Doctor Hathern's daughters. A story of Virginia, in four parts

Front matter

APPAL. RM.

Doctor Hathern's daughters.

3 0802 000850270 4

Preface

In a large, old fashioned Virginia house, shaded with elms and covered with climbing roses, honey-suckle and Virginia creepers, two women sat one June morning, discussing the practicability of writing a story in four parts and calling it " Dr. Hathern's Daughters." One of the daughters was to write the opening chapters, and was to be followed at intervals by her friend, whose sobriquet was to be " The Author. " The story has been written and is now given to the public as the joint production of Annie Hathern and The Author.

PART I.— LIFE AT THE ELMS. Preface

Chapter T. The IL III.

IV.

Y.

VI.

VIL VIII.

IX.

X.

XI.

xn.

XIII.

XIV.

XV.

XVI.

Daughters

The Boy in Grey and the Bo>

After the War .

A Shadow begins to Fall.

The Shadow Deepens

Aunt ^lartha .

Norah O'Rourke and Julina

Carl

Paul in Blue

Page • 7

45 48

55 68 76

93 98

103 100 117 124 133

Part Ii.— Fanny And Jack

I. After Five Years II. The Fever III. The Engagement

[vj

I6S

VI

CONTENTS.

Chapter

IV The House that Jack Built

V. Seeinjr the World ....

VI. Furnishing the House that Jack Built

VII. The 25th of November .

VIII. At the Plateau ....

IX. The Letter

X. The Effect

Page

• 173 . 180

• 185

• 197

. 202 . 210 . 229

The Tenant at the Plateau.

Part Iv.— Katy And Carl

I. In the Old World .

. 410

II. Madame ....

III. Ac Homburg ....

. 419

IV. At Monte Carlo

• 424

V. The Concert ....

• 436

VI. Julina

• 447

VII. Carl and Katy

• 455

nil. Conclusion ...»

. 461

DR. HATHERN'S DAUGHTERS.

Chapter I — Annie's Story. THE DAUGHTERS

There are three of us, Fanny and Annie (that is myself) and Katy, who is our half-sister and several years our junior. Her mother, a blue-eyed, golden-haired little woman from New Orleans, lived only a year after she came to us, and just before she died she took my sister's hand and mine, and putting one of her baby's between them, said, " Be kind to her as I would have been kind to you had I lived. God bless you all."

We were only nine years old, but we accepted the trust as something sacred, and little Katy, who inherited all of her mother's marvelous beauty and sweetness of disposition, never missed a mother's love and care, and was the pet and darling of our household. Fanny and I are twins, — familiarly known as " Fan-and-Ann," — and as unlike each other as it is possible for twins to be. Fan, who always passes for the elder, is half a head taller than I am,, and very beautiful, with a stateliness and imperiousness of manner which would befit a queen, while I am shy

10 THE DAUGHTEBS.

and reticent and small, and only one has ever called mc handsome. But his opinion is more to me than all the world, and so I am content, although as a young girl, I used sometimes to envy Fan her beauty, and think I would rather be known as " the pretty and proud Miss Hathern " than " the plain and good one," a distinction often made between us, and one which I knew made me the more popular of the two.

Our home, which was sometimes called " The Elms," on account of the great number of elm trees around it, was in the part of Virginia that felt the shock of the war the most, and when the thunder of artillery was shaking the hills around Petersburg and the air was black with shot and shell and the gutters ran red with human blood, Fanny and I, with little Katy between us, sat with blanched faces listening to the distant roar, — she thinking of the cause she had so much at heart and feared was lost, and I of the thousands of homes made desolate by the dreadful war which, it seemed to me, need never to have been. As we were southern born we naturally sympathized with the south, — that is, Fanny did, — while our father, who was born under the shadow of Bunker Hill, and rarely had any very decided opinions except for peace and good will everywhere, scarcely knew on which side he did stand. Both were right and both were wrong, he said, and he opposed secession with all his might, insisting that there must be some better method of settling the difficulty than by plunging the nation into a sea of carnage.

He was for " peace at any price," and held the flag as a sacred thing, and at last when war was upon us, he reverently laid away in the garret the one with which we were wont to celebrate the Fourth of July, and night and morning prayed for both sides, — not that either might be

THE DAUGHTEES victorious, but that they might settle the difficulty amicably and go home.

