The Iron Game - Henry Francis Keenan
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The plans were agreed upon at once and the two girls separated, knit
together by the same bond in more senses than one, for, while Olympia
set out to rescue her brother, she secretly hoped that the search would
bring her near some one else; and so, as soon as Kate had gone, she sat
down and wrote Vincent of Jack's disappearance, asking his aid in
finding such traces as might be in the rebel lines. She merely alluded
to their projected plan, adding, in a postscript, that she would write
him as soon as the party approached the outposts. Kate wrote at once to
her father, at his Washington address, narrating her visit to the
Spragues, telling him of the new hope that had come to her, and
beseeching him to lend his whole heart to the distressed mother and
sister. He should see her in Washington within a few days, and she
counted on his sympathy with her to help to restore the lost son and
brother if alive, to co-operate in giving the body honorable burial if
he were dead. These letters dispatched, the party waited only to hear
from Brodie. He came a day or two later, but he could give them no hope.
He had been repelled from all sources of information, insulted in the
War Office, and denied access to the President. He was convinced that
there were secret influences at work to obscure the true facts in the
case of the escaped prisoners, but what the agencies were he could not
guess. When Olympia told this to Kate, she was surprised at her look
and response.
"I know the influences, I think, and I can discover the agencies. Take
comfort. I believe Jack is alive. I promise you that I shall never rest
until he is found, alive or dead."
"O Kate, what an impulsive ally we have gained! I wish Jack could have
heard that speech; it would have put power in his arm, as poor Barney
used to say."
Twenty-four hours later the three women were in Washington, Kate
remaining with her friends, instead of joining her father at Willard's.
CHAPTER XXX.
A GAME OF CHANCE.
It was the end of January, 1862, when Olympia and her mother found
themselves in Washington for the second time in quest of the missing
soldier. They took lodgings in the same quiet house, not far from
Lafayette Square--Kate with them. Kate counted upon her father's aid,
active or passive; but when her messenger returned from Willard's with
word that Mr. Boone had gone from the hotel several days before, she was
numb with a dreadful foreboding. He was avoiding her deliberately. She
drove at once to the hotel. The clerk summoned to her aid could only
inform her that her father had given up his room and had left the hotel
late at night. She could get no further clew. She telegraphed at once to
Acredale and returned to the Spragues, not daring to breathe her
apprehensions. Yes, her father was plainly keeping away from her. He
meant to persist in his savage vengeance. What had he learned? Was Jack
indeed dead, and was his good name the object of her father's hatred?
Whither should she turn? Why had she not thought of this--her fathers
passivity or even opposition? How could she reveal her terrors to the
mother and sister? How make known to them the unworthy side of her
father's character? If in the morning no telegram came from Acredale, it
would be proof that her father was bent, implacably in his purpose to
undo Jack, living or dead. When she reached the lodging, Olympia was
dressed for the street.
"You are just in time. I have matured my plans. First, we must find out
at the proper quarter the names of all the wounded brought here from
Fort Monroe. Then we must trace the report in the _Herald_ down to its
origin. Then we must visit every hospital in and near Washington to find
out from actual sight of each man whether Jack or Dick, or any one we
know, is in the city. As we go on, we shall learn a good deal which may
modify this plan, or perhaps make the search less difficult."
Olympia said this with composure and a certain confidence in herself
that struck Kate with admiration. She felt ashamed of herself. Here was
Olympia, unconscious of Jack's real peril if living, the menace to his
reputation if dead, planning as composedly as if it were an every-day
thing to have a brother lost in the appalling mazes of war; and she had
been weakly depending upon her father, Jack's most persevering enemy!
She recoiled from herself in a shiver of self-reproach as she said:
"Olympia, you have the good sense of a man in an emergency. I am ashamed
of myself. I, who ought to do the thinking for you, am as helpless as a
kitchen-maid set to playing lady in the parlor. I can at least help you;
I can make my body follow you, if I haven't sense enough to suggest."
"Dear Kate, it isn't sense, or insight, or any fine quality of mind that
is needed here. All I ask is, that you won't get dispirited, or, if you
do, don't let mamma see you are. Poor mamma! She is as easily influenced
as a baby. Jack is her darling, remember. All the world is a small
affair to her compared with our poor boy. I fancy, if we were as much
wrapped up in him as she is, we should make poor pioneers in the
wilderness before us."
