Zoé's daughter

Chapter I. The Ramseys Of “buckrae.”

“I say, Sam, is you put all them young turkeys up?”

u Yaas, and the dratted pigs, too ; the critturs seems to me to like grubbin’ for ground nuts, and stuffin’ their maws wi’ acorns, better’ n they does their reg’lar feed.”

“That’s natur.”

“They gives me a sight o’ hard runs, them pigs does ; sometimes I feel mightily like shootin’ one of ’em.”

“You’d whistle for your bacon and sassage if you did ! You know’s well as I do, thar’s nothin’ to be made out of this barren land, and if it warn’t for my spinnin’ and knittin’ and slavin’, day in and day out, we couldn’t raise fifty dollars a year to pay rent for this shacklin’ or’ nary, tumble-down place ; no, not if we got hung for it.” . # '

“Thar, I’ll go right away now and give some nubbins to the cow — it’s a’ most time to milk.”

“Be keerful of them nubbins, Sammy, the corn’s gittin’ pretty low in the crib.”

“I’ll be keerful.”

And then the two, a man and a woman,

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walked off, each in a different direction. The woman was about sixty years of age, tall and angular, with pinched features and a hungry, anxious look on her wrinkled countenance, that told of a life-long struggle with adversity ; but there was a tinge of red on her high cheek-bones, and a keen expression in her light, steelcolored eyes, which indicated that if she had “suffered” she had also “grown strong,” and that the indurating process had preserved her vitality intact, and kept aloof many of the infirmities incident to her time of life. She wore a faded, slouching sun-bonnet, which drooped over her forehead and ears, almost concealing her face and the corn-cob pipe, held with a firm grip between her well-preserved teeth, from which issued short quick puffs of tobacco smoke. A linsey-woolsey petticoat, and a dark dingy calico frock, hitched up on each side under her apron strings, completed the attire of Mrs. Martha — or, as she was commonly called, Patsy Meggs.

The man with whom she had been talking over domestic affairs was her husband, Sam Meggs, whose health and vitality had been sapped by years of malarial chills and fevers, and fevers and chills, until long after he reached middle life, when, finding him too tough to kill, they* finally left him without energy or the power of will even to do; otherwise he had fulfilled his verb-like destiny “to be” and “to suffer” with extraordinary exactitude.

A little patch of tobacco and a few acres of potatoes and poor corn, all languidly planted, worked and gathered in; helping to see after the pigs, which were the terror of his life; and tending to the “ feathered critturs,” to prevent their making out-laying nests in the woods and “salt marshes,” filled up the routine of his drowsy life. He was spindle-legged and round-shouldered, and the only notable feature of his inane face was a pair of great, bleared, bluish-grey eyes, which wore a perpetual look of astonishment which I cannot pretend to explain. His gray, linsey-woolsey clothes hung loosely upon him, and his unbleached cotton shirt-collar was tied together with a strip of red flannel, while a bracelet of twisted eel-skin, both worn to keep off the “rlieumatiz,” adorned each gaunt wrist. He had on an old squirrel-skin cap, from under which flowed long untrimmed locks of yellowishwhite hair, half bleached by age, half tanned by the sun. The old fellow smoked a short pipe as he trotted, with an indescribable gait, over the stubbly furrows, and left a streak of vapor like a steam engine on the bright evening air behkid him.

For it was a bright lovely evening in October, as balmy as June, and tinted with all those rich hues of sky and woodland which make our American autumns so glorious. Even Mrs. Meggs seemed to yield to its witching influence, for instead of returning to the house as she had evidently intended, she sat down on the lower step of what had once been a stately veranda, gave her sun bonnet an energetic push backward, and dropping her bony sunburned hands into her lap, looked out at the sleepy bay stretching dreamily^ away towaid the embraces of the ocean. There was a vessel rocking and creeping slowly along in the distance, its sails wingand-wing like two gold tinted pinions; the gulls,

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flashing in the sunshine, and intent on the movements of their finny prey, hung fluttering along the edge of foam that spangled the shore': but Mrs. Meggs noticed none of these; with her hand shading her eyes she peered further out, intently watching a black speck that she discerned bobbing up and down as it came landward.

