her words might have effect.
Said the bishop's wife: "Sylvia, we cannot undertake to save the
world from the results of its sins. God has his own ways of
punishing men."
"Perhaps so, but surely God does not wish the punishment to fall
upon innocent young girls. For instance, Aunt Nannie, think of your
own daughters----"
"My daughters!" broke out Mrs. Chilton. And then, mastering her
excitement: "At least, you will permit me to look after my own
children."
"I noticed, my dear aunt, that Lucy May turned colour when Tom
Aldrich came into the room last night. Have you noticed anything?"
"Yes--what of it?"
"It means that Lucy May is falling in love with Tom."
"Why should she not? I certainly consider him an eligible man."
"And yet you know, Aunt Nannie, that he is one of Roger Peyton's
set. You know that he goes about town getting drunk with the gayest
of them, and you let Lucy May go on and fall in love with him! You
have taken no steps to find out about him--you have not warned your
daughter--"
Mrs. Chilton was crimson with agitation. "Warned my daughter! Who
ever heard of such a thing?"
Said Sylvia, quietly: "I can believe that you never heard of it--but
you will hear soon. The other day I had a talk with Lucy May--"
"Sylvia Castleman!" And then it seemed Mrs. Chilton reminded herself
that she was dealing with a dangerous lunatic. "Sylvia," she said,
in a suppressed voice, "you mean to tell me that you have been
poisoning my young daughter's mind--"
"You have brought her up well," said Sylvia, as her aunt stopped for
lack of words. "She did not want to listen to me. She said that
young girls ought not to know about such matters. But I pointed out
Elaine, and then she changed her mind--just as you will have to
change yours in the end, Aunt Nannie."
Mrs. Chilton sat glaring at her niece, her bosom heaving. Then
suddenly she turned her indignant eyes upon Mrs. Castleman.
"Margaret, cannot you stop this shocking business? I demand that the
tongues of gossip shall no longer clatter around the family of which
I am a member! My husband is the bishop of this diocese, and if
our ancient and untarnished name is of no importance to Sylvia van
Tuiver, then, perhaps the dignity and authority of the church may
have some weight----"
"Aunt Nannie," interrupted Sylvia, "it will do no good to drag Uncle
Basil into this matter. I fear you will have to face the fact that
from this time on your authority in our family is to be diminished.
You had more to do than any other person with driving me into the
marriage that has wrecked my life, and now you want to go on and do
the same thing for my sister and for your own daughters--to marry
them with no thought of anything save the social position of the
man. And in the same way you are saving up your sons to find rich
girls. You know that you kept Clive from marrying a poor girl in
this town a couple of years ago--and meantime it seems to be nothing
to you that he's going with men like Roger Peyton and Tom Aldrich,
learning all the vices the women in the brothels have to teach
him----"
Poor "Miss Margaret" had several times made futile efforts to check
her daughter's outburst. Now she and Aunt Varina started up at the
same time. "Sylvia! Sylvia! You must not talk like that to your
aunt!"
And Sylvia turned and gazed at them with her sad eyes. "From now
on," she said, "that is the way I am going to talk. You are a lot of
ignorant children. I was one too, but now I know. And I say to you:
Look at Elaine! Look at my little one, and see what the worship of
Mammon has done to one of the daughters of your family!"
18. After this, Sylvia had her people reduced to a state of terror.
She was an avenging angel, sent by the Lord to punish them for their
sins. How could one rebuke the unconventionality of an avenging
angel? On the other hand, of course, one could not help being in
agony, and letting the angel see it in one's face. Outside, there
were the tongues of gossip clattering, as Aunt Nannie had said;
quite literally everyone in Castleman County was talking about the
blindness of Mrs. Douglas van Tuiver's baby, and how, because of it,
the mother was setting out on a campaign to destroy the modesty of
the State. The excitement, the curiosity, the obscene delight of the
world came rolling back into Castleman Hall in great waves, that
picked up the unfortunate inmates and buffeted them about.
