Secret Service
Cyrus Townsend Brady
SECRET SERVICE
Being the Happenings of a Night in Richmond in the Spring of 1865Done into Book Form from the Play by William Gillette
by
CYRUS TOWNSEND BRADY
Illustrated by the Kinneys
New YorkGrosset & DunlapPublishers
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Copyright, 1912, byDodd, Mead and Company
Published, January, 1912
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I DEDICATE MY SHARE OF THIS JOINT PRODUCTION TO
The many people of the stage, personally known and unknown by me, whohave so often interested, amused, instructed, and inspired me by theirpresentations of life in all its infinite variety. They are a muchmisunderstood people by the public generally, and I take this occasionto testify that, in my wide acquaintance with stage people, I have foundthem as gentle, as generous, as refined, and as considerate as any groupof people with whom I have associated in my long and varied career.
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PREFACE
Once upon a time a novel of mine was turned into a play. The dramatistwho prepared the story for stage production sent me a copy of hisefforts toward that end. About the only point of resemblance between hisproduction and mine was the fact that they both bore the same title, thehero in each had the same name, and the action in both cases took placeon this earth.
I was a young author then, and timid. I ventured humbly to enquire whythe drama differed so entirely from the novel; and this ingenious, Imight almost say ingenuous, explanation was vouchsafed me:
"Well, to tell you the truth, after I had read a chapter or two of yourbook, I lost it, and I just wrote the play from my own imagination."
I do not wish to criticise the results of his efforts, for he has sinceproved himself to be a dramatist of skill and ability, but to describethat particular effort as a dramatisation of my book was absurd.Incidentally, it was absurd in other ways and, fortunately for thereputation of both of us, it never saw the light.
When my dear friends, the publishers, asked me to turn this play into anovel, I recalled my experience of by-gone days, and the idea flashedinto my mind that here was an opportunity to get even, but I am apreacher as well as a story-writer, and in either capacity I found Icould not do it. Frankly, I did not want to do it.
My experience, however, has made me perhaps unduly sensitive, and Idetermined, since I had undertaken this work, to make it represent Mr.Gillette's remarkable and brilliant play as faithfully as I could, and Ihave done so. I have used my own words only in those slight changesnecessitated by book presentation instead of production on the stage. Ihave entered into as few explanations as possible and have limited myown discussion of the characters, their motives, and their actions, towhat was absolutely necessary to enable the reader to comprehend. On thestage much is left to the eye which has to be conveyed by words in abook, and this is my excuse for even those few digressions that appear.
I have endeavoured to subordinate my own imagination to that of theaccomplished playwright. I have played something of the part of the oldGreek Chorus which explained the drama, and there has been a touch ofthe scene-painter's art in my small contribution to the book.
Otherwise, I have not felt at liberty to make any departure from thesetting, properties, episodes, actions, or dialogue. Mine has been avery small share in this joint production. The story and the glory areMr. Gillette's, not mine. And I am cheerfully determined that as theauthor of the first, he shall have all of the second.
Cyrus Townsend Brady.
St. George's Rectory, Kansas City, Mo., November, 1911.
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CONTENTS
BOOK I WHAT HAPPENED AT EIGHT O'CLOCK
I The Battery Passes 3 II A Commission from the President 18 III Orders to Captain Thorne 34 IV Miss Mitford's Intervention 49 V The Unfaithful Servant 69 VI The Confidence of Edith Varney 86
BOOK II WHAT HAPPENED AT NINE O'CLOCK
VII Wilfred Writes a Letter 105 VIII Edith Is Forced to Play the Game 133 IX The Shot That Killed 154
BOOK III WHAT HAPPENED AT TEN O'CLOCK
X Caroline Mitford Writes a Despatch 173 XI Mr. Arrelsford Again Interposes 187 XII Thorne Takes Charge of the Telegraph 204 XIII The Tables Are Turned 217 XIV The Call of the Key 229 XV Love and Duty at the Touch 247
BOOK IV WHAT HAPPENED AT ELEVEN O'CLOCK
XVI The Tumult in Human Hearts 261 XVII Wilfred Plays the Man 271XVIII Captain Thorne Justifies Himself 292 XIX The Drumhead Court-Martial 301 XX The Last Reprieve 318
Afterword 330
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BOOK I
WHAT HAPPENED AT EIGHT O'CLOCK
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CHAPTER I
THE BATTERY PASSES
Outside, the softness of an April night; the verdure of tree and lawn,the climbing roses, already far advanced in that southern latitude,sweetly silvered in the moonlight. Within the great old house apparentlyan equal calm.
