Chapter XII: Roma’s Despair

Roma strove bravely to resist the dark cloud of despair that was fast settling down upon her soul.

She could not concentrate her thoughts sufficiently to enable her to read or write, and to attempt to knit or to sew was to leave her mind too free to fly to themes which to dwell upon was maddening.

Under these circumstances she devoted herself to Owlet, and found some distraction from her sorrow in the society of that strange child.

She began to teach the little one to read and to sew, and gave two hours of the morning to this pleasant pastime. She found Owlet an apt and eager pupil. After the hours of tuition she would take her to walk over the plantation. She took her through those wonderful orchards, now in full blossom, that seemed to the child like forests of pink and white flowers. She showed her a pigeon box, with the young pair of pigeons in the nest, and she told her wonderful stories of the carriers.

Owlet enjoyed all this with more intense delight than any child reared among such scenes, or having a less sensitive nature, could have felt.

But through all her own pleasure Owlet perceived the deep trouble on the face of her benefactress, and responded to it for some days in silent sympathy.

At length, one morning, after she had said her lesson in spelling words of three letters, she suddenly demanded, while looking wistfully into the lady’s face:

“What is the matter with you?”

Roma looked surprised, then lifted the child to her lap and kissed her in grave silence.

“But what is the matter with you?” again inquired Owlet, with tender, persistent interest.

Still Roma did not answer, but gently caressed the little one. How, indeed, could she answer the question? She could not tell the facts, for the child could not understand them; nor could she use the formula for such cases made and provided, and say: “Nothing is the matter,” or “I have a headache,” for neither statement would be true, and Roma was too purely truthful to prevaricate.

“Have I hurted you? And are you too kind to scold me? Oh, you know I am very often naughty, and not respectful enough to people; but—but—that is only when—when I’m not possessed of common sense, you know. But, oh, I do love you! And I am so sorry if I hurted you!” Owlet exclaimed, clasping her benefactress around the neck.

“You have not hurt me, darling; you never do,” gently replied the lady, returning the caress.

“Don’t I? I’m so glad! But somebody has been very wicked to make you so sorry. Who is it? Aunt Serious?”

“No, dear.”

“She’s awful. I thought it might have been her.”

“Oh, no, dear.”

“Then was it Uncle Paunchus?”

“No, Owlet.”

“He’s very aggravating, too, sometimes, you know.”

“But he has not displeased me, nor has any one here.”

“Then who was it? That is what I want to hear.”

“You would not know, dear, if I were to tell you,” gently replied the lady.

“Well, if I don’t know who it was, I do know one thing,” said Owlet.

“What is that, dear?” Roma inquired, with a grave smile.

“I know whoever it was that hurt you is not possessed of common sense, and I would not mind ’em if I was you,” concluded Owlet with solemn conviction.

While she spoke, Puck, the mail messenger, entered the room with the mail bag, which he handed to his mistress.

Roma opened the bag and emptied its contents upon the table before her.

There was quite a heap of letters. She hastily looked over their superscriptions and postmarks, and recognized them by their handwriting. There was a letter from her late guardian, Lawyer Merritt, letters from Mr. and Mrs. Gray and from Abbot Elde.

She opened Mrs. Gray’s letter first, saw at a glance that the writer and all her family were well, and then laid aside that and all the accompanying foreign letters, to be read at more leisure, and opened Mr. Merritt’s letter, which was a very bulky one, for the envelope inclosed two others, one in the handwriting of Margaret Wynthrop, addressed to Amos Merritt, Esq., and the other in that of Reba Bushe, addressed to Mrs. William Harcourt, care of Amos Merritt, Esq.

The lawyer’s letter contained only a few lines, to the effect that he forwarded the inclosed, adding a remark that Hanson’s stepsister was evidently still in utter ignorance of Roma’s true position, and believed her to be the wife of Will Harcourt.

Roma hastened to open and read Miss Wynthrop’s letter, in the hope of hearing some good news of the Harcourts. It was, however, but a short note, seemingly in answer to an inquiring one from the lawyer, and informing him that Mrs. Harcourt’s condition remained unchanged, and that Mr. Will Harcourt had left Goblin Hall for the North, but not giving the young man’s address, which, by the way, was not known to the writer.

With a deep sigh Roma laid this letter aside and took up that of Reba Bushe.

