former playmate. The bright boy, whom Dorothy’s father had chosen as one
destined to be a fit life companion for her, had remained a bright boy.
And that which astonishes us as brilliancy in a child ceases to impress
us as the child grows into manhood, if the promise of it is not
fulfilled by growth. A bright boy, ten or twelve years old, is a very
pleasant person to contemplate; but a youth who remains nothing more
than a bright boy as he grows into manhood, is distinctly disappointing
and depressing.
It is to be said to the credit of Madison Peyton that he had done all
that he could--or rather all that he knew how--to promote the
intellectual development of this his first born son. He had lavished
money upon tutors for him, when he ought instead to have sent him to
some school whose all dominating democracy would have compelled the boy
to work for his standing and to realize the value of personal endeavor.
In brief Madison Peyton had made that mistake which the much richer men
of our day so often make. He had tried to provide for his son a royal
road to learning, only to find that the pleasures of the roadside had
won the wayfarer away from the objects of his journey.
Madison Peyton now realized all this. He understood how little profit
his son had got out of the very expensive education provided for him,
how completely he had failed to acquire intellectual tastes, and in a
dimly subconscious way, he understood how ill equipped the young man was
to win the love of such a girl as Dorothy, or to make her happy as his
wife. And he realized also that if travel and culture and a larger
thinking should weaken in Dorothy’s mind--as it easily might--that sense
of obligation to fulfil her father’s desires, on which mainly he had
relied for the carrying out of the program of marriage between these
two, with Pocahontas plantation as an incidental advantage, the youth
must win Dorothy by a worthiness of her love, or lose her for lack of
it.
The worthiness in his son was obviously wanting. There remained only
Dorothy’s overweening loyalty to her father’s memory and will as a
reliance for the accomplishment of Madison Peyton’s desires. It was to
prevent the weakening of that loyalty that he appealed to Aunt Polly to
forbid the travel plan.
Aunt Polly from the first refused. “Dorothy is a wonderful girl,” she
said, “and she has wonderful gifts. I shall certainly not stand in the
way of their development.”
“But let me remind you, Cousin Polly,” answered Peyton, “that Dorothy’s
life is marked out for her. Don’t you think it would be a distinct
injustice to her to unfit her as this trip cannot fail to do, for the
life that she must lead? Will not that tend to render her unhappy?”
“Happiness is not a matter of circumstance, Madison. It is a matter of
character. But that isn’t what I meant to say. You want me to keep
Dorothy here in order that she may not grow, or develop, or whatever
else you choose to call it. You want to keep her as ignorant as you can,
simply because you know she is already the superior of the young man
whom you and Dr. South, in your ignorant assumption of the attributes of
Divine Providence, have selected to be her husband. You are afraid that
she will outgrow him. Isn’t that what you mean, Madison?”
“Well, yes, in a way. You put it very baldly, but----”
“But that’s the truth, isn’t it? That’s what you’re afraid of?”
“Well, the fact is I don’t believe in educating girls above their
station in life.”
“How can anything be above Dorothy’s station, Madison? She is the
daughter and sole heir of one of the oldest and best families in
Virginia. I have never heard of anything higher than that.”
“Oh, certainly. But that isn’t what I mean. You see Dorothy has been
permitted to read a lot of books that young women don’t usually read,
and study a lot of subjects that young women don’t usually study. She
has got her head full of notions, and this trip will make the matter
worse. I think women should look up to their husbands and not down upon
them, and how can Dorothy----”
“How would it do, Madison, for the young men to make an effort on their
own account, to improve their minds and build up their characters so
that their wives might look up to them without an effort? There are some
men to whom the most highly cultivated women can look up in real
respect, and it is quite natural that the best of the young women should
choose these for their husbands. Many young men refuse to make
themselves worthy in that way, or fail in such efforts as they may make
to accomplish it. If I understand you properly, you would forbid the
girls to cultivate what is best in them lest they grow superior to their
coming husbands.”
