Читать книгу My lady of the South - Randall Parrish - Страница 5

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THE faintest tinge of approaching dawn was already in the sky, as yet scarcely perceptible, but enabling my eyes, trained by the long night vigil, to distinguish the dim outlines of my immediate surroundings. Slightly beyond the ramshackle old shed, in the protection of which I crouched, were visible several small log huts, closely grouped together, undoubtedly the negro quarters of the plantation. These appeared deserted, the door of the nearest standing wide open. A low picket fence, originally painted white, but now sadly demoralized, one section lying flat on the ground, served to separate this portion of the estate from the house lot, while a thick hedge of trees thoroughly concealed the mansion itself from view. But the smouldering embers of a camp-fire glowed sullenly directly in front of the covered entrance, and I could both perceive and hear the restless movement of horses tied to the veranda rail. Creeping cautiously forward as far as the fence barrier would permit, I was enabled to distinguish the shadowy figure of a sentry wearily pacing back and forth in front of the broad porch. Beyond all question some Confederate general officer had very sensibly appropriated the place for his headquarters, while his personal escort were encamped within the yard.

​I made my way slowly back, all immediate hope of obtaining food dismissed from my mind. Greatly as I felt the need, the risk was too desperate. I had far better seek some safe corner within the old shed, sleep there quietly throughout the day if possible, and then try my luck he next night. Finding the door ajar, I crept in, discovering the interior well crowded with various implements of farm machinery and other odds and ends, among the intricacies of which I slowly picked a path back into the farthest corner. Here a variety of empty barrels and boxes offered a fairly secure hiding-place, and I crawled into a niche next the wall, and thankfully snuggled down, watching the advancing daylight slowly turn the rough interior gray. Almost before I realized the possibility I was sound asleep.

Some unusual noise aroused me, yet when I first opened my eyes I possessed no conception as to how long I had been sleeping. It was still bright daylight, however, and I could perceive a bit of sunlight streaming in through a crack of the western side wall. For a moment or two I lay there puzzled, hearing nothing, and unable immediately to determine what it was which had awakened me so suddenly. Then I distinguished voices conversing apparently not more than ten feet distant. Quietly as both parties spoke, their voices so subdued, indeed, as to render the words indistinguishable even at that distance and in the silence, I was enabled to determine the speakers to be a young white woman and a negro. There was no mistaking the intonation of the latter, but the other voice was so low, vibrant with the soft idiom of the South, that ​I lifted myself cautiously, peering out from behind the concealing boxes, in order that I might thus assure myself she was really white. The negro stood with his back toward me, a short, stockily built fellow, but bent somewhat by years and hard toil in the fields, his wool showing a dingy gray beneath the brim of his hat. By every outward token he was an old-time slave, to whom freedom would possess no vital meaning.

Just beyond his broad, bent shoulders appeared the features of a young girl, a most piquant face, marked now by trouble and perplexity, yet clearly reflecting a nature in which all the joy of life naturally predominated. I caught merely a glimpse, for I dared not brave disclosure, yet so deeply did that single glance impress me that, had I never been again privileged to see her, I could not have entirely effaced the memory. Scarcely more than eighteen years of age, rather slight of figure, still retaining the form of girlhood, less than medium height, standing firmly erect, every movement displaying unconscious grace and vigor, her face bright with intelligence, animated by every passing emotion, her cheeks flushed with health, her hair of darkest brown, fluffed carelessly back from off the low, broad forehead, her eyes the deepest unfathomable gray-blue, oddly shadowed by long lashes densely black, her lips full, red, and arched, speaking softly the pleasant idiom of the Southland. For a single moment she appeared to me a vision, fulfilling my dreams of young womanhood; then I awoke to the reality—that in fair rounded flesh and pure red blood, she stood there, an ​ideal surely yet no less a living, breathing fact. My ears finally caught the words of the slave:

"But shorely, Miss Jean, I reckon I don't git dis jist straight, somehow. Why should n't ye do it, honey, when yo' pa an Massa George both want ye to? Dat's what I don't understan' nohow. Don't ye want ter marry Massa Calvert?"

The delicately arched mouth drew down severely, the biue-gray eyes drooping behind lowered lashes.

