University of Virginia Library

8. CHAPTER VIII.
THE INTERVIEW.

The mulatto partly raised himself from his seat at the window on the
entrance of his tenant, but instantly checked his involuntary movement of
respect, and reseated himself, throwing the fold of his rich cloak with a
haughty air across his breast, and folding his arms within it; for Philip
Clow was not a man intentionally to yield any point in which he had an
accidental superiority over a white person.

`You wished to see me, Mr. Clow,' said Mrs. Anson. Philip made no
answer, and she stood before him, silently watching his dark countenance, in
which passion and ambition were deeply engraven, intermingled with the
lines of that cunning intelligence which characterized him, and which had
placed him so much above his race in wealth and influence.

Mrs. Anson was an interesting-looking woman, about thirty-five, with
traces of former loveliness; a pale cheek, an unsteady and timid eye, and
evidently without the decision of character necessary in any interview with
Clow; yet circumstances might have just now produced this appearance in
her, for she looked as if she feared the man in whose presence she stood.

`Yes, madam,' at length answered the mulatto, compressing his lips very
closely together after he had uttered these two words.

`You have not come, I hope, sir, to ask me to pay you your rent. Did
you receive the note I sent you by Isabel?'

`I did, madam.'

`You then know the circumstances in which I am placed. It is painful
for me to have to speak thus of my husband, sir; but the one hundred
dollars which I had saved to pay you, and which I carefully kept from his

knowledge, he some way discovered, and has expended at the bar-room, or
lost at the gaming-table. Thus I am left without the means to pay you a
second time!'

`And so it will be a third! This story about your husband may be true,
or it may not be!'

`You know his character, sir, and I need not disguise it from you. He
has been constantly absent since he obtained the money, coming in only towards
morning, in a state of intoxication.'

`You should arrest him, madam!'

`He is my husband!' answered the wife, with touching emphasis. `His
only fault is his intemperance.'

`I have nothing to say about your husband. I came for my money, Mrs.
Anson.'

`It is impossible for me to pay you, sir.'

`How much money have you?' demanded the mulatto, coldly, fixing his
black, lustrous eye upon her colorless and distressed face.

`Not seven dollars in the world.'

`What is your stock in the shop below worth?' he asked, in the same icy
tone.

`Scarcely fifty dollars. I keep nothing of any consequences on hand; my
work being principally custom-made. You certainly cannot —'

`And your furniture, I suppose, would bring about a hundred dollars more
at auction. You are in arrears to me one hundred and forty.'

`But sir — oh, Mr. Clow, you cannot mean to ruin me by taking possession?'
cried Mrs. Anson, clasping her hands together, and surveying his
dark, immovable features, with a deprecating look that bordered on despair;
for she well knew the character of the wealthy mulatto.

`Such is my intention, madam. To-morrow morning early I shall send
an officer to your house!'

`Oh, sir, for God's sake spare me! Indulge me a little while! Perhaps
in two or three weeks —'

`Two or three weeks is not now! Do you not know that landlords never
indulge! Such is the rule of white landlords; and am I expected to be
more humane than a white man?' and the mulatto smiled with an ironical
expression that caused her to shudder, for she felt there was no longer any
hope for her. She threw herself, or rather sunk, into a chair that stood by
the table, and leaning her head upon it, she covered her face with her
hands, and the tears of deep anguish were visible trickling through her
fingers. Clow looked at this exhibition of sorrow with a smile of peculiar
triumph. He rose up, after a moment, and approaching her, laid his hand
upon her shoulder. She started with a recoil from the touch, and gazed up
into his countenance with fear.

`Madam, you are in my power!' he said, in a deep tone.

`Mercy, mercy! Mister Clow! Give me — oh, give me another month!'

`You are in my power. At a word from me you become an inmate of
the city prison! But do not shrink. Be calm. It is not my wish to injure
you. It is, on the contrary, my desire to serve you. Compose yourself,
Mrs. Anson, and listen to me. You have done me one favor, by taking my
sister Isabel with you to teach her your trade. My object in placing her
with you, contrary to her wishes, and incurring her anger thereby, I do not
now reveal. It will appear in due time. I trust she serves you faithfully.'