Family consultations were restricted, because it was impossible for
the ladies of the family to talk to the gentlemen about these
horrible things; but the ladies talked to the ladies, and the
gentlemen talked to the gentlemen, and each came separately to
Sylvia with their distress. Poor, helpless "Miss Margaret" would
come wringing her hands, and looking as if she had buried all her
children. "Sylvia! Sylvia! Do you realise that you are being
DISCUSSED?" That was the worst calamity that could befal a woman in
Castleman County--it summed up all possible calamities that could
befal her--to be "discussed." "They were discussing you once when
you wanted to marry Frank Shirley! And now--oh, now they will never
stop discussing you!"
Then would come the dear major. He loved his eldest daughter as he
loved nothing else in the world, and he was a just man at heart. He
could not meet her arguments--yes, she was right, she was right.
But then he would go away, and the waves of scandal and shame would
come rolling.
"My child," he pleaded, "have you thought what this thing is doing
to your husband? Do you realise that while you talk about protecting
other people, you are putting upon Douglas a brand that will follow
him through life?"
Uncle Mandeville came up from New Orleans to see his favourite
niece; and the wave smote him as he alighted from the train, and he
became so much excited that he went to the club and got drunk, and
then could not see his niece, but had to be carried off upstairs and
given forcible hypodermics. Cousin Clive told Sylvia about it
afterwards--how Uncle Mandeville refused to believe the truth, and
swore that he would shoot some of these fellows if they didn't stop
talking about his niece. Said Clive, with a grim laugh: "I told him:
'If Sylvia had her way, you'd shoot a good part of the men in the
town.'" He answered: "Well, by God, I'll do it--it would serve the
scoundrels right!" And he tried to get out of bed and get his pants
and his pistols--so that in the end it was necessary to telephone
for the major, and then for Barry Chilton and two of his gigantic
sons from their plantation.
Sylvia had her way, and talked things out with the agonised Celeste.
And the next day came Aunt Varina, hardly able to contain herself.
"Oh, Sylvia, such a horrible thing! To hear such words coming from
your little sister's lips--like the toads and snakes in the fairy
story! To think of
these ideas festering in a young girl's brain!"
And then again: "Sylvia, your sister declares she will never go to a
party again! You are teaching her to hate men! You will make her a
STRONG-MINDED woman!"--that was another phrase they had summing up
a whole universe of horrors. Sylvia could not recall a time when she
had not heard that warning. "Be careful, dear, when you express an
opinion, always end it with a question: 'Don't you think so?' or
something like that, otherwise, men may get the idea that you are
'STRONG-MINDED'!"
Sylvia, in her girlhood, had heard vague hints and rumours which now
she was able to interpret in the light of her experience. In her
courtship days she had met a man who always wore gloves, even in the
hottest weather, and she had heard that this was because of some
affliction of the skin. Now, talking with the young matrons of her
own set, she learned that this man had married, and had since had to
take to a wheel-chair, while his wife had borne a child with a
monstrous deformed head, and had died of the ordeal and the shock.
Oh, the stories that one uncovered--right in one's own town, among
one's own set--like foul sewers underneath the pavements! The
succession of deceased generations, of imbeciles, epileptics,
paralytics! The innocent children born to a life-time of torment;
the women hiding their secret agonies from the world! Sometimes
women went all through life without knowing the truth about
themselves. There was poor Mrs. Valens, for example, who reclined
all day upon the gallery of one of the most beautiful homes in the
county, and showed her friends the palms of her hands, all covered
with callouses and scales, exclaiming: "What in the world do you
suppose can be the matter with me?" She had been a beautiful woman,
a "belle" of "Miss Margaret's" day; she had married a man who was
rich and handsome and witty--and a rake. Now he was drunk all the
time, and two of his children had died in hospital, and another had
arms that came out of joint, and had to be put in plaster of Paris
for months at a time. His wife, the one-time darling of society,
would lie on her couch and read the Book of Job until she knew it by
heart.
