Miss Ravenel's conversion from secession to loyalty

by John William De Forest

Mrs. Larue treated him now with a familiar and confiding fondness which he sometimes liked and sometimes not, according as the present or the past had the strongest hold on his feelings.

"I am afraid that you do not always realize that we are one for life," she said in one of her earnest, French speaking moods. "You are my sworn friend forever. You must never hate me; you cannot. You must never change towards me; it would be a perjury of the heart. But I do not doubt you, my dear friend. I have all confidence in you. Oh, I am so happy in feeling that we are united in such an indissoluble concord of sympathy."

Carter could only reply by taking her hand and pressing it in silence. He was absolutely ashamed of himself that he was able to feel so little and to say nothing.

"I never shall desire a husband," she proceeded. "I can now use all my heart. What does a woman need more? How strangely Heaven has made us! A woman is only happy when she is the slave, body and soul, of some man. She is happy, just in proportion to her obedience and self-sacrifice. Then only she is aware of her full nature. She is relieved from prison and permitted the joy of expansion. It is a seeming paradox, but it is solemnly true."

Carter made no answer, not even by a look. He was thinking that his wife never philosophised concerning her love, never analyzed her sentiments, and a shock of self-reproach, as startling as the throb of a heart-complaint, struck him as he called to mind her purity, trust and affection. It is curious, by the way, that he suffered no remorse on account of Mrs. Larue. In his opinion she fared no worse than she deserved, and in fact fared precisely as she desired, only he had not the nerve to tell her so. When, late one night, on the darkened and deserted quarter-deck, she cried on his shoulder and whispered, "I am afraid you don't love me—I have a right to claim your love," he felt no affection, no gratitude, not even any profound pity. It annoyed him that she should weep, and thus as it were reproach him, and thus trouble still further his wretched happiness. He was not hypocrite enough to say, "I do love you;" he could only kiss her repeatedly, penitently and in silence. He still had a remnant of a conscience, and a mangled, sore sense of honor. Nor should it be understood that Mrs. Larue's tears were entirely hypocritical, although they arose from emotions which were so trivial as to be somewhat difficult to handle, and so mixed that I scarcely know how to assort them. In the first place she was not very well that evening, and was oppressed by the despondency which all human beings, especially women, suffer from when vitality throbs less vigorously than usual. Moreover a little emotion of this sort was desirable, firstly to complete the conquest of Carter by reminding him how much she had sacrificed for him, and secondly to rehabilitate herself in her own esteem by proving that she possessed a species of conscience. No woman likes to believe herself hopelessly corrupt: when she reaches that point she is subject to moral spasms which make existence seem a horror; and we perhaps find her floating in the river, or asphyxiated with charcoal. Therefore let no one be surprised at the temporary tenderness, similar to compunction, which overcame Mrs. Larue.

Now that these two had that conscience which makes cowards of us all, they dropped a portion of the reserve with which they had hitherto kept their fellow-passengers at a distance. The captain was encouraged to introduce his two neighbors, the major and chaplain; and Mrs. Larue cast a few telling glances at the former and discussed theological subjects with the latter. To one who knew her, and was not shocked by her masquerades, nothing could be more diverting than the nun-like airs which she put on pour achalander le prêtre. Carter and she laughed heartily over them in their evening asides. She would have made a capital actress in the natural comedy school known on the boards of the Gymnase and at Wallack's, for it was an easy amusement to her to play a variety of social characters. She had no strong emotions nor profound principles of action, it is true, but she was sympathetic enough to divine them, and clever enough to imitate their expression. Her manner to the chaplain was so religiously respectful as to pull all the strings of his unconscious vanity, personal and professional, so that he fell an easy prey to her humbugging, declared that he considered her state of mind deeply interesting, prayed for her in secret, and hoped to convert her from the errors of papacy. Indeed her profession of faith was promising if not finally satisfactory.

"I believe in the holy catholic church," she said. "But I am not dogmatique. I think that others also may have the truth. Our faith, yours and mine, is at bottom one, indivisible, uncontradictory. It is only our human weakness which leads us to dispute with each other. We dispute, not as to the faith, but as to who holds it. This is uncharitable. It is like quarrelsome children."

The chaplain was charmed to agree with her. He thought her the most hopefully religious catholic that he had ever met; he also thought her the wittiest, the most graceful, and on the whole the handsomest. Her eyes alone were enough to deceive him: they were inexhaustible greenrooms of sparkling masks and disguises; and he was especially taken with the Madonnesque gaze which issued from their recesses. He was bamboozled also by the prim, broad, white collar, like a surplice, which she put on expressly to attract him; by the demure air of childlike piety which clothed her like a mantle; by her deference to his opinion; by her teachable spirit. Perhaps he may also have been pleased with her plump shoulders and round arms, and he certainly did glance at them occasionally as their outlines showed through the transparent muslin; but he said nothing of them in his talks concerning Mrs. Larue with his room-mate the Major.

"J'ai apprivoisé le prêtre," she observed laughingly to Carter. "I have assured myself a firm friend in his reverence. He will defend me the character always. He has asked me to visit his family, and promised to call to see me at New York. Madame La Prêtresse is to call also. He is quite capable of praying me to stand godmother to his next child. If he were not married, I should have an offer. I believe I could bring him to elope with me in a fortnight."

"Why don't you?" asked Carter. "It would make a scandal that would amuse you," he added somewhat bitterly, for he was at times disgusted by her heartlessness.