§ 5
There was a general feeling that Sylvia had learned more than was good for her; and so the family made inquiries, and selected the most exclusive and expensive “finishing school” in New York, for the purpose of putting a stop to her intellectual development. And so we come to the beginning of Sylvia’s wordly career, and to the visit she paid to Lady Dee—who now, at the age of ninety, felt herself failing rapidly, and wished to leave to her great-niece her treasures of worldly counsel.
Lady Dee was one of those quaint figures you meet in the South, who go to balls and parties when they are old enough to be sewing the layettes of their great-grandchildren. I have seen a picture of her at the age of eighty-five, in a cerise-colored silk ball-gown with a lace “bertha,” her white hair curled in front and done in a pile with a coronet of diamonds. You must imagine her now, in an invalid’s chair upon the gallery, but still with her hair dressed as of old; telling to Sylvia tales of her own young ladyhood—and incidentally, with such deftness that the girl never guessed her purpose, introducing instruction in the strategy and tactics of the sex war.
Life was short, according to Lady Dee, and the future was uncertain. A woman bloomed but once, and must make the most of that. To be the center of events during her hour, that was life’s purpose; and to achieve it, it was necessary to know how to hold men. Men were sometimes said to be strange and difficult creatures, but in reality they were simple and easily handled. The trouble was that most women went blindly at the task, instead of availing themselves of the wisdom which their sex had been storing up for ages, in the minds of such authorities as Lady Dee.
The old lady went on to expound the science of coquetry. I had read of the sex game, as it is played in the grand monde, but I had never supposed that the players were as conscious and deliberate as this veteran expert. She even used the language of battle: “A woman’s shield, my child, is her innocence; her sharpest weapon is her naïveté. The way to disarm a man’s suspicions is to tell him what you’re doing to him—then you’re sure he won’t believe it!”
She would go into minute details of these Amazonian arts: how to beguile a man, how to promise to marry him without really promising, how to keep him at the proper temperature by judicious applications of jealousy. Nor was this sex war to stop after the wedding ceremony—when most women foolishly laid down their weapons. A woman must sleep in her armor, according to Lady Dee. She must never let her husband know how much she loved him, she must make him think of her as something rare and unattainable, she must keep him in a state where her smile was the greatest thing in life to him. Said the old lady, gravely: “The women of our family are famous for henpecking their husbands—they don’t even take the trouble to hide it. I’ve heard your grandfather, the General, say that it was all right for a man to be henpecked, if only it was by the right hen.”
A training, you perceive, of a decidedly worldly character; and yet there was nothing upon which Sylvia’s relatives laid more stress than the preserving of what they called her “innocence.” There were wild people in this part of the world—high-spirited and hot-tempered, hard drinkers and fast livers; there were deeds of violence, and strange and terrible tales that you might hear. But when these tales had anything to do with sex, they were carefully kept from Sylvia’s ears. Only once had this rule been broken—an occasion which made a great impression upon the child. The daughter of one of the neighboring families had eloped, and the dreadful rumor was whispered that she had traveled in a sleeping-car with the man, and been married at the end of the journey, instead of at the beginning.
And there was Uncle Mandeville, the youngest of the Major’s brothers—half drunk, though Sylvia did not know it—pacing the veranda and discussing the offending bridegroom. “He should have been shot!” cried Mandeville. “The damned scoundrel, he should have been shot like a dog!” And suddenly he paused before the startled child. He was a giant of a man, and his voice had the power of a church-organ. He placed his hands upon Sylvia’s shoulders, pronouncing in solemn tones, “Little girl, I want you to know that I will protect the honor of the women of our family with my life! Do you understand me, little girl?”
And Sylvia, awe-stricken, answered, “Yes, Uncle Mandeville.” The worthy gentleman was so much moved by his own nobility and courage that the tears stood in his eyes; he went on, melodramatically, “With my life! With my life! And remember the boast of the Castlemans—that there was never a man in our family who broke his word, nor a woman with a stain upon her name!”
That had been in Sylvia’s childhood. But now she was a young lady, about to start for the metropolis, and the family judged that the time had come for her to be instructed in some of these delicate matters. There had been consultations between her mother and aunts, in which the former had been prodded on to the performing of one of the most difficult of all maternal duties. Sylvia remembered the occasion vividly, for her mother’s agitation was painful to witness; she led the girl solemnly into a darkened room, and casting down her eyes, as if she were confessing a crime, she said: