Chapter Forty Five
Jealousy
Have you ever loved in humble life? some fair young girl, whose lot was among the lowly, but whose brilliant beauty in your eyes annihilated all social inequalities? Love levels all distinctions, is an adage old as the hills. It brings down the proud heart, and teaches condescension to the haughty spirit; but its tendency is to elevate, to ennoble. It does not make a peasant of the prince, but a prince of the peasant.
Behold the object of your adoration engaged in her ordinary duties! She fetches a jar of water from the well. Barefoot she treads the well-known path. Those nude pellucid feet are fairer in their nakedness than the most delicate
chaussure
of silk and satin. The wreaths and pearl circlets, the pins of gold and drupes of coral, the costliest
coiffures
of the dress circle, – all seem plain and poor compared with the glossy
negligé
of those bright tresses. The earthen jar sits upon her head with the grace of a golden coronet – every attitude is the
pose
of a statue, a study for a sculptor; and the coarse garment that drapes that form is in your eyes more becoming than a robe of richest velvet. You care not for that. You are not thinking of the casket, but of the pearl it conceals.
She disappears within the cottage – her humble home. Humble? In your eyes no longer humble; that little kitchen, with its wooden chairs, and scoured dresser, its deal shelf, with mugs, cups, and willow-pattern plates, its lime-washed walls and cheap prints of the red soldier and the blue sailor – that little museum of the
penates
of the poor, is now filled with a light that renders it more brilliant than the gilded saloons of wealth and fashion. That cottage with its low roof, and woodbine trellis, has become a palace. The light of love has transformed it! A paradise you are forbidden to enter. Yes, with all your wealth and power, your fine looks and your titles of distinction, your superfine cloth and bright lacquered boots, mayhap you dare not enter there.
And oh! how you envy those who dare! – how you envy the spruce apprentice, and the lout in the smock who cracks his whip, and whistles with as much
nonchalance
as if he was between the handles of his plough! as though the awe of that fair presence should not freeze his lips to stone!
Gauché
that he is, how you envy him his
opportunities
! how you could slaughter him for those sweet smiles that appear to be lavished upon him!
There maybe no meaning in those smiles. They may be the expressions of good-nature of simple friendship, perhaps of a little coquetry. For all that, you cannot behold them without envy – without
suspicion
If there be a meaning – if they be the smiles of love – if the heart of that simple girl has made its lodgement either upon the young apprentice or him of the smock – then are you fated to the bitterest pang that human breast can know. It is not jealousy of the ordinary kind. It is far more painful. Wounded vanity adds a poison to the sting. Oh! it is hard to bear!
A pang of this nature I suffered, as I paced that high platform. Fortunately they had left me alone. The feelings that worked within me could not be concealed. My looks and wild gestures must have betrayed them. I should have been a subject for satire and laughter. But I was alone. The pilot in his glass-box did not notice me. His back was towards me, and his keen eye, bent steadily upon the water, was too busy with logs and sand-bars, and snags and sawyers, to take note of my delirium.
It
was
Aurore! Of that I had no doubt whatever. Her face was not to be mistaken for any other. There was none like it – none so lovely – alas! too fatally fair.
Who could
he
be? Some young spark of the town? Some clerk in one of the stores? a young planter? who? Maybe – and with this thought came that bitter pang – one of her own proscribed race – a young man of “colour” – a mulatto – a quadroon – a slave! Ha! to be rivalled by a slave! – worse than rivalled. – Infamous coquette! Why had I yielded to her fascinations? Why had I mistaken her craft for
naïvété
? – her falsehood for truth?
Who could
he
be? I should search the boat till I found him. Unfortunately I had taken no marks, either of his face or his dress. My eyes had remained fixed upon her after their parting. In the shadow I had seen him only indistinctly; and as he passed under the lights I saw him not. How preposterous then to think of looking for him! I could not recognise him in such a crowd.
I went below, and wandered through the cabins, under the front awning, and along the guard-ways. I scanned every face with an eagerness that to some must have appeared impertinence. Wherever one was young and handsome, he was an object of my scrutiny and jealousy. There were several such among the male passengers; and I endeavoured to distinguish those who had come aboard at Bringiers. There were some young men who appeared as if they had lately shipped, themselves, but I had no clue to guide me, and I failed to find my rival.
In the chagrin of disappointment I returned once more to the roof; but I had hardly reached it, when a new thought came into my mind. I remembered that the slaves of the plantation were to be sent down to the city by the first boat. Were they not travelling by that very one? I had seen a crowd of blacks – men, women, and children – hastily driven aboard. I had paid but little heed to such a common spectacle – one that may be witnessed daily, hourly. I had not thought of it, that those might be the slaves of the plantation Besançon!
