Florence Finch Kelly

“ They heard the neigh of a horse, over in the road, and an answering call from Rhoda’s mare, which she had left tied to the fence. “Are we nearly there?” asked the mulatto.
The path sloped downward again and she sped onward, her thoughts flashing, lightning like, across her mind. If the slaves really did not want freedom, if they were happy and contented in slavery, why was this man taking such desperate chances? Perhaps he was fleeing from a master as cruel as Uncle Tom’s. She would ask him—at last she could find out the truth from one of those who alone knew what was the truth. ”

“ Ware from the veranda steps, “will you come here, please?”
Rhoda was standing between the rows of lilac that hedged the walk to the front gate, inspecting the swelling buds and saying to herself with pleasure that they looked as if they would bloom early that year. The lilac was her best-loved flower and these two lines of bushes had been planted because of her pleading, ten years before. Every season she watched anxiously for the buds to show sign of returning life, and Charlotte declared that after they began to swell she measured them with a tape line every day to mark their growth. ”

“ It’s the only thing in all the world that I want, honey. You love Jeff, and he adores you, and I know that you’ll be happy together, if you’ll only give up that nonsensical idea that has taken possession of you. It’s your happiness that I want, Rhoda, yours and Jeff’s. And I know, oh, so much better than you do, what makes a woman happy. I can’t die feeling that I have done my duty to my little girl and made sure of her happiness, unless she will promise me this. ”

“ And so, with thrilling nerves and singing heart, the Cavalier in her breast dominated the Puritan and sent to the four winds warnings of conscience and thought of to-morrow. Forgotten was the safety of the three fugitive slaves, at that moment hiding in her cellar, forgotten the fateful Thing for whose birth in the Virginia mountains she had been waiting, cast away from her mind was all thought of the anti-slavery contest, nor was there room in her heart for zeal in its cause. She was mere woman, loving and beloved, and glorying inwardly in her power over her lover. ”

“ Don’t you realize that neither of us can ever be happy until we have joined our lives together? What are the days and the weeks for us now but just a constant yearning for each other’s presence. Look forward, Rhoda, to months and years of that, think of how much more life will mean for us both, if only you will give up and listen to what your heart tells you. ”

“ You saw the obstacles that lie between us more clearly than I did—or, perhaps, you had more information than I of the treacherous lengths to which the North would dare to go in the desire to overthrow the ordinary rights of a state and to undermine the power of the government under which both sections have solemnly sworn to live. This attempt to incite the slaves to insurrection and the butchery of their masters proves to all of us that neither property nor life is safe in the South. At any moment another plot may break forth, no man can tell where, and be more successful than this one was. ”

“ Could it be, after all, Rhoda began to ask herself, that here was where her highest duty lay? Ought she, at whatever cost to herself, make happy her mother’s last days?
It seemed to Rhoda that everything conspired, throughout the wedding festivities, to bring her and Delavan alone together, although she knew that they were both trying to avoid such meetings. But he forebore to speak of love, and afterward the merry friendliness of these brief occasions, just touched as they were with the fragrance of intimacy, were among her dearest memories. ”

“ Underneath the apparent peace in which the Ohio river town of Hillside basked in the sweet May sunshine of that day when Rhoda and her father drove up the hill on their return from Cincinnati, feeling on the slavery question ran deep and bitter. And the events which had happened since that day had intensified the heat and the bitterness until, just as all over the country, men felt that they were dwelling over a volcano which might break out at any moment, none could tell with what violence and destruction. ”

“ Have you thought of that, dear Jeff?”
He smiled at her with loving confidence. “I’ve thought that all out, dear heart. For weeks I’ve been thinking of it, and threshing it all out in my mind, until I feel quite sure of myself. I do love my dear Southland and as you know so well my ambition has always been to spend my life in her service. But there are plenty of other men who can do her work as well as I can, and not at the cost of their heart’s love and life’s happiness. I am willing to let them do it while I take my love and my happiness. ”

“ Our indictment must always be against the system, not against individuals.”
When Rhoda knelt at her bedside that night the look of scorn had faded from her countenance and in its place were tears. “Dear Father in Heaven,” she prayed, “do not let Thy punishment fall upon him. He knows not what he does. His eyes are so blinded that he cannot see how evil these things are. Do not punish him, do not let Thy vengeance fall upon him, until his eyes are opened and he sees that they are evil. And grant, O God, I beg of Thee, grant me this, that I may make amends to this poor creature for his wrong. ”

