Читать книгу Brother Against Brother; or, The Tompkins Mystery - John R. Musick - Страница 4

Table of Contents

Forty years ago a Virginia planter was a king, his broad acres his kingdom, his wife his queen, his children heirs to his throne, and his slaves his subjects. True, it was a petty kingdom and he but a petty monarch; but, as a rule, petty monarchs are tyrannical, and the Southern planter was not always an exception. In those days men were measured, not by moral worth, mental power, or physical stature, but by the number of acres and slaves they owned. The South has never possessed that sturdy class of yeomanry that has achieved wonders in the North. Before the war labor was performed by slaves, now it is done by hired help, the farmer himself there seldom cultivating his soil.

The home of Mr. George W. Tompkins, our acquaintance, was a marvel of beauty and taste. Located in the Northwestern portion of the State, before its division, it was just where the heat of the South was delightfully tempered by the cool winds of the North. No valley in all Virginia was more lovely. To the east were hills which might delight any mountain lover, all clothed and fringed with delicate evergreens, through which could be caught occasional glimpses of precipitous bald rocks. Over the heights the sun climbed every morning to illuminate the valley below with a radiance of glory. Mountain cascades came tumbling and plunging from mossy retreats to swell a clear pebble-strewn stream which afforded the finest trout to be found in the entire State.

The great mansion, built after the old Virginia plan, with a long stone piazza in front, stood on an eminence facing the post-road, which ran within a few rods of it. The house was substantial, heavy columns, painted white as marble, supporting the porch, and quaint, old-fashioned gables, about which the swallows twittered, breaking the lines of the roof. In the front yard grew the beech and elm and chestnut tree, their wide-spreading branches indicating an existence for centuries. A little below the structure, and south-west from it, was a colony of low, small buildings, where dwelt the slaves of Mr. Tompkins. One or two were nearer, and in these the domestics lived. These were a higher order of servants than the field-hands, and they never let an opportunity pass to assert their superiority over their fellow slaves.

Socially, as well as geographically, Mr. Tompkins' home combined the extremes of the North and South. He, with his calm face and mild gray eyes, was a native of the green hills of New Hampshire, while his dark-eyed wife was a daughter of sunny Georgia.

Mrs. Tompkins was the only child of a wealthy Georgia planter. Mr. Tompkins had met her first in Atlanta, where he was spending the Winter with a class-mate, both having graduated at Yale the year before. Their meeting grew into intimacy, from intimacy it ripened into love. Shortly after the marriage of his daughter, his only child, the planter exchanged his property for more extensive possessions in Virginia, but he never occupied this new home. He and his wife were in New Orleans, when the dread malady, yellow-fever, seized upon them, and they died before their daughter or her husband could go to them.

Mr. Tompkins, a man who had always been opposed to slavery, thus found himself the owner of a large plantation in Virginia, and more than a hundred slaves. There seemed to be no other alternative, and he accepted the situation, and tried, by being a humane master, to conciliate his wounded conscience for being a master at all.

He and his only brother, Henry, had inherited a large and valuable property from their father, in their native State. His brother, like himself, had gone South and married a planter's daughter, and become a large slave-holder. He was a far different man from his brother. Naturally overbearing and cruel, he seemed to possess none of the other's kindness of heart or cool, dispassionate reason. He was a hard task-master, and no "fire-eating" Southerner ever exercised his power more remorselessly than he, and no one hated the Abolition party more cordially. But it is not with Henry Tompkins we have to deal at present.

It was near noon the day after the travelers reached Jerry Lycan's inn. Mrs. Tompkins sat on the piazza, looking down the road that led to the village. She was one of those Southern beauties who attract at a first glance; her eyes large, and dark, and brilliant; her hair soft and glossy, like waves of lustrous silk. Of medium height, though not quite so slender as when younger, her form was faultless. Her cheek had the olive tint of the South, and as she reclined with indolent grace in her easy chair, one little foot restlessly tapping the carpet on which it rested, she looked a very queen.

The Tompkins mansion was the grandest for many miles around, and the whole plantation bore evidence of the taste and judgment of its owner. There seemed to be nothing, from the crystal fountain splashing in front of the white-pillared dwelling to the vast fields of corn, wheat and tobacco stretching far into the back-ground, which did not add to the beauty of the place.

On the north were barns, immense and well filled granaries and stables. Then came tobacco houses, covering acres of ground. One would hardly have suspected the plain, unpretentious Mr. Tompkins as being the possessor of all this wealth. But his house held his greatest treasures—two bright little boys, aged respectively nine and seven years.

