In the Shadow/Chapter 15
CHAPTER XV
AN OVATION
AFTER being left by his agent, Dessalines gave himself up to a debauch of imaginings, for like many Africans he possessed to a very great degree the capacity for highly colored flights of fancy. It is this quality which, perhaps more than any other, raises the negro to the plane above many other savage races who lack this quality of living in other worlds than the material; it is the quality which endears the old slave to the children of his master who adore the descriptions of the quaint tenants of his mind, and it is this also which gives him his shivering superstitions and arouses him to a point of fanatical frenzy. Dessalines possessed this abnormally. Though lacking in actual imagination he was rich in fantasy, and it was to flights of this that he surrendered himself. He saw himself as emperor—king of Hayti. His state; his power; his magnificence. Never did there enter his dreams the perplexities of foreign relations and diplomacy; the discouraging details in the regeneration of an impoverished country. Then he saw Hayti rich, prosperous, her people improved, educated, enlightened, but he did not consider in his dreams the steps by which these things must be accomplished. He was honest. He had no thought of enriching himself at the cost of the country; also, he was brave and ready to lead his forces where he wished to go, but his dreams did not turn to strife; rather they dwelt on the fruits of his efforts: chiefly popular acclaim—and with these fancies came a desire of such force as to be an actual need; a desire to impart these glowing prospects to another, to a person of vigorous mentality and sympathetic temperament. He yearned for approbation, encouragement, confidence, and with the consciousness of these needs his mind turned at once to Virginia.
He had learned before he left England that Virginia was visiting friends at a place with an English name, not far from Boston. Manchester—yes; that was it. He had a faint idea of the distance of Boston from New York, but on inquiring at his hotel found that it was five hours by a fast train. He did not object to the trip as he wished to see the country.
His agent had said that he did not need him; bade him amuse himself, and deplored the fact that his duties prevented his showing him any personal attention.
Rosenthal came the following morning and accompanied him to the depot. People whom they passed on the streets regarded Dessalines with interest and curiosity, but he encountered no sign of hostility, at which he was somewhat surprised, having heard so much of the anti-negro sentiment in the United States. Aboard the train it was likewise. In the Pullman his fellow passengers, well-bred people for the most, stared furtively, but none made any protest concerning his presence. Dessalines' well-groomed appearance, the cut and style of his costume, his man-servant with whom he talked in French, constantly and volubly, separated him from all preconceived American views of the negro. He did not seem a "darky," he was an Othello; even the negro porter was impressed and respectful, an unusual quality in the attitude of a negro menial toward a negro gentleman.
Arrived in Boston he went at once to the most fashionable hotel, where he was accommodated without question. Other guests may or may not have protested his presence; if so the matter was not brought to his notice. Jules spread the report that he was a Haytian nobleman of vast wealth who had been recently entertained by British sovereignty; one or two papers paragraphed him. His picture and a biography which touched the truth in some places appeared in a Sunday newspaper supplement.
On arriving, he had written immediately to Virginia, requesting the privilege of calling upon her. Jules had examined the time-table and discovered that his master could go out on a noon train, returning in the evening. He had arrived in Boston on a Friday, and, while waiting for a reply to his note, he visited Harvard University, where he presented certain Oxford credentials and was received with the utmost cordiality.
Dessalines could not have explained to himself his desire to see Virginia. Perhaps he was a trifle overawed at the magnitude of his plans and wished a confidante; some one to give him a word of encouragement, a word of belief. It was the need of a dog for his master's presence when in strange surroundings, the need of a primitive nature for the guidance of a higher mentality. He knew Virginia to be sympathetic; he had felt the influence of her highly developed mentality upon his elemental one just as he had felt the influence of his own superabundant materialism upon her more spiritual nature; he was drawn by the call of incompleteness; the need of a complementary entity.
On Sunday he received an answer to his letter. It was written in French and read:
Dear Count Dessalines:
I shall be very glad to receive you here to-morrow afternoon and will have you met at the depot. Mrs. Cromwell, my hostess, begs me to ask you to dine with us.
Most sincerely,
Jules, who had fetched the letter, remained while his master read it. Dessalines meditated for a moment, then taking out his notebook scribbled upon a leaf:
Will be delighted to accept the invitation with which you have honored me.
