“RICHMOND, _June 8th, 1847._
“DEAR EFFIE,—It is past ten o’clock, and a rainy night.
Just such a one as would make a comfortable bed and a sound
snooze no mean objects of desire.
“George Moody, alias ‘The Irresistible,’ arrived this
afternoon, and will leave in the morning, and I cannot let
so good an opportunity of writing to you escape. I must
scribble a brief epistle.
“The drive down from Powhatan was delightful. I found Mr.
Belt extremely pleasant, full of anecdote, a great talker,
yet, withal—as Mr. Miller had told me—a good listener. A
very necessary qualification, by-the-way, for any one with
whom I may chance to be in company.
“The first thing I heard when I reached home was tidings
of that worst of bugbears to a Southern woman—an impending
insurrection. A double guard was on duty at the capitol,
and a detachment of military from the armory paraded the
streets all night. I was, I confess, somewhat alarmed, and
not a little startled, but gradually my fears wore away, and
I slept as soundly that night as if no such thing were in
agitation.
“‘Puss Sheppard was in to supper, and her parting salutation
to us at going was: ‘Farewell! If I am alive in the morning
I will come and see if you are!’
“The whole matter ended, like Mr. C.’s sermon—‘just where it
began—_viz._, in nothing.’
“Richmond is rather dull at present. The Texas excitement
has subsided almost entirely, and those who gave credence
to the report of the insurrection are desirous to keep as
still as possible.
“_Morning._—I can write no more. I am sure your good-nature
will acquit me of blame so far as matter, chirography,
and quality go, when I tell you that I have written this
partly by the light of a lamp which finally went out,
self-extinguished for want of oil, and partly this morning,
when I am suffering with a sick-headache. I feel more like
going to bed than writing, but ‘The Unexceptionable’ is
about to take his departure, and waits for this. Write soon
and much. I will try to treat you better next time.”
There is much reading between the lines to be done for the right
comprehension of that letter. My _genre_ pictures of days that are no
more would be incomplete were I to fail to touch upon the “worst of
bugbears” I feigned to pass over lightly.
In the debate upon the abolition of slavery in my native State, lost by
one vote in the Legislature of 1831-32, while Nat Turner’s insurrection
was fresh in the public mind, John Randolph declared, “Whenever the
fire-alarm rings in Richmond every mother clasps her baby closer to her
breast.”
I cannot recollect when the whisper of the possibility of
“Insurrection” (we needed not to specify of what kind) did not send a
sick chill to my heart. The menace I here dismiss with a sentence or
two was the most serious that had loomed upon my horizon. I could not
trust myself to dwell upon it within the two days that had elapsed
since my return from a vacation month in Powhatan. How keenly every
circumstance attending it was bitten into my mind is proved by the
distinctness of the etching preserved by a memory that has let many
things of greater moment escape its hold.
My host, Mr. D., had come in to dinner the day before that set for
my stage-journey back to town, with the pleasing intelligence that
Mr. Lloyd Belt, a former citizen of Powhatan, but for twenty years a
resident of Richmond, was “going down”—Richmond was always “down,” as
London is “up” from every part of England—the next day, and would be
glad to take me in his carriage. As I wrote to Effie, the drive was
delightful. My courtly escort took as much pains to entertain me as if
I had been a belle and a beauty, instead of an unformed school-girl. It
was a way they had—those gentlemen of the Old School—of recognizing the
woman in every baby-girl, and doing it honor.
It did not strike me as strange that Mr. Belt beguiled the thirty-mile
journey with anecdote and disquisition. He was charming. I never
thought that he was likewise condescending. I am quite as sure that the
idea did not enter his knightly imagination.
As we drove leisurely up Main Street from the bridge, we noticed that
groups of men stood on the street corners and in the doors of stores,
chatting gravely, and, it would seem, confidentially.
“There must be news from the seat of war!” opined my companion.
The Mexican War was then in progress, and accompanying raids into the
debatable territory of Texas kept public sentiment in a ferment.
My father and the rest of the family, with a couple of neighbors, were
enjoying the cool of the day upon our front porch. He came down to the
gate to assist me to alight. So did Mr. Strobia, our elderly next-door
neighbor, and he handed me up the steps while my father lingered to
thank my escort for bringing me safely home. In the joyous confusion of
greetings, I had not observed that Mr. Belt was leaning down from the
carriage to my father’s ear, and that both were very grave, until Puss
Sheppard, like the rattlepate she was, whispered loudly to Mr. Strobia:
“I’m scared to death! What is the latest news? You men won’t tell us.”
“I have heard no news about anything or anybody!” ejaculated the old
gentleman, testily and loudly, glancing over his shoulder at Gilbert,
who had my trunk on his shoulder and was carrying it in at the
side-gate. “Upon my soul, I haven’t!” And as she caught his arm and
swung around to get the truth from his eyes, he bustled down the steps
and so on home.
I had the tale in full by the time my bonnet was off. Mea, on one
side, and Puss on the other, poured it forth in excited whispers,
having closed “the chamber” door. Abolitionists had been at work among
the negroes in Henrico and Hanover counties for weeks. There were
indications of an organized conspiracy (in scope and detail so like
the plot for which John Brown’s blood paid twelve years thereafter,
that I bethought me of it when the news from Harper’s Ferry stunned the
nation), and the city was under arms. Governor Smith was said to have
issued a proclamation to militia and citizens at large in Latin.