CHAPTER XXVII.DELIGHT AND DUTY.
“According to our living here, we shall hereafter, by a hidden concatenation of causes, be drawn to a condition answerable to the purity or impurity of our souls in this life: that silent Nemesis that passes through the whole contexture of the universe, ever fatally contriving us into such a state as we ourselves have fitted ourselves for by our accustomary actions. Of so great consequence is it, while we have opportunity, to aspire to the best things.”—Henry More, A.D. 1659.
It may seem strange that Onslow and Kenrick, differing so widely, should renew the friendship of their boyhood. We have seen that Onslow, allowing the æsthetic side of his nature to outgrow the moral, had departed from the teachings of his father on the subject of slavery. Kenrick, in whom the moral and devotional faculty asserted its supremacy over all inferior solicitings, also repudiatedhispaternal teachings; but they were directly contrary to those of his friend, and, in abandoning them, he gave up the prospect of a large inheritance.
To Onslow, these thick-lipped, woolly-headed negroes,—what were they fit for but to be hewers of wood and drawers of water to the gentle and refined? It was monstrous to suppose that between such and him there could be equality of any kind. The ethnological argument was conclusive. Had not Professor Moleschott said that the brain of the negro contains less phosphorus than that of the white man? Proof sufficient that Cuffee was expressly created to pull off my boots and hoe in my cotton-fields, while I make it a penal offence to teach him to read!
Onslow, too, had been fortunate in his intercourse with slaveholders. Young, handsome, and accomplished, he had felt the charm of their affectionate hospitality. He had found taste, culture, and piety in their abodes; all the graces and all the amenities of life. What wonder that he should narcotize his moral sense with the aroma of these social fascinations! Even at the North, where the glamour they cast ought not to distort the sight, and where men ought healthfully to look theabstract abomination full in the face, and testify to its deformity,—how many consciences were drugged, how many hearts shut to justice and to mercy!
With Kenrick, brought up on a plantation where slavery existed in its mildest form, meditation on God’s law as written in the enlightened human conscience, completely reversed the views adopted from upholders of the institution. Thenceforth the elegances of his home became hateful. He felt like a robber in the midst of them.
The spectacle of some hideous, awkward, perhaps obscene and depraved black woman, hoeing in the corn-field, instead of awakening in his mind, as in Onslow’s, the thought that she was in her proper place, did but move him to tears of bitter contrition and humiliation. How far there was sin or accountability on her part, or that of her progenitors, he could not say; but that there was deep, immeasurable sin on the part of those who, instead of helping that degraded nature to rise, made laws to crush it all the deeper in the mire, he could not fail to feel in anguish of spirit. Through all that there was in her of ugliness and depravity, making her less tolerable than the beast to his æsthetic sense, he could still detect those traits and possibilities that allied her with immortal natures, and in her he saw all her sex outraged, and universal womanhood nailed to the cross of Christ, and mocked by unbelievers!
The evening of the day of Clara’s arrival at the St. Charles, Onslow and Kenrick met by agreement in the drawing-room of the Tremaines. Clara had told Laura, that, in going out to purchase a few hair-pins, she had been taken suddenly faint, and that a gentleman, who proved to be Captain Onslow, had escorted her home.
“Could anything be more apt for my little plot!” said Laura. “But consider! Here it is eight o’clock, and you’re not dressed! Do you know how long you’ve been sleeping? This will never do!”
A servant knocked at the door, with the information that two gentlemen were in the drawing-room.
“Dear me! I must go in at once,” said Laura. “Now tell me you’ll be quick and follow, Darling.”
Clara gave the required pledge, and proceeded to arrangeher hair. Laura looked on for a minute envying her those thick brown tresses, and then darted into the next room where the visitors were waiting. Greeting them with her usual animation of manner, she asked Onslow for the news.
“The news is,” said Onslow, “my friend Charles is undergoing conversion. We shall have him an out-and-out Secessionist before the Fourth of July.”
“On what do you base your calculations?” asked Kenrick.
“On the fact that for the last twelve hours I haven’t heard you call down maledictions on the Confederate cause.”
“Perhaps I conclude that the better part of valor is discretion.”
“No, Charles, yours is not the Falstaffian style of courage.”
“Well, construe my mood as you please. Miss Tremaine, your piano stands open. Does it mean we’re to have music?”
“Yes. Hasn’t the Captain told you of his meeting a young lady,—Miss Perdita Brown?”
