After these bearers of ill-tidings had gone, Mr. Charlton turned to me. But I will not pain you by a recital of what he said. He rudely dispelled the illusions under which I had been laboring in regard to him. I could only weep. I could not utter a word of retaliation. Whilst he was in the midst of his reproaches, a servant brought me a letter. Mr. Charlton snatched it from my hand, opened, and read it. Either it had a pacifying effect upon him, or he had exhausted his stock of objurgations. He threw the letter on the table and quitted the room.
It was your letter of condolence and dutiful regard, promising me an allowance from your own purse of a hundred dollars a month. What coals of fire it heaped on my head! To please Mr. Charlton I had quarrelled with you,—forbidden you to visit or write me,—and here was your return! The communication coming close upon the dropping of my husband’s disguise almost unseated my reason. What a night of tears that was! I recalled your warnings, and now saw their truth,—saw how truly disinterested you were in them all. How generous, how noble you appeared to me! How in contrast, alas! with him I had taken for better or worse!
I lay awake all night. Of course I could not think of accepting your offer. In the first place, my past treatment of you forbade it. And then I knew that your own means were narrow, and that you had just entered into an engagement of marriage with a poor girl. But when, the next day, I communicated my resolve to my husband, he calmly replied: “Nonsense! Write Mr. Berwick, thanking him for his offer, and telling him that, small as the sum is, considering your wants, you accept it.” What a poor thing you must have thought me, when you got my cold letter of acceptance. Do me the justice to believe me when I affirm that every word of it was dictated by my husband. How I have longed to see you in person, to tell you all that I have endured and felt! But this circumstances have prevented. And now I am possessed with the idea that I never shall see you in this life again. And that is why I make these confessions. Your marriage, your absence in Europe, your recent return, and your hurried departure for the West, have kept me uncertain as to where a message would reach you. Yesterday I got a few affectionate lines from you, telling me a letter, if mailed at once, would reach you in Cincinnati, or, if a week later, in New Orleans. And so I am devoting the forenoon to this review of my past, so painful and sad.
Let me think of your happier lot, and rejoice in it. So your affairs have prospered beyond all hope! Through your wife you are unexpectedly rich in worldly means. Better still, you are rich in affection. Your little Clara is “the brightest, the loveliest, the sunniest little thing in the wide world.” So you write me; and I can well believe it from the photograph and the lock of hair you send me. Bless her! What would I give to hug her to my bosom. And you too, Henry, you too I could kiss with a kiss that should be purely maternal,—a benediction,—a kiss your wife would approve, for, after all, you are the only child I have had. Mr. Charlton has always said he would have no children till he was a rich man. He and the female physician he employs have nearly killed me with their terrible drugs. Yes, I am dying, Henry. Even the breath of this sweet spring morning whispers it in my ear. Bless you and yours forever! What a mistake my life has been! And yet, how I craved to love and be loved! You will think kindly of me always, and teach your wife and child to have pleasant associations with my name.
All the rich presents your father made me have been sold by Mr. Charlton; but I have one, that he has not seen,—a costly and beautiful gold casket for jewels, which I reserve as a present for your little Clara. I shall to-morrow pack it up carefully, and take it to a friend, who I know will keep and deliver it safely. That friend, strange as it may sound to you, is the venerable old black hair-dresser, Toussaint, who lives in Franklin Street. Your father used to say he had never met a man he would trust before Toussaint; and I can say as much. Toussaint used to dress my mother’s hair; he is now my adviser and friend.
Born a slave in the town of St. Mark in St. Domingo in 1766, Pierre Toussaint was twelve years the junior of that fellow-slave, the celebrated Toussaint l’Ouverture, born on the same river, who converted a mob of undrilled, uneducated Africans into an army with which he successively overthrew the forces of France, England, and Spain. At the beginning of the troubles in the island, in 1801, Pierre was taken by his master, the wealthy Mons. Berard, to New York. Berard, having lost his immense property in St. Domingo, soon died, and Pierre, having learnt the business of a hair-dresser, supported Madame Berard by his labors some eight years till her death, though she had no legal claim upon his service. Bred up, as he was, indulgently, Pierre’s is one of those exceptional cases in which slavery has not destroyed the moral sense.
I know of few more truly venerable characters. A pious Catholic, he is one of the stanchest of friends. One of his rules through life has been, never to incur a debt,—to pay on the spot for everything he buys. And yet he is continually giving away large sums in charity. One day I said, “Toussaint, you are rich enough; you have more than you want; why not stop working now?” He answered, “Madame, I have enough for myself, but if I stop work, I have not enough for others!” By the great fire of 1835, Toussaint lost by his investments in insurance companies. The Schuylers and the Livingstons passed around a subscription-paper to repair his losses; but he stopped it, saying he would not take a cent from them, since there were so many who needed help more than he.
An old French gentleman, a white man, once rich, whom Toussaint had known, was reduced to poverty and fell sick. For several months Toussaint and his wife, Juliette, sent him a nicely cooked dinner; but Toussaint would not let him know from whom it came, “because,” said the negro, “it might hurt his pride to know it came from a black man.” Juliette once called on this invalid to learn if her husband could be of any help. “O no,” said the old Monsieur, “I am well known; I have good friends; every day they send me a dinner, served up in French style. To-day I had a charming vol-au-vent, an omelette, and green peas, not to speak of salmon. I am a person of some importance, you see, even in this strange land.” And Juliette would go home, and she and Toussaint would have a good laugh over the old man’s vauntings.[[1]]
But what has possessed me to enter into all these details! I know not, unless it is the desire to escape from less agreeable thoughts.
I have a request to make, Henry. You will think me fanciful, foolish, perhaps fanatical; and yet I am impelled, by an unaccountable impression, to ask you to give up the tickets you tell me you have engaged in the Pontiac, and to take passage for New Orleans in some other boat. If you ask me why, the only explanation I can give is, that the thought besets me, but the reason of it I do not know. Do you remember I once capriciously refused to let your father go in the cars to Springfield, although his baggage was on board? Those cars went through the draw-bridge, and many lives were lost. Write me that you will heed my request.