TURNED OUT-OF-DOORS.
Mrs. Judson drew back from her niece, gathering the folds of her dress
around her, as if she feared those quivering little hands might impart
shame to her person.
“Oh!” she said, with bitter emphasis, “lost, is it? When? where?”
“I don’t know. It was in my bosom when I was taken ill; but after that I
remember nothing about it.”
“Indeed!” exclaimed the aunt, and the unpleasant gleam broke fiercely
into her eyes; “and as you lost the certificate,” she added, “what was
the clergyman’s name who married you?”
“I don’t remember. He told me that the paper was right, and I never
troubled myself to read it. But _he_ knows, of course.”
“Oh, of course, _he_ knows,” echoed the proud woman, disdainfully. “But
the place? In what place was this wonderful marriage performed, did you
say?”
“In Philadelphia.”
“Well, the street—in what street did this clergyman, with the forgotten
name, live?”
“I never knew,” answered the weeping girl; “but, oh! aunt, do not doubt
me; for, as Heaven is my witness, we were married.”
“Oh, yes! the proofs are conclusive,” answered the lady, with bitter
irony.
“Aunt, aunt, do believe me!” cried the girl, moving forward on her
knees, and holding up her clasped hands. “_He_ will tell you how true it
is; _he_ will get another certificate. He cannot be away much longer;
let me live with you till he comes.”
“When he comes to own you, in my presence, you shall have shelter here.
Till then, never enter my door again. Go now, and live, if you can, on
this falsehood and its shamelessness.”
“Oh! aunt, aunt!” cried the wretched girl, “I am his wife—I am his wife!
Look at me; do I blush? Do my eyes sink? Aunt, I am innocent of wrong as
you are, and as truly a wedded wife as you ever were!”
It was painful to see the cold, stern pride which rose and swelled in
that woman’s bosom, lifting her form haughtily upward, and quenching the
color from her lips on which the last cruel words of that interview were
forming.
“Leave the room; leave my house forever!” she cried, pointing to the
door. “Go, hide your infamy, and tell those romances among your proper
associates.”
“I shall neither disgrace nor use any name with which you have been
connected,” she said in a voice so steady and low that it fell upon the
ear with singular impressiveness. “In my misfortunes you will find no
record which can wound your pride or bring disgrace on the name of my
mother. I have no permission to use the name of my husband; but he will
return, and standing by my side call on you to retract the insults you
have heaped upon me. Until then I will perish in the streets, rather
than look you in the face or darken your door.
“Oh, aunt!” she continued with a burst of feeling, “you have been very
cruel to me, terribly cruel in your doubts, for I am honorably married
and as honestly loved as you ever were.”
Mrs. Judson drew herself back with haughty uprightness, and pointed her
finger at the girl.
“You compare yourself with me!” she exclaimed,—“with _me_?”
“No,” answered the girl, standing before her aunt, pale and proud as
herself, but with a pride that had a relenting dignity in it, that
sprung from the womanliness of her nature so fearfully outraged,—“no,
aunt, I do not compare myself with you,—not for a moment. 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. She, so unused to contradiction,
so imperial in her household, had she lived to be thus braved? What
right had that miserable wanderer to call upon the God that _she_
professed to worship? She would not have been more astonished had a
pauper knelt beside her on the velvet-clad steps from which she monthly
communed, in the most fashionable church of the city.
Thus astounded and overwhelmed, the woman stood, till the quick
footsteps of her niece were lost upon the stairs; then, with a deep
breath, she sat down to compose herself, and even had recourse to an
enamelled vinagrette that lay upon the toilet-table, so much had her
nerves been shaken. All this had the desired effect, and in a few
moments the lady was arranging the golden acorns over her dark tresses,
gathering them in clusters where the silver threads lay thickest, and
stood longer than usual, regarding herself in the mirror with a sort of
wonder that any one had dared to address such words to her.
Directly a waiting-woman entered in answer to a touch that she had given
to the bell. “Rachel, there was a girl came here just now; did you see
her? is she gone?”
“No, madam, she fainted in the front-hall—fell down like a dead creature
before any one had time to show her out the other way.”
“And where is she now?”
“Lying there white as snow, and as cold as ice; the girls have been
doing their best, but they cannot bring her to.”
One gentle impulse did arise in the woman’s bosom, as she heard this.
She seized the flask that had just soothed her own nerves, and moved a
step toward the door; but a cold after-thought drew her back. “The girl
might speak, might proclaim her relationship before the household if she
were brought to consciousness under that roof. Nay, so little did she
seem to be ashamed of the past, the girl might proclaim her pauper
condition before the assembled menials.” She laid down the flask and
turned to the glass, a little paler than before, but with marvellous
self-possession.
“Send for a carriage, and have her carried to the nearest dispensary;
there should be plenty of doctors there; it is their duty to see to such
persons.”
“But she is insensible, madam,” persisted the waiting-woman, who had
some feeling.
“That is nothing,” was the reply; “we cannot leave a strange girl lying
in the hall.”
The woman went out muttering to herself, and with angry moisture in her
eyes.
The lady seated herself once more, and began to arrange the lace of her
undersleeves with considerable nervousness. Something of human feeling
was at work in her bosom, and from time to time she arose and looked out
of the window, always with increasing agitation. At last, a carriage
drove up; and grasping the silken curtain hard with her hand, she half
dragged it over her, afraid to be seen watching. She saw, through the
dim light, a group of persons carrying a prostrate form down the steps
leading to her own door. The carriage-lamps flashed upon a pale face as
it was lifted upward. The woman caught one glance and drew back with a
thrill of dismay. The face gleamed upward so deathly in its whiteness
that she crept from the window, and cowered down in her sofa-cushions,
tormented with the vague fear that the dead was appealing to heaven
against her cruelty. For the moment, that proud woman had the sensation
of a murderess.
She shook off this uncomfortable sensation, with a great effort walking
the floor up and down, and muttering to herself,—
“Bellevue—Bellevue. Another from that place! have they all turned
paupers? Thank heaven, however, this girl is gone. I could not have
endured another scene like that. I did right; no man or woman can blame
me for refusing to be disgraced. How those De Markes haunt me!”