The curse of gold

Madame de Marke lay alone in her den, more emaciated and weaker by far than she was when Jane Kelly abandoned her. For a little time she had found strength to creep about and procure food for herself, but some new injury to her bruised limb had followed the exertion, and she was cast back into her miserable bed more desolate than before. Day by day the inflammation burned and burrowed into her wounded limb, and all night long the poor woman lay muttering and raving for something to moisten her hot lips, “Water, water, water.” This was her plaint night and morning. With gold and jewels concealed in the crevices and hiding-places all around her, she lay like the rich man in torment, calling for a drop of water, which even the beggar obtains without stint, but for which she was calling always in vain.

At last the fever ceased, the anguish went out from her limb, and the miserable old woman lay quiet for the first time in days. The fever had kept up her strength till now, and she had not felt the need of food; nor did she even yet. A dumb feeling of content stole over her; she wanted nothing. The silence of her chickens troubled her a little, but she had no strength to rise up and see to them. She thought of the cat, and wondered where she was, and why she did not come up to the bed and share the supreme content of that sudden freedom from pain. She thought of her son, with a gush of human tenderness, and resolved that, the next day, when she should be quite well, to gather up all her gold and go with it into some more seemly place, where she would summon him to her presence.

But all these thoughts and resolves were vague and dreamy. She felt like one dropping into a sweet sleep, the very twilight of which was delicious. She lay thus, in the dim, mean room, for it was lighted only by a sash in the door; and the sunset that came through the red curtains had the effect of a dull, lurid flame, which could not penetrate to the bed, and filled the rest of the apartment with a fearful light.

All at once she heard footsteps without, and turning her eyes, with a gleam of their original ferocity, toward the door, it opened, and she saw her son enter the room. She laughed a low, feeble laugh, and strove to hold out her hand; but it fell numbly and heavily on the squalid bed, while the laugh died in a faint chuckle within her working throat.

“Madame, Madame!” cried the young man, gazing around the room, at first bewildered by the imperfect light, and filled with repulsion by the squalid objects around him. “Madame—mother!”

A murmur rose from the bed, which struck to his heart, sweeping all the disgust away. The affection of a warm nature, ardent and forgiving, gushed forth even in that spot.

“Mother. Oh! my poor mother.”

She looked up, and strove to speak; but a pitiful whimper alone passed through the white lips.

“Mother! mother! What have I done? How could I leave you to this?”

Her eyes kindled; she made a great effort; and at last, as if forced through the ice gathering about her heart, the words, “My son, my son!” shot through her lips.

“Oh! mother, is this all? Can you only speak with this fearful effort? Where is your nurse? Who takes care of you?”

Again she made that fearful struggle, and jerking her arm on one side, pointed downward to the floor.

“My gold. I have gold—gold!”

The young man groaned heavily.

“Do not think of that—your gold is nothing at this hour!”

Again she lifted her finger, and pointed it to his face.

“Gold—it is everything.”

“Hush, mother, hush. At this awful moment think of something else. I fear, I fear you are dying.”

“Dying!” This time the word was forced upward with a shriek so wild and fearful, that the young man sunk to his knees, and buried his face in the soiled bed drapery, shuddering in every limb.

“Oh! mother, mother!”

“Dying! me—me dying!” broke from those convulsed lips once more.

Louis De Marke looked up. With his quivering hand he grasped that of the dying woman.

“Yes, mother, believe me, there is but a little time for us to settle all that has gone ill between us. I came to ask you some questions, thinking to meet you in good health. The shock of finding you thus is terrible. I pray God, it is not too late for either of us.”

“Dying! Take it back, take it back! I am well; no pain, no hunger, no thirst. Dying!” and with a miserable effort the woman strove to laugh, but the attempt went off in a gurgle of the throat.

The young man made a great struggle for self-command; but he was very pale, and his lips quivered with the emotions he strove so firmly to suppress.

“Yes, mother, I solemnly believe that this interview will be our last. Your hand is cold, your eyes are—oh! don’t look at me in that way,” he continued, shuddering at the glance she fixed upon him. “Next to the welfare of your soul—”

She interrupted him, groping about with her hand.

“My crucifix—my crucifix!”

He searched under her pillow and around the dim room, while she followed him with her wild, despairing eyes. At last, as if with some sudden resolution, she shrieked out,—

“It is gone—she stole it, she has pawned my soul.”

The young man came back to the bed in great distress. He knelt by her side, and strove to soothe the despair that had evidently fallen upon her.

“Oh, mother, strive to compose yourself; lift up your heart to God. It needs no crucifix. He is close by, even here.”

The old woman started, and her wild eyes wandered fearfully around the room.

“Pray to him, mother.”

