Red Rock: A Chronicle of Reconstruction Read online

  CHAPTER VII

  THE CARY CONFERENCE

  The meeting at Birdwood was a notable occasion. It was, in a way, theoutward and visible sign of the return of peace. Someone said it lookedlike the old St. Ann congregation risen from the dead, to which MissThomasia added, that the gentlemen, at least, were now all immortal,and the General, with his hand on his heart, gallantly responded thatthe ladies had always been so. The speech, however, left some facesgrave, for there were a number of vacant places that could not beforgotten.

  Jacquelin, under the excitement of his arrival, felt himselfsufficiently restored and stimulated to join his mother and AuntThomasia, and be driven over to Birdwood, and though he suffered a gooddeal from the condition of the roads, yet when Blair ran forward andoffered her shoulder for “his other crutch,” he felt as though a badwound might after all have some compensations.

  Steve Allen was the life of the company. He had ridden over on hisblack horse, “Hot-Spur,” that, like himself, had been wounded severaltimes in the last campaigns, though never seriously. He spent his timeteasing Blair. He declared that Jacquelin was holding on to his crutchonly to excite sympathy, and that his own greatest cause for hatred ofthe Yankees now was either that they had not shot him instead of Jack,or had not killed Jack, and he offered to go out and let anyone shoothim immediately for one single pitying glance like those he said Blairwas lavishing on Jack.

  Jacquelin, with a vivid memory of the morning before, had meant tokiss Blair on his arrival, yet when they met he was seized with asudden panic, and could hardly look into her eyes. She appeared tohave grown taller and older since yesterday, as well as prettier, andwhen Steve, on arriving, insolently caught and kissed her before themall, on the plea of cousinship, Jacquelin was conscious of a pang ofconsuming jealousy, and for the first time in his life would gladlyhave thrashed Steve.

  There was one thing that marred the occasion somewhat, or might havedone so under other circumstances. The entire negro population, whocould travel, moved by some idea that the arrival of the Federalsoldiers concerned them, were flocking to the county seat, leaving thefields deserted and the cabins empty.

  The visitors had found the roads lined with them as they came along.They were all civil, but what could it mean? Some of the young men,like Steve and Jacquelin, were much stirred up about it, and talkedof organizing quietly so as to be ready if the need should arise. Dr.Cary, however, and the older ones, opposed anything of the kind. Anyorganization whatever would be viewed with great suspicion by theauthorities, and might be regarded as a breach of their parole, andwas not needed. They were already organized simply by being what theywere. And, indeed, though gaunt and weather-beaten, in their old wornuniforms they were a martial-looking set. There was not a man there whohad not looked Death in the eyes many a time, and the stare had leftsomething notable in every face.

  It was a lovely day, and the early flowers were peeping out as if to besure before they came too far that winter had gone for good. The softhaze of Spring was over the landscape.

  The one person who was wanting, to make the company complete, was thelittle General. They were just discussing him, and were wondering ifhe had gone to Mexico; and Steve, seated at Miss Thomasia’s side, wasteasing her about him, declaring that, in his opinion, it was a prettywidow, whose husband had been in the General’s brigade and had beenshot, that the General had gone South after; when a horseman was seenriding rapidly across the open field far below, taking the ditches ashe came to them. When he drew nearer he was recognized to be none otherthan the gallant little General himself. As he came trotting acrossthe lawn, among the great trees, he presented a martial figure, andhandkerchiefs were waved to him, and many cheers were given, so that hewas quite overcome when he dismounted in the midst of a number of hisold soldiers, and found himself literally taken in the arms of both themen and the ladies.

  The General beamed, as he gazed around with a look that showed thathe thought life might still be worth living if only he could meetoccasionally such a reception as had just been given him. Others smiledtoo; for it was known that the General had been an almost life-longlover and suitor of Miss Thomasia Gray, whose twenty years’ failureto smile on him had in no way damped his ardor or dimmed his hope.In fact, the old soldier, in his faded gray, with his bronzed, worn,high-bred face, was nearer achieving the object of his life at thatmoment than he had ever been in the whole twenty years of his pursuit.Had the occasion come fifteen or even ten years earlier, he might havedone so; but Miss Thomasia had reached the point when to marry appearedto her ridiculous, and the only successful rival of the shaft of Cupidis the shaft of Ridicule.

