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Recto Running Head i
CHILDREN’S RIGHTS
tom o’neill and dawn zinga are associate professors in the Department of
Child and Youth Studies at Brock University.The Quest for Meaning is the
definitive guide for students and teachers exploring semiotics at the
undergraduate level and beyond.
This page intentionally left blank
Contents iii
Children’s Rights
Multidisciplinary Approaches to
Participation and Protection
Contents
Foreword vii
senator landon pearson and judy finlay
Acknowledgments xi
Introduction 3
tom o’neill and dawn zinga
Contributors 347
Contents vii
Foreword
Children ask that we move past the principles and practice of simple
youth engagement and accept them as fully participating citizens.
There are four dimensions of citizenship8 that need to be achieved for
this to happen:
8 Judy Finlay, unpublished paper presented to the Centre for Children and Families
in the Justice System, 16 June 2005, p. 7.
9 UNICEF, A World Fit for Children (New York: 2002), para. 9.
10 Senator Landon Pearson, ‘Rights of the Child in the New Millennium,’ Whittier
Law School Symposium, 12 April 1999, at http://www.landonpearson.ca.
This page intentionally left blank
Contents xi
Acknowledgments
CHILDREN’S RIGHTS
Introduction
that children are, or ought to be, participants in the societies that shape
them. A consistent theme that emerges from this book is that we do not
advocate for children’s participation rights near well enough, that in
addition to the many articles that protect children and ensure adequate
provision for them, the CRC contains measures of child participation
that protectors and providers frequently overlook.
A rights-based approach to understanding children and youth
ought to be multidisciplinary. The preamble to both the 1989 Conven-
tion on the Rights of the Child and its 1959 forebear, the Declaration of
the Rights of the Child, states that children require special protections
and provisions because of their ‘physical and mental immaturity’.
There is much even in that seemingly basic premise that needs to be
unpacked: How are children physically and mentally immature? What
is the relationship between the two? How is ‘immaturity’ to be
defined? Who is empowered to give such a definition? These ques-
tions, and the many more that arise as one begins to read the Conven-
tion, can only be answered from a common boundary that exists be-
tween physical, social, scientific, and critical/interpretive disciplines.
This volume is situated at that boundary, across which anthropolo-
gists, educators, child and youth care advocates, psychologists, and
sociologists exchange ideas, argue, and occasionally collaborate. If we
offer no firm answers to those questions, it is because they have no
universal, supra-historical answer, something that those who framed
the Convention also had the wisdom to recognize.
In her autobiography, Margaret Mead, the anthropologist who did
so much to make children and youth a focus for professional ethno-
graphic study in the 1920s and 1930s, lamented the demise of an ambi-
tious plan to build a multidisciplinary team to study the cultures of the
South Pacific when the Second World War interfered. After the war,
her efforts to revive the plan floundered on emerging disciplinary divi-
sions that proved intractable: ‘Social scientists – cultural and social
anthropologists, social psychologists, and sociologists – were working
in a kind of crazy tandem in which the traces had been cut’ (1972, p.
201). The authors of this volume work in a similar tandem, but our
intention is to lay a foundation for dialogue that the theoretical, prac-
tical, and political implications of children’s rights demands. We are
under no illusion that this dialogue will tie us together again in the
way that Mead envisioned, but we do contend that in the multiple per-
spectives offered in this volume there is a potential for finding
common ground.
Introduction 5
The 1989 Convention on the Rights of the Child was a product of its
time, and a document negotiated among various political, cultural,
and religious interests. Those who treat the Convention as a universal
code would do well to remember that it was not written in stone upon
some desert mountaintop; it is, like every other human creation,
socially constructed and subject to interpretation. To be effective, the
CRC had to be written in such a way as to promote universal stan-
dards while allowing for national and cultural variation. As a result,
the CRC is the most widely adopted international covenant in the
world, ratified by 140 countries. Children’s rights scholar Michael
Freeman (2007) has quipped that only two countries have not ratified
the CRC, ‘Somalia, because it has no government, and the United
States, because it does.’ Somalia did not have a functioning govern-
ment to sign the Convention when it was presented in 1989, and the
United States has so far failed to ratify it because of the unilateral ori-
entations of the legislative branch of its government (Mason, 2005).
Though broadly ratified around the world, the number of declara-
tions, reservations, and objections to the Convention show that the
world does not accept it as a monolithic code. Canada, for example,
reserves the right not to apply article 21 on adoption in the child’s best
interests when it ‘may be inconsistent with customary forms of care
among aboriginal peoples in Canada’ – a hypocritical reservation in a
country that doesn’t do nearly enough to eliminate child poverty, a
problem particularly associated with aboriginal reserves. In another
example, Iran ‘reserves the right not to apply any provisions or arti-
cles of the Convention that are incompatible with Islamic Laws,’ that
is, CRC articles apply only so long as they do not come into conflict
with Islamic sharia law. These examples show that the interpretation
of the Convention is contested even among those who agree on its
basic principles.
The CRC has been criticized on many fronts, with some critics com-
plaining that the document is founded on individualist, Western con-
ceptions of childhood that are not shared the world over (see Burr,
2002; Boyden & de Berry, 2004), while other critics are dissatisfied with
what they view as the half-way measures that neither are enforceable
nor go far enough (see Melchiorre, 2004). Kristina Anne Bentley has
recently argued that the CRC is grounded upon a ‘halcyon fantasy’ of
a universal childhood based on Western conceptions of childhood as a
6 Tom O’Neill and Dawn Zinga
most of their basic needs are met. The ‘best interests’ principle, as
described in article 3 of the Convention, is an important guideline that
puts the interests of individual children first, superseding competing
priorities that often arise from the application of the Convention;
article 21, which specifically addresses the issue of international adop-
tion, reiterates this principle in the strongest possible way.
