Mid-October came, and the day of local elections in three of the
northern states. The whole country was waiting on the tiptoe of
expectancy for the result. Pennsylvania was the keystone of the
situation. The party that would win the presidential contest would
have to have her twenty-seven electoral votes, and this state poll was
looked upon as a sure indication of how the commonwealth would go three
weeks later. It was everywhere admitted that the issue would be close.
Sectional and party feeling and consequent excitement ran so high and
hot that there were dark forebodings of what might happen. All men knew
that they walked upon a thin crust over volcanic fires that might burst
through at any moment, upon any pretext.
The Republican party was surprising itself and the entire country by
its showing of remarkable strength and its brilliant prospects of
success. From the South were coming threats of disunion louder and
more frequent and more positive. In many of the slave states there
was already the stir of endeavor to agree upon concerted action in
case Frémont should be elected. Through the north the Democratic and
the Whig parties made much of these portents as showing the danger
Republican success would mean to the united country. But the Republican
leaders, jubilant over the proofs of their strength which the campaign
had developed, and secretly recognizing the weight of this argument,
made light of both it and the southern threats.
And so the whole country waited in breathless anxiety on that cold
and drizzling October day, with its attention centered on tumultuous
Philadelphia, both sides fearing defeat, both sides hoping for victory,
and all dreading the spark with which some chance word or untoward
accident might kindle the smoldering passions in that city into flames
that would quickly involve the whole nation.
Rhoda moved restlessly about the house, showing little interest in
her usual duties and disregarding her mother’s hints that she was
neglecting their invalid guest. Delavan had almost recovered from his
injuries and in a few days would return home. Mrs. Ware was sorely
disappointed that his presence in the house had not affected her
daughter’s determination. She began to feel sure that it must be her
husband’s influence over Rhoda that balked all her own efforts and
nullified the effect of the constant association from which she had
hoped so much.
Jeff asked her advice that morning and they talked the matter over
intimately. She promised him once more the full measure of her
influence with Rhoda. “I’m afraid it isn’t much,” she said, a little
tremulously. “But I’ll do my best, Jeff.”
“I thank you, Mrs. Ware, madam, and I assure you I shall not go away
without trying again to win her consent.”
“You and little Emmy used to call me ‘Aunt Emily,’ when I was at
Fairmount,” she said with a suggestion of reproof, half motherly,
half coquettish, if the chastened ghost of a manner that sometimes
remembered its alluring youth might still be called coquettish.
“It is the dearest wish of my heart to call you ‘mother,’ some day,” he
answered, kissing her hand.
“And of mine to hear you call me so,” she added, bending over and
touching her lips to his forehead. Then they fell to talking of his
mother and she was deeply interested in the many little things Jeff
remembered of her life at Fairmount. He recalled that she had always
shown concern for the welfare of the slaves and had given training in
their duties and deportment to the housemaids and had allowed them and
also the men who served about the house and gardens to acquire a little
education if they wanted it.
“You must tell Rhoda about that,” Mrs. Ware exclaimed. “Let her see
that there is some virtue in slaveholders. It’s just her notion about
slavery being wrong that keeps you apart, Jeff. If you could only
convince her that there is as much right in it as there is in anything
in this world, where nothing is all right, I believe she’d give up.
I’ve tried to, but she seems to think I don’t know enough about it, in
general, for what I say to have any influence. Talk to her about it,
Jeff, and make her see plainly how we of the South feel about it. You
know how necessary slave labor is to the South, and all that side of
it. She has heard only the things the abolitionists say, here in the
North, and she’s all taken up with that. But you can give her the other
side, as a southern man with one of the best and kindest of hearts, who
has studied the question thoroughly. If you can only convince her that
slavery is right, dear boy, or even best for the niggers, as we know it
is, you’ll win the day--and make me almost as happy as you will Rhoda,
or yourself!”
“It is good advice, madam, and I shall follow it. I have begun to
understand that I must win Rhoda’s head before she will give up her
heart. But I shall win them both, and call you ‘mother’ yet!”
“Heaven grant it, dear boy, for you were made for each other, you and
my dear girl!”
She rose to take her leave, but Charlotte came with fresh medicines for
the invalid and bustled about the room preparing his draughts. Mrs.
Ware, with an eye upon her daughter’s graceful movements, sat down
again and talked of ordinary affairs until she thought Charlotte had
spent as much time there as was needful. Then she summoned that young
lady to go with her and assist at certain rites in the kitchen.
