Chapter XII The Story of Estelle
“Tears, idle tears, I know not what they mean,
Tears from the depth of some divine despair,
Rise in the heart, and gather to the eyes,
In looking on the happy autumn-fields
And thinking of the days that are no more.”
Tennyson.
Balmy, bright, and beautiful broke the succeeding morning. Every passenger as he came on deck looked astern to see what had become of the Champion. She still kept her usual distance, dogging the Pontiac with the persistency of a fate. Captain Crane said nothing, but it was noticeable that he puffed away at his cigar with increased vigor.
Mr. Vance encountered the Berwicks once more on the hurricane deck and interchanged greetings. Little Clara recognized her friend of the day before, and, jumping from Hattie’s lap, ran and pulled his coat, looking up in his face, and pouting her lips for a kiss.
“I fancy I see two marked traits in your little girl, already,” said Vance to the mother, after he had saluted the child; “she is strong in the affections, and has a will-power that shows itself in self-control.”
“You are right,” replied the mother; “I have known her to bite her lips till the blood came, in her effort to keep from crying.”
“Such is her individuality,” continued Vance. “I doubt if circumstances of education could do much to misshape her moral being.”
“Ah! that is a fearful consideration,” said the lady; “we cannot say how far the best of us would have been perverted if our early training had been unpropitious.”
“I knew your father, Mrs. Berwick. He found me, a stranger stricken down by fever, forsaken and untended, in a miserable shanty called a tavern, in Southern Illinois, in the sickly season. He devoted himself to me till I was convalescent. I shall never forget his kindness. Will you allow mg to look at that little seal on your watch-chain? It ought to bear the letters ‘W. C. to R. A.’ Thank you. Yes, there they are! I sent him the seal as a memento. The cutting is my own.”
“I shall regard it with a new interest,” said Mrs. Berwick, as she took it back.
Mr. Onslow here appeared and bade the party good morning.
“I feel that I am among friends,” said Vance. “I last night promised Mr. Onslow a story. Did you ever hear of the redoubtable Gashface, Mr. Berwick?”
“Yes, and I warn you, sir, that I am quite enough of an Abolitionist to hold his memory in a sort of respect.”
“Bold words to utter on the Southern Mississippi! But do not be under concern: I myself am Gashface. Yes. The report of his being killed is a lie. Are you in a mood to hear his story, Mrs. Berwick?”
“I shall esteem it a privilege, sir.”
“The last time I told it was to your father. Be seated, and try and be as patient as he was in listening.”
The party arranged themselves in chairs; and Mr. Vance was about to take up his parable, when the figure of Colonel Delancy Hyde was seen emerging from the stairs leading from the lower deck.
“Hah! Mr. Vance, I’m yourn,” exclaimed the Colonel, with effusion. “Been lookin’ fur yer all over the boat. Introduce yer friends ter me.”
Vance took from his pocket the Colonel’s card, and read aloud the contents of it.
“From Virginia, ma’am,” supplemented the Colonel, who was already redolent of Bourbon; “the name of Delancy Hyde hahz been in the family more ’n five hunderd yarz. Fak, ma’am! My father owned more slaves nor he could count. Ef it hahdn’t been fur a damned Yankee judge, we sh’d hahv held more land nor you could ride over in a day. Them low-born Yankees, ma’am, air jes’ fit to fetch an’ carry for us as air the master race; to larn our childern thar letters an’ make our shoes, as the Greeks done fur the Romans, ma’am. Ever read the Richmond newspapers, ma’am? John Randolph wunst said he’d go out of his way to kick a sheep. I’d go out of my way, ma’am, to kick a Yankee.”
“If you’re disposed to listen to a story, Colonel,” said Vance, “take a chair.” And he pointed to one the furthest from Mrs. Berwick. “I am about to read an autobiography of the fellow Gashface, of whom you have heard.”
And Vance drew from his pocket a small visiting card crowded close with stenographic characters in manuscript.
“An’ that’s an auter—what d’ yer call it,—is it?” asked the Colonel. “Cur’ous!”
The Colonel reinforced himself with a plug of tobacco, and Vance began to recite what he called, for the occasion, “The Autobiography of Gashface.” But we prefer to name it
The Story of Estelle.
I was born in New Orleans, and am the son of William Carteret. He was a Virginian by birth, the younger son of a planter, whose forefather, a poor Yorkshire gentleman, came over from England with Sir Thomas Dale in the year 1611. You might think me false to my father’s native State if I did not vindicate my claim to a descent from one of the first Virginia families. You must be aware that all the gentle blood that flowed from Europe to this continent sought Virginia as its congenial reservoir. It would be difficult to find a low-born white man in the whole eastern section of the State.
[“That’s a fak!” interposed the Colonel.]
My grandfather died in 1820, leaving all his property to his eldest son, Albert. (Virginia then had her laws of primogeniture.) Albert generously offered to provide for my father, but the latter, finding that Albert could not do this without reducing the provision for his sisters, resolved to seek fortune at the North. He went to New York, where he studied medicine. But here he encountered Miss Peyton, a beautiful girl from Virginia, nobly supporting herself by giving instruction in music. He married her, and they consoled themselves for their poverty by their fidelity and devotion to each other. The loss of their first child, in consequence, as my father believed, of the unhealthy location of his house, induced him to make extraordinary efforts to earn money.
After various fruitless attempts to establish himself in some lucrative employment, he made his début, under an assumed name, at the Park Theatre, in the character of Douglas, in Home’s once famous tragedy of that name. My father’s choice of this part is suggestive of the moderate but respectable character of his success. He played to the judicious few; but their verdict in his favor was not sufficiently potent to make him a popular actor. He soon had to give up the high starring parts, and to content himself with playing the gentleman of comedies or the second part in tragedies. In this humbler line he gained a reputation which has not yet died out in theatrical circles. He could always command good engagements for the theatrical season in respectable stock-companies. He was fulfilling one of these engagements in New Orleans when I was born.
A month afterwards he ended his career in a manner that sent a thrill through the public heart. He was one evening playing Othello for his own benefit. Grateful for a crowded house, he was putting forth his best powers, and with extraordinary success. Never had such plaudits greeted and inspired him. The property-man, whose duty it is to furnish all the articles needed by the actor, had given him at rehearsal a blunted dagger, so contrived with a spring that it seemed to pierce the breast when thrust against it. At night this false dagger was mislaid, and the property-man handed him a real one, omitting in the hurry of the moment to inform him of the change. In uttering the closing words of his part,—
“I took by the throat the circumci-sed dog,
And smote him thus,”—
my father inflicted upon himself, not a mimic, but a real stab, so forcible that he did not survive it ten minutes.
Great was my mother’s anguish at her loss. She was not left utterly destitute. My father had not fallen into the besetting sins of the profession. He saw in it a way to competence, if he would but lead a pure and thrifty life. In the seven years he had been on the stage he had laid up seven thousand dollars. Pride would not let him allow my mother to labor for her support. But now she gladly accepted from the manager an offer of twenty-five dollars a week as “walking lady.” On this sum she contrived for seventeen years to live decently and educate her son liberally.
At last sickness obliged her to give up her theatrical engagement. She had invested her seven thousand dollars in bonds of the Planters’ Bank of Mississippi, to the redemption of which the faith of that State was pledged. The repudiation of the bonds by the State authorities, under the instigation of Mr. Jefferson Davis, deprived her of her last resource. Impoverished in means, broken in health, and unable to labor, she fell into a decline and died.
The humane manager gave me a situation in his company. I became an actor, and for seven years played the part of second young gentleman in comedies and melodramas; also such parts as Horatio in “Hamlet” or Macduff in “Macbeth.” But my heart was not in my vocation. It had chagrins which I could not stomach.
One evening I was playing the part of a lover. The dramatis persona of whom I was supposed to be enamored was represented by Miss B——, rather a showy, voluptuous figure, but whom I secretly disliked for qualities the reverse of those of Cæsar’s wife. Instead of allowing my aversion to appear, I played with the appropriate ardor. In performing the “business” of the part, I was about to kiss her, when I heard a loud, solitary hiss from a person in an orchestra box. He was a man of a full face, very fair red-and-white complexion, and thick black whiskers,—precisely what a coarse feminine taste would call “a handsome fellow.” Folding my arms, I walked towards the foot-lights, and asked what he wanted. “None of your business, you damned stroller!” replied he; “I have a right to hiss, I suppose.” “And I have a right to pronounce you a blackguard, I suppose,” returned I. The audience applauded my rebuke, and laughed at the handsome man, who, with scarlet cheeks, rose and left the house. I learned he was a Mr. Ratcliff, a rich planter, and an admirer of Miss B——.
Soon after this adventure I quitted the profession, and for some time gave myself up to study. My tastes were rather musical than histrionic; and having from boyhood been a proficient on the piano-forte, I at last, when all my money was exhausted, offered my services to the public as a teacher.
My first pupil was Henri Dufour, the only son of the widow of a French physician. It was soon agreed that, for the greater convenience of Henri, and in payment for his tuition, I should become a member of the family, which was small, consisting only of himself, his mother, Jane, a black slave, and Estelle, a white girl who occupied the position of a humble companion of the widow.
[At this point in the narrative, Mr. Quattles appeared at the head of the stairs, and, with his forefinger placed on the side of his long nose, winked expressively at Colonel Hyde. The latter rose, and said, “Sorry to go, Mr. Vance; but the fak is, I’m in fur a hahnd at euchre, an’ jest cum up ter see ef you’d jine us.”
