Carolina Lee

If he had struck her in the face with that same riding-whip, the red would not have flamed into Carolina's cheeks with more sudden fury. She dug her spurless heel into Araby's side, and the mare jumped with a swerve which would have unseated most riders. Moultrie looked at her in swift admiration, but she would not look at him. She struck her horse, and, with a mighty stride, Araby got the lead and kept it for a mile, even from Scintilla. Then the man overtook her and reached out and laid a hand on Carolina's bridle hand, and looked deep into her eyes and said:

"Why did you do that? Why did you try to escape from me? Don't you know that you never can?"

And all the time Carolina's heart was beating heavily against her side, and her brain was spinning out the question over and over, over and over:

"Oh, how can he? How can he be satisfied with that? How can he endure himself!"

It was not the lack of money, it was the lack of ambition in the man at her side, which stung her pride until it bled.

"Better go West on a cattle ranch," she thought, with bitter passion. "Better hunt wolves for the government. Better take the trail with the Indians than to lie down and rot in such a manner! And such a man!"

But suddenly a realization came to her of how marked her resentment would seem to him if he should discover its cause, and she hastened to play a part. But he was in no danger of discovering, because he did not even suspect. All the young fellows he knew, no matter how aristocratic their names, were at work for mere pittances at employments no self-respecting men would tolerate for a moment, because they offered no hope of betterment or promotion. Men with the talent to become lawyers, artists, bankers, and brokers were teaching school for less than Irish bricklayers get in large cities. Therefore, it could not be alleged that they were incapable of earning more or of occupying more dignified positions. It was simply the lack of ambition-the inertia of the South-which they could not shake off. It is the heritage of the Southern-born.

Presently Moultrie again pointed with his whip:

"Over yonder is Sunnymede, our place. Poor old Sunnymede! Mortgaged to its eyes, and with all its turpentine and timber gone! Guildford is intact. We just skirt the edge of Sunnymede riding to Guildford. And right where you see that tall blasted pine standing by itself is where I made one of my usual failures. I'm like the man with the ugly mule, who always backed. He said if he could only hitch that mule with his head to the wagon, he could get there. So, if my failures were only turned wrong side out, I'd be wealthy."

Carolina tried to smile. Moultrie continued:

"Once I thought I'd try to make some money, so I sold some timber to a Yankee firm who wanted fine cypress, and with the money I constructed a terrapin crawl. I knew how expensive terrapin are, and, if there is one thing I do know about, it is terrapin. So I canned a few prize-winners, and sent them to New York, and got word that they would take all I could send. Well, with that I began to feel like a Jay Gould. I could just see myself drinking champagne and going to the opera every night. So I immediately raised some mo' money in the same way, – out of the Yankees, – organized a small company, and built a canning factory. The lumber company was interested with me and advanced me all the money I wanted. So I got the thing well started, and left special word with the foreman, a cracker named Sharpe, to be sure and not can the claws, then I went off to New York to enjoy myself. I stayed until all my money was gone and then came home, intending to enjoy the wealth my foreman had built up in my absence. But what do you reckon that fool had done? Why, he had turned the work over to the niggers, and they had canned the terrapin just so, – claws, eyebrows, and all! Well, of course, the New York people went back on me, – wrote me the most impudent letters I ever got from anybody. It just showed me that Yankees can never hope to be considered gentlemen. Why, they acted as if I had cheated them! Said they had advertised largely on my samples, and had lost money and credit by my dishonest trickery. Just as if I were to blame! Then, of course, the Yankee lumbermen got mad, too, and foreclosed the mortgage and liquidated the company, and left me as poor as when I went in. I believe they even declare that I owe them money. Did you ever hear of such a piece of impudence?"

"Never," said Carolina, coolly, "if you mean on your part! You did everything that was wrong and nothing that was right. And the worst of it is that you are morally blind to your share of the blame."

"Why, Miss Carolina, what do you mean? I didn't go to lose their money. It hit me just as hard as it did them. I didn't make a cent."

"But the money that you lost wasn't yours to lose," cried Carolina, hotly.

"No, but I didn't do wrong intentionally. You can't blame a man for a mistake."

"There is such a thing as criminal negligence," said the girl, deliberately. "You had no business to trust an affair where your honour was pledged to an incompetent cracker foreman, and go to New York on the company's money, even if you did think you would earn the money to pay it back. How do you ever expect to pay it?"

