University of Virginia Library

52. CHAPTER LII.

“I had an old friend,” Buckland began, with some glimmering
of his former vivacity, — “De Ruyter, — I don't
think you ever knew him. He was the representative of a
family great in its day and generation, but broken in fortune,
and without means to support its pretensions. This did not
at all tend to diminish their pride, — precisely of that kind
which goeth before destruction. De Ruyter was a good fellow,
however, and, if he had had twenty thousand a year, he
would have spent it all. One summer, four years ago, he
went with his child — his wife had died the year before —
and his two sisters to spend a few weeks at a quiet little
watering-place on the Jersey shore, frequented by people of
good standing, but not fashionably inclined. De Ruyter
praised the sporting in the neighborhood, and persuaded me
to go with him.

“His sisters were very agreeable women, — cultivated
and lively, but proud as Lucifer, and desperately exclusive.
A nouveau riche was, in their eyes, equivalent to every
thing that is odious and detestable; and to call a man a
parvenu was to steep him in infamy forever. The men at

the house were, for the most part, of no great account —
chiefly old bachelors, or sober family men run to seed, with a
number of awkward young boobies not yet in bloom. The
two ladies liked the company of a lazy fellow like me, a butterfly
of society, with the poets, at least the sentimental ones,
on my tongue's end, and the latest advices from the fashionable
world. I staid there a week, and when that was over
they persuaded me to stay another.

“On the day after, there was a fresh arrival, — a gentleman
from Philadelphia, with his sister and his daughter. He
only remained for the night, and went away in the morning,
leaving the ladies behind. The sister was a starched old person,
— a sort of purblind duenna, with grizzled hair, gold
spectacles, and cap. The daughter I need not describe, for
you saw her half an hour ago.

“Her family was good enough; her father a lawyer in Philadelphia.
She was well educated — played admirably, and
spoke excellent French and Italian. How much or how little
she had frequented cultivated society, I do not know, — her
own assertions went for nothing; but she had the utmost
ease and grace of manner, and an invincible self-possession.
Her ruling passion was a compound of vanity and pride, an
insatiable craving for admiration and power. Whatever associates
she happened to be among, nothing satisfied her but
to be the cynosure of all eyes, the centre of all influence. I
have known women enough, — women of all kinds, good, bad,
and indifferent; but such a one as she I never met but once. I
shall not soon forget the evening when I first saw her, seated
opposite me at the tea table. She was a small, light figure,

— as you saw her just now, — the features, perhaps, a trifle
too large. I never recall her, as she appeared at that time,
without thinking of Byron's description of one of his mischief-making
heroines: —

“She was utterly unscrupulous. The depth of her artifice
was unfathomable. She soon became the moving spirit of
that little cockney watering-place — some admiring her,
some hating her, some desperately smitten with her. I can
see through her manœuvres now, but then I was blind as
a mole. She understood every body about her, and held
out to each the kind of bait which was most likely to
attract him. There was a sort of dilettante there whose
heart she won by talking to him of the Italian poets, which,
by the way, she really loved, for there was a dash of genius
in her. She aimed to impress each one with the idea that
in her heart she liked him better than any one else; and it
was her game to appear on all occasions perfectly impulsive
and spontaneous, while, in fact, every look, word, or act of
hers had an object in it. In short, she was an accomplished
actress; and, had her figure been more commanding, she
might have rivalled Rachel on the stage. No two people
were exactly agreed in opinion concerning her; but all — I
mean all the men — thought her excessively interesting; and
I remember that two young collegians had nearly fought a

duel about her, each thinking that she was in love with him.
Nothing delighted her more than to become the occasion of
the jealousy of married women towards their husbands, —
nothing, that is, except the still greater delight of fascinating
a certain young New Yorker who had come to the house on
a visit to his betrothed.

“For some time every one supposed her to be unmarried.
She did her best, indeed, to encourage the idea, since
she thus gained to herself more notice and more marked
attentions. At length, to the astonishment of every body,
it came out that she had been, for more than a year,
married to a cousin of her own, a weak and imbecile youngster,
as I afterwards learned, who was then absent on an
East India voyage, and who, happily for himself, has since
died.

“I said that all the men in the house were interested in her;
but you should have seen the commotion she raised among
the women! There were three or four simple girls about
her who admired her, and were her devoted instruments; but
with the rest she was at sword's point. There were a
thousand ways in which they and she could come into collision;
and, of course, they soon found her out, while the
men remained in the dark. If they were handsome and attractive,
she hated them; and if they would not conform to
her will, she could never forgive it. The disputes, the jars,
the jealousies, the backbitings, the tricks and stratagems of
female warfare that I have seen in that house, and all of her
raising! She was a dangerous enemy. Her tongue could
sting like a wasp; and all the while she would smile on her

victim as if she were reporting some agreeable compliment.
She had a satanic dexterity in dealing out her stabs, always
choosing the time, place, and company, where they would tell
with the sharpest effect.

“With all her insincerity, there was still a tincture of reality
in her. Her passions and emotions were strong; and she
was so addicted to falsehood, that I am confident she did not
always know whether the feeling she expressed were real or
pretended.

“The grace and apparent abandon of her manner, her
beauty, her wit, her singular power of influencing the will
of others, and the dash of poetry, which, strange as you may
think it, still pervaded her, made her altogether a very perilous
acquaintance. I, certainly, have cause to say so. I
lingered a week, a fortnight, a month, and still could not find
resolution to go. I had an air, a name in society, and the
reputation of being dangerous. She thought me worth
angling for, put forth all her arts, and caught me.