But Rhoda would not visit the sick-chamber through all the forenoon.
Why she was staying away she scarcely knew, except that she said to
herself several times during the long hours of the morning, “He won’t
miss me if Charlotte’s there.” Jeff had obeyed her injunction that he
must not speak of love, and during the last two days had kept careful
curb upon his tongue and close watch upon the language of his eyes. And
she missed more than she would admit to herself the outbreaks of those
heretofore unruly members. She shared her father’s suspense over the
election that was going on and during the forenoon, whenever he was
alone in his office, she went in to ask him if he had heard any news
and to talk over the situation.
More than ever, this fall, he was making a companion of her and
discussing with her as freely as he did with Horace Hardaker and his
other anti-slavery friends, the plans and movements of the anti-slavery
people, and the prospects of the Republican party. She was a good
listener, rarely making comments unless she had something worth while
to say, and usually he found what she did say clear-thoughted and
sensible.
On this morning it was not only her interest in what was going on in
Pennsylvania that sent her every now and again to seek her father’s
society. Of equal force was her desire to escape from the tormenting
questions that filled her mind as to what Jeff was doing, whether
Charlotte was with him, and whether or not he was wishing she were
there. And so, between her political zeal and her love, she passed a
restless, fruitless morning.
Her mother noted her frequent visits to her father’s office and,
coupling with these the fact that she had all the morning ignored
Delavan’s presence in the house, made instant inference. “It’s Amos’s
influence over her,” she told herself, resentment rising bitter in her
heart. “He’s urging her against it and spoiling my dear girl’s life,
just for the sake of his own whims! It’s most selfish of him--and
wicked. But I’ll see what I can do!”
Knocking at Rhoda’s bedroom door after dinner she found her daughter
sitting at the eastern window, hands idly folded in her lap, and eyes
upon the wooded hills, whose autumn colors glowed softly through the
gray, dripping mist. It was so unusual to see her doing absolutely
nothing that Mrs. Ware stared at her in blank surprise.
“Why, Rhoda, you look lonely sitting here all by yourself,” she said
briskly. “Why don’t you go in and stay with Jeff for a while?”
“I don’t know--I guess I don’t feel like it,” Rhoda responded, a
forlorn note in her voice.
“Jeff has been asking for you, dear. In fact, he’s fretting himself
into a fever because you haven’t even looked into the room all this
morning. And you were there only a little while yesterday--”
“Twice, yesterday, mother.”
“But such a little while each time. It isn’t kind to leave the poor boy
alone all day, on such a dreary day as this.”
“But Charlotte--”
“No, I want Charlotte to help me to-day. It’s time she was learning to
do more things about the house. Put on your pink frock, honey, you look
so pretty in that, and go in and cheer Jeff up for a while.”
Rhoda did not answer, but looked out at the wet earth and the drizzling
rain. Through her soul there surged such a forceful longing to follow
her mother’s advice that for a moment it seemed to arrest her powers of
both action and speech.
“Don’t sit here and mope any longer,” her mother went on with tender
cheerfulness, “and don’t be so unkind to poor, sick Jeff. Come on,
honey, I’ll help you dress.” And opening the wardrobe she took out the
pink gown. Its wide skirt was covered with tiny flounces and when it
was adjusted over a ruffled petticoat and her largest hoopskirt, her
slender waist and her head and shoulders rose out of its spreading
folds as if they were emerging from a huge, many-petaled rose.
Jeff Delavan’s face brightened as she floated into the room. He was
dressed, for the first time since his accident, and sitting by the
window.
“Rhoda! How good of you to come--and to wear that dress! You’re like a
ray of sunshine on this dark day! I’ve listened and hoped for you all
day, and at last you’re here! You’re such a busy person, Rhoda, that I
ought to feel fortunate to get even a little of your time. What have
you been doing all the morning? All manner of things?”
“Yes,--no--that is--yes, I’ve been busy,--I always am, you know,”
she stammered, confused, remembering how idle her morning had been.
“I’ve been with father part of the time,” she went on, recovering her
self-possession, “talking about the elections to-day.”
“What do you care about the elections?” he demanded, in bantering
gaiety.
She turned to him with proud gravity. “More than I do about anything
else in the world.”