“I’ll do him the justice to say hedidtell me he had escorted such a one.”
“What did he say of her?”
“Nothing, good or bad.”
“But that’s very suspicious.”
“So it is.”
“Pray who is Miss Perdita Brown?” asked Onslow.
“She’s a daughter of—of—why, of Mr. Brown, of course. He lives in St. Louis.”
“Is she a good Secessionist?”
“On the contrary, she’s a desperate little Abolitionist.”
“Look at Charles!” said Onslow. “He’s enamored already. I’m sorry she isn’t secesh.”
“Think of the triumph of converting her!” said Laura.
“That indeed! Of course,” said Onslow, “like all true women, she’ll take her politics from the man she loves.”
And the Captain smoothed his moustache, and looked handsome as Phœbus Apollo.
“O the conceit!” exclaimed Laura. “Look at him, Mr. Kenrick! Isn’t he charming? Where’s the woman who wouldn’t turn Mormon, or even Yankee, for his sake? Surely one of us weak creatures could be content with one tenth oreven one twentieth of the affections of so superb an Ali. Come, sir, promise me I shall be the fifteenth Mrs. Onslow when you emigrate to Utah.”
Onslow was astounded at this fire of raillery. Could the lady have heard of any disparaging expression he had dropped?
“Spare me, Miss Laura,” he said. “Don’t deprive the Confederacy of my services by slaying me before I’ve smelt powder.”
“Where’s Miss Brown all this while?” asked Kenrick.
Laura went to the door, and called “Perdita!”
“In five minutes!” was the reply.
Clara was dressing. When, that morning, she came in from her walk, she thought intently on her situation, and at last determined on a new line of policy. Instead of playing the humble companion and shy recluse, she would now put forth all her powers to dazzle and to strike. She would, if possible, make friends, who should protest against any arbitrary claim that Ratcliff might set up. She would vindicate her own right to freedom by showing she was not born to be a slave. All who had known her should feel their own honor wounded in any attempt to injure hers.
Having once fixed before herself an object, she grew calm and firm. When her dinner was sent up, she ate it with a good appetite. Sleep, too, that had been a stranger to her so many hours, now came to repair her strength and revive her spirits.
No sooner had Laura left to attend to her visitors, than Clara plunged into the drawers containing the dresses for her choice. With the rapidity of instinct she selected the most becoming; then swiftly and deftly, with the hand of an adept and the eye of an artist, she arranged her toilet. A dexterous adaptation of pins speedily rectified any little defect in the fit. Where were the collars? Locked up. No matter! There was a frill of exquisite lace round the neck of the dress; and this little narrow band of maroon velvet would serve to relieve the bareness of the throat. What could she clasp it with? Laura had not left the key of her jewel-box. A common pin would hardly answer. Suddenly Clara bethought herself of the little coral sleeve-button, wrapped up in the strip of bunting. That would serve admirably. Yes. Nothing could be better.It was her only article of jewelry; though round her right wrist she wore a hair-bracelet of her own braiding, made from that strand given her by Esha; and from a flower-vase she had taken a small cape-jasmine, white as alabaster, and fragrant as a garden of honeysuckles, and thrust it in her hair. A fan? Yes, here is one.
And thus accoutred she entered the room where the three expectants were seated.
On seeing her, Laura’s first emotion was one of admiration, as at sight of an imposingentréeat the opera. She was suddenly made aware of the fact that Clara was the most beautiful young woman of her acquaintance; nay, not only the most beautiful, but the most stylish. So taken by surprise was she, so lost in looking, that it was nearly a third of a minute before she introduced the young gentlemen. Onslow claimed acquaintance, presented a chair, and took a seat at Clara’s side. Kenrick stood mute and staring, as if a paradisic vision had dazed his senses. When he threw off his bewilderment, he quieted himself with the thought, “She can’t be as beautiful as she looks,—that’s one comfort. A shrew, perhaps,—or, what is worse, a coquette!”
“When were you last in St. Louis, Miss Brown?” asked Onslow.
“All questions for information must be addressed to Miss Tremaine,” said Clara. “I shall be happy to talk with you on things I know nothing about. Shall we discuss the Dahlgren gun, or the Ericsson Monitor?”
“So! She sets up for an eccentric,” thought Onslow. “Perhaps politics would suit you,” he added aloud. “I hear you’re an Abolitionist.”
