Carolina Lee Part 26

CHAPTER XIV.

KINFOLK

Carolina took her writing materials out on the back porch. There was not a small table in the house whose legs did not wabble, so she propped the best of them with chips from Aunt Calla's wood-pile and wrote until Aunt Calla could stand it no longer.

"Miss Calline, honey," she said, "you writes so fas' wid yo' fingahs, would you min' ef I brung de aigplant out here to peel it en watch you?

I won't make no fuss."

"Certainly not, Aunt Calla. I'd be glad to have you."

"Hum! hum! You sho have got pretty mannahs, Miss Calline. Youse got de mannahs ob de ole ladies of de South. You don't see 'em now'days wid de young ladies. De young people got de po'est mannahs I ebber did see,--screechin' and hollerin' to each odder 'cross de street, or from one eend ob de house to de other. Ole mahster would 'a' lammed his chillen ef dey'd cut up sech capers en his time! But Miss Peachie,--she's got de La Grange mannahs. She's Mist' Moultrie's sistah. Dey calls her 'Peachie' caze she's got such pretty red in huh cheeks,--lake yores. Most ladies down in dese pahts is too white to suit me. I lakes 'em pinky and pretty."

"Thank you, Aunt Calla!" cried Carolina. "I wonder if I couldn't get Cousin Lois to give you that black grenadine you thought was so pretty yesterday."

Aunt Calla laid down her knife.

"Miss Calline, is you foolin' me?"

"No, Calla, I am not."

"Dish yere grenadier dress I mean is lined wid black silk!"

"I know it."

"En you gwine gib dat to me?"

"I am thinking of it."

"Well, glory be! Ef you does dat, Ise gwine jine de chutch all over ag'in, en I reckon I'll jine de Babtis' dish yere time. Dey's mo' style to de Babtis' den to de Meth'diss. Ise 'bleeged to live up to dat silk linin'!"

The old woman's face took on a worried look.

"I don' keer!" she said aloud. "I don' keer! Nemmine, Miss Calline!

You wouldn' laff so ef you knew what Ise studyin' 'bout doin'. Ise been savin' my money foh two years now to get a gravestone foh my fou'th husban' what done died three yeahs ago. He baiged me wid his las'

breath to bury him stylish, en I promus him I would. He was all for style. Do you know, Miss Calline, dat man would 'a' gone hongry rathah dan turn his meat ovah awn de fiah. He was de mos' dudish man I ebber see. But I can't he'p it. Ise gwine take dat grave-stone money and hab dat dress made to fit me good en stylish. En I bet Miss Peachie will charge me eve'y cent I got to do it!"

"Who?" demanded Carolina.

"Miss Peachie La Grange. She does all my sewin' foh me, an' foh Lily, too. Dat's de way she mek huh money. Yas, _ma'am_. Sewin' foh n.i.g.g.ahs!"

Aunt Calla paused with her mouth open, for Carolina, regardless of what anybody thought, sprang up, overturning her table, spilling her ink over Aunt Calla's clean porch floor, and scattering her papers to the four winds of heaven.

"Ump! So dat's de way de win' blows! Well, ef she ain't a Lee sho nuff. She's got de pride of huh ole gran'dad, en mo', too. She looked at me ez if she'd lake to kill me. I wondah ef I'll evah git dat dress now!"

She sent Lily to reconnoitre.

"Jes' creep up en see what she's doin'. De keyhole in huh room is busted, en you kin see de whole room thoo it. Jis' go en peek. But ef you let huh ketch you, she'll know who sont you, en she'll be so mad, I nevah will git dat dress. Den I'll bust yo' yallah face open wid de i'nin' boa'd!"

"She ain't cryin' nor nothin'!" cried Lily, bursting into the kitchen twenty minutes later. "She's settin' in huh rockin'-cheer, wid a open book awn huh lap, en huh eyes is shut en huh lips a-movin', lake she's studyin'."

"T'ank de Lawd!" observed Calla. "Somehow er odder, Ise gwine git hole ob a fryin' chicken foh huh. You tell Jake I wants tuh see him dis evenin'. Run, Lily! See who's dat drivin' in outen de big road!"

"Hit's de La Granges! De whole kit en bilin' ob 'em. Dey's done borried de Barnwells' double ca'y-all."

Fortunately, there were many rocking-chairs at Whitehall, and, although many of them were war veterans, all were pressed into service the day the La Granges came to call. Miss Sue and Miss Sallie Yancey glanced at each other expressively when they saw that even Flower, Mrs. Winfield La Grange, was one of the party. It was the first time that she had ever been openly recognized by the La Grange family, except in name, and no one knew that it was by Moultrie's express wish that Peachie had asked her to go with them. Thus, indirectly, Carolina was at the bottom of it, after all.

