Miss Ravenel's conversion from secession to loyalty

by John William De Forest

The months which she passed at Thibodeaux were the happiest that she had ever known. The Colonel did not drink; was with her every moment that he could spare from his duties; was strongly loving and noisily cheerful, like a doting dragoon as he was; abounded with attentions and presents, bouquets from the garden, and dresses from New Orleans; was uneasy to make her comfortable, and exhibit his affection. The whole brigade knew her, and delighted to look at her, drilling badly in consequence of inattention when she cantered by on horseback. The sentinels, when not watched by the lieutenant of the guard, gratified themselves and amused her with the courteous pleasantry of presenting arms as she passed. Such officers as were aristocratic enough or otherwise fortunate enough to obtain a bowing acquaintance, still more to be invited to her receptions and dinner parties, flattered her by their evident admiration and devotion. A second lieutenant who once had a chance to shorten her stirrup leather, alluded to it vain-gloriously for weeks afterward, and received the nickname from his envious comrades of "Acting Assistant Flunkey General, Second Brigade, First Division, Nineteenth Army Corps." It made no difference with the happy youth; he had shortened the stirrup of the being who was every body's admiration; and from his pedestal of good fortune he smiled serenely at detraction. Lillie was the queen, the goddess, the only queen and goddess, of the Lafourche Interieur. In the whole district there was no other lady, except the wives of two captains, who occupied a much lower heaven, and some bitter Secessionists, who kept aloof from the army, and were besides wofully scant in their graces and wardrobe. The adulation which she received did not come from the highest human source, but it was unmixed, unshared, whole-souled, constant. She thought it was the most delightful thing conceivable to keep house, to be married, to be the wife of Colonel Carter. If she had been twenty-five or thirty years old, a veteran of society, I should be inclined to laugh at her for the child-like pleasure she took in her conditions and surroundings; but only twenty, hardly ever at a party, married without a wedding, married less than six months, I sympathise with her, rejoice with her, in her unaccustomed intoxication of happiness. It was curious to see how slowly she got accustomed to her husband. For some time it seemed to her amazing and almost incredible that any man should call himself by such a title, and claim the familiarity and the rights which it implied. She frequently blushed at encountering him, as if he were still a lover. If she met the bold gaze of his wide-open brown eyes, she trembled with an inward thrill, and wanted to say, "Please don't look at me so!" He could tyrannize over her with his eyes; he could make her come to him and try to hide from them by nestling her head on his shoulder; he used to wonder at his power, and gratify his vanity as well as his affection, by using it.

An officer of the staff, who believed in the marvels of the so-called psychologists, observed the emotion awakened in the wife by the husband's gaze, and mentioned it to Colburne as a proof of the actuality of magnetíco-spiritualistic influence. The Captain was not convinced, and felt a strong desire to box the officer's ears. What right had the fellow to make the movements and inclinations of that woman's soul an object of curiosity and a topic of conversation? He offered no reply to the remark, and glared in a way which astonished the other, who had the want of delicacy common to men of one idea. Colburne divined Mrs. Carter too well to adopt the magnetic theory. Judging her nature out of the depths of his own, he believed that love was the true and all-sufficient explanation of her nervousness under the gaze of her husband. It was a painful belief: firstly, for the very natural reason that he was not himself the cause of the emotion; secondly, because he feared that the Colonel might be a blight to the delicate affection which clasped him with its tendrils.

His relations with both were the most familiar, the frankest, the kindest. When Carter could not ride out with his wife, he detailed Colburne for the agreeable duty. When Mrs. Carter made a visit to headquarters, and did not find the Colonel there, she asked for the adjutant-general. The friend sent the lady bouquets by the hands of the husband. Carter knew to some extent how Colburne adored Lillie, but he had a fine confidence in the purity and humility of the adoration, and he trusted her to him as he would have trusted her to her father. The Captain was not a member of the family: the cottage was too far from his official duties to allow of that; but he dined there every Sunday, and called there every other evening. Ravenel's letters to one or the other, were the common property of both. If Lillie did not hear from her father twice a week, and therefore became anxious about him, because it was the yellow fever season, or because of the broad fact that man is mortal, she applied to Colburne as well as to her husband for comforting suggestions and assurances. In company with some chance fourth, these three had the gayest evenings of whist and euchre. Lillie never looked at her cards without exciting the laughter of the two men, by declaring that she hadn't a thing in her hand—positively not a single thing—couldn't take a trick—not one. She talked perpetually, told what honors she held, stole glances at her opponent's hand, screamed with delight when she won, and in short violated all the venerable rules of whist. She forgot the run of the cards, trumped her partner's trick, led diamonds when he had trashed on hearts, led the queen when she held ace and king. To her trumps she held on firmly, never showing them till the last moment, and scolding her partner if he called them out. She invariably claimed the deal at the close of each hand, thereby getting it oftener than she had a right to it. But she might do what she pleased, sure that those who played with her would not complain. Was she not queen and goddess, Semiramis and Juno? Who would rebel, even in the slightest particular, against the dominion of a happiness which overflowed in such gayety, such confidence in all around, such unchangeable amiability?

