University of Virginia Library

12. CHAPTER XII.

From motives of humanity, when Ross returned
to the city, which was immediately on his securing
Gordon in jail, he called to see Mrs. Gordon, and break
to her her husband's fate, and contribute his mite to
the relief of her distress.

The afflicted woman had been out till past dinner-time,
roaming the streets in the hope of getting some
employment to obtain a meal, and with a vague anticipation
that she might see or hear something of her
former mistress, and thereby gain an opportunity,
after extorting a promise from her not to do Gordon
any injury, to inform her of his threats; for her gratitude
to Miss Atherton was ever abiding in his memory,
and like a fountain ever flowing. Her efforts
had been vain in tracing her mistress, or obtaining
food. She could not bear the idea of begging, and
she returned to her wretched home to endure as she
might the gnawings of hunger.

While she sat on her little stool, with her face buried
in her hands, thinking sad thoughts, Ross, who
had rapped twice unheard by her, entered the room.
Its gloomy appearance, and the more than gloomy
appearance of the woman, struck even his feelings,
used as they were to scenes of wretchedness and sorrow.
She arose, and respectfully offered him a chair.
He took it, and telling her who he was, and what he

was, informed her of Gordon's imprisonment in the
Springdale jail to await his trial.

“Then you were here last night?” said she.

“I was; and I saw enough of you to respect you.
Gordon, if you can, you should forget. I tell you
plainly, there is no chance for him; if he escapes an
indictment for counterfeiting and another for perjury
against a boy, I think they'll fix on him the robbery
of Mr. Pinckney.

“Mr. Pinckney! what Mr. Pinckney?”

“A gentleman who is a friend of Mr. Langdale,
one of our richest merchants.”

“Do you know, sir, where Gordon was, besides at
Mr. Benbow's?”

“Certainly; and I don't see what he was doing there
unless to beg off from Mr. Pinckney, but he was at
Mr. Langdale's. Jessop tracked him.”

“Mr. Langdale's! where is Mr. Langdale's?”

“In Washington Square, number —. Maybe you'll
find there the lady that you and he were talking of—
your old mistress.”

Catharine looked at Ross in bewilderment, but
spoke not.

“I wish I had those ten dollars to return to you;
but if I must go to prison, can't you put me where
John is.”

“I've no authority to take you to prison, and
wouldn't exercise it if I had,” said Ross. “I did
my duty in arresting Gordon, and I shall be well paid
for it. I'consider that I owe you ten dollars, and here
they are.”

“No, no; let me work for you, and repay you in
that way.”

“Certainly, you shall,” said Ross; “here, take the
money, and I'll send you round some work, or call
with my wife and see you about it.”

Expressing her gratitude more by manner than

words, Catharine took five dollars, refusing to take
more, and Ross left her.”

Fixing her scanty dress with as much skill as possible,
Catharine proceeded directly to Mr. Langdale's,
and, entering the area, asked the servant for Miss
Atherton.

“Tell her Catharine Gordon,” said Catharine, “and
she'll see me,” looking over her dress.

Hesitating for a moment, the servant went and soon
returned, telling Catharine to follow her. She was
conducted to a splendily furnished bed-room, where
Miss Atherton sat in a voluptuous dishabille.

“Shut the door after you,” said Miss Atherton,
quietly to the servant who lingered on the threshold.
“Catharine is that you?” she said, advancing with
emotion, and taking the hand of her former maiden;
“I'm glad to see you—I heard you were dead—but
sorry you have so much altered. You are in distress.”

“Deep, deep!” exclaimed the servant-maid, shaking
all over with emotion; “in body and in soul, in
heart, in health, in hope—ruined and undone forever.”

“Merciful father! what can I do for you? will
money relieve you?”

“It's strange, Miss Clara, but something seems to
bind me in my darkest hour to you. Gordon told
you I was dead?”

“He did,” said Miss Atherton. “Sit down and tell
me what has happened to you? After he left you,
you followed him.”

“I did; but first excuse me, Miss Clara: you know
the character of Gordon—he is now in jail, at a
place called Springdale, for counterfeiting and other
crimes—excuse me—but can he in any way do you
any injury?

“Me an injury—why, Catharine?”

“Because, last night when in his cups he—but you
promise me to tell it to no one to his harm—”

“Certainly not; I'll only use what you tell me in
self-defence.”

“Miss Clara, I owe you so much that I am bound
to tell you what he said: he threatened you, and said
if he was not so much taken up with his own risk
that he could get hush-money out of somebody, whom
I thought he meant you.