This also was very short, and somewhat reproachful, complaining that the writer had written at least half a dozen letters to her beloved Roma, addressed to the Isle of Storms, via Snowden, but that she had not received a line in acknowledgment of any one of them; that she was almost discouraged from further attempts to keep up the correspondence between herself and her old schoolmate and bosom friend; but, being on the eve of sailing for Liverpool with her mother, she made this last venture in the hope of hearing from her friend, and should address the letter to the care of Mr. Amos Merritt, who would be likely to know her address in the event that Mr. Harcourt and herself had left the Isle of Storms for some other place. The letter concluded with entreaties for a speedy reply, and assurances of the writer’s unchanged and unchangeable affection.

“Poor Reba! Dear Reba! How little she knows of my real position, of the irreparable injury done by her evil stepbrother to Will Harcourt and myself. What must she think of my seemingly selfish neglect of her? And how shall I answer her letter without exposing her brother and giving her the deepest mortification? On the other hand, if I do not write to her, she will think me cold and careless, and that alternative would give her equal pain,” Roma said to herself.

Then to the waiting negro boy she said:

“You must be ready to take letters to the afternoon mail. Now you can go.”

The boy ducked, and departed.

“Darling,” Roma whispered gently to the listening and attentive child, “I have important letters to write, and I cannot take a walk with you to-day. But you may go in the garden and play, if you choose. You will be quite safe there.”

The child kissed her benefactress, slid off her lap, and ran out of the house.

Roma opened and read the letters of her relatives from Delfcome. They were full of praises of their new home, new friends, new scenes and new life altogether, and of prayers and petitions to their dear Roma to come out and join them immediately. Nothing but the presence of their beloved Roma was needed to complete their happiness.

Roma read all these letters with the deepest interest, but she answered that of Reba Bushe first. She began by writing:

“Your dear and most welcome letter received to-day is the very first I have had from you, my beloved friend, since parting with you, nearly six mouths ago, at the steamboat pier in Washington city. I can easily understand why the many letters you have written to me within the last half year, previous to this one, have not reached me. But though I do so well understand this, I cannot explain it to you. I am in deep trouble, almost in despair, yet must not tell you why—at least, not at present. The time may come when all shall be made clear. In the meanwhile, trust me, my beloved friend, and always think of me as your true and loving

ROMA.

“That letter,” said Roma to herself, “will reveal nothing of which she ought for the present to remain in ignorance. She will think that my dear Will has fulfilled all Aunt Ruth’s dark predictions, of which she caught an echo when she was with us before the wedding. She will think that he is insane; and, ah, me! she may not be far wrong. She will be sorry for me, and she will write to me; but, let us see—she must not direct her letters to Mrs. William Harcourt here. It would be embarrassing; nor can I tell her not to do it without giving her the explanation that it is impossible now to give. I must add a postscript to that letter of mine.”

She drew the sheet toward her, and wrote:

“P.S.—Direct all your letters to me under cover to Mr. Amos Merritt, Louisiana Avenue, Washington.”

Then she wrote a short note to her late guardian and present attorney, merely saying:

“My old friend, from whom I have no secrets, I reinclose Miss Bushe’s letter, with my answer to it. You will readily understand my policy. You will please receive all the letters that she may write to me, and inclose them to me as in this instance. Please mail my letter to Miss Bushe from the Washington post office.”

She placed the two letters in the same envelope with this note, and addressed the package to Mr. Merritt.

Having done this, she went to work to answer her foreign letters.

While Roma was so engaged her little protégée, with her double-funnel hat on her head, wandered away into the delightful garden, which, to her apprehension, was a very Garden of Eden.

It was a very large garden, covering quite a quarter of an acre. It was formally laid out in squares, like the streets of the Quaker City. But its luxuriant growth of shrubs and fruit bushes along every walk between vegetable beds, hid all angles. It was entered by a south gate leading to the broad middle walk that ran the full length of the ground to the north wall, which was entirely hidden by a thick hedge of raspberry bushes, now a mass of white blossoms. On the right of the gate, as you entered, in the southeast corner of the wall, was a group of three peach trees, now in full, pink flower. All through the garden, here and there, where they would not interfere with the growth of vegetables or flowers, were isolated fruit trees—pear, quince, apple, plum and cherry trees. In the walks near the house was an affluence of roses over arbors and trellises, and around the edges of the vegetable square, further away, pot herbs and small fruits took the place of the flowers. But now, not only all the spring flowers and all the roses were in bloom, but all the fruit trees and bushes and vines were in full blossom, and the whole garden was one outburst of beautiful color. In the morning the birds sang there in a concert of joy and praise.

