This being, so beyond measure lovely, so pure, so innocent, so good, so guileless, — this peerless treasure of the noble forester, unknowingly attracted the attention of the young Jonathan, while strolling with her brother Henrich in one of the green glades left by the taste of her father amidst their cotton-grounds. The intercourse between the houses of Mount Etna and Reichland had nearly ceased since the second marriage of Whitlaw. The bride found nothing to attract her in the manners of her German neighbours; they owned no slaves, and wore no finery: while., on the other hand, every member of the Steinmark family thought the time better employed in attending to the various duties allotted to each, than in listening to Mrs. Whitlaw’s expressions of pity at the sufferings they must endure in consequence of not “owning any niggers.”
The good Clio, however, still continued to walk over to the farm, whenever she could be spared from the store, just to see how they all went on; and the kindly welcome she received from Mary and her beautiful daughter whenever she appeared, made these stolen visits become one of her best consolations in the absence of her still idolized nephew, and the presence of her indolent and very insolent sister-in-law.
If Jonathan Jefferson felt contempt for the Steinmark family before he became an inmate of Paradise Plantation, it will be readily believed that this contempt was multiplied a thousand-fold afterwards. He was in truth become a very great man, not only in his own estimation, but in that of all the slaves, and a great many of the young ladies of Natchez; and whenever it happened that he encountered either of the young Germans during his occasional visits to Mount Etna, he invariably looked at them and their rustic dresses with the most minute attention, but without betraying the least consciousness that he had ever seen them before.
It was about six months after his promotion to the honourable situation of Colonel Dart’s confidential clerk, that he obtained, without being seen himself, an undisturbed stare at Lotte Steinmark. Young Jonathan was far from insensible to the influence of female beauty; and though not particularly well qualified to appreciate what was most lovely even in the personal attractions of this charming girl, he nevertheless speedily came to the conclusion that she was by far the most beautiful creature he had ever seen. He suffered the brother and sister to pass on, however, without emerging from his hiding-place, and then turned and walke slowly towards Mount Etna, pondering upon the possibility of presenting himself on the footing of a friendly visitor at a house which he had not entered for the last seven years, and before people to whom he had at every possible opportunity shown all the impertinence in his power.
It is no trifling proof of the boldness and hardihood of the youth’s character, that he decided, while these disqualifying recollections crowded upon him, not to return to Paradise Plantation till he had renewed his acquaintance with the Steinmark lads, and opened the way to an intercourse with their beautiful sister. He was willing, however, to remove some of the difficulties of the enterprise if possible; and accordingly, on entering the enlarged and beautified mansion, of his father, which was now never without the dignity of sundry half-naked negro children round the door, he despatched a sable messenger into the house with orders to bring Aunt Cli to him.
Joyfully as ever, she came at his bidding. “You wants me, my darling?” said she, wiping the hands that had been cutting cheese and bacon, on her apron. “You wants me, Jonathan dear? What can I do for thee?”
“Why, that’s more than I can say, Aunt Cli,” returned the enamoured youth; “but something must be done, or I shall go crazy. Do you know Lotte Steinmark since she’s been grown a woman?”
“Do I know her, Jonathan? Why isn’t she the dearest little soul to me, next yourself, in the whole Union?”
“Indeed! — that’s jam then. Aunt Cli, I’m in love with her; what d’ye say to that? I’m mad for love of her, and you must bring us together, if you die the minute after.”
“My!” exclaimed Clio, with a grin of the greatest delight. “If that bean’t the best bit of news I’ve heard this many a day. Well, now, Jonathan darling, I’d rather go to your wedding with Lotte Steinmark for your bride, than see you married to the heiress of fifty niggers.”
The young lover whistled Yankee Doodle.
“I had indeed, Jonathan; I’m right down sure she’d be clever to me.”
“Make yourself decent, Aunt Cli,” said the young man, without answering her remark, “and walk over with me to the house; move quick, d’ye hear! and say nothing to nobody.”
