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Rex Stout - "Under the Andes"

Anthony Hope - "Rupert of Hentzau"

Basil Hall Chamberlain - "The Invention of a New Religion"

Earl Derr Biggers - "The Agony Column"

The House Behind The Cedars

C >> Charles W. Chesnutt >> The House Behind The Cedars




Warwick and his sister, standing under a spreading
elm, held a little court of their own. A dozen
gentlemen and several ladies had sought an
introduction before Tryon came up.

"I suppose John would have a right to call me
out, Miss Warwick," said Tryon, when he had been
formally introduced and had shaken hands with
Warwick's sister, "for taking liberties with the
property and name of a lady to whom I had not
had an introduction; but I know John so well
that you seemed like an old acquaintance; and
when I saw you, and recalled your name, which
your brother had mentioned more than once, I felt
instinctively that you ought to be the queen. I
entered my name only yesterday, merely to swell
the number and make the occasion more interesting.
These fellows have been practicing for a
month, and I had no hope of winning. I should
have been satisfied, indeed, if I hadn't made
myself ridiculous; but when you dropped your
handkerchief, I felt a sudden inspiration; and as soon
as I had tied it upon my lance, victory perched
upon my saddle-bow, guided my lance and sword,
and rings and balls went down before me like chaff
before the wind. Oh, it was a great inspiration,
Miss Warwick!"

Rena, for it was our Patesville acquaintance fresh
from boarding-school, colored deeply at this frank
and fervid flattery, and could only murmur an
inarticulate reply. Her year of instruction, while
distinctly improving her mind and manners, had
scarcely prepared her for so sudden an elevation
into a grade of society to which she had hitherto
been a stranger. She was not without a certain
courage, however, and her brother, who remained
at her side, helped her over the most difficult
situations.

"We'll forgive you, George," replied Warwick,
"if you'll come home to luncheon with us."

"I'm mighty sorry--awfully sorry," returned
Tryon, with evident regret, "but I have another
engagement, which I can scarcely break, even by
the command of royalty. At what time shall I
call for Miss Warwick this evening? I believe that
privilege is mine, along with the other honors and
rewards of victory,--unless she is bound to some
one else."

"She is entirely free," replied Warwick. "Come
as early as you like, and I'll talk to you until she's
ready."

Tryon bowed himself away, and after a number
of gentlemen and a few ladies had paid their
respects to the Queen of Love and Beauty, and
received an introduction to her, Warwick signaled
to the servant who had his carriage in charge, and
was soon driving homeward with his sister. No one
of the party noticed a young negro, with a
handkerchief bound around his head, who followed them
until the carriage turned into the gate and swept
up the wide drive that led to Warwick's doorstep.

"Well, Rena," said Warwick, when they found
themselves alone, "you have arrived. Your debut
into society is a little more spectacular than I should
have wished, but we must rise to the occasion
and make the most of it. You are winning the
first fruits of your opportunity. You are the most
envied woman in Clarence at this particular moment,
and, unless I am mistaken, will be the most
admired at the ball to-night."



VI

THE QUEEN OF LOVE AND BEAUTY


Shortly after luncheon, Rena had a visitor in
the person of Mrs. Newberry, a vivacious young
widow of the town, who proffered her services to
instruct Rena in the etiquette of the annual ball.

"Now, my dear," said Mrs. Newberry, "the
first thing to do is to get your coronation robe
ready. It simply means a gown with a long train.
You have a lovely white waist. Get right into my
buggy, and we'll go down town to get the cloth,
take it over to Mrs. Marshall's, and have her run
you up a skirt this afternoon."

Rena placed herself unreservedly in the hands
of Mrs. Newberry, who introduced her to the best
dressmaker of the town, a woman of much experience
in such affairs, who improvised during the
afternoon a gown suited to the occasion. Mrs.
Marshall had made more than a dozen ball dresses
during the preceding month; being a wise woman
and understanding her business thoroughly, she
had made each one of them so that with a few
additional touches it might serve for the Queen of
Love and Beauty. This was her first direct order
for the specific garment.

