Carolina Lee

Carolina Lee
Lilian Bell

Lilian Bell

Carolina Lee

CHAPTER I

CAPTAIN WINCHESTER LEE

Having been born in Paris, Carolina tried to make the best of it, but being a very ardent little American girl, she always felt that her foreign birth was something which must be lived down, so when people asked her where she was born, her reply was likely to be:

"Well, I was born in Paris, but I am named for an American State!"

Then if, in a bantering manner, her interlocutor said:

"Then, are you a Southerner, Carolina?" the child always replied:

"My father says we are Americans first and Southerners second!"

Colonel Yancey, himself from Savannah, upon hearing Carolina make this reply commented upon it with unusual breadth of mind for a Southern man, with:

"I wish more of my people felt as you do, little missy. Most of my kinfolk call themselves Southerners first and Americans second and are prouder of their State than of their country."

"I don't see how they can be," said the child with a puzzled frown between her great blue eyes. "It would be just as if I liked one hand better than my whole body!"

Whereat the colonel slapped his leg and roared in huge enjoyment, and went to Henry's to drink Carolina's health and to tell the Americans assembled there that he knew a little American girl that would be heard from some day.

All this took place in Paris, when General Ravenel Lee, Carolina's grandfather, was ambassador to France, and when her father, Captain Winchester Lee, was his first secretary.

Many brilliant personages surrounded the child and influenced her more or less, according to the fancy she took to them, for she was a magnetic personality herself, and accepted or rejected an influence according to some unknown inner guide.

Her mother was a woman of refinement and breeding, and to her the child owed much of her good taste and charmingly modest demeanour. But it was her father who captured her imagination.

One of her earliest recollections was of her father's voice and manner when she looked up from her novel and asked him why he did not spell his name Leigh as men in books spelled theirs.

She had not known her father very well, so she was totally unprepared for his reply. Although she had been but a little child, she could see his face and hear his voice as distinctly to-day as she did when he whirled around on the hearth-rug and looked down at her as she sat on a low stool with a book on her knees.

"Spell my name Leigh?" he had said, in a tone she never had heard him use before. "Child, you little know what blood flows in your veins, or you would thank God every night in your prayers that you inherit the name of Lee, spelled in its simplest way. Honest men, Carolina, pure women, heroes in every sense of the word; statesmen, warriors, brave, with the bravery which risks more than life itself, are your ancestors. They date back to the Crusaders, and down the long line are men of title in the old world, distinguished in ways you are too young to understand. Books, did you say? Your name appears in many a book, child, which records heroic deeds. On both your dear Northern mother's side and mine, you come of blood which is your proudest heritage. Were you poor and forced to earn your daily bread, you would still be rich in that which the world can never take away-good blood and a proud name. And remember this, too, little daughter, although your life has been spent in foreign lands, I loved America so well that I gave you the name of my native State, and my dearest wish is to restore Guildford and to pass the remainder of my life there."

It was a long, long speech for a little girl to remember, but it burned itself into her memory and kindled her pride to such a degree that she could hardly wait to tell some one of her newly discovered treasure.

Fortunately her first auditor happened to be her governess, and fortunately, also, her father chanced to overhear her as she translated his remarks into shrill French. He immediately stopped her, and these words also were seared into her memory through poignant mortification.

"I was wrong to tell you that, little daughter. I see that you are too young to have understood it properly. I can only undo the mischief by reminding you never to boast of your old family to any one. If we Southerners have one fault more than another, it is our tendency to mention the antiquity of our families-as if that counted where breeding were absent. You will observe that your dear mother never mentions hers, though she is a De Clifford. Let others boast if they will. Speak you of their family and name and be silent concerning your own. It is sufficient to feed your pride in secret by the inward knowledge of who you are. Will you try to remember that, little daughter, and forgive me for putting notions into that head of yours?"

She flew into his arms, and in that moment was born the passionate love and understanding which ever afterward existed between them.

"Oh, father!" she cried. "Don't be sorry you told me! I am not too young. I will show you that I am not. I will never speak of it again, and only in my heart I will always be proud that I am Carolina Lee!"

In after years, Carolina dated her life-her most poignant happiness and her dearest anguish-from the moment when her father thus opened his heart to her and she found how intensely they were akin. He became her idol, and she worshipped him not only with the abandonment of youth, but with all the passion of her tempestuous nature. She set herself to be worthy of his love and companionship with such ardour that she unwittingly broke the first commandment every day of her life.

Her father realized it, perhaps because of his answering passion, for he often sighed as he looked at her. He knew, as did no one else, what an inheritance was hers. He felt in his own bosom all the ardour and passion and furious love of home which as yet his child only suspected in herself. As long as he could remain at her side he felt that he could control it in both, but his heart sometimes stood still at the thought of what could happen were Carolina left defenceless. How could the child battle with her own nature? He shook his head with his fine smile as he realized how more than competent she was to fight her own battles with an alien.

