 | CHAPTER VIII. Ellen Hart |  |
8. CHAPTER VIII.
We will briefly pass over the heart-rending
scene that took place in the house of Henry
Hart on his arrival there in the custody of an
officer of police. Gently as Dr. Elmore had
endeavored to prepare his wife for the blow,
it came upon her mind with such force that
she became nearly insensible. Devotedly attached
to him who had always been to her a
kind husband and to his children a fond father,
she could not at first comprehend that he was
a criminal and in the hands of justice—she
could not believe that he whom she had looked
upon as the very soul of honor, as the model
for an honorable merchant, could have
fallen!
`Forged! forged a note? forged names of
others in Bank? Did you utter these words,
Doctor Elmore? Say I fancied I heard them!
Say I did not hear them. Tell me you did not
speak them!' and she caught both his hands
in hers and wildly, earnestly clasped them in
hers and gazed in his face as if she would
read there life or death.
`Be calm, madam, I entreat you. It is, alas,
too true!'
`True! oh, God! true! Tell me it is true
that my husband is a forger and then bid me
be calm! Where is he? Where is my husband?
Where is Henry? Have they dragged
him to prison?'
`No. He is in the hall with the officer.—
But be calm! Be composed, dear madam, at
least for your children's sake!'
She rushed to the door of the drawing room,
Dr. Elmore had sent for her with the request
to see her there alone. She threw it nervously
open and beheld her husband. Regardless of
the presence of the officer and physician, forgetful
of his crime, she bounded forward and
threw herself wildly into his arms. Self-condemned,
broken and degraded the miserable
husband hardly dared to return the embrace.
He stood passive, his face covered with the
palm of his hand, while she bathed the other
with tears and covered it wish kisses.
`This—this is too much!' he cried in a sudden
burst of agony. `If you had spurned me
—if you had hated me, Ann! I could have
borne it! But to be thus loved, guilty wretch
that I am, is too much for me to bear!'
These words were heard by Dr. Elmore and
his physician with surprise. Both had some
hopes yet of his innocence. But he had now,
under the impulse of his feelings made a direct
confession of his criminality. Dr. Elmore
turned away with a sad heart. The last
hope was gone. From his own mouth had
come the voluntary confession of his guilt.—
His heart bled for the wife—the still young
and beautiful wife and mother, who clung to
the guilty man with a devotion which rose
superior to every consideration of unworthiness
in the object. The love of a wife is like
the love of God. No crime—no unworthiness—no
degree of moral guilt can move it
from its object.
There remained yet a new trial to the merchant's
feelings—the trial of his paternal
heart. The younger children, whom we have
introduced to the reader in the first chapter of
this truthful tale, to which they are desired to
refer, the curly headed handsome Tommy of
eight years, and the sylph-like Grace two
years younger, now came in from the nursery,
where an intelligent nurse performed also the
part of a governess to them. Hearing, in the
midst of their lesson the uplifted voice of their
alarm to learn the cause. Ellen, the eldest
daughter, also flew from her room where she
was engaged in coloring a landscape. The
younger children seeing their parents overwhelmed
with grief, and unable to comprehend
the cause, clung around them and mingled
their cries with their tears. Ellen stood
a moment transfixed with surprise and painful
alarm as she saw the gentlemen gathered
round them. She recognized both Dr. Elmore
and the physician; and then she feared her
father had been hurt. It may be necessary to
observe here, in passing, that the servant whom
Mr. Creech had seen at the door, had been so
discreet as not to alarm the family by reporting
Mr. Creech's words respecting the accident,
whom he believed had been misinformed,
knowing if Mr. Hart had really been hurt his
wife would hear of it full soon enough Her
father's paleness confirmed her in this idea,
and full of affectionate solicitude the beautiful
girl flew towards him. She was arrested
by the gentle grasp of Dr. Elmore upon her
wrist. She turned a look of earnest inquiry
upon him.
`Ellen, my child! come with me a moment
into this room,' he said in a tone that sunk to
her heart.
She felt a weight oppress her very soul at
his words. She turned, she knew not why, a
look of timidity and awe towards her father
and then suffered him to lead her into the parlor.
She instinctively felt that some evil had
befallen the household—some sorrow greater
than any accident to life or limb! The faces
of all around—the anguish of her mother—
the gloomy and fallen countenance of her father—all
were eloquent with some woe, her
young heart could not divine—but the apprehension
of which made her tremble like a
leaf, as she gave her hand into that of the benevolent
old gentleman. As she went with
him she met her mother's gaze! It was full,
all full of woe and pity!
