§ 3
When I think of Sylvia’s childhood and all the hairbreadth escapes of which she told me, I marvel that she ever came to womanhood. It would seem to be a perilous part of the world to raise children in, with horses and dogs and guns, and so many half-tamed negroes—to say nothing of all the half-tamed white people. Sylvia had three younger sisters and whole troops of cousins—the Bishop’s eleven children, and the children of Barry Chilton, his brother. I picture their existence as one long series of perilous escapes, with runaway horses, kicking mules and biting dogs, and negroes who shot and stabbed one another in sudden, ferocious brawls, or set fire to Castleman Hall in order that some other negro might be suspected and lynched.
Also there were the more subtle perils of the pantry and the green-apple orchard. I did not see any accident during my brief stay at the place, but I saw the dietetic ferocities of the family and marveled at them. It seemed to me that the life of that most precious of infants, Castleman Lysle, was one endless succession of adventures with mustard and ipecac and castor oil. I want somehow to make you realize this world of Sylvia’s, and I don’t know how I can do it better than by telling of my first vision of that future heir of all the might, majesty and dominion of the Lysles. It was one of the rare occasions when the Major was taking him on a journey. The old family horses were hitched to the old family carriage, and with a negro on the box, another walking at the horses’ heads, a third riding on a mule behind, and a fourth sent ahead to notify the police, the procession set forth to the station. I know quite well that I shall be called a liar; yet I can only give my solemn word that I saw it with my own eyes—the chief of police, duly notified, had informed all the officers on duty, and the population of a bustling town of forty thousand inhabitants, in the United States of America in the twentieth century, were politely requested not to drive automobiles along the principal avenue during the half hour that it took to convey Master Lysle to the train! And of course such a “request” was a command to all the inhabitants who were genteel enough to own automobiles. Was not this the grandson of the late General Castleman, the grand-nephew of a former territorial governor? Was he not the heir of the largest, the oldest and the most famous plantation in the county, the future dispenser of favors and arbiter of social fates? Was he not, incidentally, the brother of the loveliest girl in the state, to whom most of the automobile owners in the town had made violent love?
I would like to tell more about that world and Sylvia’s experiences in it—some of those amazing tales! Of the negro boy who bit a piece out of the baby’s leg, because he had heard someone say that the baby looked sweet enough to eat; of the negro girl who heard a war-story about “a train of gun-powder,” and proceeded with Sylvia’s aid to lay such a train from the cellar to the attic of the house. I would like to tell the whole story of her girlhood, and the strange ideas they taught her; but I have to pick and choose, saving my space for the things that are necessary to the understanding of her character.
Sylvia’s education was a decidedly miscellaneous one at first. “I think it is time the child had some regular training,” her great-aunt, Lady Dee, would say to the child’s mother. “Yes, I suppose you are right,” would be the answer. But then Lady Dee would go, and Major Castleman would come in, observing, “It’s marvelous the way that child picks things up, Miss Margaret.” (A habit from his courtship days, you understand.) “We must be careful not to overstimulate her mind.” To which his wife would respond, agreeably, “I’m sure you know best, Mr. Castleman.”
Every morning Sylvia would go with her father on his rounds to interview the managers of the three plantations; the Major in his black broadcloth frock-coat, a wide black hat and a white “bosom” shirt, riding horseback with an umbrella over his head, and followed at a respectful distance by his “boy” upon a mule. On these excursions Sylvia would recite the multiplication table, and receive lessons in the history of her country, from the point of view of its unreconstructed minority. Also she had lessons on this subject from her great-aunt, who never paid one of her numerous servants their small quarterly stipend that she did not exclaim: “Oh, how I hate the Yankees!”
I must not delay to introduce this great-aunt, who was Sylvia’s monitress in the arts and graces of life, and left her on her death-bed such a curious heritage of worldliness. Lady Dee was the last surviving member of a younger branch of the line of the Lysles. She was not a real countess, like her great ancestress; the name “Lady” had been given her in baptism. Early in the last century she had come over the mountains in a lumbering coach, with an escort of mounted riders, to marry the Surveyor General of the Territory. She still had a picture of this coach, along with innumerable other treasures in cedar chests in her attic: fan-sticks of carved ivory, inlaid with gold; gold garter buckles with wonderful enameling; old seals and silver snuff-boxes; rare jewels, such as white topazes and red amethysts; and a whole trunkful of the curious tiny silk parasols with which great ladies used to protect their creamy complexions—no more than ten inches across, and with handles of inlaid and carven ivory. When Sylvia was a little girl with two pigtails hanging down her back, it was one of the joys of her life to explore these treasures, and deck herself in faded ball costumes and chains of jewels and gold.
Also, from Lady Dee she received contributions to her moral training; not in set discourses, but incidentally and by allusions. Rummaging in the cedar chests she once came upon a miniature which she had never seen before; a lady in whom she recognized the eyes of the Lysles, and the arrogance which all their portraits show. “Who is this, Aunt Lady?” she asked; and the old gentlewoman frowned and answered, “We never speak of her, my dear. She is the one woman who ever disgraced our name.”
Sylvia hesitated a long time before she spoke again. She had heard much of family skeletons in the table-talk—but always other families. “What did she do?” she asked, at last.
“She was married to three men,” was the reply.
Again Sylvia hesitated. “You mean,” she ventured—“you mean—at the same time?”
Lady Dee stared. “No, my dear,” she said, gravely. “Her husbands died.”
“But—but—” began the other, timidly, groping to find her way in a strange field of thought.
“If she had been a woman of delicacy,” pronounced Lady Dee, “she would have been true to one love.” Then, after a pause, she added, solemnly, “Remember this, my child. Think before you choose, for the women of our family are like Sterne’s starling—when they have once entered their cage, they never come out.”
It was Lady Dee who objected to the desultory nature of Sylvia’s education, and began a campaign, as a result of which the Major sent her off to a “college” at the age of thirteen. You must not be frightened by this imposing statement, for it is easy to call yourself a “college” in the South. Sylvia was away for three years, during which she really studied, and acquired much more than the usual accomplishments of a young lady.
She had an extraordinarily capable mind; serene and efficient, like everything else about her. When I met her I was a woman of forty-five, who a few years before had broken with my whole past, having discovered the universe of knowledge. I had been like a starving person breaking into a well-filled larder, and stuffing myself greedily and promiscuously. I had taken upon myself the task of contending with other people’s prejudices, and my rapture over Sylvia Castleman was partly the realization that here was a woman—actually a woman—who had no prejudices whatever. She wanted me to tell her all I knew; and it was a great delight to expound to her a new set of ideas, and see her mind go from point to point, leaping swiftly, laying hold of details, ordering, comparing—above all, applying. That you may have a picture of this mind in action, let me tell you what she did in her girlhood, all unassisted—how she broke with the religion of her forefathers.