University of Virginia Library

23. CHAPTER XXIII.

Spenser.

A Thing of wonderful strength, and of strange
and fearful mystery, is woman's love. I was strictly
forbidden by Warburton to go from the house,
and you may fancy how weary I grew of myself
as the sun came up, and climbed, slowly, higher
and higher, and then faded, and went down, and
the moon came and went among the stars, now
shining in full splendor that seemed to mock me,
and now shrinking to a thin and pallid ghost, that
saddened me no less. You most know, indeed,
how little there was to interest me, outside of myself,
and how dreary and desolate grew the world
within.

Three times a day I went down the narrow and

dark stairs, to the room in which the boarders
assembled for their meals, which was low, and so
dim, having but one window, and that opening on
an alley, that the two gas-burners—unornamented,
angular, and seeming to be driven in the ceiling
toward either end of the table—were always lighted
even in the summer noon. Here I saw men and
women, evidently belonging to the poorest, if not
to the meanest grades of society. Women, whose
occupation was washing and house-cleaning; reduced
seamstresses, who could afford no better
place; men, who did all sorts of work and drudgery,
with now and then a fellow of more wit and
less honesty whose means of living even in so miserable
a way were a mystery. Two organ-grinders
there were, whose monkeys regaled themselves on
bits of stale bread and the rinds of cheese, in the
yard of which I have spoken, while their masters
fared little more luxuriously inside the house.

The grocer to whom I have referred, and whom
they called John, was the most pleasing, intelligent,
and gentlemanly person among them all. His place
at the table was opposite mine, and as he was
very talkative I could not without seeming uncivil
avoid conversation with him at times, for he was
exceedingly polite to me, offering always the first
service of whatever was on the table, and sometimes
bringing me flowers, which he delighted in

cultivating, and at other times cakes or candy,
from his grocery, with a boyish kindness that won
upon me, because so few were kind to me there,
and because I knew it was a display of genuine
feeling.

In the common books—such as were sold in
paper covers—and general affairs of the day, he
was at home; and, somewhere in his nature, which
was for the most part coarse, and laughably eccentric,
there was a vein of refinement.

A day or two after I was conducted to this house
I was requested to go down to the parlor for an
interview with my host. He was a bluff and surly
looking man, having but one eye, and with hair
stiff and white as bristles, and teeth black and
broken.

“I suppose, Miss, or Mrs., or whatever”—he
said, fixing his eye on me, “you know it's our
custom, when we take in strangers, to ask payment
in advance.” I was silent, for I had thought nothing
about it; and he continued, “If you don't
know it, 't is so, and maybe it 's just as convenient
for you to make us safe now as any time. Nice
airy room, you have, and everything in the first
style; and what's more, no questions asked, and
that's no ways disagreeable, I reckon;” at the close
of which speech he winked and leered with an
expression both insinuating and offensive.

“I must implore your patience for a day or two,”
I said, “till I can communicate with my friend”—

“Communicate with the devil,” he said, interrupting
me, and rising and approaching he extended
his fore finger almost to my face, as he
continued, “Mind you, I have given you fair
warning, and if the dollars are not in my hand to-morrow
night, you go out of this place without
ceremony. Devilish pretty box we'd get ourselves
in, keeping the like of you for nothing. It
wouldn't take more nor a gust of wind to blow you
over; and then there's a coffin, and some kind of
a burying to be paid for. Do you mind that, young
woman?”

I was paralyzed—dumb with the consciousness
that I was indeed liable to such coarse and harsh
treatment, and that I was powerless to defend
myself in any way.

When he reached the door, he turned, and with
an air and manner of mock gravity said, “you had
best make it convenient, my dear madam, to communicate,
as soon as possible, with that friend o'
yourn;” and with the flourish of a hand that seemed
never to have been washed, unless in the gutters,
he disappeared.

In my terror and mortification, I had not noticed
that the grocer sat by the table reading, or seeming
to read, till the importunate host was gone, when,

throwing down his paper, he told me not to mind
the old sinner, and offered to loan me money, if I
required, saying, by way of making me confident
of his ability, that he had two doubloons in his
pocket.

My eyes had been tearless till he spoke. I
thought the fountain way dry; but with this display
of kindness, the blinding flood was loosened
and I could not give expression in words to the
gratitude I felt.

Stumbling near my own door, I heard a smoothered
groan from an adjoining room; and, pausing
to listen, it was repeated again and again. The
door was slightly ajar, and wiping my eyes, I
tapped lightly, wondering whether there could be
any greater suffering in the world than mine.
“Come in,” said a shrill voice, and I entered. The
apartment was furnished even more meanly and
meagerly than mine, and was occupied, at the time,
by two women—one an invalid, in the last stage
of consumption, as appeared from her perpetual
cough and the sickening transparency of her forehead
and hands.