But Kate could stand no more of this. With a choking sob she turned and
fled up the stairway, crying as she disappeared: "Wait--wait a moment; I
must get my purse."
When she reappeared, the heavy mourning-veil was drawn down, and
Olympia, with a reassured glance, opened the door.
"You must affect confidence, if you have it not--even gayety. I warn you
not to be shocked at my conduct. I must keep up mamma's spirits, and to
do it I must play indifference or confidence, and you must be careful to
say nothing, to do nothing, to excite her suspicions."
Kate's cab had driven off, and the two girls walked through Lafayette
Square into Pennsylvania Avenue to get another. The wide streets were
filled, as of old, with skurrying orderlies, groups of lounging
officers, and lumbering army wagons. But even the untrained eyes of
Olympia soon took account of the better discipline, the more
businesslike celerity of the men on duty as well as the flying couriers.
The White House was gay with hunting, and salutes from the distant forts
were signalizing the news that had just come of Union successes at Mill
Spring and Roanoke Island. The girls, procuring a hack, were driven to
the provost-general's office. Here, after an interminable delay they
were admitted to the presence of a complacent young coxcomb in spotless
regimentals, who, so soon as he saw Olympia's face and bearing, threw
off the listlessness of routine, and, rising deferentially, asked her
pleasure. She told her story simply, and asked his advice as to the
course to be followed. When the extract from the _Herald_ was shown to
him, he examined an enormous folio, and then rang a bell.
"It is more than likely that these names are wrong. This happens
constantly. The operators are raw and some of them can barely read. The
names are given hurriedly, and if not written plainly they make wretched
work of them. The newspapers make many a fool famous, while neglecting
many a hero who deserves fame, simply through the blundering or
carelessness of the writers or operators. Here is an orderly who will
take you to the surgeon-general. You will find in his books the names of
all the wounded in hospital in the Eastern armies. But if your brother
was wounded or brought in wounded at Fort Monroe, his name will be on
the books of the Army of the Potomac or the Department of Eastern
Virginia."
They were treated with the same deferential gallantry at the
surgeon-general's office; the young doctors, indeed, became almost
obtrusive in their eagerness to spare the young women the drudgery of
scrutinizing the long lists of invalids. But, after two days' careful
search, no names resembling Sprague or Perley could be found.
"I wonder who this can be?" Kate said, returning to an entry made a
month before: "Jones, Warchester; Caribee Regiment."
"I know no one of that name," Olympia said, "but perhaps he might know
something of Jack. Let us go to him. It will do no harm to find out
who he is."
The surgeon's clerk readily gave them Jones's address, reminding them
that the hospital was in Georgetown, and that they would be too late to
obtain entrance to the patient that day. Next morning Mrs. Sprague was
too ill to rise from her bed, and Olympia could not leave her alone.
Kate undertook the investigation into the Jones affair alone. When she
reached the hospital there was some delay before she could see the
personage intrusted with the admission of guests. She was shown into an
office on the ground-floor and given a seat. As she sat, distraught and
eager, she heard her own name in the next room, the door of which
stood open:
"It's at Boone's risk. He would have him moved, and the surgeon-general
gave him _carte blanche_ with the patient."
"Well, it will cost the man his life. I'll stake my diploma on that.
Why, the journey to Warchester alone is enough to down the most vigorous
convalescent."
Kate trembled. What did this mean? What was she hearing?
Boone--Warchester? Whom had her father been taking from the
hospital--Jack? Her heart gave a wild leap. Yes--Jack. Who else did her
father know in the army? She arose trembling, fainting, but resolute.
She reached the open door, but tried for a moment in vain to ask:
"If you please, tell me, tell me--" But she could say no more. The
occupants of the room, in undress uniform, turned upon her at first in
hostile surprise, but, as she threw her veil farther back in alarm, the
elder of the two said:
"Pray, madam, what is it; are you ill?"
"No; may I sit down, please? Thank you. I am come to, to--" What should
she say? How expose the doubt of her father? How find out for certain
who had been removed to Warchester--abducted was the word her agitated
thoughts shaped. Oh, if Olympia, intrepid, self-possessed, were only
with her!--but no, not Olympia; no one must ever know the unutterable
crime she suspected her father of. She must be brave. She must be
resolute. Oh, where were her arts now, when she most needed them? She
tried to speak. A hoarse gasping came in her throat and died there.
