"Rosemary is coming back here to live. Her husband is a Christian Scientist, and has gone into business in New York, so I know she will help me, but, oh, Carolina, you will never know how I miss you! New York is not the same place since you left it. You have such a way of dominating every spot you are in by your own personality. Does this hot air sound natural from Kate Howard?
"I am crazy-fairly daffy-over your success in the turpentine, and daddy goes around swelling out his chest and strutting like a turkey gobbler. Why, Carolina, do you realize that you will not only make yourself rich and anybody you choose to let into the game, but that you will be opening up by force, so to speak, with your Educational Turpentine Corner, an industry which will revolutionize the entire turpentine pine country? It is a big project, my dear, to have emanated from the brain of a woman. But, oh, won't the papers fairly eat you raw!
"I will attend to all the commissions you sent and bring the stuff down in the car. A good many of us want newer and finer editions of 'Science and Health,' and, if you utterly refuse to make presents of them for the good of the cause, we will sell our old books at whatever you think your friends can afford to pay. I agree with you that it is better to make them pay something for them.
"Rawlins, our butler, and two of the footmen go regularly to the Christian Science church, and Rawlins has been healed of intemperance through Mrs. Goddard's butler. Perkins says he owes his conversion to the day Gladys Yancey walked across the floor for Noel's doll. So you see we all had a hand in the work you started, and a little leaven is leavening the whole lump.
"Oh, Carolina, you know how discontented and fractious I used to be? Well, it is all gone, – all the fear, the dread of the unknown, the unhappiness, and the temper, and I am happy for the first time in my life!
"But now good-bye, my dearest friend. I am bringing some dandy glad rags with which to astonish the natives. Tell Peachie that I go to every sale I hear of, and that I am bringing her and Flower some of the dearest little inexpensive remnants they ever saw. Bless those girls! It sorta makes my old heart ache to think they haven't the clothes they need to set off their good looks.
"Again good-bye. Best love to Cousin Lois and yourself from all of us. And I am as ever your slave. KATE."
CHAPTER XIX
THE FEAR
Carolina had not been a week among her kinsmen before they began to warn her of the terror of the South. They definitely forbade her ever riding alone, except in broad daylight along the public highway, and even then some white man of her acquaintance generally made it his business to be called in whatever direction she happened to be going.
All this Carolina saw and felt and appreciated, but with the natural fearlessness of her character and the total want of comprehension which women seem to feel who have never come into contact with this universal dread of all Southern States, Carolina often forgot her warnings, and tempted opportunity by striking off the highway into the pine woods to inspect her turpentine camps.
Once Moultrie La Grange found her unaccompanied by any white man, talking to a burly negro in a camp, and when he had taken her away and they had gained the road where she could see distinctly, she found him white and shaking. Knowing his physical courage, this exhibition of fear startled her, and for a few weeks she was more cautious.
Then one afternoon she mounted Scintilla and rode into Enterprise for the mail. She received the letter from Kate which has just been quoted and read it as she rode along. It contained so much food for thought that Carolina forgot everything else, until, looking up, she found that she was just opposite the new terrapin crawl she was having prepared under Moultrie's direction. Without thinking, she struck into the woods and threaded her way among the giant pine-trees toward the coast.
It was virgin forest and on her own land, a tract she intended leasing to some orchard turpentine factors in Jacksonville. It was twilight in the forest, but Carolina rode forward fearlessly, glancing sharply at the trees for signs of their having been boxed by thieving negroes.
Suddenly she saw a boxed tree, and, springing down, she drew Scintilla's bridle over her arm and stooped to examine the suspected tree. As she was bending down, Scintilla jerked her head, and the bridle slipped from Carolina's arm. She sprang to her feet, but, with a nicker of delight, the handsome horse kicked up her heels and pranced away from her, looking for all the world like a child ready for a romp.
So free from fear she was that Carolina laughed aloud, but the laugh froze on her lips, for, without turning her head, she could see, crouching down and creeping toward her, the huge form of a negro man, whose half-open mouth and half-closed eyes, as he stole noiselessly closer and closer, instantly told her of her dire peril.
