East Angels: A Novel

by Constance Fenimore Woolson

"Farther; out on the barren."

"I know where,—to take the medicine to that sick child. Why don't you send somebody?"

"I like to go."

"No, you don't," said Garda, laughing. "You're as good as gold, Margaret, but you don't really like to go, you don't really like the negroes, personally, one bit. You would do anything in the world for them, give them all your money and all your time, teach school for them, make clothes for them, and I don't know what all; but you would never understand them though you should live among them all the rest of your life, and never see a white face again. Now I wouldn't take one grain of the trouble for them that you would, because I don't think it's in the least necessary. But, personally, I like them, I like to have them about, talk to them and hear them talk; I am really attached to all the old servants about here. And I venture to say, too, that they would all prefer me forever, though I didn't lift a finger for them, prefer me to you, no matter what sacrifices you might make to help them, because they would see and feel that I really liked them, whereas you didn't. But I really think you like to be busy just for the sake of it; when there's nothing else you can do, you go tramping all over the country until I should think your feet would spread out like a duck's. I should like to know when you have given yourself an hour or two of absolute rest—such as I am taking now?"

"I can't sleep in the daytime," was Margaret's answer to this general southern remonstrance; "and a duck's feet are very useful to the duck."

"Oh, of course I know your feet are lovely. But I shouldn't think they could stay so, long."

"There seems to be no end at least to your powers of 'staying so,' especially when you get into a hammock," remarked Margaret. But she spoke with a smile on her lips, she was well satisfied to see the girl swinging there contentedly, her eyes already misty with sleep.

"Good-by," she said, closing the door. Then she put on her hat and gloves, and started on her mission. The sick child, for whom Dr. Kirby had prepared the medicine, lived in a cabin two miles and a half from East Angels, on the barren. In addition to the taste for unnecessary philanthropy which Garda had attributed to her, as well as that for unnecessary exercise, Margaret appeared to have a taste for solitude: she generally took her long walks alone. That is, she took them whenever she had the opportunity. This was not so often as it might have been, because of Aunt Katrina's little wishes, which had a habit of ramifying through all the hours of the day. It was not that Aunt Katrina expected you to occupy yourself in her behalf the whole afternoon, she would have exclaimed at the idea that she made such exactions as that; she only wished you to do some one little thing for her at two; and then something else "a little before three;" and then again possibly she might "feel like" this or that later, say, "any time" (liberally) "between half-past four and five." In this way she was sure that you had almost the whole time to yourself.

In addition Margaret was house-keeper, and with the heterogeneous assemblage of servants at East Angels, the position required an almost hourly exercise of diplomacy. Celestine, so excellent in her own sphere, could not be relied upon in this, because, pressed by her desire to "educate the black man," she was constantly introducing primers "in words of one syllable" into the sweeping, dusting, and bed-making; she had even been known to suspend one open on the crane in the kitchen fireplace for the benefit of Aunt Dinah-Jim during the process (for which she was celebrated) of roasting wild-turkey. But "the black man," including Aunt Dinah, would have been much more impressed by primers in words of six.

For the rest of this afternoon, however, Margaret was free; she had several hours of daylight still before her. She walked on across the barren, and had gone about half the distance, when she was overtaken by Joe, the elder brother, the sixth elder brother, of the little Jewlyann for whom the medicine was intended. Joe, a black lad in a military cap, and a pair of his father's trousers which were so well strapped up over his shoulders by fragmentary braces that they covered his breast and back, and served as jacket as well, took the vial from the lady who was so kind to them; and then Margaret, promising to pay her visit another day, turned back. As she approached East Angels again, she made a long detour, and entered on the southern side at the edge of the Levels. Here, pausing, she looked at her watch; it was not yet half-past five, she turned and entered the south-eastern woods, which came up at this point to the East Angels border. Once within the shaded aisles, she walked on, following no path, but wandering at random. Any one seeing her then would have said that the expression of her face was singularly altered; instead of the composure that usually held sway there, it was the expression of a person much agitated mentally, and agitated by unhappiness. She walked on with irregular steps, her hands interlocked and hanging before her, palms downward, her eyes on the ground. After some time she paused, and seemed to make an effort to press back her troubles, not only a mental effort, but a physical one, after the manner of people whose sensibilities are keen; she placed her hands over her forehead and eyes, and held them there with a firm pressure for several minutes; then she let them drop, and looked about her.