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.
Peachie was pretty, but her delicate prettiness was scarcely noticeable
when Carolina was in the room. Aunt Angie La Grange, Cousin Elise La
Grange, Cousin Rose Manigault, with her little girl Corinne, who had
come to play with Gladys and Emmeline Yancey,--all these insisted on
claiming kin with Mrs. Winchester and Carolina, and, as Aunt Angie and
Cousin Lois had known each other in their girlhood, and had spent much
time at Guildford and Sunnymede, it was easy for them to fall into the
old way of claiming cousinship, even when a slender excuse was called
upon to serve.
The conversation was very gay and kindly, but, under cover of its
universality, Carolina managed to seat herself next to Flower La Grange,
whose pale cheeks and frightened eyes proclaimed how much of a stranger
she was to such scenes. When Carolina called her "Cousin Flower," the
flush on her face and the look of passionate gratitude in her eyes gave
Carolina ample evidence that any kindness she might choose to bestow
here would be appreciated beyond reason.
At first Flower was constrained and answered in monosyllables, but when
Carolina adroitly mentioned the baby, Flower's whole manner thawed, and,
in her eagerness, she poured forth a stream of rapturous talk which
caused the others to look at her in a chilling surprise. But Flower's
back was toward her haughty relatives, and only Carolina caught the
glances,--Carolina, who calmly ignored them.
"You must come to see my baby!" cried Flower, impulsively. "He is so
dear! And so smart! You can't imagine how hard it is to keep him
asleep. He hears every sound and wants to be up all the time."
"I suppose he notices everything, doesn't he?"
"No-o, I can't say that he does. He likes things that make a noise. He
doesn't care much for looks. If you hold a rattle right up before his
eyes, he won't pay any attention to it. But, if you shake it, he smiles
and coos and reaches out for it. Oh, he is a regular boy for noise!"
As Flower said this upon a moment of comparative silence, Carolina
noticed that Aunt Angie grew rather pale and said:
"I haven't seen your baby for several months, Flower. May I come to see
him to-morrow?"
"Oh, I should be so glad if you would, Mrs.--"
"Call me mother, child," said the older woman, looking compassionately
at her daughter-in-law.
Flower flushed as delicately as a wild rose, and looked at Carolina, as
if wondering if she had noticed this sudden access of cordiality. But
to Carolina, a stranger, it seemed perfectly natural, and she rather
hurriedly resumed her conversation with Flower, because she had the
uneasy consciousness that Miss Sue and Aunt Angie, on the other side of
the room, were talking about her. Fragments of their conversation
floated over to her in the pauses of her talk with Flower.
"She thinks nothing of sending off ten or a dozen telegrams a day--"
"--she'll wear herself out--"
"--it can't last long. Moultrie says she shows a wonderful head for--"
"--and she never gets tired. I never saw such power of concentration--"
"--when I was a girl--"
"--writes--writes--writes the longest letters, and if you could see her
mail!"
"--the very prettiest girl I ever saw,--a perfect beauty, Moultrie
thinks."
Carolina's little ears burned so scarlet that she got up and took
Peachie and Flower out into the garden, and, as the three girls went
down the steps, a perfect babel of voices arose in the parlour. Plainly
Carolina's going had loosened their tongues. They drew their chairs
around Mrs. Winchester's, and, although the day was cool, they gave her
the warmest half-hour she could remember since she left Bombay. They
could understand and excuse every feminine vagary, from stealing another
woman's lover to coaxing a man to spend more than he could afford, or
idling away every moment of a day over novels or embroidery, but for a
beauty, a belle, a toast, a girl who had been presented at three courts
before she was twenty, to come down to South Carolina and live on
horseback or in a buggy, meeting men by appointment and understanding
long columns of figures, sending and receiving cipher telegrams, and in
all this aided and abetted by no less exclusive and particular a
chaperon than Cousin Lois Winchester, Rhett Winchester's widow, herself
related to the Lees,--this was a little more than they could comprehend.
