Dorothy South

“Your utterance seems to the Court to be uncalled for, while its manner is distinctly such as the Court must disapprove. The person named by the ward as her choice for the guardianship, bears a high reputation for integrity, intelligence and character. Unless it can be shown to the Court that this reputation is undeserved, the ward’s choice will be confirmed. At present the Court is aware of nothing whatever in Dr. Brent’s character, circumstances or position that can cast doubt upon his fitness. If you have any information that should change the Court’s estimate of his character you will be heard.”

“He is unfit in every way,” responded the almost raving man. “He has deliberately undermined my fatherly influence over the girl. He has taken a mean advantage of me. He has overpersuaded the girl to set aside an arrangement made for her good and – ”

“Oh, no, Mr. Peyton,” broke in Dorothy, utterly heedless of court formalities, “he has done nothing of the kind. He knows nothing about this. I don’t think he will even like it.”

“Pardon me, Miss Dorothy,” interrupted the judge. “Please address the Court – me – and not Mr. Peyton. Tell me, have you made your choice of your own free will?”

“Why, certainly, Judge, else I wouldn’t have made it.”

“Has anybody said anything to you on the subject?”

“No, sir. Nobody has ever mentioned the matter to me except Col. Majors, and he told me I was to choose Mr. Peyton, but you told me I could choose for myself, you know. I suppose Col. Majors didn’t know you’d let me do that.”

A little laugh went up in the bar, and even the judge smiled. Presently he said:

“The Court knows of no reason why it should not confirm the choice made by the ward. Accordingly it is ordered that Dr. Arthur Brent of Wyanoke be appointed guardian of the property and estate of Dorothy South, with full authority, subject only to such instructions as this Court may from time to time see fit to give for his guidance. Mr. Clerk, make the proper record, and call the next case. This proceeding is at an end. You are at liberty now to withdraw, Miss Dorothy, you and Miss Polly.”

Aunt Polly rose and bowed her acknowledgments in silence. Dorothy bowed with equal grace, but added: “Thank you, Judge. I am anxious to get back to my sick people. So I will bid you good morning. You have been extremely nice to me.”

With that she bowed again and swept out of the court room, quite unconscious of the fact that even by her courteous adieu she had offended against all the traditions of etiquette in a court of Justice. The judge bowed and smiled, and every lawyer at the bar instinctively arose, turned his face respectfully toward the withdrawing pair, and remained standing till they had passed through the outer door, Col. Majors escorting them.

XVI

UNDER THE CODE

IT was Madison Peyton’s habit to have his own way, and he greatly prided himself upon getting it, in other people’s affairs as well as in those that concerned himself. He loved to dominate others, to trample upon their wills and to impose his own upon them. In a large degree he accomplished this, so that he regarded himself and was regarded by others as a man of far more than ordinary influence. He was so, in a certain way, but it was not a way that tended to make men like him. On the contrary, the aggressive self assertion by which he secured influence, secured for him also the very general dislike of his neighbors, especially of those who most submissively bowed to his will. They hated him because they felt themselves obliged to submit their wills to his.

There was, therefore, a very general chuckle of pleasure among the crowd gathered at the Court House – a crowd which included nearly every able-bodied white man in the county – as the news of his discomfiture and of his outbreak of anger over it, was discussed. There were few who would have cared to twit him with it, and if he had himself maintained a discreet and dignified silence concerning the matter, he would have heard little or nothing about it. But he knew that everybody was in fact talking of it, out of his hearing. He interpreted aright the all pervading atmosphere of amused interest, and the fact that every group of men he approached became silent and seemed embarrassed when he joined it. After his aggressive manner, therefore, he refused to remain silent. He thrust the subject upon others’ attention at every turn. He protested, he declaimed, at times he very nearly raved over what he called the outrage. He even went further in some cases and demanded sympathy and acquiescence in his complainings. For the most part he got something quite different. His neighbors were men not accustomed to fear, and while they were politely disposed to refrain from voluntary expressions of opinion on this matter, at least in his presence, they were ready enough with answers unwelcome to him when he demanded their opinions.