“Me!—where did you say Gordon was? confined
at Springdale, was it not? about twenty or twenty-five
miles from here. Did he ever tell you any way
in which he could injure me?”

“Never,” replied Catharine; “I have only been
with him a few months; he left me behind in the old
country. At times he would speak against you; but
I don't think he liked you after you made him marry
me.”

“Likely—that's it. Now tell me about yourself,
Catharine.”

“I've not much to say, Miss Clara. After John
married me, and we quit service with you, he threw
off restraint, and became much wilder. We got very
poor, my child died, and he took me to London,
where, in a few months, after trying to make me an
outcast, he abandoned me, and came to this country.
I followed after him in the next ship, and after a
world of trouble, and search, and sorrow—spending
all the little money I had, and working for my daily
bread, and roaming from city to city, and sometimes
giving up in despair,—by accident I met him one day
in the market in this place. He was mounted on a
horse, and had several men who seemed like jockies
talking to him. He always would gamble. I went
up to him, and called him aside to speak to him. He
looked surprised and angry at first, and the next
minute told me to say my say out before company.

He then turned from me to his friends, and said, nodding
his head at me, that there was game. I could
not bear it—I burst into tears, and walked away.
He followed me at some distance, and damned me
for leaving home; but I begged and prayed with him
so at last that he took me to a miserable room from
the house where I was living—where—but I won't
speak of his treatment to me. He has been getting
worse and worse; more dissipated and more, until
he is now in prison”—and the poor thing wept
bitterly.

“My God, woman, why did you live with him—
why did you not annihilate him!” exclaimed Miss
Atherton, stamping her foot on the floor.

“O! Miss Clara, if you had loved as I have, the
ground he trod upon, though it were the desert,
would be more to you than paradise without him—
the darkest night brighter than the brightest day—
poverty, misery, and the world's scorn with him,
better than the world's wealth without.”

“I traced those feelings in you, or you never should
have married him. I pity you from my soul. How
dare any man to outrage so a woman's feelings—
feelings such as yours were! Give up all notion of
him, and let him die a blasted convict.”

“I can't—I can't!” exclaimed Catharine. “You
can't make the heart young again; the roots of the
knotted oak can never be tendrils again—they can
never be transplanted—in the bosom of the earth
where they grew up in their strength they must be left
or wither—even to expose them is withering.”

“You speak truly of some hearts, I believe,” said
Miss Atherton, with a brow which bore the stamp of
passion and power, “but not of all. I respect your
womanly affection, but I trust, for the happiness of
my sex, that such is to be found oftener in romance
than in reality. Catharine, you must feel no false

delicacy with me—I have abundant wealth, and will
assist you; were I in your situation and you in mine,
remembering the past, I would both ask and expect
it of you.” So speaking, Miss Atherton handed her
several gold pieces. “You must get whatever you
want—clothes, and whatever else, and tell me. Let
none of this go to fee some pettifogging lawyer who
won't know the first principles of the case. If there
is any hope for John, I will see that he has able
counsel. Come and see me to-morrow—be punctual,
Catharine; no foolish errand to Springdale to see him
and let him couzen or beat your money from you; he
is better as he is: if he has not money he will get no
drink but what is good for him—and abstinence from
intoxication may reform him.”

Here the servant entered with a card in her hand,
which she gave to Miss Atherton, which the lady
looked at peculiarly, and said:

“Tell Miss Fitzhurst that I will be down in a moment;
and say to my maid I do not want her.
“Catharine,” she continued to Gordon's wife, “you
shall fix my dress for me; it will not be the first time,
and may not be the last.”

“My fingers are all thumbs now, Miss Clara,”
said Catharine, smiling at the memory of brighter
days; “but I'll try—the washing-tub and floor-scouring
have unfitted me for such a duty. How I
used to love it. You used to be easier fixed than
other ladies, and never found fault.”

“I am not as patient as I used to be; but no matter
—some of these days maybe you will be with me
again, and we'll make these men behave better. No,
Catharine, these plain pearl ear-rings, they become
black—now, that solitary ring. Call and see me to-morrow,
Catharine, or this afternoon—or to night, if
you feel like it, and if I am not engaged we'll talk
over other times. Be of good cheer—these men,

Catharine, have a maxim, my girl, that faint heart
never won fair lady, and we women must have,
for our maxim, this: that faint lady never won or
kept false man—so there shall be no heart in our
maxim at all. Good bye.”

“Good bye, Miss Clara; God forever bless you,”
said Catharine, descending the steps behind her former
mistress, and dwelling upon the splendour of her peerless
beauty.

