Before the Dawn. Joseph A. Altsheler
must work like a common Northern mill-hand to support that pompous old father of hers, the heir of six Virginia generations, who certainly would not work under any circumstances to support his daughter."
"Won't you explain yourself more clearly, mother?"
"It's this. The Harleys are ruined by the war. The Colonel is absorbed in his career and spends all his salary on himself. The old gentleman doesn't know anything about his financial affairs and doesn't want to; it's beneath his dignity. Helen, who does know about them, is now earning the bread for her father and herself. Think of a Southern girl of the oldest blood doing such a thing! It is very low and degrading, isn't it?"
She looked at him covertly. A sudden thought occurred to him.
"No, mother," he replied. "It is not low and degrading. You think just the contrary, and so do I. Where has Helen gone to work?"
"In the Treasury Department, under Mr. Sefton. She is copying documents there."
Robert felt a sudden relief and then alarm that she should owe so much to Sefton.
"I understand that Harley senior stormed and threatened for awhile," continued his mother. "He said no female member of his family had ever worked before, and he might have added, few male members either. He said his family would be disgraced forever by the introduction of such a low Yankee innovation; but Helen stood firm, and, moreover, she was urged by the hand of necessity. I understand that she has quite a good place and her salary is to be paid in gold. She will pass here every day at noon, coming home for her luncheon."
Prescott spent most of the morning at home, the remainder with his new friends, wandering about the city; but just before noon he was in front of the Custom House, waiting by the door through which Helen must come. She appeared promptly at the stroke of twelve and seemed surprised to see him there.
"I came merely to tell you how much I admire your resolution," he said. "I think you are doing a noble thing."
The colour in her cheeks deepened a little. He knew he had pleased her.
"It required no great amount of courage," she replied, "for the work is not hard and Mr. Sefton is very kind. And, aside from the money I am happier here. Did you never think how hard it was for women to sit with their hands folded, waiting for this war to end?"
"I have thought of it more than once," he replied.
"Now I feel that I am a part of the nation," she continued, "not a mere woman who does not count. I am working with the others for our success."
Her eyes sparkled like the eyes of one who has taken a tonic, and she looked about her defiantly as if she would be ready with a fitting reply to any who might dare to criticize her.
Prescott liked best in her this quality of independence and self-reliance, and perhaps her possession of it imparted to her that slight foreign air which he so often noticed. He thought the civilization of the South somewhat debilitating, so far as women were concerned. It wished to divide the population into just two classes—women of beautiful meekness and men of heroic courage.
Helen had broken down an old convention, having made an attempt that few women of her class and period would have dared, and at a time, too, when she might have been fearful of the results. She was joyous as if a burden had been lifted. Prescott rarely had seen her in such spirits. She, who was usually calm and grave, seemed to have forgotten the war. She laughed and jested and saw good humour in everything.
Prescott could not avoid catching the infection from the woman whom he most admired. The atmosphere—the very air—took on an unusual brilliancy. The brick walls and the shingled roofs glittered in the crisp, wintry sunshine; the schoolboys, caps over their ears and mittens on their fingers, played and shouted in the streets just as if peace reigned and the cannon were not rumbling onward over there beyond the trees.
"Isn't this world beautiful at times?" said Helen.
"It is," replied Robert, "and it seems all the more strange to me that we should profane it by war. But here comes Mrs. Markham. Let us see how she will greet you."
Mrs. Markham was in a sort of basket cart drawn by an Accomack pony, one of those ugly but stout little horses which do much service in Virginia and she was her own driver, her firm white wrists showing above her gloves as she held the reins. She checked her speed at sight of Robert and Helen and stopped abreast of them.
"I was not deceiving you the other night, Captain Prescott," she said, after a cheerful good-afternoon "when I told you that all my carriage horses had been confiscated. Ben Butler, here—I call him Ben Butler because he is low-born and has no manners—arrived only last night, bought for me by my husband with a whole wheelbarrowful of Confederate bills: is it not curious how we, who have such confidence in our Government, will not trust its money."
She flicked Ben Butler with her whip, and the pony reared and tried to bolt, but presently she reduced him to subjection.
"Did I not tell you that he had no manners," she said. "Oh, how I wish I had the real Ben Butler under my hand, too! I've heard what you've done, Helen. But, tell me, is it really true? Have you actually gone to work—as a clerk in an office, like a low-born Northern woman?"
The colour in Helen's cheeks deepened and Robert saw the faintest quiver of her lower lip.
"It is true," she replied. "I am a secretary in Mr. Sefton's office and I get fifteen dollars a week."
"Confederate money?"
"No, in gold."
"What do you do it for?"
"For the money. I need it."
Mrs. Markham flicked the pony's mane again and once more he reared, but, as before, the strong hand restrained him.
"What you are doing is right, Helen," she said. "Though a Southern woman, I find our Southern conventions weigh heavily upon me: but," she added quizzically, "of course, you understand that we can't know you socially now."
"I understand," said Helen, "and I don't ask it."
Her lips were pressed together with an air of defiance and there was a sparkle in her eyes.
Mrs. Markham laughed long and joyously.
"Why, you little goose," she said, "I believe you actually thought I was in earnest. Don't you know that we of the Mosaic Club and its circle represent the more advanced and liberal spirit of Richmond—if I do say it myself—and we shall stand by you to the utmost. I suspect that if you were barred, others would choose the same bars for themselves. Would they not, Captain Prescott?"
"I certainly should consider myself included in the list," replied the young man sturdily.
"And doubtless you would have much company," resumed she. "And now I must be going. Ben Butler is growing impatient. He is not accustomed to good society, and I must humour him or he will make a scene."
She spoke to the horse and they dashed down the street.
"A remarkable woman," said Prescott.
"Yes; and just now I feel very grateful to her," said Helen.
They met others, but not all were so frank and cordial as Mrs. Markham. There was a distinct chilliness in the manners of one, while a second had a patronizing air which was equally offensive. Helen's high spirits were dashed a little, but Robert strove to raise them again. He saw only the humourous features of such a course on the part of those whom they had encountered, and he exerted himself to ridicule it with such good effect that she laughed again, and her happy mood was fully restored when she reached her own gate.
The next was a festal day in Richmond, which, though always threatened by fire and steel, was not without its times of joyousness. The famous Kentucky raider, Gen. John H. Morgan, had come to town, and all that was best in the capital, both military and civil, would give him welcome and do him honour.
The hum and bustle of a crowd rose early in the streets, and Prescott, with all the spirits of