THREATS AND PERSUASIONS.
Directly after James Harrington left the General's room, the
waiting-woman Zillah entered cautiously, and with breathless eagerness.
She stood some moments partly behind the General's chair, before he
regarded her. When he did look up, a faint color swept over his face,
and he made a gesture of annoyance.
"You are not pleased to find me here so soon," she said quickly, for
impatience had for the moment disturbed the wonderful self-control with
which her interviews with General Harrington were invariably conducted.
"Is it a sign this woman, who has outraged the name of wife, is to
triumph over me always?"
"Zillah!" answered the General, angrily, "my relations with my wife are
beyond your interference."
"Your wife!" exclaimed the woman with a fiendish sneer. "You can still
call her that!"
"Zillah, be careful. I have permitted you to go in and out of my house
in this surreptitious fashion unmolested, from regard to old
attachments; but you shall not again interfere in my family
arrangements. The charges that you have, I see now, been the means of
making against Mrs. Harrington, are groundless. I will not have a word
spoken--mark me--against that excellent lady."
"What!" said the woman hoarsely; "what does this mean?"
"It means, Zillah, that I am perfectly convinced not only of Mrs.
Harrington's rectitude, but of her entire attachment to myself. As for
Mr. James Harrington, his conduct has been unexceptionable--nay,
magnanimous. We are a happy and united family, Zillah."
"A happy and united family!" almost shrieked the woman. "And has it all
come to this--am I again spurned, again hurled back to the earth--Hagar
thrust forth to wander forever and ever with her child in the broad
desert--the world. I tell you, General Harrington, this shall not be!"
"Shall not--slave, how dare you?" cried the old man, rising haughtily.
"Slave, slave! Yes, I am your slave, for I love you, my master, love you
with a madness this cold white lady never dreamed of. Do not crush me
beneath this woman's feet--do not. For years and years I have lived on
this one wish, to be your slave again. She, your wife, is faithless,
false, cold as marble; put her away--send her forth, as I have been. The
same God made us both, and should punish us both alike. I have been
tortured long enough; take me home, master, take me home--a servant, a
slave, anything; but send this woman from beneath your roof. She has
had her life, I have a right to mine! Give it to me--give it to me for
my love's sake, for our child's sake!"
The woman fell upon her knees as she spoke; her locked hands were
uplifted, and wrung madly together--her eyes were full of wild,
passionate tears. She looked, indeed, a Hagar coming back from the
desert, where she had left her youth buried.
"Master, master, send her away, send her away!" she pleaded, in a burst
of pathetic entreaty. "What has she been to you, that I was not? She is
the mother of your child--so am I. She was your wife--I was your slave.
She claimed rights, station, wealth, power, and returned nothing. I gave
my soul, my being, every breath of my life, every pulse in my heart, and
claimed only bonds. You fettered her with flowers--me with iron. I loved
these chains, for they bound me to you--they have drawn me to your feet
again. I will not give way to that woman a second time!"
The old man had been growing calm amid this passionate appeal. Strong
feeling always annoyed him, and the woman seemed actuated by a species
of madness, that filled him with repulsion. He turned from her with a
look of quiet contempt.
"Why, Zillah, you should go on the stage. These wild paroxysms,
half-pathetic, half-demoniac, tell splendidly with the public: a little
dash of blasphemy now, and you are perfect. The best society would run
wild about you--ladies, most of all, especially if they knew exactly who
and what you were, Zillah."
The woman sprang to her feet, white as death; her eyes closing, her lips
specked with foam. She attempted to speak, but the words writhed
themselves to death on her lips without a sound.
How still intense rage can sometimes appear! The woman stood mute for
more than a moment, in which General Harrington held his breath, awed,
in spite of himself, by a force of passion he had never witnessed
before.
"Zillah," he said at last, half-terrified, "Zillah, control yourself;
this rage will injure you. Come, come, let us talk together more
reasonably. You know how I dislike these wild flights of temper, and how
little good they can effect. Take that hand from your bosom, girl; if
you have a poniard there, let it stay sheathed. I do not fear you, at
any rate."
"You need not," said the woman, in a hoarse whisper. "I could not
strike, even while you were mocking me."
Her hand fell slowly downward as she spoke, leaving the hilt of a dagger
just visible under her dress.
The General stepped toward her, took the dagger from her bosom, and cast
it contemptuously on the fire.
"Have done with this acting, girl, and talk like a sensible woman, if
you have really anything to say."
Zillah smiled scornfully, as he had done, while her eyes followed the
dagger to its lodgment in the fire.
"It is the purpose, not the instrument, which is dangerous," she said,
with pale self-possession, still speaking in hoarse undertones; "and, in
order to reach that, you must clutch here."
Zillah pressed one hand hard on her heart as she spoke, and the old man
could see that concentrated passion shook her from head to foot, still
as she seemed.
