Ay, now I am in Arden; the more foolI; when I was at home I was in a better place; butTravelers must be content.As You Like It.
[Entered, according to the Act of Congress, in the year 1846, by J. Fenimore Cooper, in the Clerk's Office of theDistrict Court of the United States, for the Northern District of New York.]
The trusting heart's repose, the paradiseOf home, with all its loves, doth fate allowThe crown of glory unto woman's brow.Mrs. Hemans.
It has again become necessary to advance the time; and we shall take the occasion thus offered to make a few explanations touching certain events which have been passed over without notice.
The reason why Capt. Mull did not chase the yawl of the brig in the Poughkeepsie herself, was the necessity of waiting for his own boats that were endeavoring to regain the sloop-of-war. It would not have done to abandon them, inasmuch as the men were so much exhausted by the pull to windward, that when they reached the vessel all were relieved from duty for the rest of the day. As soon, however, as the other boats were hoisted in, or run up, the ship filled away, stood out of the passage and ran down to join the cutter of Wallace, which was endeavoring to keep its position, as much as possible, by making short tacks under close-reefed luggs.
Spike had been received on board the sloop-of-war, sent into her sick bay, and put under the care of the surgeon and his assistants. From the first, these gentlemen pronounced the hurt mortal. The wounded man was insensible most of the time, until the ship had beat up and gone into Key West, where he was transferred to the regular hospital, as has already been mentioned.
The wreckers went out the moment the news of the calamity of the Swash reached their ears. Some went in quest of the doubloons of the schooner, and others to pick up any thing valuable that might be discovered in the neighborhood of the stranded brig. It may be mentioned here, that not much was ever obtained from the brigantine, with the exception of a few spars, the sails, and a little rigging; but, in the end, the schooner was raised, by means of the chain Spike had placed around her, the cabin was ransacked, and the doubloons were recovered. As there was no one to claim the money, it was quietly divided among the conscientious citizens present at its revisiting "the glimpses of the moon," making gold plenty.
The doubloons in the yawl would have been lost but for the sagacity of Mulford. He too well knew the character of Spike to believe he would quit the brig without taking the doubloons with him. Acquainted with the boat, he examined the little locker in the stern-sheets, and found the two bags, one of which was probably the lawful property of Capt. Spike, while the other, in truth, belonged to the Mexican government. The last contained the most gold, but the first amounted to a sum that our young mate knew to be very considerable. Rose had made him acquainted with the sex of Jack Tier since their own marriage; and he at once saw that the claims to the gold in question, of this uncouth wife, who was so soon to be a widow, might prove to be as good in law, as they unquestionably were in morals. On representing the facts of the case to Capt. Mull and the legal functionaries at Key West, it was determined to relinquish this money to the heirs of Spike, as, indeed, they must have done under process, there being no other claimant. These doubloons, however, did not amount to the full price of the flour and powder that composed the cargo of the Swash. The cargo had been purchased with Mexican funds; and all that Spike or his heirs could claim, was the high freight for which he had undertaken the delicate office of transporting those forbidden articles, contraband of war, to the Dry Tortugas.
Mulford by this time was high in the confidence and esteem of all on board the Poughkeepsie. He had frankly explained his whole connection with Spike, not even attempting to conceal the reluctance he had felt to betray the brig after he had fully ascertained the fact of his commander's treason. The manly gentlemen with whom he was now brought in contact entered into his feelings, and admitted that it was an office no one could desire, to turn against the craft in which he sailed. It is true, they could not and would not be traitors, but Mulford had stopped far short of this; and the distinction between such a character and that of an informer was wide enough to satisfy all their scruples.
Then Rose had the greatest success with the gentlemen of the Poughkeepsie. Her youth, beauty, and modesty, told largely in her favor; and the simple,womanly affection she unconsciously betrayed in behalf of Harry, touched the heart of every observer. When the intelligence of her aunt's fate reached her, the sorrow she manifested was so profound and natural, that every one sympathized with her grief. Nor would she be satisfied unless Mulford would consent to go in search of the bodies. The latter knew the hopelessness of such an excursion, but he could not refuse to comply. He was absent on that melancholy duty, therefore, at the moment of the scene related in our last chapter, and did not return until after that which we are now about to lay before the reader. Mrs. Budd, Biddy, and all of those who perished after the yawl got clear of the reef, were drowned in deep water, and no more was ever seen of any of them; or, if wreckers did pass them, they did not stop to bury the dead. It was different, however, with those who were first sacrificed to Spike's selfishness. They were drowned on the reef, and Harry did actually recover the bodies of the Señor Montefalderon, and of Josh, the steward. They had washed upon a rock that is bare at low water. He took them both to the Dry Tortugas, and had them interred along with the other dead at that place. Don Juan was placed side by side with his unfortunate country-man, the master of his equally unfortunate schooner.
While Harry was absent and thus employed, Rose wept much and prayed more. She would have felt herself almost alone in the world, but for the youth to whom she had so recently, less than a week before, plighted her faith in wedlock. That new tie, it is true, was of sufficient importance to counteract many of the ordinary feelings of her situation; and she now turned to it as the one which absorbed most of the future duties of her life. Still she missed the kindness, the solicitude, even the weaknesses of her aunt; and the terrible manner in which Mrs. Budd had perished, made her shudder with horror whenever she thought of it. Poor Biddy, too, came in for her share of the regrets. This faithful creature, who had been in the relict's service ever since Rose's infancy, had become endeared to her, in spite of her uncouth manners and confused ideas, by the warmth of her heart, and the singular truth of her feelings. Biddy, of all her family, had come alone to America, leaving behind her not only brothers and sisters, but parents living. Each year did she remit to the last a moiety of her earnings, and many a half-dollar that had come from Rose's pretty little hand, had been converted into gold, and forwarded on the same pious errand to the green island of her nativity. Ireland, unhappy country! at this moment what are not the dire necessities of thy poor! Here, from the midst of abundance, in a land that God has blessed in its productions far beyond the limits of human wants, a land in which famine was never known, do we at this moment hear thy groans, and listen to tales of suffering that to us seem almost incredible. In the midst of these chilling narratives, our eyes fall on an appeal to the English nation, that appears in what it is the fashion of some to term the first journal of Europe(!) in behalf of thy suffering people. A worthy appeal to the charity of England seldom fails; but it seems to us that one sentiment of this might have been altered, if not spared. The English are asked to be "forgetfulof the past," and to come forward to the relief of their suffering fellow-subjects. We should have written "mindfulof the past," in its stead. We say this in charity, as well as in truth. We come of English blood, and if we claim to share in all the ancient renown of that warlike and enlightened people, we are equally bound to share in the reproaches that original misgovernment has inflicted on thee. In this latter sense, then, thou hast a right to our sympathies, and they are not withheld.
