BRIARLAY
In the train Caroline sat straight and still, with her eyes on the
landscape, which unrolled out of the golden web of the distance. Now and
then, when her gaze shifted, she could see the pale oval of her face
glimmering unsteadily in the window-pane, like a light that is going out
slowly. Even in the glass, where her eyes were mere pools of darkness,
her mouth looked sad and stern, as if it had closed over some tragic and
for ever unutterable secret. It was only when one saw her eyes--those
eyes which under the arch of her brows and hair made one think of
bluebirds flying--it was only when their colour and radiance lighted her
features, that her face melted to tenderness.
While she sat there she thought of a hundred things, yet never once did
she think of herself or her own interests as the centre around which her
imagination revolved. If life had repressed and denied her, it had
trained her mental processes into lucid and orderly habits. Unlike most
women, she had learned to think impersonally, and to think in relations.
Her spirit might beat its wings against the bars of the cage, but she
knew that it would never again rise, with a dart of ecstasy, to test its
freedom and its flight in the sky. She had had her day of joy. It was
short, and it had left only sadness, yet because she had once had it,
even for so brief a time, she might be disillusioned, but she could not
feel wholly defrauded. Through that dead emotion she had reached, for an
instant, the heart of life; she had throbbed with its rapture; she had
felt, known, and suffered. And in confronting the illusions of life, she
had found the realities. Because she had learned that thought, not
emotion, is the only permanent basis of happiness, she had been able to
found her house on a rock. It was worth a good deal of pain to discover
that neither desire nor disappointment is among the eternal verities of
experience.
To-day, as on many other days since she had passed through her training
in the hospital, she was leaving home, after a vacation in which she had
thought of herself scarcely a minute, for the kind of service in which
she would not have time to think of herself at all. Work had been the
solution of her problem, the immediate restorative; and she knew that it
had helped her through the anguish, and--worse than anguish--through the
bleakness of her tragedy, as nothing else could have done. "I will not
sit down and think of myself," she had said over and over in those first
bitter days, and in the years since then, while she was passionately
rebuilding her universe, she had kept true to her resolve. She had been
active always; she had never brooded among the romantic ruins of the
past. If her inner life had grown indifferent, cold, and a little hard,
her external sympathies had remained warm, clear, and glowing. The
comfort she had denied herself, she had given abundantly to others; the
strength she had not wasted in brooding, she had spent freely in a
passion of service and pity. In her face there was the beauty and
sweetness of a fervent, though disciplined, spirit.
"I am so sorry to leave them," she thought, with her eyes on the amber,
crimson, and purple of the forest. "Mother is no longer young. She needs
all the help I can give her, and the girls have so few pleasures. I wish
there was something more I could do for them. I would work my fingers to
the bone to give them a little happiness." And there floated before her,
against the background of the forest, a still yet swiftly fleeting
vision, of the fire-lit room, with the girls gathered, knitting, on the
hearthrug, and her mother turning to look at her with the good and
gentle expression that shone always in her face. Beyond the window the
rain fell; the cedar brushed its boughs against the panes with a sound
like that of ghostly fingers; on the roof above she heard the measured
dropping of acorns. In the flickering light the old mahogany gleamed
with a bronze and gold lustre, and the high white bed, under its fringed
Marseilles coverlet, stood, like an embodiment of peace and sleep, in
the corner. "It looks so happy, so sheltered," she thought, "and yet--"
she was going to add, "and yet unhappiness came up the road, from a
great distance, and found me there----" but she shattered the vague idea
before it formed in her mind.
At the station Mrs. Colfax was waiting, and though Caroline had seen her
only once, ten years ago, she recognized her by a bird-like, pecking
manner she had never forgotten. As the ruin of a famous beauty the old
lady was not without historic distinction. Though she was now shrunken
and withered, and strung with quaint gold chains, which rattled with
echoes of an earlier period, she still retained the gracious social art
of the "sixties." Her eyes, hollowed under thin grey eyebrows, were
black and piercing, and her small aristocratic features looked mashed,
as if life had dealt them too hard a blow.
"My dear child, I should have known you anywhere, so, you see, I haven't
yet lost my memory. It was years ago that I met you, wasn't it?"
A man in livery--she discovered afterwards that he was the Blackburn's
footman--took her bag, and Caroline helped Mrs. Colfax out of the
station and into the big limousine at the door. "It was so good of you
to meet me," she said, for it was all she could think of, and to the
last she had been haunted by the fear that Mr. Blackburn might decide to
come for her.
