University of Virginia Library

19. CHAPTER XIX.
THE WHITE SLAVE.

— Aimé Martin.

NO one who has travelled largely through the Southern
States will require to be told that the slave system
sanctions the holding in slavery of persons who are undistinguishable
in complexion from the whitest Anglo-Saxons.
Several carefully authenticated cases, analogous to that developed
in our story, though surpassing it in unspeakable baseness,
have been recently brought to light. We need only hint
at them at this stage of our narrative.

The reader has already divined that the little girl sold at
the slave-auction, and placed under Mrs. Gentry's care, was no
other than the unfortunate child whose parents were lost in
the disaster of the Pontiac.

There is a class of minds which, either from inertness or
lack of leisure, never revise the opinions they have received
from others. If we might borrow a fresh illustration from
Mrs. Gentry's copy-books, we might say that in her mental
growth the tree was inclined precisely as the twig had been
bent. She honestly believed that there was no appeal from
what her sire, the judge, had once laid down as law or gospel.
Having been bred in the belief that slavery was a wholesome
and sacred institution, she would probably have seen her own
sister dragged under it to the auction-block, and not have ventured
to question the righteousness of the act.

There were only two passions which, should they ever come

in direct collision with her veneration for slavery, might possibly
override it; but even on this there seemed to rest much
uncertainty. Her acquisitiveness, as the phrenologists would
have called it, was large; and then, although she was fast declining
into the sere and yellow leaf, she had not surrendered
all hope of one day finding a successor to the late Mr. Gentry
in her affections.

Regarding poor little Clara Berwick (or Ellen Murray) as
a slave, she could never be so far moved by the child's winning
presence and ways as to look on her as entitled to the
same atmosphere and sun as herself. No infantile grace, no
solicitation of affection, could ever melt the icy barrier with
which the pride and self-seeking, fostered by slavery, had
encircled the heart, not naturally bad, of the schoolmistress.
And yet she did her duty by the child to the best of her
ability. Though not a highly educated person, Mrs. Gentry
was shrewd enough to employ for her pupils the most accomplished
teachers; and in respect to Clara she faithfully carried
out Mr. Ratcliff's directions. True, she always exacted an
obedience that was unquestioning and blind. She did not care
to see that the child could have been led by a silken thread,
only satisfy her reason or appeal to her affections. And so it
was to Esha that Clara would always have to go for sympathy,
both in her sorrows and her joys; and it was Esha whose
influence was felt in the very depths of that fresh and sensitive
nature.

From her third to her fourteenth year Clara gave little
promise of beauty. Ratcliff, on receiving her photographs,
used to throw them aside with a “Psha! After all, she 'll be
fit only for a household drudge.”

But as she emerged into her sixteenth year, and features
and form began to develop the full meaning of their outlines, she
all at once appeared in the new and startling phase of a rare
model of incipient womanhood. Her hair, thick and flowing,
was of a softened brown tint, which yet was distinct from that
cognate hue, abrun (a-brown) or auburn, a shade suggestive of
red. Her complexion was clear and pure, though not of tha
brilliant pink and white often associated with delicacy of constitution.
A profile, delicately cut as if to be the despair of

sculptors; a forehead not high, but high enough to show
Mind enthroned there; eyes — it was not till you drew quite
near that you marked the peculiarity already described in the
infant of the Pontiac. The mouth and lips were small and passionate,
the chin bold, yet not protrusive, the nostrils having
that indescribable curve which often makes this feature surpass
all the others in giving a character of decision to a face. A
man of the turf would have summed up his whole description
of the girl in the one word “blood.”

Such a union of the sensuous nature with pure will and intellect
might well have made a watchful parent tremble for her
future.

Ratcliff had been for more than a year in South Carolina,
helping to fire the Southern heart, and forward the secession
movement. Early in January, 1861, he made a flying visit to
New Orleans, and called on Mrs. Gentry.

After some conversation on public affairs, the lady asked,
“Would you like to see my pupil?”

