The Builders

The Builders
Ellen Glasgow

Ellen Anderson Gholson Glasgow

The Builders

BOOK FIRST

APPEARANCES

CHAPTER I

Caroline

THE train was late that day, and when the old leather mail pouch was brought in, dripping wet, by Jonas, the negro driver, Mrs. Meade put down the muffler she was knitting, and received it reluctantly.

"At least there aren't any bills at this time of the month," she observed, with the manner of one who has been designed by Providence to repel disaster.

While she unbuckled the clammy straps, her full, round face, which was still fresh and pretty in spite of her seventy years, shone like an auspicious moon in the dusky glow of the fire. Since wood was scarce, and this particular strip of southside Virginia grew poorer with each year's harvest, the only fire at The Cedars was the one in "the chamber," as Mrs. Meade's bedroom was called. It was a big, shabby room, combining, as successfully as its owner, an aspect of gaiety with a conspicuous absence of comforts. There were no curtains at the windows, and the rugs, made from threadbare carpets, had faded to indeterminate patterns; but the cracked mahogany belonged to a good period, and if the colours had worn dim, they were harmonious and restful. The house, though scarred, still held to its high standards. The spirit of the place was the spirit of generous poverty, of cheerful fortitude.

The three girls on the hearthrug, knitting busily for the War Relief Association, were so much alike in colouring, shape, and feature, that it was difficult at a casual glance to distinguish Maud, who was almost, if not quite, a beauty, from Margaret and Diana, who were merely pretty and intelligent. They were all natural, kind-hearted girls, who had been trained from infancy to make the best of things and to laugh when they were hurt. From the days when they had played with ears of corn instead of dolls, they had acquired ingenuity and philosophy. For Mrs. Meade, who derived her scant income from a plantation cultivated "on shares" by negro tenants, had brought up her girls to take life gaily, and to rely on their own resourcefulness rather than on fortuitous events.

"Here is a nice fat letter for Caroline, and it looks as if it weren't an advertisement." With one plump hand she held out the letter, while she handed the dripping mail bag to Jonas. "Bring some wood for the fire, Jonas, and be sure to shut the door after you."

"Dar ain' no mo' wood, ole Miss."

For an instant Mrs. Meade stopped to think. "Well, the garden fence is falling down by the smoke-house. Split up some of the rails. Here is your letter, Caroline."

A woman's figure, outlined against the rocking branches of an old cedar beyond the window, turned slowly toward the group on the hearthrug. In Caroline's movements, while she lingered there for a moment, there was something gallant and free and spirited, which was a part of the world outside and the swaying boughs. Though she was older than the three girls by the fire, she was young with an illusive and indestructible grace of the soul. At thirty-two, in spite of the stern sweetness about her thin red lips, and the defiant courage which flashed now and then from the shadowy pallor of her face, one felt that the flame and ardour of her glance flowed not from inward peace, but from an unconquerable and adventurous spirit. Against the grey rain her face seemed the face of some swiftly changing idea, so expressive of an intangible beauty was the delicate curve of the cheek and the broad, clear forehead beneath the dark hair, which grew low in a "widow's peak" above the arched eyebrows and the vivid blue of the eyes. If there was austerity in the lines of her mouth, her eyes showed gaiety, humour, and tenderness. Long ago, before the wreck of her happiness, her father, who had a taste for the striking in comparisons, had said that Caroline's eyes were like bluebirds flying.

The letter could wait. She was not interested in letters now, rarely as they came to her. It was, she knew, only the call to a patient, and after nearly eight years of nursing, she had learned that nothing varied the monotonous personalities of patients. They were all alike, united in their dreadful pathos by the condition of illness – and as a mere matter of excitement there was little to choose between diphtheria and pneumonia. Yet if it were a call, of course she would go, and her brief vacation would be over. Turning away from the firelight, she deferred as long as possible the descent from her thoughts to the inevitable bondage of the actuality.