The ladies met like two who had been anxious to
see each other, from what they had heard mutually
of the other's personal and mental attractions. Miss
Atherton was some years the elder, and the impression
of intellectual superiority and great womanly
tact and observation sat upon her brow. Perhaps
Fanny's first impression of her new acquaintance was
that she was a thought too worldly in her manner;
but it passed away from her mind in five minutes.
Miss Atherton thought she saw in Fanny something
of what she herself had been, or might have been but
for the past—something, but she felt their characters
were different naturally. Though her brow was
sunny as the marble when the sunlight falls upon it,
yet a cloud crossed her heart when Fanny, in making
the apology of her father's sickness for her delay in
calling, added:

“Mr. Pinckney was to have escorted me, Miss
Atherton; but some involvement of his affairs from
the low price of cotton compelled him to go to Mr.
Mason's, the lawyer; so I determined, as I came in
expressly to see you, that I would not be deprived,
by any further untoward circumstances from making
your acquaintance.”

“I hope your father is better?” inquired Miss Atherton.

“Much better. Several pleasant occurrences of
late have relieved him;” and Fanny spoke of Bobby's

trial and Pompey's conduct, saying how much it had
gratified her father.

“I hope Mr. Pinckney's loss is not great?” inquired
Miss Atherton.

“I don't know exactly its extent,” rejoined Fanny,
who, not knowing why, could not refrain from
blushing.

“Caught,” thought Miss Atherton to herself; “she'll
have him if he were pennyless; she's proud, and
would be proud to show her disinterested love.
Pinckney has not told her of ourselves—pride again.”

This thought of the instant passed through her
mind, when she asked Fanny if she had ever heard of
Gordon, the counterfeiter. In reply to which inquiry,
Fanny gave an account of his conduct to Peggy and
Bobby, and of his desire to marry the former. After
a very long call, Fanny took her leave, pressing Miss
Atherton to call and see her soon, and explaining that
they were not spending the winter in the city in consequence
of her father's gout.

“I promise you,” replied Miss Atherton, “that the
first fair day—day like this—that occurs, the day after
to-morrow, if it's that day, I will ride out and see
you. I am determined, if you will allow me, to know
you well.” They shook hands and parted.

“A beautiful woman,” thought Miss Atherton as
she viewed her own fair proportions in the glass;
“beautiful—and my good friend Howard has caught
her heart. Can he have lost his fortune—no, I don't
believe—would I be very sorry? I ought to be. It
will require a woman of more determination of character
to make a distinguished man of Pinckney than
my visiter. Can't I get him back? he treats me with
so much the air of an escaped bird that won't be
caught again. I must to Springdale; I must know
something about this Gordon. I suspect, and—I

wonder if Howard had any particular feeling other
than the call of business which kept him away.”

Her reverie was interrupted by the announcement
of Pinckney's name. He entered, and looked black
when on inquiry he learned that Miss Fitzhurst had
called and left. He staid but a few moments, and
took his leave.

“He tries my woman's temper to the uttermost,”
soliloquised Miss Atherton, when the door closed on
him—“to the uttermost—why he was once the creature
of my smiles.”

Fanny expressed herself to Pinckney in the most
unbounded terms of admiration of Miss Atherton.
“Howard,” she said, laughing, “you'll make me
jealous if you go there much.”

“Ah! I fear Fanny that I not only shall not go
there, but shall be absent from you for two or three
weeks. My affairs, I believe, will compel me to go
to New York. I am in hopes that my visit will make
all right. That Mr. Mason is certainly a splendid
man; it is a treat to talk with him and Langdale. I
wish often, Fanny, that I had studied one of the professions;
in this country there seems to be something
in the very atmosphere which requires a man to be
employed. But we must go to Europe in the Spring,
and I will there prove to you that I have not flattered
you, and show them what flowers grow in America;
but your city has already shown them that.”

“And Miss Atherton,”

“Yes; but her's is a beauty to please a boy—one
who has not seen the world.”

“O! no, not always so, Howard; think how Mr.
Langdale speaks of her. I shouldn't wonder if they
made a match.”

“Ah! would you not? I hope that Sidney will return
before I go. My dearest Fanny, the pain of
separation, but for so short a time, will make me feel

more desolate than when I stood upon the shores of
Europe an utter stranger.”

In a few days Pinckney left Holly for New York.
His parting with Fanny had that pleased anxiousness
which we may suppose two lovers to feel who, by
separate pathways that join ere long, have parted for a
moment, each to pluck a flower, which they meant to
present in exchange when they met again as a token
of their everlasting love, and that thereafter they
should part no more.