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THE HOUSE BEHIND
THE CEDARS
BY CHARLES W. CHESNUTT
CONTENTS
I A STRANGER FROM SOUTH CAROLINA II AN EVENING VISIT
III THE OLD JUDGE
IV DOWN THE RIVER
V THE TOURNAMENT
VI THE QUEEN OF LOVE AND BEAUTY
VII ‘MID NEW SURROUNDINGS
VIII THE COURTSHIP
IX DOUBTS AND FEARS
X THE DREAM
XI A LETTER AND A JOURNEY
XII TRYON GOES TO PATESVILLE
XIII AN INJUDICIOUS PAYMENT
XIV A LOYAL FRIEND
XV MINE OWN PEOPLE
XVI THE BOTTOM FALLS OUT
XVII TWO LETTERS
XVIII UNDER THE OLD REGIME
XIX GOD MADE US ALL
XX DIGGING UP ROOTS
XXI A GILDED OPPORTUNITY
XXII IMPERATIVE BUSINESS
XXIII THE GUEST OF HONOR
XXIV SWING YOUR PARTNERS
XXV BALANCE ALL
XXVI THE SCHOOLHOUSE IN THE WOODS
XXVII AN INTERESTING ACQUAINTANCE
XXVIII THE LOST KNIFE
XXIX PLATO EARNS HALF A DOLLAR
XXX AN UNUSUAL HONOR
XXXI IN DEEP WATERS
XXXII THE POWER OF LOVE
XXXIII A MULE AND A CART
THE HOUSE BEHIND THE CEDARS
I
A STRANGER FROM SOUTH CAROLINA
Time touches all things with destroying hand; and if he seem now and then to bestow the bloom of youth, the sap of spring, it is but a brief mockery, to be surely and swiftly followed by the wrinkles of old age, the dry leaves and bare branches of winter. And yet there are places where Time seems to linger lovingly long after youth has departed, and to which he seems loath to bring the evil day. Who has not known some even-tempered old man or woman who seemed to have
drunk of the fountain of youth? Who has not seen somewhere an old town that, having long since ceased to grow, yet held its own without perceptible decline?
Some such trite reflection–as apposite to the subject as most random reflections are–passed through the mind of a young man who came out of the front door of the Patesville Hotel about nine o’clock one fine morning in spring, a few years after the Civil War, and started down Front Street toward the market-house. Arriving at the town late the previous evening, he had been driven up from the steamboat in a carriage, from which he had been able to distinguish only the shadowy outlines of the houses along the street; so that this morning walk was his first opportunity to see the town by daylight. He was dressed in a suit of linen duck–the day was warm–a panama straw hat, and patent leather shoes. In appearance he was tall, dark, with straight, black, lustrous hair, and very clean-cut, high-bred features. When he paused by the clerk’s desk on his way out, to light his cigar, the day clerk, who had just come on duty, glanced at the register and read the last entry:–
“`JOHN WARWICK, CLARENCE, SOUTH CAROLINA.’
“One of the South Ca’lina bigbugs, I reckon –probably in cotton, or turpentine.” The gentleman from South Carolina, walking down the street, glanced about him with an eager look, in which curiosity and affection were mingled with a touch of bitterness. He saw little that was not familiar, or that he had not seen in his dreams a hundred times during the past ten years. There had been some changes, it is true, some melancholy changes, but scarcely anything by way of addition or improvement to counterbalance them. Here and there blackened and dismantled walls marked the place where handsome buildings once had stood, for Sherman’s march to the sea had left its mark upon the town. The stores were mostly of brick, two stories high, joining one another after the manner of cities. Some of the names on the signs were familiar; others, including a number of Jewish names, were quite unknown to him.
A two minutes’ walk brought Warwick–the name he had registered under, and as we shall call him–to the market-house, the central feature of Patesville, from both the commercial and the picturesque points of view. Standing foursquare in the heart of the town, at the intersection of the two main streets, a “jog” at each street corner left around the market-house a little public square, which at this hour was well occupied by carts and wagons from the country and empty drays awaiting hire. Warwick was unable to perceive much change in the market-house. Perhaps the surface of the red brick, long unpainted, had scaled off a little more here and there. There might have been a slight accretion of the moss and lichen on the shingled roof. But the tall tower, with its four- faced clock, rose as majestically and uncompromisingly as though the land had never been subjugated. Was it so irreconcilable, Warwick wondered, as still to peal out the curfew bell, which at nine o’clock at night had clamorously warned all negroes, slave or free, that it was unlawful for them to be abroad after that hour, under penalty of imprisonment or whipping? Was the old constable, whose chief business it had been to ring the bell, still alive and exercising the functions of his office, and had age lessened or increased the number of times that obliging citizens performed this duty for him during his temporary absences in the company of convivial spirits? A few moments later, Warwick saw a colored policeman in the old constable’s place–a stronger reminder than even the burned buildings that war had left its mark upon the old town, with which Time had dealt so tenderly.
The lower story of the market-house was open on all four of its sides to the public square. Warwick passed through one of the wide brick arches and traversed the building with a leisurely step. He looked in vain into the stalls for the butcher who had sold fresh meat twice a week, on market days, and he felt a genuine thrill of pleasure when he recognized the red bandana turban of old Aunt Lyddy, the ancient negro woman who had sold him gingerbread and fried fish, and told him weird tales of witchcraft and conjuration, in the old days when, as an idle boy, he had loafed about the market-house. He did not speak to her, however, or give her any sign of recognition. He threw a glance toward a certain corner where steps led to the town hall above. On this stairway he had once seen a manacled free negro shot while being taken upstairs for examination under a criminal charge. Warwick recalled vividly how the shot had rung out. He could see again the livid look of terror on the victim’s face, the gathering crowd, the resulting confusion. The murderer, he recalled, had been tried and sentenced to imprisonment for life, but was pardoned by a merciful governor after serving a year of his sentence. As Warwick was neither a prophet nor the son of a prophet, he could not foresee that, thirty years later, even this would seem an excessive punishment for so slight a misdemeanor.
Leaving the market-house, Warwick turned to the left, and kept on his course until he reached the next corner. After another turn to the right, a dozen paces brought him in front of a small weather-beaten frame building, from which projected a wooden sign-board bearing the inscription:–
ARCHIBALD STRAIGHT,
LAWYER.
He turned the knob, but the door was locked. Retracing his steps past a vacant lot, the young man entered a shop where a colored man was employed in varnishing a coffin, which stood on two trestles in the middle of the floor. Not at all impressed by the melancholy suggestiveness of his task, he was whistling a lively air with great gusto. Upon Warwick’s entrance this effusion came to a sudden end, and the coffin-maker assumed an air of professional gravity.
“Good-mawnin’, suh,” he said, lifting his cap politely.
“Good-morning,” answered Warwick. “Can you tell me anything about Judge Straight’s office hours?”
“De ole jedge has be’n a little onreg’lar sence de wah, suh; but he gin’ally gits roun’ ’bout ten o’clock er so. He’s be’n kin’ er feeble fer de las’ few yeahs. An’ I reckon,” continued the undertaker solemnly, his glance unconsciously seeking a row of fine caskets standing against the wall,–“I reckon he’ll soon be goin’ de way er all de earth. `Man dat is bawn er ‘oman hath but a sho’t time ter lib, an’ is full er mis’ry. He cometh up an’ is cut down lack as a flower.’ `De days er his life is three-sco’ an’ ten’–an’ de ole jedge is libbed mo’ d’n dat, suh, by five yeahs, ter say de leas’.”
“`Death,'” quoted Warwick, with whose mood the undertaker’s remarks were in tune, “`is the penalty that all must pay for the crime of living.'”
“Dat ‘s a fac’, suh, dat ‘s a fac’; so dey mus’– so dey mus’. An’ den all de dead has ter be buried. An’ we does ou’ sheer of it, suh, we does ou’ sheer. We conduc’s de obs’quies er all de bes’ w’ite folks er de town, suh.”