Yet, neither within nor without was the night absolutely soundless. Faraway to the southward the cloudless horizon, easily visible from theslight eminence on which the house stood, was marked by quiveringflashes of lurid light. From time to time, the attentive ear might catchthe roll, the roar, the reverberation of heavy sound like distantthunder-peals intermingled with sharper detonations. The flashes camefrom great guns, and the rolling peals were the sound of the cannon, thedetonations explosions of the shells. There was the peace of God in theheaven above; there were the passions of men on the earth beneath.
Lights gleamed here and there, shining through the twining rose foliage,from the windows of the old house, which stood far back from the street.From a room on one side of the hall, which opened from the broadpillared portico of Colonial fashion, a hum of voices arose.
A group of women, with nervous hands and anxious faces, working whilethey talked, were picking lint, tearing linen and cotton for bandages.Their conversation was not the idle chatter of other days. They "toldsad stories of the death of kings!" How "Tom" and "Charles" and "Allen"and "Page" and "Burton" had gone down into the Valley of the Shadow ofDeath, whence they had not come back. How this fort had been hammeredyesterday, the other, the day before. How So-and-So's wounds had beenministered to. How Such-a-One's needs had been relieved. How the enemywere drawing closer and closer and closer, and how they were being heldback with courage, which, alas! by that time was the courage of despair.And much of their speech was of their own kind, of bereft women andfatherless children. And ever as they talked, the busy fingers flew.
Upstairs from one of the front rooms the light shone dimly through awindow partly covered by a half-drawn Venetian blind. One standing atthe side of the house and listening would have heard out of the chamberlow moanings, muttered words from feverish lips and delirious brain. Themeaningless yet awful babble was
broken now and again by words oftenderness and anguish. Soft hands were laid on the burning brow of thepoor sufferer within, while a mother's eyes dropped tears uponbloodstained bandages and wasted frame.
And now the gentle wind which swept softly through the trees bore asudden sharper, stranger sound toward the old house in the garden. Thetramp of horse, the creak of wheels, the faint jingling of arms andsabres drew nearer and rose louder. Sudden words of command puncturedthe night. Here came a battery, without the rattle of drum or the blareof bugles, with no sound but its own galloping it rolled down thestreet. Lean, gaunt horses were ridden and driven by leaner and gauntermen in dusty, worn, ragged, tattered uniforms. Only the highly polishedbrass guns--twelve-pounder Napoleons--gleamed bright in the moonlight.
The sewing women came out on the porch and the blind of the window abovewas lifted and a white-haired woman stood framed in the light.
No, those watchers did not cheer as the battery swept by on its way tothe front. For one thing, a soldier lay upstairs dying; for another,they had passed the time when they cheered that tattered flag. Now theywept over it as one weeps as he beholds for the last time the face of afriend who dies. Once they had acclaimed it as the sunrise in themorning, now they watched it silently go inevitably to the sunset ofdefeat.
The men did not cheer either. They were not past cheering--oh, no! Theywere made of rougher stuff than the women, and the time would come when,in final action, they would burst forth into that strange, wild yellthat struck terror to the hearts of the hearers. They could cheer evenin the last ditch, even in the jaws of death--face the end better fortheir cheering perhaps; but women are more silent in the crisis. Theybear and give no tongue.
The officer in command saw the little group of women on the porch. Themoonlight shone from the street side and high-lighted them, turning therusty black of most of the gowns, home-dyed mourning,--all that could become at in those last awful days in Richmond,--into soft shadows, abovewhich their faces shone angelic. He saw the woman's head in the window,too. He knew who lay upon the bed of death within the chamber. He hadhelped to bring him back from the front several days before. He bit hislips for a moment and then, ashamed of his emotion, his voice rangharsh. With arm and sabre the battery saluted the women and passed on,while from the window of the great drawing-room, opposite the room ofthe lint-pickers and bandage-tearers, a slender boy stared and staredafter the disappearing guns, his eyes full of envy and vexatious tearsas he stamped his foot in futile protest and disappointment.
The noise made by the passing cannon soon died away in the distance.Stillness supervened as before; workers whispered together, realisingthat some of those passing upon whom they had looked would pass no more,and that they would look upon them never again. Upstairs the moans ofthe wounded man had died away, the only thing that persisted was thefearful thundering of the distant guns around beleaguered Petersburg.Within the drawing-room, the boy walked up and down restlessly,muttering to himself, evidently nerving himself to desperate resolution.
