Part 4

"In March, rather," answered Miss Sabrina. "Before that it is dangerous to make changes; I myself have never been one to put on thin dresses with the pinguiculas."

"What are pinguiculas?--Birds?"

"They are flowers," responded Miss Sabrina, mildly.

"It will be six weeks, then; to-day is the fifteenth."

"Six weeks to what?"

"To March; to spring."

"I don't know that it begins on the very first day," remarked Miss Sabrina.

"Mine shall!" thought Eve.

Romney was near the northern end of the home-island; the voyage, therefore, was a short one. The chimneys of Singleton House came into view; but the boat passed on, still going northward. "Isn't that the house?" Eve asked.

"Yes, but the landing is farther on; we always go to the landing, and then walk back through the avenue."

But when the facade appeared at the end of the neglected road--a walk of fifteen minutes--there seemed to Eve hardly occasion for so much ceremony; the old mansion was in a worse condition than Romney; it sidled and leaned, and one of its wings was a roofless ruin, with the planking of the floor half tilted up, half fallen into the cellar. Miss Sabrina betrayed no perception of the effect of this upon a stranger; she crossed the veranda with her lady-like step, and said to a solemn little negro boy who was standing in the doorway: "Is Mrs. Singleton at home this evening, Boliver? Can she see us?--Miss Bruce and Miss Abercrombie."

An old negro woman came round the corner of the house, and, cuffing the boy for standing there, ushered the visitors into a room on the right of the broad hall. The afternoon had grown colder, but the doors and windows all stood open; a negro girl, who bore a strong resemblance to Powlyne, entered, and chased out a chicken who was prowling about over the matted floor; then she knelt down, with her long thin black legs stretched out behind, and tried to light a fire on the hearth. But the wind was evidently in the wrong direction for the requirements of that chimney; white smoke puffed into the room in clouds.

"Let us go out on the veranda," suggested Eve, half choked.

"Oh, but surely--When they have ushered us in here?" responded Miss Sabrina, remonstratingly, though she too was nearly strangled. "It will blow away in a few minutes, I assure you."

Much of it still remained when Mrs. Singleton entered. She paid no more attention to it than Miss Sabrina had done; she welcomed her guests warmly, kissing Eve on both cheeks, although she had never seen her before. "I have been so much interested in hearing that you are from England, Miss Bruce," she said, taking a seat beside her. "We always think of England as our old home; I reckon you will see much down here to remind you of it."

Eve looked about her--at the puffing smoke, at the wandering chicken, who still peered through one of the windows. "I am not English," she said.

"But you have lived there so long; ever since you were a child; surely it is the same thing," interposed Miss Sabrina. A faint color rose in her cheeks for a moment. Eve perceived that she preferred to present an English rather than a Northern guest.

"We are all English, if you come to that," said Mrs. Singleton, confidently. She was small, white-haired, with a sweet face, and a sweet voice that drawled a little.

"Eve is much interested in our nig-roes," pursued Miss Sabrina; "you know to her they are a novelty."

"Ah dear, yes, our poor, poor people! When I think of them, Miss Bruce, scattered and astray, with no one to advise them, it makes my heart bleed. For they must be suffering in so many ways; take the one instance of the poor women in their confinements; we used to go to them, and be with them to cheer their time of trial. But now, separated from us, from our care and oversight, what _can_ they do? If the people who have been so rash in freeing them had only thought of even that one thing! But I suppose they did not think of it, and naturally, because the abolitionist societies, we are told, were composed principally of old maids."

Eve laughed. "Why can't they have nurses, as other people do?"

"You don't mean regular monthly nurses, of course?"

"Why not?--if they can afford to pay for them. They might club together to supply them."

"Oh, I don't think that would be at all appropriate, really. And Eve does not mean it, I assure you," said Miss Sabrina, coming to the rescue; "her views are perfectly reasonable, dear Mrs. Singleton; you would be surprised."

"You would indeed!" Eve thought.

But they talked no more of the nig-roes.

"How is Miss Hillsborough?" Miss Sabrina asked.

