Jupiter Lights Part 4

Again the two old women looked at each other. But they were afraid of the Northern lady; the munificent presents which she had given them that morning did not bring them any nearer to her. Old Temp'rance, therefore, shouldered her chair again, Dilsey turned the wagon, and they entered the bush-bordered tunnel on their way home, walking as slowly as they could. In only one place was there an opening through the serried green; here a track turned off to the right. When Eve had pa.s.sed its entrance the first time, there was nothing to be seen but another perspective of white sand and glittering foliage; but on their return her eyes, happening to glance that way, perceived a group of figures at the end.

"Who are those people?--what are they doing?" she said, pausing.

"Oh, nutt'n," answered Temp'rance. "Des loungjun roun'."

As Eve still stood looking, Uncle Abram emerged from the bushes. "Shall I kyar your palasol fer yer, miss?" he asked, officiously. "'Pears like yer mus' be tired; been so fur."

Eve now comprehended that the three were trying to keep something from her. "What has happened?" she said. "Tell me immediately."

"Dey' ain' nutt'n happen," answered Uncle Abram, desperately; "dey's too brash, dem two! Miss S'breeny she 'low'd dat yer moutn't like ter see her go a moanin', miss; en so she tole us not ter let yer come dishyer way ef we could he'p it. But dem two--dey's boun' ter do some fool ting.

It's a cohesion of malice 'mong women--'tis dat!"

"Does that road lead to the cemetery, too?" said Eve. "I went by another way. Take baby home, Dilsey"--she stooped and kissed him; "I will join Miss Abercrombie." She walked rapidly down the side track; the three blacks stood watching her, old Temp'rance with the chair poised on her turban.

The little burying-ground was surrounded by an old brick wall; its high gate-posts were square, each surmounted by a clumsy funeral urn. The rusty iron gate was open, and a procession was pa.s.sing in. First came Miss Sabrina in her bonnet, an ancient structure of large size, trimmed with a black ribbon; the gentle lady, when out-of-doors, was generally seen in what she called her "flat;" the presence of the bonnet, therefore, marked a solemn occasion. She likewise wore a long scarf, which was pinned, with two pins, low down on her sloping shoulders, its broche ends falling over her gown in front; her hands were encased in black kid gloves much too large for her, the kid wrists open and flapping. Behind her came Powlyne, Pomp, and Plato, carrying wreaths of holly. Eve drew near noiselessly, and paused outside. Miss Sabrina first knelt down, bowing her head upon her hands for a moment; then, rising, she took the wreaths one by one, and arranged them upon the graves, the three blacks following her. When she had taken the last, she signed to them to withdraw; they went out quietly, each turning at the gate to make a reverential bow, partly to her, partly to the circle of the dead.

Eve now entered the enclosure, and Miss Sabrina saw her.

"Oh, my dear! I didn't intend that _you_ should come," she said, distressed.

"And why not? I have been here before; and my brother is here."

"Yes; but to-day--to-day is different."

Eve looked at the graves; she perceived that three of them were decked with small Confederate flags.

"Our dear cousins," said Miss Sabrina; "they died for their country, and on Memorial Day, Christmas Day, and Easter I like to pay them such small honor as I can. I am in the habit of singing a hymn before I go; don't stay, my dear, if it jars upon you."

"It doesn't," said Eve. She had seated herself on the gra.s.s beside her brother's grave, with her arm laid over it.

Miss Sabrina turned her back and put on her gla.s.ses. Then, resuming her original position, she took a small prayer-book from her pocket, opened it, and, after an apologetic cough, began:

"Rise, my soul, and stretch thy wings, Thy better portion trace."

Eve, sitting there, looked at her. Miss Sabrina was tall and slender; she had once been pretty, but now her cheeks were wan, her eyes faded, her soft brown hair was very thin. She had but a thread of a voice.

"There is everlasting peace, Rest, enduring rest, in heaven,"

she sang in her faint, sweet tones; and when she came to the words, "There will sorrows ever cease," she raised her poor dim eyes towards the sky with such a beautiful expression of hope in them that the younger woman began to realize that there might be acute griefs even when people were so mild and acquiescent, so dimly hued and submissive, as was this meek Southern gentlewoman.

The hymn finished, Miss Sabrina put her prayer-book in her pocket, and came forward. "My mother," she said, touching one of the tombs. "My grandfather and grandmother. My brother Marmaduke, Cicely's father.

Cicely's mother; she was a Northerner, and we have sometimes thought Cicely rather Northern."