Warwick left the undertaker’s shop and retraced his steps until he had passed the lawyer’s office, toward which he threw an affectionate glance. A few rods farther led him past the old black Presbyterian church, with its square tower, embowered in a stately grove; past the Catholic church, with its many crosses, and a painted wooden figure of St. James in a recess beneath the gable; and past the old Jefferson House, once the leading hotel of the town, in front of which political meetings had been held, and political speeches made, and political hard cider drunk, in the days of “Tippecanoe and Tyler too.”
The street down which Warwick had come intersected Front Street at a sharp angle in front of the old hotel, forming a sort of flatiron block at the junction, known as Liberty Point,–perhaps because slave auctions were sometimes held there in the good old days. Just before Warwick reached Liberty Point, a young woman came down Front Street from the direction of the market-house. When their paths converged, Warwick kept on down Front Street behind her, it having been already his intention to walk in this direction.
Warwick’s first glance had revealed the fact that the young woman was strikingly handsome, with a stately beauty seldom encountered. As he walked along behind her at a measured distance, he could not help noting the details that made up this pleasing impression, for his mind was singularly alive to beauty, in whatever embodiment. The girl’s figure, he perceived, was admirably proportioned; she was evidently at the period when the angles of childhood were rounding into the promising curves of adolescence. Her abundant hair, of a dark and glossy brown, was neatly plaited and coiled above an ivory column that rose straight from a pair of gently sloping shoulders, clearly outlined beneath the light muslin frock that covered them. He could see that she was tastefully, though not richly, dressed, and that she walked with an elastic step that revealed a light heart and the vigor of perfect health. Her face, of course, he could not analyze, since he had caught only the one brief but convincing glimpse of it.
The young woman kept on down Front Street, Warwick maintaining his distance a few rods behind her. They passed a factory, a warehouse or two, and then, leaving the brick pavement, walked along on mother earth, under a leafy arcade of spreading oaks and elms. Their way led now through a residential portion of the town, which, as they advanced, gradually declined from staid respectability to poverty, open and unabashed. Warwick observed, as they passed through the respectable quarter, that few people who met the girl greeted her, and that some others whom she passed at gates or doorways gave her no sign of recognition; from which he inferred that she was possibly a visitor in the town and not well acquainted.
Their walk had continued not more than ten minutes when they crossed a creek by a wooden bridge and came to a row of mean houses standing flush with the street. At the door of one, an old black woman had stooped to lift a large basket, piled high with laundered clothes. The girl, as she passed, seized one end of the basket and helped the old woman to raise it to her head, where it rested solidly on the cushion of her head-kerchief. During this interlude, Warwick, though he had slackened his pace measurably, had so nearly closed the gap between himself and them as to hear the old woman say, with the dulcet negro intonation:–
“T’anky’, honey; de Lawd gwine bless you sho’. You wuz alluz a good gal, and de Lawd love eve’ybody w’at he’p de po’ ole nigger. You gwine ter hab good luck all yo’ bawn days.”
“I hope you’re a true prophet, Aunt Zilphy,” laughed the girl in response.
The sound of her voice gave Warwick a thrill. It was soft and sweet and clear–quite in harmony with her appearance. That it had a faint suggestiveness of the old woman’s accent he hardly noticed, for the current Southern speech, including his own, was rarely without a touch of it. The corruption of the white people’s speech was one element–only one–of the negro’s unconscious revenge for his own debasement.
The houses they passed now grew scattering, and the quarter of the town more neglected. Warwick felt himself wondering where the girl might be going in a neighborhood so uninviting. When she stopped to pull a half-naked negro child out of a mudhole and set him upon his feet, he thought she might be some young lady from the upper part of the town, bound on some errand of mercy, or going, perhaps, to visit an old servant or look for a new one. Once she threw a backward glance at Warwick, thus enabling him to catch a second glimpse of a singularly pretty face. Perhaps the young woman found his presence in the neighborhood as unaccountable as he had deemed hers; for, finding his glance fixed upon her, she quickened her pace with an air of startled timidity.
“A woman with such a figure,” thought Warwick, “ought to be able to face the world with the confidence of Phryne confronting her judges.”
By this time Warwick was conscious that something more than mere grace or beauty had attracted him with increasing force toward this young woman. A suggestion, at first faint and elusive, of something familiar, had grown stronger when he heard her voice, and became more and more pronounced with each rod of their advance; and when she stopped finally before a gate, and, opening it, went into a yard shut off from the street by a row of dwarf cedars, Warwick had already discounted in some measure the surprise he would have felt at seeing her enter there had he not walked down Front Street behind her. There was still sufficient unexpectedness about the act, however, to give him a decided thrill of pleasure.
“It must be Rena,” he murmured. “Who
could have dreamed that she would blossom out like that? It must surely be Rena!”
He walked slowly past the gate and peered through a narrow gap in the cedar hedge. The girl was moving along a sanded walk, toward a gray, unpainted house, with a steep roof, broken by dormer windows. The trace of timidity he had observed in her had given place to the more assured bearing of one who is upon his own ground. The garden walks were bordered by long rows of jonquils, pinks, and carnations, inclosing clumps of fragrant shrubs, lilies, and roses already in bloom. Toward the middle of the garden stood two fine magnolia-trees, with heavy, dark green, glistening leaves, while nearer the house two mighty elms shaded a wide piazza, at one end of which a honeysuckle vine, and at the other a Virginia creeper, running over a wooden lattice, furnished additional shade and seclusion. On dark or wintry
days, the aspect of this garden must have been extremely sombre and depressing, and it might well have seemed a fit place to hide some guilty or disgraceful secret. But on the bright morning when Warwick stood looking through the cedars, it seemed, with its green frame and canopy and its bright carpet of flowers, an ideal retreat from the fierce sunshine and the sultry heat of the approaching summer.
The girl stooped to pluck a rose, and as she bent over it, her profile was clearly outlined. She held the flower to her face with a long-drawn inhalation, then went up the steps, crossed the piazza, opened the door without knocking, and entered the house with the air of one thoroughly at home.
“Yes,” said the young man to himself, “it’s Rena, sure enough.”
The house stood on a corner, around which the cedar hedge turned, continuing along the side of the garden until it reached the line of the front of the house. The piazza to a rear wing, at right angles to the front of the house, was open to inspection from the side street, which, to judge from its deserted look, seemed to be but little used. Turning into this street and walking leisurely past the back yard, which was only slightly screened from the street by a china-tree, Warwick perceived the young woman standing on the piazza, facing an elderly woman, who sat in a large rocking-chair, plying a pair of knitting-needles on a half-finished stocking. Warwick’s walk led him within three feet of the side gate, which he felt an almost irresistible impulse to enter. Every detail of the house and garden was familiar; a thousand cords of memory and affection drew him thither; but a stronger counter-motive prevailed. With a great effort he restrained himself, and after a momentary pause, walked slowly on past the house, with a backward glance, which he turned away when he saw that it was observed.
Warwick’s attention had been so fully absorbed by the house behind the cedars and the women there, that he had scarcely noticed, on the other side of the neglected by-street, two men working by a large open window, in a low, rude building with a clapboarded roof, directly opposite the back piazza occupied by the two women. Both the men were busily engaged in shaping barrel-staves, each wielding a sharp-edged drawing-knife on a piece of seasoned oak clasped tightly in a wooden vise.
“I jes’ wonder who dat man is, an’ w’at he ‘s doin’ on dis street,” observed the younger of the two, with a suspicious air. He had noticed the gentleman’s involuntary pause and his interest in the opposite house, and had stopped work for a moment to watch the stranger as he went on down the street.
“Nev’ min’ ’bout dat man,” said the elder one. “You ‘ten’ ter yo’ wuk an’ finish dat bairl-stave. You spen’s enti’ely too much er yo’ time stretchin’ yo’ neck atter other people. An’ you need n’ ‘sturb yo’se’f ’bout dem folks ‘cross de street, fer dey ain’t yo’ kin’, an’ you’re wastin’ yo’ time both’in’ yo’ min’ wid ’em, er wid folks w’at comes on de street on account of ’em. Look sha’p now, boy, er you’ll git dat stave trim’ too much.”
The younger man resumed his work, but still found time to throw a slanting glance out of the window. The gentleman, he perceived, stood for a moment on the rotting bridge across the old canal, and then walked slowly ahead until he turned to the right into Back Street, a few rods farther on.
