diff options
Diffstat (limited to '26986.txt')
| -rw-r--r-- | 26986.txt | 8937 |
1 files changed, 8937 insertions, 0 deletions
diff --git a/26986.txt b/26986.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..fc6fd85 --- /dev/null +++ b/26986.txt @@ -0,0 +1,8937 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Ghost Girl, by H. De Vere Stacpoole + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: The Ghost Girl + +Author: H. De Vere Stacpoole + +Release Date: October 21, 2008 [EBook #26986] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE GHOST GIRL *** + + + + +Produced by Roger Frank and the Online Distributed +Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net + + + + + + + + + +THE GHOST GIRL + + + + +BY THE SAME AUTHOR + +Sea Plunder $1.30 net +The Gold Trail $1.30 net +The Pearl Fishers $1.30 net +The Presentation $1.30 net +The New Optimism $1.00 net +Poppyland $2.00 net + +The Poems of Francois Villon +Translated by +H. DE VERE STACPOOLE + +Boards $3.00 net +Half Morocco $7.50 net + + + + +THE GHOST GIRL + +BY +H. DE VERE STACPOOLE + +AUTHOR OF +"THE MAN WHO LOST HIMSELF," "SEA PLUNDER," +"THE PEARL FISHERS," "THE GOLD TRAIL," ETC. + +NEW YORK: JOHN LANE COMPANY +LONDON: JOHN LANE, THE BODLEY HEAD +TORONTO: S. B GUNDY--MCMXVIII + + + + +Copyright, 1918 +By JOHN LANE COMPANY + +PRESS OF +VAIL-BALLOU COMPANY +BINGHAMTON, N. Y. +U. S. A. + + + + +THE GHOST GIRL + +PART I + + + + +CHAPTER I + + +It was a warm, grey, moist evening, typical Irish weather, and Miss +Berknowles was curled up in a window-seat of the library reading a book. +Kilgobbin Park lay outside with the rooks cawing in the trees, miles of +park land across which the dusk was coming, blotting out all things from +Arranakilty to the Slieve Bloom Mountains. + +The turf fire burning on the great hearth threw out a rich steady glow +that touched the black oak panelling of the room, the book backs, and the +long-nosed face of Sir Nicholas Berknowles "attributed to Lely" and +looking down at his last descendant from a dusty canvas on the opposite +wall. + +The girl made a prettier picture. Red hair when it is of the right colour +is lovely, and Phylice Berknowles' hair was of the right red, worn in a +tail--she was only fifteen--so long that she could bite the end with ease +and comfort when she was in a meditative mood, a habit of perdition that +no schoolmistress could break her of. + +She was biting her tail now as she read, up to her eyes in the marvellous +story of the Gold Bug, and now, unable to read any more by the light from +the window, she came to the fire, curled herself on the hearthrug and +continued the adventures of the treasure-seekers by the light of the +burning turf. + +What a pretty face it was, seen by the full warm glow of the turf, and +what a perfectly shaped head! It was not the face and head of a Berknowles +as you could easily have perceived had you compared it with the portraits +in the picture gallery, but of a Mascarene. + +Phyl's mother had been a Mascarene, a member of the old, adventurous +family that settled in Virginia when Virginia was a wilderness and spread +its branches through the Carolinas when the Planter was king of the South. +Red hair had run among the Mascarenes, red hair and a wild spirit that +brooked no contradiction and knew no fear. Phyl had inherited something of +this restless and daring spirit. She had run away from the Rottingdean +Academy for the Daughters of the Nobility and Gentry where she had been +sent at the age of twelve; making her way back to Ireland like a homing +pigeon, she had turned up one morning at breakfast time, quite unshaken by +her experiences of travel and with the announcement that she did not like +school. + +Had her mother been alive the traveller would have been promptly returned, +but Phyl's father, good, easy man, was too much taken up with agrarian +disputes, hunting, and the affairs of country life to bother much about +the small affair of his daughter's future and education. He accepted her +rejection of his plans, wrote a letter of apology to the Rottingdean +Academy, and hired a governess for her. She wore out three in eighteen +months, declared herself dissatisfied with governesses and competent to +finish the process of educating and polishing herself. + +This she did with the aid of all the books in the library, old Dunn, the +rat-catcher of Arranakilty, a man profoundly versed in the habits of +rodents and birds, Larry the groom, and sundry others of low estate but +high intelligence in matters of sport and woodcraft. + +Now it might be imagined from the foregoing that hardihood, +self-assertion, and other unpleasant characteristics would be indicated in +the manner and personality of this lover of freedom and rebel against +restraint. Not at all. She was a most lovable and clinging person, when +she could get hold of anything worth clinging to, with a mellifluous Irish +voice at once soothing and distracting, a voice with pockets in it but not +a trace of a brogue or only the very faintest suspicion. Yet when she +spoke she had the Irish turn of words and she used the word "sure" in a +manner strange to the English. + +She had reached the point in the "Gold Bug" where Jupp is threatening to +beat Legrand, when, laying the book down beside her on the hearthrug, she +sat with her hands clasping her knees and her eyes fixed on the fire. + +The tale had suddenly lost interest. She was thinking of her dead father, +the big, hearty man who had gone to America only eight weeks ago and who +would never return. He had gone on a visit to some of his wife's people, +fallen ill, and died. + +Phyl could not understand it at all. She had cried her heart out amongst +the ruins of her little world, but she could not understand why it had +been ruined, or what her father had done to be killed like that, or what +she had done to deserve such misery. The Reverend Peter Graham of +Arranakilty could explain nothing about the matter to her understanding. +She nearly died and then miraculously recovered. Acute grief often ends +like that, suddenly. The mourner may be maimed for life but the sharpness +of the pain of that dreadful, dreadful disease is gone. + +Phyl found herself one morning discussing rats with old Dunn, asking him +how many he had caught in the barn and taking a vague sort of interest in +what the old fellow was saying; books began to appeal to her again and the +old life to run anew in a crippled sort of way. Then other things +happened. Mr. Hennessey, the family lawyer, who had been a crony of her +father's and who had known her from infancy, came down to Kilgobbin to +arrange matters. + +It seemed that Mr. Berknowles before dying had made a will and that the +will was being brought over from the States by Mr. Pinckney, his wife's +cousin in whose house he had died. + +"I'm sure I don't know what the chap wants coming over with it for," said +Mr. Hennessey. "He said it was by your father's request he was coming, but +it's a long journey for a man to take at this season of the year--and I +hope the will is all right." + +There was an implied distrust in his tone and an antagonism to Mr. +Pinckney that was not without its effect on Phyl. + +She disliked Mr. Pinckney. She had never seen him but she disliked him all +the same, and she feared him. She felt instinctively that this man was +coming to make some alteration in her way of life. She did not want any +change, she wanted to go on living just as she was with Mrs. Driscoll the +housekeeper to look after her and all the old servants to befriend her and +Mr. Hennessey to pay the bills. + +Mr. Hennessey was in the house now. He had come down that morning from +Dublin to receive Mr. Pinckney, who was due to arrive that night. + +Phyl, sitting on the hearthrug, was in the act of picking up her book when +the door opened and in came Mr. Hennessey. + +He had been out in the grounds overlooking things and he came to the fire +to warm his hands, telling Phyl to sit easy and not disturb herself. Then, +as he held a big foot to the warmth he talked down at the girl, telling +her of what he had been about and the ruination Rafferty was letting the +greenhouses go to. + +"Half-a-dozen panes of glass out--and 'I've no putty,' says he. 'Putty,' +said I to him, 'and what's that head of yours made of?' The stoves are all +out of order and there's a hole in one of the flues I could get my thumb +in." + +"Rafferty's awfully good to the dogs," said Phyl in her mellow voice, so +well adapted for intercession. "He may be a bit careless, but he never +does forget to feed the animals. He's got the chickens to look after, too, +and then there's the beagles, he knows every dog in the pack and every dog +knows him--oh, dear, what's the good of it all!" + +The thought of the beagles had brought up the vision of their master who +would never hunt with them again. Her voice became tinged with melancholy +and Hennessey changed the subject, taking his seat in one of the armchairs +that stood on either side of the fireplace. + +He was a big, loosely-made man, an easy going man with a kind heart who +would have come to financial disaster long ago only for his partner, +Niven. + +"He's almost due to be here by now," said he, taking out his watch and +looking at it, "unless the express from Dublin is late." + +"What'll he be like, do you think?" said Phyl. + +"There's no saying," replied Mr. Hennessey. "He's an American and I've +never had much dealings with Americans except by letter. By all accounts +they are sharp business men, but I daresay he is all right. The thing that +gets me is his coming over. Americans don't go thousands of miles for +nothing, but if it's after any hanky-panky business about the property, +maybe he'll find Jack Hennessey as sharp as any American." + +"He's some sort of a relation of ours," said Phyl. "Father said he was a +sort of cousin." + +"On your mother's side," said Hennessey. + +"Yes," said Phyl. Then, after a moment's pause, "D'you know I've often +thought of all those people over there and wondered what they were like +and how they lived--my mother's people. Father used to talk of them +sometimes. He said they kept slaves." + +"That was in the old days," said Hennessey. "The slaves are all gone long +ago. They used to have sugar plantations and suchlike, but the war stopped +all that." + +"It's funny," said Phyl, "to think that my people kept slaves--my mother's +people--Oh, if one could only see back, see all the people that have gone +before one so long ago-- Don't you ever feel like that?" + +Mr. Hennessey never had; his forebears had been liquor dealers in Athlone +and he was content to let them lie without a too close inquisition into +the romances of their lives. + +"Mr. Hennessey," said Phyl, after a moment's silence, "suppose Father has +left Mr. Pinckney all his money--what will become of me?" + +"The Lord only knows," said Hennessey; "but what's been putting such +fancies in your head?" + +"I don't know," replied the girl. "I was just thinking. Of course he +wouldn't do such a thing--It's your talking of the will the last time you +were here set me on, I suppose, but I dreamed last night Mr. Pinckney came +and he was an American with a beard like Uncle Sam in _Punch_ last week, +and he said Father had made a will and left him everything--he'd left him +me as well as everything else, and the dogs and all the servants and +Kilgobbin--then I woke up." + +"Well, you were dreaming nonsense," said the practical Hennessey. "A man +can't leave his daughter away from him, though I'm half thinking there's +many a man would be willing enough if he could." + +Phyl raised her head. Her quick ear had caught a sound from the avenue. +Then the crash of wheels on gravel came from outside and her companion, +rising hurriedly from his chair, went to the window. + +"That's him," said the easy-speaking Hennessey. + + + + +CHAPTER II + + +He left the room and Phyl, rising from the hearthrug, stood with her hand +on the mantelpiece listening. + +Hennessey had left the door open and she could hear a confused noise from +the hall, the sound of luggage being brought in, the bustle of servants +and a murmur of voices. + +Then a voice that made her start. + +"Thanks, I can carry it myself." + +It was the newcomer's voice, he was being conducted to his room by +Hennessey. It was a cheerful, youthful voice, not in the least suggestive +of Uncle Sam with the goatee beard as depicted by the unimaginative artist +of _Punch_. And it was a voice she had heard before, so she fancied, but +where, she could not possibly tell--nor did she bother to think, +dismissing the idea as a fancy. + +She stood listening, but heard nothing more, only the wind that had risen +and was shaking the ivy outside the windows. + +Byrne, the old manservant, came in and lit the lamps and then after a few +minutes Hennessey entered. He looked cheerful. + +"He seems all right and he'll be down in a minute," said the lawyer; "not +a bit of harm in him, though I haven't had time to tackle him over money +affairs." + +"How old is he?" asked the girl. + +"Old! Why, he's only a boy, but he's got all a man's ways with him--he's +American, they're like that. I've heard say the American children order +their own mothers and fathers about and drive their own motor-cars and +gamble on the Stock Exchange." He pulled out his watch and looked at it; +it pointed to ten minutes past seven; then he lit a cigar and sat smoking +and smoking without a word whilst Phyl sat thinking and staring at the +fire. They were seated like this when the door opened and Byrne shewed in +Mr. Pinckney. + +Hennessey had called him a boy. He was not that. He was twenty-two years +of age, yet he looked only twenty and you would not have been particularly +surprised if you had been told that he was only nineteen. Good-looking, +well-groomed and well-dressed, he made a pleasant picture, and as he came +across the room to greet Phyl he explained without speaking what Mr. +Hennessey meant about "all the manners of a man." + +Pinckney's manner was the manner of a man of the world of thirty, +easy-going, assured, and decided. + +He shook hands with Phyl as Hennessey introduced them, and then stood with +his back to the fireplace talking, as she took her seat in the armchair on +the right, whilst the lawyer remained standing, hands in pockets and foot +on the left corner of the fender. + +The newcomer did most of the talking. By a downward glance every now and +then he included Phyl in the conversation, but he addressed most of his +remarks to Mr. Hennessey. + +"And you came over by the Holyhead route?" said the lawyer. + +"I did," replied Pinckney. + +"And what did you think of Kingstown?" + +"Well, upon my word, I saw less of it than of a gentleman with long hair +and a bundle of newspapers under his arm who received me like a mother +just as I landed, hypnotised me into buying half-a-dozen newspapers and +started me off for Dublin with his blessing." + +"That was Davy Stevens," said Phyl, speaking for the first time. + +Pinckney's entrance had produced upon her the same effect as his voice. + +You know the feeling that some places produce on the mind when first +seen-- + + "I have been here before + But when or how I cannot tell + I know the lights along the shore--" + +It seemed to her that she had known Pinckney and had met him in some +place, but when or how she could not possibly remember. The feeling had +almost worn off now. It had thrilled her, but the thrill had vanished and +the concrete personality of the man was dominating her mind--and not very +pleasantly. + +There was nothing in his manner or his words to give offence; he was quite +pleasant and nice but--but--well, it was almost as though she had met some +one whom she had known and liked and who had changed. + +The little jump of the heart that his voice caused in her had been +followed by a chill. His manner displeased her vaguely. He seemed so +assured, so every day, so cold. + +It seemed to her that not only did he hold his entertainers at a critical +distance, but that he was somehow wanting in respectfulness to +herself--Lunatic ideas, for the young man could not possibly have been +more cordial towards two utter strangers and as for respectfulness, one +does not treat a girl in a pigtail exactly as one treats a full-grown +woman. + +"Oh, Davy Stevens, was it?" said Pinckney, glancing down at Phyl. "Well, I +never knew the meaning of peaceful persuasion till he had sold out his +stock on me. Now in the States that man would likely have been President +by this--Things grow quicker over there." + +"And what did you think of Dublin?" asked Hennessey. + +"Well," said the young man, "the two things that struck me most about +Dublin were the dirt and the want of taxicabs." + +A dead silence followed this remark. + +Never tell an Irishman that Dublin is dirty. + +Hennessey was dumb, and as for Phyl, she knew now that she hated this +man. + +"Of course," went on the other, "it's a fine old city and I'm not sure +that I would alter it or even brush it up. I should think it's pretty much +the same to-day as when Lever wrote of it. It's a survival of the past, +like Nuremberg. All the same, one doesn't want to live in a survival of +the past--does one?" + +"I've lived there a good many years," said Hennessey; "and I've managed to +survive it. It's not Chicago, of course; it's just Dublin, and it doesn't +pretend to be anything else." + +"Just so," said Pinckney. He felt that he had put his foot in it; +recalling his own lightly spoken words he felt shocked at his want of +tact, and he was casting about for something to say about the sacred city +of a friendly nature but not too fulsome, when Byrne opened the door and +announced that dinner was served. + + + + +CHAPTER III + + +Phyl led the way and they crossed the hall to the dining-room, a room +oak-panelled like the library and warm with the light of fire and +candles. + +Once upon a time there had been high doings in this sombre room, hunt +breakfasts and dinners, rousing songs, laughter, and the toasting of +pretty women--now dust and ashes. + +Here highly coloured gentlemen had slept the sleep of the just, under the +table, whilst the ladies waited in vain for them in the drawing-room, here +Colonel Berknowles had drunk a glass of mulled wine on that black morning +over a hundred-and-thirty years ago when he went out with Councillor +Kinsella and shot him through the lungs by the Round House on the +Arranakilty Road. The diminutive Tom Moore had sung his songs here "put +standing on the table" by the other guests, and the great Dan had held +forth and the wind had dashed the ivy against the windows just as it did +to-night with fist-fulls of rain from the Slieve Bloom Mountains. Byrne +had put the big silver candlesticks on the table in honour of the guest, +and he now appeared bearing in front of him a huge dish with a cover a +size too small for it. + +He placed the dish before Mr. Hennessey and removed the cover, disclosing +a cod's "head and shoulders" whilst a female servant appeared with a dish +of potatoes boiled in their jackets and a tureen of oyster sauce. + +Now a cod's head and shoulders served up like this in the good old Irish +way is, honestly, a ghastly sight. The thing has a countenance and an +expression most forbidding and all its own. + +The appearance of the old dish cover, clapped on by the cook in a hurry in +default of the proper one, had given Phyl a turn and now she was wondering +what Mr. Pinckney was thinking of the fish and the manner of its serving. + +All at once and as if stimulated into life by the presence of the new +guest, all sorts of qualms awoke in her mind. The dining arrangements of +the better class Irish are, and always have been, rather primitive, +haphazard, and lacking in small refinements. Phyl was conscious of the +fact that Byrne had placed several terrible old knives on the table, +knives that properly belonged to the kitchen, and when the second course, +consisting of a boiled chicken, faced by a piece of bacon reposing on a +mat of boiled cabbage, appeared, the fact that one of the dishes was +cracked confronted her with the equally obvious fact that the cook in her +large-hearted way had sent up the chicken with the black legs unremoved. + +It seemed to Phyl's vision--now thoroughly distorted--that the eyes of the +stranger were everywhere, cool, critical, and amused; so obsessed was her +mind with this idea that it could take no hold upon the conversation. +Pinckney was talking of the States; he might just as well have been +talking about Timbuctoo for all the impression he made on her with her +unfortunate head filled with cracked dishes, chickens' black legs, Byrne's +awkwardness and the suddenly remembered crumb-brush. + +It was twenty years old and it had lost half of its bristles in the +service of the Berknowles who had clung to it with a warm-hearted tenacity +purely Irish. + +"Sure, that old brush is a disgrace to the table," was the comment Phyl's +father had made on it once, just as though he were casually referring to +some form of the Inevitable such as the state of the weather. + +The disgrace had not been removed and it was coming to the table, now, in +the hand of Byrne. Phyl watched the crumbs being swept up, she watched the +cloth being taken off and the wine and dessert placed in the good old +fashion, on the polished mahogany, then leaving the gentlemen to their +wine, she retired upstairs and to her bedroom. + +She felt angry with Byrne, with the cook, with Mr. Hennessey and with +herself. Plenty of people had been to dinner at Kilgobbin, yet she had +never felt ashamed of the _menage_ till now. This stranger from over the +water, notwithstanding her dislike for him, had the power to disturb her +mind as few other people had disturbed it in the course of her short life. +Other people had put her into worse tempers, other people had made her +dislike them, but no one else had ever roused her into this feeling of +unrest, this criticism of her belongings, this irritation against +everything including herself. + +Her bedroom was a big room with two windows looking upon the park; it was +almost in black darkness, but the windows shewed in dim, grey oblongs and +she made her way to one of them, took her place in the window-seat and +pressed her forehead against the glass. The rain had ceased and the clouds +had risen, but the moon was not yet high enough to pierce them. Phyl could +just make out the black masses of the distant woods and the movement of +the near fir-trees shaking their tops like hearse plumes to the wind. + +The park always fascinated her when it was like that, almost blotted out +by night. These shapes in the dark were akin to shapes in the fire in +their power over the fancy of the gazer. Phyl as she watched them was +thinking: not one word had this stranger said about her dead father. + +Mr. Berknowles had died in his house and this man had buried him in +Charleston; he had come over here to Ireland on the business of the will +and he had come into the dead man's house as unconcernedly as though it +were an hotel, and he had laughed and talked about all sorts of things +with never a word of Him. + +If Phyl had thought over the matter, she might have seen that, perhaps, +this silence of Pinckney's was the silence of delicacy, not of +indifference, but she was not in the humour to hold things up to the light +of reason. She had decided to dislike this man and when the Mascarenes +came to a decision of this sort they were hard to be shaken from it. + +She had decided to dislike him long before she saw him. + +What Phyl really wanted now was perhaps a commonsense female relative to +stiffen her mind against fancies and give her a clear-sighted view of the +world, but she had none. Philip Berknowles was the last of his race, the +few distant connections he had in Ireland lived away in the south and were +separated from him by the grand barrier that divides Ireland into two +opposing camps--Religion. Berknowles was a Protestant, the others +Papists. + +Phyl, as she sat watching saw, now, the line of the woods strengthen +against the sky; the moon was breaking through the clouds and its light +increasing minute by minute shewed the parkland clearly defined, the +leafless oaks standing here and there, oaks that of a summer afternoon +stood in ponds of shadow, the clumps of hazel, and away to the west the +great dip, a little valley haunted by a fern-hidden river, a glen +mysterious and secretive, holding in its heart the Druids' altar. + +The Druids' altar was the pride of Kilgobbin Park; it consisted of a vast +slab of stone supported on four other stones, no man knew its origin, but +popular imagination had hung it about with all sorts of gruesome fancies. +Victims had been slaughtered there in the old days, a vein of ironstone in +the great slab had become the bloodstain of men sacrificed by the Druids; +the glen was avoided by day and there were very few of the country people +round about who would have entered it by night. Phyl, who had no fear of +anything, loved the place; she had known it from childhood and had been +accustomed to take her worries and bothers there and bury them. + +It was a friend, places can become friends and, sometimes, most terrific +enemies. + +The girl listening, now, heard voices below stairs. Hennessey and his +companion were evidently leaving the dining-room and crossing the hall to +the library. Going out on the landing she caught a glimpse of them as they +stood for a moment looking at the trophies in the hall, then they went +into the library, the door was closed, and Phyl came downstairs. + +In the hall she slipped on a pair of goloshes over her thin shoes, put on +a cloak and hat and came out of the front door, closing it carefully +behind her. + +To put it in her own words, she couldn't stand the house any longer. Not +till this very evening did she feel the great change that her father's +death had brought in her life, not till now did she fully know that her +past was dead as well as her father, and not till she had left the house +did the feeling come to her that Pinckney was to prove its undertaker. + +There was something alike cold and fateful in the impression that this man +had made upon her, an extraordinary impression, for it would be impossible +to imagine anything further removed from the ideas of Coldness and Fate +than the idea of the cheerful and practical Pinckney. However, there it +was, her heart was chilled with the thought of him and the instinctive +knowledge that he was going to make a great alteration in her life. + +She crossed the gravelled drive to the grass sward beyond. The night had +altered marvellously; nearly every vestige of cloud had vanished, blown +away by the wind. The wind and the moon had the night between them and the +air was balmy as the air of summer. + +Phyl turned and looked back at the house with all its windows glittering +in the moonlight, then she struck across the grass now almost dried by the +wind. + +Phyl had something of the night bird in her composition. She had often +been out long before dawn to pick up night lines in the river and she knew +the woods by dark as well as by day. She was out now for nothing but a +breath of fresh air, she did not intend to stay more than ten minutes, and +she was on the point of returning to the house when a cry from the woods +made her pause. + +One might have fancied that some human being was crying out in agony, but +Phyl knew that it was a fox, a fox caught in a trap. She was confirmed in +her knowledge by the barking of its mates; they would be gathered round +the trapped one lending all the help they could--with their voices. + +The girl did not pause to think; forgetting that she had no weapon with +which to put the poor beast out of its misery, and no means of freeing it +without being bitten, she started off at a run in the direction of the +sound, entering the woods by a path that led through a grove of hazel; +leaving this path she struck westward swift as an Indian along the road of +the call. + +Her mother's people had been used to the wilds, and Phyl had more than a +few drops of tracker blood in her veins; better than that, she had a trace +of the wood instinct that leads a man about the forest and makes him able +to strike a true line to the west or east or north or south without a +compass. + +The trees were set rather sparsely here and the moonlight shewed vistas of +withered fern. The wind had fallen, and in the vast silence of the night +this place seemed unreal as a dream. The fox had evidently succeeded in +liberating itself from the trap, for its cries had ceased, cut off all of +a sudden as though by a closing door. + +Phyl paused to listen and look around her. Through all the night from +here, from there, came thin traces of sound, threads fretting the silence. +The trotting of a horse a mile away on the Arranakilty road, the bark of a +dog from near the Round House, the shaky bleat of a sheep from the fold at +Ross' farm came distinct yet diminished almost to vanishing point. It was +like listening to the country sounds of Lilliput. With these came the +vaguest whisper of flowing water, broken now and again by a little shudder +of wind in the leafless branches of the trees. + +"He's out," said Phyl to herself. She was thinking of the fox. She knew +that the trap must be somewhere about and she guessed who had set it. +Rafferty, without a doubt, for only the other day he had been complaining +of the foxes having raided the chickens, but there was no use in hunting +for the thing by this light and without any indication of its exact +whereabouts, so she struck on, determined to return to the house by the +more open ground leading through the Druids' glen. + +She had been here before in the very early morning before sunrise on her +way to the river, Rafferty following her with the fish creel, but she had +never seen the place like this with the moonlight on it and she paused for +a moment to rest and think, taking her seat on a piece of rock by the +cromlech. + +Phyl, despite her American strain, was very Irish in one particular: +though cheerful and healthy and without a trace of morbidness in her +composition, she, still, was given to fits of melancholy--not depression, +melancholy. It is in the air of Ireland, the moist warm air that feeds the +shamrock and fills the glens with soft-throated echoes and it is in the +soul of the people. + +Phyl, seated in this favourite spot of hers, where she had played as a +child on many a warm summer's afternoon, gave herself over to the +moonlight and the spirit of Recollection. + +She had forgotten Pinckney, and the strange disturbance that he had +occasioned in her mind had sunk to rest; she was thinking of her father, +of all the pleasant days that were no more--she remembered her dolls, the +wax ones with staring eyes, dummies and effigies compared with that +mysterious, soulful, sinful, frightful, old rag doll with the inked face, +true friend in affliction and companion in joy, and even more, a Ju-ju to +be propitiated. That thing had stirred in her a sort of religious +sentiment, had caused in her a thrill of worship real, though faint, far +more real than the worship of God that had been cultivated in her mind by +her teachers. The old Druid stone had affected her child's mind in +somewhat the same way, but with a difference. The Ju-ju was a familiar, +she had even beaten and punched it when in a temper; the stone had always +filled her with respect. + +There are some people the doors of whose minds are absolutely closed on +the past; we call them material and practical people; there are others in +which the doors of division are a wee crack open, or even ajar, so that +their lives are more or less haunted by whisperings from that strange land +we call yesterday. + +In some of the Burmese and Japanese children the doors stand wide open so +that they can see themselves as they were before they passed through the +change called death, but the Westerners are denied this. In Phyl's mind as +a child one might suppose that through the doors ajar some recollections +of forgotten gods once worshipped had stolen, and that the power of the +Ju-ju and the Druids' stone lay in their power of focussing those vague +and wandering threads of remembrance. + +To-night this power seemed regained, for she passed from the contemplation +of concrete images into a vague and pleasant state, an absolute idleness +of the intellect akin to that which people call daydreaming. + +With her cloak wrapped round her she sat, elbows on knees and her chin in +the palms of her hands giving herself up to Nothing before starting to +resume her way to the house. + +Sitting like this she suddenly started and turned. Some one had called +her: + +"Phylice!" + +For a moment she fancied that it was a real voice, and then she knew that +it was only a voice in her head, one of those sounds we hear when we are +half asleep, one of those hails from dreamland that come now as the +ringing of a bell that never has rung, or the call of a person who has +never spoken. + +She rose up and resumed her way, striking along the glen to the open park, +yet still the memory of that call pursued her. + +"Phylice!" + +It seemed Mr. Pinckney's voice, it _was_ his voice, she was sure of that +now, and she amused herself by wondering why his voice had suddenly popped +up in her head. She had been thinking about him more than about any one +else that evening and that easily accounted for the matter. Fancy had +mimicked him--yet why did Fancy use her name and clothe it in Pinckney's +voice?--and it was distinctly a call, the call of a person who wishes to +draw another person's attention. + +Pinckney had never called her by her name and she felt almost irritated at +the impertinence of the phantom voice in doing so. + +This same irritation made her laugh when she realised it. Then the idea +that Byrne might lock the hall door before she could get back drove every +other thought away and she began to run, her shadow running before her +over the moonlit grass. + +Half way across the sward, which was divided from the grass land proper by +a Ha-ha, she heard the stable clock striking eleven. + + + + +CHAPTER IV + + +When Phyl withdrew from the dining-room, Hennessey filled his glass with +port, Pinckney, who took no wine, lit a cigarette and the two men drew +miles closer to one another in conversation. + +They were both relieved by the withdrawal of the girl, Hennessey because +he wanted to talk business, Pinckney because her presence had affected him +like a wet blanket. + +His first impression of Phyl had been delightful, then, little by little, +her stiffness and seeming lifelessness had communicated themselves to him. +It seemed to him that he had never met a duller or more awkward +schoolgirl. His mind was of that quick order which requires to be caught +in the uptake rapidly in order to shine. Slowness, coldness, dulness or +hesitancy in others depressed him just as dull weather depressed him. He +did not at all know with what a burning interest his arrival had been +awaited, or the effect that his voice had produced and his first +appearance. He did not know how the dull schoolgirl had weighed him in a +mysterious balance which she herself did not quite comprehend and had +found him slightly wanting. Neither could he tell the extent of the +paralyses produced in that same mind of hers by the cracked china, the old +dish cover, Byrne's awkwardness, and the deboshed crumb-brush. + +He should have kept to his first impression of her, for first impressions +are nearly always right; he should have sought for the reason of so much +charm proving charmless, so much positive attraction proving so negative +in effect. But he did not. He just took her as he found her and was glad +she was gone. + +"And I believe," said Hennessey, "the South is different now. It used to +be all cotton before the war." + +"Oh, no," said Pinckney. "Before the war there was a lot of cotton grown +but we used to grow other things as well, we used to feed ourselves, the +plantation was economically independent. The war broke us. We had to get +money, so we grew cotton as cotton was never grown before; the South +became a great sheet of cotton. You see, cotton is the only crop you can +mortgage, so we grew cotton and mortgaged it. Of course the old-time +planter is gone, everything is done now by companies, and that's the devil +of it--" + +Pinckney was silent for a moment and sat staring before him as though he +were looking at the Past. + +"Companies, you see, don't grow sunflowers to look at, don't grow trees to +shade them, don't make love in a wild and extravagant manner and shoot +other companies for crossing them in their affections--don't play the +guitar, in short. + +"Companies don't breed trotting horses and wear panama hats and put +flowers in their buttonholes. The old Planter used to do these things and +a lot of others. He was a bit of a patriarch in his way, too--well, he's +gone and more's the pity. He's like an old house pulled down. No one can +ever build it again as it was. The South's a big industrial region now. +Not only cotton--ore and coal and machinery. We supply the North and East +with pig-iron, machinery, God knows what. Berknowles was very keen on +Southern industries, regularly bitten. He was talking of selling off here +and coming to settle in Charleston when the illness took him-- and that +reminds me." + +He took a document from his pocket. "This is the will. I've kept it on my +person since I started for here. It's not the thing to trust to a handbag. +It's in correct form, I believe. Temperley, our solicitor, made it out for +him and it leaves everything to the girl when she's twenty--but just read +it and see what you think." + +He lit another cigarette whilst Hennessey, putting on his glasses and +pushing his dessert plate away, spread the will on the table. + +Pinckney watched him as he read it. Hennessey was a new order of being to +him. This easy-going, slipshod, garrulous gentleman, fond of his glass of +wine, contrasted strangely with the typical lawyer of the States. Flushed +and not in his business mood, the man of law cast his eyes over the +document before him, reading bits of it here and there and seeming not +inclined to bother himself by a concentration of his full energies on the +matter. + +Then, suddenly, his eyes became fixed on a paragraph which he re-read as +though puzzled by the meaning of it. Then he looked up at the other over +his glasses. + +"Why, what's this?" said he. "He has made _you_ Phyl's guardian. _You!_" + +Pinckney laughed. + +"Yes, that was the chief thing that brought me over. He has made me her +guardian, till she's twenty, and he made me promise to look after her +interests and see to all business arrangements. He said he had no near +relations in Ireland, and he said that he'd sooner trust the devil than +the few relatives he had, that they were Papists--that is to say Roman +Catholics--he seemed to fear them like the deuce and their influence on +the girl. I couldn't understand him. I've never seen any harm in Roman +Catholics; there are loads in the States and they seem to be just as good +citizens as the others, better, for they seem to stick tighter by their +religion. Anyhow, there you are. Berknowles had them on the brain and +nothing would do him but I must come over to look after the business +myself." + +Hennessey, with his finger on the will, had been staring at Pinckney +during this. He looked down now at the document and then up again. + +"But you--her guardian--why, it's absurd," said he. "You aren't old enough +to be a guardian, why, Lord bless my soul, what'll people be doing next? A +young chap like you to be the guardian of a girl like Phyl--why, it's not +proper." + +"Not only am I to be her guardian," said Pinckney with a twinkle in his +eyes, "but she's to come and live under my roof at Charleston. I promised +Berknowles that--He was dying, you see, and one can refuse nothing to a +dying man." + +Hennessey rose up in an abstracted sort of way, went to the sideboard, +poured himself out a whisky and soda, took a sip, and sat down again. + +"Extraordinary, isn't it?" said Pinckney, tapping the ash off his +cigarette. "All the same, you need not be worried at the impropriety of +the business; there's none, nothing improper could live in the same house +with my aunt, Maria Pinckney. Vernons belongs to her though I live +there." + +"Vernons," put in the other. "What's that?" + +"It's the name of our house in Charleston. It's mine, really, but my +father left it to Maria to live in; it comes to me at her death. I don't +want that house at all. I want her to keep it forever, but it's such a +pleasant old place, I like to live there instead of buying a house of my +own. Vernons isn't exactly a house, it's more like a family +tree--hollow--with all the ancestors inside instead of hanging on the +branches." + +"But why on earth didn't Berknowles make your aunt guardian to the girl?" +asked Hennessey. "There'd have been some sense in that--a middle-aged +woman--" + +"I beg your pardon," said Pinckney, "my aunt is not a middle-aged woman, +she's not fifteen." + +"Not what?" said Hennessey. + +"Not fifteen--in years of discretion, though she's over seventy as time +goes. She has no knowledge at all of what money is or what money +means--she flings it away, doesn't spend it--just flings it away on +anything and everything but herself. I don't believe there's a charity in +the States that hasn't squeezed her, or a beggar-man in the South that +hasn't banked on her. She was sent into the world to grow flowers and look +after stray dogs and be robbed by hoboes; she has been nearly seventy +years at it and she doesn't know she has ever been robbed. She's not a +fool by any manner of means, and she rules the servants at Vernons in the +good old patriarchal way, but she's lost where money is concerned. That's +why Berknowles wanted me to look after the girl's interests. As for +anything else, I guess Maria Pinckney will be the real guardian." + +"Well, I don't know," said Hennessey. He was confused by all these new +ideas shot into his mind suddenly like this after dinner, he could see +that Pinckney was genuine enough, all the same it irritated him to think +that Philip Berknowles should have chosen a youth like this to be second +father to Phyl. What was the matter with himself, Hennessey? Hadn't he a +fine house in Merrion Square and a wife who would have treated the girl +like a daughter? + +"Well, I don't know," said he. "It's not for me to dispute the wishes of a +client, but I've known Phyl since she was born and I've known her father +since we were together at Trinity College and I'd have taken it more +handsome if he'd left the looking after of her to me." + +"I wonder he didn't," said Pinckney. "He spoke of you a good deal to me, +spoke of you as his best friend; all the same he seemed set on the idea of +us taking care of the girl. He fell in love with Charleston and he +cottoned to us; then, of course, there were the family reasons. Phyl's +mother was a Mascarene; my mother was her mother's first cousin. Vernons +belonged to the Mascarenes, my mother brought it to my father as part of +her wedding portion. The Pinckneys' old house was lost to us in the smash +up after the war. So, you see, Phyl ought to be as much at home at Vernons +as I am. Funny, isn't it, how things get mixed up and old family houses +change hands?" + +"And when do you want to take her away?" asked Hennessey. + +"Upon my word, I've never thought of that," replied the other. "I want to +see things settled up here and to go over the accounts with you. +Berknowles said the house had better be let--I should think it would be +easy to find a good tenant--then I want to go to London on business and +get back as quick as possible. She need not come back with me, it would +scarcely give her time to get things ready. There's a Mrs. Van Dusen, a +friend of ours who lives in New York, she's coming over in a month or so +and Phyl might come with her as far as New York. It's all plain sailing +after that." + +"Well," said Hennessey, folding up the will and putting it in his pocket. +"I suppose it's all for the best, but it's hard lines for a man to lose +his best friend and see a good old estate like Kilgobbin taken off to the +States--Oh, you needn't tell me, if Phyl goes out there she's done for as +far as Ireland is concerned. Sure, they never come back, the people that +go there, and if she does come back it'll be with an American husband and +he master of Kilgobbin. I know what America is, it never lets go of the +man or woman it catches hold of." + +"You're not far wrong there," said Pinckney. "You see, life is set to a +faster pace in America than over here and once you learn to step that pace +you feel coming back here as if you were living in a country where people +are hobbled. At least that's my experience. Then the air is different. +There's somehow a feeling of morning in America that goes through the +whole day--almost--here, afternoon begins somewhere about eleven." + +Hennessey yawned, and the two men, rising from the table, left the room +and crossed the hall to the library. + +Here, after a while, Hennessey bade the other good night and departed for +bed, whilst Pinckney, leaning back in his armchair, fell into a lazy and +contemplative mood, his eyes wandering from point to point. + +All this business was very new to him. Pinckney had inherited his father's +brains as well as his money. He had discovered that a large fortune +requires just as much care and attention as a large garden and that a man +can extract just as much interest and amusement and the physical health +that comes from both, out of money-tending as out of flower and vegetable +growing. Knowing all about cotton and nearly everything about wheat, he +managed occasionally to do a bit of speculative dealing without the least +danger of burning his fingers. Self-reliant and self-assured, knowing his +road and all its turnings, he had moved through life up to this with the +ease of a well-oiled and almost frictionless mechanism. + +But here was a new thing of which he had never dreamed. Here was another +destiny suddenly thrust into his charge and another person's property to +be conserved and dealt with. Never, never, did he dream when acceding to +Berknowles' request, of the troubles, little difficulties and causes of +indecision that were preparing to meet him. + +Up till now, one side of his character had been almost unknown to him. He +had been quite unaware that he possessed a conscience most painfully +sensitive with regard to the interests of others, a conscience that would +prick him and poison his peace were he to leave even little things undone +in the fulfilment of the trust he had undertaken so lightheartedly. + +Possessing a keen eye for men he began to recognise now why Berknowles had +not chosen the easy-going Hennessey to look after Phyl and her affairs, +and he guessed, just by the little bit he had seen of Kilgobbin and the +servants, the slipshoddedness and waste going on behind the scenes in the +absence of a master and mistress. + +Pinckney loathed waste as he loathed inefficiency and as he loathed dirt. +They were all three brothers with Drink in his eyes and as he leaned back +in the chair now, his gaze travelling about the room, he could not but +perceive little things that would have brought exclamations from the soul +of a careful housekeeper. The furniture had been upholstered, or rather +re-upholstered in leather some five years ago. There is nothing that cries +out so much against neglect as leather, and the chairs and couch in the +library of Kilgobbin, without exactly crying out, still told their tale. +Some of the buttons were gone, and some of them hung actually by the +thread in the last stage of departure. There was a tiny triangular rent in +the leather of the armchair wherein Phyl had been sitting and another +armchair wanted a castor. The huge Persian rug that covered the centre of +the floor shewed marks left by cigar and cigarette ash, and under a +Jacobean book-case in the corner were stuffed all sorts of odds and ends, +old paper-backed novels, a pair of old shoes, a tennis racquet and a +boxing glove--besides other things. + +Pinckney rose up, went to the book-case and placed his fingers on top of +it, then he looked at his fingers and the bar of dust upon them, brushed +his hand clean and came back to his chair by the fire. He heard the stable +clock striking eleven. The sound of the wind that had been raging outside +all during dinner time had died away and the sounds of the house made +themselves manifest, the hundred stealthy accountable and unaccountable +little sounds that night evolves from an old house set in the stillness of +the country. Just as the night jasmine gives up its perfume to the night, +so does an old house its past in the form of murmurs and crackings and +memories and suggestions. Notwithstanding Dunn's attentions there were +rats alive in the cellars and under the boarding--and mice; the passages +leading to the kitchen premises made a whispering gallery where murderers +seemed consulting together if the scullery window were forgotten and left +open--as it usually was, and boards in the uneven flooring that had been +preparing for the act for weeks and months would suddenly "go off with a +bang," a noise startling in the dead of night as the crack of a pistol, +and produced, heaven knows how, but never by daylight. + +Even Pinckney, who did not believe in ghosts, became aware as he sat now +by the fire that the old house was feeling for him to make him creep, +feeling for him with its old disjointed fingers and all the artfulness of +inanimate things. + +He was aware that Sir Nicholas Berknowles was looking down at him with the +terrible patient gaze of a portrait, and he returned the gaze, trying to +imagine what manner of man this might have been and how he had lived and +what he had done in those old days that were once real sunlit days filled +with people with real voices, hearts, and minds. + +A gentle creak as though a light step had pressed upon the flooring of the +hall brought his mind back to reality and he was rising from his chair to +retire for the night when a sound from outside the window made him sit +down again. It was the sound of a step on the gravel path, a step stealthy +and light, a real sound and no contraption of the imagination. + +The idea of burglars sprang up in his mind, but was dismissed; that was no +burglar's footstep--and yet! He listened. The sound had ceased and now +came a faint rubbing as of a hand feeling for the window followed by the +sharp rapping of a knuckle on the glass. + +"Hullo," cried Pinckney, jumping to his feet and approaching the shuttered +window. "Who's there?" + +"It's me," said a voice. "I'm locked out. Byrne's bolted the front door. +Go to the hall door, will you, please, and let me in?" + +"Phyl," said Pinckney to himself. "Good heavens!" Then to the other, "I'm +coming." + +Byrne had left a lamp lighted in the hall and the guest's candlestick +waiting for him on the table. The lamp was sufficient to show him the +executive side of the big front door that had been nearly battered in in +the time of the Fenians and still possessed the ponderous locks and bars +of a past day when the tenants of Kilgobbin had fought the pikemen of +Arranakilty and Rupert Berknowles had hung seventeen rebels, no less, on +the branches of the big oak "be the gates." + +Pinckney undid bolt and bar, turned the key in the great lock and flung +the door open, disclosing Phyl standing in the moonlight. The contrast +between the forbidding and ponderous door and the charming little figure +against which it had stood as a barrier might have struck him had his mind +been less astonished. As it was he could think of nothing but the +strangeness of the business in hand. + +"Where on earth have you been?" said he. + +"Out in the woods," said Phyl, entering quite unconcerned and removing her +cloak. "A fox got trapped in the woods and I went to let it out and +couldn't find it, then that old fool Byrne locked the door; lucky you were +up. I saw the light in the library shining through a crack in the shutters +and knocked." + +Pinckney was putting up the bar and sliding the bolts. He said nothing. +Had Phyl been another girl, he might have laughed and joked over the +matter, but care of Phyl's well-being was now part of his business in life +and that consideration just checked his speech. There was nothing at all +wrong in the affair, and never for a moment did he dream of making the +slightest remonstrance; still, the unwisdom of a young girl wandering +about in the woods at night after trapped foxes was a patent fact which +disturbed the mind of this guardian unto dumbness. + +Phyl, who was as sensitive to impressions as a radiometer to light, noted +the silence of the other and resented it as she hung up her old hat and +cloak. She knew nothing of the true facts of the case, she looked on +Pinckney as a being almost of her own age, and that he should dare to +express disapproval of an act of hers not concerning him, even by silence, +was an intolerable insult. She knew that she loathed him now.