One evening, after a trip into town, I was glad to find the young ladies in such an excellent humour. It was seldom that Miss Darla, whose peculiar property I was, ever gave me a kind word; and I was surprised on this occasion to hear her say, in a somewhat gentle tone, “Well, Anne, come here. I want you to look very nice tonight, and wait on the table in style. I am expecting company.”
With a sort of half good-natured smile, she tossed an old, faded neck-ribbon to me, saying, “There is a present for you.”
I bowed low, and made a respectful acknowledgment of thanks, which she received in an unusually pleasant manner.
Immediately I began to make arrangements for supper, and to get myself in readiness. This was no small matter, as my scanty wardrobe furnished no scope for the exercise of taste. In looking over my trunk, I found a white cotton apron which could boast of many mice-bites and moth-workings; but with a needle and thread I soon managed to make it appear decent. I combed my hair as neatly as possible and tied the ribbon which Miss Darla had given me around it. I gave the finishing touch to my toilette, and then set about arranging the table.
I assorted the tea-board, spoons, cups, saucers etc; placed a nice damask napkin at each seat, and turned down the round little plates of white French china. The silver forks and ivory-handled knives were laid round the table in precise order. This done, I surveyed my work with an air of pride. Smiling complacently to myself, I proceeded to Miss Darla’s room, to request her to come and look at it, and express her opinion.
On reaching her room, I found her dressed with great care in a pink, silk dress with a rich lace berthé* and pearl ornaments. Her blonde hair was oiled until it gleamed, and the metallic polish of the French powder gave her a fresh, vibrant look.
Dropping a low curtsy, I requested her to come with me to the dining room and inspect my work. With a smile she followed, and upon examination, seemed well pleased.
“Now, Ann, if you do well in officiating, it will be well for you; but if you fail, if you make one mistake, you had better never been born, for,” and she grasped me strongly by the shoulder, “I will flay you alive. You shall ache and smart in every limb and nerve.”
Terror-stricken at this threat, I made the most earnest promises to do my best. Yet her angry manner and threatening words so unnerved me, that I was not able to go on with the work in the same spirit in which I had begun – for we all know what a paralysis fear is.
I stepped out on the balcony for some calm, and there, standing at the end of the gallery, but partially concealed by the clematis blossoms, stood Miss Darla and a tall gentleman with dark hair, leaning over the railing talking very earnestly to her. In that uncertain light I could see the flash of her eyes and the crimson glow of her cheek. She was twirling and tearing to pieces, petal by petal, a beautiful rose which she held in her hand.
Here, I thought, is happiness. This woman loves and is beloved. She has tasted that one drop which sweetens the whole cup of existence. Oh, what a thing it is to be free — free and independent, with power and privilege to go wherever you choose, with no cowardly fear, no dread of espionage, with the right to hold your head proudly aloft, and return glance for glance, word for word, without shrinking or cowering. But not many moments could I spend in thought, and well, perhaps it was good for me that duty broke short such unavailing regrets.
Hastening back to the dining room, I gave another inquiring look at the table, fearful that some article had been omitted. Satisfying myself on this point, I moved on to the kitchen, where Aunt Grace was busy frying a chicken.
“Here, child,” she exclaimed, “look in thar at them biscuits. See is they done.”
“Oh, that’s prime, browning beautiful like,” she said, as I drew from the stove a pan of nice biscuits, “and this ‘ar chicken is mighty nice. Oh, but it will make the young gemman smack his lips.”
She wiped the perspiration from her sooty brow, drew a long breath and seated herself upon a broken stool.
“Wal, this ‘ar nigger is tired. I’s bin cooking now this twelve years, and never has I had ‘mission to let my old man come to see me, or I go to see him.”
The ever present children, with eyes wide open, gathered round Aunt Grace to hear a recital of her wrongs.
“Laws-a-marcy, sights I’s seen in my times, and often it ‘pears like I’s lost my senses. I tells you, yous only got to look at this ar back to know what I’s went through,” she declared, exposing her frightfully scarred back and arms.
