Harrington was, indeed, surprised
when he saw this woman. She was evidently ten
years older than she had appeared at a distance, and,
though that seemed an impossibility, darker too.
The Madras kerchief certainly had been refolded since
her return to the house, for it came low upon the
forehead, and the hair visible beneath it was thickly
scattered with white. She stooped somewhat, and
her gait was slow, almost shuffling. Not a vestige
of the imperious air that had rendered her so picturesque
a few minutes before, remained. She appeared before
him simply as a common-place light mulatto of rather
more than middle age, who might have been an upper
house servant in her day, but nothing more. On
closer inspection, even the orange-tinted shawl was
soiled and held around her person in a slovenly manner,
as rich cast-off garments usually are by the servants
who inherit them.
At first, Harrington would not believe
that this was the same woman whose appearance had
made so deep an impression on him, for a heavy sort
of sluggishness, both of thought and feeling, lay on
her features, while those that had aroused his attention
so keenly, were active and full of intelligence.
The woman did not sit down, but stood by the open door,
looking stupidly at Agnes Barker, as if waiting for
some command.
“Well, Miss Agnes, I’se
here, what does the master please to want?”
It was rather difficult for James
Harrington, self-possessed as he was, to answer that
question. The woman had taken him by surprise.
Her appearance was so completely that of a common-place
servant, that he was silenced by the very surprise
she had given him. But for her dress, he would
not have believed in her identity with the person he
had seen in the open air, and that was worn with a
slovenliness altogether unlike the ease remarkable
in the person whom she represented, without conveying
an impression of absolute identity.
Harrington had spent his early life
in the South, and was at no loss to comprehend the
peculiar class to which this woman belonged. He
answered her quietly, but still with suspicion:
“Nothing, aunty, except that
you will oblige me with a glass of water.”
The woman shuffled across the room,
and brought him some water, which she placed scrupulously
on a plate, by way of waiter, before presenting it.
Her air the loose, indolent gait, like that
of a leopard moving sleepily around its lair convinced
him that she had been nothing more than a common household
slave, out of place in her cold, and almost poverty-stricken
northern home. He drank the water she gave him,
and handing back the glass, inquired if she did not
feel lonely and chilled by the cold climate?
“I’se allus warm
and comfortable where dat ere chile is,”
said the woman, looking at Agnes, “any place
’pears like home when she’s by, and I
’xpect she feels like dat where old aunty is,
if she is poor.”
“She is happy in having one
faithful friend,” answered Harrington, more
and more satisfied that the woman was simply what she
seemed.
A strange smile quivered for a moment
around Agnes Barker’s lip, but as Harrington
turned his glance that way, it subsided into a look
of gentle humility.
“You will inform the ladies
that I shall return to-night. It proved a chilly
day for sketching, and finding myself nearer my own
home than the mansion-house, I stole a few moments
for poor, old, lonesome mammy here.”
Harrington had arisen as she commenced
speaking, and with a grave bend of the head, promised
to convey her message.
The two women watched him as he crossed
the rude garden, and mounted his horse; then drawing
hurriedly back into the house, they closed the door.
“What could have brought him
here? Did she send him?” inquired the slave-woman
anxiously, and all at once assuming the haughty air
natural to her, while a keen intelligence came to
her features.
“No,” answered Agnes,
“she is ill in bed; I am sure she has not seen
him this morning. It must have been accident
that brought him in this direction.”
The slave-woman looked searchingly in the girl’s
face.
“Did he know that you came this way?”
“That is impossible.”
“It should not be impossible.
You have been months in his house, Agnes I
did not expect so little progress.”
Agnes was annoyed, and put aside the subject with
an impatient gesture.
“What have you been doing, girl?”
persisted the woman, “remember your own destiny
is in this more than mine.”
“But why select this man, so difficult of access,
so unattainable?”
“Because he has wealth and power.”
“There is some other reason, mammy. Let
me know it!”
“Well, know it, then I
believe that woman loves him I know that
she loved him once.”
“I know that she loves him yet,”
said Agnes, with a sinister smile. “For
I witnessed a scene last night, when she came to after
they had dragged her from the water, which settled
that in my mind; but what do you care for that?
How will it help us?”
“What do I care for that I I what
does the hungry man care for food, or the thirsty
one for water? What do I care, child? Listen:
I hate that woman from my soul I hate her!”
“Then it was hatred of her,
not love for me, that brought us here!”
“It was both, Agnes do
not doubt it. When I avenge the wrongs of my
life on her, you must be a gainer.”
“I do not understand you.”
“It is not necessary; obey me, that is enough.”
“But how has Mrs. Harrington wronged you?”
“How has she wronged me, Agnes!
Be quiet, I am not to be questioned in this way.”
“But, I am no longer a child
to be used blindly. You have objects which I
do not comprehend motives which are so rigidly
concealed that I, who am to help work them out, grope
constantly in the dark. I am told to listen,
watch, work, even steal, and am left ignorant of the
end to be accomplished.”
“Have I not told you that it
is your marriage with Mr. James Harrington, the real
owner of all the property which his father is supposed
to possess? Am I not working to make you the
richest lady of the North, the wife of a man whom
all other men hold in reverence; and in this am I not
securing the dearest and sweetest vengeance that mortal
ever tasted?”
“But I do not think Mr. Harrington
cares for me, or ever will.”
“What have you been doing, then?”
cried the woman fiercely. “You have beauty,
or, if not that, something far more powerful that
subtle magnetism which all men feel a thousand times
more forcibly, deep knowledge; for have I not taught
you what human hearts are worth, and how to dissect
them, leaf by leaf? You have coolness, self-control,
and passion when it is wanted. Have I not trained
you from the cradle for this one object, and dare
you talk of its failure?”