Tryon escorted Rena to the ball, which was
held in the principal public hall of the town, and
attended by all the best people. The champion
still wore the costume of the morning, in place
of evening dress, save that long stockings and
dancing-pumps had taken the place of riding-boots.
Rena went through the ordeal very creditably.
Her shyness was palpable, but it was saved from
awkwardness by her native grace and good sense.
She made up in modesty what she lacked in
aplomb. Her months in school had not eradicated
a certain self-consciousness born of her secret.
The brain-cells never lose the impressions of youth,
and Rena's Patesville life was not far enough
removed to have lost its distinctness of outline.
Of the two, the present was more of a dream,
the past was the more vivid reality. At school she
had learned something from books and not a little
from observation. She had been able to compare
herself with other girls, and to see wherein she
excelled or fell short of them. With a sincere desire
for improvement, and a wish to please her brother
and do him credit, she had sought to make the
most of her opportunities. Building upon a
foundation of innate taste and intelligence, she had
acquired much of the self-possession which comes
from a knowledge of correct standards of deportment.
She had moreover learned without difficulty,
for it suited her disposition, to keep silence
when she could not speak to advantage. A certain
necessary reticence about the past added strength
to a natural reserve. Thus equipped, she held her
own very well in the somewhat trying ordeal of
the ball, at which the fiction of queenship and the
attendant ceremonies, which were pretty and graceful,
made her the most conspicuous figure. Few
of those who watched her move with easy grace
through the measures of the dance could have
guessed how nearly her heart was in her mouth
during much of the time.

"You're doing splendidly, my dear," said Mrs.
Newberry, who had constituted herself Rena's
chaperone.

"I trust your Gracious Majesty is pleased with
the homage of your devoted subjects," said Tryon,
who spent much of his time by her side and kept
up the character of knight in his speech and
manner.

"Very much," replied the Queen of Love and
Beauty, with a somewhat tired smile. It was
pleasant, but she would be glad, she thought, when
it was all over.

"Keep up your courage," whispered her brother.
"You are not only queen, but the belle of the
ball. I am proud of you. A dozen women here
would give a year off the latter end of life to be
in your shoes to-night."

Rena felt immensely relieved when the hour
arrived at which she could take her departure, which
was to be the signal for the breaking-up of the
ball. She was driven home in Tryon's carriage,
her brother accompanying them. The night was
warm, and the drive homeward under the starlight,
in the open carriage, had a soothing effect upon
Rena's excited nerves. The calm restfulness of
the night, the cool blue depths of the unclouded
sky, the solemn croaking of the frogs in a distant
swamp, were much more in harmony with her
nature than the crowded brilliancy of the ball-room.
She closed her eyes, and, leaning back in the carriage,
thought of her mother, who she wished might
have seen her daughter this night. A momentary
pang of homesickness pierced her tender heart,
and she furtively wiped away the tears that came
into her eyes.

"Good-night, fair Queen!" exclaimed Tryon,
breaking into her reverie as the carriage rolled up
to the doorstep, "and let your loyal subject kiss
your hand in token of his fealty. May your
Majesty never abdicate her throne, and may she
ever count me her humble servant and devoted
knight."

"And now, sister," said Warwick, when Tryon
had been driven away, "now that the masquerade
is over, let us to sleep, and to-morrow take up the
serious business of life. Your day has been a
glorious success!"

He put his arm around her and gave her a kiss
and a brotherly hug.

"It is a dream," she murmured sleepily, "only
a dream. I am Cinderella before the clock has
struck. Good-night, dear John."

"Good-night, Rowena."



VII


'MID NEW SURROUNDINGS


Warwick's residence was situated in the
outskirts of the town. It was a fine old plantation
house, built in colonial times, with a stately colonnade,
wide verandas, and long windows with Venetian
blinds. It was painted white, and stood
back several rods from the street, in a charming
setting of palmettoes, magnolias, and flowering
shrubs. Rena had always thought her mother's
house large, but now it seemed cramped and narrow,
in comparison with this roomy mansion. The
furniture was old-fashioned and massive. The
great brass andirons on the wide hearth stood like
sentinels proclaiming and guarding the dignity of
the family. The spreading antlers on the wall
testified to a mighty hunter in some past generation.
The portraits of Warwick's wife's ancestors--
high featured, proud men and women, dressed in
the fashions of a bygone age--looked down from
tarnished gilt frames. It was all very novel to
her, and very impressive. When she ate off
china, with silver knives and forks that had come
down as heirlooms, escaping somehow the ravages
and exigencies of the war time,--Warwick told
her afterwards how he had buried them out of
reach of friend or foe,--she thought that her
brother must be wealthy, and she felt very proud
of him and of her opportunity. The servants, of
whom there were several in the house, treated her
with a deference to which her eight months in
school had only partly accustomed her. At school
she had been one of many to be served, and had
herself been held to obedience. Here, for the first
time in her life, she was mistress, and tasted the
sweets of power.

