“Hannah, dear” she cried on my approach. “I forgot my smelling-bottle, go and bring it, that new one I obtained purchased yesterday.”
“Yes Madam” and back I went to the house, procured the smelling-bottle, Mr Wheeler advanced to meet me, took the little delicate supporter of weak nerves, and handing it to his wife, the carriage drove off.
In two hours a carriage stopped at the door; the bell was rung with a hasty jerk, and the servant admitted a lady, who came directly to Mrs Wheeler’s apartment. I was greatly surprised; for though the vail, the bonnet, and the dress were those of that lady, or exactly similar, the face was black.
I stood gazing in mute amazement, when a voice not in the least languid called out “What are you gazing at me in that manner for? Am I to be insulted by my own slaves?”
Mr Wheeler just that moment stepped in. She turned towards him, and the mixture of surprise and curiosity with which he regarded her was most ludicrous.
“Are you all gone mad?” inquired the not now languid voice. “Or what is the matter?”
“You may well ask that question” exclaimed Mr Wheeler, sobbing with suppressed laughter. “Why, Madam, I didn’t know you. Your face is black as Tophet.[”]
“Black?” said the lady, the expression of astonishment on his countenance transferred to hers.
“Hannah bring the mirror.”
I complied.
She gazed a moment, and then her mingled emotions of grief, rage, and shame were truly awful. To all Mr Wheeler’s inquiries of “how did it happen, my dear?[”] and [“]how came your face to turn black, my dear?” she only answered that she did not know, had no idea, and then she wept and moaned, and finally went into a fit of strong hysterics. Mr Wheeler and myself quickly flew to her assistance. To tell the truth he was now more concerned about his wife than the office now.
“Heaven help me” he said bending over her. “I fear that her beauty has gone forever. What a dreadful thing it is. I never heard of the like.”
“It must have been the powder.”
“The powder was white I thought.”
“The powder certainly is white, and yet it may posses such chemical properties as occasion blackness. Indeed I recently saw in the newspapers some accounts of a chemist who having been jilted by a lady very liberal in the application of powder to her face had invented as a method of revenge a certain kind of smelling bottles, of which the fumes would suddenly blacken the whitest skin provided the said cosmetic had been previously applied.”
“You wretch” exclaimed the lady suddenly opening her eyes. “Why didn’t you tell me of this before?”
“I—I—didn’t think of it, didn’t know it was necessary” I stammered in extenuation.
“Oh no: you didn’t think of it, you never think of anything that you ought to, and I must be insulted on account of your thoughtlessness, right before Mrs Piper, too. Get out of my sight this instant. I never want to see you again.”
“My dear Madam” I said, kneeling at her feet, and attempting to kiss her hand “how should I know that those mentioned in the papers were identical with those you purchased.”
Here Mr Wheeler interposed and told her that he did not see how I could be to blame.
“Of course, you don’t” she replied mockingly eager to vent her spleen on somebody “of course, you don’t. No: no: what husband ever could agree with his wife Slaves generally are far preferable to wives in husbands’ eyes.”
Mr Wheeler’s face flushed with anger. The allusion was most uncalled for, and ungenerous. However recovering his serenity in a moment he inquired who had insulted her.
“Why everybody” she replied, making another demonstration of hysterics.
“Don’t have another fit, pray” said the husband, applying the camphor to her nose. “Hannah bring some water and wash off this hedious stuff.”
I procured the water, brought a basin, soap, napkin, and cloth, and went to work. Gradually and by little and little the skin resumed its natural color.
“Now, my dear” said Mr Wheeler [“]you look like my own sweet wife again, fresh and rosy as the morning, and if you are not too nervous and agitated I should be glad to hear who has presumed to insult you.”
“Why Cattell, and his clerks, with Mrs Piper, too.”
“’Tis strange” muttered Wheeler half inaudibly.
“Mrs Piper, how I hate her” ejaculated the lady. [“]How absurd she dresses. False teeth much too large which have the effect of thrusting out her lips; complexion highly rouged a face on fire with rouge and a ringletty wig. Then she was pinched in and swelled out, and puffed up, and strapped down in a way I never saw. I can’t say that she knew me. I can’t say that she didn’t, but she gave me no sign or token of recognition.”
“It’s lucky if she didn’t,” said Mr Wheeler, with a look of extreme mortification.
“At any rate I gave your name as that of my husband, and when Mr Cattell said [‘]by courtesy perhaps[’] I said [‘]No, by law[’] when they all burst into a titter.”
“Then you really asked Cattell for the office?” said Mr Wheeler, hoping to reach indirectly the information he desired.
“Certainly I did.”
“And what did he say?”
“That it was not customary to bestow offices on colored people, at which Mrs Piper blustered and said that [‘]would be very ungentlemanly unconstitutionally indeed.[’] [‘]Then you positively refuse this office to my husband.[’] I said going down on my knees.”
[“]Positively, and if either you or him had possessed a particle of common sense, you would not have asked for it.[”]
“I recollected your old disturbance, and supposing that was the occasion of his harsh language, I bade him farewell and came away, determining as that was my first, it should be my last attempt at office seeking.”
