BOB FITZHUGH
Even Carolina was satisfied with the expression on Judge Fanshaw Lee's
face when he was whirled up the great avenue of live-oaks, and the new
Guildford burst upon his view. He had snow-white hair, a pale olive
complexion, and piercing black eyes. His eyebrows were still black, and
he had a ferocious way of working them back and forth very rapidly when
he was moved. This was one sign by which Carolina could tell; another
was that the unusual colour came into his face.
Even before the guests had been to see their own rooms, Carolina was
implored to lead the way and let them explore Guildford. This she was
as eager to do as a young bride, and yet, in spite of her natural pride
in her achievement, her modesty was so sincere and delightful that Judge
Lee and Mr. Howard were obliged to ply her with questions.
The exclamations of delight were perfectly satisfactory, even to Mrs.
Winchester, who moved with majestic mien in their midst, listening with
a jealous ear for praises of her idol, and, by her questioning eyes,
plainly demanding more of the same kind.
Mrs. Goddard's eyes were dewy with gratitude, and Carolina whispered to
her that she--Mrs. Goddard--was Guildford's fairy godmother.
When they had all returned to the drawing-room, Mr. Howard turned to
Judge Lee and said:
"Well, judge, what is your opinion? Isn't this pretty good for one
little girl to accomplish all by herself?"
"Mr. Howard," said Judge Lee and his eyebrows, "it is the most
marvellous thing I ever heard of a young girl achieving. Why, sir, to
us Southerners, it is nothing short of miraculous. Here are scores of
my own dear friends, similarly situated,--land poor, they call
themselves,--yet, as I cannot doubt Carolina's word or your figures, and
you both assert that Guildford has paid for itself, each and every one
of them might restore their property in a similar manner. I had no idea
of the value of this new turpentine company of yours."
"Aren't you sorry now, Cousin Fanshaw," said Carolina, mischievously,
"that you wouldn't invest when we wanted you to?"
Judge Lee cleared his throat and reddened slightly. He did not relish
being jested with.
"I think I am, Carolina," he said. "God knows I needed the money, but,
if you will allow me, under the circumstances of your great triumph, to
be ungallant, I will tell you that I did not have any faith in a woman's
head for business."
"Few of us have, I think," said Mr. Howard, coming to his rescue. "At
first, I did not, but Carolina was so sure that I began it as an
experiment which was likely to cost me dear. I have ended by believing
in it with all my heart."
"Of course I have had a great deal of help," said Carolina, generously.
"Mr. La Grange is very influential, and I am sure I could not have got
the telephone and electric light without him. They were carrying
lanterns in Enterprise when we first came down here, and I expected to
have to get along with acetylene, which I greatly dislike. But he told
me that for the last ten years the subject of electric lighting had been
agitated, and that he believed a little new blood and ready money would
start the thing. That was easily managed, but the cost of bringing the
wires to Guildford was greater than I expected. However, in another
year several other estates will need lighting, and I shall carry it for
them over my wires, and thus reduce my initial expense materially."
"Who owns the control in the electric company?" asked Judge Lee.
"Why, Carolina does, of course!" said Mr. Howard. "You don't suppose my
little Napoleon of Finance would commit such an error of judgment as not
to keep that? Nevertheless, she put up the poles from Enterprise to
Guildford at her own expense. She wouldn't take any unfair advantage of
her control."
Judge Lee glanced at his cousin in half-way disapproval. He greatly
disliked a woman who understood finance, and he privately considered
Carolina unsexed. If she had not been beautiful, he would have said so,
but her girlish loveliness saved her.
Judge Lee looked around. On every side familiar objects met his eye.
It was the same Guildford of his ancestors, yet enlarged, dignified,
engrandeured. His gaze clung affectionately to the heavy, quaint
furnishings, so cunningly reproduced that they might well pass as the
ancient pieces they represented. He began to realize the enormous
amount of hard work this indicated,--of the hours and days of
unremitting toil,--of the discouragements overcome,--the obstacles
surmounted,--the love this mirrored.
Finally he turned to Carolina, with his keen eyes softened.
"I do not understand how you accomplished it, little cousin. It is a
marvellous achievement for any one!"
"I did not accomplish it of myself," said Carolina, gravely. "I never
in the world could have done it if--"
"If what?"
"I hear that it annoys you even to hear the words," said Carolina.
"Nevertheless, I must tell you that the whole of Guildford is a
demonstration of Christian Science."
A deep silence fell, and the eyes of the two men met. Judge Lee's fell
before the corroboration he met in Mr. Howard's. A sudden softening
took place in his heart.
"I begin to believe that there is something in this thing, after all,"
he said, slowly.