"I only wish I knew, Joe; I sure wish I knew," her soft voice filled with doubt. "I reckon I always expected to have to do this some day, but that never seemed so bad when it was a long way off. But now they insist it must be to-night, and—and it sure scares me."

"But don't ye love him, honey?"

The girl's eyes opened wide, gazing straight into the black, troubled face fronting her.

"I just don't know, Joe, that's a fact; but—but I'm afraid not. He is just the same to me now as he was when we were children and played together. Sometimes I don't mind being with him, and then there are other times when I am actually afraid to have him near me. I don't think I ever really care whether he is here or not, and—and I do get awfully tired of him when he talks to me; he—he treats me like a little girl, and acts so superior. It almost makes me hate him." She put her hands up to her head, rumpling up the brown hair, a little pucker showing across her forehead. "He has been away most of the last two years, and—and, well, I haven't missed ​him much! I know I have been lots happier here left alone."

"Ye shore have been happy 'nough," broke in the negro, soberly. "But ye shorely can't live yere alone no more for a while, Miss Jean. 'T ain't no laughing matter, far as I can see. De sojers was yere most ebery day, an' blame me if I can see which side was de worst, de Yanks or de Confeds. Dey steal, an' dey git drunk, an' dey fight, an' it wan't no fit place no longer fer any young gal to be all alone by herse'f, wid no one but an ol' nigger to look after her. It could be did, Missus, when dis country was peaceable like, but now de Lord only knows what's goin' to happen next. Dis yere house would have been burnt to de groun' long afore dis if General Johnston had n't been a-living yere, an' now he's gone. Ye know all dat, Miss Jean, an' it shore looks best to me what yo' pa an' Massa George wants ye fer to do."

"Do you like Calvert Dunn, Joe?"

"Well, maybe I don't exactly like him. Miss Jean," scratching the gray wool under the edge of his hat, and evidently puzzled how to answer diplomatically. "Ye see, he never done treated dis nigger ver' nice, dat's a fact, fer shore. But I reckon it am just his way, an' he don't really mean nothin' by it, nohow. Anyhow he shore t'inks an almighty lot o' ye, Miss Jean, an' ye'd shore be perfectly safe where dey all live at Fairview, while yo' pa and Massa George was away a-fightin' agin de Yanks."

"The armies may come to Fairview yet, and there is no one there but old Judge Dunn and Lucille."

​"An' ye don't believe nuffin' of de kind, honey. Dere's half de field han's left dere; some of dem niggers don't know der is any war. Dem armies never will git over de mountains nohow, an' if dey does, de ol' judge got a pow'ful lot o' fight left in him yit. I'd like to see de Yankee sojer what sets fut to his house, I shore would. It was de best place for ye to go to, child, anywhere in dese parts."

The girl sank down on a box, burying her face in her hands, and the negro stood helplessly looking at her, shifting uneasily from one foot to the other. Finally he blurted out,

"Ye shore ye don't want to marry Massa Calvert, Miss Jean?"

"Oh, really I don't know, Joe, I don't know," the soft voice trembling, the hands clasped. "I feel so different about it at some times than I do at others. I try to make myself realize that it is a duty, and that I am ungrateful not to yield to the wish of my people. Then occasionally he is so nice to me that I feel ashamed not to treat him better. But now, now when it comes to a final decision, and I know my whole future depends upon what I do, I experience a positive aversion for Calvert Dunn. I cannot express it rightly, but I possess no real confidence in the man; he does n't seem true to me, or manly. Besides, I feel as if I was being sold; as if my choice had nothing whatever to do with the matter. Choice!" She sprang to her feet with girlish impulsiveness, one hand pressing her temple. "I have been given no choice; they treat me like a child; they simply tell me I do not know my own ​mind; that they are the better judges as to my future happiness. But I am the one who will have to live with him, Joe, and put up with his tantrums; and he has tantrums; I already know him well enough for that. And I have n't a soul to turn to, only you; I am all alone. They won't even talk to me, except to give their orders."

