“I don’t know what synopsis means. But if you want me to tell you what she said, I sha’n’t do it. Well, now, do you know I am in the best spirits in the world, now that I’ve got this thing off my mind, and out of that desolate house? Did you ever see such a direful place? What is the reason, when we get down South, here, everything seems to be going to destruction, so? I noticed it all the way down through Virginia. It seems as if everything had stopped growing, and was going backwards. Well, now, it’s so different at the North! I went up, one vacation, into New Hampshire. It’s a dreadfully poor, barren country; nothing but stony hills and poor soil. And yet the people there seem to be so well off! They live in such nice, tight, clean-looking white houses! Everything around them looks so careful and comfortable; and yet their land isn’t half so good as ours, down here. Why, actually, some of those places seem as if there were nothing but rock! And then, they have winter about nine months in the year, I do believe! But these Yankees turn everything to account. If a man’s field is covered with rock, he’ll find some way to sell it, and make money out of it; and if they freeze up all winter, they sell the ice, and make money out of that. They just live by selling their disadvantages!”
“And we grow poor by wasting our advantages,” said Clayton.
“Do you know,” said Nina, “people think it’s a dreadful thing to be an Abolitionist? But for my part, I’ve a great inclination to be one. Perhaps because I have a contrary turn, and always have a little spite against what everybody else believes. But if you won’t tell anybody, I’ll tell you — I don’t believe in slavery!”
“Nor I, either!” said Clayton.
“You don’t! Well, really, I thought I was saying something original. Now, the other day, Aunt Nesbit’s minister was at our house, and they sat crooning together, as they always do; and among other things, they said, ‘What a blessed institution it was to bring these poor Africans over here to get them Christianized!’ So, by way of saying something to give them a start, I told them I thought they came nearer to making heathen of us than we to making Christians of them.”
“That’s very true,” said Clayton. “There’s no doubt that the kind of society which is built up in this way constantly tends to run back towards barbarism. It prevents general education of the whites, and keeps the poorer classes down to the lowest point, while it enriches a few.”
“Well, what do we have it for?” said Nina. “Why don’t we blow it up, right off?”
“That’s a question easier asked than answered. The laws against emancipation are very stringent. But I think it is every owner’s business to contemplate this as a future resort, and to educate his servants in reference to it. That is what I am trying to do on my plantation.”
“Indeed!” said Nina, looking at him with a good deal of interest. “Well, now, that reminds me of what I was going to say to you. Generally speaking, my conscience don’t trouble me much about my servants, because I think they are doing about as well with me as they would be likely to do anywhere else. But now, there’s Harry! He is well educated, and I know that he could do for himself, anywhere, better than he does here. I have always had a kind of sense of this; but I’ve thought of it more lately, and I’m going to try to have him set free at the next legislature. And I shall want you to help me about all the what-do-you-call-’ems.”
“Of course, I shall be quite at your service,” said Clayton.
“There used to be some people, when I was up at the North, who talked as if all of us were no better than a pack of robbers and thieves. And, of course, when I was there I was strong for our institutions, and would not give them an inch of ground. It set me to thinking, though; and the result of my thinking is, that we have no right to hold those to work for us who clearly can do better. Now, there’s Aunt Nesbit’s Milly — there’s Harry and Lisette. Why, it’s clear enough, if they can support themselves and us too, they certainly can support themselves alone. Lisette has paid eight dollars a month to her mistress, and supported herself besides. I’m sure it’s we that are the helpless ones!”
“Well, do you think your Aunt Nesbit is going to follow your example?”
“No! catch her at it! Aunt Nesbit is doubly fortified in her religion. She is so satisfied with something or other about ‘ cursed be Canaan,’ that she’d let Milly earn ten dollars a month for her, all the year round, and never trouble her head about taking every bit of it. Some folks, you know, have a way of calling everything they want to do a dispensation of Providence! Now, Aunt Nesbit is one of ‘em. She always calls it a dispensation that the negroes were brought over here, and a dispensation that we are the mistresses. Ah! Milly will not get free while Aunt Nesbit is alive! And do you know, though it does not seem very generous in me, yet I’m resigned to it, because Milly is such a good soul, and such a comfort to me? Do you know she seems a great deal more like a mother to me than Aunt Nesbit? Why, I really think, if Milly had been educated as we are, she would have made a most splendid woman — been a perfect Candace queen of Ethiopia. There’s a vast deal that is curious and interesting in some of these old Africans. I always did love to be with them; some of them are so shrewd and original! But I wonder, now, what Tom will think of my cutting him out so neatly. ‘T will make him angry, I suppose.”