II
AN EVENING VISIT
Toward evening of the same day, Warwick took his way down Front Street in the gathering dusk. By the time night had spread its mantle over the earth, he had reached the gate by which he had seen the girl of his morning walk enter the cedar- bordered garden. He stopped at the gate and glanced toward the house, which seemed dark and silent and deserted.
“It’s more than likely,” he thought, “that they are in the kitchen. I reckon I’d better try the back door.”
But as he drew cautiously near the corner, he saw a man’s figure outlined in the yellow light streaming from the open door of a small house between Front Street and the cooper shop. Wishing, for reasons of his own, to avoid observation, Warwick did not turn the corner, but walked on down Front Street until he reached a point from which he could see, at a long angle, a ray of light proceeding from the kitchen window of the house behind the cedars.
“They are there,” he muttered with a sigh of relief, for he had feared they might be away. “I suspect I’ll have to go to the front door, after all. No one can see me through the trees.”
He retraced his steps to the front gate, which he essayed to open. There was apparently some defect in the latch, for it refused to work. Warwick remembered the trick, and with a slight sense of amusement, pushed his foot under the gate and gave it a hitch to the left, after which it opened readily enough. He walked softly up the sanded path, tiptoed up the steps and across the piazza, and rapped at the front door, not too loudly, lest this too might attract the attention of the man across the street. There was no response to his rap. He put his ear to the door and heard voices within, and the muffled sound of footsteps. After a moment he rapped again, a little louder than before.
There was an instant cessation of the sounds within. He rapped a third time, to satisfy any lingering doubt in the minds of those who he felt sure were listening in some trepidation. A moment later a ray of light streamed through the keyhole.
“Who’s there?” a woman’s voice inquired somewhat sharply.
“A gentleman,” answered Warwick, not holding it yet time to reveal himself. “Does Mis’ Molly Walden live here?”
“Yes,” was the guarded answer. “I’m Mis’ Walden. What’s yo’r business?”
“I have a message to you from your son John.”
A key clicked in the lock. The door opened, and the elder of the two women Warwick had
seen upon the piazza stood in the doorway, peering curiously and with signs of great excitement into the face of the stranger.
“You ‘ve got a message from my son, you say?” she asked with tremulous agitation. “Is he sick, or in trouble?”
“No. He’s well and doing well, and sends his love to you, and hopes you’ve not forgotten him.”
“Fergot him? No, God knows I ain’t fergot him! But come in, sir, an’ tell me somethin’ mo’ about him.”
Warwick went in, and as the woman closed the door after him, he threw a glance round the room. On the wall, over the mantelpiece, hung a steel engraving of General Jackson at the battle of New Orleans, and, on the opposite wall, a framed fashion-plate from “Godey’s Lady’s Book.” In the middle of the room an octagonal centre-table with a single leg, terminating in three sprawling feet, held a collection of curiously shaped sea-shells. There was a great haircloth sofa, somewhat the worse for wear, and a well-filled bookcase. The screen standing before the fireplace was covered with Confederate bank-notes of various denominations and designs, in which the heads of Jefferson Davis and other Confederate leaders were conspicuous.
“Imperious Caesar, dead, and turned to clay, Might stop a hole to keep the wind away,”
murmured the young man, as his eye fell upon this specimen of decorative art.
The woman showed her visitor to a seat. She then sat down facing him and looked at him closely. “When did you last see my son?” she asked.
“I’ve never met your son,” he replied.
Her face fell. “Then the message comes through you from somebody else?”
“No, directly from your son.”
She scanned his face with a puzzled look. This bearded young gentleman, who spoke so politely and was dressed so well, surely–no, it could not be! and yet–
Warwick was smiling at her through a mist of tears. An electric spark of sympathy flashed between them. They rose as if moved by one impulse, and were clasped in each other’s arms.
“John, my John! It IS John!”
“Mother–my dear old mother!”
“I didn’t think,” she sobbed, “that I’d ever see you again.”
He smoothed her hair and kissed her. “And are you glad to see me, mother?”
“Am I glad to see you? It’s like the dead comin’ to life. I thought I’d lost you forever, John, my son, my darlin’ boy!” she answered, hugging him strenuously.
“I couldn’t live without seeing you, mother,” he said. He meant it, too, or thought he did, although he had not seen her for ten years.
“You’ve grown so tall, John, and are such a fine gentleman! And you ARE a gentleman now, John, ain’t you–sure enough? Nobody knows the old story?”
“Well, mother, I’ve taken a man’s chance in life, and have tried to make the most of it; and I haven’t felt under any obligation to spoil it by raking up old stories that are best forgotten. There are the dear old books: have they been read since I went away?”
“No, honey, there’s be’n nobody to read ’em, excep’ Rena, an’ she don’t take to books quite like you did. But I’ve kep’ ’em dusted clean, an’ kep’ the moths an’ the bugs out; for I hoped you’d come back some day, an’ knowed you’d like to find ’em all in their places, jus’ like you left ’em.”
“That’s mighty nice of you, mother. You could have done no more if you had loved them for themselves. But where is Rena? I saw her on the street to-day, but she didn’t know me from Adam; nor did I guess it was she until she opened the gate and came into the yard.”
“I’ve be’n so glad to see you that I’d fergot about her,” answered the mother. “Rena, oh, Rena!”
The girl was not far away; she had been standing in the next room, listening intently to every word of the conversation, and only kept from coming in by a certain constraint that made a brother whom she had not met for so many years seem almost as much a stranger as if he had not been connected with her by any tie.
“Yes, mamma,” she answered, coming forward.
“Rena, child, here’s yo’r brother John, who’s come back to see us. Tell ‘im howdy.”
As she came forward, Warwick rose, put his arm around her waist, drew her toward him, and kissed her affectionately, to her evident embarrassment. She was a tall girl, but he towered above her in quite a protecting fashion; and she thought with a thrill how fine it would be to have such a brother as this in the town all the time. How proud she would be, if she could but walk up the street with such a brother by her side! She could then hold up her head before all the world, oblivious to the glance of pity or contempt. She felt a very pronounced respect for this tall gentleman who held her blushing face between his hands and looked steadily into her eyes.
“You’re the little sister I used to read stories to, and whom I promised to come and see some day. Do you remember how you cried when I went away?”
“It seems but yesterday,” she answered. “I’ve still got the dime you gave me.”
He kissed her again, and then drew her down beside him on the sofa, where he sat enthroned between the two loving and excited women. No king could have received more sincere or delighted homage. He was a man, come into a household of women,–a man of whom they were proud, and to whom they looked up with fond reverence. For he was not only a son,–a brother–but he represented to them the world from which circum stances had shut them out, and to which distance lent even more than its usual enchantment; and they felt nearer to this far-off world because of the glory which Warwick reflected from it.
“You’re a very pretty girl,” said Warwick, regarding his sister thoughtfully. “I followed you down Front Street this morning, and scarcely took my eyes off you all the way; and yet I didn’t know you, and scarcely saw your face. You improve on acquaintance; to-night, I find you handsomer still.”
“Now, John,” said his mother, expostulating mildly, “you’ll spile her, if you don’t min’.”
The girl was beaming with gratified vanity. What woman would not find such praise sweet from almost any source, and how much more so from this great man, who, from his exalted station in the world, must surely know the things whereof he spoke! She believed every word of it; she knew it very well indeed, but wished to hear it repeated and itemized and emphasized.
“No, he won’t, mamma,” she asserted, “for he’s flattering me. He talks as if I was some rich young lady, who lives on the Hill,”–the Hill was the aristocratic portion of the town,– “instead of a poor”
“Instead of a poor young girl, who has the hill to climb,” replied her brother, smoothing her hair with his hand. Her hair was long and smooth and glossy, with a wave like the ripple of a summer breeze upon the surface of still water. It was the girl’s great pride, and had been sedulously cared for. “What lovely hair! It has just the wave that yours lacks, mother.”
“Yes,” was the regretful reply, “I’ve never be’n able to git that wave out. But her hair’s be’n took good care of, an’ there ain’t nary gal in town that’s got any finer.”
