CAROLINE MAKES DISCOVERIES
At four o'clock Daisy Colfax rushed off to a committee meeting at
Briarlay ("something very important, though I can't remember just which
one it is"), and an hour later Caroline followed her in Blackburn's car,
with Letty lying fast asleep in her arms.
"I am going to do all I can to make it easier for Mrs. Blackburn," she
thought. "I don't care how rude he is to me if he will only spare her. I
am stronger than she is, and I can bear it better." Already it seemed to
her that this beautiful unhappy woman filled a place in her life, that
she would be willing to make any sacrifice, to suffer any humiliation,
if she could only help her.
Suddenly Letty stirred and put up a thin little hand. "I like you, Miss
Meade," she said drowsily. "I like you because you are pretty and you
laugh. Mammy says mother never laughs, that she only smiles. Why is
that?"
"I suppose she doesn't think things funny, darling."
"When father laughs out loud she tells him to stop. She says it hurts
her."
"Well, she isn't strong, you know. She is easily hurt."
"I am not strong either, but I like to laugh," said the child in her
quaint manner. "Mammy says there isn't anybody's laugh so pretty as
yours. It sounds like music."
"Then I must laugh a great deal for you, Letty, and the more we laugh
together the happier we'll be, shan't we?"
As the car turned into the lane, where the sunlight fell in splinters
over the yellow leaves, a man in working clothes appeared suddenly from
under the trees. For an instant he seemed on the point of stopping them;
then lowering the hand he had raised, he bowed hurriedly, and passed on
at a brisk walk toward the road.
"His name is Ridley, I know him," said Letty. "Mother took me with her
one day when she went to see his children. He has six children, and one
is a baby. They let me hold it, but I like a doll better because dolls
don't wriggle." Then, as the motor raced up the drive and stopped in
front of the porch, she sat up and threw off the fur robe. "There are
going to be cream puffs for tea, and mammy said I might have one. Do you
think mother will mind if I go into the drawing-room? She is having a
meeting."
"I don't know, dear. Is it a very important meeting?"
"It must be," replied Letty, "or mother wouldn't have it. Everything she
has is important." As the door opened, she inquired of the servant,
"Moses, do you think this is a very important meeting?"
Moses, a young light-coloured negro, answered solemnly, "Hit looks dat
ar way ter me, Miss Letty, caze Patrick's jes' done fotched up de las'
plate uv puffs. Dose puffs wuz gwine jes' as fast ez you kin count de
las' time I tuck a look at um, en de ladies dey wuz all a-settin' roun'
in va' yous attitudes en eatin' um up like dey tasted moughty good."
"Then I'm going in," said the child promptly. "You come with me, Miss
Meade. Mother won't mind half so much if you are with me." And grasping
Caroline's hand she led the way to the drawing-room. "I hope they have
left one," she whispered anxiously, "but meetings always seem to make
people so hungry."
In the back drawing-room, where empty cups and plates were scattered
about on little tables, Angelica was sitting in a pink and gold chair
that vaguely resembled a throne. She wore a street gown of blue velvet,
and beneath a little hat of dark fur, her hair folded softly on her
temples. At the first glance Caroline could see that she was tired and
nervous, and her pensive eyes seemed to plead with the gaily chattering
women about her. "Of course, if you really think it will help the
cause," she was saying deprecatingly; then as Letty entered, she broke
off and held out her arms. "Did you have a good time, darling?"
The child went slowly forward, shaking hands politely with the guests
while her steady gaze, so like her father's, sought the tea table. "May
I have a puff and a tart too, mother?" she asked as she curtseyed to
Mrs. Ashburton.
"No, only one, dear, but you may choose."
"Then I'll choose a puff because it is bigger." She was a good child,
and when the tart was forbidden her, she turned her back on the plate
with a determined gesture. "I saw the man, mother--the one with the
baby. He was in the lane."
"I know, dear. He came to ask your father to take him back in the works.
