Charles W. Chesnutt - The Passing of Grandison

The Passing of Grandison - Charles W. Chesnutt

Charles W. Chesnutt was born in 1858 in a Southern state of America. He had mixed white and black parents and, because of his very fair looks, could pretend to be a white man but chose never to do this. After a village education, he eventually went on to study law and became a lawyer.

He chose to live in the North so that he could mix in literary circles. Chesnutt’s stories and novels were at first very popular,  but his later works were more and more complicated to show the difficult situation in the South. From the early years of the twentieth century, more radical writers thought Chesnutt was racist.

He never made enough money to live from his writing, although critics always praised it. He was though a successful businessman and political activist. He died in 1932.

The Passing of Grandison

When people say that something was done to please a woman it should be enough to explain everything. Nevertheless, it might be useful to give a few facts to make it clear why young Dick Owens tried to help one of his father's Negro slaves to Canada.

In the early 1850s, when popular feeling against slavery and the continuous escape of slaves into the North had greatly alarmed the slave owners of the southern states, a young white man, moved by compassion for the sufferings of a slave who had a "hard master," tried to help him to freedom. The attempt was discovered and prevented; the white man was convicted of slave-stealing and sentenced to imprisonment. His death from cholera, caught while he was nursing other prisoners, after only a few months of the sentence, gave the case a tragic interest that made it famous.

Dick Owens attended the trial. He was a youth of about twenty-two, intelligent, handsome and friendly, but extremely lazy in a gentlemanly way. When people asked why he never did anything serious, Dick would good-naturedly reply that he didn't have to. His father was rich and Dick was heir to a large estate. He did not need wealth or social position because he was born with both. Although Charity Lomax had forced him to study law, he did not get far with his legal studies.

However, all Dick needed to push him was a suggestion from Charity Lomax. The story was only really known to two people until after the war, when there was no reason to hide it.

Young Owens had attended the trial of this slave-thief and, when it was over, had gone to call on Charity Lomax, and had told her all about it. He was a good talker and described it very well.

"While my principles were against the prisoner" he admitted, "my sympathies were on his side. He was from a good family and had an old father and mother who depended on him for support and comfort in their old age. He got involved due to sympathy for a Negro whose master should have been thrown out of town for abusing his slaves. If it had been only a question of Sam Briggs's Negro, nobody would have cared about it. But father was concerned about the principle of the action and told the judge so, and the man was sentenced to three years."

Miss Lomax listened with interest.

"I've always hated Sam Briggs," she said, "ever since the time he broke a Negro's leg with a piece of wood. Personally, I wish that all Sam Briggs's Negroes would run away. As for the young man, he’s a hero. I could love a man who would take such a risk for the sake of others."

"Could you love me, Charity, if I did something heroic?"

"You never will, Dick. You're too lazy. You'll never do anything harder than playing cards."

"Oh, come now, sweetheart! I've been seeing you for a year, and it's the hardest work imaginable. Are you never going to love me?" he begged.

His hand looked for hers, but she pulled it back.

"I'll never love you, Dick Owens, until you’ve done something. When that time comes, I'll think about it."

"But it takes so long to do anything worthwhile, and I don't want to wait. I must read two years to become a lawyer and work five more to make a reputation. We shall both be grey by then."

"Oh, I don't know," she answered. "It doesn't take a lifetime for a man to prove he’s a man. This one did something, or at least he tried to."

"Well, I'm going to try. What do you want me to do, sweetheart? Give me a test."

"I don't care what you ‘do’, but do something! In fact, why should I care if you do anything or not? Except that I hate to see a really clever man so lazy."

"Thank you, my dear. I have an idea! Will you love me if I help a Negro to Canada?"

"What nonsense!" said Charity. "Steal another man's slave while your father owns a hundred!"

"Oh, there'll be no trouble about that," responded Dick lightly; "I'll help one of my old man's; we've got too many anyway. It may not be quite as difficult as the other man found it, but it will be just as unlawful, and will show what I’m capable of."

"Seeing's believing," replied Charity. "I'm going away for three weeks to visit my aunt. If you can tell me, when I return, that you've done something to prove yourself, you may come and see me."

II

Young Owens got up about nine o'clock next morning and asked some questions to his personal servant, a rather bright-looking young slave about his own age.

"Tom," said Dick.

"Yes, Master Dick," answered the servant.

