University of Virginia Library

4. CHAPTER IV.
THE PAST RECALLED.

Ere we proceed farther with our story,
it is important we should touch somewhat
upon the past, in order to show the train
of circumstances which placed some of
our characters in the position they occupied
when introduced to the reader. In
doing this, we shall endeavor to be as brief
as possible, well knowing that, to most,
long details of such matters prove excessively
tedious. To begin then at the beginning,
let us go back some twenty-five
years, to the marriage of Ethan Courtly
and Mary Goldfinch, the parents of Edgar
and Virginia. From some remarks dropped
by Edgar to his uncle, recorded in the
opening chapter, the reader has already
had an inkling of what is to come; but
still there are many things not yet mentioned,
which, as a faithful chronicler, we
deem it our duty here to set forth.

At the time the marriage in question
took place, Mary and her brother were orphans,
living on a small estate bequeathed
them by their father, who had died a year
or two previous, and who had himself been
a widower some three or four years. Their
place of residence was near a small village,
in the state of Maryland, distant about
thirty miles from the city of Baltimore.—
But notwithstanding they remained on the
farm or plantation of their late father, we
would not have the reader infer they were
awkward country rustics, who had never
mingled in refined society. On the contrary,
their doating father had taken every
pains to give both an education and polish
superior to those by whom they were surrounded.
Oliver had entered college very
young, and graduated in his twentieth
year; and Mary had left boarding school a
ripe scholar at the age of sixteen. In fine,
so lavish had been the expenditures of their
father on them, that he had much impoverished
his small estate, and besides encumbering
a part with mortgage, had been
obliged to dispose of all his negroes but
two, in order to liquidate the more pressing
debts.

At his death, Oliver took charge of the
estate, and, by close management, and a
sale of a few acres, succeeded in raising
the mortgage and becoming sole proprietor;
for though his sister was entitled to
a portion, he took no other notice of her
claims, than to offer her a home so long
as she might remain unmarried.

Mary was not well pleased, for the disposition
of her brother was illy suited to
render her happy. He was morose and
haughty to those he considered his dependents,
or held in his power, though fawning
enough to his superiors, or such as he
expected by hypocritical manœuvers to
profit by. He was, withal, very ambitious,
grasping and avaricious—so that
those who knew him best, shunned him as
they would a viper, and scandalized him
much whenever his name chanced to be
mentioned. But he had a faculty of making
his dupes think him perfect; and those
on whom he had a design, who had as yet
only seen the bright side, could not be
brought to believe that the refined, softspoken,
smiling, agreeable young Goldfinch,
could be the base hypocrite men reported
him. No! it was wilful, malignant
slander, to injure a high-minded, honorable
young man; and their sympathies being
aroused in consequence, they were
only the more fully and blindly drawn into
the net he had prepared for them, and
which they seldom if ever discovered until
too late to escape. He was a man without
principle, who would stoop to any
meanness to accomplish his end; though,
to casually see and hear him converse, one
would suppose him the very quintessence
of nobleness and honor.

The first thing that sorely troubled Mary,
and opened her eyes to his real nature—
for having both been sent to school at an
early age, she had seen little of him until
her return—was his importuning her to
inveigle and marry some rich young man;
and this, too, ere their father had been six
months in his grave, and while she was
deeply mourning his death.

“Now do not have any false notions,
Mary,” he would say to her, “but follow
my instructions, and you will soon be mistress
of a splendid mansion. I have several
acquaintances who are rich, and,

though a little wild, that need not matter,
for they will be the easier entangled, if
the card be rightly played, and be the less
likely to look close into the affair afterwards;
and so you get plenty of money,
and live in elegant style, what need you
care? Come! I will invite them here, and
trust me, I will soon see you settled as becomes
my sister.”

At first Mary thought him in jest, and
laughed at his to her curious ideas of what
should make a proper husband; but discovering
soon her mistake, she mildly reproved
him for being so worldly, and firmly
declared she would not see his friends
alone, much more listen to any proposals
of the nature he required, even should they
be never so strenuous in urging suit. In
vain her brother sought, by all the false
reasoning he could invent, to turn her
from her resolve. The more he importuned
the firmer she grew, until at last, so repugnant
became the subject to her feelings,
and so ardent her desire to convince
her brother she would never relent, that
she took a solemn oath, calling Heaven to
witness, she would never, knowingly, marry
a man of wealth. Oliver, who had
seen enough of his sister to know she
would keep her vow, now let the matter
drop, and appeared to acquiesce in her decision—though
in reality he was secretly
laying a plan to entrap her, by introducing
to her a young man of wealth, and
concealing from her the fact. This plan
he put in execution, and the young man
apparently proving an agreeable suitor, the
affair seemed likely to terminate as he desired.

