§ 5
In the days that followed, Sylvia’s longing for her sweetheart overcame her pride many times; she paced her room, tearing at the neck of her gown like one suffocating, flinging out her arms in abandonment of grief, crying under her breath (for she must not let others know that she was suffering), “Oh, Frank, Frank! How could you?” Anger would come; she hated him—she hated all men! But again the memory of his slow smile, his straight-forward gaze, his voice of sincerity. She would find herself whispering, incoherently, “My love! My love!”
For the sake of her family, she labored to repress her feelings. But she would have nightmares, and would toss and moan in her sleep, sometimes screaming aloud. Once she awakened, bathed in tears, and hearing faint sobbing, put out her hand, and found her mother, crouching in the darkness, watching, weeping.
They besought her to let her mind be diverted by others. For many days there was a regular watch kept, with family consultations daily, and some one always deputed to be with her—or at least to be near her door. Little by little, as she yielded to their persuasions, Sylvia got the views of the various members of her family upon what had occurred.
Aunt Varina put her arms about her and wept with her. “Oh, it is horrible, Sylvia,” she said—“but think how much better that you should find it out before it’s too late! Oh, dear girl, it is so awful to find it out when it’s too late.” Thus the voice of Aunt Varina’s wasted life!
Aunt Nannie came later, as tactful as could have been expected. She did not say, “I told you so,” but she managed to leave with Sylvia the idea that the outcome was within the limits of human understanding. It was a matter of “bad blood;” and “bad blood” was like murder—it would always out. Also Aunt Nannie ventured to hint that it might be that Sylvia had allowed Frank Shirley to “take liberties” with her; and this, of course, made its impression upon the girl, who persuaded herself that she must be partly to blame for her own disgrace.
She became bitter against men; she did not see how she could ever tolerate the presence of one. Her mother, discussing the subject, remarked, “The reason I married your father was that he was the one good man I knew.”
“How did you know that he was good?” demanded the girl.
“Sylvia!” exclaimed her mother, in horror.
“But how? Because he told you so?”
“Miss Margaret” answered hesitatingly, choosing her words for a difficult subject. “I had heard things. Your Aunt Lady told me—how the young men in your father’s set had tried to get him to—to live the wicked life they lived. They made fun of him—called him ‘Miss Nancy’—.” She broke off suddenly. “I cannot talk about such things to my daughter!”
Even from “Aunt Mandy,” the old “black mammy” who had been the first person to hold Sylvia in her arms, the girl now received counsel. “Aunt Mandy” served the coffee in the early morning, and stood in the bedrooms and grinned while the ladies of the family gossiped; she often took part in the conversation, having gathered stores of family wisdom in her sixty-odd years. “Honey, I’se had my cross to bear,” she said to Sylvia, and went on to discuss the depravity of the male animal. “I’se had to beat my old man wid a flatiron, when I ketched him lookin’ roun’ too much—an’ even dat didn’t help much, honey. Now I got dem boys o’ mine, what’s allus up in cou’t, makin’ de Major come to pay jail-fines. But how kin I be cross wid ’em, when I knows it’s my own fault?”
“Your fault, Mammy?” said Sylvia. “Why, you are as good a mother——”
“I know, honey, I’se tried to be good; I’se prayed to de Lord—yes, I’se took dem boys to de foot o’ de cross. But de Lord done tole me it’s my fault. ‘Mandy,’ he says, ‘Mandy—look at de daddy you give dem niggers!’ Oh, honey, take dis from yo’ ole mammy, ef you’se gwine ter bring any chillun into de worl’—be careful what kind of a daddy you gives ’em!”
The family had gathered in a solid phalanx about Sylvia. Uncle Barry, whose plantation was a hundred miles away, and who was a most hard-working and domestic giant, left his overseers and his family and came to beg her to let him give her a hunting party. Uncle Mandeville came from New Orleans to urge her to go to a house party he would give her. Uncle Mandeville it was who had assured Sylvia as a little girl that he would protect her honor with his life; and now he caused it to be known throughout Castleman County that if ever Frank Shirley returned and attempted to see his niece, he, Frank Shirley, would be “shot like a dog.” And this was not merely because Uncle Mandeville was drunk, but was something that he soberly meant, and that everybody who heard him understood and approved.
Just how tight was the cordon around her, Sylvia learned when Harriet Atkinson arrived, fresh from a honeymoon-voyage to the Mediterranean and the Nile.