Hans Skott-Myhre and Donato Tarulli take a different approach by
questioning what children’s rights are and where they are located. By
taking an ontological approach to rights, Skott-Myhre and Tarulli
question epistemological frameworks that locate rights within legal
entities such as conventions, statutes, or acts of parliament and focus
instead on rights being produced within the forms of daily life, that is,
in the creative agency of children and youth. Their paper questions a
fundamental assumption of children’s rights discourse: that what dis-
tinguishes adults from children is their ‘developmental maturity.’ This
concept has acquired scientific authority in modernist anthopology,
psychology and sociology, but is increasingly questioned by postmod-
ernist scholars who argue that such a binary distinction obscures much
of the variation among individuals of many ages, as well as underval-
ues the creative potential of children and youth. Skott-Myher and
Tarulli further argue that the modernist conception of the child is inex-
orably associated with the liberal-democratic state, a central figure in
the CRC that is responsible, and accountable, for assuring children
their rights. Their paper convincingly suggests that this conception of
rights does not create a theoretical space in which the fundamental
injustices of the nation state can be challenged, but rather encourages
a view of the child as a subject of the state who can, at best, enjoy a
limited form of participation in prescribed, appropriate sociality that
does not challenge authority.
The last chapter in part 1 moves from questioning the very concep-
tualization of rights as existing in a legal framework posited by Skott-
Myher and Tarulli to considering how children’s rights are expressed
within different countries. Dawn Zinga and Sherri Young’s chapter
focuses on the importance of context and cultural relevance in the
adoption of the CRC into the laws and policies of the countries that
have ratified it. They contend that the articles of the CRC will gain
strength through their incorporation into the laws, policy, and
jurisprudence of the countries that have ratified the treaty. This incor-
poration is an important part of the process and will take different
forms in different countries. Incorporation of the CRC in each country
8 Tom O’Neill and Dawn Zinga
(their) own views and who ought to be listened to by adults. This con-
tribution is made specifically in article 12, which has no precedent in any
previous declaration. This new understanding of children as bearers of
participation rights is often in tension with notions of children as sub-
jects to be protected. While some of the authors in part 1 considered the
tension between protection and participation, the authors who focus on
the question of protecting children fully examine that tension. Many of
the authors in part 2 go further by examining not only the tension
between protection and participation but also tensions between specific
rights as outlined in the CRC and in other legal contexts.
In chapter 5, Candace Johnson addresses the tension between pro-
tection and participation from the perspective of children’s rights to
health care and the role of the family. Within this context, the prag-
matic application of rights confronts a conception of children as
dependents of their parents that fails to provide Canada’s substantial
minority of poor children with basic health needs. Johnson agrees with
other authors in this volume who have argued that the translation of
global commitments into domestic policy is often lacking in many
ways. In particular, Johnson focuses on how Canada’s health care
policy conceptualizes children as the dependents of their parents and
in doing so increases their vulnerability and can impede their ability to
access health care. She addresses the conflict between protection and
participation in her argument that Canada’s health care policies do not
allow for children’s participation except as mediated through their
families and, as a result, fail to protect children’s right to fully access
health care.
Marjorie Aunos and Maurice Feldman also directly address the
tension between protection and participation, but do so by focusing on
the question of when children should remain in their homes of origin
and when the removal of a child is justified by the need to protect the
child. Specifically, they address issues of protection as espoused by
family and children’s services when the removal of a child from the
family of origin is considered owing to one or more parents having an
intellectual disability. Their chapter concentrates on the potential con-
flicts between a child’s right to protection and a child’s right to family.
The CRC highlights the importance of being raised in one’s family of
origin and construes removal from the family of origin to be an action
of last resort, but Aunos and Feldman argue that in the case of parents
who have an intellectual disability, Canadian systems do not uphold
removal as a last resort but seem to consider it the preferred action.
Introduction 11
cial system that face challenges in addressing both the protection and
participation rights of children. The protection of children seems easier
to conceptualize and to implement than children’s participation. This
is partially due to the fact that children take an active role in partici-
pation and may do so in ways that are not easily anticipated by adult-
based systems. In addition, Lee (1999) has argued that article 12 of the
CRC contains within it an ambiguity about children’s capacities that
makes their participation in adult institutions problematic. Lee finds
fault in the CRC in that it fails to provide a generalizable standard that
institutions can rely on in order to process children through institu-
tional systems, where deferral of the resolution of this ambiguity may
bring undue stress to children. An institutional, ‘one size fits all’ policy
risks imposing a universal conception of childhood that goes well
beyond the minimal universality needed to make children’s rights
pragmatically achievable in a diverse world.
The CRC conveys three types of rights: rights of provision, such as
the material resources for growth, education, and good health; rights
of protection from exploitative labour, sexual abuse, discrimination/
persecution, and arbitrary state intervention; and rights of participa-
tion. The first two types come from a long tradition of rights discourse,
dating from 1924, but participation rights are new and, we argue,
remain largely unrecognized by much of the world community. They
are also in tension with deeply rooted perceptions of children’s subor-
dinate social roles, ‘family values,’ and the dominant, and dominating,
cultural model of childhood as a period of innocence set apart from the
harsh realities of the adult world (see James & Prout, 1998). Children’s
participation in social life as advocated by the Convention contradicts
long-standing and institutional biases against their participation. Our
reading of the CRC suggests that resolving that tension is one of the
main challenges for the future.
