ROMA AT WORK
After the abduction of Owlet and the departure of Mr. Merritt the life
of the lady of Goblin Hall was very lonely.
Only one constant visitor cheered her solitude. That was her aged
pastor, Dr. Shaw.
When Roma was inclined to grieve for her lost pet, and cherish gloomy
forebodings for the child’s future, Dr. Shaw would always reassure her.
One morning, when he was making a call, she said to him:
“It fills me with despair to think of my little Owlet in the power of
that man—that man who deserted his young wife and child when the child
was but three months old—that man who has no conscience and no
affection, who uses the child only as a scourge to drive me into a
position which I could not accept, even for that dear child’s sake. I
say it fills me with despair, Dr. Shaw.”
“My dear Roma, as you cannot contest his claim to his own child, as you
cannot accept the terms upon which he offers to restore her—as, in fact,
you can do nothing in this case, you must leave all in the hands of
Divine Providence. Hanson is an irreligious, unprincipled man; yet, as
he has more money than he knows what to do with, he will take good care
of his own little daughter. You may assure yourself of that.”
In this manner the good minister would seek to raise her drooping
spirits.
One glorious forenoon, early in May, as Roma was seated in her Quaker
rocking-chair, on her front piazza, engaged in her “contemplative
knitting work,” with the little colored child, Ducky Darling, seated at
her feet, nursing Owlet’s bull pup, George Thomas, she heard the sound
of wheels.
Looking up, she saw a gig rolling along the acacia drive toward the
house. As it drew nearer she recognized the venerable figure of the aged
minister seated within it, with another, of a young, grave,
clerical-looking man, beside him.
Puck, who was hoeing a flower bed in front of the house, dropped the hoe
and ran forward to take the horse’s head, just as the minister drew up
the gig before the door.
Roma also arose, and came down the steps to receive the visitors, while
Ducky Darling, with George Thomas in her arms, waddled away, in fear of
the stranger.
Dr. Shaw alighted, followed by his companion, and threw the reins to the
negro.
“Mus’ I take de hoss an’ gig ayound to de stable, sah?” inquired Puck,
touching his hat to the clergyman.
“Yes; of course,” quickly struck in Roma, speaking for her old pastor
before he could open his lips.
And the negro mounted the gig and drove off.
“Good-morning, my dear Roma,” said Dr. Shaw, offering his hand.
“How do you do? I am very glad to see you,” said the young lady,
cordially taking the proffered hand in both of hers.
“Allow me to introduce to you my esteemed young friend, the Rev. Paul
Stone. Mr. Stone, Miss Fronde.”
The young clergyman bowed.
“I am very happy to know you, Mr. Stone,” said Roma, cordially offering
her hand, which he took and bowed over, saying:
“I am honored.”
The hall door stood wide open on this lovely May morning. Roma turned
with a smile, and with a wave of her hand mutely invited them to precede
her into the house.
“Oh, no, thank you. Let us sit out here, if you have no objection;
which, as we found you sitting here when we drove up, I presume you have
not,” said the old minister, with a deprecating smile.
“Of course not. It is my favorite seat in this season, always excepting
the summer house in the garden,” said Roma, with an answering smile.
Paul Stone drew chairs forward for Dr. Shaw and himself, and they seated
themselves.
Roma resumed her own seat and her knitting work, for she knew that
nothing made her friends feel more at ease than to see that they did not
interrupt the mechanical work that could be carried on without
interrupting conversation or withdrawing the least attention from
themselves.
“Mr. Stone graduated last summer from the Theological College of
Alexandria, Virginia. He was ordained only this last Easter. Our parish
is his first charge,” said Dr. Shaw, with a smiling glance from his
hostess to his clerical brother.
Roma followed his glance, and noted the figure and appearance of the
young stranger. He was about twenty-five years of age, tall,
broad-shouldered, finely formed, with regular features, dark complexion,
black eyes, black hair, and a cleanly shaven face. But his greatest
charm was in the expression of his countenance—grave, sweet,
intellectual, spiritual, suggesting pictures of the young St. John, the
beloved disciple.
“I am very happy that you have come to our parish. I thank you very much
for coming,” said Roma softly.
“My gratitude is due to you, lady, for giving me the opportunity to
work,” he earnestly replied.
“My young brother is going to be of the greatest use to you in the
organization of your Free School for Colored People,” said Dr. Shaw,
“and other good works.”
“I am very sure that he will,” Miss Fronde replied, not formally and
conventionally, but most cordially and emphatically.
Paul Stone flushed and bent his head, saying modestly:
“I shall spare no pains to do my very best.”
Dr. Shaw then went into the subject of the free school to be established
on the Goeberlin estate for the education of the colored people of that
neighborhood.
