Collected Works of Frances Trollope

by Frances Milton Trollope

  Notwithstanding his well-placed confidence on the liberality of the terrified colonel, Whitlaw thought that it would be extremely wrong to miss such an opportunity of getting a little ready cash from his very prosperous father; he had also some curiosity to hear a little gossip about Lotte from Aunt Cli; so telling his patron that he had business with his father which must be attended to before he set off, he took his leave of him, and mounting the horse kept for his use, proceeded immediately to Mount Etna.

  CHAPTER VI.

  THE evidently increasing wealth of old Whitlaw was by no means overlooked by his careful son, who, notwithstanding the luxury and dignity in which he lived as the acknowledged favourite of his patron, had lately thought it worth his while occasionally to pay his compliments at Mount Etna. Neither was his childish attachment to his adoring Aunt Clio altogether worn out.

  Whether it were that, strong as appearances seemed against it, our hero really had some slight mixture of vulgar human feelings at his heart, or that the effect was produced solely by the gratification which even poor Clio’s simple admiration afforded his vanity, it is certain that he always did say; “Where’s Aunt Cli?” within five minutes after he had seated himself on the fine horse-hair sofa in his stepmother’s grand keeping-room. To Clio the arrival of her Jonathan Jefferson was like sunshine after long rain, or rain after long sunshine, or any other most longed-for visitation.

  The entire aspect of Mount Etna was changed since first the Whitlaw family unpacked themselves and their plunder before the door of the little mansion. By gradual and regularly increasing growth, this very moderate-sized tenement was become a stately, staring store, with a substantial house attached to it. There certainly was not any individual in the family at all aware of the fact, though fact it was, that poor Clio was in reality the mainspring of this prosperity. The niggers that Mrs. Whitlaw brought with her as her marriage portion certainly contributed to the rapid clearing of the ground; but it was Clio’s unwearied hands that converted into prime bacon the herds of well-fattened hogs fed on the corn which grew there. If it was the imperious Whitlaw himself who contrived to make such capital ready-money bargains for Havannah cigars at New Orleans that he could undersell all Natchez, it was Clio who took care that there should be no crumbling or crushing among them till the very last of every successive batch was sold. It was Clio who roasted the coffee better than ever coffee was roasted before, with which she supplied all the retail customers for many a mile round; for “who would not walk a spell more, to have coffee done fixed so slick as Clio’s?” In a word, there was no part of Mr. Jonathan Whitlaw’s extensive retail concern which did not benefit by the watchful eye, the active hand, and the unwearied patient industry of Clio. In return, she was lodged, fed, and clothed; and what, as Mrs. Whitlaw observed, could any human want more?”

  As Jonathan Jefferson approached the paternal dwelling, he perceived his Aunt Cli in the act of lugging out, with great difficulty, a vast tub of “prime chewing tobacco,” from amidst many other heavy concerns piled up beside the door. Some men, under such circumstances, might have stepped forward to help her, and he could easily have done by one slight effort what it cost her many to achieve; but young Whitlaw reasoned differently. He was himself exceedingly well-dressed, and had perfectly the air of a man of first-rate Natchez fashion, whereas his Aunt Cli really looked as if she had been hard at work since sunrise; so he turned off, before her eyes, which were steadfastly fixed upon the chewing tobacco, had caught a glimpse of what they best loved to look upon, and skirting round a good-sized garden that spread before the whole front of the house, excepting the always open store, he made good his entry through a covered porch to the north, which led into Mrs. Whitlaw’s best parlour.

  The lady was occupied there in clear-starching some of her own particularly favourite caps and other finery; but the employment was redeemed from every appearance of degrading industry by the presence of two slaves. One of these, a young girl of fourteen, was endeavouring with all her heart and soul to content her lean and slippered liege lady by clapping, as it is technically called, a lace veil, the clearness and beauty of which, altogether depended, as Mrs. Whitlaw said, upon the force and rapidity with which “the nasty, lazy, nigger smut” performed the operation; and “Quicker, harder, can’t you? you beastly, nigger idiot, you!” rang in the trembling girl’s ears, as a prologue, to the beating she knew she should get if she did not immediately display considerably more skill and strength than she possessed.