“I thought the nigger was drowned sure,” she said, giving her' head a jerk which implied satisfaction as well as relief; then she relapsed into silence, and straightway began to knit a coarse, blue yarn stocking, which she took out of her pocket, while the periogue (pronounced by the dwellers in that region, perryauger), was slowly paddled shoreward by its only occupant, an old negro man, who belonged to nobody, but stuck to the ancient possessions of his former owners, waiting to be claimed and taken care of by somebody, while, in the meantime, he made his daily bread and meat, by fishing aiid oystering in the waters of the river and bay. He lived in the hut he was born in, which had formed a part of the “quarters,” in ole massa’s time, when “corn-cakes, blood-puddin’s and hog-meat” were plentiful. And they were very friendly, the Meggs’ and old Jupe, although the Meggs’ lived in the “Gre’t House,” and Jupe in his log-built, tumble-down old hut, which by dint of propping, and mud-daubing the gaps and fissures between the logs, he managed to keep standing.

And “Great House” it was, although dilapidated and ruinous, and threatening to tumble to pieces as much from long years of neglect as from time. It was one of those incongruous old piles, zot’s DAUGHTER.

still to be seen here and there in lower Maryland and in Virginia, which was built in the days of Lord Baltimore, the first Lord Proprietary of Maryland: that is, the central portion of it, which had been added to by succeeding generations of Ramseys, according to their tastes and needs — a wing here, an octagon room there; at this end a library; at that, a billiard hall; and one of the race, more piously inclined than the rest, had erected a small chapel where the “King and royal family” were every Sunday devoutly prayed for in orthodox style. The original building was constructed of dark, square, glazed bricks imported from Holland, and the quaint window-sashes, or rather casements, were of lead. It was surmounted by a peaked roof, with a gallery running around above the eaves, which had in former days been of good service as an outlook in times of danger; the chimneys were built in stacks and highly ornamented with red tiles and bricks of a lighter color than the house; and, although the additions referred to would have set an architect half wild by their want of uniformity and harmony with the original plan of the building, “ Buckrae House ” presented, on the whole, a picturesque and imposing appearance.

In former times, those now mute and musty old rooms, where only the melancholy chirp of the cricket and the tick of the death-watch were heard, and whose only sounds of ch^er were the swallows which flitted and fluttered, and chirped the summers^ thro’ in the chimneys, were ever filled with sounds of gayety and revelry, the songs, the chatter, the music and laughter of beautiful dames, surrounded by brave and gal-

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lant cavaliers ever eager and ready to serve them in dance or fray.

There were grand battues \w those days in the court at “Buckrae,” prancing of blooded horses and baying of hounds, when the fox was to be run to cover, and his brush brought home by the cavalier who gave him his coup-de-grace to be presented, with great ceremony, to the fairest lady of the ball, which invariably followed at night. There was never a lack of enjoyment or sport, for when wearied of hunt or dance, there was the broad silvery Potomac on which to sail and sing on the long summer evenings to the tinkling sounds of guitars, and the music of flutes ; and when the frost set in there was the bay with its islands of salt marsh, filled with canvas-backs, red-heads, and curlew, which gave practice to the skill of the gay gallants, none the less brave and doughty because gay, and filled their shooting skiffs with incomparable game.

There was always great visiting between the Lord Proprietary’s family at St. Inigoes, six or seven miles distant, and “Buckrae,” whose master, Sir John Ramsey, had won not only favor, but rewards from Lord Baltimore for his doughty aid in defending the colony against Clerbourne and his piratical crew.

