"Nothing, absolutely nothing," was the response.
"Well," said Paul, "I hadn"t considered the question of marriage at all, but since you"ve brought the subject up, we may as well discuss it. You say it will be impossible for me to marry this young lady, and you refuse to tell me why. Don"t you think I am old enough to be trusted?"
"Why, certainly, Paul--of course; but there are some things--" Silas paused, and caught his breath, and then went on. "Honestly, Paul, if I could tell you, I would; I"d be glad to tell you; but this is a matter in which you will have to depend on my judgment. Can"t you trust me?"
"Just as far as you can trust me, but no farther," was the reply. "I"m not a child. In a few months I"ll be of age. But if I were only ten years old, and knew the young lady as well as I know her now, you couldn"t turn me against her by insinuations." He rose, shook himself, walked the length of the room and back again, and stood close to his father. "You"ve already settled the question of marriage. I asked you last night about the report that you intended to act with the radicals, and you refused to give me a direct answer. That means that the report is true. Do you suppose that Eugenia Claiborne, or any other decent woman would marry the son of a scalawag?" he asked with a voice full of pa.s.sion. "Why, she"d spit in his face, and I wouldn"t blame her."
The young man went out, leaving Silas sitting at the table. "Lord! I hate to hurt him, but he"d better be dead than to marry that girl."
Rhody, who was standing in the entryway leading from the dining-room to the kitchen, and who had overheard every word that pa.s.sed between father and son, entered the room at this moment, exclaiming:
"Well, you des ez well call "im dead den, kaze marry her he will, an" I don"t blame "im; an" mo"n dat I"ll he"p "im all I can."
"You don"t know what you are talking about," said Silas, wiping his lips, which were as dry as a bone.
"Maybe I does, an" maybe I don"t," replied Rhody. "But what I does know, I knows des ez good ez anybody. You say dat boy sha"n"t marry de gal; but how come you courtin" de mammy?"
"Doing what?" cried Silas, pushing his chair back from the table.
"Courtin" de mammy," answered Rhody, in a loud voice. "You wuz dar las"
night, an" fer all I know you wuz dar de night befo", an" de night "fo"
dat. You may fool some folks, but you can"t fool me."
"Courting! Why you blasted idiot! I went to see her on business."
Rhody laughed so heartily that few would have detected the mockery in it. "Business! Ya.s.ser; it"s business, an" mighty funny business. Well, ef you kin git her, you take her. Ef she don"t lead you a dance, I ain"t name Rhody."
"I believe you"ve lost what little sense you used to have," said Silas with angry contempt.
"I notice dat n.o.body roun" here ain"t foun" it," remarked Rhody, retiring to the kitchen with a waiter full of dishes.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
_The Knights of the White Camellia_
Matters have changed greatly since those days, and all for the better.
The people of the whole country understand one another, and there is no longer any sectional prejudice for the politicians to feed and grow fat upon. But in the days of reconstruction everything was at white heat, and every episode and every development appeared to be calculated to add to the excitement. In all this, Shady Dale had as large a share as any other community. The whites had witnessed many political outrages that seemed to have for their object the renewal of armed resistance. And it is impossible, even at this late day, for any impartial person to read the debates in the Federal Congress during the years of 1867-68 without realising the awful fact that the prime movers in the reconstruction scheme (if not the men who acted as their instruments and tools) were intent on stirring up a new revolution in the hope that the negroes might be prevailed upon to sack cities and towns, and destroy the white population. This is the only reasonable inference; no other conceivable conclusion can explain the wild and whirling words that were uttered in these debates: unless, indeed, some charitable investigator shall establish the fact that the radical leaders were suffering from a sort of contagious dementia.
It is all over and gone, but it is necessary to recall the facts in order to explain the pa.s.sionate and blind resistance of the whites of the South and their hatred of everything that bore the name or earmarks of Republicanism. Shady Dale, in common with other communities, had witnessed the a.s.sembling of a convention to frame a new const.i.tution for the State. This body was well named the mongrel convention. It was made up of political adventurers from Maine, Vermont, and other Northern States, and boasted of a majority composed of ignorant negroes and criminals. One of the most prominent members had served a term in a Northern penitentiary. The real leaders, the men in whose wisdom and conservatism the whites had confidence, were disqualified from holding office by the terms of the reconstruction acts, and the convention emphasised and adopted the policy of the radical leaders in Washington--a policy that was deliberately conceived for the purpose of placing the governments of the Southern States in the hands of ignorant negroes controlled by men who had no interest whatever in the welfare of the people.
