 | CHAPTER I. A New England tale, and Miscellanies |  |
1. CHAPTER I.
He will not come,” she said.
She wept.—“I am aweary, aweary,
Oh God, that I were dead!”
Invention need not be taxed for incidents fitted to touch
the heart, nor need they be heightened with the dyes of
romance. The daily life of our own cities abounds in events
over which, if there be tears in heaven, surely the angels weep.
It is not to draw tears, which flow too easily from susceptible
young readers, that the following circumstances are related,
but to set forth dangers to which many are exposed, and vices
which steep the life God has given as a blessing, in dishonour,
misery, and remorse.
A few years since, there lived on the east side of our city,
where cheap and wretched residences abound, one Sara Hyat.
Sara was a widow, not young, nor pretty, nor delicate, with none
of the elements of romantic interest; but old, tall, angular, and
coarse, with a face roughened by hardship, sharpened by time,
and channeled by sorrow. Her voice was harsh, and her
that a faint one, that she might once have partaken the weaknesses
of her sex. She wore that hideous supplement to the
hair which women call “a foretop,” and not being very exact
in the adjustment of her cap, the juxtaposition of the foxy
auburn exotic and the indigenous silver hairs set off this little
lingering of vanity rather strikingly.
But as all is not gold that glitters, and beauty is but skin
deep, and under a rough shell is often found excellent meat;
so under Mrs. Hyat's rough exterior, there were strong common
sense, a spirit of rectitude, a good conscience, and
affections that the rough usage of the world had not abated.
These had attached her with devotion and self-sacrifice to one
object after another, as the relations of life had changed, first
binding her in loving duty to her parents and sisters, then to
her husband and children, and finally, when, one after another,
they had dropped into the grave, settling on the only one in
whose veins a drop of her blood ran, a little orphan grandniece.
“A sweeter thing they could not light upon.” Go with us
up a crazy staircase, at the extremity of Houston Street. If
you chance to look in at the door of the rooms you pass, you
will see,—it being Sunday,—an entire Irish family, father,
mother, half-a-dozen children, more or less, with a due allowance
of cousins, all plump, rosy, and thriving (in the teeth of
the physical laws) on plenty of heterogeneous food, and superfluity
of dirt. On entering Mrs. Hyat's rooms, you are in
another country; the tenants are obviously Americans: it is
so orderly, quiet, and cleanly, and rather anti-social. There
are only an old woman and a little girl; the bud of spring-time,
and the seared leaf of autumn. The only dirt in the
room (you almost wonder the old woman tolerates it there)
and a tea-rose diffuse their sweet odours.
A table is decently spread for the mongrel meal that our
people call supper, which blends the substantial food of dinner,
with the aromatic tea, and its sweet accompaniments of pastry,
cake, or preserves. The tea-kettle is hissing on the stove, and
a pie is warming there. The old woman sits in her rocking-chair,
weaving backwards and forwards, reading a time-discoloured
letter, while a little girl (the only thing in harmony
with the rose and jessamine in the window), laying aside a
tract she is reading, says, “Aunt Sara, don't you know every
word in that letter by heart? I do.”
“Why, do you Fanny? Say it then.”
“I am clean discouraged. It seems as if Providence
crowded on me. There is black disappointment, turn which
way I will. I have had an offer to go to Orleans, and part
pay beforehand, which same I send you herewith.
“Selina's time draws near, and it is the only way I have
to provide; so dear Aunt Sara, I think it my duty to go.
I can't summon courage to bid you good-bye. I can't speak
a word to her. I should not be a man again in a month if I
tried. You have been a mother to me, Aunt Sara, and if God
spares my life, I'll be a dutiful son to you in the place of them
that's gone. If any thing happens to my poor wife, you will
see to my child, I know,
“I declare Fanny, you have said it right, date and all,
and what a date it was to me, that 25th of September:—that
that very day, when the tide went out, your mother died;—
life coming—life going—and the dear life of my last boy
launched on the wide sea. My boy I always called your
father; he was like my own sons to me. He lived just one
week after he got to Orleans, and the news came Evacuation
Day. We have always been, that is, the Rankin side, a dreadful
family for dying young—all but me. I've lived to follow
all my folks to the grave. My three boys I have seen laid in
the ground; full grown, six feet men, and here I am, my
strength failing, my eyes dim, working, shivering, trembling on.”