--Prig! + +This was the first real meeting of these two and Fate, with the help of +Irish temper and the Pinckney conscience, was making a fine fiasco of it. + +Phyl, having hung up the hat and coat, turned without a word, marched into +the library and finding the book she had been reading that day, put it +under her arm. + +"Good night," said she as she passed him in the hall. + +"Good night," he replied. + +He watched her disappearing up the stairs, stood for a moment irresolute, +and then went into the library. He knew he had offended her and he knew +exactly how he had offended her. There are silences that can be more +hurting than speech--yet what could he have said? He rummaged in his mind +to find something he might have said and could find nothing more +appropriate than a remark about the weather and the fineness of the night. +Yet a bald and decrepit remark like that would have been as bad almost as +silence, for it would have ignored the main point at issue--the +night-wandering of his ward. + +He sat down again for a moment in the armchair by the fireplace and began +to wrestle with the position in which he found himself. This was a small +business, but if Phyl in the future was to do things that he did not +approve of it would be his plain duty to remonstrate with her. An odious +position for youth to be placed in. How she would loathe and hate him! + +Pinckney, though a man of the world in many ways and a good business man, +was still at heart a boy just as young as Phyl; even in years he was very +little older than she, and the boy side of his mind was in full revolt at +the job set before him by fate. + +Then he came to a resolution. + +"She can do jolly well what she pleases," said he to himself, "without my +interference. Aunt Maria can attend to that. My business will be to look +after her property and keep sharks off it. _I'm_ not going to set up in +business to tell a girl what she ought or oughtn't to do--that's a woman's +job." + +Satisfied with this seeming solution of the difficulty he went to bed. + +Meanwhile, Phyl, having marched off with the book under her arm found, +when she reached her room, that she had forgotten a matchbox, and, too +proud to return to the hall for one, went to bed in the dark. + +She lay awake for an hour, her mind obsessed by thoughts of this man who +had suddenly stepped into her life, and who possessed such a strange power +to disturb her being and fill it with feelings of unrest, irritation and, +strangely enough, a vague attraction. + +The attraction one might fancy the iron to feel for the distant magnet, or +the floating stick for the far-off whirlpool. + +Then she fell asleep and dreamed that they were at dinner and Mr. +Hennessey was waiting at table. Her father was there and, before the dream +converted itself into something equally fatuous she heard Pinckney's +voice, also in the dream; he seemed looking for her in the hall and he was +calling to her, "Phyl--Phyl!" + + + + +CHAPTER V + + +Next morning came with a burst of sunshine and a windy, cloudless sky. +Pinckney, dressing with his window open, could see the park with the rooks +wheeling and cawing over the trees, whilst the warm wind brought into the +room all sorts of winter scents on the very breath of summer. + +This rainy land where the snow rarely comes has all sorts of surprises of +climate and character. Nothing is truly logical in Ireland, not even +winter. That is what makes the place so delightful to some minds and so +perplexing to others. + +Hennessey was staying for a day or two to go over accounts and explain the +working of the estate to Pinckney. + +He was in the hall when the latter came down, and gave him good morning. + +"Where's your mistress?" said Hennessey to old Byrne, as they took their +seats at the breakfast table. + +"Faith, she's been out since six," said Byrne. "She came down threatenin' +to skin Rafferty alive for layin' fox thraps in the woods, then she had a +bite of bread and butter and a cup of tea Norah made for her, and off she +went with Rafferty to hunt out the thraps and take them up. It's little +she cares for breakfast." + +"I was the same way myself when I was her age," said Hennessey to +Pinckney. "Up at four in the morning and out fishing in Dublin Bay--it's +well to be young." + +"Look here," said the young man, as Byrne left the room, "she was out till +eleven last night in the woods; she knocked me up as I was sitting in the +library and I let her in. _I_ don't see anything wrong in the business, +but all the same, it's not a particularly safe proceeding and I suppose a +mother or father would have jawed her--I couldn't. I suppose I showed by +my manner that I didn't approve of her being out so late, for she seemed +in a huff as she went up to bed. My position is a bit difficult, but I'm +hanged if I'm going to do the heavy father or careful mother business. If +she was only a boy, I could talk to her like a Dutch uncle, but I don't +know anything about girls. I wish--" + +Pinckney's wish remained forever unexpressed, for at the moment the door +opened and in came Phyl. + +Her face was glowing with the morning air and she seemed to have forgotten +the business of the night before as she greeted Pinckney and the lawyer +and took her place at the table. + +"Phyl," said the lawyer, half jocularly, "here's Mr. Pinckney been +complaining that you were wandering about all night in the woods, knocking +him up to let you in at two o'clock in the morning." + +Phyl, who was helping herself to bacon, looked up at Pinckney. + +"Oh, you cad," said her eyes. Then she spoke: + +"I came in at eleven. If I had known, I would have called up Byrne or one +of the servants to let me in." + +Pinckney could have slain Hennessey. + +"Good gracious," he said. "_I_ wasn't complaining. I only just mentioned +the fact." + +"The fact that I was out till two," said Phyl, with another upward glance +of scorn. + +"I never said any such thing. I said eleven." + +"It was my loose way of speaking; but, sure, what's the good of getting +out of temper?" put in Hennessey. "Mr. Pinckney wasn't meaning anything, +but you see, Phyl, it's just this way, your father has made him your +guardian." + +"My _what!_" cried the girl. + +"_Oh_, Lord!" said Pinckney, in despair at the blundering way of the +other. Then finding himself again and the saving vein of humour, without +which man is just a leaden figure: + +"Yes, that's it. I'm your guardian. You must on no account go out without +my permission, or cough or sneeze without a written permit--Oh, Phyl, +don't be thinking nonsense of that sort. I _am_ your guardian, it seems, +and by your father's special request, but you are absolutely free to do as +you like." + +"A nice sort of guardian," put in Hennessey with a grin. + +"I am only, really, guardian of your money and your interests," went on +the other, "and your welfare. When you came in last night late, I was a +bit taken aback and I thought--as a matter of fact, I thought it might be +dangerous being out alone in this wild part of the country so late at +night, but I did not want to interfere; you can understand, can't you? +What I want you to get out of your mind is, that I am that odious thing, a +meddling person. I'm not." + +Phyl was very white. She had risen from the table and was at the window. + +Here was her dream come true of the bearded American who had suddenly +appeared to claim her and Kilgobbin and the servants and everything. + +Pinckney had not a beard, but he was an American and he had come to claim +everything. The word guardian carried such a force and weight and was so +filled with fantastic possibilities to the mind of Phyl, that she scarcely +heard his soft words and excuses. + +Phyl had the Irish trick of running away with ideas and embroidering the +most palpable truths with fancies. It was an inheritance from her father, +and she stood by the window now unable to speak, with the word "Guardian" +ringing in her ears and the idea pressing on her mind like an incubus. + +Hennessey had risen up. He was the first to break silence. + +"There's no use in meeting troubles half way," said he vaguely. "You and +Phyl will get along all right when you know each other better. Come out, +the two of you, and we'll go round the grounds and you will be able to see +for yourself the state of the house and what repairs are wanting." + +"One moment," said Pinckney. "I want to tell Phyl something--I'm going to +call you Phyl because I'm your guardian--d'you mind?" + +"No," said Phyl, "you can call me anything you like, I suppose." + +"I'm not going to call you anything I like--just Phyl-- Well, then, I want +to tell you what we have to do. It's not my wishes I have to carry out but +your father's. He wanted to let this house." + +"Let Kilgobbin!" + +"Yes, that is what he said. He wanted to let it to a good tenant who would +look after it till you are of age. I think he was right. You see, you +could not live here all alone, and if the place was shut up it would +deteriorate." + +"It would go to wrack and ruin," said Hennessey. + +"And the servants?" said Phyl. + +"We will look after them," said Pinckney, "the new tenant might take them +on; if not, we'll give them time to get new places." + +"Byrne's been here before I was born," said the girl, with dry lips, "so +has Mrs. Driscoll. They are part of the place; it would ruin their lives +to send them away." + +"Well," said Pinckney, "I don't want to be the ogre to ruin their lives; +you can do anything you like about them. If the new tenant didn't take +them, you might pension them. I want you to be perfectly happy in your +mind and I want you to feel that though I am, so to speak, the guardian of +your money, still, that money is yours." + +She was beginning to understand now that not only was he striving to +soothe her feelings and propitiate her, but that he was very much in +earnest in this business, and crowding through her mind came a great wave +of revulsion against herself. + +Phyl's nature was such that whilst always ready to fly into wrath and +easily moved to bitter resentment, one touch of kindness, one soft word, +had the power to disarm her. + +One soft word from an antagonist had the power to wound her far more than +a dozen words of bitterness. + +Filled now with absolutely superfluous self-reproach, she stood for a +moment unable to speak. Then she said, raising her eyes to his: + +"I am sure you mean to do what is for the best.--It was stupid of me--" + +"Not a bit," said the other, cheerfully. "I want to do the things that +will make you happy--that's all. I'm a business man and I know the value +of money. Money is just worth the amount of happiness it brings." + +"Faith, that's true," said Hennessey, who had taken his seat again and was +in the act of lighting a cigar. + +"When I was a boy," went on the other. "I was always kept hard up by my +father. It was like pulling gum teeth to get the price of a fishing rod +out of him. When I think of all the fun I might have bought with a few +dollars, it makes me wild. You can't buy fun when you get old; you may buy +an opera house or a yacht, but you can't buy the real stuff that makes +life worth living." + +Phyl glanced out of the window at the park, then as though she had found +some inspiration there, she turned to Pinckney. + +"If you don't mind about the money, then why don't you let me live here +instead of letting the place? I can live here by myself and I would be +happy here. I won't be happy if I leave it." + +"Well," said Pinckney, "there's your father's wish, first of all." + +"I'm sure if he knew how I felt, he wouldn't mind," said Phyl mournfully, +turning her gaze again to the park. + +"On top of that," went on Pinckney, "there's--your age. Phyl, it wouldn't +ever do; it's not I that am saying it, it's custom, the world, society." + +Phyl, like the hooked salmon that has taken the gaudy fly, felt a check +and recognised that a Power had her in hand, recognised in the light-going +and fair-speaking Pinckney something of adamant, a will not to be broken +or bent. + +She felt for a moment a revolt against herself for having fallen to the +lure and allowed herself to come to friendly terms with him. Then this +feeling faded a bit. The very young are very weak in the face of +constituted authority--besides, there was always at the back of Pinckney +her father's wish. + +"And then again, on top of that," he went on, "there's the question of +your coming to live with us; your father wished it." + +"In America!" cried Phyl. "Do you mean I am to live in America?" + +"Well, we live there; why not? It's not a bad place to live in--and what +else are you to do?" + +She could not answer him. This time she saw that the bogey man had got her +and no mistake. America to her seemed as far as the moon and far less +familiar. If Pinckney had declared that it was necessary for her to die, +she would have been a great deal more frightened, but the prospect would +not have seemed much more desolate and forbidding and final. + +He saw at once the trouble in her mind and guessed the cause. He had a +rare intuition for reading minds, and it seemed to him he could read +Phyl's as easily as though the outside of her head were clear glass--he +had cause to modify this cocksure opinion later on. + +"Don't worry," he said. "If you don't like America when you see it, you +can come back to Ireland. I daresay we can arrange something; anyhow, +don't let us meet troubles half way." + +"When am I to go?" said Phyl. + +"Sure, Phyl, you can stay as long as you like with us," said Mr. +Hennessey. "The doors of 10, Merrion Square, are always open to you, and +never will they be shut on you except behind your back." + +Pinckney laughed; and a servant coming in to clear the breakfast things, +Hennessey led the way from the room to show Pinckney the premises. + + + + +CHAPTER VI + + +They crossed the hall, and passing through a green-baize covered door went +down a passage that led to the kitchen. + +"This is the housekeeper's room," said Hennessey, pointing to a half open +door, "and the servants' hall is that door beyond. This is the kitchen." + +They paused for a moment in the great old-fashioned kitchen, with an open +range capable of roasting a small ox, one might have fancied. Norah, the +cook, was busy in the scullery with her sleeves tucked up, and under the +table was seated Susie Gallagher, a small and grubby hanger-on engaged in +the task of washing potatoes. The potatoes were beside her on the floor +and she was washing them in a tin basin of water with the help of an old +nail-brush. + +There was a horse-shoe hung up, for luck, on the wall over the range, and +a pile of dinner plates, from last night's dinner and still unwashed, +stood on the dresser, where also stood a half-bottle of Guinness' stout +and a tumbler; an old setter bitch lay before the fire and a jackdaw in a +wicker cage set up a yell at the sight of the visitors, that brought Norah +out of the scullery to receive them, a broad smile on her face and her +arms tucked up in her apron. + +"He always yells like that at the sight of tramps or stray people about," +apologised the cook. "He's better than a watch-dog. Hold your tongue, you +baste; don't you know your misthress when you see her?" + +"Rafferty caught him in the park," said Phyl, "and cut his tongue with a +sixpence so as to make him able to speak." + +They left the kitchen and came into the yard. A big tin can of refuse was +standing by the kitchen door, and on top of all sorts of rubbish, potato +peelings, cabbage stalks and so forth, lay the carcass of a boiled fowl. +It was the fowl they had dined off the night before and it lay there just +as it had gone from the table, that is to say, minus both wings and the +greater part of the breast, but with the legs intact. + +Pinckney stared at this sinful sight. Then he pointed to it. + +"What's that doing there?" he asked. + +"Waitin' to be took away be the stable boy, sor," replied the cook, who +had followed them to the door. "All the rubbish is took away in that ould +can every mornin'." + +"Good God!" said Pinckney under his breath. The expression was shaken out +of him, so to speak, and out of a pocket of his character which had never +been fully explored, of whose existence, indeed, he was not particularly +aware. This Irish expedition was to show him a good many things in life +and in himself of which up to this he had been in ignorance. He had never +been brought face to face with waste, bald waste without a hat on or +covering of any sort, before. + +"Haven't you any poor people about here?" he asked. + +"Hapes, sor." + +Pinckney was on the point of saying something more, but he checked +himself, remembering that in the eyes of the servants he was here in the +position of a guest. + +He followed Hennessey across to the stable yard, where Larry, the groom, +was washing the carriage that had fetched him from the station the night +before. + +"The servants won't eat chicken," said Phyl, in an apologetic way. She had +noted everything and she guessed his thoughts. "They won't eat game +either--and they throw things away if they don't like them--of course, +it's wasteful, but they _do_ give things to the poor. Lots of poor people +come here, every day nearly, but they don't care for scraps--you see, it +_is_ insulting to give a poor person scraps, just as though they were +animals. I remember the cook we had before Norah did it when she came +first, and all the poor people stopped coming to the house. Said she ought +to know better than to offer them the leavings." + +"Cheek!" + +"Well, I don't know," said Phyl. "We've done it for hundreds of years." + +She closed her mouth in a way she had when she did not wish to pursue a +subject further. Despite the fact that she had made friends with Pinckney, +she was galled by his attitude of criticism. Guardian or no guardian, he +was a stranger; relation or no relation, he was a stranger, and what right +had a stranger to dare to come and turn up his nose at the poor people or +make remarks--he hadn't said a word--about the wastefulness of the +servants? + +The redoubtable Rafferty was standing in the yard chewing a straw and +watching Larry at work. + +Rafferty was a man of genius, who had started as a helper and odd job +person, and had risen to the position of factotum. He had ousted the +Scotch gardener and insinuated a relation of his own in his place. There +was scarcely a servant about the estate that was not a relation of +Rafferty's. Philip Berknowles had put up with a lot from Rafferty simply +because Rafferty was an invaluable person in his way when not crossed. +Everything went smoothly when the factotum was not interfered with. Cross +him and there were immediate results ranging from ill-groomed horses to +general unrest. He was a dark individual, half groom, half game-keeper in +dress, a "wicked-looking divil," according to the description of his +enemies, and an exceedingly foxy-looking individual in the eyes of +Pinckney. + +"Rafferty," said Mr. Hennessey, "I want to show this gentleman round. +Let's see the stables." + +Rafferty touched his cap and led the way, showing first the stalls and +boxes where four or five horses were stabled, and then leading the way +through the coach-house to the path from which opened the kitchen +gardens. + +They were immense and walled in with red brick, capable, one might fancy, +of supplying the wants of three or four houses the size of Kilgobbin. + +Pinckney noted this fact, also that the home farm to which the kitchen +gardens led was apparently a prosperous and going little concern, with its +fowls and chickens penned or loose, styes filled with grunting pigs, and +turkeys gobbling and spreading their tails in the sun. + +"Who looks after all this?" asked Pinckney. + +"I do, sor," replied Rafferty. + +"What are the takings?" + +"I beg your pardon, sor?" + +"The profits, I mean. You sell these things, don't you?" + +"Kilgobbin isn't a farm, sor, it's a gintleman's estate." + +Pinckney, not at all set back by this snub, turned and looked the factotum +in the face. + +"Just so," said he, "but I've never heard of gentlemen growing pigs to +look at; peacocks, maybe, but not pigs. However, we'll have another look +at the business later." + +He turned and they went on, Rafferty disturbed in his mind and much put +about by the manner of the other in whom he began to divine something more +than a casual guest, Phyl almost as much put out as Rafferty. + +The idea that the factotum might have been robbing her father right and +left never occurred to her; even if it had, it would not have softened the +fact that a strange hand was at work in her old home turning over things, +inspecting them, holding them up for comment. + +She managed to drop behind as they left the farm yard for the paddocks, +then turning down the yew lane that led back to the house, she ran as +though hounds were after her, reached the house, locked herself in her +bedroom, and flung herself on the bed in a tempest of weeping, dragging a +pillow over her head as if to shield herself from the blows that the world +was aiming at her. + +Phyl, without mother, brothers or sisters, had centred all her affection +on her father and Kilgobbin; the servants, the place itself and all the +things and people about it were part and parcel with her life, and the +death of her father had intensified her love of the place and the people. + +If Pinckney had only known, he might have put the business of the +inspection of the property and the dealing with the servants into other +hands, but Pinckney was young and full of energy and business ability; he +was full of conscientiousness and the determination to protect his ward's +interests; he had scented a rogue in Rafferty, and at this very minute +returning to the house with Hennessey, he was declaring his intention to +make an overhaul of the working of the estate. + +Rafferty was to appear before him and produce his accounts and make +explanations. Mrs. Driscoll was to be examined as to the expenditure, +etc. + +He little knew the hornet's nest into which he was about to poke his +finger. + + + + +CHAPTER VII + + +The grand inquisition began that evening after dinner--Phyl did not appear +at dinner, alleging a headache--and Rafferty, summoned to the library, had +to stand whilst Pinckney, seated at the table with a pen in his hand and a +sheet of paper before him, went into the business of accounts. + +Mark how the unexpected occurs in life. Rafferty, who had been pilfering +for years, selling garden produce and keeping the profits, robbing corn +from the corn bin in the stable, poaching and selling birds and ground +game to a dealer in Arranakilty, receiving illicit commissions and so +forth, had on the death of his master shaken off all restraint and +prepared for a campaign of open plunder. The very last thing he could have +imagined was the sudden appearance of an American business man on the +scene, armed with absolute power and possessing the eye of a hawk. + +"Your master asked me just before he died to look after this estate," +began Pinckney; "in fact, he has appointed me to act as guardian to Miss +Berknowles, so I just want to see how things stand. Now, to begin with the +horses. I want to know everything about the stables during the last--shall +we say--six months. Who supplies the corn and the hay and the straw?" + +"I've been gettin' some from Faulkner of Arranakilty, sor, and some from +Doyle of Bally-brack." + +"Don't you grow any horse food on the estate?" + +"We don't grow no corn, sor." + +"Well, hay and straw?" + +"You can't get straw, sor, widout you grow corn." + +"I know that--but how about hay--surely you grow lots of grass?" + +"We graze the grass, sor." + +"Do you let the grazing?" + +"Well, sor, it's this way; the masther was never very shtrict about the +grazin'; we puts some of the horses out to grass, ourselves, and we lets +poor folk have a bit of grazin' now and then for their cattle, though +master was never after makin' money from the estate--" + +"Just so. Have you the receipted bills for the fodder during the last six +months?" + +"Yes, sor. The master always sent me wid the money to pay the bills." + +"You have got the receipts?" + +"The which, sor?" + +"The bills receipted." + +"Bills, sure, what's the good of keepin' bills, sor, when the money's +paid. I b'lave they're somewhere in an ould crock in the stable, at laste +that's where I saw thim last." + +"Well," said Pinckney, "you can fetch them for me to-morrow morning, and +now let's talk about the garden." + +Rafferty, not knowing what Pinckney might discover and so being unable to +lie with confidence, had a very bad quarter of an hour over the garden. + +Pinckney was not a man to press another unduly, nor was he a man to haggle +about halfpence or worry servants over small peccadillos. He knew quite +well that grooms are grooms, and will be so as long as men are men. He +would never have bothered about little details had Rafferty been an +ordinary servant. He recognised in Rafferty, not a servant to be dismissed +or corrected, but an antagonist to be fought. It was the case of the dog +and badger. Rafferty was Graft and all it implies, Pinckney was Straight +Dealing. And Straight Dealing knew quite well that the only way to get +Graft by the throat is to ferret out details, no matter how small. + +So Rafferty was taken over details. He had to admit that he had "given +away" some of the stuff from the garden and sold "a bit," sending it up to +Dublin for that purpose; but he was not to be caught. + +"And the profits," said Pinckney. "I suppose you handed them over to Mr. +Berknowles?" + +"No, sor; the master always tould me to keep any bit of money I might draa +from anything I planted extra for me perkisites, that was the +understandin' I had with him." + +"And over the farmyard, I suppose anything you could make by selling any +extra animals you planted was your perquisite?" + +"Yes, sor." + +"Very well, Rafferty, that will do for to-night; get me those receipted +bills to-morrow morning. Come here at ten o'clock and we will have another +talk." + +Rafferty went off, feeling more comfortable in his mind. + +The word Perquisites might be made to cover a multitude of sins, but he +would not have been so easy if he had known that Mrs. Driscoll had been +called up immediately after his departure. Mrs. Driscoll was one of those +terrible people who say nothing yet see everything; for the last year and +a half she had been watching Rafferty; knowing it to be quite useless to +report what she knew to her easy-going master, she had, none the less, +kept on watching. As a result, she was now able to bring up a hard fact, a +small hard fact more valuable than worlds of ductile evidence. Rafferty +had "nicked"--it was the lady's expression--a brand-new lawn mower. + +"I declare to God, sir, I don't know what he _has_ took, for me eyes can't +be everywhere, but I do know he's took the mower." + +"Why did you not tell Miss Phyl?" + +"I did, sir, and she only said, 'Oh, there must be a mistake--what would +he be doin' with it,' says she. 'Sellin' it,' says I. 'Nonsense,' says +she. You see, sir, Rafferty and she has always been hand in glove, what +with the fishin' and shootin', and the horses and such like, and she won't +hear a word against him." + +Mrs. Driscoll had called Rafferty a sly devil--he was. + +At eleven o'clock next morning, Phyl, crossing the stable yard with some +sugar for the horses, met Rafferty. He was crying. + +"Why, what on earth's the matter, Rafferty?" asked the girl. + +"I've got the shove, miss," replied Rafferty, "after all me years of +service, I'm put out to end me days in a ditch." + +"You mean you're discharged!" she cried. "Was it Mr. Pinckney?" + +"That's him," replied Rafferty. "Says he's the masther of us all. 'Out you +get,' says he, 'or it's I that'll be callin' a p'leeceman to put you,' +says he. Flung it in me face that I'd stolen a laan mower. Me that's ben +on the estate man and boy for forty year. A laan mower! Sure, Miss Phyl, +what would I be doin' with a laan mower?" + +Phyl turned from him and ran to the house. Pinckney and Hennessey were +seated in the library when the door burst open and in came Phyl. Her eyes +were bright and her lips were pale. + +"You told me you would keep all the servants," said she. "Rafferty tells +me you have dismissed him." + +"I should think I had," said Pinckney lightly, and not gauging the mad +disturbance of the other, "and it's lucky for him I haven't put him in +prison." + +The word prison was all that was wanted to fire the mine. Pinckney stood +for a moment aghast at the change in the girl. + +"I _hate_ you," she cried, coming a step closer to him. "I loathe +you--master of us all, are you? Dare to touch any one here and I'll burn +the house down with my own hands--you--you--" + +She paused for want of breath, her chest heaving and her hands clenched. + +Then Pinckney exploded. + +The good old fiery Pinckney blood was up. Oh, without any manner of doubt +our ancestors are still able to speak, and it was old Roderick +Pinckney--"Pepper Pinckney" was his nickname--that blazed out now. It was +also the fire of youth answering the fire of youth. + +"Damn it!" he cried. "I've come here to do my best--I don't care--keep who +you want--be robbed if you like it--I'm off--" He caught up all the sheets +of paper he had been covering with figures and tore them across. + +"Beast!" cried Phyl. + +She rushed from the room and upstairs like a mad creature. The bang of her +bedroom door closed the incident. + +"Now don't be taking on so," said Hennessey. "You've both of you lost your +temper." + +"Lost my temper--maybe. I'm going all the same. Right back to the States. +I'm off to Dublin by the next train and you'd better come and finish the +business there. You'd better have her to stay with you in Dublin. I don't +want to see her again. Anyhow, we'll settle all that later." + +"Maybe that's the best," said Hennessey. "My wife will look after her till +she's ready to go to the States--if she wants to." + +"Please God she doesn't," replied the other. + +Phyl did not see Pinckney again. He went off to Dublin by the two-ten +train with Hennessey, the latter promising to be back on the morrow to +arrange things. + + + + +CHAPTER VIII + + +Dublin can never have been a cheerful city. Even in the days when the +butchers joined in street fights and hung their antagonists when caught on +steel hooks--like legs of mutton--the gaiety of Dublin one may fancy to +have been more a matter of spirits than of spirit. + +Echoes from the days when the Parliament sat in Stephen's Green come down +to us through the works of Charles Lever, but the riotous gaiety of the +old days when Barrington was a judge of the Admiralty Court, the Hell Fire +Club an institution, and Count Considine a figure in society, must be +taken with a grain of salt. + +Mangan shows you the old Dublin as it was in those glorious times, and in +the new Dublin of to-day the shade of Mangan seems still to walk arm in +arm with the shade of Mathurin. Gloomy ghosts addicted to melancholy, +noting with satisfaction that the streets are as dirty as ever, the old +Public Houses still standing, that, despite the tramways--those +extraordinary new modern inventions--the tide of life runs pretty much the +same as of old. The ghosts of Mangan and Mathurin have never seen a taxi +cab. + +Dublin at the present day is a splendid city for old ghosts to wander in +without having their corns trodden on or their susceptibilities injured. +Phyl had come to Dublin to live with the Hennesseys in Merrion Square. + +"Never shall my door be shut on you except behind your back," Hennessey +had said, and he meant it. + +The girl was worth several thousand a year; had she been penniless it +would have been just the same. + +You may meet many geniuses in your journey through life, many brilliant +people, many beautiful people, many fascinating people, but you will not +meet many friends. Hennessey belonged to the society of Friends, his wife +was a member of the same community, and he would have been ruined only for +his partner Niven, who was an ordinary lowdown human creature who believed +in no one and kept the business together. + +On the day of her arrival at Merrion Square and during her first interview +with Mrs. Hennessey in the large, cheerless drawing-room where +decalcomanied flower pots lingered like relics of the Palaeolithic age of +Art, Phyl kept herself above tears, just as a swimmer keeps his head above +water in a choppy sea. + +It was all so gloomy, yet so friendly, that the mind could not openly +revolt at the gloom; it was all so different from the wind and trees and +freedom of Kilgobbin, and Mrs. Hennessey, whom she had only seen once +before, was so different, on closer acquaintance, from any of the people +she had hitherto met in her little world. + +Mrs. Hennessey, with a soul above dust and housekeeping, a faded woman, +not very tidy, with an exalted air, pouring out tea from a Britannia metal +ware teapot and talking all the time about Willy Yeates, the Irish Players +and Lady Gregory's last play, fascinated the girl, who did not know who +Willy Yeates was and who had never seen the Irish Players. + +Nor could she learn from Mrs. Hennessey. It was impossible to get a word +in edgeways with that lady. Sometimes, indeed, during a lull in her mind +disturbance, she would remain quiet whilst you answered some question, +only to find that she had totally forgotten the question and was not +listening to your reply. + +Phyl got so used to Mrs. Hennessey after a few days that she did not +listen to her questions, and so the two being matched, they got on well +together. Young people soon accommodate themselves to their surroundings, +and in a month the girl had grown to the colour of her new life, at least, +on the outside of her mind. It seemed to her that she had lived years in +Merrion Square. Kilgobbin--Hennessey had managed to let the place--seemed +a dream of her childhood. She saw no future, and rebellion was impossible; +there was nothing to rebel against--except the dulness and greyness of +life. No people could have been kinder than the Hennesseys; unfortunately +they had numerous friends, and the friends of the Hennesseys did not +appeal to Phyl. + +A boy in her position would have adapted himself quickly enough, and been +hail fellow well met with Mr. Mattram, the dentist of Westland Row, or the +young Farrels, whose father owned one of the biggest wine merchants' +businesses in the city; but the feminine instinct told Phyl that these +were not the sort of people from whose class she had sprung, that their +circle was not her circle and that she had stepped down in life in some +mysterious way. This fact was brought sharply home to her by a young +Farrel, a male of the Farrel brood, a hobbledehoy, good-looking enough but +with a Dublin accent and a cheeky manner. + +This immature wine merchant at a party given by Mrs. Hennessey had made +love to Phyl and had tried to kiss her behind the dining-room door. + +The recollection of the smack in the face she had given him soothed her +that night as she lay tossing in her bed, and it was on this night and for +the first time since she left Kilgobbin that the recollection of Pinckney +came before her otherwise than as a shadow. He stood with the Hennessey +circle as his background, a bright, good-looking figure and a gentleman to +his finger-tips. + +Why had she cast aside her own people--even though they were distant +relations? What stupidity had caused her to insult Pinckney by telling him +she hated him? She found herself asking that question without being able +to answer it. + +After all that fuss at Kilgobbin and Pinckney's departure, Mr. Hennessey +had proved to her that Rafferty was a rogue who deserved no quarter; the +man had been dismissed, the whole business was done with and over, and +now, looking back in cool blood, she was utterly unable to reconstruct and +put together the reasons for the outburst of anger that had severed her +from the one kinsman who had put out his hand to help her. + +She could no longer conjure up the feeling that Pinckney was an interloper +come to break up Kilgobbin and spoil the home she had known from +childhood. + +Fate had done that. Kilgobbin was gone--let to strangers; Hennessey had +taken over her guardianship _pro tem_, and it was entirely owing to +herself that she was in her present position. She had no right to +criticise the friends of the Hennesseys; she had deliberately walked into +that circle from which she felt she never could escape now. + +Just as Pinckney had discovered that guardianship was showing him traits +in his character hitherto unknown to him, Phyl was discovering her woman's +instinct as regards social matters. + +She recognised that once having taken her place amongst the Hennessey set, +her position for life was fixed, as far as Ireland was concerned. She was +branded. + +The Berknowles were an old family, but she was the last of them. The +relatives living in the south could be no help to her; they were poor, +rabid Catholics and had fallen to little account, owing to unwise +marriages and that irresponsible fatuous apathy in affairs which is the +dry rot of Ireland and the Irish people. They were proud as Lucifer, but +no one was proud of them. + +If only Philip Berknowles had been a man to make fast friends amongst his +own class, some of those friends might have come to his daughter's rescue +now. But Berknowles had lived his own life since the death of his wife, an +easy-going country gentleman in a county mostly inhabited by squireens and +cottage folk, caring little for the _convenances_ and with no taste for +women's society. + +Thoughts born of all these facts, some of which were only half understood, +filled the mind of the girl as she lay awake with the noise of that +raucous party ringing in her ears; and when she fell asleep, it was only +to awake with a sense of despondency weighing upon her and the odious +Farrel incident waiting to follow her through the day. + +About a week later, coming down to breakfast one morning, she found a +letter on her plate. A letter with American stamps on it and the address, +Miss Phylice Berknowles, Merrion Square, Dublin, Ireland, written in a +firm, bold hand. + +Mrs. Hennessey was not down and Mr. Hennessey had departed for the office, +so Phyl had the breakfast table to herself--and the letter. + +She knew at once whom it was from, even before she read the postmark, +"Charleston." + +Pinckney, the man who had been in her thoughts during the past six or +seven days, the man who had left Ireland righteously disgusted with her, +the man to whom she had said, "I hate you!" + +The scene flashed before her as she tore the envelope open, his sudden +blaze of anger, the way he had torn the papers up, his departure. What was +he going to say to her now? She flushed at the thought that this thing in +her hand might prove to be his opinion of her in cold blood, a reproof, a +remonstrance--she opened the folded sheet--ah! + + "Dear Phyl, + + "Aunt Maria was greatly disappointed when I returned here without + you, she had quite made up her mind that you were coming back with + me. We both lost our temper that day, but I was the worse, for I said + a word I shouldn't have said, and for which I apologise. Aunt Maria + says it was the Pinckney temper. However that may be, we shall be + delighted to see you. Mrs. Van Dusen leaves on the 6th of next month. + I am sending all particulars to Mr. Hennessey. You could meet Mrs. + Van Dusen at Liverpool and go with her as far as New York. Let me + have a cable to know if you are coming. Pinckney, Vernons, + Charleston, U. S. A., is the cable address. + + "Your affectionate guardian--also cousin-- + "R. Pinckney." + +Then underneath, in an angular, old-fashioned hand, one of those +handwritings we associate with crossed letters, rosewood desks, valentines +and wafers: + + "Be sure to come. I am very anxious to see you, and I only hope you + will like me as much as I am sure to like you. + + "Maria Pinckney." + +Phyl caught her breath back when she read this and her eyes filled with +tears. It was the woman's voice that touched her, coming after Pinckney's +business-like and jerky sentences. + +Then she sat with the letter before her, looking at the new prospect it +had opened for her. + +Was Pinckney still angry, despite his talk about the Pinckney temper; had +he written not of his own free will but at the desire of Maria Pinckney? +She read the thing over again without finding any solution to this +question. + +But one fact was clear. Maria Pinckney was genuine in her invitation. + +"I'll go," said Phyl. + +She rose up from the table as though determined then and there to start +off for America, left the room, went upstairs and knocked at Mrs. +Hennessey's door. + +That lady was sitting up in bed with a stocking tied round her throat--she +was suffering from a slight attack of tonsilitis--and the Irish _Times_ +spread on her knees. + +"Mrs. Hennessey," said Phyl, "I have just had a letter from my cousins in +America, and they want me to go out to them." + +"Want you to go to America!" said Mrs. Hennessey. "On a visit, I +suppose?" + +"No, to stay there." + +"To stay in America; but what on earth do they want you to do that for? +Who on earth would dream of leaving Dublin to live in America! It's +extraordinary the ideas some people get hold of. Then, of course, they +don't know, that's all that's to be said for them. It's like hearing +people talking and talking of all the fine views abroad, and you'd think +they'd never seen the Dargle or the Glen of the Downs; they don't know the +beauty of their own country or haven't eyes to see it, and they must go +raving of the Bay of Naples with Kiliney Bay a stone's throw away from +them, and talking of Paris with Dublin outside their doors, and praising +up foreign actors with never a word of the Irish Players. Dublin giving +her best to them, and they with deaf ears to her music and blind eyes to +her sons." + +"But, you see, Mrs. Hennessey, the Pinckneys are my relations." + +"Irish?" cried the good woman, absolutely unconscious of everything but +the vision before her. "Those that can't see their own land aren't Irish. +Mongrels is the name for them, without pride of heart or light of +understanding." + +She was off. + +With a far, fixed gaze and her mind in a state of internal combustion, she +seemed a thousand miles away from Phyl and her affairs, fighting the +battles of Ireland. + +Phyl gathered the impression that, if she went to America Mrs. Hennessey +would grieve less over the fact that she (Phyl) was leaving Merrion +Square, than over the fact that she was leaving Dublin. She escaped, +carrying this impression with her, went upstairs, dressed, and then +started off for Mr. Hennessey's office. + +It was a cold, bright day and Dublin looked almost cheerful in the +sunlight. + +The lawyer looked surprised when she was shown into his private room; +then, when she had told him her business, he fumbled amongst the papers on +his desk and produced a letter. + +"This is from Pinckney," said he. "It came by the same post as yours, only +it was directed to the office. It's the same story, too. He wants you to +go over." + +"I've been thinking over the whole business," said Phyl, "and I feel I +ought to go." + +"Aren't you happy in Dublin?" asked he. + +"M'yes," answered the other. "But, you see--at least, I'm as happy as I +suppose I'll be anywhere, only they are my people and I feel I ought to go +to them. It's very lonely to have no people of one's own. You and Mrs. +Hennessey have been very kind to me, and I shall always be grateful, +but--" + +"But we aren't your own flesh and blood. You're right. Well, there it is. +We'll be sorry to lose you, but, maybe, though you haven't much experience +of the world, you've hit the nail on the head. We aren't your flesh and +blood, and though the Pinckneys aren't much more to you, still, one drop +of blood makes all the difference in the world. Then again, you're a cut +above us; we're quite simple people, but the Berknowles were always in the +Castle set and a long chalk above the Hennesseys. I was saying that to +Norah only last night when I was reading the account of the big party at +the Viceregal Lodge and the names of all the people that were there, and I +said to her, 'Phyl ought to be going to parties like that by and by when +she grows older, and we can't do much for her in that way,' and off she +goes in a temper. 'Who's the Aberdeens?' says she. 