He handed the paper to Jules. "Wire this at once."
"Oui, monsieur. Will Monsieur le Comte be interested to see what the newspapers are saying of him?"
Jules offered his master a Sunday paper. Dessalines took it eagerly. He was ravenous for any notoriety of a creditable character; once or twice when he had been caricatured he had wept with shame and his savage heart had been filled with a murderous ferocity. His hand trembled as he reached for the paper.
"The pictures do not flatter Monsieur le Comte," ventured Jules, "but they are respectfully intended. The reporters called when Monsieur le Comte was taking his siesta; I ventured to supply them with an account of his magnificence."
"In future I wish to be called," said Dessalines shortly. He threw open the colored supplement and almost the first thing to catch his eye was a full page of drawings representing himself in various guises: one as a student at Oxford; another of himself in evening clothes, entertained by royalty; still another showed him being dressed by Jules, and the last represented him in a gorgeous setting of tropical foliage, clothed in white and reclining in a hammock where he was being served by a galaxy of dusky damsels.
The headlines were garish. "A West-Indian Crœsus!" they read; "Count Aristide Dessalines, of Hayti, now in Boston." With sublines, "A Graduate of Oxford University;" "Entertained by British Nobility;" "Has a French Valet;" "A Hercules in Jet," and similar phrases.
Dessalines read the account through twice, his eyes sparkling with gratification. The account was exaggerated, flamboyant, highly colored, but flattering to a point which would have aroused the disgust of any but a negro.
"Get me a dozen—three dozen—of these papers!" he said to Jules, "and if any more of the reporters call do not fail to arrange an interview. To-morrow I will sit for my photograph." His black face was beaming with pleasure; indeed, the account had the result of making him a celebrity, and he noticed an increased deference in the menials about the hotel.
The following morning his mail was profuse; there were letters from people of all kinds, requesting interviews: from clergymen, societies for the amelioration of the negro, from negro lecturers and public men, from women. Dessalines was overcome, amazed, half-drunk with what he accepted as fame. Many people called in the course of the forenoon; his reception room was filled with reporters. The proprietor of the hotel put another and larger suite at his disposal.
Dessalines was interviewed, harangued, sketched, photographed, and as the time for his departure approached he contemplated wiring to postpone his engagement. The Haytian was in his element; his deep sonorous voice rolled through the luxurious apartments; his sable face wore a bland expression of deliciously stroked vanity; his views in regard to the United States and its people underwent a change.
Toward noon he wearied of the ovation and leaving Jules to receive and answer questions, had a cab called and drove to the station. There he was recognized and promptly surrounded by a crowd, but a respectful crowd, as Boston crowds are apt to be.
There were several stylish traps at the depot at Manchester, but as he left the car a groom in gray livery stepped up and touched his cap.
"You are for Mrs. Cromwell's, sir?"
"Yes," replied Dessalines, and followed the man to where a pair of handsome horses were harnessed to a station omnibus.
Dessalines was delighted. The ovation of the morning, the respectful interest of his fellow passengers, the demeanor of these white menials, all semiintoxicated him. In his exalted mood his future seemed very fair. He ascribed this reception of himself, in a country known to be hostile to his race, to his own personality; he decided that he was born to sway toward him the minds of men.
The journey had pleased him; the place when he arrived, even more. Many people were driving; he thought the equipages handsomer than those met with in an English watering place; the people also seemed more attractive, the women prettier; the air of gayety was rather that of France than England.
Soon the road led out along the seashore and Dessalines was charmed; the coast, picturesque rather than bold, seemed that of England with the rude features eliminated. The houses he found attractive; bright, cheerful, of artistic if incorrect architecture. It was a clear, cool day in September and many people were abroad. Dessalines found the whole scene brightly fascinating.
Presently they entered the driveway of handsome grounds, limited in extent, unlike an English country house of similar pretensions, which would have been surrounded by a park, gardens; quite different from this little palace with its few containing acres which were unfenced, open lawn stretching to the highway with what seemed to the Haytian an almost shocking publicity.
As the carriage drew up beneath the porte-cochère a butler ushered him in. A rustle greeted his expectant ear and he turned to see Virginia.