“Oh, perhaps, after all, he had no real intention of doing anything of the kind,” said Clayton. “He may have said it merely for bravado.”
“I should have thought so, if I hadn’t known that he always had a grudge against Harry.”
At this moment the galloping of a horse was heard in the woodland path before them; and very soon Tom Gordon appeared in sight, accompanied by another man, on horseback, with whom he was in earnest conversation. There was something about the face of this man which, at the first glance, Nina felt to be very repulsive. He was low, thick-set, and yet lean; his features were thin and sharp; his hair and eyebrows bushy and black, and a pair of glassy, pale blue eyes formed a peculiar contrast to their darkness. There was something in the expression of the eye which struck Nina as hard and cold. Though the man was habited externally as a gentleman, there was still about him an underbred appearance, which could be detected at the first glance, as the coarseness of some woods will reveal themselves through every varnish.
“Good-morrow, Nina,” said her brother, drawing his horse up to meet hers, and signing to his companion to arrest his also. “Allow me to present to you my friend, Mr. Jekyl. We are going out to visit the Belleville plantation.”
“I wish you a pleasant ride!” said Nina. And touching her horse, she passed them in a moment. Looking back almost fiercely, a moment, she turned and said to Clayton:
“I hate that man!”
“Who is it?” said Clayton.
“I don’t know!” said Nina. “I never saw him before. But I hate him! He is a bad man! I’d as soon have a serpent come near me as that man!”
“Well, the poor fellow’s face isn’t prepossessing,” said Clayton. “But I should not be prepared for such an anathema.”
“Tom’s badness,” continued Nina, speaking as if she were following out a train of thought, without regarding her companion’s remark, “is good turned to bad. It’s wine turned to vinegar. But this man don’t even know what good is!”
“How can you be so positive about a person that you’ve only seen once!” said Clayton.
“Oh,” said Nina, resuming her usual gay tones, “don’t you know that girls and dogs, and other inferior creatures, have the gift of seeing what’s in people? It doesn’t belong to highly cultivated folks like you, but to us poor creatures, who have to trust to our instincts. So, beware!” And as she spoke, she turned to him with a fascinating air of half-saucy defiance.
“Well,” said Clayton, “have you seen, then, what is in me?”
“Yes, to be sure!” said Nina with energy; “I knew what you were the very first time I saw you. And that’s the reason why” —
Clayton made an eager gesture, and his eye met hers with a
sudden flash of earnestness. She stopped, and blushed, and then laughed.
“What, Nina?”
“Oh, well, I always thought you were a grandfatherly body, and that you wouldn’t take advantage of ‘us girls,’ as some of the men do. And so I’ve treated you with confidence, as you know. I had just the same feeling that you could be trusted, as I have that that other fellow cannot!”
“Well,” said Clayton, “that deduction suits me so well that I should be sorry to undermine your faith. Nevertheless, I must say such a way of judging isn’t always safe. Instinct may be a greater matter than we think; yet it isn’t infallible, any more than our senses. We try the testimony even of our eyesight by reason. It will deceive us, if we don’t. Much more we ought to try this more subtle kind of sight.”
“Maybe so,” said Nina; “yet I don’t think I shall like that man, after all. But I’ll give him a chance to alter my feeling, by treating him civilly if Tom brings him back to dinner. That’s the best I can do.”
CHAPTER XIV
AUNT NESBIT’S LOSS
ON entering the house, Nina was met at the door by Milly, with a countenance of some anxiety.
“Miss Nina,” she said, “your aunt has heard bad news this morning.”
“Bad news!” said Nina quickly—” what?”
“Well, honey, ye see dere has been a lawyer here,” said Milly, following Nina as she was going upstairs; “and she has been shut up with him all de mornin’; and when he come out I found her taking on quite dreadful! And she says she has lost all her property.”
