PART I
ENGLAND
CHAPTER I
THE AWAKENING
THE house, very old, but, like the lawns, finer for many decades of care and service, rose tall and proud and graceless from the quadrangle bordered by its close-trimmed hedgerows. In the morning the cold, blue sunlight lay thin upon the drab walls, slowly advancing across the castellated roofs, leading the day from dawn, over high noon, and growing almost mellow in its descent. Of a spring day, when the weather was fair, those who had never lived in brighter climes considered it radiant; it was the lack of this brilliance which struck a pang of homesickness to the heart of Manning Moultrie whenever he was in England.
"You do not know what sunlight is," said Manning to Giles Maltby, as the two and Virginia sat on the edge of the tennis court waiting for the dew to be whipped away by such feeble power as lay in the Kentish sun. "In Carolina the sunlight has a substance and a color; one can almost see it of itself apart from what it lights; it's palpable, like a flame, rich as cream; over here it's anemic and strained out; skimmed milk. It hasn't even got the strength to dry the court." He rapped his racket impatiently against the rustic bench.
Giles looked at him thoughtfully. Giles had never been away from England; had not wanted to go away until, in the natural order of things, travel was presented, as had been the other features of his education. First there had been tutors, then Eton; there was no place like Fenwick for vacations; athletics claimed all of the time not spent in study. Oxford followed; he had no wish to penetrate beyond the fullness of his life, but now that he had graduated he was ready to travel. There was no hurry.
He looked at Virginia to see if she agreed with Manning. Her pensive face was turned expectantly toward her brother; she loved to hear of the home which she so dimly remembered, and, like other people, never tired of hearing Manning talk. Giles was waiting also; but, oddly, Manning did not continue.
"Must be a jolly place—Carolina," observed Giles. "No end of hunting and fishing, is there not? And—and—what else do you do, Manning?"
"Not much in the way of sport," said Manning.
"As a matter of fact, it's an awful hole, Giles. Of course I am busy with the rice and cotton; everything is changed since our father's time. Most of the old families are scattered and gone, or sunk in poverty. There were only a few who kept on working their plantations after the war."
"Beastly shame, your war! What?" said Giles. "I fancy the turf's dry enough" He ran his hand over the close-cropped grass, which was soft and full as green plush. "What do you say?" He twirled his racket in the air.
"Rough!" called Manning. "Rough it is. Going to play, Sis?"
Virginia shook her head. "Not just yet." Her voice was very deep, very low, and the words seemed to come already formed from the soft throat. There was a husky vibration which made people stare when first they heard her speak; the men invariably returned to hear her speak again. People ascribed to her a singing voice; she could not sing a note, could scarcely make her voice carry across a street, yet it undertoned the clatter of many people talking in unison.
Manning and Giles threw aside their blazers and stepped into the court. Two men of the same race could scarcely have been more different, thought Virginia. Giles was big—bigger in muscle than bone—strong, sure, but a trifle awkward; many of his best strokes seemed accidental, but were not. Giles was very fair, ruddy, with crisp brown hair and eyes like sapphires. Manning was a trifle undersized, quick and graceful as a cat, with hair as straight and black and glossy but far finer than that of an Arapahoe, and a face of rather striking beauty.
He and Virginia were similar in feature, but distinctly different in expression. Virginia was tall for a woman, Manning short for a man; both had the same clear, faintly tinted complexion, light-hazel eyes; both had the same square roundness of face, the supple fullness of limb, the fineness of skin and feature, the somatic type of the Celt: Irish, French, or both. What was simply winning in Manning was in Virginia seductive; the short nose, the mirthful mouth, the dreamy eyes. People were not ready to admit the beauty of Virginia, even while unable to take their eyes from her. Manning held his audience by his high, hard voice, startlingly different from that of his sister, and by the cold cynicism of the things he said which most people considered affected in so young a man. His poise seemed too perfect; yet Manning knew his world.
Virginia watched the game, interested less in the play than in the players. Her brother she saw but one month in the year; Giles, for two; also at odd weeks during the winter. It was generally accepted that Giles and Virginia would marry; Manning expected it, Virginia also; and Giles had long since quietly determined that this should some day come to pass.
The set was finished; Virginia did not know who won.
"You and Giles play this time, Sis," said Manning.
