UNCERTAINTY

Instead of going down stairs directly, both Miss Imogene and Dorothea turned into the latter’s room and looked at each other in consternation.

“Do you suppose Lieutenant Tracy saw us?” Dorothea asked, under her breath.

“I’m afraid he did, honey,” Miss Imogene said, shaking her head disconsolately so that her curls quivered delicately. “Poor Larry! He’ll have to go back to that place of torture, and he won’t last long from the looks of him.”

“But we must do something,” Dorothea insisted vehemently. “There must be something we can do. We must think. Why didn’t Mr. Tracy take him at once instead of going back to his own room? Perhaps he’s giving us a chance to get the poor fellow away.”

Miss Imogene shook her head.

“No, he wouldn’t do that, my dear,” she answered. “But he knows that a man who can’t cross the hall without the help of two females to keep him from falling, isn’t going to run far.”

“Then let us warn Mr. Stanchfield and he can go out on the roof again and hide,” Dorothea suggested. “It’s been searched, you know.”

“They would find him,” Miss Imogene said. “No, there is only one thing we can do. I’m going to appeal to Val himself to parole the lad in my care until he is stronger. I’ll promise to turn him over some time. That’s our best chance now.”

She did not wait to consider the matter further but ran into the hall and knocked at Tracy’s door. Dorothea, watching, saw her stand a moment listening, then knock again and, receiving no response, open the door and look into the room. Then she hurried back.

“He’s not there, honey,” she whispered. “In that second we were talking he must have gone to lay an information.”

“Perhaps Lieutenant Tracy wasn’t there at all,” Dorothea whispered, hopefully. “It might have been a breath of air that closed the door, mightn’t it?”

“That’s possible,” Miss Imogene agreed, and paused a moment in deep thought. “At any rate, honey, we must act as if no one knew what we had been doing. I shall make it my business to find out if Val does know. Come, we must go down now. I’ve no doubt we’ve been missed already, so I shall say we’ve been having a little talk together. Don’t lose your courage, dear. After all we’re not sure Val saw us. Come!”

She led the way down stairs, her smile as gay and unconcerned as ever, and Dorothea tried her best to imitate her care-free manner. At the foot of the stairs they met April, who stopped short in her tracks.

“I was wondering where you were,” April announced, looking squarely at Dorothea.

“Oh, Dorothea has been taking pity upon her old cousin,” Miss Imogene cut in. “We have been warming ourselves by the fire in her room. Old ladies do not have as many partners as they are used to and sometimes they like to slip away and forget that they are no longer belles. Dorothea has tried to make me forget.”

“It is the first time I ever heard that you lacked partners, Cousin Imogene,” April replied, not at all convinced by this explanation, but at that moment a young officer came up to claim a dance and there was no further opportunity to discuss the matter.

“Be careful of April,” Miss Imogene whispered in Dorothea’s ear. “Her eyes are very sharp. Remember she would stop at nothing to aid the Confederacy.”

Before Dorothea could more than nod, each had been claimed by partners and they were separated for the time being. Dorothea danced with Hal, who informed her that he was convinced that there never had been an escaped prisoner about the place and that it was foolish to put such absolute reliance in the hounds as some people were disposed to do. Under other circumstances this might have been cheering news to the girl, but she had no faith in her own theory of a draught and believed that Tracy was aware of what had been going on and, although she felt that the fact of Hal’s not being informed as yet might give some little encouragement, she was certain that sooner or later the whole household would know of the effort she had made to aid Larry Stanchfield to escape from Andersonville.

An hour or so later she was sitting between dances talking to a young man whom she had met that evening, when, looking across the room, she saw Val Tracy walk over and take a seat beside Miss Imogene. For some time Dorothea lost all idea of what her polite attendant was saying and he, doing his best to entertain this attractive young lady, grew more and more convinced that girls from England were cold and unresponsive, if not stupid.

Miss Imogene, with a bright untroubled smile, looked up at Val as he joined her.

“Are you coming to take pity upon a poor wall flower?” she asked in her gentlest and most appealing manner.

“I am most lucky to find you alone,” he answered gallantly. “It is unheard of for so lovely a lady not to be surrounded by a bevy of partners.”

“Sit down and stop blarneying,” she ordered, patting a chair beside her. “I have been wondering where you were, and after all your vows of constancy how can I be expected to enjoy myself when you desert me?” She laughed lightly. These two always amused themselves, and others, with their extravagant expressions of devotion. “Where have you been?” she added.

