* The Ancient History, ten volumes (1730-1738), by the
French historian Charles Rollin (1661-1741).
* * Scott’s Family Bible (1788-1792), edited with notes by
the English Biblical commentator, Thomas Scott (1747-1821).
On such a farm, in such a house and family, Miss Ophelia had spent a quiet existence of some forty-five years, when her cousin invited her to visit his southern mansion. The eldest of a large family, she was still considered by her father and mother as one of “the children,” and the proposal that she should go to Orleans was a most momentous one to the family circle. The old gray-headed father took down Morse’s Atlas* out of the book-case, and looked out the exact latitude and longitude; and read Flint’s Travels in the South and West,* * to make up his own mind as to the nature of the country.
* The Cerographic Atlas of the United States (1842-1845),
by Sidney Edwards Morse (1794-1871), son of the geographer,
Jedidiah Morse, and brother of the painter-inventor, Samuel
F. B. Morse.
* * Recollections of the Last Ten Years (1826) by Timothy
Flint (1780-1840), missionary of Presbyterianism to the
trans-Allegheny West.
The good mother inquired, anxiously, “if Orleans wasn’t an awful wicked place,” saying, “that it seemed to her most equal to going to the Sandwich Islands, or anywhere among the heathen.”
It was known at the minister’s and at the doctor’s, and at Miss Peabody’s milliner shop, that Ophelia St. Clare was “talking about” going away down to Orleans with her cousin; and of course the whole village could do no less than help this very important process of talking about the matter. The minister, who inclined strongly to abolitionist views, was quite doubtful whether such a step might not tend somewhat to encourage the southerners in holding on to their slaves; while the doctor, who was a stanch colonizationist, inclined to the opinion that Miss Ophelia ought to go, to show the Orleans people that we don’t think hardly of them, after all. He was of opinion, in fact, that southern people needed encouraging. When however, the fact that she had resolved to go was fully before the public mind, she was solemnly invited out to tea by all her friends and neighbors for the space of a fortnight, and her prospects and plans duly canvassed and inquired into. Miss Moseley, who came into the house to help to do the dress-making, acquired daily accessions of importance from the developments with regard to Miss Ophelia’s wardrobe which she had been enabled to make. It was credibly ascertained that Squire Sinclare, as his name was commonly contracted in the neighborhood, had counted out fifty dollars, and given them to Miss Ophelia, and told her to buy any clothes she thought best; and that two new silk dresses, and a bonnet, had been sent for from Boston. As to the propriety of this extraordinary outlay, the public mind was divided, — some affirming that it was well enough, all things considered, for once in one’s life, and others stoutly affirming that the money had better have been sent to the missionaries; but all parties agreed that there had been no such parasol seen in those parts as had been sent on from New York, and that she had one silk dress that might fairly be trusted to stand alone, whatever might be said of its mistress. There were credible rumors, also, of a hemstitched pocket-handkerchief; and report even went so far as to state that Miss Ophelia had one pocket-handkerchief with lace all around it, — it was even added that it was worked in the corners; but this latter point was never satisfactorily ascertained, and remains, in fact, unsettled to this day.
Miss Ophelia, as you now behold her, stands before you, in a very shining brown linen travelling-dress, tall, square-formed, and angular. Her face was thin, and rather sharp in its outlines; the lips compressed, like those of a person who is in the habit of making up her mind definitely on all subjects; while the keen, dark eyes had a peculiarly searching, advised movement, and travelled over everything, as if they were looking for something to take care of.
All her movements were sharp, decided, and energetic; and, though she was never much of a talker, her words were remarkably direct, and to the purpose, when she did speak.
In her habits, she was a living impersonation of order, method, and exactness. In punctuality, she was as inevitable as a clock, and as inexorable as a railroad engine; and she held in most decided contempt and abomination anything of a contrary character.