“You’re too gallant a man, Colonel Delancy Hyde,” replied Vance, “not to agree with me, when I say, Duty to ladies first.”
“Yer may bet yer pile on that, Mr. Vance; the ladies fust ollerz; but Madame will ’scuze me, I reckon. Hahd a high old time, ma’am, last night, an’ an almighty bahd streak of luck. Must make up fur it somehow.”
“Business before pleasure, Colonel,” said Vance. “We’ll excuse you.”
And the Colonel, with a lordly sweep of his arm, by way of a bow, joined his companion, Quattles, to whom he remarked, “A high-tone Suthun gemmleman that, and one as does credit to his raisin’.” The companions having disappeared, Vance proceeded with his story.]
Let me call up before you, if I can, the image of Estelle. In person about three inches shorter than I (and I am five feet six), slender, lithe, and willowy, yet compactly rounded, straight, and singularly graceful in every movement; a neck and bust that might have served Powers for a model when the Greek Slave was taking form in his brain; a head admirably proportioned to all these symmetries; a face rather Grecian than Roman, and which always reminded me of that portrait of Beatrice Cenci by Guido, made so familiar to us through copies and engravings; a portrait tragic as the fate of the original in its serene yet mournful expression. But Estelle’s hair differed from that of Beatrice in not being auburn, but of a rare and beautiful olive tint, almost like the bark of the laburnum-tree, and exquisitely fine and thick. In complexion she could not be called either a blonde or a brunette; although her dark blue eyes seemed to attach her rather to the former classification. She was one of the few beautiful women I have seen, whose beauty was not marred by a besetting self-consciousness of beauty, betrayed in every look and movement, and even in the tones of the voice. In respect to her personal charms Estelle was as unconscious as a moss-rose.
Mrs. Dufour was an invalid, selfish, parsimonious, and exacting; but Estelle, in devotion to that lady’s service and in adaptation to her caprices, showed a patience and a tact so admirable that it was difficult to guess whether they were the result of sincere affection or of a simple sense of duty.
Henri, my pupil in music, was a youth of sixteen, who inherited not only his mother’s morbid constitution, but her ungenerous qualities of heart and temper. Arrogant and vain, he seemed to regard me in the light of a menial, and I could not find in him intellect enough to make him sensible of his folly.
I spent my last twenty dollars in advertising; but no new pupil appeared in answer to my insinuating appeal. My wardrobe began to get impaired; my broadcloth to lose its nap, and my linen to give evidence of premeditated poverty. One day I marvelled at finding in my drawer a shirt completely renovated, with new wristbands, bosom, and collar. The next week the miracle was repeated. Had Mrs. Dufour opened her heart and her purse? Impossible! Had Jane, my washerwoman, slyly performed the service? She honestly denied it. I pursued my investigations no further.
The next Sunday, in putting on my best pantaloons, I found in the right pocket two gold quarter-eagles. Yes! There could now be no doubt. I had misjudged Mrs. Dufour. Her stinginess was all a pretence. Touched with gratitude, yet humiliated, I went to return the gold. It was plain that Madame knew nothing about it. I looked at Estelle, who sat at a window mending a muslin collar.
“Can you explain, Mademoiselle?” I asked.
“Explain what?” she inquired, as if she had been too absorbed in her own thoughts to hear a word of the conversation.
“Can you explain how those gold pieces came into my pocket?”
Without the least sign of guilt, she replied, “I cannot explain, sir.”
Was she deceiving me? I thought not. Though we had met twice a day at meals for weeks, her demeanor towards me had been always distant and reserved.
It was my habit daily, after giving a morning lesson to my pupil, to walk a couple of hours on the Levee. One forenoon, on account of the heat of the weather, I returned home an hour earlier than usual. Henri and his mother were out riding. As I entered the house I heard the sound of the piano, and stopped in the hall to listen. It was Estelle at the instrument.
I had left on the music-stand a rough score of my arrangement of that remarkable composition, then newly published in Europe, the music and words of which Colonel Pestal wrote with a link of his fetters on his prison-wall the day before his execution. I had translated the original song, and written it on the same page with the music. What was my astonishment to hear the whole piece,—this new De Profundis, this mortal cry from the depths of a proud, indignant heart,—a cry condensed by music into tones the most apt and fervid,—now reproduced by Estelle with such passionate power, such reality of emotion, that I was struck at once with admiration and with horror.
They were not, then, for Pestal so much as for Estelle,—those utterances of holy wrath and angelic defiance! The words by themselves are simple,—commonplace, if you will.18 But, conveyed to the ear through Pestal’s music and Estelle’s voice, they seemed vivid with the very lightning of the soul. As she sang, the victim towered above the oppressor like an archangel above a fiend. The prison-walls fell outward, and the welcoming heavens opened to the triumphant captive.
I entered the room. She turned suddenly. Her face had not yet recovered from the expression of those emotions which the song had called up. She rose with the air of an avenging goddess. Then, seeing me, she drew up her clasped hands to her bosom with a gesture full of grace and eloquent with deprecation, and said, “Forgive me if I have disturbed your papers.”
“Estelle!” I began. Then, seeing her look of surprise, I said, “Excuse me if the address is too familiar; but I know you by no other name.”
“Estelle is all sufficient,” she replied.
“Well, then, Estelle, you have moved me by your singing as I was never moved before,—so terribly in earnest did you seem! What does it mean?”
“It means,” she replied, “that you have adapted the music to a faithful translation of the words.”
“I have heard you play,” said I, “but why have you kept me in ignorance of your powers as a singer?”
“My powers, such as they are,” she said, “have been rarely used since I left the convent. I can give little time now to music. Indeed, the hour I have given to it this morning was stolen, and I must make up for it. So good by.”
“Stay, Estelle,” said I, seizing her hand. “There is a mystery which hangs over you like a cloud. Tell me what it is. Your eyes look as if a storm of unshed tears were brooding behind them. Your expression is always sad. Can I in any way help you? Can I render a true brother’s service?”
She stood, looking me in the face, and it was plain, from a certain convulsed effort at deglutition, that she was striving to swallow back the big grief that heaved itself up from her heart. She wavered as if half inclined to reveal something. There was the noise of a carriage at the door; and, pressing my hand gently, she said, with an effort at a smile that should have been a sob, “Thank you; you cannot—help me; my mistress is at the door; good by.” And dropping my hand, she glided out of the room.
I can never forget her as she then appeared in her virginal, spring-like beauty, with her profuse silky hair parted plainly in front, and folded in a classic knot behind, with her dress of a light gauze-like material, and an unworked muslin collar about her neck having a simple blue ribbon passing under it and fastened in front with a little cross of gold. How unpretending and unadorned,—and yet what a charm was lent to her whole attire by her consummate grace of person and of action!
Mrs. Dufour entered, and I did not see Estelle again that day.
It was that fearful summer when the fever seemed to be indiscriminate in its ravages. Not only transient visitors in the city, but old residents long acclimated, natives of the city, physicians and nurses, were smitten down. Many fled from the pest-ridden precincts. Whole blocks of houses were deserted. There were few doors at which Death did not knock for one or more of the inmates.
My pupil, Henri Dufour, was taken ill on a Saturday, and on Wednesday his mortal remains were conveyed to the cemetery. I had tended him day and night, and was much worn down by watchings and anxiety. Jane, a hired black domestic, was wanted by her owner, and left us. All the work of our diminished household now fell on Estelle. As for Madame Dufour, she lived in a hysterical fear lest the inevitable summoner should visit her next. She was continually imagining that the symptoms were upon her. One day she fell into an unusual state of alarm. I was alone with her in the house. Estelle had gone out without asking permission,—an extraordinary event. I did what I could for the invalid, and, by her direction, called in a physician whose carriage she had seen standing at a neighboring door.
The poor little doctor seemed flurried and overworked, and an odor of brandy came from his breath. He assured Mrs. Dufour that her symptoms were wholly of the imagination, and that if she would keep tranquil, all danger would speedily pass. He administered a dose of laudanum. It afterwards occurred to me that he had given three times the usual quantity. He received his fee and departed; and I sat down behind the curtain of an alcove so as to be within call.
Three minutes had not elapsed when Estelle burst into the room, and in a voice low and husky, as if with overpowering agitation, exclaimed: “You have deceived me, Madame! Mr. Semmes tells me you never gave him any orders about a will. Do you mean to cheat me? Beware! Tell me this instant! tell me! Will you do it? Will you do it?”
“Estelle! how can you?” whined Mrs. Dufour. “At such a time, when the slightest agitation may bring on the fever, how can you trouble me on such a subject?”
“No evasion!” exclaimed Estelle, in imperious tones. “I demand it,—I exact it,—now—this instant! You shall—you shall perform it!”
Madame had some vague superstitious notion connected with the signing of a will, and she murmured: “I shall do nothing at present; I’m not in a state to sign my name. The doctor said I must be tranquil. How can you be so selfish, Estelle? Do you imagine I’m going to die, that you are so urgent just now?”
“You told me three months ago,” replied Estelle, “that the will had been regularly signed and witnessed. You lied! If you now refuse to make amends, do not hope for peace either in this world or the next. No priest shall attend you here, and my curses shall pursue you down to hell to double the damnation your sin deserves! Will you sign, if I bring the notary?”
Mrs. Dufour began to moan, and complain of her symptoms, while I could hear Estelle pacing the room like a caged tigress. Suddenly she stood still, and cried, “Do you still refuse?”
