CHAPTER VI
One bright morning three days later, as Phyl was crossing Meeting Streetnear the Charleston Hotel, whom should she meet but Silas.
Silas in town get up, quite a different looking individual from the Silasof Grangersons, dressed in perfectly fitting light grey tweed, a figurealmost condoning one for the use of that old-time, half-discredited word"Elegant."
"There you are," said Silas, his face lighting up. "I thought it wouldn'tbe long before I met you. Meeting Street is like a rabbit run, and Ireckon the whole of Charleston passes through it twice a day."
His manner was genuinely frank and open, and he seemed to have completelyforgotten the incident of the kissing. Phyl said nothing for a moment; shefelt put out, angry at having been caught like a rabbit, and not overpleased at being compared to one.
Then she spoke freezingly enough:
"I don't know much about the habits of Charleston; you will not find _me_here every day. I have only been out twice here alone and--I'm in ahurry."
"Why, what's the matter with you?" cried Silas in a voice ofastonishment.
"Nothing."
"But there is, you're not angry with me, are you?"
"Not in the least," replied the other, quite determined to avoid beingdrawn into explanations.
"Well, that's all right. You don't mind my walking with you a bit?"
"No!"
"I only came here last night, and I'm putting up at the Charleston," saidSilas. "Of course there are a lot of friends I could stay with but Ialways prefer being free; one is never quite free in another person'shouse; for one thing you can't order the servants about, though, upon myword, now-a-days one can't do that, much, anywhere."
"I suppose not," said Phyl.
The fact was being borne in upon her that Silas in town was a differentperson from Silas in the country, or seemed so; more sedate and moreconventional. She also noticed as they walked along that he was saluted bya great many people, and also, before she had done with him that morning,she noticed that the leery, impudent looking, coloured folk seemed to comeunder a blight as they passed him, giving him the wall and yards to spare.It was as though the impersonification of the blacksnake whip were walkingwith her as well as a most notoriously dangerous man, a man who wouldstrike another down, white or coloured, for a glance, not to say a word.
She had come out on business, commissioned by Miss Pinckney to purchase aball of magenta Berlin wool. Miss Pinckney still knitted antimacassars,and the construction of antimacassars is impossible without Berlinwool--that obsolete form of German Frightfulness.
She bestowed the things on poor folk to brighten their homes.
When Phyl went into the store to buy the wool Silas waited outside, andwhen she came out they walked down the street together.
She had intended returning straight home after making her purchase butthey were walking now not towards Vernons but towards the Battery.
"What do you do with yourself all day?" asked Silas, suddenly breakingsilence.
"Oh, I don't know," she replied, "nothing much--we go out for drives."
"In that old basket carriage thing?"
"With Miss Pinckney."
"I know, I've seen her often--what else do you do?"
"Oh, I read."
"What do you read?"
"Books."
"Doesn't Pinckney ever take you out?"
"No, I don't go out much with Mr. Pinckney; you see, he's generally sobusy."
Silas sniffed. They had reached the Battery and were standing looking overthe blue water of the harbour. The day was perfect, dreamy, heavenly, warmand filled with sea scents and harbour sounds; scarcely a breath of windstirred across the water where a three-master was being towed to hermoorings by a tug.
"She's coming up to the wharves," said Silas. "They steer by the spire ofSt. Philips, the line between there and Fort Sumpter is all deep water.How'd you like to be a sailor?"
"Wouldn't mind," said Phyl.
"How'd you like to take a boat--I mean a decent sized fishing yawl and gooff round the world, or even down Florida way? Florida's fine, you don'tknow Florida, it's got two coasts and it's hard to tell which is the best.From Indian River right round and up to Cedar Keys there's all sorts offishing, and you can camp out on the reefs; one cooks one's own food andyou can swim all day. There's tarpon and barracuda and sword fish, andnights when there's a moon you could see to read a book."
"How jolly!"
"Let's go there?"
"How do you mean?"
"Oh, just you and I. I'm fed up with everything. We could have a boatmanto help sail and steer."
He spoke lightly and laughingly, and without much enthusiasm and as thoughhe were talking to some one of his own sex, and Phyl, not knowing how totake him, said nothing.
He went on, his tone growing warmer.
"I'm not joking, I'm dead sick of Grangersons and Charleston, and I reckonyou are too--aren't you?"
"No."
"You may think so, but you are, all the same, without knowing it."
"I think you are talking nonsense," said Phyl hurriedly, fighting againsta deadly sort of paralysis of mind such as one may suppose comes upon themind of a bird under the spell of a serpent.
"No one could be kinder than Miss Pinckney, and so no one could be happierthan I am. I love Vernons."
"All the same," said Silas, "you are not really alive there. It's the lifeof a cabbage, must be, there's only you and Maria and--Pinckney. Maria isa decent old sort but she's only a woman, and as for Pinckney--he doesn'tcare for you."
