A	>>	B	>>	C	>>	D	>>	E
F	>>	G	>>	H	>>	I	>>	J
K	>>	L	>>	M	>>	N	>>	O
P	>>	R	>>	S	>>	T	>>	U
V	>>	W	>>			X	>>	Z

Rebecca Harding Davis - "Life in the Iron Mills"

L. Frank Baum - "The Life and Adventures of Santa Claus"

Zane Grey - ""

Christoph Martin Wieland - "Geschichte des Agathon, Teil 2"

The House Behind The Cedars

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




The front of Dr. Green's spacious brick house,
which occupied an ideally picturesque site, was
overgrown by a network of clinging vines,
contrasting most agreeably with the mellow red
background. A low brick wall, also overrun with
creepers, separated the premises from the street
and shut in a well-kept flower garden, in which
Tryon, who knew something of plants, noticed
many rare and beautiful specimens.

Mrs. Green greeted Tryon cordially. He did
not have the doctor's memory with which to fill out
the lady's cheeks or restore the lustre of her hair
or the sparkle of her eyes, and thereby justify her
husband's claim to be a judge of beauty; but her
kind-hearted hospitality was obvious, and might
have made even a plain woman seem handsome.
She and her two fair daughters, to whom Tryon
was duly presented, looked with much favor upon
their handsome young kinsman; for among the
people of Patesville, perhaps by virtue of the
prevalence of Scottish blood, the ties of blood were
cherished as things of value, and never forgotten
except in case of the unworthy--an exception, by
the way, which one need hardly go so far to seek.

The Patesville people were not exceptional in
the weaknesses and meannesses which are common
to all mankind, but for some of the finer social
qualities they were conspicuously above the average.
Kindness, hospitality, loyalty, a chivalrous
deference to women,--all these things might be
found in large measure by those who saw Patesville
with the eyes of its best citizens, and accepted
their standards of politics, religion, manners, and
morals.

The doctor, after the introductions, excused
himself for a moment. Mrs. Green soon left
Tryon with the young ladies and went to look
after luncheon. Her first errand, however, was
to find the doctor.

"Is he well off, Ed?" she asked her husband.

"Lots of land, and plenty of money, if he is
ever able to collect it. He has inherited two
estates."

"He's a good-looking fellow," she mused. "Is
he married?"

"There you go again," replied her husband,
shaking his forefinger at her in mock reproach.
"To a woman with marriageable daughters all
roads lead to matrimony, the centre of a woman's
universe. All men must be sized up by their
matrimonial availability. No, he isn't married."

"That's nice," she rejoined reflectively. "I
think we ought to ask him to stay with us while he
is in town, don't you?"

"He's not married," rejoined the doctor slyly,
"but the next best thing--he's engaged."

"Come to think of it," said the lady, "I'm
afraid we wouldn't have the room to spare, and
the girls would hardly have time to entertain him.
But we'll have him up several times. I like his
looks. I wish you had sent me word he was coming;
I'd have had a better luncheon."

"Make him a salad," rejoined the doctor, "and
get out a bottle of the best claret. Thank God,
the Yankees didn't get into my wine cellar! The
young man must be treated with genuine Southern
hospitality,--even if he were a Mormon and married
ten times over."

"Indeed, he would not, Ed,--the idea! I'm
ashamed of you. Hurry back to the parlor and
talk to him. The girls may want to primp a little
before luncheon; we don't have a young man
every day."

"Beauty unadorned," replied the doctor, "is
adorned the most. My profession qualifies me to
speak upon the subject. They are the two handsomest
young women in Patesville, and the daughters
of the most beautiful"--

"Don't you dare to say the word," interrupted
Mrs. Green, with placid good nature. "I shall
never grow old while I am living with a big boy
like you. But I must go and make the salad."

At dinner the conversation ran on the family
connections and their varying fortunes in the late
war. Some had died upon the battlefield, and
slept in unknown graves; some had been financially
ruined by their faith in the "lost cause,"
having invested their all in the securities of the
Confederate Government. Few had anything left
but land, and land without slaves to work it was a
drug in the market.

