CHAPTER XXXI.
ONE OF THE INSTITUTIONS.
“Small service is true service while it lasts;
Of friends, however humble, scorn not one.”—Wordsworth.
On being bought at the auction-block by Ratcliff, and introduced into his household, Josephine Volney, the quadroon, had devoted herself to the health of his wife from purely selfish motives. But in natures not radically perverse, beneficence cannot long be divorced from benevolence. Josephine believed her interests lay in preventing as long as possible a second marriage: hence, at first, her sedulous care of the invalid wife.
Those who know anything of society in the Slave States are well aware that concubinage (one of the institutions of the institution) is there, in many conspicuous instances, as patiently acquiesced in by wives as polygamy is in Utah. Mrs. Ratcliff had, at first, almost adored her husband. Very unattractive, personally, she had yet an affectionate nature, and one of her most marked traits was gratitude for kindness. Soon Ratcliff dropped the mask by which he had won her; and she, instead of lamenting over her mistake, accepted as a necessary evil the fact of his relations to the handsome slave. The latter attempted no deception, but conducted herself as discreetly as any woman, so educated, could have done, under such compulsory circumstances.
Mrs. Ratcliff was soon touched by Josephine’s obvious solicitude to minister to her happiness and health. The slave-girl’s childlike frankness begot frankness on the part of the wife. Seeing that their interests were identical, each was gradually drawn to the other, till a sincere and tender attachment was the result. The wife was made aware of her husband’s calculations in regard to a second marriage; and Josephine found in that wife a faithful and crafty ally, too deep, with all her shallowness, to be fathomed by the husband.
No sooner had Ratcliff quitted the house, on the morning of the breakfast described, than Josephine hurried to the invalid’s room. A poor diminutive Creole lady, with wrinkled skin, darker even than the quadroon’s, and with one shoulder higher than the other, she sat, with a white crape-shawl wrapped round her, in a large arm-chair. Her face, as Josephine entered, lighted up with a smile of welcome that for a moment seemed to transfigure even those withered and pain-stricken features. In half an hour Josephine had put her in possession of all the developments of the last two days, and of her own plans for controlling the movements of Ratcliff in regard to the young white woman supposed to be his slave.
With absorbed interest the invalid listened to the details, and approved warmly of what Josephine had planned. Her feminine curiosity was pleased with the idea of having, in her own house and under her own eye, this young person whom Ratcliff had presumed to think of as a second wife; while the thought of baffling him in his selfish schemes sent a shock of pleasure to her heart. Furthermore, the excitement seemed to brace up her frame anew, and to ruffle into breezy action the torpid tide of her monotonous existence.
Esha was announced and introduced. A new and refreshing incident for the invalid! And now, if Esha had needed any further confirmation of the quadroon’s story, it was amply afforded. Josephine’s project for the present security of Ratcliff’s white slave was discussed and approved.
The carriage was waiting at the door. “Go now,” said Mrs. Ratcliff, “and be sure you bring the girl right up to see me.”