And could you believe it, when Sylvia came home, ablaze with
excitement over the story, she found that the only thing that her
relatives were able to see in it was the Book of Job! Under the
burden of her afflictions the woman had become devout; and how could
anyone fail to see in this the deep purposes of Providence revealed?
"Verily," said "Miss Margaret," "'whom the Lord loveth, He
chasteneth.' We are told in the Lord's Word that 'the sins of the
fathers shall be visited upon the children, even unto the third and
fourth generations,' and do you suppose the Lord would have told us
that, if He had not known there would be such children?"
19. I cannot pass over this part of my story without bringing
forward Mrs. Armistead, the town cynic, who constituted herself one
of Sylvia's sources of information in the crisis. Mrs. Sallie Ann
Armistead was the mother of two boys with whom Sylvia, as a child,
had insisted upon playing, in spite of the protests of the family.
"Wha' fo' you go wi' dem Armistead chillun, Mi' Sylvia?" would cry
Aunt Mandy, the cook. "Doan' you know they granddaddy done pick
cottin in de fiel' 'long o' me?" But while her father was picking
cotton, Sallie Ann had looked after her complexion and her figure,
and had married a rising young merchant. Now he was the wealthy
proprietor of a chain of "nigger stores," and his wife was the
possessor of the most dreaded tongue in Castleman County.
She was a person who, if she had been born a duchess, would have
made a reputation in history; the one woman in the county who had a
mind and was not afraid to have it known. She used all the tricks of
a duchess--lorgnettes, for example, with which she stared people
into a state of fright. She did not dare try anything like that on
the Castlemans, of course, but woe to the little people who crossed
her path! She had an eye that sought out every human weakness, and
such a wit that even her victims were fascinated. One of the legends
about her told how her dearest foe, a dashing young matron, had
died, and all the friends had gathered with their floral tributes.
Sallie Ann went in to review the remains, and when she came out a
sentimental voice inquired: "And how does our poor Ruth look?"
"Oh," was the answer, "as old and grey as ever!"
Now Mrs. Armistead stopped Sylvia in the street: "My dear, how goes
the eugenics campaign?"
And while Sylvia gazed, dumbfounded, the other went on as if she
were chatting about the weather: "You can't realise what a stir you
are making in our little frog pond. Come, see me, and let me tell
you the gossip! Do you know you've enriched our vocabulary?"
"I have made someone look up the meaning of eugenics, at least,"
answered Sylvia--having got herself together in haste.
"Oh, not only that, my dear. You have made a new medical term--the
'van Tuiver disease.' Isn't that interesting?"
For a moment Sylvia shrivelled before this flame from hell. But
then, being the only person who had ever been able to chain this
devil, she said: "Indeed? I hope that with so fashionable a name the
disease does not become an epidemic!"
Mrs. Armistead gazed at her, and then, in a burst of enthusiasm, she
exclaimed: "Sylvia Castleman, I have always insisted that one of the
most interesting women in the world was spoiled by the taint of
goodness in you."
She took Sylvia to her bosom, as it were. "Let us sit on the fence
and enjoy this spectacle! My dear, you can have no idea what an
uproar you are making! The young married women gather in their
boudoirs and whisper ghastly secrets to each other; some of them are
sure they have it, and some of them say they can trust their
husbands--as if any man could be trusted as far as you can throw a
bull by the horns! Did you hear about poor Mrs. Pattie Peyton, she
has the measles, but she sent for a specialist, and vowed she had
something else--she had read about it, and knew all the symptoms,
and insisted on having elaborate blood-tests! And little Mrs.