"I don't expect to pay it at all, and I reckon those Yankees don't expect it, either."

"No, I don't suppose they do," said Carolina, bitterly.

"Well, if they are satisfied to lose it, and have forgotten all about it, would you bother to pay it back if you were in my place?"

"I would pay it back if I had to pay it out of my life insurance and be buried in a pine coffin in the potter's field! And as to those Northerners having forgotten it, – don't you believe it! They have simply laid it to what they call the to-be-expected dishonesty of the South when dealing with the North. The South calls it 'keeping their eyes peeled,' 'being wide-awake,' 'not being caught napping,' or catch phrases of that order. But the strictly honest business man calls it dishonest trickery, and mentally considers all Southerners inoculated with its poison. Do you know what Southern credit is worth in the North?"

Moultrie only looked sulky, but Carolina went on, spurred by her own despair and disillusionment.

"Well, you wouldn't be proud of it if you did! And just such a tolerant view of a thoroughly wrong transaction as you have thus divulged is responsible. Colonel Yancey was right. The South is heart-breaking!"

"Do you care so much?" asked Moultrie, softly.

Carolina lifted herself so proudly that the mare danced under her. She saw that she had gone too far. She also felt that error had mocked her. She had despaired of Moultrie's blind and false point of view when the Light of the world was at hand. Immediately her thought flew upwards.

But with Carolina absorbed in her work, and Moultrie puzzling over the sudden changes in her behaviour, it could not be said that the remainder of the ride was proving as pleasant as each had hoped. However, a perfect day, a fine animal, and the spirits of youth and enthusiasm are not to be ignored for long, and presently Carolina began to feel Guildford in the air. She looked inquiringly at Moultrie, and he answered briefly:

"In another mile." But there was a look in his eyes which made Carolina's heart beat, for it was the glance of comprehension which one soul flings to another in passing, – sometimes never to meet again, sometimes which leads to mating.

In another five minutes Moultrie raised his arm.

"There!"

Carolina reined in and Araby stood, tossing her slim head, raising her hoofs, champing her bit, and snuffing at the breeze which came to her red nostrils, laden with the breath of piny woods and balsam. Moultrie, sitting at parade rest on Scintilla and watching Carolina catch her breath almost with a sob, said to himself: "She feels just as that horse acts."

Carolina could find no words, nor did she dare trust herself. She was afraid she would break down. She lifted her gauntleted hand and the horses drew together and moved forward.

For more than a mile an avenue as wide as a boulevard led in a straight line, lined on each side by giant live-oaks. Ragged, unkempt shrubbery, the neglect of a lifetime, destroyed the perfectness of the avenue, but the majesty of those monarchs of trees could not be marred. The sun was only about an hour high, and the rays came slantingly across meadows whose very grasses spoke of fertility and richness. The glint of the river occasionally flashed across their vision, and between the bird-notes, in the absolute stillness, came the whispering of the distant tide.

At the end of the avenue lay the ruined stones of Guildford.

Carolina sprang down, flung her bridle-rein to Moultrie, and ran forward. She would not let him see her eyes. But she stumbled once, and by that he knew that she was crying. They were, however, tears of joy and thanksgiving. Guildford! Her foot was on its precious turf. These stones had once been her father's home. And she was free, young, strong, and empowered to build it up, a monument to the memory of her ancestors. Every word which Mrs. Goddard had prophesied had come true, and Carolina's first thought was a repetition of her words:

"See what Divine Love hath wrought!"

When she came back, instead of a tear-stained face, Moultrie saw one of such radiance that her beauty seemed dazzling. Where could be found such tints of colouring, such luminous depths in eyes, such tendrils of curling hair, such a flash of teeth, such vivid lips, and such a speaking smile? As he bent to receive her foot in his hand, he trembled through all his frame, and, as he felt her light spring to her mare's back, he would not have been at all surprised to discover that she had simply floated upward and vanished from his earthly sight to join her winged kindred. But, as she gathered up her reins and watched him mount, it was a very businesslike angel who spoke to him, and one whose brain, if the truth must be told, was full of turpentine.

"Now, let's explore," she said. "I have paid my respects to the shrine of my forefathers, now let's see what I have to sell my turpentine farmers."

"Your what?" asked the man, with the amused smile a man saves for the pretty woman who talks business.