If they were, then indeed there might still be hope; Aurore had not gone with them – but what of that? Though, like them, only a slave, it was not probable she would have been forced to herd with them upon the deck. But she had not come aboard! The staging had been already taken in, as I recognised her on the wharf-boat. On the supposition that the slaves of Besançon were aboard, my heart felt relieved. I was filled with a hope that all might yet be well.
Why? you may ask. I answer – simply because the thought occurred to me, that the youth, who so tenderly parted from Aurore,
might be a brother, or some near relative
. I had not heard of such relationship. It might be so, however; and my heart, reacting from its hour of keen anguish, was eager to relieve itself by any hypothesis.
I could not endure doubt longer; and turning on my heel, I hastened below. Down the kleets of the wheel-house, along the guard-way, then down the main stairs to the boiler-deck. Threading my way among bags of maize and hogsheads of sugar, now stooping under the great axle, now climbing over huge cotton-bales, I reached the after-part of the lower deck, usually appropriated to the “deck passengers” – the poor immigrants of Ireland and Germany, who here huddle miscellaneously with the swarthy bondsmen of the South.
As I had hoped, there were they, – those black but friendly faces, – every one of them. Old Zip, and Aunt Chloe, and the little Chloe; Hannibal, the new coachman, and Caesar and Pompey, and all, – all on their way to the dreaded mart.
I had halted a second or two before approaching them. The light was in my favour, and I saw them before discovering my presence. There were no signs of mirth in that sable group. I heard no laughter, no light revelry, as was their wont to indulge in in days gone by, among their little cabins in the quarter. A deep melancholy had taken possession of the features of all. Gloom was in every glance. Even the children, usually reckless of the unknown future, seemed impressed with the same sentiment. They rolled not about, tumbling over each other. They played not at all. They sat without stirring, and silent. Even they, poor infant helots, knew enough to fear for their dark future, – to shudder at the prospect of the slave-market.
All were downcast. No wonder. They had been used to kind treatment. They might pass to a hard taskmaster. Not one of them knew where in another day should be his home – what sort of tyrant should be his lord. But that was not all. Still worse. Friends, they were going to be parted; relatives, they would be torn asunder – perhaps never to meet more. Husband looked upon wife, brother upon sister, father upon child, mother upon infant, with dread in the heart and agony in the eye.
It was painful to gaze upon this sorrowing group, to contemplate the suffering, the mental anguish that spoke plainly in every face; to think of the wrongs which one man can legally put upon another – the deep sinful wrongs, the outrage of every human principle. Oh, it was terribly painful to look on that picture!
It was some relief to me to know that my presence threw at least a momentary light over its shade. Smiles chased away the sombre shadows as I appeared, and joyous exclamations hailed me. Had I been their saviour, I could not have met a more eager welcome.
Amidst their fervid ejaculations I could distinguish earnest appeals that I would buy them – that I would become their master – mingled with zealous protestations of service and devotion. Alas! they knew not how heavily at that moment the price of one of their number lay upon my heart.
I strove to be gay, to cheer them with words of consolation. I rather needed to be myself consoled.
During this while my eyes were busy. I scanned the faces of all. There was light enough glimmering from two oil-lamps to enable me to do so. Several were young mulattoes. Upon these my glance rested, one after the other. How my heart throbbed in this examination! It triumphed at length. Surely there was no face there that
she
could love? Were they all present? Yes, all – so Scipio said; all but Aurore.
“And Aurore?” I asked; “have you heard any more of her?”
“No, mass’; ’blieve ’Rore gone to de city. She go by de road in a carriage – not by de boat, some ob de folks say daat, I b’lieve.”
This was strange enough. Taking the black aside —
“Tell me, Scipio,” I asked, “has Aurore any relative among you? – any brother, or sister, or cousin?”
“No, mass’, ne’er a one. Golly, mass’! ’Rore she near white as missa ’Génie all de rest be black, or leas’wise yeller! ’Rore she quaderoom, yeller folks all mulatto – no kin to ’Rore – no.”
I was perplexed and puzzled. My former doubts came crowding back upon me. My jealousy returned.
Scipio could not clear up the mystery. His answer to other questions which I put to him gave me no solution to it; and I returned up-stairs with a heart that suffered under the pressure of disappointment.
The only reflection from which I drew comfort was, that I might have been mistaken. Perhaps, after all, it was
not
Aurore!