  The other slave was a little girl of about eight, who, while holding a basin of starch with nervous firmness between her two little hands, stood with her eyes anxiously fixed upon her sister, whose abortive efforts in the mystery of clear-starching seemed so likely to bring her to sorrow and shame.

  “My! — Jonathan Jefferson! is that you?” exclaimed the lady, changing her tone from scolding to coaxing: for, having no offspring of her own, Mrs. Whitlaw was exceedingly proud of her elegant step-son; and as he by no means overwhelmed her with his company, she always welcomed him in the most flattering manner imaginable.

  “Morning, mother,” returned the young man. “Where’s Aunt Cli?”

  We have already seen that Jonathan Jefferson knew perfectly well where Aunt Cli was; but the phrase was always understood to mean, “bring her in directly.”

  “Oh! for sure you shall see her in no time. Jerico bob! what a pretty waistcoat that is! Why should not my Mr. Whitlaw wear something like that now? I must say, that considering I was an heiress, I do think Mr. Whitlaw should be a little more of a beau: don’t you think so, Jonathan Jefferson?”

  “Where’s Aunt Cli?” reiterated our hero, without taking any notice either of the compliment or the question.

  “Why can’t you budge, you everlasting nigger, you, and fetch Miss Cli, instead of standing staring there, as if you had never seen a white man before?”

  This was addressed to the younger of the two girls, who, carefully setting down the basin she held, darted out of the room, as if right glad of the errand that dismissed her.

  “Well now, Jonathan Jefferson, I hope you have got some news for me. I do live in the woods, I guess, if ever woman did. Is it true that Miss Mapleton is going to be married to Squire Dickson? Why, he is old enough to be her grandfather.”

  “Where’s Aunt Cli?” was the only answer this civil attempt at conversation received.

  “My! — Isn’t a nigger a born fool, Jonathan Jefferson? Go, you black idiot, and tell your sister Venus she shall be flogged at sundown, for not sending Miss Cli here; and go into the store yourself, you black beetle, and tell her who’s here: — that will bring her fast enough, Jonathan Jefferson. Leave go the veil, you clumsy beast, that must be done all over again; so there’s three hours more clapping for your pretty white hands, Miss Lily.” Here Mrs. Whitlaw laughed a little laugh peculiarly her own. “Mr. Whitlaw dined at the Eagle to-day, Jonathan Jefferson; but if they don’t drink over common, he’ll be back in a jiffy. There’s fine junketings going on over at Steinmark’s,” continued the conversible lady. “Have you heard the news at Natchez?”

  “What news?” said the young man sulkily.

  “My! — Then you haven’t heard it? Why, they do say that the chit of a girl that does all the work of the house, ‘cause, as you well know, they won’t afford themselves a single nigger, — they do say that she is going to be married to a lord — ay, Jonathan Jefferson, you may stare sure enough! — a cretur that I know has churned butter with her own hands like a rightdown born blackamoor; but Miss Cli says that for certain it is so.”

  “Did the girl tell her so?” said our hero, colouring.

  “I don’t know exactly for that; but there have been people unaccountable in the store, who all declare, Miss Cli says, that they know it for certain truth.”

  “D — d lies, for all that,” said young Whitlaw. “Have they been sitting abrood upon cuckoo’s rotten eggs, and so hatched a lord?”

  “Oh! as for having the lord there
, that’s not the difficulty, for there he is sure enough, a most unaccountable beauty of a man, for I’ve see’d him myself. But who’ll go to believe, Jonathan Jefferson, that a girl what never had a nigger to wait upon her, but did slave’s work herself, should be made a wife of by such a person as that? Believe it who will, I won’t.”

  “And pray where did this lord come from? ’Tis but rare one hears of any of the kind at New Orleans; and ’tis likely, to be sure, that one should be found out in the woods at Reichland! Flam — cursed, lying flam!”

  “That’s just your ‘cuteness, Jonathan Jefferson. I was desperately tickled myself at the notion; and now I hear you, I see straight through it at once.”

  At this moment the good Clio entered; and though she had for some time past been schooled into the necessity of not hugging and kissing her darling, her affectionate heart nevertheless found means of showing how greatly she loved him.

