A MONSTER OF INGRATITUDE.
“Faint hearts are usually false hearts, choosing sin rather than
suffering.”—_Argyle, before his execution._
Mrs. Gentry had attired herself in her new spring costume, a
feuillemorte silk, with a bonnet trimmed to match, of the frightful
coal-hod shape, with sable roses and a bristling ruche. It was just such
a bonnet as Proserpine, Queen of the Shades, might have chosen for a
stroll with Pluto along the shore of Lake Avernus.
After many satisfactory glances in the mirror, Mrs. Gentry sat down and
trotted her right foot impatiently. Tarquin, entering, announced the
carriage.
“Well, go to Miss Ellen, and ask when she’ll be ready.”
Five minutes Mrs. Gentry waited, while the horses, pestered by stinging
insects, dashed their hoofs against the pavements. At last Tarquin
returned with the report that Miss Ellen’s room was empty.
“Has Pauline looked for her?”
“Yes, missis.”
“Ask Esha if she has seen her.”
Pauline, standing at the head of the stairs, put the question, and Esha
replied testily from the kitchen: “Don’t know nuffin ’bout her. Hab
suffin better ter do dan look af’r all de school-gals in dis house.”
Pauline turned from the old heathen in despair, and suggested that
perhaps Miss Ellen had stepped out to buy a ribbon or some hair-pins.
Mrs. Gentry waxed angry. “O, but she’ll be come up with!” This was the
teacher’s favorite form of consolation. The _Abolitionists_ would be
come up with. Abe Lincoln would be come up with. General Scott would be
come up with. Everybody who offended Mrs. Gentry would be come up
with,—if not in this world, why then in some other.
An hour passed. She began to get seriously alarmed. She sent away the
carriage. Hardly had it gone, when a second vehicle drew up before the
door, and out of it stepped Mr. Ratcliff. She met him in the parlor,
and, fearing to tell the truth, merely remarked, that Ellen was out
making a few purchases.
“When will she be back?”
“Perhaps not till dinner-time.”
“Then I’ll call to-morrow at this hour.”
Mrs. Gentry passed the day in a state of wretched anxiety. She sent out
messengers. She interested a policeman in the search. But no trace of
the fugitive! Mrs. Gentry was in despair. If Ellen had not been a slave,
her disappearance would have been comparatively a small matter. If it
had been somebody’s free-born daughter who had absconded, it wouldn’t
have been half so bad. But here was a slave! One whose flight would lay
open to suspicion the teacher’s allegiance to _the_ institution!
Intolerable! Of course it was no concern of hers to what fate that slave
was about to be consigned.
Ah! sister of the South,—(and I have known many, the charms of whose
persons and manners I thought incomparable,)—a woman whose own virtue is
not rooted in sand, cannot, if she thinks and reasons, fail to shudder
at a system which sends other women, perhaps as innocent and pure as she
herself, to be sold to brutal men at auctions. And yet, if any one had
told Mrs. Gentry she was no better than a procuress, both she and the
Rev. Dr. Palmer would have thought it an impious aspersion.
At the appointed hour Ratcliff appeared. Mrs. Gentry’s toilet that day
was appropriate to the calamitous occasion. She was dressed in a black
silk robe intensely flounced, and decorated around the bust with a
profluvium of black lace that might have melted the heart of a
Border-ruffian. She entered the parlor, tragically shaking out a pocket
handkerchief with an edging of black.
“O Mr. Ratcliff! Mr. Ratcliff!” she exclaimed, rushing forward, then
checking herself melodramatically, and seizing the back of a chair, as
if for support.
“Well, madam, what’s the matter?”
“That heartless,—that ungrateful girl!”
“What of her?”
Mrs. Gentry answered by applying her handkerchief to her eyes very much
as Mrs. Siddons used to do in Belvidera.
“Come, madam,” interrupted Ratcliff, “my time is precious. No damned
nonsense, if you please. To the point. What has happened?”
Rudely shocked into directness by these words, Mrs. Gentry replied: “She
has disappeared,—r-r-run away!”
“Damnation!” was Ratcliff’s concise and emphatic comment. He started up
and paced the room. “This is a damned pretty return for my confidence,
madam.”