“Isn’t it an outrage,” he asked of John Meaux, “that Arthur Brent has undermined me in this way?”

“Oh, I don’t know,” answered Meaux with a drawl which always affected his speech when he was most earnest, “I cannot see it in that light. Dorothy declares that he knew nothing of her intentions, and we all know that Dorothy South never tells anything but the truth. Besides, I don’t see why he isn’t entitled to serve as her guardian if she wants him to do so. He is a man of character and brains, and I happen to know that he has a good head for business.”

“Yes,” snarled Peyton, “I know you’ve been cultivating him – ”

“I’ll trouble you to leave me out of your remarks, Mr. Peyton,” interrupted Meaux. “If you don’t you may have a quarrel on your hands.”

“Oh, you know me, Meaux; you know I didn’t mean any harm so far as you are concerned. You know my way – ”

“Yes, I know your way, and I don’t like it. In fact I won’t tolerate it.”

“Oh, come now, come now, John, don’t fly off the handle like that. You see I’m not angry with you, but how you can like this interloper – ”

“His family is as old in Virginia as your own is,” answered Meaux, “and he is the master of the very oldest plantation in this county. Besides he was born in Virginia and – but never mind that. I’m not counsel for his defence. I only interrupted to tell you that I am accustomed to choose my own friends, and that I fully intend to adhere to that custom.”

In another group Peyton used even less temperate terms than “interloper” in characterizing Arthur, and added:

“He didn’t even dare come to court and brazen out his treachery. He left the job, like a sneak, to the little girl whose mind he has poisoned.”

Archer Bannister was standing near, and heard the offensive words. He interrupted:

“Mr. Peyton, I earnestly advise you to retract what you have just said, and to put your retraction into writing, giving it to me to deliver to my friend Dr. Brent; who is absent today, as you very well know, simply because he has imperative duties of humanity elsewhere. I assure you that I shall report your offensive utterance to him, and it will be well for you if your retraction and apology can be delivered to him at the same time. Arthur Brent is rapidly falling into Virginia ways – adopting the customs of the country, he calls it – and there is one of those customs which might subject you to a deal of inconvenience, should he see fit to adopt it.”

“What have you to do with my affairs?” asked Peyton in a tone of offence.

“Nothing whatever —at present,” answered the young man, turning upon his heel.

But the warning sobered Peyton’s anger. It had not before occurred to him that Arthur might have become so far indoctrinated with Virginia ways of thinking as to call him to account for his words, in the hostile fashion usual at that time. Indeed, relying upon the fixed habit of Virginians never to gossip, he had not expected that Arthur would ever hear of his offensive accusations. Bannister’s notification that he would exercise the privilege accorded by custom to the personal friend of a man maligned when not present to defend himself, suggested grave possibilities. He knew that custom fully warranted Bannister in doing what he had threatened to do, and he had not the smallest doubt that the young man would do it.

It was in a mood of depression, therefore, that Peyton ordered his horse and rode homeward. His plantation lay within two or three miles of the Court House, but by the time that he had arrived there he had thought out a plan of procedure. He knew that Bannister would remain at the village inn over night, having jury service to perform the next morning. There was time, therefore, in which to reach him with a placative message, and Peyton set himself at once to work upon the preparation of such a message.

“I hope you will forgive me,” he wrote, “for the rudeness with which I spoke to you today. I was extremely angry at the time, and I had reasons for being so, of which you know nothing, and of which I must not tell you anything. Perhaps in my extreme irritation, I used expressions with regard to Dr. Brent, which I should not have used had I been calmer. For my discourtesy to you personally, I offer very sincere apologies, which I am sure your generous mind will accept as an atonement. For the rest I must trust your good feeling not to repeat the words I used in a moment of extreme excitement.”