  “My boy! my darling boy!” she exclaimed as she burst into the room with her hands clasped firmly together, as if to prevent their following their natural impulse to inclose his neck; “if he arn’t more beautiful than ever! Why, Jonathan — why for arn’t you President already? Don’t he look grand, sister Whitlaw?”

  The youth condescended to smile at the raptures of his aunt, and even ventured to shake hands with her; a familiarity in which he rarely indulged since his residence at Paradise Plantation, except with very distinguished planters, and their white sons and daughters.

  The unwonted kindness quite overset poor Clio, making her forget all the teaching she had received, and all her good resolutions to obey that sternest of injunctions, never again to kiss her boy. She caught the hand he extended between both her own, and covered it with kisses; sobbing out as she did so, “Forgive me, forgive me, my blessing, this one time, only this one time! Did ever eyes behold such a beauty, hands and all?”

  “Don’t be a fool, Aunt Cli,” said the object of this tender love, “but step out for a spell with me into the garden: I want to talk to you.”

  “God bless your dear tongue for saying it, Jonathan! But the store, darling? what will father say if the store’s left? ’Tis unaccountable the custom we gets, Jonathan, and it must be minded.”

  “Then let’s sit down just where father smokes, in full sight of it; and if the folks come, why you must go, that’s a fact, Aunt Cli. — Well now,” he continued, as soon as they had reached the smoking retreat of Whitlaw senior, which was situated in a corner of the garden that commanded a full view of the entrance to the store, as well as the approach to it, “Well now, Aunt Cli, I want you to tell me what it is that foolish woman, that stepmother of mine, has got into her head about Lotte Steinmark being married to a lord. It’s all stuff, isn’t it, Aunt Cli?”

  “I thought you had clean forgot Lotte altogether, my darling,” said Clio in a tone of anxiety.

  “Forget her! what do you mean? You don’t fancy I care for the girl, do you? Not I, a copper, upon my soul. ’Twas only for the sake of hearing some of your country news that I asked.”

  “That’s right then, Jonathan dear. Well then, I’ll tell you all about it. You remember the eldest son, don’t you, Jonathan? you must remember Fritz? Well, you know, he’s been a good spell at Philadelphy, making, they do say, an unaccountable sight of money. Well, he made friends there with a lord — a real lord from over the sea, and so he brought him home to Reichland with him, and so he fell right down in love with Lotte, — no wonder that, Jonathan, was it? — and so they are to be married right away; and the worst of all is, that pretty Lotte is to go away over the sea, and I shall never see her sweet face again.”

  “So then it’s true, is it?”

  “Yes, Jonathan, quite true; and I should be joyful at her being made so grand, if it wasn’t for the never seeing her again.”

  “I wish I had the settling them, one and all,” said young Whitlaw, muttering through his teeth.

  “What d’ye say, Jonathan dear?” inquired Clio innocently.

  “No matter, Aunt Clio. What’s this lord like? have you seen him?”

  “Yes, sure have I. They came, I don’t know how many of them, and he along, to buy notions at our store; and one of the nigger girls told sister Whitlaw, and she comed herself into the store to have a look at him, and that’s what she don’t do twice in a year. Howsomever, she said she was paid that time anyhow, for she said the young lord was a glory to look at.”

  “What everlasting stuff you do talk, Aunt Cli!” cried the young man, rising from his seat. “What do you know about lords? Will he buy the gal a nigger — to slave it for her? Beggarly set the whole of ’em! I wouldn’t give a levy a dozen for the best lords they’re likely to pick up! A likely story! — an oversea lord come to Louisiana, and choose a wife from a house where there isn’t a slave kept! I’ve no great faith in lords from foreign parts, but I expect they arn’t altogether so mean as that neither.”

  “Well now, Jonathan dear, I calculate you know better than I do about all things, so I dare say you are right, and we shall keep our pretty Lotte after all. What would I give, Jonathan, if you would make up your mind to marry her yourself!”

  “How your head does run upon marrying! But that’s always the way with old maids!”

  A short pause succeeded, which was broken by Jonathan’s saying, “How’s the cash-box, Aunt Cli? I must have some money, that’s a fact. I’m going a journey to New Orlines, and I shall be stumped outright if father won’t come down with a little of the ready.”

