Fifteen Days: An Extract from Edward Colvil's Journal

by Mary Lowell Putnam

Constance Harvey had a spirit strong enough to have sustained a slighter frame than hers through all the fatigues necessary to the attainment of a great end. She died, not of her work, but of its frustration. She had all power with her father, except to overcome his inertness. To this, as years went on, other hindrances were added. Her brother married a fashionable woman and lived in Paris. His demands forbade the increase of the reserved fund, and soon began to encroach upon it. She urged her brother's return. He replied, that the delicacy of his wife's health made the climate of France necessary to her. His expenses increased, instead of lessening. Constance saw, coming nearer and nearer, a danger far more terrible to her than mere pecuniary embarrassment. She saw that her father must either exercise a courage that she had little hope of, or break his faith with Jasper,—with the faithful people who had worked for them, or rather, as she viewed it, with them, for the accomplishment of a common object. One half of the fund she regarded as a deposit,—as a sacred trust. Until her brother's claims had exhausted the portion always intended to be his, she combated her anxieties, and kept up hope and effort. Through her genius and energy the income of the estate was increased, the expenses diminished, and yet the comforts of the work-people not curtailed. Jasper seconded her bravely. But the hour of dishonor came at last,—came hopeless, irretrievable. She struggled on a little while for her poor father's sake, and Jasper exerted himself strenuously for hers, stimulating the people to renewed industry by his warm appeals. Before, he had roused them with the hope of freedom and independent wealth; now, he urged them to rescue from ruin the generous master who had meant them so much good. But the demands from Paris increased as the means of supplying them diminished. Debt came, and in its train all the varied anguish which debt involves, where human souls are a marketable commodity. Let Dr. Borrow give you the outside of this story, now that you have the key to it.

"Frank and I were not much together after we got to Paris. Our worlds were different. Frank was going from ball to ball and from watering-place to watering-place after Flora Westlake, until they were married, and then they followed the same round together. His father wrote to them to come home and live with him, so Frank told me, and I believe that was what he had expected to do; but Madame Harvey naturally preferred Paris to the World's End; so there they stayed,—Frank always meaning to go home the next year, for eight years. Their establishment, by the way, did Jasper great credit. Then he heard of his sister's death: they could not go home then; it would be too sad. But soon followed news of his father's illness: that started them. On the voyage to New York, he met with this Lenox, liked him, and engaged him for the place he has filled so satisfactorily. He judged wisely: Frank has an excellent head for organizing, but no faculty for administration. Once at home, he devoted himself to his plantation as his sister had done. I believe her example has had a great influence with him. But he has respected her practice more than her theories. He is content to take his people as they are, and to make them useful to themselves and to him. His father lived a few years, but did not meddle with anything. Frank has shown an ability and an energy that nobody expected of a man of leisure and of pleasure like him. Except a short visit to Europe, two summers ago, here he has been steady at his post for twelve years through. His life here is not an hilarious one, for a man of his tastes; but, if doing one's duty is a reason for being happy, Frank Harvey has a right to be so. You think he looks sad, Harry. He does,—and older than his age; but I am afraid there is a nearer cause than you have found for it."

The Doctor sat silent for a few moments with contracted brows; then, throwing off his vexation with an effort, began again,—

"Frederic is expected home in a week or two. Perhaps we shall fall in with him somewhere on our road. I should like to see you together and hear you have a talk about slavery. He is as great a fanatic on one side as you are on the other."

"He was very far from upholding slavery when I knew him. At school he used to be indignant with Northern boys who defended it. He used to tell me terrible things he had himself known. The first thing I ever heard of Fred made me like him. A New-York boy, who made the passage to France with him, told me that there was on board the steamer a little mulatto whom some of the other boys teased and laughed at. Fred took his part, used to walk up and down the deck with him, and, when they landed, went up with him to the school he was going to in Havre."

"You were not on board?"

"No."

"Lucky for the mulatto, and for Fred Harvey, too, if he values your good opinion,—and he values everybody's. If you had taken the boy up, Fred would have put him down."

"I think not, then. I have heard that he has changed since I knew him."