The Bondwoman's Narrative (22 page)

The manacles on our wrists grew very painful, and I entreated him to take them off.

“I’ve had my orders” he replied briefly.

“That we should be chained and fettered like the vilest criminals?” said my companion inquiringly.

“Not exactly that, but much the [same] thing.”

After much persuasion and entreaty he consented to remove our fetters, and we solemnly engaged to conform in all things to
his requirements.

The sun was probably an hour high when we caught the glimpse of a white house through some trees on the top of a hill before
us. Our conductor pointed to it with his whip, and said “There’s your journey’s end.” Then putting his horses into a canter
he took us forward at a great rate, though it was up-hill, and the poor beasts were already tired with our long drive. Presently
we lost the house, presently saw it, lost it again and again saw it; then turned into an avenue of cedar, and drew up before
a fine cottage residence. Our hearts beat wildly, tumultuously as an old man came hobbling out on a crutch towards the wagon.
Age sits beautifully
on some
and the least farm.
The frame bent with years, and the dark locks frosted with silver give the possessor a more interesting appearance, than
all the flush of youth and beauty. Smile not, when I say that many old men are decidedly loveable, but the one who approached
us was not of that sort. His forehead was bald, his eyes blear and very large and round, and not being relieved by eye-lashes
which had fallen off, they really looked ogreish. He had a prominent nose, high cheek bones, and black ugly teeth slightly
protruding from his mouth at all times, but having the most disagr[e]eable appearance when he opened his lips to speak. But
it was the expression of his countenance after all that made me shrink from and fear him. It was so dark, so sinister and
sneering. It told so much of malice, of hate, of dislike to the beautiful the good and true. There could be nothing of sunshine
to his spirit, nothing of love in his soul.

“Heaven preserve us, if that man is to be our master” whispered my companion. It was the first word she had spoken for a long
time.

“He is not your master exactly” said Hay[e]s “but rather your master’s steward, a sort of overseer when he is absent.”

Removing the manacles from our limbs Hay[e]s bade us alight. We obeyed him.

“You may tell your master” he said, addressing the old man “that I obeyed his directions to the letter. I first made them
safe, then I made them comfortable, now have brought them here, and finally deliver them over to you. You are henceforth accountable
for their safe-keeping.”

The old man replied to this harangue by a sort of leering assent. That of course Mr Hay[e]s knew as well as any man when he
had done his duty, and as to our safe-keeping he shouldn’t stand on ceremony with us. He never did with that kind of cattle.

“Have you many on hand at present?” inquired Hay[e]s.

[“]Not one. The last went off day before yesterday. Master made a pretty speck on her—bought her at auction for five hundred
dollars and sold her for fifteen hundred.”

“That’s what I call doing business” said Hay[e]s. “But take your gals into the house and make them comfortable as I did. They’re
cold I’ll warrant. Get out.”

This last was intended for the horses, who seemed to understand it perfectly, and started off at a brisk pace.

Attended by the old man we went to the house, and entered it by a large door heavily paneled that shut with such a bang and
woke so many echoes I half fancied that all the doors in the house were shutting. It was still broad day, but all shutters
were closed over the high windows with their tops, which gave the rooms a gloomy uninhabited air.

We were ushered into a large apartment that furnished in better taste would have been handsome. As it was a bright fire on
the hearth communicated to all around a warm and hospitable glow.

“This room” said the old man, glancing around him “you are to consider yours till further orders, and that
one
door, there,
you see by the chimney leads to another you can occupy for a bed-room. If at any time you want anything you can pull that
bell-wire. I shall be always at hand.”

I nodded assent and he retired, but returned again in a moment to inquire if he should bring us some supper. I replied affirmatively,
and he again disappeared bolting the door behind him.

It was evident that we had only been transferred from one prison to another. The several doors leading from our apartment
to others were all fastened on the outside. The window shutters were secured in the same manner, indeed there was a general
air of security about the dwelling well calculated to excite apprehension. We were amazed at the deep and utter silence that
prevailed. Not the sound of a voice, not the echo of a footstep. Was the house uninhabited
except by us? We were almost tempted
to ask the old man when he came with our suppers, but his forbidding aspect seemed to repel conversation, and sitting the
tray with refreshments on a small walnut table he departed without saying a word.

And here in this dull place we remained a month. I could not even if I wished describe the tedious monotony of our existence,
or what we suffered in racking suspense. True, the wants of our nature were all supplied. We were provided with delicate food,
were furnished with books and embroidery, and
might
so far as outward appearances were concerned
have been
we might have been happy. But those who think that the greatest evils of slavery are connected with physical suffering possess
no just or rational ideas of human nature. The soul, the immortal soul must ever long and yearn for a thousand things inseperable
to liberty. Then, too, the fear, the apprehension, the dread, and deep anxiety always attending that condition in a greater
or less degree. There can be no certainty, no abiding confidence in the possession of any good thing. The indulgent master
may die, or fail in business. The happy home may be despoiled of its chiefest treasures, and the consciousness of this embitters
all their lot.

During all this time we saw not a human face with the exception of that old man’s. He came and went mechanically never smiling,
and seldom speaking. To our tears and entreaties he was immovable. To our questions he gave no answer. Had he been deaf as
an adder he could not have manifested a greater insensibility to our words. At length we became aware that another person
was in the dwelling. We heard the distinct utterance of
two
voices as if two persons were conversing in a low tone. We were confident that after the old-man’s step in the passage there
came another, unlike the first yet resembling it in certain particulars, for both seemed stealthy and had the soft gliding
sound betokening privacy. We were likewise sensible of more noise in general. There was more
opening and shutting of doors,
more ascending and descending stairs, and more of everything accompanying the presence of free life. Some one had evidently
arrived, and without knowing why we felt interested in the event.