The moaning of the invalid had been succeeded by a stertorous breathing, as if she had been suddenly overcome by sleep.
“She is stone,—stone! She sleeps!—she has no heart!” groaned Estelle.
I now left the alcove. Estelle knelt weeping with her face on the sofa. I touched her on the head, and she started up alarmed. She saw tears of sympathy on my cheek. I drew her away with my arm about her waist, and said, “Come! come and tell me all.”
She let me lead her down-stairs into the parlor. I placed her in an arm-chair, and sat on a low ottoman at her feet. “Tell me all, Estelle,” I repeated. “What does it mean?”
I then drew from her these facts. Her mother, though undistinguishable from a white woman, had been a slave belonging to a Mr. Huger, a sugar-planter. She was reputed to be the daughter of what the Creoles call a meamelouc, that is, the offspring of a white man and a metif mother, a metif being the offspring of a white and a quarteron. This account of the genealogy of Estelle’s mother I never had occasion to doubt till years afterwards. The father of Estelle was Albert Grandeau, a young Parisian of good family. Being suddenly called home from Louisiana to France by the death of his parents, he left America, promising to return the following winter, and purchase the prospective mother of his child and take her to Paris. This he honestly intended to do; but alas for good intentions! It is good deeds only that are secure against the caprices of Fate. The vessel in which Grandeau sailed foundered at sea, and he was among the lost. Estelle’s mother died in child-birth.
And then Estelle,—on the well-known principle of Southern law, “proles sequitur ventrem,”—in spite of her fair complexion, was a slave. Mr. Huger dying, she fell to the portion of his unmarried daughter, Louise, who was a member of the newly established Convent of St. Vivia. She took Estelle, then a mere child, with her to bring up. Fortunately for Estelle, there were highly accomplished ladies in the convent, to whom it was at once a delight and a duty to instruct the little girl. French, English, and Italian were soon all equally familiar to her, and before she was seventeen she surpassed, in needlework and music, even her teachers. But the convent of St. Vivia had been cheated in the title of its estate; and through failure of funds, it was at length broken up. Soon afterwards, Louise Huger, whose health had always been feeble, died suddenly, leaving Estelle to her sister, Mrs. Dufour, with the request that measures should be at once taken to secure the maiden’s freedom, in the contingency of Mrs. Dufour’s demise. It was the failure of the latter to take the proper steps for Estelle’s manumission that now roused her anger and anxiety.
These disclosures on the part of Estelle awoke in me conflicting emotions.
Shall I confess it? Such was the influence of education, of inherited prejudice, and of social proscription, that when she told me she was a slave, I shuddered as a high-caste Brahmin might when he finds that the man he has taken by the hand is a Pariah. Estelle was too keen of penetration not to detect it; and she drew her robe away from my touch, and moved her chair back a little.
My ancestors, with the exception of my father, had been slaveholders ever since 1625. I had lived all my life in a community where slavery was held a righteous and a necessary institution. I had never allowed myself to question its policy or its justice. Skepticism as to a God or a future state was venial, nay, rather fashionable; but woe to the youth who should play the Pyrrhonist in the matter of slavery!
Yet it was not fear, it was not self-interest, that made me acquiesce; it was simply a failure to exercise my proper powers of thought. I took the word of others,—of interested parties, of social charlatans, of sordid, self-stultified fanatics,—that the system was the best possible one that could be conceived of, both for blacks and whites. From the false social atmosphere in which I had grown up I had derived the accretions that went to build up and solidify my moral being.
And so if St. Paul or Fenelon, Shakespeare or Newton, had come to me with ebonized faces, I should have refused them the privileges of an equal. To such folly are we shaped by what we passively receive from society! To such outrages on justice and common sense are we reconciled simply by the inertness of our brains, not to speak of the hollowness of our hearts!
Estelle paused, and almost despaired, when she saw the effect upon me of her confession. But I pressed her to a conclusion of her story, and then asked, “Who has any claim upon you, in the event of Madame Dufour’s dying intestate?”
“Nearly all her property,” replied Estelle, “is mortgaged to her nephew, Carberry Ratcliff, and he is her only heir.”
“Give me some account of him.”
“He is a South Carolinian by birth. Some years ago he married a Creole lady, by whom he got a fine cotton-plantation on the Red River, stocked with several hundred slaves. He has a house and garden in Lafayette, but lives most of the time on his plantation at Loraine.”
“Have you ever seen him?”
“Yes; the first time only ten days ago, and he has been here four times since to call on Madame Dufour, though he rarely used to visit her oftener than twice a year.”
As Estelle spoke, her eyes flashed, and her breast heaved.
“How did he behave to you, Estelle?”
“How should the lord of a plantation behave to a comely female slave? Of course he insulted me both with looks and words. What more could you expect of such a connoisseur in flesh and blood as the planter who recruits his gangs at slave-auctions? Do not ask me how he behaved.”
I rose, deeply agitated, and paced the room.
“What sort of a looking man is this Mr. Ratcliff?”
She went to an étagère in a corner, opened a little box, and took from it a daguerrotype, which she placed in my hand.
Looking at the likeness, I recognized the man who once insulted me at the theatre.
“I must go and attend to Madame Dufour,” said Estelle.
“Let me accompany you,” said I.
She made no objection. We went together into the chamber. Estelle rushed to the bedside,—shook the invalid,—called her aloud by name,—put her ear down to learn if she breathed,—put her hand on the breast to find if the heart beat,—then turned to me, and shrieked, “She is dead!”
What was to be done?
I led Estelle into the parlor. She sat down. Her face was of a frightful pallor; but there was not the trace of a tear in her eyes. The expression was that of blank, unmitigated despair.
“Poor, poor child!” I murmured. “What can I do for her? Estelle, you must be saved,—but how?”
My words and my look seemed to inspire her with a hope. She rose, sank upon both knees before me, lifted up her clasped hands, and said: “O sir! O Mr. Carteret! as you are a man, as you reverence the recollection of your mother, save me,—save me from the consequences of this death! I am now the slave of Mr. Ratcliff; and what that involves to me you can guess, but I, without a new agony, cannot explain. Save me, dear sir! Good sir, kind sir, for God’s love, save me!” And then, with a wild cry of despair, she added: “I will be yours,—body and soul, I will be yours, if you will only save me! I will be your slave,—your anything,—only let me belong to one I can love and respect. Do not, do not cast me off!”
“Cast you off, dear child? Never!” said I, and, raising her to her feet, I kissed her forehead.
That first kiss! How shall I analyze it? It was pure and tender as a mother’s, notwithstanding the utter abandonment signified in the maiden’s words. That very self-surrender was her security. Had she been shy, I might have been less cold. But her look of disappointment showed she attributed that coldness to some less flattering cause,—plainly to indifference, if not to personal dislike. She could not detect in me the first symptom of what she instinctively knew would be a guaranty of my protection, stronger than duty.
Like all the slaves and descendants of slaves in Louisiana, of all grades of color, she had been bred up to a knowledge that it was a consequence of her condition that there could be no marriage union between her and a respectable white man. Impressed with this conviction, she had pleaded to be allowed to remain in some convent, though it were but as a servant, for the remainder of her life. The selfishness of her mistress and owner, Miss Huger, put it out of her power to make this choice effectual. Her kind-hearted Catholic instructors consoled her, as well as they could, by the assurance that, being a slave, the sin of any mode of life to which she might be forced would be attended with absolution. But she had the horror which every pure nature, strong in the affections, must feel, under like circumstances, at the prospect of constraint. Since her life was to be that of a slave, O that her master might be one she could love, and who could love her! The first part of the dream would be realized if I could buy her. What misery to think that the latter part must remain unfulfilled!
I led her to a chair. She sat down and burst into a passion of tears. In vain I tried to console her by words. Supporting her head with one hand, I then with the other smoothed back the beautiful hair from her forehead. Gradually she became calm. I knelt beside her, and said: “Estelle, compose yourself. I promise you I will risk everything, life itself, to save you from the fate you abhor. Now summon your best faculties, and let us together devise some plan of proceeding.”
She lifted my hand to her lips in gratitude, made me take a seat by her side, and said: “Mr. Ratcliff or his agent may be here any minute, and then you would be powerless. The first step is to leave this house, and seek concealment.”
“Do you know any place of refuge?”
“Yes; I know a mulatto woman, named Mallet, who has a little stall on Poydras Street for the sale of baskets. She occupies a small tenement near by, and has two spare rooms. I think we can trust her, for I once tended one of her children who died; and she does not know that I am a slave.”
“But, Estelle, I grieve to say it,—I am poor, almost destitute. My friends are chiefly theatrical people, poor like myself, and most of them are North at this season.”
“Do not let that distress you,” she said; “I am the owner of a gold watch, for which we can get at least fifty dollars.”
“And mine will bring another fifty,” returned I. “Let us go, then, at once, since here you are in danger.”
An old negro, well known to the family, and who carried round oranges for sale, at this moment stopped at the door. I gave him a dollar, on condition that he would occupy and guard the house till some one should come to relieve him. I then, at Estelle’s suggestion, sent a letter to the Superintendent of Burials, announcing Madame Dufour’s death, and requesting him to attend to the interment. I also enclosed the address of Mr. Ratcliff and Mr. Semmes as the persons who would see all expenses paid. To this I signed my real name.