'A lot of English +without an Irish feather in their tails, and he opening the doors to +visitors in his dressing gown--Castle,' she says, 'it's little Castle +there'll be when we have a Parliament sitting in Dublin.'" + +"I don't want to go to parties at the Viceregal Lodge," said Phyl, +flushing to think of what a snob she had been when only a few days back +she had criticised the Hennesseys and their set in her own mind. These +honest, straightforward good people were not snobs, whatever else they +might be, and if her desire for America had been prompted solely by the +desire to escape from the social conditions that environed her friends, +she would now have smothered it and stamped on it. But the call from +Charleston that had come across the water to her was an influence far more +potent than that. That call from the country where her mother had been +born and where her mother's people had always lived had more in it than +the voices that carried the message. + +"Well," said Hennessey, "you mayn't want to go to parties now, but you +will when you are a bit older. However, you can please yourself--Do you +want to go to America?" + +"I do," said Phyl. "It's not that I want to leave you, but there is +something that tells me I have got to go. When I read the letter first +this morning, I was delighted to think that Mr. Pinckney was not still +angry with me, and I liked the idea of the change, for Dublin is a bit +dreary after Kilgobbin and--and well, I _will_ say it--I don't care for +some of the people I have met in Dublin. But since then a new feeling has +come over me. I think it came as I was walking down here to the office. +It's a feeling as if something were pulling me ever so slightly, yet still +pulling me from over there. My father said that there was more of mother +in me than him. I remember he said that once--well, perhaps it's that. She +came from over there." + +"Maybe it is," said Hennessey. + + + + +CHAPTER IX + + +The thing was settled definitely that night, Mrs. Hennessey resisting the +idea at first, more, one might have fancied from her talk, because the +idea was anti-national than from love of Phyl, though, as a matter of +fact, she was fond enough of the girl. + +"It's what's left Ireland what it is," went on the good lady. "Cripples +and lunatics, that's all that's left of us with your emigration; all the +good blood of Ireland flowing away from her and not a drop, scarcely, +coming back." + +"I'll come back," said Phyl, "you need not fear about that--some day." + +"Ay, some day," said Mrs. Hennessey, and stared into the fire. Then the +spirit moving her, she began to discant on things past and people +vanished. + +Synge, and Oscar Wilde and Willie Wilde, who was the real genius of the +family, only his genius "stuck in him somehow and wouldn't come out." She +passed from people who had vanished to places that had changed, and only +stopped when the servant came in with the announcement that supper was +ready. + +Then at supper, lo and behold! she discussed the going away of Phyl, as +though it were a matter arranged and done with and carrying her full +consent and approval. + +During the weeks following, Phyl's impending journey kept Mrs. Hennessey +busy in a spasmodic way. One might have fancied from the preparations and +lists of things necessary that the girl was off to the wilds of New Guinea +or some region equally destitute of shops. + +Hennessey remonstrated, and then let her have her way--it kept her quiet, +and Phyl, nothing loath, spent most of her time now in shops, Tod and +Burns, and Cannock and White's, examining patterns and being fitted, +varying these amusements by farewell visits. She was invited out by all +the Hennesseys' friends, the Farrels and the Rourkes, and the Longs and +the Newlands, and the Pryces and the Oldhams, all prepared tea-parties in +her honour, made her welcome, and made much of her, just as we make much +of people who have not long to live. + +She was the girl that was going to America. She did not appreciate the +real kindness underlying this terrible round of festivities till she was +standing on the deck of the _Hybernia_ at Kingstown saying good-bye to +Hennessey. + +Then, as the boat drew away from the Carlisle pier, as it passed the +guardship anchorage and the batteries at the ends of the east and west +piers, all those people from whom she had longed to escape seemed to her +the most desirable people on earth. + +Bound for a world unknown, peopled with utter strangers, Ireland, beloved +Ireland, called after her as a mother calls to her child. + +Oh, the loneliness! the desolation! + +As she stood watching the Wicklow mountains fading in the grey distance, +she knew for the first time the meaning of those words, "Gone West"; and +she knew what the thousands suffered who, driven from their cabins on the +hillside or the moor, went West in the old days when the emigrant ship +showed her tall masts in Queenstown Harbour and her bellying canvas to the +sunset of the Atlantic. + +At Liverpool, she found Mrs. Van Dusen, a tall, rather good-looking, +rather hard-looking but exceedingly fashionable individual, at the hotel +where it was arranged they should meet. + +Phyl, looking like a lost dog, confused by travel and dumb from dejection, +had little in common with this lady, nor did a rough passage across the +Atlantic extend their knowledge of one another, for Mrs. Van Dusen +scarcely appeared from her state-room till the evening when, the great +ship coming to her moorings, New York sketched itself and its blazing +skyscrapers against the gloom before the astonished eyes of Phyl. + +PART II + + + + +CHAPTER I + + +Holyhead, Liverpool, New York, each of these stopping places had impressed +upon Phyl the distance she was putting between herself and her home, +making her feel that if this business was not death it was, at least, a +very good imitation of dying. + +But the south-bound express from New York was to show her just what people +may be expected to feel _after_ they are dead. + +America had been for Phyl little more than a geographical expression. +"Uncle Tom's Cabin," "The Last of the Mohicans," "The Settlers in Canada" +and "Round the World in Eighty Days," had given her pictures, and from +these she had built up a vague land of snow and forests, log huts, plains, +Red Indians, runaway negroes and men with bowie knives. + +New York had given this fantastic idea a rough joggle, the south-bound +express tumbled it all to pieces. + +Forests and mountains and plains would have been familiar to her +imagination, but the south-bound express was producing for her inspection +quite different things from these. + +New Jersey with its populous towns, for instance, towns she never could +have imagined or dreamed of, filled with people whose existence she could +not picture. + +What gave her a cold grue was the suddenly grasped fact that all this +great mechanism of life, cities, towns, roaring railways, agricultural +lands, manufacturing districts filled with English speaking people--that +all this was alien, knew nothing of Ireland or England, except as it might +know of Japan or a dream of the past. + +The people in the train were talking English--were English to all intents +and purposes, and yet, as far as England and Ireland were concerned, she +knew them to be dead. + +It had been freezing in New York, a great rainstorm was blowing across the +world as they crossed the Delaware; it passed, sweeping away east under +the arch of a vast rainbow, even the rainbow seemed alien and different to +Irish rainbows--it was too big. + +Then came Philadelphia, where some of the dead folk left the train and +others got in. One had an Irish voice and accent. He was a big man with a +hard, pushful face and a great under jaw. Phyl knew him at once for what +he was, and that he had died to Ireland long years ago. + +Then came Wilmington and Baltimore, and then, long after sunset in the +dark, a warmer air that entered the train like a viewless passenger, nerve +soothing and mind lulling--the first breath of the South. + +Next morning, looking from the windows of the car, she saw the South. Vast +spaces of low-lying land broken by river and bayou, flooded by the light +of the new risen sun and touched by a vague mist from the sea, soft as a +haze of summer, warm with light and everywhere hinting at the blue deep +sky beyond. + +Youth, morning, and the spirit of the sea all lay in that luminous haze, +that warm light filled with the laziness of June; and, for one delightful +moment, it seemed to Phyl that summer days long forgotten, rapturous +mornings half remembered were here again. + +The rumble of trestle and boom of bridge filled the train, and now the +masts of ships showed thready against the hazy blue of the sky; frame +houses sprang up by the track and fences with black children roosting on +them; then the mean streets of the coloured quarter and now, as the cars +slackened speed, came the bustle that marks the end of a journey. People +were getting their light luggage together, and as Phyl was strapping the +bundle that held her travelling rug and books, a waft of tepid, +salt-scented air came through the compartment and on it the voice of the +negro attendant rousing some drowsy passenger. + +"Charleston, sah." + +She got out, dazed and numbed by the journey, and stood with the rug +bundle in her hand looking about her, half undecided what to do, half +absorbed by the bustle and movement of the platform. + +Then, pushing towards her through the crowd, she saw Pinckney. + +He had come to meet her, and as they shook hands, Phyl laughed. + +He seemed so bright and cheerful, and the relief at finding a friend after +that long, friendless journey was so great that she laughed right out with +pleasure, like a little child--laughed right into his eyes. + +It seemed to Pinckney that he had never seen the real Phyl before. + +He took the bundle from her and gave it to a negro servant, and then, +giving the luggage checks to the servant and leaving him to bring on the +luggage, he led the girl through the crowd. + +"We'll walk to the house," said he, "if you are not too tired; it's only a +few steps away--well--how do you like America?" + +"America?" she replied. "I don't know--it's different from what I thought +it would be, ever so much different--and this place--why, it is like +summer here." + +"It's the South," said Pinckney. "Look, this is Meeting Street." + +They had turned from the street leading from the station into a broad, +beautiful highway, placid, sun flooded, and leading away to the Battery, +that chief pride and glory of Charleston. + +On either side of the street, half hidden by their garden walls, large +stately houses of the Georgian era showed themselves. Mansions that had +slumbered in the sun for a hundred years, great, solid houses whose +yellow-wash seemed the incrustation left by golden and peaceful +afternoons, houses of old English solidity yet with the Southern touch of +deep verandas and the hint of palm trees in their jealously walled +gardens. + +"Oh, how beautiful!" said Phyl. She stopped, looked about her, and then +gazed away down the street. It was as though the old stately street--and +surely the Street of Other Days might be its name--had been waiting for +her all her life, waiting for her to turn that corner leading from the +commonplace station, waiting to greet her like the ghost of some friend of +childhood. Surely she knew it! Like the recollection of a dream once +dreamed, it lay before her with its walled gardens, its vaguely familiar +houses, its sunlight and placidity. + +Pinckney, proud of his native town and pleased at this appreciation of it, +stood by without speaking, watching the girl who seemed to have forgotten +his existence for a moment. Her head was raised as if she were inhaling +the sea wind lazily blowing from the Battery, and bearing with it stray +scents from the gardens by the way. + +Then she came back to herself, and they walked on. + +"It's just as if I knew the place," said she, "and yet I never remember +seeing anything like it before." + +"I've felt that way sometimes about places," said Pinckney. "It seemed to +me that I knew Paris quite well when I went there, though I'd never been +there before. Charleston is pretty English, anyway, and maybe it's that +that makes it seem familiar. But I'm glad you like it. You like it, don't +you?" + +"Like it!" said she. "I should think I did--It's more than liking--I love +it." + +He laughed. + +"Better than Dublin?" + +It was her turn to laugh. + +"I never loved Dublin." She turned her head to glance at a peep of garden +showing through a wrought iron gate. "Oh, Dublin!--don't talk to me about +it here. I want to keep on feeling I'm here really and that there's +nowhere else." + +"There isn't," said he, disclosing for the first time in his life, and +quite unconsciously, his passion for the place where he had been born. +"There's nowhere else but Charleston worth anything--I don't know what it +is about, but it's so." + +They were passing a wall across whose top peeped an elbow of ivy geranium. +It was as though the unseen garden beyond, tired of constraint and +drowsily stretching, had disclosed this hint of a geranium coloured arm. + +Pinckney paused at a wrought iron gate and opened it. + +"This is Vernons," said he. + + + + +CHAPTER II + + +A grosbeak was singing in the magnolia tree by the gate and the warmth of +the morning sun was filling the garden with a heart-snatching perfume of +jessamine. + +Jessamine and the faint bitterness of sun warmed foliage. + +It was a garden sure to be haunted by birds; not large and, though well +kept, not trim, and sing the birds as loud as they might, they never could +break the charm of silence cast by Time on this magic spot. + +In the centre of the lawn stood a dial, inscribed with the old dial +motto: + + The Hours Pass and are Numbered. + +Phyl paused for a moment just as she had paused in the street, and +Pinckney looking at her noticed again that uptilt of the head, and that +far away look as of a person who is trying to remember or straining to +hear. + +Then a voice from the house came across the broad veranda leading from the +garden to the lower rooms. + +A female voice that seemed laughing and scolding at the same time. + +"Dinah! Dinah! bless the girl, will she never learn sense-- Dinah! Ah, +there you are. How often have I told you to put General Grant in the sun +first thing in the morning?-- You've been dusting! I'll dust you. Here, +get away." + +Out on the veranda, parrot cage in hand, came a most surprising lady. +Antique yet youthful, dressed as ladies were wont to dress of a morning in +long forgotten years, bright eyed, and wrathfully agitated. + +"Aunt," cried Pinckney. "Here we are." + +The sun was in Miss Pinckney's eyes; she put the cage down, shaded her +eyes and stared full at Phyl. + +"God bless me!" said Miss Pinckney. + +"This is Phyl," said he, as they came up to the verandah steps. + +Miss Pinckney, seeming not to hear him in the least, took the girl by both +hands, and holding her so as if for inspection stared at her. + +Then she turned on Pinckney with a snap. + +"Why didn't you tell me--she's--why, she's a Mascarene. Well, of all the +astonishing things in the world-- Child--child, where did you get that +face?" + +Before Phyl could answer this recondite question, she found herself +enveloped in frills and a vague perfume of stephanotis. Maria Pinckney had +taken her literally to her heart, and was kissing her as people kiss small +children, kissing her and half crying at the same time, whilst Pinckney +stood by wondering. + +He thought that he knew everything about Maria Pinckney, just as he had +fancied he knew himself till Phyl had shewn him, over there in Ireland, +that there were a lot of things in his mind and character still to be +known by himself. This, as regards him, seemed the special mission of Phyl +in the world. + +"It's the likeness," said Miss Pinckney. "I thought it was Juliet +Mascarene there before me in the sun, Juliet dead those years and years." +Then commanding herself, and with one of those reverses, sudden changes of +manner and subject peculiar to herself: + +"Where's your luggage?" + +"Abraham is bringing it along." + +"Abraham! Do you mean you didn't drive, _walked_ here from the station?" + +"Yes," said Pinckney shamefacedly, almost, and wondering what sin against +the _covenances_ he had committed now. + +"And she after that journey from N'York. Richard Pinckney, you are +a--man--I was going to have called you a fool--but it's the same thing. +Here, come on both of you--the child must be starving. This is the +breakfast room, Phyl--Phyl! I will never get used to that name; no matter, +I'm getting an old woman, and mustn't grumble--mustn't grumble--umph!" + +She took Pinckney's walking-stick from him and, with the end of it, picked +up a duster that the mysterious Dinah, evidently, had left lying on the +floor. + +She put the duster out on the veranda, rang a bell and ordered the +coloured boy who answered it to send in breakfast. + +Phyl, commanded by Miss Pinckney, sat down to table just as she was +without removing her hat. + +The old lady had come to the conclusion that the newcomer must be faint +with hunger after her journey, and when Miss Pinckney came to one of her +conclusions, there was nothing more to be said on the matter. + +It was a pleasant room, chintzy and sunny; they sat down to a gate-legged +table that would just manage to seat four comfortably whilst the urn was +brought in, a copper urn in which the water was kept at boiling point by a +red hot iron contained in a cylinder. + +Phyl knew that urn. They had one like it at Kilgobbin and she said so, but +Miss Pinckney did not seem to hear her. There were times when this lady +was almost rude--or seemed so owing to inattention, her bustling mind +often outrunning the conversation or harking back to the past when it +ought to have been in the present. + +Tea making, and the making of tea was a solemn rite at Vernons, absorbed +her whole attention, but Pinckney noticed this morning that the hand, that +old, perfect, delicately shaped hand, trembled ever so slightly as it +measured the tea from the tortoise-shell covered tea caddy, and that the +thin lips, lips whose thinness seemed only the result of the kisses of +Time, were moving as though debating some question unheard. + +He recognised that the coming of Phyl had produced a great effect on Maria +Pinckney. No one knew her better than he, for no one loved her so well. + +It was she who ordered him about, still, just as though he were a small +boy, and sometimes as he sat watching her, so fragile, so indomitable, +like the breath of winter would come the thought that a day would come--a +day might come soon when he would be no longer ordered about, told to put +his hat in the hall--which is the proper place for hats--told not to dare +to bring cigars into the drawing-room. + +To Phyl, Maria Pinckney formed part of the spell that was surrounding her; +Meeting Street had begun the weaving of this spell, Vernons was completing +it with the aid of Maria Pinckney. + +The song of the Cardinal Grosbeak in the garden, the stirring of the +window curtains in the warm morning air, the feel of morning and sunlight, +the scent of the tea that was filling the room, the room itself +old-fashioned yet cheerful, chintzy and sunny, all the things had the +faint familiarity of the street. It was as though the blood of her +mother's people coursing in her veins had retained and brought to her some +thrill and warmth from all these things; these things they knew and loved +so well. + +"There's the carriage," said Miss Pinckney, whose ears had picked out the +sound of it drawing up at the front door. "They know where to take the +luggage. Richard, go and see that they don't knock the bannisters about. +Abraham is all thumbs and has no more sense in moving things than Dinah +has'n dusting them. Only last week when Mrs. Beamis was going away, he let +that trunk of hers slip and I declare to goodness I thought it was a +church falling down the stairs and tearing the place to pieces." + +There was little of the stately languor of the South in Miss Pinckney's +speech. She was Northern on the mother's side. But in her prejudices she +was purely Southern, or, at least, Charlestonian. + +Pinckney laughed. + +"I don't think Phyl's luggage will hurt much even if it falls," said he. +"English luggage is generally soft." + +"It's only a trunk and a portmanteau," said Phyl, as he left the room, but +Miss Pinckney did not seem to hear; pouring herself out another cup of tea +(she was the best and the worst hostess in the whole world) and seeming +not to notice that Phyl's cup was empty, she was off on one of her mind +wandering expeditions, a state of soul that sometimes carried her into the +past, sometimes into the future, that led her anywhere and to the wrapt, +inward contemplation of all sorts of things and subjects from the doings +of the Heavenly Host to the misdoings of Dinah. + +She talked on these expeditions. + +"Well, I'm sure and I'm sure I don't know what folk want with the luggage +they carry about with them nowadays-- The old folk didn't. Not Saratoga +trunks, anyhow. I remember 'swell as if it was yesterday way back in 1880, +when Richard's father and mother were married, old Simon Mascarene--he +belonged to your mother's lot, the Mascarenes of Virginia-- He came to the +wedding, and all he brought was a carpet-bag. I can see the roses on it +still. He wore a beaver hat. They'd been out of fashion for years and +years. So was he. Twenty dollars apiece they cost him, and his clothes +were the same. Looked like a picture out of Dickens. Your grandmother was +there, too, came from Richmond for the wedding, drove here in her own +carriage. She and Simon were the last of the Virginia Mascarenes and they +looked it. Seems to me some people never can be new nor get away from +their ancestors. If you'd dressed Simon in kilts it wouldn't have made any +difference, much, he'd still have been Simon Mascarene of Virginia, just +as stiff and fine and proud and old-fashioned." + +"It seems funny that my people should have been the Virginia Mascarenes," +said Phyl, "because--because--well, I feel as if my people had always +lived here--this feels like home--I don't know what it is, but just as I +came into the street outside there I seemed to know it, and this house--" + +"Why, God bless my soul," said Miss Pinckney, whose eyes had just fallen +on the girl's empty cup, "here have I been talking and talking, and you +waiting for some more tea. Why didn't you ask, child?--What were you +saying? The Virginia Mascarenes-- Oh, they often came here, and your +mother knew this house as well as Planters. That was the name of their +house in Richmond. But what I can't get over is your likeness to Juliet. +She might have been your sister to look at you both--and she dead all +these years." + +"Who was Juliet?" + +"She was the girl who died," said Miss Pinckney. "You know, although +Richard calls me Aunt, I am not really his aunt; it's just an easy name +for an old woman who is an interloper, a Pinckney adrift. It was this way +I came in. Long before the Civil War, the Pinckneys lived at a house +called Bures in Legare Street. A fine old house it was, and is still. +Well, I was a cousin with a little money of my own, and I was left lonely +and they took me in. James Pinckney was head of the family then, and he +had two sons, Rupert and Charles. I might have been their sister the way +we all lived together and loved each other--and quarrelled. Dear me, dear +me, what is Time at all that it leaves everything the same? The same sun, +and flowers and houses, and all the people gone or changed-- Well, I am +trying to tell you-- Rupert fell in love with Juliet Mascarene, who lived +here. He was killed suddenly in '61-- I don't want to talk of it--and she +died of grief the year after. She died of grief--simply died of grief. +Charles lived and married in 1880 when he was forty years old. He married +Juliet's brother's daughter and Vernons came to him on the marriage. He +hadn't a son till ten years later. That son was Richard. Charles left +Richard all his property and Vernons on the condition that I always lived +here--till I died, and that's how it is. I'm not Richard's aunt, it's only +a name he gives me--I'm only just an old piece of furniture left with the +house to him. I'm so fond of the place, it would kill me to leave it; +places grow like that round one, though I'm sure I don't know why." + +"I don't wonder at you loving Vernons," said Phyl. "I was just the same +about our place in Ireland, Kilgobbin--I thought it would kill me to leave +it." + +"Tell me about it," said Miss Pinckney. Phyl told, or tried to tell. + +Looking back, she found between herself and Ireland the sunlight of +Charleston, the garden with the magnolia trees where the red bird was +singing and the jessamine casting its perfume. Ireland looked very far +away and gloomy, desolate as Kilgobbin without its master and with the +mist of winter among the trees. + +All that was part of the Past gone forever, and so great was the magic of +this new place that she found herself recognising with a little chill that +this Past had separated itself from her, that her feeling towards it was +faintly tinged by something not unlike indifference. + +"Well," said Miss Pinckney, when she had finished, "it must be a beautiful +old place, though I can't seem to see it-- You see, I've never been in +Ireland and I can't picture it any more than the new Jerusalem. Now Dinah +knows all about the new Jerusalem, from the golden slippers right up she +sees it--I can't. Haven't got the gift of seeing things, and it seems +strange that the A'mighty should shower it on a coloured girl and leave a +white woman wanting; but it appears to be the A'mighty knows his own +business, so I don't grumble. Now I'm going to show you the house and your +room. I've given you a room looking right on the garden, this side. You've +noticed how all our houses here are built with their sides facing the +street and their fronts facing the garden, or maybe you haven't noticed it +yet, but you will. 'Pears to me our ancestors had some sense in their +heads, even though they didn't invent telegraphs to send bad news in a +hurry and railway cars to smash people to bits, and telephones to let +strangers talk right into one's house just by ringing a bell. Not that I'd +let one into Vernons. You may hunt high or low, garret or basement, you +won't find one of those boxes of impudence in Vernons--not while I have +servants to go my messages." + +Miss Pinckney was right. For years she had fought the telephone and kept +it out, making Richard Pinckney's life a tissue of small inconveniences, +and suffering this epitaph on her sanity to be written by all sorts of +inferior people, "Plumb crazy." + +She led the way from the breakfast-room and passed into the hall. + +The spirit of Vernons inhabited the hall. One might have fancied it as a +stout and prosperous gentleman attired in a blue coat with brass buttons, +shorts, and wearing a bunch of seals at his fob. Oak, brought from +England, formed the panelling, and a great old grandfather's clock, with +the maker's name and address, "Whewel. Coggershall," blazoned on its brass +face, told the time, just as it had told the time when the Regent was +ruling at St. James's in those days which seem so spacious, yet so trivial +in their pomp and vanity. + +Sitting alone here of an afternoon with the sun pointing fingers through +the high leaded windows, Whewel of Coggershall took you under his spell, +the spell of old ghosts of long forgotten afternoons, spacious afternoons +filled with the cawing of rooks and the drone of bees. English afternoons +of the good old time when the dust of the post chaise was the only mark of +hurry across miles of meadow land and cowslip weather. And then as you sat +held by the sound of the slow-slipping seconds, maybe, from some door +leading to the servants' quarters suddenly left open a voice would come, +the voice of some darky singing whilst at work. + +A snatch of the South mixing with your dream of England and the past, and +making of the whole a charm beyond words. + +That is Charleston. + +Set against the panelling and almost covering it in parts were prints, +wood-cuts, engravings, portraits in black and white. + +Here was a silhouette of Colonel Vernon, the founder of the house, and +another of his wife. Here was an early portrait of Jeff Davis, +hollow-cheeked and goatee-bearded, and here was Mayflower, the property of +Colonel Seth Mascarene, the fastest trotting horse in Virginia, worshipped +by her owner whose portrait hung alongside. + +Phyl glanced at these pictures as she followed Miss Pinckney, who opened +doors shewing the dining-room, a room rather heavily furnished, hung with +portraits of long-faced gentlemen and ladies of old time, and then the +drawing-room. A real drawing-room of the Sixties, a thing preserved in its +entirety, in all its original stiffness, interesting as a valentine, +perfumed like an old rosewood cabinet. + +Keepsakes and Books of Beauty lay on the centre table, a gilt clock +beneath a glass shade marked the moment when it had ceased to keep time +over twenty-five years ago, the antimacassars on the armchairs were not a +line out of position; not a speck of dust lay anywhere, and the Dresden +shepherds and shepherdesses simpered and made love in the same old +fashion, preserving unaltered the sentiment of spring, the suggestion of +Love, lambs, and the song of birds. + +"It's just as it used to be," said Miss Pinckney. "Nothing at all has been +changed, and I dust it myself. I would just as soon let a servant loose +here with a duster as I'd let one of the buzzards from the market-place +loose in the larder. Those water-colours were done by Mary Mascarene, +Juliet's sister, who died when she was fifteen; they mayn't be +masterpieces but they're Mary's, and worth more'n if they were covered +with gold. Mrs. Beamis sniffed when she came in here--she's the woman +whose trunk got loose on the stairs I told you about--sniffed as if the +place smelt musty. She's got a husband who's made a million dollars out of +dry goods in Chicago, and she thought the room wanted re-furnishing. +Didn't say it, but I knew. A player-piano is what she wanted. Didn't say +it, but _I_ knew. Umph!" + +Miss Pinckney, having shown Phyl out, looked round the room as if to make +sure that all the familiar ghosts were in their places, then she shut the +door with a snap, and turning, led the way upstairs murmuring to herself, +and with the exalted and far away look which she wore when put out. + +Phyl's room lay on the first landing, a bright and cheerful room papered +with a rather cheap flower and sprig patterned paper, spring-like for all +its cheapness, and just the background for children's heads when they wake +up on a bright morning. + +A bowl of flowers stood on the dressing-table, and the open window shewed +across the verandah a bit of the garden, where the cherokee roses were +blooming. + +"This is your room," said Miss Pinckney. "It's one of the brightest in the +house, and I hope you'll like it-- Listen!" + +Through the open window came the chime of church-bells. + +"It's the chimes of St. Michael's. You'll never want a clock here, the +bells ring every quarter, just as they've rung for the last hundred years; +they're the first thing I remember, and maybe they'll be the last. Well, +come on and I'll show you some more of the house, if you're not tired and +don't want to rest." + +She led the way from the room and along the corridor, opening doors and +shewing rooms, and then up a back stairs to the top floor beneath the +attics. + +The house seemed to grow in age as they ascended. Not a door in Vernons +was exactly true in line; the old house settling itself down quietly +through the years and assisted perhaps by the great earthquake, though +that had left it practically unharmed, shewed that deviation from the +right line in cornice and wainscoting and door space, which is the hall +mark left on architecture by genius or age. The builders of the Parthenon +knew this, the builders of Vernons did not-- Age supplied their defects. + +Up here the flooring of the passages and rooms frankly sagged in places, +and the beams bellied downwards ever so little and the ceilings bowed. + +"I've seen all these bed-rooms filled in the old days," said Miss +Pinckney. "We had wounded soldiers here in the war. What Vernons hasn't +seen of American history isn't worth telling--much. Here's the nursery." + +She opened a door with bottle-glass panels, real old bottle-glass worth +its weight in minted silver, and shewed Phyl into a room. + +"This is the nursery," said she. + +It was a large room with two windows, and the windows were barred to keep +small people from tumbling into the garden. The place had the air of +silence and secrecy that haunts rooms long closed and deserted. An +old-fashioned paper shewing birds of Paradise covered the walls. A paper +so old that Miss Pinckney remembered it when, as a child, she had come +here to tea with the Mascarene children, so good that the dye of the +gorgeous Paradise birds had scarcely faded. + +A beam of morning sun struck across the room, a great solid, golden bar of +light. Phyl, as she stood for a moment on the threshold, saw motes dancing +in the bar of light; the air was close and almost stuffy owing to the +windows being shut. A rocking-horse, much, much the worse for wear stood +in one corner, he was piebald and the beam of light just failed to touch +his brush-like tail. A Noah's Ark of the good old pattern stood on the lid +of a great chest under one of the windows, and in the centre of the room a +heavy table of plain oak nicked by knives and stained with ink told its +tale. + +There were books in a little hanging book-case, books of the 'forties' and +'fifties': "Peter Parley," "The Child's Pilgrim's Progress," "The +Dairy-Maid's Daughter," an odd volume of _Harper's_ _Magazine_ containing +an instalment of "Little Dorrit," Caroline Chesebro's "Children of Light," +and Samuel Irenaeus Prime's "Elizabeth Thornton or the Flower and Fruit of +Female Piety, and other Sketches." Miss Pinckney opened one of the windows +to let in air; Phyl, who had said nothing, stood looking about her at the +forsaken toys, the chairs, and the little three-legged stool most +evidently once the property of some child. + +All nurseries have a generic likeness. It seemed to her that she knew this +room, from the beam of light with the motes dancing in it to the +bird-patterned paper. Kilgobbin nursery was papered with a paper giving an +endless repetition of one subject--a man driving a pig to market--with +that exception, the two rooms were not unlike. Yet those birds were the +haunting charm of this place, the things that most appealed to her, things +that seemed the ghosts of old friends. + +She came to the window and looked out through the bars. Across the garden +of Vernons one caught a glimpse of other gardens, palmetto-tree tops, and +away, beyond the battery, a hint of the blue harbour. Just the picture to +fill an imaginative child's mind with all sorts of pleasant fancies about +the world, and Phyl, forgetting for a moment Miss Pinckney, herself, and +the room in which she was, stood looking out, caught in a momentary day +dream, just like a child in one of those reveries that are part of the +fairy tale of childhood. + +That touch of blue sea beyond the red roofs and green palmetto fronds gave +her mind wings for a moment and a world to fly through. Not the world we +live in, but the world worth living in. Old sailor-stories, old scraps of +thought and dreams from nowhere pursued her, haunted her during that +delightful and tantalising moment, and then she was herself again and Miss +Pinckney was saying: + +"It's a pretty view and hasn't changed since I was a child. Now, in N'York +they'd have put up skyscrapers; Lord bless you, they'd have put them up at +a _loss_ so's to seem energetic and spoil the view. That's a N'Yorker in +two words, happy so long as he's energetic and spoiling views--" Then +gazing dreamily towards the touch of blue sea. "Well, I guess the Lord +made N'Yorkers same as he made you and me. His ways are _in_scrutable and +past finding out; so'r the ways of some of his creatures." + +She turned from the window, and her eye fell on the great chest by the +other window. + +Going to it, she opened the lid. + +It was full of old toys, mostly broken. She seemed to have forgotten the +presence of Phyl. Holding the chest's lid open, she gazed at the coloured +and futile contents. + +Then she closed the lid of the chest with a sigh. + + + + +CHAPTER III + + +The South dines at four o'clock--at least Charleston does. + +It was the old English custom and the old Irish custom, too. + +In the reign of William the Conqueror people dined at eleven A.M. or was +it ten? Then, as civilisation advanced, the dinner hour stole forward. In +the time of the Georges it reached four o'clock. In Ireland, the most +conservative country on earth, some people even still sit down to table at +four--in Charleston every one does. + +One would not change the custom for worlds, just as one would not change +the old box pews of St. Michael's or replace the cannon on the Battery +with modern ordinance. + +Richard Pinckney did not dine at home that day. He was dining with the +Rhetts in Calhoun Street, so Miss Pinckney said as they sat down to table. +She sniffed as she said it, for the Rhetts, though one of the best +families in the town, were people not of her way of thinking. The two +Rhett girls had each a motor-car of her own and drove it--abomination! + +The automobile ranked in her mind with the telephone as an invention of +the devil. + +Phyl had not seen Richard Pinckney since the morning and now he was dining +out. Her heart had warmed to him at the station on the way to Vernons, and +at breakfast he had appeared to her as a quite different person to the +Richard Pinckney who had come to Kilgobbin, more boyish and frank, less of +a man of the world. She had not seen him since he left the room at +breakfast-time to look after her luggage. Miss Pinckney said he had gone +off "somewhere or another" and grumbled at him for going off leaving his +breakfast not quite finished, she said that he was always "scatter +braining about" either at the yacht club or somewhere else. + +Phyl, as she sat now at the dining-table with the dead and gone Mascarene +men and women looking at her from the canvases on the wall, felt ever so +slightly hurt. + +Youth calls to youth irrespective of sex. She felt as a young person feels +when another young person shows indifference. Then came the thought: was +he avoiding her? Was he angry still about the affair at Kilgobbin, or was +it just that he did not want to be bothered talking to her, looked on her +as a nuisance in the house, a guest of no interest to him and yet to whom +he had to be polite? + +She could not tell. Neither could she tell why the problem exercised her +mind in the way it did. Even at Kilgobbin, despite the fact of her +antagonism towards him, Pinckney had possessed the power of disturbing her +mind and making her think about him in a way that no one else had ever +succeeded in doing. No one else had made her feel the short-comings in the +household _menage_ at Kilgobbin, no one else had made her so fiercely +critical of herself and her belongings. + +She did not recognise the fact, but the fact was there, that it was a +necessity of her being to stand well in this man's eyes. + +When a woman falls in love with a man or a man with a woman, the first +necessity of his or her being is to stand well in the eyes of the loved +one, anything that may bring ridicule or adverse criticism or disdain is +death. + +Phyl was not in love with Richard Pinckney, nor had she been in love with +him at Kilgobbin, all the same the sensitiveness to appearances felt by a +lover was there. Her anger that night when he had let her in at eleven +o'clock was due, perhaps, less to his implied reproof then the fact that +she had felt cheap in his eyes, and now, sitting at dinner with Miss +Pinckney the idea that he was still angry with her was obscured by the far +more distasteful idea that she was of absolutely no account in his eyes, a +creature to whom he had to be civil, an interloper. + +Her cheeks flushed and her eyes brightened at the thought, but Miss +Pinckney did not notice it. She had turned from the subject of the Rhetts +and their automobiles to Charleston society in general. + +"Now that you've come," said she, "you will find there's not a moment you +won't enjoy yourself if you're fond of gadding about. All the society here +is in the hands of young people, balls and parties! The St. Cecilias give +three balls a year. I go always, not to dance but to look on. Richard is a +St. Cecilia--St. Cecilias? Why, it's just a club a hundred-and-forty years +old. There are two hundred of them, all men, and they know how to +entertain. I have been at every ball for the last half century. Not one +have I missed. Then there's the yacht club and picnics to Summerville and +the Isle of Palms, and bathing parties and boating by moonlight. If you +are a gad-about you will enjoy all that." + +"But I'm not," said Phyl. "I've never been used to society, much. I like +books better than people, unless they're--" + +"Unless they're what?" + +"Well--people I really like." + +"Well," said Miss Pinckney, "one wouldn't expect you to like people you +_didn't_ like--there's no 'really' in liking, it's one thing or the +other--you don't care for girls, maybe?" + +"I haven't seen much of them," replied Phyl, "except at school, and that +was only for a short time. I--I ran away." + +"Ran away! And why did you run away?" + +"I was miserable; they were kind enough to me, but I wanted to get +home--Father was alive then--I felt I had to get home or die--I can't +explain it--It felt like a sort of madness. I had to get back home." + +Miss Pinckney was watching the girl, she scarcely seemed listening to +her--Then she spoke: + +"Impulsive. If I wasn't sitting here in broad daylight, I'd fancy it was +Juliet Mascarene. What makes you so like her? It's not the face so much, +though the family likeness runs strong, still, the face is different, +though like--It's just you yourself--well, I'm sure I don't know, seems to +me there's a lot of things hid from us. Look at the Pringles, Anthony's +family, the ones that live in Tradd Street. If you put their noses +together, they'd reach to Legare Street. It runs in the family. Julian +Pringle, he died in '70, he was just the same. Now why should a long nose +run through a family like that, or a bad temper, or the colour of hair? I +don't know. The world's a puzzle and the older one grows, the more it +puzzles one." + +After dinner, Miss Pinckney ordered Phyl to put on her hat and they +started out for a drive. + +Every day at five o'clock, weather permitting, Miss Pinckney took an +airing. She was one of the sights of Charleston, she, and the dark +chestnut horses driven by Abraham the coloured coachman, and the barouche +in which she drove; a carriage of other times, one of those deathless +conveyances turned out in Long Acre in the days when varnish was varnish +and hand labour had not been ousted by machinery. It was painted in a +basket-work pattern, the pattern peculiar to the English Royal carriages, +and the whole turn-out had an excellence and a style of its own--a thing +unpurchasable as yesterday. + +They drove in the direction of the Battery and here they drew up to look +at the view. On one side of them stood the great curving row of mansions +facing the sea, old Georgian houses and houses more modern, yet without +offence, set in gardens where the palmetto leaves shivered in the sea wind +and the pink mimosa mixed its perfume with the salt-scented air. On the +other side lay the sea. Afternoon, late afternoon, is the time of all +times to visit this spacious and sunlit place. It is then that the old +ghosts return, if ever they return, to discuss the news brought by the +last packet from England, the doings of Mr. Pitt, the Paris fashions. + +Looking seaward they would see no change in the changeless sea and little +change in the city if they turned their eyes that way. + +Miss Pinckney got out and they walked a bit, inspecting the guns, each +with its brass plate and its story. + +Far away in the haze stood Fort Sumter,--a fragment of history, a sea +warrior of the past, voiceless and guarding forever the viewless. It may +have been some recollection of the Brighton front and of the great harbour +of Kingstown with the sun upon it, and all this seemed vaguely familiar to +Phyl, pleasantly familiar and homely. She breathed the sea air deeply and +then, as she turned, glancing towards the land, a recollection came to her +of the story she had been reading that evening in the library at +Kilgobbin--"The Gold Bug." It was near here that Legrand had found the +treasure. He had come to Charleston to buy the mattocks and picks--no, it +was Jupp the negro who had come to buy them. + +She turned to Miss Pinckney. + +"Did you ever read a story called 'The Gold Bug' by Edgar Allan Poe?" she +asked. "It is about a place near here--Sullivan's Island--that's it--I +remember now." + +"Why, I knew him," said Miss Pinckney. + +"Knew Edgar Allan Poe!" said Phyl. + +"I knew him when I was a child and I have sat on his knee and I can see +his face--what a face it was! and the coat he wore--it had a velvet +collar--his teeth were beautiful, and his hair--beautiful glossy hair it +was, but he was not handsome as people use that expression, he was +extraordinary, such eyes--and the most wonderful voice in the world. I'm +seventy-five years of age and he died in October '49, and I met him three +years before he died, so you see I was a pretty small child. It was at +Fordham. He'd just taken a cottage there for his wife, who was ailing with +consumption, and my aunt, Mary Pinckney, who was a friend of the Osgoods, +took me there. It must have been summer for I remember a bird hanging in a +cage in the sunshine, a bob-o'-link it was, he had caught it in the +woods. + +"Dear Lord! I wonder where that summer day's gone to, and the +bob-o'-link--'pears to me we aren't even memories, for memories live and +we don't." + +They were walking along, Abraham slowly following with the carriage, and +Miss Pinckney was walking in an exultant manner as though she saw nothing +about her, as though she were treading air. Phyl had unconsciously set +free a train of thought in the mind of Miss Pinckney, a train that always +led to an explosion, and this is exactly how it happened and what she +said. + +"But his memory will live. Look right round you, do you see his statue?" + +"No," said Phyl, sweeping the view. "Where is it?" + +"Just so, where is it? It's not here, it's not in N'York, it's not in +Baltimore, it's not in Philadelphia, it's not in Boston. The one real +splendid writing man that America has produced she's ashamed to put up a +statue to. Why? Because he drank! Why, God bless my soul, Grant drank. No, +it wasn't drink, it was Griswold. The man who hated him, the man who +crucified his reputation and sold the remains for thirty pieces of silver +to a publisher, Griswold, Rufus Griswold--Judas Griswold that was his real +name, and he hid it--" + +Miss Pinckney had lowered her parasol in her anger, she shut it with a +snap and then shot it up again; as she did so an automobile driven by a +girl and which was approaching them, passed, and a young man seated by the +girl raised his hat. + +It was Richard Pinckney. + +The girl was a very pretty brunette. This thing was too much for Miss +Pinckney in her present temper; all her anger against Griswold seemed +suddenly diverted to the automobile. She snorted. + +"There goes Richard with Venetia Frances Rhett," said she. "Ought to be +ashamed of herself driving along the Battery in that outrageous thing; +goodness knows, they're bad enough driven by men, scaring people to death +and killing dogs and chickens, without girls taking to them--" + +She stared after the car, then signalling to Abraham, she got into the +barouche, Phyl followed her and they continued their drive. + +That evening after supper Miss Pinckney's mind warmed to thoughts of the +good old days when motor-cars were undreamed of, and stirred up by the +recollection of Edgar Allan Poe, discharged itself of reminiscences worth +much gold could they have been taken down by a stenographer. + +She was sitting with Phyl in the piazza, for the night was warm, and +whilst a big southern moon lit the garden, she let her mind stray over the +men and women who had made American literature in the '50's and '60's, +many of whom she had known when young. + +Estelle Anna Lewis of Baltimore, Nathaniel Hawthorne, William Cullen +Bryant, Elizabeth Oakes Smith, Cornelius Mathews, Frances Sargent Osgood, +N. P. Willis, Laughton Osborn. She had known Lowell and Longfellow, yet +her mind seemed to cling mostly to the lesser people, writers in the +_Southern Literary Messenger_, the _Home Journal_, the _Mirror_ and the +_Broadway Journal_. + +People well-known in their day and now scarcely remembered, yet whose very +names are capable of evoking the colour and romance of that fascinating +epoch beyond and around the Civil War. + +"They're all dead and gone," said she, "and folk nowadays don't seem to +trouble about the best of them, or remember their lines, yet there's +nothing they write now that's as good--I remember poor Thomas Ward. +'Flaccus' was the name he wrote under, a thin skeleton of a man always +with his head in the air and his mind somewhere else, used to write in the +_Knickerbocker Journal_; I heard him recite one of his things. + + "'And, straining, fastened on her lips a kiss, + That seemed to suck the life blood from her heart.' + +"That stuck in my head, mostly, I expect, because Thomas Ward didn't look +as if he'd ever kissed a girl, but they are good lines and a lot better +than they write nowadays." + +The wind had risen a bit and was stirring in the leaves of the magnolias, +white carnations growing near the sun dial shook their ruffles in the +moonlight, and from near and far away came the sounds of Charleston, +voices, the sound of traffic and then, a thread of tune tying moonbeams, +magnolias, carnations and cherokee roses in a great southern bunch, came +the notes of a banjo, plunk, plunk, and a voice from somewhere away in the +back premises, the voice of a negro singing one of the old Plantation +songs. + +Just a snatch before some closing door cut the singer off, but enough to +make Phyl raise her head and listen, listen as though a whole world +vaguely guessed, a world forgotten yet still warm and loving, youthful and +sunlit, were striving to reach her and speak to her--As though Charleston +the mysterious city that had greeted her first in Meeting Street were +trying to tell her of things delightful, once loved, once known and +forever vanished. + +As she lay awake that night with the moonlight showing through the blinds, +the whole of that strange day came before her in pictures: the face of +Frances Rhett troubled her, yet she did not know in the least why; it +seemed part of the horribleness of automobiles and the anger of Miss +Pinckney and the tribulations of Edgar Allan Poe. + +Then the fantastic band of forgotten _literati_ trooped before her, led by +"Flaccus," the man who didn't look as if he had ever kissed a girl, yet +who wrote: + + "And, straining, fastened on her lips a kiss, + That seemed to suck the life blood from her heart." + + + + +CHAPTER IV + + +Phyl awoke to the early morning sunlight and the sounds of Charleston. + +The chimes of St. Michael's were striking six and through the summery +sunlit air carried by the sea wind stirring the curtains came the cries of +the streets and the rumbling of early morning carts. + +Oh, those negro cries! the cry of the crab-seller, the orange vendor, the +man who sells "monkey meat" dolorous, long drawn out, lazy, you do not +know the South till you have heard them. + +The sound of a mat being shaken and beaten on the piazza, adjoining that +on which her window opened came now, and two voices in dispute. + +"Mistress Pinckney she told me to tell you--she mos' sholey did." + +"Go wash yo' face, yo' coloured trash, cummin' here wid yo' orders--skip +out o' my piazza--'clar' to goodness I dunno what's cummin' to niggers +dese days." + +Then Miss Pinckney's voice as from an upper window: + +"Dinah! Seth! what's that I hear? Get on with your work the pair of you +and stop your chattering. You hear me?" + +When Phyl came down Richard Pinckney was in the garden smoking a cigarette +and gathering some carnations. + +"They're for aunt," said he, "to propitiate her for my being late last +night. I wasn't in till one. I'm worse even than you, you see, and the +next time you are out till eleven and I let you in and grumble at you, you +can hit back. Have a flower." + +He gave her the finest in his bunch and Phyl put it in her belt. If she +had any doubt as to the sincerity of his welcome his manner this morning +ought to have set her mind at rest. + +She stood looking at him as he tied the stalks of the flowers together and +he was worth looking at, a fresh, bright figure, the very incarnation of +youth and health and one might almost say innocence. Clear eyed, +well-groomed, good to look upon. + +"I generally pick a flower and put it on her plate," said he, "but this +morning she shall have a whole bunch--hope you slept all right?" + +"Rather," said Phyl, "I never sleep much the first night in a new +place--but somehow--oh, I don't know how to express it--but nothing here +seems new." + +"Nothing is," said he laughing, "it's all as old as the hills--you like +it, don't you?" + +"It's not a question of liking--of course I like it, who could help liking +it--it's more than that. It's a feeling I have that I will either love it +or hate it, and I don't know which yet, all sorts of things come back to +me here, you see, my mother knew the place--do people remember what their +mothers and fathers knew, I wonder? But, if you understood me, it's not so +much remembering as feeling. All yesterday it seemed to me that I had only +to turn some corner and come upon something waiting for me, something I +knew quite well, and the smells and sounds and things are always reminding +me of something--you know how it is when you have forgotten a name and +when it's lying just at the back of your mind--that's how I