 | CHAPTER IX.
THE ABODE OF THE UNFORTUNATE. Oliver Goldfinch, or, The hypocrite |  |
9. CHAPTER IX.
THE ABODE OF THE UNFORTUNATE.
Although impatient to know the decision
of Elmer regarding his production,
Edgar did not deem it proper to intrude
upon him for a day or two, or until all his
competitors should have sent in their efforts.
Feverish with anxiety as concerned
his success, it was now his object to
while away his time so as to think as little
upon the matter as possible. For this purpose
he sallied forth into the bustling city,
passing through the main thoroughfares,
along the quays, and, in short, visiting every
place which he fancied would serve to withdraw
his thoughts from what had now become
a painful subject—painful, because he
felt that in case of failure, the hope which
had buoyed up his sinking spirits would
be irrecoverably sunk in the dark waters of
despair. After rambling about for several
hours, he visited the hospital, in the hope
to gain from the lips of Davis an explanation
of his mysterious words; but in this
he was sadly disappointed; for the physician
informed him the man was delirious,
and in all probability would not survive the
attack, as anxiety and exposure had increased
his malady to a very malignant
form; and even should he recover, all conversation
on worldly topics must be excluded
for at least a couple of weeks. This
was sore news to Edgar, as he had counted
much on getting some clue to the supposed
villainy of his uncle, whereby he
might, if not convict him, at least force him
to a satisfactory compromise, and regain
enough of his father's property to render
himself and sister independent. It was,
therefore, with a heavy heart that he again
shaped his course homeward, unconsciously
passing over the very ground he had
traversed in the morning. As he came
along side of the Tombs and looked up to
the huge pile, he felt a cold shudder pass
over his frame, and his very soul recoil, as
it were, with an undefinable fear.
“Strange!” he mentally ejaculated;
“strange, I should feel thus, when looking
upon the walls of a prison! I have never
done a wrong deed, that I should have such
terror of the criminal's home. Is it—can
it be a foreboding of farther evil! God
grant that my worst trials are over!—for
misery and I have too long been acquainted,
and I had hoped we should again be
strangers.”
Musing thus, he pursued his way until
he entered Mott street, when an irresistable
his generous benefactress, whom neither
himself nor sister had seen since changing
their quarters, and also to look once more
upon the wretched abode where his poor
mother had ended her sufferings. As he
drew near the place and glanced toward
the miserable hovel, again tenanted with
the most squalid poverty, his heart leaped
to his throat, his eyes grew dim, and he
was fain to turn quickly away to master
his emotion.
The dwelling of the unfortunate Ellen
was nearly opposite, and to this he bent
his steps. His first impression was that
the house was tenantless—for the door
was not only closed, but heavy wooden
shutters barred all the windows. Although
passed midday, there were no signs of life
about the premises, and Edgar was on the
point of leaving, thinking there were none
within, when something altered his determination,
and he at once advanced to the
door and stoutly applied the knocker. After
some little delay, Edgar heard the rattling
of bars and the clanking of chains,
and then the door swung ajar a few inches,
but not sufficiently to admit the entrance
or exit of even a child, and a hoarse,
cracked female voice said:
“Who are you? and what's wanting?”
“Is Ellen Douglas within?” asked Edgar,
in reply.
“Well, 'sposen she is?” was the inhospitable
rejoinder.
“Why, then, I desire to see her,” said
Edgar, already half inclined to depart without
more ado.
“I'll see if she'll see you,” said the
voice. “Who'll I tell her wants her?”
“Edgar Courtly.”
The door swung to—bolts, bars and chains
rattled back to their places—and for a few
minutes all was silent. Then a shutter
cautiously opened over Edgar's head, as if
for some one to peer down, and then as
cautiously closed. Presently there was
another rattling at the door, which this
time swung open, and the same harsh voice
said:
“Come in.”
As Edgar crossed the threshold, he beheld
a corpulent woman, some forty years
of age, with a red, bloated countenance
and blear eyes, dressed in a loose gown or
wrapper, who eyed him coldly until he had
cleared the swing of the door, which she
shut with impatient violence and carefully
refastened.
Then turning, “Up stairs,” she grumbled,
rather than said, and led the way
herself.
Passing through a long, dark hall, preceded
by the woman, Edgar ascended a
flight of stairs, richly carpeted, to the second
story, when, turning to the right, his
conductress threw open a door into a fine
apartment, magnificently furnished, and
lighted, although broad daylight without,
by a large alabaster lamp, whose mellow
light gave to each object a rich, luxuriant
softness. A splendid Brussells carpet covered
the floor, over which, in elegant profusion,
were arranged the most costly articles
of furniture. Here stood mahogany
and rosewood sofas, ottomans, settees and
chairs, covered with purple and crimson
silk-velvet; there two large marble tables,
strewn with books and music; yonder an
organ and piano of the most expensive
workmanship; while the walls were adorned
with mirrors, that doubled the splendors
of the whole, and with busts, and statuetts,
and with paintings worthy the attention of
a connoiseur of art.
