War; or, What happens when one loves one's enemy/Chapter 6
VI
UNDER THE PLUM TREES
IT'S no use. I can't tell it. Old Jon was almost as gay and joyous as Dave, after a while—that's how glorious old Jonthy got to be with Evelyn about.
I use' to go out under the plum trees at night, sometimes, to reflect about my wife who was dead. And, one night, when I was laying on the flat of my back on that old yellow bench, looking at the moon through the trees—I can reflect much better that way—Jonathan and Evelyn came out and sat on the red bench. Evelyn folded her hands—this way—and looked up, through the trees, at the big yellow moon, as if she had some one dead to think of, also, and nothing much to say. Jonathan begun to tune his guitar. He was a nice player, and he kept picking soft little chords for a while, just rambling round among the notes to find something nice enough for Evelyn. He found it, all right, after a while, and begun to sing. It was:
"Du hast das Herze mein,
So ganz genommen ein,
Dass ich kein' Andre lieb',
Als dich allein—"
Well, it was like praying. And he was looking up in Evelyn's face with an expression in his own that I had never seen there yet. But Evelyn didn't seem to notice—just kept looking up at the moon, in the Mond-licht, and went on reflecting. Me? I was getting hot at her myself—a not listening when old Jonthy sang to her like that! I'd have broke out in a minute more—if Jon hadn't begun to inch along the bench till he got near her—then almost against her. Then he looked in her face, playing softer and softer. I could hardly stand it. But she never noticed. Then Jon took her hand—kissed it—smiled up at her like an angel. Jon, he must have learned that out of books—it was so fine and manly. I know he didn't learn it of me. She notices then, all right, and looks down, as if it was the first time she ever knew that she and Jon lived in the same world. She actually didn't know what had happened. But she kept getting her thoughts together, and Jon kept the hand—and kissed it some more. Then she begun to wake up. She looked at Jon several times, then down at the hand he had, several times more, then she says, soft and surprised, passing the other hand over her eyes:
"Why, Jon!"
"Let me kiss your soul!" says Jon.
"And—and, I never saw you look at me quite like that!"
"Let me look at your heart!" begs Jon.
"But what does it mean, Jon?"
"Love!" says Jon. "Holy adoration! The greatest love any man in all the world ever had for any woman!"
And he looked up at her, in the light of the moon, in the most beautiful and beseeching way I ever saw.
"Love?" asks Evelyn, still not quite awake, and passing her hand over her face.
"Du hast das Herze mein,
So ganz genommen ein—"
Jon sang.
Then at last she woke up entirely and looked at Jon in a strange and terrible kind of way. She took her hand away and moved off.
"Jon," she says, "you're my brother."
"I'm your slave!" says Jon.
"Give your love to some one—worthier of it!"
"There is none such!"
"As for me—I am a monster! If you knew what makes me say that you would agree in it. You must not love me. If you knew my thoughts you could not."
"Monster!" says old Jon, "you're an angel, straight from heaven!"
Now what do you think of that for a son of mine!
Evelyn just looked as if she couldn't understand his language.
"You came like a burst of divine flame to kindle a holy passion," Jon goes on. "The Lord sent you to complete my imperfect life. Before you came there was only little Dave. But he had to go away. I seem to understand that with your coming I am myself again and that you are to be me, I you—one perfect exquisite being!—and that you are never to go again."
"Jon," says Evelyn, turning soft and pitiful, "you must try and be merciful—to us both."
"Mercy is for you, dear," says Jon.
"No, no, brother Jonthy," says Evelyn, even more pitiful. "I want just enough of your great love for a sister. That is all I dare receive. That is all you may give. Keep the rest for some one more worthy. Now, let us not hurt each other. I am capable of it! Maybe I have done it—hurt you all. But what matters it that a few of us fall by the wayside if the people are saved! Jon, there must be no more of this. I have dedicated myself to a great cause. I am not I any more. I am a thing—a machine to do the will of a cause. One small link in the great chain which leads from here to there!"
She points south. Then she says, like a general giving a command:
"There must be no more of this. I am not love. I am war! I am a great cause!"
Well, of course, Jon didn't understand that crazy stuff any more than I did. He goes straight back to the love.
"Evelyn," says Jon, desperate, "it must be more! You must marry me."
Then, even in the night, I could see the hardness come into her face, and when she spoke it cut through her voice like iron.
"Would you like to know what my heart is full of at this moment?" she says.
"Yes," says Jon, thinking maybe, that it was something about him.
"Murder!" says Evelyn.
"No, no," says Jonathan, "not in that heart. It is made to be filled with love. Nothing else."
She laughed in that way that always made me shiver.
"You don't seem to be aware that we are enemies, and become more so every day—with every shot fired down there in Virginia. I tell you that every one of those bullets goes through my heart—here! I tell you that I hate you all—all who call yourselves Union. And you know that you all hate me,—that your little affection for me is what you would give to any mendicant who came to your door. Oh, you are good in that way! You don't turn beggars out. But you are not good enough to be rebels!—as you fools call us. You don't stop to think that your father's brother had the courage to be one! And you don't recall that some of you murdered him! At night, while he stood faithfully at his gun! And his blood is on you—his own kin—as well as the rest. Shall I tell you some more of the things in my heart? Oh, there won't be any talk of love between us after this—will there? Nor between me and any one who calls himself a follower of Lincoln. But I don't mind telling you that I am living, breathing, hoping only for the South—and that I am going to do all I can to help her! All, all! She shall prevail! She shall conquer! For, there are a million like me at work for her! Do you think the North can defeat such a host as that? A million like me!"
