THE OPEN QUESTION
_A Tale of Two Temperaments_
_By_
ELIZABETH ROBINS
(_C. E. Raimond_)
AUTHOR OF "GEORGE MANDEVILLE'S HUSBAND"
[Illustration: Logo]
HARPER & BROTHERS PUBLISHERS
NEW YORK AND LONDON
1899
Copyright, 1898, by HARPER & BROTHERS.
_All rights reserved._
THE OPEN QUESTION
CHAPTER I
It is not always easy to trace the origin of an American family, even
when the immediate progenitor did not begin life as a boot-black or a
prospector, without so much as a "grub stake." The Ganos had been people
of some education and some means--clergymen, merchants going to and from
the West Indies, or home-keeping planters in the South--for the little
space of a hundred years before the Civil War. Further back than
that--darkness.
Whether the name was of Huguenot, Flemish, Italian, or other origin, the
Ganos themselves, like thousands of families of consequence in America,
never pretended to know. Only one of the race ever evinced the least
disposition to care.
In the family mind, to be born a Gano was of itself so shining an
achievement as almost to constitute an unfair advantage over the rest of
mankind. The name (which was rigidly accented on the final syllable) was
held to confer a distinction peculiar and sufficient, difficult as it
may be for the inhabitants of a larger world to realize on what the
illusion lived. The Ganos had never been enormously rich; they had never
done anything of national or even of municipal importance, unless
founding a religious paper and endowing a theological seminary to spread
a faith which they themselves speedily abandoned--unless these modest
achievements might be construed as taking some sort of interest in
public concerns. They held themselves aloof from politics, and
religiously minded their own affairs. The oddest thing, perhaps, about
their naïve veneration for the house of Gano was that so many of their
neighbors shared it. Generation after generation, it imposed itself upon
the community they lived in. To be able to say of a vexed question,
"Gano agrees with me," was to turn the scale at once in the speaker's
favor. A stranger would be told, "Smith married a Gano, you see," as
though that single phrase established Smith's claims on your
consideration.
The usual American fashion of that time of giving double or treble names
was not followed in the christening of the daughters of Gano, so that
after marriage each girl might retain her patronymic, writing it after
her Christian name and before her husband's. The eldest son of every
daughter was called Gano, and Gano was given to each succeeding child
for a middle name. This had been going on for some time, and yet neither
Maryland nor any more favored spot was populous with Ganos. They had not
been a prolific race, and but a single _mésalliance_ was set down to
their discredit. A Gano had once married a New England school-mistress
with a turn for preaching. This unpopular lady's offspring, John
Gano--the only son of an only son--died eleven years before the Civil
War, leaving a widow, two sons, and a daughter. These three survivors in
the direct line of male descent, Ethan, John, and Valeria, were
unmistakably delicate children. The neighbors had doubts if their mother
would rear them.
The widow, "one of the Calverts of Baltimore," held to be a very
retiring and religious person, soon discovered a force of character and
an energy not too common among women of her class in the slave-holding
South. She managed her husband's estate and the education of her
children with ability and judgment, albeit arbitrarily enough, save in
matters of religion.
Was it a breath wafted across the years of that old passion for
religious liberty that had carried her ancestors over perilous seas--an
echo of the Eve of St. Bartholomew, or of some Lollard wrong--that made
so strangely tolerant this autocratic woman, turned Baptist in her
strenuous youth, inclining now, through throes of spirit incommunicable,
to the Episcopacy her dead husband had abandoned?
The element of the grotesque in this battering in succession at the
different doors of heaven is more apparent to those never storm-tossed
souls that venture not from the haven, so content with being spiritually
becalmed that striving after truth and faring far in pursuit of it seem
childish and ignoble. Such people smile at Newman, and think themselves
magnanimous if they accept his "Apology." Mrs. Gano had gone
unflinchingly through those seasons of spiritual stress, common enough
among the thoughtful of that time, and so difficult for some of us
to-day even to imagine. In spite of her strong self-control and her
great practical common-sense, her passionately religious nature had
hurried her headlong through one doctrinal crisis after another. Her
youth and early maturity had been one wide spiritual battle-field. Not
that a moment of unbelief in revealed religion ever troubled her, but
questions of the true interpretation, questions of dogma and of form,
that might as well have been questions of life and death. And all the
while, up and down the highway of her youth, raged the ancient dragons,
renamed Election and Reprobation.