“Why, Sunny, what’s this?” she demanded. “Why wouldn’t you see me?”
“See you?” echoed Sylvia. “What do you mean. I haven’t refused to see you.” It transpired that Harriet had been writing and ’phoning and calling for a week, being put off in a fashion which would have discouraged anyone but the daughter of a self-made Yankee. “I suppose,” she said, “they thought maybe I’d come from Frank Shirley.”
Sylvia’s face clouded, but Harriet went on—“My dear, you look like a perfect ghost! Really, this is horrible!” So she set to work to console her friend and drag her out of her depression. “You take it too seriously, Sunny. Beauregard says you make a lot more fuss about the thing than it deserves. If you knew men better——”
“Oh don’t, Harriet!” cried the other. “I can’t listen to such things!”
“I know,” said Harriet, “there you are—the thing I’ve always scolded you for! You’ll never be happy, Sunny, while you persist in demanding more than life will give. You say what you want men to be—and paying no attention at all to what they really are.”
“Are you happy?” asked Sylvia, trying to change the subject.
“About as I expected to be,” said the other. “I knew what I was marrying. The only trouble is that I haven’t been very well. I suppose it’s too much rambling about. I’ll be glad to settle down in my home.” She was going to Charleston to live in the old Dabney Mansion, she explained; at present she was paying a flying visit to her people.
“Well, Sunny,” she remarked, “you are going to give him up?”
“How can I do otherwise, Harriet?”
“I suppose you couldn’t—with that adamantine pride of yours. And of course it was awkward that he had to get into the papers. But Beau says these things blow over sooner than one would expect. Nobody thinks it’s half as bad as they all pretend to think it.” (Harriet, you must understand, felt rather sorry for Frank, and thought that she was pleading his cause. She did not understand that her few words would do more to damn him than all that the family had been able to say.)
But she perceived that Sylvia did not want to talk about the subject. “Well, Sunny,” she said, after a pause, “I see you’ve got a substitute ready.”
“How do you mean?” asked Sylvia, dully.
“I mean your Dutch friend.”
“My Dutch friend? Oh—you are talking about Mr. van Tuiver?”
“You are most penetrating, Sylvia!”
“You’ve heard about him?” said the other, without heeding her friend’s humor.
“Heard about him! For heaven’s sake, what else can one hear about in Castleman County just now?”
Sylvia said nothing for a while. “I suppose,” she remarked, at last, “it’s because I came in a special train.”
“My dear,” said the other, “it’s because he came in a special train.”
“He came?” repeated Sylvia, puzzled.
And her friend stared at her. “Good Lord,” she said, “I believe you really don’t know that Mr. van Tuiver’s in town!”
Sylvia started as if she had been struck. “Mr. van Tuiver in town!” she gasped.
“Why, surely, honey—he’s been here three or four days. How they must be taking care of you!”
Sylvia sprang to her feet. “How perfectly outrageous!” she cried.
“What, Sunny? That you haven’t seen him?”
“Harriet, stop joking with me!”
“But I’m not joking with you,” said Harriet, bewildered. “What in the world is the matter?”
Sylvia’s face was pale with anger. “I won’t see him! I won’t see him! He has no right to come here!”
“But Sunny—what’s the matter? What’s the man done?”
“He wants to marry me, Harriet, and he’s come here—oh, how shameful! how insulting! At such a time as this!”
“But I should think this was just the time for him to come!” said Harriet, laughing in spite of herself. “Surely, Sylvia, if you haven’t gone formally into mourning——”
“I won’t see him!” cried the other, passionately. “He must be made to understand it at once—he’ll gain nothing by coming here!”
“But, Sunny,” suggested her friend, “hadn’t you better wait until he tries to see you?”
“Where is he, Harriet?”
“He’s staying with Mrs. Chilton.”
“With Aunt Nannie!” Sylvia stood, staring at Harriet with sudden fear in her face. She saw now why van Tuiver had made no attempt to see her, why nothing had been said to her as yet! She clenched her hands tightly and exclaimed, “I won’t marry him! They sha’n’t sell me to him—they sha’n’t, they sha’n’t!”
Her friend was gazing at her in wonder, not unmixed with alarm. “Good God, Sunny,” she exclaimed, “can he be so bad that you’d refuse to marry him?”