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77/E MASTER OF BERYL HEIGHTS
SYNOPSIS OF THE MASTER OF BERYL
> HEIGHTS.
The story opens with a description of the crip-
; pie hero, John Schiller Gordon. He is standing
: leaning on his crutches, in the doorway of his
■ stately old colonial home—Beryl Heights—which
■ was situated on the brow of a hill—looking across
i the vast extent of well-kept grounds spread out
» before him in the green of crescent-shaped ter
i races. The second scene occurs in the library be
i tween the cripple and his young pupil, Lynne Hey-
► wood. She is revealed in the interview as rather
• an unusual girl, with a decidedly artistic temper-
• ament. She is not beautiful, but she has a
• unique intellectual point of view, which consti
? tutes a component part of a very charming per
? sonality. She is not like the average girl, be
’ cause God and nature have made her different.
She has high ideals, in whose rarified atmosphere
’ she apparently lives without any strained effort
? at all.
? In an interview, which occurs in the second
; chapter, in the long many-windowed breakfast
j room, at Beryl Heights, between the master and
■ his handsome cousin, Garnet Earl, there is given
i much food for thought. The reader recognizes
I instinctively, that this young Harvard man, cul
i tured, rich, and fascinating, is destined to play a
i dramatic role in the story.
1 Lynne Heywood resides at Millwood, her ances
» tral home, under the guardianship of her aunt,
» Mrs. Morton, whose character furnishes one of the
» tragic notes of the story. She does not love her
? niece, and is by turns both cruei and cold to her.
• In a critical scene which occurs between Lynne
• and her aunt on the latter’s birthday, the girl
? comes off conquerer, because she has the high
’ courage to maintain her legal rights, and is really
? the stronger character of the two, in spite of her
‘ extreme youth.
E SMILED over the innocent trust
betrayed in the answer, and felt his
admiration increase for this unique
specimen of girlhood. When the
fury of the storm had ended they
proceeed to Millwood, which was
only a short distance from the
place of their detention. It was now
dark. A golden-eyed moon was com.
I
ing up slowly in the east, and its glittering
lances fell with weird effect among the shad
ows that veiled the wide acres of shrubbery in
front of the old house. Lynne waited while
Garnet put up the rails which held the massive
gate in place, and they walked up the grass
grown avenue in silence. They stopped in a
bright glow of moonlight on the steps, and
Garnet put down her books between the bro
ken paws of a lion that guarded the entrance.
He took off his hat, and running' his hand
through his hair, cast a comprehensive glance
around him, and while he felt an odd thrill of
compassion stir his heart in surveying this
wreck of former magnificence, he knew better
than to give it expression. Instead, he turned
to Lynne and said gently:
“What are you thinking about?”
“Shall I tell you without reserve?”
It was like her to satisfy her own delicate
scruples by such a question, and it was like
him to reply with an emphatic, unequivocal,
“certainly.”
“I was wondering,” how dreamy and sad the
tone, “if the future would ever find me satis
fied with myself!”
Garnet frowned.
“Lynne, you are too ambitious, and unless
you are more careful about overtaxing your
self —believe me, it is more poetical than sensi
ble to imitate Buckle, ‘treat your body like a
slave, your intellect like a sovereign’—it takes
no seer to tell that your grave will be dug, and
not your triumph sung in those years toward
which you are looking with so much eager
ness !”
“Well, what matter? Why should I care, if
I could leave the world aglow with the lustre
of a great life!”
“It is wrong for you to talk like that,” he
said, reproachfully, “to think of welcoming
death in your youth. You are morbidly mel
ancholy; if you were not you would feel as
much attached to life as any other girl of your
age.”
“You talk like all the rest, and I thought to
find you different. If I played with dolls in
the shadow made by my father’s grave you
and they would pat my head and say, you dear,
By Odessa Strickland Payne, Author of the "Mission Girl,” "’Esther Terr all's Experiment,” Etc.
The Golden Age for April 6, 1911.
good child. But because I choose nobler work
in the gloom made by his loss you call me mor
bid, precocious, and strange. Am I morbid be
cause the lights being blown out in my home I
do not sing merrily in the dark with none
nearer than heaven to hear me? Precocious,
because being a girl and very young, I dare to
use my brains as happier girls do not? Strange,
because God and death have made me thought
ful beyond my years?”
He gazed down on her with a look of rever
ent regard. Her defense of herself for being
what she was, he felt to be unanswerable.
After all, wasn’t she like everybody else—hap
py, if she had anything to make her, and sad
only when she could not help it?”
“Lynne, whatever else,” he said, his voice
rich and soft with regret, “my words may have
conveyed to you than that I was anxious for
your life, forget, will you? Believe me, I hon
or you in that you differ from others, in the
measure of faith and nobilty of feeling; but I
am sorry, all the same, you are so willing to
leave the world. You might leave it darker
for some than you guess.”
Something in his words changed her mood.
“No, Mr. Earl, you misunderstand,” she ex
plained, naively. “I do not want to die yet,
and I would like to be happy, if I could, all
the time. I don’t like melancholy people, and
I do not think them at all attractive, but you
know I must be true to my nature, and I am a
butterfly, and I can fly only when the sun
shines on me.”
He took her hand and bowed low over it.
“May it shine for you, Lynne, until we meet
again. Good-bye.”
Her eyes met his frankly.
“Thank you. Good-bye, Mr. Earl.”
And he could not choose but lift his hat
again in farewell to the slight figure leaned
against one of the blackened columns of the
portico, before passing into the shadows of the
cedar trees.
CHAPTER VI.