It was agreed that Estelle should leave at once. She gave me written directions for finding our place of rendezvous. There was before it an old magnolia-tree which I was particularly to note. I was to follow soon with such articles of attire, belonging to her and to myself, as I could bring, and I was to return for more if necessary. We parted, and I think she must have read something not sinister in the expression of my face, for her own suddenly brightened, and, with a smile ineffably sweet in its thankfulness, she said, “Au revoir!”
Our plans were all successfully carried out. The wardrobe of neither of us was extensive. Two visits to the house enabled me to remove all that we required. My letter to the Superintendent of Burials I had dropped into his box, and that afternoon I saw him enter the house, so that I knew the proper attentions to the dead would not be wanting.
Mrs. Mallet gladly received us on our own terms. Estelle had appropriated for me the better of the two little rooms, and had arranged and decked it so as to wear an appearance of neatness and comfort, if not of luxury. I expostulated, but she would not listen to my occupying the inferior apartment. Her own preferences must rule.
Ever dear to memory must be that first evening in our new abode! There was one old fauteuil in her room, and, placing Estelle in that, I sat on a low trunk by her side, where I could lean my elbow on the arm of the chair. It was a warm, but not oppressive July evening, with a bright moon. The window was open, and in the little area upon which it looked a lemon-tree rustled as the breeze swelled, now and then, to a whisper.
We were alone. I asked a thousand questions. I extorted the secret of my mended clothes and the mysterious gold pieces. That air of depression which had always been so marked in Estelle had vanished. She spoke and looked like a new being. I put a question in French, and she answered in that language with a fluency and a purity of accent that put me to the blush for my own lingual shortcomings. I spoke of books, and was surprised to find in her a bold, detective taste in recognizing the peculiarities, and penetrating to the spiritual life, of the higher class of thinkers and literary artists, whether French, English, or American.
I asked her to sing. In subdued tones, but with an exquisite accuracy, she sang some of the favorite airs by Mozart, Bellini, and Donizetti, using the Italian as if it were her native tongue.
And there, in that atmosphere of death, while the surrounding population were being decimated by the terrible pestilence, I drank in my first draughts of an imperishable love.
I looked at my watch. It was half an hour after midnight. How had the hours slipped by! We must part.
“Estelle!” I exclaimed with emotion; but I could not put into words what I had intended to say. Then, taking her hand, I added, “You have given me the most delightful evening of my life.”
No light was burning in the room, but by the moonbeams I could see her face all luminous with joy and triumph. My second kiss was bestowed; but this time it was on her lips,—brief, but impassioned. “Good night, Estelle!” I whispered; and, forcing myself instantly away, I closed the door.
I entered my apartment, and went to bed, but not to sleep. Tears that I could not repress gushed forth. A strange rapture possessed me. Nature had proved itself stronger than convention. The impulsive heart was more than a match for the calculating head. For the first time in my life I saw the new heavens and the new earth which love brings in. Estelle now seemed all the dearer to me for her very helplessness,—for the degradation and isolation in which slavery had placed her. Were she a princess, could I love her half as well? But she shall be treated with all the consideration due to a princess! Passion shall take no advantage of her friendlessness and self-abandonment.
Then came thoughts of the danger she was in,—of what I should do for her rescue; and it was not till light dawned in the east that I fell into a slumber.
We gave up nearly the whole of the next day to the discussion of plans. In pursuance of that on which we finally fixed, Estelle wrote a letter to Mr. Ratcliff in these words:—
“To Carberry Ratcliff, Esq.:—Sir: By the time this letter reaches you I shall be out of your power, and with my freedom assured. Still I desire to be at liberty to return to New Orleans, if I should so elect, and therefore I request you to name the sum in consideration of which you will give me free papers. A friend will negotiate with you. Let that friend have your answer, if you please, in the form of an advertisement in the Picayune, addressed to
Estelle.”
Two days afterwards we found the following answer in the newspaper named:—
“To Estelle: For fifty dollars, I will give you the papers you desire.
C. R.”
Long and anxiously we meditated on this reply. I dreaded a trap. Was it not most likely that Ratcliff, in naming so low a figure, hoped to secure some clew to the whereabouts of Estelle?
While I was puzzling myself with the question, Estelle suggested an expedient. The answer to the advertisement undoubtedly came from Ratcliff, and we had a right to regard it as valid. Why not address a letter, with fifty dollars, to Ratcliff, and have it legally registered at the post-office?
“Admirable!” exclaimed I, delighted at her quickness.
“No, it is not admirable,” she replied. “An objection suggests itself. Some one will have to go to the post-office to register the letter, and he may be known or tracked.”
I reflected a moment, and then said: “I think I can guard against such a danger. Having been an actor, I am expert at disguises. I will go as an old man.”
The plan was approved and put into effect. The two watches were disposed of at a jeweller’s for a hundred and ten dollars. In an altered hand I wrote Ratcliff a letter, enclosed in it a fifty-dollar bill, and bade him direct his answer simply to Estelle Grandeau, Cincinnati, Ohio. I added one dollar for the purpose of covering any expense he might be at for postage. Then, at the shop of a theatrical costumer, I disguised myself as a man of seventy, and went to the post-office. There I had the letter and its contents of money duly registered.
As I was returning home in my disguise, I saw the old negro I had left in charge at Mrs. Dufour’s. He did not recognize me, and was not surprised at my questions. From him I learned, that before he left the house a gentleman (undoubtedly Ratcliff) had called, and had seemed to be in a terrible fury on finding that Estelle had gone away some hours before; but his rage had redoubled when he further ascertained that a young man was her attendant.
The interesting question now was, Had Ratcliff any clew to my identity? My true name, William Carteret, under which I had been known at Mrs. Dufour’s, was not the name I had gone by on the stage. Here was one security. Still it was obvious the utmost precaution must be used.
My plans were speedily laid. Not having money enough to pay the passage of both Estelle and myself up the Mississippi, I decided that Estelle should go alone, disguised as an old woman. I engaged a state-room, and paid for it in advance. I had much difficulty in persuading her to accede to the arrangement, so painful was the prospect of a separation; but she finally consented. At my friend the costumer’s I fitted her out in a plain, Quaker-like dress. She was to be Mrs. Carver, a schoolmistress, going North. The next morning I covered her beautiful hair with a grayish wig; and then, by the aid of a hare’s foot and some pigments, added wrinkles and a complexion suitable to a maiden lady of fifty. With a veil over her face, she would not be suspected.
The hour of parting came. I put a plain gold ring on her finger. “Be constant,” I said. “Forever!” she solemnly replied, pressing the ring to her lips with tears of delight. The carriage was at the door. The farewell kiss was exchanged. Her little trunk was put on the driver’s foot-board. Mrs. Mallet entered and took a seat, and Estelle was about to follow, when suddenly a faintness seized me. She detected it at once, turned back, and exclaimed in alarm: “You are not well. What is the matter?”
“Nothing, that a glass of wine will not cure,” I replied. “There! It is over already. Do not delay. Your time is limited. Driver! Fast, but steady! Here’s a dollar for you! There! Step in, Estelle.”
She looked at me hesitatingly. I summoned all my will to check my increasing faintness. Urging her into the carriage, I closed the door, and the horses started. Estelle watched me from the window, till an angle in the street hid me from her view. Then, staggering into the house, I crawled up-stairs to my chamber, and sank upon the bed.
The next ten days were a blank to consciousness. Fever and delirium had the mastery of my brain. On the eleventh morning I seemed to wake gradually, as if from some anxious dream. I lay twining my hands feebly one over the other. Then suddenly a speck in the ceiling fixed my attention. Raising myself on the pillow, I looked around. Very gently and slowly recollection came back. The appearance of Mrs. Mallet soon seemed a natural sequence. She smiled, gave an affirmative shake of the head, as if to tell me all was well, and at her bidding, I lay down and slept. The following day I was strong enough to inquire after Estelle.
“Be good, and you shall see her,” was the reply.
“What! Did she not take passage in the boat?”
“There! Do not be alarmed; she will explain it all.”
And as she spoke, Estelle glided in, held up her forefinger by way of warning, and, smiling through her tears, kissed my forehead. I felt a shock of joy, followed by anxiety. “Why did you not go?” I asked.
“I found I could dispose of my state-room, and I did it, for I was too much concerned about your health to go in peace. It was fortunate I returned. You have had the fever, but the danger is over.”
“How long have I lain thus?”
“This is the twelfth day.”
“Have I had a physician?”
“No one but Estelle; but then she is an expert; she once walked the hospitals with the Sisters of Charity.”
My convalescence was rapid. By the first of September I was well enough to take long strolls in the evening with Estelle. On the fifth of that month, early one starlit night, I said to her, “Come, Estelle, put on your bonnet and shawl for a walk.”
She brought them into my room, and placed them on the bed.
“Where shall we go?” she inquired.
“To the Rev. Mr. Fulton’s,” I replied; “that is, if you will consent to be—”
“To be what?” she asked, not dreaming of my drift.
“To be married to me, Estelle!”
The expressions that flitted over her face,—expressions of doubtful rapture, pettish incredulity, and childlike eagerness,—come back vividly to my remembrance.
“You do not mean it!” at length she murmured, reproachfully.
“From my inmost heart I mean it, and I desire it above all earthly desires,” I replied.
She sank to the floor, and, clasping my knees with her arms, bowed her head upon them, and wept. Then, starting up, she said: “What! Your wife? Really your wife? Mistress and wife in one? Me,—a slave? Can it be, William, you desire it?”
It was the first time she had called me by my first name.