  “To be sure he will, my darling; but you know, Jonathan, ’tis he’s got the money, and he’s a way to the Eagle. But art thee going to New Orlines, Jonathan? My — ! what a sight you will know by time you’re as old as me! — And how many weeks will it be afore you set out? — not till the fever time’s over, mind that, Jonathan.”

  “A fig for the fever, Aunt Cli! — business is business, — and I’m off for Orlines to-morrow. So send one or your black varment to the Eagle, and tell the old one he’s wanted.”

  “But, Jonathan, maybe his dander will be up if we sends after him that fashion; and that’s no way to get at the dollars. Maybe, darling, you’d best be going over to the Eagle yourself; and he’ll be proud, I’m thinking, to see you among all the people, looking so grand, like as you do, my beauty: I guess he’ll never have the heart to refuse you if you ask then.” Young Jonathan appeared to approve the suggestion, and customers approaching the store at the moment, the aunt and nephew parted; she bustling up to perform her wonted duty, and he striding off by a shortcut across the grounds to make an experiment upon his father’s heart and purse.

  He had just reached the limit of the Mount Etna land, and was in the act of stepping over the high zig-zag fence which surrounded it, when Lotte Steinmark, Henrich, and the Baron Hochland appeared in sight. They were approaching the spot where he stood, and a mixed feeling of curiosity and insolence induced him to remain there till they came up, instead of crossing the road in the direction in which he was going.

  His intention at first was simply to give the party a “good stare;” but Lotte looked so very lovely as she drew near, that almost involuntarily he walked up to them, and touching his hat, said, “Good afternoon to you, Miss Lotte.”

  The young baron, from habitual good breeding, touched his hat in return; but Henrich, on whose arm his sister was leaning, hurried forward without taking any notice of the salutation. Lotte’s beautiful colour deepened and mounted to her temples; but she bowed, though very slightly, and, without speaking, obeyed the impulse of her brother and walked on.

  Whitlaw stood immovable for several minutes watching their progress, and then exclaimed in a sort of growling whisper, “Curses light upon them all! If I could but live to be revenged for their infernal insolence, I would be contented to die the hour after!”

  A mocking-bird that was perched on a tree by the road-side caught the cadence of the curse, and repeated it. Whitlaw seized a stone and aimed it at the bird, but it missed him. A pass
ionate oath burst from his lips as he pursued his way; but he soothed his spirit by a silent vow to this effect — that when he raised his hand to smite the Steinmark race, it should not be raised in vain. He then proceeded in search of his father, and having found him, contrived, by some of the means he had long successfully practised, to extract from him a portion, of that hoarded wealth, the entire possession of which he looked forward to with equal confidence and impatience. Perhaps,

  “Malignant Fate sat by and smiled.”

  But with this we have nothing to do at present: it is enough for us to know, that having concluded his business in a very satisfactory manner, Mr. Jonathan Jefferson Whitlaw took a hasty leave of the ladies of the establishment, and mounting his horse, returned in excellent spirits to Paradise Plantation.

  CHAPTER VII.

  AT an early hour of the afternoon on the following day, the noble Tecumseh steam-boat hove-to beneath the bluff of Natchez. Before the different ceremonies of wooding, getting bread, milk, eggs, butter, chickens, and turkeys aboard, was completed, Whitlaw was seen gaily approaching the landing-place, followed by two of Colonel Dart’s negroes carrying his baggage.

  A stunted juniper grows upon the top of a little grassy knoll that rises close behind the handsomely ranged cords of wood which stand ever ready for loading beside the wharf. Within the shelter and the shade of this low tree sat Juno. She silently watched the approach of Whitlaw to the water’s edge; and when, after seeing his luggage in, he stepped on board himself, she rose to her feet as if her business were finished and she meant to depart. But some few minutes elapsed before the last stragglers arrived, and during this time the old woman lingered on the green hill’s side, mounting now and then by a step at a time, but taken backwards, with her eyes still fixed on the Tecumseh. At length the paddles began to play, a burst of black smoke covered the retreat of the hissing steam now sent to do its duty, and the vast fabric glided away from the bank. Juno waved her bamboo in the air as if to bid it farewell; then turning away from the river, she slowly mounted the steep ascent that led to Natchez.