 | CHAPTER XI.
THE REWARD OF DARING Oliver Goldfinch, or, The hypocrite |  |
11. CHAPTER XI.
THE REWARD OF DARING
After waiting in much anxiety the time
appointed by himself for calling upon Elmer,
Edgar repaired to his lodgings and
sent up his card. In a few minutes the
servant returned with Elmer's compliments,
(who was too busy himself to see
any one) and a package neatly sealed'
which Edgar took with a trembling hand
and beating heart, for this he rightly
judged contained the so long wished for
decision. As soon as he was alone in the
street, he hurriedly broke it open, and to
his dismay found it to contain only his
own manuscript and the following note:
“Mr. Elmer begs leave to return Mr.
Courtly his manuscript—not from want of
merit, for it is an excellent production—
but simply because he has selected one
written by a friend which will answer his
purpose.”
“And for this I have struggled, and
toiled, and hoped!” said Edgar, bitterly,
rending the manuscript into a thousand
pieces, and scattering them like snowflakes
upon the earth. “Well, well, well
—the fates are against me, so why should
I contend with my destiny. O, man!
selfish, cruel, unfeeling man! O, that I
could forever fly your sight, and in some
far off wilderness end my days! Alas!
poor Virginia!—she will weep when she
knows my success, for she sanguinely
counted on my gaining the prize. But I
will seek again for manual labor. I must
have something wherewith to cheer her.—
But stay, let me look at this paper again;”
and taking one of the daily journals from
his pocket, he opened and read:
“The noble stranger, who a day or two
since so heroically saved the life of a lady
in Centre street, at the risk of his own,
is particularly requested to call at No. —,
Eight Avenue, where he will find friends
who are not ungrateful.”
“This is certainly a curious coincidence,
or I must be the person meant,”
mused Edgar; “and if so, something advantageous
may come of my answering
the advertisement. Saved the life of a
lady in Centre street! Well, it was in
Centre street I checked the running
horse, which, peradventure, left to himself,
would have dashed the lady to pieces.
At all events there can be no harm
in ascertaining who is referred to, and I
will go.”
Putting his determination in practice,
Edgar in due time found himself before a
stately mansion—rivalling, if not surpassing,
—on the door of which, engraved on a
silver plate, he read the name of Calvin
Morton.
“Can this be the place?” he asked himself,
and again had recourse to the advertisement.
Yes, it must be, for the numbers tallied;
and looking at his thread-bare garments,
then at the beautiful marble steps,
the silver bell-handle, and the high windows,
hung with white and damask curtains,
Edgar was debating whether to venture
a ring or depart, when a female, richly
dressed, but double-veiled for concealment,
passed him hurriedly, and then
paused, and like himself gazed curiously
upon the handsome structure. Then ascending
the steps, she took hold of the
bell-handle, looked around eagerly, partly
raised her veil, gave one glance at Edgar,
veiled herself again quickly, and, without
ringing at all, descended the steps in
haste and departed in much apparent agitation.
“Strange!” mused Edgar; “what can this
mean? Some new mystery I suppose.—
Those features—surely, I have seen them
before! Ha! now I bethink me, but for
the place where I find her, I could almost
swear they were those of Ellen Douglas.”
Edgar might have so sworn with impunity,
for Ellen Douglas it was; and the
reader will doubtless find less cause to
marvel at her appearance there and manner
than he did.
Decided at last to enter, Edgar rang the
bell, and on inquiring of the servant for
Mr. Morton, was shown into a library at
the far end of the hall, where sat a mild,
middle-aged gentleman, plainly dressed, of
benevolent aspect, who looked up through
his spectacles from among a huge pile of
books with which he was partly surrounded,
and to which it would seem he made
frequent reference, as many of them were
lying open. Before him was a table strewn
with manuscripts, and in his hand a pen,
which, as he carlessly nodded Edgar to a
seat, he dipped in ink and commenced
writing with great vigor and haste. For
something like five minutes, he neither
looked up nor spoke; and Edgar, fancying
himself an unwelcome intruder, at last
rose to take his leave, when the other,
motioning with his hand for him to be
seated, said, hurriedly:
“In a moment, sir.”
