THE YOUNG LADY WITH A CARPET-BAG.
“Pain has its own noble joy when it kindles a consciousness of life,
before stagnant and torpid.”—_John Sterling._
Children are quick to detect flaws in the genealogy of their associates.
School-girls are quite as exclusive in their notions as our grown-up
leaders of society. Woe to the candidate for companionship on whose
domestic record there hangs a doubt!
Mrs. Gentry having felt it her duty to inform her pupils that Clara was
not a lady, the latter was thenceforth “left out in the cold” by the
little Brahmins of the seminary. She would sit, like a criminal, apart
from the rest, or in play-hours seek the company, either of Esha or the
mocking-bird.
One circumstance puzzled the other young ladies. They could not
understand why, in the more showy accomplishments of music, singing, and
dancing, more expense should be bestowed on Clara’s education than on
theirs. The elegance and variety of her toilet excited at once their
envy and their curiosity.
Clara, finding that she was held back from serious studies, gave her
thoughts to them all the more resolutely, and excelled in them so far as
to shock the conservative notions of Mrs. Gentry, who thought such
acquisitions presumptuous in a slave. The pupils all tossed their little
heads, and turned their backs, when Clara drew near. All but one. Laura
Tremaine prized Clara’s counsels on questions of dress, and defied the
jeers and frowns that would deter her from cultivating the acquaintance
of one suspected of ignoble birth. Something almost like a friendship
grew up between the two. Laura was the only daughter of a wealthy
cotton-broker who resided the greater part of the year in New Orleans,
at the St. Charles Hotel.
The two girls used to stroll through the garden with arms about each
other’s waist. One day Clara, in a gush of candor, not only avowed
herself an Abolitionist, but tried to convert Laura to the heresy.
_Quelle horreur!_ There was at once a cessation of the intimacy,—-Laura
exacting a recantation which the little infidel proudly refused.
The disagreement had occurred only a few days before that flight of
Clara’s in which we must now follow her. After parting from Esha, she
walked for some distance, ignorant why she selected one direction rather
than another, and having no clearly defined purpose as to her
destination. She had promenaded thus about an hour, when she saw a
barouche approaching. The occupant, a man, sat leaning lazily back with
his feet up on the opposite cushions. A black driver and footman, both
in livery, filled the lofty front seat. As the vehicle rolled on, Clara
recognized Ratcliff. She shuddered and dropped her veil.
Fortunately he was half asleep, and did not see her.
Whither now? Of two streets she chose the more obscure. On she walked,
and the carpet-bag began to be an encumbrance. The heat was oppressive.
Occasionally a passer-by among the young men would say to an
acquaintance, “Did you notice that figure?” One man offered to carry the
bag. She declined his aid. On and on she walked. Whither and why? She
could not explain. All at once it occurred to her she was wasting her
strength in an objectless promenade.
Her utterly forlorn condition revealed itself in all its desolateness
and danger. She stopped under the shade of a magnolia-tree, and, leaning
against the trunk, put back her veil, and wiped the moisture from her
face. She had been walking more than two hours, and was overheated and
fatigued. What should she do? The tears began to flow at the thought
that the question was one for which she had no reply.
Suddenly she looked round with the vague sense that some one was
watching her. She encountered the gaze of a gentleman who, with an air
of mingled curiosity and compassion, stood observing her grief. He wore
a loose frock of buff nankin, with white vest and pantaloons; and on his
head was a hat of very fine Panama straw. Whether he was young or old
Clara did not remark. She only knew that a face beautiful from its
compassion beamed on her, and that it was the face of a gentleman.
“Can I assist you?” he asked.
“No, thank you,” replied Clara. “I’m fatigued,—that’s all,—and am
resting here a few minutes.”
“Here’s a little house that belongs to me,” said the gentleman, pointing
to a neat though small wooden tenement before which they were standing.
“I do not live here, but the family who do will be pleased to receive
you for my sake. You shall have a room all to yourself, and rest there
till you are refreshed. Do you distrust me, my child?”
There are faces out of which Truth looks so unequivocally, that to
distrust them seems like a profanation. Clara did not distrust, and yet
she hesitated, and replied through her tears, “No, I do not distrust
you, but I’ve no claim on your kindness.”
