The Haunted Homestead Part 14

Nothing but experience will teach ignorant creatures like herself."

"I've noticed, in the course of my practice, a good many such instances of folly as hers."

"They are, the best of them, a set of the dullest and most ungrateful----. Now, I want to know if there are not hundreds of white women who would jump at such a situation as Phaedra's?"

"Quite likely."

"Why, where could the fool be better off, or freer, if that's her whim?

She is mistress of the house--absolutely to all intents and purposes, mistress of the house. All the money for domestic expenses pa.s.ses through her hands; she carries the keys, governs the maids, and arranges everything to suit herself."

"And her master, too, let us hope, sir."

"Yes, yes; I do not complain of her good management or her fidelity. In fact, I should be very unjust to do so, for she is everything that I could desire in these respects. And to render exact justice in this tribute, I may say that it would be difficult, and, more than that, it would be impossible, to replace her. It is these considerations, you see, that vex me so, when I hear of her hankering after her freedom.

Freedom from what, I should like to know? In what respect does her position now differ from that of any respectable white woman, filling the situation of housekeeper?"

"Really, I wish the conversation had not arisen. Certainly, Phaedra's absurd notions were not of sufficient importance to occupy so much of our attention. Now, then, to business."

And the lawyer and the heir were soon deep in the papers and accounts, which they found in such hopeless confusion as promised many weeks, if not months, and perhaps years, of legal and financial diplomacy to settle.

Phaedra, when she had left the room in such a state of strange excitement, had hurried off in search of her son.

Valentine was in his master's chamber, surrounded by the trunks and boxes that had been sent after them from New York, and had but that day arrived. Half of them were opened and unpacked, and a part of their contents scattered all over the floor. They consisted of books, pictures, statuettes, vases, and other beautiful fancies, that Valentine had persuaded his master to collect in New York, during the visits he had made there while residing at the University of Virginia.

And in the midst of the picturesque and beautiful confusion, Valentine sat, reclining in an easy chair, fascinated, spellbound by an ill.u.s.trated volume of Shakespeare's plays. It was a new purchase of his master's, made evidently without his knowledge, for it came in a box of books direct from the bookseller, and that was now unpacked for the first time.

Valentine had taken the costly book from its double wrapper of coa.r.s.e and of tissue paper, and merely meant to look at it before placing it in the bookcase; but that single look was fatal to his resolution for industry that morning, for he threw himself back in his master's easy chair, and was soon deep in the spells of the magic volume.

Hour after hour pa.s.sed, and there he sat, his body in his master's lounging-chair, surrounded by the beautiful litter of books and pictures, statuettes and vases, flutes and eolian harps and other toys, and his spirit enchanted and carried captive by the master magician to attend the fortunes of King Lear. The spirit-music, of which his ear was still conscious, came not from the eolian harp in the window, that vibrated to the touch of the breeze, but from some old minstrel harper at the court of King Lear; and the perfume that filled the room came not from the magnolias of the grove outside, but from rare English flowers tended by Cordelia, for his soul was not in America in the nineteenth century, but in ancient Britain in the age of poetry and fable.

He was aroused from his daydream by the entrance of Phaedra, in more excitement than he had ever seen her betray.

Without a word spoken, she fell upon his neck, and, clasping him closely, burst into tears; then, quickly sinking down by his side, clasped his knees, dropped her head upon them, and wept convulsively.

Astonished and alarmed, Valentine tried to raise her, exclaiming:

"Mother! what is the matter? Mother! why, mother! what ails you? What has happened?"

But she clung around his knees, and buried her face, and wept as she had never wept before.

Using all his strength, the youth forcibly unclasped her arms, and got up, and raised her, and placed her in the chair that he had vacated.

"Now, mother, what is the matter?" he asked, bending affectionately over her.

"Oh, Valentine!" she said, as soon as she could speak for sobbing, "Oh, Valentine! after all, there is no will!"

"No will!" he repeated, in quiet perplexity, for he did not quite comprehend the cause of her excessive emotion. "No will, did you say, mother?"

"No! no! no! no!" she repeated, tearing her hair, "there is no will!

although he promised--and I felt sure he'd keep his word--I never doubted it, because he was an honorable man, after his fashion--there was no will!"

"Well, my dear mother, what of that, that it should distress you so?"

"What of that? Oh, Valley! Valley! what a question!"

"Indeed, I do not know why you should take the non-existence of a will so much to heart, mother," he said, soothingly.

"Oh, Valley! Valley! Master promised faithfully that he would leave you free, and leave you money to take you to France, or to some other foreign country. And he broke his word to me! Master broke his pledged word to me, who served his family so faithfully so many years. I didn't ask for freedom for myself, only for you!"

"Mother, don't take it to heart so! don't go on so, don't."

"Hush! hush! it is the Spanish woman's curse falling on us--me! She cursed me, dying."

"My own dear mother, the curse recoiled upon her own head, for she died mad. It never reached you, who did not in any way deserve it. It was you that was wronged, not her, I am sure."

"Yes, yes, it was I that was wronged! It was I that was wronged! I came to my master with his other property--with his land, and with his negroes. I had no mother, for my mother died when I was but seven years old. I was brought up by an old negro, named Dinah. I was but fourteen years old when I came into the possession of my master, along with his patrimony."