As all this flashed upon Edgar, a refinement
so far beyond what he had expected
to find, he could hardly credit his senses,
and was half beginning to fancy himself
a subject of fairy magic, translated to an
oriental palace, when his eye fell upon the
object he sought, the beautiful Ellen, reclining
on a settee at the farther side of the
room, robed now in a costly silk, and resplendent
with pearl, diamonds and gold. She
did not rise, but motioned him to close the
door and advance to her side. He did so,
and as she reached out her hand to him, he
saw she was very pale and a good deal agitated.
“How is your sister? was her first question.
“I thank you, she is well,” replied Edgar,
seating himself by her side; “but I
fear I cannot say as much for you.”
“No,” rejoined Ellen, with a sigh, “I
since I saw you, and have not been out of
my room for several days.”
“I thought there must be something of
the kind, that you did not call upon us,”
returned Edgar, “and therefore came to
see you.”
“You are very kind,” said Ellen, scarcely
able to repress her tears, “to take such
disinterested interest in one despised by
the world.”
“Not disinterested either,” rejoined Edgar.
“You forget you are our benefactress.”
“I would to God I could forget all other
things as easy,” she replied, with anguish.
“That was nothing — nothing.
If my money did you any service, I am
rejoiced to know it—but I pray you mention
it not again.”
“I am in hopes soon to restore it,” said
Edgar.
“Nay, do no such thing!” returned Ellen,
with energy. “I would rather you
keep it; for in your hands, and that of
your sweet sister, it will be used for virtuous
ends; while in mine, base mortal that
I am! it might only serve some unholy
purpose. Oh, that I were dead and in my
grave,” she continued, bitterly, “away
from the sight, the scorn and contumely of
man! Were it not I dread the great and
terrible Hereafter, another sun should not
rise upon me in life.”
“Nay, Ellen, why talk thus?” returned
Edgar, gently and soothingly. “You have
done wrong, undoubtedly; so have I—so
have all—for all human nature is prone to
err in a greater or less degree. But there
is one consolation left us: We can repent
of our errors and reform our ways; and,
Ellen, I beseech you, as one who has
your happiness at heart, to change your
present course!”
“And be a thing for the world to point
at, hiss at, and insult!” rejoined Ellen,
mournfully. “No! no! I would rather be
as I am—for now at least I am on an
equality with those around me.”
“But leave here—go where you are unknown—live
an upright life, and you need
have no fears of being insulted,” returned
Edgar, seriously.
“And think you, my friend—for of all
men I have known, you are the only one
I can truly venture to call so—that my
guilty conscience would allow me to mingle
again with the virtuous?—the wolf in the
sheep's fold? No, no, no!” she pursued,
hurriedly; “I can not do it: I have
thought it all over time and again, and
have wept such tears as only the conscience-stricken
guilty can know. Go
where I would, I should feel that all eyes
were upon me, reading the thoughts of
my poluted soul; and it would be a hell of
torture to me far beyond even this. I am
a woman, and well you know, when one
of my sex is branded with shame, there is
no door of mercy and pardon left open for
us. No, do what we may, having once
done wrong, we are disgraced for ever, and
towards us the world's finger of scorn
stands eternally uplifted. I am proud as
I am wretched, and to see myself shunned
by all honest people, as a creature to be abhorred,
would be a punishment I could not
endure, and to which even death on the
rack would prove a glad substitute. Oh,
I am most wretched at times; and were it
not, as I have just said, I dread the consequences
hereafter, another sun should
not rise save upon my livid corse.”
“Nay, let me entreat you to think differently,
Ellen!” pleaded Edgar, gently, taking
her hand.
“Do not attempt entreaty!” she said,
rapidly, “for you will only fail where
others have failed before. There was
one,” she pursued, pressing her hands
upon her throbbing temples, and looking
wildly upon Edgar, “whose warning
voice I disregarded ere I became criminal;
and if she could not arrest me in my wayward
course, think not that any have now
the power to reclaim. My mother! oh, my
mother! oh God, my mother!” she cried, in
anguish; and again hiding her face, sobbed
aloud.
Edgar endeavored to console and tranquilize
her, but for a long time without
producing any effect, other than to cause
a fresh burst of agony. At length, becoming
a little more calm, and striving to
repress all emotion, she resumed:
“And can you indeed look upon me
am?”
“It is not that I consider what you are,”
answered Edgar, “so much as what you
may become, if you will but heed my
counsel, which makes you less criminal
in my eyes than your own. The evil you
do, or have done, no one can more heartily
condemn than I. It is the good remaining
to which I hopefully turn, to see
you saved from a fate the most horrible to
contemplate. You have intimated that
here you are on an equality with your associates.