While part 2 of the volume dealt with tensions between protection
and participation rights within social systems, the final part 3 exam-
ines how these tensions are embodied within educational contexts.
Each chapter focuses on educational contexts in various ways, with
some chapters offering a broad perspective while others focus on a
particular issue within education. As many children spend a signifi-
cant amount of time in educational contexts, it is not surprising that
issues of protection and participation often come into serious conflict
within schools.
Schools are also a context within which the three types of rights
(provision, protection, and participation) are all applicable. While a
Introduction 13
rights and the difficulty that adults have in upholding children’s and
young people’s participation rights without having them overshad-
owed by either protection issues or adult conceptualizations of how
children’s participation rights should be expressed.
Conclusion
REFERENCES
Adreychuk, R., & Fraser, J. (2007). Children: The silenced citizens; effective
implementation of Canada’s international obligations with respect to the rights of
18 Tom O’Neill and Dawn Zinga
PART ONE
tom o’neill
Like the Vietnam War, the successes and failures of the Maoist insur-
gency in Nepal have been largely measured in body counts. The Infor-
mal Sector Service Centre (INSEC), a Nepalese human rights organi-
zation, publishes frequent tallies of numbers of dead, missing, and
tortured, all organized into tidy categories of ethnicity, gender, occu-
pation, and district. Thus, from February 1996, when the ‘People’s
War’ began, to March 2004 there were 9170 dead, or, as they neatly
summarize, 3.16 deaths per day. The numbers of dead police officers,
soldiers, agricultural workers, and Maoist insurgents among others
were separately counted. INSEC’s periodical bulletins have evolved
over the course of the insurgency, reflecting the growing impact of the
violence at all levels of Nepalese society. Its March 2004 bulletin intro-
duced a new variable into the calculus; for the first time, the numbers
of dead children was given (INSEC, 2004). The relative age of the
victims is central to an emerging debate on the effects of war on chil-
dren, and on the recruitment, conscription and ‘abduction’ of child
combatants by the Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist) in particular
that speaks to the very legitimacy of the conflict.
In this chapter I explore the implications that the ‘People’s War’ has
on Nepal’s children and youth from the standpoint of their prescribed
‘right’ to protection from conflict, which comes into profound conflict
with their right to political participation. Nepal’s civil conflict is, as I
write, increasing with an unpredictable momentum (even though
Maoist leaders claim that theirs is a ‘scientific revolution’) that makes
predictive statements difficult to make. Ethnographic accounts of the
violence are sketchy and often laden with their own ideological
assumptions, and though Nepal’s media has enjoyed until recently
22 Tom O’Neill
A ‘Zone of Peace’?
Since the beginning of the ‘People’s War’ the insurgent leadership and
the government of Nepal have twice suspended violence and
attempted dialogue. One month after the last ceasefire broke down, in
August 2003, insurgents held a cultural program at a remote school in
Mudbara, Doti, in far Western Nepal. Sometime after the rebels can-
celled all classes and assembled the students for a ‘cultural program,’
Another Random Document on
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“I have a letter to give from General Farrington,” said Isabey gently.
“I need not say that nothing could induce me to give you such a letter
except the compulsion which is laid upon a soldier.”
He took the letter from his breast pocket and handed it to Angela,
who opened and glanced at it, her face lighting up with anger and
scorn as she read. Then, tearing the letter in half, she threw it
violently from her and, turning to Isabey, said in a trembling voice: “I
feel sorry that you should have been forced to give me such a letter.
I know what it must have cost you.”
“Thank you for saying so,” replied Isabey. “And let me speak one
more word. I would ask you not to say anything to Neville concerning
the reasons for your departure from Harrowby. It would give him
deep and unnecessary pain. Forgive me for mentioning this.”
In the storm and stress of the last twenty-four hours the thought had
vanished from Angela’s mind. All at once it returned to her—that she
was being driven away from the place of her birth and rearing by
hatred and a persecuting suspicion. It roused in her soul a tempest
of resentment and brought the beautiful angry blood to her cheeks.
“You need not ask my forgiveness,” she replied; “it is most thoughtful
to remind me, for otherwise I might have told Neville and it would
have been another pang for him, who has suffered so much. There
are, however, a few persons in the world who could never believe
me guilty of wrongdoing; Neville is one of them. No one who knows
Neville will ever dare to say one word against me where he can hear
of it. I shall always have the refuge of his love and confidence.”
Angela felt at that moment glad that she was on her way to Neville.
She had ever fled to him in all her childish griefs and sorrows, and
now, when the whole universe appeared changed to her, when she
was brought face to face on the one hand with hate and obloquy and
on the other with an unspoken love and all its mysteries and
perplexities, it seemed as if she had but one refuge, Neville
Tremaine’s honest and tender heart. Isabey, acute by nature and
made more so by the prescience of love, seeing on Angela’s part
this turning to Neville, thought to himself, “It is better so. This may be
the beginning of love,” and then was stabbed to the heart by his own
thoughts. Only yesterday Angela had been among the butterflies in
the sun, and to-day she seemed like some beautiful flowering plant
cast upon the ocean. For so the great outside world appeared to
Angela.
