CHAPTER III
The South dines at four o'clock--at least Charleston does.
It was the old English custom and the old Irish custom, too.
In the reign of William the Conqueror people dined at eleven A.M. or wasit ten? Then, as civilisation advanced, the dinner hour stole forward. Inthe time of the Georges it reached four o'clock. In Ireland, the mostconservative country on earth, some people even still sit down to table atfour--in Charleston every one does.
One would not change the custom for worlds, just as one would not changethe old box pews of St. Michael's or replace the cannon on the Batterywith modern ordinance.
Richard Pinckney did not dine at home that day. He was dining with theRhetts in Calhoun Street, so Miss Pinckney said as they sat down to table.She sniffed as she said it, for the Rhetts, though one of the bestfamilies in the town, were people not of her way of thinking. The twoRhett girls had each a motor-car of her own and drove it--abomination!
The automobile ranked in her mind with the telephone as an invention ofthe devil.
Phyl had not seen Richard Pinckney since the morning and now he was diningout. Her heart had warmed to him at the station on the way to Vernons, andat breakfast he had appeared to her as a quite different person to theRichard Pinckney who had come to Kilgobbin, more boyish and frank, less ofa man of the world. She had not seen him since he left the room atbreakfast-time to look after her luggage. Miss Pinckney said he had goneoff "somewhere or another" and grumbled at him for going off leaving hisbreakfast not quite finished, she said that he was always "scatterbraining about" either at the yacht club or somewhere else.
Phyl, as she sat now at the dining-table with the dead and gone Mascarenemen and women looking at her from the canvases on the wall, felt ever soslightly hurt.
Youth calls to youth irrespective of sex. She felt as a young person feelswhen another young person shows indifference. Then came the thought: washe avoiding her? Was he angry still about the affair at Kilgobbin, or wasit just that he did not want to be bothered talking to her, looked on heras a nuisance in the house, a guest of no interest to him and yet to whomhe had to be polite?
She could not tell. Neither could she tell why the problem exercised hermind in the way it did. Even at Kilgobbin, despite the fact of herantagonism towards him, Pinckney had possessed the power of disturbing hermind and making her think about him in a way that no one else had eversucceeded in doing. No one else had made her feel the short-comings in thehousehold _menage_ at Kilgobbin, no one else had made her so fiercelycritical of herself and her belongings.
She did not recognise the fact, but the fact was there, that it was anecessity of her being to stand well in this man's eyes.
When a woman falls in love with a man or a man with a woman, the firstnecessity of his or her being is to stand well in the eyes of the lovedone, anything that may bring ridicule or adverse criticism or disdain isdeath.
Phyl was not in love with Richard Pinckney, nor had she been in love withhim at Kilgobbin, all the same the sensitiveness to appearances felt by alover was there. Her anger that night when he had let her in at eleveno'clock was due, perhaps, less to his implied reproof then the fact thatshe had felt cheap in his eyes, and now, sitting at dinner with MissPinckney the idea that he was still angry with her was obscured by the farmore distasteful idea that she was of absolutely no account in his eyes, acreature to whom he had to be civil, an interloper.
Her cheeks flushed and her eyes brightened at the thought, but MissPinckney did not notice it. She had turned from the subject of the Rhettsand their automobiles to Charleston society in general.
"Now that you've come," said she, "you will find there's not a moment youwon't enjoy yourself if you're fond of gadding about. All the society hereis in the hands of young people, balls and parties! The St. Cecilias givethree balls a year. I go always, not to dance but to look on. Richard is aSt. Cecilia--St. Cecilias? Why, it's just a club a hundred-and-forty yearsold. There are two hundred of them, all men, and they know how toentertain. I have been at every ball for the last half century. Not onehave I missed. Then there's the yacht club and picnics to Summerville andthe Isle of Palms, and bathing parties and boating by moonlight. If youare a gad-about you will enjoy all that."
"But I'm not," said Phyl. "I've never been used to society, much. I likebooks better than people, unless they're--"
"Unless they're what?"
"Well--people I really like."
"Well," said Miss Pinckney, "one wouldn't expect you to like people you_didn't_ like--there's no 'really' in liking, it's one thing or theother--you don't care for girls, maybe?"
"I haven't seen much of them," replied Phyl, "except at school, and thatwas only for a short time. I--I ran away."
"Ran away! And why did you run away?"