As has been already said, we now advance the time eight-and-forty hours, and again transfer the scene to that room in the hospital which was occupied by Spike. The approaches of death, during the interval just named, had been slow but certain. The surgeons had announced that the wounded man could not possibly survive the coming night; and he himself had been made sensible that his end was near. It is scarcely necessary to add that Stephen Spike, conscious of his vigor and strength, in command of his brig, and bent on the pursuits of worldly gains, or of personal gratification, was a very different person from him who now lay stretched on his pallet in the hospital of Key West, a dying man. By the side of his bed still sat his strange nurse, less peculiar in appearance, however, than when last seen by the reader.
Rose Budd had been ministering to the ungainly externals of Jack Tier. She now wore a cap, thus concealing the short, gray bristles of hair, and lending to her countenance a little of that softness which is a requisite of female character. Some attention had also been paid to the rest of her attire; and Jack was, altogether, less repulsive in her exterior than when, unaided, she had attempted to resume the proper garb of her sex. Use and association, too, had contributed a little to revive her woman's nature, if we may so express it, and she had begun, in particular, to feel the sort of interest in her patient which we all come in time to entertain toward any object of our especial care. We do not mean that Jack had absolutely ever ceased to love her husband; strange as it may seem, such had not literally been the case; on the contrary, her interest in him and in his welfare had never ceased, even while she saw his vices and detested his crimes; but all we wish to say here is, that she was getting, in addition to the long-enduring feelings of a wife, some of the interest of a nurse.
During the whole time which had elapsed between Jack's revealing her true character, and the moment of which we are now writing, Spike had not once spoken to his wife. Often had she caught his eyes intently riveted on her, when he would turn them away, as she feared, in distaste; and once or twice he groaned deeply, more like a man who suffered mental than bodily pain. Still the patient did not speak once in all the time mentioned. We should be representing poor Jack as possessing more philosophy, or less feeling, than the truth would warrant, were we to say she was not hurt at this conduct inher husband. On the contrary, she felt it deeply; and more than once it had so far subdued her pride, as to cause her bitterly to weep. This shedding of tears, however, was of service to Jack in one sense, for it had the effect of renewing old impressions, and in a certain way, of reviving the nature of her sex within her—a nature which had been sadly weakened by her past life.
But the hour had at length come when this long and painful silence was to be broken. Jack and Rose were alone with the patient, when the last again spoke to his wife.
"Molly—poor Molly!" said the dying man, his voice continuing full and deep to the last, "what a sad time you must have had of it after I did you that wrong!"
"It is hard upon a woman, Stephen, to turn her out, helpless, on a cold and selfish world," answered Jack, simply, much too honest to affect reserve she did not feel.
"It was hard, indeed; may God forgive me for it, as I hopeyoudo, Molly."
No answer was made to this appeal; and the invalid looked anxiously at his wife. The last sat at her work, which had now got to be less awkward to her, with her eyes bent on her needle, and her countenance rigid, and, so far as the eye could discern, her feelings unmoved.
"Your husband speaks to you, Jack Tier," said Rose, pointedly.
"Mayyoursnever have occasion to speak to you, Rose Budd, in the same way," was the solemn answer. "I do not flatter myself that I ever was as comely as you, or that yonder poor dying wretch was a Harry Mulford in his youth; but we were young and happy, and respected once, and loved each other; yet you see what its all come to!"
Rose was silenced, though she had too much tenderness in behalf of her own youthful and manly bridegroom to dread a fate similar to that which had overtaken poor Jack. Spike now seemed disposed to say something, and she went to the side of his bed, followed by her companion, who kept a little in the back-ground, as if unwilling to let the emotion she really felt be seen, and, perhaps, conscious that her ungainly appearance did not aid her in recovering the lost affections of her husband.
"I have been a very wicked man, I fear," said Spike, earnestly.
"There are none without sin," answered Rose. "Place your reliance on the mediation of the Son of God, and sins even far deeper than yours may be pardoned."
The captain stared at the beautiful speaker, but self-indulgence, the incessant pursuit of worldly and selfish objects for forty years, and the habits of a life into which the thought of God and the dread hereafter never entered, had encased his spiritual being in a sort of brazen armor, through which no ordinary blow of conscience could penetrate. Still he had fearful glimpses of recent events, and his soul, hanging as it was over the abyss of eternity, was troubled.
"What has become of your aunt?" half whispered Spike—"my old captain's widow. She ought to be here; and Don Wan Montezuma—where is he?"
Rose turned aside to conceal her tears—but no one answered the questions of the dying man. Then a gleaming of childhood shot into the recollection of Spike, and, clasping his hands, he tried to pray. But, like others who have lived without any communication with their Creator through long lives of apathy to his existence and laws, thinking only of the present time, and daily, hourly sacrificing principles and duty to the narrow interests of the moment, he now found how hard it is to renew communications with a being who has been so long neglected. The fault lay in himself, however, for a gracious ear was open, even over the death-bed of Stephen Spike, could that rude spirit only bring itself to ask for mercy in earnestness and truth. As his companions saw his struggles, they left him for a few minutes to his own thoughts.
