Dorothy South

“Oh, I didn’t mean – ”

“It seems to me you say a good many things you do not mean today, Madison. As for me, I am saying only what I mean, and perhaps not quite all of that. Let me end the whole matter by telling you this: I am going to let Dorothy make this trip. I am going to give her every chance I can to cultivate herself into a perfect womanhood – many chances that I longed for in my own girlhood, but could not command. I may or may not some day show her Dr. South’s letter. That shall be as my judgment dictates. I shall not consent now or hereafter, while my authority or influence lasts, to Dorothy’s marriage to anybody except some man of her own choosing, who shall seem to me fit to make her happy. If you want Jefferson to marry her, I notify you now that he must fairly win her. And my advice to you is very earnest that he set to work at once to render himself worthy of her; to repair his character; to cultivate himself, if he can, up to her moral and intellectual level; to make of himself a man to whom she can look up, as you say, and not down. There, that is all I have to say.”

Madison Peyton saw this to be good advice, and he decided to act upon it. But, as so often happens with good advice, he “took it wrong end first,” in the phrase of that time and country. He decided that his son should also go north and to Europe, following the party to which Dorothy belonged as closely as possible, seeing as much as he could of her, and paying court to her upon every opportunity.

XXVII

DIANA’S EXALTATION

IT was the middle of January, 1860, when Dorothy bade Arthur good-by and went away upon her mission of enjoyment and education.

It is not easy for us now to picture to ourselves what travel in this country was in that year which seems to the older ones among us so recent. In 1860 there was not such a thing as a sleeping car in all the world. The nearest approach to that necessity of modern life which then existed, was a car with high backed seats, which was used on a few of the longer lines of railroad. For another thing there were no such things in existence as through trains. Every railroad in the country was an independent line, whose trains ran only between its own termini. The traveller must “change cars” at every terminus, and usually the process involved a delay of several hours and a long omnibus ride – perhaps at midnight – through the streets of some city which had thriftily provided that its several railroads should place their stations as far apart as possible in order that their passengers might “leave money in the town.” The passenger from a south side county of Virginia intending to go to New York, for example, must take a train to Richmond; thence after crossing the town in an omnibus and waiting for an hour or two, take another train to Acquia Creek, near Fredericksburg; there transfer to a steamboat for Washington; there cross town in an omnibus, and, after another long wait, take a train for the Relay House; there wait four hours and then change cars for Baltimore, nine miles away; then take another omnibus ride to another station; thence a train to Havre de Grace, where he must cross a river on a ferry boat; thence by another train to Philadelphia, where, after still another omnibus transfer and another delay, one had a choice of routes to New York, the preferred one being by way of Camden and Amboy, and thence up the bay twenty miles or so, to the battery in New York. There was no such thing as a dining car, a buffet car or a drawing room car in all the land. There were none but hand brakes on the trains, and the cars were held together by loose coupling links. The rails were not fastened together at their badly laminated ends, and it was the fashion to call trains that reached a maximum speed of twenty miles an hour, “lightning expresses,” and to stop them at every little wayside station. The engines were fed upon wood, and it was a common thing for trains to stop their intolerable jolting for full twenty minutes to take fresh supplies of wood and water.

There was immeasurably more of weariness then, in a journey from Richmond or Cincinnati or Buffalo to New York, than would be tolerated now in a trip across the continent. As a consequence few people travelled except for short distances and a journey which we now think nothing of making comfortably in a single night, was then a matter of grave consequence, to be undertaken only after much deliberation and with much of preparation. New York seemed more distant to the dweller in the West or South than Hong Kong and Yokohama do in our time, and the number of people who had journeyed beyond the borders of our own country was so small that those who had done so were regarded as persons of interestingly adventurous experience.

Quite necessarily all parts of the country were markedly provincial in speech, manner, habits and even in dress. New England had a nasal dialect of its own, so firmly rooted in use that it has required two or three generations of exacting Yankee school marms to eradicate it from the speech even of the educated class. New York state had another, and the Southerner was known everywhere by a speech which “bewrayed” him.

And as it was with speech, so also was it with manners, customs, ideas. Prejudice was everywhere rampant, opinion intolerant, and usage merciless in its narrow illiberality. Only in what was then the West – the region between the Alleghenies and the Mississippi – was there anything of cosmopolitan liberality and tolerance. They were found in that region because the population of the West had been drawn from all parts of the country. Attrition of mind with mind, and the mingling of men of various origin had there in a large degree worn off the angles of provincial prejudice and bred a liberality of mind elsewhere uncommon in our country.

Edmonia and Dorothy were to make their formidable journey to New York in easy stages. They remained for several days with friends in Richmond, while completing those preliminary preparations which were necessary before setting out for the national capital. They were to stay in Washington for a fortnight, in Baltimore for three weeks, in Philadelphia for a week or two, and in New York for nearly two months before sailing for Europe in May.

The time was a very troubled one, on the subject of slavery. Not only was it true that if the owner of a slave took the negro with him into any one of the free states he by that act legally set him free, but it was also true that the most devoted and loyal servant thus taken from the South into a Northern state was subjected to every form of persuasive solicitation to claim and assert his freedom. It was nevertheless the custom of Southern men, and still more of Southern women, to take with them on their travels one or more of their personal servants, trusting to their loyalty alone for continued allegiance. For the attitude of such personal servants in Virginia at that time was rather that of proud and voluntary allegiance to loved masters and mistresses who belonged to them as a cherished possession, than that of men and women held in unwilling bondage.

Accordingly it was arranged that Edmonia’s maid, Dinah – or Diana as she had come to call herself since hearing her mistress read a “history pome” aloud – should accompany the two young women as their joint servitor.

As soon as this arrangement was announced at Branton, Diana began what Polydore called “a puttin’ on of airs.” In plainer phrase she began to snub Polydore mercilessly, whereas she had recently been so gracious in her demeanor towards him as to give him what he called “extinct discouragement.”

After it was settled that she was to accompany “Miss Mony an’ Miss Dorothy” to “de Norf” and to “Yurrop” – as she wrote to all her friends who were fortunate enough to know how to “read writin’,” there was, as Polydore declared, “no livin’ in de house wid her.” She sailed about the place like a frigate, delivering her shots to the right and left – most of them aimed at Polydore, with casual and contemptuous attention, now and then, to the other house servants.

“I ’clar’ to gracious,” said Elsie, one of the housemaids, “ef Diana ain’t a puttin’ on of jes’ as many airs as ef she’d been all over a’ready, an’ she ain’t never been out of dis county yit.”

“Wonder ef she’ll look at folks when she gits back,” said Fred, the cadet of the dining room, who was being trained under Polydore’s tutelage to keep his nails clean and to offer dishes to guests at their left hands.

“Don’ you be in too big a hurry to fin’ out dat, you nigga,” rejoined Polydore, the loyalty of whose love for Diana would brook no criticism of her on the part of an underling. “You’se got enough to attend to in gittin’ yer manners into shape. Diana’s a superior pusson, an’ you ain’t got no ’casion to criticise her. You jes’ take what yer gits an’ be thankful like Lazarus wuz when de rich man dropped water outer his hand on his tongue.”

Polydore’s biblical erudition seems to have been a trifle at fault at this point. But at any rate his simile had its intended effect upon the young darkey, who, slipping a surreptitious beaten biscuit into his pocket, retreated to the distant kitchen to devour it.

At that moment Diana entered the dining room with the air of a Duchess, and, with unwonted sweetness, said:

“Please, Polydore, bring me de tea things. De ladies is faint.”

Polydore, anxious that Diana’s gentle mood should endure, made all haste to bring what she desired. He made too much haste, unluckily, for in his hurry he managed to spill a little hot water from a pitcher he was carrying on a tray, and some drops of it fell upon the sleeve of Diana’s daintily laundered cambric gown.

The stately bronze colored namesake of the ancient goddess rose in offended dignity, and looked long at the offender before addressing him. Then she witheringly put the question:

“Whar’s your manners dis mawnin’, Polydore? Jes’ spose I was Miss Mony now; would you go sloppin’ things over her dat way?”

Even a worm will turn, we are told, and Polydore was prouder than a worm. For once he lost his self-control so far as to say in reply:

“But you ain’t Miss Mony, dough you seems to think you is. I’se tired o’ yer highty tighty airs. Git de tea things for yerse’f!” With that Polydore left the dining room, and Diana, curiously enough, made no reference to the incident when next she encountered him, but was all smiles and sweetness instead.

XXVIII

THE ADVANCING SHADOW

NO sooner were Dorothy and Edmonia gone than Arthur turned again to affairs. It was a troubled uneasy time in Virginia, a time of sore apprehension and dread. The “irrepressible conflict” over slavery had that year taken on new and more threatening features than ever before.

There was now a strong political party at the North the one important article of whose creed was hostility to the further extension of slavery into the territories. It was a strictly sectional party in its composition, having no existence anywhere at the South. It was influential in Congress, and in 1856 it had strongly supported a candidate of its own for president. By the beginning of 1860 its strength had been greatly increased and circumstances rendered probable its success in electing a president that year, for the hopeless division of the Democratic party, which occurred later in the year, was already clearly foreshadowed, an event which in fact resulted in the nomination of three rival candidates against Mr. Lincoln and made his election certain in spite of a heavy popular majority against him.

Had this been all, Virginia would not have been greatly disturbed by the political situation and prospect. But during the preceding autumn the Virginians had been filled with apprehension for the safety of their homes and families by John Brown’s attempt, at Harper’s Ferry, to create a negro insurrection, the one catastrophe always most dreaded by them. That raid, quickly suppressed as it was, wrought a revolution in Virginian feeling and sentiment. The Virginians argued from it, and from the approval given to it in some parts of the North, that Northern sentiment was rapidly ripening into readiness for any measures, however violent they might be, for the extinction of slavery and the destruction of the autonomy of the Southern States.