"Why not join?" asked Virginia. "Tired?"
"No! I want to smoke … and think."
"Philosopher!"
"No … man of affairs. I got a letter from my manager last night; there is a chance of getting a big tract of good rice land for a song; perhaps I may have to clip my vacation"
"You shall do nothing of the sort," said Virginia.
"Should hate to. I'd buy the land from here if I were sure of being able to get the hands to clear it this season. They are old rice lands, no doubt laid out in the days of the buccaneers. One marvels how they did it; cleared acres and acres of the most hopeless tangle of swampy forest, built dikes that look like old fortifications, and all they had to do it with were slave labor and a black-snake whip!"
"Poor devils!" said Giles.
"I fancy they had a bad time. The work was tremendous, considering the conditions. There is no record of it beyond the old dikes and the patches of forest where the growth is lighter and of a different variety."
"Then you must clear it over again?" asked Giles.
"That part is not difficult; the dikes are the main problems, and they are almost as good as ever. One must build new trunks, of course, and plug rat holes. Sometimes you will find a loblolly three feet in diameter, or a great gum or live oak growing right from the middle of one of these dikes, and as they could not have come until after the plantation was abandoned, one can see that they are pretty old. We have our antiquities in Carolina, Giles."
"Don't doubt it—if you call anything under five hundred years an antiquity. I fancy this lawn is that."
"Don't!" implored Virginia. "You make me feel so transient."
"Of course the impression is different in a place kept up; one doesn't feel the flight of time," said Manning. "I could show you the ruins of old estates about Charleston and Georgetown that would impress you as older than Fenwick."
"Entirely abandoned?"
"Utterly; the only tenants that remain are the snakes and spiders and the ghosts of dead ambitions; yet fifty years ago that country was the garden spot of the continent."
"Owing to the change from slave to paid labor?" asked Giles. He was interested in all problems sociological and economic; he had elected politics for his future career.
"No," replied Manning bitterly; "owing to the change from slave labor to none at all. The scoundrels won't work unless they're made to, and then only at their own convenience, without any reference to yours. They are the curse of that country, Giles."
"But what other form of labor could stand the climate?" asked Virginia.
"Italians from the Campagna, Japs, Chinese, Javanese, Hindoos, even our new citizens in the Philippines. But if we imported them, we'd have to feed the negroes just the same; if they can earn a part of their living, it's cheaper for us to let them. You and Giles play a set, Sis," Manning concluded. He detested the topic of the negro, and avoided it as much as possible.
Giles clambered to his feet with strong awkwardness; Virginia, lithe, supple, graceful as an ocelot, was in the court before him, and the game began, Giles's handicap being the double court, while Virginia played within the single lines. Manning, from the players' bench, the blackest of Havana cigars clinched between his even teeth, watched them thoughtfully.
A fair inheritance had been evenly divided between the brother and sister; it would be hard to say which had shared more fully. Manning had drawn the head, Virginia the heart; Manning made money, Virginia friends. Now, as he smoked and watched and brooded, his tawny eyes, a shade lighter than his sister's, rested pridefully upon her and kindled with ambition as they swept to Giles, looming as he did against the ancient background of his ancestral home, the park of oaks, the towers, and the thin, cold, aristocratic sunlight. Manning felt that he had done his duty by his orphan sister; remained, the fulfillment of her duty to him.
"Set!" cried Virginia triumphantly. "You didn't try!"
"’Pon my honor, I did!" swore Giles stoutly. His overheated appearance bore out his statement. Virginia was as cool and sleek as a kitten. "The double court is no end of a handicap. Believe I'd rather give you two points on every game; less work anyway. I only know of one chap around here who could give you that handicap and stand a chance, Virginia."
"Who is that?"
"A friend of mine, Aristide Dessalines. He can stand in the middle of the court and reach into either alley. Arms like a gorilla!"
"A Frenchman?" asked Manning.
"No!—not exactly. He's Haytian … chum of mine at Oxford … odd chap."
"Haytian?" echoed Manning. "That's worse; same thing as French, except that it often carries a dash of black."
Giles laughed. "It does better than that by Dessalines. He's all black—black as ebony!"
"What!" cried Manning, sitting bolt upright.