“It is the first thing to be taken in hand,” he said, “and one thing at
a time is my maxim.”
The three held counsel together on this subject, and settled a part of
the plan.
There was no building on the plantation that was suitable, or that could
be spared, so it was decided to erect one.
“And there is no need to engage a contractor for the simple building of
a country schoolhouse. We will employ local stone masons and carpenters,
and have a personal supervision over them,” said Dr. Shaw, and he took
his tablets and pencil from his pocket and drew a design, which he
submitted to Roma and Paul Stone. Both approved, yet suggested some
little changes, which Dr. Shaw accepted as improvements on his plan.
Then the diagram was laid aside for future consideration and their
attention was turned to the subject of teachers.
Both Dr. Shaw and Mr. Stone were in favor of engaging male teachers, for
they argued, and with good reason, that, if besides children and young
girls, there were to be young men in the school, they would require men
to govern them.
But Roma was opposed to the plan, and was in favor of women, and here
she was as firm as adamant. She would try women and moral suasion first,
before resorting to men and corporal punishment—for that was what men’s
rule in such schools generally meant, she thought. Moral suasion was so
much holier an influence than bodily fear.
“My dear,” said the old parson, with an odd smile, “‘the days of the
years of my pilgrimage on earth’ are seventy-seven years and five
months, and during this long experience I have learned that all women
are not lambs, nor all men lions. I have known one or two mistresses of
plantations so cruel and tyrannical that the lives of their slaves were
hells upon earth; and, on the other hand, I have known one or two
masters who ruled entirely through conscience and affection; and one or
two other people of each sex who were utterly incapable of ruling in any
manner.”
“These were exceptions, and the exception proves the rule, it is said. I
know that women have more patience with children than men have, and
these young colored men and girls, whose docility you doubt, are, in
their ignorance, no more than children. Oh, Dr. Shaw, don’t you know
that all the little children of our Lord are not under three feet tall?
Some of them are over six. But there is another reason why I prefer to
engage women for the school. There are so few fields of labor free to
women, while there is such a vast area open to men.”
No doubt the old minister had an overwhelming argument against this last
“reason” in the fact that, as a rule, women were not required to work in
any field of labor, but only in the lovely garden of home, cultivating
the flowers of the nursery and the fruits of the dining-room, with a
prospect of a harvest of domestic happiness, while the men worked for
them in these outlying fields; but before he could utter his thought
they were interrupted.
Pontius Pilate ambled up to the house on his fat white cob, dismounted,
and brought the mail bag to his mistress, pulled his front hair by way
of obeisance, and then remounted his horse and rode away to the stable.
Roma unlocked and emptied the bag.
There were several papers and magazines, but only one letter. She
offered the papers to her visitor, who gladly received and unfolded
them. Then she took her letter. She recognized it at once—not by the
handwriting—there was no handwriting—it was written by a typewriter,
perhaps so that it might never be brought in evidence against its
author, though Roma could not conjecture why that author thought it
necessary to take such a precaution.
Her first impulse was to tear it up and throw it away unread, but
anxiety to hear from her loved and lost little Owlet prevailed over her
disgust, and she opened and read it.
It was a long, eloquent, impassioned appeal, which we will not inflict
upon our readers. It ended in this wild sentence:
“The child is dying—breaking her heart for you! I am losing my
reason—going mad for you! Oh, Roma Fronde! what man ever worked, dared
and suffered for woman’s love as I have done for yours? Send me a line;
say that I may come to you and bring the child, and save us both from
death, and me from hell!”
Roma read the letter and passed it over to Dr. Shaw.
He took it, read it, and said:
“The child is with her father; her condition, no doubt, exaggerated.”
“And in any case, I cannot yield. Self-respect, truth, womanhood, must
not be sacrificed, even for a beloved child. I must leave her to our
Heavenly Father,” said Roma, as she tore the letter to pieces and threw
the fragments away.
Paul Stone, reading his newspaper, had paid no attention to the
low-toned conversation between his two companions.
Presently Dr. Shaw said:
“Now, my dear, if you will be so good as to order my gig, I think we
will go.”
“No, you won’t go! I sent the gig to the stable, not to have it brought
out until night. You and Mr. Stone must really stay and spend the whole
day, unless there is some insuperable objection to your doing so,” said
Roma.
“There is no such thing, my dear, but we really did not come with any
such intention, for we did not know what your engagements might be.”
“I have no engagements for the day—for any day, I might add.”
“Then we shall be happy to stay. What do you say, young brother? Shall
we spend the day with Miss Fronde, and go home by the light of the
moon?—there is a moon to-night.”
“With all my heart,” said the young clergyman. Then, turning to their
hostess, he bowed, smiled, and added: “I thank you, Miss Fronde.”