“Not if she resembles the photographs you 've sent me,” replied
Ratcliff. Then, looking at his watch, he added: “I leave
for Charleston this afternoon, and have n't time to see her now.
Early in March I shall be back, and will call then.”

“You must see her a minute,” said Mrs. Gentry. “I think
you 'll admit she does no discredit to my bringing up.” And
she rang the bell.

“Tell Miss Murray, I desire her presence in the parlor.”

Clara entered. She was attired in a plain robe of slate-colored
muslin, exquisitely fitted, and had a book in her hand,
as if just interrupted in study. She stood inquiringly before
the schoolmistress, and seemed unconscious of another's presence.

“I wish you, Miss Murray, to play for this gentleman. Play
the piece you last learnt.”

Without the slightest shyness, Clara obeyed, seating herself
at the piano, and performing Schubert's delectable “Lob der
Throenen,” (Eulogy of Tears,) with Liszt's arrangement. This
she did with an executive facility and precision of touch that
would have charmed a competent judge, which Ratcliff was not.

And yet astonishment made him speechless. He had expected

an undeveloped, awkward, homely girl. Lo a beautiful
young woman whose perfect composure and grace were such as
few queens of society could exhibit! And all that youth and
loveliness were his!

He looked at his watch. Not another moment could he
remain. He drew near to Clara and took her hand, which she
quickly withdrew. “Only maiden coyness,” thought he, and
said: “We must be better acquainted. But I must now hasten
from your dangerous society, or I shall miss the steamer.
Good by, my dear. Good by, Mrs. Gentry. You shall hear
from me very soon.”

And Mrs. Gentry rang the bell, and black Tarquin opened
the door for Ratcliff. As it closed upon him, “Who is that
old man?” asked Clara.

“Old? Why, he does n't look a year over forty,” replied
Mrs. Gentry. “That 's the rich Mr. Ratcliff.”

“Well, I detest him,” said Clara, emphatically.

“Detest!” exclaimed Mrs. Gentry, horror-stricken; for it
was not often that Clara condescended to speak her mind so
freely to that lady. “Detest? Is this the end of all my
moral and religious teachings? O, but you 'll be come up with,
if you go on in this way. Retire to your room, Miss.”

Swiftly and gladly Clara obeyed.

Apropos of the aforesaid teachings, Ratcliff was very willing
that his predestined victim should be piously inclined. It
would rather add to the piquancy of her degradation. He
wavered somewhat as to whether she should be a Protestant
or a Catholic, but finally left the whole matter to Mrs. Gentry.
That profound theologian had done her best to lead Clara into
her own select fold, and, as she thought, had succeeded; but
Clara was pretty sure to take up opinions the reverse of those
held by her teacher. So, after sitting in weariness of spirit
under the ministry of the Rev. Dr. Palmer in the morning,
the perverse young lady would ventilate her religious conceptions
by reading Fenelon, Madame Guyon, or Zschokke in the
evening.

Mrs. Gentry believed in secession, and raved like a Pythoness
against the cowardly Yankees. Clara, seeing a United
States flag trampled on and torn in the street, secured a rag

of it, secretly washed it, and placed it as a holy symbol on her
bosom. Mrs. Gentry expatiated to her pupils on the righteousness
and venerableness of slavery. Clara cut out from a
pictorial paper a poor little dingy picture of Fremont, and
concealed it between two leaves of her Bible, underlining on
one of them these words: “Proclaim liberty throughout all
the land unto all the inhabitants thereof.”

Esha, the colored cook, a slave, was Clara's fast friend in all
her youthful troubles. Esha had passed through all degrees
of slavery, — from toiling in a cotton-field to serving as a lady's
maid. Having had a child, a little girl, taken from her and
sold, she ever afterwards refused to be again a mother. The
straight hair, coppery hue, and somewhat Caucasian cast of
features of this slave showed that she belonged to a race different
from that of the ordinary negro. She had been named
Ayesha, after one of Mahomet's wives. She generally wore a
Madras handkerchief about her head, and showed a partiality
for brilliant colors. Many were the stealthy interviews that
she and Clara enjoyed together.

