The Bondwoman Part 22

Mrs. McVeigh had been called to Mobile by the serious illness of an aged relative and had been detained by something much less dreary, the marriage of her brother, who had command of a garrison at that point.

Thus barred from seeing either of his former Parisian friends, Delaven would have gone back to Charleston, or else gone North or West to view a new land in battle array.

But Mr. Loring's health, or Miss Loring's entreaties had interfered with both those plans. He could not desert a young lady on an isolated plantation with only the slaves about her, and a partial paralytic to care for, especially when all the most capable physicians were at military posts, and no one absolutely reliable nearer than Charleston.

So he had promised to stay, and had advised Miss Loring to induce Mrs.

Nesbitt to remain until a few weeks' rest and the atmosphere of home would, he hoped, have a beneficial influence on the invalid.

All his suggestions had been carried out. Aunt Sajane (who had not a niece or nephew in the world, yet was "aunt" to all the young folks) was to remain, also Evilena, until the return of Mr. McVeigh, after which they all hoped Mr. Loring could be persuaded to move up the river to a smaller estate belonging to Gertrude, adjoining The Terrace, as the nearness of friends would be a great advantage under the circ.u.mstances. The isolation of Loringwood had of late become oppressive to its mistress, who strongly advocated its sale. They had enough land without, and she realized it was too large a tract to be managed properly or to profit so long as her uncle was unable to see to affairs personally. But above all else, the loneliness of it was irksome since her return.

"Though we never did use to think Loringwood isolated, did we, Gideon?" asked Mrs. Nesbitt, who remembered the house when full of guests, and the fiddles and banjos of the colored musicians always ready for dance music.

"Relentless circ.u.mstances over (he called it ovah, and Delaven delighted in the charming dialect of the South, as ill.u.s.trated by the Judge) which we have no control have altered conditions through this entire (entiah) commonwealth. But, no. I should not call Loringwood exactly isolated, with the highway of the Salkahatchie at its door."

"But when no one travels the highway?" said Delaven, whose comments had aroused the discussion. "No one but black hunters in log canoes have I seen come along it for a week, barring yourselves. Faith, I should think their presence alone would be enough to give a young lady nervous chills, the daily and nightly fear of insurrection."

The Judge smiled, indulgently, willing to humor the fancies of foreigners, who were not supposed to understand American inst.i.tutions.

"Your ideas would be perfectly sound, my dear sir, if you were dealing with any other country, where the colored man is the recognized servant of the land and of the land owners. But we of the South, sir, understand their needs and just the proper amount of control necessary to be enforced for mutual protection. They have grown up under that training until it is a part of themselves. There are refractory blacks, of course, just as there are worthless demoralized whites, but I a.s.sure you, sir, I voice the sentiments of our people when I state that the families of Southern planters feel much more secure when guarded by their colored folk than they would if surrounded by a troop of Northern soldiery. There have been no cases where white women and children have had reason to regret having trusted to the black man's guardians.h.i.+p, sir. In that respect I believe we Southrons hold a unique place in history. The evils of slavery, perfectly true in many lands, are not true here. The proofs of it are many. Their dependence on each other is mutual. Each understands and respects that fact, sir, and the highest evidence of it is shown when the master marches to meet their common enemy, and leaves his wife and children to the care of the oldest or most intelligent of his bondsmen.

"I tell you, sir, the people of Europe cannot comprehend the ties between those two races, because the world has seen nothing like it.

The Northern people have no understanding of it, because, sir, their natures are not such as to call forth such loyalty. They are a cold, unresponsive people, and the only systematic cruelty ever practiced against the colored folks by Americans has been by the New England slavers, sir. The slave trade has always been monopolized by the Northern folks in this country--by the puritanical New Englanders who used to sell the pickaninnies at so much a pound, as cattle or sheep are sold.

"They are no longer able to derive a profit from it, hence their desire to abolish the revenue of the South. I a.s.sure you, sir, if the colored man could endure the climate of their bleak land there would be no shouting for abolition."