Quickly his expression changed to one as serious as her own, and he
began to speak of the situation in Pennsylvania and of his own belief
in the success of the Democratic state ticket. She listened for a few
sentences and then her heart began to clamor for signs of love in his
face and voice and words. She ignored the fact that she had forbidden
all such manifestation and knew only that she wanted it and it was not
there. All unknown to her, in his gladness at her coming her lover
was having his own battle with himself to do her bidding, and was so
fearful lest he should overstep the line she had drawn and lose her
dear presence that he was plunging into this political discourse as the
safest thing he could do.
She seemed to be paying close attention, but she heard only a word or a
part of a sentence here and there. Instead, vague fears, half-realized
doubts, uncertain questions filled her brain. Would she ever again see
that look in his face? Did he ever look at Charlotte like that? Was
his love for her all gone so soon? And then the spirit of the eternal
feminine began to assert itself in her breast. She was, after all, her
mother’s daughter, and although the spirit of coquetry lay deep within
her breast, so deep that only the call of truest love could bring it to
the surface, yet it was there and it came now to do her heart’s bidding.
It was all done instinctively, without conscious intention. But if her
mother or sister could have looked through the wall they would have
been surprised by the sight of a different Rhoda from the one they
knew. This tender creature of coquettish graces and alluring smiles and
eyelids quickly lowered over ardent glances--was she the practical,
efficient daughter of the house, upon whom they were both so dependent?
Delavan gazed at her, began to stumble over his sentences, confused
the names of the people of whom he spoke, broke off for an instant,
went back and started anew, then stopped abruptly in the middle of a
sentence. “Rhoda Ware,” he exclaimed in a low voice that shook with
feeling.
At the sound of it Rhoda’s little, half-conscious coquetries dropped
from her instantly. It was a serious face that his gaze encountered
as he surveyed her with dark eyes glowing and about his mouth the
baffled but determined look that had become for her a sign of his
strength--measure alike of his self-control and of his determination.
She had seen it in every one of their struggles and it had seemed
always to be saying to her, “You’ve conquered this time, but I shall
win you yet!” She watched for it and loved it because it told her alike
of her power over him and of his forceful masculine will, and perhaps
also because deep down in her heart she half believed and almost hoped
it would yet be stronger than her own resolution.
“Why do you insist upon keeping us apart?” he demanded, an imperious
note in his voice. “You are doing a wicked thing. You’ve no right to
starve both our hearts of the love that belongs to us, because of a
mere whim!”
“Listen to me, Jeff, while I tell you the truth, and then you won’t
want to marry me!” She was sitting straight and stiff, her face pale,
and in it something of the same exaltation he had seen there on that
June day in the arbor--the outward glow of the sacrificial fires she
had lighted for the consuming of her love.
“You don’t know what I am, Jeff! I am a nigger-thief and I am proud
of it! I am stealing your slaves, anybody’s slaves that want their
freedom, and helping them to find their way to Canada, where they will
be safe! Jefferson Delavan, of Fairmount, Kentucky, doesn’t want to
marry a woman who does that sort of thing and means to keep it up as
long as there are slaves and she has power to help them!”
He looked at her a moment in silent amazement. “Rhoda, you don’t
realize the full significance of what you are saying, and doing!”
“If I could I would run off every slave from your plantations and send
them all to Canada, where you could never touch one of them again. That
is how much I realize it!”
A slow smile crept over his face while he regarded her with a look that
was half surprise, half overleaping love, and was not without a touch
of tender amusement. “But if you were to take away all my slaves, dear
heart, you wouldn’t do me nearly the harm that you are doing now by
stealing yourself from me!”
Her serious eyes looked straight into his for a moment in silence, and
then her flashing smile broke over her face. “I won’t ask you to put
your words to the proof,” she said in a quizzical tone.
He flushed a little. “I know what you mean,” he answered tenderly, “and
if there were no more in this matter than the mere question of having
or not having slaves I would willingly free all that I own--ask Emily
to divide the property and give their freedom to all the niggers that
might fall to my share--for your sake, Rhoda, dear, for the sake of
making you my wife. But the South needs slave labor--has got to have it
in order to be prosperous--and I would be as untrue to my duty to my
state and to my section if I were to do that as you think you would be
to your conscience if you were to accept slavery.”
She followed quickly upon his last word: “There can be no need of
property or prosperity, as you call it, equal to the need, the right,
of every human being to his freedom. When you make your comfort and
wealth,--I mean all of you in the South,--of more importance than that
first human right you are outraging one of God’s laws, and God’s curse
will yet fall heavily upon you because of it.”