`Yes.'

`You objected to taking her because she had the blood of the African
race in her veins! But I forgave you a debt for doing it, and so we are
both favored. She got too far advanced in womanhood to remain longer in
such a house as mine, and it is better she should be here. You do not
forget that I make you responsible for her movements, and that she never
goes out.'

`Yes, sir. But for this restraint she is bitter both against me and you.'

`She would scarcely speak to me when I entered, the resentful girl. I
will talk with her soon. I have been so busy the past few weeks, I have
had no time to speak with her. She shall be satisfied with my motives.
Now, Mrs. Anson, about this rent still due me. Your husband, I have no
doubt, has placed you in this dilemma.'

`I have not deceived you. You know how reckless he is, Mr. Clow. You
knew him in his better days.'

The mulatto slightly frowned. He was not pleased with any reference to
reminiscences of this kind. He knew well that he himself had been the
main instrument of Charles Anson's ruin; for, amongst Clow's other means
of making money, he once kept a gambling saloon in a quarter of the city
not far distant from the head of Hanover street; and in this place the husband
of the mantua-maker took the first step to infamy. At the time he was
a young dry-goods merchant in Old Cornhill, and married to a lovely and
amiable girl; but the temptations held out to young men at Clow's saloons
drew him within their vortex, and he was ruined. His wife opened a
mantua-making establishment, and the husband became a miserable drunkard,
dependent upon her for support and a home; and, as we have seen, by
robbing her of her rent money, had placed her in the power of the man
whom, of all men, in his sober moments, he hated.

`Yes, I knew he was once better off than he seems to be now,' answered
the mulatto, evasively. `Your debt to me is the subject before us.'

`And upon my heart too!'

`I have said I am willing to serve you.'

`Will you, then, give me time?' she cried, a smile of hope lighting up
her pale face.

`I will give you time, if you will give me your service!' he said, significantly.

`How do you mean, sir?' she asked, with a misgiving of she knew not
what.

`You shall hear. What I am about to say to you, I say in confidence.
Your secrecy is to be the condition of my clemency towards you.'

`Yes, sir.'

`You know that I am rich,' continued Clow, in a tone of conscious power,
and drawing his person up haughtily. `To be rich has been my whole aim
— the one subject of all my thoughts, of my very dreams, from the time I
was old enough to know the difference between a mulatto boy and a white
boy! I had not reached my fifteenth year, when I made a resolution that I
would gain wealth; for I saw that wealth was power! I thought, then,
that gold would blind the eyes of the world to my complexion, and that it
would purchase me equality! A very few years showed me my error, for
I saw that I must have education too! I had begun to gather wealth, by
what means I could, for all means to me were made lawful by the end, when
I discovered that I needed to study. I bought books, I took lessons, at great
prices, in secret, of masters; for many refused, unless well paid, to teach a

mulatto. Five years I studied in all my leisure hours, till I became well
educated, and familiar with the literature of the day. I had now money and
education. I richly clad my person, and sought admission into the society
for which I had toiled! I sought it in this way, madam. There was a ball
to be held on the evening of the anniversary of the independence of the
country — on the evening of July the 4th. Tickets were advertised to be
sold, at a given price. I purchased one, and presenting myself at the door,
was refused admittance. But I threw down my ticket, and passed into the
hall. There was instantly a great uproar, and amid a scene of indescribable
confusion, I was ejected — cast forth like a dog!'

Here the brow of the mulatto grew black, and his dark eyes flashed beneath,
like lightnings from beneath a thunder cloud. Drops of perspiration
stood upon his upper lip, and his cheek was pallid. The wife of Charles
Anson had listened to his singular narrative with deep surprise, and now
regarded him, under his strong emotion, not without fear; yet it was a fear,
mingled with a sort of consideration of respect for the native pride and ambition
of his character. If it had been pride without guilt and ambition,
without destitution of principle, his character might indeed have commanded
her respect. But the mulatto was as wicked as he was aspiring; as dangerous
as he was powerful.