"Molly," Spike at length uttered, in a faint tone, the voice of one conscious of being very near his end, "I hope you will forgive me, Molly. I know you must have had a hard, hard time of it."
"It is hard for a woman to unsex herself, Stephen; to throw off her very natur', as it might be, and to turn man."
"It has changed you sadly—even your speech is altered. Once your voice was soft and womanish—more like that of Rose Budd's than it is now."
"I speak as them speak among whom I've been forced to live. The forecastle and steward's pantry, Stephen Spike, are poor schools to send women to l'arn language in."
"Try and forget it all, poor Molly! Say to me, so that I can hear you, 'I forget and forgive, Stephen.' I am afraid God will not pardon my sins, which begin to seem dreadful to me, if my own wife refuse to forget and forgive, on my dying bed."
Jack was much mollified by this appeal. Her interest in her offending husband had never been entirely extinguished. She had remembered him, and often with woman's kindness, in all her wanderings and sufferings, as the preceding parts of our narrative must show; and though resentment had been mingled with the grief and mortification she felt at finding how much he still submitted to Rose's superior charms, in a breast as really generous and humane as that of Jack Tier's, such a feeling was not likely to endure in the midst of a scene like that she was now called to witness. The muscles of her countenance twitched, the hard-looking, tanned face began to lose its sternness, and every way she appeared like one profoundly disturbed.
"Turn to Him whose goodness and marcy may sarve you, Stephen," she said, in a milder and more feminine tone than she had used now for years, making her more like herself than either her husband or Rose had seen her since the commencement of the late voyage; "my sayin' that I forget and forgive cannot help a man on his death-bed."
"It will settle my mind, Molly, and leave me freer to turn my thoughts to God."
Jack was much affected; more by the countenance and manner of the sufferer, perhaps, than by his words. She drew nearer to the side of her husband's pallet, knelt, took his hands, and said solemnly,
"Stephen Spike, from the bottom of my heart, Idoforgive you; and I shall pray to God that he will pardon your sins as freely and more marcifully than I now pardon all, and try to forget all that you have done to me."
Spike clasped his hands, and again he tried to pray; but the habits of a whole life are not to be thrown off at will; and he who endeavors to regain, in his extremity, the moments that have been lost, will find, in bitter reality, that he has been heaping mountains on his own soul, by the mere practice of sin, which were never laid there by the original fall of his race. Jack, however, had disburthened her spirit of a load that had long oppressed it, and, burying her face in the rug, she wept.
"I wish, Molly," said the dying man, several minutes later, "I wish I had never seen the brig. Until I got that craft, no thought of wronging human being ever crossed my mind."
"It was the Father of Lies that tempts all to do evil, Stephen, and not the brig which caused the sins."
"I wish I could live a year longer—onlyone year; that is not much to ask for a man who is not yet sixty."
"It is hopeless, poor Stephen. The surgeons say you cannot live one day."
Spike groaned; for the past, blended fearfully with the future, gleamed on his conscience with a brightness that appalled him. And what is that future, which is to make us happy or miserable through an endless vista of time? Is it not composed of an existence, in which conscience, released from the delusions and weaknesses of the body, sees all in its true colors, appreciates all, and punishes all? Such an existence would make every man the keeper of the record of his own transgressions, even to the most minute exactness. It would of itself mete out perfect justice, since the sin would be seen amid its accompanying facts, every aggravating or extenuating circumstance. Each man would be strictly punished according to his talents. As no one is without sin, it makes the necessity of an atonement indispensable, and, in its most rigid interpretation, it exhibits the truth of the scheme of salvation in the clearest colors. The soul, or conscience, that can admit the necessary degree of faith in that atonement, and in admitting,feelsits efficacy, throws the burthen of its own transgressions away, and remains forever in the condition of its original existence, pure, and consequently happy.
We do not presume to lay down a creed on this mighty and mysterious matter, in which all have so deep an interest, and concerning which so very small a portion of the human race think much, or think with any clearness when it does become the subject of their passing thoughts at all. We too well know our own ignorance to venture on dogmas which it has probably been intended that the mind of man should not yet grapple with and comprehend. To return to our subject.
Stephen Spike was now made to feel the incubus-load, which perseverance in sin heaps on the breast of the reckless offender. What was the most grievous of all, his power to shake off this dead weight was diminished in precisely the same proportion as the burthen was increased, the moral force of every man lessening in a very just ratio to the magnitude of his delinquencies. Bitterly did this deep offender struggle with his conscience, and little did his half-unsexed wife know how to console or aid him. Jack had been superficially instructed in the dogmas of her faith, in childhood and youth, as most persons are instructed in what are termed Christian communities—had been made to learn the Catechism, the Lord's Prayer, and the Creed—and had been left to set up for herself on this small capital, in the great concern of human existence, on her marriage and entrance on the active business of life. When the manner in which she had passed the last twenty years is remembered, no one can be surprised to learn that Jack was of little assistance to her husband in his extremity. Rose made an effort to administer hope and consolation, but the terrible nature of the struggle she witnessed, induced her to send for the chaplain of the Poughkeepsie. This divine prayed with the dying man; but even he, in the last moments of the sufferer, was little more than a passive but shocked witness of remorse, suspended over the abyss of eternity in hopeless dread. We shall not enter into the details of the revolting scene, but simply add that curses, blasphemy, tremulous cries for mercy, agonized entreaties to be advised, and sullen defiance, were all strangely and fearfully blended. In the midst of one of these revolting paroxysms Spike breathed his last. A few hours later his body was interred in the sands of the shore. It may be well to say in this place, that the hurricane of 1846, which is known to have occurred only a few months later, swept off the frail covering and that the body was washed away to leave its bones among the wrecks and relics of the Florida Reef.