A babel of voices broke in upon their conversation just here, as the
guests trooped down from their rooms, exclaiming with admiration on
every hand. Sherman and Addie were particularly delighted, but they
looked at Carolina wonderingly, as if uncertain whether this were the
same sister they had known before.
Carolina bloomed like a rose under all the admiration her work received,
but she was too busy to drink it all in. She had, for one thing, the
children to amuse. Emmeline Yancey, a serious-browed child with grave
eyes, was her right hand, and to Emmeline and Bob Fitzhugh she confided
her plans. Hardly had the children learned of the delights in store for
them, when the guests began to arrive.
Then, such a rushing to and fro! Such a calling for servants! Such
hurried dressing! Such a gathering up of children, and a general
hastening of duties which should have been performed before!
Introductions to the few who had not met before seemed like a meeting of
old friends, so warm was the welcome and so well known the existing
friendships.
Carriage after carriage rolled up the drive and deposited Fitzhughs, La
Granges, Manigaults, Pringles, and Yanceys, until Guildford resembled
the palmiest days of its predecessors.
Peachie and Sir Hubert Wemyss and Noel and Kate were receiving sub rosa
congratulations, and beaming faces were everywhere. Moultrie's eyes
followed Carolina wherever she was, and none noticed it more jealously
than a slim, blue-eyed boy who would not mingle with the other children,
even when Emmeline begged him to. He only shook his head, and continued
to watch his divinity.
Then old Israel, who had been a rascally boy in the days of Carolina's
grandfather, flung open the doors and the guests trooped out to the
dining-room.
Every one stood and exclaimed with delight at the sight which met their
eyes. The majestic dinner-table of Guildford, which would seat forty,
stood in the centre of the room, flanked by side-tables groaning under
the glorious old Lee silver and glass and china, such as no
contemporaneous eye had seen, but so often had those gathered here heard
its beauty described that it seemed a familiar sight.
The children had a table to themselves, and this was set across one end
of the room. Emmeline was to be the mother and Bob Fitzhugh the father,
and actually carve the turkey.
"He'll spill the gravy and drop the turkey on the floor, Carolina,"
cried his mother.
"Let him," said Carolina. "Who cares? But this turkey will be so good
that he will stay on the platter, as I shall bid him, and Bob shall
carve him, and Emmeline shall serve the plum pudding!"
Shrieks of joy went up from the children at this daring announcement,
and all the parents were made radiant by their babies' happiness.
The table was long and low, with chairs to match, and the children saw
with jealous delight that it was copied exactly from the big table, even
to the bowls of flowers and pyramids of fruit. They even had their tiny
champagne glasses, in which 'Polyte, who was their butler, poured
foaming ginger ale, so that they could join in the toasts which Judge
Fanshaw Lee proposed. They wriggled with an ecstasy they never had felt
before, and never, never did they have such a time as at Cousin
Carolina's Thanksgiving dinner at Guildford.
The climax came to their awe when, at the end of everything, Mr. Howard
arose, glass in hand, and announced--what everybody knew--the engagement
of his daughter Kate and Noel St. Quentin, and gave them his blessing,
and everybody cried and laughed and drank their health. The children's
round eyes almost popped out of their heads. To be present at a real
betrothal! It was more exciting to the little Southerners than a negro
baptism.
Bob Fitzhugh's face was seen to grow very red, and then suddenly he
pushed back his chair and strode to where Carolina sat, and said, in a
sturdy voice:
"Cousin Carolina, why can't we announce our engagement? You know you
promised to marry me."
He stood crimson but dauntless under the shrieks of laughter which
followed his speech. Carolina's face was very rosy also, and she was
seen to steal a mischievous glance at Moultrie La Grange, which somehow
set his heart to beating with hope.
She put her arm around Bob and kissed him on the forehead before them
all.
"Bob, dear, it is too soon," she whispered, consolingly. "You know I
said if you wanted me in ten years and I was still unmarried--"
"Oh, but Cousin Carol!" cried the boy, "you are so beautiful that unless
you promise to wait for me you are sure to be snapped up. Father said
so."
An added wave of colour flew to Carolina's face, and she hid her face in
the boy's shoulder, when, to her surprise, she heard the voice of Col.
Wayne Yancey saying:
"Bob, my boy, if she should promise you, you'd have to fight me, and
fight me to the death."
Bob looked at him, and stiffened.
"Are you after her, too?" he cried, angrily.
"I've been after her longer than you have. And I'm not the only one."
Bob turned despairingly to his father.
"How many does that make?" he roared.
The laughter of the grown people passed unheeded.
"Never mind, son," said his father. "Colonel Yancey's name completes
the list. There isn't another bachelor or widower left in South
Carolina. It's just the way the girls used to treat me, son, but
afterward I met your mother and she made everything all right."
The boy flew to his father's side, and hid his head.