"I won't do it," he said. "I won't stay here any longer."
He threw up his hands and turned to the portraits that adorned the room,portraits that carried one back through centuries to the days of thefirst cavalier of the family, who crossed the seas to seek his fortunein a new land, and it was a singular thing that practically every one ofthem wore a sword.
"You all fought," said the boy passionately, "and I am going to."
The door at the other end was softly opened. The great room was butdimly lighted by candles in sconces on the wall; the great chandelierwas not lighted for lack of tapers, but a more brilliant radiance waspresently cast over the apartment by the advent of old Martha. She hadbeen the boy's "Mammy" and the boy's father's "Mammy" as well, and noone dared to speculate how much farther into the past she ran back.
"Is dat you, Mars Wilfred?" said the old woman, waddling into the room,both hands extended, bearing two many-branched candle-sticks, which sheproceeded to deposit upon the handsome mahogany tables with which thelong drawing-room was furnished.
"Yes, it is I, Aunt Martha. Did you see Benton's Battery go by?"
"Lawd lub you, chile, Ah done seed so many guns an' hosses an' soljahsa-gwine by Ah don't tek no notice ob 'em no mo'. 'Peahs lak dey keep ona-passin' by fo'ebah."
"Well, there won't be many more of them pass by," said the boy in aclear accent, but with that soft intonation which would have betrayedhis Southern ancestry anywhere, "and before they are all gone, I wouldlike to join one of them myself."
"Why, my po' li'l lamb!" exclaimed Martha, her arms akimbo, "dat Ah donenussed in dese ahms, is you gwine to de fight!"
The boy's demeanour was anything but lamb-like. He made a fierce steptoward her.
"Don't you call me 'lamb' any more," he said, "it's ridiculous and----"
Mammy Martha started back in alarm.
"'Peahs mo' lak a lion'd be better," she admitted.
"Where's mother?" asked the boy, dismissing the subject as unworthy ofargument.
"I reckon she's upstaihs wid Mars Howard, suh. Yo' bruddah----"
"I want to see her right away," continued the boy impetuously.
"Mars Howard he's putty bad dis ebenin'," returned Martha. "Ah bettah goan' tell her dat you want her, but Ah dunno's she'd want to leab him."
"Well, you tell her to come as soon as she can. I'm awfully sorry forHoward, but it's living men that the Confederacy needs most now."
"Yas, suh," returned the old nurse, with a quizzical look out of herblack eyes at the slender boy before her. "Dey suah does need men," shecontinued, and as the youngster took a passionate step toward her, shedeftly passed out of the room and closed the door behind her, and hecould hear her ponderous footsteps slowly and heavily mounting thesteps.
The boy went to the window again and stared into the night. In hispreoccupation he did not catch the sound of a gentler footfall upon thestairs, nor did he notice the opening of the door and the silentapproach of a woman, the woman with white hair who had stood at thewindow. The mother of a son dead, a son dying, and a son living. Nodistinctive thing that in the Confederacy. Almost any mother who hadmore than one boy could have been justly so characterised. She stoppedhalf-way down the room and looked lovingly and longingly at the slight,graceful figure of her youngest son. Her eyes filled with tears--for thedying or the living or both? Who can say? She went toward him, laid herhand on his shoulder. He turned instantly and at the sight of her tearsburst out quickly:
"Howard isn't worse, is he?" for a moment forgetful of all else.
The woman shook her head.
"I am afraid he is. The sound of that passing battery seemed to excitehim so. He thought he was at the front again and wanted to get up."
"Poor old Howard!"
"He's quieter now, perhaps----"
"Mother, is there anything I can do for him?"
"No, my son," answered the woman with a sigh, "I don't think there isanything that anybody can do. We can only wait--and hope. He is in God'shands, not ours."
She lifted her face for a moment and saw beyond the room, through thenight, and beyond the stars a Presence Divine, to Whom thousands ofother women in that dying Confederacy made daily, hourly, and momentaryprayers. Less exalted, more human, less touched, the boy bowed his head,not without his own prayer, too.
"But you wanted to see me, Wilfred, Martha said," the woman presentlybegan.
"Yes, mother, I----"
The boy stopped and the woman was in no hurry to press him. She divinedwhat was coming and would fain have avoided it all.
"I am thankful there is a lull in the cannonading," she said, listening."I wonder why it has stopped?"
"It has not stopped," said Wilfred, "at least it has gone on allevening."
"I don't hear it now."