They found it difficult under the circumstances to believe the Republican party’s disclaimer of all purpose or power to interfere with the institution in the states. They were convinced that only opportunity was now wanting to make the Southern States the victims of an aggressive war, with a servile insurrection as a horrible feature of it. They cherished a warm loyalty to that Union which Virginia had done so much to create, but they began seriously to fear the time when there would be no peace or safety for their state or even for their wives and children within the Union. They were filled with resentment, too, of what they regarded as a wanton and unlawful purpose to interfere with their private concerns, and to force the country into disunion and civil war.

There were hot heads among them, of course, who were ready to welcome such results; but these were very few. The great body of Virginia’s people loved the Union, and even to the end – a year later – their strongest efforts were put forth to persuade both sides to policies of peace.

But in the meantime a marked change came over the Virginian mind with respect to slavery. Many who had always regarded the institution as an inherited evil to be got rid of as soon as that might be safely accomplished, modified or reversed their view when called upon to stand always upon the defensive against what they deemed an unjust judgment of themselves.

Arthur Brent did not share this change of view, but he shared in the feelings of resentment which had given it birth. In common with other Virginians he felt that this was a matter belonging exclusively to the individual states, and still more strongly he felt that the existing political situation and the methods of it gravely menaced the Union in ways which were exceedingly difficult for Southern men who loved the Union to meet. He saw with regret the great change that was coming over public and private sentiment in Virginia – sentiment which had been so strongly favorable to the peaceable extinction of slavery, that John Letcher – a lifelong advocate of emancipation as Virginia’s true policy – had been elected Governor the year before upon that as the only issue of a state campaign.

But Arthur was still bent upon carrying out his purpose of emancipating himself and, incidentally his slaves. And the threatening aspect of political affairs strengthened his determination at any rate to rid both his own estate and Dorothy’s of debt.

“When that is done, we shall be safe, no matter what happens,” he told himself.

To that end he had already done much. In spite of his preöccupation with the fever epidemic he had found time during the autumn to institute many economies in the management of both plantations. He had shipped and sold the large surplus crops of apples and sweet potatoes – a thing wholly unprecedented in that part of Virginia, where no products of the soil except tobacco and wheat were ever turned to money account. He was laughed at for what his neighbors characterized as “Yankee farming,” but both his conscience and his bank account were comforted by the results. In the same way, having a large surplus of corn that year, he had fattened nearly double the usual number of hogs, and was now preparing to sell so much of the bacon as he did not need for plantation uses. In these and other ways he managed to diminish the Wyanoke debt by more than a third and that of Pocahontas by nearly one-half, during his first year as a planter.

“If they don’t quit laughing at me,” he said to Archer Bannister one day, “I’ll sell milk and butter and even eggs next summer. I may conclude to do that anyhow. Those are undignified crops, perhaps, but I’m not sure that they could not be made more profitable than wheat and tobacco.”

“Be careful, Arthur,” answered his friend. “It isn’t safe to make planting too profitable. It is apt to lead to unkindly remark.”

“How so? Isn’t planting a business, like any other?”

“A business, yes, but not like any other. It has a certain dignity to maintain. But I wasn’t thinking of that. I was thinking of Robert Copeland.”

“I wish you’d tell me about him, Archer. What has he done? I observe that everybody seems to shun him – or at least nobody seems quite willing to recognize him as a man in our class, though they tell me his family is fairly good, and personally he seems agreeable. Nobody says anything to his discredit, and yet I observe a general shoulder shrugging whenever his name is mentioned.”

“He makes too many hogsheads of tobacco to the hand,” answered Archer smiling but speaking with emphasis and slowly.

“Is he cruel to his negroes?”

“Yes, and no. He is always good natured with them and kindly in his fashion, but he works them much too hard. He doesn’t drive them particularly. Indeed I never heard of his striking one of them. But he has invented a system of money rewards and the like, by which he keeps them perpetually racing with each other in their work. They badly overtax themselves, and the community regards the matter with marked disfavor. In the matter of family he isn’t in our class at all, but his father was much respected. He was even a magistrate for some years before his death. But the son has shut himself out of all social position by over working his negroes, and the fact that he does it in ways that are ingenious and not brutal doesn’t alter the fact, at least not greatly. Of course, if he did it in brutal ways he would be driven out of the county. As it is he is only shut out of society. I was jesting when I warned you of danger of that sort. But if you are not careful in your application of ‘practical’ methods down here, you’ll get a reputation for money loving, and that wouldn’t be pleasant.”

Arthur stoutly maintained his right and his duty to market all that the two plantations produced beyond their own needs, especially so long as there were debts upon them. Till these should be discharged, he contended, he had no moral right to let products go to waste which could be turned into money. Archer admitted the justice of his view, but laughingly added:

“It isn’t our way, down here, and we are so conservative that it is never quite prudent to transgress our traditions. At the same time I wish we could all rid our estates from debt before the great trouble comes. For it is surely coming and God only knows what the upshot of it all will be. Don’t quote me as saying that, please. It isn’t fashionable with us to be pessimistic, or to doubt either the righteousness or the ultimate triumph of our cause. But nobody can really foresee the outcome of our present troubles, and whatever it may be, the men who are out of debt when it comes – if there are any – will be better equipped to meet fate with a calm mind than the rest of us.”

XXIX

THE CORRESPONDENCE OF DOROTHY