“Have you considered it well?” she continued. “O, I fear it would be ungenerous in me to consent. Such an alliance might jeopard all your future. You are young, well-connected, and can one day command all that the best society of the country can offer. No, William, not for me,—not for me the position of your wife!”
I replied to these misgivings by putting on her shawl, then her bonnet, the tying of which I accompanied with a kiss that brought the roses to her cheeks.
“Estelle,” I said, “unless we are very different from what we believe, the step is one we shall not regret. I must be degenerate indeed, if I can ever find anything in life more precious than the love you give and inspire. But perhaps you shrink from so binding a tie.”
“Shrink from it?” she repeated, in a tone of abandonment to all that was rapturous and delightful in her conceptions, though the tears gushed from her eyes. “O, generous beyond my dreams! Would I might prove to you of what my love is capable, and how you have deepened its unfathomable depths by this last proof of your affection!”
We went forth under the stars that beautiful evening to the well-known minister’s house. He received us kindly, asked us several questions, and, having satisfied himself of our intelligence and sincerity, united us in marriage. We gave him our real names,—William Carteret and Estelle Grandeau,—and he promised to keep the secret.
Six weeks flew by, how swiftly! The pressure which circumstances had put upon Estelle’s buoyancy of character being taken away, she moved the very embodiment of joy. It was as if she was making up for the past repression of her cheerfulness by an overflow, constant, yet gentle as the superflux of a fountain. Her very voice grew more childlike in its tones. A touching gratitude that never wearied of making itself felt seemed added to an abounding tenderness towards me.
She had a quick sense of the humorous which made hers an atmosphere of smiles. She would make me laugh by the odd and childish, yet charming pet phrases she would lavish upon me. She would amuse me by her anxiety in catering for me at meal-time, and making her humble fare seem sumptuous by her devices of speech, as well as by her culinary arts. The good nuns with whom she had lived had made her a thorough housekeeper, and a paragon of neatness. She wanted further to be my valet, my very slave, anticipating my wants, and forestalling every little effort which I might put forth.
My object now was to raise the sum necessary for our departure from the city. I took pupils in music among the humblest classes,—among the free blacks and even the slaves. I would be absent from nine o’clock in the morning till five in the afternoon. Estelle aided me in my purpose. She learned from Mrs. Mallet the art of making baskets, and contrived some of a new pattern which met a ready sale. We began to lay up five, sometimes six dollars a day.
Once I met Mr. Ratcliff in Carondelet Street. He evidently recognized me, for he turned on me a glance full of arrogance and hate. The encounter made me uneasy, but, thinking the mention of it might produce needless anxiety, I said nothing about it to Estelle. We were sitting that very evening in our little room. Estelle, always childlike, was in my lap, questioning me closely about all the incidents of the day,—what streets I had walked through; what persons I had seen; if I had been thinking of her, &c. I answered all her questions but one, and she seemed content; and then whispered in my ears the intelligence that she was likely to be the mother of my child. Delightful announcement! And yet with the thrill of satisfaction came a pang of solicitude.
“Do you believe,” prattled Estelle, “there ever were two people so happy? I can’t help recalling those words you read me the other night from your dear father’s last part, ‘If it were now to die, ’t were now to be most happy.’ It seems to me as if the felicity of a long life had been concentrated into these few weeks, and as if we were cheating our mortal lot in allowing ourselves to be quite so happy.”
Was this the sigh of her presaging heart?
I resolved on immediate action. The next day (a Wednesday) I passed upon the Levee. After many inquiries, I found a ship laden with cotton that would sail the following Sunday for Boston. The captain agreed to give up his best state-room for a hundred dollars. It should be ready for our occupancy on Saturday. I closed with his offer at once. Estelle rejoiced at the arrangement.
“What has happened to-day?” I asked her.
“Nothing of moment,” she replied. “Two men called to get names for a Directory.”
“What did you tell them?”
“That if they wanted my husband’s name, they must get it from him personally.”
“You did well. Were they polite?”
“Very, and seemed to seek excuses for lingering; but, getting no encouragement, they left.”
Could it be they were spies? The question occurred to me, but I soon dismissed it as improbable.
And yet they were creatures employed by Carberry Ratcliff to find out what they could about the man who had offended him.
Ratcliff was the type of a class that spring from slavery as naturally as certain weeds spring from a certain quality of manure. He was such a man as only slavery could engender. The son of a South Carolina planter, he was bred to believe that his little State—little in respect to its white population—was yet the master State of the Union, and that his family was the master family of the State. The conclusion that he was the master man of his family, and consequently of the Union, was not distant or illogical. As soon as he could lift a pistol he was taught to fire at a mark, and to make believe it was an Abolitionist. Before he was twelve years old he had fired at and wounded a free negro, who had playfully answered an imperious order by mimicking the boy’s strut. Of this achievement the father was rather proud.
Accustomed to regard the lives and persons of slaves as subject to his irresponsible will, or to the caprices of his untrained and impure passions, he soon transferred to the laboring white man and woman the contempt he felt for the negro. We cannot have the moral sense impaired in one direction without having it warped and corrupted throughout.
Wrong feeling must, by an inexorable law, breed wrong thinking. And so Ratcliff looked upon all persons, whether white or black, who had to earn their bread by manual labor, as (in the memorable words of his friend Mr. Hammond, United States Senator from South Carolina) “Mudsills and slaves.” For the thrifty Yankee his contempt was supreme, bitter, almost frantic.
By mismanagement and extravagance his family estate was squandered, and, the father having fallen in a duel with a political adversary, Ratcliff found himself at twenty-one with expensive tastes and no money. He borrowed a few hundred dollars, went to Louisiana, and there married a woman of large property, but personally unattractive. Revengeful and unforgetting as a savage where his pride was touched, and more cruel than a wolf in his instincts, Ratcliff had always meant to requite me for the humiliation I had made him experience. He had lost trace of me soon after the incident at the theatre. No sooner had I passed him in Carondelet Street than he put detectives on my track, and my place of abode was discovered. He received such a report of my wife’s beauty as roused him to the hope of an exquisite revenge. Doubtless he found an opportunity of seeing Estelle without being seen; and on discovering in her his slave, his surprise and fury reached an ungovernable height.
Let me not dwell on the horrors of the next few days. We had made all our arrangements for departure that Saturday morning.
Estelle, in her simple habit, never looked so lovely. A little cherry-colored scarf which I had presented her was about her neck, and contrasted with the neutral tint of her robe. The carriage for our conveyance to the ship was at the door. Our light amount of luggage was put on behind. We bade our kind hostess good by. Estelle stepped in, and I was about to follow, when two policemen, each with a revolver in his hand, approached from a concealment near by, shut the carriage door, and, laying hands upon me, drew me back. At the same moment, from the opposite side of the street, Ratcliff, with two men wearing official badges, came, and, opening the opposite door of the coach, entered and took seats. So sudden were these movements, that they were over before either Estelle or I could offer any resistance.
The coachman at once drove off. An imploring shriek from Estelle was followed by a frantic effort on her part to thrust open the door of the coach. I saw her struggling in the arms of the officers, her face wild with terror, indignation, rage. Ratcliff, who had taken the seat opposite to her, put his head out of the coach, and bowed to me mockingly.
One of my stalwart captors held a pistol to my head, and cautioned me to be “asy.” For half a minute I made no resistance. I was calculating how I could best rescue Estelle. All the while I kept my eyes intently on the departing carriage.
My captors held me as if they were prepared for any struggle. But I had not been seven years on the stage without learning something of the tricks of the wrestler and the gymnast. Suddenly both policemen found their legs knocked from under them, and their heads in contact with the pavement. A pistol went off as they fell, and a bullet passed through the crown of my hat; but before they could recover their footing, I had put an eighth of a mile between us.
Where was the carriage? The street into which it had turned was intersected by another which curved on either side like the horns of a crescent. To my dismay, when I reached this curve, the carriage was not to be seen. It had turned into the street either on the right or on the left, and the curve hid it from view. Which way? I could judge nothing from the sound, for other vehicles were passing. I stopped a man, and eagerly questioned him. He did not speak English. I put my question in French. He stopped to consider,—believed the carriage had taken the left turning, but was not quite certain. I ran leftward with all my speed. Carriages were to be seen, but not one with the little trunk and valise strapped on behind. I then turned and ran down the right turning. Baffled! At fault! In the network of streets it was all conjecture. Still on I ran in the desperate hope of seeing the carriage at some cross street. But my efforts were fruitless.
Panting and exhausted, I sought rest in a “magasin” for the sale of cigars. A little back parlor offered itself for smokers. I entered. A waiter brought in three cigars, and I threw a quarter of a dollar on the table. But I was no lover of the weed. The tobacco remained untouched. I wanted an opportunity for summoning my best thoughts.
Even if I had caught the coach, would not the chances have been against me? Clearly, yes. Further search for it, then, could be of no avail. Undoubtedly Ratcliff would take Estelle at once to his plantation, for there he could have her most completely in his power. Let that calculation be my starting-point.
How stood it in regard to myself? Did not my seizure by the policemen show that legal authority for my arrest had been procured? Probably. If imprisoned, should I not be wholly powerless to help Estelle? Obviously. Perhaps the morning newspapers would have something to say of the affair? Nothing more likely. Was it not, then, my safest course to keep still and concealed for the present? Alas, yes! Could I not trust Estelle to protect her own honor? Ay, she would protect it with her life; but the pang was in the thought that her life might be sacrificed in the work of protection.