Perhaps if you were to go into the library and ask him very gently, he
would do it. It is the case I was telling you about, a most distressing
one," explained Angelica to Mrs. Ashburton. "Of course David must have
reason on his side or he wouldn't take the stand that he does. I suppose
the man does drink and stir up trouble, but we women have to think of so
much besides mere justice. We have to keep close to the human part that
men are so apt to overlook." There was a writing tablet on her knee, and
while she spoke, she leaned earnestly forward, and made a few straggling
notes with a yellow pencil which was blunt at the point. Even her
efficiency--and as a chairman she was almost as efficient as Mrs.
Ashburton--was clothed in sweetness. As she sat there, holding the blunt
pencil in her delicate, blue-veined hand, she appeared to be bracing
herself, with a tremendous effort of will, for some inexorable demand of
duty. The tired droop of her figure, the shadow under her eyes, the
pathetic little lines that quivered about her mouth--these things, as
well as the story of her loveless marriage, awakened Caroline's pity.
"She bears it so beautifully," she thought, with a rush of generous
emotion. "I have never seen any one so brave and noble. I believe she
never thinks of herself for a minute."
"I always feel," observed Mrs. Ashburton, in her logical way which was
trying at times, "that a man ought to be allowed to attend to his own
business."
A pretty woman, with a sandwich in her hand, turned from the tea table
and remarked lightly, "Heaven knows it is the last privilege of which I
wish to deprive him!" Her name was Mallow, and she was a new-comer of
uncertain origin, who had recently built a huge house, after the Italian
style, on the Three Chopt Road. She was very rich, very smart, very
dashing, and though her ancestry was dubious, both her house and her
hospitality were authentic. Alan had once said of her that she kept her
figure by climbing over every charity in town; but Alan's wit was
notoriously malicious.
"In a case like this, don't you think, dear Mrs. Ashburton, that a woman
owes a duty to humanity?" asked Angelica, who liked to talk in general
terms of the particular instance. "Miss Meade, I am sure, will agree
with me. It is so important to look after the children."
"But there are so many children one might look after," replied Caroline
gravely; then feeling that she had not responded generously to
Angelica's appeal, she added, "I think it is splendid of you, perfectly
splendid to feel the way that you do."
"That is so sweet of you," murmured Angelica gratefully, while Mrs.
Aylett, a lovely woman, with a face like a magnolia flower and a
typically Southern voice, said gently, "I, for one, have always found
Angelica's unselfishness an inspiration. With her delicate health, it is
simply marvellous the amount of good she is able to do. I can never
understand how she manages to think of so many things at the same
moment." She also held a pencil in her gloved hand, and wrote earnestly,
in illegible figures, on the back of a torn envelope.
"Of course, we feel that!" exclaimed the other six or eight women in an
admiring chorus. "That is why we are begging her to be in these
tableaux."
It was a high-minded, unselfish group, except for Mrs. Mallow, who was
hungry, and Daisy Colfax, who displayed now and then an inclination to
giddiness. Not until Caroline had been a few minutes in the room did she
discover that the committee had assembled to arrange an entertainment
for the benefit of the Red Cross. Though Mrs. Blackburn was zealous as
an organizer, she confined her activities entirely to charitable
associations and disapproved passionately of women who "interfered" as
she expressed it "with public matters." She was disposed by nature to
vague views and long perspectives, and instinctively preferred, except
when she was correcting an injustice of her husband's, to right the
wrongs in foreign countries.
"Don't you think she would make an adorable Peace?" asked Mrs. Aylett of
Caroline.
"I really haven't time for it," said Angelica gravely, "but as you say,
Milly dear, the cause is everything, and then David always likes me to
take part in public affairs."
A look of understanding rippled like a beam of light over the faces of
the women, and Caroline realized without being told that Mrs. Blackburn
was overtaxing her strength in deference to her husband's wishes. "I
suppose like most persons who haven't always had things he is mad about
society."
"I've eaten it all up, mother," said Letty in a wistful voice. "It
tasted very good."
"Did it, darling? Well, now I want you to go and ask your father about
poor Ridley and his little children. You must ask him very sweetly, and
perhaps he won't refuse. You would like to do that, wouldn't you?"
"May I take Miss Meade with me?"
"Yes, she may go with you. There, now, run away, dear. Mother is so busy
helping the soldiers she hasn't time to talk to you."
"Why are you always so busy, mother?"