feel here, +about nearly everything--strange, isn't it?" + +"Oh, I don't know," said the practical Pinckney. "This place is awfully +English for one thing, sure to remind you of a lot of things in Ireland +and England, and then there's of course the fact that you are partly +American, but I don't see why you should ever hate it." + +"_Indeed_, I didn't mean that," said she flushing up at the thought that +in trying to express herself she had made such a blunder. "I meant--I +meant, that this something about the place that is always reminding me of +itself might make me hate _it_." + +"Or love it?" + +"Yes, but I can't explain--the place itself no one could hate, you must +have thought me rude." + +"Not a bit--not the least little bit in the world. Well, I believe you'll +come to love it, not hate it." + +"It," said Phyl. "I don't know that, because I don't know what it is--this +something that is always peeping round corners at me yet hiding itself." + +"_Richard_!" came Miss Pinckney's voice from the piazza where she had just +appeared, "smoking cigarettes before breakfast, how often have I told you +I won't have you smoking before breakfast--why, God bless my soul, what +are you doing with all those carnations?" + +He flung the cigarette-end away, but she refused to kiss him on account of +the tobacco fumes, though she took the flowers. + +Cigarettes, like telephones, automobiles, and the memory of Edgar Allan +Poe, formed a subject upon which once started Miss Pinckney was hard to +check, and whilst she poured out the tea, she pursued it. + +"Dr. Cotton it was who told me, the one who used to live in Tradd Street, +he was a relative of Dr. Garden the man that gave his name to that flower +they call the gardenia--had it sent him from somewhere in the South, but +I'm sure I don't know where--New Orleans, I think, but it doesn't matter. +I was saying about Dr. Cotton, _old_ Dr. Cotton of Tradd Street, he told +me that the truth about young William Pringle's death was that he was +black when he died, from cigarette smoking, black as a crow. Used to smoke +before breakfast, used to smoke all day, used to smoke in his sleep, I +b'lieve. Couldn't get rid of the pesky habit and died clinging to it, +black as a crow. I can't abide the things. Your father used to smoke Bull +Durham in a corn cob, or a cigar, he'd a' soon have smoked one of those +cigarettes of yours as soon as he'd have been caught doing tatting. Don't +tell me, there's no manhood in them, it's just vice in thimble-fulls. I'd +much sooner see a man lying healthily under the table once in a way than +always half fuddled, and I'd sooner be poisoned out by a green cigar now +and then, than always having that nasty sickly cigarette smell round the +place." + +"But good gracious, Aunt, I'm not a cigarette smoker, only once and away +and at odd times." + +"I wasn't talking about you so much as the young men of to-day, and the +young women, they're the worst, for they encourage the others to make +fools of themselves, and if they're not smoking themselves they're sucking +candy. Candy sucking and cigarette smoking is the ruin of the States. +Those Rhett girls _live_ on candy, and they look it--pasty faces." + +"Why!" said he, "what grudge have you got against the Rhetts now, +Aunt--it's as bad to take a girl's complexion away as a man's +character--what have the Rhetts been doing to you?" + +Miss Pinckney did not seem to hear the question for a moment, then she +said, speaking as if to some invisible person: + +"That Frances Rhett may be reckoned the belle of Charleston, that's what I +heard old Mr. Outhwaite call her, but she's a belle I wouldn't care to +have tied round my neck. Belle! She's no more a belle than I am, there are +hundreds of prettier girls between here and the Battery, but she's one of +those sort that have the knack of setting young men against each other and +making them fight for her; she's labelled herself as a prize, which she +isn't. I declare to goodness the world frightens me at times, the way I +see fools going about labelled as clever men, and women your grandfathers +wouldn't have cast an eye at going about labelled as beauties. I do +believe if I was to give myself out as a beauty to-morrow I'd have half +the young idiots in Charleston after me, believing me." + +"They're after you already," said Pinckney, "only yesterday I heard young +Reggy Calhoun saying--" + +"I know," said Miss Pinckney, "and I want no more of your impudence. Now +take yourself off if you've finished your breakfast, for Phyl and I have +work to do." + +He got up and went off laughing by way of the piazza and they could hear +his cheery voice in the garden talking to the old negro gardener. + +Miss Pinckney's eyes softened. She was fiddling with a spoon and when she +spoke she seemed speaking to it, turning it about as if to examine its +pattern all the time. + +"I don't know what mothers with boys feel like, but I do want to see that +boy safe and married before I go. He's just the sort to be landed in +unhappiness; he is, most surely; well, I don't know, there's no use in +warning young folk, you may spank 'em for stealing the jam but you can't +spank 'em from fooling with the wrong sort of girl." + +Miss Pinckney had talked the night before of Phyl's father and had +proposed taking her this morning to the Magnolia cemetery to see the +grave. She broke off the conversation suddenly as this fact strayed into +her mind, and, rising up, invited Phyl to follow her to the kitchen +premises where she had orders to give before starting. + +"I always look after my own house," said she, "and always will. Fine +ladies nowadays sit in their drawing-rooms and ring their bells for the +servants to rob them and they aren't any more respected. That's what makes +the Charleston negro the impudentest lump of blackness under the sun, that +and knowing they're emancipated. They've got to look on themselves as part +of the Heavenly Host. Well, I'll have no emancipated rubbish in my house, +and the consequence is I never lose a servant and I never get impudence. +They'll all get a pension when they're too old to work, and good food and +good pay whilst they're working, and I've said to them 'you're no more +emancipated than I am, we're all slaves to our duty and the only +difference between now and the old days is I can't sell you--and if you +were idle enough to make me want to sell you there's no one would buy such +rubbish nowadays.' Half the trouble is that people these times don't know +how to talk to coloured folk, and the other half is that they don't want +to talk to them." + +She led the way down passages to the great kitchen, stonebuilt, clean and +full of sunlight. The door was open on to the yard and through an open +side door one could get a glimpse of the scullery, the great washing up +sink, generations old, and worn with use, and above it the drying +dresser. + +There were no new-fangled cooking inventions at Vernons, everything was +done at an open range of the good old fashion still to be found in many an +English country house. + +Miss Pinckney objected to "baked meat" and the joints at Vernons were +roast, swinging from a clockwork Jack and basted all the time with a long +metal ladle. + +By the range this morning was seated an old coloured woman engaged in +cutting up onions. This was Prue the oldest living thing in Vernons and +perhaps in Charleston; she had been kitchen maid before Miss Pinckney was +born, then cook, and now, long past work, she was just kept on. +Twenty-five years ago she had been offered a pension and a cottage for +herself but she refused both. She wanted to die where she was, so she +said. So they let her stay, doing odd jobs and bossing the others just as +though she were still mistress of the kitchen--as in fact she was. She had +become a legend and no one knew her exact age, she was creepin' close to a +hundred, and her memory which carried her back to the slave days was +marvellous in its retentiveness. + +She had cooked a dinner for Jeff Davis when he was a guest at Vernons, she +could still hear the guns of the Civil War, so she said, and the Mascarene +family history was her Bible. + +She looked down on the Pinckneys as trash beside the Mascarenes, and +interlopers, and this attitude and point of view though well known to Miss +Pinckney was not in the least resented by her. + +But during the last few years this old lady's intellect had been steadily +coming under eclipse; still insisting on doing little jobs in a futile +sort of way, silence had been creeping upon her so that she rarely spoke +now, and when she did, by chance, her words revealed the fact that her +mind was dwelling in the past. + +Rachel, the cook, a sturdy coloured woman with her head bound up in an +isabelle-coloured handkerchief was standing by the kitchen table on which +she was resting the fore-finger of her left hand, whilst with the right +she was turning over some fish that had just been sent in from the +fishmonger's. She seemed in a critical mood, but what she said to Miss +Pinckney was lost to Phyl whose attention was attracted by a chuckling +sound from near the range. + +It was Prue. + +The old woman at sight of Phyl had dropped the knife and the onion on +which she had been engaged. She was now seated, hands on knees, chuckling +and nodding to the girl, then, scarcely raising her right hand from her +knee, she made a twiddling movement with the fore-finger as if to say, +"come here--come here--I have something to tell you." + +Phyl glanced at Miss Pinckney who was so taken up with what Rachel was +saying about the fish that she noticed nothing. Then she looked again at +Prue and, unable to resist the invitation, came towards her. The old woman +caught her by the arm so that she had to bend her head. + +"Miss Julie," whispered Prue, "Massa Pinckney told me tell yo' he be at de +gate t'night same time 'slas' night. Done you let on 's I told yo'," she +gave the arm a pinch and relapsed into herself chuckling whilst Phyl stood +with a little shiver, half of relief at her escape from that bony clutch, +half of dread--a vague dread as though she had come in contact with +something uncanny. + +She came to the table again and stood without looking at Prue, whilst Miss +Pinckney completed her orders, then, that lady, having finished her +business and casting an eye about the place on the chance of finding any +dirt or litter, saw Prue and asked how she was doing. + +"Well, miss, she's doin' fa'r," replied Rachel, "but I'm t'inking she's +not long fore de new Jerusalem. Sits didderin' dere 'n' smokin' her pipe, +'n' lays about her wid her stick times, fancyin' there'er dogs comin' into +de kitchen." + +"A dog bit her once way back in the '60's," said Miss Pinckney; "they used +to keep dogs here then. She don't want for anything?" + +"Law no, miss, _she_ done want for nothin'; look at her now laffin' to +herself. Haven't seen her do that way dis long time. Hi, Prue, what yo' +laffin' at?" + +Prue, instead of answering leant further forward hiding her face without +checking her merriment. + +"Crazy," said Miss Pinckney, "but it's better to be laughing crazy than +crying crazy like some folk--here's a quarter and get her some candy." + +She put the coin on the table and marched off followed by Phyl. + +"She wanted to tell me something," said Phyl as they were driving to the +cemetery; "she beckoned me to her and took hold of my arm and whispered +something." + +"What did she say?" + +Phyl, somehow, could not bring herself to betray that crazy confidence. + +"I don't know, exactly, but she called me Miss Julie." + +"Oh--she called you Miss Julie," said the other. Then she relapsed into +thought and nothing more was said till they reached their destination. + + + + +CHAPTER V + + +Charleston's Magnolia Cemetery like everything else about Charleston shows +the touch of the War. Here the soldiers lie who fought so bravely under +Wade Hampton and here lies the general himself. + +Go south, go north, and you will not find a place touched by the War where +you will not find noble memories, echoes of heroic deeds, legends of brave +men. + +Miss Pinckney was by no means a peace party and this thought was doubtless +in her head as she stood surveying the confederate graves. There were +relations 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 worst +thing in the world, insulting the dead. 'Clare to goodness it makes me +savage to hear the pasty-faces talking of war and making plans to abolish +it. It's like hearing a lot of children making plans to abolish thunder +storms. Where would America be now without the War, and where'd her +history be? You tell me that. It'd just be the history of a big canning +factory. These men aren't dead, they're still alive and fighting--fighting +Chicago; fighting pork, and wheat, and cotton and railway-stock and +everything else that's abolishing the soul of the nation. + +"There's Matt Carey's grave. He had everything he wanted, and he wasn't +young. Now-a-days he'd have been driving in his automobile killing old +women and chickens, or tarpoon fishing down 'n Florida letting the world +go rip, or full of neur--what do they call it--that thing that gets on +their 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 a +middle-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 only +monument worth ten cents that America has got--The War. + +"And some northern people would say 'nice sort of brick, seeing he was +fighting on the wrong side.' Wrong side or right side he was fighting for +something else than his own hand. _That's_ the point." + +She closed up her lips and they went on. Phyl found her father's grave in +a quiet spot where the live-oaks stood, the long grey moss hanging from +their branches. + +Miss Pinckney, having pointed out the grave, strayed off, leaving the girl +to herself. + +The gloomy, strange-looking trees daunted Phyl, and the grave, too young +yet 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 turned +into a stranger in a strange place. + +Just as Charleston had dimmed Ireland in her mind as a bright light dims a +lesser light, so had some influence come between her and the memory of her +father. That memory was just as distinct as ever, but grief had died from +it, 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 of +this morning were the same in mind and body, but in soul and outlook they +had changed and were changing as though the air of the south had some +magic in it, some food that had always been denied her and which was +necessary for her full being. + +Miss Pinckney returned from her wanderings amongst the graves and they +turned 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 to +see me. I used to pity them, but one gets older and one gets wiser, and I +fancy it's they that pity us, if they can see us at all, which isn't often +likely." + +"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 a +few 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 live +their lives like as if they were dead, covered with flowers and never +moving a hand to help themselves like some of those N'York women--but they +don'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 come +back, not as ghosts peekin' about and making nuisances of themselves, but +they come back as people--which is the sensible way and there's nothing +unsensible in nature. Mind you, I don't say there aren't ghosts, there +are, 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't +the making of a man, so he couldn't come back as a man, and he wasn't a +woman, so he couldn't come back as a woman; so he came back as a ghost. He +was always an uneasy creature, else I don't suppose he'd have come back as +anything. When a man wears out a suit of clothes he doesn't die, he gets a +new one, and when he wears out a body--which isn't a bit more than a suit +of clothes--he gets a new one. If he hasn't piled up grit enough in life +to pay for a new body, he goes about without one and he's a ghost. That's +my way of thinking and I know--I know--n'matter." + +She put up her sunshade and they returned, driving through the warm spring +weather. Phyl was silent, the day had taken possession of her. The scent +of pink mimosa filled the air, the blue sky shewed here and there a few +feather traces of white cloud and the wind from the sea seemed the very +breath of the southern spring. + +It seemed to Phyl as they drove that never before had she met or felt the +loveliness of life, never till this moment when turning a corner the song +of a bird from a garden met them with the perfume of jessamine. + +Charleston is full of surprises like that, things that snatch you away +from the present or catch you for a moment into the embrace of some old +garden lurking behind a wrought iron gate, or tell you a love story no +matter how much you don't want to hear it--or tease you, if you are a +practical business man, with some other futility which has nothing at all +to do with "real" life. + +It seemed to Phyl as though, somehow, the whole of the morning had been +working up to that moment, as though the perfume of the jessamine and the +song of the birds were the culmination of the meaning of all sorts of +things 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 gate +at which they were to meet in such a secretive manner? Was it just +craziness, or was it possible that this was some real message delivered +years and years ago. A real lover's message which the old woman had once +been charged to deliver and which she had repeated automatically and like +a parrot. + +Miss Julie--could it be possible that she meant Miss Juliet--The Juliet +Mascarene to whom she, Phyl, bore such a strong family likeness, could it +be possible that the likeness had started the old woman's mind working and +had 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 the +Pinckneys and this message was from a Pinckney and one day, perhaps, most +likely a fine spring day like to-day, Pinckney had given the negro girl a +message to give to Juliet, and the lovers and the message and the bright +spring day had vanished utterly and forever leaving only Prue. + +The gate would no doubt be the garden gate. Phyl in all her life had never +given a thought to Love, she had known nothing of sentiment, that much +abused thing which is yet the salt of life, and Romance for her had meant +Adventure; all the same she was now weaving all sorts of threads into +dreams and fancies. What appealed to her most was her own likeness to +Juliet, the girl who had died so many, many years ago. A likeness +incomplete enough, according to Miss Pinckney, yet strong enough to awaken +memories in the mind of Prue. + + + + +CHAPTER VI + + +"Miss Pinckney," said Phyl, as they sat at luncheon that day, "you +remember you said yesterday that I was like Juliet Mascarene?" + +"So you are," replied the other, "though the likeness is more noticeable +at first sight as far as the face goes--I've got a picture of her I will +show you, it's upstairs in her room, the one next yours on the same +piazza--why do you ask me?" + +"I was thinking," replied Phyl, "that the old woman in the +kitchen--Prue--may have meant Juliet when she called me Julie, and that it +was the likeness that set her mind going." + +"It's not impossible. Prue's like that crazy old clock Selina Pinckney +left me in her will. It'd tell you the day and the hour _and_ the minute +and the year and the month and the weather. A little man came out if it +was going to rain and a little woman if it was going to shine. But if you +wanted to know the time, it couldn't tell you nearer than the hour before +last of the day before yesterday, and if you sneezed near it, it'd up and +strike a hundred and twenty. I gave it to Rachel. She said it was 'some' +clock, said it was a dandy for striking and the time didn't matter as the +old kitchen clock saw to that. It's the same with Prue, the time doesn't +matter, and they look up to her in the kitchen mostly, I expect, because +she's an oddity, same as Selina Pinckney's clock. Seems to me anything +crazy and useless is reckoned valuable these days, and not only among +coloured folk but whites--Dinah, hasn't Mr. Richard come in yet?" + +"No, Mistress Pinckney," replied the coloured girl, who had just entered +the room, "I haven't seen no sign of him." + +"Running about without his luncheon," grumbled the lady, "said he had a +deal in cotton on. I might have guessed it." Then when Dinah had left the +room and talking half to herself, "There's nothing Richard seems to think +of but business or pleasure. I'm not saying anything against the boy, he's +as good and better than any of the rest, but like the rest of them his +character wants forming round something real. It wasn't so in the old +days, they were bad enough then and drank a lot more, but they had in them +something that made for something better than business or pleasure. Matt +Curry didn't go out and get killed for business or pleasure, and all the +old Pinckneys didn't fight in the war or fight with one another for +business or pleasure. There's more in life than fooling with girls or +buying cotton or sailing yacht races, but Richard doesn't seem to see it. +I did think that having a ward to look after would have sobered him a bit +and helped to form his character--well, maybe it will yet." + +"I don't want to be looked after," said Phyl flushing up, "and if Mr. +Pinckney--" she stopped. What she was going to say about Pinckney was not +clear in her mind, clouded as it was with anger--anger at the thought that +she was an object to be looked after by her "guardian," anger at the +implication that he was not bothering to look after her, being too much +engaged in the business of fooling with girls and buying cotton, and a +reasonable anger springing from and embracing the whole world that held +his beyond Vernons. + +"Yes?" said Miss Pinckney. + +"Oh, nothing," replied the other, trying to laugh and making a failure of +the business. "I was only going to say that Mr. Pinckney must have lots to +do instead of wasting his time looking after strangers, and if he hadn't I +don't want to be looked after. I don't want him to bother about +me--I--I--" It did not want much more to start her off in a wild fit of +weeping about nothing, her mind for some reason or other unknown even to +herself was worked up and seething just as on that day at Kilgobbin when +the woes of Rafferty had caused her to make such an exhibition of herself +in the library. Anything was possible with Phyl when under the influence +of unreasoning emotion like this, anything from flinging a knife at a +person to breaking into tears. + +Miss Pinckney knew it. Without understanding in the least the +psychological mechanism of Phyl, she knew as a woman and by some +electrical influence the state of her mind. + +She rose from the table. + +"Stranger," said she, taking the other by the arm, "you call yourself a +stranger. Come along upstairs with me. I want to show you something." + +Still holding her by the arm, caressingly, she led her off across the hall +and up the stairs; on the first floor landing she opened a door; it was +the door of the bedroom next to Phyl's, a room of the same shape and size +and with the same view over the garden. + +Just as the drawing-room had been kept in its entirety without alteration +or touch save the touch of a duster, so had this room, the bedroom of a +girl of long ago, a girl who would now have been a woman old and +decrepit--had she lived. + +"Here's the picture you wanted to see," said Miss Pinckney leading Phyl up +to a miniature hanging on the wall near the bed. "That's Juliet, and if +you don't see the family likeness, well, then, you must be blind.--And you +calling yourself a stranger!" + +Phyl looked. It was rather a stiff and finicking little portrait; she +fancied it was like herself but was not sure, the colour of the hair was +almost the same but the way it was dressed made a lot of difference, and +she said so. + +"Well, they did their hair different then," replied Miss Pinckney, "and +that reminds me, it's near time you put that tail up." She sat down in a +rocker by the window and with her hands on her knees contemplated Phyl. +"I'm your only female relative, and Lord knows I'm far enough off, anyhow +I'm something with a skirt on it, and brains in its head, and that's what +a girl most wants when she comes to your age. You'll be asked to parties +and things here and you'll find that tail in the way; it's good enough for +a schoolgirl, but you aren't that any longer. I'll get Dinah to do your +hair, something simple and not too grown-up--you don't mind an old woman +telling you this--do you?" + +"Indeed I don't," said Phyl. "I don't care how my hair is done, you can +cut it off if you like, but I don't want to go to parties." + +"Well, maybe you don't," said Miss Pinckney, "but, all the same, we'll get +Dinah to look to your hair. Dinah can do most anything in that way; she'd +get twice the wages as a lady's maid elsewhere and she knows it, but she +won't go. I've told her over and again to be off and better herself, but +she won't go, sticks to me like a mosquito. Well, this was Juliet's room +just as that's her picture; she died in that bed and everything is just +exactly as she left it. It was kept so after her death. You see, it wasn't +like an ordinary person dying, it was the tragedy of the whole thing that +stirred folk so, dying of a broken heart for the man she was in love with. +It set all the crazy poets off like that clock of Selina Pinckney's I was +telling you of. The _News and Courier_ had yards of obituary notice and +verses. It made people forget the war for a couple of days. There's all +her books on that shelf and the diary the poor thing used to keep. Open +one of the drawers in that chest." + +Phyl did so. The drawer was packed with clothes neatly folded. The air +became filled with the scent of lavender. + +"There are her things, everything she ever had when she died. It may seem +foolish to keep everything like that, foolish and sentimental, and if +she'd died of measles or fallen down the stairs and killed herself maybe +her old things would have been given away, but dying as she did--well, +somehow, it didn't seem right for coloured girls to be parading about in +her things. Mrs. Beamis sniffed here just as she sniffed in the +drawing-room, and she said, one night, something about sentiment, as if +she was referring to chicken cholera. I knew what she meant. She meant we +were a pack of fools. Well, she ought to know. I reckon she ought to be a +judge of folly--the life she leads in Chicago. Umph!--Now I'm going to lie +down for an hour, and if you take my advice you'll do the same. The middle +of the day was meant to rest in. You can get to your room by the window." + +She kissed Phyl and went off. + +Phyl, instead of going to her room, took her seat in the rocker and looked +around her. The place held her, something returned to it that had been +driven away perhaps by Miss Pinckney's cheerful and practical presence, +the faint odour of lavender still clung to the air, and the silence was +unbroken except for a faint stirring of the window curtains now and then +to the breeze from outside. Everything was, indeed, just as it had been +left, the toilet tidies and all the quaint contraptions of the '50's and +'60's in their places. On the wall opposite the bed hung several water +colours evidently the work of that immature artist Mary Mascarene, a watch +pocket hung above the bed, a thing embroidered with blue roses, enough to +disturb the sleep of any aesthete, yet beautiful enough in those old days. +There was only one stain mark in the scrupulous cleanliness and neatness +of the place--a panel by the window, once white painted but now dingy-grey +and scored with lines. Phyl got up and inspected it more closely. +Children's heights had evidently been measured here. There was a scale of +feet marked in pencil, initials, and dates. Here was "M. M.," probably +Mary Mascarene, "2 ft. 6 inches. Nineteen months," and the date "April, +1845," and again a year later, "M. M. 2 ft. 9-1/2 inches, May, 1846." So +she had grown three and a half inches in a year. "J. M."--Juliet without +doubt--"3 feet, 3 years old, 1845." Juliet was evidently the elder--so it +went on right into the early '60's, mixed here and there with other +initials, amongst which Phyl made out "J. J." and "R. P.," children maybe +staying at the house and measured against the Mascarene children--children +now old men and women, possibly not even that. It was in the kindly spirit +of Vernons not to pass a painter's brush over these scratchings, records +of the height of a child that lingered only in the memory of the old +house. + +Phyl turned from them to the bookshelf and the books it contained. "Noble +Deeds of American Women," "Precept on Precept," "The Dairyman's Daughter," +and the "New England Primer"--with a mark against the verses left "by John +Rogers to his wife and nine small children, and one at the breast, when he +was burned at the stake at Smithfield in 1555." There were also books of +poetry, Bryant, Elizabeth Barrett Browning, "Powhatan, a metrical romance +in seven cantos by Seba Smith," and several others. + +Phyl did something characteristic. She gathered every single book into a +pile in her arms and sat down on the floor with them to have a feast. This +devourer of books was omnivorous in her tastes, especially if it were a +question of sampling, and she had enough critical faculty to enable her to +enjoy rubbish. She lingered over Powhatan and its dedication to the "Young +People of the United States" and then passed on to the others till she +came to a little black book. It was Juliet Mascarene's diary and +proclaimed the fact openly on the first page with the statements: "I am +twelve years old to-day and Aunt Susan has given me this book to keep as +my diary and not to forget to write each day my evil deeds as well as my +good, which I will if I remember them. She didn't give me anything else. I +had to-day a Paris doll from Cousin Jane Pinckney who has winking eyes +which shut when you lay her on her back and pantalettes with scallops +which take off and on and a trunk of clothes with a little key to it. +Father gave me a Bible and I have had other things too numerous for +mension. + + "Signed Juliet Mascarene." + +with never a date. + +Then: + +"I haven't done any evil deeds, or good ones that I can remember, so I +haven't written in this book for maybe a week. Mary and I, we went to a +party at the Pinckneys to-day at Bures, the Calhoun children and the +Rutledges were there and we had Lady Baltimore cake and a good time. Mary +wore her blue organdie and looked very nice and Rupert Pinckney was there, +he's fourteen and wouldn't talk to the children because they were too +small for him, I expect. He told me he was going to have a pony same as +Silas Rhett that threw him in the market place Wednesday last and galloped +all the way to Battery before he was stopped, only his was to be a better +one with more shy in it, said Silas Rhett ought to be tied on next time. +Then old Mr. Pinckney came in and shewed us a musical snuff-box and we +went home, and driving back Mary kicked me on the shin by axident and I +pinched her and she didn't cry till we'd got home, then she began to roar +and mother said it was my ungovernable temper, and I said I wished I was +dead. + +"I shan't go to any more parties because it's always like that after them. +Father told me I was to pray for a new heart and not to have any supper +but Prue has brought me up a cake of her own making. So that's one evil +deed to put down--It's just like Mary, any one else would have cried right +out in the carriage and not bottled it up and kept it up till she got +home. + +"This is a Friday and Prue says Friday parties are always sure to end in +trouble for the devil puts powder in the cakes and the only way to stop +him is to turn them three times round when they're baking and touch them +each time with a forked hazel twig." + +Phyl read this passage over twice. The mention of Prue interested her +vastly. Prue even then had evidently been a favourite of Juliet's. + +She read on hoping to find the name of the coloured woman again, but it +did not occur. + +The diary, indeed, did not run over more than a year and a half, but +scrappy as it was and short in point of time, the character of Juliet +shone forth from it, uneasy, impetuous, tormenting and loving. + +Many books could not have depicted the people round Vernons so well as +this scribbling of a child. Mary Mascarene, quiet, rather a spoil-sport +and something of a tale-teller, dead and gone Pinckneys and Rhetts. Aunt +Susan, Cousin Jane Pinckney, Uncle George who beat his coloured man, +Darius, because the said Darius had let him go out with one brass button +missing from his blue coat. Simon Pinckney--the one whose ghost +walked--and who "fell down in the garden because he had the hiccups," +these and others of their time lived in the little black book given by the +miserly Aunt Susan "to keep as my diary and not to forget to write each +day my evil deeds as well as my good." + +Towards the end there was another reference to Rupert Pinckney, the tragic +lover of the future: + +"Rupert Pinckney was here to-day with his mother to luncheon and we had a +palmetto salad and mother said when he was gone he was the most frivulus +boy in Charleston, whatever that was, and too much of a dandy, but father +said he had stuff in him and Aunt Susan, who was here too, said 'Yes, +stuff and nonsense,' and I said he could ride his pony without tumbling +off like Silas Rhett, anyhow. + +"Then they went on talking about his people and how they hadn't as much +money as they used to have, and Aunt Susan said that was so, and the worst +of it is they're spending more money than they used to spend, and father +said, well, anyhow, that wasn't a very common complaint with _some_ people +and he left the room. He never stays long in the room with Aunt S. + +"I think the Pinckneys are real nice." + +"Mr. Simon Mascarene from Richmond and his wife came to see us to-day and +stay for a week. They drove here in their own carriage with four brown +horses and you could not tell which horse was which, they are so alike, +they are very fine people and Mr. M. has a red face--not the same red as +Mr. Simon Pinckney's, but different somehow--more like an apple, and a +high nose which makes him look very grand and fine." The same Simon +Mascarene, no doubt, that came to the wedding of Charles Pinckney in 1880 +as old Simon Mascarene, the one whose flowered carpet bag still lingered +in the memory of Miss Pinckney. + +"Mrs. M. is very fine too and beautifully dressed and mother gave her a +great bouquet of geraniums and garden flowers with a live green +caterpillar looping about in the green stuff which nobody saw but me, till +it fell on Mrs. M.'s knee and she screamed. There is to be a big party +to-morrow and the Pinckneys are coming and Rupert." + +There the diary ended. + +Phyl put it back on the shelf with the books. + +She had not the knowledge necessary to visualise the people referred to, +those people of another day when Planters kept open house, when slaves +were slaves and Bures the home of the old gentleman with the musical +snuff-box, but she could visualise Juliet as a child. The writing in the +little book had brought the vision up warm from the past and it seemed +almost as though she might suddenly run in from the sunlit piazza that lay +beyond the waving window curtains. + +There was a bureau in one corner, or rather one of those structures that +went by the name of Davenports in the days of our fathers. Phyl went to it +and raised the lid. She did so without a second thought or any feeling +that it was wrong to poke about in a place like this and pry into secrets. +Juliet seemed to belong to her as though she had been a sister, her own +likeness to the dead girl was a bond of attraction stronger than a family +tie, and Juliet's mournful love story completed the charm. + +The desk contained very little, a seal with a dove on it, some sticks of +spangled sealing-wax, a paper knife of coloured wood with a picture of +Benjamin Franklin on the handle and some sheets of note-paper with gilt +edges. + +Phyl noticed that the gilt was still bright. + +She took out the paper knife and looked at it, and then held the blade to +her lips to feel the smoothness of it, drawing it along so that her lips +touched every part of the blade. + +Then she put it back, and as she did so a little panel at the back of the +desk fell forward disclosing a cache containing a bundle of letters tied +round with ribbon. + +Phyl started as though a hand had been laid on her arm. The point of the +paper knife must have touched the spring of the panel, but it seemed as +though the desk had suddenly opened its hand, closed and clasping those +letters for so many years. For a moment she hesitated to touch them. Then +she thought of all the time they had lain there and a feeling that Juliet +wouldn't mind and that the old bureau had told its secret without being +asked, overcame her scruples. She took the letters and sitting down again +on the floor, untied the ribbon. + +There were no envelopes. Each sheet of paper had been carefully folded and +sealed with green wax, with the seal leaving the impression of the dove. +There was no address, and they had evidently been tied together in +chronological order. But the handwriting was the handwriting of Juliet +Mascarene fully formed now. + +The first of these things ran: + +"It wasn't my fault. I didn't create old Mr. Gadney and send him to church +to keep us talking in the street like that. I did _not_ see you. You +couldn't have passed, and if you did you must have been invisible. I feel +dreadfully wicked writing to you. Do you know this is a clandestine +correspondence and must stop at once? You mustn't _ever_ write to me +again, nor I mustn't see you. Of course I can't help seeing you in church +and on the street--and I can't help thinking about you. They'll be making +me try and stop breathing next. I don't care a button for the whole lot of +them. It was all Aunt Susan's doing, only for her my people would never +have quarrelled with yours and I wouldn't have been so miserable. I feel +sometimes as if I could just take a boat and sail off to somewhere where I +would never see any people again. + +"It was clever of you to send your letter by P. This goes to you by the +same hand." + +There was no signature and no date. + +Phyl turned the sheet of paper over to make sure again that there was no +address. As she did so a faint, quaint perfume came to her as though the +old-fashioned soul of the letter were released for a moment. It was +vervain, the perfume of long ago, beloved of the Duchesse de Chartres and +the ladies of the forties. + +She laid the letter down and took up the next. + +"It is _wicked_ of you. My people never would be so mean as to quarrel +with your people or look down on them because they have lost money. Why +did you say that--and you know I said in my last letter that I could not +write to you again. I was shocked when P. pinched my arm as I was passing +her on the stairs and handed me your note--Don't you--don't you--how shall +I say it? Don't you think you and I could meet and speak to one another +somewhere instead of always writing like this? Somewhere where no one +could see us. Do you know--do you know--do you, ahem! O dear me--know that +just inside our gate there's a little arbour. The tiniest place. When I +was a child I used to play there with Mary at keeping house, there's a +seat just big enough for two and we used to sit there with our dolls. No +one can see the gate from the lower piazza, and the gate doesn't make any +noise opening, for father had it oiled--it used to squeak a bit from rust, +but it doesn't now and I'll be there to-morrow night at nine--in the +arbour--at least I _may_ be there. I just want to tell you in a way I +can't in a letter that my people aren't the sort of folk to sneer at any +one because they have lost money. + +"I am sending this by P. + +"The arbour is just back of the big magnolia as you come in, on the +left." + +Phyl gave a little laugh. Then with half-closed eyes she kissed the +letter, laid it softly on the floor beside the first and went on to the +next. + +"Not to-night. I have to go to the Calhouns. It is just as well, for I +have a dread of people suspecting if we meet too often. No one sees us +meet. No one knows, and yet I fear them finding out just by instinct. +Father said to me the other day, 'What makes you seem so happy these +times?' If Mary had been alive she would have found out long ago, for I +never could keep anything hid from her. I was nearly saying to him, 'If +you want to know why I am so happy go and ask the magnolia tree by the +gate.' + +"Sometimes I feel as if I were deceiving him and everybody. I am, and I +don't care--I don't care if they knew. O my darling! My darling! My +darling! If the whole world were against you I would love you all the +more. I will love you all my life and I will love you when I am dead." + +Phyl's eyes grew half blind with tears. + +This cry from the Past went to her heart like a knife. The wind, +strengthening for a moment, moved the window curtains, bringing with it +the drowsy afternoon sounds of Charleston, sounds that seemed to mock at +this voice declaring the deathlessness of its love. It was impossible to +go on reading. Impossible to expose any more this heart that had ceased to +beat. + +The meetings in the arbour behind the magnolia tree, the kisses, the words +that the leaves and birds alone could hear--they had all ended in death. + +It did not matter now if the garden gate creaked on its hinges, or if +watching eyes from the piazza saw the glossy leaves stirring when no wind +could shake them--nothing mattered at all to these people now. + +She put all the letters back in the bureau, carefully closing them in the +secret drawer. + + + + +CHAPTER VII + + +"Miss Pinckney," said Phyl that night as they sat at supper, "when you +left me this afternoon in Juliet's room I stopped to look at the books and +things and when I opened the bureau I touched a spring by accident and a +little panel fell out and I found a lot of old letters behind it. It was +wrong of me to go meddling about and I thought I ought to tell you." + +"Old letters," said Miss Pinckney, "you don't say--what were they about?" + +"I read one or two," said the girl. "I'd never, never have dreamed of +touching them only--only they were hers--they were to him." + +"Rupert?" + +"Yes." + +"Love letters?" + +"Yes." + +Miss Pinckney sighed. + +"He kept all her letters," said she, "and they came back to her after he +was killed. He was killed here in Charleston, at Fort Sumter, in the war; +they brought him across here and carried him on a stretcher and she--well, +well, it's all done with and let it rest, but it is strange that those +letters should have fallen into your hands." + +"Why, strange?" + +"Why?" burst out Miss Pinckney. "Why I have dusted that old bureau inside +and out a hundred times, and pulled out the drawers and pushed them in and +it never shewed sign of having anything in it but emptiness, and you don't +do more'n look at it and you find those letters. It's just as if the thing +had deceived me. I don't mind, and I don't want to see them, they weren't +intended for other eyes than his and hers--and maybe yours since they were +shewn you like that." + +"Was it wrong of me to look at them?" asked Phyl. "I never would have done +it only--only--Oh, I don't know, I somehow felt she wouldn't mind. She +seemed like a sister--I would never dream of looking at another person's +letters but she did not seem like another person. I can't explain. It was +just as though the letters were my own--just exactly as though they were +my own when I found them in my hands." + +Phyl was talking with her eyes fixed before her as though she were looking +across some great distance. + +Miss Pinckney gave a little shiver, then supper being over she rose from +the table and led the way from the room. + +Richard Pinckney had dined with them but he was out for supper somewhere +or another. They went to the drawing-room and had not been there for more +than a few minutes when Frances Rhett was announced. + +The Rhetts were on intimate enough terms with the Pinckneys to call in +like this without ceremony; Frances had called to speak to Miss Pinckney +about some charity affair she was getting up in a hurry, but she had not +been five minutes in the room before Phyl knew that she had called to look +at her. To look at the girl who had come to live with the Pinckneys, the +red headed girl. Phyl did not know that girls of Frances' type dread red +haired girls, if they are pretty, as rabbits dread stoats, but she did +know in some uncanny way that Frances Rhett considered Richard Pinckney as +her own property to be protected against all comers. + +All at once and new born, the woman awoke in her instinctive, mistrustful +and armed. + +Frances Rhett, despite Miss Pinckney's dispraise of her, was a most +formidable person as far as the opposite sex was concerned. One of the +women of whom other women say, "Well, I don't know what he sees in her, +I'm sure." + +A brunette of eighteen who looked twenty, full-blooded, full lipped, full +curved, sleepy-eyed, she seemed dressed by nature for the part of the +world and the flesh--with a hint of the devil in those deep, dark, pansy +blue eyes that seemed now by artificial light almost black. + +"Well, I'll subscribe ten dollars," said Miss Pinckney; "I reckon the +darkie babies won't be any the worse for a _creche_ and maybe not very +much better for it. If you could get up an institution to distil good +manners and respect for their betters into their heads I'd give you forty. +I'm sure I don't know what the coloured folk of Charleston are coming to, +one of them nearly pushed me off the sidewalk the other day, bag of +impudence! and the way they look at one in the street with that sleery +leery what-d'-you-call-yourself-you-white-trash grin on their faces +s'nough to raise Cain in any one's heart." + +"I know," replied the dark girl, "and they are getting worse; the whip is +the only thing that as far as I can see ever made them possible, and what +we have now is the result of your beautiful Abolitionists." + +"Don't call them my beautiful Abolitionists," replied the other. "I didn't +make 'em. All the same I don't believe in whipping and never did. It's the +whip that whipped us in the war. If white folk had treated black folk like +Christians slavery would have been the greatest god-send to blacks. It was +what stays are to women. But they didn't. The low down white made slavery +impossible with his whipping and oppression and _we_ had to suffer. Well, +we haven't ended our sufferings and if these folk go on multiplying like +rabbits there's no knowing what we've got to suffer yet." + +Miss Rhett concurred and took her departure. "Now, that girl," said the +elder lady when Frances Rhett was gone, "is just the type of the people I +was telling her about. No idea but whipping. _She_ wouldn't have much +mercy on a human creature black or tan _or_ white. Thick skinned. She +didn't even see that I was telling her so to her face. Wonder what brought +her here this hour with her _creche_. It's just a fad. If they got up a +charity to make alligator bait of the black babies so's to sell the +alligator skins to buy pants with texts on them for the Hottentots it'd be +all the same to her. Something to gad about with. I wish I'd kept that ten +dollars in my pocket." + +Miss Pinckney went to bed early that night--before ten--and Phyl, who was +free to do as she chose, sat for a while in the lower piazza watching the +moon rising above the trees. She had a little plan in her mind, a plan +that had only occurred to her just before the departure of Miss Pinckney +for bed. + +She sat now watching the garden growing ghostly bright, the sun dial +becoming a moon dial, the carnations touched by that stillness and mystery +which is held only in the light of the moon and the light of the dawn. + +Phyl found herself sitting between two worlds. In the light of the +northern moon in summer there is a vague rose tinge to be caught at times +and in places when it falls full on house wall or the road on which one is +walking. The piazza to-night had this living and warm touch. It seemed lit +by a glorified ethereal day. A day that had never grown up and would never +lose the charm of dawn. + +Yet the garden to which she would now turn her eyes shewed nothing of +this. Night reigned there from the cherokee roses moving in the wind to +the carnations motionless, moon stricken, deathly white. + +Sure that Miss Pinckney would not come down again, Phyl rose and crossed +the garden towards the gate. + +She wanted to see if the trysting place behind the magnolia and the bushes +that grew about it were still there. + +At the gate she paused for a moment, glancing back at the house as Juliet +Mascarene might have done on those evenings when she had an appointment +with her lover. Then, pushing through the bushes and past the magnolia +trees she found herself in a little half moonlit space, a natural arbour +through whose roof of leaves the moonlight came in quavering shafts. She +stood for a moment absolutely still whilst her eyes accustomed themselves +to the light. Then she began to search for the seat she guessed to be +there, and found it. It was between an oak bole and the wall of the +garden, and the bushes behind had grown so that their branches half +covered it. Neglected, forsaken, unknown, perhaps, to the people now +living in Vernons it had lingered with the fidelity of inanimate things, +protected by the foliage of the southern garden from prying eyes. + +She pushed back the leaves and branches and bent them out of the way, then +she took her seat, and as she did so several of the bent branches released +themselves and closed half round her in a delightful embrace. + +From here she could see brokenly the garden and the walk leading from the +gate, with the light of the moon now strong upon the walk. The night +sounds of the street just beyond the wall came mixed with the stir of +foliage as the wind from the sea pressed over the trees like the hand of a +mesmerist inducing sleep. + +So it was here that Juliet Mascarene had sat with Rupert Pinckney on those +summer nights when the world was younger, before the war. The war that had +changed everything whilst leaving the roses untouched and the moonlight +the same on the bird-haunted garden of Vernons. + +Everything was the same here in this little space of flowers and trees. +But the lovers had vanished. + +"For man walketh in a vain shadow and disquieteth himself in vain." The +words strayed across