University of Virginia Library

4. CHAPTER IV.

It was towards the close of the afternoon
that we took our way from the
glade through the forest to the river
shore. We crossed the river, and passed
through the village. Together we ascended
the road that led to our home,
and at the wicket gate, found a splendid
carriage, with liveried servants.

The good clergyman stood at the gate,
his bared forehead and white hairs bathed
in the sunshine; beside, darkly dressed,
diamonds upon her rich attire, my
mother. Old Alice stood weeping in
the background.

“Come, Frank, your things are packed,
and we must be away,” she said abruptly,
as though we had seen each
other only the day before. “I wish to
reach our home in New-York before
night. Go in the house, dear”—she
kissed me—“and get your bonnet and
shawl. Quick! my love.”

Not daring to trust myself to speak—
for my heart was full to bursting—I
hurried through the gate, and along the
garden walk.

“How beautiful she has grown!” I
heard my mother exclaim. One look
into the old familiar library room, one
moment in prayer by the bed in which
I had slept since childhood.

Placing the bonnet on my curls, and
wrapping my shawl around me, I hurried
from my cottage home. There were a
few moments of agony, of blessings, of
partings and tears. Old Alice pressed
me in her arms, and bid me good-bye.
The good old clergyman laid his hands
upon my head, and, lifting his streaming
eyes to heaven, invoked the blessing of
God upon my head.

“I give your child to you again!” he
said, placing me in my mother's arms,
“May she be a blessing to you, as for
years past she has been the blessing and
peace of my home!”

I looked around for Ernest—he had
disappeared.

I entered the carriage, and sunk sobbing
on the seat.

“But I am not taking the dear child
away from you for ever,” said my mother,
bending from the carriage window. “She
will come and see you often, my dear
Mr. Walworth, and you will come and
see her. You have the number of our
town residence on that card. And bring
your son, and good Alice with you,
and” —

The carriage rolled away.

So strange and unexpected had been
the circumstances of this departure from
my home, that I could scarce believe
myself awake.

I did not raise my head, until we had
descended the hill, passed the village,
and gained a mile or more on our way.

We were ascending a long slope, which
led to the summit of a hill, from which,
I knew, I might take a last view of my
childhood's home

As we reached the summit of the hill,
my mother was looking out of one window
toward the river, and I looked out
of the other, and saw, beyond the church-spire
and over the trees, the white walls
of my home.

Ernest was by the carriage. “Frank!”
whispered a low voice. There was a
look exchanged, a word, and he was
gone—gone into the trees by the roadside.

He left a flower in my hand. I placed
it silently in my bosom.

“Frank! How beautiful you have
grown!” said my mother, turning from
the window, and fixing on me an ardent
and admiring gaze. And the next moment
she was wrapt in thought, and the
wrinkle grew deeper between her brows.

Before I resume my own history, I
must relate an incident in the life of Ernest,
which had an important bearing on
his fate. (This incident I derive from
MSS. written by Ernest himself.) Soon
after my departure from the cottage-home,
he came to New-York with his
father, and they directed their steps to
my mother's residence—as indicated on
the card which she had left with the
clergyman. But to their great disappointment
they discovered that my mother
and myself had just left town for
Niagara Falls. Six months afterward
Ernest received a long letter from me,
concluding with these words: “To-morrow
myself and mother take passage for
Europe in the steamer. We will be absent
for a year or more.”

Determined to see me at all hazards,
he hurried to town, but—too late! The
steamer had sailed; her flag fluttered in
the air, far down the bay, as standing on
the Battery Ernest followed her course,
with an almost maddened gaze. Sorrowfully
he returned to the country, and
informed his father of my sudden departure
for Europe.

“Can she have forgotten us?” said the
old man.

“O father, this letter!” replied Ernest,
showing the long letter which I had written,
“this will show you that she has not
forgotten us, but that her heart beats
warmly as ever—that she is the same.”

And he read the letter to the good old
man, who frequently interrupted him
with: “God bless her! God bless my
child!”

Soon afterwards Ernest came to New-York
and entered his name in the office
of an eminent lawyer. Determining to
make the law his profession, he hoped to
complete his studies before my return
from Paris. He lived in New-York, and
began to move in the circles of its varied
society. Among the acquaintances which
he made were certain authors and artists,
who, once a month, in company with a
few select friends, gave a social supper at
a prominent hotel.

At one of these suppers Ernest was a
guest. The wine passed round, wit
sparkled, and the enjoyment of the festival
did not begin to flag even when midnight
drew near.

While one of the guests was singing, a
portly gentleman, (once well known as a
man of fashion, the very Brummel of the
side-walk,) began to converse with Ernest
in a low voice.

He described a lady—a young widow
with a large fortune—who at that time
occupied a large portion of the interest
of certain circles in New-York. She was
exceedingly beautiful. She was witty,
accomplished, eloquent. She rivalled in
fascination Ninon and Aspasia. Nightly,
to a select circle, she presided over festivals
whose voluptuousness was masked
in flowers. Her previous history was
unknown, but she had suddenly entered
the orbit of New-York social life—of a
peculiar kind of social life—as a star of
the first magnitude. His blood heated
by wine, his imagination aroused by the
description of his fashionable friend, Er
nest manifested great curiosity to behold
this singular lady.

“You shall see her to-night—at once,”
whispered the fashionable gentleman.
“She gives a select party to-night. Let
us glide off from the company unobserved.”

They passed from the company, took
their hats and cloaks—it was a clear,
cold winter night—and entered a carriage.

“I will introduce you by the name of
Johnson—Fred Johnson, a rich southern
planter,” said the fashionable gentleman.
“You need not call me by my real name;
call me Lawson.”

“But why this concealment?” asked
Ernest, as the carriage rolled on.

“O, well, never mind,” added Lawson,
(as he desired to be called,) and then
continued: “We'll soon be near her mansion,
or palace, is the more appropriate
word. You will find some of the first
gentlemen and finest ladies of New-York
under her roof. I tell you she'll set you
half wild, this `Midnight Queen!'”

“`Midnight Queen?'” echoed Ernest.

“That's what we call her. A `midnight
queen' indeed; as mysterious and
beautiful as the midnight moon shining
in an Italian sky.”

They arrived in front of a lofty mansion,
situated in one of the most aristocratic
parts of New-York. Its exterior
was dark and silent as the winter midnight
itself.

“A light hid under a bushel—outside
dark enough, but inside bright as a new
dollar,” whispered Lawson, ascending
the marble steps and ringing the bell.

The door was opened for the space of
six inches or more.

“Who's there!” said a voice from
within.

Lawson bent his face close to the aperture,
and whispered a few words inaudible
to Ernest. The door was opened
wide and carefully closed and bolted behind
them, as soon as they crossed the
threshold. They stood in a vast hall,
lighted by a hanging lamp.

“Leave hats and cloaks here, and
come.” Lawson took Ernest by the
hand and pushed open a door.

They entered a range of parlors, brilliantly
lighted by two chandeliers, as
brilliantly furnished with chairs, and sofas,
and mirrors, and adorned with glowing

pictures and statues of white marble.
A piano stood in a recess, and in the last
parlor of the three a supper-table was
spread. These parlors were crowded by
some thirty guests, men and women,
some of whom, seated on the chairs and
sofas, were occupied in low whispering
conversation, while others took wine at
the supper-table, and others again were
grouped round the piano, listening to
the voice of an exceedingly beautiful
woman.

Ernest uttered an ejaculation. Never
had he seen a spectacle like this—never
seen before, grouped under one roof, so
many beautiful women. Beautiful women,
richly dressed, their arms and
shoulders bare, or veiled only by mist-like
lace, which gave new fascination to
their charms. It did not by any means
decrease the surprise of Ernest, when he
discovered that some of the ladies—those
whose necks and shoulders glowed most
white and beautiful in the lights—wore
masks.

“What is this place?” he whispered
to Lawson, as, apparently unheeded by
the guests, they passed through the parlors.