"Right well, I am glad to say. My dear Aunt Peggy, Miss Bruce; and what she is to me I can hardly tell you! You know I am something of a talker"--here Mrs. Singleton laughed softly. "And we are so much alone here now, that, were it not for Aunt Peggy, I should fairly have to talk to the chickens!" (One at least would be ready, Eve thought.) "Don't you know that there are ever so many little things each day that we want to _say_ to somebody?" Mrs. Singleton went on. "Thinking them is not enough. And these dear people, like Aunt Peggy, who sit still and listen;--it isn't what they answer that's of consequence; in fact they seldom say much; it's just the chance they give us of putting our own thought into words and seeing how it looks. It _does_ make such a difference."

"You are fortunate," Eve answered. "And then you have your little boy, too; Cicely has told me about him--Rupert; she says he is a dear little fellow."

"Dear heart!" exclaimed Miss Sabrina, distressed. "Cicely is sometimes--yes--"

But Mrs. Singleton laughed merrily. "I will show him to you presently," she said.

"Mr. Singleton is so extraordinarily agreeable!" said Miss Sabrina, with unwonted animation.

"Oh yes, he is wonderful; and he is a statesman too, a second Patrick Henry. But then as regards the little things of each _day_, you know, we don't go to our husbands with _those_."

"What do you do, then?--I mean with the husbands," Eve asked.

"I think we admire them," answered Mrs. Singleton, simply.

Lucasta, the negro girl, now appeared with a tray. "Pray take some Madeira," said their hostess, filling the tiny glasses. "And plum-cake."

Eve declined. But Miss Sabrina accepted both refreshments, and Mrs. Singleton bore her company. The wine was unspeakably bad, it would have been difficult to say what had entered into its composition; but Madeira had formed part of the old-time hospitality of the house, and something that was sold under that name (at a small country store on the mainland opposite) was still kept in the cut-glass decanter, to be served upon occasion.

Presently a very tall, very portly, and very handsome old man (he well merited three verys) came in, leaning on a cane. "Miss Bruce--little Rupert; our dear little boy," said Mrs. Singleton, introducing him. She had intended to laugh, but she forgot it; she gazed at him admiringly.

The master of the house put aside his cane, and looked about for a chair. As he stood there, helpless for an instant, he seemed gigantic.

Eve laughed.

Miss Sabrina murmured, "Pleasantry, dear Mr. Singleton;--our foolish pleasantry."

After the old gentleman had found his chair and seated himself, and had drawn a breath or two, he gave a broad slow smile. "Nanny, are you in the habit of introducing me to your young lady friends as your dear little Rupert?--your little Rupe?"

"Rupe? Never!" answered Mrs. Singleton, indignantly.

"Only our foolish pleasantry," sighed Miss Sabrina, apologetically.

"It was Cicely," Eve explained.

"If it was Cicely, it was perfect," the lame colossus answered, gallantly. "Cicely is heavenly. Upon my word, she is the most engaging young person I have ever seen in my life."

He then ate some plum-cake, and paid Eve compliments even more handsome than these.

After a while he imparted the news; he had been down to the landing to meet the afternoon steamer, which brought tidings from the outside world. "Melton is dead," he said. "You know whom I mean? Melton, the great stockbroker; one of the richest men living, I suppose."

"Oh! where is his soul _now_?" said Mrs. Singleton. Her emotion was real, her sweet face grew pallid.

"Why, I have never heard that he was a bad man, especially," remarked Eve, surprised.

"He was sure to be--making all that money; it could not be otherwise. Oh, what is his agony at this very moment!"

But Rupert did not sympathize with this mournfulness; when three ladies were present, conversation should be light, poetical. "Miss Bruce," he said, turning towards Eve--he was so broad that that in itself made a landscape--"have you ever noticed the appropriateness of 'County Guy' to this neighborhood of ours?"

"No," Eve answered. But the words brought her father to her mind with a rush: how often, when she was a child, had he beguiled a dull walk with a chant, half song, half declamation:

"Oh, County Guy, the hour is nigh, The sun has left the lea."

She looked at her host, but she did not hear him; a mist gathered in her eyes.

"'Oh, County Guy, the hour is nigh,'"

began the colossus, placing his plum-cake on his knee provisionally.

