University of Virginia Library

8. VIII.
FAUSTINA'S TANGLED WEB.

“A weight like a mountain has been taken from my
mind!” exclaimed Abel, coming in to dinner. “I don't
see how I could raise another dollar without putting up
my goods at auction. What I should have done but
for the draft which came this morning, I don't know, —
yes I do, too; I should have been a bankrupt for the want
of a hundred dollars. To have been fifty dollars short
would have been just as bad. I have seen Mr. Hodge
to-day, and he says he must have the money without
fail. I am to see him this evening and have a settlement.
Faustina,” Abel added, with real tenderness, “if
you could know what an ordeal I have passed, and the
relief it is now, to feel that I have in the drawer there the
means to help myself out of the worst place I was ever
in, you'd forgive me for refusing you money as harshly
as I did, and be glad I did refuse you.”

Faustina listened to these words with conscience-smiting
fear. The jewels, which she had hastily hidden
away at his coming, were no solace now, but only a terror
to her soul. What would he do when he found he

had been robbed? What would he say when he learned
how she had squandered the missing money, and for
what? Could she hope to pacify him by a display of the
baubles which had, in the hour of temptation, seemed to
her more precious than his honor and his peace? They
were beginning to appear, in her own eyes, worthless as
they were. His scorn and wrath, if he should see them,
she could well imagine. More and more, as she looked
forward to it, she dreaded the inevitable exposure. Abel
perceived her flush and agitation; but, remembering how
sullen she had been since he refused her the money she
required, he thought her resentment had taken some
new form, and was not surprised at it.

“You don't mean to say,” she ventured at last to suggest,
“that only just fifty dollars would make such a difference
in your affairs?”

“The difference would be,” replied Abel, “that in
helping myself out of the well, the chain I am to climb
up by would lack just so much of reaching down to my
hand. And when a man has strained every nerve to
grasp an object, it might as well be withdrawn ten
yards from his hand, as ten inches.”

“But,” faltered Faustina, “ain't you afraid — the
money will be stolen?”

“Not with you in the house,” replied the confiding
Abel. “Guard it as you would my life! I could about
as soon face death as learn that any part of that money
had been lost! Faustina,” he said, cheeringly, “don't
look so gloomy. Better times are coming. We will live

more within our means, think less of the world and its
trifles, and be much happier. It don't require silks and
gewgaws to make a home comfortable.”

He folded her in his arms. He was so thankful and
happy that he desired to bless her also with the overflow
of his large heart.

She suppressed her feelings as well as she could till after
he was gone. He had eaten his dinner, and departed
full of joy in his present good fortune and hope for the
future. But night would soon come, and with it disclosure
and disgrace. She could imagine him unsuspectingly
welcoming Mr. Hodge, taking out the money to
pay him, and starting suddenly appalled by the discovery
of her theft. What should she do? At heart a
coward, she felt that she could never meet her husband's
just and terrible wrath. It was a characteristic trait of
her selfishness, that, all this while, she thought little of
his ruin, and of what he would suffer when the disclosure
was made, but only of the shock and the shame
that would befall herself. And now, the restraint of his
presence removed, she gave way to wild and desperate
resolves. Without staying to take her hair out of the
curl-papers, she threw on her bonnet.

“Melissa,” she said, “stop this child's crying. I am
going out a little while. Perhaps” — the bitter impulse
prompted her, and she muttered the words through her
teeth — “perhaps I shall never come back.”

For she had thrust the jewels into her bag, and taken
the bag upon her arm, with the blind, passionate feeling

that she would never return to that house and to her
wronged husband without bringing back with her the
money of which she had robbed him.

In the slovenly kitchen of a slovenly house, in company
with a slovenly woman, two slovenly girls, and a
ragged old man, the elegant Tasso Smith was at dinner,
in his shirt-sleeves, when a quick rap came at the
door.

“It's Faustiny Dane; she wants to see you, Tasso,”
said Miss Smith, having gone to the stoop with her frizzled
hair.

Tasso turned all colors in quick succession during the
half-minute that ensued, — either from embarrassment
at having the beautiful Faustina find him in such a home,
and see his uncombed, slatternly sister open the door, or
because he supposed she had discovered the worthless
character of the trinkets he had sold her. He wiped
his lips hurriedly on the dirty table-cloth, put on his
coat, and went palpitating to the door, with the most inane,
simpering expression which it is possible for the
human countenance to wear.

