Before the Dawn: A Story of the Fall of Richmond

It seemed to Prescott in a moment of cold reason that the affair might well end now, but his desire would not have it so. He was seized with a wish to know more about that house and the woman in it. Who was she, why was she here, and what would be her fate?

The afternoon passed slowly, and when the night was advanced he set out upon his errand, resolved that he would not do it, and yet knowing that he would.

The little house was as silent and dark as ever, doors and shutters tightly closed. He watched it more than an hour and saw no sign of life. She must have gone from the city, he thought, and so concluding, he was about to turn away, when a hand was laid lightly upon his arm. It was the woman in brown, and the look upon her face was not all of surprise. It occurred suddenly to Prescott that she had expected him, and he wondered why. But his first question was rough.

"What are you doing here?" he asked.

"Nothing that I wish," she replied, the faintest trace of humour showing in her tone; "much that I do not wish. The reproof that your voice conveys is unwarranted. I have tried again to leave Richmond, but I cannot get past the outer lines of defenses. I am the involuntary guest of the rebel capital."

"Hardly that," replied Prescott, still somewhat roughly. He did not relish her jaunty tone, although he was much relieved to know that she could not escape. "You came uninvited, and you have no right to complain because you cannot leave when you wish."

"I see that I am in the presence of a sincere rebel patriot," she said with irony, "and I did not know before that the words 'rebel' and 'patriot' could go together so easily."

"I think that I should surrender you to the authorities," said Prescott.

"But you will not," she said with conviction. "Your conscience would reproach you too much."

Prescott was silent, uncertain what to say or to do. The woman annoyed him, and yet he did not conceal from himself that the slight protecting feeling, born of the fact that she was a woman and, it seemed, helpless, remained in his mind.

"Are you alone in that house?" he asked, still speaking curtly and pointing toward the wooden cottage.

"No," she replied.

Prescott looked at her inquiringly. He thought that he detected the faintest twinkle in her eyes. Could it be that a woman in such a position was laughing at the man who had helped her? He felt his face grow red.

"You wish to know who is there?" she said.

"I do not wish to know anything of the kind."

"You do, and I shall tell you. It is merely a woman, an old maid, perhaps as friendless as myself, Miss Charlotte Grayson. I need not add that she is a woman of right mind and sympathies."

"What do you mean by that?"

"She wishes to see the quick end of this hateful rebellion. Oh, I tell you there are many who think as she does, born and bred within the limits of this Confederacy. They are far more numerous than you rebels suspect."

She spoke with sudden fire and energy, and Prescott noticed again that abrupt stiffening of the figure. He saw, too, another curious effect—her eyes suddenly turned from dark-blue to black, an invariable change when she was moved by a passion.

"It is always safe for a woman to abuse a man," replied Prescott calmly.

"I am not attacking you, but the cause you serve—a hateful cause. How can honest men fight for it?" she said.

Prescott heard footsteps in the main street—it was not many yards from there to the point in the little side street where he stood—and he shrank back in the shadow of the fence.

"You do not wish to be seen with me," she said.

"Naturally," replied Prescott. "I might have to answer inquiries about you, and I do not wish to compromise myself."

"Nor me?" she said.

"Perhaps it is too late for that," replied Prescott.

Her face flushed scarlet, and again he saw that sudden change of the eyes from dark-blue to threatening black. It occurred to him then that she was handsome in a singular, challenging way.

"Why do you insult me?" she asked.

"I was not aware that I had done so," he replied coolly. "Your pursuits are of such a singular nature that I merely made some slight comment thereon."

She changed again and under drooping eyelids gave him that old imploring look, like the appeal of a child for protection.

"I am ungrateful," she said, "and I give your words a meaning that you do not intend. But I am here at this moment because I was just returning from another vain attempt to escape from the city—not for myself, I tell you again, and not with any papers belonging to your Government, but for the sake of another. Listen, there are soldiers passing."

It was the tread of a company going by and Prescott shrank still farther back into the shadow. He felt for the moment a chill in his bones, and he imagined what must be the dread of a traitor on the eve of detection. What would his comrades say of him if they caught him here? As the woman came close to him and put her hand upon his arm, he was conscious again of the singular thrill that shot through him whenever she touched him. She affected him as no other woman had ever done—nor did he know whether it was like or dislike. There was an uncanny fascination about her that attracted him, even though he endeavoured to shake it off.