Month upon month rolled away, and
still the friend of Oliver paid his visits
regularly to Mary; and, as is usual in
such cases, Rumor, with her thousand
tongues, said it would be a match. Oliver
was delighted that his scheme was
about to succeed; and on the strength of
it, he borrowed of his intended brother-in-law
a large sum of money, by which to
prosecute a suit of his own, in Baltimore,
with an heiress.

But there were two persons who had no
faith in the reported marriage ever taking
place. One of these was Mary herself,
and the name of the other has already
been mentioned in these pages, and will
soon occur again. With Mary's ostensible
lover, it also began to grow doubtful;
for whenever he asked the important question,
she would always desire farther time
to consider. At last he grew desperate,
and said he would not be put off any longer;
that she must answer Yes or No at the
end of a week, which he farther granted
her of his own accord. She calmly replied,
that if he would call a week from that
night, he should have her positive answer.

At the time appointed the young man
came, and was handed a note by the servent,
which contained a direct, though respectful,
refusal of his hand. Chagrined
at this, he sought young Oliver, who had
been the means of bringing him there, and
who had often encouraged his addresses, by
telling him his sister was passionately in
love with him. When Oliver saw the
note, he became very much enraged, and
inquired for his sister. The servant said
she had that evening gone out with the
village schoolmaster, Ethan Courtly.

“By —!” cried Oliver Goldfinch, stamping
his foot in a paroxism of anger, “I see
it all. I thought that young scape-grace,
whom I have frequently seen here of late,
was after no good. They have eloped!—
My horse! my horse! I must overtake
the runaways.”

But Oliver, and his friend who accompanied
him, proved too late. Ere the former
found his sister, she was the lawful
wife of Ethan Courtly; and cursing her in
the most vindictive language he could invent,
and swearing roundly he would ever
after disown her, and sometime be revenged,
he turned upon his heel, and, accompanied
by his friend, departed in haste.

Greatly were the good people of Sandville—for
so we will call the village—astonished
at hearing of the runaway nuptials
of Ethan Courtly and Mary Goldfinch;
for so cautiously had both managed, and
so blindly had all given credence to the
report of her engagement with another,
that the news fell upon them like a thunder
bolt.

About a year previous to this marriage,
Ethan Courtly, a young man of education

and enterprise, had come to the village of
Sandville and opened a school, which
was soon crowded with pupils. Born in the
land of puritans-glorious old New
England—he had been educated with correct
principles, which he took care ever to display,
and by which he won the admiration
and esteem of all who knew him, and consequently
soon became a favorite with all
the good citizens of Sandville. To make
a long story short, he met and was introduced
to Mary Goldfinch; and fancying
her more than any other he had ever seen,
he sought her society, and soon made
known to her his regard for herself. To
his great delight, he found a cordial reciprocity
of feeling; but was told that if he
wished to succeed, he must keep the matter
wholly to himself, and appear indifferent
about her society, in order to avoid
arousing the suspicions of Oliver, whom
Mary knew would oppose any thing like a
marriage, even by violence if necessary,
simply because young Courtly had not
wealth to recommend him. To cloak still
farther this novel and clanedestine courtship,
Mary permitted the visits of her
brother's friend, and even allowed the report
of her engagement with him to go
abroad without contradiction.

Thus matters went on to the terminus,
which has already been seen, and on which
it is unnecessary for us to dwell.

Immediately on his marriage, Courtly
gave up his school and removed with his
wife to Baltimore, where, with the little
capital he had prudently saved frmm his
earnings, he opened a small retail store.
Every thing he undertook prospered with
him, and in a few years he had greatly enlarged
his business, and was known and
respected as a wealthy merchant. He
purchased a handsome residence in the
environs of the city, where, with his wife
and two children, Edgar and Virginia, he
lived in as perfect happiness as it is possible
fur a mortal to enjoy.

Meantime, Oliver married the heiress to
whom allusion has peen previously made,
but found, soon after, to his disappointment
and rage, that she was literally
worth nothing, and that to pay the debts
he had contracted on the score of expectancy,
he would now be obliged to dispose
of the homestead estate. The result of
the whole matter was, that both he and
his wile having married for money rather
than love, each supposing the other the
fortunate possessor of half a million, now
became greatly dissatisfied with each other,
quarrelled often, and finally, after the
birth of two children, a son and daughter,
mutually, agreed to separate, the father taking
the son and the wife the daughter.—
It was now, that, impoverished and generally
despised by all who knew him, Oliver
Goldfinch, the cunning villain, bethought
him of his sister, with envy of
that very happiness he had once so
strenuously sought to prevent.