"I'm going on a trip North. Would you like to go with me?"

Now, if there was anything that Tom would like, it was a trip North. It was something he’d long contemplated, but had never been able to get enough courage to try. He was wise enough, however, not to show his feelings.

"I wouldn't mind, Master Dick, as long as you'd take care of me and bring me home alright."

Tom's eyes did not match his words, however, and his young master felt sure that Tom needed only a good opportunity to run away. Having a comfortable home and risking great danger if he failed, Tom was not likely to take any chances, but young Owens was satisfied that, in a free state, Tom would run. With a logical and characteristic desire to achieve his goal with the least effort, he decided to take Tom with him, if his father agreed.

Colonel Owens had left the house when Dick went to breakfast, so Dick did not see his father till lunch.

"Father," he said casually to the colonel, "I 'm feeling run down. I’d like a change of scene."

"Why don't you take a trip North?" suggested his father. The colonel not only loved his son as a father should, but also had great respect for his son as the heir of a large estate. He himself had been raised in poverty and made his fortune by hard work. In his talks with his son, he showed the poor man's respect to the wealthy and well-born.

"I think I'll take your advice," replied the son, "and run up to New York. After I've been there a while, I may go on to Boston for a week or so. I've never been there, you know."

"I hope you'll keep your eyes and ears open to find out what the abolitionists are saying and doing. They're becoming too active and too many ungrateful blacks are running away. I'd like to catch anyone trying to help one of my blacks escape."

"They are a dangerous lot," Dick agreed. "But, father, if I go North I’ll want to take Tom with me."

Now, the colonel, although a very loving father, had definite views on Negroes. He had studied them, as he often said, for many years, and understood them perfectly.

"I don't think it safe to take Tom," he said, with speed and decision. "He's a good enough boy, but too smart to trust among those abolitionists. I suspect him of learning to read, though I can't imagine how. I saw him with a newspaper the other day, and although he pretended to look at a picture, I 'm almost sure he was reading the paper. I don’t think it safe to take him."

Dick did not insist, because he knew it was useless. The colonel would have helped his son in any other way, but his Negroes were the visible sign of his wealth.

"Who is it safe to take?" asked Dick. "I suppose I must have a servant."

"What's the matter with Grandison?" suggested the colonel. "I reckon we can trust him. He's too fond of good eating to risk losing his regular meals. Besides, he likes your mother's maid, Betty, and I've promised to let them get married. I'll call Grandison and we'll talk to him. Here, you boy, Jack," called the colonel to a youth in the next room, "go to and tell Grandison to come here."

"Grandison," said the colonel, when the Negro stood before him.

"Yes, master."

"Haven't I always treated you right? Haven't you always got all you wanted to eat? And as much tobacco as was good for you, Grandison?"

"Yes, master."

"I’d just like to know, Grandison, if you feel better off than those poor free Negroes, with no kind master to look after them and no mistress to give them medicine when they're sick and … and"

"Well, I should say I’m better off, sir, than those low free blacks, sir! If anybody asks them who they belong to, they have to say nobody, or lie about it!"

The colonel was smiling. This was true gratitude.

"Grandison," the colonel continued, "your young master Dick is going North for a few weeks and I’m thinking of letting him take you. I’ll send you on this trip, Grandison, for you to take care of your young master. I am going to put him in your hands, and I'm sure you'll do your duty and bring him back home safe and sound."

Grandison grinned. "Oh yes, master, I'll take care of young Master Dick."

"I know, Grandison," replied the colonel, lighting a cigar. "But you must stay close to your young master, and always remember that he’s your best friend and understands your real needs, and be careful to avoid strangers who try to talk to you about freedom. And if you please your master Dick, he'll buy you a present and a necklace for Betty to wear when you get married in the autumn.

"All right, Grandison, you may go now. Here's a piece of tobacco for you."

"Thank-you, master, thank-you! You’re the best master any black ever had in this world." And Grandison disappeared round the corner.

"You may take Grandison," said the colonel to his son.

III

Richard Owens, and servant, booked in at the fashionable New York hotel for Southerners. But there were Negro waiters in the dining room and Dick had no doubt that Grandison would chat with them sooner or later, and that they would quickly spread to him the virus of freedom. It was not Dick's intention to say anything to his servant about his plan to free him, for obvious reasons. To mention one of them, if Grandison should go away and be re-captured, his young master's part in the matter would become known, which would be embarrassing to Dick, to say the least. If, on the other hand, he only gave Grandison a little space, he had no doubt he’d eventually lose him. Grandison should have a chance to become free on his own initiative. Dick Owens was not the man to take needless trouble.