"She is so busy because she is doing good every minute of her life,"
said Mrs. Aylett. "You have an angel for a mother, Letty."
The child turned to her with sudden interest. "Is father an angel too?"
she inquired.
A little laugh, strangled abruptly in a cough, broke from Daisy Colfax,
while Mrs. Mallow hastily swallowed a cake before she buried her flushed
face in her handkerchief. Only Mrs. Aylett, without losing her
composure, remarked admiringly, "That's a pretty dress you have on,
Letty."
"Now run away, dear," urged Angelica in a pleading tone, and the child,
who had been stroking her mother's velvet sleeve, moved obediently to
the door before she looked back and asked, "Aren't you coming too, Miss
Meade?"
"Yes, I'm coming too," answered Caroline, and while she spoke she felt
that she had never before needed so thoroughly the discipline of the
hospital. As she put her arm about Letty's shoulders, and crossed the
hall to Blackburn's library, she hoped passionately that he would not be
in the room. Then Letty called out "father!" in a clear treble, and
almost immediately the door opened, and Blackburn stood on the
threshold.
"Do you want to come in?" he asked. "I've got a stack of work ahead, but
there is always time for a talk with you."
He turned back into the room, holding Letty by the hand, and as Caroline
followed silently, she noticed that he seemed abstracted and worried,
and that his face, when he glanced round at her, looked white and tired.
The red-brown flush of the morning had faded, and he appeared much
older.
"Won't you sit down," he asked, and then he threw himself into a chair,
and added cheerfully, "What is it, daughter? Have you a secret to tell
me?"
Against the rich brown of the walls his head stood out, clear and fine,
and something in its poise, and in the backward sweep of his hair, gave
Caroline an impression of strength and swiftness as of a runner who is
straining toward an inaccessible goal. For the first time since she had
come to Briarlay he seemed natural and at ease in his surroundings--in
the midst of the old books, the old furniture, the old speckled
engravings--and she understood suddenly why Colonel Ashburton had called
him an idealist. With the hardness gone from his eyes and the restraint
from his thin-lipped, nervous mouth, he looked, as the Colonel had said
of him, "on fire with ideas." He had evidently been at work, and the
fervour of his mood was still visible in his face.
"Father, won't you please give Ridley his work again?" said the child.
"I don't want his little children to be hungry." As she stood there at
his knee, with her hands on his sleeve and her eyes lifted to his, she
was so much like him in every feature that Caroline found herself
vaguely wondering where the mother's part in her began. There was
nothing of Angelica's softness in that intense little face, with its
look of premature knowledge.
Bending over he lifted her to his knee, and asked patiently, "If I tell
you why I can't take him back, Letty, will you try to understand?"
She nodded gravely. "I don't want the baby to be hungry."
For a moment he gazed over her head through the long windows that opened
on the terrace. The sun was just going down, and beyond the cluster of
junipers the sky was turning slowly to orange.
"Miss Meade," he said abruptly, looking for the first time in Caroline's
face, "would you respect a man who did a thing he believed to be unjust
because someone he loved had asked him to?"
For an instant the swiftness of the question--the very frankness and
simplicity of it--took Caroline's breath away. She was sitting straight
and still in a big leather chair, and she seemed to his eyes a different
creature from the woman he had watched in the garden that morning. Her
hair was smooth now under her severe little hat, her face was composed
and stern, and for the moment her look of radiant energy was veiled by
the quiet capability of her professional manner.
"I suppose not," she answered fearlessly, "if one is quite sure that the
thing is unjust."
"In this case I haven't a doubt. The man is a firebrand in the works. He
drinks, and breeds lawlessness. There are men in jail now who would be
at work but for him, and they also have families. If I take him back
there are people who would say I do it for a political reason."
"Does that matter? It seems to me nothing matters except to be right."
He smiled, and she wondered how she could have thought that he looked
older. "Yes, if I am right, nothing else matters, and I know that I am
right." Then looking down at Letty, he said more slowly, "My child, I
know another family of little children without a father. Wouldn't you
just as soon go to see these children?"
"Is there a baby? A very small baby?"
