Marah Ellis Ryan

“ Pluto listened, and his face grew hard, brutish in its sullen hate.
“And they can laugh,” he muttered, sullenly, “while my baby––my Rosa’s baby––is sold to the traders, sold away where I nevah can find him again; sold while the white folks laugh an’ make merry,” and he raised his hand above his head in a fury of suppressed rage. “A curse on every one of them! a curse––”
Margeret caught his arm with a command to silence.
“Hush! You got a kind master––a kind mistress. The people who laugh at that table are not to blame on account of Rosa’s master, who holds your child.” ”

“ I command you!”
“‘Servants, be obedient unto your masters!’” she quoted, with a strange smile. ”My words oppress you, possibly, because so many women are speaking through my lips, the women who for generations have thought and suffered and been doomed to silence, to bear the children of men they hated; to have the most sacred thing of life, mother-love, desecrated, according to the temper of their masters; to dread bringing into the world even the children of love, lest, whether white or black, they prove cattle for the slave market!”
“Judithe!” ”

“ Madame La Marquise received no other callers that day.
In the days following she compared him with the courtiers, the diplomats, the very clever men whom she met, and told herself he was only a boy––a cadet of twenty-two. Why should she remember his words, or forget for one instant that infamy with which his name was connected?
“He goes on his knees to me only because he has grown weary of the slave-women of the plantations,” she told herself in deepest disgust. Sometimes she would look curiously at the hands once covered by his kisses. ”

“ Then, with her arm about Evilena, Miss Loring ascended the wide stairway, where several portraits of vanished Lorings hung, none of them resembling her own face particularly.
She was what the Countess Biron had likened her to when the photograph was shown––a white lily, slender, blonde, with the peculiar and attractive combination of hazel eyes and hair of childish flaxen color. Her features were well formed and a trifle small for her height. She had the manner of a woman perfectly sure of herself, her position and her own importance. ”

“ Evilena undertook to show the Marquise around the Terrace, eagerly anxious to become better acquainted with the stranger whose beauty had won her quite as quickly as it had won her brother. Looking at her, and listening to the soft tones with the delicious accent of France, she wondered if Ken had ever really dared to fall in love with this star from a foreign sky, or if Dr. Delaven had only been teasing her. Of course one could not help the loving; but brave as she believed Ken to be, she wondered if he had ever dared even whisper of it to Judithe, Marquise de Caron ”

“ She only raised her brows and smiled. He watched her for a moment and then said: “Colonel McVeigh is a friend; I should not like to think that your presence means danger to him.”
“What an idea!” and she laughed heartily; “am I grown such a thing of terror that I dare not enter a door lest danger follow? Who could be oppressed with political schemes in this delightful life of the plantation? It is really Eden-like; that is why I have purchased one of the places for my own; it is worth seeing. If you remain I shall invite you over; shall you?” ”

“ Madame Dulac and Dumaresque exchanged glances of approval; as a possible general in the social field of the future, she had commenced with the tactics of absolute genius. Dumaresque wondered if she realized her own cleverness, or if it was because she honestly liked best to talk or listen to the men of years, experience, and undoubted honors.
Mrs. McVeigh was there, radiant as Aurore and with eyes so bright one would not fancy them bathed in tears so lately, or the smooth brow as containing a single anxious motherly thought. ”

“ McVeigh listened and asked advice.
Judithe descended the stairs, radiant in a gown of fluffy yellow stuff, with girdle of old topaz and a fillet of the same in quaint dull settings. The storm had grown terrific––the heavy clouds trailing to the earth and the lightning flashes lit up dusky corners. Evilena had proposed darkening the 357 windows entirely, lighting the lamps to dispel the gloom, and dressing in their prettiest to drive away forgetfulness of the tragedy of the elements; it was Kenneth’s last day at home; they must be gay though the heavens fell. ”

“ She sank into a seat, the card still in her hand.
“Judithe,” said the dowager, after watching her moody face thoughtfully, “my child, I should be happier if you banished, so far as possible, that story from your memory. It will have a tendency to narrow your views. You will always have a prejudice against a class for the wrong done by an individual. Put it aside! It is a question outside of your life, outside of it always unless your sympathies persist in dragging you into such far-away abuses. We have the Paris poor, if you must think and do battle for the unfortunate. ”

“ He had left France cursing her coquetry; he had, because of her, gone straight to the frontier on his return to America, and lived the life of camps ever since; he had fancied no woman would ever again hold the sway over him she had held for that one brief season. Yet the graciousness of her tone, the frank smile in her eyes, and the touch of her hand––the beautiful hand!––
Delaven came in, and there were more explanations; then, to the regret of Raquel and Betsey, they left for the Terrace without partaking of the specially prepared coffee. ”

“ Dumaresque remonstrated. She defended herself with the avowal that she was only avenging weaker womanhood, smiled at, won, and forgotten, as his sex were fond of forgetting.
“But we expect better things of women,” he declared warmly; “not a deliberate intention of playing with hearts to see how many can be hurt in a season. Judithe, you are no longer the same woman. Where is the justice you used to gauge every one by? Where the mercy to others weaker than yourself?” ”

“ To Dumaresque she made the same remark, and suggested he should help find attractions for her in real life.
“She is too imaginative, and I do not want her to be of the romantic women; the craze for romance in life is what fills the columns of the journals with new scandals each month.”
“Madame Judithe is safe from that sort of romance,” declared her god-son. “Yet with her face and those glorious eyes one should allow her some flights in the land of the ideal. She suggests all old Italy at times, but she has never mentioned her family to me.” ”

