_ CHAPTER XXVII. A SPLENDID FAILURE
If it is easy to discover why there was no special embassy sent by this government to Turkey for the purpose of inviting the distinguished patriot Kossuth to visit America, (that matter being concluded in rather less formal fashion after the return home of the Hungarian committee of inquiry--a ship of our navy being despatched to carry him to our shores) it with equal ease may be understood why the Countess St. Auban after this remained unmolested. A quaking administration, bent only on keeping political matters in perfect balance, and on quenching promptly, as best it might, any incipient blaze of anti-slavery zeal which might break out from its smoldering, dared make no further move against her. She was now too much in the public eye to be safe even in suppression, and so was left to pursue her own way for a time; this the more readily, of course, because she was doing nothing either illegal or reprehensible. Indeed, as has been said, she was only carrying out in private way a pet measure of Mr. Fillmore himself, one which he had only with difficulty been persuaded to eliminate from his first presidential message--that of purchasing the slaves and deporting them from our shores. The government at Washington perforce looked on, shivering, dreading lest this thing might fail, dreading also lest it might not fail. It was a day of compromise, of cowardice, of politics played as politics; a day of that political unwisdom which always is dangerous--the fear of riding straight, the ignorance of the saving quality of honest courage. Wherefore, matters went on thus, fit foundation now building for that divided and ill-ordered house of this republic, whose purification could only be found in the cleansing catastrophe of fire so soon to come.
As to the unfortunate work in which this warm-hearted enthusiast thus impulsively engaged, small comment need be made, since its failure so soon was to become apparent to the popular mind. The Countess St. Auban was not the first to look to colonization and deportation as the solution of the negro problem in America. But as the Colonization Society for more than a decade had failed to accomplish results, so did she in her turn fail. In a work which continued through all that spring and summer, she drew again and again upon her own private fortune. Carlisle and Kammerer had charge of the details, but she herself was the driving force of the enterprise. While they were abroad lecturing and asking contributions to their cause--taking with them the slave girl Lily as an example of what slavery had done--she remained at Washington. They actually did arrange for the deportation of a ship-load of blacks to Hayti, another ship-load to Liberia. A colony of blacks whose freedom had been purchased was established in Tennessee, others were planned for yet other localities. It was part of her intent to establish nuclei of freed blacks in different portions of the southern section.
In all this work Lily, late servant of Josephine St. Auban, assumed a certain prominence, this being given to her not wholly with wisdom. Although but little negro blood remained in her veins, this former slave had not risen above the life that had surrounded her. Ignorant, emotional, at times working herself into a frenzy of religious zeal, she was farthest of all from being a sober judge or a fair-minded agent for the views of others. Yet in time her two guardians, Carlisle and Kammerer, unwisely allowed her more and more liberty. She was even, in times of great hurry, furnished funds to go upon trips of investigation for herself, as one best fitted to judge of the conditions of her people. As to these details, Josephine St. Auban knew little. There was enough to occupy her mind at the center of these affairs, where labors grew rapidly and quite beyond her original plan.
As is always the case in such hopeless enterprises, the expenses multiplied beyond belief. True, contributions came meagerly from the North, here and there some abolitionist appearing who would do something besides write and preach. In all, more than a half million dollars was spent before the end of the year 1851. Then, swiftly and without warning, there came the end.
One morning, almost a year after her return to Washington, Josephine St. Auban sat in her apartments, looking at a long document inscribed in a fine, foreign hand. It was the report of the agent of her estates in Prance and Hungary. As she read it the lines blurred before her eyes. It demanded an effort even of her superb courage fairly to face and meet the meaning. In fact, it was this: The revolution of Louis Napoleon of 1851 had resulted in the confiscation of many estates in France, all her own included. As though by concert among the monarchies of Europe, the heavy hand of confiscation fell, in this nation and in that. The thrones of the Old World are not supported by revolutionists; nor are revolutionists supported by the occupants of thrones. Her Hungarian lands had followed those which she had owned in France. The rents of her estates no longer could be collected. Her revenues were absolutely gone. Moreover, she herself was an exile.
Thus, then, had her high-blown hopes come to an end. It was proof of the splendid courage of the woman that she shed not a tear. Not a lash trembled as presently she turned to despatch a message for her lieutenant, Carlisle, to come to her. The latter was absent at some western point, but within two days he appeared in Washington and presently made his call, as yet ignorant of what were his employer's wishes.
He himself began eagerly, the fanatic fire still in his eye, on details of the work so near to his soul. "My dear Countess," he exclaimed, even as he grasped her hands, "we're doing splendidly. We'll have the whole Mississippi Valley in an uproar before long. All the lower Ohio is unsettled. Missouri, Illinois, Indiana are muttering as loudly as New England. I hear that Lily has led away a whole neighborhood over in Missouri. A few months more like this, and we'll have this whole country in a turmoil. It's bound to win--the country's bound to come to its senses--if we keep on."
"But we can not keep on, my dear Sir," she said to him slowly. "That is why I have sent for you."
"How do you mean? What's wrong? Can not keep on--end our work? You're jesting!"
"No, it is the truth. Kossuth is in Turkey. Shall I join him there? Where shall I go? I'm an exile from France. I dare not return to Hungary."
