Sylvia sat watching this tableful of care-free, rollicking people—the men handsome, finely built, well-fed and well-groomed, the women delicate, soft-skinned and exquisitely gowned—representing the best type their civilization could produce. A pleasant scene it was, with snowy damask cloth and bouquets of roses, precious old silver and quaint hand-painted china, with a background of mahogany furniture and paneled walls. She watched Frank in the midst of it, thinking of his home as Harriet had pictured it—the people subdued and sombre, the stamp of poverty upon everything. She was glad to see that he was able to fit himself into the mood of this company, enjoying the sallies of fun and pleasing those he talked to.
The house being full of young couples who wanted to be alone, Sylvia took Frank into the library. She liked this room, with its red leather furniture and cozy fireplace, and queer old book-cases with diamond-shaped panes of glass. She liked it because the lights were on the table, and no woman looks beautiful when lighted from over her head. This may seem a small matter to you, but Sylvia had learned how much depends upon detail. She remembered one of the maxims of Lady Dee: “Get a man on your home-ground, where you can have things as you want them; and then place your chair to show the best side of your face.”
These things I set down as Sylvia told them to me—a long time afterwards, when we could laugh over them. It was a fact about her all the way through, that whatever she did, good or bad, she knew why she was doing it. In this she differed from a good many other women, who are not honest, even with themselves, and who feel that things become vulgar only when they are mentioned. The study of her own person and its charms was of course the very essence of her rôle as a “belle.” At every stage of her life she had been drilled and coached—how to dance, how to enter a drawing-room, how to receive a compliment, how to toy with a suitor. At Miss Abercrombie’s, the young ladies had an etiquette teacher who gave them instructions in the most minute details of their deportment; not to bend your body too much, but mainly your knees, when you sat down; not to let your hands lie flat at your sides, but to turn your little fingers gracefully out; never to hesitate or think of yourself when entering a room, but to fix your thoughts upon some person, and move towards that person with decision. Sylvia had needed this last instruction especially, for in the beginning she had had a terrible time entering rooms. It should be a comfort to some would-be belles to know that Sylvia Castleman, who attained in the end to such eminence in her profession, was at the outset a terrified child with shaking knees and chattering teeth, who never would have gone anywhere of her own choice!
§ 20
Now she was ready to try out all these instructions upon Frank. The scene was set and lighted, the curtain rose—but somehow there was a hitch in the performance. Frank was moody again. He sat staring before him, frowning somberly; and she looked at him in a confusion of anxieties. He did not love her after all—she had simply seized upon him and compelled his attention, and now he was longing to extricate himself! Even if this were not true, it would soon come to that, for she could think of nothing interesting to say, and he would be bored.
She racked her wits. What could she talk about to a man who knew none of her “set,” who never went to balls or dinners, who could not conceivably care about polite gossip? Why didn’t he say something—the silent man! What manners to take into company!
“I must make him look at me,” she resolved. So without saying a word, she began taking a rose from her corsage and adjusting it in her hair. The motion distracted him, and she saw that he was watching. She had him!
“Is that in right?” she asked. Of course a la France rose in perfectly arranged hair is always “in right,” and Sylvia knew it. Her little device failed abjectly, for Frank answered simply “Yes,” and began staring into space again.
She tried once more, contenting herself with the barest necessities of conversation. “Did you shoot those quail yourself?”
Then he turned. “Miss Sylvia, I have something I must say to you. I’ve had time to think things over.” He paused.
Ah, now it was coming! He had had time to think things over—and he called her “Miss Sylvia!” Something cried out in her to make haste and release him before he asked it. But she could not speak—she was as if pinned by a lance.
He went on. “Miss Sylvia, I had made up my mind that love was not for me. I knew that to women of my own class I was a man with a tainted name—a convict’s son; and I would rather die than marry beneath me. So I shut up my heart, and when I met a woman, I turned and went away—as I tried to do with you. But you would not have it, and I could not resist you. I’ve been amazed at the intensity of my own feelings; it’s something I could not have dreamed of—and unless I’m mistaken, it’s been the same with you.”
It was a bold man who could use words such as those to Sylvia. To what merciless teasing he laid himself open! But she only drew a deep sigh of relief. He still loved her!
“I forced myself to stay away,” he continued, without waiting for her to answer. “I said, ‘I must not go near her again. I must run away somewhere and get over it.’ And then again I said, ‘I can make her happy—I will marry her.’ I said that, but I’m not going to do it.”
He paused. Oh, what a voice he had! Sylvia felt the blood ebbing and flowing in her cheeks, pounding in her ears. She could not hear his words very well—but he loved her!
“Sylvia,” he was saying, earnestly—as if half to convince himself—“we must both of us wait. You must have time to consider what loving me would mean. You have all these people—happy people; and I have nothing like that in my life. You have this beautiful home, expensive clothes—every luxury. But I am a poor man. I have only a mortgaged plantation, with a mother and a brother and two sisters to share it. I have no career—I have not even an education. All your uncles, your cousins, your suitors, are college men, and I am a plain farmer. So I face what seems to me the worst temptation a man could have. I see you, and you are everything in the world that is desirable; and I believe that I could win you and carry you away from here. My whole being cries out, ‘Go and take her! She loves you! She wants you to!’ But instead, I have to come here and say, ‘Think it over. Make sure of your feelings; that it’s not simply a flush of excitement.’ You being the kind of tenderhearted thing you are, it might so easily be a romantic imagining about a man who’s apart from other men—one you feel sorry for and would like to help! You see what I mean? It isn’t easy for me to say it, but I’d be a coward if I didn’t say it—and mean it—and stand by it.”
There was a long pause. Sylvia was thinking. How different it was from other men’s love-making! There was Malcolm McCallum, who had taken her driving yesterday, and had said what they all said: “Never mind if you don’t love me—marry me, and let me teach you to love me.” In other words, “Stake your life’s happiness upon a blind chance, at the command of my desire.” Of course they would surround her with all the external things of life, build her a great house and furnish it richly, deck her with silks and jewels and supply her with servants. All the world would come to admire her, and then she would be so grateful to her generous lord that she could not but love him.
Her voice was low as she answered, “A woman does not really care about the outside things. She wants love most. She wants to be sure of her heart—but of the man’s heart too.”
“As to that,” he said, “I will not trust myself to speak. You are the loveliest vision that has ever come to me. You are——”
“I know,” she interrupted. “But that, too, is mostly surface. I am luxurious, I am artificial and shallow—a kind of butterfly.” This was what she said to men when she wished to be most deadly. But now she really meant it; there was a mist of tears in her eyes.
“That is nothing,” he answered. “I am not such a fool that I can’t see all that. There are two people in you, as in all of us. The question is, which do you want to be?”
“How can I say?” she murmured. “It would be a question of whether you loved me——”
“Ah, Sylvia!” he cried, in a voice of pain that startled her. And suddenly he rose and began to pace the room. “I cannot talk about my feeling for you,” he said. “I made up my mind before I came here that I would not woo you—not if I had to bite off my tongue to prevent it. I said, ‘I will explain to her, and then I will go away and give her time.’ I want to play fair. I want to know that I have played fair.”
As he stood there, she could see the knotted tendons in his hands, she could see the agitation of his whole being. And suddenly a great current took her and bore her to him. She put her hands upon his shoulders, whispering, “Frank!”
He stood stiff and silent.
“I love you!” she said. “I love you!” She gave a little sob of happiness; and he caught her in his arms and pressed her to his bosom, crushing all her roses, and stifling her words with his kisses. And so, a few minutes later, Sylvia was lying back in her favorite chair, with the satisfaction of knowing at last that he was looking at her. A couple of hours later, when he went away, it was as her plighted lover.
§ 21
Frank came again two days later; and then Mrs. Castleman made her first remark. “Sylvia,” she said, “you mustn’t flirt with that man.”
“Why not, Mother?”
“Because he’d probably take it seriously. And he’s had a hard time, you know. We can’t treat the Shirleys quite as we do other people.”
“All right,” said Sylvia. “I’ll be careful.”
Frank wanted the engagement made known at once—at least to the family. Such was his direct way. But Sylvia had an instinct against telling; she wanted a little time to watch and study and plan.
It was hard, however; she was absolutely shining with happiness—there seemed to be a kind of soul-electricity that came from her and affected everyone she met. It gathered the men about her thicker than ever—and at the very time that she wanted to be alone with Frank and the thought of Frank!
One evening when the Young Matrons’ Club gave its monthly cotillion, Frank, knowing nothing about this event, called unexpectedly. A visit meant to him forty miles on horseback; and so, to the general consternation, Sylvia refused to attend the dance. All evening the telephone rang and the protests poured in. “We won’t stand for it!” the men declared; and the women asked, “Who is it?” She had been to a bridge-party that afternoon, and everyone knew she was not sick. But what man could it be, when all the men were at the cotillion?
So the gossip began; and a week later another incident gave it wings. It was a great occasion, the semi-annual ball of the Country Club, and Frank had been warned that Sylvia would not be at home. But he wanted to see her in her glory, and he galloped his twenty miles in darkness and rain, and turned up at the club-house at midnight, and stood in the doorway to watch. Sylvia, seeing him and realizing what his presence meant, was seized with a sudden impulse to acknowledge him. She stopped dancing, and sent her partner away, and stood talking to Frank. Oh, what a staring, what a wagging of tongues! Frank Shirley! Of all people in the world, Frank Shirley!
Of course, the news came to the Hall. Early in the morning, Aunt Nannie called up, announcing a visit, and there followed a family conclave with Mrs. Castleman, Aunt Varina and Sylvia.
“Sylvia,” said Mrs. Chilton, trying her best to look casual, “I understand that Frank Shirley was at the ball.”
“Yes, Aunt Nannie.”
There was a pause. “What was he doing there?” asked “Miss Margaret,” evidently having been coached.
“Why, I’m sure, Mother, I don’t know.”
“Did you invite him?”
“Indeed, I did not.”
“He isn’t a member of the Club, is he?”
“No; but he knows lots of other people who are.”
“Everybody is saying he came to see you,” broke in Aunt Nannie. “They say you stopped dancing to talk with him.”
“I can’t help what they say, Aunt Nannie.”
“Do you think,” inquired the Bishop’s wife, “that it was altogether wise to get your name associated with his?”
“Isn’t he a gentleman?” asked Sylvia.
“That’s all right, my dear, but you’ve got to remember that you live in the world, and must consider other people’s point of view.”
“Do you mean, Aunt Nannie, that Frank Shirley’s to be excluded from society because of his father’s misfortune?”
“Not excluded, Sylvia. There are shades to such things. The point is that a young girl—a girl conspicuous, like you——”
“But, Aunt Nannie, I asked mother and father, and they were willing to receive him. Isn’t that true, Mother?”
“Why, yes, Sylvia,” said “Miss Margaret,” weakly, “but I didn’t mean——”
“It was all right for him to come here, once or twice,” interrupted Aunt Nannie. “But at a Club ball——”
“The point is, Sylvia dear,” quavered Mrs. Tuis, “you will get yourself a reputation for singularity.”
And the mother added, “You surely don’t have to do that to attract attention!”
So there it was. All that fine sentiment about the unhappy Shirleys went like a film of mist before a single breath of the world’s opinion! They would not say it brutally—“He’s a convict’s son, and you can’t afford to know him too well.” It was not the Southern fashion—at least among the older generation—to be outspoken in worldliness. They had generous ideals, and made their boast of “chivalry;” but here, when it came to a test, they were all in accord with Aunt Nannie, who was said to “talk like a cold-blooded Northern woman.”
Sylvia decided at once that some one must be told; so she went back to lunch with her aunt, and afterwards sought out the Bishop in his study. The walls of this room were lined with ancient theological treatises and sermons in faded greenish-black bindings: an array which never failed to appal the soul of Sylvia, who realized that she had consigned to the scrap-heap all this mass of learning—and had not yet apologized for her temerity.
“Uncle Basil,” she began, “I have something very, very important to tell you.” The Bishop turned from his desk and gazed at her. “I am engaged to be married,” she said.
“Why, Sylvia!” he exclaimed.
“And I—I’m very much in love.”
“Who is the man, my dear?”
“It is Frank Shirley.”
Sylvia was used to watching people and reading their thoughts quickly. She saw that her uncle’s first emotion was one of dismay. “Frank Shirley!”
“Yes, Uncle Basil.”
Then she saw him gather himself together. He was going to try to be fair—the dear soul! But she could not forget that his first emotion had been dismay. “Tell me about it, my child,” he said.
“I met him at the Venable’s,” she replied, “only a couple of weeks ago. He’s an unusual sort of man, lonely and unhappy, very reserved and hard to get at. He fell in love with me—very much in love; but he didn’t want me to know it. He did tell me at last.”
The Bishop was silent. “I love him,” she added.
“Are you sure?”
“As I’ve never loved anybody—as I never dreamed I could love.”
There was a pause. “Uncle Basil—he’s a good man,” she said. “That is why I love him.”
Again there was a pause. “Have you told your father and mother?” asked the Bishop.
“Not yet.”
“You must tell them at once, Sylvia.”
“I know they will make objections, and I want you to meet Frank and talk with him. You see, Uncle Basil, I’m going to marry him—and I want your help.”
The Bishop was silent again, weighing his next words. “Of course, my dear,” he said, “from a worldly point of view it is not a good match, and I fear your parents will regard it as a calamity. But, as you know, I think of nothing but the happiness of my darling Sylvia. I won’t say anything at all until I have met the man. Send him to see me, little girl, and then I will give you the best counsel I can.”
§ 22
Frank went to pay his call the next day, and then came back to Sylvia. “He’s a dear old man,” he said. “And he wants what is best for you.”
“What does he want?” demanded Sylvia.
“He says we should not marry now—that I ought to be better able to take care of you. And of course he’s right.”
There was a pause; then suddenly Frank exclaimed, “Sylvia, I can’t be just a farmer if I’m going to marry you.”
“What can you be, Frank?”
“I’m going to go to college.”
“But that would take four years!”
“No, it needn’t. I could dig in and get into the Sophomore class this winter. I’ve been through a military academy, and I was going to Harvard, where my father and my grandfather went, but I thought it was my duty to come home and see to the place. But now my brother has grown up, and he has a good head for business.”
“What would you do ultimately?”
“I’ve always wanted to study law, and I think now I ought to. Nobody is going to be willing for us to marry at once; and they’re much less apt to object to me if I’m seriously going to make something of myself.”
Sylvia went over the next morning to get her uncle’s blessing. The good Bishop gave it to her—together with some exhortations which he judged she needed. They were summed up in one sentence which he pronounced: “There is nothing more unhappy in this world than a serious-minded man with a worldly-minded wife.” Poor old Uncle Basil, with his snow-white hair and his patient, saintly face, worn with care—how much of his own soul he put into that utterance! Sylvia laid her head upon his shoulder, and let the tears run down upon his coat.
After a while, he remarked, “Sylvia, your aunt saw Frank come here.”
“What!” exclaimed Sylvia. “You don’t mean that she’ll guess!”
“She’s very clever at guessing, my child.” So Sylvia, as she rode home, realized that she had no more time to lose. When she got to the Hall, she set to work at once to carry out her plans.
She found her Aunt Varina in her room with a headache. On her dressing-table was a picture of the late-lamented Mr. Tuis, which Sylvia picked up. By manifesting a little interest in it, she quickly got her aunt to talking on the subject of matrimony.
Mrs. Tuis was the youngest of the Major’s sisters. In the face of the protests of her relatives she had married a comparatively “common” man, who was poor and had turned out to be a drunkard, and after leading Aunt Varina a dog’s life, had taken chloral. So Mrs. Tuis had come back to eat the bread of charity—which, though it was liberally sweetened with affection, had also a slightly bitter taste of compassion.
Her ill-fated romance was a poor thing, perhaps—but her own. As she told it her bosom fluttered and the tears trickled down her cheeks; and when she had got to a state of complete deliquescence, her niece whispered: “Oh, Aunt Varina, I’m so glad you believe in love! Aunt Varina, will you keep a solemn secret if I tell it to you?”
And so came the story of the amazing engagement. Mrs. Tuis listened with wide-open, startled eyes, every now and then whispering, “Sylvia! Sylvia!” Of course she was thrilled to the deeps of her soul by it; and of course, in the mood that she had been caught, she could not possibly refuse her sympathy. “You must help me with the others,” said the girl. “I’m going to tell mother next.”
§ 23
The first thing that struck you about “Miss Margaret” was her appalling incompetence. But underneath it lay the most exclusively maternal soul imaginable. She had nursed her children when they were almost two years old, great healthy calves running about the place and standing up to suck; she had rocked them to sleep in her arms when they were big enough to be reading Virgil; she had shed as many tears over a broken finger as most mothers shed over a funeral. She wanted her daughters to be happy, and to this end she would give them anything that civilization provided; she would even be willing that one of them should marry a man whose father “wore stripes”—so far as she was concerned, and so long as she remained alone with the daughter. You must picture her, clasping Sylvia in her arms and weeping from general agitation; moved to pity by the tale of Frank’s loneliness, moved to awe by the tale of his goodness—but then suddenly smitten as by a thunderbolt with the thought: “What will people say! What will your Aunt Nannie say!”
While Sylvia was bent upon having her way, you must not imagine that she did not feel any of these emotions. Although she was mostly Lady Lysle, her far-off ancestress, she was also a little of “Miss Margaret,” and was almost capsized in these gales of emotion. She remembered a hundred scenes of tenderness and devotion; she clasped the great girl-mother in her arms, and mingled their tears and vowed that she would never do anything to make her unhappy. It was a lachrymal lane—this pathway of Sylvia’s engagement!
With her father she took a different line. She got the Major alone in his office and talked to him solemnly, not about love and romance, but about Frank Shirley’s character. She knew that the Major was disturbed by the wildness of the young men of the world about him; she had heard him discuss the pace at which Aunt Nannie’s boys were traveling. And here was a man who had sowed no wild oats, and had learned the lesson of self-control.
She was surprised at the way the Major took it. He clutched the arms of his chair and went white when he caught the import of her discourse; but he heard her to the end, and then sat for a long while in silence. Finally, he inquired, “Sylvia, did anybody ever tell you why your Uncle Laurence killed himself?”
“No,” she replied.
“He was engaged to a girl, and her parents made her break off the match. I never knew why; but it ruined the girl’s life, as well as his, and it made a terrible impression on me. So I made a vow—and now, I suppose, is the time I have to keep it. I said I would never interfere in a love-affair of one of my children!”
Sylvia was deeply affected, not only by his words, but by the intense agitation which she saw he was repressing. “Papa, does it seem so very dreadful to you?” she asked.
Again there was a long wait before he answered. “It is something quite different from what I had expected,” he said. “It will make a difference in your whole life—to an extent which I fear you cannot realize.”
“But if I really love him, Papa?”
“If you really love him, my dear, then I will not try to oppose you. But oh, Sylvia, be sure that you love him! You must promise me to wait until I can be sure you are not mistaken about that.”
“I expect to wait, Papa,” she said. “There will be no mistake.”
They talked for half an hour or so, and then Sylvia went to her room. Half an hour later “Aunt Sarah,” the cook, came flying to her in great agitation. “Miss Sylvia, what’s de matter wid yo’ papa?”
“What?” cried Sylvia, springing up.
“He’s sittin’ on a log out beyan’ de garden, cryin’ fo’ to break his heart!”
Sylvia fled to the spot, and fell upon her knees by him and flung her arms about him, crying, “Papa, Papa!” He was still sobbing; she had never seen him exhibit such emotion in her life before, and she was terrified. “Papa, what is it?”
She felt him shudder and control himself. “Nothing, Sylvia. I can’t tell you.”
“Papa,” she whispered, “do you object to Frank Shirley as much as that?”
“No, my dear—it isn’t that. It’s that the whole thing has knocked me off my feet. My little girl is going away from me—and I didn’t know she was grown up yet. It made me feel so old!”
He looked at her, trying to smile and feeling a little ashamed of his tears. She looked into the dear face, and it seemed withered and wrinkled all of a sudden. She realized with a pang how much he really had aged. He was working so hard—she would see him at his accounts late at night, when she was leaving for a ball, and would feel ashamed for her joys that he had to pay for. “Oh, Papa, Papa!” she cried, “I ought to marry a rich man!”
“My child,” he exclaimed, “don’t let me hear you say a thing like that!”
Poor, poor Major! He said it and he meant it; he was, I think, the most naïve of all the members of his family. He was a “Southern gentleman,” not a business man; he hated money with his whole soul—hated it, even while he spent it and enjoyed what it brought him. He was like a chip of wood caught in a powerful current; swept through rapids and over cataracts, to his own boundless bewilderment and dismay.
§ 24
“He is without any pride of family.” That had been the verdict upon the Major pronounced by his mother, who had been a grand lady in her own day. She would turn to her eldest daughter and say, “Look after him, Nannie! Make him keep his shoes shined!” And so now, towards the end of their conference, Sylvia and her father found themselves looking at each other and saying, “What will Aunt Nannie say?” Sylvia was laughing, but all the same she had not the nerve to face her aunt, and ’phoned the Bishop to ask him to break the news.
Half an hour later the energetic lady’s automobile was heard at the door. And now behold, a grand council, with the Major and his wife, Mrs. Chilton, Mrs. Tuis, Mr. Mandeville Castleman, Sylvia and Celeste—the last having learned that something startling had happened, and being determined to find out about it.
“Now,” began Aunt Nannie, “what is this that Basil has been trying to tell me?”
There was no reply.
“Mandeville,” she demanded, “have you heard this news?”
“No,” said Uncle Mandeville.
“That Sylvia has engaged herself to Frank Shirley!”
“Good God!” said Uncle Mandeville.
“Sylvia!” exclaimed Celeste, in horror.
“Is it true?” demanded Aunt Nannie—in a tone which said that she declined to comment until official confirmation had been received.
“It is true,” said Sylvia.
“And what have you to say about it?” inquired Aunt Nannie. She looked first at the Major, then at his wife, and then at Mrs. Tuis; but no one had anything to say.
“I can’t quite believe that you’re in your right senses,” continued the speaker. “Or that I have heard you say the words. What can have got into you?”
“Nannie,” said the Major, clearing his throat, “Sylvia doesn’t want to marry him for a long time.”
“But she proposes to be engaged to him, I understand!”
“Yes,” admitted the other.
“And this engagement is to be announced?”
“Why—er—I suppose——”
“Certainly,” put in Sylvia.
“And when, may I ask?”
“At once.”
“And is there nobody here who has thought of the consequences? Possibly you have overlooked the fact that one of my daughters has planned to marry Ridgely Peyton next month. That is to be called off?”
“What do you mean, Aunt Nannie?”
“Can you be childish enough to imagine that the Peytons will consent to marry into a family with a convict’s son in it?”
“Nannie!” protested the Major.
“I know!” replied Mrs. Chilton. “Sylvia doesn’t like the words. But if she proposes to marry a convict’s son, she may as well get used to them now as later. It’s the thing that people will be saying about her for the balance of her days; the thing they’ll be saying about all of us everywhere. Look at Celeste there—just ready to come out! How much chance she’ll have—with such a start! Her sister engaged to Frank Shirley!”
Sylvia turned to Celeste, and the eyes of these two met. Celeste turned pale, and her look was eloquent of dismay.
“Nannie,” put in the Major, protestingly, “Frank Shirley is a fine, straight fellow——”
“I’ve nothing to say against Frank Shirley,” exclaimed the other. “I know nothing about him, and never expect to know anything about him. But I know the story of his family, and I know that he’s no right in ours. And what’s more, he knows it too—if he were a man with any conscience or self-respect, he’d not consent to ruin Sylvia’s life!”
“Aunt Nannie,” broke in the girl, “is one to think of nothing in marriage but worldly pride?”
“Worldly pride!” ejaculated the other. “You call it worldly pride—because you, who have been the favorite child of the Castlemans, who have been given every luxury, every privilege, are asked not to trample your sisters and cousins! To give way to a blind passion, and put a stain upon our name that will last for generations! Where do you suppose you’d have been to-day if your forefathers had acted in such fashion? Do you imagine that you’d have been the belle of Castleman Hall, the most sought-after girl in the state?”
That was the argument. For some minutes Mrs. Chilton went on to pour it forth. And angry as she was, Sylvia could not but feel the force of it, and realize the effect it was producing on the other members of the council. It was not the voice of a woman speaking; it was the voice of something greater than any of them, or than all of them together—a thing that had come from dim-distant ages, and would continue into an impenetrable future. It was the voice of the Family! No light thing it was, in truth, to be the favorite daughter of the Castlemans! Not a responsibility one could evade, an honor one could decline!
“You are where you are to-day,” proclaimed the speaker, “because other women thought of you when they chose their husbands. And I have never observed in you any unwillingness to accept the advantages they have handed on to you, any contempt for admiration and success. You are only a girl, of course; you can’t be expected to realize all the meaning of your marriage to your family; but your mother and father know, and they ought to have impressed it on you, instead of leaving you to run wild and be trapped by the first unprincipled man that came along!”
There was a pause. The Major and his wife sat in silence, with a guilty look upon their faces. “Worldly pride!” exclaimed Aunt Nannie, turning upon them. “Have you told her about your own marriage?”
“What do you mean?” asked the Major.
“You know very well,” was the reply, “that Margaret, when she married you, was head over heels in love with a nice, respectable, poor young preacher. And that she married you, not because she was in love with you, but because she knew that you were a noble-minded gentleman, the head of the oldest and best family in the county.” And then Aunt Nannie turned upon Sylvia. “Suppose,” she demanded, “that your mother had been sentimental and silly, and had run away with the preacher—have you any idea where you’d be now?”
Sylvia was hardly to be blamed for having no answer to this question, which might have been too much for the most learned scientist. There was silence in the council.
“Or take Mandeville,” pursued the Voice of the Family.
“Nannie!” protested Mandeville.
“You don’t want it talked about, I know,” said the other, “but this is a time for truth-telling. Your Uncle Mandeville was madly in love with a girl—a girl who had position, and money too; but he would not marry her because she had a sister who was ‘fast,’ and he would not bring such blood into the family.”
There was a pause. Uncle Mandeville’s head was bowed.
“And do you remember,” persisted Aunt Nannie, “that when the question was being discussed, your brother here asked that his growing daughters be spared having to hear about a scandal? Do you remember that?”
“Yes,” said Mandeville, “I remember that.”
“And how much nobler was such conduct than that of your Uncle Tom. Think——”
One could feel a sudden thrill go through the assembly. “Oh!” cried Miss Margaret, protestingly; and Mrs. Tuis exclaimed, “Nannie!”
“Think of what happened to Tom’s wife!” the other was proceeding; but here she was stopped by a firm word from the Major. “We will not discuss that, sister!”
There was a solemn pause, during which Sylvia and Celeste stared at each other. They knew that Uncle Tom Harley, their mother’s brother, was an army officer stationed in the far West; but they had never heard before that he had a wife, and were amazed and a little frightened by the revelation. It is in moments such as these, when the tempers of men and women strike sparks, that one gets glimpses of the skeletons that are hidden far back in the corners of family closets!
§ 25
There was a phrase which Sylvia had heard a thousand times in the discussions of her relatives; it was “bad blood.” “Bad blood” was a thing which possessed and terrified the Castleman imagination. Sylvia had but the vaguest ideas of heredity. She had heard it stated that tuberculosis and insanity were transmissible, and that one must never marry into a family where these disorders appeared; but apparently, also, the family considered that poverty and obscurity were transmissible—besides the general tendency to do things of which your neighbors disapproved. And you were warned that these evils often skipped a generation and reappeared. You might pick out a most excellent young man for a husband, and then see your children return to the criminal ways of his ancestors.
That was Aunt Nannie’s argument now. When Sylvia cried, “What has Frank Shirley done?” the reply was, “It’s not what he did, but what his father did.”
“But,” cried the girl, “his father was innocent! I’ve heard Papa say it a hundred times!”
“Then his uncle was guilty,” was Aunt Nannie’s response. “Somebody took the money and gambled it away.”
“But is gambling such a terrible offence? It seems to me I’ve heard of some Castlemans gambling.”
“If they do,” was the reply, “they gamble with their own money.”
At which Sylvia cried, “Nothing of the kind! They have gambled, and then come to Uncle Mandeville to get him to pay their debts!”
Now that was a body-blow; for it was Aunt Nannie’s own boys who had adopted this custom, which Sylvia had heard sternly reprehended in the family councils. Aunt Nannie flushed, and Uncle Mandeville made haste to interpose—“Sylvia, you should not speak so to your aunt.”
“I don’t see why not,” declared the girl. “I am saying nothing but what is true; and I have been attacked in the thing that is most precious in life to me.”
Here the Major felt it his duty to enter the debate. “Sylvia,” he said, “I don’t think you quite realize your aunt’s feelings. It is no selfish motive that leads her to make these objections.”
“Not selfish?” asked the girl. “She’s admitted it’s her fear for her own daughters, Papa——”
“It’s just exactly as much for your own sister, Sylvia.” It was the voice of Celeste, entering the discussion for the first time. Sylvia stared at her, astonished, and saw her eyes alight, her face as set and hard as Aunt Nannie’s. Sylvia realized all at once that she had an enemy in her own house.
She was trembling violently as she made reply. “Then, Celeste, I have to give up everything that means happiness in life to me, because I might frighten away rich suitors from my sister?”
“Sylvia,” put in the Major, gravely, before Celeste could speak, “you must not say things like that. It is not because Frank Shirley is poor that we are objecting. The pride of the Castlemans is not simply a pride of worldly power.”
“She degrades us and degrades herself when she implies it!” exclaimed Aunt Nannie.
“It is a high and great pride,” continued the Major. “The pride of a race of men and women who have scorned ignoble conduct and held themselves above all dishonor. That is no weak or shallow thing, Sylvia. It is a thing which sustains and upholds us at every moment of our lives: that we are living, not merely for our individual selves, but for all the generations that are to be. It may seem a cruel thing that the sins of the fathers should be visited upon the children, but it is a law of God. It was something that Bob Shirley himself said to me, with tears in his eyes—that his children and his children’s children would have to pay for what had been done.”
“But, Papa!” cried Sylvia. “They don’t have to pay it, except that we make them pay it!”
“You are mistaken, my child,” said the Major, quietly. “It’s not we alone. It was the whole of society that condemned him. We cannot possibly wipe out the blot on the Shirley escutcheon.”
“We can only drag ourselves down with them!” exclaimed Aunt Nannie.
“Why, it’s just as if we said that going to prison was nothing!” cried Celeste.
“You must remember how many people there are looking up to us, Sylvia,” put in Uncle Mandeville, solemnly.
There they were, all in chorus; Sylvia gazed in anguish from one to another. She gazed at her mother, just at the moment that that good lady was preparing to express her opinion. For the particular thing which held the imagination of “Miss Margaret” in thrall was this vision of the Castlemans living their life as it were upon a stage, with the lower orders in the pit looking on, imbibing instruction and inspiration from the action of the lofty drama.
Sylvia had heard it all before, and she could not bear to listen to it now. The tears, which had long been in her eyes, suddenly began to roll down her cheeks; she sprang up, exclaiming passionately, “You are all against me! Everyone of you!”
“Sylvia,” said her father, in distress, “that is not true!”
“We would wade through blood for you!” exclaimed Uncle Mandeville—who was always looking for a chance to shoot somebody for the honor of the Castleman name.
“We are thinking of nothing but your own future,” said the Major. “You are only a child, Sylvia——”
But Sylvia cried, “I can’t bear any more! You promised to stand by me, Papa—and now you let Aunt Nannie come here and persuade you—Mamma too—all of you! You will break my heart!” And so saying she fled from the room, leaving the family council to proceed as best it could without her.
§ 26
Sylvia shut herself in her room and had a good, exhaustive cry. Then, with her soul atmosphere cleared, she set to work to think out her problem.
She had to admit that the family had presented a strong case. There was the matter of heredity, for example. Just how much likelihood might there be, in the event of her marrying Frank, of her finding herself with children of evil tendencies? Just what truth might there be in Aunt Nannie’s point of view, that he was a selfish man, seeking to redeem his family fortunes by allying himself with the Castlemans? The question sounded cold-blooded, but then Sylvia always had to face the truth.
Also there was the problem, to what extent a girl ought to sacrifice herself to her family. There was no denying that they had done much for her. She had been as their right eye to them; and what did she owe them in return? There was no one of them whom she did not love, sincerely, intensely; there was no one over whose sorrows she had not wept, whose burdens she had not borne. And now she faced the fact that if she married Frank Shirley, she would cause them unhappiness. She might argue that they had no right to be unhappy; but that did not alter the fact—they would be unhappy. Sylvia’s life so far had been a process of bringing other people joy; and now, suddenly, she found herself in a dilemma where it was necessary for her to cause pain. Upon whom ought it to fall—upon her mother and father, her uncles and aunts—or upon Frank Shirley and herself?
Of all the arguments which produced an effect upon her, the most powerful was that embodied in Aunt Nannie’s phrase, “a blind passion.” Sylvia had been taught to think of “passion” as something low and shameful; she did not like the vision of herself as a weak, infatuated creature, throwing away all that other people had striven to give her. Many were the phrases whereby all her life she had heard such conduct scorned; there was a phrase from the Bible that was often cited—something about “inordinate affection.” Just what was the difference between ordinate and inordinate affection? And how was she to decide in which category to place her love for Frank Shirley?
For the greater part of two days and two nights Sylvia debated these problems; and then she went to her father. The color was gone from her cheeks, and she was visibly thinner; but her mind was made up.
She told the Major all the doubts that had beset her and all the arguments she had considered. She set forth his contention that the pride of the Castlemans was not a “worldly pride;” and then she announced her conclusion, which was that he was permitting himself to be carried along, against his own better judgment, by the vanity of the women of his family.
Needless to say, the Major was startled by this pronouncement, delivered with all the solemnity of a pontiff ex cathedra. But Sylvia was ready with her proofs. There was Aunt Nannie, scheming and plotting day and night to make great marriages for her children. Spending her husband’s money in ways he disapproved, and getting—what? Was there a single one of her children that was happy? Was there a single couple—for all the rich marriages—that wasn’t living beyond its income, and jealous of other people who were able to spend more? Harley, grumbling because he couldn’t have a motor of his own—Clive, because he couldn’t afford to marry the girl he loved! And both of them drinking and gambling, and forcing Uncle Mandeville to pay their debts.
“Sylvia, you know I have protested to your Aunt Nannie.”
“Yes, Papa—but meantime you’re ruining your own health and fortune to enable your daughters to run the same race. Here’s Celeste, like a hound in the leash, eager to have her chance—just Aunt Nannie all over again! I know, Papa—it’s terrible, and I can’t bear to hurt you with it, but I have to tell you what my own decision is. I love Frank Shirley; I think my love for him is a true love, and I can’t for a moment think of giving it up. I’m sorry to have to break faith with the Family; I can only plead that I didn’t understand the bargain when I made it, and that I shall take care not to make my debt any greater.”
“What do you mean, Sylvia?”
“I mean that I want to give up the social game. I want to stop spending fortunes on clothes and travel and luxuries; I want to stop being paraded round and exhibited to men I’m not interested in. I want you to give me a little money—just what I need to live—and let me go to New York to study music for a year or two more, until I am able to teach and earn my own living.”
“Earn your own living! Sylvia!”
“Precisely, Papa. And meantime, Frank can go through college and law school, and when we can take care of ourselves, we’ll marry. That’s my plan, and I’m serious about it—I want you to let me do it this year.”
And there sat the poor Major, staring at her, his face a study of unutterable emotions, whispering to himself, “My God! My God!”
When Sylvia told me about this scene I reminded her of her experience with the young clergyman who had come to convert her from heresy. “Don’t you see now,” I asked, “why he called you the most dangerous woman in Castleman County?”
§ 27
This procedure of Sylvia’s was a beautiful illustration of what the military strategists call an “offensive defence.” By the simple suggestion of earning her own living, she got everything else in the world that she wanted. It was agreed that she might make known her engagement to Frank Shirley. It was agreed that she need have no more money spent upon clothes and parties. Most important of all, it was agreed that Aunt Nannie was to be informed that Sylvia’s course was approved by her parents, and that Frank Shirley was to be welcomed to Castleman Hall.
But of course she was not to be allowed to earn money. Her father made it clear that the bare suggestion of this caused him more unhappiness than she could endure to inflict. When she protested, “I want to learn something useful!” the dear old Major was ready with the proposition that they learn something useful together; and forthwith unlocked the diamond-paned doors of the old mahogany book-cases, and dragged forth dust-covered sets of Grote’s “History of Greece,” and Hume’s “History of England,” and Jefferson Davis’ “Rise and Fall of the Confederate Government”—out of which ponderous volumes Sylvia read aloud to him for several hours each day thereafter.
So from now on this is to be the story of a wholly reformed and chastened huntress of hearts. No more for her the tournaments of coquetry, no more the trumpets of the ball-room peal. No longer shall we behold her, clad in armor of chiffon and real lace, with breastplate of American beauty roses and helmet of gold and pearls. No longer shall we see the arrows of her red-brown eyes flying over the stricken field, deep-dyed with the heart’s blood of Masculinity. Instead of this the dusty tome and the midnight oil and the green eye-shade confront us; we behold the uncanny spectacle of the loveliest of created mortals clad in blue stockings and black-rimmed spectacles.—All this scintillating wit, I make haste to explain, is not mine, but something which Avery Crittenden, the town wag, dashed off in a moment of illumination, and which appeared in the Castleman County Register (no names, if you please!) a couple of weeks after the news of Sylvia’s reformation had stunned the world.
