Carolina Lee

"I wonder what you will say when I tell you that my dear father, who was as loyal a Southerner as ever lived, and who entered the Confederate army when he was only sixteen years old, was engaged at the time of his death in an elaborate life of Abraham Lincoln, whom he regarded as the best friend the South ever had, and the noblest patriot America ever produced!"

The young man's face flushed with feeling, but he was too wise to express his bitter disagreement with Carolina's views.

But she knew how he felt and that, unless he deliberately determined to open his mind to the truth in every way, that she never could bring herself to marry him, and thus court discord in her daily life.

He did the best he could, but among his own people he passed muster as an unusually fine fellow, well-educated and progressive. It was only when brought into contact with a broad-minded, cultured young woman like Carolina that Moultrie's intellect showed its limitations. However, the fact that he was proud of his prejudices was the only alarming thing about the whole situation. Carolina saw his possibilities. She recognized his courage; she trusted in his capacity to rouse himself from his ignorance; she knew that he would some day awaken to the impression he made upon cultivated minds. And the more she yielded to his charm, to his chivalrous care of her, to the attraction his almost ideal beauty had for her, the more she was determined to save him in spite of himself. She knew that she could expect no help from his family, who idealized him just as he was, and who would have regarded an intimation that even a Benjamin Franklin would have found him crude, as sacrilege. Nor could relatives or friends avail, for did not all in his little community think as he did, and were not prejudices respected? No, she realized that she must save him unaided and alone. Therefore, when, in a burst of passion which nearly swept her off her feet and left her shaken and trembling, he asked her to marry him, she took her courage in both hands and refused.

He stared at her in a dismay so honest and unfeigned that she almost smiled. Then his face flushed, and he said, in a low, hurt tone:

"I understand. You have urged me to believe that Flower's ancestry was not the disgraceful thing I suspect, when you could not bring yourself to believe it. That can-that must be your only reason, for you love me, Carolina. You have shown me in a hundred ways that you liked my care of you; you have permitted my attentions, you have not discouraged my honest, ardent love, which every one has been a witness to. You do care for me! You cannot deny it."

"Moultrie," said the girl, slowly, "I do not wish to deny it. I never said I did not love you, for I love you more dearly than you know or than you ever will know. I said I would not marry you, but not, oh, not on Flower's account. I believe implicitly in all I have said of her. If that were all, I would marry you to-morrow. But that is not the reason."

"Then what is? Oh, Carolina, love, love!"

"You don't know me at all, Moultrie, or you would know what I am going to say."

"I reckon I don't, dear, for I haven't an idea of the reason."

"Well, it is because we never could be happy together, holding such different ideals and such different codes of honour. Colonel Yancey told my father in London that he would find the South heart-breaking, and it is."

The young man stared into her lovely face in a very genuine astonishment.

"Our codes of honour different, Carolina?" he said. "Oh, I hope not. I should be sorry to think that your code of honour differed from mine."

"And, dear friend-"

"Don't call me friend! I am not your friend! I am your lover!"

"No, let me call you friend, for that is all that I can call you at present. I should be sorry to hold a code of honour no higher than yours."

The slow, dark flush of pride and race rose in the man's fine face. Carolina was daring to say such words to a La Grange. But Carolina herself was a Lee.

"I should be sorry," said Carolina, deliberately, not waiting for his reply, "to be so narrow that I could refuse an offer to improve my land, denuded and mortgaged as it is, – an offer for the only rights I had left to sell, and which would give me plenty of money to enable me to restore the home of my ancestors, – simply because the syndicate furnishing the money was composed of Northern men, thus, for a senseless prejudice, compelling my mother and sister to eke out their income by sewing for negroes!"

Had Carolina struck him in the face, he could not have turned a whiter countenance upon her than he did. Twice he opened his lips to speak and twice closed them again with the futile words still unspoken. His hands were clenched at his side, his whole figure rigid with outraged pride. Yet he continued to look his accuser in the face, and Carolina honoured him for his courage even while she could see self-knowledge dawn and humiliation take the place of his dethroned pride. The first blow had been struck which was to unmask his pitiable attitude, – the attitude of the typical young Southerner of to-day, proud of his worn-out prejudices, and unaware that his very pride in them is in rags.

Carolina clasped her hands to hide their trembling. She could have cried out in pity for the suffering in the face of the man she loved, but she dared not speak one word of the sympathy her heart ached to show, for fear of undoing her work. Blindly she steeled herself for the words she feared would pour forth. Dully she wondered if, when they came, they would end everything between them, and preclude any possible overtures on her part when the leaven should have worked. But the words, bitter or otherwise, did not come. Still he simply stood and looked at her.

Then, with a gesture both graceful and dignified, he bent and took her hand and kissed it.

"I understand," he said, simply, and Carolina, turning away, albeit sick at heart, felt a dawning thrill of pride-her first-that she had come to love this man.

CHAPTER XXI

THE LIGHT BREAKS

One afternoon, a few days later, there came an hour of stifling heat, and Carolina, sitting in her little cottage room with "Science and Health" on her knees, heard the rise and fall of voices in earnest discussion, which seemed to come from the back porch. When she appeared at the door to ascertain who it was, she found Aunt Calla, the cook at Whitehall, and Aunt Tempy, Flower's baby's mammy, in animated conversation with Rose Maud, her own cook.

