“Are you comfortable” said Hay[e]s turning sharply round. “I mean are you cold, or dry, or hungry?”
Thus recalled to myself, as my companion said nothing I answered for both that we were neither dry nor hunger[sic].
“But you are cold, you look cold. Now wrap up well in this” and he threw a large buffalo robe towards us. “Or stay. I will do it for you” he said, suddenly recollecting our manacled hands.
And with apparent kindness, he tucked the warm furs about us, told us to keep a good heart, and not be disconcerted at trifles. [“]I’ve had my orders to make you comfortable and I mean to do so, if I can.”
But we were not comfortable, with the past behind us, the dark the dreadful future before us, and the present the bitterest and darkest of all.
Had we been less confused and troubled our ride would probably have been pleasant. The sharp frosty air was clear and bracing, and the sunshine had a warm summer time look, really delightful. Then, too, the country through which we passed had such a cheerful appearance with rickyards, milestones, farm houses, wagons, swinging signs, horse troughs, trees, fields, fences, and the thousand other things that make a country landscape. Our conductor stopped once or twice to look at the advertisements which were stuck up on wide boards at the corners of the roads, and which with large black letters on a red or yellow [back]ground made a most conspicuous appearance.
I inquired to what they referred when he informed me that there was to be a great sale of slaves on the morrow. of which [“]Oh: you needn’t tremble and turn pale” he continued. “I am not taking you there.”
On several occasions he stopped and got out at little country inns; went familiarly into the bar-rooms laughed, chatted; took something to drink, and generally came out with something warm and good for us, a little aniseed or toddy, that he entreated us to drink holding the glass, to our lips, and telling us how much better we should feel for it, always saying in conclusion “I’ve had orders to make you comfortable, and I’m bound to do so if I can.”
The manacles on our wrists grew very painful, and I entreated him to take them off.
“I’ve had my orders” he replied briefly.
“That we should be chained and fettered like the vilest criminals?” said my companion inquiringly.
“Not exactly that, but much the [same] thing.”
After much persuasion and entreaty he consented to remove our fetters, and we solemnly engaged to conform in all things to his requirements.
The sun was probably an hour high when we caught the glimpse of a white house through some trees on the top of a hill before us. Our conductor pointed to it with his whip, and said “There’s your journey’s end.” Then putting his horses into a canter he took us forward at a great rate, though it was up-hill, and the poor beasts were already tired with our long drive. Presently we lost the house, presently saw it, lost it again and again saw it; then turned into an avenue of cedar, and drew up before a fine cottage residence. Our hearts beat wildly, tumultuously as an old man came hobbling out on a crutch towards the wagon. Age sits beautifully on some and the least farm. The frame bent with years, and the dark locks frosted with silver give the possessor a more interesting appearance, than all the flush of youth and beauty. Smile not, when I say that many old men are decidedly loveable, but the one who approached us was not of that sort. His forehead was bald, his eyes blear and very large and round, and not being relieved by eye-lashes which had fallen off, they really looked ogreish. He had a prominent nose, high cheek bones, and black ugly teeth slightly protruding from his mouth at all times, but having the most disagr[e]eable appearance when he opened his lips to speak. But it was the expression of his countenance after all that made me shrink from and fear him. It was so dark, so sinister and sneering. It told so much of malice, of hate, of dislike to the beautiful the good and true. There could be nothing of sunshine to his spirit, nothing of love in his soul.
“Heaven preserve us, if that man is to be our master” whispered my companion. It was the first word she had spoken for a long time.
“He is not your master exactly” said Hay[e]s “but rather your master’s steward, a sort of overseer when he is absent.”
Removing the manacles from our limbs Hay[e]s bade us alight. We obeyed him.
“You may tell your master” he said, addressing the old man “that I obeyed his directions to the letter. I first made them safe, then I made them comfortable, now have brought them here, and finally deliver them over to you. You are henceforth accountable for their safe-keeping.”
The old man replied to this harangue by a sort of leering assent. That of course Mr Hay[e]s knew as well as any man when he had done his duty, and as to our safe-keeping he shouldn’t stand on ceremony with us. He never did with that kind of cattle.
“Have you many on hand at present?” inquired Hay[e]s.
[“]Not one. The last went off day before yesterday. Master made a pretty speck on her—bought her at auction for five hundred dollars and sold her for fifteen hundred.”
“That’s what I call doing business” said Hay[e]s. “But take your gals into the house and make them comfortable as I did. They’re cold I’ll warrant. Get out.”
This last was intended for the horses, who seemed to understand it perfectly, and started off at a brisk pace.
Attended by the old man we went to the house, and entered it by a large door heavily paneled that shut with such a bang and woke so many echoes I half fancied that all the doors in the house were shutting. It was still broad day, but all shutters were closed over the high windows with their tops, which gave the rooms a gloomy uninhabited air.
We were ushered into a large apartment that furnished in better taste would have been handsome. As it was a bright fire on the hearth communicated to all around a warm and hospitable glow.
