Clarence

B >> Bret Harte >> Clarence


"I only mean that I have obeyed the orders of the department in
reporting myself here, as I have done," said Brant, with less feeling,
but none the less firmness; "and I should imagine it was not the duty
of a soldier to question them. Which I fancy a 'claim' or a 'case' would
imply."

He had no idea of taking this attitude before, but the disappointments
of the past month, added to this first official notice of his disgrace,
had brought forward that dogged, reckless, yet half-scornful obstinacy
that was part of his nature.

The official smiled.

"I suppose, then, you are waiting to hear from the President," he said
drily.

"I am awaiting orders from the department," returned Brant quietly,
"but whether they originate in the President as commander-in-chief, or
not--it is not for me to inquire."

Even when he reached his hotel this half-savage indifference which had
taken the place of his former incertitude had not changed. It seemed to
him that he had reached the crisis of his life where he was no longer a
free agent, and could wait, superior alike to effort or expectation. And
it was with a merely dispassionate curiosity that he found a note the
next morning from the President's private secretary, informing him that
the President would see him early that day.

A few hours later he was ushered through the public rooms of the White
House to a more secluded part of the household. The messenger stopped
before a modest door and knocked. It was opened by a tall figure--the
President himself. He reached out a long arm to Brant, who stood
hesitatingly on the threshold, grasped his hand, and led him into the
room. It had a single, large, elaborately draped window and a handsome
medallioned carpet, which contrasted with the otherwise almost appalling
simplicity of the furniture. A single plain angular desk, with a
blotting pad and a few sheets of large foolscap upon it, a waste-paper
basket and four plain armchairs, completed the interior with a contrast
as simple and homely as its long-limbed, black-coated occupant.
Releasing the hand of the general to shut a door which opened into
another apartment, the President shoved an armchair towards him and sank
somewhat wearily into another before the desk. But only for a moment;
the long shambling limbs did not seem to adjust themselves easily to
the chair; the high narrow shoulders drooped to find a more comfortable
lounging attitude, shifted from side to side, and the long legs moved
dispersedly. Yet the face that was turned towards Brant was humorous and
tranquil.

"I was told I should have to send for you if I wished to see you," he
said smilingly.

Already mollified, and perhaps again falling under the previous
influence of this singular man, Brant began somewhat hesitatingly to
explain.

But the President checked him gently,--

"You don't understand. It was something new to my experience here to
find an able-bodied American citizen with an honest genuine grievance
who had to have it drawn from him like a decayed tooth. But you have
been here before. I seem to remember your face."

Brant's reserve had gone. He admitted that he had twice sought an
audience--but--

"You dodged the dentist! That was wrong." As Brant made a slight
movement of deprecation the President continued: "I understand! Not from
fear of giving pain to yourself but to others. I don't know that THAT
is right, either. A certain amount of pain must be suffered in this
world--even by one's enemies. Well, I have looked into your case,
General Brant." He took up a piece of paper from his desk, scrawled with
two or three notes in pencil. "I think this is the way it stands. You
were commanding a position at Gray Oaks when information was received
by the department that, either through neglect or complicity, spies were
passing through your lines. There was no attempt to prove your neglect;
your orders, the facts of your personal care and precaution, were all
before the department. But it was also shown that your wife, from whom
you were only temporarily separated, was a notorious secessionist; that,
before the war, you yourself were suspected, and that, therefore, you
were quite capable of evading your own orders, which you may have
only given as a blind. On this information you were relieved by the
department of your command. Later on it was discovered that the spy was
none other than your own wife, disguised as a mulatto; that, after her
arrest by your own soldiers, you connived at her escape--and this was
considered conclusive proof of--well, let us say--your treachery."

"But I did not know it was my wife until she was arrested," said Brant
impulsively.

The President knitted his eyebrows humorously.

"Don't let us travel out of the record, General. You're as bad as the
department. The question was one of your personal treachery, but you
need not accept the fact that you were justly removed because your wife
was a spy. Now, General, I am an old lawyer, and I don't mind telling
you that in Illinois we wouldn't hang a yellow dog on that evidence
before the department. But when I was asked to look into the matter by
your friends, I discovered something of more importance to you. I
had been trying to find a scrap of evidence that would justify the
presumption that you had sent information to the enemy. I found that it
was based upon the fact of the enemy being in possession of knowledge at
the first battle at Gray Oaks, which could only have been obtained
from our side, and which led to a Federal disaster; that you, however,
retrieved by your gallantry. I then asked the secretary if he was
prepared to show that you had sent the information with that view, or
that you had been overtaken by a tardy sense of repentance. He preferred
to consider my suggestion as humorous. But the inquiry led to my further
discovery that the only treasonable correspondence actually in evidence
was found upon the body of a trusted Federal officer, and had been
forwarded to the division commander. But there was no record of it in
the case."

"Why, I forwarded it myself," said Brant eagerly.

"So the division commander writes," said the President, smiling, "and he
forwarded it to the department. But it was suppressed in some way. Have
you any enemies, General Brant?"

"Not that I know of."

"Then you probably have. You are young and successful. Think of the
hundred other officers who naturally believe themselves better than you
are, and haven't a traitorous wife. Still, the department may have made
an example of you for the benefit of the only man who couldn't profit by
it."

"Might it not have been, sir, that this suppression was for the good
report of the service--as the chief offender was dead?"