  At such a meeting as this there were necessarily many serious thingsto be considered. One was the question of bread; another of existence.None could look around on the wide, deserted fields and fail to takein this. Everything like civil government had disappeared. There wasnot a civil officer left in the State. From Governor to justices ofthe peace, every office had been vacated. The Birdwood meeting was thefirst in the county at which was had any discussion of a plan for thepreservation of order. Even this was informal and unpremeditated;but when it reached the ears of Colonel Krafton, the new commander ofthat district, who had just arrived, it had taken on quite anothercomplexion, and the “Cary Conference,” as it came to be called, wasproductive of some very far-reaching consequences to certain of thosewho participated in it, and to the county itself.

  As to some matters broached at Birdwood that day, there was widediversity of opinion among those present.

  Dr. Cary was in favor of accepting the issues as settled by the war; ofmaking friends with the high authorities—as had already been done bysome in other parts of the State, and of other States.

  “Never! never!” declared General Legaie, with whom were most of theothers. “They have done their worst; they have invaded us, and takenour negroes from us. Let them bear the responsibilities they haveassumed.”

  It was easy to see, from the enthusiasm which greeted the General, onwhich side the sympathy lay.

  “The worst! General Legaie?” exclaimed Dr. Cary. “The worst will becoming for years. ’After the sword comes the cankerworm.’ Mark mywords: the first terms offered are always the best. I should not besurprised if you were to live to see negroes invested with the electivefranchise.”

  “Impossible! Preposterous! Incredible!” declared general Legaie, hiswords being echoed by most of those present.

  “It seems almost impossible and quite incredible, yet to an old manmany things appear possible that are incredible,” said Dr. Cary.

  “We will die before such an infamy should be perpetrated!” protestedGeneral Legaie, with spirit.

  “The only trouble is, that dying would do no good; only those who knowhow to live can now save the Country,” said the Doctor, gravely.

  The old Whig looked so earnest—so imposing, as he stood, tall andwhite, his eyes flashing under their beetling brows, that though,perhaps, few agreed with him, all were impressed, and by a common andtacit consent their position was not pressed, at least for the present.The little General even agreed to accompany Dr. Cary at some neardate, to give his views, along with Dr. Cary’s, to the new Commanderof the district, Colonel Krafton, in order, the General stated, thatthe Commander might understand precisely the attitude of all persons intheir county.

  Steve Allen, and the other young soldiers who were there, foundthemselves sufficiently entertained, fighting over their battles,as though they had been the commanding generals, and laying off newcampaigns in a fresh and different field; meantime, getting their handsin, adoring and teasing their young hostess, who was related to, orconnected with, most of them. They had left Blair Cary, a dimple-faced,tangle-haired romp of thirteen or fourteen, with saucy eyes, whicheven then, as they danced behind their dark lashes, promised the bestsubstitute for beauty. They now found her sprung up to a slender younglady of “quite seventeen,” whose demureness and new-born dignity werethe more bewitching, because they we
re belied by her laughing glances.Mars has ever been the captive of Venus as well as her conqueror, andmore than Steve Allen and Jacquelin Gray fell victims at the first firefrom those “deadly batteries,” as Steve afterward characterized BlairCary’s eyes, in his first poem to Belinda—published in the Brutusville_Guardian_. But they all declared they saw at once that they stood nochance with Jack Gray, whose face wore “that sickly look,” as Stevecalled it, which, he said, “every woman thought interesting and nonecould resist.” Over all of which nonsense, Miss Blair’s dark eyestwinkled with the pleasure of a girl who is too young to comprehend itquite fully, but yet finds it wonderfully delightful. As for Jacquelin,to him she was no longer mortal: he had robed her in radiance andlifted her among the stars.

