Читать книгу The Old Dominion - G. P. R. James - Страница 12

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I woke early in the morning, after having passed the night in dreamless slumber. Not a memory of the day's doings--not a vague shadow of thoughts, or words, or deeds--flitted across the chasm of sleep. When I opened my eyes, however, the daylight--faint and unconfirmed--was streaming in at the windows; and, for half an hour or more, I enjoyed one of those pleasant, idle lapses of existence which we so rarely have leisure to indulge, when life, like a river between its cataracts and rapids, rests unruffled by thought or action, without a ripple to mark that it is flowing on; and with nothing reflected from its tranquil surface but the faint, glistening images of the quiet things which surround it. I saw a patch of the blue sky through the window, and a soft white cloud float slowly across. I looked at the large, brass-topped andirons in the wide fireplace, and contemplated the lions' heads which adorned them. I made a human face out of the sleeve of my coat, as it hung over the back of a chair, with a large nose and a heavy eye-brow; and it looked so sleepy, that I had almost dropped into slumber again, out of mere sympathy, when suddenly the door of the room opened, and in came a nice-looking black boy, with a clean white jacket and apron, and a tray with several well-filled glasses upon it. He walked composedly up to my bedside, and presented the tray.

"What is this, my friend?" I said, taking one of the glasses, which appeared full of a clear brownish liquid, some lumps of ice and some fresh green herbs.

"The mint juleps, sir," replied the boy, waiting for me to drink, in order to take the glass away.

"The mint juleps!" I thought. "I wonder if it is one of the laws of the land that every one must drink a mint julep before he rises." However, I tasted the beverage, and it was delicious and most refreshing, at least for the time. The coolness imparted by the ice effectually screened the palate from all the hotter things which it contained; and it was not till afterwards that I found it would be advisable not to drink brandy with mint steeped in it so early in the morning. Hardly had the little limonadier gone, when my friend Zed appeared, and, while he was engaged with great skill and assiduity in putting all my dressing things to wrongs with true negro officiousness, he opened his morning budget of gossip by telling me that we could not have arrived at a better time, for there was soon to be a great camp-meeting in the immediate neighbourhood, where some very godly men were to hold forth. I had long wished to see one of these curious assemblages, and I accordingly took care to inform myself of the day and place where the exercises were to be held. Zed then proceeded, while I dressed, to tell me the whole politics of the family, with the business-like manner and volubility of a Spanish barber. From him I thus learned that Mr. Byles--or bold Billy Byles--was a suitor for the hand of Louisa, Mr. Thornton's eldest daughter, but that it was the general opinion of the kitchen and adjacent domains that he would not succeed in his suit, for that young Mr. Whitehead, the Presbyterian minister, came often to see Miss Lou in the morning, and was a very gentle, engaging young man. Master Harry, he said, my cousin's eldest boy, was a wild young dog, showing the true Virginian fondness for horse-flesh and fire-arms, having broken the knees of one of his father's best steeds, and burst two guns already, besides setting fire to the stables by exploding a percussion-cap with a hammer. How long he would have gone on I know not, had my dressing not been brought to an end; when, telling him to be within call after breakfast, I went down to the lower floor. I found the drawing-room--or parlour as they call it here--vacant, and sauntered out into the porch, where the first thing I saw was Mr. Lewis, walking his horse quietly along the road from the overseer's house towards the highway. The next instant I perceived one of the servants start out upon him, like a spider from the corner of his web upon an entangled blue-bottle, and hand him a paper. I knew well enough what sort of document it was, namely, a caveat against the sale or purchase of any of the slaves of good Aunt Bab, signed by Mr. Thornton as agent, and Mr. Hubbard as attorney of Sir Richard Conway, under a power which had been drawn up the night before. This power had been rapidly and informally executed, and probably was invalid; but my presence rendered it unnecessary, except inasmuch as it enabled me to remain incognito for some time longer, and watch the proceedings of the conspirators. I must remark, it was not dated, and was merely alluded to in the caveat, so that no immediate indication of my visit to Virginia was afforded by that document. Mr. Lewis had just passed on his way, after reading the paper with feelings which of course I could not divine, when, from the other side, I saw approaching a pretty little female figure, dressed in a peculiar style, or rather in a medley of a great number of styles and fashions, outraging all of them in some respects. She had no bonnet on, but merely a parasol over her head; the length of her dress, instead of being of that extensive flow which has succeeded the short petticoats of a few years ago, was brief enough to show an exceedingly pretty foot and ankle, but it was so conspicuously full as to put me in mind of the costume of some of the Swiss cantons. Her shoes had minute buckles in them instead of being sandalled in modern style; and her hair, instead of being propped up to a towering height with a scaffolding of tortoise-shell, lay flat, and was gathered into a knot behind, in the antique Greek mode. As soon as her parasol was turned a little aside, I perceived it was Miss Davenport; and though she came quietly on, with her eyes bent upon the path, apparently unconscious that I was in the porch, I was, I am afraid, unjust to her, and imagined that there was a good deal of coquetry in both dress and manner. She had puzzled me the night before--she puzzled me still. There was something of frankness, something of archness, which was not displeasing; but something also of daring, of independence, of wilfulness, which I did not like. Pretty she certainly was, nay, beautiful; for the more one examined the small features and delicate form, the more symmetry and the more grace were apparent. But I never was one of those who can fall in love with pictures, or statues, or even marionettes. Pygmalion's statue might have remained ivory to the great conflagration, before I would have sighed or prayed it into life; and as for actresses, I always feel a green curtain falling between me and them, even before the end of the play. It seemed that morning as if some peculiar demon had seized upon me, and made me resolve, for my sins, to see what really was in Bessy Davenport--to tease her, to worry her, and to bring out the latent soul. I went forward to meet her; and, as soon as she really saw me, her whole aspect and manner changed. A gay, light, half-sarcastic smile played upon her lip, her eyes sparkled, and, holding out her hand, she said,--