“Oh! is that all?” said Nina. “I didn’t know what dreadful thing might have happened. Why, Milly, this isn’t so very bad. She hadn’t much to lose.”
“Oh, bless you, chile! nobody wants to lose all they got, much or little!”
“Yes; but,” said Nina, “you know she can always live here with us; and what little money she wants to fuss with, to buy new caps, and paregoric for her cough, and all such little matters, we can give her, easily enough.”
“Ah, Miss Nina, your heart is free enough; you’d give away both ends of the rainbow, if you had ’em to give. But the trouble is, chile, you haven’t got ‘em. Why, chile, dis yer great place, and so many mouths opened to eat and eat, chile, I tell you it takes heaps to keep it a-going. And Harry, I tell you, finds it hard work to bring it even all the year round, though he never says nothing to you about his troubles, — wants you always to walk on flowers, with both hands full, and never think where they come from. I tell you what, chile, we’s boun’ to think for you a little; and I tell you what, I’s jist a-going to hire out.”
“Why, Milly, how ridiculous!”
“It ain’t ridiculous, now. Why, just look on it, Miss Nina. Here’s Miss Loo, dat’s one; here’s me, dat’s two; here’s Polly, — great grown girl, — three; dere’s Tomtit, four; all on us eating your bread, and not bringing in a cent to you, ‘cause all on us together ain’t done much more than wait on Miss Loo. Why, you’s got servants enough of your own to do every turn that wants doing in dis yer house. I know, Miss Nina, young ladies don’t like to hear about dese things; but the fac’ is, victuals cost something, and dere must be some on us to bring in something. Now, dat ar gentleman what talked with your aunt, he said he could find me a right good place up dar to the town, and I was jest a-going. Sally, she is big enough now to do everything that I have been used to doing for Miss Loo, and I am jest a-going; besides, to tell you the truth, I think Miss Loo has kind o’ set her heart upon it. You know she is a weakly kind of thing, —— don’t know how to do much ‘cept sit in her chair and groan. She has always been so used to having me make a way for her; and when I told her about dis yer, she kind o’ brightened up.”
“But, Milly, what shall I do? I can’t spare you at all,” said Nina.
“Law bless you, chile! don’t you suppose I’s got eyes? I tell you, Miss Nina, I looked that gen’leman over pretty well for you, and my opinion is he’ll do.”
“Oh, come, you hush!” said Nina.
“You see, chile, it wouldn’t be everybody that our people would be willing to have come on to de place, here, but there ain’t one of ’em that wouldn’t go in for dis yar, now I tell you. Dere’s Old Hundred, as you calls him, told me ‘t was just as good as a meeting to hear him reading de prayers dat ar day at de funeral. Now, you see, I’s seen gen’lemen handsome, and rich, and right pleasant, too, dat de people wouldn’t want at all; ‘cause why? dey has dere frolics and drinks, and de money flies one way for dis ting and one way for dat, till by and by it’s all gone. Den comes de sheriff, and de people is all sold, some one way and some another way. Now, Mr. Clayton, he ain’t none of dem.”
“But, Milly, all this may be very well; but if I couldn’t love him?”
“Law sakes, Miss Nina! You look me in the face and tell me dat ar? Why, chile, it’s plain enough to see through you. ’Tis so! The people’s all pretty sure, by this time. Sakes alive, we’s used to looking out for the weather; and we knows pretty well what’s coming. And now, Miss Nina, you go right along and give him a good word, ‘cause you see, dear lamb, you need a good husband to take care of you, — dat’s what you want, chile. Girls like you has a hard life being at the head of a place, especially your brother being just what he is. Now, if you had a husband here, Mas’r Tom ‘ud be quiet, ‘cause he knows he couldn’t do nothing. But just as long as you’s alone he’ll plague you. But, now, chile, it’s time for you to be getting ready for dinner.”
“Oh, but, do you know, Milly,” said Nina, “I’ve something to tell you, which I had liked to have forgotten! I have been out to the. Belleville plantation, and bought Harry’s wife.” — .
“You has, Miss Nina! Why, de Lord bless you! Why, Harry was dreadful worked, dis yer morning, ‘bout what Mas’r Tom said.’Peared like he was most crazy.”