This statement suddenly brought Phyl to herself. It went through her likea knife. She had ceased to think of Richard Pinckney in any way but as afriend. At one time, during the first couple of days at Vernons, her hearthad moved mysteriously towards him; the way he had connected himselfthrough Prue's message with the love story of Juliet had drawn her towardshim, but that spell had snapped; she was conscious only of friendlinesstowards Richard Pinckney. Why, then, this sudden pain caused by Silas'swords?
"How do you know?" she flashed out. "What right have you to dare--" Shestopped.
The blaze of her anger seemed to Silas evidence that she cared forPinckney.
"You're in love with him," said he, flying out. The bald and brutalstatement took Phyl's breath from her. She turned on him, saw the anger inhis face, and then--turned away.
His state of mind condoned his words. To a woman a blow received from thepassion she has roused is a rude sort of compliment, unlike othercompliments it is absolutely honest.
"I am in love with no one," said she; "you have no right to say suchthings--no right at all--they are insulting."
A gull, white as snow, came flitting by and wheeled out away over theharbour; as her eyes followed it he stood looking at her, his anger gone,but his mind only half convinced by her feeble words.
"I didn't mean to insult you," he said; "don't let us quarrel. When I'm ina temper I don't know what I say or do--that's the truth. I want to haveyou all for myself, have ever since the first moment I saw you over thereat Grangersons."
"Don't," said Phyl. "I can't listen to you if you talk like that--Pleasedon't."
"Very well," said Silas.
The quick change that was one of his characteristics showed itself in hisaltered voice. His was a mind that seemed always in ambush, darting out onpredatory expeditions and then vanishing back into obscurity.
They turned away from the sea front and began to retrace their steps,silently at first, and then little by little falling into ordinaryconversation again as though nothing had happened.
Silas knew every corner of Charleston, and the history of every corner,and when he chose he could make his knowledge interesting. In this mood hewas a pleasant companion, and Phyl, her recent experience almostforgotten, let herself be led and instructed, not knowing that thisarmistice was the equivalent of a defeat.
She had already drawn much closer to him in mind, this companionship andquiet conversation was a
more sure and deadly thing than any kisses orwild words. It would linger in her mind warm and quietly. Put in a woman'smind a pleasant recollection of yourself and you have established a forcewhose activity may seem small, but is in reality great, because of itspermanency.
They did not take a direct line in the direction of Vernons, and sopresently found themselves in front of St. Michael's. The gate of thecemetery was open and they wandered in.
The place was deserted, save by the birds, and the air perfumed by allmanner of Southern growing things. Sun, shadow, silence, and that strangepeace which hangs over the homes of the dead, all were here, ringed in bythe old walls and the faint murmur of the living city beyond.
They walked along the paths, looking at the tombstones, and pausing toread the inscriptions, Phyl gradually entering into that state of mindwherein reality and material things fall out of perspective. The fragrantelusive poetry of death, which can speak in the songs of birds and thescent of flowers in the sunshine and the shade of trees more clearly thanin the voice of man, was speaking to her now.
All these people here lying, all these names here inscribed, all thesewere the representatives of days once bright and now forgotten, love oncesweet and now unknown.
Then, as though something had led or betrayed her to the place, she pausedwhere the graves lay half shadowed by a magnolia, she read the nearestinscription with a little catch of her breath. Then the further one. Theywere the graves of Juliet Mascarene and Rupert Pinckney, the dead loverswho had passed from the world almost together, whose bodies lay side byside in the cold bed of earth.
In a moment the spell of the little arbour was around her again, in amoment the pregnant first impression of Vernons had re-seized her, freshas though the commonplace touch of everyday life had never spoiled it.
It was as though the spirit of Juliet and the spirit of the old house weresaying to her "Have you forgotten us?"
Tears welled to her eyes. Silas standing beside her was saying something,she did not know what. She scarcely heard him.
Misinterpreting her silence, unconscious as an animal of her state of mindand the direction of her thoughts, the man at her side moved towards herslightly, seemed to hesitate, and then, suddenly clasping her by the waistkissed her upon the side of the neck.
Phyl straightened like a bow when the string is released. Then she struckhim, struck him open handed in the face, so that the sound of the blowmight have been heard beyond the wall.
His face blanched so that the mark on it showed up, he took a step back.For a moment Phyl thought he was going to spring upon her. Then hemastered himself, but if murder ever showed itself upon the countenance ofman it showed itself in that half second on the countenance of SilasGrangerson.
"You'll be sorry for that," said he.
"Don't speak to me," said Phyl. "You are horrible--bad--wicked--I willtell Richard Pinckney."
"Do," said Silas. "Tell him also I'll be even with him yet. You're in lovewith him, that's what's the matter with you--well, wait."
He turned on his heel and walked off. He did not look back once. As hevanished from sight Phyl clasped her hands together.
It was as though she had suddenly been shown the real Silas--or rather thesomething light and evil and dangerous, the something inscrutable andallied to insanity that inhabited his mind.
She was not thinking of herself, she was thinking of Richard Pinckney. Shefelt that she had been the unconscious means of releasing against him anevil force. A force that might injure or destroy him.