WHERE COULD SHE GO?
A young girl, pale and fragile almost as a shadow, came through the
side-gate of Bellevue. She hesitated a moment, looked up and down the
street, and then turning toward the water, moved languidly to an angle
of the wharf, and placing a little bundle at her feet, glanced drearily
down upon the tide as it rushed in and out against the timbers.
It was near sunset, and the March winds, that blew raw and cold from the
river, seemed to chill her through and through, for her sweet, pale
features became pinched, while she sat there lost in gloomy thought, and
a tinge of purple crept around her mouth, which trembled visibly either
from chilliness or coming tears. Her eyes seemed fascinated by the
water, so dark and turbid that it appeared to hold some mysterious
secret of repose in its depths; and once or twice she murmured, “Why
not? why not?” in a voice of the most touching misery. Then she relapsed
into silence again, broken only by a shiver when the wind rushed sharply
over her.
“Where can I go?” she exclaimed at last, her voice breaking forth in a
cry of anguish. “To _his_ mother—she will turn me away with insults, as
she did before. To my aunt?”
She uttered the name with a shudder, and shrunk down beneath her shawl,
as if some blow had been threatened, and relapsed into dreary silence
again.
At last she arose with an effort, and casting a regretful look back upon
the water, as if she longed to sleep beneath it, moved up the street
again, her frail figure wavering to and fro, like the stalk of a flower,
beneath the light weight of her bundle. Thus she disappeared in one of
the cross streets that intersect the Second Avenue.
We find her again, just at nightfall, panting with fatigue, before a
palace-building in the vicinity of Murry Hill. There she stood, grasping
the iron fence with her hands, afraid to advance, and physically unable
to retreat. It was a pitiful sight, that fair young creature, trembling
beneath the weight of her little bundle, and kept only from falling to
the earth by the hold she had clenched on the cold iron.
The brown front of the building loomed above her with forbidding
grandeur. The sculptured lions, crouching on the stone pedestals each
side the broad entrance-steps, seemed frowning her away. But there she
stood, breathless and wavering, afraid to let go her hold lest she
should fall to the earth.
The gas had just been kindled within the house, and a flood of light
came pouring through the stained sashes of a bay-window, and fell like a
gorgeous rain on the pavement, illuminating, as it were, her misery.
The young woman fell back, and slowly retreated from the light,
clutching at the iron fence at every step.
“Oh that I could get away!—oh that I had not come! I am sinking—they
will find me senseless on the pavement. Oh, my God, give me strength—one
moment’s strength.”
There was strong mental energy in that frail creature, and the desperate
cry with which she appealed to God seemed to win down life from heaven.
She unclenched her hand from the railing, paused an instant, casting her
eyes first to the basement entrance and then to the sunken arch guarded
by the lions, and walked on with something of firmness, nay, even of
pride in the movement.
“No, not there,” she said, passing the basement, and mounting the flight
of steps hurriedly, as one who felt her strength giving way, “I am her
sister’s child, and will enter here.”
She rang the bell and waited, struggling firmly against her weakness,
and sustained by that moral courage which is the only true bravery of
womanhood.
“I have done no wrong,” she thought, “why should this terror come over
me? If poverty and helplessness were a sin, then I might tremble, but
not now—not for this—not because I have left a pauper’s bed for her
stone palace.”
The door opened, and a dainty mulatto boy, with livery buttons, and a
white handkerchief visible at a side-pocket, presented himself.
“Mrs. Judson? couldn’t say; better go down to the basement. That’s the
sort of thing for serving-people, and folks that come with bundles;
couldn’t take it upon me to answer a single question here,” he said.
The girl advanced quietly into the hall, and sat down, with the light of
a tinted lantern overhead falling directly upon her.
In spite of her little straw bonnet and plaided blanket-shawl, the boy
discovered something in her air, and the pure loveliness of her
features, that checked his rising impertinence.
“Go tell your mistress that Miss —— no, that her niece wishes to speak
with her.”
The boy paused to take a survey of her person, and went down the hall,
smiling till his white teeth shone again.