The great sin of sins, in her eyes, — the sum of all evils, — was expressed by one very common and important word in her vocabulary—”shiftlessness.” Her finale and ultimatum of contempt consisted in a very emphatic pronunciation of the word “shiftless;” and by this she characterized all modes of procedure which had not a direct and inevitable relation to accomplishment of some purpose then definitely had in mind. People who did nothing, or who did not know exactly what they were going to do, or who did not take the most direct way to accomplish what they set their hands to, were objects of her entire contempt, — a contempt shown less frequently by anything she said, than by a kind of stony grimness, as if she scorned to say anything about the matter.
As to mental cultivation, — she had a clear, strong, active mind, was well and thoroughly read in history and the older English classics, and thought with great strength within certain narrow limits. Her theological tenets were all made up, labelled in most positive and distinct forms, and put by, like the bundles in her patch trunk; there were just so many of them, and there were never to be any more. So, also, were her ideas with regard to most matters of practical life, — such as housekeeping in all its branches, and the various political relations of her native village. And, underlying all, deeper than anything else, higher and broader, lay the strongest principle of her being — conscientiousness. Nowhere is conscience so dominant and all-absorbing as with New England women. It is the granite formation, which lies deepest, and rises out, even to the tops of the highest mountains.
Miss Ophelia was the absolute bond-slave of the “ought.” Once make her certain that the “path of duty,” as she commonly phrased it, lay in any given direction, and fire and water could not keep her from it. She would walk straight down into a well, or up to a loaded cannon’s mouth, if she were only quite sure that there the path lay. Her standard of right was so high, so all-embracing, so minute, and making so few concessions to human frailty, that, though she strove with heroic ardor to reach it, she never actually did so, and of course was burdened with a constant and often harassing sense of deficiency; — this gave a severe and somewhat gloomy cast to her religious character.
But, how in the world can Miss Ophelia get along with Augustine St. Clare, — gay, easy, unpunctual, unpractical, sceptical, — in short, — walking with impudent and nonchalant freedom over every one of her most cherished habits and opinions?
To tell the truth, then, Miss Ophelia loved him. When a boy, it had been hers to teach him his catechism, mend his clothes, comb his hair, and bring him up generally in the way he should go; and her heart having a warm side to it, Augustine had, as he usually did with most people, monopolized a large share of it for himself, and therefore it was that he succeeded very easily in persuading her that the “path of duty” lay in the direction of New Orleans, and that she must go with him to take care of Eva, and keep everything from going to wreck and ruin during the frequent illnesses of his wife. The idea of a house without anybody to take care of it went to her heart; then she loved the lovely little girl, as few could help doing; and though she regarded Augustine as very much of a heathen, yet she loved him, laughed at his jokes, and forbore with his failings, to an extent which those who knew him thought perfectly incredible. But what more or other is to be known of Miss Ophelia our reader must discover by a personal acquaintance.
There she is, sitting now in her state-room, surrounded by a mixed multitude of little and big carpet-bags, boxes, baskets, each containing some separate responsibility which she is tying, binding up, packing, or fastening, with a face of great earnestness.
“Now, Eva, have you kept count of
your things? Of course you haven’t, — children never do: there’s the spotted carpet-bag and the little blue band-box with your best bonnet, — that’s two; then the India rubber satchel is three; and my tape and needle box is four; and my band-box, five; and my collar-box; and that little hair trunk, seven. What have you done with your sunshade? Give it to me, and let me put a paper round it, and tie it to my umbrella with my shade; — there, now.”
“Why, aunty, we are only going up home; — what is the use?”
“To keep it nice, child; people must take care of their things, if they ever mean to have anything; and now, Eva, is your thimble put up?”
“Really, aunty, I don’t know.”
“Well, never mind; I’ll look your box over, — thimble, wax, two spools, scissors, knife, tape-needle; all right, — put it in here. What did you ever do, child, when you were coming on with only your papa. I should have thought you’d a lost everything you had.”
“Well, aunty, I did lose a great many; and then, when we stopped anywhere, papa would buy some more of whatever it was.”
“Mercy on us, child, — what a way!”