"Good of me? Why, I wanted to come." As she watched Caroline's face, the
old lady was thinking shrewdly, "She isn't so pretty as she used to be.
I doubt if many men would think twice about her--but she has a lovely
expression. I never saw a more spiritual face."
Once safely started she rambled on while the car shot into Franklin
Street, and ran straight ahead in the direction of Monument Avenue.
"I always meant to meet you, and just as soon as your telegram came, I
'phoned Angelica about the car. She wanted to come down herself, but the
doctor makes her lie down two hours every afternoon. Do you see that new
office building at the corner? Your mother and I went to school on that
spot before we boarded at Miss Braxton's in Petersburg. At that time
this part of Franklin Street was very fashionable, but everything has
moved west, and everybody who can afford it is building in the country.
It isn't like your mother's day at all. New people have taken possession
of the town, and anybody who has money can get into society now. We are
coming to Monument Avenue. All the houses are brand new, but it is
nothing to the country outside. The Blackburns' place just off the River
Road is the finest house anywhere about Richmond, they tell me. He built
it the year before his marriage, and I remember an artist, who came down
to lecture before the Woman's Club, saying to me that Briarlay was like
its owner--everything big in it was good and everything little in it was
bad. I don't know much about such things, but he poked fun at the
fireplaces--said they were Gothic or Italian--I can't remember
which--and that the house, of course, is Colonial."
A fit of coughing stopped her, and while she dived into her black silk
bag for a handkerchief, Caroline asked curiously, "Has Mr. Blackburn so
much money?"
"Oh, yes, I suppose he is the richest man we have here. He owns the
large steel works down by the river, and he discovered some new cheap
process, they say, which brought him a fortune. I remember hearing this,
but I haven't much of a head for such matters. Just now he is having a
good deal of trouble with his men, and I'm sure it serves him right for
deserting the ways of his father, and going over to the Republicans.
Charles takes up for him because David has always stood by him in
business, but of course out of respect for father's memory he couldn't
openly sympathize with his disloyalty."
"Does anybody follow him, or is he all alone?" inquired Caroline, less
from active interest in the question than from the desire to keep the
old lady animated.
"You'll have to ask Charles, and he will be delighted to answer. In this
new-fangled idea about breaking the solid South--did you ever hear such
stuff and nonsense?--I believe he has had a very bad influence over a
number of young men. Then, of late, he has been talking extravagantly
about its being our duty to go into this war--as if we had any business
mixing ourselves up in other people's quarrels--and that appeals to a
lot of fire-eaters and fight-lovers. Of course, a man as rich as David
Blackburn will always have a trail of sycophants and addlepates at his
heels. What I say is that if Providence had intended us to be in this
war, we shouldn't have been given a President wise and strong enough to
keep us out of it. If Mr. Wilson is elected for a second term--and my
brother Charles says there isn't a doubt of it--it will be because the
country feels that he has kept us out of war. There was a long editorial
in the paper this morning warning us that, if Mr. Hughes is elected, we
shall be fighting Germany within two months. Then think of all the
destruction and the dreadful high taxes that would follow----"
"But I thought there was a great deal of war spirit here? At home we
work all the time for the Allies."
"Oh, there is, there is. Angelica is president or chairman of two or
three societies for helping the wounded, and they even made me head of
something--I never can remember the name of it--but it has to do with
Belgian orphans. Everybody wants to help, but that is different from
going into the actual fighting, you know, and people are very much
divided. A few, like David Blackburn, wanted us to declare war the day
after the Lusitania was destroyed, but most of us feel--especially the
wiser heads--that the President knows more about it than any one
else----"
"I suppose he does," admitted Caroline, and she added while she looked
at the appointments of the car, "What a beautiful car!"
She sighed gently, for she was thinking of the rotting fence rails and
the leaking roof at The Cedars. How far she could make a few thousand
dollars go in repairing the house and the out-buildings! If only the
leaks could be mended, and the roof reshingled over the wings! If only
they could hire a younger man to help poor old Jones, who was growing
decrepit!
"This car is Angelica's," said the old lady, "and everything she has is
wonderful. As soon as she was married she began to re-decorate Briarlay
from garret to cellar. When David first made his money, he went about
buying everything he laid eyes on, and she gave whole wagon-loads of
furniture to her relatives. There are people who insist that Angelica
overdoes things in her way as much as her husband does in his--both were
poor when they grew up--but I maintain that her taste is perfect--simply
perfect. It is all very well for my daughter Lucy, who has studied
interior decoration in New York, to turn up her nose at walls hung with
silk in a country house, but to my mind that pink silk in Angelica's
parlours is the most beautiful thing she could have, and I reckon I've
as good a right to my ideas as Lucy has to hers. After all, as I tell
her, it is only a question of taste."