Though a multitude of affairs must be given up the while, Clio could not refuse to comply with a request so every way agreeable, and in a few minutes she was trotting at a brisk pace after Jonathan as he strode away towards Reichland.
Ere they had gone many steps, however, the youth turned suddenly round to her, saying, “Where, do the old folks keep? I’ve no call to see them, you know if I bide in the orchard a spell, can’t you go in, and bring the girl out to me, to take a walk for a bit, or something of that sort?”
Clio looked up wistfully in his face, and seemed loath to utter a word that should check him; but yet, somehow, she did not in her heart think she could bring out Lotte to walk with Jonathan in the orchard.
“Well, now, Jonathan dear, I expect they might think that funny-like; mightn’t they? She’s a shy young thing, that pretty Lotte; and maybe now you’re growed such a unaccountable noble-looking man of a boy, she mightn’t think it first-rate decent to run after you into the orchard, Jonathan.”
“That’s all flum, Allnt Cli. People like them, that can’t even keep a nigger to help ’em, had better not be after giving themselves airs, I can tell ’em. However, I expect you know the whole kit of them best. Which way had we better get at her?”
“Well, now, darling, I don’t think we can do anything more likely than jest to walk in like, as I do by myself; and say ‘How d’ye get along?’ or summet of that sort, or else jest be after asking them to give or to loan you a thing or two, and then they’ll be sure to be joyous to see us.”
“I ask them to give or to loan ME anything! Now do jest look at them and me, Aunt Cli, and then say what they’ve got to loan me. That’s all fudge, and jest shows their poverty-pride: I should like to let them see my home at Paradise Plantation, with five hundred niggers that all look fit to drop if I do but turn my eye upon ’em. They loan me!”
“Well, now, Jonathan, say no more about the loaning; but jest walk straight in, and see how it will be.”
They had by this time nearly reached the richly-scented portico that ran round the house, and into which the general sitting-room opened. All farther discussion concerning the manner of their entrance was rendered unnecessary, for Lotte herself was standing before the open window, assisting Henrich to fasten the branches of a clematis, heavy with blossoms, upon the rustic treillis-work that surrounded the portico.
The impudence of Jonathan very nearly failed him, and he felt a pretty considerably strong inclination to run away; but the honest confidence of the simple-minded Clio came to his aid, and he manfully stood his ground beside her, as she walked up to the beautiful Lotte, who welcomed her most kindly.
Neither the brother nor sister, however, had the slightest idea who the tall stripling might be, who, dressed in the height of New Orleans elegance, stood bowing with a strange mixture of bashfulness and audacity beside her.
It was some minutes before it entered Clio’s head that it was possible Lotte and Henrich should not know her nephew Jonathan; but as soon as the fact became manifest to her capacity, she performed the ceremony of introduction by saying, “Well, now, I do believe you have downright forgotten Jonathan, both of you — and no wonder, seeing he’s grow’d so dreadful handsome, and so tall and grandlike; but ’tis Jonathan, Lotte. Won’t you shake hands with him?”
“Father and mother will be glad to see you, Clio,” replied Lotte, colouring slightly, and making a movement towards the open window; “I think they are both here.”
This palpable evasion of the o
ffered courtesy of hand-shaking, seconded as it was by a brisk action of the youth’s right hand the instant his aunt’s agreeable proposal reached his ears, produced an effect both on his nerves and temper by no means favourable to the grace of his entry by the open window. He “had to do it,” however; and following his aunt, and the beautiful object of his admiration and anger, he suddenly found himself in the presence also of Frederick Steinmark, Mary, Karl, and Hermann.
The day was Sunday, and the whole family had the air of enjoying the pleasant idleness, and unbroken intercourse with each other, which it permitted. Frederick indeed was reading; but the two sons were seated one on each side of the mother, and both seemed enjoying the pleasure of a very lively conversation, in which she was taking part with as much animation as either of them.
“Here is Clio, mother, come to see us,” said Lotte as she entered.
