The Bondwoman's Narrative

by Hannah Crafts

  Gliding in after her, and so close behind her that he might have touched her robe came Mr Trappe. Dressed in seedy black as usual, his keen eyes gleamed with an expression of unwonted satisfaction as taking a chair at a little distance from the sofa on which she sat, and regarding her with a steady gaze, he observed “You desired this interview I think.”

  “I did.”

  “I am very much surprised that you should” he answered “because you must be aware that I could not approve of the course you have taken.”

  “What course?”

  “That is a singular question, indeed” he replied. “What was my agreement and your promise before your marriage transpired. Were you not to maintain an equal impassive serenity, and not betray by look, or word or deed the least discomposure in my presence. Were you not to treat me on all occasions with due deference and respect, and was I not to receive a monthly stipend from your income, and knowing as you do that this stipend has not been paid, I am surprised that you can have the face to meet me, much surprised that under the circumstances you can ask or expect a favor.[”]

  “I have neither asked nor expected any.”

  “There is no use for equivocation or denial” he continued, not noticing her last remark, and slightly raising his voice. “You well know and I know that our agreement being broken, the engagement terminated. That we are placed in a new position, and that you can have no further claim to forbearance on my part.[”]

  “ And But I have a claim, never had a greater. It was not my fault that the bank broke which contained my property broke, and that consequently I became unable to pay your monthly allowance, but have you not been well supplied and cared for in my husband’s family? I think you have.”

  “Yet even that—my staying here, and being cared for, as you have expressed it, was a violation of our agreement. You was [sic] to have provided me with a house and servants in the City.”

  “Well”

  [“]And then after the loss of your property, and when you invited me to become one of your family I consented simply because I had a part to play and a prize at stake.”

  “I do not understand you.”

  “Very likely, and yet I have spoken plainly.”

  “You say” observed my mistress “that you do not approve of the course I have taken, and it is a clear case that I do not comprehend the motive of yours. Why have you kept my secret so long only to reveal it now—and why did you wish me to marry only to break my husband’s heart?”

  [“]Why bless my heart, madam” he replied. “You are simple as a child. Why did I do these things?—and your secret How ridiculous. It is not your secret, but mine, and may be your husband’s before another day, as any former reason that I might have, and did have for keeping it have [sic] ceased to exist.]

  “That scarcely explains your inconsistency.”

  “I am very consistent, madam” he replied, placing an ironical emphasis on the last word. “Very consistent in view of the plan marked out for myself. I wished of course to turn my knowledge of your birth to my own advantage. Had I betrayed what you really were I should have gained nothing by it. Had I opposed your marriage it would have been a barren speculation, but as you offered me a snug little sum to keep the first safe I consented to do so under certain stipulations; and as I was confident that your husband, if you had one, would give still more to preserve himself and his family from so horrible a disgrace, and misfortune I favored your marriage as would inevitably result from your exposure. I favored the marriage of yourself and now as the heirs and creditors of your father still continue pushing their claims, and since they anxiously desire to ascertain whether he had not other property than that given up, while I know that such property, and valuable property, too, really exists, who shall prevent my making such use of the knowledge as the occasion demands. It would be very different were you in a situation to fulfill your first engagements, or were your husband in affluence, but I have found out that his property is mortgaged to its fullest extent, and that notwithstanding his position he is in fact a poor man.”

  During all this long speech my speech mistress had remained silent and passive, shading her face with her hand. Once or twice she had lifted her eyes to look at him, but dropped them again beneath his gaze. He regards her as he did at first eagerly, but without pity. My own situation was becoming each moment more awkward and embarrassing. Unintentionally I had been made the witness of a private interview, and overheard conversation designed to be entirely confidential. It seemed that without intending it I had acted a dishonorable part, but I could not recede without exposure, and I was not prepared for that.

  Finding that she remains silent, and is likely to remain so Mr Trappe proceeds, and again with reference to the past.

  “You recollect my first overtures.”

  She remembers them perfectly well.

  [“]And how scornfully you rejected them—how you taunted me with being an old man, and said that you would rather be the veriest slave in existence than wed a man you could not love, you remember all this?”

  She gives a slight motion of assent with her eyes rather than with her head.

  “And as you would not spare the old man, can you expect the old man to spare you?”

  “I do not wish you to spare me from mere personal considerations, but my husband and his family. Oh: that I had never married.”

  “Why yes” he answered, in his cold imperturbable manner. “Of course that is something to be thought of, but since he cannot redeem you it is a mere secondary consideration that cannot in the least affect the regular details of business. Pecuniary interests are to[o] valuable to be set aside because somebody’s honor may be compromised. Don’t you see it so.”

  She spoke not, but sighed or rather gasped like the gasp of death.

  “You must, you do see it so” he continued. “Had you treated me—”

  She made a slight gesture of impatience.