Mulford did not return from his fruitless expedition in quest of the remains of Mrs. Budd, until after the death and interment of Spike. As nothing remained to be done at Key West, he and Rose accompanied by Jack Tier, took passage for Charleston in the first convenient vessel that offered. Two days before they sailed, the Poughkeepsie went out to cruise in the gulf, agreeably to her general orders. The evening previously Capt. Mull, Wallace, and the chaplain, passed with the bridegroom and bride, when the matter of the doubloons found in the boat was discussed. It was agreed that Jack Tier should have them; and into her hands the bag was now placed. On this occasion, to oblige the officers, Jack went into a narrative of all she had seen and suffered, from the moment when abandoned by her late husband down to that when she found him again. It was a strange account, and one filled with surprising adventures. In most of the vessels inwhich she had served, Jack had acted in the steward's department, though she had frequently done duty as a fore-mast hand. In strength and skill she admitted that she had often failed; but in courage, never. Having been given reason to think her husband was reduced to serving in a vessel of war, she had shipped on board a frigate bound to the Mediterranean, and had actually made a whole cruise as a ward-room boy on that station. While thus employed she had met with two of the gentlemen present; Capt. Mull and Mr. Wallace. The former was then first lieutenant of the frigate, and the latter a passed-midshipman; and in these capacities both had been well known to her. As the name she then bore was the same as that under which she now "hailed," these officers were soon made to recollect her, though Jack was no longer the light, trim-built lad he had then appeared to be. Neither of the gentlemen named had made the whole cruise in the ship, but each had been promoted and transferred to another craft, after being Jack's shipmate rather more than a year. This information greatly facilitated the affair of the doubloons.
From Charleston the travelers came north by railroad. Harry made several stops by the way, in order to divert the thoughts of his beautiful young bride from dwelling too much on the fate of her aunt. He knew that home would revive all these recollections painfully, and wished to put off the hour of their return, until time had a little weakened Rose's regrets. For this reason, he passed a whole week in Washington, though it was a season of the year that the place is not in much request. Still, Washington is scarce a town, at any season. It is much the fashion to deride the American capital, and to treat it as a place of very humble performance with very sounding pretensions. Certainly, Washington has very few of the peculiarities of a great European capital, but few as these are, they are more than belong to any other place in this country. We now allude to thedistinctivecharacteristics of a capital, and not to a mere concentration of houses and shops within a given space. In this last respect, Washington is much behind fifty other American towns, even while it is the only place in the whole republic which possesses specimens of architecture, on a scale approaching that of the higher classes of the edifices of the old world. It is totally deficient in churches, and theatres, and markets; or those it does possess are, in an architectural sense, not at all above the level of village or country-town pretensions, but one or two of its national edifices do approach the magnificence and grandeur of the old world. The new Treasury Buildings are unquestionably, on the score of size, embellishments and finish,theAmerican edifice that comes nearest to first class architecture on the other side of the Atlantic. The Capitol comes next, though it can scarce be ranked, relatively, as high. As for the White House, it is every way sufficient for its purposes and the institutions; and now that its grounds are finished, and the shrubbery and trees begin to tell, one sees about it something that is not unworthy of its high uses and origin. Those grounds, which so long lay a reproach to the national taste and liberality, are now fast becoming beautiful, are already exceedingly pretty, and give to a structure that is destined to become historical, having already associated with it the names of Jefferson, Madison, Jackson, and Quincy Adams, together with theci polloiof the later Presidents, anentouragethat is suitable to its past recollections and its present purposes. They are not quite on a level with the parks of London, it is true; or even with the Tuileries, or Luxembourg, or the Boboli, or the Villa Reale, or fifty more grounds and gardens, of a similar nature, that might be mentioned; but, seen in the spring and early summer, they adorn the building they surround, and lend to the whole neighborhood a character of high civilization, that no other place in America can show, in precisely the same form, or to the same extent.
This much have we said on the subject of the White House and its precincts, because we took occasion, in a former work, to berate the narrow-minded parsimony which left the grounds of the White House in a condition that was discreditable to the republic. How far our philippic may have hastened the improvements which have been made, is more than we shall pretend to say, but having made the former strictures, we are happy to have an occasion to say (though nearly twenty years have intervened between the expressions of the two opinions) that they are no longer merited.
And here we will add another word, and that on a subject that is not sufficiently pressed on the attention of a people, who, by position, are unavoidably provincial. We invite those whose gorges rise at any stricture on any thing American, and who fancy it is enough to belong to the great republic to be great in itself, to place themselves in front of the State Department, as it now stands, and to examine its dimensions, material and form with critical eyes; then to look along the adjacent Treasury Buildings, to fancy them completed, by a junction with new edifices of a similar construction to contain the department of state; next to fancy similar works completed for the two opposite departments; after which, to compare the past and present with the future as thus finished, and remember how recent has been the partial improvement which even now exists. If this examination and comparison do not show, directly to the sense of sight, how much there was and is to criticise, as put in contrast with other countries, we shall give up the individuals in question, as too deeply dyed in the provincial wool ever to be whitened. The present Trinity church, New York, certainly not more than a third class European church, if as much, compared with its village-like predecessor, may supply a practical homily of the same degree of usefulness. There may be those among us, however, who fancy it patriotism to maintain that the old Treasury Buildings were quite equal to the new, and of these intense Americans we cry their mercy!