“That’s it, Cousin Polly. The happy women are those who feel the
superiority of their husbands and find pleasure in bowing to it.”
“I thought that was your idea. It is simply abominable. It makes no more
of a woman than of a heifer or a filly. It regards her as nothing more
or better than a convenience. I’ll have nothing to do with such a
doctrine. Dorothy South is a girl of unusual character, and unusual
mind, so far as I can judge. She has naturally done all she could to
cultivate what is best in herself, and, so far as I can control the
matter she shall go on doing so, as every woman and every man ought to
do. When she has made the best she can of herself, she may perhaps meet
some man worthy of her, some man fit to be her companion in life. If she
does, she’ll probably marry him. If she meets none such she can remain
single. That isn’t at all the worst thing that can happen to a woman. It
is a hideous thing to marry a girl to her inferior. You have yourself
suggested that such a marriage can only mean wretchedness to both. And
your plan of avoiding such marriages is to keep the girls inferior by
denying them the privilege of self-cultivation. I tell you it is an
abominable plan. It’s Turkish, and the only right way to carry it out is
to shut women up in harems and forbid them to learn how to read. For if
a woman or a man of brains learns that much, the rest cannot be
prevented. So you may make up your mind that Dorothy is going to make
this trip. I’ve already consented to it, and the more I think about it,
the more I am in favor of it. My only fear is that she may fall off the
earth when she gets to the other side, and I reckon that will not
happen, for both Arthur and Edmonia assure me they didn’t fall off when
they were over there.”
Peyton saw the necessity of making some stronger appeal to Aunt Polly,
than any he had yet put forward. So he addressed himself to her
conscience and her exalted sense of honor.
“Doubtless you are right, Cousin Polly,” he said placatively, “at least
as to the general principle. But, as you clearly understand, this is a
peculiar case. You see Dorothy _must_ marry Jefferson in any event.
Don’t you think it would be very unfair and even cruel to her, to let
her unfit herself for happiness in the only marriage she is permitted to
make? Will it not be cruel to let her get her head full of notions, and
perhaps even accept some man’s attentions, and then find yourself in
honor bound to show her the letter you hold from Dr. South, instructing
her to carry out his will? You know she will obey her dead father and
marry Jefferson. Isn’t it clearly your duty to shield and guard her
against influences that cannot fail to unfit her for happiness in the
marriage she must make?”
“I am sole judge of that matter, Madison. I am the guardian of Dorothy’s
person during her nonage--four years longer. By the terms of Dr. South’s
will she must not marry until she is twenty-one, except with my consent.
With my consent she may marry at any time. As to the letter you speak
of, you have never had the privilege of reading it, and I do not intend
to show it to you. It is less peremptory, perhaps than you think. It
does not command Dorothy to marry your son. It only recommends such a
marriage to her as a safe and prudent one, securing to her the
advantages of marriage into as good a family as her own. But there are
other families than yours as good as her own, and I may see fit not to
show Dorothy her father’s letter at all. I am not bound to let her read
it, by any clause in his will, or by any promise to him, or even by any
injunction from him. I am left sole judge as to that. If I had not been
so left free to use my own discretion I should never have accepted the
responsibility of the girl’s guardianship.”
“You astonish me!” exclaimed Peyton. “I had supposed this matter settled
beyond recall. I had trusted Dr. South’s honor----”
“Stop, Madison!” interposed Aunt Polly. “If you say one word in question
of Dr. South’s honor and integrity, I will burn that letter now, and
never, so long as I live mention its existence.”
“Oh, I didn’t mean--”
“It seems to me you say a good many things you do not mean today,
Madison. As for me, I am saying only what I mean, and perhaps not quite
all of that. Let me end the whole matter by telling you this: I am going
to let Dorothy make this trip. I am going to give her every chance I can
to cultivate herself into a perfect womanhood--many chances that I
longed for
[Illustration: _DOROTHY SOUTH._]
in my own girlhood, but could not command. I may or may not some day
show her Dr. South’s letter. That shall be as my judgment dictates. I
shall not consent now or hereafter, while my authority or influence
lasts, to Dorothy’s marriage to anybody except some man of her own
choosing, who shall seem to me fit to make her happy. If you want
Jefferson to marry her, I notify you now that he must fairly win her.