She was in superb health of body, and spirit without a pain, or a sickly moment, or a cloud of foreboding, or a thrill of pettishness. A physical calmness so deliciously placid as to remind one of that spiritual peace which passeth understanding, bore her gently through the summer, smiling on all beholders. Do you remember the serene angel in the first picture of Cole's Voyage of Life, who stands at the helm of the newly launched bark, guiding it down the gentle river? It is the mother voyaging with her child, whether before its birth or after. Just now she looked much like this angel, only more frolicsomely happy. Her blue eyes sparkled with the lustre of health so perfect that the mere consciousness of a life was a pleasure. Her cheeks, usually showing more of the lily than of the rose, were so radiant with color that it seemed as if every throb of emotion might force the blood through the delicate skin. Her arms, neck and shoulders were no longer Dianesque, but rounded, columnal, Junonian. It was this novel, this almost superwomanly health which gave her such an efflorescence of happiness, amiability and beauty.

She had repeatedly hinted to her husband that she had a secret to tell him. When he asked what it was she blushed, laughed at him for the question, and declared that he should never know it, that she had no secret at all, that she had been joking. Then she wondered that he should not guess it; thought it the strangest thing in the world that he should not know it. At last she made her confession: made it to him alone, with closed doors and in darkness; she could no more have told it in the light of day than in the presence of a circle. Then for many minutes she nestled close to him with wet cheeks and clinging arms, listening eagerly to his assurances of love and devotion, hungering unappeaseably for them, growing to him, one with him.

After this Carter treated his wife with increased tenderness. Nothing that she desired was too good for her, or too difficult to get. He sought to check the constant exercise which she delighted in, and especially her long rides on horseback; and when with a sweet, laughing wilfulness she defied his authority, he watched her with evident anxiety. He wrote about it all to her father, and the consequence was a visit from the Doctor. This combination of natural potentates was victorious, and equestrianism was given up for walking and tending flowers. At this time she had so much affection to spare that she lavished treasures of it, not only on plants, but on birds, cats, dogs, and ponies. Here Colburne drifted into the circle of her sympathies. He was fond of pets, especially of weak ones, for instance liking cats better than dogs, and liking them all the more because most people abused and, as he contended, misunderstood them. He had stories to tell of feline creatures who had loved him with a love like that of Jonathan for David, passing the love of woman. There was the abnormally sensitive Tabby who pined away with grief when his mother died, and the uncomformably intelligent Tom who persisted in getting into his trunk when he was packing it to go to the wars.

"I am confident," he asserted, "that Puss knew I was about to leave, and wanted to be taken along."

Lillie did not question it; all love, even that of animals, seemed natural to her; she felt (not thought) that love was the teacher of the soul.

By the way, Colburne's passion for pets had deep roots in his character. It sprang from his pitying fondness for the weak, and was closely related to his sympathies with humanity. It extended to the feebler members of his own race, such as children and old ladies, whom, he befriended and petted whenever he could, and who in return granted him their easily-won affection. For flowers, and in general for inanimate nature, he cared little; never could be induced to study botany, nor to understand why other people should study it; could not see any human interest in it. Geology he liked, because it promised, he thought, some knowledge of the early history of man, or at least of the grand cosmical preparation for his advent. Astronomy was also interesting to him, inasmuch as we may at some future time traverse sidereal spaces. The most interesting star in the heavens, to his mind, was that one in the Pleiades which is supposed to be the central sun of our solar and planetary system. Around this all that he knew and all whom he loved revolved, even including Mrs. Carter.

I presume that this summer was the happiest period in the life of the Colonel. He was in fine health, thanks to his present temperate ways, although they reduced his weight so rapidly that his wife thought he was sick, and became alarmed about him. He frequently recommended marriage to Colburne, and they had long conversations on the subject; not, however, before Mrs. Carter, whose entrance always caused the Captain to drop the subject. The Telemachus was as fully persuaded of the benefits, happiness and duty of wedded life as the Mentor, and was much the best theorizer.