“O, she’ll be come up with,—she’ll be come up with!” sobbed Mrs. Gentry.
“Come up with,—where?”
“In the next world, if not in this.”
“Pooh! When did she disappear?”
“Yesterday, while I was waiting for her to go out to buy her new
dresses. O the ingratitude!”
“Have you made no search for her?”
“Yes, I’ve made every possible inquiry. I’ve paid ten dollars to a
police-officer to look her up. O the ingratitude of the world! But
she’ll be come up with!”
“Did you let her know that I was her master?”
“Yes, ’t was only yesterday I imparted the information.”
“How did she receive it?”
“She was a little startled at first, but soon seemed reconciled, even
pleased with the idea of her new wardrobe.”
“Have you closely questioned your domestics?”
“Yes. They know nothing. She must have slipped unobserved out of the
house.”
“Is there any one among them with whom she was more familiar than with
another?”
“She used to read the Bible to old Esha, by my direction.”
“Call up old Esha. I would like to question her.”
Esha soon appeared, her bronzed face glistening with perspiration from
the kitchen fire,—the never-failing bright-colored Madras handkerchief
on her head.
“Esha,” said Mr. Ratcliff, “have you ever seen me before?”
“Yes, Massa Ratcliff, of’n. Lib’d on de nex’ plantation to yourn. I
’longed to Massa Peters wunst. But he’m dead and gone.”
“Do you know what an oath is, Esha?”
“Yes, massa, it’s when one swar he know dis or dunno dat.”
“Very well. Do you know what becomes of her who swears falsely?”
“O yes, massa; she go to de lake of brimstone and fire, whar’ she hab
bad time for eber and eber, Amen.”
“Are you a Christian, Esha?”
“I’ze notin’ else, Massa Ratcliff.”
“Well, Esha, here’s the Holy Bible. Take it in your left hand, kiss the
book, and then hold up your right hand.”
Esha went through the required form.
“You do solemnly swear, as you hope to be saved from the torments of
hell through all eternity, that you will truly answer, to the best of
your knowledge and belief, the questions I may put to you. And if you
lie, may the Lord strike you dead. Now kiss the book again, to show you
take the oath.”
Esha kissed the book, and returned it to the table.
“Now, then, do you know anything of the disappearance of this girl,
Ellen Murray?”
“Nuffin, massa, nuffin at all.”
“Did she ever tell you she meant to leave this house?”
“Nebber, massa! She nebber tell me any sich ting.”
“Did she have any talk with you yesterday?”
“Not a bressed word did dat chile say to me ’cep ter scole me ’cause I
didn’t do up her Organdy muslin nice as she ’spected. De little hateful
she-debble! How can dis ole nig do eb’ry ting all at wunst, and do’t
well, should like ter know? It’s cook an’ wash an’ iron, an’ iron an’
wash an’—”
“There! That will do, Esha. You can go.”
“Yes, Massa Ratcliff.”
Stealing into the next room, Esha listened at the folding-doors.
“She knows nothing,—that’s very clear,” said Ratcliff. He went to the
window, and looked out in silence a full minute; then, coming back,
added: “Stop snivelling, madam. I’m not a fool. I’ve seen women before
now. This girl must be found,—found if it costs me ten thousand dollars.
And you must aid in the search. If I find her,—well and good. If I don’t
find her, you shall suffer for it. This is what I mean to do: I shall
have copies of her photograph put in the hands of the best detectives in
the city. I shall pay them well in advance, and promise five hundred
dollars to the one that finds her. They’ll come to you. You must give
them all the information you can, and lend them your servants to
identify the girl. This old Esha plainly has a grudge against her, and
may be made useful in hunting her up. Let her go out daily for that
purpose. Tell all your pupils to be on the watch. I’ll break up your
school if she isn’t found. Do you understand?”
“I’ll do all I can, sir, to have her caught.”
“That will be your most prudent course, madam.”
And Ratcliff, with more exasperation in his face than his words had
expressed, quitted the house.
“The brute!” muttered Mrs. Gentry, as through the blinds she saw him
enter his barouche, and drive off. “He treated me as if I’d been a drab.
But he’ll be come up with,—he will!”
Esha crept down into the kitchen, with thoughts intent on what she had
heard.