“Well,” said Nina, “I’ve done it. I’ve got the receipt here.” —
“Why, but, chile, where alive did you get all the money to pay right sudden so?”
“Mr. Clayton lent it to me,” said Nina.
“Mr. Clayton! Now, chile, didn’t I tell you so? Do you suppose, now, you’d a let him lend you dat ar money if you hadn’t liked him? But, come, chile, hurry! Dere’s Mas’r Tom and dat other gen’leman coming back, and you must be down to dinner.”
The company assembled at the dinner-table was not particularly enlivening. Tom Gordon, who, in the course of his morning ride, had discovered the march which his sister had stolen upon him, was more sulky and irritable than usual, though too proud to make any allusion to the subject. Nina was annoyed by the presence of Mr. Jekyl, whom her brother insisted should remain to dinner. Aunt Nesbit was uncommonly doleful, of course. Clayton, who in mixed society generally took the part of a listener rather than a talker, said very little; and had it not been for Carson, there’s no saying whether any of the company could have spoken. Every kind of creature has its uses, and there are times when a lively, unthinking chatterbox is a perfect godsend. Those unperceiving people, who never notice the embarrassment of others, and who walk with the greatest facility into the gaps of conversation, simply because they have no perception of any difficulty there, have their hour; and Nina felt positively grateful to Mr. Carson for the continuous and cheerful rattle which had so annoyed her the day before. Carson drove a brisk talk with the lawyer about the value of property, percentage,. etc.; he sympathized with Aunt Nesbit on her last caught cold, rallied Tom on his preoccupation, complimented Nina on her improved color from her ride, and seemed on such excellent terms both with himself and everybody else that the thing was really infectious.
“What do you call your best investments, down here, —— land, eh?” he said to Mr. Jekyl.
Mr. Jekyl shook his head.
“Land deteriorates too fast. Besides, there’s all the trouble and risk of overseers, and all that. I’ve looked this thing over pretty well, and I always invest in niggers.”
“Ah!” said Mr. Carson, “yo
u do?”
“Yes, sir, I invest in niggers; that’s what I do; and I hire them out, sir, — hire them out. Why, sir, if a man has a knowledge of human nature, knows where to buy and when to buy, and watches his opportunity, he gets a better percentage on his money that way than any other. Now, that was what I was telling Mrs. Nesbit, this morning. Say, now, that you give one thousand dollars for a man, — and I always buy the best sort, that’s economy, — well, and he gets — put it at the lowest figure — ten dollars a month wages, and his living. Well, you see there, that gives you a pretty handsome sum for your money. I have a good talent of buying. I generally prefer mechanics. I have got now working for me three bricklayers. I own two firstrate carpenters, and last month I bought a perfect jewel of a blacksmith. He is an uncommonly ingenious man; a fellow that will make, easy, his fifteen dollars a month; and he is the more valuable because he has been religiously brought up. Why, some of them, now, will cheat you, if they can; but this fellow has been brought up in a district where they have a missionary, and a great deal of pains has been taken to form his religious principles. Now, this fellow would no more think of touching a cent of his earnings than he would of stealing right out of my pocket. I tell people about him, sometimes, when I find them opposed to religious instruction.
I tell them, ‘See there, now — you see how godliness is profitable to the life that now is.’ You know the Scriptures, Mrs. Nesbit?”
“Yes,” said Aunt Nesbit, “I always believed in religious education.”
“Confound it all!” said Tom, “I don’t! I don’t see the use of making a set of hypocritical sneaks of them! I’d make niggers bring me my money; but, hang it all, if he came snuffling to me, pretending ‘t was his duty, I’d choke him! They never think so, — they don’t and they can’t, — and it’s all hypocrisy, this religious instruction, as you call it!”
“No, it isn’t,” said the undiscouraged Mr. Jekyl, “not when you found it on right principles. Take them early enough, and work them right, you’ll get it ground into them. Now, when they begun religious instruction, there was a great prejudice against it in our part of the country. You see they were afraid that the niggers would get uppish. Ah, but you see the missionaries are pretty careful; they put it in strong in the catechisms about the rights of the master. You see the instruction is just grounded on this, that the master stands in God’s place to them.”
Complete Works of Harriet Beecher Stowe Page 80