“You are the only one I’ve heard call her that––the rest call her Margeret.”
“Humph––yes, sah; that Mahstah Matt’s doens, I reckon! not but what Marg’ret alles was her real sure-’nough name, but way back, when Mahstah Tom was a liven’, no one evah heard tell o’ her been’ called any name but Retta; an’ seem like it suit her them days, but don’t quite suit her now so well.”
Delaven made no reply, and after another thoughtful pause, the old man continued:
“No, sah; I’ve been thinken’ it ovah middlen’ careful, an’ I can’t see––considerin’ as yo’s a doctah, an’ a ’special friend o’ the family––why I ain’t free to tell you Retta’s story clean 161 through; an’ seen’ as yo’ have to put a lot o’ ’pendance on her ’bout carryen’ out you ordahs fo’ Mahstah Matt, seems to me like a bounden’ duty fo’ some one to tell yo’, fo’ theah was five yeahs––yes––six of ’em, when Retta wasn’t a ’nigh this plantation at all. She was stark, raven, crazy––dangerous crazy––an’ had to be took away to some ’sylum place; we all nevah knew where; but when she did come back she was jest what you see––jest the ghost of a woman, sensible ’nough, seem like, but I mind the time when she try to kill herself an’ her chile, an’ how we to know that fit nevah find her again?”
“She––killed her child?”
“Oh, no, sah; we all took the baby; she wan’t but five yeah ole, from her, an’ got the knife out o’ her hands; no, no one got hurt. But I reckon I better go ’way back an’ tell yo’ the reason.”
“Very well; I was wondering if she was really a colored person,” remarked Delaven.
“Retta’s an octoroon, mahstah,” said the old man, with a certain solemnity of tone. “I done heard old Mahstah Jean Larue swear that if folks are reckoned as horses are, Retta’d be counted a thoroughbred, ’cause far back as they can count theah wan’t no scrub stock in her pedigree.
“Long ’bout hundred yeahs ago folks come in colony fashion from some islands ’way on other side the sea. They got plantations in Florida, an’ Mahs Duke he knew some o’ them well. I only rec’lect hearen’ one o’ the names they was called––an’ mighty hard some o’ them was to say!––but the one I mind was Andros, or Ambrose Lacaris, an’ he was a Greek gentleman; an’––so it was said––Retta was his chile; his nat’ral daughter, as Mahs Larue call it, an’ she was raised in his home jest like as ef she gwine to be mistress some day.”