"Ah--ah--some water!--I--I am faint."
In an instant a goblet of cool water was at her lips. She drank slowly,
deliberating all the time to recover her senses; the surgeons--both
young men, mere lads--waiting respectfully, inferring much from the
melancholy robes. The water cooled her head, and she began to be able to
think coherently.
"I have the surgeon-general's permit to visit a patient in your fever
ward--Jones, the name is. Can I see him?"
"Pray, let me see the permit, madam?" He glanced at it, looked
significantly at his comrade, and said:
"This man was removed three days ago."
"Whereto?"
"Warchester."
"Ah!" Kate's veil, by an imperceptible gesture, fell over part of her
face. A great trembling came upon her again. The young surgeons
exchanged glances.
"Who--who--did--who asked for his removal?"
"A Mr. Boone, also of Warchester."
"Thank you--I am too late--I wanted to--to ask this Mr. Jones some
questions concerning a dear friend in his regiment. But I can write, if
you will kindly give me the address."
"I am very sorry--beyond Warchester we have no record here of his
whereabouts. If he had been officially transferred to another government
hospital, we should have all the facts. But the removal was a personal
favor to Mr. Boone. He is well known both here and in Warchester, and
you can have no difficulty in communicating with him."
"Ah, true; I had forgotten that."
"If we can be of any service to you, Miss Sprague," the young man said,
handing Kate back the permit, made out in Olympia's name, which Kate had
never thought of, "you can always reach us through the surgeon-general's
office." He handed her a card with his own and his comrade's name
in pencil.
Thanking the young man with as much self-possession as she could summon,
Kate reached the carriage in a whirl of wild imaginings, more terrifying
as she strove to reduce them to definite shape. Who was this Jones? Why
remove him to Warchester? If it were not Jack, what interest could her
father have in his removal? But. first, what could she say to Olympia?
She could say she did not know Jones, but Olympia would surely ask what
questions she had put to him. What should she say? That he had been
taken away from the hospital? She knew Olympia well enough to know that
this vague story would only incite her to further inquiry. She would
find out the father's handiwork in the affair, and she, too, would be
set on the rack of suspicion.
When the carriage reached the door, Kate dared not enter. She dismissed
the man and set out toward the green fields below the rounded slope of
Meridian Hill. Here she could breathe freely. "I can think clearly now,"
she panted, with a gush of warm tears. If she could only remain calm,
she could look Into the black abyss with the eye of reason, rather than
terror. Calmness came soothingly as she walked, and she began at the
beginning, weighing probabilities. All seemed dark and hopeless, until
she came back to the record in the surgeon-general's office. Jones, sent
from Hampton Hospital, December 13th. This was about the time Jack had
reached the Union lines. He had left Richmond late in November. All
Brodie's inquiries at Fort Monroe had been fruitless in finding the
whereabouts of the fugitives that came through the lines at that time.
Dick had been one of them. If Jones were not Jack himself, he must have
been one of the group that escaped with Jack. It all led back to the
first frightful conjecture. Her father was abducting a witness who could
divulge Jack's whereabouts, or he was secreting Jack until be could work
him harm. The walk began to revive Kate's courage as well as her
faculties. She must act with energy. The hardest part of the problem was
to get clear of Olympia, for Kate at once made up her mind to quit
Washington that very night for home. She must evade Olympia's inquiries
as best she could, and make some excuse for journeying thither.
When she reached home, fortune had intervened to save her conscience
from the falsehoods she feared she would have to employ. The landlady
met her in the hallway with a white face.
"O Miss Boone, Mrs. Sprague is taken very bad. The doctor's with her
now. I think it is typhoid fever."
Up-stairs misfortune gave her a further release. Olympia came into
Kate's room, agitated and in tears.
"All, Kate, mamma is suffering pitiably. The doctor thinks it is
typhoid, and he ordered me to remain away from her. You must leave the
house. It won't do for all of us to be ill together. I may not be able
to see you for days, until the crisis is past. But you must continue the
search, and you must let me know, from day to day, what you learn. There
are letters for you--I hear mamma. I will be back in a moment."
