Carolina Lee

by Lilian Bell

  CHAPTER II.

  THE FIRST GRIEF

  Then, with no illness to prepare her for so awful a blow, with nothingbut a stopping of the heart-beats, Carolina's father fell into his last,long sleep, and before she could fairly realize her loss, her motherfollowed him.

  Within six weeks, the girl found herself orphaned and mistress of thegreat Lee fortune, but utterly alone in the world, for her grandfatherhad died the year previous and Sherman had just married and gone back toAmerica.

  That Carolina felt her mother's loss no one could doubt, but the changein the young girl wrought by her father's death was something awful tobehold. She had not dreamed that he could die. He was so young, sostrong, so noble, so upright, such an honour to his country and to hisrace! Why should perfection cease to exist and the ignorant, wicked,and common live on? Carolina resisted the thought with tigerishfierceness, and openly blasphemed the God who created her.

  "God my father?" she stormed at Cousin Lois, who listened with blanchedface and trembling fear of further vengeance on the part of outragedDeity. "Why, would my own precious father send me a moment of suchsuffering as I have passed through ever since they took him away fromme? He would have given his life to save me from one heart-pang, andyou ask me to believe that God is a father, when He sends such awfulanguish into this world?"

  "He sends it for your good, Carolina, dear," pleaded Cousin Lois.

  "Oh, He does, does He? He thinks it will do me good to suffer? _Daddy_thought so, didn't he? Daddy _liked_ to make me unhappy, didn't he? Hedidn't realize how blissful heavenly love could be, so he only loved mein a poor, blind, earthly fashion, which made every day a joy and everyhour we spent together a song! Poor daddy! To be so ignorant of thereal way to love his children!"

  "Oh, Carolina!" moaned Mrs. Winchester.

  "God hates me, Cousin Lois," said the girl, dropping her impassionedmanner and speaking with bitter calmness.

  "I have been recognizing it for some time. I have felt that He wasjealous of my happiness. You know it says: 'For I the Lord thy God am ajealous God.' He admits it Himself. So He took vengeance on me throughHis power and killed my parents just to show me that He could! But if Hethinks that I am going to kneel down and thank Him for murder, and loveHim for ruining my life--"

  A steel blue light seemed to blaze from the girl's eyes as she thusraised her tiny hand and shook it at her Creator.

  Cousin Lois burst into tears. Carolina viewed her without sympathy.

  "I am so little," she said, suddenly. "It is a brave thing for God topit His great strength against mine, isn't it? Listen to me, CousinLois, I am done with religion from now on. I will never say anotherprayer as long as I live. The worst has happened to me which couldhappen. Nothing more counts."

  It was while she was in this terrible state of mind that Mrs. Winchestertook charge of her.

  Sherman and his wife came over for the funeral of their father, andbefore they could so arrange their affairs as to be able to leave forhome, they were called upon to bury, instead of try to console, theirmother.

  Neither Carolina nor Mrs. Winchester liked Adelaide, Sherman's wife.She was selfish and ignorant, but, with true loyalty to their own, theynever expressed themselves on the subject, even to each other. Afterthe period of mourning was over, they accepted her invitation to visither, and spent a month in New Work. Then, with no explanation whatever,Mrs. Winchester and Carolina went abroad and travelled--travelled nowfuriously, now in a desultory way; now stopping for one month or six;now hurrying away from a spot as if plague-stricken--all at Carolina'swhim.

  It was a strange life for an ardent young American to lead, but Noel St.Quentin and Kate Howard, who knew Carolina best, shook their heads, andfancied that the two travellers found in Mrs. Sherman Lee theirincentive to remain away from America so long and so persistently.

  Mrs. Winchester and Carolina were an oddly assorted pair, but their verydissimilarity made them congenial.

  Mrs. Winchester was a woman who merited the attention she alwaysreceived.

  At first sight she did not invariably attract, being stout, asthmatic,vague of manner, and of middle age. She had her figure well in hand,however, large though she was. Her waist-line, she was fond of saying,had remained the same for twenty years, though the rest of her hadoutgrown all recollection of the trim young girl she doubtless had been.But it was her complexion of which she was most proud. It was still ablending of cream and roses, and her blush was famous.

  "Carolina, child," she used to say, "don't let me be ridiculous, justbecause I am large. Promise me that you will never leave crumbs on mybreast, even if they fall there and I can't see them. If you only knewhow I suffered from not knowing where all of me is. Why, with myfigure, it is just like the women we used to see in Russia with littletables on each hip and a tray around their necks. Don't laugh, child.It's dreadful, my dear."

  "Well, but Cousin Lois, it wouldn't be so bad if you wouldn't pinch yourwaist in so. Just let that out and you will find yourself falling intoplace, so to speak."

  "What!" cried Mrs. Winchester. "Lose the only--the only thing I haveleft to be proud of, except my complexion? Carolina, you are crazy. I'drather never draw another comfortable breath than to add one inch to mywaist-line. No, Carolina. Don't advise me. Just watch for the crumbs.For I will not be guilty of the inelegance of tucking a napkin under mychin if I ruin a dress at each meal."

  Thus it will be seen that Mrs. Winchester was quite determined in spiteof the gentlest manner of putting her ultimatum into words.

  She carefully cultivated her asthma, as, without affording her too muchdiscomfort, it was always an excuse to travel.

  "Asthma is the most respectable disease I know of," she often said toCarolina. "Gout is more aristocratic, but so uncomfortable. Asthma isrefined and thoroughly convenient, besides always forming a safe topicof conversation, especially with strangers."

  "That makes it almost indispensable for persistent travellers like us,doesn't it?" said Carolina.

