There was a crash of china, and Mrs. Carter rose and fairly thrust Leigh and Emily out of the room. For the first time in her experience with him, Mr. Carter had become volcanic.
II
Daniel Carter, having left the family conclave so abruptly, descended the steps to the garden-path and walked slowly—almost painfully, it appeared—to the gate.
He was a tall young man of twenty-five, thin from long suffering, and a little angular, and he was lame. He was not using a crutch now. Dr. Barbour had succeeded in alleviating the old trouble and Daniel could do very well with a walking-stick. But his face, pale and hollow-cheeked, showed the lines of old suffering, and to-day there were dark rings around his fine eyes. The fact was that, at that moment, his heart was beating so heavily that its clamor seemed to fill his ears. A strange thing had befallen him. He had been stricken with horror and anguish at an insult to one he loved, and—almost at the same instant—he had felt a wild, unreasoning relief. It would not do, he must not let his mind dwell upon it. The habit of repression, the habit of endurance, the older habit of suffering, came to his aid. He set his teeth and walked straight out of the front gate and down to the end of the street. Then he paused almost unconsciously, because this spot, at the side of a hill, gave him a wide view of the town, and he often stopped here a moment on his way to and from Judge Jessup’s office, just to catch this glimpse of his native hills. The poet in Daniel loved this view.
The sun was on the hills to-day, except where the shadow of a passing cloud moved across the wide vista like a pillar of smoke to guide the wayfarers toward the Promised Land. The sun shone, too, on the roofs of the houses that clustered at Daniel’s feet, and it caught the gilt on a cross-crowned spire and flashed it against the background of the trees. The only vivid thing, it seemed, in the whole scene, where the gray of old shingled roofs and the sober tints of the time-worn houses blended with the greens and browns of nature. For it’s an old town, nestled in the hills, at the southern edge of one of the Middle States. A State, by the way, that is a good deal more southern than middle. So old is the town, indeed, that its tree-embowered streets have been trodden by the valiants of other days. The early settlers came here and found the spot fair, Indian traders bartered here, and heroes of the Revolution lie buried in the quaint old cemetery. The place has been long asleep, napping sweetly in the southern sunshine, drowsy and fragrant and restful—of a summer day. But lately the stirring of greater things has begun in the town. Life has grown busier, more noisy, more insistent. The ancient aristocracy has begun to feel the wave of democracy at its threshold, the old kernel is bursting and the strong young oak is thrusting its tap-root down into the rich black loam of the ages. But the background is unchanged, the fond heart can still dwell on the lovely profile of the blue hills, melting at noon into the more ineffable blue of the sky, and upon the dark green cloak of verdure that enfolds the foot-hills, and unrolls its ample edges to the very rim of the meadows.
The grape-vines still blossom fragrantly in the backyards of the old-fashioned dwellings, where negro slaves used to flit in and out, and, at evening still, sweet negro melodies float along the highways. Awhile ago, when Johnson Carter was a child, turbaned mammies used to fry chickens and make beaten biscuits to sell at the railway station—then a mere wayside shed with a platform. They saved many a famished traveler in the days when dining-cars were few and far between. Though, curiously enough, there were never any parts to a chicken but its legs. Tradition paints them as chicken centipedes, though hunger relished even a drumstick and a soggy, beaten biscuit. Little pickaninnies hung about, too, peddling chincapins, while an elderly matron of a sow disported herself in the adjacent gutter. But behind them, and in spite of them, the town stood enfolded in its lovely verdure and its blossomings, like an ancient bride in a constantly rejuvenated wedding garment, smiling and peaceful and secure.
Daniel Carter loved the town. Ambition might lead him elsewhere, but his heart would linger affectionately here. There was an unbreakable tie—he had suffered here, both in the flesh and in the spirit. He had lived his happy childhood here, whole and sound. He had climbed the hills and raced across the meadows. Then came his accident, the long interval of pain, and the deadly certainty, at last, that he was crippled. But through it all the trees had rustled their new leaves and the heavenly hills had lifted up their heads. Pain forges a tie deeper than the ties of joy. Dan loved the town.
As he walked down the old street to-day its familiarity eased the pang at his heart. His pain was vicarious, he imagined how Virginia Denbigh would suffer when she knew. He raged, too, against his brother—the brother whom he had always loved and trusted! For there had been a bond between the two elder Carter boys, cemented by the death of the two children who came between Daniel and Leigh. Now, a reflection of his father’s anger at William sent the blood up to Daniel’s pale forehead. He was very sensitive for the honor of the Carters, and William’s conduct—in Daniel’s eyes—constituted a high breach of honor, it was conduct, in fact, unbecoming a gentleman.
And Virginia Denbigh——?
Words failed; a kind of blind fury seized him; he longed to cross the ocean, or to meet the steamer in New York, and drag the strong, powerfully built William all the way upon his knees to Virginia’s feet, to beg her pardon.