“ I can imagine no better fortune for a man.”
“But it was an empty hope, and a sad wedding,” continued the dowager, with a sigh. “That was, to her, a day of 58 gloom, which to others is the one day to look forward to through girlhood and backward to from old age. Oh, yes; it is not so much to be wondered at that she is a creature of moods and ideals outlined on a background of shadow.”
The voice of the Marquise sounded through the hall and up the stairs. She was singing, joying as a bird. The eyes of the two met, and Dumaresque laughed. ”

“ He has worked so long among clays and marbles that he has grown a cold-blooded cynic. He distrusts all warmth and color in life.”
“Then why not introduce him to the Marquise? He might find his ideal there––the atmosphere of the sanctuary! I mean the new Marquise de Caron.”
“Oh!” Dumaresque looked from one to the other blankly and then laughed. “It is Madame Alain––the Marquise de Caron you call the devotee? My faith––that is droll!”
“What, then, is so droll?”
“Why should you laugh, Monsieur Loris? What else were we to think of a bride who chooses a convent in preference to society?” ”

“ The monument planned by Judithe has existed for many years; but only a few remember well the builder; she has become a misty memory––part of a romance the older people tell. She was a noted beauty of France and she died to save General McVeigh, who was young, handsome, and, it was said, her lover. He never after her death was heard to speak her name and did not marry until twenty years later––what more apt material for a romance? ”

“ You speak to me like a guardian angel of my people; your voice is like a trumpet, it stirs 207 echoes in my heart, and the next minute you laugh as though it were all a play, and I were a child to be amused.”
“‘And each man in his time plays many parts,’” quoted Judithe, thoughtfully, then with a mocking glance she added: “But not so many as women do.” ”

“ Kora perceived for the first time that it had been given to her while the Marquise stood. She arose to her feet, and with a deference that lent a subtile grace to her expression, offered it to her questioner.
“No; resume your seat;” the command was a trifle imperious, but it was softened the next instant by the smile with which she said: “A dear old lady taught me that to the burdened horse we should always give the right of way. We must make easier the way of those who bear sorrows. You have the sorrow today––what is it?” ”

“ She crossed to Mrs. McVeigh, murmured a few words of excuse, exchanged a smile with Evilena, who declared her a deserter from their ranks, and then moved up the steps to the veranda and passed through the open window into the library, pausing for a little backward glance ere she entered; and the people on the lawn who raised their glasses to her, did not guess that she looked over their heads, scanning the road for the expected messenger.
Looking at the clock she seated herself, picked up the pen, and then halted, holding her hand out and noting the trembling of it.
“Oh, you fool! You woman!” ”

“ Loris Dumaresque arrived as they were about to take their departure, and Lieutenant McVeigh gathered from their greeting that he was a daily visitor––that as god-son he was acting as far as possible in the stead of a real son, and that the dowager depended on him in many ways since his return to Paris.
The American realized also that the artist would be called a very handsome man by some people, and that his gaiety and his self confidence would make him especially attractive to women. He felt an impatience with women who liked that sort of impudence. ”

“ 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. ”

“ McVeigh, unconscious of the silent criticism being passed on her son, again poised a lance in defence of the stranger under discussion.
“It is absurd to call her atheistical,” she insisted; “would I be influenced by such a person? She is an enthusiast, student of many religions, possibly; but people should know her before they judge, and you, Kenneth, should see her before you credit their gossip. She is a beautiful, sympathetic child, oppressed too early with the seriousness of life.” ”

“ And Monroe, who saw clearly what the hopes were, and who thought he saw clearly what the finale would be, had little heart for the festivities afoot––wished himself anywhere else but on the hospitable plantation of the McVeighs, and kept at a distance from the charming stranger who had bewitched the master of it.
Twilight had fallen before Pluto found the coveted opportunity 307 of speaking with him alone. Monroe was striding along the rose arbor, smoking an after-supper cigar, when he was suddenly confronted by the negro who had questioned him about the Federal policy as to slavery. ”

“ It would have been so common-place had I said: ‘We receive on Thursdays; find Loris Dumaresque when you reach Paris; he will present you.’ No!”––and she shook her head laughingly, “the three days were quite enough. He is an unknown world; a romance only suggested, and the suggestion is delicious. I would not for the world have him nearer prosaic reality.”
“You will forget him in another three weeks,” prophesied Dumaresque; “he has been only a shadow of a man; a romantic dream. I shall refuse to accept any but realities as rivals.” ”

“ The Marquise looked at her thoughtfully, but did not speak. She was too much of a girl herself to understand entirely the nature before her or its temptations. They looked, really, about the same age, yet for all the mentality of the Marquise, she knew Kora was right––the world of emotions that was an open book to the bewitching octoroon was an unknown world to her. ”

“ He championed the cause of the runaways; he knew of none who had left a good master; old man Masterson was unreasonable as Matthew Loring; he did not blame them for leaving such men.
“I got good a mistress––good a master as is in all Carolina,” he stated, bluntly, “but you think I stay here to work for any of them if it wan’t for my boy?––my Rose’s baby? No, I wouldn’t! I’d go North, too! I’d never stop till I reached the men who fight against slave states. You all know what keeps me here. I’d never see my boy again. I done paid eighteen dollars towards Rose’s freedom when she died. ”

“ Oh, tell me all about her; is she very grand, very pretty?”
“Grand enough for a queen over your new monarchy,” replied Delaven, who derived considerable enjoyment from teasing the girl about affairs political––“and pretty? No, she’s not that; she’s just Beauty’s self, entirely.”
“And you knew her well in Paris?” asked Evilena, with a hesitating suspicion as to why he had not announced such a wonderful acquaintance before––this woman who was Beauty’s self, and a widow. ”