“Ask Miss Tremaine,” said Clara.
“O, she has betrayed you already,” replied Onslow.
“Then I’ve nothing to say. I’m in her hands.”
“Is it possible,” said Kenrick, who was irrepressible on the one theme nearest his heart, “is it possible Miss Brown can’t see it,—can’t see the loveliness of that divine cosmos which we call slavery? Poor deluded Miss Brown! I know not what other men may think, but as for me, give me slavery or give me death! Do you object to woman-whipping, Miss Brown?”
“I confess I’ve my prejudices against it,” replied Clara. “But these charges of woman-whipping, you know, are Abolition lies.”
“Yes, so Northern conservatives say; but we of the plantations know that nearly one half the whippings are of women.”[29]
“Come! Sink the shop!” cried Laura. “Are we so dull we can’t find anything but our horriblebête noirfor our amusement? Let us have scandal, rather; nonsense, rather! Tell us a story, Mr. Kenrick.”
“Well; once on a time—how would you like a ghost-story?”
“Above all things. Charming! Only ghosts have grown so common, they no longer thrill us.”
“Yes,” said Kenrick,—whose trivial thoughts ever seemed to call up his serious,—“yes; materialism has done a good work in its day and generation. It has taught us that the business of this world must go on just as if there were no ghosts. The supernatural is no longer an incubus and an oppression. Its phenomena no longer frighten and paralyze. Let us, then, since we are now freed from their terrors, welcome the great facts themselves as illumining and confirming all that there is in the past to comfort us with the assurance of continuous life issuing from seeming death.”
“Dear Mr. Kenrick, is this a time for a lecture?” expostulated Laura. “Aren’t you bored, Perdita?”
“On the contrary, I’m interested.”
“What do you think of spiritualism, Miss Brown?”
“I’ve witnessed none of the phenomena, but I don’t see why the testimony of these times, in regard to them, shouldn’t be taken as readily as that of centuries back.”
“My father is a believer,” said Onslow; “and I have certainly seen some unaccountable things,—tables lifted into the air,—instruments of music floated about, and played on without visible touch,—human hands, palpable and warm, coming out from impalpable air:—all very queer and very inexplicable! But what do they prove?Cui bono?What of it all?”
“‘Nothing in it!’ as Sir Charles Coldstream says of the Vatican,” interposed Laura.
“You demand the use of it all,—thecui bono,—do you?” retorted Kenrick. “Did it ever occur to you to make your own existence the subject of that terrible inquiry,cui bono?”
“Certainly,” replied Onslow, laughing; “mycui bonois to fight for the independence of the new Confederacy.”
“And for the propagation of slavery, eh?” returned Kenrick. “I don’t see thecui bono. On the contrary, to my fallible vision, the world would be better off without than with you. But let us take a more extreme case. These youths—Tom, Dick, and Harry—who give their days and nights, not to the works of Addison, but to gambling, julep-drinking, and cigar-smoking,—who hate and shun all useful work,—and are no comfort to anybody,—only a shame and affliction to somebody,—can you explain to me thecui bonoof their corrupt and unprofitable lives?”
“But how undignified in a spirit to push tables about and play on accordions!”
“Well, what authority have you for the supposition that there are no undignified spirits? We know there are weak and wicked spiritsinthe flesh; why notoutof the flesh? A spirit, or an intelligence claiming to be one, writes an ungrammatical sentence or a pompous commonplace, and signsBaconto it; and you forthwith exclaim, ‘Pooh! this can’t come from a spirit.’ How do you know that? Mayn’t lies be told in otherworlds than this? Will the ignoramus at once be made a scholar,—the dullard a philosopher,—the blackguard a gentleman,—the sinner a saint,—the liar truthful,—by the simple process of elimination from this husk of flesh? Make me at once altogether other than what I am, and you annihilate me, and there is no immortality of the soul.”
“But what has the ghost contributed to our knowledge during these fourteen years, since he appeared at Rochester? Of all he has brought us, we may say, with Shakespeare, ‘There needs no ghost come from the grave to tell us that.’”
“I’ll tell you what the ghost has contributed, not at Rochester merely, but everywhere, through the ages. He has contributedhimself. You say,cui bono?And I might say of ten thousand mysteries about us,cui bono?The lightning strikes the church-steeple,—cui bono?An idiot is born into the world,—cui bono?It is absurd to demand as a condition of rational faith, that we should prove acui bono. A good or a use may exist, and we be unable to see it. And yet grave men are continually thrusting into the faces of the investigators of these phenomena this preposterouscui bono?”