Rose felt keenly on reaching her late aunt's very neat dwelling in Fourteenth Street, New York. Butthe manly tenderness of Mulford was a great support to her, and a little time brought her to think of that weak-minded, but well-meaning and affectionate relative, with gentle regret, rather than with grief. Among the connections of her young husband, she found several females of a class in life certainly equal to her own, and somewhat superior to the latter in education and habits. As for Harry, he very gladly passed the season with his beautiful bride, though a fine ship was laid down for him, by means of Rose's fortune, now much increased by her aunt's death, and he was absent in Europe when his son was born; an event that occurred only two months since.
The Swash, and the shipment of gunpowder, were thought of no more in the good town of Manhattan. This great emporium—we beg pardon, this greatcommercialemporium—has a trick of forgetting; condensing all interests into those of the present moment. It is much addicted to believing that which never had an existence, and of overlooking that which is occurring directlyunder its nose. So marked is this tendency to forgetfulness, we should not be surprised to hear some of the Manhattanese pretend that our legend is nothing but a fiction, and deny the existence of the Molly, Capt. Spike, and even of Biddy Noon. But we know them too well to mind what they say, and shall go on and finish our narrative in our own way, just as if there were no such raven-throated commentators at all.
Jack Tier, still known by that name, lives in the family of Capt. Mulford. She is fast losing the tan on her face and hands, and every day is improving in appearance. She now habitually wears her proper attire, and is dropping gradually into the feelings and habits of her sex. She never can become what she once was, any more than the blackamoor can become white, or the leopard change his spots; but she is no longer revolting. She has left off chewing and smoking, having found a refuge in snuff. Her hair is permitted to grow, and is already turned up with a comb, though constantly concealed beneath a cap. The heart of Jack, alone, seems unaltered. The strange, tiger-like affection that she bore for Spike, during twenty years of abandonment, has disappeared in regrets for his end. It is succeeded by a most sincere attachment for Rose, in which the little boy, since his appearance on the scene, is becoming a large participator. This child Jack is beginning to love intensely; and the doubloons, well invested, placing her above the feeling of dependence, she is likely to end her life, once so errant and disturbed, in tranquillity and a home-like happiness.
She stands before the mirror—she is fair,And soft the light within her beaming eyes,But unshed tears are slowly gathering there,Like passing clouds that float o'er summer skies;Her cheek is wan, as blanched by thoughts of pain,And on her snowy brow a shadow sleeps:Are such surpassing gifts bestowed in vain?—The pale, sad beauty turns aside and weeps!Long, long in anguish flows the burning tide—Dark storms of feeling sweep across her breast—In loneliness there needs no mask of pride—To nerve the soul, and veil the heart's unrest,Amid the crowd her glances brightly beam,Her smiles with undimmed lustre sweetly shine:The haunting visions of life's fevered dreamThe cold and careless seek not to divine.Night after night unheeded glides away'Mid mirth and music, flattery's whispered tone,Her dreary penance—ever to be gay,Yet longing, oh! how oft—to be alone;But when all other hearts seek needful rest,And heavy sleep the saddest eyelids close,Her dreams are those the wretched only know,As memory o'er her soul its shadow's throw.Friends that had shared her girlhood's happier day,And forms now mingling with the dust arise,The early loved recalled with pensive tears,Though once in pride half scorned and lightly prized;Fair pictured scenes long vanished from her sight,Soft tones of songs and voices loved of yore.And words of tenderness and looks of light,And fresh young hopes that bloom for her no more.But this one hour has crowned in deep despairThe many sorrows of life's galling chain,Yet mid those sighs that rend her aching soulThe heart's wild struggle is not felt in vain,For she has turned to Him whose smile can cheerThe darkened mind and hopes lost light reveal,And learns to feel 'mid trembling doubt and fear—That HE whose power can wound is strong to heal.While loftier thoughts to nobler purpose givenThan those long wasted amid fashion's glare,And deep resolves the future shall be fraughtWith holy deeds, her earnest musings share—Though in the dance her step no more may glide,The glittering circle miss its chosen queen,Around the vacant place a closing tideWill leave no record where her form was seen.But where the widow's tear-drop may be dried,And where the orphan wanders sad and lone,Where poverty its grieving head may hide,Will breathe the music of her voice's tone;And if her face was blest with beauty rare'Mid gilded sighs and worldly vanity,When heavenly peace has left its impress thereIts loveliness from earthly stain is free.
She stands before the mirror—she is fair,And soft the light within her beaming eyes,But unshed tears are slowly gathering there,Like passing clouds that float o'er summer skies;Her cheek is wan, as blanched by thoughts of pain,And on her snowy brow a shadow sleeps:Are such surpassing gifts bestowed in vain?—The pale, sad beauty turns aside and weeps!
Long, long in anguish flows the burning tide—Dark storms of feeling sweep across her breast—In loneliness there needs no mask of pride—To nerve the soul, and veil the heart's unrest,Amid the crowd her glances brightly beam,Her smiles with undimmed lustre sweetly shine:The haunting visions of life's fevered dreamThe cold and careless seek not to divine.
Night after night unheeded glides away'Mid mirth and music, flattery's whispered tone,Her dreary penance—ever to be gay,Yet longing, oh! how oft—to be alone;But when all other hearts seek needful rest,And heavy sleep the saddest eyelids close,Her dreams are those the wretched only know,As memory o'er her soul its shadow's throw.
Friends that had shared her girlhood's happier day,And forms now mingling with the dust arise,The early loved recalled with pensive tears,Though once in pride half scorned and lightly prized;Fair pictured scenes long vanished from her sight,Soft tones of songs and voices loved of yore.And words of tenderness and looks of light,And fresh young hopes that bloom for her no more.
But this one hour has crowned in deep despairThe many sorrows of life's galling chain,Yet mid those sighs that rend her aching soulThe heart's wild struggle is not felt in vain,For she has turned to Him whose smile can cheerThe darkened mind and hopes lost light reveal,And learns to feel 'mid trembling doubt and fear—That HE whose power can wound is strong to heal.