"'The sun has left the lea; The orange flower perfumes the bower, The breeze is on the sea. The lark his lay who trilled all day Sits hushed his partner nigh. Breeze, bird, and flower confess the hour; But where is County Guy?'

"The orange flower perfumes the bower; here we have the orange flower and the lea, the bower and the sea; and it's very rarely that you find all four together. 'The lark his lay who trilled all day'--what music it is! There's no one like Scott."

His lameness prevented him from accompanying his guests on their walk back to the boat; he stood in the doorway leaning on his cane and waving a courtly farewell, while the chicken, with slowly considering steps, crossed the veranda and entered the drawing-room again.

"Miss Sabrina, please tell me what you know of Ferdinand Morrison," Eve began, as soon as a turn in the road hid the old house from their view.

Miss Sabrina had expected to talk about the Singletons. "Oh, Mr. Morrison? we did not see him ourselves, you know."

"But you must have heard."

"Certainly, we heard. The Singletons are delightful people, are they not? So cultivated! Their house has always been one of the most agreeable on the Sound."

"I dare say. But about Ferdinand Morrison?" Eve went on. For it was not often that she had so good an opportunity; at Romney, if there was no one else present, there were always the servants, who came in and out like members of the family. "Cicely met him first in Savannah, didn't she?"

"Yes," answered Miss Sabrina (but giving up the Singletons with regret); "she went to pay a visit to our cousin Emmeline; and there she met him. From the very beginning he appeared to be much in love with her, Cousin Emmeline wrote. And Cicely too--so we heard--appeared to care for him from the first day. At least Cousin Emmeline received that impression; Cicely, of course, did not take her into her confidence."

"Why of course?"

"At that early stage? But don't you think that those first sweet uncertainties are always private? Mr. Morrison used to come every day, and take her out for a drive; I have been in Savannah myself, and I have often thought that probably they went to Bonaventure--_so_ delightful! At last, one evening, Cicely told Cousin Emmeline that she was engaged. And the next day she wrote to us. She did not come home; they were married there at Emmeline's."

"And none of you went to the wedding?"

"There were only father and I to go; we have not always been able to do as we wished," replied Miss Sabrina, gently.

"Mr. Morrison had money, I suppose?"

"I think not; we have never been told so."

"Didn't you ask?"

"That was for Cicely, wasn't it? I dare say she knows. We could only hope, father and I, that she would be happy; but I fear that she has not been, ah no." And Miss Sabrina sighed.

"But we must not give it up so, she is still so young. Why don't you write to Mr. Morrison yourself, and tell him, command him, to come back?" suggested Eve, boldly.

"But--but I don't know where he is," answered Miss Sabrina, bewildered by this sudden attack.

"You said South America."

"But I couldn't write, 'Ferdinand Morrison, Esquire, South America.'"

"Some one must know. His relatives."

"Yes, there is his brother, and a most devoted brother, we are told," responded Miss Sabrina, speaking more fluently now that she had launched upon family affection. "Yes, indeed--from all we have heard of Paul Tennant, we are inclined to think him a most excellent young man. He may not have Ferdinand's beauty (we are told that Ferdinand is remarkably handsome); and it is probable, too, that he has not Ferdinand's cultivation, for he is a business man, and has always lived at the North.--I beg your pardon, my dear, I am sure," said the Southern lady, interrupting herself in confusion.

"It doesn't matter; the North won't die of it. If you know where this brother is--But why has he a different name?"

"The mother, Mrs. Tennant, who was a widow with this one boy, Paul, married one of the Maryland Morrisons--I reckon you know the family. Ferdinand is the child of this second marriage. His father and mother are dead; his only near relative is this half-brother, Paul."

"Write to Paul, then, and find out where Ferdinand is."

"This is a plot, isn't it?" answered Miss Sabrina, smiling. "But I like it; it's so sweet of you to plan for our poor Cicely's happiness."

"You needn't thank me! Then you will write?"

"But I don't know where Mr. Tennant is either.--I dare say Cicely knows."

"But if you ask her, she will suspect something. And if I ask her, it will be worse still! Doesn't anybody in the world know where this Paul Tennant is?" said Eve, irritably.

