A STORY WITH MANY COUNTERPARTS.
A very common story is this of Madame Flamingo’s troubles. It has
counterparts enough, and though they may be traced to a class of
society less notorious than that with which she moved, are generally
kept in the dark chamber of hidden thoughts. We are indeed fast gaining
an unenviable fame for snobbery, for affecting to be what we never can
be, and for our sad imitation of foreign flunkydom, which, finding us
rivals in the realm of its tinsil, begins to button up its coat and
look contemptuously at us over the left shoulder. If, albeit, the
result of that passion for titles and plush (things which the
empty-headed of the old world would seem to have consigned to the
empty-headed of the new), which has of late so singularly discovered
itself among our “best-known families,” could be told, it would unfold
many a tale of misery and betrayal. Pardon this digression, generous
reader, and proceed with us to the story of Madame Flamingo.
“And now,” says the forlorn woman, in a faint, hollow voice, “when my
ambition seemed served-I was ambitious, perhaps vain-I found myself the
victim of an intrigue. I ask forgiveness of Him who only can forgive
the wicked; but how can I expect to gain it?” She presses Tom’s hand,
and pauses for a second. “Yes, I was ambitious,” she continues, “and
there was something I wanted. I had money enough to live in comfort,
but the thought that it was got of vice and the ruin of others, weighed
me down. I wanted the respect of the world. To die a forgotten wretch;
to have the grave close over me, and if remembered at all, only with
execration, caused me many a dark thought.” Here she struggles to
suppress her emotions. “I sought to change my condition; that, you see,
has brought me here. I married one to whom I intrusted my all, in whose
rank, as represented to me by Mr. Snivel, and confirmed by his friend,
the Judge, I confided. I hoped to move with him to a foreign country,
where the past would all be wiped out, and where the associations of
respectable society would be the reward of future virtue.
“In London, where I now reap the fruits of my vanity, we enjoyed good
society for a time, were sought after, and heaped with attentions. But
I met those who had known me; it got out who I was; I was represented
much worse than I was, and even those who had flattered me in one
sphere, did not know me. In Paris it was the same. And there my husband
said it would not do to be known by his titles, for, being an exile, it
might be the means of his being recognized and kidnapped, and carried
back a prisoner to his own dear Poland. In this I acquiesced, as I did
in everything else that lightened his cares. Gradually he grew cold and
morose towards me, left me for days at a time, and returned only to
abuse and treat me cruelly. He had possession of all my money, which I
soon found he was gambling away, without gaining an entr‚e for me into
society.
“From Paris we travelled, as if without any settled purpose, into
Italy, and from thence to Vienna, where I discovered that instead of
being a prince, my husband was an impostor, and I his dupe. He had
formerly been a crafty shoemaker; was known to the police as a
notorious character, who, instead of having been engaged in the
political struggles of his countrymen, had fled the country to escape
the penalty of being the confederate of a desperate gang of coiners and
counterfeiters. We had only been two days in Vienna when I found he had
disappeared, and left me destitute of money or friends. My connection
with him only rendered my condition more deplorable, for the police
would not credit my story; and while he eluded its vigilance, I was
suspected of being a spy in the confidence of a felon, and ruthlessly
ordered to leave the country.”
“Did not your passport protect you?” interrupts Tom, with evident
feeling.
“No one paid it the least regard,” resumes Madame Flamingo, becoming
weaker and weaker. “No one at our legations evinced sympathy for me.
Indeed, they all refused to believe my story. I wandered back from city
to city, selling my wardrobe and the few jewels I had left, and
confidently expecting to find in each place I entered, some one I had
known, who would listen to my story, and supply me with means to reach
my home. I could soon have repaid it, but my friends had gone with my
money; no one dare venture to trust me-no one had confidence in
me-every one to whom I appealed had an excuse that betrayed their
suspicion of me. Almost destitute, I found myself back in London-how I
got here, I scarce know-where I could make myself understood. My hopes
now brightened, I felt that some generous-hearted captain would give me
a passage to New York, and once home, my troubles would end. But being
worn down with fatigue, and my strength prostrated, a fever set in, and
I was forced to seek refuge in a miserable garret in Drury-Lane, and
where I parted with all but what now remains on my back, to procure
nourishment. I had begun to recover somewhat, but the malady left me
broken down, and when all was gone, I was turned into the street. Yes,
yes, yes, (she whispers,) they gave me to the streets; for twenty-four
hours I have wandered without nourishment, or a place to lay my head. I
sought shelter in a dark court, and there laid down to die; and when my
eyes were dim, and all before me seemed mysterious and dark with
curious visions, a hand touched me, and I felt myself borne away.” Here
her voice chokes, she sinks back upon the pillow, and closes her eyes
as her hands fall careless at her side. “She breathes! she breathes
yet!” says Tom, advancing his ear to the pale, quivering lips of the
wretched woman. Now he bathes her temples with the vinegar from a
bottle in the hand of the host, who is just entered, and stands looking
on, his countenance full of alarm.
“If she deys in my ’ouse, good sir, w’oat then?”
“You mean the expense?”
“Just so-it ’ll be nae trifle, ye kno’!” The host shakes his head,
doubtingly. Tom begs he will not be troubled about that, and gives
another assurance from his purse that quite relieves the host’s
apprehensions. A low, heavy breathing, followed by a return of spasms,
bespeaks the sinking condition of the sufferer. The policeman returns,
preceded by a physician-the only one to be got at, he says-in very
dilapidated broadcloth, and whose breath is rather strong of gin. “An’
whereabutes did ye pick the woman up,—an, an, wha’s teu stond the
bill?” he inquires, in a deep Scotch brogue, then ordering the little
window opened, feels clumsily the almost pulseless hand. Encouraged on
the matter of his bill, he turns first to the host, then to Tom, and
says, “the wuman’s nae much, for she’s amast dede wi’ exhaustion.” And
while he is ordering a nostrum he knows can do no good, the woman makes
a violent struggle, opens her eyes, and seems casting a last glance
round the dark room. Now she sets them fixedly upon the ceiling, her
lips pale, and her countenance becomes spectre-like-a low, gurgling
sound is heard, the messenger of retribution is come-Madame Flamingo is
dead!