University of Virginia Library

16. CHAPTER XVI.
COLONEL CARTER GAINS ONE VICTORY, AND MISS RAVENEL
ANOTHER.

After the victory of Georgia Landing, the brigade was
stationed for the winter in the vicinity of the little half-Creole,
half-American city of Thibodeaux. I have not time
to tell of the sacking of this land of rich plantations; how
the inhabitants, by flying before the northern Vandals, induced
the spoliation of their own property; how the negroes
defiled and plundered the forsaken houses, and how
the soldiers thereby justified themselves in plundering the
negroes; how the furniture, plate and libraries of the Lafourche
planters were thus scattered upon the winds of
destruction. These things are matters of public and not
of private history. If I were writing the life and times of
Colonel Carter, or of Captain Colburne, I should relate
them with conscientious tediousness, adding a description

in the best style of modern word-painting of the winding
and muddy Bayou Lafourche, the interminable parallel
levees, the flat border of rich bottom land, the fields of
moving cane, and the enclosing stretches of swampy forest.
But I am simply writing a biography of Miss Ravenel,
illustrated by skretches of her three or four relatives and
intimates.

To reward Colonel Carter for his gallantry at Georgia
Landing, and to compensate him for his disappointment
in not obtaining the star of a brigadier, the commanding
general appointed him military governor of Louisiana, and
stationed him at New Orleans.

In his present temper and with his present intentions
he was sincerely delighted to obtain the generous loot of
the governorship. In order to save up money for his approaching
married life, he tried to be economical, and
actually thought that he was so, although he regularly
spent the monthly two hundred and twenty-two dollars
of his colonelcy. But the position of governor would give
him several thousands a year, and these thousands he could
and would put aside to comfort and adorn his future wife.
Now-a-days there was no private and unwarrantable attachment
to his housekeeping establishment; the pure
love that was in his heart overthrew and drove out all
the unclean spirits who were its enemies. Moreover, he
rapidly cut down his drinking habits, first pruning off his
cocktails before breakfast, then his absinthe before dinner,
then his afternoon whiskeys straight, then his convivial
evening punches, and in short everything but the hot
night-cap with which he prepared himself for slumber.

“That may have to go, too,” he said to himself, “when I
am married.”

He spent every spare moment with Lillie and her father.
He was quite happy in his love-born sanctification of spirit,
and showed it in his air, countenance and conversation.
Man of the world as he was, or thought he was, roué as
he had been, it never occurred to him to wonder at the

change which had come over him, nor to laugh at himself
because of it. To a nature so simply passionate as
his, the present hour of passion was the only hour that he
could realize. He shortly came to feel as if he had never
lived any other life than this which he was living now.

The Doctor soon lost his keen distrust of Carter; he began
to respect him, and consequently to like him. Indeed
he could not help being pleased with any tolerable person
who pleased his daughter; although he sometimes exhibited
a petulant jealousy of such persons which was droll
enough, considering that he was only her father.

“Papa, I believe you would be severe on St. Cecilia, or
St. Ursula, if I should get intimate with them,” Lillie had
once said. “I never had a particular friend since I was
a baby, but what you picked her to pieces.”

And the Doctor had in reply looked a little indignant,
not perceiving the justice of the criticism. By the way,
Lillie had a similar jealousy of him, and was ready to
slander any single woman who ogled him too fondly.
There were moments of great anguish when she feared
that he might be inveigled into admiring, perhaps loving,
perhaps (horrid thought!) marrying, Mrs. Larue. If it
ever occurred to her that this would be a poetically just
retribution for her own sin of giving away her heart without
asking his approval, she drew no resignation from the
thought. I may as well state here that the widow did occasionally
make eyes at the Doctor. He was oldish, but
he was very charming, and any man is better than no man,
She had given up Carter; our friend Colburne was with
his regiment at Thibodeaux; and the male angels of New
Orleans were so few that their visits were far between.
So those half-shut, almond eyes of dewy blackness and
brightness were frequently turned sidelong upon Ravenel,
with a coquettish significance which made Lillie uneasy in
the innermost chambers of her filial affection. Mrs. Larue
had very remarkable eyes. They were the only features
of her face that were not under her control; they were so

expressive that she never could fully veil their meaning.
They were beautiful spiders, weaving quite visibly webs
of entanglement, the threads of which were rays of dazzling
light and subtle sentiment.