"I am glad to hear you say so, General, for it is the argument I have
used successfully in behalf of your wife."

"Then you know it all, sir?" said Brant after a gloomy pause.

"All, I think. Come, General, you seemed just now to be uncertain about
your enemies. Let me assure you, you need not be so in regard to your
friends."

"I dare to hope I have found one, sir," said Brant with almost boyish
timidity.

"Oh, not me!" said the President, with a laugh of deprecation. "Some one
much more potent."

"May I know his name, Mr. President?"

"No, for it is a woman. You were nearly ruined by one, General. I
suppose it's quite right that you should be saved by one. And, of
course, irregularly."

"A woman!" echoed Brant.

"Yes; one who was willing to confess herself a worse spy than your
wife--a double traitor--to save you! Upon my word, General, I don't
know if the department was far wrong; a man with such an alternately
unsettling and convincing effect upon a woman's highest political
convictions should be under some restraint. Luckily the department knows
nothing of it."

"Nor would any one else have known from me," said Brant eagerly. "I
trust that she did not think--that you, sir, did not for an instant
believe that I"--

"Oh dear, no! Nobody would have believed you! It was her free confidence
to me. That was what made the affair so difficult to handle. For even
her bringing your dispatch to the division commander looked bad for you;
and you know he even doubted its authenticity."

"Does she--does Miss Faulkner know the spy was my wife?" hesitated
Brant.

The President twisted himself in his chair, so as to regard Brant more
gravely with his deep-set eyes, and then thoughtfully rubbed his leg.

"Don't let us travel out of the record, General," he said after a pause.
But as the color surged into Brant's cheek he raised his eyes to the
ceiling, and said, in half-humorous recollection,--

"No, I think THAT fact was first gathered from your other friend--Mr.
Hooker."

"Hooker!" said Brant, indignantly; "did he come here?"

"Pray don't destroy my faith in Mr. Hooker, General," said the
President, in half-weary, half-humorous deprecation. "Don't tell me
that any of his inventions are TRUE! Leave me at least that magnificent
liar--the one perfectly intelligible witness you have. For from the
time that he first appeared here with a grievance and a claim for
a commission, he has been an unspeakable joy to me and a convincing
testimony to you. Other witnesses have been partisans and prejudiced;
Mr. Hooker was frankly true to himself. How else should I have known of
the care you took to disguise yourself, save the honor of your uniform,
and run the risk of being shot as an unknown spy at your wife's side,
except from his magnificent version of HIS part in it? How else should
I have known the story of your discovery of the Californian conspiracy,
except from his supreme portrayal of it, with himself as the hero? No,
you must not forget to thank Mr. Hooker when you meet him. Miss Faulkner
is at present more accessible; she is calling on some members of my
family in the next room. Shall I leave you with her?"

Brant rose with a pale face and a quickly throbbing heart as the
President, glancing at the clock, untwisted himself from the chair, and
shook himself out full length, and rose gradually to his feet.

"Your wish for active service is granted, General Brant," he said
slowly, "and you will at once rejoin your old division commander, who
is now at the head of the Tenth Army Corps. But," he said, after a
deliberate pause, "there are certain rules and regulations of your
service that even I cannot, with decent respect to your department,
override. You will, therefore, understand that you cannot rejoin the
army in your former position."

The slight flush that came to Brant's cheek quickly passed. And there
was only the unmistakable sparkle of renewed youth in his frank eyes as
he said--

"Let me go to the front again, Mr. President, and I care not HOW."

The President smiled, and, laying his heavy hand on Brant's shoulder,
pushed him gently towards the door of the inner room.

"I was only about to say," he added, as he opened the door, "that
it would be necessary for you to rejoin your promoted commander as
a major-general. And," he continued, lifting his voice, as he gently
pushed his guest into the room, "he hasn't even thanked me for it, Miss
Faulkner!"

The door closed behind him, and he stood for a moment dazed, and still
hearing the distant voice of the President, in the room he had just
quitted, now welcoming a new visitor. But the room before him, opening
into a conservatory, was empty, save for a single figure that turned,
half timidly, half mischievously, towards him. The same quick,
sympathetic glance was in both their faces; the same timid, happy look
in both their eyes. He moved quickly to her side.

"Then you knew that--that--woman was my wife?" he said, hurriedly, as he
grasped her hand.

She cast a half-appealing look at his face--a half-frightened one around
the room and at the open door beyond.

"Let us," she said faintly, "go into the conservatory."

*****

It is but a few years ago that the veracious chronicler of these pages
moved with a wondering crowd of sightseers in the gardens of the White
House. The war cloud had long since lifted and vanished; the Potomac
flowed peacefully by and on to where once lay the broad plantation of a
great Confederate leader--now a national cemetery that had gathered the
soldier dead of both sections side by side in equal rest and honor--and
the great goddess once more looked down serenely from the dome of the
white Capitol. The chronicler's attention was attracted by an erect,
handsome soldierly-looking man, with a beard and moustache slightly
streaked with gray, pointing out the various objects of interest to a
boy of twelve or fourteen at his side.

"Yes; although, as I told you, this house belongs only to the President
of the United States and his family," said the gentleman, smilingly, "in
that little conservatory I proposed to your mother."

"Oh! Clarence, how can you!" said the lady, reprovingly, "you know it
was LONG after that!"