When they came in sight of the sentry, Isabey, tying his white
handkerchief to the point of his saber, rode up and asked to see the
officer of the guard. He quickly appeared, a well-meaning, mild-
mannered young man who had recently exchanged the ferule of a
country schoolmaster for the sword of an officer. He looked keenly,
with unsophisticated admiration, at Angela, and, with the careless
ease of the volunteer, offered to pass Isabey and Angela to the tent
of the commanding officer.
When they reached, under this escort, the headquarters tent, the
commanding officer was standing before it. He was a gray-
mustached veteran who had been through the Florida wars, the
Mexican War, and that eternal warfare with the Indians on the
frontier. The unexpected presence of a lady did not disconcert him in
the least. He had escorted officers’ wives across the continent when
every man in the escort had been ordered to reserve a bullet for the
ladies in case the party should be overpowered by the Indians. He
had himself taken his young wife to a frontier post where she was
the only woman among five hundred men, and he secretly thought
the ladies of the present day rather wanting in the spirit of those
fearless women of forty years before.
Isabey introduced himself and then made the necessary
explanations with tact and briefness. The old general’s bearing was
courtesy itself, and with his expert knowledge of military and social
etiquette which was a part of his training everything went smoothly.
“I have the pleasure of knowing your husband, madam,” he said,
with old-fashioned grace, to Angela. “I was once his instructor at the
Military Academy. His command is, I judge, about forty miles from
here and I can readily communicate with him by military telegraph. If
Captain Isabey will allow me to take charge of you, I can have you
conveyed, under proper escort, to Captain Tremaine—or is it Major
Tremaine? Promotion is rapid in these days.”
“He is still Captain Tremaine,” replied Angela, a slight blush coming
into her face. There had been no promotion for Neville, and Angela
well knew why.
Nothing remained for Isabey to do. He had been directed to place
Mrs. Neville Tremaine in safe hands and he felt that he had done so
when he put her in charge of the chivalrous old general. Then came
the formal farewell, which each wished to make brief—their real
farewell had been said the dawn before under the whispering pines.
Angela put her hand in Isabey’s and, with a smile both of the lips and
eyes, said: “I thank you more than I can say, and I also thank you in
Nev—in Captain Tremaine’s name. He will express his gratitude to
you himself and far better than I can.”
“It is nothing,” responded Isabey, calmly and gracefully. “I shall
always be happy to do a service to any of the Tremaine family, and
particularly to Captain Tremaine, whom I consider only a little farther
off as a friend than Richard Tremaine. When I recall all your
kindness to me at the time that I was wounded, I feel that I can never
do enough to show my appreciation of it. Pray remember me to
Neville Tremaine. Adieu—or good-by, as you say.”
“Good-by,” replied Angela, gently pressing his hand. And in another
moment he was gone.
Then the general, with antique courtesy, himself showed Angela into
a compartment of the headquarters tent which he desired her to
consider her own until she should depart to join her husband. It held
a small iron bed and some boxes which did duty for a toilet table and
washstand. The general apologized to Angela for the plainness of
her surroundings, but reminded her that she was a soldier’s wife and
must not mind trifles.
Then, the general leaving her, an orderly brought in Angela’s
portmanteau and she exchanged her riding habit for a conventional
costume, and combed and plaited her long, fair hair. In half an hour
the orderly, who was deputed to be Angela’s lady’s maid, informed
her that the general sent his compliments and begged the honor and
pleasure of her company at breakfast with him alone. Angela went
into the outer tent, where she found a small table laid for two and the
gallant old general waiting to receive her.
“Everything is arranged, my dear madam,” he said, as they seated
themselves. “I have secured a conveyance for you, not very stylish,
perhaps, but it will do—a small carriage and a pair of army mules,
with a soldier-driver. Your escort will be Lieutenant Farley, a nephew
of mine. I think it fair to tell you what, of course, I could not mention
before Captain Isabey, that your husband’s command is on the
march, and there is fighting going on. But, nevertheless, there is a
point at which you can intercept Captain Tremaine about thirty miles
from here and can, at least, have a brief interview.”
“Thank you,” replied Angela. “As you say, I am a soldier’s wife and
so must learn to bear a little hardship in order to see my husband,
even for a short time. Then he will decide what I shall do.”
Nothing could exceed the delicacy, tact, and thoughtfulness of the
old officer. He told Angela that she could send a dispatch by military
telegraph to Neville which would reach him within a few hours and
prepare him for her arrival. Angela thanked him again and felt as if
she had found a second Colonel Tremaine in this gray-mustached,
soft-voiced general. She began to speak with the frankness of an
unsophisticated nature of Neville Tremaine and his action in
remaining in the United States army. The general listened with the
utmost suavity, but made no comment. Angela had expected high
commendation from him for Neville, but instead was merely this
smooth courtesy, an attitude gracefully sympathetic but wholly
noncommittal. Against Neville Tremaine was an iron wall of prejudice
which Angela’s soft hands could not batter down. Some intuitive
knowledge of this forced itself upon her mind and cut her to the
heart. The unspoken enmity of his own people against Neville was
easier than this secret distrust on the part of those to whom Neville
gave his service from the deepest principle of conscience. This
thought aroused something of the pride and sensitiveness of
wifehood in Angela. She changed from the attitude of a young girl to
that of a self-possessed woman, and told the general, with the
coolness and composure of twice her age, of the obloquy visited
upon Neville among his own people, “which,” she said, with dignity
and even stateliness, “is most undeserved. My husband lost his
inheritance; for that he does not grieve, but the disapproval of his
father and mother and of all those dear to him, except myself, is very
hard to bear. His brother Richard, who was killed only six days ago,
understood my husband better than anyone, and there was never
any breach between them. Richard Tremaine knew that only the
strongest conviction of his duty would keep his brother in your army.”