The tread of the company grew louder, but the night was otherwise still. The moon silvered the soldiers as they passed, and Prescott distinctly saw their features as he hid there in the dark like a spy, fearing to be seen. Then he grew angry with himself and he shook the woman's hand from his arm; it had rested as lightly as dew.

"I think that you had better go back to Miss Charlotte Grayson, whoever she may be," he said.

"But one cannot stay there forever."

"That does not concern me. Why should it? Am I to care for the safety of those who are fighting me?"

"But do you stop to think what you are fighting for?" She put her hand on his arm, and her eyes were glowing as she asked the question. "Do you ever stop to think what you are fighting for, the wrong that you do by fighting and the greater wrong that you will do if you succeed, which a just God will not let happen?"

She spoke with such vehement energy that Prescott was startled. He was well enough accustomed to controversy about the right or wrong of the war, but not under such circumstances as these.

"Madam," he said, "we soldiers don't stop in the middle of a battle to argue this question, and you can hardly expect me to do so now."

She did not reply, but the fire still lingered in her eyes. The company passed, their tread echoed down the street, then died away.

"You are safe now," she said, with the old touch of irony in her voice; "they will not find you here with me, so why do you linger?"

"It may be because you are a woman," replied Prescott, "that I overlook the fact of your being a secret and disguised enemy of my people. I wish to see you safely back in the house there with your friends."

"Good-night," she said abruptly, and she slid away from him with soundless tread. He had noticed her noiseless walk before, and it heightened the effect of weird mystery.

She passed to the rear of the house, disappearing within, and Prescott went away. When he came back in a half-hour he noticed a light shining through one window of the little house, and it seemed more natural to him, as if its tenant, Miss Charlotte Grayson, had no reason to hide her own existence. Prescott was not fond of secrecy—his whole nature was open, and with a singular sense of relief he turned away for the second time, going to Winthrop's office, where he hoped to find more congenial friends.

Raymond, as he expected, was there with his brother editor, and so was Wood, the big cavalryman, who regarded Robert for a moment with an eye coldly critical. Raymond and Winthrop, who stood by, knew the cause, but Wood quickly relaxed and greeted with warmth the addition to the party. Others came in, and soon a dozen men who knew and liked each other well were gathered about the stove, talking in the old friendly Southern way and exchanging opinions with calm certainty on all recondite subjects.

After awhile Winthrop, who passed near the window on some errand, exclaimed:

"Gentlemen, behold Richmond in her bridal veil."

They looked out and saw the city, streets and roofs alike, sheeted in gleaming white. The snow which had come down so softly spoke only of peace and quietness.

"It's battle smoke, not a bridal veil, that Richmond must look for now," said Wood, "an' it's a pity."

There was a touch of sentiment in his voice, and Prescott looked at him with approval. As for himself, he was thinking at that moment of an unknown woman in a brown, wooden cottage. With the city snowed-in she might find the vigilance of the sentinels relaxed, but a flight through the frozen wilderness would be impossible for her. He was angry at himself again for feeling concern when he should be relieved that she could not escape; but, after, all she was a woman.

"Why so grave, Prescott?" asked Raymond. "A heavy snow like this is all in our favour, since we stand on the defensive; it makes it more difficult for the Yankee army to move."

"I was thinking of something else," replied Prescott truthfully. "I am going home now," he added. "Good-night."

As he passed out into the street the snow was still falling, soon covering his cap and military cloak, and clothing him, like the city, in a robe of white.

Raymond had said truthfully that a deep snow was to the advantage of the South, but as for himself, he resolved that on the next day he would investigate the identity of Miss Charlotte Grayson.

Prescott knew to whom it was best to turn for information in regard to the mysterious Charlotte Grayson, and in the doing so it was not necessary for him to leave his own home. His mother was likely to know everybody at all conspicuous in Richmond, as under her peaceful exterior she concealed a shrewd and inquiring mind.

"Mother," he said to her the next day as they sat before the fire, "did you ever hear of any lady named Miss Charlotte Grayson?"

She was knitting for the soldiers at the front, but she let the needles drop with a faint click into her lap.

"Grayson, Charlotte Grayson?" she said. "Is that the name of a new sweetheart of yours, Robert?"

"No, mother," replied he with a laugh; "it is the name of somebody whom I have never seen so far as I know, and of whom I never heard until a day or two ago."

"I recall the woman of whom you speak," she said, "an old maid without any relatives or any friends in particular. She was a seamstress here before the war. It was said that she went North at its outbreak, and as she was a Northern sympathizer it would seem likely; but she was a good seamstress; she made me a mantle once and I never saw a better in Richmond."

