Rhoda of the Underground

by Florence Finch Kelly

“Under the protection of this decision,” Delavan followed on, “we can take our slaves wherever we like, and, with the northern Democracy becoming more and more favorable to us, we shall soon win back the ground we have lost!”

“Nor will our growth be all in that direction!” said another, slowly and significantly.

“No, indeed!” was Delavan’s quick response. “Mexico and Central America will be ours for the taking as soon as we realize our strength. Gentlemen!” He sprang to his feet, his face glowing with enthusiasm, his glass held high. “Gentlemen, I give you a toast: To the Republic of the South, our own fair Land of Dixie, firm footed on the foundation of slavery, and spreading wide wings North, South, East and West; her day shall come soon and endure forever!”

With shouts of approval the others were on their feet at once, drinking the toast, cheering the sentiment, and waving hats, pipes, glasses, whatever their hands could seize. And no ghost of a misgiving visited Jefferson Delavan, in the midst of their exultant rejoicing, as to how that decision might affect his personal fate.

To Rhoda Ware, as she looked back upon them, the days following that of her adventure with the negro lad were like a beautiful dream. After her one moment of apprehension she did not believe that she had put into her letter the telltale sheet whereon she had poured out her heart. She was sure she had burned it. But that instant of anxious fear that her lover would read her confession had given to her traitor heart its opportunity. In the brief respite of secret rejoicing she had allowed it to take, it had leaped to the saddle and it would not give up again to her mind and conscience the right of command. So she submitted to the sway of her love and battled with it no more.

“He will know—he will feel it, even though I didn’t send what I wrote,” she whispered to herself. “And if he doesn’t come soon, I will write to him—and tell him—yes, I’ll tell him to come!”

She spent much time alone in her room, seated at a southern window that commanded a view of the street leading up from the steamboat landing, the little bundle of letters and the faded rose held caressingly in her hands. It happened that no fugitives came to their door during this time, or she might have suffered sudden awakening from her dream.

As it was, she thought of nothing but the coming of her lover and her surrender to his suit. Now and then her reverie strayed on into the future and she pictured their life together in Jeff’s beautiful home at Fairmount, with the slaves all freed and giving faithful service for wages. Staying so much apart and living in her own rose-colored dreams, the strenuous enthusiasms of the recent months, even her immediate surroundings, seemed to lose their reality. The same emotional force in her character which enabled her to enter with such zeal into the anti-slavery work and to be so absorbed by it that she could sacrifice her love upon its altar made it possible now,—indeed, made it inevitable,—when she had once given up to the opposing influence, that she should be swept by its forceful current to the other extreme.

A new expression came into her face. Her dreams drew a soft and tender veil across the usually intent and serious look of her eyes, and all her countenance glowed with her inner happiness. Her mother saw the change in expression and demeanor with inward delight. For when it came to the affections Mrs. Ware was able to interpret her daughter’s feelings and actions with more surety than in matters of the mind and conscience.

Charlotte, in whose heart rankled resentment against her father and sister for their anti-slavery views, their Underground work, and the reproach that had been administered to her, noted the new look on Rhoda’s face and said bitterly to herself: “Yes, I suppose she’s getting hold of a whole pack of niggers to steal and send on to Canada!” She told herself petulantly that she was no longer of any consequence in their home and began to feel an angry sense of injury at the bonds tacitly imposed upon her conduct by the ideas and actions of her father and sister. She longed for some happening that would take her away and put her into surroundings where she could feel her accustomed sense of freedom and personal importance.