Said Esha, on one of these occasions: “Don't b'leeb 'em,
darlin', whan dey say de slabe am berry happy, an' all dat.
No slabe dat hab any sense am happy. He know, he do, dat
suffn's tuk away from him dat God gabe him, and meant he
sh'd hole on ter; and so he feel ollerz kind o' mean afore God
an' man too; an' I 'fy anybody, white or black, to be happy
who feel dat ar way.”

“But it is n't the slave's fault, Esha, that he 's a slave.”

“It 's de slabe's fault dat he stay a slabe, darlin',” said the
old woman, with a strange kindling of the eyes. “But den de
massa hab de raisin' ob him, an' so take good car' ter break
down all dar am of de man in de poor slabe; an' de poor slabe
hab no larnin', and dunno whar' to git a libbin' or how to sabe
hisself from starvin'. An' if he run away, de people Norf send
him back.”

On studying Esha further, Clara discovered that she was
half Mahometan, and could speak Arabic. Her mixed notions
she had got partly from her father, Amri, who belonged to
one of those African tribes who cultivate a pure deism, tempered
only by faith in the mission of Mahomet as an inspired

prophet. Amri had been captured by a hostile tribe and sold
into slavery. He lived long enough to teach his little Esha
some things which she remembered. She could repeat several
Arabic poems, and Clara first became familiar with the Arabian
Nights through this old household drudge. One of these
poems had a mystical charm for Clara. Through the illiterate
garb which the slave's English gave it, Clara detected a significance
that led her to write out a paraphrase in the following
words: —

Like many native Africans, Esha was fully assured of the
existence of spirits, and of their power, in exceptional cases,
to manifest themselves to mortals. And she related so many
facts within her own experience, that Clara became a believer
on human testimony, — the more readily because Esha's faith
in demonism was unmixed with superstition.

“Tell me, Esha,” said Clara, at one of their secret midnight
conferences, “were you ever whipped?”

“Never badly, darlin'. It ain't de whippins and de suf'rins
dat make de wrong ob slavery. De mos kindest thing dey
could do de slabe would be ter treat him so he would n't stay a
slabe no how. But dey know jes how fur to go, widout stirrin'
up de man inside ob him. An' dat 's the cuss ob slabery.”

“But, Esha, don't they generally treat the women well on
the plantations?”

“De breedin' women dey treat well, — speshilly jes afore dar
time,[2] — but I 'ze known a pregnant woman whipped so she
died de same night. O de poor bressed lily ob de world! O
de angel from hebbn! O de sweet lubly chile! Nebber, no,
nebber, nebber shall I disremember how I held de little gole
cross afore dat chile's eyes, an' how she die wid de smile on her
sweet face, and her own husband's head on her bosom.”

And the old woman burst into a passion of tears, rocking
herself to and fro, and living over again the sorrow of that
death-bed scene to which she and Peek and one other, years
before, had been witnesses.

Clara pacified her, and Esha said, “You jes stop one
minute, darlin', and I 'll show yer suff'n.” She went to her
garret-closet, and returned with a small silk bag, from which
she took a package done up in fine linen. This she unpinned,
and displayed a long strand of human hair, thick, silky, soft,
and of a peculiarly beautiful color, hardly olive, yet reminding
one of that hue. Holding it up, she said: “Dar! Dat 's de
hair I cut from de head of dat same bress-ed chile I jes tell
yer 'bout.”

“But that is the hair of a white woman,” said Clara.

“Bress yer, darlin', she war jes as white as you am dis
minute.”

After some seconds of silence, Clara said, “Tell me of her.”

And Esha related many, though not all, of the particulars
already familiar to the reader in the story of Estelle.

“Esha, you must give me some of that hair,” said Clara.

“Yes, darlin', I 'll change half of it fur some ob yourn.”

The exchange was made, Clara wrapping her portion in the
little strip of bunting torn from the American flag.