"Oh, no!"

"Well, her grandmother was from Guadeloupe. So perhaps that balances it."

The older tombs were built of brick, each one covered with a heavy marble slab, upon which were inscribed, in stately old-fashioned language, and with old-fashioned arrangement of lines and capitals, the names, the virtues, and the talents of the one who lay beneath. The later graves were simple gra.s.sy mounds.

"My brother Augustus; my great-uncle William Drayton; my aunt Pamela,"

Miss Sabrina continued, indicating each tomb as she named its occupant, much as though she were introducing them. "My own place is already selected; it is here," she went on, tapping a spot with her slender foot. "It seems to me a good place; don't you think so? And I keep an envelope, with directions for everything, on top of my collars, where any one can find it; for I do so dislike an ill-arranged funeral. For instance, I particularly desire that there should be fresh water and gla.s.ses on the hall-table, where every one can get them without asking; _so_ much better than hidden in some back room, with every one whispering and hunting about after them. I trust you don't mind my saying," she concluded, looking at Eve kindly, "that I hope you may be here."

They left the cemetery together.

"I suppose it was a shock to you that your niece should marry a Union officer?" Eve said, as they took the shorter path towards the house.

"Ye-es, I cannot deny it; and to my father also. But we liked John for himself very much; and Cicely felt--"

But John's sister did not care to hear what Cicely felt! "And was it on this island that he expected to make his fortune--in cotton?"

"No; these are rice lands, and they are worthless now that the dikes are down."

"And the slaves gone."

"Yes. But we never had many slaves; we were never rich. Now we are very poor, my dear; I don't know that any one has mentioned it to you."

"And yet you keep on all these infirm old negroes--those who would be unable to get employment anywhere else."

"Oh, we should never turn away our old servants," replied Miss Sabrina, with confidence.

That evening, at the judge's suggestion, Cicely took her guitar. "What do you want me to sing, grandpa?"

"'Sweet Afton.'"

So Cicely sang it. Then the judge himself sang, to Cicely's accompaniment, "They may rail at this life." He had made a modest bowl of punch: it was Christmas night, and every one should be merry. So he sang, in his gallant old voice:

"'They may rail at this life; from the hour I began it I've found it a life full of kindness and bliss; And until they can show me some happier planet, More social, more gay, I'll content me with this.'"

He was contented with it--this life "full of kindness and bliss," on his lonely sea-island, with its broken dikes and desolated fields, in his half-ruined old house, with its wooden walls vibrating, with more than one pane of gla.s.s gone, more than one floor whose planks were loosened so that they must walk carefully. At any rate, he trolled out his song as though he were: it was Christmas night, and every one should be merry.

There was one person who really was merry, and that was Master Jack, who sat on the lap of his Northern aunt, laughing and crowing, and demanding recognition of his important presence from each in turn, by the despotic power of his eye. In truth, it was this little child who held together the somewhat strangely a.s.sorted group, Miss Sabrina in an ancient white lace cape, with flowers in her hair; the old judge in a dress-coat and ruffled shirt, Cicely in a gay little gown of light-blue tint (taken probably, so Eve thought, from her second trousseau), and Eve herself in her heavy black c.r.a.pe; she alone had made no concessions to Christmas; her mourning attire was unlightened by any color, or even by white.

"'Macgregor's Gathering,'" called the judge.

Cicely sang it. After finishing the song, she began the lament a second time, changing the words:

"We're n.i.g.g.e.rless, n.i.g.g.e.rless, n.i.g.g.e.rless, Gregorlach!

n.i.g.g.e.rless, n.i.g.g.e.rless, nig-ig-ig-gerless!"

she sang. "For we're not 'landless' at all; we've got miles and miles of land. It's n.i.g.g.e.rs that are lacking."

The judge laughed, patting her little dark head as she sat on a stool beside him. "Let us go out to the quarters, grandpa; they will be dancing by now. And Jack must go too."

The judge lifted his great-grandson to his shoulder. Eve had already noticed that Cicely never took the child from her with her own hands; she let some one else do it. When the door was opened, distant sounds of the thrumming of banjoes could be heard. Seeing a possible intention on Eve's face, Cicely remarked, in her impersonal way, "Are you coming?

They won't enjoy it, they are afraid of you."

"I don't see why they should be," said Eve, when she and Miss Sabrina were left alone.

"You are a stranger, my dear; it is only that. And they are all so fond of Cicely that it wouldn't be Christmas to them if she did not pay them a visit; they worship her."

"And after she has sung that song!"