To this the general bowed again politely and sympathetically, but
said no word. Suspicion, that impalpable poison, that nameless
destroyer, had gone forth against Neville Tremaine and was
withering him.
All at once the general’s kindness and hospitality grew irksome to
Angela. She asked when she could leave, and the general, who had
been all courtesy, felt that his guest wished to depart. He told her
that a boat was at her command, and the carriage would be waiting
on the other side. Then the general escorted her to the dock, his
orderly carrying her portmanteau, and there the young lieutenant, the
general’s nephew, who was to take charge of her for the next twenty-
four hours, met them.
The general introduced him. He was a pink-and-white boy who had
left Harvard, where he had luxuriated on a large allowance, in order
to become a soldier. The general had no mind to trust Angela with
any man not of her own class in life, and had selected the greatest
coxcomb, who was also one of the bravest of his youngsters, to
escort her.
Nothing could have pleased Farley better. He knew more of drawing-
rooms than of camps, and was delighted to figure as the guardian of
anything so charming as this young girl who was already a matron.
The general, assuming himself to be the obliged party and thanking
Angela for the privilege of serving her, put her into the boat in which
the river was crossed. On the other side was a rickety carriage
drawn by a couple of stout mules.
Farley took his seat by the side of the soldier who drove. The
coachman’s seat was on the same level as those within, and the roof
of the carriage overhung it. Farley had fully expected to be asked to
take a place within, but Angela totally forgot to ask him.
It was close upon ten o’clock when the carriage started off, and
soon, clearing the camp, passed through a flat green country,
interspersed with woods, along a road which had been cut up by
artillery and commissary wagons. The morning was beautifully fair
and bright, and Angela, leaning back in the carriage, had the feeling
that she was beginning a new volume of life. That other volume,
which had begun with her childhood as bright and fair as the
morning, and had closed in blood and tears and agony, was now
locked and laid away forever.
A new perplexity occurred to her. If Neville had not heard of
Richard’s death, should she tell him? She was too inexperienced to
know what was judicious, but some instinct of the heart told her that
the little time she could spend with Neville, that one hour of
brightness in his life of undeserved hardship, should not be marred
in any way. If he did not know of Richard’s death already, he would
learn it soon enough.
Thinking these thoughts, Angela, grave and preoccupied, with
downcast eyes, sat back in the corner of the carriage and took no
note of whither she went or how.
Farley had supposed that it was pure bashfulness which kept Mrs.
Neville Tremaine from inviting him to sit in the carriage with her, but
as they jolted steadily along the heavy road and the morning grew
into noon, and Angela was obviously unconscious of his existence,
he began to feel himself a much-injured man. He glanced back at
her occasionally and did not see her once look up, and, like most
men, every time he looked at her he thought her nearer to beauty.
But she was no nearer to conversation. Farley would have dearly
liked to find out if her talk were as interesting as her appearance, but
she gave him no opportunity of judging.
At sunset they reached a farmhouse where it had been arranged that
Angela should spend the night. It was a homely, tumble-down place,
and the mistress of it, Sarah Brown, a little withered, bloodless
creature, had clung to it, although it lay in the debatable ground
between contending armies. Sarah always ran away whenever a
shot was fired, but invariably trudged back to work and tremble and
palpitate until her fears drove her off again. She welcomed Angela
with a kind of furtive pleasure, she whose guests were usually
embattled men, and showed her a little plain room up a rickety flight
of stairs where Angela might rest for the night.
Farley thought it certain that he would meet Angela at supper, which
was served by Sarah in the kitchen. Angela, however, sent a polite
message asking to be excused from coming down and her supper
was served in her own little room.
Farley, reduced to his own society, soon went to his sleeping place,
which was on the floor of the “settin’ room.”
The next morning dawned mild and bright, and at eight o’clock the
mules were harnessed and the carriage was ready to start. Again
was Farley disappointed; he only saw Angela as she came tripping
down the narrow stair and bade him good morning.
She thanked Sarah Brown cordially, and, not daring to offer money
for her accommodation, took off a little gold brooch she wore, one of
her few ornaments, and handed it to Sarah. It was received in
speechless gratitude and admiration. Then Angela, smiling at Farley
but without seeing him, took her seat in the carriage. Farley by this
time was thoroughly exasperated with her for her want of
appreciation of his society, and he concluded that the surest
punishment would be to leave her to herself.
They drove on steadily through the same flat country, but around
them were evidences of fighting, past and to come. There were
dreary piles of brick, showing where humble houses had been
destroyed by the fortunes of war. The fences were all gone and
gates had ceased to exist. The people in the few homesteads they
passed kept within doors and the whole scene was one of
desolation.
Presently, however, the stillness of the autumn day was broken by
ominous sounds. Afar off could be heard the dull thunder made by
the movement of troops, and about midday the highroad was
suddenly blocked by artillery wagons. For the first time Angela
roused herself and asked Farley, with interest, what it meant.
