CHAPTER XIV

A SLAVE'S GRATITUDE!

And now I have to tell, as briefly as may be, of how the Honourable Roderick St. Amande--as he said he was, and as we all came to believe he was in very truth--who had come as a bought slave and bond-servant to our house, became ere long almost one of us, mixing on the same footing with us and, indeed, living almost the life of a member of my father's family. To listen to his discourse was, indeed, to be forced to believe in him, for while he had ceased to insist upon the truth of his position, as though 'twas no longer necessary, every word he uttered showed that he must have held that position at home and had, at least, mixed amongst those with whom he claimed to be on an equality. He spoke of other lords and ladies with such easy freedom as no impostor could have assumed who had only known them by sight or hearsay; he described London and Dublin, and the Courts of both, in a manner which other Virginians, who were in the habit of paying frequent visits home, acknowledged was perfectly just and accurate, and, above all, his easy assumption of familiarity, if not superiority, to those whom he designated as "colonials" and "emigrants," impressed everyone. To my father, whose bread he ate in easy servitude, he behaved with a not disrespectful freedom; Gregory he treated as a sort of provincial acquaintance; and to Mary Mills and myself he assumed an easy degree of intercourse which was at once amusing and galling. And that he was a bought slave who might be starved or flogged, and possibly killed if his master were cruelly disposed, he seemed to have entirely forgotten.

Yet--bitter as is the confession, knowing now how this wretch repaid at last that which was done for him--all of us came to regard him as an intimate, and, if the truth must be told, to take some amusement in his society. To my father he could tell many interesting stories, young as he was, of men moving in the gay world at home, of whom the former had heard, or with whose forerunners he had been acquainted. To Gregory he described the hunting of the fox in England and Ireland; racing which he had seen at Newmarket and on Hampstead Heath and Southsea Common, new guns that were invented for the chase, and the improved breeds of harriers that were trained in Wiltshire. To Mary and myself--shame on us that we loved to hear such things!--he would tell of the ladies of the Court and their love affairs and intriguings; of the women of the theatres and their great appetites and revellings, and of the balls and ridottos and "hops," as he termed them, which took place. Of books, though he had been at school at Harrow, he seemed to know nothing, though he had little scraps of Latin which he would lug into his conversation as suitable to the subject. Yet to us, to Mary who had never been allowed to go to a theatre in England, or to me who dwelt in a land where such a thing had never at this time been heard of, and where an exhibition of a polar bear, or a lion, or a camel in a barn was a marvel that drew crowds from miles around, his talk was agreeable.

Unfortunately, however, there was that about him which led us two women--though I was scarce a woman then--to keep him at his distance. Being made free of the rum and the sangaree as well as, sometimes, the imported brandy, and being often with the young gentlemen of other plantations, whom he soon came to know, he was frequently inebriated, and, when in this state, was not fit to be encountered. My white bondmaid, Christian Lamb (who as a girl of fourteen had been sentenced to death in London for stealing a bottle of sweetmeats, but was afterwards cast for transportation) was one of the objects of his passion until her brother, a convict, threatened to have revenge if he did not desist. Of this brother so strange a thing was related that I must here repeat it. Going to bid farewell to his sister, Christian, in the transport at Woolwich, near London, he begged the captain to take him, too, as a foremast man, but this the other refused, bidding him brutally to wait but a little while and he would doubtless come soon "in the proper way," namely, as a convict himself. Enraged, he went ashore and picked a gentleman's pocket of a handkerchief, when, sure enough, he came out in the next transport to Virginia, and, enquiring for his sister, had the extreme good fortune to attract my father's notice and to be bought by him.

To Mary and to me Mr. St. Amande ever used the language of his class, as, I suppose, in England, and would exclaim:

"How beautiful you both are. You, Miss Mills, are dark as the Queen of Night, as the fellow saith in the play, while you Miss Bampfyld are like unto the lilies of the field. 'Tis well I have not to stay here long or my heart would be irremediably gone--split in twain, one half labelled 'Mary,' t'other 'Joice.' Nay, I know not that I do not love you both now."

"Best keep your love, sir," Mary would reply, "for those who wish it, as doubtless there are many. 'Tis said you admire many of the bond-women below; why not offer your love to them as well as your pretty speeches?"

Whereon he would flush up and reply, "Madam, my love is for my equals. You forget I am a peer in the future."

"And a slave in the present," she would retort, as it seemed to me then, cruelly. "Therefore are the bond-women your equals."

