University of Virginia Library

15. CHAPTER XV.
WHO SHALL BE HEIR?

WHEN we parted from Mr. Pompilard, he was trying to
negotiate a mortgage for thirty thousand dollars on
some real estate belonging to his wife. This mortgage was
effected without recourse to the Berwicks, as was also a
second mortgage of five thousand dollars, which left the property
so encumbered that no further supply could be raised
from it.

The money thus obtained Mr. Pompilard forthwith cast
upon the waters of that great financial maelstrom in Wall
Street which swallows so many fortunes. This time he lost;
and our story now finds him and his family established in the
poorer half of a double house, wooden, and of very humble pretensions,
situated in Harlem, some seven or eight miles from
the heart of the great metropolis. Compared with the princely
seat he once occupied on the Hudson, what a poor little den it
was!

A warm, almost sultry noon in May was brooding over the
unpaved street. The peach-trees showed their pink blossoms,
and the pear-trees their white, in the neighboring enclosures.
All that Mr. Pompilard could look out upon in his poor, narrow
little area was a clothes-line and a few tufts of grass with
the bald soil interspersed. Yet there in his little back parlor
he sat reading the last new novel.

Suddenly he heard cries of murder in the other half of his
domicil. Throwing down his book, he went out through the
open window, and, stepping on a little plank walk dignified
with the name of a piazza, put his legs over a low railing and

passed into his neighbor's house. That neighbor was an Irish
tailor of the name of Pat Maloney, a little fellow with carroty
whiskers and features intensely Hibernian.

On inquiring into the cause of the outcry, Pompilard learned
that Maloney was only “larruping the ould woman with a bit
of a leather strap, yer honor.” Mrs. Maloney excused her
husband, protesting that he was the best fellow in the world,
except when he had been drinking, which was the case that
day; “and not a bad excuse for it there was, your honor, for a
band of Irish patriots had landed that blessed morning, and
Pat had only helped wilcom them dacently, which was the
cause of his taking a drap too much.”

With an air of deference that he might have practised
towards a grand-duchess, Pompilard begged pardon for his
intrusion, and passed out, leaving poor Pat and his wife
stunned by the imposing vision.

No sooner had Pompilard resumed his romance, than the
dulcet strains of a hand-organ under the opposite window solicited
his ear. Pompilard was a patron of hand-organs; he
had a theory that they encouraged a taste for music among the
humbler classes. The present organ was rich-toned, and was
giving forth the then popular and always charming melody of
“Love Not.” Pompilard grew sentimental, and put his hand
in his pocket for a quarter of a dollar; but no quarter responded
to the touch of his fingers. He called his wife.

Enter a small middle-aged lady, dressed in white muslin
over a blue under-robe, with ribbons streaming in all directions.
She was followed by Antoinette, or Netty, as she was
generally called, a little elfish-looking maiden, six or seven
years old, with her hands thrust jauntily into the pockets of
her apron, and her bright beady eyes glancing about as if in
search of mischief.

“Lend me a quarter, my dear, for the organ-man,” said
Pompilard.

“Ah! there you have me at a disadvantage, husband,” said
the lady. “Do you know I don't believe ten cents could be
raised in the whole house?”

And the lady laughed, as if she regarded the circumstance
as an excellent joke. The child, taking her cue from the

mother, screamed with delight. Then, imitating the sound of a
bumble-bee, she made her father start up, afraid he was going
to be stung. This put the climax to her merriment, and she
threw herself on the sofa in a paroxysm.

“What a little devil it is!” exclaimed Pompilard, proudly
smiling on his offspring. “Is it possible that no one in the
house has so much as a quarter of a dollar? Where are the
girls? Girls!”

