THE HOUSE BEHIND THE CEDARS(雪松后的房子)

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THE HOUSE BEHIND THE CEDARS

THE HOUSE BEHIND

THE CEDARS

BY CHARLES W. CHESNUTT

THE HOUSE BEHIND THE CEDARS

A STRANGER FROM SOUTH CAROLINA

Time touches all things with destroying hand; and if he seem now

and then to bestow the bloom of youth, the sap of spring, it is but a brief

mockery, to be surely and swiftly followed by the wrinkles of old age, the

dry leaves and bare branches of winter. And yet there are places where

Time seems to linger lovingly long after youth has departed, and to which

he seems loath to bring the evil day. Who has not known some even-

tempered old man or woman who seemed to have drunk of the fountain of

youth? Who has not seen somewhere an old town that, having long since

ceased to grow, yet held its own without perceptible decline?

Some such trite reflection--as apposite to the subject as most random

reflections are--passed through the mind of a young man who came out of

the front door of the Patesville Hotel about nine o'clock one fine morning

in spring, a few years after the Civil War, and started down Front Street

toward the market-house. Arriving at the town late the previous evening,

he had been driven up from the steamboat in a carriage, from which he

had been able to distinguish only the shadowy outlines of the houses along

the street; so that this morning walk was his first opportunity to see the

town by daylight. He was dressed in a suit of linen duck--the day was

warm--a panama straw hat, and patent leather shoes. In appearance he

was tall, dark, with straight, black, lustrous hair, and very clean-cut, high-

bred features. When he paused by the clerk's desk on his way out, to

light his cigar, the day clerk, who had just come on duty, glanced at the

"`JOHN WARWICK, CLARENCE, SOUTH CAROLINA.'

"One of the South Ca'lina bigbugs, I reckon --probably in cotton, or

turpentine." The gentleman from South Carolina, walking down the

street, glanced about him with an eager look, in which curiosity and

affection were mingled with a touch of bitterness. He saw little that was

not familiar, or that he had not seen in his dreams a hundred times during

the past ten years. There had been some changes, it is true, some

melancholy changes, but scarcely anything by way of addition or

THE HOUSE BEHIND THE CEDARS

improvement to counterbalance them. Here and there blackened and

dismantled walls marked the place where handsome buildings once had

stood, for Sherman's march to the sea had left its mark upon the town.

The stores were mostly of brick, two stories high, joining one another after

the manner of cities. Some of the names on the signs were familiar;

others, including a number of Jewish names, were quite unknown to him.

A two minutes' walk brought Warwick--the name he had registered

under, and as we shall call him--to the market-house, the central feature of

Patesville, from both the commercial and the picturesque points of view.

Standing foursquare in the heart of the town, at the intersection of the two

main streets, a "jog" at each street corner left around the market-house a

little public square, which at this hour was well occupied by carts and

wagons from the country and empty drays awaiting hire. Warwick was

unable to perceive much change in the market-house. Perhaps the

surface of the red brick, long unpainted, had scaled off a little more here

and there. There might have been a slight accretion of the moss and

lichen on the shingled roof. But the tall tower, with its four- faced clock,

rose as majestically and uncompromisingly as though the land had never

been subjugated. Was it so irreconcilable, Warwick wondered, as still to

peal out the curfew bell, which at nine o'clock at night had clamorously

warned all negroes, slave or free, that it was unlawful for them to be

abroad after that hour, under penalty of imprisonment or whipping? Was

the old constable, whose chief business it had been to ring the bell, still

alive and exercising the functions of his office, and had age lessened or

increased the number of times that obliging citizens performed this duty

for him during his temporary absences in the company of convivial spirits?

A few moments later, Warwick saw a colored policeman in the old

constable's place--a stronger reminder than even the burned buildings that

war had left its mark upon the old town, with which Time had dealt so

tenderly.

The lower story of the market-house was open on all four of its sides

to the public square. Warwick passed through one of the wide brick

arches and traversed the building with a leisurely step. He looked in vain

into the stalls for the butcher who had sold fresh meat twice a week, on

THE HOUSE BEHIND THE CEDARS

market days, and he felt a genuine thrill of pleasure when he recognized

the red bandana turban of old Aunt Lyddy, the ancient negro woman who

had sold him gingerbread and fried fish, and told him weird tales of

witchcraft and conjuration, in the old days when, as an idle boy, he had

loafed about the market-house. He did not speak to her, however, or give

her any sign of recognition. He threw a glance toward a certain corner

where steps led to the town hall above. On this stairway he had once

seen a manacled free negro shot while being taken upstairs for

examination under a criminal charge. Warwick recalled vividly how the

shot had rung out. He could see again the livid look of terror on the

victim's face, the gathering crowd, the resulting confusion. The murderer,

he recalled, had been tried and sentenced to imprisonment for life, but was

pardoned by a merciful governor after serving a year of his sentence. As

Warwick was neither a prophet nor the son of a prophet, he could not

foresee that, thirty years later, even this would seem an excessive

punishment for so slight a misdemeanor.

