‘Mr Hawthorn says,’ Nora answered, smiling, ‘that our negroes here are a great deal more independent, and have a great deal more sense of freedom than English country-people, because they were emancipated straight off all in one day, and were told at once: “Now, from this time forth, you’re every bit as free as your masters;” whereas the English peasants, he says, were never regularly emancipated at all, but only slowly and unconsciously came out of serfdom, so that there never was any one day when they felt to themselves that they had become freemen. I’m not quite sure whether that’s exactly how he puts it, but I think it is. Anyhow, I know it’s a fact that all one’s negro women-servants out here are a great deal more independent and saucy than the white maids used to be over in England.’
‘Independence,’ Harry remarked, cracking his short whip with a sharp snap, ‘is a very noble quality, considered in the abstract; but when it comes to taking it in the concrete, I should much prefer for my part not to have it in my own servants.’
(A sentiment, it may be observed in passing, by no means uncommon, even when not expressed, among people who make far more pretensions to democratic feeling than did Harry Noel.)
Louis Delgado, standing behind, and gazing with a malevolent gleam in his cold dark eyes after the retreating buckra figures, beckoned in silence with his skinny hand to the black groom, who came back immediately and unhesitatingly, as if in prompt obedience to some superior officer.
‘You is number forty-tree, I tink,’ the old man said, looking at the groom closely. ‘Yes, yes, dat’s your number. Tell me; you know who is dis buckra from Englan’?’
‘Dem callin’ him Mistah Noel, sah,’ the black groom answered, touching the brim of his hat respectfully.
‘Yes, yes, I know him name; I know dat already,’ Delgado answered with an impatient gesture. ‘But what I want to know is jest dis—can you find out for me from de house-serbants, or anybody up at Orange Grove, where him fader an’ him mudder come from? I want to know all about him.’
‘Missy Rosina find dat out for me,’ the groom answered, grinning broadly. ‘Missy Rosina is de young le-ady’s waitin’-maid; an’ de young le-ady, him tell Rosina pretty well eberyting. Rosina, she is Isaac Pourtalès’ new sweetheart.’
Delgado nodded in instantaneous acquiescence. ‘All right, number forty-tree,’ he answered, cutting him short carelessly. ‘Ride after buckra, an’ say no more about it. I get it all out ob him now, surely. I know Missy Rosina well, for true. I gib him de lub of Isaac Pourtalès wit me obeah, I tellin’ you. Send Missy Rosina to me dis ebenin’. I has plenty ting I want to talk about wit her.’