He closed the door and led her to a seat.—
She thought she should suffocate. The shadows
of the cloud of woe fell darkly over her
spirit. He took a seat by her side. What
fearful communication was about to be made?
She clasped his hands and looked into his face
with the most pleading deprecating expression.
She could not speak; but her looks
said, `Oh tell me nothing evil! tell me noth
ing that will break my heart, as I know my
mother's heart is broken!'
Dr. Elmore understood her emotion. He
tried more than once to speak, but his feelings
overcame him. The tears trickled silently
down his venerable face and fell drop by drop
upon the golden head of his staff.
`Ellen, my sweet child, you must gather all
your energies and be firm!' he said in a voice
deeply moved.
`What fearful thing has happened? My father!—it
is of him you would speak! Oh,
what is it, sir?'
`It makes my heart bleed to tell you, but it
is better you should know it and from me.'
`Tell me all! I can bear it! Is it that he
has lost his property? Oh, that is no evil,
such as some nameless one I seem to dread!
I can work and do much to support him! Tell
me all!
`Would it were but the loss of his property,
sweet child! In a word, your father has lost
his honor and good name!'
`My father dishonored? It cannot be,' exclaimed
the daughter with a noble spirit animating
her face.
`Alas, it is too true. He has been tempted
to use the names of merchants without their
permission,' said Dr. Elmore conveying to her
the father's crime as delicately as he could
`And is this a dishonor, sir? I do not quite
understand it—but it may be so, sir,' she said
thoughtfully. I do not know what it is to
use a merchant's name without his permission.'
Dr. Elmore saw that he had failed to convey
to the young girl the idea he had intended.
`Your father is accused of forgery,' he said
as firmly as his emotion would permit. He
saw that she now perfectly comprehended him.
And painful indeed was the evidence which
assured him of the fact. She sat before him
without motion. Her eyes were fixed rigidly
upon his face, but there was no expression
there. They were as eyes of brilliant glass.
Her cheek at the word had changed to the
hue of marble. Her lips lost their color, but
moved tremulously with the mechanical repetition
of the scarce audible word which had
acted so like an evil spell upon her. Doctor
Elmore gazed upon her with intense alarm.—
He condemned himself for abruptness.—
He spoke soothingly to her. She gave no
with the repetition of the fatal word that had
last fallen from his own.
`Ellen! dear child do not let this sad news
so deeply affect you!'
`Forgery! forgery! forgery! forgery!' responded
continually the statue-like figure before
him, the voice thrilling the very soul with
its low, touching pathos.
He took her hands; they were as cold as
those of the dead. He laid his hand upon her
temples, which burned with unnatural heat.
He raised her in his arms, and laying her upon
the sofa, went to the door, and in an under
tone called to a servant to send Dr Blake to
him; those who were in the hall having gone
into the library, the door of which was closed.
On the physician's appearance, Dr. Elmore,
who himself had not practised for many years,
informed him briefly of Ellen's situation and
its cause. A vein was immediately opened in
the temples, friction applied to the hands, and
in a little while the alarming symptoms disappeared.
The rigid, unwinking eye fell and
gently closed, the lips ceased to move, articulating
the fatal word, and a state of total physical
prostration succeeded, attended with partial
insensibility. It became necessary to
make known to the already sufficiently wretch-wife
the condition of her child. Dr. Elmore
went for her. He found her in the library.
Henry Hart was laying utterly prostrated in
body and spirit, upon a settee. She had placed
the softest pillows beneath his head; and
was now seated by him, soothing him with
words of devoted love, every one of which
pierced his soul like sharp steel, bathing his
feverish temples, and by every solace in her
power endeavoring to heal the bruised and
guilty spirit. He could only lay and hide his
face, and at intervals murmur an entreaty to
be forgiven by her.
`Think not of me, Henry,' she said `You
have erred. You have sinned. We are all
liable to be tempted—all liable to fall! God
has seen fit to leave you to yourself. But he
has not deserted you! Your wife still loves
you. To her you can never be guilty, so long
as the guilty are pardoned by our Heavenly
Father! so long as remains on record this
promise, `if any man sin we have an Advocate
with the Father, Jesus Christ the Righteous.'
`Do not speak so kindly! I cannot bear the
gentle tones of your voice, Ann!'
`It is because you feel your guilt, Henry!
This sense of unworthiness is the first step to
repentence.'
`I do sincerely repent. Not because I am
detected—not because I have a prison and a
trial before me—not because I have made myself
a by-word among men, but for the grief
and the woe and the anguish I have brought
upon you—upon my dear children! I think
not of my own personal degredation. It is
swallowed up in the misery and disgrace my
conduct has brought upon those I most love.