Edgar sat down again, but found the
moment of another five minutes duration;
and picking up a huge volume by his side,
he was fast becoming interested in a statute
on forgery—for the books were those
of the law—when the gentleman, putting
down his pen, moving back his chair and
slipping up his spectaeles, said:
“Now, sir, I am at your service.”
“I beg pardon, for intruding upon you
while so busy,” began Edgar; “but seeing
this advertisement, (pointing to it) I
thought I would answer it.”
“What!” cried Morton, his whole manner
and expression changing from a cold
business air to one of eager, delighted
surprise, “are you the young man who so
nobly saved the life of my dear daughter
Edith?”
“Of that,” said Edgar, “I am not certain,
and you may mean another. I saw
a lady in danger, however, from a runaway
horse; and thinking it possible to save
her, I stepped forward,knocked the animal
down, and, as she was thrown, caught her
in my arms.”
“It was you, then!” cried Morton, starting
up and seizing Edgar by the hand,
which he shook long and heartily. “God
bless you, sir, for the deed! God bless you!
I say—and I mean it. But for you, I should
now be childless, and then, oh!— But
I will not think of that. Come, come—
let us to the parlor, and Edith shall thank
you in person.”
“I pray you excuse me,” said Edgar,
coloring; “but you see I am hardly in fit
condition to enter a lady's presence;” and
he glanced wofully over his well-worn,
faded garments.
“Poh! poh! young man—don't talk to
me of dress. Look at me, sir! Mine is
but little, if any, better than yours. Dress
is nothing, sir—nothing; a mere tailor can
make that. The mind, sir—the mind—
the soul—is every thing: that is the jewel
to look to, and that is of God's manufacture.
hear your name?”
“Edgar Courtly.”
“And a fine name it is, too. I once
did some business for a namesake of yours,
and I found him a perfect gentleman. Perhaps
some relation! He was from Baltimore,
and his Christian name Ethan.”
“My father!” exclaimed Edgar, with a
start of surprise.
“Your father!” rejoined the other, in
equal astonishment. “God bless you! you
come of good stock. But fortune changes,
I see,” he added, glancing at Edgar's faded
garments. “When I knew your father,
he was rich. How fares he now?”
“Alas, sir, he has been five years dead!”
answered Edgar, mournfully.
“Ah! indeed!—sorry to hear it. He
was a gentleman, every inch of him. And
your mother?”
“She—she too—is—is dead,” said Edgar,
vainly striving to suppress the tears
that came bursting through his eyelids.
“My father died worth near a million—
my mother starved to death in a land of
plenty.”
“Starved, say you, Mr. Courtly? Good
Heaven! I trust not starved?”
“Ay, Mr. Morton, starved, and in this
very city. But wo to them that did it!—
for so sure as there is a God in Heaven,
their damnable deeds shall recoil upon their
guilty heads, even to the third and fourth
generation!”
“Of whom do you speak, Mr. Courtly?
Has wrong been done you?”
“Ay, sir, the foulest! But come, you
knew my father, you seem to take an interest
in my fate, and, to make us better
acquainted, I will give you a sketch of my
history.”
“Do so—you could not confer a greater
pleasure,” returned Morton.
By this time the two had reached the
parlor, and taking seats, Edgar at once
proceeded to sketch the most prominent
events of his past life, not overlooking the
villainy of his uncle.
“Great God! how much you have suffered!”
ejaculated Morton, as the other
paused. “And no one left but yourself
and sister, and you almost starving! Well,
well, thank God! I have enough; and
while Calvin Morton lives, you shall not
need a friend. But who is this base uncle?
and where can he be found? The
miscreant! he shall be exposed, let him
be whom he may, if such a thing be in my
power.”
“And yet,” rejoined Edgar, “should I
tell you his name, you would be tempted
to discredit my story.”