Abner, the elder, had bright blue eyes and the clear Saxon complexion of his father. Oleah, the younger, was of the same dark Southern type as his mother. They were two such children as even a Roman mother might have been proud to call her jewels. Bright and affectionate, they yielded a quick obedience to their parents, and—a remarkable thing for boys—were always in perfect accord.

"Oh, mamma, mamma!" cried Oleah, following close after his brother, and quite as much excited.

"Well, what is the matter?" the mother asked, with a smile.

"It's coming! it's coming! it's coming!" cried Oleah.

"He's coming! he's coming!" shouted Abner.

"Who is coming?" asked the mother.

"Papa, papa, papa!" shouted both at the top of their voices. "Papa is coming down the big hill on the stage-coach."

Mrs. Tompkins was now looking for herself. Sure enough there was the great, old-fashioned stage-coach lumbering down the hill, and her husband was an outside passenger, as the sky was now clear and the sun shone warm and bright. The clumsy vehicle showed the mud-stains of its long travel, and the roads in places were yet filled with water.

The winding of the coachman's horn, which never failed to set the boys dancing with delight, sounded mellow and clear on the morning air.

"It's going to stop! it's going to stop!" cried Oleah, clapping his little hands.

"It's going to stop! it's going to stop!" shouted Abner, and both kept up a frantic shouting, "Whoa, whoa!" to the prancing horses as they drew near the house.

It paused in front of the gate, and Mrs. Tompkins and her two boys hurried down the walk.

Mr. Tompkins' baggage had just been taken from the boot and placed inside the gate, and the stage had rolled on, as his wife and two boys came up to the traveler.

"Mamma first, and me next," said Oleah, preparing his red lips for the expected kiss.

"And I come after Oleah," said Abner.

Mr. Tompkins called to a negro boy who was near to carry the baggage to the house, and the happy group made their way to the great piazza, the two boys clinging to their father's hands and keeping up a torrent of questions. Where had he been? What had he seen? What had he brought home for them? The porch reached, Mrs. Tompkins drew up the arm-chair for her tired husband.

"Rest a few minutes," she said, "and then you can take a bath and change your clothes, and you will feel quite yourself once more."

The planter took the seat, with a bright-faced child perched on each side of him.

"You were gone so long without writing that I became uneasy," said his wife, drawing her chair close to his side.

"I had a great deal to do," he answered, shaking his head sadly, "and it was terrible work, I assure you. The memory of the past three weeks, I fear, will never leave my mind."

"Was it as terrible as the message said?" asked Mrs. Tompkins, with a shudder.

"Yes, the horrible story was all true. The whole family was murdered."

"By whom?"

"That remains a mystery, but it is supposed to have been done by one of the slaves, as two or three ran away about that time."

"How did it happen? Tell me all."

The little boys were sent away, for this story was not for children to hear, and Mr. Tompkins proceeded.

"We could hardly believe the news the dispatch brought us, my dear, but it did not tell us the worst. The roads between here and North Carolina are not the best, and I was four or five days making it, even with the aid of a few hours occasionally by rail. I found my brother's next neighbor, Mr. Clayborne, at the village waiting for me. On the way he told all that he or any one seemed to know of the affair. My brother had a slave who was half negro and part Indian, with some white blood in his veins. This slave had a quadroon wife, whom he loved with all his wild, passionate heart. She was very beautiful, and a belle among the negroes. But Henry, for some disobedience on the part of the husband, whose Indian and white blood revolted against slavery, sold the wife to a Louisiana sugar planter. The half breed swore he would be revenged, and my brother, unfortunately possessing a hasty temper, had him tied up and severely whipped—"

"Served the black rascal quite right," interrupted the wife, who, being Southern born, could not endure the least self-assertion on the part of a slave.

"I think not, my dear, though we will not argue the question. After his punishment the black hung about for a week or two, sullen and silent. Several friends cautioned my brother to beware of him, but Henry was headstrong and took no man's counsel. Suddenly the slave disappeared, and although the woods, swamps and cane-breaks were scoured by experienced hunters and dogs he could not be found. Three weeks had passed, and all thought of the runaway had passed from the minds of the people. Late one night the man who told me this was passing my brother's house, when he saw flames shooting about the roof and out of the windows. He gave the alarm, and roused the negroes. As he ran up the lawn toward the house a bloody ax met his view. On entering the front door my brother Henry was found lying in the hall, his skull cleft in twain. I cannot repeat all that met the man's horror-stricken gaze. They had only time to snatch away the bodies of my brother, his wife and two of the children when the roof fell in."

"And the other two children?" asked Mrs. Tompkins.

"Were evidently murdered also, but their bodies could not be found. It is supposed they were burned to ashes amid the ruins."

"Did you cause any extra search to be made?"