And my advice to you is very earnest that he set to work at once to
render himself worthy of her; to repair his character; to cultivate
himself, if he can, up to her moral and intellectual level; to make of
himself a man to whom she can look up, as you say, and not down. There,
that is all I have to say.”
Madison Peyton saw this to be good advice, and he decided to act upon
it. But, as so often happens with good advice, he “took it wrong end
first,” in the phrase of that time and country. He decided that his son
should also go north and to Europe, following the party to which Dorothy
belonged as closely as possible, seeing as much as he could of her, and
paying court to her upon every opportunity.
XXVII
DIANA’S EXALTATION
_I_t was the middle of January, 1860, when Dorothy bade Arthur good-by
and went away upon her mission of enjoyment and education.
It is not easy for us now to picture to ourselves what travel in this
country was in that year which seems to the older ones among us so
recent. In 1860 there was not such a thing as a sleeping car in all the
world. The nearest approach to that necessity of modern life which then
existed, was a car with high backed seats, which was used on a few of
the longer lines of railroad. For another thing there were no such
things in existence as through trains. Every railroad in the country was
an independent line, whose trains ran only between its own termini. The
traveller must “change cars” at every terminus, and usually the process
involved a delay of several hours and a long omnibus ride--perhaps at
midnight--through the streets of some city which had thriftily provided
that its several railroads should place their stations as far apart as
possible in order that their passengers might “leave money in the town.”
The passenger from a south side county of Virginia intending to go to
New York, for example, must take a train to Richmond; thence after
crossing the town in an omnibus and waiting for an hour or two, take
another train to Acquia Creek, near Fredericksburg; there transfer to a
steamboat for Washington; there cross town in an omnibus, and, after
another long wait, take a train for the Relay House; there wait four
hours and then change cars for Baltimore, nine miles away; then take
another omnibus ride to another station; thence a train to Havre de
Grace, where he must cross a river on a ferry boat; thence by another
train to Philadelphia, where, after still another omnibus transfer and
another delay, one had a choice of routes to New York, the preferred one
being by way of Camden and Amboy, and thence up the bay twenty miles or
so, to the battery in New York. There was no such thing as a dining car,
a buffet car or a drawing room car in all the land. There were none but
hand brakes on the trains, and the cars were held together by loose
coupling links. The rails were not fastened together at their badly
laminated ends, and it was the fashion to call trains that reached a
maximum speed of twenty miles an hour, “lightning expresses,” and to
stop them at every little wayside station. The engines were fed upon
wood, and it was a common thing for trains to stop their intolerable
jolting for full twenty minutes to take fresh supplies of wood and
water.
There was immeasurably more of weariness then, in a journey from
Richmond or Cincinnati or Buffalo to New York, than would be tolerated
now in a trip across the continent. As a consequence few people
travelled except for short distances and a journey which we now think
nothing of making comfortably in a single night, was then a matter of
grave consequence, to be undertaken only after much deliberation and
with much of preparation. New York seemed more distant to the dweller in
the West or South than Hong Kong and Yokohama do in our time, and the
number of people who had journeyed beyond the borders of our own country
was so small that those who had done so were regarded as persons of
interestingly adventurous experience.
Quite necessarily all parts of the country were markedly provincial in
speech, manner, habits and even in dress. New England had a nasal
dialect of its own, so firmly rooted in use that it has required two or
three generations of exacting Yankee school marms to eradicate it from
the speech even of the educated class. New York state had another, and
the Southerner was known everywhere by a speech which “bewrayed” him.
And as it was with speech, so also was it with manners, customs, ideas.