"Yes, there is a baby. I am sending the elder children to school, and
one of the girls is old enough to learn stenography. The father was a
good man and a faithful worker. When he died he asked me to look after
his family."
"Then why doesn't Mrs. Blackburn know about them?" slipped from
Caroline's lips. "Why hasn't any one told her?"
The next instant she regretted the question, but before she could speak
again Blackburn answered quietly, "She is not strong, and already she
has more on her than she should have undertaken."
"Her sympathy is so wonderful!" Almost in spite of her will, against her
instinct for reticence where she distrusted, against the severe code of
her professional training, she began by taking Mrs. Blackburn's side in
the household.
"Yes, she is wonderful." His tone was conventional, yet if he had adored
his wife he could scarcely have said more to a stranger.
There was a knock at the door, and Mammy Riah inquired querulously
through the crack, "Whar you, Letty? Ain't you comin' ter git yo'
supper?"
"I'm here, I'm coming," responded Letty. As she slid hurriedly from her
father's knees, she paused long enough to whisper in his ear, "Father,
what shall I tell mother when she asks me?"
"Tell her, Letty, that I cannot do it because it would not be fair."
"Because it would not be fair," repeated the child obediently as she
reached for Caroline's hand. "Miss Meade is going to have supper with
me, father. We are going to play that it is a party and let all the
dolls come, and she will have bread and milk just as I do."
"Will she?" said Blackburn, with a smile. "Then I'd think she'd be
hungry before bed-time."
Though he spoke pleasantly, Caroline was aware that his thoughts had
wandered from them, and that he was as indifferent to her presence as he
was to the faint lemon-coloured light streaming in at the window. It
occurred to her suddenly that he had never really looked at her, and
that if they were to meet by accident in the road he would not recognize
her. She had never seen any one with so impersonal a manner--so encased
and armoured in reserve--and she began to wonder what he was like under
that impenetrable surface? "I should like to hear him speak," she
thought, "to know what he thinks and feels about the things he cares
for--about politics and public questions." He stood up as she rose, and
for a minute before Letty drew her from the room, he smiled down on the
child. "If I were Miss Meade, I'd demand more than bread and milk at
your party, Letty." Then he turned away, and sat down again at his
writing table.
An hour or two later, when Letty's supper was over, Angelica came in to
say good-night before she went out to dinner. She was wearing an evening
wrap of turquoise velvet and ermine, and a band of diamonds encircled
the golden wings on her temples. Her eyes shone like stars, and there
was a misty brightness in her face that made her loveliness almost
unearthly. The fatigue of the afternoon had vanished, and she looked as
young and fresh as a girl.
"I hope you are comfortable, Miss Meade," she said, with the manner of
considerate gentleness which had won Caroline from the first. "I told
Fanny to move you into the little room next to Letty's."
"Yes, I am quite comfortable. I like to sleep where she can call me."
The child was undressing, and as her mother bent over her, she put up
her bare little arms to embrace her. "You smell so sweet, mother, just
like lilacs."
"Do I, darling? There, don't hug me so tight or you'll rumple my hair.
Did you ask your father about Ridley?"
"He won't do it. He says he won't do it because it wouldn't be fair." As
Letty repeated the message she looked questioningly into Mrs.
Blackburn's face. "Why wouldn't it be fair, mother?"
"He will have to tell you, dear, I can't." Drawing back from the child's
arms, she arranged the ermine collar over her shoulders. "We must do all
we can to help them, Letty. Now, kiss me very gently, and try to sleep
well."
She went out, leaving a faint delicious trail of lilacs in the air, and
while Caroline watched Mammy Riah slip the night-gown over Letty's
shoulders, her thoughts followed Angelica down the circular drive,
through the lane, and on the road to the city. She was fascinated, yet
there was something deeper and finer than fascination in the emotion
Mrs. Blackburn awakened. There was tenderness in it and there was
romance; but most of all there was sympathy. In Caroline's narrow and
colourless life, so rich in character, so barren of incident, this
sympathy was unfolding like some rare and exquisite blossom.
"Did you ever see any one in your life look so lovely?" she asked
enthusiastically of Mammy Riah.
