"Is Mrs. Gentry at home?" "Yes, sir. Walk in. I will take your card." He was ushered into a parlor. In five minutes the lady appeared, a tall, erect person with prominent features, a sallow complexion, and dry puffs of iron-gray hair parted over her forehead. A Southern judge's daughter and a widow, Mrs. Gentry kept one of the best private schools in the city. On seeing the name of Carberry Ratcliff on the card, which Tarquin, the colored servant, had handed to her, she went with alacrity to her mirror, and, after a little pranking, descended to greet her distinguished visitor. "Perhaps you have heard of me before,” began Mr. Ratcliff. "Often, sir. Be seated," said the lady, charmed at the idea of having a visit from the lord of a thousand slaves. "I have in my barouche, madam, a little girl I wish to leave with you. She is my property, and I want her well taken care of. Can you receive her?" Mrs. Gentry looked significantly at the gentleman, and he, as if anticipating her interrogatory, replied: "The child came into my possession only within this hour. I bought her quite accidentally at auction. She has none of my blood in her veins, I assure you." "Can I see her?" "Yes"; and, walking to the window, Ratcliff motioned to one of his negroes to bring the child in. This was done; and the infant was placed on the floor with her little bundle by her side, and nude as she was when exposed on the auction-block. "A quadroon, I should think," said Mrs. Gentry. "I really don't know what she is," replied Ratcliff. "I want. you, however, to take her into your family, and raise her as carefully as if you knew her to be my daughter. You shall be liberally paid for your trouble." "Is she to know that she is a slave?" "As to that I can instruct you hereafter. Meanwhile keep the fact a secret, and mention my name to no one in connection with her. You can occasionally send me a daguerrotype, that I may see if her looks fulfil her promise. I wish you to be particular about her music and French, also her dancing. Let her understand all about dress too. You can draw upon me as often as you choose for the amount we fix upon; and the probability is, I shall not wish to see her till she reaches her fifteenth or sixteenth year. I rely upon you to keep her strictly, and, as she grows older, to guard her against making acquaintances with any of the other sex. Will seven hundred dollars a year pay you for your trouble?" 66 Amply, sir," said the gratified lady. "I will do my best to carry out your wishes." "You need not write me oftener than once a year," said Ratcliff. "Not if she were dangerously ill ?” "No; not even then. You could take better care of her than I; and all my interest in her is in futuro." "I think I understand, sir,” said Mrs. Gentry; "and I will at once make a note of what you say." "Here is payment for the first half-year in advance,” said Ratcliff. "Thank you, sir," returned the lady, quite overwhelmed at the great planter's munificence. "Shall I write you a receipt?" "It is superfluous, madam." All this while the child, with a seriousness strangely at variance with her infantile appearance, sat on the floor, looking intently first at the woman, then at the man, and evidently striving to understand what they were saying. Ratcliff now took his leave; but Mrs. Gentry called him back before he had reached the door. "Excuse me, sir, there is something I wished to ask you? What was it? Oh! By what name shall we call the child?” "Upon my word," said Ratcliff, "I have forgotten the name the auctioneer gave her. No matter! Call her anything you please." "Well, then, Estelle is a pretty name. Shall I call her Estelle?" Ratcliff started, came close up to Mrs. Gentry, looked her steadily in the face, and asked, "What put that name into your head?" "I don't know. Probably I have seen it in some novel." "Well, don't call her Estelle. Call her Ellen Murray." "I will remember." And the interview closed. After the gentleman had gone, the child, with an anxious and grieved expression of face, tried to articulate an inquiry which Mrs. Gentry found it difficult to understand. At last she concluded it was an attempt to say, "Where's Hatty?" Mrs. Gentry rang the bell, and it was answered by a colored woman of large, stately figure, whose peculiar hue and straight black hair showed that she was descended from some tribe distinct from ordinary Africans. "Where's the chambermaid?" asked Mrs. Gentry. "O missis, dat Deely's neber on de spot when she's wanted. De Lord lub us, what hab we here?" "A new inmate of the family, Esha. I've taken her to bring up." "Some rich man's lub-child, I reckon, missis. But ain't she a little darlin'?" And Esha took her up from the floor, and kissed her. The child, feeling she had at last found a friend, threw its arms about the woman's neck, and broke into a low, plaintive sobbing, as if her little heart were overfull of long-suppressed grief. "Thar! thar!" said Esha, soothing her; "she