Christmas at Thompson Hall (15 page)

“In a few years there will be no slaves in Kentucky,” she had answered.

“Wait till then,” he had answered; “and I also will wait.” And so he had left her, resolving that he would bide his time. He thought that the right still remained to him of seeking Ada's hand, although she had told him that she loved his brother. “I know that such a marriage would make each of them miserable,” he said to himself over and over again. And now that these terrible times had come upon them, and that he was going one way with the Union, while his brother was going the other way with Secession, he felt more strongly than ever that he might still be successful. The political predilections of American women are as strong as those of American men. And Frank Reckenthorpe knew that all Ada's feelings were as strongly in favour of the Union as his own. Had not she been born and bred in Maine? Was she not ever keen for total abolition, till even the old Major, with all his gallantry for womanhood and all his love for the young girl who had come to his house in his old age, would be driven occasionally by stress of feeling to rebuke her? Frank Reckenthorpe was patient, hopeful, and firm. The time must come when Ada would learn that she could not be a fit wife for his brother. The time had, he thought, perhaps come already; and so he spoke to her a word or two on the evening of that day on which she had laid her hand upon his brother's mouth.

“Ada,” he had said, “there are bad times coming to us.”

“Good times, I hope,” she had answered. “No one could expect that the thing could be done without some struggle. When the struggle has passed we shall say that good times have come.” The thing of which she spoke was that little thing of which she was ever thinking, the enfranchisement of four millions of slaves.

“I fear that there will be bad times first. Of course I am thinking of you now.”

“Bad or good they will not be worse to me than to others.”

“They would be very bad to you if this State were to secede, and if you were to join your lot to my brother's. In the first place, all your fortune would be lost to him and to you.”

“I do not see that; but of course I will caution him that it may be so. If it alters his views, I shall hold him free to act as he chooses.”

“But Ada, should it not alter yours?”

“What, — because of my money? — or because Tom could not afford to marry a girl without a fortune?”

“I did not mean that. He might decide that for himself. But your marriage with him under such circumstances as those which he now contemplates, would be as though you married a Spaniard or a Greek adventurer. You would be without country, without home, without fortune, and without standing-ground in the world. Look you, Ada, before you answer. I frankly own that I tell you this because I want you to be my wife, and not his.”

“Never, Frank; I shall never be your wife, — whether I marry him or no.”

“All I ask of you now is to pause. This is no time for marrying or for giving in marriage.”

“There I agree with you; but as my word is pledged to him, I shall let him be my adviser in that.”

Late on that same night Ada saw her betrothed and bade him adieu. She bade him adieu with many tears, for he came to tell her that he intended to leave Frankfort very early on the following morning. “My staying here now is out of the question,” said he. “I am resolved to secede, whatever the State may do. My father is resolved against secession. It is necessary, therefore, that we should part. I have already left my father and mother, and now I have come to say good-bye to you.”

“And your brother, Tom?”

“I shall not see my brother again.”

“And is that well after such words as you have spoken to each other? Perhaps it may be that you will never see him again. Do you remember what you threatened?”

“I do remember what I threatened.”

“And did you mean it?”

“No; of course I did not mean it. You, Ada, have heard me speak many angry words, but I do not think that you have known me do many angry things.”

“Never one, Tom: — never. See him then before you go, and tell him so.”

“No, — he is hard as iron, and would take any such telling from me amiss. He must go his way, and I mine.”

“But though you differ as men, Tom, you need not hate each other as brothers.”

“It will be better that we should not meet again. The truth is, Ada, that he always despises anyone who does not think as he thinks. If I offered him my hand he would take it, but while doing so he would let me know that he thought me a fool. Then I should be angry, and threaten him again, and things would be worse. You must not quarrel with me, Ada, if I say that he has all the faults of a Yankee.”

“And the virtues too, sir, while you have all the faults of a Southern —. But, Tom, as you are going from us, I will not scold you. I have, too, a word of business to say to you.”

“And what's the word of business, dear?” said Tom, getting nearer to her as a lover should do, and taking her hand in his.

“It is this. You and those who think like you are dividing yourselves from your country. As to whether that be right or wrong, I will say nothing now, — nor will I say anything as to your chance of success. But I am told that those who go with the South will not be able to hold property in the North.”

“Did Frank tell you that?”

“Never mind who told me, Tom.”

“And is that to make a difference between you and me?”

“That is just the question that I am asking you. Only you ask me with a reproach in your tone, and I ask you with none in mine. Till we have mutually agreed to break our engagement you shall be my adviser. If you think it better that it should be broken, — better for your own interests, be man enough to say so.”

But Tom Reckenthorpe either did not think so, or else he was not man enough to speak his thoughts. Instead of doing so he took the girl in his arms and kissed her, and swore that whether with fortune or no fortune she should be his, and his only. But still he had to go, — to go now, within an hour or two of the very moment at which they were speaking. They must part, and before parting must make some mutual promise as to their future meeting. Marriage now, as things stood at this Christmas time, could not be thought of even by Tom Reckenthorpe. At last he promised that if he were then alive he would be with her again, at the old family house in Frankfort, on the next coming Christmas day. So he went, and as he let himself out of the old house Ada, with her eyes full of tears, took herself up to her bedroom.

