University of Virginia Library

17. CHAPTER XVII.
THE SEALS OF THE PAPERS.

The clock in the Park street tower was just tolling seven o'clock,
on the evening of the day in which the events related in the preceding
chapter transpired, when Simmins Satchell entered the gate
that led to Madame Delano's. It was a bright moonlight night,
and upon the lawn within the street enclosure were walking or
sporting several of the young girls of the boarding school. Satchell
in his snuff-colored clothes and stout stick, his eyes shaded by his
broad-brimmed, greasy hat, took his way towards the portico without
noticing them. His heart had no sympathy with innocence and
beauty; their musical laughter he had no ear for, nor an eye for
their sweet faces, softened in the beams of the moonlight to still
greater loveliness. As he passed near them and they saw who he
was, for he was known to them all, as any marked, bad man in a
town is known to all the young folks, they shrunk back and let
him pass. There was no pleasant greeting such as welcomed
Colonel Harwood, no grouping about him for a pleasant word;
they avoided him and stood off aloof, and silently gazed at him as
he advanced to the door. They then whispered to each other with
looks of fear, and did not resume their sports until he had been admitted
into the hall by the servant.

“I wish to see Miss Kent,” he said, addressing Madame Delano,
who came out of the drawing-room.

“Yes, oh, yes, Colonel Harwood said a gentleman would be
here,” answered the lady, to whom Satchell's person was strange.
“Show the gentleman to Miss Kent's parlor,” she added, to the
gray-headed footman in attendance.

Satchell followed the old man up the carpeted stairs, and was
conducted by him to the door of Caroline Kent's room, not the
private boudoir in which her father had had his interviews with
her, but a small parlor adjoining, and communicating with it. The
room though not so elegant as the one she commonly occupied as a
sleeping-room and where she had received Colonel Harwood, was
still neatly furnished. Upon a centre table stood a small astral

lamp, and a few books strewn upon it with a writing desk, showed
the literary taste of the occupier.

The quick ear of the young girl had caught the sound of a strange
foot-step in the hall, and she knew that it was the lawyer who had
demanded the interview that was now approaching. She was in
her boudoir when his foot-fall was heard upon the stairs ascending.
Her heart throbbed almost audibly with every tread that fell upon
her ear. She approached her glass, not from vanity, beautiful as
she was, (for she did not wish to adorn herself for sacrifice,) but to
see if her face was calm. In her hand she held a book, and entering
the little parlor she seated herself by the table and commenced
reading, or rather the appearance of reading. This, however, was
only to give him the idea of her composure as he came in. Her
cheek was pale; her lips compressed; her eyes dark and fixed.
She looked like one who was expecting the entrance of the messenger
to announce to her that her death-hour had come.

The footman knocked upon the door. In spite of herself she
started, and the color deepened upon her cheeks; but she composed
herself, and responded in a firm voice,—

“Come in.”

“A gentleman to see you, Miss Kent,” said the old servitor,
bowing, and ushering Satchell in.

“Very well, Andrew; you may go,” she answered in an even
tone, and with a manner perfectly self-possessed.

Andrew closed the door. Satchell remained standing. She cast
her eyes towards him, and said politely,—

“Mr. Satchell, I believe, sir?”

“Yes, at your service, miss,” he said, fairly embarrassed by her
self-possession.

“Be seated, sir.”

Satchell took a seat upon the sofa. Caroline re-seated herself by
the centre-table opposite to him, facing him. There was a space
of about five feet between their positions. Satchell held his hat
between his knees, rolling up the brim with an awkward hesitation
extraordinary in a man of his consummate audacity. Caroline
Kent held the book open between her fingers and thumb, and
quietly resting upon the table, looked firmly in his dark, sinister
countenance.

He saw that she waited for him to speak, and he now prepared
himself to enter upon the business which brought him there.

“Miss Kent, you are probably aware of the object of my visit,”
he said, all at once assuming his confidence and decision; and he
planted his deep, dark orbs upon her face with a gleam that she
shrunk from meeting.

“I am not, sir.”

“Not? Have you not seen Colonel Harwood? has he not been
here? has the man deceived me?”

“He has been here, sir; he told me that I might expect a visit
from you at this hour; he even told me that your object in coming
was to do me the honor to propose for my hand. But as I have no

doubt he was in a jesting humor, I am at liberty to suppose that
you have come to see me on some other subject. One to look at
you, sir, would hardly be likely to associate so joyful a thing as a
marriage with the sight of you.”

“Indeed!” he exclaimed with surprise. “You are very much
disposed to be witty.”

“No, sir, I have never had the reputation of a wit; if I happen
to be so now it is wholly to be referred to the inspiration of your
agreeable presence.”

“Ho, hoh! You are inclined to be merry at my expense.”

“Pardon me, sir; I have always been taught from my youth up,
to reverence old age.”

“This is extremely pleasant. You are fond of amusement; you
are disposed to laugh.”

“I assure you, sir, I was never more disposed to be serious in
my life. They say one must never laugh when they see the devil
or a death's head!”

“I do not know how to take you,” he cried, vexed and amazed
at such a reception, when he expected to find a young, trembling
girl, ready to fall at his feet and implore his mercy. As he gazed
on her he thought he had never seen a person so beautiful and
spirited in eye and air. He found that her wit and intellect were
equal with his own; and that he must pursue an entirely different
course of tactics from those he had meditated.

“You had best not think of taking me at all,” she answered to
his last remark.

“This trifling, my pretty Miss,” he said, sternly frowning upon
her, “will not answer. You are in my power.”

“I?” she repeated, with flashing eye.

“Yes, you.”