Poor little Fanny shivered too, and putting some more
wood into the stove, she asked her aunt if it were not time
for supper; but Mrs. Hyat, without hearing her, went on,
rather talking to herself, than the child. “There has always
been something notable about times and seasons, with our
folks. I was born the day the revolutionary war was declared
—my oldest was born the day Washington died; my youngest
sister, your grandmother, Fanny, died the day of the Total
Eclipse; my husband died the day that last pesky little war
was declared; your father saw your mother the first time
'lumination night, and as I said, it was Evacuation Day, we
got the news of his death; poor Jemmy! what a dutiful boy
he was to me! half my life went with his! How that letter
is printed on your memory, Fanny! But you have better
learning than ever I had, and that makes the difference!
Learning is not all though, Fanny; you must have prudence.
Did I not hear you talking on the stairs yesterday with some
of them Irish cattle?”
“Yes, aunt, I was thanking Mrs. O`Roorke for bringing
up my pail of water for me.”
“That was not it, 'twas a racket with the children I
you're no company for Irish, and never shall be; the Lord
made 'em to be sure, that is all you can say for 'em—you can
scarce call them human creturs.”
“They are very kind, Aunt Sara.”
“So are dogs kind, Fanny. I have moved, and moved,
and moved to get into a house free of them, but they are
varmint, and there is no getting away from them. It's the
Lord's will that they should overrun us like frogs and locusts,
and must be; but I'll have no right-hand of fellowship with
them. There I have set down my foot. Now, child, tell me
what was all that hurry skurry about.”
Mrs. Hyat gave Fanny small encouragement to communicate
a scene in which the banned Irish were the principal
actors. But after a little struggle, her sense of justice to
them overcame her dread of the old woman's prejudices, and
she told the true story.
“The overseer at the new buildings gave me leave to
bring my basket again for kindlings. Pat and Ellen
O`Roorke were there before me, and they picked out all the
best bits and put them into my basket, and it was pretty
heavy, and Pat would bring it home for me; he was so kind,
how could I huff him, Aunt Sara? but I was afraid you
would see him, that was the truth, and I wanted to take the
basket before we got to the house; so I ran across the street
after him, and there was a young gentleman driving a beautiful
carriage, with a servant beside him, and another behind,
and one of the horses just brushed against me and knocked
me over. Pat and Ellen were frightened, and mad too, and
Pat swore, and Ellen screamed, and the gentleman stopped, and
the man behind jumped off and came to us, and Pat kicked
him, and he struck Pat, and the gentleman got out and stopped
and Pat would not touch it. The Irish have some high feelings,
aunt, for all; and I am sure they are kind as kind
can be.”
“Well, well, go on; did the gentleman say any thing to
you?”
“Yes, aunt; he saw there was a little blood on my cheek,
and he took off my bonnet and turned off my hair; it was
but a little bruised—and—and—”
“And, and, and what, child?”
“Nothing, aunt, only he wiped off the place with his
pocket handkerchief, and—kissed it.”
“It's the last time you shall stir outside the door, Fanny,
without me.”
“Aunt Sara! I am sure he meant no harm, he was a
beautiful gentleman.”
“Beautiful, indeed! Did he say any thing more to you?”
“He said something about my hair being—looking—
pretty, and he cut off a lock with my scissors that you hung
at my side yesterday, and he—he put it in his bosom.” As
Fanny finished, there was a tap at the door, and on opening
it, she recognized the liveried footman of her admirer. In
one hand he held a highly ornamented bird-cage containing a
canary, and in the other a paper parcel.
“The gentleman as had the misfortune to knock you
down yesterday, sends you these,” he said, smiling at Fanny;
and setting them down on the table, he withdrew.
Fanny was enchanted. “The very thing I always wanted,”
she exclaimed. The little singing bird began at once
to cheer her solitude, to break with its sweet notes the heavy
monotony of her day, to chime in harmony with the happy
voice of her childhood. While Fanny, forgetting her supper
of the timid little stranger, Mrs. Hyat, lost in a reverie
of perplexity and anxiety, was revolving Fanny's adventure
and its consequences; a world of dangers that must beset
the poor girl, when, as in the course of nature it soon
must be, her protection was withdrawn, were all at once revealed
to her.
Fanny was just thirteen, and the extreme beauty that had
marked her childhood, instead of passing away with it, was
every day developing and ripening. Her features were symmetrical,
and of that order which is called aristocratic, and
so they were, of nature's aristocracy; if that be so which is
reserved for her rarest productions. Her complexion was fair
and soft as the rose-leaf, and the colour, ever varying on her
cheek, ever mounting and subsiding, with the flow and ebb of
feeling; her hair was singularly beautiful, rich and curling,
and though quite dark, reflecting, when the light fell on it, a
ruddy glow.
