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It was twenty years old and it had lost half of its bristles in the service of the Berknowles who had clung to it with a warm-hearted tenacity purely Irish. "Sure, that old brush is a disgrace to the table," was the comment Phyl's father had made on it once, just as though he were casually referring to some form of the Inevitable such as the state of the weather.
Here in the old days the travelling carriages had drawn up, piled with the luggage of fine folk on a visit to Charleston on business or pleasure. The Planters was known all through the Georgias and Virginia, all through the States in the days when General Washington and John C. Calhoun were living figures. The ghost of the place held Phyl's imagination.
The war that had changed everything whilst leaving the roses untouched and the moonlight the same on the bird-haunted garden of Vernons. Everything was the same here in this little space of flowers and trees. But the lovers had vanished. "For man walketh in a vain shadow and disquieteth himself in vain." The words strayed across Phyl's mind brought up by recollection.
Rachel was the most privileged of the servants, a trustworthy woman with a character and will of her own, and absolutely devoted to the interests of the house. "Mistress Pinckney," said the coloured woman closing the door. "Ole Colonel Grangerson's coachman's in de kitchen, an' he says Miss Phyl's been an' run off with young Silas Grangerson dis very mornin'."
Phyl's mother had been a Mascarene, a member of the old, adventurous family that settled in Virginia when Virginia was a wilderness and spread its branches through the Carolinas when the Planter was king of the South. Red hair had run among the Mascarenes, red hair and a wild spirit that brooked no contradiction and knew no fear. Phyl had inherited something of this restless and daring spirit.
"We had a date this afternoon, remember? That beach party and dance put on by Sandy and Phyl's school sorority!" Tom gulped. "Oops! Boy, we really did pull a boner this time! I completely forgot!" As they finished supper, the boys discussed various ways to make amends. Boxes of chocolates? Flowers? None of their ideas seemed to have the proper spark.
They came back through the sunlit streets to find Miss Pinckney recovered from the Seth business, and after luncheon that day, assisted by Dinah and the directions of Miss Pinckney, Phyl's hair "went up." "It's beautiful," said the old lady, as she contemplated the result, "and more like Juliet than ever. Take the glass and look at yourself." Phyl did.
I'm sure, when I think of the last generation of Devereuxes, I wonder so many of us have been tough enough to weather the dangerous age; and there had been an alarm or two about Rotherwood himself. Well, he was very good, half from obedience, half from being convinced that it would be a selfish thing, and especially from being wholly convinced that Phyl's feelings were not stirred.
That's why you won't tell that he was carrying your sister's knife the day I saw you and him first." The boy flashed toward the bed startled eyes. Keller was looking at him very steadily. "Who says he had Phyl's knife?" "Hadn't he?" "What difference does that make, anyhow? I hear you're telling that you found the knife beside the dead cow.
It seemed to Phyl's vision now thoroughly distorted that the eyes of the stranger were everywhere, cool, critical, and amused; so obsessed was her mind with this idea that it could take no hold upon the conversation.
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