“Searching after mysteries,” he answered, with a bantering air. “I begin to think there are Red Strings about.” He laughed as he spoke and looked away across the room to where Dorothea sat, while Miss Imogene said to herself that he did know what was afoot.

“Do you believe in that silly tale?” she questioned. “I, for one, think it is just one of those stories that people make up for excitement’s sake. You might think I was a Red String because I wear a red velvet band about my neck.”

“Perhaps I do,” he answered promptly, turning to her with a quick glance.

Miss Imogene threw back her head and gave a gay laugh.

“You are so funny, Val,” she chuckled. “Why not suspect April because she had a red belt on the other day? Or little Miss Dorothea across the way there, or the fiddler with his red necktie? If it is cause for suspicion to wear red, ah, then every brunette in the South will be suspected. And, my dear boy, they won’t give up their most becoming color because of this tale of Red Strings.”

“Faith ’tis the red in their cheeks that makes fools of us men,” Tracy answered half seriously, his eyes again wandering across the room. “But what’s the good of thinking of fair maids these days? There’s a Yankee bullet waiting for me now, for all I know. Molded and ready and—”

“Tut, tut, such a way for a brave soldier to talk,” Miss Imogene interrupted. “Would you have me crying before all these people?”

“There will be few tears for me when I catch that bullet,” Tracy replied; but he laughed, and the momentary seriousness, so unusual with him, disappeared. “Faith, Miss Imogene, there’s a deal of nonsense in all this talk of brave soldiers. I was quaking in my shoes not ten minutes ago, fearing I might cross an enemy and him ready to fight for it.”

“Where have you been to look for enemies?” Miss Imogene demanded with a fine show of surprise.

“Did you not know?” he asked, with lifted brow. “There’s been a great hue and cry after an escaped prisoner. The same fellow they were hunting for last night. It seems they haven’t caught him and were persuaded he was still here. As if he’d ever been here at all! And I losing half a dozen dances by their silliness.”

“He didn’t see!” Miss Imogene thought, with a great sense of relief, and then aloud, “Is that where all the men have been?”

“It is,” he answered. “We’ve been through the house. They left it to me to search your room. I haven’t done it—yet.”

He hesitated just an instant on the last word and again her anxiety came back to Miss Imogene. “He does know after all and is warning me,” she told herself but still could not be certain. When he had first come over to her she had been determined to tell him all, and beg that Larry Stanchfield might remain under her care till he had recovered. Now she racked her brains to know what course was wisest, and then, suddenly, her mind was made up.

“Seriously, Val,” she began, “suppose a fair female suddenly came upon a poor fellow in the midst of his enemies and, when she saw him, she found that it was a matter of the affections with her. That instead of a stranger there was the image of her lover. What would you have her do, Val?” She ended with her voice dropped almost to a whisper and looking him full in the face.

Tracy did not reply at once but sat gazing across the room with unseeing eyes. Then suddenly he jumped to his feet.

“Ah, faith! the best thing to do in a case of that kind, Miss Imogene, is to tell a soft-hearted Irishman.” He laughed and bowed to her. “I think I can get the next dance with Miss Drummond. Sure, I’ll try. It may be the last chance I’ll ever have.”

His departure left her puzzled, and she watched him cross the floor to where Dorothea was sitting. Presently the girl’s partner departed, glad to escape so stupid a female, whose only conversation was a vague “yes,” or “no,” which did not come always in the right place.

“If the child but keeps up her courage,” Miss Imogene thought, as she watched the scene.

Dorothea, meanwhile, was smiling up at Tracy, though she felt all anxiety. She would have given all she had to know the conversation that had taken place between the young officer and Miss Imogene. But she could not even guess at it, so resolved to be on her guard and talk as if what had occurred in the interval since last she saw him, had never happened. This he made easy by referring to their previous conversation.

“I come with good news for you, Miss Drummond,” he began. “They haven’t found the escaped prisoner after all.”

“I confess I’m glad,” Dorothea said frankly. “Of course that’s not the thing to say here in the South, but I just can’t help being pleased to think any one has gotten away from Andersonville. Hal said it was silly to look for him about here.”

“It seems to have been,” Tracy answered, and the music striking up, he asked her for the dance.

They whirled away together, not speaking for some moments, and then Val broke in upon her anxious thoughts with a question.

“Suppose, Miss Drummond,” he said, “that a chap found himself growing fond of a certain girl and discovered suddenly that his rival was on the scene, though he nor any one else had had any notion of it. What should he do about it?”

For a moment Dorothea was puzzled. She thought, when he began to speak, that he was making a reference to Stanchfield, but this talk of a rival and a love affair made that impossible. Evidently Tracy was in love with April and had discovered that Hendon was near. He suspected, as she did, that April knew this, and was asking her what he should do.