“Ah! but you _have_ a claim,” said Vance (for it was he); “you are
unhappy, and the unhappy are my brothers and my sisters. I’ve been
unhappy myself. I knew one years ago, young like you, and like you
unhappy, and through her also you have a claim. There! Let me relieve
you of that bag. Now take my arm. Good! This way.” Clara’s tears gushed
forth anew at these words, and yet less at the words than at the tone in
which they were uttered. So musical and yet so melancholy was that tone.
He knocked at the door. It was opened by Madame Bernard, a spruce little
Frenchwoman, who had married a journeyman printer, and who felt
unbounded gratitude to Vance for his gift of the rent of the little
house.
“Is it you, Mr. Vance? We’ve been wondering why you didn’t come.”
“Madame Bernard, this young lady is fatigued. I wish her to rest in my
room.”
“The room of Monsieur is always in order. Follow me, my dear.”
And, taking the carpet-bag, Madame conducted her to the little chamber,
then asked: “Now what will you have, my dear? A little claret and water?
Some fruit or cake?”
“Nothing, thank you. I’ll rest on the sofa awhile. You’re very kind. The
gentleman’s name is Vance, is it?”
“Yes; is he not an acquaintance?”
“I never saw him till three minutes ago. He noticed me resting, and, I
fear, weeping in the street, and he asked me in here to rest.”
“’T was just like him. He’s so good, so generous! He gives me the rent
of this house with the pretty garden attached. You can see it from the
window. Look at the grapes. He reserves for himself this room, which I
daily dust and keep in order. Poor man! ’T was here he passed the few
months of his marriage, years ago. His wife died, and he bought the
house, and has kept it in repair ever since. This used to be their
sleeping-room. ’T was also their parlor, for they were poor. There’s
their little case of books. Here’s the piano on which they used to play
duets. ’T was a hired piano, and was returned to the owner; but Mr.
Vance found it in an old warehouse, not long ago, had it put in order,
and brought here. ’T is one of Chickering’s best; a superb instrument.
You should hear Mr. Vance play on it.”
“Does he play well?” asked Clara, who had almost forgotten her own
troubles in listening to the little woman’s gossip.
“Ah! you never heard such playing! I know something of music. My family
is musical. I flatter myself I’m a judge. I’ve heard Thalberg,
Vieuxtemps, Jael, Gottschalk; and Mr. Vance plays better than any of
them.”
“Is he a professor?”
“No, merely an amateur. But he puts a soul into the notes. Do you play
at all, my dear?”
“Yes, I began to learn so early that I cannot recollect the time when.”
“I thought you must be musical. Just try this instrument, my dear, that
is, if you ’re not too tired.”
“Certainly, if ’t will oblige you.”
Seating herself at the piano, Clara played, from Donizetti’s _Lucia_,
Edgardo’s melodious wail of abandonment and despair, “_L’ universo
intero e un deserto per me sensa Lucia_.”
Mrs. Bernard had opened the door that Vance might hear. At the
conclusion he knocked and entered. “Is this the way you rest yourself,
young pilgrim?” he asked. “You’re a proficient, I see. You’ve been made
to practise four hours a day.”
“Yes, ever since I can remember.”
“So I should think. Now let me hear something in a different vein.”
Clara, while the blood mounted to her forehead, and her whole frame
dilated, struck into the “Star-spangled Banner,” playing it with her
whole soul, and at the close singing the refrain,
“And the Star-spangled Banner in triumph shall wave
O’er the land of the free and the home of the brave.”
“But that’s treason!” cried Mrs. Bernard.
“Yes, Mrs. Bernard,” said Vance, “run at once to the police-station.
Tell them to send a file of soldiers. We must have her arrested.”
“O no, no!” exclaimed Clara, deceived by Vance’s grave acting. Then,
seeing her mistake, she laughed, and said: “That’s too bad. I thought
for a moment you were in earnest.”
“We will spare you this time,” said Vance, with a smile that made his
whole face luminous; “but should outsiders in the street hear you, they
may not be so forbearing. They will tear our little house down if you’re
not careful.”
“I’ll not be so imprudent again,” returned Clara. “Will you play for me,
sir?” And she resumed her seat on the sofa.
Vance played some extemporized variations on the Carnival of Venice; and
Clara, who had regarded Mrs. Bernard’s praises as extravagant, now
concluded they were the literal truth. “Oh!” she exclaimed, naively, “I
never heard playing like that. Do not ask me to play before you again,
sir.”