must n't greeb nebber no more. Ole Esha will lub her dearly!" Mrs. Gentry opened the bundle, and was surprised to see several articles of clothing of a rich and fine texture, all neatly marked, though somewhat soiled. "There, Esha," she said, "take the poor little thing and her bundle up-stairs, and dress her. To-morrow I'll get her some new clothes." Esha obeyed, and the child thenceforth clung to her as to a mother. To the servant's surprise, when she came to wash away the little one's tears, the skin parted with its tawny hue, and showed white and fair. On examining the child's hair, too, it was found to be dyed. What could be the object of this? It never occurred to Esha that the little waif might be a slave, and that a white slave was not so salable as a colored. Mrs. Gentry communicated the phenomenon at once to Mr. Ratcliff, but he never alluded to it in any subsequent letter or conversation. TH CHAPTER XVII. SHALL THERE BE A WEDDING? "Ah! spare your idol; think him human still; Young. HE question as to the inheritance of the Aylesford-Berwick property was not decided without a lawsuit. The case was put into the courts, and kept there many months. The heavy legal expenses to which Charlton was subjected, and his reluctance to meet them, protracted the contest by alienating his lawyers. Pompilard went straight to the point by promising his counsel a fee of a hundred thousand dollars in the event of success; and thus he enlisted and kept active the best professional aid. Still the prospect was doubtful. But even the law's delay must finally have an end. The hour of the final settlement of the great case by the ultimate court of appeal had come at last. The judges had entered and taken their seats. Charlton, pale and haggard, sat by the side of his lawyer, Detritch. Pompilard, still masking his age, entered airy as a maiden just stepping forth into Broadway in her new spring bonnet. He wore a paletot of light gray, a choker girt by a sky-blue silk ribbon, a white vest, checked pantaloons, and silk stockings under low-cut patent-leather shoes. Taking a seat at a little semicircular table near his lawyers, he exchanged repartees with them, and then tranquilly abided his fate. Charlton looked with anguish on the composure of his antagonist. Just as the case was expected to come on, one of the judges was found to have left a certain document at home. They all retired, and a messenger was sent for the important paper. Hence a delay of an hour. Charlton could not conceal his agitation. Pompilard took up the morning journal, and read with sorrow of the death of an old friend. "Poor old Toussaint! I see he has left us," said Pompilard. "Yes," replied Girard, "All-Saint has gone. He was well named. He has never held up his head since he lost his wife.” "Toussaint was a gentleman, every inch of him," said Pompilard. "He believed in the elevation of the black man, not by that process of absorption or amalgamation which some of our noodles recommend, but by his showing in his life and character that a negro can be as worthy and capable of freedom as a white man. He was for keeping the blacks socially separate from the whites, though one before the law, and teaching them to be content with the color God had given them. A brave fellow was Toussaint. I remember that was before your day when the yellow fever prevailed here. Maiden Lane and the lower parts of the city were almost deserted. But Toussaint used to cross the barricades every day to tend on the sick and dying, and carry them food- and medicine." "Did you know him well?" asked Girard. "Intimately, these thirty years. In his demeanor exquisitely courteous and respectful, there was never the slightest tinge of servility. You could not have known him as I did without forgetting his color and feeling honored in the companionship of a man so thoroughly generous, pious, and sincere. He would sometimes make playful allusions to his color. He seemed much amused once by my little Netty, who, when she was about three years old, said to him, after looking him steadily in the face for some time, Toussaint, do you live in a black house?' The other day, knowing he was quite ill, my wife called on him, and while by his bedside asked him if she should close a window, the light of which shone full in his face. "O non, madam,' he replied, 'car alors je serai trop noir.'"* 6 Here Pompilard ceased, and looked up. There was a stir in the court-room. Their Honors had re-entered and taken seats. The messenger with the missing paper had returned. The presiding judge, after a long and tantalizing preamble, in the course of which Charlton was alternately elevated and depressed, at length summed up, in a few intelligible words, the final decision of thé court. Charlton fainted. Pompilard's lawyers bent down their heads, as if certain * "O no, madam, for then I shall be too black." A Life of Toussaint, by Mrs. George Lee, was published in Boston some years since. |