THE TRAIL OF THE SERPENT.
No more brilliant house than that of Mrs. Nelson could be found in the
city of New York. This woman had flashed upon society like a meteor. Her
dress--her style so original that they were taken to be foreign. Her
quick wit and sumptuous beauty won hosts of admirers. Her carriage was
the most splendid and nobly appointed of any that appeared in the
fashionable thoroughfares. Every thing rich and unique that a prodigal
taste could imagine or money obtain, was to be found in her home. All
the costly adornments which her husband had prepared for her, with so
much solicitude, were crowded into side rooms and entrance halls, while
she filled the principal apartments after a fancy entirely her own. The
great joy of her life was in spending money, and in parading the result
before the world. To defy emulation and excite envy was her crowning
desire. Yet, with all this prodigality, she was never generous, never
felt the sweet impulses of charity, or knew the gentle bliss of
self-sacrifice.
It sometimes, nay, often happens, that those who rise from poverty to
sudden wealth, are more hard-hearted than persons born to affluence.
This may arise from a reluctance to review painful or humiliating
associations; or it may be that, with some characters, poverty has a
hardening process, and, when lifted above it, they feel a sort of
pleasure in seeing others suffer as they have done. This is a bad phase
of human nature--but who can say that it seldom presents itself in
society.
Mrs. Nelson was one of these women. She would not, knowingly, have
perpetrated a crime, or done a palpable injustice; but her whole life
was made up of trivial vanity and intense selfishness. What little
feeling she possessed, had been sacrificed to a craving desire for
wealth, and she bent all her faculties to one end, that of securing all
its privileges and enjoyments to herself.
It was not long before her husband became convinced of this; for real
and deep passion rendered him keen sighted. His character, naturally
stern and silent, grew bitter under this one thought; but the fatal love
which had led him to lavish so much upon her, still imprisoned his heart
as the serpents of the laocoon coil around their victims.
A few months of married life, and this was the condition in which the
Nelsons found themselves. He a lonely, sullen slave--she reckless and
egotistical, at the best--sometimes insolent in her exactions, and
always ungrateful. But this did not impair her popularity, or, in truth,
meet public observation at all. To the world she was every thing
charming. But it is at home we must seek this woman in order to judge
her aright in this new phase of her strange life.
It was Mrs. Nelson's caprice to breakfast alone in a little room which
opened to the sunniest nook of the flower garden. In less than three
weeks after her marriage she began to separate her life from that of her
husband in every possible manner, and absolutely sold the fragments of
time which she doled out to him, bartering them off unblushingly for
some new extravagance, until even his absorbing passion revolted at her
egotism.
The room that we speak of was really an exquisite affair in its way;
very cheerful and sumptuous in all its appointments. Lace curtains were
looped back from the deep windows, so heavy with embroidery that they
fell over the pure plate-glass like snow wreaths floating over ice.
Through this transparent cloud came the cool rustle of tree boughs, the
gleam of flowers, and glimpses of warm sunshine, turning the grass to a
golden green. A broad mirror, surmounted by a wreath of gilded foliage,
reflected back this out-door picture from its limpid surface. The
carpet appeared but a continuation of the blossoming turf without; you
seemed to trample upon a living flower at every step, and the foot sank
luxuriously into its rich pile, as if pressing wood moss in a forest.
The hangings upon the walls were of pale green clustering with golden
roses. Small tables of oriental alabaster and delicate mosaic supported
vases of flowers, which shed a delicate perfume through the apartment.
Two easy chairs of the most elaborate construction, and a couch that
yielded to pressure like down, completed the rich assemblage.
Most regally did this apartment frame in the queenly woman who formed a
tableau of wonderful effect in its centre. The rare tone of her beauty
demanded delicate tints, and these were in direct contrast with the
colors that predominated in the room. Morning dresses, as they are now
worn, were not then in vogue, but a Canton crape dress, of a glowing
red, fell across her bosom in surplice folds, revealing glimpses of
costly lace underneath; the sleeves fitted her symmetrical arms to the
elbow, where they terminated in a fall of frost-like lace. A gossamer
cap seemed to have settled like a butterfly on the lustrous tresses
coiled around her proud head, which she crushed ruthlessly against the
back of her chair, rather than change her idle position. She held a
newspaper in her hand, while her foot rested on the ebony claw of a
small table, on which the frosted silver and delicate china of a
breakfast service were arranged.
Mrs. Nelson was no reader, but she loved to drone over the morning
papers after breakfast, picking up such fragments of gossip and news as
floated through their columns with satisfaction, so long as no effort of
thought was necessary. Thus her eyes roved restlessly over the paper in
her hand until they fell upon the heading of a paragraph that sent the
bloom for a moment from her cheeks. It was an account of Katharine
Allen's trial. She read it breathlessly from beginning to end. A cloud
gathered on her fair forehead as she proceeded, which grew dark and
stormy when she approached the termination.
Jealousy is more likely to spring from self-love than from pure
affection. The pang which Mrs. Nelson felt was not the less keen because
she had no real regard for the man whom she had married. Her arrogant
vanity had been pampered till its craving could not be satisfied, and
the idea that another would dare lift admiring eyes to the man it had
been her pleasure to select, wounded her almost as if she had possessed
a heart. She remembered Katharine Allen as she had appeared that night
at her own humble home in the pine woods, and a clear conviction fell
upon her that Nelson Thrasher was in some way implicated in the trouble
that had fallen upon the girl. Had he--her slave, her spaniel, whom it
was her right to caress or spurn, dared to swerve from his allegiance to
her, even when she was the wife of another?
The question filled her heart with bitter scorn. She gloried over the
fact that this girl would be degraded and crushed out of respectable
life for having presumed to cross her path. She remembered the delicate
beauty which had been so remarkable that evening, and bit her lips
fiercely as the idea presented itself, that less adroit management on
her part might have placed Katharine in the honorable possession of all
she enjoyed so keenly. What if he should relent, even then? What if the
knowledge of this poor girl's terrible position should touch the heart
she had herself trampled down so insolently, while it was loading her
with benefits!
She grasped the paper in her hand--no, no, he must never hear the news
it contained. She would change her course, and strive to endure his
society. He had grown sullen of late. What if his love for her should
change. The crowning passion of her character revolted at this, but
still a lurking fear crept in, and she reflected that the slavery of a
strong heart would not last forever.
She touched a curious little bell that stood on the table, and a servant
opened the door.
"Send me all the papers that have been brought this morning!"
The man went away and returned with several of the morning journals; she
glanced them over hurriedly, pressing her lips hard, while each column
was scanned. That paragraph was only to be found in the paper that lay
crushed in her lap. She arose hurriedly, and passing through the
entrance hall, swept toward the kitchen.
The cook stopped in the middle of the floor, struck with astonishment by
the presence of her haughty mistress in that place. Mrs. Nelson walked
toward the range, and taking up a heavy poker, thrust the newspaper into
the fire, holding it down till the fragments floated in black flakes
over her hand. She laid the poker down, observing that the woman was
regarding her curiously.
"Send in coffee, and some of those delicate French rolls which Mr.
Nelson is so fond of," she said, indifferently; "with any other nice
thing you can pick up."