The old woman was braiding Letty's hair into a tight little plait, which
she rolled over at the end and tied up with a blue ribbon. "I wan' bawn
yestiddy, en I reckon I'se done seen er hull pa'cel un um," she replied.
"Miss Angy's de patte'n uv whut 'er ma wuz befo' 'er. Dar ain' never
been a Fitzhugh yit dat wan't ez purty ez a pictur w'en dey wuz young,
en Miss Angy she is jes' like all de res' un um. But she ain' been riz
right, dat's de gospel trufe, en I reckon ole Miss knows hit now way up
yonder in de Kingdom Come. Dey hed a w'ite nuss to nuss 'er de same ez
dey's got for Letty heah, en dar ain' never been a w'ite nuss yit ez
could raise a chile right, nairy a one un um."
"But I thought you nursed all the Fitzhughs? Why did they have a white
nurse for Mrs. Blackburn?"
"Dy wuz projeckin', honey, like dey is projeckin' now wid dis yer chile.
Atter I done nuss five er dem chillun ole Miss begun ter git sort er
flighty in her haid, en ter go plum 'stracted about sto' physick en real
doctahs. Stop yo' foolishness dis minute, Letty. You git spang out er
dat baid befo' I mek you, en say yo' pray'rs. Yas'm, hit's de gospel
trufe, I'se tellin' you," she concluded as Letty jumped obediently out
of bed and prepared to kneel down on the rug. "Ef'n dey hed lemme raise
Miss Angy de fambly wouldn't hev run ter seed de way hit did atter old
Marster died, en dar 'ouldn't be dese yer low-lifeted doin's now wid
Marse David."
Later in the night, lying awake and restless in the little room next to
Letty's, Caroline recalled the old woman's comment. Though she had
passionately taken Angelica's side, it was impossible for her to deny
that both Mrs. Timberlake and Mammy Riah appeared to lean
sympathetically at least in the direction of Blackburn. There was
nothing definite--nothing particularly suggestive even--to which she
could point; yet, in spite of her prejudice, in spite of the sinister
stories which circulated so freely in Richmond, she was obliged to admit
that the two women who knew Angelica best--the dependent relative and
the old negress--did not espouse her cause so ardently as did the
adoring committee. "The things they say must be true. Such dreadful
stories could never have gotten out unless something or somebody had
started them. It is impossible to look in Mrs. Blackburn's face and not
see that she is a lovely character, and that she is very unhappy." Then
a reassuring thought occurred to her, for she remembered that her mother
used to say that a negro mammy always took the side of the father in any
discussion. "It must be the same thing here with Mrs. Timberlake and
Mammy Riah. They are so close to Mrs. Blackburn that they can't see how
lovely she is. It is like staying too long in the room with an exquisite
perfume. One becomes at last not only indifferent, but insensible to its
sweetness." Closing her eyes, she resolutely put the question away,
while she lived over again, in all its varied excitement, her first day
at Briarlay. The strangeness of her surroundings kept her awake, and it
seemed to her, as she went over the last twenty-four hours, that she was
years older than she had been when she left The Cedars. Simply meeting
Mrs. Blackburn, she told herself again, was a glorious adventure; it was
like seeing and speaking to one of the heroines in the dingy old volumes
in her father's library. And the thought that she could really serve
her, that she could understand and sympathize where Mrs. Timberlake and
Mammy Riah failed, that she could, by her strength and devotion, lift a
share of the burden from Angelica's shoulders--the thought of these
things shed an illumination over the bare road of the future. She would
do good, she resolved, and in doing good, she would find happiness. The
clock struck eleven; she heard the sound of the returning motor; and
then, with her mind filled with visions of usefulness, she dropped off
to sleep.
It might have been a minute later, it might have been hours, when she
was awakened by Letty's voice screaming in terror. Jumping out of bed,
Caroline slipped into the wrapper of blue flannel Diana had made for
her, and touching the electric button, flooded the nursery with light.
Sitting very erect, with wide-open vacant eyes, and outstretched arms,
Letty was uttering breathless, distracted shrieks. Her face was frozen
into a mask, and the bones of her thin little body quivered through the
cambric of her night-gown. As the shadows leaped out on the walls, which
were covered with garlands of pink and blue flowers, she shuddered and
crouched back under the blankets.
