The Bondwoman's Narrative (32 page)

Hitherto the lady had known nothing of her husband’s favorites. The mansion, you know, was large and irregular in its dimensions,
besides being built in a kind of rambling style, that precluded the occupant of one part from knowing anything of the other.
In obedience to his orders they had kept themselves
seclu
secluded and out of her sight, and the servants were forbidden
under pain of the severest punishment
to mention them in her presence under the penalty of the severest punishment.

But one morning when Lilly was dressing her hair as she sate [sat] in her apartment beneath the windows that overlooked the
garden,
when suddenly
two or three beautiful and well dressed women appeared in an arbor plainly in view and each one led or carried a young child.
Mrs Cosgrove beheld them with speechless
amazement, and turning to Lilly she inquired “Who are these Ladies. I was not aware
that Mr Cosgrove entertained guests?”

“Guests” repeated Lilly in great confusion.

“Certainly, those ladies do not belong to the house, how well they are dressed, and what beautiful children.”

Lilly made no reply.

“Do you know anything about them?”

“Master said I mustn’t tell you” she replied, falteringly.

“Mustn’t tell me, why not pray?”

“I can’t tell you, only he said so.”

“But I will know” she replied. “I will know what ladies are entertained in this house, and that immediately. Ring for the
waiter.”

The page appeared.

“Go, and request those ladies in the arbor to come to me.”

“Ladies” echoed the page with a broad grin “why they’re slaves.”

“Slaves are they, well no matter bid them come here directly.”

Pale with suppressed passion the lady awaited their arrival in silence, but the boy soon returned with information that they
would not come.

“Won’t come, eh, are they slaves and do they dare to disobey?”

“But master has told them to keep out of your sight.”

“Well they haven’t done that, but is your master at home?”

[“]He is in the Library.[”]

[“]Request him to walk up here.[”]

The servant disappeared, and in a few moments the steps of the husband and master echoed in the passage. He came in smiling,
advanced to his wife, and attempted to take her hand, saying “what would my sweet wife [want] with me this morning?”

She repulsed him rudely, and pointing from the window inquired
“what women are those? the servants say you have forbidden
them to tell me.”

The utterly blank and amazed expression of his countenance Lilly would not attempt to describe.

“Who be they, I say?” she demanded.

Still he answered not.

“Mr Cosgrove” she said, in a tone of great bitterness tho her manner was perfectly cool “I understand it all. I am perfectly
well aware in what relation you stand to those hussies and they to you. I have heard that in this detestable country such
things are common. I heard so before I came here, I know it now.”

“You really think you have found out something then” he said with a scornful laugh.

The lady did not foam at the mouth; she was too well bred for that, but she looks as if a little more might make her do it.

“And if you had heard such pleasant tidings of our country before hand, why did you consent to come here?” he inquired taking
advantage of her silence.

“Because I was a fool” she replied.

He bowed with perfect composure.

“You are a brute” said the lady, and her emotions getting the mastery she burst into a passion of tears.

Mr Cosgrove was moved by her sorrow. He would have loved his wife had not her haughtiness so cruelly repulsed him. He approached
and attempted to embrace her, but she shrunk from him as she would from a toad or viper. Rage, jealousy, hate, revenge all
burned in her bosom. To think that she had been rivaled by slaves. She, with English and aristocrat blood in her veins. It
was too much to be endured, but she had great self-command; her tears soon dried, and she said in a voice perfectly calm.

“Knowing these women as I do, knowing them to be what they are I do not request, that were beneath me, but as your wife I
command that they be dismissed. Their presence in this house I will not endure. They shall tramp and their children with them.”

Irritated by her tone and manner be commenced whistling, and walking up before the mirror adjusted his neck-tie.

“Do you hear me? I say they shall tramp and their children with them.”

[“]Certainly I hear you” he replied with the most perfect indifference. “Did you take me to be deaf?”

“Well, what do you say?”

“I say that you can threaten much easier than execute.”

“But I will not stay in the house if they do.”

“You are at perfect liberty to go.”

[“]That may be, and yet I will not go. No Sir, I am your wife, you can’t shake me off so easily, but I say that they shall
go, if they are carried out in their coffins.”