Permit me to venture the assertion,
that in nobleness of nature and refinement
of soul, you are far, far their superior;
and hence what to them is of easy
endurance, to you is a torture almost unbearable.
To them, sin is a golden ball of
delightful temptation—to you, a grinning
skull, horrifying to your senses. They
have done and still do wrong, because it
is the strongest passion they possess—
you, because you have been seduced into
error and fancy there is no escape.”
“You speak much truth,” rejoined Ellen,
mournfully. “Were I what I was
once, with all the knowledge I now possess,
not a world, were it laid at my feet,
should tempt me to be what I am—but
being what I am, a world, even had I such
to offer, could not restore me to the purity
and happiness I possessed ere the tempter
came. My tale is brief and soon told—
you take an interest in my fate—therefore
listen to what these lips have never as
yet revealed to mortal ear:
“On the banks of the beautiful and romantic
Hudson, some hundred miles or so
above here, stands a lovely cottage, shaded
in the summer by a sylvan grove, and by
vines and flowers that entwine themselves
gracefully and luxuriantly about it. Here,
in times past, lived a happy family—a father,
mother and daughter—the latter an
only child, on whom both parents fondly
doated—too fondly, I fear, for their good
and her own. The fearful epidemic of
1832, called the father suddenly to eternity,
and struck the first tell blow to the
happiness of the two survivors. Time
passed on, and the love of mother and
daughter, which had been heretofore divi
ded by a husband and father, now centered
upon each other, with an intensity that
softened their grief for the lost one. Fair
and beautiful—alas! too beautiful for her
own salvation—the daughter bloomed
eighteen, the reigning belle of the village,
with a host of admirers ever in her
train. Unsuspicious as she was unsophisticated
in the ways of a heartless world,
and somewhat vain by nature, but more
so by circumstances, she was thus a fit
subject for the machinations of one of the
handsomest and most accomplished young
men she had ever beheld. Add to these
attractions, that he was from the fashionable
circles of New York, the son of a
millionaire, and that to her, comparatively
a country rustic, he paid the utmost defference,
professing at the same time an ardent
attachment, and you will scarcely
wonder that, dazzled by his position and
the prospective brought before her mind's
eye, as well as grateful for the distinction
she fancied conferred upon her, her affections
should become enlisted, and she
gradually be led on to her own destruction.
This her mother saw and warned
her of repeatedly; but when was an overindulged
youth or maiden ever known to
profit by the counsels of maturer years,
unless coerced or brought to the thinking
point by sad experience. Yet do not fancy
she leaped from virtue to vice knowingly.
No! all the world could never have
persuaded her to that. She knew she was
doing wrong, but did not dream of aught
criminal, until the fatal Rubicon of vice
had been passed, as in a dream, and she
awoke to the horrible reality of knowing
her steps could never be retraced—
that her fair name and fame were blasted
forever—her peace of mind forever ruined.
Nor was this effected but with the
basest deception. She was persuaded to
elope with him she loved, and be privately
married, that the news thereof might not
reach his father's ears, and he thereby be
cut off with a shilling. At night, and by
stealth, she left the roof of her fond mother
and came to this city, where she was
joined in holy wedlock—or at least so led
to suppose, until the awful truth of the
ceremony being a sham was subsequently
became a tigress, fearful to look upon; for
all the wild passions of hell itself were
stirred within her; and he who had brought
her to this, was fortunate to escape
with life until her first frenzy was
over. As it was, even, when next she and
her lover met, there was a fearful scene;
and with the door of her apartment bolted
upon him, a glittering dagger in her
hand, there would have been a new tragedy—a
horrifying tale of bloody retribution
for the world to gossip over—had not
he, on his bended knees, calling Heaven to
witness, solemnly vowed to make her his
lawful wife, and that, too, ere another month
should roll over her guilty head. To jump
detail,” concluded Ellen, with mournful
energy, raising herself to a sitting posture,
“three years have since passed, and yet
that vow has never been fulfilled.”
“But the lover—the seducer,” asked
Edgar, quickly, “what of him?”
“He is her lover still; and if not by
the laws of man, at least before high
Heaven, Ellen Douglas is his true and loyal
wife.”
“But when he broke the vow?”
“He did it by giving good cause, and
making another equally as strong and
equally as futile. But I loved, trusted and
forgave him—for what will not poor woman
do for him she loves! He has made
a dozen vows since then, only to break
them all and leave me what I am.”
“Then why accuse yourself of being
such a vile wretch, when the sin was not
so much your own as another's?” asked
Edgar.