“Fighting, madam,” he replied promptly and expecting Angela’s face
to grow pale. On the contrary, she showed no tremor whatever and
only said:
“I hope it will not interfere with my seeing Captain Tremaine, if only
for an hour.”
“I don’t think it will,” responded Farley. “This movement on the part of
the enemy is not entirely unexpected and we knew that Captain
Tremaine’s regiment would be on the march.”
Angela said no more and the carriage jolted on. The shadows were
growing long when the carriage, drawing up on the side of a wide
road leading through a belt of woods, stopped, and Farley, opening
the door and standing, cap in hand, said stiffly to Angela: “This is the
point, Mrs. Tremaine, where we are instructed to wait. Captain
Tremaine’s regiment will pass within a mile of us in half an hour and
he will be on the lookout for us.”
“Thank you,” Angela responded sweetly, and, accepting Farley’s
proffered hand, she descended from the carriage. “I think,” she said,
“I will walk a little way into the woods; but I shall keep within sight of
the road, so Captain Tremaine will see me as soon as he arrives.”
Farley, whose instructions were to remain with Angela and to place
himself at Neville Tremaine’s disposal, stood discontentedly
watching her as she walked daintily through the thicket, and he
thought her one of the most ungrateful women that ever lived.
When a little out of sight of the road Angela looked about her. It
might have been the same spot in which she had taken her real
farewell of Isabey—the same dark overhanging pine trees, their
resonant aroma filling the air, and the same slippery carpet of brown
pine needles lay under her feet. Angela, hitherto so calm, began to
feel a strange agitation. Neville Tremaine had been so much a part
of her life since her babyhood that she had never had any right
conception of him as her husband, but now all was changed. Her
whole life was cast behind her and Neville was her only refuge and
her sole possession.
She wished, however, to forget all the past and set about resolutely
at forgetting. She had put Isabey out of her mind so far as she could,
but it is quite possible to throttle a thought and yet hear it breathing
in one’s ear. So it was with Angela. She fixed her consciousness
upon Neville Tremaine, but her subconsciousness was with Isabey.
One thing was certain: she could ever count upon Neville Tremaine’s
tenderness, chivalry, and unshakable kindness.
As she walked up and down with her own peculiar and airy grace,
she kept her eyes fixed on the open roadway. A mile off she could
hear distinctly the clanking of ammunition wagons, the steady tramp
of thousands of feet, the dull beating of the earth by horses’ hoofs.
Ten minutes had passed when she saw a horseman coming at a
hard gallop along the woodland road. It was Neville Tremaine. In a
minute or two he reached the carriage and flung himself off his
horse. Farley spoke a word to him. Throwing his bridle toward the
soldier-driver, Neville made straight through the thicket to where
Angela stood. Angela felt herself taken in his strong arms and his
mustached lips against hers. She clung to him, and it seemed to her
as if it were Neville and yet not Neville. Only one thing was
unmistakable: the old sense of well-being and protection when he
was near came sweetly back to her. But of all else that passed in
those first few minutes she scarcely knew, except that Neville held
her to his strong beating heart and told her how dear she was to him.
Then he put her off a little way and gazed at her with tender
admiration. Angela saw the great changes made in Neville by time
and war. He looked much older and his naturally dark skin had
grown darker with tan and sunburn. She could see, where his cap
was raised a little from his brow, the whiteness of his forehead
contrasted with the brownness of his face. He was campaigning, but
otherwise there was the same immaculateness about him—neatly
shaven, smartly uniformed, his accoutrement shining, all the marks
of the trained officer.
As for Neville, his admiration for Angela burst from him as he looked
at her. “Dearest,” he said, holding both her hands, “you have become
beautiful. You are a woman now and not a child. You have grown up
since that night on the wharf at Harrowby.”
“I have gone through that which makes a girl into a woman,” replied
Angela, softly. “Until two nights ago I had every night at family
prayers to hear every name called except yours, but I called your
name in my heart.”
“I know it, I know it.”
“Two nights ago all was changed. Your mother once more mentioned
your name and your father sent you his blessing.”
“Thank God!” replied Neville, lifting his cap.
“And here is a letter from your mother. They sent you a thousand
messages, and so did Archie and Mr. Lyddon and all the servants.
You are forgiven.”
“Yes, forgiven by all who thought that I acted dishonorably. One
person, however, I shall never need any forgiveness from, because
he knows and respects my motives—my brother Richard.”
Richard’s name, spoken so suddenly, disconcerted Angela for a
moment. She trembled a little and looked away and then her pitying
eyes sought Neville’s, but she replied calmly: “Yes, Richard never
said one word in condemnation of you.”
“That is like him. Of all men I ever knew in my life, I think best of
Richard. Not because he is my brother, but because he is better,
larger-minded, braver, than any other man I ever knew. I had a letter
from him by flag of truce a fortnight ago and managed to reply by the
same means. He has no doubt got my letter by this time. I have so
many things to ask you, so many things to tell you, the chief of which
is how much I love you; and I only have one hour with you.”
And then Angela, with tender sophistry, replied: “I would not miss the
chance of spending this one hour with you; but surely I can be near
you—nearer than at Harrowby.”
“Yes,” answered Neville gravely; “we shall be fighting probably, if not
to-night, certainly from early in the morning, and a soldier cannot
look beyond the present hour. If I am alive, we shall meet again
within the week. If I am killed, you will return at once to Harrowby.”