Young Ramsey had been thrown upon American soil by impoverished fortunes, and the gallant young Scotchman grew to love it, made it his home, and founded a family who were in after times the truest and bravest of those who fought in defence of American independence, and whose sons after them were for several generations distinguished for their talents, their genius and their enterprise. But race deterio-

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rates in this country, owing to various causes, and the Ramseys formed no exception to the general rule ; the best points that had made them famous gradually disappeared, until finally they fell in — no ways different from them— with the every-day crowd of life. While their slaves increased, without an increased area of land, their prosperity began to wane, they seemed to lose their mental stamina and even the noble air and handsome comely features that once distinguished them ; their morals became tainted, they lost energy and all ability to retrieve their fallen fortunes, and could (mfifefind relief for their more pressing necessities^^ selling one by one their most valuable slaves, until finally but two representatives of the once proud and prosperous Ramseys of Buckrae were left — Clyde Ramsey and one child, a beautiful girl, named, by a poetical fancy of her father’s, Zoe.

Here in the deserted home of his forefathers, Clyde Ramsey spent his solitary life until middle age, when he married a fair young girl, of good family, but like himself impoverished, who died in giving birth to their only child, who grew up the pride and idol of her father’s existence. Time brought no improvement to his fortunes ; on the contrary, not a year passed without his being obliged to sell land and slaves, to meet the demands of his creditors for heavy debts contracted while “sowing »his wild oats,” and to supply the needs of his family, until he became a bowed, broken-spirited old man with none to comfort him except Zoe, now grown to fair womanhood, possessed all the loveliness and stately bearing of the noble dames of her father’s race, and also their pride.

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Clyde Ramsey was a fine scholar ; and it was not only a labor of 4ove, but a solace to him, to educate his daughter and develop her intellectual powers, while he at the same time instilled into her mind a pride of birth and lineage, and fed her imagination on the former magnificence and prosperity of the Ramseys, until her soul was moved to the deepest pity when she thought of his losses, his fruitless grief and remorse over his prodigal past. Such thoughts as these constantly haunted her, and she longed for riches as the only means of reinstating him in his former ease and luxury, and bringing up their name once more to the splendor of its old traditions.

“Never mind, darling,” she used to say after one of their long talks over the past, smoothing his white hair gently while she leaned upon his shoulder; “my fairy prince will come one of these days, or my enchanted beast; then when I am married, and ‘silver ha’e to spare,’ we’ll revive the glories of our old honorable name, and make a palace of ‘Buckrae.’ ”

“Do you think such deliverance will ever come to us, Zoe?” he would ask, looking dreamily out into the distance, as if hoping to see some sign of promise spanning the clouded future.

“Oh, yes!” she would answer blithely: “I am sure of it; I dream of it, and have thoughts about it which do not cftme of themselves; I almost see visions of the substance of my hopes; I feel a prevision that a golden time is coming. Now I’ll run into the library and get Tasso, and finish reading the adventures of grand Sir Godfrey and his Christian Knights.”

Full of such aims and misplaced ambition,

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II

Zoe Ramsey refused two or three excellent offers of^narriage made her by young planters of the neighborhood. Once it was reported that she was actually engaged, and that preparations were in progress for the wedding; then it was rumored around the county that Zoe was married, and to a stranger.

The following Sunday, after mass at St. Inigoes, when the congregation, before returning to their homes, stopped to exchange greetings and news with friends and neighbors who came from all the country side around, Protestants as well as Catholics, to attend service at the old Jesuit chapel, it was known with certainty that Zoe had married, quite suddenly it was understood, an old tawny West Indian, whom she accidently met at Annapolis, having gone thither with her father to see some old papers relative to the transfer of a fishing shore he owned somewhere on the Potomac. And report said that the old Creole was enormously rich, and had settled a splendid dowry upon. her. This is the substance of what the good people talked over that Sunday at St. Inigoes. The news came direct from Father Jannison, who performed the marriage ceremony, so there could be no doubt about it.