The “magasin” was kept by Gustave Leroux, an old Frenchman, who had been a captain under Napoleon, and was in the grand army in its retreat from Moscow. A bullet had gone through his cheeks, and another had taken off part of his nose.
I must have sat with the untouched cigars before me nearly three hours. At last, supposing I was alone, I bowed my forehead on my hand, and wept. Suddenly I looked up. The old Frenchman, with his nose and cheek covered with large black patches, was standing with both hands on the table, gazing wistfully and tenderly upon me.
“What is it, my brave?” he asked in French, while tears began to fill his own eyes. I looked up. There was no resisting the benignity of that old battered face. I took the two hands which he held out to me in my own. He sat down by my side, and I told him my story.
After I had finished, he sat stroking his gray moustache with forefinger and thumb, and for ten minutes did not speak. Then he said: “I have seen this Mr. Ratcliff. A bad physiognomy! And yet what Mademoiselle Millefleurs would call a pretty fellow! Let us see. He will carry the girl to Lorain, and have her well guarded in his own house. As he has no faith in women, his policy will be to win her by fine presents, jewels, dresses, and sumptuous living. He will try that game for a full month at least. I think, if the girl is what you tell me she is, we may feel quite secure for a month. That will give us time to plan a campaign. Meanwhile you shall occupy a little room in my house, and keep as calm as you can. My dinner will be ready in ten minutes. You must try to coax an appetite, for you will want all your health and strength. Courage, mon brave!”
This old soldier, in his seventieth year, had done the most courageous act of his life. Out of pure charity he had married Madame Ponsard, five years his elder, an anti-Bonapartist, and who had been left a widow, destitute, and with six young parentless grandchildren. Fifty years back he had danced with her when she was a belle in Paris, and that fact was an offset for all her senile vanity and querulousness. It reconciled him, not only to receiving the lady herself, large, obese, and rubicund, and, worst of all, anti-Bonapartist, but to take her encumbrances, four girls and two boys, all with fearful appetites and sound lungs. But the old Captain was a sentimentalist; and the young life about him had rejuvenated his own. After all, there was a selfish calculation in his lovely charities; for he knew that to give was to receive in larger measure.
I accepted his offer of a shelter. The next morning he brought me a copy of the Delta. It contained this paragraph:
“We regret to learn that Mr. Julian Talbot, formerly an actor, and well known in theatrical circles, was yesterday arrested in the atrocious act of abducting a female slave of great personal beauty, belonging to the Hon. Carberry Ratcliff. The slave was recovered, but Talbot managed to escape. The officers are on his track. It is time an example was made of these sneaking Abolitionists.”
“O insupportable, O heavy hour!” I tried to reconcile myself to delay. I stayed a whole fortnight with Leroux. At last I procured the dress of a laboring Celt, and tied up in a bundle a cheap dress that would serve for a boy. I then stuck a pipe through my hat-band, and put a shillelah under my arm. A mop-like red wig concealed a portion of my face. Lamp-black and ochre did the rest. Leroux told me I was premature in my movements, but, without heeding his expostulations, I took an affectionate leave of him and of Madame, whose heart I had won by talking French with her, and listening to her long stories of the ancient régime.
I went on board a Red River boat. One of the policemen who arrested me was present on the watch; but I stared him stupidly in the face, and passed on unsuspected.
Ratcliff was having a canal dug at Lorain for increasing the facilities of transporting cotton; and as the work was unhealthy, he engaged Irishmen for it. The killing an Irishman was no loss, but the death of a slave would be a thousand dollars out of the master’s pocket. I easily got a situation among the diggers. How my heart bounded when I first saw Ratcliff! He came in company with his superintendent, Van Buskirk, and stood near me some minutes while I handled the spade.
For hours, every night during the week, I watched the house to discover the room occupied by Estelle. On Sunday I went in the daytime. From the window of a room in the uppermost story a little cherry-colored scarf was flaunting in the breeze. I at once recognized its meaning. Some negroes were near by under a tree. I approached, and asked an ancient black fellow, who was playing on an old cracked banjo, what he would take for the instrument.
“Look yere, Paddy,” said he, “if yer tink to fool dis chile, yer’ll fine it airn’t to be did. So wood up, and put off ter wunst, or yer’ll kotch it, shoo-ah.”
“But, Daddy, I’m in right earnest,” replied I. “If you’ll sell that banjo at any price within reason, I’ll buy it.”
“It’ll take a heap more’n you kn raise ter buy dis yere banjo; so, Paddy, make tracks, and jes’ you mine how yer guv dis yere ole nigger any more ob yer sarss.”
“I’ll pay you two dollars for that banjo, Daddy. Will you take it?” said I, holding out the silver.
The old fellow looked at me incredulously; then seized the silver and thrust the banjo into my hand, uttering at the same time such an expressive “Wheugh!” as only a negro can. Then, unable to restrain himself, he broke forth: “Yah, yah, yah! Paddy’s got a bargain dis time, shoo-ah. Yah, yah, yah! Look yere, Paddy. Dat am de most sooperfinest banjo in dese parts; can’t fine de match ob it in all Noo Orleenz. Jes’ you hole on ter dem air strings, so dey won’t break in two places ter wonst, and den fire away, and yer’ll ’stonish de natives, shoo-ah. Yah, yah, yah! Takes dis ole nigg to sell a banjo. Yah! yah!”
Every man who achieves success finds his penalty in a train of parasites; and Daddy’s case was not exceptional. As he started in a bee line for his cabin, to boast of his acuteness in trade to an admiring circle, he was followed by his whole gang of witnesses.
All this time I could see Ratcliff with a party of gentlemen on his piazza. They were smoking cigars; and, judging from the noise they made, had been dining and drinking. I slipped away with the banjo under my arm.
That night I returned and played the air of “Pestal” as near to the house as I deemed it prudent to venture. I would play a minute, and then pause. I had not done this three times, when I heard Estelle’s voice from her chamber, humming these words in low but audible tones:
“Hark! methinks I hear celestial voices sing,
Soon thou shalt be free, child of misery,—
Rest and perfect joy in heaven are waiting thee;
Spirit, plume thy wings and flee!”
I struck a few notes, by way of acknowledgment, and left.
The next night I merely whistled the remembered air in token of my presence. A light appeared for a moment at the window, and then was removed. I crept up close to the house. On that side of it where Estelle was confined there were no piazzas. I had not waited two minutes when something touched my head and bobbed before my eyes. It was a little roll of paper. I detached it from the string to which it was tied; and then, taking from my pocket an old envelope, I wrote on it in the dark these words: “To-morrow night at ten o’clock down the string. If prevented, then any night after at the same hour. Love shall find a way. Forever.”
The letter which I found folded in the paper lies yet in my pocket-book, but I need not look at it in order to repeat it entire. It is in these words:—‚Î
“What shall I call thee? Dearest? But that word implies a comparative; and whom shall I compare with thee? Most precious and most beloved? O, that is not a tithe of it! Idol? Darling? Sweet? Pretty words, but insufficient. Ah! life of my life, there are no superlatives in language that can interpret to thee the unspeakable affection which swells in my heart and moistens my eyes as I commence this letter! Can we by words give an idea of a melody? No more can I put on paper what my heart would be whispering to thine. Forgive the effort and the failure.
“I have the freedom of the upper story of the house, and my room is where you saw the scarf. Two strong negro women, with sinister faces, and employed as seamstresses, watch me every time I cross the threshold. At night I am locked in. The windows, as you may see, are always secured by iron bars.
“Ratcliff hopes to subdue me by slow approaches. O, the unutterable loathing which he inspires! He has placed impure books in my way. He sends me the daintiest food and wines. I confine myself to bread, vegetables, and cream. He cannot drug me without my knowledge. Twice and sometimes three times a day he visits me, and, finding me firm in my resolve, retires with a self-satisfied air which maddens me. He evidently believes in my final submission. No! Sooner, death! on my knees I swear it.
“Yesterday he sent splendid dresses, laces, jewels, diamonds. He offers me a carriage, an establishment, and to settle on me enough to make me secure for the future. How he magnifies my hate by all these despicable baits!
“Sweet, be very prudent. While steadily maintaining towards this wretch, whom the law calls my master, the demeanor that may best assure him of my steadfast resolve, I take care not to arouse his anger; for I know what you want is opportunity. He may any time be called off suddenly to New Orleans. Be wary. Tell me what you propose. A string shall be let down from my window to-morrow night at ten by stealth, for I am watched. God keep thee, my husband, my beloved! How I shudder at thought of all thy dangers! Be sure, O William, tender and true, my heart will hold eternally one only image. Adieu!
Estelle.”
The next night I put her in possession of a rope and a boy’s dress, also of two files, with directions for filing apart the iron bars. I saw it would not be difficult to enable her to get out of the house. The dreadful question was, How shall we escape the search which will at once be made? For a week we exchanged letters. At last she wrote me that Ratcliff would the next day leave for New Orleans for his wife. I wrote to Estelle to be ready the ensuing night, and on a signal from me to let herself down by the rope.
These plans were successfully carried out. Disguised as a laboring boy, Estelle let herself down to the ground. Once more we clasped each other heart to heart. I had selected a moonless night for the escape. In order to baffle the scent of the bloodhounds that would be put on our track, I took to the river. In a canoe I paddled down stream some fifteen miles till daylight. There, at a little bend called La Coude, we stopped. It now occurred to me that our safest plan would be to take the next boat up the river, and return on our course instead of keeping on to the Mississippi. Our pursuers would probably look for us in any direction but that.
