The Orange Girl

I sit on my own estate in the pleasant land of Virginia; outside the veranda the hot sun ripens the corn and fruit: I did my duty in the great and glorious war which set our country free: my sons will do theirs if the occasion should again arise: we have taught our cousins across the seas that we can fight for freedom: but there will be no more fighting for that. It is won, once for all – I am now old, but as I sit alone, my eyes resting on as fair a landscape of river and forest and orchard and garden as the world can show, I suddenly wander away and gaze beyond the ocean, beyond the years, upon that abode of despair and wretchedness, where Jenny sits like a flower in a pigsty, talking of what she should do when she came out of prison, but unable to read in the future any return to the world at all. As for fear or doubt, or any anxiety about the future, the poor soul had none. She was going to continue for ever beautiful, to win that worship of men which she loved so much. I have now lost all the friends of my youth: they pass before me sometimes in a long procession. It is the consolation of age to live in the past: but in all the array of ghosts there is none that brings tears except the figure of Jenny in her wondrous beauty and her soft and lovely eyes.

She lived with us for more than thirty years. She grew gray – but she was as lovely in her age as in her youth. She was mistress unquestioned to the end and never more than in her old age. But always with the same kindness: the same grace: the same sweetness of look, and the same softness of eye.

She died at last of some fever caught of a young negress whom she visited in the infirmary. She was ill for three days only, and she died lying in the veranda, looking out upon the woods and mountains on the golden sunshine that she loved.

'Alice, dear,' she said, 'you have told me, often, that we are led, we know not how, to things that are best for us, though by ways that we would not choose. I have not forgotten what you said. I never forget, my dear, what you say.'

Alice kissed her fingers.

'I understand now what you mean. I have been led. I have been led – My dear, I am going to die. Bury me as one of yourselves – not in a ditch like my own people – who, perhaps, are not led. Bury me in the burial-ground where your baby lies. Put no stone upon my grave, but plant white flowers over it. Let my abode, at least, look lovely after death. I have been led, Alice – I have been led – I understand it now.'

After a little. 'Alice, I have been proud of what men called my loveliness. It makes every woman happy when men call her lovely. My Lord called me lovely. Send him, Alice, a lock of my hair. Tell him that I have never loved any other man.'

She died. We buried her in the little burial-ground where lay the child we lost. We put up no headstone, but we planted the grave with white flowers.

There is now another grave beside hers with more white flowers. It bears the name of Alice.

To me it has been given to love two women at the same time, and that with equal love and equal respect and without blame or sin.