“If she looked like other children,” thought Sara Hyat,
as her eye rested on Fanny, “she might have been thrown
down and had both her legs broken, and that young spark
would never have troubled himself about her. If it had but
pleased God to give her her grandfather's bottled nose, or
her father's little gray twinkling eyes; or if she had favoured
any of the Floods, or looked like any of the Rankins—
except her poor mother. But what a picture of a face to
throw a poor girl with, alone, among the wolves and foxes of
this wicked city. Oh, that men were men, and not beasts of
prey!
“Fanny—Fanny—child”—the old woman's voice trembled,
but there was an earnestness in it that impressed each word
as she uttered it, “mark my words, and one of these days,
gives beauty, Fanny, for a trial to some, and a temptation
to others. That's all the use I could ever see in it; to
be sure, its a pretty thing to look upon, but its just like a
rose; by the time it is blowed out it begins to fade. Now
do leave that bird-cage one minute and listen to me. This
is what I want you to remember,” proceeded the old woman,
with more earnestness and stronger emphasis, “when men
follow you, and flatter you, turn a deaf ear, Fanny; pay no
kind of attention to them, and if they persevere, fly away
from them as you would from rats.”
“Aunt Sara! I don't know what you mean?”
“The time will come when I can make my meaning
plainer; for the present it is enough for you to know, that you
must not listen to fine dressde men; that you must not
take presents from them; that you must go straight to
school and come straight home from it, and say nothing to
nobody. If ever I get the money that good-for-nothing Martin
owes me for work done four years ago, I'll buy you a
bird, Fanny; but if you can get a chance, you must send this
back where it came from.”
“Oh, Aunt Sara! must I?”
“Yes. What is in that paper? Untie it.”
Fanny untied it. It enveloped a quantity of bird seed,
and a dainty basket filled with French bonbons. Fanny involuntarily
smiled, and then looked towards her aunt, as if to
ask her if she might smile. The cloud on the old lady's brow
lowered more and more heavily, and Fanny said timidly—
“Must I send these back too, aunt, or may I give them
to Pat and Ellen? I won't eat any myself.”
“You are a good child, Fanny, and docile. Yes, you
may go down and hand them in, and don't stay talking with
bird goes back.”
Fanny could not, for her life, see the harm of keeping the
bird; it seemed to her that the gentleman was very kind, but
the possibility of disobedience to her aunt, or of contending
with her, did not occur to her. She knew, and that was
enough to know, that her aunt indulged her whenever she
thought indulgence right, and that she strained every nerve
for her. Her wishes were not as easily subdued as her will,
and each day as she grew more in love with her canary, they
became stronger and stronger, that the opportunity might
never come to send them away.
But come it did. The following Thursday was Christmas
day, a holiday of course to Fanny, but none to Mrs. Hyat,
who, having been strictly bred a Presbyterian, held in sectarian
disdain even this dearest and most legitimate of holidays.
She was doing the daily task by which she earned her
bread, making coarse garments for a neighbouring slop-shop.
Fanny had done up the house-work, and put the room into
that holiday order which is to the poor what fine furniture
and fancy decorations are to the rich. She had fed her
canary bird, and talked to it, and read through the last tract
left at the door, and she was sitting gazing out of the window,
thinking how happy the people must be who rode by in
their carriages, and wondering, as she saw dolls, baby-houses
and hobby-horses, carried by, where all the children could
live who got these fine presents. “There is nobody to send
me one,” she thought. As if in answer to her thought, there
was a tap at the door, and the well-known liveried footman
appeared with a huge paper parcel.
Fanny's rose-coloured cheek deepened to crimson. Mrs.
Fanny, asked, “Is it he?”
“Yes, aunt.”
“It's something for you, miss,” said the footman, advancing,
and about to deposit a parcel on the table before Mrs.
Hyat; “it's Christmas day, old lady,” he added pertly; “a
nice day for young people as has red cheeks and bright
eyes.”
“Hum! you need not take the trouble to set that thing
down here.”
“We'll ma'am, here will do just as well,” he said, placing
it on the bureau.
“Nor there, either, young man;” but he, without heeding
her, had already untied the parcel, and displayed to Fanny's
enraptured eyes a rosewood work-box, with brilliant lining of
crimson velvet, and fittings of steel and silver utensils. It
was but a single glance that Fanny gave them, for she remembered
the goods were contraband, and she averted her
eyes and cast them down.
“Tie the thing up, and take it where it came from,” said
Mrs. Hyat. “What is your master's name?”
“The gentleman as employs me is Mr. Nugent Stafford,
Esquire.”
“Where does he live?”