Kate fairly hated herself for the passing thrill of relief over the
timely illness that had intervened to expedite her mission. She glanced
over the letters. There was one in her father's hand, postmarked
Acredale. It contained no clew to his purposes, but she read
tremblingly:
"My daughter: You are doing a foolish thing. The search you propose can
lead to nothing. All that can be done has been done by his friends. They
have found no trace of him. Women can not hope to succeed where so keen
a man as Brodie has failed. I have every confidence that in good time
the matter will be cleared up, but you must remember that the Government
and its agents have all they can do to manage and keep track of the
millions of soldiers in the field, and they can not be expected to take
much interest in the fate of the wounded or dead. Always affectionately.
"Your Father."
All doubt of her father's sinister intervention in Jack's disappearance
now took the form of certainty in the girl's mind. When Olympia came
back, a few moments later, Kate said, tenderly:
"I have news from home. I must go back at once. It is less of a grief to
me, since I should be banished from you if I were here. I shall not be
gone long. I shall certainly be back as soon as you can receive me. In
the mean while, don't despair. I have been put on a new trail that I can
not explain to you now. But I can say this much, when you see me again
you shall know whether Jack is alive or dead."
Olympia, who had been so strong, cheery, and masterful when it had been
a question of reassuring her mother, was now the stricken spirit. She
looked at Kate through swimming eyes, and her voice was lost in sobs as
she tried to speak. The girls held each other in a tearful silence,
neither able to say what was in the minds of both. Even the uncertainty
had a sort of solace compared with the dreadful possibility of
the worst.
"Remember, dear, you have your mother. What is our poor grief to hers;
what is our loss to hers? It ought to comfort you to know that whatever
human thought, courage, love can do to recover Jack, I shall do, just as
you would in my place. I am very strong and resolute now, and I am
filled with hope--so filled that I can not talk to you. I dare not let
you see how much I hope, lest if it be not fulfilled you will hate me
for inspiring you with it."
"I will hope. I do believe you will do better than I should. The loving
are the daring--you will find Jack. I know it."
"Ah, God bless you, Olympia! That removes a curse from me--I--I mean
that fills me with a courage that is not my own, I have learned yours or
stolen it. But you will forgive me, for I mean to use it all in
your behalf."
Olympia smiled sadly, and the two parted. By the night express Kate left
the city, and, the next afternoon, reached Acredale. As she anticipated,
her father was not at home. He had only been an hour or two in the house
since his return. The servants had no idea where he was. His letters
were forwarded to him under cover of his lawyers in Warchester. If, as
she fearfully surmised, her father were engaged in some cruel scheme to
the hurt of Jack, her best way with him would be perfect frankness. She
had never yet failed in swerving him from his most headstrong impulses
when she could talk with him. She must have him now to herself. Her best
plan, therefore, would be to write. Yet she hardly knew how to frame the
note, reflecting bitterly, as she sat twirling her pen, on the monstrous
state of things that made writing to her own father almost a duplicity.
At length she wrote:
"DEAREST PAPA: I am come all the way from Washington, leaving poor Mrs.
Sprague very low with fever, and her daughter tormented and ill with
anxiety. I feel, I know, that you can relieve the distress of this
miserable mother and devoted sister. I must see you. I felt sure of
seeing you in Washington, and you can imagine my surprise and grief when
they told me at the hotel that you had gone. Do come to me, or let me
come to you. Your daughter's place is with you or near you now. We have
only each other in this world; pray, dear father, let nothing come
between us; let nothing make you doubt the constant love of
your daughter.
"KATE."
The note dispatched, she went immediately to the Perleys. Perhaps they
had news that might be of help. No. The three ladies met her with
agitated volubility. Had she heard from their nephew? Had Dick escaped
with Jack? Olympia had assured them that he had quitted Richmond with
her brother. They had written to the Caribee regiment, and received word
that no trace of him could be found. The regiment, or what was left of
it, was home refilling its ranks. The officers, indeed, knew nothing of
such a person as Richard Perley. McGoyle, who was now colonel, did
vaguely recall the lad at Washington, but had no idea what became of
him. Kate found a new grief in the misery of the helpless ladies. But
she could give them no comfort, and returned home to await her father's
coming. In the evening a messenger brought her a note. It was in the
straight, emphatic hand of her father. He wrote:
"DEAR DAUGHTER: I am just now engaged in very important matters that
require me to move about considerably. I shall not be home for some
days. I am glad you have come home. That's the place for you. You had
better let the matter you speak of alone. The mother and sister are
enough in the business. I don't see how it concerns you or me. If the
man is dead it will be known as soon as the commissioners of exchange
hand in their lists. If he is not dead, it is certainly no business of
yours or mine to bring him home. I will write you soon again. Love your
father. Keep the house well till I come."