On the subject of her birth Clara had put to Mrs. Gentry
some searching questions, but had learnt simply that her parentage
was unknown. For her concealed benefactor she had
conceived a romantic attachment; and gratitude incited her to
make the best of her opportunities, and to patiently bear her
chagrins.

A month after the late interview with Ratcliff, Mrs. Gentry

received a letter which caused Clara to be summoned to her
presence.

“Sit down. I 've something important to communicate,”
said the schoolmistress. “You 've often asked me to whom
you are indebted for your support. Learn now that you belong
to Mr. Carberry Ratcliff, whom you met here some weeks
ago. He is the rich planter whose house and grounds in
Lafayette you 've often admired.”

“Belong to him?” cried Clara. “What do you mean?
Am I his daughter? Am I in any way related?”

“No, you 're his slave. He bought you at auction.”

Impulsive as her own mocking-bird by nature, Clara had
learned that cruel lesson, which gifted children are often compelled
to acquire when subjected to the rule of inferior minds,
— the art, namely, of checking and disguising the emotions.

Excepting a quivering of her lips, a flushing of her brow, a
slight heaving of her bosom, and a momentary expression as
of deadly sickness in her face, she did not betray, by outward
signs, the intensity of that feeling of disgust, hate, and indignation
which Mrs. Gentry's communication had aroused.

“Did Mr. Ratcliff request you to inform me that he considered
me his slave?” she asked, in a tone which, by a
strenuous effort, she divested of all significance.

“Yes; he concluded you are now of an age to understand
the responsibilities of your real situation. He not only paid a
price for you when you were yet an infant, but he has maintained
you ever since. But for him you might have been
toiling in the sun on a plantation. But for him you might
never have got an education. But for him you might never
have heard of salvation through Christ. But for him you might
never have had the privilege of attending the Rev. Dr. Palmer's
Sunday school. Is there any sacrifice too great for you to
make for such a master? Would it be too much for you to lay
down your life for him? Speak!”

Mrs. Gentry, it will be seen, pursued the Socratic method of
impressing truth upon her pupils. As Clara made no reply to
her interrogatories, she continued: “As your instructress, it
has been my object to make you feel sensibly the importance
of doing your duty in whatever sphere you may be cast.”

“And what, madame, may be the duty of a slave?” interposed
Clara, stifling down and masking the rage of her
heart.

“The duty of a slave,” said Mrs. Gentry, “is to obey her
master. Prompt and unhesitating obedience, that is her duty.”

“Obedience to any and every command, — is that what you
mean, madame?”

“Unquestionably, it is.”

“And must I not exercise my reason as to what is right or
wrong?”

“Your reason, under slavery, is subordinated to another's.
You must not set up your own reason against your master's.”

“Supposing my master should order me to stab or poison
you, — ought I to do it?”

The judge's daughter, like all who venture to vindicate the
leprous wrong on moral grounds, found herself nonplussed.

“You suppose a ridiculous and improbable case,” she replied.

“Well, madame, let me state a fact. One of your pupils
had a letter yesterday from a sister in Alabama, who wrote
that a slave woman had killed herself under these circumstances:
her master had compelled her to unite herself in so-called
marriage with a black man, though she fully believed a
former husband still lived. To escape the abhorred consequence,
she put an end to her life. Was that woman right or
wrong in opposing her master's will?”

“How can you ask?” returned Mrs. Gentry, reproachfully.
“'T is the slave's duty to marry as the master orders.”

“Even though her husband be living, do I understand you?”

“Undoubtedly. Ministers of the Gospel will tell you, if
there 's wrong in it, the master, not the slave, is to blame.”[3]

“I thank you for making the slave's duty so clear. You 're
quite sure Dr. Palmer would approve your view?”

“Entirely. All his preaching on the subject convinces me
of it.”

“And the woman, you think, who killed herself rather than
be false to her husband, went straight to hell?”

“I can hope nothing better for her. She must have been a
poor heathen creature, wholly ignorant of Scripture. Paul
commands slaves to obey; and the woman who wilfully violates
his injunction does it at the peril of her soul.”