“It was a very easy way, aunty,” said Eva.
“It’s a dreadful shiftless one,” said aunty.
“Why, aunty, what’ll you do now?” said Eva; “that trunk is too full to be shut down.”
“It must shut down,” said aunty, with the air of a general, as she squeezed the things in, and sprung upon the lid; — still a little gap remained about the mouth of the trunk.
“Get up here, Eva!” said Miss Ophelia, courageously; “what has been done can be done again. This trunk has got to be shut and locked — there are no two ways about it.”
And the trunk, intimidated, doubtless, by this resolute statement, gave in. The hasp snapped sharply in its hole, and Miss Ophelia turned the key, and pocketed it in triumph.
“Now we’re ready. Where’s your papa? I think it time this baggage was set out. Do look out, Eva, and see if you see your papa.”
“O, yes, he’s down the other end of the gentlemen’s cabin, eating an orange.”
“He can’t know how near we are coming,” said aunty; “hadn’t you better run and speak to him?”
“Papa never is in a hurry about anything,” said Eva, “and we haven’t come to the landing. Do step on the guards, aunty. Look! there’s our house, up that street!”
The boat now began, with heavy groans, like some vast, tired monster, to prepare to push up among the multiplied steamers at the levee. Eva joyously pointed out the various spires, domes, and way-marks, by which she recognized her native city.
“Yes, yes, dear; very fine,” said Miss Ophelia. “But mercy on us! the boat has stopped! where is your father?”
And now ensued the usual turmoil of landing — waiters running twenty ways at once — men tugging trunks, carpet-bags, boxes — women anxiously calling to their children, and everybody crowding in a dense mass to the plank towards the landing.
Miss Ophelia seated herself resolutely on the lately vanquished trunk, and marshalling all her goods and chattels in fine military order, seemed resolved to defend them to the last.
“Shall I take your trunk, ma’am?” “Shall I take your baggage?” “Let me ‘tend to your baggage, Missis?” “Shan’t I carry out these yer, Missis?” rained down upon her unheeded. She sat with grim determination, upright as a darning-needle stuck in a board, holding on her bundle of umbrella and parasols, and replying with a determination that was enough to strike dismay even into a hackman, wondering to Eva, in each interval, “what upon earth her papa could be thinking of; he couldn’t have fallen over, now, — but something must have happened;” — and just as she had begun to work herself into a real distress, he came up, with his usually careless motion, and giving Eva a quarter of the orange he was eating, said,
“Well, Cousin Vermont, I suppose you are all ready.”
“I’ve been ready, waiting, nearly an hour,” said Miss Ophelia; “I began to be really concerned about you.
“That’s a clever fellow, now,” said he. “Well, the carriage is waiting, and the crowd are now off, so that one can walk out in a decent and Christian manner, and not be pushed and shoved. Here,” he added to a driver who stood behind him, “take these things.”
“I’ll go and see to his putting them in,” said Miss Ophelia.
“O, pshaw, cousin, what’s the use?” said St. Clare.
“Well, at any rate, I’ll carry this, and this, and this,” said Miss Ophelia, singling out three boxes and a small carpet-bag.
“My dear Miss Vermont, positively you mustn’t come the Green Mountains over us that way. You must adopt at least a piece of a southern principle, and not walk out under all that load. They’ll take you for a waiting-maid; give them to this fellow; he’ll put them down as if they were eggs, now.”
Miss Ophelia looked despairingly as her cousin took all her treasures from her, and rejoiced to find herself once more in the carriage with them, in a state of preservation.
“Where’s Tom?” said Eva.
“O, he’s on the outside, Pussy. I’m going to take Tom up to mother for a peace-offering, to make up for that drunken fellow that upset the carriage.”
“O, Tom will make a splendid driver, I know,” said Eva; “he’ll never get drunk.”