"Ye pore little gal," and the old negro's hand was unconsciously stroking her ruffled hair. "I shore wish I could help you, Miss Jean, I shore does, honey, but yo' pa an' Massa George am pow'ful hard men to deal wid when dey once git deir minds sot, an' dey am bofe sot on dis all right. Dey would jist about skin dis nigger alive if he kicked up any muss. I certainly don't tink dat Massa Calvert was onywhere near good 'nough for ye, Miss Jean, an' no more does Diana. We done talked dat over more nor once, but I don't pertend to set up my judgment agin yo' pa an' Massa George, honey. I reckon as how dey knows what am bes', an' dese am pow'ful dangerous times for a gal to live yere all alone. Was Massa Calvert comin' over yere to-night?"

"Yes; there is some early movement contemplated, and that has compelled them to force this matter. He has secured leave for thirty-six hours—just long enough to be married and carry me across the mountains to Fairview."

"An' what 'bout Diana an' me. Miss Jean? It's shore goin' to be mighty lonely yere widout ye, honey."

She clasped the gnarled black hand between her soft palms.

"I know that, Joe, and there is very little for you to look after since that Yankee cavalry company ran off all ​our stock; but I reckon you'll have to stay just the same, and keep the house until some of us get back again."

"Den ye're really a-goin', Miss Jean?"

"Yes, Joe, I’m going; there is no choice left me. They insist it is for the best, and have made all arrangements. Why, General Johnston's chaplain is waiting there in the house now, and Calvert is expected as soon as it is dark. I am almost ready to run away, if I only knew somewhere I could run to. I have n't any defence, even, for I do not know a thing against Calvert Dunn; so I've got to marry him," her voice choked, her handclasp tightening. "And—and, Joe, I know I'll be miserable, for I believe he is a cowardly brute."

"Ye does, honey?" in unmitigated astonishment at this sudden outburst.

"Yes, I do, although I hardly know why. I have not even dared to whisper it to myself before. It has been little mean, contemptible things no true man would ever be guilty of. Look how he lashed you across the face with his riding-whip; look how he shot that poor dog because it failed to retrieve to his liking; look how he sneered at me for binding up the poor thing's wounds. Such things show what he is, rather than his soft words and outward veneer of courtesy. Besides, what real man would ever insist on a girl’s marrying him when he knows she would almost give her life to escape?"

"Does Massa Calvert know dat?"

"He does, if he understands the English language. I told him plainly enough, and he only laughed. He said ​I was a child, and didn't know my own mind; then he endeavored to frighten me. Oh, Joe, Joe, if I only had some one I could go to for advice! But no one will even listen to me seriously. There does n't seem anything left me but to marry this man. Father and George both think so highly of him, they will not hear a word spoken against him. I simply had to talk with some one, Joe, and let out my heart; that's why I came out here to you. Oh, I know you can't help me, but you're sorry for me, ain't you, old Joe? It helps just to know some one understands, and is sorry. I tell you, all the slaves in the South are not black, and I reckon it's just as hard to be born free, and then sold, as any other way. I might have learned to like him if he had only come to me as a man should, striving to win me for himself, and treating me as if I possessed a mind and heart of my own; but no, he ignored me entirely, and appealed to papa and George, telling them of the danger I was in here,and of how valuable the two estates would be if joined together. That's the way they have forced me along to the sacrifice—I'm sold for the price of the land."

"Ye pore little girl."

"Say poor little fool, rather," and she sprang to her feet, her cheeks burning with swift indignation. "I should have fought it, fought it; but all that is too late now. I am going, Joe; there is no use talking any longer, and so I am going to smile and look happy, and no one but you will ever know that I am not. You dear old black thing, you've been more like a father to me than any one else ever has. And I am going to have you and ​Aunt Diana with me at Fairview just as soon as I can. It will be a comfort just to have you there to look at when my heart seems like breaking. And he'll break it, Joe; I know he will, for he cares for no one but himself."

She was gone, vanishing almost as a shadow might, leaving the speechless black staring after her, his outstretched hands trembling as from palsy. Slowly his head drooped forward, and for some moments he remained thus, the picture of utter despair.

"Pore little lamb! pore little lamb!" he kept saying over and over. "An' she am right 'bout it too; dat Massa Calvert am not de kind fer Miss Jean."

Then he passed out also, and I was left alone within the shed.