a dash of color shining through it the moment she wasin the least degree warmed or excited--the eyes dark but sunny, waveringbetween hazel brown and Irish gray, and the most difficult eyes in theworld to look into and yet keep your head--the profile uneven andpartially spoiled by the nose being decidedly pert, retrousse and toosmall for the other features--the pouting red lips that never seemed tofade and grow pale as the lips of so many American women do before onehalf their sweetness has been extracted by the human bee--the wealth ofglossy black hair, coming down on the low forehead and plainly sweptback in the Madonna fashion over a face that otherwise had the purityand goodness of the Madonna in it, but very little of herdevotion,--perhaps there was something in all this, besides theinfluence of her flood-tide of language, to make Josephine Harris thedelight, the botheration and the absolute tyrant of more than half thepersons with whom she was thrown in contact. Perhaps there was even morethan all, to those with whom she came into closer intercourse, in thebreath that always seemed as if it came over a bank of over-ripestrawberries dying in the sun, late in summer--and that intoxicated withits aroma as rare old wine does with its flavor.

  It is not difficult to believe (par parenthese) that the pearls anddiamonds that dropped from the mouth of the good little princess in theold fairy story, every time she opened the ruby portals of her lips,dissolved themselves into air and came out in breath suggestive ofspice-fields and orange-groves, and that the toads and scorpions fallingfrom the mouth of her wicked sister manifested themselves in acorresponding rank and fetid odor. So bear with us, lady of the feveredbreath, if we take the privilege of ago and long sight to drink in yourflood of pleasant wisdom from a distance; and think not your loveroverbold, Edie of the Red Lips, if he bends so near you when you speak,that the waves of brown and the curls of black even nestle together!

  "Another sermon, eh, Joseph?" said the invalid, trying to smile andapparently soothed away from his pain by the very presence of the younggirl. "Another sermon just because I cannot _always_ remember that I ama poor miserable wreck!"

  "Miserable fiddlestick!" said Joe, smoothing down his hair with bothhands and accidentally stooping down so low that her lips came nearenough to his forehead to breathe on it and send a pleasant creepingchill to the very tips of his toes. "I read you sermons, as you callthem, because you are very impatient and very imprudent, and because Ireally have no one but yourself who is tied down so as not to be able torun away when I begin preaching. Don't you see that?"

  "Yes, I do!" said the invalid, whom she had unconsciously introduced tous in calling him Dick Crawford--"I see!" and his face grew into atransient smile in spite of himself. "But where is my sister, and whatwas the music?"

  "Two questions at once, like all the men!" the saucy girl answered. "Butgo ahead, for asking questions won't hurt your rheumatism. Bell has goneout shopping, I believe. She discovered an hour ago that there was ashade of cerise ribbon somewhere or other that she had not managed toget hold of, and of course s
he ordered the carriage at once and postedafter it. As for the music--oh, the music was a brass band accompanyingthe One Hundred and Ninetieth Regiment. They are going to leaveto-morrow, and they came up the avenue to receive a set of colors fromMrs. Pearl Dowlas, the ugly old woman with all that brown-stoneincumbrance and three flags in the windows, round the corner."

  "Going to-morrow!" said the invalid, and the old pained expression cameback to his face. "Going to-morrow!--everybody is going!--and I lie herelike a crushed worm, unable to move from my couch, useless to myself orto any one else, when the country is calling upon all her children toaid her! Pest on it! I would trade life, hopes, brains if I have any,every thing, for a sound body to-day!"

  "And make a great fool of yourself in doing so!" was the flatteringresponse of Josephine. "Now I suppose that music and my gabble havestarted the mill, and we shall have nothing else during the rest of theday than the same old weepings and wailings and gnashings of teeth. Justas if, because a war exists, there was nothing else in the world to dobut to go to the war! Just as if we did not require some attention paidto the needs of the country at home, as well as on the battle-field!Just as if we did not need that the trade, and the literature--yes, the_literature_ of the country--should be sustained."

  "Pshaw!" said Crawford, impatiently, and making an effort to turn over,with his face to the wall.

  "No you don't, old fellow!" cried the young girl, exercising the littlerestraint that was necessary. "You don't get away from me in thatmanner. I will stop your grumbling before I have done with you, by aremedy a little worse than the disease--plenty of my own gabble! I saidliterature--do you see that desk littered with papers, you ungratefulwretch?" (It will be seen that Josephine Harris had a habit of usingstrong Saxon words, as well as some that were "fast," not to saybordering upon popular slang; and the reader may as well be horrifiedwith her, and get over it, first as last.) "You have sent out from thatdesk words that have done more good to the patriotic cause than theraising of ten regiments, and yet you have not the grace to thank Godfor giving you the strength to do _that_! You _dare_ to lie there andcall yourself useless! Out upon you--I am ashamed of you!"

  "Words are not deeds!" said the young man, again moving uneasily.

  "Words, when they come from the furnace of a true heart, shapethemselves into deeds in others," was the reply.

  "In the days of the Revolution, my ancestors did their deeds, instead ofshaping them," said the invalid. "Two of them dead in the Old SugarHouse and the prison ships at the Wallabout, and another crippled forlife at Saratoga, bore witness that patriotism with them was no hollowpretence. And look at the present. My brother John going through battleafter battle with Duryea's Zouaves, in Virginia, like a brave man and asoldier; and I lying helpless here, while my cousin Egbert has hisregiment almost raised."

