CHAPTER II
Outside Phyl stood for a moment to breathe the warm scented air and lookaround her.
To be treated like a child by any other person than Maria Pinckney wouldhave incensed her, all the same to be told to do a thing because it wasgood for her, or because it was a pleasant thing to do, in the teller'sopinion, was an almost certain way of making her do the exact opposite.
The garden did not attract her, the place did.
That cypress avenue with the sun upon it, that broad sweep of drive infront of the house, the distant peeps of country between trees and thelanguorous lazy atmosphere of the perfect day fascinated her mind. Shecame along the house front to the right, and found herself at the gate ofthe stable yard.
The stable yard of Grangersons was an immense flagged quadrangle boundedon the right, counting from the point of entrance, by the kitchenpremises.
There was stable room for forty horses, coach-house accommodation for adozen or more carriages.
The car had been run into one of the coach-houses and the yard stoodempty, sunlit, silent, save for the voices of the pigeons wheeling in theair, or strutting on the roof of the great barn adjoining the stables.
One of the stable doors was open and as Phyl crossed the yard a young manappeared at the open door, shaded his eyes and looked at her. Then he cameforward. It was Silas Grangerson, and Phyl thought he was the handsomestand most graceful person she had ever seen in her life.
Silas was a shade over six feet in height, dark, straight, slim yetperfectly proportioned; his face was extraordinary, the most vivid thingone would meet in a year's journey, and with a daring, and at times,almost a mad look unforgettable when once glimpsed. Like the Colonel andlike his ancestors Silas had a direct way with women.
"Hallo," said he, with the sunny smile of old acquaintanceship, "wherehave _you_ sprung from?"
Phyl was startled for a moment, then almost instantly she came in touchwith the vein and mood and mind of the other and laughed.
"I came with Miss Pinckney," said she.
"You're not from Charleston?"
"Yes, indeed I am."
"But where do you live in Charleston? I've never seen you and I knowevery--besides you don't look as if you belonged to Charleston--I don'tbelieve you've come from there."
"Then where do you think I've come from?"
"I don't know," said Silas laughing, "but it doesn't matter as long asyou're here, does it? 'Scuse my fooling, won't you--I wouldn't with astranger, but you don't seem a stranger somehow--though I don't know yourname."
"Phylice Berknowles," said Phyl, glancing up at him and half wondering howit was that, despite his good looks, his manhood, and their totalunacquaintanceship, she felt as little constrained in his presence asthough he were a boy.
"And my name is Silas Grangerson. Say, is Maria Pinckney in the house withfather?"
"She is."
"Talking over old times, I s'pose?" said Silas.
"Yes!"
"I can hear them. It's always the same when they get together--and Isuppose you got sick of it and came out?"
"No, they put me out--asked me wouldn't I like to look at the garden."
Already she had banded herself with him in mild opposition to the elders.
"Great--Jerusalem. They're just like a pair of old horses wanting to beleft quiet and rub their nose-bags together. Look at the garden! I canhear them--come on and look at the horses."
He led the way to a loose box and opened the upper door.
"That's Flying Fox, she's mine, the fastest trotter in the Carolinas--youknow anything about horses?"
"Rather!"
"I thought you did, somehow. Mind! she doesn't take to strangers. Mind!she bites like an alligator."
"Not me," said Phyl, fondling the lovely but fleering-eyed head protrudingabove the lower door.
"So she doesn't," said Silas admiringly, "she's taken to you--well, Idon't blame her. Here's John Barleycorn," opening another door, "ownbrother to the Fox, he's Pap's; he's a bolter, and kicks like a duck gun.She's got all her vice at one end of her and he at the other, match pair."He whistled between his teeth as he put up the bars, then he shewed otherhorses, Phyl watching his every movement, and wondering what it was thatgave pleasure to her in watching. Silas moved, or seemed to move,absolutely without effort, and his slim brown hands touched everythingdelicately, as though they were touching fragile porcelain, yet those samehands could bend an iron bar, or rein in John Barleycorn even when the bitwas between the said J. B.'s teeth.
"That's the horses," said he, flinging open a coach-house door, "andthat's the shandrydan the governor still drives in when he goes toCharleston. Look at it. It was made in the forties, and you should see itwith a darkey on the box and Pap inside, and all his luggage behind, andhe going off to Charleston, and the nigger children running after it."
Phyl inspected the mustard-yellow vehicle. Then he closed the door on it,put up the bar, and, the business of showing things over, did a littledouble shuffle as though Phyl were not present, or as though she were aboy friend and not a strange young woman.
"Say, do you like poetry?" said he, breaking off and seeming suddenly toremember her presence.
"No," said Phyl. "At least--"
"Well, here's some.
"'There was an old hen and she had a wooden leg, She went to the barn and she laid a wooden egg, She laid it right down by the barn--don't you think.'"