“Don’t worry about the wave, mother. It’s just the fashionable ripple, and becomes her immensely. I think my little Albert favors his Aunt Rena somewhat.”
“Your little Albert!” they cried. “You’ve got a child?”
“Oh, yes,” he replied calmly, “a very fine baby boy.”
They began to purr in proud contentment at this information, and made minute inquiries about the age and weight and eyes and nose and other important details of this precious infant. They inquired more coldly about the child’s mother, of whom they spoke with greater warmth when they learned that she was dead. They hung breathless on Warwick’s words as he related briefly the story of his life since he had left, years before, the house behind the cedars–how with a stout heart and an abounding hope he had gone out into a seemingly hostile world, and made fortune stand and deliver. His story had for the women the charm of an escape from captivity, with all the thrill of a pirate’s tale. With the whole world before him, he had remained in the South, the land of his fathers, where, he conceived, he had an inalienable birthright. By some good chance he had escaped military service in the Confederate army, and, in default of older and more experienced men, had undertaken, during the rebellion, the management of a large estate, which had been left in the hands of women and slaves. He had filled the place so acceptably, and employed his leisure to such advantage, that at the close of the war he found himself–he was modest enough to think, too, in default of a better man–the husband of the orphan daughter of the gentleman who had owned the plantation, and who had lost his life upon the battlefield. Warwick’s wife was of good family, and in a more settled condition of society it would not have been easy for a young man of no visible antecedents to win her hand. A year or two later, he had taken the oath of allegiance, and had been admitted to the South Carolina bar. Rich in his wife’s right, he had been able to practice his profession upon a high plane, without the worry of sordid cares, and with marked success for one of his age.
“I suppose,” he concluded, “that I have got along at the bar, as elsewhere, owing to the lack of better men. Many of the good lawyers were killed in the war, and most of the remainder were disqualified; while I had the advantage of being alive, and of never having been in arms against the government. People had to have lawyers, and they gave me their business in preference to the carpet- baggers. Fortune, you know, favors the available man.”
His mother drank in with parted lips and glistening eyes the story of his adventures and the record of his successes. As Rena listened, the narrow walls that hemmed her in seemed to draw closer and closer, as though they must crush her. Her brother watched her keenly. He had been talking not only to inform the women, but with a deeper purpose, conceived since his morning walk, and deepened as he had followed, during his narrative, the changing expression of Rena’s face and noted her intense interest in his story, her pride in his successes, and the occasional wistful look that indexed her self-pity so completely.
“An’ I s’pose you’re happy, John?” asked his mother.
“Well, mother, happiness is a relative term, and depends, I imagine, upon how nearly we think we get what we think we want. I have had my chance and haven’t thrown it away, and I suppose I ought to be happy. But then, I have lost my wife, whom I loved very dearly, and who loved me just as much, and I’m troubled about my child.”
“Why?” they demanded. “Is there anything the matter with him?”
“No, not exactly. He’s well enough, as babies go, and has a good enough nurse, as nurses go. But the nurse is ignorant, and not always careful. A child needs some woman of its own blood to love it and look after it intelligently.”
Mis’ Molly’s eyes were filled with tearful yearning. She would have given all the world to warm her son’s child upon her bosom; but she knew this could not be.
“Did your wife leave any kin?” she asked with an effort.
“No near kin; she was an only child.”
“You’ll be gettin’ married again,” suggested his mother.
“No,” he replied; “I think not.”
Warwick was still reading his sister’s face, and saw the spark of hope that gleamed in her expressive eye.
“If I had some relation of my own that I could take into the house with me,” he said reflectively, “the child might be healthier and happier, and I should be much more at ease about him.”
The mother looked from son to daughter with a dawning apprehension and a sudden pallor. When she saw the yearning in Rena’s eyes, she threw herself at her son’s feet.
“Oh, John,” she cried despairingly, “don’t take her away from me! Don’t take her, John, darlin’, for it’d break my heart to lose her!”
Rena’s arms were round her mother’s neck, and Rena’s voice was sounding in her ears. “There, there, mamma! Never mind! I won’t leave you, mamma–dear old mamma! Your Rena’ll stay with you always, and never, never leave you.”
John smoothed his mother’s hair with a comforting touch, patted her withered cheek soothingly, lifted her tenderly to her place by his side, and put his arm about her.
“You love your children, mother?”
“They’re all I’ve got,” she sobbed, “an’ they cos’ me all I had. When the las’ one’s gone, I’ll want to go too, for I’ll be all alone in the world. Don’t take Rena, John; for if you do, I’ll never see her again, an’ I can’t bear to think of it. How would you like to lose yo’r one child?”
“Well, well, mother, we’ll say no more about it. And now tell me all about yourself, and about the neighbors, and how you got through the war, and who’s dead and who’s married–and everything.”
The change of subject restored in some degree Mis’ Molly’s equanimity, and with returning calmness came a sense of other responsibilities.
“Good gracious, Rena!” she exclaimed. “John ‘s be’n in the house an hour, and ain’t had nothin’ to eat yet! Go in the kitchen an’ spread a clean tablecloth, an’ git out that ‘tater pone, an’ a pitcher o’ that las’ kag o’ persimmon beer, an’ let John take a bite an’ a sip.”
Warwick smiled at the mention of these homely dainties. “I thought of your sweet-potato pone at the hotel to-day, when I was at dinner, and wondered if you’d have some in the house. There was never any like yours; and I’ve forgotten the taste of persimmon beer entirely.”
Rena left the room to carry out her hospitable commission. Warwick, taking advantage of her absence, returned after a while to the former subject.
“Of course, mother,” he said calmly, “I wouldn’t think of taking Rena away against your wishes. A mother’s claim upon her child is a high and holy one. Of course she will have no chance here, where our story is known. The war has wrought great changes, has put the bottom rail on top, and all that–but it hasn’t wiped THAT out. Nothing but death can remove that stain, if it does not follow us even beyond the grave. Here she must forever be–nobody! With me she might have got out into the world; with her beauty she might have made a good marriage; and, if I mistake not, she has sense as well as beauty.”
“Yes,” sighed the mother, “she’s got good sense. She ain’t as quick as you was, an’ don’t read as many books, but she’s keerful an’ painstakin’, an’ always tries to do what’s right. She’s be’n thinkin’ about goin’ away somewhere an’ tryin’ to git a school to teach, er somethin’, sence the Yankees have started ’em everywhere for po’ white folks an’ niggers too. But I don’t like fer her to go too fur.”
“With such beauty and brains,” continued Warwick, “she could leave this town and make a place for herself. The place is already made. She has only to step into my carriage–after perhaps a little preparation–and ride up the hill which I have had to climb so painfully. It would be a great pleasure to me to see her at the top. But of course it is impossible–a mere idle dream. YOUR claim comes first; her duty chains her here.”
“It would be so lonely without her,” murmured the mother weakly, “an’ I love her so–my las’ one!”
“No doubt–no doubt,” returned Warwick, with a sympathetic sigh; “of course you love her. It’s not to be thought of for a moment. It’s a pity that she couldn’t have a chance here–but how could she! I had thought she might marry a gentleman, but I dare say she’ll do as well as the rest of her friends–as well as Mary B., for instance, who married–Homer Pettifoot, did you say? Or maybe Billy Oxendine might do for her. As long as she has never known any better, she’ll probably be as well satisfied as though she married a rich man, and lived in a fine house, and kept a carriage and servants, and moved with the best in the land.”
The tortured mother could endure no more. The one thing she desired above all others was her daughter’s happiness. Her own life had not been governed by the highest standards, but about her love for her beautiful daughter there was no taint of selfishness. The life her son had described had been to her always the ideal but unattainable life. Circumstances, some beyond her control, and others for which she was herself in a measure responsible, had put it forever and inconceivably beyond her reach. It had been conquered by her son. It beckoned to her daughter. The comparison of this free and noble life with the sordid existence of those around her broke down the last barrier of opposition.
“O Lord!” she moaned, “what shall I do with out her? It’ll be lonely, John–so lonely!”
