His first visit was at the house of Mr. Bobbin. He was ushered with a vast deal of creole pomp into a splendid drawing-room, the furniture of which was no bad specimen of Parisian elegance. The walls of the room were half covered with enormous mirrors; marble tables of all sorts and sizes displayed a large collection of Sévres china; ottomans, sofas, and bergères were invitingly placed in all parts of the spacious room; and the atmosphere was deliciously scented by tuberoses, orange-flowers, and jessamines. The light and heat of the day, which was extremely sultry, was only permitted to enter through coloured canvass blinds continually sprinkled with water on the outside and stretched over an ample balcony filled with the finest flowers.
On first entering this elegant apartment, Whitlaw believed it to be quite untenanted, and that deep-seated reverence for wealth which had ever been a strong feature in his character caused him to look round it with a feeling of respect that almost led him to prostrate himself in a salam upon the delicately-tinted matting which covered the floor. It was not till the second and more leisurely survey which he took of its enviable splendour, that he perceived a very young, little, round, pale, black-eyed woman sunk deep into a kangaroo chair, with one of her little feet dangling from it, and the toe of the other supported on the shoulder of a young negro boy fantastically dressed, who sat on the floor before her. She was placed in the corner of the room, and a large orange-tree covered with blossoms so arranged as to form a sort of canopy over her. Her attitude was one that might have rendered rising difficult to any woman, but to a creole it was impossible. She therefore clapped her miniature white hands together; and though the sound produced was scarcely louder than what might have followed a similar concussion between two little balls of cotton, it was heard and obeyed by another black fairy in the dress of an oriental page, turbaned and trousered in delicate white muslin, with a tiny vest of yellow satin, belted with gold.
She murmured something into the child’s ear, who immediately took an ivory fan from off a table, and approaching Whitlaw, presented one end of it to him, and so led him forward towards his mistress, it being contrary to creole etiquette that a white skin should touch the hand of a negro.
At the distance of about two yards from the living but apparently immovable footstool, the well-tutored little usher stopped, and withdrawing the fan from the hand of the stranger, stood ready to execute the next order he should receive, whether it were to advance a fauteuil for his service, or to lead him back to the door by which he entered.
The little beauty, from amidst her flowing, floating, very loose, and very thin white drapery, looked out and up to the handsome face of our tall hero, and the signal for the fauteuil was given, but so slightly and so silently that it escaped the senses of Whitlaw. He understood, however, that the chair was intended for him, and he took possession of it with perhaps more satisfaction than grace.
“I have a letter, madam,” he began, seeking for his credentials as he spoke— “a letter to Mr. Bobbin from my friend Colonel Dart. Will you be pleased to receive it for him, madam?”
“Yes, sir, you may give it to me;” and the little white hand was extended, or rather raised, about two inches from the lap on which it rested.
It was rather instinct than politeness which made Whitlaw start forward to place the letter between the delicate fingers prepared to receive it; and in doing it, he bent his head so low, that the lady’s other hand, which rested in a languid, drooping attitude against the side of her high chair, while her shoulder supported her head, passed over his curls with very little effort, and she said, “How your hair curls! — Where do you come from?”
“From Natchez, madam.”
“Natchez! — are all the men handsome there?”
“Not all, I expect, madam.”
The little lady laughed immoderately.
“Oh, you expect! — that’s charming! — Do sing Yankee Doodle for me, will you? You are so very handsome, that I am quite sure you must be good-natured.”
“I should be very happy to do anything that could please you, madam,” replied Whitlaw, who, though half affronted at her request, or rather at the manner of it, was enchanted both with her beauty and her compliments— “anything that I could do; but I’m not capable to sing, for I don’t know how.”
“Oh, what a pity! you would look so handsome when you were singing! You don’t know that I am Mr. Bobbin’s lady? Do I look old enough to be married?”
“You look like an angel, madam!” was Whitlaw’s gallant reply.
Again a fit of violent but very soft-toned laughter waved the light drapery which hung like a transparent cloud about the beauty; but suddenly checking herself, she addressed the little automaton at her feet, in a voice that was, as sharp as she could contrive to render her languid tones.