"I think we heard that it was some place where it is very cold--I remember that. It might have been Canada," suggested Sabrina, reflectively.

"Canada and South America--what a family!" said Eve, in despair.

The wind had risen, the homeward voyage was rough. They reached Romney to find little Jack ill; before morning he was struggling with an attack of croup.

VI.

"Cicely, what did you say to those people, that they stared at us so when they passed?"

"Oh, they asked me if you were the man who went round with the panorama--to explain it, you know. So I told them that you were the celebrated Jessamine family--you and Miss Leontine; and that you were going to give a concert in Gary Hundred to-night; I advised them to go."

"Bless my soul!--the celebrated Jessamine family? What possessed you?"

"Well, they saw the wagon, and they thought it looked like a panorama. They seemed to want something, so I told them that."

Eve broke into a laugh.

But the judge put on his spectacles, and walked round the wagon with indignant step. "It is an infernal color," he declared, angrily.

"Our good Dickson had that paint on hand--he told me about it," explained Miss Leontine. "It was left over"--here she paused. "I don't know what you will think, but I believe it really was left over after a circus--or was it a menagerie? At any rate, the last thing that was exhibited here before the war."

The vehicle in question was a long-bodied, two seated wagon, with a square box behind, which opened at the back like the box of a carrier's cart; its hue was the liveliest pea green.

"Dickson had no business to give it to us; it was a damned impertinence!" said the judge, with a snort.

"Don't spoil your voice, when you've got to sing to-night, grandpa," remarked Cicely. "And you will have to lead out Miss Leontine--who will sing 'Waiting.'"

The judge glanced at Miss Leontine. He could not repress a grin.

But tall Miss Leontine remained amiable, she had never heard of "Waiting." In any case she seldom penetrated jokes; they seemed to her insufficiently explained; often, indeed, abstruse. She was fifty-two, and very maidenly; her bearing, her voice, her expression, were all timidly virginal, as were also the tints of her attire, pale blues and lavenders, and faint green. Her face bore a strong resemblance to the face of a camel; give a camel a pink-and-white complexion, blue eyes, and light-brown hair coming down in flat bands on each side of its long face, and you have Miss Leontine. She was extraordinarily tall--she attained a stature of nearly six feet. Her step, as if conscious of this, was apologetic; her long narrow back leaned forward as though she were trying to reduce her height in front as she came towards one. She wore no crinoline; her head was decked with a large gypsy hat, from which floated a blue tissue veil.

The little party of four--Eve, Cicely, the judge, and Miss Leontine--with Master Jack, had driven from Gary Hundred to Bellington; their hostess, Cousin Sarah Cray, had an old horse, and this wagon had been borrowed from Dickson, the village grainer (who had so mistakenly saved the circus paint); it would be a pleasant excursion in itself, and it would be good for Jack--which last was the principal point with them all.

For the much longer excursion from Abercrombie Island to this inland South Carolina village had been taken on Jack's account; the attack of croup had left him with a harassing cough, a baby's little cough, which is so distressing to the ears of those who love him. Eve had walked about, day and night, carrying him in her arms, his languid head on her shoulder; she could not bear to see how large his eyes looked in his little white face; she did not sleep; she could scarcely speak.

"We might go to Cousin Sarah Cray's for a while, away from the coast," Cicely suggested. She was always present when Eve walked restlessly to and fro; but she did not interfere, she let Eve have the child.

Eve had no idea who or where was Cousin Sarah Cray, but she agreed to anything that would take Jack away from the coast. It was very cold now at Romney; the Sound was dark and rough all the time, the sea boomed, the winds were bitter. They had therefore journeyed inland, Jack and Eve, Cicely and her grandfather, leaving Miss Sabrina to guard the island-home alone.

When they reached Gary Hundred and the softer air, Jack began to revive; Eve too revived, she came back to daily life again. One of the first things she said was: "I ought not to be staying here, Cicely; you must let me go to the hotel; your cousin is not my cousin."

"She's Jack's."

"Do you mean by that that Jack must stay, and if he does, I shall? But it isn't decent; here we have all descended upon her at a moment's notice, and filled up her house, and tramped to and fro. She doesn't appear to be rich."