"I am here, Letty! I am here, darling!" cried Caroline, kneeling beside
the bed, and at the same instant the door opened, and Mammy Riah, half
dressed, and without wig or turban, came in muttering, "I'se coming,
honey! I'se coming, my lamb!"
Without noticing them, the child cried out in a loud, clear voice,
"Where is father? I want father to hold me! I want my father!" Then the
terror swept over her again like some invisible enemy, and her cries
became broken and inarticulate.
"Is she often like this?" asked Caroline of the old woman. "I can't hold
her. I am afraid she will have a convulsion." With her arms about
Letty, who moaned and shivered in her grasp, she added, "Letty, darling,
shall I send for your mother?"
"Dar ain' but one thing dat'll quiet dis chile," said the old negress,
"en dat is Marse David. I'se gwine atter Marse David."
She hobbled out in her lint slippers, while the girl held Letty closer,
and murmured a hundred soothing words in her ear. "You may have father
and mother too," she said, "you may have everyone, dear, if only you
won't be frightened."
"I don't want everyone. I want father," cried the child, with a storm of
sobs. "I want father because I am afraid. I want him to keep me from
being afraid." Then, as the door opened, and Blackburn came into the
room, she held out her arms, and said in a whisper, like the moan of a
small hurt animal, "I thought you had gone away, father, and I was
afraid of the dark."
Without speaking, Blackburn crossed the room, and dropping into a chair
by the bed, laid his arm across the child's shoulders. At his touch her
cries changed into shivering sobs which grew gradually fainter, and
slipping back on the pillows, she looked with intent, searching eyes in
his face. "You haven't gone away, father?"
"No, I haven't gone anywhere. You were dreaming."
Clasping his hand, she laid her cheek on it, and nestled under the
cover. "I am afraid to go to sleep because I dream such ugly dreams."
"Dreams can't hurt you, Letty. No matter how ugly they are, they are
only dreams."
His voice was low and firm, and at the first sound of it the pain and
fear faded from Letty's face. "Were you asleep, father?"
"No, I was at work. I am writing a speech. It is twelve o'clock, but I
had not gone to bed." He spoke quite reasonably as if she were a grown
person, and Caroline asked herself if this explained his power over the
child. There was no hint of stooping, no pretense of childish words or
phrases. He looked very tired and deep lines showed in his face, but
there was an inexhaustible patience in his manner. For the first time
she thought of him as a man who carried a burden. His very shadow, which
loomed large and black on the flowered wall paper, appeared, while she
watched it, to bend beneath the pressure of an invisible weight.
"Has mother come in?" asked Letty in a still whisper.
"Yes, she has gone to bed. You must not wake your mother."
"I'll try not to," answered the child, and a minute afterwards she said
with a yawn, "I feel sleepy now, father. I'd like to go to sleep, if
you'll sit by me."
He laughed. "I'll sit by you, if you'll let Miss Meade and Mammy Riah go
to bed."
As if his laugh had driven the last terror from her mind, Letty made a
soft, breathless sound of astonishment. "Miss Meade has got on a
wrapper," she said, "and her hair is plaited just like mine only there
isn't any ribbon. Mammy Riah, do you think my hair would stay plaited
like that if it wasn't tied?"
The old woman grunted. "Ef'n you don' shet yo' mouf, I'se gwine ter send
Marse David straight down agin whar he b'longs."
"Well, I'll go to sleep," replied Letty, in her docile way; and a
minute later, she fell asleep with her cheek on her father's hand.
For a quarter of an hour longer Blackburn sat there without stirring,
while Caroline put out the high lights and turned on the shaded lamp by
the bed. Then, releasing himself gently, he stood up and said in a
whisper, "I think she is all right now." His back was to the lamp, and
Caroline saw his face by the dim flicker of the waning fire.
"I shall stay with her," she responded in the same tone.
"It is not necessary. After an attack like this she sleeps all night
from exhaustion. She seems fast asleep, but if you have trouble again
send for me."
He moved softly to the door, and as Caroline looked after him, she found
herself asking resentfully, "I wonder why Letty cried for her father?"