The young master met some old acquaintances and made other new ones. He spent a week or two very pleasantly in the best society. Young women smiled at him but the memory of Charity's sweet, strong face and clear blue eyes kept him safe. Meanwhile he gave Grandison pocket money, and left him to his own devices. Every night when Dick came in, he hoped he might have to undress himself and every morning he looked forward to getting his own clothes out. However, he was disappointed because every night when he came in Grandison was there, and every morning Grandison came with his boots.

"Grandison," said Dick one morning, after getting dressed, "this is your chance to go around among your own people and see how they live. Have you met any of them?"

"Yes, sir, I've seen some of them. But I don't like them, sir. They're free, but they haven’t got enough sense to know they aren’t as well off as we are in the South."

When two weeks had passed without Grandison showing any sign of running away, Dick decided on different tactics.

"We'll go back soon," said Dick. He was amazed at the stupidity of a slave who could be free but would not. If he were forced to take him home, he’d see that Grandison got a taste of slavery that would make him regret his wasted opportunities. Meanwhile he decided to offer him greater rewards for escape.

"Grandison," he said next morning, "I'm going away for a day or two, but I’ll leave you here. I’ll lock up a hundred dollars in this drawer and give you the key. If you need it, use it and enjoy yourself. Spend it all if you like, for this is the last chance you'll have to be in a free state, and so enjoy it while you can."

When he came back a couple of days later and found Grandison there and all one hundred dollars, Dick felt seriously annoyed.

"I can't say a thing to him," groaned Dick.

He wrote his father a letter which made the colonel proud and pleased. "I really think," the colonel said to one of his friends, "that Dick ought to have the black interviewed by the Boston papers, so that they can see how happy our blacks really are."

Dick also wrote a long letter to Charity Lomax, in which he said, among many other things, that if she knew how hard he was working for her sake, she’d love and marry him.

Having tried without success the obvious ways of getting rid of Grandison, Dick considered more radical measures. He had to leave Grandison in Canada, where he’d be legally free.

"I know! I'll visit Niagara Falls on the way home and lose him on the Canadian side. When he realises that he’s actually free, he'll stay."

So the next week saw them at Niagara Falls. Dick walked and drove about for several days, taking Grandison along with him most times. One morning they stood on the Canadian side, watching the wild waters below them.

“Grandison," said Dick, raising his voice above the roar of the water, "do you know where you are now?"

"I'm with you, Master Dick; that's all I care about."

"You are now in Canada, Grandison, where your people go when they run away from their masters. If you wished, Grandison, you could walk away from me this minute and I couldn’t take you back."

Grandison looked around uneasily.

"Let's go back over the river, Master Dick. I'm afraid I'll lose you over here, and then I won't have a master, and won't ever get back home."

Discouraged, but not yet hopeless, Dick said, a few minutes later,

"Grandison, I'm going up the road a bit, to the hotel. You stay here until I return. I won’t be long."

Grandison's eyes opened wide and he looked afraid.

Dick walked down the road to the hotel by the road. He ordered a sandwich and took a seat at a table by a window, where he could see Grandison. For a while he hoped Grandison might get up and walk away; but Grandison stayed, waiting for his master's return.

After a while, a girl came into the room to serve his food and Dick very naturally glanced at her; and as she was young and pretty and stayed in the room, it was some minutes before he looked for Grandison. When he did, his servant had disappeared.

He paid his bill and went away without the change. Walking back towards the Falls, he saw his servant on the grass, his face towards the sun, his mouth open, sleeping.

"Grandison," thought his master, "I certainly am not worthy of Charity Lomax, if I’m not smart enough to get rid of you. You’ll be free and I’ll make sure it happens. Sleep now and dream of the bright skies of home, because it’s only in your dreams that you’ll ever see them again!"

Dick walked back towards the hotel. The young woman looked out the window and saw the handsome young gentleman she had served a few minutes before, standing in the road a short distance away, talking with a black man employed at the hotel. She thought she saw something pass from the white man to the other, but at that moment her duties called her away from the window, and when she looked out again the young gentleman had disappeared, and the hotel employee, with two other young men of the neighbourhood, one white and one black, were walking towards the Falls.

