XV
DOROTHY’S CHOICE
T HE judge himself was not so stately or so imposing of presence as was Aunt Polly, when she and Dorothy entered the court, escorted by Col. Majors. Dorothy was entirely self possessed, as it was her custom to be under all circumstances. “When people feel embarrassed,” she once said, “it must be because they know something about themselves that they are afraid other people will find out.” As Dorothy knew nothing of that kind about herself, she had no foolish trepidation, even in the solemn presence of a court.
The judge ordered her case called, and speaking very gently explained to her what was wanted.
“You are a young girl under the age at which the law supposes you to be capable of managing your own affairs. The law makes it the duty of this Court to guard you and your estate against every danger. By his will your father wisely placed your person in charge of an eminently fit and proper lady, whose character and virtues this Court and the entire community in which we live, hold in the highest esteem and honour.” At this point the judge profoundly bowed to Aunt Polly, and she acknowledged the courtesy with stately grace. The judge then continued:
“By his will your father also placed the estate which he left to you, in charge of the late Mr. Robert Brent, a gentleman in every possible way worthy of the trust. Thus far, therefore, this Court has had no occasion to take action of any kind in your behalf or for your protection. Unhappily, however, your guardian, the late Robert Brent, has passed away, and it becomes now the duty of this Court to appoint some fit person in his stead as guardian of your estate. The Court has full authority in the matter. It may appoint whomsoever it chooses for this position of high responsibility. But it is the immemorial custom of the Court in cases where the ward in chancery has passed his or her sixteenth year – an age which you have attained – to permit the ward to make choice of a guardian for himself or herself, as the case may be. If the ward is badly advised, and selects a person whom the Court deems for any reason unfit, the Court declines to make the appointment asked, and itself selects some other. But if the person selected by the ward is deemed fit, the Court is pleased to confirm the choice. It is now my duty to ask you, Miss Dorothy, what person you prefer to have for guardian of your estate.”
“May I really choose for myself?” asked the girl in a clear and perfectly calm voice, to the astonishment of everybody.
“Certainly, Miss Dorothy. Whom do you choose?”
“Did my father say in his will that I must choose some particular person?” she continued, interrogating the Court as placidly as she might have put questions to Aunt Polly.
“No, my dear young lady. Your father’s will lays no injunction whatever upon you respecting this matter.”
“Then, if you please, I choose Dr. Arthur Brent for my guardian. May we go now?”
No attention was given to the naive question with which the girl asked permission to withdraw. Her choice of guardian was a complete surprise. There was astonishment on every face except that of the judge, who officially preserved an expression of perfect self-possession. Even Aunt Polly was astounded, and she showed it. It had been understood by everybody that Madison Peyton was to succeed to Dorothy’s guardianship, and the submission of the choice to her had been regarded as a matter of mere form. Even to Aunt Polly the girl had given no slightest intimation of her purpose to defeat the prearranged program, and so Aunt Polly shared the general surprise. But Aunt Polly was distinctly pleased with the substitution as soon at least as she had given it a moment’s thought. She had come to like Arthur Brent even more in his robust manhood than she had done during his boyish sojourn at Wyanoke. She had learned also to respect his judgment, and she saw clearly, now that it was suggested, that he was obviously the best person possible to assume the office of guardian. She was pleased, too, with Madison Peyton’s discomfiture. “He needed to have his comb cut,” she reflected in homely metaphor. “It may teach him better manners.”
As for Peyton, who was present in Court, having come for the purpose of accepting the guardianship, his rage exceeded even his astonishment. He had in his youth gone through what was then the easy process of securing admission to the bar, and so, although he had never pretended to practise law, he was entitled to address the Court as an attorney. He had never done so before, but on this occasion he rose, almost choking for utterance and plunged at once into a passionate protest, in which the judge, who was calm, presently checked him, saying:
“Your utterance seems to the Court to be uncalled for, while its manner is distinctly such as the Court must disapprove. The person named by the ward as her choice for the guardianship, bears a high reputation for integrity, intelligence and character. Unless it can be shown to the Court that this reputation is undeserved, the ward’s choice will be confirmed. At present the Court is aware of nothing whatever in Dr. Brent’s character, circumstances or position that can cast doubt upon his fitness. If you have any information that should change the Court’s estimate of his character you will be heard.”