"I did, but it was useless. I have searched, searched, searched—mountain, plain and swamp. The rivers were dragged, the wells examined, the ruins raked, but in vain. The oldest and the youngest of the children could not be found. A skull bone was discovered among the ruins, but so burned and charred that it was impossible to tell whether it belonged to a human being or an animal. I have done everything I could think of, and yet something seems to tell me my task is not over—my task is not over."

"What has been done with the plantation?" Mrs. Tompkins asked.

"The father of my brother's wife is the administrator of the estate, and he will manage it."

"And the murderer?"

"No trace of him whatever. It seems as though, after performing his horrible deed, he must have sank into the earth."

Mrs. Tompkins now, remembering that her husband needed a bath and a change of clothes, hurried him into the house. The recital of that horrible story had cast a shadow over her countenance, which she tried in vain to drive away, and had reawakened in Mr. Tompkins' soul a longing for revenge, though his better reason compelled him to admit that the half-breed was goaded to madness and desperation.

The day passed gloomily enough after the first joy of the husband and father's return. The next morning, just as the sun was peeping over the gray peaks of the eastern mountains and throwing floods of golden light into the valley below, dancing upon the stream of silver which wound beneath, or splintering its ineffectual lances among the branches and trunks of the grand old trees surrounding the plantation, Mr. Tompkins was awakened from the dreamless sleep of exhaustion.

"What was that?" he asked of his wife.

Both waited a moment, listening, when again the feeble wail of an infant reached their ears.

"It is a child's voice," said Mrs. Tompkins; "but why is it there?"

"Some of the negro children have strayed from the quarters; or, more likely, it is the child of one of the house servants," said Mr. Tompkins.

"The house servants have no children," answered Mrs. Tompkins, "and I have cautioned the field women not to allow their children to come here especially in the early morning, to annoy us."

Mr. Tompkins, whose morning nap was not yet over, closed his eyes again. The melodious horn of the overseer, calling the slaves to the labors of the day, sounded musical in the early morning air, and seemed only to soothe the wearied master to sleep again. Footsteps were heard upon the carpeted hallway, and then three or four light taps on the door of the bedroom.

"Who is there?" asked Mrs. Tompkins.

"It's me, missus, if you please." The door was pushed open and a dark head, wound in a red bandana handkerchief, appeared in the opening.

"What is the matter, Dinah?" Mrs. Tompkins asked, for she saw by the woman's manner that something unusual had occurred. Dinah was her mistress' handmaid and the children's nurse.

"If you please, missus," she said, "there is a queerest little baby on the front porch in the big clothes-basket."

"A baby!" cried the astonished Mrs. Tompkins.

"Yes'm, a white baby."

"Where is its mother?"

"I don't know, missus. It must a been there nearly all night, an' I suppose they who ever left it there wants you to keep it fur good."

"Bring the poor little thing here," said Mrs. Tompkins, rising to a sitting position in the bed.

In a few minutes Dinah returned with a baby about six months old, dressed in a faded calico gown, and hungrily sucking its tiny fist, while its dark brown eyes were filled with tears.

"It was in de big basket among some ole clothes," said Dinah.

"Poor, dear little thing! it is nearly starved and almost frozen. Prepare it some warm milk at once, Dinah," said the kind-hearted mistress.

The girl hurried away to do her bidding, leaving the baby with Mrs. Tompkins, who held the benumbed child in her arms and tried to still its cries.

Mr. Tompkins was wide awake now, and his mind busy with conjecture how the child came to be left on their piazza.

"What is that?" called Oleah, from the next room.

"Why, it's a baby," answered Abner, and a moment later two pairs of little bare feet came pattering into their mother's room.

"Oh, the sweet little thing!" cried Oleah; "I want to kiss it."

His mother held it down for him to kiss.

"Isn't it pretty!" said Abner. "Its eyes are black, just like Oleah's. Let me kiss it, too."

The little stranger looked in wonder at the two children, who, in their joy over this treasure-trove, were dancing frantically about the room.

"Oh, mamma, where did you get it?" asked Oleah.

"Dinah found it on the porch," the mother answered.

"Who put it there?"

"I don't know, dear."

"Why, Oleah," said Abner, "it's just like old Mr. Post. Don't you know he found a baby at his door? for we read about it in our First reader."

"Oh, yes; is this the same baby old Mr. Post found?" asked Oleah.

"No," answered the mother; "this is another."

"Oh, isn't it sweet?" said Oleah, as the child cried and stretched out its tiny hands.

"It's just as pretty as it can be," said Abner.

"Mamma, oh, mamma!" said Oleah, shaking his mother's arm, as she did not pay immediate attention to his call.

"What, dear?" she asked.

"Are we goin' to keep it?"

