Lo! it was an acquaintance, almost a friend, a girl who had been much in New Orleans, with whom she had laughed at many a party. “Go with them!—yes, indeed, she might go with them.” She ran to the house that was now the convent, gave the Mayor’s message and thanked the Sisters for the help they would have given, then out she came to the smoke-filled street and took her place in the carriage. It had a guard out of town; the officer had been punctilious to do his best. It was understood that there were Federal troops on the Camden road, but they were going toward Winnsboro’. When the burning city lay behind them and the quiet winter fields around, when the guard had said a gruff “You’re safe enough now! Good-day!” and turned back, when the negro driver said, “Git up, Lance! Git up, France!” to the horses, and the carriage wheels turned and they passed a clump of cedars, they were on the road that the grey troops had travelled no great chain of hours before.
They drove on and on, and now they overtook and passed or kept company with for a while mournful folk, refugees, people with the noise of falling walls in their ears. They had tales to tell and some were dreadful enough. Then for a time the road would be bare, a melancholy road, much cut to pieces, with ruts and hollows. Now and then in dropped haversack, or broken bayonet, or torn shoe, or blood-stained rag were visible tokens that soldiers had passed. They had a little food and they ate this, and now and then they talked in low voices, but for the most part they sat silent, looking out on the winter landscape. The little girl was restless, and Désirée told her French fairy stories, quaint and fragrant. At last she slept, and the three women sat in silence, looking out. In the late afternoon, turning a little from the main road, they came to the country house for which they were bound.
The welcome was warm, with a clamour for news. “Columbia burned!—oh, well-a-way!... No Yankees in this part as yet. Our troops went by yesterday on the Winnsboro’ road. It’s said they’ll wait there until General Hardee gets up from Charleston and they can make junction. There’s a rumour that General Johnston will be put in command. Oh, the waiting, waiting! One’s brain turns, looking for the enemy to come, looking for the South to fall—worse and worse news every day! If one were with the Army it would not be half so bad. Waiting, waiting here’s the worst!”
In this Désirée agreed. It was away in a wood and upon a creek like the Fusilier place. The army was no great distance further on, and halted. In a day or two it would move, away, away! Her whole being cried out, “I cannot[“I cannot] stay here! If it comes to danger, this lonely place will be burned like the others. I were safer there than here. And what do I care for danger? Have I not travelled with danger for two years?”
That night when, exhausted, she fell asleep, she had a dream. She was back in Dalton, in the house with the lace-handkerchief dooryard. She was on her knees, cording a hair trunk, and the old negro Nebuchadnezzar and his horse Julius Cæsar were waiting. Somebody—it was not the two sisters who lived in the house—but somebody, she could not make out who it was—was persuading her to stay quietly there, not to take the road to Resaca. At first she would not listen, but at last she did listen and said she would stay. And then at once she was at Cape Jessamine and the house was filled with people and there was dancing. Everything was soft and bright and a myriad of wax candles were burning, and the music played and they talked about going to New Orleans for Mardi-gras and what masks they should wear. And she was exceedingly happy, with roses in her hair and an old gold-gown. But all the time she was trying to remember something or somebody, and it troubled her that she could not bring whatever it was to mind. And then, though she still danced, and though there stayed a gleaming edge of floor and light and flowers and moving people, the rest rolled away into darkness and a battlefield. She saw the stars above it and heard the wind, and then she left the dancers and the lights and they faded away and she walked on the battlefield, but still there was something she could not remember. She was unhappy and her heart ached because she could not. And then she came to a corner of the field where were dark vines and broken walls, and a voice came to her out of it, “Désirée! Désirée!” She remembered now and knew that Edward lay there, and she cried, “I am coming!” But even so the dream turned again, and she was back in the house with the lace-handkerchief yard, and the hair trunk was being carried back into the house and up the stairs, and the wagon at the gate turned and went away without her. Then there was darkness again, and the cave at Vicksburg, and a cry in her ears, “Désirée! Désirée!”
She waked, and, trembling, sat up in bed. “If I had not gone from Dalton,” she said, “he would have died.” She rose, crossed the room to a window and set it wide. It looked across the wood toward the road they had left, the Winnsboro’ road. She stood gazing, in the night wind, the winter wind. There was a faint far light upon the horizon. Rightly or wrongly, she thought it was the camp-fires of the grey army. Another night and they would be further away perhaps, another night and further yet! Sooner or later there would be the battle, and the dead and the wounded left on the field. The wind blew full upon her, wrapping her white gown closely about her limbs, lifting her dark hair. “Désirée! Désirée!” The dream cry was yet in her ears, and there on the horizon flamed his camp-fires.
When morning came she begged a favour of her new friends in this place. Could they let her have a cart and a horse, anything that might take her to Winnsboro’? They said that if she must go she should have the carriage and horses and the old driver of yesterday, but surely it was not wise to go at all! News was here this morning that the ravage north of Columbia had begun. All this country would be unsafe—was perhaps unsafe at this moment and henceforth! No one expected this house to be spared—why should it be, more than another?—but at least it was not burned yet, and it was better to face what might come in company than alone! “Stay with us, my dear, stay with us!” But when she would go on, they understood. It was a time of wandering and of much travel under strange and hard conditions. As for danger—when it was here and there and everywhere what use in dwelling on it? No one could say with any knowledge, “Here is safety,” or “There is danger.” The shuttle was so rapid! What to-day seemed the place of safety was to-morrow the very centre of danger. What was to-day’s field of danger might become to-morrow, the wave rushing on, quiet of foes as any desert strand!—Désirée kissed her friends and went away in the old carriage toward the Winnsboro’ road.
The morning was dull and harsh with scudding clouds. The side road was as quiet as death, but when they came upon the broader way there grew a difference. The old negro looked behind him. “Dere’s an awful fuss, mistis, ener dust! des lak de debbil got loose!”
“Drive fast,” said Désirée. “If you come to a lane turn into it.”
But the road went straight between banks of some height, without a feasible opening to either hand. Moreover, though the driver used the whip and the horses broke into something like a gallop, the cloud of dust and the noise behind steadily gained. There came a round of pistol shots. “They are firing at us,” said Désirée. “Check the horses and draw the carriage to the side of the road.”