CHAPTER I
In a fortnight Phyl had adjusted herself to her new environment socompletely that to use Pinckney's expression, she might have been bred andborn in Charleston.
Custom and acquaintanceship had begun to dull without destroying the charmof the place and the ghostly something, the something that during thefirst two days had seemed to haunt Vernons, the something indefinable shehad called "It" had withdrawn.
The spell, whatever it was, had been broken that night in the garden, whenPinckney's commonplace remark had shattered the dream-state into which shehad worked herself with the assistance of Prue, Juliet's letters, thelittle secret arbour and the moonlight of the South.
One morning, coming down to breakfast, she found Miss Pinckney inagitation, an open telegram in one hand and a feather duster in theother.
It was one of the early morning habits of Miss Pinckney to range the housesuperintending things with a feather duster in hand, not so much for useas for the purpose of encouraging others. She was in the breakfast roomnow dusting spasmodically things that did not require dusting and talkingall the time, pausing every now and then to have another glance at thetelegram whilst Richard Pinckney, unable to get a word in, sat on a chair,and Jim, the little coloured page, who had brought in the urn, stood bylistening and admiring.
"Forty miles from here and ten from a railway station," said MissPinckney, "and how am I to get there?"
"Automobile," said Pinckney.
It was evidently not his first suggestion as to this means of locomotion,for the suggestion was received without an outburst, neither resented norassented to in fact. They took their seats at table and then it all cameout.
Colonel Seth Grangerson of Grangerson House, Grangerville, S. Carolina,was ill. Miss Pinckney was his nearest relative, the nearest at least withwhom he was not fighting, and he had wired to her, or rather his son hadwired to her, to come at once.
"As if I were a bird," said the old lady. Grangerville was a backwaterplace, badly served by the railway, and it would take the best part of aday to get there by ordinary means.
"A car will get you there inside a couple of hours," said Pinckney.
"As if he couldn't have sent for Susan Revenall," went on she as thoughoblivious to the suggestion, "but I suppose he's fought with them again. Ipatched up a peace between them last midsummer, but I suppose the patchesdidn't stick; he's fought with the Revenalls, he's fought with theCalhouns, he's fought with the Beauregards, he's fought with theTredegars--that man would fight with his own front teeth if he couldn'tget anything better to fight with, and now he's dying I expect he reckonsto have a fight with me, just to finish off with. He killed his poor wife,and Dick Grangerson would never have gone off and got drowned only forhim--Oh, he's not so bad," turning to Phyl, "he's good enough only forthat--will fight."
"Too much pep," said Pinckney.
"I'm sure I don't know what it is. They're the queerest lot the Almightyever put feet on, and I don't mind saying it, even though they arerelatives." Turning to Phyl. "I suppose you know, least I suppose youthink, that the Civil War was fought for the emancipation of the darkiesand that they _were_ emancipated."
"Yes!"
"Well, they weren't--at least not at Grangersons. While the Colonel'sfather was fighting in the Civil War, his first wife, she was a Dawson,kept things going at home, and after the war was over and he was back hetook up the rule again. Emancipation--no one would have dared to say theword to him, he'd have killed you with a look. The North never beatGrangerson, it beat Davis and one man and another but it never beatGrangerson, he carried on after the war just as he carried on before, toldthe darkies that emancipation was nigger talk and they believed him.People came round telling them they were free, and all they got was brokenheads. They were a very tetchy lot, those niggers, are still what are leftof them. You see, they've always been proud of being Grangerson's niggers,that's the sort of man he is, able to make them feel like that."
"Silas helps to carry on the place, doesn't he?" asked Pinckney.
"Yes, and just in the same tradition, only he's finding it doesn't work, Isuspect. You see, the old darkies are all right, but when he's forced toget new labour he has to get the new darkies and they're all wrong, and hethrashes them and they run away. They never take the law of him either. Ireckon when they get clear of Silas they don't stop running till they getto Galveston."
They talked of other things and then, breakfast over, Miss Pinckney turnedto Richard.
"Well, what about that automobile?"
"I'll have one at the door for you at ten," said he.
She turned to Phyl.
"You'd better go with me--if you'd like to; you'd be lonely here all byyourself, and you may as well see Grangersons whilst the old man's there,though maybe he'll be gone before we arrive. We may be there for a coupleof days, so you'd better take enough things."