“I have read an Indian legend of a fisherman who catches a
fish and drags him to the surface, but in the midst of his triumph,
the fish swallows him, canoe and all. The angler,
however, kills him by striking at his heart with his flinty
war club, and then makes his escape by tearing a way through
his vitals. The case of the fish is precisely analogous to mine.
She caught me, as I said before; but I caught her in turn.
She fell in love with me, wildly and desperately. Her passions
were as fierce and as transient as a tropical hurricane.
She had no scruples; and I had not as many as I should
have had. One evening we were gone, and two days after

we were out of sight of land on board one of the Cunard
steamers.

“For the next two months, I was in paradise. Then came
a purgatory, or something worse. Her passion for me subsided
as quickly as it had arisen. She was herself again.
Her vanity and artifice, her insatiable love of intrigue and
adventure, returned with double force. I wore myself out
with watching, vexation, and anxiety. She tried every means
to attract attention and draw admirers, and every where she
succeeded. I remember that one night at Naples she insisted
on going with me to the theatre of San Carlo, in the dress of
a young man, and wearing a moustache. The disguise was
detected, as she meant it should be, and eyes centred upon
her from all the boxes. I tried to travel with her through
remote and unfrequented countries, such as the interior of
Sicily; but it was all in vain. There was no resisting her
fiery will, and I was compelled to go wherever she wished.

“One afternoon, at Messina, at the table d'hôte, we met a
lively young Spanish nobleman. She caught his eye; I saw
them exchange glances. In spite of all my precautions,
messages, billets, and momentary interviews passed between
them. I challenged the Spaniard, gave him a severe flesh
wound, and thought I had taught him a lesson. Not at all.
On the next day, coming to my lodgings, I found her gone,
no one could tell whither. I was desperate, and could have
done any thing; but there was nothing to be done. I could
not find her, and if I had it would have availed me nothing.

“I returned to America, wrought up to the verge of a nervous
fever; and, by mingling in amusements of every kind, tried

to forget her. In six or eight months I had partially succeeded.
My health was not good, and I had made a journey
of a few weeks to the west; when, on returning, — it was a
sultry July afternoon, — I remember it as if it were yesterday,
— sitting in the reading room window of the New York
Hotel, I saw her passing down Broadway in an open carriage;
and, with the sight, my passion awoke again at fever heat. She
had left the Spaniard, and come to America with a New York
gentleman, who had lived for some time in Paris. I had an
interview with her, and she promised to join me again; but
she broke her word. She saw at once what a power she still
held over me; and she has used it most mercilessly ever
since. She practises all her arts on me, as if I were a new
lover, whom she wished to insnare. Sometimes she flatters
me; sometimes she repels me; now and then she allows me
stolen interviews, or long walks or rides with her. She
plays me as an angler plays a salmon that he has hooked, till
he brings him gasping to his death. I have plunged into dissipations
of all kinds, to drown the memory of her. It is all
useless. She knows the torments I am suffering, and she
rejoices in them. Perhaps she remembers that it was I who
made her what she is, and takes this for her revenge. But,
pshaw! — if I had not eloped with her, some one else would
have done so soon; and that she perfectly well knows. It is
her vanity — nothing but her vanity: she delights to hold
me in bondage; she knows that I am her slave, and she glories
in it.”

“But why, in Heaven's name,” demanded Morton, “do
you not break away from this miserable fascination?”

“There it is!” Buckland answered; “I only wish that I
had the power. I have resolved twenty times to leave New
York, and my resolution has failed me as often.”

“Who takes charge of her now?”

“Colonel —. He seems as crazy after her as I was.”

“I can hardly comprehend,” pursued Morton, “how, understanding
her character as you do, you can still remain so
infatuated with her.”

“Neither can I comprehend it. I can only feel it. Strange
— is it not? — that I, who used to be regarded as a mere flirt;
who, as a lady acquaintance once told me, had a great deal
too much sentiment, but no heart at all; I, who, in my time,
have written love verses to twenty different ladies, — should
be so enchained at last by this black-eyed witch!”

“Very strange.”

“And now what would you recommend? what advice do
you give me? You see in what a predicament I stand.
What ought I to do?”

“With your broken health and weakened nerves,” said
Morton, “it is useless for you to attempt contending against
this fancy that has taken possession of you. You must run
away from it. Take a long voyage; the longer the better.
I will go with you to engage your passage to-morrow.”

Buckland hesitated at first, slowly shaking his head; but
in a moment he said, with some animation, “Yes, I will go,
on one condition; you must promise to go with me.”

The will, the motive power, — never very strong in him, —
was now completely relaxed. He was unfitted for action of
any kind, and was, as he himself said, no better than a sea

weed drifting on the water. Morton walked the streets with
him for some hours. He seemed to cling to his companion,
like an ivy to the supporting trunk, and was evidently reluctant
to resign his company. At length, Morton, who was
exhausted with the excitements of the day, pleaded fatigue,
and bade him good night. He turned again, however, and,
by the blaze of the gas lamps, followed with his eye Buckland's
slowly receding figure.

“A few hours ago,” he said to himself, “I thought myself
unhappy; but what is my suffering compared to his? I am
not, thank God, the builder of my own misfortunes, nor
pursued with the reflection that they are a just retribution for
my own misdeeds. With health, liberty, self-respect, and a
good conscience, what man has a right to call himself miserable?”