Читать книгу Gideon's Band: A Tale of the Mississippi - George Washington Cable - Страница 36

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From earliest childhood the Hugh whom it gave Ramsey such rapture to nickname had unconsciously worn the dim frown that seemed to her so droll because at once so scrutinous yet so appealing.

To others that faint shade had never meant more than an inborn mental painstaking; a mind as steadily at work as the pulse; seemingly sluggish, really active. But Ramsey, in her stateroom, letting Joy dress her for all the Sabbath could mean afloat or ashore, could not accept such a thought. A feminine eagerness to read the masculine brow had promptly imputed to Hugh's a depth of mystery for which her romantic young soul demanded a romantic interpretation. Hence, mainly, her hunger for the story of the Quakeress. She had perceived, she thought, a relation between it and the clouded brow, and was bent on finding for the brow's owner as amazing a part in the tale as could be contrived by any piecing together of its facts which did not absolutely mutilate them. And these facts already she had begun to collect when by the mention of this "Phyllis" she discovered that old Joy had at least a share of the facts and under due pressure would yield them up.

"Phyllis?" asked Ramsey, "who was Phyllis?"

"Humph! Neveh hear o' Phyllis? Well, dey wuz reason fo' dat, too. Phyllis wuz de likeliest yalleh gal I eveh see, not-in-standin' she wuz my full fus' cousin."

Now, one could be as dark as a sloe and yet have a cousin as yellow as a marigold, but Ramsey did not see it so. "How can that be?" she laughed, "when you are so out and out black?" The bare idea seemed too comical for human endurance.

"I ain't no blackeh'n Gawd made me—oh, Lawd! missie, how I gwine button you up ef you shif' an' wriggle like dat? Phyllis wuz nuss to all de Co'teney chil'en. 'Caze dat same day when de new Quak'ess come down de riveh wid dis same Mahs' Hugh, new-bawn, dah wuz yo' pa on his new boat, de Conjuror——"

"Ow! the Conqueror!"

"Yass'm, dat's what I say. And dah wuz yo' ma, an' me, o' co'se, and dah wuz Phyllis, my full fus' cousin—now, ef you cayn't stop a-gigglin' an' wrigglin' long enough fo' me to finish dis——"

Ramsey was too unnerved to heed. "How could—" she insisted—"how could a—a mulatto girl be your first cousin?"

"Now, you dess neveh min' how! Phyllis wa'n't no mullatteh, nohow. She wuz a quadroom! Heh mullatteh motheh wuz my own sisteh!"

"Oh, you mean half-sister!"

"I means whole sisteh! Miss Hayle, betteh you dess drap dat subjic' now, an' thaynk Gawd fo' yo' ign'ance!"

"All right! all right! whole sister! go on! were you twins?" The querist gave a wild start of surprise at herself and sank to the floor.

"Missie," sighed the old woman, "y'ain't neveh in yo' life stopped to think dat niggehs is got feelin's, is you?"

The speech was hardly begun before the girl was up and about the protester's neck: "Hush! ple-ease hush! You've said it before, you've said it before, you've said it before, before!"

The nurse's eyes filled: "Yass, an' what use it been? De wuss thing I know 'bout good white folks—an' when I says 'good' I means de best!—dat is, dat dey don't believe niggehs is got feelin's!" It was hard to speak on, for Ramsey had pushed her into a chair and was in her lap.

"They do! they do, mammy Joy, they do!" She fell to kissing her, first slowly, then wildly as Joy insisted:

"No, dey don't. Ef dey did, Phyllis 'ud neveh 'a' come to de pass she came to. But dey don't! Some o' de bes' believes dey believes, dat's all. Oh, I 'llow you, lots o' white folks is got—oh, Lawd! don't spile my breas'-han'kercheh!—is got mo' feelin's dan some niggehs; but lots o' niggehs is got lots mo' feelin's dan some white folks. Mo' an' betteh! Now, my sisteh, my yalleh sisteh——"

"Oh, never mind, there's the rising gong! I know your yellow sister must have had feelings. Tell about Phyllis—and the Courteneys—and the Quakeress."

"Well, I will! Yo' plumb sot on gitt'n' de thing, an'——"

"Yes, and it's not a fit story for me to ask him about and you know I'll ask him if I have to! And besides, I just know mom-a's told you to keep me off the hurricane roof any way you can and as long as you can—listen! the big bell! we're meeting a boat, maybe half a dozen! And we're passing to labboard. Come! Come on!"

At their own door they espied the passing craft: a single boat, not six; a tiny, cabinless, one-funnelled, unclean, crawling thing, dimly made out in the early dusk of the forested shore which it servilely hugged as if doing all it could to hide its grimy name and identity.