"I am very glad to see you, Count Dessalines." She gave him her hand over which he bowed. "Mrs. Cromwell is paying visits; she will soon return."
"I am grateful for your goodness in permitting me to call, Miss Moultrie. I am the bearer of many messages from, the Maltbys; you can imagine them; it is unnecessary to go into details."
"You left them all well?" asked Virginia.
"Yes; but missing you sadly." He let his blue-black eyes rest upon her; it seemed to him that she had grown older since leaving England, also more beautiful. This beauty was of the kind to which he was ready to sacrifice; a beauty not alone physical but of caste. His animalism groveled before beauty of this thoroughbred type as a dog might fawn at the feet of his mistress. Physically beautiful she was, and generously so, but it was the caste which most impressed him; less that evidenced in skin and hair and delicately formed details, than the cool, perfect poise, a dignity as refreshing as an iced fruit.
"You have been some days in the United States, Count Dessalines?"
"I arrived a week ago on the French steamer; a delightful voyage. I was so fortunate as to meet some friends returning to Hayti, the Doctor and Madam Fouchere; they are friends of that dear fellow, Leyden."
"How nice; and speaking of Leyden, do you know where he is at present?"
"In England; it is possible that he may go to the Orinoco this autumn."
"Let us go out on the veranda," said Virginia. "It faces the sea and the air is delightful." She led the way through the house and out through glass doors. Dessalines, following her, exclaimed with pleasure.
"But this is charming! I had no thought of finding such a picturesque spot. I had expected that it would be wild, savage, with great trees and bowlders and crags over which the waves foamed. I have read 'Evangeline.' He was a great poet, your Longfellow. This is like England, is it not?"
"It is called New England," replied Virginia. Her hazel eyes rested curiously upon the negro as he examined the scene before him with expressions of keen delight. "Do you find it as beautiful as Hayti?"
"Ah, Hayti!" cried Dessalines. "But that is different; Hayti is a rose eaten by insects; a garden despoiled and neglected! You know we are in utter confusion there."
"So I have read." Virginia dropped upon a swinging seat; Dessalines remained standing. She had many times noticed this mannerism, a preference for the erect rather than for a sitting posture. A negro does not like to sit; he will stand, squat, or lounge. Dessalines possessed in full this racial peculiarity.
From his great height he looked down at Virginia, his face thoughtful, troubled; with Dessalines the one entailed the other.
"It was this which brought me; I am on my way to Hayti. You already know of my ambition, Miss Moultrie; I believe that my time is ripe!"
Virginia was thrilled, this time less by the timbre of the great musical voice than by the words the ideas conveyed. She half-raised herself, eyes aglow, breath coming quickly. Dessalines, as he stood before her staring out to sea, his expression thoughtful, troubled, perplexed, seemed striving to search the infinite; primitive man, half-baffled, contemplating his first coördinated plan; yet he was imposing. To Virginia he seemed to typify the negro race; a looming, colossal figure standing on the threshold of humanity, at the door of the council chamber, puzzled, bewildered, awed, yet stubbornly demanding the right to speak in conclave.
A more clever negro, one confidant, assured, cunning, diplomatic, would have been less impressive to the girl; a mulatto unimpressive altogether. Dessalines was typical. She believed him to be honest, earnest. She believed his ambitions for his country to be minor to those for his race, his personal ambitions least of all. His aspect of doubt affected her strongly; her sympathy went out to him in his struggle.
"Do you still wish to rule?" she asked in a low voice.
His slumberous eyes rested on her for a moment before he replied, then the great voice welled out like the growl of a lion.
"I shall rule, Miss Moultrie. I would not tell this to any but you. In a month's time I shall be regent of Hayti—then emperor!" The word boomed forth resonantly; the massive head was raised proudly.
Virginia, always as keenly alive to an impression as the film of a camera, was thrilled through and through. The words rang in her ears. "I shall be king," all that the words contained! King, Prophet, Educator, Wise Despot of a rich island teeming with a savage population. The great negro who stood before her, staring at the ocean beneath his lowering brows, would be this one. She caught her breath with a gasp and the color fled from her face as she looked at him. Virile, crude, uncouth, unable to cope mentally with a brain of multiplex convolutions, it was such a one who must lead his groping people out of the shadow. No white man ever could do it; no mulatto ever could do it; it was the work of a negro, and she believed that it was the work of the one who stood before her, and the thought filled her with exultation even while his labored doubts led her heart out to him in his uncertainty.