“This room” said the old man, glancing around him “you are to consider yours till further orders, and that one door, there, you see by the chimney leads to another you can occupy for a bed-room. If at any time you want anything you can pull that bell-wire. I shall be always at hand.”
I nodded assent and he retired, but returned again in a moment to inquire if he should bring us some supper. I replied affirmatively, and he again disappeared bolting the door behind him.
It was evident that we had only been transferred from one prison to another. The several doors leading from our apartment to others were all fastened on the outside. The window shutters were secured in the same manner, indeed there was a general air of security about the dwelling well calculated to excite apprehension. We were amazed at the deep and utter silence that prevailed. Not the sound of a voice, not the echo of a footstep. Was the house uninhabited except by us? We were almost tempted to ask the old man when he came with our suppers, but his forbidding aspect seemed to repel conversation, and sitting the tray with refreshments on a small walnut table he departed without saying a word.
And here in this dull place we remained a month. I could not even if I wished describe the tedious monotony of our existence, or what we suffered in racking suspense. True, the wants of our nature were all supplied. We were provided with delicate food, were furnished with books and embroidery, and might so far as outward appearances were concerned have been we might have been happy. But those who think that the greatest evils of slavery are connected with physical suffering possess no just or rational ideas of human nature. The soul, the immortal soul must ever long and yearn for a thousand things inseperable to liberty. Then, too, the fear, the apprehension, the dread, and deep anxiety always attending that condition in a greater or less degree. There can be no certainty, no abiding confidence in the possession of any good thing. The indulgent master may die, or fail in business. The happy home may be despoiled of its chiefest treasures, and the consciousness of this embitters all their lot.
During all this time we saw not a human face with the exception of that old man’s. He came and went mechanically never smiling, and seldom speaking. To our tea
rs and entreaties he was immovable. To our questions he gave no answer. Had he been deaf as an adder he could not have manifested a greater insensibility to our words. At length we became aware that another person was in the dwelling. We heard the distinct utterance of two voices as if two persons were conversing in a low tone. We were confident that after the old-man’s step in the passage there came another, unlike the first yet resembling it in certain particulars, for both seemed stealthy and had the soft gliding sound betokening privacy. We were likewise sensible of more noise in general. There was more opening and shutting of doors, more ascending and descending stairs, and more of everything accompanying the presence of free life. Some one had evidently arrived, and without knowing why we felt interested in the event.
The old man came at night with our suppers. For the first time a gleam of intelligence lightened his stolid face as he said “You will be wanted in an hour?”
“By whom?”
“Master.”
“But who is master?”
He shook his head, clapped his finger to his ear—his usual manner of expressing deafness, when asked questions he did not choose to answer, then repeating “Remember in an hour” he passed from the room. Wanted in an hour by master; then our suspense would be resolved into certainty.
In an hour, though it seemed two or three to us, the old man came to our apartment and bade us follow him. He regarded us with a look of curious surprise, as we had neither changed our dresses, nor arranged our hair. Unadorned we went not expecting to ask favors or receive them. My companion trembled so that I found it necessary to support her frame, as we ascended the stairs; the old man gliding before with his light, and pausing now and then to look back at us. Perhaps he feared that even then we might give them the slip. From the stair case landing we passed along a close uncomfortable passage to a small door that opened at the farther end and which on the present occasion stood slightly ajar. The old man paused before it, but did not enter, and we hesitated.
“Go on: Go on,” he said with corresponding gestures.
We advanced, entered the room, and stood in the presence of Mr Trappe. He was sitting beside a table on which a small lamp was dimly burning. At his elbow stood a decanter of old wine, and by it was placed a glass that had been lately used. He looked calmly, though searchingly towards us as we entered and I detected an expression in his face at once complacent and self-satisfied. Not that he seemed exultant or triumphant. He was too strictly too severely self-repressed to exhibit much feeling of any kind, but he can chuckle a little, a very little over a good bargain, and now he felt an increased sense of his own power, importance, and strength of purpose now that our destinies for time I had well nigh said for eternity were in his hands. He was sedately pleased and looked just as one may be supposed to look when some great work is accomplished. Perhaps he thought that he had been doing a great work—there is no telling.
Carelessly holding his green spectacles in one hand, and adjusting the leaves of a book in which he had been apparently reading with the other, he seemed waiting for my companion to speak. Finding, however, that would be obliged she will not break the silence he does so very leisurely and quietly by saying “It is a long time since we met.”
She inclines her head and would say “yes” but has no voice. The past comes rushing over her with its tide of memories moved and swayed by his presence. She remembers all she has been, she thinks with horror of what she is. His manner is different, too. He evidently feels that she is a worm beneath his feet to be crushed or preserved. as he Time was when he would have brought her a chair with obsequious politeness, now he does not even invite us her to be seated.
“It is a long time since we met” he repeated. “May I inquire in a friendly way how you have enjoyed yourself?”
She looked at him intently, her countenance very pale, and her whole frame trembling with excessive agitation.