“He is unfit in every way,” responded the almost raving man. “He has deliberately undermined my fatherly influence over the girl. He has taken a mean advantage of me. He has overpersuaded the girl to set aside an arrangement made for her good and – ”
“Oh, no, Mr. Peyton,” broke in Dorothy, utterly heedless of court formalities, “he has done nothing of the kind. He knows nothing about this. I don’t think he will even like it.”
“Pardon me, Miss Dorothy,” interrupted the judge. “Please address the Court – me – and not Mr. Peyton. Tell me, have you made your choice of your own free will?”
“Why, certainly, Judge, else I wouldn’t have made it.”
“Has anybody said anything to you on the subject?”
“No, sir. Nobody has ever mentioned the matter to me except Col. Majors, and he told me I was to choose Mr. Peyton, but you told me I could choose for myself, you know. I suppose Col. Majors didn’t know you’d let me do that.”
A little laugh went up in the bar, and even the judge smiled. Presently he said:
“The Court knows of no reason why it should not confirm the choice made by the ward. Accordingly it is ordered that Dr. Arthur Brent of Wyanoke be appointed guardian of the property and estate of Dorothy South, with full authority, subject only to such instructions as this Court may from time to time see fit to give for his guidance. Mr. Clerk, make the proper record, and call the next case. This proceeding is at an end. You are at liberty now to withdraw, Miss Dorothy, you and Miss Polly.”
Aunt Polly rose and bowed her acknowledgments in silence. Dorothy bowed with equal grace, but added: “Thank you, Judge. I am anxious to get back to my sick people. So I will bid you good morning. You have been extremely nice to me.”
With that she bowed again and swept out of the court room, quite unconscious of the fact that even by her courteous adieu she had offended against all the traditions of etiquette in a court of Justice. The judge bowed and smiled, and every lawyer at the bar instinctively arose, turned his face respectfully toward the withdrawing pair, and remained standing till they had passed through the outer door, Col. Majors escorting them.
XVI
UNDER THE CODE
I T was Madison Peyton’s habit to have his own way, and he greatly prided himself upon getting it, in other people’s affairs as well as in those that concerned himself. He loved to dominate others, to trample upon their wills and to impose his own upon them. In a large degree he accomplished this, so that he regarded himself and was regarded by others as a man of far more than ordinary influence. He was so, in a certain way, but it was not a way that tended to make men like him. On the contrary, the aggressive self assertion by which he secured influence, secured for him also the very general dislike of his neighbors, especially of those who most submissively bowed to his will. They hated him because they felt themselves obliged to submit their wills to his.
There was, therefore, a very general chuckle of pleasure among the crowd gathered at the Court House – a crowd which included nearly every able-bodied white man in the county – as the news of his discomfiture and of his outbreak of anger over it, was discussed. There were few who would have cared to twit him with it, and if he had himself maintained a discreet and dignified silence concerning the matter, he would have heard little or nothing about it. But he knew that everybody was in fact talking of it, out of his hearing. He interpreted aright the all pervading atmosphere of amused interest, and the fact that every group of men he approached became silent and seemed embarrassed when he joined it. After his aggressive manner, therefore, he refused to remain silent. He thrust the subject upon others’ attention at every turn. He protested, he declaimed, at times he very nearly raved over what he called the outrage. He even went further in some cases and demanded sympathy and acquiescence in his complainings. For the most part he got something quite different. His neighbors were men not accustomed to fear, and while they were politely disposed to refrain from voluntary expressions of opinion on this matter, at least in his presence, they were ready enough with answers unwelcome to him when he demanded their opinions.
“Isn’t it an outrage,” he asked of John Meaux, “that Arthur Brent has undermined me in this way?”
“Oh, I don’t know,” answered Meaux with a drawl which always affected his speech when he was most earnest, “I cannot see it in that light. Dorothy declares that he knew nothing of her intentions, and we all know that Dorothy South never tells anything but the truth. Besides, I don’t see why he isn’t entitled to serve as her guardian if she wants him to do so. He is a man of character and brains, and I happen to know that he has a good head for business.”