“Not I, in faith,” said Morton; “for
your story comes too much from the heart
to be an imposition. I have seen and
studied too much of human nature, I fancy,
to be easily deceived.”
“What say you, then, to Oliver Goldfinch?”
Had a bolt of lightning at that moment
descended from the heavens and torn up
the ground beneath his feet, Morton would
scarcely have exhibited greater astonishment
and dismay than at this simple announcement.
“Oliver Goldfinch?” he exclaimed. “No,
no, Mr. Courtly—there must be some mistake!—for
he, I assure you, bears a stainless
reputation, and is one of our most opulent
citizens.”
“If there is any mistake,” said Edgar,
“it must be on your part, in not knowing
him so well as I. But I here tell you, under
oath if you like, that noble, and rich, and
stainless in reputation as he is, it was Oliver
Goldfinch who took possession of my
father's property, and afterwards denied
his own sister, refusing her money to buy
food, even when she was dying of starvation.”
“Be this so, may God's curses light upon
him!” said Morton, a good deal excited.
“And they will—on him and his—sooner
or later,” returned Edgar. “All things
find their level at last.”
“And my Edith is as good as engaged
to his son.”
“To Acton?” cried Edgar.
“The same.”
“Then, as you love your daughter, forbid
the bands and all farther intercourse—
for he is a villain of but little remove from
the blackness of his father. Now I see it
all; and it was to this lady Ellen alluded,
when she said he should never marry her,”
was she, then, I saw at the door! She
came to warn Edith; and no wonder she
was agitated, poor girl!”
“Of whom are you speaking, Mr. Courtly?”
“Of the victim of Acton Goldfinch—
poor Ellen Douglass!” answered Edgar;
“of her who so generously supplied me
with money, when my mother lay a corpse,
and her living children had not wherewithal
to keep them long from joining her; of
one who has been most foully, most damnably
wronged!” and Edgar proceeded to
detail what he knew of Ellen and her seducer.
“And this is the man that aspires to the
hand of my daughter?” said Morton, when
Edgar had done. “O, the scoundrel! But
his cause here is hopeless. Edith shall
know all; and if you have told me true,
which I believe, she shall spurn him hence
as a worthless dog. But speaking of
Edith, reminds me you have not seen her
to receive her grateful thanks. Excuse
my neglect; but so taken up was I with
your story, I forgot all else;” and as he
spoke, he rang a bell.
“Bid my daughter and her mother come
hither at once,” he said to the servant;
and scarcely three minutes elapsed, ere the
door opened, and Mrs. Morton, followed by
Edith, entered.
The former was a fine, matronly-looking
lady of forty, with nothing to distinguish
her, unless it were a mild, sweet, benevolent
expression, which lingered on her
open features as naturally as sunlight upon
a flower, and inspired the beholder at once
with confidence and pleasure.
But the countenance of Edith was marked—not
so much with the strong lines of
light and shade, which the artist readily
seizes and transfers to canvas, as with the
expression of intellect and nobleness of
soul that was every where visible, but more
especially in her soft, gray eyes, which
sweetly beamed through their long lashes,
like the sun of an unclouded summer's
morn gently struggling through a grove of
weeping willows. Not a feature but was
perfectly moulded; and yet not on one, nor
on all combined, could you fix the beauty
which you acknowledged as both triumphant
and charming. Chisel them in marble,
let the soul be wanting, and they
would be but marble still, as unattractive
as the face of a doll; but light them with
the intellect they now displayed, and they
spoke to you more eloquently than the
tongue of an orator. Around a face of
classic mould, and over a beautiful neck
of alabaster whiteness, that rounded off in
a swelling bust, floated a mass of golden
ringlets, less the work of art than nature.
A dimpled hand and form of airy lightness,
elastic with the fresh vigor of seventeen
summers, made Edith Morton an object not
to be lightly passed over by one susceptible
of woman's charms.
And such an one was our hero, who, as
at a single glance he took in all we have
described, felt his frame thrill with an emotion
to which he had hitherto been a stranger.
