Books: A Modern Cinderella
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Louisa May Alcott >> A Modern Cinderella
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In an instant the man vanished and the slave
appeared. Freedom was too new a boon to have
wrought its blessed changes yet, and as he started
up, with his hand at his temple and an obsequious
"Yes, Ma'am," any romance that had gathered
round him fled away, leaving the saddest of all
sad facts in living guise before me. Not only did
the manhood seem to die out of him, but the comeliness
that first attracted me; for, as he turned, I
saw the ghastly wound that had laid open cheek
and forehead. Being partly healed, it was no
longer bandaged, but held together with strips of
that transparent plaster which I never see without
a shiver and swift recollections of scenes with
which it is associated in my mind. Part of his
black hair had been shorn away, and one eye was
nearly closed; pain so distorted, and the cruel
sabre-cut so marred that portion of his face, that,
when I saw it, I felt as if a fine medal had been
suddenly reversed, showing me a far more striking
type of human suffering and wrong than Michel
Angelo's bronze prisoner. By one of those inexplicable
processes that often teach us how little we
understand ourselves, my purpose was suddenly
changed, and though I went in to offer comfort as
a friend, I merely gave an order as a mistress.
"Will you open these windows? this man needs
more air."
He obeyed at once, and, as he slowly urged up
the unruly sash, the handsome profile was again
turned toward me, and again I was possessed by
my first impression so strongly that I involuntarily
said,--
"Thank you, Sir."
Perhaps it was fancy, but I thought that in the
look of mingled surprise and something like
reproach which be gave me there was also a trace of
grateful pleasure. But he said, in that tone of
spiritless humility these poor souls learn so
soon,--
"I ain't a white man, Ma'am, I'm a contraband."
"Yes, I know it; but a contraband is a free
man, and I heartily congratulate you."
He liked that; his face shone, he squared his
shoulders, lifted his head, and looked me full in
the eye with a brisk--
"Thank ye, Ma'am; anything more to do fer
yer?"
"Doctor Franck thought you would help me
with this man, as there are many patients and few
nurses or attendants. Have you had the fever?"
"No, Ma'am."
"They should have thought of that when they
put him here; wounds and fevers should not be
together. I'll try to get you moved."
He laughed a sudden laugh,--if he had been a
white man, I should have called it scornful; as he
was a few shades darker than myself, I suppose it
must be considered an insolent, or at least an
unmannerly one.
"It don't matter, Ma'am. I'd rather be up
here with the fever than down with those niggers;
and there ain't no other place fer me."
Poor fellow! that was true. No ward in all
the hospital would take him in to lie side by side
with the most miserable white wreck there. Like
the bat in Aesop's fable, he belonged to neither
race; and the pride of one, the helplessness of the
other, kept him hovering alone in the twilight a
great sin has brought to overshadow the whole
land.
"You shall stay, then; for I would far rather
have you than any lazy Jack. But are you well
and strong enough?"
"I guess I'll do, Ma'am."
He spoke with a passive sort of acquiescence,--
as if it did not much matter, if he were not able,
and no one would particularly rejoice, if he
were.
"Yes, I think you will. By what name shall
I call you?"
"Bob, Ma'am."
Every woman has her pet whim; one of mine
was to teach the men self-respect by treating them
respectfully. Tom, Dick, and Harry would pass,
when lads rejoiced in those familiar abbreviations;
but to address men often old enough to be my
father in that style did not suit my old-fashioned
ideas of propriety. This "Bob" would never do;
I should have found it as easy to call the chaplain
"Gus" as my tragical-looking contraband by a
title so strongly associated with the tail of a kite.
"What is your other name?" I asked. "I like to call my
attendants by their last names rather than by their first."
"I've got no other, Ma'am; we have our masters' names,
or do without. Mine's dead, and I won't have anything
of his about me."
"Well, I'll call you Robert, then, and you may
fill this pitcher for me, if you will be so kind."
He went; but, through all the tame, obedience
years of servitude had taught him, I could see that
the proud spirit his father gave him was not yet
subdued, for the look and gesture with which he
repudiated his master's name were a more effective
declaration of independence than any Fourth-of-July
orator could have prepared.
