The carriage which conveyed General
Harrington, went at a rapid speed, till it entered
the city. The General seemed unconscious of his
unusual progress, and was lost in what seemed a disagreeable
reverie, till he awoke amid a crash of omnibuses,
and a whirl of carriages in Broadway. Here he
checked the driver, and leaving the carriage, bade
him proceed to the club, and await his return there.
He paused upon the side-walk, till the man was out
of sight, then turning into a cross street, he walked
rapidly forward into a neighborhood that he had seldom,
if ever, visited before.
The dwelling he sought, proved to
be a common brick house, without any peculiar feature
to distinguish it from some twenty others, which completed
a block, that stood close upon the street, and had
a dusty, worn appearance, without a picturesque feature
to attract attention.
General Harrington advanced up the
steps, after a little disgustful hesitation, and rang
the bell. The door was promptly opened, and an
ordinary maid-servant stood in the entrance. The
General inquired for some person in a low voice, and
the girl made room for him to pass, with a nod of
the head.
The hall was dark and gloomy, lighted
only by narrow sashes each side of the door, and the
whole building so far, presented nothing calculated
to remove the distaste with which the fastidious old
man had entered it.
The servant opened a door with some
caution, closed it behind her, and after a little
delay, returned, motioning with her hand that General
Harrington should enter the room she had just left.
With this rather singular summons
the woman disappeared, and General Harrington entered
the door she had pointed out. It was a large room,
lighted after the usual fashion in front, and with
a deep long window in the lower end. This magnificent
window occupied the entire end of the room, save where
the corners were rendered convex by two immense mirrors,
which formed a beautiful finish to the rich mouldings
of the casement, and curved gracefully back to the
wall, making that end of the apartment almost semicircular.
Hangings of pale, straw-colored silk,
brocaded with clusters of flowers, in which blue and
pink predominated, gave a superb effect to the walls,
and from the ceilings, a half-dozen cupids, beautifully
painted in fresco, seemed showering roses upon the
visitor, as he passed under. The carpet was composed
of a vast medallion pattern upon a white ground, scattered
over with bouquets a little more defined and gorgeous
than those upon the walls, as if the blossoms had
grown smaller and more delicate as they crept upward
toward the exquisite ceiling. The front windows
were entirely muffled by draperies of rich orange damask,
lined with white, and with a silvery sheen running
through the pattern, while curtains of the same warm
material, fell on each side the bay window, giving
it the appearance of a tent, open, and yet, to a certain
degree, secluded, for a fall of lace swept from the
cornice, hanging like a veil of woven frost-work before
the glass, rendering every thing beyond indistinct,
but dreamily beautiful.
General Harrington was surprised by
the air of almost oriental magnificence which pervaded
this apartment.
This room was not only in powerful
contrast with the exterior of the dwelling, but it
possessed an air of tropical splendor that would have
surprised the General in any place. Divans, such
as are seldom found out of an eastern palace, but
slightly raised from the floor, and surmounted with
cushions heavily embroidered with gold, ran more than
half around it. A few pictures, gorgeous and
showy, but of little value, hung upon the walls; and
there was some display of statuary, equally deficient
in ideal beauty.
The light which fell upon General
Harrington, was soft and dreamy imbued with a faint
tinge of greenish gold, like that which the sunshine
leaves when it penetrates the foliage of a hemlock
grove in spring. For the bay window opened into
a broad balcony, open in summer, but sheeted in from
the front by sashes, so arranged that the glass seemed
to roll downwards, in waves of crystal, to the floor.
This unique conservatory was crowded with the rarest
plants, in full blossom, that swept their perfume
in through the open window, penetrated the floating
lace, and filled that end of the apartment with the
glow of their blooming clusters.
The singular beauty of this scene the
quiet so profound, broken only by the bell-like dropping
of a fountain and the twitter of birds,
hung in gilded cages, among the blossoms, had an overpowering
charm even to a man so blase as the General.
He paused in astonishment, looking around with pleasant
interest for an instant, forgetful of the
person he was seeking. But, to a man so accustomed
to magnificence, this forgetfulness was but momentary,
and with a quiet and almost derisive smile, he muttered:
“Upon my life, the creature
is either witch or fairy, if this is really her home!”
He was interrupted by a sound, as
of one moving upon a cushioned seat.
The light was so dim at the upper
end of the room, that General Harrington had supposed
himself alone, till the rustle of silk drew his attention
to a lady rising from the divan, who came toward him
with a sweeping motion, like some tropical bird disturbed
in its nest.
The General paused, and stood gazing
upon her as she advanced, irresolute and uncertain;
for the whole place was so different to anything he
had expected to find, that for a moment he was bewildered.
The lady advanced into the light,
calmly and proudly, and with a gleam in her eyes,
as if she enjoyed his astonishment. Her dress
was of purple silk, wrought with clusters of gold-tinted
flowers, that scintillated and gleamed as she moved
out of the shadows; her raven hair, arranged in heavy
bandeaux on each side her face, was surmounted by a
cashmere scarf of pale green, which was carelessly
knotted on one side of her head, and fell in a mass
of fringe and embroidery on her left shoulder.
The flowing waves of her robe swept the carpet as she
moved, and the undulations of her magnificent person,
were like the movements of a leopard in its native
forest. There was neither fairness nor youth in
her person, and yet the large, oriental eyes, so velvety
and black, had a power of beauty in them, that any
man must have acknowledged; and there was a creamy
softness of complexion, a peach-like bloom of the
cheek, dusky but glowing that harmonized
With the gorgeous richness of her dress and surroundings.
The woman stood before her visitor, her proud figure
stooping slightly forward, and her eyes downcast, waiting
for him to speak.