Phyl's mind brought up by recollection. "He cometh up +and is cut down like a flower, he fleeth as it were a shadow, and never +continueth in one stay." + +The trees seemed whispering it, the eternal statement that leaves the +eternal question unanswered. + +The garden was talking to her, the night, the very bushes that clasped her +in a half embrace; perfumes, moonlight, the voice of the wind, all were +part of the spell that bound her, held her, whispered to her. It was as +though the love letter of Juliet had led her here to show her as in a +glass darkly the vainness of love in the vainness of life. + +Vainly, for as she sat watching in imagination the forms of the lost +lovers parting there at the gate, suddenly there came upon her a stirring +of the soul, a joyous uplifting as though wings had been given to her mind +for one wild second raising it to the heights beyond earthly knowledge. + +"Love can never die." + +It was as though some ghostly voice had whispered this fact in her ear. + +Juliet was not dead nor the man she loved, changed maybe but not dead. In +some extraordinary way she knew it as surely as though she herself had +once been Juliet. + +Religion to Phyl had meant little, the Bible a book of fair promises and +appalling threats, vague promises but quite definite threats. As a quite +small child she had gathered the impression that she was sure to be damned +unless she managed to convert herself into a quite different being from +the person she knew herself to be. Death was the supreme bogey, the future +life a thing not to be thought of if one wanted to be happy. + +Yet now, just as if she had been through it all, the truth came flooding +on her like a golden sea, the truth that life never loses touch with life, +that the body is only a momentary manifestation of the ever living +spirit. + +Meeting Street, the old house so full of memories, Juliet's letters, the +garden, they had all been stretching out arms to her, trying to tell her +something, whispering, suggesting, and now all these vague voices had +become clear, as though strengthened by the moonlight and the mystery of +night. + +Clear as lip-spoken words came the message: + +"You have lived before and we say this to you, we, the things that knew +you and loved you in a past life." + +A step that halted outside close to the garden gate broke the spell, the +gate turned on its hinges shewing through its trellis work the form of a +man. It was Pinckney just returned from some supper-party or club. + +Phyl caught her breath back. Suddenly, and at the sight of Pinckney, +Prue's words of that morning entered her mind. + +"Miss Julie, Massa Pinckney told me tell yo' he be at de gate t'night +same's las' night. Done you let on as I told you." + +And here he was, the man who had been occupying her thoughts and who was +beginning to occupy her dreams, and here she was as though waiting for him +by appointment. + +But there was much more than that. Worlds and worlds more than that, a +whole universe of happiness undreamed of. + +She rose from the seat and the parted bushes rustled faintly as they +closed behind her. + +Pinckney, who had just shut the gate, heard the whisper of the leaves, he +turned and saw a figure standing half in shadow and half in moonlight. For +a moment he was startled, fancying it a stranger, then he saw that it was +Phyl. + +"Hullo," said he. "Why, Phyl, what are you doing here?" + +The commonplace question shattered everything like a false note in music. + +"Nothing," she answered. Then without a word more she ran past him and +vanished into the house. + +Pinckney cast the stump of his cigar away. + +"What on earth is the matter with her now?" said he to himself. "What on +earth have I done?" + +The word she had uttered carried half a sob with it, it might have been +the last word of a quarrel. + +He stood for a moment glancing around. The wild idea had entered his mind +that she had been there to meet some one and that his intrusion had put +her out. + +But there was no one in the garden; nothing but the trees and the flowers, +wind shaken and lit by the moon, the same placid moon that had lit the +garden of Vernons for the lovers of whom he knew nothing except by +hearsay, and for whom he cared nothing at all. + + + + +CHAPTER VIII + + +When Phyl awoke from sleep next morning, the brightness of the South had +lost some of its charm. + +Something magical that had been forming in her mind and taking its life +from Vernons had been shattered last night by Pinckney's commonplace +question. + +This morning, looking back on yesterday, she could remember details but +she could not recapture the essence. The exaltation that had raised her +above and beyond herself. It was like the remembrance of a rose contrasted +with the reality. + +The whole day had been working up to that moment in the little arbour, +when her mind, tricked or led, had risen to heights beyond thought, to +happiness beyond experience, only to be cast down from those heights by +the voice of reality. + +The thing was plain enough to common sense; she had let herself be +over-ruled by Imagination, working upon splendid material. Prue's message, +her own likeness to Juliet, Juliet's letters, the little arbour, those and +the magic of Vernons had worked upon her mind singly and together, +exalting her into a soul-state utterly beyond all previous experience. + +It was as though she had played the part of Juliet for a day, suffered +vaguely and enjoyed in imagination what Juliet had suffered and enjoyed in +life, known Love as Juliet had known it--for a moment. + +The brutal touch of the Real coming at the supreme moment to shatter and +shrivel everything. + +And the strange thing was that she had no regrets. + +Looking back on yesterday, the things that had happened seemed of little +interest. Sleep seemed to have put an Atlantic ocean between her and +them. + +Coming down to breakfast she found Pinckney just coming in from the +garden; he said nothing about the incident of the night before, nor did +she, there were other things to talk about. Seth, one of the darkies, had +been 'kicking up shines,' he had given impudence to Miss Pinckney that +morning. Impudence to Miss Pinckney! You can scarcely conceive the meaning +of that statement without a personal knowledge of Miss Pinckney, and a +full understanding of the magic of her rule. + +Seth was, even now, packing up the quaint contraptions he called his +luggage, and old Darius, the coloured odd job man, was getting a barrow +out of the tool-house to wheel the said luggage to Seth's grandmother's +house, somewhere in the negro quarters of the town. The whole affair of +the impudence and dismissal had not taken two minutes, but the effects +were widespread and lasting. Dinah was weeping, the kitchen in confusion; +one might have thought a death had occurred in the house, and Miss +Pinckney presiding at the breakfast table was voluble and silent by +turns. + +"Never mind," said Pinckney with all the light-heartedness of a man +towards domestic affairs. "Seth's not the only nigger in Charleston." + +"I'm not bothering about his going," replied Miss Pinckney. "He was all +thumbs and of no manner of use but to make work; what upsets me is the way +he hid his nature. Time and again I've been good to that boy. He looked +all black grin and frizzled head, nothing bad in him you'd say--and then! +It's like opening a cupboard and finding a toad, and there's Dinah going +on like a fool; she's crying because he's going, not because he gave me +impudence. Rachel's the same, and I'm just going now to the kitchen to +give them a talking to all round." + +Off she went. + +"I know what that means," said Pinckney. "It's only once in a couple of +years that there's any trouble with servants and then--oh, my! You see +Aunt Maria is not the same as other people because she loves every one +dearly, and looks on the servants as part of the family. I expect she +loves that black imp Seth, for all his faults, and that's what makes her +so upset." + +"Same as I was about Rafferty," said Phyl with a little laugh. + +Pinckney laughed also and their eyes met. Just like a veil swept aside, +something indefinable that had lain between them, some awkwardness +arising, maybe, from the Rafferty incident, vanished in that moment. + +Phyl had been drawing steadily towards him lately, till, unknown to her, +he had entered into the little romance of Juliet, so much so that if last +night, at that magical moment when he met her on entering the gate--if at +that moment he had taken her in his arms and kissed her, Love might have +been born instantly from his embrace. + +But the psychological moment had passed, a crisis unknown to him and +almost unknown to her. + +And now, as if to seal the triumph of the commonplace, suddenly, the vague +reservation that had lain between them, disappeared. + +"Do you know," said he, "you taught me a lesson that day, a lesson every +man ought to be taught before he leaves college." + +"What was that?" asked Phyl. + +"Never to interfere in household affairs. Of course Rafferty wasn't +exactly a household affair because he belonged mostly to the stable, still +he was your affair more than mine. Household affairs belong to women, and +men ought to leave them alone." + +"Maybe you're right," said Phyl, "but all the same I was wrong. Do you +know I've never apologised for what I said." + +"What did you say?" asked he with an artless air of having forgotten. + +"Oh, I said--things, and--I apologise." + +"And I said--things, and I apologise--come on, let's go out. I have no +business this morning and I'd like to show you the town--if you'd care to +come." + +"What about Miss Pinckney?" asked Phyl. + +"Oh, she's all right," he replied. "The Seth trouble will keep her busy +till lunch time and I'll leave word we've gone out for a walk." + +Phyl ran upstairs and put on her hat. As they were passing through the +garden the thought came to her just for a moment to show him the little +arbour; then something stopped her, a feeling that this humble little +secret was not hers to give away, and a feeling that Pinckney wouldn't +care. Dead lovers vanished so long and their affairs would have little +interest for his practical mind. + +The morning was warmer even than yesterday. The joyous, elusive, +intoxicating spirit of the Southern spring was everywhere, the air seemed +filled with the dust of sunbeams, filled with fragrance and lazy sounds. +The very business of the street seemed part of a great universal gaiety +over which the sky heat hazy beyond the Battery rose in a dome of deep, +sublime tranquil blue. + +They stopped to inspect the old slave market. + +Then the remains of the building that had once been the old Planters Hotel +held Phyl like a wizard whilst Pinckney explained its history. Here in the +old days the travelling carriages had drawn up, piled with the luggage of +fine folk on a visit to Charleston on business or pleasure. The Planters +was known all through the Georgias and Virginia, all through the States in +the days when General Washington and John C. Calhoun were living figures. + +The ghost of the place held Phyl's imagination. Just as Meeting Street +seemed filled with friendly old memories on her first entering it, so did +the air around the ruins of the "Planters." + +Then having paused to admire the gouty pillars of St. Michael's they went +into the church. + +The silence of an empty church is a thing apart from all other silences in +the world. Deeper, more complete, more filled with voices. + +As they were entering a negro caretaker engaged in dusting and tidying let +something fall, and as the silence closed in on the faint echo that +followed the sound they stopped, just by the font to look around them. +Here the spirit of spring was not. The shafts of sunlight through the +windows lit the old fashioned box pews, the double decked pulpit, and the +font crowned with the dove with the light of long ago. Sunday mornings of +the old time assuredly had found sanctuary here and the old congregations +had not yet quite departed. + +The occasional noise of the caretaker as he moved from pew to pew scarcely +disturbed the tranquillity, the scene was set beyond the reach of the +sounds and daily affairs of this world, and the actors held in a medium +unshakable as that which holds the ghostly life of bees in amber and birds +in marqueterie. + +"That was George Washington's pew," whispered Pinckney, "at least the one +he sat in once. That's the old Pinckney pew, belonged to Bures--other +people sit there now. This is our pew--Vernons. The Mascarenes had it in +the old days, of course." + +Phyl looked at the pew where Juliet Mascarene had sat often enough, no +doubt, whilst the preacher had preached on the vanity of life, on the +delusions of the world and the shortness of Time. + +Many an eloquent divine had stood in the pulpit of St. Michael's, but none +have ever preached a sermon so poignant, so real, so searching as that +which the old church preaches to those who care to hear. + +They turned to go. + +Outside Phyl was silent and Pinckney seemed occupied by thoughts of his +own. They had got to that pleasant stage of intimacy where conversation +can be dropped without awkwardness and picked up again haphazard, but you +cannot be silent long in the streets of Charleston on a spring day. They +visited the market-place and inspected the buzzards and then, somehow, +without knowing it, they drifted on to the water side. Here where the +docks lie deserted and the green water washes the weed grown and rotting +timbers of wharves they took their seats on a baulk of timber to rest and +contemplate things. + +"There used to be ships here once," said he. "Lots of ships--but that was +before the war." + +He was silent and Phyl glanced sideways at him, wondering what was in his +mind. She soon found out. A struggle was going on between his two selves, +his business self that demanded up-to-dateness, bustle, and the energetic +conduct of affairs, and his other self that was content to let things lie, +to see Charleston just as she was, unspoiled by the thing we call Business +Prosperity. It was a battle between the South and the North in him. + +He talked it out to her. Went into details, pointed to Galveston and New +Orleans, those greedy sea mouths that swallow the goods of the world and +give out cotton, whilst Charleston lay idle, her wharves almost deserted, +her storehouses empty. + +He spoke almost vehemently, spoke as a business man speaks of wasted +chances and things neglected. Then, when he had finished, the girl put in +her word. + +"Well," said she, "it may be so but I don't want it any different from +what it is." + +Pinckney laughed, the laugh of a man who is confessing a weakness. + +"I don't know that I do either," said he. + +It was rank blasphemy against Business. At the club you would often find +him bemoaning the business decay of the city he loved, but here, sitting +by the girl on the forsaken wharf, in the sunshine, the feeling suddenly +came to him that there was something here that business would drive away. +Something better than Prosperity. + +It was as though he were looking at things for a moment through her eyes. + +They came back through the sunlit streets to find Miss Pinckney recovered +from the Seth business, and after luncheon that day, assisted by Dinah and +the directions of Miss Pinckney, Phyl's hair "went up." + +"It's beautiful," said the old lady, as she contemplated the result, "and +more like Juliet than ever. Take the glass and look at yourself." + +Phyl did. + +She did not see the beauty but she saw the change. Her childhood had +vanished as though some breath had blown it away in the magic mirror. + +PART III + + + + +CHAPTER I + + +In a fortnight Phyl had adjusted herself to her new environment so +completely that to use Pinckney's expression, she might have been bred and +born in Charleston. + +Custom and acquaintanceship had begun to dull without destroying the charm +of the place and the ghostly something, the something that during the +first two days had seemed to haunt Vernons, the something indefinable she +had called "It" had withdrawn. + +The spell, whatever it was, had been broken that night in the garden, when +Pinckney's commonplace remark had shattered the dream-state into which she +had worked herself with the assistance of Prue, Juliet's letters, the +little secret arbour and the moonlight of the South. + +One morning, coming down to breakfast, she found Miss Pinckney in +agitation, an open telegram in one hand and a feather duster in the +other. + +It was one of the early morning habits of Miss Pinckney to range the house +superintending things with a feather duster in hand, not so much for use +as for the purpose of encouraging others. She was in the breakfast room +now dusting spasmodically things that did not require dusting and talking +all the time, pausing every now and then to have another glance at the +telegram 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 by +listening and admiring. + +"Forty miles from here and ten from a railway station," said Miss +Pinckney, "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 nor +assented to in fact. They took their seats at table and then it all came +out. + +Colonel Seth Grangerson of Grangerson House, Grangerville, S. Carolina, +was ill. Miss Pinckney was his nearest relative, the nearest at least with +whom he was not fighting, and he had wired to her, or rather his son had +wired to her, to come at once. + +"As if I were a bird," said the old lady. Grangerville was a backwater +place, badly served by the railway, and it would take the best part of a +day 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 though +oblivious to the suggestion, "but I suppose he's fought with them again. I +patched up a peace between them last midsummer, but I suppose the patches +didn't stick; he's fought with the Revenalls, he's fought with the +Calhouns, he's fought with the Beauregards, he's fought with the +Tredegars--that man would fight with his own front teeth if he couldn't +get anything better to fight with, and now he's dying I expect he reckons +to 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 for +him--Oh, he's not so bad," turning to Phyl, "he's good enough only for +that--will fight." + +"Too much pep," said Pinckney. + +"I'm sure I don't know what it is. They're the queerest lot the Almighty +ever put feet on, and I don't mind saying it, even though they are +relatives." Turning to Phyl. "I suppose you know, least I suppose you +think, that the Civil War was fought for the emancipation of the darkies +and that they _were_ emancipated." + +"Yes!" + +"Well, they weren't--at least not at Grangersons. While the Colonel's +father 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 he +took up the rule again. Emancipation--no one would have dared to say the +word to him, he'd have killed you with a look. The North never beat +Grangerson, it beat Davis and one man and another but it never beat +Grangerson, he carried on after the war just as he carried on before, told +the darkies that emancipation was nigger talk and they believed him. +People came round telling them they were free, and all they got was broken +heads. They were a very tetchy lot, those niggers, are still what are left +of 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, I +suspect. You see, the old darkies are all right, but when he's forced to +get new labour he has to get the new darkies and they're all wrong, and he +thrashes them and they run away. They never take the law of him either. I +reckon when they get clear of Silas they don't stop running till they get +to Galveston." + +They talked of other things and then, breakfast over, Miss Pinckney turned +to 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 by +yourself, 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 couple +of days, so you'd better take enough things." + +Then she went off to dress herself for the journey, and an hour later she +appeared veiled and apparelled, Dick following her with the luggage, a +bandbox and a bag of other days. + +She got into the big touring car without a word. Phyl followed her and +Pinckney tucked the rug round their knees. + +"You've got the most careful driver in Charleston," said he, "and he knows +the road." + +Miss Pinckney nodded. + +She was flying straight in the face of her pet prejudice. She was not in +the least afraid of a break down or an overset. An accident that did not +rob 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--Seth +in a striped sleeved jacket, all grin and frizzled head and bearing a +bunch of flowers in his hand. He had not been dismissed after all. When +Miss Pinckney had gone into the kitchen to pay him his wages he had +carried on so that she forgave him. The flowers--her own flowers just +picked from the garden--were an offering, not to propitiate but to +please. + +Pinckney laughed, but Miss Pinckney as she took the bouquet scarcely +noticed 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 sea +wind, swamp-land and river and bayou showing streets and ponds of sapphire +through the vanishing haze. + +Phyl was in high spirits; the tune of Camptown Races, which a street boy +had been whistling as they started, pursued her. Miss Pinckney, dumb +through the danger zone where chickens and dogs and nigger children might +be run over, found her voice in the open country. + +The bunch of flowers presented to her by Seth and which she was holding on +her lap started her off. + +"I hope it is not a warning," said she; "wouldn't be a bit surprised to +find Seth Grangerson in his coffin waiting for the flowers to be put on +him; 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 me +impudence." + +"You've taken him back," said Phyl. + +"Well, I suppose I have," said the other in a resigned voice, "and likely +to pay for my foolishness." + +Pinckney had said that it was only a two hours' run from Charleston to +Grangerville, but he had reckoned without taking into consideration the +badness of some of the roads, and the intricacies of the way, for it was +after one o'clock when they reached the little town beyond which, a mile +to the West, lay the Colonel's house. + +Grangerville lies on the border of Clarendon county, a tiny place that yet +supports a newspaper of its own, the _Grangerville Courier_. The _Courier_ +office, the barber's shop and the hotel are the chief places in +Grangerville, and yellow dogs and black children seem the bulk of the +population, at least of a warm afternoon, when drowsiness holds the place +in her keeping, and the light lies broad and steadfast and golden upon the +cotton fields, and the fields of Indian corn, and the foliage of the woods +that spread to southward, enchanted woods, fading away into an enchanted +world of haze and sun and silence. + +When the great Southern moon rises above the cotton fields, Romance +touches even Grangerville itself, the baying of the yellow dog, darkey +voices, the distant plunking of a banjo, the owl in the trees--all are the +same as of old--and the houses are the same, nearly, and the people, and +it is hard to believe that over there to the North the locomotives of the +Atlantic Coast railway are whistling down the night, that men are able to +talk 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 set +far back from the road, and approached by an avenue of cypress. As they +drew up before the pillared piazza, upon which the front door opened, from +the 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 and +obstinate type which seems a legacy of the Roman Empire, whose legionaries +left much more behind them in Gaul and Britain than Trajan arches and +Roman roads. He was dressed in light grey tweeds, his linen was +immaculate--youthful and still a beau in point of dress, and bearing +himself erect with the aid of a walking stick, a crutch handled stick of +clouded malacca, Colonel Seth Grangerson, for he it was, had come to his +front door, drawn by the sound of the one thing he detested more than +anything in life, a motor car. + +"Why, Lord! He's not even in bed," cried the outraged Miss Pinckney, who +recognised him at once. "All this journey and he up and about--it beats +Seth and his impudence!" + +The Colonel, whose age dimmed eyes saw nothing but the automobile, came +down the steps, panama hat in hand, courtly, freezing, yet ready to +explode on the least provocation. Within touch of the car he recognised +the 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 or +worse, 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 last +night, and I told him I'd be up and about in the morning--and I am. Good +Gad! Maria, you're the last person in the world I'd ever have expected to +see in one of these outrageous things." He had opened the door of the car +and was presenting his arm to the lady. + +"You can shut the door," said Miss Pinckney. "I'm not getting out. The +thing's not more outrageous than your getting up like that right after an +attack and dragging me a hundred miles from Charleston over hill and +dale--I'm not getting out, I'm going right back--right back to +Charleston." + +The Colonel turned his head and called to a darkey that had appeared at +the front door. + +"Take the luggage in," said he. Miss Pinckney got out of the car despite +herself, half laughing, half angry, and taking the gallantly proffered arm +found herself being led up the steps of Grangersons, pausing half way up +to introduce Phyl, whom she had completely forgotten till now. + +The Colonel, like his son Silas, as will presently be seen, had a direct +way with women; the Grangersons had pretty nearly always fallen in love at +sight and run away with their wives. Colonel Seth's father had done this, +meeting, marrying and fascinating the beautiful Maria Tredegar, and +carrying her off under his arm like a hypnotised fowl, and from under the +noses of half a dozen more eligible suitors, just as now, the Colonel was +carrying Maria Pinckney off into his house half against her will. Phyl +following them, gazed round at the fine old oak panelled hall, from which +they were led into the drawing room, a room not unlike the drawing room at +Vernons, but larger and giving a view of the garden where the oleanders +and cherokee money and the crescent leaves of the blue gum trees were +moving in the wind. Colonel Seth, despite the war, had plenty of roses and +Grangersons was kept up in the old style. Just as in Nuremberg and +Vittoria we see mediaeval cities preserved, so to speak, under glass, so at +Grangersons one found the old Plantation, house and all, miraculously +intact, living, almost, one might say, breathing. + +The price of cotton did not matter much to the Colonel, nor the price of +haulage. This son of the Southerner who had refused to be beaten by the +North in the war, cared for nothing much beyond the ring of sky that made +his horizon. Twice a year he made a visit to Charleston, driving in his +own carriage, occasionally he visited Richmond or Durham, where he had an +interest in tobacco; New York he had never seen. He loathed railways and +automobiles, mainly, perhaps, because they were inventions of the North, +that is to say the devil. He had a devilish hatred of the North. Not of +Northerners, but just of the North. + +The word North set his teeth on edge. It did not matter to him that +Charleston was picking up some prosperity in the way of phosphates, or +that Chattanooga was smelting ore into money, or that industrial +prosperity was abroad in the land; he was old enough to have a +recollection of old days, and from the North had come the chilly blast +that had blown away that age. + +A servant brought in cake and wine to stay the travellers till dinner +time, refreshment that Miss Pinckney positively refused at first. + +"You will stay the night," said the Colonel, as he helped her, "and Sarah +will show you to your rooms when we have had a word together." + +Miss Pinckney, sipping her wine, made no reply, then placing the scarcely +touched glass on the table and with her bonnet strings thrown back, she +turned 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 your +face to the light." + +The Colonel, searching in his waistcoat pocket, found a pair of folding +glasses and put them on. + +"She gets it from her mother's side," said Miss Pinckney, "the Lord knows +how it is these things happen, but it's Juliet, isn't it?" + +The Colonel removed his glasses, wiped them with his handkerchief, and +returned 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 the +garden whilst we have a chat? Old people's talk isn't of much interest to +young 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 into +the hall, where at the still open door he pointed the way to the garden. + + + + +CHAPTER II + + +Outside Phyl stood for a moment to breathe the warm scented air and look +around her. + +To be treated like a child by any other person than Maria Pinckney would +have incensed her, all the same to be told to do a thing because it was +good for her, or because it was a pleasant thing to do, in the teller's +opinion, was an almost certain way of making her do the exact opposite. + +The garden did not attract her, the place did. + +That cypress avenue with the sun upon it, that broad sweep of drive in +front of the house, the distant peeps of country between trees and the +languorous lazy atmosphere of the perfect day fascinated her mind. She +came along the house front to the right, and found herself at the gate of +the stable yard. + +The stable yard of Grangersons was an immense flagged quadrangle bounded +on the right, counting from the point of entrance, by the kitchen +premises. + +There was stable room for forty horses, coach-house accommodation for a +dozen or more carriages. + +The car had been run into one of the coach-houses and the yard stood +empty, sunlit, silent, save for the voices of the pigeons wheeling in the +air, or strutting on the roof of the great barn adjoining the stables. + +One of the stable doors was open and as Phyl crossed the yard a young man +appeared at the open door, shaded his eyes and looked at her. Then he came +forward. It was Silas Grangerson, and Phyl thought he was the handsomest +and most graceful person she had ever seen in her life. + +Silas was a shade over six feet in height, dark, straight, slim yet +perfectly proportioned; his face was extraordinary, the most vivid thing +one would meet in a year's journey, and with a daring, and at times, +almost a mad look unforgettable when once glimpsed. Like the Colonel and +like his ancestors Silas had a direct way with women. + +"Hallo," said he, with the sunny smile of old acquaintanceship, "where +have _you_ sprung from?" + +Phyl was startled for a moment, then almost instantly she came in touch +with the vein and mood and mind of the other and laughed. + +"I came with Miss Pinckney," said she. + +"You're not from Charleston?" + +"Yes, indeed I am." + +"But where do you live in Charleston? I've never seen you and I know +every--besides you don't look as if you belonged to Charleston--I don't +believe you've come from there." + +"Then where do you think I've come from?" + +"I don't know," said Silas laughing, "but it doesn't matter as long as +you're here, does it? 'Scuse my fooling, won't you--I wouldn't with a +stranger, but you don't seem a stranger somehow--though I don't know your +name." + +"Phylice Berknowles," said Phyl, glancing up at him and half wondering how +it was that, despite his good looks, his manhood, and their total +unacquaintanceship, she felt as little constrained in his presence as +though he were a boy. + +"And my name is Silas Grangerson. Say, is Maria Pinckney in the house with +father?" + +"She is." + +"Talking over old times, I s'pose?" said Silas. + +"Yes!" + +"I can hear them. It's always the same when they get together--and I +suppose you got sick of it and came out?" + +"No, they put me out--asked me wouldn't I like to look at the garden." + +Already she had banded herself with him in mild opposition to the elders. + +"Great--Jerusalem. They're just like a pair of old horses wanting to be +left quiet and rub their nose-bags together. Look at the garden! I can +hear them--come on and look at the horses." + +He led the way to a loose box and opened the upper door. + +"That's Flying Fox, she's mine, the fastest trotter in the Carolinas--you +know anything about horses?" + +"Rather!" + +"I thought you did, somehow. Mind! she doesn't take to strangers. Mind! +she bites like an alligator." + +"Not me," said Phyl, fondling the lovely but fleering-eyed head protruding +above the lower door. + +"So she doesn't," said Silas admiringly, "she's taken to you--well, I +don't blame her. Here's John Barleycorn," opening another door, "own +brother to the Fox, he's Pap's; he's a bolter, and kicks like a duck gun. +She's got all her vice at one end of her and he at the other, match pair." +He whistled between his teeth as he put up the bars, then he shewed other +horses, Phyl watching his every movement, and wondering what it was that +gave pleasure to her in watching. Silas moved, or seemed to move, +absolutely without effort, and his slim brown hands touched everything +delicately, as though they were touching fragile porcelain, yet those same +hands could bend an iron bar, or rein in John Barleycorn even when the bit +was between the said J. B.'s teeth. + +"That's the horses," said he, flinging open a coach-house door, "and +that's the shandrydan the governor still drives in when he goes to +Charleston. Look at it. It was made in the forties, and you should see it +with a darkey on the box and Pap inside, and all his luggage behind, and +he going off to Charleston, and the nigger children running after it." + +Phyl inspected the mustard-yellow vehicle. Then he closed the door on it, +put up the bar, and, the business of showing things over, did a little +double shuffle as though Phyl were not present, or as though she were a +boy friend and not a strange young woman. + +"Say, do you like poetry?" said he, breaking off and seeming suddenly to +remember her presence. + +"No," said Phyl. "At least--" + +"Well, here's some. + + "'There was an old hen and she had a wooden leg, She went to the barn + and she laid a wooden egg, She laid it right down by the barn--don't + you think.'" + +"Well?" said she, laughing. + +"'It's just about time for another little drink--' some sense in poetry +like that, isn't there? But all the drinks are in the house and I don't +want to go in. I'm hiding from Pap. Last night when he was ratty with +rheumatism, he let out at me, saying the young people weren't any good, +saying Maria Pinckney was the only person he knew with sense in her head, +called me a name because I poured him out a dose of liniment instead of +medicine, by mistake--though he didn't swallow it--and wished Maria was +here. So I just sent Jake, the page boy, off with a wire to her; didn't +tell any one, just sent it. Come on and look at the garden--you've got to +look at the garden, you know." + +He led the way past the barn to a farmyard, where hens were clucking and +scratching and scraping in the sunshine; the deep double bass grunting of +pigs came from the sties, by the low wall across which one could see the +country stretching far away, the cotton fields, the woods, all hazed by +the warmth of the afternoon. + +"Let's sit down and look at the garden," said he, pointing to a huge log +by the near wall--"and aren't the convolvuluses beautiful?" + +"Beautiful," said Phyl, falling into the vein of the other. "And listen to +the roses." + +"They grunt like that because it's near dinner time--they're pretty much +like humans." He took a cigarette case from his pocket and a cigarette +from the case. + +"You don't mind smoking, do you?" + +"Not a bit." + +"Have one?" + +"I daren't." + +"Maria Pinckney won't know." + +"It's not her--I smoked one once and it made me sick." + +"Well, try another--I won't look if you are." + +"They'll--she'll smell it." + +"Not she, you can eat some parsley, that takes the smell away." + +"Oh, I don't mind telling her--it's only--well, there." + +She took a cigarette and he lit it for her. + +"Blow it through your nose," he commanded, "that's the way. Now let's +pretend we're two old darkies sitting on a log, you push against me and +I'll push against you, you're Jim and I'm Uncle Joseph. 'What yo' crowding +me for, Jim,'" he squeezed up gently against her, and Phyl jumped to her +feet. + +He glanced up at her, sideways, laughing, and for the life of her she +could not be angry. + +"Don't you think we'd better go and look at the garden?" said she. + +"In a minute, sit down again. I won't knock against you. It was only my +fun. We'll pretend I'm Pap, and you're Maria Pinckney, if you like. You've +let your cigarette go out." + +"So I have." + +"You can light it from mine." + +Phyl hesitated and was lost. + +It was the nearest thing to a kiss, and as she drew back with the lighted +cigarette between her lips, she felt a not unpleasant sense of wickedness, +such as the virtuous boy feels when led to adventure by the bad boy. +Sitting on a log, smoking cigarettes, talking familiarly with a stranger, +taking a light from him in such a fashion with her face so close to his +that his eyes-- They smoked in silence for a moment. + +Then Silas spoke: + +"Do you ever feel lonesome?" said he. + +"Awfully--sometimes." + +"So do I." + +Silence for a moment. Then: + +"I go off to Charleston when I feel like that--once in a fortnight or +so--Where do you live in Charleston?" + +"I live with Miss Pinckney--I thought you knew." + +"You didn't say that. You only said you came with her." + +"Well, I live with her at Vernons. I'm Irish, y' know. My--my father died +in Charleston, and I came from Ireland to live with Miss Pinckney. Mr. +Richard Pinckney is my guardian." + +"Your which? Dick Pinckney your guardian! Why, he's not older than I +am--that fellow your guardian--why, he wears a flannel petticoat." + +"He doesn't," cried Phyl, flinging away the cigarette, which had become +noxious, and roused to sudden anger by the slighting tone of the other. +"What do you mean by saying such a thing?" + +"Oh, I only meant that he's too awfully proper for this life. He goes to +Charleston races, but never backs a horse, scarcely, and one Mint Julep +would make him see two crows. He's a sort of distant relation of ours." + +Phyl was silent. She resented his criticism of her friend, and just in +this moment the something mad and harum scarum in the character of Silas +seemed shown up to her with electrical effect. Criticism is a most +dangerous thing to indulge in, unless anonymously in the pages of a +journal, for the right to criticise has to be made good in the mind of the +audience, unless the audience is hostile to the criticised. + +Then she said: "I don't know anything about Mint Juleps or race courses, +but I do know that Mr. Pinckney has been--is--is my friend, and I'd rather +not talk about him, if you please." + +"Now, you're huffed," cried Silas exultingly, as though he had scored a +point at some game. + +"I'm not." + +"You are--you've flushed." + +Phyl turned pale, a deadly sign. + +"I'd never dream of getting out of temper with _you_," said she. + +It was his turn to flush. You might have struck Silas Grangerson without +upsetting his balance, but the slightest suspicion of a sneer raised all +the devil in him. Had Phyl been a man he would have knocked him off the +log. He cast the stump of his cigarette on the ground and pounded it with +his heel. Had there been anything breakable within reach he would have +broken it. Her anger with him vanished and she laughed. + +"You've flushed now," said she. + + + + +CHAPTER III + + +When they came round to the front of the house they found Colonel +Grangerson and Miss Pinckney coming down the steps. + +They were going to the garden in search of Phyl. + +"We've been looking at the horses," said Silas, after he had greeted Miss +Pinckney. "No, sir, I did not leave any of the doors open, but I've been +looking for Sam with a blacksnake whip to liven him up. He left the grey +without grooming after she was brought in this morning, and I was rubbing +her down myself when this lady came into the yard." + +"I'll skin that nigger," cried the Colonel. + +"I reckon I'll save you that trouble, sir," replied the son, as they +turned garden-wards. + +Silas had little use for "r's" and said "suh" for "sir" and "wah" for +"war." He was also quite a different person in the presence of his father +from what he was when alone or in the presence of strangers. + +In the presence of his father, past generations spoke in his every word +and action, he became sedate, deferential, leisurely. It was not fear of +the elder man that caused this change, it was reflection from him. + +The shadows were long in the garden, and away across the pastures, +glimpsed beyond the cypress hedge and bordering the cotton fields, the +pond-shadows cast by the live oaks at noon had become river shadows, +flowing eastward; the murmur of bees filled the air like a haze of sound, +and here and there as they passed a bush coloured flowers detached +themselves and became butterflies. + +They sat down on a great old stone bench lichened and sun warmed to enjoy +the view, and the Colonel talked of tobacco and politics and cotton, +including them all in his conversation in the grand patriarchal manner. + +Phyl understanding little, and half drowsed by the warmth and the buzzing +of the bees and the voice of the speaker, had given herself up to that +lazy condition of mind which is the next best thing to sleep, when she was +suddenly aroused. She was seated between Miss Pinckney and Silas. Silas +had pinched her little finger. + +She snatched her hand away, and turned towards him. He was looking away +over the pastures; his profile showed nothing but its absolute +correctness. Miss Pinckney had noticed nothing, and the Colonel, who had +finished with cotton, looking at his watch, declared that it was close on +dinner time. + +After supper that night, Phyl found herself in the garden. Silas had not +appeared at supper; the Colonel had brought down a book of old +photographs, photographs of people and places dead or changed, and he and +Miss Pinckney became so absorbed in them that they had little thought for +the girl. + +She went out to look at the moon, and it was worth looking at, rising like +a honey coloured shield above the belt of the eastern woods. + +The whole world was filled with the moonlight, warm tinted, and ghostly as +the light of vanished days, white moths were flitting above the bushes, +and on the almost windless air the voice of an owl came across the cotton +fields. + +Phyl reached the seat where they had all sat that afternoon. It was still +warm from the all-day sunshine, and she sat down to rest and listen. + +The owl had ceased crying, and through the league wide silence faint +sounds far and near told of the life moving and thrilling beneath the +night; the boom of a beetle, voices from the distant road, and now and +then a whisper of wind rising and dying out across the garden and the +trees. + +A faint sound came from behind the seat, and before Phyl could turn two +warm hands covered her eyes. + +She plucked them away and stood up. + +"I _wish_ you wouldn't do things like that," she cried. "How _dare_ you?" + +"I couldn't help it," replied the other, "you looked so comfortable. I +didn't mean to startle you. I thought you must have heard me coming across +the grass." + +"I didn't--and you shouldn't have done it." + +"Well, I'm sorry. There, I've apologised, make friends." + +"There is nothing to make friends about," she replied stiffly. "No, I +don't want to shake hands--I'm not angry, let us go into the house." + +"Don't," said Silas imploringly. "He and she are sitting over that old +album, comparing notes. I saw them through the window, that's why I came +to look for you in the garden. Do you know, I believe the Governor was +gone once on Maria, years ago, but they never got married. He married my +mother instead." + +Phyl forgot her resentment. + +The faint idea that Colonel Grangerson and Maria Pinckney had perhaps been +more than friends in long gone days, had strayed across her mind, to be +dismissed as a fancy. It interested her to find Silas confirming it. + +"Of course, I can't say for certain," he went on, lighting a cigarette. "I +only judge by the way they go on when they're together, and the way he +talks of her. Say, do you ever want to grow old?" + +"No, I don't--ever." + +"Neither do I. I hope I'll be kicked to death by a horse, or drowned or +shot before I'm forty. I don't want to die in any beds with doctors round +me. I reckon if I'm ever like that I'll drink the liniment instead of the +medicine--same as I nearly drenched Pap--and go to heaven with a red label +for my ticket. Sit down for a while and let's talk." + +"No, I don't care to sit down." + +"I won't touch you. I promise." + +Phyl hesitated a moment and then sat down. She was not afraid of Silas in +the least, but his tricks of an overgrown boy did not please her; it +seemed to her sometimes as though his irresponsibility was less an +inheritance from youth, than from some ancestor ill-balanced to the point +of craziness. If any other man of his age had acted and spoken to her as +he had done she would have smacked his face, but Silas was Silas, and his +good looks and seeming innocence, and something really charming that lay +away at the back of his character and gave colour to this personality, +managed, somehow, to condone his queerness of conduct. + +All the same she sat a foot away from him on the seat, and kept her hands +folded on her lap. + +Silas sat for a while smoking in silence, then he spoke. + +"Where's this you said you came from?" + +"Ireland." + +"You don't talk like a Paddy a bit." + +"Don't I?" + +"Not a bit, nor look like one." + +"Have you seen many Irish people?" + +"No, mostly in pictures--comic papers, you know, like _Puck_." + +"I think it's a shame," broke out Phyl. "People are always making fun of +the Irish, drawing them like monkeys with great upper lips--but it's only +ignorant people who never travel who think of them like that." + +"That's so, I expect," replied Silas, either unconscious of the dig at +himself or undesirous of a quarrel, "and the next few dollars I have to +spare I'll go to Ireland. I'm crazy now to see it." + +"What's made you crazy to see it?" + +"Because it's the place you come from." + +Phyl sniffed. + +"I hate compliments." + +"I wasn't complimenting you, I was complimenting Ireland," said Silas +sweetly. She was silent, a white moth passing close to her held her gaze +for a moment, then it flitted away across the bushes. + +"Let's forget Ireland for a moment," said she, "and talk of Charleston. Do +you know many people there?" + +"I know most every one. The Pinckneys and Calhouns and Tredegars and +Revenalls and--" + +"Rhetts." + +"Yes--but there are a dozen Rhetts; same as there's half a hundred +Pinckneys and Calhouns, families, I mean. What's his name--Richard +Pinckney, your guardian, is engaged to a Rhett." + +"He is not." + +"He is--Venetia Frances, the one that lives in Legare Street. Why, I've +seen them canoodling often, and every one says they are engaged." + +"Well, he's not, or Miss Pinckney would have told me." + +"Oh, she's blind. I tell you he is, and she'll be your guardian when he's +married her." + +"That she won't," said Phyl. + +"How'll you help it? A man and wife are one." + +"He's only guardian of my property." + +"Well, Heaven help your property when she gets a finger in the pie; she'll +spend it on hats--sure." + +This outrageous statement, uttered with a laugh, left Phyl cold. The +statement about Frances Rhett had disturbed her, she could not tell +exactly why, for it was none of her business whom Pinckney might choose to +marry--still--Frances Rhett! It was almost as though an antagonism had +existed between them since that afternoon when she had seen Frances first, +driving in the car with Richard Pinckney. + +She rose to her feet and Silas rose also, throwing away the end of his +cigarette. + +"Going into the house?" said he. + +"Yes!" + +"Well, you'll be off to-morrow morning, and I won't see you, for I have to +be out early, but I'll see you in Charleston, though not at Vernons maybe, +for I'm not in love with Richard Pinckney, and I don't care much for +visiting his house. But I'll see you somewhere, sure." + +"Good-bye," said she holding out her hand. He took it, held it, and then, +all of a sudden, she found herself in his arms. + +Helpless as a child, in his arms and smothered with kisses. He kissed her +on the mouth, on the forehead, on the chin, and with a last kiss on the +mouth that made her feel as though her life were going from her, he +vanished. Vanished amidst the bushes whilst she stood, tottering, dazed, +breathless, outraged, yet--in some extraordinary way not angry. Pulled +between tears and laughter, resentment, and a strange new feeling suddenly +born in her from his burning lips, and the strength that had held her for +a moment to itself. + +In one moment, and as though with the stroke of a sword, Silas had cut +down the barrier that had divided her from the reality of things. He had +kissed away her childhood. + +Then throwing out her hands as though pushing away some presence that was +surrounding her, she ran to the house. In the hall she sat down for a +moment to recover herself before going into the drawing room, where Miss +Pinckney and the Colonel were closing the book which held for them the +people and the places they had known in youth, and between its leaves who +knows what old remembrances, like the withered flower that has once formed +part of a summer's day. + + + + +CHAPTER IV + + +They started at ten o'clock next morning for Charleston, the Colonel +standing 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 the +butler said, and had not returned. Miss Pinckney resented this casual +treatment. + +"He ought to have been here to bid us good-bye," said she, as they cleared +the avenue. "He's got the name for being a mad creature, but even mad +creatures may show common courtesy. I'm sure I don't know where he gets +his manners from unless it's his mother's lot, same place as he got his +good looks." + +"Why do you say he's mad?" asked Phyl. + +"Because he is. Not exactly mad, maybe, but eccentric, he swum Charleston +harbour with his clothes on because some one dared him, and was nearly +drowned with the tide coming in or going out, I forget which; and another +day 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 or +something and stop him--at least that's the story. He'll come to a bad +end, that boy, unless he mends his ways. Lots of people say he's got good +in him. So he has, perhaps, but it's just