His call brought down from up-stairs his two eldest, children
of his first wife, — one, Angelica Ireton, a widow, whose perplexity
was how to prevent herself from becoming fat, for
she was already fair and forty; the other, Melissa (by Netty
nicknamed Molasses), a sentimentalist of twenty-five, affianced,
since her father's last financial downfall, to Mr. Cecil Purling,
a gentleman five years her senior, who labored under the delusion
that he was born to be an author, and who kept on
ruining publishers by writing the most ingeniously unsalable
books. Angelica had a son with the army in Mexico, and two
little girls, Julia and Mary, older than Netty, but over whom
she exercised absolute authority by keeping them constantly
informed that she was their aunt.

Angelica was found to have in her purse the sum required
for the organ-man. Pompilard took it, and started for the
door, when a prolonged feline cry made him suppose he had
trodden on the kitten. “Poor Puss!” he exclaimed; “where
the deuce are you?” He looked under the sofa, and an outburst
of impish laughter told him he had been tricked a second
time by his little girl.

“That child will be kidnapped yet by the circus people,”
said Pompilard, complacently. “Where did she learn all these
accomplishments?”

“Of the children in the next house, I believe,” said Mrs.
Pompilard; “or else of the sailors on the river, for she is constantly
at the water-side watching the vessels, and trying to
make pictures of them.”

Pompilard went to the door, paid the organ-grinder, and re-entered
the room with an “Extra” which the grateful itinerant
had presented to him.

“What have we here?” said Pompilard; and he read from

the paper the announcement of a terrible steamboat accident,
which had occurred on the night of the Wednesday previous,
on the Mississippi.

“This is very surprising, — very surprising indeed,” he exclaimed.
“My dear, it appears from —”

The noise of a dog yelping, as if his leg had been suddenly
broken by a stone, here interrupted him. He rushed to the
window. No dog was there.

“Will that little goblin never be out of mischief? Take
her away, Molasses,” said the secretly delighted father. Then,
resuming his seat, he continued: “It appears from this account,
wife, that among the passengers killed by this great steamboat
explosion were your niece Leonora Berwick, her husband, and
child. Did she have more than one child?”

“Not that I know of,” said Mrs. Pompilard. “Is poor Leonora
blown up? That is very hard indeed. But I never set
eyes on her, — though I have her photograph, — and I shall not
pretend to grieve for one I never saw. My poor brother could
never get over our elopement, you wicked Albert.”

“Your poor brother thought I was cheating you, when I said
I loved you to distraction. Now put your hand on your heart,
Mrs. Pompilard, and say, if you can, that I have n't proved
every day of my life that I fell short of the truth in my professions.”

“I sha'n't complain,” replied the lady, smiling; “but we
were shockingly imprudent, both of us; and I tell Netty I
shall disown her if she ever elopes.”

“Of course Netty must n't take our example as a precedent.”

Buoyed up on her husband's ever-sanguine and cheerful temperament,
Mrs. Pompilard had looked upon their fluctuations
from wealth to poverty as so many piquant variations in their
way of life. This moving into a little mean house in Harlem,
— what was it, after all, but playing poor? It would be only
temporary, and was a very good joke while it lasted. Albert
would soon have his palace on the Fifth Avenue once more.
There was no doubt of it.

And so Mrs. Pompilard made the best of the present moment.
Her step-daughters (she was the junior of one of
them) used to treat her as they might a spoiled child, taking

her in their laps, and petting her, and often rocking her to
sleep.

The news Pompilard had been reading suggested to him a
not improbable contingency, but he exhibited the calmness of
the experienced gambler in considering it.

“My dear,” said he, “if this news is true, it is not out of the
range of possibilities that the extinction of this Berwick family
may leave you the inheritrix of a million of dollars.”

“That would be quite delightful,” exclaimed Mrs. Pompilard;
“for then that poor pining Purling could marry Melissa
at once. Not that I wish my niece and her husband any harm.
O no!”