It was substantially true, and before going away to her home in the tropics, Zo 6 generously divided her splendid dowry with her father, glad to have brought him ease at any price, but wrung to the h£art by the thought of separation, for she knew how lost he would be without her even during the few months that would elapse before he came to visit her, which he had promised to do the following autumn. But they

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never met again. The parting embrace of father and daughter was their last. Clyde Ramsey was seized the very day before he was to sail for Cuba with a congestive, chill which terminated his life in a few hours, without a kindred hand to smooth his dying pillow; without priest or sacrament to whisper of hope or cleanse his soul for the supreme change. Father Jannison, long his friend and associate, wrote to Zoe, breaking the terrible news to her as gently as possible, and came over from St. Inigoes to see that the remains of the last of the male line of the Ramseys were laid decently away in the old burial place of his fathers. As priest he could do nothing, for Clyde Ramsey professed no creed, although his wife was a Catholic and Zoe had been baptized one, but having been educated as she was, she had never practised her religion, though claiming the Catholic faith as hers, and holding the Mother of Jesus ever in sweetest and most tender recollection. The thought of the Blessed Virgin Mother, without being devotional, was a perpetual rest and solace to her proud, desolate soul, which had prevented her from feeling utterly motherless, and saved it from the almost impenetrable incrustations that her habits of life, and the absence of all religious motive and practice, would have gathered over it. Mary was to her the model of a pure and holy womanhood, and without attributing to her any supernatural powers, she placed her above all women as the object of an exalted veneration, and thought of her martyrdom as the supreme and touching tragedy of humanity. But these reflections she kept to herself — her father would have deemed them weak and superstitious

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fancies. So, like something hidden in a niche, far in the innermost depths of a concealed shrine, Zoe preserved in silence this pure seed of devotion, this only one fragment of her faith vitalized by the baptismal drops, which had made her one of the true fold of Christ, drops whose efficacious moisture, often when hope is almost lost, spring forth into a living well, giving rescue to the perishing soul.

Zoe’s education and training had been, as we have shown, more pagan than Christian, her aspirations of the “earth, earthy,” and her aims altogether worldly, otherwise she might have found peacp, and a certain degree of happiness even in this life.

After Clyde Ramsey’s death, “Buckrae” fell into neglect and decay ; the few slaves that were left betook themselves to parts unknown, except Jupe, who, faithful to the old traditions, would have felt himself disgraced had he abandoned the place in the absence of its owner. “It would be too much like poor white folks’ niggers, sich a thing as that ’ar,” he told Father Jannison, holding up his old bald head with an air of pride and dignity; and it was settled that he should remain. Also Sam Meggs and his wife, formerly overseer and dairy-woman, remained, and took up their abode in a wing of the “Great House,” “to have a keer of things ’til Miss Zoe coined back.” And so for twenty years they had made a poor living off the exhausted lands, for which the agent of the property charged them a rent of fifty dollars a year.

And here they were this pleasant October afternoon, going along the same old beaten track of years, with but one single idea beyond their

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circumscribed limits, which now and then resolved itself into these words :

“Took yere, Sam, I wonder if Miss Zoe ’ll ever come back ? ’ ’

And Sam would reply : “I raally do wonder, now!” while his big eyes glaring thro’ the tobacco smoke that issued in perfect clouds from his corn-cob pipe, looked like two pale lanterns in a fog. After which they would both relapse into a silence as profound as if they were trying to square the circle.

Mrs. Meggs took her pipe out of her mouth to refill it, and as she pressed the rich brown shreds of tobacco down into the bowl, she sighed, and looking thro’ the thin belt of pines on her left, where the setting sun was making a great dazzle and spangling of gold among the quivering foliage, said :

“I do wonder if that gal will ever come back?” Just then a yelping from the old hound — ‘ ‘ Massa’ s old hound ’ ’ — caused the woman to turn quickly, when to her surprise she saw a tall female advancing toward her, who was clad in rusty black and closely veiled, while old “Bruce,” with strange and feeble antics, fondled around her feet, and attempted to leap up and lick her hands. The stranger stopped, leaned over and laid bpth hands — long, slender, tired-looking hands — on the hound’s head, and burst into a passion of tears.

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Chapter II. Zo&

“Laws a massy! Did I ever!” ejaculated Mrs. Meggs, dropping her pipe. “Sain! Isay, Sam!” she screamed; “come yere this minnit!”