Chapter Forty Six
A Scientific Julep
To drown care and sorrow men drink. The spirit of wine freely quaffed will master either bodily pain or mental suffering – for a time. There is no form of the one or phase of the other so difficult to subdue as the pang of jealousy. Wine must be deeply quaffed before that corroding poison can be washed free from the heart.
But there is a partial relief in the wine-cup, and I sought it. I knew it to be only temporary, and that the sorrow would soon return. But even so – even a short respite was to be desired. I could bear my thoughts no longer.
I am not brave in bearing pain. I have more than once intoxicated myself to deaden the pitiful pain of a toothache. By the same means I resolved to relieve the dire aching of my heart.
The spirit of wine was nigh at hand, and might be imbibed in many forms.
In one corner of the “smoking-saloon” was the “bar,” with its elegant adornments – its rows of decanters and bottles, with silver stoppers and labels its glasses, and lemons, and sugar-crushers – its bouquet of aromatic mint and fragrant pines – its bunches of straw tubes for “sucking” the “mint-julep,” the “sherry-cobbler,” or the “claret sangaree.”
In the midst of this
entourage
stood the “bar-keeper,” and in this individual do not picture to yourself some seedy personage of the waiter class, with bloodless cheeks and clammy skin, such as those monstrosities of an English hotel who give you a very
degoût
for your dinner. On the contrary, behold an
elegant
of latest fashion – that is, the fashion of his country and class, the men of the river. He wears neither coat nor vest while in the exercise of his office, but his shirt will merit an observation. It is of the finest fabric of the Irish loom – too fine to be worn by those who have woven it – and no Bond Street furnishing-house could equal its “make up.”
Gold buttons glance at the sleeves, and diamonds sparkle amid the profuse ruffles on the bosom. The collar is turned down over a black silk riband, knotted
à la Byron
; but a tropic sun has more to do with this fashion than any desire to imitate the sailor-poet. Over this shirt stretch silk braces elaborately needle-worked, and still further adorned by buckles of pure gold. A hat of the costly grass from the shores of the South Sea crowns his well-oiled locks, and thus you have the “bar-keeper of the boat.” His nether man need not be described. That is the unseen portion of his person, which is below the level of the bar. No cringing, smirking, obsequious counter-jumper he, but a dashing sprig, who, perhaps,
owns
his bar and all its contents, and who holds his head as high as either the clerk or captain.
As I approached this gentleman, he placed a glass upon the counter, and threw into it some broken fragments of ice. All this was done without a word having passed between us.
I had no need to give an order. He saw in my eye the determination to drink.
“Cobbler?”
“No,” said I; “a mint-julep.”
“Very well, I’ll mix you a julep that’ll set your teeth for you.”
“Thank you. Just what I want.”
The gentleman now placed side by side two glasses – tumblers of large size. Into one he put, first, a spoonful of crushed white sugar – then a slice of lemon – ditto of orange – next a few sprigs of green mint – after that a handful of broken ice, a gill of water, and, lastly, a large glass measure of cognac. This done, he lifted the glasses one in each hand, and poured the contents from one to the other so rapidly that ice, brandy, lemons, and all, seemed to be constantly suspended in the air, and oscillating between the glasses. The tumblers themselves at no time approached nearer than two feet from each other! This adroitness, peculiar to his craft, and only obtained after long practice, was evidently a source of professional pride. After some half-score of these revolutions the drink was permitted to rest in one glass, and was then set down upon the counter.
There yet remained to be given the “finishing touch.” A thin slice of pine-apple was cut freshly from the fruit. This held between the finger and thumb was doubled over the edge of the glass, and then passed with an adroit sweep round the circumference.
“That’s the latest Orleans touch,” remarked the bar-keeper with a smile, as he completed the manoeuvre.
There was a double purpose in this little operation. The pine-apple not only cleared the glass of the grains of sugar and broken leaves of mint, but left its fragrant juice to mingle its aroma with the beverage.
“The latest Orleans touch,” he repeated; “scientific style.”
I nodded my assent.
The julep was now “mixed” – which fact was made known to me by the glass being pushed a little nearer, across the marble surface of the counter.
“Have a straw?” was the laconic inquiry.
“Yes; thank you.”
A joint of wheaten straw was plunged into the glass, and taking this between my lips I drew in large draughts of perhaps the most delicious of all intoxicating drinks – the mint-julep.
The aromatic liquid had scarce passed my lips when I began to feel its effects. My pulse ceased its wild throbbing. My blood became cool, and flowed in a more gentle current through my veins, and my heart seemed to be bathing in the waters of Lethe. The relief was almost instantaneous, and I only wondered I had not thought of it before. Though still far from happy, I felt that I held in my hands what would soon make me so. Transitory that happiness might be, yet the reaction was welcome at the moment, and the prospect of it pleasant to my soul. I eagerly swallowed the inspiring beverage – swallowed it in large draughts, till the straw tube, rattling among the fragments of ice at the bottom of the glass, admonished me that the fluid was all gone.