"I believe in you, Count Dessalines!" she cried impulsively, and half-reached him her hand. It was a swift gesture, but before she could recover he had turned with the lithe, quick grace of a tiger, caught the hand in his huge black one, and stooped over it.
A thousand shudders swept through the girl as the thick lips, bulging, surplus, soft as the cheek of a mushroom, brushed her fingers; every nerve, fiber, tendril in her exquisite organization screamed in shocked protest against the physical contact; every invisible barrier which separates the races seemed struggling to resist. This flood of outraged impulses overcame her for the instant; objects whirled; the sea arose in a great tidal wave about to inundate the earth; her pulses sang in her ears; and then, as her will grappled with her instincts and clamped them to do her bidding, the swift sensation passed. Dessalines had loosed her hand, and glancing at him Virginia saw that his features were twitching and his eyes brimming with tears. Pity, sympathy, swept away the last of her qualms.
"Ah, Miss Moultrie!" he cried, "if you could realize what that belief means to me! If you knew how I am torn between confidence and doubts! You are the only person to whom I have told these things—expressed my fears of my own strength, my power, my ability—whatever it is which goes to make a ruler! What is it?" he demanded fiercely. "I have education, money, influence, advice; there is an army of picked men ready to respond to my call; the Haytians are not a fighting people; in ten days' time the arms and munitions will be landed by my agent; it should be so simple! I am not afraid," he filled his great chest and glared savagely out at the blue water, "for another it would seem so easy! How simple it would be for Leyden!" The black face was troubled, perplexed; the fullness had left the voice; it had the querulous note of a complaining child.
Virginia glanced at him in swift surprise; the change was so sudden, this transition from confidence to doubt. The Prophet had suddenly confused his oracles, the Guide had lost his way, the Pilot run upon a shoal; yet there was in the voice a childish helplessness that stirred her pity more than it awakened her contempt. It called upon the maternal; this great, groping brain, struggling toward the light had been enmeshed, fallen into a quicksand, was suddenly bewildered, and called to her for aid.
"Those ideas come to everyone who is called upon to play a central part, Count Dessalines. There are bound to be doubts and fears not of one's duty but of oneself. You must close your ears and eyes to them, work steadily on, and accept the issue. It is not for yourself that you fear; it is for the great and sacred responsibility which you have assumed."
She paused; the expression of despair had been swept from his face as cumulus clouds drift across the sky to band the earth with sun and shadow. The dull look had left the dark, metallic eyes.
"You must not dwell upon these doubts," continued Virginia. "Probably there never lived a man of your race more fully equipped for this task than you."
"Ah!" interrupted Dessalines, "it is true. You are right." The face was aglow again, inspired, confident. "It is the height of my ambition for my people which so appalls me, and—" his voice grew sepulchral—"the profound depths from which they must be raised. I could tell you things of Hayti, Miss Moultrie, which would appall you; which you would find difficult to believe." The thin note of despondency was creeping again into his voice.
"It is always more difficult to save a people from themselves than from another, but that is why you are so wonderfully chosen for this work. You are one of them; you understand them; you love them!"
"Ah, yes, I love them! They are my people!" The black face was radiant. "They must be saved—and," the face grew stern again, "they must be purged of their iniquities!"
"But you have also the strength."
"Yes!" cried Dessalines, "you are right; I have the strength. My men are ready and waiting; my arms are by this time aboard my vessel; the work goes on under the management of a shrewd and honest man, my agent, a Jew."
In eager, voluble words he began to sketch his campaign. Virginia leaned forward, both hands on the chains of her swinging chair, listened fascinated, enthralled, held with parted lips and sparkling eyes, drinking his words thirstily.