“Tu as bouge, Pompey! — tu auras le fouet.” Then raising her eyes again to Whitlaw, she said, “Do you love orange-flowers?”
“I am sure I shall always love them in future,” said Whitlaw, directing his eyes to the beautiful blossoms that seemed ready to drop upon her pretty head, “for they will always remind me of you.”
She again clapped her little hands, and her negro page entered as before, when she again whispered to him, and the child disappeared through the open window into the balcony, from whence he quickly returned with his dingy hands filled with delicate orange-blossoms.
The fair lady made a sign to the child, who was advancing to her with them, saying, “A lui, bête!”
Whitlaw, however, put his hands behind him as the page drew near, exclaiming, “No! madam, no! — from no hand but your own, and least of all from a nigger’s; but if you’ll be pleased to give them to me, I’ll keep them for ever, by G — d!”
As if it were her doom upon the present occasion to “laugh loud laughters three,” the youthful mistress of the mansion again gave way to mirth, but soon recovered herself and said very obligingly, “Well, then, Olinda must give them to you herself, I suppose. Come here!”
Whitlaw drew near with unfeigned satisfaction, and, as if inspired by the occasion, actually knelt down beside the footstool negro.
Olinda looked at him very complacently, and either smelling or kissing the flowers she had received from her page, or both, she placed some of them in his hand, and threw the rest in his face, saying, “There then! — now you may go, — I will give my husband the letter, and perhaps he will ask you to dinner, — I hope he will. Adieu!” And she waved him off with the childish air of a little girl playing queen.
In truth the pretty Olinda was still a child in age; and such, if report say true, are the childish ways of some of the little ladies of New Orleans.
Luckily for young Whitlaw, his head was not one of those likely to be turned and overturned by such pretty fooleries so as to make him forget more serious business. “If I’d nothing else to do,” thought he, “I might like well enough to waste a few hours in that there paradise of a keeping-room. — But now for Mr. Monro Barbacuit; for, if I don’t mistake, he lives in the next street.”
He was here fortunate enough to find the person to whom the letter he brought was addressed; and having delivered it, he waited in silence while Mr. Barbacuit read the contents.
“Sit down, sir, sit down,” said little Mr. Barbacuit, a pale thin personage of five feet four inches and a half.
“What a flimsy-looking little fellow,” thought Whitlaw, “to stand up so grandly against a gang of nigger rebels!”
Had our hero’s mind been stored with classic lore, he would doubtless have exclaimed in some language or other, “And dwell such mighty souls in little men!”
But not having this advantage, he only contemplated the comical little figure before him with a strong suspicion that the report of his prowess must have originated with himself; and the practical inference he drew from this conclusion was, that nothing would be so likely to propitiate the friendly feelings of Mr. Barbacuit, as referring to a transaction wherein by his own account he had acted so noble a part.
Having waited therefore till the perusal of the letter was finished, he said, while the little man was folding it up, “You perceive, Mr. Barbacuit, that all nigger outbreaks are not confined to New Orlines, — my friend and employer Colonel Dart lives in constant terror of the same. — Ah! sir, I wish we had got you among us!”
“Good God, sir! what does that mean?” exclaimed the hero. “What could I do, sir? Do you mean that the black malice of the varmint would exhaust itself on me? Is that Colonel Dart’s notion, sir?”
“Lord, no, sir!” answered Whitlaw, quite shocked at having given occasion for such a suspicion: “Colonel Dart never dreamed of no earthly thing like it. I only meant, sir, that it would be a comfort to have such a brave gentleman as you are near us in case of the worst.”
“In case of the worst! — Good God! I to be moving about the country just to pop in at a rebellion in case of the worst! Why, sir, I’m thinking of selling all, if it can be done without too horrid a loss, and shipping myself off for France, just to get out of the way of these born devils, — that’s what I’m after thinking of in case of the worst.”