"Yes," replied Giles calmly. "He boasts that he has not a drop of white blood in him. Says he's what they call in Hayti a 'Congo.' Terrific looking chap, yet fascinating—rather."
Virginia nodded. "I've seen some of those people in Paris. All the rich Haytians go there, you know. Most of them are black as jet."
Manning stared from one to the other in growing perplexity.
"But I don't understand—" said he to Giles. His voice hardened. "You speak of him as a friend of yours, as if the brute were an equal."
Giles looked disturbed. "So he is, socially," he answered, in a cold voice. "Dessalines is a gentleman—a lot better sort than a good many one meets; besides, he's well born in his own country. He's a count."
"But he's a negro!" cried Manning.
Giles glanced at him in surprise. "Don't see that his color makes any difference. What's the odds whether he's African or Indian or Persian or Turk, as long as he's well born, well educated, and well behaved? They all thought a lot of him at Oxford; he was asked everywhere. Clever chap, too, Aristide. Fine speaker. He is very religious; used to do a good deal of evangelical work with a little sect which called itself the 'Unionist Presbyters.' Aristide did most of the preaching. Got them no end of recruits. Fine chap, Aristide," he concluded, a trifle doggedly.
A swarthy color showed through Manning's Carolina tan. When angry or excited the pupils of his eyes contracted, showing more of the light hazel, with the result that the whole eye seemed to pale; this gave a sinister effect not without its fascination to his passionate face. Virginia read the danger signal and threw a fender between, the two men; not that any was necessary, as their friendship was too firm to permit of a quarrel.
"But a negro is of an inferior race, Giles. He does not come of an old civilization, like the others you mention."
"All the more reason for giving him a hand up when you see him trying hard to rise, it seems to me."
"If you do," said Manning, "his next step will be upon the small of your back; if you knew them as I do, Giles, you'd have different ideas on the subject."
"Very possibly; never thought much about it myself." He turned the matter in his mind, and his British fairness asked another chance for the under dog. "But you've seen a different crowd of the beggars, Manning; in the States they were all slaves until a few years ago; first they were dogs, then they graduated them to stray dogs, whereas in Hayti they've been their own masters for one hundred years, and had a chance to get civilized. Ever been to Hayti?"
"No," answered Manning slowly, "I don't know much about Hayti, but I've seen negroes in England and France and America, and there has never seemed to me to be any more difference than in the same breed of dog in these countries."
"The Haytians one sees in Paris are terrible," said Virginia, with a little shudder. "So black and sleek and unctuous—" She shuddered again. "They are dreadful creatures; they fascinate one, like a great, smooth, glistening black snake—ugh! Do let us talk of something else!" Her low voice carried such a thrill of loathing that both men glanced at her in surprise. Giles looked greatly concerned.
"If you feel that way about 'em, I won't ask him to the house. Glad you spoke of it, Ginny."
Manning stared at the young Englishman with an expression half angry, half amused. "Gad! you English are funny people," he commented, with a scarcely polite frankness. "Fancy asking a big buck nigger to your house!"
Giles flushed. "Must say I can't see it," he answered, a trifle stiffly. "That is, from a man's point of view; of course a woman is apt to—to get ideas. Dessalines played one of our forwards, and is the best cricketer we've had for years; I've often borrowed his jersey or blazer, just as I would any other chap's … why not? I have never heard of his doing or saying a low thing; fact is, he sets a pace that's rather hard for a chap to hold—doesn't smoke; scarcely ever drinks anything; awfully decent chap. Just now he has got the Haddington cottage on the Crowleigh place … doing some reading; saw him yesterday." He glanced at Virginia; something in her expression puzzled him; he colored abruptly and ceased speaking.
"Here comes Sir Henry," said Manning, whose quick eye had caught sight of a tall figure approaching from the sunken gardens. "You and Giles play another set, Sis; haven't finished my cigar."
"If that's the way Carolina makes you feel I'll stay in England, thank you," said Virginia, with a laugh.
Manning's physical indolence was always a joke to Giles and herself, as well as a source of secret wonder to the former, who was compelled to work off his super-abundant vitality a good deal as a rodent is obliged to gnaw to keep its teeth from growing into its brain. Giles did not understand how a man of Manning's high nervous energy could take so little exercise and yet keep his form. He had learned that when the whim seized Manning he was indefatigable.