The household consisted of her brother and
herself, a cook, a coachman, a nurse, and her
brother's little son Albert. The child, with a fine
instinct, had put out his puny arms to Rena at first
sight, and she had clasped the little man to her
bosom with a motherly caress. She had always
loved weak creatures. Kittens and puppies had
ever found a welcome and a meal at Rena's hands,
only to be chased away by Mis' Molly, who had
had a wider experience. No shiftless poor white,
no half-witted or hungry negro, had ever gone
unfed from Mis' Molly's kitchen door if Rena
were there to hear his plaint. Little Albert was
pale and sickly when she came, but soon bloomed
again in the sunshine of her care, and was happy
only in her presence. Warwick found pleasure in
their growing love for each other, and was glad
to perceive that the child formed a living link to
connect her with his home.

"Dat chile sutt'nly do lub Miss Rena, an'
dat's a fac', sho 's you bawn," remarked 'Lissa the
cook to Mimy the nurse one day. "You'll get
yo' nose put out er j'int, ef you don't min'."

"I ain't frettin', honey," laughed the nurse
good-naturedly. She was not at all jealous. She
had the same wages as before, and her labors were
materially lightened by the aunt's attention to the
child. This gave Mimy much more time to flirt
with Tom the coachman.

It was a source of much gratification to Warwick
that his sister seemed to adapt herself so
easily to the new conditions. Her graceful
movements, the quiet elegance with which she wore
even the simplest gown, the easy authoritativeness
with which she directed the servants, were to him
proofs of superior quality, and he felt correspondingly
proud of her. His feeling for her was something
more than brotherly love,--he was quite
conscious that there were degrees in brotherly
love, and that if she had been homely or stupid,
he would never have disturbed her in the stagnant
life of the house behind the cedars. There had
come to him from some source, down the stream
of time, a rill of the Greek sense of proportion, of
fitness, of beauty, which is indeed but proportion
embodied, the perfect adaptation of means to
ends. He had perceived, more clearly than she
could have appreciated it at that time, the
undeveloped elements of discord between Rena and her
former life. He had imagined her lending grace
and charm to his own household. Still another
motive, a purely psychological one, had more or
less consciously influenced him. He had no fear
that the family secret would ever be discovered,--
he had taken his precautions too thoroughly, he
thought, for that; and yet he could not but feel,
at times, that if peradventure--it was a conceivable
hypothesis--it should become known, his
fine social position would collapse like a house of
cards. Because of this knowledge, which the
world around him did not possess, he had felt now
and then a certain sense of loneliness; and there
was a measure of relief in having about him
one who knew his past, and yet whose knowledge,
because of their common interest, would not
interfere with his present or jeopardize his future.
For he had always been, in a figurative sense, a
naturalized foreigner in the world of wide
opportunity, and Rena was one of his old compatriots,
whom he was glad to welcome into the populous
loneliness of his adopted country.



VIII

THE COURTSHIP


In a few weeks the echoes of the tournament
died away, and Rena's life settled down into a
pleasant routine, which she found much more
comfortable than her recent spectacular prominence.
Her queenship, while not entirely forgiven
by the ladies of the town, had gained for
her a temporary social prominence. Among her
own sex, Mrs. Newberry proved a warm and
enthusiastic friend. Rumor whispered that the
lively young widow would not be unwilling to
console Warwick in the loneliness of the old
colonial mansion, to which his sister was a most
excellent medium of approach. Whether this was
true or not it is unnecessary to inquire, for it is
no part of this story, except as perhaps indicating
why Mrs. Newberry played the part of the
female friend, without whom no woman is ever
launched successfully in a small and conservative
society. Her brother's standing gave her the
right of social entry; the tournament opened wide
the door, and Mrs. Newberry performed the ceremony
of introduction. Rena had many visitors
during the month following the tournament, and
might have made her choice from among a dozen
suitors; but among them all, her knight of the
handkerchief found most favor.


