CHAPTER VIII
After luncheon that day Phyl, having nothing better to do, went up to herroom and resumed her book.
Richard Pinckney had not come in to luncheon, he rarely returned home forthe meal, yet all the same, his absence made her uneasy. Suppose SilasGrangerson had met him--suppose they had fought? She called torecollection Silas's face just after she had struck him, the insanemalevolence in it, the ugliness that had suddenly destroyed his goodlooks. Silas was capable of anything, he would never forgive that blow andhe would try to return it, of that she felt certain. He could not avengehimself on her but he could on Richard. He imagined that she cared forRichard Pinckney. Did she? The question came to her again in MissPinckney's voice--she did not even try to answer it. As though itirritated her, she tossed the book she was holding in her hand to thefloor and lay with her eyes fixed on the lace window curtains that weremoving slightly to the almost imperceptible stirring of the air fromoutside.
Beyond the curtains lay the golden afternoon. Sometimes a bird shadow, theloveliest thing in shadow-land, would cross the curtains, sometimes a noteof song or the sound of a bird's flight from tree to tree would tell thatthere was a garden down below. The street beyond the garden and the citybeyond the street could be heard, but were little more evident to thesenses than those things in a picture which we guess but cannot see.
Phyl, allowing her mind to be led by these faint and fugitive sounds, fellinto a reverie. Then she fell asleep and straight way began to dream.
She dreamed that Miss Pinckney was in the room moving about dustingthings, a duster in one hand, an open letter in the other. There wastroublous news of some sort in the letter, but what it was Miss Pinckneywould not say. Then the room turned into the piazza, where JulietMascarene was standing with her hands on the rail, looking down on thegarden.
She seemed to know Juliet quite well and was not a bit surprised to seeher there; she touched her but she did not turn. Phyl slipped her armround Juliet's waist and stood with her looking at the garden, and as theystood thus the most curious dream feeling came upon her, a feeling ofduality, Juliet was herself, she was Juliet. Then as this feeling diedaway Juliet vanished and she was standing alone on the piazza.
Then she half woke, falling asleep again to be awakened fully by a sound.
A sound, deep, sonorous, now rhythmical, now confused. It was the sound ofguns.
She had heard it once long ago on the Brighton coast, and now as she satup every nerve and muscle tense, and her mind filled with a vague dread,it came so heavily that the walls of Vernons shook.
She ran on to the piazza. There was no one there. The garden gate was wideopen, there was no one in the garden, and she noticed, though without anyastonishment, that some one had been at work in the garden altering thepaths. A white butterfly was flittering above the flowers, and a red birdleaving the magnolia tree by the gate, flew, a splash of colour, across tothe garden beyond.
These things she saw but did not heed. She was under the spell of theguns, the sound rose against the brightness of the day as a black cloudrises across the sky or a sorrow across one's life, insistent, rhythmical,a pall of sound now billowing, now sinking, as though blown under by awind.
She sought the piazza stairs and next moment was in the garden, then shefound herself in the street.
Meeting Street was almost deserted. On the opposite side two stout,elderly and rather quaintly dressed gentlemen were walking along in thedirection of the station, but away down towards the Charleston Hotel therewas a crowd.
The sight of this crowd filled her with terror, a terror remote fromreason, an impersonal terror, as though the deadliest peril werethreatening not herself but all things and everything she loved.
She ran, and as she drew close to the striving mass of people she saw menbearing stretchers.
They were pushing their way through the crowd, making to enter a house onthe right.
Then came a voice. The voice of one man shouting to another.
"Young Pinckney's killed."
The words pierced her like a sword, she felt herself falling. Fallingthrough darkness to unconsciousness, from which she awoke to find herselflying on the cane couch in her room.
She sat up.
The curtains were still stirring gently to the faint wind from outside, onthe floor lay the history of the Civil War open just as she had cast itthere before falling asleep. The sound of the guns had ceased, and nothingwas to be heard but the stray accustomed sounds of the city and thestreet.
She struggled to her feet and came out on the piazza. The garden gate wasclosed and the garden was unaltered. She had dreamt all that, then.
For a minute she tried to persuade herself that it was a dream, then shegave up the attempt. That was no dream. Everything in it was four square.She could still see the shadows of the two gentlemen who had been walkingon the other side of the street, shadows cast clearly before them by thesun.
The first part of her experience had been a dream, all that about MissPinckney and Juliet. But right from the sound of the guns all had beenreality. She had seen, touched, heard.
Glancing back into the room she saw the book lying on the floor, the sightof it was like a crystallising thread for thought.
She had seen the past, she had heard the guns of the war.
She went back into the room and took her seat on the couch and held herhead between her hands. She recalled the terror that told her thateverything she loved was in danger. When the man had cried out that youngPinckney was killed, it was the thought of the death of Richard Pinckneythat struck her into unconsciousness. Yet she knew that what she had seenwas the day of the death of Rupert Pinckney, that one of those figurescarried on the stretchers was his figure, that her grief was for him.
Had she then experienced what Juliet once experienced, seen what she saw,suffered what she suffered?
Was she Juliet?
The thought had approached her vaguely before this, so vaguely and sostealthily that she had not really perceived it. It stood before her nowfrankly in the full light of her mind.