“And I say” he returned eyeing her closely “that there is law in this country for the slave as well as the free, and if you
attempt to injur[e] them you will find it so to your sorrow. Proud as you are, and rich as you think you be, the key of the
prison door has been turned on richer and nobler people times without number. You know so much, you should know that.”

“That would be a great thing certainly. It would be an honor to yourself wouldn’t it—a great honor to have your wife the inmate
of a prison, because she resented the presence of your favorites. I’ll speak of that.”

Mr. Cosgrove’s manner had somewhat softened. Perhaps he thought on deliberation that the lady had some ground for complaint,
or perhaps he considered it best to temporise. Be that as it may he suddenly exclaimed “you shall have your will, madam, they
shall be sent away.”

Her countenance brightened and her eyes sparkled exultingly.
She had triumphed. He had felt and acknowledged her power, he
should feel and acknowledge it more, and she went on.

[“]They must not only be sent away, they must be sold far off— into another state—them and their children both. What do you
say to that?”

“That you are very severe, but your wishes must be obeyed.”

“Immediately.”

“I suppose so.”

“And to whom will you sell them?”

[“]Oh; there are plenty of traders, who will be glad enough to get them.”

And thus they continued conversing untill Lilly having finished her toilet duties was dismissed for an hour. She told me of
what had happened, and how Mr Cosgrove had promised to dismiss his favorites. Which promise he will never keep I replied.
And then we had quite a little dispute about it.

Before many days elapsed a slave trader called. The beautiful girls were summoned to meet him, and came leading or bearing
their lovely children. They wept bitterly and implored their master to kill rather than sell them. One of the children, a
beautiful boy of three or four years run [ran] to Mr Cosgrove exclaiming “Why, pa you won’t sell, will you? you said that
I was your darling and little man.”

“Go to your mother, child” said the cruel father.

At length one of the youngest and most beautiful, with an infant at her breast hastily dried her tears. Her eyes had a wild
phrenzied look, and with a motion so sudden that no one could prevent it, she snatched a sharp knife which a servant had carelessly
left after cutting butcher’s meat, and stabbing the infant threw it with one toss into the arms of its father. Before he had
time to recover from his astonishment she had run the knife into her own body, and fell at his feet bathing them in her blood.
She
lived only long enough to say that she prayed God to forgive her for an act dictated by the wildest despair. Mr Cosgrove
bent over her fondly and asked if she could forgive him? She smiled faintly, turned her eyes to the child which had breathed
its last. A slight spasm, a convulsive shudder and she was dead. Dead, your Excellency, the President of this Republic. Dead,
grave senators who grow eloquent over pensions and army wrongs. Dead ministers of religion, who prate because poor men without
a moment[’]s leisure on other days presume to read the newspapers on Sunday, yet who wink at, or approve of laws that occasion
such scenes as this.[”]

[“]The sale was completed, the gold paid, and Mrs Cosgrove from her windows beheld their departure. But even then the lady
was not satisfied. She was rather disposed to watch her husband, and he was not pleased with the espionage. Her jealousy construed
the minutest act of kindness, even a word or smile bestowed on a slave as something criminal. She could not bear that he should
speak in terms of approval of the oldest and most faithful domestic. Especially was she disgusted that his notice of their
children should extend to a caress or small presents of fruit and candy. All of a sudden to [she] took a notion to explore
the house in its remotest corners. She might have expected the presence of a rival, or might have been stimulated by simple
curiosity, but in company with Lilly she threaded the long galleries and winding passages, traversed the various suit[e]s
of apartments, and came at last to a door that seemed to be fastened within. This only increased her anxiety, but there was
neither crack nor crevice, nor key hole that could reveal its secrets. But it occurred to her that the rooms
being in
from their situation in the wing must be lighted by windows in the wall, and that ingress might be thus obtained, if in no
other way.
She was not a woman to be balked. Indeed her perseverance seemed sharpened by difficulties. She must and would
know who or what that apartment contained. Did her husband then think to keep secrets from her? Was she to be excluded from
certain parts of the house? She would teach him a lesson different from that. She had not come to America to be placed quietly
under any man’s feet. Far from it. She would assert her rights, that she would; and it was her right to go all over the mansion,
and into every chamber as she pleased.
Perhaps a lurking idea that a rival might be concealed there stimulated her curiosity But whatever might
Accordingly the servants were ordered to procure a ladder and place it against the windowsill she pointed out. They obeyed
reluctantly, and she ascended, bidding Lilly follow her.