Mrs. Bernard left to attend to the affairs of the _cuisine_.
“Now, mademoiselle,” said Vance, “what can I do before I go?”
“All I want,” replied Clara, “is time to arrange some plan. I left home
so suddenly I’m quite at a loss.”
“Do I understand you’ve left your parents?”
“I have no parents, sir.”
“Then a near relation, or a guardian?”
“Neither, sir. I am independent of all ties.”
“Have you no friend to whom you can go for advice?”
“I had a friend, but she gave me up because I’m an Abolitionist.”
“My poor little lady! An Abolitionist? You? In times like these? When
Sumter has fallen, too? No wonder your friend has cast you off. Who is
she?”
“Miss Laura Tremaine. She lives at the St. Charles. Do you know her,
sir?”
“Slightly. I met her in the drawing-room not long since. She does not
appear unamiable. But why are you an Abolitionist?”
“Because I believe in God.”
Vance felt that this was the summing-up of the whole matter. He looked
with new interest on the “little lady.” In height she was somewhat
shorter than Estelle,—not much over five feet two and a half. Not from
her features, but from the maturity of their expression, he judged she
might have reached her eighteenth year. Somewhat more of a brunette than
Estelle, and with fine abundant hair of a light brown. Eyes—he could not
quite see their color; but they were vivid, penetrating, earnest.
Features regular, and a profile even more striking in its beauty than
her front face. A figure straight and slim, but exquisitely rounded, and
every movement revealing some new grace. Where had he seen a face like
it?
After a few moments of contemplation, he said: “Do not think me
impertinently curious. You have been well educated. You have not had to
labor for a living. Are the persons to whom you’ve been indebted for
support no longer your friends?”
“They are my worst enemies, and all that has been bestowed on me has
been from hateful motives and calculations.”—“Now I’m going to ask a
very delicate question. Are you provided with money?”—“O yes, sir,
amply.”—“How much have you?”—“Twenty dollars.”—“Indeed! Are you so rich
as that? What’s your name?”—“The name I’ve been brought up under is
Ellen Murray; but I hate it.”—“Why so?”—“Because of a dream.”—“A dream!
And what was it?”—“Shall I relate it?”—“By all means.”
“I dreamed that a beautiful lady led me by the hand into a spacious
garden. On one side were fruits, and on the other side flowers, and in
the middle a circle of brilliant verbenas from the centre of which rose
a tall fountain, fed from a high hill in the neighborhood. And the lady
said, ‘This is your garden, and your name is not Ellen Murray.’ Then she
gave me a letter sealed with blue—no, gray—wax, and said, ‘Put this
letter on your eyes, and you shall find it there when you wake. Some one
will open it, and your name will be seen written there, though you may
not understand it at first.’ ‘But am I not awake?’ I asked. ‘O no,’ said
the lady. ‘This is all a dream. But we can sometimes impress those we
love in this way.’ ‘And who are you?’ I asked. ‘That you will know when
you interpret the letter,’ she said.”
“And what resulted from the dream?”—“The moment I waked I put my hand on
my eyes. Of course I found no letter. The next night the lady came
again, and said, ‘The seal cannot be broken by yourself. Your name is
not Ellen Murray,—remember that.’ A third night this dream beset me, and
so forcibly that I resolved to get rid of the name as far as I could.
And so I made my friends call me Darling.”
“Well, Darling, as you—”—“O, but, sir! _you_ must not call me Darling.
That would never do!”—“What _can_ I call you, then?”—“Call me Miss, or
Mademoiselle.”—“Well, Miss.”—“No, I do not like the sibilation.”—“Will
_Ma’am_ do any better?”—“Not till I’m more venerable. Call me
Perdita.”—“Perdita what?”—“Perdita Brown,—yes, I love the name of
Brown.”
“Well, Perdita, as you’ve not quite made up your mind to seek the
protection of Miss Tremaine, my advice is that you remain here till
to-morrow. Here is a little case filled with books; and on the shelf of
the closet is plenty of old music,—works of Handel, Mozart, Beethoven,
Mendelssohn, Schubert, and some of the Italian masters. Do you play
Schubert’s Sacred Song?”—“I never heard it.”—“Learn it, then, by all
means. ’T is in that book. Shall I tell Mrs. Bernard you’ll pass the
night here?”—“Do, sir. I’m very grateful for your kindness.”—“Good by,
Perdita! Should anything detain me to-morrow, wait till I come. Keep up
your four hours’ practice. Madame Bernard is amiable, but a little
talkative. I shall tell her to allow you five hours for your studies.