“You’ll have your home, mother,” said Warwick tenderly, accepting the implied surrender. “You’ll have your friends and relatives, and the knowledge that your children are happy. I’ll let you hear from us often, and no doubt you can see Rena now and then. But you must let her go, mother,–it would be a sin against her to refuse.”
“She may go,” replied the mother brokenly. “I’ll not stand in her way–I’ve got sins enough to answer for already.”
Warwick watched her pityingly. He had stirred her feelings to unwonted depths, and his sympathy went out to her. If she had sinned, she had been more sinned against than sinning, and it was not his part to judge her. He had yielded to a sentimental weakness in deciding upon this trip to Patesville. A matter of business had brought him within a day’s journey of the town, and an over- mastering impulse had compelled him to seek the mother who had given him birth and the old town where he had spent the earlier years of his life. No one would have acknowledged sooner than he the folly of this visit. Men who have elected to govern their lives by principles of abstract right and reason, which happen, perhaps, to be at variance with what society considers equally right and reasonable, should, for fear of complications, be careful about descending from the lofty heights of logic to the common level of impulse and affection. Many years before, Warwick, when a lad of eighteen, had shaken the dust of the town from his feet, and with it, he fondly thought, the blight of his inheritance, and had achieved elsewhere a worthy career. But during all these years of absence he had cherished a tender feeling for his mother, and now again found himself in her house, amid the familiar surroundings of his childhood. His visit had brought joy to his mother’s heart, and was now to bring its shrouded companion, sorrow. His mother had lived her life, for good or ill. A wider door was open to his sister–her mother must not bar the entrance.
“She may go,” the mother repeated sadly, drying her tears. “I’ll give her up for her good.”
“The table ‘s ready, mamma,” said Rena, coming to the door.
The lunch was spread in the kitchen, a large unplastered room at the rear, with a wide fireplace at one end. Only yesterday, it seemed to Warwick, he had sprawled upon the hearth, turning sweet potatoes before the fire, or roasting groundpeas in the ashes; or, more often, reading, by the light of a blazing pine-knot or lump of resin, some volume from the bookcase in the hall. From Bulwer’s novel, he had read the story of Warwick the Kingmaker, and upon leaving home had chosen it for his own. He was a new man, but he had the blood of an old race, and he would select for his own one of its worthy names. Overhead loomed the same smoky beams, decorated with what might have been, from all appearances, the same bunches of dried herbs, the same strings of onions and red peppers. Over in the same corner stood the same spinning-wheel, and through the open door of an adjoining room he saw the old loom, where in childhood he had more than once thrown the shuttle. The kitchen was different from the stately dining-room of the old colonial mansion where he now lived; but it was homelike, and it was familiar. The sight of it moved his heart, and he felt for the moment a sort of a blind anger against the fate which made it necessary that he should visit the home of his childhood, if at all, like a thief in the night. But he realized, after a moment, that the thought was pure sentiment, and that one who had gained so much ought not to complain if he must give up a little. He who would climb the heights of life must leave even the pleasantest valleys behind.
“Rena,” asked her mother, “how’d you like to go an’ pay yo’r brother John a visit? I guess I might spare you for a little while.”
The girl’s eyes lighted up. She would not have gone if her mother had wished her to stay, but she would always have regarded this as the lost opportunity of her life.
“Are you sure you don’t care, mamma?” she asked, hoping and yet doubting.
“Oh, I’ll manage to git along somehow or other. You can go an’ stay till you git homesick, an’ then John’ll let you come back home.”
But Mis’ Molly believed that she would never come back, except, like her brother, under cover of the night. She must lose her daughter as well as her son, and this should be the penance for her sin. That her children must expiate as well the sins of their fathers, who had sinned so lightly, after the manner of men, neither she nor they could foresee, since they could not read the future.
The next boat by which Warwick could take his sister away left early in the morning of the next day but one. He went back to his hotel with the understanding that the morrow should be devoted to getting Rena ready for her departure, and that Warwick would visit the household again the following evening; for, as has been intimated, there were several reasons why there should be no open relations between the fine gentleman at the hotel and the women in the house behind the cedars, who, while superior in blood and breeding to the people of the neighborhood in which they lived, were yet under the shadow of some cloud which clearly shut them out from the better society of the town. Almost any resident could have given one or more of these reasons, of which any one would have been sufficient to most of them; and to some of them Warwick’s mere presence in the town would have seemed a bold and daring thing.
III
THE OLD JUDGE
On the morning following the visit to his mother, Warwick visited the old judge’s office. The judge was not in, but the door stood open, and Warwick entered to await his return. There had been fewer changes in the office, where he had spent many, many hours, than in the town itself. The dust was a little thicker, the papers in the pigeon-holes of the walnut desk were a little yellower, the cobwebs in the corners a little more aggressive. The flies droned as drowsily and the murmur of the brook below was just as audible. Warwick stood at the rear window and looked out over a familiar view. Directly across the creek, on the low ground beyond, might be seen the dilapidated stone foundation of the house where once had lived Flora Macdonald, the Jacobite refugee, the most romantic character of North Carolina history. Old Judge Straight had had a tree cut away from the creek-side opposite his window, so that this historic ruin might be visible from his office; for the judge could trace the ties of blood that connected him collaterally with this famous personage. His pamphlet on Flora Macdonald, printed for private circulation, was highly prized by those of his friends who were fortunate enough to obtain a copy. To the left of the window a placid mill-pond spread its wide expanse, and to the right the creek disappeared under a canopy of overhanging trees.
A footstep sounded in the doorway, and Warwick, turning, faced the old judge. Time had left greater marks upon the lawyer than upon his office. His hair was whiter, his stoop more pronounced; when he spoke to Warwick, his voice had some of the shrillness of old age; and in his hand, upon which the veins stood out prominently, a decided tremor was perceptible.
“Good-morning, Judge Straight,” said the young man, removing his hat with the graceful Southern deference of the young for the old.
“Good-morning, sir,” replied the judge with equal courtesy.
“You don’t remember me, I imagine,” suggested Warwick.
“Your face seems familiar,” returned the judge cautiously, “but I cannot for the moment recall your name. I shall be glad to have you refresh my memory.”
“I was John Walden, sir, when you knew me.”
The judge’s face still gave no answering light of recognition.
“Your old office-boy,” continued the younger man.
“Ah, indeed, so you were!” rejoined the judge warmly, extending his hand with great cordiality, and inspecting Warwick more closely through his spectacles. “Let me see–you went away a few years before the war, wasn’t it?”
“Yes, sir, to South Carolina.”
“Yes, yes, I remember now! I had been thinking it was to the North. So many things have happened since then, that it taxes an old man’s memory to keep track of them all. Well, well! and how have you been getting along?”
Warwick told his story in outline, much as he had given it to his mother and sister, and the judge seemed very much interested.
“And you married into a good family?” he asked.
“Yes, sir.”
“And have children?”
“One.”
“And you are visiting your mother?”
“Not exactly. I have seen her, but I am stopping at a hotel.”
“H’m! Are you staying long?”
“I leave to-morrow.”
“It’s well enough. I wouldn’t stay too long. The people of a small town are inquisitive about strangers, and some of them have long memories. I remember we went over the law, which was in your favor; but custom is stronger than law–in these matters custom IS law. It was a great pity that your father did not make a will. Well, my boy, I wish you continued good luck; I imagined you would make your way.”
Warwick went away, and the old judge sat for a moment absorbed in reflection. “Right and wrong,” he mused, “must be eternal verities, but our standards for measuring them vary with our latitude and our epoch. We make our customs lightly; once made, like our sins, they grip us in bands of steel; we become the creatures of our creations. By one standard my old office-boy should never have been born. Yet he is a son of Adam, and came into existence in the way ordained by God from the beginning of the world. In equity he would seem to be entitled to his chance in life; it might have been wiser, though, for him to seek it farther afield than South Carolina. It was too near home, even though the laws were with him.”
IV
DOWN THE RIVER
Neither mother nor daughter slept a great deal during the night of Warwick’s first visit. Mis’ Molly anointed her sacrifice with tears and cried herself to sleep. Rena’s emotions were more conflicting; she was sorry to leave her mother, but glad to go with her brother. The mere journey she was about to make was a great event for the two women to contemplate, to say nothing of the golden vision that lay beyond, for neither of them had ever been out of the town or its vicinity.