“This ar scar,” she pointed to a very deep one on her left shoulder, “Masser gib me kase I cried when he sold my oldes’ son. Poor Jim, he was sent down the river, and I’ve never hearn from him since.”
She wiped a stray tear from her old eyes.
“Oh me! ‘Tis a long time since my eyes hab watered, and now these tears do feel so quare. Poor Jim is down the river, Johnny is dead, and Lucy is sold somewhar. So I have neither chick nor child. What’s I got to live fur?” she wailed.
This brought fresh to my mind recollection of my own mother’s grief, when she was forced to give me up, and I could not restrain my tears.
“What fur you crying, child?” she asked.
“It puts me in mind ov’ my poor little Luce. She used to cry this way whenever anything happened to me. Oh, many is the time she screamed if master struck me,” she added.
“Poor Aunt Grace,” I said, as I walked up to her side, “I do pity you. I will be kind to you. I will be your daughter.”
She looked up with a wild stare, and with a deep earnestness seized hold of my outstretched hand. Then dropping it suddenly, she murmured, “No, no, you ain’t my darter. You comes to me with saft words, but you is jest like Mandy and all the rest of ‘em. You’ll go to the house and tell tale to the white folks on me. No, I’ll not trust any of you!”
Springing suddenly into the room, with his eyes flaming, came Walsh, and, cracking his whip right and left, he struck each of the listening group. I retreated hastily to an extreme corner of the kitchen, where, unobserved by him, I could watch the affray.
“You devilish old wretch, Grace. What are you gabbling and snubbling here about? Up with yer old hide and git yer supper ready! Don’t you know thar is company in the house?” he thundered.
Here he gave another sharp cut of the whip, which descended upon that poor old scarred back with a cruel force, and tore open old wounds. She did not scream, nor shrink, nor murmur, but her features resumed their hard, encrusted expression, and, rising up from her seat, she went on with her usual work.
Walsh ran the children off, demanding they “cut like the wind”, and left the kitchen. I proceeded to assist Aunt Grace in dishing up the supper.
“This chicken,” said I in a tone of encouragement, “is beautifully cooked. How brown it is, and oh, what a delightful savoury smell.”
“The white folks will find fault wid it. Nobody ever did please Miss Darla. Her is got some of the most perkuler notions ’bout cookin’. I knows she’ll be kommin’ out here makin’ a fuss ’long wid me ’bout dis same supper,” and the old woman shook her head knowingly.
I made no reply, for I feared the reappearance of Mr. Walsh. Too often and too painfully had I felt the sting of his lash to be guilty of any provocation of its appearance. Silently, but with bitter thoughts curdling my life-blood, I arranged the steaming cookies upon the luxurious tea board. Then with a deferential air, sought the solarium and bade them walk out to tea.
+ + + +
I found Miss Darla near a fine rosewood piano, and standing beside her was the gentleman from earlier. Miss Harmony was at the window observing the evening fade into night. I spoke in a soft tone, asking them, “Please come out to tea.”
The gentleman offered his arm to Miss Darla, and Miss Harmony followed. I swung the dining room door open with great pomp and ceremony, for I knew that anything showy or grand would be acceptable to Miss Darla. Fashion, or style, was her god of worship, and she often declared that her principal objection to the negro, was his great want of style in thought and action.
The supper passed off very handsomely, so far as my part was concerned. I carried the cups round on a silver salver* to each one; served them with chicken, plied them with cakes and confections, and interspersed my performance with innumerable curtsies, bows and scrapes.
“Ah,” said Miss Darla to the gentleman, “Ah, Mr. O’Connor, you have visited me at the wrong season. You should be here later in the autumn, or earlier in the summer.
She gave him one of her most benign smiles.
“Any season is pleasant here,” replied Mr. O’Connor with a charming smile.
Miss Darla simpered and looked down. Miss Harmony arched her brows and gave a significant side-long glance toward her sister.
“Here, you cussed yallow gal,” said The Master in a rage, “take this split spoon* away and fetch me a fork what I ken use. These darned things is only made for grand folks,” and he held the silver fork to me. Instantly I replaced it with a steel one.
“Now this looks something like. We only uses them ar other ones when we has company. I s’pose, Mr. O’Connor, the girl sot the table in this grand way bekase you is here,” The Master went on.