"Good morning, cousin; I hope your aristocratic head has been able to repose quietly in this democratic community." I might feel a little staggered by this easy salutation. It was rather like a small masked battery opening upon one when marching gaily up to an attack; but I rallied my forces at once, and replied, "As well as if all the coronets that ever were lined with ermine had rested beside me on the pillow. Democracy is not a catching disease, I should imagine, from all I have seen of it. But may I ask how you slept? I trust without any painful visions of slaughtered swains and disconsolate lovers, or any twinges of remorse for all the woes you have and will inflict upon mankind."

"None, in truth," she answered at once. "Do you know I once killed a rattlesnake?--yes, with my own hand; and when I saw the shining reptile lie dead before me, I remembered he had given honourable warning before he sprang, and then I might feel a little regret that I had struck him so hastily with the butt of my riding-whip. But man is a very different sort of reptile: he gives no warning, and is far more venomous." A strange sort of painful feeling was produced in my mind by her words. I asked myself, "Can this young girl, apparently not twenty, have already tasted of that bitter cup which man so often holds to woman's lip?" The shadow of the thought must have crossed my face, for I was roused from my half-reverie by a clear, gay laugh. "Now I will show you," she said, "how women can divine. I am no love-lorn maiden, pining for some faithless swain--no man-hater from personal experience of man's unworthiness. I never saw the man yet, and never shall, who could raise my pulse one beat to hear his coming or his going step. But let me do justice to both sides. No man ever said to me in a sweet maudlin tone, 'Bessy, will you marry me?' nor even, to my face, declared I was the most charming of my sex, or anything of that kind. But I judge men from what I have seen of their conduct towards others; and I believe them to be the most thoroughly selfish class of beings--at least as far as women are concerned--that God ever created."

"And when it becomes your case to listen and have sweet words spoken," I replied, "you will think you and the speaker are two bright exceptions." She coloured a little, and looked almost angry, saying, "Never! I will never give any one the opportunity; for I go very much with the old saying, 'no gentleman was ever refused by a lady.' I mean, no man who is really a gentleman would propose to a lady who had not given him such encouragement as would preclude her, if really a lady, from refusing him if he did propose."

"Then you would have a lady," I said, "give a man encouragement before she knows whether he really loves her or not. Or you would have her advance step by step with him, like two armies in battle-array, watching each other's movements, and each taking care that the other did not get the slightest advantage; sure to get upon some slippery ground before they have done, my dear young lady!" Her face was now glowing like a rose, and she answered quite impatiently, "Pshaw! you know what I mean; and every man of common tact will, in his heart, admit that I am right."

"In neither one or the other of the two cases," I replied.

"What two cases?" she asked.

"Two assertions, I should have called them," answered I; "the one you just now made, and the preceding one, that men are entirely selfish in all that concerns women. I have seen cases in which no selfish motive could be discerned in the beginning, in the course, or in the end of such matters; and, being a good deal older than you are, I have had more means of judging."