Then she went off to dress herself for the journey, and an hour later sheappeared veiled and apparelled, Dick following her with the luggage, abandbox and a bag of other days.
She got into the big touring car without a word. Phyl followed her andPinckney tucked the rug round their knees.
"You've got the most careful driver in Charleston," said he, "and he knowsthe road."
Miss Pinckney nodded.
She was flying straight in the face of her pet prejudice. She was not inthe least afraid of a break down or an overset. An accident that did notrob her of life or limb would indeed have been an opportunity for saying"I told you so." She was chiefly afraid of running over things.
As Pinckney was closing the door on them who should appear but Seth--Sethin a striped sleeved jacket, all grin and frizzled head and bearing abunch of flowers in his hand. He had not been dismissed after all. WhenMiss Pinckney had gone into the kitchen to pay him his wages he hadcarried on so that she forgave him. The flowers--her own flowers justpicked from the garden--were an offering, not to propitiate but toplease.
Pinckney laughed, but Miss Pinckney as she took the bouquet scarcelynoticed either him or Seth, her mind was busy with something else.
She leaned over towards the chauffeur.
"Mind you don't run over any chickens," said she.
It was a gorgeous morning, with the sea mists blowing away on the seawind, swamp-land and river and bayou showing streets and ponds of sapphirethrough the vanishing haze.
Phyl was in high spirits; the tune of Camptown Races, which a street boyhad been whistling as they started, pursued her. Miss Pinckney, dumbthrough the danger zone where chickens and dogs and nigger children mightbe run over, found her voice in the open country.
The bunch of flowers presented to her by Seth and which she was holding onher lap started her off.
"I hope it is not a warning," said she; "wouldn't be a bit surprised tofind Seth Grangerson in his coffin waiting for the flowers to be put onhim; what put it in to the darkey's head to give me them! I don't know,I'm sure, same thing I suppose that put it into his head to give meimpudence."
"You've taken him back," said Phyl.
"Well, I suppose I have," said the other in a resigned voice, "and likelyto pay for my foolishness."
Pinckney had said that it was only a two hours' run from Charleston toGrangerville, but he had reckoned without taking into consideration thebadness of some of the roads, and the intricacies of the way, for it wasafter one o'clock when they reached the little town beyond which, a mileto the West, lay the Colonel's house.
Grangerville lies on the border of Clarendon county, a tiny place that yetsupports a newspaper of its own, the _Grangerville Courier_. The _Courier_office, the barber's shop and the hotel are the chief places inGrangerville, and yellow dogs and black children seem the bulk of thepopulation, at least of a warm afternoon, when drowsiness holds the placein her keeping, and the light lies broad and steadfast and golden upon thecotton fields, and the fields of Indian corn, and the foliage of the woodsthat spread to southward, enchanted woods, fading away into an enchantedworld
of haze and sun and silence.
When the great Southern moon rises above the cotton fields, Romancetouches even Grangerville itself, the baying of the yellow dog, darkeyvoices, the distant plunking of a banjo, the owl in the trees--all are thesame as of old--and the houses are the same, nearly, and the people, andit is hard to believe that over there to the North the locomotives of theAtlantic Coast railway are whistling down the night, that men are able totalk to one another at a distance of a thousand miles, fly like birds,live like fish, and perpetuate their shadows in the "movies."
Grangersons lay a mile beyond the little town, a solidly built mansion setfar back from the road, and approached by an avenue of cypress. As theydrew up before the pillared piazza, upon which the front door opened, fromthe doorway, wide open this warm day, appeared an old gentleman.
A very fine looking old man he was. His face, with its predominant nose,long white moustache and firm cleft chin, was of that resolute andobstinate type which seems a legacy of the Roman Empire, whose legionariesleft much more behind them in Gaul and Britain than Trajan arches andRoman roads. He was dressed in light grey tweeds, his linen wasimmaculate--youthful and still a beau in point of dress, and bearinghimself erect with the aid of a walking stick, a crutch handled stick ofclouded malacca, Colonel Seth Grangerson, for he it was, had come to hisfront door, drawn by the sound of the one thing he detested more thananything in life, a motor car.
"Why, Lord! He's not even in bed," cried the outraged Miss Pinckney, whorecognised him at once. "All this journey and he up and about--it beatsSeth and his impudence!"