“I do assure you, sir,” replied Whitlaw, “I would be much readier to help such a valuable gentleman as you out of danger than into it. But it is impossible not to keep thinking at times what a fine thing bravery is, especially when one hears of such pitiful, mean, cowardly tricks as some slave-holders don’t scruple to do, gentlemen though they are, or ought to be from their standing. But ’tis impossible not to glorify a man that will stand up against a roused gang of malignant varmint like you did, Mr. Barbacuit, when one likens him to such a mean thievish rascal as him as stole his neighbour’s thriving piccaniny t’other day, and left a crippled one in its place. Warn’t that man a mean fellow, Mr. Barbacuit? — and he to be a slave-holder too!”
Mr. Barbacuit’s pale complexion assumed a tint of livid blue as he listened to these words; and in the rage and agony which possessed him, he pulled the bell violently, though he knew that the summons could only bring one or more of the feared and hated race to his succour; but even they would save him from the cool, deliberate insults his visitor was pouring upon him.
“Show this gentleman out,” stammered the master of the mansion; and as the slave held wide open the door of the room, Whitlaw felt that nothing was left him but to walk through it; which in truth he did with as little delay as possible, for the thought had struck him that he must have unhappily bestowed the speeches intended for the bold, fighting queller of riots, upon the peaceful put pitiful kidnapper of children. Determined however upon satisfying his mind on the subject, he drew a splendid quarter of a dollar from his pocket as he approached the door of the house, and slipped it into the negro’s hand, saying, as he lingered a moment on the steps, “I say, blacky, arn’t there a good story going about somebody liking a straight piccaniny better than a crooked one?” And the words being accompanied by a wink and a grin, the thoroughly propitiated slave answered with a chuckling He! he! he! “Sure nuff, massa — and no lie neder.”
“And ’twas him as done it?” added Whitlaw, with an expressive action of his thumb, pointing it backwards across the hall.
“Sure-ly, massa, sure-ly, — he! he! he!” Vexed, provoked, and in some degree frightened at his own carelessness, Whitlaw muttered within his teeth as he hurried from the door, “D — n their instructions! I wish the old witch was here herself to tell me who’s who.”
Hardly was the thought formed into words, than the figure of Juno, very decently clad however, but still the figure of Juno, came down a side street and stood before him.
All the floating superstitions of Whitlaw’s brain seemed to crowd and settle round his heart as he recognised her. She still carried her bamboo, but it was now used as a needful walking-stick, to support the steps of a feeble-looking but very tidy old woman.
It would have been worse than “a misdoubting of Providence,” if Whitlaw had not availed himself of this seemingly miraculous arrival of the counsellor he had wished for. With considerably more than usual respect he addressed her —
“You are just the person, mother, as I wished to see. I am glad to see you look so hearty too.”
“And what has Mr. Jonathan Jefferson Whitlaw to say to me?” said Juno in return, while a new change seemed to have come over the spirit of her vagaries; for her manner was staid and steady, and her accent and pronunciation most punctiliously those of the educated English.
“Why, I want you to tell me — only this street is so unaccountable public — can’t I go with you to your lodgings for a spell? ’Twould look queer maybe if I took you to mine,”
“The least queer of the two, Mr. Whitlaw, I think; but neither is necessary. If you really have business with me, I can walk before you down this street for about a hundred yards, which will bring us into a drying ground — none but black or coloured people are likely to be there, so there is no fear of incivility though we should intrude on them. I suspect, Mr. Whitlaw, that all business between you and I is pretty well over; nevertheless, for old acquaintance’ sake, I am ready to wait upon you so far.”
“Thank you, Juno, thank you,” replied Whitlaw, more than ever impressed with the conviction of her supernatural powers; “I will follow wherever you please, and thank you too.”
Without farther parley, old Juno set off by the way she came; and just at the distance she had described, a large open space received them, around which were scattered many small, miserable-looking dwellings, inhabited by free negroes and quadroons who took in washing.
“Here, sir, you may say whatever you please,” said the old woman; turning round to him; “nobody is at all likely to hear you, and less likely still, if they did, to notice what you say.”