"No," says Jon, fascinated like a bird by a snake, "no, not one like you! You are glorious! You are invincible—you alone! And your cause must be—to raise such a spirit in even one such woman! Though I've thought little enough about either side—to my shame. But, love—"
"You mean—you mean," whispers she, stooping and almost putting her arms around Jon, "that you might be—can be—are one of us? Speak!"
But poor old Jon was troubled at that. Think of the temptation! He took her hands to keep her near, but he said:
"I do not know—I do not know! I have thought little about the war—about anything but you—since you came! I don't know!"
This did not please Evelyn. She flung his hands away.
"You, a man, and don't know! Oh, if the women could but fight this war! You, a man, with hell seething all about you and talking, thinking of love! A woman! A woman's man! There is no room in my heart for love, or such a man! I don't even hear you. Shall I tell you the plan I was making when you began to talk of love? I was planning to find, here, in the North, a soldier—many—to take the place of my father. That would be just. That would be only fair vengeance. I thought of you for my soldier!"
I imagined for the next few minutes the girl had gone crazy. And Jon must have thought so, too. For he kept stroking a hand which she didn't know he had and murmuring:
"You! You thought of me. You thought that! You!"
"Me! Now do you want to talk a little more of love—my kind of love? Or do you prefer—war! Never speak of love to me again till you are one of my kind."
She got so jerky and crazy that Jon was scared.
"Kushy, kushy!" he kept saying.
"I'll make a bargain with you," she laughs to Jon, crazy, and stooping and looking like a young devil in his face, "I don't love you; I can't lie. But I do want you! I can't love any one or anything called Union, Republican or Northern. But I'll marry you if you'll take the place of my father. Do you understand? I can put you right through the lines to Lee without risk. What do you say? Here's the price of one traitor! I! I'll be your wife—your harlot—anything—upon the terms proposed!"
She stood up straight and evil-looking—like pictures of serpents I've seen, charming animals. Then she laughs and is gone.
And Jon was struck so dumb that he didn't move a finger—not even looking around when she disappeared like a snake sliding through the grass.
For a long time nothing moved. Then the guitar fell, pang-tang! and Jon said something that got mixed up with the music.
I got up, quiet, and went over and sat down aside of Jonthy. He just looked up, surprised to see me there, but said nothing. I was sorry for him. At last I pulls him up and leads him off to bed.
"Boy," says I, nice and kind, when we got to his room, "no woman is worth dishonor. No one woman can be won—or if won, kept—by dishonor—not even that she goes after herself. Your daddy and Dave are Union—to the backbone. Your mother was—that's dead. This old house is—to the chimley tops. There never was any such doings under its roof. General George Washington slept under it. Jonthy, what are you?"
He just looked at me, crazy, like he'd never seen me before.
"Think about it, Jon," says I. "It's time. Good night."
Well—you know what a difference there is in the morning. For myself, I wondered whether all of it had happened. I had to begin my breakfast alone. But when Jon and Evelyn came I was sure that everything had taken place. Evelyn was sorry and weepy, and shy of Jon at first. But he went over to her just as of old, when she came down, and kissed her good morning, on her forehead, and then she laid her head against him and cried. As for Jon—he looked like he'd had a spell of sickness.
"I can't help it," she sobs, "It's in here, boiling up all the time. I try to beat it—I do, indeed, but all of a sudden it comes out without me saying yes or no. I can't—I can't! If you love me, please try and bear with that. Forgive me, Jon, forgive me, daddy! Always forgive me! You must. It's an infirmity, illness. Dearest Jon and dearest daddy in the world! And put your arms about me—both of you—yes, about an irreconcilable rebel!—two Black Republicans—and let us have peace. I'll try not to let it happen again."
Just think of a woman who could do all that and smile and cry all together, like an angel! Wasn't she wonderful? And that's the kind of women men go crazy about! But don't you forget that's the kind of women go crazy 'bout men—when the right one comes!
She pulls one on each side of her, so's we're all hugged and mixed up together, and all laughing and crying says:
"Oh, daddy, dear, and Jonthy, darling, together, tighter! If you'd only always do that when I am that way—put your arms about me—the more harder the better—and just hold me till the devil goes out of me! Kill me this way if you must!"
"There's no need," says I, thinking it all over—after what I knew about women!
None of us said any more about it, though we all watched our words for some time, and, at last, it wore off and was forgotten.
Jon says to me one day later, still kind of dazed:
"It didn't mean a thing, did it daddy?"
"Not a thing!" says I.
"Do you think it'll happen again?"
"Often," says I, "and won't mean no more. Look out for it. And remember—nothing from nothing is nothing. You know what you said yourself, Jonthy. Southern women love and hate harder than we do—when they're thinking of it. When they're not they don't love or hate at all—just like we do."