"I was miserable; they were kind enough to me, but I wanted to gethome--Father was alive then--I felt I had to get home or die--I can'texplain it--It felt like a sort of madness. I had to get back home."
Miss Pinckney was watching the girl, she scarcely seemed listening toher--Then she spoke:
"Impulsive. If I wasn't sitting here in broad daylight, I'd fancy it wasJuliet Mascarene. What makes you so like her? It's not the face so much,though the family likeness runs strong, still, the face is different,though like--It's just you yourself--well, I'm sure I don't know, seems tome there's a lot of things hid from us. Look at the Pringles, Anthony'sfamily, the ones that live in Tradd Street. If you put their nosestogether, they'd reach to Legare Street. It runs in the family. JulianPringle, he died in '70, he was just the same. Now why should a long noserun through a family like that, or a bad temper, or the colour of hair? Idon't know. The world's a puzzle and the older one grows, the more itpuzzles one."
After dinner, Miss Pinckney ordered Phyl to put on her hat and theystarted out for a drive.
Every day at five o'clock, weather permitting, Miss Pinckney took anairing. She was one of the sights of Charleston, she, and the darkchestnut horses driven by Abraham the coloured coachman, and the barouchein which she drove; a carriage of other times, one of those deathlessconveyances turned out in Long Acre in the days when varnish was varnishand hand labour had not been ousted by machinery. It was painted in abasket-work pattern, the pattern peculiar to the English Royal carriages,and the whole turn-out had an excellence and a style of its own--a thingunpurchasable as yesterday.
They drove in the direction of the Battery and here they drew up to lookat the view. On one side of them stood the great curving row of mansionsfacing the sea, old Georgian houses and houses more modern, yet withoutoffence, set in gardens where the palmetto leaves shivered in the sea windand the pink mimosa mixed its perfume with the salt-scented air. On theother side lay the sea. Afternoon, late afternoon, is the time of alltimes to visit this spacious and sunlit place. It is then that the oldghosts return, if ever they return, to discuss the news brought by thelast packet from England, the doings of Mr. Pitt, the Paris fashions.
Looking seaward they would see no change in the changeless sea and littlechange in the city if they turned their eyes that way.
Miss Pinckney got out and they walked a bit, inspecting the guns, eachwith its brass plate and its story.
Far away in the haze stood Fort Sumter,--a fragment of history, a seawarrior of the past, voiceless and guarding forever the viewless. It mayhave been some recollection of the Brighton front and of the great harbourof Kingstown with the sun upon it, and all this seemed vaguely familiar toPhyl, pleasantly familiar and homely. She breathed the sea air deeply andthen, as she turned, glancing towards the land, a recollection came to herof the story she had been reading that evening in the library atKilgobbin--"The Gold Bug." It was near here that Legrand had found thetreasure. He had come to Charleston to buy the mattocks and picks--no, itwas Jupp the negro who had come to buy them.
She turned to Miss Pinckney.
"Did you ever read a story called 'The Gold Bug' by Edgar Allan Poe?" sheasked. "It is about a place n
ear here--Sullivan's Island--that's it--Iremember now."
"Why, I knew him," said Miss Pinckney.
"Knew Edgar Allan Poe!" said Phyl.
"I knew him when I was a child and I have sat on his knee and I can seehis face--what a face it was! and the coat he wore--it had a velvetcollar--his teeth were beautiful, and his hair--beautiful glossy hair itwas, but he was not handsome as people use that expression, he wasextraordinary, such eyes--and the most wonderful voice in the world. I'mseventy-five years of age and he died in October '49, and I met him threeyears before he died, so you see I was a pretty small child. It was atFordham. He'd just taken a cottage there for his wife, who was ailing withconsumption, and my aunt, Mary Pinckney, who was a friend of the Osgoods,took me there. It must have been summer for I remember a bird hanging in acage in the sunshine, a bob-o'-link it was, he had caught it in thewoods.
"Dear Lord! I wonder where that summer day's gone to, and thebob-o'-link--'pears to me we aren't even memories, for memories live andwe don't."
They were walking along, Abraham slowly following with the carriage, andMiss Pinckney was walking in an exultant manner as though she saw nothingabout her, as though she were treading air. Phyl had unconsciously setfree a train of thought in the mind of Miss Pinckney, a train that alwaysled to an explosion, and this is exactly how it happened and what shesaid.