She smiled as I entered, and motioned me to a
seat near her cot-bed, the pillow of which seemed
much too low, and the clothing too scanty—consisting
of a dirty blanket and a ragged blue quilt,
that would not cover both feet and hands at the

same time. Her complexion was a pale straw color,
her lips a pinkish blue, and her eyes glitteringly
bright.

“Are you in great pain?” I asked, for she seemed
in intense suffering.

“No,” she answered faintly, “but I am dying
for air, and they won't give it to me. For mercy's
sake, open the window,” and she seemed gasping
for breath as she spoke.

The ceiling was low, the window closed with a
blanket curtain, to prevent the admission of a
breath of air, and the stove was at a glowing heat.

As I lifted the window a woman who had been
sitting near the fire drew me away and closed it
again, saying, in a whisper, “She don't know what
she wants; she's crazy.” In vain the sick woman
insisted on having air; her attendant refused, and,
by way of diverting her thoughts, I suppose, took
from the mantle a torn and dirty pack of cards, and
having presented them at the bedside to be cut,
seated herself near by on the floor and began telling
the fortune of the poor creature who, lulled into
listening, presently fell asleep.

“Now,” said the fortune-teller, presenting them
for me to cut, “I'll tell yours.” After dealing
them off, she shook her head, saying she didn't like
to tell me all she saw, for she was sure I would not
be so happy for having heard it. All my superstitious

fears were roused, and as I left the suffocating
room I thought nothing could add to my
wretchedness; but, slipped beneath my own door,
I found a note, which Mr. Warburton had left for
me, having chanced to call in my absence. My
heart sank within me, when I discovered that he
had been there and was gone. With a trembling
hand I unfolded and read what he had written:

Imagine, if it be possible, what were my emotions.
The incidents which I have related here
are but examples of my suffering. The life I led was
one endurable to a common nature only when repelled
from another existence by mysterious and
awful fears of immortal retribution for sin.

Perhaps he will return again, I thought; surely
pity will prompt him to return when he remembers
what I must suffer. There was no ground for his
fancy that I had left the house; in a calmer moment
he will feel how foolish and unreasonable it
is to be angry without cause, and feeling this he
will come back; Oh, I am sure he will come! And
so I arose and looked at the sun sloping westward
over the gray house-tops—there were yet some hours
before night, and counting and recounting the probabilities
of his being in the neighborhood, I stood

at the window till the last slant sunbeams drew
themselves away from the highest roofs and towers
that I could see. My God! what a sickening and
sinking of the heart I experienced—what an atmosphere
of agony weighed me down—as the light of
promise darkened from the horizon of hope. The
murmur of the life about me was like the flowing
of the sea-waves, mournful to hear; and I sorrowfully
recounted all the bright ventures I had seen
go down.

There may be circumstances in which we find a
sort of pleasure in exaggerating the wrongs and
afflictions we have suffered, but this is in the crescent
phase of sorrow, not when it is at the full, for
then there can be no exaggeration, and the recounting
of evils is like crowning the aching and bleeding
forehead with thorns. Now and then I heard an
appreaching step and my heart ceased to beat—it
came nearer and nearer, and I was irresistibly
drawn toward the sound, and my arms involuntarily
reached themselves out—thought touched the
summit of desire—hope, stretched to its utmost
tension, snapped, and that swimming and choking
sensation came over me which he feels beneath
whose feet the scaffolding is giving way. At times
it seemed to me that I must fly—

and as a demon might howl against the barriers of
his hell, my heart, maddened with remorseful
agony, cried for the light from which it was shut
away; for all the bitter anguish under which mortality
ever groaned seemed gathering into those
few moments, and I felt struck apart alike from the
peace of death and the rest of life. Talk of sorrow—there
is no sorrow like that she feels who
sees the love fading out, for the brief beauty of
which she has defied the red shadows of the pit;
the stony pillow of the prison is softer than hers;
the rack is as a bed of roses compared with the
shameful torment upon which her soul is stretched.
In vain for her the arch fiend uncloses his dark
cavern and shows her the serpents and the chains;
she well knows there is nothing more that they
can do.

So the dull twilight came down, and as I heard
the lifting of the sash in the sick chamber which
was next to mine, the demons for a moment stood
back. I hurried to the bedside; thank God! they
had given her air at last, and a smile played over
the torture of her working lips, as the fresh breeze
fanned for a moment the expiring flame of life;
but the eyes looked reproaches even beneath their
fluttering lids, and till the features were set. A
sudden wave of exultation bore me up when I saw
that she was dead, and having put my hand on the

clammy temple, and the feet—stiffening beneath
the ragged covering that had always till then been
too scanty—that assurance might be perfect, I went
away from the shape of untroubled dust, half
regretful that I was not myself the victim in that
terrible conflict and defeat. When I was alone, all
that night, I thought of the calm close that comes
over the stormiest life so soon, and the grave, that
has been so often called cruel, seemed to me kinder
than the cradle, for I narrowed my thoughts from
the infinite doubt and mystery beyond.