It was a mild, bright afternoon in October, and as the car turned into
the River Road, the country spread softly, in undulations of green,
gold, and bronze, to the deep blue edge of the horizon. The valley lay
in shadow, while above it shreds of violet mist drifted slowly against
the golden ball of the sun. Near at hand the trees were touched with
flame, but, as they went on, the brilliant leaves melted gradually into
the multi-coloured blend of the distance.
"Mrs. Blackburn must be so beautiful," said Caroline presently. As she
approached Briarlay--the house of darkness and mystery that she had seen
in her imagination--she felt that the appeal of this unknown woman
deepened in vividness and pathos, that it rushed to meet her and
enveloped her with the intensity and sweetness of a perfume. It was as
if the name Angelica were not a sound, but a thing composed of colour
and fragrance--sky-blue like a cloud and as sweet-scented as lilies.
"She was the most beautiful girl who ever came out in Richmond," replied
Mrs. Colfax. "The family was so poor that her mother couldn't do
anything for her--she didn't even have a coming-out party--but with a
girl like that nothing matters. David Blackburn saw her at some
reception, and lost his head completely. I won't say his heart because
I've never believed that he had one. Of course he was far and away the
best chance she was ever likely to have down here, for it wasn't as if
they could have sent her to the White Sulphur. They couldn't afford
anything, and they were even educating Angelica to be a teacher. What
she would have done if David Blackburn hadn't come along when he did, I
cannot imagine--though, as I wrote you, I'd have taught school to my
dying day before I'd have married him."
"But didn't she care anything for him?" asked Caroline, for it was
incredible to her that such a woman should have sold herself.
Mrs. Colfax sniffed at her smelling-salts. "Of course I haven't the
right to an opinion," she rejoined, after a pause, "but as I always
reply to Charles when he tells me I am talking too much, 'Well, I can't
help having eyes.' I remember as well as if it were yesterday the way
Angelica looked when she told me of her engagement. 'I have decided to
marry David Blackburn, Cousin Lucy,' she said, and then she added, just
as if the words were wrung out of her, 'I loathe the thought of
teaching!' It doesn't sound a bit like Angelica, but those were her very
words. And now, my dear, tell me something about your mother. Does she
still keep up her wonderful spirits?"
After this she asked so many questions that Caroline was still answering
them when the car turned out of the road and sped up a long, narrow
lane, which was thickly carpeted with amber leaves. At the end of the
lane, the vista broadened into an ample sweep of lawn surrounding a red
brick house with white columns and low wings half hidden in Virginia
creeper. It was a beautiful house--so beautiful that Caroline held her
breath in surprise. Under the October sky, in the midst of clustering
elms, which shed a rain of small bronze leaves down on the bright grass
and the dark evergreens, the house appeared to capture and imprison the
mellow light of the sunset. It was so still, except for a curving flight
of swallows over the roof, and the elm leaves, which fell slowly and
steadily in the soft air, that the gleaming windows, the red walls, and
the white columns, borrowed, for a moment, the visionary aspect of a
place seen in a dream.
"There is a formal garden at the back, full of box-borders and
cypresses--only they are really red cedars," said Mrs. Colfax. "From
the terrace there is a good view of the river, and lower down Angelica
has made an old-fashioned garden, with grass walks and rose arbours and
mixed flower beds. I never saw such Canterbury bells as she had last
summer."
As they entered the circular drive, a touring car passed them slowly on
the way out, and a man leaned forward and bowed to Mrs. Colfax. From her
casual glance Caroline received an impression of a strong, sunburned
face, with heavy brows and dark hair going a little grey on the temples.
"What searching eyes that man has," she observed carelessly, and added
immediately, "You know him?"
"Why, that was David Blackburn. I forgot you had never seen him."
"He isn't at all what I expected him to be." While Caroline spoke she
felt an inexplicable sense of disappointment. She scarcely knew what she
had expected; yet she realized that he was different from some vague
image she had had in her mind.
"His face looked so set I'm afraid he has been quarrelling with
Angelica," said the old lady. "Poor child, I feel so distressed."