"I am going to sell the orchard turpentine rights of Guildford to get money for building," she said, in a matter-of-fact tone.

"And I was thinking of you in a white robe playing a harp!" he said, with a groan.

"I often wear a white robe, and I play a harp quite commendably, considering that I have studied it since I was nine years old, but when I am working, I don't wear my wings. They get in my way."

Carolina by instinct rode to an elevation which commanded a view of the pine forests of Guildford.

"How much do I own?" she asked.

"As far as you can see in that direction. Over here your property runs into ours just where you see that broad gap."

"Why don't you rebuild Sunnymede?"

"No money!" he said, with a shrug.

"You have plenty of fallen timber and acres of stumpage to sell to the patent turpentine people."

"I don't know. I have never heard it discussed. We wouldn't sell to Yankees. We feel that we wouldn't have come to grief with the terrapin affair if we had been dealing with Southerners."

"Who are there to discuss? Who owns it with you?" asked Carolina, calmly ignoring the absurdity of his remarks.

"My brother and sister-" He paused abruptly, and then said: "You are sure to hear it from others, so I will tell you myself. The La Grange family skeleton shall be shown to you by no less a hand than my own! My brother has made a very-I hardly know what to call it. It is an unfortunate marriage, since no one knows who the girl is. When you saw me in New York, I was hoping to prevent their marriage, but it was too late. They had eloped and had been married immediately on arriving in New York. As soon as her aunt, with whom she lived, learned that Flower had eloped with my brother, she sent for me. She had been a great invalid, and the excitement had upset her so that when I arrived she looked as if she had not an hour to live. She caught me by the arm and said: 'Flower must not marry a La Grange. She is not my niece nor any relative of mine. Her mother was-' and with that her speech failed. She struggled as I never saw a being struggle to speak the one word more, – the one word needful, – and, failing, she fell back against her pillow-dead!"

Carolina's face showed her horror. He felt soothed by her understanding and went on, in a low, pained voice.

"It ruined my life. And it has ruined Winfield's."

"And the girl," said Carolina, in a tense voice, "Flower!"

"It has ruined hers. They are the most unhappy couple I ever saw. And more so since the baby came."

"It will all come right," declared Carolina, straightening herself. "You will discover that Flower is entitled to a name, and that your worst fears are incorrect."

"My worst fears-" began Moultrie. Then he stopped abruptly. "I cannot explain them to you," he said.

"I know what you mean. But remember that I, too, have seen Flower. I saw her that day, and I say to you that not one drop of negro blood flows in that girl's veins, and your brother's child is safe."

"You think so?" he exclaimed, moved by the earnestness of her voice and the calm conviction of her manner. Then he shook his head.

"It seems too good to be true."

"I can understand," she said, "the terrible strain you are all under, but, believe me, it will all come out right."

"They think the baby is bewitched, – that he has been voodooed, – if you know what that means. The negroes declare that an evil spirit can be seen moving around whatever spot the child inhabits."

"What utter nonsense!" cried Carolina. "I hope your brother has too much sense, too much religion, to encourage such a belief."

"My poor brother believes that the devil has marked him for his own."

"Does your brother believe in a devil?" asked Carolina.

"Why, don't you?" asked Moultrie, in a shocked tone.

"I was not aware that any enlightened person did nowadays," answered Carolina, with a lift of her chin.

The movement irritated her companion far more than her words, just as Carolina had intended it to.

There are some subjects which cannot be argued. They must be obliterated by a contempt which bites into one's self-love.

The mare saved the situation by a soft whinny. She turned her head expectantly, and, following her eyes, the riders saw the tall, lithe figure of a man making his way toward them through the underbrush. Moultrie gave vent to an exclamation.

"What is it?" asked Carolina.

"Oh, only a bad negro who haunts places where he has no business to. He is a perfect wonder with horses, and broke in that mare you are riding, who will follow him anywhere without a bridle, pushing her nose under his arm like any dog who thrusts a muzzle into your palm. He is always up to something. From present appearances, I should say that he had probably been bleeding your trees."

The negro, hearing voices, stopped, glanced in their direction, and promptly disappeared. Carolina only had time to notice that he was very black, but she followed him in thought, mentally denying dishonesty and declaring that harm could not come to her through error in any form.