By this time the stranger, preceded by the feeble old hound, which kept up a tremulous whining, approached Mrs. Meggs, and throwing aside her veil disclosed a pale, attenuated face, lit up by a pair of sorrowful brown eyes, above which rose an oval forehead shaded by heavy braids of white hair. There was a stateliness and grace in her whole appearance which evidently impressed the untutored woman before her, for she arose and with awkward politeness dropped a quaint little courtesy, and extending her gaunt hand to the stranger, said: “Good evenin’ to you, lady!”

“Bruce knew and welcomed me; <Tan it be that my old foster-mother has forgotten me?”

“Has forgotten me!” repeated Mrs. Meggs, with a scared look, as, leaning a little forward, she keenly scanned every lineament of the face before her.

“Have you forgotten Zoe, old friend?” replied the lady, taking the rough hand in both her own.

“Daws’ a massy! it aint! — it aint! I’ll never b’lieve it; I can’t b’lieve it. I don’t mean no disrespect, lady, but Zo € — my little Zo£ — i6

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was young and bloomin’, and the prettiest critter upon the yearth.”

“And I am old and faded — but still Z06I Think of the long years that have passed, — twenty years. You know nothing of my sorrows, — but I remember you. I know ‘Daddy Sain’ yonder, andjupe. Where is Uncle Jupe? ” said the stranger, looking around, with a kindling brightness in her eyes as she spoke the old familiar names.

“Thar now!” exclaimed Mrs. Meggs, with a hysterical sob, “I see it now for the first time! I see it in her eyes, and in them proud Ramsey nostrils! Yes! I do b’lieve its little Zoe, come back at last! ”

“Come back to die, mammy,” said the lady softly, as she gazed far out, through her tears, with a vague, sorrowful look, towards the bay.

“Laws! don’t say so now! Hurry up, Sam! she’s come at last!” said Mrs. Meggs.

“Nan!” responded Sam, in blank amazement, gazing from one to the other, and opening his watery eyes so wide that they looked as if he was going to walk out of them.

“It’s Miss Zoe, Sam, — come back!” said Mrs. Meggs, coming to his help.

“Won’t you shake hands with me, Daddy Sam?” said their strange guest, with a sad smile; for Sam’s appearance brought back to her so much over which she used to be merry in the dead-and-gone days, that thoughts which were rare visitants to her sad heart flitted like sunshine through it, almost making her feel for the moment a child again.

“I do b’lieve it is! ” said Sam .solemnly, while his voice quavered, and the floods began to

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gather in his eyes, fairly drowning them ont. “ It must be. I ain’t heerd that thar word this many a year; it takes me back to the times when things wasn’t as they is now. I’m mighty glad to see you corned back to yer own agin, Miss — Miss — Z06, my little gal,” added Sam, who fairly broke down and began to snivel.

“Come in, honey. Its a sorry sort of welcome, — stop that, Sam, I’m afeard she’ll think we ain’t glad to see her, — a sorry sort of welcome to yer own house and lands; but Sammy’s wore out and forgetful, and I — well, I ain’t much better’ n he. But come and set here by the fire; it’s gettin’ chilly-like,*” said Mrs. Meggs, ushering her guest into the kitchen, where, snatching off her sun-bonnet, she dusted a chair with it and put it on again with a flourish. “There now, honey! make yourself comfortable, and I’ll draw you a cup of sassafrax tea right off.”

“You still drink sassafras tea! How it carries me back to the old times!”

“Yes, Miss Zoe, its mighty wholesome stuff, and plenty good enough for them as can’t afford to get better, ’ ’ answered Mrs. Meggs.

“I’ve wished hundreds of times, while away, for a cup of hot, fragrant sassafras tea; the very thought of it used to bring me straight home! — but I must soon be going, friends, I left my daughter at the tavern over yonder,” said Zoe, pointing to the opposite side of the river; “and while I drink my tea, I will tell you my business. I have come back a widow, with barely enough to support me and the child, and I am going to live here at Buckrae; not to displace you, dear old friends, for I shall need your protection, your help and care, and in exchange for l8 ZO^’S DAUGHTER.

that I give you the land and house, rent free. Will you take us in ?”