During the year that followed — the year 1861 — the American war progressed only as a school for fighting. The most memorable action was that of Bull's Run, in which both sides ran away, not from individual cowardice in either set of men, but from that feeling of panic which is engendered by ignorance and inexperience. Men saw waggons rushing hither and thither, and thought that all was lost. After that the year was passed in drilling and in camp-making, — in the making of soldiers, of gunpowder, and of cannons. But of all the articles of war made in that year, the article that seemed easiest of fabrication was a general officer. Generals were made with the greatest rapidity, owing their promotion much more frequently to local interest than to military success. Such a State sent such and such regiments, and therefore must be rewarded by having such and such generals nominated from among its citizens. The wonder perhaps is that with armies so formed battles should have been fought so well.

Before the end of 1861 both Major Reckenthorpe's sons had become general officers. That Frank, the soldier, should have been so promoted was, at such a period as this, nothing strange. Though a young man he had been a soldier, or learning the trade of a soldier, for more than ten years, and such service as that might well be counted for much in the sudden construction of an army intended to number seven hundred thousand troops, and which at one time did contain all those soldiers. Frank too was a clever fellow, who knew his business, and there were many generals made in those days who understood less of their work than he did. As much could not be said for Tom's quick military advancement. But this could be said for them in the South, — that unless they did make their generals in this way, they would hardly have any generals at all, and General Reckenthorpe, as he so quickly became, — General Tom as they used to call him in Kentucky, — recommended himself specially to the Confederate leaders by the warmth and eagerness with which he had come among them. The name of the old man so well known throughout the Union, who had ever loved the South without hating the North, would have been a tower of strength to them. Having him they would have thought that they might have carried the State of Kentucky into open secession. He was now worn out and old, and could not be expected to take upon his shoulders the crushing burden of a new contest. But his eldest son had come among them, eagerly, with his whole heart; and so they made him a general.

The poor old man was in part proud of this and in part grieved. “I have a son a general in each army,” he said to a stranger who came to his house in those days; “but what strength is there in a fagot when it is separated? of what use is a house that is divided against itself? The boys would kill each other if they met.”

“It is very sad,” said the stranger.

“Sad!” said the old man. “It is as though the Devil were let loose upon the earth; — and so he is; so he is.”

The family came to understand that General Tom was with the Confederate army which was confronting the Federal army of the Potomac and defending Richmond; whereas it was well known that Frank was in Kentucky with the army on the Green River, which was hoping to make its way into Tennessee, and which did so early in the following year. It must be understood that Kentucky, though a slave state, had never seceded, and that therefore it was divided off from the Southern States, such as Tennessee and that part of Virginia which had seceded, by a cordon of pickets; so that there was no coming up from the Confederate army to Frankfort in Kentucky. There could, at any rate, be no easy or safe coming up for such a one as General Tom, seeing that being a soldier he would be regarded as a spy, and certainly treated as a prisoner if found within the Northern lines. Nevertheless, General as he was, he kept his engagement with Ada, and made his way into the gardens of his father's house on the night of Christmas-eve. And Ada was the first who knew that he was there. Her ear first caught the sound of his footsteps, and her hand raised for him the latch of the garden door.

“Oh, Tom, it is not you?”

“But it is though, Ada, my darling!” Then there was a little pause in his speech. “Did I not tell you that I should see you to-day?”

“Hush. Do you know who is here? Your brother came across to us from the Green River yesterday.”

“The mischief he did. Then I shall never find my way back again. If you knew what I have gone through for this!”

Ada immediately stepped out through the door and on to the snow, standing close up against him as she whispered to him, “I don't think Frank would betray you,” she said. “I don't think he would.”

“I doubt him, — doubt him hugely. But I suppose I must trust him. I got through the pickets close to Cumberland Gap, and I left my horse at Stoneley's, halfway between this and Lexington. I cannot go back to-night now that I have come so far!”

“Wait, Tom; wait a minute, and I will go in and tell your mother. But you must be hungry. Shall I bring you food?”

“Hungry enough, but I will not eat my father's victuals out here in the snow.”

“Wait a moment, dearest, till I speak to my aunt.” Then Ada slipped back into the house and soon managed to get Mrs. Reckenthorpe away from the room in which the Major and his second son were sitting. “Tom is here,” she said, “in the garden. He has encountered all this danger to pay us a visit because it is Christmas. Oh, aunt, what are we to do? He says that Frank would certainly give him up!”

Mrs. Reckenthorpe was nearly twenty years younger than her husband, but even with this advantage on her side Ada's tidings were almost too much for her. She, however, at last managed to consult the Major, and he resolved upon appealing to the generosity of his younger son. By this time the Confederate General was warming himself in the kitchen, having declared that his brother might do as he pleased; — he would not skulk away from his father's house in the night.

“Frank,” said the father, as his younger son sat silently thinking of what had been told him, “it cannot be your duty to be false to your father in his own house.”

“It is not always easy, sir, for a man to see what is his duty. I wish that either he or I had not come here.”

“But he is here; and you, his brother, would not take advantage of his coming to his father's house?” said the old man.

“Do you remember, sir, how he told me last year that if ever he met me on the field he would shoot me like a dog?”

“But, Frank, you know that he is the last man in the world to carry out such a threat. Now he has come here with great danger.”

“And I have come with none; but I do not see that that makes any difference.”

“He has put up with it all that he may see the girl he loves.”

“Psha!” said Frank, rising up from his chair. “When a man has work to do, he is a fool to give way to play. The girl he loves! Does he not know that it is impossible that she should ever marry him? Father, I ought to insist that he should leave this house as a prisoner. I know that that would be my duty.”

“You would have, sir, to bear my curse.”

“I should not the less have done my duty. But, father, independently of your threat, I will neglect that duty. I cannot bring myself to break your heart and my mother's. But I will not see him. Good-bye, sir. I will go up to the hotel, and will leave the place before daybreak to-morrow.”