The General gazed on her a moment
in silence, but a quiet smile of recognition stole
to his lips; and, with an air, half-patronizing, half-pleased,
he at last held out his hand.
“Zillah!”
The woman’s hand trembled as
she touched his; her head was uplifted for an instant,
and an exulting glance shot from those strange eyes,
bright as scintillations from a diamond.
“I was afraid you would not come,” she
said, gently.
“Why, Zillah?”
“Because men do not often like
to meet those who remind them of broken ties.”
The General slightly waved his hand
with a half dissenting gesture, and a gratified expression
stole over his countenance, answered by a sudden gleam
in that strange woman’s eyes; for she read in
that very look an intimation that her former power
was not wholly extinguished.
“How comes it that you are here,
Zillah?” he asked, glancing around the room.
“This is a singular place to find you in.”
“You are astonished to see me
here? as if I were a slave yet. Was it strange
that I, a free woman, longed to leave the places which
reminded me of the past, to see and learn something
of the world? But, there was another and more
important reason had I not a child and a
mother’s heart longing to behold her offspring?”
“Zillah, tell me truly, is this
thing real? is the girl we call Lina French your child?”
“Have I not said it,”
replied the woman, regarding him stealthily from under
her half-closed lashes. “Why should I attempt
to deceive you? it would gain me nothing.”
“That is true; but how did it
happen that you abandoned her?”
The woman lifted her face, with a
sudden flush of the forehead
“You sold me, made me another
man’s slave: me, me!” She paused,
with a struggle, as if some suppressed passion choked
her; but directly her self-possession returned; the
flush died from her face, and she drooped into her
former attitude, looking downward as before. “But
that I always was a slave, and the daughter
of a slave. Your child, though unknown and unacknowledged,
better that it died than lived my life over again,
cursed with the proud Anglo-Saxon blood, debased by
the African taint, that, if it exists but in the slightest
degree, poisons all the rest.”
“Zillah, you speak bitterly.
Was it my fault that you were born a slave on the
plantation of my friend; that your complexion was fair,
and your beauty so remarkable, that few men could
have detected the shadows on your forehead. Surely,
you had no cause to complain of too much hardship
as my servant?”
For an instant, the haughty lip of
the woman writhed like a serpent in its venom, struggling
to keep back the bitter words that burned upon them.
Then her face settled into comparative calm again,
and she said, in a tone of gentle reproach, “But
you sold me!”
“I was compelled to it, Zillah.
It was impossible to keep you on the plantation.
James Harrington became your owner on the death of
his mother, and you know how terribly he was prejudiced
against you. It was the only command that he
made; everything else he left to me; but here, here
he was imperative. All that a kind and obliging
master could do, I accomplished in spite of him.
You had your own choice of masters, Zillah; that,
at least, I secured to you.”
“A choice of masters!”
repeated the woman, turning pale with intense feeling.
“What did I care about a choice of masters, when
you sold me? Had you given me to the grave, it
would have been Heaven to the years that followed.
You sold me without warning coldly sent
an order to the agent, and I was taken away.
Your own child was the slave of another man.”
“But you kept me in ignorance,
Zillah; besides, I had been married again. A
northern man, I was, of course, desirous to live in
the North. What could I do?”
“But the other slaves were set
free. Master James provided means for those who
wished it, to emigrate to Liberia; a few went, more
remained of choice. No servant was kept on the
estate who did not desire it. I alone was sold.”
“But you know how the young
man detested you; he never could be persuaded that
your presence in her sick room, had not an evil influence
on his mother. In short Zillah, after her death
he seemed to think of little else.”
The woman turned deadly pale, as the
sick room of her old mistress was mentioned.
A shudder ran through her frame, and she sat down upon
a neighboring divan, gasping for breath. General
Harrington watched this strange emotion with keen
interest; he did not comprehend its source, but it
brought up vague suspicions that had in former years
passed like shadows across his brain, when the sickness
and death of his first wife was a recent event.
“Zillah,” he said, seating
himself on the divan by her side, “you turn
pale you shiver what does this
mean?”
The woman sat up, forcing herself
to look into his questioning eyes.
“I was surprised at your blindness,
shocked at the duplicity of this man, James Harrington.
So he excuses his hatred of me by this pretence, and
you believe him. I will speak now why
should I be silent longer? Listen to me, General
Harrington. It was because I knew his secret,
that James Harrington hated me. He loved the
woman you have married, for whose tranquillity I was
sold to a new master.”
“Very possible,” replied
the General, with a complacent smile. “I
should have been sorry to give my name to any woman
whom a man of taste could know, without loving.
Of course, the young gentleman, like many others,
was dying of envy when that remarkable woman became
my wife.”
Zillah’s eyes flashed, and she
turned pale, lip and forehead. A bitter laugh
broke away with the words, as she said,
“But she loved him adored
him, rather.”
The General was moved now, his self-love
was all up in arms; he was evidently getting furious.
“Zillah, this is one of your
jealous dreams. You have no proof!”
“Master let me call
you so once more among other benefits which
came to me through your kindness, I was taught to
read and write that was a key to much else
that I learned afterwards. In a vellum covered
book, which Miss Mabel always kept locked with a little
golden heart, I saw more than proof of what I say.
She lost the key from her watch-chain, one night,
and I found it. The book is probably destroyed
now, but if it existed, I should need no other proof
of what I know to be true!”
“Indeed,” said the General,
prolonging the word, thoughtfully, “Indeed!”
“Are you going?” exclaimed
the woman, as he arose from the divan.
“Yes, Zillah, I have left some
important papers in my library that may be disturbed.
In a few days I will see you again.”
Zillah smiled a soft, exulting smile,
but she did not allow it to brighten her whole face
till General Harrington had left the room.