While loftier thoughts to nobler purpose givenThan those long wasted amid fashion's glare,And deep resolves the future shall be fraughtWith holy deeds, her earnest musings share—Though in the dance her step no more may glide,The glittering circle miss its chosen queen,Around the vacant place a closing tideWill leave no record where her form was seen.
But where the widow's tear-drop may be dried,And where the orphan wanders sad and lone,Where poverty its grieving head may hide,Will breathe the music of her voice's tone;And if her face was blest with beauty rare'Mid gilded sighs and worldly vanity,When heavenly peace has left its impress thereIts loveliness from earthly stain is free.
I have said that the Abbé G—— had a room in some dark corner of a hotel in the Rue de Seine, or Rue de la Harpe—which of the two it was I really forget. At any rate, the hotel was very old, and the street out of which I used to step into its ill-paved, triangular court, was very narrow, and very dirty.
At the end of the court, farthest from the heavy gateway, was the box of theconcierge, who was a brisk little shoemaker, forever bethwacking his lap-stone. If I remember right, the hammer of the littlecordonniermade the only sound I used to hear in the court; for though the house was full of lodgers, I never saw two of them together, and never heard them talking across the court from the upper windows, even in mid-summer.
At this distance of time, I do not think it would be possible for me to describe accurately all the windings of the corridor which led to the abbé's door. I remember that the first part was damp and low, and after it I used to mount a crazy stone staircase, and at the top passed through a passage that opened on one side upon a narrow court; then there was a little wicket of iron, which, when it turned, tinkled a bell. Sometimes the abbé would hear the bell, and open his door down at the end of the corridor; and sometimes a lodger, who occupied a room looking into the last-mentioned court, would draw, slyly, a corner of his curtain, and peep out, to see who was passing. Sometimes I would loiter myself to look down upon the lower windows in the court, or to glance up at story resting above story, and at the peaked roof, and dot of a loop-hole at the top.
A single small door opened into the court, and occasionally an old woman, or bustling, shabbily-dressed man would shuffle across the pavement; the faces at the windows seemed altogether sordid and every-day faces, so that I came to regard the quarters of the abbé, notwithstanding the quaint-fashioned windows and dim stairway, and suspicious quiet, a very matter of fact, and so, very uninteresting neighborhood.
As the abbé and myself passed out sometimes together through the open-sided corridor, I would point into the court, and ask who lived in the little room at the top.
"Ah,mon cher, I do not know," the abbé would say.
Or, "who lives in the corner, with the queer narrow window and the striped curtain?"
"I cannot tell you,mon cher."
Or, "whose is the little window with so many broken panes, and an old placard pinned against the frame?"
"Ah, who knows! perhaps achiffonier, or a shopman, or perhaps—" and the abbé lifted his finger, and shook his head expressively, and continued,
"It is a strange world we live in,mon ami."
What could the abbé mean? I looked up at the window again; it was small, and the panes were set in rough metal casing; it was high up on the fourth or fifth floor. I could see nothing through but the dirty yellow placard.
"Is it in the same hotel with you?" said I.
"Ma foi, I do not know."
I tried to picture satisfactorily to my own mind the appearance of the chamber to which the little window belonged. Small it must be, I knew, for in that quarter few were large even upon the first floor, and looking upon the street. Dirty, too, it should surely be, and comfortless, and tenanted by misery, or poverty, or sin, or, very likely, all together. Possibly some miserly old wretch lived there, needing only a little light to count up his hoard, and caring little for any intrusive wind, if it did not blow away his treasure. I fancied I could see him running over the tale of his coin by a feeble rushlight—squat, perhaps, on the dirty tile-floor—then locking his box, and placing it carefully under the pillow of his straw pallet, then tip-toeing to the door to examine again the fastening, then carefully extinguishing the taper, and after, dropping into an anxious, fevered sleep.
I even lingered very late at the abbé's room, to see if I could detect the old man; but there was never any light to be seen.
Perhaps it was the home of some poor gentleman who had seen better days, and whom necessity obliged to deny himself the poor luxury of a centime light. Possibly it was a little shopman, as the abbé had suggested, struggling with fortune—not scrupulous in honesty, and shunning observation; or it might be (who could tell) a sleek-faced villain, stealing about in the dusk, and far into the night, making the dim chamber his home only when more honest lodgers were astir in the city.
All sorts of conjectures came thronging on me, and I cast my eyes up, day after day, at the little window, hoping some change of appearance might give plausibility to some one of my fancies.
Week after week, however, the corridor wore its old quietude; the striped curtain in the wing window, and the yellow placard in the suspicious window at the top, still kept their places with provoking tenacity; and I could never, with all my art, seduce the good-natured abbé into any bugbear story about the occupant of the dim chamber on the court.
I dare say I might soon have neglected to look up at all, had I not observed one day, after my glances had grown very careless, and almost involuntary, a rich lace veil hanging against the same little window where had hung the placard. There was no mistaking it—the veil was of the richest Mechlin lace. I knew very well that no lady of elegance could occupy such apartment, or, indeed, was to be found (I mean no disrespect to the abbé) in that quarter of Paris. The window plainly belonged to some thievish den, and the lace formed a portion of the spoils. I began to be distrustful of late visits to the abbé's quarters, and full of the notion of thievish eyes looking out from the strange window—I used half to tremble as I passed along the corridor. I told the abbé of the veil, and hinted my suspicions.
"It is nothing," said he, "princes have lived in worse corners."
"And yet you are not curious to know more?"
"Mon cher, it is dangerous to be too curious,je suis un prêtre."
Some days after—it was on a winter's morning, when a little snow had fallen—I chanced to glance over into the court on which the mysterious window looked, and saw the beautiful foot-mark of a lady's slipper. It was scarce longer than my hand—too narrow and delicately formed for a child's foot, least of all the foot of such children as belonged to the Rue de Seine. I could not but associate the foot-track—so small, so beautiful, and so unlocked for in such scene—with the veil I had seen at the window.