The Rigolette was the first boat that stopped. We went on board, and the first person we encountered was Ratcliff! He was returning, having learnt at the outset of his journey that his wife had left New Orleans the day before. Estelle was thrown off her guard by the suddenness of the meeting, and uttered a short, sharp cry of dismay which betrayed her. Poor child! She was little skilled in feigning. Ratcliff walked up to her and removed her hat.
I had seen men in a rage, but never had I witnessed such an infuriated expression as that which Ratcliff’s features now exhibited. It was wolfish, beastly, in its ferocity. His smooth pink face grew livid. Seizing Estelle roughly by the arm, he—whatever he was about to do, the operation was cut short by a blow from my fist between his eyes which felled him senseless on the deck.
The spectacle of a rich planter knocked down by an Irishman was not a common one on board the Rigolette. We were taken in custody, Estelle and I, and confined together in a state-room.
Ratcliff was badly stunned, but cold water and brandy at length restored him. At Lorain the boat stopped till Van Buskirk and half a dozen low whites, his creatures and hangers-on, could be summoned to take me in charge. Ratcliff now recognized me as his acquaintance of the theatre, and a new paroxysm of fury convulsed his features. I was searched, deprived of my money, then handcuffed; then shackled by the legs, so that I could only move by taking short steps. Estelle’s arms were pinioned behind her, and in that state she was forced into an open vehicle and conveyed to the house.
I was placed in an outbuilding near the stable, a sort of dungeon for refractory slaves. It was lighted from the roof, was unfloored, and contained neither chair nor log on which to sit. For two days and nights neither food nor drink was brought to me. With great difficulty, on account of my chain, I managed to get at a small piece of biscuit in my coat-pocket. This I ate, and, as the rain dripped through the roof, I was enabled to quench my thirst.
On the third day two men led me out to an adjoining building, and down-stairs into a cellar. As we entered, the first object I beheld sent such a shock of horror to my heart that I wonder how I survived it. Tied to a post, and stripped naked to her hips, her head drooping, her breast heaving, her back scored by the lash and bleeding, stood Estelle. Near by, leaning on a cotton-bale, was Ratcliff smoking a cigar. Seated on a block, his back resting against the wall, with one leg over the other, was a white man, holding a cowskin, and apparently resting from his arduous labors as woman-whipper. Forgetting my shackles, and uttering some inarticulate cry of anguish, I strove to rush upon Ratcliff, but fell to the ground, exciting his derision and that of his creatures, the miserable “mean” whites, the essence of whose manhood familiarity with slavery had unmoulded till they had become bestial in their feelings.
Estelle, roused by my voice, turned on me eyes lighted up by an affection which no bodily agony could for one moment enfeeble, and said, gaspingly: “My own husband! You see I keep my oath!”
“Husband indeed! We’ll see about that,” sneered Ratcliff. “Fool! do you imagine that a marriage contracted by a slave without the consent of the master has any validity, moral or legal?”
I turned to him, and uttered—I know not what. The frenzy which seized me lifted me out of my normal state of thought, and by no effort of reminiscence have I ever since been able to recall what I said.
I only remember that Ratcliff, with mock applause, clapped his hands and cried, “Capital!” Then, lighting a fresh cigar, he remarked: “There is yet one little ceremony more to be gone through with. Bring in the bridegroom.”
What new atrocity was this?
A moment afterwards a young, lusty, stout, and not ill-looking negro, fantastically dressed, was led in with mock ceremony, by one of the mean whites, a whiskey-wasted creature named Lovell. I looked eagerly in the face of the negro, who bowed and smirked in a manner to excite roars of laughter on the part of Ratcliff and his minions.
“Well, boy, are you ready to take her for better or for worse?” asked the haughty planter.
The negro bowed obsequiously, and, jerking off his hat, scratched his wool, and, with a laugh, replied: “’Scuze me, massa, but dis nigger can’t see his wife dat is to be ’xposed in dis onhan’some mahnner to de eyes of de profane. If Massa Ratcliff hab no ’jection, I’ll jes’ put de shawl on de bride’s back. Yah, yah, yah!”
“O, make yourself as gallant as you please now,” said the planter, laughing. “Let’s see you begin to play the bridegroom.”
Gracious heavens! Was I right in my surmises? Under all his harlequin grimaces and foolery, this negro, to my quickened penetration, seemed to be crowding back, smothering, disguising, some intense emotion. His laugh was so extravagantly African, that it struck me as imitative in its exaggeration. I had heard a laugh much like it from the late Jim Crow Rice on the stage. Was the negro playing a part?
He approached Estelle, cut the thongs that bound her to the post, threw her shawl over her shoulders, and then, falling on one knee, put both hands on his heart, and rolled up his eyes much after the manner of Bombastes Furioso making love to Distaffina. The Ratcliffites were in ecstasies at the burlesque. Then, rising to his feet, the negro affectedly drew nearer to Estelle, and, putting up his hand, whispered, first in one of her ears, then in the other. I could see a change, sudden, but instantly checked, in her whole manner. Her lips moved. She must have murmured something in reply.
“Look here, Peek, you rascal,” cried Ratcliff, “we must have the benefit of your soft words. What have you been saying to her?”
“I’ze been tellin’ her,” said the negro, with tragic gesticulation, pointing to himself and then at me, “to look fust on dis yere pikter, den on dat. Wheugh!”
Still affecting the buffoon, he came up to me, presenting his person so that his face was visible only to myself. There was a divine pity in his eyes, and in the whole expression of his face the guaranty of a high and holy resolve. “She will trust me,” he whispered. “Do you the same.”
To the spectators he appeared to be mocking me with grimace. To me he seemed an angel of deliverance.
“Now, Peek, to business!” said Ratcliff. “You swear, do you, to make this woman your wife in fact as well as in name; do you understand me, Peek?”
“Yes, massa, I understan’.”
“You swear to guard her well, and never to let that white scoundrel yonder come near or touch her?”
“Yes, massa, I swar ter all dat, an’ ebber so much more. He’ll kotch what he can’t carry if he goes fur to come nare my wife.”
“Kiss the book on it,” said Ratcliff, handing him a Bible.
“Yes, massa, as many books as you please,” replied Peek, doing as he was bidden.
“Then, by my authority as owner of you two slaves, and as justice of the peace, I pronounce you, in presence of these witnesses, man and wife,” said Ratcliff. “Why the hell, Peek, don’t you kiss the bride?”
“O, you jes’ leeb dis chile alone for dat air, Massa Ratcliff,” replied the negro; and, concealing his mouth by both hands, he simulated a kiss.
“Now attend to Mrs. Peek while another little ceremony takes place,” said Ratcliff.
At a given signal I was stripped of my coat, waistcoat, and shirt, then dragged to the whipping-post, and bound to it. I could see Estelle, her face of a mortal paleness, her body writhing as if in an agony. The first lash that descended on my bare flesh seemed to rive her very heart-strings, for she uttered a loud shriek, and was borne out senseless in the negro’s arms.
“All right!” said Ratcliff. “We shall soon have half a dozen little Peeks toddling about. Proceed. Vickery.”
A hundred lashes, each tearing or laying bare the flesh, were inflicted; but after the first, all sensibility to pain was lost in the intensity of my emotions. Had I been changed into a statue of bronze I could not have been more impenetrable to pain.
“Now, sir,” said the slave lord, coming up to me, “you see what it is to cross the path of Carberry Ratcliff. The next time you venture on it, you won’t get off so easy.”
Then, turning to Vickery, he said: “I promised the boys they should have a frolic with him, and see him safely launched. They have been longing for a shy at an Abolitionist. So unshackle him, and let him slide.”
My handcuffs and shackles were taken off. My first impulse on being freed, was to spring upon Ratcliff and strangle him. I could have done it. Though I stood in a pool of my own blood, a preternatural energy filled my veins, and I stepped forth as if just refreshed by sleep. But the thought of Estelle checked the vindictive impulse. A rope was now put about my neck, so that the two ends could be held by my conductors. In this state I was led up-stairs out of the building, and beyond the immediate enclosure of the grounds about the house to a sort of trivium, where some fifty or sixty “mean whites” and a troop of boys of all colors were assembled round a tent in which a negro was dealing out whiskey gratis to the company. Near by stood a kettle sending forth a strong odor of boiling tar. A large sack, the gaping mouth of which showed it was filled with feathers, lay on the ground.
There was a yell of delight from the assembly as soon as I appeared. Half naked as I was, I was dragged forward into their midst, and tied to a tree near the kettle. I could see, at a distance of about a quarter of a mile, Ratcliff promenading his piazza.
There was a dispute among the “chivalry” whether I should be stripped of the only remaining article of dress, my pantaloons, before being “fitted to a new suit.” The consideration that there might be ladies among the distant spectators finally operated in my favor. A brush, similar to that used in whitewashing, was now thrust into the bituminous liquid; and an illustration of one of “our institutions, sir,” was entered upon with enthusiasm. Lovell was the chief operator. The brush was first thrust into my face till eyelids, eyebrows, and hair were glued by the nauseous adhesion. Then it was vigorously applied to the bleeding seams on my back, and the intolerable anguish almost made me faint. My entire person at length being thickly smeared, the bag of feathers was lifted over me by two men and its contents poured out over the tarred surface.
I will not pain you, my friends, by suggesting to your imagination all that there is of horrible, agonizing, and disgusting in this operation, which men, converted into fiends by the hardening influences of slavery, have inflicted on so many hundreds of imprudent or suspected persons from the Northern States. I see in it all now, so far as I was concerned, a Providential martyrdom to awake me to a sense of what slavery does for the education of white men.