“Another, if you please!”
“You liked it, I guess?”
“Most excellent!”
“Said so. I reckon, stranger, we can get up a mint-julep on board this here boat equal to either Saint Charles or Verandah, if not a leetle superior to either.”
“A superb drink!”
“We can mix a sherry-cobbler too, that ain’t hard to take.”
“I have no doubt of it, but I’m not fond of sherry. I prefer this.”
“You’re right. So do I. The pine-apple’s a new idea, but an improvement, I think.”
“I think so too.”
“Have a fresh straw?”
“Thank you.”
This young fellow was unusually civil. I fancied that his civility proceeded from my having eulogised his mint-juleps. It was not that, as I afterwards ascertained. These Western people are little accessible to cheap flattery. I owed his good opinion of me to a far different cause —
the discomfiture I had put on the meddling passenger
! I believe he had also learnt, that it was I who had chastised the Bully Larkin! Such “feats of arms” soon become known in the region of the Mississippi Valley, where strength and courage are qualities of high esteem. Hence, in the bar-keeper’s view, I was one who deserved a civil word; and thus talking together on the best of terms, I swallowed my second julep, and called upon him for a third, Aurore was for the moment forgotten, or when remembered, it was with less of bitterness. Now and then that parting scene came uppermost in my thoughts; but the pang that rose with it was each moment growing feebler, and easier to be endured.
Chapter Forty Seven
A Game of Whist
In the centre of the smoking-saloon, there was a table, and around it some half-dozen men were seated. Other half-dozen stood behind these, looking over their shoulders. The attitudes of all, and their eager glances, suggested the nature of their occupation. The flouting of pasteboard, the chink of dollars, and the oft-recurring words of “ace,” “jack,” and “trump,” put it beyond a doubt that that occupation was gaming. “Euchre” was the game.
Curious to observe this popular American game, I stepped up and stood watching the players. My friend who had raised the false alarm was one of them; but his back was towards me, and I remained for some time unseen by him.
Some two or three of those who played were elegantly-dressed men. Their coats were of the finest cloth, their ruffles of the costliest cambric, and jewels sparkled in their shirt bosoms and glittered upon their fingers. These fingers, however, told a tale. They told plainly as words, that they to whom they belonged had not always been accustomed to such elegant adornment. Toilet soap had failed to soften the corrugated skin, and obliterate the abrasions – the souvenirs of toil.
This was nothing. They might be gentlemen for all that. Birth is of slight consequence in the Far West. The plough-boy may become the President.
Still there was an air about these men – an air I cannot describe, but which led me at the moment to doubt their
gentility
. It was not from any swagger or assumption on their part. On the contrary, they appeared the
most gentlemanly
individuals around the table!
They were certainly the most sedate and quiet. Perhaps it was this very sedateness – this polished reserve – that formed the spring of my suspicion. True gentlemen, bloods from Tennessee or Kentucky, young planters of the Mississippi coast, or French Creoles of Orleans, would have offered different characteristics. The cool complacency with which these individuals spoke and acted – no symptoms of perturbation as the trump was turned, no signs of ruffled temper when luck went against them – told two things; first, that they were men of the world, and, secondly, that they were not now playing their maiden game of “Euchre.” Beyond that I could form no judgment about them. They might be doctors, lawyers, or “gentlemen of elegant leisure” – a class by no means uncommon in the work-a-day world of America.
At that time I was still too new to Far West society, to be able to distinguish its features. Besides, in the United States, and particularly in the western portion of the country, those peculiarities of dress and habit, which in the Old-World form, as it were, the landmarks of the professions, do not exist. You may meet the preacher wearing a blue coat and bright buttons; the judge with a green one; the doctor in a white linen jacket; and the baker in glossy black broadcloth from top to toe!
Where every man assumes the right to be a gentleman, the costumes and badges of trade are studiously avoided. Even the tailor is undistinguishable in the mass of his “fellow-citizens.” The land of character-dresses lies farther to the south-west – Mexico is that land.
I stood for some time watching the gamesters and the game. Had I not known something of the banking peculiarities of the West, I should have believed that they were gambling for enormous sums. At each man’s right elbow lay a huge pile of bank-notes, flanked by a few pieces of silver – dollars, halves, and quarters. Accustomed as my eyes had been to bank-notes of five pounds in value, the table would have presented to me a rich appearance, had I not known that these showy parallelograms of copper-plate and banking-paper, were mere “shin-plasters,” representing amounts that varied from the value of one dollar to that of six and a quarter cents! Notwithstanding, the bets were far from being low. Twenty, fifty, and even a hundred dollars, frequently changed hands in a single game.