My mother, whom I can scarcely remember, was a Charlestonian, who believed in slavery as a divine institu tion, and was the kindest and gentlest of mistresses to the few negroes she brought with her to her Virginia home. For myself I scarcely knew what I did believe, except as I was swayed by a stronger spirit than my own, and that spirit was Fan's. She was an out and out rebel, as we were called, and lamented that instead of a girl of thirteen she was not a man to join the first company of volunteers which went from Levering. Situated as we were, near the frontier, we were fair prey for the soldiers on both sides, and they came upon us like the locusts of Egypt and spoiled us almost as badly as the Egyptians were spoiled by the Israelites, but from neither north nor south did we ever suffer a personal indignity. This was largely owing to our father's incomparable tact in dealing with them. It seemed to me that he was always watching for them, and when he came in from the street, or the gate where he spent a great deal of his time, I could tell to a certainty whether we were to expect a Federal or a Confederate before he spoke a word. If it were the latter he came to me and said, " Annie, there are soldiers in town and if they come here, as they may, stay in your room until they are gone." If it were the boys in blue, he went to Fan, but did not tell her to stay in her room. He knew she would not if he did, and he would say in his most conciliatory way, " Daughter, I think there are some Federals in the woods, and if they come here as they may because the house is large and handy, try and be civil to them, and don't be afraid."

'* Afraid! " Fan would answer, with a flash in her black li

THE PAlU'iHTERS.

eyes. " Do you think I would be afraid if Ihe entire northern army stood at our door! "

Then she would hurry off to warn the blacks in the kitchen and see that the coffee and sugar and tea were hidden away, while father walked down to the gate to receive the foremost of his unwelcome guests. With a courtly wave of the hand, which he might have borrowed from kings, he would say, " What can I do for you to-day? I suppose you are hungry, but we have been visited so often that we have not much left. Still I think we can give you something; but, gentlemen, I beg of you not to annoy or frighten my daughters. They are very young and their mother is dead."

Whether it was what he said, or the way he said it, or both, his wishes so far as we were concerned were respected, and neither Fanny nor I ever came near a boy in blue or a boy in grey that he did not touch his cap to us, and when Fan's sharp tongue got the better of her, as it often did, they only laughed, and told her to " dry up," a bit of slang she did not then understand and resented hotly as a Yankee insult. They took our poultry and eggs and fruit and flour and finally all our negroes, except Phyllis, who had her bundle made up to go, and then found that her love for " Ole Mas'r " and the young " misseses " was stronger than her love for freedom.

On one occasion they took Black Beauty, Fan's riding pony, but sent it back within a few hours. This was toward the close of the war, when Virginia was full of Federal troops, and for one day and night our place was turned into a kind of barracks by a company whose leader, Col. Errington, occupied our best room and took his meals with us. He was a tall, handsome man, with a splendid physique and the most polished manners I ever saw. But

THE DAUGHTEHS. 13

there was a cynical look about his mouth and a cold, hard expression in his grey eyes, which I did not like, while Fan detested him. She was then a beautiful girl of nearly seventeen, with a haughty bearing and frankness of speech which amused the northern officer, to whom she expressed her mind very freely, not only with regard to his calling, but also with regard to himself. But he took it all good-humoredly, and when he went away he kissed his hand to her, while to me he simply bowed.

" The wretch ! How dare he ! " Fanny said, with a stamp of her foot.

But she watched him until he disappeared from sight in the woods, through which there was a short cut in the direction of Petersburg. Most of his men followed him, but a few stragglers lingered behind for the sake of whatever they could find in the shape of eatables, and when at last they departed, Phyllis, who had been doing battle with them over a quantity of butternuts which she claimed as her special property, came running to the house with the startling information that " one dem blue-coats done took off Miss Fanny's pony, who kicked and snorted jes 's if he knowed 'twas a fetched Yank who had cotched him."

Rushing to the door we saw the pony going down the lane, or rather standing in the lane, for he had planted his forefeet firmly on the ground, and with mulish obstinacy refused to move. A sharp cut from the whip, however, brought him to terms, and he went galloping off with his heels in the air quite as often as upon terra firma. I think Fan followed him bare-headed for nearly a mile, but all her calls and entreaties were in vain. Black Beauty was gone, and she cried herself into a headache which lasted until night, when, just as we were sitting down to

14 THE DAUGHTEKS.

supper, Phyllis came near dropping the hot corn cakes she was putting upon the table in her surprise and delight as she exclaimed, " Bress de Lord, dar's Black Beauty now. " Looking from the window we saw a soldier in blue leading him toward the house and trying hard to hold him as he minced and pranced and shook his head in his delight to be home again. In a moment he was at the open door where he often came to be fed with sugar or cookies and Fan's arms were around his neck and she was talking to him as if he was human and could understand her, while he whinnied in reply and and rubbed his head against her face.

