CHAPTER X
Silas Grangerson came to town on the Wednesday, driving in and reachingthe Charleston Hotel about five o'clock in the afternoon.
The Grangersons scarcely ever used the railway. Silas, often as he hadbeen in Charleston, had never put foot in a street car; even a hiredconveyance was against the prejudices of these gentlemen.
This antagonism towards public means of locomotion was not in the leastthe outcome of snobbishness or pride; they had come from a race of peopleaccustomed to move in a small orbit in their own particular way, anexclusive people, breeders and lovers of horses, a people to whomlocomotion had always meant pride in the means and the method; to take aseat in a stuffy railway car at so much a mile, to grab a ticket andsqueeze into a tram car, to drive in a cab drawn by an indifferent horsewould have been hateful to these people; it was scarcely less so to theirdescendants.
So Silas came to Charleston driving a pair of absolutely matchedchestnuts, a coloured manservant in the Grangerson livery in attendance.
After dinner he strolled into the bar of the hotel, met some friends, madesome bets on the forthcoming races and at eight o'clock retired upstairsto dress.
He was one of the first of the guests to arrive.
The Rhetts' house in Legare Street was about the same size as Vernons andequally old, but it had not the same charm, the garden was much largerthan that at Vernons, but it had not the same touch of the past. Houses,like people, have personalities and the house of the Rhetts had atelephone without resenting the intruder, electric everythings, even to anelevator, modern cookers, modern stoves, everything in a modern way tosave labour and make life easy, and all so cunningly and craftily donethat the air of antiquity was supposed not to be disturbed.
Illusion! Nothing is gained without some sacrifice; you cannot hold thepast and the present in the same hand, the concealed elevator spoke in allthe rooms once its presence was betrayed, the telephone talked--everywherewas evident the use of yesterday as a veneer of to-day.
However that may be, the old house was gay enough to-night with flowersand lights, and Silas, looking better perhaps than he had ever looked inhis life, found himself talking to Frances Rhett with an animation thatsurprised himself.
Frances had never had a chance of leading Silas behind her chariot; tofool with her would have meant an expenditure of time and energy injourneys to Charleston quite beyond his inclination. This aloofnesscoupled with his good looks had set him apart from others.
But to-night he was quite a different being; to-night, in some mysteriousway, he managed to convey the impression, pleasing enough, that he hadcome to see her and her alone.
As they stood together for a moment, he led the talk into Charlestonchannels, asking about this person and that till the folk at Vernons cameon the _tapis_.
"Is it true what I hear, that Richard Pinckney has become engaged to thegirl who is staying there?" asked Silas.
Frances smiled.
"I don't think so," she replied. "Who told you?"
"Upon my word I forget," said he, "but I judged mostly by my owneyes--they seemed like an engaged couple when I saw them last."
New guests were arriving and she had to go forward to help in receivingthem. Silas moved towards her, but in the next moment they had for asnatch of conversation, she did not refer to the subject, nor did he.
The Vernons people were late, so late that when they arrived they were thelast of the guests; dancing was in progress and, on entering the ballroom,Richard Pinckney was treated to the pleasing sight of his _fiancee_whirling in the arms of Silas Grangerson.
Phyl, looking lovely in the simple, rather old-fashioned dress evolved forher by the combined geniuses of Maria Pinckney and Madame Organdie,produced that sensation which can only be evoked by newness, her effectwas instantaneous and profound, it touched not only every one of thesestrangers but also Maria Pinckney and Richard. They had come with her, butit was only in the ballroom that they recognised with whom they had come.
So with a book, a picture, a play, the producer and his friends onlyrecognise its merits fully when it is staged and condemned or praised bythe public.
A _debutante_ fails or succeeds at first glance, and the instantaneoussuccess of Phyl was a record in successes.
And Frances Rhett had to watch it and dance. The Inquisition had itstorments; Society has improved on them, for her victims cannot cry out andthe torments of Frances Rhett were acute. Not that she was troubling muchabout Richard Pinckney and what the poisonous Silas had said; she was notin love with Richard Pinckney, but she was passionately in love withherself. She was the belle of Charleston; had been for the last year; andone of her chief incentives to marriage was an intuitive knowledge thatprestige fades, that the position of principal girl in any society is likethe position of the billiard ball the juggler balances on the end of acue--precarious. She wanted to get married and ring down the curtain on anunspoiled success, and now in a moment she saw herself dethroned.
In a moment. For no jeweller of Amsterdam ever had an eye for the qualityof diamonds surer than the eye of Frances Rhett for the quality of otherwomen's beauty. At the first glance to-night, she saw what others saw,though more clearly than they, that it was the touch of the past that gavePhyl her _cachet_, a something indefinable from yesterday, the lack ofwhich made the other girls, by contrast, seem cheap.