They had reached the house, and as they were about to alight, the door
opened, and a girl in a riding habit, with two Airedale terriers at her
heels, strolled out on the porch. At sight of Mrs. Colfax, she came
quickly forward, and held out her hand. She had a splendid figure, which
the riding habit showed to advantage, and though her face was plain, her
expression was pleasant and attractive. Without the harsh collar and the
severe arrangement of her hair, which was braided and tied up with a
black ribbon, Caroline imagined that she might be handsome.
Mrs. Colfax greeted her as "Miss Blackburn" and explained immediately
that she lived at Briarlay with her brother. "She is a great lover of
dogs," added the old lady, "and it is a pity that Angelica doesn't like
to have them about."
"Oh, they don't mind, they're such jolly beggars," replied the girl in a
cheerful, slangy manner, "and besides they get all they want of me. I'm
so sorry you didn't come in time for tea. Now I'm just starting for a
ride with Alan."
While she was speaking a man on horseback turned from the lane into the
drive, and Caroline saw her face change and brighten until it became
almost pretty. "There he is now!" she exclaimed, and then she called out
impulsively, "Oh, Alan, I've waited for ever!"
He shouted back some words in a gay voice, but Caroline did not catch
them, and before he dismounted, Mrs. Colfax led her through the open
door into the hall.
"That's Alan Wythe," said the old lady in a whisper, and she resumed a
moment later when they stood within the pink silk walls of Angelica's
drawing-room, "Mary has been engaged to him for a year, and I never in
my life saw a girl so much in love. I suppose it's natural enough--he's
charming--but in my day young ladies were more reserved. And now we'll
go straight upstairs to Angelica. She is sure to be lying down at this
hour."
As they passed through the wide hall, and up the beautiful Colonial
staircase, Caroline felt that the luxury of the place bewildered her.
Though the house, except in size, was not unlike country homes she had
seen in southside Virginia, there was nothing in her memory, unless she
summoned back stray recollections of photographs in Sunday newspapers,
that could compare with the decoration of the drawing-room. "It is
beautiful, but there is too much of it," she thought, for her eyes,
accustomed to bare surfaces and the formal purity of Sheraton and
Chippendale, were beginning to discriminate.
"I want you to notice everything when you have time," said Mrs. Colfax.
"I tell Angelica that it is a liberal education just to come inside of
this house."
"It would take weeks to see it," responded Caroline; and then, as she
moved toward a long mirror in the hall upstairs, it seemed to her that
her reflection, in her severe blue serge suit, with the little round
blue hat Diana had trimmed, looked as grotesquely out of place as if she
had been one of the slender Sheraton chairs at The Cedars. "If I appear
a lady I suppose it is as much as I can hope for," she thought, "and
besides nobody will notice me."
The humour leaped to her eyes, while Mrs. Colfax, watching her with a
side-long glance, reflected that Carrie Warwick's daughter had
distinction. Her grace was not merely the grace of a slender body with
flowing lines; it was the grace of word, of glance, of smile, of
gesture, that indefinable and intangible quality which is shed by a
lovely soul as fragrance is shed by a flower. "Even if she lives to be
as old as I am, she will still keep her poise and her charm of
appearance," thought the old lady, "she will never lose it because it
isn't a matter of feature--it isn't dependent on outward beauty. Years
ago she was prettier than she is to-day, but she wasn't nearly so
distinguished." Aloud she said presently, "Your hair grows in such a
nice line on your forehead, my dear, just like your mother's. I remember
we always made her brush hers straight back as you do, so she could show
her 'widow's peak' in the centre. But yours is much darker, isn't it?"
"Yes, it is almost black. Mother's was the loveliest shade of chestnut.
I have a lock of it in an old breast-pin."
A door at the end of the hall opened, and a thin woman, in rusty black
alpaca, came to meet them.
"That's the housekeeper--Matty Timberlake, the very salt of the earth,"
whispered Mrs. Colfax. "She is Angelica's cousin."
When the housekeeper reached them, she stooped and kissed Mrs. Colfax
before she spoke to Caroline. She was a long, narrow, neuralgic woman,
with near-sighted eyes, thin grey hair which hung in wisps on her
forehead, and a look which seemed to complain always that she was poor
and dependent and nobody noticed her.
"Angelica is lying down," she said, "but she would like to speak to Miss
Meade before I take her to her room."
Caroline's heart gave a bound. "At last I shall see her," she thought,
while she followed Mrs. Timberlake down the hall and across the
threshold of Angelica's room. The influence that she had felt first in
the twilight at The Cedars and again in the drive out from Richmond,
welcomed her like a caress.