"I was offered a thousand acres, the other day,
at twenty-five cents an acre," remarked the doctor.
"The owner is so land-poor that he can't
pay the taxes. They have taken our negroes and
our liberties. It may be better for our grandchildren
that the negroes are free, but it's confoundedly
hard on us to take them without paying
for them. They may exalt our slaves over us
temporarily, but they have not broken our spirit,
and cannot take away our superiority of blood and
breeding. In time we shall regain control. The
negro is an inferior creature; God has marked
him with the badge of servitude, and has adjusted
his intellect to a servile condition. We will not
long submit to his domination. I give you a
toast, sir: The Anglo-Saxon race: may it remain
forever, as now, the head and front of creation,
never yielding its rights, and ready always to die,
if need be, in defense of its liberties!"

"With all my heart, sir," replied Tryon, who
felt in this company a thrill of that pleasure which
accompanies conscious superiority,--"with all my
heart, sir, if the ladies will permit me."

"We will join you," they replied. The toast
was drunk with great enthusiasm.

"And now, my dear George," exclaimed the
doctor, "to change one good subject for another,
tell us who is the favored lady?"

"A Miss Rowena Warwick, sir," replied Tryon,
vividly conscious of four pairs of eyes fixed upon
him, but, apart from the momentary embarrassment,
welcoming the subject as the one he would
most like to speak upon.

"A good, strong old English name," observed
the doctor.

"The heroine of `Ivanhoe'!" exclaimed Miss
Harriet.

"Warwick the Kingmaker!" said Miss Mary.
"Is she tall and fair, and dignified and stately?"

"She is tall, dark rather than fair, and full of
tender grace and sweet humility."

"She should have been named Rebecca instead
of Rowena," rejoined Miss Mary, who was well up
in her Scott.

"Tell us something about her people," asked
Mrs. Green,--to which inquiry the young ladies
looked assent.

In this meeting of the elect of his own class and
kin Warwick felt a certain strong illumination
upon the value of birth and blood. Finding Rena
among people of the best social standing, the
subsequent intimation that she was a girl of no family
had seemed a small matter to one so much in love.
Nevertheless, in his present company he felt a
decided satisfaction in being able to present for his
future wife a clean bill of social health.

"Her brother is the most prominent lawyer of
Clarence. They live in a fine old family mansion,
and are among the best people of the town."

"Quite right, my boy," assented the doctor.
"None but the best are good enough for the best.
You must bring her to Patesville some day. But
bless my life!" he exclaimed, looking at his
watch, "I must be going. Will you stay with the
ladies awhile, or go back down town with me?"

"I think I had better go with you, sir. I shall
have to see Judge Straight."

"Very well. But you must come back to supper,
and we'll have a few friends in to meet you.
You must see some of the best people."

The doctor's buggy was waiting at the gate.
As they were passing the hotel on their drive
down town, the clerk came out to the curbstone
and called to the doctor.

"There's a man here, doctor, who's been taken
suddenly ill. Can you come in a minute?"

"I suppose I'll have to. Will you wait for
me here, George, or will you drive down to the
office? I can walk the rest of the way."

"I think I'll wait here, doctor," answered
Tryon. "I'll step up to my room a moment. I'll
be back by the time you're ready."

It was while they were standing before the hotel,
before alighting from the buggy, that Frank
Fowler, passing on his cart, saw Tryon and set out
as fast as he could to warn Mis' Molly and her
daughter of his presence in the town.

Tryon went up to his room, returned after a
while, and resumed his seat in the buggy, where
he waited fifteen minutes longer before the doctor
was ready. When they drew up in front of the
office, the doctor's man Dave was standing in the
doorway, looking up the street with an anxious
expression, as though struggling hard to keep
something upon his mind.

"Anything wanted, Dave?" asked the doctor.

"Dat young 'oman's be'n heah ag'in, suh, an'
wants ter see you bad. She's in de drugstore dere
now, suh. Bless Gawd!" he added to himself
fervently, "I 'membered dat. Dis yer recommemb'ance
er mine is gwine ter git me inter trouble ef
I don' look out, an' dat's a fac', sho'."

The doctor sprang from the buggy with an
agility remarkable in a man of sixty. "Just keep
your seat, George," he said to Tryon, "until I
have spoken to the young woman, and then we'll
go across to Straight's. Or, if you'll drive along
a little farther, you can see the girl through the
window. She's worth the trouble, if you like a
pretty face."

Tryon liked one pretty face; moreover, tinted
beauty had never appealed to him. More to show
a proper regard for what interested the doctor than
from any curiosity of his own, he drove forward a
few feet, until the side of the buggy was opposite
the drugstore window, and then looked in.

Between the colored glass bottles in the window
he could see a young woman, a tall and slender girl,
like a lily on its stem. She stood talking with the
doctor, who held his hat in his hand with as much
deference as though she were the proudest dame
in town. Her face was partly turned away from
the window, but as Tryon's eye fell upon her, he
gave a great start. Surely, no two women could be
so much alike. The height, the graceful droop of the
shoulders, the swan-like poise of the head, the well-
turned little ear,--surely, no two women could
have them all identical! But, pshaw! the notion
was absurd, it was merely the reflex influence of
his morning's dream.

She moved slightly; it was Rena's movement.
Surely he knew the gown, and the style of hair-
dressing! She rested her hand lightly on the
back of a chair. The ring that glittered on her
finger could be none other than his own.

The doctor bowed. The girl nodded in response,
and, turning, left the store. Tryon leaned forward
from the buggy-seat and kept his eye fixed on the
figure that moved across the floor of the drugstore.
As she came out, she turned her face casually
toward the buggy, and there could no longer be
any doubt as to her identity.

When Rena's eyes fell upon the young man in
the buggy, she saw a face as pale as death, with
starting eyes, in which love, which once had
reigned there, had now given place to astonishment
and horror. She stood a moment as if turned to
stone. One appealing glance she gave,--a look
that might have softened adamant. When she
saw that it brought no answering sign of love or
sorrow or regret, the color faded from her cheek,
the light from her eye, and she fell fainting to the
ground.



XVI

THE BOTTOM FALLS OUT


The first effect of Tryon's discovery was,
figuratively speaking, to knock the bottom out of things
for him. It was much as if a boat on which he
had been floating smoothly down the stream of
pleasure had sunk suddenly and left him struggling
in deep waters. The full realization of the truth,
which followed speedily, had for the moment reversed
his mental attitude toward her, and love
and yearning had given place to anger and
disgust. His agitation could hardly have escaped
notice had not the doctor's attention, and that of
the crowd that quickly gathered, been absorbed by
the young woman who had fallen. During the
time occupied in carrying her into the drugstore,
restoring her to consciousness, and sending her
home in a carriage, Tryon had time to recover in
some degree his self-possession. When Rena had
been taken home, he slipped away for a long walk,
after which he called at Judge Straight's office and
received the judge's report upon the matter
presented. Judge Straight had found the claim, in
his opinion, a good one; he had discovered property
from which, in case the claim were allowed,
the amount might be realized. The judge, who had
already been informed of the incident at the drugstore,
observed Tryon's preoccupation and guessed
shrewdly at its cause, but gave no sign. Tryon
left the matter of the note unreservedly in the
lawyer's hands, with instructions to communicate
to him any further developments.

Returning to the doctor's office, Tryon listened
to that genial gentleman's comments on the accident,
his own concern in which he, by a great effort,
was able to conceal. The doctor insisted upon his
returning to the Hill for supper. Tryon pleaded
illness. The doctor was solicitous, felt his pulse,
examined his tongue, pronounced him feverish, and
prescribed a sedative. Tryon sought refuge in his
room at the hotel, from which he did not emerge
again until morning.

His emotions were varied and stormy. At first
he could see nothing but the fraud of which he had
been made the victim. A negro girl had been
foisted upon him for a white woman, and he had
almost committed the unpardonable sin against his
race of marrying her. Such a step, he felt, would
have been criminal at any time; it would have
been the most odious treachery at this epoch, when
his people had been subjugated and humiliated by
the Northern invaders, who had preached negro
equality and abolished the wholesome laws decreeing
the separation of the races. But no Southerner
who loved his poor, downtrodden country, or
his race, the proud Anglo-Saxon race which traced
the clear stream of its blood to the cavaliers of
England, could tolerate the idea that even in distant
generations that unsullied current could be
polluted by the blood of slaves. The very thought
was an insult to the white people of the South.
For Tryon's liberality, of which he had spoken so
nobly and so sincerely, had been confined unconsciously,
and as a matter of course, within the boundaries
of his own race. The Southern mind, in
discussing abstract questions relative to humanity,
makes always, consciously or unconsciously, the
mental reservation that the conclusions reached do
not apply to the negro, unless they can be made to
harmonize with the customs of the country.

