The Entailed Hat; Or, Patty Cannon's Times
but I like to hear you talk. I reckon there is no harm in you. Virgie is
in love, too, with a white man, but you mustn't breathe it."
"Never," said Jack, making solemn motions with his eyes, and cuddling
closer in dead earnest of sympathy. "Hope I may die! Can't tell, to save
my life! Who-oop! Tell me, Roxy!"
"Pore sister Virgie, she was made to love, and, though it's hopeless, I
think she loves Mr. Tilghman, our minister, because he loved Miss Vesty
once, and Virgie worships Miss Vesty like her sister."
* * * * *
Vesta told the story of Mary, the free woman, to her husband, who
listened closely and said:
"I know of but one thing, my darling, that will make such ignorance and
cruelty fade out in the forests of this peninsula: an iron road. A new
thing, called the railroad-engine, has just been made by an Englishman,
one George Stephenson, and a specimen of it has been sent to New York,
where I have had it examined. The errand your father went to do for me,
he has done well. I shall send him to Annapolis next, to get a charter
for a railroad up this peninsula that will pass inside the line of
Maryland, and penetrate every kidnapping settlement hidden there, and
light, intercourse, and law shall exterminate such barracoons as
Johnson's."
Vesta was glad to hear her father praised by her husband, and hopes
rekindled of some happier family reunion, when she should feel the
heartache die within her that now raged intermittently during her vestal
honeymoon. A letter came on the fourth day which dashed these hopes to
the ground, and it was as follows:
"DORCHESTER COUNTY, MD., _October--, 1829_.
"_Darling Niece_,--Idol of my heart, let me begin by entreating you
to take a conservative course when I break the sad intelligence to
you of the death of my dear sister, Lucy, at Cambridge, yesterday,
of the heart disease. She was the star of the house of McLane. She
is gone. 'Vengeance is mine,' saith the Lord, and I shall take a
conservative though _consistent_ course on the parties who have
inflicted this injury upon you, my dear niece, and upon your calm
and collected, if stricken, uncle.
"'The Lord moves in a _mysterious_ way, his wonders to perform,'
and his humble instruments require only to be _inflexible and
conservative_ to do all things well. Be assured that
_righteousness_ shall be done upon the adversaries of our family,
and _that_ right speedily. My own grief is composed in the
satisfaction I shall take, and the assurance that your sainted
mother is where the wicked cease from troubling.
"The financial arrangements of my dear sister were of the most
conservative and high-toned character, as was to have been expected
of her.
"You may be desirous, my outraged, but, I hope, still _spirited_,
idol, to hear the particulars of Lucy's death. She did not reach
Cambridge till near midnight, having made the long journey from
Princess Anne without fitting companions, and, in the excited state
of her feelings, after she left Vienna in the evening, a depression
of the spirits, accompanied by a fluttering of the heart, came on,
and rapidly increased, and, by the time she arrived at our
relatives', she was nearly dead with nervous apprehension and
weakness. On seeing me, she revived sufficiently to make her will
in the most _sisterly_ and conservative manner.
"A physician was procured, but he pronounced her system so
debilitated and detoned as hardly probable to outride the shock,
the nervous centres being depressed and atrophy setting in.
"She talked incessantly about the _Entailed Hat_, and said it was a
permanent shadow and weight upon your heart, and made me promise to
_mash_ it, if it could conservatively be done.
"I read to my dear sister from _the Book of Books_, and tried to
compose her feelings, but she broke out ever and anon, 'Oh, Brother
Allan! to think I have raised children to be bought and sold, and
married to foresters and trash.' She was deeply sensitive as to
what would be said about it in Baltimore.
"Just before she died, she said, 'Do not bury me at Princess Anne,
where that fiend can come near me with his frightful Hat! Take me
to Baltimore, where there are no bog-ores, nor old family chattels,
to disturb the respectability of death. Apologize for my daughter,
_and do her justice_.'
"And so this grand woman died, in the confidence of a blessed
immortality, leaving us to vindicate her motives and continue her
conservative course, and to meet at her funeral next Friday, at our
church in Baltimore, where Rev. John Breckenridge will preach the
funeral sermon over this murdered saint.
"With conservative, yet proud, grief,
"Affectionately, your uncle,
"ALLAN McLANE."
"Oh, sir!" Vesta exclaimed, turning blindly towards her husband; "mother
is dead. Where can I turn?"
"Where but to me, poor soul!" Milburn replied, knowing nothing of Mrs.
Custis's late feelings against him. "Your father shall be notified, and
I am able to attend the funeral with you."
"It is in Baltimore," Vesta sobbed.
"Well, honey, there I am ordered by the doctor to go, and get above the
line of malaria, in the hills. I can make the effort now."
Her grief and loneliness deprived her of the will to refuse him. Roxy
was selected to be her mistress's maid upon the journey, and William
Tilghman and Rhoda Holland were to take them in the family carriage down
to Whitehaven landing for the evening steamer.
Jack Wonnell, in officious zeal to be useful, gathered flowers, and hung
around Teackle Hall to run errands; and, in order not to exasperate
Vesta's husband, appeared bareheaded as the party set off, Milburn's
hat-box being one of the articles of travel, and Milburn vouchsafing
these words to Jack:
"There is a dollar for you, Mr. Wonnell. I rely upon you to watch my old
store and conduct yourself like a man."