Never could she have imagined that the "red-headed girl at Vernons" couldgain so much from setting, a setting due to the instinct as well as thetaste of "that old Maria Pinckney."
She had always laughed at Maria, as young people sometimes will at theold.
When Richard came up to her a little later on, he found himself coldlyreceived; she had no dances for him except a few at the bottom of theprogramme.
"You shouldn't have been late," said she.
"Well," he said, "it was not my fault. You know what Aunt Maria is, shekept us ten minutes after the carriage was round, and then Phyl wasn'tready."
"She looks ready enough now," said the other, looking at Phyl and thecluster of young men around her. "What delayed her? Was she dyeing herhead? It doesn't look quite so loud as when I saw her last."
"Her head's all right," replied Pinckney, irritated by the manner of theother, "inside and out, and one can't say the same for every one."
Frances looked at him.
"Do you know what Silas Grangerson asked me to-night?" she said.
"No."
"He asked me were you engaged to her."
"Phyl?"
"Miss Berknowles. I don't know her well enough to call her Phyl."
"He asked you that?"
"Yes, said every one was talking of it, and the last time he saw youtogether you looked like an engaged couple the way you were carrying on."
"But he has never seen us together," cried the outraged Pinckney; "thatwas a pure lie."
"I expect he saw you when you didn't see him; anyhow, that's theimpression people have got, and it's not very pleasant for me."
Richard Pinckney choked back his anger. He fell to thinking where Silascould have seen them together.
"I don't know whether he saw us or not," said he, "but I am certain of onething; he never saw us 'carrying on' as you call it; anyhow, I'll have apersonal explanation from Silas to-morrow."
"_Please_ don't imagine that I object to your flirting with any one youlike," said Frances with exasperating calm. "If you have a taste for thatsort of thing it is your own business."
Pinckney flushed.
"I don't know if you _want_ to quarrel with me," said he, "if you do, sayso at once."
"Not a bit," she replied, "you know I never quarrel with any one, it's badform for one thing and it is waste of energy for another."
A man came up to claim her for the next dance and she went off with him,leaving Pinckney upset and astonished at her manner and conduct.
It was their first quarrel, the first result of their engagement. Franceshad seemed all laziness and honey up to this; like man
y another woman shebegan to show her real nature now that Pinckney was secured.
But it was not an ordinary lovers' quarrel; her anger had less to do withRichard Pinckney than with Phyl. Her hatred of Phyl, big as a baobab tree,covered with its shadow Vernons, Miss Pinckney, and Richard.
He was part of the business of her dethronement.
Richard wandered off to where Maria Pinckney was seated watching thedancers.
"Why aren't you dancing?" asked she.
"Oh, I don't know," he replied. "I'm not keen on it and there are loads ofmen."
Miss Pinckney had watched him talking to Frances Rhett and she had drawnher own deductions, but she said nothing. He sat down beside her. He hadbeen wanting to tell her of his engagement for a long time past, but hadput it off and put it off, waiting for the psychological moment. MariaPinckney was a very difficult person to fit into a psychological moment.
"I want to tell you something," said he. "I'm engaged to Frances Rhett."
"Engaged to be married to her?"
"Yes."
Miss Pinckney was dumb.
What she had always dreaded had come to pass, then.
"You don't congratulate me?"
"No," she replied. "I don't."
Then, all of a sudden, she turned on him.
"Congratulate you! If I saw you drowning in the harbour, would you expectme to stand at the Battery waving my hand to you and congratulating you?No, I don't congratulate you. You had the chance of being happy with themost beautiful girl in the world, and the best, and you've thrown it awayto pick up with _that_ woman. Phyl would have married you, I know it, shewould have made you happy, I know it, for I know her and I know you. Nowit's all spoiled."
He rose to his feet. It was the first time in his life that he had seenMaria Pinckney really put out.
"I'll talk to you again about it," said he. Then he moved away.
He had the pleasure of watching Frances dancing the next waltz with SilasGrangerson, and Silas had the pleasure of watching him as he stood talkingto one of the elderly ladies and looking on.
Silas's rabbit trap was in reality a very simple affair, it was a plan topick a quarrel with Richard through Frances, if possible; to make theimperturbable Pinckney angry, knowing well how easily an angry man can beinduced to make a fool of himself. To keep cool and let Richard do theshouting.
Unfortunately for Silas, the sight of Phyl in all her beauty had raisedhis temperature far above the point of coolness. There were moments whenhe was dancing, when he could have flung Frances aside, torn Phyl from thearms of her partner and made off with her through the open window.
This dance was a deadly business for him. It was the one thing needed tocap and complete the strange fascination this girl exercised upon hismind, his imagination, his body. It was only now that he realised thatnothing else at all mattered in the world, it was only now that hedetermined to have her or die.