For a moment, as she entered, his
eyes encountered hers; and then his gaze
instantly dropped to the ground, and for
the first time, perhaps, in his life, he felt
really embarrassed in the presence of a
lady. He could not but remember now,
with a feeling of pride he had not before
experienced, it was this lovely being's life
he had saved—that to him she owed the
sweetest of all debts, the gratitude of a
grateful heart.
“My wife and daughter,” spoke Morton,
“allow me to present to you Edgar Courtly,
the noble young man to whom Edith is
indebted for her life.”
“Indeed, sir, was it you?” said Mrs.
Morton, seizing both the hands of Edgar
in her own, and pressing them warmly.
“May Heaven bless you, young man, for
the heroic deed! Here, Edith, come and
thank him!”
“I do, mother,” returned Edith, approaching
and modestly extending her hand to
Edgar, who took it in one, that, in spite of
himself, trembled: “I do thank him, from
my very soul.”
Her eyes, as she spoke, were looking
sweetly into his; but from some cause, as
she concluded, they sank toward the
ground, and a bright tint heightened the
beauty of her cheeks. Edgar would have
given the world to speak freely; but somehow
member, now clove to his mouth;
and it was not till after two or three vain
attempts, he managed to articulate, in a
tremulous voice:
“I did but my duty.”
“So say all high minded persons, when
they do a noble act,” rejoined Mr. Morton;
“but the obligation is none the less binding
on our part, that you are pleased to
consider the matter in so modest a light.
Eh! Edith, what think you?”
“That I shall never be able to repay
Mr. Courtly for what he terms a simple act
of duty.”
“Not so, Miss Morton; I am repaid already,
a thousand times—ay, even were my
claim to your gratitude a thousand times
greater than it is,” returned Edgar, with
an earnestness of tone and manner that
again brought the bright crimson to the
lovely face of Edith, and made his own
blush correspondingly.
“As the preserver of my life, at the risk
of your own, I can never cease to remember
you with gratitude,” rejoined Edith, in
a voice full of music to the soul of Edgar,
accompanied as it was with a sweet but
modest smile.
“Who would not,” he thought to himself,
“have done as much for a like reward?”
“To cut matters short, and end any
thing like formality,” joined in Mr. Morton,”
you must know, Edgar—excuse the
familiarity I take with your Christian
name—that we all feel ourselves under the
deepest obligations to you, and will do all
in our power to cancel the debt. Look
upon this house, sir, as your home, and to
me for any assistance you may need.”
The earnest manner in which this was
spoken, showed Edgar, conclusively, the
speaker was sincere; and so affected him,
that the tears sprang to his eyes, and it
was with difficulty, as he grasped the other's
proffered hand of friendship, he could
articulate:
“God bless you! for through you my
day seems dawning once more.”
“Ah, poor youth, God grant it!—for it
is high time, methinks, it dawned again to
you. Yours has indeed been a stormy
night of wretchedness. And your poor
sister—Heaven pardon me! I had almost
forgotten her—bring her here, and she shall
have a home and be as my daughter.”
“You overwhelm me,” returned Edgar,
tremulously, brushing away an obdurate
tear.
“Have you then a sister?” cried Edith,
eagerly. “O, by all means, bring her
here! for I know I shall love her so.”
“Ay, do, Mr. Courtly, do!” chimed in
Mrs. Morton. “Edith has often wished
for a sister, and yours shall be hers.”
“And, mother, we will send the carriage
for her at once,” pursued Edith, with an
expression of heart-felt eagerness. “O, I
am so anxious to see her! Ring, father,
for the coachman!”
“Nay, I would you let me prepare my
sister first,” interposed Edgar, gently.—
“To-morrow, if so you desire it, I will
conduct her hither myself.”
“We must perforce wait your pleasure,”
smiled Edith, “though the sooner you
bring her, the better I shall be pleased.
Does she resemble you?” she inquired,
naively.
“There is, some say, a slight resemblance,”
replied Edgar; “but in justice to
dear Virginia, I must own she is younger
and far the best looking.”