But why should he not reconcile himself
with her, he mused, and so peradventure
get an opportunity to feather his own
nest? His sister and her husband were
both persons of frank, unsuspicious natures;
and a little duplicity, a few penitential
tears, and a heart-broken look,
mould perhaps accomplish all. It was at
least worth the trial; for if he succeeded,
peradventure his fortune was made.

Thus reasoned the worldly man; and, to
be brief, he did make the trial; and, alas
for his victims! succeeded but too well,
as has already been shown in the pages
preceding. With an oily tongue, and an
honest, sanctified look, the mask which
best conceals a devilish heart, Oliver managed
to ingratiate himself into the confidence
of his brother-in-law, until the latter
would as soon have thought of doubting
holy writ as one word he might utter.

From a schoolmaster and a small retail
dealer, Ethan Courtly had now become a
wholesale merchant, and owner of one or
two vessels, and part owner of half a dozen
others,which sailed from Baltimore and
the different ports of the Union;
and, at the head of his affairs, almost sole manager,
he placed the consumate hypocrite
and villain, Oliver Goldfinch.

Time rolled on, and still every thing
prospered, until the period of which we
are now about to speak—say some five
year previous to the opening of our story.
Without entering into particulars, it
will only be necessary to state, that at

this time Ethan Courtly arranged to embark
on one of his own vessels for a foreign
clime, but with the intention and expectation
of returning to his beloved family
within a twelve-month from setting
sail. Before he departed, Oliver was very
strenuous in urging him to make his will;
to which he remonstrated, by saying he
did not deem such a proceeding necessary,
as, in case he died intestate, of
course the property would fall to his rightful
heirs, which was all he desired. But
the wily schemer, after much quiet reasoning,
gained his point, as in fact he ever
did with his single-minded brother-in-law,
and was deputed to employ a lawyer and
have all settled in due form.

It is needless to say more than that the
will was drawn, attested, and placed upon
record the day previous to the departure
of Ethan Courtly.

We now skip a period of five months,
during which Oliver Goldfinch assiduously
attended to the affairs of his absent relative,
when suddenly, with the shock of a
thunderbolt falling from a cloudless sky,
there came the painful intelligence that
the Mary Helen, on which Ethan Courtly
had embarked, had been wrecked off the
the coast of France, and that every soul
aboard of her had perished.

We pass over the effect of this news
upon Mrs. Courtly and her children, both
of whom were recalled from school to bitterly
mourn the loss of a beloved and indulgent
parent.

On the receipt of the tidings regarding
the sad fate of his brother-in-law, Oliver
Goldfinch went into mourning; and with a
pale, sanctimonious face, and eyes made
red by wiping, if not by weeping, managed
to appear the most disconsolate of mourners;
so much so, that it was often remarked
by those who knew not the heart of the
dissembler, that he must have loved his relative
dearly to take his death so hard.

After a proper time given to sorrow,
Oliver notified his sister that it would now
be necessary to have the estate of his dear
brother Ethan settled according to law,
and that as he was aware the deceased had
made a will, it would be proper to have it
brought forward and read. To this, of
course, Mrs. Courtly assented; but judge
of her astonishment, and that of her friends,
on learning that out of the vast estate of
her late husband, only five thousand dollars
had been bequeathed to herself and
children; while the balance, amounting at
the least calculation to many hundred
thousand dollars, including the splendid
home mansion, had been bestowed upon
Oliver—with the provise, that should he
die childless, it must revert to Edgar and
Virginia and their issue—or, in case of
their demise without issue, to the next
heir or heirs at law.

Surprised and shocked as she was at
this stunning intelligence, Mrs. Courtly
doubted not it was all correct; and believing
that her late husband, whom she completely
idolized, had had a proper motive for
what he had done, and that it would all
prove for the best in the end, she never
once attempted to dispute the claim of
Oliver, or break the will and sue for her
thirds, as all her friends advised her to do.

“No,” she would say, in answer to the
many solicitations that she would do so
and so; “Ethan knew what was best, and
far be it from me to alter what he designed.
My happiness consists in conforming
to his desires.”

Finding her determined on the matter,
her friends soon ceased to importune her,
and Oliver had it all his own way. Knowing
it required the most skillful management
to effect his avaricious purpose, without
wounding the sensitive nature of his
sister, he redoubled his grief and duplicity,
and went about bemoaning to her his hard
fate, in being obliged to dispose of this
thing and that, to carry out the desires of
his dearly beloved brother, and always ended
by saying, that when the estate should
have become properly settled, he would
give her a deed of the homestead, and settle
upon her an independency for life.
This promised providence for her future
wants satisfied Mrs. Courtly, and she saw
her fine home sold over her head, without
a murmur, firmly believing her brother
would keep his word, and in due time restore
her all. In sooth, though she knew
her brother had once been very worldly-minded,
yet of late years he had been so

guarded in her presence, so sanctimonious
and demure, that she, poor woman, now
truly believed there had been a wonderful
reformation at heart.