"Yes, dear; if some one who has a better right to it does not come to claim it."

"They shan't have it," cried Oleah, stamping his little, bare foot on the carpet.

"No," added Abner; "it's ours now. They left it there to starve and freeze, and now we will keep it."

"You think, then, that the real owner has lost his title by his neglect?" said the father, with a smile.

"Yes, that's it," the boy answered.

"It's a very good common law idea, my son."

Dinah now came in with warm milk for the baby, and Mrs. Tompkins told her to take the two boys to their room and dress them; but they wanted to wait first and see the baby eat.

"Oh, don't it eat; don't it eat!" cried the boys.

"The poor little thing is almost starved," said the mother.

"Missus, how d'ye reckin it came on the porch?" Dinah asked.

"I cannot think who would have left it," answered Mrs. Tompkins.

"That is not a very young baby," said Mr. Tompkins, watching the little creature eat greedily from the spoon, for Dinah had now taken it and was feeding it.

"No, marster, not berry, 'cause it's got two or free teef," said the nurse. "Spect it's 'bout six months old."

As soon as the little stranger had been fed, Dinah wrapped it in a warm blanket and laid it on Mrs. Tompkin's bed, where it soon fell asleep, showing it was exhausted as well as hungry. Dinah then led the two boys to the room to wash and dress them.

"Strange, strange!" said Mrs. Tompkins, beginning to dress. "Who can the little thing belong to, and what are we to do with it?"

"Keep it, I suppose," said Mr. Tompkins; and, stumbling over a boot-jack, he exclaimed in the same breath, "Oh, confound it!"

"What, the baby?"

"No, the boot-jack. I've stubbed my toe on it."

"We have no right to take upon ourselves the rearing of other people's children," said Mrs. Tompkins, paying no attention to her husband's trifling injury.

"But it's our Christian duty to see that the little thing does not die of cold and hunger," said Mr. Tompkins, caressing his aching toe.

Soon the boys came in, ready for breakfast, and inquired for the baby; when told that it was sleeping, they wanted to see it asleep, and stole on tiptoe to the bed, where the wearied little thing lay, and nothing would satisfy them until they were permitted to touch the pale, pinched, tear-stained cheek with their fresh, warm lips.

The breakfast bell rang, and they went down to the dining-room, where awaiting them was a breakfast such as only Aunt Susan could prepare. They took their places at the table, while a negro girl stood behind each, to wait upon them and to drive away flies with long brushes of peacock feathers. The boys were so much excited by the advent of the strange baby that they could scarcely keep quiet long enough to eat.

"I am going to draw it on my wagon," said Oleah.

"I'm going to let it ride my pony," said Abner.

"Don't think too much of the baby yet, for some one may come and claim it," said their mother.

"They shan't have it, shall they, papa?" cried Oleah.

"No, it is our baby now."

"And we are going to keep it, ain't we, Aunt Susan!" he asked the cook, as she entered the dining-room.

"Yes, bress yo' little heart; dat baby am yours," said Aunt Susan.

"It's a Christmas gift, ain't it, Maggie?" he asked the waiter behind him. Oleah was evidently determined to array everyone's opinion against his mother's supposition.

"Yes, I reckin it am," the negro girl answered with a grin.

"Ha, ha, ha!" laughed Abner. "Why, Oleah, this ain't Christmas."

Seeing his mistake, Oleah joined in the laugh, but soon commenced again.

"We're goin' to make the baby a nice, new play-house, ain't we, Abner?"

"Yes, and a swing."

The baby slept nearly all the forenoon. When she woke (for it was a girl) she was washed, and dressed in some of Master Oleah's clothes, and Mrs. Tompkins declared the child a marvel of beauty, and when the little thing turned her dark eyes on her benefactor with a confiding smile the lady resolved that no sorrow that she could avert should cloud the sweet, innocent face.

When the boys came in they began a war dance, which made the baby scream with delight. Impetuous Oleah snatched her from his mother's lap, and both boy and baby rolled over on the floor, fortunately not hurting either. His mother scolded, but the baby crowed and laughed, and he showered a hundred kisses on the little white face.

A boy about twelve years of age was coming down the lane. He entered the gate and was coming towards the house. Mr. Tompkins, who was in the sitting-room, in a moment recognized the boy as Crazy Joe, and told his wife about the unfortunate lad. He met the boy on the porch.

"How do you do, Joe?" he asked, extending his hand.

"I am well," Joe answered. "Have you seen my father Jacob or my brother Benjamin?"

"No, they have not yet come," answered the planter.

For several years after, Joe was a frequent visitor. There was no moment's lapse of his melancholy madness, which yet seemed to have a peculiar method in it, and the mystery that hid his past but deepened and intensified.