Mabel's Mistake Part 31

"Because men do not often like to meet those who remind them of broken ties."

The General slightly waved his hand with a half dissenting gesture, and a gratified expression stole over his countenance, answered by a sudden gleam in that strange woman's eyes; for she read in that very look an intimation that her former power was not wholly extinguished.

"How comes it that you are here, Zillah?" he asked, glancing around the room. "This is a singular place to find you in."

"You are astonished to see me here? as if I were a slave yet. Was it strange that I, a free woman, longed to leave the places which reminded me of the past, to see and learn something of the world? But, there was another and more important reason--had I not a child and a mother's heart longing to behold her offspring?"

"Zillah, tell me truly, is this thing real? is the girl we call Lina French your child?"

"Have I not said it," replied the woman, regarding him stealthily from under her half-closed lashes. "Why should I attempt to deceive you? it would gain me nothing."

"That is true; but how did it happen that you abandoned her?"

The woman lifted her face, with a sudden flush of the forehead--

"You sold me, made me another man's slave: me, me!" She paused, with a struggle, as if some suppressed pa.s.sion choked her; but directly her self-possession returned; the flush died from her face, and she drooped into her former att.i.tude, looking downward as before. "But that I always was--a slave, and the daughter of a slave. Your child, though unknown and unacknowledged, better that it died than lived my life over again, cursed with the proud Anglo-Saxon blood, debased by the African taint, that, if it exists but in the slightest degree, poisons all the rest."

"Zillah, you speak bitterly. Was it my fault that you were born a slave on the plantation of my friend; that your complexion was fair, and your beauty so remarkable, that few men could have detected the shadows on your forehead. Surely, you had no cause to complain of too much hardship as my servant?"

For an instant, the haughty lip of the woman writhed like a serpent in its venom, struggling to keep back the bitter words that burned upon them. Then her face settled into comparative calm again, and she said, in a tone of gentle reproach, "But you sold me!"

"I was compelled to it, Zillah. It was impossible to keep you on the plantation. James Harrington became your owner on the death of his mother, and you know how terribly he was prejudiced against you. It was the only command that he made; everything else he left to me; but here, here he was imperative. All that a kind and obliging master could do, I accomplished in spite of him. You had your own choice of masters, Zillah; that, at least, I secured to you."

"A choice of masters!" repeated the woman, turning pale with intense feeling. "What did I care about a choice of masters, when you sold me?

Had you given me to the grave, it would have been Heaven to the years that followed. You sold me without warning--coldly sent an order to the agent, and I was taken away. Your own child was the slave of another man."

"But you kept me in ignorance, Zillah; besides, I had been married again. A northern man, I was, of course, desirous to live in the North.

What could I do?"

"But the other slaves were set free. Master James provided means for those who wished it, to emigrate to Liberia; a few went, more remained of choice. No servant was kept on the estate who did not desire it. I alone was sold."

"But you know how the young man detested you; he never could be persuaded that your presence in her sick room, had not an evil influence on his mother. In short Zillah, after her death he seemed to think of little else."

The woman turned deadly pale, as the sick room of her old mistress was mentioned. A shudder ran through her frame, and she sat down upon a neighboring divan, gasping for breath. General Harrington watched this strange emotion with keen interest; he did not comprehend its source, but it brought up vague suspicions that had in former years pa.s.sed like shadows across his brain, when the sickness and death of his first wife was a recent event.

"Zillah," he said, seating himself on the divan by her side, "you turn pale--you shiver--what does this mean?"

The woman sat up, forcing herself to look into his questioning eyes.

"I was surprised at your blindness, shocked at the duplicity of this man, James Harrington. So he excuses his hatred of me by this pretence, and you believe him. I will speak now--why should I be silent longer?

Listen to me, General Harrington. It was because I knew his secret, that James Harrington hated me. He loved the woman you have married, for whose tranquillity I was sold to a new master."

"Very possible," replied the General, with a complacent smile. "I should have been sorry to give my name to any woman whom a man of taste could know, without loving. Of course, the young gentleman, like many others, was dying of envy when that remarkable woman became my wife."