"Girls are all alike, son. You'll have to bear it. We all have to.
Turn around here and ask your Uncle De Courcey why he is a bachelor.
Ask your mother how many boys she flirted with before I came along. Be
a man. Look there at Emmeline and Gladys and--"
Bob burst away with a roar of pain.
"Emmeline is about right for Teddy!" he exclaimed, in wrath. "I want a
grown woman. I don't want anybody but Miss Carolina Lee. Moultrie knows
how it is, don't you, Moultrie? When you've once loved a girl like
Carolina, how would you like it to be told to take up with anybody
else?"
"I just wouldn't do it, that's all!" said Moultrie, looking squarely at
Carolina.
"Bob," said Carolina, severely, "you are embarrassing Mr. La Grange and
me dreadfully. Won't you please go back to your place and make me feel
that I can depend upon you to protect me instead of exposing me to
laughter like this?"
The boy's eagle glance flew from one convulsed face to another. Then he
showed his blood. He came to Carolina's side, and put his arms around
her neck and kissed her cheek, whispering:
"I'll never speak of it again. They can laugh if they want to, but some
day you'll remember that I behaved when you asked me to."
He went back to his seat and Carolina looked at Emmeline, and both
little ladies rose from the heads of their tables and led the way to the
drawing-room.
But Carolina was uneasy. She could not forget the look that Moultrie La
Grange shot at her, when Bob said, "After you have once loved a girl
like Carolina, how would you like to be told to take up with anybody
else?"
She knew the time was approaching when he would ask his question over
again, and she was not prepared yet to give an answer. She was sure he
was on the right track, but she was not sure that he would persevere.
The chill of autumn always manifests itself in November days in South
Carolina after the sun goes down, and when the guests repaired to the
library, they found a great log fire, the size of which they had never
seen before. For weeks Carolina's servants had scoured the woods for a
backlog of sufficient girth to please their mistress, but it was 'Polyte
who finally secured the prize.
Around this glorious fire they all gathered, and something of the way
Guilford had been restored, as well as the gentle tranquillity of the
twilight hour, crept into their hearts and tinged the conversation with
an intimacy which years of ordinary social intercourse could not have
accomplished. Christian Scientists all over the world will recognize
this as a fact peculiar to themselves. If church-member meets
church-member of any other denomination, they are forced to become
acquainted as is usual in society, because there is no unanimity of
thought, and each is bound for his or her particular goal by independent
and widely diverse routes. But in Christian Science instantaneous
intimacies are possible, because it is the one religion which requires
comparative unanimity of thought, and all are travelling in the
identical path which leads to the ultimate perfection of harmony.
Thus, with no other light than the firelight and with no further
introduction to the dear people of the Southland, than that they were
either Christian Scientists or Carolina's beloved kinfolk, no one was
surprised when Doctor Colfax said:
"You showed no astonishment this morning, Miss Carolina, when you saw me
among the guests Mr. Howard was bringing to your beautiful
house-warming. And as I know the type of your mind, I know that you
will ask no questions. Therefore, I owe it to you to tell you, and
believe me, I am delighted to include your friends.
"You, Mrs. Winchester, remember meeting me on the train as you were
coming from Boston. You thought I had been to take a rest. I had. But
it was a rest in a hospital from an operating-table. It was my second
operation for cancer of the throat. My inexcusable show of anger at your
house, Mrs. Howard, the night I saw the miracle of Miss Carolina's
healing, was induced and aggravated by the knowledge of the ordeal
before me and of the futility of it. My brutal words against Mrs.
Goddard, this dear, dear woman, whom I have learned to revere and love
as my best friend, were uttered because I longed to go and fling myself
at her feet and ask her if she could cure me. If any of you men who
were there that night--if you, St. Quentin, had knocked me senseless and
taken my unconscious body to a Christian Scientist for treatment, I
should have thanked you on my knees. But none of you knew.
"Well, I went through this second operation, and it proved as futile as
the first had done. Within six months I was confronted by the certainty
of the third, and this I felt sure would be fatal.
"With the horrible fear of death before my mental vision, and no faith
in surgery, I one day made up my mind to call on Mrs. Goddard, to tell
her the ungentlemanly, unmanly words I had used against her in public,
to beg her pardon, and if she forgave me, to implore her help for my
hideous malady.
"Dear friends, you, who know her, know how she received me. But none of
you know that under her treatment I was entirely cured. Nor does she
know what I am about to say, for only since I came down here and lived
among you and saw your beautiful lives, have I decided. Mrs. Goddard, I
owe it to you to tell you first. I have decided to give up the practice
of materia medica, which failed me in the hour of my greatest need, and
I intend to study to be a Christian Science practitioner."