Through all of my morning's lesson—I was then readingLa Grammaire des Grammaires—I could think of nothing but the pretty foot-track in the snow. No such foot, I was quite sure, could be seen in the dirty Rue de Seine—not even the shop-girls of the Rue de la Paix, or the tidiest Llorettes could boast of one so pretty.
I asked the abbé to walk with me; and as we passed the corridor, I threw my eye carelessly into the court, as if it were only my first observation, and said as quietly as possible, "Mon cher abbé, the snow tells tales this morning."
The abbé looked curiously down upon the foot-marks, ran his eye rapidly over the windows, turned to me, shook his head expressively, and said, as he glanced down again, "O'etait un fort joli petit soulier." (It was a very pretty little shoe.)
"Whose was it?" said I.
"Mon cher, I do not know."
I still kept up, day after day, my watch upon the window. It shortly supplied me with an important link in the chain of observations. I saw lying within the glass, against which the veil yet hung, nothing more nor less than the same little shoe, I thoroughly believed, which had made the delicate foot-marks on the snow in the court. Not a prettier shoe could be seen on the Boulevards, and scarce one so small. It would have been very strange to see such delicate articles of dress at any hotels of the neighborhood, and stranger still to find them in the humblest window of so dismal a court.
There was a mystery about the matter that perplexed me. Every one knows, who knows any thing about Paris, that that part of the city along the Rue de Seine, between the Rues Jacob and Bussy, and though very reputable in its way, is yet no place for delicate ladies, not even as a promenade, and much less as a residence. It is assigned over, as well by common consent as custom, to medical students, shop-men, attorneys, physicians, priests, lodging-house keepers, market-men, sub-officials, shop-women, second-class milliners, and grisettes.
Indeed a delicate lady—and such only, I was sure, could have left the foot-print in the court, and be the owner of the shoe I had seen—could hardly pass through the Rue de Seine without drawing the eyes of all the lodgers on the street. Dried up hag faces would have met the apparition with a leer; the porters would have turned to stare, and she would have had very suspicious followers.
I loitered about the outer court of the hotel, under pretence of waiting for the abbé, in hope of seeing something which would throw light upon the mysterious occupant of the chamber. But the comers and goers were all of the most unobtrusive and ordinary cast. I ventured to question the concierge concerning his lodgers. They were allbons gens.
"Were there any ladies?"
The little shoemaker lifted his hammer a moment while he eyed me—"But one, monsieur; the wife of the old tobacconist at the corner."
I asked about the windows in the little court, beside which I passed—did they belong to his hotel?
He did not think it.
I prevailed on him to step with me a moment into the corridor, and pointed out to him the window which had drawn so much of my attention. I asked if he knew the hotel to which it belonged?
He did not. It might be the next, or the next after, or down the little alley branching out of the Rue de Seine. I asked him of the character of the neighborhood.
It was a good neighborhood, he said—a very reputable neighborhood. He believed the lodgers of the quarter to be allhonnêtes gens.
I took occasion to loiter about the courts of the adjoining houses, frequently passing the opposite side of the way, with my eye all the time upon the entrance gates. The lodgers seemed to be even inferior to those who passed in at the court where the abbé resided.
One individual alone had attracted my attention. He was a tall, pale man, in the decline of life, dressed in a sort of half-uniform; he walked with a stooping gait, and seemed to me (perhaps it was a mere fancy) as much weighed down by care as years. Several times I had seen him going in or coming out of the court that opened two doors above the abbé's. He was unlike most inhabitants of the neighborhood in both dress and air.
I ventured to step up to the brisk little concierge in the court one day, and ask who was the tall gentleman with the tarnished lace who had just entered?
"It isun Monsieur Very," said the concierge.
"And poor Monsieur Very lives alone?" said I.
"How should I know, monsieur?"
"He always walks alone," said I.
"It is true," said the concierge.
"He has children, perhaps?" said I.
"Très probable," said the concierge.
He was little disposed to be communicative, yet I determined to make another trial.
"You have very pretty lodgers," said I.
"Pardon, monsieur," said he, "I do not understand you."
"Pretty—very pretty lodgers," said I.
"You are facetious, monsieur," said the concierge, smiling.
"Not at all," said I; "have I not seen (a sad lie) a very pretty face at one of the windows on the back court?"
"I do not think it, monsieur."
"And then there are no female lodgers?"
"Pardon, monsieur—there are several."
Here the little concierge was interrupted by a lodger, and I could ask no more.
I still, however, kept up my scrutiny of the attic window—observed closely every female foot that glanced about the neighboring courts, and remitted sadly my attention to theGrammaire des Grammaires, in the quiet room of my demure friend the abbé.
Sometimes, in my fancies, the object of wonder was a young maiden of thenoblesse, who, for imputed family crimes, had hid herself in so humble a quarter. Sometimes I pictured the occupant of the chamber as the suffering daughter of some miserly parent, with trace of noble blood—filial, yet dependent in her degradation. Sometimes I imagined her the daughter of shame—the beloved of a doating, and too late repentant mother—shunning the face of a world that had seduced her with its smiles, and that now made smiles the executioners of its punishment.
In short, form what fancies I would, I could not but feel a most extraordinary interest in clearing the mystery that seemed to me to hang about the little window in the court. Unconnected with the foot-track and the slipper, the window on the court would have been nothing more than half the courts to be seen in the old quarters of Paris. Or, indeed, the delicate foot-prints, and articles of female luxury would have hardly caught attention, much less sustained it with so feverish curiosity, in any one of the courts opening upon the Rue de Rivoli, or Rue Lafitte.