"The Fly-up-the-Creek!" gasped Ramsey. "Oh, that can't be all!" She sprang up a stair, dragging the old woman after, and on the hurricane-deck, near a paddle-box, stood for a moment in the wide glory of water, land, and early sky, agape again at the squalid object. Then, as the full humor of the thing struck her—but her behavior may as well go undescribed. Yet it could not have been so very bad, for the pilot high above at the wheel, Watson's "partner," glancing down from his side window, enjoyed it much; silently, it is true, unsmilingly; yet so heartily that he took a fresh bite of tobacco, chewed with energy, and thought of home.

When the fit was over, old Joy had been pressed into a chair and the theme was once more Phyllis.

"Why did they bring her to New Orleans?" was the question.

"Who, Phyllis? She wuz fotch down fo' to be sold."

Ramsey's gaze was roaming every sky-line, but at that word it flashed back: "How, sold? Pop-a's told me, himself, he never in his life sold one of his negroes!"

"Is I said he did? Is I call' heh his niggeh? Ain't I done say she wuz a quadroom?"

"Why," laughed Ramsey, "a quadroon's a negro!"

"Not in de sight o' Gawd! My Lawd, dat's de shame on it!—dat de likes o' my baby kin say de likes o' dat! Oh, you kin make a niggeh out'n a simon-pyo' white gal ef you dess raise heh wid de niggehs and treat heh like a niggeh; but——"

Ramsey flushed: "Oh, I don't believe that!"

"Look hyuh, chile! I ain't choosin' to tell about dat, but—I's seen it done! Time an' ag'in! An' Phyllis she see it done! Dat's how come Phyllis to be de kind o' Phyllis she come to be!"

"What kind? Good, or bad? I don't want to hear about her if she was good."

"She was bofe. But I ain't hawngry to tell about heh, naw 'bout de Quak'ess." The narrator shut her lips tight.

The morning air was like a sparkling wine. Ramsey squared her slim shoulders and drank it. The turbid waters next the sunrise showed a marvellous lilac hue, their myriad ripples tipped with pink, silver, and gold. Up-stream the river opened widely to the west, but the Votaress bore northward across the foot of the reach, and soon it was plain that she was about to enter a "chute," whose vividly green, low, wooded shore on her larboard bow was a large island: an island of swamp and jungle, ancient fastness of an Indian prophet, hiddenly swarming with all the ravening and venomous brute, reptile, and insect life possible to the region. Prophet's Island, it was, yet no senator, bishop, general, judge, or squire was in sight.

Ramsey had seen it on her down trip, when the boat, as required by law when descending the stream there, went eight miles round it in the main river. She had heard with awe that bit of history—not this history—the drowning, by collision of a steamboat and a ship, of four hundred Creek Indians who were being deported to make room for the white man, and had felt herself grow older while she listened. But now what unmixed raptures awaited her in the narrow short cut! The recent presence of the Fly-up-the-Creek away over here on this morning side of the flood was made clear; she had run the chute, where she had no right to be, coming down-stream.

"My!" cried the girl, "I wish—oh, my, my, my, I wish I could be five people at once!"

For here the boat's watchman sauntered by—a boat's watchman must be a world in himself! Yonder at the forward rail the first mate still paced athwart the deck. By the captain's chair stood both the elder Courteneys, their enthralling conversation all going to waste. Here rushed and quivered all the beautiful boat, her great human menagerie still unviewed, her cabin-boys laying her breakfast table, her cook-house smelling of hot rolls, the miracles of machinery pulsing on her lower deck, and down there an awful tragedy going on, with the sweet mother playing angel—oh, my, my!—and here, up yonder, was the pilot, by whose side one might presently look right into the narrow chute's greenwood walls and out over their tops—"Go on, mammy Joy, I can't ever listen to you, once we're in the chute!"

"I ain't bust'n' to tell noth'n'. Phyllis ain't belong to yo' pa, nohow. She belong' fust to yo' grampa Hayle, same like my sisteh do, my yalleh sisteh—aw rutheh to yo' gramma. Yo' gramma she own' a place back o' Vicksbu'g, same like us got back o' Natchez, whils' yo' grampa he stick to de riveh, same like yo' pa do now. But yo' grampa he outlive' yo' gramma nigh twen'y-five yeah'. An' 'bout two yeah' ayfteh yo' gramma die' my sisteh, my yalleh sisteh, she housekeep fo' yo' grampa—a shawt spell. Yo' ma she soon bruk dat up."

"Why, that was a funny thing for mom-a to do."

"H-it wuz a right thing! Dat's what it wuz."

"But, mammy, grandpa died before I was born!"