The old man came at night with our suppers. For the first time a gleam of intelligence lightened his stolid face as he said
“You will be wanted in an hour?”

“By whom?”

“Master.”

“But who is master?”

He shook his head, clapped his finger to his ear—his usual manner of expressing deafness, when asked questions he did not
choose to answer, then repeating “Remember in an hour” he passed from the room. Wanted in an hour by master; then our suspense
would be resolved into certainty.

In an hour, though it seemed two or three to us, the old man came to our apartment and bade us follow him. He regarded us
with a look of curious surprise, as we had neither changed our dresses, nor arranged our hair. Unadorned we went not expecting
to ask favors or receive them. My companion trembled so that I found it necessary to support her
frame,
as we ascended the stairs; the old man gliding before with his light, and pausing now and then to look back at us. Perhaps
he feared that even then we might give them the slip. From the stair case landing we passed along a close uncomfortable passage
to a small door that opened at the farther end and which on the present occasion stood slightly ajar. The old man paused before
it, but did not enter, and we hesitated.

“Go on: Go on,” he said with corresponding gestures.

We advanced, entered the room, and stood in the presence of Mr Trappe. He was sitting beside a table on which a small lamp
was dimly burning. At his elbow stood a decanter of old wine, and by it was placed a glass that had been lately used. He looked
calmly, though searchingly towards us
as we entered
and I detected an expression in his face at once complacent and self-satisfied. Not that he seemed exultant or triumphant.
He was too strictly too severely self-repressed to exhibit much feeling of any kind, but he can chuckle a little, a very little
over a good bargain, and now he felt an increased sense of his own power, importance, and strength of purpose now that our
destinies for time I had well nigh said for eternity were in his hands. He was sedately pleased and looked just as one may
be supposed to look when some great work is accomplished. Perhaps he thought that he had been doing a great work—there is
no telling.

Carelessly holding his green spectacles in one hand, and adjusting the leaves of a book in which he had been apparently reading
with the other, he seemed waiting for my companion to speak. Finding, however, that
would be obliged
she will not break the silence he does so very leisurely and quietly by saying “It is a long time since we met.”

She inclines her head and would say “yes” but has no voice. The past comes rushing over her with its tide of memories moved
and swayed by his presence. She remembers all she has been, she thinks with horror of what she is. His manner is different,
too. He evidently feels that she is a worm beneath his feet to be crushed or preserved.
as he
Time was when he would have brought her a chair with obsequious politeness, now he does not even invite
us
her to be seated.

“It is a long time since we met” he repeated. “May I inquire in a friendly way how you have enjoyed yourself?”

She looked at him intently, her countenance very pale, and her whole frame trembling with excessive agitation.

He looks at her no less intently, and the muscles of his mouth twitch slightly with inward satisfaction. “Did you find a good
home and pleasant company more desirable than the one so resolutely
abandoned contrary to my expressed will and pleasure.
That was a very bad move, very bad indeed; it hastened matters much, brought affairs to a speedy crisis, and
had almost disastrous
was attended with most disastrous consequences to your husband. It hurried him to the grave, it hurries you to slavery.”

My companion gasped and trembled. It became necessary to support her to a seat. I led her to an old-fashioned sofa that stood
in a little recess. She sunk down upon it, and buried her face in the cushions. He had no mercy, no pity, love of gold had
turned his heart to stone, long accustomed to witness human sufferings he was stolid indifferent, apathetic to them, and he
coolly went on.

“There is no need of your taking on so, no use at all in it. You have long known the condition of life to which your birth
subjected you, and you ought by this time to have become reconciled to it. Lord bless me, it is nothing so bad after all.
We are all slaves to something or somebody. A man perfectly free would be an anomaly, and a free woman yet more so. Freedom
and slavery are only names attached surreptiously and often improperly to certain conditions
and in many cases the slave possesses more.
They are mere shadows the very reverse of realities, and being so, if rightly considered, they have only a trifling effect
on individual happiness.”

He said this composedly as if she were a mere machine that he was discussing and analysing.

There was a gasp and a sob; otherwise she was silent.

“You will blame me, no doubt” he continued “you will curse me, you will regard me as an enemy, as one who embittered your
existence, and dashed the cup of pleasure from your lips, yet in doing so you will be unjust. Rather blame the world that
has made me what I am, like
Like yourself
yourself the victim of circumstances. It was not my fault, but rather the result of accident that made me acquainted with
your lineage. Indeed I had my suspicions for a long
time—for days, weeks, months, and years, but who can help their suspicions.
I was not accountable for the idle words and looks of others that still contributed to feed them, and when I made it my business
to find out, and clearly ascertain the whole affair I did it because it was in my line.”

“I don’t apprehend your meaning” she said with great effort.

[“]I mean my line of business. You are not the first fair dame whose descent I have traced back—far back to a sable son of
Africa, and whose destiny has been in my hands as clearly and decidedly as you must perceive that yours is now. Many and many
are the family secrets that I have unraveled as women unravel a web. You may think of it as you please, you may call it dishonorable
if you like, but it brings gold—bright gold.[”]

[“]But does it happify the conscience, or bring that sweet peace which passeth understanding?”

“My conscience never troubles me” he replied, with an expression which in countenances more variable and impulsive would have
been a sneer.

“My conscience never troubles me” he repeated. “The circumstances in which I find people are not of my making.
If a beautiful woman is sold and sells cheap
Neither are the laws that give me an advantage over them. If a beautiful women [sic] is to be sold it is rather the fault
of the law that permits it than of me who profits by it. If she sells cheap my right to purchase is clear; and if I choose
to keep her awhile, give her advantages, or otherwise increase her attractions and then dispose of her again my right is equally
unquestionable. Whatever the law permits, and public opinion encourages I do, when that says stop I go no further.