The Ghost Girl Part 20

"A car will get you there inside a couple of hours," said Pinckney.

"As if he couldn't have sent for Susan Revenall," went on she as though oblivious to the suggestion, "but I suppose he's fought with them again. I patched up a peace between them last midsummer, but I suppose the patches didn't stick; he's fought with the Revenalls, he's fought with the Calhouns, he's fought with the Beauregards, he's fought with the Tredegars--that man would fight with his own front teeth if he couldn't get anything better to fight with, and now he's dying I expect he reckons to have a fight with me, just to finish off with. He killed his poor wife, and d.i.c.k Grangerson would never have gone off and got drowned only for him--Oh, he's not so bad," turning to Phyl, "he's good enough only for that--will fight."

"Too much pep," said Pinckney.

"I'm sure I don't know what it is. They're the queerest lot the Almighty ever put feet on, and I don't mind saying it, even though they are relatives." Turning to Phyl. "I suppose you know, least I suppose you think, that the Civil War was fought for the emanc.i.p.ation of the darkies and that they _were_ emanc.i.p.ated."

"Yes!"

"Well, they weren't--at least not at Grangersons. While the Colonel's father was fighting in the Civil War, his first wife, she was a Dawson, kept things going at home, and after the war was over and he was back he took up the rule again. Emanc.i.p.ation--no one would have dared to say the word to him, he'd have killed you with a look. The North never beat Grangerson, it beat Davis and one man and another but it never beat Grangerson, he carried on after the war just as he carried on before, told the darkies that emanc.i.p.ation was n.i.g.g.e.r talk and they believed him.

People came round telling them they were free, and all they got was broken heads. They were a very tetchy lot, those n.i.g.g.e.rs, are still what are left of them. You see, they've always been proud of being Grangerson's n.i.g.g.e.rs, that's the sort of man he is, able to make them feel like that."

"Silas helps to carry on the place, doesn't he?" asked Pinckney.

"Yes, and just in the same tradition, only he's finding it doesn't work, I suspect. You see, the old darkies are all right, but when he's forced to get new labour he has to get the new darkies and they're all wrong, and he thrashes them and they run away. They never take the law of him either. I reckon when they get clear of Silas they don't stop running till they get to Galveston."

They talked of other things and then, breakfast over, Miss Pinckney turned to Richard.

"Well, what about that automobile?"

"I'll have one at the door for you at ten," said he.

She turned to Phyl.

"You'd better go with me--if you'd like to; you'd be lonely here all by yourself, and you may as well see Grangersons whilst the old man's there, though maybe he'll be gone before we arrive. We may be there for a couple of days, so you'd better take enough things."

Then she went off to dress herself for the journey, and an hour later she appeared veiled and apparelled, d.i.c.k following her with the luggage, a bandbox and a bag of other days.

She got into the big touring car without a word. Phyl followed her and Pinckney tucked the rug round their knees.

"You've got the most careful driver in Charleston," said he, "and he knows the road."

Miss Pinckney nodded.

She was flying straight in the face of her pet prejudice. She was not in the least afraid of a break down or an overset. An accident that did not rob her of life or limb would indeed have been an opportunity for saying "I told you so." She was chiefly afraid of running over things.

As Pinckney was closing the door on them who should appear but Seth--Seth in a striped sleeved jacket, all grin and frizzled head and bearing a bunch of flowers in his hand. He had not been dismissed after all. When Miss Pinckney had gone into the kitchen to pay him his wages he had carried on so that she forgave him. The flowers--her own flowers just picked from the garden--were an offering, not to propitiate but to please.

Pinckney laughed, but Miss Pinckney as she took the bouquet scarcely noticed either him or Seth, her mind was busy with something else.

She leaned over towards the chauffeur.

"Mind you don't run over any chickens," said she.

It was a gorgeous morning, with the sea mists blowing away on the sea wind, swamp-land and river and bayou showing streets and ponds of sapphire through the vanis.h.i.+ng haze.

Phyl was in high spirits; the tune of Camptown Races, which a street boy had been whistling as they started, pursued her. Miss Pinckney, dumb through the danger zone where chickens and dogs and n.i.g.g.e.r children might be run over, found her voice in the open country.

The bunch of flowers presented to her by Seth and which she was holding on her lap started her off.

"I hope it is not a warning," said she; "wouldn't be a bit surprised to find Seth Grangerson in his coffin waiting for the flowers to be put on him; what put it in to the darkey's head to give me them! I don't know, I'm sure, same thing I suppose that put it into his head to give me impudence."

"You've taken him back," said Phyl.

"Well, I suppose I have," said the other in a resigned voice, "and likely to pay for my foolishness."

Pinckney had said that it was only a two hours' run from Charleston to Grangerville, but he had reckoned without taking into consideration the badness of some of the roads, and the intricacies of the way, for it was after one o'clock when they reached the little town beyond which, a mile to the West, lay the Colonel's house.

Grangerville lies on the border of Clarendon county, a tiny place that yet supports a newspaper of its own, the _Grangerville Courier_. The _Courier_ office, the barber's shop and the hotel are the chief places in Grangerville, and yellow dogs and black children seem the bulk of the population, at least of a warm afternoon, when drowsiness holds the place in her keeping, and the light lies broad and steadfast and golden upon the cotton fields, and the fields of Indian corn, and the foliage of the woods that spread to southward, enchanted woods, fading away into an enchanted world of haze and sun and silence.