I wish that space were less limited, so that I could tell you how Castleman County received the tidings, and some few of the comical episodes in the long war which it waged to break down her resolution of withdrawal. It was the light of their eyes going out, and they could not and would not be reconciled to it. They wrote letters, they sent telegrams; they would come and literally besiege the house—sit in the parlor and condole with “Miss Margaret,” no longer because Sylvia refused to marry them, but merely because she refused to lead the german with them! They would come with bands of music, with negro singers to serenade her. One spring night a whole fancy-dress ball adjourned by unanimous consent, and stormed the terraces of Castleman Hall and held its revels under the windows; and so of course Sylvia had to stop trying to read about Walpole’s ministry and invite them in and give them wine and cake. On the evening of one of the club dances there was an organized conspiracy; seventeen of her old sweethearts sent her roses, and when in spite of this she did not come, the next day came seventeen messengers, bearing seventeen packages, each containing a little cupid wrapped in cotton-wool—but with his wings broken!
Such was the pressure from outside; and within—there would be a new gown sent by Uncle Mandeville, who was on another spree in New Orleans; a gown that was really a dream of beauty and a crime not to wear. Or there would be talk at the table about Dolly Witherspoon, Sylvia’s chief rival, and the triumph she had won at the cotillion last night; how Stanley Pendleton was “rushing” her, and how Cousin Harley had been snubbed by her. And then some one gave a ball, and Charlie Peyton rang up to say that he was getting drunk and going to the devil unless Sylvia would come and dance with him! And when this device succeeded, and the rumor of it spread—how many of the nicest boys in the county took to getting drunk and going to the devil, because Sylvia would not come and dance with them!
I mention these things in order that you may understand that, sincere as Sylvia was in her effort to withdraw from “society,” she was not entirely successful. She still met “eligible” men, and she was still an object of family concern. A few days after the council, she had been surprised by a visit from Aunt Nannie, who came to apologize and make peace. “I want you to know, Sylvia dear,” she declared, “that what I said to you was said with no thought of anything but your own good.” There was a reconciliation, with tears in the eyes of both of them—and a renewal of the activities of Aunt Nannie. How often it happened to Sylvia, when at some dance she fell into the clutches of an undesirable man, that Aunt Nannie found a pretext for joining them—and presently, without quite realizing how, Sylvia found that the man was gone, and that she was settled for a tête-à-tête with a more suitable companion! Once she stopped to luncheon with the Bishop, and found herself being shown a new album of photographs. There among English cathedrals and Rhenish castles she stumbled upon a picture of the “Mansion House,” the home of the wealthy Peytons. “What a lovely old place!” she exclaimed; and her aunt remarked, “Charlie will inherit that, lucky boy!”
She remembered also the case of Ned Scott, the young West Pointer who came home on furlough, setting all the girls’ hearts aflutter with his gray and gold gorgeousness. “My, what a handsome fellow!” exclaimed Aunt Nannie. “It makes me happy just to watch him walk!”
“An army man always has a good social position,” remarked “Miss Margaret,” casually.
“And an assured income,” added Aunt Varina, timidly.
“He has a mole on his nose,” observed Sylvia.
§ 28
Frank Shirley had passed the midwinter examinations at Harvard, and was settled in the dormitory of his fathers; and so for a while the acute agitation subsided. It began again in the summer, however—when Sylvia proposed staying at the Hall, instead of going with the family to the summer-place in the mountains of North Carolina. It was obvious that this was in order to be near her lover; and so the whole battle had to be fought over again. Aunt Nannie was unable to understand how Sylvia could be willing to “publish her infatuation to the world.”
“But I have only the summer when I can see him,” the girl argued.
“But even so, my dear—to give up everything else, to change all your plans, the plans of your whole family!”
“Nobody need change, Aunt Nannie. Aunt Varina will stay with me gladly.”
“Others have to stay, if it’s only to hide what you are doing. It’s not decent, Sylvia! Believe me, you will lose the man’s own respect if you behave so. No man can permanently respect a woman who betrays her feelings so openly.”
“My dear Aunt Nannie,” said Sylvia, quietly, “I am quite sure that I know Frank Shirley better than you do.”
“Poor, deluded child,” was Mrs. Chilton’s comment. “You’ll find to your sorrow some day that men are all alike!”
But the girl was obdurate. The family had to proceed to desperate measures. First her mother declared that she would stay also—she must remain to protect her unfortunate child. And then, of course, the Major decided that it was his duty to remain. There came the question of Celeste, who had planned a house party, and foresaw the spoiling of her fun by the selfishness of her sister. There was also the baby—the precious, ineffable baby, the heir of all the might, majesty and dominion of the Lysles. The family physician intervened—the child must positively have the mountain air. Also the Major’s liver trouble was serious, he was sleeping badly and working too hard, and was in desperate need of a change. Prompted by Aunt Nannie, the doctor said this in Sylvia’s hearing—and settled the matter.
It had been Frank’s idea to remain at Cambridge and study during the summer, so as to make up some “conditions;” but when he learned that Sylvia intended to remain at the Hall, he decided to stand the expense of coming home. He arrived there to find that she had suddenly changed her mind and was going—and offering but slight explanation of her change. Sylvia was intensely humiliated because of the attitude of her family, and was trying to spare Frank the pain of knowing about it.
So came the beginning of unhappiness between them. Frank was acutely conscious of his inferiority to her in all worldly ways. And he knew that her relatives were trying to break down her resolution. He could not believe that they would succeed; and yet, there was a bitter and disillusioned man within him who could not believe that they would fail. In his soul there were always thorns of doubt, which festered, and now and then would cause him pangs of agony. But he was as proud as any savage, and would have died before he would ask for mercy. When he learned that she was going away from him, for no better reason than her relatives’ objections, he felt that she did not care enough for him. And then, when he did not protest, it was Sylvia’s turn to worry. So it really did not matter to him whether she stayed or not! It might be that Aunt Nannie was right after all, that a man ceased to love a woman who gave herself too freely.