Peachie was pretty, but her delicate prettiness was scarcely noticeable when Carolina was in the room. Aunt Angie La Grange, Cousin elise La Grange, Cousin Rose Manigault, with her little girl Corinne, who had come to play with Gladys and Emmeline Yancey,--all these insisted on claiming kin with Mrs. Winchester and Carolina, and, as Aunt Angie and Cousin Lois had known each other in their girlhood, and had spent much time at Guildford and Sunnymede, it was easy for them to fall into the old way of claiming cousinship, even when a slender excuse was called upon to serve.

The conversation was very gay and kindly, but, under cover of its universality, Carolina managed to seat herself next to Flower La Grange, whose pale cheeks and frightened eyes proclaimed how much of a stranger she was to such scenes. When Carolina called her "Cousin Flower," the flush on her face and the look of pa.s.sionate grat.i.tude in her eyes gave Carolina ample evidence that any kindness she might choose to bestow here would be appreciated beyond reason.

At first Flower was constrained and answered in monosyllables, but when Carolina adroitly mentioned the baby, Flower's whole manner thawed, and, in her eagerness, she poured forth a stream of rapturous talk which caused the others to look at her in a chilling surprise. But Flower's back was toward her haughty relatives, and only Carolina caught the glances,--Carolina, who calmly ignored them.

"You must come to see my baby!" cried Flower, impulsively. "He is so dear! And so smart! You can't imagine how hard it is to keep him asleep. He hears every sound and wants to be up all the time."

"I suppose he notices everything, doesn't he?"

"No-o, I can't say that he does. He likes things that make a noise. He doesn't care much for looks. If you hold a rattle right up before his eyes, he won't pay any attention to it. But, if you shake it, he smiles and coos and reaches out for it. Oh, he is a regular boy for noise!"

As Flower said this upon a moment of comparative silence, Carolina noticed that Aunt Angie grew rather pale and said:

"I haven't seen your baby for several months, Flower. May I come to see him to-morrow?"

"Oh, I should be so glad if you would, Mrs.--"

"Call me mother, child," said the older woman, looking compa.s.sionately at her daughter-in-law.

Flower flushed as delicately as a wild rose, and looked at Carolina, as if wondering if she had noticed this sudden access of cordiality. But to Carolina, a stranger, it seemed perfectly natural, and she rather hurriedly resumed her conversation with Flower, because she had the uneasy consciousness that Miss Sue and Aunt Angie, on the other side of the room, were talking about her. Fragments of their conversation floated over to her in the pauses of her talk with Flower.

"She thinks nothing of sending off ten or a dozen telegrams a day--"

"--she'll wear herself out--"

"--it can't last long. Moultrie says she shows a wonderful head for--"

"--and she never gets tired. I never saw such power of concentration--"

"--when I was a girl--"

"--writes--writes--writes the longest letters, and if you could see her mail!"

"--the very prettiest girl I ever saw,--a perfect beauty, Moultrie thinks."

Carolina's little ears burned so scarlet that she got up and took Peachie and Flower out into the garden, and, as the three girls went down the steps, a perfect babel of voices arose in the parlour. Plainly Carolina's going had loosened their tongues. They drew their chairs around Mrs. Winchester's, and, although the day was cool, they gave her the warmest half-hour she could remember since she left Bombay. They could understand and excuse every feminine vagary, from stealing another woman's lover to coaxing a man to spend more than he could afford, or idling away every moment of a day over novels or embroidery, but for a beauty, a belle, a toast, a girl who had been presented at three courts before she was twenty, to come down to South Carolina and live on horseback or in a buggy, meeting men by appointment and understanding long columns of figures, sending and receiving cipher telegrams, and in all this aided and abetted by no less exclusive and particular a chaperon than Cousin Lois Winchester, Rhett Winchester's widow, herself related to the Lees,--this was a little more than they could comprehend.

Nor could Miss Sue Yancey nor Miss Sallie (Mrs. Pringle), although they were in the same house with her, throw any light on the subject or help them in any way. Carolina was plainly a puzzle to the La Granges, at least, and when, that same afternoon, Carolina and the two girls in the garden saw another carryall and a buggy drive in at Whitehall, containing her father's relatives, the Lees, she frankly said that she would stay out a little longer and give them a chance to talk her over before she went in to meet them.

Peachie laughed at Carolina's high colour when she said this.

"You mustn't get mad, Cousin Carol, because you are talked about. We talk about everybody,--it's all we have to do in the country. But you ought to be used to it. You are such a little beauty, you must have been talked about all your life."