The Bondwoman Part 29

if her chile Rhoda alive at all I go bail she the very likeness o'

that woman. My king! but she done scairt me."

"Don't yo' go talk such notions to any other person," suggested Pluto.

"Yo' get yo'self in trouble when yo' go tellen' how Mrs. McVeigh's company look like a n.i.g.g.e.r, yo' mind! Why, that lady the highest kind o' quality--most a queen where she comes from. How yo' reckon Mrs.

McVeigh like to hear such talk?"

"Might'nt a' been the highest quality one I meant," protested Nelse, strong in the impression he had received; "it wa' the othah one, then--the one in a black dress."

All three occupants of the carriage had worn dark clothes, in the night all had looked black. Nelse had only observed one closely; but Pluto saw a chance of frightening the old man out of a subject of gossip so derogatory to the dignity of the Terrace folks, and he did not hesitate to use it.

"What other one yo' talken' 'bout?" he demanded, stopping short, "my Mistress McVeigh?"

"Naw!--think me a bawn fool--you? I mean the _otha_ one--the number three lady."

"This here moonlight sure 'nough make you see double, ole man," said Pluto, with a chuckle. "Yo' better paddle yo'self back to your own cabin again 'stead o' hunten' ghost women 'round Lorin'wood, 'cause there wan't only two ladies in that carriage--two _live_ ladies," he added, meaningly, "an' one o' them was my mistress."

"Fo' Gawd's sake!"

The old man appeared absolutely paralyzed by the statement. His eyes fairly bulged from their sockets. He opened his lips again, but no sound came; a grin of horror was the only describable expression on his face. All the superst.i.tion in his blood responded to Pluto's suggestion, and when he finally spoke it was in a ghostly whisper.

"I--I done been a looken' for it," he gasped, "take me home--yo'! It's a sure 'nough sign! Last night ole whippo'will flopped ovah my head.

Three nights runnen' a hoot owl hooted 'fore my cabin. An' now the ghost of a woman what ain't dead yet, sot there an' stare at me! I ain't entered fo' no mo' races in this heah worl', boy; I done covah the track fo' las' time; I gwine pa.s.s undah the line at the jedge stan', I tell yo'. I got my las' warnen'--I gwine home!"

CHAPTER XVII.

Pluto half carried the old man back to Loringwood, while the other darkies continued their 'possum hunt. Nelse said very little after his avowal of the "sign" and its relation to his lease of life. He had a nervous chill by the time they reached the house and Pluto almost repented of his fiction. Finally he compromised with his conscience by promising himself to own the truth if the frightened old fellow became worse.

But nothing more alarming resulted than his decision to return at once to his own cabin, and the further statement that he desired some one be despatched at once for "that gal Cynthy," which was done according to his orders.

The women folk--old Chloe at their head--decided Uncle Nelse must be in some dangerous condition when he sent the command for Cynthia, whom he had divorced fifty years before. The rumors reached Dr. Delaven, who made a visit to Nelse in the cabin where he was installed temporarily, waiting for the boatmen who were delegated to row him home, he himself declining to a.s.sist in navigation or any other thing requiring physical exertion.

He was convinced his days were numbered, his earthly labors over, and he showed abject terror when Margeret entered with a gla.s.s of bitters Mrs. Nesbitt had prepared with the idea that the old man had caught a chill in his endeavor to follow the dogs on the oppossum hunt.

"I told you all how it would be when I heard of him going," she a.s.serted, with all a prophet's satisfaction in a prophecy verified.

"Pluto had to just about tote him home--following the dogs at his age, the idea!"

But for all her disgust at his frivolity she sent the bitters, and Delaven could not comprehend his shrinking from the cup-bearer.

"Come--come, now! You're not at all sick, my man; what in the wide world are you shamming for? Is it for the dram? Sure, you could have that without all this commotion."

"I done had a vision, Mahs Doctor," he said, with impressive solemnity. "My time gwine come, I tell you." He said no more until Margeret left the room, when he pointed after her with nervous intensity. "It's that there woman I seen--the ghost o' that woman what ain't dead--the ghost o' her when she was young an' han'some--that's what I seen in the McVeigh carriage this night, plain as I see yo'

face this minute. But no such _live_ woman wa' in that carriage, sah.

