THE MORTGAGE.
A master will had been at work and removed all the principal reasons
that kept Eva Laurence in the old home at the cottage. James had never
been permitted to return to his work at Smith’s grocery, though that
repentant man would gladly have appeased his conscience and the wrathful
compunctions of his wife, by giving him the position so summarily
vacated by Boyce. This arrangement Mr. Ross had frustrated, by placing
James, after a short examination, in the entering class of the City
Academy, when his business education commenced, while Boyce, with his
aristocratic brother, made a quick passage through the Court of
Sessions. This precious pair of worthies were already commencing a
sojourn of three years each at Sing Sing, to the infinite disgust of
Miss Ellen Post, and the profound grief of the poor wife.
This ill-used woman, in the first fire of jealousy, and in the blindness
of perfect ignorance, had denounced the two men, in a vague hope that
the court would have power to bring her husband back into the bosom of
her family a better and kinder man. How keenly she had been
disappointed, and how many bitter tears she shed over her helpless babe,
no one but the unhappy drudge herself could tell.
Miss Spicer, too, suffered both in reputation and temper. Her name had
been roughly handled in the trial, and her plan of disgrace for the
Laurence family had recoiled on herself. But this young lady was not of
a nature to feel the shame of this exposure keenly, or abandon a project
which she had once set her mind upon. Of course, she denied the whole
thing, and called on Ellen Post to witness that the story told by Mrs.
Boyce, and confirmed by the two convicted men, was a fabrication from
beginning to end. Mrs. Lambert believed this, and Ivon would not permit
himself to doubt it; for to a generous and noble character like his, the
undercraft and meanness of a small nature is simply incomprehensible.
As for Ellen, she was a ready witness in the young lady’s behalf, for
the check had been honored before Miss Spicer knew of the failure of her
conspiracy, and the waiting maid was willing to make any return that did
not involve the money itself.
As for the little episode of the wedding garments, Ellen passed it off
with an airy declaration that she had only been altering a dress for
Miss Spicer, and punished the curiosity of her fellow servants by a
canard, they were all fools for believing.
But the malice of Miss Spicer was not to be checked by a single defeat.
By some means she had learned that Mrs. Lambert’s agent held a mortgage
on the Laurence cottage, which the harassed family had allowed to sink
into an almost hopeless amount by unpaid interest. This mortgage she
empowered her own agent to purchase and forclose at once. It was an act
of vengeance, which she hoped would destroy all vestige of
respectability which this poor household had struggled so hard to
maintain. But even here she was defeated ignominiously.
Mrs. Carter happened to be in the Laurence parlor when the notice of
this new calamity was served upon the family. She had called to urge
once more the acceptance of her noble offer on Eva, before going out on
a shopping excursion which was to terminate at Ball & Black’s, where
something unusually splendid, in the way of a diamond bracelet, had been
offered to her attention.
“Come, now, get into the carriage, and we’ll talk over affairs as we
ride along,” said the good-hearted woman, whose desire to have Eva with
her had grown into a passion. “I’ve got Carter’s check for the bracelet,
which is gorgeous, but I want your opinion. I wish Miss Ruthy here could
go too; but she shall see it when we come back. Come, dear, step about
lively, or we shall have Battles sulking again.”
As Eva went to get her bonnet, two important events happened. The notice
of foreclosure was put in her hand by a strange young man, whose ring at
the bell had drawn her to the front door, and while she was wondering
what it could mean, the postman came into the yard with a letter from
the establishment in which her duties lay. This letter curtly dismissed
her from the situation, which was forfeited, the proprietor said, by her
impertinence to Miss Spicer, a young lady who had been a most valuable
customer, and had personally entered a complaint against her.
Carrying the two documents in her hand, Eva went back to the parlor with
tears in her eyes and a throb of bitter pain at her heart.
“Dear me, how white you look! What is the matter?” questioned Mrs.
Carter, lifting herself from the easy-chair, and laying her hand on
Eva’s arm. “What is there in them papers that makes you shiver so?”
Eva turned her heavy eyes upon the kind-hearted questioner.
“The letter is for me,” she said. “I’ve lost my place.”
“Lost your place? Well, I’m glad of it!”
“That is nothing. Other establishments exist; but this—this cruel slip
of paper is terrible. I think—I fear it will turn us all out of doors!
Oh, my poor mother! How will she bear it? After all that has been put
upon her, I would rather place a serpent in her hand than this.”
“Let me look at it before you do that,” said Mrs. Carter, resolutely. “I
understand these things better than any of you.”
Without waiting for a reply, she took the paper, and read it with an
eager, cheerful look, which went to Eva’s heart. “It is easy,” she
thought, “for the rich to look on such things as trifles; but for us!
She cannot understand how terrible it is for us!”
“How much does all this amount to?” inquired Mrs. Carter, with prompt
energy. “Does any one know?”
“Indeed! indeed! we all know too well. Every cent, as it ran up, has
been counted over and over again,” said gentle Ruth. “As to the
interest, I have something toward that, and might have earned more and
more, if they would only have given me time; but now——”
The poor girl stopped short; tears were crowding on her speech with such
bitter force, that she clasped both hands over her face, and sobbed
aloud.
“There! there! None of that! It is all nonsense, you know. What is the
amount? That is the question before the American people.”
Eva, with her eyes seeking the floor, told the sum, in a shrill whisper;
for now, when the amount was demanded, it seemed enormous, and her lips
gave it forth with a spasm.
This miserable sound had scarcely left her throat, when the little
parlor was filled with mellow laughter, which seemed to mock and
overpower Ruthy’s sobs, and her sister’s anguish.
“What, only that!”
“Only that!” exclaimed Eva, kindling with astonishment. “It is more than
enough to turn us all out of house and home!”
“But, my child, the lots are worth three times the money. You have no
idea how property has risen since the war.”
“I don’t know, and if I did, what good would it do without a dollar in
hand?”
“No! no! Eva; I have been saving; I have got money—not anything to what
they want, but some,” cried Ruth, wiping the tears from her eyes, which
somehow began to kindle with vague hope.
“Oh, Ruthy! we shall want that to keep us from starving. My place is
gone; James has nothing to do! Mrs. Carter, please give me that paper.
Mother must know. It is only cruelty to hold it back.”
“Not just yet, if you please. Bad news comes to a head soon enough,
without forcing. Go and get your things; there will be time to settle
that when we come back. Don’t you see Battles snapping the flowers with
his whip; that shows that he is getting furious—so do make haste.”