"Why, how old are you?" she asked abruptly.

"Seven-and-twenty," I answered.

"I thought so!" she cried, with a joyous laugh; "but you look a good deal older."

"Indeed!" I answered, perhaps a little mortified; "but what makes you seem to rejoice that I am seven-and-twenty only?"

"Excuse me," she replied, dropping a low curtsy. "I might say, because that makes you just a fit age for myself, or a hundred other civil things. But I would rather say nothing, Sir Richard."

"Sir Richard!" I exclaimed. "How came you to give me that name, Miss Davenport?"

"Because you are just seven-and-twenty; and because there is 'Richard Conway' printed in white letters upon the black trunks you left at Norfolk," she replied, with an air of funny malice, adding, "at least so your servant told the cook, and the cook told my maid, and my maid told me, dear cousin; and so there's my 'how.'"

"Good heaven, this babbling is very provoking!" I exclaimed, greatly annoyed; "it may spoil all our plans."

"No fear," she answered; "we are so surrounded by woods and wilds that the secret will keep till next Sunday at least; for the negroes will not see those of any other plantation till then."

"And you will tell no one?" I inquired.

"Honour!" she replied, in a tone of mock solemnity.

"If you do," I said, laughing. "I will tell your uncle, whom I see coming up there, that you and I have been standing this quarter of an hour at the edge of the porch, talking of love all the time."

"Love!" she cried, "what is that? I declare such an antediluvian monster has never been once mentioned between us till you brought it this minute out of the blue mud of your own imagination."

"A very savoury figure," I answered. "But as to love, if we have not been talking about it, notwithstanding all circumlocutions, we have been thinking about it."

"Not a bit," she replied. "We have been talking, and thinking too, of the most opposite things--of the very antipodes of love. Courtship and marriage, if you like; but what has love to do with them, cousin?" And she fixed her full dark eyes upon my face, with a look of the most perfect simplicity--assumed, of course, but very well put on. I felt somewhat revengeful, and I almost longed to try if I could not make the boasting little beauty know something of the power she scoffed at. But just then Mr. Thornton came up, and began jesting with his fair relation upon her morning reveries beside the stream.

"I saw you, Bessy," he said; "and if I had met with Mr. Howard, I should have sent him down to try if he could not break up your visions."

"I dare say he would have succeeded," she answered; "for he has been amusing me here with some of the driest subjects in the world."

"Of what kind, little hypocrite?" asked Mr. Thornton.

"Arithmetic--arithmetic," she replied gaily. "As, for example, how many ganders' heads are required to make one goose's. But, here comes Mr. Hubbard slowly down stairs; and there is Mr. Alsiger's back at the end of the passage; so I had better go in to get breakfast ready, for Lou won't be down this hour." And away she ran, casting her parasol into a cane seat in the hall. Mr. Thornton paused, and fell into a reverie for a moment or two, which he concluded by saying, as if to himself,--

"The poets are wrong." I knew not what he meant, of course; and whether those few words directed his and my thoughts, or not, I cannot tell; but at breakfast we got into a discussion of poets and poetry.

"It is wonderful," Mr. Thornton observed, after a few other remarks upon the subject, "that with all the superabundant energies which this country possesses, and all the imagination which she expends upon other themes, we have, as yet, produced no very remarkable poet." I ventured to say that I did not think it wonderful; and, of course, there was a call for my reasons.

"In the first place," I replied, "the energies of the people have other objects, and those principally material. In the next place, the imaginative faculty finds other occupation."

"How so, how so?" asked Mr. Hubbard.

"In orations, speeches, declamations," I answered, and then continued, with a smile, "perhaps I might add, in finding causes for offence in the acts of other nations; and without offence, let me say, Mr. Alsiger, in religious exercises which perhaps touch the fancy rather than inform the heart."

"Too true, too true!" said the good clergyman, with a sigh.

"Then again," I continued, "poetry is generally the offspring of leisure. Now, there is--at least it seems so to me--no such thing as leisure in America, and----"

"Excuse me," interrupted Mr. Thornton, laughing; "we have plenty of leisure in Virginia, if we did but know what to do with it. But you were going to add something."

"I was merely going to remark, as a matter of history, that poetry rarely flourishes in republics. Monarchies are its congenial soil. It is a flower that requires a hot-house."