“Mammy, let us understand each
other. Cannot we accomplish the same thing, and
both be gratified? I do not love Mr. James Harrington,
but there is one of the name that I do love, heart
and soul.”
“And who is that?” demanded
the woman sharply, and her black eyes caught fire
from the anger within her.
“It is the other, Ralph Harrington.”
How hard and defiant was the voice
in which Agnes Barker said this a young
girl expressing her first love without a blush, and
with that air of cold-blooded defiance. It was
terrible!
“Ralph Harrington, he is her
son, and a beggar!” cried the woman bitterly.
“I do not understand what force
may lie in the first objection, and I do not believe
in the second. Ralph cannot be a beggar, while
his brother holds so much wealth; at any rate, I love
him.”
“Love, girl! What have
you to do with this sweet poison? The thing Love
is not your destiny.”
“It is, though, and shall control
it,” replied Agnes, with the same half-insolent
tone; for it seemed to be a relief for this young girl
to act out spontaneously the evil of her nature, and
she appeared to enjoy the kindling anger of her servant if
that slave woman was her servant with vicious
relish.
The woman walked close to the insolent
girl, with her hand clenched, and her lips pressed
firmly together.
“Agnes, Agnes you
cannot know how much rests on you how great
a revenge your obstinacy may baffle.”
“I know that I love Ralph Harrington,
and if it will comfort you to hear it, he does not
love me,” answered the girl with a burning glow
in either cheek.
“Oh, you have come back again it
is his blood on fire in your cheeks. I have no
fear of you, Agnes. That blood grows strong with
age like old wine, and soon learns to give hatred
for unanswered love. I can trust the blood.”
“But he shall love me, or, at
any rate, no one else shall have what he withholds
from me.”
“Be still, Agnes, do not make
me angry again. You and I must work together.
Tell me, did you succeed in quieting General Harrington’s
inquiries regarding the letters of recommendation?”
“Did I succeed?” answered
Agnes, with a smile that crept over her young lips
like a viper. “The old General is more pliable
than the son. Oh, yes, when he began questioning
me of the whereabouts of our kind friends who think
so much of us, you know, I put forth all the accomplishments
you have taught me, and wiled him from the subject
in no time. You have just questioned my beauty,
mammy. I doubt if he did then, for his eyes were
not off my face a moment. What fine eyes the old
gentleman has, though! I think it would be easier
to obey you in that quarter than the other.”
As she uttered the last words with
a reckless lift of the head, the slave-woman made
a spring at her, and grasping the scornfully uplifted
shoulder, bent her face which was that of
a fiend close to the young girl’s
ear: “Beware, girl, beware!” she whispered,
“you are treading among adders.”
“I think you are crazy,”
was the contemptuous reply, as Agnes released her
shoulder from the gripe of that fierce hand. “My
shoulder will be black and blue after this, and all
for a joke about a conceited old gentleman whom we
are both taking in. Did you not tell me to delude
him off the subject if he mentioned those letters
of recommendation again?”
The woman did not answer, but stood
bending forward as if ashamed of her violence, but
yet with a gleam of rage lingering in her black eyes.
“Have you done?” said
Agnes, arranging her velvet sacque, which had been
torn from its buttons in front, by the rude handling
she had received.
“You must not speak in that
way again,” answered the old woman in a low
voice, “I did not mean to hurt you, child, but
General Harrington is not a man for girls like you
to joke about.”
“This is consistent, upon my
word,” answered the girl with a short scornful
laugh. “You teach me to delude the old gentleman
into a half-flirtation. He meets me in the grounds begins
to ask about the persons from whom we obtained those
precious recommendations, and when I attempt to escape
the subject, persists in walking by me till I led him
a merry dance up the steepest hill that could be found,
and left him there out of breath, and in the midst
of a protestation that I was the loveliest person
he had ever seen. Loveliest no, that
was not it the most bewitching creature!
these were the last words I remember, for that moment
Benson’s boat hove in sight, and there sat madam
looking fairly at us. If they had been a moment
later, I’m quite sure the old fellow would have
been down upon his knees in the dead leaves.”
The slave-woman listened to this flippant
speech in cold silence. She was endowed with
a powerful will, matched with pride that was almost
satanic. She saw the malicious pleasure with which
Agnes said all this, and would not gratify it by a
single glance. With all her wicked craft, the
young girl was no match for the woman.
“You have acted unwisely,”
she said with wonderful self-command; “never
trifle with side issues when they can possibly interfere
with the main object. I wished to evade General
Harrington’s close scrutiny into our antecedents;
to soothe the lion, not goad him. Be careful of
this a second time!”
How calmly she spoke! You would
not have believed her the same woman who had sprung
upon the girl so like a tiger only a few moments before.
Even Agnes looked upon her with amazement.
“Woman,” she said, “tell
me what you are at trust me, and I will
help you heart and soul.”
“What! even to the giving up of this new-born
love?”
“Even to that, if I can be convinced of its
necessity.”
“I will trust you.”
“Wholly entirely?”
“Entirely!”
The girl threw her arms around that
singular woman, their lips met, and the subtle force
of one heart kindled and burned in the bosom of the
other.
“Tell me everything, mamma!”
“I will. But first, let
us read Mabel Harrington’s journal, it will
prepare you for the rest.”
They opened the stolen book, and sat
down together so close that their arms were interlaced,
and their cheeks touched as they read.
It was a terrible picture, that meagre,
dimly-lighted room, the tree-boughs waving against
the window, their leaves vocal with the last sob of
the storm, and those two women with their keen evil
faces, their lips parted with eagerness, and their
eyes gleaming darkly, as they drank up the secrets
of poor Mabel Harrington’s life.