NORAH O’ROURKE AND JULINA.
A suitable room had been found for Julina very near Norah O’Rourke’s,
and we were anxiously awaiting their arrival, when one evening as we sat
at the tea-table the village ‘bus drove into the yard, loaded on the top
with baggage and filled inside, it seemed to me, with big hats and
feathers and ribbons. Nothing doubting that we were about to be favored
with some of Mrs. Hathern’s grand Boston friends I was wondering if
Phyllis would be equal to the emergency and lamenting that Norah
O’Rourke and Julina were not at their posts, when Mrs. Hathern sprang
up, exclaiming, as she started from the room, “Norah and Julina.” Father
was not at home, and in his absence Phyllis, who was waiting on the
table, felt at liberty to express herself with comparative freedom.
“Oh, my Lord! I s’posed in course ’twas some quality. Look-a-dar, will
you?” she said, as she nodded her high turban at the scene transpiring
outside.
Norah O’Rourke, gorgeous in purple traveling dress, and big brown hat
trimmed with green ribbons and feathers, had alighted, and Mrs. Hathern,
who had never shown herself at all demonstrative, was kissing her, as
she told her how glad she was to see her.
“My Lord, my Lord, that I should live to see Mas’r Hathern’s wife kiss a
white nigger! What will de wah fotch us next!” Phyllis exclaimed, and
setting down the teapot, from which she was filling my cup, she
disappeared in the direction of her cabin, out of sight of what she
considered a familiarity beneath the dignity of Mas’r Hathern’s family.
Full of curiosity Fan and I watched the group with open-eyed wonder,
deciding that Norah O’Rourke was rather a formidable personage, of whom
we might stand in awe, and that Julina was airy and pert, but very
graceful, and dressed in much better taste than her companion. Brought
up as we had been among the negroes, we had never seen a white servant
in our lives and knew nothing of the relation they held to their
employers. That they were more than slaves and less than equals we
supposed, but we were not prepared for the familiarity with which Mrs.
Hathern greeted Norah and Julina. She did not kiss the latter, but she
kept hold of her hand as she conducted them into the house and up to
their rooms, while Norah, in her rich Irish brogue, declared Virginia
the most god-forsaken country she was ever in, and Richmond the most
tumble-down hole, and herself played out generally with her long journey
in cars which Boston wouldn’t put cattle in.
That night they took their supper in the dining-room and Mrs. Hathern
waited upon them, while Phyllis nursed her wrath in her kitchen under
the dogwood trees, where later on I found a great many cooking utensils
thrown around promiscuously,—flatirons, gourds, tin dippers, and
brooms,—a sure sign of the tempest which had been raging in the old
negress’s breast. At that time my sympathies were all with Phyllis, but
in the light of later experience I came to see how unreasonable she was
in her prejudice against both Norah and Julina, who were fair
representatives of their class and who could no more understand the
servility of a born slave like Phyllis than she could understand their
assumption of equality with those they served. For some weeks I detested
Norah for her unmistakable air of _good-as-you_. Then I began to like
her so much that if she had gone away and returned to us I think I might
have kissed her without any hesitancy. She had been recommended to Mrs.
Hathern as honest and trusty and neat and a good cook, with a temper of
her own and a strong disposition to rule the house, all of which
recommendations proved true. She was most trusty and honest and a grand
cook, with a temper as recommended, and she did rule the house, and
ruled it so well and allowed so many privileges that Mrs. Hathern
submitted to the bondage, and by making everything subservient to her
wishes and raising her wages at intervals she had managed to keep her so
long that she had become a part of herself and her ways, as Phyllis was
a part of ourselves and our ways. I never knew before I met Norah
O’Rourke that there could be so much expressed in the creak of a shoe!
Hers always creaked,—sometimes more, sometimes less,—and after a little
I could tell by the sound exactly the mood she was in. If her foot came
down heavy and strong, even Mrs. Hathern avoided her; if the tread was
medium she ventured to issue her orders; but when she had on her felt
slippers, as we designated her softest tread, she was like clay in our
hands, to be moulded at our will. We all stood a little in fear of her,
and father said, laughingly, that he did not dare go into the kitchen
without knocking for permission, if her shoes were noisy. Between her
and Phyllis there was war from the first, and the two were only
restrained from open battles by being kept apart as much as
possible,—Phyllis on her premises under the dogwoods, where she washed
and ironed and bemoaned the change which had come over her master’s
family, and Norah in her domain, where she concocted and served the most
wonderful dishes with the skill of a trained _chef_.
Once Fan ventured to remonstrate with her for her antagonism to Phyllis,
whose many virtues she set forth in glowing colors. Norah’s shoes
creaked ominously as she stamped around the kitchen, while her Irish
dialect, which she never used unless she was excited, came in full play.
“An’ sure,” she said, “you don’t know what ye’s talkin’ about. When I’m
riled, as I am a good part of the time in this haythenish counthry, I’m
spilin’ for a fight, and if I didn’t pitch into that nagur, I should
wallop you all with my _shillalah_ of a tongue.”
After this we let matters take their course, trying occasionally to
smooth Phyllis down, when her plumage was more than usually ruffled. If
she was to be credited, she _rassled_ a good deal in _prar_ for grace to
do her duty and _not_ run away.
“Niggers and Irish wouldn’t mix more’n ile and water,” she said, and of
the two she detested July more than she did Rory O’Rock, the name she
gave to Norah. “Such a’rs,” she said, “axin me to call her Juleen ’case
thar’s a French _axum_ over her eye. What’s dat ar, I’d like to know. I
can’t see nothin’ over her eyes but dem great shaggy brush heaps.
Juleen, indeed! I shall call her _July_, with her black eyes and bar and
face, too. ’Spec she’s some nigger blood in her.”
Julina’s father was plain Tom Smith, of Vermont, but her mother was
French, and from her the girl had inherited many of the characteristics
of the race. She was very slight and would have been very pretty but for
her large teeth, over which her thin lips never quite closed. Dark-eyed,
dark-haired and dark-faced, with a certain airy grace of speech and
manner she looked the French maid fully, especially in the little caps
which she wore so jauntily, but wore unwillingly. They were badges of
servitude, she said, and nothing would induce her to wear them if Mrs.
Hathern did not pay her extra for it. At heart she was a born anarchist,
and although she performed her duties as housemaid thoroughly she hated
them, and let Fan and me know that she did, talking sometimes in English
and sometimes in French, which she had learned from her mother, and
hurled with great volubility at both Norah and Phyllis when engaged in a
spirited encounter.
She made no secret to us of her dislike of Mrs. Hathern, but she adored
Carl, and her eyes lighted up with a strange brilliancy when she spoke
of him. He was expected very soon and no one seemed more anxious for his
coming than Julina, although she took good care not to express herself
in the presence of his mother. Before her she was always respectful and
modest and quiet, but to us she showed herself as she really was, and
talked freely of what she meant to be,—“not a drudge to go and come at
another’s bidding, but a lady, to be served as we were served.” She had
it in her, if her father was a poor farmer in Vermont. She had a good
common-school education. She had tact and common sense. Her mother’s
family were somebody in France, where she meant to go when she had
sufficient money, and then we’d see what she could do.