“Take care my dear mistress you will fall” said the child. And she came near it, never having been on a ladder before.

Looking in at the window she saw a well-furnished apartment, with chairs, a sofa, mirror work stand, and conspicuous in the
midst a cradle, in which from the appearance two babies had been lying, as a pillow was placed at the head and another at
the foot each bearing the impress, of a tiny form. Then there was a small cup in which
a quain
a quantity of arrow root had been prepared, besides linen and other baby necessaries. No one was within yet the room had
apparently been recently occupied. There was a low fire on the hearth, and Mrs Cosgrove turning to Lilly inquired if she knew
who inhabited the room. The child replied that she did not, and the mistress considering the mystery not half cleared up decided
to enter and ascertain. The servants to their infinite surprise beheld her disappear through the window, but they saw not
what followed. They saw not how bent on investigation she rushed into another chamber communicating with the first. They saw
not what she saw there, a beautiful woman, so young and innocent, and dove-like that she seemed only a large child, with two
children,
twins, and as near alike as two cherries at her breast. In an instant Mrs Cosgrove comprehended the scene and the
extent of her injury. Her husband, then, to his other crimes had united that of wil[l]ful falsehood, but with the strange
inconsistency of human nature, her anger and revenge turned not so much against her husband as the helpless victims of his
sensuality. Pale, and in an attitude of the profoundest sorrow and humiliation the young mother lifted her eyes to the face
of her visitor, whom she recognised at once by her queenly bearing, and then with a mute glance at her children seemed to
implore pity. Mrs Cosgrove had never been a mother. To jealousy in her bosom the fiercest feeling of envy united. All her
well-bred politeness and courteous bearing vanished in a moment, and she more resembled a Fury of Orestes than a Christian
woman.

Seizing the young mother by the hair she dragged her to the floor, demanding “who and what are you, and why are you here?”
To which the terrified creature replied “A slave, a slave, nothing more.”

“That is a lie” she almost screamed. “A lie, and I know it. You are the favorite the minion of my husband. Are you not? Say:
say.”

Mrs Cosgrove listened, shall we say she hoped to hear the slave answer in the negative. It would have been an infinite relief
to her pride and inordinate self-esteem; for though
caring little for him
she had never loved him, her vanity was enlisted
to secure his love. She felt outraged, scandalized and humiliated by his manifest preference for another, and had that other
been her nearest and best friend she would have trampled and spit upon her, what favor then could a slave under such circumstances
expect?

“It is true” said the wretched creature sobbing. “It is true that I have received favors from my master, but I couldn’t help
it, indeed I couldn’t.”

“Oh you couldn’t, did you try, say did you try, and these children whose are they?”

The children were almost beneath her feet, kicking and screaming.

“Whose can they be, but mine” replied the tearful mother. They were two boys, with round fat cheeks, great blue eyes and plump
little hands, quite as beautiful and fresh and healthy as if the most favored lady in the land had been their mother.

Mrs Cosgrove had released her hold of the mother, and now sate [sat] in a chair the very picture of contending passions. That
she had made up her mind to some stern resolve was evident, though the nature of this it might be difficult to determine.
She was a woman after all, and the heart of the proudest and sternest woman has a touch of weakness, if that which moves to
compassion can be so termed. The female mind, likewise, though capable of the strongest passions and most violent emotions
cannot long maintain their force and energies. They sink overcome by their own violence, and rising rapidly they as rapidly
culminate. It was so with Mrs Cosgrove. She had lashed herself into a perfect fury, and now she felt almost to wonder at her
own rashness. Then, too, the pale creature kneeling so meek and supplicant before her, her low pleading tones, her mute glances
towards her children, and the infants themselves,
helpless
in their tiny helplessness appealing to every feeling and sentiment of generosity in a manner not to be entirely withstood
by any heart retaining a vestige of humanity. All these had their effect though she would scarcely have acknowledged it to
herself.