Zillah's eyes flashed, and she turned pale, lip and forehead. A bitter laugh broke away with the words, as she said,

"But she loved _him_--adored him, rather."

The General was moved now, his self-love was all up in arms; he was evidently getting furious.

"Zillah, this is one of your jealous dreams. You have no proof!"

"Master--let me call you so once more--among other benefits which came to me through your kindness, I was taught to read and write--that was a key to much else that I learned afterwards. In a vellum covered book, which Miss Mabel always kept locked with a little golden heart, I saw more than proof of what I say. She lost the key from her watch-chain, one night, and I found it. The book is probably destroyed now, but if it existed, I should need no other proof of what I know to be true!"

"Indeed," said the General, prolonging the word, thoughtfully, "Indeed!"

"Are you going?" exclaimed the woman, as he arose from the divan.

"Yes, Zillah, I have left some important papers in my library that may be disturbed. In a few days I will see you again."

Zillah smiled a soft, exulting smile, but she did not allow it to brighten her whole face till General Harrington had left the room.

CHAPTER x.x.xII.

THE BOAT-HOUSE.

Down upon the sh.o.r.e, so built as to form a picturesque feature in the landscape, stood an old boat-house, in which Ben Benson made his home when out of active service at the Mansion. Here the stout old seaman kept his fishing-tackle, his rifle, and a thousand miscellaneous things that appertained to his various avocations, for Ben was not only a naturalist and philosopher at large, but a mechanic of no ordinary skill. He not only devised his own fishing-flies, wove his own shad-nets, and game-baskets, but performed the duties of a ship-carpenter whenever his boats got out of order, or a new one was wanted for the river.

On the day of Lina's great sorrow, Ben was standing in front of the boat-house, superintending a kettle of pitch that was boiling over a fire of dried logs and bark. The boat which had been almost torn to pieces on the night when Mabel Harrington so narrowly escaped a terrible death, was now turned upside down, and Ben was preparing to calk the bottom and repair the injuries it had received.

Lina saw him as she came down the avenue, and her pace quickened. The thin shawl she had flung about her was fluttering in the wind, but there was a fever in heart and brain, which rendered her insensible to the blast which swept the curls back from her burning forehead, and rustled through her light garments. The little Italian grey-hound, which had been for months her special pet, had followed her, unperceived, striving in vain to win some sign of attention from the distracted girl.

Lina flew down the bank, and Ben looked up as the sound of her footsteps warned him who it was that approached.

"I knowed that it was you, Miss Lina," he said, while every feature in his rough face softened, as he looked toward her. "Sakes alive! what brought ye out here such a day as this--this wind is enough to snap you right in two."

"I don't mind the cold, Ben; I wanted to talk to you."

"Wal, if there's any one thing Ben Benson kin do for you, you've only jest to mention it, and consider it done a'ready."

"I know it, Ben, and that is why I come. I wanted to ask you something."

"Why, you're shakin' worse nor a poplar leaf, and you're as white as if you hadn't a drop of blood in your precious little body. What on arth's the matter with you, Lina? See that ere dog; now, ain't he a pretty specimen of an animal exotic to be out of a hot house in such a wind as this."

Ben gathered the shivering little creature to his bosom with one hand, snugly enveloping him in the capacious folds of his pilot jacket, while with the other he seized Lina's hands, and leaning back against the boat, stood looking at her with a half-pitying, half-affectionate glance, that was indescribably comic and touching.

"I should like to know what Mister Ralph was a-thinkin' on, to let you come out alone sich a day as this."

That name made Lina shudder, and a sudden spasm contracted her features.

"No one knew that I was coming out. Oh, Ben! I want to ask something--do not refuse to tell me, or I shall die! How came I here--where was I born--oh, who am I, Ben?"

"Sakes alive! How she goes on! One question at a time, if _you_ please, Miss Lina! What on arth's been putting sich ideas into your little head?

Now no circ.u.mwenting--speak the truth, if you be a woman."