His drunkenness angered my father so, that, sometimes, he would order him out of the great saloon, where he would unconcernedly sprawl about, soiling our imported Smyrna and Segodia carpets, disarranging our old English furniture we prized so much, and rumpling the silk and satin covers on the couches. Then, when ordered forth, he would often disappear for a day or so, to be heard of next as being at a cock-fight at some neighbouring hamlet; or in a drinking bout with our clergyman, a most depraved divine who was only kept in his position till a more decorous person could be obtained; or herding down with the bond-servants and negroes till driven away by the overseers.

"In truth," my father would at these times exclaim, "I wish heartily a letter would come from the Marquis." He had written to him in preference to Lord St. Amande, reflecting that if, after all, the fellow was not what he seemed to be, the Marquis must be the man to set things right, while Lord St. Amande might, in such a case, be an impostor himself. Yet it grew more and more difficult to suppose this, since the youth himself had once or twice sent off letters addressed to "The Right Hon., The Viscount St. Amande," at Grafton Street, Dublin; to another gentleman addressed as "Wolfe Considine, Esquire," and to still another addressed as "Lord Charles Garrett, at The Castle, Dublin."

"'Tis a plaguey fellow this," he said to us of his lordship one day with a laugh, as he closed the latter up, "to whom I was engaged, as I seem to remember, to fight a duel on the morning the ruffians kidnapped me. A son of the Marquis of Tullamore, and a fire-eater, because his father had got him a pair of colours in Dunmore's regiment. He will swear I ran away for fear of him, till he gets this letter telling him I will meet him directly I set foot in Ireland again."

"What," said my father one night to me as we sat in the porch, "does he mean when he mutters something about an impostor who claims his father's title? I have heard him speak on the subject to you and Miss Mills, though, since I can not abide the youth, I have paid but little heed."

"He says," I replied, while my father smoked his great pipe and listened lazily, "that there is some youth in Ireland who claims to be the rightful lord, being the son of his uncle, the late Viscount. Yet he is not his son, he says, being in truth the son of that lord's wife who lived not with her husband."

"Humph!" exclaimed my father, "then 'tis strange he should be here sold into bond-service while the other is free at home. 'Tis common enough for such poor lads as that other to get sent away, but peers' true sons not often. Perhaps," he went on, "it is this gracious youth who is the impostor and not that other."

"I know not," I replied, "but from what Mary and I can gather--and he speaks more freely in his cups than ordinarily--there seems to have been some plot devised for shipping off that other, but some springe having been set this one was sent instead. Yet, he says, he cannot himself comprehend it, since the other was a beggar dwelling with beggars, while he was amongst the best, so that no confusion should have arisen."

"Does he say that his father, Lord St. Amande, entered into so foul a plot as that?"

"Nay, he says the youth was a young criminal cast for transportation for robbery, but that he escaped from jail and, in the hunt after him, they secured the wrong one, which he accounts for by both bearing the same name."

Again my father said "Humph!" and pondered awhile, and then, as he rose to seek his bed, he continued, "We shall know the truth some day, may be. The Marquis of Amesbury will surely answer my letter, and, indeed, if this young tosspot be what he says he is, there should already be some on their way to Virginia to seek for him. He cannot have been smuggled off without some talk arising about the affair, and, even if that should not be so, the letters he has sent by the couriers to his father should bring forth some response--if his tale is true."

So the time went on and the period drew near when news might be expected from Ireland. As it so went on and that intelligence might be looked for, we grew more and more sure that Mr. St. Amande's story must be true. For so certain did he seem of the fact that letters would come from his father--he knowing not that mine had written to the Marquis of Amesbury--requiring his release and paying, as the young man was courteous enough to term it, "my father's charges," that he threw off any restraint he might previously have had, and treated us all with even greater freedom than before. Yet, as you shall hear, he went too far.

He would not, however, have gone as far as he did if, at this time, my father had not fallen into a sickness which obliged him to keep his bed--alas! it was to bring him to his end!--so that there was none to control this young man. Gregory, who had his own plantation where he lived with his widowed mother, and their joint interests to look after, could not be always at our place, and thus the marvellous thing came about that Mr. St. Amande, though our bond-servant in actual fact, did in our house almost what he pleased. He came and went as he chose, he rode my father's horses, he drank rum morning, noon and night, and he even brought his degraded friend, the clergyman, into the house to drink with him under the excuse of that wicked old man being necessary for my father's spiritual needs. But the latter ordered that degraded man from the room where he lay sick, and bade him begone, and, later on, at night, when these two began singing and bawling in their cups--so that some of the negroes and servants outside thought the Indians had at last surrounded us!--he staggered forth from his chamber, and, from the landing, swore he would go down and shoot them if they did not desist.