Sir Henry Maltby walked up the turf steps, passed under the pergola, where he paused for a moment to examine the grape blossoms through a pocket lens, rearranged a few tendrils, then made his way along the hedge of clipped yew in the direction of the tennis court. Every few steps he would stop to examine the bark of a tree or the condition of a leaf.
Manning watched him keenly, very keenly, as it was his habit to observe everyone with whom he came in contact. Manning's large, clear, inconsistent hazel eyes were the equivalent of any three senses of most people; he had the faculty of snapping his mental photograph instantaneously, and developing and printing later and at his leisure. He could spend hours watching people; hours after they had passed from his sight in assaying what he had seen; this estimate was apt to be rather slow, seldom incorrect.
Sir Henry skirted Virginia's end of the court with a jesting word of encouragement to the girl, then approached and greeted Manning, who had risen, and asked permission to share his seat. No doubt he would have done the same with his son; courtesy was as much a part of Sir Henry as his tall, spare figure and deep-lined, thoughtful face. He was a bit of a puzzle to Manning, who sometimes wondered how much of the man was latent beneath the unruffled calm of the student. Giles was of his mother's type, blue-eyed, rosy, full figured, mirthful; too normal to be interesting until the smooth surface was seamed by a caustic which would wash away the plastic part.
"As usual, you are the appreciative audience," said Sir Henry to Manning. The baronet liked Manning, in whom he recognized qualities both sound and subtle; he enjoyed his company because he combined the mature mind of age with the refreshing confidence of youth; perhaps he respected him the most because Manning was an expert in botany and all matters pertaining to agriculture. As a dilettante he bowed to Manning's practical professional ability.
"Will you smoke, sir? " asked Manning, offering his cigar case.
"Thank you." Sir Henry selected a cigar with care. "The tobacco which you Americans bring over always tastes so much better than that imported by dealers."
"I fancy that is because it is better tobacco," said Manning dryly. He had not a high opinion of the cigars usually to be had at English houses.
Sir Henry's scholarly face was lit by a gleam of amusement.
"A very plausible solution." Manning offered him a match, and Sir Henry smoked for a moment in silence; then he took the cigar from his mouth and examined it critically.
"It is delicious, so fragrant and full flavored, yet so mild. Pardon me, Manning, if I ask what one must pay for such a cigar in New York."
"It is hard to say; a few of my neighbors and I have them made expressly for ourselves."
"You rice planters are a pampered set. I shall never forget the luxury in which your grandfather lived; you know your father and I used to alternate our vacations, one year here, the next in Carolina. I suppose the old place is just the same. The great house, with its wide verandas; the park of live oaks; the stables, half a mile from the house; the wonderful vista across the vivid green of the rice fields, and the river and piney woods beyond. In the hot season we used to go into Charleston, but would often ride out to the plantation to spend the day and frequently the night, although that was strictly against orders."
"I wish that you and Lady Maltby would come out this autumn with Giles."
"I should like to; we would both enjoy it. That section contains much of interest to me, but it would be full of sad associations. I should much enjoy witnessing your experiments with the tea. Do you think that it will be a success?"
"I am rather doubtful in regard to my camelias; one really needs young ladies to take care of those wretched plants in their infancy; each one must be coaxed and petted and coddled, with just the right proportions of sun and shade and heat and cold."
"Another thing which has been interesting me greatly is your racial problem. I am deeply in sympathy with what is being done for the advancement of the negro, as I presume are all of the broad-thinking members of the upper classes in the South as well as the North."
Manning sucked at his cigar without immediately replying. There was no topic more distasteful to him than that mentioned by his host; he had been drawn into the discussion with Giles through shocked sentiments, and even then under protest, and had quitted it at the earliest opportunity. Although his views were clear and positive, he disliked to advance them. He argued with outsiders on the negro question in a good deal the same spirit with which a great surgeon might be drawn into an argument with a layman regarding his craft—half-heartedly, with a sense partly of disgust at the ignorance of the other, partly self-contempt for deigning to discuss the matter at all, and a thorough inward conviction of the indisputability of his own views. Manning was satisfied that he knew as much as was to be known on the subject from theory and practice, education and life-long association. He acknowledged the virtues of the negro race just as he knew to the ounce their limitations; for him to allow himself to be led into an argument regarding a subject on which he was so thoroughly informed was futile and a waste of time.