"An' what dat got to do wid de price o' beeswax? Yo' a-mixin' me up a-puppose! Afo' yo' grampa die'—well, I'll stop tell you quits de giggles. … Afo' he die', when Phyllis wuz growed up, an' 'bout a yeah ayfteh y'uncle Dan—de bacheldeh—de pilot—quit de riveh a spell fo' to run de Vicksbu'g plantation, yo' ma, down on de Natchez place, she speak up ag'in, an' ax' yo' grampa fo' to loan Phyllis to she. An' yo' grampa, sho' enough, sawnt heh down, bofe Phyllis an' de chile."

"Chi—you skipped! You're skipping! like fury!"

"Ef I skips I skips fo' de good o' yo' soul."

Ramsey stared. "Why did mom-a borrow her?"

"'Caze she couldn' buy heh. Yo' gramma she die' leavin' dat whole Vicksbu'g place an' people, bawn an' unbawn, to yo' grampa, fo' to pass, when he die', to y'uncle Dan, an' y'uncle Dan he wouldn' even 'a' loan' Phyllis ef he could 'a' perwent. Humph-ummm! he tuck on 'bout his 'rights' like a sett'n' hen."

"But what did mom-a want to borrow her for?"

"Well, I mowt say, fo' heh beauty; but ef I don't skip noth'n' I got to say she 'llow to p'otect heh."

Ramsey stared again and suddenly fell into that soft, rippling laugh, keen, merry, self-oblivious, which forty excusing adjectives would not have excused to her nurse.

"Protect her from—from wha-at?" She rippled again.

"F'om herseff!—an' f'om him!—an' him f'om heh!—and de whole Hayle fambly an' de law o' Gawd f'om bofe! An' she done it, yo' ma!—up to de wery day he meet his awful en' in dat bu'nin' pilot-house, when——"

"Ah-h-h! what pilot-house? You never told me——"

"Anybody else eveh tol' you? No. Us Hayles-es ain't fon' o' dat story. What I ain't tell you ain't be'n ripe to tell. I don't tell noth'n' 'tell it's ripe to tell, me!"

"Oh, it's dead ripe now. Go on, go on!—Burning pilot-house—my uncle Dan—stop! … Hmm! … That's funny. … Why, mammy, how could he be my uncle if he—was burnt up—before I was born?"

"Dat's yo' lookout. He wa'n't bu'nt up tell you wuz goin' on five. Yo' mixin' his las' en' wid yo' grampa's."

"Oh, I see-ee! He was lost on the Quakeress!"

"Well, thaynky, ma'am! Yo' perceivin' powehs is a-gitt'n' ahead o' de hounds. I wuz a-comin' to dat——"

Ramsey interrupted. Her cry of ecstasy was not for the breakfast bell, which on the deck next below rang joyously up and down both guards and died away in the ladies' cabin. It was for a vision that rose before her and the Votaress; an illusion of the boat's whole speed being lost to the boat and given to the shore. Suddenly the fair craft seemed to stop and stand, foaming, panting, quivering like a wild mare, while the green, gray-bearded, dew-drenched forest—island and mainland—amid a singing of innumerable birds, glided down upon her, opening the chute to gulp her in without a twang of her guys or a stain upon her beauty.

"Go on!" cried Ramsey, her eyes enthralled by the scene, her ears by the story:—"Mom-a borrowed Phyllis—go on!"

"When yo' grampa gone," said Joy, "an' de will is read, yo' ma tell y'uncle Dan fo' to neveh mine his rights aw his lef's; he kin go on ownin' Phyllis and de chile, but, all de same, he cayn't have 'em. An' when he paw de groun' an' th'ow dus' on his back yo' pa dess—go an' see him. Wheneveh yo' pa dess go an' see anybody, you know——"

Ramsey knew. She tinkled with delight.

"But den come wuss trouble. 'Caze 'bout dat time——"

About that time Ramsey whisked round and stood so as to give Hugh Courteney, as he came on deck, a square view of her young back. He noticed her better length of skirt.

"Go on," she murmured. "Is he coming this way?"

"Co'se he ain't. He gwine up to de pilot-house."

"Humph, how awful busy! That's just for grandeur. Go on." And while the leafy jaws of the chute drew them in and all the air was suddenly filled with the boat's sounds flung back from every rippling bough, tree top, and mass of draping vines, the nurse went on:

"'Bout dat time yo' pa he git de hahdess ovehseeh he eveh did git, an' you can't 'spute de fact dat yo' pa he take' natchiully to hahd men, an' hahd men take natchiully to him. You kin say dat to his credits."

"Yes," replied Ramsey, "yes," sighing, gesticulating, whimpering in ecstasies of sight as the walls of the watery lane cramped in to half its first width. They seemed to rush past of their own volition, while out beyond them on either hand the whole dense gray-green interwoven wilderness, with ceremonial stateliness, swung round on itself in slow time to the windy speed of the Votaress.