Col. Errington sent you this with his compliments," the soldier said, handing a note to Fan, which was as follows:

**Dear Miss Hathern

" I have just learned of the abduction of your pony, and am very sorry for the anxiety it must have caused you. I am sure it is yours, as you ran so far after him, and for that reason I should like to keep him for myself. But honor compels me to send him back.

"Hoping that you will not add the sin of thieving to my other enormities and that in the near future we may meet as friends instead of foes,

" I am, yours very truly,

"George W. Errington,"

Fan's first impulse, after reading this, was to tear it up, but she changed her mind, and I heard her tell Phyllis to give the soldier some supper, if he wanted it.

" I suppose the tramp is hungry; they always are," she said, apologetically, as her eyes wandered across the orchard to the enclosure on the hillside where, under the

*rHE DAUGHTERS. 15

pine trees, our boy in grey was lying, with a boy in blue beside him.

That night I saw Fan put Col. Errington's note in a little box on our dressing bureau, where she kept her few trinkets, but his name was not mentioned between us until after the fall of Richmond, when Jack Fullerton, our neighbor, who had been in the war and who knew about Fan's pony and the officer, whom he teasingly called Fan's Yankee, brought a AVashington paper in which we read that Col. Errington, who was so severely wounded at Petersburg, was recovering rapidly and would soon be able to be moved into his house on Franklin Square.

" I suppose you are very glad that your gallant Colonel is getting well," Jack said, and Fan replied, " Of course I am. Do you think me a murderess that I want any man to die."

" I thought at one time you would like to exterminate the entire Federal army," Jack said, and Fan replied, " So I would, and I have no love for them now: but can't a body change some of his views? "

And, truly, Fan's views were greatly changed from what they were at the beginning of the war, to which time I must go back for a little and tell of the boy in grey and the boy in blue, who brought the change and who, though dead, have much to do with this story.

Chapter II — An Episode. THE BOY IN GREY AND THE BOY IN BLUE

I HAVE written of Dr. Hathern's daughters, but ha\e said notliing of his son, our brother Charlie, who was four years our senior and little more than a boy when the war broke out. Too young by far to join the army, father and I said. But Fan thought differently, and when the clouds of strife grew darker and denser and there were calls for more recruits she urged him on until at last he enlisted and we saw him with others march away on the Monday after the Easter of '62. How handsome he was in his new uniform, and how proud we were of him, he was so tall and straight, with such a sunny smile on his boyish face and in his laughing blue eyes.

" Bress de boy; he look like Sol'monin all his best clos'," Phyllis said, regarding him admiringly when he put them on, "an' though I spec's I'se a mighty bad un seein* I'se a nigger and one of Linkum's folks, I hope he'll beat 'em sho'.'

" Beat them! Of course we shall!" Fan said, putting her arms around Charlie's neck and laying a hand on the shoulder of Jack Fullerton, who had also enlisted. " Of course we shall beat them. The Northerners are all cowards. One or two battles will end the matter and you will come marching home covered with glory."

She was talking mostly to Jack, flashing upon him a look from her bright eyes which would have made a less brave man face the cannon's mouth. Jack had been my hero since my earliest remembrance, although I knew

THE BOV IN GREY AND THE BOY IN BLUE. i (

that he preferred Fan, who was tall and fair and comely, while I was short and dark and homely. It was mainly owing to her influence that he had enlisted, and he was to dine with us that Easter Day as his father was dead and his mother, who was an invalid, was away at some springs. How bright we made the house with the lilies Charlie was so fond of, saying they made him think of his mother and the angels, and I never see one now, nor inhale its perfume, that it does not bring Charlie back to me as he was that last day at home when there were great bowls of them on the mantels and stands and dinner table, which was loaded with every delicacy Phyllis could devise. The rooms looked as if decked for a bridal, but they seemed like a funeral, we were all so sad, except Fan. She was in the wildest of spirits and talked of the next Easter when the war would be over, and Charlie with us again, wearing shoulder straps may be, or at all events covered with honor as a soldier who had done his duty.

" You are not going to be shot, but to shoot somebody," she said, patting him on his back. " And we'll trim the house up better than it is to-day, and Phyllis shall make her best plum pudding, and I shall be so proud of you," she added, throwing her arms around his neck, and kissing him lovingly.