Beyond the window, veiled in rain, she could see the pale quivering leaves of the aspens on the lawn, and the bend in the cedar avenue, which led to the big white gate and the private road that ran through the farm until it joined the turnpike at the crossroads. Ever since she was born, it seemed to her, for almost thirty-two years, she had watched like this for something that might come up that long empty road. Even in the years that she had spent away, she had felt that her soul waited there, tense and expectant, overlooking the bend in the avenue and the white gate, and then the road over which "the something different," if it came at all, must come at last to The Cedars. Nothing, not change, not work, not travel, could detach the invisible tendrils of her life from the eager, brooding spirit of the girl who had once watched there at the window. She had been watching – watching – she remembered, when the letter that broke her heart had come in the old mail pouch, up the road beyond, and through the gate, and on into the shadows and stillness of the avenue. That was how the blow had come to her, without warning, while she waited full of hope and expectancy and the ardent sweetness of dreams.

"My poor child, your heart is broken!" her mother had cried through her tears, and the girl, with the letter still in her hands, had faced her defiantly.

"Yes, but my head and my hands are whole," she had replied with a laugh.

Then, while the ruins of her happiness lay at her feet, she began rebuilding her house of life with her head and her hands. She would accept failure on its own terms, completely, exultantly, and by the very audacity of her acceptance, she would change defeat into victory. She would make something out of nothing; she would wring peace, not from joy, but from the heart of an incredible cruelty; she would build with courage, not with gladness, but she would build her house toward the stars.

"There must be something one can live on besides love," she thought, "or half the world would go famished."

"Come and read your letter, Caroline," called Maud, as she reached the end of a row. "There isn't anything for the rest of us."

"I am so afraid it is a call, dear," said Mrs. Meade; and then, as Caroline left the window and passed into the firelight, the old lady found herself thinking a little vaguely, "Poor child, the hard work is beginning to show in her face – but she has never been the same since that unfortunate experience. I sometimes wonder why a just Providence lets such things happen." Aloud she added, while her beaming face clouded slightly, "I hope and pray that it isn't anything catching."

As Caroline bent over the letter, the three younger girls put down their knitting and drew closer, while their charming faces, brown, flushed, and sparkling, appeared to catch and hold the glow of the flames. They were so unlike Caroline, that she might have been mistaken, by a stranger, for a woman of a different race. While she bent there in the firelight, her slender figure, in its cambric blouse and skirt of faded blue serge, flowed in a single lovely curve from her drooping dark head to her narrow feet in their worn russet shoes.

"It is from an old friend of yours, mother," she said presently, "Mrs. Colfax."

"Lucy Colfax! Why, what on earth is she writing to you about? I hope there isn't anything wrong with her."

"Read it aloud, Caroline," said Diana. "Mother, this fire will go out before Jonas can fix it."

"He has to split the wood, dear. Look out on the back porch and see if you can find some chips. They'll be nice and dry." Mrs. Meade spoke with authority, for beneath her cheerful smile there was the heart of a fighter, and like all good fighters, she fought best when she was driven against the wall. "Now, Caroline, I am listening."

"She wants me to take a case. It sounds queer, but I'll read you what she says. 'Dear Caroline' – she calls me 'Caroline.'"

"That's natural, dear. We were like sisters, and perhaps she took a fancy to you the time she met you in Richmond. It would be just like her to want to do something for you." The sprightly old lady, who was constitutionally incapable of seeing any prospect in subdued colours, was already weaving a brilliant tapestry of Caroline's future.

"'Dear Caroline:

"'My cousin, Angelica Blackburn, has asked me to recommend a trained nurse for her little girl, who is delicate, and I am wondering if you would care to take the case. She particularly wishes a self-reliant and capable person, and Doctor Boland tells me you have inherited your mother's sweet and unselfish nature (I don't see how he knows. Everybody is unselfish in a sick-room. One has to be.)'"

"Well, I'm sure you have a lovely nature," replied Mrs. Meade tenderly. "I was telling the girls only yesterday that you never seemed to think of yourself a minute." In her own mind she added, "Any other girl would have been embittered by that unfortunate experience" (the phrase covered Caroline's blighted romance) "and it shows how much character she has that she was able to go on just as if nothing had happened. I sometimes think a sense of humour does as much for you as religion."

"'I remember my poor father used to say,'" Caroline read on smoothly, "'that in hard dollars and cents Carrie Warwick's disposition was worth a fortune.'"

"That's very sweet of Lucy," murmured Mrs. Meade deprecatingly.