“Hush! not so loud!” whispered his
companion. “Take a glass of wine, my
boy, and your eyesight will be clearer.
This place is a quiet little retreat, in
which certain gentlemen and ladies of
New-York, by no means lacking in wealth
or position, endeavor to carry the Koran
into practice, and create, even in our cold
climate, a paradise worthy of Mahomet.
In a word, it is the residence of a widowed
lady, who, blessed with fortune,
and all the good things which fortune
brings, delights in surrounding herself
with beautiful women and intellectual
men. How d'ye like that wine? There
are at least a hundred gentlemen in New-York
who would give a cool five hundred
to stand where you do now, or even
cross the threshold of this mansion. I'm
an old stager, and have brought you here
in order to enjoy the effect which a scene
like this produces on one so inexperienced
as you. But you must remember one
law, which governs this place and all
who enter it.”

“That condition?”

“All that is said or done remains a
secret forever within the compass of
these walls; and you must never recog
nize, in any other place, any person whom
you have first encountered here. This
is a matter of honor, Walworth.”

“And where is the `Midnight Queen?'”

“She is not with her guests, I see; but
I will give you an answer in a moment,”
and Lawson left the room.

Drinking glass after glass of champagne,
Ernest stood by the supper-table,
a silent spectator of that scene, whose
voluptuous enchantment gradually inflamed
his imagination and fired his
blood. He seemed to have been suddenly
transported from dull matter-of-fact,
every-day life, to a scene in some
far oriental city, in the days of Haroun
Alraschid; and he surrendered himself
to the enchantment of the place, like one
for the first time enjoying the intoxication
of opium.

Lawson returned, and came quietly to
his side.

“Would you like to see the `Midnight
Queen' alone—in her parlor?” he whispered.

“Of all things in the world. You
have roused my curiosity. I am like a
man in a delicious dream.”

“Understand me. She is chary of her
smiles to an old stager like me; but I
think that there is something in you that
will interest her. She awaits you in her
apartments. You are a young English
lord, on your travels—(better than a
planter)—Lord Stanley Fitzgerald. With
that black dress and sombre face of yours,
you will take her wonderfully.”

“But can I indeed see her?”

“Leave the room—ascend the stairs:
at the head of the stairs a light shines
from a door which is slightly open.
Take a bold heart and enter.”

Inflamed by curiosity, by the wine
which he had drunk, and the scene
around him, Ernest did not take time
for second thought, but left the room,
ascended the stairs, and stood before the
door, from whose aperture a belt of light
streamed out upon the dark passage.
There for a moment he hesitated, but
that was all. He stood spell-bound by
the scene. If the parlors below were
magnificently furnished, this apartment
was worthy of an empress. There were
lofty walls hung with silk hangings, and
adorned with pictures; a couch with a
silken canopy; mirrors that glittered
gently in the rich voluptuous light—in

a word, every detail of luxury and extravagance.

In the centre of all stood the Midnight
Queen—in one hand she held an open
letter. Her back was turned to Ernest,
as he lingered near the threshold. Her
neck and shoulders were bare, and he
could remark at a glance their snowy
whiteness and voluptuous outlines, although
her dark hair was gathered in
glossy masses upon the shoulders, half
hiding the face from view. A dark dress,
rich in its simplicity, left her arms bare,
and did justice to the rounded proportions
of her form.

She turned and confronted Ernest,
even as he, the blood bounding in his
veins, advanced a single step.

At once they spoke:

“My Lord Stanley, I believe”—

“The Midnight Queen”—

The words died on their lips. They
stood as if suddenly frozen to the floor.
The beautiful face of the Midnight Queen
was pale as death, and as for Ernest, the
glow of the wine had left his cheek—his
face was livid and distorted.

Moments passed and neither had power
to speak.

“O my God, it is Frank!” the words
at last burst from the lips of Ernest, and
he fell like a dead man at her feet.

Yes, the Midnight Queen and Frances
Van Huyden, his betrothed wife—six
months ago resting on his bosom, and
whispering “husband” in his ear, and
now—the wife of another! A widow!
or one utterly fallen from all virtue and
all hope!

Having thus given the incident from
the life of Ernest, as far as possible from
the very words of his MSS., let me continue
my history from the hour when in
company with my mother I left the cottage
home of the good clergyman. After
the incident just related, nothing in my
life can appear strange.