Prejudice was everywhere rampant, opinion intolerant, and usage
merciless in its narrow illiberality. Only in what was then the
West--the region between the Alleghenies and the Mississippi--was there
anything of cosmopolitan liberality and tolerance. They were found in
that region because the population of the West had been drawn from all
parts of the country. Attrition of mind with mind, and the mingling of
men of various origin had there in a large degree worn off the angles of
provincial prejudice and bred a liberality of mind elsewhere uncommon in
our country.
Edmonia and Dorothy were to make their formidable journey to New York in
easy stages. They remained for several days with friends in Richmond,
while completing those preliminary preparations which were necessary
before setting out for the national capital. They were to stay in
Washington for a fortnight, in Baltimore for three weeks, in
Philadelphia for a week or two, and in New York for nearly two months
before sailing for Europe in May.
The time was a very troubled one, on the subject of slavery. Not only
was it true that if the owner of a slave took the negro with him into
any one of the free states he by that act legally set him free, but it
was also true that the most devoted and loyal servant thus taken from
the South into a Northern state was subjected to every form of
persuasive solicitation to claim and assert his freedom. It was
nevertheless the custom of Southern men, and still more of Southern
women, to take with them on their travels one or more of their personal
servants, trusting to their loyalty alone for continued allegiance. For
the attitude of such personal servants in Virginia at that time was
rather that of proud and voluntary allegiance to loved masters and
mistresses who belonged to them as a cherished possession, than that of
men and women held in unwilling bondage.
Accordingly it was arranged that Edmonia’s maid, Dinah--or Diana as she
had come to call herself since hearing her mistress read a “history
pome” aloud--should accompany the two young women as their joint
servitor.
As soon as this arrangement was announced at Branton, Diana began what
Polydore called “a puttin’ on of airs.” In plainer phrase she began to
snub Polydore mercilessly, whereas she had recently been so gracious in
her demeanor towards him as to give him what he called “extinct
discouragement.”
After it was settled that she was to accompany “Miss Mony an’ Miss
Dorothy” to “de Norf” and to “Yurrop”--as she wrote to all her friends
who were fortunate enough to know how to “read writin’,” there was, as
Polydore declared, “no livin’ in de house wid her.” She sailed about the
place like a frigate, delivering her shots to the right and left--most
of them aimed at Polydore, with casual and contemptuous attention, now
and then, to the other house servants.
“I ’clar’ to gracious,” said Elsie, one of the housemaids, “ef Diana
ain’t a puttin’ on of jes’ as many airs as ef she’d been all over
a’ready, an’ she ain’t never been out of dis county yit.”
“Wonder ef she’ll look at folks when she gits back,” said Fred, the
cadet of the dining room, who was being trained under Polydore’s
tutelage to keep his nails clean and to offer dishes to guests at their
left hands.
“Don’ you be in too big a hurry to fin’ out dat, you nigga,” rejoined
Polydore, the loyalty of whose love for Diana would brook no criticism
of her on the part of an underling. “You’se got enough to attend to in
gittin’ yer manners into shape. Diana’s a superior pusson, an’ you ain’t
got no ’casion to criticise her. You jes’ take what yer gits an’ be
thankful like Lazarus wuz when de rich man dropped water outer his hand
on his tongue.”
Polydore’s biblical erudition seems to have been a trifle at fault at
this point. But at any rate his simile had its intended effect upon the
young darkey, who, slipping a surreptitious beaten biscuit into his
pocket, retreated to the distant kitchen to devour it.
At that moment Diana entered the dining room with the air of a Duchess,
and, with unwonted sweetness, said:
“Please, Polydore, bring me de tea things. De ladies is faint.”
Polydore, anxious that Diana’s gentle mood should endure, made all haste
to bring what she desired. He made too much haste, unluckily, for in his
hurry he managed to spill a little hot water from a pitcher he was
carrying on a tray, and some drops of it fell upon the sleeve of Diana’s
daintily laundered cambric gown.
The stately bronze colored namesake of the ancient goddess rose in
offended dignity, and looked long at the offender before addressing him.
Then she witheringly put the question:
“Whar’s your manners dis mawnin’, Polydore? Jes’ spose I was Miss Mony
now; would you go sloppin’ things over her dat way?”