They saw a good deal of Colonel Yancey in those days. He had some business with the French government which kept him abroad or going back and forth, and because of his companionable qualities, his sympathy as well as his brilliance, Captain Lee discussed his most intimate plans with him.

Carolina always made it a point to be present when her father and Colonel Yancey smoked their cigars in the library after dinner, for there it was that conversations took place concerning the South and Guildford, of so breathless an interest that not one word would she willingly have missed.

She had a confused feeling concerning Colonel Yancey which she was too young to analyze. He was only a little past forty, and had won his title of colonel in the Spanish war. She knew that her father, like most Southern men, trusted Colonel Yancey, simply because he also was a Southern man, when he would have been cautious with a Northerner. He spoke freely of the most intimate plans and dearest hopes of his life, with all the hearty, generous, open freedom of a great nature. Yet the watchful child saw something in Colonel Yancey's eyes, especially when her father spoke of Guildford, and his passionate hope of the part it would play in Carolina's future, which reminded the little girl of the look in the gray cat's eyes when she pretended to fall asleep by the hole of a mouse.

This feeling was too intangible for her to realize at first, but as years passed by, and Colonel Yancey's business brought him to Paris every season while General Lee was ambassador, and when her father was transferred to the Court of St. James, even oftener, she grew better able to understand her childish fears.

One day in London, when Carolina was about fifteen, Colonel Yancey made his appearance, dressed in deep mourning. Carolina did not hear the explanation made of his loss, but she resented vaguely yet consciously the glances he cast at her during dinner, and when her father whispered to her that the colonel had lost his wife and no questions were to be asked, her lip curled and her delicate nostrils dilated. She listened with more than her usual attention to the conversation which followed, and in after years it often came to her mind, and never without giving her some help.

Colonel Yancey opened the conversation with an inexplicable remark.

"When I hear you talk, captain, I always feel sorry for you."

Carolina lifted her head with instant hauteur, but her father only smiled and knocked the ashes from his cigar.

"Yes, an enthusiast of my type is always to be pitied," he said, gently.

"Not entirely that," responded Colonel Yancey. "In some strong characters, their enthusiasms only indicate their weak points, but it is not so in your case. It is rather that you have idealized your homesickness."

"I am homesick," said Captain Lee, "for what I never had."

"Exactly. Now you left Guildford when you were a mere lad, so it is largely your father's opinion of the South-your father's love for the old place that you have inherited and made your own, just as, in Miss Carolina's case, it is wholly vicarious. Have you any idea of the deterioration your own little town of Enterprise has suffered?"

"I suppose you are right," said Captain Lee.

"I hope, then," said Colonel Yancey, slowly, "that you will never go back South to live, especially to Enterprise."

Carolina's sensitive face flushed, but she was too well bred to interrupt.

"You mean," said Captain Lee, with a keen glance at his friend, "that I would find the South a disappointment?"

"It would break your heart! It hurts me, tough as I am and little as I care compared to an enthusiast like yourself. It would wound you, but" – and here he turned his magnetic glance on the young girl-"for an idealist like missy here, it would be death itself!"

Captain Lee reached out and laid his hand, on his daughter's head.

"I am afraid so! I am afraid so!" he said, with a sigh.

"You understand me?" questioned Colonel Yancey. It was a pleasure, which Colonel Yancey seldom experienced, to converse with so comprehending a man as Captain Lee. He was accustomed to dazzling people by his own brilliancy, but he seldom dived into the depths of his penetrating mind for the edification of men, simply for the reason that the ordinary run of men seldom care to be edified. But in diplomatic circles, Colonel Yancey was a welcome guest. He possessed an instinct so keen that it amounted almost to intuition in his understanding of men, a business ability amounting almost to genius, and a philosophic turn of mind which permitted him to apply his knowledge with almost unerring judgment. As a promoter, he had served governments with marked ability, and had the reputation of having amassed fortunes for those of his friends who had followed his lead and advice.

All this Carolina knew and yet-

However, she had the good taste to listen further, without attempting to draw a hasty conclusion.

"The South," said Colonel Yancey, with a sigh of regret, "is like a beautiful woman asleep-no, not asleep, but standing in the glorious sunlight of God, with her eyes deliberately shut. Shut to opportunity! Shut to advancement! Shut to progress! Her ears are closed also. Closed to advice! Closed to warning! Closed to truth! Her mind is locked. Locked against common sense! Locked against the bitter lesson taught by a jolly good licking. And the key which thus locks her mind is a key which no one but God Almighty could turn, and that is prejudice! Blind, bitter, unreasoning, stupid prejudice! That is why her case is hopeless! That is why fifty or a hundred years from now the South will still be ignorant, stagnant, and indigent!"