Whether as a result of enlightenment, brought her by her own honest
seeking, or a tradition in the blood, compelling her to give as well as
to demand perfect liberty of conscience in the affairs of faith, this
imperious mother let her tyrannously tended young brood wander whither
they would along the by-ways of religious experience. To look back a
moment upon the infantine struggles of these young crusaders in the Holy
War is to realize afresh how far the race has travelled since that day.
These mere children, with their fear of hell and of damnation, their
"changes of heart," conversions, and pathetic joy at being "saved," had
for their vividest remembrance of their father the abiding vision of his
kneeling down with them in the great dim parlor at Ashlands, praying,
with hands uplifted and with tears, that these "little ones" might not
be lost forever.
No one ever knew how much hold these religions ecstasies had taken upon
Ethan. But John was violently wrought upon; and most impressed of all
was the small but preternaturally precocious Valeria. At a time when she
should have been romping in the open air or reading fairy-tales in a
corner she was living through days of agonized doubt on the subject of
her soul's salvation, and crying softly in the night to think of that
outer darkness into which unbelievers were certain to be cast--a
darkness lit only by lurid flames from "the lake that burneth forever
and ever."
Little John had gone through a varied and, on the whole, triumphant
spiritual experience by the time he was ten. At that ripe age he was
baptized by immersion on public confession of faith. His mother, having
now maturer views on the subject, was not among the group at the
river-side; but she made no effort to divert the boy's enthusiasm from a
form of belief that for her was losing its significance. She would sit
on the long white veranda in those first months of her widowhood
re-reading D'Aubigné and Bishop Spalding's _History of the Protestant
Reformation_, sandwiching Wesley with patristic writings, balancing
Arian against Socinian, and drawing conclusions of her own, while her
eldest boy was writing hymns to Apollo instead of construing his Cæsar,
and John, the centre of an admiring crowd down by the river, was being
dipped instead of being sprinkled, which it presently appeared was the
only true and orthodox way.
If some of the Ganos had of late been mightily earnest in their
religious experiences, they had long been "musical" in a pottering kind
of way. They would have assured you more than half seriously that music
was a "pottering" pursuit--a pastime for boating-parties on the Potomac
or rainy evenings at home, not for a moment to be regarded as a
profession, except for long-haired foreigners. Mrs. John, or, as she now
called herself, "Mrs. Sarah C. Gano," accepted this point of view
cheerfully enough, as she had not a note of music in her. Her children's
passion for singing and playing came early under the head of "noise,"
and under the ban of her displeasure.
Therefore, when it was discovered that the eldest boy had done badly in
his third year at Dr. Baylis's Academy for Young Gentlemen, and that Dr.
Baylis accounted for his pet pupil's falling off by saying the boy
played the piano, and even wrote music, when he should have been doing
mathematics, great was the mother's disappointment in her son, and
renewed objection to the Art Divine. Ethan came home for his holidays in
disgrace. It was significant of the mastery Mrs. Gano had obtained over
her not unspirited children that, without being formally forbidden to
play at home, Ethan never dared touch the piano the whole vacation
through. It was this privation, he used to say later on, that drove him
into the Church. He had got beyond the banjo and singing with the blacks
down in the negro quarter. He longed for the coming of that day in the
week when he might hear the sound of the organ, and even such a choir as
they had at St. Peter's Episcopal Church in Catawbaville, where, the
Baptist phase having been painfully passed, the entire family now went
to church twice every Sunday, rain or shine. Ethan made friends with the
rector, and whether out of gratitude for the Rev. Mr. Searle's
permission to practise in the church, or from the reflection that Holy
Orders presented a means of combining a livelihood with an organ, the
upshot was that Ethan presently became a student of Divinity.
At the beginning of his last year at the Theological School at
Baltimore, he fell in love with a pretty Boston girl who had come South
on a visit to a school friend. For the first time in his life flatly
disobeying his mother's wishes, he married the little lady forthwith.