But this was not all, nor half. When the military commandant who had charge of affairs in Georgia, found that the State government established under the terms of Mr. Lincoln"s plan of reconstruction, had no idea of paying the expenses of the mongrel convention out of the State"s funds, he issued an order removing the Governor and Treasurer, and "detailed for duty as Governor of Georgia," one of the members of his staff.
The mongrel convention, which would have been run out of any Northern State in twenty-four hours, had provided for an election to be held in April, 1868, for the ratification or rejection of the new const.i.tution that had been framed, and for the election of Governor and members of the General a.s.sembly. Beginning on the 20th, the election was to continue for three days, a provision that was intended to enable the negroes to vote at as many precincts as they could conveniently reach in eighty-three hours. No safeguard whatever was thrown around the ballot-box, and it was the remembrance of this initial and overwhelming combination of fraud and corruption that induced the whites, at a later day, to stuff the ballot-boxes and suppress the votes of the ignorant.
These things, with the hundreds of irritating incidents and episodes belonging to the unprecedented conditions, gradually worked up the feelings of the whites to a very high pitch of exasperation. The worst fears of the most timid bade fair to be realised, for the negroes, certain of their political supremacy, sure of the sympathy and support of Congress and the War Department, and filled with the conceit produced by the flattery and cajolery of the carpet-bag sycophants, were beginning to a.s.sume an att.i.tude which would have been threatening and offensive if their skins had been white as snow.
Gabriel was now old enough to appreciate the situation as it existed, though he never could bring himself to believe that there were elements of danger in it. He knew the negroes too well; he was too familiar with their habits of thought, and with their various methods of accomplishing a desired end. But he was familiar with the apprehensions of the community, and made no effort to put forward his own views, except in occasional conversations with Meriwether Clopton. After a time, however, it became clear, even to Gabriel, that something must be done to convince the misguided negroes that the whites were not asleep.
He conformed himself to all the new conditions with the ready versatility of youth. He studied hard both night and day, but he spent the greater part of his time in the open air. It was perhaps fortunate for him at this time that there was a lack of formality in his methods of acquiring knowledge. He had no tutor, but his line of study was mapped out for him by Meriwether Clopton, who was astonished at the growing appet.i.te of the lad for knowledge--an appet.i.te that seemed to be insatiable.
What he most desired to know, however, he made no inquiries about. He ached, as Mrs. Absalom would have said, to know why he had suddenly come to be afraid of Nan Dorrington. He had been somewhat shy of her before, but now, in these latter days, he was absolutely afraid of her. He liked her as well as ever, but somehow he became panic-stricken whenever he found himself in her company, which was not often.
It was impossible that his desire to avoid her should fail to be observed by Nan, and she found a reason for it in the belief that Gabriel had discovered in some way that she was in the closet with Tasma Tid the night the Union League had been organised. Nan would never have known what a crime--this was the name she gave the escapade--what a crime she had committed but for the shock it gave her step-mother. This lady had been trained and educated in a convent, where every rule of propriety was emphasised and magnified, and most rigidly insisted upon.
One day, when Nan was returning home from the village, she saw Gabriel coming directly toward her. She studied the ground at her feet for a considerable distance, and when she looked up again Gabriel was gone; he had disappeared. This episode, insignificant though it was, was the cause of considerable worry to Nan. She gave Mrs. Dorrington the particulars, and then asked her what it all meant.
"Why should it mean anything?" that lady asked with a laugh.
"Oh, but it must mean something, Johnny. Gabriel has avoided me before, and I have avoided him, but we have each had some sort of an excuse for it. But this time it is too plain."
"What silly children!" exclaimed Mrs. Dorrington, with her cute French accent.
