The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 101, March, 1866

One day Mrs. Lawton said to her daughter, "How that dreadful cough hangs on! I begin to be afraid Chloe's going into a consumption. I hope not; for I don't know where I shall find such another wench to work."

She mentioned her fears to the minister, and he said, "When she gets over worrying about Tommy, she'll pick up her crumbs."

But the only change that came over Chloe was increasing listlessness of mind and fatigue of body. At last, she was unable to rise from her pallet. She lay there looking at her thin hands, and talking to herself, according to her old habit. The words Mrs. Lawton most frequently heard were, "It was cruel of missis to take away little Tommy." Notwithstanding all the clerical arguments she had heard to prove the righteousness of slavery, the moan of the dying mother made her feel uncomfortable. Sometimes the mind of the invalid wandered, and she would hug Tommy's little gown, pat it lovingly, and sing to it the lullaby her baby loved. Sometimes she murmured, "He looked jest as ef he wanted to say suthin'"; and sometimes a smiled lighted up her face, as if she saw some pleasant vision.

The minister came to pray with her, and to talk what he called religion. But it sounded to poor Chloe more than ever like the murmuring of the sea. She turned her face away from him and said nothing. With what little mental strength she had, she rejected the idea that the curse of Ham, whoever he might be, justified the treatment she had received. She had no idea what a heathen was, but she concluded it meant something bad; and she had often told Tom she didn't like to have the minister talk that way, for it sounded like calling her names.

At last the weary one passed away from a world where the doings had all been dark and incomprehensible to her. But her soul was like that of a little child; and Jesus has said, "Of such are the kingdom of heaven." They found under her pillow little Tommy's ragged gown, and a pink shell. Why the shell was there no one could conjecture. The pine box containing her remains was placed across the foot of Mr. Lawton's grave, at whose side his widow would repose when her hour should come. It was the custom to place slaves thus at the feet of their masters, even in the graveyard.

The Reverend Mr. Gordonmammon concluded to buy a young black woman, that Tom might not be again induced to stray off after Dinah; and Tom passively yielded to the second arrangement, as he had to the first.

In two years after Sukey Larkin took possession of little Tommy, she sent him to Virginia to be exchanged for tobacco; with the proceeds of which she bought a gold necklace, and a flashy silk dress, changeable between grass-green and orange; and great was her satisfaction to astonish Catharine Lawton with her splendor the next time they met at a party.

I never heard that poor Chloe's ghost haunted either them or the Widow Lawton. Wherever slavery exerts its baneful influence, it produces the same results,—searing the conscience and blinding the understanding to the most obvious distinctions between right and wrong.

There is no record of little Tommy's fate. He disappeared among "the dark, sad millions," who knew not father or mother, and had no portion in wife or child.

SNOW

The Summer comes, and the Summer goes.
Wild-flowers are fringing the dusty lanes,
The sparrows go darting through fragrant rains,
And, all of a sudden,—it snows!

Dear Heart! our lives so happily flow,
So lightly we heed the flying hours,
We only know Winter is gone—by the flowers,
We only know Winter is come—by the Snow!

GRIFFITH GAUNT; OR, JEALOUSY

CHAPTER IX

Griffith, with an effort he had not the skill to hide, stammered out, "Mistress Kate, I do wish you joy." Then, with sudden and touching earnestness, "Never did good fortune light on one so worthy of it."

"Thank you, Griffith," replied Kate, softly. (She had called him "Mr. Gaunt" in public till now.) "But money and lands do not always bring content. I think I was happier a minute ago than I feel now," said she, quietly.

The blood rushed into Griffith's face at this; for a minute ago might mean when he and she were talking almost like lovers about to wed. He was so overcome by this, he turned on his heel, and retreated hastily to hide his emotion, and regain, if possible, composure to play his part of host in the house that was his no longer.

Kate herself soon after retired, nominally to make her toilet before dinner; but really to escape the public and think it all over.

The news of her advancement had spread like wildfire; she was waylaid at the very door by the housekeeper, who insisted on showing her her house.

"Nay, never mind the house," said Kate; "just show me one room where I can wash my face and do my hair."

Mrs. Hill conducted her to the best bedroom; it was lined with tapestry, and all the colors flown; the curtains were a deadish yellow.

"Lud! here's a colored room to show me into," said the blonde Kate; "and a black grate, too. Why not take me out o' doors and bid me wash in the snow?"

"Alack, mistress," said the woman, feeling very uneasy, "we had no orders from Mr. Gaunt to light fires up stairs."

"O, if you wait for gentlemen's orders to make your house fit to live in! You knew there were a dozen ladies coming, yet you were not woman enough to light them fires. Come, take me to your own bedroom."

The woman turned red. "Mine is but a small room, my lady," she stammered.

"But there's a fire in it," said Kate, spitefully. "You servants don't wait for gentlemen's orders, to take care of yourselves."

Mrs. Hill said to herself, "I'm to leave; that's flat." However, she led the way down a passage, and opened the door of a pleasant little room in a square turret; a large bay window occupied one whole side of the room, and made it inexpressibly bright and cheerful, though rather hot and stuffy; a clear coal fire burned in the grate.

