Miss Gibbie Gault | Page 3

Cary will ruin that child," said Mrs. Pryor. "She is constantly taking her about and giving her things. But Mary, of course, does as she pleases. She always has and always will."
"She pleases a lot of people besides herself, and I always did say if you could do that you certainly ought to, for there are so few that can. But I don't think Mary gives herself a thought. Did you all know the night-school teacher is going to leave?" and Mrs. Tate put down her fan long enough to again wipe her face with Mrs. Webb's handkerchief. "Mary is so sorry about it, but, of course, she can't help it."
"I believe she can help it." Mrs. Pryor looked around the room as if for confirmation. "Everybody knows the reason he's going. I believe any girl can keep a man from falling in love with her if she wants to. The trouble with Mary is she doesn't want to. There are my girls. You don't catch them encouraging attentions they don't want."
Mrs. Moon's foot pressed Mrs. Corbin's. Miss Matoaca Brockenborough's elbow nudged Mrs. Tazewell, but no one spoke, and Mrs. Pryor went on: "But Mary Cary has been a law unto herself from childhood, and, now she is back in Yorkburg, she thinks she can keep it up, can live her life independently of others, can do her own way, come and go as she pleases, and not be criticized. Yorkburg isn't used to having a young woman livein a house alone, except for a white servant whom nobody knows anything about."
"She's got three servants," chimed Mrs. Tate. "Ephraim and Kezia both live with her."
"I wasn't speaking of colored servants." Again Mrs. Pryor waved her fan as if for silence. "Besides, they have their quarters outside, and both are old. Out West people may do the things she is doing, but in Virginia we are different. We--"
"Oh, we're nothing of the kind, Lizzie," and Mrs. Webb laid her sewing in her lap. "Yorkburg is like all the rest of the world, as we would know if we went about more. The trouble is, we think we are the world."
"I don't see why Mary Cary shouldn't live in the way she wants to," said Mrs. Corbin. "We live to suit ourselves, and why shouldn't she? Heaven knows she's done enough for Yorkburg since she came back. I think she was mighty good to come and live in a quiet little town like this, when she could live almost anywhere she wants. And think of the money she spends here!"
"That is just it! Where does all that money come from? Only yesterday she chartered the General Maury to take the orphan children on an all-day picnic to Wayne Beach on the fourteenth of this month, and all at her expense. It takes money to do things of this kind. She says she is not rich. Where does the money come from?"
Mrs. Pryor tapped the table on which her hands had rested and looked around with an answer-that-now-if-you-can air, and several started to answer. Mrs. Burnham's voice was clearest, however, and as she spoke those in front turned to hear her.
"We don't know where it comes from," she said, courageously, though her face flushed, "and I am not sure that it is required of us to know. If Miss Cary prefers not to discuss her money matters, we have no right to inquire into them. I have not been here very long, and I don't know Yorkburg as well as the people who were born here, but if more of us took interest in the things she--"
"In Yorkburg, Mrs. Burnham, women are not supposed to take interest in what are conceded to be the affairs of men."
Mrs. Pryor was withering in her disapproval, and this time Mrs. Corbin touched Miss Matoaca's foot. "I suppose you allude to the streets of Yorkburg, the schools, and library--and some other things. All these Western and Northern ideas which Mary Cary has brought back are very distasteful to the Virginians of historic ancestry. We have gotten on very well for many centuries without women meddling in men's matters. I have good authority for what I say. It is unscriptural. St. Paul says, let the women keep silent and learn of their husbands at home!"
The door behind Mrs. Pryor's back had opened while she was talking, and Miss Gibbie Gault, listening with her hand on the knob, tilted her chin and screwed up her left eye so tightly that it seemed but a little round hole, and at sight of it some of the ladies brightened visibly, while others fidgeted in nervous apprehension of what might come.
Miss Gibbie came farther in the room, laid her bag and turkey-wing fan on the table over which Mrs. Pryor was presiding,