Pluto, he couldn't see but two, an' _I_ saw three plain as I could see one. Sure as yo' bawn it's a death sign, Mahs Doctor; my time done come."

"Tut, tut!--such palaver. That would be the queerest way, entirely, to read the sign. Now, I should say it was Margeret the warning was for; why should the likeness of her come to hint of your death?"

Nelse did not reply at once. He was deep in thought--a nervous, fidgety season of thought--from which he finally emerged with a theory evidently not of comfort to himself.

"I done been talken' too much," he whispered. "I talk on an' on today; I clar fo'got yo' a plum stranger to we all. I tell all sorts o' family things what maybe Mahs Duke not want tole. I talked 'bout that gal Retta most, so he done sent a ghost what look like Retta fo' a sign. Till day I die I gwine keep my mouth shut 'bout Mahs Duke's folks, I tell yo', an' I gwine straight home out o' way o' temptations."

So oppressed was he with the idea of Mahs Duke's displeasure that he determined to do penance if need be, and commenced by refusing a coin Delaven offered him.

"No, sah; I don' dar take it," he said, solemnly, "an' I glad to give yo' back that othar dollar to please Mahs Duke, only I done turned it into a houn' dog what Ben sold me, and Chloe--she Ben's mammy--she got it from him, a'ready, an' paid it out fo' a pair candlesticks she been grudgen' ole M'ria a long time back, so I don' see how I evah gwine get it. But I ain't taken' no mo' chances, an' I ain't a risken' no mo' ghost signs. Jest as much obliged to yo' all," and he sighed regretfully, as Delaven repocketed the coin; "but I know when I got enough o' ghosts."

Pluto had grace enough to be a trifle uneasy at the intense despondency caused by his fiction in what he considered a good cause.

The garrulity of old Nelse was verging on childishness. Pluto was convinced that despite the old man's wonderful memory of details in the past, he was entirely irresponsible as to his accounts of the present, and he did not intend that the McVeigh family or any of their visitors should be the subject of his unreliable gossip. Pride of family was by no means restricted to the whites. Revolutionary as Pluto's sentiments were regarding slavery, his self esteem was enhanced by the fact that since he was a bondman it was, at any rate, to a first-cla.s.s family--regular quality folks, whose honor he would defend under any circ.u.mstances, whether bond or free.

His clumsily veiled queries about the probable result of Uncle Nelse's attack aroused the suspicions of Delaven that the party of hunters had found themselves hampered by the presence of their aged visitor, who was desirous of testing the ability of his new purchase, the hound dog, and that they had resorted to some ghost trick to get rid of him.

He could not surmise how the shade of Margeret had been made do duty for the occasion, her subdued, serious manner giving the denial to any practical joke escapades.

But the news Pluto brought of Mrs. McVeigh's homecoming dwarfed all such episodes as a scared n.i.g.g.e.r who refused to go into details as to the scare, and in his own words was "boun' an' sot" to keep his mouth shut in future about anything in the past which he ever had known and seen, or anything in his brief earthly future which he might know or see. He even begged Delaven to forget immediately the numerous bits of history he, Nelse, had repeated of the Loring family, and Delaven comforted him by declaring that all he could remember that minute was the horse race and he would put that out of his mind at once if necessary.

Nelse was not sure it was necessary to forget _that_, because it didn't in any way reflect discredit on the family, and he didn't in reason see why his Mahs Duke should object to that story unless it was on account of the high-flier lady from Philadelphia what Mahs Duke won away from Mr. Jackson without any sort of trouble at all, and if Mahs Duke was hovering around in the library when Miss Evilena and Mahs Doctor listened to that story, Mahs Duke ought to know in his heart, if he had any sort of memory at all, that he, Nelse, had not told half what he might have told about that Northern filly and Mahs Duke. And taking it all in all Nelse didn't see any reason why Delaven need put that out of his remembrance--especially as it was mighty good running for two-year-olds.

Evilena had peeped in for a moment to say good-bye to their dusky Homer. But the call was very brief. All her thoughts were filled with the folks at the Terrace, and dawn in the morning had been decided on for the ten-mile row home, so anxious was she to greet her mother, and so lively was her interest in the wonderful foreigner whom Dr. Delaven had described as "Beauty's self."