The sole retainer of the house of Heywood
—Philo, bent over a table ironing. Her blue
and white striped cotton dress, and the red
bandana kerchief wound above her wizen face,
showed with picturesque effectiveness in the
mellow shadows of the long kitchen at Mill
wood. She was singing to herself as she
worked, now loud, now soft, with a wild
pathos of expression which reached its climax
in the chorus, a most unearthly, exultant shout.
Lynne thought of the banshee’s call, and under
went a mild thrill of superstitious terror as
she stood upon the unhewn rock of the step
outside the capacious door, in the strong slant
of sunset light. But she shook off the im
pression, and gaining the table leaned down
with girlish nonchalance as she looked across
at the bowed, mummy-like face and inquired:
“Aunt Philo, when you sing like that you
are sad, aren’t you?”
The old woman smoothed the edg of a linen
cuff, then put her iron down with emphasis
upon it.
“Yes, honey, chile, that jest the way it is;
but don’t tink ole Philo mean nuff to be sorrin
at all ’bout her worn out, shaky, nigger self.
Dere’s nuffin’ but de grave fore me, an’ T’de
be willin’ to git in it termorrer and res’ my ole
bones, de gude Lord knows hisself, es it want
dat mer heart was done set on seein’ my mars
Jeemse’s daughter git her rights fust in dis
world. Law! you tink Philo not know how
wrong ’tis, way Miss Rufe do? shettin’ her-,
self up in her own room all de time, readin’
and crooshapin’ an’ jes er lettin’ de grief shine
onnotice outen yer pritty eyes? Umph! haint
I seen her turn her cheek fer you ter kiss good
night, ’stead of her mouf, jest as if it were no
consult ter yer feelins. An’ don’t I know dat
ver’ same Miss Rufe ’ood make you wait on
her des as es you had never been born er Hay-
’ood, es I ood let her. But I tell her you
makes a drudge of Mars Jeemse’s daughter,
what use to have mos’ er towsen slave at his
biddin , you ’pose on her, when her fader use
to be so gude ter you, gi’ed you money when
ebber you axed him, an’ let you go to Saratogy
and Flurridy' ebber winter time and summer
eb yere life, an’ an’ ennywhere else yer tuck
er notion ter go, an see hyflyin’ pleasur’. You do
es you dare Miss Rufe, an’ Philo nebber do an
odder day’s work fer you while brefs in her
body.”
Lynne, knowing from long experience, that
the faithful old woman must have her talk
out, stood quietly by, now and then folding
an improbable tuck in the ironing sheet, and
again crossing her nervous hands behind her,
but all the time listening with curious atten
tiveness. Especially when she spoke of that
past, so dear, as she did presently, whose splen
did hospitality and princely living seemed like
a conception of Utopia to the girl who had been
reared amid the deprivations and poverty of
the new era. She had often felt as if she
could listen forever to Philo’s talks, because
from her alone could she hope to learn any
thing minute concerning her parents and fam
ily. And how much these stories, told with
a certain quaint forcibleness, and that familiar
ity which a negro invariably takes with her
nurse-child, served to awaken the ambitious
instincts of her nature, as well as cultivate in
her a kind of patrician exclusiveness, cannot be
told. But it is more than probable that Lynne,
without the benign influence of her cripple
teacher, would have had her character hope
lessly dwarfed between the contradictory
forces at Millwood.
“I tell yer, honey,” Philo went on ironing a
vigorous accompaniment. “Missr Rufe neber
send you ’way yunder, nobody know wher, to
college, es she want jelus ob you case de qual
ity takes on so ober you, widout sayin’ turkey
to her. She know she don’t ’long to de upper
tendum, nohow, by rights; for when ole Marse
Hey’ood married her mudder she want nuthen’
under de shinin sun but a thin nose, stuck up
Yankee school teacher, what cum down here
’cause her had ter make her own livin’ or do
widout it. An’ dat how come her your fader’s
half sister, an’ its anudder reesun why she done
like you, an’ nebber will. I’se seen reg’lar hi
ferlutin folks, rale quality; dey come down
here from New Ork, an’ Old Ork, an’ stay wid
Marse Jeemes an’ Miss Margret lots er times,
jes’ to ride out an’ do nuthen’ but ’joy dem
selves here at Mill’ood. But I tell yer, honey,
dat ’oman w’at come from de Norf dat was
Miss Rufe’s mudder, an’ tuck, when she hab no
right, my dear ole Miss’ place, want no rester
crat, an’ ebery darkey on de place ’spised her
like er rattlesnake. An’ dere was five hundred
black folks den on dis one plantation. An’ jes
you tink, my little missey, dat all dem an’ more
’ood hab been yere berry own es freedom had
ent cum ’long an’ set all dem gude for nuffin’
niggers ’bove demselves. Dey done forgot how
kind Marse Jeemes was, an’ now he an’ Miss
Margaret laid under dem fine toombstones,
where de long moss er weepin’ er ’bove ’em at
Savannah, done make no diffince ter dem how
high de weed grow in der ribber bottoms, or de
grass in de uplan’, or w’at cums ob de young
missey—do dey use ter ’ould hab broke dere
neck ter pich her baby ratlem.”
“Nebber yer mine, chile,” Philo continued,
in a voice that was absolutely musical in its
softness, as the girl turned abruptly away and
leaned out of the high kitchen window, “sum
ob dese days yer will marry er gran’ gentle
man like w’at come home wid yer las’ nite
maybe I didn’t see him troo de hedge—an’ den
yer can hab der ole house fixed up, an’ de trees
trimmed, an’ de shrubbery beautified, and der
(Continued on Page 14.)
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