Chapter VIII: Annie’s Story Continued

AT THE PLATEAU.

Precisely at two o’clock Jack was at the door, and a few minutes after we were driving rapidly through the town toward The Plateau. Jack had put on his best clothes, as it was a half holiday with him, he said, and he looked very handsome and animated as he talked constantly of Fanny, recalling many incidents of her childhood, and trying to decide just when he made up his mind that she was the one girl in all the world for him.

“I reckon,” he said, “it was the first time I went off to the war with my company, and she stood on the horse block throwing kisses to us and waving a red shawl she had tied to a broom handle. Most of the boys were in love with her, and I think it was her fierce patriotism which kept our courage up, when it might otherwise have cooled. I remember once when we were waiting for a battle to begin, a comrade who stood beside me said, ‘What are you thinking of, Jack?’ I _was_ thinking of Fan, but I replied, ‘Nothing; what are you thinking of?’ ‘Nothing,’ was his answer. Just then there came the opening roar of cannon, with the order for our company to move on. Simultaneously we both shouted, ‘Hurrah for the South, and Fanny Hathern.’ The comrade was poor Tom Allen, who was killed in that battle, and Fan’s name was the last upon his lips. I never told her, and never shall. I don’t think she cared for him, and I have sometimes been afraid she did not care for me as I do for her. But she will. I shall be so kind to her and try to make her so happy that she must love me after awhile, if she does not at first. I am a sort of country clown, I suppose, and not at all like the high-toned chaps she has been consorting with; but I do believe my heart is in the right place,—that is, my intentions are good.”

He was silent a moment,—then turning towards me he continued: “You know the best and the worst of me, if anybody does, and I feel like making you a kind of confessor, or rather confidant, as to how I feel and what I mean to do. Shall I, Annie-mother?”

This name by which Paul called me Jack had taken up since he had been so much at The Elms, saying it suited me, I was such a motherly little woman, with a manner which made everyone confide in and trust me. I liked the name as used by Paul, to whom I was a kind of mother, but I did not quite like to have Jack call me thus. It made me feel so much older than I really was,—older than he, and a great deal older than Fan, who, Phyllis said, was really my senior by half an hour. I had never given any sign that it was distasteful to me, nor did I now. I merely said, “I am sure you have nothing to confess.”

“Well, not exactly that. It is more a confidence as to what I mean to do,” he said. “I am all strung up to a pitch of nervousness or exhilaration, and must talk to somebody. This morning when I woke up, and the sun was just rising over the woods, and I felt so light and airy, I asked myself what it was? What had happened, or what was going to happen? Then I remembered that Fanny was coming to-morrow, and that in just a month she would be my wife. I was so thankful and happy that I wanted to do something. You know I’m not very religious, like you and Fan, and I’m not a praying man. I say the prayers in church with the rest of the people, but half the time I’m thinking of something else, and once in a while I go to sleep during the Litany. But I am going to turn over a new leaf, and this morning I went down on my knees and thanked God for Fanny, and asked that I might make her happy, and that she might come safely home to me, and I promised to be a better man and join the church and have family prayers just as your father did, and ask a blessing at the table as mother did. Fanny will like that, I am sure. You don’t know how peaceful and quiet I felt after that. Why, it seemed as if I really had been talking to some one who heard and answered me, and the future looks so bright that if I were in one of Phyllis’s _pra’r_ meetings I believe I should shout. I can readily understand how she works herself up to having the power. I could have it in a little while.”

We were going up the hill to The Plateau by this time, and in Jack’s face there was the rapt expression of one who had talked with God as friend talks with friend, and been made the better for it. The sky, which in the morning had been so clear, had gradually been growing grey and overcast, until the sun was hidden from view, and in the west a bank of clouds was rising rapidly and threatening rain. It was growing chilly, too, and as a cold breeze came down the hill, Jack urged his horse on until we came upon the house which looked so pretty and attractive, with all the debris cleared away and the grounds brought up somewhat to their former condition when it was the show place of the town.

“Isn’t it lovely?” Jack said, helping me to alight, and then marching me round to look at a view we had both seen a thousand times, but which was always new to him because Fanny’s eyes were to see it daily.

He pointed out the tops of the Blue Ridge in the distance, the valley through which the river ran, and the opening in the woods through which the first Federal soldiers who appeared in our midst came marching, years ago, throwing our little town into wild excitement and alarm.

“I heard you were so frightened that you ran to the attic and hid behind the chimney, while Fan armed herself with the poker and went into the street ready to fight, if necessary,” he said.

He frequently made comparisons between Fan and myself, and usually to my disadvantage. But I did not care, and now I laughed merrily as I recalled the day when I first heard the Yankees were coming and crawled behind the chimney, half expecting to be shot. I had not then learned that there was very little difference between the conduct of the Yankees and the rebels, and not much to be feared from either. After the view was exhausted I was taken to see the bit of sodding which had been done where the ground was torn up,—the shrubs which had been planted and the flower beds which had been marked out ready for spring. Noticing at last that I shivered as a gust of wind, damp with coming rain, swept across The Plateau, Jack said, “Why, you are cold, aren’t you? I do believe it’s going to rain right away. Go into the house where there is a fire. I will be there in a few minutes.”