Angela caught Neville’s arm. The thought of a world without him
staggered her. “Don’t say that,” she cried breathlessly, and then
stopped. In another moment the tragedy of Richard’s death would
have burst from her involuntarily.
Neville, thinking he saw in Angela’s face and words and tone that a
love for him, like his love for her, had been born in her soul, caught
her to his breast in rapture. The hour passed so quickly to Neville it
seemed as if they had but scarcely exchanged their first confidences
when it was time for him to go.
He gave Angela his last instructions—to remain for at least three
days, or until she should hear from him, at the little farmhouse where
she had spent the night.
“I shall do exactly as you say,” answered Angela quietly. “And you
may depend upon it that I shan’t fall into a panic and run away.”
“I know that you will never fall into a panic,” answered Neville,
smiling. “I think the Southern women are very like the great captain
who asked when he was a boy, ‘What is fear?’ I don’t think you know
as much about fear as I do.”
Then, as the moment of parting approached, their voices and eyes
grew grave, and presently Neville kissed Angela in the shade of the
pine trees. They walked through the purple shadows of the late
afternoon back to the road where the carriage still stood and the
orderly led Neville’s horse up and down.
Farley, consumed with chagrin and impatience, still maintained a
gentlemanlike outside. Neville thanked him with sincere gratitude,
and Angela added some graceful phrases without taking any more
interest in him than in the orderly, a fact which Farley bitterly
realized. Neville put Angela in the carriage, and, laying a letter upon
her lap, said to her:
“Good-by. Keep this letter, but do not open it unless you hear bad
news of me. You will hear something from me within three days, in
any event.”
Farley turned his back and the orderly looked hard in the opposite
direction as Neville kissed Angela for the last time.
When a soldier says good-by it may be the last farewell. Angela’s
heart was suddenly pierced with this thought, and when Neville
would have turned quickly away, she drew him back to her and
kissed him once again. The next moment he was gone.
The sun was setting when Angela found herself once more upon the
road. It seemed to her as if that brief hour with Neville had been a
dream; but all had been dreamlike with her of late. Until a year or so
ago nothing had happened. That had been her grievance: she had
so longed for life, movement, color, love, even grief, anything to
move the silent pool in which she thought herself, at twenty,
anchored for life.
All at once everything came. War, persecution, estrangement, love,
death, all those things most moving in human life. She looked at the
letter addressed to her in Neville’s firm handwriting, and knew well
enough what it meant—it was what she was to do in the event of his
death; but like most young creatures brimming with life, Angela could
scarcely believe in death. It seemed to her an anachronism so
frightful as to be almost incredible.
When the carriage reached once more the public road there was,
even to Angela’s untrained eyes, every sign of approaching battle. A
great, dark blue stream, with glittering muskets which the dying sun
tipped with fire, poured along the highroad. Officers were riding at a
steady pace with their commands, while constantly orderlies dashed
back and forth, silent, grimly concentrated upon their errands.
Over the quiet autumn landscape, which should have been all
peace, brooded the spirit of coming battle. The red sun itself seemed
to Angela’s mind a great bloody disk dropping behind the dreary
woods. How many of these men marching cheerfully along would
live to see another sun set?
Suddenly a sound, distant but unmistakable, smote Angela’s ear—
the reverberation across the distant hills and far-off wide river of
heavy guns. Angela had never before in her life heard a cannon
fired, but that menacing thunder, that wolfish howl before the
banquet of death begins, could not be misunderstood. Angela felt a
sensation of horror, but nothing like fear; she came of good fighting
stock, and the thought of battle did not intimidate her. Then the far-
off roar was overborne by a loud, quick crashing of guns within half
the distance. Instantly the thrill of conflict seemed to animate the
long blue line, and there were a few quick evolutions, like a lion
crouching before his spring.
Farley, who had been leaning forward listening intently, took the whip
out of the hands of the soldier-driver and laid it heavily on the mules,
and they sprang ahead. Then turning to Angela, sitting upright within
the carriage, and now fully awake to all that was going on around
her, he said:
“Pray, don’t be alarmed, Mrs. Tremaine. I can get you to the
farmhouse within an hour, where you will be quite safe and out of
danger.”
“Don’t disturb yourself on my account,” replied Angela. “I only regret
that I am giving you trouble when I am sure you wish to be with your
command.”
As she spoke, the soldier-driver, with the familiarity of the volunteer,
glancing back at her, said to Farley, above the rattle of the rickety
carriage: “I don’t believe she is afeered, but it’s more ’an some of
them fellows on both sides can say.”
Angela said no more, but watched with a fast-beating heart what
seemed to be tumult passing before her, but was really expedition
and apparent confusion which meant order.
In a little while the carriage struck off from the highroad and passed
into a region all quietude and peace. The distant roar of the guns
stopped for a time, and the intervening hill and valley shut off the
sounds of the marching troops. The red sun was gone and the short,
enchanted autumn twilight had fallen. When the carriage drew up at
the door of the farmhouse Angela, when Farley had assisted her to
alight, said: “I think that I should now release you from your kind
attendance on me. Captain Tremaine directed me to remain here
until I should hear from him. I shan’t need any protection, and I beg
that you will feel no hesitation in leaving me.”
Farley, whose orders were to place himself at Mrs. Tremaine’s
disposal and who had looked forward to days of inaction for himself
while fighting was going on, felt a thrill of gratitude.
“Thank you,” he replied, bowing low. “If I thought there was any
possibility of danger to you, I assure you I should not leave you; but
this place is well out of the way, and, besides, we hardly expect a
general engagement.”