“How can I answer that, Mr. Tracy?” she replied. “Perhaps there isn’t a rival after all. Perhaps it’s only gossip. At any rate that chap you just spoke of needn’t give up—”

“Don’t you think he need?” he interrupted eagerly. “He might do a good deal if he thought there was a chance for him.”

“He might do anything that was honorable,” she answered.

“And, faith, how can we measure honor?” Val cut in with a touch of bitterness in his voice. “That chap, you know, might have two honors to satisfy. One for the girl he loved and one for the country he served.”

Again Dorothea wondered if it was Stanchfield he had in mind, but dismissed this thought at once. There could be no question of rivalry, as far as the young man upstairs was concerned. He knew no one in the house except Miss Imogene and herself.

Before she had decided how to answer the dance ended and supper was announced.

“What can I get for you?” Tracy asked, as she seated herself in the hall.

“Nothing, thank you,” she answered.

“Oh, but you must have something,” he insisted.

Dorothea shook her head.

“I feel as if refreshments would choke me when I think of the poor prisoners at Andersonville,” she replied. “I haven’t any appetite for such luxuries.”

Tracy shrugged his broad shoulders and then sat down beside her.

“Don’t you think you exaggerate a bit, Miss Drummond?” he began. “These luxuries, as you call them, are not so rich as they sound. The cake is made of bolted corn meal and sorghum. The sherbet is sweetened with honey, the coffee is made from thin slices of potato browned in the oven and ground up. That doesn’t sound very expensive, does it? And yet that is the best we can do in the way of luxuries. Indeed some of our parties are ‘starvation parties,’ with no refreshments at all.”

“But every one is so gay and seems so happy and regardless of all this misery going on near them.” Dorothea was not quite herself, and Tracy looked at her questioningly before he answered.

“It is strange to you, I suppose,” he went on. “But you must remember that the Southern ladies pretend that they are as well off as ever. No matter what comes they mean to meet it with smiling faces. That needs courage; and remember, too, they are fighting for their freedom.”

“But what of freedom for the slaves?” Dorothea demanded sharply.

“Hush,” Tracy replied gravely. “For your own sake you must guard your words. An Abolitionist could not be tolerated here. And remember your aunt must be considered, for you are staying in her house and she is responsible for what you do and say.”

“You’re right,” Dorothea answered; “and it isn’t that I don’t think the South is justified in fighting. I’ve always thought that. That is what every one believes in England, but since I have been here there are so many things I can’t understand. You won’t tell on me, will you?” she ended with a smile at him.

“I’m not a dyed in the wool Rebel myself,” he answered with the same lightness of manner. “I’m an adopted son of the South.”

“How did you come to be in it at all?” Dorothea questioned. She liked this young Irishman, and in his company was forgetting for the moment that there were matters that should be causing her plenty of anxiety.

“Oh, I’m in it because I’m Irish, I suppose, and love a good fight,” he answered. “I was living in Charleston when the war broke out, and there one heard but this side of the quarrel. I’ve seen a thing or two since, but I’m not denying that I would do the same again. And I’ll do my duty, you may be sure of that.”

His last words were uttered with a note of seriousness and Dorothea remembered with a pang that perhaps already he had prepared to send Stanchfield back to Andersonville.

“I hope you will always make sure where your duty lies,” she said half to herself, but he caught the words and nodded his head.

“I have made up my mind as to that,” he answered, and the next dance beginning, they were separated.

A half hour later Dorothea and Miss Imogene were back in the girl’s room for the night.

“What did Val Tracy say to you, child?” Miss Imogene demanded in an undertone, when they were at last alone.

“Nothing whatever to do with Mr. Stanchfield,” Dorothea answered.

“Are you sure?” Miss Imogene asked anxiously.

“Quite sure, Cousin Imogene,” Dorothea answered. “Did he say anything to you? Does he know?”

“I can’t tell, and that’s the truth,” Miss Imogene replied slowly. “We can only wait. Sometimes I think he knows and then I—I don’t know what I think; but I shall be up at daylight to see what has happened.”

Dorothea blew out the candle a little later and crept into bed beside Miss Imogene.

“I wish it was one of the others who was going to betray us,” she whispered.

“Why do you wish that?” demanded Miss Imogene.

“Because I like him,” Dorothea confessed frankly. “But of course he’s in love with April. He told me as much.”

“That is what I’ve always thought,” Miss Imogene agreed, and then there was silence. But only one of them really slept soundly that night.