She waited for her son to offer an explanation of his interest in the whilom seamstress, but as he did not do so she asked no questions, though regarding him covertly.

He rose and, going to the window, looked out at the deep and all but untrodden snow.

"Richmond is in white, mother," he said, "and it will postpone the campaign which all Southern women dread."

"I know," she replied; "but the battle must come sooner or later, and a snow in Richmond means more coal and wood to buy. Do you ever think, Robert, what such questions as these, so simple in peace, mean now to Richmond?"

"I did not for the moment, mother," he replied, his face clouding, "but I should have thought of it. You mean that coal and wood are scarce and money still scarcer?"

She bowed her head, for it was a very solemn truth she had spoken. The coil of steel with which the North had belted in the South was beginning to press tighter and tighter during that memorable winter. At every Southern port the Northern fleets were on guard, and the blockade runners slipped past at longer and longer intervals. It was the same on land; everywhere the armies of the North closed in, and besides fire and sword, starvation now threatened the Confederacy.

There was not much news from the field to dispel the gloom in the South. The great battle of Chickamauga had been won not long before, but it was a barren victory. There were no more Fredericksburgs nor Chancellorsvilles to rejoice over. Gettysburg had come; the genius of Lee himself had failed; Jackson was dead and no one had arisen to take his place.

There were hardships now more to be feared than mere battles. The men might look forward to death in action, and not know what would become of the women and children. The price of bread was steadily rising, and the value of Confederate money was going down with equal steadiness.

The soldiers in the field often walked barefoot through the snow, and in summer they ate the green corn in the fields, glad to get even so little; but they were not sure that those left behind would have as much. They were conscious, too, that the North, the sluggish North, which had been so long in putting forth its full strength, was now preparing for an effort far greater than any that had gone before. The incompetent generals, the tricksters and the sluggards were gone, and battle-tried armies led by real generals were coming in numbers that would not be denied.

At such a time as this, when the cloud had no fragment of a silver lining, the spirit of the South glowed with its brightest fire—a spectacle sometimes to be seen even though a cause be wrong.

"Mother," said Prescott, and there was a touch of defiance in his tone, "do you not know that the threat of cold and hunger, the fear that those whom we love are about to suffer as much as ourselves, will only nerve us to greater efforts?"

"I know," she replied, but he did not hear her sigh.

He felt that his stay in Richmond was now shortening fast, but there was yet one affair on his mind to which he must attend, and he went forth for a beginning. His further inquiries, made with caution in the vicinity, disclosed the fact that Miss Charlotte Grayson, the occupant of the wooden cottage, and the Miss Charlotte Grayson whom his mother had in mind, were the same. But he could discover little else concerning her or her manner of life, save an almost positive assurance that she had not left Richmond either at the beginning of the war nor since. She had been seen in the streets, rarely speaking to any one, and at the markets making a few scanty purchases and preserving the same silence, ascribed, it was said, to the probable belief on her part that she would be persecuted because of her known Northern sympathies. Had any one been seen with her? No; she lived all alone in the little house.

Such were the limits of the knowledge achieved by Prescott, and for lack of another course he chose the direct way and knocked at the door of the little house, being compelled to repeat his summons twice before it was answered. Then the door was opened slightly; but with a soldier's boldness he pushed in and confronted a thin, elderly woman, who did not invite him to be seated.

Prescott took in the room and its occupant with a single glance, and the two seemed to him to be of a piece. The former—and he knew instinctively that it was Miss Grayson—was meager of visage and figure, with high cheek bones, thin curls flat down on her temples, and a black dress worn and old. The room exhibited the same age and scantiness, the same aspect of cold poverty, with its patched carpet and the slender fire smouldering on the hearth.

She stood before him, confronting him with a manner in which boldness and timidity seemed to be struggling with about equal success. There was a flush of anger on her cheeks, but her lips were trembling.

"I am speaking to Miss Grayson?" said Prescott.

"You are, sir," she replied, "but I do not know you, and I do not know why you have pushed yourself into my house."

"My name is Prescott, Robert Prescott, and I am a captain in the Confederate Army, as you may see by my uniform."

He noticed that the trembling of her lip increased and she looked fearfully at him; but the red flush of anger on her cheek deepened, too. The chief impression that she made on Prescott was pathetic, standing there in her poverty of dress and room, and he hastened to add: