§ 9
There were more dances and entertainments; and each time, of course, it was harder for Sylvia to escape. She had been to one, and so people would expect her at the next. There was always somebody who would be hurt if she refused, and there was always that dreadful phenomenon called “people”—it would say that the task had been too much for her, that she was still under the spell of the man who had flaunted her. So evening after evening Sylvia would choke back her tears, and drink more coffee, and go forth and pretend to be happy.
It was at the third of these entertainments that she met Douglas van Tuiver. No one had told her of his return—she had no warning until she saw him enter the room. She had to get herself together and choose her course of action, with the eyes of the whole company upon her. For this was the meeting about which Castleman County had been gossiping and speculating for weeks—the rising of the curtain upon the second act of the thrilling drama!
He was his usual precise and formal self; unimpeachably correct, and yet set apart by a something—a reserve, a dignity. This extended even to his costume, which tolerated no casual wrinkle, no presumptuous speck. There was always just a slight difference between van Tuiver’s attire and that of other men—and somehow you knew that this was the difference between the best and the average.
It seemed strange to Sylvia to see him here, in her old environment; strange to compare him with her own people. She realized that she would have to treat him differently now, for he was a stranger, a guest. She discovered also a difference in him. He may have been touched by the change he saw in her; at any rate he was very gentle, and very cautious. He asked for a dance, and promised that he would not ask for more. To her great surprise he kept the promise.
“Miss Sylvia,” he said, when they strolled out after the dance, “may I call you Miss Sylvia, as they all seem to here? I want to explain something, if you will let me. I’m afraid that my being here will seem to you an impertinence. I hope you will accept my apology. When I got back to Cambridge I learned from your cousin what—what the news would mean to you; and I came because I thought perhaps I might help. It was absurd, I suppose—but I didn’t know. Then, when I got here, I did not dare to ask to see you. I don’t know now if you will send me away——”
He stopped. “I am sure, Mr. van Tuiver,” she said, quietly, “you have a perfect right to stay here if you wish.”
“No right, Miss Sylvia, but the right you give me!” he exclaimed. “I won’t take refuge in quibbles. I thought that if I promised not to bother you, and really kept the promise—if I never asked to see you unless you desired it——”
It was not easy to send him away upon those terms. She did not see what good it would do him to stay, but she refrained from asking the question. He paused—perhaps to make sure that she would not ask. “Miss Sylvia,” he continued, finally, “I am afraid you will laugh at me—but I want to be near you, I don’t want to be anywhere else. I want to see the world you belong in; I want to know your relatives and your friends—your home, the places you go to—everything. I want to hear people talk about you. And at the same time I’m uncomfortable, because I know you dislike me, and I’m afraid I’ll anger you, just by being here. But if you send me away—you see, I don’t know where to go——”
He stopped, and there was a long silence. “You are missing your examinations,” she said, at last.
“I don’t care anything about Harvard,” he replied. “I’ve lost all interest—I shall never go back.”
“But how about the reforms you were going to work for? Have you lost interest in them?”
He hesitated. “They’ve all—don’t you see?” He stopped, embarrassed. “The movement’s gone to pieces.”
“Oh!” said Sylvia, and felt a slow fire of shame mounting in her cheeks. It had not occurred to her to think of the plight of the would-be revolutionists of the “Yard” after their candidate had landed himself in jail.
They turned to go in, and van Tuiver asked, timidly, “You won’t send me away, Miss Sylvia?”
“I wish,” she answered, “that you would not put the burden of any such decision upon me.” And so the matter rested, van Tuiver apparently content with what he had gained. Sylvia’s next partner claimed her, and she did not see “King Douglas the First” again; a circumstance which, needless to say, was duly noted by Castleman County, to its great mystification. Could it be that rumor was mistaken—that he was not really after Sylvia at all? Could it be that her flouting of “Royalty” was a common case of “sour grapes”?
§ 10
Sylvia would not be content to drift and suffer indefinitely. It was not her nature to give up and acknowledge failure, but to make the best of things. Her thoughts turned to those in her own home, and how she could help them.
All through the tragedy she had been aware of her father, moving about the house like a ghost, silent, wrung with grief; her heart bled for the suffering she had caused him. Her chief thought was to make it up to him, to be cheerful and busy for his sake—to put him into the place in her heart which Frank Shirley had left empty. After all, he was the one man she could really trust—the one who was good and true and generous.
She sought him out one night, while the light was burning in his office. She drew up a chair and sat close to him, so that she could look into his eyes. “Papa,” she said, “I’ve been thinking hard—and I want to tell you, I’m going to try to be good.”
“You are always good, my child,” he declared.
“I have been selfish and heedless. But now I’m going to think about other people—about you most of all. I want to do the things I used to be happy doing with you. Let us begin to-morrow and take care of our roses, and have beautiful flowers again. Won’t that be nice, Daddy?”
There were tears in his eyes. “Yes, dear,” he said.
“And then I must begin and read to you. I know you are using your eyes too much, and mine are young. And Papa—this is the principal thing—I want you to let me help you with the accounts, to learn to be of some use to you in business ways. No, you must not put me off, because I know—truly I know.”
“What do you know, dear?” he asked, smiling.
“I know you work too hard, and that you have things to worry you, and that you try to hide them from me. I know how many bills there are, and how everybody wastes money, and never thinks of you. I’ve done it myself, and now it’s Celeste’s turn—she must have everything, and be spared every care, and write checks whenever she pleases. Papa, if it’s true that this year’s crop is ruined, you’ll have to borrow money—”
“My child!” he began, protestingly.
“I know—you don’t want me to ask. But see, Papa—if I married, I’d have to know about my husband’s affairs, and help him, wouldn’t I? And now that I shall never marry—yes, I mean that, Papa. I want you not to try to marry me off any more, but to let me stay at home and be a help to you and Mamma.”
The other was shrewd enough to humor her. They would get to work at the roses in the morning, and they would take up Alexander H. Stephens’ Confederate History without delay; also Sylvia might take the bills as they came in each month, and find out who had ordered what, and prevent the tradesmen from charging for the same thing twice over. But of course, he did not tell her any of his real worries, nor let her see his bank-books and accounts; nor could he quite see his way to promise that Aunt Nannie should let her alone while she settled into old-maidenhood.
Aunt Nannie came round the next morning, as it happened. Sylvia did not see her, being up to the wrists in black loam in the rose-garden; but she learned the purpose of the visit at lunchtime. “Sylvia,” said her mother, “do you think it’s decent for us to go much longer without inviting Mr. van Tuiver over here?”
“Do you think he wants to come?” asked Sylvia, with a touch of her old mischief.
“Your Aunt Nannie seems to think so,” was the reply—given quite naïvely. “I wrote to ask him to dinner. I hope you won’t mind.”
Sylvia said that she would find some way to make the occasion tolerable. And she found a quite unique way. It was one of her times for bitterness, when she hated the world, and especially the male animals upon it, and herself for a fool for not having known about them. It chanced to be the same day of the week that she had prepared for Frank’s coming, and had introduced him to the family with so many tremblings and agonies of soul. So now, when she came to dress, she picked out the gown she had worn that evening, and had them bring her a bunch of the same kind of roses: which seemed to her a perfectly diabolical piece of cynicism—like to the celebrating of a “black mass”!
She descended, radiant and lovely, in a mood of somewhat terrible gaiety. She laughed and all but sang at the dinner-table; she joked with van Tuiver, and flouted him outrageously—and in the next breath charmed and delighted him, to the bewilderment of the family, who knew nothing about her adventures with Royalty, and the various strange moods to which its presence drove her.
In the course of that meal she told him a story—one of the wildest and most wonderful of her stories. So at least it seemed to me, who for years have been longing for a poet to take it up and make a ballad of it—a real American ballad! It is curious, but I can hear the very rhyme and rhythm of that ballad, which I cannot write. I wonder if I may not awaken in some grey dawn, and find it all complete, singing itself in my mind!
The story of the burning of “Rose Briar,” it was. “Rose Briar” was the old home of one of the Peytons, which had stood for three generations on a high bluff on the river-bank a mile or so from Sylvia’s home. It had the largest and most beautiful ball-room in the county, and was a centre of continuous hospitality. One night had come a telephone-message to the effect that it was on fire, and the neighbors gathered from miles around; on a wild night, with a gale blowing and the whole roof and upper part of the house in flames, they saw that the place was doomed.
And there was the splendid ball-room, in which they and their fathers and their grandfathers had celebrated so many festivities! “One last dance!” cried the young folks, and in they trooped. The servants were trying to get the piano out, but the master of the house himself stopped them—what was a piano in comparison to a romantic thrill? So one played, and the rest danced—danced while the fire roared deafeningly in the stories above them, and creeping veils of smoke gathered about their heads. They danced like mad creatures, laughing, singing in chorus. Eddying gusts of flame poured in at the windows, and still they sang—
And so on, until there came a crashing of rafters above them, and showers of cinders and burning wood through the windows. Then they fled, and gathered in a group upon the lawn, and watched the roof of their pleasure-house fall in, sending a burst of flame and sparks to the sky.
And here, thought Sylvia, was the roof of her pleasure-house falling in! There was something terrifying in the symbol; the house of civilization was falling in, and people were dancing, dancing! “Don’t you feel that, Mr. van Tuiver?” she asked. “It seems to me sometimes that I can see the world going to destruction before my eyes, and people don’t know about it, they don’t care about it. They are dancing, drunk with dancing! On with the dance!”
She laughed, a trifle hysterically, for her nerves were near the breaking point. Then she happened to look towards her sister Celeste, and caught a strange look in her eyes. She took in the meaning of it in an instant—Celeste was conscious of the presence of Royalty, and shocked by this display of levity upon a solemn occasion! “Sister, how dare you?” the look seemed to say; and the message gave a new fillip to the mad steeds of Sylvia’s fancy. “Never mind, Chicken!” she laughed. (“Chicken” was a childhood nickname, which, needless to say, was infuriating to a young lady soon to make her début.) “Never mind, Chicken! The roof will last till you’ve had your dance!”
And then, the meal at an end, Sylvia took her guest into the library. She put him in the same chair that Frank had occupied, and turned on the same lights upon her loveliness; she took her seat, and looked at him once, and smiled alluringly—and then suddenly looked away, and bit her lip until it bled, and sprang up and fled from the room, and rushed upstairs and flung herself upon her bed, sobbing, choking with her grief.
§ 11
There were ups and downs like this. The next day, of course, Sylvia was ashamed of her behavior; she had promised to be happy, and not to distress her people—and this was the way she kept her promise. She began to make new resolutions, and to think of ways of atoning. She took her father out into the garden, and pretended deep interest in the new cinnamon-roses. She spent a couple of hours going over his old check-stubs and receipted bills, and with evidence thus discovered went into town and made a row with a tradesman, and saved her father a couple of hundred dollars.
Then, after lunch, she took him for a drive behind the new pony which Uncle Mandeville had given her. She got him out into the country, and then opened up on him in unexpected fashion. “Papa, it isn’t possible for people like us to economize, is it?”
“Not very much, my child,” he answered smiling. “Why?”
“I’ve been thinking,” she said. “It’s all wrong—but I don’t know what to do about it. You spent so much money on me; I didn’t want it, but I didn’t realize it till it was too late. And now comes Celeste’s turn, and you have to spend as much on her, or she’ll be jealous and angry. And Peggy and Maria will see what Celeste gets, and they will demand their turn. And the Baby—he’s smashing his toys now, and in a few years he’ll be smashing windows, and in a few more he’ll be gambling like Clive and Harley. And you can’t do anything about any of it!”
“My child,” he said, “I don’t want you to worry about such things——”
“No, you want to do all the worrying yourself. But, Papa, I have to make my life of some use. Since I can’t earn money, I’ve been thinking that perhaps the most sensible thing would be for me to marry some rich man, and then help all my family and friends.”
“Sylvia,” protested the Major, “I don’t like one of my daughters to have such thoughts in her mind. I don’t want a child of mine to marry for money—there is no need of it, there never will be!”
“Not while you can sit up all night and worry over accounts. But some day you won’t be able to, Papa. I can see that you’re under a strain, and yet I can’t get you to let me help you. If you make sacrifices for me, why shouldn’t I make them for you?”
“Not that kind of a sacrifice, my child. It’s a terrible thing for a woman to marry for money.”
“Do you really think so, Papa? So many women do it. Are they all bad, and are they all unhappy?”
Thus Sylvia—trying to do her duty, and keep her mind occupied. They got back home, and she found new diversions—Castleman Lysle had been feeding himself in the kitchen, and had been picked up black in the face with convulsions. This, you understand, was one of the features of life at Castleman Hall; one baby had been lost that way, since which time “Miss Margaret” always fainted when it occurred. As poor Aunt Varina had not the physical strength for such emergencies, Sylvia had to get a tub of hot water, and hold the child in it—while some one else held a spoon in his mouth, in order that he might not chew his tongue to pieces!
Thus the afternoon passed busily, and in the evening was the spring dance of the Young Matrons’ Cotillion Club. Sylvia absolutely had to go to that, in order to dance with Douglas van Tuiver and atone for her rudeness. She had promised it by way of pacifying Aunt Nannie; and also her father had made plans to accompany her again.
So she put on a new “cloth of silver” gown which she had bought in New York, and drank a “toddy” of the Major’s mixing, and sallied forth upon his arm. There were lights and music, happy faces, cheery greetings—so she was uplifted, dreaming of happiness again. And then came the most dreadful collapse of all.
She had strolled out upon the veranda with Stanley Pendleton. Feeling chilly, she sent her partner in for a wrap; and then suddenly came a voice—his voice!
If it had been his ghost, Sylvia could not have been more startled. She whirled about and stared, and saw him—standing in the semidarkness of the garden, close to the railing of the veranda. It had rained that day, and the roads were deep in mire, and he had ridden far. His clothing was splashed and his hair in disarray; as for his face—never had Sylvia seen such grief on a human countenance.
“Sylvia!” he whispered. “Sylvia!” She could only gaze at him, dumb. “Sylvia, give me one minute! I have come here to tell you——”
He stopped, his voice breaking with intensity of feeling. “Oh!” she gasped. “You ought not to be here!”
“I had to see you!” he exclaimed. “There was no other way——”
But he got no farther. There was a step behind Sylvia, and she turned, and at the same moment heard the terrible voice of her father—“What does this mean?”
She sprang to him with a quick cry. “Papa!” She caught his arm with her hands, trying to stop what she feared he might do. “No, Papa, no!” For one moment the Major stood staring at the apparition in the darkness.
She could feel him trembling with fury. “Sir, how dare you approach my daughter?”
“Papa, no!” exclaimed Sylvia, again.
“Sir, do you wish to make it necessary for me to shoot you?”
Then Frank answered, his voice low and vibrant with pain. “Major Castleman, I would be grateful to you.”
The other glared at him for a moment; then he said, “If you wish to die, sir, choose some way that will not drag my daughter to disgrace.”
Frank’s gaze had turned to the girl. “Sylvia,” he exclaimed, “I tell you that I went to that place——”
“Stop!” almost shouted the Major.
“Major Castleman,” said Frank, “Allow me to speak to your daughter. It has been——”
Sylvia was clutching her father in terror. She knew that he had a weapon, and was on the point of using it; she knew also that she had not the physical force to prevent him. She cried hysterically, “Go! Go away!”
And Frank looked at her—a last look, that she never forgot all the days of her life. “You mean it, Sylvia?” he asked, his voice breaking.
“I mean it!” she answered.
“Forever?”
For the smallest part of a second she hesitated. “Forever!” commanded her father; and she echoed, “Forever!” Frank turned, without another word, and was gone in the darkness; and Sylvia fell into her father’s arms, convulsed with an agony that shook her frame.
§ 12
They got her home, where her first action, in spite of her exhaustion, was to insist upon seeing her Uncle Mandeville. So determined, so vehement she was, that it was necessary to rout the worthy gentleman out from a poker-game at two o’clock in the morning. There had been other witnesses of what Frank had done, and Sylvia knew that her uncle must hear; so she told him herself, with her arms about him, clinging to him in frenzy, and beseeching him to give her his word of honor that he would not carry out his threat against Frank Shirley.
It was not an easy word to get; she would probably have failed, had it not been for the Major. He could see the force in her argument that a shooting-affair would only serve to publish the matter to the world, and make it seem more serious. After all, from the family’s point of view, the one thing to be desired was to make certain that there would be no further communication between the two. And Sylvia was willing to assure them of that, she declared. She rushed to her desk, and with trembling fingers wrote a note to “Mr. Frank Shirley,” informing him that the scene which had just occurred had been intolerable to her, and requesting him to perform her one last service—to write a note to her father to the effect that he would make no further attempt to communicate with her. The Major, after some discussion, decided that he would accept this as a settlement; and he being the elder brother, his word was law with Mandeville—at least so long as Mandeville was sober.
I remember Sylvia’s account of the state of exhaustion in which she found herself after this ordeal; how for two days she had the sensation that her mind was breaking up. Yet—a circumstance worth noting—at no time did she blame those who had put her through this ordeal. She could not blame the men of her family; if any one were at fault, it was herself, for being at the mercy of her emotions, and capable of a secret longing to have parleyings with a man who had dragged her name in the mire. You see, Sylvia believed in her heritage. She was proud of the Castlemans—and apparently you could not have rare, aristocratic virtues without also having terrifying vices. If one’s men-folk got drunk and shot people, one’s consolation was that at least they did it in a bold and striking and “high-spirited” way.
You will perhaps find yourself impatient with the girl at this stage of her story. I recall my own frantic protests while I listened. What a cruel, needless tragedy! I cried out for the evidence of some gleam of sense on the part of any one person concerned. Surely Sylvia, knowing Frank, must have come to doubt that he could have been unfaithful to her! Surely, with the hints she got at that meeting, she must have realized that there was something more to be said! Surely he, on his part, would have found some way of getting an interview with her, or at least of sending an explanation by some friend! Surely he would never have given up until he had done that!
I have claimed for Sylvia the possession of clear-sightedness. She displayed it when it was a question of revising her religion, she displayed it when it was a question of managing her family, and obtaining permission to be engaged to a convict’s son. But, if you look to see her display anything of that sort in the present emergency, you will look in vain. Sylvia could be bold in a matter of theology, she could be bold in a matter of love, but she could not possibly be bold in a matter of a house of prostitution. If I were to give you illustrations of the completeness of her ignorance upon the subject of sex, you would simply not be able to believe what I told; and not only was she ignorant, she could not conceive that it was possible for her to be other than ignorant. She could not conceive that it was possible for a pure-minded girl to talk about such a subject with any human being, man or woman.
I doubt very much, if it had come to an actual test, whether Sylvia would have been capable of marrying against her family’s will. She had opposed them vehemently, but this was because she knew that she was right, and that they, in their inmost hearts, knew it also. The Major and “Miss Margaret” were good and generous-hearted people, and they could not sincerely condemn Frank Shirley for his father’s offense. But how different it was now! In the present matter she faced the phalanx of the family, not on an open field where she could manœuvre and outwit them—but in a place of darkness and terror, where she dared not stir a foot alone.
And let me tell you also that you mistake Frank Shirley if you count upon the mere physical fact that he could have got an explanation to Sylvia. It was not easy for him to explain about such matters to the woman he loved; and if you think it was easy, you are a modern, matter-of-fact person, not understanding the notions of an old-fashioned Southerner. The simple fact was that when Frank wrote to Harriet Atkinson, to ask her to hear his plea, he felt that he was doing something desperate and unprecedented; and when Harriet wrote, coldly refusing to have anything to do with the matter, he felt that she had rebuked him for his boldness. As for the last effort he had made to see Sylvia, it was the act of a man driven frantic by love—a man willing to sacrifice his life, and even his self-respect. I have portrayed Frank poorly if I have not made you realize that from the first hour he approached Sylvia with a sense of inferiority and of guilt; that he had remained her lover against the incessant protests of his pride. People are making money rapidly these days in the South, and so becoming like us “Yankees”; yet it will be a long time, I think, before a Southerner without money will make love to a rich woman without feeling in his heart that he is acting the knave.
§ 13
There came another long struggle for Sylvia, another climb out of the pit. For the sake of her father, she could not delay; as soon as she was able to move about, she was out among her roses again, and reading Alexander Stephens in the evenings. Within a week she had been to a card-party and a picnic, and also had received a call from Douglas van Tuiver.
Never before had Sylvia worn such an ethereal aspect; he was gentle, even reverent, in his manner to her. He had a particular reason for calling to see her, he said. He owned a yacht, considered quite a beautiful vessel; it was now in commission, but idle, and he had taken the liberty of ordering it to the Southern coast, and wished to beg her to use it to bring the color back into her cheeks. She might take her Aunt Varina, her sister—a whole party, if she chose—and cruise up the coast, to Maine and the St. Lawrence, or over in the North Sea—wherever her fancy suggested. He would go with her and take charge, if she would permit—or he would stay behind, and be happy in the knowledge that she was recovering her health.
Of course, Sylvia could not accept such a favor; she insisted that it was impossible, in spite of all his arguments and urgings. She thanked him so cordially, however, that he went away quite happy.
Then came Mrs. Chilton, and there was a conclave of the ladies. Why should she not accept the offer? It was the very thing she needed to divert her mind, and get her out of this disgraceful state.
“Aunt Nannie,” cried the girl, “how can you think of wanting me to accept such a gift from a comparative stranger? It must cost hundreds of dollars a month to run such a yacht!”
“About five thousand dollars a month, my dear,” said the other, quietly.
Sylvia was aghast; once in a while even a fiery revolutionist like herself was awe-stricken by the actuality of Royalty. “I don’t want things like that,” she said, at last. “I want to stay quietly at home and help Papa.”
“You need a change,” declared the other. “So long as you are here you are never safe from that evil man; and anyway you are surrounded by reminders of him. A yachting-trip would force you to put your mind on other things. The sea-air would do you good; and if you took Celeste with you—think what a treat for her!”
“Oh, Sylvia, please do!” cried Celeste.
Sylvia looked at her sister. “You’d like to go?”
“Oh, how can you ask?” she replied. “It would be heaven!”
Sylvia said that she would think it over. But in reality she wanted to think about something else. She waited until they left her alone with her sister, and then she said, “You like Mr. van Tuiver, don’t you?”
“How could I fail to like him?” asked Celeste.
The other tried to draw her out. Why did she like him? He had such beautiful manners, such dignity—there were no loose ends about him. He had been everywhere, met everybody of consequence; compared with him the men at home seemed like country-fellows. It was that indescribable thing called elegance, said Celeste, gravely. She could not understand her sister’s attitude at all; she thought Sylvia treated van Tuiver outrageously, and her eyes flashed a danger-signal as she said it. It was a woman’s right to reject a man’s advances if she chose to; but she ought not to humiliate him, when his only offense was admiring her to excess.
“I only wish it was you he admired,” said Sylvia, who was in a gentle mood.
“No chance of that,” remarked the other, with a touch of bitterness in her voice. “He has no eyes or ears for anybody else when you are about.”
“I’m going to try to lend him eyes and ears,” responded Sylvia. For that was the idea that had occurred to her—van Tuiver must be persuaded to transfer his interest to Celeste! Celeste would marry him; she would marry him without the least hesitation or distress; and then the elder sister might settle down with her family and her rose-gardens and her Confederate History!
§ 14
Sylvia became quite excited over this scheme. When van Tuiver asked permission to call again, she was glad to say yes; but she kept Celeste with her, guiding the conversation so as to show off her best qualities. But alas, “Little Sister” had no qualities to be shown off when van Tuiver was about! She was so much impressed by him that she trembled with stage fright. Usually a bright and vivacious girl, although somewhat hard and shallow, she was now dumb, abject, a booby! Sylvia raged at her inwardly, and when van Tuiver had taken his departure, she said, “Celeste, how can you expect to impress a man if you let him see you are afraid to breathe in his presence?”
Tears of humiliation came into her sister’s eyes. “What’s the use of talking about my impressing him? Can’t you see that he pays no more attention to me than if I were a doll?”
“Make him pay attention to you!” cried the other. “Shock him, hurt him, make him angry—do anything but put yourself under his feet!” She went on to give a lecture on that awe-inspiring phenomenon, the Harvard manner; trying to prove to her sister that it was an idol with feet of clay, which would topple if one attacked it resolutely. She told the story of her own meeting with King Douglas the First, and how she had been able to subdue him with cheap effrontery. But she soon discovered that her arguments were thrown away upon Celeste, who was simply shocked by her story, and had no more the desire than she had the power to subdue van Tuiver. At first Sylvia had thought it was mere awe of his millions, but gradually she realized that it was something far more serious—something quite tragic. Celeste had fallen in love with Royalty!
But still Sylvia could not give up the struggle. It would have been such a marvelous solution of her problem! She let van Tuiver call as often as he wanted to; but she became, all at once, a phenomenon of sisterly affection. She took Celeste horseback riding with them—and Celeste rode well. If van Tuiver asked to go automobiling, she found shrewd excuses for having Celeste go also. But in the end she had to give up—because of the “English system.” Van Tuiver did not want Celeste, and was so brutally unaware of her existence that Celeste came home with tears of humiliation in her eyes. Sylvia went off by herself and shed tears also; she hated van Tuiver and his damnable manners!
She realized suddenly to what extent he was boring her. He came the next day, and spent the better part of an hour talking to her about his experiences among the elect in various parts of the world. He had been shooting last fall upon the estates of the Duke of Something in Scotland. You went out in an automobile, and took a seat in an arm-chair, and had several score “beaters” drive tame pheasants towards you; you had two men to load your guns, and you shot the birds as they rose; but you could not shoot more than so many hundred of a morning, because the recoil of the gun gave you a headache. The Duke had a couple of guns which were something special—he valued them at a thousand guineas the pair.
“Mr. van Tuiver,” said the girl, suddenly, “there is something I want to say to you. I have been meaning to say it for some time. I think you ought not to stay here any longer.”
His face lost suddenly its expression of complacency. “Why, Miss Sylvia!” he exclaimed.
“I want to deal with you frankly. If you are here for any reason not connected with me, why all right; but if you are here on my account, I ought not to leave you under any misapprehension.”
He tried hard to recover his poise. “I had begun to hope”—he began. “You—are you sure it is true?”
“I am sure. You realize of course—it’s been obvious from the outset that my Aunt Nannie has entered into a sort of partnership with you, to help you persuade me to marry you. And of course there are others of my friends—even members of my family, perhaps—who would be glad to have me do it. Also, you must know that I’ve been trying to persuade myself.” Sylvia lowered her eyes; she could not look at him as she said this. “I thought perhaps it was my duty—the only useful thing I could do with my life—to marry a rich man, and use his money to help the people I love. So I tried to persuade myself. But it’s impossible—I could not, could not do it!”
She paused. “Miss Sylvia,” he ventured, “can you be sure—perhaps if you married me, you might——”
“No!” she cried. “Please don’t say any more. I know you ought not to stay! I could never marry you, and you are throwing away your time here. You ought to go!”
There was a silence. “Miss Sylvia,” he began, finally, “this is like a death-sentence to me.”
“I know,” she said, “and I’m sorry. But there’s no help for it. Putting off only makes it worse for you.”
“Don’t think about me,” he said. “I’ve no place to go, and nothing better I can be doing. If you’ll let me stay, and try to be of some service”—
“No,” she declared, “you can be of no service. I want to be alone, with my father and the people I love; and it is only distressing to me to see you.”
He rose, and stood looking at her, crestfallen. “That is all you have to say to me, Miss Sylvia?”
“That is all. If you wish to show your regard for me, you will go away and never think of me again.”
§ 15
Van Tuiver went away; but within a week he was back, writing Sylvia notes to say that he must see her, that he only sought her friendship. And then came Aunt Nannie, and there was a family conference—ending not altogether to Sylvia’s advantage. Aunt Nannie took the same view as Mrs. Winthrop, that one had no right to humiliate a man who carried such vast responsibilities upon his shoulders. Sylvia recurred to her old phrase “Royalty”—and was taken aback when her aunt wanted to know just what were her objections to Royalty. Had she not often heard her Uncle Mandeville say that there ought to be a king in America to counteract the influence of Yankee demagogs? That rather took the wind out of Sylvia’s sails; for she had a great respect for the political wisdom of her uncles, and really could give no reason why a king might not be a beneficent phenomenon. All she could reply was that she did not like this particular king, and would not see him. When Aunt Nannie insisted that van Tuiver had been a guest under her roof, and that Sylvia’s action had been an unheard of discourtesy, the girl said that she was willing to apologize, either to her aunt or to van Tuiver—but that nothing could induce her to let him call again.
King Douglas went off to Newport, where the family of Dorothy Cortlandt had its granite cottage; and so for two months Sylvia enjoyed peace. She read to her father, and played cards with him, and took him driving, exercising her social graces to keep him from drinking too many toddies. I could wish there were space to recite some of the comical little dramas that were played round the good Major’s efforts to cheat himself and his daughter, and exceed the number of toddies which his physician allowed to him!
Aunt Nannie being away at the coast, it was easier for the girl to avoid social engagements, especially with the excuse that her father’s health was poor, and his plantation duties engrossing. There had been an overflow in the early spring, just at planting-time, and so there was no cotton that year. Fences had been swept away, cattle drowned, and negro-cabins borne off to parts unknown. The Major had three large plantations, whose negroes must be kept over the year, just as if they were working. Also there were small farms, rented to negro tenants who had lost everything; they had to be taken care of—one must “hold on to one’s niggers.” “Why don’t you let them raise corn?” van Tuiver had inquired; to which the Major answered, “My negroes could no more raise corn than they could raise ostriches.”
So there was much money to be borrowed, and money was “tight.” Everybody wanted it from the local banks, and as this was the second bad year, the local banks were in an ungenerous mood. Worse than that, there were troubles vaguely rumored from “Wall Street.” What this meant to Sylvia was that her father sat up at night and worried over his books, and could not be got to talk of his affairs.
But what distressed her most was that there was no sign of any effort to curtail the family’s expenditure. Aunt Varina and the children were at the summer home in the mountains, and so there were two establishments to be kept going. Also Celeste was giving house parties, and ordering new things from New York, in spite of the fact that she had come home from school with several trunkloads of splendor. The Major’s family all signed his name to checks, and all these checks were like chickens which came home to roost in the pigeon-holes in the office-desk.
In the fall the Major’s health weakened under the strain, and the doctor insisted that he must go away at all hazards. Uncle Mandeville had taken a place at one of the Gulf Coast resorts, and Sylvia and her father were urged to come there—just in time for the yachting regatta, wrote the host. They came; and about two weeks later a great ocean-going yacht steamed majestically into the harbor, and the dismayed Sylvia read in the next morning’s paper that Mr. Douglas van Tuiver, who had been cruising in the Gulf with a party of friends, had come to attend the races!
“I won’t see him!” she declared; and Uncle Mandeville, who was in command here, backed her up, and offered to shoot the fellow if he molested her. This, of course, was in fun, but Uncle Mandeville was serious in his support of his niece, maintaining that the Castlemans needed no Yankee princeling to buttress their fortunes.
She fully meant not to see him. But he had brought allies to make sure of her. That afternoon an automobile drew up at the door, and Sylvia, who was on the gallery, saw a lady descending, waving a hand to her. She stared, dumb-founded. It was Mrs. Winthrop!
Mrs. Winthrop—clad in spotless white from hat to shoetips, looking sunburned and picturesque, and surprisingly festive. No one was in sight but Sylvia, and so she had a free field for her wizardry. She came slowly up the gallery-steps, and took the outstretched hands in hers, and gazed. How much she read in the pale, thin face—and what deeps of feeling welled up in her!
“Oh, let me help you!” she murmured. And nothing more.
“Thank you!” said Sylvia at last.
“My dryad!” Quick tears of sympathy started in the great lady’s eyes, and came running down her sunburned cheeks, and had to be brushed away with a tiny Irish lace handkerchief.
“Believe me, Sylvia, I too have known grief!” she began, after a minute. Sylvia was deeply touched; for what grief could be more fascinating than that which lurked in the dream-laden eyes before her? She found herself suddenly recalling an irreverent phrase of “Tubby” Bates’: “The beautiful unhappy wife of a railroad-builder!”
They sat down. “Sylvia,” said Mrs. Winthrop, “you need diversion. Come out on the yacht!”
“No,” she replied, “I don’t want to meet Mr. van Tuiver again.”
“I appreciate your motives,” said the other. “But you may surely trust to my discretion, Sylvia. Mr. van Tuiver has recovered himself, and there is no longer any need for you to avoid him.”
