A Cloud Of Misfortune Hangs Over The Plantation
THE document Marston signed for Lorenzo-to release him from the difficulties into which he had been drawn by Graspum-guaranteed the holder against all loss. This, in the absence of Lorenzo, and under such stranger circumstances, implied an amount which might be increased according to the will of the man into whose hands he had so unfortunately fallen.
Nearly twelve months had now elapsed since the disclosure of the crime. Maxwell, our young Englishman, had spent the time among the neighbouring plantations; and failing to enlist more than friendly considerations from Franconia, resolved to return to Bermuda and join his family. He had, however, taken a deep interest in Clotilda and Annette,--had gone to their apartment unobserved, and in secret interviews listened to Clotilda's tale of trouble. Its recital enlisted his sympathies; and being of an ardent and impressible temper, he determined to carry out a design for her relief. He realised her silent suffering,--saw how her degraded condition wrangled with her noble feelings,--how the true character of a woman loathed at being the slave of one who claimed her as his property. And this, too, without the hope of redeeming herself, except by some desperate effort. And, too, he saw but little difference between the blood of Franconia and the blood of Clotilda; the same outline of person was there,--her delicate countenance, finely moulded bust, smoothly converging shoulders. There was the same Grecian cast of face, the same soft, reflective eyes,--filling a smile with sweetness, and again with deep-felt sorrow. The same sensitive nature, ready to yield forth love and tenderness, or to press onward the more impassioned affections, was visible in both. And yet, what art had done for Franconia nature had replenished for Clotilda. But, the servile hand was upon her, she crouched beneath its grasp; it branded her life, and that of her child, with ignominy and death.
During these interviews he would watch her emotions as she looked upon her child; when she would clasp it to her bosom, weeping, until from the slightest emotion her feelings would become frantic with anguish.
"And you, my child, a mother's hope when all other pleasures are gone! Are you some day to be torn from me, and, like myself, sent to writhe under the coarse hand of a slave-dealer, to be stung with shame enforced while asking God's forgiveness? Sometimes I think it cannot be so; I think it must all be a dream. But it is so, and we might as well submit, say as little of the hardship as possible, and think it's all as they tell us-according to God's will," she would say, pressing the child closer and closer to her bosom, the agitation of her feelings rising into convulsions as the tears coursed down her cheeks. Then she would roll her soft eyes upwards, her countenance filling with despair. The preservation of her child was pictured in the depth of her imploring look. For a time her emotions would recede into quiet,--she would smile placidly upon Annette, forget the realities that had just swept her mind into such a train of trouble.
One night, as Maxwell entered her apartment, he found her kneeling at her bed-side, supplicating in prayer. The word, "Oh, God; not me, but my child-guide her through the perils that are before her, and receive her into heaven at last," fell upon his ear. He paused, gazed upon her as if some angel spirit had touched the tenderest chord of his feelings-listened unmoved. A lovely woman, an affectionate mother, the offspring of a noble race,--herself forced by relentless injustice to become an instrument of licentiousness-stood before him in all that can make woman an ornament to her sex. What to Ellen Juvarna seemed the happiness of her lot, was pain and remorse to Clotilda; and when she arose there was a nervousness, a shrinking in her manner, betokening apprehension. "It is not now; it is hereafter. And yet there is no glimmer of hope!" she whispers, as she seats herself in a chair, pulls the little curtain around the bed, and prepares to retire.
The scene so worked upon Maxwell's feelings that he could withstand the effect no longer; he approached her, held out his hand, greeted her with a smile: "Clotilda, I am your friend," he whispers, "come, sit down and tell me what troubles you!"
"If what I say be told in confidence?" she replied, as if questioning his advance.
"You may trust me with any secret; I am ready to serve you, if it be with my life!"
Clasping her arms round her child, again she wept in silence. The moment was propitious--the summer sun had just set beneath dark foliage in the west, its refulgent curtains now fading into mellow tints; night was closing rapidly over the scene, the serene moon shone softly through the arbour into the little window at her bedside. Again she took him by the hand, invited him to sit down at her side, and, looking imploringly in his face, continued,--"If you are a friend, you can be a friend in confidence, in purpose. I am a slave! yes, a slave; there is much in the word, more than most men are disposed to analyse. It may seem simple to you, but follow it to its degraded depths-follow it to where it sows the seeds of sorrow, and there you will find it spreading poison and death, uprooting all that is good in nature. Worse than that, my child is a slave too. It is that which makes the wrong more cruel, that mantles the polished vice, that holds us in that fearful grasp by which we dare not seek our rights.
"My mother, ah! yes, my mother"-Clotilda shakes her head in sorrow. "How strange that, by her misfortune, all, all, is misfortune for ever! from one generation to another, sinking each life down, down, down, into misery and woe. How oft she clasped my hand and whispered in my ear: 'If we could but have our rights.' And she, my mother,--as by that sacred name I called her-was fair; fairer than those who held her for a hideous purpose, made her existence loathsome to herself, who knew the right but forced the wrong. She once had rights, but was stripped of them; and once in slavery who can ask that right be done?"
"What rights have you beyond these?" he interrupted, suddenly. "There is mystery in what you have said, in what I have seen; something I want to solve. The same ardent devotion, tenderness, affection,--the same touching chasteness, that characterises Franconia, assimilates in you. You are a slave, a menial-she is courted and caressed by persons of rank and station. Heavens! here is the curse confounding the flesh and blood of those in high places, making slaves of their own kinsmen, crushing out the spirit of life, rearing up those broken flowers whose heads droop with shame. And you want your freedom?"
