ENTER—AS AN EPISODE—MRS. COLUMBIANA PORTERFIELD.
There are characters of such marked and peculiar individuality that they loom upon one’s consciousness like Stonehenge, or any other magnificent ruin, as Charles Lamb says of Mrs. Conrady’s ugliness; and their discovery “is an era in one’s existence.” In this way one of my intimate associates, Mrs. Columbiana Porterfield, stands preeminent in my early and later recollections; but I was sorry to see into her. Every time we were together it impressed me more vividly than before, that self was the great center about which everything revolved for her. All her sympathies were related to that idol. No small human creature interested her large mind, except as connected with herself. She was devoted to her church, especially to its ministers, but it was a sanctuary where she worshiped self in the guise of godliness, and her own honor and glory was what she worked for in the name of the Master. At one time the sense of her colossal selfishness so ate into my spirit of charity that I tried to work it off by writing out, to one of my intimates, the following letters which embrace actual incidents and individual experiences through which are revealed Columbiana’s inordinate ambitions and desires for distinction—“her mark, her token; that by which she was known.” Perhaps she may stand like a lighthouse to warn off other women from the same shoals.
Number 1.
Miss Columbiana Porterfield was fat, fair, and almost forty years old when she became a winter visitor at Colonel Johnson’s plantation home in the far South. She was so much respected and admired by the Colonel that when his wife died he urgently invited her to fill the void in his heart and home.
The position seemed advantageous, and the lady accepted the situation, entering confidently upon the duties involved, resolving to adapt herself to her surroundings when she could not bend circumstances to her own strong will. She was a sensible woman, and her good husband loved her with a doting, foolish fondness which he had never exhibited to the departed wife of his youth.
The family servants did not hesitate in giving her the allegiance due to power and place, and they were careful to pay all deference to the new mistress; therefore Mrs. Johnson was surprised to overhear the housewoman saying to the cook: “I tell yer dat ar white ’oman from de Norf ain’t got dem keen eyes in dat big head o’ hern for nuthin’; I’m afeered of her, I is dat.” The lady was wisely deaf to these remarks, but they rankled in her mind several days.
One of the neighbors thought Mrs. Johnson was not a good housekeeper, because she had apple fritters for dinner, when there was ample time to make floating-island and even Charlotte Russe before that meal was served. Yet with all this talk it was easy to see that the newly-adopted head of the household had completely identified herself with her family.
There are Americans who go to Europe, and after a short stay no longer regard the United States as a fit dwelling-place for civilized beings; who indulge themselves in the abuse of scenery, climate, customs and government of their own native land as freely as any hostile-minded foreigner. Therefore it is not strange that Northerners who come to live in the South should become attached to their surroundings, and even prefer them to all others which they ever knew.
Mrs. Johnson loved her stepchildren, Harry and Lucy. She taught them to call her “aunt,” but their own mother could not have been more devoted to the children of the father who had lain down and died amidst the great conflict which was a horror to the whole country. Mrs. Johnson was greatly agitated by the war and its results, and as soon as possible after this cruel strife was over, she took Lucy with her on a visit to her Northern home, leaving Harry behind. Among the first letters sent back was the following, dated October 15th, 1867:
My dearest Harry,—My sister was rejoiced to see me alive once more; but I feel like a stranger, for when I look at your sister I cannot realize that she is here where she does not belong. It is a visible contrast of two extremes, my family representing one, and Lucy, the other. The North and South will breakfast together to-morrow morning on buckwheat cakes and codfish balls. Everybody loves your little rebel sister. Even the girl in the kitchen dotes on her, and looks lovingly on the dear girl while she is demolishing the dainty dishes she has compounded for her delectation. I don’t mean fish-balls, for she hates them.