Red Rock: A Chronicle of Reconstruction

by Thomas Nelson Page

If he thought to quell the old woman by this, however, he was mistaken. He only infuriated her the more.

“You will, will you!” she hissed, straightening herself up and walking up close to him. “Do you know what would happen if you did? My marster would cut your heart out o’ you; but I wouldn’t lef’ you for him to do it! You ain’t fitten for him to tetch. De ain’ nobody uver tetched me since my mammy whipped me last; and she died when I was twelve years ole’; an’ ef you lay your hand ’pon me I’ll wear you out tell you ain’t got a piece o’ skin on you as big as dat!—see?” She walked up close to him and indicating the long, pink nail on her clawlike little-finger, poked a black and sinewy little fist close up under the Provost’s very nose.

“Now—” she panted: “Heah me; tetch me!”

But Leech had recovered himself. He quailed before the two blazing coals of fire that appeared ready to dart at him, and recognizing the fact that even his men were against him and, like Jacquelin, were secretly enjoying his discomfiture, he angrily ordered them out of the house and concealed as best he could his consuming inward rage.

Incensed by Jacquelin’s look of satisfaction at the old mammy’s attack, Leech took him along with him, threatening him with dire punishment for interfering with a Union officer in the discharge of his duty; but learning from the Sergeant that Jacquelin was “a friend of the Captain’s,” he released him, assuring him of the fortunate escape he had, and promising him very different treatment “next time.” Jacquelin returned no answer whatever until at the end, when he said, looking him deep in the eyes, “It may not be next time, you dog; but some time will be my time.”

When Dr. Cary reached home that evening, both Mrs. Cary and Blair congratulated themselves afresh that he had been absent during the Provost’s visit. The first mention of the man’s conduct had such an effect on him that Mrs. Cary, who had already interviewed both her daughter and the mammy on the propriety of giving a somewhat modified account of the visitation, felt it necessary to make even yet lighter of it than she had intended. The Doctor grew very quiet, and his usually pleasant mouth shut close, bringing his chin out strongly and giving him an uncommonly stern appearance. Mrs. Cary whipped around suddenly and gave the matter a humorous turn. But the Doctor was not to be diverted; the insolence of Leech’s action to Blair, and of penetrating into his wife’s chamber, had sunk in deeply, and a little later, having left his wife’s sick-room, he called up the mammy. If Mrs. Cary possessed instincts and powers of self-control which enabled her to efface her sense of injury in presence of a greater danger, the old servant had no such cultivated faculty. At the first mention of the matter by the Doctor, her sense of injury rose again, her outraged pride came to the surface once more, and in the presence of him to whom she had always looked for protection her self-control gave out.

She started to tell the story lightly, as she knew her mistress wished done, but, at the first word, broke down and suddenly began to whimper and rock.

When it had all come out between sobs of rage and mortification, her master sent her away soothed with a sense of his sympathy and of the coming retribution which he would exact.

When the Doctor saw Mrs. Cary again, he was as placid as a May-morning, perhaps more placid than usual. He thought himself very clever indeed. But no man is clever enough to deceive his wife if she suspects him, and Mrs. Cary read him as though he had been an open book. As a result, before he left her room she had exacted a promise from him not under any circumstances to seek a personal interview with Leech, or even to go to the court-house for some time.

The story of the old negro woman’s terrible tongue-lashing of the Provost got abroad. He had attempted to use both command and persuasion to prevent his men from telling it, but even the bribery of a free treat at a store on the roadside, which was a liberality he had never been known to display before, failed to secure the desired secrecy, and the story reached the court-house almost as quickly as he. Sergeant O’Meara related it to the camp with great gusto.