The Colonel, whose age dimmed eyes saw nothing but the automobile, camedown the steps, panama hat in hand, courtly, freezing, yet ready toexplode on the least provocation. Within touch of the car he recognisedthe chief occupant.
"Why, God bless my soul," cried he, "it's Maria Pinckney."
"Yes, it's me," said the lady, "and I expected to find you in bed orworse, and here you are up. Silas sent me a telegram."
"He's a fool," cut in the old gentleman. "I had one of my old attacks lastnight, and I told him I'd be up and about in the morning--and I am. GoodGad! Maria, you're the last person in the world I'd ever have expected tosee in one of these outrageous things." He had opened the door of the carand was presenting his arm to the lady.
"You can shut the door," said Miss Pinckney. "I'm not getting out. Thething's not more outrageous than your getting up like that right after anattack and dragging me a hundred miles from Charleston over hill anddale--I'm not getting out, I'm going right back--right back toCharleston."
The Colonel turned his head and called to a darkey that had appeared atthe front door.
"Take the luggage in," said he. Miss Pinckney got out of the car despiteherself, half laughing, half angry, and taking the gallantly proffered armfound herself being led up the steps of Grangersons, pausing half way upto introduce Phyl, whom she had completely forgotten till now.
The Colonel, like his son Silas, as will presently be seen, had a directway with women; the Grangersons had pretty nearly always fallen in love atsight and run away with their wives. Colonel Seth's father had done this,meeting, marrying and fascinating the beautiful Maria Tredegar, andcarrying her off under his arm like a hypnotised fowl, and from under thenoses of half a dozen more eligible suitors, just as now, the Colonel wascarrying Maria Pinckney off into his house half against her will. Phylfollowing them, gazed round at the fine old oak panelled hall, from whichthey were led into the drawing room, a room not unlike the drawing room atVernons, but larger and giving a view of the garden where the oleandersand cherokee money and the crescent leaves of the blue gum trees weremoving in the wind. Colonel Seth, despite the war, had plenty of roses andGrangersons was kept up in the old style. Just as in Nuremberg andVittoria we see mediaeval cities preserved, so to speak, under glass, so atGrangersons one found the old Plantation, house and all, miraculouslyintact, living, almost, one might say, breathing.
The price of cotton did not matter much to the Colonel, nor the price ofhaulage. This son of the Southerner who had refused to be beaten by theNorth in the war, cared for nothing much beyond the ring of sky that madehis horizon. Twice a year he made a visit to Charleston, driving in hisown carriage, occasionally he visited Richmond or Durham, where he had aninterest in tobacco; New York he had never seen. He loathed railways andautomobiles, mainly, perhaps, because they were inventions of the North,that is to say the devil. He had a devilish hatred of the North. Not ofNortherners, but just of the North.
The word North set his teeth on edge. It did not matter to him thatCharleston was picking up some prosperity in the way of phosphates, orthat Chattanooga was smelting ore into money, or that industrialprosperity was abroad in the land; he was old enough to have arecollection of old days, and from the North had come the chilly blastthat had blown away that age.
A servant brought in cake and wine to stay the travellers till dinnertime, refreshment that Miss Pinckney positively refused at first.
"You will stay the night," said the Colonel, as he helped her, "and Sarahwill show you to your rooms when we have had a word together."
Miss Pinckney, sipping her wine, made no reply, then placing the scarcelytouched glass on the table and with her bonnet strings thrown back, sheturned to the Colonel.
"Do you see the likeness?" said she.
"What likeness?" asked the old gentleman.
"Why, God bless my soul, the likeness to Juliet Mascarene. Phyl, turn yourface to the light."
The Colonel, searching in his waistcoat pocket, found a pair of foldingglasses and put them on.
"She gets it from her mother's side," said Miss Pinckney, "the Lord knowshow it is these things happen, but it's Juliet, isn't it?"
The Colonel removed his glasses, wiped them with his handkerchief, andreturned them to his pocket.
"It is," said he. Then in the fine old fashion he turned to the girl,raised her hand to his lips and kissed it.
"Phyl," said Miss Pinckney, "would not you like to have a look at thegarden whilst we have a chat? Old people's talk isn't of much interest toyoung people."
"Old people," cried the warrior. "There are no old people in this room."He made for the door and opened it for Phyl, then he accompanied her intothe hall, where at the still open door he pointed the way to the garden.