Collected Works of Frances Trollope

by Frances Milton Trollope

  “These friends of ours are foreigners, my dear Mrs. Whitlaw,” replied Mrs. Beauchamp, “and I have great pleasure in bringing them here, both to show them your beautiful place, and to make you acquainted with them, because I know that you are partial to foreigners.”

  “I am very glad to see your friends, Mrs. Beauchamp,” replied the old lady, with great civility; “but I expect the foreigners that you mean were my dear far-away German friends, for I don’t much recollect being greatly taken with any other. But now you’ll all be pleased to walk in, I hope, and will take some sangaree and cake; and there is whisky and cigars for the gentlemen. And my dear Miss Annie looks prettier than ever, and that’s well, and just as it should be.”

  The party followed her in through the open French window as she spoke, and seated themselves according to their respective fancies in different parts of the fine large room in which they found themselves, a running accompaniment of welcome from the good lady going on as they did so.

  “Pray make yourselves comfortable; take off your bonnets, ladies, if you please, and your caps too, like me, if you wear ’em. There is nothing so nice as the sweet air blowing about overhead. Perhaps that fat lady (pointing to Mrs. Allen Barnaby) would like this very large chair the best? — Oh my! ma’am! I am afraid you are very hot,” she added, looking towards Miss Matilda Perkins, who, as usual, was fanning herself without intermission; “but that is not the way to be cool, ma’am, I can tell you,” she continued; “you are working a deal too hard, I expect.”

  And then she clapped her hands, and two full-grown, and three half-grown negro girls, instantly entered the room.

  “Fan the ladies,” said Mrs. Whitlaw; whereupon the little girls and the great girls, placed themselves before the lady visitors, and obeyed the orders they had received with a steady measured movement of the solace-giving instrument, which was exceedingly delightful to those to whom it was applied.

  “How zealously they perform the task,” said Egerton, in a half whisper to Miss Beauchamp. “Is it not a pity that the instrument which their masters apply to their persons in return, should be one productive of as much pain as of pleasure?”

  This was said without any fear of giving offence to the fair listener, for the improving acquaintance between the parties had already permitted the subject of negro slavery to be freely discussed.

  “The idea of so painful a contrast would not arise here,” replied Annie, in the same low tone, “if you knew a little more of Mrs. Whitlaw. That odd exterior conceals the gentlest, kindest heart that was ever given to mortal. She would be much more likely to let her slaves flog her, than suffer any one else to flog them.”

  “And this is the reason why you love her,” said Egerton. Annie coloured a little, for she knew that he alluded to a discussion in which she had thought proper to utter a few sentences in mitigation of the unqualified reprobation he had expressed against the hateful institution; but she smiled too as she answered —

  “I love her for everything she does, for everything has so much self-forgetting kindness in it, that I sometimes think she is sent on earth with that uncaptivating exterior on purpose to show us that we are compound animals, and that beauty and ugliness may both be met in perfection, in the same individual.”

  “And beauty and goodness in another,” he was tempted to reply, as his eye rested upon her; but he did not, and only said, in an accent of very philosophical composure —

  “You really make me long to know her, Miss Beauchamp. How can I begin a conversation with her?”

  “Talk to her about that beautiful plant that you saw her nailing up,” replied Annie. The obedient young man immediately left her side, and approaching the lady of the mansion, said to her with the air of taking much interest in the subject —

  “Will you be so kind, Mrs. Whitlaw, as to tell me the name of the beautiful plant you were so carefully leading in the way it ought to go? It is the most elegant creeper I ever saw.”

  “Yes, indeed sir, it is a beauty of a plant,” replied the old lady, following him into the portico; “but it is only what we call the Virginian trumpet. It is not only its beauty, you must know, that makes me forbid any of my poor nigger creatures to touch it, and that I always do everything to it with my own hands. There is a story, sir, belonging to this plant, that makes every bell that hangs upon it something precious to me.”

