Arranging my photograph book. On the first page, Colonel
Watts. Here goes a sketch of his life; romantic enough, surely: Beaufort Watts;
bluest blood; gentleman to the tips of his fingers; chivalry incarnate. He was
placed in charge of a large amount of money, in bank bills. The money belonged
to the State and he was to deposit it in the bank. On the way he was obliged to
stay over one night. He put the roll on a table at his bed-side, locked himself
in, and slept the sleep of the righteous. Lo, next day when he awaked, the
money was gone. Well! all who knew him believed him innocent, of course. He
searched and they searched, high and low, but to no purpose. The money had
vanished. It was a damaging story, in spite of his previous character, and a
cloud rested on him.
Years afterward the house in which he had taken that
disastrous sleep was pulled down. In the wall, behind the wainscot, was found
his pile of money. How the rats got it through so narrow a crack it seemed hard
to realize. Like the hole mentioned by Mercutio, it was not as deep as a well
nor as wide as a church door, but it did for Beaufort Watts until the money was
found. Suppose that house had been burned, or the rats had gnawed up the bills
past recognition?
People in power understood how this proud man suffered those
many years in silence. Many men looked askance at him. The country tried to
repair the work of blasting the man's character. He was made Secretary of
Legation to Russia, and was afterward our Consul at Santa Fe de Bogota. When he
was too old to wander far afield, they made him Secretary to all the Governors
of South Carolina in regular succession.
I knew him more than twenty years ago as Secretary to the
Governor. He was a made-up old battered dandy, the soul of honor. His
eccentricities were all humored. Misfortune had made him sacred. He stood hat
in hand before ladies and bowed as I suppose Sir Charles Grandison might have
done. It was hard not to laugh at the purple and green shades of his overblack
hair. He came at one time to show me the sword presented to Colonel Shelton for
killing the only Indian who was killed in the Seminole war. We bagged Osceola
and Micanopy under a flag of truce — that is, they were snared, not shot on the
wing.
To go back to my knight-errant: he knelt, handed me the
sword, and then kissed my hand. I was barely sixteen and did not know how to
behave under the circumstances. He said, leaning on the sword, “My dear child,
learn that it is a much greater liberty to shake hands with a lady than to kiss
her hand. I have kissed the Empress of Russia's hand and she did not make faces
at me.” He looks now just as he did then. He is in uniform, covered with
epaulettes, aigulettes, etc., shining in the sun, and with his plumed hat reins
up his war-steed and bows low as ever.
Now I will bid farewell for a while as Othello did to all
the “pomp, pride, and circumstance of glorious war,” and come down to my
domestic strifes and troubles. I have a sort of volunteer maid, the daughter of
my husband's nurse, dear old Betsy. She waits on me because she so pleases.
Besides, I pay her. She belongs to my father-inlaw, who has too many slaves to
care very much about their way of life. So Maria Whitaker came, all in tears.
She brushes hair delightfully, and as she stood at my back I could see her face
in the glass. “Maria, are you crying because all this war talk scares you?”
said I. “No, ma'am.” “What is the matter with you?” “Nothing more than common.”
“Now listen. Let the war end either way and you will be free. We will have to
free you before we get out of this thing. Won't you be glad?” “Everybody knows
Mars Jeems wants us free, and it is only old Marster holds hard. He ain't going
to free anybody any way, you see.”
And then came the story of her troubles. “Now, Miss Mary,
you see me married to Jeems Whitaker yourself. I was a good and faithful wife
to him, and we were comfortable every way — good house, everything. He had no
cause of complaint, but he has left me.” “For heaven's sake! Why?” “Because I
had twins. He says they are not his because nobody named Whitaker ever had
twins.”
Maria is proud in her way, and the behavior of this bad
husband has nearly mortified her to death. She has had three children in two
years. No wonder the man was frightened. But then Maria does not depend on him
for anything. She was inconsolable, and I could find nothing better to say
than, “Come, now, Maria! Never mind, your old Missis and Marster are so good to
you. Now let us look up something for the twins.” The twins are named “John and
Jeems,” the latter for her false loon of a husband. Maria is one of the good
colored women. She deserved a better fate in her honest matrimonial attempt.
But they do say she has a trying temper. Jeems was tried, and he failed to
stand the trial.
SOURCE: Mary Boykin Chesnut, Edited by Isabella D. Martin
and Myrta Lockett Avary, A Diary From Dixie, p. 43-6
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