“Confound all smelling-bottles, I say” exclaimed Mr Wheeler. “Here I have probably lost the appointment to a valuable office, and you, my wife, have been rendered ridiculous by a dam—d little smelling bottle. Was ever anything so provoking?”
A day or two only elapsed before Mrs Wheeler’s face was the topic of the city. Who was it? What was it? How was it? For the fashionable intelligence had not succeeded in obtaining the full particulars. Some viewed it in the light of a little masquerade; and thus taken it became extremely funny. Others considered it to have originated in a wager, and thought the lady rather debased herself. Very few regarded it as it really was, the deserved punishment of an act of vanity.
Mrs Wheeler like Byron woke up in the morning and found herself famous. An eminent divine in a fashionable sermon held forth for two whole hours on the sin and wickedness of wantonly disguising the form or features, and suggested it was a wonder of mercy that the presumptuous lady had not been turned irrecoverably black. A philosophic M.D. discoursed learnedly of the cuticle and color and pigments, and it was even broached among milliners that black for the time being should be fashionable style.
A bit of scandal, so fresh and original, and entirely new how the fashionable world loved it? How they handed it round and round their circle like some dainty morsel? How it was discussed at the President’s levees, and retailed at the Russian minister’s. How dull old ladies carry it about with them from one place to another and thereby render their morning calls less irksome. How antiquated spinsters, who affect to be young chat and giggle over it.
In the circle where Mrs Wheeler has been most popular she is discussed with the most perfect freedom, and the phrase of “town talk” becomes a significant fact in her use. The rumor flies from sphere to sphere, from circle to circle. People who never heard of her before, and who positively know nothing about her relate many little items of scandal and anecdote with which her name is connected. Even kitchens and cellars grew merry and chatty over it. Faces black by nature were excessively pleased puckered with excessive exultation that one had become so by artificial means. It even extended to the slave market, but the miserable victims of that d
readful traffic found little in it to ameliorate their woes.
Mrs Wheeler’s notoriety extended to her husband, and even to me. His affairs were sagely discussed in financial circles. Speculators talked of stocks, and bonds and martgages Even the price of his last year’s cotton crop, the value of this estate in North Carolina, and the number of his slaves was retailed by bar-tenders and post-boys with great satisfaction. Some went so far as to think that political capital might be made of it, and even the nomination of the next President influenced thereby.
Finding themselves the subjects of such unwelcome notoreity they concluded to forsake the capital and remove to their estate. The splendid mansion they occupied having been taken only temporarily could be abandoned at any time. Suddenly and without any previous intimation a certain circle was astounded with the intelligence that the Wheeler’s [sic] had gone.
But the day before we went I was out on some errand for Mrs Wheeler when I was surprised by the voice of some one calling me behind me. I turned around and instantly recognised Lizzy. She had many things to tell me concerning Mr Vincent, our old master and Mr Trappe, which would scarcely bear repeating here but I was deeply interested in what she told me of Mr Cosgrove, her present master and the owner of Lindendale, as well as the changes she reported to have occurred to the dear old place. Then she said that the children now grown to be great boys and girls remembered me with affection, and often mentioned my name, and told how kind I was to them used to be to them, how I taught them to pray, and love one another; that Mr Cosgrove once in her hearing inquired of Mr Trappe for me, and said that he thought I must be worth having.
“Is your master kind, Lizzy dear?” I inquired.
“Sometimes very, and sometimes not, just as it happens” she replied. “At times he is so moody and morose that I fear him greatly; at others he will laugh so loud and long that I think he is getting crazy, but he didn’t use to be so, it all comes of.” She lowered her voice, gazed around her to see that no one was near.
“Of what, Lizzy?” I inquired.
“Of his being haunted.”
“Haunted.”
“Yes. It’s a long story, and a fearful one, but I want you to hear it. So come in here, and I will tell you.”
She led me behind some piles of timber lumber where we could be effectually screened from observation, and seating ourselves she began.
CHAPTER 14
Lizzy’s Story
The dark places of the earth are the habitations of cruelty.
BIBLE
“You see” began Lizzy “there has been strange doings at the old place, as you call it, stranger than you can imagine. Our master, whose beautiful wife had gone to Europe to attend the dying bed of some near and dear relatives, took a great fancy to beautiful females slaves. He preferred those who were accomplished in music and dancing, and no Turk in his haram ever luxuriated in deeper sensual enjoyments than did the master of Lindendale. More than one of these favorites gave birth to children and the little ones were caressed and petted by their father with all imaginable fondness, but I used sometimes to wonder how his lady would bear it if she knew. She was an English woman of aristocratic family and connections, and very high. How would she bear it? We soon found out.
The lady arrived at her mansion in the evening. She was of stately presence, and no Empress could have been more dignified and commanding. She took little notice of the house or its appointments, and still less of the servants. Indeed had we been the most loathsome and degraded reptiles she could not have treated us with greater hauteur and contempt. But she had the good taste to perceive and appreciate beauty. You recollect Lilly, that sweet child who was so fond of you.”
“I have not forgotten her.”
