University of Virginia Library

3. CHAPTER III.
THE WOLF AND THE LAMB.

THE poor little lady! First sold by a needy parent to an
old man, and then betrayed by her own uncalculating affections
to a young one, whose nature had the torpor without the
venerableness of age! Her heart, full of all loving possibilities,
had steered by false lights and been wrecked. Brief had
been its poor, shattered dream of household joys and domestic
amenities!

It was the old, old story of the cheat and the dupe; of credulous
innocence overmatched by heartless selfishness and fraud.

The young man “of genteel appearance and address” who
last week, as the newspapers tell us, got a supply of dry-goods
from Messrs. Raby & Co., under false pretences, has been arrested,
and will be duly punished.

But the scoundrel who tricks a confiding woman out of her
freedom and her happiness under the false pretences of a disinterested
affection and the desire of a loving home, — the
swindler who, with the motives of a devil of low degree, affects
the fervor and the dispositions of a loyal heart, — for such an
impostor the law has no lash, no prison. To play the blackleg
and the sharper in a matter of the affections is not penal.
Success consecrates the crime; and the victim, when her eyes
are at length opened to the extent of the deception and the
misery, must continue to submit to a yoke at once hateful and
demoralizing; she must submit, unless she is willing to brave
the ban of society and the persecutions of the law.

Ralph Charlton, when he gave his wife Berwick's letter the
night before, had supposed she would sit down to pen an answer
as soon as she was alone. And so the next morning, after visiting
his office in Fulton Street, he retraced his steps, and re-entered

his house soon after Toussaint had left, and just as Mrs.
Charlton had put her signature to the last page of the manuscript,
and, bowing her forehead on her palms, was giving vent
to sobs of bitter emotion.

Charlton was that prodigy in nature, — a young man in whom
an avarice that would have been remarkable in a senile miser
had put in subjection all the other passions. Well formed and
not ungraceful, his countenance was at first rather prepossessing
and propitiatory. It needed a keener eye than that of the ordinary
physiognomist to penetrate to the inner nature. It was
only when certain expressions flitted over the features that they
betrayed him. You must study that countenance and take it at
unawares before you could divine what it meant. Age had not
yet hardened it in the mould of the predominant bias of the
character. Well born and bred, he ought to have been a gentleman,
but it is difficult for a man to be that and a miser at
the same time. There was little in his style of dress that distinguished
him from the mob of young business-men, except
that a critical eye would detect that his clothes were well preserved.
Few of his old coats were made to do service on the
backs of the poor.

Charlton called himself a lawyer, his specialty being conveyancing
and real estate transactions. His one purpose in
life was to be a rich man. To this end all others must be subordinate.
When a boy he had been taught to play on the
flute; and his musical taste, if cultivated, might have been a
saving element of grace. But finding that in a single year he
had spent ten dollars in concert tickets, he indignantly repudiated
music, and shut his ears even to the hand-organs in the
street. He had inherited a fondness for fine horses. Before
he was twenty-five he would not have driven out after Ethan
Allen himself, if there had been any toll-gate keepers to pay.
His taste in articles of food was nice and discriminating; but
he now bought fish and beef of the cheapest, and patronized a
milkman whose cows were fed on the refuse of the distilleries.

Charlton was not venturous in speculation. The boldest operation
he ever attempted was that of his marriage. Before
taking that step he had satisfied himself in regard to the state
of the late Mr. Berwick's affairs. They could be disentangled,

and made to leave a balance of half a million for the heirs, if a
certain lawsuit, involving a large amount of real estate, should
be decided the right way. Charlton burrowed and inquired
and examined till he came to the conclusion that the suit would
go in favor of the estate. On that hint he took time by the
forelock, and married the widow. To his consternation matters
did not turn out as he had hoped.

As Charlton entered his wife's room, on the morning she had
been writing the letter already presented, “What is all this,
madam?” he exclaimed, advancing and twitching away the
manuscript that lay before her.

The lady thus startled rose and looked at him without speaking,
as if struggling to comprehend what he had done. At
length a gleam of intelligence flashed from her eyes, and she
mildly said, “I will thank you to give me back those papers:
they are mine.”

“Mine, Mrs. Charlton! Where did you learn that word?”
said the husband, really surprised at the language of his usually
meek and acquiescent helpmate.

“Do you not mean to give them back?”