  “I wish you would tell me the story,” said Egerton, with a good-humoured smile.

  “It might be made a long one,” replied Mrs. Whitlaw with a sigh, “but I’ll make it short for you, sir. The root of this very ‘dentical plant that you see growing here, sir, I grubbed up years ago from the smouldering walls of a house that was wickedly burnt to the ground, but that had seen some of my very happiest hours within its walls. I used then to think it a perfect wonder of a place in the way of handsomeness, — though I have found out now that it was just nothing of all that; but this makes no difference in my love, as I look lack to it, for it wasn’t the place, but the people. They were a set of angels, that’s a fact, and the one of them that I loved the dearest, and that used to tend the parent of this tree with her own pretty hands, was as beautiful as the young lady as you came here with, sir, and I don’t need to say anything more about her beauty, did I, sir?” concluded the narrator with a smile.

  “And do you trace any resemblance between the two young ladies in the qualities of their minds, as well as in the beauty of their persons?” demanded Egerton, but without, however, looking very steadily in the face of the person he addressed.

  “Resemblance in their minds?” repeated Mrs. Whitlaw, “meaning, likeness in their goodness, and kindness, and all that? Oh my! one might think you knew ’em both, sir, by having such a thought in your head. Yet they are not just that alike in all ways neither; for my Lotte was the merriest, happiest-hearted little beauty that ever my eyes looked upon, and this pretty dear is often quite the other way as to merriness, being very often altogether the contrary. She never said as much to me, but I’ve often jealoused that she didn’t like having -all the poor harmless, black niggers made slaves of. But this I should never have found out, to understand it rightly, if I had not been used, to listen so, as I did, to my dear kind friends, the Steinmarks, and Madam Mary, who was an Englisher, sir, like yourself.”

  “Indeed?” said Frederic Egerton, almost starting; “you think, madam, that Miss Beauchamp is unhappy, is melancholy, because she is surrounded by slaves?”

  “Yes, I do, sir,” replied the old lady, looking up in his face with a good-humoured twinkle of the eye, that seemed to indicate that she knew he liked to hear as much. “And I can tell you, easy, why that makes a difference between her and Lotte, just in the very thing where there is no difference at all. But the thing is this, you see, sir: Miss Lotte Steinmark hated and abominated the very name of slavery, and was as gay as a lark, because she comed from a country where there was no such a thing ever known or heard of, and she could boast of it, pretty thing, for all was free as waited on them here, and she could sing, dance, and be merry. While this dear child, being an American citizen born, and bound in course not to fault anything, little or big, that she sees in her own glorious native land, seems often, I think, ready to break her heart, because all the people about her, the hard-hearted lookers and all, I expect, are not quite so merciful and good as herself. And the case is the harder, you see, sir, because both her pa and ma, who worship the very ground she treads upon, are altogether going the whole hog in the contrary direction. And how can a young thing like that do anything in such a matter, when all the great landholders round, except my poor old self, perhaps, would burn her alive, as soon as look at her, if they did but guess what was passing in her poor little heart.”

  Rarely have words produced a stronger or more instantaneous effect than did this speech of the venerable Mrs. Clio Whitlaw upon the mind of young Frederic Egerton. It was as if some hard and impassable barrier had been removed, that had hitherto kept him, despite his growing
inclination to overcome it, at a chilling distance from the young American, and had no eyes been there to check such a demonstration of feeling, it is likely enough that he would have fallen on his knees before her, confessed all his unjust aversion, together with some other feelings of rather a contrary kind, and implored her forgiveness on the spot. But this being impossible, the young man contented himself for the present by so placing himself beside one of the pillant of the portico, as to gaze on the innocent young face, whose influence he had so stoutly resisted, without being remarked even by the sharp bright eyes of Miss Patty.