Adieu, Perdita!”
He held out his hand, and Clara gave hers, and cast down her eyes.
“You’ve told me a true story?” said he. “Yes! I will trust you.”
“Indeed, sir, I’ve told you nothing but the truth.”
Yes. She had told the truth, but unhappily not the _whole_ truth. And
yet how she longed to kneel at his feet and confess all! Various motives
withheld her. She was not quite sure how he had received her antislavery
confessions. He might be a friend of Mr. Ratcliff. There was dismay in
the very possibility. And finally a certain pride or prudence restrained
her from throwing herself on the protection of a stranger not of her own
sex.
And so the golden opportunity was allowed to escape!
Vance lingered for a moment holding her hand, as if to invite her to a
further confidence; but she said nothing, and he left the room. Clara
opened the music-book at Schubert’s piece, and commenced playing. Vance
stopped on the stairs and listened, keeping time approvingly. “Good!” he
said. Then telling the little landlady not to interrupt Miss Brown’s
studies, he quitted the house, walking in the direction of the hotel.
Clara practised till she could play from memory the charming composition
commended by Vance. Then she threw herself on the bed and fell asleep.
She had not remained thus an hour when there was a knock. Dinner! Mr.
Bernard had come in; a dapper little man, so remarkably well satisfied
with himself, his wife, and his bill of fare, that he repeatedly had to
lay down knife and fork and rub his hands in glee.
“Are you related to Mr. Vance?” he asked Clara.
“Not at all. He saw me in the street, weary and distressed. The truth
is, I had left my home for a good reason. I have no parents, you must
consider. He asked me in here. From his looks I judged he was a man to
trust. I gladly accepted his invitation.”
“Truly he’s a friend in need, Mademoiselle. I saw him do another kind
thing to-day.”
“What was it?”
“It happened only an hour ago in Carondelet Street. A ragged fellow was
haranguing a crowd. He spoke on the wrong side,—in short, in favor of
the old flag. Some laughed, some hissed, some applauded. Suddenly a
party of men, armed with swords and muskets, pushed through the crowd,
and seized the speaker. They formed a court, Judge Lynch presiding,
under a palmetto. They decided that the vagabond should be hung. He had
already been badly pricked in the flank with a bayonet. And now a table
was brought out, he was placed on it, and a rope put round his neck and
tied to a bough. Decidedly they were going to string him up.”
“Good heavens!” cried Clara, who, as the story proceeded, had turned
pale and thrust away the plate of food from before her. “Did you make no
effort to save him?”
“What could I do? They would merely have got another rope, and made me
keep him company. Well, the mob were expecting an entertainment. They
were about to knock away the table, when Monsieur Vance pushed through
the crowd, hauled off the hangman, and, jumping on the table, cut the
rope, and lifted the prisoner faint and bleeding to the ground. What a
yell from Judge Lynch and the court! Monsieur Vance, his coat and vest
all bloody from contact with—”
“What a shame!” interposed Mrs. Bernard. “A coat and vest he must have
put on clean this morning! So nicely ironed and starched!”
“But my story agitates you, Mademoiselle,” said the typesetter. “You
look pale.” And the little man, not regarding the inappropriateness of
the act, rubbed his hands.
“Go on,” replied Clara; and she sipped from a tumbler of cold water.
“There’s little more to say, Mademoiselle. Messieurs, the bullies, drew
their swords on Monsieur Vance. He showed a revolver, and they fell
back. Then he talked to them till they cooled down, gave him three
cheers, and went off. I and old Mr. Winslow helped him to find a
carriage. We put the wounded man into it. He was driven to the hospital,
and his wound attended to. ’T is serious, I believe.”
And Bernard again rubbed his hands.
“And was that the last you saw of Mr. Vance?” asked Clara.
“The last. Shall I help you to some pine-apple, Mademoiselle?”
“No, thank you. I’ve finished my dinner. You will excuse me.”
And she returned to the little room assigned to her use.