“Tasso,” said Faustina, in quick, decisive tones, “I
want to speak with you a minute.”

“W-w-will ye walk in?” stammered the reluctant
Tasso, “or sh'll I get m' hat?”

For he knew that it was not a house fit to show her
into.

“Get your hat,” said Faustina, with strange eyes and
hectic cheeks.

She walked with nervous steps to and fro on the half-rotten
plank before the door, until Tasso got his hat and
came out.

“Folks ain't very well; m' sister hain't had time to
change her dress to-day; I'd invite ye in, but” —

She interrupted the silly apology.

“Tasso, I can't keep the jewels!”

“Can't? Why not?”

Mr. Smith grinned and picked his foolish teeth.

“I took some money my husband had got to pay off a
note with and the interest on a mortgage; he don't
know it yet, but when he does, I suppose he will kill me;
and I must have that money, and take it back. Here
are the jewels.”

She pulled open her bag, and eagerly handed out the
package, which Tasso did not touch.

“Don't speak quite so loud,” he said. “Step this
way.”

For the truth about that interesting young man was,
that, when not absent in the city, he was living upon his
triftless relations, without making them any other
compensation than that which his elegant manners and
the value of his society afforded; and he was unwilling
they should know that he had that day received a sum
of money which would have gone far toward paying his
summer's board.

“Like to keep my business little bit private; sisters
'u'd think might give them some jewels, if they knew I
had any in my possession.”

“Take them,” said Faustina, “and give them to anybody
you please. And give me back the money, at
once!”

“Sorry to say,” replied Tasso, “I've jest sent the
money off to my friend. Why didn't you tell me of this
before? It was no interest to me to sell you the jewels.
I mailed the letter an hour ago,” he added, with a smile
on his countenance, and the money in his pocket at the
moment.

Faustina drew a quick breath, and cast upon him a
stony, despairing look; the hand which held the jewels
dropping by her side.

“Tasso,” she said, “you have been my ruin. I can
never go back to that house without the money. What
shall I do?”

“Sure, I don't know,” palavered the deceiver. “I consider
it the most unfortunate circumstance 'n th' world, 't
you didn't mention the way you was situated, 'fore I sent
off the money. Might stop the letter now, only the mail
has been gone as much as an hour. What will you do?
If I only had the money to lend you now! Most always
have as much as that about me,” said he sympathetically,
with the only fifty-dollar bank-note he had
had in his possession for six months peeping then out
of his waistcoat pocket.

“You must lend me the money!” exclaimed Faustina.
“You must get it for me! or else” — her heart throbbed
up into her throat with the wildness of the thought that
dared to enter it — “you will never see me again, Tasso:

I shall go — I don't know where; but I shan't go back
to his home, that is settled.”

“I have it!” said Tasso. “I know where you can
borry the money.”

“Where? for mercy's sake!”

“Of those misers so fond of tomatoes, you know.”

“The Apjohns!” she exclaimed. “Oh, I don't believe
they have got so much as you tell of; and they
wouldn't lend it, if they have.”

“By George! what I told you, now, it's a fact, by
George! — hope to die if 'tain't!” said Tasso. “And
they'll lend, I guess,” significantly.

“Go and ask them!”

“Not to me, I don't mean; they wouldn't lend to me.
But you jest go and mention the tomatoes, and tell the old
woman you can't keep the secret no longer without she
'commodates you to a hunderd dollars, — may as well
get a hunderd while you're about it” (Tasso remembered
he had more pinchbeck to sell), — “and she'll
shell out her miserly hoards, I bet ye, now!”

“O Tasso, I don't know! But I'll try. Wait here for
me, won't you? Or, no; meet me somewhere, — where?”

“Up by the meeting-house,” suggested Tasso.

“Yes! Don't fail me, now! for if they won't lend me
the money, I don't know what I can do without you.”

She hurried away on her exciting errand; while
Tasso looked after her with a pale, sickly, cunning leer,
picking his rotten teeth with one hand, and fingering
the bank-note in his pocket with the other.