that sort that come to the worst +end, 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 all +during the night, and her feelings towards Silas Grangerson, now that she +was beyond his reach, were alternating in the strangest way between +attraction and repulsion. + +They would have repelled the thought of him entirely but for the +instinctive recognition of the fact that his conduct had been the result +of impulse, the impulse of a child, ill governed, and accustomed to seize +what it wanted. Added to that was the fact of his entire naturalness. From +the moment of their first meeting he had talked to her as though they were +old acquaintances. Unless when talking to his father, everything in his +manner, tone, conversation was free, unfettered by convention, fresh, if +at times startling. This was his great charm, and at the same time his +great defect, for it revealed his want of qualities no less than his +qualities. + +Do what she could she was unable to escape from the incident of last +night, it was as though those strong arms had not quite released their +hold upon her, as though Pan had broken from the bushes, shown her by his +magic things she had never dreamed of, and vanished. + +It was nearly two o'clock when they reached Vernons. Richard Pinckney was +at 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 after +breathing 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 where +some refreshments were awaiting them, "and glad I am to be back. Vernons +smells good after Grangersons. Oh, dear me, what is it that clings to that +place? It's like opening an old trunk that's been shut for years. I told +Seth Grangerson, right out flat, he ought to get away from there into the +world somewhere, but there he sits clinging to his rheumatism and the +past. I declare I nearly cried last night as he was showing me all those +old pictures." + +"He's not very ill then," said Richard. + +"Ill! Not he. It was that fool Silas sent the telegram. Just an attack of +rheumatism." + +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 had +come to live with them. Phyl had suddenly turned into a young woman--and +such a young woman! He had never considered her looks before, to young men +of his age and temperament girls in pigtails are, as far as the manhood in +them is concerned, little more and sometimes less than things. But Phyl +with her hair up was not to be denied, and had he not been philandering +after Frances Rhett, and had Phyl been a total stranger suddenly seen, it +is quite possible that a far warmer feeling than admiration might have +been the result. As it was she formed a new interest in life. + +He showed her the alterations he was making, slight enough and causing +little change in the general plan of the garden. + +"I scarcely like doing anything," said he, "but that new walk will be no +end of an improvement, and it will save that bit of grass which is being +trodden to death by people crossing it, then there's all those bushes by +the gate, they're going, those behind the tree,--a little space there will +make 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 the +seat. + +She no longer felt that she was betraying a secret. Her experience at +Grangersons 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 seen +it." + +"Juliet Mascarene used to sit there with--with some one she was in love +with. I found some of her old letters and they told about it--see, it's a +little arbour, used to be, though it's all so overgrown now." + +"Juliet," said he. "That was the girl who died. I have heard Aunt Maria +talk about her and she keeps her room just as it used to be. Who was the +somebody?" + +"It was a Mr. Rupert Pinckney." + +"I knew there was a love story of some sort connected with her, but I +never 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 did +not 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 mad +on family likenesses, and I never thought of it. It may be a want in me +but I've never taken much interest in dead relatives; but somehow, finding +this little place tucked away here gives one a jog. It's like finding a +nest in a tree. How long have you known of it?" + +"Oh, some time. I found a bundle of her old letters--" she paused. Richard +Pinckney had taken his place on the little seat, just as one sits down in +an armchair to see if it is comfortable, and was leaning back amidst the +bush branches. + +"This is all right," said he, "sit down, there's lots of room--you found +her 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 Mascarene +birds were set against her marrying him, I suppose. Makes one wild that +sort 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 after +one is grown up. You remember I told you that over in Ireland; when candy +and fishing rods mean happiness money is all right--after that money is +useful enough, but it's the making of it and not the spending it that +counts,--that and a lot of things that have nothing to do with money. If +the Mascarenes hadn't been fools they'd have seen that a poor man with +kick 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 was +killed, 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 against +what comes unexpectedly. Now that telegram yesterday morning took me to +Grangersons with Miss Pinckney. Suppose--suppose I had broken my leg or, +say, fallen into a well there and got drowned--that would have been +Fate." + +"No," said Pinckney, "carelessness, the telegram would not have drowned +you, but your carelessness in going too close to the well." + +"Suppose," said Phyl, "instead of that, Mr. Silas Grangerson had shot me +by accident with a gun--the telegram would have brought me to that without +any carelessness of mine." + +"No, it couldn't," said Pinckney lightly, "it would still have been your +own 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 call +Fate is nothing more than want of foresight." + +"And the tenth time it is Fate," said Phyl rising. + + + + +CHAPTER V + + +Next morning brought Phyl a letter. It came by the early post, so that she +got it in her bedroom before coming down. + +Phyl had few correspondents and she looked at the envelope curiously +before opening it. + + "Miss Berknowles, + at Vernons. Charleston." + +ran the address written in a large, boyish, yet individual hand. She knew +at once and by instinct whom it was from. + +"I'm coming to Charleston in a day or two, and I want to see you," ran the +letter which had neither address nor date, "but I'm not coming to +Pinckneys. I'll be about town and sure to find you somewhere. I can't get +you out of my mind since last night. Tried to, but can't." + +That was all. Phyl put the letter back in its envelope. She was not angry, +she was disturbed. There was an assurance about Silas Grangerson daunting +in its simplicity and directness. Something that raised opposition to him +in her heart, yet paralysed it. Instinct told her to avoid him, to drive +him from her mind, ay and something more than instinct. The spirit of +Vernons, the calm sweet soul of the place, that seemed to hold the past +and the present, Juliet and herself, peace and happiness with the promise +of all good things in the future, this spirit rose up against Silas +Grangerson as though he were the antagonist to happiness and peace, Juliet +and herself, the present and the past. + +Rose up, without prevailing entirely. + +Silas had impressed himself upon her mind in such a manner that she could +not free herself from the impression. Young as she was, with the terribly +clear perception of the male character which all women possess in +different degrees, she recognised that Silas was dangerous to that logical +and equitable state of existence we call happiness, not on account of his +wildness or his eccentricities, but because of some want inherent in his +nature, something that spoke vaguely in his words and his actions, in his +handsome face and in his careless and graceful manner. + +All the same she could not free herself from the impression he had made +upon her, she could not drive him from her mind, he had in some way +paralysed her volition, called forces to his aid from some unknown part of +her nature, perhaps with those kisses which she still felt upon the very +face of her soul. + +She came down to breakfast, and afterwards finding herself alone with Miss +Pinckney, she took Silas's letter from her pocket and handed it to her. +She had been debating in her own mind all breakfast time as to whether she +ought to show the letter; the struggle had been between her instinct to do +the right thing, and a powerful antagonism to this instinct which was a +new thing in her. + +The latter won. + +And then, lo and behold, when she found herself alone with Miss Pinckney +in the sunlit breakfast room, almost against her will and just as though +her hand had moved of its own volition, she put it in her pocket and +produced the letter. + +Miss Pinckney read it. + +"Well, of all the crazy creatures!" said she. "Why, he has only met you +once. He's mad! No, he isn't--he's a Grangerson. I know them." + +She stopped short and re-read the letter, turned it about and then laid it +down. + +"Just as if he'd known you for years. And you scarcely spoke to him. Did +he _say_ anything to you as if he cared for you?" + +"No, he didn't," said Phyl quite truthfully. + +"Did he look at you as if he cared for you?" + +"No," replied the other, dreading another question. But Miss Pinckney did +not put it. She could not conceive a man kissing a girl who had never +betrayed his feelings for her by word or glance. + +"Well, it gets me. It does indeed; acting like a dumb creature and then +writing this-- Do you care for _him_?" + +"I--I--no--you see, I don't know him--much." + +"Well, he seems to know you pretty well, there's no doubt about one thing, +Silas Grangerson can make up his mind pretty quick. He won't come to +Vernons, won't he? Well, maybe it's better for him not, for I've no +patience with oddities. That's what's wrong with him, he's an oddity, and +it's those sort of people make the trouble in life--they're worse than +whisky and cards for bringing unhappiness. Years and years and years +ago--I'm telling you this though I've never told it to any one else--Seth +Grangerson, Silas's father, seemed to care for me, not much, still he +seemed to care. Then one day all at once he came into the room where I +was, through the window, and told me to come off and get married to him, +wanted me to go away right off. I was a fool in those days, but not all a +fool, and when he tried to put his arm round my waist, my hand went up and +smacked his face. + +"We are good enough friends now, but I've often thought of what I escaped +by not marrying him. You saw him and the life he's leading at that out of +the way place, but you didn't see his obstinacy and his queerness, and +Silas is ten times worse, more crazy--well, there, you're warned--but mind +you I don't want to be meddling. I've seen so many carefully prepared +marriages turn out pure miseries, and so many crazy matches turn out +happily, that I'm more than cautious in giving advice. Seems to me that +people before they are married are quite different creatures to what they +turn out after they are married." + +"But I don't want to get married," said Phyl. + +"No, but, seems to me, Silas does," replied the other. + + + + +CHAPTER VI + + +One bright morning three days later, as Phyl was crossing Meeting Street +near the Charleston Hotel, whom should she meet but Silas. + +Silas in town get up, quite a different looking individual from the Silas +of Grangersons, dressed in perfectly fitting light grey tweed, a figure +almost 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't +be long before I met you. Meeting Street is like a rabbit run, and I +reckon the whole of Charleston passes through it twice a day." + +His manner was genuinely frank and open, and he seemed to have completely +forgotten the incident of the kissing. Phyl said nothing for a moment; she +felt put out, angry at having been caught like a rabbit, and not over +pleased 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 a +hurry." + +"Why, what's the matter with you?" cried Silas in a voice of +astonishment. + +"Nothing." + +"But there is, you're not angry with me, are you?" + +"Not in the least," replied the other, quite determined to avoid being +drawn 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," said +Silas. "Of course there are a lot of friends I could stay with but I +always prefer being free; one is never quite free in another person's +house; for one thing you can't order the servants about, though, upon my +word, 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 different +person from Silas in the country, or seemed so; more sedate and more +conventional. She also noticed as they walked along that he was saluted by +a great many people, and also, before she had done with him that morning, +she noticed that the leery, impudent looking, coloured folk seemed to come +under 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 walking +with her as well as a most notoriously dangerous man, a man who would +strike 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 a +ball of magenta Berlin wool. Miss Pinckney still knitted antimacassars, +and the construction of antimacassars is impossible without Berlin +wool--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, and +when she came out they walked down the street together. + +She had intended returning straight home after making her purchase but +they were walking now not towards Vernons but towards the Battery. + +"What do you do with yourself all day?" asked Silas, suddenly breaking +silence. + +"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 so +busy." + +Silas sniffed. They had reached the Battery and were standing looking over +the blue water of the harbour. The day was perfect, dreamy, heavenly, warm +and filled with sea scents and harbour sounds; scarcely a breath of wind +stirred across the water where a three-master was being towed to her +moorings by a tug. + +"She's coming up to the wharves," said Silas. "They steer by the spire of +St. 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 go +off round the world, or even down Florida way? Florida's fine, you don't +know 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 of +fishing, and you can camp out on the reefs; one cooks one's own food and +you can swim all day. There's tarpon and barracuda and sword fish, and +nights 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 boatman +to help sail and steer." + +He spoke lightly and laughingly, and without much enthusiasm and as though +he were talking to some one of his own sex, and Phyl, not knowing how to +take him, said nothing. + +He went on, his tone growing warmer. + +"I'm not joking, I'm dead sick of Grangersons and Charleston, and I reckon +you 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 against +a deadly sort of paralysis of mind such as one may suppose comes upon the +mind of a bird under the spell of a serpent. + +"No one could be kinder than Miss Pinckney, and so no one could be happier +than I am. I love Vernons." + +"All the same," said Silas, "you are not really alive there. It's the life +of a cabbage, must be, there's only you and Maria and--Pinckney. Maria is +a decent old sort but she's only a woman, and as for Pinckney--he doesn't +care for you." + +This statement suddenly brought Phyl to herself. It went through her like +a knife. She had ceased to think of Richard Pinckney in any way but as a +friend. At one time, during the first couple of days at Vernons, her heart +had moved mysteriously towards him; the way he had connected himself +through Prue's message with the love story of Juliet had drawn her towards +him, but that spell had snapped; she was conscious only of friendliness +towards Richard Pinckney. Why, then, this sudden pain caused by Silas's +words? + +"How do you know?" she flashed out. "What right have you to dare--" She +stopped. + +The blaze of her anger seemed to Silas evidence that she cared for +Pinckney. + +"You're in love with him," said he, flying out. The bald and brutal +statement took Phyl's breath from her. She turned on him, saw the anger in +his face, and then--turned away. + +His state of mind condoned his words. To a woman a blow received from the +passion she has roused is a rude sort of compliment, unlike other +compliments it is absolutely honest. + +"I am in love with no one," said she; "you have no right to say such +things--no right at all--they are insulting." + +A gull, white as snow, came flitting by and wheeled out away over the +harbour; 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 in +a temper I don't know what I say or do--that's the truth. I want to have +you all for myself, have ever since the first moment I saw you over there +at Grangersons." + +"Don't," said Phyl. "I can't listen to you if you talk like that--Please +don't." + +"Very well," said Silas. + +The quick change that was one of his characteristics showed itself in his +altered voice. His was a mind that seemed always in ambush, darting out on +predatory 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 ordinary +conversation 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 he +was a pleasant companion, and Phyl, her recent experience almost +forgotten, let herself be led and instructed, not knowing that this +armistice was the equivalent of a defeat. + +She had already drawn much closer to him in mind, this companionship and +quiet conversation was a more sure and deadly thing than any kisses or +wild words. It would linger in her mind warm and quietly. Put in a woman's +mind a pleasant recollection of yourself and you have established a force +whose activity may seem small, but is in reality great, because of its +permanency. + +They did not take a direct line in the direction of Vernons, and so +presently found themselves in front of St. Michael's. The gate of the +cemetery was open and they wandered in. + +The place was deserted, save by the birds, and the air perfumed by all +manner of Southern growing things. Sun, shadow, silence, and that strange +peace which hangs over the homes of the dead, all were here, ringed in by +the old walls and the faint murmur of the living city beyond. + +They walked along the paths, looking at the tombstones, and pausing to +read the inscriptions, Phyl gradually entering into that state of mind +wherein reality and material things fall out of perspective. The fragrant +elusive poetry of death, which can speak in the songs of birds and the +scent of flowers in the sunshine and the shade of trees more clearly than +in the voice of man, was speaking to her now. + +All these people here lying, all these names here inscribed, all these +were the representatives of days once bright and now forgotten, love once +sweet and now unknown. + +Then, as though something had led or betrayed her to the place, she paused +where the graves lay half shadowed by a magnolia, she read the nearest +inscription with a little catch of her breath. Then the further one. They +were the graves of Juliet Mascarene and Rupert Pinckney, the dead lovers +who had passed from the world almost together, whose bodies lay side by +side in the cold bed of earth. + +In a moment the spell of the little arbour was around her again, in a +moment the pregnant first impression of Vernons had re-seized her, fresh +as 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 were +saying 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 mind +and the direction of her thoughts, the man at her side moved towards her +slightly, seemed to hesitate, and then, suddenly clasping her by the waist +kissed her upon the side of the neck. + +Phyl straightened like a bow when the string is released. Then she struck +him, struck him open handed in the face, so that the sound of the blow +might 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 he +mastered himself, but if murder ever showed itself upon the countenance of +man it showed itself in that half second on the countenance of Silas +Grangerson. + +"You'll be sorry for that," said he. + +"Don't speak to me," said Phyl. "You are horrible--bad--wicked--I will +tell Richard Pinckney." + +"Do," said Silas. "Tell him also I'll be even with him yet. You're in love +with 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 he +vanished from sight Phyl clasped her hands together. + +It was as though she had suddenly been shown the real Silas--or rather the +something light and evil and dangerous, the something inscrutable and +allied to insanity that inhabited his mind. + +She was not thinking of herself, she was thinking of Richard Pinckney. She +felt that she had been the unconscious means of releasing against him an +evil force. A force that might injure or destroy him. + + + + +CHAPTER VII + + +She came out of the cemetery. There was no sign of Silas in the street nor +on the front of the church. + +Phyl had a full measure of the Celtic power to meet trouble halfway, to +imagine disaster. As she hurried home she saw all manner of trouble, +things happening to Richard Pinckney, and all brought about through +herself. Amidst all these fancies she saw one fact: He must be warned. + +She found Miss Pinckney in the linen room. The linen room at Vernons was a +treasure house beyond a man's description, perhaps even beyond his true +appreciation. There in the cupboards with their thin old fashioned ring +handles and on the shelves of red cedar reposed damask and double damask +of the time when men paid for their purchases in guineas, miraculous +preservations. Just as the life of a china vase is a perpetual escape from +the stupidity of servant maids and the heaviness of clumsy fingers, so the +life of these cream white oblongs, in which certain lights brought forth +miraculous representations of flowers, festoons and birds, was a perpetual +preservation from the moth, from damp, from dryness, from the dust that +corrupts. + +A house like Vernons exists not by virtue of its brick and mortar; to keep +it really alive it must be preserved in all its parts, not only from damp +and decay, but from innovation; one can fancy a gas cooker sending a +perpetual shudder through it, a telephone destroying who knows what +fragrant old influences; the store cupboards and still room are part of +its bowels, its napery, bed sheets, and hangings part of its dress. The +man knew what he was doing who left Miss Pinckney a life interest in +Vernons, it was that interest that kept Vernons alive. + +She was exercising it on the critical examination of some sheets when Phyl +came into the room, now, with the wool she had purchased and the tale she +had to tell. + +Miss Pinckney carefully put the sheet she was examining on one side, +opened the parcel and looked at the wool. + +"I met Silas Grangerson," said Phyl as the other was examining the +purchase with head turned on one side, holding it now in this light, now +in that. + +"Silas Grangerson! Why, where on earth has he sprung from?" asked Miss +Pinckney in a voice of surprise. + +"I don't know, but I met him in the street and we walked as far as the +Battery and--and--" + +She hesitated for a moment, then it all came out. To no one but Maria +Pinckney could she have told that story. + +"Well, of all the astounding creatures," said Miss Pinckney at last. "Did +he ask you to marry him?" + +"No." + +"Just to run away with him--kissed you." + +"He kissed me at Grangersons." + +"At Grangersons. When?" + +"That night. I went into the garden and he came out from amongst some +bushes." + +"Umph-- It's the family disease-- Well, if I get my fingers in his hair I +promise to cure him. He wants curing. He'll just apologise, and that +before he's an hour older. Where's he staying?" + +"No, no," said Phyl, "you mustn't ever say I told you. I don't mind. I +would have said nothing only for Mr. Pinckney." + +"You mean Richard?" + +"Yes." + +"What has he to do with it?" + +Phyl did not hesitate nor turn her head away, though her cheeks were +burning. + +"Silas Grangerson thinks I care for Mr. Pinckney, he said he would be even +with him. I know he intends doing him some injury. I feel it--and I want +you to warn him to be careful--without telling him, of course, what I have +said." + +Miss Pinckney was silent for a moment. She had already matched Phyl and +Richard in her mind. She had come to a very full understanding of her +character, and she would have given all the linen at Vernons for the +certainty that those two cared for one another. + +Frances Rhett rode her like an obsession. Life and nature had given Maria +Pinckney an acquired and instinctive knowledge of character, and in the +union of Richard and Frances Rhett she divined unhappiness, just as a +clever seaman divines the unseen ice-berg in the ship's track. She smelt +it. + +"Phyl," said she, "do you care for Richard?" + +The question quickly put and by those lips caused no confusion in the +girl's mind. + +"No," said she. "At least-- Oh, I don't know how to explain it--I care for +everything here, for Vernons and everything in it, it is all like a story +that I love--Juliet and Vernons and the past and the present. He's part of +it too. I want to have it always just as it is. I didn't tell you, but +when that happened in the cemetery, I was looking at her grave; you never +told me it was there with his. I came on it by accident and she was +seeming to speak to me out of it. I was thinking of her and him, +when--that happened. It was just as though some one had struck _her_ and +him. I can't explain exactly." + +"Strange," said Miss Pinckney. + +She turned and began to put away with a thoughtful air the linen she had +been examining. Then she said: + +"I'll tell Richard and warn him to keep away from that fool, not that +there is any danger--but it is just as well to warn him." + +Phyl helped to put away the linen and then she went upstairs to her room. +She felt easier in her mind and taking her seat on a cane couch by the +window she fell into a book. The History of the Civil War. This bookworm +had always one sure refuge in trouble--books. + +Books! Have we ever properly recognised the mystery and magic that lies in +that word, the magic that allows a man to lead ever so many other lives +than his own, to be other people, to travel where he has never been, to +laugh with folk he has never seen, to know their sorrows as he can never +know the sorrows of "real people"--and their joys. + +Phyl had been Robinson Crusoe and Jane Eyre, Monte Cristo and Jo. + +History which is so horribly unreal because it deals with real people had +never appealed to her, but the history of the Civil War was different from +others. + +It had to do with Vernons. + + + + +CHAPTER VIII + + +After luncheon that day Phyl, having nothing better to do, went up to her +room and resumed her book. + +Richard Pinckney had not come in to luncheon, he rarely returned home for +the meal, yet all the same, his absence made her uneasy. Suppose Silas +Grangerson had met him--suppose they had fought? She called to +recollection Silas's face just after she had struck him, the insane +malevolence in it, the ugliness that had suddenly destroyed his good +looks. Silas was capable of anything, he would never forgive that blow and +he would try to return it, of that she felt certain. He could not avenge +himself on her but he could on Richard. He imagined that she cared for +Richard Pinckney. Did she? The question came to her again in Miss +Pinckney's voice--she did not even try to answer it. As though it +irritated her, she tossed the book she was holding in her hand to the +floor and lay with her eyes fixed on the lace window curtains that were +moving slightly to the almost imperceptible stirring of the air from +outside. + +Beyond the curtains lay the golden afternoon. Sometimes a bird shadow, the +loveliest thing in shadow-land, would cross the curtains, sometimes a note +of song or the sound of a bird's flight from tree to tree would tell that +there was a garden down below. The street beyond the garden and the city +beyond the street could be heard, but were little more evident to the +senses than those things in a picture which we guess but cannot see. + +Phyl, allowing her mind to be led by these faint and fugitive sounds, fell +into a reverie. Then she fell asleep and straight way began to dream. + +She dreamed that Miss Pinckney was in the room moving about dusting +things, a duster in one hand, an open letter in the other. There was +troublous news of some sort in the letter, but what it was Miss Pinckney +would not say. Then the room turned into the piazza, where Juliet +Mascarene was standing with her hands on the rail, looking down on the +garden. + +She seemed to know Juliet quite well and was not a bit surprised to see +her there; she touched her but she did not turn. Phyl slipped her arm +round Juliet's waist and stood with her looking at the garden, and as they +stood thus the most curious dream feeling came upon her, a feeling of +duality, Juliet was herself, she was Juliet. Then as this feeling died +away Juliet vanished and she was standing alone on the piazza. + +Then she half woke, falling asleep again to be awakened fully by a sound. + +A sound, deep, sonorous, now rhythmical, now confused. It was the sound of +guns. + +She had heard it once long ago on the Brighton coast, and now as she sat +up every nerve and muscle tense, and her mind filled with a vague dread, +it came so heavily that the walls of Vernons shook. + +She ran on to the piazza. There was no one there. The garden gate was wide +open, there was no one in the garden, and she noticed, though without any +astonishment, that some one had been at work in the garden altering the +paths. A white butterfly was flittering above the flowers, and a red bird +leaving the magnolia tree by the gate, flew, a splash of colour, across to +the garden beyond. + +These things she saw but did not heed. She was under the spell of the +guns, the sound rose against the brightness of the day as a black cloud +rises across the sky or a sorrow across one's life, insistent, rhythmical, +a pall of sound now billowing, now sinking, as though blown under by a +wind. + +She sought the piazza stairs and next moment was in the garden, then she +found herself in the street. + +Meeting Street was almost deserted. On the opposite side two stout, +elderly and rather quaintly dressed gentlemen were walking along in the +direction of the station, but away down towards the Charleston Hotel there +was a crowd. + +The sight of this crowd filled her with terror, a terror remote from +reason, an impersonal terror, as though the deadliest peril were +threatening not herself but all things and everything she loved. + +She ran, and as she drew close to the striving mass of people she saw men +bearing stretchers. + +They were pushing their way through the crowd, making to enter a house on +the right. + +Then came a voice. The voice of one man shouting to another. + +"Young Pinckney's killed." + +The words pierced her like a sword, she felt herself falling. Falling +through darkness to unconsciousness, from which she awoke to find herself +lying on the cane couch in her room. + +She sat up. + +The curtains were still stirring gently to the faint wind from outside, on +the floor lay the history of the Civil War open just as she had cast it +there before falling asleep. The sound of the guns had ceased, and nothing +was to be heard but the stray accustomed sounds of the city and the +street. + +She struggled to her feet and came out on the piazza. The garden gate was +closed and the garden was unaltered. She had dreamt all that, then. + +For a minute she tried to persuade herself that it was a dream, then she +gave up the attempt. That was no dream. Everything in it was four square. +She could still see the shadows of the two gentlemen who had been walking +on the other side of the street, shadows cast clearly before them by the +sun. + +The first part of her experience had been a dream, all that about Miss +Pinckney and Juliet. But right from the sound of the guns all had been +reality. She had seen, touched, heard. + +Glancing back into the room she saw the book lying on the floor, the sight +of it was like a crystallising thread for thought. + +She had seen the past, she had heard the guns of the war. + +She went back into the room and took her seat on the couch and held her +head between her hands. She recalled the terror that told her that +everything she loved was in danger. When the man had cried out that young +Pinckney was killed, it was the thought of the death of Richard Pinckney +that struck her into unconsciousness. Yet she knew that what she had seen +was the day of the death of Rupert Pinckney, that one of those figures +carried on the stretchers was his figure, that her grief was for him. + +Had she then experienced what Juliet once experienced, seen what she saw, +suffered what she suffered? + +Was she Juliet? + +The thought had approached her vaguely before this, so vaguely and so +stealthily that she had not really perceived it. It stood before her now +frankly in the full light of her mind. + +Was she Juliet, and was Richard Rupert Pinckney? She recalled that evening +in Ireland when she had heard his voice for the first time, and the thrill +of recognition that had passed through her, how, at the Druids' Altar that +night she had heard her name called by his voice, the feeling in Dublin +that something was drawing her towards America. Her feelings when she had +first entered Meeting Street and the garden of Vernons, Miss Pinckney's +surprise at her likeness to Juliet. Prue's recognition of her, the finding +of those letters, the finding of the little arbour--any one of these +things meant little in itself, taken all together they meant a great +deal--and then this last experience. + +Her mind like a bird caught in a trap made frantic efforts to escape from +the bars placed around it by conclusion; the idea seemed hateful, +monstrous, viewed as reality. Fateful too, for that feeling of terror in +the vision had all the significance of a warning. + +Then as she sat fighting against the unnatural, her imaginative and +superstitious mind trembling at that which seemed beyond imagination, a +miracle happened. + +The thought of danger to Richard Pinckney brought it about. All at once +fear vanished, the fantastic clouds surrounding her broke, faded, passing, +showing the blue sky, and Truth stood before her in the form of Love. + +It was as though the vision had brought it to her wrapped up in that +terror she had felt for him. In a moment the fantasy of Juliet became as +nothing beside the reality. If it were a thousand times true that she had +once been Juliet what did it matter? She had loved Richard Pinckney +always, so it seemed to her, and nothing at all mattered beside the +recognition of that fact. + +Perfect love casteth out fear, even fear of the supernatural, even fear of +Fate. + + * * * * * + +"Richard," said Miss Pinckney that night, finding herself alone with him, +"that Silas Grangerson is in town and I want you to beware of him." + +"Silas," said he, "why I saw him at the club, he's gone back home by this, +I expect, at least he said he was going back to-night. Why should I beware +of him?" + +"He's such an irresponsible creature," she replied. "I'm going to tell you +something, and mind, what I'm going to tell you is a secret you mustn't +breathe to any one: he's in love with Phyl." + +"Silas?" + +"Yes. I knew it wouldn't be long before some one was after her. She's the +prettiest girl in Charleston, and she's different from the others +somehow." + +The cunning of the woman held her from praise of Phyl's goodness and +mental qualities, or any over praise of the goods she was bringing to his +attention. + +"Has he spoken to her about it?" asked he. + +"I'm sure to goodness I don't know what I'm about telling you a thing that +was told to me in confidence," said the other. "Well, you promise never to +say a word to Phyl or to any one else if I tell you." + +"I promise." + +"Well, he's--he's kissed her." + +Richard Pinckney leaned forward in his chair. He seemed very much +disturbed in his mind. + +"Does she care for him?" + +"I don't believe she does--yet. They always begin like that; girls don't +know their minds till all of a sudden they find some man who does." + +"Well, let's hope she never cares for Silas Grangerson," said he rising +from his chair. "You know what he is." + +He left the room and went out on the piazza where the girl was sitting. He +sat down beside her and they fell into talk. + +Richard Pinckney's mind was disturbed. + +Only the day before he had proposed to Frances Rhett and had been +accepted. No one knew anything of the engagement; they had decided to say +nothing about it for a while, but just keep it to themselves. The trouble +with Pinckney was that Frances had, so to say, put the words of the +proposal into his mouth. Frances had flirted with every man in Charleston; +out of them all she had chosen Pinckney as a permanent attache, not +because she was in love with him but because he pleased her best. She +matched him against the others, as a woman matches silk. + +Pinckney had allowed himself to be led along; there is nothing easier than +to be led along by a pretty woman. When the trap had closed on him he +recognised the fact without resenting it. He was no longer a free man. + +Phyl had told him this without speaking. For some time past he had been +admiring her, and yesterday on returning in chains from Calhoun Street, +Phyl picking roses in the garden seemed to him the prettiest picture he +had seen for a long time, but it did not give him pleasure; it stirred the +first vague uneasy recognition that his chains had wrought. He had no +right to look at any girl but Frances--and he had been looking at her for +a year without the picture stirring any wild enthusiasm in his mind. + +Miss Pinckney's revelation as to Silas had come to him as a blow. He could +not tell what had hit him or exactly where he had been hit. What did it +matter to him if a dozen men were in love with Phyl? What right had he to +feel injured? None, yet he felt injured all the same. + +As he sat by her now in the lamp-lit piazza, the thought that would not +leave his mind was the thought that Silas had kissed her. + +Behind the thought was the feeling of the boy who sees the other boy going +off with the ripest and rosiest apple. + +And Phyl was charming to-night. Something seemed to have happened to her, +increasing the power of her personality, her voice seemed ever so slightly +changed, her manner was different. + +This was a woman, distinct from the girl of yesterday, as the full blown +from the half blown flower. + +They talked of trifles for a while, and then he remembered something that +he ought to have mentioned before. The Rhetts were giving a dance and they +had sent an invitation to Phyl as well as Miss Pinckney. + +"It will be here by the morning post, I expect," said he. "You'd like to +go, wouldn't you?" + +Phyl hesitated for a moment. "Is that--I mean is that young lady Miss +Frances Rhett--the one who called here?" + +"Yes," cut in Pinckney, "those are the people. You'll come, won't you?" + +"Is Miss Pinckney going?" + +"She--of course she's going, she goes to everything, and old Mrs. Rhett is +anxious to meet you." + +"It is very kind of them," said Phyl. "Yes, I'll come." But she spoke +without enthusiasm, and it seemed to him that a chill had come over her. + +Did she know of his entanglement with Frances Rhett? And could it be-- + +He put the question aside. He had no right to indulge in any fancies at +all about Phyl as regarded himself. + +Then Miss Pinckney came out on the piazza and Phyl rose to go into the +house. + + + + +CHAPTER IX + + +When Silas Grangerson left the cemetery of St. Michael's he walked for +half a mile without knowing or caring in what direction he was going. + +Phyl had done more than slap his face. She had slapped his pride, his +assurance of himself, and his desire for her all at the same time. + +Silas rarely bothered about girls, yet he knew that he had the power to +fascinate any woman once he put his mind to the work. He had not tried his +powers of fascination on Phyl. It was the other way about. Phyl absolutely +unconsciously had used her fascination upon him. + +Something in her, recognised by him on their first meeting in the stable +yard, had put away the barrier of sex. He had talked to her as if she had +been a boy. Sitting on the seat beside her whilst the Colonel had been +prosing over politics and tobacco, the prompting came to Silas to pinch +her finger just for fun; when he had put his hands over her eyes that +night it was in obedience to the same prompting, but at the moment of +parting from her, a desire quite new had overmastered him. + +He had kissed a good many girls, but never in his life had he kissed a +girl as he kissed Phyl. + +Something cynical in his feelings for the other sex had always left him +somewhat cold, but Phyl was different from the others, she had in some way +struck straight at his real being. + +When he left her that night at Grangersons he was almost as disturbed as +she. + +He scarcely slept. He was out at dawn and on his return after she had left +he sat down and wrote the letter which Phyl received next morning. + +Silas was in love for the first time in his life, but love with Silas was +a thing apart from the love of ordinary men. + +There was no worship of the object; the something that crystallises out in +the form of love-letters, verses, bouquets, and candy was not there. He +wanted Phyl. + +He had no more idea of marriage than the great god Pan. If she had +consented he would have taken her off on that yawl of his imagination +round the world or down to Florida, without thought of the morrow or the +_convenances_, or Society; but please do not imagine this rather primitive +gentleman a chartered libertine. He would have married her as soon as not, +but he had neither the genius nor the inclination for the courtship that +leads by slow degrees up to the question, "Will you marry me?" + +He wanted her at once. + +As he walked along now with the devil awake in his heart, he felt no anger +towards Phyl; all his rage was against Pinckney; he had never liked +Pinckney, he more than suspected that Phyl cared for him and he wanted +some one to hate badly. + +He had walked himself into a reasonable state of mind when he found +himself outside the Queen City Club. He went in and one of the first men +he met was Pinckney. + +So well did he hold himself in hand that Pinckney suspected nothing of his +feelings. Silas was far too good a sportsman to shout at the edge of the +wood, too much of a gentleman to desire a brawl in public. He was going to +knife Pinckney, he was also going to capture Phyl, but the knifing of +Pinckney was the main objective and that required time and thought. He did +not desire the blood of the gentleman; he wanted his pride and _amour +propre_. He wanted to hit him on the raw, but he did not know yet where, +exactly, the raw was nor how to hit it. Time would tell him. + +He was specially civil to his intended victim, and he went off home that +evening plotting all the way, but arriving at nothing. He was trying to +make bricks without straw. Pinckney did not drink, nor did he gamble, and +he was far too good a business man to be had in that way. However, all +things come to him who waits, and next morning's post brought him a ray of +light in the midst of his darkness. + +It brought him an invitation to the Rhetts' dance on the following +Wednesday; nearly a week to wait, but, still, something to wait for. + +"What are you thinking about, Silas?" asked old Seth Grangerson as they +sat at breakfast. + +"I'm thinking of a new rabbit trap, suh," responded the son. + +The rabbit trap seemed to give him a good deal of food for thought during +the week that followed; food that made him hilarious and gloomy by turns, +restless also. + +Had he known it, Phyl away at Charleston, was equally restless. She no +longer thought of Silas. She had dismissed him from her mind, she no +longer feared him as a possible source of danger to the man she loved. +Love had her entirely in his possession to torture as he pleased. She knew +only one danger, the danger that Richard Pinckney did not care in the +least for her, and as day followed day that danger grew more defined and +concrete. Richard had taken to avoiding her, she became aware of that. + +She fancied that she displeased him. + +If she had only known! + + + + +CHAPTER X + + +Silas Grangerson came to town on the Wednesday, driving in and reaching +the Charleston Hotel about five o'clock in the afternoon. + +The Grangersons scarcely ever used the railway. Silas, often as he had +been in Charleston, had never put foot in a street car; even a hired +conveyance was against the prejudices of these gentlemen. + +This antagonism towards public means of locomotion was not in the least +the outcome of snobbishness or pride; they had come from a race of people +accustomed to move in a small orbit in their own particular way, an +exclusive people, breeders and lovers of horses, a people to whom +locomotion had always meant pride in the means and the method; to take a +seat in a stuffy railway car at so much a mile, to grab a ticket and +squeeze into a tram car, to drive in a cab drawn by an indifferent horse +would have been hateful to these people; it was scarcely less so to their +descendants. + +So Silas came to Charleston driving a pair of absolutely matched +chestnuts, a coloured manservant in the Grangerson livery in attendance. + +After dinner he strolled into the bar of the hotel, met some friends, made +some bets on the forthcoming races and at eight o'clock retired upstairs +to 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 and +equally old, but it had not the same charm, the garden was much larger +than 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 a +telephone without resenting the intruder, electric everythings, even to an +elevator, modern cookers, modern stoves, everything in a modern way to +save labour and make life easy, and all so cunningly and craftily done +that the air of antiquity was supposed not to be disturbed. + +Illusion! Nothing is gained without some sacrifice; you cannot hold the +past and the present in the same hand, the concealed elevator spoke in all +the rooms once its presence was betrayed, the telephone talked--everywhere +was evident the use of yesterday as a veneer of to-day. + +However that may be, the old house was gay enough to-night with flowers +and lights, and Silas, looking better perhaps than he had ever looked in +his life, found himself talking to Frances Rhett with an animation that +surprised himself. + +Frances had never had a chance of leading Silas behind her chariot; to +fool with her would have meant an expenditure of time and energy in +journeys to Charleston quite beyond his inclination. This aloofness +coupled with his good looks had set him apart from others. + +But to-night he was quite a different being; to-night, in some mysterious +way, he managed to convey the impression, pleasing enough, that he had +come to see her and her alone. + +As they stood together for a moment, he led the talk into Charleston +channels, asking about this person and that till the folk at Vernons came +on the _tapis_. + +"Is it true what I hear, that Richard Pinckney has become engaged to the +girl 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 own +eyes--they seemed like an engaged couple when I saw them last." + +New guests were arriving and she had to go forward to help in receiving +them. Silas moved towards her, but in the next moment they had for a +snatch 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 the +last 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 for +her by the combined geniuses of Maria Pinckney and Madame Organdie, +produced that sensation which can only be evoked by newness, her effect +was instantaneous and profound, it touched not only every one of these +strangers but also Maria Pinckney and Richard. They had come with her, but +it 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 only +recognise its merits fully when it is staged and condemned or praised by +the public. + +A _debutante_ fails or succeeds at first glance, and the instantaneous +success of Phyl was a record in successes. + +And Frances Rhett had to watch it and dance. The Inquisition had its +torments; Society has improved on them, for her victims cannot cry out and +the torments of Frances Rhett were acute. Not that she was troubling much +about Richard Pinckney and what the poisonous Silas had said; she was not +in love with Richard Pinckney, but she was passionately in love with +herself. She was the belle of Charleston; had been for the last year; and +one of her chief incentives to marriage was an intuitive knowledge that +prestige fades, that the position of principal girl in any society is like +the position of the billiard ball the juggler balances on the end of a +cue--precarious. She wanted to get married and ring down the curtain on an +unspoiled success, and now in a moment she saw herself dethroned. + +In a moment. For no jeweller of Amsterdam ever had an eye for the quality +of diamonds surer than the eye of Frances Rhett for the quality of other +women'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 gave +Phyl her _cachet_, a something indefinable from yesterday, the lack of +which made the other girls, by contrast, seem cheap. + +Never could she have imagined that the "red-headed girl at Vernons" could +gain so much from setting, a setting due to the instinct as well as the +taste of "that old Maria Pinckney." + +She had always laughed at Maria, as young people sometimes will at the +old. + +When Richard came up to her a little later on, he found himself coldly +received; she had no dances for him except a few at the bottom of the +programme. + +"You shouldn't have been late," said she. + +"Well," he said, "it was not my fault. You know what Aunt Maria is, she +kept us ten minutes after the carriage was round, and then Phyl wasn't +ready." + +"She looks ready enough now," said the other, looking at Phyl and the +cluster of young men around her. "What delayed her? Was she dyeing her +head? 