The carriage stopped in front of an ancient mansion, built in that odd mixture of Spanish and French style, of which there are specimens in some parts of New Orleans. It was built in the Moorish fashion, — a square building enclosing a court-yard, into which the carriage drove through an arched gateway. The court, in the inside, had evidently been arranged to gratify a picturesque and voluptuous ideality. Wide galleries ran all around the four sides, whose Moorish arches, slender pillars, and arabesque ornaments, carried the mind back, as in a dream, to the reign of oriental romance in Spain. In the middle of the court, a fountain threw high its silvery water, falling in a never-ceasing spray into a marble basin, fringed with a deep border of fragrant violets. The water in the fountain, pellucid as crystal, was alive with myriads of gold and silver fishes, twinkling and darting through it like so many living jewels. Around the fountain ran a walk, paved with a mosaic of pebbles, laid in various fanciful patterns; and this, again, was surrounded by turf, smooth as green velvet, while a carriage-drive enclosed the whole. Two large orange-trees, now fragrant with blossoms, threw a delicious shade; and, ranged in a circle round upon the turf, were marble vases of arabesque sculpture, containing the choicest flowering plants of the tropics. Huge pomegranate trees, with their glossy leaves and flame-colored flowers, dark-leaved Arabian jessamines, with their silvery stars, geraniums, luxuriant roses bending beneath their heavy abundance of flowers, golden jessamines, lemon-scented verbenum, all united their bloom and fragrance, while here and there a mystic old aloe, with its strange, massive leaves, sat looking like some old enchanter, sitting in weird grandeur among the more perishable bloom and fragrance around it.
The galleries that surrounded the court were festooned with a curtain of some kind of Moorish stuff, and could be drawn down at pleasure, to exclude the beams of the sun. On the whole, the appearance of the place was luxurious and romantic.
As the carriage drove in, Eva seemed like a bird ready to burst from a cage, with the wild eagerness of her delight.
“O, isn’t it beautiful, lovely! my own dear, darling home!” she said to Miss Ophelia. “Isn’t it beautiful?”
“‘T is a pretty place,” said Miss Ophelia, as she alighted; “though it looks rather old and heathenish to me.”
Tom got down from the carriage, and looked about with an air of calm, still enjoyment. The negro, it must be remembered, is an exotic of the most gorgeous and superb countries of the world, and he has, deep in his heart, a passion for all that is splendid, rich, and fanciful; a passion which, rudely indulged by an untrained taste, draws on them the ridicule of the colder and more correct white race.
St. Clare, who was in heart
a poetical voluptuary, smiled as Miss Ophelia made her remark on his premises, and, turning to Tom, who was standing looking round, his beaming black face perfectly radiant with admiration, he said,
“Tom, my boy, this seems to suit you.”
“Yes, Mas’r, it looks about the right thing,” said Tom.
All this passed in a moment, while trunks were being hustled off, hackman paid, and while a crowd, of all ages and sizes, — men, women, and children, — came running through the galleries, both above and below to see Mas’r come in. Foremost among them was a highly-dressed young mulatto man, evidently a very distingue personage, attired in the ultra extreme of the mode, and gracefully waving a scented cambric handkerchief in his hand.
This personage had been exerting himself, with great alacrity, in driving all the flock of domestics to the other end of the verandah.
“Back! all of you. I am ashamed of you,” he said, in a tone of authority. “Would you intrude on Master’s domestic relations, in the first hour of his return?”
All looked abashed at this elegant speech, delivered with quite an air, and stood huddled together at a respectful distance, except two stout porters, who came up and began conveying away the baggage.
Owing to Mr. Adolph’s systematic arrangements, when St. Clare turned round from paying the hackman, there was nobody in view but Mr. Adolph himself, conspicuous in satin vest, gold guard-chain, and white pants, and bowing with inexpressible grace and suavity.
“Ah, Adolph, is it you?” said his master, offering his hand to him; “how are you, boy?” while Adolph poured forth, with great fluency, an extemporary speech, which he had been preparing, with great care, for a fortnight before.
Complete Works of Harriet Beecher Stowe Page 21