Archer Bannister wrote in reply:

“The apology you have made to me was quite unnecessary. I had not demanded it. As for the rest, I shall do my duty as a friend unless you make apology where it is due, namely to Dr. Arthur Brent whom you have falsely accused, and to whom you have applied epithets of a very offensive character. If you choose to make me the bearer of your apology to him, I will gladly act for you. I prefer peace to war, at all times.”

This curt note gave Peyton a very bad quarter hour. He was not a coward; or, to put the matter more accurately, he was not that kind of a coward that cannot face physical danger. But he was a man of middle age or a trifle more. He was the father of a family and an elder in the Presbyterian church. Conscience did not largely influence him in any case, but he was keenly sensitive to public opinion. He knew that should he fight a duel, all the terrors of religious condemnation would fall upon him. Worse still, he would be laughed at for having so entangled himself in a matter his real relation to which he was not free to explain. Madison Peyton dreaded and feared nothing in the world so much as being laughed at. Added to this, he knew that the entire community would hold him to be altogether in the wrong. Arthur Brent’s reputation achieved by his heroic devotion under fearful danger at Norfolk, had been recalled and emphasized by his conduct in the present fever outbreak on his own plantation. It was everywhere the subject of admiring comment, and Peyton very well knew that nobody in that community would for a moment believe that Arthur Brent was guilty of any meanness or cowardly treachery. His own accusations, unless supported by some sort of proof, would certainly recoil upon himself with crushing force. He could in no way explain the anger that had betrayed him into the error of making such accusations. He could not make it appear to anybody that he had been wronged by the fact that Dorothy South had chosen another than himself for her guardian. His anger, upon such an occasion, would be regarded as simply ridiculous, and should he permit the matter to come to a crisis he must at once become the butt of contemptuous jesting.

There was but one course open to him, as he clearly saw. He wrote again to Archer Bannister, withdrawing his offensive words respecting Arthur, apologizing for them on the ground of momentary excitement, asking Archer to convey this his apology to Dr. Brent, and authorizing the latter to make any other use of the letter which he might deem proper.

This apology satisfied all the requirements of “the code.”

XVII

A REVELATION

IT was Dorothy who gave Arthur the first news of his appointment as her guardian. On her return from court to the fever camp she went first to see Sally and the two or three others whose condition was particularly serious. Then she went to Arthur, and told him what had happened.

“The judge was very nice to me, Cousin Arthur, and told me I might choose anybody I pleased for my guardian, and of course I chose you.”

“You did?” asked the young man in a by no means pleased astonishment. “Why on earth did you do that, Dorothy?”

“Why, because I wanted you to be my guardian, of course. Don’t you want to be my guardian, Cousin Arthur?”

“I hardly know, child. It involves a great responsibility and a great deal of hard work.”

“Won’t you take the responsibility and undertake the work for my sake, Cousin Arthur?”

“Certainly I will, my child. I wasn’t thinking of that exactly – but of some other things. But tell me, how did you come to do this? Who suggested it to you?”

“Why, nobody. That’s what I told the judge, and when Mr. Peyton got angry and said you had persuaded me to do it, I told him he was wrong. Then the judge stopped him from speaking and asked me about the matter and I told him. Then he said very nice things about you, and said you were to be my guardian, and then he told me I might go home and I thanked him and said good day, and Col. Majors escorted us to the carriage. I wonder why Mr. Peyton was so angry about it. He seems to have been very anxious to be my guardian. I wonder why?”

“I wonder, too,” said Arthur, to whom of course the secret of Peyton’s concern with Dorothy’s affairs was a mystery. He had not been present on the occasion when Peyton entered his protest against the girl’s reading, nor had any one told him of the occurrence. Neither had he heard of Peyton’s visit to Aunt Polly on the occasion of the outbreak of fever. He therefore knew of no reason for Peyton’s desire to intermeddle in Dorothy’s affairs, beyond his well known disposition to do the like with everybody’s concerns. But Arthur had grown used to the thought of mystery in everything that related to Dorothy.

Presently the girl said, “I’m going to write a note to Mr. Peyton, now, and send it over by Dick.”

“What for, Dorothy?”