CHAPTER IV
They started at ten o'clock next morning for Charleston, the Colonelstanding on the house steps and waving his hand to them as they drove off.Silas was nowhere to be seen, he had gone out before breakfast, so thebutler said, and had not returned. Miss Pinckney resented this casualtreatment.
"He ought to have been here to bid us good-bye," said she, as they clearedthe avenue. "He's got the name for being a mad creature, but even madcreatures may show common courtesy. I'm sure I don't know where he getshis manners from unless it's his mother's lot, same place as he got hisgood looks."
"Why do you say he's mad?" asked Phyl.
"Because he is. Not exactly mad, maybe, but eccentric, he swum Charlestonharbour with his clothes on because some one dared him, and was nearlydrowned with the tide coming in or going out, I forget which; and anotherday he got on the engine at Charleston station and started the train,drove it too, till they managed to climb over the top of the carriages orsomething and stop him--at least that's the story. He'll come to a badend, that boy, unless he mends his ways. Lots of people say he's got goodin him. So he has, perhaps, but it's just that sort that come to the worstend, unless the good manages to fight the bad and get it under in time."
Phyl said nothing. Her mind was disturbed. She had slept scarcely at allduring the night, and her feelings towards Silas Grangerson, now that shewas beyond his reach, were alternating in the strangest way betweenattraction and repulsion.
They would have repelled the thought of him entirely but for theinstinctive recognition of the fact that his conduct had been the resultof impulse, the impulse of a child, ill governed, and accustomed to seizewhat it wanted. Added to that was the fact of his entire naturalness. Fromthe moment of their first meeting he had talked to her as though they wereold acquaintances. Unless when talking to his father, everything in hismanner, tone, conversation was free, unfettered by convention, fresh, ifat times startling. This was his great charm, and at the same time hisgreat defect, for it revealed his want of qualities no less than hisqualities.
Do what she could she was unable to escape from the incident of lastnight, it was as though those strong arms had not quite released theirhold upon her, as though Pan had broken from the bushes, shown her by hismagic things she had never dreamed of, and vanished.
It was nearly two o'clock when they reached Vernons. Richard Pinckney wasat home, and at the sight of him Phyl's heart went out towards him. Clean,well groomed, honest, kindly, he was like a breath of fresh sea air afterbreathing tropical swamp atmosphere.
Strange to say Miss Pinckney seemed to feel somewhat the same.
"Yes, we're back," said she, as they passed into the dining-room wheresome refreshments were awaiting them, "and glad I am to be back. Vernonssmells good after Grangersons. Oh, dear me, what is it that clings to thatplace? It's like opening an old trunk that's been shut for years. I toldSeth Grangerson, right out flat, he ought to get away from there into theworld somewhere, but there he sits clinging to his rheumatism and thepast. I declare I nearly cried last night as he was showing me all thoseold pictures."
"He's not very ill then," said Richard.
"Ill! Not he. It was that fool Silas sent the telegram. Just an attack ofrheumatism."
She went upstairs to change and the two young people went into the garden,where Richard Pinckney was having some alterations done.
On the day Phyl's hair went up it seemed to Richard that a new person hadcome to live with them. Phyl had suddenly turned into a young woman--andsuch a young woman! He had never considered her looks before, to young menof his age and temperament girls in pigtails are, as far as the manhood inthem is concerned, little more and sometimes less than things. But Phylwith her hair up was not to be denied, and had he not been philanderingafter Frances Rhett, and had Phyl been a total stranger suddenly seen, itis quite possible that a far warmer feeling than admiration might havebeen the result. As it was she formed a new interest in life.
He showed her the alterations he was making, slight enough and causinglittle change in the general plan of the garden.
"I scarcely like doing anything," said he, "but that new walk will be noend of an improvement, and it will save that bit of grass which is beingtrodden to death by people crossing it, then there's all those bushes bythe gate, they're going, those behind the tree,--a little space there willmake all the difference in the world."
"Behind the magnolia?"
"Yes."
"I wish you wouldn't," said Phyl.
"Why?"
"Because they have been there always and--well, look!"
She led the way behind the tree, pushed the bushes aside and disclosed theseat.
She no longer felt that she was betraying a secret. Her experience atGrangersons had in some way made Vernons seem to her now really her home,and Richard Pinckney closer to her in relationship.
"Why, how did you know that was there?" said Richard. "I've never seenit."
"Juliet Mascarene used to sit there with--with some one she was in lovewith. I found some of her old letters and they told about it--see, it's alittle arbour, used to be, though it's all so overgrown now."
"Juliet," said he. "That was the girl who died. I have heard Aunt Mariatalk about her and she keeps her room just as it used to be. Who was thesomebody?"
"It was a Mr. Rupert Pinckney."
"I knew there was a love story of some sort connected with her, but Inever worried about the details. So they used to come and sit here."
"Yes, he'd come to the gate at night and she'd meet him. Her people didnot want her to marry him and so they had to meet in secret."
"That was a long time ago."
"Before you were born," said Phyl.
He looked at her.
"Aunt is always saying how like you are to her," said he, "but she's madon family likenesses, and I never thought of it. It may be a want in mebut I've never taken much interest in dead relatives; but somehow, findingthis little place tucked away here gives one a jog. It's like finding anest in a tree. How long have you known of it?"
"Oh, some time. I found a bundle of her old letters--" she paused. RichardPinckney had taken his place on the little seat, just as one sits down inan armchair to see if it is comfortable, and was leaning back amidst thebush branches.
"This is all right," said he, "sit down, there's lots of room--you foundher letter, tell us all about it."
Phyl sat down and told the little story. It seemed to interest him.
"The Pinckneys lost money," said he, "and that's why the old Mascarenebirds were set against her marrying him, I suppose. Makes one wild thatsort of thing. What right have people to interfere?"
"Money seems everything in this world," said Phyl.
"It's not--it seems to be, but it's not. Money can't buy happiness afterone is grown up. You remember I told you that over in Ireland; when candyand fishing rods mean happiness money is all right--after that money isuseful enough, but it's the making of it and not the spending it thatcounts,--that and a lot of things that have nothing to do with money. Ifthe Mascarenes hadn't been fools they'd have seen that a poor man withkick in him--and the Pinckneys always had that--was as good as a rich man,and those two might have got married."
"No," said Phyl, "they never could have got married, he had to die. He waskilled, you know, at the beginning of the war."
"You're a fatalist."
"Well, things happen."
"Yes, but you can stop them happening very often."
"How?"
"Just by willing it."
"Yes," said Phyl meditatively, "but how are you to use your will againstwhat comes unexpectedly. Now that telegram yesterday morning took me toGrangersons with Miss Pinckney. Suppose--suppose I had broken my leg or,say, fallen into a well there and got drowned--that would have beenFate."
"No," said Pinckney, "carelessness, the telegram would not have drownedyou, but your carelessness in going too close to the well."
"Suppose," said Phyl, "instead o
f that, Mr. Silas Grangerson had shot meby accident with a gun--the telegram would have brought me to that withoutany carelessness of mine."
"No, it couldn't," said Pinckney lightly, "it would still have been yourown fault for going near such a hare-brained scamp. Oh, I'm only joking,what I really mean is that nine times out of ten the thing people callFate is nothing more than want of foresight."
"And the tenth time it is Fate," said Phyl rising.