CHAPTER V
Charleston's Magnolia Cemetery like everything else about Charleston showsthe touch of the War. Here the soldiers lie who fought so bravely underWade Hampton and here lies the general himself.
Go south, go north, and you will not find a place touched by the War whereyou will not find noble memories, echoes of heroic deeds, legends of bravemen.
Miss Pinckney was by no means a peace party and this thought was doubtlessin her head as she stood surveying the confederate graves. There wererelations here and men whom she had known as a child.
"That's the War," said she, "and people abuse war as if it was the worstthing in the world, insulting the dead. 'Clare to goodness it makes mesavage to hear the pasty-faces talking of war and making plans to abolishit. It's like hearing a lot of children making plans to abolish thunderstorms. Where would America be now without the War, and where'd herhistory be? You tell me that. It'd just be the history of a big canningfactory. These men aren't dead, they're still alive and fighting--fightingChicago; fighting pork, and wheat, and cotton and railway-stock andeverything else that's abolishing the soul of the nation.
"There's Matt Carey's grave. He had everything he wanted, and he wasn'tyoung. Now-a-days he'd have been driving in his automobile killing oldwomen and chickens, or tarpoon fishing down 'n Florida letting the worldgo rip, or full of neur--what do they call it--that thing that gets ontheir nerves and makes crazy old men of them at forty--I've forgotten._He_ didn't. He took up a gun and died like a lion, and he was amiddle-aged business man. No one remembers him, I do believe, except,maybe me, clean forgotten--and yet he helped to put a brick into the onlymonument worth ten cents that America has got--The War.
"And some northern people would say 'nice sort of brick, seeing he wasfighting on the wrong side.' Wrong side or right side he was fighting forsomething else than his own hand. _That's_ the point."
She closed up her lips and they went on. Phyl found her father's grave ina quiet spot where the live-oaks stood, the long grey moss hanging fromtheir branches.
Miss Pinckney, having pointed out the grave, strayed off, leaving the girlto herself.
The gloomy, strange-looking trees daunted Phyl, and the grave, too youngyet to have a headstone, drew her towards it, yet repelled her.
It was like meeting in a dream some one she had loved and who had turnedinto a stranger in a strange place.
Just as Charleston had dimmed Ireland in her mind as a bright light dims alesser light, so had some influence come between her and the memory of herfather. That memory was just as distinct as ever, but grief had died fromit, as though Time had been at work on it for years and years.
The Phyl who had stepped out of the south-bound express and the girl ofthis morning were the same in mind and body, but in soul and outlook theyhad changed and were changing as though the air of the south had somemagic in it, some food that had always been denied her and which wasnecessary for her full being.
Miss Pinckney returned from her wanderings amongst the graves and theyturned to the gate.
"It used to seem strange to me coming here when I was a girl," said she."It always seemed as if I was come to visit people who could never come tosee me. I used to pity them, but one gets older and one gets wiser, and Ifancy it's they that pity us, if they can see us at all, which isn't oftenlikely."
"D'you think they come back?" said Phyl.
"My dear child, if I told you what I thought, you'd say I was plum crazy.But I'll say this. What do you think the Almighty made folk for? to live afew years and then lie in a grave with folk heaping flowers on them?There's no such laziness in nature. I don't say there aren't folk who livetheir lives like as if they were dead, covered with flowers and nevermoving a hand to help themselves like some of those N'York women--but theydon't count. They're against nature and I guess when they die they die,for they haven't ever lived." Then, vehemently: "Of course, they comeback, not as ghosts peekin' about and making nuisances of themselves, butthey come back as people--which is the sensible way and there's nothingunsensible in nature. Mind you, I don't say there aren't ghosts, thereare, for I've seen 'em; I saw Simon Pinckney, the one that died of drink,as plain as my hand same day he died, but he was a no account. He hadn'tthe making of a man, so he couldn't come back as a man, and he wasn't awoman, so he couldn't come back as a woman; so he came back as a ghost. Hewas always an uneasy creature, else I don't suppose he'd have come back asanything. When a man wears out a suit of clothes he doesn't die, he gets anew one, and when he wears out a body--which isn't a bit more than a suitof clothes--he gets a new one. If he hasn't piled up grit enough in lifeto pay for a new body, he goes about without one and he's a ghost. That'smy way of thinking and I know--I know--n'matter."
She put up her sunshade and they returned, driving through the warm springweather. Phyl was silent, the day had taken possession of her. The scentof pink mimosa filled the air, the blue sky shewed here and there a fewfeather traces of white cloud and the wind from the sea seemed the verybreath of the southern spring.
It seemed to Phyl as they drove that never before had she met or felt theloveliness of life, never till this moment when turning a corner the songof a bird from a garden met them with the perfume of jessamine.
Charleston is full of surprises like that, things that snatch you awayfrom the present or catch you for a moment into the embrace of some oldgarden lurking behind a wrought iron gate, or tell you a love story nomatter how much you don't want to hear it--or tease you, if you are apractical business man, with some other futility which has nothing at allto do with "real" life.
It seemed to Phyl as though, somehow, the whole of the morning had beenworking up to that moment, as though the perfume of the jessamine and thesong of the birds were the culmination of the meaning of all sorts ofthings seen and unseen, heard and unheard.
The message of the crazy old negress came back to her. Who was Miss Julie?and who was the Mr. Pinckney that was to meet her, and where was the gateat which they were to meet in such a secretive manner? Was it justcraziness, or was it possible that this was some real message deliveredyears and years ago. A real lover's message which the old woman had oncebeen charged to deliver and which she had repeated automatically and likea parrot.
Miss Julie--could it be possible that she meant Miss Juliet--The JulietMascarene to whom she, Phyl, bore such a strong family likeness, could itbe possible that the likeness had started the old woman's mind working andhad recalled the message of a half-a-century ago to her lips.
It was a fascinating thought. Juliet had been in love with one of thePinckneys and this message was from a Pinckney and one day, perhaps, mostlikely a fine spring day like to-day, Pinckney had given the negro girl amessage to give to Juliet, and the lovers and the message and the brightspring day had vanished utterly and forever leaving only Prue.
The gate would no doubt be the garden gate. Phyl in all her life had nevergiven a thought to Love, she had known nothing of sentiment, that muchabused thing which is yet the salt of life, and Romance for her had meantAdventure; all the same she was now weaving all sorts of threads intodreams and fancies. What appealed to her most was her own likeness toJuliet, the girl who had died so many, many years ago. A likenessincomplete enough, according to Miss Pinckney, yet strong enough to awakenmemories in the mind of Prue.