The next day was devoted to preparations for the journey. Rena’s slender wardrobe was made ready and packed in a large valise. Towards sunset, Mis’ Molly took off her apron, put on her slat-bonnet,–she was ever the pink of neatness, –picked her way across the street, which was muddy from a rain during the day, traversed the foot-bridge that spanned the ditch in front of the cooper shop, and spoke first to the elder of the two men working there.
“Good-evenin’, Peter.”
“Good-evenin’, ma’m,” responded the man briefly, and not relaxing at all the energy with which he was trimming a barrel-stave.
Mis’ Molly then accosted the younger workman, a dark-brown young man, small in stature, but with a well-shaped head, an expressive forehead, and features indicative of kindness, intelligence, humor, and imagination. “Frank,” she asked, “can I git you to do somethin’ fer me soon in the mo’nin’?”
“Yas ‘m, I reckon so,” replied the young man, resting his hatchet on the chopping-block. “W’at is it, Mis’ Molly?”
“My daughter ‘s goin’ away on the boat, an’ I ‘lowed you would n’ min’ totin’ her kyarpet-bag down to the w’arf, onless you’d ruther haul it down on yo’r kyart. It ain’t very heavy. Of co’se I’ll pay you fer yo’r trouble.”
“Thank y’, ma’m,” he replied. He knew that she would not pay him, for the simple reason that he would not accept pay for such a service. “Is she gwine fur?” he asked, with a sorrowful look, which he could not entirely disguise.
“As fur as Wilmin’ton an’ beyon’. She’ll be visitin’ her brother John, who lives in–another State, an’ wants her to come an’ see him.”
“Yas ‘m, I’ll come. I won’ need de kyart– I’ll tote de bag. ‘Bout w’at time shill I come over?”
“Well, ‘long ’bout seven o’clock or half pas’. She’s goin’ on the Old North State, an’ it leaves at eight.”
Frank stood looking after Mis’ Molly as she picked her way across the street, until he was recalled to his duty by a sharp word from his father.
” ‘Ten’ ter yo’ wuk, boy, ‘ten’ ter yo’ wuk. You ‘re wastin’ yo’ time–wastin’ yo’ time!”
Yes, he was wasting his time. The beautiful young girl across the street could never be anything to him. But he had saved her life once,
and had dreamed that he might render her again some signal service that might win her friendship, and convince her of his humble devotion. For Frank was not proud. A smile, which Peter would have regarded as condescending to a free man, who, since the war, was as good as anybody else; a kind word, which Peter would have considered offensively patronizing; a piece of Mis’ Molly’s famous potato pone from Rena’s hands, –a bone to a dog, Peter called it once;–were ample rewards for the thousand and one small services Frank had rendered the two women who lived in the house behind the cedars.
Frank went over in the morning a little ahead of the appointed time, and waited on the back piazza until his services were required.
“You ain’t gwine ter be gone long, is you, Miss Rena?” he inquired, when Rena came out dressed for the journey in her best frock, with broad white collar and cuffs.
Rena did not know. She had been asking herself the same question. All sorts of vague dreams had floated through her mind during the last few hours, as to what the future might bring forth. But she detected the anxious note in Frank’s voice, and had no wish to give this faithful friend of the family unnecessary pain.
“Oh, no, Frank, I reckon not. I’m supposed to be just going on a short visit. My brother has lost his wife, and wishes me to come and stay with him awhile, and look after his little boy.”
“I’m feared you’ll lack it better dere, Miss Rena,” replied Frank sorrowfully, dropping his mask of unconcern, “an’ den you won’t come back, an’ none er yo’ frien’s won’t never see you no mo’.”
“You don’t think, Frank,” asked Rena severely, “that I would leave my mother and my home and all my friends, and NEVER come back again?”
“Why, no ‘ndeed,” interposed Mis’ Molly wistfully, as she hovered around her daughter, giving her hair or her gown a touch here and there; “she’ll be so homesick in a month that she’ll be willin’ to walk home.”
“You would n’ never hafter do dat, Miss Rena,” returned Frank, with a disconsolate smile. “Ef you ever wanter come home, an’ can’t git back no other way, jes’ let ME know, an’ I’ll take my mule an’ my kyart an’ fetch you back, ef it’s from de een’ er de worl’.”
“Thank you, Frank, I believe you would,” said the girl kindly. “You’re a true friend, Frank, and I’ll not forget you while I’m gone.”
The idea of her beautiful daughter riding home from the end of the world with Frank, in a cart, behind a one-eyed mule, struck Mis’ Molly as the height of the ridiculous–she was in a state of excitement where tears or laughter would have come with equal ease–and she turned away to hide her merriment. Her daughter was going to live in a fine house, and marry a rich man, and ride in her carriage. Of course a negro would drive the carriage, but that was different from riding with one in a cart.
When it was time to go, Mis’ Molly and Rena set out on foot for the river, which was only a short distance away. Frank followed with the valise. There was no gathering of friends to see Rena off, as might have been the case under different circumstances. Her departure had some of the characteristics of a secret flight; it was as important that her destination should not be known, as it had been that her brother should conceal his presence in the town.
Mis’ Molly and Rena remained on the bank until the steamer announced, with a raucous whistle, its readiness to depart. Warwick was seen for a moment on the upper deck, from which he greeted them with a smile and a slight nod. He had bidden his mother an affectionate farewell the evening before. Rena gave her hand to Frank.
“Good-by, Frank,” she said, with a kind smile; “I hope you and mamma will be good friends while I’m gone.”
The whistle blew a second warning blast, and the deck hands prepared to draw in the gang- plank. Rena flew into her mother’s arms, and then, breaking away, hurried on board and retired to her state-room, from which she did not emerge during the journey. The window-blinds were closed, darkening the room, and the stewardess who came to ask if she should bring her some dinner could not see her face distinctly, but perceived enough to make her surmise that the young lady had been weeping.
“Po’ chile,” murmured the sympathetic colored woman, “I reckon some er her folks is dead, er her sweetheart ‘s gone back on her, er e’se she’s had some kin’ er bad luck er ‘nuther. W’ite folks has deir troubles jes’ ez well ez black folks, an’ sometimes feels ’em mo’, ’cause dey ain’t ez use’ ter ’em.”
Mis’ Molly went back in sadness to the lonely house behind the cedars, henceforth to be peopled for her with only the memory of those she had loved. She had paid with her heart’s blood another installment on the Shylock’s bond exacted by society for her own happiness of the past and her children’s prospects for the future.
The journey down the sluggish river to the seaboard in the flat-bottomed, stern-wheel steamer lasted all day and most of the night. During the first half-day, the boat grounded now and then upon a sand-bank, and the half-naked negro deck- hands toiled with ropes and poles to release it. Several times before Rena fell asleep that night, the steamer would tie up at a landing, and by the light of huge pine torches she watched the boat hands send the yellow turpentine barrels down the steep bank in a long string, or pass cord-wood on board from hand to hand. The excited negroes, their white teeth and eyeballs glistening in the surrounding darkness to which their faces formed no relief; the white officers in brown linen, shouting, swearing, and gesticulating; the yellow, flickering torchlight over all,–made up a scene of which the weird interest would have appealed to a more blase traveler than this girl upon her first journey.
During the day, Warwick had taken his meals in the dining-room, with the captain and the other cabin passengers. It was learned that he was a South Carolina lawyer, and not a carpet-bagger. Such credentials were unimpeachable, and the passengers found him a very agreeable traveling companion. Apparently sound on the subject of negroes, Yankees, and the righteousness of the lost cause, he yet discussed these themes in a lofty and impersonal manner that gave his words greater weight than if he had seemed warped by a personal grievance. His attitude, in fact, piqued the curiosity of one or two of the passengers.
“Did your people lose any niggers?” asked one of them.
“My father owned a hundred,” he replied grandly.
Their respect for his views was doubled. It is easy to moralize about the misfortunes of others, and to find good in the evil that they suffer;– only a true philosopher could speak thus lightly of his own losses.