"You--I'll--I'll not believe it! What do you mean?"
"I am ruined financially, that's all. My funds are at an end. My estates are gone! My agent tells me he can send me no more money. How much do you think," she said, with a little
moue, "we can do in the way of deporting blacks out of my earnings--well, say as teacher of music, or of French?"
"I'll not believe it--you--why, you've been used to riches, luxuries, all your life! And I--why, I've helped impoverish you! I've been spending your money. A ship-load of blacks, against you? My God! I'd have cut my hand off rather."
She showed him the correspondence, proof of all that she had said, and he read with a face haggard in unhappiness.'
"There' There!" she said. "You've not heard me make any outcry yet, have you? Why should you, then? I have seen men lay down their lives for a principle, a belief. You will see that again. Should not a woman lay down her money?
"But as to that," she went on lightly, "why, there are many things one might do. I might make a rich alliance, don't you think?"
He suddenly stiffened and straightened, and looked her full in the eye, a slow flush coming across his face.
"I couldn't have said it any time before this," said he. "It has been in my heart all along, but I didn't dare--not then. Yes, a rich alliance if you liked, I do not doubt. There's a poor one waiting for you, any time you like. You know that. You must have seen it, a thousand times--"
She advanced to him easily and held out both her hands. "Now, now!" she said. "Don't begin that. You'll only hurt us both. My lieutenant, visionary as myself! Ah, we've failed."
"But everybody will blame you--you will have no place to go--it will be horrible--you don't begin to know what it means. Of course, we have made mistakes."
"Then let's not make the worst mistake of all," she said.
"But we could do so much--"
She turned upon him suddenly, pale, excited. "Do not!" she cried. "Do not use those words! It seems to me that that is what all men think and say. 'How much we could do--together!' Do not say that to me."
At this he sobered. "Then there is some one else?" he said slowly. "You've heard some one else use those words? I couldn't blame him. Well, I wish him happiness. And I wish you happiness, too. I had no right to presume."
"Happiness!--what is that?" she said slowly. "I've been trying to find it all my life. My God! How crooked were all the mismated planets at my birth! I haven't been happy myself. I do not think that I've added one iota to the happiness of any one else, I've just failed, that's all. And I've tried so hard--to do something, something for the world! Oh, can a woman--can she, ever?" For once shaken, she dropped her face an instant in her hands, he standing by, mute, and suffering much as herself at seeing her thus suffer.
"But now," she continued after a time, "--I want to ask you whether I've been ungenerous or vindictive with you--"
"Vindictive? You? Never! But why should you be?"
"Captain," she said easily, "my lieutenant, my friend, let me say--I will not be specific--I will not mention names or dates; but do you think, if you were a woman, you could ever marry a man who once, behind your back, with not even eagerness to incite him, but coolly, deliberately--had played a game of cards for--you?"
He stiffened as though shot. "I know. But you misunderstand. I did not play for you. I played to relieve a situation--because I thought you wished--because it seemed the solution of a situation hard for both of us. I thought--"
"Solution!" She blazed up now, tigerlike, and her words came through set lips. "I'd never have told you I knew, if you hadn't said what you have. But--a solution--a plan--a compromise! You ought to have played for me! You ought to have played for me; and you ought to have won--have won!"
He stood before a woman new to him, one so different from the grateful and gracious enthusiast he had met all these months that he could not comprehend the change, could not at once adjust his confused senses. So miserable was he that suddenly, with one of her swift changes, she smiled at him, even through her sudden tears. "No! No!" she exclaimed. "See! Look here!"
She handed him a little sheet of crumpled note paper, inscribed in a cramped hand, showed him the inscription--"Jeanne Fournier."
"You don't know who that is?" she asked him.
"No, I don't know."
"Why, yes, you do. My maid--my French maid--don't you remember? She married Hector, the cooper, at St. Genevieve. Now, see, Jeanne is writing to me again. Don't you see, there's a baby, and it is named for me--who has none. Good-by, that money!"--she kissed hand to the air--"Good-by, that idea, that dream of mine! That's of no consequence. In fact, nothing is of consequence. See, this is the baby of Jeanne! She has asked me to come. Why, then, should I delay?"
Whether it were tears or smiles which he saw upon her face Carlisle never could determine. Whether it were physical unrest or mental emotion, he did not know, but certainly it was that the letter of the agent remained upon the table untouched between them while Josephine St. Auban pressed to her lips the letter from Jeanne, her maid.
"Why, I have not failed at all!" said she. "Have I not cared for and brought up this Jeanne, and is there not a baby of Jeanne, a baby whom she has named for me?"
Carlisle, mute and unnoticed, indeed, as he felt almost forgotten, was relieved when there came a knock at the door. A messenger bearing a card entered. She turned toward him gravely, and he could only read dismissal now. Mute and unhappy, he hurried from the room. He did not, however, pass from the stage of activity he had chosen. He later fought for his convictions, and saw accomplished, before, with so many other brave men, he fell upon the field of battle--accomplished at vast cost of blood and tears--that work which he had been inspired to undertake in a more futile form.
"You may say to this gentleman that I shall join him presently, in the parlor at the right of the stair," said Josephine St. Auban after a moment to the messenger. _