We spent a curious week together. Robert
seldom left his room, except upon my errands; and
I was a prisoner all day, often all night, by the
bedside of the Rebel. The fever burned itself rapidly
away, for there seemed little vitality to feed it in
the feeble frame of this old young man, whose life
had been none of the most righteous, judging from
the revelations made by his unconscious lips; since
more than once Robert authoritatively silenced
him, when my gentler bushings were of no avail,
and blasphemous wanderings or ribald camp-songs
made my cheeks burn and Robert's face assume
an aspect of disgust. The captain was a gentleman
in the world's eye, but the contraband was
the gentleman in mine;--I was a fanatic, and that
accounts for such depravity of taste, I hope. I
never asked Robert of himself, feeling that somewhere
there was a spot still too sore to bear the
lightest touch; but, from his language, manner, and
intelligence, I inferred that his color had procured
for him the few advantages within the reach of a
quick-witted, kindly treated slave. Silent, grave,
and thoughtful, but most serviceable, was my contraband;
glad of the books I brought him, faithful
in the performance of the duties I assigned to him,
grateful for the friendliness I could not but feel and
show toward him. Often I longed to ask what purpose
was so visibly altering his aspect with such daily
deepening gloom. But I never dared, and no one else
had either time or desire to pry into the past of this
specimen of one branch of the chivalrous "F.F.Vs."
On the seventh night, Dr. Franck suggested that
it would be well for some one, besides the general
watchman of the ward, to be with the captain, as
it might be his last. Although the greater part of
the two preceding nights had been spent there, of
course I offered to remain,--for there is a strange
fascination in these scenes, which renders one
careless of fatigue and unconscious of fear until the
crisis is passed.
"Give him water as long as he can drink, and
if he drops into a natural sleep, it may save him.
I'll look in at midnight, when some change will
probably take place. Nothing but sleep or a
miracle will keep him now. Good night."
Away went the Doctor; and, devouring a whole
mouthful of grapes, I lowered the lamp, wet
the captain's head, and sat down on a hard stool
to begin my watch. The captain lay with his
hot, haggard face turned toward me, filling the air
with his poisonous breath, and feebly muttering,
with lips and tongue so parched that the sanest
speech would have been difficult to understand.
Robert was stretched on his bed in the inner room,
the door of which stood ajar, that a fresh draught
from his open window might carry the fever-fumes
away through mine. I could just see a long, dark
figure, with the lighter outline of a face, and, having
little else to do just then, I fell to thinking of
this curious contraband, who evidently prized
his freedom highly, yet seemed in no haste to
enjoy it. Doctor Franck had offered to send him on
to safer quarters, but he had said, "No, thank
yer, Sir, not yet," and then had gone away to
fall into one of those black moods of his, which
began to disturb me, because I had no power to
lighten them. As I sat listening to the clocks from
the steeples all about us, I amused myself with
planning Robert's future, as I often did my own,
and had dealt out to him a generous hand of
trumps wherewith to play this game of life which
hitherto had gone so cruelly against him, when a
harsh, choked voice called,--
"Lucy!"
It was the captain, and some new terror seemed
to have gifted him with momentary strength.
"Yes, here's Lucy," I answered, hoping that
by following the fancy I might quiet him,--for
his face was damp with the clammy moisture, and
his frame shaken with the nervous tremor that so
often precedes death. His dull eye fixed upon
me, dilating with a bewildered look of incredulity
and wrath, till he broke out fiercely.--
"That's a lie! she's dead,--and so's Bob,
damn him!"
Finding speech a failure, I began to sing the
quiet tune that had often soothed delirium like
this; but hardly had the line,
"See gentle patience smile on pain,"
passed my lips, when he clutched me by the wrist,
whispering like one in mortal fear,--
"Hush! she used to sing that way to Bob, but
she never would to me. I swore I'd whip the
Devil out of her, and I did; but you know before
she cut her throat she said she'd haunt me, and
there she is!"
He pointed behind me with an aspect of such
pale dismay, that I involuntarily glanced over
my shoulder and started as if I had seen a veritable
ghost; for, peering from the gloom of that inner
room, I saw a shadowy face, with dark hair all
about it, and a glimpse of scarlet at the throat.
An instant showed me that it was only Robert
leaning from his bed's-foot, wrapped in a gray
army-blanket, with his red shirt just visible above
it, and his long hair disordered by sleep. But
what a strange expression was on his face! The
unmarred side was toward me, fixed and motionless
as when I first observed it,--less absorbed
now, but more intent. His eye glittered, his lips
were apart like one who listened with every sense,
and his whole aspect reminded me of a hound to which
some wind had brought the scent of unsuspected prey.
"Do you know him, Robert? Does he mean
you?"
"Lord, no, Ma'am; they all own half a dozen
Bobs: but hearin' my name woke me; that's all."