"Don't look upon things in that light, mother; don't talk in that wild, imbittered way," said Valentine, taking both her hands, and looking gently and fondly on her. But she s.n.a.t.c.hed her hands away, and covered her face, and was silent for awhile--then she spoke:

"I know it hurts you. I know it goes to your heart like a knife; but it is true, true as--as that I might have been tempted to take your life and my own, had I seen how this was to end!"

"I am very glad you did not, mother, I am sure."

"Will you always say so?"

"As I hope to be saved, yes, mother," replied the youth, half smiling, to raise her spirits.

"Ah, you think so now. Will you think so in the future?"

"Yes, mother! I will pledge you my word to think no other way forever, if that will satisfy you."

"Yet, oh, Valley! that Spanish woman's dying curse! It haunts me now upon this day of the fall of all my hopes for you; it haunts me, it hangs over me like a funeral pall! It oppresses and darkens all my soul!"

"My dear mother, don't be superst.i.tious, if you do inherit a tendency in that direction from both sides of your ancestry. Forget that violent woman's curse; and whatever you do, don't make it fulfill itself, by believing in it. And believe that if any evil befall us, it will not have come from that angry woman's malediction. Why, if I thought that the imprecations of the angry and malignant could bring down curses from heaven upon the heads of the innocent, I should turn pagan, and worship beasts. Besides, as I said before, it was not her, but you, who was injured. And if any one could have had the right to utter maledictions, it was you; yet you never did it."

"No, Heaven forbid! I took things as a matter of course; and though my heart was almost broken, I made no complaint, far less ventured on any reproach; for I am sure I thought master would do no great wrong; and I thought he acted much better than his neighbors, when he promised that you should be free, and should go to France, and learn a profession. But he broke that promise. Oh, he broke his pledged word and honor, and the woman's curse is surely falling."

"Think no more of that, mother; she had no power to curse you."

"I never did her harm, in deed, or word, or thought. I never deserved it from her, whatever I deserved from Heaven. It was the old Bible story of Abraham and Sarah and Hagar acted over again on this plantation, only this was a great deal worse, as I look upon it now, though then I thought it was all right, hard as it was to bear. I had been keeping house for master four years, and you were nearly a year old, when one winter he went to New Orleans, to spend a month or two. He stayed the whole winter. I did not know that he married there, for he never wrote to tell me, and I never read a newspaper. How should either happen, when I could not read nor write? Well, in the spring, instead of coming home, he sent a message with some directions to the overseer, but no word about his being married, only that he was going abroad for awhile. Well, he went, and he stayed away for a year. And then he came home by way of New Orleans, where he stopped to buy furniture, that he sent up before him, in charge of an upholsterer, who was to fix it all up. But still no word of his marriage. I might have guessed something, from the refurnishing of the house; but I did not, because my heart was so taken up with the thought that master was coming home, and how nice everything should be for him when he should come. I afterward knew that my master had written to Mr. Hewitt, to come over and tell me to prepare to meet my new mistress; but Mr. Hewitt, for the sake of what he called the joke, left me in ignorance, so that madam might find me and you when she should come. Well, I don't want to talk any more about this. The afternoon that master was expected to arrive, I was on the watch. I was standing on the portico, holding you by the hand, when I saw the carriage approach. It came up very rapidly, and my heart beat thick and fast, as if it would suffocate me. I could not help it, Valley! When the carriage stopped, my master got out first, and handed out a lady, and led her up the stairs. And while the whole scene was swimming before me, he said to the lady, 'This is your maid, madam'; and to me, 'Phaedra, attend your mistress.' I had no business to faint, I know, because I was only master's poor housekeeper, and I might have expected this thing that had happened; but it came so suddenly, so unexpectedly, and my heart had been beating so high only the minute before, that I could not help it. One single glimpse of her great, black eyes, and the sight left mine, and I fell, like a tree. You see this scar upon my forehead; it was where my head struck the sharp edge of the stone step, when I fell down. When I came to myself, I was in old Dinah's cabin. You were there, too. I was very stupid from the blow I had received in falling, and could not more than half understand old Dinah's mumbled consolations.

And I was almost as stupid the next morning, when my master paid me a visit, and stood there, and advised me not to be a fool, and asked me what I had expected--and told me that I had behaved very badly, very badly indeed; that he had hoped I had had more sense, and more regard for his comfort; but that I had acted abominably--I had spoiled his domestic peace for he did not know how long. That I had given madam such a shock on her first arrival, too, that he did not believe she could ever endure to look upon my face again; that she was in strong hysterics now; that I ought to have had more consideration for him, than to have brought him into so much trouble. But that women are a great curse, anyhow, with their abominable selfishness and jealousy----"

"Stop, stop, mother!" gasped the boy, "I shall go mad, if you tell me more."

She raised her eyes and looked at him and grew frightened at his looks.

His face was gray, and his features haggard, with the struggle in his bosom. His hand clutched his breast as if to grapple with some hidden demon there.

After awhile, Phaedra resumed, softly and quietly:

"Hush! he was not naturally cruel. I never knew him to do a cruel thing wantonly or knowingly. But many people do not understand or make allowance for others who have naturally more tender hearts than theirs.