Chronicles of Chicora Wood

by Elizabeth W. Allston Pringle

Two years passed, and another baby came. This was the first little girl, and papa wished to name her for his mother, Charlotte Ann, and mamma asked that part of Aunt Blythe’s name be added—her name was Elizabeth Frances. She had died the winter before, and mamma missed her dreadfully. So the little girl was called Charlotte Frances; and, in the household with its number of servants, you could always distinguish those devoted to my mother, who always spoke of “Miss Fanny,” and those devoted to my father, who spoke of “Miss Cha’lot.” But I never knew this from mamma, and do not know if it were so. Hearing of her only from mamma, I only knew of her as Fanny, my perfectly beautiful little sister.

Of these years I know very little, nothing, indeed, except that my parents went the summer following to Newport and New York, and visited papa’s uncle, the great painter, Washington Allston, in Boston. When Mr. Flagg was looking over the great man’s letters preparatory to publishing his life and letters, he found one from Washington Allston to his mother, speaking of this visit and of my mother’s beauty and charm; and Mr. Flagg very kindly sent this letter to my mother, who gave it to me, and there is quite a contest among my nieces and nephews as to who will be the lucky one to whom I leave it. Mamma was greatly impressed by the ethereal beauty of the artist. She had at this time as nurse for the baby a woman from the State of New York, who took the little one in to see and be seen by her great-uncle. When she came out of the studio she said to mamma: “Surely, your uncle has the face of an angel, ma’am.”

Three years passed, mamma very happy with her little family of interesting children, two of them so beautiful that wherever they went the nurse was stopped on the street by those who remarked on the wonderful beauty of Robert and Fanny. Poor, dear little Ben was neither beautiful nor strong, but he had a good mind and powerful will. Mamma often went to Charleston to visit her brother and sisters there, for by this time the youngest sister, Harriet, was also married to a young and very clever lawyer, Henry Deas Lesesne, who was in the law office of James L. Petigru, and she had her charming home in Charleston; so there were three homes to be visited there. Aunt Louise had relented in her attitude to my father and was always hospitably anxious to entertain the little family. Aunt Blythe had left her fortune to my father and the two boys, still babies though they were, to the surprise and indignation of many. So these were happy prosperous years.

Papa found the house at Chicora too small for the growing family, and began the planning of a new one, to which the two very large down-stairs rooms of the old one should be attached as an L. As the spring came on, a new baby was expected, and mamma hoped it would be a little girl, to name after her mother. As my mother dreaded the move to the sea, which involved so much troublesome packing, my father built a summer house, what would now be called a bungalow, for it had large, airy rooms, but all on one floor, at a pineland about eight miles north of the plantation on the same side of the Pedee, where he had a large tract of land, and where the cattle went always in summer. It was called “The Meadows.” Mamma was very pleased to be so near the plantation, for she could drive down in the afternoons and see after her flower-garden, which was beautiful and her delight. She gathered great baskets of roses and brought them back. The Meadows was very prettily situated in a savannah, which was a natural garden of wild flowers—great, brilliant tiger-lilies, white and yellow orchis, the pink deer-grass, with its sweet leaf, pink saltatia, as well as white, and ferns everywhere.

Here, in this isolated new summer home, miles away from any neighbor, mamma was taken ill about two months before the time set for the baby’s coming. Hastily the doctor was summoned, a very young man, still unmarried, but one who showed early his skill and proficiency as a family doctor; then the monthly nurse, as it was then called, Mary Holland, was found and brought. Fortunately, she had been employed in Georgetown and had not yet returned to Charleston, where she lived, and was in great demand by the doctors of best standing. I remember her as an old woman, but still tall and stately in figure, and with great dignity and poise. She was about the color of an Indian. It was a mercy she could be got, for my mother was desperately ill; but the little girl so hoped for was born, and my mother did not die. When she became strong enough to speak, and my father was with her, she said: “I want to see little Louise.”

My father answered: “I will bring little Adèle to you myself.”

She exclaimed: “Oh, Mr. Allston, I do not want the baby named after me! I must name her for my dear mother.”

But he answered: “I wish her to bear the name of my beloved wife.”

She said nothing, but the tears which all of her suffering had not brought, now rolled down her cheeks. In a little while papa returned with the small bundle of flannel wrappings and most skilfully and tenderly unfolded them until the baby was visible.

Mamma looked at her, and then with something of her wonted spirit said: “You may call her Adèle if you like! Poor little soul, she cannot live! Take her away!”