Nor could Miss Sue Yancey nor Miss Sallie (Mrs. Pringle), although they
were in the same house with her, throw any light on the subject or help
them in any way. Carolina was plainly a puzzle to the La Granges, at
least, and when, that same afternoon, Carolina and the two girls in the
garden saw another carryall and a buggy drive in at Whitehall,
containing her father's relatives, the Lees, she frankly said that she
would stay out a little longer and give them a chance to talk her over
before she went in to meet them.
Peachie laughed at Carolina's high colour when she said this.
"You mustn't get mad, Cousin Carol, because you are talked about. We
talk about everybody,--it's all we have to do in the country. But you
ought to be used to it. You are such a little beauty, you must have
been talked about all your life."
"Nonsense, Peachie!" cried Carolina, blushing. "I am not half as
good-looking as you and Flower. But the way you all watch me here makes
me feel as if I were a strange kind of a beetle under a powerful
microscope, at the other end of which there was always a curious human
eye."
"Oh, Cousin Carol, you do say such quayah things!" cried Peachie,
laughing.
"We ought to go in, I think," said Carolina. But at her words the two
girls, as if nerving themselves for an ordeal planned beforehand, looked
at each other, and then Peachie, in evident embarrassment, said:
"Cousin Carol, I want to ask you something, and I don't want you to be
offended or to think that we have no manners, but--"
"Go on, Peachie, dear. Ask anything you like. You won't offend me.
Remember that we are all cousins down here."
"I know, you dear! But maybe when you know what I want,--but you see,
we never get a chance to see any of the styles--"
"Do you want to see my clothes?" cried Carolina. "You shall see every
rag I possess, you dear children! Don't I know how awful it must be
never to know what they are wearing at Church Parade. Five trunks came
yesterday that haven't even been unpacked. They are just as they were
packed by a frisky little Frenchman in Paris, and, as they were sent
after me, they were detained in the custom-house, and, before I could
get them out, I was hurt. While I was in bed, my brother got them out of
the custom-house and took them to _his_ house, where I forgot all about
them until I was preparing to come here. Then I thought of clothes!
And I also thought I might find some pretty girls down here among my
relatives who would like to see the Real Thing just as it comes from the
hands of the Paris couturieres,--so there you are!"
"Oh, Carolina Lee!" shrieked Peachie, softly. "What a sweet thing you
are! Just think, Flower, Paris clothes!"
"And better still, Vienna clothes!" said Carolina, laughing.
"You said you were hurt, Cousin Carol," said Flower, in her soft little
voice. "How were you injured?"
"I was thrown from my horse, Flower, dear, and my hip was broken. I was
in bed for months with it."
"But you were cured," said Flower. "I never heard of a broken hip that
didn't leave a limp. There must be mighty fine doctors in New York."
"There are!" said Carolina, softly. Then she turned suddenly and led
the way to the house, the girls eagerly following.
It will be difficult and not at all to the point to try to learn the
relationship of the Lees and La Granges to Carolina and to each other.
Aunt Angie La Grange was Moultrie's, Winfield's, and Peachie's mother.
Rose Manigault was Aunt Angie's married sister, and Elise an unmarried
one.
Of the Lees, there was Aunt Evelyn Lee, Carolina's own maiden aunt.
Aunt Isabel Fitzhugh, her married aunt, with her two daughters, Eppie
and Marie. Uncle Gordon Fitzhugh, Aunt Isabel's husband, and a bachelor
cousin of Carolina's, De Courcey Lee, were the ones who had come in the
buggy with the two little Fitzhugh boys, Teddy and Bob.
The children could not be induced to leave the parlour until they had
seen their new cousin, they had heard so much of her beauty from
Moultrie, so that, when Carolina entered and was introduced to her
admiring relatives, none was more admiring than the children. Indeed,
Bob Fitzhugh announced to his father, as they were driving home that
evening, that he was going to marry Cousin Carol. He said that he had
already asked her, and that she had told him that she was ten years
older than he was, but that, if he still wanted her when he was
twenty-one and she hadn't married any one in the meantime, she would
marry him.
