University of Virginia Library

19. CHAPTER XIX.

Another victim.

—Shakspeare.

While Spiffard was passing his time with companions so
unlike himself, what was doing at the house which ought to
have been his home?

It was past eleven o'clock, and fast approaching midnight.
In the same apartment, which the reader may remember being
introduced to at the commencement of this history, sat Mrs.
Epsom, her daughter, and her niece. They were all, at this
late hour, busily employed. They surrounded, or occupied,
different sides of a table, in the centre of the room, on which
towered a brilliant lamp, throwing a pleasant mellow light,
through its transparent shade, over the three very dissimilar
figures and the materials on which they were employed. All
were silent. The two actresses, mother and daughter, were
intent upon what they called, in the technical language of the
stage, study. Each had a manuscript before her; that is, a

part. Before the old lady was an empty tumbler and a snuff-box.
The lips of the students occasionally moved, though no
sounds proceeded from them. Mrs. Spiffard, at this moment,
leaned with her elbow on the table, shading her fine eyes with
her right hand; the next she darted a look to the ceiling, her
lips moved with greater energy, and her sable brows were almost
brought in contact.

Emma Portland's countenance was as serene as the sky of
an American October night, when every star shoots its light,
and seems to smile on the face that is upturned to heaven.
She was occupied by the mysteries of the needle, and seemed
to approach the happy termination of the evening's labours, for
she lifted the “fringed curtains” which had veiled her eyes, and
glancing them rapidly upon her all-absorbed companions, let
them fall again, as she inserted her needle into the green cloth
of the table. She then, with both hands, raised and extended
the garment she had been working on, and cried, with an air
of satisfaction, as she exposed the glittering dress to view,
“look, cousin! it is done!”

She received no answer. She turned her eyes from the gay
and gorgeous robe to the person who was to wear it before delighted
thousands. That person was in tears. This is not
only a picture of mimic life. The gay and the gorgeous is
the mask of misery in “city, camp, and court.”

Emma folded the stage-dress carefully, and removing it and
the instruments of seamstress craft, lit a small brass chamber-lamp,
and withdrew, unnoticed, to pass a few minutes before
sleep, in reading, thought, and prayer.

Mrs. Spiffard threw down the manuscript. “It is all in
vain. The words convey no meaning, while my mind is elsewhere,
contemplating the past. Thinking of what must come.
It shall come!”

“My dear, you took no supper. I will mix a little brandy-toddy.
Let Mr. Spiffard say what he will, you need it.” And
she left the table, and prepared two large tumblers of the beverage.
Having left her spectacles on the table, she put a
greater portion of brandy, by mistake. The unhappy daughter
walked the floor; then sat down and attempted to read. The
mother drank her part of the mixture, and placing the other
tumbler near her daughter, sat down demurely to study, after
mixing another glass for herself.

Again Mrs. Spiffard rose and walked the room. She broke
the silence as if unconscious of her mother's presence. “Sure

mine is no common lot! To lose one who adored me! A man
like Trowbridge? Torn from me at such a moment—in such
a manner!—driving me to—O! why did I live?—Why do I
live?” She approached the table, seized the poisoned mixture—lifted
the tumbler to her lips—suddenly put it down—and
again walked the floor. Her agitation increasing every moment,
she abruptly stopped and addressed her mother:—

“But for you, madam, I should never have married this
man. I have been a hypocrite. I have deceived him. We
must be miserable. Trowbridge was my countryman! Shall
I be tyrannized over—neglected—by a man I do not—yes,
you know it—I do not love.” She approached the table and
seized the fatal vessel, and, as if possessed by a demon, emptied
the poisoned draught to the dregs. “I will not be a slave
to any man, I will not be a hypocrite.”

“You need not be, my dear, your talents will enable you to
live independant. The stage—your profession—.”