Even a worm will turn, we are told, and Polydore was prouder than a
worm. For once he lost his self-control so far as to say in reply:
“But you _ain’t_ Miss Mony, dough you seems to think you is. I’se tired
o’ yer highty tighty airs. Git de tea things for yerse’f!” With that
Polydore left the dining room, and Diana, curiously enough, made no
reference to the incident when next she encountered him, but was all
smiles and sweetness instead.
XXVIII
THE ADVANCING SHADOW
_N_o sooner were Dorothy and Edmonia gone than Arthur turned again to
affairs. It was a troubled uneasy time in Virginia, a time of sore
apprehension and dread. The “irrepressible conflict” over slavery had
that year taken on new and more threatening features than ever before.
There was now a strong political party at the North the one important
article of whose creed was hostility to the further extension of slavery
into the territories. It was a strictly sectional party in its
composition, having no existence anywhere at the South. It was
influential in Congress, and in 1856 it had strongly supported a
candidate of its own for president. By the beginning of 1860 its
strength had been greatly increased and circumstances rendered probable
its success in electing a president that year, for the hopeless division
of the Democratic party, which occurred later in the year, was already
clearly foreshadowed, an event which in fact resulted in the nomination
of three rival candidates against Mr. Lincoln and made his election
certain in spite of a heavy popular majority against him.
Had this been all, Virginia would not have been greatly disturbed by the
political situation and prospect. But during the preceding autumn the
Virginians had been filled with apprehension for the safety of their
homes and families by John Brown’s attempt, at Harper’s Ferry, to create
a negro insurrection, the one catastrophe always most dreaded by them.
That raid, quickly suppressed as it was, wrought a revolution in
Virginian feeling and sentiment. The Virginians argued from it, and from
the approval given to it in some parts of the North, that Northern
sentiment was rapidly ripening into readiness for any measures, however
violent they might be, for the extinction of slavery and the destruction
of the autonomy of the Southern States.
They found it difficult under the circumstances to believe the
Republican party’s disclaimer of all purpose or power to interfere with
the institution in the states. They were convinced that only opportunity
was now wanting to make the Southern States the victims of an
aggressive war, with a servile insurrection as a horrible feature of it.
They cherished a warm loyalty to that Union which Virginia had done so
much to create, but they began seriously to fear the time when there
would be no peace or safety for their state or even for their wives and
children within the Union. They were filled with resentment, too, of
what they regarded as a wanton and unlawful purpose to interfere with
their private concerns, and to force the country into disunion and civil
war.
There were hot heads among them, of course, who were ready to welcome
such results; but these were very few. The great body of Virginia’s
people loved the Union, and even to the end--a year later--their
strongest efforts were put forth to persuade both sides to policies of
peace.
But in the meantime a marked change came over the Virginian mind with
respect to slavery. Many who had always regarded the institution as an
inherited evil to be got rid of as soon as that might be safely
accomplished, modified or reversed their view when called upon to stand
always upon the defensive against what they deemed an unjust judgment of
themselves.
Arthur Brent did not share this change of view, but he shared in the
feelings of resentment which had given it birth. In common with other
Virginians he felt that this was a matter belonging exclusively to the
individual states, and still more strongly he felt that the existing
political situation and the methods of it gravely menaced the Union in
ways which were exceedingly difficult for Southern men who loved the
Union to meet. He saw with regret the great change that was coming over
public and private sentiment in Virginia--sentiment which had been so
strongly favorable to the peaceable extinction of slavery, that John
Letcher--a lifelong advocate of emancipation as Virginia’s true
policy--had been elected Governor the year before upon that as the only
issue of a state campaign.
But Arthur was still bent upon carrying out his purpose of emancipating
himself and, incidentally his slaves. And the threatening aspect of
political affairs strengthened his determination at any rate to rid both
his own estate and Dorothy’s of debt.
“When that is done, we shall be safe, no matter what happens,” he told
himself.