The leaden moments lengthened into dreary
hours, the hours into dim days, and the days into
darker nights; and as the time drew on when the
torture must at least be changed, I could scarcely
forbear a supplication that it might prove mortal,
before to unoffending innocence my sin should bring
the suffering and shame from which there could be
no possible escape. How could I hear that worse
than orphaned cry, and live! Yet when I weighed
the probable chances, and saw in fancy the shadow
of the nameless being wound almost at my feet,
the weakness of our nature was more and more
felt, and the uncertain sunshine brightened as it
receded.

The crisis was nearly come, and my turbulent
thoughts had drifted into that strait which is
neither hope nor fear, when he from whom I had

almost reconciled myself to be separated once more
came to me.

His tears fell against my face as he bent over my
pillow, and up from the fountain in which days of
estrangement had choked it, came the old warmth
and tenderness of my love. And with his kisses
yet fresh on my lips I said, “Stay, Nathan,
oh, do not leave me now; to-night, only to-night—
I shall perhaps never have another favor to ask of
you—I hope I shall not—but I want your love to
be about me at the last—I want my eyes as I sink
into the darkness to rest on you, for with all the
fervor of my first devotion I love you now. Say
at least you will stay near me, and if we must
part, let me be the first to go—you know, dear
love, I will never come back to trouble you any
more.”

“Do not, gentlest and best of all women,” he
said, as seating himself beside me he took my hands
in his, “do not ask impossibilities—I will pray for
you, dear wife—I, who dare not pray for myself
any more, will pray for you.” Then after rallying
me on my childish fears, the expression of which
he continually interrupted with assurances of love
and fidelity, he took from his pocket-book some
blank paper and a pencil and sat for a moment,
silent and hesitating.

Presently, in a manner which he meant to he

careless and playful, he said, “How old are you,
Elsie?”

Afterward he asked many circumstances of my
childhood and early life—all with special reference,
as I knew, to the probability that this was the last
opportunity he could ever have of ascertaining
these particulars, which an undefinable feeling in
his heart made him anxious to possess. Nevertheless
I answered calmly and definitely till all was
done, and then said simply, “Why have you made
such inquiries?”

“One of these days, dear wife,” he replied,
“when you are well, and we are living happily
together, I intend to write a romance, and make
you its heroine.”

When I was dead he would have written me a
fine epitaph.

In my heart, there is one book which human
eyes have never looked upon. I have “closed it,
and clasped it with a clasp,” even from my own
eyes. Help me, Oh God! to live a life that shall
plead for me in that day when it shall be opened!

As I sat one evening in the broad moonlight
that streamed through my naked window, there

was a light tap at my door, and on opening it the
curious youth, of whom I have before spoken,
stood there, holding in his hand a string of red
beads. “Here, Hagar,” he said, (for he never called
me Elsie,) “is a present for the baby;” and before
I could thank him he was gone.

They were the first gift the unconscious innocent
ever received, and as I clasped them on her snowy
neck, and rocked the little one to and fro, with no
rebuking eyes upon me, I felt something of a
mother's pride—almost a gleam of happiness.

Any intercourse between the young grocer and
myself had been forbidden by Mr. Warburton, on
the pretext that his ill-breeding and inferior social
position rendered him an unfit companion for me.
And indeed I neither sought nor desired his intimate
companionship, but could not help feeling
very grateful for kind acts, and even for looks
that did not say, “I despise you.”

Tearing a blank leaf from a letter I had just
received from Mr. Warburton, I wrote a few lines
of grateful acknowledgment to the young man,
folded, superscribed, and threw them on the table,
to be handed to him in the morning.

I had scarcely done so when a shadow darkened
the moonlight, and, turning, I saw before me the
father of my child.

“Dear Elsie,” he said, taking my hand with the

tenderest solemnity, “to-morrow we shall be married,
if, indeed, the love you once bore me has not
been changed into hatred. I am ambitious and
proud, my dear wife, and therefore have seemed
cold, cruel even, sometimes, perhaps, but all the
time you were dear to me, dearer than all in the
world, dearer than any words can tell; and from
this time you have, if you can forgive me and love
me yet, the protection of a husband, as well as the
devotion of a lover. The world shall know and
honor you as my wife, dear Elsie.”

The kisses, the fond interchanges of assurance,
the calm, rather than tumultuous happiness, I need
not attempt to describe. The picture of this scene
could be interesting only to lovers. All men have
generous moods and right impulses sometimes, and
Mr. Warburton had his, and these were of them.

As he clasped our sleeping infant in his arms,
its face wet with a baptism of repentant and loving
tears, I sitting by his side, and the moonlight
covering us both, I never felt so sober an
assurance of bliss. I cared not to speak, lest I
should break the spell, and, leaning upon a sure
hope, I fell asleep.

When I awoke, it was to feel the final ruin of
all my mortal happiness. The room was cold and
empty. My promised husband, and my beautiful
and innocent child, were gone, and forever.

Unfolded in my lap lay the note I had written,
and beside it the torn letter. There was no word
of explanation—none was needed—I saw, and
felt all.