Ann S. Stephens

“ The old people exchanged glances. Both were pale, but a look of gentle commiseration settled upon their features.
“This is no idle question, Catharine,” said the old man, gently, but with a quiver of the voice, “you would not wound us so from mere curiosity.”
“Not for my life. I must know all this hidden history, to see the path that I ought to tread. I am weak and blinded—alone, with no one but God to help me. Tell me the history of your daughter, tell me why the name of De Marke makes you tremble. Is it fatal to others as it has been to me?” ”

“ Catharine brightened with the idea. A band of benevolent women, with abundant means and gentle compassion, ready for poor wanderers like her. It promised to be an oasis in the desert of her life. In every one of those women she imagined an angel of mercy ready to receive and comfort her.
It seemed a great blessing that so much benevolence could be concentrated at one point, harvesting year after year for the good of humanity. Yes! she would apply to this society; if destitution and misery was a claim, where could a better right than hers be found? ”

“ How was it that this beautiful woman, Elsie Ford, Elsie,—no, no, she would not speak or think the name that would wound the beautiful young creature, for the world she wouldn’t do it,—she who knew so well what pain was, and how sharp a pang the sound of that name had been before her own heart became so clouded and heavy. No, she would be very kind to the poor young creature; it would be a pity to drive that smile away, and see those red lips growing pale and blue with such lurid words as she could utter, but would not. ”

“ Directly Madame De Marke closed the casket, and thrust it into the depths of a soiled pocket, that hung between her ragged calico dress and a repulsive under-shirt made from the fragments of an old patch-work bed-quilt. Then she clasped the iron bars over her box, and going down upon her hands and knees again, thrust it away out of sight, reappearing feet foremost, while her face, as it looked out from under her arm, had the aspect of a laughing hyena, so visible were the workings of some new-born diabolical craft upon it.
“Now what is she about? what is it makes her smile so?” ”

“ Mary Margaret gave the number of her children, finishing with a burst of maternal eulogium on the health and beauty of the youngest-born.
“Then,” she continued, “there is the little charity baby, just as good as my own, that’s got a face like an angel’s, and eats like a hathen. Arrah, but that’s the boy for ye, with his soft, sunshiny hair, and eyes like the bluest robin’s egg; to say nothing of the old man, who wins mate and drink for us all, when there’s work to be had.” ”

“ Elsie was unusually excited; a dozen times that day she swept through the halls in search of Catharine, first in one dress, then in another, each more fantastic than the rest, yet all arranged with artistic effect, as if she had been intending to sit for a portrait. Other inmates were on the alert, and it was wonderful to see how much of absolute reason mingled with their fantasies. One young creature, fancying that she was Queen Elizabeth and about to hold court, was in great tribulation, because her crown had been torn to pieces and the jewels lost. ”

“ Is it a De Marke you speak of?”
“Yes, mother,” said the widow, rising to her feet, but with the child’s hand in hers. “It is of a De Marke that I speak; appearances may be against him, but I will not believe him so wicked till the proofs are beyond contradiction. Louisa may be dead; Catharine Lacy may be dead; but though their last acts and their last words accuse him, I will not believe them. Something of trouble and sorrow there may be, but nothing that should bring contempt upon an honorable man!”
Mrs. Judson stood motionless, towering upright like a pillar of marble. ”

“ Catharine was clothed in strange beauty that evening. A painful wildness glittered in her eyes, her lips were like marble, and her cheeks looked cold as snow. She had no bonnet on, but a scarlet shawl had been hastily flung over her dress of black silk, a costume that contrasted vividly with the snow of Mrs. Oakley’s bridal apparel.
“What is this? Why have you come in a black dress, and with that mournful face?” she questioned, while Mrs. Judson drew proudly up, first in resentful astonishment, then with a slow dawning of memory, that left her pale and aghast, but still haughtily upright. ”

“ With all her gentleness and delicacy, Catharine had become precocious in many things. She had many firm and settled thoughts beyond her years. Suffering had done a holy work with that young soul, and while the dews of first youth were on her nature, she was rich in pure womanly principle. She felt that it was wrong to remain a burden on her poor friends. Yet when she thought of going, a pang smote her, and it seemed as if her young heart must be uprooted afresh before she could give the child up. ”

“ Youth and hope and earnest feeling gave to his nature the energy of middle age.
He went down those flights of winding stairs, with every nerve of his body awake to the joy singing at his heart. What cared he that his child was born in an Almshouse? Was it not his child, was not Catharine alive? Was he not young, and strong to work, to suffer, to be her protector, body and soul forever? For he could imagine no time when his love for the sweet girl would cease to be immortal. ”

