Carolina Lee Part 20

"She will give all the credit to her new thought. She told me before I started that I would be successful. As she puts it, 'Nothing is ever lost in Truth.'"

"Then she considers, even though Guildford has been in my power for several years, that it was never really lost to her?"

"In her new conception of the truth, that is the way she argues."

"By Jove, Mr. Howard, I'm going to join them! I wonder if she would let me go to church with her next Sunday?"

"I'm sure she would."

But, as he turned away, Mr. Howard shook his head and said to himself: "Carolina will have to tell him what she told Noel,--of the futility of attempting to be a Scientist for the sake of the loaves and fishes."

But, indeed, Carolina had not only believed it, but, with her Bible and "Science and Health" on her knees, during the hour of the interview she had made her demonstration, so that she knew it without words. She felt it by the uplift in her own heart and the nearness of her own soul to the Infinite, so that, when Mr. Howard appeared with a beaming face to tell her, the radiance on Carolina's admonished him that she knew already.

"But you don't know all, young lady! After I had left his office, the colonel came post-haste after me to say that his sister and the children are to leave to-morrow for Whitehall, his brother-in-law's estate, which lies some twelve miles from Guildford, but northeast from Enterprise, the little station, where you leave the railroad, and Miss Yancey is going to call on you and Mrs. Winchester this evening, to invite you to make Whitehall your headquarters until you can establish yourself elsewhere."

"Oh, how kind of them!" said Carolina.

"Then y-you will accept?" demanded Kate, in old-thought surprise.

"Why, what could possibly be better?" asked Carolina, in new-thought simplicity and grat.i.tude.

"T-ten to one on Colonel Yancey!" murmured Kate in her father's ear as they turned away.

"W-was it a d-difficult job, d-daddy?" she asked, tucking her arm into his.

"Kate, child, it was an absolute triumph for Carolina's new religion. I deserve no credit. The man set his jaws and looked as hard as nails, until I mentioned that Carolina had healed his baby. He had been carefully led--probably by Carolina's instructions--to believe that Mrs.

G.o.ddard did it--"

"Y-yes, Miss Yancey believes it, too."

"Well, they forgot to coach me, so I told him it was Carolina. My dear, _voila tout_!"

"C-Christian Science p-plays ball every time, doesn't it?" observed Kate, thoughtfully.

CHAPTER XII.

WHITEHALL

"Well," said Mrs. Winchester, looking out of the car-window as the train approached Enterprise, "if any man had told me that two years from the day we left Bombay I should find myself going back to Guildford to live, I should have said he was a thousand dollars from the truth. What are you laughing at, Carolina?"

"And if any man had told me that I could ever have brought myself to accept an invitation from Miss Sue Yancey to visit them at Whitehall until we could establish ourselves comfortably, when I used to dislike her brother so much, I should have said the same," said Carolina, "but love works many miracles in the human heart."

Mrs. Winchester looked sharply at the young girl, but Carolina's expression was so innocent Cousin Lois decided that she was not referring to Colonel Yancey. Then, with one of her rare caresses, which Mrs. Winchester prized above gold, Carolina laid her hand on Mrs.

Winchester's arm and said:

"And, dear Cousin Lois, no mother could have been sweeter and more unselfish about the loss of her money than you have been, or more self-sacrificing to come down here with me."

"Nonsense, my dear!" said Mrs. Winchester, colouring like a girl of eighteen. Her blush was still beautiful and was her only comfort, except her waist-line. "You know that I love to be where you are. In fact, Carolina, if you knew how I suffered, actually suffered, child, last winter in Boston, when I was separated from you, you would believe me when I say that I cannot live without you. I must be with you. You are all I have in the world,--and the money,--what is money good for except to buy things with? Haven't I everything I want?"

Carolina listened with a beating heart.

"Yet, you are even going to have the money back!" she said, with another pressure of Cousin Lois's hand.

"Yes, I really believe I am. That new religion of yours seems to be a sort of magic carpet, to take you anywhere you want to go and to get you everything you want to have."

"It brings perfect harmony into your life," said Carolina.

"Well, harmony is heaven!" said Mrs. Winchester, emphatically.

"Oh, what bliss to be coming home!" breathed Carolina, fervently. "I wonder if any s.h.i.+pwrecked sailor or prodigal son or homesick child ever yearned as cruelly for his father's house as I yearn for my first sight of Guildford!"

Mrs. Winchester turned, a little frightened at the pa.s.sion in the girl's tone. She felt that Carolina was unconsciously preparing herself for a bitter disappointment.

"How dear those little darkies are!" she cried. "But, oh, did you see what that woman did? She knocked that little boy sprawling! She knocked that child down! Did you ever hear of such cruelty? Do you suppose she could possibly have been his own mother, Cousin Lois?"

"Sit down, Carolina, and don't get so excited. Of course she was his mother. That's the way coloured women do. It saves talking,--which seems to do no good. I've seen old Aunt 'Polyte, in your father's time at Guildford, come creeping around the corner of her cabin to see if her children were obeying her, and, if she found that they were not, I've seen her knock all ten of them down,--some fully six feet away. And such yells!"

"Did grandfather allow it?" demanded Carolina, with blazing eyes.

"I can fairly see him now, sitting his horse Splendour, draw rein and shake with silent laughter, till he had to take his pipe out of his mouth. It was too common a sight to make a fuss about. Besides, they needed it. Of all the mischievous, obstinate, thick-headed little donkeys you ever saw, commend me to a raft of black children,--Aunt 'Polyte's in particular. Coloured women are nearly always inhuman on the surface to their own children."

"Wasn't Aunt 'Polyte my father's black mammy? Wasn't she kind to the white children in her charge?"

"Ah, that was a different matter. Kind? 'Polyte would have let all her own children die to save your father one ache. I remember when her children got the measles, she locked them all in the cabin, and sent her sister to feed them at night, while she stayed in the big house and kept her white children from contagion. Fortunately, none of her own died, but, if they had, it wouldn't have changed her idea of her duty."

"What was there queer about Aunt 'Polyte? I remember that daddy told me once, but I have forgotten."

"She had one blue eye and one biack one, and not one of her children inherited her peculiarity except her youngest child,--a boy,--born when she was what would be called an old woman. I know she thought it was a bad omen to have a child after she was fifty, and, when she saw his blue eye, she said he was marked for bad luck."

"Oh, how dreadful!" cried Carolina. "Cousin Lois, you know enough about Christian Science to know that she made a law for that child which may have ruined him for life."

"Yes, I suppose she did. But, Carolina, dear, don't get your hopes of the South up too high. I am afraid it won't come up to your expectations."

Carolina smiled, sighed, and shook her head.

"I can't modify my antic.i.p.ations, Cousin Lois. Don't try to help me. If I am to be disillusioned, let it come with an awful b.u.mp. Nothing short of being knocked down with a broadside like that little negro boy can do my case any good. I'm hopeless."

"I believe you are. Well, we shall see. We must be nearly there. The last time the train stopped,--was it to shoo a cow off the track or to repair the telegraph wires?--the conductor said we were only five hours late. But that was six hours ago. I wonder what we are stopping at this little shed for? Oh, hurry, Carolina! He is calling Enterprise and beckoning to us."

"No hurry, ma'am," said the conductor. "The train will wait until you all get off in comfort, or I'll shoot the engineer with my own hand!"

Carolina stepped from the train to the platform and looked around. Then she bit her lip until it bled. Cousin Lois was counting the hand-luggage and purposely refrained from looking at her.

There was a platform baking in the torrid heat of a September afternoon.

From a shed at one end came the clicking of a telegraph instrument.