The concierge next door, I was persuaded, knew more of his inmates than he cared to say. I still, as I have said, glanced my eye, each morning, along the upper angles of the court, and sidled now and then by the gate of the neighboring hotel; but the window wore its usual look—there was the veil, and the placard, and the disjointed, rattling sash; and in the neighboring court was, sometimes, the tall gentleman picking his way carefully over the stones, and sometimes the stumpy figure of a waiting woman.
Some ten days after my chat with the neighbor concierge, I reached the hotel of the abbé an hour earlier than my usual morning visit, and took the occasion to reconnoitre the adjoining courts. The concierge, my acquaintance of the week before, was busy with a bowl of coffee and a huge roll; and, just as I had sidled up to his box for a word with him, who should brush past in great apparent haste, but the pale, thin gentleman who had before attracted my observation.
I determined to step around at once into the open corridor of the abbé's hotel, and see if I could detect any movement—so slight even as the opening or shutting of a door in the chamber of the narrow window.
It was earlier by a half hour at the least than I had ever been in the corridor before. The court was quiet; my eye ran to the little window—at a glance I saw it had not its usual appearance. A light cambric handkerchief, with lace border, was pinned across it from side to side; and just at the moment that I began to scrutinize what seemed to me like a coronet stitched on the corner, a couple of delicate fingers reached over the hem, removed the fastening, first on one side, then on the other—the handkerchief was gone.
It was the work of an instant, and evidently done in haste; but I still caught a glimpse of a delicate female figure—sleeve hanging loose about the arm a short way below the elbow, hair sweeping, half curled and half carelessly over a cheek white as her dress, and an expression, so far as I could judge, of deep sadness.
I shrunk back into a shadow of the corridor, and waited; but there was no more stir at the window. The yellow placard dangled by one fastening; a bit of the veil was visible, nothing else, to tell me of the character of the inmate.
I told the abbé what I had seen.
The abbé closed his grammar, (keeping his thumb at the place,) shook his head slowly from side to side, smiled, lifted his finger in playful menace, and—went on with his lesson.
"Who can it be?" said I.
"Indeed, I cannot tell you,mon ami," said the abbé, laying down his book with a look of despair.
The morning after I was again in the corridor a full half hour before my usual time, but the window wore its usual air. The next day, again I was an hour beforehand, and the abbé had not put off his priest robe, in which he goes to morning mass; still there was no handkerchief at the little window—no wavy mesh of hair—no taper arm—no shadowy form moving in the dim chamber.
I had arranged to leave for the south in a few days, and was more than ever anxious for some explication of the mystery. A single further mode only occurred to me; I would go to the concierge next door, and under pretence of looking for rooms, would have him conduct me through his hotel.
It had dismal corridors, and steeper stairways than even the abbé's. I was careless about the second and the third floors; and it was not till we had mounted a half dozen crazy pair of stairs, that I began to scrutinize narrowly the doors, and sometimes to ask if this or that chamber was occupied. I made my way always to the windows of the rooms shown me, in hope of seeing the little court I knew so well, and the abbé's half-open corridor, and yet in half fear, that I might, after all, be looking from the very window about which hung so perplexing mystery.
It was long before I caught sight of my old point of observation in the neighboring corridor. The room was small, and was covered with singular ancient hangings, with a concealed door, which the concierge opened into a charming little cabinet. How many more concealed doors there might have been I do not know. I put my head out the window, and looked down in search of the strange casement; it was not below. Then I looked to one side—there was the long window with a striped curtain. I looked to the other side—another long window. I looked up—there at length it was, over my left shoulder. I could see plainly the yellow placard, and heard it flapping the casement.
I asked the concierge if he had no rooms above.
"Oui, monsieur—a single one; but it is too high for monsieur."
"Let me see," said I—and we mounted a miserably dim staircase. There were three doors; the concierge opened the nearest to the landing.
"La voici, monsieur." It was a sad little affair, and looked out by just such a loop-hole as was the object of my curiosity, upon a court I did not know.
"It will never do," said I, as I came out of the room. "But what is here?" continued I, brushing up to the next door.
The concierge caught me by the arm, and drew me back. Then he raised himself forward on tip-toe, and whispered, "C'nt le Monsieur Very."
I knew from its position it must have been the little casement which looked upon the corridor. There was another door opposite; I brushed up to this, and was again drawn back by the concierge.
"Who is here?" said I.
"La Mademoiselle Marie," said the concierge, and put his finger on his lip.
"Is she young?" said I, following the concierge down the stairway.
"Oui, monsieur."
"And pretty?"
"Oui, monsieur."
"I have never seen her," said I.
"Ma foi, that is not strange, monsieur."
"And she has been here—?"
"A month."
"Perhaps she is rich," said I.
"Mon Dieu!" said the concierge, turning round to look at me, "and live in such a chamber?"
"But she dresses richly," said I.
"Eh bien!you have seen her, then!" exclaimed briskly the little concierge.
By this time we were in the court again. My search had only stimulated my curiosity tenfold more. I half fancied the concierge began to suspect my inquiries. Yet I determined to venture a single further one. It was just as I was carelessly leaving the court—"Mais,la mademoiselle, is, perhaps, the daughter of Monsieur Very, eh, monsieur?"
"Ma foi, I cannot tell you, monsieur," said the little concierge—and he closed his door.
I told the abbé of my search. He smiled, and shook his head.
I described to him the person of Monsieur Very, and told him he must keep his eye upon him, and, if possible, clear up the strange mystery of the window in the court.
The abbé shook his finger doubtingly, yet gave me a half promise.
Three days only were left to me; I cast up anxious glances each morning of my stay, but there was nothing but the placard and a bit of the veil to be seen—the little shoe was gone. My last evening I passed with the abbé, and came away late. I stopped five minutes on the corridor, just outside the wicket; the moon was shining bright, and the stars were out, but the window at the top of the court was dark—all dark.