Clara was silent; and Mrs. Gentry, felicitating herself on the
powerful moral lesson adapted to her pupil's “new sphere of
duty,” resumed, “By the way, your master —”

“Master!” shrieked Clara, running with upraised hands to
Mrs. Gentry, as if to dash them down on her. Then suddenly
checking herself, she said pleasantly: “You see I 'm a little unused
to the name. What were you going to say?”

“Really, child, one would think you were out of your wits.
It is n't as if you were going to be consigned to a master who 'd
abuse you. There 's many a poor girl in our first society who 'd
be glad to be taken care of as you 'll be. Only think of it!
Here 's a beautiful diamond ring for you. And here 's a check
for five hundred dollars for you to spend in dresses, and you 're
to have the selecting of them all yourself, — think of that! —
under my superintendence of course; but Madame Groux tells
me your taste is excellent, and I shall not interfere. 'T is now
nine o'clock. We 'll drive out this very forenoon to see what
there is in the shops; for Mr. Ratcliff may be here any hour
now. Run and get ready, that 's a good girl. The carriage
shall be here at half past ten.”

Without touching, or even looking at, the ring, Clara ran up-stairs
to her room, and, locking the door, knelt, with flushed,
burning brow and brain, at a little prie-dieu in the corner. She
did not try to put her prayer in words, for the emotions which
swelled within her bosom were all unspeakable. Clara was
intellectually a mystic, but the current of her individualism
was too strong to be diverted from its course by ordinary influences,
whether from spirits in or out of the flesh. She was
too positive to be constrained by other impulses than those
which her own will, enlightened by her own reason, had generated.
So, while she felt assured that angelic witnesses were
round about her, and that her every thought “had a critic in
the skies,” — and while she believed that, in one sense, nothing
of mind or body was truly her own, — that she was but a vessel
or recipient, — she keenly experienced the consciousness that

she was a free, responsible agent. O mystery beyond all
fathoming! O reconcilement of contrarieties which only Omnipotence
could effect, and only Omnipotence can explain!

She paced the floor of her little room, — looked her situation
unflinchingly in the face, — and resolved, with God's help, to
gird herself for the strife. Her unknown benefactor, whom her
imagination had so exalted, ah! how poor a thing, hollow and
corrupt, he had proved! Could she ever forgive the man who
had dared claim her as his slave?

And yet might she not misjudge him? Might he not be
plotting some generous surprise? She recalled a single expression
of his face, and felt satisfied she did him no injustice.
How hateful now seemed all those accomplishments she had
acquired! They were but the gilding of an abhorred chain.

In the midst of her whirling thoughts, her mocking-bird,
which had been pecking at some crumbs in his cage, burst into
such a wild jubilate of song, that Clara's attention was withdrawn
for a moment even from her own great grief. Opening
the door of the cage, she said: “Come, Dainty, you too shall
be free. The window is open. Go find a pleasant home
among the trees and on the plantations.”

The bird flew about her head, and alighted on her forefinger,
as it had been accustomed. Clara pressed the down of its neck
to her cheek, and then, taking the little songster to the window,
threw it off her finger. Dainty flew back into the room, and,
alighting on Clara's head, pecked at her hair.

“Naughty Dainty! Good by, my pet! We must part.
Freedom is best for both you and me.” And, putting her head
out of the window, Clara brushed Dainty off into the airy void,
and closed the glass against the bird's return.

She now summoned Esha, and said: “Esha, we 've often
wondered as to my true place in the world. The mystery is
solved to-day. Mrs. Gentry informs me I 'm a slave.”

“What! Wha-a-a-t! You? You, too, a slabe? My little
darlin' a slabe? O, de good Lord in hebbn won't 'low dat!”

“We 've but a moment for talk, Esha. Help me to act.
My owner (owner!) may be here any minute.”

“Who am dat owner?”

“Mr. Carberry Ratcliff.”

“No, — no, — no! Not dat man! Not him! De Lord help
de dare chile if dat born debble wunst git hole ob her!”

“What do you know of him?”

“He war de cruel massa ob dat slabe gal whom you hab de
hair ob in yer bosom.”