“Devilish handsome eyes! Dangerous, by Jove!” remarked
the Colonel, judging in his usual confident, broadcast
fashion, right rather more than half the time. “I've
seen the day, by Jove! when they would have finished
me.”

For the present the Doctor was saved from their perilous
witchery by the advent of Colburne, who, having obtained
a leave of absence for ten days, came of course to spend
it with the Ravenels. Immediately the Larue orbs kindled
for him, as if they were pyres whereon his passions, if
he chose, might consume themselves to ashes. She exhibited
and felt no animosity on account of bygones. She
was a most forgiving, cold-hearted, good-natured, selfish,
well-bred little creature. She never had standing quarrels,
least of all with the other sex; and she could practice a
marvellous perseverance, without any acrimony in case of
disappointment. Colburne was favored with private interviews
which he did not seek, and visions of conquest
which did not excite his ambition. He was taken by gentle
force up the intricate paths of a mountain of talk, and
shown the unsubstantial and turbulent kingdoms of coquetry,
with a hint that all might be his if he would but fall
down and worship. It became a question in his mind whether
Milton should not have represented Satan as a female
of French extraction and New Orleans education.

“Captain Colburne, you do not like women,” she once
said.

“I beg your pardon—I repel the horrible accusation.”

“Oh, I admit that you like a woman—this one, perhaps,
or that one. But it is the individual which interests you,
and not the sex. For woman as woman—for woman because
she is woman—you care little.”

“Mrs. Larue, it is a very singular charge. Now that

you have brought it to my notice, I don't know but I must
plead guilty, to some extent. You mean to say, I suppose,
that I can't or won't fall in love with the first woman I
come to, merely because she is handy.”

“That is precisely it, only you have phrased it rather
grossly.”

“And do you charge it as a fault in my character?”

“I avow that I do not regard it as so manly, so truly
masculine, you comprehend, as the opposite trait.”

“Upon my honor!” exclaimed Colburne in amazement.
“Then you must consider,—I beg your pardon—but it
follows that Don Juan was a model man.”

“In my opinion he was. Excuse my frankness. I am
older than you. I have seen much life. I have a right to
philosophise. Just see here. It is intended for wise reasons
that man should not leave woman alone; that he
should seek after her constantly, and force himself upon
her; that, losing one, he should find another. Therefore
the man, who, losing one, chooses another, best represents
his sex.”

She waited for a reply to her argument, but Colburne
was too much crushed to offer one. He shirked his honest
duty as an interlocutor by saying, “Mrs. Larue, this is a
novel idea to me, and I must have time for consideration
before I accept it.”

She laughed without a sign of embarrassment, and
changed the subject.

But Mrs. Larue was not the only cause which prevented
Colburne's visit from being a monotony of happiness. He
soon discovered that there was an understanding between
Colonel Carter and Miss Ravenel; not an engagement,
perhaps, but certainly an inner circle of confidences and
sentiments into which he was not allowed to enter. In
this matter Lillie was more open and legible than her lover.
She so adored her hero because of the deadly perils which
he had affronted, and the honor which he had borne from
among their flame and smoke, that she could not always conceal,