“Well our mistress took a great fancy to her at the first sight, I believe, she actually called the girl to her side and caressed and praised her, to the infinite astonishment of her maid who had always been kept at a distance. Henceforth when she descended to dinner or tea her eyes instinctively sought that beautiful face and the child conscious of the notice she inspired would drop her head and blush, which made her look all the lovelier.
At length Mrs Cosgrove dismissed her maid. It was a cruel act; for the girl had accompanied her from beyond the seas and had neither friends nor relatives in this country, but who might question her imperious will: and greatly I pitied Lilly when the haughty English woman promoted her to the rank of waiting maid attendant.
Hitherto the lady had known nothing of her husband’s favorites. The mansion, you know, was large and irregular in its dimensions, besides being built in a kind of rambling style, that precluded the occupant of one part from knowing anything of the other. In obedience to his orders they had kept themselves seclu secluded and out of her sight, and the servants were forbidden under pain of the severest punishment to mention them in her presence under the penalty of the severest punishment.
But one morning when Lilly was dressing her hair as she sate [sat] in her apartment beneath the windows that overlooked the garden, when suddenly two or three beautiful and well dressed women appeared in an arbor plainly in view and each one led or carried a young child. Mrs Cosgrove beheld them with speechless amazement, and turning to Lilly she inquired “Who are these Ladies. I was not aware that Mr Cosgrove entertained guests?”
“Guests” repeated Lilly in great confusion.
“Certainly, those ladies do not belong to the house, how well they are dressed, and what beautiful children.”
Lilly made no reply.
“Do you know anything about them?”
“Master said I mustn’t tell you” she replied, falteringly.
“Mustn’t tell me, why not pray?”
“I can’t tell you, only he said so.”
“But I will know” she replied. “I will know what ladies are entertained in this house, and that immediately. Ring for the waiter.”
The page appeared.
“Go, and request those ladies in the arbor to come to me.”
“Ladies” echoed the page with a broad grin “why they’re slaves.”
“Slaves are they, well no matter bid them come here directly.”
Pale with suppressed passion the lady awaited their arrival in silence, but the boy soon returned with information that they would not come.
“Won’t come, eh, are they slaves and do they dare to disobey?”
“But master has told them to keep out of your sight.”
“Well they haven’t done that, but is your master at home?”
[“]He is in the Library.[”]
[“]Request him to walk up here.[”]
The servant disappeared, and in a few moments the steps of the husband and master echoed in the passage. He came in smiling, advanced to his wife, and attempted to take her hand, saying “what would my sweet wife [want] with me this morning?”
She repulsed him rudely, and pointing from the window inquired “what women are those? the servants say you have forbidden them to tell me.”
The utterly blank and amazed expression of his countenance Lilly would not attempt to describe.
“Who be they, I say?” she demanded.
Still he answered not.
“Mr Cosgrove” she said, in a tone of great bitterness tho her manner was perfectly cool “I understand it all. I am perfectly well aware in what relation you stand to those hussies and they to you. I have heard that in this detestable country such things are common. I heard so before I came here, I know it now.”
“You really think you have found out something then” he said with a scornful laugh.
The lady did not foam at the mouth; she was too well bred for that, but she looks as if a little more might make her do it.
“And if you had heard such pleasant tidings of our country before hand, why did you consent to come here?” he inquired taking advantage of her silence.
“Because I was a fool” she replied.
He bowed with perfect composure.
“
You are a brute” said the lady, and her emotions getting the mastery she burst into a passion of tears.
Mr Cosgrove was moved by her sorrow. He would have loved his wife had not her haughtiness so cruelly repulsed him. He approached and attempted to embrace her, but she shrunk from him as she would from a toad or viper. Rage, jealousy, hate, revenge all burned in her bosom. To think that she had been rivaled by slaves. She, with English and aristocrat blood in her veins. It was too much to be endured, but she had great self-command; her tears soon dried, and she said in a voice perfectly calm.
“Knowing these women as I do, knowing them to be what they are I do not request, that were beneath me, but as your wife I command that they be dismissed. Their presence in this house I will not endure. They shall tramp and their children with them.”
Irritated by her tone and manner be commenced whistling, and walking up before the mirror adjusted his neck-tie.
“Do you hear me? I say they shall tramp and their children with them.”
[“]Certainly I hear you” he replied with the most perfect indifference. “Did you take me to be deaf?”
“Well, what do you say?”
“I say that you can threaten much easier than execute.”
“But I will not stay in the house if they do.”
“You are at perfect liberty to go.”
[“]That may be, and yet I will not go. No Sir, I am your wife, you can’t shake me off so easily, but I say that they shall go, if they are carried out in their coffins.”
“And I say” he returned eyeing her closely “that there is law in this country for the slave as well as the free, and if you attempt to injur[e] them you will find it so to your sorrow. Proud as you are, and rich as you think you be, the key of the prison door has been turned on richer and nobler people times without number. You know so much, you should know that.”
“That would be a great thing certainly. It would be an honor to yourself wouldn’t it—a great honor to have your wife the inmate of a prison, because she resented the presence of your favorites. I’ll speak of that.”
The Bondwoman's Narrative Page 23