“ I cannot believe that it would endure, or that it would be anything but a curse to the world as long as beneath it were the groans, the chains, the unpaid toil and misery of so many thousands of other men and women unfortunate enough to have been born with black skins. It will never be possible for you to claim me as long as you are a part of such a system. But I hope you will always remember me as your truest friend, Rhoda Adeline Ware. ”

“ Indeed,” and she smiled tenderly at him, “I don’t believe any other woman was ever loved quite so much. It makes me feel your love in my heart, oh, so much more precious than even it was before! But I want you to be quite sure, dear Jeff!”
“I am sure, sweetheart!” he broke in.
“But won’t you wait a little while, two weeks, no, three weeks, before I—we decide? I ask you to go home, at once, and not to see me or write to me for three weeks more. And then you can let me know whether or not you still wish to put your ideals and ambitions aside for the sake of love. ”

“ What better can I do in the world than to help my beloved South to maintain and extend her social order in which the negro, a mere animal, does the work for which he is fitted and to which he was appointed by the Creator, and the white man, created by God in His own image, is left unhampered to develop his own God-given talents and so produce such splendid results? But I am lonely, my dear one, and I long always for the presence and the companionship of the mate God made for me. Rhoda, darling, do not be cruel any longer! ”

“ American republicanism and American slavery are in the future to be synonymous. This, then, is the final fruit. In this all the labors of our statesmen, the blood of our heroes, the lifelong cares and toils of our forefathers, the aspirations of our scholars, the prayers of good men, have finally ended. America the slave breeder and slaveholder!”
[263] As Hardaker looked up and saw her countenance aglow with the fires of her soul it occurred to him that, after all, Rhoda Ware was beautiful. ”

“ It would be much harder to bear, she confessed to herself, if that girl should be her own sister than if she were some far-away being who would take Jeff entirely out of her life and leave him and their unfortunate love a mere memory.
The thought of such an ending of their romance, wherein she would be compelled to see her sister in the place which by right of love ought to be her own, made more insistent the ache in her heart and presently drove her upstairs to lock her door and take from her bureau the box tied with white ribbon. ”

“ She read it through rapidly once, then went back and studied carefully the arguments, breathing high aspirations and noble ideals, by which he advanced to the conclusion that the prime duty of the scholar in that crisis was to work to his utmost for the election of Frémont.
She knew that the oration was being read by scores upon scores of thousands, for her father had told her of its enormous circulation and of its effect upon thinking people throughout the North. Her hand trembled as she laid it down and went out upon the veranda. ”

“ Ware speak to each other about it, although it was uppermost in both their thoughts. The renewed tenderness between them was too sacred for either to dare the risk of marring its bloom by even so much as an allusion to a subject upon which they were so widely divided.
On the fourth day of her surrender Rhoda sat at her window reading a letter from her friend, Julia Hammerton. Her active spirit was beginning to bestir itself again and as she finished the epistle she stretched her arms above her head and with a little frown remembered that she had that morning neglected one of her usual duties. ”

“ It makes everything so bare and hopeless! It makes me fear that you have killed your love. Rhoda, you do love me, yet?”
She turned slowly toward him and lifted her downcast face, alight with all the glow that was in her heart. “Jeff,” and the word as it came from her tenderly smiling lips was a caress, “Jeff, I love you so much that my heart has made me forgive you even that you allowed Mary Ellen—Lear White—to be sold.” ”

“ Quickly trailing upon the thought came recollection of that ride of which she had told Rhoda and Jeff, and then a wave of memories of his ardent courtship swept over and softened her heart. The coldness and resentment of the last few months were buried, for the moment, underneath their warmth and color, and her eyes sought his face again with more of fondness in their expression than he had seen there in many a day. Then her mind went back to her daughter.
“But I reckon that wouldn’t answer with Rhoda, after all,” she told herself. “She’s so different. ”

“ You’ve no right, Rhoda, to deny your heart and mine like this!”
“Oh, Jeff, I’ve gone over that, and over and over it, so many times with myself, and there’s only one right way, the way my conscience points [139] out to me! I can’t marry you, Jeff, I can’t, and that’s all there is about it! It’s only painful to us both to talk about it, so please don’t do it again! We enjoy each other’s society so much, both of us, so let’s just have what comfort we can out of being together while you’re here, and not spoil it by talking about what can’t be!” ”