"Well?" said she, laughing.
"'It's just about time for another little drink--' some sense in poetrylike that, isn't there? But all the drinks are in the house and I don'twant to go in. I'm hiding from Pap. Last night when he was ratty withrheumatism, he let out at me, saying the young people weren't any good,saying Maria Pinckney was the only person he knew with sense in her head,called me a name because I poured him out a dose of liniment instead ofmedicine, by mistake--though he didn't swallow it--and wished Maria washere. So I just sent Jake, the page boy, off with a wire to her; didn'ttell any one, just sent it. Come on and look at the garden--you've got tolook at the garden, you know."
He led the way past the barn to a farmyard, where hens were clucking andscratching and scraping in the sunshine; the deep double bass grunting ofpigs came from the sties, by the low wall across which one could see thecountry stretching far away, the cotton fields, the woods, all hazed bythe warmth of the afternoon.
"Let's sit down and look at the garden," said he, pointing to a huge logby the near wall--"and aren't the convolvuluses beautiful?"
"Beautiful," said Phyl, falling into the vein of the other. "And listen tothe roses."
"They grunt like that because it's near dinner time--they're pretty muchlike humans." He took a cigarette case from his pocket and a cigarettefrom the case.
"You don't mind smoking, do you?"
"Not a bit."
"Have one?"
"I daren't."
"Maria Pinckney won't know."
"It's not her--I smoked one once and it made me sick."
"Well, try another--I won't look if you are."
"They'll--she'll smell it."
"Not she, you can eat some parsley, that takes the smell away."
"Oh, I don't mind telling her--it's only--well, there."
She took a cigarette and he lit it for her.
"Blow it through your nose," he commanded, "that's the way. Now let'spretend we're two old darkies sitting on a log, you push against me andI'll push against you, you're Jim and I'm Uncle Joseph. 'What yo' crowdingme for, Jim,'" he squeezed up gently against her, and Phyl jumped to herfeet.
He glanced up at her, sideways, laughing, and for the life of her shecould not be angry.
"Don't you think we'd better go and look at the garden?" said she.
"In a minute, sit down again. I won't knock against you. It was only myfun. We'll pretend I'm Pap, and you're Maria Pinckney, if you like. You'velet your cigarette go out."
"So I have."
"You can light it from mi
ne."
Phyl hesitated and was lost.
It was the nearest thing to a kiss, and as she drew back with the lightedcigarette between her lips, she felt a not unpleasant sense of wickedness,such as the virtuous boy feels when led to adventure by the bad boy.Sitting on a log, smoking cigarettes, talking familiarly with a stranger,taking a light from him in such a fashion with her face so close to histhat his eyes-- They smoked in silence for a moment.
Then Silas spoke:
"Do you ever feel lonesome?" said he.
"Awfully--sometimes."
"So do I."
Silence for a moment. Then:
"I go off to Charleston when I feel like that--once in a fortnight orso--Where do you live in Charleston?"
"I live with Miss Pinckney--I thought you knew."
"You didn't say that. You only said you came with her."
"Well, I live with her at Vernons. I'm Irish, y' know. My--my father diedin Charleston, and I came from Ireland to live with Miss Pinckney. Mr.Richard Pinckney is my guardian."
"Your which? Dick Pinckney your guardian! Why, he's not older than Iam--that fellow your guardian--why, he wears a flannel petticoat."
"He doesn't," cried Phyl, flinging away the cigarette, which had becomenoxious, and roused to sudden anger by the slighting tone of the other."What do you mean by saying such a thing?"
"Oh, I only meant that he's too awfully proper for this life. He goes toCharleston races, but never backs a horse, scarcely, and one Mint Julepwould make him see two crows. He's a sort of distant relation of ours."
Phyl was silent. She resented his criticism of her friend, and just inthis moment the something mad and harum scarum in the character of Silasseemed shown up to her with electrical effect. Criticism is a mostdangerous thing to indulge in, unless anonymously in the pages of ajournal, for the right to criticise has to be made good in the mind of theaudience, unless the audience is hostile to the criticised.
Then she said: "I don't know anything about Mint Juleps or race courses,but I do know that Mr. Pinckney has been--is--is my friend, and I'd rathernot talk about him, if you please."
"Now, you're huffed," cried Silas exultingly, as though he had scored apoint at some game.
"I'm not."
"You are--you've flushed."
Phyl turned pale, a deadly sign.
"I'd never dream of getting out of temper with _you_," said she.
It was his turn to flush. You might have struck Silas Grangerson withoutupsetting his balance, but the slightest suspicion of a sneer raised allthe devil in him. Had Phyl been a man he would have knocked him off thelog. He cast the stump of his cigarette on the ground and pounded it withhis heel. Had there been anything breakable within reach he would havebroken it. Her anger with him vanished and she laughed.
"You've flushed now," said she.
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