The girl's whole body became rigid with terror, – a terror so intense and so unspeakable that she realized how it was that women can go mad from the effect of it. In a moment, every warning, every hint, every word that she had heard on the subject flashed through her brain with lightning quickness. An intense silence reigned in the forest, broken only by Scintilla's cropping a stray tuft of spring grass and the footsteps of the black creeping nearer to his white prey.
Carolina never thought of screaming. No white man was within a mile of her. Oh, for Moultrie, – Moultrie, who had saved her once before! A sick feeling came over her-things began to swim before her eyes-she swayed-and at the sight of her weakness the negro stood upright.
He was no longer a crawling horror. He was a man, and her God was at hand!
The girl smote her hands together. "His truth shall be thy shield!" "God is my all!" "He is my rock and my fortress!" "Thou shalt call upon me and I will answer!" "Fear not, for I am with thee!" Detached sentences, phrases, half-sentences fell from her lips in frozen whispers. But the man stood still. He was no longer crawling toward her. And they stood looking at each other. He had queer eyes, – one blue and one black-where had she heard of such eyes-where had she seen this very man?
"'Polyte!" she cried.
Instantly the white woman got the ascendency over the black blood of the man.
"'Polyte, do you know who you are? You are the son of my father's nurse! Your mother was my father's black mammy!"
The assurance, even the confidence, left the man's manner. His shoulders drooped perceptibly. He took a backward step. Surely she did not know what he was or she would not speak to him except to scream for help.
"Do you know who I am?"
"Yas, missis."
"You don't know how you frightened me, until I saw who you were. Then I knew that you would catch Scintilla for me. Mr. Moultrie has told me what a way you have with animals."
In an instant the man was her servant, the son of her grandfather's slave. His fear of detection and punishment left him, and he was quick enough to know that her supposed ignorance of his intentions had saved him from a horrible death. He was a bad negro partly because he was so intelligent.
"I'll git her for you. Jes' watch me!"
He turned eagerly toward the horse and snapped his fingers. Scintilla raised her head and began to step gingerly toward the man. 'Polyte's power over animals may have been hypnotism, but to Carolina it was like magic to see Scintilla's bridle in 'Polyte's hand. The man proudly led the mare to her.
"Help me to mount," said Carolina, her shaking knees threatening every minute to give way beneath her. "No, hold your hand, and when I put my foot in it, you lift me. There!"
Once on her horse's back, Carolina felt her heart begin to beat with less noise. It seemed as if he could see how it pounded against her side.
"'Polyte," she said, "you are what people call a bad man. You have been bleeding my trees, and I don't know what all. Why don't you behave?"
The man kicked at a tuft of moss.
"Nobody won't hire me, Miss Calline. Ise done been in de chain-gang too often. Nobody won' trus' me!"
"Well, if I will trust you, for the sake of your dead mother, will you be good and faithful to me?"
The man's face lighted up. He took a step toward her.
"Will I? Miss Calline, on'y jes' try me! I kin do anyt'in'!"
"I believe you. Well, I'm going to try you. I want you to be my-well, my body-servant. To go everywhere I go and take care of me-so-I-won't-be-frightened-again. Will you?"
The man's eyes wavered in momentary terror. But he kept his head.
"On'y jes' try me!"
"I'm going to. But you must have a horse to ride. Look out for a good one, and one for me, too. You must get me, 'Polyte, the best saddle-horse in South Carolina!"
"Yas'm. I'll do my bes'. I kin git you a hawse."
"I'll pay you good wages, 'Polyte. But you mustn't drink. If a lady hires you, you can never get drunk, you know."
"I'll tek de pledge."
"Take any pledge that you can keep," said Carolina. She gathered up the reins and turned her horse. The man took a step nearer.
"Well, 'Polyte?"
"Miss Calline-"
"Well?"
"Nobody ain't ever trusted me befo'!"
"Well?"
