Iola Leroy Frances Ellen Watkins Harper (classic literature list txt) 📖

he sees my letters and hears my story, I can pull the wool over his eyes.”

“But, Louis, this is a pitiful piece of business. I should hate to be engaged in it.”

A deep flush of shame overspread for a moment the face of Lorraine’s attorney, as he replied: “I don’t like the job, but I have undertaken it, and must go through with it.”

“I see no ‘must’ about it. Were I in your place I would wash my hands of the whole business.”

“I can’t afford it,” was Bastine’s hard, businesslike reply. On the next morning after this conversation between these two young men, Louis Bastine presented himself to the principal of the academy, with the request that Iola be permitted to leave immediately to attend the sickbed of her father, who was dangerously ill. The principal hesitated, but while he was deliberating, a telegram, purporting to come from Iola’s mother, summoned Iola to her father’s bedside without delay. The principal, set at rest in regard to the truthfulness of the dispatch, not only permitted but expedited her departure.

Iola and Bastine took the earliest train, and traveled without pausing until they reached a large hotel in a Southern city. There they were obliged to wait a few hours until they could resume their journey, the train having failed to make connection. Iola sat in a large, lonely parlor, waiting for the servant to show her to a private room. She had never known a great sorrow. Never before had the shadows of death mingled with the sunshine of her life.

Anxious, travel-worn, and heavyhearted, she sat in an easy chair, with nothing to divert her from the grief and anxiety which rendered every delay a source of painful anxiety.

“Oh, I hope that he will be alive and growing better!” was the thought which kept constantly revolving in her mind, until she fell asleep. In her dreams she was at home, encircled in the warm clasp of her father’s arms, feeling her mother’s kisses lingering on her lips, and hearing the joyous greetings of the servants and Mammy Liza’s glad welcome as she folded her to her heart. From this dream of bliss she was awakened by a burning kiss pressed on her lips, and a strong arm encircling her. Gazing around and taking in the whole situation, she sprang from her seat, her eyes flashing with rage and scorn, her face flushed to the roots of her hair, her voice shaken with excitement, and every nerve trembling with angry emotion.

“How dare you do such a thing! Don’t you know if my father were here he would crush you to the earth?”

“Not so fast, my lovely tigress,” said Bastine, “your father knew what he was doing when he placed you in my charge.”

“My father made a great mistake, if he thought he had put me in charge of a gentleman.”

“I am your guardian for the present,” replied Bastine. “I am to see you safe home, and then my commission ends.”

“I wish it were ended now,” she exclaimed, trembling with anger and mortification. Her voice was choked by emotion, and broken by smothered sobs. Louis Bastine thought to himself, “she is a real spitfire, but beautiful even in her wrath.”

During the rest of her journey Iola preserved a most freezing reserve towards Bastine. At length the journey was ended. Pale and anxious she rode up the avenue which led to her home.

A strange silence pervaded the place. The servants moved sadly from place to place, and spoke in subdued tones. The windows were heavily draped with crape, and a funeral air pervaded the house.

Mammy Liza met her at the door, and, with streaming eyes and convulsive sobs, folded her to her heart, as Iola exclaimed, in tones of hopeless anguish:⁠—

“Oh, papa’s dead!”

“Oh, my pore baby!” said mammy, “ain’t you hearn tell ’bout it? Yore par’s dead, an’ your mar’s bin drefful sick. She’s better now.”

Mam Liza stepped lightly into Mrs. Leroy’s room, and gently apprised her of Iola’s arrival. In a darkened room lay the stricken mother, almost distracted by her late bereavement.

“Oh, Iola,” she exclaimed, as her daughter entered, “is this you? I am so sorry you came.”

Then, burying her head in Iola’s bosom, she wept convulsively. “Much as I love you,” she continued, between her sobs, “and much as I longed to see you, I am sorry you came.”

“Why, mother,” replied Iola, astonished, “I received your telegram last Wednesday, and I took the earliest train I could get.”

“My dear child, I never sent you a telegram. It was a trick to bring you down South and reduce you to slavery.”

Iola eyed her mother curiously. What did she mean? Had grief dethroned her reason? Yet her eye was clear, her manner perfectly rational.

Marie saw the astounded look on Iola’s face, and nerving herself to the task, said: “Iola, I must tell you what your father always enjoined me to be silent about. I did not think it was the wisest thing, but I yielded to his desires. I have negro blood in my veins. I was your father’s slave before I married him. His relatives have set aside his will. The courts have declared our marriage null and void and my manumission illegal, and we are all to be remanded to slavery.”

An expression of horror and anguish swept over Iola’s face, and, turning deathly pale, she exclaimed, “Oh, mother, it can’t be so! you must be dreaming!”

“No, my child; it is a terrible reality.”

Almost wild with agony, Iola paced the floor, as the fearful truth broke in crushing anguish upon her mind. Then bursting into a paroxysm of tears succeeded by peals of hysterical laughter, said:⁠—

“I used to say that slavery is right. I didn’t know what I was talking about.” Then growing calmer, she said, “Mother, who is at the bottom of this downright robbery?”

“Alfred Lorraine; I have always dreaded that man, and what I feared has come to pass. Your father had faith in him; I never had.”

“But, mother, could we not