Her first impression was one of blue and ivory and gold. There was a
bed, painted in garlands, with a scalloped canopy of blue silk; and
Caroline, who was accustomed to mahogany testers or the little iron
beds in the hospital, was conscious of a thrill of delight as she
looked at it. Then her eyes fell on the white bear-skin rug before the
fire, and from the rug they passed to the couch on which Mrs. Blackburn
was lying. The woman and the room harmonized so perfectly that one might
almost have mistaken Angelica for a piece of hand-painted furniture. At
first she appeared all blue silk and pale gold hair and small delicate
features. Then she sat up and held out her hand, and Caroline saw that
she looked not only human, but really tired and frail. There were faint
shadows under her eyes, which were like grey velvet, and her hair,
parted softly in golden wings over her forehead, showed several barely
perceptible creases between her eyebrows. She was so thin that the bones
of her face and neck were visible beneath the exquisite texture of her
flesh, yet the modelling was as perfect as if her head and shoulders had
been chiselled in marble.
"You are Caroline Meade," she said sweetly. "I am so glad you have
come."
"I am glad, too. I wanted to come." The vibrant voice, full of warmth
and sympathy, trembled with pleasure. For once the reality was fairer
than the dream; the woman before her was lovelier than the veiled figure
of Caroline's imagination. It was one of those unforgettable moments
when the mind pauses, with a sensation of delight and expectancy, on the
edge of a new emotion, of an undiscovered country. This was not only
something beautiful and rare; it was different from anything that had
ever happened to her before; it was a part of the romantic mystery that
surrounded the unknown. And it wasn't only that Mrs. Blackburn was so
lovely! More than her beauty, the sweetness of her look, the appeal of
her delicacy, of her feminine weakness, went straight to the heart. It
was as if her nature reached out, with clinging tendrils, seeking
support. She was like a fragile white flower that could not live without
warmth and sunshine.
"The other nurse leaves in the morning," Mrs. Blackburn was saying in
her gentle voice, which carried the merest note of complaint, as if she
cherished at heart some secret yet ineradicable grievance against
destiny, "So you have come at the right moment to save me from anxiety.
I am worried about Letty. You can understand that she is never out of my
thoughts."
"Yes, I can understand, and I hope she will like me."
"She will love you from the first minute, for she is really an
affectionate child, if one knows how to take her. Oh, Miss Meade, you
have taken a load off my shoulders! You look so kind and so competent,
and I feel that I can rely on you. I am not strong, you know, and the
doctor won't let me be much with Letty. He says the anxiety is too
wearing, though, if I had my way, I should never think of myself."
"But you must," said Caroline quietly. She felt that the child's illness
and the terrible cause of it were wrecking Mrs. Blackburn's health as
well as her happiness.
"Of course, I must try to take care of myself because in the end it will
be so much better for Letty." As she answered, Angelica slipped her feet
into a pair of embroidered blue silk _mules_, and rising slowly from her
lace pillows, stood up on the white rug in front of the fire. Though she
was not tall, her extraordinary slenderness gave her the effect of
height and the enchanting lines of one of Botticelli's Graces. "With
you in the house I feel that everything will be easier," she added,
after a minute in which she gazed down at the new nurse with a
thoughtful, appraising look.
"It will be as easy as I can make it. I will do everything that I can."
The words were not spoken lightly, for the opportunity of service had
brought a glow to Caroline's heart, and she felt that her reply was more
than a promise to do her best--that it was a vow of dedication from
which only the future could release her. She had given her pledge of
loyalty, and Mrs. Blackburn had accepted it. From this instant the bond
between them assumed the nature and the obligation of a covenant.
A smile quivered and died on Angelica's lips, while the pathos in her
expression drew the other to her as if there were a visible wound to be
healed. "You will be a blessing. I can tell that when I look at you,"
she murmured; and her speech sounded almost empty after the overflowing
sympathy of the silence. To Caroline it was a relief when the
housekeeper called to her from the doorway, and then led her upstairs to
a bedroom in the third storey.
It was a delightful room overlooking the circular drive, and for a
minute they stood gazing down on the lawn and the evergreens.
"Everything is so lovely!" exclaimed Caroline presently. One could rest
here, she thought, even with hard work and the constant strain, which
she foresaw, on her sympathies.
"Yes, it is pretty," answered the housekeeper. Already Mrs. Timberlake
had proved that, though she might be the salt of the earth, she was a
taciturn and depressing companion--a stranded wreck left over from too
voluble a generation of women.