“No, no, sir; I am not in your power. You cannot intimidate
me; I do not fear you. I know well your object in coming hither.
I know at what price you have surrendered the secret papers on
which were suspended my uncle's life and honor. But, sir, I am
no party to that contract; if you have yielded the papers, you have
lost them without an equivalent, as is just. My uncle faithfully
performed his part of the contract; he came to me; he told me his
whole story; he described to me the unrelenting character of the
man who held over him such fearful power, with which accident
had invested him. Before he mentioned your name, I hated you.
When he said that it was the noted Simmins Satchell, I only wondered
that I had not guessed the name, so true was the likeness to
the most evil man in Boston. Sir, listen to me; hear all I have to
say. My uncle told me the condition, and felt that it was his duty
to urge me to accept your proposal of marriage. Sir, he did his
part honorably; he went to you and told you so. Strange as it is,
you gave him up, on his mere word, which he might have falsified
for so great a stake, the papers on which all dear to him depended.
The matter, therefore, now that my uncle has nothing to fear, rests
with you and me.”

“That is true,” answered Satchell, looking at her with the same
steady, stern, brow-beating look. “Now what does Madamoiselle
say?”

“That between you and me there remains nothing but that this
interview be at once terminated.” She spoke with dignity and
an air of command, mingled with a look of proud contempt.

“Then I am to understand that you refuse to endorse the conditions
on which I was to surrender the papers.”

“There was no condition that has not been complied with, sir.”

“Do you suppose that I gave your uncle the papers merely on
the remote prospect that his niece would become my wife?”

“Pray, sir, on what ground did you have the presumption to
suppose that I would ever degrade myself in this manner?”

“There was an implied condition. Colonel Harwood was and
is bound to see it carried out; and you are bound to comply.”

“No, sir; I deny that you have any further power over him or
me. The papers which you have so long basely held over his head
to extort money from him, are no longer in existence; they were
the wand of your evil power; and, necromancer, your power is
crushed! I marvel greatly, sir, that one so shrewd and experienced
in years as you are, should have suffered yourself to be thus defeated
in your objects. Sir, our interview is at an end. I desired
to see you, that you might from my own mouth hear my opinion
of you, and know that you are beneath my contempt. Marry you?
I would rather be torn in pieces on the rack!”

“You seem to have a very just appreciation of my merits,” answered
Satchell, sarcastically. “I am very much obliged to you,
for this free and candid expression of your opinion of me—very!
But perhaps I shall be able to change it, perhaps—I do not say
positively; for there is nothing positive in this world; but possibly,
I say, I may be able to make you sing out of the other side of your
mouth, pretty bird.”

While he was uttering these words in a tone of peculiar secret
triumph, he was drawing from his deep pocket a small file of papers.
He took them in his hand, and laying his finger on the inscription,
said quietly and with a malicious leer, that made her heart stop
beating with suspense,—

“I hope, lady, that you will give me credit for more judgment
and discretion than you have just done. I knew better than to
trust Colonel Harwood too far; I had too much world's wisdom to
surrender on a mere probability of getting your consent, such important
papers as I held. Oh, no! You must yet give me credit
for experience quite equal to my age. The package of papers
which I placed in Colonel Harwood's hands, and which he was too
happy to get to examine very closely, (though they would have
stood his severest and most deliberate scrutiny,) was nothing more
than an ingenious and skilful imitation of pen, ink and paper, fold,
blot and soil-marks of the original documents. Those I now hold
in my hand. No, no; I must yet have credit for sagacity from
even your sweet lips. I see by your looks that I have already

arisen again in your estimation. But, badinage aside, Miss Kent,
here are the veritable letters,” and he struck the two fore-fingers of
his right hand upon the package which lay in the palm of his left,
“these are the veritable letters on which hang your uncle's life and
honor, and the reputation and happiness of his wife and children;
nay, your own; for the shadow of his disgrace will reach even
you.”

Caroline Kent started from her chair as he first announced to her
this terrible fact; and as he continued to speak on, she gazed upon
him with horror; and at the same time the most painful alarm for
her poor uncle filled her bosom, flushing her cheek and dimming
her eyes.

Suddenly, as he ceased speaking, she made a spring for the file
of papers; she caught them in her grasp, and bounded for the door.
In an instant she was in his grasp, and the documents forcibly
wrested from her small, firm-clenching fingers. She stood where
he stopped her, pale, panting, with flashing eyes and heaving
bosom. He turned the key in the door, and cast it to the back of
the room into a corner.

“You are disappointed, Miss Kent,” he said, re-arranging the
papers which had been loosened in the struggle. He spoke calmly
and with a quiet smile, as if nothing had occurred. “Come, be
seated, and let us talk this matter over.”

“I am indeed disappointed,” she answered, with deep emotion.
“But, sir, I do not believe your story; if you would impose upon
my uncle, you would impose upon me. I do not believe these are
the genuine, but that you gave him the true papers.”

“Do you remember that your uncle had a peculiar seal some
years ago?”

“I do.”

“Perhaps you have notes or letters in your possession sealed
with it: it was a cross, with a sword above it, a dove perched upon
the sword.”

“I remember it. He lost it in the war.”

“True, so I have ascertained. He uses another and different
one now. Would you recognize the old stamp?”

“Yes,” she answered, as if very reluctantly replying to any thing
he said.

“There it is,” he answered, showing her the seals upon several
of the letters. “These are proofs that the letters are the true ones.
Upon those I gave your uncle there were no seals, for I could not
counterfeit the seal so well. They appeared torn off, and he supposed
they were torn off. Here are the original papers, with the
seals as he sealed them.”