“Assuredly no. To whom is the letter addressed? Ah! I
see. To Mr. Henry Berwick. Highly proper that I should
read what my wife writes to a young man.”

“Then you do not mean to give the letter back, Charlton?”

Another surprise for the husband! At first she used to
speak to him as “Ralph,” or “dear”; then as “Mr. Charlton”;
then as “Sir”; and now it was plain “Charlton.”
What did it protend?

The lady held out her hand, as if to receive the papers.

“Pooh!” said the husband, striking it away. “Go and
attend to your housework. What a shrill noise your canary
is making! That bird must be sold. There was a charge of
seventy-five cents for canary-seed in my last grocer's bill! It 's
atrocious. The creature is eating us out of house and home.
Bird and cage would bring, at least, five dollars.”

“The letter, — do you choose to give it back?”

“If, after reading it, I think proper to send it to its address,
it shall be sent. Give yourself no further concern about it.”

Mrs. Charlton advanced with folded arms, looked him unblenchingly

in the face, and gasped forth, with a husky, half-choked
utterance, “Beware!”

“Truly, madam,” said the astonished husband, “this is a
new character for you to appear in, and one for which I am
not prepared.”

“It is for that reason I say, Beware! Beware when the
tame, the submissive, the uncomplaining woman is roused at
last. Will you give me that letter?”

“Go to the Devil!”

Mrs. Charlton threw out her hand and clutched at the manuscript,
but her husband had anticipated the attempt. As
she closed with him in the effort to recover the paper, he
threw her off so forcibly that she fell and struck her head
against one of the protuberant claws of the legs of her writing-table.

Whatever were the effects of the blow, it did not prevent
the lady from rising immediately, and composing her exuberant
hair with a gesture of puzzled distress that would have
excited pity in the heart of a Thug. But Charlton did not
even inquire if she were hurt. After a pause she seemed to
recover her recollection, and then threw up her head with a
lofty gesture of resolve, and quitted the room.

Her husband sat down and read the letter. His equanimity
was unruffled till he came to the passage where the writer
alludes to the gold casket she had put aside for little Clara.
At that disclosure he started to his feet, and gave utterance
to a hearty execration upon the woman who had presumed to
circumvent him by withholding any portion of her effects.
He opened the door and called, “Wife!” No voice replied to
his summons. He sought her in her chamber. She was not
there. She had left the house. So Dorcas, the one overworked
domestic of the establishment, assured him.

Charlton saw there was no use in scolding. So he put on
his hat and walked down Broadway to his office. Here he
wrote a letter which he wished to mail before one o'clock. It
was directed to Colonel Delancy Hyde, Philadelphia. Having
finished it and put it in the mail-box, Charlton took his way at
a brisk pace to the house of old Toussaint.

That veteran himself opened the door. A venerable black

man, reminding one of Ben Franklin in ebony. His wool was
gray, his complexion of the blackest, showing an unmixed African
descent. He was of middling height, and stooped slightly;
was attired in the best black broadcloth, with a white vest
and neckcloth, and had the manners of a French marquis of
the old school.

“Is my wife here?” asked Charlton.

“Madame is here,” replied the old man; “but she suffers,
and prays to be not disturbed.”

“I must see her. Conduct me to her.”

“Pardonnez. Monsieur will comprehend as I say the commands
of Madame in this house are sacred.”

“You insolent old nigger! do you mean to tell me I am not
to see my own wife?”

“Precisement. Monsieur cannot see Madame Charlton.”

“I 'll search the house for her, at any rate. Out of the way,
you blasted old ape!”

Here a policeman, provided for the occasion by Toussaint,
and who had been smoking in the front room opening on the
hall, made his appearance.

“You can't enter this house,” said Blake, carelessly knocking
the ashes from his cigar. Charlton had a wholesome respect
for authority. He drew back on seeing the imperturbable
Blake, with the official star on his breast, and said, “I came
here, Mr. Blake, to recover a little gold box that I have reason
to believe my wife has left with this old nigger.”

“Well, she might have left it in worse hands, — eh, Toussaint?”
said Blake, resuming his cigar; and then, removing
it, he added, “If you call this old man a nigger again, I 'll
make a nigger of you with my fist.”