“Yes,” snarled Peyton, “I know you’ve been cultivating him – ”
“I’ll trouble you to leave me out of your remarks, Mr. Peyton,” interrupted Meaux. “If you don’t you may have a quarrel on your hands.”
“Oh, you know me, Meaux; you know I didn’t mean any harm so far as you are concerned. You know my way – ”
“Yes, I know your way, and I don’t like it. In fact I won’t tolerate it.”
“Oh, come now, come now, John, don’t fly off the handle like that. You see I’m not angry with you, but how you can like this interloper – ”
“His family is as old in Virginia as your own is,” answered Meaux, “and he is the master of the very oldest plantation in this county. Besides he was born in Virginia and – but never mind that. I’m not counsel for his defence. I only interrupted to tell you that I am accustomed to choose my own friends, and that I fully intend to adhere to that custom.”
In another group Peyton used even less temperate terms than “interloper” in characterizing Arthur, and added:
“He didn’t even dare come to court and brazen out his treachery. He left the job, like a sneak, to the little girl whose mind he has poisoned.”
Archer Bannister was standing near, and heard the offensive words. He interrupted:
“Mr. Peyton, I earnestly advise you to retract what you have just said, and to put your retraction into writing, giving it to me to deliver to my friend Dr. Brent; who is absent today, as you very well know, simply because he has imperative duties of humanity elsewhere. I assure you that I shall report your offensive utterance to him, and it will be well for you if your retraction and apology can be delivered to him at the same time. Arthur Brent is rapidly falling into Virginia ways – adopting the customs of the country, he calls it – and there is one of those customs which might subject you to a deal of inconvenience, should he see fit to adopt it.”
“What have you to do with my affairs?” asked Peyton in a tone of offence.
“Nothing whatever —at present,” answered the young man, turning upon his heel.
But the warning sobered Peyton’s anger. It had not before occurred to him that Arthur might have become so far indoctrinated with Virginia ways of thinking as to call him to account for his words, in the hostile fashion usual at that time. Indeed, relying upon the fixed habit of Virginians never to gossip, he had not expected that Arthur would ever hear of his offensive accusations. Bannister’s notification that he would exercise the privilege accorded by custom to the personal friend of a man maligned when not present to defend himself, suggested grave possibilities. He knew that custom fully warranted Bannister in doing what he had threatened to do, and he had not the smallest doubt that the young man would do it.
It was in a mood of depression, therefore, that Peyton ordered his horse and rode homeward. His plantation lay within two or three miles of the Court House, but by the time that he had arrived there he had thought out a plan of procedure. He knew that Bannister would remain at the village inn over night, having jury service to perform the next morning. There was time, therefore, in which to reach him with a placative message, and Peyton set himself at once to work upon the preparation of such a message.
“I hope you will forgive me,” he wrote, “for the rudeness with which I spoke to you today. I was extremely angry at the time, and I had reasons for being so, of which you know nothing, and of which I must not tell you anything. Perhaps in my extreme irritation, I used expressions with regard to Dr. Brent, which I should not have used had I been calmer. For my discourtesy to you personally, I offer very sincere apologies, which I am sure your generous mind will accept as an atonement. For the rest I must trust your good feeling not to repeat the words I used in a moment of extreme excitement.”
Archer Bannister wrote in reply:
“The apology you have made to me was quite unnecessary. I had not demanded it. As for the rest, I shall do my duty as a friend unless you make apology where it is due, namely to Dr. Arthur Brent whom you have falsely accused, and to whom you have applied epithets of a very offensive character. If you choose to make me the bearer of your apology to him, I will gladly act for you. I prefer peace to war, at all times.”