Was she Juliet, and was Richard Rupert Pinckney? She recalled that eveningin Ireland when she had heard his voice for the first time, and the thrillof recognition that had passed through her, how, at the Druids' Altar thatnight she had heard her name called by his voice, the feeling in Dublinthat something was drawing her towards America. Her feelings when she hadfirst entered Meeting Street and the garden of Vernons, Miss Pinckney'ssurprise at her likeness to Juliet. Prue's recognition of her, the findingof those letters, the finding of the little arbour--any one of thesethings meant little in itself, taken all together they meant a greatdeal--and then this last experience.
Her mind like a bird caught in a trap made frantic efforts to escape fromthe bars placed around it by conclusion; the idea seemed hateful,monstrous, viewed as reality. Fateful too, for that feeling of terror inthe vision had all the significance of a warning.
Then as she sat fighting against the unnatural, her imaginative andsuperstitious mind trembling at that which seemed beyond imagination, amiracle happened.
The thought of danger to Richard Pinckney brought it about. All at oncefear vanished, the fantastic clouds surrounding her broke, faded, passing,showing the blue sky, and Truth stood before her in the form of Love.
It was as though the vision had brought it to her wrapped up in thatterror she had felt for him. In a moment the fantasy of Juliet became asnothing beside the reality. If it were a thousand times true that she hadonce been Juliet what did it matter? She had loved Richard Pinckneyalways, so it seemed to her, and nothing at all mattered beside therecognition of that fact.
Perfect love casteth out fear, even fear of the supernatural, even fear ofFate.
* * * * *
"Richard," said Miss Pinckney that night, finding herself alone with him,"that Silas Grangerson is in town and I want you to beware of him."
"Silas," said he, "why I saw him
at the club, he's gone back home by this,I expect, at least he said he was going back to-night. Why should I bewareof him?"
"He's such an irresponsible creature," she replied. "I'm going to tell yousomething, and mind, what I'm going to tell you is a secret you mustn'tbreathe to any one: he's in love with Phyl."
"Silas?"
"Yes. I knew it wouldn't be long before some one was after her. She's theprettiest girl in Charleston, and she's different from the otherssomehow."
The cunning of the woman held her from praise of Phyl's goodness andmental qualities, or any over praise of the goods she was bringing to hisattention.
"Has he spoken to her about it?" asked he.
"I'm sure to goodness I don't know what I'm about telling you a thing thatwas told to me in confidence," said the other. "Well, you promise never tosay a word to Phyl or to any one else if I tell you."
"I promise."
"Well, he's--he's kissed her."
Richard Pinckney leaned forward in his chair. He seemed very muchdisturbed in his mind.
"Does she care for him?"
"I don't believe she does--yet. They always begin like that; girls don'tknow their minds till all of a sudden they find some man who does."
"Well, let's hope she never cares for Silas Grangerson," said he risingfrom his chair. "You know what he is."
He left the room and went out on the piazza where the girl was sitting. Hesat down beside her and they fell into talk.
Richard Pinckney's mind was disturbed.
Only the day before he had proposed to Frances Rhett and had beenaccepted. No one knew anything of the engagement; they had decided to saynothing about it for a while, but just keep it to themselves. The troublewith Pinckney was that Frances had, so to say, put the words of theproposal into his mouth. Frances had flirted with every man in Charleston;out of them all she had chosen Pinckney as a permanent attache, notbecause she was in love with him but because he pleased her best. Shematched him against the others, as a woman matches silk.
Pinckney had allowed himself to be led along; there is nothing easier thanto be led along by a pretty woman. When the trap had closed on him herecognised the fact without resenting it. He was no longer a free man.
Phyl had told him this without speaking. For some time past he had beenadmiring her, and yesterday on returning in chains from Calhoun Street,Phyl picking roses in the garden seemed to him the prettiest picture hehad seen for a long time, but it did not give him pleasure; it stirred thefirst vague uneasy recognition that his chains had wrought. He had noright to look at any girl but Frances--and he had been looking at her fora year without the picture stirring any wild enthusiasm in his mind.
Miss Pinckney's revelation as to Silas had come to him as a blow. He couldnot tell what had hit him or exactly where he had been hit. What did itmatter to him if a dozen men were in love with Phyl? What right had he tofeel injured? None, yet he felt injured all the same.
As he sat by her now in the lamp-lit piazza, the thought that would notleave his mind was the thought that Silas had kissed her.
Behind the thought was the feeling of the boy who sees the other boy goingoff with the ripest and rosiest apple.
And Phyl was charming to-night. Something seemed to have happened to her,increasing the power of her personality, her voice seemed ever so slightlychanged, her manner was different.
This was a woman, distinct from the girl of yesterday, as the full blownfrom the half blown flower.
They talked of trifles for a while, and then he remembered something thathe ought to have mentioned before. The Rhetts were giving a dance and theyhad sent an invitation to Phyl as well as Miss Pinckney.
"It will be here by the morning post, I expect," said he. "You'd like togo, wouldn't you?"
Phyl hesitated for a moment. "Is that--I mean is that young lady MissFrances Rhett--the one who called here?"
"Yes," cut in Pinckney, "those are the people. You'll come, won't you?"
"Is Miss Pinckney going?"
"She--of course she's going, she goes to everything, and old Mrs. Rhett isanxious to meet you."
"It is very kind of them," said Phyl. "Yes, I'll come." But she spokewithout enthusiasm, and it seemed to him that a chill had come over her.
Did she know of his entanglement with Frances Rhett? And could it be--
He put the question aside. He had no right to indulge in any fancies atall about Phyl as regarded himself.
Then Miss Pinckney came out on the piazza and Phyl rose to go into thehouse.
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