`I now saw that neither wealth nor education would open to me the
closely guarded portals of society. About this time I saw, by accident, in
New York, a foreigner. He was a Portuguese noble, I was told. This
man resembled me. I was taken for him, and addressed by his name. This
mistake gave me a joy that I cannot describe. It opened to me a new mine
of ambition, and I saw before me still the attainment of my ambition — the
rising out of, and standing aloof and superior to, my degraded race! I resolved
no longer to seek to obtain admission into society as an educated and
wealthy mulatto; for I knew the folly of the attempt. I determined to
apply myself to the study of the Portuguese language. I at length mastered
it. I could converse in the tongue as if I were a native. I associated
with them in New York, and here, and wherever I could meet with them.
They acknowledged me as one of their nation. They never suspected my
African blood! Nay, among them I saw men even darker than I! It is
but recently I have fully acquired the language, and I have been for some
weeks looking forward to visiting the South and Europe as a Portuguese
gentleman!'

The lady looked upon his haughty and animated face with a surprise she
did not make any effort to hide from him. Her amazement kept her silent. Yet she could not but feel that what he proposed was possible, as she surveyed
his finely cut features, his intelligent expression, and called to mind
that air of suavity he knew so well how to assume when he chose to please.

`I have resolved to leave Boston, and, as a foreigner, take a stand above
my accursed and ignominious condition by birth! But, madam, I must
have my revenges! I am not to be wholly defeated, even here, in my aim,
and the object of my life's ambition! I have seen a maiden of your race,
who must be my wife! I have sworn, and I here solemnly repeat my oath,
that I will, ere I leave this metropolis, win and take her to wife! She is
one of the fairest maidens of thy proud white race! I care not whether she
be poor or rich. She is beautiful! She is fair as a lily, with cheeks like
the moss rose-bud, and eyes of celestial blue! Such a person only shall be
the wife of Philip Clow! Such an one I have seen and love!'

The mulatto, excited by his narrative, had, for the last few moments,
paced to and fro before the table, with a quick and determined step. He
now paused, and taking a seat opposite to her, fixed his eyes steadily upon
her face.

`You look derisively, madam,' he said, in a tone of forced calmness. `Yet
I am in earnest in all I have said.'

`Whom have you seen?' asked Mrs. Anson, anxious to divert his displeasure.
`Who is this maiden?'

`Her name I only know is Frederica. She is the daughter of the milliner,
Mrs. Daily, opposite, and it is there I have seen her. You have seen her?'
he demanded, earnestly.

`Yes — at the window.'

`And at the window I first saw and loved her! I have told you my purpose
touching her. You must aid me in this object, madam!'

`I?' exclaimed the mantua-maker, with alarm.

`Yes, you, madam!'

`I have no knowledge of her, Mr. Clow.'

`You must make her acquaintance.'

`How?'

`There are a hundred ways. You can call and give her work. You can
make errands for her to cross the street, and see you about the work. You
have wit, and must use it! Remember you are in my power, and only on
condition that you serve me faithfully in this affair, which I have so closely
at heart, do I release you from my power over you! If you are successful
in bringing about an interview here, in this room, between me and this lovely
girl, I forgive you the debt, and, besides, will richly reward you. As a
woman, you have plans and schemes at your finger's ends by nature. These
you must contribute to the furtherance of the object I have in view. I will
give you three days to bring, by some ruse or other, this maiden where I
can speak with her — where I can, without interruption, plead my passion.
Moreover, you must first pave the way by speaking of me in the terms
which your discretion and tact will instruct you to make use of. Three days
I give you to bring this about!'

Thus speaking, the mulatto rose up and took her hand.

`We understand one another, Mrs. Anson?'

`Yes, sir,' answered the lady, in a faint tone.

`Remember that your safety depends on your faithfulness to me!'

`Yes, sir,' she answered in an embarrassed and undecided tone, making an
effort to release her hand.

`Then good-night, madam,' he said, and was about to press his lips to
hers, when the door was flung open, and Charles Anson staggered into the
room.