  “It is a pretty shady bit, isn’t it, sir?” said Mrs. Whitlaw, looking at him complacently, “and I hope you’ll come up and enjoy it whenever you like to take a stroll from Big-Gang Bank. Isn’t that an unlucky name, sir, after what I have been a telling you? I’ll lay a piccinne to a cent, young gentleman, that pretty Annie will free every nigger upon the estate, and then sell every acre of it, and be off to some right-down free country, as soon as ever it comes into her hands. But I mustn’t stay talking to you any more now, air, or Madame Beauchamp will think I don’t blow what’s what.”

  And so saying, she began disengaging the skirt of her rich satin dress from the pocket-holes, an operation which she had hitherto neglected, and having succeeded in completing it, returned into the saloon.

  Though Frederic Egerton once more found himself by the side of Annie during their homeward walk, he was, instead of being more communicative, considerably more silent than usual. How could he find words to tell her that he adored her because her principles and feelings were in direct opposition to those of her parents? That his heart was ready to swear allegiance to her for ever, because he had made the fortunate discovery that the most important feature in the constitution of the country she had been taught to venerate as the most perfect upon earth, was as hateful to her as to him? It was impossible. The conversation between them, therefore, visibly languished; Egerton perpetually relapsing into silence, after every effort made by his beautiful companion to renew the conversation.

  The result of this memorable excursion was, that the young Englishman returned to the house of his American entertainers with a fund of hope and happiness at the bottom of his heart which rendered him, despite his grave exterior, one of the most enviable men in the world; while Annie stole early to her rest with every feeling crushed, every unacknowledged, but most precious hope destroyed. A process greatly similar to what had now taken place in Egerton’s mind, had somewhat more rapidly taken place in hers. Though it was quite true that she hated the institution of slavery, Annie loved her country with that species of instinctive filial feeling which it is a sin to be without, and having been taught, very erroneously, to believe that all English people disliked, and what was much worse, despised all Americans, her first feelings towards the young man were quite as hostile as those of the young man towards her. But it was impossible to converse with Frederic Egerton, without perceiving that no such unreasonable assumption of superiority as she had believed inseparable from the English character, made any part of his. She had discovered that what he most hated and condemned was what she most hated and condemned also; and the feeling of having done him injustice, had for some time been acting upon her mind, exactly as it was now acting upon his; giving to every good gift a double power to charm, and bringing justice to act side by side with inclination, in amending the judgment she had first put upon him. But it was only when she saw, or thought she saw, that he liked her greatly less than she liked him, that she became aware how important his opinion had become to her. There was disappointment as well as mortification in the discovery, for she had thought the case was different. But it was sorrow, without any mixture of anger, that she felt upon making it. She was much better calculated to be a proud patriot than a haughty woman; and would have given infinitely more, could she have honestly said that she believed her country right on all the points in which it differed from its parent stock, than to hear it acknowledged by the whole world, en masse, that she was the loveliest lady in it. Drooping, heavy-hearted, and self-condemning, but with no shadow of resentful feeling against Egerton, the beautiful American laid her young head upon her pillow and wept herself to sleep, while the Englishman lay awake, till night gave place to morning, in meditating how, when, and where, he should confess to her that all his future hopes of happiness depended on her consenting to forsake the glories of the Stars and the Stripes, and accept as an atonement for the sacrifice, his heart, his hand, a noble settlement, and the alliance of an ancient English race, whose motto might very honestly have been —

  Sans peur, et sans reproche.

  CHAPTER XXVII.

  THE next day brought together the first-rate, high-standing, sharp, elegant, clever, and tip-top fashionable society that was to constitute the dinner-party invited by Colonel and Mrs. Beauchamp, to meet their illustrious European guest. This act of assembling together seemed a very solemn business; nobody, as the circle increased, appeared to think it decorous or proper to smile. The gentlemen compressed their lips, spat and bowed their heads. The ladies made small courtesies, looked grave, and carefully arranged their robes, taking particular care that their drapery should float gracefully on one side only of their persons, according to the hint communicated by a sitting figure in full dress, conveyed to the country in the last number of the Magasin des Modes.