  "Well, you may get tired of hearing about it, but with me it is always atest of a person's manners. When a stranger says to me 'How do you do,Mrs. Winchester?' I don't consider him polite if he makes that merely aform of salutation. I want him to stand still and listen while I answerhis question and tell him just how I feel!"

  She also had a slight cast in her eye, which added to this gentlenessand likewise led the casual observer to suspect her of vagueness ofpurpose, but her intimates made no such mistake. The mere fact that oneof her light gray eyes was not quite in line with the other rather addedto her attractions, for if her features and manner had carried out thesuggestions of her figure, she would have been a formidable addition tosociety instead of the charming one she really proved.

  She habitually wore light mourning for the two excellent reasons sheherself gave, although General Winchester had been dead these twelveyears.

  "In the first place," she always said, when Carolina tried to coax herto leave off her veil at least in warm weather, "mourning is sodignified, especially in the chaperoning of a young and charming girl.In the second place, age shows first of all in a woman's neck, try asshe may to conceal it. In the third place, a large woman ought alwaysto wear black if she knows what she is about, and as to my bonnet alwaysbeing a trifle crooked, as you say it is, well, Carolina, little as Ilike to say it, I really think that is your fault. It would be so easyfor you to keep your eye on it and give me a hint. I only ask these twothings of you."

  "I'll try, Cousin Lois," Carolina always hastened to say, "though reallya crooked bonnet on you does not look as bad as it would on some women.If you can understand me, it really seems to become you--it looks sonatural and so comfortable."

  "Now, Carolina, that is only your dear way of trying to set me _a monaise_! As if a crooked bonnet ever could look nice!"

  Yet she cast a glance into the mirror as she spoke, and seeing that herbonn
et was even then a point off the compass she forebore to change it.Such graceful yielding to flattery was in itself a charm. But the thingabout Mrs. Winchester, which proved a never-failing source of amusementto the laughter-loving, was her amusing habit of miscalling words. Shehabitually interpolated into her sentences words beginning with the sameletter as the term she had intended, as if her brain had been switchedoff before completing its thought and her tongue did the best it could,left without a guide.

  "Carolina," she would say, "come and look up Zurich on the map for me; Ican't see without my gloves."

  In her hours of greatest depression this trait never failed to amuseCarolina, and when, on one occasion, Cousin Lois took the tissue-paperfrom around a new bonnet, folded the paper carefully and put it in thehat-box and threw the bonnet in the waste-basket, Carolina laughedherself into hysterics.

  Carolina was genuinely fond of Cousin Lois, but it must be confessedthat one great secret of her attractiveness for the girl was becausemuch of Cousin Lois's early childhood had been spent at Guildford, whenshe had been a ward of General Lee's, and thus had met his nephew, RhettWinchester, whom she afterward married.

  Thus, while not related to their immediate family, Cousin Lois wasinextricably mixed up with their history and knew all the traditionswhich Carolina so prized.

  Although Mrs. Winchester deplored Carolina's persistence in so dwellingupon the past and brooding over her loss, nothing ever really interestedthis girl except to talk about her father or the golden days ofGuildford.

  She cared nothing for her wealth. She shifted the burden of investingit upon Sherman's shoulders, and refused even to read his reports uponits earnings.

  Admirers failed to interest her for the reason that she was unable tobelieve that they sought her for herself alone. Her fortune had theeffect upon her of keeping her modest concerning her own great beauty.

  But grief and a rooted discontent with everything life has to offer willmar the rarest beauty and undermine the most robust health, and thechange struck Colonel Yancey with such force when he met them in Romethat he became almost explosive to Mrs. Winchester.

  "The girl is losing her beauty, madam!" he said. "Look at the healthfulglow of your complexion and then look at her pale face! Her eyes usedto dance! Her lips were all smiles! Her cheeks were like two roses!And what do I find now? A sneer on that perfect mouth! Coldness,cruelty, if you like, in those eyes! Why, madam, it is a sin for sobeautiful a creature as Miss Carolina to destroy herself in this way.She might as well shoot herself and be done with it! What does shewant?"

  "She wants what she can never have, Colonel Yancey," said Mrs.Winchester, sadly. "Carolina wants her father to come back."

  "We all want that, madam!" said the colonel, gravely. "I no less thanthe others. His loss never grows less."

  When Cousin Lois repeated this conversation to Carolina, she laughed atwhat he said about her beauty, but flushed with gratitude at his praiseof her father, and was so kind to the colonel for two days afterwardthat he proposed to her again and so fell from grace, as he persisted indoing with somewhat annoying regularity.

  They travelled for another year, and Carolina grew no better. Sheseldom complained, but her lack of interest in everything, added to herrestless love of change, preyed upon Mrs. Winchester.

  They were in Bombay when this restlessness got beyond control.

  "I am not happy!" she cried, passionately, "and knowing I ought to be iswhat makes me even more miserable!"

  "What you need is a good dose of America," said Cousin Lois, decidedly."You are homesick!"

  "I believe I am!" she answered, with brightening eyes. "I am homesick,though, for something in America which I've never found there."

  "You are homesick for South Carolina," said Cousin Lois, with timiddaring.

  At these words a look came into Carolina's eyes which half-frightenedMrs. Winchester, for Carolina had suddenly recalled her father's words.

  "My dearest wish is to restore Guildford, and pass the remainder of mydays in the old place."

  Instantly her life-work spread itself out before her. Here was thesolution to all her restlessness, the answer to all her questionings ofFate, the link which could bind her closer to her beloved father! If hecould have spoken, she knew that he would have urged her to give herlife, if need be, to the restoration of Guildford.

  Her interest in existence returned with a gush. A new light gleamed inher eyes. A new smile wreathed her too scornful lips. Her face wasirradiated by the first look of love which Cousin Lois had seen upon itsince her father's death.

  They began to pack in an hour.