"Not even my ole mammy. She voodooed me. She said I brought her bad luck, an' everybody tuk up de bad word agin me-"
"Well?"
"Even when I was a child, dey laid ever'thin' awn to me."
"I know."
"Well, you say ''Polyte, I trus' you. You tek care ob me.'"
"Yes, that is what I say."
"Well, Miss Calline,
you gwine be teken cah ob
!"
"I am sure of it. Good-bye, 'Polyte."
As she rode away, Carolina's shoulders drooped until she seemed fairly to shrink in her saddle.
"If he had touched me-oh, my God! – if he had touched me, I would have killed myself!"
She bowed her face in her hands, and the bitter tears streamed through her fingers.
She strove to think-to quiet herself-no one must know. Suddenly she heard the hoof-beats of a horse behind her. She dashed away her tears and straightened herself in her saddle. If any white man suspected the cause of her agitation, a human life-the life of some black man-would pay the forfeit. 'Polyte's life was in her keeping. She began to think of him as her property, – a human soul given into her power until it could be saved through her ministrations. God help him to have got away! God protect him! Black or white, he was God's child! The tear-stained face of a white woman, – a woman riding alone?
Scintilla had never felt a spur before in her life. Carolina knew it by her snort of fright and surprise. But she needed her best speed to draw away from the avenging white man on her track.
In her stall that night, Scintilla knew that there was a sharp-toothed animal which had bitten her twice in one short ride. She had tried to run away from it, but it was fastened to a woman's heel.
CHAPTER XX
MOULTRIE
It was the last of March. Spring, which comes so early in the South, was already in the fulfilment of her promise, and no lovelier spot could be found than that portion of South Carolina which contains the estates of Guildford, Sunnymede, and Whitehall.
Carolina, although working hard all of every day and often far into some nights, was happier than she had ever been in her life. She was free from the persecutions of Colonel Yancey at last. Little Gladys was now perfectly healed and as active as other children. Moultrie was proving a most eager and progressive student of Christian Science, and, while most of his narrowness and astonishing ignorance was still painfully in evidence at times when discussions of import took place, yet Carolina held faithfully to the thought that perfect harmony must result in time, and that such a fine mind as he naturally possessed must yield to the enlightenment which most men inherit. Instead of this, however, Moultrie La Grange inherited prejudices which had dwarfed and hampered his mental and spiritual advancement, and which mere friends overlooked. But to Carolina, who loved him, they were heart-breaking. It was as impossible to discuss history with most of her relatives as to expect them to speak Chinese. In the country schools they used a history which described the Civil War as a series of rebel victories, and the outcome of the war was not accounted for in any way. Carolina, in reading the book at Moultrie's request, wondered if the pupils, after a study of its facts, did not question the sanity of Gen. Robert E. Lee for surrendering a victorious and a gloriously successful army to a conquered and outnumbered foe, simply because General Grant asked him to. When she handed the history back to Moultrie, Carolina said, sadly:
"I wonder what you will say when I tell you that my dear father, who was as loyal a Southerner as ever lived, and who entered the Confederate army when he was only sixteen years old, was engaged at the time of his death in an elaborate life of Abraham Lincoln, whom he regarded as the best friend the South ever had, and the noblest patriot America ever produced!"
The young man's face flushed with feeling, but he was too wise to express his bitter disagreement with Carolina's views.
But she knew how he felt and that, unless he deliberately determined to open his mind to the truth in every way, that she never could bring herself to marry him, and thus court discord in her daily life.
He did the best he could, but among his own people he passed muster as an unusually fine fellow, well-educated and progressive. It was only when brought into contact with a broad-minded, cultured young woman like Carolina that Moultrie's intellect showed its limitations. However, the fact that he was proud of his prejudices was the only alarming thing about the whole situation. Carolina saw his possibilities. She recognized his courage; she trusted in his capacity to rouse himself from his ignorance; she knew that he would some day awaken to the impression he made upon cultivated minds. And the more she yielded to his charm, to his chivalrous care of her, to the attraction his almost ideal beauty had for her, the more she was determined to save him in spite of himself. She knew that she could expect no help from his family, who idealized him just as he was, and who would have regarded an intimation that even a Benjamin Franklin would have found him crude, as sacrilege. Nor could relatives or friends avail, for did not all in his little community think as he did, and were not prejudices respected? No, she realized that she must save him unaided and alone. Therefore, when, in a burst of passion which nearly swept her off her feet and left her shaken and trembling, he asked her to marry him, she took her courage in both hands and refused.