“Perhaps it’s a lie, and perhaps it isn’t—who knows,” he muttered,
threading his way up the flight of stairs set aside for menials. “But
won’t she catch it for claiming relationship, true or not?—well, I
shouldn’t wonder.”
The greatest trial that can be inflicted on an ardent nature is that of
_waiting_. When the mulatto came back, he found the young person who had
excited his curiosity, with a flush in her cheeks, eagerly watching his
approach.
“You may go up to Mrs. Judson’s room,” he said, and muttering to
himself, he added, “and much good it’ll do you.”
The girl was about to mount the richly carpeted steps that swept down
between those curving rosewood balusters like a sloping bed of moss
mottled with forest-flowers, but the mulatto interfered.
“This way, miss, this way; Mrs. Judson ordered me to be particular and
bring you up these stairs.”
The girl withdrew her foot from the soft carpet and followed the boy in
silence. The atmosphere of the house affected her feeble form
pleasantly, and she longed to lie down and sleep before seeing her aunt.
The carpets under her feet were so luxuriously pliant, it seemed
impossible for her to move. The air was bland and fragrant; as she
pressed forward, the breath of flowers from an open balcony swept over
her, and it seemed, after the atmosphere of Bellevue, like a gale from
paradise.
Oh! if she could but remain quietly where she was all night, without
seeing any one, with that soft carpet to sleep on, the breath of those
flowers floating over her. But no, the mulatto kept turning to be sure
that she was close behind; for he seemed rather suspicious of her
frequent pauses. At last he threw open a chamber-door.
“This is Mrs. Judson’s room, miss.” The boy made a feint as if going
back in great haste, but returned in a moment, entered the chamber,
gliding along the wall, and peeped through the partially closed door,
with all the craft of his race, determined to ascertain by the first
words whether the fair girl with her humble garments was really the
niece of his mistress or not.
The room which this strange girl entered was a bed-chamber, fitted up in
a style of stately grandeur which contrasted strongly with the mournful
look and modest garb of the young girl, who should have claimed a free
welcome there.
A spacious bed stood on one side; high up over the pillows was a light
gilded canopy of grape-leaves and fruit, through which the crimson
drapery, that swept to the ground on each side, gleamed like flashes of
the sunset through a golden cloud. The same rich crimson broke through
the open network of rosewood that formed the foot-board and side-pieces
of the bedstead; and to this was contrasted the pure whiteness of richly
laced pillows, and a counterpane that seemed of quilted snow. On a
crimson lounge, severely magnificent, for all this grandeur had an air
of rigid coldness hanging over it, Mrs. Judson was seated, with a slight
frown upon her forehead, and her keen, black eyes fixed upon the door.
The girl saw this, as she paused a moment in the shadow before entering;
and she saw also, with a sinking heart, that the frown deepened as she
made her appearance; while a quick pressure of the lip added to the
displeasure of that haughty face.
Mrs. Judson had evidently been disturbed while completing her evening
toilet, for though her purple brocade fell in precise and voluminous
richness adown her tall figure, her headdress of purple velvet and
golden acorns hung upon a branch of gilded spray attached to the frame
of her toilet-glass, while several diamond ornaments glittered upon the
marble underneath, and an undersleeve of Brussels point had evidently
fallen from her hand upon the carpet before she assumed her present
imposing attitude.
“Well,” said the lady, with frigid dignity, “you have come again, I see;
what is the trouble now?”
“I have no home—I am in want,” said the poor girl, in a quiet, sad
voice. “You are my mother’s sister—sister to an angel in heaven—and in
her name I ask you to have pity on me!”
“No home? no home? Were you not bound to Madame De Marke? How could I,
or any one, provide for you better? You astonish me by these
complaints!”
“Madame De Marke gave up her house almost a year ago,” answered the
girl, with a degree of gentle firmness that imparted dignity even to her
tone of supplication; “she is very rich; but no beggar in the street
lives more meanly.”
“Well, but you were bound to her still; she is compelled by law to give
you a home.”
The girl smiled a wan smile, but with an expression of some humor in it.