"'As you are the daughter of my old friend, I feel I ought not to let you take the case without giving you all the particulars. I don't know whether or not you ever heard of David Blackburn – but your mother will remember his wife, for she was a Fitzhugh, the daughter of Champ Fitzhugh, who married Bessie Ludwell.'"

"Of course I remember Bessie. She was my bosom friend at Miss Braxton's school in Petersburg."

"Let me go on, mother darling. If you interrupt me so often I'll never get to the interesting part."

"Very well, go on, my dear, but it does seem just like Providence. When the flour gave out in the barrel last night, I knew something would happen." For Mrs. Meade had begun life with the shining certainty that "something wonderful" would happen to her in the future, and since she was now old and the miracle had never occurred, she had transferred her hopes to her children. Her optimism was so elastic that it stretched over a generation without breaking.

"'Mrs. Blackburn – Angelica Fitzhugh, she was – though her name is really Anna Jeannette, and they called her Angelica as a child because she looked so like an angel – well, Mrs. Blackburn is the cousin I spoke of, whose little girl is so delicate.' She is all tangled up, isn't she, mother?"

"Lucy always wrote like that," said Mrs. Meade. "As a girl she was a scatterbrain."

"'I do not know exactly what is wrong with the child,'" Caroline resumed patiently, "'but as long as you may go into the family, I think I ought to tell you that I have heard it whispered that her father injured her in a fit of temper when she was small.'"

"How horrible!" exclaimed Diana. "Caroline, you couldn't go there!"

"'She has never been able to play with other children, and Doctor Boland thinks she has some serious trouble of the spine. I should not call her a disagreeable child, or hard to manage, just delicate and rather whining – at least she is whenever I see her, which is not often. Her mother is one of the loveliest creatures on earth, and I can imagine no greater privilege than living in the house with her. She is far from strong, but she seems never to think of her health, and all her time is devoted to doing good. Doctor Boland was telling me yesterday that he had positively forbidden her undertaking any more charitable work. He says her nerves are sensitive, and that if she does not stop and rest she will break down sooner or later. I cannot help feeling – though of course I did not say this to him – that her unhappy marriage is the cause of her ill health and her nervousness. She was married very young, and they were so desperately poor that it was a choice between marriage and school teaching. I cannot blame anybody for not wanting to teach school, especially if they have as poor a head for arithmetic as I have, but if I had been Angelica, I should have taught until the day of my death before I should have married David Blackburn. If she had not been so young it would be hard to find an excuse for her. Of course he has an immense fortune, and he comes of a good old family in southside Virginia – your mother will remember his father – but when you have said that, you have said all there is to his credit. The family became so poor after the war that the boy had to go to work while he was scarcely more than a child, and I believe the only education he has ever had was the little his mother taught him, and what he managed to pick up at night after the day's work was over. In spite of his birth he has had neither the training nor the advantages of a gentleman, and nothing proves this so conclusively as the fact that, though he was brought up a Democrat, he voted the Republican ticket at the last two Presidential elections. There is something black in a man, my dear old father used to say, who goes over to the negroes – '"

"Of course Lucy belongs to the old school," said Mrs. Meade. "She talks just as her father used to – but I cannot see any harm in a man's voting as he thinks right."

"'I am telling you all this, my dear Caroline, in order that you may know exactly what the position is. The salary will be good, just what you make in other cases, and I am sure that Angelica will be kindness itself to you. As for David Blackburn, I scarcely think he will annoy you. He treats his wife abominably, I hear, but you can keep out of his way, and it is not likely that he will be openly rude to you when you meet. The papers just now are full of him because, after going over to the Republicans, he does not seem satisfied with their ways.

"'Give my fondest love to your mother, and tell her how thankful I am that she and I are not obliged to live through a second war. One is enough for any woman, and I know she will agree with me – especially if she could read some of the letters my daughter writes from France. I feel every hour I live how thankful we ought to be to a kind Providence for giving us a President who has kept us out of this war. Robert says if there were not any other reason to vote for Mr. Wilson, that would be enough – and with Mr. Hughes in the White House who knows but we should be in the midst of it all very soon. David Blackburn is making fiery speeches about the duty of America's going in, but some men can never have enough of a fight, and I am sure the President knows what is best for us, and will do what he thinks is right.

"'Be sure to telegraph me if you can come, and I will meet your train in Angelica's car.

"'Your affectionate friend,

    LUCY COLFAX.