The truth flashed upon me; but could it be possible? Was I in South Carolina or in Utah?
"Who is Madam P——?" I asked.
The old woman hesitated a moment as if in doubt whether she had not said too much; but Scip quietly replied:
"She'm jess what aunty am—de Cunnel's slave!"
"His slave! it can't be possible; she is white!"
"No, massa; she am brack, and de Cunnel's slave!"
Not to weary the reader with a long repetition of negro-English, I will tell in brief what I gleaned from an hour's conversation with the two blacks.
Madam P—— was the daughter of Ex-Gov. ——, of Virginia, by a quarteron woman. She was born a slave, but was acknowledged as her father's child, and reared in his family with his legitimate children. When she was ten years old her father died, and his estate proving insolvent, the land and negroes were brought under the hammer. His daughter, never having been manumitted, was inventoried and sold with the other property. The Colonel, then just of age, and a young man of fortune, bought her and took her to the residence of his mother in Charleston. A governess was provided for her, and a year or two afterward she was taken to the North to be educated. There she was frequently visited by the Colonel; and when fifteen her condition became such that she was obliged to return home. He conveyed her to the plantation, where her elder son, David, was soon after born, "Aunt Lucy" officiating on the occasion. When the child was two years old, leaving it in charge of the aged negress, she accompanied the Colonel to Europe, where they remained for a year. Subsequently she passed another year at a Northern seminary; and then, returning to the homestead, was duly installed as its mistress, and had ever since presided over its domestic affairs. She was kind and good to the negroes, who were greatly attached to her, and much of the Colonel's wealth was due to her excellent management of the plantation.
Six years after the birth of "young Massa Davy," the Colonel married his present wife, that lady having full knowledge of his left-handed connection with Madam P——, and consenting that the "bond-woman" should remain on the plantation, as its mistress. The legitimate wife resided, during most of the year, in Charleston, and when at the homestead took little interest in domestic matters. On one of her visits to the plantation, twelve years before, her daughter, Miss Clara, was born, and within a week, under the same roof, Madam P—— presented the Colonel with a son—the lad Thomas, of whom I have spoken. As the mother was slave, the children were so also at birth, but they had been manumitted by their father. One of them was being educated in Germany; and it was intended that both should spend their lives in that country, the taint in their blood being an insuperable bar to their ever acquiring social position at the South.
As she finished the story, the old woman said, "Massa Davy am bery kind to the missus, sar, but he love de ma'am; an' he can't help it, 'cause she'm jess so good as de angels."[E]