The next morning he went away and we saw him marching by to the sound of the fife and drum, while I cried as if my heart would break, but Fanny stood upon the horse-block by the gate and sent kisses after him until a turn in the road hid him from our sight. We heard from him often during the summer, for many men from our county were in the same regiment, and so, from one and another and from himself word came to us that he was well and had as yet seen no actual fighting, though very

18 THE EOY IN OBEY AND THE BOY IN BLUE.

anxious to do so. Then the tone of his letters changed a little and he was not quite so ready to fight.

" I tell you what, Fan-and-Ann," he wrote, " the boys in blue are not such milksops as you think. I have seen quite a lot of 'em, and they are a pretty good sort after all, and they gave me tobacco and hard tack and a newspaper, and said they'd nothing against me personally, but they had enlisted to lick just such upstarts and were going to do it. I'd smile to see them."

"And so would I," Fan said, with the utmost scorn, " lick us indeed! I wish I were a man!"

She was growing more bitter every day, and when one evening Phyllis came to me privately and said there was a half-starved Federal soldier hiding in the corn-field, I did not dare tell Fan, but went to him with Phyllis after dark and carried him bread and milk and a blanket to cover him and an umbrella to shield him from the rain. The third day he went away and I never heard from him again until the war was over, when I received a badly written letter, directed wrong side up and signed James Josh, who thanked me for my kindness which he had never forgotten. I passed the letter to Fan, who surprised me by saying," Yes, I knew all about it; I saw you steal off into the corn-field and saw you feeding that poor wretch, and only a thought of Charlie and what I'd wish someone to do for him kept me from giving notice that a Yankee was hiding in our field. I knew when he went away and saw you and Phyllis coddle him up with sandwiches and hoe cake and father's old coat, and you took me to task for flirting in front of the house with Jack Fullerton, who was home on a furlough, when I was really trying to keep him as long as possible so as to let your James Josh get out of the way."

THE BOx IN GREY AND THE BOY IN BLUE.

Fanny was greatly softened at that time and not much like the fierce, outspoken girl who kept us up to fever heat during the second year of the war when the weeks and months dragged so slowly until at last it was winter and news came of the terrible battle of Fredericksburg, when the woods were filled with the dead and dying and the river ran red with blood. Three days after the battle they brought Charlie to us dead, with a bullet in his side and a look of perfect peace on his young face,smooth yet and fair as a girl's. Some of his friends had found him in the woods, and rather than leave him there had at the risk of their own lives managed to have him carried across the country until at the close of the third day he lay in our best room where so many lilies had been when he went away, but which now echoed to father's sobs and mine as we bent over our dead boy. Fan never shed a tear, but in a cold, hard voice told the men where to put the body, and then with a start, exclaimed, " what does this mean?" and she pointed to his uniform, which was not the grey he had worn away, but the blue she so hated, and which was much too small for him.

" Some thief exchanged with him, for see, there is no hole where the bullet struck him," she continued, looking at the coat which was stained with blood, but whole. "Phyllis, come here," she went on, while father and I sat dumb and helpless, " take off that garb of a dog and put his own clothes on him, his best ones, hanging in his room. ' '

Phyllis obeyed, and when the soiled and bloody garments lay upon the floor. Fan said, " give me the tongs, I am going to burn them up."

Then father arose and reaching out his shaking hands saved the blue uniform froni the flames,

20 'JHE BOY IX GREY AND THE BUY IN BLUE.

" Wait, Fan," he said; " there may be something in the pockets which will tell us whose clothes they are. Remember there are more aching hearts than ours."

He was feeling in the trousers pockets where securely pinned in the bottom of one was the half sheet of paper which we had fastened in the top of Charlie's cap because it was too large. The paper was written over in a scrawly hand which was not Charlie's, and Fan read it aloud with the tears streaming down her cheeks, just as mine are falling now, as I copy it verbatim:

" Dear Father and Fan-and-Ann:

" I am dying under a tree in the woods with a bullet in me and a boy's cap stuffed into the wound to keep the blood back, while I tell him what to write. Lucky Fan-and-Ann thought to put that paper in my cap. The boy, who is a Yankee, found me and brought me some water and covered me with his coat when I got cold and stuffed his cap into the hole and cried over me, and I cried too, and we've talked it over and are as sorry as we can be — about the war, I mean. I hope I didn't kill anybody and he hopes he didn't, and his left hand is almost shot away and hurts him awful, but he's going to stick to me till I'm dead. Then I've told him how to find his way to you and tell you about me, and you must take care of him and not let them get him. He don't want to go to prison, and I don't want to have him, and he 's going to change clothes with me so as to look like a confederate. We've said the Lord's Prayer together, and Now I lay me, and the Creed, and dearly beloved, and everything we could think of and he knows them just as I do and I reckon I'm all right with God, only I'd like to die at home. It's getting dark and the boy is tired and I am faint. Kiss little Katy for me. I wish I could see you all again.