When the steamer tied up at the wharf at Wilmington, in the early morning, the young lawyer and a veiled lady passenger drove in the same carriage to a hotel. After they had breakfasted in a private room, Warwick explained to his sister the plan he had formed for her future. Henceforth she must be known as Miss Warwick, dropping the old name with the old life. He would place her for a year in a boarding-school at Charleston, after which she would take her place as the mistress of his house. Having imparted this information, he took his sister for a drive through the town. There for the first time Rena saw great ships, which, her brother told her, sailed across the mighty ocean to distant lands, whose flags he pointed out drooping lazily at the mast- heads. The business portion of the town had “an ancient and fishlike smell,” and most of the trade seemed to be in cotton and naval stores and products of the sea. The wharves were piled high with cotton bales, and there were acres of barrels of resin and pitch and tar and spirits of turpentine. The market, a long, low, wooden structure, in the middle of the principal street, was filled with a mass of people of all shades, from blue- black to Saxon blonde, gabbling and gesticulating over piles of oysters and clams and freshly caught fish of varied hue. By ten o’clock the sun was beating down so fiercely that the glitter of the white, sandy streets dazzled and pained the eyes unaccustomed to it, and Rena was glad to be driven back to the hotel. The travelers left together on an early afternoon train.
Thus for the time being was severed the last tie that bound Rena to her narrow past, and for some time to come the places and the people who had known her once were to know her no more.
Some few weeks later, Mis’ Molly called upon old Judge Straight with reference to the taxes on her property.
“Your son came in to see me the other day,” he remarked. “He seems to have got along.”
“Oh, yes, judge, he’s done fine, John has; an’ he’s took his sister away with him.”
“Ah!” exclaimed the judge. Then after a pause he added, “I hope she may do as well.”
“Thank you, sir,” she said, with a curtsy, as she rose to go. “We’ve always knowed that you were our friend and wished us well.”
The judge looked after her as she walked away. Her bearing had a touch of timidity, a shade of affectation, and yet a certain pathetic dignity.
“It is a pity,” he murmured, with a sigh, “that men cannot select their mothers. My young friend John has builded, whether wisely or not, very well; but he has come back into the old life and carried away a part of it, and I fear that this addition will weaken the structure.”
V
THE TOURNAMENT
The annual tournament of the Clarence Social Club was about to begin. The county fairground, where all was in readiness, sparkled with the youth and beauty of the town, standing here and there under the trees in animated groups, or moving toward the seats from which the pageant might be witnessed. A quarter of a mile of the race track, to right and left of the judges’ stand, had been laid off for the lists. Opposite the grand stand, which occupied a considerable part of this distance, a dozen uprights had been erected at measured intervals. Projecting several feet over the track from each of these uprights was an iron crossbar, from which an iron hook depended. Between the uprights stout posts were planted, of such a height that their tops could be easily reached by a swinging sword-cut from a mounted rider passing upon the track. The influence of Walter Scott was strong upon the old South. The South before the war was essentially feudal, and Scott’s novels of chivalry appealed forcefully to the feudal heart. During the month preceding the Clarence tournament, the local bookseller had closed out his entire stock of “Ivanhoe,” consisting of five copies, and had taken orders for seven copies more. The tournament scene in this popular novel furnished the model after which these bloodless imitations of the ancient passages-at- arms were conducted, with such variations as were required to adapt them to a different age and civilization.
The best people gradually filled the grand stand, while the poorer white and colored folks found seats outside, upon what would now be known as the “bleachers,” or stood alongside the lists. The knights, masquerading in fanciful costumes, in which bright-colored garments, gilt paper, and cardboard took the place of knightly harness, were mounted on spirited horses. Most of them were gathered at one end of the lists, while others practiced their steeds upon the unoccupied portion of the race track.
The judges entered the grand stand, and one of them, after looking at his watch, gave a signal. Immediately a herald, wearing a bright yellow sash, blew a loud blast upon a bugle, and, big with the importance of his office, galloped wildly down the lists. An attendant on horseback busied himself hanging upon each of the pendent hooks an iron ring, of some two inches in diameter, while another, on foot, placed on top of each of the shorter posts a wooden ball some four inches through.
“It’s my first tournament,” observed a lady near the front of the grand stand, leaning over and addressing John Warwick, who was seated in the second row, in company with a very handsome girl. “It is somewhat different from Ashby-de- la-Zouch.”
“It is the renaissance of chivalry, Mrs. Newberry,” replied the young lawyer, “and, like any other renaissance, it must adapt itself to new times and circumstances. For instance, when we build a Greek portico, having no Pentelic marble near at hand, we use a pine-tree, one of nature’s columns, which Grecian art at its best could only copy and idealize. Our knights are not weighted down with heavy armor, but much more appropriately attired, for a day like this, in costumes that recall the picturesqueness, without the discomfort, of the old knightly harness. For an iron- headed lance we use a wooden substitute, with which we transfix rings instead of hearts; while our trusty blades hew their way through wooden blocks instead of through flesh and blood. It is a South Carolina renaissance which has points of advantage over the tournaments of the olden time.”
“I’m afraid, Mr. Warwick,” said the lady, “that you’re the least bit heretical about our chivalry–or else you’re a little too deep for me.”
“The last would be impossible, Mrs. Newberry; and I’m sure our chivalry has proved its valor on many a hard-fought field. The spirit of a thing, after all, is what counts; and what is lacking here? We have the lists, the knights, the prancing steeds, the trial of strength and skill. If our knights do not run the physical risks of Ashby- de-la-Zouch, they have all the mental stimulus. Wounded vanity will take the place of wounded limbs, and there will be broken hopes in lieu of broken heads. How many hearts in yonder group of gallant horsemen beat high with hope! How many possible Queens of Love and Beauty are in this group of fair faces that surround us!”
The lady was about to reply, when the bugle sounded again, and the herald dashed swiftly back upon his prancing steed to the waiting group of riders. The horsemen formed three abreast, and rode down the lists in orderly array. As they passed the grand stand, each was conscious of the battery of bright eyes turned upon him, and each gave by his bearing some idea of his ability to stand fire from such weapons. One horse pranced proudly, another caracoled with grace. One rider fidgeted nervously, another trembled and looked the other way. Each horseman carried in his hand a long wooden lance and wore at his side a cavalry sabre, of which there were plenty to be had since the war, at small expense. Several left the ranks and drew up momentarily beside the grand stand, where they took from fair hands a glove or a flower, which was pinned upon the rider’s breast or fastened upon his hat–a ribbon or a veil, which was tied about the lance like a pennon, but far enough from the point not to interfere with the usefulness of the weapon.
As the troop passed the lower end of the grand stand, a horse, excited by the crowd, became somewhat unmanageable, and in the effort to curb him, the rider dropped his lance. The prancing animal reared, brought one of his hoofs down upon the fallen lance with considerable force, and sent a broken piece of it flying over the railing opposite the grand stand, into the middle of a group of spectators standing there. The flying fragment was dodged by those who saw it coming, but brought up with a resounding thwack against the head of a colored man in the second row, who stood watching the grand stand with an eager and curious gaze. He rubbed his head ruefully, and made a good-natured response to the chaffing of his neighbors, who, seeing no great harm done, made witty and original remarks about the advantage of being black upon occasions where one’s skull was exposed to danger. Finding that the blow had drawn blood, the young man took out a red bandana handkerchief and tied it around his head, meantime letting his eye roam over the faces in the grand stand, as though in search of some one that he expected or hoped to find there.
The knights, having reached the end of the lists, now turned and rode back in open order, with such skillful horsemanship as to evoke a storm of applause from the spectators. The ladies in the grand stand waved their handkerchiefs vigorously, and the men clapped their hands. The beautiful girl seated by Warwick’s side accidentally let a little square of white lace-trimmed linen slip from her hand. It fluttered lightly over the railing, and, buoyed up by the air, settled slowly toward the lists. A young rider in the approaching rear rank saw the handkerchief fall, and darting swiftly forward, caught it on the point of his lance ere it touched the ground. He drew up his horse and made a movement as though to extend the handkerchief toward the lady, who was blushing profusely at the attention she had attracted by her carelessness. The rider hesitated a moment, glanced interrogatively at Warwick, and receiving a smile in return, tied the handkerchief around the middle of his lance and quickly rejoined his comrades at the head of the lists.