“Enough, my dear Mr. Kenrick!” exclaimed Laura.
But he was not to be stopped. He rose and paced the room, and continued: “Thecui bonoof phenomena must of course be found in the mind that regards them. ‘I can’t find you both arguments and brains,’ said Dr. Johnson to a noodle who thought Milton trashy. One man sees an apple fall, and straightway thinks of the price of cider. Newton sees it, and it suggests gravitation. One man sees a table rise in the air, and cries: ‘It can’t be a spirit; ’t is too undignified for a spirit!’ Mountford sees it, and the immortality of the soul is thenceforth to him a fact as positive as any fact of science.”
“Your story, dear Mr. Kenrick, your story!” urged Laura.
“My story is ended. The ghost has come and vanished.”
“Is that all?” whined Laura. “Are n’t we, then, to have a story?”
“In mercy give us some music, Miss Brown,” said Onslow.
“Play Yankee Doodle, with variations,” interposed Kenrick.
“Not unless you’d have the windows smashed in,” pleaded Onslow; and, giving his arm, he waited on Clara to the piano.
SheShedashed into a medley of brilliant airs from operas, uniting them by extemporized links of melody to break the abruptness of the transitions. The young men were both connoisseurs; and they interchanged looks of gratified astonishment.
“And now for a song!” exclaimed Laura.
Clara paused a moment, and sat looking with clasped hands at the keys. Then, after a delicate prelude, she gave that song of Pestal, already quoted.[30]She gave it with her whole soul, as if a personal wrong were adding intensity to the defiance of her tones.
Kenrick, wrought to a state of sympathy which he could not disguise, had taken a seat where he could watch her features while she sang. When she had finished, she covered her face with her hands, then, finding her emotion uncontrollable, rose and passed out of the room.
“What do you think of that, Charles?” asked Onslow.
“It was terrible,” said Kenrick. “I wanted to kill a slaveholder while she sang.”
“But she has the powers of aprima donna,” said Onslow, turning to Laura.
“Yes, one would think she had practised for the stage.”
Clara now returned with a countenance placid and smiling.
“How long do you stay in New Orleans, Miss Brown?” inquired Onslow.
“How long, Laura?” asked Clara.
“A week or two.”
“We shall have another opportunity, I hope, of hearing you sing.”
“I hope so.”
“I have an appointment now at the armory. Charles, are you ready to walk?”
“No, thank you. I prefer to remain.”
Onslow left, and, immediately afterwards, Laura’s mother being seized with a timely hemorrhage, Laura was called off to attend to her. Kenrick was alone with Clara. Charming opportunity! He drew from her still another and another song. He conversed with her on her studies,—on the booksshe had read,—the pictures she had seen. He was roused by her intelligence and wit. He spoke of slavery. Deep as was his own detestation of it, she helped him to make it deeper. What delightful harmony of views! Kenrick felt that his time had come. The hours slipped by like minutes, yet there he sat chained by a fascination so new, so strange, so delightful, he marvelled that life had in it so much of untasted joy.
Kenrick was not accustomed to be critical in details. He looked at general effects. But the most trifling point in Clara’s accoutrements was now a thing to be marked and remembered. The little sleeve-button dropped from the band round her throat. Kenrick picked it up,—examined it,—saw, in characters so fine as to be hardly legible, the letters C.A.B. upon it. (“B. stands for Brown,” thought he.) And then, as Clara put out her hand to receive it, he noticed the bracelet she wore. “What beautiful hair!” he said. He looked up at Clara’s to trace a resemblance. But his glance stopped midway at her eyes. “Blue and gray!” he murmured.
“Yes, can you read them?” asked Clara.
“What do you mean?”
“Only a dream I had. There’s a letter on them somebody is to open and read.”
“O, that I were a Daniel to interpret!” said Kenrick.
At last Miss Tremaine returned. Her mother had been dangerously ill. It was an hour after midnight. Sincerely astounded at finding it so late, Kenrick took his leave. Heart and brain were full. “Thou art the wine whose drunkenness is all I can desire, O love!”
And how was it with Clara? Alas, the contrariety of the affections! Clara simply thought Kenrick a very agreeable young man: handsome, but not so handsome as Onslow; clever, but not so clever as Vance!