"Zillah, this passion will prevent me ever seeing you again. I am no
boy, to be terrified into concessions; as for violence, attempt it, and
I will have you dealt with like any other house-breaker. In the North we
have heavier chains than you have ever worn. You will find that the
slavery which springs from crime, is a reality that you have not yet
known. No more threats, then, if you ever hope to see your master
again."
"I was wrong," said the woman, standing before him with the downcast
look learned in her early bondage. "It was wounded love, not anger,
against you, my master, that tortured me into this rash language. I came
to tell you of L----of our child; she is very, very ill."
"What, Lina? poor child, no wonder she is heart-broken. Heaven knows I
would have kept this miserable secret from her, but for Ralph! Where is
she now?"
"In my own house, raving with brain fever!"
"And have you told her all?"
"Yes, and she, too, spurned me--every one repulses and scorns me, while
that woman"----
"Hush! Zillah, you are getting fierce again, and that I will not submit
to."
"No, no, master, it was grief for my child, not anger," said the woman,
checking herself. "She is ill, very ill. The doctor thinks she must
die."
"Indeed, I am grieved to hear it. Let her have every care; have a dozen
physicians, if it is needful. Poor child--poor child!"
"You love her, then, this daughter of a slave?" said Zillah, with a
fierce gleam in her eyes, as if jealous of his very love for her own
child.
"Love her? Why she has always been a pet in the house--a beautiful,
sweet-tempered creature, whom everyone loved. I think she is even dearer
to me than Ralph himself."
Again the woman turned white.
"And you love her so much?"
"Again, Zillah: you are hard to please; but take good care of the
child--in a day or two I will come to see her!"
"Indeed, to see her--her only."
"Have done with this paltry childishness, I am tired of it!" answered
the General, with authority. "This comes of allowing you a foothold
here. Remember I cannot have my privacy intruded on in future by these
mysterious visits; they will become known to the family, and Mrs.
Harrington may think them a just cause of complaint--a thing above all
others to be avoided. I tell you, Zillah, this rash passion, which at
your age should be controlled, inconveniences me very much; indeed, as a
man of honor, I cannot encourage it farther."
Zillah's lips writhed, as if she were repeating over his last words in
the scorn of her heart; but she stood immovable and silent, with her
eyes bent on the floor.
"If money is needed for you or Lina, whose future I will liberally
provide for, that can at any time be supplied to the extent of your
wishes."
"I shall not need your money," answered the woman coldly.
"But you cannot be rich!"
"The master to whom you sold me left his property to be divided between
some half dozen slaves, who received their freedom and the legacy
together. I am spending mine; when it is gone, I can work."
"Then you reject all help from me?"
"I was your slave, General Harrington--twice bound, first by your laws,
again by the will of my own heart, but I am no beggar; even when you
loved me, I worked for my own bread."
"I am glad that you are so well provided for: now let this romance come
to an end. We are no boy and girl, remember, Zillah; and, though it is
very pleasant to feel that one heart at least proves faithful to the
end, I cannot, in justice to Mrs. Harrington, admit you under the same
roof with herself. Her peace of mind is important to me, very important,
and her tranquillity must not be endangered by these wild visits. I will
withdraw, now, and give you an opportunity to leave the house; be
careful that no one sees you, especially Mrs. Harrington. Adieu! In two
or three days, at most, I shall be able to see you and Lina."
The old gentleman waved his hand, in token of a friendly adieu, as he
went, leaving his singular visitor standing in the middle of the room,
so numbed in feeling or lost in thought, that she seemed unconscious of
his departure.
It was more than a minute before the woman lifted her head; then her
face was pale, and a deep smouldering purpose burned like fire in the
depths of her eyes. She looked around wildly, as if searching for the
man who had just left the room; then her recollection seemed to come
back, and she went up to the table, examining everything upon it with
eager haste. The journal was no longer there, but in its place she found
a folded paper placed in a small portfolio, which bore the General's
initials.
The paper shook in her hands as she unfolded it, for all her former
agitation had come back; and, in her haste to read, the fire seemed to
leap from her black eyes over the writing. It was the life-deed which
had just passed between General Harrington and his son-in-law.
The woman laughed as she folded up the paper--a laugh of such bitter
mockery that it started even herself, as if some other person had been
reviling her.
"And has it ended in this, after years of plotting and privations that
would have killed a common person? Have I ended in binding them more
firmly together. This accounts for his solicitude for her welfare. This
is why these visits of mine trouble him. They might break the compact
which secures repose and reputation to Mabel Harrington, for so much
money--and she is to triumph a second time! I am nothing--a weed, a bit
of miserable night-shade that has poison in it, and nothing more."
As she muttered over these thoughts, more and more slowly, the woman
folded her arms, and stood immovable for several minutes; her brow grew
dark as midnight, and a strange, settled expression came up to her
face, as if the poison she had just spoken of were diffusing itself
through her entire system. At last she heard steps approaching the
library, and hurried away through the disused entrance.