§ 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.