He looks at her no less intently, and the muscles of his mouth twitch slightly with inward satisfaction. “Did you find a good home and pleasant company more desirable than the one so resolutely abandoned contrary to my expressed will and pleasure. That was a very bad move, very bad indeed; it hastened matters much, brought affairs to a speedy crisis, and had almost disastrous was attended with most disastrous consequences to your husband. It hurried him to the grave, it hurries you to slavery.”
My companion gasped and trembled. It became necessary to support her to a seat. I led her to an old-fashioned sofa that stood in a little recess. She sunk down upon it, and buried her face in the cushions. He had no mercy, no pity, love of gold had turned his heart to stone, long accustomed to witness human sufferings he was stolid indifferent, apathetic to them, and he coolly went on.
“There is no need of your taking on so, no use at all in it. You have long known the condition of life to which your birth subjected you, and you ought by this time to have become reconciled to it. Lord bless me, it is nothing so bad after all. We are all slaves to something or somebody. A man perfectly free would be an anomaly, and a free woman yet more so. Freedom and slavery are only names attached surreptiously and often improperly to certain conditions and in many cases the slave possesses more. They are mere shadows the very reverse of realities, and being so, if rightly considered, they have only a trifling effect on individual happiness.”
He said this composedly as if she were a mere machine that he was discussing and analysing.
There was a gasp and a sob; otherwise she was silent.
“You will blame me, no doubt” he continued “you will curse me, you will regard me as an enemy, as one who embittered your existence, and dashed the cup of pleasure from your lips, yet in doing so you will be unjust. Rather blame the world that has made me what I am, like Like yourself yourself the victim of circumstances. It was not my fault, but rather the result of accident that made me acquainted with your lineage. Indeed I had my suspicions for a long time—for days, weeks, months, and years, but who can help their suspicions. I was not accountable for the idle words and looks of others that still contributed to feed them, and when I made it my business to find out, and clearly ascertain the whole affair I did it because it was in my line.”
“I don’t apprehend your meaning” she said with great effort.
[“]I mean my line of business. You are not the first fair dame whose descent I have traced back—far back to a sable son of Africa, and whose destiny has been in my hands as clearly and decidedly as you must perceive that yours is now. Many and many are the family secrets that I have unraveled as women unravel a web. You may think of it as you please, you may call it dishonorable if you like, but it brings gold—bright gold.[”]
[“]But does it happify the conscience, or bring that sweet peace which passeth understanding?”
“My conscience never troubles me” he replied, with an expression which in countenances more variable and impulsive would have been a sneer.
“My conscience never troubles me” he repeated. “The circumstances in which I find people are not of my making. If a beautiful woman is sold and sells cheap Neither are the laws that give me an advantage over them. If a beautiful women [sic] is to be sold it is rather the fault of the law that permits it than of me who profits by it. If she sells cheap my right to purchase is clear; and if I choose to keep her awhile, give her advantages, or otherwise increase her attractions and then dispose of her again my right is equally unquestionable. Whatever the law permits, and public opinion encourages I do, when that says stop I go no further.
“You, Madam” he continued, after a short pause “should be the last to blame me for the turn affairs have taken. You were well married. I approved of the match, and with me the happiness of your husband was something of a consideration. Something, I say, though nothing very important. When I talked of undeceiving him, it was only to try you. I had not the remotest intention of so doing, and should not have done it had not your precipitate flight rendered such a course necessary. But I wished to see you humbled at my f
eet as I had been at yours. I wished you feel yourself standing on the brink of a precipice, and know that my hand could thrust you down to certain destruction, or pluck you back to safety.”
Absorbed she listened to him, and now and then her lips moved as if in replying, but they emitted no voice. It was clear that she heard what he was saying that she repeated his words in her mind, and understood what they meant of themselves, but it was not so evident that she attached meaning to them in any other connection, or felt their intimate relation to herself.
[“]But there is no use of lingering over the past. We have to do with the present now, and of the present I would speak. It is not my intention to expose you in the public market for slaves, but rather to dispose of you in a private manner, as I am now your legal owner. To[-]morrow morning you will receive the visit of a gentleman who proposes, if pleased with your appearance, to become your purchaser. You must look your best, as he is extremely fastidious in his taste. You must—”
He was interrupted by a slight scream from his victim and the sofa pillows and cushions and the next moment I discovered that the sofa pillows were tinged with blood that bubbled from her lips. Quick as thought I sprang to her side and supported her fainting head. Her excessive agitation had ruptured a blood-vessel, and she was fast approaching that bourne where the wicked cease from troubling and the weary are at rest. Mr Trappe arose from his chair, and came slowly forward, but started when he discovered her dying state. I half fancied that a deeper shadow passed over his countenance, that his eye for an instant grew dim.
Was conscience thus late awakened, or was it a vision of pecuniary loss that flitted before him?
“Hannah, darling.”
The blood gushed afresh, staining my hands and clothes, as I stooped yet lower to embrace her, and kissed her pallid brow, now damp with dews of death.
The Bondwoman's Narrative Page 16