This curt note gave Peyton a very bad quarter hour. He was not a coward; or, to put the matter more accurately, he was not that kind of a coward that cannot face physical danger. But he was a man of middle age or a trifle more. He was the father of a family and an elder in the Presbyterian church. Conscience did not largely influence him in any case, but he was keenly sensitive to public opinion. He knew that should he fight a duel, all the terrors of religious condemnation would fall upon him. Worse still, he would be laughed at for having so entangled himself in a matter his real relation to which he was not free to explain. Madison Peyton dreaded and feared nothing in the world so much as being laughed at. Added to this, he knew that the entire community would hold him to be altogether in the wrong. Arthur Brent’s reputation achieved by his heroic devotion under fearful danger at Norfolk, had been recalled and emphasized by his conduct in the present fever outbreak on his own plantation. It was everywhere the subject of admiring comment, and Peyton very well knew that nobody in that community would for a moment believe that Arthur Brent was guilty of any meanness or cowardly treachery. His own accusations, unless supported by some sort of proof, would certainly recoil upon himself with crushing force. He could in no way explain the anger that had betrayed him into the error of making such accusations. He could not make it appear to anybody that he had been wronged by the fact that Dorothy South had chosen another than himself for her guardian. His anger, upon such an occasion, would be regarded as simply ridiculous, and should he permit the matter to come to a crisis he must at once become the butt of contemptuous jesting.
There was but one course open to him, as he clearly saw. He wrote again to Archer Bannister, withdrawing his offensive words respecting Arthur, apologizing for them on the ground of momentary excitement, asking Archer to convey this his apology to Dr. Brent, and authorizing the latter to make any other use of the letter which he might deem proper.
This apology satisfied all the requirements of “the code.”
XVII
A REVELATION
I T was Dorothy who gave Arthur the first news of his appointment as her guardian. On her return from court to the fever camp she went first to see Sally and the two or three others whose condition was particularly serious. Then she went to Arthur, and told him what had happened.
“The judge was very nice to me, Cousin Arthur, and told me I might choose anybody I pleased for my guardian, and of course I chose you.”
“You did?” asked the young man in a by no means pleased astonishment. “Why on earth did you do that, Dorothy?”
“Why, because I wanted you to be my guardian, of course. Don’t you want to be my guardian, Cousin Arthur?”
“I hardly know, child. It involves a great responsibility and a great deal of hard work.”
“Won’t you take the responsibility and undertake the work for my sake, Cousin Arthur?”
“Certainly I will, my child. I wasn’t thinking of that exactly – but of some other things. But tell me, how did you come to do this? Who suggested it to you?”
“Why, nobody. That’s what I told the judge, and when Mr. Peyton got angry and said you had persuaded me to do it, I told him he was wrong. Then the judge stopped him from speaking and asked me about the matter and I told him. Then he said very nice things about you, and said you were to be my guardian, and then he told me I might go home and I thanked him and said good day, and Col. Majors escorted us to the carriage. I wonder why Mr. Peyton was so angry about it. He seems to have been very anxious to be my guardian. I wonder why?”
“I wonder, too,” said Arthur, to whom of course the secret of Peyton’s concern with Dorothy’s affairs was a mystery. He had not been present on the occasion when Peyton entered his protest against the girl’s reading, nor had any one told him of the occurrence. Neither had he heard of Peyton’s visit to Aunt Polly on the occasion of the outbreak of fever. He therefore knew of no reason for Peyton’s desire to intermeddle in Dorothy’s affairs, beyond his well known disposition to do the like with everybody’s concerns. But Arthur had grown used to the thought of mystery in everything that related to Dorothy.
Presently the girl said, “I’m going to write a note to Mr. Peyton, now, and send it over by Dick.”
“What for, Dorothy?”
“Oh, I want to tell him how wrong and wicked he is when he says you persuaded me to do this.”
“Did he say that?”
“Yes, I told you so before, but you weren’t paying attention. Perhaps you were thinking about the poor sick people, so I’ll forgive you and you needn’t apologize. I must run away now and write my note.”
“Please don’t, Dorothy.”
“But why not?”
“He will say I persuaded you to do that, too. It would embarrass me very seriously if you should send him any note now.”
Dorothy was quick to see this aspect of the matter, though without suggestion it would never have occurred to her extraordinarily simple and candid mind.