A startled murmur ran through the group. Even with all their faith,
this came as a surprise, for the name of Doctor Colfax stood for so much
in the medical world. Few men would have dared to show so much moral
courage. Only Mrs. Goddard seemed to understand, for she reached out
her hand to him, and he bent and kissed it before them all.
"I give up!" cried Colonel Yancey, to relieve the tension. "Cousin
Lois, look at all these lovers holding hands, and thinking we don't see
them, and say whether you and I shall be left out."
"Wayne Yancey," said Mrs. Winchester, "I'm not going to be left out of
anything. I have come to the point where I don't believe in the Church
of England the way I did, and, if I decide to become a Christian
Scientist, there is no telling but that I may forget what a rascal you
used to be in what they call 'the old thought' and decide to marry you
in the new!"
Thus Guilford began at once to take her proper place as the mystic spot
where lovers' vows were plighted almost before they knew it, so replete
it was with all that goes to make a home, and, as the dancing flames
died down, Carolina felt a soft hand steal into hers, and looked down
into the wide eyes of her niece, little Cynthia Lee.
"What is it, darling?" she asked.
"I feel," whispered the child, "that strange things are going to happen
at Guildford, and that you and I shall always be in the midst of them!"
Carolina, instinctively realizing that this was a psychic moment for the
imaginative child, slipped her arm around Cynthia's delicate waist,
saying:
"Why do you feel it, Cynthia?"
"Listen, Aunt Carolina. Something of all the queerness I have heard
since I came down here makes me feel that I shall lead a stormy life,
and that I shall need this thing and want it and be unable to accept it
until I am beaten by everything else. Do you understand me?"
"Only too well," sighed Carolina.
"Then I shall want you, and want you terribly."
"I shall always be here, dearest."
"That is what comforts me," said the child, the mystic light dying out
of her eyes. "It is what comforts me about the whole thing. I know it
will always be there when I want it. I have talked to Emmeline about
it. Even little Gladys taught me her hymn."
And the child and the woman looked into each other's eyes, knowing that
their souls were akin, and that the witchery of the twilight hour had
opened floodgates closed by day, but which opened when the soul felt the
need of speech.
"I am glad you told me, Cynthia," said Carolina. "The only answer to all
of life's puzzles, I have found in this awakened sense of mine, which
will surely come to you some day. Remember it when the waters grow too
deep."
"The answer to all life's puzzles," echoed Cynthia.
"Sing, child," said Carolina.
And Cynthia, whose voice was like the rippling water and the sounding of
silver bells, began to sing what Gladys called her hymn:
"'And o'er earth's troubled, angry sea
I see Christ walk,
And come to me and tenderly,
Divinely talk!'"
As the child sang, every feeling in every heart melted, until only love
remained, and, when she finished, Kate cried out:
"It's all over! I d-don't hate Mrs. Eddy any more. I--I've been healed
of it by Cynthia's singing."
The child's lovely voice had so sadly shaken Carolina's composure that,
under cover of the half-darkness, she rose and made her way quietly to a
little hall which led to a private staircase, intending to gain her own
room and recover herself before her guests began to take leave.
As the voices rose and fell, she moved nearer and nearer the door, too
intent upon her own ends to notice that Moultrie La Grange had likewise
detached himself from the fireside group and disappeared.
As she finally stepped behind a group of palms which concealed the door,
she sprang lightly into the dark passage and flung herself headlong into
the arms of Moultrie La Grange, who had come in that way to intercept
her flight.
He was not slow to take advantage of the very opportunity he had come to
seek, and, after one brief struggle, so slight that it was like the
fluttering of a bird, she hid her face in his shoulder, with a little
sob in which relief and joy and love were mingled.
He said nothing, only held her close and kissed her hair, until her arms
stole upward and curled around his neck, and she whispered:
"Moultrie, dear, dear Moultrie, will you forgive me for what I said to
you that day?"
"I have nothing to forgive, dear heart. You only said it because you
loved me."
Tears filled her eyes, and she drew closer to him, whispering:
"I knew that first night in New York at the opera--that this hour would
come--and just now, while Cynthia was singing, I knew that--you would
understand--everything!"
"I would not have dared to speak to you again, dearest," he answered,
"if I had not emptied my soul of self and got rid of that which
separated us. But--I have been working since you showed me where I stood
with you, and I, too, under the spell of that child's voice, have come
to the point where I can say that, if you think I am capable of it,--and
worthy to be the successor of such a man as your idolized father,--I
would be proud to complete his work on Abraham Lincoln, and, with your
consent, we will call it 'The Debt of the South to Lincoln.'"
For reply, Carolina lifted his hand to her lips and kissed it. She
could make no reply to such a surrender as that, but in that hour she
lifted her hero to a pinnacle, whence he never was dislodged.
THE END.