  An ineffable shade of scorn, hate, or passion, or all three combined passed over his face, and he resumed. “Had you treated me in a different manner, your fate would have been different—remember that I have seen the time when I could have stooped to kiss the hem of your garment.”

  She looked at him, her eyes actually blazing, but the fires momentarily died out.

  “Yes,” he continued, rising and promenading the room. “Yes, once you were the leading star of my destiny, the light of my life, and I may yet possess you on my own terms.”

  She said nothing, she seemed even incapable of speech and both remained silent for a time.

  At length she spoke. “I think this interview were better ended. I have no more to say.”

  “But a little more to hear” he replied.

  “Say on, then” she answered, something of her old defiant manner coming over her.

  “Last night I received a message” he said “a message on business connected with yourself.”

  “Will you explain its purport?” she inquired, an apparent tremor in her voice.

  “I cannot, madam” he answered “besides it is quite unnecessary. Anything I could reveal would not mend the matter in the least, though it might increase the difficulties of your position. I say it might though I am not certain even of that.”

  He pauses, and she inquires “Have you done torturing me? if so—”

  He interrupts her coolly and calmly. “I have not. By that message I am summoned away. I shall go this day, this very hour, perhaps, how soon I may return, or how long I may be gone it is impossible to say. I shall not inform your husband of the complicated circumstances in which we are placed, because it would not answer my policy to do so. When I return it may be necessary.”

  She breathes quickly and heavily, but answers not.

  “There is one thing more that I have to say” he resumes [“]and then I have done. I have to caution, to entreat, if entreaty is a proper word, to command you to restrain and compose yourself during my absence. Why woman you are losing all your beauty, you
look older by ten years than you did a month ago. There is no occasion for so much moping and pining, no occasion at all for anything of the like. Be to your husband what you were during the time of courtship. Avoid doing or saying anything to attract observation or excite suspicion. These are my commands do you promise to obey them?”

  “Why should I promise?”

  “Because matters are not yet ripe for a full denóument that will come soon enough at all events. Do you promise?” he inquires again.

  “I will not bind myself ” she replied, glancing mechanically at the bell-wire. I read in an instant the association of ideas in her mind. She was thinking of a certain resting place “where the wicked cease from troubling.” The eyes of Mr Trappe followed the direction of hers. For a moment his countenance changed. Goading her on to despair and madness he was not prepared for that contingency. He stood for a few moments steadily contemplating her, and probably debating in his mind whether or not to allude to her secret thoughts and deciding in the negative affirmative he resumed. “Neither will you lay violent hands on yourself.” She started as if surprised that he should know of what she was thinking. “Why should you?” he proceeded. “Life should have charms for a beautiful woman, and then the avenging Deity.”

  She repulses his advice with a disdainful wave of the hand.

  “Do we part as friends or enemies?” he inquired.

  “Either, it matters not.”

  Was he surprised at the frozen coldness of her despair? did he fear that to escape him she would rush into the cold embrace of death, or was it possible that he was touched with something of pity or remorse, but a softening expression came over his face, and melted in his voice. “If the difference is nothing to you, it is something to me” he said. “Let us part as friends,” and he extended his open hand. With an apparent effort she laid her small fingers in his palm. He held them a moment, lifted them to his lips, and breathing rather than speaking “farewell” left the apartment.

  CHAPTER 4

  A Mystery Unraveled

  The sins of the fathers shall be visited on the children.

  MOSES

  When he was gone, when his retreating footsteps sounded no longer in the hall, nor on the stair my mistress arose with apparent composure, and retired to her room. Yet I perceived perfectly well that the calmness was all forced, there was such wild disturbance in her eyes, and something so unnatural in her carriage and manner. I knew it better when half an hour afterwards I stole softly to her room, not because I was summoned, not because because I supposed that she desired my presence, neither was it through vain or idle curiosity, but because I could not bear that in her great agony of spirit she should be alone, and no friend near to sympathise or condole with her.

  Noiselessly and unobserved I entered the chamber. She was pacing the floor up and down, up and down—her hair in the wildest disorder flung back from her brow over which was spread a deathly pallor, her bosom heaving with stifling sobs, and her whole frame writhing as if in mortal pain. A slight noise informed her of my presence. Her face flushed a moment, and she articulated “Hannah.” That was enough. Flinging myself at her feet, and clasping her hands I bathed them with my tears.

  “My dear, good, kind, indulgent mistress” I said. “You will forgive me when I tell you that I know all you have suffered and are suffering from that heartless cruel man—when I tell you that I overheard your conversation with him just now, not intentional[l]y but by the merest accident, and when I implore you to confide in me, to entrust me with this dreadful secret, that knowing I may more deeply sympathise with your woes and wrongs.”