"I'll do it," answered Jack, grinning and blushing; "hope I may die!
Good-bye, Miss Vesty. Purty Roxy, don't you forgit me 'way off thair in
Balt'mer. I'll teach Tom to sing your name befo' you ever see me agin."
He waved his arms, with real tears dimming his vision, and Roxy affected
to shed some tears also, as she waved good-bye to Virgie, whose eyes
were turned with wistful pain upon the beautiful face of her mistress
receding down the vista. Vesta threw her a kiss and reclined her head
upon her husband's shoulder.
That evening, an hour before the carriage was to return, Virgie and the
free woman, Mary, walked together down to Milburn's store, to see if
Jack Wonnell was on the watch. As they trode in the soft grass and sand
under the old storehouse they saw the bell-crowned hat--a new one,
brought from the ancient stock that very day--shining glossily on
Wonnell's high, eccentric head, as he sat in the hollow window of the
old storehouse and talked to the mocking-bird, which he was feeding with
a clam-shell full of boiled potato and egg, and some blue haws.
"Tom, say 'Roxy,' an' I'll give ye some, Tommy! Now, boy! 'Roxy, Roxy,
purty Roxy! _purty_ Roxy! Poor ole Jack! poor ole Jack!'"
The bird flew around Wonnell's head, biting at the hat which stood in
such elegant irrelevance to the remainder of his dress, and cried,
"Meshach, he! he! he! Vesty, she! Vesty, Meshach! Vesty, Meshach!" but
said nothing the village vagrant would teach it. He showed the patience
idleness can well afford, and, feeding it a little, or withholding the
food awhile, continued to plead and teach:
"'Roxy, Roxy, purty Roxy! Poor, pore Jack! pore Jack!' Now, Tom, say
'Roxy, Roxy, pore Jack!'"
The bird flew and struck, and sang a little, very niggardly, and so, as
the lights in the west sank and faded, the shiftless lover continued in
vain to seek to give the bird one note more than the magician, his
master, had taught.
The stars modestly appeared in the soft heavens, and Princess Anne
gathered its roofs together like a camp of camels in the desert, and,
with an occasional bleat or bark or human sound, seemed dozing out the
soft fall night, absorbed, perhaps, in the spreading news of Mrs.
Custis's death and Vesta's wedding-journey, that had to be taken at
last.
"Miss Virgie," said the woman Mary--ten years her senior, but comely
still--"have you ever loved like me? Oh, I had a kind husband, and,
helpless as I was, I tried to love once more. Maybe it was a sin."
"I love my mistress as if she was myself," Virgie said; "I feel as if,
in heaven, before we came here, I was with her, Mary! I love her father,
too, as if he was not my master, but my friend. Oh, how I love them all!
But what can I do to show my love--poor naked slave that I am? They say
they will soon set me free. Mary, how do people feel when they are
free?"
"They don't appreciate it," sighed Mary. "They go and put themselves in
captivity again, like selfish things: they falls in love."
"But to love and be free!" Virgie said, her bosom glowing in the thought
till her rich eyes seemed to shed warmth and starlight on her
companion's face; "to give your own free love to some one and feel him
grateful for it: what a gift and what a joy is that! He might be
thankful for it, and, seeing how pure it was, he might respect me."
"Who is it, Virgie?" Mary said.
"Whoever would love me like a white girl!" the ardent slave softly
exclaimed. "It must be some one who does not despise me. I hear Miss
Vesta's beau, Master William, read the beautiful service, with his
sweet, submissive face, and I think to myself, 'How freely he might have
my heart to comfort his if he would take it like a gentleman!' I would
be his slave to make him happy, if he could love me purely, like my
mother! Oh, my mother, whose name I do not know! where is the tie that
fastens me to heaven? Did my father love me?"
"Pore Jack! pore Jack! Sing 'Roxy, Roxy, Roxy,' Tom!" coaxed Wonnell
above to the sleepy bird.
"Whoever was your father, Virgie, your mother's love for you was pure.
God makes the wickedest love their children, because he is the Father to
all the fatherless."
"Oh! could my own father have brought me into the world and hated me?"
Virgie said. "They say I am almost beautiful. Will he who gave me life
never call me his, and say, 'My daughter, come to my respect, rest on my
heart, and take my name'?"
"Poor Virgie!" sighed Mary; "remember we are black! We hardly ever have
fathers: they is for white people."
"Dog my hide!" mumbled Wonnell, above, "ef a bird ain't a perwerse
critter. Purty Roxy won't think I'm smart a bit ef I can't make Tom say
'Roxy, Roxy, Roxy! Pore Jack!'"
"I am almost white," Virgie continued; "I want to be all white. Why
can't I be so? The Lord knows my heart is white, and full of holy,
unselfish love."
"Pore chile!" Mary said; "we shall all be washed and made white in the
Lamb's blood, Virgie. That's where your soul pints you to, dear young
lady. I know it ain't pride and rebellion in you: it's like I'm looking
at my baby, white as snow to me and God now."
"Hush!" said Virgie, trembling, "what voice is that?"
There was an old willow-tree in a recessed spot at the end of the store,
and by it were two sheds or small buildings, now disused, into one of
which, with a door low to the ground, Mary drew Virgie, and they
listened to a low voice saying,
"Dave, air your pops well slugged?"
"Yes, Mars Joe."
"Allan McLane pays fur the job?"
"Yes, Mars Joe."