"You couldn't do better, son," said his father, nudging De Courcey, "and
I commend your promptness, for, as Carolina is the prettiest--the very
prettiest little woman I ever saw, the other boys will doubtless get
after her, and it's just as well to have filed your petition
beforehand."
Indeed the verdict on Carolina was universally favourable. Her
relatives were familiar with her photographs, and were proud of the
accounts which at intervals had filtered home to them through letters
and newspapers, but the girl's beauty of colouring had so far outshone
their expectations, and her exquisite modesty had so captivated them
that they annexed her bodily, and quoted her and praised and flattered
her until she hardly knew where to turn. She won the Fitzhugh hearts by
her devotion to Teddy, the seven-year-old boy, who could not speak an
intelligible word on account of a cleft palate. She took him with her
on the sofa and talked to him and encouraged him to try to answer, until
the mother, though her soul was filled with the most passionate
gratitude, unselfishly called the boy away, saying, in a hurried aside
to Carolina:
"Thank you, and God bless you, my darling girl, for trying to help my
baby boy, but you owe your attention to the grown people, who, some of
them, have driven twenty miles to see your sweet face. Some day,
Carolina, I want you to come and spend a week with us, and tell me about
the best doctor to send the child to. You must know all about such
things, coming from New York."
She won the heart of her bachelor cousin, a man of nearly sixty, by
allowing him to lead her to a sofa and question her about her father,
his last days in London, and of how she had inherited her love for
Guildford.
"For it is an inheritance, Carolina, my dear. Your father loved the
place as not one of us do who have stayed near it."
"Yes, Cousin De Courcey, I think you are right. Daddy used to dream of
it."
"Did he ever tell you of the loss of the family silver?"
"Yes, he said it was lost during the war."
"Did he never tell you of his suspicions concerning it?"
"No, because I don't think he had any."
"Pardon me for disagreeing with you, my dear, but in letters to me he
has stated it. You know our family silver included many historical
pieces,--gifts from great men, who had been guests at
Guildford,--besides all that the family had inherited on both sides for
generations. Many of these pieces were engraved and inscribed, and,
unless they were melted at once, could have been traced. Your
grandfather and your father, being the only ones fortunate enough to
have increased their fortunes, undertook to search the world over for
traces of this silver, but, as not so much as a teaspoon of it was ever
found, we think it is still buried somewhere near here,--possibly on the
estate. Aunt 'Polyte, your father's black mammy, and her husband buried
it, and to the day of their death they swore it was not stolen by the
Yankees, for, when they missed it, there were no Federal troops within
fifty miles. They both declared that some one traced them in their
frequent pilgrimages to its hiding-place to ascertain that it was
intact, and that the Lee family will yet come into its own. As you seem
to be our good angel, it will probably be you who will find it. Doesn't
something tell you that you will?"
"Yes, something tells me that it is not lost," said Carolina, with grave
eyes. "I came into the possession of Guildford so wonderfully, perhaps
I shall find the Lee silver by the same means."
Just then Mrs. Pringle hurried into the room, saying hospitably:
"Now listen to me, good people. You all don't come to Whitehall so
often that we don't feel the honour, and now that you are here, you must
stay to supper. Don't say a word! I'll tell Jake to hitch up and go
after Moultrie and Winfield, and there's a full moon to-night, so you
won't have any trouble in getting home. Elise, if you are too big a
coward to drive twenty miles after dark, you can stay here all night.
Flower, do you trust your nurse to stay with the baby?"
"Oh, yes, indeed, thank you, Miss Sallie. I'll just write a note to
Winfield and send it by Jake, if I may, telling him to see that Aunt
Tempy and the baby are all right before he starts, then I won't be a bit
uneasy."
The La Granges had never heard their unpopular kinswoman make so long a
speech before, and, as they listened to it, with critical, if not
hostile ears, they were forced to admit that she exhibited both spirit
and breeding, and her voice had a curious low-toned dignity which
indicated an inherited power.