“No, it is lost, I have sold his Son—no, no.”

“Mother, is there nothing that you wish to say? My brother George—have you no word for him?”

“Hush, hush! he will take your portion. He married. He wished to rob you. Don’t speak to me of Elsie Ford’s son, or of his son either. Let them alone, and you shall be rolling in gold, rolling, rolling, like your mother!”

The young man bent down and listened eagerly to her words.

“Did my brother marry Catharine Lacy, then, with your knowledge?”

“No, they tried to cheat me—to bring a son to claim your father’s property. She ought to have died, that Catharine Lacy.”

“But she did not. Where is she now? Is she alive? Oh! tell me, mother. I shall never be happy again unless you do!”

“Yes, she’s alive. I saw her myself, changed but alive. The other girl died. I didn’t want that, for she would have been rich, and you might have done well with her.”

“Then you knew about my wife?”

“Knew? yes! Did you think I was cheated?”

“But why did you leave her to die there?”

“How could I help it? She would hide herself till the last minute, and it was cheaper there. Sickness costs money, money, I tell you.”

“And you are certain Louisa died in the hospital? But there is no register of her death!”

“We had that changed, the numbers and the names. Louisa would die, Catharine would live. We couldn’t help it.”

“But where is Catharine?”

A look of sharp cunning came into those sunken features.

“I won’t tell. The time isn’t up. He isn’t crazy yet. I won’t help him to bring sons to eat up one half of your inheritance.”

“Mother, remember that you are dying.”

“Not yet, not for years. I’m getting stronger every minute. Don’t you see how I can talk now. When you came, there wasn’t a word in my voice. I shall live to see you and Oakley’s widow rolling in gold. She’s rich.”

“Oakley’s widow—what do you know of her?”

“What do I know? Hadn’t I eyes? Didn’t I watch you when she was married, watch and listen and pick up things? Didn’t I know what was going on in the mind of my own son?”

“O mother, how much misery you might have saved me!” cried the young man in a passion of grief.

“Haven’t I just told you she was dead, your young wife? Didn’t I go down to that cottage, on the Island, to see this widow and learn all about her? Isn’t this kind, when you have been pining and pining about her? I didn’t want to explain that she was dead, and Catharine Lacy alive—it may do mischief yet. It may bring them together, and despoil you of one half the property. He won’t go crazy. When he thought the girl dead, it only made him melancholy; he would not go mad. Let him find her, and all that I have done will go for nothing.”

“Mother, you should be more just to George. He is your husband’s oldest son.”

“He is her son, and I hate them both.”

“But his mother is dead, years ago.”

Again that cunning gleam broke into her eyes; but the woman did not speak.

“Have you no kind remembrance for my brother?” said the young man, on whom that gleam of the eye made no impression, “he has never wronged you.”

“Oh! yes, take that,” she said, pointing to a picture that stood near the door, with its face to the wall. “It has been his friend from first to last—tell him it nearly cost me my life. The crazy wretch worshipped the picture,—I knew that, and would have it. She came at me like a panther; we were on the shore; I ran for the boat and she after me into the water, knee-deep. The man pulled with all his might; but she held me by the throat, tore at me like a wolf. My foot got fast in the cross-beam of the boat, or she would have drowned me before their faces. The boatmen had to beat her off with their oars, and she let go; but left my ankle and foot wrenched and bruised till I have never had a minute’s rest till now—not a minute. Give him the picture, with my love. It’s cost me dear; but she hasn’t got it to pine and pray over. Give him the picture, I say; it’s all he will ever get from me.”

Louis De Marke listened to this wild speech, shocked and bewildered. To him it had no meaning, but it grieved him to find so much of bitterness and malice in what he thought to be the last ravings of an unrepentant soul, and that soul the one from which his own drew life.

“Oh! mother, calm yourself, try and talk more rationally; you are ill, very ill; once more I say to you this is the last conversation we shall ever hold together.”

“Son, do you believe this? On your soul, is it the truth?”

She spoke in a hoarse murmur. The artificial strength was leaving her in the very grasp of death.

“Mother, yes!”

The woman uttered a low, long wail, inexpressibly mournful.

“It is on me now; it is on me now; my feet are numb; the ice is creeping up to my heart! Holy Jesus, this is death!”

The horror that settled down, with the deathly gray, on her pinched features, was terrible to look upon; but more terrible still was the film that crept over the wild glare of her eyes, pressing them slowly in the sockets. He sat and watched, silent and appalled. So long as those eyes had the power to express the terror that froze them, they were turned upon his face. There was no agonizing struggle. Slowly and terribly, that old woman froze out of existence; and death left her in that squalid bed, a meagre shadow of the humanity her whole life had degraded.