"There is Nord Alexis at Cape Haitien, an able man, but unable to pass through Gonaives because Jean Jumeau, delegate at that place, who is acting in the interest of Firmin, will not permit it. The other men who cherish ambitions for the presidency are Pierre and Fouchard, both coming from the South, and each pulling against the other; they are all pulling against each other. Then there is this débauché, Killik, who commands the Crête-à-Pierrot. He is not to be feared as he has no backing, no money, and will soon be out of coal and supplies, unless he attempts to take them by force from some vessel of a foreign power, and this he will hardly be fool enough to do. My supplies will be dropped at the different places where my men are located. My plan is to sail at once for Hayti; next I shall destroy or capture the Crête-à-Pierrot, and storm Port au Prince by sea and land."
Dessalines' eyes sparkled; his voice rang with enthusiasm; one could never have believed that this was the same man who, five minutes before, had bewailed his inefficiency.
"And then?" asked Virginia eagerly.
"Then—" the eyes flashed, the sable face glowed, the massive chest arched. "My victorious troops shall acclaim me Dessalines the Second, Liberator, Empereur de Haiti!"
Virginia's eyes glistened; tremors ran through her; her cheeks were flushed. She tried to speak, stammered, laughed hysterically.
Dessalines' face was radiant, his whole great physique vibrant, exhilarated, semiintoxicated at the rush of emotion with which his eloquence inspired him.
"Ah, but you give me courage!" he cried. "You make me feel that I am indeed like the great tyrant Napoleon, a man of destiny! You seem to point out to me my star as it hangs high in the zenith!" His opaque eyes rested on the beautiful, intense face of the girl, and Virginia meeting them with her own saw the pupils dilate … they held her strangely.
"If there were a woman like you, Miss Moultrie," began Dessalines, and his throaty voice throbbed like a bass note of an organ, "a woman with mind and soul and heart—" The deep organ note vibrated; it purred; the purr of some great, striped, jungle cat wooing its mate in the shaded depths of an equatorial forest. "If there were one to be with me, both now and afterwards; one of higher and finer mold, who could direct the great strength of my brain and body, inspire me with confidence," the voice rumbled on, the words lost to Virginia who seemed only to see the swelling pupils, each of which held a twin flame and, as the girl watched, these seemed to coalesce and blur, then fly apart again, "some one who could share my ambitions and my throne!" He swayed slightly toward her.
Virginia drew back shuddering; the lawn, the sea beyond grew vague, whirled together. Dessalines seemed to swell, to mount, to tower like a great black genius summoned from space by some unconscious act of her own. One hand flew to her throat, barely choked back a scream. Dessalines, lost in his fancies, did not see her strangling emotion.
"Did I not once tell you of my highest ambition, Miss Moultrie?" he continued in the same vibratingly caressing voice, "of my dream for bringing about the union of our races; of eliding the point of separation bound to exist while there is a sharply drawn 'color line,' as it is called in this heathen country? Do you not think such a thing possible … surely you do not share in the popular antipathy which is claimed by some to be felt toward my race?"
Virginia, recovered in the respite when he had taken his eyes from hers, and now fighting hard to control the revulsion which impelled her almost irresistibly to rush shrieking from his presence, was unable to formulate a reply. Dessalines, led into a new train of thought by this query, stood for a moment in silence.
"What is it?" he asked, and an odd fretfulness had entered his voice. "Have we not the same souls, the same God, the same heaven? We feel no repulsion to the whites, why should they feel it toward us?" The childish querulousness had all returned. "I do not understand this spirit; it is not a Christian spirit; it is, must be displeasing to God. Is it because my people have been for so many years in slavery? Why are not we as good as anyone else? Why do they call us 'niggers' and speak of us as if we were dogs and animals and worse? I do not understand such things."
Virginia recognized the puzzled, angry child. The tone was peevish, almost whimpering. Like a flash the revulsion left her; she was filled with a sense of remoteness, infinite wisdom as compared with this childish, groping intellect, made peevish by a question with which his primitive brain was unable to grapple; voicing his perplexities in a series of persistent "whys." "You must not vex yourself with such questions now," she answered, "you have enough to occupy all of your thoughts. Afterwards … when you are established it will be time enough to consider these things."
The black face changed as if by magic.
"Come," said Virginia quietly, "here is Mrs. Cromwell's carriage; she is anxious to meet you." She led the way through the swinging doors.