Whitehall had not been famous for its hospitality since the death of
Elliott Pringle, Miss Sallie's husband. During his lifetime they had
kept open house, and Miss Sallie was the soul of hospitality. She would
dearly have loved to continue his policy and the prestige of Whitehall,
but her sister, Sue Yancey, was, in popular parlance, called "the
stingiest old maid in the State of Georgia," and when she came to live
with her widowed sister she watched the expenditures at Whitehall, until
nobody who ever dined there had enough to eat. There was a story going
around that the reason she lost the only beau she ever had, was because
once when he was going on a journey she asked him to take out an
accident insurance policy, and when he told her that he was all alone in
the world and that no one would be benefited by his death, she told him
to send the ticket to her. Rumour said that he sent the ticket, but
that he never came back to Sue.
Sue either cared nothing for the good opinion of other people or she
made the mistake of underestimating her friends' intelligence, for she
carried her thrift with a high hand. At Sunday-school picnics it was no
uncommon sight for the neighbours to see Miss Sue Yancey going around to
the different tables gathering all that was edible into her basket to
take home with her. And that these scraps subsequently appeared on the
table at Whitehall often led to high words between the sisters; but in
the end it always happened that Sue conquered, because Mrs. Pringle
dreaded her sister's bitter tongue and ungoverned temper.
Yet Sue often complained that she felt so alone in the world because no
one understood her.
"Don't stay," whispered Gordon Fitzhugh, in his wife's ear. "Sue never
gives me enough sugar in my tea!"
Carolina could not help overhearing. She looked up quickly and laughed.
"Are you getting thin?" he whispered. "Does Sue give you as hash for
supper the beef the soup is made from?"
"I think Miss Sallie is ordering while we are here," said Carolina,
loyally. She would not tell her Uncle Fitzhugh that one morning when
Lily was taking Cousin Lois's breakfast up to her, when her asthma was
bad, that Sue had waylaid Lily in the hall and had taken the extra
butter ball off the tray and carried it back to the dining-room in
triumph.
"I admire economy," said Uncle Fitzhugh. "Sue's ancestors were French,
but, in her case, French thrift has degenerated into American meanness."
"You stay," said Carolina, dimpling, "and I'll see that you get all the
sugar you want, if I have to ask for it myself!"
"Then I'll stay," chuckled Uncle Fitzhugh, and he beckoned to De Courcey
to come out into the garden and have a smoke--in reality to gossip.
Hardly were the gentlemen out of sight when Peachie said, excitedly:
"Mamma, do beg them all to excuse Cousin Carol, Flower, and me! Carol
has promised to show us her Paris clothes--five trunks full of them!"
Her voice rose to a little shriek of ecstasy, which was echoed in
various keys all over the room. Every face took on a look of intense
excitement and anticipation.
"Excuse you!" cried Aunt Angie La Grange. "We shall do no such thing.
If Carol thinks we old people are not just as crazy over pretty clothes
as we were when we were girls, she doesn't know the temperament of her
own blood and kin. Carol, child, lead the way to those trunks
immediately. My fingers fairly burn to turn the keys in those locks!"
"Really, Aunt Angie? Why, we shall be delighted. You should see the
gowns Cousin Lois had made for the Durbar. They are simply regal!"
"Lois Winchester," said Aunt Angie, as they went up-stairs, "they tell
me that you actually rode an elephant while you were in India!"
"I did, Cousin Angie," said Mrs. Winchester, imperturbably. "And what
is more, I had my picture taken on one. You can hardly tell me from the
elephant!"
Now Cousin Lois so seldom jested that this sally met with the usual
reception which non-jokers seem to expect, and the walls fairly reeled
with the peals of laughter from the delighted kinfolk. But when they
were all gathered in Carolina's room and the chairs were brought from
all the other rooms to seat the guests, a hush fell upon the assemblage
similar to that which falls upon Westminster Abbey when a funeral
cortege arrives.
Carolina was unlocking her Paris trunks!