That lady had in the meantime arrived at the Terrace, partaken of a substantial supper, and retired to her own apartments, leaving behind her an impression on the colored folks of the household that the foreign guest was no one less than some latter day queen of Sheba. Never before had their eyes beheld a mistress who owned white servants, and the maid servant herself, so fine she wore silk stockings and a delaine dress, had her meals in her own room and was so grand she wouldn't even talk like folks, but only spoke in French, except when she wanted something special, at which time she would condescend to talk "United States" to the extent of a word or two. All this superiority in the maid--whom they were instructed to call "Miss"--reflected added glory on the mistress, who, at the supper table, had been heard say she preferred laying aside a t.i.tle while in America, and to be known simply as Madame Caron; and laughingly confessed to Mrs. McVeigh that the American Republic was in a fair way to win her from the French Empire, all of which was told at once in the kitchen, where they were more convinced than ever that royalty had descended upon them. This fact did not tend to increase their usefulness in any capacity; they were so overcome by the grandeur and the importance of each duty a.s.signed to them that the wheels of domestic machinery at the Terrace that evening were fairly clogged by the eagerness and the trepidation of the workers. They figuratively--and sometimes literally--fell over each other to antic.i.p.ate any call which might a.s.sure them entrance to the wonderful presence, and were almost frightened dumb when they got there.

Mrs. McVeigh apologized for them and amused her guest with the reason:

"They have actually never seen a white servant in their lives, and are eaten up with curiosity over the very superior maid of yours, her intelligence places her so high above their ideas of servitors."

"Yes, she is intelligent," agreed the Marquise, "and much more than her intelligence, I value her adaptability. As my housekeeper she was simply perfect, but when my maid grew ill and I was about to travel, behold! the dignity of the housekeeper was laid aside, and with a bewitching maid's cap and ap.r.o.n, and smile, she applied for the vacant position and got it, of course."

"It was stupid of me not to offer you a maid," said Mrs. McVeigh, regretfully; "I did not understand. But I could not, of course, have given you any one so perfect as your Louise; she is a treasure."

"I shall probably have to get along with some one less perfect in the future," said the other, ruefully. "She was to have had my yacht refurnished and some repairs made while I was here, and now that I am safely located, may send her back to attend to it. She is worth any two men I could employ for such supervision, in fact, I trust many such things to her."

"Pray let her remain long enough to gain a pleasant impression of plantation life," suggested Mrs. McVeigh, as they rose from the table.

"I fancied she was depressed by the monotony of the swamp lands, or else made nervous by the group of black men around the carriage there at Loringwood; they did look formidable, perhaps, to a stranger at night, but are really the most kindly creatures."

Judithe de Caron had walked to the windows opening on the veranda and was looking out across the lawn, light almost as day under the high moon, a really lovely view, though both houses and grounds were on a more modest scale than those of Loringwood. They lacked the grandeur suggested by the century-old cedars she had observed along the Loring drive. The Terrace was much more modern and, possibly, so much more comfortable. It had in a superlative degree the delightful atmosphere of home, and although the stranger had been within its gates so short a time, she was conscious of the wonder if in all her varied experience she had ever been in so real a home before.

"How still it all is," remarked Mrs. McVeigh, joining her. "Tomorrow, when my little girl gets back, it will be less so; come out on the veranda and I can show you a glimpse of the river; you see, our place is built on a natural terrace sloping to the Salkahatchie. It gives us a very good view."

"Charming! I can see that even in the night time."

"Three miles down the river is the Clarkson place; they are most pleasant friends, and Miss Loring's place, The Pines, joins the Terrace grounds, so we are not so isolated as might appear at first; and fortunately for us our plantation is a favorite gathering place for all of them."

"I can quite believe that. I have been here two--three hours, perhaps, and I know already why your friends would be only too happy to come.

You make them a home from the moment they enter your door."

"You could not say anything more pleasing to my vanity, Marquise,"

said her hostess, laughingly, and then checked herself at sight of an upraised finger. "Oh, I forgot--I do persist in the Marquise."