Carolina Lee

by Lilian Bell

  CHAPTER XI.

  IN WHICH TRUTH HOLDS HER OWN

  Perhaps, as a student of human nature, Roscoe Howard rather lookedforward with enjoyment to his encounter with Colonel Yancey in thematter of the purchase of Guildford. With the promptness and decisionwhich gave the fundamental strength to his character, he at onceinvestigated the whole transaction, beginning with the private historyof the syndicate, which, in his bitterness, Sherman Lee was only tooready to give him. He drew from Carolina, by adroit conversations, muchof the story of Colonel Yancey's connection with the Lee family abroad,and, to a man with an imagination, he soon was able to formulate, thoughby a somewhat elliptical process, a theory concerning Colonel Yancey'sdesigns on Carolina, which fitted the case as it stood, but which neededa personal interview with the colonel to enable Mr. Howard to decidewhether the man was anxious to marry Carolina from love of herself aloneor with the ulterior motive of having discovered some unsuspected sourceof wealth on the Guildford estate.

  "This man is a very accomplished rascal!" he said to himself, as hefollowed the winding clues in the labyrinth of the colonel'stransactions. "I feel sure that Sherman's money is done for. He willnever get any of that back. Yet Yancey, rascal as he is, is too shrewdto put himself in the clutches of the law. However, he is also cleverenough to be willing to have Sherman think him a fool for failing. Atthe same time, I believe that Yancey has made a fortune. The questionis, where is it?"

  He fell to musing on the man's extraordinary career. Servinggovernments with honesty for years, waiting, studying, learning, bidinghis time until he could make a grand haul without fear of detection,with his honourable career to throw suspicion off the scent, and findinghis quarry at last in wrecking the orphaned children of his best friend.

  It was a curious type of character,--a curious code of honour,--but notphenomenal. It simply showed the effect of climate on a man'sdefinition of honesty. Doubtless Colonel Yancey considered thesyndicate of New Yorkers "damned Yankees," and therefore his legitimateprey. Did not the carpet-baggers rob the South? And, as to gettingpossession of Guildford, even if only in order to force Carolina toaccept him with it--all's fair in love and war. Doubtless ColonelYancey was an honourable man in his own eyes, and ready to defend hishonour to the death if necessary. Mr. Howard had spent several years inthe South, and did not underestimate his personal danger in the cominginterview should he impinge on what the colonel was pleased to call his"honour." Mr. Howard felt that he must fortify himself withserpent-wisdom and dove-harmlessness.

  For Colonel Yancey was coming home, and Mr. Howard had arranged for ameeting with him without stating his errand.

  He was prepared for a confident, even a dignified, bearing in thecolonel, but let it be said that he had not looked for the jaunty airwith which Colonel Yancey met him when Mr. Howard called at his officeat the time appointed. Considering that Colonel Yancey must be awarethat Mr. Howard knew of the crookedness of the whole transaction in oil,his audacity was, to say the least, extraordinary when he rose, held outhis hand to the older man, and said, genially:

  "Well, sir, what can I do for you?"

  The impertinence of the remark, to say nothing of its bad taste underthe circumstances, for a moment staggered even the Northerner's goodbreeding, and, for one brief breathing spell, Mr. Howard felt impelledto imperil the whole situation by the trenchant reply:

  "Not a damned thing, sir!"

  But his self-control came to his rescue, and with it a determination tomaster the natural and inevitable irritation which many Northern menfeel at being called upon to transact business with a Southern man, andwhich all Southern men feel when doing business with Northern men. Thewhole code is different and all the conditions misunderstood. Nor willthere be harmony until each endeavours to obtain and comprehend theother's point of view.

  It was only by detaining the conversation upon strictly neutral groundsfor a few moments that Mr. Howard was able to see that the fault laylargely with himself. Perhaps Colonel Yancey was unaware that hisvisitor knew anything of his private history or was at all interested inthe Lees. It was only Mr. Howard's smarting under the real injuriesColonel Yancey had inflicted on Winchester Lee's children which causedhim to resent Colonel Yancey's assumption of the role which he essayedon all occasions and inevitably with strangers. At first, he was thebland, suave, genial, open-hearted Southerner. But at the first hint ofMr. Howard's errand, the openness snapped shut. The thin lips werecompressed, the crafty eyes narrowed, and Colonel Wayne Yancey, like apirate craft, "prepared to repel boarders."

  "Now, Mr. Howard," he said, "in broaching the subject of the purchase ofGuildford, may I ask whom you are representing?"

  "Why should you imagine that I am representing any one?" inquired Mr.Howard. "Why not imagine that I want Guildford for my own use? It is agood property. It has a water-front. It is picturesque. Why notsuppose that I merely want to acquire a winter home in South Carolina?"