"We are all as poor as crows, but we always go and stay with each other just the same. As for Cousin Sarah Cray, she loves it. Of course we take her as we find her."

"We do indeed!" was Eve's thought. "It is all very well for you," she went on, aloud. "But I am a stranger."

"Cousin Sarah Cray doesn't think so; she thinks you very near--a sister of her cousin."

"If you count in that way, what families you must have! But why shouldn't we all go to the hotel, and take her with us? There's an idea."

"For one reason, there's no hotel to go to," responded Cicely, laughing.

They continued, therefore, to stay with Cousin Sarah Cray; they had been there ten days, and Jack was so much better that Eve gladly accepted her obligations, for the present. She accepted, too, the makeshifts of the rambling housekeeping. But if the housekeeping was of a wandering order, the welcome did not wander--it remained fixed; there was something beautiful in the boundless affection and hospitality of poverty-stricken Cousin Sarah Cray.

Bellington was a ruin. In the old days it had been the custom of the people of Gary Hundred, and the neighboring plantations, to drive thither now and then to spend an afternoon; the terraces and fish-ponds were still to be seen, together with the remains of the Dutch flower-garden, and the great underground kitchens of the house, which had been built of bricks imported from Holland a hundred and twenty years before. In the corner of one of the fields bordering the river were the earthworks of a Revolutionary fort; in a jungle a quarter of a mile distant there was a deserted church, with high pews, mouldering funeral hatchments, and even the insignia of George the Third in faded gilt over the organ-loft. Bellington House had been destroyed by fire, accidentally, in 1790. Now, when there were in the same neighborhood other houses which had been destroyed by fire, not accidentally, there was less interest in the older ruin. But it still served as an excuse for a drive, and drives were excellent for the young autocrat of the party, to whom all, including Miss Leontine, were shamelessly devoted.

The judge did his duty as guide; he had visited Bellington more times than he could count, but he again led the way (with appropriate discourse) from the fish-ponds to the fort, and from the fort to the church, Miss Leontine, in her floating veil, ambling beside him.

When the sun began to decline they returned to their pea-green wagon. The judge walked round it afresh. Then he turned away, put his head over a bush, and muttered on the other side of it.

"What is he saying?" Eve asked.

"I am afraid 'cuss words,' as the darkies call them," answered Cicely, composedly. "He is without doubt a very desperate old man."

Miss Leontine looked distressed, she made a pretext of gathering some leaves from a bush at a little distance; as she walked away, her skirt caught itself behind at each step upon the tops of her prunella boots, which were of the pattern called "Congress," with their white straps visible.

"She is miserable because I called him that," said Cicely; "she thinks him perfect. Grandpa, I have just called you a desperate old man."

But the judge had resumed his grand manner; he assisted the ladies in climbing to their high seats, and then, mounting to his own place, he guided the horse down the uneven avenue and into the broad road again. The cotton plantations of this neighborhood had suffered almost as much as the rice fields of Romney: they had been flooded so often that much of the land was now worthless, disintegrated and overgrown with lespedeza. They crossed the river (which had done the damage) on--or rather in--a long shaking wooden bridge, covered and nearly dark, and guarding in its dusky recesses a strong odor of the stable. Beyond it the judge had an inspiration: he would go across the fields by one of the old cotton-tracks, thus shortening the distance by more than two miles.

"Because you're ashamed of

'Our pea-green wagon, our wagon of green, Lillibulero, bullen-a-la,'"

chanted Cicely on the back seat.

"Cecilia!" said the judge, with dignity.

Eve sat beside him; courteously he entertained her. "Have you ever reflected, Miss Bruce, upon the very uninteresting condition of the world at present? Everything is known. Where can a gentleman travel now, with the element of the unexpected as a companion? There are positively no lands left unvulgarized save the neighborhood of the Poles."

"Central Africa," Eve suggested.

"Africa? I think I said for gentlemen."

"You turbulent old despot, curb yourself," said Cicely, _sotto voce_.

"In the old days, Miss Bruce," the judge went on, "we had Arabia, we had Thibet, we had Cham-Tartary; we could arrive on camels at Erzerum. Hey! what are you about there, boy? Turn out!"

"Turn out yourself."