and sometimes did not care to conceal, her admiration.
Not that she ever expressed it by endearments or
fondling words: no, that would have been a coarse audacity
of which her maidenly nature was incapable: but
there were rare glances of irrepressible meaning, surprised
out of her very soul, which came like revelations. When
she asked Colburne to tell her the whole story of Georgia
Landing, he guessed easily what she most wanted to hear.
To please her, he made Carter the hero of the epic, related
how impetuous he was during the charge, how superbly
cool as soon as it was over, how he sat his horse and
waved his sabre and gave his orders. To be sure, the
enthusiastic youth took a soldierly pleasure in the history;
he was honestly proud of his commander, and he loved to
tell the tale of his own only battle. But notwithstanding
this slight pleasure, notwithstanding that the Doctor
treated him with even tender consideration, and that Mrs.
Larue was often amusing as well as embarrassing, he did
not enjoy his visit. This mysterious cloud which encompassed
the Colonel and Miss Ravenel, separating them from
all others, cast upon him a shadow of melancholy. In the
first place, of course, it was painful to suspect that he had
lost this charming girl; in the second, he grieved on her
account, not believing it possible that with that man for a
husband she could be permanently happy. Carter was a
brave soldier, an able officer, a person of warm and naturally
kind impulses; but gentlemen of such habits as his
were not considered good matches where Colburne had
formed his opinions. No man, whatever his talents, could
win a professorship in Winslow University, or occupy a
respectable niche in New Boston society, who rarely went
to church, who drank freely and openly, who had been
seen to gamble, who swore like a trooper, and who did
other things which the Colonel had been known to do.
All this time he was so over-modest by nature, and so oppressed
by an acquired sense of soldierly subordination,
that he never seriously thought of setting himself up as a
rival against the Colonel. Perhaps I am tedious in my
analysis of the Captain's opinions, motives and sentiments.
The truth is that I take a sympathetic interest in him, believing
him to be a representative young man of my native
New England, and that I consider him a better match for
Miss Ravenel than this southern “high-toned” gentleman
whom she insists upon having.

While Colburne was feeling so strongly with regard to
Lillie, could she not devote a sentiment to him? Not
many; she had not time; she was otherwise occupied.
So selfishly wrapped up in her own affections was she,
that, until Mrs. Larue laughingly suggested it, she never
thought of his being jealous or miserable on account of
her. Then she hoped that he did not care much for her,
and was really sorry for him if he did. What a horrible
fate it seemed to her to be disappointed in love! She remembered
that she had once liked him very much indeed;
but so she did even yet, she added, with a comfortable
closing of her eyes to all change in the nature of the sentiment;
and perhaps he only fancied her in a similar Platonic
fashion. Once she had cut out of a paper, and put
away in so safe a place that now she could not find it, a
little poem which he had written, and which was only interesting
because he was the author. She blushed as she
called her folly to mind, and resolved that it should never
be known to any one. It is curious that she was a little
vexed with Colburne because of this reminiscence, and felt
that it more than repaid him for all the secret devotion
which he might have lavished on her.

“My leave of absence has not been as pleasant as I
hoped it would be,” he once had the courage to remark.

“Why not?” she asked absent-mindedly; for she was
thinking of her own heart affairs.

“I fear that I have lost some sympathies which I
once—”

Here he checked himself, not daring to confess how
much he had once hoped. With a sudden comprehension

of his meaning Lillie colored intensely, after her usual
fashion on startling occasions, and glanced about the room
in search of some other subject of conversation.

“I have a sense of being a stranger in the family,” he
explained after a moment of painful silence.

She might surely have said something kind here, but
she was too conscientious or too much embarrassed to do
it. She made one of those efforts which women are capable
of, and sailed out of the difficulty on the wings of a
laugh.

“I am sure Mrs. Larue takes a deep interest in you.”

Colburne colored in his turn under a sense of mortification
mingled with something like anger. Both were relieved
when Doctor Ravenel entered, and thereby broke up
the fretting dialogue. Now why was not the young man
informed of the real state of affairs in the family? Simply
because the Doctor, fearful for his child's happiness, and
loth to lose dominion over her future, could not yet bring
himself to consider the engagement as a finality.