  "Then why not look at property just as good, nearer to the town ofEnterprise than Guildford lies, and with a good stone house already onit? For instance, my sister's late husband's place, Whitehall, is forsale."

  "Thank you for mentioning it," said Mr. Howard, "but I especially wantGuildford."

  "Then--pardon me for saying so--you must have some ulterior motive forwanting it, for the place is worth no more than the adjoining propertyof Sunnymede or half a dozen other contiguous estates."

  "That is exactly the thought which came to me, if you will pardon me formentioning it, when I heard that you had bought and foreclosed themortgage on Guildford!"

  Mr. Howard laid his finger-tips together, with a quiet satisfaction inthus having trapped his antagonist. But he little knew Wayne Yancey.

  With an assumption of honesty, which fairly took the Northern man'sbreath away, Colonel Yancey looked first out of the window, as if toconsider, and then said:

  "You are right, Mr. Howard, and to a man of honour like yourself, I willtell you the real reason why I bought the mortgage on Guildford, why Iforeclosed it in order to own the place, and why I hope you will dropthe idea of purchasing it, for I tell you frankly at the outset that, ifyou press the matter, I shall simply put a prohibitive price upon theproperty, and you have no legal recourse by which you can compel me topart with it. Please bear this in mind. And for explanation of thisunalterable decision--here it is. I love Carolina Lee. I told herfather so when she was only a girl of sixteen in London. He gave me hisblessing, and told me he would rather leave her to me than to any otherman in the world. He was my dearest friend. I was the unhappy means ofbringing a loss on Sherman, which it shall be my life-work to make good.If Winchester Lee can hear me in the place where he has gone, he knowsthat I mean well by both of his children. I adore Carolina, but she hasrefused to marry me, and, knowing her love for her old home, I obtainedpossession of it in order to restore it to her. If you do not believethat I mean this, ask her if I did not offer her Guildford as a freegift."

  "You are a clever man, Colonel Yancey, and you knew then, as well as youknow now, that to offer a girl of Carolina's spirit a valuable gift likethat was to insult the Lee pride. What did you hope to gain by it?"

  "The girl herself! I confess it without shame, sir. I would moveheaven and earth in order to have that girl for my wife! You do notknow Wayne Yancey, Mr. Howard, or you would know that that means morethan appears on the surface."

  "I may not know you completely, Colonel Yancey, but I know you wellenough to believe that part of your statement implicitly. But you willnever win her either by force or by coercion of any kind. Give her afree hand and let her come to you of her own accord, or she will notcome at all."

  By the expression which flitted across the colonel's slightly cruel faceat Mr. Howard's words, he was convinced of one thing, and that was thatthe man was honestly and deeply in love with Carolina. This factilluminated the matter somewhat.

  "It would be qui
te true with horses," mused Colonel Yancey. "And ablooded horse and a spirited woman have many points in common."

  "I freely confess to you that I wish to purchase Guildford in order tolet Carolina go down there and work her will with the place. The girlhas courage, good business ideas; she is a friend of my daughter's, andI am interested in the development of her character. I would just assoon leave you to make the same arrangement with her which I propose tomake, if she would consent to have money transactions with you, but shewill not. For what reason you and she probably know. I confess that Ido not, but what you have just been good enough to tell me concerningyour feelings toward her would seem to throw light upon the situation.Now, may I make a suggestion?"

  "A thousand, if you will!"

  "Thank you. Now, possibly an outsider may be able to give you a newpoint of view. Suppose you yield to Carolina's wishes, sell me theplace, and thus give her the opportunity to carry out her dead father'splans. You thus provide her with a cherished life-work. You know theLees. They are proud and grateful. To whom would her heart naturallyturn? To an old married man like me, through her friendship for mydaughter, or to a comparatively young man like yourself, in whosechildren she is as vitally interested as she must have been to heal yourbaby girl?"

  Now Mr. Howard was deliberately playing upon the man's feelings, but hewas not prepared for the change in Colonel Yancey's face.

  "Did she do that?" he said, in a hoarse voice, "Did she do it?"

  "Certainly she did. Who else?"

  "They told me that Mrs. Goddard did it--Sister Sue told me."

  "No, it is considered by the Christian Scientists--this new sect whichyou may have heard that Carolina has joined--that Gladys is her firstcase of healing. Carolina is Mrs. Goddard's pupil, and doubtless Mrs.Goddard helped her,--in the curious way they have, for I overheardCarolina telephoning Mrs. Goddard to treat her--Carolina--for fear, inyour little daughter's case. I believe they heal by confidence in God'spromises and the theory that mind controls matter. Wonderful, isn'tit?"