It was not long after Dorothy left him when Edmonia Bannister made her daily visit to the fever camp, accompanied by her maid and bearing delicacies for the sick. After her visit to Dorothy’s quarters Arthur engaged her in conversation. He told her of what had happened, and expressed his repugnance to the task thus laid upon him.
“I cannot sympathize with you in the least,” said the young woman. “I am glad it has happened – glad on more accounts than one.”
“Yes, I suppose you are,” he answered, meditatively, “but that’s because you do not understand. I wish I could have a good, long talk with you, Edmonia, about this thing – and some other things.”
He added the last clause after a pause, and in a tone which suggested that perhaps the “other things” were weightier in his mind than this one.
“Why can’t you?” the girl asked.
“Why, I can’t leave my sick people long enough for a visit to Branton. It will be many weeks yet before I shall feel free to leave this plantation.”
The girl thought a moment, and then said, with unusual deliberation:
“I can spare an hour now; surely you might give a like time. Why can’t we sit in Dorothy’s little porch and have our talk now? Dorothy has gone to the big tent, and is busy with the sick, and if you should be needed you will be here to respond to any call. I see how worried you are, and perhaps I may be able to help you with advice – or at the least with sympathy.”
Arthur gladly assented and the two repaired to the little shaded verandah which Dick had built out of brushwood and boughs across the front of Dorothy’s temporary dwelling.
“This thing troubles me greatly, Edmonia,” Arthur began, “and it depresses me as pretty nearly everything else does nowadays. It completely upsets my plans and defeats all my ambitions. It adds another to the ties of obligation that compel me to remain here and neglect my work.”
“Is it not possible, Arthur” – their friendship had passed the “cousining” stage and they used each other’s names now without prefix – “Is it not possible, Arthur, for you to find work enough here to occupy your life and employ your abilities worthily? There is no doubt that you have already saved many lives by the skill and energy with which you have met this fever outbreak, and your work will bear still better fruit. You have taught all of us how to save lives in such a case, how to deal with the epidemics that are common enough on plantations. You may be sure that nobody in this region will ever again let a dozen or twenty negroes perish in unwholesome quarters after they have seen how easily and surely you have met and conquered the fever. Dorothy tells me you have had only two deaths out of forty-two cases, and that no new cases are appearing. Surely your conscience should acquit you of neglecting your work, or burying your talents.”
“Oh, if there were such work for me to do all the time,” the young man answered, “I should feel easy on that score. But this is an extraordinary occasion. It will pass in a few weeks, and then – ”
“Well, and then – what?”
“Why, then a life of idleness and ease, with no duties save such as any man of ordinary intelligence could do as well as I, or better – a life delightful enough in its graceful repose, but one which must condemn me to rust in all my faculties, to stand still or retrograde, to leave undone all that I have spent my youth and early manhood in fitting myself to do. Please understand me, Edmonia. I love Virginia, its people, and all its traditions of honor and manliness. But I am not fit for the life I must lead here. All the education, all the experience I have had have tended to unfit me for it in precisely that degree in which they have helped to equip me for something quite different. Then again the work I had marked out for myself in the world needs me far more than you can easily understand. There are not many men so circumstanced that they could do it in my stead. Other men as well or better equipped with scientific acquirements, and all that, are not free as I am – or was before this inheritance in Virginia came to blight my life. They have their livings to make and must work only in fields that promise a harvest of gain. I was free to go anywhere where I might be needed, and to minister to humanity in ways that make no money return. My annuities secured me quite all the money I needed for my support so that I need never take thought for the morrow. I have never yet received a fee for my ministry – for I regard my work as a ministry, for which I am set apart. Other men have families too, and owe a first duty to them, while I – well, I decided at the outset that I would never marry.”