"No, but you will--there!"
"Yes, but compared to what it was yesterday--you know how it shook thehouse--and Howard suffered so through it."
"So did I," said the boy i
n a low voice fraught with passion.
"You, my son?"
"Yes, mother, when I hear those guns and know that the fighting is goingon, it fairly maddens me----"
But Mrs. Varney hastily interrupted her boy. Woman-like she would thrustfrom her the decision which she knew would be imposed upon her.
"Yes, yes," she said; "I know how you suffered,--we all suffered,we----" She turned away, sat down in a chair beside the table, leanedher head in her hands, and gave way to her emotions. "There has beennothing but suffering, suffering since this awful war began," shemurmured.
"Mother," said Wilfred abruptly, "I want to speak to you. You don't likeit, of course, but you have just got to listen this time."
Mrs. Varney lifted her head from her hands. Wilfred came nearer to herand dropped on his knees by her side. One hand she laid upon hisshoulder, the other on his head. She stared down into his up-turnedface.
"I know--I know, my boy--what you want."
"I can't stay here any longer," said the youth; "it is worse than beingshot to pieces. I just have to chain myself to the floor whenever I heara cannon-shot or see a soldier. When can I go?"
The woman stared at him. In him she saw faintly the face of the boydying upstairs. In him she saw the white face of the boy who lay underthe sun and dew, dead at Seven Pines. In him she saw all her kith andkin, who, true to the traditions of that house, had given up their livesfor a cause now practically lost. She could not give up the last one.She drew him gently to her, but, boy-like, he disengaged himself anddrew away with a shake of his head, not that he loved his mother theless, but honour--as he saw it--the more.
"Why don't you speak?" he whispered at last.
"I don't know what to say to you, Wilfred," faltered his mother,although there was but one thing to say, and she knew that she must sayit, yet she was fighting, woman-like, for time.
"I will tell you what to say," said the boy.
"What?"
"Say that you won't mind if I go down to Petersburg and enlist."
"But that would not be true, Wilfred," said his mother, smiling faintly.
"True or not, mother, I can't stay here."
"Oh, Wilfred, Russell has gone, and Howard is going, and now you want togo and get killed."
"I don't want to be killed at all, mother."
"But you are so young, my boy."
"Not younger than Tom Kittridge," answered the boy; "not younger thanEll Stuart or Cousin Steven or hundreds of other boys down there. See,mother--they have called for all over eighteen, weeks ago; the seventeencall may be out any moment; the next one after that takes me. Do youwant me to stay here until I am ordered out! I should think not. Where'syour pride?"
"My pride? Ah, my son, it is on the battlefield, over at Seven Pines,and upstairs with Howard."
"Well, I don't care, mother," he persisted obstinately. "I love you andall that, you know it,--but I can't stand this. I've got to go. I mustgo."
Mrs. Varney recognised from the ring of determination in the boy's voicethat his mind was made up. She could no longer hold him. With or withouther consent he would go, and why should she withhold it? Other boys asyoung as hers had gone and had not come back. Aye, there was the rub:she had given one, the other trembled on the verge, and now the lastone! Yes, he must go, too,--to live or die as God pleased. If theywanted her to sacrifice everything on the altar of her country, she hadher own pride, she would do it, as hundreds of other women had done. Sherose from her chair and went toward her boy. He was a slender lad ofsixteen but was quite as tall as she. As he stood there he lookedstrangely like his father, thought the woman.
"Well," she said at last, "I will write to your father and----"
"But," the boy interrupted in great disappointment, "that'll takeforever. You never can tell where his brigade is from day to day. Ican't wait for you to do that."
"Wilfred," said his mother, "I can't let you go without his consent. Youmust be patient. I will write the letter at once, and we will send it bya special messenger. You ought to hear by to-morrow."
The boy turned away impatiently and strode toward the door.
"Wilfred," said his mother gently. The tender appeal in her voicechecked him. She came over to him and put her arm about his shoulders."Don't feel bad, my boy, that you have to stay another day with yourmother. It may be many days, you know, before----"
"It isn't that," said Wilfred.
"My darling boy--I know it. You want to fight for your country--and I'mproud of you. I want my sons to do their duty. But with your father atthe front, one boy dead, and the other wounded, dying----"
She turned away.
"You will write father to-night, won't you?"
"Yes--yes!"
"I'll wait, then, until we have had time to get a reply," said the boy.
"Yes, and then you will go away. I know what your father's answer willbe. The last of my boys--Oh, God, my boys!"