She was struck, too, by the manner in which her sensitive, high-bred mare lifted her pretty head and looked after his retreating form, pawing the earth impatiently and sending out little snuffling neighs which were hardly more than bleatings. Surely, if a man had the power to call forth devoted love from such an animal, there must be much good in him!

"What makes you so quiet?" asked Moultrie, breaking in on her thought.

Carolina looked at him abruptly and decided her course of action.

"You have told me of the skeleton in your closet. Let me be equally frank and tell you of mine. I am a Christian Scientist."

"A what?"

"A Christian Scientist!"

"I never heard of one," said the young man, simply. "What is it?"

For the second time the girl's face flushed with a vicarious mortification.

"It is a new form of religion founded on a perfect belief in the life of Christ and a literal following of His commandments to His disciples, regardless of time," said Carolina, slowly.

Moultrie allowed a deep silence to follow her words. Then he drew a long breath.

"I think I should like that," he said. "Does it answer all your questions?"

"All! Every one of them!" she answered, with the almost too eager manner of the young believer in Christian Science. But an eagerness to impart good news and to relieve apparent distress should be readily forgiven by a self-loving humanity. Curiously, however, the most blatant ego is generally affronted by it.

"I was raised a Baptist," he said, reluctantly, "but I reckon I never was a very good one, for I never got any peace from it."

"My religion gives peace."

"And my prayers were never answered."

"My religion answers prayers."

"Not even when I lifted my heart to God in earnest pleading to spare my brother the unhappiness I felt sure would follow his marriage. HowI prayed to be in time to prevent it! God never heard me!"

"My religion holds the answer to that unanswered prayer."

"Not even when I prayed, lying on the floor all night, for the life of my father."

"My religion heals the sick."

He turned to her eagerly.

"Do you believe so implicitly in Christ's teachings that you can reproduce His miracles?" he cried.

"Christ never performed any miracles. He healed sickness through the simplest belief in the world, – or rather an understanding of His Father's power. That same privilege of understanding is open to me-and to you. You have the power within you at this very moment to heal any disease, if you only know where to look for the understanding to show you how to use it."

"Do you believe that?"

"I do better than believe it. I understand it. I know it."

"Is there a book which will tell me how to find it?"

"Yes."

"Will you order it for me, or tell me where to order it?"

"It is a very expensive book," said Carolina, hesitatingly, thinking of the telegraph-office.

"How expensive?"

"Three dollars."

"Do you call that expensive for what you promise it will do?"

When Carolina looked at him, he saw that she was smiling, but there were tears in her eyes. And he understood.

"You only said that to try me."

And she nodded. Her heart was too full of mingled emotions for her to speak. She had loved, despised, been proud of, and mortified for this man, – all with poignant, pungent vehemence, – during this three-hour ride, and at the last he had humbled and rebuked her by his childlike readiness to believe the greatest truth of the ages. She sat her horse, biting her lips to keep back the tears.

"Give me just one fact to go on," he begged.

"Do you read your Bible?"

"I used to, till I found I was getting not to believe in it. Then I stopped for my dead father's sake. He believed in it implicitly."

"Then you have read the fourteenth chapter of John?"

"I got fifty cents when I was twelve years old for learning it by heart."

"Then run it over in your own mind until you come to the twelfth verse. When you get to that, say it aloud."

"'Verily, verily I say unto you, He that believeth on me, the works that I do shall he do also; and greater works than these shall he do; because I go unto my Father.'"

He did not glance her way again, which Carolina noticed with gratitude. It showed that he was not accepting it for her sake. Presently he spoke again.

"Did you yourself ever heal any one?"

"Through my understanding of Divine Love, I healed Gladys Yancey," she said, quietly.

The man's face flushed with his earnestness. He lifted his hat and rode bareheaded.

"Do you remember what the father of the dumb child said? 'Lord, I believe! Help thou mine unbelief!'"

When they rode in at the gates of Whitehall, Moultrie was astonished at the radiance of the girl's countenance. She seemed transfigured by love. Moultrie's ready belief had glorified her, and for the second time her grateful thought ascended in the words, "See what Divine Love hath wrought!"

CHAPTER XIV

KINFOLK

Carolina took her writing materials out on the back porch. There was not a small table in the house whose legs did not wabble, so she propped the best of them with chips from Aunt Calla's wood-pile and wrote until Aunt Calla could stand it no longer.

"Miss Calline, honey," she said, "you writes so fas' wid yo' fingahs, would you min' ef I brung de aigplant out here to peel it en watch you? I won't make no fuss."