There were no scenes during the leave of absence. Neither
Colburne nor Madame Larue made a declaration or
received a refusal. Two days before the leave of absence
terminated he sadly and wisely and resolutely took his
departure for Thibodeaux. Nothing of interest happened
to him during the winter, except that he accompanied his
regiment in Weitzel's advance up the Teche, which resulted
in the retreat of Mouton from Camp Beasland, and
the destruction of the rebel iron-clad “Cotton.” A narrative
of the expedition, written with his usual martial enthusiasm,
but which unfortunately I have not space to
publish, was received by Doctor Ravenel, and declared by
him to be equal in precision, brevity, elegance, and every
other classical quality of style, to the Commentaries of
Julius Cæsar. The Colonel remarked, in his practical
way, that the thing seemed to have been well planned,
and that the Captain's account was a good model for a despatch,
only a little too long-winded and poetical.

Colburne being absent, Mrs. Larue turned her guns once
more upon the Doctor. As the motto of an Irishman at a
Donnybrook fair is, “Wherever you see a head, hit it,”
so the rule which guided her in the Vanity Fair of this
life was, “Wherever you see a man, set your cap at him.”
It must not be supposed, however, that she made the same
eyes at the Doctor that she made at Colburne. Her manner
would vary amazingly, and frequently did vary to suit
her company, just as a chameleon's jacket is said to change
color according to the tree which he inhabits; and this
was not because she was simple and easily influenced, but
precisely because she was artful and anxious to govern,
and knew that soft looks and words are woman's best
means of empire. It was interesting to see what a nun-like
and saintly pose she could take in the presence of a
clergyman. To the Colonel she acted the part of Lady
Gay Spanker; to the Doctor she was femme raisonnable,
and, so far as she could be, femme savante; to Colburne
she of late generally played the female Platonic philosopher.
It really annoys me to reflect how little space I
must allow myself for painting the character of this remarkable
woman. “She was nobody's fool but her own,”
remarked the Colonel, who understood her in a coarse,
incomplete way; nor did she deceive either Lillie or the
Doctor in regard to the main features of her character,
although they had no suspicion how far she could carry
some of her secret caprices. It is hard to blind completely
the eyes of one's own family and daily intimates.

As a hen is in trouble when her ducklings take to the
water, so was Lillie's soul disturbed when her father was
out on the flattering sea of Madame's conversation. Carter
was amused at the wiles of the widow and the terrors
of the daughter. He comprehended the affair as well as
Lillie, at the same time that he did not see so very much
harm in it, for the lady was pretty, clever, young enough,
and had money. But nothing came of the flirtation—at
least not for the present. Although the Doctor was an

eminently sociable being and indefatigably courteous to all
of Eve's daughters, he was not at bottom what you call a
ladies' man. He was too much wrapped up in his daughter
and in his scientific studies to be easily pervious to the
shafts of Cupid; besides which he was pretty solidly cuirassed
by fifty-five years of worldly experience. Madame
even felt that she was kept at a distance, or, to use a more
corporeal and specially correct expression, at arm's length,
by his very politeness.

“Doctor, have you not thought it odd sometimes that
I never consult you professionally?” she asked one day,
changing suddenly from femme raisonnable to Lady Gay
Spanker.

“Really, it never occurred to me. I don't expect to
prescribe for my own family. It would be unfair to my
brother doctors. I believe, too, that you are never sick.”

“Thanks to Heaven, never! But that is not the only
cause. The truth is—perhaps you have not noticed the
fact—but you are not married. If you want me for a patient,
there must first be a Mrs. Ravenel.”

“Ah! Yes. Somebody to whom I could confide what is
the matter with you.”

“That would not matter. We women always tell our own
maladies. No; that would not matter; it is merely the
look of the thing that troubles me.”

The Doctor had the air of being cornered, and remained
smiling at Mrs. Larue, awaiting her pleasure.

“I do not propose to consult you,” she continued. “I
am so constantly well that I am alnost unhappy about it.
But I do think seriously of studying medicine. What is
your opinion of female doctors?”