“And here is our Jonathan,” said Clio, stopping short in her advance towards Mary, till the young man had reached her side. “Arn’t he growed, mistress?”
“Very much grown, Clio,” answered Mary kindly, and turning to Jonathan she asked him to sit down with a civility which quite surprised him. He gave her credit, however, for conquering feelings and resentments respecting him, which in truth it had never entered into her heart to conceive. She had heard there was a young Whitlaw, and that young Whitlaw was gone to school, but; further than this, her memory retained no single idea concerning him.
And even this was, probably, more than Frederick Steinmark knew, or remembered about him. He raised his eyes from his book however, and with his own sweet smile nodded a welcome to the worthy Clio.
“My nephew, Master Steinmark, sir!” said Clio, pushing Jonathan a little towards him. Frederick again raised his eyes, but it was evident that he was puzzled concerning the identity of the smart youth who stood before him, and with that guilty consciousness of inattention which absent people often betray, he looked towards his wife and sons to assist him out of his embarrassment, or, if that were impossible, at least to relieve him from doing the honours of his house to a guest of whose existence he could not recall the slightest recollection. Confident, however, from old experience, of receiving the aid his expressive look demanded, he resumed his occupation, and, impossible as the thing appeared to Jonathan Jefferson, totally forgot that he was in the room.
Not so Karl, Hermann, or Henrich. The occasional impertinences of their visitor to themselves were certainly not wholly forgotten; but his presence recalled ideas infinitely more disagreeable, and more disadvantageous to him, than any remembrances connected merely with themselves.
Though the young Steinmarks associated as little as was well possible with the inhabitants of Natchez, the necessary sale of their produce, and the purchase of articles required in return, made it impossible that they should be altogether strangers there. Karl, too, in his vocation of miller, often found himself under the necessity of hearing more plantation gossip than was either interesting or agreeable; and both from his customers, and from the general report of Natchez, such a series of anecdotes had reached the brothers, as proved that, either justly or unjustly, the young hero of my tale had already acquired as general a character for dissolute libertinism as it would have required at least twice his age to collect round any one name amidst the more slowly developed vices of Europe.
Nor was this all. The charge of cruelty to the unhappy negroes, into whose secret thoughts he was commissioned to penetrate, and whose slightest failings it was his hired service to betray, was spoken of with loathing an abhorrence even at Natchez. The hearts of the young Germans seemed to burn within them as Jonathan prepared to seat himself in the circle that pressed round their mother; and when, drawing his chair near to that of Lotte, he began smilingly and familiarly to address her, no consideration of civility, nor even the accustomed deference to the presence of his parents, could control the feelings of the impetuous Karl, who, approaching his sister abruptly, said in a half-whisper, “Leave the room, Lottchen!” and then, having stood between her and the object of his indignation till the door closed behind her, he replaced himself close beside his mother, turning his clear and almost fierce blue eyes upon the guest, with a look from which even the accomplished effrontery of Jonathan Jefferson turned abashed.
This scene, which was becoming extremely unpleasant to every person present, excepting the absorbed Frederick Steinmark and the unsuspicious Clio, could not last long. The object which had induced young Whitlaw to such an act of condescension as paying a voluntary visit to the “German boors,” as he not very aptly termed the family of Steinmark, having so strangely withdrawn herself, all wish on his part to prolong the visit vanished; and rising from his chair with his hat still on his head, and his arms folded on his breast, he stood waiting with no very amiable feelings, till his aunt should give some indication that if he bolted through the window, she would follow him.
Clio, however, who perceived not that any thing was amiss, save indeed the absence of Lotte, whom she every moment expected to see re-enter, was in no hurry to depart. She hailed this opportunity of exhibiting the beauty and splendour of her nephew to her friendly neighbours; and it was not till the swelling and mortified Jonathan had given her sundry admonitory pokes on the elbow, and finally uttered very audibly, “You are going to bide all day, I expect,” that the kind-hearted soul conceived the possibility that it would be best to depart, even before one bit of courting had taken place with Lotte.
