CHAPTER XVI. COLONEL CARTER GAINS ONE VICTORY, AND MISS RAVENEL ANOTHER.
After the victory of Georgia Landing, the brigade was stationed for the winter in the vicinity of the little half-Creole, half-American city of Thibodeaux. I have not time to tell of the sacking of this land of rich plantations; how the inhabitants, by flying before the northern Vandals, induced the spoliation of their own property; how the negroes defiled and plundered the forsaken houses, and how the soldiers thereby justified themselves in plundering the negroes; how the furniture, plate and libraries of the Lafourche planters were thus scattered upon the winds of destruction. These things are matters of public and not of private history. If I were writing the life and times of Colonel Carter, or of Captain Colburne, I should relate them with conscientious tediousness, adding a description in the best style of modern word-painting of the winding and muddy Bayou Lafourche, the interminable parallel levees, the flat border of rich bottom land, the fields of moving cane, and the enclosing stretches of swampy forest. But I am simply writing a biography of Miss Ravenel illustrated by sketches of her three or four relatives and intimates.
To reward Colonel Carter for his gallantry at Georgia Landing, and to compensate him for his disappointment in not obtaining the star of a brigadier, the commanding general appointed him military governor of Louisiana, and stationed him at New Orleans.
In his present temper and with his present intentions he was sincerely delighted to obtain the generous loot of the governorship. In order to save up money for his approaching married life, he tried to be economical, and actually thought that he was so, although he regularly spent the monthly two hundred and twenty-two dollars of his colonelcy. But the position of governor would give him several thousands a year, and these thousands he could and would put aside to comfort and adorn his future wife. Now-a-days there was no private and unwarrantable attachment to his housekeeping establishment; the pure love that was in his heart overthrew and drove out all the unclean spirits who were its enemies. Moreover, he rapidly cut down his drinking habits, first pruning off his cocktails before breakfast, then his absinthe before dinner, then his afternoon whiskeys straight, then his convivial evening punches, and in short everything but the hot night-cap with which he prepared himself for slumber.
"That may have to go, too," he said to himself, "when I am married."
He spent every spare moment with Lillie and her father. He was quite happy in his love-born sanctification of spirit, and showed it in his air, countenance and conversation. Man of the world as he was, or thought he was, roué as he had been, it never occurred to him to wonder at the change which had come over him, nor to laugh at himself because of it. To a nature so simply passionate as his, the present hour of passion was the only hour that he could realize. He shortly came to feel as if he had never lived any other life than this which he was living now.
The Doctor soon lost his keen distrust of Carter; he began to respect him, and consequently to like him. Indeed he could not help being pleased with any tolerable person who pleased his daughter; although he sometimes exhibited a petulant jealousy of such persons which was droll enough, considering that he was only her father.
"Papa, I believe you would be severe on St. Cecilia, or St. Ursula, if I should get intimate with them," Lillie had once said. "I never had a particular friend since I was a baby, but what you picked her to pieces."
And the Doctor had in reply looked a little indignant, not perceiving the justice of the criticism. By the way, Lillie had a similar jealousy of him, and was ready to slander any single woman who ogled him too fondly. There were moments of great anguish when she feared that he might be inveigled into admiring, perhaps loving, perhaps (horrid thought!) marrying, Mrs. Larue. If it ever occurred to her that this would be a poetically just retribution for her own sin of giving away her heart without asking his approval, she drew no resignation from the thought. I may as well state here that the widow did occasionally make eyes at the Doctor. He was oldish, but he was very charming, and any man is better than no man. She had given up Carter; our friend Colburne was with his regiment at Thibodeaux; and the male angels of New Orleans were so few that their visits were far between. So those half-shut, almond eyes of dewy blackness and brightness were frequently turned sidelong upon Ravenel, with a coquettish significance which made Lillie uneasy in the innermost chambers of her filial affection. Mrs. Larue had very remarkable eyes. They were the only features of her face that were not under her control; they were so expressive that she never could fully veil their meaning. They were beautiful spiders, weaving quite visibly webs of entanglement, the threads of which were rays of dazzling light and subtle sentiment.
"Devilish handsome eyes! Dangerous, by Jove!" remarked the Colonel, judging in his usual confident, broadcast fashion, right rather more than half the time. "I've seen the day, by Jove! when they would have finished me."