It was at least a year or more from the
reported death of Ethan Courtly, ere Oliver
Goldfinch had settled every thing
to his satisfaction. By this time, estates,
ships, negroes, goods and chattels, each
and all, had been disposed of; and with
the money they brought in his possession,
Oliver informed his sister that she might
now remain contented in her home; that
all had been arranged to her desire; and
that he, with his wife and children, with
the first of whom he had now become reconciled,
were on the point of leaving for
New York, where they hoped to have the
pleasure of her society occasionally.

Thus they parted; and never for a moment
did Mrs. Courtly doubt the word of
her brother, until notified, about six months
after he had left, that she must vacate the
premises she then occupied, as the mansion,
appartenances and grounds had been
purchased by a gentleman who was now
desirous of taking immediate possession.
For some time Mrs. Courtly could not be
brought to believe her brother had acted
so base and ungrateful a part; and she at
once wrote to him, asking an explanation.
After considerable delay she received an
answer, to the effect that he was very sorry
to say the matter of sale was true; that
he had done it to oblige a friend, who had
set his heart upon having that residence;
but that to compensate his sister, he was
already negotiating for a residence, every
way its superior, which, in case she resolved
to come to New York, he would certainly
purchase and present her.

For the first time the truth flashed upon
Mrs. Courtly, that both she and her lamented
husband had been the blind dupes
of an artful and ungrateful villain; and so
sudden, powerful and heart-sickening was
the shock of this conviction, which she
gained on reading his letter, that, clasping
her forehead and staggering back, she
sunk senseless to the ground, and a delirious
fever followed, which nearly cost her
her life at the time, and from the effects
of which she never fully recovered.

We must now hurry to the close of this
history, which we fear has already become
tedious to the reader, but with which, notwithstanding,
it was all important he
should be made acquainted.

For a long time Mrs. Courtly did not
deign an answer to the epistle of her brother.
As soon as able, she quitted her
once loved home with a breaking heart,
yielding it up to strangers, and seeking a
more humble abode for herself—both her
children now being at school—and she
fully determined to spend every cent, if
necessary, in giving them what could not
take wings and fly away—a good education.

And it did take every cent; and at last
Mrs. Courtly was obliged to recall Edgar
and Virginia, for want of means to longer
support them abroad. Two years now
passed, and then, reduced almost to beggary,
she wrote to her brother, detailing
her wants, cares and anxieties. Having
waited an almost interminable long while,
and receiving no answer, Mrs. Courtly determined
on proceeding to New York herself,
and making an appeal to him in
propria personœ. To carry out this design,
she sold her few remaining effects, and
with the proceeds set out on her journey,
accompanied by Edgar and Virginia. We
have not space here to follow her through all
her weary trials and disappointments, after
her arrival in New York, up to the moment
she was brought before the reader; but suffice,
that to her horror and despair, she found
herself disowned by him from whom she
expected aid, and in a strange land, among
strangers, cast upon a cold, heartless world,
and doomed to suffer all the misery an innocent
being can feel. Several times did
Edgar call upon his uncle and ask for aid
—but always to be insulted and refused;
and even the negro servant, once his father's
slave, having caught the infection,
prided himself on his equality with the
poor relations of his present master, as
has already been shown by his conduct and
language in the opening chapter. Vainly
did Edgar seek for employment from day
to day. Nothing could he obtain, for the
reason that, having done nothing through
life, he could not bring experience to back

his suit. Day by day did the Courtlys find
themselves becoming more and more reduced—for
though very economical now,
every little they spent made a wide breach
in their limited means. To render matters
still worse, the health of Mrs. Courtly
began to fail rapidly; and it soon became
painfully evident to her children, that
unless a great change took place for the
better, they would ere long be orphans.

But notwithstanding her ailings, Mrs.
Courtly would not consent to see a physician,
because of the extra expense which
would thus be incurred, and which they
were now so illy fitted to bear. As it
was, they were obliged to dispose of
their jewelry, old family relics, and finally
the greater part of their wardrobe, to pay
their rent and procure the necessaries of
life. Even these failed them at last; and
only a few days previous to our introduction
of them to the reader, their stony-hearted
landlord seized upon and sold their
furniture, and turned them into the street,
with only a few remaining articles. The
hovel where we found them seemed the
only retreat now open; and into this they
gathered their remaining effects, prefering
even this to begging for a better. Their
last cent was now soon spent for fuel and
food, and the reader has seen even the last
of these. The health of Mrs. Courtly
now failed more and more rapidly, until exhausted
nature could sustain her no longer;
and suffering with cold, dampness, want of
food, proper nursing and medical attendance,
together with grief, care and anxiety
for her children, she literally died of starvation
and a broken heart.