“ She was pleading for permission to kill the woman as if she had been a serpent.
Catharine came up, terrified but firm. Her clear blue eyes were fixed steadily on those of the maniac, her slender form erected itself into command.
“Come,” she said, “leave this woman; she belongs to God.”
“Why don’t he kill her then?” hissed the maniac, striving to evade Catharine’s glance.
270“Because he is, perhaps, punishing her with life.”
“But it would be so pleasant to kill her!” pleaded Elsie, “and I will. Nobody gives me any happiness. I will take it for myself.” ”

“ I flung out the folds of my shawl and stepped forth upon the air, sinking downward, but holding out the red wings of my drapery as the angels do when they descend from heaven—but they would not hold me up, and I fell upon the grass, which bathed my face and hands with its silver dew. Still I heard the cry of my child afar off, and mocked by a miserable whippoorwill, that taunted his agonies of fear with long, mournful wails, that pained me to the soul. I have heard that whining bird before; he loves to mock at me and mine. ”

“ Mary Margaret held her breath, and tears stole to her eyes as she stood up, trembling beneath the weight of her infant—for she was still very feeble—and looked toward the pale face of the dead.
“And the poor, young crathur in the cot alongside, what has happened to her?” inquired Mary Margaret.
“She’s as good as dead, don’t you hear how she raves? Mutter—mutter, she hasn’t strength for more: all the doctors on earth couldn’t save her.”
“And her baby?” asked Mary Margaret, filled with compassion, and hugging her own child fondly to her bosom. ”

“ No wonder, poor inexperienced creatures, like Catharine, sometimes become reckless and sin against that society which taunts them onward by cruel and undeserved reproach.
What Catharine might have done, after that night of fearful trial, if left wholly to herself, I cannot say; but God puts no human soul upon this earth to leave it altogether subject to evil influences. When humanity fails, then comes a sweet, low voice from the throne of God, and those who listen grow calm and strong, as flowers brighten beneath the soft dew which visits them in the night-time. ”

“ He awoke with a faint struggle, and starting up, began to rub his eyes with both hands.
“Edward—Eddie!” exclaimed the widow.
The child scrambled up from the cushions as if to run toward her.
“Mamma, my own mamma!”
Elsie’s face darkened like a thunder-cloud; her pale lips began to quiver, and she made a dart forward with her hand.
The child shrunk back on the cushions, frightened.
Catharine bent over Elsie, smiling.
“You see the child does not call her mother!”
“Don’t he? No; that is true; she is only the nurse. Take him away, he must have a bath, you know; nurse, you will see to it.” ”

“ All at once as he stood listening, a whippoorwill began his night-plaint in the hickory-grove. The boy began to tremble as he heard it, the sound was so near a human lament, that it filled him alike with affright and compassion. Some one was in pain; he was sure that wicked robbers were hurting some lady down in the woods. What could he do? Where was his mother that she did not help the poor creature, whose lament fell so plaintively on the night?
The child called aloud for his mother, who had gone wildly in an opposite direction in search of him; and Catharine had blindly followed. ”

“ Let that Great Being make the comparison, who looks upon us both as we stand: you, a rich, proud woman, turning your sister’s child with insult into the street; I, a poor, friendless girl, feeble from sickness, tortured with anxiety, without shelter, and without a human being to care for me—let God make the comparison between you and me. Let him judge us two!”
The young woman turned, as she spoke, and walked from the room, leaving her aunt standing like a statue in the clear gas-light. The passion of that young creature had paralyzed her. ”

“ But as I have said, Catharine was no heroine, only a beautiful, high-minded and gentle-hearted woman full of feminine compassion, not only for the miseries, but for the weaknesses of mankind. She never thought of her husband so much as having sinned against herself, individually, as of the wrong done to his own manliness.
People who have never loved can talk of that implacable dignity so regal in the proud woman; but those who love know well that affection is stronger than pride, nay, stronger than death itself. ”

“ MARY MARGARET DILLON. The poor young creature was aroused at length from the chill torpor that had seized upon her; but she awoke to a hot flush of fever, raving with pathetic wildness of a thousand things which no one comprehended—of a husband that had left her in the depths of trouble, of the child that she fancied herself clasping, and of the nurse who seemed forever and ever over her bed, as she persisted in thinking, like a great, black statue that had chilled her heart to death beneath its shadow. ”

“ Catharine turned to him. “It is I. Tell me, I beseech you, what have the De Markes done, that the name should drive the blood from your faces? Why did the portrait of a De Marke hang up in your library? How, and why has it disappeared? I ask these things, because it is impossible to live in such darkness. My own life, and all its hopes are at stake. What brought that wicked old woman here? I must know, or become mad by the side of our poor Elsie!” ”