  At length, however, the whole party being assembled, and as much iced-water and whisky made away with as the season required, Mrs. Colonel Beauchamp thought it advisable, before the dinner was announced, to introduce “Mrs. Major Allen Barnaby” in form, to them all. The scene produced by this was very striking; for there was not a single person present who did not know the obligations she was about to lay them under, and their gratitude bore a very amiable proportion to the benefit which they considered her likely to confer upon them. There are few women who could have gone through this scene with such a perfection of “unblenched majesty,” as did Mrs. Allen Barnaby. Had the nature of her forthcoming work, as proclaimed and explained to all, been merely that of a complimentary effusion, extolling the excellences of the country, political, moral, intellectual, physical, and fashionable, and declaring it to be in all these particulars, and every other she could think of, greatly “ahead” of all the other countries in the world, the sensation produced would have been much less vehement. They might have been pleased, probably they would have been very much pleased — but the profound consciousness resting in the inmost recesses of every bosom, that all this was not a bit more than their due, and that, however good her intentions might be, she must be a damnation smart lady indeed, if she could write up to the pitch they deserved: this consciousness, though it might increase their satisfaction in the contemplation of what she was about to do, would naturally lessen their gratitude, for they would have felt not only that it was no more than their just right, but moreover that it could not by possibility be sufficient to atone for all the European injustice which had preceded it. But the circumstances of the present case were altogether different. The especial point she had especially undertaken to advocate, was one on which they felt their weakness, while it was that which, ten thousand times-beyond all others, they hung upon with a desperate fondness made up of pride, prejudice, the most ardent love of wealth, and the most craven terror of losing it.

  “A present Deity” they shout around,

  “A present Deity” the plastered walls resound —

  would be nothing beyond a very fair quotation to exemplify what actually passed on this occasion; and nothing short of the majestic strength of mind with which my heroine was endowed could have enabled her to sustain any appearance of composure under the enthusiastic plaudits which showered upon her head.

  How long this might have lasted had dinner not been announced, it is impossible to say, but the flattering clamour was still at its height when the folding-doors of the saloon were thrown open, and a crowd of gaily-dressed negroes outside it gave notice, by thei
r universal grin, that the pleasant business of dining might begin when the company pleased.

  This put an instant stop, for the time at least, to the performance of the chorus of adulation which the party had been performing, and the ceremony of marshalling the guests into the dinner-parlour was performed with as little delay as possible.

  Though for the most part the brilliant company assembled on this occasion were rather better pleased than usual with themselves and each other, and very fully inclined to do every kind of justice to the splendid hospitality of their entertainers, there were one or two individuals out of the twenty that sat down to table, who would considerably have preferred being elsewhere.

  Old Mrs. Whitlaw was one of these. Notwithstanding some trifling deficiencies in this old lady’s early education, she had profited, with great natural acuteness, by all the various scenes through which her singular destiny had led her, and was more capable, perhaps, of forming a clear-headed judgment upon the state of affairs in her own particular sphere, than most of her neighbours. Though her views were not sufficiently enlarged for her never to have contemplated very distinctly the absolute abolition of slavery as a national measure, she had long felt persuaded that the way in which the “nigger work,” as she called it, was carried on, would not answer in the long run. Once or twice, on her first taking possession of the mansion she now inhabited, which was her favourite among several which she inherited — once or twice she had hinted to some of her rich neighbours, that she thought it would be better, “for a good many reasons,” if they would relax a little the severity of their discipline; but this was in every case received with such vehemence of indignation that the same straightforward common-sense which had suggested her observations, very speedily deter — mined her to keep them for the future to herself; and for several years past her pretty strong opinions on the subject had only manifested themselves in the management of her own people, and in occasional confidential tête-á-têtes with her young friend Annie.