But it was now near midday, and they were silent.

Owlet wandered down the middle walk, between the borders of sweet williams, larkspurs, ragged robins, hyacinths, jonquils, daffodils, tulips—and countless varieties of old-fashioned spring flowers, stooping lightly to caress one or another, but never plucking any, and so came at last to the gooseberry bushes, in full bloom, that grew on the borders of a sidewalk on her left.

But it was not the gooseberry bushes that attracted the child. It was what seemed to her to be a flock of little, soft, round, yellow birds running about in the grass, and in and out, under the bars of a wicker coop, in which something was moving and making a gentle noise.

This was, in fact, a coop, with a bantam hen and a brood of newly hatched chickens, which the poultry woman had brought from the poultry yard, for some reason best known to herself, and placed in the gooseberry walk.

But Owlet did not know what they were. Her face grew radiant with delight, and she threw herself on the ground near them.

“Oh, you dear, darling things!” she said, taking the little, round, yellow puffs tenderly in her hand and putting them up to her face. “You sweet, lovely things! I do love you so! You are so sweet, I could eat you!”

“Oh, p’ease, p’ease doane bite ’em! Dey is sich po’ itty sings!” pleaded a baby voice near her.

Owlet looked up, and saw a small negro child standing by her side. It was a strange little human—a child of about her own age, but shorter and plumper than she was, with a skin as black as ink, yet, strange as it may seem to say it, beautiful in face, feature and form, with a well-shaped round head, covered with jet black, silky, closely curling hair, large, soft black eyes, deeply fringed on both upper and lower lids, with long, curly black lashes; a small nose, not very flat; a lovely mouth, a perfect Cupid’s bow in shape, and dark crimson in color, not too vivid a contrast to the black skin. But, after all, the chief beauty of the little face was its expression of more than human tenderness, of a ray of almost heavenly love. She was clothed in a short garment of blue serge that left her shapely little black arms and legs perfectly bare from shoulders to hands and from knees to feet.

Owlet, however, gave her a mere glance that did not take in the perception of her personality in the least degree, and indignantly exclaimed:

“You are not possessed of common sense. Do you suppose I would hurt these dear, darling little things?”

Surprised at the angry glance and voice of the white child, the little black one looked dazed and dumb for a moment, staring at the speaker; then she softly drew nearer to her, gently laid her hand upon her, and tenderly inquired:

“Is oo sick, ’ittle dirl?”

The first impulse of our small woman was to fly into a passion and demand to know whether the questioner was possessed of common sense. But the heavenly compassion shown on the little black face utterly disarmed and subdued Owlet, so that after gazing for a little while she only inquired:

“What made you think I was sick?”

“I doane know, but I sought oo was, an’ I so sowwy fo’ oo.” And with her little black hand she stroked Owlet’s cheek.

“Oh, you darling thing! You are prettier than the flowers and sweeter than the birdies!” said Owlet.

“Dese aine birdies; dey is chickies,” said the little negro.

“You are sweeter and prettier than the chickies, then. You darling thing! What is your name?”

“Docky,” replied the black child.

“Ducky? Oh, Ducky, I love you! Ducky, darling! Ducky, darling!” exclaimed Owlet, suddenly throwing her arms around the black child and kissing her. “You are a Ducky darling. You shall be my little playmate. Come to the house with me now, and see my dear lady. I want to show you to her, and I want to show her to you, as well. Come,” continued Owlet, clasping the hand of the black child and drawing her along.

Dorcas, commonly called Dorky, followed obediently, as she would have followed anybody anywhere on so kind an invitation.

Owlet drew her on out of the garden, into the house, into the oak-paneled parlor, and into the presence of Miss Fronde, who had just finished writing her letters and was putting them into the mail bag.

Roma raised her eyes as the children entered the room hand in hand, and for a moment she thought what a pretty picture they made, standing thus before her; but only for a moment, as Owlet exclaimed:

“Look! This is Ducky Darling. And, oh! isn’t she sweet?”