"Dar she is now!" exclaimed Calla. "Miss Calline, I was jes' awn my way over hyah to ax yoh advice as to what I shall do wid dat no 'count Lily ob mine, when erlong come Sis Tempy in de Barnwells' cah'yall, sent by Miss Flower to say will you please come over to see de baby right away, en Sis Tempy done fetch me wid her."

"Is anything wrong with the baby?" asked Carolina, quickly.

"No'm! no'm!" cried Tempy. "Miss Flowah got somepin' mighty fine to show you. Miss Callina, de lill fellah kin see!"

"Oh, Tempy, how glad I am to hear it!"

"Well'm, I reckon you is de one what otto hyah it fust," said the old woman, with a shrewd glance.

"Why, what do you mean?" asked Carolina.

The three women settled themselves with such an air of having come to the point that Carolina felt reasonably sure that they had been discussing the affair, and that further concealment was no longer of any avail. She was surprised to see that, instead of the hostility she had feared, each old woman had the appearance of eager curiosity if not of real interest.

"I means, Miss Callina, dat I believes-we all believes-dat you done kunjered" (conjured) "de chile en kyored him," said Calla.

"I ain't a-saying dat," put in Tempy. "I ain't a-saying but what you is raised de spell what de voodoo done put awn de chile."

"En I tells um, Miss Callina," ventured Rose Maud, Carolina's own cook, "dat hit's yoh new religion what done it, en I tole em I believed dat you is de Lawd Jesus come down to yearth de secon' time, wid power to heal de sick, to cast out debbils, en to raise de dead."

"Rose Maud, Jesus was a man, and you know that He will never take the form of a woman," said Carolina, "so don't ever say such a foolish thing again. But He gave that power to His disciples, and this new religion of mine you are talking about gives that same power both to men and women."

"Miss Callina," cried Tempy and Calla at the same time, "has you got dat power?"

"Ask Rose Maud," said Carolina.

"I done tole 'em, Miss Callina," cried Rose Maud. "But dey is bofe doubtin' Thomases. Dey won't believe until dey sees."

"Miss Callina," pleaded Calla, "I cain't believe jis' caze I wants tuh so bad. Ef you kin mek me believe, I would fall down awn my face wid joy. I ain't never been satisfied wid no religion. Sis Tempy will tell you. Ise done jined de chutch en fell from grace mo' times den I kin count. But, missy, even niggers want a trufe dat dey kin cling tuh!"

"Dat's a fack, Miss Callina!" broke in Aunt Tempy. "En ef you will jis' put awn yoh hat en go wid us in de Barnwells' cah'yall, en 'splain t'ings to us lake Jesus done when He tuk de walk to Emyus" (Emmaus), "you will be talkin' to thirsty sinners what are des a-begging of you fur de water ob life!"

Carolina remembered the great number of intelligent coloured faces which were scattered through the congregations of the beautiful white marble church, with its splendour and glory of stained glass, in New York, and she wondered if here, in the pleadings of these three fat old coloured women in the pine forest of South Carolina lay the answer to the great and ever burning question of the white man's burden. As she debated swiftly, her heart leaped to the task. It was not for her to refuse to spread the truth when it was so humbly and earnestly desired.

"Come then," she said, "ask me questions, and I will tell you the answers that my new religion teaches. You may come, too, Rose Maud."

The Barnwells' carryall went slowly out through the great avenue of live-oaks from Carolina's little cottage at Guildford into the "big road" which led to Sunnymede. But no one thought of the incongruity of the three old coloured women and Jake, letting the horses drive themselves, while he listened with pathetic eagerness to the clear, earnest tones of the white young lady, who simply and sincerely answered the questions all four asked of her with such painful anxiety and eager understanding.

Meanwhile the storm, which the intense heat presaged, gathered, and they hurried the horses in order to reach Sunnymede before it broke.

"Dat's all I ask," cried Aunt Tempy. "I don' need to ax no mo' questions. Miss Callina done fixed t'ings for old Tempy."

"I allus knowed dat I was a worshipper ob de unknown God," cried Calla. "Ef I had 'a' knowed de right One, does y'all reckon He would 'a' let me get away? No, suh! De Lawd hol's awn tuh His own!"

The storm broke just as they reached Flower's little cabin in the dreary stump-filled waste which had once been the handsome estate of the La Granges. Flower met them at the door and welcomed them in.

"Hurry, Jake, and get the horses safe before the rain comes. Aunt Tempy, take Calla and Rose Maud to the kitchen and give them some sassafras tea. Oh, Cousin Carolina, dearest, did Tempy tell you? Oh, the blessed, blessed news! For two nights now, the lamb has turned over in his crib because the light hurt his eyes. I didn't send for you the first time because I wanted to be sure. I was reading the fourteenth of John, and when I came to the verse, 'And if ye shall ask anything in my name, I will do it,' I just threw the Bible down and fell on my face on the floor and begged God for my baby's eyesight. And, when I looked, he had turned over. Oh, Cousin Carol, Cousin Carol, I think I shall go mad with joy!"

"Let me see him," cried Carolina, rushing past Flower and snatching up the baby. "Oh, yes, dearest, I can see even a different expression in his eyes. And see how he blinks in the light! Flower, your baby is healed!"