University of Virginia Library

10. CHAPTER X.
THE MULATTO AND HIS SISTER.

Philip Clow, it will have been seen by those who have followed us
thus far in our story, was no ordinary man — a mulatto by birth, and endowed
by nature with an active, intelligent, and strong mind, united with
great sensibility, and a spirit bold and aspiring. He had not advanced far
into the years of boyhood before he became sensibly aware of the difference
between a mulatto boy and a white boy. He saw that he was regarded as
belonging to an inferior order of the race of mankind, and that he was
degraded from his very birth. He grew up intelligent, observing, and being
unusually handsome for one of his class, he was not a little caressed, by
the gentlemen who visited the shop of his father who was a genteel barber;
but he was not long in discovering that he was caressed only as a beautiful
spaniel dog would be; so he began to grow suspicious and reserved, and
gradually to cherish a deep but silent hatred against the white race.

The rest of his history is known, as detailed by himself in his interview
with his tenant on the evening of her death. Philip had a sister much
younger than himself, and with the same regularity of feature and sprightly
beauty of countenance that had distinguished him when a boy. His father
was dead, having left him considerable money, and one or two tenements,
and the care of this young girl.

As he despised his own class as heartily as he hated the white race, and
refused to associate with them on a level with their degradation, he resolved
that this sister, whom he tenderly loved, should be strictly guarded
from associating with those of her own blood, and educated in the most finished
style that money and his own talents as her teacher would enable him
to accomplish. He therefore kept her at home with him in great seclusion,
and for years, while educating himself, educated her; pouring into her
mind the flowers of that knowledge which he gathered for his own.

When they had ascended from the street to his room, or more properly,
library, he closed the door and seated himself opposite to her. She looked
terrified, and trembled; for the sanguinary scene she had just left still
pressed upon her thoughts. Besides, from Philip's manner, she thought
she was about to endure from him one of those severe reproofs for some
misdoing, she knew not what, which from time to time she had from him;
for, though naturally bold and spirited, she stood in fear of her brother.

`So that woman is dead!' he said, with singular emphasis, after being
seated a moment, and speaking as if his thoughts had been dwelling upon
that event.

`It was a fearful sight, brother,' answered the girl, in that richly-keyed,
reed-like voice peculiar to the young quadroon girl.

`Well, it can't be helped. I did not do it. Yet I would give much to
have that pistol in my possession before it is examined and my name seen
upon it. But let it pass. I can say I sold him the pistol—or that he stole
it. Did you not say he confessed it?'

`Yes! and they took him to prison!'

`Then let it be so. He will not say I did it!'

`He seemed overwhelmed with horror and remorse, and to triumph in
being dragged off.'

`So I should suppose, from what I know of the man. But let this pass by.
We have nothing more to do with the matter—nor let it be mentioned again.
I would these proud white faces would all slay one another. Then we
would rule. But why do I say we. It would be a nation of base slaves,
as all of our accursed race are, spite of their boast that they are free. Free!'
he repeated, with utter scorn. `Free, because they have not one master
like their southern brethren, but a thousand and ten thousand. Every white
man is their master. They bow and cringe to them, and do mean offices
and hide in low alleys and bear their haughty derison. Out upon such freedom!
I will have no lot nor part in it! I would not be a leader even of
such a servile people, who tremble beneath the glance of a blue eye and
cower at the waving of a white hand. I come out from the herd and leave
them in their own miserable bondage to the iron fetters of social laws,
stronger and more oppressive than the chains of the southern planter.
Better be slaves to him than in bondage to every individual of a race that
despises them and tramples on them!'

The mulatto spoke with strong excitement, his eyes flashing and his manner
stern and defying. Isabel shrunk back from him with fear, though by no
means unaccustomed to hear such language from his burning lips. She
was not, either, insensible to the feeling that governed him; for, in educating
her, he had instilled into her mind a portion of his own spirit of hatred of
the white race, and aspiring ambition to rise superior to his own. She remained
silent, and waiting till he should speak again. Her appearance was
striking and interesting. The attitude in which she had thrown herself
unconsciously, as she drew back from his flashing eyes, and shrunk from his
ringing words, was a beautiful embodiment of graceful alarm. Her figure
was symmetry itself, and every movement of her body was like the undulation
of a wave. Her hair, of a shining black hue, was parted on the brow
and smoothed adown the temples with perfect simplicity. She wore earrings
with coral-drops, and a necklace of coral, with a small gold cross
pendant upon the bosom. The coral contrasted finely with the bright hazel
brown hue of her skin. Her features, as we have before remarked, were
perfectly regular, the nose and chin in particular being beautifully chiseled,
while her black, arched brow, and large, full, Arabian-looking eyes completed
the portrait of a face of no ordinary beauty. Her dress was a neatly-fitting
green muslin, with large scarlet rosettes in the pattern, and as her hair was
tied with a cherry-colored ribbon, red seemed to be with her, as with most
quadroons, a favorite color. Her countenance was bright with intelligence,
and seemed capable of expressing great feeling and strength of passion,
whether the tender or the terrible.

`Isabel,' said Philip, after a few moments silence, `you cannot sympathize
and feel with me as I would have you.'