“You speak in that way, Rhoda, because--pardon me--you really know
nothing about economic conditions in the South. You are merely
repeating the words of these abolition fanatics at the North, where
the industrial conditions are such that slave labor would not be
profitable. If it were, there’d be a different tune sung north of Mason
and Dixon’s line!”
She shook her head at him. “You say that because you don’t understand
the feeling that is at the bottom of the anti-slavery movement. It
places human rights above business profits.”
“As to that, we of the South have our human rights and civil rights,
too. We are trying to keep faith and you of the North are struggling
to break it. You abolitionists forget the big share, the equal share,
the southern states had in the making of this country, and you forget
that they bore more than their share of the burden and loss of making
it into a nation. There was more blood shed in South Carolina during
the Revolution, Rhoda, than in Massachusetts, yes, more than in all New
England. And now Massachusetts has the presumption, the insolence, to
try to dictate to us how we shall order our affairs! We let her alone
to work out her own destiny, and we demand the same right!”
“But we northerners see farther and see clearer into the way things are
going than you can, because your eyes are blinded by what you believe
to be your present interests. We want you to recognize the truth, that
this nation was created to be a free country, that those who made it
meant it to be the hope of the whole world, and it can never, never,
be that as long as you of the South insist upon making it half slave.”
“You are quite mistaken, Rhoda, as to what they meant, or, rather, as
to the way in which they meant it. When this nation was created North
and South joined in sworn faith to a written contract. That contract
recognized the rights of the south in its peculiar, its necessary,
institution, and provided for their safeguarding. And now the North is
trying to break that sworn faith, to force us out of our constitutional
rights. It is not only our property but our honor that is at stake,
and we should be craven indeed if we did not resent this combination
of despotism and insult! Preston Brooks was right when he said the
other day that if Frémont is elected the people of the South ought to
march to Washington and seize the archives and the treasury of the
government!”
She was leaning eagerly forward, her eyes shining, her lips parted,
her face, paled by her excitement, vivid with the feeling that had
swept her up into the regions where soul and body breathe the elixir of
supreme conviction. But when she spoke, breaking in quickly upon his
first pause, it was not only the fulness of her belief that thrilled in
her low, tense tones. Their lower notes were sweet with the love that
burned in her heart.
“Oh, Jeff, can’t you see-- Oh, I wish I could make you see that there
can be no rights that are founded on wrong.” She paused a moment, her
voice on a suspended accent, as she gathered her thoughts together.
Delavan’s eyes devoured the fair picture that she made and his heart
leaped in response to those sweet notes in her voice. His mind was full
of the ideas he had just uttered, tense with the conviction of their
truth, and his nerves were thrilling with the emotions they had bred.
And this dear girl, leaning toward him with spirit-lit face, as tense
with her convictions as he with his, was the embodiment of all that
northern feeling and activity which he so much resented, against which
he protested with all his force as a base invasion of Southern rights.
But, even as his body throbbed with love and admiration for her
fairness and sweetness, his spirit yearned toward the loftiness of
hers. Ah, they were akin, they were mates, their spirits, even though
they were opposed! He recognized in her that same fervency of faith,
that same power of devotion to the mind’s ideal, that were bone and
sinew of his own temperament. And they were on opposing sides of this
vital question--so intensely vital, he felt, to him, to his section, to
the nation, to the whole of civilization! If only they were joined in
their ideals!
“You see, Jeff, when they signed the Constitution, they hadn’t come to
realize yet how wrong slavery is. Men grow in knowledge of right and
wrong, and we in the North have grown faster on this question than you
have, because we haven’t had the comfort and the luxury and the wealth
produced by that awful wrong to blind and hinder us. Our eyes have been
opened--God has opened them for us, and we see slavery for what it
is--a hideous, cruel, horrible thing that keeps human beings down and
makes beasts of them, brutalizes the souls God made in his image!”
She clasped her hands and began to extend her arms beseechingly toward
her listener. Her pink sleeves fell back a little and his heart swelled
with longing to see the warm roundness of those arms reaching out
to him in love and surrender. “Oh, Jeff, it is so wicked, so evil,”
she began. “I wish I could make you see--” her voice broke, she drew
back her arms and dropped her face into her hands, then sprang to her
feet. “And--and--oh, Jeff--” her voice was thrilling with love, but
it trembled upon sobs and she rushed to the door. “It is keeping us
apart!” she cried, and the door closed behind her.