Nan went to a window and looked out, drumming on a pane. Outside everything seemed to be in disorder. The flowers were weeds, and the trees were not beautiful any more. Even the few birds in sight were all dressed in drab. What a small thing can change the world for us!
"I know why he hid himself," Nan declared from the window. "He has found out that I was in the closet with Tasma Tid." How sad it was to be compelled to realise the awful responsibilities that rest as a burden upon Girls who are Grown!
"Well, you were there," replied Mrs. Dorrington, "and since that is so, why not make a joke of it? Gabriel has no squeamishness about such things."
"Then why should he act as he does?" Nan was about to break down.
"Well, he has his own reasons, perhaps, but they are not what you think.
Oh, far from it. Gabriel knows as well as I do that it would be impossible for you to do anything _very_ wrong."
"Oh, but it isn"t impossible," Nan insisted. "I feel wicked, and I know I am wicked. If Gabriel Tolliver ever dares to find out that I was in that closet, I"ll tell him what I think of him, and then I"ll--" Her threat was never completed. Mrs. Dorrington rose from her chair just in time to place her hand over Nan"s mouth.
"If you were to tell Gabriel what you really think of him," said the lady, "he would have great astonishment."
"Oh, no, he wouldn"t, Johnny. You don"t know how conceited Gabriel is.
I"m just ready to hate him."
"Well, it may be good for your health to dislike him a little occasionally," remarked Mrs. Dorrington, with a smile.
"Now, what _do_ you mean by that, Johnny?" cried Nan. But the only reply she received was an eloquent shrug of the shoulders.
Gabriel was as much mystified by his own dread of meeting Nan, as he was by her coolness toward him. He could not recall any incident which she had resented; but still she was angry with him. Well, if it was so, so be it; and though he thought it was cruel in his old comrade to harbour hard thoughts against him, he never sought for an explanation. He had his own world to fall back upon--a world of books, the woods and the fields. And he was far from unhappiness; for no human being who loves Nature well enough to understand and interpret its meaning and its myriad messages to his own satisfaction, can be unhappy for any length of time. Whatever his losses or his disappointments, he can make them all good by going into the woods and fields and taking Nature, the great comforter, by the hand.
So Gabriel confined his communications for the most part to his old and ever-faithful friends, the woods and the velvety Bermuda fields. He walked about among these old friends with a lively sense of their vitality and their fruitfulness. He was certain that the fields knew him as well as he knew them--and as for the trees, he had a feeling that they knew his name as well as he knew theirs. He was so familiar with some of them, and they with him, that the katydids in the branches continued their cries even while he was leaning against the trunks of the friends of his childhood: whereas, if a stranger or an alien to the woods had so much as laid the tip of his little finger on the rugged bark of one of them, a shuddering signal would have been sent aloft, and the cries would have ceased instantly.
Gabriel"s grandmother went to bed early and rose early--a habit that belongs to old age. But it was only after the darkness and silence of night had descended upon the world that all of Gabriel"s faculties were alert. It was his favourite time for studying and reading, and for walking about in the woods and fields, especially when the weather was too warm for study. Every Sunday night found him in the Bermuda fields, long since deserted by Nan and Tasma Tid. To think of the old days sometimes brought a lump in his throat; but the skies, and the constellations (in their season) remained, and were as fresh and as beautiful as when they looked down in pity on the sufferings of Job.
Gabriel"s favourite Bermuda field was crowned by a hill, which, gradually sloping upward, commanded a fine view of the surrounding country; and though it was close to Shady Dale, it was a lonely place.
Here the killdees ran, and bobbed their heads, and uttered their plaintive cries unmolested; here the partridge could raise her brood in peace; and here the whippoorwill was free to play upon his flute.
Many and many a time, while sitting on this hill, Gabriel had watched the village-lights go out one by one till all was dark; and the silence seemed to float heaven-ward, and fall again, and shift and move in vast undulations, keeping time to a grand melody which the soul could feel and respond to, but which the ear could not hear. And at such time, Gabriel believed that in the slow-moving constellations, with their glittering trains, could be read the great secrets that philosophers and scientists are searching for.