Leaving the market-house, Warwick turned to the left, and kept on his

course until he reached the next corner. After another turn to the right, a

dozen paces brought him in front of a small weather-beaten frame building,

from which projected a wooden sign-board bearing the inscription:--

ARCHIBALD STRAIGHT, LAWYER.

He turned the knob, but the door was locked. Retracing his steps past

a vacant lot, the young man entered a shop where a colored man was

employed in varnishing a coffin, which stood on two trestles in the middle

of the floor. Not at all impressed by the melancholy suggestiveness of

his task, he was whistling a lively air with great gusto. Upon Warwick's

entrance this effusion came to a sudden end, and the coffin-maker

assumed an air of professional gravity.

"Good-mawnin', suh," he said, lifting his cap politely.

"Good-morning," answered Warwick. "Can you tell me anything

about Judge Straight's office hours?"

"De ole jedge has be'n a little onreg'lar sence de wah, suh; but he

gin'ally gits roun' 'bout ten o'clock er so. He's be'n kin' er feeble fer de

las' few yeahs. An' I reckon," continued the undertaker solemnly, his

THE HOUSE BEHIND THE CEDARS

glance unconsciously seeking a row of fine caskets standing against the

wall,--"I reckon he'll soon be goin' de way er all de earth. `Man dat is

bawn er 'oman hath but a sho't time ter lib, an' is full er mis'ry. He

cometh up an' is cut down lack as a flower.' `De days er his life is three-

sco' an' ten'--an' de ole jedge is libbed mo' d'n dat, suh, by five yeahs, ter

say de leas'."

"`Death,'" quoted Warwick, with whose mood the undertaker's remarks

were in tune, "`is the penalty that all must pay for the crime of living.'"

"Dat 's a fac', suh, dat 's a fac'; so dey mus'-- so dey mus'. An' den all

de dead has ter be buried. An' we does ou' sheer of it, suh, we does ou'

sheer. We conduc's de obs'quies er all de bes' w'ite folks er de town,

suh."

Warwick left the undertaker's shop and retraced his steps until he had

passed the lawyer's office, toward which he threw an affectionate glance.

A few rods farther led him past the old black Presbyterian church, with its

square tower, embowered in a stately grove; past the Catholic church, with

its many crosses, and a painted wooden figure of St. James in a recess

beneath the gable; and past the old Jefferson House, once the leading hotel

of the town, in front of which political meetings had been held, and

political speeches made, and political hard cider drunk, in the days of

"Tippecanoe and Tyler too."

The street down which Warwick had come intersected Front Street at a

sharp angle in front of the old hotel, forming a sort of flatiron block at the

junction, known as Liberty Point,--perhaps because slave auctions were

sometimes held there in the good old days. Just before Warwick reached

Liberty Point, a young woman came down Front Street from the direction

of the market-house. When their paths converged, Warwick kept on

down Front Street behind her, it having been already his intention to walk

in this direction.

Warwick's first glance had revealed the fact that the young woman was

strikingly handsome, with a stately beauty seldom encountered. As he

walked along behind her at a measured distance, he could not help noting

the details that made up this pleasing impression, for his mind was

singularly alive to beauty, in whatever embodiment. The girl's figure, he

THE HOUSE BEHIND THE CEDARS

perceived, was admirably proportioned; she was evidently at the period

when the angles of childhood were rounding into the promising curves of

adolescence. Her abundant hair, of a dark and glossy brown, was neatly

plaited and coiled above an ivory column that rose straight from a pair of

gently sloping shoulders, clearly outlined beneath the light muslin frock

that covered them. He could see that she was tastefully, though not

richly, dressed, and that she walked with an elastic step that revealed a

light heart and the vigor of perfect health. Her face, of course, he could

not analyze, since he had caught only the one brief but convincing glimpse

of it.