"Oh, heresy, heresy!" cried Bessy Davenport. "What! can such noble and inspiring things as freedom and independence have no power to awaken great thoughts, or even to clothe them in immortal verse?"

"Your pardon, fair lady," I answered; "but you are assuming the premises. Freedom and independence, I would contend, can exist as well--nay, better--in a well-ordered monarchy than in any republic. The tyranny of a number--or of a majority, if you please,--is always more terrible than the tyranny of an individual--the tyranny of public opinion, more potent than the rule of a monarch, and more likely to be wrong. But all that is beside the question. I merely spoke of an historical fact. With an exception here and there, you find no very remarkable poets under republics: many under monarchs."

"I have never considered the facts," said Mr. Hubbard; "but let us test it, my dear sir; and to begin with the beginning, there is Homer. It is very true he lived under a whole host of kings, if there is any faith at all to be placed in the tales regarding him; but what say you to the whole batch of Athenian poets?"

"That they lived under archons, which were tantamount to kings," I answered. "And then, again, Pindar; he could not even endure the sort of mitigated republicanism of Greece, but fled to the court of a tyrant. Virgil, Horace--every great Roman poet, in short--flourished about the time of the emperors. In England, Gower, Chaucer, Shakespeare, all lived, and wrote, under monarchs; and it has even seemed to me that the greater the despotism, the better the poet."

"But Milton! Milton!" cried Mr. Alsiger; "he was a republican in heart and spirit."

"But he never wrote a line of poetry," I answered, "under the Long Parliament, or at least very few. Not much did he write under the tyranny of Cromwell; and all his best compositions date from the reign of one or the other of the Charleses."

"But Dante," said Mr. Thornton; "I cannot indeed, discuss his merits with you; for I have well nigh forgotten all the Italian I knew thirty years ago. He, however, lived under a republic."

"He is an exception," I replied; "although I can hardly look upon the constitution of Florence, at that time, as a republican form of government. It was rather oligarchical; and even then, shadows of an emperor and a pope overhung it. But Ariosto, Tasso, Boccaccio, and all the rest of the Italian poets were the mere creatures of courts. The same is the case with France, although she never had but two poets; and the same with Germany."

"May it not be," asked Mr. Hubbard, "that monarchies, up to the present day, have been much more frequent than republics?"

"Perhaps so," I answered; "yet it is very strange that we find no poet of mark actually springing from a pure republic. Where is the Swiss poet? although every accessory of country, history, climate, and natural phenomena seems to render the very air redolent of poetry." Bessy Davenport sprang up from the table, shaking her head at me, with a laugh, and saying,--

"I abominate your theory. You are worse than an abolitionist; and if you preach such doctrines here, we will have you tried for high treason." As soon as she was gone, and Mr. Alsiger had trotted home on his pony, which was brought up shortly afterwards, Mr. Hubbard, Mr. Thornton, and myself fell into secret conclave, and debated what was next to be done.

"I think," said my host, "the best thing we can do, before the day becomes too hot, will be to ride over to Beavors, take a look at the plantation, see the house, which is vacant just now, and, after having got some dinner at the little village hard by, return in the evening by my worthy and respected cousin's house, just to let him know that we have an eye upon his motions. I dare say some of the girls will accompany us on horseback; and their presence will make our visitation of the old place less formal and less business-like. There are two or three things worth seeing by the way; and we may as well spend the day after this fashion as any other."

"You will find no dinner there that you can eat," said Mr. Hubbard.

"Leave that to me--leave that to me," returned Mr. Thornton, with a nod of his head. "I will cater for you; and if you do not like so long a ride, you can come in the carriage."

"Perhaps that will be better," said Mr. Hubbard; "and, I suppose, it would be as well to have me with you, in case of your needing legal advice." Thus was it soon settled; and while Mr. Thornton went to order horses and carriages, and a great many things besides, I mounted to my own room to make some change in my dress, and to give my good friend Zed a hearty scolding for babbling about my affairs in a strange house. I might as well have left it alone; for though he promised and vowed all manner of things, and assured me, with many a grin, that he had not an idea he was doing any harm in what he had said, I have since found that the propensity to gossip is too strong in the negro composition to be curbed by any reasoning or by any fear. Indeed, I am inclined to believe it is part and parcel of the original sin; for certainly, if Eve had not got gossiping with the serpent, she would not have made such a fool of herself as she did.