O, ye palliators of the “institution”!—Northern men with Southern principles,—ministers of religion who search the Scriptures to find excuses for the Devil’s own work,—and ye who think that any system under which money is made must be right, and of God’s appointment,—who hate any agitation which is likely to diminish the dividends from your cotton-mills or the snug profits from your Southern trade,—come and learn what it is to be tarred and feathered for profaning, by thought or act, or by suspected thought or act, that holy of holies called slavery!
After the feathers had been applied, a wag among my tormentors fixed to my neck and arms pieces of an old sheet stretched on whalebone to imitate a pair of wings. This spectacle afforded to the spectators the climax of their exhilaration and delight. I was then led by a rope to the river’s side and put on an old rickety raft where I had to use constant vigilance to keep the loose planks from disparting. Two men in a boat towed me out into the middle of the stream, and then, amid mock cheers, I was left to drift down with the current or drown, just as the chances might hold in regard to my strength.
Two thoughts sustained me; one Estelle, the other Ratcliff. But for these, with all my youth and power of endurance, I should have sunk and died under my sufferings. For nearly an hour I remained within sight of the mocking, hooting crowd, who were especially amused at my efforts to save myself from immersion by keeping the pieces of my raft together. At length it was floated against a shallow where some brushwood and loose sticks had formed a sort of dam. The sun was sinking through wild, ragged clouds in the west. My tormentors had all gradually disappeared. For the last thirty-six hours I had eaten nothing but a cracker. My eyes were clogged with tar. My efforts in keeping the raft together had been exhaustive. No sooner was I in a place of seeming safety than my strength failed me all at once. I could no longer sit upright. The wind freshened and the waves poured over me, almost drowning me at times. Thicker vapors began to darken the sky. A storm was rising. Night came down frowningly. The planks slipped from under me. I could not lift an arm to stop them. I tried to seize the brushwood heaped on the sand-bar, but it was easily detached, and offered me no security. I seemed to be sinking in the ooze of the river’s bottom. The spray swept over me in ever-increasing volume. I was on the verge of unconsciousness.
Suddenly I roused myself, and grasped the last plank of my raft. I had heard a cry. I listened. The cry was repeated,—a loud halloo, as if from some one afloat in an approaching skiff. I could see nothing, but I lifted my head as well as I could, and cried out, “Here!” Again the halloo, and this time it sounded nearer. I threw my whole strength into one loud shriek of “Here!” and then sank exhausted. A rush of waves swept over me, and my consciousness was suspended.
When I came to my senses, I lay on a small cot-bedstead in a hut. A negro, whom I at once recognized as the man called Peek, was rubbing my face and limbs with oil and soap. A smell of alcohol and other volatile liquids pervaded the apartment. Much of my hair had been cut off in the effort to rid it of the tar.
“Estelle,—where is she?” were my first words.
“You shall see her soon,” replied the negro. “But you must get a little strength first.”
He spoke in the tones, and used the language, of an educated person. He brought me a little broth and rice, which I swallowed eagerly. I tried to rise, but the pain from the gashes left by the scourge on my back was excruciating.
“Take me to my wife,” I murmured.
He lifted me in his arms and carried me to the open door of an adjoining cabin. Here on a mattress lay Estelle. A colored woman of remarkable aspect, and with straight black hair, was kneeling by her side. This woman Peek addressed as Esha. The little plain gold cross which Estelle used to wear on the ribbon round her neck was now made to serve as the emblem of one of the last sacraments of her religion. At her request, Esha held it, pinned to the ribbon, before her eyes. On a rude table near by, two candles were burning. Estelle’s hands were clasped upon her bosom, and she lay intently regarding the cross, while her lips moved in prayer.
“Try to lib, darlin’,” interrupted Esha; “try to lib,—dat’s a good darlin’! Only try, an’ yer kn do it easy.”
Estelle took the little cross in her hand and kissed it, then said to Esha, “Give this, with a lock of my hair, to—”
Before she could pronounce my name, I rallied my strength, and, with an irrepressible cry of grief, quitted Peek’s support, and rushed to her side. I spoke her name. I took her dear head in my hands. She turned on me eyes beaming with an immortal affection. A celestial smile irradiated her face. Her lips pouted as if pleading for a kiss. I obeyed the invitation, and she acknowledged my compliance by an affirmative motion of the head; a motion that was playful even in that supreme moment.
“My own darling!” she murmured; “I knew you would come. O my poor, suffering darling!”
Then, with a sudden effort, she threw her arms about my neck, and, drawing me closer down to her bosom, said, in sweet, low tones of tenderness: “Love me still as among the living. I do not die. The body dies. I do not die. Love cannot die. Who believes in death, never loved. You may not see me, but I shall see you. So be a good boy. Do good to all. Love all; so shall you love me the better. I do not part with my love. I take it where it will grow and grow, so as to be all the more fit to welcome my darling. Carrying my love, I carry my heaven with me. It would not be heaven without my love. I have been with my father and mother. So beautiful they are! And such music I have heard! There! Lay your cheek on my bare bosom. So! You do not hurt me. Closer! closer! Carissime Jesu, nunc libera me!”19
Thus murmuring a line from a Latin poem which she had learnt in the convent where her childhood was passed, her pure spirit, without a struggle or a throe of pain, disentangled itself from its lovely mortal mould, and rose into the purer ether of the immortal life.
I afterwards learnt that Ratcliff, finding Estelle inexorable in her rejection of his foul proffers, was wrought to such a pitch of rage that he swore, unless she relented, she should be married to a negro slave. He told her he had a smart nigger he had recently bought in New Orleans, a fellow named Peek, who should be her husband. Goaded to desperation by his infamous threats, Estelle had replied, “Better even a negro than a Ratcliff!” This reply had stung him to a degree that was quite intolerable.
To be not only thwarted by a female slave, but insulted,—he, a South Carolinian, a man born to command,—a man with such a figure and such a face rejected for a strolling actor,—a vagabond, a fellow, too, who had knocked him down,—what slave-owner would tamely submit to such mortification! He brooded on the insult till his cruel purpose took shape and consistency in his mind; and it was finally carried out in the way I have described.
It may seem almost incredible to you who are from the North, that any man not insane should be guilty of such atrocities. But Mr. Onslow need not be told that slavery educates men—men, too, of a certain refinement—to deeds even more cowardly and fiendish. Do not imagine that the tyrant who would not scruple to put a black skin under the lash, would hesitate in regard to a white; and the note-book of many an overseer will show that of the whippings inflicted under slavery, more than one third are of women.20
For three weeks I was under Peek’s care. Thanks to his tenderness and zeal, my wounds were healed, my strength was restored. Early in December I parted from him and returned to New Orleans. I went to my old friends, the Leroux. They did not recognize me at first, so wasted was I by suffering. Madame forgot her own troubles in mine, and welcomed me with a mother’s affection. The grandchildren subdued their riotous mirth, and trod softly lest they should disturb me. The old Captain wept and raved over my story, and uttered more sacr-r-r-rés in a given time than I supposed even a Frenchman’s volubility could accomplish. I bade these kind friends good by, and went northward.
In Cincinnati and other cities I resumed my old vocation as a play-actor. In two years, having laid up twenty-five hundred dollars, I returned to the Red River country to secure the freedom of the slave to whom I owed my life. He had changed masters. It had got to Ratcliff’s ears that Peek had cheated him in sparing Estelle and rescuing me. He questioned Peek on the subject. Peek, throwing aside all his habitual caution, had declared, in regard to Estelle, that if she had been the Virgin Mary he could not have treated her with more reverence; that he had saved my life, and restored me to her arms. Then, shaking his fist at Ratcliff, he denounced him as a murderer and a coward. The result was, that Peek, after having been put through such a scourging as few men could endure and survive, had been sold to a Mr. Barnwell in Texas.
I followed Peek to his new abode, and proposed either to buy and free him, or to aid him to escape. He bade me save my money for those who could not help themselves. He meant to be free, but did not mean to pay for that which was his by right. At that time he was investigating certain strange occurrences produced by some invisible agency that claimed to be spiritual. He must remain where he was a while longer. I was under no serious obligations to him, he said. He had simply done his duty.
We parted. I tried to find the woman Esha, who had been kind to my wife, but she had been sold no one knew to whom. I went to New Orleans, and assuming, by legislative permission, the name of William Vance, I entered into cotton speculations.
My features had been so changed by suffering, that few recognized me. My operations were bold and successful. In four years I had accumulated a little fortune. Occasionally I would meet Ratcliff. Once I had him completely in my power. He was in the passage-way leading to my office. I could have dragged him in and——
No! The revenge seemed too poor and narrow. I craved something huge and general. The mere punishing of an individual was too puny an expenditure of my hoarded vengeance. But to strike at the “institution” which had spawned this and similar monsters, that would be some small satisfaction.
Closing up my affairs in New Orleans, I entered upon that career which has gained me such notoriety in the Southwest. I have run off many thousand slaves, worth in the aggregate many millions of dollars. My theatrical experience has made me a daring expert in disguising myself. At one time I am a mulatto with a gash across my face; at another time, an old man; at another, a mean whiskey-swilling hanger-on of the chivalry. My task is only just begun. It is not till we have given slavery its immedicable wound, or rather till it has itself committed suicide in the house of its friends, that I shall be ready to say, Nunc dimittas, domi-ne!21