“At the Astor House.”
“Give him the bird, Fanny.”
Poor little Fanny obeyed, but with a trembling hand and
tearful eye. The little bird had been a bright spirit in her
dead daily life. “Take them all back,” continued Mrs.
Hyat, “and tell Mr. What's-his-name? that such fine things
are for fine people: that we are poor and honest, and plainspoken,
and if he is a real friend to us, he'll leave us to eat
with things that's no way suited to us.”
The footman and Fanny stood a little behind Mrs. Hyat,
and he taking advantage of her deafness, shrugged his shoulders,
saying, “Crusty, crusty”—and adding, with a diabolical
prescience fitting the school in which his master bred him,
“if ever you hear a whistle under your window, three times
repeated, come down.”
“What are you waiting for? you've got your message,
man.”
“I was waiting for your second thoughts, old lady.”
“I've given you my first thoughts, and I'm not one that
thinks my thoughts twice over, so you may go to Mr. What-do-you-call-him?
as quick as you please.” The man departed,
bowing and kissing his hand to Fanny, as he shut the door.
“What said the fellow to you?” asked her aunt, who had
heard, as deaf people generally hear, what is meant not to
reach their ears.
“Oh, aunt,” replied Fanny, “he said something about
your being crusty.”
Most unfortunately, and for the first time in her life, she
dealt unfairly by her aunt. Sincerity is the compass of life;
there is no safe sailing without it. The poor child was perplexed.
Stafford's gifts had charmed her. She did not see
clearly why they were rejected. She was already filled with
vain longings for some variation of her dull existence; and
she was but thirteen years old! Seldom have thirteen years
of human life passed with a more stainless record. To do
her duty, to be quiet, industrious, and true, from being
Fanny's instinct, had become her habit. The fountain of her
affections had never yet been unsealed. Was that well-spring
first deceit, poor child!
We have gone too much into detail, we must limit ourselves
to the most striking particulars of our story.
A year passed. Christmas came again, and the day wore
drearily away. “Mr. Stafford has forgotten me,” sighed
Fanny in her inmost heart, as she remembered her last
Christmas gift.
“That flushy fellow, with his yellow cape and cuffs, won't
trouble us again, I'm thinking,” said Mrs. Hyat. The day
deepened into twilight;—Fanny heard a whistle—she started
—it was repeated, and again repeated. She drew near to
her aunt as if for defence, and sat down by her, her heart
throbbing. After a few minutes, there were again three
whistles, still she sat resolutely still.
Mrs. Hyat laid down her slop-sewing, wiped her spectacles,
and heaving a deep sigh, said, “I grow blinder and
blinder, but I won't murmur as long as it pleases God that I
may earn honest bread for you and me, Fanny.” Fanny
looked up, and her aunt saw there were tears in her eyes.
“Poor child,” she continued, “it is not a merry Christmas
you are having.” The whistle was again repeated. “Go to
the baker's, Fanny, and buy us a mince-pie—it won't break
us; I can pay for it, if I work till twelve to-night, and it
will seem more like Christmas to you.”
Again Fanny heard the whistle; the opportunity was too
tempting to be resisted, and Fanny threw a shawl over her
head and ran down stairs. A man wrapped in a cloak had
just passed the door; he turned back at the sound of her
footsteps, threw his arms around her, and kissed her cheek.
She sprung up the door-step, but he gently detained her, and
and not, as she supposed, his servant.
“Why do you run away from me?” he said, in a low,
sweet voice; “how have I frightened you? Am I not your
friend? None can feel a greater interest in you. I will
prove it in any way that I can.”
Fanny's instincts directed her aright, and fixing her beautiful
eyes on him, she said, “Come up, then, and say to my
aunt what you say to me.”
She did not understand the smile that lurked on Stafford's
lips as he replied, “No, your aunt, for some reason, I am
sure I cannot tell what, has taken a dislike to me; you know
she has, for she will not permit you to receive the slightest
gift from me. Come, you were going out, walk along, and
let me walk by you.” He slid his arm around her waist; she
shrunk from him, and he withdrew it. “How old are you,
Fanny McDermot? You perceive I know your name; and I
know much more concerning you, that you would not suspect.”
“Oh! Mr. Stafford, how should you know about me? I
am fourteen, and a little more.”
“Only fourteen? Fifteen, sixteen, seventeen will soon
come, and each year, each month, you are growing more and
more beautiful. Fanny, I dream of you every night of my
life; and when I wake, my first thought of you is, `I cannot
see her—I cannot speak to her.”'
“Mr. Stafford?”