“A capital idea!” exclaimed Ravenel, jumping at the
change of subject. “Why not follow it up? You could
master the science of medicine in two or three years, and
you have ability enough to practice it to great advantage.
You might be extremely useful by making a specialty of
your own sex.”

“You are a professor of theory and practice, Doctor.
Will you instruct me?”

“Oh! as to that—Elderkin would be better. He is precisely
in what ought to be your line. I think that out of
kindness to you I ought to say No.”

“Not even if I would promise to study mineralogy also?”

Ravenel pondered an instant, and then eluded her with
a story.

“That reminds me of a chaffering which I overheard in
a country tavern in Georgia between a Yankee peddler
and an indigenous specimen. The Cracker wanted to
sell the stranger a horse. `I don't care particularly for a
trade,' says the Yankee, `but I'll buy the shoes if you'll
throw in the creetur.' Medicine is a great science; but
mineralogy is a far vaster one.”

In short, the Doctor was to Madame like a cold cake to
a lump of butter; he calmly endured her, but gave her no
encouragement to melt upon his bosom. Just at this time
he was more than usually safe from love entanglements because
he was so anxious about Lillie's position and prospects.
He made what inquiries he could concerning Carter's
way of life, and watched his demeanor and conversation
closely while talking to him with the politest of smiles.
He was unexpectedly gratified by discovering that his proposed
son-in-law led—at least for the present—a sober and
decent life. With his devotion as a lover no fault could
be found by the most exacting of fathers. He called on
Lillie every evening and sent her flowers every morning;
in short, he bloomed with fair promise of being an affectionate
and even uxorious husband. Gradually the Doctor
weaned himself from his selfish or loving suspicions, and
became accustomed to the idea that from this man his
daughter might draw a life-long happiness. Thus when it
happened, late in January, nearly four months after
the declaration, that Carter requested to be informed definitely
as to his prospects, he obtained permission to consider
the affair an engagement.

“You know I can't promise wealth to Miss Ravenel,”
he said frankly. “She may have to put up with a very
simple style of life.”

“If she can't be contented, I shall not pity her,” answered
the Doctor. “I don't believe that the love of money
is the root of all evil. But I do say that it is one of
the most degrading passions conceivable in woman. I
sympathise with no woman whose only trouble is that
she cannot have and spend a great deal of money. By the
way, you know how unable I am to endow her.”

“Don't mention it. You have already endowed her.
The character that you have transmitted to her, sir—”

The Doctor bowed so promptly and appreciatively that
the Colonel did not feel it necessary to round off the compliment.

As men do not talk copiously with each other on these
subjects, the interview did not last ten minutes.

I hope that I shall not impress the reader unfavorably
concerning Lillie's character when I state that she was
frankly happy over the result of her lover's probation. Her
delight did not arise merely from the prospect of a smooth
course of love and marriage. It sprang in part from the
greatly comforting fact that now there was no difference
of opinion, no bar to perfect sympathy, between her and
that loved, respected, almost adored papa. I have given a
very imperfect idea of her if I have not already made it clear
that with her the sentiment of filial affection was almost a
passion. From very early childhood she had been remarkable
for papa-worship, or whatever may be the learned
name for the canonization of one's progenitors. At the
age of seven she had propounded the question, “Mamma,
why don't they make papa President of the United States?”
Some light may be shed on the character of this departed
mother and wife by stating that her answer was, “My
dear, your father never chose to meddle in politics.” Whether
Mrs. Ravenel actually deified the Doctor with all the
simple faith of the child, or whether the reply was merely

meant to confirm the latter in her filial piety, is a matter of
doubt even to persons who were well acquainted with the
deceased lady.