He spoke quite naturally, and lay down again,
while I returned to my charge, thinking that this
paroxysm was probably his last. But by another
hour I perceived a hopeful change, for the tremor
had subsided, the cold dew was gone, his breathing
was more regular, and Sleep, the healer, had
descended to save or take him gently away.
Doctor Franck looked in at midnight, bade me
keep all cool and quiet, and not fail to administer
a certain draught as soon as the captain woke.
Very much relieved, I laid my head on my arms,
uncomfortably folded on the little table, and
fancied I was about to perform one of the feats
which practice renders possible,--"sleeping with
one eye open," as we say: a half-and-half doze, for
all senses sleep but that of hearing; the faintest
murmur, sigh, or motion will break it, and give
one back one's wits much brightened by the
permission to "stand at ease." On this night,
the experiment was a failure, for previous vigils,
confinement, and much care had rendered naps
a dangerous indulgence, Having roused half a
dozen times in an hour to find all quiet, I dropped
my heavy head on my arms, and, drowsily resolving
to look up again in fifteen minutes, fell fast
asleep.
The striking of a deep-voiced clock woke me
with a start. "That is one," thought I, but, to
my dismay, two more strokes followed; and in
remorseful haste I sprang up to see what harm my
long oblivion had done. A strong hand put me
back into my seat, and held me there. It was
Robert. The instant my eye met his my heart
began to beat, and all along my nerves tingled
that electric flash which foretells a danger that we
cannot see. He was very pale, his mouth grim,
and both eyes full of sombre fire,--for even the
wounded one was open now, all the more sinister
for the deep scar above and below. But his touch
was steady, his voice quiet, as he said,--
"Sit still, Ma'am; I won't hurt yer, nor even
scare yer, if I can help it, but yer waked too
soon."
"Let me go, Robert,--the captain is stirring,
--I must give him something."
"No, Ma'am, yer can't stir an inch. Look
here!"
Holding me with one hand, with the other he
took up the glass in which I had left the draught,
and showed me it was empty.
"Has he taken it?" I asked, more and more
bewildered.
"I flung it out o' winder, Ma'am; he'll have to
do without."
"But why, Robert? why did you do it?"
"Because I hate him!"
Impossible to doubt the truth of that; his whole
face showed it, as he spoke through his set teeth,
and launched a fiery glance at the unconscious
captain. I could only hold my breath and stare
blankly at him, wondering what mad act was coming
next. I suppose I shook and turned white, as women
have a foolish habit of doing when sudden danger
daunts them; for Robert released my arm, sat down
upon the bedside just in front of me, and said, with
the ominous quietude that made me cold to see and hear,--
"Don't yer be frightened, Ma'am: don't try
to run away, fer the door's locked an' the key
in my pocket; don't yer cry out, fer yer'd have to
scream a long while, with my hand on yer mouth,
before yer was heard. Be still, an' I'll tell yer
what I'm goin' to do."
"Lord help us! he has taken the fever in some
sudden, violent way, and is out of his head. I
must humor him till some one comes"; in pursuance
of which swift determination, I tried to say,
quite composedly,--
"I will be still and hear you; but open the
window. Why did you shut it?"
"I'm sorry I can't do it, Ma'am; but yer'd
jump out, or call, if I did, an' I'm not ready yet.
I shut it to make yer sleep, an' heat would do it
quicker'n anything else I could do."
The captain moved, and feebly muttered,
"Water!" Instinctively I rose to give it to him,
but the heavy hand came down upon my shoulder,
and in the same decided tone Robert said,-=
"The water went with the physic; let him
call."
"Do let me go to him! he'll die without
care!"
"I mean he shall;--don't yer interfere, if yer
please, Ma'am."
In spite of his quiet tone and respectful manner,
I saw murder in his eyes, and turned faint with
fear; yet the fear excited me, and, hardly knowing
what I did, I seized the hands that had seized me,
crying,--
"No, no, you shall not kill him! it is base to
hurt a helpless man. Why do you hate him?
He is not your master?"
"He's my brother."
I felt that answer from head to foot. and
seemed to fathom what was coming, with a
prescience vague, but unmistakable. One appeal
was left to me, and I made it.
"Robert, tell me what it means? Do not
commit a crime and make me accessory to it--
There is a better way of righting wrong than by
violence;--let me help you find it."
My voice trembled as I spoke, and I heard the
frightened flutter of my heart; so did he, and if
any little act of mine had ever won affection or
respect from him, the memory of it served me
then. He looked down, and seemed to put some
question to himself; whatever it was, the answer
was in my favor, for when his eyes rose again,
they were gloomy, but not desperate.