Under conditions of great privation, they took up life in Baltimore
till Ethan should be ordained. Ten months afterwards a son opened his
eyes upon the world, and the girl-wife closed hers forever.
The passive horror that falls on passionate young life laid desolate by
death, the hush that seems to lie shroud-like on the world, was rent and
blown to the four winds of heaven by the clarion note of war. In his
bewilderment and helplessness after his wife's death, Ethan had allowed
his mother-in-law, Mrs. Aaron Tallmadge, to take the baby home with her
for a visit to Boston. A few weeks before his appointed ordination,
young Gano joined the Southern army. About the time he was to have taken
the vows that should make him a man of peace and a priest, Ethan Gano
was rushing blindly with Kirby Smith's brigade across the fields from
Manassas Station, among the first to break and rout the Union ranks and
give his life for a Southern victory in the battle of Bull Run.
It was said in Catawbaville that none of the disasters other Southerners
were fearing could add much to Mrs. Gano's grief after the loss of her
eldest son. She had been a striking, although fragile-looking, woman,
tall, arrow-straight, and auburn-haired, just entering on middle life,
when she went to her own room and closed the door behind her that day
the despatch came after Bull Run. A few weeks later, when she came forth
again, it seemed to her awe-struck household that it was an old woman
who appeared among them, with stern, blanched face, bowed shoulders, and
abundant hair whitening at the temples. But what her altered looks
called forth of sympathy, her reticent manner either held at bay or
ruthlessly rebuffed. She went nowhere, received no one. Months
afterwards a neighbor, seeing her by chance, offered some conventional
but kindly meant condolence. The look of cold surprise that any one
should venture to come near her grief sealed up the fountain of
neighborly sympathy. The rumor going forth that Mrs. Gano was more
unapproachable than ever since Ethan's death, her friends left her to
the solitude she was rightly understood to demand. But vain for her to
shut and double-lock the great white gates of Ashlands--the tide of war
swept on and in, and overwhelmed the house.
It is no part of the purpose of this account to tell in detail the old
story of Southern losses, scenes of impotent indignation at the
quartering of Northern soldiers in Confederate houses, wanton violence
to property, and greater violence still to the old-fashioned Southern
sense of personal dignity. These were the commonplaces of the war.
Almost equally common were the lamentations in the negro quarters when
the word went forth that the slaves were free, that they were to turn
their backs on the patriarchal life and get them out into the world to
taste the bitter and the sweet of independence.
When Mrs. Gano found that her belated private proclamation through her
overseer, months after that of the President, had the inadequate effect
of relieving her of but one negro, she assembled her household servants
and plantation folk round the long veranda, and told them they were
free. Uncle Charlie, as the accepted mouth-piece of the Gano niggers,
stepped forward and pulled off his dilapidated hat.
"We done yeah somethin' 'bout dis 'mancyperation befo', but we don' gib
no 'count to it, Mis' G'no."
"But I tell you it's true, and you must go. I'll have a fair division
made of what's left in the quarter--of clothes and tools and food,
and--"
"Law, ma'am, don' go fur t' do dat," said Cæsar, the gardener, grinning
cheerfully, "we ain't gwine t' leab yo'."
"Yes, it is best you should," said the mistress.
"Bress yo' soul, ma'am"--old Charlie pulled his woolly white forelock
and bowed low--"de G'nos hab stood by us a po'ful long time, an' now we
gwine to stan' by de G'nos in dis yer trouble. We ain't gwine t' leab
yo' t' de mussy o' dem Yankees."
"No, no, nebber w'ile de blessed Lawd sabes po' sinners," Mississippi
Maria lifted up her voice and eyes and hands.
"The Yankees have given you your freedom," said Mrs. Gano, with wasted
scorn.
"I don' gib' no 'count t' what de po' white trash says dey'll do fur
me," said Uncle Charlie, loftily; "I b'longs t' de G'nos."
"Yah, yah, we b'longs t' de G'nos," the murmur went through the crowd.
"Of course you do, by rights," said the mistress, with a flash of fire.
"But we can't keep our rights, it seems. So just make the best of this
liberty, now you've got it; make the best of it, as young Jerry did."