This visit appeared over-long to more than one of the persons it brought together; but it would have been well for all, had the effects of it lasted no longer.
CHAPTER IX.
IT was not the habit of the Steinmark family to canvass the failings of any guests whom chance might bring to visit them in their remote retirement. The rareness of the occurrence made the face of a stranger welcome, and the genuine kindness of the family temper would generally have prevented any very severe animadversions even in cases where it was not so. But on the present occasion the extraordinary conduct of Karl demanded explanation, and it could only be given by imparting a portion at least of the information he had received respecting Whitlaw.
Had Lotte been present, this must have been necessarily abridged; but as it was, Karl felt it a duty sufficiently to enlighten his father and mother on the subject, to ensure their aid in preventing the repetition of a visit which for many reasons the young man felt convinced was especially intended for his sister.
Frederick Steinmark’s attention being awakened by the earnest manner of his son, he listened without any symptom of absence to all he had to say, and then replied:
“As far as our Lottchen is concerned, my dear Karl, I hold your precaution to be needless. Our young neighbour Jonathan, would have no more power to sully the purity that you cherish so fondly, than a cloud passing before the sun can tarnish its brightness. You were wrong, dear son, to send her out of the room so abruptly. Lotte need not run to be safe from neighbour Jonathan. In short, Karl, in his capacity of beau and libertine, I fear him not. But looking at him in his capacity of slave-driver, I would not much have blamed your warmth, if you had fled yourself, and dragged us all in a string after you. Human nature can show nothing so abhorrent to my eyes and my heart as the men who traffic in the muscles and sinews of the poor negroes; and this fellow, this young demon, by your account, does worse — he sells himself as a spy upon their untaught ignorance, that he may betray their idle words and make them bleed for each of them! If fiends can take a human shape, it must be this. Let’s talk no more of it; it makes me loathe my home, and almost curse the land in which I have pitched my tent: let us talk of it no more.”
This command was literally obeyed. They did talk no more of Jonathan Jefferson Whitlaw, his occupations, or his character.
Nor did Jonathan Jefferson, on his side, talk much of them. It was not in words that the feelings produced by Karl’s treatment of him evaporated; but deep, deep within his heart of hearts did he lay up the insult he h
ad received. He knew, he saw, he heard, he felt, — ay, and he understood it all. Neither his egregious vanity, his prosperous ambition, the luxury in which he already lived, nor his towering hopes for the future, could so far blind, as to make him doubt for an instant that Karl, the German boor, scorned and reviled him, — that he had snatched his sister from his sight as too pure and holy for his eyes, and then had dared to look upon him as he would look upon a negro.
There had been mutual scorn, dislike, and avoidance between them before, but now there was something approaching to hatred in the breast of both; and in that of Whitlaw, a deeply-sworn promise of revenge that he was not very likely to forget.
But to no human being did he breathe a word of the offence he had received, or of the rich atonement which it was his purpose to require when the fitting hour should come. He answered with apparent indifference to his aunt’s observations on Lotte’s running away; but either to avoid the repetition of them, or from some other reason, it was many months before he again found leisure to leave his duties at Paradise Plantation in order to visit Mount Etna.
With Colonel Dart his importance appeared to increase daily. No person, indeed, could be better fitted for an employment than was Jonathan Jefferson for that which the planter had entrusted to him. He had nothing to do with superintending the fufilment of the negroes’ tasks; that was the duty of the different overseers, one of whom was attached to every separate gang. The large estate of Colonel Dart grew sugar, cotton, and rice; and as the cultivation of each of these articles required a different kind of labour, and even a different species of physical power in those employed upon it, the slaves were as distinctly divided as if they had belonged to different proprietors; even the huts in which they dwelt were grouped in widely-distant parts of the property, so that Paradise Plantation could boast of three distinct negro villages. There were but two things which belonged to them all in common: these were, Colonel Dart, who was their general master, and Jonathan Jefferson Whitlaw, who was their general spy.
Collected Works of Frances Trollope Page 8