The young woman kept on down Front Street, Warwick maintaining

his distance a few rods behind her. They passed a factory, a warehouse

or two, and then, leaving the brick pavement, walked along on mother

earth, under a leafy arcade of spreading oaks and elms. Their way led

now through a residential portion of the town, which, as they advanced,

gradually declined from staid respectability to poverty, open and

unabashed. Warwick observed, as they passed through the respectable

quarter, that few people who met the girl greeted her, and that some others

whom she passed at gates or doorways gave her no sign of recognition;

from which he inferred that she was possibly a visitor in the town and not

well acquainted.

Their walk had continued not more than ten minutes when they

crossed a creek by a wooden bridge and came to a row of mean houses

standing flush with the street. At the door of one, an old black woman

had stooped to lift a large basket, piled high with laundered clothes. The

girl, as she passed, seized one end of the basket and helped the old woman

to raise it to her head, where it rested solidly on the cushion of her head-

kerchief. During this interlude, Warwick, though he had slackened his

pace measurably, had so nearly closed the gap between himself and them

as to hear the old woman say, with the dulcet negro intonation:--

"T'anky', honey; de Lawd gwine bless you sho'. You wuz alluz a

good gal, and de Lawd love eve'ybody w'at he'p de po' ole nigger. You

gwine ter hab good luck all yo' bawn days." "I hope you're a true prophet,

Aunt Zilphy," laughed the girl in response.

THE HOUSE BEHIND THE CEDARS

The sound of her voice gave Warwick a thrill. It was soft and sweet

and clear--quite in harmony with her appearance. That it had a faint

suggestiveness of the old woman's accent he hardly noticed, for the

current Southern speech, including his own, was rarely without a touch of

it. The corruption of the white people's speech was one element--only

one--of the negro's unconscious revenge for his own debasement.

The houses they passed now grew scattering, and the quarter of the

town more neglected. Warwick felt himself wondering where the girl

might be going in a neighborhood so uninviting. When she stopped to

pull a half-naked negro child out of a mudhole and set him upon his feet,

he thought she might be some young lady from the upper part of the town,

bound on some errand of mercy, or going, perhaps, to visit an old servant

or look for a new one. Once she threw a backward glance at Warwick,

thus enabling him to catch a second glimpse of a singularly pretty face.

Perhaps the young woman found his presence in the neighborhood as

unaccountable as he had deemed hers; for, finding his glance fixed upon

her, she quickened her pace with an air of startled timidity.

"A woman with such a figure," thought Warwick, "ought to be able to

face the world with the confidence of Phryne confronting her judges."

By this time Warwick was conscious that something more than mere

grace or beauty had attracted him with increasing force toward this young

woman. A suggestion, at first faint and elusive, of something familiar,

had grown stronger when he heard her voice, and became more and more

pronounced with each rod of their advance; and when she stopped finally

before a gate, and, opening it, went into a yard shut off from the street by a

row of dwarf cedars, Warwick had already discounted in some measure

the surprise he would have felt at seeing her enter there had he not walked

down Front Street behind her. There was still sufficient unexpectedness

about the act, however, to give him a decided thrill of pleasure.

"It must be Rena," he murmured. "Who could have dreamed that she

would blossom out like that? It must surely be Rena!"

He walked slowly past the gate and peered through a narrow gap in the

cedar hedge. The girl was moving along a sanded walk, toward a gray,

unpainted house, with a steep roof, broken by dormer windows. The

THE HOUSE BEHIND THE CEDARS

trace of timidity he had observed in her had given place to the more

assured bearing of one who is upon his own ground. The garden walks

were bordered by long rows of jonquils, pinks, and carnations, inclosing

clumps of fragrant shrubs, lilies, and roses already in bloom. Toward the

middle of the garden stood two fine magnolia-trees, with heavy, dark

green, glistening leaves, while nearer the house two mighty elms shaded a

wide piazza, at one end of which a honeysuckle vine, and at the other a

Virginia creeper, running over a wooden lattice, furnished additional shade

and seclusion. On dark or wintry days, the aspect of this garden must

have been extremely sombre and depressing, and it might well have

seemed a fit place to hide some guilty or disgraceful secret. But on the

bright morning when Warwick stood looking through the cedars, it seemed,

with its green frame and canopy and its bright carpet of flowers, an ideal

retreat from the fierce sunshine and the sultry heat of the approaching

summer.

The girl stooped to pluck a rose, and as she bent over it, her profile

was clearly outlined. She held the flower to her face with a long-drawn

inhalation, then went up the steps, crossed the piazza, opened the door

without knocking, and entered the house with the air of one thoroughly at

home.

"Yes," said the young man to himself, "it's Rena, sure enough."