The young man with the bandage round his head, on the benches across the lists, had forced his way to the front row and was leaning against the railing. His restless eye was attracted by the falling handkerchief, and his face, hitherto anxious, suddenly lit up with animation.
“Yas, suh, yas, suh, it’s her!” he muttered softly. “It’s Miss Rena, sho’s you bawn. She looked lack a’ angel befo’, but now, up dere ‘mongs’ all dem rich, fine folks, she looks lack a whole flock er angels. Dey ain’ one er dem ladies w’at could hol’ a candle ter her. I wonder w’at dat man’s gwine ter do wid her handkercher? I s’pose he’s her gent’eman now. I wonder ef she’d know me er speak ter me ef she seed me? I reckon she would, spite er her gittin’ up so in de worl’; fer she wuz alluz good ter ev’ybody, an’ dat let even ME in,” he concluded with a sigh.
“Who is the lady, Tryon?” asked one of the young men, addressing the knight who had taken the handkerchief.
“A Miss Warwick,” replied the knight
pleasantly, “Miss Rowena Warwick, the lawyer’s sister.”
“I didn’t know he had a sister,” rejoined the first speaker. “I envy you your lady. There are six Rebeccas and eight Rowenas of my own acquaintance in the grand stand, but she throws them all into the shade. She hasn’t been here long, surely; I haven’t seen her before.”
“She has been away at school; she came only last night,” returned the knight of the crimson sash, briefly. He was already beginning to feel a proprietary interest in the lady whose token he wore, and did not care to discuss her with a casual acquaintance.
The herald sounded the charge. A rider darted out from the group and galloped over the course. As he passed under each ring, he tried to catch it on the point of his lance,–a feat which made the management of the horse with the left hand necessary, and required a true eye and a steady arm. The rider captured three of the twelve rings, knocked three others off the hooks, and left six undisturbed. Turning at the end of the lists, he took the lance with the reins in the left hand and drew his sword with the right. He then rode back over the course, cutting at the wooden balls upon the posts. Of these he clove one in twain, to use the parlance of chivalry, and knocked two others off their supports. His performance was greeted with a liberal measure of applause, for which he bowed in smiling acknowledgment as he took his place among the riders.
Again the herald’s call sounded, and the tourney went forward. Rider after rider, with varying skill, essayed his fortune with lance and sword. Some took a liberal proportion of the rings; others merely knocked them over the boundaries, where they were collected by agile little negro boys and handed back to the attendants. A balking horse caused the spectators much amusement and his rider no little chagrin.
The lady who had dropped the handkerchief kept her eye upon the knight who had bound it round his lance. “Who is he, John?” she asked the gentleman beside her.
“That, my dear Rowena, is my good friend and client, George Tryon, of North Carolina. If he had been a stranger, I should have said that he took a liberty; but as things stand, we ought to regard it as a compliment. The incident is quite in accord with the customs of chivalry. If George were but masked and you were veiled, we should have a romantic situation,–you the mysterious damsel in distress, he the unknown champion. The parallel, my dear, might not be so hard to draw, even as things are. But look, it is his turn now; I’ll wager that he makes a good run.”
“I’ll take you up on that, Mr. Warwick,” said Mrs. Newberry from behind, who seemed to have a very keen ear for whatever Warwick said.
Rena’s eyes were fastened on her knight, so that she might lose no single one of his movements. As he rode down the lists, more than one woman found him pleasant to look upon. He was a tall, fair young man, with gray eyes, and a frank, open face. He wore a slight mustache, and when he smiled, showed a set of white and even teeth. He was mounted on a very handsome and spirited bay mare, was clad in a picturesque costume, of which velvet knee-breeches and a crimson scarf were the most conspicuous features, and displayed a marked skill in horsemanship. At the blast of the bugle his horse started forward, and, after the first few rods, settled into an even gallop. Tryon’s lance, held truly and at the right angle, captured the first ring, then the second and third. His coolness and steadiness seemed not at all disturbed by the applause which followed, and one by one the remaining rings slipped over the point of his lance, until at the end he had taken every one of the twelve. Holding the lance with its booty of captured rings in his left hand, together with the bridle rein, he drew his sabre with the right and rode back over the course. His horse moved like clockwork, his eye was true and his hand steady. Three of the wooden balls fell from the posts, split fairly in the middle, while from the fourth he sliced off a goodly piece and left the remainder standing in its place.
This performance, by far the best up to this point, and barely escaping perfection, elicited a storm of applause. The rider was not so well known to the townspeople as some of the other participants, and his name passed from mouth to mouth in answer to numerous inquiries. The girl whose token he had worn also became an object of renewed interest, because of the result to her in case the knight should prove victor in the contest, of which there could now scarcely be a doubt; for but three riders remained, and it was very improbable that any one of them would excel the last. Wagers for the remainder of the tourney stood anywhere from five, and even from ten to one, in favor of the knight of the crimson sash, and when the last course had been run, his backers were jubilant. No one of those following him had displayed anything like equal skill.
The herald now blew his bugle and declared the tournament closed. The judges put their heads together for a moment. The bugle sounded again, and the herald announced in a loud voice that Sir George Tryon, having taken the greatest number of rings and split the largest number of balls, was proclaimed victor in the tournament and entitled to the flowery chaplet of victory.
Tryon, having bowed repeatedly in response to the liberal applause, advanced to the judges’ stand and received the trophy from the hands of the chief judge, who exhorted him to wear the garland worthily, and to yield it only to a better man.
“It will be your privilege, Sir George,” announced the judge, “as the chief reward of your valor, to select from the assembled beauty of Clarence the lady whom you wish to honor, to whom we will all do homage as the Queen of Love and Beauty.”
Tryon took the wreath and bowed his thanks. Then placing the trophy on the point of his lance, he spoke earnestly for a moment to the herald, and rode past the grand stand, from which there was another outburst of applause. Returning upon his tracks, the knight of the crimson sash paused before the group where Warwick and his sister sat, and lowered the wreath thrice before the lady whose token he had won.
“Oyez! Oyez!” cried the herald; “Sir George Tryon, the victor in the tournament, has chosen Miss Rowena Warwick as the Queen of Love and Beauty, and she will be crowned at the feast to-night and receive the devoirs of all true knights.”
The fair-ground was soon covered with scattered groups of the spectators of the tournament. In one group a vanquished knight explained in elaborate detail why it was that he had failed to win the wreath. More than one young woman wondered why some one of the home young men could not have taken the honors, or, if the stranger must win them, why he could not have selected some belle of the town as Queen of Love and Beauty instead of this upstart girl who had blown into the town over night, as one might say.
Warwick and his sister, standing under a spreading elm, held a little court of their own. A dozen gentlemen and several ladies had sought an introduction before Tryon came up.
“I suppose John would have a right to call me out, Miss Warwick,” said Tryon, when he had been formally introduced and had shaken hands with Warwick’s sister, “for taking liberties with the property and name of a lady to whom I had not had an introduction; but I know John so well that you seemed like an old acquaintance; and when I saw you, and recalled your name, which your brother had mentioned more than once, I felt instinctively that you ought to be the queen. I entered my name only yesterday, merely to swell the number and make the occasion more interesting. These fellows have been practicing for a month, and I had no hope of winning. I should have been satisfied, indeed, if I hadn’t made myself ridiculous; but when you dropped your handkerchief, I felt a sudden inspiration; and as soon as I had tied it upon my lance, victory perched upon my saddle-bow, guided my lance and sword, and rings and balls went down before me like chaff before the wind. Oh, it was a great inspiration, Miss Warwick!”
Rena, for it was our Patesville acquaintance fresh from boarding-school, colored deeply at this frank and fervid flattery, and could only murmur an inarticulate reply. Her year of instruction, while distinctly improving her mind and manners, had scarcely prepared her for so sudden an elevation into a grade of society to which she had hitherto been a stranger. She was not without a certain courage, however, and her brother, who remained at her side, helped her over the most difficult situations.
“We’ll forgive you, George,” replied Warwick,