Doomed to be bored! To-night Miriam drags me to a soirée musicale, and in the midst of my toilet, I sit down with bare shoulders to scratch a dozen lines in my new treasure which has been by me for three days, untouched. I don't know what tempts me to do it except perversity; for I have nothing to say.
I was in hopes that I would never have occasion to refer to the disagreeable subject that occupied the last pages of my old journal, but the hope proves fallacious, and wherever I turn, the same subject is renewed. So there is no longer any reason in waiting until all mention can be avoided. Yesterday a little, sly, snaky creature asked me if I knew "the Hero of Port Hudson." "Yes," I said briefly. "Unmistakable! I see it in your face!" she remarked. "See what?" "That you betray yourself. Do you know that every one believes that you are engaged to him?" In surprise I said no; such a thing had never been mentioned before me until then. "Well! they say so, and add, too, that you are to be married as soon as the war is over." "'They' are paying me an undeserved compliment," I returned. Where could such a report have originated? Not certainly from him, and not, most assuredly, from me. Where does Dame rumor spring from? He is a stranger here, and I have never mentioned his name except to the Peirces, who would no more report such a thing than I would myself. I won't mind it if it does not reach his ears; but what assurance have I that it will not? That would be unpleasant! Why can't "they say" let everybody settle their own affairs?
Here comes Miriam after me! What a bore! What a bore! And she looks as though it was a pleasure to go out! How I hate it!
Glancing up the page, the date strikes my eye. What tempted me to begin it Friday? My dear Ada would shiver and declare the blank pages were reserved for some very painful, awful, uncomfortable record, or that "something" would happen before the end of it. Nothing very exciting can happen, except the restoration of peace; and to bring that about, I would make a vow to write only on Fridays.
Sunday, 16th.
Coming out of church this morning with Miriam, a young lady ran up with an important air, as though about to create a sensation. "I have a message for you both," she said, fixing her eyes on mine as though she sought something in them. "I visit the prisoners frequently, you know, and day before yesterday Captain Steadman requested me to beg you to call, that he will not take a refusal, but entreated you to come, if it were only once." The fates must be against me; I had almost forgotten his existence, and having received the same message frequently from another, I thoughtlessly said, "You mean Colonel, do you not?" Fortunately Miriam asked the same question at the instant that I was beginning to believe I had done something very foolish. The lady looked at me with her calm, scrutinizing, disagreeable smile—a smile that had all the unpleasant insinuations eyes and lips can convey, a smile that looked like "I have your secret—you can't deceive me"—and said with her piercing gaze, "No, not the Colonel. He was very ill that day (did you know it?) and could not see us. This was really the Captain." "He is very kind," I stammered, and suggested to Miriam that we had better pass on. The lady was still eyeing me inquisitively. Decidedly, this is unpleasant to have the reputation of being engaged to a man that every girl is crazy to win! If one only cared for him, it would not be so unpleasant; but under the circumstances,—ah ça! why don't they make him over to the young lady whose father openly avows he would be charmed to have him for a son-in-law? This report has cost me more than one impertinent stare. The young ladies think it a very enviable position. Let some of them usurp it, then!
So the young lady, not having finished her examination, proposed to accompany us part of the way. As a recompense, we were regaled with charming little anecdotes about herself, and her visits. How she had sent a delightful little custard to the Colonel (here was a side glance at my demure face) and had carried an autographic album in her last visit, and had insisted on their inscribing their names, and writing a verse or so. "How interesting!" was my mental comment. "Can a man respect a woman who thrusts him her album, begging for a compliment the first time they meet? What fools they must think us, if they take such as these for specimens of the genus!"
Did we know Captain Lanier? Know him, no! but how vividly his face comes before me when I look back to that grand smash-up at Port Hudson, when his face was the last I saw before being thrown, and the first I recognized when I roused myself from my stupor and found myself in the arms of the young Alabamian. At the sound of his name, I fairly saw the last ray of sunset flashing over his handsome face, as I saw it then. No, I did not know him. He had spoken to me, begging to be allowed to hold me, and I had answered, entreating him not to touch me, and that was all I knew of him; but she did not wait for the reply. She hurried on to say that she had sent him a bouquet, with a piece of poetry, and that he had been heard to exclaim, "How beautiful!" on reading it. "And do you know," she continued, with an air that was meant to be charmingly naïf, but which was not very successful, as naïveté at twenty-nine is rather flat, "I am so much afraid he thinks it original! I forgot to put quotation marks, and it would be so funny in him to make the mistake! For you know I have not much of the—of that sort of thing about me—I am not a poet—poetess, author, you know." Said Miriam in her blandest tone, without a touch of sarcasm in her voice, "Oh, if he has ever seen you, the mistake is natural!" If I had spoken, my voice would have carried a sting in it. So I waited until I could calmly say, "You know him well, of course." "No, I never saw him before!" she answered with a new outburst of naïveté.
Monday, August 24th.
A letter from Captain Bradford to Miriam. My poor Adonis, that I used to ridicule so unmercifully, what misfortunes have befallen him! He writes that during the siege at Port Hudson he had the top of his ear shot off (wonder if he lost any of that beautiful golden fleece yclept his hair?), and had the cap of his knee removed by a shell, besides a third wound he does not specify. Fortunately he is with kind friends. And he gives news of Lydia, most acceptable since such a time has elapsed since we heard from her.... He says, "Tell Miss Sarah that the last I saw of John, he was crossing the Mississippi in a skiff, his parole in his pocket, his sweet little sister by his side," (O you wretch! at it again!) "and Somebody else in his heart." How considerate to volunteer the last statement! Then followed half a page of commendation for his bravery, daring, and skill during the siege (the only kind word he ever spoke of him, I dare say), all looking as though I was to take it as an especial compliment to myself, and was expected to look foolish, blush, and say "Thanky" for it. As though I care!