It was only natural that Delaven should receive a good deal of information those days from the Southern side of the question. Much of it was an added education to him--the perfect honesty of the speakers, the way in which they entered heart and soul into the discussion of their state's rights, the extreme sacrifices offered up, the lives of their sons, the wealth, the luxury in which they had lived, all given up without protest for the cause. Women who had lived and ruled like queens over the wide plantations, were now cutting their living expenses lower and lower, that the extra portion saved might be devoted to their boys at the front. The muslins and linens for household purposes were used as Gertrude Loring was using them now; everything possible was converted into bandages for hospital use.

"I simply don't dare let the house servants do it," she explained, in reply to the Judge's query. "They could do the work, of course, but they never have had to practice economy, and I can't undertake to teach it to them as well as myself, and to both at the same time. Oh, yes, Margeret is capable, of course, but she has her hands full to watch those in the cook house."

Her smile was very bright and contented. It hinted nothing of the straightened circ.u.mstances gradually surrounding them, making a close watch in all directions absolutely necessary. Affairs were reaching a stage where money, except in extravagant quant.i.ties, was almost useless. The blockade had raised even the most simple articles to the price of luxuries. All possessions, apart from their home productions, must be husbanded to the utmost.

"You are a brave little woman, Miss Gertrude," said the Judge, bowing before her with a certain reverence. "All the battles of this war are not fought to the sound of regimental music, and our boys at the front shoot straighter when they have at home women like you to guard. Our women of the South are an inspiration--an inspiration!"

No courtier of storied Castile could have rivaled the grace of manner with which the praise was spoken, so thought Delaven, for all his mental pictures of Castillian courtesies revealed them as a bit theatrical, while the Judge was sincerity itself.

As he spoke, the soft sound of wheels was heard in the hall, and Matthew Loring, in his invalid chair, was rolled slowly out on the veranda by his man, Ben. Margeret followed with a light robe over her arm, and a fan.

"Not there, Ben," she said, in the low tone of one giving an order entirely personal and not intended to be heard by the others, "the draught does seem to coax itself round that corner, and--"

"Not a bit of it," broke in the master of Loringwood, abruptly. "No more draught there than anywhere else. It's all right, Ben, wheel me to that railing."

Margeret silently spread the robe over his knees, laid the fan in his lap, adjusted the cus.h.i.+on back of his head, and re-entered the house with a slight gesture to Ben, who followed her.

"She's a puzzle entirely," remarked Delaven, who was watching them from the rustic seat nearest the steps. Evilena was seated there, and he stood beside her.

"Margeret? Why?" she asked, in the same low tone.

"I'll tell you. Not thirty minutes ago I told her he could be brought out and have his chair placed so that the sun would be on his limbs, but not on his head. Now, what does she do but pilot him out and discourage him from going to just the corner that was best."

"And you see the result," whispered the girl, who was laughing.

"Margeret knows a lot. Just see how satisfied he is, now, the satisfaction of having had to fight some one. If he knew it was anybody's orders, even yours, he would not enjoy that corner half so much. That is the sweet disposition of our Uncle Matthew."

Overhanging eyebrows of iron-gray were the first thing to arrest attention in Matthew Loring's face. They shadowed dark expressive eyes in a swarthy setting. His hair and mustache were of the same grey, and very bushy. He had the broad head and square jaw of the aggressive type. Not a large man, even in his prime, he looked almost frail as he settled back in his chair. He was probably sixty, but looked older.

"Still knitting socks, Mistress Nesbitt?" he inquired, with a caustic smile. "Charming occupation. Do you select that quality and color for any beauties to be found in them? I can remember seeing your mother using knitting needles on this very veranda thirty--yes, forty years ago. But I must say I never saw her make anything heavier than lace.

And what's all this, Gertrude? Do you entertain your visitors these days by dragging out the old linen for their inspection? Why are you dallying with the servants' tasks?"

"No; it is my own task, uncle," returned his niece, with unruffled serenity. "Not a very beautiful one, but consoling because of its usefulness."

"Usefulness--huh! In your mother's day ladies were not expected to be useful."

"Alas for us that the day is past," said the girl, tearing off another strip of muslin.

"Now, do you wonder that I adore my Judge?" whispered Evilena to Delaven.