George Tryon had come to Clarence a few
months before upon business connected with the
settlement of his grandfather's estate. A rather
complicated litigation had grown up around the
affair, various phases of which had kept Tryon
almost constantly in the town. He had placed
matters in Warwick's hands, and had formed a
decided friendship for his attorney, for whom
he felt a frank admiration. Tryon was only
twenty-three, and his friend's additional five years,
supplemented by a certain professional gravity,
commanded a great deal of respect from the
younger man. When Tryon had known Warwick
for a week, he had been ready to swear by
him. Indeed, Warwick was a man for whom
most people formed a liking at first sight. To
this power of attraction he owed most of his
success--first with Judge Straight, of Patesville,
then with the lawyer whose office he had entered
at Clarence, with the woman who became his
wife, and with the clients for whom he transacted
business. Tryon would have maintained
against all comers that Warwick was the finest
fellow in the world. When he met Warwick's
sister, the foundation for admiration had
already been laid. If Rena had proved to be a
maiden lady of uncertain age and doubtful personal
attractiveness, Tryon would probably have
found in her a most excellent lady, worthy of all
respect and esteem, and would have treated her
with profound deference and sedulous courtesy.
When she proved to be a young and handsome
woman, of the type that he admired most, he
was capable of any degree of infatuation. His
mother had for a long time wanted him to marry
the orphan daughter of an old friend, a vivacious
blonde, who worshiped him. He had felt friendly
towards her, but had shrunk from matrimony.
He did not want her badly enough to give up his
freedom. The war had interfered with his
education, and though fairly well instructed, he had
never attended college. In his own opinion, he
ought to see something of the world, and have his
youthful fling. Later on, when he got ready to
settle down, if Blanche were still in the humor,
they might marry, and sink to the humdrum
level of other old married people. The fact that
Blanche Leary was visiting his mother during his
unexpectedly long absence had not operated at
all to hasten his return to North Carolina. He
had been having a very good time at Clarence,
and, at the distance of several hundred miles, was
safe for the time being from any immediate danger
of marriage.

With Rena's advent, however, he had seen life
through different glasses. His heart had thrilled
at first sight of this tall girl, with the ivory
complexion, the rippling brown hair, and the
inscrutable eyes. When he became better acquainted
with her, he liked to think that her thoughts
centred mainly in himself; and in this he was not
far wrong. He discovered that she had a short
upper lip, and what seemed to him an eminently
kissable mouth. After he had dined twice at
Warwick's, subsequently to the tournament,--his
lucky choice of Rena had put him at once upon
a household footing with the family,--his views
of marriage changed entirely. It now seemed to
him the duty, as well as the high and holy privilege
of a young man, to marry and manfully to
pay his debt to society. When in Rena's presence,
he could not imagine how he had ever contemplated
the possibility of marriage with Blanche
Leary,--she was utterly, entirely, and hopelessly
unsuited to him. For a fair man of vivacious
temperament, this stately dark girl was the ideal
mate. Even his mother would admit this, if she
could only see Rena. To win this beautiful
girl for his wife would be a worthy task. He had
crowned her Queen of Love and Beauty; since
then she had ascended the throne of his heart.
He would make her queen of his home and mistress
of his life.

To Rena this brief month's courtship came as a
new education. Not only had this fair young man
crowned her queen, and honored her above all
the ladies in town; but since then he had waited
assiduously upon her, had spoken softly to her, had
looked at her with shining eyes, and had sought to
be alone with her. The time soon came when to
touch his hand in greeting sent a thrill through her
frame,--a time when she listened for his footstep
and was happy in his presence. He had been bold
enough at the tournament; he had since become
somewhat bashful and constrained. He must be in
love, she thought, and wondered how soon he would
speak. If it were so sweet to walk with him in the
garden, or along the shaded streets, to sit with him,
to feel the touch of his hand, what happiness would
it not be to hear him say that he loved her--to
bear his name, to live with him always. To be thus
loved and honored by this handsome young man,
--she could hardly believe it possible. He would
never speak--he would discover her secret and
withdraw. She turned pale at the thought,--ah,
God! something would happen,--it was too good
to be true. The Prince would never try on the
glass slipper.

Tryon first told his love for Rena one summer
evening on their way home from church. They
were walking in the moonlight along the quiet street,
which, but for their presence, seemed quite deserted.

"Miss Warwick--Rowena," he said, clasping
with his right hand the hand that rested on his left
arm, "I love you! Do you--love me?"

To Rena this simple avowal came with much
greater force than a more formal declaration could
have had. It appealed to her own simple nature.
Indeed, few women at such a moment criticise the
form in which the most fateful words of life--but
one--are spoken. Words, while pleasant, are
really superfluous. Her whispered "Yes" spoke
volumes.

They walked on past the house, along the country
road into which the street soon merged. When
they returned, an hour later, they found Warwick
seated on the piazza, in a rocking-chair, smoking a
fragrant cigar.