"Ah!" said Kate, "how nice! Please open those little windows, every one. I suppose you have sworn never to let wholesome air into a room. Thank you: now go and forget every cross word I have said to you,—I am out of sorts, and nervous, and irritable. There, run away, my good soul, and light fires in every room; and don't you let a creature come near me, or you and I shall quarrel downright."

Mrs. Hill beat a hasty retreat. Kate locked the door and threw herself backwards on the bed, with such a weary recklessness and abandon as if she was throwing herself into the sea, to end all her trouble,—and burst out crying.

It was one thing to refuse to marry her old sweetheart; it was another to take his property and reduce him to poverty. But here was she doing both, and going to be persuaded to marry Neville, and swell his wealth with the very possessions she had taken from Griffith; and him wounded into the bargain for love of her. It was really too cruel. It was an accumulation of different cruelties. Her bosom revolted; she was agitated, perplexed, irritated, unhappy, and all in a tumult; and although she had but one fit of crying,—to the naked eye,—yet a person of her own sex would have seen that at one moment she was crying from agitated nerves, at another from worry, and at the next from pity, and then from grief.

In short, she had a good long, hearty, multiform cry; and it relieved her swelling heart, so far that she felt able to go down now, and hide her feelings, one and all, from friend and foe; to do which was unfortunately a part of her nature.

She rose and plunged her face into cold water, and then smoothed her hair.

Now, as she stood at the glass, two familiar voices came in through the open window, and arrested her attention directly. It was her father conversing with Griffith Gaunt. Kate pricked up her quick ears and listened, with her back hair in her hand. She caught the substance of their talk, only now and then she missed a word or two.

Mr. Peyton was speaking rather kindly to Griffith, and telling him he was as sorry for his disappointment as any father could be whose daughter had just come into a fortune. But then he went on and rather spoiled this by asking Griffith bluntly what on earth had ever made him think Mr. Charlton intended to leave him Bolton and Hernshaw.

Griffith replied, with manifest agitation, that Mr. Charlton had repeatedly told him he was to be his heir. "Not," said Griffith, "that he meant to wrong Mistress Kate, neither: poor old man, he always thought she and I should be one."

"Ah! well," said Squire Peyton, coolly, "there is an end of all that now."

At this observation Kate glided to the window, and laid her cheek on the sill to listen more closely.

But Griffith made no reply.

Mr. Peyton seemed dissatisfied at his silence, and being a person who, notwithstanding a certain superficial good-nature, saw his own side of a question very big, and his neighbor's very little, he was harder than perhaps he intended to be.

"Why, Master Gaunt," said he, "surely you would not follow my daughter now,—to feed upon a woman's bread. Come, be a man; and, if you are the girl's friend, don't stand in her light. You know she can wed your betters, and clap Bolton Hall on to Neville's Court. No doubt it is a disappointment to you: but what can't be cured must be endured; pluck up a bit of courage, and turn your heart another way; and then I shall always be a good friend to you, and my doors open to you come when you will."

Griffith made no reply. Kate strained her ears, but could not hear a syllable, A tremor ran through her. She was in distance farther from Griffith than her father was; but superior intelligence provided her with a bridge from her window to her old servant's mind. And now she felt that this great silence was the silence of despair.

But the Squire pressed him for a definite answer, and finally insisted on one. "Come, don't be so sulky," said he; "I'm her father: give me an answer, ay or no."

Then Kate heard a violent sigh, and out rushed a torrent of words that each seemed tinged with blood from the unfortunate speaker's heart. "Old man," he almost shrieked, "what did I ever do to you, that you torment me so? Sure you were born without bowels. Beggared but an hour agone, and now you must come and tell me I have lost her by losing house and lands! D'ye think I need to be told it? She was too far above me before, and now she is gone quite out of my reach. But why come and fling it in my face? Can't you give a poor, undone man one hour to draw his breath in trouble? And when you know I have got to play the host this bitter day, and smile, and smirk, and make you all merry, with my heart breaking! O Christ, look down and pity me, for men are made of stone! Well, then, no; I will not, I cannot say the word to give her up. She will discharge me, and then I'll fly the country and never trouble you more. And to think that one little hour ago she was so kind, and I was so happy! Ah, sir, if you were born of a woman, have a little pity, and don't speak to me of her at all, one way or other. What are you afraid of? I am a gentleman and a man, though sore my trouble: I shall not run after the lady of Bolton Hall. Why, sir, I have ordered the servants to set her chair in the middle of the table, where I shall not be able to speak to her, or even see her. Indeed I dare not look at her: for I must be merry. Merry! My arm it worries me, my head it aches, my heart is sick to death. Man! man! show me some little grace, and do not torture me more than flesh and blood can bear."

"You are mad, young sir," said the Squire, sternly, "and want locking up on bread and water for a month."

"I am almost mad," said Griffith, humbly. "But if you would only let me alone, and not tear my heart out of my body, I can hide my agony from the whole pack of ye, and go through my part like a man. I wish I was lying where I laid my only friend this afternoon."

"O, I don't want to speak to you," said Peyton, angrily; "and, by the same token, don't you speak to my daughter no more."

"Well, sir, if she speaks to me, I shall be sure to speak to her, without asking your leave or any man's. But I will not force myself upon the lady of Bolton Hall; don't you think it. Only for God's sake let me alone. I want to be by myself." And with this he hurried away, unable to bear it any more.