“ At length, in the month of June, just when the roses were in their richest flush of beauty, the workmen seemed to have completed their task. No more sounds came on the wind to remind the family that human life was so near. The glaring freshness of unpainted wood was toned down into a warm, gray tint, scarcely visible beyond the tall elms and fruit thickets that covered the intervening grounds. From any effect it had upon Catharine’s life, the house might never have existed; it was a pretty object in the distance, nothing more; and yet it always gave her a faint pang when she looked that way. ”

“ This gentle frame of mind had come upon Elsie after Catharine had given up so much of her own life in her behalf. It is not remarkable that a young creature who had been herself friendless, came to love this woman, almost as if she had been the child in years that she had become in mind. Elsie returned this affection in her own wild way, giving through her heart the love and obedience which her brain could neither understand nor control. ”

“ Thus, from her long residence in the Insane Asylum, Catharine came with her patient to make a new home on the Island.
It was like Paradise, that serene abode, full of quietness, and surrounded with the fresh luxuriance of spring. After the hushed turmoil of an insane asylum, where the atmosphere was heavy with suppressed groans, and wild cries sometimes broke the midnight stillness, the repose of this old house was indeed Heaven.
The old people, with their refined simplicity, so still and almost caressing in every word and movement, were in gentle harmony with the place. ”

“ Oakley, wringing her delicate hands in an abandon of grief. “How dare he? How could he enter my house? How could I—oh! weak, weak wretch that I am!”
“Of whom do you speak?” said Catharine, pale as death, and shivering till her teeth chattered.
“Of De Marke,—of that boy’s father!”
“And what of him?” The voice in which this question was asked had grown so husky, that the listener could scarcely hear it.
“Listen to me,” was the answer. “I have no human being, except yourself, from whom it is possible for me to seek advice: and my position is a terrible one. ”

“ The poor woman uttered a faint moan, and the gleam of her hungry eyes was quenched in tears of cruel disappointment.
“Oh! this is too wicked—you will not be so fiendish, Jane Kelly. If a mad dog, who had bitten you, were as hungry as I am, you would give him something to eat!”
“Yes, of course I should. One cannot hate a brute beast enough to starve it to death. Besides, they do not lock each other up for false swearing. Oh, yes! I would give a piece of this steak to a hungry dog—or a hungry cat either. Here, Peg, Peg, come here, Peg!” ”

“ Human beings, however depraved, must have something to love, and when creatures of their own kind are driven away from them by repulsion, it often happens that the feelings, which find nothing to rest upon in humanity, turn to domestic animals, or anything that can give back love for love without the power to search or condemn.
Thus it was that this miserable old creature loved the unseemly animal, that stood so greedily turning its eye from the fragments of food to the haggard face looking downward with a grim smile of approval, as she saw of what self-control her favorite was capable. ”

“ She had the best right to her, so I buried my face in Elsie’s mantle, and felt comforted by something she had touched.
“I tell you, child, no human heart dreams how much it can love, till sorrow falls on the object it clings to. That child was sacred to us as an angel then—dearer, a thousand times dearer, because they had attempted to crush her with disgrace. Her pale cheek, her tremulous lips, all the traces of wrong and anguish upon her person, were claims upon our tenderness. There was a sort of worship in our grief and in our joy. ”

“ But for this keen intelligence, she might have been taken for a common vagrant, on whom some kind old woman had bestowed charity from her hoard of old-fashioned garments. Instantly a cry broke from Catharine also, while the good old couple looked at each other in dismay.
No one spoke, but all remained paralyzed, white as death and gazing at each other. Catharine, usually so self-possessed, shook like an aspen, and Elsie crept to her side, seizing upon her garments for protection, a sure sign that her insanity, for a moment put off, had returned again, more fiercely than ever. ”

“ Barr took the pen from Catharine’s hand, walked to a window, and became very thoughtful for some time. She was a widow with sufficient means for an humble independent support. They had been ample once; but she had given them with a free hand year after year, till but little was left. Her life had been full of benevolence, but she was very lonely, notwithstanding. What if she adopted this young person! The thought became more and more pleasant. She, who had been all her life childless, might gain the benefits and happiness of motherhood by uniting this young creature’s destiny with her own. ”

“ Who gives you authority to tear out the secrets from a human soul, before you will extend help to a fellow-creature who only asks the means of earning her own bread in humble peace? What if I were all that you think me, a weak, betrayed, or, if you will, a wicked young creature—am I the less an object of charity, or of kindness? Have I ceased to be a human being with human wants? ”

“ The large gas lanterns on each side the steps flooded the pavement with their radiance. The soft hum of voices came faintly through draperies of lace and curtains of satin, and there seemed to be a good deal of commotion in the basement, quite enough to justify the idea of a large party gathered socially.
All this troubled Jane Kelly, who stood by the stone railing with the velvet prayer-book under her shawl, doubtful whether she had not better put off her errand to another day, than risk a denial at the door. Jane was not a woman to hesitate over small difficulties. ”