CHAPTER XIII.

Despite his natural irritability, to which no one appeared to pay much attention, Mr. Loring grew almost cordial under the geniality and hopefulness emanating from Judge Clarkson, whom he was really very glad to see, and of whom he had numberless queries to ask regarding the hostilities of the past few months.

The enforced absence abroad had kept him in a highly nervous condition, doing much to counteract the utmost care given him by the most learned specialists of Europe. Half his fortune had been lost by those opening guns at Sumter. His warehouses, piled with great cotton bales for s.h.i.+pment to England, had been fired--burned to the ground.

The capture of Beaufort, near which was another plantation of his, had made further wreck for him, financially, and whatever the foreign doctors might to with his body, his mind was back in Carolina, eager, questioning, combative. He was burning himself up with a fever of anxiety.

"It is all of no use, Mademoiselle," said the most distinguished specialist whom she had consulted, "Monsieur, your uncle will live for many years if but the mind is composed--no shocks, no heavy loads to carry. But the mind, you perceive--it is impossible for him to allow himself to be composed away from his country. We have done all that can be done here. To return to his own land under the care of a competent physician, of course, would be now the best arrangement I could suggest. He may live there for many years; here, he will most certainly die."

At Loring's request Dr. Delaven was the physician who had been approached with the proposal to accompany him to Carolina. Why, it would be hard to guess, for they were totally unlike in every way--had not, apparently, a single taste in common. But the physician in charge of the hospital approved his judgment.

"It is a most wise one, Monsieur Loring. Dr. Delaven has shown as his specialty cases similar to your own, and has proven most successful.

Withal, he is adventurous. He will enjoy the new country, and he is of your own language. All I could do for you he can do, perhaps more; for I am old, while he is young and alive with enthusiasms with which to supplement his technical knowledge."

Gertrude only delayed their departure long enough to write Col.

McVeigh, who was in London. He secured for them transportation to Na.s.sau under the guardians.h.i.+p of an official who would take most extreme care that the party be conveyed from there by some blockade runner to be depended upon. And that the Federal blockade often failed of its purpose was evidenced by the fact that they were quietly landed one night in a little inlet south of Charleston, which they reached by carriage, and rested there a few days before attempting the journey overland.

The doctors were correct as to the beneficial results of the home coming of Loring. It acted like a tonic and the thought of outwitting the Yankees of that blockade pleased him immensely. He never gave a thought to the girl who watched with pale face and sleepless eyes through that dash for the sh.o.r.e. Delaven mentally called him a selfish brute.

The visit of Judge Clarkson was partially an affair of business, but after a private interview with Delaven he decided to dismiss all idea of business settlements until later. Nothing of an annoying or irritating nature must be broached to the convalescent just yet.

The Judge confessed that it was an affair over which Mr. Loring had been deeply chagrined--a clear loss of a large sum of money, and perhaps it would be safer, under the circ.u.mstances, to await Col.

McVeigh's return. Col. McVeigh was equally interested, and neither he nor the Judge would consent to risk an attack similar to that experienced by Mr. Loring during the bombardment of Port Royal entrance. He was at that time on his Beaufort plantation, where the blue coats overran his place after they landed, and it was known to have been nothing else than a fit of rage at their victory, and rage at the planters who fled on all sides of him, which finally ended in the prostration for which the local physicians could find no remedy.

Then it was that Gertrude took him abroad, with the result described.

It was understood the prostration had taught him one useful lesson--he no longer cultivated the rages for which he had been locally famous.

As he was unable to stamp and roar, he compromised on sneers and caustic retorts, from which he appeared to derive an amount of satisfaction tonical in its effects.

The Judge was giving Delaven the details of the Beaufort affair when Ben wheeled his master into the room. There was an awkward pause, a slight embarra.s.sment, but he had caught the words "Port Royal entrance," and comprehended.

"Huh! Talking over that disaster, Judge?" he remarked. "I tell you what it is, you can't convey to a foreigner anything of the feeling of the South over those misfortunes; to have Sherman's tramps go rough-shod over your lawns and rest themselves with braggadocio at your tables--the most infernal riff-raff--"