The house stood on a corner, around which the cedar hedge turned,

continuing along the side of the garden until it reached the line of the front

of the house. The piazza to a rear wing, at right angles to the front of the

house, was open to inspection from the side street, which, to judge from its

deserted look, seemed to be but little used. Turning into this street and

walking leisurely past the back yard, which was only slightly screened

from the street by a china-tree, Warwick perceived the young woman

standing on the piazza, facing an elderly woman, who sat in a large

rocking-chair, plying a pair of knitting-needles on a half-finished stocking.

Warwick's walk led him within three feet of the side gate, which he felt an

almost irresistible impulse to enter. Every detail of the house and garden

was familiar; a thousand cords of memory and affection drew him thither;

but a stronger counter-motive prevailed. With a great effort he restrained

THE HOUSE BEHIND THE CEDARS

himself, and after a momentary pause, walked slowly on past the house,

with a backward glance, which he turned away when he saw that it was

observed.

Warwick's attention had been so fully absorbed by the house behind

the cedars and the women there, that he had scarcely noticed, on the other

side of the neglected by-street, two men working by a large open window,

in a low, rude building with a clapboarded roof, directly opposite the back

piazza occupied by the two women. Both the men were busily engaged

in shaping barrel-staves, each wielding a sharp-edged drawing-knife on a

piece of seasoned oak clasped tightly in a wooden vise.

"I jes' wonder who dat man is, an' w'at he 's doin' on dis street,"

observed the younger of the two, with a suspicious air. He had noticed

the gentleman's involuntary pause and his interest in the opposite house,

and had stopped work for a moment to watch the stranger as he went on

down the street.

"Nev' min' 'bout dat man," said the elder one. "You 'ten' ter yo' wuk

an' finish dat bairl-stave. You spen's enti'ely too much er yo' time

stretchin' yo' neck atter other people. An' you need n' 'sturb yo'se'f 'bout

dem folks 'cross de street, fer dey ain't yo' kin', an' you're wastin' yo' time

both'in' yo' min' wid 'em, er wid folks w'at comes on de street on account

of 'em. Look sha'p now, boy, er you'll git dat stave trim' too much."

The younger man resumed his work, but still found time to throw a

slanting glance out of the window. The gentleman, he perceived, stood

for a moment on the rotting bridge across the old canal, and then walked

slowly ahead until he turned to the right into Back Street, a few rods

farther on.

THE HOUSE BEHIND THE CEDARS

AN EVENING VISIT

Toward evening of the same day, Warwick took his way down Front

Street in the gathering dusk. By the time night had spread its mantle over

the earth, he had reached the gate by which he had seen the girl of his

morning walk enter the cedar- bordered garden. He stopped at the gate

and glanced toward the house, which seemed dark and silent and deserted.

"It's more than likely," he thought, "that they are in the kitchen. I

reckon I'd better try the back door."

But as he drew cautiously near the corner, he saw a man's figure

outlined in the yellow light streaming from the open door of a small house

between Front Street and the cooper shop. Wishing, for reasons of his

own, to avoid observation, Warwick did not turn the corner, but walked on

down Front Street until he reached a point from which he could see, at a

long angle, a ray of light proceeding from the kitchen window of the house

behind the cedars.

"They are there," he muttered with a sigh of relief, for he had feared

they might be away. "I suspect I'll have to go to the front door, after all.

No one can see me through the trees."

He retraced his steps to the front gate, which he essayed to open.

There was apparently some defect in the latch, for it refused to work.

Warwick remembered the trick, and with a slight sense of amusement,

pushed his foot under the gate and gave it a hitch to the left, after which it

opened readily enough. He walked softly up the sanded path, tiptoed up

the steps and across the piazza, and rapped at the front door, not too loudly,

lest this too might attract the attention of the man across the street. There

was no response to his rap. He put his ear to the door and heard voices

within, and the muffled sound of footsteps. After a moment he rapped

again, a little louder than before.

There was an instant cessation of the sounds within. He rapped a

third time, to satisfy any lingering doubt in the minds of those who he felt

sure were listening in some trepidation. A moment later a ray of light

streamed through the keyhole.

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THEHOUSEBEHINDTHECEDARS1THEHOUSEBEHINDTHECEDARSBYCHARLESW.CHESNUTTTHEHOUSEBEHINDTHECEDARS2IASTRANGERFROMSOUTHCAROLINATimetouchesallthingswithdestroyinghand;andifheseemnowandthentobestowthebloomofyouth,thesapofspring,itisbutabriefmockery,tobesurelyandswiftlyfollowedbythewrinklesofoldage,thedryleavesa...

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