The curse of gold

Louis de Marke sat for some moments, with a hand to his forehead, perplexed, and, at heart, reluctant to speak. It is true he had been months and months pining for the company of his elder brother, resolving to give him all confidence, and to ask for both counsel and help, at his hands, but now he shrunk from speaking. At last he dropped his hand, and began, abruptly enough:—

“It was a sad romance to her, and to me. I have told you, my wife was an orphan and the ward of her only brother. Her father had been the intimate friend of Mrs. Judson, who I have since learned was Louisa’s godmother. The brother, after his father’s death, placed Louisa under this woman’s care.”

“And you became acquainted with her?” inquired George, deeply interested.

“Yes! Our gardens adjoined; the fences were open and low, and an arbor ran from one to the other. I was often in our side of this arbor, and the young ladies came down to the portion upon their grounds, with their books and music. You have never seen Mrs. Judson’s daughter. She was one of the loveliest creatures eyes ever dwelt upon, serene and gentle as an angel, a sort of moonlight beauty which one loves to dream over.”

“You are speaking of Miss Judson now, not of the girl you loved?” questioned George, surprised at his eloquence.

“I will be truthful with you, George, even to my own shame. It was Miss Judson whom I first loved—Louisa was a secondary object with me then; in fact, I considered her as a spoiled child. It was a mad passion, something less than idolatry, my love for the other; a madness that—yes, let me confess it—that holds me yet.”

“And did she know of this passion?”

“How could she help it? I was too young for concealment, but no words of love ever passed between us. We met frequently, in the way I speak of, and would stand on a pleasant moonlight evening, screened by the clustering vines, leaning on the light fence which separated their arbor from ours, saying little, but filled with a world of sweet thoughts that made these stolen hours the most delicious of my life. Yes, George, she must have known that I loved her, but I did not speak. How could I, with every dollar I expected to have in the hands of my mother, and she so grasping and avaricious that I could scarcely persuade her to give me enough money to purchase food, for she had fairly starved me out of her house.

“Mrs. Judson, you remember, bought the house she lived in of our father, just before he died, and did not move into it until Madame had abandoned all attempts at respectable life, taking that poor girl Catharine with her. First, she went into an inferior dwelling, then to the garret where she is to be found now.

“I refused to give up my room in the old home, and she consented that I should board with the tenant to whom it was rented. In this way it happened that I was saved the shame of her interference, and kept our domestic troubles a secret from this proud girl, and as far as possible from the world. But you will understand that the dread of this exposure would keep me silent. I dared not tell this splendid girl that I was the legal dependant and slave of a woman who did not give herself the common decencies of life, out of the great wealth my father left, and that two years must pass before I could come to her mother as an independent gentleman and ask her hand. Now I could do a thing like that, though the very idea of my mother’s life makes me shrink, but then I was inexperienced, shy, and terribly depressed by the course my mother was pursuing. The great terror of my life was that those two persons should meet.

“I loved this noble girl to distraction, and, brother George, I am sure that she loved me, though all this time she was engaged to another man.”

“Engaged to another man, and knew in her heart that you loved her?”

“Do not blame her; had I spoken out, she might have found courage to break an engagement which, I am sure, was made at the persuasion of her mother. Yet I am told that Oakley was a noble young fellow, and loved her dearly. She was not unhappy with him.”

“How do you know that, brother Louis?”

“Because she has told me so since his death.” George De Marke crushed the wide-awake in his hand, while a low whistle expressed the new light that was dawning upon him.

“Well, go on,” he said, with a gleam of humor in his eyes.

“All this time, while I was lavishing the first thoughts of my youth upon her, she was engaged. I was nothing to her; Louisa told me this. Her own brother was betrothed to Miss Judson; on his return they were to be married.

“I do not think Louisa saw my anguish, or my despair, when she gave me this information, for deep feelings are seldom the most demonstrative. I felt myself growing pale, my very lips were chilled through and felt like marble as I closed them. She did not observe it. The very warmth was quenched in my veins, and she only said, as we shook hands in parting,—

“‘How cold your hands are, but the night is a little chilly.’

“As if influenced by some strange sympathy unexplained to her own heart, she bent down and kissed my hand; but I shrunk from the touch of her lips—they sent a pang through and through me. At such times even the most delicate sympathy is painful. How could this be otherwise than bitter?

“Those few words had blasted all the hopes of my life; but how could she understand this? I must have seemed strangely cold and ungrateful to that poor girl, who loved me all the time, but, in the egotism of my anguish, I was unconscious that she was made to suffer also.

“I saw Miss Judson after this, and with her own lips she told me of her engagement. She was white and trembling all the time, while I stood taking the death-blow of my hopes, in dead silence. I think now, that she hoped for some protest, and in her heart longed for an explanation, which I had no power to give. The expression of her eyes haunted me afterward, so wistful, so tender—oh! if I had spoken then. But I did not—could not. The image of my mother, in all her grim avarice, was standing before that young creature so pure, so exquisite in her refinement, made a coward of me.

“We parted that evening in mute anguish. Her hand was cold as snow when I dropped it from mine, and even in the moonlight I could see that her bosom swelled with proud grief. She never came to the garden after that, though I haunted it like a ghost.

“Oakley came at last to claim his bride. I heard of this through Louisa, who wandered into the arbor more frequently than ever, where she was almost certain to find me in sight. I was very wretched in those days, and, in the egotism of a first great sorrow, never thought to ask why this girl sought the old haunt so often. My object in seeking her was to obtain news of the woman I loved. In my thoughtless selfishness, I led the gentle girl into interviews that she might have misunderstood.

“Louisa was a sweet, kind girl, innocent as a child, and as confiding. Her society became a great relief to me, and I lost no opportunity of meeting her. Miss Judson was her superior in age, and in everything that goes toward making up a grand character; but a more affectionate, truthful, and kind creature never lived, than Louisa Oakley.