Part 22

“In a way, yes,” answered Dorothy. “Yet in another way, no. I control my hounds, chiefly for their own good. My right to control them rests upon my superior knowledge of what their conduct ought to be. It is the same way with women. They do not know as much as men do, concerning what their conduct ought to be. Take my dear mother’s case for example. If she had frankly told my father that she could not be happy in the life into which he had brought her, that in fact it tortured her, he would have taken her away out of it. Her mistake was in taking the matter into her own hands. She needed a master. She ought to have made my father her master. She ought to have told him what she suffered, and why she suffered. She ought to have trusted him to find the remedy. Instead of that--well, you know the story. My father loved my mother with all his soul. She loved him in return. He could have been her master, if he had so willed. For when any woman loves any man that man has only to assume that he is her master in order to be so, and in order to make her supremely happy in his being so. If my father had understood that, there would have been no stain upon me now.”

“What on earth do you mean, Dorothy?” asked Arthur, intensely, as the girl broke into tears. “There is no stain upon you. I will horsewhip anybody that shall so much as suggest such a thing.”

“Yes, I know. You are good and true always. But think of it, Cousin Arthur. My mother is in hiding in Richmond, because of her shame. And my father has posthumously insulted her--pure, clean woman that she is--and insulted me, too, in my helplessness. Let me tell you all about it, please. Oh, Cousin Arthur, you do not know how I have longed for an opportunity to tell you! You alone of all people in this world are broad enough to sympathize with me in my wretchedness. You alone are true to Truth and Justice and Right. Let me tell you!”

“Tell me, Dorothy,” he answered tenderly. “I beg of you tell me absolutely all that is in your mind. Tell me as freely as you told me once why you marked a watermelon with my initials. But please, Dorothy, do not tell me anything at all, unless you can put aside the strange reserve that you have lately set up as a barrier between us, and talk to me in the old, free, unconstrained way. It was in hope of that that I asked you to take this ride.”

She replied, “I beg your pardon for that. I could not help the constraint, and it pained me as greatly as it distressed you. We are free now, on our horses. We can talk without restraint, and when we have talked the matter out, perhaps you will understand. Listen, then!”

She waited a full minute, the horses walking meanwhile, before she resumed. Finally Arthur said: “I am listening, Dorothy.”

Then she answered.

“My mother was never a bad woman, Arthur Brent. I want you to understand that clearly before we go on. She abandoned my father because she could not endure the life he provided for her. But she was always a pure woman, in spite of all her surroundings and conditions. She offered freedom to my father, but she asked no freedom for herself. She made no complaint of him, and his memory is still to her the dearest thing on earth. It is convention alone that censures her; convention alone that forbids her to come to Pocahontas; convention alone that refuses to me permission to love her openly as my mother and to honor her as such. If I had my way, I should bring her to Pocahontas, and set up housekeeping there; and I should send out a proclamation to everybody, saying in effect: ‘My mother, Mrs. South, is with me. You who shall come promptly to pay your respects to her, I will count my friends. All the rest shall be my enemies.’ But that may not be. My mother forbids, and I bow to my mother’s command. Then comes my father’s command, and to that I will never bow.”

“What is it, Dorothy?”

“Aunt Polly has shown me his letter. He tells me that because of my mother’s misbehavior, he has great fear on my account. He explains that he forbids me to learn music because he thought it was music that led my mother into wrong ways. He tells me that in order to preserve my ‘respectability’ he has arranged that I shall marry into a Virginia family as good as my own, and as if to make the matter of my inconsequence as detestably humiliating as possible he tells me as I learned before and wrote to you from Paris, that he has betrothed me to Jeff Peyton. If there had been any chance that I would submit to be thus disposed of like a hogshead of tobacco or a carload of wheat, Jeff Peyton’s conduct would have destroyed it. The last time I met him in Europe you remember, he threatened me with this command of my father, and I instantly ordered him out of my presence. He had the impudence to come to Wyanoke last night--knowing that I was there, and that I was acting as hostess. It was nearly as bad as if I had been entertaining at Pocahontas. He made it worse by asking me if I had read my father’s letter, and if I did not now realize the necessity of marrying him in order that I might ally myself with a good Virginia family. He had just finished that insolence when you made your little speech, not only calling him a fool by plain implication, but proving him to be one. That’s why I thanked you, as I did.”

“Yes, I quite understood that,” answered Arthur. “Let us run our horses for a bit. I have a fancy to do that.”

Dorothy understood. She joined him in a quarter mile stretch, and then he suddenly reined in his horse and faced her.

“It was right here, Dorothy, after a run like that,” he said, “that you told me I might call you Dorothy. Now I ask you to let me call you Wife.”

The girl hesitated. Presently she said:

“I have made up my mind to be perfectly true with you. I don’t know whether I had thought of this or not, at any rate I have tried not to think of it.”

“But now that I have forced the thought upon you, Dorothy? Is it yes, or no?”

Again the girl paused in thought before answering. Her dogs, seeing that she was paying no attention to them, broke away in pursuit of a hare. She suddenly recovered her self-possession. She whistled through her fingers to recall the hounds, and when they returned, crouching to receive the punishment they knew they deserved, she bade them go to heel, adding: “You’re naughty fellows, but you haven’t been kept under control, and so I forgive you.” Then, turning to Arthur she said,

“Yes, Master.”

* * * * *

On their return to the house Arthur was mindful of his duty to Aunt Polly, guardian of the person of Dorothy South, and, as such endowed with authority to approve or forbid any marriage to which that eighteen year old young person might be inclined, before attaining her twenty first year.

“Aunt Polly!” he said abruptly, “I want your permission to marry Dorothy.”

“Why of course, Arthur,” she replied. “That is what I have intended all the time.”

* * * * *

It was four years later, in June, 1865. Arthur and Dorothy--with an abiding consciousness of duty faithfully done--stood together in the porch at Wyanoke. The war was over. Virginia was ruined beyond recovery. All of evil that Arthur had foreseen, had been accomplished. “But the good has also come,” said Dorothy as they talked. “Slavery is at an end. You, Arthur, are free. You may again address yourself to your work in the world without the embarrassment of other duty. Shall we go back to New York?”

“No, Dorothy. My work in life lies in the cradle in the chamber there, where our two children sleep.”

“Thank you!” said Dorothy, and silence fell for a time.

Presently Dorothy added:

“And my mother’s work is done. It consoles me for all, when I remember that she lies where she fell, a martyr. The stone under which she sleeps is a rude one, but soldier hands have lovingly carved upon it the words:

‘MADAME LE SUD THE ANGEL OF THE BATTLEFIELD.’”

Then Dorothy whistled, and Dick came in response.

“Bring the horses at six o’clock tomorrow, Dick, your master and I are going to ride soon in the morning.”

THE END

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FOOTNOTES:

[A] The negroes always properly called this word “Voodoo.” Among theatrical folk it has been strangely and senselessly corrupted into “Hoodoo.” The negroes believed in the Voodoo as firmly as the player people do.--AUTHOR.

[B] The court incident here related is a fact. The author of this book was present in court when it occurred.--AUTHOR.

[C] This story of Robert Copeland is historical fact, except for such disguises of name, etc. as are necessary under the circumstances.--AUTHOR.

End of Project Gutenberg's Dorothy South, by George Cary Eggleston