“ Before Jefferson Delavan reached Fairmount again the Thing had happened that made the North gasp with wonder and set the South beside itself with fear and rage. The amazing audacity of John Brown’s attack upon Harper’s Ferry and the rankling distrust between the two sections make reasonable, to impartial eyes of a later day, the alarming significance which the southern people, especially those in the border states, saw in Brown’s foredoomed enterprise. The slaveholders of Kentucky were aroused to almost as extreme a pitch of angry apprehension and defiance as were the people of Virginia. ”

“ The white petunias sent up their fragrance and the memories it brought pierced her very heart with poignant sweetness. She went on into the grape arbor and sat down in its cool shadows, asking herself why it was that she could keep her own soul clean only at the expense of another’s happiness.
“My happiness, Jeff’s happiness,” she thought, “they are of our own making and we can choose [348] our own conditions. But mother, poor, dear, little mother, so sick, with such a little while to live, and her happiness so bound up in this! ”

“ I will free all my niggers—for the sake of your dear conscience not one shall be sold—and see that they find places where they can earn their livings. Then I will sell my property and we will put this country and its accursed contentions behind us. We will go to England, dear heart, or France, and live where there will come hardly an echo of all this strife to disturb our blessed content and happiness! ”

“ The only thing we can do is to appeal to the sentiment against the law. Whether we lose or win, the affair is making a big breeze that’s going to be bigger yet!”
“You know, Horace,” she replied, “that I don’t care in the least what they do with me,—except on mother’s account. What I want most is to help all I can in the fight against slavery and if it will do more good for me to stay in jail than to go home and work with the Underground again, why then—” she looked straight at him and a smile flashed from her lips up into her eyes—“in jail let me stay!” ”

“ Is there anything a girl can do? I know now that I can’t marry Mr. Delavan—I—I love him—and if he wasn’t a slaveholder I’d be glad to be his wife—and I know I’d be happy. But I couldn’t—I just couldn’t feel myself responsible the least bit for those poor creatures being slaves. It’s wrong, father, it’s all wrong, and horrible, and I won’t have anything to do with it. I tried to think I could, for a while, because I love Jeff so much and I wanted so to be his wife. ”

“ Is this awful thing always going to divide the North from the South? Are we always going to hate each other like this? Is there any help for it?”
“I don’t know, Rhoda. Sometimes, when I see how the North is forever knuckling under to [81] the South, giving up political supremacy and getting more and more craven every year, I pretty nearly lose all hope. I’m convinced that there’s only one way out of it—we’ve got to fight. And when we do fight the North will win, because we’ve got more men and more money. ”

“ And to dally with desire, to argue with the traitor within the gates, to listen for a moment to his specious pleading, is to make it ever harder and harder to utter the one blunt word that alone brings peace.
Doubtless Rhoda did not know, for she was not much given to introspection, that if she did not come to quick and sharp conclusions with the insurgent within her own breast she was but lengthening the conflict and making it the more difficult to stand to the line she had set. ”

“ Into her face came the look of exaltation he had seen there, in this same arbor, long before. It seemed to remove her far from him, and therefore set his heart to throbbing all the more with longing for her.
“Yes,” she said, “this war will end it, because God is on our side. And afterward—oh, Jeff!”—her face melted to tenderness again—“beyond—after the end, after God has spoken and slavery has been ended, then there will be peace, and for us—” her voice dropped low—“happiness!”
“God be the judge between us, Rhoda Ware,” he exclaimed, “as to which is right! ”

“ Rhoda knew what long years of endeavor and sacrifice he had spent in the anti-slavery cause and how ardent had been his hope that he might live to see slavery ended and the whole country made free. She watched him now, her cheeks flushing and her heart responding with full sympathy to the grief and despair that filled his breast. ”

“ But his thoughts were not upon what he was about to say nor upon how he could most move the jury. Instead they were busy, with indignant wonder, upon how “that damned slaveholder” had contrived to win the rich and undying love of such a girl as Rhoda Ware.
For the way of a man with a maid is always a sealed book to other men. A woman can guess, or she knows instinctively, how and why another woman has won a man’s love. ”