Pluto had grace enough to be a trifle uneasy at the intense despondency caused by his fiction in what he considered a good cause. The garrulity of old Nelse was verging on childishness. Pluto was convinced that despite the old man’s wonderful memory of details in the past, he was entirely irresponsible as to his accounts of the present, and he did not intend that the McVeigh family or any of their visitors should be the subject of his unreliable gossip. Pride of family was by no means restricted to the whites. Revolutionary as Pluto’s sentiments were regarding slavery, his self esteem was enhanced by the fact that since he was a bondman it was, at any rate, to a first-class family––regular quality folks, whose honor he would defend under any circumstances, whether bond or free.
His clumsily veiled queries about the probable result of Uncle Nelse’s attack aroused the suspicions of Delaven that the party of hunters had found themselves hampered by the presence of their aged visitor, who was desirous of testing the ability of his new purchase, the hound dog, and that they had resorted to some ghost trick to get rid of him.
He could not surmise how the shade of Margeret had been made do duty for the occasion, her subdued, serious manner giving the denial to any practical joke escapades.
But the news Pluto brought of Mrs. McVeigh’s homecoming dwarfed all such episodes as a scared nigger who refused to go into details as to the scare, and in his own words was “boun’ an’ sot” to keep his mouth shut in future about anything in the past which he ever had known and seen, or anything in his brief earthly future which he might know or see. He even begged Delaven to forget immediately the numerous bits of history he, Nelse, had repeated of the Loring family, and Delaven comforted him by declaring that all he could remember that minute was the horse race and he would put that out of his mind at once if necessary.
Nelse was not sure it was necessary to forget that, because it didn’t in any way reflect discredit on the family, and he didn’t in reason see why his Mahs Duke should object to that story unless it was on account of the high-flier lady from Philadelphia what Mahs Duke won away from Mr. Jackson without any sort of trouble at all, and if Mahs Duke was hovering around in the library when Miss Evilena and Mahs Doctor listened to that story, Mahs Duke ought to know in his heart, if he had any sort of memory at all, that he, Nelse, had not told half what he might have told about that Northern filly and Mahs Duke. And taking it all in all Nelse didn’t see any reason why Delaven need 186 put that out of his remembrance––especially as it was mighty good running for two-year-olds.
Evilena had peeped in for a moment to say good-bye to their dusky Homer. But the call was very brief. All her thoughts were filled with the folks at the Terrace, and dawn in the morning had been decided on for the ten-mile row home, so anxious was she to greet her mother, and so lively was her interest in the wonderful foreigner whom Dr. Delaven had described as “Beauty’s self.”
That lady had in the meantime arrived at the Terrace, partaken of a substantial supper, and retired to her own apartments, leaving behind her an impression on the colored folks of the household that the foreign guest was no one less than some latter day queen of Sheba. Never before had their eyes beheld a mistress who owned white servants, and the maid servant herself, so fine she wore silk stockings and a delaine dress, had her meals in her own room and was so grand she wouldn’t even talk like folks, but only spoke in French, except when she wanted something special, at which time she would condescend to talk “United States” to the extent of a word or two. All this superiority in the maid––whom they were instructed to call “Miss”––reflected added glory on the mistress, who, at the supper table, had been heard say she preferred laying aside a title while in America, and to be known simply as Madame Caron; and laughingly confessed to Mrs. McVeigh that the American Republic was in a fair way to win her from the French Empire, all of which was told at once in the kitchen, where they were more convinced than ever that royalty had descended upon them. This fact did not tend to increase their usefulness in any capacity; they were so overcome by the grandeur and the importance of each duty assigned to them that the wheels of domestic machinery at the Terrace that evening 187 were fairly clogged by the eagerness and the trepidation of the workers. They figuratively––and sometimes literally––fell over each other to anticipate any call which might assure them entrance to the wonderful presence, and were almost frightened dumb when they got there.
Mrs. McVeigh apologized for them and amused her guest with the reason:
“They have actually never seen a white servant in their lives, and are eaten up with curiosity over the very superior maid of yours, her intelligence places her so high above their ideas of servitors.”