"Certainly not, Aunt Calla. I'd be glad to have you."

"Hum! hum! You sho have got pretty mannahs, Miss Calline. Youse got de mannahs ob de ole ladies of de South. You don't see 'em now'days wid de young ladies. De young people got de po'est mannahs I ebber did see, – screechin' and hollerin' to each odder 'cross de street, or from one eend ob de house to de other. Ole mahster would 'a' lammed his chillen ef dey'd cut up sech capers en his time! But Miss Peachie, – she's got de La Grange mannahs. She's Mist' Moultrie's sistah. Dey calls her 'Peachie' caze she's got such pretty red in huh cheeks, – lake yores. Most ladies down in dese pahts is too white to suit me. I lakes 'em pinky and pretty."

"Thank you, Aunt Calla!" cried Carolina. "I wonder if I couldn't get Cousin Lois to give you that black grenadine you thought was so pretty yesterday."

Aunt Calla laid down her knife.

"Miss Calline, is you foolin' me?"

"No, Calla, I am not."

"Dish yere grenadier dress I mean is lined wid black silk!"

"I know it."

"En you gwine gib dat to me?"

"I am thinking of it."

"Well, glory be! Ef you does dat, Ise gwine jine de chutch all over ag'in, en I reckon I'll jine de Babtis' dish yere time. Dey's mo' style to de Babtis' den to de Meth'diss. Ise 'bleeged to live up to dat silk linin'!"

The old woman's face took on a worried look.

"I don' keer!" she said aloud. "I don' keer! Nemmine, Miss Calline! You wouldn' laff so ef you knew what Ise studyin' 'bout doin'. Ise been savin' my money foh two years now to get a gravestone foh my fou'th husban' what done died three yeahs ago. He baiged me wid his las' breath to bury him stylish, en I promus him I would. He was all for style. Do you know, Miss Calline, dat man would 'a' gone hongry rathah dan turn his meat ovah awn de fiah. He was de mos' dudish man I ebber see. But I can't he'p it. Ise gwine take dat grave-stone money and hab dat dress made to fit me good en stylish. En I bet Miss Peachie will charge me eve'y cent I got to do it!"

"Who?" demanded Carolina.

"Miss Peachie La Grange. She does all my sewin' foh me, an' foh Lily, too. Dat's de way she mek huh money. Yas, ma'am. Sewin' foh niggahs!"

Aunt Calla paused with her mouth open, for Carolina, regardless of what anybody thought, sprang up, overturning her table, spilling her ink over Aunt Calla's clean porch floor, and scattering her papers to the four winds of heaven.

"Ump! So dat's de way de win' blows! Well, ef she ain't a Lee sho nuff. She's got de pride of huh ole gran'dad, en mo', too. She looked at me ez if she'd lake to kill me. I wondah ef I'll evah git dat dress now!"

She sent Lily to reconnoitre.

"Jes' creep up en see what she's doin'. De keyhole in huh room is busted, en you kin see de whole room thoo it. Jis' go en peek. But ef you let huh ketch you, she'll know who sont you, en she'll be so mad, I nevah will git dat dress. Den I'll bust yo' yallah face open wid de i'nin' boa'd!"

"She ain't cryin' nor nothin'!" cried Lily, bursting into the kitchen twenty minutes later. "She's settin' in huh rockin'-cheer, wid a open book awn huh lap, en huh eyes is shut en huh lips a-movin', lake she's studyin'."

"T'ank de Lawd!" observed Calla. "Somehow er odder, Ise gwine git hole ob a fryin' chicken foh huh. You tell Jake I wants tuh see him dis evenin'. Run, Lily! See who's dat drivin' in outen de big road!"

"Hit's de La Granges! De whole kit en bilin' ob 'em. Dey's done borried de Barnwells' double ca'y-all."

Fortunately, there were many rocking-chairs at Whitehall, and, although many of them were war veterans, all were pressed into service the day the La Granges came to call. Miss Sue and Miss Sallie Yancey glanced at each other expressively when they saw that even Flower, Mrs. Winfield La Grange, was one of the party. It was the first time that she had ever been openly recognized by the La Grange family, except in name, and no one knew that it was by Moultrie's express wish that Peachie had asked her to go with them. Thus, indirectly, Carolina was at the bottom of it, after all.