And yet, I put my hand to this crime on your
account—on their account! I was unfortunate—I
was bankrupt. I could not contemplate
the poverty and loss of position in society
which would be yours, if I made known
my affairs. I had not the courage to tell you
we must leave this fine mansion and take
humble lodgings; that you must sink to a
level with the poor and the humble? I could
not convey to your ears, Ann, intelligence so
painful.'
`Oh, that you had done so, Henry! You
would then have escaped crime! You need
not have feared for me? A wife who truly
loves her husband will listen to his tale of
sudden loss and poverty without any other
feeling than for her husband. She loves herself
in him. She will only feel for him, think
of his unhappiness—of his fall of pride. Her
heart will bleed for him; her sympathies will
all be awakened in his behalf. What to the
truly loving wife is money when her husband
is unhappy? Oh, Henry, I would have listened
to your tale of poverty so far as myself was
concerned without any emotion or regret save
only on your account'
`Your children?'
`Our lot would become their's! And Providence
would be nearer to us than before. The
poor have higher and holier claims on our Father
who is in Heaven than the rich; hence
it is a blessing to be poor if we only knew it
and had faith and grace rightly to improve the
blessing. Oh, Henry, how greatly have you
erred in not coming to me from the very first.
If you had told me of your embarrassments,
I might have advised you. At least you would
not have fallen into this fearful temptation.'
`But, I did not think you understood any
thing about business. You could not have
comprehended my complicated business arrangements.'
Women—wives especially who feel interested
in thier husband's happiness, have more
intelligence than men give them credit for.
They view a subject even so mysterious as a
merchant's business, in a calm, common sense,
unprejudiced light, which often form a variety
of causes he himself is unable to do. Besides,
there is no subject will not be regarded in an
entirely new aspect when for the first time
presented to a mother's mind. A hundred
avenues and ways and means which the merchant
has overlooked may be discovered by
the clear, calm judgment and feminine penetration
of his wife. Besides, all men need advisers,
and all sensible men feel the necessity
of a person with whom they can at all times
hold council. But few men are to be freely
trusted. Who then so appropriate—so good
a counsellor as a wife? Who so likely to give
him honest council? You may say she has no
knowledge of business. True. But her love
and her devotion to her husband will be to her
both wisdom and understanding.'
`She openeth her mouth with wisdom; and
in her tongue is the law of kindness.
`She doeth him good and not evil all the
days of her life.
`The heart of her husband doth safely trust
in her.'
It was at this moment Dr. Elmore entered
the room. The officer was standing by a distant
window looking out.
`I would speak with you a moment, madam,'
said Dr. Elmore in a low voice. A sudden
paleness spread over her features. She
rose and silently left the room with him.
Henry Hart followed her with this eyes and
then covering his face groaned aloud,
`Incomparable woman! Wretch that I am!
Oh, that I had made a confident of my wife
from the first! I should at least have been
protected from crime! I am unworthy to be
the object of her love! I could curse myself
for my guilt! And my children! My sweet
angel, Ellen! She has not come to see me!
She avoids her father who has entailed upon
her infamy! And my little ones! They looked
upon me with fear and timidity and crept to
their mother, as if already they understood
that I was unworthy to be called their father!
They have taken them away! I am alone—a
prisoner! I do not wish to see them again!
But Ellen!—that she, my heart's child—
should shun me is a blow heavier than I can
bear! But I deserve it! I am a forger!
Should that pure innocent girl rest upon a
forger's bosom? Officer!'
`Sir.'
`Take me hence to prison! I shall go mad
here!'
`Is it your wish?'
`Yes. I cannot stay here surrounded by
my family At once take me away! Look me
in the darkest dungeon you can have access
to! Shut me out from the light of heaven!
What have I to do with the innocent and good
around me! What have I to do with the pure
sunshine!'
Dr. Elmore took Mrs. Hart by the hand as
he entered the hall, and said,
`Madam, I am grateful to God who has endued
you with such strength at this trying
hour. Your fortitude surprises me and commands
my respect. But you are yet called
upon to suffer additional grief. Your sweet
daughter on learning from me the painful intelligence
was so overcome by the shock that
she now lies in a very critical state.'
`Where?' she asked with a calmness that
led him to suspect that it was unnatural and
the result of sensibility to the comprehension
of any heavier grief. She read his thoughts
and said with a gentle smile and upward glancing
of her tearful eyes,
`It is God—and he sustains me!'
Dr Elmore bowed his silvery head before
the majesty of Christian faith, and preceded
her into the presence of her child.
| CHAPTER VIII. Ellen Hart | |