The curse of gold

A light knock came to the door, which softly opened, and a woman appeared bearing a long basket full of clean linen on her arm.

“I hope I’m not too late for yer honor,” she said, placing her basket on a chair, and wiping the perspiration from her face. “It’s a long walk from yon, and, do what I would, the time went by quicker ’an I ever seed it.”

“But you were to have brought the clothes home yesterday,” said George, annoyed by this intrusion upon the precious moments which remained before his brother’s departure. “Usually you are more punctual, Mrs. Dillon.”

“True for ye there,” answered our old friend, Mary Margaret, while a crimson blush reddened her good-natured face.

“But do ye see, gintlemen, I’ve been away for a bit, looking after a darlint of a little boy as is precious to me as my own flesh and blood, though he is a gintleman now entirely—for all he was born side by side wid Terry in the hospital—more blame to them as sent his poor mother there!”

There was something in this speech that made the brothers start. Their own minds had been so occupied by recollections of the hospital, that the subject, brought upon them so suddenly, and from this unexpected source, seemed like a revelation.

“Of what child do you speak, Mrs. Dillon?” inquired George, while Louis stood with his wild eyes fixed upon her.

“Why, of me own little nursling, to be sure, as was born the week after little Terry, and took the bit and sup wid him, side by side, after his poor dead mother was took out of the ward in her pine coffin.”

“And how old is little Terry?” asked Louis, abruptly.

“How old is little Terry? Faix, and I can tell ye to a day, yer honors,” said the washerwoman, counting the plump fingers of one hand, which she held up with the thumb protruding. “D’ ye see these? Just add two months an’ ten days to that same, and ye have little Terry, the spalpeen, all to nothing, yer honors!”

The young men turned their eyes from the plump hand and gazed with a sort of awe upon each other. A rapid calculation ran through the mind of each. Mary Margaret had pointed out the day upon which Louisa’s last letter was dated.

“And what became of the mother, that her little boy should have been given to you?” inquired George, almost holding his breath with anxiety.

“She died, poor crather. I see her draw the last gasp myself, and helped to straighten out her poor limbs. A naiter corpse I never saw. She was more natural than any wax image in a museum.”

“And what was her name?” asked Louis, turning pale as the question left his lips.

“I don’t well know, yer honor. They goes by numbers, not by names, in the hospital; and sometimes she muttered over one name, sometimes another, till it was hard to get the rights of it. Besides, she never said nothin’ about herself, only when she was out ov her head, as ye may say, wid the pain and trouble.”

“But you heard her mention some name, surely?” said Louis.

“Yes, and more ’an once, yer honor. First it was Mrs. Judson; then Barton; then Oakley; and then it was De Marke—that was the last word as ever left her poor lips.”

The brothers looked at each other again, and both grew pale as death.

“I thought it strange more ’an once, for there was two on ’em, and ye may well say they was both beauties, a-laying side by side—and when the fever was on ’em, this De Marke was on the tongue of one as well as t’other. You’d a thought they both knowed something about the man as bore that name.”

Louis De Marke went close to George, and leaned on his shoulder. George felt that he was trembling from head to foot, and drew him toward the sofa. “Let me question her,” he said, in a low voice, “the thing involves us both!”

Mary Margaret, who had been sorting the linen from her basket while she was speaking, now turned, and her eyes fell on the young men. She saw how pale they were, and stopped in some bewilderment.

“I will go,” she said, taking up her basket. “The old man is right; my tongue is always too fast for my teeth; what had I to do talking of sich to young gentlemen as knows nothing about ’em?”

“Stay, Mrs. Dillon!” said George, “we are both interested, deeply interested; tell us more about these young persons; we were taken by surprise and did not hear distinctly. Did one or both of these poor ladies recover?”

Mary Margaret sat down with the basket upon her knees.

“Was it one, or both, ye asked? Arrah, but I wish it was both, that I could tell ye of; but I saw one poor crathur carried out in a wooden coffin, wid two breadths of factory cotton on her for a shroud, and for all that she looked like a marble image, wid the raven black hair parted on her white for’ed, and the lids folded so could-like over her eyes, that had been black as stars and as bright as dimints.”

“Black eyes? Did you say that the poor girl who died had black eyes and hair?” exclaimed Louis.