"I will tell you, Ma'am; but mind, this makes
no difference; the boy is mine. I'll give the Lord
a chance to take him fust; if He don't, I shall."
"Oh, no! remember, he is your brother."
An unwise speech; I felt it as it passed my lips,
for a black frown gathered on Robert's face, and
his strong hands closed with an ugly sort of grip.
But he did not touch the poor soul gasping there
before him, and seemed content to let the slow
suffocation of that stifling room end his frail life.
"I'm not like to forget that, Ma'am, when I've
been thinkin' of it all this week. I knew him when
they fetched him in, an' would 'a' done it long
'fore this, but I wanted to ask where Lucy was;
he knows,--he told to-night,--an' now he's done
for."
"Who is Lucy?" I asked hurriedly, intent on
keeping his mind busy with any thought but
murder.
With one of the swift transitions of a mixed
temperament like this, at my question Robert's
deep eyes filled, the clenched hands were spread
before his face, and all I heard were the broken
words,--
"My wife,--he took her--"
In that instant every thought of fear was swallowed
up in burning indignation for the wrong,
and a perfect passion of pity for the desperate man
so tempted to avenge an injury for which there
seemed no redress but this. He was no longer
slave or contraband, no drop of black blood
marred him in my sight, but an infinite compassion
yearned to save, to help, to comfort him.
Words seemed so powerless I offered none, only
put my hand on his poor head, wounded, homeless,
bowed down with grief for which I had no
cure, and softly smoothed the long neglected hair,
pitifully wondering the while where was the
wife who must have loved this tender-hearted man
so well.
The captain moaned again, and faintly whispered,
"Air!" but I never stirred. God forgive me!
just then I hated him as only a woman thinking
of a sister woman's wrong could hate. Robert
looked up; his eyes were dry again, his mouth
grim. I saw that, said, "Tell me more," and he
did,--for sympathy is a gift the poorest may give,
the proudest stoop to receive.
"Yer see, Ma'am, his father,--I might say
ours, if I warn't ashamed of both of 'em,--his
father died two years ago, an' left us all to
Marster Ned,--that's him here, eighteen then. He
always hated me, I looked so like old Marster: he
don't--only the light skin an' hair. Old Marster
was kind to all of us, me 'specially, an' bought
Lucy off the next plantation down there in South
Car'lina, when he found I liked her. I married
her, all I could, Ma'am; it warn't much, but we
was true to one another till Marster Ned come
home a year after an' made hell fer both of us.
He sent my old mother to be used up in his
rice swamp in Georgy; he found me with my pretty
Lucy, an' though young Miss cried, an' I prayed
to him on my knees, an' Lucy run away, he
wouldn't have no mercy; he brought her back,
an'--took her, Ma'am."
"Oh! what did you do?" I cried, hot with
helpless pain and passion.
How the man's outraged heart sent the blood
flaming up into his face and deepened the tones
of his impetuous voice, as he stretched his arm
across the bed, saying, with a terribly expressive
gesture,--
"I half murdered him, an' to-night I'll finish."
"Yes, yes,--but go on now; what came next?"
He gave me a look that showed no white man could
have felt a deeper degradation in remembering and
confessing these last acts of brotherly
oppression.
"They whipped me till I couldn't stand, an'
then they sold me further South. Yer thought
I was a white man once;--look here!"
With a sudden wrench he tore the shirt from
neck to waist, and on his strong brown shoulders
showed me furrows deeply ploughed, wounds
which, though healed, were ghastlier to me than
any in that house. I could not speak to him, and,
with the pathetic dignity a great grief lends the
humblest sufferer, he ended his brief tragedy by
simply saying,--
"That's all. Ma'am. I've never seen her since,
an' now I never shall in this world,--maybe not
in t' other."
"But, Robert, why think her dead? The
captain was wandering when he said those sad
things; perhaps he will retract them when he is
sane. Don't despair; don't give up yet."
"No, Ma'am, I guess he's right; she was too
proud to bear that long. It's like her to kill
herself. I told her to, if there was no other way;
an' she always minded me, Lucy did. My poor
girl! Oh, it warn't right! No, by God, it warn't!"
As the memory of this bitter wrong, this
double bereavement, burned in his sore heart, the
devil that lurks in every strong man's blood leaped
up; he put his hand upon his brother's throat, and,
watching the white face before him, muttered low
between his teeth,--
"I'm lettin' him go too easy; there's no pain in
this; we a'n't even yet. I wish he knew me.
Marster Ned! it's Bob; where's Lucy?"