" Good bye, be kind to the boy. Give ray respects to Phyllis.

" Charlie."

THK BOY IN GKEV A^D 'I'Hi: liOY IN BLUE.

This was the letter and I need not say that the blue uniform was not burned; neither did I know what became of it until after the funeral was over and I had courage to go into my brother's room where I found it hanging on the wall and over it the Stars and Stripes which Fan had brought from their hiding place and put above the faded blue, from which the blood stains could not be effaced, although Phyllis had washed it two or three times. Every day Fan and I went in and looked at it and cried over it and talked of The Boy and wondered who he was and when, if ever, he would come.

" What shall you do if he does?" I asked her once, but she only glared at me like a tiger and I was glad to escape from the scornful gleam of her eyes.

And thus the weeks glided into months and it was spring again and the Virginia woods were lovely in their dress of green; the robins were building their nests in the trees and the lilies we were to lay on Charlie's grave at Easter were just breaking into bloom. Father had gone to visit a patient, Katy was at school, and Fan and I sat by the dining-room fire when Phyllis came in, and, cauUously shutting the door, said in a mysterious whisper, " He's

done come."

" Who has come?" I asked, and Phyllis replied, " The Boy, to be sho' ; him you're spectin', honey, Mas'r Charles's boy, and oh, de Lord, such a bag of bones, and so scar't for fear he'll be took."

" Where is he?" Fan asked, springing to her feet.

" In my cabin, in course. Whar should he be?" was Phyllis's answer, and in a moment Fan and I were on our way to the cabin, the door of which we could not open.

" Go to the windy behine de cabin, honey," Phyllis said, puffing after us like an engine.

We went to the rear window, which was open, and through which Fan darted like a cat, while I followed almost as quickly. Against the door a most heterogenous mass of furniture was piled. A table, two wooden chairs, a washtub, iron kettle, stewpan, skillet and billet of wood, while a large nail was driven over the latch.

" What upon earth is this for. I should think you were shutting out an army," Fan said, and Phyllis, who had managed to squeeze through the window, replied, " An' so I is, de Federate's army, too. I'se not gwine to have him took, an' he beggin' of me not to; I'll spill my heart's blood first."

She had seized a big rolling pin which she flourished energetically, looking as if she might keep a whole regiment at bay.

" Move those things and open that door," Fan said authoritatively, and then we turned our attention to the boy, lying on Phyllis's bed, a mere skeleton, with masses of light curly hair and great sunken blue eyes which looked up at us so pitifully as we bent over him,

" You won't let 'em get me? " he whispered, with a faint smile, " I am so sick and my head aches so, and my hand is so bad. He said you were good, but I didn't know there were two of you; which is Fan-an-Ann?"

Fan and I looked curiously at each other a moment; then, remembering that Charlie always spoke of us as Fan-an-Ann, and that it was so written in the letter, we understood his mistake. But it was Fan who answered, for I could only stand and cry over this wreck of a boy, with Charlie's battered clothes upon him, too long and large every way, and covered with soil and blood stains. What remained of his left hand was bound in a dirty rag and quivered with pain as it lay on the coarse blanket.

" What shall we do? " I asked at last, and Fan answered in her imperious way, which always made one feel small.

" Do! Go to the house and get Charlie's bed ready, and bring me his dressing gown and a shirt and drawers from his trunk. This is no time to cry."

I knew then that Lee's entire army could not wrest that boy from Fan, who helped Phyllis remove his stiff garments and wash the aching limbs, scarcely larger than sticks, and who herself undid the bandage from the wounded hand which she bathed so carefully and bound up so skillfully in the lint and linen which I brought her; then, when all was done, she wrapped a blanket around him and took him in her own strong arms, not daring to trust him to Phyllis, who weighed a hundred and eighty and was apt to stumble. It was curious to see Fan, who had been so bitter against the north, carrying that Yankee boy up to the house and laying him on Charlie's bed, at the foot of which, on the wall, his own uniform was hanging. He saw it at once, for his eyes seemed to see everything, and with a smile on his white face, he said, " Why, there's my old clothes. They were too small for him but I managed to get them on him as he told me, and I pinned the letter in his pockets, thinking if he got to you and I didn't, you'd know; did you find it?"