“You favor me, sir,” said Roma.
So they stayed and spent the day, and went home late in the evening.
From this day Roma Fronde’s busy life began.
The site of the schoolhouse was chosen in a grove on the borders of the
estate nearest the village of Goeberlin, and a number of workmen were
employed to get the stone from the quarries and to lay the basement.
Roma, with her two advisers, Dr. Shaw and Mr. Stone, soon perfected the
plan for the superstructure, and stone masons and carpenters were set to
work. Local mechanics were also employed to make the desks and benches,
pails, brooms, and so forth.
It was thought that the building might be completely finished and
furnished by the first of August, but though the building could then be
quite ready for occupancy, Roma knew the school could not be opened in
the summer vacation time, or until, at earliest, the first of September.
She advertised for competent teachers, who would be ready to enter upon
their duties at that date, and from a host of applicants she selected
one young and one middle-aged woman, both unmarried.
When these plans were all settled Roma decided to leave their execution
in the hands of her two clerical friends and to go to Washington to
begin her preparations for turning the Guyon Manor House, on the Isle of
Storms, into a free sanitorium for destitute invalids and children.
There was not so much to do in that direction, but it needed to be done
at once.
There was another reason, also, why Roma wished to get away from Goblin
Hall as soon as possible.
Paul Stone, in his character of adviser and assistant in the work of
founding the free colored school, had been an almost daily visitor at
the hall. He had been attracted and fascinated by the gracious and
majestic beauty of the person and character of Roma Fronde. He loved,
adored and worshiped her. He was completely infatuated with her, and
though he never breathed the passion that was consuming him, he
constantly betrayed himself.
Roma’s kind heart was touched by his dumb devotion, but now she found it
difficult to be as gentle and friendly in her manner to him as she
wished to be, without encouraging hope, and perhaps precipitating a
proposal from him, which she would be obliged to meet with a rejection—a
rejection painful to herself and mortifying to him. She wished to avoid
giving him this humiliation. The only way out of the difficulty that
occurred to her mind was to leave the neighborhood as soon as possible.
So one morning, when Dr. Shaw called to see her, she said to him:
“I think I shall go to Washington early next week?”
“Indeed! Why so soon? Is this a sudden resolution, my dear?” inquired
the surprised rector.
“Well, no. The work here is all well laid out, and the schoolhouse will
be finished and furnished even before it is time to open the school. I
can very well leave the neighborhood now, and the supervision of affairs
here to you and Mr. Stone. I have very much to do in Washington and at
the Isle of Storms before the first of August, when you and I must sail
on our voyage to Europe.”
“Yes, of course.”
“I have to make arrangements to convert the old manor house on the Isle
into a free sanitorium for the sick poor. Certainly there is not much to
be done. The house is large, and in good repair. I have only to send
down a great many cots, with bedclothes in proportion, and provisions by
the wholesale. This will not take long to do, for it is quite as easy to
buy a hundred cots or twenty barrels of flour as to buy one.”
“Yes, my dear, when we have the money, as you have.”
“I meant to say,” said Roma, with a slight flush, “that it takes no more
time to purchase a large quantity than a small one.”
“I know what you meant, my dear.”
“So there is really not much to be done, though what there is should be
done immediately. If the place is to be of any use this season it should
be ready for occupancy by the first of June.”
“Certainly. I see that.”
“Therefore, I must go to Washington as soon as possible. As you and Mr.
Stone have been my invaluable counselors and co-laborers in the work
here, so will Lawyer Merritt and Dr. Washburn be my advisers and
assistants in my work there. So that in the course of four or five weeks
I hope to get the free sanitorium in good working order, with a resident
physician, a competent matron, and a staff of skilful nurses and
servants. Later you may safely leave the parish and the school in the
able hands of Mr. Stone, and join me in Washington in time for our
voyage. How do you feel about that voyage, dear Dr. Shaw?” Roma
inquired, with interest.
“Like a schoolboy going on a holiday, my dear,” the old minister
exclaimed. “There are so many elements of pure pleasure in it. We leave
no family ties behind to tear at our heartstrings, and we go to no
strangers, but to dear, old, lifelong friends. It will be a glorious
holiday, please the Lord!”
He had not come to stay this day, for he had other and pressing
engagements in his parish. So he soon arose and bade Miss Fronde
good-by.
Dr. Shaw’s gig had scarcely disappeared when a peddler’s cart, driving
leisurely up the avenue, came in sight. The peddler on the seat was no
other than Hanson’s disguised detective.
Puck, as was his custom, ran from his work on the lawn to take the
horse’s head as the peddler stepped down from his seat.
“I wish to see the lady of the house,” said the stranger.
