The curse of gold

Jane took a broken pitcher from the table and went out in search of water. When she returned with the cool moisture dripping through the fracture over her hands, the sick woman aroused herself and sat up in the bed with outstretched hands, and eager, gleaming eyes. As she drank, the chickens in the coop began to flutter wildly against each other, and dart their long necks through the bars with a hungry cackle, that made the sick crone laugh hysterically as she held the pitcher to her mouth.

“Give them some, poor dears, they want it badly. It costs nothing, so give them enough. It’s a dreadful thing to be thirsty,” said the poor woman, relinquishing the pitcher and drawing a deep, broken breath.

Jane set the pitcher down before the hen-coop, and the poor creatures made a rush at it, darting their eager heads one over the other through the bars, and casting upturned glances as they threw back their bills to swallow the water for which they had been thirsting. The old woman turned herself over to the side of the bed and watched them with a look of keen enjoyment, working her withered and moist lips in sympathy with their tumultuous satisfaction, and talking to them in broken exclamations, as if they had been human beings.

“Now,” said Jane Kelly; “tell me where I can get something to eat. You are starved almost to death, and I am about as well off—haven’t tasted a mouthful since yesterday.”

“Something to eat? Oh, yes! one can’t live without eating, and that’s what makes life so expensive. If you had a little money now—”

“Haven’t got a red cent in the world; that’s why I came here!” answered Jane, indignantly. “Came a purpose for the gold you are rolling in, and mean to have it, too!”

“Oh!” sighed Madame De Marke, “if I only had it here, you shouldn’t go away empty-handed.”

“I don’t intend to go away empty-handed, nor hungry either, so long as there is a box full of gold and diamonds under your bed, my fine old lady!” cried Jane, preparing to creep under the miserable cot on which Madame De Marke lay.

A low, cracked laugh broke from the sick woman, as she felt the rather stout person of Jane Kelly striving to force itself between the crossed supporters of her couch in search of the box; but she said nothing. When an oath bespoke the disappointment of her visitor, in not finding the object of her search, the old woman began to shiver with affright, for there was something fiendish in the sound.

“Now,” said Jane Kelly, lifting herself fiercely from the floor, “you’ll have the goodness, just for the novelty of the thing, to tell me where that box, with the iron bars in which you keep my ear-rings and somebody else’s gold, is hid away. I want that box, and I mean to have that box. Do you understand, my precious old Jezebel?”

“It’s in the bank. It’s been in the bank ever since that night!”

“That’s a lie!” answered Jane, sternly.

“On my soul, on my life!”

“Bah! your soul! your life! Why all the life in your miserable body is mine, if I choose to go away as other people would, and let you starve it out. A little masterly inactivity, and where is your life or soul either? If I let one go, it’ll take something more than a gold crucifix to save the other, let me tell you.”

“Don’t be wicked, don’t be sacrilegious,” pleaded the poor woman, thrusting her hand under the pillow, and holding fast to the crucifix she had concealed there. “Don’t talk about letting me starve more than I have! If you only knew how horrible it is to call, and call, and call, with nothing but your own voice to come back from the empty rooms; all night long, without a living soul within hearing, and all day long, with people moving about under your room, filling the building with life, and yet too far off for screams to reach them—oh! Miss Kelly, dear, dear Miss Kelly, don’t talk of leaving me to suffer all that over again!”

“Then tell me where the box of gold is!”

“I have told you. It is in the bank.”

“Give me an order to take it out then!”

“I can’t. My hand is so feeble I can’t write. Give me something to eat. Nurse me up a little, and I’ll do it for you in a minute. You know I would, Miss Jane!”

Jane looked at the old creature with bitter scrutiny, and at last broke out,—

“I don’t believe you!”

“Oh! how cruel you are. If I take my oath of it, will you believe me then?”

“Will you take it on the Bible?”

“Yes, yes, on the Bible—your Protestant Bible, if that will satisfy you!”

“It won’t,” answered Jane. “What do you care for a Protestant Bible? I must have your oath on the crucifix, before I believe it.”

“The crucifix! But I haven’t got a crucifix!”

“Where is the gold one you used to plot mischief over on your knees?” questioned Jane, sneeringly.

“The gold one? The gold crucifix? Oh! yes, that is in that box, with all the other jewels. It wasn’t safe here, you know!” answered the old woman, clutching her fingers more tightly around her treasure, “so you see I can’t swear on the crucifix; but I’ll do it on anything else you like!”

Jane had watched the sly movement of the old woman’s hand, with all the sharp suspicion natural to her character. Without a word of reply, she drew close to the bed, seized the old woman’s wrist, and drew forth the skeleton hand still clutched upon the crucifix.

“Miserable old liar, what is this?” she cried, shaking the poor hand till the crucifix fell from its clutch.

“I don’t know,” answered the old woman, cowering down in the bed. “It’s my religion. It’s my all in all. Don’t touch it.”

“Bother!” exclaimed Jane, brutally seizing upon the crucifix and holding it up. “Now swear on this, that you have put the gold and jewels in the bank, and I’ll believe it. Come, sit up and swear. I’ll hold it to your lips.”

“No, no. It’s not allowed to swear about worldly matters on that. Give me anything else, and I’ll do it,” cried Madame, snatching at the crucifix.

“This, or nothing,” was the stern reply.

“Give me my crucifix. Oh! lay it down. Give me my crucifix!” almost shrieked the old woman, with wild terror in her eyes, as she saw Jane walking backward toward the door, carry off her treasure.

“No, no, I’m going to try what it can do; you have prayed to it for bread that didn’t come. I’ll set it to work. See if I don’t get something to eat out of it.”

“Something to eat?” cried Madame De Marke, “what! my crucifix! Where are you going?”

“To my uncle’s!”

“You have no uncle. It will be lost, bring it back. I have a shilling in the pocket of my dress—you shall have that, only give back the holy crucifix.”

“A shilling, indeed. My uncle will give me ten times the money if I spout it handsomely—but don’t fret, I’ll bring you the ticket, on honor, and you can buy back your religion with some of the gold when it comes from the bank. Keep cool, old lady, it’s my turn now.”

“But you will not carry off my crucifix!” screamed the old woman.

“Won’t I?” replied Jane, with a taunting laugh, “won’t I? It may save you, but you can’t save it: here goes, my fine old lady.”

Jane Kelly turned back to utter the last tormenting words, and left the old woman in a pitiable state of distress.

“My crucifix, my crucifix, oh! she has carried off my soul. My strength is gone. The blessed mother of God has seen them carry off her son. I am nothing, I am crushed here in my own bed. She has given me over to purgatory, while there is breath in my body. I cannot live, and without the blessed crucifix I cannot die! Woe, woe, they have left me at last, a poor, miserable, weak old woman.”

Here the cracked voice broke into moans and unequal sobs, between which came forth the plaint of “My crucifix—my crucifix!”