“It’s just this, Juno,” said Whitlaw, in a sort of coaxing accent that made the keen-eyed old woman smile, spite of her assumed stateliness. “Here are lots of letters, you see, from our colonel: and when he gave them to me, he told me a deal about every one of them; — and you too, if you remember — you told me what was to be said to one, and not said to another; and, as ill luck would have it, I have forgot it all, — or, worse still, I’ve gone done mixed it all up, in one, putting wrong names and things together till I’m in a right-down bad fix.”
“Let me see them, sir, if you please.”
Whitlaw placed the remaining letters in her hand.
“I’ve given in two of them already,” said he. “The first was to Mr. Bobbin, and that did very well, for I saw his wife; but the second I made curious bad work of, for I thought that Mr. Barbacuit was the gentleman as stood up so against the rebellion, and I complimented him about it up sky-high; and, worse than that by half, I talked to him of the mean fellow as left the crippled brat in the place of the thriving one; and I thought he’d have gone demented, sure enough.”
Not all the decorum and gravity which old Juno was so evidently struggling to maintain could resist this anecdote, so well calculated to delight her in every way. She laughed till tears rained plenteously from her eyes, and her stout bamboo shook beneath the weight she threw upon it. Even the frightened Whitlaw caught the infection, and laughed too; and it was this indeed, rather than the fading away of her own mirth, which restored her composure.
“Well, sir! — respecting which of these names,” and she began to examine them as she spoke, “do you wish information?”
“All of them, Juno.”
Juno proceeded to read the titles, which the bright sky of New Orleans enabled her to do, though not without some difficulty, for her eyes were not quite so good as they had, been; though, like all her faculties, her sight was much less impaired than is usual at her age.
“Zerubbabel Theodore Octavius Cobb — that’s a man whose assistance may be very valuable to you, Mr. Whitlaw, should any commotion among the negroes at Paradise Plantation render it advisable to call in assistance. His influence among the coloured people is quite astonishing. The very sight of him I should think likely to produce a pr
odigious effect.”
That’s good,” replied Whitlaw; “I’ll make much of him, you may depend upon it.”
“You will do quite right, sir. — Brutus Pennyfeather. This is the person of whom Colonel Dart desired you would request a few of his best conditioned slaves at almost any price: do not forget this, Mr. Whitlaw, — it may chance to be very important. — Adam Byron Chesterfield Higgins. — This is quite a young man, but not perhaps the less important for that reason. He has some great and very liberal views on many subjects. You must make him understand that Colonel Dart enters warmly into all his projects, and is ready to assist him with money and interest.”
Whitlaw nodded. “I think I shall remember them all now,” said he, stretching out his hand for the letters. “There is but one more, and that’s to the Englishman: I know what I’ve got to say to him well enough.”
The eyes of Juno fell upon the name of Croft at the moment she was about to give back the packet.
“I had forgot this,” she said in an altered voice: “this letter is useless,” she added, tearing it in fragments; “you have no occasion to visit this person at all.”
“That’s strange though,” said Whitlaw, “because it was plain to me that my calling on Mr. Croft was my most particular business of all. This is the man, Juno, who is come oversea to sell that first-rate fine estate that the colonel wants to get hold of, — Nixton, you know, Juno — there’s no land like it. I shall catch it, I expect, for your tearing that letter up.”
“No, sir, no!” cried Juno impatiently; “the colonel has no longer any wish to buy that land; therefore your calling on Mr. Croft could only be useless trouble, and wasting time that you might turn to better account at New Orleans, Mr. Whitlaw.”
“I expect that’s true, too,” he replied, perfectly persuaded that she was alluding to her occult knowledge of his successful play, and that her words predicted continued good fortune. “I won’t waste no more time than I can help, I promise you that, Juno; and so good morning. We shall meet again, I suppose, at Paradise Plantation before long; but in case I should want a touch of your help, or your knowledge, Juno, or the like, I should like to know where you bide in the city. Is it a long remove from here? — I expect not.”
Collected Works of Frances Trollope Page 31