“Black as midnight, yer honor, eyes and hair—more, by the token, I closed them two eyes mysel’, and the color sunk into my heart!”

The young men looked at each other almost wildly.

“This is very strange!” said George.

The lips of the younger brother were white as marble, and when he tried to answer, they gave forth no sound.

“And the one who lived?” said George, with increasing agitation,—“was she dark like the other?”

“Dark, did ye say? Why, her hair was like burning gold, and her eyes—the bluest bit of sky ye ever saw was nothing to ’em. Thin her face, it was white as a lily wid a taste of red just in the mouth and cheeks. She looked like a born beauty in spite of the narrow bed and checkered covering, the day I went out of the hospital, and followed me with her great lovin’ eyes all the way down the ward, as if she knew I was the friend to stand by her.”

“But you left her alive?” said George, growing more and more excited.

“In course I did!”

“And had no proofs of her death after?”

“Proofs, yer honor? What proofs could I have of her death, when she came her own self to my home, after that, and slept in the same bed wid the childer for a whole month, to say nothing of the strange baby, as the other poor crathur left ahint her.”

“Stop!” said George, starting up with a flush upon his forehead, while his whole frame quivered with excitement. “Be careful what you say. A mistake in this matter would be madness to us both. Are you sure, my good woman, quite sure, that the fair girl came forth alive from that hospital, and that the other died there?”

“Quite sure? Faix and I am, if one’s own blessed eyes are to be trusted. Didn’t I straighten one out for her coffin, and nurse the other into life when she lay at death’s door—to say nothin’ of the bit of a baby!”

“One word more, Mrs. Dillon. Do try and remember. Did either of these young creatures ever call each other by name in your hearing?”

“Faix, and they mentioned a good many names, I’m thinking, especially the fair one; but they seemed to mane nothing.”

“But among those names was that of George or Louis ever mentioned?”

“Agin and agin, yer honors; but it was in the fever, not atween themselves.”

Louis De Marke buried his face in his hands, and George walked hurriedly back and forth in the room. The latter made one or two efforts to speak, but broke off as if the questions at his heart were too momentous. At last he drew close to Mary Margaret:—

“Where did she go from your house? Where is she now?”

His eyes were fixed almost wildly upon her; he trembled from head to foot.

“I don’t know, yer honor. An old lady, wid the queerest bonnet on ye ever seed, took her away somewhere into the country, or foreign parts maybe; and the baby was carried off by a gintleman as wanted a son, and so took the darlint to make an heir of him, and maybe a king one of these days—the Lord be praised, for he was a beauty all over.”

George walked unsteadily to his seat, and sat down with a low groan. Her words had wrung his heart with the most bitter disappointment.

“And this is all you know?” he said, faintly.

Margaret looked at him with her kind eyes, and answered that she could remember nothing more.

“And this young person, the fair one, I mean, did she never mention her name to you in all that time?” inquired Louis.

“I disremember, yer honor. We called her the darlint at home: but it seems to me that she once told the old man that her name was Catharine, or the like of that!”

“Catharine!” broke from the lips of both the young men, and actuated by one impulse, each grasped the hand of the other.

Mary Margaret arose to go. That moment a servant knocked at the door. All was ready for the journey, which Louis had forgotten.

The brothers looked at each other in surprise, as if the idea of separation had just arisen.

“No, I will not leave my native land till this mystery is explained,” said Louis, in answer to his brother’s anxious look.

The servant went out, Mary Margaret gathered up her basket and disappeared with him, leaving the brothers alone.

“She lives, I am certain that Catharine lives,” exclaimed George, sinking down upon the sofa, and gazing at the pale face of his brother through a mist of joyful tears.

Louis could not answer, for in his heart there was a wild struggle. Self-reproach, regret, and a thousand tender memories of his wife, struggled hard with another image that rose, spite of himself, amid these sad memories, leaving him in a state of strange excitement.

At last George became more composed.

“Now,” he said, “we have the world before us. Let there be no rest till all this strange story is put into proof.”

Louis arose.

“I am ready, brother.” Then, with a burst of natural sorrow, which was not in the least incompatible with the feelings we have just described, his eyes filled with tears, and he exclaimed, with a world of regret in his voice,—

“My poor, poor wife!”