She waved her hand, dismissing them. Sensation in the crowd, and some
whispering. Jerry senior created a diversion by pulling himself together
and venturing up one of the long, low steps of the veranda. He held out
two coal-black hands with pallid palms.
"Don' git mad, Mis' G'no, 'count o' Jerry. Jerry been a po' sort o'
chile eber since de Lawd made him," urged his earthly father, with a
comfortable sense of having no responsibility in the matter. "Jerry been
jes' dyin' fo' 'bout a year fur t' see dat yaller gal, Liza, yo' sen' to
yo' sister down Kentucky way. Dat's wha' he's a-gwine. Yo' won't catch
no G'no nigger gwine near de Yankees."
"If he's been dying to go so long, why didn't he set off in January?"
"In Janoowerry? Yo' only sent us word yes'day mawnin'."
"Hadn't Jerry heard of Lincoln's precious Proclamation at the New-Year?"
"Oh ye-es, ma'am, he done yeah."
There was a moment's pause, and then the father pulled his shambling
figure up.
"Jerry ain't much 'count, but he ain't clean gone crazy. He know it all
bery well fo' de Yankee Pres'dent fo' to say he wus free. But Jerry know
he jes' better hold his hosses till he yeah what Mis' G'no got t' say
'bout dat. Jerry been waitin' roun' since Janoowerry t' yeah wot yo' got
t' say."
"Well, I've told you."
Uncle Charlie stepped forward, pulled old Jerry off the step without
ceremony, and said, severely: "Yo' got a heap o' gab, but yo' better
tote yo'self down to de gyarden an' do yo' chores." Then, looking up at
the mistress: "An' 'tain't no use, ma'am, fo' yo' t' stan' up dah on de
po'ch an' tell us we all 'mancyperated, and yo' don' care nuthin' no mo'
'bout us. Dar's a heap o' cotton got t' be picked, and we got t' pick
it." He turned away to his companions: "Come 'long, yo' lazy black
niggers, jes' stir yo' stumps!"
"No, Charlie, no; the cotton must rot in the fields." Blank astonishment
swept over the dusky crowd.
"Golly!" said one or two under their breath, while the others stood
speechless, with mouths open and round eyes fixed and staring.
"Ef yo' thinkin' 'bout us bein' 'mancyperated an' 'spectin' to be
_paid_," began Jerry, while a ripple of contempt at the notion passed
over the bewildered throng, "well, we _ain't_ 'spectin'."
"You are expecting to be fed," said Mrs. Gano, more gently than they
were accustomed to hear their mistress speak, "and that's more than I
can do for so many any longer."
The newly emancipated lifted up their voices and wept.
"For Law's sake, don' sen' us away, Mis' G'no!"
"I reckon yo' can't git 'long widout me and Tom nohow."
"We don' want nuthin' to eat," said Mississippi Maria, sobbing, while
she cuffed the only completely happy person present--a youth of four or
five, who clung to her skirt with one hand, while with the other he
clutched a section of green melon. "Put dat down, yo' greedy gump!"--his
grandmother clouted him over the head till he, too, joined in the
general lamentation--"stuffin' yo'self wid watermillion fo' ladies."
"We gwine to wuk hard _dis_ time, Mis' G'no," said another voice from
out the general clamor, "and we don't need no bacon. Corn-pone and
'lasses is 'nough fo' any nigger."
"I'm sorry for you, but the Northerners have not only freed you, they
have crippled us. We can't afford to have you here any longer. You must
all go, except Jerusha and her children."
There was a lull of incredulity, and then a steadily rising storm of
dismal howling.
"'Tain't fair!" shrieked old Chloe. "I done come yer fust--long befo'
Jerusha. Missis! Missis! I done come to G'nos fo' yo' did yo'self."
"I _dassent_ leab yo'," Jerry persisted. "Massa 'd 'mos' 'a' killed me
ef he'd ebber thought I'd leab yo' and little missy to dem debbils o'
Yankees. 'Tain't safe, ma'am--'tain't safe."
It was not Mrs. Gano's way to show emotion. She turned abruptly, and
disappeared in the house. She had the well-earned reputation of being no
easy mistress. But she had treated her slaves justly, according to her
lights, and this hour of enforced setting them adrift was bitter on
other than political and economic grounds.