“Dat’s her, den; dat’s our youn’ mist’ess a-sittin’ on dat dere
yockin-cha’ on de po’ch,” said Puck, as he tied the horse to a tree.
The man went up the steps, took off his hat, and said:
“Excuse me, ma’am; I have a fine assortment of fancy and useful goods in
my cart. May I have the pleasure of showing them to you?”
Roma was invariably kind to “all sorts and conditions” of fellow
creatures. In every man, woman and child who approached her she
recognized a neighbor. No peddler, book agent, or even “lightning-rod
man,” was ever turned away empty handed. Each was trying to make an
honest living, and must be encouraged, she said to herself and her
friends. So to this peddler she said:
“Certainly. Perhaps I or my people would like to buy something.” And she
called Puck, and told him to bring Nace, Hera and the children, and to
find Pontius Pilate and Ceres.
The young man ran off and summoned the whole household, who soon crowded
on the lawn in front of the piazza.
Meanwhile, the peddler brought many paper boxes from his cart and laid
them on the floor. One, however, he opened, and laid on a chair before
Miss Fronde. This was filled with fine laces, fichus and pocket
handkerchiefs, in smaller, separate boxes.
“Yes,” said Miss Fronde, “these are certainly very pretty. I will take
some of them. Now show my people something that will please them—in
bright colors.”
The peddler bowed, and opened the larger boxes on the floor, displaying
gorgeous splendors in shawls, skirts, neckties, head handkerchiefs,
aprons, gown patterns and vest patterns, in red, yellow, blue, orange,
green, purple, or all blended, a spectacle that almost took away the
breath as well as dazzled the eyes of the delighted darkies.
“Now choose what you will as parting presents, for I shall be going away
in a day or two,” said Miss Fronde.
And the darkies thanked her in a tumultuous chorus of delight, and took
her at her word—largely at her word—for they had boundless faith in
their mistress’ fabulous wealth.
Hera chose prints and ginghams of the most brilliant colors to make
gowns and frocks for herself and children, besides shawls and
handkerchiefs of rainbow hues. Pompous, Nace and Puck rivaled each other
in the fiery flames of red and yellow of the bandannas and scarfs,
neckties, gloves and vest patterns of their selection.
The children were decorated and delighted with imitation coral and gilt
beads, and dressed dolls and gayly painted drums.
Only Ceres groaned disapproval of the whole proceeding. “It was all
wanity an’ wexation ob de speerits,” she said. “It was de scalirt ’oman
at Babylon. It was de beas’ wiv seven horns. An’ dey was all gwine doun
inter de bottomless pit ob de outer darkness.”
And when urged to buy something she picked out the darkest grays and
browns and rustiest blacks she could find in shawls and skirts and gown
patterns for her own lugubrious wearing.
Roma had a large bill to foot, but she paid it with delight, seeing how
happy she had made her people, and believing how much she had helped the
“poor” peddler.
The man’s load was considerably lightened when he returned his
half-emptied boxes to his cart, and, after thanking the lady for her
custom, mounted his seat and drove off.
He had been peddling around the neighborhood for about ten days, and had
been making cautious inquiries about Goblin Hall and its mistress, or
rather skilfully leading gossips to talk, and had learned as much as her
neighbors knew of her life, and he had reported the same to his
employer. But this was the first occasion on which he had visited Goblin
Hall and enjoyed the opportunity of a personal interview with Miss
Fronde. He had seen her under the most favorable circumstances, when her
whole personality was irradiated with the delight of delighting.
“That lady,” he said to himself, “is not pining after that child, or
after anything else in this world. She is the very happiest lady, as
well as the handsomest one, I ever saw in the whole course of my life.
And so generous! Why, if I had been a real peddler, my fortune would
have been made!”
And these very words the detective also wrote to his employer, tilling
the heart of the latter with gall, despair and bitterness.
On the next day, Sunday, Roma went to church, where the young assistant
conducted the services and the old pastor preached the sermon.
After the benediction and the dispersion of the congregation Roma took
an affectionate leave of both her clerical friends.
“But as it will be nearly three months before you sail for Europe, you
will surely come down here once again to see your friends before you
go?” said Paul Stone.
“I think I shall,” said Roma gently.
“But will you not promise to do so?”
“I wish I might; but I shall have so much to do.”
The young minister sighed profoundly. He did not mean to betray his
sorrow and despair, but he could not help doing so.
“Don’t be surprised, my dear, if you find us both at the depot to see
you off to-morrow morning,” said Dr. Shaw.
“Oh, do not break your rest so early. The train leaves at seven,” said
Roma.
“Never mind. Only don’t be surprised,” repeated the old rector as he
handed her into her carriage.
Again she shook hands with both friends and then drove home.