But reasoning thus was not without effect upon
a mind by nature reasonable above the average.
Tryon's race impulse and social prejudice had
carried him too far, and the swing of the mental
pendulum brought his thoughts rapidly back in
the opposite direction. Tossing uneasily on the
bed, where he had thrown himself down without
undressing, the air of the room oppressed him, and
he threw open the window. The cool night air
calmed his throbbing pulses. The moonlight,
streaming through the window, flooded the room
with a soft light, in which he seemed to see Rena
standing before him, as she had appeared that
afternoon, gazing at him with eyes that implored
charity and forgiveness. He burst into tears,--
bitter tears, that strained his heartstrings. He
was only a youth. She was his first love, and he
had lost her forever. She was worse than dead
to him; for if he had seen her lying in her shroud
before him, he could at least have cherished her
memory; now, even this consolation was denied
him.

The town clock--which so long as it was wound
up regularly recked nothing of love or hate, joy or
sorrow--solemnly tolled out the hour of midnight
and sounded the knell of his lost love. Lost she
was, as though she had never been, as she had
indeed had no right to be. He resolutely determined
to banish her image from his mind. See
her again he could not; it would be painful to
them both; it could be productive of no good to
either. He had felt the power and charm of love,
and no ordinary shook could have loosened its
hold; but this catastrophe, which had so rudely
swept away the groundwork of his passion, had
stirred into new life all the slumbering pride of
race and ancestry which characterized his caste.
How much of this sensitive superiority was essential
and how much accidental; how much of it
was due to the ever-suggested comparison with a
servile race; how much of it was ignorance and
self-conceit; to what extent the boasted purity of
his race would have been contaminated by the fair
woman whose image filled his memory,--of these
things he never thought. He was not influenced
by sordid considerations; he would have denied
that his course was controlled by any narrow
prudence. If Rena had been white, pure white (for
in his creed there was no compromise), he would
have braved any danger for her sake. Had she
been merely of illegitimate birth, he would have
overlooked the bar sinister. Had her people
been simply poor and of low estate, he would have
brushed aside mere worldly considerations, and
would have bravely sacrificed convention for love;
for his liberality was not a mere form of words.
But the one objection which he could not overlook
was, unhappily, the one that applied to the only
woman who had as yet moved his heart. He tried
to be angry with her, but after the first hour he
found it impossible. He was a man of too much
imagination not to be able to put himself, in some
measure at least, in her place,--to perceive that for
her the step which had placed her in Tryon's world
was the working out of nature's great law of self-
preservation, for which he could not blame her.
But for the sheerest accident,--no, rather, but for
a providential interference,--he would have married
her, and might have gone to the grave unconscious
that she was other than she seemed.

The clock struck the hour of two. With a
shiver he closed the window, undressed by the
moonlight, drew down the shade, and went to bed.
He fell into an unquiet slumber, and dreamed
again of Rena. He must learn to control his
waking thoughts; his dreams could not be curbed.
In that realm Rena's image was for many a day
to remain supreme. He dreamed of her sweet
smile, her soft touch, her gentle voice. In all her
fair young beauty she stood before him, and then
by some hellish magic she was slowly transformed
into a hideous black hag. With agonized eyes he
watched her beautiful tresses become mere wisps
of coarse wool, wrapped round with dingy cotton
strings; he saw her clear eyes grow bloodshot,
her ivory teeth turn to unwholesome fangs. With
a shudder he awoke, to find the cold gray dawn
of a rainy day stealing through the window.

He rose, dressed himself, went down to
breakfast, then entered the writing-room and penned a
letter which, after reading it over, he tore into
small pieces and threw into the waste basket. A
second shared the same fate. Giving up the task,
he left the hotel and walked down to Dr. Green's
office.

"Is the doctor in?" he asked of the colored
attendant.

"No, suh," replied the man; "he's gone ter see
de young cullud gal w'at fainted w'en de doctah
was wid you yistiddy."

Tryon sat down at the doctor's desk and hastily
scrawled a note, stating that business compelled
his immediate departure. He thanked the doctor
for courtesies extended, and left his regards for
the ladies. Returning. to the hotel, he paid his
bill and took a hack for the wharf, from which a
boat was due to leave at nine o'clock.

As the hack drove down Front Street, Tryon
noted idly the houses that lined the street. When
he reached the sordid district in the lower part of
the town, there was nothing to attract his
attention until the carriage came abreast of a row of
cedar-trees, beyond which could be seen the upper
part of a large house with dormer windows. Before
the gate stood a horse and buggy, which Tryon
thought he recognized as Dr. Green's. He leaned
forward and addressed the driver.

"Can you tell me who lives there?" Tryon
asked, pointing to the house.