"Well, children," he observed with mock severity,
"you are late in getting home from church. The
sermon must have been extremely long."

"We have been attending an after-meeting,"
replied Tryon joyfully, "and have been discussing
an old text, `Little children, love one another,'
and its corollary, `It is not good for man to live
alone.' John, I am the happiest man alive. Your
sister has promised to marry me. I should like to
shake my brother's hand."

Never does one feel so strongly the universal
brotherhood of man as when one loves some other
fellow's sister. Warwick sprang from his chair and
clasped Tryon's extended hand with real emotion.
He knew of no man whom he would have preferred
to Tryon as a husband for his sister.

"My dear George--my dear sister," he
exclaimed, "I am very, very glad. I wish you
every happiness. My sister is the most fortunate
of women."

"And I am the luckiest of men," cried Tryon.

"I wish you every happiness," repeated Warwick;
adding, with a touch of solemnity, as a certain
thought, never far distant, occurred to him,
"I hope that neither of you may ever regret your
choice."

Thus placed upon the footing of an accepted
lover, Tryon's visits to the house became more
frequent. He wished to fix a time for the marriage,
but at this point Rena developed a strange reluctance.

"Can we not love each other for a while?" she
asked. "To be engaged is a pleasure that comes
but once; it would be a pity to cut it too short."

"It is a pleasure that I would cheerfully dispense
with," he replied, "for the certainty of possession.
I want you all to myself, and all the time. Things
might happen. If I should die, for instance, before
I married you"--

"Oh, don't suppose such awful things," she
cried, putting her hand over his mouth.

He held it there and kissed it until she pulled it
away.

"I should consider," he resumed, completing the
sentence, "that my life had been a failure."

"If I should die," she murmured, "I should die
happy in the knowledge that you had loved me."

"In three weeks," he went on, "I shall have
finished my business in Clarence, and there will be
but one thing to keep me here. When shall it be?
I must take you home with me."

"I will let you know," she replied, with a troubled
sigh, "in a week from to-day."

"I'll call your attention to the subject every day
in the mean time," he asserted. "I shouldn't like
you to forget it."

Rena's shrinking from the irrevocable step of
marriage was due to a simple and yet complex
cause. Stated baldly, it was the consciousness of
her secret; the complexity arose out of the various
ways in which it seemed to bear upon her
future. Our lives are so bound up with those of
our fellow men that the slightest departure from
the beaten path involves a multiplicity of small
adjustments. It had not been difficult for Rena
to conform her speech, her manners, and in a
measure her modes of thought, to those of the
people around her; but when this readjustment
went beyond mere externals and concerned the
vital issues of life, the secret that oppressed her
took on a more serious aspect, with tragic possibilities.
A discursive imagination was not one of her
characteristics, or the danger of a marriage of
which perfect frankness was not a condition might
well have presented itself before her heart had
become involved. Under the influence of doubt and
fear acting upon love, the invisible bar to
happiness glowed with a lambent flame that threatened
dire disaster.

"Would he have loved me at all," she asked
herself, "if he had known the story of my past?
Or, having loved me, could he blame me now for
what I cannot help?"

There were two shoals in the channel of her life,
upon either of which her happiness might go
to shipwreck. Since leaving the house behind the
cedars, where she had been brought into the
world without her own knowledge or consent, and
had first drawn the breath of life by the
involuntary contraction of certain muscles, Rena had
learned, in a short time, many things; but she
was yet to learn that the innocent suffer with the
guilty, and feel the punishment the more keenly
because unmerited. She had yet to learn that the
old Mosaic formula, "The sins of the fathers
shall be visited upon the children," was graven
more indelibly upon the heart of the race than
upon the tables of Sinai.

But would her lover still love her, if he knew
all? She had read some of the novels in the
bookcase in her mother's hall, and others at boarding-
school. She had read that love was a conqueror,
that neither life nor death, nor creed nor
caste, could stay his triumphant course. Her secret
was no legal bar to their union. If Rena could
forget the secret, and Tryon should never know it,
it would be no obstacle to their happiness. But
Rena felt, with a sinking of the heart, that happiness
was not a matter of law or of fact, but lay
entirely within the domain of sentiment. We are
happy when we think ourselves happy, and with a
strange perversity we often differ from others with
regard to what should constitute our happiness.
Rena's secret was the worm in the bud, the skeleton
in the closet.

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