MOTHER AND DAUGHTER.
About an hour after General Harrington drove up to his stables, with
such a clash of bells, and stole from it so noiselessly, there came
another sleigh along the high road, the very one which had borne Lina
French to her wretched city home. Noiselessly as it had moved that
stormy night, the sleigh crept toward General Harrington's dwelling. At
the cross of the roads it made a halt, and out from the pile of furs
stepped a female, mantled from head to foot, who set her foot firmly
upon the snow, and, with a wave of her hand, dismissed the sleigh,
which, turning upon its track, glided like a shadow into the darkness
again.
The woman stood still till the sleigh was out of sight; then gathering
the cloak about her, walked rapidly towards the house. As General
Harrington had done, she opened the door with a latch-key, and glided
into the darkened vestibule. Her tread left no sound on the marble, and
she glided on through the darkness like a shadow, meeting no one, and
apparently so well acquainted with the building that light was
unnecessary. At length she paused opposite a door, opened it cautiously,
and entered a dusky chamber, lighted only by a small lamp that was so
shaded that a single gleam of light shot across the floor, leaving the
rest in darkness. A bed stood in this room with a low couch, on which
Agnes Barker was sleeping. The woman took up the lamp, allowing a stream
of light to fall upon her face, at the same moment it revealed that of
the holder, which shone out hard as iron, and with a grey pallor upon
it.
"Is it you?" exclaimed the girl, starting up and putting back the hair
from her face. "Have you found him? Has he returned? Why can't you speak
to me? Where is Ralph Harrington?"
"Agnes!"
"Well," answered the girl, impatiently.
"It is useless pursuing this infatuation longer. The time has come when
you must learn to command yourself. You are my daughter!"
"I don't believe it!" answered the girl, angrily.
"Have you ever known any other parent?"
"I never had any parent!"
"Who placed you at school? who paid for your education?"
"I don't know--your mistress, I dare say, who was ashamed of my birth,
and made you her agent. I have always believed so and believe it yet."
"Agnes, you are my own child. I call on Heaven to witness it!"
"I am not fool enough to believe you."
"You would have the poor thing separated from young Harrington, and I
had no other way of appeasing your unreasonable demands, being your
mother."
"Well, at any rate they are separated, and I am not married to James the
millionaire, which was your wish; so, after all, I do not come out
second best in a fair trial of strength, you see."
"I do not wish your marriage with James Harrington, and Ralph you can
never hope for."
"You think so!" answered the girl, with a vicious sneer. "You fancy that
one rebuff will crush me. I neither know nor care who told you that he
has met my love with scorn, fled my presence as if I were a viper on his
father's hearth. I tell you he shall return. I have a will that shall
yet bend his love to mine though it were tougher than iron. Woman, I
say again, Ralph Harrington shall yet be my lawfully wedded husband!"
"Girl, I tell you again, and with far better reasons, it can never be!"
cried Zillah, towering over her as she sat upon the couch.
"It shall be!" almost hissed the girl, meeting the black eyes bent upon
her with glances of sullen wrath.
"Not till the laws permit brothers and sisters to marry!" answered
Zillah. "For I call upon the living God to witness that you are General
Harrington's child!" Her face hardened and grew white, as the secret
burst from her lips; for she saw the shudder and heard the shriek that
broke from her child.
"His and yours?" questioned Agnes, pale as death.
"His and mine!"
"And you were a slave?"
"_His_ slave."
Agnes started up, tossing her hands wildly in the air.
"A noble parentage--a thrice noble parentage!" she cried out, hoarse
with pain and rage. "The child of a villain, and his slave! Woman, I
could tear you into atoms, for daring to pour your black blood into my
life!"
Zillah drew back, pale and aghast. She could not speak.
"Ah, now I know why this flesh crept, and the blood fell back upon my
heart, when that vicious old man was near! My life rose up against the
outrage of its own being. I tell you, woman, if this man is my father, I
_hate_ him!"
"And me," faltered Zillah, shuddering.
"And you, negro-slave that you are."
"I am neither a negro or a slave," answered Zillah, recovering a portion
of her haughtiness; "the taint of my blood has died out in yours. Look
on me, unfeeling girl, and say where you find a trace of the
African--not in this hair, it is straight and glossy as Mabel
Harrington's--not on my forehead, see how smooth it is--not in my heart
or brain, for when did an African ever have the mind to invent, or the
courage to carry out, the designs that fill my brain? I tell you, girl,
your mother has neither the look nor the soul of a slave; but she has
will, and power, and a purpose, too, that shall lift her child so high,
that the whitest woman of her father's race will yet be proud to render
her homage!"
"Dreaming, dreaming!" exclaimed Agnes, scornfully.