He stared at her in a dismay so honest and unfeigned that she almost smiled. Then his face flushed, and he said, in a low, hurt tone:
"I understand. You have urged me to believe that Flower's ancestry was not the disgraceful thing I suspect, when you could not bring yourself to believe it. That can-that must be your only reason, for you love me, Carolina. You have shown me in a hundred ways that you liked my care of you; you have permitted my attentions, you have not discouraged my honest, ardent love, which every one has been a witness to. You do care for me! You cannot deny it."
"Moultrie," said the girl, slowly, "I do not wish to deny it. I never said I did not love you, for I love you more dearly than you know or than you ever will know. I said I would not marry you, but not, oh, not on Flower's account. I believe implicitly in all I have said of her. If that were all, I would marry you to-morrow. But that is not the reason."
"Then what is? Oh, Carolina, love,
love
!"
"You don't know me at all, Moultrie, or you would know what I am going to say."
"I reckon I don't, dear, for I haven't an idea of the reason."
"Well, it is because we never could be happy together, holding such different ideals and such different codes of honour. Colonel Yancey told my father in London that he would find the South heart-breaking, and it is."
The young man stared into her lovely face in a very genuine astonishment.
"Our codes of honour different, Carolina?" he said. "Oh, I hope not. I should be sorry to think that your code of honour differed from mine."
"And, dear friend-"
"Don't call me friend! I am not your friend! I am your lover!"
"No, let me call you friend, for that is all that I can call you at present. I should be sorry to hold a code of honour no higher than yours."
The slow, dark flush of pride and race rose in the man's fine face. Carolina was daring to say such words to a La Grange. But Carolina herself was a Lee.
"I should be sorry," said Carolina, deliberately, not waiting for his reply, "to be so narrow that I could refuse an offer to improve my land, denuded and mortgaged as it is, – an offer for the only rights I had left to sell, and which would give me plenty of money to enable me to restore the home of my ancestors, – simply because the syndicate furnishing the money was composed of Northern men, thus, for a senseless prejudice, compelling my mother and sister to eke out their income by sewing for
negroes
!"
Had Carolina struck him in the face, he could not have turned a whiter countenance upon her than he did. Twice he opened his lips to speak and twice closed them again with the futile words still unspoken. His hands were clenched at his side, his whole figure rigid with outraged pride. Yet he continued to look his accuser in the face, and Carolina honoured him for his courage even while she could see self-knowledge dawn and humiliation take the place of his dethroned pride. The first blow had been struck which was to unmask his pitiable attitude, – the attitude of the typical young Southerner of to-day, proud of his worn-out prejudices, and unaware that his very pride in them is in rags.
Carolina clasped her hands to hide their trembling. She could have cried out in pity for the suffering in the face of the man she loved, but she dared not speak one word of the sympathy her heart ached to show, for fear of undoing her work. Blindly she steeled herself for the words she feared would pour forth. Dully she wondered if, when they came, they would end everything between them, and preclude any possible overtures on her part when the leaven should have worked. But the words, bitter or otherwise, did not come. Still he simply stood and looked at her.
Then, with a gesture both graceful and dignified, he bent and took her hand and kissed it.
"I understand," he said, simply, and Carolina, turning away, albeit sick at heart, felt a dawning thrill of pride-her first-that she had come to love this man.
CHAPTER XXI
THE LIGHT BREAKS
One afternoon, a few days later, there came an hour of stifling heat, and Carolina, sitting in her little cottage room with "Science and Health" on her knees, heard the rise and fall of voices in earnest discussion, which seemed to come from the back porch. When she appeared at the door to ascertain who it was, she found Aunt Calla, the cook at Whitehall, and Aunt Tempy, Flower's baby's mammy, in animated conversation with Rose Maud, her own cook.