“Madame De Marke’s home! Do you know what it is, aunt? A room in the
loft of one of her own buildings. The lowest servant in your house would
turn from it in disdain; and for food, why, aunt, this rich woman lives
absolutely the life of a beggar, and in the market asks, for her cat,
refuse scraps of meat, which she devours herself. That was the home and
food which Madame De Marke gave to me, after she left her house. Instead
of being lady’s maid, I was compelled to sweep out the offices and scrub
the stores for her tenants.”
“Indeed!” exclaimed the lady, smoothing the trimming of her sleeve.
“Madame De Marke forgot that _I_ bound you to her, it seems to me.”
“No, madam, she did not forget it; and because you had abandoned me
because of her knowledge that I was friendless, she made me a drudge. I
was not strong; the work broke me down. Oh! aunt, I was heart-sick, and
ready to fall down on my knees with gratitude for the least breath of
kindness, and—and——”
“Well,” said the aunt, looking coldly up, as the poor girl paused, her
eyes full of tears, her lips quivering.
“There was one noble person who _was_ kind to me, so kind that I could
not help loving him, aunt.” Catharine said this in a low voice, and
trembling from head to foot.
“_Him!_” cried the aunt, half-starting from her lounge, “him, a man!
Shameless girl! how dare you talk of a love like that in my presence?”
“Aunt, I have not another creature to love on earth.”
“And who told you—who compelled you to love at all? It is an indecorous
word.”
“And yet ‘God is love!’” answered Catharine, lifting her soft eyes,
misty with tearfulness, while her lips unconsciously pronounced the
quotation.
“Don’t quote Scripture here in this infamous fashion; don’t talk to me
of love. What right had you to love any one but Madame De Marke herself?
Thank heaven! I never found it necessary to love any one.”
“But _I_,” answered the girl, with the most profound humility, “_I_ had
no other happiness. I never knew what it was to love myself, till he
told me how dear, how beautiful I was to him.”
The aunt arose and stood up. Her dress fell in rustling folds to the
floor, her black eyes flashed fiercely.
“How dare you—infamous girl, how dare you? Leave the house!”
“No, aunt, I am not infamous. He loved me, and I, oh! how truly I loved
him. We were married, aunt; as honorably married as you and my uncle
were. Do not call me infamous; I will not endure it.”
The aunt sat down again, wondering at the strange beauty that lighted up
that young face, almost touched by the passionate speech, for she could
understand all the pride that was in it, though pathos and appeal were
lost upon her.
“Speak a little more moderately, if you have anything to say; and if you
are truly married, tell me how, and when. I’m sure it would give me
great pleasure to have you well settled and off my hands. Who is the man
you are talking about?”
“Young De Marke,” answered the girl, drawing close to her aunt, and
speaking in a whisper; “but do not let any one know; he said I might
tell you, but no person else.”
“Catharine Lacy, this is a shameful falsehood, or young De Marke is base
beyond anything I ever heard of. Wretched girl, I have quite as good
proof as you can bring that you are not his only victim. But where is
this man now?”
“He is away. I have not seen him since last fall. He does not know how
miserable I am. Aunt, dear aunt, have pity on me; I have just come from
the hospital—my poor baby is dead and buried.”
“Hospital! what hospital? Not Bellevue? not the Almshouse?”
“Yes, the Almshouse, aunt. Where else could I go? _He_ was away, and if
he wrote, I never got the letter. His mother turned me out-of-doors,
with bitter language and coarse abuse. I was afraid to come here.”
“But if you were married, how dare Madame De Marke treat you in this
way?”
“She pretended not to believe me—though I am sure he told her of our
marriage with his own lips. She was angry because I would not let her
keep my certificate, and said it was all made up.”
“Where did this marriage take place?” inquired the aunt, quickly.
“In Philadelphia. He went there when Madame was away from home a week.
She did not know of it.”
“Let me read the certificate,” said the aunt, extending her hand; “if
that is genuine, I will see that the rights of my relative are
respected, let what will have gone before. This young man must inherit a
fine property, De Marke was very rich. The certificate of marriage,
girl. What are you waiting for?”
The poor girl began to weep bitterly, and, wringing her hands, fell upon
her knees before that haughty woman.
“Oh! aunt, aunt, don’t ask me; I have lost it—I have lost it!”