  I cannot tell why it was that I forgot that moment the disparity in our conditions, and that I approached and spoke to her as though she had been my sister or a very dear friend, but when sorrow and affliction and death make us all equal, and I felt it so the more when she sunk down beside me on the floor in her deep distress, clasped me in her arms, and rocking her frame to and fro, entreated me to pity and save her if I could. And then in broken and incoherent sentences she related the story of her life— A dark one it was, though not on her part how she had been brought up, and educated by a rich gentleman, whom she called father, and by whom she was introduced into society as his daughter—how she had been taught by him to consider her mother as dead, and how she had since ascertained through Mr Trappe, that whoever might be her paternal relative, her mother was a slave then toiling in the cotton feilds of Georgia. The[n] she clasped her hands, and moaned and sorrowed, refusing to be comforted.

  “Can you be certain that his information is correct” I inquired “and that he does not merely seek to torment and trouble you?”

  “It is true, all true, I have had sufficient proofs. Only one thing is wanting to complete the chain of evidence, and that is the testimony of an old woman, who it seems was my mother’s nurse, and who placed me in her lady’s bed, and by her lady’s side, when that Lady Lady was to[o] weak and sick and delirious to notice that the dead was exchanged for the living.

  “It seems that my mother, or the nurse, or some one privy to the affair preserved a record of these facts, and carefully concealed it among my father’s papers. I much doubt that he ever discovered it. My confidence in his affection induces me to believe that had such been the case he would have executed a deed of manumission in my favor. At any rate I was publicly known and received in society as the daughter of his legitimate wife, as such I succeeded to his property as heiress, and never knew a care till that old man discovered the secret of my birth.”

  “That old man—have you long been acquainted with him.”

  “Yes: yes very long. He was my father’s solicitor, and had a room at our house, but I never liked him. Even when a child the shadow of his presence occasioned within me a thrill of dread and fear. As I grew older he professed a fondness for me, he even sought my hand in marriage, and my refusal made him an enemy. He had been in the secret for some time before he gave me any intimation of it, and then he did it to extort money. He has made a fortune that way. He has spent his life in hunting, delving, and digging into family secrets, and when he has found them out he becomes ravenous for gold.

  [“]I well remember the time when he first made known to me his discovery. I had long noticed something singular in his manner and general bearing towards me. I felt, too an indefinable presentiment of evil in his presence, though we had little inter-course—no more indeed, than was actually necessary in the details of business.”

  One day contrary to his usual custom he requested the pleasure of seeing me in his room. Trembling with apprehension I ascended the staircase, passed through the hall, and stood before him. He was seated at a low table, upon which lay a great pile of books and papers that he seemed particularly interested in examining—so much so indeed as at first not to notice my presence. This gave me an opportunity to look around his apartment. Its chief furniture was books and bundles of papers. There were books on the floor, books in the corners, and books heaped up and piled up in an antique cupboard. Some of them seemed to have been recently used, but on others the dust had thickly accumulated. I touched one of them; it fell with a rattling sound, still he did not look round, and I began to construe his silence into studied neglect.

  “I have come, Sir, according to your request” I said rather impatiently perhaps.

  “Be not impatient, Madam” he answered. “What I have to say concerns yourself closely, and is of such a nature that after hearing it you will thank me for deferring the communication as long as possible.” His voice, his manner, above all his singular words quite overcame me, and I was obliged to leaned for support against the table. He noticed my emotion, and with a gleam of something like pity or remorse on his countenance, arose from his seat, went to the cupboard, and took thence a bottle of wine, from which he poured out a glassful, and presenting it entreated me to drink. I replied by pressing him to let me know the worst at once.

  “Not till you have drank.”

  I pressed the
glass to my lips, and returning it again demanded to know the worst.

  [“]Now I wish you to inform me of all that you know about a slave woman belonging to your father, whose countenance was nearly white, and whose name was Charlotte Susan. You must remember such an [sic] one, for she was very fond of you.”

  “Yes, I remember her; she was very beautiful; and father sold her.”

  “Contrary to her wishes, I believe.”

  “Very much so. They were oblidged to use force to carry her away, and then she shrieked and screamed in the wildest manner.”

  “And did she not, previous to her departure clasp you in her arms, kiss you, weep over you, and call you her darling?—Did she not do all this?”

  “She did, Sir, but what of it?”

  “Much very much.

  “Well now” he said as he touched a secret drawer in the table that opened with a spring, and drew thence a portrait. “Well now I wish you to look at this.”

  I did so.

  “Do you know it.”

  “It resembles me” I answered “though I have never sate [sat] for my likeness to be taken.”

  “Probably not, but can’t you think of some one else whom it resembles?”

  [“]The slave Charlotte Susan.[”]

  “And it was hers, and it is yours; for never did two persons more resemble each other, and now I wish you to examine this paper.[”]

  He held a paper towards me old, and torn, and yellow with age. I took it and commenced reading. At first I could make nothing of it. I could not understand the horrible truth thus presented to me. I read and re-read but by degrees the mystery unfolded. I perceived the worst and what I was, and must ever be. Then I fell to the floor without sense or motion.