He was a much changed man, went on “Queen Isabella”; so chastened that his best friends hardly knew him. He had become a most fascinating figure, a sort of superior Werther; his melancholy became him. He had been really admirable in his behavior, and Sylvia owed it to him to give him a chance to show her that he could control himself, to show his friends that she had not dismissed him with contempt. There was a charming party on board the yacht; it included van Tuiver’s aunt, Mrs. Harold Cliveden, of whom Sylvia had surely heard; also her niece, Miss Vaillant, and Lord Howard Annersley, who was engaged to her. Sylvia had probably not seen the accounts of this affair, but it was most romantic. The girl pleaded that her father was ill and needed her. But he might come too, said Mrs. Winthrop; the diversion would benefit him. So at last Sylvia consented to go to lunch.
§ 16
Van Tuiver came to fetch them on the following day. He looked his new rôle of a leisure-class Werther, and acted up to it quite touchingly. He was perfect in his attitude toward his guests, carefully omitting all reference to personal matters, and confining his conversation to the yachting-trip and the party on board—especially to Lord Howard. Sylvia said that she had never met a Lord before, and it would seem like a fairy-story to her. The other was careful to explain that Lord Howard was not a fortune-hunter, but a friend of his. So Sylvia furbished up her weapons—but put most of them away when she got on board, and found out what a very commonplace young man his lordship was.
It was necessary to extend a return invitation, so Uncle Mandeville took the party automobiling along the coast, and spread a sumptuous picnic-luncheon. Then the next day Sylvia let herself be inveigled on a moonlight sailing-trip; and so it came about that she was cornered in the bow of the boat, with van Tuiver at her side, declaring in trembling accents that he had tried to forget her, that he could not live without her, that if she did not give him some hope he would take his life.
She was intensely annoyed, and answered him in monosyllables, and took refuge with Lord Howard, who showed signs of forgetting that he was already in the midst of a romance. She vowed that she would accept no more invitations, and that van Tuiver would never deceive her in that way again. This last with angry emphasis to Mrs. Winthrop, who, perceiving that something had gone wrong, took her aside as the party was breaking up.
“Queen Isabella’s” lovely face showed intense distress. “Oh, these men!” she cried. “Sylvia, what can we do with them?” And when Sylvia, taken aback by this appeal, was silent, the other continued, pleadingly, “You must be loyal to your sex, and help me! We all have to manage men!”
“But what do you want me to do?” asked the girl. “Marry him?”
She meant this for the extreme of sarcasm; and great was her surprise when Mrs. Winthrop caught her hand and exclaimed, “My dear, I want you to do just that!”
“But then—what becomes of my fineness of spirit?” cried Sylvia, with still more withering sarcasm.
Said “Queen Isabella,” “The man loves you.”
“I know—but I don’t love him.”
“He loves you deeply, Sylvia. I think you will really have to marry him.”
“In spite of the fact that I don’t love him in the least?”
The other smiled her gentlest smile. “I want you to let me come and talk to you about these matters.”
“But, Mrs. Winthrop, I don’t want to be talked to about marrying Mr. van Tuiver!”
“I want to explain things to you, Sylvia. You must grant me that favor—please!” In the hurry of departure, Sylvia gave no reply, and the other took silence for consent.
By what device van Tuiver could have reconciled Mrs. Winthrop, Sylvia could not imagine; but when the great lady called, the next afternoon, she was as ardent on the one side as she had formerly been on the other. She painted glowing pictures of the splendors which awaited the future Mrs. Douglas van Tuiver. The courts of Europe would be open to her, her life would be one triumphal pageant. Also, taking a leaf out of “Tubby” Bates’ note-book, “Queen Isabella” discoursed upon the good that Sylvia would be able to do with her husband’s wealth.
This interview with Mrs. Winthrop was important for another reason; it was the means of setting at rest what doubts were lurking in Sylvia’s mind as to her treatment of Frank Shirley. The other evidently had the matter in mind, for Sylvia needed only to allude to it, whereupon Mrs. Winthrop proceeded, with the utmost tact and understanding, to give her exactly the information she was craving. The dreadful story was surely true—everybody at Harvard knew it. All that one heard in defense was that it was a shame the story had been spread abroad; for there were men, said Mrs. Winthrop, who did these shameful things in secret, and had no remorse save when they were found out. Without saying it in plain words, she caused Sylvia to have the impression that such evils were to be found among men of low origin and ignominious destinies: a suggestion which started in Sylvia a brand-new train of thought. Could it be that this was the basis of social discrimination—the secret reason why her parents were so careful what men she met? It threw quite a new light upon the question of college snobbery, if one pictured the club-men as selected and set apart because of their chaste lives. It made quite a difference in one’s attitude towards the “exclusiveness” of van Tuiver—if one might think of him, as Mrs. Winthrop apparently did think of him, as having been guarded from contamination, from the kind of commonness to which Frank Shirley had permitted himself to stoop.