“But the sin was my own.” said Ellen,
mournfully; “for did not I disregard the
counsels of a beloved mother, and basely,
like a guilty being, forsake her in the dead
hour of night?—alas! alas! to the breaking
of her heart;” and turning away her
face, the wretched girl burst into tears.
“An I where is she now!” inquired Edgar.
“Where!” echoed Eden, with startling
emphasis; “where I would to God I were
—with the dead!” and sinking back upon
her seat, she remained for a few minutes
completely overcome with the force of her
feelings.
Edgar made no reply, for he knew there
were sorrows, and more especially those
where a self-condemning conscience formed
a portion, far beyond the power of human
consolation, and the which it were
but mockery to attempt to soothe. After
a silence of some minutes, only broken by
her sighs and sobs, Ellen turned to Edgar
and resumed:
“This, my friend, made me a wretch—
this, and the thoughts of what I am, most
wretched. But,” she added, with a wild,
startled look, “I could bear all—even my
disgrace and the contumely of my fellow
creatures—bear all to my death, without
murmuring—were I assured that he, the
idol of my heart, as he is the author of my
misery, but loved me with one half the passion
he has professed. Oh! it is the bitter,
harrowing thought, that after all I
may be abandoned, forsaken, and that for
another, which keeps my brain on fire,
and has driven me nigh distracted! But
he shall never wed her and Ellen Douglas
live!” she cried, with sudden vehemence,
springing to her feet, greatly to the surprise
of Edgar, and towering aloft like an
indignant queen, while her dark eyes
glared fearfully around: “No, he shall
never wed her and I live poluted!—never
never, never—I swear it before high Heaven!”
and she threw back her head, cast
her eyes upward, and raised her hand aloft,
with a natural eloquence of gesture the
mightiest orator might have envied.
“And if I may be permitted the question,”
said Edgar, almost fearful to hazard
the inquiry, “who is the villain of whom
you speak?”
“Nay,” cried Ellen, eagerly, suddenly
grasping his arm and fixing her eyes upon
his, “call him not a villain—it is too harsh
a term! I may call him so, but I would
not hear another.”
“I crave pardon!” returned Edgar, perceiving
his mistake; “but my indignation
got the better of my prudence.”
“As you are a stranger here,” resumed
Ellen, abruptly, seeming not to heed the
apology, “and know not the personage in
question, I will venture to answer you
—but all in confidence, remember—
Know then, he is the only son of one
a millionaire.”
“What!” exclaimed Edgar, springing to
his feet in astonishment: “Acton Goldfinch?”
“You know him, then?” cried Ellen,
breathlessly.
“Only by report, and as my cousin—not
personally.”
“Your cousin?” almost screamed the
other, grasping his arm and looking completely
bewildered. “Your cousin, did you
say?”
“Unfortunately he is so,” rejoined Edgar,
setting his teeth hard in anger.
“He your cousin!” repeated Ellen, who
in her astonishment could think of nothing
else; “and you thus!—such disparity
between you! Pray tell me how is this?”
“By the devil's own labor,” replied Edgar,
bitterly; “you know his servants seldom
go without the good things of this
world, whatever they may receive in the
next. But come, we have been thrown
together singularly, you have briefly
sketched me your history, and as I believe
our misfortunes both date from one source,
sit down and I will briefly tell you mine;”
and Edgar proceeded to give the outlines
of what is already known to the reader.
“And now, Ellen,” he said, in conclusion,
“as you know something of his history,
I fancy you will be less credulous to
what comes from his forked tongue; for
that your betrayer will keep one vow with
you, I solemnly do not believe.”
“Alas! what will then become of me?”
groaned Ellen, in anguish of spirit.
“Let me repeat my advice. Leave here
and retire to some secluded part of the
country, where you can ever remain unknown.”
“No, no, rejoined Ellen, “I could not
do that. I am so constituted, my friend,
that once certain I am not loved—once
sure I am forsaken—But hark!” she exclaimed
abruptly, starting up and springing
to the window; “there is a knock at the
door—perhaps it is Acton. It is!” she
added, hurriedly, the next moment, as gently
she opened the shutter and peered down.
“Quick, quick, my friend, you must begone!
I would not have you seen by your
cousin for the world! He is already too
jealous, and the sight of you would be my
undoing! Pass out of the room at once,
and as he approaches, appear to have
come from another apartment! Now
quick, my friend, quick! Adieu! I will
see you another time—adieu!” and as she
uttered these words rapidly, she fairly
pushed Edgar from the apartment and
closed the door.
Edgar followed her instructions to the
letter, and the next minute had passed his
cousin, whom he now beheld for the first
time, and was on his way, unsuspected by
the other, to the street door, where the
same female who gave him admittance
now gave him exit.
| CHAPTER IX.
THE ABODE OF THE UNFORTUNATE. Oliver Goldfinch, or, The hypocrite | |