"A callud 'oman, suh," the man replied,
touching his hat. "Mis' Molly Walden an' her daughter
Rena."

The vivid impression he received of this house,
and the spectre that rose before him of a pale,
broken-hearted girl within its gray walls, weeping
for a lost lover and a vanished dream of happiness,
did not argue well for Tryon's future peace of
mind. Rena's image was not to be easily expelled
from his heart; for the laws of nature are higher
and more potent than merely human institutions,
and upon anything like a fair field are likely to
win in the long ran.



XVII

TWO LETTERS


Warwick awaited events with some calmness
and some philosophy,--he could hardly have had
the one without the other; and it required much
philosophy to make him wait a week in patience
for information upon a subject in which he was so
vitally interested. The delay pointed to disaster.
Bad news being expected, delay at least put off
the evil day. At the end of the week he received
two letters,--one addressed in his own hand
writing and postmarked Patesville, N. C.; the
other in the handwriting of George Tryon. He
opened the Patesville letter, which ran as follows:--


MY DEAR SON,--Frank is writing this letter
for me. I am not well, but, thank the Lord, I
am better than I was.

Rena has had a heap of trouble on account of
me and my sickness. If I could of dreamt that I
was going to do so much harm, I would of died and
gone to meet my God without writing one word to
spoil my girl's chances in life; but I didn't know
what was going to happen, and I hope the Lord
will forgive me.

Frank knows all about it, and so I am having
him write this letter for me, as Rena is not well
enough yet. Frank has been very good to me
and to Rena. He was down to your place and
saw Rena there, and never said a word about it to
nobody, not even to me, because he didn't want
to do Rena no harm. Frank is the best friend I
have got in town, because he does so much for me
and don't want nothing in return. (He tells me
not to put this in about him, but I want you to
know it.)

And now about Rena. She come to see me,
and I got better right away, for it was longing for
her as much as anything else that made me sick,
and I was mighty mizzable. When she had been
here three days and was going back next day, she
went up town to see the doctor for me, and while
she was up there she fainted and fell down in the
street, and Dr. Green sent her home in his buggy
and come down to see her. He couldn't tell what
was the matter with her, but she has been sick ever
since and out of her head some of the time, and
keeps on calling on somebody by the name of
George, which was the young white man she told
me she was going to marry. It seems he was in
town the day Rena was took sick, for Frank saw
him up street and run all the way down here to tell
me, so that she could keep out of his way, while she
was still up town waiting for the doctor and getting
me some camphor gum for my camphor bottle. Old
Judge Straight must have knowed something about
it, for he sent me a note to keep Rena in the house,
but the little boy he sent it by didn't bring it till
Rena was already gone up town, and, as I couldn't
read, of course I didn't know what it said. Dr.
Green heard Rena running on while she was out of
her head, and I reckon he must have suspicioned
something, for he looked kind of queer and went
away without saying nothing. Frank says she met
this man on the street, and when he found out she
wasn't white, he said or done something that broke
her heart and she fainted and fell down.

I am writing you this letter because I know you
will be worrying about Rena not coming back. If
it wasn't for Frank, I hardly know how I could
write to you. Frank is not going to say nothing
about Rena's passing for white and meeting this
man, and neither am I; and I don't suppose Judge
Straight will say nothing, because he is our good
friend; and Dr. Green won't say nothing about it,
because Frank says Dr. Green's cook Nancy says
this young man named George stopped with him
and was some cousin or relation to the family, and
they wouldn't want people to know that any of their
kin was thinking about marrying a colored girl,
and the white folks have all been mad since J. B.
Thompson married his black housekeeper when she
got religion and wouldn't live with him no more.

All the rest of the connection are well. I have
just been in to see how Rena is. She is feeling
some better, I think, and says give you her love
and she will write you a letter in a few days, as
soon as she is well enough. She bust out crying
while she was talking, but I reckon that is better
than being out of her head. I hope this may find
you well, and that this man of Rena's won't say
nor do nothing down there to hurt you. He has
not wrote to Rena nor sent her no word. I reckon
he is very mad.
Your affectionate mother,
MARY WALDEN.


This letter, while confirming Warwick's fears,
relieved his suspense. He at least knew the worst,
unless there should be something still more disturbing
in Tryon's letter, which he now proceeded to
open, and which ran as follows:--


JOHN WARWICK, ESQ.

Copyright (c) 2007. fullstories.net. All rights reserved.