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 the +other, "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 you +together you looked like an engaged couple the way you were carrying on." + +"But he has never seen us together," cried the outraged Pinckney; "that +was a pure lie." + +"I expect he saw you when you didn't see him; anyhow, that's the +impression people have got, and it's not very pleasant for me." + +Richard Pinckney choked back his anger. He fell to thinking where Silas +could have seen them together. + +"I don't know whether he saw us or not," said he, "but I am certain of one +thing; he never saw us 'carrying on' as you call it; anyhow, I'll have a +personal explanation from Silas to-morrow." + +"_Please_ don't imagine that I object to your flirting with any one you +like," said Frances with exasperating calm. "If you have a taste for that +sort 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, say +so at once." + +"Not a bit," she replied, "you know I never quarrel with any one, it's bad +form 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. Frances +had seemed all laziness and honey up to this; like many another woman she +began to show her real nature now that Pinckney was secured. + +But it was not an ordinary lovers' quarrel; her anger had less to do with +Richard 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 the +dancers. + +"Why aren't you dancing?" asked she. + +"Oh, I don't know," he replied. "I'm not keen on it and there are loads of +men." + +Miss Pinckney had watched him talking to Frances Rhett and she had drawn +her own deductions, but she said nothing. He sat down beside her. He had +been wanting to tell her of his engagement for a long time past, but had +put it off and put it off, waiting for the psychological moment. Maria +Pinckney 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 expect +me 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 the +most beautiful girl in the world, and the best, and you've thrown it away +to pick up with _that_ woman. Phyl would have married you, I know it, she +would have made you happy, I know it, for I know her and I know you. Now +it's all spoiled." + +He rose to his feet. It was the first time in his life that he had seen +Maria 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 Silas +Grangerson, and Silas had the pleasure of watching him as he stood talking +to one of the elderly ladies and looking on. + +Silas's rabbit trap was in reality a very simple affair, it was a plan to +pick a quarrel with Richard through Frances, if possible; to make the +imperturbable Pinckney angry, knowing well how easily an angry man can be +induced to make a fool of himself. To keep cool and let Richard do the +shouting. + +Unfortunately for Silas, the sight of Phyl in all her beauty had raised +his temperature far above the point of coolness. There were moments when +he was dancing, when he could have flung Frances aside, torn Phyl from the +arms 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 to +cap and complete the strange fascination this girl exercised upon his +mind, his imagination, his body. It was only now that he realised that +nothing else at all mattered in the world, it was only now that he +determined to have her or die. + +Silas was of the type that kills under passion, the type that, unable to +have, destroys. + +Preparing a trap for another, he himself had walked into a trap +constructed by the devil, stronger than steel. + +Yet he never once approached or tried to speak to Phyl. He fed on her at a +distance. Fleeting glimpses of the curves of her figure, the Titian red of +her 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 he +could. To take her in his arms would have meant covering her face with +kisses. Nor did he feel the least anger against the men with whom she +danced. All that was a sham and an unreality, they were shadows. He and +Phyl were the only real persons in that room. + +Later on in the evening, Richard Pinckney, tired with the lights and the +noise, took a stroll in the garden. + +The garden was lit here and there with fairy lamps and there were coigns +of shadow where couples were sitting out chatting and enjoying the beauty +of the night. + +The moon was nearing the full and her light cut the tree shadows +distinctly on the paths. Passing a seat occupied by one of the sitting out +couples, Pinckney noticed the woman's fan which her partner was playing +with; it was his own gift to Frances Rhett. The man was Silas Grangerson +and the woman was Frances. They were talking, but as he passed them their +voices ceased. + +He felt their eyes upon him, then, when he had got twenty paces or so +away, he heard Frances laugh. + +He imagined that she was laughing at him. Already angry with Silas, he +halted 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 Silas +later and in some place where he could get him alone or in the presence of +men only. Pinckney had a horror of scenes, especially in the presence of +women. + +Twenty minutes later he had his opportunity. He was crossing the hall from +the 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 want +a 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 the +other. "You coupled my name with the name of a lady in a most +unjustifiable 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 the +other. "You know quite well what you said and if you are a gentleman you +will apologise-- If you aren't you won't and I will deal with you in +Charleston accordingly." + +Phyl was at that moment coming out of the supper room with young Reggie +Calhoun--the same who, according to Richard that morning at breakfast long +ago, was an admirer of Maria Pinckney. + +She saw the two men, in profile, facing one another, and she saw Silas's +right hand, which he was holding behind his back, opening and shutting +convulsively. + +She saw the blow given by Pinckney, she saw Silas step back and the knife +which he always carried, as the wasp carries its sting, suddenly in his +hand. + +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 a +second, 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, the +something that speaks alone through the eye. + +Calhoun and Pinckney stood, during that tremendous moment, stricken, +breathless, without making the slightest movement. They saw she was +holding him by the power of her eye alone; so vividly did this fact strike +them that for a dazed moment it seemed to them that the battle was not +theirs, that the contest was beyond the earthly plane, that this was no +struggle between human beings, but a battle between sanity and madness. + +Its duration might have been spanned by three ticks of the great old clock +that stood in the corner of the hall telling the time. + +Then came the ring of the knife falling on the floor. It was like the +breaking of a spell. Silas, white and bewildered-looking as a man suddenly +awakened from sleep, stood looking now at his released hand as though it +did not belong to him, then at Pinckney, and then at Phyl who had turned +her 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 the +supper room opened and a band of young people came out chatting and +laughing. + +Calhoun, who was a man of resource, kicked the knife which slithered away +under one of the seats. Phyl, recovering herself, walked away towards the +stairs; Silas without a word, turned and vanished from sight past the +curtain 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 out +of the club; he'd have had you only for that girl. I never saw anything so +splendid in my life." + +"Yes," said Pinckney, "she saved my life. He was clean mad, but thank God +no one knows anything about it and we avoided a scene. Say nothing to any +one unless he wants to push the matter further. I am quite at his +disposal." + +PART IV + + + + +CHAPTER I + + +When Silas reached the cloakroom he took a glance at himself in the +mirror, then putting on his overcoat and taking his hat from the attendant +he came back into the hall. Pinckney and Calhoun had just strolled away +into the ballroom; there was no one in the hall, and without a thought of +saying good-bye to his hostess, he left the house. + +He felt no anger against Pinckney, nor did he think as he walked down +Legare Street that but for the mercy of God and the intervention of Phyl +he might at that moment have been walking between two constables, a +murderer with the blood of innocence on his hands. + +Not that he was insensible to reason or the fitness of things, he had +always known and acknowledged that when in a passion he was not +accountable for his acts; he admitted the fact with regret and also with a +certain pride. To-night he might have felt the regret without any pride to +leaven it but for the fact that his mind was lost to every consideration +but one--Phyl. + +All through his life Silas had followed with an iron will the line that +pleased him, never for a moment had he counted the cost of his actions; +just as he had swum the harbour with his clothes on so had he plunged into +any adventure that came to hand; he knew Fear just as little as he knew +Consequence. Well, now he found himself for the first time in his life +face to face with Fate. All his adventures up to this had been little +things involving at worst loss of life by accident. This was different; it +involved his whole future and the future of the girl who had mastered his +mind. + +Leaving Legare Street he reached Meeting Street and passed up it till he +reached Vernons. The moon, high in the sky now, showed the garden through +the trellis-work of the iron gate, and Silas paused for a moment and +looked in. + +The garden, seen like this with the moonlight upon the roses and the +glossy leaves of the southern trees, presented a picture charming, +dream-like, almost unreal in its beauty. He tried the gate. It was locked. +On ordinary nights it would be open till the house closed, or in the event +of Pinckney being out, until he returned, but to-night, owing to the +absence of the family, it was locked. + +Then, turning from the gate he crossed the road and took up his position +in a corner of shadow. Five minutes passed, then twenty, but still he kept +watch. There were few passers-by at that hour and little traffic; he had a +long view of the moonlit street and presently he saw the carriage he was +waiting for approaching. + +It drew up at the front door of Vernons and he watched whilst the +occupants got out; he caught a glimpse of Phyl as she entered the house +following Miss Pinckney and followed by Richard, then the door shut and +the carriage drove away. + +Silas left his concealment and crossed the road. He paced for a while up +and down outside the door of Vernons, then he came to the garden gate +again and looked in. + +From here one could get a glimpse of the first and second floor piazzas +and the windows opening upon them. He could not tell which was the window +of Phyl's room, it was enough for him that the place held her. + +In the way in which he had crossed the road, in his uneasy prowling up and +down before the house, and now in his attitude as he stood motionless with +head raised there was something ominous, animal-like, almost wolfish. + +As he stood a call suddenly came from the garden. It was the call of an +owl, a white owl that rose on the sound and flitted softly as a moth +across the trees to the garden beyond. + +Silas turned away from the gate and came back down the street towards his +hotel, arrived there he went straight to his room and to bed. + +But he did not go to sleep. His head was full of plans, the craziest and +maddest plans. Pinckney he had quite dismissed from his mind, the +consciousness of having committed a vile action in drawing a knife upon an +unarmed man was with him, and the knowledge that the consequences might +include his expulsion from Charleston society, but all that instead of +sobering him made him more reckless. He would have Phyl despite the Devil +himself. He would seize her and carry her off, trap her like a bird. + +He determined on the morrow to return early to Grangersons and think +things out. + + + + +CHAPTER II + + +Whilst he was lying in bed thinking things out, the folk at Vernons were +retiring to rest. + +Maria Pinckney knew nothing of what had occurred between Silas and +Richard. Richard Pinckney, Phyl and Reggie Calhoun were the only three +persons in Charleston, leaving Silas aside, who knew of the business and +in a hurried consultation just before leaving the Rhetts they had agreed +to say nothing. + +Calhoun was for publishing the affair. + +"The man's dangerous," said he; "some day or another he'll do the same +thing again to some one and succeed and swing." + +"I think he's had his lesson," said Pinckney; "he went clean mad for the +moment. Then there's the fact that I struck him. No, taking everything +into consideration, we'll let it be. I don't feel any animosity against +him, not half as much as if he'd stabbed me behind the back with a libel-- +He did tell a lie about me to-night but it was the stupid sort of lie a +child might have told. The man has his good points as well as his bad and +I don't want to push the thing against him." + +"I don't think he will do it again," said Phyl. + +She, like Richard, felt no anger against Silas; it was as though they +recognised that Silas was the man really attacked that night, attacked by +the Devil. + +They both recognised instinctively his good qualities. Miss Pinckney, it +will be remembered, once said that it is the man with good in him that +comes to the worst end unless the good manages to fight the bad and get it +under in time. She had a terrible instinct for the truth of things. + +"Well," said Calhoun, "it's not my affair; if you choose to take pity on +him, well and good; if it were my business I'd give him a cold bath, that +might stop him from doing a thing like that again. I'll say nothing." + +Though Miss Pinckney was in ignorance of the affair she was strangely +silent during the drive home and when Phyl went to her room to bid her +good night, she found her in tears, a very rare occurrence with Miss +Pinckney. + +She was seated in an armchair crying and Phyl knelt down beside her and +took her hand. + +Then it all came out. + +"I had hoped and hoped and hoped for him, goodness knows he has been my +one thought, and now he has thrown himself away. Richard is engaged to +Frances Rhett. He told me so to-night--well, there, it's all ended, +there's no hope anywhere, she'll never let him go, and she'll have Vernons +when I'm gone. She picked him out from all the other men--why?-- Why, +because he's the best of the lot for money and position. Care about him! +She cares no more for him than I do for old Darius. I'm sure I don't know +why this trouble should have fallen on me. I suppose I have committed some +sin or another though I can't tell what. I've tried to live blameless and +there's others that haven't, yet they seem to prosper and get their +wishes--and there's no use telling me to be resigned," finished she with a +snap and as if addressing some viewless mentor. "I can't--and what's more +I won't. Never will I resign myself to wickedness, and stupidity is +wickedness, not even a decent, honest wickedness, but a crazy, sap-headed +sort of wickedness, same as influenza isn't a disease but just an ailment +that kills you all the same." + +Phyl, kneeling beside Miss Pinckney, had turned deathly white. Only half +an hour ago when the little conference with Calhoun had been concluded, +Richard Pinckney had taken her hand. His words were still ringing in her +ears: + +"You saved my life. I can't say what I feel, at least not now." + +He had looked straight into her eyes, and now half an hour later--This. + +Engaged to Frances Rhett! + +She rose up and stood beside Miss Pinckney for a moment whilst that lady +finished her complaints. Then she made her escape and returned to her +room-- + +As she closed the door she caught a glimpse of herself in the +old-fashioned cheval glass that had been brought up by Dinah and Seth to +help her in dressing for the dance and which had not been removed. Every +picture in every mirror is the work of an artist--the man who makes a +mirror is an artist; according to the perfection of his work is the +perfection of the picture. The old cheval glass was as truthful in its way +as Gainsborough, but Gainsborough had never such a lovely subject as +Phyl. + +She started at her own reflection as though it had been that of a +stranger. Then she looked mournfully at herself as a man might look at his +splendid gifts which he has thrown away. All that was no use now. + +She sat down on the side of her bed with her hands clasped together just +as a child clasps its hands in grief. + +Sitting like this with her eyes fixed before her she was looking directly +at Fate. + +It was not only Richard Pinckney that she was about to lose but Vernons +and the Past-- Just as Juliet Mascarene had lost everything so was it to +happen to her. Or rather so had it happened, for she felt that the game +was lost--some vague, mysterious, extraordinary game played by unknown +powers had begun on that evening in Ireland when standing by the window of +the library she had heard Pinckney's voice for the first time. + +The sense of Fatality came to her from the case of Juliet. Consciously and +unconsciously she had linked herself to Juliet. The extravagant idea that +she herself was Juliet returned and that Richard Pinckney was Rupert had +come to her more than once since that dream or vision in which the guns +had sounded in her ears. The idea had frightened her at first, then +pleased her vaguely. Then she had dismissed it, her _ego_ refusing any one +else a share in her love for Richard, any one--even herself masquerading +under the guise of Juliet. + +The idea came back to her now leaving her utterly cold, and yet stirring +her mind anew with the sense of Fate. + + * * * * * + +When she fell asleep that night she passed into the dreamless condition +which is the nearest thing we know to oblivion, yet her sub-conscious mind +must have carried on its work, for when she awoke just as dawn was showing +at the window it was with the sense of having passed through a long season +of trouble, of having fought with--without conquering--all sorts of +difficulties. + +She rose and dressed herself, put on her hat and came down into the +garden. + +Vernons was just wakening for the day, and in the garden alive with birds, +she could hear the early morning sounds of the city, and from the +servants' quarters of the house, voices, the sound of a mat being beaten +and now and then the angry screech of a parrot. General Grant slept in the +kitchen and his cage was put out in the yard every morning at this hour. +Later it would be brought round to the piazza. He resented the kitchen +yard as beneath his dignity and he let people know it. + +Phyl tried the garden gate, it was locked and Seth appearing at that +moment on the lower piazza, she called to him to fetch the key. He let her +out and she stood for a moment undecided as to whether she would walk +towards the Battery or in the opposite direction. Meeting Street never +looked more charming than now in the very early morning sunlight; under +the haze-blue sky, almost deserted, it seemed for a moment to have +recaptured its youth. A negro crab vendor was wheeling his barrow along, +crying his wares. His voice came lazily on the warm scented air. + +She turned in the direction of the station. The voice of the crab seller +had completed in some uncanny way the charm of the deserted street and the +early sunlight. She was going to lose all this. Vernons and the city she +loved, Juliet, Miss Pinckney, the past and the present, she was going to +lose them all, they were all in some miraculous way part of the man she +loved, her love of them was part of her love for him. She could no longer +stay in Charleston; she must go--where? She could think of nowhere to go +but Ireland. + +To stay here would be absolutely impossible. + +As she walked without noticing whither she was going her mind cleared, she +began to form plans. + +She would go that very day. Nothing would stop her. The thing had to be +done. Let it be done at once. She would explain everything to Miss +Pinckney. She would escape without seeing Richard again. What she was +proposing to herself was death, the ruin of everything she cared for, the +destruction of all the ties that bound her to the world, the present and +the past. It was the recognition that these ties had been broken for her +and all these things taken away by the woman who had taken away Richard. + +Presently she found herself in the suburbs, in a street where coloured +children were playing in the gutter, and where the houses were +unsubstantial looking as rabbit-hutches, but there was a glimpse of +country beyond and she did not turn back. She did not want breakfast. If +she returned to Vernons by ten o'clock it would give her plenty of time to +pack her things, say good-bye to Miss Pinckney and take her departure +before Richard returned to luncheon--if he did return. + +It did not take her long to pass through the negro quarter, and now, out +in the open country, out amidst those great flat lands in the broad day +and under the lonely blue sky her mood changed. + +Phyl was no patient Grizel, the very last person to be trapped in the bog +of love's despondency. Abstract melancholy produced by colours, memories, +or sounds was an easy enough matter with her, but she was not the person +to mourn long over the loss of a man snatched from her by another woman. + +As she walked, now, breathing the free fresh air, a feeling of anger and +resentment began to fill her mind. Anger at first against Frances Rhett +but spreading almost at once towards Richard Pinckney. Soon it included +herself, Maria Pinckney, Charleston--the whole world. It was the anger +which brings with it perfect recklessness, akin to that which had seized +her the day in Ireland when in her rage over Rafferty's dismissal she had +called Pinckney a Beast. Only this anger was less acute, more diffuse, +more lasting. + +The sounds of wheels and horses' hoofs on the road behind her made her +turn her head. A carriage was approaching, an English mail phaeton drawn +by two high-stepping chestnuts and driven by a young man. + +It was Silas Grangerson. Returning to Grangerson's to make plans for the +capture of Phyl, here she was on the road before him and going in the same +direction. + +For a moment he could scarcely believe his eyes. Then reining in and +leaving the horses with the groom he jumped down and ran towards her. + +After the affair of last night one might fancy that he would have shown +something of it in his manner. + +Not a bit. + +"I didn't expect to come across _you_ on the road," said he. "Won't you +speak to me--are you angry with me?" + +"It's not a question of being angry," said Phyl, stiffly. + +She walked on and he walked beside her, silent for a moment. + +"If you mean about that affair last night," said he, "I'm sorry I lost my +temper--but he hit me--you don't understand what that means to me." + +"You tried to--" + +"Kill him, I did, and only for you I'd have done it. You can't understand +it all. I can scarcely understand it myself. He _hit_ me." + +"I don't think you knew what you were doing," said Phyl. + +"I most surely did not. I was rousted out of myself. I reckon he didn't +know what he was doing either when he struck. He ought to have known I was +not the person to hit. I'll show you, just stand before me for a moment." + +Phyl faced him. He pretended to strike at her and she started back. + +"There you are," said he; "you know I wasn't going to touch you but you +had to dodge. Your mind had nothing to do with it, just your instinct. +That was how I was. When he landed his blow I went for my knife by +instinct. If you tread on a snake he lets out at you just the same way. He +doesn't think. He's wound up by nature to hit back." + +"But you are not a snake." + +"How do you know what's in a man? I reckon we've all been animals once, +maybe I was a snake. There are worse things than snakes. Snakes are all +right, they don't meddle with you if you don't meddle with them. They've +got a bad name they don't deserve. I like them. They're a lot better +citizens, the way they look after their wives and families, than some +others and they know how to hit back prompt--say, where are you going +to?" + +"I don't know," said Phyl. "I just came for a walk--I'm leaving +Charleston." + +She spoke with a little catch in her voice. All Silas's misdoings were +forgotten for the moment, the fact that the man was dangerous as Death to +himself and others had been neutralised in her mind by the fact, +intuitively recognised, that there was nothing small or mean in his +character. Despite his conduct in the cemetery, despite his lunatic +outburst of the night before, in her heart of hearts she liked him; +besides that, he was part of Charleston, part of the place she loved. + +Ah, how she loved it! Had you dissected her love for Richard Pinckney you +would have found a thousand living wrappings before you reached the core. +Vernons, the garden, the birds, the flowers, the blue sky, the sunlight, +Meeting Street, the story of Juliet, Miss Pinckney, even old Prue. +Memories, sounds, scents, and colours all formed part of the living thing +that Frances Rhett had killed. + +"Leaving Charleston!" said Silas, speaking in a dazed sort of way. + +"Yes. I cannot stay here any longer." + +"Going--say--it's not because of what I did last night." + +"You--oh, no. It has nothing to do with you." She spoke almost +disdainfully. + +"But where are you going?" + +"Back to Ireland." + +"When?" + +"To-day." + +Then, suddenly, in some curious manner, he knew. But he was clever enough, +for once in his life, to restrain himself and say nothing. + +"I will go this afternoon," said she, as though she were talking of a +journey of a few miles. + +"Have you any friends to go to?" + +Phyl thought of Mr. Hennessy sitting in his gloomy office in gloomy +Dublin. + +"Yes, one." + +"In Ireland?" + +"Yes." + +"Can't you think of any other friends?" + +"No." + +"Not even me?" + +"I don't know," said poor Phyl, "I never could understand you quite, but +now that I am in trouble you seem a friend--I'm miserable--but there's no +use having friends here. It only makes it the worse having to go." + +"Do you remember the day I asked you to run off to Florida with me," said +Silas, "and leave this damned place? It's no good for any one here and +you've found it out--the place is all right, it's the people that are +wrong." + +Phyl made no reply. + +"You're not going back," he finished. + +She glanced at him. + +"You're going to stay here--here with me." + +"I am going back to Ireland to-day," said Phyl. + +"You are not, you are going to stay here." + +"No. I am going back." + +She spoke as a person speaks who is half drowsy, and Silas spoke like a +person whose mind is half absent. It was the strangest conversation to +listen to, knowing their relationship and the point at issue. + +"You are going to stay here," he went on. "If I lost you now I'd never +find you again. I've been wanting you ever since I saw you that day first +in the yard-- D'you remember how we sat on the log together?--you can't +tramp all the way back to Charleston-- Come with me and you'll be happy +always, all the time and all your life--" + +"No," said Phyl, "I mustn't--I can't." Her mind, half dazed by all she had +gone through, by the mesmerism of his voice, by the brilliant light of the +day, was capable of no real decision on any point. The dark streets of +Dublin lay before her, a vague and nightmare vision. To return to Vernons +would be only her first step on the return to Ireland, and yet if she did +not return to Vernons, where could she go? + +Silas's invitation to go with him neither raised her anger nor moved her +to consent. Phyl was an absolute Innocent in the ways of the world. No +careful mother had sullied her mind with warnings and suggestions, and her +mind was by nature unspeculative as to the material side of life. + +Instinctively she knew a great deal. How much knowledge lies in the +sub-conscious mind is an open question. + +They walked on for a bit without speaking and then Silas began again. + +"You can't go back all that way. It's absurd. You talk of going off +to-day, why, good heavens, it takes time even to start on a journey like +that. You have to book your passage in a ship--and how are you to go +alone?" + +"I don't know," said Phyl. + +His voice became soft. It was the first time in his life, perhaps, that he +had spoken with tenderness, and the effect was perfectly magical. + +"You are not going," he said, "you are not; indeed, I want you far too +much to let you go; there's nothing else I want at all in the world. I +don't count anything worth loving beside you." + +No reply. + +He turned. + +The coloured groom was walking the horses, they were only a few yards +away. He went to the man and gave him some money with the order to return +to Charleston and go back to Grangersons by train, or at least to the +station that was ten miles from Grangerville. + +Then as the man went off along the road he stood holding the near horse by +the bridle and talking to Phyl. + +"You can't walk back all that way; put your foot on the step and get in, +leave all your trouble right here. I'll see that you never have any +trouble again. Put your foot on the step." + +Phyl looked away down the road. + +She hesitated just as she had hesitated that morning long ago when she had +run away from school. She had run away, not so much to get home as to get +away from homesickness. + +Still she hesitated, urged by the recklessness that prompted her to break +everything at one blow, urged by the dismal and hopeless prospect towards +which the road to Charleston led her mind, held back by all sorts of hands +that seemed reaching to her from the past. + +Confused, bewildered, tempted yet resisting, all might have been well had +not a vision suddenly risen before her clear, definite, and destructive to +her reason. + +The vision of Frances Rhett. + +Everything bad and wild in Phyl surged up before that vision. For a second +it seemed to her that she loathed the man she loved. + +She put her foot on the step and got into the phaeton. Silas, without a +word, jumped up beside her, and the horses started. + + + + +CHAPTER III + + +She had committed the irrevocable. + +When the contract is signed, when the china vase is broken, all the regret +in the world will not alter the fact. + +It was not till they had gone ten miles on their way that the regret came, +sudden and painful as the stab of a dagger. + +Miss Pinckney's kindly old face suddenly rose up before Phyl. She would +have been waiting breakfast for her. She saw the breakfast room, sunny and +pleasant, the tea urn on the table, the garden through the open window-- + +Then came the thought--what matter. + +All that was lost to her anyhow. It did not matter in the least what she +did. + +She was running away with Silas Grangerson. + +She had a vague sort of idea that they were running away to be married, +that she would have to explain things to Colonel Grangerson when they got +to the house and that things would arrange themselves somehow. + +But now, she sat voiceless beside her companion, answering only in +monosyllables when he spoke; a voice began to trouble her, a voice that +repeated the half statement, half question, over and over again. + +"You are running away to be married to Silas Grangerson?" + +She was running away from her troubles, from the prospect of returning to +Ireland, from the idea of banishment from Vernons. She was running away +out of anger against the woman who had taken Richard. She was running away +because of pique, anger and the reckless craving to smash everything and +dash everything to pieces--but to marry Silas Grangerson! + +"Stop!" cried Phyl. + +Silas glanced sideways at her. + +"What's the matter now?" + +"I want to go back." + +"Back to Charleston!" + +"Yes, stop, stop at once--I must go back, I should never have come." + +Silas was on the point of flashing out but he shut his lips tight, then he +reined in. + +"Wait a moment," said he with his hand on her arm, "you can't walk back, +we are nearly half way to Grangersons. I can't drive you because I don't +want to return to Charleston. If you have altered your mind you can go +back when we reach Grangersons, you can wire from there. The old man will +make it all right with Maria Pinckney." + +Phyl hesitated, then she began to cry. + +It was the rarest thing in the world for her to cry like this. Tears with +her meant a storm, but now she was crying quietly, hopelessly, like a lost +child. + +"Don't cry," said he, "everything will be all right when we get to +Grangersons--we'll just go on." + +The horses started again and Phyl dried her eyes. They covered another +five miles without speaking, and then Silas said: + +"You don't mean to stick to me, then?" + +"I can't," said Phyl. + +"You care for some one else better?" + +"Yes." + +"Is it Pinckney?" + +"Yes." + +"God!" said he. He cut the off horse with the whip. The horses nearly +bolted, he reined them in and they settled down again to their pace. + +The country was very desolate just here, cotton fields and swampy grounds +with here and there a stretch of water reflecting the blue of the sky. + +After a moment's silence he began again. + +There was something in Silas's mentality that seemed to have come up from +the world of automata, something tireless and persistent akin to the +energy that drives a beetle over all obstacles in its course, on or round +them. + +"That's all very well," said he, "but you can't always go on caring for +Pinckney." + +"Can't I?" said Phyl. + +"No, you can't. He's going to get married and then where will you be?" + +Phyl, staring over the horses' heads as though she were staring at some +black prospect, set her teeth. Then she spoke and her voice was like the +voice of a person who speaks under mesmerism. + +"I cared for him before he was born and I'll care for him after I'm dead +and there's no use in bothering a bit about it now. _You_ couldn't +understand. No one can understand, not even he." + +The road here bordered a stretch of waste land; Silas gazed over it, his +face was drawn and hard. + +Then he suddenly blazed out. + +Laying the whip over the horses and turning them so sharply that the +phaeton was all but upset he put them over the waste land; another touch +of the whip and they bolted. + +Beyond the waste land lay a rice field and between field and waste land +stood a fence; there was doubtless a ditch on the other side of the +fence. + +"You'll kill us!" cried Phyl. + +"Good--so," replied Silas, "horses and all." + +She had half risen from her seat, she sat down again holding tight to the +side rail and staring ahead. Death and destruction lay waiting behind that +fence, leaping every moment nearer. She did not care in the least. + +She could see that Silas, despite his words, was making every effort to +rein in, the impetus to drive to hell and smash everything up had passed; +she watched his hands grow white all along the tendon ridges with the +strain. The whole thing was extraordinary and curious but unfearful, a +storm of wind seemed blowing in her face. Then like a switched out light +all things vanished. + + + + +CHAPTER IV + + +Twenty yards from the fence the off side wheel had gone. + +The phaeton, flinging its occupants out, tilted, struck the earth at the +trace coupling just as a man might strike it with his shoulder, dragged +for five yards or so, breaking dash board and mud guard and brought the +off side horse down as though it had been poleaxed. + +Silas, with the luck that always fell to him in accidents, was not even +stunned. Phyl was lying like a dead creature just where she had been flung +amongst some bent grass. + +He rushed to her. She was not dead, her pulse told that, nor did she seem +injured in any way. He left her, ran to the horses, undid the traces and +got the fallen horse on its feet, then he stripped them of their harness +and turned them loose. + +Having done this he returned to the girl. Phyl was just regaining +consciousness; as he reached her she half sat up leaning on her right +arm. + +"Where are the horses?" said she. They were her first thought. + +"I've let them loose--there they are." + +She turned her head in the direction towards which he pointed. The horses, +free of their harness, had already found a grass patch and were beginning +to graze. The broken phaeton lay in the sunshine and the cushions flung to +right and left showed as blue squares amidst the green of the grass; a +light wind from the west was stirring the grass tops and a bird was +singing somewhere its thin piping note, the only sound from all that +expanse of radiant blue sky and green forsaken country. + +"How do you feel now?" asked Silas. + +"All right," said Phyl. + +"We'd better get somewhere," he went on; "there are some cabins beyond +that rice field, I can see their tops. There's sure to be some one there +and we can send for help." + +Phyl struggled to her feet, refusing assistance. + +"Let us go there," said she. She turned to look at the horses. + +"They'll be all right," said Silas; "there's lots of grass and there's a +pond over there--they'd live here a month without harm." + +He led the way to the fence, helped her over, and then, without a word +they began to plod across the rice field. + +When they reached the cabins they found them deserted, almost in ruins. +They faced a great tract of tree-grown ground. In the old plantation days +this place would have been populous, for to the right there were ruins of +other cabins stretching along and bordering an old grass road that bent +westward to lose itself amongst the trees, but now there was nothing but +desolation and the wind that stirred the mossy beards of the live oaks and +the rank green foliage of weeds and sunflowers. An old disused well faced +the cabins. + +Phyl gave a little shudder as she looked around her. Her mind, still +slightly confused by the accident and beaten upon by troubles, could find +nothing with which to reply to the facts of the situation--alone here with +Silas Grangerson, lost, both of them, what explanation could she make, +even to herself, of the position? + +In the nearest cabin to the right some rough dry grass had been stored as +if for the bedding of an animal. It was too coarse for fodder. Silas made +her sit down on it to rest. Then he stood before her in the doorway. + +For the first time in his life he seemed disturbed in mind. + +"I'll have to go and get help," said he, "and find out where we are. It's +my fault. I'm sorry, but there's no use in going over that. You aren't fit +to walk. I'll go and leave you here. You won't be afraid to stay by +yourself?" + +"No," said Phyl. + +"You needn't be a bit, there's no danger here." + +"I am thirsty," said she. + +"Wait." + +He went to the well head. The windlass and chain were there rusty but +practicable and a bucket lay amongst the grass. It was in good repair and +had evidently been used recently. He lowered it and brought up some water. +The water was clear diamond bright, and cold as ice. Having satisfied +himself that it was drinkable he brought the bucket to Phyl and tilted it +slightly whilst she drank. Then he put it by the door. + +"Now I'll go," said he, "and I shan't be long. Sure you won't be afraid?" + +"No," she replied. + +"You're not angry with me?" + +"No, I'm not angry." + +He bent down, took her hand and kissed it. She did not draw it away or +show any sign of resentment; it was cold like the hand of a dead person. + +He glanced back as he turned to go. She saw him stand at the doorway for a +moment looking down along the grass road, his figure cut against the blaze +of light outside, then the doorway was empty. + +She was never to see him again. + + * * * * * + +Outside in the sunlight Silas hesitated for a moment as though he was +about to turn back, then he went on, striking along the grass road and +between the trees. + +Although he had never been over the ground before, he guessed it to be a +part of the old Beauregard plantation and the distance from Grangerville +to be not more than eight miles as the crow flies. By the road, reckoning +from where the accident had occurred, it would be fifteen. But the lie of +the place or the distance from Grangersons mattered little to Silas. His +mind was going through a process difficult to describe. + +Silas had never cared for anything, not even for himself. Danger or safety +did not enter into his calculations. Religion was for him the name of a +thing he did not understand. He had no finer feelings except in +relationship to things strong, swift and brilliant, he had no tenderness +for the weakness of others, even the weakness of women. + +He had seized on Phyl as a Burgomaster gull might seize on a puffin chick, +he had picked her up on the road to carry her off regardless of everything +but his own desire for her--a desire so strong that he would have dashed +her and himself to pieces rather than that another should possess her. + +Well, as he watched her seated on the straw in that ruined cabin, subdued, +without energy, and entirely at his mercy, a will that was not his will +rose in opposition to him. Some part of himself that had remained in utter +darkness till now woke to life. It was perhaps the something that despite +all his strange qualities made him likeable, the something that instinct +guessed to be there. + +It stood between him and Phyl. He was conscious of no struggle with it +because it took the form of helplessness. + +Nothing but force could make her give him what he wanted. The thing was +impossible, beyond him. He felt that he could do everything, fight +everything, subdue everything--but the subdued. + +There was something else. Weakness had always repelled him, whether it was +the weakness of the knees of a horse or the weakness of the will of a man. +Phyl's weakness did not repel him but it took the edge from his passion. +It was almost a form of ugliness. + +He had determined on finding help to send some one back for Phyl; any of +the coloured folk hereabouts would be able to pilot her to Grangersons. He +was not troubling about the broken phaeton or the horses; the horses had +plenty of food and water; so far from suffering they would have the time +of their lives. They might be stolen--he did not care, and nothing was +more indicative of his mental upset than this indifference toward the +things he treasured most. + +All to the left of the grass road, the trees were thin, showing tracts of +marsh land and pools, and the melancholy green of swamp weeds and +vegetation. + +The vegetable world has its reptiles and amphibians no less than the +animal; its savages, its half civilised populations, and its civilised. +The two worlds are conterminous, and just as cultivated flowers and +civilised people are mutually in touch, here you would find poisonous +plants giving shelter to poisonous life, and the amphibious giving home to +the amphibious. + +The woods on the right were healthier, more dense, more cheerful, on +higher ground; one might have likened the grass road to the life of a man +pursuing its way between his two mysteriously different characters. + +Silas had determined to make straight for home after having sent +assistance for Phyl, what he was going to do after arriving home was not +evident to his mind; he had a vague idea of clearing out somewhere so that +he might forget the business. He had done with Phyl, so he told himself. + +But Phyl had not done with him. He had been scarcely ten minutes on his +road when her image came into his mind. He saw her, not as he had seen her +last seated on the straw in the miserable cabin, but as he had seen her at +the ball. + +The curves of her limbs, the colour of her hair, her face, all were drawn +for him by imagination, a picture more beautiful even than the reality. + +Well, he had done with her, and there was no use in thinking of her--she +cared for that cursed Pinckney and she was as good as dead to him, Silas. + +An ordinary man would have seen hope at the end of waiting, but Silas was +not an ordinary man, a long and dubious courtship was beyond his +imagination and his powers. Courtship, anyhow, as courtship is recognised +by the world was not for him. He wanted Phyl, he did not want to write +letters to her. + +There is something to be said for this manner of love-making, it is +sincere at all events. + +He tried to think of something else and he only succeeded in thinking of +Phyl in another dress. He saw her as he saw her that first day in the +stable yard at Grangersons. Then he saw her as she was dressed that day in +Charleston. + +Then he remembered the scene in the churchyard. He could still feel the +smack she had given him on the face. The smack had not angered him with +her but the remembrance of it angered him now. She would not have done +that to Pinckney. + +Turning a corner of the road he came upon a clear space and on the borders +of the clearing to the right some cottages. There were some half-naked +pikaninnies playing in the grass before them; and a coloured woman, +washing at a tub set on trestles, catching sight of him, stood, shading +her eyes and looking in his direction. + +Silas paused for a moment as if undecided, then he came on. He asked the +woman his whereabouts and then whether she could sell him some food. She +had nothing but some corn bread and cold bacon to offer him and he bought +it, paying her a dollar and not listening to her when she told him she +could not make change. + +He was like a man doing things in his sleep; his mind seemed a thousand +miles away. The woman packed the bread and bacon in a mat basket with a +plate and knife and watched him turn back in his tracks and vanish round +the bend of the road, glad to see the last of him. She reckoned him +crazy. + +He was going back to Phyl. + +His resolution never to see her again had vanished. She was his and he was +going to keep her, no matter what happened. + +He would never part with her alive, if she killed him, if he killed her, +what matter. Nothing would stand in his path. + +He reached the turning and there in the sunlight lay the half ruined +cabins and the well. + +Walking softly he came to the door of the cabin where he had left Phyl. +She was there lying on the straw fast asleep. It was the sleep that comes +after exhaustion or profound excitement; she scarcely seemed to breathe. + +Putting his bundle down by the door he came in softly and knelt down +beside her. His face was so close to hers that he could feel her breath +upon his mouth. + +It only wanted that to complete his madness. He was about to cast himself +beside her when a pain, vicious and sharp as the stab of a red hot needle +struck him just above his right instep. + + + + +CHAPTER V + + +When Richard Pinckney came down to breakfast that morning, he found Miss +Pinckney seated at the table reading letters. + +"Phyl went out early and has not come back yet," said she putting the +letters aside and pouring out the tea. + +"Gone out," said he. "Where can she have gone to?" + +Miss Pinckney did not seem to hear the question. She was not thinking of +Phyl or her whereabouts. Richard's engagement to Frances Rhett was still +dominating her mind, casting a shadow upon everything. It was like a death +in the family. + +"I hope she's not bothered about what happened last night," went on +Richard. "I didn't tell you at the time, but I had--some words with Silas +Grangerson, and--Phyl was there. Silas is a fool, but it's just as well +the thing happened for it has brought matters to a head. I want to tell +you something--I'm not engaged to Frances Rhett." + +"Not engaged?" + +"I was, but it's broken off. I had a moment's talk with her before we left +last night. I was in a temper about a lot of things, and the business with +Silas put the cap on it. Anyhow, we had words, and the thing is broken +off." + +"Oh, dear me," said Miss Pinckney. The joyful shock of the news seemed to +have reduced her mind to chaos for a moment. One could not have told from +her words or manner whether the surprise was pleasant or painful to her. + +She drew her chair back from the table a little, and sought for and found +her handkerchief. She dried her eyes with it as she found her voice. + +"I don't know, I don't know, I'm sure. I've prayed all night that this +might be, and now that the Lord has heard my prayer and answered it, I +feel cast right down with the wonder of it. Had I the right to interfere? +I don't know, I'm sure. It seems terrible to separate two people but I had +no thought only for you. I've spoken against the girl, and wished against +her, and felt bad in my heart against her, and now it's all over I'm just +cast down." + +"She did not care for me," said Pinckney. "Why she was laughing at me last +night with him. They were sitting outside together, and when I passed them +I heard them laughing at me." + +Miss Pinckney put her handkerchief away, drew in her chair, and poured +herself out some more tea energetically and with a heightened colour. + +"I don't want to speak bad about any one," said she, "but there are girls +and girls. I know them, and time and again I've seen girls hanging +themselves out with labels on them. 