"But his memory will live. Look right round you, do you see his statue?"
"No," said Phyl, sweeping the view. "Where is it?"
"Just so, where is it? It's not here, it's not in N'York, it's not inBaltimore, it's not in Philadelphia, it's not in Boston. The one realsplendid writing man that America has produced she's ashamed to put up astatue to. Why? Because he drank! Why, God bless my soul, Grant drank. No,it wasn't drink, it was Griswold. The man who hated him, the man whocrucified his reputation and sold the remains for thirty pieces of silverto a publisher, Griswold, Rufus Griswold--Judas Griswold that was his realname, and he hid it--"
Miss Pinckney had lowered her parasol in her anger, she shut it with asnap and then shot it up again; as she did so an automobile driven by agirl and which was approaching them, passed, and a young man seated by thegirl raised his hat.
It was Richard Pinckney.
The girl was a very pretty brunette. This thing was too much for MissPinckney in her present temper; all her anger against Griswold seemedsuddenly diverted to the automobile. She snorted.
"There goes Richard with Venetia Frances Rhett," said she. "Ought to beashamed of herself driving along the Battery in that outrageous thing;goodness knows, they're bad enough driven by men, scaring people to deathand killing dogs and chickens, without girls taking to them--"
She stared after the car, then signalling to Abraham, she got into thebarouche, Phyl followed her and they continued their drive.
That evening after supper Miss Pinckney's mind warmed to thoughts of thegood old days when motor-cars were undreamed of, and stirred up by therecollection of Edgar Allan Poe, discharged itself of reminiscences worthmuch gold could they have been taken down by a stenographer.
She was sitting with Phyl in the piazza, for the night was warm, andwhilst a big southern moon lit the garden, she let her mind stray over themen and women who had made American literature in the '50's and '60's,many of whom she had known when young.
Estelle Anna Lewis of Baltimore, Nathaniel Hawthorne, William CullenBryant, Elizabeth Oakes Smith, Cornelius Mathews, Frances Sargent Osgood,N. P. Willis, Laughton Osborn. She had known Lowell and Longfellow, yether mind seemed to cling mostly to the lesser people, writers in the_Southern Literary Messenger_, the _Home Journal_, the _Mirror_ and the_Broadway Journal_.
People well-known in their day and now scarcely remembered, yet whose verynames are capable of evoking the colour and romance of that fascinatingepoch beyond and around the Civil War.
"They're all dead and gone," said she, "and folk nowadays don't seem totrouble about the best of them, or remember their lines, yet there'snothing they write now that's as good--I remember poor Thomas Ward.'Flaccus' was the name he wrote under, a thin skeleton of a man alwayswith his head in the air and his mind somewhere else, used to write in the_Knickerbocker Journal_; I heard him recite one of his things.
"'And, straining, fastened on her lips a kiss, That seemed to suck the life blood from her heart.'
"That stuck in my head, mostly, I expect, because Thomas Ward didn't lookas if he'd ever kissed a girl, but they are good lines and a lot betterthan they write nowadays."
The wind had risen a bit and was stirring in the leaves of the magnolias,white carnations growing near the sun dial shook their ruffles in themoonlight, and from near and far away came the sounds of Charleston,voices, the sound of traffic and then, a thread of tune tying moonbeams,magnolias, carnations and cherokee roses in a great southern bunch, camethe notes of a banjo, plunk, plunk, and a voice from somewhere away in theback premises, the voice of a negro singing one of the old Plantationsongs.
Just a snatch before some closing door cut the singer off, but enough tomake Phyl raise her head and listen, listen as though a whole worldvaguely guessed, a world forgotten yet still warm and loving, youthful andsunlit, were striving to reach her and speak to her--As though Charlestonthe mysterious city that had greeted her first in Meeting Street weretrying to tell her of things delightful, once loved, once known andforever vanished.
As she lay awake that night with the moonlight showing through the blinds,the whole of that strange day came before her in pictures: the face ofFrances Rhett troubled her, yet she did not know in the least why; itseemed part of the horribleness of automobiles and the anger of MissPinckney and the tribulations of Edgar Allan Poe.
Then the fantastic band of forgotten _literati_ trooped before her, led by"Flaccus," the man who didn't look as if he had ever kissed a girl, yetwho wrote:
"And, straining, fastened on her lips a kiss, That seemed to suck the life blood from her heart."
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