But now came the time when all this turmoil and this disgrace to our house was to cease.

I was passing one night through the saloon, having, indeed, come in from the porch where I had been advising with Gregory, who had ridden over to see us, as to what was to be done if my father remained much longer sick and we still had this dreadful infliction upon our house, when to my surprise--for I thought him away cockfighting--I saw him reel into the hall, and, perceiving me, direct his steps into the room where I was.

"Ha! ha! my pretty Joice!" he exclaimed, as he did so; "ha! ha! my Virginian beauty. So thou art here! How sweet, too, thou look'st to-night with thy bare white arms and rosy lips and golden hair. Faith, Joice! colonist girl though thou art, thou are fit to be beloved of any," and he hiccoughed loudly.

"If Gregory had not but gone this instant," I exclaimed, "he should whip you, you ill-mannered dog, for daring to speak to me thus in my father's own house. Get you to bed, sir, and disturb not the place."

"To bed! Not I! 'Tis not yet ten o' the clock and I am not accustomed to such hours. Nay, Joice, think on't, my dear. Five months at sea, kicked and cuffed and starved, and now in the land of plenty--plenty to eat and drink. And to spend, too! See here, my Joice," and he pulled out a handful of English guineas from his pocket. "Won 'em all at the match from that put Pringle, who, colonist though he is, hath impudently been sent to Oxford and is now back. Won't go to bed, Joice, for hours," he hiccoughed. "No! Fetch me bottle brandy. We'll sit up together and I'll tell you how I love you."

"Let me pass, _slave_," I exclaimed in my anger, while he still stood barring my way. "Let me pass."

"Hoity-toity. Slave, eh? Slave! And for how long, think you, my pretty? Ships are due in the bay even now, and then I can pay off thy father and go home. Yet I know not that I will go home. I have conceived a fancy for Virginia and Virginian girls. Above all for thee, Joice. I love thy golden head and blue eyes and rosy lips--what said the actor fellow in the play of old Bess's day, of lips like roses filled with snow? He must have dreamt of such as thine!--I love them, I say. And, Joice, I do love thee."

I was trembling with anger all the while he spoke, and now I said:

"While my father lies sick I rule in this house, and to-morrow that rule shall see you punished. To-morrow you shall go amongst the convicts and the bond-servants, and do slaves' work. You tipsy dog, this house is no place for you!"

He took no notice of my words beyond a drunken grin, and then, because he was a cowardly ruffian who thought he could safely assault a young girl who was alone and defenceless while her father lay ill upstairs, he sprang towards me and seized me in his arms exclaiming: "Roses filled with snow! And I will have a kiss from them. I will, I say, I will. Thy charms madden me, Joice."

But now, while I struggled with him and beat his face with my clenched hands, I sent shriek upon shriek forth, and I screamed to my father and Mary to come and save me from the monster.

"Ssh-ssh!" he said, while still he endeavoured to kiss me. "Hush, you pretty fool, hush! You will arouse the house, and kisses cost nothing--ha, the devil!"

He broke off his speech and released me, for now he saw a sight that struck fear to his craven heart. Standing in the open doorway, his face as white as the long dressing robe he wore, was my father with his drawn hanger in his hand, and, behind him, Mary Mills and one or two negroes.

"God!" he exclaimed, "my daughter assaulted by my own bought servant. You villain! your life alone can atone for this." Then, with one step, his strength returning to him for a moment, he came within distance of the ruffian, and, reaching his sword on high, struck full at his head. Fortunately for the other, but unfortunately for future events, his feebleness made that sword shake in his hand so that it missed the wretch's head--though only by a hair's breadth--and, descending, struck off one of his ears so that it fell upon the polished floor of the saloon, while the weapon cut into his shoulder as it continued its course.

"This time I will make more sure," my father exclaimed, raising the sword again, but, ere he could renew the attack, with one bound accompanied by a hideous yell of pain, the villain Roderick St. Amande had leapt out on to the porch and fled down the steps--his track being marked by a line of blood. While my poor father, overcome by his exertions, and seeing that the wretch had escaped, fell back fainting into the arms of Mary Mills.