Toussaint might have taken for his motto that of the old
eating-house near the Park, — “Semper paratus.” The gold box
having been committed to him to deposit in a place of safety,
he had meditated long as to the best disposition he could make
of it. As he stood at the window of his house, looking thoughtfully
out, he saw coming up the street a gay old man, swinging
a cane, humming an opera tune, and followed by a little
dog. As the dashing youth drew nearer, Toussaint recognized
in him an old acquaintance, and a man not many years his
junior, — Mr. Albert Pompilard, stock-broker, Wall Street.

No two men could be more unlike than Toussaint and Pompilard;
and yet they were always drawn to each other by some
subtle points of attraction. Pompilard was a reckless speculator
and spendthrift; Toussaint, a frugal and cautious economist;
but he had been indebted for all his best investments to
Pompilard. Bold and often audacious in his own operations,
Pompilard never would allow Toussaint to stray out of the
path of prudence. Not unfrequently Pompilard would founder
in his operations on the stock exchange. He would fall, perhaps,
to a depth where a few hundred dollars would have been
hailed as a rope flung to a drowning man. Toussaint would
often come to him at these times and offer a thousand dollars
or so as a loan. Pompilard, in order not to hurt the negro's
feelings, would take it and pretend to use it; but it would
be always put securely aside, out of his reach, or deposited in
some bank to Toussaint's credit.

Toussaint stood at his door as Pompilard drew nigh.

“Ha! good morning, my guide, philosopher, and friend!”
exclaimed the stock-broker. “What 's in the wind now, Toussaint?
Any money to invest?”

“No, Mr. Pompilard; but here 's a box that troubles me.”

“A box! Not a pill-box, I hope? Let me look at it.
Beautiful! beautiful, exceedingly! It could not be duplicated
for twelve hundred dollars. Whose is it? Ah! here 's
an inscription, — `Henry Berwick to Emily.' Berwick? It
was a Henry Berwick who married my wife's niece, Miss
Aylesford.”

“This box,” interposed Toussaint, “was the gift of his late
father to his second wife, the present Mrs. Charlton.”

“Ah! yes, I remember the connection now.”

“Mrs. Charlton wishes me to deposit the box where, in the
event of her death, it will reach the daughter of the present
Mrs. Berwick. Here is the direction on the envelope.”

Pompilard read the words: “For Clara Aylesford Berwick,
daughter of Henry Berwick, Esq., to be delivered to her in
the event of the death of the undersigned, Emily Charlton.”

“I will tell you what to do,” said Pompilard. “Here come
Isaac Jones of the Chemical and Arthur Schermerhorn. Isaac
shall give a receipt for the box and deposit it in the safe of the

bank, there to be kept till called for by Miss Clara Berwick or
her representative.”

“That will do,” said Toussaint.

The two gentlemen were called in, and in five minutes the
proper paper was drawn up, witnessed, and signed, and Mr.
Jones gave a receipt for the box.

Briefly Toussaint now explained to Charlton the manner in
which the box had been disposed of. Charlton was nonplussed.
It would not do to disgust the officials at the Chemical. It
might hurt his credit. A consolatory reflection struck him.
“Do you say my wife is suffering?” he asked.

“Madame will need a physician,” replied the negro. “I have
sent for Dr. Hull.”

“Well, look here, old gentleman, I 'm responsible for no
debts of your contracting on her account. I call Mr. Blake to
witness. If you keep her here, it must be at your own expense.
Not a cent shall you ever have from me.”

“That will not import,” replied Toussaint, with the hauteur
of a prince of the blood.

Felicitating himself on having got rid of a doctor's bill,
Charlton took his departure.

“The exceedingly poor cuss!” muttered Blake, tossing after
him the stump of a cigar.

“Let me pay you for your trouble, Mr. Blake,” said Toussaint.

“Not a copper, Marquis! I have been here only half an
hour, and in that time have read the newspaper, smoked one
regalia, quality prime, and pocketed another. If that is not
pay enough, you shall make it up by curling my hair the next
time I go to a ball.”

“But take the rest of the cigars.”

“There, Marquis, you touch me on my weak point. Thank
you. Good by, Toussaint!”

Toussaint closed the door, and called to his wife in a whisper,
speaking in French, “How goes it, Juliette?”

“Hist! She sleeps. She wishes you to put this letter in
the post-office as soon as possible. If you can get the canary-bird,
do it. I hope the doctor will be here soon.”

Toussaint left at once to mail the invalid's letter and get
possession of her bird.