“Why, it is little Dorcas!” exclaimed Roma. “Where did you find her, Catherine?”

“By the chicken coop, in the garden,” replied Owlet. “And, oh! ain’t she lovely?”

“What were you doing in the garden, Dorcas?” the lady inquired.

“Chickies,” briefly answered the little black child.

“Where is your mammy, Dorcas?”

“Doane know.”

“Who is Ducky Darling, anyhow? Who is the dear thing?” Owlet inquired, with the deepest interest.

“She is Hera Hutter’s child,” Roma replied.

“And who is Hera Hutter?” persisted Owlet.

“She is our poultry woman.”

“And where does she live?”

“In a little house near the poultry yard,” said Roma, as she rang a little hand bell that stood on the table by her side.

Puck answered the bell.

“Go and find Hera, and ask her to come here,” said the lady.

The boy went out.

“Catherine, you said that you found Dorcas in the garden, by the chicken coop? Surely you must be mistaken, dear. The chicken coop had no place in the garden,” said Roma.

“No, I was not mistaken. I couldn’t have been if I had been possessed of common sense. The chicken coop was in the gooseberry walk, and the old hen was in the coop, poor thing! And the chickies were running in and out. And I took the dear, pretty things up in my hands, and Ducky Darling came up and saw me, and was afraid I was going to hurt them, and that was how I found Ducky Darling, the sweet thing!” Owlet said.

At that moment Hera entered the room, courtesied to her mistress, and stood waiting.

The woman was short and plump, with a skin as black as that of her child, with features almost as pretty, and an expression almost as pleasing. She was neatly clothed in a dark blue calico dress, a white apron, white neck handkerchief and white turban. She was the wife of Nace, and the mother of five small children, two older and two younger than Dorcas, and with only one year between each child and its successor.

“I sent for you, Hera, to take charge of your little one here. She ought not to be allowed around the place at large. It is not safe for her,” said Miss Fronde, speaking very kindly, as she always spoke when obliged to rebuke her servant.

“Lor’, Miss Yoma! She wa’n’t yoamin’ at no large. I pit her inside ob de garden gate wid my own han’,” Hera replied, smiling.

“But why in the garden?”

“’Caze she c’azy arter dem young chicks.”

“Ah! this is what I wish to know. Why did you put the chicken coop into the garden?”

“To keep the little chicks out’n harm’s way, Miss Yoma. Yo’ know dat ole brack shanky yooster?”

“The shanghai, do you mean, Hera?”

“Dat’s him. He so unnateral an’ so rawenous, he like to ’a’ gobbled up all dem young chicks. He’d ’a’ done it, too, ef I hadn’t took ’em out’n harm’s way an’ pit ’em into de garden, in de goozebewwy walk, ’tween de peas an’ de beans, whey nobody aine got no call to go dis season ob de yea’, w’en none ob dem fings is fit to yeat,” Hera explained.

“Well, I suppose you were right. You know your business best. You may go now,” Roma said.

Hera courtesied, and took the hand of little Dorcas to lead her away.

“Oh, no! no! Please don’t take her back! Let her stay with me!” pleaded Owlet.

“Oh, no, miss. Little colored gals aine comp’ny fo’ little w’ite ladies,” Hera replied, leading her child away.

“You are not possessed of common sense! Why ar’n’t they? What do you mean?” indignantly demanded Owlet.

“Tell her, Miss Yoma, p’ease, ma’am. She woane min’ me,” said Hera.

“I am not myself sure of what I ought to tell her,” said Miss Fronde, with a faint smile. “But, if you have no objection, Hera, you may leave Dorcas for a little while.”

“Oh, ’co’se I’s no ’jections, Miss Yoma, on’y I doane wan’ her to bodder yo’. Min’ yo’, Dorky, yo’ ’have yo’se’f fo’ de w’ite ladies, yo’ hear?”

“’Es,” said the child.

“An’ Miss Yoma, p’ease, ma’am, yo’ sen’ de chile home soon’s ebber yo’ git tired ob her.”

“Very well, Hera.”

So the mother went out, leaving the child with Owlet.

And that day they had a glorious time.

Owlet amazed and delighted Ducky Darling with the sight of her picture books and toys, but among them all the little black child was the most enraptured with a small musical box, so that when at length she was claimed to be carried away by her mother, Owlet raised her to the height of bliss by giving her the box.