Arthur did not end that sentence as he would have ended it a year or even half a year before. He was growing doubtful of himself. Presently he continued:
“I am free to work for humanity. My time is my own. I can spend it freely in making experiments and investigations that can hardly fail to benefit mankind. Few men who are equipped for such studies can spare time for them from the breadwinning. Then again when great epidemics occur anywhere, and multitudes need me, I am free to go and serve them. I have no family, no wife, no children, nobody dependent upon me, in short no obligations of any kind to restrain me from such service. Such at least was my situation before my Uncle Robert died. His death imposed upon me the duty of caring for all these black people. My first thought was of how I might most quickly free myself of this restraining obligation. Had the estate consisted only of houses and lands and other inanimate property I should have made short work of the business. I should have sold the whole of it for whatever men might be willing to give me for it; I should have devoted the proceeds to some humane purpose, and then, being free again I should have returned to my work. Unfortunately, however, in succeeding to my uncle’s estate I succeeded also to his obligations. I planned to fulfil them once for all by selling the plantation and using the proceeds in carrying the negroes to the west and establishing them upon farms of their own. I still cherish that purpose, but I am delayed in carrying it out by the fact that other obligations must first be discharged. There are debts – the hereditary curse of us Virginians – and I find that the value of the plantation, without the negroes, would not suffice to discharge them and leave enough to give the negroes the little farms that I must provide for them if I take the responsibility of setting them free. Still I see ways in which I think I can overcome that difficulty within two or three years, by selling crops that Virginians never think of selling and devoting their proceeds to the discharge of debts. But now comes this new and burdensome duty of caring for Dorothy’s estate. She is now sixteen years of age, so that this new burden must rest upon my shoulders for five full years to come.”
“I quite understand,” Edmonia slowly replied, “and in great part I sympathize with you. But not altogether. For one thing I do not share your belief in freedom for the negroes. I am sure they are unfit for it, and it would be scarcely less than cruelty to take them out of the happy life to which they were born, exile them to a strange land, and condemn them to a lifelong struggle with conditions to which they are wholly unused, with poverty for their certain lot and starvation perhaps for their fate. They are happy now. Why should you condemn them to unhappy lives? They are secure now in the fact that, sick or well, in age and decrepitude as well as in lusty health, they will be abundantly fed and clothed and well housed. Why should you condemn them to an incalculably harder lot?”
“So far as the negroes are concerned, you may be right. Yet I cannot help thinking that if I make them the owners of fertile little farms in that rapidly growing western country, without a dollar of debt, they will find it easy enough to put food into their mouths and clothes on their backs and keep a comfortable roof over their heads. However that is a large question and perhaps a difficult one. If it could have been kept out of politics Virginia at least would long ago have found means to free herself of the incubus. But it is not of the negroes chiefly that I am thinking. I am trying to set Arthur Brent free while taking care not to do them any unavoidable harm in the process. I want to return to my work, and I am sufficiently an egotist to believe that my freedom to do that is of some importance to the world.”
“Doubtless it is,” answered the young woman, hesitatingly, “but there are other ways of looking at it, Arthur. I have read somewhere that the secret of happiness is to reconcile oneself with one’s environment.”
“Yes, I know. That is an abominable thought, a paralyzing philosophy. In another form the privileged classes have written it into catechisms, teaching their less fortunate fellow beings that it is their duty to ‘be content in that state of existence to which it hath pleased God’ to call them. As a buttress to caste and class privilege and despotism of every kind, that doctrine is admirable, but otherwise it is the most damnable teaching imaginable. It is not the duty of men to rest content with things as they are. It is their duty to be always discontented, always striving to make conditions better. ‘Divine discontent’ is the very mainspring of human progress. The contented peoples are the backward peoples. The Italian lazzaroni are the most contented people in the world, and the most worthless, the most hopeless. No, no, no! No man who has brains should ever reconcile himself to his environment. He should continually struggle to get out of it and into a better. We have liberty simply because our oppressed ancestors refused to do as the prayer book told them they must. Men would never have learned to build houses or cook their food if they had been content to live in caves or bush shelters and eat the raw flesh of beasts. We owe every desirable thing we have – intellectual, moral and physical – to the fact that men are by nature discontented. Contentment is a blight.”
Edmonia thought for a while before answering. Then she said:
“I suppose you are right, Arthur. I never thought of the matter in that way. I have always been taught that discontent was wicked – a rebellion against the decrees of Providence.”
“You remember the old story of the miller who left to Providence the things he ought to have done for himself, and how he was reminded at last that ‘ungreased wheels will not go?’ ”