That was all. More than evasive. Subtly calculated to make her believe
that he had dismissed all thought of Jack and was immersed in his own
affairs. She sat staring and helpless, a cold horror creeping into her
heart and a nameless terror taking outline in her senses. Hideous
alternative. To be coherent she must suspect, nay, accuse, her father of
a dreadful duplicity. He was deceiving her; else why no mention of his
mission to Washington--his abduction of Jones? Jones! Who was he? Oh,
blind and senseless that she had been! Why had she not asked the young
men at Georgetown to describe Jones? That would have revealed all she
needed to know. Was it too late to write them? Yes; but could she throw
suspicion upon her father by writing to strangers, and of necessity
exposing the sinister secrecy of her father's action. But she could
hurry back to Washington, and, without letting the young men know, got a
descriptive list. This she resolved to do. Twenty-four hours later she
was in Washington. The journey was thrown away. The descriptive list had
been sent by the hospital steward with the invalid. He could be found in
the military hospital in Warchester. His name was Leander Elkins. This
was something gained. Two days later she was at the hospital in
Warchester. The steward, Elkins, came to her in the waiting room. He was
a young giant in stature, with light flaxen hair, a merry blue eye, and
so bashful in the presence of a woman that he colored rosily as Kate
asked him if he was the person she had sent for.
"Yes'm. I'm Lee Elkins," he stammered, very much perplexed to find ease
for his large hands and ample feet.
"Are you--is Mr. Jones, who came from the Georgetown Hospital, in your
case?" Kate had thought out her course in advance, and had decided that
the direct way was the best. Unless the man had been charged to conceal
facts, an apparent knowledge of Jones's movements would be the surest
way of eliciting his whereabouts.
"Oh no, miss. Jones wa'nt brought here; he was took to a private place.
I don't rightly know where, but I calculate I ken find eout of ye
want to know."
"Yes, I should like very much to know. I am deeply interested in him,
Did you have charge of him?"
"I can't say I did. I was sent from Washington in the same train, but
the old chap that got Jones removed did all the nussing. I only got a
sight of him as he was lifted into the carriage."
"Should you know him again if you saw him?"
"Think I should. Yes'm, think I should. His head was about as big as a
pumpkin."
"He had been wounded?"
"Well, I should say so."
"Have you seen the gentleman that brought him on from Washington
lately?"
"Not here, mum; I did see him in the street the other day. He was in a
wagon--leastwise, it looked mighty like him."
Kate began to breathe more freely. Her father had, at least, avoided any
collusion with inferiors. His handiwork had been natural, involving no
conspiracy or bribing of menials.
"Do you think you could find out for me where Mr. Jones is?"
"Wall, I reckon it could be done. It may take some days, as I must trust
to the luck of running upon old Dofunny again."
Kate started. "Old Dofunny"--the unsuspecting humorist meant her father
by this jocular _nom de guerre_, and she dared not resent it. How should
she gain her end and yet save herself from the humiliation of seeming to
spy upon her father? It wouldn't do for Elkins to go to him, for he
would at once suspect, inquire, and learn that she had come upon his
tracks. If she could only see him face to face, she would be spared all
this odious complotting. But she dared not reject the means Providence
had put in her hands. And yet, how use them, and avoid throwing
suspicion upon her father in cautioning Elkins not to approach him? She
was not equal to the invention of a plan on the moment, and said in a
doubting, reflective way:
"Never mind. I may be able to learn from some of his friends where he
is. The gentleman you speak of does not live in this city, and you would
hardly be able to find him. If I could, find him I could find
Mr. Jones."
"Ah, yes; jes' so. Wall, I think I can find him in another way. I
remember the carriage that took him from the station, I can find out
from the driver. 'T'wan't no mystery, I reckon."
Kate looked into the innocent blue eyes as the young fellow scratched
his tow head, wondering whether he was as simple-minded as he seemed. He
stood the scrutiny with blushing restiveness, in which there was nothing
of the malign, and she resolved that he was to be trusted.