At last Lillie could prattle to her father about Carter as
much as she liked; and she used the privilege freely, being
habituated to need, demand and obtain his sympathies.
Not that she filled his ears with confessions of love, or said
that Colonel Carter was “so handsome!” or anything of
that sickish nature. But when her father came in from a
walk, it was, “Papa, did you see Mr. Carter anywhere?
And what did he say?” At another time it was, “Papa,
did Mr. Carter ever tell you about his first campaign
against the Indians?” And then would follow the story,
related with glee and a humorous appreciation of the
grandiloquent ideas of a juvenile West Pointer about to
draw his maiden sword. A frequent subject of her conversation
was Carter's chance of promotion, not considered with
regard to the pecuniary advantages thereof, but in respect
to the simple justice of advancing such an able and gallant
officer. It was, “Papa, how can the Government be
so stupid as to neglect men who know their duties? Mrs.
Larue says that the abolitionists are opposed to Mr. Carter
because he doesn't hold their ultra opinions. I suppose
they would rather favor a man who talks as they do, even
if he got whipped every time, and never freed a nigger.
If Mr. Carter were on the southern side, he would find
promotion fast enough. It is enough to make any one
turn rebel.”

“My dear,” says the Doctor with emphasis, “I would
rather be a private soldier under the flag of my
country, than be a major-general in the army of those
villainous conspirators against country, liberty and humanity.
I respect Colonel Carter for holding fast to his
patriotic sentiments, in spite of unjust neglect, far more
than I would if he were loyal merely because he was sure
of being commander-in-chief.

Lillie could not fail to be gratified by such a compliment

to the moral worth of her hero. After a few moments of
agreeable meditation on the various perfections of that
great being, she resumed the old subject.

“I think that there is a chance yet of his getting a star
when the official report of the battle of Georgia Landing
once reaches the minds of those slow creatures at Washington.
What do you think, papa? What are the probabilities?”

“Really, my dear, you perplex me. Prophecy never
formed a part of my education. There are even a few
events in the past that I am not intimately acquainted
with.”

“Then you shouldn't look so awfully old, papa. If you
will wrinkle up your forehead in that venerable way, as if
you were the Wandering Jew, you must expect to have
people ask you all sorts of questions. Why will you do
it? I hate to see you making yourself so aggravatingly
ancient when nature does her best to keep you young.”

About these times the Doctor wrote, with a pitying if
not a sad heart, to inform Colburne of the engagement.
The young man had looked for some such news, but it
nevertheless pained him beyond his anticipations. No
mental preparation, no melancholy certainty of forecast,
ever quite fits us to meet the avalanche of a great calamity.
No matter, for instance, how long we have watched the
sure invasion of disease upon the life of a dear friend or
relative, we are always astonished with a mighty shock
when the last feeble breath leaves the wasted body. Colburne
had long sat gloomily by the bedside of his dying
hope, but when it expired outright he was seemingly none
the less full of anguished amazement.

“Who would have thought it!” he repeated to himself.
“How could she choose such a husband, so old, so worldly,
so immoral? God help her and watch over her. The
love of such a man is a calamity. The tender mercies of
the wicked are unintentional cruelties.”

As for himself, the present seemed a barren waste without

a blossom of happiness, and the future another waste
without an oasis of hope. For a time he even lost all desire
for promotion, or for any other worldly honor or success;
and he would not have considered it hard, so undesirable
did life appear, if he had known that it was his fate
to die in the next battle. If he wanted to live it was only
to see the war terminate gloriously, and the stars and
stripes once more flying over his whole country. The devotional
sentiments which his mother had sown throughout
his youth, and which had been warmed for a while
into some strength of feeling and purpose by the saintly
glory of her death, struggled anew into temporary bloom
under the clouds of this second bereavement.

“Not my will but Thine be done,” he thought. And
then, “How unworthy I am to repeat those words!”

There were certain verses of the Bible which whispered
to him a comforting sympathy. Many times a day such a
phrase as, “A man of sorrows and acquainted with grief,”
repeated to him as if by some other self or guardian angel,
would thrill his mind with the plaintive consolation of
requiems.