“It is true, Fanny, true as that the beautiful moon is
shining on us. Why should it not be true? It is unnecessary,
it is cruel, that you should be shut up in that forlorn old
house with that old woman,”—the `old woman' grated on
Fanny's ear, but she did not interrupt Stafford, and he continued,
“Do you like riding, or sailing?”
“I never rode but once, and that was to Uncle Ben's
funeral, and I was never in a boat in my life.”
“Come then on Monday, Fanny, at twelve o'clock, to the
corner of Grand and Essex streets. I will be there, in a
hackney coach, and I will take you a ride just as long, or as
short as you please; and when spring comes, you shall go out
with me in my boat by moonlight. I often pass an evening
in rowing about the harbor, and I should take such pleasure
in pleasing you.”
“But, Mr. Stafford, Aunt Sara would never give me
leave—never in the world.”
“Do not ask her: how is she to know?”
“Why, I must tell her. I tell her every thing, and I
never leave her but to go to school.”
“And how is she to know that you are not at school?”
“Mr. Stafford, do you think I would deceive my Aunt
Sara? No, never,—never.”
They had arrived at the baker's shop. Fanny turned to
enter it, and faltered out a “good night, sir.”
“Stop and listen to me one moment,” he said, detaining
her. That one moment he prolonged till he had repeated,
again and again, his professions of admiration and interest,
and his entreaties that she would meet him. She remained
true to herself, and to her aunt. She offered to tell her
aunt of his kindness, and to ask her leave to take the ride.
This he declined, saying “it would be useless,” and finally, he
was obliged to leave her, with only a promise from her, that
she would not always disregard the whistle.
He kissed her hand, and thrust into it a purse. She
would have followed him, and returned it, but at that moment
two persons crossed the street, and interposed themselves
between her and Stafford; and fearing observation, she reluctantly
several gold pieces, and a small locket, with a very beautiful
miniature of Stafford on one side, and a lock of his hair on
the other. She had the resolution, after examining the
features again and again, to tie it up with the purse of
untouched money; certainly not without many a pang, as she
slowly and hesitatingly did it, and directing the parcel to
“Nugent Stafford, Esquire,” she secretly gave it to her
devoted thrall, Pat O'Roorke, a clever and honest boy, to
convey it to that gentleman, at the Astor House.—Pat returned
with the information, that there was no such gentleman
there, and Fanny, without having any suspicion of foul
play, concluded he was out of town. She hid the parcel
from her aunt's eye, thinking it would uselessly disturb her,
and still resolving to return it at the first opportunity.
She had thus far obeyed her conscience, and it “sat
lightly on its throne.”
Two years glided away. Fanny's beauty, instead of
passing with her childhood, had become so brilliant that it
could not be unobserved. She shunned the street, where the
vultures, that are abroad for prey, seeing she was young, and
ascertaining that she was unprotected, had more than once
beset her. A mine had long been working under her feet.
The dreary companionship of the petulant old woman became
every day more wearisome to her; still, she was gentle and
patient, and for many a heavy month, endured resolutely a
life that grew sadder and sadder, as she contrasted it with
the world of beauty, indulgence and love, that had been
painted to her excited imagination. For the last six months,
chair with difficulty, supported by Fanny, whose slight figure
tottered under the superincumbent weight of the massive old
woman. Her faculties had decayed one after another; still
the paramount affection of her being remained; the last lingering
of daylight on the darkening night. She fancied herself
still capable of earning their daily sustenance, and hour
after hour, she would move the only arm she could move, as
if she were sewing, and at evening take the same garment, on
which she had thus cheated herself for months, to Fanny, and
falter out, “take it to Ray's, dear, and bring the pay.” Fanny
favoured the illusion, took the garment, and always brought
the pay.
The O'Roorke's were still tenants of a room below, and
since the old woman's illness, Fanny had often accepted the
kind offers of their services. Ellen went on her errands, and
Pat brought up her wood and water; and whenever she had
occasion to go out (and such occasions recently came often,
and lasted long), Mrs. O'Roorke would bring her baby, to
tend in the “ould lady's room.” Though Fanny, without any
visible means of subsistence, was supplied with every comfort
she could desire for her aunt or herself, Mrs. O'Roorke, from
stupidity or humanity, or a marvellous want of curiosity,
asked no questions.
On some points, she certainly was not blind. One day,
Mrs. Hyat, after an ill turn, had fallen asleep, Mrs. O'Roorke
was sitting by her, and Fanny appeared deeply engaged in
reading. Ellen O'Roorke looked at the volume, and exclaimed,
“Why, your book, Fanny, is bottom side up.” Fanny
burst into tears, and flung it from her.
