Marah Ryan - The Bondwoman

The Marquise looked at her thoughtfully, but did not speak. She was too much of a girl herself to understand entirely the nature before her or its temptations. They looked, really, about the same age, yet for all the mentality of the Marquise, she knew Kora was right–the world of emotions that was an open book to the bewitching octoroon was an unknown world to her.

“The things I do not understand I will not presume to judge,” she said, at last, very gently; “but is there no one anywhere in this world whose affection for you would be strong enough to help you live away from these people who speak of you as those men spoke, yet who are themselves accountable for the faults over which they laugh together.”

“Oh, what you have said has turned me against that Trouvelot–that dandy!” she said, with a certain vehemence. “He is only a Count of yesterday, after all; I’ll remember that! Still; it is all the habit of life, Madame, and I never knew any other. Look here; when I was twelve I was told by an old woman to be careful of my hands, of my good looks every way, for if I was handsome as my mother, I would never need to do housework; that was the beginning! Well!” and she smiled bitterly, “I have not had to do it, but it was through no planning of theirs.”

“And your mother?”

“Dead; and my father, too. He was her master.”

“It is that spendthrift–Trouvelot, you care for?”

“Not this minute,” confessed the girl; “but,” and she shrugged her shoulders, “I probably shall tomorrow! I know myself well enough for that; and I won’t lie–to you! You saw how he could make me cry? It is only the man we care for who can hurt us.”

The Marquise did not reply; she was staring out of the window. Kora, watching her, did not know if she heard. She had heard and was angry with herself that her heart grew lighter when she heard the name of Kora’s lover.

“I–I will not intrude longer, Madame,” said the girl at last. “What you’ve said will make me think more. I never heard of what you’ve told me today. I wish there were women in America like you; oh, I wish there were! There are good white ladies there, of course, but they don’t teach the slaves to think; they only tell them to have faith! They teach them from their bible; and all I could ever remember of it was: ‘Servants, obey your masters;’ and I hated it. So you see, Madame, it is too late for me; I don’t know any other life; I–”

“I will help you to a different life whenever you are willing to leave Paris,” said the Marquise.

“You would do that, Madame?”

Kora dropped into the chair again, covering her face with her hands. After a little she looked up, and the cunning of her class was in her eyes.

“Is it to separate me from him ?” she asked, bluntly. “I know they want him to marry; are you a friend of his family?”

The Marquise smiled at that.

“I really do not know if he has a family,” she replied. “I am interested because it seems so pitiful that a girl should never have had a chance to live commendably. It is not too late. In your own country a person of your intelligence and education should be able to do much good among the children of the free colored people. You would be esteemed. You–”

“Esteemed!” Kora smiled skeptically, thinking no doubt of the half-world circle over which she was a power in her adopted city; she, who had only to show herself in the spectacle to make more money than a year’s earnings in American school teaching. She knew she could not really dance, but she did pose in a manner rather good; and then, her beauty!

“I was a fool when I came here–to Paris,” she said woefully. “I thought everybody would know I was colored, so I told. But they would not know,” and she held out her hand, looking at the white wrist, “I could have said I was a West Indian, a Brazilian, or a Spanish Creole–as many others do. But it is all too late. America was never kind to my people, or me. You mean to be kind, Madame; but you don’t know colored folks. They would be the first to resent my educational advantages; not that I know much; books were hard work for me, and Paris was the only one I could learn to read easy. As for America, I own up, I’m afraid of America.”

The Marquise thought she knew why, but only said:

“If you change your mind you can let me know. I have a property in New Orleans. Some day I may go there. I could protect you if you would help protect yourself.” She looked at the lovely octoroon with meaning, and the black velvety eyes fell under that regard.

“You can always learn where I am in Paris, and if you should change your mind–” At the door she paused and said kindly: “My poor girl, if you remain here he will break your heart.”

“They usually do when a woman loves them, Madame,” replied Kora, with a sad little smile; she had learned so much in the book of Paris.

The friends of the Marquise were searching for her when she emerged from the ante-room. The Countess Biron confessed herself in despair.

“In such a mixed assembly! and all alone! How was one to know what people you might meet, or what adventures.”

“Oh, I am not adventurous, Countess,” was the smiling reply; “and let me whisper: I have been talking all of the time with one person, one very pretty person, and it has been an instructive half hour.”

“Pretty? Well, that is assurance as to sex,” remarked Madame Choudey, with a glance towards one of the others of the party.

“And if you will watch that door you will be enlightened as to the individual,” said the Marquise.

Three pair of eyes turned with alertness to the door. At that moment it opened, and Kora appeared. The lace veil no longer hid her beautiful eyes–all the more lovely for that swift bath of tears. She saw the Marquise and her friends, but passed as if she had never seen one of them before; Kora had her own code.

“Are you serious, Judithe de Caron?” gasped the Countess Helene. “Were you actually–conversing–with that–demi-mondaine?”

“My dear Marquise!” purred Madame Choudey, “when she does not even pretend to be respectable!”

“It is because she does not pretend that I spoke with her. Honesty should receive some notice.”

“Honesty! Good heavens!” cried Madame Ampere, who had not yet spoken, but who expressed horror by her eyes, “where then do you find your standards for such judgment?”

“Now, listen!” and the Marquise turned to the three with a quizzical smile, “if Kora lived exactly the same life morally, but was a ruler of the fashionable world, instead of the other one; if she wore a crown of state instead of the tinsel of the varieties, you would not exclaim if she addressed me.”

“Oh, I must protest, Marquise,” began Madame Ampere in shocked remonstrance, but the Marquise smiled and stopped her.

“Yesterday,” she said slowly, “I saw you in conversation with a man who has the panels of his carriage emblazoned with the Hydrangea–also called the Hortensia.”

The shocked lady looked uncomfortable.

“What then? since it was the Emperor’s brother.”

“Exactly; the brother of the Emperor, and both of them the sons of a mother beside whom beautiful Kora is a thing of chastity.”

“The children could not help the fact that they were all half-brothers,” laughed the Countess Helene.

“But this so-called Duke could help parading the doubtful honor of his descent; yet who fails to return his bow? And I have yet to learn that his mother was ignored by the ladies of her day. Those Hortensias on his carriage are horrible to me; they are an attempt to exalt in a queen the immorality condemned in a subject.”

“Ah! You make my head swim with your theories,” confessed the Countess. “How do you find time to study them all?”