“I 'm glad of it!” cried Clara, throwing her clenched hand
in the air, and looking up as if to have the heavens hear her.

“O, darlin' chile, what am dar ole Esha kn do for her?”

Clara stopped short, and, pressing both hands on her forehead,
stood as if calling her best thoughts to a council of war,
and then said, “Can you get me a small valise, Esha?”

“Hab a carpet-bag I kn gib her. You jes wait one minute.”
And Esha returned with the desired article.

“Now help me pack it with the things I shall most need.
Mrs. Gentry expects me soon to go a-shopping with her.
When she calls for me, I shall be missing. I 've not yet made
up my mind where to go. I shall think on that as I walk
along. What 's the matter, Esha? What do you stare at?”

“Look dar! What yer see dar, darlin'?”

“A pair of little sleeve-buttons. How pretty! Gold with
a setting of coral. And on the inside, in tiny letters, C. A. B.”

“Wall, dat 's de 'stonishin'est ting I 'ze seen dis many a day.
Ten — no, 'lebben — no, fourteen yars ago, as I war emptyin'
suds out ob de wash-tub, I see dese little buttons shinin' on
de groun'. 'T was de Monday arter you was browt here.
Your little underclose had been in de wash. So what does I
do but put de buttons in my pocket, tinkin' I 'd gib 'em ter
missis ter keep fur yer. But whan I look for 'em, dey was
clean gone, — could n't fine 'em nowhar. So I say noting t' all
'bout it. Jes now, as I tuk up fro' my trunk a little muslin
collar dat de dare saint I tell yer 'bout used ter wear, what
sh'd drop from de foles but dis same little pair ob buttons dat I
hab'nt seen fur all dese yars. Take 'em, darlin', fur dey 'long
ter you an' ter nobody else.”

“Thank you, Esha. I 'll keep them with my other treasures”;
and Clara fastened them with a pin to the piece of
bunting in her bosom. “And now, good by. Pray for me,
Esha.”

“Night and day, darlin'. But Esha mus gib suffn more 'n

prayers. Take dese twenty dollars in gold, darlin'. Yer 'll
want 'em, sure. Don't 'fuze 'em.”

“How long have you been saving up this money, Esha?”

“Bress de chile, only tree muntz. Dat 's nuffn. You jes
take 'em. Dar! Dat 's right. Tie 'em up safe in de corner
ob yer hankerchy.”

“But, Esha, you may not be paid back till you get to
heaven.” And Clara put on her bonnet, and spoke rapidly to
choke down a sob.

“So much de better. Dar! Put 'em safe in yer pocket.
Dat 's a good chile.”

Fearing a refusal would only grieve the old woman, Clara
received and put away the gold-pieces. Then, closing the
spring of the carpet-bag, she kissed Esha, and said, “If they
inquire for me, balk them as well as you can.”

“Leeb me alone fur dat, darlin'. An' now yer mus' go. De
Lord an' his proppet bless yer! Allah keep yer! De mudder
ob God watch ober yer!”

In these ejaculations Esha would hardly have been held as
orthodox either by a mufti or a D. D. But what if, in the balance
of the All-Seeing, the sincere heart should outweigh the
speculative head? Poor old Esha was Mahometan through
reverence for her father; Catholic through influences from the
family with whom she lived when a child; and Protestant
through knowledge of many good men and women of that faith.
She cared not how many saints there were in her calendar.
The more the merrier. All goodness in man or woman, of
whatever race or sect, was deified in her simple and semi-barbarous
conceptions. Poor, ignorant, sinful, unregenerate
creature!

“God bless you, Esha!” said Clara. “Look! There is
poor Dainty perched on the window-sill. Plainly he is no
Abolitionist. He prefers slavery. Take care of him.”

“Dat I will, if only for your sake, darlin'.”

And the old woman let the bird in and closed the window;
and then — her bronzed face wet with tears — she conducted
Clara to a back door of the house, from which the fugitive could
issue, without being observed, into an obscure carriage-way.