`Nay, Philip, I have one feeling with you, on this subject,' she said, earnestly.
`Do not reproach me thus.'

`Well, I am glad you say so. I am very glad to hear you say so. If
you act not with me, who will you coöperate with? Are you a mulattress?
do you belong to the herd of slaves that hide in the cities' alleys, and live
by the lowest avocations! Are you one of them? No! You were, but
are not now. Are you then a white maiden? Can you sit on cushions in
the broad aisle of their proud temples, and worship? Can you mingle in the
dance with them? Can you even be admitted to their boarding-schools?
Are you one of them, I ask? No. There are the two great sides. You
belong to neither; nor do I. We stand alone. We have cast off the one,
and are not received by the other. But this shall not always be. I have
sworn that they shall receive both you and me. They will not do it frankly,
and therefore they shall be deceived into it, and I will obtain right by stratagem
and plotting — by art, cunning, and duplicity. I hate them; but yet I
would lose my left hand—aye, my arm to its very shoulder, to have the other
hand openly, frankly, and equally taken by men of the white race.'

`I would scorn them, brother!' answered the young girl, proudly throwing
forward her head in a very spirited manner.

`I do scorn and despise them; yet I tell you, sister, I would fawn upon
them — nay, I could lap the dust from their feet, if I could be taken up by
them the next moment and treated as a man. But fawn I never will, for
this will never come by fawning. I will gain it by art, and money, and
power, and stratagem. You, too, must aid in the work.'

`What would you have me do?' she asked, with surprise, and looking perplexed,
seeing that he fixed his gaze on her as if expecting her to make some
reply.

`What would I have you to do? Do you know for what I have educated
you?'

`To have the pride of knowing you could render your sister equal to the
daughter of the white race.

`More than this; though when I look on you, and converse with you, and
reflect what you are — when I see in you the fruits of my labors and the
realization thus far, of my hopes, I am proud. But more than this. I have,
by educating you, forever placed you beyond the reach of every female of
your race, and forever erected a barrier to your descent to their level. You,
neither I nor you, can remain between two elements; if too buoyant to sink
into the one, we must rise into the other. You can never be the servant of a
white maiden, and must therefore be an equal.'

`Why, then, have you placed me, the last three weeks, at Mrs. Anson's?'
she asked, with a look of curiosity.

`You were not there as a servant, but to learn a reputable trade; not that
I wished either that you should learn a trade; but it was a fashionable resort,
and I wished to test you there in the presence of the ladies who came
in. I wished you to be seen. I wished you to attract notice and remark.
I wished to pave the way for your introduction into that society I mean you
shall yet move in; for you are fitted, both in person and mind, in address
and accomplishments, to grace any circle in the metropolis. Of this you
are conscious. What artist paints so exquisitely? What performer on
the harp or piano plays with more skill? What Italian singer ever poured
forth such melody from her throat as flows from yours, with such ravishing
sweetness and power? No, Isabel, my sister, I placed you not there to

servitude or apprenticeship, but to surprise the ladies of fashion who daily
thronged the saloon of Madam Anson! No one knew your talents, and
powers, and accomplishments, but your masters, who knew not, when they
secretly taught you in your retired apartments, that their pupil was a mulattress
— a despised daughter of the negro race. No, forsooth, they took
you, as you well know, for a Jewess. Had I told the truth, would I
have got such masters for you as I obtained. Would they have degraded
their art, each to communicate it to a mulattress, think you? Oh, no! It
was by concealing the stain of your birth that I achieved all I did. Even
Madam Anson objected to taking you, when I told her, — for I cared not to
disguise it to her, — that it was my sister I wanted to place with her. But she
was in my power — she owed me money — and the creditors' power is the
greatest and most fearful power on earth. She was in my power, and she
obeyed my wish. I did not explain to you my object in placing you with
her, because I would rather have you act out naturally your part. You
have done it well, for I have heard of you as well as watched you. Your
name and beauty — nay, be not confused — are in a hundred mouths; and
not only of the proud and beautiful of your own sex, but of the young, rich,
and select, of the opposite one. But no one knows you, nor whence you
came. This secret Madam Anson has kept, as I ordered. The very mystery
thrown around you has increased the interest in you; and to-day I
heard, as I entered a coffee-house in my Portuguese character — I heard a
discussion between two fashionable young men, whether you were a quadroon
or a Jewess; while both repeated much that they had heard of your
beauty, talents, and education.'

Isabel looked embarrassed, but it was evident that she felt gratified, as
well at the sensation she had unconsciously created, as by the flattering commendations
of her brother.

`I was, indeed, much talked to, and a great many questions were put to
me, by beautiful girls, and even gentlemen who came in with them pressed
their conversation upon me, till I became so much annoyed and even alarmed,'
she added, with a brilliant smile, `that I told Madam I would for the future
keep in the rear shop or up stairs; and after that I remained away from
sight, while I was at work, all I could; but I was not aware of your purposes,
Philip. What end do you have, or had you in view, in making me
so conspicuous?'

`I will explain to you; know first, however, that my object has been thus
far successful, as you shall now hear; for I will conceal from you nothing.'