Sarah Brown, slatternly, frightened, helpless, but sympathetic, came
out to greet Angela, and suddenly began to wring her hands. “I
thought,” she cried hysterically, “we would have a man here in case
the Yankees, or the Confederates either, wanted to burn the house
down, and then he would stand up for us and wouldn’t let ’em do it.
Oh, my, oh, my!”
“Nonsense!” cried Angela sharply, catching Sarah by the arm. “If
anything like that should happen, no one could help us. We are just
as well off alone. Good-by, Mr. Farley, and thank you.” And bowing
politely to the soldier-driver, she fairly dragged her hostess within.
Once inside, she managed to somewhat calm Sarah Brown’s chronic
trepidation. Sarah gave her supper, and then would, out of pure good
nature, have remained with her during the night, but this Angela
declined.
When darkness fell, all grew still, and Sarah Brown took Angela’s
advice and went to bed. Angela herself did not follow her own
recommendation, and felt a strange disinclination to go to bed.
Usually her strong young nerves had given her sleep whenever she
had desired it, but this night, when every nerve was on quivering
edge, sleep eluded and defied her. She threw her mantle around her
and sat for a long time at the open window watching the moon as it
rose in silvery splendor over the half-bare woods. How still and sad
and woe-begone was the aspect of the country! Only two nights
before she had been riding with Isabey through a region almost as
still and sad and woe-begone as this, along the weed-grown highway
and untraveled forest roads, and now that time was as far removed
as if æons had passed.
As the thought of Isabey occurred to her she put it resolutely out of
her mind and began to think of Neville—how he looked, what he
said.
She took from her pocket the letter he had given her, and then thrust
it back out of sight. She was not to open it unless she had bad news
of him. Existence with Neville absent had been strange enough, but
with him dead—Angela could scarcely conceive of a world without
him. Her heart was oppressed with a thousand griefs and
perplexities. If only Isabey had not come into her life, how much
easier would all things have been! She remembered Lyddon having
told her once, long ago, that human beings in this world suffer or
enjoy according to the imagination with which they are endowed, and
he had added, “You have a tremendous imagination.”
This and many other half-forgotten things came back to her memory,
and all suggested struggle and conflict. After midnight she lay down
across her hard, coarse bed and fell into a restless and uneasy
sleep, haunted by painful dreams. She was glad to waken from it,
and, looking at her watch, found that it was four o’clock. Just the
time, two nights before, when she had said farewell to Isabey. Life
appeared to her all farewells. She rose and went again to the open
window, and the scene of two nights before seemed to repeat itself
before her eyes, until the miracle of the dawning came. Then
Angela’s head dropped upon the window sill and she fell for the first
time into a quiet and dreamless sleep.
The sun rose in splendor, and the whole fresh and dewy world was
sparkling when Angela was awakened by a terrible sound—the
crash of bursting shells. She looked toward the woods a mile away
and heard through the stillness of the autumn morning the fearful
thunder, the shouts and cries of conflict. Almost immediately she saw
half a dozen ambulances with their attendants driving into the open
field and making straight for the farmhouse. She knew well what it
meant. Those were the wounded seeking a place of refuge. As the
ambulances reached the house she opened her door and ran quickly
down the narrow stair. The passage door was wide open, and two
soldiers, carrying a stretcher, were coming in. On it lay a figure
covered up in a blue cloak. They took their burden and laid it down in
the room to the right on the ground floor. Following them came a
surgeon, grimy, bloody, anxious-eyed, but cool. He scarcely saw
Angela, and paid no heed to her, but followed the stretcher into the
little room. Then Angela heard him say, in a quick voice: “He is gone;
there is nothing more to be done here, but plenty to be done
outside.”
He passed again through the hall, followed by the two soldiers.
Three stretchers, with wounded men groaning and moaning in their
agony, were carried into the narrow hall.
Something quite outside of her own volition made Angela walk
toward the room in which the dead officer lay. As she reached the
door she felt a hand upon her arm, and the surgeon was saying to
her: “Excuse me, but you had better not go in there. The officer is
dead and much disfigured.”
“What is his name?” asked Angela.
“Captain Neville Tremaine,” was the surgeon’s answer. “Killed
leading the Forlorn Hope; as brave a man as ever lived or died.”
One night, a week later, Colonel and Mrs. Tremaine sat together in
the library at Harrowby. Usually they were alone, but since the family
circle had grown so pitifully small, Lyddon had left his ancient habitat,
the old study, and sat with them in the evenings. He was pretending
to read, and so was Colonel Tremaine, but both were really
absorbed in reverie. Mrs. Tremaine, with more self-possession than
either, sat knitting. Lyddon, watching her furtively, thought how like
she was to those Spartan women who bade their sons return with
their shields or upon them. Only with Mrs. Tremaine this sublime
courage was accompanied with a gentleness and softness like a
Lesbian air.
The stillness remained unbroken for an hour, when there was a
sound of hoofs and wheels upon the carriage drive. As they listened
the hall door was quickly opened and some one entered.
“That is Angela,” said Mrs. Tremaine. And the next moment Angela
entered the library. She wore a black gown, which Mrs. Tremaine
instantly noticed. The two women, looking into each other’s eyes,
opened their arms, and then were clasped together.
“Neville is gone!” cried Angela. “He is with Richard.”
CHAPTER XXIII
THE AFTERMATH