"Dar she is now!" exclaimed Calla. "Miss Calline, I was jes' awn my way over hyah to ax yoh advice as to what I shall do wid dat no 'count Lily ob mine, when erlong come Sis Tempy in de Barnwells' cah'yall, sent by Miss Flower to say will you please come over to see de baby right away, en Sis Tempy done fetch me wid her."
"Is anything wrong with the baby?" asked Carolina, quickly.
"No'm! no'm!" cried Tempy. "Miss Flowah got somepin' mighty fine to show you. Miss Callina, de lill fellah kin see!"
"Oh, Tempy, how glad I am to hear it!"
"Well'm, I reckon you is de one what otto hyah it fust," said the old woman, with a shrewd glance.
"Why, what do you mean?" asked Carolina.
The three women settled themselves with such an air of having come to the point that Carolina felt reasonably sure that they had been discussing the affair, and that further concealment was no longer of any avail. She was surprised to see that, instead of the hostility she had feared, each old woman had the appearance of eager curiosity if not of real interest.
"I means, Miss Callina, dat I believes-we all believes-dat you done kunjered" (conjured) "de chile en kyored him," said Calla.
"I ain't a-saying dat," put in Tempy. "I ain't a-saying but what you is raised de spell what de voodoo done put awn de chile."
"En I tells um, Miss Callina," ventured Rose Maud, Carolina's own cook, "dat hit's yoh new religion what done it, en I tole em I believed dat you is de Lawd Jesus come down to yearth de secon' time, wid power to heal de sick, to cast out debbils, en to raise de dead."
"Rose Maud, Jesus was a man, and you know that He will never take the form of a woman," said Carolina, "so don't ever say such a foolish thing again. But He gave that power to His disciples, and this new religion of mine you are talking about gives that same power both to men and women."
"Miss Callina," cried Tempy and Calla at the same time, "has you got dat power?"
"Ask Rose Maud," said Carolina.
"I done tole 'em, Miss Callina," cried Rose Maud. "But dey is bofe doubtin' Thomases. Dey won't believe until dey sees."
"Miss Callina," pleaded Calla, "I cain't believe jis' caze I
wants tuh so bad
. Ef you kin mek me believe, I would fall down awn my face wid joy. I ain't never been satisfied wid no religion. Sis Tempy will tell you. Ise done jined de chutch en fell from grace mo' times den I kin count. But, missy,
even niggers
want a trufe dat dey kin cling tuh!"
"Dat's a fack, Miss Callina!" broke in Aunt Tempy. "En ef you will jis' put awn yoh hat en go wid us in de Barnwells' cah'yall, en 'splain t'ings to us lake Jesus done when He tuk de walk to Emyus" (Emmaus), "you will be talkin' to thirsty sinners what are des a-begging of you fur de water ob life!"
Carolina remembered the great number of intelligent coloured faces which were scattered through the congregations of the beautiful white marble church, with its splendour and glory of stained glass, in New York, and she wondered if here, in the pleadings of these three fat old coloured women in the pine forest of South Carolina lay the answer to the great and ever burning question of the white man's burden. As she debated swiftly, her heart leaped to the task. It was not for her to refuse to spread the truth when it was so humbly and earnestly desired.
"Come then," she said, "ask me questions, and I will tell you the answers that my new religion teaches. You may come, too, Rose Maud."
The Barnwells' carryall went slowly out through the great avenue of live-oaks from Carolina's little cottage at Guildford into the "big road" which led to Sunnymede. But no one thought of the incongruity of the three old coloured women and Jake, letting the horses drive themselves, while he listened with pathetic eagerness to the clear, earnest tones of the white young lady, who simply and sincerely answered the questions all four asked of her with such painful anxiety and eager understanding.
Meanwhile the storm, which the intense heat presaged, gathered, and they hurried the horses in order