“It’s all your’ n, Miss Zoe; but I reckon we can manage,” answered Mrs. Meggs, who was weighing in her stiff American heart whether she was conferring or receiving a favor. “The rooms want a awful sight of cleaning, and the glass is broke out of the windys, and the carpet is rotted on the floors, and the rats and mice and spiders have took quiet possession.”

“That is good news. I shall want something to do. I’m glad that nothing has been touched. I shall feel as if I saw the very footprints of them that are gone, on the dusty floors!” cried Zoe, passionately.

“Nan!” said Sam, showing a rim of white over his eyes.

“So I shall come to-morrow, with my little girl,” continued Zoe more calmly. “Have fires made in the ‘company room,’ and the one next to it, and let in the morning sunshine through open windows! I begin to feel as if I shall enjoy being here.”

“Now look yere, Miss Zoe; wait another day, and by that time I’ll have things ready for you. Them rooms ain’t fittin’ for any human to sleep in as they be,” expostulated Mrs. Meggs.

“I have made my arrangements to come to-morrow,” she replied in a tone of decision. “Give my love to Jvipe, and tell him to be at the landing when I come. But tell me,” she said, suddenly remembering, “is Father Jannison at St. Inigoes yet? Perhaps he is dead, though, it has been so very long ago!”

“Law bless you, no! Pie’s alive and well; a hale, hearty old man is Father Jannison, honey,

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and likely to end his days at St. Inigoes,” replied Mrs. Meggs briskly, for she was devoted to her good pastor, and thought, as she often declared, that “the snn rose and set in him.”

“ I am very glad to hear it. I was afraid that he had been sent to some other mission, or was dead. I should not like to have found a stranger in his place,” said Zoe, as she rose to go. Bidding the two old people “Good-bye,” she went out, and in a few moments had passed out of sight like a shadow; then Sam and his wife, with a dazed feeling in their heads, relit their pipes and had a long silent smoke over the strange turn in their affairs.

“But she ain’t Ramsey now?” said Sam an hour later, turning around with the sudden thought, after he had knelt down to say his prayers.

“No; it’s something outlandish, — more’s the pity,” curtly answered his wife. “I never got the twist of it, and never want to. Ramsey’s good enough for me.” There was nothing more to be said, and Sain resumed his devotions, about the performance of which he was always very particular. Never in all his life was he so completely at sea: he got “Our Father,” “The Acts,” “The Creed,” “Hail Marys,” all mixed up in dire confusion with Zoe’s name, and finally had to give up, bless himself with a distracted air, and get into bed, with a singing in his ears that made him dizzy and afraid.

Mrs. Meggs was up by dawn the next day, and lost no time in getting the long-closed rooms in readiness, as far as airing and cleaning them went. She rummaged in the old chests, and found bed and table linen, yellow it is true, but

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still having about it a faint odor of the lavender she had packed it in a few years ago; she hunted in dusty receptacles and brought out odds and ends of antique china, of grotesque shapes and rich coloring; and from a secret closet, concealed in the carved work of the pannelling, she drew forth, with reverential look, the last of the Ramsey silver, a tea-pot, cream-jug, and a few spoons, all heavy and solid, engraved with the family crest, which she had guarded with the vigilance of a miser, and cleaned as regularly as if under a vow to keep it in bright readiness for some expected emergency.

“ I knowed how ’twould be,” she said to herself, as she dusted each piece with a corner of her clean apron; “I knowed she’d come all of a suddent, so I kept it rubbed up ready, — if I hadn’t, what with salt air, and the mildew, it would a’ been as black as the pot.”

Having got everything else in readiness, she brought up from one of the lower rooms a small black table inlaid with sandal-wood in quaint and beautiful devices; it was round, and its slender legs looked scarcely strong enough to support its weight, but it had stood the uses of a century as family tea-table at “Buckrae,” when there were no visitors and only the ladies of the house were at home.

“She’ll like to see it here; it’ll look nateral, I reckon,” said Mrs. Meggs, as she placed it in front of the fire, and arranged the fine damask cover, and placed the china and silver ware upon it, ready for tea, as soon as Zoe and her daughter should come; then she stood off and surveyed the effect, which was highly satisfactory, as the red glow of the fire fell upon it, bringing out and