  "_Almost_," said the young girl, in a tone which showed that she did notthink he had quite accomplished that laudable endeavor.

  "And will be going down directly," Crawford continued.

  "Yes, going down, clear down, that is if he ever starts!" commentedsaucy Josephine.

  "Yes, I remember, you do not like my cousin Egbert," said the invalid.

  "I do not like humbugs anywhere!" sharply said the young girl. "Whydon't you call him 'Eg.,' as you do sometimes? Then I should be temptedto make a few bad puns, and to say that in my opinion he is not a 'goodegg,' but a 'hard egg,' if not a 'bad egg,' and that I hope if he evergets among the Virginia sands he will come out a 'roast egg' or a'cracked' one!"

  "Shame, Joe, what do you mean!" said the invalid, really pained by herflippancy.

  "Mean? why, mean what I say!" was the answer, "and that is a good dealmore than most of the people do now-a-days. Your cousin Egbert is a bighumbug! I never see him strutting about, with his shoulder-straps andhis red sword-belts, but I have a mind to take the first off hisshoulders, with claws like a cat, and use the second to strap him with,like a truant school-boy!"

  "Why, Josephine, Josephine!" cried the invalid, still more surprised.

  "Don't stop me!" said the wild girl. "I have intended for some time tosay this to you, but you have been very sick, and somehow I could notbegin the conversation. Now that it is begun, I am going to out with it,if it costs a lawsuit. I do not like that man, nor would you if youcould know him half as well as I do. In the first place, I believe he isa coward, and worth no more to the cause than just what his gimcrackswould sell for."

  "Shame!" again said the invalid. "Josephine, you are really going toofar. If he was a coward, why would he have placed himself in a positionwhich must by-and-by be one of danger?

  "Bah!" said the young girl, "I do not see that he has done any thing ofthe kind. Officers have the right of resigning, and some of them havethe habit of skulking, I have heard. I will bet my best bonnet againstyour old worn-out slippers there, that if ever brought to the test yourshoulder-strapped cousin would do one or the other! Besides--" and hereshe paused.

  "Well, what is the 'besides'?" asked the young man, a littleimpatiently.

  "Besides, he hates you like a rattlesnake, and would do any thing in hispower to get you out of his way," the young girl said, giving out thewords as if she was performing a painful operation and only doing itunder a strong sense of duty. "Tell me: is there any point in which yourinterests would run counter to each other? I have seen daggers andpoison in that man's eyes when looking at you, and when you have notobserved him!"

  "Interests?--in conflict? Good heavens, what are you saying, Josephine?Hate me--he?" and a terrible shadow passed over the face of the invalid.A moment before he had been unable to raise himself from the sofa, orbear the least motion, without agony. Now, in the excitement produced byher words and by some horrible doubt which they seemed to have awakened,he forgot the pain, or did not heed it, and struggled up to a sittingposture, his hands to his head and the whole expression of his facechanged to one of intense mental suffering.

  "Mr. Crawford--Dick!" the young girl cried in alarm; "what hashappened--what have I said?--tell me: are you in sudden pain?" and shethrew her arm around him to sustain him in his sitting position.

  "Do not ask me!" he said, hoarsely. "I cannot speak just now, but youhave agitated me very much. My cousin--in his way--heavens!"

  At this moment, and when the young girl, frightened at what she haddone, scarcely dared to speak another word, and was altogether at a losswhat to do, there was a rattle of carriage wheels at the door, the soundof a latch-key applied to the lock, then steps and voices in the hall.

  "Talk of the Prince of Darkness, and he is not very far from yourelbow!" said Josephine, whose ears were sharper than those of theinvalid. "I hear Bell's voice and that of the puissant and patrioticColonel Egbert Crawford, who has evidently come home with her."

  "_His_ voice with hers, after what you have said!" the invalid gasped."Lay me down quick, and hurt me as little as possible. I have notstrength to sit up, and this pain--this pain--it drives me todistraction!" One hand was still at his head, and the other had fallen,whether accidentally or otherwise, over his heart. Whether the one handor the other covered the pain of which he had that moment spoken, wasdifficult to tell. One thing was certain--that something in the last fewmoments had broken him down in health and spirits, even more than hislong previous sickness. What was it?

  Josephine, ever an excellent nurse in sickness (spite of her rapidtongue), and the one of all a crowd who was certain to have the head ofthe fainted woman on her breast, and her hands chafing the pallidtemples,--assisted the invalid back to his recumbent position as quicklyand as easily as possible; and at the moment when she had once morearranged the pillow under his head on the sofa, the glass doors betweenthe front and back parlors slid gently apart, and Isabel Crawford andher cousin the Colonel, who had lately been the subject of so muchspeculation and agitation, approached the sofa of the rheumatic. Hiseyes were closed, and Josephine was standing at the open window with itsclosed blinds. Still she saw what the new-comers did not--a quick,co
nvulsive shudder pass over the recumbent form, and the hand that layon his heart close with a nervous spasm, as if it was crushing somethinghateful and dangerous that lay within it.

  But the personal appearance of the two who had just entered, and theafter events of that interview, must be recorded in a subsequentchapter.