No thunder cloud was darker than Miss Darla’s brow. It gathered, and deepened, and darkened like a thick-coming tempest, whilst bolts of lightning blazed from her eyes.
“Father,” she spoke through clenched teeth, “what makes you affect this horrid vulgarity? How can you be so very idiosyncratic (this was a favourite word with her) as to say you never use them? Ever since I can remember, silver forks have been used in our family.”
“But,” she continued with a sudden sweet smile, “Mr. O’Connor, father thinks it is truly a Kentucky fashion, and in keeping with the spirit of the early settlers, to rail out against fashion and style.”
To this explanation Mr. O’Connor bowed blandly, “Ah, yes, I do admire your father’s honest independence.”
“I’ll jist tell you how it is, young man. My gals has bin better edjicated than their pappy, and they pretends to be mighty ’shamed of me bekase I has got no larnin’. But I wants to ax ’em one question – whar did the money kum from that give ’em thar larning?” The Master informed Mr. O’Connor.
With a triumphant force he brought his hard fist down on the table, knocking off with his elbow a fine cut-glass tumbler, which was shivered to atoms.
“Thar now,” he exclaimed, “another piece of yer cussed frippery is breaked to bits. What did you put it here fur? I wants that big tin-cup that I drinks out of when nobody’s here.”
“Father, father,” said Miss Harmony, who until now had kept an austere silence, “why will you persist in this outrageous talk? Why will you mortify and torture us in this cruel way?”
Miss Harmony promptly burst into a flood of angry tears.
“Oh, don’t blubber about it, Harm. I didn’t mean to hurt your feelin’s,” The Master placated her.
Pretty soon after this, the peace of the table being broken up, the ladies and Mr. O’Connor adjourned to the solarium, whilst Amanda and I set about clearing off the table, washing up the dishes, and counting over the forks and spoons.
Now, though the young ladies made great pretensions to elegance and splendour of living, they were vastly economical when no company was present. The silver was all carefully laid away and locked up in the lower drawer of an old-fashioned bureau. The family appropriated commoner cutlery for their everyday use; but let a solitary guest appear, and forthwith the napkins and silver would be displayed, and treated by the ladies as if it was quite a usual thing.
+ + + +
“Now, Ann,” said Amanda, “you wash th’ dishes, n’ I’ll count th’ spoons n’ forks.”
To this I readily agreed, for I was anxious to get clear of such a responsibility as counting the silverware. The Master sat nearby smoking his cob-pipe in a foul mood, for the recent encounter at supper was by no means calculated to improve his temper.
“See here, gals,” he cried in a tone of thunder, “if thar be one silver spoon or fork missin’, yer hides shall pay for the loss.”
“Laws, master, I’ll be ’tickler enough,” replied Amanda as she smile in terror more than pleasure.
“Wal,” he said half aloud, “whar is the use of my darters takin’ on in the way they does? Jist look at the sight o’ money that has bin laid out in that ar tom-foolery.”
This was a sort of soliloquy spoken in a tone audible enough to be distinct to us.
He drew his cob-pipe from his mouth, and a huge volume of smoke curled round his head, and filled the room with the aroma of tobacco.
“Now,” he continued, “they does not treat me wid any perliteness. They thinks they knows a power more than I does; but if they don’t cut their cards square, I’ll cut them short of a nigger or two, and make Dawn all the richer by it.”
Amanda cut her eye knowingly at this, and gave me a rather strong nudge with her elbow.
“Keep still thar, gals. Don’t rattle them cups and sassers so powerful hard,” he chided.
By this time Amanda had finished the assortment of the silver, and had carefully stowed it away in a basket, ready to be delivered to Miss Darla, and thence consigned to the drawer where it would remain until the timely arrival of another guest.
“Now,” she said, “I am ready to wipe the dishes, while you wash.”
Thereupon I handed her a saucer, which, in her carelessness, she let slip from her hand, and it fell upon the floor. There, with great consternation, I beheld it lying, shattered to fragments. The Master sprang to his feet, glad of an excuse to vent his temper upon someone….