From the captain's lips there came a long faint
sigh, and nothing but a flutter of the eyelids
showed that he still lived. A strange stillness
filled the room as the elder brother held the
younger's life suspended in his hand, while wavering
between a dim hope and a deadly hate. In
the whirl of thoughts that went on in my brain,
only one was clear enough to act upon. I must
prevent murder, if I could,--but how? What
could I do up there alone, locked in with a dying
man and a lunatic?--for any mind yielded utterly
to any unrighteous impulse is mad while the impulse
rules it. Strength I had not, nor much
courage, neither time nor wit for stratagem, and
chance only could bring me help before it was
too late. But one weapon I possessed,--a tongue,
--often a woman's best defence: and sympathy,
stronger than fear, gave me power to use it. What
I said Heaven only knows, but surely Heaven
helped me; words burned on my lips, tears
streamed from my eyes, and some good angel
prompted me to use the one name that had power
to arrest my hearer's hand and touch his heart.
For at that moment I heartily believed that Lucy
lived, and this earnest faith roused in him a like
belief.
He listened with the lowering look of one in
whom brute instinct was sovereign for the time,--
a look that makes the noblest countenance base.
He was but a man,--a poor, untaught, outcast,
outraged man. Life had few joys for him; the
world offered him no honors, no success, no home,
no love. What future would this crime mar? and
why should he deny himself that sweet, yet bitter
morsel called revenge? How many white men,
with all New England's freedom, culture, Christianity,
would not have felt as he felt then?
Should I have reproached him for a human anguish,
a human longing for redress, all now left
him from the ruin of his few poor hopes? Who
had taught him that self-control, self-sacrifice, are
attributes that make men masters of the earth and
lift them nearer heaven? Should I have urged
the beauty of forgiveness, the duty of devout
submission? He had no religion, for he was no
saintly "Uncle Tom," and Slavery's black shadow
seemed to darken all the world to him and shut
out God. Should I have warned him of penalties,
of judgments, and the potency of law? What
did he know of justice, or the mercy that should
temper that stern virtue, when every law, human
and divine, had been broken on his hearthstone?
Should I have tried to touch him by appeals to
filial duty, to brotherly love? How had his
appeals been answered? What memories had
father and brother stored up in his heart to plead
for either now? No,--all these influences, these
associations, would have proved worse than useless,
had I been calm enough to try them. I was
not; but instinct, subtler than reason, showed me
the one safe clue by which to lead this troubled
soul from the labyrinth in which it groped and
nearly fell. When I paused, breathless, Robert
turned to me, asking, as if human assurances could
strengthen his faith in Divine Omnipotence,--
"Do you believe, if I let Marster Ned live, the
Lord will give me back my Lucy?"
"As surely as there is a Lord, you will find her
here or in the beautiful hereafter, where there is
no black or white, no master and no slave."
He took his hand from his brother's throat,
lifted his eyes from my face to the wintry sky
beyond, as if searching for that blessed country,
happier even than the happy North. Alas, it was
the darkest hour before the dawn!--there was no
star above, no light below but the pale glimmer
of the lamp that showed the brother who had
made him desolate. Like a blind man who believes
there is a sun, yet cannot see it, he shook
his head, let his arms drop nervously upon his
knees, and sat there dumbly asking that question
which many a soul whose faith is firmer fixed than
his has asked in hours less dark than this,--
"Where is God?" I saw the tide had turned,
and strenuously tried to keep this rudderless
lifeboat from slipping back into the whirlpool
wherein it had been so nearly lost.
"I have listened to you, Robert; now hear me,
and heed what I say, because my heart is full of
pity for you, full of hope for your future, and a
desire to help you now. I want you to go away
from here, from the temptation of this place, and
the sad thoughts that haunt it. You have conquered
yourself once, and I honor you for it, because,
the harder the battle, the more glorious the
victory; but it is safer to put a greater distance
between you and this man. I will write you
letters, give you money, and send you to good old
Massachusetts to begin your new life a freeman,
--yes, and a happy man; for when the captain is
himself again, I will learn where Lucy is, and move
heaven and earth to find and give her back to
you. Will you do this, Robert?"
Slowly, very slowly, the answer came; for the
purpose of a week, perhaps a year, was hard to
relinquish in an hour.
"Yes, Ma'am, I will."
"Good! Now you are the man I thought you,
and I'll work for you with all my heart. You
need sleep, my poor fellow; go, and try to forget.
The captain is still alive, and as yet you are spared
the sin. No, don't look there; I'll care for him.
Come, Robert, for Lucy's sake."
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