  "Wonderful, indeed, but the most wonderful part of it to me is thatMiss Carolina was induced to render me this inestimable benefit whenshe--well, she used to hate me, to be quite frank. If you knew therebuffs I have taken at her hands!"

  "Well, that is one of the results of this new religion of hers. It isfounded on love, and they are obliged to live it, or they fail toreceive any benefits. It is a self-acting religion, and is its owndetective. They regard hatred, for example, as a disease, and naturallyCarolina could not, in their code, be healed herself or heal others aslong as she hated you. Thus, in healing your little girl, she wasworking out her own salvation."

  "Mr. Howard," said Colonel Yancey, with his face working painfully, "youdon't know what it is to have a crippled child. You don't know theagony I have endured, looking at her beautifully formed little body andinto her dear face, with its intelligent eyes, broad brow, and sweetmouth, and then realizing that all her life she must be helpless, unableto walk or even to stand, a burden to herself and others. Her feet, asperhaps you know, were perfect in shape and form. They were simplyturned inward. I have gone through Gethsemane itself wondering when hertender little heart would learn its first taste of bitterness againstthe parents who brought her into the world to suffer so. And then tohave all this load of grief lifted, to see my baby walk about and playwith her little sister, and frolic as other children do, and suddenly tolearn that I owe it to the woman who is my all in life--I assure you,sir, it is almost more than my heart can bear. Take Guildford on yourown terms, sir! It is a small return!"

  Mr. Howard held out his hand, and Colonel Yancey grasped it.

  "The human heart is a curious thing, Mr. Howard. I was as determinedfive minutes ago as ever a man was on earth to let you plead until youlost your breath, yet I would never part with my hold on Miss Carolinathrough owning Guildford. Now, in the twinkling of an eye, I am readyto let you have it. I can't give it to you quickly enough. What priceare you willing to pay?"

  "Suppose we say the face of the mortgage,--just what it cost you?"

  "Ten thousand dollars less, if you say so, Mr. Howard."

  "No, I prefer to let you show your gratitude to her in some other way.I will pay what you paid."

  "Good! I will have the deed made out to-day. But lose no time intelling her that Guildford is hers. She has won it for herself."

  "If I tell her that, do you know what she will say?" asked Mr. Howard.

  "No, what?"

  "She will give all the credit to her new thought. She told me before Istarted that I would be successful. As she puts it, 'Nothing is everlost in Truth.'"

  "Then she considers, even though Guildford has been in my power forseveral years, that it was never really lost to her?"

  "In her new conception of the truth, that is the way she argues."

  "By Jove, Mr. Howard, I'm going to join them! I wonder if she would letme go to church with her next Sunday?"

  "I'm sure she would."

  But, as he turned away, Mr. Howard shook his head and said to himself:"Carolina will have to tell him what she told Noel,--of the futility ofattempting to be a Scientist for the sake of the loaves and fishes."

  But, indeed, Carolina had not only believed it, but, with her Bible and"Science and Health" on her knees, during the hour of the interview shehad made her demonstration, so that she knew it without words. She feltit by the uplift in her own heart and the nearness of her own soul tothe Infinite, so that, when Mr. Howard appeared with a beaming face totell her, the radiance on Carolina's admonished him that she knewalready.

  "But you don't know all, young lady! After I had left his office, thecolonel came post-haste after me to say that his sister and the childrenare to leave to-morrow for Whitehall, his brother-in-law's estate, whichlies some twelve miles from Guildford, but northeast from Enterprise,the little station, where you leave the railroad, and Miss Yancey isgoing to call on you and Mrs. Winchester this evening, to invite you tomake Whitehall your headquarters until you can establish yourselfelsewhere."

  "Oh, how kind of them!" said Carolina.

  "Then y-you will accept?" demanded Kate, in old-thought surprise.

  "Why, what could possibly be better?" asked Carolina, in new-thoughtsimplicity and gratitude.

  "T-ten to one on Colonel Yancey!" murmured Kate in her father's ear asthey turned away.

  "W-was it a d-difficult job, d-daddy?" she asked, tucking her arm intohis.

  "Kate, child, it was an absolute triumph for Carolina's new religion. Ideserve no credit. The man set his jaws and looked as hard as nails,until I mentioned that Carolina had healed his baby. He had beencarefully led--probably by Carolina's instructions--to believe that Mrs.Goddard did it--"

  "Y-yes, Miss Yancey believes it, too."

  "Well, they forgot to coach me, so I told him it was Carolina. My dear,_voila tout_!"

  "C-Christian Science p-plays ball every time, doesn't it?" observedKate, thoughtfully.