I perceived that the hero of the false alarm was one of the players. His back was towards me where I stood, and he was too much engrossed with his game to look around.
In dress and general appearance he differed altogether from the rest. He wore a white beaver hat with broad brim, and a coat of great “jeans,” wide-sleeved and loose-bodied. He had the look of a well-to-do corn-farmer from Indiana or a pork-merchant from Cincinnati. Yet there was something in his manner that told you river-travelling was not new to him. It was not his first trip “down South.” Most probably the second supposition was the correct one – he was a dealer in hog-meat.
One of the fine gentlemen I have described sat opposite to where I was standing. He appeared to be losing considerable sums, which the farmer or pork-merchant was winning. It proved that the luck of the cards was not in favour of the smartest-looking players – an inducement to other plain people to try a hand.
I began to feel sympathy for the elegant gentleman, his losses were so severe. I could not help admiring the composure with which he bore them.
At length he looked up, and scanned the faces of those who stood around. He seemed desirous of giving up the play. His eye met mine. He said, in a careless way —
“Perhaps, stranger,
you
wish to take a hand? You may have my place if you do. I have no luck. I could not win under any circumstances to-night. I shall give up playing.”
This appeal caused the rest of the players to turn their faces towards me, and among others the pork-dealer. I expected an ebullition of anger from this individual. I was disappointed. On the contrary, he hailed me in a friendly tone.
“Hilloa, mister!” cried he, “I hope you an’t miffed at me?”
“Not in the least,” I replied.
“Fact, I meant no offence. Did think thar war a some ’un overboard. Dog-gone me, if I didn’t!”
“Oh! I have taken no offence,” rejoined I; “to prove it, I ask you now to drink with me.”
The juleps and the late reaction from bitter thought had rendered me of a jovial disposition. The free apology at once won my forgiveness.
“Good as wheat!” assented the pork-dealer. “I’m your man; but, stranger, you must allow me to pay. You see, I’ve won a trifle here.
My
right to pay for the drinks.”
“Oh! I have no objection.”
“Well, then, let’s all licker!
I
stand drinks all round. What say you, fellars?” A murmur of assent answered the interrogatory.
“Good!” continued the speaker. “Hyar, bar-keeper! drinks for the crowd!”
And so saying, he of the white-hat and jeans coat stepped forward to the bar, and placed a couple of dollars upon the counter. All who were near followed him, shouting each out the name of the beverage most to his liking in the various calls of “gin-sling,” “cocktail,” “cobbler,” “julep,” “brandy-smash,” and such-like interesting mixtures.
In America men do not sit and sip their liquor, but drink standing.
Running
, one might say – for, be it hot or cold, mixed or “neat,” it is gone in a gulp, and then the drinkers retire to their chairs to smoke, chew, and wait for the fresh invitation, “Let’s all licker!”
In a few seconds we had all liquored, and the players once more took their seats around the table.
The gentleman who had proposed to me to become his successor did not return to his place. He had no luck, he again said, and would not play any more that night.
Who would accept his place and his partner? I was appealed to.
I thanked my new acquaintances, but the thing was impossible, as I had never played Euchre, and therefore knew nothing about the game, beyond the few points I had picked up while watching them.
“That ar awkward,” said the pork-dealer. “Ain’t we nohow able to get up a set? Come, Mr Chorley – I believe that’s your name, sir?” (This was addressed to the gentleman who had risen.) “You ain’t a-goin’ to desart us that away? We can’t make up a game if you do?”
“I should only lose if I played longer,” reiterated Chorley. “No,” continued he, “I won’t risk it.”
“Perhaps this gentleman plays ‘whist,’” suggested another, alluding to me. “You’re an Englishman, sir, I believe. I never knew one of your countrymen who was not a good whist-player.”
“True, I can play whist,” I replied carelessly.
“Well, then, what say you all to a game of whist?” inquired the last speaker, glancing around the table.
“Don’t know much about the game,” bluntly answered the pork-dealer. “Mout play it on a pinch rayther than spoil sport; but whoever hez me for a partner ’ll have to keep a sharp look-out for himself, I reckon.”
“I guess you know the game as well as I do,” replied the one who had proposed it.
“I hain’t played a rubber o’ whist for many a year, but if we can’t make up the set at Euchre, let’s try one.”
“Oh! if you’re goin’ to play whist,” interposed th