IV

Dick made the journey home alone, and as fast as he could. As he got near his home his behaviour in going back without Grandison seemed more serious and, although he’d prepared the colonel by letter, there was still the prospect of a bad quarter of an hour with him. Not that his father would be angry, but he was likely to ask a lot of questions. And Dick was a very poor liar. But Charity Lomax would have returned from her visit to Tennessee.

Dick got off easier than he had expected. He told a straight story, and a truthful one, so far as it went.

The colonel was annoyed. He had trusted this Negro. Yet, after all, he did not blame Grandison so much as he did the abolitionists.

As for Charity Lomax, Dick told her, privately of course, that he had helped his father's man, Grandison, to Canada and left him there.

"Oh, Dick," she said, "what have you done? If they knew it they'd send you to jail."

"But they don't know," he replied seriously; adding, with an injured tone, "You don't seem to appreciate my action. Perhaps it's because I wasn't caught. I thought you wanted me to do it."

"Why, Dick Owens!" she said. "You know I never dreamed of it. But I suppose I'll have to marry you, if only to take care of you. You’re too reckless; and a reckless man needs someone to look after him."

* * * * * * *

They were married three weeks later. As each of them had just returned from a journey, they spent their honeymoon at home.

A week after the wedding they were sitting, one afternoon, in the garden of the colonel's house, where Dick had taken his bride, when a Negro ran down the lane and threw open the big gate for the colonel's carriage to enter. The colonel was not alone. Beside him, travel-stained, terribly tired, and on his face a haggard look that suggested hardship, sat the lost Grandison.

The colonel got down at the steps of the house.

"Take the horses, Tom," he said to the man who had opened the gate, "and help Grandison down, - poor devil, he can hardly move! - and get a bath of water and wash him, feed him and give him a drink and then let him come round and see his young master and his new mistress."

The colonel's face looked both happy and angry.

"It's astounding the terrible things people can do! I was coming along the road when I heard someone call me. I stopped the horse and who should come out of the woods but Grandison? The poor black could hardly crawl. I was never more astonished in my life. He seemed really ill - he could hardly talk above a whisper - and I had to give him a drink so he could tell his story. It's just as I thought from the beginning, Dick. Grandison had no idea of running away; he knew when he was well off and where his friends were. All the talk of the abolitionists and runaway blacks did not move him. But they actually kidnapped him - just think of it! - and threw him into a wagon and took him into a Canadian forest and locked him in a lonely hut, and fed him on bread and water for three weeks. One of them wanted to kill him and persuaded the others that they should; but they started arguing about how they should do it and, before they had made their minds up, Grandison escaped, and slowly made his way back to his master, his friends and his home.

"Don't you think, sir," suggested Dick, who had calmly smoked his cigar while the colonel was talking, "that that kidnapping story sounds a little improbable? Isn't there a more likely explanation?"

"Nonsense, Dick; it's the truth! Those abolitionists are capable of anything - everything! Just think of them locking the poor black up, beating him, kicking him, depriving him of his liberty, keeping him on bread and water for three long, lonely weeks!"

There were almost tears in the colonel's eyes at the idea of Grandison's sufferings. Dick still said he was slightly skeptical and met Charity's severe look with innocence.

The colonel gave Grandison everything for two or three weeks. His fame spread and the colonel gave him a permanent place among the house servants, where he could always have him ready to tell his adventures to admiring visitors.

* * * * * * *

About three weeks after Grandison's return, the colonel's faith in humanity was badly shaken. He came near losing his belief in the loyalty of the Negro to his master. One Monday morning, Grandison was missing. And not only Grandison, but his wife, Betty; his mother; his father; his brothers, Tom and John, and his little sister Elsie. A hurried search in the neighbourhood gave no information about them.

So much valuable property could not be lost without an effort to recover it. Energetic steps were taken by the colonel and his friends. The slaves were followed from place to place, on their way northward. Several times the hunters were close but they slipped through the colonel's fingers.

One last glimpse he caught of his vanishing property. On a small boat which was disappearing rapidly, pointing towards Canada, there stood a group of familiar dark faces. The colonel saw Grandison point him out to one of the crew, who waved his hand rudely towards the colonel. The colonel shook his fist impotently.

The incident was closed.