When the great Southern moon rises above the cotton fields, Romance touches even Grangerville itself, the baying of the yellow dog, darkey voices, the distant plunking of a banjo, the owl in the trees--all are the same as of old--and the houses are the same, nearly, and the people, and it is hard to believe that over there to the North the locomotives of the Atlantic Coast railway are whistling down the night, that men are able to talk to one another at a distance of a thousand miles, fly like birds, live like fish, and perpetuate their shadows in the "movies."

Grangersons lay a mile beyond the little town, a solidly built mansion set far back from the road, and approached by an avenue of cypress. As they drew up before the pillared piazza, upon which the front door opened, from the doorway, wide open this warm day, appeared an old gentleman.

A very fine looking old man he was. His face, with its predominant nose, long white moustache and firm cleft chin, was of that resolute and obstinate type which seems a legacy of the Roman Empire, whose legionaries left much more behind them in Gaul and Britain than Trajan arches and Roman roads. He was dressed in light grey tweeds, his linen was immaculate--youthful and still a beau in point of dress, and bearing himself erect with the aid of a walking stick, a crutch handled stick of clouded malacca, Colonel Seth Grangerson, for he it was, had come to his front door, drawn by the sound of the one thing he detested more than anything in life, a motor car.

"Why, Lord! He's not even in bed," cried the outraged Miss Pinckney, who recognised him at once. "All this journey and he up and about--it beats Seth and his impudence!"

The Colonel, whose age dimmed eyes saw nothing but the automobile, came down the steps, panama hat in hand, courtly, freezing, yet ready to explode on the least provocation. Within touch of the car he recognised the chief occupant.

"Why, G.o.d bless my soul," cried he, "it's Maria Pinckney."

"Yes, it's me," said the lady, "and I expected to find you in bed or worse, and here you are up. Silas sent me a telegram."

"He's a fool," cut in the old gentleman. "I had one of my old attacks last night, and I told him I'd be up and about in the morning--and I am. Good Gad! Maria, you're the last person in the world I'd ever have expected to see in one of these outrageous things." He had opened the door of the car and was presenting his arm to the lady.

"You can shut the door," said Miss Pinckney. "I'm not getting out. The thing's not more outrageous than your getting up like that right after an attack and dragging me a hundred miles from Charleston over hill and dale--I'm not getting out, I'm going right back--right back to Charleston."

The Colonel turned his head and called to a darkey that had appeared at the front door.

"Take the luggage in," said he. Miss Pinckney got out of the car despite herself, half laughing, half angry, and taking the gallantly proffered arm found herself being led up the steps of Grangersons, pausing half way up to introduce Phyl, whom she had completely forgotten till now.

The Colonel, like his son Silas, as will presently be seen, had a direct way with women; the Grangersons had pretty nearly always fallen in love at sight and run away with their wives. Colonel Seth's father had done this, meeting, marrying and fascinating the beautiful Maria Tredegar, and carrying her off under his arm like a hypnotised fowl, and from under the noses of half a dozen more eligible suitors, just as now, the Colonel was carrying Maria Pinckney off into his house half against her will. Phyl following them, gazed round at the fine old oak panelled hall, from which they were led into the drawing room, a room not unlike the drawing room at Vernons, but larger and giving a view of the garden where the oleanders and cherokee money and the crescent leaves of the blue gum trees were moving in the wind. Colonel Seth, despite the war, had plenty of roses and Grangersons was kept up in the old style. Just as in Nuremberg and Vittoria we see mediaeval cities preserved, so to speak, under gla.s.s, so at Grangersons one found the old Plantation, house and all, miraculously intact, living, almost, one might say, breathing.

The price of cotton did not matter much to the Colonel, nor the price of haulage. This son of the Southerner who had refused to be beaten by the North in the war, cared for nothing much beyond the ring of sky that made his horizon. Twice a year he made a visit to Charleston, driving in his own carriage, occasionally he visited Richmond or Durham, where he had an interest in tobacco; New York he had never seen. He loathed railways and automobiles, mainly, perhaps, because they were inventions of the North, that is to say the devil. He had a devilish hatred of the North. Not of Northerners, but just of the North.

The word North set his teeth on edge. It did not matter to him that Charleston was picking up some prosperity in the way of phosphates, or that Chattanooga was smelting ore into money, or that industrial prosperity was abroad in the land; he was old enough to have a recollection of old days, and from the North had come the chilly blast that had blown away that age.

A servant brought in cake and wine to stay the travellers till dinner time, refreshment that Miss Pinckney positively refused at first.

"You will stay the night," said the Colonel, as he helped her, "and Sarah will show you to your rooms when we have had a word together."

Miss Pinckney, sipping her wine, made no reply, then placing the scarcely touched gla.s.s on the table and with her bonnet strings thrown back, she turned to the Colonel.

"Do you see the likeness?" said she.

"What likeness?" asked the old gentleman.

"Why, G.o.d bless my soul, the likeness to Juliet Mascarene. Phyl, turn your face to the light."