'I'm the finest apple on the tree,' +yet no one has picked them for all their labels, because every one has +guessed that they aren't--That crab apple labelling itself a pippin and +daring to laugh at you! And that long loony Silas Grangerson, a man +without a penny to bless himself with, a creature whose character is just +kinks. Well, I'm sure--pass me the butter--laughing at you. And what were +they laughing at pray? Aren't you straight and the best looking man in +Charleston? Couldn't you buy the Rhetts twice over if you wanted to buy +such rubbish? Aren't you the top man in Charleston in name and position +and character? Why, they'll be laughing at the jokes in the N'York papers +next--They'll be appreciating their own good sense and cleverness and +personal beauty next thing--They'll be worshipping Bryan." + +"Oh, I don't think they'll ever get as bad as that," said he laughing, +"but I don't think I care whether people grin at me or not; it's only just +this, she and I were never meant for each other, and I found it out, and +found it out in time. You see the engagement was never made public, so the +breaking of it won't do her any harm. She would not let me tell people +about it, she said it would be just as well to keep it secret for a while, +and then if either of us felt disposed we could break it off and no harm +done." + +"Meaning that she could break it off if she wanted to but you couldn't." + +"Perhaps. When I went back last night and told her I wanted to be free, +she flew out." + +"Said you must stick to your word?" + +"Nearly that. Then I told her she herself had said that it was open to +either of us to break the business off." + +"What did she say to that?" + +"Nothing. She had nothing to say. She asked why I wanted to break it +off." + +"And you told her it was because of her conduct, I hope." + +"No. I told her it was because I had come to care for some one else." + +Miss Pinckney said nothing for a moment. Then she looked at him. + +"Richard, do you care for Phyl?" + +"Yes." + +"Thank God," said she. + +The one supreme wish of her life had been granted to her. Her gaze +wandered to the glimpse of garden visible through the open window and +rested there. She was old, she had seen friend and relative fade and +vanish, the Mascarenes, the Pinckneys, children, old people, all had +become part of that mystery, the past. Richard alone remained to her, and +Phyl. On the morning of Phyl's arrival Miss Pinckney had felt just as +though some door had opened to let this visitor in from the world of long +ago. It was not only her likeness to Juliet Mascarene, but all the +associations that likeness brought with it. Vernons became alive again, as +in the good old days. Charleston itself caught some tinge of its youth. +And there was more than that. + +"Richard," said she, coming back from her fit of abstraction, "I will tell +you something I'd never have spoken of if you didn't care for her. It may +be an old woman's fancy, but Phyl is more to us, seems to me, than we +think, she's Juliet come back--Oh, it's more than the likeness. I'm sure I +can't explain what I mean, it's just she herself that's the same. There's +a lot more to a person than a face and a figure. I know it sounds absurd, +so would most things if we had never heard them before. What's more absurd +than to be born, and look at that butterfly, what's more absurd than to +tell me that yesterday it was a worm? Well, it doesn't much matter whether +she was Juliet or not, now she's going to be yours, and to save you from +that pasty--no matter she's over and done with, but I reckon she's +laughing on the wrong side of her face this morning." + +Miss Pinckney rose from the table. The absence of Phyl did not disturb +her. Phyl sometimes stayed out and forgot meals, though this was the first +time she had been late for breakfast. Richard, who had business to +transact that morning in the town looked at his watch. + +"I'm going to Philips', the lawyers," said he, "and then I'll look in at +the club. I'll be back to luncheon." + +An hour later to Miss Pinckney engaged in dusting the drawing-room +appeared Rachel the cook. + +Rachel was the most privileged of the servants, a trustworthy woman with a +character and will of her own, and absolutely devoted to the interests of +the house. + +"Mistress Pinckney," said the coloured woman closing the door. "Ole +Colonel Grangerson's coachman's in de kitchen, an' he says Miss Phyl's +been an' run off with young Silas Grangerson dis very mornin'." + +Miss Pinckney without dropping the duster stood silent for a moment before +Rachel. Then she broke out. + +"Miss Phyl run off with young Silas Grangerson! What on earth are you +talking about, what rubbish is this, who's dared to come here talking such +nonsense? Go on--what more have you to say?" + +Rachel had a lot to say. + +Phyl had met Silas on the road beyond the town. They had talked together, +then Silas had sent the groom back to Charleston to return to Grangerville +by train, and had driven off with Phyl. The groom, a relation of Dinah's, +having some three hours to wait for a train, had dropped into Vernons to +pass the time and tell the good news. He was in the kitchen now. + +Miss Pinckney could not but believe. She threw the duster on a chair, left +the room and went to the kitchen. + +Prue was still in her corner by the fireplace, and Colonel Grangerson's +coloured man was seated at the table finishing a meal and talking to Dinah +who scuttled away as he rose up before the apparition of Miss Pinckney. + +"What's all this nonsense you have been talking," said she, "coming here +saying Miss Phyl has run away with Mr. Silas? She started out this morning +to meet him and drive to Grangersons; I'm going there myself at +eleven--and you come here talking of people running away. Do you know you +could be put in prison for saying things like that? You _dare_ to say it +again to any one and I'll have you taken off before you're an hour older, +you black imp of mischief." + +There was a rolling pin on the table, and half unconsciously her hand +closed on it. Colonel Grangerson's man, grey and clutching at his hat, did +not wait for the sequel, he bolted. + +Then the unfortunate woman, nearly fainting, but supported by her grand +common sense and her invincible nature, left the kitchen and, followed by +Rachel, went to the library. Here she sat down for a moment to collect +herself whilst Rachel stood watching her and waiting. + +"It is so and it's not so," said she at last, talking half to herself half +to the woman. "It's some trick of Silas Grangerson's. But the main thing +is no one must know. We have got to get her back. No one must +know--Rachel, go and find Seth and send him off at once to the garage +place and tell them to let me have an automobile at once, at once, mind +you. Tell them I want the quickest one they've got for a long journey." + +Rachel went off and Miss Pinckney left to herself went down on her knees +by the big settee adjoining the writing table and began to wrestle with +the situation in prayer. Miss Pinckney was not overgiven to prayer. She +held that worriting the Almighty eternally about all sorts of nonsense, as +some people do who pray for "direction" and weather, etc., was bad form to +say the least of it. She even went further than that, and held that +praising him inordinately was out of place and out of taste. Saying that, +if Seth or Dinah came singing praises at her bedroom door in the morning +instead of getting on with their work, she would know exactly what it +meant--Laziness or concealed broken china, or both. + +But in moments of supreme stress and difficulty, Miss Pinckney was a +believer in prayer. Her prayer now was speechless, one might compare it to +a mental wrestle with the abominable situation before God. + +When she rose from her knees everything was clear to her. Two things were +evident. Phyl must be got back at any cost, and scandal must be choked, +even if it had to be choked with solid lies. + +To save Phyl's reputation, Miss Pinckney would have perjured herself twice +over. + +Miss Pinckney had many faults and limitations, but she had the grand +common sense of a clean heart and a clear mind. She could tell a lie with +a good conscience in a good cause, but to hide even a small fault of her +own, the threat of death on the scaffold would not have made her tell a +lie. + +She went to the writing table now and taking a sheet of paper, wrote: + + _Dear Richard,_ + + Seth Grangerson is bad again, and I am going over there now with + Phyl. We mayn't be back to-night. I am taking the automobile. We will + be back to-morrow most likely. + + Your affectionate Aunt, + Maria Pinckney. + +She read the note over. If all went well then everything would be well. If +the worst occurred then she could explain everything to Richard. + +It was a desperate gamble; well she knew how the dice were loaded against +her, but the game had to be played out to the very last moment. + +Already she had stopped the mouth of slander by her prompt action with +Colonel Grangerson's coloured man, but she well knew how coloured servants +talk; Grangerson's man was safe enough, he was frightened and he would +have to get back to Grangerville. Rachel was absolutely safe, Dinah alone +was doubtful. + +She called Rachel in, gave her the note for Richard and told her to keep a +close eye on Dinah. + +"Don't let her get talking to any one," said Miss Pinckney, "and when Mr. +Richard comes in give him that note yourself. If he asks about Miss Phyl, +say she came back and went with me. You understand, Rachel, Miss Phyl has +done a foolish thing, but there's no harm in it, only what fools will make +of it if they get chattering. No one must know, not even Mr. Richard." + +"I'll see to that, Miss Pinckney, an' if I catch Dinah openin' her mouth +to say more'n 'potatoes' I'll dress her down so's she won't know which end +of her's which." + +Miss Pinckney went upstairs, dressed hurriedly, packed a few things in a +bag and the automobile being now at the door, started. + +It was after one o'clock when she reached Grangersons. + +Just as on the day when she had arrived with Phyl, Colonel Grangerson, +hearing the noise of the car, came out to inspect. + +He came down the steps, hat in hand, saw the occupant, started back, and +then advanced to open the door. + +"Why, God bless my soul, it's you," cried the Colonel. "What has +happened?" + +Miss Pinckney without a word got out and went up the steps with him. + +In the hall she turned to him. + +"Where is Silas?" + +"Silas," replied the Colonel. "I haven't seen him since he went to +Charleston to attend some dance or another. What on earth is the matter +with you, Maria?" + +"Come in here," said Miss Pinckney. She went into the drawing room and +they shut the door. + +"Silas has run away with Phyl," said she, "that's what's the matter with +me. Your son has taken that girl off, Seth Grangerson, and may God have +mercy upon him." + +"The red-headed girl?" said the Colonel. + +"Phyl," replied she, "you know quite well whom I mean." + +Colonel Grangerson made a few steps up and down the room to calm himself. +Maria Pinckney was speaking to him in a tone which, had it been used by +any one else, would have caused an explosion. + +"But when did it happen," he asked, "and where have they gone? Explain +yourself, Maria. Good God! Why the fellow never spoke to her scarcely--are +you sure of what you say?" + +Miss Pinckney told her tale. + +"I came here to try and get her back," said she, "thinking he and she +might possibly have come here or that you might know their +whereabouts--they have not come, but there is just the chance that they +may come here yet." + +"But if they have run off with each other," said the Colonel, "how are we +to stop them--they'll be married by this." + +Miss Pinckney who had taken off her gloves sat down and began to fold +them, neatly rolling one inside the other. + +"_Married,_" said she. + +The Colonel standing by the window with his hands in his pockets turned. + +"And why not?" said he. "The girl's a lady, and you told me she was not +badly off. Silas might have done worse it seems to me." + +"Done worse! He couldn't have done worse. I'd sooner see her dead in her +coffin than married to Silas--There, you have it plain and straight. He'll +make her life a misery. Let me speak, Seth Grangerson, you are just going +to hear the truth for once. You have ruined that boy the way you've +brought him up, he was crazy wild to start with and you've never checked +him. Oh, I know, he has always been respectful to you and flattered your +pride and vanity, he calls you sir when he speaks to you, and you are the +only person in the world to whom he shews respect. I don't say he acts +like that from any double dealing motive, it's just the old southern +tradition he's inherited; he does respect you, and I daresay he's fond of +you, but he respects nothing else, especially women. I know him. And I +know her, and he'll make her life a misery. If he'd left her alone she'd +have been happy. Richard loves her, and would have made her a good +husband. My mind was set on it, and now it's all over." + +Miss Pinckney began to weep, and the Colonel who had been swelling himself +up found his anger collapsing. She was only a woman. Women have queer +fancies--This especial woman too was part of the past and privileged. + +He came to her and stood beside her and rested his hand on her shoulder. + +"My dear Maria," said the Colonel, "youth is youth--There is not any use +in laying down the law for young people or making plans for their +marriages. Leave it in the hands of Providence. The most carefully +arranged marriages often turn out the worst, and a scratch match has often +as not turned out happily. Anyhow, you will stay here till news comes of +them?" + +"Yes, I will stay," said Miss Pinckney. + + + + +CHAPTER VI + + +At eleven o'clock that night, just as Miss Pinckney was on the point of +retiring to bed the news came in the form of Phyl herself. + +She arrived in a buggy driven by the farmer who owned the land through +which the grass road ran. + +She gave a little glad cry when she saw Miss Pinckney and ran into her +arms. + +Upstairs and alone with the lady, she told her story. Told her how she had +met Silas on the road that morning, how, tired of life and scarce knowing +what she did, she had got into the phaeton, how he had upset it and +smashed it, how she had sheltered in the cabin whilst he went in search of +help. + +"Then I went to sleep," said Phyl, "and when I woke up it was afternoon. +He was not there, but he must have come back when I was asleep and left +some food for me, for there was a bundle outside the door with some bread +and bacon in it. Then I started off to walk and found a village with some +coloured people. I told them I was lost and wanted to get to Grangersons. +They were kind to me, but I had to wait a long time before they could find +that gentleman, the farmer, and he could get a cart to drive me here." + +"Thank God it is all over and you are back," said Miss Pinckney. "But oh, +Phyl! what made you do it?" + +"I don't know," said Phyl. + +But Miss Pinckney did. + +"Listen," said she. "You know what I told you about Richard and Frances +Rhett--that's all done with. He has broken off the engagement." + +Phyl flushed, then she hid her burning face on Miss Pinckney's shoulder. + +Miss Pinckney held her for awhile. Then she began to talk. + +"We will get right back to-morrow early; no one knows anything and I'll +take care they never do. Well, it's strange--I can understand everything +but I can't understand that crazy creature. What's become of him? That's +what I want to know." + + * * * * * + +This is what had become of him. + +Kneeling beside Phyl the sudden sharp pain just above his instep made him +turn. In turning he caught a glimpse of his assailant. It had been +creeping towards the door when he entered and had taken refuge beneath the +straw. He had almost knelt on it. Escaping, a movement of his foot had +raised its anger and it had struck, it was now whisking back into the +darkness of the cabin beyond the straw heap. + +He recognised it as the deadliest snake in the South. + +For a moment he recognised nothing else but the fact that he had been +bitten. + +His passion and desire had vanished utterly. Phyl might have been a +thousand miles away from him for all that he thought of her. + +He rose up and came out into the sunlight, went to the well head, sat down +on the frame and removed his shoe and sock. The mark of the bite was there +between the adductor tendons. A red hot iron and a bottle of whisky might +have saved him. He had not even a penknife to cut the wound out--He +thought of Phyl, she could do nothing. He thought of the bar of the +Charleston Hotel, and the verse of the song about the old hen with a +wooden leg and the statement that it was just about time for another +little drink, ran through his head. + +Then suddenly the idea came to him that there might possibly be help at +the village where he had obtained the food from the coloured woman. It was +a long way off, but still it was a chance. + +He put the sock in his pocket, put on the shoe and started. He ran for the +first couple of hundred yards, then he slackened his pace, then he stopped +holding one hand to his side. + +The poison already had hold of him. + +The game was up and he knew it. It was useless to go on, he would not live +to reach the village or reaching it would die there. + +And every one would pity him with that shuddering pity people extend to +those who meet with a horrible form of death. + +Death from snake bite was a low down business, it was no end for a +Grangerson; but there in the swamp to the left a man might lie forever +without being found out. + +He turned from the road to the left and walked away among the trees. + +The ground here sank beneath the foot, a vague haze hung above the marsh +and the ponds. Here nothing happened but the change of season, night and +day, the chorus of frogs and the crying of the white owl amidst the +trees. + + + + +CHAPTER VII + + +Miss Pinckney and Phyl left Grangersons next morning at seven o'clock to +return to Charleston. + +During the night the Colonel had sent after the horses and they had been +captured and brought back. The broken phaeton was left for the present. + +"I'll make Silas go and fetch it himself when he comes back," said the +Colonel. "I reckon the exercise will do him good." + +"Do," said Miss Pinckney, "and then send him on to me. I reckon what I'll +give him will help him to forget the exercise." + +On the way back she said little. She was reckoning with the fact that she +had deceived Richard. Now that everything had turned out so innocently and +so well she decided to tell him the bare facts of the matter. There was +nothing to hide except the fact of Phyl's stupidity in going with Silas. + +Richard Pinckney was not in when they arrived but he returned shortly +before luncheon time and Miss Pinckney, who was waiting for him, carried +him off into the library. + +She shut the door and faced him. + +"Richard," said Miss Pinckney, "Seth Grangerson is as well as you are. I +didn't go to see him because he was ill, I went because of Phyl. She did a +stupid thing and I went to set matters right." + +She explained the whole affair. How Phyl had met Silas, how he had +persuaded her to get into the phaeton with him, the accident and all the +rest. The story as told by Miss Pinckney was quite simple and without any +dark patches, and no man, one might fancy, could find cause for offence in +it. + +Miss Pinckney, however, was quite unconscious of the fact that Silas +Grangerson had attempted to take Richard Pinckney's life on the night of +the Rhetts' dance. + +To Richard the thought that Phyl should have met Silas only a few hours +after that event, talked to him, made friends with him, and got into his +carriage was a monstrous thought. He could not understand the business in +the least, he could only recognise the fact. + +Had he known that it was her love for him and her despair at losing him +that led her to the act it would have been different. + +He said nothing for a moment after Miss Pinckney had finished. Having +already confessed to her his love for Phyl he was too proud to show his +anger against her now. + +"It was unwise of her," he said at last, turning away to the window and +looking out. + +"Most," replied she, "but you cannot put old heads on young shoulders. +Well, there, it's over and done with and there's no more to be said. Well, +I must go up and change before luncheon. You are having luncheon here?" + +"No," said he, "I have to meet a man at the club. I only just ran in to +see if you were back." + +He went off and that day Miss Pinckney and Phyl had luncheon alone. + + + + +CHAPTER VIII + + +Richard Pinckney, like most people, had the defects of his qualities, but +he was different from others in this: his temper was quick and blazing +when roused, yet on rare occasions it could hold its heat and smoulder, +and keep alive indefinitely. + +When in this condition he shewed nothing of his feelings except towards +the person against whom he was in wrath. + +Towards them he exhibited the two main characteristics of the North +Pole--Distance and Ice. + +Phyl felt the frost almost immediately. He talked to her just the same as +of old but his pleasantness and laughter were gone and he never sought her +eye. She knew at once that it was the business with Silas that had caused +this change, and she would have been entirely miserable but for the +knowledge of two great facts: she was innocent of any disloyalty to him, +he had broken off his engagement to Frances Rhett. Instinct told her that +he cared for her, Miss Pinckney had told her the same thing. + +Yet day after day passed without bringing the slightest change in Richard +Pinckney. + +That gentleman after many debates with himself had arrived at the +determination against will, against reason, against Love, and against +nature to have nothing more to do with Phyl. + +Old Pepper Pinckney, that volcano of the past had suffered a fancied +insult from his wife; no one knew of it, no one suspected it till on his +death his will disclosed it by the fact that he had left the lady--one +dollar. The will being unwitnessed--that was the sort of man he was--did +not hold; all the same, it held an unsuspected part of his character up +for public inspection. + +Richard, incapable of such an act, still had Pepper Pinckney for an +ancestor. Ancestors leave us more than their pictures. + +Having come to this momentous decision, he arrived at another. + +One morning at breakfast he announced his intention of going to New York +on business, he would start on the morrow and be gone a month. The +Beauregards had always been bothering him to go on a visit and he might as +well kill two birds with one stone. + +Miss Pinckney made little resistance to the idea. She had noticed the +coolness between the young people; knowing how much they cared one for the +other she had little fear as to the end of the matter and she fancied a +change might do good. + +But to Phyl it seemed that the end of the world had come. + +All that day she scarcely spoke except to Miss Pinckney. She was like a +person stunned by some calamity. + +Richard Pinckney, notwithstanding the fact that he was to leave for New +York on the morrow, did not return to dinner that night. Phyl went +upstairs early but she did not go to her room, she went to Juliet's. +Sorrow attracts sorrow. Juliet had always seemed more than a friend, more +than a sister, even. + +There were times when the ungraspable idea came before her that Juliet was +herself. The vision of the Civil War sometimes came back to her and always +with the hint, like a half veiled threat, that Richard the man she loved +was Rupert the man she had loved, that following the dark law of +duplication that works alike for types and events, forms and ideas, her +history was to repeat the history of Juliet. + +She had saved Richard from death at the hands of Silas Grangerson, her +love for him had met Fate face to face and won, but Fate has many reserve +weapons. She is an old warrior, and the conqueror of cities and kings does +not turn from her purpose because of a momentary defeat. + +Phyl shut the door of the room, put the lamp she was carrying on a table +and opened the long windows giving upon the piazza. The night was +absolutely still, not a breath of wind stirred the foliage of the garden +and the faint sounds of the city rose through the warm night. The waning +moon would not rise yet for an hour and the stars had the sky to +themselves. + +She turned from the window and going to the little bureau by the door +opened the secret drawer and took out the packet of letters. Then drawing +an armchair close to the table and the lamp she sat down, undid the ribbon +and began to read the letters. + +She felt just as though Juliet were talking to her, telling her of her +troubles. She read on placing each letter on the table in turn, one upon +the other. + +The chimes of St. Michael's came through the open window but they were +unheeded. + +When she had read through all the letters she picked out one. The one +containing the passionate declaration of Juliet's love. + +She re-read it and then placed it on the table on top of the others. + +If she could speak of Richard like that! + +But she could do nothing and say nothing. It is one of the curses of +womanhood that a woman may not say to a man "I love you," that the +initiative is taken out of her hands. + +Phyl was a creature of impulse and it was now for the first time in her +life that she recognised this fatal barrier on the woman's side. With the +recognition came the impulse to over jump it. + +He cared for her, she knew, or had cared for her. She felt that it only +required a movement on her side, a touch, a word to destroy the ice that +had formed between them. If he were to go away he might never return, nay, +he would never return, of that she felt sure. + +And he would go away unless she spoke. She must speak, not to-morrow in +the cold light of day when things were impossible, but now, at once, she +would say to him simply the truth, "I love you." If he were to turn away +or repulse her it would kill her. No matter, life was absolutely nothing. + +She rose from her chair and was just on the point of turning to the door +when something checked her. + +It was the clock of St. Michael's striking one. + +One o'clock. The whole household would be in bed. He would have retired to +his room long ago--and to-morrow it would be too late. + +She could never say that to him to-morrow; even now the impulse was dying +away, the strength that would have broken convention and disregarded all +things was fading in her. She had been dreaming whilst she ought to have +been doing, and the hour had passed and would never return. + +She sat down again in the chair. + +The moon in the cloudless sky outside cast a patch of silver on the floor, +then it shewed a silver rim gradually increasing against the sky as it +pushed its way through the night to peep in at Phyl. Leaning back in the +chair limp and exhausted, with closed eyes, one might have fancied her +dead or in a trance and the moon as if to make sure pushed on, framing +itself now fully in the window space. + +The clock of St. Michael's struck two, then it chimed the quarter after +and almost on the chime Phyl sat up. It was as though she had suddenly +come to a resolve. She clasped her hands together for a moment, then she +rose, gathered up the letters and put them away, all except one which she +held in her hand as though to give her courage for what she was about to +do. She carefully extinguished the lamp and then led by the moonlight came +out on to the piazza. + +Charleston was asleep under the moon; the air was filled with the scent of +night jessamine and the faint fragrance of foliage, and scarcely a sound +came from all the sleeping city beyond the garden walls and the sea beyond +the city. + +As she stood with one hand on the piazza rail, suddenly, far away but +shrill, came the crowing of a cock. + +She shivered as though the sound were a menace, then rigidly gliding like +a ghost escaped from the grave and warned by the cockcrow that the hour of +return was near, she came along the piazza, mounted the stair to the next +floor and came along the upper piazza to the window of Richard Pinckney's +bedroom. + +The window was open and, pushing the curtains aside, she went in. + + + + +CHAPTER IX + + +Richard Pinckney went to his room at eleven that night. He rarely retired +before twelve, but to-night he had packing to do as Jabez, his man, was +away and he knew better than to trust Seth. + +He packed his portmanteau and left it lying open in case he had forgotten +anything that could be put in at the last moment. Then he packed a kit-bag +and, having smoked a cigarette, went to bed. + +But he did not fall asleep. As a rule he slept at once on lying down, but +to-night he lay awake. + +He was miserable; going away was death to him, but he was going. + +First of all, because he had said that he was going. Secondly, because he +wanted to hit and hurt Phyl whom he loved, thirdly, because he wanted to +torture himself, fourthly, because he loathed and hated Silas Grangerson, +fifthly, because in his heart of hearts he knew what he was doing was +wrong. + +You never know really what is in a man till he is pinched by Love. Love +may stun him with a blow or run a dagger into him without bringing his +worst qualities to light whilst a sly pinch will raise devils--all the +miserable devils that march under the leadership of Pique. + +If he had not loved Phyl the fact of her going off with Silas for a drive +after what had occurred on the night before would have hurt him. Loving +her it had maddened him. + +He was not angry with her now, so he told himself--just disgusted. + +Meanwhile he could not sleep. The faithful St. Michael's kept him well +aware of this fact. He lit a candle and tried to read, smoked a cigarette +and then, blowing the candle out, tried to sleep. But insomnia had him +fairly in her grip; to-night there was no escape from her and he lay +whilst the moon, creeping through the sky, cast her light on the piazza +outside. + +St. Michael's chimed the quarter after two and sleep, long absent, was +coming at last when, suddenly, the sound of a light footstep on the piazza +drove her leagues away. + +Then outside in the full moonlight he saw a figure. It was Phyl, fully +dressed, standing with outstretched hands. Her eyes wide open, fixed, and +sightless, told their tale. She was asleep. + +She moved the curtains aside and entered the room, darkening the window +space, passed across the room without the least sound, reached the bed, +and knelt down beside it. Her hand was feeling for him, it touched his +neck, he raised his head slightly from the pillow and her arm, gliding +like a snake round his neck drew his head towards her; then her lips, +blindly seeking, found his and clung to them for a moment. + +Nothing could be more ghostly, more terrible, and yet more lovely than +that kiss, the kiss of a spirit, the embrace of a soul rising from the +profound abysm of sleep to find its mate. + +Then her lips withdrew and he lay praying to God, as few men have ever +prayed, that she might not wake. + +He felt the arm withdrawing from around his neck, she rose, wavered for a +moment, and then passed away towards the window. The lace curtains parted +as though drawn aside, closed again, and she was gone. + +He left his bed and came out on the piazza. Craning over he caught a +glimpse of her returning along the lower piazza and vanishing. + +Coming back to his room he saw something lying on the floor by his bed; it +was a letter; he struck a match, lit the candle and picked the letter up. +It was just a folded piece of paper, it had been sealed, but the seal was +broken, and sitting down on the side of the bed he spread it open, but his +hands were shaking so that he had to rest it on his knee. + +It was not from Phyl. That letter had been written many, many years ago, +the ink was faded and the handwriting of another day. + +He read it. + +"Not to-night. I have to go to the Calhouns. It is just as well for I have +a dread of people suspecting if we meet too often.... + +"Sometimes I feel as if I were deceiving him and everybody. I am, and I +don't care. Oh, my darling! my darling! my darling! If the whole world +were against you I would love you all the more. I will love you all my +life, and I will love you when I am dead." + +It was the letter of Juliet to her lover. + +He turned it over and looked at the seal with the little dove upon it. He +knew of Juliet's letters, and he knew at once that this was one of them, +and he guessed vaguely that she had been reading it when sleep overtook +her and that it had formed part of the inspiration that led her to him. +But the whole truth he would never know. + + * * * * * + +A blazing red Cardinal was singing in the magnolia tree by the gate, +butterflies were chasing one another above the flowers; it was seven +o'clock and the blue, lazy, lovely morning was unfolding like a flower to +the sea wind. + +Richard Pinckney was standing in the piazza before his bedroom window +looking down into the garden. + +To him suddenly appeared Seth. + +"If you please, sah," said Seth, "Rachel tole me tell yo' de train for +N'York--" + +"Damn New York," said Pinckney. "Get out." + +Seth vanished, grinning, and he returned to his contemplation of the +garden. + +She must never know.--In the years to come, perhaps, he might tell her-- +In the years to come-- + +He was turning away when a step on the piazza below made him come to the +rail again and lean over. It was Phyl. She vanished and then reappeared +again, leaving the lower piazza and coming right out into the garden. He +waited till the sun had caught her in both hands, holding her against the +background of the cherokee roses, then he called to her: + +"Phyl!" + +She started, turned, and looked up. + +THE END + + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Ghost Girl, by H. De Vere Stacpoole + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE GHOST GIRL *** + +***** This file should be named 26986.txt or 26986.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/2/6/9/8/26986/ + +Produced by Roger Frank and the Online Distributed +Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. Special rules, +set forth in the General Terms of Use part of this license, apply to +copying and distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works to +protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm concept and trademark. Project +Gutenberg is a registered trademark, and may not be used if you +charge for the eBooks, unless you receive specific permission. If you +do not charge anything for copies of this eBook, complying with the +rules is very easy. You may use this eBook for nearly any purpose +such as creation of derivative works, reports, performances and +research. They may be modified and printed and given away--you may do +practically ANYTHING with public domain eBooks. Redistribution is +subject to the trademark license, especially commercial +redistribution. + + + +*** START: FULL LICENSE *** + +THE FULL PROJECT GUTENBERG LICENSE +PLEASE READ THIS BEFORE YOU DISTRIBUTE OR USE THIS WORK + +To protect the Project Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting the free +distribution of electronic works, by using or distributing this work +(or any other work associated in any way with the phrase "Project +Gutenberg"), you agree to comply with all the terms of the Full Project +Gutenberg-tm License (available with this file or online at +http://gutenberg.org/license). + + +Section 1. General Terms of Use and Redistributing Project Gutenberg-tm +electronic works + +1.A. By reading or using any part of this Project Gutenberg-tm +electronic work, you indicate that you have read, understand, agree to +and accept all the terms of this license and intellectual property +(trademark/copyright) agreement. If you do not agree to abide by all +the terms of this agreement, you must cease using and return or destroy +all copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in your possession. +If you paid a fee for obtaining a copy of or access to a Project +Gutenberg-tm electronic work and you do not agree to be bound by the +terms of this agreement, you may obtain a refund from the person or +entity to whom you paid the fee as set forth in paragraph 1.E.8. + +1.B. "Project Gutenberg" is a registered trademark. It may only be +used on or associated in any way with an electronic work by people who +agree to be bound by the terms of this agreement. There are a few +things that you can do with most Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works +even without complying with the full terms of this agreement. See +paragraph 1.C below. There are a lot of things you can do with Project +Gutenberg-tm electronic works if you follow the terms of this agreement +and help preserve free future access to Project Gutenberg-tm electronic +works. See paragraph 1.E below. + +1.C. The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation ("the Foundation" +or PGLAF), owns a compilation copyright in the collection of Project +Gutenberg-tm electronic works. Nearly all the individual works in the +collection are in the public domain in the United States. If an +individual work is in the public domain in the United States and you are +located in the United States, we do not claim a right to prevent you from +copying, distributing, performing, displaying or creating derivative +works based on the work as long as all references to Project Gutenberg +are removed. Of course, we hope that you will support the Project +Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting free access to electronic works by +freely sharing Project Gutenberg-tm works in compliance with the terms of +this agreement for keeping the Project Gutenberg-tm name associated with +the work. You can easily comply with the terms of this agreement by +keeping this work in the same format with its attached full Project +Gutenberg-tm License when you share it without charge with others. + +1.D. The copyright laws of the place where you are located also govern +what you can do with this work. Copyright laws in most countries are in +a constant state of change. If you are outside the United States, check +the laws of your country in addition to the terms of this agreement +before downloading, copying, displaying, performing, distributing or +creating derivative works based on this work or any other Project +Gutenberg-tm work. The Foundation makes no representations concerning +the copyright status of any work in any country outside the United +States. + +1.E. Unless you have removed all references to Project Gutenberg: + +1.E.1. The following sentence, with active links to, or other immediate +access to, the full Project Gutenberg-tm License must appear prominently +whenever any copy of a Project Gutenberg-tm work (any work on which the +phrase "Project Gutenberg" appears, or with which the phrase "Project +Gutenberg" is associated) is accessed, displayed, performed, viewed, +copied or distributed: + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + +1.E.2. If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is derived +from the public domain (does not contain a notice indicating that it is +posted with permission of the copyright holder), the work can be copied +and distributed to anyone in the United States without paying any fees +or charges. If you are redistributing or providing access to a work +with the phrase "Project Gutenberg" associated with or appearing on the +work, you must comply either with the requirements of paragraphs 1.E.1 +through 1.E.7 or obtain permission for the use of the work and the +Project Gutenberg-tm trademark as set forth in paragraphs 1.E.8 or +1.E.9. + +1.E.3. If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is posted +with the permission of the copyright holder, your use and distribution +must comply with both paragraphs 1.E.1 through 1.E.7 and any additional +terms imposed by the copyright holder. Additional terms will be linked +to the Project Gutenberg-tm License for all works posted with the +permission of the copyright holder found at the beginning of this work. + +1.E.4. Do not unlink or detach or remove the full Project Gutenberg-tm +License terms from this work, or any files containing a part of this +work or any other work associated with Project Gutenberg-tm. + +1.E.5. Do not copy, display, perform, distribute or redistribute this +electronic work, or any part of this electronic work, without +prominently displaying the sentence set forth in paragraph 1.E.1 with +active links or immediate access to the full terms of the Project +Gutenberg-tm License. + +1.E.6. You may convert to and distribute this work in any binary, +compressed, marked up, nonproprietary or proprietary form, including any +word processing or hypertext form. However, if you provide access to or +distribute copies of a Project Gutenberg-tm work in a format other than +"Plain Vanilla ASCII" or other format used in the official version +posted on the official Project Gutenberg-tm web site (www.gutenberg.org), +you must, at no additional cost, fee or expense to the user, provide a +copy, a means of exporting a copy, or a means of obtaining a copy upon +request, of the work in its original "Plain Vanilla ASCII" or other +form. Any alternate format must include the full Project Gutenberg-tm +License as specified in paragraph 1.E.1. + +1.E.7. Do not charge a fee for access to, viewing, displaying, +performing, copying or distributing any Project Gutenberg-tm works +unless you comply with paragraph 1.E.8 or 1.E.9. + +1.E.8. You may charge a reasonable fee for copies of or providing +access to or distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works provided +that + +- You pay a royalty fee of 20% of the gross profits you derive from + the use of Project Gutenberg-tm works calculated using the method + you already use to calculate your applicable taxes. The fee is + owed to the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark, but he + has agreed to donate royalties under this paragraph to the + Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation. Royalty payments + must be paid within 60 days following each date on which you + prepare (or are legally required to prepare) your periodic tax + returns. Royalty payments should be clearly marked as such and + sent to the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation at the + address specified in Section 4, "Information about donations to + the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation." + +- You provide a full refund of any money paid by a user who notifies + you in writing (or by e-mail) within 30 days of receipt that s/he + does not agree to the terms of the full Project Gutenberg-tm + License. You must require such a user to return or + destroy all copies of the works possessed in a physical medium + and discontinue all use of and all access to other copies of + Project Gutenberg-tm works. + +- You provide, in accordance with paragraph 1.F.3, a full refund of any + money paid for a work or a replacement copy, if a defect in the + electronic work is discovered and reported to you within 90 days + of receipt of the work. + +- You comply with all other terms of this agreement for free + distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm works. + +1.E.9. If you wish to charge a fee or distribute a Project Gutenberg-tm +electronic work or group of works on different terms than are set +forth in this agreement, you must obtain permission in writing from +both the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation and Michael +Hart, the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark. Contact the +Foundation as set forth in Section 3 below. + +1.F. + +1.F.1. Project Gutenberg volunteers and employees expend considerable +effort to identify, do copyright research on, transcribe and proofread +public domain works in creating the Project Gutenberg-tm +collection. Despite these efforts, Project Gutenberg-tm electronic +works, and the medium on which they may be stored, may contain +"Defects," such as, but not limited to, incomplete, inaccurate or +corrupt data, transcription errors, a copyright or other intellectual +property infringement, a defective or damaged disk or other medium, a +computer virus, or computer codes that damage or cannot be read by +your equipment. + +1.F.2. LIMITED WARRANTY, DISCLAIMER OF DAMAGES - Except for the "Right +of Replacement or Refund" described in paragraph 1.F.3, the Project +Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation, the owner of the Project +Gutenberg-tm trademark, and any other party distributing a Project +Gutenberg-tm electronic work under this agreement, disclaim all +liability to you for damages, costs and expenses, including legal +fees. YOU AGREE THAT YOU HAVE NO REMEDIES FOR NEGLIGENCE, STRICT +LIABILITY, BREACH OF WARRANTY OR BREACH OF CONTRACT EXCEPT THOSE +PROVIDED IN PARAGRAPH F3. YOU AGREE THAT THE FOUNDATION, THE +TRADEMARK OWNER, AND ANY DISTRIBUTOR UNDER THIS AGREEMENT WILL NOT BE +LIABLE TO YOU FOR ACTUAL, DIRECT, INDIRECT, CONSEQUENTIAL, PUNITIVE OR +INCIDENTAL DAMAGES EVEN IF YOU GIVE NOTICE OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH +DAMAGE. + +1.F.3. LIMITED RIGHT OF REPLACEMENT OR REFUND - If you discover a +defect in this electronic work within 90 days of receiving it, you can +receive a refund of the money (if any) you paid for it by sending a +written explanation to the person you received the work from. If you +received the work on a physical medium, you must return the medium with +your written explanation. The person or entity that provided you with +the defective work may elect to provide a replacement copy in lieu of a +refund. If you received the work electronically, the person or entity +providing it to you may choose to give you a second opportunity to +receive the work electronically in lieu of a refund. If the second copy +is also defective, you may demand a refund in writing without further +opportunities to fix the problem. + +1.F.4. Except for the limited right of replacement or refund set forth +in paragraph 1.F.3, this work is provided to you 'AS-IS' WITH NO OTHER +WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO +WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTIBILITY OR FITNESS FOR ANY PURPOSE. + +1.F.5. Some states do not allow disclaimers of certain implied +warranties or the exclusion or limitation of certain types of damages. +If any disclaimer or limitation set forth in this agreement violates the +law of the state applicable to this agreement, the agreement shall be +interpreted to make the maximum disclaimer or limitation permitted by +the applicable state law. The invalidity or unenforceability of any +provision of this agreement shall not void the remaining provisions. + +1.F.6. INDEMNITY - You agree to indemnify and hold the Foundation, the +trademark owner, any agent or employee of the Foundation, anyone +providing copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in accordance +with this agreement, and any volunteers associated with the production, +promotion and distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works, +harmless from all liability, costs and expenses, including legal fees, +that arise directly or indirectly from any of the following which you do +or cause to occur: (a) distribution of this or any Project Gutenberg-tm +work, (b) alteration, modification, or additions or deletions to any +Project Gutenberg-tm work, and (c) any Defect you cause. + + +Section 2. Information about the Mission of Project Gutenberg-tm + +Project Gutenberg-tm is synonymous with the free distribution of +electronic works in formats readable by the widest variety of computers +including obsolete, old, middle-aged and new computers. It exists +because of the efforts of hundreds of volunteers and donations from +people in all walks of life. + +Volunteers and financial support to provide volunteers with the +assistance they need, is critical to reaching Project Gutenberg-tm's +goals and ensuring that the Project Gutenberg-tm collection will +remain freely available for generations to come. In 2001, the Project +Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation was created to provide a secure +and permanent future for Project Gutenberg-tm and future generations. +To learn more about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation +and how your efforts and donations can help, see Sections 3 and 4 +and the Foundation web page at http://www.pglaf.org. + + +Section 3. Information about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive +Foundation + +The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation is a non profit +501(c)(3) educational corporation organized under the laws of the +state of Mississippi and granted tax exempt status by the Internal +Revenue Service. The Foundation's EIN or federal tax identification +number is 64-6221541. Its 501(c)(3) letter is posted at +http://pglaf.org/fundraising. Contributions to the Project Gutenberg +Literary Archive Foundation are tax deductible to the full extent +permitted by U.S. federal laws and your state's laws. + +The Foundation's principal office is located at 4557 Melan Dr. S. +Fairbanks, AK, 99712., but its volunteers and employees are scattered +throughout numerous locations. Its business office is located at +809 North 1500 West, Salt Lake City, UT 84116, (801) 596-1887, email +business@pglaf.org. Email contact links and up to date contact +information can be found at the Foundation's web site and official +page at http://pglaf.org + +For additional contact information: + Dr. Gregory B. Newby + Chief Executive and Director + gbnewby@pglaf.org + + +Section 4. Information about Donations to the Project Gutenberg +Literary Archive Foundation + +Project Gutenberg-tm depends upon and cannot survive without wide +spread public support and donations to carry out its mission of +increasing the number of public domain and licensed works that can be +freely distributed in machine readable form accessible by the widest +array of equipment including outdated equipment. Many small donations +($1 to $5,000) are particularly important to maintaining tax exempt +status with the IRS. + +The Foundation is committed to complying with the laws regulating +charities and charitable donations in all 50 states of the United +States. Compliance requirements are not uniform and it takes a +considerable effort, much paperwork and many fees to meet and keep up +with these requirements. We do not solicit donations in locations +where we have not received written confirmation of compliance. To +SEND DONATIONS or determine the status of compliance for any +particular state visit http://pglaf.org + +While we cannot and do not solicit contributions from states where we +have not met the solicitation requirements, we know of no prohibition +against accepting unsolicited donations from donors in such states who +approach us with offers to donate. + +International donations are gratefully accepted, but we cannot make +any statements concerning tax treatment of donations received from +outside the United States. U.S. laws alone swamp our small staff. + +Please check the Project Gutenberg Web pages for current donation +methods and addresses. Donations are accepted in a number of other +ways including checks, online payments and credit card donations. +To donate, please visit: http://pglaf.org/donate + + +Section 5. General Information About Project Gutenberg-tm electronic +works. + +Professor Michael S. Hart is the originator of the Project Gutenberg-tm +concept of a library of electronic works that could be freely shared +with anyone. For thirty years, he produced and distributed Project +Gutenberg-tm eBooks with only a loose network of volunteer support. + + +Project Gutenberg-tm eBooks are often created from several printed +editions, all of which are confirmed as Public Domain in the U.S. +unless a copyright notice is included. Thus, we do not necessarily +keep eBooks in compliance with any particular paper edition. + + +Most people start at our Web site which has the main PG search facility: + + http://www.gutenberg.org + +This Web site includes information about Project Gutenberg-tm, +including how to make donations to the Project Gutenberg Literary +Archive Foundation, how to help produce our new eBooks, and how to +subscribe to our email newsletter to hear about new eBooks. |