“Talents! Cursed be my talents, and accursed the stage
on which they have been exhibited. I did not choose this vile
profession, which has led me to shame, and guilt, and misery!
You taught me to tread the stage, and fitted me for the outcast
thing I am. I have been shunned—am despised—no, no,
no—” She approached the table and seized the glass her mother
had prepared for herself, more potent than the first; in
fact, half brandy; and which she had been sipping to prolong
enjoyment, and left almost full. In an instant the unhappy
victim of ungoverned passion swallowed the whole.

“Bless me—why you have drank my toddy—,” and she
helped herself to another glass, bade the daughter good night,
and went to bed.

Mrs. Spiffard now was braced to a pitch, little short of madness,
and, with the looks and movements of a fury, she paced
the room, revolving in her mind past scenes, and working herself
up to a state of defiance and determined warfare. She at
last heard her husband knock. She had been wishing for the
moment when the thunder she had accumulated should be discharged
on the tyrant; but instantly a revulsion of feelings
took place that occasioned her to sink in a chair. Was
it conscience? She felt that she had been wrong-doing for
months and years, and was then unfit to see the man she had
made her husband. All the proud feelings, and the train of
proud thoughts, inspired by the forbidden draught, were gone;
all the unnatural strength which the fell poison had imparted,

fled and left her: nerveless mists, and clouds, and darkness,
gathered round her. Again her husband knocked, and she
recollected that she was the only person up in the house—she
started—she felt that her limbs were not at her perfect command,
and the apartment swam and danced, as she with effort
seized the chamber-light. The thought of her degraded condition
flashed on her, accompanied by the perfect recollection
of the last serious warning uttered by the man she was now
to encounter.

Her husband had parted from his mischievous tormentors in
no very enviable mood. He took his leave with a forced nonchalance.
“Pleasant dreams to you Spiff,” said Hilson. Spiffard
turned as he strided through the door-way, and as he saw every
eye fixed on him (for they all waited his departure for a burst
of merriment) he felt an undefinable suspicion which he would
have been glad to have welcomed as reality; but it passed—
“good night,” and moistening his lip, by passing his tongue
rapidly over it, he strode from the meeting. Should he go
home? Not yet. He had parted from his wife ungently.
Her image recalled that of his mother. His mother in that
form which had haunted his imagination through life; that
form which was his evil genius. He turned into Broadway
and sought the cold breezes with which the broad expanse of
waters pour on that unrivalled public walk, the Battery.

“My life has been chequered and full of events to overflowing,
yet but one hope did I ever entertain of rest or happiness.
One hope suggested by one image. I had seen the
misery consequent on marriage where the wife was beautful,
but unendowed with mind. I knew I could only be happy or
contented in the marriage state, and I sought a partner who
had intelligence, genius, spirit. I found one.”

Our hero was doomed to suffer, during the spring and summer
of his life, from one cause. He had seen that his unhappy
parent was devoid of intellectual powers or cultivation, and he
attributed her fall to that alone. He had mistakenly concluded,
that where a strong mind, wit, spirit, genius, and intelligence,
resided, so sordid a vice as that he most abhorred could not
have gained an entrance. He had seen that his theory was
contradicted by the practice of the great tragedian; but this
conviction came after he had become the admirer of the brilliant
and spirited woman he had made his wife. He did not
know that the want of good early education, of that education
which teaches the love of God and our neighbour, (that enduring
love which is founded on the contemplation of the Creator's

infinite goodness and mercy, filling the heart with thankfulness
to him and charity to his ereatures, and comprising
the second command in the first)—he did not know that the
want of this early education, which teaches our duty in society,
and a knowledge of the organization of that society, of
which we form a part, and on which our happiness depends—
in short, he did not know, that without these fundamental principles
of religion and morality, the most splendid talents availed
nothing in the struggle man, or woman, has to maintain against
passion within and temptation without. He proceeded soliloquizing
almost audibly. “Yes! she has a quickness and
strength of mind that I never expected to have found in woman!
Could I have thought that such an one had yielded to
the same demon who had poisoned my father's days! And for
her sake I am now engaged in what may terminate in violence!
And she—perhaps—no—no—after what has passed it
is impossible. I will go home—I was too harsh—I will say
so—I will not press my pillow without forgiving and forgiveness—Forgiveness!—As
we forgive.—She has probably been
unhappy all day, and now waits for me in anxiety and tears.”
He had turned his steps homeward at the first thought of reconciliation,
and now stalked along with more than usual
length of stride. He reached the door and knocked. The
interval between his first and second knocking was filled by
thoughts varying so quickly, that to attempt to fix them here
would be to chain the words; but regret for the harshness of
his former expostulations and tenderness towards his wife preponderated.
She opened the door, and the light she held in
her hand displayed, as in the noon-day sun, her face, and the
terrible realities therein written. She smiled—but such a
smile!—She attempted to say, “I am glad you have come”—
but her tongue—no! the picture is too horribly disgusting—let
the consequences suggest it to the reader's imagination.