Edith looked as though she thought the
latter impossible, but simply said, in an
artless tone, that again brought the blood
to Edgar's cheek:
“O, I know I shall love her. Virginia!
what a sweet, beautiful name!”
Edgar just then thought Edith full as
sweet.
In like manner the conversation proceeded
for half an hour, when Mr. Morton,
on the plea of business, reconducted
Edgar to the library. As the latter took
leave of the ladies, both Mrs. Morton and
Edith pressed him warmly to tarry for dinner,
and made Mr. Morton promise to do
his best to detain him. What a wonderful
change a little time had wrought in
the condition and feelings of Edgar. An
hour before he was an object for commiseration,
and felt too wretched to exist.—
Now he was surrounded by influential
friends, and would not have exchanged
uncertain life! O, vacillating human nature!
We are but puny chess-men, changed
at the will of the Great Player, and are
much or nothing, according to our position
in relation to one another.
“Edgar Courtly,” said Mr. Morton, abruptly,
as they entered the library, “there
is something about you I like.”
“Thank you,” returned Edgar, coloring.
“Stop! no thanks, sir!—at least none
to me—for I want nothing but what is my
own; and thanks for liking you, is much
like thanking a man to eat a good dinner
at your expense. No, Edgar; if you thank
any body, thank God, for having made you
what you are—one of his noblest works.
There, stop, now—don't interrupt me!” he
continued, as he saw Edgar about to make
reply. “Don't interrupt me, I repeat!
for I am a singular man, and like to say
what I think, without hindrance or contradiction.
It is seldom I tell a man I
like him, for I see very few I can say thus
to and speak the truth, and it is my rule to
speak nothing but what I mean. But a
truce to this. I have no time to spare, as
an important case, which comes on in two
days, requires all my time and closest attention.
To be brief, then, what can I
do for you?”
“A thousand thanks for your offer! but
I require nothing at present.”
“You seemed annoyed at the appearance
of your dress, when I first invited
you to join the ladies. You are a young
man, have your fortune to make, and I appreciate
your feelings—for dress, in the
eyes of the world, is every thing. Here
is a check for fifty dollars.”
“No, Mr. Morton, a thousand thanks for
your generosity! but I will accept nothing,
unless you show me a way to earn it
first.”
“Rightly spoken, like a nobly spirited
youth! You would make a capital lawyer,
methinks. What say you to the profession?”
“It is precisely to my mind.”
“Will you take me for a tutor?”
“The very favor I would have asked.”
“Enough! Consider the matter set
tled. I can pay you what salary I please,
you know. Come to-morrow, sir, and
bring your sister, and I will put you to your
task. Shall I see you at dinner?”
“Not to-day, as my sister would be uneasy
at my absence.”
“I shall see you to-morrow, then?”
“God willing, you will.”
“Will you accept this money in advance?”
“Not to-day, I thank you!”
“And so Oliver Goldfinch is the uncle
who so basely used you!” he said, musingly,
making an abrupt change to the subject
that now bore upon his mind. “Ay!
ay! I must look to this—I must look to
this. If I can get any hold upon him,
friend Edgar, you shall have justice. And
Acton is a villain, too! So, so—this shall
be attended to. To-morrow I shall look
for you early. Good morning, sir—good
morning, Edgar;” and turning quickly
away, the lawyer resumed his writing,
without deigning even another look at his
visiter.
As Edgar quitted the mansion and slowly
took his way homeward, he mused, with
a lightened heart, upon the events
we have just described—upon the curious
chain of circumstances which had so suddenly
placed him on terms of intimacy
with one of the most opulent families of
the city—upon the striking contrast between
him he had just parted from and his
own uncle—but, most of all, upon the
sweetly smiling countenance, the light
and sylph-like form, and the soft, melodious
voice of the fair and lovely Edith Morton.
| CHAPTER XI.
THE REWARD OF DARING Oliver Goldfinch, or, The hypocrite | |