Stanley Pendleton has left her husband, and everybody says that's
the reason. The men are simply shivering in their boots--they steal
into the doctor's offices by the back-doors, and a whole car-load of
the boys have been shipped off to Hot Springs to be boiled--" And so
on, while Mrs. Armistead revelled in the sensation of strolling down
Main Street with Mrs. Douglas van Tuiver!
Then Sylvia would go home, and get the newest reactions of the
family to these horrors. Aunt Nannie, it seemed, made the discovery
that Basil, junr., her fifth son, was carrying on an intrigue with a
mulatto girl in the town; and she forbade him to go to Castleman
Hall, for fear lest Sylvia should worm the secret out of him; also
she shipped Lucy May off to visit a frien
d, and came and tried to
persuade Mrs. Chilton to do the same with Peggy and Maria, lest
Sylvia should somehow corrupt these children.
The bishop came, having been ordered to preach religion to his
wayward niece. Poor dear Uncle Basil--he had tried preaching
religion to Sylvia many years ago, and never could do it because he
loved her so well that with all his Seventeenth Century theology he
could not deny her chance of salvation. Now the first sight that met
his eyes when he came to see her was his little blind grand-niece.
And also he had in his secret heart the knowledge that he, a rich
and gay young planter before he became converted to Methodism, had
played with the fire of vice, and been badly burned. So Sylvia did
not find him at all the Voice of Authority, but just a poor,
hen-pecked, unhappy husband of a tyrannous Castleman woman.
The next thing was that "Miss Margaret" took up the notion that a
time such as this was not one for Sylvia's husband to be away from
her. What if people were to say that they had separated? There were
family consultations, and in the midst of them there came word that
van Tuiver was called North upon business. When the family
delegations came to Sylvia, to insist that she go with him, the
answer they got was that if they could not let her stay quietly at
home without asking her any questions, she would go off to New York
and live with a divorced woman Socialist!
"Of course, they gave up," she wrote me. "And half an hour ago poor
dear mamma came to my room and said: 'Sylvia, dear, we will let you
do what you want, but won't you please do one small favour for me?'
I got ready for trouble, and asked what she wanted. Her answer was:
'Won't you go with Celeste to the Young Matrons' Cotillion tomorrow
night, so that people won't think there's anything the matter?'"
20. Roger Peyton had gone off to Hot Springs, and Douglas van Tuiver
was in New York; so little by little the storms about Castleman Hall
began to abate in violence. Sylvia was absorbed with her baby, and
beginning to fit her life into that of her people. She found many
ways in which she could serve them--entertaining Uncle Mandeville to
keep him sober; checking the extravagrance of Celeste; nursing
Castleman Lysle through green apple convulsions. That was to be her
life for the future, she told herself, and she was making herself
really happy in it--when suddenly, like a bolt from the blue, came
an event that swept her poor little plans into chaos.
It was an afternoon in March, the sun was shining brightly and the
Southern springtime was in full tide, and Sylvia had had the old
family carriage made ready, with two of the oldest and gentlest
family horses, and took the girls upon a shopping expedition to
town. In the front seat sat Celeste, driving, with two of her
friends, and in the rear seat was Sylvia, with Peggy and Maria. When
an assemblage of allurements such as this stopped on the streets of
the town, the young men would come out of the banks and the offices
and gather round to chat. There would be a halt before an ice-cream
parlour, and a big tray of ices would be brought out, and the girls
would sit in the carriage and eat, and the boys would stand on the
curb and eat--undismayed by the fact that they had welcomed half a
dozen such parties during the afternoon. The statistics proved that
this was a thriving town, with rapidly increasing business, but
there was never so much business as to interfere with gallantries
like these.
Sylvia enjoyed the scene; it took her back to happy days, before
black care had taken his seat behind her. She sat in a kind of
dream, only half hearing the merriment of the young people, and only
half tasting her ice. How she loved this old town, with its streets
deep in black spring mud, its mud-plastered "buck-boards" and saddle
horses hitched at every telegraph pole! Its banks and stores and law