“God help the child!” said Mrs. O'Roorke; “take the
baby down stairs,” she added to Ellen, “and stay by it till I
mother that bore you, is not more tinder to you than Biddy
O'Roorke; and have I not seen your eyes this three months
always unquiet-like, and red too, and your cheek getting paler
and paler?” Fanny buried her face in the bed-clothes.
“Ah, honey dear, don't fret so; it's not to vex you, I'm
speaking; the words have been burning on my tongue this
six weeks gone, but the old lady jealoused us; and though I
am old enough to be your mother, or grandmother for that,
you looked so sweet and innocent-like I was afeard to spake
my thought.”
“I have no word to speak,” said Fanny, in a changed and
faltering voice, and the bed trembled with the ague that
shook her.
At this moment Mrs. Hyat threw her arm out of bed,
opened her eyes, and for the first time in many days, looked
about her intelligently, and spoke distinctly, “Fanny.”
Fanny sprang to her side, and Mrs. O'Roorke instinctively
moved round to the head of the bed, where she could
not be seen.
“Fanny,” continued the old woman, slowly, but with perfect
distinctness, “I am going—you will follow soon—you
will, dear. Be patient, be good.” The blood coloured again
her faded and withered cheek as she spoke, and mounting to
her brain, gave her a momentary vigour. “Trust in God,
Fanny, trust in God, and not in man. I go—but I do not
leave you alone, Fanny,—not alone,—no—no—not alone.”
The utterance grew fainter and fainter, a slight convulsion
passed over her whole frame, and her features were still and
rigid. Fanny gazed in silent fear and horror. Her eye
turned from her aunt to Mrs. O'Roorke, with that question
gently closed the staring, vacant eyes.
“Oh! she is dead!” cried Fanny, throwing herself on
the bed in a paroxysm of grief. “My last friend; oh! I am
alone—alone. God has left me—I have left him. I deceived
her. Oh dear—oh dear!”
In vain Mrs. O'Roorke tried to calm and comfort her,
she wept till she fell asleep from utter exhaustion. Nature
did the kind work it does so well to elastic youth, and she
awoke in the morning calm, strengthened, and refreshed.
She seemed, as Mrs. O'Roorke said, changed from a helpless
girl to a woman. She sent for her aunt's clergyman, and
by his intervention, and the aid of an undertaker, she made
provision for burying her beside her husband and children;
and attended by the clergyman, she followed her last and
faithful old relative to the grave; and returned to her desolate
apartment, a dreary world behind her, and fearful clouds
hovering around her horizon—poor young creature!
She paid the charges of the funeral; those charges that
always come, a sordid and vexing element, with the bereavements
of the poor; and late the following evening, Mrs. O'Roorke,
hearing, as she fancied, a footstep descending the
stair, and soon after a carriage rolling away, mounted to
verify or dismiss her suspicions. There was no answer to her
knock; the door was not locked, she opened it; a lamp was
burning on the table, and a letter, the wafer yet wet, lying
by it.
“Ellen,” she called. Ellen came. “Who is this letter
for, Ellen?”
“Why! for you, mother, and Fanny's writing!”
“Read it, Ellen; she knows I cannot read, and if there's
e'er a secret in it, keep it as if it were your own.”
Ellen read—“Mrs. O'Roorke,—You have been a kind
friend to me, and I thank you; and give you, in token of my
gratitude, all that I have in this room. My clothes please
give to Ellen, and the purse with the two dollars, in the
corner of the drawer, to Pat. With many thanks from me,
“The dear darlint; but faith, Ellen, that's not the whole
of it; see if there's never a little something of a sacret shoved
in betwixt the other words?”
“Ne'er a syllable, mother.”
“Ne'er a what, child? t'was a sacret I asked for.”
“You've got the whole, mother, every word.”
“Sure it's not of myself I'm thinking; but the time may
come, when she'll wish for as rough a friend as I am. God
help her and guide her, poor child! in this rough, stony
world—darlint child!”
It was some time before Ellen clearly comprehended that
Fanny was gone from them, probably for ever; and it was
some time longer, before these generous creatures could bear
to consider themselves in any way gainers by her departure.
They turned the key of Fanny's door, and went to their own
room—Ellen to brood over what seemed to her an insolvable
mystery, and her mother to `guess and fear.'