“Yes, it would n't be an ill wind for Purling and Melissa,
that 's a fact,” said Pompilard. “The chances stand thus: If
the mother died the last of the three, the property comes to you
as her nearest heir. If the child died last, at least half, and
perhaps all the property, must come to you. If the child died
first (which is most probable), and then the father and the
mother, or the mother and the father, still the property comes
to you. If the father died first, then the child, and then the
mother, the property comes to you. But if the mother died
first, then the child, and then the father, the money all goes to
Mrs. Charlton, by virtue of her kinship as aunt and nearest
relative to Mr. Berwick. So you see the chances are largely
in your favor. If the report is true that the family are all lost,
I would bet fifteen thousand to five that you inherit the property.
I shall go to the city to-morrow, and perhaps by that
time we shall have further particulars.”

Pompilard then plunged anew into his novel, and the wife
returned to her task of trimming a bonnet, intended as a wedding
present to a girl who had once been in her service, and
who was now to occupy one of the houses opposite.

The next day, Pompilard, fresh, juvenile, and debonair, descended
from the Harlem cars at Chambers Street, and strolled
down Broadway, swinging his cane, and humming the Druidical
chorus from Norma. Encountering Charlton walking in the
same direction, he joined him with a “Good morning.” Charlton
turned, and, seeing Pompilard jubilant, drew from the spectacle
an augury unfavorable to his own prospects. “Has the old
fellow had private advices?” thought he.

Pompilard spoke of the opera, of Maretzek, the Dusseldorf
gallery, and the Rochester rappings. At length Charlton interposed
with an allusion to the great steamboat disaster. Pompilard
seemed to dodge the subject; and this drove Charlton to
the direct interrogatory, “Have you had any information in
addition to what the newspapers give?”

“O nothing, — that is, nothing of consequence,” said Pompilard.
“Did you hear Grisi last night?”

“It appears,” resumed Charlton, “that your wife's niece,
Mrs. Berwick, was killed outright, that the child was subsequently
drowned, and that Mr. Berwick survived till the next
day at noon.”

“Nothing more likely!” replied Pompilard, who had not yet
seen the morning papers.

“Do you know any of the survivors?” asked Charlton.

“I have n't examined the list yet,” said Pompilard.

And they parted at the head of Fulton Street.

Charlton built his hopes largely on the fact that Colonel
Delancy Hyde was among the survivors. If, fortunately, the
Colonel's memory should serve him the right way, he might
turn out a very useful witness. At any rate, he (Charlton)
would communicate with him by letter forthwith.

In one of the reports in the Memphis Avalanche, telegraphed
to the morning papers, was the following extract: —

Pompilard read this account, and felt a million of dollars
slipping away from his grasp. But not a muscle of his face
betrayed emotion. Impenetrable fatalist, he still had faith in
the culmination of his star.

“We must wait for further particulars,” thought Pompilard;
“there is hope still”; and, stopping at a stall to buy the new
novel of “Monte Cristo” by Dumas, he made his way to the
cars, and returned to Harlem.

Weeks glided by. Mrs. Charlton passed away on the day
she had predicted, and Toussaint, after seeing her remains
deposited at Greenwood, gave away in charity the thousand
dollars which she had extorted for him from her husband.

Melissa Pompilard began to fear that the marriage-day
would never come round. Cecil Purling, her betrothed, had
made a descent on a young publisher, just starting in business,
and had induced him to put forth a volume of “playful” essays,
entitled “Skimmings and Skippings.” The result was financial
ruin to the publisher, and his rapid retreat back to the clerk-ship
from which he had emerged.

But Purling was indomitable. He began forthwith to plan
another publication, and to look round for another victim;
comforting Melissa with the assurance that, though the critics
were now in a league to keep him in obscurity, he should make
his mark some day, when all his past works would turn out the
most profitable investments he could possibly have found.

To whom should the Aylesford-Berwick property descend?
That was now a question of moment, both in legal and financial
circles. Pompilard read novels, made love to his wife, and
romped with his daughters and grandchildren. Charlton
groaned and grew thin under the horrible state of suspense
in which the lawyers kept him.