"My dear child, I should have known you anywhere, so, you see, I haven't yet lost my memory. It was years ago that I met you, wasn't it?"
A man in livery—she discovered afterwards that he was the Blackburn's footman—took her bag, and Caroline helped Mrs. Colfax out of the station and into the big limousine at the door. "It was so good of you to meet me," she said, for it was all she could think of, and to the last she had been haunted by the fear that Mr. Blackburn might decide to come for her.
"Good of me? Why, I wanted to come." As she watched Caroline's face, the old lady was thinking shrewdly, "She isn't so pretty as she used to be. I doubt if many men would think twice about her—but she has a lovely expression. I never saw a more spiritual face."
Once safely started she rambled on while the car shot into Franklin Street, and ran straight ahead in the direction of Monument Avenue.
"I always meant to meet you, and just as soon as your telegram came, I 'phoned Angelica about the car. She wanted to come down herself, but the doctor makes her lie down two hours every afternoon. Do you see that new office building at the corner? Your mother and I went to school on that spot before we boarded at Miss Braxton's in Petersburg. At that time this part of Franklin Street was very fashionable, but everything has moved west, and everybody who can afford it is building in the country. It isn't like your mother's day at all. New people have taken possession of the town, and anybody who has money can get into society now. We are coming to Monument Avenue. All the houses are brand new, but it is nothing to the country outside. The Blackburns' place just off the River Road is the finest house anywhere about Richmond, they tell me. He built it the year before his marriage, and I remember an artist, who came down to lecture before the Woman's Club, saying to me that Briarlay was like its owner—everything big in it was good and everything little in it was bad. I don't know much about such things, but he poked fun at the fireplaces—said they were Gothic or Italian—I can't remember which—and that the house, of course, is Colonial."
A fit of coughing stopped her, and while she dived into her black silk bag for a handkerchief, Caroline asked curiously, "Has Mr. Blackburn so much money?"
"Oh, yes, I suppose he is the richest man we have here. He owns the large steel works down by the river, and he discovered some new cheap process, they say, which brought him a fortune. I remember hearing this, but I haven't much of a head for such matters. Just now he is having a good deal of trouble with his men, and I'm sure it serves him right for deserting the ways of his father, and going over to the Republicans. Charles takes up for him because David has always stood by him in business, but of course out of respect for father's memory he couldn't openly sympathize with his disloyalty."
"Does anybody follow him, or is he all alone?" inquired Caroline, less from active interest in the question than from the desire to keep the old lady animated.
"You'll have to ask Charles, and he will be delighted to answer. In this new-fangled idea about breaking the solid South—did you ever hear such stuff and nonsense?—I believe he has had a very bad influence over a number of young men. Then, of late, he has been talking extravagantly about its being our duty to go into this war—as if we had any business mixing ourselves up in other people's quarrels—and that appeals to a lot of fire-eaters and fight-lovers. Of course, a man as rich as David Blackburn will always have a trail of sycophants and addlepates at his heels. What I say is that if Providence had intended us to be in this war, we shouldn't have been given a President wise and strong enough to keep us out of it. If Mr. Wilson is elected for a second term—and my brother Charles says there isn't a doubt of it—it will be because the country feels that he has kept us out of war. There was a long editorial in the paper this morning warning us that, if Mr. Hughes is elected, we shall be fighting Germany within two months. Then think of all the destruction and the dreadful high taxes that would follow——"
"But I thought there was a great deal of war spirit here? At home we work all the time for the Allies."
"Oh, there is, there is. Angelica is president or chairman of two or three societies for helping the wounded, and they even made me head of something—I never can remember the name of it—but it has to do with Belgian orphans. Everybody wants to help, but that is different from going into the actual fighting, you know, and people are very much divided. A few, like David Blackburn, wanted us to declare war the day after the Lusitania was destroyed, but most of us feel—especially the wiser heads—that the President knows more about it than any one else——"
"I suppose he does," admitted Caroline, and she added while she looked at the appointments of the car, "What a beautiful car!"
She sighed gently, for she was thinking of the rotting fence rails and the leaking roof at The Cedars. How far she could make a few thousand dollars go in repairing the house and the out-buildings! If only the leaks could be mended, and the roof reshingled over the wings! If only they could hire a younger man to help poor old Jones, who was growing decrepit!
"This car is Angelica's," said the old lady, "and everything she has is wonderful. As soon as she was married she began to re-decorate Briarlay from garret to cellar. When David first made his money, he went about buying everything he laid eyes on, and she gave whole wagon-loads of furniture to her relatives. There are people who insist that Angelica overdoes things in her way as much as her husband does in his—both were poor when they grew up—but I maintain that her taste is perfect—simply perfect. It is all very well for my daughter Lucy, who has studied interior decoration in New York, to turn up her nose at walls hung with silk in a country house, but to my mind that pink silk in Angelica's parlours is the most beautiful thing she could have, and I reckon I've as good a right to my ideas as Lucy has to hers. After all, as I tell her, it is only a question of taste."
It was a mild, bright afternoon in October, and as the car turned into the River Road, the country spread softly, in undulations of green, gold, and bronze, to the deep blue edge of the horizon. The valley lay in shadow, while above it shreds of violet mist drifted slowly against the golden ball of the sun. Near at hand the trees were touched with flame, but, as they went on, the brilliant leaves melted gradually into the multi-coloured blend of the distance.
"Mrs. Blackburn must be so beautiful," said Caroline presently. As she approached Briarlay—the house of darkness and mystery that she had seen in her imagination—she felt that the appeal of this unknown woman deepened in vividness and pathos, that it rushed to meet her and enveloped her with the intensity and sweetness of a perfume. It was as if the name Angelica were not a sound, but a thing composed of colour and fragrance—sky-blue like a cloud and as sweet-scented as lilies.
"She was the most beautiful girl who ever came out in Richmond," replied Mrs. Colfax. "The family was so poor that her mother couldn't do anything for her—she didn't even have a coming-out party—but with a girl like that nothing matters. David Blackburn saw her at some reception, and lost his head completely. I won't say his heart because I've never believed that he had one. Of course he was far and away the best chance she was ever likely to have down here, for it wasn't as if they could have sent her to the White Sulphur. They couldn't afford anything, and they were even educating Angelica to be a teacher. What she would have done if David Blackburn hadn't come along when he did, I cannot imagine—though, as I wrote you, I'd have taught school to my dying day before I'd have married him."
"But didn't she care anything for him?" asked Caroline, for it was incredible to her that such a woman should have sold herself.
Mrs. Colfax sniffed at her smelling-salts. "Of course I haven't the right to an opinion," she rejoined, after a pause, "but as I always reply to Charles when he tells me I am talking too much, 'Well, I can't help having eyes.' I remember as well as if it were yesterday the way Angelica looked when she told me of her engagement. 'I have decided to marry David Blackburn, Cousin Lucy,' she said, and then she added, just as if the words were wrung out of her, 'I loathe the thought of teaching!' It doesn't sound a bit like Angelica, but those were her very words. And now, my dear, tell me something about your mother. Does she still keep up her wonderful spirits?"
After this she asked