He went whistling to the stable with his horse, while I made my way alone into the house. Passing through the kitchen I came first to the dining-room, with its crimson carpet and curtains, its polished oak table and carved chairs of the same wood, upholstered in dark-green leather,—its handsome sideboard standing in the niche made for it,—its china and glass and fancy cups hanging on hooks,—a fashion beginning to prevail at the north and which Jack had seen in Richmond. There was no grate in this room, but a deep fireplace, ornamented with the brass andirons and fender which had belonged to Jack’s mother. On the hearth some pine knots were laid ready for a fire on the morrow, when the real mistress came to see her new home. On one side of the room was a pretty conservatory half full of plants with a hanging basket before two of the windows. Fanny was fond of flowers and Jack had remembered everything.

“Well, what do you think of it? Have I been too extravagant to suit my little economical Annie-mother?” he said, coming in just as I had finished inspecting the room.

I told him it was lovely, but said nothing about extravagance, although I did wonder where all the money came from. I kept on wondering as I went from room to room, stopping next in the square hall with its broad landing, in an angle of which the tall clock was ticking, with a stained glass window on one side of it and Mrs. Fullerton’s portrait on the other. The polished floor in this room was bare with the exception of a few rugs here and there. The deep window seats were cushioned, and a bright fire was burning in the grate. This had been my favorite room from the first, it was so unlike in its construction any room I had then seen, and I was disposed to linger there in the easy chair before the warm fire. But Jack hurried me on to the parlor,—_the great room_ he laughingly called it, as he threw open the door. The moquette carpet was down and so thick and soft that my feet nearly went out of sight as I trod upon it. Nothing could have been in better taste than the whole arrangement of the room, from the lace draperies at the windows to the Steinway in the corner. I had not seen it since it was unpacked, and anxious to hear its tone I stepped up to open it when Jack laid his hand on my shoulder and said, “Excuse me, please, but it is a fad of mine that Fanny’s fingers must be the first to touch the keys. I’ve had it tuned and know it is in good shape, and to-morrow afternoon, when I bring Fanny up here, I am going to have her sing and play Home, Sweet Home, and Bonny Doon, and then, little woman, you may drum away on it all you please. Of course the room is not quite finished. It looks a little stiff yet,” he continued, glancing around. “It wants some jim-cracks and things, which Fanny will see to. An old shawl of hers, thrown on the back of a chair will change it wonderfully. By George, it begins to rain. I didn’t think it would come so soon. I am glad I put Robin in the stable,” he exclaimed, as a few drops pattered against the windows, “Let’s go now to our room.”

This I knew was the _pièce de résistance_, the grand reserve kept for the last, and it seemed to me as I followed Jack up the stairs as if he stepped softly, reverently, as we go to look at the dead. But it was not much like a death chamber,—that bright room, with its wide bay window, from which fluted muslin curtains were artistically draped back so as not to obstruct the view. By the centre window a pretty work-table stood, with an inlaid work-box on the top ready for use. On one side of the table a large easy chair, with head and foot rest. On the other side a low rocker, where Fan was to sit and watch for Jack, and later on sew and listen while, in the chair opposite, he talked or read to her, or smoked a little, if she would let him, and he reckoned she would. All this he explained to me, making me try first Fanny’s chair to get the view on one side; then his to get the view on the other side, and then calling my attention to the carpet, a light, pretty ingrain, with a delicate pattern of roses.

“I wanted to get Brussels,” he said, “but couldn’t quite afford it yet. We can put down some matting in the summer. Mrs. Maney of Richmond says that is the correct thing. She helped me a lot. Couldn’t have got along without her. What do you think of the furniture?”

I said it was prettier than anything I had ever seen, especially the bedstead, with the medallion and the young girl in the crimson cloak and hood, looking at me with Fanny’s eyes and Fanny’s smile as I remembered it when she was a child.

“It is very much like Fanny, and looks as if it could speak to us,” I said, and Jack, who was regarding it with all his heart in his eyes replied, “She _is_ speaking to me, and saying, ‘I am coming. I shall be with you to-morrow,’ God bless her.”

He was almost childish in his happiness, and more like an expectant boy than a man, and I am glad to remember that for a brief space of time he was as perfectly happy as it is often given us to be; glad, too, that in that supreme moment, when all his mighty love was showing in his face and voice, I had no pang of regret or pain because it was another and not myself to whom his love was given. Was there, I wonder, no influence emanating from that room strong enough to reach the girl of whom we both were thinking so intently, and tell her that this was _her hour_,—the last in which she would ever be loved by a man as good and true as Jack Fullerton?

For a moment we stood looking at the picture, and then Jack, who had spied a bit of dust on a table, took his handkerchief from his pocket to wipe it off. In doing so his hand came in contact with a letter for me which he had found in the office and forgotten until this moment.

“I don’t know why I was so stupid. If it had been from Fanny I should have remembered it, but it is from New York,” he said, as he handed me the rather bulky letter, which was postmarked New York and directed in a handwriting I did not at first recognize.

“Who is writing me from New York?” I said, examining the writing minutely, with a feeling that I had seen it before. Suddenly it came to me, and I exclaimed “Col. Errington. He was to sail Saturday and this is mailed Saturday. What can he have written to me, and so much, too?”

Just then word came up that the new range had arrived, and Mr. Fullerton was wanted to superintend the placing it.

“All right,” he said. “I’ll be there directly;” then to me, “you will excuse me a moment.”

Then he was gone, and I sat looking at the letter and hesitating to break the seal.