Fifteen months had now passed away since Fanny had
looked out from her joyless home in Houston street, to an
existence bright with promised love and pleasure. She had
seen
And did not dream, it was a dream.”
upper part of the city. There she had two apartments, furnished
with more finery than elegance, or even neatness. The
rose-coloured curtains were faded, the gilded furniture tarnished,
and from the vases of faded artificial flowers Fanny's
sickening thoughts now often turned to the white jessamine
and rose, types of her lost purity, that blossomed in her
Aunt Sara's window.
Fanny was not the first tenant of these apartments,
which, with others in the same house, were kept, furnished
and supplied, by a certain Mrs. Tilden, who herself occupied
the basement rooms. Fanny, now by courtesy called Mrs.
Stafford, was but little more than seventeen, just on the
threshold of life! That fountain of love which has power to
make the wilderness blossom, to fill the desert places of life
with flowers and fruits, had been poisoned, and there was no
more health in it. The eye, which should have been just
opening to the loveliest visions of youth, was dull and heavily
cast down, while tear after tear dropped from it on a sleeping
infant, some few months on its pilgrimage “between the
cradle and the grave.” The beautiful form of Fanny's features
remained, but the life of beauty was gone; her once
brilliant cheek was pale, and her whole figure shrunken.
Health, self-respect, cheerfulness, even hope, the angel of life,
were driven away for ever—and memory, so sparkling and
sweet to youth, bore but a bitter chalice to poor Fanny's lips.
She sat statue-like, till she started at a footstep approaching
the door. A slovenly servant girl entered, in a pert and
noisy manner, that expressed the absence of all deference,
letter addressed to Nugent Stafford, saying, “I've been to
the Astor House, and the American, and the City Hotel,
and all them boarding-houses down town, and there's no such
person there, and nowhere else, I expect.”
“What do you mean, Caroline?”
“Oh, nothing, only them as hangs out false colours must
expect others to do the same by them. I suppose there's no
more a Mr. Stafford than a Mrs. Stafford.”
“Hush, my baby,” said Fanny to the infant, stirred by
her tremor.
“I want to have my wages paid to-day,” continued Caroline,
“as I am expecting to leave.”
Fanny took out her purse, and paid the girl's demand.
Caroline eyed it narrowly; there were but a few shillings left
in it, and she changed the assault she had meditated, from
the purse to a richer spoil.
“It's always rulable,” she said, “when a girl lives in such
a house as this, and serves the like of you, that she shall
have extra pay, for risking character and so forth. I see
your purse is rather consumptive, and I am willing to take
up with your silk gown, spotted with pink and trimmed with
gimp.”
“Oh hush, my baby!” cried Fanny to the child, who, opening
her eyes on the distressed countenance of her mother,
was crying as even such young children will, from the instinct
of sympathy. “The gown hangs in the closet,” she
replied steadily, “take it and go.”
Caroline took it, and while she was deliberately folding
it, she said, half consolingly, half impertinently, “It an't
worth while grieving for nothing in this world, for it's a kind
of confused place. Why it always comes to this sooner or
handsome as ever again if you'll leave off sighing and crying,
and you may get as much of a husband as Stafford, and as
good.”
“Leave me, pray leave me,” cried Fanny; and when
Caroline shut the door, she threw herself on the bed with
her baby, saying, amidst tears and shiverings. “Oh, has it
come to this? deserted; lost! Am I such a thing that I
cannot answer that cruel, bad girl? Oh God, have mercy!
He will not hear me, for I only come to him when I
have none other to go to. Hush, my baby. I wish we
were in the grave together. Come, now—hush—do.” She
wiped away her tears, and catching up the child, rushed, half
distracted, up and down the room, attempting to smile and
play to it; and the poor little thing cried and smiled alternately.
The following are some extracts from the hapless letter
which Caroline had brought back to her:
“Oh, Nugent Stafford, am I never, never to see you again!
It is two months since you were here; two months! it seems
two years; and yet when you were last here, and spoke those
icy, cruel, insulting words, I thought it would be better never
to see you again than to see you so. But come once more,
and tell me if I deserved them from you.
“Remember, I was thirteen years old, an innocent, loving
child—loving, but with little to love—when you first stole
my heart. Did you then mean this ruin? God knows—you
know—I don't. Did you plot it then? to steal away my innocence,
when I should be no longer a child? You say you
never promised to marry me, and you say that I knew what
was before me. No, you never said one word of marrying
me; but did you not swear to love, and cherish me so long
that that was all that marriage was in God's sight? Did you
not say that I did not love you half as well as you loved me,
and again and again reproach me with it? Were you not
angry, so angry as to frighten me, because I would not desert
my dear, good, old, faithful aunt, to go with you? And how
have I loved you? I have given up my innocence for you,
my good name, and the favour of God. I have loved only
you, never have had a thought beyond you. I wore only the
fine things to please you; and truly now I hate to look on
them, for they were, in your eyes, the price of what I never
sold, but gave.