"For my child first," she replied, quickly: "I rest my hopes of her in the future."
Maxwell hesitated for a moment, as if contemplating some plan for her escape, ran his fingers through his hair again and again, then rested his forehead in his hand, as the perspiration stood in heavy drops upon it. "My child!" There was something inexpressibly touching in the words of a mother ready to sacrifice her own happiness for the freedom of her child. And yet an awful responsibility hung over him; should he attempt to gain their freedom, and fail in carrying out the project, notwithstanding he was in a free country, the act might cost him his life. But there was the mother, her pride beaming forth in every action, a wounded spirit stung with the knowledge of being a slave, the remorse of her suffering soul-the vicissitudes of that sin thus forced upon her. The temptation became irresistible.
"You are English!"-northerners and Englishmen know what liberty is.
Negroes at the South have a very high opinion of Northern cleverness in devising means of procuring their liberty. The Author here uses the language employed by a slave girl who frequently implored aid to devise some plan by which she would be enabled to make her escape. Northerners could do great things for us, if they would but know us as we are, study our feelings, cast aside selfish motives, and sustain our rights!" Clotilda now commenced giving Maxwell a history of her mother,--which, however, we must reserve for another chapter. "And my mother gave me this!" she said, drawing from her pocket a paper written over in Greek characters, but so defaced as to be almost unintelligible. "Some day you will find a friend who will secure your freedom through that," she would say. "But freedom-that which is such a boon to us-is so much feared by others that you must mark that friend cautiously, know him well, and be sure he will not betray the liberty you attempt to gain." And she handed him the defaced paper, telling him to put it in his pocket.
"And where is your mother?"
"There would be a store of balm in that, if I did but know. Her beauty doomed her to a creature life, which, when she had worn out, she was sold, as I may be, God knows how soon. Though far away from me, she is my mother still, in all that recollection can make her; her countenance seems like a wreath decorating our past associations. Shrink not when I tell it, for few shrink at such things now,--I saw her chained; I didn't think much of it then, for I was too young. And she took me in her arms and kissed me, the tears rolled down her cheeks; and she said-'Clotilda, Clotilda, farewell! There is a world beyond this, a God who knows our hearts, who records our sorrows;' and her image impressed me with feelings I cannot banish. To look back upon it seems like a rough pilgrimage; and then when I think of seeing her again my mind gets lost in hopeless expectations"--
"You saw her chained?" interrupted Maxwell.
"Yes, even chained with strong irons. It need not surprise you. Slavery is a crime; and they chain the innocent lest the wrong should break forth upon themselves." And she raised her hands to her face, shook her head, and laid Annette in the little bed at the foot of her own.
What is it that in chaining a woman, whether she be black as ebony or white as snow, degrades all the traits of the southerner's character, which he would have the world think noble? It is fear! The monster which the southerner sees by day, tolerates in his silence, protects as part and parcel of a legal trade, only clothes him with the disgrace that menials who make themselves mere fiends are guilty of, Maxwell thought to himself.
"I will set you free, if it cost my life!" he exclaimed.
"Hush, hush!" rejoined Clotilda: "remember those wretches on the plantation. They, through their ignorance, have learned to wield the tyranny of petty power; they look upon us with suspicious eyes. They know we are negroes (white negroes, who are despicable in their eyes), and feeling that we are more favoured, their envy is excited. They, with the hope of gaining favour, are first to disclose a secret. Save my child first, and then save me"--
"I will save you first; rest assured, I will save you;" he responded, shaking her hand, bidding her good night. On returning to the mansion he found Marston seated at the table in the drawing-room, in a meditative mood. Good night, my friend!" he accosted him.
"Ah, good night!" was the sudden response.
"You seem cast down?"
"No!-all's not as it seems with a man in trouble. How misfortune quickens our sense of right! O! how it unfolds political and moral wrongs! how it purges the understanding, and turns the good of our natures to thoughts of justice. But when the power to correct is beyond our reach we feel the wrong most painfully," Marston coldly replied.
"It never is too late to do good; my word for it, friend Marston, good is always worth its services. I am young and may serve you yet; rise above trouble, never let trifles trouble a man like you. The world seems wagging pleasantly for you; everybody on the plantation is happy; Lorenzo has gone into the world to distinguish himself; grief should never lay its scalpel in your feelings. Remember the motto-peace, pleasantry, and plenty; they are things which should always dispel the foreshadowing of unhappiness," says Maxwell, jocularly, taking a chair at Marston's request, and seating himself by the table.
Marston declares such consolation to be refreshing, but too easily conceived to effect his purpose. The ripest fruits of vice often produce the best moral reflections: he feels convinced of this truth; but here the consequences are entailed upon others. The degradation is sunk too deep for recovery by him,--his reflections are only a burden to him. The principle that moves him to atone is crushed by the very perplexity of the law that compels him to do wrong. "There's what goads me," he says: "it is the system, the forced condition making one man merchandise, and giving another power to continue him as such." He arises from the table, his face flushed with excitement, and in silence paces the room to and fro for several minutes. Every now and then he watches at the window,--looks out towards the river, and again at the pine-woods forming a belt in the background, as if he expected some one from that direction. The serene scene without, calm and beautiful, contrasting with the perplexity that surrounded him within, brought the reality of the change which must soon take place in his affairs more vividly to his mind.
"Your feelings have been stimulated and modified by education; they are keenly sensitive to right,--to justice between man and man. Those are the beautiful results of early instruction. New England education! It founds a principle for doing good; it needs no contingencies to rouse it to action. You can view slavery with the unprejudiced eye of a philosopher. Lis............