"And I never saw any one lovelier than Mrs. Blackburn," said Caroline,
"she looks like an angel."
"Well, I reckon there is mighty little you can say against Angelica's
looks unless your taste runs to a trifle more flesh," responded Mrs.
Timberlake drily.
"She ought to be happy," pursued Caroline, with a feeling that was
almost one of resentment. "Anyone as beautiful as that ought to be
happy."
Mrs. Timberlake turned slowly toward her, and Caroline was aware of a
spasmodic stiffening of her figure, as if she were nerving herself for
an outburst. When the explosion came, however, it was in the nature of
an anti-climax.
"I expect you are going to be very useful to her," she said; and in
answer to a hurried summons at the door, she made one of her nervous
gestures, and went out into the hall.
"It would be perfect," thought Caroline, "if I didn't have to meet Mr.
Blackburn"; and she concluded, with a flash of her mother's unquenchable
optimism, "Well, perhaps I shan't see him to-night!"
The sun had set, and almost imperceptibly the afterglow had dissolved
into the twilight. Outside, the lawn and the evergreens were in shadow;
but from the house a misty circle of light fell on the drive, and on a
narrow strip of turf, from which each separate blade of grass emerged
with exaggerated distinctness as if it were illuminated. Within this
circle, with its mysterious penumbra, human life also seemed exaggerated
by the luminous haze which divided it from the partial shadow of the
evening. The house stood enclosed in light as in a garden; and beyond
it, where the obscurity began, there was the space and silence of the
universe. While she stood there, she felt, with a certainty more
profound than a mere mental conviction, that this lighted house
contained, for her, all the joy and tragedy of human experience; that
her life would be interwoven with these other lives as closely as
branches of trees in a forest. The appeal of Mrs. Blackburn had stirred
her heart and intensified her perceptions. From the bleakness of the
last seven years, she had awakened with revived emotions.
"It is just my fancy," she thought, "but I feel as if something
wonderful had really happened--as if life were beginning all over again
to-night."
The words were still in her mind, when a child's laugh rang out from a
window below, and the figure of a man passed from the outlying obscurity
across the illuminated grass. Though he moved so hurriedly out of the
light, she caught the suggestion of a smile; and she had a singular
feeling that he was the same man, and yet not the same man, that she had
seen in the motor.
"I do hope I shan't have to meet him to-night," she repeated at the very
instant that a knock fell on her door, and an old coloured woman came in
to bring a message from Mrs. Blackburn.
She was a benevolent looking, aristocratic negress, with a fine, glossy
skin as brown as a chestnut, and traces of Indian blood in her high
cheekbones. A white handkerchief was bound over her head like a turban,
and her black bombazine dress hung in full, stately folds from her
narrow waist line. For a minute, before delivering her message, she
peered gravely at Caroline by the dim light of the window.
"Ain't you Miss Carrie Warwick's chile, honey? You ax 'er ef'n she's
done forgot de Fitzhugh chillun's mammy? I riz all er de Fitzhugh
chillun."
"Then you must be Mammy Riah? Mother used to tell me about you when I
was a little girl. You told stories just like Bible ones."
"Dat's me, honey, en I sutney is glad ter see you. De chillun dey wuz
al'ays pesterin' me 'bout dose Bible stories jes' exactly de way Letty
wuz doin' dis ve'y mawnin'."
"Tell me something about the little girl. Is she really ill?" asked
Caroline; and it occurred to her, as she put the question, that it was
strange nobody had mentioned the child's malady. Here again the darkness
and mystery of the house she had imagined--that house which was so
unlike Briarlay--reacted on her mind.
The old negress chuckled softly. "Naw'm, she ain' sick, dat's jes' some
er Miss Angy's foolishness. Dar ain' nuttin' in de worl' de matter wid
Letty 'cep'n de way dey's brung 'er up. You cyarn' raise a colt ez ef'n
hit wuz a rabbit, en dar ain' no use'n tryin'." Then she remembered her
message. "Miss Angy sez she sutney would be erbleeged ter you ef'n you
'ould come erlong down ter dinner wid de res' un um. Miss Molly Waver's
done 'phone she cyarn' come, en dar ain' nobody else in de house ez kin
set in her place."
For an instant Caroline hesitated. "If I go down, I'll have to meet Mr.
Blackburn," she said under her breath.
A gleam of humour shot into the old woman's eyes.
"Marse David! Go 'way f'om yer, chile, whut you skeered er Marse David
fur?" she rejoined. "He ain' gwine ter hu't you."