“But for my poor baby, I would not send to you again;
for her I will do any thing, but sin. Mrs. Tilden has twice
told me I must leave this house. Six months' rent is due. I
have ten dollars in my purse. Tell me where I am to go?
What am I to do? I would not stay here if I could—the
house has become hateful to me. I cannot bear the looks of
Mrs. Tilden and Caroline. I cannot endure to have them
touch my baby, for it seems to me as if their touch to my
little innocent child were like a foul thing on an opening
rosebud. The very sound of their voices disgusts and frightens
me. Oh! it was not human to put me among such
creatures. If you have deserted me for ever, I will earn food
if I can to keep my baby alive. If I cannot earn, I will beg;
but I will live no longer among these bad people. I had
rather perish with my baby in the street. Oh! Mr. Stafford,
how could you have the heart to put me here? and will you
not now give me a decent home—for the baby's sake—for a
little while—till I am stronger, and can work for her?”
There was much more in the letter than we have cited;
but it was all of the same tenor, and all showed plainly, that
Bold, and hardened indeed, must have been that human
creature who could have cast the first stone at her.
For some months after Stafford took her under his protection
(the protection the wolf affords the lamb!) he was
passionately devoted to her. He made her world, and made
it bright with such excess of light, that she was dazzled, and
her moral sense overpowered. There was no true colouring
or proportion to her perception; she was like one, who,
having imprudently gazed at the sun, sees every object for
a time in false and brilliant colouring. But these illusions
fade by degrees to blackness; and so, as Fanny recovered
from the bewilderment of passion, the light became shadow—
ever deepening, immovable shadow. She lost her gayety, and
no twilight of cheerfulness succeeded to it. The birth of her
child recalled her to herself—the innocent creature was
God's minister to her soul—her pure love for it made impure
love hateful to her. She became serious, then sad, and very
wearisome to Stafford. He was accustomed to calling forth
the blandishments of art. Fanny had no art. Her beauty
was an accident, independent of herself. The unappreciable
treasure of her immeasurable love she gave him, and
for this there is no exchange but faithful, pure love; so her
drafts were on an empty treasury. Passion consumes,
sensuality rusts out the divine quality of love. Fanny's character
was simple and true—elemental. She had little versatility,
and nothing of the charm of variety which comes
from cultivation, and from observation of the world. What
could she know of the world, whose brief time in it had been
passed between her school and Dame Hyat's room in Houston
street!
Stafford was extremely well read in certain departments
Paris publisher for such books as “George Sand,” “Paul de
Kock,” and all their tribe produce. But this was a terra incognita
to Fanny. Her reading was confined to the Bible
and the tracts left at her aunt's door. He delighted in those
muses who have come down from the holy mount of inspiration
and sacrificed to impure gods. Poetry, beyond that of
her aunt's hymn-book, was unknown to Fanny; and when
Stafford brought her Beppa, and Don Juan, she understood
but little of them, and what she understood she loathed.
Stafford loved music. It was to him the natural language
and fittest excitement of passion, and poor Fanny had no
skill in this divine art beyond a song for her baby. He gave
her lascivious engravings; she burst into tears at the sight
of them, and would not be moved by his diabolical laugh and
derision to look a second time at them. The natural dissimilarity
and opposition between them came soon to be felt
by both. He was ready to cast her—no matter where—as a
burden from him; and she had already turned back, to walk
through the fires her sin had kindled, to the bosom of infinite
love and compassion.
Stafford's vices were expensive, and like most idle, dissipated
young men of fortune, he soon found his expenditures
exceeding his income. He had no thought of sacrificing his
vices to his wants, but only the objects of them. He had
of late felt his mode of life to be so burdensome, that he resolved
on reforming it, or rather, on reducing his pleasures,
by marrying a young woman whose large fortunes would be a
relief to him, whose beauty and elegance would adorn his establishment,
and whose character would fill up certain awkward
blanks in his own.
A person so gifted, and attainable, as he flattered himself,
was a leading woman of fashion in the city, and she had received
his first demonstrations with unequivocal indications
of favour.
He deliberately determined to leave Fanny as he had
done others, to shift for herself, quieting his conscience—it
was easily pacified—with the reflection that he left her rather
better off than he found her! As if simplicity, contentment,
and a good name, were marketable articles, to be trafficked
away for a few jewels, laces and silks, and a few months of
luxurious life.
| CHAPTER I. A New England tale, and Miscellanies | |