Silas was of the type that kills under passion, the type that, unable tohave, destroys.
Preparing a trap for another, he himself had walked into a trapconstructed by the devil, stronger than steel.
Yet he never once approached or tried to speak to Phyl. He fed on her at adistance. Fleeting glimpses of the curves of her figure, the Titian red ofher hair, the face that to-night might have turned a saint from his vows,were snatched by him and devoured. He would not have danced with her if hecould. To take her in his arms would have meant covering her face withkisses. Nor did he feel the least anger against the men with whom shedanced. All that was a sham and an unreality, they were shadows. He andPhyl were the only real persons in that room.
Later on in the evening, Richard Pinckney, tired with the lights and thenoise, took a stroll in the garden.
The garden was lit here and there with fairy lamps and there were coignsof shadow where couples were sitting out chatting and enjoying the beautyof the night.
The moon was nearing the full and her light cut the tree shadowsdistinctly on the paths. Passing a seat occupied by one of the sitting outcouples, Pinckney noticed the woman's fan which her partner was playingwith; it was his own gift to Frances Rhett. The man was Silas Grangersonand the woman was Frances. They were talking, but as he passed them theirvoices ceased.
He felt their eyes upon him, then, when he had got twenty paces or soaway, he heard Frances laugh.
He imagined that she was laughing at him. Already angry with Silas, hehalted and half turned, intending to go back and have it out with him,then he thought better of it and went his way. He would deal with Silaslater and in some place where he could get him alone or in the presence ofmen only. Pinckney had a horror of scenes, especially in the presence ofwomen.
Twenty minutes later he had his opportunity. He was crossing the hall fromthe supper room, when he came face to face with Silas. They were alone.
"Excuse me," said Richard Pinckney, halting in front of the other, "I wanta word with you."
"Certainly," answered Silas, guessing at once what was coming.
"You made some remarks about me to Miss Rhett this evening," went on theother. "You coupled my name with the name of a lady in a mostunjustifiable manner and I want your explanation here and now."
"Who was the lady?" asked Silas, seemingly quite unmoved.
"Miss Berknowles."
"In what way did I couple your name with her, may I ask?"
"No, you mayn't." Richard had turned pale before the calm insolence of theother. "You know quite well what you said and if you are a gentleman youwill apologise-- If you aren't you won't and I will deal with you inCharleston accordingly."
Phyl was at that moment coming out of the supper room with young ReggieCalhoun--the same who, according to Richard that morning at breakfast longago, was an admirer of Maria Pinckney.
She saw the two men, in profile, facing one another, and she saw Silas'sright hand, which he was holding behind his back, opening and shuttingconvulsively.
She saw the blow given by Pinckney, she saw Silas step back and the knifewhich he always carried, as the wasp carries its sting, suddenly in hishand.
Then she was gripping his wrist.
Face to face with madness for a moment, holding it, fighting eye to eye.
Had she faltered, had her gaze left his for the hundredth part of asecond, he would have cast her aside and fallen upon his prey.
It was her soul that held him, her spirit--call it what you will, thesomething that speaks alone through the eye.
Calhoun and Pinckney stood, during that tremendous moment, stricken,breathless, without making the slightest movement. They saw she washolding him by the power of her eye alone; so vividly did this fact strikethem that for a dazed moment it seemed to them that the battle was nottheirs, that the contest was beyond the earthly plane, that this was nostruggle between human beings, but a battle between sanity and madness.
Its duration might have been spanned by three ticks of the great old clockthat stood in the corner of the hall telling the time.
Then came the ring of the knife falling on the floor. It was like thebreaking of a spell. Silas, white and bewildered-looking as a man suddenlyawakened from sleep, stood looking now at his released hand as though itdid not belong to him, then at Pinckney, and then at Phyl who had turnedher back upon him and was tottering as though about to fall. Pinckney,stepping forward, was about to speak, when at that moment the door of thesupper room opened and a band of young people came out chatting andlaughing.
Calhoun, who was a man of resource, kicked the knife which slithered awayunder one of the seats. Phyl, recovering herself, walked away towards thestairs; Silas without a word, turned and vanished from sight past thecurtain of the corridor that led to the cloakroom.
Calhoun and Pinckney were left alone.
"What are you going to do?" asked Calhoun.
"I am at his disposal," replied the other. "I struck him."
"Struck him, damnation! He drew a knife on you; he ought to be hoofed outof the club; he'd have had you only f
or that girl. I never saw anything sosplendid in my life."
"Yes," said Pinckney, "she saved my life. He was clean mad, but thank Godno one knows anything about it and we avoided a scene. Say nothing to anyone unless he wants to push the matter further. I am quite at hisdisposal."
PART IV