Possibly the baronet, with his quick intuition, perceived something of this, for he did not pursue the topic; instead, he followed Manning's eyes to Virginia. The young man was regarding his sister with the proud satisfaction which in a cold nature so strongly supplements affection.
"She is a beautiful girl," said Sir Henry, "and as good as she is beautiful. They are inseparable, those two—" he added, partly to himself.
"Would you like to have them marry?" asked Manning with the blunt directness which was one of his most subtle traits.
Sir Henry started a trifle, then looked at Manning with a startled expression—such an expression as one might wear at hearing another voice a present thought. A tinge of color showed in his lean face.
"Eh, I—I have—of course; I will not say that the idea has not occurred to me, Manning, yet it is each time as difficult for me to realize that the two children have grown up—are at a marriageable age—" He was silent; both men remained for several moments occupied with their thoughts. Sir Henry smoked rapidly, nervously; Manning, with the calm deliberation of a Sioux Indian.
"Frankly," said Sir Henry, "nothing would please me more. Virginia is charming, womanly, high-minded"
"—And rich," added Manning, sententiously.
Sir Henry colored. "My dear Manning—" he began.
"It is a most important item—" supplied Manning, a trifle brusquely. "The French have the right idea about these things; personally, I see no reason why they should not marry. Virginia has finished her education, and it seems to me that the sooner her future is established the better."
Something in the young man's tone caused Sir Henry to observe him curiously. Virginia was better known to him than Manning. There was plenty of evidence that Manning was a kind and devoted brother, and Sir Henry correctly presumed that the profits of the plantation under his management were in excess of what they had ever been before.
"We should all favor the marriage," he answered slowly. "Your father was my dearest friend, Manning, and I already regard Virginia as a daughter." He looked thoughtfully toward the court, where Giles and Virginia were finishing their set. "What a charming couple! Young, spirited, both richly endowed by nature, ingenuous, for Giles is as much of a boy as when he was in Eton, Manning. Think of what the future holds in store for them! And they love one another, although it is doubtful if they have actually discovered it; when they do, I imagine that the awakening will put the ripening touch upon their perfect youth."
Manning nodded absently; he was thinking with inward satisfaction that the income of the future Lady Maltby would doubtless exceed the revenues of this fair estate, and that this was largely due to his wise management. He had forfeited much of his youth to bring this about; had sacrificed much of his education; most pleasures to which he was entitled, and, since his seventeenth year, had applied himself to wresting a great fortune from the Carolina muck. He was satisfied with the result; there were no regrets.
Virginia and Giles had finished their set and were coming toward them. Sir Henry and Manning arose. Giles walked to where his blazer was lying, for the air was cool and he was overheated. Then he turned and came toward the others, and at the same moment Virginia, who was chatting with Sir Henry, turned to Giles with some joking reference. Manning had never seen his sister so radiant. The exercise, the sun, and the sharp air had brought the rich color into her cheeks, slightly disarranged the mass of her hair, which was black, but with a color in it which one could appreciate but not describe.
Her hazel eyes were alight, lips carmine, every feature animated. The collar of her flannel shirt waist was unbuttoned, sleeves rolled to the elbow, and she stood well forward, alert, strong, supple—the winner of the games of ancient Greece, awaiting her chaplet. Manning glanced at her with a swift throb of his keenest emotion, pride; he looked at Giles, then turned his eyes away, for he saw in that one swift scrutiny that the moment of the man's awakening had come.
It was in that psychological moment when all things being in their due and proper relations the precipitate was crystallized. Giles looked, the hour struck, the key turned, the bolt was shot. He had left the court as a friend; an instant, a look, and the friend had stepped aside to make way for the lover. It is sometimes so that these things occur, and if they follow any law it is one which never can be formulated. Virginia saw the look, paused in her query with parted lips and hazel eyes filled with startled inquiry, and then for her, too, the veil was raised; in that same instant she had read the Cause. The color swept into her oval face, suffused the straight, round neck; she smiled, the clear eyes softened, darkened, grew humid. She turned swiftly to Sir Henry, and with some swift impulse kissed him lightly on the cheek.
"Now I must go and dress," she said breathlessly, and fled away across the lawn; but looked back over her shoulder, smiling as she ran.