XXIV
As the spring came on my father’s condition seemed to me to grow worse. At times he had great gusts of passion or of tears, quite unlike himself; for a day he would think I was my cousin, and be more affectionate than I had ever seen him. Once or twice he talked in a confused way of our estate in Wales, and so, what with this and my annoyance over the irregularities at our headquarters, I had enough to trouble me.
The office duties were, as I have said, not much to my taste, but I learned a good deal which was of future use to me. It was a dull life, and but once did I come upon anything worth narrating. This, in fact, seemed to me at the time of less moment than it grew to be thereafter.
Neither I nor Major Clarkson, his chief of staff, had all of the general’s confidence. Men came and went now and then with letters, or what not, of which naturally I learned nothing. One—a lean, small man, ill disguised as a Quaker—I saw twice. The last time he found the general absent. I offered to take charge of a letter he said he had, but he declined, saying he would return, and on this put it back in his pocket, or tried to; for he let it fall, and in quick haste secured it, although not before I thought I had recognised Arthur Wynne’s peculiar handwriting. This astounded me, as you may imagine. But how could I dream of what it meant? I concluded at last that I must have been mistaken, and I did not feel at liberty to ask the general. It was none of my business, after all.
The fellow—I had always supposed him one of our spies—came again in an hour, and saw the general. I heard the man say, “From Mr. Anderson, sir,” and then the door was closed, and the matter passed from iny mind for many a day.
Jack very soon after left us, and Darthea became more and more reserved, and unlike her merry, changeful self.
On March 25, ‘79, I came in late in the afternoon and sat down to read. My father, seated at the table, was tying up or untying bundles of old papers. Looking up, he said abruptly, “Your cousin has been here to-day.” It was said so naturally as for a moment to surprise me. I made no reply. A few minutes later he looked up again.
“Arthur, Arthur—”
I turned from a book on tactics issued by Baron Steuben. “I am not Arthur, father.”
He took no notice of this, but went on to say that I ought to have come long ago. And what would I do with it?