  The older people found not less pleasure in the reunion than theirjuniors, and appeared to have grown young again. And while theyoungsters were out on the grass at Miss Blair’s feet, in more sensesthan one, the General and Dr. Cary and the other seniors were on thevine-covered portico, discussing grave questions of state-craft,showing precisely how and when the Confederacy might have been savedand made the greatest power on earth—together with other seriousmatters. The General teased himself as of old about Miss Thomasia,and the Doctor teased them both. The General had been noted formerlyas a great precisionist in matters of dress, as well as in all othermatters, and now, when he stalked about the veranda, with his olduniform-coat buttoned to the chin as jauntily as ever, and with a limpbit of white showing above the collar and at the wrists, in which heevidently took much pride, the Doctor, who knew where the shirt camefrom, and that, like the one which he himself had on, it was madefrom an under-garment of one of the ladies, could not help rallyinghim a little. The Doctor wisely took advantage of Mrs. Cary’s absencefrom the room to do this, but had got no farther than to congratulatethe General on the luxury of fresh linen and to receive from him thegallant assurance that he had felt on putting it on that morning, asa knight of old might have felt when he donned his armor preparedby virgin hands, when Mrs. Cary entered and, recognizing instantlyfrom her husband’s look of suspicious innocence and Miss Thomasia’sexpression, that some mischief was going on, pounced on him promptlyand bore him off. When he returned from the “judgment chamber,” as hecalled it, he was under a solemn pledge not to open the subject againto the General, which he observed to the best of his ability, though hekept Miss Thomasia on thorns, by coming as near to it as he dared witha due regard to himself in view of his wife’s watchfulness.

  In fact, these men were thoroughly enjoying home life after thelong interval of hardship and deprivation, and neither the sorrow ofthe past nor the gloom of the present could wholly depress them. Thefuture, fortunately, they could not know. Then, among young peoplethere must be joy, if there be not death; and fun is as natural asgrass or flowers in spring or any other outbudding of a new andbounding life.

  So, even amid the ruins, the flowers bloomed and there were fun andgayety. Hope was easily worth all the other spirits in Pandora’s boxput together.

  Before the company separated they began to talk even of a party, and,to meet the objections of old Mr. Langstaff and some others, it wasagreed that it should be a contribution-entertainment and that theproceeds should go to the wounded soldiers and soldiers’ widows, ofthe county. This Steve declared was a deep-laid scheme on the part ofJacquelin Gray. It was already decided on when the Doctor returnedto the sitting-room, after Mrs. Cary had summoned him thence, andthe question under advisement was whether the Yankee officers at thecourt-house should be invited. Steve Allen had started it. The ladieswere a unit.

  “No, indeed; not one of them should set his foot inside the door; nota girl would dance with one of them.” On this point Miss Blair wasvery emphatic, and her laughing eyes lost their gleam of sunlight andflashed forth a sudden spark which showed deeper depths behind thosedark lashes than had appeared at any time before.

  “I’ll bet you do,” said Steve. He stretched out his long legs, settledhimself, and looked at Blair with that patronizing air which alwaysexasperated her.

  “I’ll bet I don’t!”—with her head up, and her color deepening a littleat the bravado of using such a word.

  “I’ll bet my horse you’ll break a set with Jack for the Yankeecaptain,” declared Steve.

  “Don’t want your old horse, he’s too full of lead,” said Blair.

  “Then I’ll bet you his horse.”

  “It’s a good one,” said Jacquelin from his place on the lounge.“Blood-bay, with three white feet and a blaze on his nose.”

  “He’s mine,” asserted Steve with a nod of his head.

  “How will you get it?” asked Blair.

  “Steve knows several ways of getting horses,” laughed one of the otheryoung men.

  “Shut up, you fool,” telegraphed Steve with his lips, glancing quicklyat Miss Thomasia, who was beaming on him with kindly eyes.

  It is surprising what little things have influence. That sudden flash,with the firmer lines which came for a second in the young girl’s face,did more to bind the young men to her footstool than all the fun andgayety she had shown.

  The men were not so unanimous on the point touching the exclusion ofthe officers. Most of them agreed with the ladies, but one or two wereinclined to the other side.

  “Men like to fancy themselves broader and more judicial than women,”said Miss Thomasia, placidly.

  Jacquelin mentioned casually that Middleton was not only quite agentlemanly fellow, but a strikingly handsome one.

  “A Yankee soldier good-looking! I’ll not believe that!” declared MissBlair, promptly.

  This debate created a diversion in their favor, and it was suggestedand agreed to, as a compromise, that they should “wait until after aSt. Ann Sunday, and see what the officers looked like. No doubt someof them would come to church, and then they could determine what theywould do.”

  This idea was feminine, and, to offset it, it was re-declared that atpresent they were “unanimously opposed to regarding them in any otherlight than that of bitter enemies.”