The Ghost Girl Part 27

This statement suddenly brought Phyl to herself. It went through her like a knife. She had ceased to think of Richard Pinckney in any way but as a friend. At one time, during the first couple of days at Vernons, her heart had moved mysteriously towards him; the way he had connected himself through Prue's message with the love story of Juliet had drawn her towards him, but that spell had snapped; she was conscious only of friendliness towards Richard Pinckney. Why, then, this sudden pain caused by Silas's words?

"How do you know?" she flashed out. "What right have you to dare--" She stopped.

The blaze of her anger seemed to Silas evidence that she cared for Pinckney.

"You're in love with him," said he, flying out. The bald and brutal statement took Phyl's breath from her. She turned on him, saw the anger in his face, and then--turned away.

His state of mind condoned his words. To a woman a blow received from the pa.s.sion she has roused is a rude sort of compliment, unlike other compliments it is absolutely honest.

"I am in love with no one," said she; "you have no right to say such things--no right at all--they are insulting."

A gull, white as snow, came flitting by and wheeled out away over the harbour; as her eyes followed it he stood looking at her, his anger gone, but his mind only half convinced by her feeble words.

"I didn't mean to insult you," he said; "don't let us quarrel. When I'm in a temper I don't know what I say or do--that's the truth. I want to have you all for myself, have ever since the first moment I saw you over there at Grangersons."

"Don't," said Phyl. "I can't listen to you if you talk like that--Please don't."

"Very well," said Silas.

The quick change that was one of his characteristics showed itself in his altered voice. His was a mind that seemed always in ambush, darting out on predatory expeditions and then vanishing back into obscurity.

They turned away from the sea front and began to retrace their steps, silently at first, and then little by little falling into ordinary conversation again as though nothing had happened.

Silas knew every corner of Charleston, and the history of every corner, and when he chose he could make his knowledge interesting. In this mood he was a pleasant companion, and Phyl, her recent experience almost forgotten, let herself be led and instructed, not knowing that this armistice was the equivalent of a defeat.

She had already drawn much closer to him in mind, this companionship and quiet conversation was a more sure and deadly thing than any kisses or wild words. It would linger in her mind warm and quietly. Put in a woman's mind a pleasant recollection of yourself and you have established a force whose activity may seem small, but is in reality great, because of its permanency.

They did not take a direct line in the direction of Vernons, and so presently found themselves in front of St. Michael's. The gate of the cemetery was open and they wandered in.

The place was deserted, save by the birds, and the air perfumed by all manner of Southern growing things. Sun, shadow, silence, and that strange peace which hangs over the homes of the dead, all were here, ringed in by the old walls and the faint murmur of the living city beyond.

They walked along the paths, looking at the tombstones, and pausing to read the inscriptions, Phyl gradually entering into that state of mind wherein reality and material things fall out of perspective. The fragrant elusive poetry of death, which can speak in the songs of birds and the scent of flowers in the sunshine and the shade of trees more clearly than in the voice of man, was speaking to her now.

All these people here lying, all these names here inscribed, all these were the representatives of days once bright and now forgotten, love once sweet and now unknown.

Then, as though something had led or betrayed her to the place, she paused where the graves lay half shadowed by a magnolia, she read the nearest inscription with a little catch of her breath. Then the further one. They were the graves of Juliet Mascarene and Rupert Pinckney, the dead lovers who had pa.s.sed from the world almost together, whose bodies lay side by side in the cold bed of earth.

In a moment the spell of the little arbour was around her again, in a moment the pregnant first impression of Vernons had re-seized her, fresh as though the commonplace touch of everyday life had never spoiled it.

It was as though the spirit of Juliet and the spirit of the old house were saying to her "Have you forgotten us?"

Tears welled to her eyes. Silas standing beside her was saying something, she did not know what. She scarcely heard him.

Misinterpreting her silence, unconscious as an animal of her state of mind and the direction of her thoughts, the man at her side moved towards her slightly, seemed to hesitate, and then, suddenly clasping her by the waist kissed her upon the side of the neck.

Phyl straightened like a bow when the string is released. Then she struck him, struck him open handed in the face, so that the sound of the blow might have been heard beyond the wall.

His face blanched so that the mark on it showed up, he took a step back.

For a moment Phyl thought he was going to spring upon her. Then he mastered himself, but if murder ever showed itself upon the countenance of man it showed itself in that half second on the countenance of Silas Grangerson.

"You'll be sorry for that," said he.

"Don't speak to me," said Phyl. "You are horrible--bad--wicked--I will tell Richard Pinckney."

"Do," said Silas. "Tell him also I'll be even with him yet. You're in love with him, that's what's the matter with you--well, wait."

He turned on his heel and walked off. He did not look back once. As he vanished from sight Phyl clasped her hands together.

It was as though she had suddenly been shown the real Silas--or rather the something light and evil and dangerous, the something inscrutable and allied to insanity that inhabited his mind.

She was not thinking of herself, she was thinking of Richard Pinckney. She felt that she had been the unconscious means of releasing against him an evil force. A force that might injure or destroy him.

CHAPTER VII

She came out of the cemetery. There was no sign of Silas in the street nor on the front of the church.

Phyl had a full measure of the Celtic power to meet trouble halfway, to imagine disaster. As she hurried home she saw all manner of trouble, things happening to Richard Pinckney, and all brought about through herself. Amidst all these fancies she saw one fact: He must be warned.

She found Miss Pinckney in the linen room. The linen room at Vernons was a treasure house beyond a man's description, perhaps even beyond his true appreciation. There in the cupboards with their thin old fashioned ring handles and on the shelves of red cedar reposed damask and double damask of the time when men paid for their purchases in guineas, miraculous preservations. Just as the life of a china vase is a perpetual escape from the stupidity of servant maids and the heaviness of clumsy fingers, so the life of these cream white oblongs, in which certain lights brought forth miraculous representations of flowers, festoons and birds, was a perpetual preservation from the moth, from damp, from dryness, from the dust that corrupts.

A house like Vernons exists not by virtue of its brick and mortar; to keep it really alive it must be preserved in all its parts, not only from damp and decay, but from innovation; one can fancy a gas cooker sending a perpetual shudder through it, a telephone destroying who knows what fragrant old influences; the store cupboards and still room are part of its bowels, its napery, bed sheets, and hangings part of its dress. The man knew what he was doing who left Miss Pinckney a life interest in Vernons, it was that interest that kept Vernons alive.

She was exercising it on the critical examination of some sheets when Phyl came into the room, now, with the wool she had purchased and the tale she had to tell.

Miss Pinckney carefully put the sheet she was examining on one side, opened the parcel and looked at the wool.

"I met Silas Grangerson," said Phyl as the other was examining the purchase with head turned on one side, holding it now in this light, now in that.

"Silas Grangerson! Why, where on earth has he sprung from?" asked Miss Pinckney in a voice of surprise.

"I don't know, but I met him in the street and we walked as far as the Battery and--and--"

She hesitated for a moment, then it all came out. To no one but Maria Pinckney could she have told that story.

"Well, of all the astounding creatures," said Miss Pinckney at last. "Did he ask you to marry him?"

"No."

"Just to run away with him--kissed you."

"He kissed me at Grangersons."

"At Grangersons. When?"