The whole truth flashed upon the unhappy husband, and he
stood a moment motionless. The thought passed through his
mind of turning from the door.—“Then I must account for
my conduct to my friends—they will attribute it to the approaching
meeting.” He passed on in silence, leaving his
wife at the door. He entered the dining-room, and saw the
disordered appearance of the table; the manuscript, tumbler,
extinguished lamps, spectacles left behind by the mother, were
seen by the glimmering light which the wife held in one hand,
while with the other she fruitlessly endeavoured to lock and
bolt the street-door; willingly protracting the absence from
her husband.

Reason, so cruelly banished, returned with a whip of scorpions
brandished aloft and threatening destruction. Conscience
frowned with the aspect of Medusa. The torpor of the senses
gave way rapidly, and the truth appearing through the mist of
intoxication, was discoloured and distorted, and exaggerated
into monstrous forms that cried, “despair.”

“She had bolted the street-door, and could no longer defer
the interview she dreaded. She came into the dining-room
rigidly bracing her limbs to a steadiness they refused; the lamp
she bore threw its glare over her features; an effort at counterpoise
partly succeeded as she lifted her sight to the figure
of her husband, who had seated himself without taking off his
hat, and resting his hands on his cane, fixed his piercing and
projecting eyes upon her face with an intentness that seemed
to her supernatural. She again attempted to speak and to
smile—but the mental powers were restored before the physical—the
smile was ghastly—the sound of the voice was discordant.
“I am glad you have come—I—” At that moment
the comb intended to ornament and support her massive
hair, and which had been previously displaced without her
consciousness, fell on the floor, and her thick, disordered, unseemly
locks rushed over her neck and face, adding a wildness
to the features that may be pictured by the imaginative, but cannot
be described.

Spiffard had collected his discomfited thoughts and brought
them so far into subordination, that his mind was made up for
the exigence of the moment. He rose from his seat, took up
the fallen comb which the unhappy woman was endeavouring
to recover, but which, as her desheveled hair streamed over
her eyes by the action of bending to the floor, she could not
see. He took the lamp from her hand, and placed the comb
deliberately in it. He threw aside his cane, and taking her
by the unoccupied hand led her silently to her chamber; the
unhappy woman suffering herself to be assisted, and seeming
utterly abandoned to despair.

Spiffard did not go beyond the door of the chamber; but,
having placed her within, he put the lamp in her cold hand, and,
in the act of retiring, stept back from her, at the same time
taking hold of the door, and gently drawing it between his wife
and himself, showed his intention to depart.

A terrible thought presented itself to the miserable woman.
She bent her eyes upon her husband, all their brilliancy more
than restored, while she said, in a faltering tone, “are you
going?”

“Yes.”

“You will not leave me—you will come—” She paused.

He gently pulled the door towards him, as he said solemnly,
“never.”

They were separated for ever.

She did not attempt to open the door. It was not fastened.
The key was in the lock, and inside. She looked at the door
as if she still saw him. She heard him slowly deseend the
stairs in the dark. She heard him enter the room they had
left, and heard him shut the door after him. The lamp fell
from her hand as she threw herself on the bed, where sleep
was never more to visit her. She could not weep. She heard
her husband's heavy steps as he walked the floor beneath by the
light of the fire. The word “never,” rang as a knell incessantly
in her ears!