“It is not so yet. My father is with General Beauregard. My brother is at Grenada with General Van Dorn. I am Désirée Gaillard. We Louisianians know what soldiers are the Virginia troops. Cape Jessamine gives you welcome and says, ‘Be at home for these three days.’”
She turned and spoke. The old butler came forward. “Etienne, this gentleman is our guest. Show him to the panelled room, and tell Simon he is to wait upon him.” She spoke again to Edward. “Breakfast will be sent to you there. And then you must sleep.—No, there is nothing we can do. The danger to the main levee has passed for this time, I am sure.—Yes, there is still food. We can only fold our hands and wait. I am used to that if you are not. Refresh yourself and sleep. Supper is at seven, and I hope that you will take it with me.”
The panelled room, with a lightwood fire crackling upon the hearth, with jalousied windows just brushed against from without by a superb magnolia, with a cricket chirping, with a great soft white bed—ah, the panelled room was a place in which to sleep! The weary soldier from Virginia slept like the dead. The day passed, the afternoon was drawing toward evening, before he began to dream. First he dreamed of battle; of A.P. Hill in his red battle-shirt, and of an order from “Old Jack” which nobody could read, but which everybody knew must be immediately obeyed. In the midst of the whole division trying to decipher it, it suddenly became perfectly plain, and the Light Division marched to carry it out,—only he himself was suddenly back home at Greenwood and Mammy was singing to him
“The buzzards and the butterflies.”
He turned upon his side and drifted to the University, and then turned again and dreamed of a poem which it seemed he was writing,—a great poem,—a string of sonnets, like Petrarch or Surrey or Philip Sidney. The sonnets were all about Love.... He woke fully and his mind filled at once with the red torchlight, the wild river beyond the levee, and the face and form of Désirée Gaillard.
The door gently opened and Simon entered the panelled room, behind him two boys bearing great pitchers of heated water. The lightwood fire was burning brightly; through the jalousies stole the slant rays of the sinking sun; the magnolia, pushed by the evening wind, tapped against the window frame. Simon had across his extended arm divers articles of wearing apparel. These he laid with solemnity upon a couch by the fire, and then, having dismissed the boys and observed that Edward was awake, he bowed and hoped that the guest had slept well.
“Heavenly well,” said Edward dreamily. “Hot water, soap, and towels.”
“I hab tek de liberty, sah,” said Simon, “ob extractin’ yo’ uniform from de room while you slep’. De mud whar we could clean off, we hab cleaned off, en’ we hab pressed de uniform, but de sempstress she say ’scuse her fer not mendin’ de tohn places better. She say dat uniform sut’n’y seen hard service.”
“She’s a woman of discernment,” said Edward. “The tatters are not what troubles me. No end of knights and poets have appeared in tatters. But I do feel a touch when it comes to the shoes. There’s nothing of the grand manner in your toes being out. And had it ever occurred to you, Simon, before this war, how valuable is a shoestring?” He sat up in bed. “At this moment I would give all the silken waistcoats I used to have for two real shoestrings.—What, may I ask, could you do for the shoes?”
“King Hiram de cobbler, sah, he hab de shoes in han’. He shake he haid, but he say he gwine do all he kin. De sempstress, too, she say she gwine do her natchul bes’. But Miss Désirée, she say dat perhaps you will give Marse Louis, what am at Grenada wif Gineral Van Dorn, de pleasure ob sarvin’ you? She say de Mississippi River all ’roun’ Cape Jessamine fer three days, en’ nobody gwine come heah less’n dey come in gunboats, en’ you kin wear yo’ uniform away de third day—” Simon, stepping backward, indicated with a gesture the apparel spread upon the sofa. “You en’ Marse Louis, sah, am erbout ob er height en’ make. Miss Désirée tol’ me so, en’ den I see fer myself. Marse Louis’s evening clothes, sah, en’ some ob his linen, en’ a ruffled shu’t, en’ er pair ob his pumps dat ar mighty ol’, but yet better than yo’ shoes.—Dat am de bell-cord ober dar, sah, en’ ef yo’ please, ring when you ready fer me ter shave you.”